The Drowning Tree by Carol Goodman Page B

Kyle?”
    Detective Falco, ignoring my question, asks, “Did Mr. Swanson mention to you that there were two kayaks missing from the boathouse?”
    I nod. “Yes, he did, but wait a minute … if there were something I should know about Kyle Swanson—a reason why I wouldn’t want my daughter to be alone with him, you’d tell me, wouldn’t you?”
    “I’m not at liberty to give out that kind of information, Miss McKay. I would advise not allowing a minor to be alone with any adult you don’t know very well. If we can return to the issue of the kayaks for a moment … we found the second one beached on this side of the river, which suggests to me that someone went with her and came back.”
    “But if someone was with her why wouldn’t he or she help her when she tipped over?”
    “Maybe Christine Webb tipped over, hit her head on the stone wall, and drowned before whoever she was with could save her. Maybe the other kayaker panicked and didn’t want to be implicated in a drowning accident.”
    Falco pauses but continues looking at me. I can’t see his expression because his eyes are still shaded by his hand, but I can sense the force of his attention and that he’s waiting for something. It takes me only a moment to realize that he’s giving me a chance to admit that I was the one with Christine that night.
    I shake my head. “You obviously don’t know me very well,” I tell him. “I’d never go out on the river at night. Not even for my best friend.”
    “So you think it would have to be someone more confident in their boating skills?”
    “You mean like Kyle Swanson? I can’t imagine Christine asking him to go with her—or that he would agree.”
    I remember, suddenly, the questions Christine asked me about Kyle while we were walking to the train station. I’d thought she was just teasing me about my involvement with him but what if she were feeling out the situation because she was interested in him? It wouldn’t be the first time we were both attracted to the same man.
    “So you think Christine got off the train to take a moonlit kayak trip with a man she’d just met half an hour before?” I ask.
    “I hadn’t actually thought that Mr. Swanson was the main attraction. Your daughter said that she mentioned to Miss Webb that the Wicomico Creek afforded access to the Penrose estate—private property, by the way, but I’m sure you’ve spoken to her about trespassing—oh no, wait, I guess not, because you went back onto the Penrose property yesterday.”
    “Back?”
I ask. “I’ve never been to the estate before.”
    “But you do know it’s private property?”
    “Are you planning to arrest me for trespassing, Detective Falco? Because if you are maybe I shouldn’t be talking to you without a lawyer.…”
    Falco raises a hand and then gestures toward the two lawn chairs where Christine and I sat last week. “No, no, not at all, Miss McKay. Please, I’m sorry if I gave you that impression. Can we sit down? I just want to figure out what happened to your friend. I imagine that’s what you want as well.”
    “Of course I do,” I say, swatting the soot off one of the chairs. Detective Falco has already sat down in the other one as seemingly unconcerned about the fate of his Sunday suit pants as Christine had been about her dress last week. “I’m just not sure how much I can help you. I know that Christine was interested in Penrose’s water gardens but I can’t imagine what she would have wanted to see so badly that she would paddle across the river in the middle of the night.”
    “You mean she wasn’t the type to get that wrapped up in her research?”
    Something in the way he phrases the question makes me pretty sure that the detective has already spoken to Nathan Bell and has heard aboutChristine’s obsessive nature. Feeling like I’m being led into a trap I try to swerve in another direction. “Christine wasn’t a ‘type’ at all, Detective Falco, she was unique. She