by Laura Childs
Is that it? Am I really okay ?
A couple of hard thwacks against the back of the building told her no.
Ducking down below window level, Suzanne let loose a low moan. Then, because she wasn’t out of danger yet, she pulled it together and screamed, “Toni! Douse the house-lights now!”
Suzanne was deeply fearful that the shooter could see inside. The windows in the Cackleberry Club were large, allowing maximum light and visibility, especially in the kitchen. Usually, that was a good thing.
But Toni, smart cookie that she was, did exactly as she was instructed. The terror in Suzanne’s voice must have answered any questions about the seriousness of her request.
Another thwack sounded against the side of the building. Then another.
Suzanne didn’t know if the shooter was coming after her now or was just trying to scare her to death. But if he had intimidation on his mind, it surely was working!
The door from the cafe flew open and Toni flew in, crying, “If that no-good Junior is out...”
“Get down! Get down!” Suzanne screamed again, gesturing frantically.
There was another thunk against the back of the building and Toni slid into the kitchen like a major leaguer sliding into home plate.
“It’s not Junior,” Suzanne whispered, as Toni crawled closer to her. “Chuck Peebler’s been shot!”
“What?” Toni’s eyes were big as saucers. “When?”
“Ten seconds ago. He’s lying outside in the dirt. Dead, I think.”
Still Toni was confused. “But who? How?”
“An arrow through his ...” Suzanne stopped, hiccupped, couldn’t seem to go on. What she’d just witnessed was too terrible for words. In fact, she wanted to believe it was a nightmare and that she’d wake up soon. But the voices in her head screamed, This is reality, baby, and you’re in deep doo-doo. Better do something!
Toni scuttled closer to Suzanne and Baxter. “What are we gonna do?”
“Do you have your cell phone?” Suzanne asked.
Toni patted her apron pocket then shook her head. “I think... in the Book Nook? Want me to, um, make a run for it?”
“No, no, sit tight,” said Suzanne. She glanced up, saw the wall phone illuminated by a sliver of light that shone in from the yard light, decided she’d have to make do. Her head whipped back and forth, then she spotted what she was looking for. “I’ve got another idea,” she told Toni.
“Yeah?” Toni didn’t sound all that convinced.
Slowly, quietly, Suzanne began to ease her way toward the far corner, crawling on her stomach the way she’d seen guys in war movies move toward enemy lines.
Baxter whimpered, then let loose a couple of sharp yips, as if warning her to remain still.
“Baxter, be quiet!” Suzanne hissed, pulling herself forward with her elbows. “You’re not making this easy.”
“You sure you know what you’re doing?” Toni muttered, slipping her arms around Baxter’s neck to comfort him.
But Suzanne had already swiped a hand out and grabbed the broom in the corner.
“Ah,” Toni murmured, as Suzanne scurried back on her knees, dragging the broom. “Smart girl.”
Using the handle, Suzanne knocked the receiver off the hook. It banged and bounced on the floor, dancing on the old kinked up cord, and causing everyone’s heart to skip a beat. Holding their breath, they listened for footsteps, or heaven forbid, more thunks, but heard nothing. Carefully, gently, Suzanne snagged the receiver and pulled it toward them. Success!
From there it took only a few moments to press 911 with the end of the broom handle and get a dispatcher on the line.
“This is nine-one-one,” came the dispatcher’s voice in Suzanne’s ear. A woman’s voice, calm, but sounding very professional. “What’s the nature of your emergency?”
“A man’s been killed,” said Suzanne, her words tumbling out. “At least I think he’s dead. And somebody’s still out there shooting at us!”
“The three of us,” Toni added.
“You’re being shot at with a gun?” came the swift reply.
“No, an arrow,” said Suzanne. “Several arrows. Multiple arrows.”
“Please confirm your location,” said the dispatcher.
“The Cackleberry Club,” said Suzanne. “Out on Highway 65.”
There was only the briefest pause, and then the dispatcher responded, “Stay on the line with me. Do not hang up. Help is on the way!”
Minutes later, Sheriff Roy Doogie and his deputy Wilbur Halpern arrived in a blaze of flashing lights and loudly wonking sirens. Suzanne and Toni peeped their heads up gingerly and peered out the back window. Baxter, smart guy that he was, stayed curled up on the kitchen floor.
A knock rattled the back door and then a deep baritone voice asked, “Suzanne? Are you okay?”
Through the window, Suzanne could see a flashlight beam dance across the backyard. She made a motion to stand up, but Toni yanked her back down.
“How do you know it’s really Doogie?” Toni asked, her voice trembling. “It could be someone pretending to be the sheriff.”
Suzanne looked askance. “I don’t think the killer would come back with lights and sirens and official-looking ears.”
“You never know,” said Toni, scuttling across the floor. “You ever see those deer-hunting rigs guys put on their pickup trucks? Lights and racks and all those crazy doodads?”
But Suzanne was already sliding the bolt then she cracked open the door and whispered, “Doogie?”
“Holy bull dingers!” came an exasperated burst of static. “What kind of mess did you get yourself in now!”
“It’s Doogie, all right,” said Suzanne, yanking open the back door. She’d recognize that ornery temper anywhere.
Sheriff Roy Doogie, in all his khaki bulk and duly sworn glory, stood on the back stoop, glaring in. His jowls shook above his fleshy, pink neck. His service revolver was drawn and clutched in his right hand. “What the Sam Hill’s going on?”
“That’s what’s going on,” said Suzanne, pointing at the dark, crumpled heap across the yard that was... that had been... Chuck Peebler. “Chuck Peebler’s been shot dead!” As if to punctuate her sentence, Deputy Wilbur Halpern’s bouncing flashlight happened to land on Peebler’s still form at the exact same moment.
“Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat!” Doogie exclaimed. He thundered down the back steps and strode heavily toward Peebler, then dropped down onto one knee. “Keep that light shined right here, Wilbur,” he instructed his deputy.
The deputy complied and Sheriff Doogie sat back on his heels as he checked Peebler’s respiration, then carefully studied the man’s face. A shiny, metal shank with black and orange flanges stuck out from Peebler’s forehead. His blue eyes were stuck wide open as if he was riding the down side of a steep roller coaster; his mouth was open in surprise. The only detectable movement was the small amount of bright red blood that continued to trickle down the side of Peebler’s face, like a slowly dripping faucet.
When Doogie loosened Peebler’s collar and placed two fingers against his neck, Suzanne forced herself to stifle nervous laughter. Even she could tell the poor man was dead as a doornail. Then Doogie turned back to look at her and said, as if surprised, “You’re right, he’s dead.”
Suzanne crept down the back steps, Toni following in her wake, drawn by the macabre scene of a dead body sprawled on their back lawn. Baxter remained inside the Cackleberry Club, peeping through the screen door, keeping his distance.
“The arrow killed him, I guess,” said Toni.
Doogie sighed, then pulled himself up, no easy task for a man who far preferred glazed doughnuts to steamed vegetables. He brushed dirt and leaves from his khaki-covered knees and asked, “What happened?”
As if in answer, the bray of another siren suddenly filled the air. Now the ambulance was heading their way.
“It was horrible!” Suzanne told him, her words tumbling out. “There was this weird twangy sound and whe
n I turned to look at Peebler, he had this metal thing protruding from between his eyes.” She touched an index finger between her own eyes and shivered. “The end of the arrow, I guess.”
Doogie cast another glance at Peebler, as if to confirm Suzanne’s story. “Shot clean through,” he muttered. “Like his head was a ripe melon.” He winced slightly. “Let’s hope Peebler didn’t feel too much pain.”
Suzanne shivered, knowing she would have felt extreme pain if her melon had been so rudely lobotomized. She was pretty sure she would have even experienced a shred of cognition mixed with horror as she faltered and buckled like Peebler had, just like a cheap card table.
“But who would do this?” Toni sputtered.
Young and eager to help, Deputy Halpern stepped forward to answer. “Could have been an accident. Maybe a hunter. It’s deer season, you know.”
‘Too early for that,” said Suzanne.
Halpern shook his head. “No, ma’am. Bow hunting runs from mid-September till end of December.”
“So maybe an accident after all,” Doogie offered, shrugging.
Suzanne was quick to interject. “Sheriff, no way was this an accident.”
“You don’t know that, Suzanne,” said Doogie.
“Shine your light near the back door,” said Suzanne. “Check the wall.”
Deputy Halpern shone his light on the back wall of the Cackleberry Club, then ran it slowly across the whitewashed boards.
“Well, I’ll be,” Doogie responded as the beam danced against the wall, revealing two visible arrows stuck into the weathered wood. Three other arrows lay on the ground.
Wilbum Halpern bobbled the light as he rushed toward the back wall, tripping over his own feet at the last minute.
“Wilbur, you be careful!” Doogie yelled. “And for gosh sakes don’t touch anything. This is all crime scene evidence. We gotta bag it and tag it.”
“Sure thing, Sheriff,” said Halpern.
Doogie turned toward Suzanne and sucked air through his front teeth. “Someone after you, Suzanne? Something you’re not telling me?”
“No, no,” Suzanne answered softly. “I think the shooter was aiming for Peebler. I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“But it’s not the wrong place,” said Toni, looking all discombobulated and wild-eyed. “It’s the Cackleberry Club. It’s the right place, because it’s your place.”
“Toni does have a point,” Doogie muttered, gazing at Suzanne with the hooded eyes of a slumbering rattlesnake. Doogie only looked a little slow moving. In reality, he was dogged, surprisingly analytical, and sharp as a tack.
“I really don’t have any enemies, Sheriff,” Suzanne insisted.
Doogie eyed her. “You mean as far as you know.”
Suzanne shook her head as if to dismiss Doogie’s words. “I’m pretty sure the shooter was aiming at Chuck Peebler. I’d lay money on it.”
“Huh,” muttered Doogie.
“Maybe something to do with the election?” Toni asked, her voice rising in a squawk.
“It is awfully strange,” Suzanne agreed, “seeing as how the election is just two weeks away.”
Toni edged forward to stare at Peebler. “Kind of looks like our incumbent Mayor Mobley doesn’t have much to worry about now. I mean as far as opposing candidates go.”
Doogie rocked back on his heels, looking thoughtful. “And here I was kind of hoping the town would get a chance to boot Mobley out of office.”
Suzanne glanced sharply at Doogie. In the hotly contested mayoral race, the now-deceased Chuck Peebler had been the odds-on favorite to edge out the incumbent Mayor Mobley. Peebler had been perceived as, pardon the expression, the straight arrow of the two. Mobley was widely recognized as a greasy-palmed deal maker.
They all turned as the ambulance screeched around the building and bumped to a halt two paramedics jumped out from either side, men ran around to the back and pulled out a gurney. It clanked across the hardpan, white sheets fluttering.
“Don’t hurry on this fellow’s count” Doogie told them.
“He’s a goner. I’m guessing he was dead the minute that arrow split his frontal cortex.”
“Now you’re a coroner,” Suzanne muttered.
“Seen enough of death,” Doogie muttered back.
“You want us to shoot a couple of pictures for you, Sheriff?” asked one of the paramedics. “We’ve got a camera in back.”
“That’d be real helpful,” said Doogie. “Then bag his hands and zip him into a body bag will you?”
“Sure thing, Sheriff,” replied the paramedic.
“Wilbur,” said Doogie, “you go into the woods back there and see what you can find. Try to rustle up some sort of evidence.”
Deputy Halpern nodded tersely, as if he’d just been tasked with storming an enemy bunker at Anzio. “Sure thing, Sheriff.” He ran toward the wooded area, managing to trip only once on a tree root.
The woods and fields directly behind the Cackleberry Club were also owned by Suzanne. The fertile acreage had been purchased as an investment by her late husband Walter. The land and farmhouse were now rented out to a farmer named Ducovny, who grew record-breaking amounts of soybeans and unbelievably tall stalks of corn in the nutrient-rich black soil. Ducovny also kept Suzanne’s horse Mocha Gent and a mule named Grommet, in the fading red, hip-roofed barn that sat on the property.
“Why the heck was Peebler here in the first place?” Doogie asked, gazing at the dead man as the paramedics worked on him. “Don’t tell me you guys are open for supper now?” Doogie looked mildly interested. Like maybe Suzanne and Toni might offer him a tasty plate of meatloaf or pork chops.
“For read dating,” Suzanne explained.
Doogie screwed up his doughy face and let loose a dubious, “Hah?”
“It’s like speed dating,” Suzanne explained, “except you judge your compatibility with someone based on the kind of books you both like to read.”
“For Doogie that would have to be comic books,” said Toni, giving Suzanne a nudge and emitting a high-pitched, nervous laugh.
Doogie chose to ignore Toni’s comments. “Anything unusual go on here tonight?”
That put a damper on Toni’s mirth. Her eyes slid over to Suzanne and they exchanged meaningful glances.
Their exchange didn’t go unnoticed by Doogie. He stuck out a big paw, waggled his fingers, and said, “Come on, what gives?”
“Nothing, really,” Suzanne told him, her mind suddenly searching for the right words. She knew whatever she said could easily be misconstrued. “There was just a teeny little altercation between Chuck Peebler and Jane Buckley.”
“Buckley,” said Doogie, thinking. “She’s that librarian at the art museum, right? At Darlington College?”
“Actually, she’s the registrar,” said Suzanne.
“Regis-what?” Doogie asked, confused.
Suzanne realized museums were not Doogie’s natural haunts. But she knew this wasn’t the time for a remedial lesson on the finer points of academia.
“You’re right,” said Suzanne. “Jane’s the librarian.”
“So what were she and Peebler arguing about?” asked Doogie.
“Probably an altercation over a book,” interjected Toni.
Doogie cocked a wary eye at her. “Were you there? Did you hear them?”
“No,” Toni said in a small voice.
“Then butt out,” said Doogie. He turned toward Suzanne and shifted his attitude into super-cop. “Spill it, Suzanne. What did they say to each other?”
“I didn’t hear the whole argument,” said Suzanne. “I just know there was a heated exchange and then Jane told Peebler he was insane.”
“And then he called her a crazy lady,” said Toni. “And I think everybody pretty much heard that”
“Got a list of names?” Doogie asked. “Of your read-dating guests?” He said the words read dating like he was referring to cow poop.
“You can have a list, yes,” said
Suzanne.
“What else went on?” asked Doogie. He’d pulled a spiral notebook from his pocket and was scratching notes in it now. “What else were they scrabbling about?”
“Not sure,” said Suzanne. But she sure had an itch to find out.
An earsplitting crack caused them all to spin around as Wilbur Halpern, deputy extraordinaire, stumbled out from the dark and flipped, headfirst, over a waist-high wild blackberry bush.
“Ouch,” said Toni, as the deputy sprawled on the ground.
“You okay?” asked Suzanne. It seemed like Wilbur had taken an awful tumble.
Wilbur gave a feeble wave as he staggered to his feet. “I’m good.”
“Find anything?” Doogie hollered.
“Not a doggone thing,” Wilbur yelled back as he brushed leaves off his khaki trousers and carefully plucked thorns from his shirt. Suzanne noted that a few leaves were still stuck in his curly brown hair.
“Boy couldn’t find his butt crack at high noon in the hall of mirrors,” Doogie muttered under his breath.
“It is awfully dark,” allowed Suzanne. Honestly, Doogie could be an awful sourpuss. And was this situation not totally weird? Standing in the backyard of the Cackleberry Club, a dead body sprawled on the ground, Doogie grousing, his deputy rustling around in the dark.
“I’ll have to come back here in the morning and take a closer look.” Doogie sighed. “Wilbur, grab the yellow tape out of the vehicle, will you?” As was typical of law enforcement, Doogie pronounced it “ve-hi-cle,” hitting hard on three distinct syllables.
Suzanne grimaced. Nothing would scare away paying customers faster than fluttering yellow tape with the words Crime Scene—Do Not Enter.
“Sheriff, you’re not really going to hang that awful black-and-yellow tape on our cafe are you? Our customers will freak...”
“Just the backyard,” said Doogie. “So you better make sure all employees enter through the front door until I clear them.”
