“Reins doesn’t think I’m innocent! He’ll be calling me any day now wanting to talk about where I was when Jenn Berg was murdered and what I knew about her and Ben. Now I find out she was pregnant! How is anyone going to believe I didn’t know about that and want her dead for sleeping with my husband, which he says didn’t happen and the baby isn’t his and—” I started panting. My head spun. Spots flashed in front of my eyes. “I need to sit down.”
I lowered myself to the kitchen floor and sat right where I’d been standing.
“Cameron!” Andy rushed around the end of the breakfast bar, grabbed a glass out of the cupboard, and filled it with water. “Drink this.”
I gulped down the water and a second glass he handed me. “Thanks. Sorry I freaked. It’s just that everything in my life is spinning out of control. I don’t know how to stop it. If I think about it too much, I can’t take it.”
Andy plopped down beside me and ran a hand through his auburn waves. “I guess I can understand you wanting to take control. Just promise me you won’t get yourself killed—or bring home any more dogs.”
“I don’t know. They’re starting to grow on me.”
We both glanced over into the corner beside the fridge, where Isobel had one eye open glaring at us and a snarl on her lips. “Maybe not her,” I said. “But we agree to have a limited relationship based on necessity. I feed her, let her out, and leave her alone.”
Andy leaned his head back against the cupboard, laughing. “You take in all us strays. So, how are you going to get that ragtag group of yours to solve a murder case, Velma?”
“First, we’re going to talk to Melody. After that, I have no idea. I’m hoping we’ll get more leads if Melody doesn’t go anywhere.”
“I’ll keep my ears open. I think Melody works at that clothing store across from the movie theater off 52 in Brookville.” He stood up and reached down for my hand to help me off the floor. “You should wrap that knee.”
I bent and straightened it a few times, loosening it up. “It’ll be better when it rains.”
After much back and forth and debate at the church, five of us packed into my Subaru and headed to Brookville to find Melody Winkler. Logan stayed behind to man the phones.
“You stink like booze, Roy,” Johnna said, reaching across Nick in the backseat to poke Roy with her knitting needle.
“Don’t you jab me with that thing, woman. I told Cameron Cripps-Hayman to drop me off at the Cornerstone. I could do a lot more digging up dirt in there, but would she? No.”
“You can’t get community service hours sitting in a bar,” I said for the hundredth time.
“Who has to know?” He slipped his flask out of his pocket and took a swig.
“That stays in the car.”
He stuck his tongue out at me in the rearview mirror.
Logan’s hives had gone down and were no more than pink splotches. Anna said she’d talked to him for two hours last night and they came up with the idea of posting signs with our phone bank’s number on it for people to call in and leave anonymous tips. They hung four posters around town this morning. It was a fantastic idea, one I should’ve thought of immediately, and it gave Logan a way to help without having to call strangers and ask questions. Or hunt down suspects with the rest of us. I told him if Sheriff Reins or Officer Hayman called in, he should pretend he didn’t speak English. He said, “Sí.”
“Have you ever been to this clothing store?” Anna asked me. Sometimes she could be a little over prepared.
“No. We’re just going with the flow today. We’ll talk to Melody and figure out our next move from there.” I could tell my answer didn’t make Anna happy by the way her forehead crinkled between her brows.
Five minutes later, I pulled into the strip mall across from the movie theater. I felt like we should all put our hands in a pile and chant, Go Action Agency! But I kept that notion to myself, and we piled out of the car into the parking lot.
The five of us looked up and down the row of shops. There was a beauty salon, a tanning salon, and a nail salon. A Chinese restaurant, a drug store, and a dog groomer. I made a mental note to remember the dog groomer. On the end was our store. Stature. It sounded trendy. I almost suggested that Johnna and Roy go to the drugstore to purchase more cortisone for Logan, but Johnna might end up in the back of a police car if we separated, and Roy might end up wherever they served alcohol.
“Let’s go in,” I said, leading my crew to the sidewalk.
A bell on the door tinkled when we entered. The shop was well organized and pop music played on the speakers overhead. “These are kids’ clothes,” Roy said, holding up a sports jacket.
“I’ve never seen a little girl with breasts that would fill this out.” Johnna poked her knitting needle at the gaping chest of a cocktail dress.
“Can I help you?” a woman said from somewhere in the clothing racks.
Behind me, Nick started laughing under his breath.
“Cameron?” Anna said, trying to get my attention, but I was busy looking for the woman who offered to help us.
“I’m looking for a dress,” I called.
“Who is the dress for?” she asked.
“Me.”
She appeared around a rounder of mens shirts, and I blinked double time. The sales woman was a little person. Her head barely reached the rack where the hangers hung. Looking around, it came together quickly. Stature was a store for little people. People with dwarfism.
She took in the five of us, and I’ve never in my life seen a person so confused.
“Okay,” I said. “We’re really here to see Melody Winkler. Is she here?”
The woman clasped her hands and shot me with a stern look. “No. Melody runs our online retail. She doesn’t work in the store.”
“We’ll give her a call then. Thanks for your help.” I turned and bolted for the door, motioning for the others to follow.
I was barely through the door when I heard the sales lady say, “Ma’am, you have to pay for that!”
“Johnna!” I shouted, pivoting back around. “Put it back.”
Busted, Johnna took a sparkly pink headband out of her knitting bag and hung it back up. “Don’t look at me like that!” she said. “I thought it’d look nice on Jenn Berg. For the calling hours. I wasn’t going to buy something that’ll end up in the ground.”
“Just come on.” I hightailed it down the sidewalk. “Where’s Roy?”
“He said he wanted an egg roll,” Nick said.
This expedition had turned into a disaster, but now that I thought about it, an egg roll sounded really good. “I think I’ll have one too. Anyone else?”
The five of us adjourned to Wok and Roll for an early lunch and regrouping session. “What’s in these anyway?” Roy asked, examining the meat inside his dumpling. “It looks suspect.”
“Wash it down with your moonshine, and you’ll be fine,” Johnna said, sipping her green tea.
“I’m going to check in with Logan.” Anna pulled out her cell phone and retreated to the other side of the restaurant.
“I’m going out to smoke,” Nick said, excusing himself from the table.
“That one’s probably wondering how he got tangled up in this mess,” Johnna said, lifting her chin toward Nick. “Train drops him off in the morning and next thing he knows, he’s hunting down murderers.”
“Murderer. Only one in our town,” Roy said around a wad of dumpling. “Ain’t that right, Cameron Cripps-Hayman?”
“That’s right, Roy.”
“Ha! You know there wasn’t no accomplice, do ya? How would you know that?” he asked, pointing a dirty finger at me.
“Knock it off, Roy.” Johnna kicked him under the table, making him jump. He groaned and rubbed his knee but kept his trap shut.
I couldn’t figure out where Johnna’s head was. Did
she think I had something to do with Jenn Berg’s death or not? She only seemed to be concerned with funeral plans. Of course, in a town of less than two hundred, a funeral was a big deal. And Johnna liked to have her nose in a little bit of everything. If she didn’t, she might miss out on getting her sticky fingers on something good. Dollars to donuts, she’d walk away from Jenn Berg’s calling hours with “souvenirs” to sell in her shop.
Anna came back to the table pale as a ghost.
“Did Logan have news?” I asked.
Her eyes skittered around the restaurant before landing on Nick outside the glass front door. “No,” she said, but her voice wavered and she wouldn’t look at me. She had news, all right, but didn’t want to say what she’d learned from Logan in front of Roy and Johnna. Or maybe it was me she didn’t want to tell.
“I’m gonna go bum a cigarette off Nick,” Roy said.
“Well, I’ll visit the ladies’ room before we leave.” Johnna gulped down the last of her tea. Before she got up, she slipped the salt and pepper shakers into her knitting bag.
I waited until she was far away enough from the table not to overhear. “What did Logan say, Anna?”
Anna slumped down in the chair across from me. “I don’t believe it,” she said. “At least, I don’t want to believe it.”
“What?” I was one second from shaking it out of her.
“Logan said a woman called the tip line. She saw Jenn Berg arguing with a man outside of the Soda Pop Shop the day before you found her.”
Oh no. Please, not Ben.
“The caller said they were yelling at each other about money, and when Jenn tried to walk away, the guy grabbed her arm and yanked her back.”
I clutched my Diet Coke so hard, the can dented. “Who was Jenn Berg arguing with?”
“Nick.”
Relief crashed over me like a cool wave but was quickly replaced with confusion. It wasn’t Ben, but Nick? Our Nick? Could the murderer really be one of our own Metamora Action Agency members?
• Eight •
By the time we got back to Metamora, the town was abuzz with accusations about the young man Cameron Hayman brought in on the train from Connersville with his black nails and hard rock t-shirts. I heard everything from Nick being a devil worshipper to him being on the run for several murders committed in California.
I was considered as evil as Nick Valentine for introducing him to the community. If the people didn’t get a conviction soon, they’d take matters into their own hands and hang us both, Wild West style, in the town square.
I had to talk to Nick and find out what his confrontation with Jenn was all about, but he took off for the train station as soon as we got home. And I still had to talk with Melody. I wouldn’t be put off her trail so easily.
Reverend Stroup called me into his office as soon as my foot hit the door of the church. “Sheriff Reins was here looking for you,” he said, shifting nervously from foot to foot, his wrinkled forehead even more creased than usual. He crossed his office and sat down behind his desk. “I think you’re a nice woman and what you’re doing down in my basement to help the town is admirable, yet I haven’t known you all that long, not compared to the others in this town. Now, I’m not a man who passes judgment. I leave that responsibility in the hands of our Lord. However, when my parishioners come to me with concerns, it’s my duty to listen.”
I knew where this was headed. “I didn’t have anything to do with Jenn Berg’s death, Reverend.”
“I understand. I’m certain when Sheriff Reins solves this matter, your name will be cleared, but in the meantime, I’m afraid I can’t allow you use of the church basement for your phone bank.”
I stepped backward at the verbal blow. “What about my crew getting community service hours?”
“If you aren’t able to relocate, I’ll provide them with enough work to cover their hours.”
I gave the reverend a stiff nod and stuttered, “O-okay,” before leaving his office with my hands pressed to my chest, holding my heart inside. If I let go it would tumble out onto the floor.
Somehow I ended up in the basement even though I couldn’t remember walking down the stairs. My crew was doing what they normally did, which wasn’t much of anything. “I have bad news,” I told them and relayed the conversation I had with Reverend Stroup.
None of them said anything or even looked at me for what seemed like ages. Johnna’s lips pursed in a stern expression, and her hands moved her knitting needles fast and sharp. Roy made a hum of disapproval under his breath and took a few pulls of his flask. Logan immediately began disassembling things—unplugging the phones and collecting our stacks of calling cards. Finally, Anna spoke up.
“We can get our Action Agency line routed to your house,” she said. “We can take turns manning the phone there while the others go out and talk to people, like we did today. Nothing has to change.”
“You do have a big house, Cameron Cripps-Hayman,” Roy said. “Room for the five of us, I suppose.”
A rush of warmth came over me. “I do have enough room for all of you. That’s a perfect solution, Anna. Tomorrow we meet at my house!”
If only Anna could give me the solution to avoiding Sheriff Reins. It wasn’t talking about Jenn that made me nervous, it was the fact that he had to know all about the Metamora Action Agency if Ben knew, and I didn’t want him putting us out of commission before we talked to Melody and cleared Nick’s name.
Hopefully I could clear Nick’s name. I prayed I hadn’t unintentionally brought a killer into town.
As the Whitewater Valley train chugged away from Metamora toward Connersville with Nick on it, I made my way home to get ready for my sister’s arrival. I figured I had a few hours yet to get the house fur free and the dogs worn out from a romp in the backyard.
After I got inside and fended off Gus and my two nameless canine boys, I opened the back door to find Andy planting grass seed over the bald spot where I’d refilled the hole Brutus dug. The three slobbering, hyper monsters rushed him, jumping, barking, and batting him with their paws.
Oh, good gravy!
“Give a guy a heads up next time!” he called, between commands of “Down!” “Sit!” and “No!”
“Sorry, Andy!” I grabbed a soda from the fridge and took it out to him as an apology. “I think they like you.”
“They could like me less. I’d be okay with it.” He swiped the sweat from his brow and chugged half the can before giving me a regretful smile and saying, “I have something to tell you, Cam.”
“I already know about Nick Valentine and how everyone hates me for taking him on as a volunteer.”
“That’s not it. I was going to wait until tomorrow so you didn’t get the news on your birthday, but—”
“My birthday. Holy crap, I forgot!” My mind had completely, totally, 100 percent blocked out the fact that today I turned forty. I was officially over the hill. Half my life was gone—assuming I was lucky enough to live another forty years—and what did I have to show for it? A marriage on the rocks, a house that wasn’t actually mine, a job that wasn’t a job at all, and, best of all, I was a murder suspect. “I need a drink.”
Andy followed me in the house and watched with leery eyes while I filled a twelve-ounce tumbler with white wine. “It’s going to be that kind of birthday, huh?” he asked.
“Do you know how my day went? Let’s just say it was the punch line to a joke that starts: A drunk, a klepto, and two murder suspects walk into a store for midgets. And that was the good part of my day!”
“I don’t even want to know. Just toss me a beer if you have one so you’re not drinking alone on your birthday.”
I grabbed a can of Bud out of the fridge. “What do you have to tell me? I’m armed and ready.” I held up my wine and his beer can to prove it.
“It can wait until tomorrow.”
“Now. I want to know now.”
He grabbed an envelope from the mail pile on the table and handed it to me. “It’s from Irene’s lawyer. She’s suing you over the dog bite to her worker.”
All I could do was laugh. It was that or cry, and I wasn’t going to cry until I at least finished my wine. “This is her way of getting the house back. She’ll sue us and we’ll have to settle for signing over this house.”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” he said and leaned forward over the breakfast bar conspiratorially. “Let’s make her not want it back.”
“What do you mean,” I whispered, like someone might be listening.
“Got those paint chips I gave you this morning?” The grin that overcame his face was Cheshire cat ornery.
“I couldn’t,” I said, feeling a giddiness I didn’t think would be possible to feel after being alerted to the fact that it was my birthday. My fortieth birthday.
I took a healthy drink of wine and relished in the rush.
“You could,” Andy said. “I’m not painting this house white.”
I scuttled over to my bag hanging on the back of one of the kitchen chairs and started fishing around inside for the paint chips. “Where are they?”
“You really need a smaller bag,” Andy said, helping himself to another beer from the fridge.
“I know. I’m going to clean this one out tomorrow.”
Sunk in my bag past my elbow, I finally grasped the little rectangles held together by a metal ring and pulled them out in triumph. “Got ’em! Now to pick a color that will make Irene Ellsworth Hayman’s stomach turn.”
Andy and I sat down at the table and started flipping through the colors when my cell phone rang. Ben’s name showed on the screen. My heart fluttered knowing he remembered my birthday, even if I forgot it myself.
“I have one thing to ask you,” he said when I answered.
“What’s that?” I asked, imagining he was giving me a choice between diamonds or pearls, or at very least chocolate or butter cream frosting for the cake he was buying from Betty.
Deadly Dog Days Page 6
