by Tracey Drew
There was also enough of a nip in the air that a hooded sweatshirt didn’t look out of place. That sounds way cooler than the reality. Rather than a black ninja hoodie, my only hooded sweatshirt was pastel pink, complete with pointed cat ears sewn onto the hood and embroidered whiskers on the kangaroo-style pocket. A joke gift from Mum a couple of birthdays ago. But the joke was on her because I adored it.
As the minutes ticked by with no sign of Ed and Winnie stepping out for their nightly walkies, I kept myself amused by inventing superhero names.
Captain Feline.
Secret Agent Dumb-Luck.
Super-Knitty Ninja Kitty.
Before I could invent a superhero movie franchise that would be laughed out of Hollywood, an outside security light turned on at the Hanburys. As I flicked up my cat ears hood, Ed and Winnie ambled toward Cape Street. They didn’t turn but instead continued on along the waterfront, heading in the direction of Cape Discovery’s campground.
Where Lucas Kerr’s RV had been parked until the police removed it as evidence.
Aha!
With my sneaky sneakers on, I tailed the two perps. Neither appeared to be aware of being followed in catlike-stealth mode.
Confession: I was enjoying the heck out of this impromptu nighttime escapade.
In my previous life—commute for an hour, work, commute an hour home again to a man who grew more distant daily, rinse, and repeat—spontaneity didn’t exist. Every day, week, month fitted neatly into the dull routine Jared had carved out for us. I’d sleepwalked through most of my twenties. And even worse, I hadn’t wanted anyone to wake me because my reality had been too pathetically lonely to bear.
So, being out at night with a briny breeze whispering around me and the golden glow of streetlights competing with moonlight…revived my childhood dreams of adventure. Of course, at nine, my idea of adventure was more digging up Dad’s herb garden, searching for buried treasure than tailing a middle-aged man and his elderly Labrador.
I kept what I figured was a safe distance between Ed and myself as he made a right turn into Beach Street. When Winnie stopped to do her thing on a grass verge in front of someone’s house, I tucked myself into a hedge-lined driveway. My estimation of Ed’s character plummeted even further when he continued along the street rather than picking up after his dog.
Ick.
As Ed’s steps slowed, I crouched behind a conveniently planted decorative shrub. He performed a quick three-sixty scan of the street before tugging Winnie into a driveway opposite the campground’s far corner. From the upstairs windows, whoever lived in the nondescript weatherboard house would have a perfect view of the vehicles parked behind the campground’s privacy fence.
I crept closer, hoping to catch a glimpse of whoever he was visiting at this late hour. Luck of the ninjas favored me. Ed stood under a security light in the house’s open doorway, deep in a stage-whispered discussion with a woman. I couldn’t see much of her other than the bottom of a bathrobe and fluffy slippers peeping out from between Ed’s hands-on-hips stance.
Hunched over awkwardly behind her neighbor’s white picket fence, I was too far away to eavesdrop. If I duck-walked along behind the rose bushes spilling over a stone boundary wall, I could scoot across the driveway to the relative safety of a massive pillar. That would put the pair in my direct line of sight—and I’d be close enough to see and hear them.
The question was, could I traverse the exposed width of driveway without them seeing or hearing me?
Well, I was here already. No guts, no glory.
Making it to the end of the roses was a workout for my thighs and glutes, but hearing no shouts of alarm, I figured I was halfway home. Until I spotted a dog-shaped lump collapsed on the paving stones.
Winnie.
Taking a power nap while her owner was otherwise occupied. And her owner’s mouth and hands were definitely otherwise occupied with the woman in the bathrobe.
Double ick.
But a perfect opportunity for me to scurry across the driveway. I would have made it too, if it weren’t for the dog letting out an enormous fart in her sleep. After waking herself up with it, she barked to warn everyone around her.
The snogging duo sprang apart like teenagers busted by a parent, and Ed whirled around, witnessing my feet’s sudden propensity to stick to the paving stones. Caught dead center of the driveway.
Oops.
As I saw it, there were only two ways to handle this. A: run like Mr. Darcy was waiting for me at an imaginary finish line. Or B: assume the moral high ground and go on the offensive.
I now had a better view of whose throat Ed had his tongue down mere seconds ago. It wasn’t, as Isabel suspected, either of his two single staff members: Bianca and Monique. It was the store’s assistant manager, Sharon White. Sharon, who was married to Andie, an affable truck driver who drove big rigs up and down the country.
Decision made, I ninja-jumped onto the moral high ground.
Ten
Throwing back my hood, I gave Sharon and Ed the kind of steely don’t even think about lying to me glare I’d once used to silence even the unruliest teenagers in the school halls.
“Not fussy about whether or not the lady has a ring on her finger, huh, Hanbury? Your hypocrisy knows no bounds.”
Ed spluttered, his face glowing like he’d squirreled hot embers in his cheeks. “It’s not what it looks like.”
“Puh-lease.” I folded my arms and deliberately shifted my gaze beyond his left shoulder. “Perks of the job, Sharon?”
At least she had the decency to blush and lower her gaze.
“Were you following me?” Ed stomped down the driveway, stabbing a finger in my direction. “How dare you.”
I stood my ground, curious as to how far he’d push his angry indignation in front of a witness. Not an impartial witness, I reminded myself. My stomach gave a sideways roll. Would she lie and say I’d struck first if push came to shove? Of course she would.
“I’m not the only one who knows about your little indiscretion.” I exaggeratedly touched a finger to the side of my chin and tilted my head. “Wait a second. One of the other people who knew is dead.”
“I had nothing to do with that.”
Winnie barked, as if backing up Ed’s statement. Sorry, doggo, you’re also a biased witness.
“So, on the night Lucas Kerr died, you were just walking your dog. Nothing else? No detour to the old butcher shop to bash your blackmailer’s brains in?”
“How did you know he was blackmailing me?” As his cheeks turned an even brighter shade of crimson, his beady-eyed gaze zigzagged around me. “And keep your voice down.”
The scuff of slippers on the ground behind him snagged my attention moments before Sharon latched limpet-tight onto Ed’s arm. “He was with me that night, okay?”
“Busy evening for you, Ed. Anniversary dinner with your wife, nightcap with your mistress, a spot of murder on your way home.”
Sharon’s heavily mascaraed eyelashes were in serious danger of sticking together as she glared at me. “Are you thick or something? Ed didn’t kill anyone. He didn’t leave my place until nearly one in the morning. Wasn’t Lucas already dead by then?”
Unfortunately, he was. But I wasn’t quite ready to let Ed off the hook.
“How did he find out about you two?”
Ed and Sharon exchanged guilty glances.
“He saw us coming out of my delivery warehouse one night,” he said. “I tried telling him Shaz and I were just stocktaking, but he laughed and said, ‘Mum’s the word.’ A few days later, I received a threatening email.”
“What did he want?”
“Space in my warehouse for one of his shipments.” Ed curled his lip. “He didn’t outright say drugs, but that’s what he meant.”
“And did you accept this shipment?”
Ed hung his head. “I had no choice, did I? Donna would take me to the cleaners if she found out about Shaz and me. It was only meant to be for a few days. A w
eek max.”
“Where’s that shipment now?”
Sharon grimaced as she chewed on her lower lip. “The boxes are still in a corner of the warehouse. Ed was waiting for further instructions.” She stared at me with puppy-dog eyes. “We don’t know what to do! We can’t go to the police. We can’t flush the…product down the loo because Lucas isn’t around to sell it. And if Lucas can’t sell it, then his suppliers won’t get paid”—her voice continued to climb to a pitch that caused Winnie to whine—“and if his suppliers don’t get paid, they’ll come looking for the product and eventually trace it to us.”
In other words, plenty of reason for them to want Lucas gone. But permanently? What Sharon was saying made sense. If Ed was holding illegal substances as a result of blackmail, the last thing he’d want was to be stuck with that hot potato if his blackmailer vanished.
Or happened to be cracked over the head with a wine bottle and then stabbed.
Ed slipped an arm around Sharon’s shoulders and squeezed. Her mouth snapped shut, and she blinked rapidly, sticky black lashes fluttering. “Anyway, you’re barking up the wrong tree with Eddie. He couldn’t hurt a fly.”
Ed angled his head to look down his slightly hooked nose at me. “Who was gossiping about Shaz and me?”
“I’d rather not say.”
He gritted his teeth. “Was it that Burton woman? I’ve noticed her smirking at me when she comes in for her groceries.”
When I neither confirmed nor denied, he grimaced. “Figures she’d try to turn suspicion on me. She’s the one who had the biggest bone to pick with the dearly departed Romeo. Hell hath no fury, or so they say.”
“Isabel claims they weren’t in a romantic relationship.”
At this, Sharon snorted. “A woman doesn’t key a man’s RV late at night for no reason.”
Well. That was news. “Isabel keyed Lucas’s RV?”
“Shaz spotted her from the upstairs window. You get a good view of the campground’s west corner from her bedroom. Anyway, there she was, bold as you please, walking the length of his camper and scratching up his fancy paint job. Probably didn’t realize she was visible from over here.”
“You’re positive it was Isabel?”
“I’ve attended enough prize-givings with my nephews to recognize the school principal when I see her,” Sharon snipped.
“You didn’t report this vandalism?” I asked.
“I would’ve high-fived her if I’d seen her,” he said. “And encouraged her to do the same to the other side of his RV—which is probably what she did on the night of Lucas’s murder. Right before she, the woman scorned, killed him.”
A preposterous suggestion… Wasn’t it?
I shook my head as if that might rearrange this new information swirling around my brain into some semblance of order.
Ed must have interpreted my action as adamant denial of his statement, as his chest puffed out, and he huffed imperiously through his nose. “I’m not pulling accusations out of thin air, Ms. Wakefield. I just happened to be looking out the window that night, when a woman slipped out of the western gate and into that short dead-end side street—what’s its name?”
“Weka Grove,” Sharon helpfully provided.
“That’s it. There’s only the one streetlight on Weka—and it was out that night—but I caught a glimpse of her. I bet she’d been hoping to confront the man. And when petty vandalism didn’t satisfy her, she tracked him down to his store, and…well. We all know how one bad decision can lead to another and then get completely out of hand.”
Substantially shorter than Ed, Sharon didn’t see his gaze twitch down to the top of her head. Not my problem if there was trouble brewing in their sordid little paradise.
“Did you see her face? Even though the streetlight was out?”
Frown grooves appeared on his forehead. “No. But it looked like her. Similar height, similar build. Dressed in the kind of outfit and high heels a woman wears to impress a man.”
Chauvinistic, much?
But I didn’t always agree with the expression ‘looks like a duck, swims like a duck, quacks like a duck…’ Sometimes things looked duckish but were actually geese who’d peck you in the butt for jumping to conclusions.
“Anything else you can tell me about the woman?”
Ed’s mouth twisted. “Only that she stalked away from the campground at a fast clip. Like someone who’s late for an appointment or been stood up on a date and is off to give the other person a talking-to.”
A breeze, briny-scented and damp, blew up the street and crept down my neck. I shivered, deciding I had no desire to linger a moment longer in Ed Hanbury’s presence. While I could scratch him off my list of potential murderers, I didn’t like him at all. Stuffing my hands into my pockets, I half-turned toward the sidewalk.
“Are you going to tell my wife about this…conversation?”
He meant would I tell his wife about him playing hide-the-sausage with their assistant manager. I needed a hot shower and a brisk loofah to scrub the slime off my body. But I met Ed’s gaze. “No.”
His shoulders sagged in relief. They shouldn’t have. Because I wasn’t promising the same about the drugs sitting in his warehouse. No way would I risk those ending up in the community. Detective Mana was about to have more than a murder on his hands.
As I owed neither of them a polite goodbye, I abruptly spun away and crossed to the once again snoozing Winnie. Petting her head, I told her what a good girl she was, then hotfooted it in the direction of home.
On the way, I sifted through the new information I’d learned.
If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.
Maybe. Or was I heading off on a wild goose chase?
The beginners knitting class looked set to be an overnight success. So much so, I had to call a dozen people to let them know they were on a waiting list.
Since this was a new class, I could organize it how I wanted. As much as I’d loved and admired Nana Dee-Dee, she and Harry were big softies. They hadn’t had the heart to charge their Thursday night group for the privilege of Nana Dee-Dee’s time, expertise, and refreshments.
I was about to shake things up.
Starting with rule number one: All materials used in class must be purchased at Unraveled. Fair’s fair, right? When you go to a nice restaurant, you don’t smuggle in BYO mac ’n’ cheese under your jacket.
Which meant that when the fifteen beginners filed through Unraveled’s door that evening, Harry was kept busy ringing up purchases. As well as the newbies, I’d invited Isabel and Beth to assist—with the incentive of store credit as payment. Why those two? Because Beth had an unerring talent for ferreting out nuggets of gossip. And Isabel? I wanted to watch her reaction to that gossip being flung around the room.
Jennifer Werth and her friend, who I recognized as one of the two lawyers from across the road, had signed up for the class. Then two unexpected attendees arrived: Sharon White and my mother. Figuring out Mum’s agenda wasn’t difficult. No one would dare bad-mouth Maggie’s baby boy with her there. Sharon’s motivation was trickier. She gave me a tight smile, saying she was taking her friend’s spot for this week. Purportedly, to take her mind off things.
‘Things’ being the raid on Hanburys’ warehouse in the early hours of this morning, and the discovery of thousands of dollars’ worth of illicit substances. Courtesy of my anonymous tip-off to the Napier Police. Ed was apparently insisting he’d no idea what Lucas had stored in his warehouse; he’d simply been a helpful fellow store owner. I doubted the police had bought his story, but even though he was covering his own butt, at least he’d kept his wife and mistress out of it.
Once all the attendees had settled around the worktable with their purchased cotton yarn and suitable needles for making a beginner-friendly dishcloth, I divided them into two groups. The absolute newbies, who didn’t know a knitting needle from a chopstick, were in one group, while the ‘my nana/
mum/auntie taught me when I was a kid, but I can’t remembers’ formed the other. I delegated the larger, second group to Beth and my mum, while Isabel and I took the baby beginners.
While demonstrating how to cast on and form a knit stitch, I kept a close eye on Sharon, who’d raised her hand to join our group. Not completely immune to the sight of her trembling fingers as she tried to make her needles obey, I steadied her shaking right hand so she could complete a stitch.
Her skin felt chilled as she winced a smile up at me. “You make it look easier than it is. Perhaps I’m not ready to take up a new hobby.”
“Rubbish.” Isabel, sitting two seats down, leaned forward in her chair and patted Sharon’s elbow. “You’ll get the hang of it. Just remember the rhyme Tessa taught you. In through the front door, once around the back, peek through the window, and off jumps Jack!”
Across the table, Beth gave an evil chuckle and bared her teeth—the old girl must have a spare set of falsies. “Or here’s another: Stab him, strangle him, pull him down, dump his body. Doesn’t rhyme, but it’s rather apt, don’t you think?”
Isabel sat back in her chair so fast it was a minor miracle she didn’t give herself whiplash. There were a few snickers and some tongue-tutting around the table; however, Isabel’s reaction interested me most. She had a complexion that usually turned her cheeks rosy in a warm environment, but I watched as that color drained to pasty splotches. Her fingers gripped the needles so tightly I was glad I’d provided her with a metal set instead of plastic or bamboo.
“That’s a little off-color, Beth.” Under today’s mustard-yellow beanie, Harry’s forehead crumpled in concern.
“Too soon?” Beth’s shark-like smile didn’t waver. “I’m just saying what everyone else is thinking.”
She wasn’t wrong.
I’d noticed some of the newbies sneaking curious glances at my mother, myself, and Sharon, and a few lowered heads and hushed conversations happening below the laughter and griping of learning a new skill.