Char and Silence

58. Magda managed every inch of The Moorings — she controlled access to the equipment shed, set the maintenance schedule, and held the spare keys. She publicly resented Cressida Vane's presence, calling the rental arrangement 'a liability from day one.' On the night of the fire, Magda says she was home alone in her apartment on Pier Street. She has no alibi witness. She reported the propane canister as a maintenance oversight — her own oversight — in a signed statement to the fire department, which investigators now say may have been deliberate misdirection.

39. Drew co-managed The Moorings and had been quietly lobbying the board to end the shed rental since November 2022 — the month after Cressida arrived. His argument was insurance liability. His emails to the board, recovered in 2025, show increasing frustration: 'We cannot keep this arrangement. She needs to go.' On the night of the fire, Drew says he attended a Valentine's Day dinner at Wren & Finch with a date named Priya Rao — a Boston woman who cannot be located for follow-up.

22. Elliot's notebook is the reason this case was reopened — but investigators noted early that the specificity of his descriptions raised a question no one has answered publicly: how did he see what he says he saw? He claims he happened to be walking past Harbor Lane Hardware at 4 PM on February 13th and observed a customer buying lighter fluid and gloves. He has no corroborating witness. His creative writing has been called 'uncomfortably precise' by his professors. He was interviewed by state fire investigator Purcell in August 2025 and denied any involvement.

63. Walt keeps a meticulous purchase ledger — every cash transaction noted by hand in a bound record he has maintained for 35 years. On February 13th, 2023, that ledger records a cash sale of two bottles of charcoal lighter fluid and a box of medium latex gloves at 4:07 PM. Walt told state investigators he remembered the customer as a woman, 'younger, dark coat, paid cash, didn't say much.' He described her hair as short and dark. Cressida Vane has long red hair. Walt has been cooperative but has so far declined to make a formal identification.

36. June managed the store's afternoon shifts and was working on February 13th. She confirmed her father-in-law's account of the 4:07 PM sale but says she was in the back room during the transaction and did not see the customer. She also mentioned, in a separate interview with investigator Purcell, that she remembered a woman asking about fire-resistant caulking that same afternoon — a detail that doesn't appear in Walt's ledger and that Walt has no memory of. June is also the person who introduced Cressida Vane to The Moorings board in September 2022, calling her 'exactly what this town needs.'