Tortus Bay

2.23: The Missing Link

Lucy Brihte looked the same as she ever did: pale and slight, in old faded clothes. Even caught in a moment of obvious rage, her eyes still seemed somehow detached from reality. They didn't focus where they should have. Henry stood stock still, hand hovering above her bedside notebook. Neither of them spoke.

Niles, panting slightly, jogged down the hallway. "Ahh," he said. "Henry, uh... she's coming."

Henry straightened up, retracted his hand, and bumped the drawer closed for good measure. "Thank you for the heads up."

"She, uh, she went to the bathroom and must have..."

Lucy nodded. "Heard something from my bedroom. What are you doing here?"

"I'm looking for Mathas Bernard," he said. "I need all of the information I can find."

"And you think that makes it okay to break into somebody's bedroom?" She spoke in her characteristically serene voice, but her cheeks flamed red and her hands balled into fists at her side. "Is this for that childish new project of yours? The newspaper?"

"You know..."

"Of course I know about the newspaper. And of course I know that you're the one behind it. Who else? When I heard that you were looking for testimonials about Mathas, I chose not to participate."

"Because you don't know anything?"

She scoffed. "I know more than anyone who's spoken with you yet. I can guarantee that. I didn't come forward because of this. What is this? As incompetent as it is illegal. You can't steal people's notes. If you're going to be a journalist, you have to act like a journalist." Her fists relaxed. "That's the problem with this village. A journalist who doesn't know how to do an interview, and a sheriff who doesn't believe what she sees in front of her own eyes."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean what I said." The rest of the red drained out of her face. "Niles, at least, knows how to bake a cake. That's why he's a baker."

Niles had slowly backed down the hallway. "That's true," he called.

Lucy glowered at Henry for a moment longer, but then seemed to tire at the effort of it. "I should throw you both out. I should call the police.

"We'll leave."

"Tell you what: you can leave, and I won't even call the sheriff, but first you have to tell me how you knew that I know anything worth stealing about Mathas. And why didn't you just ask me? Unless..." Her eyes widened. "You think that I had something to do with it, don't you?"

Niles peeked around the corner, waving his hands. "No, no, no, no, no."

"Yes," Henry said.

"Yeah," Niles amended, "that's right. I overheard you talking on the phone last month. You said that your sister was home on the night that Mathas died."

"How long have we known one another?" Lucy shook her head. "You should have just asked me. I was talking to Leia. Truth be told, at the time I did think that my sister might have done it. I was scared. And a little proud. Come on, let's talk about this somewhere other than my bedroom." She turned and strode out of the room, leading them back through the upper kitchen and down the stairs while mumbling under her breath about Leia Thao. In the main kitchen she offered them chilled wine in thin stemware. "Whatever I might tell you will not be quoted to me directly. Are you at least competent enough to manage that?"

They arranged themselves around the corner of a table that could easily have sat twelve. It looked as though it had not been used in months. A thick film of dust had settled around the golden candelabras in the center, which apparently proved too difficult to clean. Henry knew that the estate was Lucy's in everything but name. Nobody besides her stayed in the place for long. And yet she sat ill at ease, as though she was as much a guest there as them. "Nothing identifiable will be printed."