by Tracey Drew
“Where I found her beside the recycling bin in the kitchen, about to stash the bottle,” Brian said. “She looked at me, looked down at the cup she still had in her hand…”
“The one I’d snatched in the dark that didn’t have my lipstick on it,” Jennifer said.
“…and burst into tears,” Brian finished.
He gazed at his wife with a mixture of admiration and concern. “In hindsight, it wasn’t a deal-breaker. Lucas’s reputation with women wasn’t unknown around town, so the lipstick on a cup could’ve been left there at any time. The important thing was at least there were no traces of drugs in the cup that remained at the store. And since Jen’s never had so much as a parking ticket, she’s never been fingerprinted. There’s nothing to connect her with the unfortunate incident.”
Jennifer grimaced, her gaze dropping to the breast pocket of her blouse. A spot where a woman might attach a name tag for work…or a small leprechaun pin as a memento of her late sister.
The leprechaun pin currently in my pocket.
“Except us,” said Isabel.
“Yes,” said Jennifer. “Except for one lovesick, lonely woman and a nosy member of a pathetic knitting group who refused to keep her nose out of someone else’s business. And sadly for you two crazy cat ladies, curiosity really will kill the cat this time.”
“Murder-suicide,” the dentist said. In the same affable voice that he no doubt used to put patients at ease while coming at them with a drill. “It happens more often than you’d think. But don’t worry, I won’t get the dosage wrong like I did with the mild sedative I gave you earlier.” He gave a creepy chuckle. “That’s the problem with being a dentist, we can’t prescribe the good stuff. But between Jen’s sleeping pills and the remains of Lucas’s downers, you two will have a nice, long, permanent nap. Painless, I promise.”
Pretty much the end result I’d surmised once the fog began clearing from my brain. I still felt groggy and a bit dissociated from ‘Tessa who’d listened to the pair running for bed-bug-crazy couple of the year.’ But two things I knew with absolute certainty.
One: If I didn’t act soon, before Brian had the opportunity to cram an overdose down my throat with his gorilla mitts, I was toast.
Two: Worst-case scenario—and my least preferred one—Detective Mana would find my dead body and the leprechaun pin in my pocket. With the luck of the Irish, he’d figure out who the real killer was.
Pity he was no more Irish than me.
Also, out of vanity, if it was Eric who found me, I hoped my corpse would appear more like Snow White than an extra on The Walking Dead.
Jennifer moved closer to the sofa back and gave Isabel a ‘there, there’ pat while keeping her eyes trained on me. “I’m sorry you got dragged into this, Tessa. If you’d left well enough alone after I dropped off my note, you wouldn’t have become involved. But when Brian called me this evening while I was busy with Isabel and said you’d turned up on our doorstep, spouting your half-baked theories about my sister. I knew you thought you had it all figured out.”
Embarrassingly, I hadn’t. Not until I’d seen the Werths’ family photos on the wall.
She squeezed Isabel’s shoulders as if she were about to give her a relaxing massage. “You forced my hand, I’m afraid. I couldn’t risk you blabbing to the police.”
I dropped my eyes to Isabel’s and held her stare for a few beats until I thought she’d twigged I wanted her attention. Then I deliberately lowered my gaze to her bound wrists before flicking it up to Jennifer, who still stood directly behind her. All the while mentally shouting across the room, Please understand, please understand!
“They weren’t half-baked theories though, were they?” I said. “You aren’t as smart as you think you are. Not smart enough to get away with murder. If only you’d accepted the limitations of your intelligence and skipped university, your sister might still be alive.”
A cruel dig, I know. I counted on my inner mean girl lighting a match to what I hoped were her insecurities.
Between bared teeth, Jennifer forced out a sound like a pot about to boil over. Gripping Isabel’s shoulders now, she leaned forward. “What would you know about—”
Isabel lifted her bound wrists, looped them around Jennifer’s neck, and yanked. With Jennifer screeching and flailing, half pulled over the sofa back and struggling with Isabel, I made my move.
I leaped out of the armchair—okay, to be honest, it was more of a had a drink too many lurch—ripping what remained of the Violet Skies off my wrists as I lunged for the coffee table.
And one of the ugly cat statues.
A two-handed grip on the thing’s head, I spun around. As Brian rose from the other couch, I swung the statue, pretending his nose was the softball I constantly missed hitting as a kid. This time, I didn’t miss, and Persian met proboscis with a satisfying crunch.
The dentist fell backward, but I didn’t pause to assess his injuries. I grabbed the other cat statue from the coffee table and brandished it as a second weapon of destruction.
Sprawled on the sofa, clutching his nose and whimpering, Brian no longer appeared much of a threat. Bigger they are, harder they fall and all that.
I stumbled around the coffee table to help Isabel subdue the screaming, cussing in a most unladylike fashion, Jennifer. Though with Isabel’s fingers clenched in Jennifer’s hair, tight enough to scalp, she seemed to be doing fine. But just in case…
“Give up, Jennifer.” I retrieved her phone, which had fallen onto the sofa cushions during the struggle, and tapped the emergency call number. “If you don’t calm down, I’ll subdue you the same way you subdued Lucas Kerr.”
Jennifer snarled at me through a curtain of tangled hair, her pretty headband hanging askew, caught in a knotted strand.
Showing her every one of my pearly whites in an ear-to-ear grin, I made sure she could see the glossy black cat statue in my hand. “Sucks to be the victim of karma, huh?”
Sixteen
To say Detective Sergeant Mana was a teeny bit furious with me was much like saying triple salted caramel cupcakes are a teeny bit delicious. It was just my luck that he’d been on his way to Cape Discovery and had heard about the emergency over the police radio. He’d arrived not long after the first response police vehicle screeched to a halt.
Constable Austin and his partner, Simmonds, had blown into Isabel’s house like mini hurricanes. They’d arrested the Werths, with Austin radioing for an ambulance to check out Brian’s nose. We could all hear Brian complaining about it at top volume as Simmonds led him outside in handcuffs.
Full darkness was fast closing in, and the police cars’ strobing lights bounced off the neighborhood windows as they escorted Jennifer to a second patrol car. I huddled next to Isabel on her front lawn, gripping her hand and shaking so hard my teeth chattered. Dougie from next door, seeing what was happening, had brewed a pot of tea. We heard him arguing with an officer in his driveway about his right as a concerned neighbor to bring over a nice, hot cuppa for us after such a ‘traumatic experience.’
It was an argument Dougie ultimately didn’t win, but the officer did clomp past with a large cozy-covered teapot. Presumably, on his way to Isabel’s kitchen to pour us a cuppa that I wouldn’t be able to drink. I didn’t like my chances of not tipping it down my front.
Although when the detective climbed out of his vehicle under the sodium glow of a streetlight and stalked toward me, I wished I could magic a hot mug into my hands. Maybe it would have staved off the shivers that resumed in earnest at the sight of his face.
Eric’s mouth formed a grim horizontal seam from one side of his clenched jawbone to the other. His thunderous gray gaze found mine and clubbed it with irritated concern. Most likely, I’d imagined the concern, and he was merely cheesed off at finding me neck-deep in his investigation.
Again.
Meanwhile, Isabel moved away from me to chastise an officer who’d accidentally kicked over one of her garden ornaments, leaving me to face t
he detective’s wrath alone. Well, not entirely alone…
Warm fur wrapped around my ankles and a plaintive mew reached my ears. As I glanced down at Pearl’s head butting against my calves, another small black shape streaked from the shadows to join her. I looked over at Eric, but he’d stopped to talk to Austin and Simmonds. Grateful for the distraction from his skewering gaze, I slumped cross-legged on Isabel’s lawn and pulled both felines into my lap.
“How did you clever kitties know where I was?” I murmured, burying my face in their soft fur.
Purring and bunting were their only responses. Kit and Pearl wouldn’t reveal their secrets, but their presence sparked an overwhelming sense of comfort. I sent a silent thank you to Nana Dee-Dee for providing me with my two guardian angels.
Somewhere high above me, Detective Mana cleared his throat, interrupting our love-and-purr fest. But I chose to ignore him in favor of scritching Kit’s chin in his favorite spot.
Expensive suit fabric rustled as he crouched in front of me.
Before he’d even opened his mouth, I’d mentally provided him with an opening line: ‘Didn’t I tell you to back off and let me do my job?’ This delivered in an I’m about to arrest you growly tone.
“Are you hurt?” he asked.
I looked up, expecting to see impatience but instead noticed his normally fastened-to-the-throat shirt had two buttonholes open, one button dangling by a thread.
“Tessa,” his voice gentled, “are you hurt?”
I shook my head. Swallowed what felt like a giant ball of dust bunnies. Cuddled Kit a little closer. “Just my pride,” I whispered, and then in a louder voice, “And yeah, I know it could’ve been worse. And I know I shouldn’t have gone to the Werths’ house without backup.”
Until that point, Eric had seemed in complete control, but now he hissed out a breath and tugged on his collar. The dangling button pinged off and disappeared into the grass. Pearl shot off my lap to investigate.
“Backup?” he said. “You’re not a police officer, so who would act as backup? Your granddad? These guys?” He tipped his head at Pearl, who was patting something in the grass with her paw.
“I wasn’t a hundred percent sure the Werths were involved when I decided to stop by their house. And yes, my bad for accepting a cup of spiked tea from a stranger.” I couldn’t help but shoot a wary glance at the officer who’d just stepped into the front yard with two steaming mugs in his hand.
“Why did you go there in the first place?”
I screwed up my face and waved the officer with the tea away. “Will this go in the official report?” I asked after the man wandered off with the rejected beverage. “Whatever I say can and will be used against me in a court of law, that kind of thing?”
It wasn’t dark enough down there on the lawn that I missed Eric’s eye-roll. “You haven’t broken any laws, have you?”
Running my fingertips over the outline of the leprechaun pin still in my pocket, I uttered a nervous titter that wasn’t quite a giggle. “Who me?”
“Tessa…”
Tail high in the air, Pearl strolled over to him and dropped something onto the toe of his leather shoe. His gaze shot down, and he plucked up the tiny object between thumb and forefinger.
“She’s returning your shirt button,” I helpfully informed him. “She has a knack for finding things, though she doesn’t often give them back.” I dug into my pants pocket and removed the pin. “A bit like me, I’m afraid.”
Eric switched his attention from the button—which he shoved into his jacket pocket—to the pin. “What is that?”
“A leprechaun.”
“So it would seem.” He rose smoothly to his feet with a sigh and extended his hand to help me to mine.
Although I should have rejected his offer, my legs were still a little wobbly. If being a shaky damsel in distress was embarrassing, it would be even more so if I tried to stand and fell on my butt. I let his hand—his large, warm hand with long fingers a concert pianist would envy—take mine and tug me upward.
“I assume you have a reason for showing it to me,” he said. “Other than seeking my approval of a weird fashion accessory.”
Not losing sight of the fact he possessed the ability to slap a pair of cuffs on me for withholding vital evidence or tampering with evidence, or whatever other real or imagined charges I could dream up, I gave Eric a modified stink eye. “I’m showing you because I think Jennifer wore it in memory of her sister the night she went to see Lucas Kerr. It must’ve fallen off in the scuffle and got knocked partway under the store’s fridge. Where Pearl later found it.”
His eyes widening, he scanned the surrounding area with laser-focused attention. Once he’d ascertained no one was close enough to overhear, he lowered his voice and said, “Are you kidding me? You took evidence from a crime scene?”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know it was evidence at the time.”
“You’re sorry?” Eric squeezed his eyes shut with a pained expression. When he opened them again, I fully expected to see Detective Sergeant Mana—the Hyde to his Jekyll—had taken over his softer side. And by softer, I meant marginally less inclined to haul me off to the nearest police station.
My earlier adrenaline rush had blasted away the sedative’s effects. And now I was coming down from that rush, leaving me exhausted and with no guile left to conjure up anything but the truth. If Detective Mana saw fit to arrest me, at least I could take a nap in the back of his vehicle en route to Napier. “I was trying to help with the investigation. And until I saw a photo of Jennifer and her twin sister celebrating their birthday on Saint Patrick’s Day, I honestly thought it was just a novelty from the store—”
He held up a warning finger. “It was. Possibly it’d been kicked under the fridge weeks earlier by Kerr or your brother, or maybe the previous owners left it there. Regardless, the pin is unrelated to Lucas Kerr’s death and isn’t necessary to build the case against the Werths, given that they’ve already confessed.”
“Okay.” Was I being let off…?
“Just don’t try to ‘help’ me again. Please.”
…with a warning? Yep, it sure looked that way. “Guess I’m more of a Scooby-Doo than a Watson.”
With another one of those infuriatingly cute corner-of-the-mouth twitches, he glanced over my shoulder. “Speaking of Scooby-Doo, looks like the whole gang’s arrived.”
I turned to see Harry climb out of Mary and Gerald Hopkins’ cherry-red Mini, followed by Beth Chadwick and Skye Johnson, who stepped from the back seat. Behind the Mini, two other vehicles arrived in convoy: my dad’s work truck and Pamela Martin’s sleek BMW. Four more Crafting for Calmness members emerged from Pamela’s car. Even from this distance, I could see the concern and relief on their faces as they all hurried along the sidewalk toward me.
Sean moved faster than the others, sprinting and ducking around the neighborhood busybodies who’d ventured out onto the street. Without saying a word when he reached me, he wrapped me in a bear hug.
By the time I wriggled out of his arms, ready to reassure everyone I was okay, Eric had disappeared from Isabel’s yard. I knew I should probably seek him out and thank him, as shock had apparently stolen my manners.
But for now, I was just thankful for my family and the friends I hadn’t realized I had.
So, how does a thirty-five-year-old single lady paint the town red on a Saturday evening? If she’d recently escaped kidnappers and a killer, and also being arrested, then she might make the same obvious choice as me.
By celebrating the decision she’d made during her near-death experience—not quite a ‘knocking on Heaven’s door’ kind of near-death experience, but still—and having drinks at the Stone’s Throw with a handsome, funny, kind man who loves her.
“We won’t find a table this time of night,” Harry grumbled as I unhooked my arm from his to open the pub’s door.
He’d fussed a bit before coming out, changing his shirt twice, worrying about whether he needed a
sweater for later, or if the music would be too loud. And maybe we should just stay home and have a nip or two of the good whiskey he kept in the pantry for emergencies. As we’d strolled along the street in the last of the evening’s sunshine, my heart had twisted in my chest. Harry couldn’t bring himself to just come out and say it would be the first time he’d been back to the pub since Nana Dee-Dee passed, but I felt it in every step. I wasn’t forcing him to go—it had been his idea for us to ‘have a wee tipple at the local.’ But I recognized the tension between wanting to take the first step into his new normal and the fear of letting go.
“Yes, we will.” I tugged the door open, and music spilled out. “I asked Oliver to reserve us one.”
My granddad’s wispy white eyebrows shot up toward his going out somewhere but nowhere too posh plain navy beanie, which matched his polo shirt. “Oliver now, is it?” He gave me a cheeky grin. “Why are you out with a crusty old beggar like me, then?”
“You’re a cheap date,” I said, “and much better looking.”
He snorted but didn’t push the issue, unlike other family members I could name—cough—Mum. I hadn’t yet shared my long-term plans with her or anyone else, but after this evening, I wouldn’t be able to put it off any longer.
We stepped inside, and Harry’s face lit up at the sight of the three-piece band setting up in the corner. He and Nana Dee-Dee had never missed an opportunity to see live music, applauding enthusiastically no matter how the band performed. Oliver spotted us from behind the bar and lifted a hand in greeting before pointing toward a table for two, close to the mic. According to Sean, it was where Harry and Nana Dee-Dee had always sat if they arrived early enough.