Meredith Potts Fourteen Book Cozy Mystery Set

by Meredith Potts

  Thankfully, Joe decided not to try and make that turn. Instead, he stayed on the main road and put on the brakes. Our car skidded along the road, finally coming to a halt thirty feet later. Once we had safely stopped, Joe put the car in reverse. As we pulled back to the hairpin turn, we saw Carl’s car stopped on the side road. His sedan had some body damage on the driver’s side of the car where he’d briefly brushed against the tree. That wasn’t what had stopped him, though.

  In the process of hitting the tree, his front tire had popped. Now that his tire was completely flat, he had no choice but to put the car in park. That didn’t mean this confrontation was over. If Carl had a weapon onboard his car, things could escalate in a hurry.

  My brother turned to me. “Stay here.”

  Surprisingly, there was no movement coming from Carl’s vehicle. Was he badly injured? Had he just given up? Was he even conscious?

  Joe got out of the car with his gun drawn and called to Carl. “Come out with your hands up.”

  It was a tense moment waiting for a response. When none came, Joe repeated his statement.

  “I’m only going to say this one more time. Come out with your hands up.”

  By that point, I was nearly biting my nails. I just wanted this to end peacefully. It would only complicate the case if my brother had to shoot Carl.

  Thankfully, a moment later, the door to Carl’s driver’s side door swung open slowly.

  Carl then exited his car with his hands up.

  “Now, get on the ground,” Joe demanded.

  Carl complied.

  Joe then rushed over and used his free hand to grab his handcuffs, all the while keeping his gun pointed at Carl. As Joe reached Carl’s location, he cuffed him.

  While Joe read Carl his rights, I finally breathed a sigh of relief.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Finally, Carl was handcuffed and loaded into the back of a patrol car. What a high-drama resolution. I was so glad it was over. Phew. I wasn’t built for that kind of crazy action. My sleuthing skills shined when I was solving puzzles, not riding in the passenger seat of a car going eighty miles per hour.

  Just as I got close to catching my breath, I realized I’d spoken too soon. When Joe finished searching Carl’s car, what he found inside made me realize this case may not be solved after all.

  Joe found no murder weapon inside the car. Or, any evidence of any kind pointing to the murder. What he did find was a large stash of cocaine tucked under the passenger seat. That would be enough to put Carl behind bars for years. When his drug possession charges were combined with running from the police and reckless endangerment, Carl’s new home would be a jail cell for at least a decade, if not two. Unfortunately, none of that was helpful in terms of solving the murder case.

  Although, on a side note, I had to say that Joe finding those drugs was a complete surprise to me. Sure I’d noticed that something was off about Carl before, but I just thought he was being shifty because he was a murder suspect. For him to be snorting cocaine, and in that volume, was mind blowing.

  I had to get over my shock. There were bigger fish to fry.

  Once Joe finished searching the suspect’s car, my brother joined back up with me and we questioned Carl.

  “What were you thinking?” Joe asked.

  Carl lowered his head in an attempt to avoid answering. He still underestimated who he was dealing with. We just drove straight across town and tailed him on a high-speed chase. Did he actually believe we were leaving the scene without getting answers? If so, Carl was dumber than he looked.

  Joe fired another question at him. “Did you really think you’d outrun us?”

  Carl kept his head down, but not so low that I couldn’t see his eyes. He had a look of embarrassment on his face. There was more. He was also clearly high.

  A moment passed with no audible answer from him. He just shrugged his shoulders.

  That only made Joe angrier. “Don’t think you’re going to avoid talking to us. You have a lot to answer for, and we’re not going to stop until we get what we came here for. Now, I’d ask you why you were running, but I already have the answer to that.” He held up an evidence bag that had been filled up with the stash of drugs.

  “That’s a lot of drugs,” I added. “And a lot of jail time to go with it.”

  Carl tensed up even more.

  Carl was wearing on Joe’s last nerve. Adrenaline was still running high after the car chase. Emotions were less put together than usual.

  “Well, don’t you have anything to say for yourself?” he snapped.

  Joe’s booming voice made it impossible for the suspect to ignore him now.

  Carl looked up with his eyes open wide. The first thing I noticed was just how high he was. He was actually more strung out than I’d first realized. When I thought back on the car chase, it was a wonder he was able to control his vehicle for as long as he did and that no one ended up seriously injured.

  Just as striking was the realization that I was looking at someone who just over two years ago was a renowned chef and restaurant owner. Such was the toll that heavy drug use took on life. Carl looked like nothing more than a common junkie now. He was a shell of his former glory. A man who’d hit rock bottom and seemed to be trying to discover a new low point to hit.

  Being an addict was one thing, being a murderer was another. Was he both? I was eager to get to that. Right now, we were working on just getting a basic answer out of the guy.

  Finally, Carl spoke up. “What’s there to say? I knew if you guys caught up with me, you’d find the drugs.”

  “It turns out we found the drugs anyway,” Joe replied.

  “I figured it was worth a shot.”

  Joe groaned then shook his head and muttered under his breath. “You’re even dumber than I thought.”

  My brother was usually a little less of a loose cannon. Clearly, Joe was off his game. Then again, I didn’t blame him. I couldn’t have chased the suspect’s car as he had. At the same time, I didn’t think we were going to get the answers we were looking for this way.

  I figured it would be best if I took the lead. “You already have three charges against you. Evading arrest, drug possession, and reckless endangerment. Should we add murder to the list?”

  Carl replied vehemently. “No.”

  Not that I expected him to come right out and admit that he was guilty because that would be too easy, but the strength of his denial was surprising. His emotions had been so even across the board with every other question but this one. For him to be so bent out of shape at the insinuation that he was a murderer only made me suspect him more.

  I called him out. “Really, you’re going to sit there and lie to me?”

  Carl didn’t back off. Instead, his outrage ratcheted up even further. “I’m telling you the truth. I’m not a killer.”

  I wasn’t buying it. “Why should we believe you? You told us you fled so we wouldn’t find the drugs hidden in your car. While I don’t disagree with that, what if you also took off on us because you were trying to skip town to evade a murder charge?”

  Carl shook his head. “No. That’s not true. It was just about the drugs.”

  I played devil’s advocate for a moment. “You can tell us it was about the cocaine all you want to. It doesn’t change the fact that your alibi for the time of the murder is shaky at best.”

  He disagreed with me again. “You’re wrong. I actually have a rock-solid alibi.”

  Now he was just talking crazy. Joe and I had both heard his supposed alibi. There was no way to verify it.

  I called him on his nonsense. “Since when?”

  Joe jumped into the fray again. “Yeah. This is all news to us.”

  Carl lowered both his head and his voice volume as he answered. “That’s because I lied to you before about where I really was at the time of the murder.”

  It was funny that he brought up lying to us because I sensed that he was about to peddle another fabricated story our way.
I wanted to stop him before he did. “Or, maybe you just hadn’t made up a cover story that you could get your friends to corroborate yet?”

  Carl corrected me again. “No. That’s not it at all.”

  “You just admitted that you lied to us before. Why should we even listen to you now?” I asked.

  “Just hear me out. I lied to you before because telling the truth would have incriminated myself on drug charges. Now that I’ve already been caught with drugs, I figure there’s no harm in coming clean,” Carl said.

  Joe was fed up with the conversation going around in circles. He pressed for the truth. “Fine. Let’s hear this new verifiable alibi of yours.”

  “The truth is, at the time of the murder, I was in the parking lot of the Hollywood Palms Convenience Store buying drugs.”

  Some stories were just strange enough to be true. While I’d been eager to poke holes in whatever alibi he threw our way, that was a tough one to tear to shreds. It wasn’t like he was now pretending he was shooting pool or throwing back a beer at a bar with friends. He was admitting to purchasing cocaine, which, in itself, was a crime that carried a jail sentence.

  No wonder he hadn’t told us before. When we’d questioned him the first time, he was doing everything he could to stay out of jail. In admitting the truth, he was incriminating himself. That was if he was telling the truth now. The cynic in me wondered, knowing that he was already headed to jail for drugs, if he’d made that story up right now to keep himself from getting a murder charge tacked on to his sentence.

  Joe and I tried to press him for more information, but Carl wasn’t volunteering any. He became tight-lipped, except to tell us that he wasn’t going to answer any more of our questions without a lawyer present.

  Chapter Sixteen

  With Carl going silent on us, Joe hauled him back to the police station and booked him on the drug possession and evading the police charges. While those were completely warranted, as I sat across from Joe’s desk in the precinct, what interested me more was this supposed new alibi. After Carl had been put behind bars, Joe went to call the convenience store to check on his alibi while I took a few minutes to decompress.

  That was much easier said than done. My body was still on high alert. I took a few deep breaths to calm myself down, but it was to no avail. It seemed that despite my best efforts, my heart was determined to keep beating out of my chest. I blamed the adrenaline. It was coursing strongly through my veins, wreaking havoc on not only my heart, but my mind as well.

  My body was stationary in the chair, but my mind raced around and around, like a long distance runner determined to break a world record for the fastest distance race ever. Finally, when I’d managed to work myself into a bit of a frenzy, Joe returned to his desk, sporting an unsavory expression on his face.

  If I didn’t know better, I would have thought that he’d just eaten some week-old sushi from the break room fridge. Unfortunately, I knew the sour expression was related to this case.

  “Bad news,” he said.

  I tried to find a silver lining. “Do you have any good news to balance it out with, or is this strictly just bad news?”

  He pursed his lips before answering. “Unfortunately, it’s all bad.”

  I braced myself for the worst. “All right, let’s hear it.”

  “It looks like Carl’s alibi might actually check out.”

  That was even worse news than I had imagined.

  At first, I refused to believe it. “What?”

  “I called the convenience store. When I asked about Carl, the store clerk recognized the name immediately. The clerk told me Carl had been in there a few nights ago and had bought a pack of cigarettes. Apparently, he then hung out in the parking lot for a few minutes before leaving.”

  That news hit me like a sucker punch to the gut. With Carl behind bars, I really thought we had this case wrapped up. Now, it looked like we were stuck between the same rock and hard place. Out of sheer frustration, I tried to find a way to poke a hole in the clerk’s story but only came up with a weak rebuttal.

  “Is there a chance this clerk’s memory isn’t as good as he thinks it is? That convenience store gets a lot of foot traffic.”

  “We’ll go see for ourselves. The clerk is pulling the security tape for us.”

  ***

  Disappointment awaited Joe and me as we arrived at the convenience store. The bearded, portly clerk led us into the back room and sat us down in front of a monitor. He then rolled the tape for us, letting us see the truth with our own eyes.

  As the tape played, my stomach turned. There it was, as clear as day, camera footage of Carl in the parking lot of the convenience store doing a drug deal on the night of the murder during the exact time of death. The tape was as conclusive as it could be. There was no mistaking that Carl was the man on the tape. Nor was there any further questioning of his alibi. Whether I wanted to believe it or not, when it came to murder, Carl was innocent.

  With that twist, I stumbled out of the convenience store with my spirit severely dampened. Suddenly, Joe and I were staring down a giant question mark again. It was right then and there in the parking lot that my frustration boiled over. I let out a big groan, which pulled Joe’s disheartened head out of the clouds.

  “Hope—”

  I didn’t let Joe finish his sentence, mostly because I had a feeling he was just going to throw a platitude my way, and I wasn’t in the mood.

  “Don’t tell me everything is going to be all right,” I replied.

  He corrected me. “I wasn’t going to.”

  If I didn’t already feel enough like a fool mistakenly believing Carl was the killer, snapping at Joe for no reason just added to my embarrassment. I had to get my frustration under control. But first, an apology was in order.

  “I’m sorry for being short with you. I just can’t believe our luck,” I said.

  Thankfully, Joe accepted my apology in stride and tried to look on the bright side. “There is some good news.”

  I raised my eyebrows at him. “Really? Where? I don’t see any good news.”

  He explained his line of thinking. “We may not have caught a murderer, but Carl, his reckless driving, and the three pounds of cocaine he had stowed away in his car are now off the streets.”

  It was a small victory, but at this point, we’d take anything. “Right. Of course.”

  I’d been so caught up in the case that the drug charges had almost slipped off my radar completely. While it was better that Carl was behind bars rather than roaming free on the streets, it only gave me a minimal level of comfort. After all, in the grand scheme of things, a murderer was still roaming the streets, one who could strike again anywhere and at any time.

  Thoughts like that put me completely on edge. They were what nightmares were made of. Uncertainty was on the tip of my tongue and became impossible to ignore any longer.

  “None of this helps us with our case, though.”

  Joe agreed, with one caveat. “That’s mostly true. Although, at least now we’ve eliminated one suspect.”

  I nodded, then added my biggest concern. “It’s a shame all the other ones happen to look so guilty.”

  Joe rubbed his bloodshot eyes. He looked as tired as I felt inside. It was in the quiet moments like these when the truth seemed so far away that exhaustion caught up with me. I was so tuckered out that the idea of even sitting at a restaurant to have a complete meal seemed too taxing. Briefly, I entertained the idea of grabbing a slice of pizza or a corn dog from the convenience store.

  Thankfully, my taste buds vetoed the idea and talked some sense into me. What was I thinking? Convenience store food for dinner? That just went to show how emotionally wrung out I was.

  We were both thinking it, but Joe was the one to vocalize his fatigue. “I think it’s safe to say we won’t be cracking this case tonight.”

  “I can’t argue there.”

  “Good. You should leave the arguing to the suspects. It seems to be their fa
vorite pastime.”

  Joe was just blowing off steam, but I couldn’t help but laugh at his statement, as it was probably the truest statement I’d heard all day.

  “I wish that was just a joke,” I said.

  “We’ll get the last laugh in the end,” he replied.

  “In the end? Yeah. But right now I could use some rest and relaxation.”

  He escorted me to his car. “Come on, I’ll drive you home.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  What a frustrating end to the day. For a moment, it felt like we were on the precipice of bringing this to a close. In reality, we were just as far away as ever. I could have harped on that point all night, lingering on how Carl’s alibi had pulled the rug out from under us, but it wouldn’t do me any good.

  As Joe drove me home, I tried switching my focus. That ended up being easier than I thought. By the time I was halfway home, a wave of exhaustion and hunger hit me like a ton of bricks. I’d kept them both at bay all afternoon, but now they’d come back with a fury.

  A new question entered my mind. What was more appealing to me, dinner, or sleep? Luckily, I had some leftover stew in the fridge that I could quickly reheat, so in the span of half an hour, I could fill up my belly then hit the hay right afterward.

  When Joe pulled up to my place, I was happy to just shuffle up my driveway and head inside. Joe wouldn’t allow that. He insisted on walking me to my door. Just before I was ready to say a quick goodbye to him, I heard something highly peculiar coming from inside.

  Most nights when I returned home, I could hear my dog, Buster, barking from the entryway, desperate for attention. That night, I heard Buster, all right, but the noise coming out of his mouth wasn’t a happy greeting, but a distressed, deep bark like he was trying to defend the place.

  Surely, that couldn’t have been meant for me. He knew the sound of my voice and had never barked at me in anything but a light, playful way. Like all dogs, he was protective of his home, especially with strangers, but he knew the sound of Joe’s voice as well. He’d never given Joe any trouble. If anything, they’d become best buddies recently, mostly due to the dog treats Joe had started bringing over when he visited. So, why was he barking that way?