Chapter Thirty-Eight
Blake
This was bullshit.
The cops on this island were so busy interviewing everyone and doing things their way that they barely even bothered considering the fact that Indi and I might be right about our theory. Whoever was carrying out these murders very likely had a problem with Ed Kramer and his family, and the murders were a statement to that effect.
Surely that made it easier for them to narrow down the suspect pool. But no, apparently we needed to be ignored simply because we weren’t professionals, even if we thought we were seriously on to something.
And guess what? We were right.
Right now, Indi was sitting cross-legged on the bed in our room, which we’d just returned to after filling in Sheriff Irons on what we’d found out in the woods. He was surprised to hear that we’d actually been correct about Stephen, but the man actually managed to muster up a mumbled ‘thank you’ before heading out with his deputy to check out the scene in the forest.
“What should we do first?” Indi asked, looking up at me with wide eyes.
“While Irons is out recovering Stephen’s body, we should see if we can figure out who might’ve had a problem with Ed Kramer and his family. I’d say the idea we had about nepotism is probably somewhere close to the truth.”
“So let’s go talk to people. I think most of the crew are hanging out in the bar and trying to drown their fears with beer,” she said. “We could quietly ask a couple of people who they think was the most upset about Neil and Stephen getting gigs on the show via Ed. They might be more willing to open up to us when they’re drunk.”
“Yeah, that could work.”
“Actually… do you remember which crew members you heard complaining about the nepotism?” she asked.
I frowned. “It was weeks ago. But I think one of them was a blonde woman with a tattoo, and the other was a skinny guy with black hair.”
“Oh, they’re from the hair and makeup team. Anna Marris and Glenn Cooper,” Indi said. “They’re part of the crew whose full names I actually remember. I Googled them on your iPad back when the internet was still working; when you were off talking to Keenan.”
“What did you find?” I asked, fishing around in my suitcase for the iPad.
She shook her head. “Nothing, other than that they’re both from LA. But of course they are—all of the crew are from there.”
“You sure there wasn’t anything else?”
“Pretty sure. But we can check. I mean, the internet isn’t working, but everything we looked at is still saved in the cache, so we can access it offline.”
“True,” I said, turning the tablet on. “There might be something we glossed over last time. Here.”
I handed her the iPad, and she scrunched her face up in thought as she tapped through page after page of information. Then her expression lit up.
“What is it?” I asked.
“It’s nothing about the crew,” she said. “I was just looking at the list we made of the contestants and where they’re from.”
“And?”
“Do you remember before we got on the boat in Vancouver, and Ed made that big speech about where he was from and where he ended up?”
“Yeah, I thought it made him sound like a fucking douchebag.”
“It did. But do you remember the name of the town? As in the supposedly ‘tiny, shitty little place in the middle of nowhere’?”
“Nope.”
“He said Haplin, South Dakota. When he asked if anyone had heard of it, almost everyone said no. But a couple of people said yes. Dean included. He lives in Sioux City with Amy now, but his Facebook profile said his hometown was Haplin. As in the same Haplin that Ed mentioned. I noticed it when I made the list, but I didn’t put two and two together until now.”
“So he’s from Haplin…so what?”
She jumped up, an impatient glimmer in her eyes. “So what are the odds that someone just so happens to be from Ed’s tiny little hometown from the middle of nowhere in South Dakota? Out of just twenty contestants. And then Ed and his family members wind up dead.”
I frowned. “I guess it’s a bit weird. But where’s the motive? Dean doesn’t seem like he’d hurt a fly. And he didn’t seem to have any issue with Ed or the others.”
“A lot of crazy people seem totally normal,” she said. “But maybe his family had some sort of serious problem with Ed and his family a long time ago?”
“What, and Dean just decided to track him down to a reality show years later to murder him and his family members for revenge?” I said with a disbelieving lift of my brows. “Seems like a stretch, to be honest. And the last time we thought someone might be dodgy, they turned out to be completely innocent. Remember Keenan’s arrest record? There was a valid reason for that. I don’t want to accuse another innocent person.”
“Isn’t it worth checking out anyway?” she said. “I mean, on the very slim chance that it is him… if I were Amy, I’d want to know what the man I sleep next to every night was capable of. And I don’t think it’s any coincidence that Dean just so happens to be from Haplin.”
“True. Okay, how about this—we’ll go and talk to Amy first, instead of charging in and accusing Dean. We’ll find out what she knows about Dean’s connection to his hometown, and then we’ll take it from there.”
Indi nodded, satisfied by that. “I think she’s in their room. She went there after what happened with Mike and Neil. Pretty much everyone is either at the bar or hiding in their rooms right now.”
“I assume Dean is with her. If so, I’ll take him aside for some guy-talk while you quietly ask Amy all the stuff.”
“Got it.”
We headed to the second floor, where the Browning’s room was. After knocking four times, Amy answered. Her eyes were fearfully wide. “Hi, you two. Is everything okay?” she said. Then she put her hand on her chest. “God, I almost had a heart attack. I was half-expecting you to be that crazy murderer knocking.”
“Sorry. We just wanted to talk to you. Is Dean around, by the way?”
She shook her head and beckoned us into the room. “Just me,” she said. “What’s going on? I overheard someone earlier downstairs… they were saying something about another body being found?”
“It was Stephen,” I blurted out.
She looked confused for a few seconds. “Stephen who?” she asked. Then her eyes widened. “Wait, as in Ed Kramer’s son? I thought he left.”
“Nope. So with him, Ed and Neil dead, it looks like there might be some sort of family connection to the killings. Aside from Mike. He was probably just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Her eyes widened. “Oh my god. Did you hear this from the sheriff?”
“No, we figured it out ourselves. We’ve told him and the deputy, though. They’ve gone off to recover Stephen’s body from the forest.”
She shook her head wearily and slumped down to the sofa. “God, this is awful. I don’t know how much more we can take.”
Indi sat next to her and soothingly rubbed her back. “I’m sure it’s all going to be over soon. Let’s try not to worry ourselves too much,” she said. She paused for a moment before trying to casually segue the conversation. “Anyway, we were wondering about something....”
“What?”
“We were just playing a game to try and distract ourselves while all this stuff is going on. We made a bet that I couldn’t remember where everyone’s from, but I’m pretty sure I do. You and Dean first met in Sioux City, right?”
Amy nodded. “Yes,” she said. The look in her eyes told me she was somewhat confused about the abrupt change of subject, and I cursed myself for mentioning Stephen and the murders at all.
“Has he told you much about his hometown? Haplin?”
She frowned. “A bit. Why?” she asked. When Indi didn’t immediately respond, she stood up, her eyes flashing. “Hold on. I think I know what this is. You come in here talking about a family connection to the killings, and then you start asking about Dean. It’s obvious what you think. He’s from the same stupid little town that Ed mentioned back at the start of the show, so what… therefore he’s a murderer?”
“That’s not what we were implying at—”
Amy shook her head and cut Indi off. “I thought we were friends, Indi. And I’m not as stupid as I look. So tell me the truth! Why did you come in here to talk to me?”
Indi looked at me, then back at Amy. “Well,” she said reluctantly. “We thought there might be some sort of connection between Dean and Ed, but we also figured there was probably an innocent explanation. Like it could just be a coincidence that they’re both from there originally. That’s why we wanted to ask you about it first.”
Amy’s eyes narrowed, and she shook her head. “I can’t believe you’d stoop this low. I defended you when they thought it was you who killed Ed. And now you come in here accusing my husband of god knows what?”
“We’re not accusing him, I swear.”
“You say that, but it really seems like you already think he’s guilty. Otherwise you wouldn’t have come in here.”
Amy marched over to the other side of the room, where two suitcases sat. One was pale pink, the other black.
“Here,” she said, dragging the black one over to us. She unzipped it, letting it fall open, and a few items of clothing fell out. “This is Dean’s stuff. Go on, go through it. Look for your stupid evidence. If it helps you to believe that he would never do anything to hurt someone, then it’s fine. Go on! You can even go through my case too!”
Indi’s face looked stricken with guilt. “We’re not going to go through his stuff, Amy. Or yours either. I’m sorry we even asked.”
Amy glared. “Well, thanks so much for the apology!” she said sarcastically. She picked up the stray items of clothing that had fallen from the suitcase as she spoke, and she folded them up and began to put them back inside. “I can’t believe you’d do this to us, even after you were falsely accused of… oh!”
She jumped up, stopping midsentence. Her face turned pale, and her eyes widened like saucers.
“What is it?” Indi asked.
Amy simply shook her head, seemingly unable to form any words in her state of shock.
“Amy, what happened?”
She shakily pointed at the case. “Look,” she said, her voice a fragile whisper. “Is that a.…” Her voice trailed off again.
I leaned down, frowning as I crouched by the case. “What am I looking at?” I asked. Before she could even reply, I saw it. Under one of the shirts she’d just stuffed back in the case, there was a plastic bag. Something was sticking out of the bag. It was barely visible, but I could see what it was when I leaned closer.
It was a knife.
Little specks of blood coated the part of the blade that was visible. I rolled my sleeve over my hand and gingerly pulled it out of the bag, being careful not to get any of my fingerprints on it.
“That’s one of the knives from the kitchen here,” Indi murmured. “Just like the one Ed was killed with.”
“And just like the one Neil and Mike were killed with…which was missing from the scene,” I added. “I heard the sheriff talking about it earlier.”
Amy shook her head. Her face was white as a sheet now. “There has to be some sort of reason for it being there,” she said. “Dean wouldn’t…he wouldn’t hurt anyone. There has to be some sort of explanation.”
“Then why do you look so scared?” Indi asked gently.
“Because I know how bad it looks,” Amy replied. Tears were forming in her eyes. “But he couldn’t do something like this…he’s so sweet. He just couldn’t….”
“Amy, where is he right now?” I asked.
She sniffed and then took a deep, shaky breath. “He told me we should stay locked in here from now on. For safety. But we were starting to get bored. So he said he was going to ask if he could borrow one of the crew vans and drive down into town to see if the little library there was open. Then we could have something to read while we waited for the police to fix everything.”
I shook my head. That only made Dean look worse. Only an unafraid man would go anywhere alone and unarmed right now, and the only reason a man wouldn’t be afraid right now was if he knew there was nothing to worry about…given that he was the killer.
“You didn’t think it was odd that your husband was perfectly happy to go off alone on the island when there’s a goddamn murderer running around?” I asked.
Amy shook her head slowly. “Well…I did at first, but he said he’d be okay, because he’d have the car. And I trust him. He’s my husband!” she said, her voice trembling. “He didn’t do this! Please, you have to believe me!”
“It’s okay,” Indi said, rushing to her and slipping an arm around her shoulder. “You know, you’re probably right. I bet there’s an innocent explanation for all of this.”
Obviously that wasn’t true, but Amy was about to have a complete meltdown.
She nodded shakily. “Yes. There has to be an explanation,” she said, tears gathering in her eyes again. “I know he wouldn’t do this.”
“We’re going to get to the bottom of it, I promise,” I said.
She nodded and trudged over to the sofa, where she crumpled into a ball and started to cry.
I stepped over and murmured in Indi’s ear. “Can you stay here and take care of her? Make sure she doesn’t do anything stupid. I’m going to tell the officers who are still here what’s going on, and then we’ll go find Dean. He can’t have gotten too far.”
She nodded. “Sure. God, poor Amy.”
I squeezed her hand. “I know. Keep her safe. I’ll be back soon. And Indi…”
She looked at me with wide eyes as the words hung on the tip of my tongue. “Yes?”
I shook my head. Now wasn’t the right time. “Never mind,” I said. “I’ll tell you later, when this is over. I promise.”