“So are we back to a human killing her?”
Jack held his hands palms up. “Your guess is as good as mine. I doubt very much a Dog Man opened that window and searched her apartment. I really don’t know what to think.”
He wasn’t the only one.
17
Seventeen
When no one was looking I touched a few of Penny’s items, being careful to avoid anything that looked overtly filthy. Unfortunately – or, perhaps, fortunately – I didn’t get any flashes from the items I touched. Part of me was terrified I would see the woman’s death – it had happened before when I touched a wrecked vehicle after one of my classmates died in a terrible collision when I was a senior in high school. The other part of me wanted to see her death so we could put aside any debates about the killer being paranormal or human.
It simply didn’t happen.
When we were finished we headed back to the inn to regroup and get ready for dinner. Bernard had stayed in town, expressing zero interest in searching Penny’s apartment, so Jack sent Chris to pick him up when he was done at the scene. It was just the two of us on the long drive back to The Overlook.
“What are you thinking?” Jack asked about halfway through our trip.
“I’m thinking that Penny Schilling must’ve been an extremely sad individual.”
Whatever answer he expected, that wasn’t it. Jack shifted on his seat. I could feel his eyes on me even though I didn’t turn to meet them. “Why do you say that?” Jack’s voice was soft.
“She was clearly looking for something she never found,” I answered, keeping my gaze trained out the window. “I think it would have to be sad to be looking for something externally when the answers are probably internal and you don’t have the ability to seek them out.”
“Profound.” Jack made a clicking sound with his tongue as he debated how to continue. “Not everyone knows what they want out of life at a young age. I think you understand what you want despite your youth. You seem to be driven to find answers.”
“You don’t think Penny wanted answers?” It was almost a rhetorical question, and yet I still expected an answer.
“I think Penny wanted comfort,” Jack clarified. “You saw her apartment. That wasn’t a home. It was a place to live. There are some people in this world who spend all of their time searching for what they think will be a happily ever after. In Penny’s case, I think that’s why she kept going for older men she believed could provide financial security.
“Somewhere in her past, Penny went through life wanting things, maybe even food and warmth,” he continued. “She didn’t know what she wanted, but she was certain she didn’t want to be cold and hungry. I think that’s normal for people who grow up poor.”
He spoke the words as if he had special insight into the issue, and I filed the notion away to reflect on later.
“Penny was probably one of those people who have a hole inside of her that she was desperately trying to fill,” Jack continued. “A lot of people have holes like that. They use alcohol, food, sex, manipulation, tears … whatever … to fill that hole.”
“And you think Penny used sex,” I mused, stretching my arms. “She thought if she could snag one of those top resort guys that she could fill the hole and then start living the life she thought she deserved.”
Jack nodded. “She didn’t realize that you find the answers within when you want to plug a hole like that. A person can’t do that for you.”
I dragged my eyes from the window and focused on him. “You don’t believe one person can complete another?”
“I believe in love, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“It’s not.”
Jack pursed his lips, seemingly straddling a line as he considered his next words. “I don’t believe that one person can fix another,” he said finally. “I do believe people can love and complement one another. Is that what you’re asking?”
It wasn’t, but it was close enough.
I WAS EXHAUSTED by the time we hit The Overlook, my late-night antics the previous evening finally catching up with me. I took a brief nap, my dreams so muddy and dark that I was relieved when I woke. I hopped in the shower, cleaned up, and then headed downstairs. Most of my team and the Winchesters were already in the dining room.
“Sleep well?” Jack asked, lifting his eyebrows as he studied me. “You look better … kind of.”
“Oh, well, thank you so much for the compliment,” I deadpanned, annoyance bubbling up. “I don’t know what I would do if I didn’t have you around to fluff my ego.”
The words were biting, but Jack easily shrugged them off. “I only meant you have some color back in your cheeks. You still look tired.”
“Sorry.” I mumbled the word into my hand as I rested my chin on my elbow.
Instead of being offended, Jack smirked. “You’re more than welcome.”
Dinner was a festive affair, but mealtimes apparently always are at The Overlook. Tillie sat at the head of the table regaling everyone with hilarious stories of her misspent youth. She peppered exciting babysitting tales throughout some of the more serious stories – including the time she made her great-nieces act as lookouts while she stole flowers from the cemetery.
“That’s when Clove earned her nickname,” Tillie supplied. “That was the first time she was a complete and total kvetch.”
“I was five,” Clove protested from the far end of the table, Sam beside her. They didn’t regularly come for meals, but did pop up several times a week. Marcus and Thistle were fairly frequent guests around the table – including tonight – but Bay and Landon appeared to be the only ones who showed up for breakfast and dinner daily.
“You were still a kvetch,” Tillie argued. “Bay and Thistle treated the entire thing like an adventure. You spent the whole night whining that Terry was going to arrest us.”
“He would’ve if he caught us,” Clove argued.
I slid a sidelong look at Chief Davenport, who joined us this evening and sat to my left, and arched a dubious eyebrow. “Would you have arrested them?”
“Probably not,” he conceded. “I might’ve arrested Tillie.”
Bay snorted, amused. “No, you wouldn’t have done that either,” she argued. “You would’ve been too worried about us crying. You hated it when we cried.”
“I didn’t care about making you cry,” the chief countered immediately, although there wasn’t much conviction behind his words. “You girls all act as if I melted into a puddle of goo whenever I saw you. That’s not how I remember things.”
“How do you remember things?” Landon asked. “All of the stories I’ve heard end with you spoiling them. I even heard one in which you carried all three of them through four-foot snow drifts because Aunt Tillie had them spying on Margaret Little and you refused to leave them in the woods.”
Tillie’s eyes widened to comical proportions. “You have a big mouth, Bay! Why did you tell him that story?”
“How do you know I’m the one who told him that?” Bay hedged, averting her gaze. “It could’ve been Thistle, Clove or Chief Terry.”
“Why would I tell him that story?” the chief challenged. “You were making them spy on Mrs. Little. That was after attacking her with yellow snow for three days straight, if I remember correctly.”
“I’m pretty sure your memory is faulty,” Tillie sniffed. “That doesn’t sound anything like me.”
“No, of course not,” Chief Davenport deadpanned, causing the table to erupt in riotous laughter.
“Did your great-aunt take you on adventures often when you were kids?” Hannah asked. She was a sincere individual who mostly minded her own business – which made me largely ambivalent toward her – and honestly seemed to be enjoying the conversation.
Bay nodded, smiling. “Our mothers were busy trying to learn everything they could about the bed and breakfast business when we were younger. They wanted us to amuse ourselves a lot while they studied.”
“They had job
s, too,” Thistle added. “This house didn’t look like this when we were younger. It has grown a lot over the years.”
“It was a simple homestead when the property first came into our possession,” Winnie explained. “Then every generation started adding. Eventually it was a Victorian. The finest house in town.
“We always knew we wanted to start our own inn, so eventually we turned the Victorian into a bed and breakfast. Then, several years ago, we did the big expansion to turn the place into a full-fledged inn.”
“Will your daughters eventually take over the operation?” Laura asked. I didn’t fail to notice that she’d managed to steal the spot on Landon’s right side this evening, something he refused to acknowledge as he kept his attention on Bay.
“I don’t know how that will work,” Winnie admitted, her eyes flicking to Bay. “I’ve never considered the girls to be all that interested in running the inn. The property will certainly pass to them. What they do with the house … well … I guess that’s up to them.”
“That’s a long way off,” Landon noted. “Who knows what will happen in that time.”
“Exactly,” Tillie added, bobbing her head. “I’m barely middle-aged. We have decades in front of us before we have to make any tough decisions.”
Laura let loose a derisive snort, but she recovered quickly when she realized that everyone around the table was glaring at her. “I … um … that’s a good point. So what about you, Landon? Do you see yourself living here forever? Are you going to be an FBI agent who happens to run an inn on the side? That sounds like an odd book or a cozy mystery, doesn’t it?”
Landon rested his arm on the back of Bay’s chair as he studied Laura’s face, his fingers light as they traced small circles on the back of Bay’s shoulders. “I see myself living with Bay forever. If that’s here, I’m fine with that.”
“So she’s your one and only?” Laura asked the question in a casual manner, but it was clearly pointed.
Landon answered without hesitation. “Yup. Why would I possibly want someone else? Why would someone even ask a question like that?”
Laura balked. “I didn’t mean … .”
“He knows what you meant,” Tillie interjected, cutting off the stuttering vixen. “Everyone has seen the way you look at him. You’re panting up the wrong police-shaped tree.”
Landon’s lips quirked as he reached for his glass of wine, but the expression on Laura’s face was dark and dangerous.
“I don’t know what you think you’ve seen, old lady, but … .”
“Laura, that will be quite enough of that,” Chris barked, taking everyone by surprise. I hadn’t heard Chris raise his voice since I started working for him. In fact, when I really stretched my brain, I couldn’t remember sharing more than a few hundred words with him. He was so caught up in the work – the actual work of examining the scene where Penny was found – that my enthusiasm for the investigation led us in different directions. I couldn’t help but feel a bit guilty about that.
“I wasn’t doing anything,” Laura protested, her eyes flashing.
“Yes, you were,” Millie shot back, shaking her head. “You always do something. Every single time we have a job you pick a person to flirt with. You don’t care if that person is interested or not. You focus on them until we leave town, as if it’s a game.”
“I do not!” Laura’s temper flared. “Stop saying things like that. You’ll give these people the wrong idea.”
“We’ve met people like Laura before,” Thistle said. “We recognized her for what she is the second we met her. There’s no need to get worked up about it. We’ve dealt with worse.”
“Hey! I am sitting right here.” Laura’s temper was something to behold. I couldn’t help but wonder if the Winchesters purposely egged her on to see if she would crack. The supposition appeared ridiculous on the surface, but it seemed to fit the facts. They were conducting a social experiment, and they were having a good time doing it.
“Eat your dinner and be quiet,” Chris ordered, his voice low and firm. “Speaking of work, I was wondering if someone would take a shift out at the scene with the equipment tonight. Laura and I spent the entire day going through footage – found a few interesting tidbits I’d like to clean up and examine more closely on the laptop – but I’ve decided that I want someone out there at all times so we can have eyes on the areas not covered by cameras. The hominid might recognize a camera and avoid it, after all.”
The news was met with a chorus of groans.
“I know everyone hates camping,” Chris continued. “I happen to love it, but I’m the oddity. After what we found today, though, I don’t see how we can let this opportunity slip through our fingers.”
“What did you find today?” Tillie asked, leaning forward. “Was it the Loch Ness Monster after all?”
“The Loch Ness Monster can’t get to the Hemlock Cove woods,” Thistle argued. “How would it manage to get here without being seen? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“You’re on my list,” Tillie warned, extending a finger. “It makes perfect sense, by the way, if you believe in an underground water system that runs two hundred feet below the surface. That’s how creatures like the Loch Ness Monster survive over the eons.”
Thistle didn’t look convinced. “Why has no one ever seen this water system?”
“Because it’s magically hidden.”
“By whom?”
“Elves, you idiot!” Tillie barked.
“Okay, that will be enough of that,” Landon ordered, topping off his wine glass. “I’m a little confused about why anyone has to be at the scene. Why can’t you just leave the cameras running and check them in the morning?”
“Because the cameras are pointed at one particular area,” Chris explained. “The odds of a hominid-like creature passing over that exact area are slim, and if it recognizes the cameras it’ll take great pains to avoid the camera. Hominids are notorious for disliking cameras.”
“Is he saying Bigfoot is gay?” Tillie whispered, leaning closer to Bay for clarification.
Bay shook her head. “He’s only referring to an ape-like creature.”
“Like Landon when there’s no bacon?”
Bay tried to hide her smirk … and failed. “Kind of.” She patted Landon’s knee under the table. “You already made the gay Bigfoot joke before, though. I remember it. You need to stop recycling material.”
Tillie scowled. “Whatever.”
Bay ignored her and focused on Chris. “So you want to put people out there camping all night so they can operate camera equipment in the hopes of seeing Bigfoot?”
Chris nodded, the question apparently perfectly reasonable in his mind. “I was thinking Millie and Bernard could take the first shift.”
Millie groaned, annoyed. “Oh, geez.”
Jack’s words from earlier in the day flooded over me and I immediately started shaking my head. “I’ll do it. I was caught up with other stuff this afternoon when I should’ve been helping you.”
“Yes, well, you don’t know that much about the equipment yet,” Chris hedged.
“I can learn on the job.” I was determined to make up for the mistakes I’d already made. “I want to do it. And you don’t have to send anyone else with me. They deserve some sleep. I can handle this on my own.”
“That sounds good to me,” Laura said. “Can someone pass the rolls?”
“Well, it doesn’t sound good to me,” Jack argued. “You can’t go out there alone.”
“I agree,” Chris said. “She’ll need someone to go with her. Millie?”
“Ugh.” Millie made a face and let loose with a series of unintelligible grunts instead of offering up an answer.
Jack interjected himself before she had a chance to clear things up. “I’ll go with her,” he said. “I know how to use the equipment.”
“Are you sure?” Chris was visibly surprised. “You usually don’t volunteer for this sort of assignment.”
“I
’m security. I want to make sure our new member is safe.” Jack shot me a tight smile and I was sure I would hear an earful about volunteering as soon as we were alone. “I’m looking forward to it. I’ll bet it’s an eventful evening.”
I was starting to worry about that myself.
18
Eighteen
“I can’t believe we’re staying in tents.”
I was almost giddy when Jack finished erecting the two small tents, my gaze bouncing between them. I tried to help him when it came time to erect the temporary nylon shelters, but he said I was more of a hindrance – which was mildly hurtful, but I was too excited to care.
“Yes, it’s the highlight of my evening,” Jack said, tossing a sleeping bag in my direction and shaking his head. “I see you got the campfire burning. Looks a little lopsided, but … good job.”
I was fairly certain that was the closest thing to a compliment I would get out of him, so I let it slide. “I know how to make a campfire. I was a counselor at summer camp as a teenager.”
“Really?” Jack cocked an eyebrow. “I don’t see you at a summer camp.”
“Well, I probably wouldn’t go back after what happened, but I had a good time up until the end.”
“What happened?” Jack asked, tossing his sleeping bag in the tent closest to him without bothering to look inside. Both the tents and sleeping bags were new – Chris purchased them one town over this afternoon – so Jack didn’t appear to be worried about bugs being inside. That was at the top of my list of things to worry about. I’m not big on bugs.
“It was a cold night. My friends started disappearing one by one until I was the only one left.” I adopted an eerie voice as I flicked my new flashlight on under my chin. “I followed a trail of blood from the kitchen and found a body. It seems there was a legend around those parts. A killer thought drowned in the lake as a child kept coming back.”
The Bigfoot Blunder (A Charlie Rhodes Cozy Mystery Book 1) Page 16
