by Jane Hinchey
“Well, of course, but that isn’t why I’m calling.”
“Oh. Okay, what’s up?”
“Word on the street is that Emily Sherman committed suicide. I wanted to know what you thought. You saw the body, what do you think?”
“We were just talking about this.” I looked from Gran to Jordan, who were watching me with eager faces. “Let’s meet up tonight to discuss.”
I could hear the smile in Jenna’s voice. “I’ll be there the minute you close. I’ll let Monica know. And I’ll bring pizza.”
True to her word, as soon as I flicked the sign on the front door to closed at the end of the day, Jenna appeared, pizza box in hand. With a grin I flicked the snib on the lock and held the door for her.
“Monica is right behind me,” she said, stepping inside. I felt my hair lift in a gust of wind as Monica whipped past and into the store. As a vampire she couldn’t tolerate a lot of sunlight, and despite it being five thirty, the sun still packed a punch even though it was low on the horizon. She couldn’t afford to dilly dally unless she wanted a nasty UV burn.
“Oh.” Jenna halted when she caught sight of Jordan. “Hi, Jordan, you’re still here.” She looked at me quizzically and I shrugged.
“Jordan’s keen to help,” I explained. “And she may have some valuable insight, given that she went to school with Emily.”
Monica unwrapped herself from the scarf she used to cover the lower half of her face, removed the wide-brimmed hat and sunglasses and tossed them onto the counter next to the coffee machine. Despite running the gauntlet of daylight, she looked stunning as always with her alabaster skin and jet-black hair.
“So long as she knows not to breathe a word of this outside this room.” Monica pinned Jordan with a hard look and Jordan audibly swallowed while shaking her head. “Oh, I won’t. I promise!”
“Pft,” Gran snorted, rousing herself from where she’d been dozing in the armchair. “That’s easily fixed.” Whipping out her wand she aimed it at Jordan and muttered something under her breath before putting the wand away.
“What did you do, Mrs. B?” Monica asked, one dark brow perfectly arched.
“Silencing spell. Even if she wanted to, she can’t tell anyone about any of this.”
I sighed. “Gran, you really shouldn’t be putting spells on people without warning them first. But it’s done now. Sorry, Jordan.”
Jordan shrugged. “It’s okay. I don’t mind.”
“Right. Now that that’s settled.” Jenna set down the pizza, flipped the lid open, helping herself to a slice, “I’m starving. Come on, guys, dig in. And, Harper, move your shelves, will you. We need to get the murder board happening.”
I whispered the spell that would magically reveal a pinup board we’d affectionately nicknamed the murder board, then helped myself to pizza, dodging Archie’s paw as he tried to snag it out of my hand. “Dude, you’ve got your own food in your bowl.”
“You guys eat; I’ll get this started,” Monica said, opening the top drawer of the desk and pulling out the Post-it notes. Holding a marker aloft, she asked, “Who have we got in our pool of suspects?”
Everyone remained silent. Oh my God, we had no one! We knew nothing of Emily’s last movements, who she’d seen last, what she’d been doing.
“Gran, what time did rehearsal finish up yesterday?” I asked.
“Just after you left,” Gran replied, mouth full of pizza. “The kids were going to grab a shake at Silent Bite, I think.”
“But, Jordan, didn’t you say they fired Emily from Silent Bite?”
Jordan nodded. “She was fired.”
“So maybe the others went, but Emily didn’t?” Jenna said, but Jordan was already shaking her head. “No way. Hannah and Sarah wouldn’t have gone off to have milk shakes without Emily. And I doubt Jacob would have left his girlfriend behind.”
“What about the other boys… Ethan and Ryan? Were they dating their respective dance partners?”
“I can answer that,” Gran said. “And the answer is no. From the googly eyes Sarah kept giving Jacob when she thought no one was looking I’d say that girl was looking to cut her best friend’s grass.”
“Wait, you’re saying Sarah wants to hook up with Jacob?” I asked.
Gran shrugged. “I’m just telling it the way I saw it. And Sarah took every opportunity to get up close and personal with Jacob, brushing up against him as she went past, that type of thing.”
“But she’s Emily’s best friend.” Jenna frowned. “You wouldn’t try to steal your best friend’s boyfriend.”
“Not everyone has your moral code, babe,” Monica drawled, giving us a wink and a sultry smile.
“I think Mrs. B might be right,” Jordan mumbled, chewing on her lip. “Now that I think about it, Sarah touches Jacob a lot. Like on his arm and stuff. And laughs at his lame jokes when no one else does.”
Monica wrote Sarah’s name down and pinned it to the murder board.
“Wait a minute.” Jenna paced. “Whoever killed her had to be strong enough to A, get her into the water, and B, hold her under long enough to drown her. Do we think Sarah is strong enough to do that?”
I remembered the photo I’d taken of Emily’s body and swiped through my phone until I had the image on screen. “Here. Look at this. I don’t think she drowned. I think someone strangled her.” I showed them the bruises on Emily’s neck.
Jenna snatched the phone from me and peered at it, manipulating the image with her fingers to increase the size. “I think you’re right. But that mark doesn’t look like handprints, it’s too uniform. It looks like someone tied something around her throat. Do you think Jackson knows the official cause of death yet?” Handing me back my phone, she pulled out her own and dialed, huffing in exasperation when Jackson didn’t pick up. Before I could stop her, she snatched my phone from my hands and dialed again.
“Hey.” Jackson answered on the first ring.
“Do you know how Emily died?” Jenna asked without preamble.
There was a pause. “Jenna what are you doing with Harper’s phone?”
“How did you know it was me?” Jenna shot back.
I could imagine Jackson rolling his eyes. “Because you’re a reporter, her best friend, and she’s embroiled in yet another murder. Who else would it be? Plus, I recognized your voice.”
“Fair point,” Jenna conceded.
“Put her on.”
With an over dramatic sigh, Jenna handed the phone out to me as if we all hadn’t just heard the exchange. “He wants to speak to you.”
Accepting the phone, I held it to my ear. “Hi.”
“Do I take it that the murder club is in session?” he drawled.
“Possibly.” I hedged.
“Most definitely.” He chuckled. “I’ll come down.”
“No!” I shot back. Because if Jackson were here, and I was here, then the ghost of Whitney Sims would appear.
Jackson laughed. “You are such a scaredy cat.”
“Yes, well…” I adjusted the neckline of my dress. “It doesn’t hurt to be cautious. Now and then.”
“You? Cautious? Now I’ve heard it all.” He snorted, then sobered, “Okay look, the autopsy results aren’t in yet, so nothing official, but it looks like she was the victim of a stun attack—hit on the back of the head with a blunt object to incapacitate her—and then strangled. But,” he warned, “that’s not official. And it is off the record.”
My eyes shot to Jenna who had moved to stand next to me, her head pressed close to mine so she could eavesdrop on our conversation. She mimed zipping her lips.
“Of course. We won’t say a word,” I assured him. “So you think someone dumped her body in the water as a means of disposal? That she didn’t drown?”
“Possibly. We need to wait for the autopsy results to see if there’s water in her lungs. But tossing her into the ocean to get rid of her body was a poorly thought out move. They should have weighed her down. Instead, she washed right up on the shore.”
After the call with Jackson I leaned back against the desk, arms crossed, and thought out loud. “Whoever it was had to be strong.”
“Not necessarily,” Monica argued. “Jackson said a blitz attack. How easy would it be for me to come up behind you and whack you over the head with a rock? Boom. You’re out cold on the ground, but not dead. Maybe that had been my intent, to kill you with one blow, but that didn’t work, so now I must resort to Plan B. I strangle you. You’re unconscious; you’re not fighting me at all. I just wrap my scarf around your throat and pull it tight until you stop breathing. And any one of us here in this room would have the strength to do that.” I eyeballed the cotton scarf Monica had tossed onto the counter earlier.
“True,” Jenna agreed, “but you’re forgetting one thing. Whoever it was then had to dispose of the body, and Emily is the size of an adult woman. And a deadweight. Say I killed her, I’d struggle to move the body after the deed.”
“Maybe there were two of them?” Jordan mumbled, and we all looked at her in surprise. She could be right, it was possible more than one person was involved in the death of Emily Sherman.
“Monica, put all the names up. Something happened yesterday to trigger the murderer into killing her.”
“Hit me with the names,” Monica said, Post-it notes in hand.
“Sarah McClain, one of Emily’s best friends. And Hannah Burton, her other best friend,” I said.
“Jacob Griffin, her boyfriend,” Gran added, “and Ethan Moss and Ryan Noble, the other members of the dance team.”
Monica added the names, then looked at Gran. “So you think it was one of the kids?”
She shrugged. “I’ve no idea, love, but I figure they are the best people to ask about Emily’s movements. Now”—she eased up out of the armchair and straightened her clothes—“if you’ll excuse me, I have a burlesque class to get to.”
Chapter Four
Jordan left along with Gran. Monica, Jenna, and I had just decided we’d head to Brewed Awakening, the bar where Monica worked, for a nightcap before heading home, when shouts of “Fire! Fire!” came from outside. Barreling out of The Dusty Attic we stood on the sidewalk, craning our necks to see what all the excitement was about.
“Look!” Jenna pointed. The sun had almost set while we’d been inside and now, in the twilight, we could see the faint flicker of flames coming from the beach. She ran, calling out over her shoulder, “Come on!”
I followed, but Monica hung back. “You guys go ahead. Us vamps are about as keen on fire as we are on sunlight. I’ll meet you at the bar later, okay?”
I stopped and turned to face my friend. “You’re sure?”
She nodded. “Absolutely. Go check it out and you can tell me all about it later.”
I ran after Jenna, out of breath by the time I got to the parking lot in front of the beach. A fire truck was there, lights flashing, hosing down one of the beach huts. Jenna was taking photos on her phone.
“Do you know whose hut it is?” I asked, puffing and nursing a stitch in my side.
“Nope.” she said, eyes intent as she watched the firemen do their job. A patrol car pulled up and Officer Miles climbed out, eyes sweeping over the crowd that had gathered before coming to rest on me.
“Should have known,” she snapped, stalking past me, back ramrod straight. Jenna looked at me and I shrugged. Liliana had never liked me, and since breaking up with Jackson her dislike had only grown.
“We meet again.” I jumped when Jackson’s breath blew hot in my ear.
Hand to my chest I spun. “Geez. Don’t do that!” I wheezed, heart pounding from the fright he’d given me.
He grinned. “Sorry bout that.” He wasn’t sorry at all, I could tell by the twinkle in his eyes.
“Why are you here?” I demanded, “Since when do fires require a detective?”
“Since the beach hut in question was torched on purpose.” Jackson slid his hands into the pockets of his jeans and rocked back and forth on his heels, his eyes not missing a thing as he watched the firemen clean up. It hadn’t taken them long to douse the flames, and from where I was standing, the beach hut hadn’t sustained too much damage. They’d gotten here fast.
“Arson?” Jenna asked, switching her phone to record mode and swinging it in Jackson’s direction.
“No comment,” was his dry response. Jenna sniffed and turned her phone off.
“Off the record,” she said.
“Sure,” Jackson agreed. “Possible arson. Preliminary report from the fire chief says it looks like they used an accelerant on the outside of the hut, rear corner.”
“This would make the third suspicious fire this month,” Jenna said, more to herself than us, and I could practically see the cogs turning in her head. She was already outlining a potential story.
“There have been other fires?” I hadn’t seen nor heard any evidence that Whitefall Cove had a firebug, but Jackson was nodding his head.
“A brush fence was set on fire last week, on Rigby Road, and the week before that a trash can on Peter Street.”
“So the arsonist is escalating.” They’d progressed from small items, to a building structure. Granted, it wasn’t a huge one, and the chances of someone being hurt were minimal, but still, someone had set these fires intentionally.
“Probably kids,” Jackson said. “Bored over summer vacation. We see a spike in this sort of thing every year.”
Something caught his attention over my shoulder. His eyes narrowed and his hands slid free from his pockets. “Ah!” he said. “Just the person I was looking for. Excuse me, ladies.” And with that he was gone.
I watched with interest as he hurried over to a man I vaguely recognized, dressed in a sharp navy pinstripe suit, a blue tie pulled loose at the collar. I put him to be late thirties, early forties.
“Detective.” The man nodded, looking from Jackson to the beach hut and back again. “What are you thinking? Vandals? Or the arsonist?” I blinked in surprise. So the man knew that we potentially had a fire starter in our midst. Jenna was busy snapping photos of the two men talking.
“Daniel Griffin”—she nodded toward the man—“is gunning for the Mayor’s job this election.”
“Griffin? As in Jacob’s dad?”
“Uncle. Long-standing town council member.”
“Is Mayor Burch retiring?” This was the first I’d heard of it, but then I’d been living in East Dondure for the last five years and local politics held little interest for me. I guess now that I was a local business owner, I’d better start paying attention.
“Elaine? Not that I know of. She’s only sixty, and a young sixty at that.” Jenna scoffed, as if the very idea was ludicrous. “She plays tennis and golf every week, plus handles a full workload with the town council. No, I can’t see her retiring anytime soon. Not voluntarily anyway. This is the first time in years that anyone has run against her as mayor.”
I opened my mouth to ask her why she thought Daniel Griffin, mayoral candidate, was at the scene of an arsonist attack, when she shushed me. “Sssh. I'm trying to listen. I think the beach hut might be his.”
Clamping my lips shut, I did as instructed, listening in to their conversation.
“When was the last time you were here?” Jackson asked.
Daniel shrugged. “I haven’t been down to the beach all summer, I’ve been busy with planning an election campaign, no time for anything else.”
“And does anyone else have access?”
“I’m not sure. I guess?” With his hands on his hips and legs braced apart he glared at Jackson. “I thought you said the fire was lit on the outside? What does it matter who has access?”
Jackson's eyebrows shot up. “Sounding a little defensive there, Councilman.”
Daniel relaxed his stance and ran a weary hand around the back of his neck. “You’re right. I’m sorry. God, it’s just this is the last thing I need to be dealing with right now, you know? I keep the key to the cabin in my home office. Family members a
re welcome to use it, but I haven’t had any of them approach me this summer, so no, I don’t think anyone has been in there for a while.”
“And you’re insured?”
“It’s just a beach hut, but yes, I’m insured. Insurance covered a new paint job a couple of years ago when vandals graffitied it.”
Ah, that would explain the vibrant blue paint when the other huts didn’t look quite as fresh.
“A second claim in as many years will put my premium up,” Daniel grumbled.
“Do you know anyone who would want to target you?” Jackson asked and Daniel laughed.
“Are you serious? I’m running for mayor! Of course I have enemies. But why attack my beach hut of all things? That’s not exactly going to hurt me, inconvenience me, yes, but it will not jeopardize my campaign.”
“Have you received any threats?” Jackson pressed.
Daniel shook his head. “No, nothing like that. I run a clean ship and I’ll win the election fair and square.”
“Okay, I think that’s it for now. If you hear anything, remember anything, call me.” Jackson shook his hand and the two men parted ways.
Jenna turned to me, chewing on her lip.
“What?” I asked.
“I’m not sure. It’s a stretch and there probably isn’t a connection, but Jacob’s girlfriend is killed on the beach, then Jacob’s uncle’s beach hut is torched.”
“So you’re saying it’s not a coincidence?”
She sucked her lips in and then released them with a pop. “Undecided. If an arsonist were to turn killer, he’d most likely burn his victims.”
“What if the killer came back to destroy evidence?” I clasped her arm. “What if the killer is using the recent arson attacks to his advantage?”
“So you think there is something in the beach hut? And that’s why the killer tried to destroy it?”
“It’s a lead!” I finally felt I had something to follow, a thread to tug on to unravel the mystery of Emily’s death. “We just need to wait for this lot to clear out so we can take a look.”
As if sensing what we were plotting, Liliana strode past, knocking my shoulder as she went. I staggered back, rubbing my arm. She didn’t pause, didn’t look back, didn’t apologize.
