I smiled. There was something heartwarming about Betty that made me want to hug her. “Hold on a second. You said you saw him walking along your street. When was that?”

  Betty paused and appeared to be counting dates in her head. “I’m not sure. It was a couple of times. I know he was part of that mob of reporters and trucks parked in front of her house. But there was a time before that, I think.”

  “Before? Before Rosalie’s death?” A red-hot shock zinged through me.

  “Yes, it must have been. There were no other reporters around. He was walking down the road to her house in his black leather jacket. A few days before she died, I think.”

  Snap! That meant Jack had been on Wynter Island before the poisoning. Unless he was now billing himself as a psychic journalist, I had a new suspect. Was Jack Donahue our killer?

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The amber light streaming through the windows of the Legion bar hazily cut through the nighttime fog of rain that had settled over Wynter Island. I glanced at my watch: seven-thirty. That was enough time for everyone to have finished Friday night dinner, and returned to the bar.

  I had made the difficult decision not to attend the weekly Legion dinners. A whole roast dinner with dessert and drinks every week may have been delicious, but my waistline couldn’t take it. I needed to be able to fit into my jeans in the morning.

  “Kate!” a voice hailed me from across the room.

  Ian was sitting at a small table with Shea and Lesley. As I pushed through the crowd of after-dinner drinkers, I could tell neither Shea nor Lesley looked to be in the best of moods. Ian, sitting in between them, gazed at me with a tremulous smile of desperation.

  “Hi, Kate. Have a seat.” He gestured to the last seat at the table.

  I sat down, placing my bag on the floor. “Hi. How’s everyone doing tonight?”

  Shea glanced up from her glass of wine with a look that said quite clearly: How the hell do you think we’re doing? Lesley just kept her eyes stubbornly fixed on her rum and coke.

  “Okay, great,” I muttered and looked at Ian. “How are you doing, Ian?”

  “Busy. Working away on the Rosalie Morgann case.”

  “I don’t think we should talk shop,” Lesley said with a prim set to her lips.

  “Well, what would you like to talk about?” Shea clapped back. “Where you were last night?”

  Lesley looked up from her drink, her lips tilting into a small, sad smile. “Shea is upset because she doesn’t believe I was at Crafting with Cocktails last night.”

  “Or last Sunday afternoon,” Shea spat out.

  “Shea, why can’t you just trust me on this?”

  “There’s a difference between trusting someone and being made a fool of, Les. And I feel more like the latter than the former.”

  “Kate,” Ian pushed his chair back and grabbed his tin of Coca-Cola, “let’s go and get you a drink.”

  With unseemly haste, I grabbed my bag and said a quick goodbye to Shea and Lesley. Neither said anything, too entangled in their private misery to care whether we left.

  “I thought I was going to be stuck there for the rest of the evening,” he whispered as we made our way to the polished wood bar.

  “I know.” I took a stool at the bar, and Ian followed suit. There’s nothing more uncomfortable than getting caught in someone else’s crossfire.”

  “Either verbally or physically.” Ian smiled and took a long sip of his soda.

  Harald walked over to us. He had lost some weight, I noticed, and his skin looked paler than usual, contrasting sharply with the cranberry-colored birthmark on one side of his face. Dark shadows dragged his eyes downward.

  “Hi, Kate. Staff Sergeant Singh. What can I get for you?”

  “I’ll have a Carlsberg, please,” I said. “How are you doing, Harald? I haven’t seen either you or Kurt since I got home from my trip back east.”

  Harald busied himself with grabbing a glass and a chilled bottle of Carlsberg from the fridge. He placed them on the bar in front of me.

  “Well, we’ve been busy with a lot of paperwork. You know, related to the Immigration Canada case. I hired an immigration lawyer in Victoria to help us go through it.”

  I glanced over at Ian’s face. He was staring somberly at his sweating soda tin, no doubt remembering his part in uncovering Harald’s fraudulent immigration paperwork while investigating Daniel’s death.

  “I don’t blame you, Staff Sergeant Singh,” Harald said unexpectedly. “It was my fault. I shouldn’t have done something so stupid.”

  Ian said nothing, just nodded sadly.

  “How is Kurt doing?” I asked.

  A lengthy sigh. “He’s trying to … move on. We both are.”

  With a silent nod goodbye, Harald headed down the bar to serve another customer.

  “Is it something in the water?” Ian asked as I poured a long stream of golden lager into my glass. “I can’t turn around without coming face to face with domestic strife on Wynter Island.”

  “It’s pretty amazing when you think about it. The butterfly effect. How a single action ripples through a community. If Daniel hadn’t been murdered, no one would be any the wiser about Harald fibbing on his immigration paperwork. Or about Anna’s affair with her co-worker.”

  He nodded. “That’s true.”

  “And Daniel would have found me, explained everything, and—”

  “And?”

  I hesitated. “I don’t know.”

  “Would you have returned to the States with him?”

  “Probably.” I took a long sip of my beer.

  “Well, I’m glad you’re still here.”

  I glanced up from my drink, aware of a sudden shift in the tone of our conversation. No, not Ian. Not more romance. I had enough on my plate with Ben and Michael. I needed to nip this in the bud. Now.

  “You’ve never told me anything about your private life, Ian. Married? Girlfriend?”

  He shook his head. “Neither. My mother says I’m married to my job.”

  “Where’d you grow up?”

  “South Vancouver, Fraserview area.”

  “You must miss your family now that you’ve moved to Victoria.”

  “Yes, I do miss them. But I needed to make my own way in the world.” He gestured to his short military haircut. “I chose to cut my hair and not wear a turban when I left high school. It was upsetting for them, but I didn’t want to live in the past. I wanted to be my own person.”

  “And they weren’t keen on that?”

  He smiled. “No, they weren’t. I also got sick of the whole arranged marriage thing. I couldn’t visit my mom without being presented with a who’s who of available Sikh women.”

  “Does that mean I’m not allowed to keep an eye out for a single, attractive lady for you?”

  He examined my face for a moment before his lips creased into a sad smile.

  Yes, Houston, he has received my unspoken message.

  “No, you can pass along anyone that you find.”

  “Good.” I hadn’t realized until that moment that our relationship had moved from purely police work to a kind of friendship. A friendship that mattered to me. I didn’t want it ruined by romance. “Changing the subject, how’s the investigation going?”

  “I’m assuming you heard about the robbery attempt?”

  I nodded. “Yes, Jason got hurt, and the thief escaped, apparently without finding what he was looking for. Her autobiography, I’m guessing.”

  He shrugged. “Perhaps, we don’t know.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “It means that unless Jason and Scott are part of a larger conspiracy, neither of them is our murderer.”

  “You never thought Scott was the murderer, did you?”

  “Not once we reviewed the evidence. His alibi is rock solid. We have CCTV video of him at different locales in Sidney and Victoria in the days before Rosalie’s death. When Jason called him with the news about Rosalie, he caught the next ferry home.”

  “Perhaps he poisoned her drink beforehand?”

  “Nope. He was off the island for a couple of days before the murder. There’s no way he could have tampered with Rosalie’s drink.”

  “And Jason?”

  “Her murder and that robbery are most likely connected in some way. They must be. It’s the only thing that makes sense. And if they are, Jason is no longer a viable suspect.”

  “I don’t like the direction this is taking.”

  Ian shrugged. “I don’t have the luxury of liking everything I do, Kate. I just have to do it.”

  Neither of us had the heart to say her name. It just hung in the air between us, unspoken.

  “I’ve met Selesia several times,” he finally said. “She is quite a,” he hesitated to think of the right word, “force of nature.”

  “That’s true. But that doesn’t make her guilty.”

  “No,” he shook his head, “but saying things like I’m going to kill Rosalie if she comes back to Wynter Island doesn’t make her look good.”

  “I know of one suspect you might not have considered yet.”

  He looked up quickly from his coke. “Who?”

  I filled him in on my run-in with Jack Donahue at Harrow Village as well as Betty’s surprising findings.

  “So he was seen on Wynter Island before Rosalie was murdered?”

  “Betty is pretty sure of it. The day before her death. And he has a motive for wanting to hurt Rosalie. She cost him his job at a news station, forcing him to relocate to Vancouver and work for an online gossip site.”

  “Maybe I’ll have a little chat with both of them.”

  “Good,” I replied, glad to have taken at least a fraction of the heat off of Selesia for a moment. “Ian, you know how you asked me if I would have returned to the States with Daniel? If things had gone differently that day?”

  He nodded.

  “I want to change my answer. Maybe I wouldn’t have left. Maybe I would’ve tried to convince Daniel to stay here on the island with me.”

  “Two world class journalists on a small island in the Pacific Northwest? Don’t think there’d be much work for you both.”

  “Probably not, but we could have tried. This place was, after all, my second chance.”

  “Second chance?”

  “Yes,” I took another sip from my glass. “my second chance to build a new career, a new life, after everything that happened in Afghanistan.”

  “Yes, I see.”

  My eyes traveled over the stony faces of Lesley and Shea sitting silently opposite one another. Harald was pulling a pint of Guinness for a customer at the far end of the bar. Kurt was nowhere to be seen. In fact, I hadn’t seen him since he retrieved Harald from the Victoria jail all those months ago.

  “I just hope it can offer a second chance to them,” I tipped my head towards Shea and Lesley and then Harald. “Because God knows they need one.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The rain pelted through the thick darkness at the top of Wynter Mountain as I pulled into a parking space in front of Gwen’s farmhouse. I was a little buzzed from my Carlsberg but still sober enough to drive. My knock on the side door was greeted by the sound of slow, laborious movement from inside. Gwen appeared to be having some difficulty getting to the door.

  She finally opened it to show Betty, Doreen, and Vera seated around the kitchen table.

  “Kate, this is a surprise.”

  Gwen’s cheeks were a brilliant Rudolph’s nose red, and as she spoke, a healthy gust of alcohol fumes rushed towards my face. If I had lit a match at that precise moment, the place would have burst into flames.

  “Hi, ladies.”

  “Hi, Kate,” Betty said. Her face was also rosy, so much so that I could have warmed my hands by her flushed cheeks.

  “Kate, come in and have a drink,” Doreen offered, shakily getting to her feet. Once standing, she swayed back and forth for a moment before gesturing to a large pitcher on the counter. “It’s a Bama Slamma.”

  “She means Alabama Slammer,” Vera replied. “These women cannot handle their alcohol.”

  I stepped into the kitchen. The pitcher was filled, with a rich amber-colored liquid, vibrant enough to be a child’s soda or cough syrup. “What’s in it?”

  Doreen, listing a bit to one side, grabbed an empty cocktail glass. “It’s got Southern Comfort, Amaretto, Gin, and a mixture of orange and pineapple juice. It’s delish.”

  It sounded more devilish than delish. “Well, it’s certainly got enough booze in it. I’ll try a bit.” Doreen started to slosh some into the glass, but I took the pitcher out of her hand. “Just let me do it, Doreen. It’s safer that way.”

  I filled the glass half full and took a sip of the ruby-colored liquid. The sticky sweetness of orange juice and southern comfort overwhelmed almost everything else, with a kick of almond at the end from the amaretto. This wasn’t a beverage for a women’s craft get-together. This stuff was meant for a toga party.

  “Whoa! Who made this?”

  Doreen nodded. “I did. I found the recipe on the internet. We take turns bringing a different cocktail each week.”

  “Please tell me that none of you are driving!” I asked, pushing my glass to the back edge of the counter. “That stuff is powerful enough to put all of you over the legal limit.”

  “Dougie is bussssy tonight,” Betty’s words slurred out, “so Gordon is coming to get us.”

  “Good! What are you all doing here?”

  “It’s our Crafting with Cocktails get-together,” Doreen answered.

  “I thought you met once a week.”

  “Yes. Yes, we do,” Gwen replied.

  “But I just saw Lesley at the Legion. She said your meeting was last night.”

  Gwen hesitated, glancing at Vera for guidance.

  “It was,” Vera supplied hurriedly. “But we decided to have an impromptu meeting tonight.”

  “Without Lesley?”

  “Yes, she can’t always make the meetings anyway. You know, her work schedule.”

  “So, at the last minute, you decide to get together, get drunk, and …”

  “Decoupage,” Doreen threw in, gesturing towards the table full of photos.

  The photos were spread haphazardly over its surface and appeared to be of different people and places on the island. As I stepped forward to get a closer look, Vera quickly picked a few large cardboard sheets off the table and placed them face-down on the floor.

  “It’s for Shea,” Doreen blurted out. The other three women looked at her in horror. “No, No, I don’t mean that. I mean…”

  “She means we’re doing a photo collage for the island’s centennial,” Vera cut in quickly. “It’s the library that’s getting it, Doreen.” Her voice sliced across Doreen’s name with a crisp and pointed anger. “Not Shea.”

  “Yes, yes, that’s right,” Doreen agreed, her words tumbling out in a drunken rush.

  “Perhaps you’ve had enough to drink, Doreen,” Vera continued, an uncomfortable silence settling over the room.

  “Yes, of course. Too much slamma in my Alabama. I don’t know what I’m saying.”

  “Why are you here, Kate?” Gwen said, clumsily changing the subject.

  “I was over at the Legion and thought I’d stop by on my way home. See if there’s been any news from the benefactor. Any hints about what he’s thinking as far as the station’s funding is concerned?”

  “Nope,” Gwen shook her head from side to side with dizzying force. She paused to get her bearings again. “I haven’t heard a peep. And you know what they say: no newsh is good newsh.”

  I hadn’t realized, that news had an h at the end.

  “Well, I have news. Betty and I were talking about that reporter who’s been snooping around the island, Jack Donahue. I found out some interesting things about him.”

  “Such as?” Vera took a long sip of her drink before replacing it on the table. She looked as sober as a judge at a temperance rally.

  “Why aren’t you drunk, Vera?”

  Vera smiled. “Unlike these ladies, I really enjoyed the sixties.”

  “That means she took a lot of illegal subshtances,” Gwen filled in for me.

  “Yeah, I figured that out, Gwen.”

  “Drugs have been a constant in both my personal and professional life,” Vera stated.

  Pharmacist by day, flower child at night.

  “I discovered, that Jack had a beef with Rosalie,” I continued on.

  “Andddddd,” Betty butted in before I could continue, “he was here on Wynter Island before,” she paused dramatically, “Rosalie died.”

  “Oh, that is suspicious,” Vera said.

  “Yes. I talked to Ian, Staff Sargent Singh, about it tonight at the Legion.”

  “Ian?” Betty’s brows lifted.

  “Yes, Ian. But not like that, Betty. I’m helping him find a girlfriend.”

  “Matchmaking. I enjoy that, too.”

  “He’s going to look into Jack and see if he has an alibi for the time of the murder. That will mean he’ll be dropping by to interview you, too, Betty.”

  “That’s fine. It will give me a chance to find out what he’s looking for in a girlfriend.”

  I had the feeling that my impromptu offer of matchmaking had been wrested from my grasp. Betty now had a hold of it. I was merely a diminishing figure in her rearview mirror.

  “Anyway, I’ll leave you ladies to your crafting. Unless you need some help?”

  “No!,” four voices stated at the exact same time.

  “Okay, you don’t have to be quite so definite about it.”

  “No, Kate, it’s not you. It’s something else. We ran out of,” Vera’s mind appeared to be running over all of the possibilities, “decoupage glue. Doreen will have to pick up some next week when she goes to Victoria. So, no more crafting for us this evening.”

  “Yes,” the remaining ladies agreed, again in near-perfect unison.

  “Just drinking?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Alright then, I’ll see everyone at the station next week.”

  I could taste the desperation in the air as I said my goodbyes and stepped back out onto the front porch. They wanted me gone. Now. Immediatmente. And it had nothing to do with either collages or glue.