Give Murder A Hand: Lizzie. Book 2 (The Westport Mysteries)

by Beth Prentice

  GIVE

  MURDER

  A

  HAND

  The Westport Mysteries

  Lizzie

  Book Two

  Beth Prentice

  Text copyright Ó 2015 Beth Prentice

  All Rights Reserved

  Table of Contents

  Chapter1

  Chapter2

  Chapter3

  Chapter4

  Chapter5

  Chapter6

  Chapter7

  Chapter8

  Chapter9

  Chapter10

  Chapter11

  Chapter12

  Chapter13

  Chapter14

  Chapter15

  Chapter16

  Chapter17

  Chapter18

  Chapter19

  Chapter20

  Epilogue

  Chapter One

  I sat on my rotting back deck, looking at Molly as she checked the time on her new watch. Her watch matched the rest of her. Perfect. It was a designer brand and matched her designer dress, which was a bit too short, a bit too tight, and cut low enough to show everyone who cared just how ample her bosom really was.

  I looked down at the T-shirt dress I’d bought from K-Mart and wished—not for the first time—that I could just be a little more like her.

  Maybe if I had her budget I’d be able to dress like that. I sighed. The truth was, even with her budget, I still couldn’t pull that outfit together so effortlessly. Molly’s my sister and she’s beautiful. We’ve been told that we look very much alike, but honestly, I am a very watered-down version of her.

  My name is Lizzie Fuller, and I’m the tallest female member of my family, measuring in at five foot two inches.

  Barefoot, Molly is just shorter by half an inch, but that half an inch is very important to me. Our brother Danny towers over both of us at five foot eight, but both Molly and I have a much more impressive D-sized cleavage. I am however, the only sibling to have inherited two dimples. Where from? Who knows? Grandma Mabel was a bit of a wild card, so we have no idea what’s hidden in the family gene pool.

  The day had turned into a bit of a scorcher which, as it was summer, I guess should be expected. My deck was a bit old and rotten, but if you sat on the end nearest to my neighbors, Helen and Allen, it was safe enough. Of course that had the disadvantage of Helen, the quintessential busybody, being able to hear everything I said. But as long as I didn’t talk about her, it wasn’t really a problem.

  I sighed contentedly, and pretended to listen as Molly dreamily told me about a new man she was interested in. Honestly, my attention was on her dog, a little Maltese Terrier named Harper. Every time Molly came over for a visit, Harper went out to the garden, and frantically dug in the same spot. I usually went out and shooed him away, but next visit, there he was again. I’d decided to let him go for it. I wanted to plant some trees anyway so he was saving me the trouble of digging the hole. Plus, I always looked at him with his bright eyes and his tongue hanging out, and thought how enjoyable his life was. Seriously, when it’s my time to be reincarnated, I want to come back as a dog.

  I turned to look at Molly, still dreaming about the new man, her eyes bright and her tongue almost hanging out, and right there and then I believed people really did look like their dogs.

  Lucky for me, I owned a cat, and that rule didn’t apply to cats. Did it? I was about to ask Molly when she shouted at Harper.

  “Harper! Get out of there!”

  I looked, wondering where he was as I couldn’t see him anymore, when I realized he was in the hole he’d dug.

  “Come here, boy,” she called. He stuck his head up out of the hole and barked. Woof.

  “Don’t bark at me,” she scolded. “Just come here.”

  Eventually he came, but he didn’t come clean. Harper was usually white and fluffy but right then, he was brown from his shoulders down, and had dirt stuck to his snout. He also brought something from the dirt to give to Molly. I noticed her eyes bulging as the realization dawned that she had to put him back into her beautiful shiny Lexus. I stifled a giggle.

  “Oh, Harper! Look how dirty you are,” she chastised as she stood and walked towards him. “And what is that?”

  “Don’t yell at him,” I said. “He looks so happy.” And he did. His eyes shone brightly as he trotted up the three steps onto my wooden deck, and dropped the gift at Molly’s Jimmy Choo-clad feet.

  “Eww, that’s disgusting!” She squirmed, moving her toes to push it back down the stairs.

  I knew she was squeamish about things like that, but as she turned towards me, her complexion paled, she swayed, and then fainted ... right on top of Harpers gift. Shit. Shit.

  Running over to help her, I looked at Harper. “Good one, Harper. Now what am I supposed to do?”

  I wasn’t good in stressful situations, especially medical ones. My heart rate increased, as my heart pounded against my ribs, leaving me short of breath. Calling an ambulance would probably be a good idea, but my phone was inside the house. Years ago, I’d completed a first aid course, and a memory stirred about how to put a patient in the recovery position. I knelt down next to Molly, grabbed her shoulder and shook her. Not exactly the recovery position, but it felt like the right thing to do. She moaned. That was a good sign, right?

  “Molly!” I yelled, shaking her a little more. “What the hell are you doing?”

  She moaned again. At least I knew she wasn’t dead.

  I grabbed her shoulder and rolled her onto her back.

  “You’re going to be in big trouble when she wakes up,” I said to Harper, my heart rate decreasing slightly as Molly’s eyelids fluttered.

  “Urgh,” she gurgled, stirring.

  “Molly!” I shook her shoulder once more. “Molly, wake up.”

  She opened her eyes wide and stared back at me, her gaze unfocused.

  “Molly, can you hear me? Molly!”

  My yelling must have worked—well, either that or the shaking I gave her—because she groaned and sat up.

  “Stop yelling at me,” she whispered, her eyes rapidly moving about, as she tried to figure out what happened.

  As she moved, a bone rolled out from under her. Harper saw his chance, grabbed it and ran straight into the house, towards my couch—my white couch.

  “Harper!” I yelled. I didn’t care how happy he was. I did not need a big muddy stain on my favorite chair. Leaving Molly to get herself up, I ran through the kitchen door after Harper, but he was quicker than me. I wasn’t sure how though, as that bone had been almost the same size as him. Before I could catch him, he’d run through the kitchen, across the hallway, and straight into the lounge room. He was just settling into place as I ran through the door.

  “You naughty boy!” I chastised, stepping up to him. “That couch is nearly new and I happen to like it!” As I spoke, I looked down at the bone.

  As Harper nuzzled it into position, it overbalanced, rolled off the chair, onto the floor, only stopping once it was under my timber coffee table. I gave a disgusted sigh and knelt down to retrieve it, wondering what poor family pet it would once have belonged to.

  Feeling around the dirty carpet, I shuddered as my hand made contact with it and I felt the cold, damp soil lodge under my fingernails. As I dug my fingers in and pulled the bone out, I looked down at my hands, nausea rolling in my stomach. A clod of dirt fell onto the mat. The world swayed slightly as I saw looking back at me ... a skull. But it wasn’t the skull that freaked me out, it was that I was pretty sure this one didn’t belong to a dog ... or a cat.

  In fact, I was pr
etty sure this one was human.

  * * *

  My vision blackened, my stomach clenched and sweat broke out on my forehead. As the sickening feeling consumed me, I dropped the skull, sank to the floor and sucked in some air. My body shook as I pulled my knees up and put my head between them. I vaguely heard Molly enter the room.

  “Lizzie?” she called. “Lizzie, are you okay?”

  I waited for the dizziness to stop before responding. “What do you think?” I croaked. “Your dog just dug a skull up from my garden!” Panic seemed the appropriate emotion for the occasion.

  “Well, it’s not exactly my fault,” she said, falling onto the couch.

  “Whose fault is it then?” I said, my voice getting louder with every syllable.

  “You bought this stupid house. I told you not to, but did you listen to me? No! Of course you bloody didn’t!”

  “Well, I’m sorry!” I yelled as Harper slunk off the chair and moved behind the couch, sensing that maybe some of the blame would fall on him.

  “And you bought the dog. Did I ask you too?” Molly too seemed led by panic. Thankfully my front door opened and in walked Riley.

  Riley’s my boyfriend. He’s six foot three, same age as me (thirty two and I promise I’m okay with that – honestly, I am), he has blond hair and the most amazing blue eyes I have ever seen, but it’s his eyelashes that undo me. They aren’t overly long, but they are black and thick. To sum him up, he’s sex walking.

  “Is everything okay?” he asked, his deep voice having an instant calming effect on me.

  “Not exactly,” snapped Molly.

  My eyes filled with tears, realizing that a responsible adult could now take control of the situation. Riley took one look at me, moved into the room and dropped to his knees in front of me. I put my head on his shoulder as his arms pulled me in close.

  “What happened?” he asked, his voice filled with concern. Reluctantly I pulled away from him and pointed to the skull that had once again rolled under the coffee table. He moved and retrieved it, his brow creasing.

  “Is it what I think it is?” I asked, my voice slightly wobbly.

  “Where did it come from?”

  “Harper dug it up from the back garden,” explained Molly, her voice barely above a whisper as she looked at the skull in Riley’s hands.

  I thought about those hands and how I might make him acid wash them before he ever touch me again. Then I looked into his eyes and thought, bugger it, he could touch away.

  Riley placed the skull on the coffee table, stood and moved towards the kitchen. Molly and I stood and followed him, gratefully leaving the skull behind. Harper, realizing the danger had passed, stepped out of his hiding place. He stopped to sniff at the bone.

  “Harper!” yelled Molly. A second later he trotted passed us, his tail between his legs.

  Once in the kitchen, we passed through the back door and continued to follow Riley down the steps and to the garden bed where Harper had been digging. At this point, Harper overtook us all and immediately jumped back into the hole. I heard Molly suck in her breath as he came back out, another bone clenched in his jaw. For a dog with no teeth, he certainly excelled himself today.

  Riley took the bone off him and moved into the dirt himself. I grabbed Molly’s arm as we both held our breath.

  “I think we should call the police,” said Riley.

  “How many are there?” I asked incredulously.

  “I’m not sure but there’s a lot more than this.”

  I felt the nausea swirl as Molly sat her designer dress down on the grass before she fainted again.

  * * *

  It only felt like a few minutes between Riley dialing his phone and the police and the television cameras pulling up, but in reality it had been closer to twenty. Riley took this time to move Molly and myself back into the kitchen, and gave us both a hot cup of coffee.

  Even though the outside temperature still hovered in the high thirties, the hot coffee did seem to calm the shaking that took hold of my body. It had been a good few months since I had shaken like this.

  You see, at the time I bought the house, the purchase contract had omitted a few extras I apparently got for free. Like the cat, the hidden engagement ring, and the stalker. The stalker was the cause of most of my anxiety and shaking. And of course, the nightmares that followed the day he had caught up with me, but ... that’s a whole other story.

  Right now, I sat curled in the crook of Riley’s arms and held my coffee close, feeling the heat from both seep into me. Molly had settled for cuddling Harper. Not a bad second choice, I thought.

  The television cameras were set up in my garden and followed every movement of the police from a distance. I was unsure how they had gotten here so quickly, but maybe they listened to police scanners ... or maybe my neighbor Helen had alerted them. I had noticed her peering through her window as Riley stood in the hole that Harper had dug, her ears flapping with every sound.

  She’d since moved closer, suddenly needing to do some late afternoon gardening, right next to the fence we shared. Honestly, we didn’t need the six o’clock news. Once she had hold of the story the whole town would know about it.

  I heard voices coming from the back deck and Riley stood to investigate.

  “Oh, hi. Are you the owner of the house?” asked a male voice.

  “Kind of,” answered Riley. “Can I help you at all?”

  “Oh, um ... well ... um, I was hoping to speak to the owner of the house. I’m Matt. Matt Wilson. I’m a reporter with WIN news ...”

  “Sorry, we don’t have a comment at this time,” replied Riley, closing the door in Matt’s face. Molly sat up straight in her chair, her eyes a bit brighter than a few seconds before. She placed Harper on the floor and smoothed her dress.

  “Who was that?” she asked.

  “Just a reporter.”

  “I might get some fresh air,” she said, standing and running her fingers through her long curls in an attempt to straighten them.

  I caught my reflection in the window and knew I needed more than my fingers to straighten my mess. The humidity had had its affect, and all I had was a mass of frizz.

  I watched as she ran her fingers under her lashes, removing the imaginary excess mascara. Like I said, Molly was perfect, even her make-up didn’t dare run. Silently, I watched her move to the back door and step into the chaos.

  Moving to the window, I looked out at Molly talking to the reporter. It didn’t take long for her to start flicking her hair, a habit Molly had when she was flirting.

  “Oh my God! She’s chatting up that reporter!” I said to Riley.

  Riley seemed uninterested in what Molly was doing but he did join me at the window. We stood together and watched as the police taped off part of my yard, making a lot of notes as they went. My neighbors had given up the pretense of gardening and were all peering over their fences, obviously wondering what the crazy woman next door was up to this time. It was only when the police knocked on the door that Riley and I moved away.

  “Hello, I’m Constable Davidson,” said a young officer. “I was hoping to take possession of the skull your little dog found.”

  Shit. In all that had happened this afternoon, I’d forgotten it was still on my coffee table.

  Riley led the way and I stood back and watched as the officer placed the skull in a bag, and stepped out the front door. I thought of that table and knew, even though it was the least of my worries, it had to go. It was bad enough I had a skeleton in the back garden. I didn’t need the house contaminated with it too.

  I moved to the coffee table, grabbed the opposite end of it and dragged it after the constable, stopping when it was out on the footpath. Then I moved back into the house, up the two flights of stairs to my office and got a sheet of A4 paper. I wrote It’s yours if you want it in big letters with a marker pen, ran back outside and taped it to the front of the table.

  I turned to see Riley smiling at me. The world swayed once again,
but for a whole different reason this time. Even after months of Riley and I being together, his smile still makes my world stand still.

  He pulled me in close and kissed the top of my head. “There’s not a disinfectant in the world that can kill skeleton cooties.” Luckily for me, Riley understood my hang up with germs, especially after the horrors I’d been through.

  Thirty minutes later, the collection of official vehicles in my driveway had lessened, and Molly finally stepped back into the house.

  “Lizzie,” she called. “Would you mind coming here for a moment, please?” Geez, she was being formal. I followed her voice and found her standing just inside the back door with the reporter I recognized from the six o’clock news. I noticed the dazed look in his deep brown eyes as he gazed at Molly.

  “Umm ... this is Matt.” She smiled. Matt looked around our age with short sandy blonde hair that curled at his collar. He was a little shorter than Riley and, as far as I could tell, had no muffin top hanging over his waistband. The biggest surprise for me was the dazed look in Molly’s eyes as she smiled up at him. “He would like to ask you a few questions,” she explained.

  “Oh, really?” I stuttered as a cameraman walked closer and pointed his equipment at me. Yes, get your mind out of the gutter – it was his camera. Even though he looked pretty sexy—so maybe I wouldn’t mind his other equipment pointing at me—I shook my head, remembering Riley and how he had all the equipment I’d ever need.

  “Yes, if that’s okay?” Matt extended his hand for me to shake.

  My mind stuttered as the camera came closer.

  “Um ... this is Sam, my cameraman. You don’t mind, do you,” he asked uncertainly.

  I looked at Molly as she mouthed please. “I ... I guess not,” I answered quietly.

  Matt dropped his hand and tried to pull his phone out his pocket. His fingers caught on the seam of his jeans and he dropped his phone onto the timber deck. He swore quietly as he bent to retrieve it but misjudged how close he was to Molly.

  As he stood, his head caught her elbow and caused her to slop her now cold coffee all over her white designer dress. Geez, her dry cleaner would be busy. She gasped and I waited for her to yell at him. Instead, she simply smiled.