Man's Best Alibi

by Tara Meyers

“It’s just that Walker was able to get Tim to postpone the cremation to buy some time for a warrant, but only until Friday morning.”

  Nathan was silent for a moment, mulling over the information. “Realistically, even if Miller decides to dig more, he wouldn’t likely get around to requesting one until next week. But, Ember,” he continued when she tensed up in response, “does it really matter? I mean, so we confirm Kurt Donaldson has mercury in his system. What does that accomplish? It doesn’t suddenly prove he didn’t kill himself. If anything, it may give further credence to a psychological state that would support a suicide.”

  Ember hadn’t even considered that aspect. “I guess you’re right,” she conceded.

  “If Donaldson did have a partner, then they know we’re on to them. If they didn’t already close up their little mining operation, they’re sure to now. With some luck, Miller might be able to figure out who else was involved, but we still may never know. I think the most important thing for you to focus on right now is making sure there isn’t a present threat for the animals, and ultimately the town’s water supply.”

  Watching the colors change as they saturated the underside of the scattered clouds, Ember was reluctant to accept that they’d never figure out who Donaldson’s killer was. She felt she owed it to Daenerys to make sure they paid for what they did.

  “Do me a favor?” Nathan asked.

  Ember pulled her gaze away from the colorful display. “What kind of favor?”

  “Let me handle things from this point.”

  When Ember started to turn away, Nathan surprised her by grabbing her arm and pulling her toward him. Looking up, her breath caught when she found herself staring into his dark eyes, only a few inches away. He seemed to be searching hers for an answer to an unspoken question.

  “I can’t stand the thought of anything happening to you.” He released her arm, only to slip the same hand through the hair at the base of her neck and pull her face in closer to his.

  Closing her eyes, Ember surrendered to the moment and allowed herself to be drawn in. The warmth of Nathan’s chest spread to hers as their bodies met, holding her like a magnet. When his lips found hers, the kiss was almost chaste. Brief, but poignant. Some women might have been disappointed, but not Ember. As they broke apart and stood staring at each other in the twilight, she understood that it was the kiss of someone who cared.

  TWENTY

  “What in the world have I gotten myself into?” Ember positioned the flaming-red cat ears headband in place and then looked at her reflection. She was basically wearing a red cat suit that was modified to look like she was one big flame. According to Mel, she was—“Wait. I’m a fire goddess of what planet?”

  Mel finished securing a similar headpiece on Daenerys before standing to face Ember. “You are the feline fire goddess of Daenertha! Never seen without your faithful sidekick and loyal companion,” she added, setting a hand on Daenerys’s head.

  The dog shook her away and proceeded to paw at the cat ears. When they held firm, she ran from the breakroom, barking.

  Chuckling, Ember began peeling away the various layers of her costume. “I think I lost my partner.”

  “At least your costume is sexy.” Becky sat sulking on the only couch in the small room. To emphasize her words, she was flicking her “horse tail” as she spoke.

  “Becky,” Mel lamented. “You insisted that you wouldn’t wear anything revealing or skintight. I put a lot of work into that!”

  Ember had to agree that the costume was quite stunning. Mel had created a lower face of a horse out of papier-mâché that fit on Becky like a mask. The partial sides swooped up to a sort of horsehair top hat. The whole thing blended into a fancy, high-collared dress of multiple brightly colored layers. She looked rather regal.

  “I’ll wear it if you want to switch,” Ember offered.

  Becky glared at her before bursting out laughing. “This is a costume party fund-raiser, not a freak show. We’d better keep things the way they are. And I know you worked hard on this, Mel. Thank you. But I can’t help but notice you are the only one in a more…conventional costume.”

  Mel was decked out in an ornately made, full-leather Catwoman suit. It was striking with her black hair and dark eyes. “I didn’t have time to make something original for myself, so I had to go with the only animal-themed costume I had. This was a number I did a few years back for a superhero con I went to in Seattle. I’m just glad it still fits!”

  Daenerys ran back down the hallway of the clinic in the other direction, still barking, with the cat ears in her mouth.

  “Looks like the feline fire goddess is going to have a dog for a sidekick,” Becky said, laughing.

  “Daenerys!” Running out into the hallway, Mel yelled at the retreating dog. “You’re not going to get any extra treats now!”

  “Ember.”

  Ember looked at her aunt, surprised by the seriousness of her tone.

  Gone was any amusement. She’d removed the horse mask and sat holding it in her lap. “Elly stopped by the shelter as I was leaving to come here. She was in an uproar. You really managed to push her buttons this time. She was going on about you claiming there was something in the water making animals sick. Care to fill me in on that?”

  Flushing, Ember pulled a straight back chair out from the table in the center of the room and sat opposite her aunt. She could still hear Mel out front, chasing Daenerys. It had, no doubt, turned into a game.

  “I’m sorry, Aunt Beth. I wasn’t trying to keep anything from you. It’s just that nothing’s for sure yet.” She quickly went on to explain the new developments from the day before, as well as the possible tie-in to the sick dog and cat she’d treated.

  “So, the feds are finally coming back up here in a couple of days to reexamine all of this?” she asked when Ember was done.

  Nodding, Ember was relieved that Becky didn’t appear to be upset at being left out of the loop. “Yeah, on Friday.”

  “Good. You can step back and let them deal with it, then.”

  “That’s what I said,” Mel interjected from the doorway. She stood holding a very wet-looking piece of fabric bearing the remnants of cat ears. “Especially after our little package we received yesterday.”

  Ember tried but failed to stop Mel with a glare and closed her eyes in anticipation of Becky’s reaction.

  “What happened?” the older woman shouted, jumping to her feet. “I knew there was something else you weren’t telling me! Ember, you know better than to hold back on me. Spill it!”

  “It was just a dead opossum,” Ember said innocently.

  “An opossum with its throat slit,” Mel added.

  Groaning, Ember turned on her friend. “Isn’t there something you’re supposed to be doing in the other room?”

  “Hey, I’m just being honest!” Mel retorted. “I think Becky deserves to know that there’s some crazed opossum-throat-slitting killer running around Sanctuary.”

  Becky ignored the joke and stared hard at her niece. “It seems you rattled the wrong cage. Means you must be close to the truth.”

  Ember was taken aback by her aunt’s response. But then, she never quite knew what to expect from her. It was one of the reasons she cherished her so much. “That’s about the same thing Nathan said.”

  Setting the horse head on the table, Becky took Ember by the shoulders. “Nathan is a smart man. You should listen to whatever advice he gave you. And as for the whole water contamination concern, I think the best thing to do is wait for the test results to come back. I have to agree that it isn’t the sort of thing you want to share with too many people until you’re sure about it.”

  “Becky,” Ember said as her aunt turned away and began gathering up her costume. “How far do you think Mayor Gomez would go to make sure the fight over the water works out in her favor?”

  Becky’s back stiffened, and she turned back quickly. “Elly might be a lot of things, Ember, but a liar and a cheat isn’t one of ’em. I know
we put on quite a show, but we have a lot of respect for each other. That’s the wrong tree to bark up.”

  Ember was rescued from the exchange by a loud knock at the front of the clinic. Glancing at the clock on the wall, she saw it was nearly six, almost an hour after closing time. Very much aware of the bodysuit she was still wearing, she warily made her way to the lobby.

  Standing outside the front door was the Backcountry Outfitter’s owner, Colton Parker. Curious as to why he was there, Ember unlocked the door and opened it just enough to speak through.

  “Mr. Parker! How can I help you? I’m afraid we’re closed for the day.”

  “Oh!” He looked fleetingly at her costume and had the decency to blush. “I apologize. I was walking by and saw the lights on, so I figured I’d stop and ask about scheduling a well check for my dog.”

  “There’s a costume party fundraiser Friday night for the local animal shelter my aunt runs,” she explained. When Colton didn’t respond, she gestured to her outfit. “I was having a fitting for my costume. I don’t normally dress this way,” she added, smiling. “We do wellness exams every Monday. You can just drop in anytime between nine and five. No appointment is necessary.”

  Amused, Colton smiled and looked behind her to where Mel was loitering. “I’d heard about the party. I think I’m going to have to go now. It sounds like a good cause. I’ll be by on Monday with my lab!” Giving a salute, he headed down the sidewalk.

  Mel joined Ember to watch him walk away. “I think he was hitting on you,” she whispered.

  “Oh gosh,” Ember muttered. “You think everyone is hitting on me.”

  “Yeah, well, this time I mean it. I think he’s kinda creepy.”

  “You think everyone that hits on me is kinda creepy.”

  Laughing, Mel closed the door. “Except Nathan. Nathan is definitely not creepy.”

  “That’s something we can agree on,” Ember replied. “Which reminds me. We had a really nice dinner last night.” She lowered her voice to make sure her aunt wouldn’t hear the conversation from the other room. She wasn’t ready for that interrogation.

  Eyes widening, Mel’s head jerked toward Ember as her hand hovered over the deadbolt. “Spill it, Ember. I want all the details!”

  Instantly regretting the slip, Ember tried to gather her thoughts. She wasn’t one to kiss and tell, but she was bursting to share the experience with someone. Mel was known for having a rather overwhelming personality, but she was still Ember’s best friend. While she acted silly most of the time, Mel was incredibly intelligent and often had great advice. When she got serious. Sometimes.

  Before Ember settled her inner argument and before Mel could latch the door, someone else pushed against it from the outside, causing both women to jump back in surprise.

  Ignoring their outfits, Deputy Trenton stood in the entrance, holding up a black garbage sack. “I’ve got another one for ya.”

  The bag held something large and misshapen. Ember’s first random thought was to wonder if the animal inside had its throat cut.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Ember sat staring at the two case files for Garfield and Hershey, along with a computer-printed map of Haven County. She had a strong sense of déjà vu from just over a week before, when she’d found herself in a similar situation. But so much had happened in the nine days since then that she wasn’t sure anymore how or if it was all connected.

  Reaching out blindly to rub the furry head she knew would be there, Ember found solace in the familiar contact. At least Daenerys wasn’t missing this time.

  The night before, Deputy Trenton had supplied her with yet another piece to the widening puzzle. It wasn’t an opossum with a cut throat, but an unlucky raccoon his neighbor to the south of his farm discovered. It hadn’t been dead for more than a day, and there was no apparent cause. No injuries, and it looked healthy. Well, other than being dead.

  In a motion well-practiced, Ember pulled her hair up into a messy bun on top of her head and then leaned in closer to the documents. There had to be something she was missing!

  She was up early. Unable to sleep, she’d given up the fight around 5 a.m., much to Daenerys’s annoyance. The labradoodle had been sleeping contentedly next to her, taking up more bed space than Ember was. When she’d first adopted her, Ember tried to get Daenerys to sleep in a dog bed, but that didn’t last long. To be honest, she didn’t mind.

  Ember reached for her lukewarm coffee and took a long sip before tearing off a fresh sheet of paper from a notebook. She was a firm believer in lists. In one column, she wrote down first Garfield’s and Hershey’s names and then the various wild animals. Beside those, she wrote the known owners, Susan Carpenter and the Coopers, and then the location of where they lived or were found. Below the lists, she described the signs and symptoms of the illnesses and the condition of the dead animals.

  She knew there really wasn’t anything more for her to do at this point, rather than wait for the tests to come back. But she couldn’t get her brain to turn off. It was Thursday morning. She could feel the time and opportunity for getting to the truth slipping away. The “warning” left on her porch meant that whoever was involved would be taking measures to cover their tracks. With Kurt Donaldson’s cremation and the location of the mine unknown, the feds would likely never figure it out.

  “But does it matter?” Ember muttered the words to herself, causing Daenerys to prick her ears and whine at her. Looking down at her furry friend, she contemplated Nathan’s viewpoint from the other night. “Maybe understanding Kurt’s role doesn’t matter,” she told Daenerys. “But that might be the only way to find his killer. Because I do believe he was murdered. And that matters. Finding out who’s made our animals sick matters.”

  Turning back to the list, Ember struggled to see it from a new perspective. Like when you look at one of those picture puzzles where if you adjust your focus, a hidden picture pops out. She knew she was missing something!

  A lone bird started to chirp outside the window as the faintest hint of a predawn glow began to form. Checking the time, Ember was surprised to discover it was nearly six thirty. Still, she had several hours to kill. While the clinic opened at nine, they didn’t have an appointment until eleven. Maybe she’d take a drive out to Trenton’s neighbor’s home and ask to see where the raccoon was found. Then she could go to Great Pines and drop the remains off at the health department.

  After dragging over the map she’d printed off Google, it took Ember several minutes to locate the property in question. She’d selected a large overview of that end of the valley, and it was difficult to nail down the right road with the satellite view. But she wanted the “live” view so she could see the actual landscape in relation to Parker Creek.

  Having found what she thought was the right house, she made a big circle around it. Tilting her head slightly, she then traced her finger along the dead-end road, back to Trenton’s house, and circled that too. Referring to her list, she found the address for the owners of the lab, Hershey. It was slightly northeast of Trenton’s place. She circled it. Garfield’s was even farther north and the most remote. The house wasn’t visible through all of the trees, but the creek was.

  “Parker Creek, Daenerys.” Getting up, Ember dug through the junk drawer until she located the blue marker she wanted. After tossing Daenerys a treat, she went back to the map and began coloring in Parker Creek. Most of it was hidden in the terrain, but after a few minutes, there was a clear progression through the list of properties. As she’d suspected before, it continued to be the common element.

  Tapping at her chin with the marker, Ember stared at the map. There was something familiar about the blue line. The image of the trees, the outline of the mountains—

  Snapping her fingers, Ember leaped from the chair, sending Daenerys scurrying. “I’ve seen this before!” she exclaimed as she spun on her heel and ran from the room.

  Sliding to a stop on the hardwood floor, Ember snatched a stack of printed papers off the
coffee table in the family room. They were the scanned images of Kurt Donaldson’s sketches.

  Returning back to the kitchen, she dropped the pages next to the map and started flipping through them. Daenerys sat at her feet, whining. She could sense her owner’s excitement and didn’t know whether to be happy or distressed.

  “Here!” Holding the drawing up, Ember was certain she was right. They’d thought it was some random location from a work site Donaldson had been at. But it wasn’t.

  Sure enough, the lines of Parker Creek on the northeast corner of the map matched up perfectly with those on the southwest corner of Kurt Donaldson’s drawing. After punching at random keys on her nearby laptop to wake it up, Ember pulled up the same map but widened the view. A chill crawled along her spine as she confirmed the accuracy of the rest of the drawing. It was an area not far from the campsite. A steep ravine that held a small, winding creek through the bottom of it. Parker Creek.

  One feature stood out on Donaldson’s version. At a sharp bend in the ravine, there was a tree drawn with more detail than those surrounding it. Bringing the sketch almost to the tip of her nose, Ember squinted to make out the fine lines defining the trunk. It wasn’t her imagination. The letters Pt where embedded in it. The coldness spread to her lungs and stole her breath as a quick internet search confirmed it was the chemical symbol for platinum.

  Heart racing, Ember went for her phone with the intent to call Nathan. But her finger hovered over his name, and then she slowly put the cell phone back down. She knew all he could do would be to turn the information over to Agent Miller. It wasn’t his case. That was made clear to him. By the time anyone got out there to confirm if that was the location of the mine, any significant evidence would most likely be gone. It probably already was.

  “But if I could prove to them that the mine is real,” Ember whispered to what she now knew was a map, “they’d have to take action. They’d at least stop the cremation, get the evidence tying Donaldson to it, and then possibly be able to figure out who killed him. I’m sure it’ll be someone I talked to this past week. The same person that left the opossum for me.”