The Sweetheart Mystery

by Cheryl Ann Smith

  Before she could answer, movement from the front of the car turned them both that way. Harriet the goat had her front hooves on the bumper and was staring through the windshield.

  “Are you kidding?” Harper said. “That goat needs a tranquilizer dart.”

  Noah chuckled. “She’s got a girl-crush on you.”

  “And you need new material, funny guy.”

  With that, she shifted the car into reverse and, careful not to hurt the goat, backed up. Goat hooves dropped off the bumper. Harper hit the gas and did an awkward turn around where the drive widened, then raced for the road.

  Harriet took off after them.

  Chapter 9

  “Crap!”

  Harper punched the gas and spun the tires on loose gravel as she fishtailed out onto the main road while Noah laughed at the pair. The goat did her best to catch up and Harper was just as determined to get the hell out of there without her new stalker.

  Just as they were about to make the curve in the road to head south, Harriett skidded to a stop at the end of the driveway, baa’d piteously, then dropped onto her side.

  When the car failed to return, she rolled onto her back and acted out a Shakespearian-esque death scene. When that also failed to slow Harper’s flight, she hopped to her feet and headed back up the driveway with a hang-dog, or rather, hang-goat expression on her black and white face.

  Noah turned back around. “Poor thing. She thinks you don’t love her.” He received a death glare for his comment and added, “You have to admit that she is kind of cute.”

  “I admit nothing.” She took the curve, slowing lest they launch off the narrow road and into a ditch. “There is nothing cute about that goat.”

  Chuckling, he said, “If you say so.”

  Once upon a time, Harper had loved any creature that walked, flew, or slithered. He suspected that hadn’t changed. When she’d thought she killed the goat, he’d seen mental trauma in her expression and probably shouldn’t have teased her.

  And despite her words to the contrary, for a second when the goat got up, revived from her stupor, relief had released through Harper’s body in a tightly expressed breath.

  Besides, he suspected that if the goat had required CPR, she’d have blown into Harriet’s mouth, goat germs aside.

  He looked over at her with her wild curly brown hair, fighting against the rubber band thing that held it back into a ponytail. The car had no working air conditioning so the windows were open. Several curls whipped around her face, causing her to pull strands out of her pale pink lip gloss. Likely the same gloss that she’d worn on her shirt the other day.

  His mind went into the gutter as he imagined things she could to with that mouth, and none of them included eating food or drinking beer. Nope, he was so far down in the mental gutter he couldn’t see daylight.

  Noah knew he shouldn’t think of her as anything other than someone he worked for. However, years hadn’t dimmed the heat he’d felt for her in high school, and another eleven years would probably be equally unsuccessful in the regard, too.

  If anything, her maturing from a cute eighteen-year-old into a woman, with all the changes that came with growing confident in herself, made him want her more.

  Damn. Why had he taken this case? Oh, right. He didn’t want her to languish the next twenty years in a Michigan prison. It was all the fun memories he had issues with.

  Yep. Trouble brewed ahead.

  “What do we do next?” She broke in before he could get a full-blown hard-on. Thank God.

  He tapped his fingers on the console. “I assume contacting Gerald’s parents won’t help. They probably know less than Estelle.” Since they had no preliminary file to consult, he’d start fresh. “Why don’t you tell me as much as you know about Covington? With his grandmother offering zip clues, and his parents thousands of miles away, you’ll have to produce some leads.”

  “What can I tell you?” She turned onto the US 23 ramp and punched it. He held his breath when she merged in the tight space between two semi-trucks. “We weren’t exactly friends.”

  “But you knew him and heard gossip. You’d be surprised by how much you’ve learned by being in his orbit.”

  * * * *

  Noah was right. Or at least he made sense. Gerald was a gossip magnet. He might as well have posted all his indiscretions on social media, as the man never kept his cheating secret. And it wasn’t like Muskrat employees didn’t share the dirt on him, though Harper largely kept out of gossiping. She had better things to do, like keep the cheerleading team organized and on time for events.

  Still, it was impossible not to hear the whispers.

  “Where do you want me to start?” A loud scraping noise filled the car like the rusty undercarriage had finally given up and dropped off. “What’s that? Did I hit something?”

  Noah looked back and Harper, through the rearview mirror, saw sparks shooting up behind the car.

  “I think we’re losing the bumper,” he said. “Pull over.”

  Luckily it was late morning and there wasn’t any work traffic on the freeway. She eased the car onto the shoulder and partially into the grass, hoping to give them enough room so they wouldn’t get run over by gawkers.

  They got out. She mentally calculated how much money she had in her account. She’d fight to the death against paying Cheap Rentals one darn dime, even if the whole car fell apart on her watch.

  When she rounded Harvey, the bumper hung on by only a twisted coat hanger. The rest of the repair work had failed. One side dragged on the ground and had scrapes in the chrome.

  “What do we do now?” She was no expert in auto body work but this didn’t look good. “Can you fix it?”

  “I could if we were at the shop.” He lifted the loose end and manipulated the bumper. “Check the car for bungee cords or rope. We might be able to make a temporary fix.”

  Harper looked everywhere, then rejoined him. “Nothing.”

  Noah dropped the end with a clatter. He glanced around, then nudged her away with one hand. “Step back.”

  She moved to the grassy edge. He lifted a booted foot and brought it down hard on the bumper. She startled. The rusted coat hanger snapped. The bumper clattered to the ground.

  “What are you doing?” she cried out.

  He lifted the part, walked a dozen feet down the shoulder, and launched the trashed bumper into the ditch.

  “That’s littering!” She ran to his side and tried to spot the bumper. All she saw was a pile of road work signs and an orange and white barrel lying on its side. Beside those were bright orange trash bags being swallowed up by overgrown weedy grass and pricker bushes. “Cheap Rentals will charge me for that if we don’t get it back.”

  There was no way she was paying for damage.

  Noah had another plan. “First. See those bags. A clean-up crew will get the bumper when they retrieve the trash bags. Second, we already lost that hubcap, and the passenger side view mirror fell off when we hit that pothole about two miles back.”

  At her surprised expression, he added, “I didn’t tell you because I know you’d want to dart around speeding traffic to retrieve it and get yourself run over.”

  She groaned. “I’m going to owe more on repairs than the damn car is worth.”

  “The lost mirror was worth more than the car.”

  For the second time that day, he got pierced with the death glare. Not that it worked. If she did have Jedi powers, then he’d feel it burn through his chest and incinerate the speed limit sign behind him.

  Instead he grinned.

  “Thanks for stating the obvious,” she said. “Could you try and be a little more helpful?”

  Noah shook his head. “Nope. We should drive my truck.”

  Smart ass. “Get in the car.”

  They covered the next few miles with her grumbli
ng under her breath and refusing to look at him. She frequently glanced in the rearview mirror, watching for flying auto parts.

  Her companion couldn’t be counted on for keeping her informed in that regard. At this point, she’d risk her neck in traffic to retrieve something as small as a lost bolt or even the antennae to keep the car intact.

  With Noah out, she had to fix the problem herself.

  Harper drove to the nearest hardware store and walked inside, leaving Noah in the car. She bought six rolls of duct tape in a multi-pack.

  Ripping the packaging open with her teeth, she ignored him exiting the Yugo. She bent near the front bumper and pulled off a long strip of tape.

  Oddly, he didn’t comment as she wrapped several feet of tape around the front bumper and up around the left headlight. The second headlight came next, then the trim down the driver’s side. From there, she moved on to the reflectors, the taillights, and the rear window wiper.

  She was sure she heard snickering but refused to acknowledge his presence. He could laugh all he wanted. She was keeping the rest of the car together. When she finished taping down anything she saw that could possibly fall off, she chucked the five and a half unused rolls in the back seat and stood back to admire her work. “Perfect.”

  Chapter 10

  “You’re crazy, you know that?” Noah, highly amused, strolled around the car, noting that the silver tape did nothing to detract from the aesthetics of the rusty wreck. In fact, it may have added value. It covered up some of the holes in the frame.

  “Thank you. I’ll take that as a compliment.” She nudged the front bumper with her toe. The metal held. “Those bastards at Cheap Rentals will not rip me off now.”

  She flashed a smug smile and got back in the car.

  When they were once again on the road, she laid out what she knew about Gerald’s life. Noah anticipated a seedy story. He wasn’t disappointed.

  “Once upon a time there was a boss named Gerald. Everyone hated him because he was a big creep. One day he wanted his cheerleaders to wear stripper outfits on the sidelines. The cheerleader captain was so mad that she had too many drinks and threatened to chop him up and throw him in Lake Michigan.”

  She took a deep breath and continued.

  “The next day, she found him dead. Before she could summon the police, they broke into the room and found her hunched over the body. Now she’s their best and only suspect.”

  “I thought it was Lake Huron,” he said. She turned to him. “I heard his watery grave was Lake Huron.”

  “Does it really matter?”

  He was teasing her. He hated to see her so tense. “I just want to get the facts straight.”

  She blew a curl out of her eye and tightened her jaw. “I’m starting to wonder if you’re on my side or are just here to harass me into a mental break.”

  Harper looked damn cute when she wanted to harm him.

  “A little of both,” he admitted. “I like you annoyed. It keeps you from whining.”

  Death rays. “I really don’t like you.”

  “That’s okay. I like me enough for the both of us.” What he really wanted was to see all that curly hair down and spilling over her naked breasts…and his bare chest. He was a horny mutt when it came to her. Teen Noah hadn’t completely grown up.

  “That’s some ego,” she said. “I bet you have trouble finding hats that fit.”

  “Buy knit. It stretches.”

  Before they got way off track, he steered back around to the case. “Who called the police?”

  “That’s a mystery,” she said. “The killer?”

  “We’ll have to follow that up.” He took out the small notebook and pencil from his shirt pocket. “The hotel should have a record of all in and out-going calls.”

  That seemed to lighten her mood. She was no longer strangling the steering wheel.

  He moved on. “Okay. Now that we’ve caught up with the murder, why don’t you list some other suspects? Was there anyone with the Muskrats who hated Gerald more than you?”

  Appearing to organize a list in her head, she took entirely too long to answer. She wasn’t kidding about him having many enemies. This could take forever.

  “How about you start with the top five?” Although the court system was known to slog along at a snail’s pace, she’d be in prison granny panties before they found the guilty party. “Who had reason to hate him most?”

  Harvey, the wreck, shook with a gust of wind. Thankfully, nothing fell off.

  “Well, since the spouse is the first suspect when the husband is murdered, we should check out Betty Anne.”

  Noah noted her name. “Good. Next?”

  “Then there’s Sharla, Gerald’s mistress. She does hair down at the Clip and Perm. They started seeing each other sometime last year. She refused to allow him to continue to comb over his last six hairs, and took the clippers to his head. He liked her feistiness.”

  “Did she know he was married?”

  “Yup. And he looked like a giant bull dog, jowls and all.” She shuddered. “There’s no accounting for taste.”

  Noah noted the name and business. “Next.”

  “You can put his assistant, Kimmie, on the list, although she’s about five feet tall and ninety pounds soaking wet. It’s unlikely that she stuck a knife in his chest. But you never know. He treated her like crap.”

  “Does Kimmie have a last name?”

  She frowned. “Huh. I’ve never heard her called anything but Kimmie or ‘Hey, you.’ I told you Gerald was not nice.”

  Noah said, “It appears that the decedent was a misogynist ass. He didn’t know how to treat women.”

  “The understatement of the year.” She pulled off the expressway. “He settled six sexual harassment cases these last five years alone. Willard kept him on because they were matching lecherous bookends. They’d stand off to the side when we were practicing and leer. It was gross.”

  She filled him in on her friend Taryn’s multi-million dollar settlement against Willard Covington, Gerald’s uncle and the owner of The Lansing Mighty Muskrats. By the time she finished the story, he wanted to kill Gerald, too.

  “What a mess,” he said and rubbed the back of his neck. This case wouldn’t be easy to solve.

  Harper nodded. “And it wasn’t all women. He fired old Jack, the equipment manager, last spring because the team was accused of pulling a deflate-gate and needed someone to blame. Everyone suspected that if someone was deflating balls it was either Gerald or Willard.”

  “What’s Jack’s last name?”

  “Garvey.” Her eyes clouded. “He was such a sweet guy.”

  After adding Garvey to the list of suspects, he looked up the Clip and Perm on his phone and asked for Sharla. The woman said she was out. “Do you know when she’ll be back?”

  “Her boyfriend died,” the woman said in a bored voice. “She won’t be back until after the funeral tomorrow.”

  Noah thanked her and hung up. “No Sharla. And Gerald is getting buried tomorrow.”

  “So soon?” Harper pulled into a restaurant parking lot. “I thought he’d lie in state for at least a week while dignitaries and kings walked past his coffin and kissed his gold ring. Willard would want a production with lots of fanfare for his favorite nephew.”

  They exited the car. “I think they only do that for former presidents and foreign dictators,” he said. “Well, not the ring kissing part.”

  “I think Gerald was born in Canada if that counts.”

  “I’m not sure that it does.” Noah followed her into the building. The smell of bacon and maple syrup hit him in the face. His stomach twitched happily as they passed a brunch buffet set-up filled with home cooked southern fare to harden the arteries.

  “I’m in love.” Noah led her to a table and ordered coffee and the brunch bar from the waitress.
Harper chose the same, except no coffee. They headed for the food. “I rarely get to indulge my southern roots.”

  She grabbed a plate. “Your family was from southeast Michigan. I don’t think that counts.”

  “Not true.” He shoveled biscuits and gravy onto his plate. He added anything else that looked promising. “My grandmother was originally from Georgia. That makes me one quarter southern.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  They ate and planned to see Old Jack. “Since the widow is likely camped out at the funeral home, and Sharla’s missing, we’ll start small,” he said and forked a pile of hash into his mouth. “Damn this is good.”

  * * * *

  Harper watched him eat and wondered where he put all the food. Probably in his six pack. Then she remembered how he used to eat, like an entire pack of wolves on a deer carcass. By the time he finished, only bones would be left on the plate.

  He used to say that chasing girls was better than running cross country to keep fit. Harper didn’t argue, though she suspected that carrying around car parts at the garage was the real reason he looked so good.

  Clearly, nothing had changed to the negative about Noah since high school. His muscles were bigger and his thighs were more defined. Oh, his personality needed work. She’d consider that his one flaw.

  Not that she cared. He belonged to someone else now.

  Harper called Kimmie for Old Jack’s address and they reclaimed Harvey. A pair of men loitering in the parking lot snickered as they climbed into the rent-a-wreck.

  Noah frowned. “How long do you plan to make me ride in this ball-shrinker? It’s damaging my street cred.”

  “Since when do you have street cred?” she scoffed. “You grew up in a small town without its own McDonald’s. We barely had streets much less roving gangs of troublemakers.”

  “That isn’t the point and you didn’t answer the question.”

  “We’re driving Harvey until the case is over or until my car is fixed,

  whichever comes first.” She waved to the men as they pulled out. “Since I have no money for repairs, it could be awhile. Weeks maybe.”