“You think he’s going to break the law just to keep me out of prison?”
It didn’t sound all that likely to Josie either. Maybe they could hide the body in his refrigerator without him knowing.
Jill seemed to read her mind. “How big is this refrigerator? Maybe we could sort of shove her in a place where she won’t be found.”
“I’ve got it!” Excited, Josie jumped up. “We can put it… her down in one of the freezers behind the Fish Wish.”
“That’s a restaurant?”
“It’s the bait shop. And they have a freezer in the back of the store just filled with boxes and boxes of frozen moss bunker. We could put Courtney underneath. She’ll be safe there for months-they don’t get down to the bottom of that freezer until late August.”
“And what are you going to do? Just walk in and ask if you can use their freezer to store a famous television personality?”
“No, I thought maybe we could sneak in there in the middle of the night and put her away. I have the key to their back door. We’re going to be adding a deck out back as soon as we finish this job.”
“Then I guess we know what we have to do,” Dottie said, getting up and stretching.
“What?” Annette asked.
“Go get Courtney and take her to the… what did you call it? The Fish Wish.”
NINETEEN
THEY SPLIT UP and drove back to the work site in two cars. Josie made sure that Dottie traveled with her.
“It was good of you to talk about your past.” She started the conversation as she steered her truck away from the curb. “I know it wasn’t easy.”
“Didn’t have a choice, did I?”
“You could have lied.”
“But you knew the truth.”
“When you came to work for me, I told you I’d keep your secret.”
“And you would, wouldn’t you? You know, you’re a good person. I haven’t run into a whole lot of good people in the past few years.” Dottie was silent for a moment. “You didn’t sleep with that Noel person to get him to leave you his business, did you?”
Josie was shocked. “I… No, is that what you thought?” “I didn’t know. It did strike me as a possibility. I mean, most men don’t just leave a business to a good friend.”
“Noel wasn’t most men.”
“Look, I’m offending you and I sure didn’t mean to. What I’m trying to say is thank you and that Noel Roberts left his business to the right person.”
“I shouldn’t get upset. You aren’t the first person to wonder about my relationship with Noel and you won’t be the last. It’s been a difficult day for us all.” She stopped the truck for a group of giggling teenage girls, their blankets dragging on the road as they crossed to get to the beach. “They look like they’re about to have a good time, don’t they? Not a care in the world, as my mother would say.”
“They’re young. Wait until they get older. They’ll do less giggling then,” Dottie predicted.
Josie thought about Tyler. He was probably the same age as these girls. “I hope you’re wrong,” she said fervently.
“That Annette is just a kid,” Dottie said.
Josie got the impression that the other woman wanted to change the subject. “Yes. In fact, I think she’s the youngest carpenter Island Contracting has had. But I think she’s going to work out.”
“She knows what she’s doing.”
“She went to a vocational school upstate. Their graduates are working for other contractors on the island. Far as I know, everyone’s pretty happy with them. Of course, the others are male.”
“Women have to be twice as good as men to survive in this business.”
“You know, I used to think the same thing, but then I ran across some truly incompetent women, so bad I had a hard time figuring out how they got their licenses, who trained them. And then I realized that there were men who wanted all those women to be bad carpenters or whatever because that confirmed their own prejudices. I’ve been a bit more careful about hiring people since I figured that out.”
“Bastards.”
“I won’t argue with you about that,” Josie said, remembering a few of the disastrous hires she’d made before she realized what was going on. It had been difficult for the company, but worse on the young women who, thinking they had the training necessary for a viable career, suddenly found themselves out the money it had cost them to be trained and without employment.
“What do you think about Jill?” Dottie suddenly changed the subject.
Josie was reluctant to discuss one worker with another. “She seems to be a good carpenter. And she’s worked for four or five years. She wasn’t hired straight out of school. And she had very good references from her last job. She worked out in the Pacific Northwest.”
“She didn’t want to tell the police about the body.”
Josie thought about that for a minute. “Neither did I. Neither did you.”
“And we both have good reasons for that. But Annette thought we should. If you think about it, you realize anyone who is innocent will think we should.”
“I don’t know about that,” Josie answered slowly. “Maybe Jill just doesn’t like authority figures or something.” They had arrived at the house; Josie parked at the curb and both women jumped out before resuming their conversation.
“Like maybe she knows what they can do to an innocent person,” Dottie suggested as they walked up to the front door.
“That’s not necessarily so.”
“Maybe not. But it’s something to think about because there’s one thing wrong with all this.”
“What?” Josie asked, turning the key in the lock and pushing open the door.
“We all have to depend on one another. If one person goes to the police, we’re all in trouble. That’s what’s wrong with this plan.”
“Maybe,” Josie said, walking in the door and flipping on the light switch. “But it looks to me like it’s not all that’s wrong with this plan.”
“What else?”
“It looks like someone got to the body before us.”
Dottie peered over Josie’s shoulder. “Oh, shit.”
There was a scrambling behind them and then Jill and Annette appeared.
“What the-”
But Jill’s assessment echoed Dottie’s. “Oh, shit.”
The canoe was in the middle of the floor. Empty. The blanket that had been tucked around Courtney had been left behind.
“Turn off the light,” Dottie hissed.
“What… Oh, you’re right!” Josie reached out, flipped the switch, and plunged them into darkness.
“What are we going to do?” Annette’s question came out as a whimper.
“Excellent question.”
“Guess we don’t have to worry about telling the police anything.” Josie thought she heard relief in Jill’s voice.
“Unless the police are the ones who found the body and took it away,” Dottie suggested.
“How would they have known about her?” Annette asked.
Josie had been looking around. “I don’t think it was them. If the police had found her, they would still be investigating- or if not, they would have hung that yellow scene-of-the-crime tape around the place.” In the past, she had illegally crossed that tape more times than she wanted to think about.
“So who was it?” Annette persisted.
“Could have been one of those television people,” Jill said.
“But wouldn’t they have called the police?”
“Maybe they have a good reason not to,” Josie suggested. It was dusk and there was ample light to examine the room, but that would change as soon as the sun set. “Maybe we should look around-but don’t touch anything! Whoever moved the body might have left a clue to his or her identity, and if we don’t find it before it gets dark, it would be nice if it was still here in the morning.”
“What are we looking for?” Jill asked.
“Clues!” Annette sounded excited. “Pieces of fabric that might have been ripped from clothing as someone dragged the body across the floor. Hairs. Cigarette butts. Maybe even a glove or something like that!”