A Juicy Murder

by Eryn Scott

  “What’s up?” her brother answered.

  “I know you’re busy, but if you get a second, there’s a car you need to come check out in the community center parking lot, in the hidden spot by the river. We just pulled a cat out of it that was almost dead from heatstroke. I need you to find out who it belongs to, so you can put them in jail for the foreseeable future.”

  4

  Hadley wasn’t well versed in animal-abuse laws, so she couldn’t be sure if the person responsible would even go to jail. Still, she hoped whatever punishment they received would be severe.

  She hugged her arms around herself as Dr. Murphey drove away.

  Luke sighed and laid an arm over her shoulders, pulling her tight to him.

  “How long do you think the poor thing was in there?” she asked.

  Jaw tightening, he shook his head. “Long enough that she was in such bad shape.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I thought she was a goner when I first pulled her out.”

  Hadley patted his hand where it rested on her shoulder. “But she wasn’t. Thanks to you.”

  He smiled. “And you.”

  “Psh,” she said. “I thought you were being weird and nosy. I would’ve just left the car alone, not even given it a second glance.” The events leading up to the breaking of the window felt fuzzy, and she wrinkled her nose as she tried to remember how it had all started. “What made you interested in the car in the first place?”

  Luke stared at the blue sedan, just visible through the trees from where they stood at the entrance to the parking lot. It was an old Honda Civic, and it appeared the owner took care of it about as well as they took care of their pet.

  “Tyler and I only used that spot when we were up to no good, when we had something to hide. The rest of the lot is practically empty, so for them to park in that exact spot …” He shrugged. “I figured they were up to no good.”

  Hadley exhaled, feeling her heartbeat return to normal. She leaned into Luke as the adrenaline wore off. But there was no time to rest because she spotted Paul approaching. He had his tablet at his side. She knew he had the ability to search the license plate number and find out who was the registered owner.

  She wanted to laugh in triumph. This terrible potential cat killer was about to get their comeuppance. Paul would make sure of it.

  “Okay, where’d this creep park?” Paul asked, his face set in a grimace.

  Hadley and Luke stood a few yards back as Paul paced around the car, inspecting this and jotting down notes about that.

  Phone buzzing with a text, Hadley pulled her attention away from her brother’s work. The message was from Suze.

  I heard there was some commotion down by the river. You okay?

  Boy did information move fast in Stoneybrook. Hadley typed out a response.

  Yeah, Luke and I found a cat someone left in a hot car. Everyone’s okay, though.

  She hoped supplying Suze with the facts would help tamp down the sensational speculations that no doubt already circulated up and down Main Street. But just as she hit send, she noticed a group of locals walking toward them from the community center. Their bustling forms and loud whispers were a dead giveaway: the quilting society. They must’ve just finished packing up after the market and had come to check out the scene.

  Just as Hadley thought the town couldn’t get any nosier, she caught sight of the knitting club walking up from the river path. They picked through the underbrush, taking a rough pathway farther out of the way from the straight shot Hadley and Luke had taken.

  The whole thing reminded Hadley of watching her two cats approach the random fly who accidentally found its way into her house.

  “Incoming,” Luke muttered under his breath, as if Hadley hadn’t spotted the approaching groups.

  Hadley pasted on a smile as the quilters reached them first. Hazel Smith, the unofficial leader of the group stepped forward.

  “Is everything okay?” She peered around Luke and Hadley to get a look at Paul and the car. “We noticed you standing here and wanted to make sure you didn’t need any help.”

  Hadley guessed they hadn’t just happened to see them standing there. They'd definitely found out something interesting happened by the river and had come down to investigate. It was a common Stoneybrook practice, however, to ask questions one already knew the answer, to maintain the pretenses they weren’t all gossips.

  “We’re fine.” Luke shot the women his signature wide grin.

  Hadley wasn’t alone in her appreciation of the man’s charm and good looks. The local women, even those who were old enough to be his mother, were smitten with Luke, as was made clear when they tittered and beamed at him.

  He gave the same charming smile and answer to the question when the knitters arrived.

  They may have loved Luke, but they would not be satisfied with charm alone for much longer. “There was a cat in the car. It had heatstroke, but Luke saved her,” Hadley explained.

  Louise Stanton gasped. The knitting shop owner, and the town’s self-appointed cat adoption coordinator, loved the animals more than anyone Hadley had ever met.

  “Dr. Murphey brought it to the clinic, and it was doing much better when she left,” Hadley added, seeing the worry evident on Louise’s face, on all the women’s faces.

  When they leaned forward with interest, she gave them more details, Luke adding commentary here and there as needed. While she explained what happened, more locals arrived, standing near Hadley and Luke or edging closer to Paul and the car.

  As it turned out, the quilters and knitters may have different skill sets when it came to crafts, but they were equally interested in relaying information, so Hadley only had to tell the story once. They took care of the rest.

  Paul was on the phone when Hadley turned her attention back to him. There was a tightness, an energy to his posture, and Hadley wasn’t sure if it was good or bad. He hung up the call and approached the group a few minutes later. His gaze stayed steady on Hadley and Luke.

  “Luke, can you run over to the sheriff’s office and get some crime scene tape from Kevin, please?” he asked, leaning in close. “He’ll be expecting you.”

  Nodding, Luke took off at a jog, his boots squelching in their still damp state.

  Hadley’s heart raced along with her mind. Crime scene tape? When did this turn into a crime scene? No one had died …

  Her eyes flew to meet her brother’s.

  No.

  It couldn’t be. The cat had been doing so well.

  “Did Dr. Murphey call you or something? The cat seemed like she would pull through.” Her face flushed with worry.

  Paul’s face was a mask free of emotion or answers, though. He surveyed the group. “Excuse me, everyone. I need you to step back from the car. This is now an active crime scene.”

  Murmurs turned into whispers which turned into exclamations.

  “Crime scene?”

  “Omigosh.”

  “What happened?”

  “Was it the cat?”

  “Is everything okay, Paul?”

  “What did you say?”

  To be fair, that last question was from Adele Stevens, who could barely hear at the best of times.

  He put his hands up in that calming way law enforcement must learn at the academies. “The cat is fine, as far as I’m aware. Please return to what you were doing. We will release any pertinent information if it becomes important for you to know.”

  Hadley had always thought Paul deserved a raise for doing his job in a small town as tightly knit as Stoneybrook. Convincing the locals they didn’t need the case information, or containing said information if it got loose in the rumor mill, must be like half his job. The fact that she was about to be one of the same nosy townies, was not lost on her.

  But she was his twin. She was different than the others.

  Once they left, she turned to him. “So, if it’s not the cat, why’d you turn it into a crime scene. Did you find the registered owner?”
>
  Proving their twin bond made her different from the rest, Paul’s face softened. He nodded.

  “Good. Is this because you’re expecting me to go beat them up once you tell me?” Hadley chuckled at her joke; she was one of the least likely people around to resort to violence. “Okay, maybe no beating them up, but they should pay.”

  Paul cleared his throat. “They already did, Had. The registered owner of the car is the Jane Doe we found strangled yesterday.”

  The back of Hadley’s neck went cold.

  “Her name is Laney Powell.” Paul turned the screen of his tablet toward her, showing her the driver’s license picture.

  It was the same woman for sure. She had the same pale, almost translucent skin and dark stringy hair. Hadley gulped as she realized the only thing missing from the picture were the angry red marks marring her throat.

  “Not only did you and Luke save her cat, but you just helped my investigation tremendously by finding this car. Now that we have her name, we can search for her family and notify them, not to mention investigating leads from her friends, work, and home life for suspects. I owe you two.” Paul exhaled, his large shoulders settling for the first real time since yesterday.

  “Luke. You owe Luke. Not me. He did it all.” Hadley shook her head.

  “What did I do?” Luke asked as he approached. Panting, he held the crime scene tape toward Paul. “Kevin said he’s starting the search online, but he’ll be over to help you with the scene in a few.”

  Paul waved the yellow tape. “This is a great start. Thank you.”

  Luke smirked. “Welcome. But really, what were you saying about me? Something good, I hope.”

  Hadley wanted to roll her eyes at the man, but his suspicion and quick thinking had earned him a little gloating time today.

  Dipping his head forward in concession, Paul said, “I said that I owe you, not only for saving the cat, but because you found this car.”

  “It’s the victim’s … from yesterday,” Hadley added.

  Luke’s posture stiffened.

  Before he could comment, Paul’s phone buzzed with an incoming call. “Hey. You find anything?” He paused.

  Hadley guessed it must be Kevin on the other line. Paul's fellow deputy might not have been as formidable in size and brute strength, but he was resourceful and sharp. She felt lucky each day that Paul had such a dependable guy by his side.

  “Okay. Thanks. Send Bobby my way, and you and Krista go take care of that, then.” Paul hung up. His eyebrows arched with interest. Kevin had found something during his search.

  “What?” Hadley stepped forward.

  Paul rubbed the back of his hand along his bearded chin. “According to her listed address, she’d lived here in Stoneybrook for the past year.”

  Luke scoffed, “No way. We know everyone who lives here. Simone moved in last month, and the town practically came to a complete halt while we figured out who she was. No way someone could live here without us knowing.”

  “Kevin and Krista will ask around, since she was a local.” Paul shrugged.

  Whereas Luke’s reaction had been denial, Hadley’s was more along the line of back-of-the-arms goose bumps.

  How well did she actually know her town?

  And was the killer still among them?

  5

  The next day, Hadley went into the jam kitchen. Normally, she only worked on Sundays when she was behind on orders, or when she tried out new recipes. But today, she wanted to be downtown, near the action, in case anything happened with the investigation.

  The deputies had spent most of Saturday evening walking around with Laney’s photograph.

  Not one person recognized the young woman.

  They weren’t giving up, though, and committed to spend today hitting the rest of town. Hadley wanted to be as close to Main Street as possible if any developments came to light.

  Also, she had to admit it was nice to be in the kitchen alone. She wasn’t used to customers being around all day. Having the retail space had been great—for her wallet, especially—but it also meant her canning was interrupted to greet customers, answer questions, or make sales if Gran wasn’t working. The fact her shop was closed on Sundays meant she could go back to her roots and focus on the jam.

  Today she worked on a new recipe. She’d flash frozen a large stock of rhubarb from Luke in the spring and still hadn’t figured out what to do with it. Wanting to try something new, something daring, she thought through her options. She’d done the strawberry rhubarb standard. And while that was one of her favorite combinations, she had an itch to step outside the norm.

  Biting her lip, she searched her ingredient shelves for anything to jump out at her. The lemons were a must in all of her jams, so she grabbed some of those. Behind one of the larger lemons, she noticed a knobby piece of ginger.

  Hadley’s eyebrow quirked up. Just maybe …

  She grabbed the ginger root and began planning the recipe in her head.

  The next few hours flew by in a relaxing routine. Hadley chopped, squeezed, grated, boiled, and checked the setting of the pectin. She took the time to smell the aromatic ginger root, enjoying its anti-nausea medicinal effects.

  Ever since she and Luke had stumbled upon Simone standing over Laney’s body, her stomach had rumbled with a low worry. Popping a tiny piece of the ginger into her mouth to chew, the discomfort abated. Her subconscious must’ve known it was just what she needed when she picked it.

  As the concoction cooked, she fell in love with the combination of rhubarb and ginger, thanking her upset tummy for pointing her in that direction. It took her a few tries to perfect the ratio, but she was thrilled with it when she got it right. She wrote down her exact measurements so she could recreate the recipe later.

  Just as she set the first batch of jars into the boiling water bath, a knock at the front door made her jump. Working on a new recipe had put her into a focus bubble, as her mom liked to call it, when she was in the zone. She’d forgotten she was supposed to be keeping an eye out for any news about the murder investigation.

  The person knocking on her door was Hazel Smith, so it seemed the gossip was coming to her. If Hazel didn’t have the local news before everyone else, she took it as a personal affront and doubled down her nosiness efforts, determined to win the next round.

  Checking that her jars were stable in their bath, Hadley wiped her hands on her apron and jogged over to the door. She flipped the lock, stepping back to let the older woman inside.

  “Hey, Hazel. It’s good to see you. What’s up?”

  Besides being a quilter, the town’s biggest gossip, and working at the local pharmacy counter, she was also Suze’s next-door neighbor. Since Suze’s grandmother, who’d raised her, had passed away, Hazel had been like a second mother to her. It was this reason Hadley kept a special place in her heart for the woman and overlooked the worst of her meddling.

  “Wanted to make sure you heard the news,” Hazel said, her coifed gray and brown hair bouncing as she wafted past Hadley.

  “News?” Hadley asked. “About that woman who was killed?”

  Hazel’s eyes widened, and she nodded.

  “Did they find someone who knows her?”

  “They’re calling a special town meeting tonight at five in the high school gym. They want the whole town to come if they can.”

  That explains the change in venue, Hadley thought. Town meetings took place at the community center, but those only held fifty people on busy nights. Only the high school would be big enough to house everyone in town.

  “Do you know what the meeting’s about?” Hadley asked, realizing Hazel never answered her question about whether or not they found anyone who recognized the victim.

  By the way Hazel pressed her red lips into a thin line and huffed, Hadley realized she’d asked the wrong question. Hazel didn’t know anything other than there'd be a meeting, and by pointing that out, Hadley’d hit on her sore spot.

  “We’ll just have to
wait and find out.” Hazel lifted her chin and waved a goodbye. “See you there, dear.”

  Before Hadley could say goodbye, the woman had disappeared out the door and down the street.

  Hadley made her way over to her purse and pulled out her phone.

  Wanna be my date to this town meeting? She typed the message and sent it to Suze.

  Suze responded right away. Of course. Paul has to get there early to set up. I can’t tell if we should bring popcorn or pillows.

  Hadley chuckled. They’d had a long-standing joke that their town meetings were never the quirky, entertaining kind portrayed in the show Gilmore Girls. Stoneybrook town meetings just put everyone to sleep.

  Well, the meetings used to be a little more interesting when Edith Butler had been around. The former knitting shop owner had been ornery and opinionated. Each month she would bring a handful of letters she’d written grieving one policy or person in each one. But ever since a local nemesis had poisoned the outspoken woman, the meetings had gone back to total snoozefests. And after Edith’s fate, Hadley suspected no one seemed willing to take her place.

  Pillowcases full of popcorn? Hadley wrote in response, smiling.

  This is why we’re friends. I’ll call when I’m on my way.

  Or I could drive, you know …

  Right! I keep forgetting. Okay, you call me when you leave, then. ;)

  Will do.

  Hadley had gone the last couple of years without a car. But between her online sales and the retail space, was able to afford a modest little hatchback. It was old—she’d bought it from Thea Clark when the librarian had upgraded to an electric car—but at least she didn’t have to ask for rides anywhere over ten miles outside of downtown anymore. And she still used her bike in the summer, or on spring days when the sun shone just right.

  Hadley walked over to the stovetop and turned off the burner under her canning bath. The timing would be perfect. This would give her enough time to get these jars out of the water, let them cool while she cleaned up the kitchen, and then get home to clean herself up before she picked up Suze for the meeting.