by Laney Monday
I was in bed—which happened to be on the floor, since I hadn’t had time to buy an actual bed yet—and my T-shirt was indeed scrunched up way too high. I reached for the phone, and my hand collided with a glass of water and knocked the whole thing over. I scooped up the phone and tumbled out of my sleeping bag.
“Hello?” I grumbled.
“Brenna?”
“Hmm?” I grabbed a pair of socks from the floor and began to mop up the water. Of course it was my sister, she of the awful ringtone. Who else would call me at three in the morning?
“Bren, I need you.”
Ah, the guy-trouble whine-tremble. “Where are you? It’s that jerk, Ellison, isn’t it?”
Blythe was the brainy one, but there was one serious crack in her smart and classy armor. When it came to men, her life was one dumb mistake after another. Whereas in my life there had just been one man. One massive, disastrous mistake. But let’s not go there.
There was silence on the phone. A strange pause, during which I rubbed my eyes and looked around and remembered where I was, and that my sister was supposed to be there. Against my advice, she’d met Ellison Baxter for a drink. But then she’d come home and gone to “bed” right beside me, in her own sleeping bag. A sleeping bag that was now empty. So she’d gone back out, in the pitch dark, our very first night in a brand new town? What was my newly divorced sister turning into, some reckless wanna-be-teenager, sneaking around to meet up with a guy she’d just met?
“Blythe! Where are you? It’s three in the morning!” She didn’t answer. I took a deep breath. I was sleep deprived. I had Ellison on the brain because he’d driven me nuts yesterday. This couldn’t possibly have anything to do with Ellison Baxter.
There was a sniffle on the other end of the line. “Ellison’s … he’s dead, Brenna.”
I dropped the soppy socks and gripped the phone tighter. “Dead?”
“Oh, Bren, they think I did it!”
“What!”
“I’m at the police station. They’ve taken me in for questioning. They even called in the Chief, in the middle of the night!” The last word turned into a little sob.
My own throat closed a little. My heart pounded. “I’m coming, Bly. I’ll be right there.”
I hung up and stumbled to the light switch. The jeans I took off the night before were hanging over a stack of cardboard boxes. I pulled them on and straightened my T-shirt. My hands shook as I grabbed the hair tie I kept wrapped around my belt loop and brought my hair back into a hasty ponytail.
Phone, purse, keys … shoes! Where were they? My judo bag lay half open at the foot of my bed, my frayed black belt spilling out. I spotted one of the electric blue plastic flip-flops I’d worn to practice sticking out from underneath it. I tossed the bag aside. Two flip-flops. Perfect. I stepped into them and sprinted for the door.
I pulled right up in front of the Bonney Bay Police Station, ignoring the No Parking sign. Surely such idiotic directions did not apply to one whose traumatized little sister was being falsely accused of murder by a bunch of puffed-up jocks in this small town police department. Hey, as a former Olympian, when I run into a puffed-up jock, I feel qualified to call him like he is.
Especially the I’m-Cute-and-I-Know-It Officer Will Riggins. If he was involved in this … of course he’d be involved in this, even if he wasn’t on duty tonight. How many officers could there possibly be in this town? Did they even have designated detectives? How often did they have a murder to investigate?
Murder. I shuddered, thinking of poor, jerky Ellison. Stabbed? Shot? Run over with his own prized boat?
Bad Brenna. The man was dead. At a time like this, I should be focusing on what was important—getting Blythe out of this mess. I marched into the tiny brick building, and instantly regretted my choice of footwear. The slap-a-slap-slap on the tile floor didn’t exactly convey the aura of authority—or, should I say, challenge to authority—I’d hoped for.
The scrawny officer at the front desk pushed his chair back with a loud scrape, as he bolted to his feet. His buzz-cut dark hair made his pea head look even smaller. He wore a name tag that identified him as Pfeiffer. “Will! It’s the sister!”
He might as well have said, “Will, it’s the plague!”
I paused and braced myself, half expecting him to pull out his stun gun and zap me. “My name is Brenna Battle,” I said calmly. “And yes, I’d like to see my sister.”
“Well, you can’t.”
“Has she been charged with a crime?”
“Well … ”
Firm, solid footsteps sounded, and Officer Riggins rounded the corner. His smooth, devilishly chiseled face looked uncharacteristically grim. His brown eyes were shadowed by irresistibly thick, dark lashes. The man was absolutely infuriating.
“Brenna.” He nodded at me.
I got right to the point. “Where’s Blythe?”
Will Riggins nodded to the hallway behind him. “Right now she’s just being questioned. We’ll have to do a more thorough search of the crime scene, and then wait on the forensics results.”
“But she’s a suspect?”
“Of course she’s a suspect!” the officer at the front desk cried. “She beat him to death with her freaking hairbrush!”
“Tony!” Will said.
“Her … what? The murder weapon was Blythe’s hairbrush?”
Tony Pfeiffer folded his arms and narrowed his eyes. “She practically confessed!”
Riggins took a meaningful step in front of me. He met my eyes. “She confessed the hairbrush is hers, nothing more.” His eyes and his voice were so calm, so smooth. I couldn’t help nodding, retreating a step.
But then I imagined the scene. What a way to go, bashed in with a hairbrush. How do you even beat someone to death with a brush? I shook my head, picturing each of my sister’s hairbrushes in turn. Bright green, purple with sparkles, pink zebra stripes … all plastic. “You guys have no idea what you’re doing, do you? A plastic hairbrush?”
Riggins said, “A light object can do the job, with the right technique, applied to a vulnerable part of the body. I’m sure you know that.”
Right. Being a “martial arts expert” and all. “Of course I know that,” I snapped.
He nodded. “I think you were the one who explained to Walter how important it was to make sure he applied his chokes to the side of the neck, cutting off the carotid artery, instead of across the front, right on the windpipe.”
Yes, I’d made the mistake of joining one of the Police Athletic Club’s judo practices. And I’d ended up playing referee/ babysitter for a bunch of officers who were so inexperienced, they were likely to kill each other and they didn’t even know it.
“She whacked him with a hairbrush, right across his windpipe,” Pfeiffer said.
I turned to Riggins.
“That’s what it looks like,” he said, softly, warily. “One blow to his nose, which broke and spattered the hairbrush with blood, and another right across his throat, leaving blood smears there. It probably crushed his esophagus, though we’ll have to wait for the coroner’s report to find out for sure.”
It was unthinkable. Blythe wasn’t one to commit a crime of passion. Blythe didn’t even know how to be angry. I opened my mouth to argue, but a terrible wail came from the hallway.
“Blythe! What are you guys doing to my sister?”
Officer Riggins held a hand out to stop me. Now his calmness made me want to shake him. I ignored his gesture and strode over to him with the Caged-Animal-Ready-to-Rip-Your-Head-Off look I normally reserved for European judo tour training camps. “Don’t think you can mess with the Battle sisters. If you’re up to any funny business with this investigation—”
I saw the red rising in Officer Riggins’s cheeks. He seemed suddenly transfixed by my feet. Ha! Can’t even make eye contact, huh officer? If that wasn’t the face of a guilty—
There was something strange about that frown, the way his eyes were now darting around the room. In s
earch of an escape? Could he be that embarrassed? Was it worse than I thought? Were they trying to force a confession out of Blythe?
And then I caught his eye. And followed it straight back down to my foot. Yesterday’s underwear waved out of the cuff of my jeans like a pink polka-dotted flag of surrender. The treacherous undergarment had worked its way down my leg and out into the open. I’d never even noticed it had been left behind when I undressed the night before. I wasn’t really a pink kind of girl, but I’d been stuck in France with no underwear when the airline lost my luggage, and the polka-dots were all I could find in a pinch. And these undies didn’t pinch, so I’d kept them.
I bent down, yanked the undies the rest of the way out, and stuffed them into my pocket. I heard Pfeiffer snicker. I spun and glared at him, and he sank behind his desk. I turned back to Officer Riggins, fighting the burn in my cheeks. His lips twitched a little. Before he could force the frown back on, I saw it. The dimple that only showed up when he smiled.
“Brenna! You’re here!” Blythe burst into the foyer with arms spread like an angel, swooping me out of the hole I’d just begged to open up in the floor and swallow me up.
A little sister who adored me was definitely preferable to being engulfed by humiliation. I blinked back tears of relief at having my sister safe in my arms. But what hole had I dug for Blythe? For both of us? Thanks to my bright ideas, we were new in town. Unwanted strangers.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll get you out of this.”
After all, I was the one who’d gotten both of us into it with my crazy scheme to move here, with my ridiculous hope that new dreams could come alive for us in this sleepy little coastal town.
9
Blythe practically ran to the truck. She yanked at the door before I could press the unlock button.
“Hold on, Bly,” I said.
As soon as she heard the beep, she dove in and shut the door. I started the engine and glanced at her. A river of tears poured down her cheeks.
“We’ll be home before you know it. Then you can tell me everything.”
She nodded, but I knew she was thinking the same thing I was. We were so far away from home. So, so far away. Forcing back my own tears, I turned to reach the dented tissue box on the back seat. It was nearly empty; I’d used most of the tissues to mop up spilled frappuccino on our road trip. I pulled out everything that was left and placed it in Blythe’s lap, then gave her hand a squeeze.
She mumbled a thank you and attended to her drippy nose. “He’s dead! Ellison’s dead and the whole town is going to think I did it! The police Chief himself was questioning me!”
I never thought the day would come that the word hysterical would describe my sister. But there was no other word to describe that sobbing outburst. Before I could react, she threw her door open. I hit the brakes and swerved to pull over. Thank God, there wasn’t a single other car on the street at this hour.
“Blythe!” I pulled up on the emergency brake so we wouldn’t slide down the steep hill, and scrambled out after her.
She gulped and gasped for air. “I think I’m going to throw up.”
“Sit down.” We plopped down on the curb together. “Take a deep breath.” I held her shaking hand with my right hand and wiped my eyes with the back of my left. And I prayed silently for my baby sister. Why was this happening? Why now?
The cool, salty-sweet, pure night air did the job. The minutes passed, and Blythe and her stomach calmed down, though she was still shaking.
“How about a walk?” I suggested.
“Okay.”
We wandered up the hill. I turned toward the water, and saw that a wide space between two of the houses offered a clear view of the ocean below. Strange. Most of the houses on this street were packed close together, surrounded by flowering trees and shrubs. Just off the sidewalk, the space—about the size of a driveway—was smoothly paved and flanked by decorative street lamps. It led to a large wooden deck with unpainted wooden railings, and a big wooden bench that seemed to invite the public to come and sit. I steered Blythe toward the bench. With every step, the view of the water, sparkling in the moonlight, grew clearer.
“Is this private property?” Blythe glanced at the houses and gardens on either side. To our left, a narrow, winding alleyway snaked into the shadows behind backyards. “I don’t know about that,” I said, nodding at the alley, “but this looks like it’s part of a park or something.”
We sat on the bench and admired the calm waters of Bonney Bay. The dark, peaceful forms of an island and a peninsula in the distance.
“Tell me what happened,” I said gently.
“You were knocked out, but I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t want to bother you, so I went downstairs and opened up the studio—the dojo. I was visualizing, you know? Ruth left a couple of benches behind, and I was experimenting with which wall to put them on for the parents to watch, thinking about where the kids should take off their shoes, whether we should put a desk or a table up in front to sit down with potential students … and then I heard the sirens. And saw the lights. The patrol car stopped right outside the front door. I came out to see what was wrong, and they told me I needed to come to the station right away. They said something had happened to Ellison. I was confused. Why were they notifying me? But I wanted to help, so I went.”
She picked one of the pink rhododendron blossoms from the bush next to the bench and absently twirled it in her fingers. “I was the last one to see Ellison alive. Everyone in town said so. But I didn’t know that yet, then. The police didn’t even tell me he was dead until they’d grilled me about where I’d been and when. Over and over … ” Her twirling fingers flicked too hard, and the blossom flew onto the ground.
I picked it up and tucked it behind her ear. She gave me a little smile. “And then?” I prompted.
“And then they showed me the brush. They asked me if it looked familiar. I told them I had one like it, in my purse. But then I dumped out my whole purse, right there on the table. And it was gone.”
“How did your brush get in Ellison’s house?”
“I didn’t go over there! I wouldn’t go into a guy’s house, who I just met, all alone. I don’t even know where he lives!”
No, she wouldn’t. Blythe might not have a good sense for judging guys, she might lose her head a little when it came to them, but her practical side wouldn’t go so far as to let her do such a clearly stupid thing as that.
“There’s only one explanation.”
Blythe eyed me expectantly.
“Someone set you up.”
“Who would do that?”
“A crazy mom who blames us for Miss Ruth leaving?”
“Or Crazy Eric. Anyone could’ve taken it out of my bag at the dojo last night. And he looked like he wanted to kill you. Maybe he thought it was your hairbrush. But why not just go after you directly then?”
“Crazy is crazy … but to kill some innocent person just to get rid of us?” I straightened up. “Maybe Ellison wasn’t some innocent person!”
“Brenna!” My sister said, in that shocked, whispery gasp that reminded me of our mother. “The man is dead. Must you insist on him being a scumbag?”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.” Although there was the strong possibility that he was a scumbag. “The killer must have had some other reason for killing him, not simply to blame us. But because they don’t like us being here, they have no qualms about casting the blame our way.”
Blythe gulped. “Two birds with one stone.”
“Yup. In a twisted way, it makes sense. And it will help us narrow our search.”
“Our search?”
“Of course. We have to figure out who did this to Ellison, and to us. We can’t count on the cops to do it, not when they think they have the smoking gun … ah … hairbrush.”
Blythe finally laughed a little at that, though a new spurt of tears and sniffles came along with it. “You know, I really liked that brush.”
It was good to see her let go of some of the tension. I returned her laugh.
“Maybe we should stay here for a while,” Blythe said.
“In Bonney Bay?”
“Here.” She patted the bench. “Brenna, I gave the police permission to search the apartment. They have my key. They’re probably on their way now.”
“You what? They need a warrant, and you need a lawyer!”
“I’m not under arrest, and I’m not going to be, once they see that I have nothing to hide.”
“Blythe!”
“We are not spending your savings on attorneys. I haven’t done anything wrong, and I have faith in the system. It will work out as long as I cooperate and show them I’m innocent. Maybe it wasn’t even my hairbrush. It could’ve been one just like it. Maybe when they search our apartment, they’ll find mine.”
We sat there in thoughtful silence for a moment. Then I said, “I wonder who called the police? I mean, how did they even find the body so quickly?”
“A neighbor heard screams and called 9-1-1. I don’t know who it was. They wouldn’t tell me. By the time they got there, Ellison was dead and the killer was gone.”
“Didn’t they wonder how you got back to the studio so fast? Does Ellison live that close?”
Blythe pulled out a tissue she’d stashed in her pocket and blew her nose as she shook her head. “I don’t know. All the neighbors came out when they heard the sirens and the commotion. They started talking about who’d seen Ellison tonight and who he was with. Eventually it came out that I was the last person known to be with him.”
I stood up and began to pace the deck. And that’s when I saw the zig-zag of unlit wooden stairs and landings leading down the hill, into the darkness. To what? I squinted, but couldn’t make out where they ended up. The wind picked up a bit, and I shivered. Somewhere down there, beyond the deck railing, the leaves rustled, and a new kind of chill froze me in place. The stairs might’ve been inviting in the daylight—or even just on another night. When there wasn’t a killer on the loose. Why hadn’t I thought of that? He or she could be anywhere. Right here, watching us! In the alley, in the shadows of the ivy and rhododendrons around the deck. There were shadows all around us. Shadows, everywhere. Another gust of wind brought a smattering of fine raindrops. I grabbed Blythe’s hand. “Come on. Let’s go. We should probably keep an eye on those guys while they go through our things, anyway.”
