by Jeff Shelby
Because he was, albeit grudgingly.
“What else do they have on the menu?” he asked. “Besides burgers?”
“I can put you in touch with Mikey,” I told him, because the only things I’d ever eaten there were Mikey’s signature burgers. “He can walk you through the menu and talk about different options.”
He sighed and closed his eyes again.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Fine. Just fine,” he muttered. “I’m used to not getting what I want.”
TEN
It was the next morning and I’d just pulled the French toast casserole from the oven when I checked my phone again.
Luke still hadn’t responded to my texts, letting him know that breakfast was ready.
And I’d sent three.
I’d shoved a little bit of food in the mini fridge and in the small cupboard in the bungalow yesterday afternoon, but it was hardly enough to constitute a snack, much less a meal. Especially for Thor.
Connor and Laura were already at the table, sipping coffee and waiting for breakfast. Laura was already dressed for the day but Connor was still clad in sweats and a t-shirt, his normally perfectly styled hair slightly mussed from sleep.
Laura was babbling about the photographer Sophia had put her in touch with.
“She is so perfect,” she told Connor. “I wish you could see the photos she’s done of Tallulah.”
“Who?”
“Tallulah,” Laura repeated. “Sophia and Walter’s dog.”
He raised an eyebrow. “They got their dog’s picture taken?”
Laura nodded. “Not just once. They have a whole wall of professional pet portraits. Tallulah at Christmas. Tallulah celebrating New Year’s Eve. Tallulah on Valentine’s Day and Easter.”
I stifled a chuckle when I saw the incredulous expression on Connor’s face.
“She’s done all of these amazing photos of Sophia’s pregnancy, too,” Laura continued.
“Does she have any experience photographing weddings?” Connor asked.
Laura thought for a minute. “I think so…? I didn’t ask.”
Connor’s eyes widened, and it felt like a good time to excuse myself. Mostly because if I didn’t, I could see myself grilling her with the same questions Connor appeared to have at the ready for her.
“I’m going to go check on Luke and the rest of the guys,” I said.
If either of them heard me, they didn’t respond.
I slipped out the back door and headed toward the bungalow. It was a nice morning, the humidity not unbearable, and the air was filled with the cheerful sound of birdsong. I surveyed the yard as I walked, noting it would need a good mowing before we set up tables and chairs. Maybe Jackson would be okay with doing that. And if he wasn’t, I was sure I could get Gunnar to help out. He was always willing to lend a hand when it came to outdoor chores or things needing fixing.
Oh, who I was kidding? He was willing to lend a hand with anything I needed.
Which was one of the things I loved most about him.
The bungalow was still dark, the shades pulled tight, and I frowned as I approached it. Were they really still sleeping? It was after nine o’clock.
I didn’t know how long they’d stayed up after their practice session at the church, but if the stilted conversation on the way home had been any indication, I couldn’t imagine that the three of them would have wanted to spend the rest of the night talking. I had further soured on Drew on the car ride back to the house, especially when he began talking about set changes and solos in individual songs. He was an outsider, someone who was teaming up with Luke and Thor for a one-day performance, but he was acting as if he was the leader of the band. It was driving me up a wall, and I wasn’t even someone who was directly affected by it.
A movement off to my left caught my eye. Thor was standing next to a tree, clad in sweatpants and a gray muscle shirt. His arms arced over his head and one leg came up, and I did a double take.
Was he doing yoga?
He caught sight of me and nodded a greeting. I said hello, only noticing the ear buds in his ears after I did so. I offered a small wave instead before returning my attention to the tiny, rundown building in front of me.
I’d managed to paint the interior of the bungalow and install new flooring and windows, but that was about as far as I’d gotten in the remodeling department. The grand plans I’d had before I bought the property—to turn it into an office or an artist studio or something—hadn’t quite materialized. Of course, finding the Konrath skeleton inside had put a damper on things, but then I’d just gotten busy with other stuff and had never really gotten around to truly fixing it up. Of course, I’d never gotten around to becoming an artist or needing a separate office space, either.
So although I’d done some preliminary work to it, most of which was purely cosmetic, it was for all intents and purposes still an abandoned building on my property.
Except for now.
Now it had two sleeping men inside.
And I was on my way in to wake them up before the French toast casserole I’d spent an hour prepping and baking got any colder.
I pushed the door open, squinting into the darkness. It was especially pronounced considering how bright the morning sun was.
“Luke?” I said, not even bothering to keep my voice low. “Luke,” I repeated.
In the dim light I could just make out an outline of a body on one of the air mattresses set up on the floor. I nudged the foot hanging out of the blanket.
No response.
I crouched down.
The top of Luke’s head was visible, his blondish-brown hair flattened against his scalp. His mouth was slightly open and I could hear gentle snoring. I also saw the ear buds stuck in his ears. No wonder it seemed like he was dead to the world.
I glanced to his right. Drew was next to him, on his side, facing away from me.
I sighed. How anyone could sleep this late was beyond me.
I nudged Luke and he groaned.
“Get up,” I said as I yanked one of the ear buds out.
“Hmm?” One eye opened.
“Get up,” I repeated. “Its after nine o’clock.”
He yanked the blanket over his head. “So?” he mumbled.
I pulled it back down, dragging it to his knees. He was clad in just his boxers and he scrambled for the blanket. Not to cover himself—Luke had never had modesty issues, not even as a kid—but probably because he’d created a nice warm cocoon for himself and I’d just destroyed it.
“You, too,” I said, my voice a little gentler as I addressed Drew. Not that he deserved gentleness.
He didn’t respond.
I let out a frustrated sigh. What was it with this generation and their headphones? Did anyone their age go to sleep without sticking tiny speakers into their ears?
I shifted positions, so Drew’s back was no longer facing me. I leaned close.
His eyes were open.
“Time to get up,” I told him.
Drew didn’t blink.
A shiver ran down my spine. “Drew?”
No response.
“Uh oh,” I mumbled, my own eyes widening in response as I assessed the situation.
Luke yawned. “What?”
I glanced at my son.
He wasn’t dead to the world.
But Drew was.
Really and truly dead.
ELEVEN
Gunnar was standing in the bungalow less than five minutes later, an alarmed expression on his face.
I pointed toward the man laying on the air mattress in front of me.
Gunnar’s eyes took in Drew’s form. Luke had bolted out of the bungalow just moments earlier, his eyes wild with shock as Drew’s death registered with him. I was pretty sure he’d informed Thor right away because the giant’s blood-curdling scream had brought Gunnar scrambling over.
“Is he hurt?” Gunnar asked as he crouched down next to him.
“No.” I sw
allowed. “He’s dead.”
Gunnar stared at me, wide-eyed. “Dead? Are you sure?”
I wasn’t entirely sure. I mean, I hadn’t checked for a pulse or anything. But the fact that he’d lay there for almost ten minutes now, his eyes open and fixed blankly on…well, nothing, led me to believe he was as dead as a doornail.
A shadow loomed in the open door and I whirled around.
It was Luke. He still looked a little shook up but his voice was calm as he spoke. “Did you figure out what happened?”
I shook my head. I hadn’t looked beyond Drew’s open eyes. Gunnar was on his knees, his eyes scanning the length of the body, but I knew he was like me: he didn’t want to touch anything. Not until we knew for sure what had happened.
Luke sighed. “I guess we’re going to need to find a new drummer, huh?”
I glared at him. “I think that’s the least of our concerns right now. Considering this man is dead.”
He looked properly chastised. “I just meant for Laura. She’s going to lose it when she finds out.”
This was a true statement. And for more reasons than one.
Laura had never been a fan of me moving to Latney. Not just because it took me away from Arlington—and, in so doing, from her—but also because she didn’t think the town was safe. She was constantly worried about what she called the “crime wave” my tiny town experienced. I preferred to think of the incidents in question as…unfortunate events. Misunderstandings.
When Laura found out that someone associated with her wedding had died, she was absolutely going to go ballistic. It wouldn’t matter that she didn’t know Drew. It wouldn’t matter that none of us really knew him, that he was a virtual stranger to all of us.
The only thing she would focus on was the fact that he was dead.
And she would use that as another black mark against the town I lived in.
“What do we do?” Luke asked.
I looked at Gunnar.
He was wearing a pained expression.
My heart dropped to my stomach.
Because I knew what came next. We both did.
I sighed. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
Gunnar nodded. “Afraid so.”
“What?” Luke asked, his gaze bouncing from Gunnar to me.
I sighed again, a deep, heavy sigh that probably could have blown one of Columbus’s ships across the Atlantic.
“We call Sheriff Lewis.”
TWELVE
Sheriff Lewis hadn’t said a word yet, but the look on his face told me everything I needed to know.
Gunnar and I were standing near the door to the bungalow, watching him approach.
He ambled toward us, his eyes zeroed in on me. His khaki pants hung low on his hips, his ample stomach pushing against the white-button down he was wearing. His hat was perched on his head, hiding the thick shock of white hair that lay beneath.
He stopped just a few feet from where I was standing with Gunnar and the two surviving members of Midnight Robot.
Not that Drew had ever really been an official member.
“Another dead body?” he asked gruffly as his gaze drifted to the entrance of the bungalow.
I swallowed and nodded.
Sheriff Lewis’s eyes swept over the lot of us. “Which one of you did it?” he asked, but considering his gaze kept returning to me, I knew exactly what he was thinking.
“Which one of us did what?” Luke asked. He was now fully awake, and he looked more than a little worried over how the morning was shaping up.
“Killed him,” the sheriff barked.
Thor whimpered.
“No one knows how he died,” I pointed out. “He could have had a heart attack. An allergic reaction. An aneurysm.”
Sheriff Don Lewis’s eyes narrowed. “How convenient, having all kinds of excuses at the ready.”
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes.
“Aren’t you going in?” Gunnar asked.
The sheriff hitched his thumbs in his belt loops and looked at the ground. “I’m, uh, waiting for Melvin to show up.”
I remembered his reaction to finding Miranda Fielding’s body in the trunk of Mack’s car. And how he’d surveyed Greta Hedley’s body from a safe distance, after I’d found the old woman dead and called 911.
Right on cue, an elderly man rounded the side of the main house and headed toward us, leaning heavily on the cane he was holding.
It took several minutes for Melvin Clark to make his way to the bungalow, and all of us watched his approach like a plane coming in for a landing.
He tipped his head in greeting to Sheriff Lewis, then did the same to the rest of us.
“Donny here says there’s a dead body inside?”
I nodded.
“Any idea what happened?” Melvin asked.
Protocol should have had the sheriff asking the questions, but I preferred to talk to Melvin. We weren’t friends or anything, but he also hadn’t made it a habit of accusing me of every crime or illegal activity that occurred in Latney and the surrounding area.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I was making breakfast and the boys hadn’t come up to the main house yet.”
I darted a glance at Thor. ‘Boys’ was probably not a great choice of words.
I cleared my throat. “Anyway, Luke, my son, wasn’t answering his texts so I came down here to get them up. He was asleep and…well, I thought Drew was too. But when I tried to wake him up, he didn’t move. And his eyes were wide open.”
The sheriff glared at me. “You touched him??”
“Of course not.”
“You just said you tried to wake him up.”
“With my voice.”
Sheriff Lewis just grunted.
“Well, I guess I should go on in and check things out,” Melvin said, a little uncertainly.
We all waited for him to enter the bungalow.
He adjusted the bag he was carrying, looping it over his forearm, and then hobbled toward the door, his cane supporting most of his weight.
I was pretty sure we all breathed a sigh of relief when he disappeared from view.
He was back less than a minute later. “Well, he’s dead,” he announced.
The sheriff nodded. “Just what I thought. Murder.”
I stared incredulously at him.
He shaded his eyes, even though he was still wearing his hat, and surveyed my property. “Looks like we’re going to have to cordon off the entire place. It being a crime scene and all.”
My mouth dropped open. “How on earth is my whole property a crime scene?”
He jerked a thumb toward the bungalow. “You got a dead body in there, don’t you?”
“Well, yes, but—”
“Which I need to investigate. Can’t run the risk of contaminating the crime scene. Tainting evidence.”
My head was spinning. “We have a dead body. That’s it. Nothing points to murder. Isn’t that right, Mr. Clark?”
Melvin Clark shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t really know. I just checked to see if the man had a pulse. He did not.”
I stifled a groan. I could have told him that.
“See?” the sheriff said triumphantly.
I didn’t know how to get through to him that a dead body did not immediately mean someone had been murdered. Considering he was what passed as law enforcement in my small town, this was a problem.
Again.
Gunnar spoke up. “Sheriff, I appreciate the need to preserve the scene while this is under investigation, but closing off the entire property will put us in a bit of a bind.”
The sheriff’s bushy eyebrows rose a fraction of an inch. “Oh?”
“There’s a wedding here this weekend,” he explained. “Rainy’s daughter. She has close to a hundred guests coming for the event.”
“Did you get a permit?” the sheriff asked.
“A what?”
“A permit. For that number of people.”
I frowned. “Isn’t
that just if we host it at a public space in town? Like at the lake or park?”
The sheriff at least had the decency to look confused.
“We’ll check with the city,” Gunnar assured him. “See if a permit is required. But you see, the wedding had to be moved up. The groom’s grandmother is quite sick, and her dying wish is to see her grandson get married. You wouldn’t want to deprive this woman of her last wish, would you?”
Sheriff Lewis reached for the pipe stuck in his breast pocket. He popped it in his mouth, leaving it unlit.
“You’re asking a lot,” he said finally, directing his comments to Gunnar.
He nodded. “I know. But it would mean a lot to…” Gunnar glanced at me.
“Billie,” I said.
“Billie?” Sheriff Lewis repeated. “I thought you said it was his grandma.”
“It is,” I said quickly. “I think it’s short for Wilhemina.”
The sheriff cast a dubious look in my direction. “Fine,” he finally said. “We’ll just rope off this building. No one inside from now on.”
“But my stuff is in there,” Luke said. “And Thor’s.”
Thor looked like he was about to cry.
The sheriff gave an impatient sigh. “You have five minutes to get your stuff out of there. Melvin, supervise them, would you?”
Melvin balked. “Me?”
The sheriff nodded. “I gotta make sure this one doesn’t do anything funny.” His eyes were on me.
I just stared at him in disbelief.
“Wh-what do you want me to do?” Melvin stammered.
“Make sure they don’t touch anything,” the sheriff snapped.
“Don’t they have to touch stuff?” Melvin said. “Since they’re getting their belongings?”
“Oh, you know what I mean.” The sheriff waved a hand. “ Just don’t let them touch the body or anything.”
I wasn’t a police officer or a crime scene investigator, but I knew the last thing you wanted to do was send multiple people into a room and allow them to remove items. Items that could be evidence.
But I also knew without a doubt that Drew Solomon had not been murdered.
