Chapter 9

He told me Officer Cane Bishop was busy with a domestic violence ordeal on the other side of Hurricane Bay, and that Cane wouldn’t be showing up at our bungalow anytime soon.

Chief Dawe also said, “I’ll take the charred pages to Cane in a baggie and snap off a few pictures of the spot on the beach where your guest decided to burn them.”

“There are footprints in the sand,” I told Dawe.

He shook his head. “Don’t get all biblical on me, young man. And don’t tell me how to do this job.”

I stepped away from him, let him have at the scene, and watched him process exactly what he had said he was going to process, without fail.

* * * *

Twenty minutes later, Dawe left with his baggie of burned pages, digital pictures of the footprints left behind from the stranger on the beach, and more pics of where the flaming paperback pages were dropped to the sand by the interloper.