by Harper Lin
She stored her fixtures in the back of the truck. Just as she was about to climb in and screech out of there, she heard something.
“Miss! Miss, wait!”
She turned to see Colleen running after her. Amelia hadn’t seen her but the one time at the luncheon. Her eyes were still red, but they were bright and kind. Nothing like her mother’s.
“Here. This should cover everything.” She handed Amelia six hundred dollars. “Your cupcakes were delicious.”
“Colleen, thank you. I’m afraid it might get you into trouble. I’ve dealt with tough customers before. Your mother is probably just stressed.”
“No offense, miss, but you’ve never dealt with my mother.” Amelia couldn’t tell if it was with pride or fear that Colleen uttered those words. But it did feel like a warning of sorts. “Please, take the payment. It’s all right, really.”
Amelia took the money and stuffed it into her pocket.
“Come by my truck at Food Truck Alley,” Amelia replied softly. “I’ll buy you a cupcake and a coffee.”
“That sounds nice. I’ll try.” Colleen glanced over her shoulder at the house as if looking for spying eyes. She reached out and shook Amelia’s hand without another word then turned and hurried back into the house.
Without wasting a moment, Amelia hopped in the truck and peeled out of the driveway, leaving the Jameson estate. She was determined to never go back.
But before she could escape Sarkis Estates, she saw a man at the edge of the road, frantically waving her down. It was Bud Fetzer.
“You want the Illuminati to spot you coming two miles away, don’t you?” he criticized, scowling at the bright truck.
“I do,” Amelia snapped. “What do you want? Are you hurt or something?”
“I wanted to know if you saw him in there.” He jerked his head toward the Jameson house.
“Saw who?” Amelia’s right eyebrow arched.
“The killer.”
“Bud, that was the funeral luncheon for Greg. There was no one but family and friends there.”
“Right. You know all this because you are so tight with the Jamesons.” Bud’s sarcasm was annoying. “Look. I know what you’re thinking. You think that I’m just some lonely geek who posts conspiracy theories on Facebook all day. That is, when I’m not downloading X-rated videos. You think I’m obsessed with Colleen Jameson and that I’m more of a threat to her than the people she lives with.”
“Close. Yeah,” Amelia replied.
“Well, you, like the rest of the people in this isolated, sleepy little town, are wrong. Care to have your mind blown?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Pull this monster under the tarp, and I’ll show you.”
“Wait. I’m just a lady who sells cupcakes. Why do you think I can help you?”
“Right. Just a lady who sells cupcakes.” Bud chuckled. “There have been over twenty-two murders in Gary this year. A Detective Dan Walishovski has responded to several of them. Your name has shown up on several of the police reports as a witness of sorts.”
“How do you know that?” Amelia was shocked, but her gut was telling her she didn’t need to be scared. In fact, she realized she was more scared of Luann than she was of Bud Fetzer.
“Don’t worry, Mrs. Harley. Your secrets are safe with me.” He narrowed his eyes. “Are mine safe with you?”
Chapter Nine
“I like Detective Walishovski,” Bud said as he led Amelia into his domicile. “He’s a smart man.”
“Yes, he is,” Amelia concurred as she carefully stepped inside.
“Don’t worry, Mrs. Harley. You’re safe here. Would you like a cup of tea?”
Amelia looked around and was shocked at the level of electronics everywhere.
“This place looks like NORAD.”
“Thank you!” Bud gushed. “That is quite a compliment coming from a civilian. Do you take your tea with sugar or cream?”
“Neither.”
“Aha! A woman after my own heart. I like the hard stuff, too.”
Bud shuffled ahead of Amelia down a well-lit hallway to the kitchen. It was a beautiful room with a long oak picnic table in the middle that looked like something Vikings or perhaps King Arthur’s court would have used if the round table were unavailable. Antique bureaus and china cabinets graced the walls. An authentic wood-burning stove stood against the far wall with several cords of wood stacked next to it. The wallpaper was a pretty design of ribbon and flowers on a forest-green background. The only electronics in this room was a shortwave radio on the table.
The windows were also not covered, and the back door appeared to be unlocked.
“For a guy who claims they are all out to get you, how come this room is so open?”
“It’s a false front,” Bud admitted proudly. “If anyone made it past my security system, and that is highly unlikely, they would no doubt circle the house. When they find they can’t see in the front, they’ll search for a window they can see in. It’s a simple, homey kitchen with tea on the burner and peanut butter and jelly in the cupboard. If they are still determined to get in, they’ll find themselves trapped. Not unlike high-end jewelry stores.”
“Am I trapped in here?” Amelia suddenly felt her pulse race as the color drained from her face.
“Of course not,” Bud assured her. “Mrs. Harley, I need your help. I’m not out to hurt anyone. I’m only after the truth. Whether it’s about the alien bases at Roswell or the MK Ultra experiments that are still going on or the murder that took place at the house next door.”
“You’re convinced Greg was murdered.”
“That’s what I told Dan when I spoke with him the other day.”
“Do you have any proof?”
Bud looked at Amelia as he filled the teakettle with water from the tap of a farm-style kitchen sink.
“If my cameras hadn’t been knocked down the day before the accident.”
Amelia didn’t say anything.
“You have to understand that I don’t just have security cameras. I’ve got state-of-the-art surveillance cameras. Each one costs almost a thousand dollars. You can bet I know how to install them properly. For one to fall or get damaged would take a tall ladder and a sledge hammer.”
Amelia thought of Dan’s bandaged head and busted arm. That camera hadn’t been secured very well. But Amelia didn’t say anything.
“But aside from that, I have these.” He pointed to his eyes.
“What were you doing that you saw someone on the roof of the Jameson house?” Amelia wasn’t sure she should be asking Bud any questions. If she backed him into a corner about things he couldn’t answer, she might get herself in trouble.
“Okay, this will take a little explaining.” Bud sighed as he put the kettle on the stove. He looked at Amelia intently, as if he were about to diagnose her with some incurable disease.
He rubbed his hands together then began.
“Fifteen months ago at 11:47 a.m. every day for seven consecutive weeks at the coordinates of 42.5559 latitude and -122.7813 longitude, an unidentified sphere would appear in the sky and hover for approximately 8.239 seconds before disappearing.”
Amelia was shocked. But she wasn’t sure what she was more shocked at: the fact that she was being told of a consistent UFO sighting or the fact that she was in Bud Fetzer’s kitchen, waiting on a cup of tea.
“Those coordinates just happen to fall in the line of view with the Jameson house. I’m looking at what would be at least four inches above their roof from the view of my telescope.”
“So you admit that you have a telescope pointing toward their house. Toward Colleen’s window.”
“You really do have a dirty mind, Mrs. Harley.”
“Look, you expect me to believe that you aren’t spying on that poor girl?”
“Poor girl? That’s an interesting choice of words.” Bud shook his head as if Amelia had proven herself to be the average dolt he thought she was. “I’ll have you know, Mrs. Harley,
that I have a girlfriend. In fact, this Christmas, I plan on proposing.”
“Let me guess. She lives in Canada.”
“Of course not. She lives at 191st and LaGrange Road. She’s an assistant at the Gary veterinarian’s office. Her name is Fiona. Now, can we get back to the murder? Or do you want to know more about my personal life?”
Amelia chuckled and nodded for Bud to continue.
“I haven’t seen this orb, sphere, whatever you want to call it in a few months, but every day, I check and log my results. So I was at my telescope at the precise time of the previous sightings, and that was when the movement below my line of vision caught my attention.”
The teakettle began to whistle.
Amelia watched Bud fill two mugs. One was in the shape of the head of Mr. Spock from Star Trek, and the other was a UFO over some trees with the words The Truth is Out There stamped on it. Bud gave that one to Amelia and kept Spock’s head for himself. He took a wooden box off the counter and set it on the table. Flipping it open, he revealed a dozen lovely tea choices.
Amelia looked up at him and gave Bud a sly smirk.
“May I suggest the golden oolong morning? It’s robust yet not overwhelming.”
Amelia couldn’t help it. Regardless of a couple of questions and inconsistencies, she couldn’t help but like Bud. He was the weirdest person she’d ever met. But she liked him and followed his suggestion with the golden oolong morning tea. He did the same.
“So that day I missed the 8.239 seconds because I saw a man on top of the roof. I couldn’t understand what he was doing since he didn’t have any tools or anything with him. But then I saw the other man.”
Amelia held the warm mug in her hands, but a chill spread over her as she watched Bud’s face. The color drained.
“The second man had a gun. He was pointing it at the first guy, who stood there with his hands up. He was helpless on that sloped roof.”
“You didn’t think to call the police right away?”
“Mrs. Harley, I have trespassers and vandals all the time. But because of my line of work, everyone assumes I’m crazy. Paranoid. I see things. But I’m not crazy.”
“So what did you do?”
“I remained calm and thought if I’m not hallucinating, it will be on my surveillance camera because just in case I’m away, I have a camera trained on those coordinates. But as I said, someone had taken that camera out. I knew I wasn’t seeing things.”
“What happened then?” Amelia sipped her tea. “Oh, this is delicious.”
“Told you.” Bud nodded and sipped from his own cup. He let the tea go down, and then he looked at the tabletop. “I was sure the second man was going to shoot the first. But he didn’t. He walked up to him and slugged him across the face. The man crumpled in a heap. Then the second man kicked him off the roof.”
Amelia suddenly couldn’t taste anything. When she looked at Bud, he had tears in his eyes.
“I’ve seen a lot of things, Mrs. Harley. But I never saw a man murdered.” He swallowed hard then took a big gulp of tea, letting the hot water scald his throat to burn away the urge to cry.
“You told all this to Detective Walishovski?”
“I did.” Bud nodded. “He said he’d look into it, and trust me, I do know these things take time.”
“So what do you think I can do about it? You’ve told me all this, and now what?”
“Luann Jameson has a restraining order on me.”
“What? Bud, why didn’t you tell me that?”
“Because you’d assume it was because I was some pervy Peeping Tom when that isn’t it. She’s suing me for a fence that she claims is on her property. When I went to measure and confirm the property line, she said I was stalking her and that I was a threat. She claimed my cameras are recording her and her daughter. Let’s face it. Luann knows what she looks like, and she knows what I look like. Who are they going to believe?”
“Her,” I mumbled.
“Yup. So I can’t get within five hundred feet of her.”
“So why were you at the funeral? You could have been thrown in jail.”
“I was hoping I could talk to Colleen. I wanted to tell her what I saw. But you were there swapping recipes for hours on end. I couldn’t wait and risk being seen.”
“Still, you haven’t told me what you expect me to do about it.”
“The guy on the roof had a mask on. But he was young and muscular. And whoever he was knew Luann.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because when he climbed down off the ladder, she was waiting for him.”
Amelia didn’t know what to think. Her mouth went completely dry. She took another sip of tea and cleared her throat.
“Amelia, you need to find that guy.”
“Based on the suggestion of a guy who has a restraining order, who watches the skies for UFOs and lives in a virtual bunker, trying to stay one step ahead of the men in black.”
“That’s right.” He sipped his tea and smiled.
Chapter Ten
“That’s quite a story,” Dan muttered. “Bud didn’t tell me about the restraining order. I found out about that when I looked into his background.”
“There’s also his claim about being an expert at putting up the cameras but one fell on you,” Amelia added. She tucked her legs beneath her after taking a sip of wine and snuggling closer to Dan on her couch. “So what do you think?”
Dan took a sip and stretched his arm behind Amelia.
“I might go visit Bud again. You said you had tea with him?”
“Yes, it was quite delightful. Considering we were discussing surveillance cameras and strangers climbing on roofs and murder.”
“Plus, Luann Jameson threatened to sue you over what again?”
“Ten cupcakes,” Amelia stated flatly.
“Sounds like you had a very interesting day.”
“To say the least. I kind of wish the kids weren’t at their friends’ houses tonight. I would have liked to hear the plain and simple high school gossip about this popular girl or that jock or the teacher who smells like butter.”
“Do they have a teacher who smells like butter?” Dan asked, as if this were a major concern.
“I don’t know. There is always some teacher who smells like something, real or imagined. Isn’t there? Usually one of the not-so-popular teachers.”
“I don’t remember any that smelled, but I did have a teacher who chronically picked his nose,” Dan offered proudly.
“Eww. I could have gone the rest of my life not hearing that.”
“It could have been worse.”
“How?” Amelia shook her head. “Wait. Don’t tell me. I think the worst I can remember is Miss Sleeve. She always had spit in the corners of her mouth. She was a nice lady, but it was hard not to focus on the spit when talking to her.”
“Now look at us.” Dan scoffed. “Little did we know the Miss Sleeves of the world would turn out to be normal compared to some of the people we’ve encountered.”
Amelia giggled.
They finished their wine, and Dan promised he would let her know what he found out on his visit to Bud’s place. He adjusted his arm that was still in a sling.
“Be careful,” Amelia said as she smoothed his lapel. “Just because he served tea doesn’t mean he might not be unstable, and you are about as ready for a fight as a one-legged man in a butt-kicking contest.”
“Thanks.”
“Just giving it to you straight, Detective.” She looked up at him lovingly. “My way of saying be careful.”
Dan looked down at her, and she felt the jitters in her chest when he winked.
A couple of kisses later, Dan was in his car, heading home, and Amelia was grabbing her purse to head to the store and get some milk and eggs.
After getting her supplies, she contemplated grabbing some fast food for herself, but before she could decide, she slammed on the brakes and almost screamed.
“I know that car!”
She gasped, her heart pumping madly in her throat. “Where are you going in such a hurry?”
Luann Jameson drove a red Lexus with REALS on the license plate for her real estate business. Amelia was sure Luann didn’t intentionally cut her off. She had no way of knowing Amelia drove an old sedan.
“Don’t take it personally, Amelia. It’s her road, and she needs to get where she’s going. You’re just a minor inconvenience.”
Amelia watched the Lexus zoom ahead. Without thinking, Amelia hit the gas and began to follow.
Stop signs were just suggestions. Yellow lights meant go faster. Wherever Luann was headed, she was in a real hurry. But Amelia kept the car in sight and was surprised that after fifteen minutes of a high-speed tail, the Lexus pulled into the Four Seasons Hotel parking lot.
“This is interesting,” Amelia muttered. She knew that John had several meetings a year at this particular hotel. She also knew it was one of the places he’d taken Jennifer to before the whole sordid affair came into the light. John was still a face recognized by some of the managers.
Keeping a safe distance, Amelia watched Luann drop the car with the valet. As usual, she was dressed like a pin-up model, and all eyes were on her as she sashayed into the lobby.
Amelia didn’t want to tip the valet, so she parked her car. Carefully, she walked up to the revolving doors and looked in the lobby. Luann was nowhere to be seen, so Amelia entered.
“Did she go to a room?” Amelia pondered. “I could ask at the front desk. That would be pretty ballsy. But maybe I’m feeling ballsy. She did cut me off, after all.”
Squaring her shoulders, Amelia strode up to the check-in desk.
“Hi. I was wondering if a friend of mine had checked in yet. Is there a reservation for Luann Jameson?”
The man behind the counter was very tall and thin, and it was obvious he didn’t like having to wear a tie, as he continually tugged at his collar.
“I’m sorry. Can you spell that name for me?”
Amelia spelled it out, but the man shook his head and said there was no reservation under that name.
“She must have checked in under her friend’s name, and I don’t know how to spell it. I’m just going to wait in the lobby. Thanks.”
