“Clive? No.” Kole slid out one picture. “Besides the fact that Clive filed an insurance claim for his stolen vehicle ten days before his disappearance, what’s this guy wearing?”

Hudson adjusted his glasses. “Looks like a Carhartt jacket, or something similar?”

Kole nodded. “Are those the clothes of an elite businessman, Hudson?”

“No, sir. I wouldn’t think so.”

“I wouldn’t either.” Kole pointed to the empty driver’s seat, drawing a circle with his index finger.

“The seat belt’s been cut,” Hudson offered.

“Whoever drove this poor bastard into the lake almost ended up right alongside him.” Kole paused, and then added: “The car’s in the impound lot. We’ll get a warrant written up and search it tomorrow.”

“We?” Hudson licked his lips.

“In the English language, that typically means you and I. Unless we’re speaking French, in which case, oui.” Kole’s light-colored eyes locked onto Hudson’s. His voice softened when he said, “You know Garrison was the first officer on this case?”

“He was?” Hudson knit his brows. How had Garrison never mentioned it in their 23,000 hours of working together?

“Yep. And me. He was my field training officer. I was fresh out of the academy, only been in uniform a few weeks when Eleanor Reynolds called to report her husband missing.”

“Nothing ever came of it?” Hudson asked.

“You know how it goes in Patrol. Garrison took the report but then had to hand it off to Investigations. Guy named Gauthreaux had it for a while. Never managed to close it, obviously.”

Hudson was familiar with the name Gauthreaux. The former investigator was an urban legend at the PD, the eponym of the phrase “Gone like Gauthreaux”—what people said about someone who slipped away unnoticed and unannounced. It was essentially an Irish goodbye, and yet, the Gauthreaux component added a note of disquiet. It alluded to the idea that the departed person would never be heard from again, like Gauthreaux himself, who one day had been here working the Clive Reynolds case, and the next he’d cashed out. Took a hit to his pension. Got the hell out of Black Harbor.

“You know, we don’t always get to start what we have to finish.” Kole scooped up the photographs and slid them back into the folder. “I know you were at recess drinking a juice box when this happened, but I was here. Garrison was here. And the discovery of Clive’s car might finally add some solvability to this case.”

“You think he was in trouble?” Hudson asked, already working through the fact that Clive disappeared ten days after reporting his car stolen. “That maybe he ditched the car for insurance money?”

“Possibly. Or someone was trying to kill him and he escaped. We don’t know that the body in the passenger seat is a victim. But if we can get a positive ID on him, we might just be able to track it back to Clive. I think we owe it to his family, Garrison, and all of Black Harbor to figure out what happened to him. Don’t you think?”