Читать книгу Deadly Homecoming - Barbara Phinney - Страница 12

“What are you talking about?” Lawson shook his head, not following her words. “Who called you last night?”

Peta took his arm and led him to one side of the narrow corridor. She held her forefinger to her mouth, and cocked her head as if listening.

What was going on? He felt himself tense up, and knew she had done the same. Her fingers were digging into his arm.

Then, as suddenly as she had dragged him to one side, she sagged and relaxed.

“What’s going on, Peta? Somebody called last night? What did they say?”

She rubbed her right temple. “Last night, after you left, I got a phone call. He told me to get off the island.”

“What exactly did he say?”

She repeated the conversation, and how confusing it seemed to her. “I couldn’t guess if it was a man or a woman, but the person is in this building right now. I just heard the same voice! It was very distinct.”

Lawson scanned the interior of the station. Like most tiny police stations, there were only a few offices, but the extra rooms and cubicles were now packed with people. Half the population of the island was here being questioned, it seemed, and with several officers from the mainland, the whole place was a beehive of activity. He’d seen Pastor Martin in one room a minute ago, and the doctor in another, plus Jane from the grocery store. Her voice was gravelly enough to pass as a man’s.

But she was hardly the type to warn Peta off the island.

With a firm grip on Peta’s arm, he captured her attention. “You said the caller mentioned drugs. Danny was involved with drugs with Marcano, so that can’t be a coincidence. You have to tell Constable Long.”

“Tell me what?”

They both turned. Constable Long stood there, calm and curious, papers in his hands and a frown on his craggy, middle-aged face.

“I need to talk to you,” Peta said, rubbing her temples again. “I need my belongings, and I just want to say that if you want to interrogate me again, I’m only too happy to oblige. I can’t prove that I only just arrived on this island, but I know that I didn’t kill Danny.”