Page 54 of Dauntless
“You gonna shoot us, Short Clarry?”he asked, cautious hope rising in his tone “And are you gonna shoot Mavis Coldwell after that?”
Short Clarry turned to look.
Mavis wasn’t alone as she crested the hill.Young Harry Barnes was with her, his wild Santa hair going mad in the wind.There were other people with them too, and Red Joe named them all.
“What about John Corporal?And Verity Corporal?Are you going to shoot them?And Nipper Will Harper, and Little Harry Finch?”
They saw the flags.They actually saw the flags, and came.I wanted to sag with relief, but we weren’t done here yet.Short Clarry could still kill us both.
Short Clarry turned back to face me and Joe, his expression blank.
“They’re all gonna know, Short Clarry,” Joe said.“They’re all gonna see.And the police are almost here.It’s done.Stop.Just stop, and put the gun down.”
There was almost something proud in it, when Short Clarry smiled.“We’re mutineers, Red Joe,” he said, and puffed out his chest.“We’ve always been mutineers.”
And then, before either of us could even take a step towards him, Short Clarry stepped towards the rail and pitched himself over the side.
The wind carried away the sounds of the impact.
* * *
An hour later, Joe and I sat at his kitchen table.
“Well, what a mess,” Mavis Coldwell said, pressing a fresh cup of tea into my shaking hands and a biscuit into Joe’s.“I always said nothing good would come of it, didn’t I, Red Joe?”
“You did,” Joe murmured.
“I’m sorry,” said the detective, shoving Hiccup’s head off her lap as Hiccup gazed at her adoringly.“Who are you again?”
“Mavis,” Mavis said.“Mavis Coldwell.”
“Ah.And you’re related to the victim, John Coldwell.Yes?”
“Yes.John Coldwell was my third cousin.And Short Clarry was my first cousin, if you need to write that down too.”
“That would be Mayor Clarence Finch?”
“Oh yes.”Mavis bustled to the kettle and back again, sliding a cup of tea under Joe’s nose.She hummed, considering.“Formermayor.”
The detective blinked.
“Well, I didn’t vote for him anyway,” Mavis said, as though that settled it.“He always had something about him, didn’t I say so, Red Joe?Something just off about him?”
“You did,” Joe said.
“Everyone on the island is related to everyone,” I told the detective.“And they all have the same names.”
The detective rubbed her forehead.“Right.”
A uniformed police officer walked past the kitchen window.
Short Clarry had left a mess, in more ways than one, and it would take a long time to clean things up.There were currently police down in the village dealing with John Coldwell’s body and the crime scenes at the museum and the icehouse and interviewing the islanders.They were all over Joe’s yard as well, and in and out of the lighthouse.
It was a shambles.
The detective clearly thought so too.She flicked back a few pages in her notebook and frowned.
I curled my shaking fingers into a loose fist.Joe laid his hand on top of mine.
