Nantucket Grand by Steven Axelrod

lot of cars. We may actually outnumber the criminals right now.”
    I stood up and she did, too. The interview was over. “Okay, great,” she said. “That would be really nice. Thank you.” She extended her arm across the desk awkwardly and I shook her hand. “I really want you to catch these guys.”
    â€œMe, too.”
    ***
    Lattimer was next, but he had little to add: he’d seen the fire from his house and called 911. No one at the station took it that seriously—he had called the emergency number twice before in the last couple of weeks, both false alarms. A possibly senile old man freaking out about non-existent “prowlers” didn’t strike anyone as a major law-enforcement priority. But other calls, several to the fire department, got everyone moving. Lattimer had an excellent vantage point—the Thayers were his neighbors. They owned a huge parcel, mostly undeveloped, and he hadn’t seen any of them since the summer. After he called in the alarm, he stumped across the property line to have a look at the blaze, as anyone might have done.
    â€œIt’s December on Nantucket, Chief Kennis. There’s not much else to do, and very little in the way of entertainment.” He saw no one and nothing suspicious, but he wasn’t looking for anything, either.
    Mark Toland, the film director, was equally unhelpful, though he promised to e-mail me the photographs he’d taken at the scene.

Chapter Eight
    Witness Interviews:
Mike Henderson and David Trezize
    Mike Henderson clarified the situation for me.
    â€œAm I a suspect again?” He walked into the office. A nasty combination of motive, opportunity, and the apparent lack of an alibi had put him in my sights a couple of years ago, but only briefly.
    â€œNo, no—not at all. But I have to ask…what brought you out to the middle of the moors on a cold winter day?”
    â€œIt was personal.”
    â€œBad answer, Mike. Most serious crimes turn out to be personal, one way or the other.”
    â€œSo, I am a suspect.”
    â€œNot unless you turn yourself into one.”
    We studied each other across the desk.
    Finally he said, “I really don’t want to talk about this.”
    â€œThink of me as your Father Confessor.”
    â€œSo everything I tell you is secret? Nothing leaves this room?”
    â€œUnless you do actually incriminate yourself.”
    â€œEmbarrass myself, maybe. But that’s it.”
    â€œThen you’re fine.”
    I let a silence trundle by, like a line of traffic inching past some road construction. Finally I lifted my hands, palms up, eyebrows raised along with a half-smile, as if to say “So?”
    â€œI’m not sure where to start.”
    â€œHow about the middle?”
    He laughed, more out of surprise than amusement. “Okay. I was following Mark Toland.”
    â€œYou know him?”
    â€œNot exactly.”
    Then I remembered. I’d been flailing around, trying to hit the dangling light-switch string in a dark bathroom. Now I grabbed it and yanked it, and the light came on. “Cindy was staying with him at the Sherry Netherland hotel the night Preston Lomax was killed. You were supposed to be in New York with her, but you were staying at your customer’s brownstone.”
    He stared at me. “How can you possibly remember that?”
    â€œAre you kidding? It was the best non-alibi ever. You couldn’t account for one second of your time off-island. That was a record.”
    He started to speak. “I mean—you couldn’t prove anything. No paper trail at all. It was amazing.”
    â€œThat’s one word for it. I was scared shitless.”
    â€œSo let me fill this in for you. Cindy came back, and you thought it was over, and then he shows up on-island two years later and Cindy’s been a little distant lately, with the toddler wearing her out every day, and you see this guy, or read an