Storm of Suspicion - 12. Chapter 12

Thom, Michael, and Nathan collapsed through the front door at The Admirals Inn, closing their umbrellas and shaking the excess rain before placing them in a painted green clay vase at the door side. “Oh Thom, I’m glad you guys made it back before the storm hits,'' Carter commented.

“You mean it hasn’t started?”, Michael sarcastically intercepted.

“Oh this is nothing”, Carter replied. “The brunt of the storm is supposed to hit tonight after midnight, probably around high tide”.

“Oh Great!”, Thom exclaimed. “As if things weren’t bad enough already, maybe we should sell and just say the hell with it all”, he grumbled.

“Huh? I don’t understand, what difference does the storm make?”, Michael quizzed.

“He’s referring to the storm surge”, Nathan explained. “The last hurricane that came through here wasn’t even at high tide and the water was all the way up to Commercial street. Our insurance won’t cover flood, just fire. We would wind up getting nothing if what’s left of the Griffin gets destroyed by floodwaters even after the fire”.

Thom wrinkled his forehead and groaned at Nathan, indicating with a nod towards Carter, the he should shut-up. “We will discuss this upstairs”, he sternly warned, ushering them away from the desk. Turning now back to Carter, who had been intently listening to the conversation but trying to appear busy at the computer, “Have you seen Karla come back yet?”, Thom asked. “We never saw her down at the police station”.

“No, actually I haven’t”, he replied, sounding moderately concerned. “I’m sure she’s around here somewhere. Probably got lost, you know how women are with directions”, Carter giggled as if saying something a straight guy would say made him seem any more butch.

“That’s the same thing Peters said”, Thom mumbled incoherently. He would have expected that type of response from the arrogance of Peters but to have heard the exact comment again seemed particularly odd. “I’m starting to get kinda worried”, he commented, turning back to Nathan and Michael to usher them to their room.

“Yeah I definitely need to get some dry clothes on, I’m about froze”, Michael commented.

“Agh, dry clothes…. I forgot. I still don’t have anything here to change into. I usually would have been able to have gone to the house by now,” Thom mused.

“You can borrow something of mine”, Michael assured him as they walked toward the room.

“Now what did you guys find out?”, Thom prompted.

“Hold on a sec”, Nathan replied, glancing around to see if anyone else was within hearing distance. “When we get inside….”, he insisted, reaching for his key and unlocking the door, leading Thom and Michael into the room.

“Ok, spill it”, Thom declared, dropping down on the bench at the foot of the bed and beginning to remove his shoes.

Nathan went into the bathroom and returned with towels for everyone to begin drying off with. “Well”, he began. “Apparently Officer Peters left his last position over ‘questionable’ circumstances.”

“Oh really?”, Thom mulled.

“Well it seems that he had been under investigation over the death of a drug dealer up in Boston. There’s also some talk about him taking bribes from the Irish mafia.”

“Isn’t that interesting”, Thom replied. “So how did he end up here? That sounds like some serious shit.”

“His uncle is the county commissioner”, Nathan replied. “Has been for a long time. And he’s close friends with one of the Senators”.

“Well that sounds legit”, Thom snidely remarked. Michael threw a pair of jeans at him and a shirt. “Got any socks?” he asked, standing to change.

§

The wind continued to sweep around the lighthouse as Karla steadily grinded her bound hands against the stair rail. An unrelenting torrent of rain persisted with its insidious drip drip dripping along the stairwell and from the floor above. “Agh”, she cried out. “This is worse than Chinese water torture.” Just as she was beginning to notice the tautness of her bindings decrease, the yellow glow of headlights streaked across the room through the window. “Shit, he’s back”, she muttered, intensely trying to break through the remaining rope as quickly as possible and then reaching down to untie her legs. Hearing the rattle of keys, Karla quickly glanced round the room for anything she could use as a weapon, but even things she’d seen earlier were now lost in the darkness. As she heard the key turn within the lock and doorknob turn, she threw her arms back behind the chair, appearing to still be restrained. The door was hurled open, casting Peters into a dark silhouette with the car headlights glaring into the room around him. The rain pouring down steadily and the wind blowing spurts of water into the room.

“Well Ms. Eastman, time to go get you some fresh air”, Peters commented walking towards Karla. “Such a shame that you wandered off and got lost,'' he toyed. “You were too smart for your own good. Shoulda just minded your own business and we wouldn’t even be here now”.

Karla eyed him as he approached, calculating how to get by him and whether she could even outrun him if she did get by him, even though she had no idea where they were or how to get back into town. As he leaned down to her, she threw up her leg and drop kicked him in the nuts. As he curled to the floor in pain, Karla jumped up grabbing the chair she was in and crashed it over his head. Slumping to the ground further and unconscious, Karla reached down removing his handcuffs from the side pouch on his belt and secured his hands behind his back. Running out into the pouring rain and winds, Karla paused to contemplate her next move. Ocean to the left and ocean in front of her. That meant she had to be west end of the peninsula, so P-town should be almost due East, she speculated. “I suppose I could just follow the coast line…”, then she realized the cruiser was still running. “Bingo!”, she screamed as she ran to the car and jumped into the driver's seat. “Hey this should actually even have GPS”, she thought as she shifted the car into drive and turned around in the general direction Peters had come from although with the torrential rain it was nearly impossible to make out anything ahead.

§

As Mark headed back towards the Magnolia House, he tried to put the murder and the newspaper headline out of his head by trying to figure out which numbers he should do in the act. Even if Ron and Tony did see the newspaper there wasn’t really anything that connected him with the murder he decided. With only a couple days before opening on Friday night it almost didn’t seem like enough time to open a whole new show and he had no idea what anyone else in the show was doing. Before going to the lounge, he went to his room to grab a pair of heels to rehearse in and some music. When he entered the room he saw that his bed had been remade and the trash taken out, including the bloodied clothes from Provincetown. ”Yay, that’s the end of that nightmare,” he declared turning quickly to head down to the lounge.

As he passed through the lobby, he noticed a Spanish looking girl talking with Ron and Tony. They abruptly stopped talking as Mark entered. “I thought I’d get started on blocking out my routine. Is anyone else in the show around?” Mark asked.

“Uh, yeah I think Betty is back there and Sam should be in the booth,” Tony replied pointing towards the hallway. Mark quickly made his way down the hall and into the cabaret lounge.

“Are you sure you found that torn dress in Room 110?” Ron asked the young Spanish girl.

“Si”, she replied. “I come directly here when I left the room,” she continued.

“And you put ‘Mark’, or ‘Misty’ or whatever his name is in 110, right?” Ron continued, now turning to Tony to confirm as he picked up the newspaper folded over on the counter next to him.

“Yes, Ron. We’ve been through this already,” Tony argued.

“I know, I just wanted to be absolutely sure before we call the police,” Ron stated firmly opening the front page of the paper at looking again at the headline: “Johanna James Murdered in Provincetown”.