Harbour Falls (A Harbour Falls Mystery #1)(22)

In any case, the suspect list was growing. Because if it turned out J.T. was once involved with Chelsea, then Jennifer was a suspect too. She loved J.T. and would have been insanely jealous had she known. Had she retaliated? Revenge was the oldest motive known to mankind.



I couldn’t rule out Adam’s sister, Trina, either. According to the case files, she hated Chelsea and hadn’t wanted her brother to marry her. Why? Was it reason enough to have given her a motive? I’d have to find out.

And then there was Adam. If Chelsea had been blackmailing him, as rumored, then he may have had the strongest motive of them all. And that’s what scared me.





The ride to Cove Beach on Monday morning was piloted not by Jennifer or J.T. but by Brody Weston, Jennifer’s cousin. As he helped me on board, I tried to remember Brody’s story. He’d been orphaned as a toddler and had come to live with Jennifer’s family. In a way he was more like a brother to Jennifer. But, to my delight, Brody was nothing like his cousin. Nor was he like J.T.

Courteous from the moment I stepped on the ferry, he asked a few perfunctory questions and then left me alone. This was just as well since I was stressing out.

After all, I was heading to Billy’s—not the nicest place around—to more or less conduct an interrogation. And I had no experience in questioning people. Sure, I’d written enough about it, but I had no idea how to effectively do it in real life, especially without arousing suspicions. I had no great plan. I was just going to wing it and hope I could pull it off.

Once we reached the mainland, Brody was sweet enough to help me back my car out of the garage by the dock. After thanking him, I headed over to Harbourtown.

Billy’s was located in a warehouse district down by the river docks. Not the greatest part of town. The place itself was little more than a rundown, wooden shack that someone, probably drunk, had thought to paint a garish shade of purple. I shook my head as I drove by the entrance. The name “Billy’s” was spelled out in big, red script letters that scrolled across the front edge of the roof. It looked like each letter was wired to light up at night, though, based on their condition, they were probably a fire hazard. The dot on the “i” was missing, and the “s” was listing forward, ready to topple over if a good, strong wind kicked up.



I parked around the side of the building behind the only other vehicle in sight, a motorcycle. When I reached the propped-open front door, the “s” creaked ominously above my head, making me hesitate. Maybe it was a sign to scrap this crazy plan? As I stood in the entrance, the smell of stale beer and sweat wafted out. But there was something more, something base and vile—Billy’s reeked of desperation.

A part of me wanted to get back in my car and drive away, but I was here for a reason. So I went in. There was a guy—way too young to be Old Carl—wiping the top of the dark oak bar with a dingy-looking cloth that had seen better days. He was humming along to an old seventies song—something about lying eyes—as he lazily worked the rag down the length of the bar.

He looked up as I approached and, upon noticing he had a potential customer, reached below the bar and turned down the music. “Oh, hey. What can I getcha, Miss?” he asked, a stringy swath of dark hair falling across his gaunt face.

“Just water would be fine,” I replied, as I pulled out one of several wooden bar stools and sat down.

The too-skinny bartender flipped the hair from his face and eyed me dubiously, so I hastily changed my order to a beer. He nodded approvingly and then made his way down to a silver cooler at the other end of the bar. “Glass?” he called back as he reached into the cooler.

“Just the bottle is fine,” I replied, glancing around to get a lay of the land, so to speak.

There was a back room off to the left, housing several pool tables and a few of those dart machine games. A sign with an arrow was taped to the wall, and someone had written in black marker “Restrooms.” I couldn’t see much more back there, as the lights were off. So I focused back on the bar area. Besides the tall stools at the bar, there were a few tables and chairs scattered about. The wall behind the bar was one large mirror, making the place appear larger than it was. Several neon beer signs, some illuminated, some not, adorned the dark wooden valance above where I sat. As my eyes scanned the shelves before me, jam-packed with liquor bottles, I noticed the kid was on his way back to my end of the bar.



He stopped in front of me, twisted the cap off the bottle, and slammed the beer down in front of me. His dark eyes raked over me, and though I’d dressed down, I cursed myself for wearing designer boots.

“You sure you’re in the right place, Miss?” he asked, snickering. “’Cause you’re not really lookin’ like you belong in here.”

I took a deep breath, figuring I wasn’t fooling the kid, so I might as well get down to business.

“Um…Yeah, right. I’m not really here to drink.” He shot me a look that screamed, No shit. “I, uh, have a friend who I think used to come here. A guy. I’m kind of looking to find out if he really did hang out here. And if so, who he used to hang with. I think I may have known her, too, if it’s the girl I’m thinking of.” The kid eyed me cautiously, his dark eyes wary, but I stammered on. “I mean, she used to be kind of a friend too.” OK, so that part’s a huge lie; Chelsea had never been my friend.