Cozy Creek

by K M Morgan

  She’d disobeyed his orders and now had to answer for that. There was no doubt in her mind that the detective was about to give her an earful. The good news was that Chloe was a sales professional. Perhaps she could find a way to talk herself out of trouble.

  “You don’t ever learn, do you?” the detective asked.

  Chloe played dumb. “What do you mean?”

  Detective Thicke didn’t buy her act. “You’re interfering with my investigation…again.”

  Chloe decided to pull out the ace up her sleeve. “You should be thanking me.”

  He scoffed. “For what?”

  Chloe pulled the pearl earring she’d discovered earlier out of her purse. “I found this in the grass outside of Ryan Foster’s garage. It belongs to Olivia Ellerby.”

  In Chloe’s eyes, a “thank you” was in order. Apparently, she was asking for too much. Given how stubborn the detective was, she would have settled for an acknowledgment that she’d made a good find. As low as her expectations were, even they failed to be met. Chloe didn’t even get a smile out of the detective.

  Instead, Thicke furrowed his brow. “I don’t see how that’s possible. My men combed every inch of that property.”

  “Maybe they missed something,” Chloe suggested.

  The detective was offended by that statement. “How dare you make an accusation like that?”

  “I’m just saying, I found the earring next to the garage. It must have come from somewhere.”

  “My men couldn’t have missed something like this. This earring must have been dropped after we left.”

  Chloe wasn’t about to debate the competence of the detective’s staff, especially when he was already so grouchy. She handed over the earring.

  “Either way, it’s evidence.”

  Detective Thicke looked at the earring, then stared Chloe down.

  “You’re still interfering with my investigation,” he said.

  Chloe tried to distract him. “Speaking of the investigation, I guess you didn’t find any prints on the murder weapon.”

  “You know I’d never tell you that.”

  “You don’t have to. The mere fact that you haven’t arrested Paige O’Doul or any of the other suspects tells me the killer must have wiped the prints off.”

  Detective Thicke’s patience was growing razor-thin. “Enough speculation. I’m warning you, stay away from this case.”

  “Are you going to take Paige off your suspect list?”

  The detective scoffed. “No.”

  “That’s a mistake.”

  “No. The mistake would be to cross me. You have no business investigating this murder.”

  Chloe shook her head. “You’re missing a golden opportunity here. We could make a great team if we worked together.”

  Detective Thicke scowled at her. “I’m going to tell you for the last time, leave this to the professionals.”

  Chloe realized the detective wasn’t going to back down. There was no winning this one, nor talking her way out of it. She decided to tell him what he wanted to hear, for now.

  Chloe sighed. “All right.”

  Little did the detective know, Chloe had no intention of dropping the case.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  It had been a long day, and it wasn’t even over yet. After all the investigating she’d done, not to mention contentious arguments she’d had, Chloe thought a change of pace would do her psyche some good. After all, she was not exactly in the best place at the moment.

  Chloe expected things to go much differently. Solving a murder case wasn’t easy, but this one seemed particularly hard. The added wrinkle of her friend being in the middle of this case only made things harder.

  It was important for a sleuth not to get emotionally involved with a case. There was a chance of her emotions clouding her from the truth. Ideally, a sleuth could objectively take a step back and look at the big picture. The fact was, Chloe had been wrestling with her emotions all day. Even more, she was not on the winning side of the battle.

  That was why she welcomed a change of scenery, as well as a new topic of conversation. Getting some distance from this case would no doubt be of great benefit to her. Dinner at her parents’ house could do just that.

  Or, maybe not.

  ***

  Chloe normally looked forward to dinner at her parents, but tonight had a different feel to it. She had a good idea of what was waiting for her, and it wasn’t just going to be just fish and chips. There would no doubt be a heaping side of gloating from her mother.

  Amanda Cook had a number of admirable qualities, but humility was not one of them. When she was right, she made sure the world knew about it. So it came as no surprise to Chloe what the first words out of her mother’s mouth were at dinner.

  “I told you so,” Amanda said.

  Grandma Betty rolled her eyes, all too aware of the spectacle that was to come. “Here we go.”

  Amanda had lobbied hard for Chloe to go on a blind date with Dylan. She was convinced that they were a perfect match. So when Chloe turned down the blind date, only to hit it off with Dylan in the pie shop a few days later, it played completely into Amanda’s hand. As Chloe and Dylan’s relationship started to progress, Amanda only became more convinced of how right she was.

  As much of a pie aficionado as Chloe was, humble pie was the hardest for her to swallow. Then again, it would be much easier to stomach if her mother wasn’t so determined to gloat. Still, Chloe wasn’t too proud of a person to refuse to admit when she was wrong. She could take her lumps. She decided to do just that.

  “You were right,” Chloe replied.

  Amanda smiled wide. “Of course I was. That’s what mothers are for.”

  Grandma Betty sighed. “I have a feeling this is going to turn into ‘perm gate’ all over again.”

  Back in high school, Chloe went through a phase where she got tired of having straight hair. So she decided to get a perm. Her mother warned her not to, but Chloe didn’t listen. In the end, Chloe didn’t just get an awful perm, but it also happened the week the school pictures were being taken.

  Where some mistakes of youth faded into the past, Chloe’s was immortalized in her school’s yearbook. To this day, she had not lived down the decision at home either. The debacle had become known as ‘perm-gate’ in the Cook household, and Amanda referenced it whenever she wanted to make a point about her opinion being correct.

  “I was right about not getting that perm too,” Amanda replied.

  Grandma Betty shook her head. “It’s been seventeen years. Just let it die already.”

  Chloe couldn’t help but laugh at the lunacy of the universe. She’d gone into dinner convinced that the murder investigation would be the last thing she’d want to talk about. With her mother so eager to say ‘I told you so,’ suddenly bringing up the case seemed like the perfect change of subject.

  “Mom, you know there’s been a murder in town, right?” Chloe said.

  Amanda grimaced. “I know, but who wants to talk about something that unpleasant at dinner?”

  Chloe and Grandma Betty shared a knowing look over the irony of the situation. Betty was quick to call Amanda out.

  “You don’t want to talk about unpleasant things, yet you dug up memories of ‘perm-gate’? Can you taste the hypocrisy?” Grandma Betty said.

  “Actually, right now I just taste meatloaf, but I do see your point.” Amanda turned to Chloe. “I’m sorry, hon.”

  Chloe was just eager to move on. “It’s all right.”

  Grandma Betty had something else on her mind. “There’s something very wrong here. Two murders in the Cape in the same year? This is unacceptable. Don’t people know this is Cape Cod? This kind of thing doesn’t happen here.”

  “Apparently, it does now,” Chloe bemoaned.

  Grandma Betty refused to believe it. “When did all this change start happening?”

  Just then, Chloe’s father, Robert Cook, came home. He took a seat at the table, lookin
g very grumpy. “Well, some things never change.”

  “What’s the matter, did your blood sugar crash?” Amanda asked.

  Robert muttered something under his breath that no one else at the table was able to understand.

  Amanda looked for some clarification. “Can you repeat that? All I heard was grumble, grumble, grumble.”

  “I said, stupid Joe Norton,” Robert complained.

  “Uh-oh, is he still grinding your gears after all this time?” Chloe asked.

  “He hasn’t stopped, and I don’t think he ever will. The man is the fingernail on the chalkboard of my life.”

  “I feel for you, Robert. Claire Watterson used to always find new ways to get under my skin. She somehow managed to be a thorn in my side for forty years,” Grandma Betty explained.

  “Used to, as in she doesn’t anymore?” Chloe asked.

  “No. She bit the dust last year. There aren’t a whole lot of good things about getting old, but seeing your enemies kick the bucket is one of them.”

  Chloe laughed.

  Amanda, meanwhile, turned the attention back to her husband. “What did he do Joe Norton do now?”

  “He keeps shooting his mouth off about how great he is,” Robert said.

  Amanda furrowed her brow. “He does realize his fifteen minutes of fame is over, right? I mean, he caught that eight hundred pound tuna ten years ago.”

  “Don’t tell him that. The man will always be a fishing legend in his own mind. As far as he’s concerned, ten years ago was just yesterday. He lives in a state of perpetual delusion,” Robert said.

  Amanda sighed. “He should just get over himself already.”

  “There’s a fat chance of that happening. I know a woman who still brags about her blue ribbon from a pie bake-off that took place in 1986,” Grandma Betty said.

  “So you’re saying decades more of bragging to not look forward to then, huh?” Robert bemoaned.

  “Unfortunately,” Grandma Betty said.

  Robert sighed. “Great.”

  “Here’s the thing, when you work so hard for something, it’s difficult to have it taken away. And as much as catching a record-sized tuna doesn’t matter to you, that catch means the world to Joe Norton. So you’re never going to get him to shut up about it,” Grandma explained.

  Just then, a lightbulb went off in Chloe’s head. Suddenly, all her confusion about the case was gone. She was able to see things crystal clear.

  Chloe’s eyes opened wide. “Wait a minute. That’s it.”

  Grandma Betty was confused. “What’s it?”

  “When you work hard for something, it’s difficult to have it taken away. That’s the answer,” Chloe said.

  “The answer to what?” Grandma Betty asked.

  Chloe smiled. “I know who killed Ryan Foster.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The next morning, Chloe paid a visit to the local TV station, where she confronted Sasha Irwin in her dressing room. The taping of the children’s show that she hosted was still forty-five minutes away. When Chloe entered the dressing room, Sasha was freshening up.

  “The show must go on, huh?” Chloe asked.

  Sasha turned to the doorway with equal parts surprise and outrage. “How did you get in here?”

  “That’s not important.”

  It may not have mattered to Chloe, but it sure did to Sasha. Even more, Sasha wasn’t having it. She yelled as loud as she could.

  “Security.”

  While Sasha was panicked, Chloe was as calm as could be.

  “You’re wasting your breath. Speaking of, let’s get down to business. We have something very important to talk about.”

  Sasha folded her arms and glared. “I don’t have anything to say to you. You have three seconds to get out of here before I remove you myself.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  “It’s a promise.”

  Chloe stood her ground and laughed. “You don’t scare me.”

  Sasha became offended. “I should. The biggest mistake people have made over the years is underestimating me. Now, your time is up.”

  “What are you going to do, kill me like you killed Ryan Foster?”

  “How dare you?” She yelled again. “Security.”

  Chloe pressed on. “There’s nothing that will protect you from the truth. You’re right, people have been underestimating you…like, Ryan Foster. He didn’t realize how far you were willing to go to stay on top. But the fact is when you’ve worked so hard for something all your life, it’s hard to have it all taken away.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You tried your best to convince me that you didn’t think Ryan Foster had unsavory photos of you, but you knew he did, and you were terrified of what they’d do to your career as a children’s show host if they got out. That’s why you left the party so frantically, that’s why you were so combative with Eric Voss yesterday when he tried to blackmail you yesterday, and it’s why you were antagonistic with me as well when I mentioned I had an interesting photo. It took you thirty years to land your dream job as a TV show host, and you knew a few regretful photos from your college days could take away all you’d worked so hard for. You couldn’t let that happen, so after the party, you went over to Ryan’s house and made sure those pictures would never see the light of day,” Chloe explained.

  Sasha looked ready to explode by this point.

  Chloe continued. “While Ryan thought he’d planned the perfect blackmail, you had a perfect plan of your own. You’d seen Paige’s play, so you knew a golf club would be the ideal murder weapon to frame her with. As an added bonus, Paige just so happened to show up at Ryan’s house that night, and when she drove away from Ryan’s house, you made your move, killing Ryan with the golf club. Isn’t that right?”

  Sasha had heard enough. Ironically, she reached for the “Best Local Children’s Show Host” award golden statuette that was sitting next to her dressing room mirror, and looked primed to attack Chloe with it.

  “Yeah, I did it. I killed him, and I’m going to do the same to you,” Sasha said.

  Sasha then charged Chloe.

  What Sasha didn’t realize was that Chloe had her pepper spray ready in her purse the whole time. Chloe grabbed the can and sprayed Sasha in the face.

  Sasha started screaming, dropped the award statuette, and began rubbing her eyes.

  Just then, Detective Thicke and half a dozen deputies emerged from the hallway, with their guns drawn.

  “Put your hands up,” Detective Thicke demanded.

  Sasha saw the guns pointed at her out of burning and teary eyes and realized there was no escape.

  Suddenly, her emotions overcame her, and she spilled her guts. “I worked so hard to land this job, to finally get my big break, and Ryan thought he could take it all away from me. I showed him. He was a lowlife, even before he tried to blackmail me. Everyone hated him. If it wasn’t me, it would have been someone else. The way I see it, I did the world a favor. I don’t regret doing it for a second. The only thing I regret is getting caught.”

  “It turns out the show really must go on. It’ll just be without you from now on,” Chloe said.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “Take her away boys,” Detective Thicke said.

  The deputies did just that, leaving Detective Thicke and Chloe with a moment alone.

  The detective did not appear to be looking forward to talking with Chloe. He was as tense as could be, in no hurry to make eye contact, and seemed to be bracing himself for the earful he thought was inevitable. After a few awkward seconds, the detective spoke up, all too eager to get the unpleasantries over with.

  “Well, lay it on me,” Detective Thicke said.

  The detective had it all wrong. Chloe wasn’t about to gloat. She was just happy to have cracked the case. If anything, she was too busy riding high on the adrenaline rush that came from uncovering the real killer.

  Chloe also felt a great sense of relief. She’d b
een worried that her friend would go to jail for a crime she didn’t commit. That anxiety quickly melted away.

  So when she looked over at the detective and saw how tense he was, she was genuinely confused.

  Chloe furrowed her brow. “Lay what on you?”

  “The ‘I told you so.’”

  “You’re talking to the wrong woman. I try to keep ‘I told you so’ out of my vocabulary,” Chloe replied.

  Detective Thicke let out a big sigh of relief.

  Chloe had a suggestion for the detective. “Maybe you should start working with me, instead of against me.”

  He sighed. “You’re probably right. Still, I thought I had this one.”

  “Don’t think of it as a loss for you, but a win for justice.”

  The detective looked thoroughly impressed by her humility. “You really don’t say I told you so.”

  “I leave that to my mother.”

  “Is she an amateur gumshoe too?”

  Chloe shook her head. “She’s a retired makeup saleswoman. Unfortunately, she hasn’t retired from being a shameless know-it-all.”

  The detective gave her a knowing look. “Trust me, a mother never retires from that.”

  “Apparently, not.”

  “Speaking of retirement, I may have to put in for my pension soon if the Cape doesn’t settle down soon. There have been more murders here in the last few months than in the last few years.”

  Chloe exhaled. “Don’t remind me. I want the beaches here to be the star attraction, not homicides.”

  The detective got a faraway look in his eyes. “I remember a time when the biggest crimes cops had to deal with were a few people running red lights. Those days are long gone.”

  “How great would it be to have those days come back?”

  Detective Thicke sighed. “Yeah. In the meantime, thank you for the great detective work.”