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He nodded. “Lots of people have boats of all kinds. The fact is you can sail from Augusta to the Atlantic via the Savanna River. It’s about two hundred miles of twists and turns, but it’s gorgeous. Sometimes when I’m working a rough case, I dream about sailing to the Atlantic and then just letting the wind decide where I’m bound.”
“Why Detective Wilder, I do believe you’re something of a romantic. I would never have known that about you.”
“I think you’d find, if you cared to, that there was a lot about me you didn’t know. Tell me, Jessica, would you like to know more about me?” he said seductively before shaking his head. “What the hell is wrong with me? You’re a suspect. A man was found dead in your room.”
She leaned against the counter. “Tell me something, Thorn—well, two somethings. First, do you really consider me a viable suspect?”
“Not really. First off, I don’t think you’re a murderer. Not that we all can’t be pushed past our breaking point, but you seem to be able to rise above and cut your opponents to ribbons with your words. Besides, you have an alibi, and one that is easily checked out. I think if you killed this ‘odious toad,’ as you called him, you’d have come up with something better than this and sure as hell not left the dead body in your room. What’s the second something?”
“How the hell did you end up with a name like Thorn Wilder? I mean I know Wilder isn’t all that uncommon a name, but Thorn?”
“What can I say? My mother loved the movie The Omen, but she didn’t want people to know she named me after the main character so instead of naming me Damien, his first name, she named me Thorn.”
“Your mother named you after the anti-Christ?” she scoffed. He nodded. “I’m sorry, but that’s all kinds of screwed up. Although I suppose I shouldn’t talk.”
“Your mother named you after Angela Lansbury’s character in the television show?”
“I wish. My father named me after a cartoon and comic book character.”
Thorn stepped back and melodramatically eyed her up and down. “I can see that. You do kind of remind me of Jessica Rabbit.”
She groaned. “Don’t start and keep that information to yourself. Most people assume it’s the character from Murder She Wrote. Given I, too, am a mystery writer, I let them make that assumption.”
“Your secret is safe with me.” Looking around he said, “There’s not a lot in here.”
Jessica nodded. “Yep. I wasn’t really planning to go out and this is my hometown. People see me slogging through the snow and going to get groceries in a tank top and sweats. I only brought the bare essentials: deodorant, toothbrush, toothpaste, wide-tooth comb for getting out tangles and some hair scrunchies. I don’t care what they say about hair scrunchies on Sex in the City, nobody’s taking mine unless they pry them from my cold, dead hands.”
Thorn laughed. “I like scrunchies, they’re easy to pull out of a woman’s hair. It’s hard to be romantic when you’re trying to bring her hair down and pulling it and she’s youching at you. For the record, I think you look just fine with makeup or without.”
Suddenly, feeling a little shy and embarrassed, Jessica ducked her head. “Thank you. But I don’t see that anything’s been disturbed in here.”
“Okay, then, let’s move around the perimeter of the room and work our way into the center where Thompson is. Does it strike you as odd that he’s been murdered? I mean, I need the medical examiner to make that determination officially…”
“But you’ve seen enough dead bodies to know what you’re looking at.”
“It could have been natural causes.”
“Doubtful unless he had a hidden disease that nobody knew about. But that kind of thing is hard to keep secret in a small town like Badger’s Drift. He jogged most days and had a home gym where he worked out, although rumor is his wife is getting the house in the divorce.”
Thorn nodded. “Ms. Hicks…”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, call her DeeDee, everybody in town goes by their first name. That’s the easiest way to mark yourself as an outsider. And if you want people to talk to you, they’re going to need to see you as one of them.”
He nodded again. “Good point. DeeDee didn’t seem to think it was natural causes, either. As soon as the medical examiner gets here and can run a few preliminary tests and get a look at Thompson’s medical records, he can declare it a suspicious death. But why here? Did he have a connection to you?”
“None at all. I avoided him every chance I got.”
“So, who hated him enough to kill him?” he asked, seeming to be genuinely interested in what she had to say.
“Not anyone that I can think of. Plenty of people didn’t like him, but murder him? That’s a bit extreme, but you never know about people. Take Stella, for example. She was kind of a pain, but no one ever suspected her of running a pirate site. But trust me, if that had ever come out there would have been plenty of authors looking to put her head on a spike. Thompson’s a misogynist jerk, but easily ignored.”
They moved around the room, Jessica confirming for him that nothing had been moved or taken. When they were finally confronting Thompson’s body, they could hear another helicopter. When they went to the window to look out—it was the same helicopter transporting not only the state’s forensic team, but a small rotund man with a fringe of white hair, bushy eyebrows and round spectacles, making him look like a shorter version of Benjamin Franklin minus the long hair and eighteenth-century clothing.
The man they assumed was the medical examiner was hustled up to the Lighthouse and shown directly to the body.
“Detective Wilder? Jessica Murdoch, isn’t it? My wife just loves all your books. I must say you do get the details right. I’m Dr. Livingston, I know. So, what have we got here?”
“Victim’s name is Gregory Thompson. Best as we can figure, he died in the past three to four hours. Jess, do you know how old he was?”
