Page 89 of This is Why We Lied

Sara tried not to think of all the patients she’d seen with traumatic brain injuries from flipping their UTVs. “Are the phones and internet still working at the lodge?”

“For now,” he said. “We’ve got satellite phones coming just in case. It’s good that everybody’s still stuck up there, though. No one knows that Dave has an alibi. Whoever killed Mercy is thinking that they got away with it.”

“Who’s still at the lodge?”

“Frank, for one. I’m not sure why, but he’s taken it on himself to answer the main phone in the commercial kitchen. Drew and Keisha didn’t make it out before the storm hit. Apparently, they’re not too happy about that. The app guys don’t seem interested in leaving. It sounds like Monica is sleeping it off. Chuck and the family are still there. Except for Delilah. The chef and the two waiters arrived at five this morning, which is their usual time. The bartender doesn’t come in until noon. She’s also the cleaner, so I want to talk to her about those unmade beds in the vacant cottages. Faith went to find her while we are waiting for the UTVs. She lives on the outskirts of town.”

Sara wasn’t surprised Faith had slipped out. She hated autopsies. “You didn’t go with her?”

“Amanda told me to stay here and run background checks.”

“How do you feel about that?”

“About how you’d think.” He shrugged, but he was clearly annoyed. Will wasn’t one to idle around while other people did things. “What about the forensics on Dave?”

“The presumptive test on the stain across the front of his shirt came back as non-human. I’m guessing from the smell that Dave used it to wipe his hand when he was cleaning fish. The scratch marks on his chest could’ve come from the earlier attack on Mercy. He admitted to strangling her. She would’ve fought back. He claims the scratch on his neck was self-inflicted. Mosquito bite. There’s no way to tell if he’s lying, so the mosquito scratch wins. Are you going to be able to hold him on anything?”

“I could bring charges for resisting arrest and threatening me with a knife. He could accuse me of excessive use of force and targeting him because of our past. Mutually assured destruction. He’s free to walk out of here anytime he wants.” Will shrugged it off, but she could tell he wasn’t happy with the situation. “It’s just another pile of shit Dave managed to skate through unscathed.”

“If it’s any consolation, walking is exceptionally difficult for him right now.”

Will didn’t seem consoled. He stared out at the rain. She didn’t have to wait long for him to tell her what was really bothering him. “Amanda isn’t happy we got caught up in this.”

“I’m not happy, either,” Sara admitted. “We weren’t given much of a choice.”

“We could go home.”

She could feel Will studying her face, looking for a sign that she was wavering.

She said, “Jon is still missing, and you promised Mercy that you would tell her son that she forgives him.”

“I did, but odds are that Jon will turn up eventually, and Faith already has her teeth in the case.”

“She’s always wanted to solve a locked-room mystery.”

Will nodded, but he didn’t say anything else. He was waiting for Sara to decide.

She felt to her back teeth that this was a marriage-defining moment. Her husband was placing an awful lot of power in her hands. Sara was not going to be the type of wife who abused it. “Let’s get through the day, then you and I can make a decision together about what to do about tomorrow.”

He nodded, then asked, “Tell me why you didn’t think it was Dave.”

Sara wasn’t sure if there was exactly one thing. “Watching how Mercy’s family treated her at dinner—I don’t know. Looking back, it seems like they all had it in for her. They certainly didn’t appear to be upset that she’d been murdered. Then there’s the thing Mercy said about how some of the guests might have it out for her, too.”

“Which guests do you think she was talking about?”

“It’s weird that Landry gave a fake name, but who knows if there was a sinister reason. You and I lied about our occupations. Sometimes people lie because they want to lie.”

“You didn’t pick up Chuck’s last name, did you?”

She shook her head. Sara had avoided talking to Chuck as much as possible.

“There was something Drew said before he and Keisha lawyered up,” Will told her. “He was talking to Bitty and Cecil, and he said something like, ‘Forget about that other business. Do what you want up here.’”

“What other business?”

“No idea, and he made it clear he’s not talking to me.”

Sara couldn’t see either Keisha or Drew murdering anybody. But that was the thing about murderers. They didn’t tend to announce themselves. “Mercy wasn’t just stabbed once. She had multiple wounds. Her body is a classic example of overkill. The attacker must have known her very well.”