by Alyssa Day
I burst into tears. Jack froze, and the expression on his face would have made me laugh in any other circumstance. Apparently the big, tough ex-soldier could face dead bodies with equanimity, but a woman’s tears scared the crap out of him.
He took the phone out of my numb fingers and looked at me. “9-1-1 work here?”
“Yeah.” I drew in a shuddering breath and wiped my face with my sleeve. “It goes right to Sheriff Lawless’s office.”
Jack raised an eyebrow, but I just shook my head. “Don’t say anything about his name. He hates that.”
He made the call. I could tell by the faint squawking coming through the line that Belle, who’d been the dispatcher since Moses parted the Red Sea, wasn’t taking it at all well that I’d found another body at the shop. She’d been one of the people leading the gossip that I might have had something to do with Jeremiah’s death, since I stood to inherit half of Dead End Pawn.
I hadn’t spoken to her since, even at church, and I’d had to physically restrain my aunt and uncle from going after her.
“Okay, they’re on their way. I’m going to wait outside and make sure nobody disturbs the body.”
“Her name is Chantal.”
He studied me for a long moment, and his eyes were back to deep green. “I’m sorry. Chantal.”
“Nobody ever goes back there, unless we have a delivery of something really big. It’s just a dirt road that hooks up to Main Street going into town on one side and eventually hits the highway on the other,” I told him. “I don’t understand why this is happening.”
I didn’t understand it at all.
I slowly sat on the stool behind the counter and put my head on my folded arms. This didn’t make sense. Nothing about it made sense. Sheriff Lawless had been so sure that it was just some random thief who’d killed Jeremiah, even though I hadn’t been able to find anything missing. The sheriff had decided that something had probably scared the thief—maybe even the sound of my car pulling into our gravel parking lot that morning for work—because Jeremiah was still warm when I’d found him lying half in and half out of the back door.
They’d done an investigation, but there hadn’t been any evidence. No fingerprints, no shell casings left at the scene, no unique tire tracks, or footprints, or notes saying “CLUE.” So in the end, the sheriff had pronounced it a cold case, probably some drifter or drug addict who’d carried a way-too-common-to-be-identifiable nine millimeter gun that shot way-too-common-to-be-identifiable nine millimeter ammunition. Since then, I’d spent months alternating between crushing sadness when I thought about Jeremiah, and clammy terror when I heard any unusual noises. Because the thing about unknown, murderous drifters? Especially the ones who didn’t get any cash or loot the first time?
Sometimes they come back.
*
Sheriff Bertram Lawless looked like a cross between a bloodhound and a fireplug. Stout, sturdy, and low to the ground, the man wore his badge like it gave him permission to be the biggest jackass in the room. He affected a habit of tucking his thumbs in his belt and rocking back on his heels when he was playing big man in charge, especially in cases where there was someone around who intimidated him. I’d seen him do it a lot with Jeremiah.
Right now, he was blustering and slightly ridiculous in the face of Jack’s deadly calm, but I knew that the sheriff had a nasty habit of never letting any slight—perceived or otherwise—go by without seeking petty revenge afterward. He was working his way up to a nasty vendetta with Jack, I could tell.
“All I’m asking,” Jack repeated, his voice all the more dangerous for being quiet, “is why you didn’t call in any help when you couldn’t solve my uncle’s murder.”
“And like I told you, boy, Dead End is smack in the middle of Black Cypress County, Florida. Hell, Dead End pretty much is Black Cypress County. And this county has a sovereign charter that predates any of them Indian charters. The charter says that we’ve got our own law here, and we’re not subject to y’all’s federal or state laws. That’s how it’s been for more years than the US of A has been a country, and I sure as hell ain’t going to let it change on my watch. I also ain’t about to go asking the feds for help on a robbery gone bad, and take a chance that they think they can interfere in our town on a regular basis.”
The sheriff turned and glared at me, pointing his finger at my face, but still careful not to get too close. “I don’t know why you had to go and tell him all this stuff to get him riled up, Tess Callahan. It seems a little bit suspicious that you got another dead body on your porch all of a sudden. Is there something you need to tell me?”
Something in my gut twisted as I realized what he was saying. “Are you—did you just accuse me of having something to do with Chantal’s death? Or Jeremiah’s? I don’t even know how to respond to that, Sheriff.”
A strange, soft noise started to fill the room, but it wasn’t until the sheriff stepped away from Jack that I realized the source of it. Jack was growling. Actually growling, low in his throat, and the deep, primal sound made the hairs on my arms stand straight up. I noticed the sheriff take another all-too-casual step back.
“It would have been pretty damn hard for Tess to have shot the woman, driven her to the store, and dumped her body on the back porch, all while I was talking to her right here at the time,” Jack said, enunciating very clearly.
The words “you idiot” were implied.
“Sheriff? We’re done here. I’ve got pictures, and the ambulance is taking the body off to Doc Ike,” Deputy Susan Gonzalez said, coming back in the shop from the back.
Jack raised an eyebrow, and I explained. “Doc Ike is the only doctor in town, and he’s also the county coroner. It’s not really a busy job around here.”
Realizing what I’d just said, I grimaced. “Or at least it didn’t used to be.”
“Tess, you doing okay?” Susan touched my hand, which was fine, since I’d touched her before. She was a few inches shorter than me, and a lot prettier, with skin the color of dark honey, and silky black hair that she wore up in a severe bun for work. She was a good cop, everybody said, and she carried herself with a sense of authority that reassured people when she had to deal with them on an official level. I’d known her at school, of course, but she was a couple of years older than me. She’d run off for a while after high school, and there were rumors that she’d taken up with a vampire, but when she came back to town, looking older and warier, nobody had ever dared ask her about it. She was the type who kept herself and her business private, and I’d always respected that.
“Susan, your grandma was in here earlier, just before six. I was surprised and a little bit worried to see her out and about that late,” I told her. “I forgot about it, after everything that happened, but I meant to call you.”
Mrs. Gonzalez wasn’t quite playing with a full deck these days, as Aunt Ruby liked to say. She sometimes slipped into her own past, and when she did, she thought she was in high school and liked to dress up and wander off in the evenings to meet her boyfriend—Susan’s dead grandfather—at a football game from sixty years ago that still played on and on in her memories.
A hint of concern crossed Susan’s face. “Yeah, my cousin has been staying with her while I’m working, but Sadie is kind of flighty and pays more attention to painting her nails than she does to taking care of Gran. I’ll check on her when we get done here.”
“If you’re done socializing, Deputy, maybe we can get back to investigating this murder,” the sheriff drawled. “If that’s all right with you?”
A dark red flush touched Susan’s cheeks, but she nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“Chantal Nelson was a party girl. Heard she was dating one of those bikers that hangs out at the Swamp Rat. They probably got into some kind of drunken argument, and it got physical,” the sheriff said ponderously. “Can’t say I’m surprised. Girl needs to be more careful about the kind of riff-raff she hangs out with, especially in a town like Dead End.”
When
he said riff-raff, Lawless aimed a pointed stare at Jack and then looked at me.
“Heavy-handed, much?” I barely whispered the words, and felt my cheeks turn hot when Jack tilted his head in my direction, a hint of a grin on his face. He shouldn’t have heard that, and yet he clearly had. Oh. Right.
Tiger.
I usually tried to stay out of the sheriff’s line of fire, but I couldn’t let this offensive stupidity stand. “So you’re saying that it was Chantal’s fault she got killed? Blaming the victim—that’s a pretty awful thing to say, Sheriff.”
Jack nodded. “Agreed. Also, where’s the motivation for the drunk biker to drive his dead or dying girlfriend clear across town so he can dump her at the back door of the pawnshop?”
I looked at the sheriff, Susan looked at the floor, and the sheriff looked all around the room, not meeting anyone’s gaze.
“Well, that’s one of the things we have to figure out now, ain’t it? That’s why they call it an investigation, son,” Lawless finally said to Jack, ignoring me entirely.
Jack needed to watch out, or he was going to be a permanent resident of the sheriff’s shit list, and that was a place nobody wanted to be. Jeremiah could’ve told Jack all about that. I was earning myself my own place too, but I found it hard to care, under the circumstances. If Sheriff Lawless had done his job, we’d know who murdered Jeremiah, and the killer would be behind bars.
“Do you know if Chantal has family around here? If they have the funeral services here in town, I want to be there for her,” I said, figuring it was time to change the subject.
The sheriff looked at Susan.
Susan shrugged. “I think she had a cousin who lived out in one of those shacks along the swamp, at least part-time. I’m not sure. The community on the outskirts of town is pretty transient. I’ll find out. She lived in that apartment building by the fire station, but she lived alone.”
“Let me know, will you please?”
Susan nodded.
Jack looked grim. “I’d like to know that too, so we can find out what, if any, connection there was between Jeremiah and this woman.”
“What makes you think there was a connection? Haven’t you ever heard of a coincidence?” The sheriff scowled at Jack. “This is official police business, son. Don’t even think about getting in the middle of it.”
Jack took a single step toward the sheriff; one short, very controlled movement. He stopped—still a yard away from Lawless—but every line of his body conveyed tightly leashed anger. “I am not your son, you pompous imbecile. The only relative I still had in this world was killed right here, and you never bothered to find out who did it or why. So you can bet your ass that I’m going to get in the middle of whatever I need to in order to find out the truth.”
I gasped, and the sheriff’s jowly face turned so red that I was afraid he might have a stroke right there in my shop. “I know what you are, Jack Shepherd,” he said, low and vicious. “This is Dead End. I have a cage with silver bars on it in my jail. You better concentrate on staying out of my way, or you’ll be looking at those bars from the inside.”
With that, the sheriff turned and scowled at me. “I’ll be in touch with you, young lady. Try not to find any more dead bodies for a while.”
He stalked out of the room, and my spirits sank a little bit with every thunk of his boot heels on the wooden floor. Getting justice for Chantal didn’t seem to be any higher on the sheriff’s priority list than it had been for Jeremiah. I could feel the beginnings of a raging headache starting in my temples, and I rubbed them with the tips of my fingers, wondering if I had any Tylenol left.
Then it hit me that I was having a pity party for myself when a woman I knew had just been murdered, and a hot wave of shame rushed through me.
Susan, who’d lingered behind, let out a deep sigh and shook her head. “Well, Jack Shepherd, that’s one way to announce your entrance into town. Probably the stupidest way, but then again, nobody asked me.”
A hint of a grin quirked the corner of Jack’s lips, but quickly faded. “Yeah, nobody asked you, but I should have, Deputy. Too many years of being the one in charge, I guess. I’m sorry if I made your job harder, but I plan to find out what happened to my uncle.”
“I can’t say that I blame you. If it had been my uncle, I’d be doing the same thing. Just try to stay out of the sheriff’s way while you’re doing it, that’s all I ask. I’ll share what information with you that I can.” Susan looked at me. “I’ll find out about the services too. I’m sorry this happened, Tess. You’ve been through enough, without getting dragged into this.”
“I’m just sorry about Chantal. I guess I’m going to have to tell Aunt Ruby. She would’ve known Chantal from the Pit Stop,” I said, not looking forward to the task.
Susan smacked her forehead with her hand. “Speaking of old ladies—and I’ll deny it if you ever tell Ruby I said that—I need to check on Gran. I’ll be in touch.” She touched my shoulder, nodded at Jack, and headed out.
Jack watched her go and then leaned back against the counter and looked at me. “Your Aunt Ruby used to work at the Pit Stop, didn’t she? I remember buying sodas from her when we were going fishing. We had to deal with the bait ourselves, though. She wouldn’t have anything to do with that side of things,” he said, smiling a little at the memory.
“She worked there full-time for twenty years or so. She’s long retired, but she’ll still fill in for the occasional shift if they need her, more to catch up on gossip than anything else, I think.”
I looked around, wondering what I should do next. I’d been ready to close, before everything happened. But now it seemed like urgent, unfinished tasks were pressing in on me from all sides. Mostly, I just felt helpless in the face of another murder that seemed too similar to Jeremiah’s to be a coincidence. But I didn’t know how it could be anything else; there was no connection between Jeremiah and Chantal that made sense to me.
Jack’s words were still ringing in my mind, though, and he was right.
We needed to find out the truth.
Chapter Three
Jack prowled around the shop like…like a tiger. Tiger. It triggered something in my mind.
“Did you, and I’m sorry if this is offensive, but did you smell anything? Anyone? On Chantal? Like, like—”
“Like a dog?” Jack’s eyes narrowed.
He was making me feel like an idiot, and he was doing it on purpose. I didn’t deserve it, so I stood my ground. “No, like a cat. You think I could grow up in Dead End and not know about shapeshifters? You may not respect the sheriff, and with good reason, but don’t treat me like an idiot.”
Jack blew out a breath. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I tried to see what scents I could get. Mostly, she smelled like beer and cigarette smoke. A little pot, maybe. Lots of sweaty bodies. She was at a bar or party, I’m pretty sure.”
“And it’s not like a gun is an up-close-and-personal weapon,” I mused. “Her killer might not even have touched her.”
“Maybe not, but he wasn’t far away, either. I could tell from the gunshot wound.” His eyes iced over. “I’ve seen too many of those before.”
“Or she.”
“What?”
“He or she wasn’t too far away. We don’t know if her killer was a man or woman.”
“You’re right. I was just going by the odds. Unless you know something about Chantal I should know?”
I sighed. “No. I hardly knew her. We didn’t hang out with the same people. She liked to go out and party, and I’m more of a homebody. We should talk to Aunt Ruby. She’ll know something, and whatever she doesn’t know, she’ll be able to point us in the right direction to find out.”
My stomach picked that time to send out a ridiculously loud grumble, and I realized I hadn’t had anything to eat since breakfast. It seemed wrong, somehow, to think about food, but being hungry wasn’t helping my headache any, either.
“I’m going to have to go find something to eat.” I
grabbed my bag and rummaged around for keys.
“Sounds good. Where are we going? Is Beau’s still pretty much the only place in town?”
“Um. I—you want to eat with me? Not that I mind,” I hurried to add, southern manners coming to the fore, even though all I wanted to do was go home, go to bed, and pull the covers over my head. For maybe a week.
“If you don’t mind. I haven’t exactly had a chance to lay in supplies at Jeremiah’s house. If you’re not up to it, though—”
“No. It’s fine. But I’m definitely not up for going to Beau’s. Everybody and his brother-in-law, literally, will be there and gossiping about Chantal. I don’t think I could take that right now.”
He nodded. “Don’t worry about it. I understand. I’ll just figure something out.”
I took a deep breath. “I have steaks. We could grill them. You’re welcome to have dinner with me. After all, we’re practically family.”
His eyes gleamed as he looked at me for a long moment. When he finally replied, his voice was edged with laughter and something else. Something darker. “No. We’re definitely not family.”
*
Jack followed me on his motorcycle from the shop, which sat just north of town, through downtown, to my small house about ten minutes south of town. Since saying “downtown Dead End” was like saying “giant postage stamp,” it wasn’t a long trip. Our little town was home for maybe five thousand or so people, and a magnet for misfits of all types—human, supernatural, and other. I hadn’t yet determined exactly what “other” meant, but if aliens from outer space ever came to Earth, they could show up in Dead End and nobody would even blink.
Jeremiah had said Dead End was like New York, but with fewer naked cowboys. I’d responded that New York was like Dead End, but with fewer gator wranglers. I’d always had pride in our little town, even when I’d been trying so hard to leave it. We were all but hidden in the heart of the Everglades, could drive to Orlando in an hour, depending on traffic, and drove airboats as often as we drove cars.
