by Raven Snow
Wyatt turned off the highway and onto a gravel road with the ease of a man who had taken this path many times. A tiny bait shop was on our left, leaning partly to the side and looking a little worse for wear. Through the window, I saw a flash of movement, but when I looked back, I didn’t see anything.
We parked next to the dock beside a wealth of government officials and local cops. The Waresville law enforcement didn’t have their own crime scene guys, so that meant they had to borrow outside of their jurisdiction.
Chris’s body had washed up on shore not far from where we parked. While Wyatt spoke to the evidence guys, I got a good look at my best friend’s newly dead ex-husband.
Apart from being dead, pale, and wet, he looked mostly the same as he had at dinner, though he was no longer grabbing for my butt. An empty beer can had washed up right next to him.
Apparently, he’d died the way he lived: drunk.
The first thing of interest I noticed was his breath, which smelled strangely of mint. After that, though, I was completely drawn in by the giant tooth marks on his legs. It looked like something had taken a bite and not liked what they’d tasted.
Apart from being snacked on, he’d been shot point blank in the chest. I noticed an entrance wound but no exit point.
“That’s the monster’s markings, alright,” a voice said right behind me.
I didn’t flinch, because I was used to people sneaking up on me. When I turned around and got a good look at the newcomer, though, I did wince a bit.
He looked like he’d lost a battle with the lake monster himself.
Elderly and skinny, the smell of fish wafted off of him like he lived at the bottom of the lake. He had missing teeth, missing patches of hair, and old scars covered him from head to toe. When he opened his mouth to greet me, his breath blew in my face, and it certainly did not smell like mints.
“Sawyer’s the name,” he said, shaking my hand. “I run the bait shop.”
That explained his charm.
“Harper Beck,” I said, fairly certain he knew who I was already. Everyone knew my grumpy grandmother. And that wasn’t always a good thing.
There was no condemnation on Sawyer’s face, though, when he nodded at me in greeting, so I figured the two old folks weren’t acquainted.
“So, you think some kind of lake monster did this?”
His face lit up, which was a strange reaction to my question. “Now, don’t tell me you haven’t heard some of the old legends about Sabrina, Miss Beck.”
“Sabrina?”
“That’s what I call her,” Sawyer said proudly. “Her original name in the stories has been forgotten for a long time.”
Be that as it may, I wondered if the reason the monster was striking out was because it wanted a better name.
“I’d be happy to tell you a few of the old tales.” He gave me a grin that was lacking in teeth. “Come up to my shop any time.”
I was saved having to respond when a flash of light blinded both of us. When the spots on my vision cleared, I saw Amanda Shard not five feet away, taking pictures of the dead body with relish.
I’d become acquainted with the woman a couple months ago when she’d come into town to cover a murder scandal for her tabloid newspaper. Unfortunately, the reporter had scented blood in the water and had stuck around, doing pieces on the interesting characters in Waresville. There were enough of them to keep her busy for a lifetime or so.
She opened her mouth, stepping towards me to pepper me with questions. A cop intercepted her, forcing her to leave the crime scene.
While she was being escorted out, she kept shooting glances back at me. I raised my hand and did a little finger wave, satisfied in my temporary victory though I knew she’d be back.
“I see you’ve met Mr. Sawyer,” Wyatt said, rejoining me and crouching down by Chris. “He found the body.”
Somehow, that didn’t surprise me at all.
“It’s a shame about Chris,” Sawyer said, his voice too upbeat to be truthful. “He sure loved fishin’. In fact, he was out here more than you, Wyatt.”
“Oh, is this where you go when you leave the house?” I asked my husband lightly. “I figured you’d just taken a lover.”
He pulled on a pair of rubber gloves, grinning up at me. “I have. Many lovers. We meet under the docks.”
“Sanitary.”
After a moment of checking the body for evidence, Wyatt called for one of the officers. “Cam, did you call his home phone?”
The young man who had shown Shard out came forward, nodding.
Wyatt pursed his lips, looking troubled for a moment. “Try his cell.”
The young cop stepped away to do my husband’s bidding.
“Spoiler alert, but I don’t think Chris is going to answer,” I said, hedging for Wyatt to spill the beans.
He just shook his head at me, indicating this was a conversation he wanted to have in private.
Scuffing my shoes against the ground, I thought about how I hated waiting. We’d been together awhile, shouldn’t I be able to read his mind by now?
Then, I realized that in almost every crime scene I’d been to with Wyatt, there’d been someone already waiting here, leading the investigation while Wyatt got his butt in gear. Someone without a wife and kids. Someone who listened to his police scanner 24/7, so he could get the jump on cases like this.
Someone who I found very unpleasant.
Crouching down next to Wyatt and the body again, I said, “So, are we looking for Kosher’s body, or are we looking to lock him up for murder?”
I honestly didn’t know what sounded better.
“Keep your voice down.”
It was a mystery to me why Wyatt liked my mortal enemy, but we’d had this fight too many times so I just took out my cell phone with a sigh.
Vic was on speed dial, and she picked up after two rings, her voice thick with sleep. “I hate you.”
“No, you love me,” I reminded her. “Do you happen to know where your worse half is this morning?”
“No.” She yawned into the phone. “He was mad about dinner, so he took off last night. Said something about fishing.”
I hung up with Vic and relayed this message to Wyatt. “Looks like you need to get someone to search the lake.”
He nodded without saying a word, heading off to order around some underlings.
“Nice meeting you, Sawyer,” I said, following my husband. “I’m sure you’ll be hearing from me soon.”
After all, even if the beast did answer to Sabrina, you didn’t happen across a lake monster every day. One had to take advantage of this opportunity.
Wyatt spent a few more minutes at the crime scene, and then we were walking back to our car. The scene would take hours to process fully. In that time, Wyatt could start hammering out leads, and I could make myself a nuisance to the community at large.
Just as we were about to drive off, Cam came running after us, breathing hard and slipping in the mud. It would’ve been a shame if he’d gone down, shaming himself in front of all his co-workers. A funny shame.
I held my breath, but he reached us without toppling over.
“Detective,” he said, pausing to regain his breath. “We found this in the victim’s boat.”
He handed over a gold detective’s badge, and we opened it up to see the picture of a cranky man with the bushiest sideburns I’d ever seen.
Leaning over, I said to Wyatt, “I’d consider it an early Christmas gift if you’d let me be the one to arrest him.”
Before I could laugh, a thought entered my head. There was almost no one on this planet that was going to miss Chris. No one except an evil little girl named Hope.
“Crap,” I said, staring out the window.
He may have been a horrible dad, but he was still her father. I knew a little something about losing dads. I didn’t envy Vic having to tell her.
My mood ruined, we rode to the police station in silence, both wondering where in hell Kosher
could have gotten off to.
Chapter Three
After a couple hours of running around in circles, Wyatt dropped me off at home, so I could get a few more hours sleep before pulling the all-night shift. I fell into bed gratefully, breathing in the silence of the house, since Cooper was at school and Liam was off with Oliver.
It lasted a blissful two seconds, and then I heard a knocking on my door. For the second time in twenty-four hours, I thought about cursing someone.
Instead of whipping out my magical power, I spit profanities as I opened the door. I stopped short when I saw Stoner Stan on the other side, wearing a shirt that smelled like processed cheese.
We stood there for a moment, staring at each other. Well, I stared at him, and he stared around me, trying to get a good look at the inside of the house.
Until this moment, I hadn’t been sure Stan even knew where I lived. He often forgot my name, after all. And if he didn’t know where I lived, I was equally impressed that he had managed to read a map.
“I have something to say,” Stan said.
Struck dumb, I motioned for him to continue.
“This might be a surprise to you,” he said seriously, “but I’ve experimented with, well…drugs.”
“I may need to sit down for this.”
I led him into the kitchen, pushing him towards an empty chair at the table. The saltshaker caught his eye, and that kept Stan occupied long enough for me to brew the cup of tea I desperately needed. I breathed in the leafy smell like it was my salvation.
Taking a sip, I said, “Go on.”
He looked at me blankly. “With what?”
It was hard to resist the urge to slam my head into the nearest wall. But, as Wyatt often had to point out, the paint was vintage.
“Oh!” Stan’s head bobbed up and down as he located his earlier thought. “The weed!”
God, I needed some just then.
“I’m quitting drugs,” Stan said proudly, rocking my world on its axis. Everything I thought I knew about my life and the people in it changed in that moment. Nothing would be the same.
“You’re either too sober or too high,” I told him, eyes narrowing. “I can’t tell which.”
He shook his head like a dog trying to get water out of its ears.
“I’m serious.”
“That’s even worse.”
My phone buzzed on the table, and I glanced at it, seeing a text from Vic. No doubt she had questions for me that I couldn’t answer, but half of the job of being a best friend was simply showing up.
“Listen,” I said, hinting that Stan should have to have his crisis somewhere else. “I have to head out.”
Stan nodded but made no move to leave. After a moment, I said, “So you should go. See you at work.”
Like a light bulb going on, his face brightened. “Oh, right. See, I had an idea.”
"Naturally."
"I thought I could stay here."
Pinching the bridge of my nose in frustration, I leaned back in my seat and gave myself a moment. If I had responded right away, I probably would've fired my employee out of pure frustration. No one should have to deal with Stan on so little sleep.
"What's wrong with your place?"
Technically, Stan didn't have a place. His mother did. Currently, and for as long as I'd known him, Stan had been staying in her basement, occasionally sleeping over the Wheel when the older woman got fed up with the smell.
His eyes widened. "I can't stay there, man. Too many temptations."
"Why not flush the drugs? Get rid of the temptation?"
He seemed to struggle with this idea. "But what if I change my mind? Then all my stash will be down the toilet."
I could see he was deeply committed to this plan.
Another text from Vic made my phone vibrate against the table. She was getting impatient and so was I.
Gathering up my purse and keys, I said, "Fine. Stay in the living room until I get back. Then, I'll figure out what to do with you."
I'd just have to hope that Wyatt didn't come home from lunch in the meantime. For some reason, he was touchy about letting drug addicts sleep on his couch. Clean freak.
I locked the door behind me in an effort to keep Stan in and out of trouble. It was the same concept that led to Biscuit spending the day in a cage after he ate one of my favorite pairs of high heels. Unfortunately, there wasn't a cage you could buy at the local pet shop that could keep a werewolf in if he didn't want to be inside it. Just last week, a pair of my good underwear went missing. I was afraid to venture out in the yard, for fear I'd see them lying in the grass.
The bug fought me when I first turned the key, but eventually, the engine turned over, and I was on my way to Vic's house. She lived a couple minutes away from me in a subdivision not as nice as mine. The houses were a little smaller and rundown, but it was closer to the shops and our favorite buffet.
When Vic opened the door, her neon green spandex suit momentarily blinded me. The next shock to the system was when I realized she'd been crying, her eyes puffy. She blotted a tissue against her red cheeks, and I felt instantly uncomfortable. Maybe she'd cared for her ex-husband more than I'd thought.
"Is there any word?" she asked. "Have you found him?"
Oh. She was worried over Kosher. That was even more inexplicable to me.
After a moment of her crying and me standing awkwardly on the doorstep, she beckoned me in. When the door shut behind us, she took a deep breath, pulling herself together. Once she was done, I saw the cool reasoning of the cop she now was in her eyes. It was the first time since she'd entered into the academy all those months ago that I actually saw her as law enforcement.
"How did you find him?"
Grabbing a soda from the fridge, I ignored the muffled sounds of sobbing upstairs. Hope and I were not on good terms, and it wasn't my job to comfort her. I'd focus on what was my job, thank you. Although, technically, I wasn't a cop, just an amateur mystery solver.
"Washed up on the banks of the lake with an empty beer can at his side."
"Fitting."
"I thought so."
She stole a swig from my can of soda. "Then, maybe whoever killed Chris hurt my Peter too. Why isn't anyone looking for him?"
I kept the part about finding Kosher's badge to myself, not wanting to upset her. Chris and Kosher had hated each other, and the only reason I could see the detective on that boat was if he was drowning Chris.
"They're looking for him, Vic. I promise."
That much was true, though more as a suspect and less as a victim.
"Did he drown?" Vic asked quietly, and I knew we were back on Chris.
She sounded ashamed, like she didn't even have the right to ask. I suppose when you spend that many years with someone, it's hard to stop caring cold turkey. Especially if they're murdered a couple minutes away from your house.
"I think the cause of death was shooting," I said absently, something else on my mind. "Vic... where were you last night?"
She went slightly pink. "Not shooting my ex-husband, that's for sure. If I was going to kill the jerk, it would've been strangulation followed by some hate-filled mutilation."
"That's the way to go." A laugh escaped my lips despite myself. "Seriously, you might need an alibi. He did leave you for the babysitter."
"Don't remind me," she said. "I was here with Hope all night."
"Can anyone besides your flesh and blood confirm that?"
Vic thought about it for a moment, tapping a pudgy finger against the granite counter. "I did talk to an old high school buddy on the phone for a couple hours. It was pretty late."
Thank god, I thought, breathing again.
“We’ll probably need to talk to them.”
Her smile was a little coy while she wrote down the information. “You know, Harper, you’re sounding very cop-like this morning.”
“Don’t insult me.”
After leaving Vic’s house, I got a call from Wyatt to meet him down at t
he station. I breezed past the woman at the front desk, who shot daggers at my back. We had a complicated past.
Wyatt’s desk was empty, so I headed over to Kosher’s and found my husband sitting there, looking troubled. He was flipping through a report. Once he got to the end, he’d restart the whole thing again.
Pulling up a seat, I placed my hand over his, stopping the flipping of pages.
“The ballistic report came back,” he said. “They put a rush on it due to the nature of the crime.”
“Do you have anything to compare it to?” I figured I already knew the answer.
“Not yet, but it’s the same gun we all carry. And everyone else’s gun on this force is accounted for.”
“Except Kosher’s.”
He scrubbed a hand down his tired, drawn face. “I have put out an APB, and as soon as he’s found, I’ll probably be putting handcuffs on him…. Chief doesn’t want it to look like we’re covering for one of our own.”
I waited while he did what he had to do, keeping my hold on his hand. Wyatt was a deeply loyal person, and I hated what this case was doing to him already. He looked like he’d aged a decade in the past few hours.
Protesting that he had too much work the whole time, I dragged him home and put him to bed, fielding all of his calls. And there were a couple of people pretty determined to get a hold of him.
“Say what you want about my mother, officer. I’m still not taking him the phone.” I slammed the phone down as the teapot began to scream.
Wyatt was half asleep when I tiptoed up the stairs, so I just placed the steaming mug on his bedside table, pressed a kiss to his forehead, and went back down stairs. I passed a couple moving boxes in the living room, but I just shrugged it off. I’d have to ask about them later.
Stan, the other man currently in the house, was asleep on the couch, snoring loudly and smelling strongly of a rock and roll concert. I decided to let sleeping stoners lie for the moment.
So, when Detective Kosher knocked on the door, looking extremely knackered, I was the only conscious person in the house. Lucky me.
