by Emmy Grace
“Can you tell who it is, Clive?” Stranger Liam asks.
“He doesn’t look quite right, but I’d say maybe Martin Vickerman. The ring he’s wearing looks right, too. Martin’s an Auburn alumnus. Only one around here that I know of.”
“Martin Vickerman?”
Clive turns to face Liam. “Yeah. You know him?”
The man, Liam, pauses. “Nope. Never heard of him.”
His hesitation is only a fraction of a second, but it’s there. And the wheels of my mind start turning immediately.
“He’s a big developer. Thought you might’ve heard of him.”
Liam shakes his head.
“Looks like I’m gonna have some investigatin’ to do.” Clive doesn’t particularly look up to the challenge. “Like I said, I’ll give the ME a call. Lucky, you mind swinging by the station sometime tomorrow and giving your official statement?” The road map of leathery wrinkles on his face rearranges into a sheepish grin as he pats the breast pockets of his shirt. “Seems I didn’t bring anything to take it down on.”
“Sure, Chief Sheriff. I’d be happy to.” Whether he’s passed his expiration date on competency or not, it’s impossible not to like Clive Sally.
“You’re a doll.” He gives my cheek a friendly cup. “You remind me of my daughter.”
“Really? What’s her name?”
“Talulah, but we called her Tally.”
Tally Sally? I feel sorry for her already.
But wait...
“Called?” Past tense.
His nod is somber. “She passed many years ago, God rest her soul.”
“Oh. I-I'm so sorry to hear that.”
“She’s in a better place now.”
“California?” Petey asks.
I hear Liam mutter, “Idiot” under his breath.
“She’s in heaven, and that’s the right place for her.” Clive’s expression says he made peace with this a long time ago. Probably the year 20.
B.C.
He drops his hand. “All right, kids, you two skedaddle. Liam, son, we’ll get this cleaned up by morning. Don’t you worry.”
“Fine.” He nods and turns to go.
Petey calls out after him, “See ya, Little Willie.” He sniggers under his breath, and Liam’s head snaps to the left. Even in the semi-dark, I can see his deep scowl. And, unless my ears are playing tricks on me, he lets out a low growl. It gets my attention, but Petey seems positively oblivious. Part of me wants to yell at him. Run, Petey, run! But the other part of me wants to smack him for poking an obviously disgruntled bear. I don’t get the whole Little Willie thing, but it must be a thorn in Liam’s paw.
I start off after Liam, leaving plenty of space between us as I trail him. It’s as I’m walking, I realize I have nothing to walk toward.
I turn back. “Um, Chief Sheriff, that vehicle that you sent away, did they happen to say why they were here?”
“I didn’t give him time to say. Some yahoo gawking at a crime scene. Don’t got a lick of sense, these young’uns. Don’t even know how they find out about these things so fast. Beats all I ever saw. Don’t know who he was, though. I just sent him away.”
“Actually, that was probably my ride.”
Clive just stares blankly for a second. “Huh. You don’t say.”
“You know what? I’ll just call Regina. I bet she’ll run out and get me.”
“I can take you,” Petey offers.
Sweet, Mary, no!
Just as my skin starts to crawl, Clive chimes in, “I’ll need you here, Petey. Say, Liam, would you mind giving this young lady a ride back to town?”
I’m glad it’s dark, because my cheeks are stinging. I’d almost rather endure a ride with Ginger Creep.
Almost.
I rush to intervene. “There’s no need for anybody to be put out. I can call Regina. I feel sure—”
Up ahead, Liam has stopped. “No, it’s fine,” he relents, albeit grudgingly. “I’ll take you. Come on. My truck’s in front of the barn.” He stays put long enough for me to catch up to him, and then he starts walking again. I feel like a kindergartner following a teacher to the principal’s office. And believe you me, I got that walk of shame a lot. I gave new meaning to the term “troubled child”.
He walks past Petey’s truck and rounds the corner. Another vehicle sits a few feet away.
Even if he didn’t indicate that this truck was his, I’d have known. The big, black, hulking monstrosity suits him to a tee. It’s darkly forbidding, very standoffish, and slightly terrifying. But unlike its owner, I’m not intrigued by it at all.
When Liam stops and turns toward me, he stares for a few seconds before bluntly asking, “What’s on your head?”
“Huh?” I’m confused for about fifteen seconds. Then I realize I’m still wearing the night vision goggles. I pull them off. “Oh. Just a product I was testing tonight.”
Liam opens the passenger door. The truck is so tall, the seat looks like it’s a hundred feet away. I have no idea how I’m supposed to even get up in the thing.
I’ve never been one to back down from a challenge, though, so I thrust my goggles at Liam. “Here, hold these.”
I rub my hands together and step into the opening. With my tongue peeking out at the corner of my mouth (that always helps me to concentrate), I put one foot on the running board and angle my body just right. I give a one-two heave and sort of jump at the cushion, aiming for it with my left butt cheek. Despite how substantial that cheek is, I miss the mark and slide right off. So I try again. And I miss again. Thinking third time’s the charm, I give it one more go. And I miss. Again.
I glare up at the seat. Time to change tactics.
I decide to stand on the running board and leap toward the seat, belly first. Like launching myself at a mechanical bull. A motionless one. It might’ve worked, too, but my foot slips and I lose some of my momentum, which plants me, face-first, in the soft leather upholstery.
“You know, you could’ve just asked for my help,” comes the droll voice from behind me.
“Nope. No need. I’ve got it now,” I mumble as I peel the skin of my face from the seat. Next, I start kicking my arms and legs like I’m swimming, trying to make my way up into a sitting position. By the time I’m finally sitting like an adult in the passenger seat, I'm feeling every bit as abused by this stupid truck as I was by the parachute. No amount of good luck can overcome my klutzy tendencies and penchant for trouble. It just so happens that neither of those things has ever gotten me killed.
I arrange myself all prim and proper in the cab of the truck, smiling and staring straight ahead rather than making eye contact. I’m too humiliated. I don’t initiate conversation either once Liam gets behind the wheel. Not until it’s been quiet long enough for my brain to start going back over the scene we’re leaving behind.
“So, you said you don’t know the victim?”
“I don’t know Martin Vickerman. We don’t know for sure yet who the victim is.”
“Oh, right right.” I nod slowly, digesting the bits and pieces of information he isn’t intending to throw me. Liam The Surly is hiding something. I can feel it like static electricity, tugging at the ends of my bobbed hair. “Because that would be terrible for, like, an enemy to end up dead on your property. And you with no alibi.”
“Who says I don’t have an alibi?”
I turn to face him, eyes as wide and innocent as I can make them. “So, you do have one?”
“Of course, I do. I didn’t have anything to do with this.” His tone is defensive, which brings me a touch of satisfaction. Maybe an ounce, if I could measure it. Like a shot.
We fall silent again, but I can’t hush the voices in my head.
“Petey sure did get to the scene awful fast, didn’t he?”
“Petey?” Liam frowns over at me. “Are you always this suspicious of people?”
“I’m not suspicious of people. I just like working puzzles and figuring things out.” I leave out th
e part about how I especially like to figure out things involving peoples’ deaths.
“What about you?”
“What about me?”
“That note. ‘Let’s see how lucky you are now’. That’s a peculiar phrase to find on the body of someone who has been murdered, don’t you think?”
“Of course, but—”
“And it’s quite a coincidence that the murderer would use a word like ‘lucky’ when the person who says she was almost killed by said body just happens to be named Lucky.”
That gets my hackles up.
I turn my upper body in the seat so I can glare at him properly with all the righteous indignation I’m feeling at the moment. “Just what are you getting at?”
“Doesn’t feel so good, does it? Having fingers pointed at you?”
“But I’m innocent. I don’t care who points what finger at me. I’ve got nothing to hide.”
“Okay, maybe you didn’t do it, but what if this was a message for you? What if this whole thing was about you? Did you ever think of that?”
I did. The use of the word “lucky,” the timing, the method. It’s very coincidental if it wasn’t intentional.
But what if it was? What if it was all intentional? What purpose would it serve? Is someone trying to frame me? Scare me? Warn me?
One last thought drops into my mind like a lead ball.
Sweet Mary, what if I was the target?
What if someone was trying to kill me?
4
You know how your brain is all scattered and easily startled when you’re overtired? Like, you know good and well that overreaction is going to be the theme of the day? Well, that’s how I wake—with a start, to a room filled with bright morning light, panicking.
“The pig! I left the pig!” I throw back the covers.
Those scared eyes, that tiny tail, those sweet oinks as he nudged around my legs last night—he was trying to tell me he needs rescuing before he ends up in gumbo.
Frantic, I jump out of bed, which scares the living daylights out of my white and brown French bulldog. Mr. Jingles was asleep next to me. “Was” being the operative word. Any time he gets scared or startled, he comes out swinging. Or, in Jingles’ case, snarling. Even though it’s innocent, it doesn’t sound that way. It’s a terribly vicious noise, one that always spooks the cat, which then starts a cascade of consequences.
None of it surprises me. It’s all par for the course around here with my traveling circus.
When Mr. Jingles snarls, it startles poor Lucy-Fur, my grouchy black cat. She jumps on the cage of Gator, my hamster, which scares him into his squeaky wheel where he starts running for dear life. The squeaking freaks out my parrot, Squishy, who starts squawking utter nonsense at the top of his little bird lungs.
“Brown rice! Brown rice! Brown rice!” is his phrase of choice today, one that he calls loudly and spastically from his narrow wooden perch.
When he hollers, Mr. Jingles barks again, and the whole thing starts over. I learned a while back that the only way to stop it is to remove the cat. So that’s what I do.
Lucy-Fur squirms in my arms, but I hold her tight. I think she likes being the instigator. She wants to get back in there, stir the pot a little more. Beebee always called her the devil cat, and Lucy-Fur more than earned her name. Most days, she still does.
My phone rings just as things start to settle down in the bedroom. I swipe to answer, tucking it between my ear and shoulder as I open the front door to give Lucy-Fur a timeout. I don’t even check the caller ID.
“Hello?”
“You forgot to Skype your grandmother. We’ve been worried.”
“Sorry,” I tell Momma Leona, cringing. “It was a weird night. I didn’t get back home until late.”
“Were you working?”
“Yeah.”
“What were you testing this time?”
Momma and Beebee worry when they hear about me testing something that could be dangerous. I think eyewear that is intended to be worn whilst jumping from an airplane definitely qualifies.
“Some glasses.”
“At night?”
“Yep. That’s their whole purpose. So that you can see well at night.”
“Did they work?”
“As a matter of fact, they did.”
“Well, you’ll have to give me the details on them. Maybe they’d help Beebee when she drives at night.”
“Momma, do you really think that’s a good idea? Letting Beebee drive after dark?”
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
“Uh, because she’s a menace. You know how she drives. Her motto is ‘I brake for no one’, and that’s during the day. Can you imagine how dangerous she’d be if she started driving at night again?”
“Oh, now you’re exaggerating.”
“Need I remind you of the Boulineaux incident of 2015?”
I hear Momma suck in her breath. Yes, she’d forgotten all about that near-disastrous road trip to New Orleans with Beebee at the wheel.
“You know what? You might be right.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“We’ll just keep this between us.”
“I think that’s wise.”
“Did you get that recipe I sent?”
Momma Leona is a great cook, and she loves doing it. Even though she isn’t my biological mother, I still believe that’s where I got my love of cooking. The prowess part, however… well, that might be a little lacking when it comes to my skill.
“I did! It looks delicious. Maybe I’ll ask Regina to come over for dinner tonight. Try it out on her.”
She goes on to tell me some tweaks she made, and then she launches into gossip about all the people I know—and miss pretty much every day—from Gator Cove. I don’t tell her that hearing it all makes it harder on me since I had to leave. She loves keeping me up to date on things, and so I let her. Whether it hurts me or not.
A knock sounds at the door, and I peek through the slats of the mini blinds behind the couch to see who it is. It’s Regina. As always, she’s dressed to the nines, this time in a pale pink blazer and skirt, with heels to match. The color sets off her caramel skin and ebony hair.
I watch her check her teeth in the glass of the storm door, scrubbing off some imaginary lipstick from one canine.
She’s a successful woman, no doubt, but no matter how she dresses or how she talks or how many rungs of the ladder she climbs, she will never be able to escape her Cajun roots.
“I gotta go, Momma. Regina’s here.”
“Let me know how the recipe turns out.”
“Will do.”
“Love you, hon,” she says, and from somewhere in the distance I hear Beebee chime in, “All my love, chère.”
I’m just hanging up as I open the glass storm door for Regina. She takes one step and almost trips when Lucy-Fur darts between her feet and skitters inside with a growl.
“What the—?” she exclaims. “Crazy cat.”
“She had to have a timeout.”
“Stirring up trouble?”
“Isn’t she always?”
“I don’t know how you tolerate all these animals. Bunch of heathens.”
“Shhhh,” I caution her with a finger to my lips. “They might hear you.”
Regina cocks her head to one side, derision written all over her face with an extra fat Sharpie. “They’re not smart enough to understand me, I don’t care what you say. You’re just as crazy as they are.”
“I’ve never said they could understand the actual words, but they know your tone. You’re being ugly.”
“I’m being honest.”
I sigh. “I don’t know why we all just can’t get along.”
“Uh, because they’re animals.”
“They’re not just animals. They’re family. Like you are.”
“You’re lumping me in with the critters now?”
I smile broadly at her. “I’m lumping you in with things I love most in the world.”
“You’re infuriating, you know that?”
“And awesome.” I give her a sassy flip of my hair.
“And awesome,” she relents with a roll of her eyes.
Regina makes a beeline for the couch and sits. She tosses her purse down onto the coffee table, curls her legs up under her, and turns her wide chocolate eyes on me. “Well? Pictures?”
It takes me a second to catch up to her meaning. My brain isn’t functioning at full capacity yet.
“Oh, right. Sorry.” I shake my head. “I haven’t even had coffee yet.”
“How are you even upright?”
“The circus woke me.”
“See? Crazy. All of ’em.”
“Actually, it was sort of my fault. I woke up hollering about the pig.”
“You got a pig?” Regina leans forward, her eyes growing comically round.
“No, I didn’t get a pig.” I don’t add the not yet that trails through my mind. “It’s a long story.”
“Oh. So, pictures?”
“I didn’t get any.”
“Ah. Decided I was right, huh?”
“No, it just…didn’t seem like the decent thing to do when I got down to it.”
“Smart girl. Did you find out who it was or what happened before you left?”
“Clive thought he recognized the guy’s college ring. He thinks the victim might be someone named Martin Vickerman.”
“Vickerman the victim. Vick the vic,” Regina snorts. “Say that ten times fast.”
“Now who’s being disrespectful?”
“Right. Sorry,” she says sheepishly. “Continue.”
I explain all that I found out, what little that was.
“Do you have any theories?” she asks.
“Nope.” I play innocent.
“Yeah, right. Says the girl who spent Saturday nights when we were kids trying to solve Matlock murders.”
“That was a good use of my brain.”
“You were eleven!” I shrug. I can’t really argue the facts. “So, tell me, who do you like for this one?”
“Clive hasn’t positively identified the body, so I really don’t have much to go on yet.”
“Annabelle Boucher, don’t you fib to me. You already have fourteen suspects picked out. I know you too well.”
