Harbour Falls (A Harbour Falls Mystery #1)(21)

Much like the Harbour Falls Mystery itself, the man at the center was a puzzle. And I longed to solve him, piece by piece.





Chapter 6



The next afternoon yet another visitor darkened my doorstep. But this one was not completely unexpected. “Nate,” I said in acknowledgment as I opened the door.

“Hey, Maddy,” he replied as he lifted up four bags of groceries from the doorstep. “Your order was ready, so I figured I’d get it out to you.”

“Wow, that was some quick service,” I remarked, moving aside so Nate could come in.

“We aim to please, Maddy. We aim to please.” He nodded to the back of the house. “Kitchen?”

“That’d be perfect. It’s right in here.”

Nate followed me into the kitchen and then placed the bags on the counter. “Oh wait,” he said, grabbing some kind of letter wedged between the bananas and a box of cereal. “Here.” He handed me an envelope. “You’ve got some mail already.”

I’d been told the mail coming out to the island was first delivered in bulk to Cove Beach, sorted by the Westons, brought over on the ferry, and lastly dropped off at the café. Residents were to pick up the mail at their leisure, but if one forgot or just didn’t want to bother, Nate would bring it en masse with the grocery orders.

This particular piece looked like junk mail that had been forwarded from my dad’s. I thumbed open the flap on the back and pulled out a letter. “Oooh, look, I won,” I joked, holding up a notice that stated someone with my initials would most assuredly find themselves a big winner in the coming days.

“Nice,” Nate said, dragging out the i. “Balloons and camera crews. I always wanted to meet the prize patrol.”

We both burst out laughing, and I couldn’t help but remark, “And just think what a warm welcome they’ll receive ferrying over with Jennifer.”

“Sweet as sugar, that girl,” Nate said, rolling his eyes. Apparently Jennifer’s bitchiness was known by all.

Before leaving Nate urged me to stop back into the café soon. “It starts to get rather lonely around here this time of year, and I know Helena would love the company.”

So I promised to visit during the week but, again, wondered why Nate and Helena—both so outgoing and friendly—chose to live on this island. I deduced that Adam must have been paying them a bundle. But did the island really need a “manager” and someone to run such a low-volume café? Perhaps Adam wanted them here to ease his own loneliness? Or were Nate and Helena out here because they were hiding something? Maybe something related to the mystery? This last thought reminded me that I had yet to call my dad to ask him about the call records from the pay phone that had once stood at the Harbour Falls bank.

I grabbed my phone and, catching my dad at his office at City Hall, summarized for him what I’d found in the case files. “Do you think they’re still floating around somewhere?” I asked when I’d finished.

“I can look into it, but it’s been a long time. Those records—if they ever existed—were probably lost or destroyed.”

Thinking out loud, I blurted, “Funny the police never followed up.”

My dad was silent, and I suspected he was bristling. “Our police department never had the kind of manpower needed to head up that kind of an investigation, Maddy. You know that.”

“I know,” I conceded. It was true; the Hannigan disappearance had strained all of the resources in our small community.

“Anyway,” I continued, “we know what time she made the call. If we could just get a list of numbers that were dialed out that night, we could find out who Chelsea was talking to.”

“I’ll see what I can do, honey,” my dad promised, and then we quickly wrapped things up, since he was running late to a community meeting of some sort.

Fueled by the progress I was already making on this cold case, I fired up my laptop and began to scour my files for a good, clear photo of J.T. O’Brien, one I could take to Billy’s.

Browsing through the old photos brought back waves of memories. I randomly clicked a thumbnail to expand a picture from back when I was fifteen. It was a close-up of Ami and me, smiling and sunburned at the local pool. The caption read: Red as Lobsters—But Happy as Clams. I recalled that day perfectly; we’d forgotten to bring sunscreen, and consequently had been burned to a crisp. But damn, we’d had fun.



Still smiling, I clicked another image—this one was of J.T. and Ami standing in a line at a local amusement park. I’d caught them off-guard as the three of us, so close back then, had waited to ride what had been deemed, at the time, to be the latest and greatest roller coaster in the area. I stared at the photo and shook my head. Where had the time gone? How had my friends changed so much?

With a sigh, I closed the image and opened a folder labeled “Summer after Graduation.” And it was there I stumbled upon the mother lode of J.T. photos. Most had been taken down on Cove Beach, a few days following commencement. I remembered that day like it was yesterday. One of my graduation gifts from my father had been a digital camera, and J.T. and I had gone down to the beach to try it out.

There were several photos of J.T. goofing around near the water, but I ultimately chose a clear headshot, a sliver of blue sky the only background. I sent the photo to the printer and wondered what had happened to the friendly, shy boy I’d once called a friend. Was he the mystery man who’d been with Chelsea at Billy’s? Doing drugs together? If so, what kind of relationship had they had? Had their commonality of substance abuse brought them together? Had it torn them apart? After my strange interaction with J.T. on the ferry, it wasn’t hard to imagine something minor setting him off. There was something different about him now, something broken. Like a part of who he’d once been was lost. So maybe it wasn’t so farfetched to imagine he had played a role in Chelsea’s disappearance?