“Right, well—”
“I know what happened that night. Want me to tell you?”
Chapter Sixteen
I stared at the creepy kid before me, jaw dropped. Well, I didn’t know for sure he was creepy, but he was far more comfortable with death than I was comfortable with. And that mixed with the fact that his eyes were still all big and little-kid-like—well, he was a bit creepy.
This was also a bit of a predicament. While I was still pretty new to the private investigation business and knew next to nothing about child-rearing, I did have a sneaking suspicion that questioning a kid about a murder—without a parent present—was a big no-no.
“I don’t think you should—”
“My mom heard the whole fight. She told her friend Sandy all about it when she thought I was playing video games.”
I nodded. I remembered Sandy from school too. She always went around telling people that she thought their makeup was ‘a little much.’ Kind of like Freddie telling people they needed their bangs cut. “You probably shouldn’t eavesdrop on other people’s conversations.”
“Do you eavesdrop?”
“What? Do I eavesdrop?” I put my hand to my chest. I suppose I should have seen that coming. But I wasn’t really an eavesdropper per se. The conversation between Joey and his sister notwithstanding.
“I know you’re lying. There’s this detective on TV who says when people answer a question by repeating the question, they’re lying.”
I don’t know why this kid was bothering to ask me any questions at all. He already had all the answers. “I was going to say not often … and usually not on purpose.”
He nodded. “So you want to know about the fight?”
I did. And he knew it. But I did not need to add the title of Erica Bloom, inappropriate child questioner, to my already infamous reputation. “I don’t think your mother would appreciate me talking about … this … with you.”
“That’s not a no.”
I threw my hands up. “I gotta go. You’re going to get me in trouble.” Not to mention the fact that he was really freaking me out with all his valid observations. I hustled down the front door steps.
“So you’re not investigating the murder?”
I didn’t answer. Just kept walking. He’d know I was lying anyway.
“And you don’t want to hear about the catfight?” he called after me.
I stopped, but I didn’t turn to look at him. “Do you even know what catfight means?”
“It’s when chicks fight.”
I turned. “You will not refer to females as chicks, and … are you saying your mom heard two women fighting that night?”
The kid smiled. “I knew you wanted to know. When I grow up, I want to be a private investigator too.”
I frowned. Hopefully not in Otter Lake. I had a feeling he might put us out of business.
“Did she say anything else?”
“She—”
Suddenly the kid stopped talking.
“What? What happened?” I asked.
But the kid just swallowed. He was looking at something behind me.
Something or someone.
I peeked a look over my shoulder.
Uh-oh.
Chapter Seventeen
“And you must be Erica Bloom.”
I turned to face the older woman standing behind me in the sheriff’s uniform. She was a little heavy, had lots of graying hair swirled back into a bun, and had an almost grandmotherly way about her … you know, if it weren’t for the gun at her hip.
I flashed her my winningest smile. “Sheriff Bigly? I thought you were a—” I don’t know why I thought she was a man. What was wrong with me? I rebrightened my smile. The look on her face told me I would get nothing for my efforts. Not even an honorable mention.
She nodded. “Cole, you go on home. I’m done talking with your mom.”
He looked over at me and said lowly, “Hit me up later.” He then darted a quick look at Sheriff Bigly and added, “Good luck with the po-po.”
I shot my hands in the air and shook my head as he sped off on his bike. “Kids. What are you gonna do?”
She nodded. “I’m glad we ran into each other, Ms. Bloom.”
“You can call me Erica,” I said. “Otter Lake is kind of a first-name—”
“I’d like us to get to know one another,” she said.
“Okay,” I said carefully.
“Why don’t I go first,” she said with a nod. “Tell you a little about me.”
I swallowed hard and waited.
She squinted and looked up at the sky. “Okay, well, let’s start with the important stuff,” she said with another nod. “I’m a widower. I have three kids. Seven grandkids. And one more on the way.”
“Congrat—”
“Thank you. We’re all pretty excited about it.” She scratched her cheek. “Let’s see, what else?” The finger scratching her cheek popped into the air. “I’ve been lucky to have a long career in law enforcement.”
“That’s nic—”
“I say lucky because I like people. I really do. And I think they like me. For the most part.” She looped her thumbs around her belt. “I’d like to think I’m a pretty nice lady. I especially like helping people. That’s why I offered to cover for Grady Forrester. You see, I’m retiring. Otter Lake will be my last stint before I hang up the badge. But Grady, he’s a good guy. And from what I’ve heard, you think so too, so we’ve got that in common.”
“Uh-huh.” For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why I was beginning to find this conversation so terrifying. But I was finding it terrifying. She was one intimidating grandma.
“You know what else I like, Erica?” she said, peering at me from under her hat. “Can I call you, Erica?”
“Sure?” Hadn’t I just said she could call me that? Uh-oh, she was making me doubt myself already. Look alive, Erica.
“I like sleep. Like it a lot. Always have.” She nodded some more and looked out toward the lake. “You know those deep long sleeps in a cool room under a warm blanket? Nothing better.” She wagged a finger in the air. “When I get that kind of sleep, well, I wake up wanting to spread sunshine to everyone I meet. When I don’t…” She chuckled. “I can be a bit of a bear.”
I just nodded. Seemed safest.
“Here’s the thing though, and you wouldn’t know this yet, but as you get older, it gets harder and harder to get a really good night’s sleep.”
“It does?”
“Oh yeah. You know for women I think it starts when you have your first baby. There’s all those nighttime feedings and diaper changes. Now, of course, if you have a supportive partner that can be a big help, but I’m convinced something happens to a woman’s brain when she becomes a mother. It changes. Senses are heightened, you know?”
I had no idea what she was talking about, but I was still nodding.
“I swear to you, I never needed a baby monitor. If one of my babies so much as sneezed—didn’t matter if they were two floors away and six rooms over—I would hear it.” She tapped her ear.
“Wow. That’s really—”
“Horrible.”
Huh, I was going to go with cool.
“You know why, Erica?”
“Sleep?” I guessed.
She snapped and pointed at me. “Bingo.”
I smiled.
She was smiling too, but somehow her smile made mine wither on my face.
“It’s not babies though that keep me awake these days.”
I tried to say No? but my voice cracked. I had to clear my throat. “No?”
“No.” She shook her head sadly. “Lots of things keep me awake these days. I have trouble turning my mind off. Ever have that problem, Erica?”
“Sure, I—”
“In fact, I haven’t had a good night’s sleep in days now.”
“Really?”
“It’s funny though, what happened to that poor girl,” she said, looking back at the
gazebo, “that doesn’t keep me up at night.”
“It doesn’t?”
She turned back to meet my eye. “No, because I know I’m going to find the person who did that, and see that justice is done.”
I nodded. Well, that was good.
“So you know what does keep me up at night now that I’m here in Otter Lake?”
I suddenly had a bad feeling about where all this was headed.
“It’s you, Erica. You and Freddie Ng.”
Yup, that’s where I thought we were going.
“I can tell by the look on your face that you already know where I’m going with this.”
And she was psychic. Great.
Sheriff Bigly rocked on her heels. “But let me say, Ms. Bloom, I’m not one to put much stock in rumors.”
“Rumors?”
“Erica Bloom and Freddie Ng. Amateur sleuths? Town security officers? Your hijinks are legendary.”
I smiled. “I wouldn’t say l—”
“I don’t like hijinks.”
“Of course not.” Probably didn’t help her sleep.
“But as I mentioned, I don’t put much stock in rumors.”
I sensed a but coming.
“So I looked you up in the files at the Otter Lake Sheriff’s Department.”
So’s were so much worse than buts. I pinched my lips and nodded.
“You have quite the—I won’t say record, because you have yet to be convicted of anything—but you have quite the long list of investigations filed away under your name.”
I shook my head.
“I’ve seen a lot in my day, Ms. Bloom. But never have I seen a file like yours. Trespassing. Break and enters. Indecent exposure. I believe there was even something about grave-digging in there?”
This time I nodded. Really didn’t see the point in arguing. That would probably end up with me getting arrested.
“And now I find you … what exactly were you doing just now, Ms. Bloom?” she asked with a smile that said she couldn’t quite believe what she had to say next. “Were you questioning a nine-year-old boy? Without a parent present?”
My hands went up again. “I thought he was ten.” She didn’t look impressed. “And really, I wasn’t questioning him. It was more like he was badgering me into accepting information.”
She sniffed and nodded. “So, am I to take that to mean you are not looking into the death of Alyssa Norton?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head quickly. “Well, at least not in any official capacity. It’s just that Candace is my friend, and she’s really upset with what has been happening. Obviously. And she was all crying and telling us that she couldn’t get married without knowing what happened to Lys—”
She held up her hand, and I stopped talking. It looked like every word out of my mouth was making her just a little more tired. I couldn’t decide if that was worse than Amos wanting to throw up every time he saw Freddie and me. Speaking of Freddie, he was going to want to hear all about the new sheriff in t—
—except I wasn’t talking to Freddie.
“I want to make this really clear for you, Ms. Bloom,” Sheriff Bigly said, taking a step toward me. “You are going to stay far, far away from this investigation.”
An insane little part of my consciousness wanted to say, Or what? But I was pretty sure that or what? involved me eating dirt and getting cuffed.
“I hope we understand each other.”
I nodded. “It’s just—”
She stopped me short with a look.
“Well, it’s just that Otter Lake is a special kind of place. It’s a close-knit community. Sometimes locals would prefer to talk—”
“Ms. Bloom, I’m not playing. You take one step over the line,” she said, pointing at the dirt. I took a quick look down. There wasn’t a line, but part of me wouldn’t have been surprised if there was. The dirt might have done it to itself out of fear. “I will take you down. You’ve already ruined one sheriff’s reputation. I won’t let you near mine.”
* * *
I biked my way back into town without stopping at the gazebo. I was shocked by my first conversation with Sheriff Bigly … and then that shock turned to anger as I pedaled in the growing heat of the morning. I think it showed too. People were crossing the street when they saw me coming. I probably looked like the Wicked Witch stealing Toto.
And why was I thinking so much about The Wizard of Oz?
Oh yeah, that’s right. Freddie and I had watched it a couple of weeks ago when we weren’t on a friend break.
I mean, I did not ruin Grady’s reputation as sheriff. Everybody respected Grady. And what did Sheriff Bigly expect? Was I not supposed to talk to my neighbors? That’s not how Otter Lake worked. Everyone was affected by what happened to everyone else, and in this case, everyone was upset about what had happened to Lyssa. There was no way I could not talk about it.
I dropped off the bike back at the Dawg and headed to the marina on foot. I needed to get back to the retreat. Maybe I could catch my mother during a break to apologize. Sheriff Bigly had made me so mad, I wanted to get this apology over with then find a way to break this case wide open. I’d show that sheriff I was more than an indecent-exposuring, vandalizing, grave-digging detective. I was a detective who kept her town safe. I’d show her … and Freddie. I’d show them all!
As I walked, my anger calmed down a bit, and I couldn’t help but notice that the town somehow felt different today.
I mean, it was a lovely spring day, but … nobody seemed too happy about it. Nope, Mrs. Carter normally had a big smile, but, right now, it was nowhere to be seen. There she was just hurrying down the street with her jacket clutched to her chest. She wasn’t even waving at anyone as she went by. Oh, and I had seen Katie Myers with her four kids when I had walked by the park earlier. She looked more stressed than usual too. And she always looked stressed. Or … maybe it was worry I was seeing. Even Big Don had been different. I mean, the man barely said anything on a good day, but today he just seemed troubled.
It made sense. What had happened to Lyssa—in our very small town—was shocking. Yes, we’d experienced murders before. But this was different. The way it happened … outside, like that … possibly randomly …
Somehow Otter Lake just didn’t feel as safe as it used to.
Not safe at all.
It especially didn’t help that a large werewolf of a man was going into Dr. Robertson’s office … with a bloody rag wrapped around his hand.
Chapter Eighteen
I hurried across the street and peeked my head in the door of Dr. Robertson’s office. Joey was seated in the waiting area.
“Erica, you don’t have an appointment.”
I turned to the woman sitting behind the half wall in the little reception area. It used to have a glass partition separating it from the rest of the room, but it caused everyone to shout their information and was considered to be generally unfriendly. “I know, Flo. I’m just visiting.”
“Well, you’ll have to skedaddle if someone needs a chair.”
I looked around. Nobody was there but Joey trying to flip through the paper one-handed. There were at least ten seats open. “Got it.”
Joey smiled as I sat down beside him. It wasn’t a happy smile, though. Not that he should be happy-smiling given that the cloth covering his hand was covered in blood.
“Joey,” I said, looking at his hand. “What happened to you?”
“I’m fine. It’s nothing,” Joey said. He held up his hand and took the cloth from it.
Holy frickin’ crapfish!
Nail!
Big rusty nail sticking out of the webbed flesh between his thumb and forefinger.
“It was a birdhouse.”
“A birdhouse did this to you?”
“Candace has been wanting one for a while, so I thought now might be a good time with everything going on.” He shot me an embarrassed smile. “A distraction, you know?”
I nodded.
“But I w
as trying to put it up and…”
“I think maybe I should take you to the hospital.”
“Nah, Dr. R said he’d take a look at it first.”
It was cute the way Joey had called him Dr. R. He had settled into Otter Lake quite nicely. I mean, Joey had kind of introduced himself to the entire town with a bang on New Year’s Eve, so everybody knew everything about him almost instantly. Got rid of all the awkwardness of people finding out he had been to jail a little bit at a time. Plus, he was good with his hands—at least he used to be—so he had been picking up a lot of handyman work.
“I’m still thinking the hospital might be a better idea. You know, Dr. Robertson just loves doing in-office surgery, so he has new war stories to tell around town.”
Flo huffed a laugh from behind the counter.
We both looked at her.
She put her hand to her chest. “I didn’t say it. You said it.”
I lowered my voice. “I’m just saying it’s your hand. You might have nerve damage or—”
“Nah, it’s just a flesh wound.” Joey wiggled his fingers in the air.
I cringed as the nail had bounced around. “Please. Please don’t do that.”
“Really, it’s fine, Erica,” Joey said. “I need to get back to Candace. I don’t like her being alone right now.”
I studied his face. Something about the way he had said that made my antennae perk up. “You mean because she’s so upset?”
“Well, there’s that, but…” He shook his head. “Weren’t you the one who told Candace you thought you saw somebody suspicious looking at the cottage the other day?”
“Well, I don’t know if they were suspicious or not, but … yeah.”
“I don’t know if we’re just paranoid after what happened to Lyssa,” he said, “but I thought I heard someone walking around last night. By the time I got out there…” He shook his head.
“What did Amos and Sheriff Bigly have to say about all this?”
He shrugged. “That we’re supposed to call if anything happens. That they’re keeping a close eye on everything. That they’re doing everything they can to find Lyssa’s killer. That kind of thing.”
“Not exactly reassuring.”
“Nope.”
Down the Aisle with Murder Page 10
