Barnyard Murder: A Cozy Mystery (Strawberry Shores Mystery Book 2)

by Mak K. Han

“I don't know,” Miss Tilwell replied. “But if you find out, you'll let me know, right?”

  “Sure, Miss Tilwell.”

  I approached the caution tape and surveyed the scene. Jeannie was slumped against the tree. Her hair had fallen across her face. And lying on the ground, a few inches from her hand, was a water bottle.

  “Everyone stand back,” Sheriff Caldwell said. “This area is officially a crime scene.” He turned to Tim Hayfield and his men. “You guys might as well go home. There's no way you're bulldozing the lot anytime soon.”

  Exasperated, Tim rolled his eyes and gestured to his crew to kill the machines.

  “And you,” the Sheriff said, his eyes falling on mine. “You don't go getting any ideas about sleuthin’. We don't need a repeat of Daniel Berkshire.”

  I put up my hands, palms out, in a don't-look-at-me gesture. “I don't want anything to do with this,” I said.

  “Good,” was the Sheriff's reply.

  He'd been referencing a night from a couple of months back. Edward Brooks, one of the trustees, had been murdered. I'd just been learning how to use the static so I'd taken it upon myself to 'help' solve the case, along with Emily and Alex. We'd managed to solve the case, but the murderer—Daniel Berkshire—had figured out what we were doing and almost killed us. Had it not been for Harold saving us at the last moment, Daniel probably would have gotten away with it.

  Sheriff Caldwell had never been able to prove that Emily, Alex, and I were involved in the case. When asked why Daniel had gone after us, however, he'd said it was because we were trying to solve it. Ever since then, Sheriff Caldwell had it out for us. Apparently he thought we were encroaching on his territory.

  His warning was unnecessary though. I'd meant it— I had no interest in getting involved in another murder case. I was perfectly happy to leave the sleuthing to Caldwell. I had no intentions of getting involved.

  Little did I know, I would be involved—but not through any choice of mine. Jeannie might have been gone, but her legacy was only beginning to rear its ugly head.

  Chapter 11

  “So that's it then, huh?” Emily asked, addressing the pink elephant in the room.

  It was Thursday night. I was helping Emily make a batch of cupcakes. Alex was sitting at the dining room table working on shirts.

  “What do you mean?” Alex asked.

  “With the tree,” Emily said. “And the barn. Now that Jeannie Ferdinand is gone, they can tear it down.”

  I thought about it for a moment. “That's kind of a morbid way to look at it but yeah, I guess with Jeannie out of the picture, everything's going to move forward. Once Sheriff Caldwell finishes with the crime scene, Tim is going to bulldoze the whole lot.”

  “Who do you think killed Jeannie?” Alex asked.

  “It was probably Dana Jones,” Emily suggested. “Think about it: she goes to the site last night, offering a 'peace treaty' to Jeannie. You said she was poisoned, right Laura?”

  I shook my head. “I don't know for sure. Sheriff Caldwell hasn't specified. But like I said, it looked like Jeannie had drank from the water bottle, and that was what killed her. I didn't see any blood.”

  Emily nodded. “Right. Dana gives her the water, Jeannie drinks it, and all of her problems go away.”

  “The same could be said for Tim Hayfield,” Alex pointed out. “He's spent all week losing money. Maybe he got tired of waiting and decided to get Jeannie out of the way.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “That makes sense. Now that Jeannie's gone, he can go ahead bulldozing the lot.”

  “And don't forget Kevin Drake,” Emily said. “He seemed really eager to impress Dana. Maybe he killed Jeannie to impress her.”

  “It could be anyone,” I said. “Jeannie was unpopular with a lot of people. We'll probably never know.”

  The kitchen was quiet for a minute, aside from the faintest sound of Emily squirting icing on cupcakes and Alex sprinkling glitter on a t-shirt. Then, from Emily: “You know, guys. We could figure it out.”

  Alex and I shot dirty looks at Emily in unison. Emily's thought had given Alex and I the same thought. “Are you serious, Emily? Do you not remember what happened last time?”

  “Yeah. We caught the bad guy!”

  I rolled my eyes and pointed at where she was standing. “No, as I recall, you were tied up there, I was tied up there, and Alex was tied up there, and the bad guy was about to kidnap us.”

  “Uh-uh!” Emily set the icing aside and turned to face me, planting her hands on her hips. “That's only because I accidentally told Miss Tilwell we were investigating the murder. If I hadn't told her, Daniel never would have known that we were involved.” She reached for a towel and wiped icing from her fingers. “This time we'll be quiet-like. We'll figure out who the bad guy is and not get kidnapped.”

  “Or,” I cut in, “we could not figure out who the bad guy is, and let Sheriff Caldwell take care of it, and still not get kidnapped. Doesn't that sound like a better idea?”

  Emily and I stared each other down for a moment. She was frowning. Emily came from the 'if you can help, it's your obligation to help' school of thought. I came from the 'I dislike being tied up and/or kidnapped' school of thought. Not to mention, it wasn't our job to solve the murder, nor was it our responsibility. Sheriff Caldwell was perfectly able to handle it on his own. Alex, Emily and I wouldn't be affected either way, regardless of whether or not Sheriff Caldwell solved it.

  The doorbell interrupted us. I left the kitchen and put my hand on the doorknob. “Who is it?”

  “Sheriff Caldwell,” I heard from the other side. I opened the door.

  “Sheriff! Come in,” I said, smiling. “Would you like something to drink? A fresh-baked cupcake?”

  I didn't think he was thirsty; the light aroma of whiskey wafted into the room with him.

  Sheriff Caldwell shook his head. “No, I'm fine. Thanks gals. I'm actually here on official business. You got a moment, ladies?”

  Alex, Emily and I gathered around the Sheriff.

  “So, I s'pose y'all have heard that Jeannie Ferdinand passed away last night,” the Sheriff said.

  “Yeah!” Emily piped up. “She was poisoned, right?”

  The Sheriff eyed her. “Well, that actually hasn't been released in public yet, so it's interestin' that you know that.”

  “We guessed,” I said, covering for Emily. “I saw the crime scene this morning.”

  “Gotcha. Well, I figure it's only proper to let you girls know, you're bein' considered as suspects.”

  Our faces blanched in unison.

  “Us? Why us?” Alex blurted out.

  “Well, I saw you gals last night, and it didn't look like you'd all had a great exper'nce with Jeannie,” he said. “That makes y'all among the last to see her alive. Plus, you knew how she'd been killed, which is mighty suspicious,” he said.

  I shot a dirty look at Emily.

  “Sheriff, we didn't kill Miss Ferdinand,” I said. “We were there last night to –” I paused. I couldn't tell him why we'd actually been there. What was the cover we'd used? Oh, right! “To interview her. I was thinking about writing a piece on her protest. You saw us—we didn't even have water. We brought her a radio.”

  “She was annoyed because she couldn't eat it,” Emily said.

  Shut up, Emily! I thought to myself. Emily was trying to be helpful, but my concern was that she was going to give the Sheriff the wrong idea.

  “That's fine, gals. We'll get to the bottom of this. 'Til then, I'd recommend you stay in Strawberry Shores.”

  “Hold on,” I said. There weren't any radios on, but I had to do something. I went with the first question that came to mind. “A lot of people disliked Jeannie. Are you sure you're going to get the right person?”

  Then, I focused. I concentrated, just like I'd done the night Alex and Emily and I had been testing my ability to sense static without the use of a radio nearby.

  “Sure I will. Have a good night, ladies.”

&n
bsp; With that, he left.

  Alex, Emily, and I looked at each other in horror.

  “He wouldn't arrest us, would he?” Emily said. “I mean, we're innocent.”

  “That's why I asked him how sure he was about getting the right person,” I said.

  “To see if he was lying—good thinking Laura!” Emily clapped her hands.

  “Well?” Alex asked. “Did you pick up anything?”

  I grimaced. “A little bit of static. I think,"

  “What do you suppose that means?” She asked.

  “If the static was real, it means he's not entirely sure he's going to arrest the right person. But there aren't any radios around, so I might have been imagining it.”

  Emily deflated, the smile melting from her face. “So, wait. We were the last people to see Jeannie alive. That makes us super-suspects, right? That means we might go to jail for something we didn't do.”

  Alex and Emily looked at me.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Unless we figure out who the real killer is.”

  “No.” I shook my head. “No, no, no.” I turned away from them and headed to the living room.

  “Come on, Laura!” Emily chirped, following me. “If we don't, we might go to jail.”

  I slumped across the sofa and rubbed my eyes. She was right. Sure, I was confident that Sheriff Caldwell would find the real killer. But suppose he didn't? Suppose he arrested the wrong person? Suppose he arrested us?

  “Fine!” I blurted out. “Fine, we'll look into it. But don't get your hopes up. We got lucky the first time. The odds of us figuring out another murder are slim to none.”

  “Yay!” Emily cheered.

  “Great,” Alex said. “I'm glad we're all on board with the not-going-to-jail plan. Now can we get to work? Let's start with a list of suspects.”

  Alex headed toward the kitchen. Emily moved to follow her. I hopped up off the couch and put my hand on her shoulder. She stopped and looked at me. “And this time,” I said. “Not a word to Miss Tilwell.”

  Emily made a gesture like she was locking her lips and throwing away the key. “Mum's the word,” she said.

  Chapter 12

  The next morning at the library, the case was on my mind.

  We'd spent a couple of hours the previous night establishing a battle plan. We'd established that the list of most likely suspects were Dana Jones, Tim Hayfield, and Kevin Drake. We would need my psychic powers and—seeing as I was only at 75 percent accurate without a radio—we resolved that we would only take into account evidence obtained while there was a radio nearby. Otherwise, we might implicate the wrong person.

  Which brought us to one major problem. How were we going to go about investigating quietly?

  Alex made a solid case. Daniel had figured out that we were poking around and almost kidnapped us as a result. Had we been a bit more subtle, maybe we could have solved the murder without ending up tied up in the kitchen.

  If we just walked up to people and asked them, “Hey, did you kill Jeannie?” then the real killer would quickly figure out what we were doing. Maybe I could work the question into a conversation as a joke, but even that seemed fallible. Someone might say 'yes', and if they didn't take the question seriously, it might not trigger my static, which would lead to a false positive.

  So we had to be discreet. And that was where we hit an impasse. How would we investigate the crime without looking like we were investigating it?

  The answer came walking through the library door at about eleven in the morning.

  Susan was absent-mindedly browsing the Internet. I was reading a book. I hadn't written anything since Murder in Tomato Town and I was hoping to find inspiration.

  Usually when patrons walked into the library, they headed into the stacks and came to the desk after they'd picked out a book; this patron came straight to the desk and stood there until we noticed her.

  She was a woman of medium height. Her dirty blond hair was frazzled and messy, held in place by a tie-dyed hair band. She was wearing a brown vest frayed at the bottom, which partially concealed her brightly colored t-shirt, which was a motley collection of peace signs and smiley faces. Her bare feet, clad with sandals, stuck out from her tattered jeans.

  “Hi,” I said. “Can we help you?”

  “The question is can I help you?”

  Susan and I looked at each other.

  “There's a lot of negative energy in this town right now. I can feel it, emanating from you two. It's not your fault. Bad juju happened across the street. It's only natural that some of those vibes would make their way over here, seeing as you're so close.”

  “You mean the thing with Jeannie?” Susan asked.

  The woman shushed her and ducked, looking around the library. “Careful about saying that name. There's a lot of bad juju attached to it. So much, right now, that if you say it too many times the library will come crashing down.”

  Susan put her hand over her mouth.

  “It's all right, though. I just want to let you know that I'm here for you, if you want to talk about it.” She handed us business cards, which were index cards with her name and phone number written on them. It said Tina Sanders.

  “Originally they said Tina Sanders, Energy Therapist, but I got tired of writing Energy Therapist over and over again,” she explained. “So now they just say my name. But I'm an Energy Therapist. See, when you say words, you do more than talk. You're creating vibrations in the air. You're letting go of the bad juju in your mind. I take those vibrations, clean out the bad juju, and give the energy back to you.”

  I was a bit unconvinced. “Do you have a degree in psychiatry?” I asked.

  Tina shook her head. “No, it's not psychiatry. It's Energy Therapy.”

  I tried again. “Okay, do you have a degree in anything?”

  Again she shook her head. “You don't need a degree if you know how the world works, girls. I know how the world works.” She tapped the card in my hand. “If you need anything, you let me know.”

  As she turned to walk away, a thought hit me. “Hold on—so you're going around to everyone in Strawberry Shores and offering your services?”

  Tina nodded.

  “And it's free for everyone? To talk about, you know, what happened across the street?”

  “Mm-hmm.” Tina nodded again. “Like I said, lots of bad juju.”

  “I'm in,” I said.

  “What?” Susan looked at me like I had just grown a third head.

  “You heard me,” I said. “I'm in. I want to help. I want to be an Energy Therapist.”

  Tina frowned. “That's a pretty heavy commitment. I've been doing it for years now. If you don't do it right, you could unleash a lot of bad energy onto the town.”

  I gave her the most sparkling smile I could muster. “Lucky I have you to train me. You're the master, right?”

  Tina laughed. “Okay, well, yeah. I am.”

  “Well then let's get to it. Can we start tonight, like right after I get out of work?”

  “Sure, sure. Meet me at my place.” She took the card from me and wrote her address on the back. “Be prepared, we might pull an all-nighter, and that's just to get through the basics.”

  “I'm ready,” I said, taking the card.

  “Cool attitude,” Tina said. “You give off a lot of positive vibes, girls.”

  Susan waited until Tina was out of earshot before saying: “So... an Energy Therapist, huh?”

  I shrugged. “It probably pays more than being a writer.”

  Chapter 13

  I headed to Tina's house after work to see what she had to offer. Certifying me as an Energy Therapist took thirteen minutes, and then she lit up a joint and offered me some, at which point I remembered I had something super important to do and excused myself.

  So I headed back home, calling Alex and Emily on the way. They met me at my house and we were back at it.

  Now that I was a certified Energy Therapist, I had a disguise. I could g
o around town, asking questions about the murder under the guise of being an 'Energy Therapist' and gather information that way. Even if the killer heard about what I was doing, he (or she) would think I was just looney toons and wouldn't take me seriously.

  It was a perfect cover.

  The phone rang.

  Alex, Emily and I were leaning over papers on the table—suspects, lists of possible motives, notes on what we knew about the case. I excused myself and answered it. “Hello? Lane residence.”

  “Laur—hic—Laura?”

  “Speaking,” I said.

  “It's Harold. You think you can—hic—pick me up from the Pelican? It has been brought to my attention that I am unsafe to drive.”

  I grimaced and looked over my shoulder at the table. “I'm kind of busy here, Harold. Can't you just call a cab?”

  “Oh, come on,” he pressed. His voice turned ooey-gooey all of a sudden. “I want to see you. I've missed you. You wouldn't want me driving home myself, would you?”

  I sighed. “Fine, Harold, I'll be there in a few minutes.” I hung up the phone and turned to the girls. “I guess I'm calling the meeting short. Harold needs a ride. Are you guys staying?”

  Alex looked up at me and then at the fridge. “I don't know. Do you have anything to eat?” She turned and opened the fridge. “Yeah,” she called over the door. “Yeah, it looks like we're staying.” She withdrew with an armful of bread and sandwich meat. “You got any mayo?”

  I rolled my eyes as I grabbed my keys. “Top cupboard. You'll have to open a new one.”

  “Don't worry!” Alex called after me as I started for the door. “We'll have this mystery all sorted out by the time you get back.”

  It looked to me like the only thing they'd have sorted out was how many sandwiches they were going to make. I left Alex and Emily to their own devices and headed downtown.

  Along the way, I decided to use this as an opportunity to practice my skill. Harold was waiting for me on the curb; as I pulled up I turned off the radio. He stumbled in.

  “Buckle your seatbelt,” I said sharply.

  “Hey baby,” he said. “Thanks for the lift.”