Storm of Suspicion - 11. Chapter 11

Karla looked around the room as her eyes tried to clear away the fogginess and trying to figure out if she had any options for escape. “Agh, my head is killing me,'' she grumbled. “I feel like I’ve just been on a bender. Carter must have drugged the coffee”, she speculated. Officer Peters had left her tied in a chair and then secured to the iron railings at the base of the lighthouses’ curved staircase. On the wall across from the doorway she could make out one small window which faced the ocean, another to the left of the door. From here she could actually see if anyone came up the pathway to the entrance. The room was nearly barren except for a plain wooden table near the window and another chair. On the table was the basket from the Inn that Carter had sent her with. “Well at least he didn’t plan on starving me”, Karla groaned. She twitched fervently to see if she would be able to wiggle free from the ropes but they almost seemed to tighten further under the strain. “Yeah, that would be too easy”. As she wrapped her hands around the spindle for which she was attached, she noticed it to feel rough from years of rust, and square…. “Ooh, square!”, she shouted aloud. “Maybe if I just grind my wrists up and down on this…”, she speculated as she tried moving her arms just enough to cut the ropes against a corner of the spindle. “Agh, they’re too tight”, Karla sputtered aloud, throwing her head back and sighing in frustration. “Wait a second…”, she exclaimed, realizing that there was room to lean back a little and by doing so released some of the pressure on the ropes. Karla began to squirm more in the chair, pushing it back tight against the railing. From this position she could move her arms ever so slightly. “Hopefully, this’ll be just enough to wear through this rope”, she mumbled as she frantically wiggled, rubbing at the bindings and keeping a steady watch out the window by the door.

Outside the sky began to darken as black clouds marched across the sky with flashes of lightning like an angry mass of soldiers wielding their swords. Wind swirled around the tower and whistled through the crack at the base of the door, as if calling all others to arms and join the ensuing storm. Rain began the pelt down from the skies with a force against the ground that sounded like drums rumbling. A steady dripping of water began to strike at Karla from above as more began to seep in along the window sill. A puddle began to form at the doorway from water leaking through the crack and still more drizzled down the side of the stairs next to her like a tiny waterfall. “Great, I’m gonna fucking drown and not even be in the damned ocean!”.

§

“Steven, has Karla been here yet?”, Thom asked as he and the others stood outside the jail cell of the police station.

“Not since last night. Why?” he asked. “Isn’t she with you guys?”, looking around to see if she was there out of his view and if somehow they all hadn’t seen her.

“No…”, Nathan replied.

“Carter said she was on her way here about an hour ago,'' Michael added.

“She left before I woke up”, Thom began. “Her phone was still on the nightstand so I figured she’d just gone to the dining room for coffee but Carter said she had headed here to see you,'' he explained further. “What did you guys talk about last night?”

“She was just asking about the murder weapon mostly. I told her that all I knew was what I’ve been told and that was the story they started out with about the shoe and then the bayonet they ‘found’ in my office but, since I didn’t kill Johanna, I don’t know how she was killed”, Steven recalled. “She said she knew but wouldn’t tell me.”

“Yeah, she told me it definitely wasn’t the bayonet. You haven’t seen Peters have you?”, Thom asked.

“Luckily no”, Steven replied. “I can’t stand that prick”, he uttered. “Pretty sure he’s got something to do with this too. I’m sure he planted that bayonet in my office so he could conveniently ‘find’ it”.

Thom pursed his lips, indication to Steven to be quiet, rolling his eyes towards the young lady that was still supervising them. “Well Steven, we’re doing what we can to get you out of here as quickly as possible”, Thom declared.

“Yeah, I know. Trouble right now though is getting the county judge out here from Sandwich to set bail”, Steven grumbled. “The storm is supposed to hit it’s worst overnight tonight, right around high tide.”

“Well I guess we should be getting back to the Inn”, Michael stated.

“Doesn’t sound like much more we can do here right now anyway”, Nathan added turning back to their escort. “Can I give you my number to call if you need us for anything or if you hear anything about the bail?” he asked.

“Well I doubt we’ll hear anything but I’d be glad to let you know,'' she commented as they walked back to the desk at the end of the hall where a guard remained stationed. Taking a pen and a piece of paper from the desk and handing it to Nathan, she then directed the others to sign back out on the visitors log book. “Here, why don’t you guys use the side exit, there’s probably still a lot going on upstairs and I don’t think you need to get tied up in that mess”. She then ushered them out the door with a wave goodbye.

For a moment Michael, Thom, and Nathan stood silently in the rain, confused by the recent transactions. “Ok, is it just me or was that weird?”, Michael asked, nearly screaming through the torrential rains.

“Come-on”, Thom yelled. “Follow me”, as he raced around the front of the building and up a flight of stairs to the porch of the town hall.

“What is it?”, Nathan asked, noticing a pensive look on Thom face.

“Karla….”, he began. “She told Steven that she knew what the murder weapon actually was but wouldn’t tell him what…”, he pondered aloud.

“Did she tell you something different?”, Michael asked.

“She told me it was probably a paring knife or at least something relatively small”, Thom replied. “I don’t know if it was ever recovered though”.

“Well how did she find that out?”, Michael continued.

“She said she saw the forensics report”, Thom answered. “I wish I could get ahold of it though….”.

“Well where was it?”, Nathan drilled.

“On one of the desks in the police station”, he stated.

“Well, let’s get back to the Inn before we get stuck out here in a hurricane”, Michael prompted. “I’m already soaked just running here from the door she threw us out of!”.

“Yeah, didn’t we have umbrellas when we came in?”, Nathan contributed.

“That’s it”, Thom burst out. “Maybe there’s still enough chaos going on in there that one of us can troll around and see if we can find anything.”

“Well won’t that be kind of obvious if we’re sifting through paperwork right in front of them?”, Michael theorized.

“If we’re all sifting but….”, Thom described his idea. “Nathan, you go find the fat girl to see about our umbrellas. I’ll hang out by the door and watch for Peters. If I’m too far in the room Wallace might see me and get suspicious. Michael, you kind of wander around and see if anything on one of the desks catches your attention that looks like it might be a forensics report. Here, gimme your watch.”

“My watch, what for”, Michael asked as he removed it from his wrist.

“Say you lost it when you brought Edwards in and was seeing if you couldn’t find it while you were there getting the umbrellas”, Thom expounded.

“Sounds like a plan, not a very good one but a plan”, Nathan declared.

“You got anything better?”, Thom quipped as they headed back off the porch and to the police station main entrance they had used earlier.

§

“Well you certainly don’t eat like the girls around here”, Ron commented as Mark wiped his plate clean with the last bite of toast. “Most of them it’s black coffee and a handful of diet pills!”.

“Oh…”, he looked up, feeling a little embarrassed. “I’m sorry, I guess I was hungrier than I realized. I haven’t eaten since I left P-town. Drove straight here right after….” Mark paused for a moment catching himself. Apparently they hadn’t heard about the murder yet and it might seem suspicious if he mentioned it now. “ Oh sorry, right after the show. Sorry bit of toast in my throat”, he quickly diverted as he took a swig of coffee, emptying the cup before setting it back on the table.

“Tony said you got in pretty late last night, I’m sorry we didn’t have your room ready. We weren’t expecting Johanna until Wednesday so you showing up was unexpected all around”, Ron went on. “I’m sure your still tired so we won’t start rehearsing your part of the show until tonight. You can relax and get settled in.” Turning back to Tony, “What room did you put Mark, I mean Misty in?”

“110”, he replied.

“Ok that’s fine”, turning back to Mark. “You can go ahead and stay in that room for now, we’ll see how things work out when Johanna gets here. We usually keep our resident entertainers at one of the apartment complexes down the street”.

Mark returned to the room and began trying to organize everything. “Let’s see”, he pondered looking at the dresser across from the bed, “boy clothes on the left, girl clothes on the right”. As he collected the shoes he had been wearing from P-town, he noticed that they had been splattered with blood, much like the dress he tore off earlier. “Shit, that was my favorite pair”, he commented while casually throwing them onto the garbage pile with the dress.

§

Peters pulled into his parking spot near the back entrance of the police station as the rain continued pouring down. Although only about 15’ away, he could barely see the door. As the winds hurled along, stray branches and debris flew by as if being sucked away with a giant vacuum, bending trees and anything else still attached to the ground into its grip. He pulled out his phone and began to dial when he noticed there was no signal. “Damned technology”, he sputtered. “At least the land lines stay a little more dependable”. As he exited the vehicle, the earth shook with a deep rumble of thunder and a bolt of lightning hitting a tree next to the building. With a brief burst of flames the tree snapped, throwing the upper half of the tree to the ground like an angry child having a tantrum, nearly missing his car by only a few inches. Peters raced to the door, pausing under the stoop for a moment, glancing back at how closely he had missed being crushed.

“Peters, what the hell are you doing playing out in the rain for?’ Wallace bellowed as he opened the door seeing Peters standing outside. “I need you to get your report finished on the break in at the Pilgrims Landing and on my desk yesterday! I’m not gonna let that busy-body investigator catch us on any mistakes, even if she doesn’t have any authority here,” he screeched.

“Oh, I don’t think we have to worry about her anymore”, Peters commented under his breath as he passed Wallace and headed up the stairs towards his desk. Stopping abruptly at the doorway at the top of the stairs, he saw Thom standing there, almost blocking the entrance, “What the hell are you doing here?”.

“Um, we came to talk to Steven”, he quickly explained. “We were going to talk to the guy that Nate and Michael brought in but apparently he didn’t make it”, Thom carefully fished for some reaction from the officer.

“Yeah, too bad huh”, Peters replied, trying to push past Thom and scanning the room for the others.

“We really wanted to get to have a talk with him”, Thom continued, shifting his weight to obscure the officers view. “Steven is quite certain that he was the one that rented his room. Did you guys ever find out anything before he died?”, Thom continued quizzing. “And where has he been this whole time? Gee it all just makes me confused….”.

“Well everything is still under investigation and ‘we’ are working on it so you don’t need to be concerned,'' Peters stated sternly.

“Speaking of being concerned…”, Thom began. “You haven’t seen Karla around have you? She was supposed to be headed down here awhile ago but nobody has seen her yet”, Thom continued, stil fishing for some reaction.

“No, I haven’t seen her here”, Peters replied. “Maybe she got lost, you know how bad women are with directions.”

“Yeah, I suppose…”, Thom toyed. Thom knew that she had been an expert at land navigation back in basic training and could typically find her way around anywhere especially if she had been around the general area before.

“Ok Thom, we’re ready”, Nathan stated appearing almost magically from along the wall at the doorway. “Oh, Officer Peters, I didn’t see you standing there.”

“Yep, got our umbrellas”, Michael echoed in. “Let’s get going before this storm gets any worse”, grabbing Thom by the arm and leading him past the officer towards the door.

“What did you find out?”, Thom whispered eagerly as they started out the door and opened the umbrellas for their walk back to the Admirals Inn.

“We didn’t find the report on Johanna but our little chunky chic had some interesting little tidbits about Danny and our good friend Officer Peters…”, Michael stated. “Come-on let's get back to the Inn before we get blown away in this storm”, he added as the trio started briskly up the street, forming the umbrellas around them, more like a shield against the wind rather than to keep dry.

§

Mark finished organizing his clothes, neatly folded and organized in their respective drawers. “I think I deserve a break now”, he declared looking out the window at the clear Florida sky. He grabbed a ball cap off the top of the dresser and threw on a pair of conservative sunglasses. He shoved the room key into his front pocket and then checked to make sure he had his wallet as he left the room, making sure the door was locked behind him. Glancing momentarily at the dusty blue Cadillac still parked alongside the front entrance, Mark debated about going to explore the area. “Agh, enough time spent in that ol’ girl already”, he declared deciding instead to just check out the neighborhood. Turning right out of the driveway he started walking down Orange Blossom Trail, quickly realizing this probably wouldn’t be the neighborhood to be walking around in at night. The strip was lined mostly with pawn-shops, used tire stores, and numerous storefronts that he couldn’t even identify, their name and advertising being hand painted signs mostly in Spanish, all with bars or mesh grating covering the dingey beige windows. Within a few blocks he had already encountered two porn stores and three strip clubs, all which looked as if just walking by them would result in contracting an STD. After what seemed like forever, Mark finally spotted a small convenience store that didn’t look like he’d get mugged at. “There has to be some sort of grocery store closer than this”, he thought as he entered and walked to the back where the cold beverage were kept. After making his selection and grabbing a bag of chips he proceeded to the checkout counter. “Oh shit!”, he gulped out loud upon seeing the stack of newspapers piled next to the register. Blazed across the front page of the Orlando Sentinel was printed ‘Johanna James murdered at Provincetown Nightclub’. He grabbed the paper and quickly paid for his items before scurrying back outside to investigate the article further. Sitting on a bus stop bench he began to read; ‘Investigations continue in the untimely death of female impersonator Johanna James, murdered in a bloody confrontation at the Griffin Bar Saturday Evening. Local police declined to comment at this time, indicating the suspect may still be at large. State Police continue to maintain checkpoints outside Provincetown as well as at both the Bourne and Sagamore bridges which have also been closed due to impending storms forecasted for Monday extending through Wednesday’. His heart pounded as he ambled back to the MagnoliaHouse as quickly as he could, contemplating how this was going to look for him. “They’re still expecting Johanna to eventually be coming here, this could mess up everything!” he sputtered. “I didn’t think this would reach national news, who the hell cares about a two-bit lounge lizard? I was the real star in that town!”