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“Can you just be... I don’t know, nice?”
“Was I not nice to you?” She was mildly humored, mildly suspicious.
“I mean...okay...flat out, Jamie and I had a fight about one of my ex-girlfriends. I kinda didn’t want to say anything because she’s a cop, and I know you guys are all friends.”
Kara’s instincts twitched. She sat back down.
Marcy’s voice popped into her head.“Cal’s a good guy. We were in the Coast Guard together.”
She waited.
“So last year, my ex-girlfriend—well, not even really an ex-girlfriend, we only went out for a short time, like a half dozen times—she moved to the island. I was surprised, but whatever. I didn’t say anything to Jamie because she had finally set a wedding date and I kind of didn’t think it was important.”
Kara could see what happened a mile away. Insecure girl, ex-girlfriend.
“And?” she prompted when Cal hesitated.
“And then Marcy just started following me.”
“Officer Marcy Anderson,” she said to confirm.
“Yeah. I know, it sounds totally weird, and maybe I was wrong. Because I confronted her—”
“When did you confront her?”
“In the spring. Late April, I think. It was a Friday. Jamie was working—Friday has the best tips from the Fish & Brew, and Pete loves Jamie, she’s been working there for years, so he always lets her have Friday nights. I had worked the day charter, so I was off at five. I went to pick Hazel up at her babysitter, and Marcy pulled me over. I’d seen her all over town—she came up to me when she first moved here, wanted to go out for drinks. I told her I was involved with someone. That we had a kid. And she told me that she hadn’t been following me, it’s just a small island, and she came here because Seattle had gone half-crazy and she wanted a quieter life. I guess...she seemed disappointed, but...”
“And?” she prompted.
“She kept showing up! Like, Jamie and I would take Hazel to the park—Marcy was there, running through the park. Hazel and I went to surprise Jamie at the Fish & Brew for her birthday last month and there was Marcy. I’d see her running by the house a couple times a week. And she’d look my way and she knew that I saw her...and she just ran by. I was a bit freaked out, but itisa small island. Still, I should have told Jamie.”
“You didn’t.” Relationships didn’t work when there were secrets.
“I should have, I know it, and I hit myself every day...and then on Thursday, Jamie had the day off and took Hazel to the park. Marcy talked to her. Said something like she had hoped to meet, that she was in the Coast Guard with me, and told her not only about our relationship, but about how I saw her in Seattle five years ago. That was after I’d met Jamie, but we had only gone on a few dates. I went to Seattle for the weekend for a friend’s wedding. Marcy was there, mutual friend. I drank a lot, we ended up in my hotel room, and it was a total mistake. That’s when I realized I really liked Jamie. I mean, yes, I cheated on her, but I didn’t, you know? We’d only gone out a couple of times.”
“I see what you mean.” Kara could picture it as clear as day. “And you withheld this information from Jamie.”
“We’d gone ontwo dates. I liked her, but I didn’t think Jamie was into me. When I got back, we saw each other again, and it changed, you know?”
“So then Marcy told all this to Jamie.” Kara didn’t see how this was relevant to her investigation, but there was something off. Why hadn’t Marcy told Kara that she’d been in a relationship with McKinnon?
“Jamie was so upset, so angry... I tried to explain, but she took off, went to her dad’s place with Hazel on Friday morning. And that’s why I called in sick that night. I had to make things right. I was wrong, so wrong, and Jamie’s been hurt before.”
“Where’s her dad’s place? The mainland?”
He shook his head. “Across the island. You can drive across the island in an hour. He has a cabin on the water, in a cove. It’s nice. He’s rarely there. Jamie has a bad habit of running from confrontation. But I needed to explain everything...well, we need to talk more, but she didn’t call off the wedding, and that’s a big plus.”
Kara wondered what was going on with Marcy. It could be innocuous. It might be more serious. But she couldn’t just let this go.
How she was going to address it—that was something she needed to think long and hard about.
18
Matt and John went to interview Mickey Billings, the fourteen-year-old who’d been drinking beer on the edge of West End property the night before. He was short with big hands and feet, which told Matt he would be going through a growth spurt in a year or two.
Though at first he denied being there, under the glare of his father, Mickey came clean.
“Yeah, I spent the night at Andy’s house,” he said, brushing his long brown bangs out of his eyes. “We snuck out at midnight. We weren’t doing anything wrong.”
