by Jessa Archer
“Okay,” he said as the girls headed out to the backyard. “That might be better anyway, under the current circumstances. We’re trying to keep it low-key, so you don’t run into any… issues.”
Ah. That explained why none of the items bore the restaurant’s logo. That was probably why he’d removed the sign from the SUV as well. There were four other Mexican restaurants along this stretch of the Outer Banks. He was leaving me the option of claiming that I’d ordered from somewhere else. I wasn’t sure I’d embrace that option, but it was kind of him to leave the possibility open.
I walked him to the door, and before heading back to his car, he said, “Professor…sorry. Tig. I just wanted to say thank you again. Silvia and I appreciate you not canceling the order. It means a lot.”
“I’m just sorry you’re having to deal with her nonsense,” I said, glancing toward the house next door. “I’ve been so busy with the spring musical and auditions for the Playhouse that I didn’t even realize what was going on. If you do end up taking her to court, I’d be happy to testify that she’s very careless about letting Leo run around the neighborhood. I have to chase him off my lawn or out of the flower beds at least once a week. He probably just got hold of rat bait someone put out under their deck. I’d been trying to keep the peace with her as much as possible, but the next time I see the dog wandering around, I’m calling animal services. No matter how much she dotes on Leo, she’s not keeping him safe.”
He gave me a grim smile as he opened the car door. “I appreciate the offer to give testimony. Let’s just hope it doesn’t come to that. I don’t think my wife will have the patience to get through a trial. We’ve worked really hard to build up a good reputation for La Costera for five whole years, and business was going so well. All it takes is one person spreading lies to tear it all down. Silvia is furious. It was all I could do to keep her from going out and beating those women with their own signs when they were picketing yesterday.”
“I can’t really blame her,” I told him, even though I had a hard time imagining his wife in a rage. She was always so cheerful and welcoming.
Nathan pulled into the drive just as Gonzalez was backing out, and guests arrived in a steady stream over the next half hour. Cars filled the driveway and spilled over into the cul-de-sac. Attila sat on the back of the couch, staring out the window as the first group entered, but soon decided that the ground floor was far too crowded for his liking. Someone started the music in the backyard, and that seemed to be the final straw for him, even though music usually seems to calm him down. He gave one last angry hiss at something he saw outside and then shot upstairs.
Paige was a lot more relaxed by the end of the hour. When I went out to refill the chip container, Delaney said that it was because Emily was a no-show. The taco bar looked a bit like a cloud of locusts had descended, and two of the pizzas were gone as well.
A little after eight, the doorbell rang again. When I opened the door, I saw a tall disgruntled-looking guy with three girls in tow—one blonde, one brunette, and one redhead. Paige was in the kitchen when they stepped inside, and I could tell the instant I saw her expression that the redhead was Emily. The two locked eyes for a moment, then Paige pasted on a smile and turned to the boy. “Hi, Cade! Glad you could make it. Nathan’s team is losing the cornhole toss, and he was just saying he wished you’d hurry up and get here.”
“Yeah, we were held up. Happy birthday.” Caden handed her an envelope that looked like a gift card. She’d told everyone that no gifts were necessary, but about half of them had brought something anyway.
After she thanked him, Caden said, “Hope you don’t mind that Emily invited Kacey and Danielle.” He shot the two girls on the other side of Emily a look suggesting that he, for one, minded quite a bit.
“Of course not,” Paige said, extending her rather icy smile to the three girls. “The more the merrier. There’s food out on the deck.”
“You really shouldn’t let your dog wander around like that,” Emily said to Paige as she walked by. “He’s going to get hit if you’re not careful.”
“Yeah,” Caden said. “He was in the middle of the road when we pulled up.”
Well, that probably explained what Attila had been hissing at earlier.
“Small, brown, with a lion’s mane?” I asked.
Caden nodded.
“Great.” I sighed and told Paige, “I’ll go find him and take him home. Be right back.”
I half expected to see Mrs. Whitley standing in her driveway or peering out the window to count the guests as they arrived. The two additional girls probably put us over the maximum, and I could just picture the woman chortling with glee as she typed out an email to the head of the HOA.
But her drive was empty, and the house was dark.
“Leo?” I called, then made a clucking noise I’d heard Rebecca Whitley use to call him. “Here, boy.”
I didn’t see him and had almost decided that she’d already taken him inside. Then, I heard a rustling noise in the azalea bushes that line the front of the house, and Leo stepped out, giving me a feisty little snarl-bark.
“Yeah, yeah, you’re terrifying. Go home.”
Another bark.
I started toward the Whitley house, but I was worried that he might take off again, so I bent down to pick him up. He shied back and snarled again, baring what remained of his teeth. “You’re not scary,” I told him. “You’re tiny and old and obnoxious, but I don’t want you getting hit. So, let’s get you home to your even more obnoxious mama.”
He didn’t resist when I picked him up, but his heart was hammering wildly. I walked across the strip of lawn that separated my house from Whitley’s and then stepped onto the front porch to ring the bell. A whoop went up from my backyard as I pushed the button, followed by laughter and a loud whack. They must have started on the pinata.
When there was no response, I rang again. And then I knocked. Still no answer.
Muttering a curse under my breath, I headed around to Whitley’s backyard. I’d just have to leave Leo out there, even though I suspected he was able to squeeze through the fence. Attila would never forgive me if I brought his archnemesis into the house. He was going to be angry enough when I came home smelling of dog.
It took a couple of tries to figure out the latch to the gate, but finally it swung open, and I stepped onto the stone patio. Most of the area was taken up by a large oval swimming pool, scattered with a couple of foam pool noodles and a float bobbing around near the ladder at the far end. The yard was dark, except for faint blue lights that lined the interior of the pool.
As I moved into the yard, two angry voices rose over the ambient noise of the crowd and the music in my yard. One of the voices was Paige. My daughter could be moody, but she was fairly easygoing. It took a lot to rile her up. I needed to get Leo situated and get back over there to see what was going on.
The instant I put him down, however, Leo darted at full speed toward the pool. He didn’t seem like the sharpest tool in the shed, but surely he wouldn’t fall in? I took a few steps toward him, then breathed a sigh of relief when he skidded to a stop at the water’s edge.
My sigh morphed into a gasp as the object next to the pool noodles came into clearer view.
It was floating, but it definitely wasn’t a float.
Rebecca Whitley was sprawled face down in the water.
Chapter Seven
“Paige!” I yelled. “Call 911! And someone come help me!”
I really didn’t think there was the slightest chance that Mrs. Whitley was still alive, but I had to check. Reaching into the water, I grabbed the back of her green jumpsuit and lifted. All I managed to do was dislodge her arm from the purple foam pool noodle that it had been draped across. I tried again. Even if I wasn’t going to be able to drag her out of the pool from this angle, at least I could get her face above water.
Nathan arrived a few seconds later, along with three other guys. Two of them hauled Mrs. Whitley onto the dec
k of the pool. The third guy, who said he worked as a beach lifeguard during the summer, began CPR. I think it was more so that he could say he’d at least tried if anyone asked, though. Rebecca Whitley was very clearly dead.
A small crowd had gathered at the gate, including Paige and Delaney. Paige handed me her cell phone so that I could talk to the dispatcher, who told me to wait with the body, which I’d fully planned to do anyway.
I started to call Travis, but he wasn’t in Paige’s phone contacts, and I couldn’t remember his number. When I handed the phone back to her, however, I noticed Nathan was just ending a call. “Dad’s in Kitty Hawk. Should be here in about ten minutes.”
Travis’s head deputy, Jay Grady, made it to the house first. He was the same deputy who had been at the house earlier in the day. The ambulance followed shortly thereafter. I sat on the edge of a lounge chair while he conferred with the paramedics. Once they left with the body, I gave him my statement.
“Do you know if she was a heavy drinker?” he asked after I finished. “Or if there was a history of drug use?”
“All I know is that if she was on something, it didn’t chill her out. She was very high-strung.”
“Yeah,” he said in a droll voice. “I’ve been out here a few times.”
I just nodded, deciding not to mention that we’d seen him at the house that morning. That would give him the impression that I was a nosy neighbor. And while I am generally too curious for my own good, that really hadn’t been true of my interactions with Rebecca Whitley. She was so intensely unpleasant that avoidance had seemed the wisest course.
“I only interacted with Mrs. Whitley on a few occasions since I moved in back in January,” I explained. “Mostly about keeping Leo out of my yard. My mom lived here before then. They weren’t on particularly friendly terms, either, for the same reason.”
He nodded, jotting the information down in his notepad.
I glanced toward the fence. Music was still playing, but the laughter had faded. Discovering a dead body in the yard next door had apparently killed the party mood.
“If we’re done, I need to get back. I’ve got over a dozen unchaperoned teens over there, and a birthday cake to cut.”
“Oh, yeah,” he said. “Absolutely. I can call if I have other questions.”
“Feel free to stop over and grab a slice of cake when you’re done here.”
“Sure thing,” he said. “But first…do you know how to get in touch with her family? I mean, as neighbors, did you exchange emergency contact information?”
I gave him a humorless laugh. “Like I said, we weren’t that kind of neighbors. Her son, Andrew, is on a trip with the debate team, according to my teaching assistant. I think he said they get back on Sunday. I can check with the school to see if we have a way of getting in touch with the faculty sponsor. And…I thought the guy who had been living here was her husband, but it’s possible he’s a boyfriend. He drives a BMW.”
“And the daughter?”
“Her name is Audra. I don’t think she’s lived in North Carolina for long. She drives a green hybrid. I think it’s a Prius, with out-of-state tags. New Mexico. She doesn’t live with them, but she’s around on the weekends sometimes.” I glanced over at the side of the pool, where Leo was lying. “Hopefully you can find either Rick or the daughter, because someone needs to come get the dog.”
“Um…couldn’t you watch the little guy overnight?”
“Not without precipitating World War III. My cat is allergic to Leo.” That prompted a confused look from Grady, so I added, “Not literally. But that dog has tormented him since the Whitleys moved in a few years back.”
Grady and I both turned at the sound of the gate creaking open.
“Oh, hey, Chief,” Grady said. “We were just finishing up here. I was about to take a look inside the house.”
“Go ahead,” Travis told him. “I’ll catch up with you in a—” He stopped at the sound of Leo retching. “What’s the matter with him?”
“He might still be sick from the poison,” Grady said. “You missed a whole lot of Whitley drama the past few days.” He glanced toward the pool, and I had the sense that he was feeling a little guilty for speaking disparagingly of the dead.
Travis, who was still in the suit he’d apparently worn for the conference, frowned. “Why didn’t you mention it when I checked in?”
“Because we’ve had drama from her about once a month since she moved to Caratoke,” Grady said. “Not exactly breaking news.”
Travis gave him a nod of admission. Grady began filling him in, and even though I really needed to get back to the party, I went over to check on Leo. He hadn’t actually thrown up, but he was quivering like he was cold, even though the temperature was in the mid-eighties. I reached down to pick him up and was rewarded with another feeble snarl.
“Oh, stop it,” I told him. “I’m not afraid of you, you silly beast. I’ve seen goldfish who are more threatening.”
I scooped him up gently, planning to take him inside. But as I started to get up, I noticed something glinting on the steps of the pool near where the body had been. When I moved a few steps closer and crouched down again, I could see that it was a wine glass, tipped on its side.
“Hey, Travis? Come here a sec.”
He and Grady joined me at the edge of the pool. The glass was clear, and they didn’t see it at first, until they crouched down and viewed it from the same angle.
“Interesting,” Travis said. “Maybe she had a bit too much and fell in…”
I stood up and brushed the grass from my bare knees. “Can you take Leo inside? I need to get back over to the party.”
“Sure. I’ll be over when we’re finished here.” Travis reached out for Leo, who snarled again, giving him a high-pitched growl. He pulled his hands back.
“He growls at me, too,” I said. “He’s literally all bark and no bite.”
Travis didn’t look convinced. “Why don’t you try, Grady?”
But Grady had already turned on his heel and was halfway to the patio door.
I rolled my eyes and grinned. “Fine. I’ll carry him. You’re such a coward.”
“Nope,” he said. “Not a coward at all. I just don’t want to stress the little guy out any more than he already is.”
“Like I said, he growled at me, too. I just made it clear that he wasn’t the alpha dog in this relationship.”
“I’m sure you did.” Travis grinned, shaking his head. “How is it that I’m in Raleigh for a mere five days and you find another body?”
“You sound like Alicia Brown,” I told him.
“Yes, and you can be quite certain that she’ll be all over this story by this time tomorrow.”
I grumbled a few words that do not bear repeating and stepped from the patio into Rebecca Whitley’s dining room. Or maybe breakfast room, since the table was just a four-seater, with a bar separating the room from the dark kitchen. I put Leo down next to the table, expecting him to take off instantly into the other room. Instead, he pressed up against my leg.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” I told him. “First you growl at me, and now you’re playing on my sympathy? It is not going to work.”
Except it sort of was working. The little guy was sick, and he’d just seen his owner pulled out of the swimming pool and taken away on a stretcher. Even a not-so-bright dog like Leo had to realize that wasn’t a good thing.
Travis laughed at my expression. “Thought you showed the little guy who was the alpha dog?”
“I did. That’s why he’s sticking close to me. For protection.”
Travis started to laugh again, but then he said, “That might actually be true, Tig. Leaving him here alone seems like a bad idea if he’s been sick. And he seems to be warming to you.”
“Seriously? That fence over there is the pet equivalent of the Berlin Wall. You’ve seen what happens. Attila will not take kindly to me bringing this dog onto his territory. I’m pretty sure that having an angry cat attack
ing him will only make Leo more agitated. I gave Grady what little information I have on her daughter—her name is Audra. She must live somewhere nearby, because she’s been here fairly often on the weekends. Until then, just leave the patio door unlocked. I’ll come over later and check on him.”
He shook his head. “No can do.”
“Whitley left it unlocked,” I said, knowing exactly what he was going to say in response.
“Because she was going out back to the pool. I can’t leave it open, Tig. For one thing, if we find any evidence suggesting that this is a crime scene and not an accident scene, forensics will need to come in.”
Leo pressed closer to my leg. I narrowed my eyes, knowing I wasn’t going to win this one. Unfortunately, my backyard wasn’t fenced, so I couldn’t leave him outside. But there was another option.
“You will be staying in the garage, mister. Are we clear?” I picked him up again and turned back to Travis. “Can you help me look for his leash? Whitley might have let him wander around when he needed to go out, but I’m not going to do that. There’s one around here somewhere, because I’ve seen the daughter and Andrew take him on walks.”
“Sure,” he said. “I’ll check the front hallway. No snooping around, though, and don’t touch anything, okay? Can’t have you leaving any prints.”
We exchanged a long look after the last sentence. Judging from the amused twitch of his mouth, he clearly wanted to make a smart remark, but based on past experience, he also knew that I would not take the smart remark kindly.
You’re not a detective, he’d told me when I was trying to figure out who killed Jerald Amundsen. You simply played one on TV.
In my five years playing Adeline Thorne on Private Eye High, I was usually the one who solved the case. I played the geek who could crack into a 1990s computer system faster than most girls could bat their eyelashes. My two teenage partners in crime-solving had occasionally beaten me to the reveal, but it was rare. Addie Thorne had put the pieces together for ninety-two of the one hundred and twelve crimes we’d solved. And while it was definitely true that I’d had a script that told me precisely which person was the killer, or arsonist, or jewel thief, you still picked up a few tricks of the trade when you play a detective—even a teen detective—week after week.
