no one named Ingrid Murphy had been registered there before the storm. In fact, no one with that name had ever stayed in a Hilton on U.S. soil. Its surveillance footage had either been lost or destroyed, but the company was still searching. Beyond that, Butler had nothing to offer, at least not to Bruce. He implied that he knew more than he could report, but, as always, his vagueness sounded phony. Bruce and Polly conferred by phone. She had not heard from the authorities and was frustrated by the lack of communication.
Bruce talked to Carl Logan, the chief of police, but he was unconcerned. As usual, there was immediate friction between the locals and the state boys, and since the state had assumed jurisdiction there was little Logan could do. He seemed to prefer it that way. Besides, he was trying to run his police department from temporary quarters and all nerves were frayed. During a second call, Logan said, “Come on, Bruce, this is going nowhere.”
“You think it was murder, Carl?” Bruce asked.
“What I think doesn’t matter. If it was a crime it’ll never be solved, not by Butler anyway.”
“If it was a crime,” Bruce repeated to himself afterward. He was mumbling a lot by late August because his two co-sleuths had left the island. Bob was on a lake in Maine waiting for the leaves to turn, while Nick was back at Wake chasing coeds and counting the days until he pursued serious studies in Venice.
3.
The day before Bay Books reopened, Mercer and Thomas had arrived on the island eager to examine the cottage. Larry met them there and gave a quick rundown on the damage, which was slight. A new roof was a good idea, though the current one was good for another year or two. He had already replaced the gutters, one shutter, one window, and a screen door. He had met with the insurance adjuster and they had lined up a contractor to replace the boardwalk to the beach. All in all, the cottage had survived in good shape. A half a mile to the north, a four-story rental had partially collapsed and would soon be razed.
A tourist had been killed there, one of eleven, Leo’s final toll on the island. As Mercer and Thomas drove around, taking in the aftermath, they found it difficult to believe that so many people had died. Camino was a laid-back resort community, a tourist attraction, a wonderful place to live and retire, with little thought ever given to sudden, unexpected death. But then, Tessa had died in a horrible storm less than a mile off the beach.
Bruce wanted her to stop by the store for the reopening and autograph books for the crowd. She and Thomas had lunch in a downtown deli and roamed the streets of Santa Rosa, just like in the old days, before the storm.
4.
Sunday brunch was on the veranda, with Noelle in charge of the details and lively with chatter about her shopping excursions throughout southern France. The morning was overcast but the stifling heat had broken, if only for a day or two. It was the first of September, and only four weeks earlier they had gathered in the same place to toast Mercer and her wonderful new novel, with Nelson still alive and Leo a distant threat.
That crowd was not invited this morning because of the delicate subject at hand. The four of them sat at a round glass table Noelle had found somewhere deep in the Vaucluse, and they ate chocolate waffles and duck sausage while relishing the fact that the bookstore was now open again and life was returning to normal.
Bruce had been adamant that nothing about the novel was to be put in writing. The book report would be an oral one.
Mercer began, “It’s five hundred pages, a hundred and twenty thousand words, dense at times, and I’m not sure if it’s a mystery, a thriller, or science fiction. Not really my cup of tea.”
“More up my alley,” Thomas said as he took over the narrative. It was immediately obvious that he liked the book far more than Mercer did.