by Tracey Drew
Still hunched over, I was alerted to another’s presence by the heavy tread of footsteps. I glanced sideways to see Jeremy Austin, one of Cape Discovery’s constables, standing in the doorway, thumbs hooked into his stab-proof vest. Poor Lucas Kerr might’ve gotten more use out of that, I couldn’t help but think.
“Ms. Wakefield?”
Swap Officer Austin’s boring blue uniform for a wetsuit, and you couldn’t pick him out of a lineup of middle-aged surfer stereotypes. The few times I’d spoken to him since returning home, I’d kept expecting him to call me ‘dude.’
So far, he hadn’t.
Giving him a little wave of acknowledgment, I went to straighten, but Pearl chose that exact moment to leap down from the shelf. She used me as a convenient stepladder, launching herself off my back, claws dug in for good measure. Nice. I uncurled with a grimace, hoping I wouldn’t contaminate the crime scene further by bleeding from eight parallel scratches across my spine. Guess that’s what a crazy cat lady gets instead of a tramp-stamp on her lower back.
Officer Austin stared down his nose at Pearl, who was butting up against his legs, tail flirtatiously twisting around them. “Ms. Wakefield, is this your cat?”
She was such a suck-up.
“Technically, she’s my nana’s cat.” I zigzagged toward him through the boxes.
“Let me rephrase that. Why is there a cat in here?” He took a backward step away from said cat, perhaps trying to avoid a furry coating on his uniform pants.
Good luck with that, sir.
“Pearl followed me inside. She does that sometimes because she’s incredibly nosy.” I shook my head to clear it—there were more important things to discuss with Officer Austin than Pearl’s quirky habits. “She hasn’t touched anything.” Anything being the body out there, getting more and more dead by the second. “Except for an ornament she knocked off the shelf behind me. You might want to take a look at what’s inside.”
With his height advantage, he only had to take a few steps into the storeroom and lean forward in order to see the little baggie.
“Is it drugs?” I prompted when he frowned but remained silent.
“We’ll let the experts decide that, shall we?” he said calmly. As if it were an everyday occurrence to find a baggie of pills in a ransacked storeroom with a knifed owner next door.
“A detective’s on his way from Napier. He’ll take over. In the meantime, please take the cat and wait outside with your brother.”
I dutifully, but warily picked up Pearl. She gazed at the frowning man with a holstered baton, pepper spray, and Taser and went limp in my arms, clearly deciding to behave. Officer Austin moved aside so I could squeeze past. Fortunately, his breadth prevented me from gaining one last look at Lucas Kerr as he escorted me to the front of the shop.
Questions whizzed in circles around my brain, and unable to help myself, I turned back. “Do you think someone killed him for those pills?”
“That’s the detective’s job to determine, Ms. Wakefield.”
I’d been dismissed, and as I suddenly couldn’t wait to breathe fresh air, I nodded politely and stepped outside.
As soon as my feet hit the sidewalk, Pearl launched herself off me. She fled in the direction of home, most likely to indulge in an emergency snacking session.
Sean sat on the sidewalk, leaning back against the store as he palmed a handful of potato chips into his mouth. Despite the fact he was disgustingly chewing with his mouth open, I opted to sit near him. Actually, quite close to him. Sure, he was my gross man-child of a brother, but I loved him anyway. And having escaped that claustrophobic storeroom, I could now admit to myself how truly shaken I was.
I stole a chip. Just the one to help calm my nerves.
“You good?” he asked.
With a snort, I stole another. “Peachy.” I leaned my head back against the wall then rolled it sideways to give Sean a big sister smackdown stare. “So, where were you last night?”
His eyebrows rose, but he continued to crunch a moment longer. “You’re asking for my alibi? Seriously?”
I pulled the facial equivalent of a shrug. “Cops’ll be asking you soon as they get here. Might as well practice on someone who knows you’re innocent.”
“I was at home.”
“Doing?”
“Doing a crossword and knitting a doily. Pete’s sake, Tess—I was home, reheating one of Mum’s care-package casseroles for dinner and eating it in front of the TV. Then I went to bed.”
“Can anyone confirm this?”
“You mean, was there someone else in my bed?” He glared back at me. “No. I happen to be taking a break from the onerous task of sleeping with every female in town.”
As I went to steal another chip, he yanked the bag out of my reach. Brat—he knew BBQ was my second-favorite potato chip flavor.
“So there’s no one who can prove you were home all night?” I pretended I wasn’t reaching for the bag and scratched my thigh instead.
Sean sighed. “Sorry, Miss Fisher, had I known I’d need someone to vouch for my all-night presence and stamina, I would’ve invited that new hairstylist for a sleepover.”
“You’re a pig.”
He grinned and offered me the chips. A pig, but at least he was my pig.
Around us, people had begun to notice Officer Austin’s marked police vehicle parked outside the store. A few bolder locals wandered over to ask what was going on. I kept my gaze locked onto my phone screen, feigning sudden interest in social media posts of funny cat memes and updates on the mundane things people did on a beautiful summer’s morning.
One of Sean’s talents was people skills, which he successfully employed to evade any direct questions about what was going on inside. As the youngest, he’d learned from his older siblings how to circumvent Mum and Dad’s rules and the consequences of breaking them: with charm and misdirection.
However, by the time two more police cars cruised down Cape Street toward us, even Sean’s cheeky banter couldn’t keep the curious onlookers at bay. Quite a few people now milled around outside the store, and the lead vehicle had to double-park next to a ute and order its driver to move along. As uniformed officers poured onto the sidewalk and immediately began issuing instructions, I caught a glimpse of one man in the second car. He remained in place until the crowd had been ushered aside.
Then, and only then, did he unfold his sizable bulk from the car. And by bulk, I mean six foot something of broad-shouldered, rugby-player-thighed, hands-that-could-crush-a-fistful-of-unshelled-walnuts big. He cut an imposing figure in his charcoal-colored suit, totally out of place in this small seaside town where tidy-casual was considered business attire.
With precision-cut black hair, dark shades, and what might have been a sexy mouth if it wasn’t curved downward in a scowl, he strode toward us, his long legs eating up the sidewalk. I didn’t need to see behind those shades to know he was sizing up my brother and me because he immediately struck me as a size ’em up kind of guy.
He stopped in front of us, arms folded across his chest. “Good morning. I’m Detective Sergeant Mana.”
His voice was as deep as a gravel pit and equally as abrasive.
“Hey,” Sean said.
I kept my lips zipped. Did he expect a polite greeting in return or an impressed gasp in recognition of his authority?
His gaze slowly swept from Sean’s face to mine. “Tell me. Which one of you brought a cat to a crime scene?”
Four
I didn’t make it back to Unraveled until the early afternoon, and by then, my head throbbed like I’d been at a heavy metal concert. Although I’d swallowed several cups of cheap-and-nasty brewed tea, my throat still felt tender after giving my statement regarding this morning’s events to an officer at Cape Discovery’s small police station. I couldn’t remember specific details of the interview, only that I’d felt like a rundown battery-powered monkey by the end. And I got the impression that the officer typing up my statement had already forme
d an opinion on our guilt or innocence.
The chilly detective man was still interviewing Sean when I was finally allowed to leave. I debated hanging around, but all I wanted was to get home, shower this morning’s events from my skin, and then curl up in my fluffy robe and watch reruns of Project Runway with my granddad.
I’d texted my mum and Harry earlier to let them know what was happening, but of course, news spreads like a virus in a small town. With no one spreading it faster than my mother.
And Lucas Kerr’s murder would be the number one topic of speculation.
The closed sign hung in Unraveled’s front door, so I bypassed it and walked around the corner of the building to the chain-link gate that led into our fenced backyard. Pearl lay stretched out on the edge of a planter box of herbs, dozing in a strip of afternoon sunshine without a care in the world.
Oh, to be a cat.
But some of the tension in my shoulders softened as I ran my hand across the lavender growing in a terracotta pot near the back door. Sniffing my fragrant fingers, I willed Nana Dee-Dee’s favorite flower to soothe me with its familiar scent. I slipped inside and was halfway up the stairs when I heard voices other than Harry’s drifting down from the apartment. Stopping so fast I nearly fell up the next step, I gripped the handrail and played Statues.
“Sean, baby, is that you?” My mum’s voice broke the sudden silence above.
Guess I needed to work on my silent-assassin skills. “No. It’s me.”
“Oh. Tessa.” Two words into which she managed to squeeze a lifetime of loving disapproval.
A long, hot shower and downtime now out of the question, I trudged up the stairs. Mum stood in the kitchen, still in her real estate agent shirt and a dark gray skirt that triggered a flashback of Detective Mana’s tailored suit.
She enfolded me in a perfume-choking hug for a full five seconds longer than her standard three. After briskly rubbing my back, she pulled away to give me a maternal once-over and resisted smoothing the curls on one side of my face. All the while, remaining silent.
Wow, who was this woman, and what had she done with my mother?
“How’s my baby? Do you think he’s okay? Have you seen him?”
Ah, there she was!
I schooled my face into a serious, not-at-all-offended expression while forcibly keeping my eyes from rolling back in my head. “The police interviewed us separately, so I haven’t seen him. But he’s fine, Mum.” And at thirty-two, old enough to not be anyone’s baby. “We’re both fine.”
Mum blinked rapidly; I could almost hear her mind whirring. “Well, of course you are. You take after Harry and your dad—pragmatists. Nothing fazes you lot. But Sean takes after me. We’re more sensitive.”
“Highly strung, you mean.” My dad wandered into the kitchen, a pair of mugs in his hand and thick wooly socks on his feet. He too must have come straight from work, as he wore his work uniform of grubby coveralls. If I hadn’t been so distracted, I would have noticed his well-worn work boots sitting at the back door.
“Alan, please,” Mum said as he set the mugs on the counter before wrapping his arms around me.
As Dad squeezed me tight, I smelled traces of well-fertilized earth, fragrant herbs, and a whiff of crushed rose petals on his coveralls. His cottage industry of growing and providing fresh herbs and flowers to businesses in town and the nearest city, Napier, was his pride and joy. After his family, of course.
“All right, then?” he asked, resting his chin on top of my head.
Dad didn’t say much. Didn’t need to with Mum more than willing to take up any conversational slack. But when he did talk, people listened. His honest warmth had earned him and his business enough loyal customers that he’d been able to employ full-time help for the past two years. Typically for him, he insisted on continuing with deliveries and a lot of the hands-on work in his gardens. But now he could put some eager young muscle to work on the more physical tasks.
“Hunky-dory,” I said.
“You will be after a shower and a bite to eat.” He released me and angled himself toward the oven. “Scones should be ready soon, and I picked up some cream from Hanburys.”
As I peeked past Dad to check Mum wasn’t close by, he chuckled—softly. “It’s okay. Harry made them.”
Finding a smile for him, I tapped the side of my nose and left him to rinse out the mugs.
Once showered and dressed in clean clothes, I felt a little more human and a lot less cyborg. I skipped drying my hair in favor of scoring a scone slathered with butter, jam, and cream.
Darn it, I’d earned that buttery goodness.
But while I’d been busy sloughing off dead-body cooties with super-hot water, Sean had arrived. Mum had settled him in Nana Dee-Dee’s La-Z-Boy—now my usual spot—and was handing him a scone with so much whipped cream there was no practical way for my brother to eat it without ending up covered in the stuff.
As I took a seat next to Dad on the couch, Mum perched on the arm beside him, no doubt figuring her skirt wouldn’t pick up as many cat hairs there as it would on the cushions. Mum was definitely not a cat person. We all sat there in silence, watching Sean lick cream off his scone.
“So… How did it go?” I asked.
Mum shot me a look—the same one she’d given me when, as a kid, I’d asked a friend of hers why she had blue gunk smeared around her eyes. Sean didn’t look up from his whipped-cream removal.
“What?” I mouthed at Dad.
He rubbed a calloused finger along his eyebrow and grimaced.
“He’s had a tough time of it, haven’t you, my baby?” Mum said.
Sean nodded, cream dotting the tip of his nose.
My mouth settled into a frown. “Really? You found it tough telling the detective you’d come into work and found your boss on the floor with me and two cats standing over him?”
I tried to catch my brother’s eye, but for some reason, he refused to look at me.
“Sarcasm is not helpful, Tessa.”
Leaning forward, I was close enough to poke Sean’s arm. Which I did. Hard. “What’s going on? Did Jeremy and Detective Mana play good cop, bad cop a little too enthusiastically?”
Sean finally met my gaze, but only for a second before his eyes flicked to Mum and Dad. “I think I screwed up.”
How could you screw up a statement to the police, unless you lied, and then got so tangled up in those lies you inadvertently hogtied yourself? But Sean had nothing to lie about… Did he?
“Spit it out, lad.” Harry licked jam off his fingers and picked up the TV remote. “We haven’t got all day. Home and Away starts soon.”
My brother sighed and set down his plate, leaving the other half of his scone untouched. What a waste. “I answered the detective’s questions truthfully,” he said. “But I didn’t mention that I owed Lucas a bit of money.”
“A bit of money?” Dad repeated with a frown.
“Yeah.”
“Not to speak ill of the dead, but why’d you want to borrow money off that shark in sheep’s clothing?” Harry said.
“If Sean hadn’t been unfairly dismissed from the Stone’s Throw, he wouldn’t be experiencing financial difficulties now,” Mum said.
She always leaped to his defense. Some of us suspected his former employer had been rather more tolerant of my brother’s faults than was warranted.
While Mum went on about how hard he’d worked tending the bar and Harry argued that a stint in the armed forces would give him some spine, I pinned my brother with my patented big sister glare. “How much?”
He spoke so softly that I had to strain to hear. “Ten grand.”
“Ten thousand dollars?” I couldn’t stop my voice from ratcheting up half an octave, which proved an effective means of silencing Harry and Mum.
No wonder Sean had wanted my advice; he was in way over his head.
My parents and Harry gaped at Sean in mute horror.
He sheepishly looked back. “I was working off the debt. It�
�s not that big of a deal.”
My mind backflipped to the bloody scene this morning and the chilly scrutiny I’d felt through the black lenses of Detective Mana’s shades.
An employee with the means, opportunity, and in debt to the murdered man? It’d look like a big deal to him.
After that, things went downhill fast.
Sean stormed out with Mum wailing after him like some maternal banshee, and Dad followed with an apologetic shrug. I didn’t have the energy to mediate, as was my usual role within our family. Instead, I curled up in the vacated La-Z-Boy and let Harry make me a decent cup of tea. As early as non-pathetically possible, I excused myself and went to bed.
Sometime during the night, I woke to one cat nestled between my lax legs, the other on my chest, her purrs vibrating through my body. I scritched Pearl between her ears, and she gave a gigantic yawn before resuming her purring.
As one’s brain is wont to do in the wee hours, my mind gnawed over the previous day’s events and my brother’s indebtedness to the victim of a violent crime. There was no way the police wouldn’t find out about it and consider Sean a prime suspect. Especially with his checkered past…
Swearing softly under my breath, I carefully eased Pearl off my chest. I crept to the window and twitched back the drapes so I could see the street below. Nothing moved in the inky darkness, and the only sound was the soft sough of waves rolling ashore in the distance.
My stomach churned, and my thoughts were moths to a flame, returning over and over to Lucas Kerr and the bloodied knife. Surely, Sean couldn’t be responsible. I had no idea why he owed his boss so much—he’d refused to answer Mum’s hysterical questions. But I believed one thing wholeheartedly: The only circumstances in which my brother could kill would be in self-defense or to defend someone else.
I’d seen no evidence of a struggle in that back room; if anything, it indicated a level of premeditation. Someone, or someones, had shared a drink with Lucas last night. If that person was the same one who’d written the note and used him as a human corkboard, they’d taken the wine bottle and only one of the cups with them. By accident, I assumed. Any cold-blooded killer worth his or her salt wouldn’t have left evidence behind.
