Away with the Fishes by Stephanie Siciarz

night. In the light of the morning, after a hearty breakfast of bacon and porridge and homemade bread with mango jam, things would look brighter indeed. May even suspected that by morning Rena would be back, begging everyone’s forgiveness for having walked off so far and so foolishly.
    May was dead wrong, of course, but hardly the first islander to be fooled by the prospect of the island’s morning sun.

    Officers Arnold Tullsey and Joshua Smart made their way across the yard and onto the verandah, where they called out to May in the kitchen.
    “Good evening!”
    “Good evening.” May opened the screen door and leaned outside, scrutinizing the officers in their uniforms. “Can I help?”
    “We’d like to speak to Madison Fuller, please,” Joshua said.
    “He’s asleep.” May sensed trouble. Had something happened to Rena?
    “Could you wake him for us? Please,” Arnold added, following Joshua’s lead.
    “This isn’t about Rena, is it? What’s happened to her?” May asked Arnold.
    “Can we come in?” Arnold asked May.
    May showed the officers into the sitting room. She was as frightened to hear what they had to say as she was anxious to know the reason for their visit. Had they found Rena? Was she harmed? Had they come to deliver bad news? It broke her heart to think how Madison would suffer.
    “Please, you must tell me what’s going on,” she begged. “Is Rena all right? Where is she?”
    “That’s exactly what we’re here to find out,” Joshua told her.
    “What do you mean?” May wrung her hands. “Madison looked and looked, but he couldn’t find her anywhere. You haven’t found her either?”
    Arnold and Joshua exchanged a look that made May shiver. She had sensed trouble, for sure, but of the wrong kind. The officers weren’t here to tell her brother about Rena, they were here to accuse him!
    “I think you better wake your brother up now, miss.”
    “You don’t think he had anything to do with Rena’s disappearance?” she protested. “He’s out of his head with worry. He drove all over the island today.”
    The officers weren’t interested in what May had to say. They had set the sights of their investigation on Madison and were loath to veer or detour, lest they lose track of the truth.
    With difficulty, May finally woke her brother from his deep and desperate sleep, and he confronted the policemen in his home.
    “What’s going on?” Madison rubbed his still-tired eyes.
    “You tell us, young man. We’re trying to find Rena Baker,” Officer Tullsey said.
    At the mention of Rena, Madison suddenly awoke. “So am I! Have you got any leads?”
    “As a matter of fact we do.” Officer Joshua Smart proceeded to lay out the case for fisherman Madison Fuller: “We are inclined to believe that the missing female victim of the hit-and-run that took place on the Thyme shortcut, and your girlfriend, Miss Rena Baker, are one and the same.”
    “What? That’s crazy. Rena never rode a bicycle in her life,” Madison objected.
    Officer Smart continued. “We are also inclined to believe that you were the last person to see Miss Baker alive.”
    “Alive?” Madison and May exclaimed in chorus.
    “Are you suggesting that Rena is...dead?” Madison struggled to say the word aloud.
    “Would you care to tell us your whereabouts on the night in question?” Officer Tullsey chimed in.
    “What night would that be?” Madison asked.
    “Night before last. The night of the hit-and-run.”
    “I...I...I don’t know,” Madison stammered. “Here, I guess. Sleeping.” He scratched his head.
    “Can you attest to this, miss?” Officer Smart looked at May.
    “Yes. I was here too.”
    “Were you also asleep?” Officer Smart asked her.
    “Yes.”
    “If you were asleep yourself, then you didn’t actually
see
your brother asleep in his room,” Officer Tullsey countered.
    “No. But I know he was here.”
    “Just a minute!” Madison jumped up from the sitting room sofa. “What is this?