by Susie Gayle
“Okay, you got me.” He shrugs. “I saw Sarah storm past the barbershop a few minutes ago, still wearing her pet shop apron. You guys alright?”
“Eh, just a little spat.” If Sammy can tell when I’m lying, he doesn’t let on.
“Good.”
I look over at him with an eyebrow raised. “Good?”
“Yeah. You two have been together for a while now. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you argue. It’s healthy.”
Sheesh, if he only knew just how not healthy the nature of our argument really was… but I understand he’s trying to be a good friend. “You’re right.”
“So, any luck with the mayor’s secretary?” he asks.
“Assistant.”
“Salud.”
“No, I mean he’s the mayor’s assistant, not his secretary.” I quickly tell Sammy about my encounter with Aaron Sutherland and my on-the-fly plan. “I’ve got Dennis keeping an eye on town hall; if the mayor goes anywhere, he’s going to let me know.”
“Sounds good. Anything I can do to help?”
“Not at the moment, but I’ll let you know… Oh, you know what? There actually is. Do you remember a place here in town called Buddy’s Bakery, closed down about eighteen years ago?”
“Yeah, I vaguely remember. Why, what about it?”
“Any idea why it closed?”
Sammy strokes his chin and sighs. “Jeez, that’s going back a long way. If I recall correctly, Buddy—that was the owner—”
“I got that, yeah.”
“Well, Buddy wasn’t native. He moved here from god-knows-where and opened up a bakery. He was only here for a couple of years at best. Man, now that you mention it, I remember that place having the best scones. I mean, they were really good. Moist and delicious, not like those flaky, dry things they serve up at Better Latte Than Never.”
I roll my eyes. “So I’ve heard.”
“No, I mean these things were incredible. There was probably a stick of butter in each one, but if you took one bite you wouldn’t care—”
“Sammy.”
“Sorry. Uh, where was I?”
“Buddy wasn’t here long…”
“Right. Buddy wasn’t here long. If memory serves me, he wasn’t exactly popular around town.”
“Why was that?”
Sammy smirks. “Will, I would’ve been around twenty-three or twenty-four at the time, which means I was a lot more concerned with cars and girls than in-town politics. Plus that’s around the time I was getting ready to take over the barbershop. All I remember for sure is that Buddy wasn’t well liked.”
“So what happened?”
“I don’t know. One day the bakery was just closed. No explanation; no note. He defaulted on the lease; left all the equipment behind and everything. Just… left it all.” Sammy shrugs. “I guess he just couldn’t handle being a pariah.”
“What about family? Did he have any around here? Was Buddy his real name? Where did he move here from?”
Sammy holds up both hands. “Whoa, hey. Like I said, I didn’t really know that much back then, and I remember even less of it now. If you really want to know, you’d be better off asking one of the older folks around here—maybe Mr. Casey would know better than me.” Even though there’s no one else around, he lowers his voice and asks, “Why do you want to know all this? Is this relevant to the case somehow?”
“I don’t know yet,” I tell him. “But I have a feeling it might—”
My cell phone rings, cutting me off mid-sentence as it seems to like to do.
“Hey, Dennis.”
“Will. Mayor Sturgess is on the move; he just got into his car and he looks kind of nervous.”
“Yeah, I’m sure he’s looking for me. Or you. Follow him, but be careful. Stay a few car lengths away and don’t run any lights. Just don’t lose him, either.” Listen to me, acting like I know what I’m talking about. I’ve only ever chased one person in a car, an alleged dog-napper, and apparently I was as conspicuous as Dennis was earlier.
“Okay. Remember that GPS thing I showed you?” Dennis asks. “Use that to find me.”
“See you soon.” I hang up before I realize that I have no one to watch the store while I’m gone, and I’m not even sure that Sarah has her keys with her. “Sammy… could you…?”
“Say no more.” He holds up a hand to indicate it’s no problem. “Just don’t be all day.”
“I won’t. Thanks. You’re the best!” I yank off my apron, grab my keys, and dash out the door.
CHAPTER 7
* * *
Dennis is pretty tech-savvy. He’s not like a professional hacker or some ridiculous thing like you’d see in the movies, but he certainly knows his way around almost anything digital. Even knowing half of what he knows would put you leagues beyond me, who just learned this past year that I can access the internet on my phone.
Recently Dennis showed me how I can find people using my GPS app, but only if they allow me to. Dennis used himself as an example to show me, and never removed it, so if I want to I can tell where he is at pretty much any given time—which, it turns out, comes in handy when you ask your girlfriend’s little brother to track a murderer for you.
I prop my phone in the center console of my SUV and turn on the GPS app, and then set it to follow the little blue dot that represents Dennis (or rather, Dennis’s phone). Annoyingly, his dot keeps moving as mine tries to catch up, and the thing keeps rerouting me around blocks and up side streets as it tries to ascertain his position.
Finally, after about ten minutes, his dot ceases its slow trek across the map and sits still. I don’t recognize his position on the little digital display—never was any good at reading maps—but as I get closer, I realize that I know exactly where Mayor Sturgess went.
At the southern edge of Seaview Rock, less than a quarter mile from the border of town, my GPS tells me to hang a right onto a tiny gravel access road that cuts into the forest that stretches from there into the neighboring borough. About forty yards down the access road is a black sedan, parked lengthwise across the gravel.
Dennis stands behind the car, just outside the passenger door, his elbows propped up on the roof and a pair of binoculars to his eyes. He doesn’t lower them, even as I park and get out to join him.
“You have binoculars?” I ask.
“You don’t?” Now he lowers them and frowns. “You’re the investigator here. You should have a good pair of binoculars.” He passes them over to me. “Here, take a look.”
The reason I recognize this place is because where we are, this stretch of forest, is right across the street from Morse’s tree farm—the very same land that the now-deceased Logan Morse wanted to sell to Sprawl-Mart in a seven-figure deal. The very same reason he was murdered.
I prop my elbows on the roof of the car and take a look for myself. From Dennis’s vantage point, I can clearly see the eastern section of the property, where the Morse farmhouse stands.
Sure enough, in the driveway is the mayor’s silver luxury vehicle. Beyond it is the porch of the farmhouse, where just last week I witnessed Logan’s son Kyle threaten two Sprawl-Mart executives with a shotgun.
Currently, however, Mayor Sturgess is on that porch, pacing back and forth as his mouth moves a mile a minute, ranting. His salt-and-pepper hair looks mussed and he’s taken off his tie, if he was wearing one. Kyle Morse, a tall, strong-looking kid in his late twenties with shaggy brown hair, leans against the house with his arms folded across his chest, appearing thoroughly annoyed.
“Well, would you look at that,” I murmur.
“What does it mean?” Dennis asks.
“I’m not entirely sure, but I find it awfully peculiar that after talking with his assistant, our friend the mayor runs straight to the Morse farm.”
After his father was found murdered at the Runside, I had gone to speak with Kyle myself, and now, as I watch the mayor losing his cool on that same porch, I try to r
ecall as much of the conversation as I can.
I had introduced myself as a local business owner in town. Kyle told me other business owners had come; they wanted to see if Kyle would take the Sprawl-Mart deal now that his father was dead. But Kyle turned it down—a million dollars, maybe more, for six and a half acres of Seaview Rock.
Then he had told me that he was convinced that his father, Logan, had run his mouth off to the wrong people around town and gotten himself killed. And I had discounted him as a suspect, because…
“Oh my god,” I murmur as I lower the binoculars. “He’s part of it.”
“Who? The young guy?” Dennis asks.
I nod. “I think so. See, when I talked to him before, I thought he couldn’t have been involved because he didn’t sign the deal—and that meant he didn’t want the money. But of course he didn’t want the money. He’s in on it. He’s with them.”
“Who’s ‘them’?”
I just shake my head; it’s a bit too much to explain to Dennis at the moment. Kyle thought that I was among his “side,” with the likes of Sylvia Garner and Joe Miller, who owns the grocery store in town. And the mayor.
“He knows darn well that the mayor killed his father. He might have even helped him do it.”
“Will, are you sure?” Dennis asks.
“Of course not. If I’ve learned anything in the past week, it’s that even the right guess isn’t right until you can prove it. So I’m going to prove it.”
“How?”
“…I have no idea.” I glance through the binoculars again to see Sturgess retreat down the porch, the younger Morse watching him go. The mayor opens his car door, smoothes his hair, and reties his tie. As he backs down the driveway, we both duck down behind Dennis’s car; it’s not likely that he can see us from the road, but we can’t afford to take that chance.
“What’s next?” Dennis asks in a half-whisper, crouched down beside me in the gravel.
“I’m going to see if Mr. Mayor heads back to his office or not,” I tell him. “Do you mind hanging out here for a little while and seeing if Kyle Morse goes anywhere?”
“No problem,” he says, dangling the binoculars from his wrist by the strap. “When I’m done here, you should have these.”
“What? No, they’re yours.”
“Consider them a gift. They might come in handy, considering your line of work.”
“Thanks.” I smirk. “You know, you’re getting pretty decent at this whole subterfuge thing.”
“Subterfuge?”
“Discretion? Intrigue? Guile?”
“Ah. Thanks. I just ask myself, ‘What would Bill Mulligan do?’ And then do the opposite.” He smiles sheepishly.
“Good. Keep it up, and keep me in the loop.”
CHAPTER 8
* * *
I lose sight of the mayor’s car as I head back into town, so I go straight to town hall and park across the street at a meter, watching the lot.
It all makes sense, and I scold myself for not considering it earlier. I assumed originally that it was about the money, but Kyle Morse told me himself that he thought his father was foolish for wanting to sell the land. He loves his farm and he loves Seaview Rock, and with his dear old dad out of the way, everything would go to him, since Logan’s wife passed away a few years earlier.
I guess I’m going to have to change my slogan of “it’s always about the money” to “it’s usually about the money.” Some people just want to keep things the same.
Sturgess’s car pulls into the parking lot about a minute after I arrive. He sits in the car for a long moment, but his windows are too tinted for me to see what he’s doing. When he gets out, he stuffs his cell phone in the pocket of his trousers; he was on the phone. He paces back and forth next to his car a few times, every now and then glancing up expectedly.
A couple minutes later, an ancient pickup truck pulls in and parks a few spaces away from him. An elderly man in overalls and a green baseball cap gets out slowly. I shudder a little as I recognize him—John Blumberg, retiree and former owner of Blumberg’s clothing store downtown, where the Pet Shop Stop is currently.
Mr. Blumberg and the mayor exchange a few words, and then they head into town hall together, no doubt to collude on how best to avoid further scrutiny. The Blumbergs are a shady couple of old folks, and as I mentioned, I’m pretty sure they were the ones that sent Sarah a batch of cyanide-laced cupcakes in the hopes that she would share them with town council, and possibly me.
What the Blumbergs’ involvement in this is, I don’t know, but I have no doubt that they’re in on it. Oh, to be a fly on that wall.
Wait a second.
Light bulb.
“I don’t necessarily have to get evidence against him,” I murmur to myself, “if there was a way to get a confession from someone.” After all, there might not be any evidence to be found; it seems like the mayor covered his tracks pretty well. His biggest weakness right now is the number of people that know about what he’s done—at least Kyle Morse and Mr. Blumberg, likely his assistant, Aaron Sutherland, and possibly others.
Getting any one of them to spill the beans would at least put him under a magnifying glass as far as the cops are concerned—
“Eep!” I gasp a little as someone knocks on my passenger side window. I glance over and my stomach ties itself into a knot; Patty Mayhew stands outside my SUV, peering in at me in a manner that is anything but friendly.
I roll the window all the way down. Patty leans both elbows on the door frame and gives me a look like a parent who caught a child with their hand in the cookie jar.
“What are you doing, Will?”
“Nothing.” I shrug. That’s me, the excuse expert. “Just, uh, waiting for Sarah.”
“Oh? And where’s Sarah?” she asks casually.
“She… is… in town hall.”
“Yeah? Right now?”
“Uh-huh.”
“That’s odd.” Patty sniffs and adds, “I just saw her walking past Miller’s with your dog.”
“Really? Weird. I guess she decided to walk back to the pet shop.” I almost cringe at how bad I am at playing dumb.
“I suppose that means you should probably get back there too, huh?” she asks.
“Well, I would, but I’ve got some errands to run, and—”
“Cut the bull, Will,” she says suddenly, her tone growing harsh. “I told you once before that I didn’t want you investigating the mayor, and here you are, outside town hall at the same time that he comes back. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were keeping an eye on him.”
“I don’t know what you’re—”
“What’s more,” she says loudly over me, “I hear from my friends in the state police that someone is trying to overturn your suspension. I’ve always considered us friends, Will, but I don’t like my friends sneaking around behind my back, and I really don’t like my authority being called into question. That makes me angry, and you have yet to truly see my bad side.”
I say nothing as she adjusts her flat-brimmed hat and lets out a long sigh through flared nostrils. “Now, there’s only one other person in this whole town that I know of who could overturn that. I don’t know how she’s involved in anything at all here, but you could save me a lot of time and hassle if you just tell me the truth right now.”
I close my eyes and shake my head. I can’t give up Strauss. Or rather, I shouldn’t give up Strauss… but then again, why not? Patty has done me favors in the past. She’s overlooked all the times I got involved in things I shouldn’t have. There are several times she’s been a friend to me. But Strauss? Sure, she pays me. But that doesn’t mean I’m beholden to her in any way. Besides, she’s cryptic and odd and I’m not really sure what her endgame is in all this.
Also, Patty has handcuffs on her belt and access to a cell and would have every reason to throw me in one for twenty-four hours, which might mean I never get my chance to brin
g Sturgess to justice.
“Alright, fine. You want the truth?”
“Nothing but,” Patty replies.
“Okay. I am absolutely convinced that the mayor killed Logan Morse. I think that he did it to keep certain people happy, people that will make sure that he gets reelected. I think that Kyle Morse is in on it, and that the Blumbergs are too. Yes, I’m investigating it. Yes, Georgia Strauss is the one that’s working to get my suspension overturned. Yes, I’m investigating something for her too, but it’s not related. And…”
Oh. There goes another light bulb.
I rub my face with both hands. “And you already know all this because the mayor’s assistant told him, and he told you. You already know what I’m doing.”
She nods slowly.
“Patty, please tell me you’re not involved too.”
“Will, I want you to roll up this window and step out of the car.”
“Patty…”
“I’m not going to ask twice.”
I do what she asks. I roll up my window and get out. Then, right there on Main Street, in full view of town hall and everyone out and about, I do as I’m told and put my hands on the roof of the car as Patty reads me my rights and arrests me.
CHAPTER 9
* * *
The drive to the police station is only a few blocks, so my experience handcuffed in the back of a cruiser is brief. Patty says nothing the entire time, and neither do I. At one point my cell phone goes off in my pocket, but I couldn’t reach it with my hands behind my back even if I wanted to.
She pulls up to the station, opens my door, and takes me by an arm up the concrete steps and inside. The officer behind the front desk, Tom, looks up in surprise. I’ve always liked Tom; he’s a fairly quiet guy, pleasant enough, and he’s helped me out on a couple occasions as well. He must know why I’m here, though, because he shakes his head slightly in dismay.
Patty leads me to a small boxy room with no windows at the rear of the station. The only contents are a small square table and two plastic chairs.
