Higley, I highly recommend you chill out.” Then he swung the darts over to Stella. “And you, Stella Higley, don’t get started. Get off this pier before I bring you two to the station for disturbing the peace. And if you don’t think I’ll do it, I dare you to test me. It would be the highlight of my day.” He stood back up, returned his sunglasses to his face, and asked, “Clear?”
Stella sucked in a breath like she was gonna shout at him, but I grabbed her forearm.
Dodging eye contact, I mumbled, “Clear,” a beat before Stella did.
Booth picked up his coffee and casually walked off.
When he was far enough away that he couldn’t hear, I said to Stella, “One thing is clear.”
“Totally. Let’s do it,” Stella said.
Stella and I were on the same page for what felt like the first time this summer. In sync. And that felt good.
Forty-Six Josie
Police Station
June 26 (Continued)
“Before you tell me more about Booth, can you tell me what you thought of Meredith Maxwell’s number one fan?”
“Cassandra? At that time I thought it was nice that Mayor Lopez was able to use his connections to get her a hotel room.” Later, I understood more about how a mayor pulling strings isn’t always a good thing, but I don’t want Detective Santoro to know about that.
“Did you know where Booth was going?” Detective Santoro asks me.
“No. But he was on a mission, so I assumed some kind of official police business.”
“Did the pictures in Rodney’s bungalow concern you? The pics of Maxwell.”
“I didn’t think twice about them. I just thought he liked the Flying Fish. Who doesn’t, right?”
Detective Santoro turns back a page in his little flippy notebook. “What did you mean when you said one thing was clear?”
I pick at my cuticle without answering.
“What was clear, Josie?”
I think I should be careful with this answer. Detective Santoro might be my dad’s fishing mate, but he’s also a law enforcement guy. So, essentially he and Booth and the mayor are all on the same team.
“Josie? What was clear?”
“That Booth and the mayor didn’t believe us.”
“Meaning what?”
“They weren’t going to help.” I stare at his unsmiling face. (Has this guy ever smiled in his life?) I glance at the dirty linoleum floor. “So, you see, we had to.”
“Had to what?”
I realize my fingers have turned white because I’m holding the table so hard. I stare deep into his chestnut-colored eyes. “Time was running out. We had to take matters into our own hands. Jellies were dying; people were in danger. We had no choice, Detective Santoro.”
Forty-Seven Josie
Boardwalk
June 24 (Continued)
We had a plan.
First we wanted to shut down the incoming wattle berry supply, and to do that we had to learn more about the process that was going on at night.
“How are we gonna do that?” I asked Stella.
“A stakeout.”
That night Stella and I returned to the boardwalk to spy on the Three Ts.
Somehow their nightly kayaking trip put them in the middle of this. They probably had no idea that they were in cahoots with the scheme that had so many terrible downstream effects. If they did, they never would’ve been involved.
The boardwalk was different after dark. The music from the merry-go-round was louder; the smell of burgers was stronger; exercisers were replaced by ice cream eaters. Couples strolled hand in hand on the boards and barefoot on the beach. The birds had gone to bed. One thing was the same. It was always in the background: the laughs and giggles of people on vacation. The good cheer floated through the air, and that’s what made the shore feel like the shore.
I confirmed that we hadn’t forgotten anything. “Binoculars?” I asked Stella.
She pulled them out of the backpack. “Check. Three pairs.”
“Flashlight?”
“Check.”
“Cell phone?”
“Check.”
“Notebook and pen?”
“Check and check.”
Dario ran down the boardwalk, paper plate in his hand, catching the end of our list. “Funnel cake? Check. It would be inhumane to have a stakeout without it.” He broke off a piece of fried dough and ate it. “I’m pretty sure this is a doughnut in disguise. What’s the deal with jam filling anyway? It just ends up on your shirt. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten a jam-filled doughnut and actually eaten the jam. It always lands on my shirt, but that doesn’t stop me from getting them. It’s like a challenge now. The cream filling isn’t as bad; it doesn’t move as fast on account of it being less slippery—”
I broke off a piece of funnel