by J. C. Kenney
“How many times in the history of everything has someone actually calmed down when you said that?” The flame inside was spreading throughout my limbs. The warmth of righteous indignation urged me to press for an advantage. “The answer is none. With that out of the way, will you please tell me why we’re here instead of in your office if I’m not a suspect and all you want to do is ask me some questions?”
“Police procedure. Nothing more, nothing less. And the more argumentative you get, the longer this will take.” He tried to stare me down.
Sloane and I had been waging staring contests since we were eight, so I was more than prepared to meet his gaze. I’d reached fifty-nine using the trusty one-Mississippi, two-Mississippi silent counting method when Matt got to his feet.
I leaned back and smiled. I owe you one, bestie.
“Fine. Have it your way. For the record, we aren’t being recorded. The thing is, in the aftermath of the Winchester investigation, some questions were asked regarding the unusual access to case information you may have had.”
“My best friend’s father had been murdered.” Resentment propelled me to my feet. “It was also the first murder in this town in thirty years. If you ask me, the only thing that should matter is that the case was solved.”
“So, the end justifies the means?”
“In some cases, yes. Like that one.” I stared at the acoustical ceiling tiles. “Come on, Matt. I’m more than willing to tell you everything I know, but I didn’t kill Georgie. What’s this really about?”
“I can’t give the appearance of playing favorites. You were the first person on the murder scene. You had a bad history with the guy.” He flipped to a blank page in his notebook. “Let’s play this by the book. Tell me again what time you got up this morning?”
Two hours, a doughnut, and two cups of coffee later, Matt closed his notebook. “You know the drill. If you remember anything else, call me. Don’t leave town. And…”
“And what?” A headache had set in, I had to go to the bathroom, and I wanted to hug my kitty. I was so ready to be out of there.
“Stay out of this. Let me and my officers do our jobs.” He opened the door. “Please.”
“I’ll take it under advisement.” With as much dignity as I could muster, I swept past him and marched down the hall, avoiding eye contact with a police officer at his desk.
Jeanette met me at the door. After a glance at Matt, she walked me outside.
“From the way your boss raked me over the coals, you sure you want to be seen with me in public?” I massaged the back of my neck to relieve some of the tension that had built up during the interrogation. This was turning out to be one of the worst mornings of my life.
“Yes, I do. I believe you, Allie. I’m sure Matt does too, but he has to—”
“Play it by the book. I know. He told me.”
Jeanette put on her department-issued aviator shades. I was envious of how cool they made her look. “With the election a couple of months away, Matt’s under the microscope. All of us in city government are. Anything that varies even the tiniest bit from protocol could become an election issue. Matt doesn’t want the department to become a political football. I don’t want that either.” She shook her head and stared at the ground.
“What are you not telling me?”
“That if we’re going to catch Georgie’s murderer, we better do it fast, before the heat gets turned up so high it burns us all.”
* * * *
I’d just inserted my key in the lock when my front door swung open.
My mom wrapped me in her arms and hustled me to my couch. “Oh, little one. I can’t believe what’s happened to you. Are you okay?” Her sky-blue eyes were red-rimmed with tears, but her jaw was clenched. I knew that look. She was mad, undoubtedly at Matt.
“I’m fine.”
As Ursi jumped onto my lap, I looked around the living room. Luke was there, along with my sister, Rachel, who was staring out the window, tapping her foot in rapid-fire fashion. “That son of a—”
“Watch your tongue, young lady,” Mom said in a sharp tone.
“He arrested Allie.” Rachel spun on her heel, her long, blond hair covering her face as she turned. “How can you defend him?”
“I’m not defending him. There’s no need for vulgarities. Besides—”
“He didn’t arrest me.” Cradling Ursi in my arms, I went to the kitchen and poured myself a tall glass of water and took a long drink. While the cool liquid was refreshing, what I really wanted was a big glass of wine. Drowning my sorrows would accomplish nothing, though, so a drink would have to wait.
“He did, however, tell me I’m the main suspect.” I returned to the living room and plopped down next to Mom, keeping my kitty close to my heart. “Good times, huh?”
“That’s stupid. Everyone knows you wouldn’t do something like that.” Luke’s phone went off. After taking a minute to read the message, he brushed his brown hair from his eyes and texted a response. “I need to get back to work. Larry wants to meet with Matt and me.” He gave me a kiss on the head. “Hang in there, sis. I’ll talk some sense into Matt.”
“So, he didn’t arrest you, but you’re his main suspect.” Mom frowned. “Where does that leave you?”
“As a casualty of municipal election silly season.” Rachel took the open spot on the couch, leaving me in the middle. She gave my knee a squeeze and looked me in the eyes. “Everyone in Larry’s administration is under the microscope. They’re not going to cut you any slack and probably won’t be as willing to work with you as they were with Sloane’s dad.”
“A minute ago, you were calling the man names and now you’re defending him?” The heat of Mom’s frustration nearly scorched me as she glared at my sister.
“No. I’m just…” My sister closed her eyes and ran her fingers through her hair. “I overreacted when I called him that, and I acknowledge it wasn’t helpful to the situation at hand.”
In recent months, Rachel and Matt had been attending post-divorce family counseling. There was no chance of them reconciling, which they both admitted without remorse or recrimination, but they were committed to improving their relationship for the sake of Tristan and Theresa, their twin children. Her comment was proof the counseling was working.
I gave Rachel’s hand a reassuring squeeze. She was a Type A personality through and through. Making such an admission, which she probably perceived as a sign of weakness, couldn’t be easy.
“Jeanette hinted at the same thing when I left the station.” I turned to face Mom. “To answer your question, I don’t know where this leaves me. What I do know is I’m not going to hide here in the apartment like a frightened bunny. I’ve got too much to do.”
“I don’t like any of this, but if you say so.” Mom gave me a hug. “I need to get back to the office. Patients are waiting. I’ll call you later. Promise me you won’t do anything rash.”
“Allie’s too smart for that, Mom.” Rachel opened the front door and gave Mom a hug. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the last year, it’s that your youngest child knows how to take care of herself.”
“Laying it on a little thick, weren’t you?” I asked when she closed the door behind Mom. “I appreciate the kind words, but…”
“Mom needed reassuring. You know as well as I do she’s not been the same woman since Dad died. The less she needs to worry about us and Luke, the better.”
Rachel was right. Mom was the strongest woman I knew, but the eleven months since Dad died had taken their toll. It wasn’t like she was falling apart. Far from it. She still went to work as a primary-care physician every day, attended Mass every Sunday, and never missed the twins’ activities.
She’d lost weight, though. And was using more concealer to hide the dark circles under her eyes. And she had called Luke twice asking for help because she’d locked herse
lf out of her car.
Little things, perhaps. But they hadn’t gone unnoticed by my siblings and me. Mom knew my sibs and I met for dinner every Wednesday at Rachel’s restaurant, the Rushing Creek Public House. What Mom didn’t know was we used that time to compare notes.
We were worried about her. We also knew she was too proud to talk to her children about her struggles. So, the three of us kept an eye on her and reported anything that concerned us.
It made me feel good to be helping Luke and Rachel with Mom. My sibs had covered for me when Dad got sick and I was living in New York. In doing so, they bore my share of the duties, both physical and emotional, during the final two years of his life. It was a debt I could never repay, so at least I could help with Mom and the twins now that I was back in Rushing Creek.
“Good point.” I smiled. “I guess that means you have to compliment me whenever Mom’s around.”
My sister laughed. “Don’t get your hopes up.” With a sigh, she plopped down on the couch. “So, what are you going to do?”
“Whatever it takes to prove I didn’t do it.”
“You know I love you, right?” When I nodded, Rachel took a deep breath. “Do you think getting involved in this is a good idea?”
In the past, I would have taken her question as a swipe at my competence as an adult. I knew better now. My sister and I would never be best buddies; we were simply too different for that. But over the last year, we’d come to see the best in each other, to trust each other, and to accept each other for who we were.
“Believe me, I’d love to stand aside and leave things to the Rushing Creek PD, but based on my not-so-lovely interrogation with Matt, I’m already plenty involved.”
Rachel shrugged. “I figured you’d say that, but I had to try.” She gave me a hug. “At least promise me you’ll be careful. No life-endangering escapades, okay?”
“Okay. Pinkie promise.”
We wrapped the pinkies of our right hands around each other. It was a gesture to confirm the great importance I placed on the pledge.
After Rachel left, I gave Ursi a few kitty treats and chuckled as she gobbled them up in seconds. If the morning’s events had traumatized her, they hadn’t affected her appetite. It was easy to conclude they hadn’t bothered her at all when, after a drink from her water fountain, she strolled to a sunny spot on the floor, curled up, and went to sleep.
While Ursi used napping to recover from the morning’s events, I chose note taking. I went to my office and grabbed a battered spiral notebook from a bookshelf. I wanted to write down everything I had told Matt while it was still fresh in my mind. Doing so in the office, with its minimal distractions, would help me stay focused.
The office was the apartment’s second bedroom. At twelve by twelve, the room wasn’t overly spacious, but it met all my work needs. One wall was made up of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. They’d come from my dad’s office. There, the shelves had been filled with copies of his authors’ published books. Here, there was only one book, on the top right shelf. Within the next few days, I’d be adding another, though. I had faith that, in time, my bookshelves would be as full as Dad’s were.
Good things were happening in my life. I kept that in mind as I eased into my work chair. It was an executive model, made of polished wood and leather, that was handcrafted by a furniture maker in town. Sloane and Brent had given it to me as a housewarming gift. It was comfortable and roomy enough that I could share the seat with Ursi when I worked.
In other words, it was perfect.
I rolled up to my desk, an antique made of Indiana hardwoods, which was against the wall opposite the bookshelves. The desk, and the vintage Underwood manual typewriter occupying a corner of the work surface, also came from Dad. They were constant reminders of his legacy as a literary agent and made me thankful I’d chosen to keep his business, the Cobb Literary Agency, alive.
As I opened the notebook and took a pen from the World’s Greatest Aunt mug the twins had given me for my birthday, a tiny flame of anger flickered to life inside me. I had agent work to do, but I had to set that aside for a different kind of work.
Someone had killed Georgie Alonso. Circumstances made me the prime suspect. I needed to clear my name. And to do that, I had to find the killer.
Chapter Four
After spending an hour making notes, it was high time for some stress relief. I still wanted a drink but instead spent an hour in a high-intensity session with my kickboxing bag. After that, I rewarded myself with a delivery dinner from Marinara’s, the pizza restaurant in town, and a glass of wine. I ended the day by reading a client’s manuscript in bed with Ursi curled up at my feet.
When I woke up Saturday morning, my mind was clear, and I was ready to get to work. Today wasn’t a day for agent work, though. It was a day for physical labor.
Moving day.
Mom, due to her devout Catholic beliefs, wasn’t happy with the development. She was about the only one, though. My best friend and my brother were getting married the weekend before Halloween. The invitations had been sent, the reception hall had been reserved, and Sloane and I were going to Indianapolis for her final dress fitting coming up in a week. In my book, the fact that they were moving in together was a formality.
They were getting married. That was what mattered to me.
So, with a light heart, I gave Ursi a kiss on the nose and hopped on my bike for the ride to Sloane’s apartment. Between walking my cat and riding my bike everywhere, including to get groceries, a lot of people around town said I was eccentric. While the label was an attempt to find an inoffensive way to say I was weird, it didn’t bother me. I’d spent years in New York City without a car, after all, and didn’t want the hassle and expense that came with owning one.
Besides, the walking and cycling helped keep me in shape, and Rushing Creek was small enough that I never had to go very far for anything. Even in snowy or rainy weather, I could get around without much difficulty if I was careful and dressed for the elements. If there was an item I needed that wouldn’t fit into the basket in front of my handlebars or the saddlebags on either side of the rear wheel, I borrowed a car from someone in the family.
I pushed the trigger on the bike’s bell as I pedaled past Creekside Chocolates and waved at the store’s owner, Diane Stapleton. The joyous ting, ting, ting made me smile. Normally, the happy sound made me laugh. Given the circumstances, I’d take the smile.
Much of southern Indiana is hilly, and Rushing Creek fit into that description. The rolling hills, and the twisting-and-turning roads that came with them, made for great recreational experiences for motorists, motorcyclists, and elite road bicyclists. I was none of those, so the trek uphill to Sloane’s apartment complex included a climb that always left me a touch winded.
Today, I breezed right up the hill and coasted to a stop next to Luke’s truck without a hint of labored breathing. Either my physical condition was improving or I was benefiting from an extra dose of murder-influenced adrenaline. My money was on the latter. It was a nice thought for it to be the former, though.
The door to the apartment opened as I was about to knock. “Yay! It’s A.C. the K.C., here to fight the evil forces of putting kitchenware into moving boxes.”
“Hey, you.” My cheeks warmed as my bestie hugged me and spun me in a circle. Outside of my family, she was the most important person in my life. We’d grown up together, learned to ride bikes together, gossiped about boys together, and had more than a few drinks together. The most important achievement in my life was solving her father’s murder. I’d do anything for her.
I hated her new nickname for me, though.
A.C. the K.C. was short for Allie Cobb the Kickboxing Crusader. Kim Frye, the reporter for the Brown County Beacon, our local weekly newspaper, had given me the nickname while reporting on how I used my kickboxing skills to help catch Thornwell’s killer. Most people forg
ot about the nickname as the news cycle turned to other topics, like the start of high school basketball season. Not Sloane.
“You two going to make me do all the work?” Luke’s voice came from the bedroom. A few seconds later, he appeared, carrying a brown moving box labeled winter clothes in red ink.
“Not make you. Let you, honey.” Sloane kissed him on the cheek as he made his way toward the door.
“That’s gross. How many times do I have to ask you not to kiss my brother when I’m around?” I held the door open for Luke.
“Just wait until you see the kiss I’m going to give her at the wedding.” With his hazel eyes glittering with mirth, he bumped me on the shoulder as he made his way through the doorway.
I closed my eyes, stuck my finger in my mouth, and acted like I was going to barf. “I’ve come to help, and you two are torturing me. With friends like you, who needs enemies?”
Sloane put her arm around me. “We just thought we’d try to keep the mood light after what happened.” She led me to her couch. “Sorry I couldn’t make it to your place yesterday. I was in Indy all day helping my mom look for a dress. How are you?”
“Better than yesterday.” I was pleased with my initial round of note taking but didn’t want to think about my predicament. For one thing, I wanted to give myself time to mull over what facts I knew, along with what assumptions I’d made.
For another, I wanted this day to be about Sloane. She’d been through so much in the past year. After losing her father in such a horrible way, she deserved to be happy. My mission was to make her happy, even if that meant getting hot and grimy from schlepping boxes from one place to the other. All my energies were directed toward helping her.
“Allie, you should know better than trying to lie to your best friend.” She leaned toward me. “Did you get any sleep last night?”
Sloane was one of the few people who knew about my sporadic bouts with insomnia, which were brought on by high levels of stress. They’d gotten almost unbearable during the time of my dad’s death, but the move from New York to Rushing Creek, combined with the use of aromatherapy products, had mostly cured the problem.
