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Bikes lay abandoned on tiny green patches struggling to be lawns. Here and there a dog dozed on a concrete stoop or surveyed its world from an oyster shell drive. A brown one with a scabby nose and unbalanced ears lifted its head from its paws to object halfheartedly to our intrusion. Most didn’t bother.
A short jog right, then Gardiner turned left onto a larger two-lane. A big loop, then we picked up speed.
Until that moment, Musgrove had concentrated on texting.
“Shit. Shit. Shit.” Exasperated, she looked up from her mobile.
I cocked a quizzical brow.
“My bloody battery just died.”
“Sorry.” Wondering how a cop could allow that to happen.
Rigby’s palm again came our way and Musgrove placed her phone on it. Rigby leaned toward the dash and, I assumed, attached the device to a charger cord.
Musgrove thanked the constable, then said to me, “We’re on the Millennium Highway.” Musgrove gestured toward my side of the Jeep. “The ocean is off that way. Blue Hills Road parallels the water and is much more scenic. But the route we’re taking is faster.”
“Where is Grace Bay?” One of the few features on the island I knew to name.
“Behind us, down the shore.” Giving another, more backward flick of her wrist. “You’ll see it later. That’s where you’re staying.”
Musgrove fell silent again, her inner tension evidenced by the interlaced knuckles bulging white in her lap.
I refocused on the scene sliding by my window. Businesses straggled both sides of the road. At intervals, streets led off intoneighborhoods, seemingly more upmarket than those closer to the airport.
We passed what appeared to be a warehouse. An outfit called Ecar Tci.
I felt a slight uptick in my pulse.
“Is that the company where one of your vics rented his car?” I asked Musgrove.
“Ryder Palke,” she said.
“Why would he come way out here?”
“They deliver to the airport and to resorts.”
“Did you find any link atallbetween the vics?”
“Both Bonner and Palke had visited a bar called Polly’s Tiki Shack. We interviewed everyone from the owner down to the night cleaning crew. One bartender, a guy named Glen Wall got extra scrutiny.”
“Why?”
“Aside from making my skin crawl, the guy had an impressive rap sheet. String of arrests, mostly for drunk and disorderly, but a few for assault. Wall did one short stretch for busting a guy’s jaw and right arm.”
“Sounds like a bad actor.”
Musgrove nodded. “But Wall alibied out. Two cousins and a brother swore he was on a fishing boat with them the whole week Palke disappeared.”
Again, silence filled the car.
I noticed a small stucco church. Read the sign identifying it as the New Birth Agape Fellowship.
I thought about that. Pictured a saint from the holy cards of my childhood, halo looping his head, mouth wide in surprise. Figured the word must have an alternate meaning unknown to me.
Miles ticked by. Then Musgrove spoke again. “We’re skirting the community of Wheeland Settlement.” She pronounced it Veeland. “Before that it was Blue Hills. Nothing much left between here and Northwest Point. Some small farm fields.”
“Growing what?” I didn’t much care, but Musgrove now seemed to want conversation. Or maybe she felt she should entertain me.
