Literally Murder (A Pepper Brooks Cozy Mystery Book 2)

by Eryn Scott

  I found her staring at Carson, who had walked over to the rival coffee cart. His hands were stuffed in his pockets, giving the appearance of nonchalance, but there was a foreign tightness to his posture which made me do a double take.

  "Hey," I said, trying to keep the frustration from my tone.

  "Hey," Carson said.

  I blinked, looking back to Victoria. Her shoulders seemed even more hunched and she might as well have zipped those lips shut and thrown away the key. She wasn't going to talk anymore. Not today at least.

  After waving goodbye to Victoria, I grabbed my two coffees and then stepped closer to Carson. "Um... what's up?" I checked my watch. Ten minutes.

  "You gonna see Alex today?"

  Tired and completely unable to handle more pressure about getting together with Alex, I almost snapped at Carson. But then I noticed the way he kept running his fingers through his hair and how his eyes swiveled, looking around him like he was being followed. Maybe he wasn't going to chastise me like Liv had been. I swallowed my outburst.

  "Maybe. Why? Is it something about Sam?"

  Carson's brow wrinkled. "Sam?"

  "Yeah, Delaney. The other day you said he's pretty bad news. Victoria was just about to tell me something about him before you showed up. Have you heard more?"

  "Wait. Victoria was talking?" Carson asked, eyes wide with surprise.

  "Yeah, and she said all of this stuff about Sam being surrounded by dark rumors and how he's a gatherer of evil... or something like that."

  Snorting, Carson said, "The kid's been reading Sherlock Holmes nonstop behind that stand. She's probably just freaking herself out." Carson leaned in close. "No, my information is about Garrison."

  My eyebrows shot up in surprise. "Garrison?" I whispered.

  He nodded.

  "What about him?"

  Carson shook his head. "Her."

  "Mrs. Garrison?" Mrs. G was the director of student services, had been even before she and Mr. G had gotten married.

  "Well, it doesn't look good for either of them."

  "Why?"

  Carson whispered, "I know for a fact she lied about her alibi."

  Eyes wide, I asked, "What?" I did a quick check of my watch. Crap, I really needed to get to class. Plus, I didn't want to know anything about this case. I was staying out of it. Shaking my head, I said, "No, never mind. Don't tell me. I'll text you Alex's number. You should tell him."

  Before Carson could say anything, I scurried away, my hands full of coffee, my mind full of questions.

  9

  I left Evensworth's class that morning in a stupor. The paper with our assignment guidelines flapped in my hand like the old fisherman's patched sail, "like a flag of permanent defeat."

  "I can't believe you haven't started the paper yet," Reuben said, walking up beside me in the hallway.

  Blinking, I turned to face him. "I know. I—things have been—I’ve been dealing with a lot."

  Apparently, when I'd missed class the day after finding Katie, Evensworth had assigned us a big paper—I'm still not convinced he didn't do so just because I was gone—and it was due tomorrow. Tomorrow. Which meant I was going to be up late. Again.

  I tossed my empty coffee cups into the trash. I was going to need a lot more of that if I was gonna make it through tonight. Looking up, I realized Reuben was still standing there, smiling at me.

  "Well, better get to my next class." I waved and stepped backward.

  "Good luck. Let me know if you need any help." Reuben gave me an awkward salute.

  I nodded, surprised at how much he seemed to mean that statement as he walked away. Were Reuben and I friends now? I turned around, dazed and concerned.

  The rest of my classes were some cruel experiment into how much I could get done of my outline while still paying attention to the lecture. The outcome: not enough.

  So by the time I got back to the apartment that evening, I had plans to take care of Hammy and then lock myself in my room until the damn thing was done.

  "Oh, hey. Good news," Liv said when I walked through the door.

  "You wrote the paper I just found out is due tomorrow?" I grimaced.

  Liv mirrored my expression. "Um... nope. Sorry."

  "What's the news then?" I asked, trying to sound interested and not like I really didn't have time for this.

  "I got more coffee." Liv smiled big. "And bagels." She picked up the bag and swung it in front of my frowny face.

  My eyes followed the delicious bread and I think a tiny spark of hope ignited inside my heart. "Okay, that's pretty good news." I smirked. "And now I must disappear into The Pit of Despair to finish my novel... or suck fifty years from my body." I shrugged.

  "Don't even think of trying to escape," Liv said in her best Mel Smith impersonation as I closed my door.

  I only emerged to grab a bagel for dinner and more coffee. Liv took Hammy on her evening walks for me and just after midnight, I managed to finish the first draft of my paper. By one o'clock, I'd edited and cited my sources. Exhausted, I slipped into bed, already knowing tomorrow was going to be the worst.

  In the morning, I printed off my paper and headed onto campus early to grab ALL the coffee. If yesterday had been a two-coffee morning, I was wondering what I would need today. Could I physically hold three cups or should I just get the largest cup Bittersweet had in stock? Maybe Nate has some large bucket he wouldn't mind letting me borrow, I wondered as I walked.

  Regardless of the fact I'd finished the paper and it was sitting safely in my bag, I felt a nagging worry in the back of my mind. Thinking through what it could be, I remembered what Liv and I had learned the other night about Katie possibly being pregnant. I still hadn't told Alex, this whole paper debacle demanding the entirety of my attention yesterday.

  I still didn't want to get involved, but I couldn't help but pair that information with what Carson had said about Mrs. Garrison's alibi being a lie. I knew Katie and Mr. G had been over by the time she found out she was pregnant, but what if Mr. or Mrs. G found out about her condition? That could be motive for murder, right? Carson said it wasn't looking good for either one of them.

  I heard a siren blare from somewhere in town. The police were probably pulling some college kid over for going too fast through downtown again. I chuckled as I thought about the bets Pine Crest citizens made about the monthly pullover rate.

  A second siren blaring served as a reminder that I didn't need to be worrying. The police had this murder investigation under control. I was leaving it in their hands this time. Well, mostly. I just needed to find out one thing. Pulling out my phone, I wanted to make sure Carson had, in fact, told Alex about what he'd found out. That was all I would do. I texted Alex.

  "Hey, did Carson get a hold of you? He said he had some info about Mrs. Garrison's alibi."

  The typing bubbles appeared and then disappeared a few times as if Alex was typing and then erasing what he'd said. I stood there blinking at my screen for a few seconds after the bubbles disappeared for what seemed like the last time.

  That was weird. Was he avoiding me?

  The sound of a third siren pulled me back to reality. Three cop cars? That seemed excessive for a speeding ticket, even in Pine Crest.

  I was standing in between First and Second Avenue, First being a straight shot into the town center. I walked forward and looked toward the roundabout, where it sounded like all of the commotion was originating.

  It seemed every police car in Pine Crest was jammed into the roundabout. Lights flashed and people in uniforms raced this way and that. There were a few townspeople standing along the outer edge, outside of their businesses. I spotted my mother standing outside her building, her arms wrapped tight around her stomach.

  Concern wrinkling my features, I felt my heartbeat jump as I walked forward.

  "Oh, Pepper." My mother rushed over to me as I approached and then pulled me into a tight hug. Even though she let go quickly, it was a pleasant surprise. My mother wasn't a b
ig hugger, especially when it came to me.

  But any good feelings brought on by the physical contact from my mom vanished as my gaze landed on the body they were pulling out of the fountain in the center of the roundabout. Everything seemed to flash by in odd and terrible snapshots.

  Water splashed and pooled on the sidewalk around the fountain as two of the paramedics extracted the body from where it had been floating facedown in the fountain.

  A curtain of blond hair falling across the young woman's face.

  Her limp arm dangling over the edge of the concrete fountain steps.

  The impossible mixture of loud silence surrounding the crime scene.

  The police had shut the street off to traffic and had cornered off the area with yellow tape up to keep us back. It didn't seem like far enough because when they flipped over the body, I recognized her! My stomach wrenched. The girl those science majors were making fun of the other night at The Select.

  What had her name been? Mindy?

  I wrapped my arms around myself, eyes lighting on the same marks upon her lifeless neck that I'd seen around Katie's.

  "Kristen was the one who called it in. She got here a few minutes before me. Poor thing." Mom tsked and shot a worried glance over to where her paralegal was standing, talking with Detective Valdez.

  It was still early, so there weren't too many people out, but alongside Mom and myself, a few townspeople had gathered as well.

  I spotted Alex, helping some of the other officers set up Road Closed signs at each of the four streets feeding into the roundabout. He caught sight of me and raised his hand in a quick hello, but seemed understandably focused on his work. So that was why he hadn't texted back.

  "It's so terrible," Mom said, shaking her head. "And this time in such a well-lit place."

  My eyes narrowed and I turned to her. "What did you just say?"

  Something about what she said clicked in my exhausted brain.

  "I'm just surprised. Usually wouldn't they want to hide the body? It's on display here, like they wanted us to notice her right away."

  I bit my lip. "They certainly wanted us to notice something," I mumbled, my thoughts racing.

  Now, I was running on very little sleep and I'd basically been eating, sleeping, dreaming Hemingway for the past few weeks, but I couldn't let go of the idea scratching at the back of my mind. I was starting to see a really weird pattern.

  I frowned at the scene in front of me. Maybe this wasn't about an affair. And maybe I was wrong when I said there was nothing literary about Katie's death.

  I eventually had to leave the crime scene because I was going to be late for Evensworth's class. My stomach settled with each step away from the fountain, but I still skipped getting any coffee, unsure if I would be able to keep it down.

  Campus was a cacophony of gossip. Everyone's eyes seemed wide with fear, their voices hushed as they passed on the terrible news. I was starting to legitimately wonder whether the university gossip mill was faster than that of the town of Pine Crest.

  Listening in as I walked, it sounded like most people knew a body had been found in the fountain, but they didn't know who it was. I sighed, wishing I didn't either.

  I slumped into a seat in the back row of Evensworth's class a few minutes later. My eyelids felt waterlogged. Ugh, wrong analogy today, Pepper, I thought with an inward groan.

  My tired eyes followed Reuben Cross as he scuttled into the room and then sat down next to me. He leaned over, as if he wanted to say something when Evensworth entered, his face a dark cloud in a sky just before a storm. The professor cleared his throat.

  "Please get your papers to me, but once you do, you're free to go. I'm not going to pretend you haven't heard. If you need to, please see the counselors. They'll be set up in the student center all day. This is not the day to be so brave and quiet that we forget you are suffering."

  By the way Reuben's head shot up at Evensworth's last line, I felt pretty confident that it was Hemingway, though it was nothing I remembered reading.

  Reuben and I turned our papers in and then stood there awkwardly for a few moments. The rest of the students murmured and milled about, though, and even Evensworth stuck around for a bit. At this point of the morning, my head was pounding from two nights of very little sleep and I headed to the student center to grab some coffee now that I was feeling less nauseous.

  The student center was that same weird mixture of pockets of noise and thick, uncomfortable silence just like the crime scene earlier. I doubted they would've released a name yet, but there were already people crying and talking to what I could only guess were counselors.

  After buying a coffee from silent Victoria, I collapsed into one of the plastic chairs sitting around the tables near the a la carte dining options. Even the warm bitterness of the coffee didn't loosen the terrible feeling lodged in my chest, which only got worse—and migrated up into my throat—when my gaze landed on a discarded NWU Times sitting on the table next to me. With trembling fingers, I grabbed at the newspaper and scanned the headlining story.

  "Campus Water Quality in Question"

  Even though I'd already overheard the bulk of the interview the other day sitting outside Bittersweet, it was still shocking to see Sam's terrible words in print. "Isn't it great?" he'd said. And now another body had been found. Another body on the same day he was quoted in another article.

  Glancing up from the text, I caught sight of Victoria standing awkwardly behind the coffee cart. Sipping my coffee and watching her, I remembered her talking about Sam yesterday.

  After what I'd seen that morning, I needed to know what Victoria had seen more than ever.

  10

  I set down the newspaper and sauntered up to the Bittersweet cart. Victoria's concerned eyes followed me.

  "Hey, Vicky." I propped my elbows on the cart.

  Victoria shuffled back uncomfortably and cleared her throat.

  "Or do you go by Tori?" I asked.

  Victoria just shook her head.

  "Remember the other day? When you were about to tell me something?" I asked, leaning forward.

  She nodded once.

  "I'm just sitting over there by myself and it doesn't look like you have any customers. Care to keep me company? I'll buy you a coffee." I smiled nice and big.

  She looked up, meeting my eyes finally. Her dark hair had fallen forward into her face and she brushed it away so I could see those ice blue eyes. "Okay," she croaked out.

  I paid for her tall drip—seriously, that's as extravagant as I could convince the girl to be—and she joined me over at my table. We sat in a looming silence for a few minutes before I broke it.

  "How do you like working for Nate?" I thought some small talk might help warm her up a little.

  "I saw him."

  I wasn't sure if the shiver which ran up my spine was because of what Victoria had said, or the fact that I still wasn't used to hearing her watered-down voice.

  Okay, no small talk then.

  "Sam or Nate?" I whispered, just to be sure.

  Victoria blinked, then she leaned closer to me. "Sam. The night before the first—that first girl showed up... dead, I saw him… down by the creek. I was at the library late that night and I like to take that way back to my dorm. He… I don't think he saw me because it was dark. I—I followed him. He left behind wet, muddy footprints."

  My mind buzzed with the information. My hand shot out and covered Victoria's. She flinched and pulled away. "Have you told the police any of this?" I asked.

  She shook her head. “I—I—police make me nervous."

  "So why are you telling me?" I asked.

  "People say you solved that murder last year... saved that professor's life." The words came out slow and unsteady. "And you found her… Katie."

  I sighed. "So you figured I'd be working on this one, too?"

  She nodded, her face darkening as she took in my obvious frustration.

  Smiling to show her I wasn't angry with her f
or mentioning it, I said, "I'm trying to work a little closer with the police this time. I really think you should tell them this."

  She began wringing her hands in her lap. "I don't talk—a lot. My words always get chopped up and I get nervous."

  Pulling in a deep breath, I looked around. My eyes settled on my school bag. "What if you wrote out your statement and then brought it to the police?"

  Victoria gulped.

  "I can go with you. We can take it in together."

  The hard lines marring her forehead relaxed and after a few seconds, she nodded.

  "Great," I said, hoping I looked more sure on the outside than I felt on the inside. So much for staying out of this one, Pepper.

  "I have to... close up." She pointed at the stand behind her, then sighed.

  "I'll just wait here." I was sure Fergie wouldn't mind me missing her class, not for a good cause like this.

  While Victoria began closing things down at the stand, I sat there, stuck with nothing but my curious thoughts. It was like I was sitting in front of a jigsaw puzzle and I could see how things were starting to fit together. My metaphorical fingers itched to reach out and click a few pieces into place.

  Sam had been down at the creek that night, he'd said something about a body in the water, and he hadn't seemed at all sad when he'd been questioned about any of it.

  Victoria finally sat down next to me and I handed her some paper and a pen from my bag. While she scratched out what she'd seen, I thought back to when Jewel had told me about Katie's affair with Garrison. She'd mentioned her getting together with a new guy. What if that guy had been Sam? His devilishly handsome face flashed in my memory. Definitely the kind of guy Katie would've been interested in. I sipped at my coffee. But how did Mindy fit into this? While outgoing, flirty Katie seemed like Sam's type, I couldn't picture the quiet girl from the bar having anything to do with the guy.

  I didn't have time to ponder it, however, because Victoria was ready to go and we headed out to the police station together.