for certain that the figure was a man?—and wearing a tight black cap, but light from somewhere caught his eyes as he stared back at her. It was Matthew Dolamore. He turned and ran.
Immediately after she called 911, doors loudly opened behind her, and a woman—more a girl, really—emerged, looked confused for a moment, then ran to Scott Doyle, now on his back on the ground.
“I called 911,” Hen said.
“Is he . . . what happened?”
“Someone was just here. I think they hit him with something.”
The door opened again and two men emerged, both Latino. One was beginning to light a cigarette as the other came over to Hen’s side. “He okay?”
“I don’t know,” Hen said. “I called 911.”
Scott was still conscious, saying something to the girl in the tight dress—Hen now recognized her from the dance floor earlier.
The girl said, “You’re going to be fine. Just lie still.”
Scott said something back, and she said, “Outside the Rusty Scupper. In New Essex.”
Hen moved a little closer to see if she could hear his words, just as a light went on above the double doors, flooding the parking lot with fluorescence. The other man had gone back inside, probably to turn on the lights. In the stark yellow glow, Hen could see the extent of the head injury, a dark, bloodied indentation and a sliver of white that was either skull or brain matter. She involuntarily lifted her hand to her mouth.
“What state?” Scott asked the crouching girl, sounding as though he were speaking through a wet towel.
“Massachusetts, Scott. It’s where you live?”
“I wish it was Maine,” he said, and Hen, even from five feet away, saw the life go out of him.
The girl began to howl and shake his shoulders, then Hen heard the sirens and caught the distant pulse of red lights.
The EMTs were the first to arrive, followed by two uniformed officers in a police cruiser, one of whom asked Hen if she was a witness.
“Yes,” she said. “I’d like to make an official statement. I know who killed him.”
Chapter 18
Matthew had been in the interrogation room for just over an hour when his lawyer, Sanjiv Malik, arrived, wearing a slightly rumpled suit and with a two-day beard.
“Sorry,” he said to Matthew as he settled himself into an adjacent chair. “I didn’t get Mira’s message until an hour ago. How long have you been here?”
“We got back from Portsmouth about noon and the police were waiting there for me. What did she tell you?”
“Everything she knows, which isn’t much. You were arrested?”
“I agreed to come in for questioning, and when I told them I was going to leave, then I was arrested. They say they have a witness who positively identified me at the scene of the crime. It’s ludicrous. I was asleep with Mira all last night, and—”
“She’s given an official statement. You won’t be here long. They’ve just made a mistake, is all.”
“I don’t even know . . . Who was it again who got killed?”
Sanjiv looked at his notes. He was distantly related to Mira on her father’s side, although Matthew always suspected that Mira had been introduced to him as a potential husband around the time that Matthew and she were dating.
“The lead singer of the band that had been performing at the Rusty Scupper that night. They were called the C-Beams.”
“Right. They told me. I did know that band because they played at a place near me called the Owl’s Head.”
“Oh,” Sanjiv said.
“I mean, I didn’t know them, but they were playing there on a night when I had dinner. It’s just a coincidence. The only reason I remember it is because someone I work with knows a member of the band.”
“Which one?”
“I think it was the one who got killed, but I’m not sure. The police officer said his name was Scott.”
“Scott Doyle.”
“I think that’s probably him, but I never knew his last name. Who says they saw me there?”
“I don’t know yet, but I’ll find out.”
Matthew had barely slept the night before, lying in bed while he went over and over in his mind the events that had taken place outside of the bar. Hen had been about twenty feet from him. He could see her perfectly, but he was in the shadows and there was no way she could know for sure that it was him. Plus, he had an alibi, an incredibly strong one. Mira would say he was there by her side all night. He doubted very much