by Jill Orr
“Yeah, it’s just been crazy.” Ryan stood up. He was wearing basketball shorts, an Adidas T-shirt, and flip-flops, and I could see his breath when he spoke. He had to be freezing. “Between the baby, buying the restaurant, and moving… we’ve hardly had a chance to catch our breath. But we love the house. It’s got a good soul, you know?”
Ryan beamed at me from under his thick lashes, and I was struck by how genuinely happy he seemed. It was hard to believe that this was the same Ryan Sanford whom I’d dated for seven years, and instead of proposing to me after college graduation as planned, took off to Colorado like a thief in the night without so much as a “See ya later.” So much had happened since Ryan had come back to Tuttle six months ago. He was now a father, a homeowner, a local business owner, and living with his beautiful, smart, practically-perfect-in-every-way Swedish baby mama. Whoever said life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans sure got it right. I don’t think anyone—including Ryan himself—could have predicted the direction his life had taken.
“I’ve been meaning to come over with a plate of something,” I said, suddenly realizing that I had yet to properly welcome Ryan and Ridley to the neighborhood. My mother would be horrified.
“Nah, don’t worry about it. You’ve had a lot going on. How’re you holding up?” He and Ridley had both come to Flick’s funeral, both given me extra tight hugs when it was over.
“I’m okay,” I said. “Busy with work, which is always a good distraction. And…” There was a part of me that wanted to tell Ryan about Tackett offering information on Granddaddy’s death. Ryan had been the only person in town who believed me that Granddad hadn’t committed suicide, who didn’t write me off as a grief-stricken young girl. There was a part of me that would always love him for that, but I knew that, if anything, Ryan and I needed to disengage rather than revisit the things that had held us together in the past. We were doing a pretty good job of learning to be friends, and I wanted to keep those boundaries firm. “Yeah…all good!”
He smiled at me. “Well, you look great.”
“Thanks.” I smiled back. “You too.”
Just before the moment got awkward, Coltrane whipped his head around, his ears shooting up into perfect triangles, his eyes opaque with purpose. He stared down the dark road and let out a low growl. As a former police dog, Coltrane never growled without reason. Both Ryan and I followed his gaze.
“What is it?” Ryan whispered, as if Coltrane might answer. “What do you see?”
I scanned the darkness but didn’t see anything unusual. To the left, the Dorseys’ three cars with West Virginia plates were parked in and around their driveway (probably family in town for the holiday). To the right, Gill Littrell was walking back up to his house after putting the trash out. And at the top of the street, a Prius was turning left at the stop sign. Nothing seemed out of place.
“It’s probably nothing,” I said, though not quite as sure as I sounded. I clipped Coltrane’s leash back on. “C’mon, buddy. Let’s go home.” But Coltrane wouldn’t budge. He crouched down on one leg, the way dogs do when they’re stalking something. He took a step forward and growled again, this time lower and longer.
“I’ll walk you home,” Ryan said. The spot Coltrane was focused on was just back and to the left of Ryan’s driveway, which put it in the woods directly next to my house.
I shrugged him off. “No, you’ll freeze to death. I’m fine.”
“I’m gonna grab a coat, stay here,” Ryan ordered, already turning to run back up the brick path to his front door. “Don’t leave.”
I debated taking off before he got back, but I had to admit I was a little spooked. Coltrane wasn’t jumpy or prone to overreacting to strangers or stray cats or whatever. If he growled at something, it meant he was warning me. Or warning whoever was out there. I looked around again. Mr. Littrell had gone inside, and the Prius had driven on. Coltrane and I were very much alone on that street, at least as far as I could tell.
A few seconds later, Ryan came back with a puffy down coat, a wool hat, and a flashlight. But he was still wearing shorts and flip-flops. (Clueless idiot.) “Let’s go.”
We walked quickly along the sidewalk of Beach Street. Coltrane seemed more relaxed now that we’d left Ryan’s street, though he was not the same jaunty monarch he’d been earlier. Maybe it was my imagination, but he seemed a bit more on guard.
I asked Ryan about Lizzie and what fun new things she was doing these days (grabbing her feet, blowing spit bubbles, giggling) and how his parents felt about him taking time away from working at their Farm & Home store to get Mysa up and running. Ryan said his parents were over the moon about it all. They’d all agreed that once the café got established, Ridley could run it and he’d go back to work for the family business. They’d volunteered to help with any and all babysitting needs. Sounded like they were just as smitten with Lizzie as the rest of us.
“And how are things with Ridley?” I wasn’t sure if it was weirder to ask or not to ask at this point. A few weeks ago, Ryan had come to me seeking advice on how to best declare his newfound love to Ridley. When I’d tried to tell him that maybe he ought to ask someone else for advice, he’d wrongly assumed it was because I was jealous that he had someone since I was still single. I’d tried telling him he was wrong, that I’d long since let go of any romantic feelings for him, and I was perfectly happy being on my own. To that, he’d basically ruffled my hair and said something along the lines of, “Sure you are, kid.” It made me want to dunk him in a vat of boiling oil. After a while though, I’d forgiven him as usual. He didn’t mean to be so self-centered; he just couldn’t help it.
“Things are good.” Ryan smiled into the darkness. “We’re taking things slow, but we’re in a really good place right now.”
“I’m glad,” I said, ninety-seven percent because I meant it, and three percent to prove I wasn’t carrying a torch.
When we got to my driveway, I unleashed Coltrane and gave him the “Go see” command, which meant that he took off to sniff the perimeter of the house. It was a neat trick he’d learned in the doggy police academy before he was retired for being gun-shy. Ryan trailed behind him with his flashlight. I waited on the front porch, scanning the street and trying not to look freaked out.
After about three minutes Ryan came back, Coltrane trailing behind him. “All clear. Must have just been a raccoon or something.”
“Yeah, I’m sure you’re right,” I said, not at all sure. “Well, thanks for walking me home. Say hi to Ridley and kiss Lizzie for me.”
“You got it—though I might switch those around.”
I rolled my eyes. “Bye, Ryan.”
“’Night, Riles,” he said. “Night, buddy,” he called to Coltrane.
I went inside, slid the deadbolt into place, and threw a little prayer into the universe that whatever “raccoon” had been skulking around my house earlier didn’t own a set of lock picks.
CHAPTER 6
I spent the rest of the evening going over Flick’s file. Again. I’d been through it ten times already over the past month, but now I attacked it with renewed purpose. I needed to find evidence that Flick’s and Granddad’s deaths were connected in order to persuade Lindsey to deal with Tackett. I knew in my gut that the two crimes were related—possibly even committed by the same person—I just had to find a way to prove it.
The problem was that Flick had told me very little about what he was working on. It was his way of keeping a promise he’d made to Albert to “keep me safe.” I still didn’t know if Granddad had asked Flick to do that as a general measure, or if he said it because he was worried about a particular threat to my safety. Either way, Flick’s interpretation of keeping me safe had led us down a rocky path. Right after Granddad’s death was ruled a suicide, I’d begged Flick to help me investigate it, to help me prove it had been a crime, but he refused to even talk to me about it. He shut me down and shut me out completely. At the time, I assumed it was because he was selfish
or lazy or a coward. I had no idea he was just trying to keep the last promise he’d made to his best friend. And until very recently, I’d had no idea that Flick shared my suspicions about how Granddad died.
I started, as I often did when I was feeling stuck, by making a list. I carefully selected a brand-new journal from my growing collection (and possible indication of hoarding tendencies). This one was gray, eight and a half by eleven, leather-bound, and had my initials stamped into the bottom right corner. It had been a birthday present from Flick. I opened it to the first page and wrote the words WHAT I KNOW across the top.
1. Flick went to Chincoteague Island to follow a lead about Granddad’s murder.
Just days before he was killed, Flick told me he was going to Chincoteague to look into something. I didn’t even know he’d left the island until I received the phone call from Kay saying his car had been found on Highway 58. That was more than 200 miles from Chincoteague. Among the many things I needed to figure out were: What exactly was Flick doing on the island? Why did he leave? And where was he going when he was run off the road?
2. Shannon Miller / plane crash.
The last conversation I had with Flick was on the day before he died. I remembered the call so clearly. I could still hear his gruff voice across the line, the cutouts from bad reception, the background noise that made it sound like he was in a war zone, rather than a vacation destination off the coast of Virginia. I’d asked him to tell me what he’d found out, what lead he was chasing. He was characteristically vague and said only that he was following up on something Albert had been working on right before he was murdered.
“…an entire family was tragically killed in a plane crash outside their home state of—” the line cut out and I didn’t hear that part. “The youngest daughter was only four years old at the time. Her name was Shannon Miller…I came over here to Chincoteague because this is where their plane went down—”
When I told Flick that I was worried about him and maybe he should just come back, he’d laughed and said, “Don’t worry about me, kid. I’ve confronted worse than a pack of professional liars…I’ll call you back later tonight, okay?”
But he didn’t call me back. Instead, he’d left the island and had driven west. I would never hear his voice again. A wave of sadness swept through me thinking about that night. If only he would have told me what he was working on, whom he was meeting, where he was going. I don’t know that I could have saved his life, but it sure would have made it easier for me to find who killed him and hold them responsible.
Other than Granddad’s missing book research, this was the biggest clue I had to work from. And it wasn’t much. I had the name of Shannon Miller, a four-year-old who died along with her entire family in a plane crash off the coast of Chincoteague Island in 1959. I’d been able to find a couple of old newspaper articles online about the crash that had been digitized by the Chincoteague Historical Society. The reports said that the pilot, a man by the name of Daniel Miller, was flying his family to Wilmington Beach, North Carolina, when the plane crashed. All five family members were killed. Investigators were not sure of the exact cause of the crash, but the theory was that Daniel lost consciousness while flying the single-engine Piper PA-32, and the plane dove into the Atlantic Ocean. Listed among the dead were Daniel Miller, thirty-eight, his wife, Robin Miller, thirty-six, and their three children, Eric Miller, ten, Joseph Miller, eight, and Shannon Miller, four.
While it was certainly a tragic story, I didn’t know what this plane crash from sixty-plus years ago had to do with my grandfather. Why would Granddad have been looking into an aviation accident that happened when he was just a teenager? My only thought was that perhaps Granddad had been planning to include this family in his Lonely Dead book. But that didn’t seem to fit either. How could five people die and have no one to bury them? Also, why did Flick specifically tell me to remember the name Shannon Miller? I needed to find more information on this family and its connection, if any, to my grandfather.
3. Doodle
I’d found a piece of yellow legal pad paper in the file upon which there was a hand-drawn doodle of two hands cupped together. It looked familiar to me—almost like the logo for that insurance company, but the hands were wider, the fingers spread farther apart, almost as if they were reaching out to grasp something. Flick had circled the drawing and taken the time to put it in the file, so even though I had no idea what possible significance this might have, I put it on the list anyway.
Close to midnight, I set my notebook aside, no more enlightened than I’d been when I’d sat down. I’d asked a few questions but uncovered no answers. And even worse, I had no ideas about how to get any answers. Had Flick and Granddad started out with these same questions? Was that the reason they were both dead? Was I now heading down the same path that had led two of the most important men in my life to their deaths? If I was being honest, I knew that I probably was. Surprisingly, while there was definitely a part of me that was scared, most of me just felt angry. I would not—could not—allow whoever committed these crimes to get away with it. They’d taken too much from me. So, as scared and lonely and overwhelmed as I felt, I knew I had to keep chasing the answers to my questions. No matter where that chase might lead.
Daily Astrological Forecast
Scorpio
Saturn is at odds with Neptune today, stoking the fires of controversy and combat. This energy may bring an old enemy or issue back into your orbit. Proceed with caution. Emotions can run high, especially when you feel threatened. And while you are generally easygoing, as a Scorpio you are capable of a distinctive venomous sting. Like your celestial spirit animal, you prefer to lie in wait and strike when least expected.
Remember to slow down, dear Scorpion. Life is a game of chess and you are continually plotting to score the eventual checkmate you so desire. As Mars enters analytical Virgo, today is a good day to survey the chessboard. Work on your patience. The time to make your move is coming soon.
Tonight: Take your taste buds on a culinary odyssey! Consider trying the cuisine of Southeast Asia!
CHAPTER 7
Acting Sheriff Carl Haight was in a foul mood when I arrived at his office the next morning to get his reaction to Skipper Hazelrigg’s declaration of intent to run against him for Tuttle County Sheriff in the upcoming election.
“How do you think I feel about it, Riley?”
I’d known Carl Haight since preschool and had rarely heard him snap like that. “Um, you know I’m interviewing you for the paper, right? Do you really want me to use that quote?”
“No,” he said, the word coming out with a sigh. Carl took off his hat, ran a hand through his red hair, and then placed it back on his head. “My official answer is that I hope the people of Tuttle County will look at my record of service, my dedication to this town and this county, and give me the privilege to continue to serve and protect as I’ve done for the past six months as acting sheriff and as a deputy for the three years before that.”
“Better.” I quickly scribbled the quote down in my notepad, word for word.
“Coffee?” He motioned to the single-serve machine that sat on the credenza behind his desk. I nodded and he dropped a pod into the machine and pressed start.
“You doing okay, Carl?”
He shot me a look from under the brim of his hat.
“Just asking as your friend now.”
I knew he was hoping to run uncontested for the position of sheriff, especially since he’d stepped in after Tackett’s arrest and handled some very high-profile cases in his short time as acting sheriff. When Skipper Hazelrigg, Tuttle County native and former Virginia Big Buck bowhunting contest winner, decided to challenge him, it didn’t surprise me that Carl would be upset. Or worried. Skipper owned a company that manufactured firearms components and accessories that worked mostly with law enforcement agencies and the military. A few years ago, he made a run for Virginia State representative for district sixty-two. He ran against incumb
ent Hope Lauder and lost by a narrow margin.
A lifelong Tuttle County resident, Skipper had always been an active member of our community, often monopolizing town council meetings to complain about the things he felt were not being done correctly. Everyone knew he’d been itching to get into politics, and after his loss at the state level, I guess he saw this sheriff’s race as a good place to start.
“Hazelrigg is a good man,” Carl said. “And he’s an accomplished businessman. I just don’t think he’s the right person for this job—and I’m not just saying that because he’s my opponent.”
I actually believed him. Carl may have been overly officious at times, but he did not suffer from a big ego. If anything, it was the opposite. That was one of the areas in which Carl and I connected. We were both relatively new in our respective positions, and as the next generation of Tuttle County, we often felt slightly in over our depth. It was that intermittent sense of inadequacy that fueled both of us to try harder, work longer, and be more thorough than other people.
“Have you spoken to him since he officially entered the race?”
Carl nodded. “He came by my office on his way to file his paperwork. He said he wanted to tell me in person.”
“That was nice.”
Carl shrugged. “He also said he thinks Tuttle County is headed in the wrong direction and needs a ‘stronger hand’ in order to deal with the recent rise in criminal activity.”
“Was he suggesting that was your fault?”
“He didn’t say that exactly, but I got the feeling that’s what he meant. He implied that because I’m young, I’m not equipped to handle the kind of challenges we’re facing as a community.”
