A Game of Cones

by Abby Collette

  “I got out of the car. I don’t know why.” She stared blankly. “It was dark in that alley and I just wanted to . . . I don’t know . . . make sure I was seeing what I thought I was seeing.”

  “You got close?”

  “Too close,” she said. “It’s really been bothering me ever since.”

  “Yeah, I can tell.”

  “My shoes had all that blood on them and I didn’t want to get it in my car. So I pulled them off and threw them away.”

  “But they were found two blocks away.”

  “I didn’t want them to be associated with the body.” She closed her eyes and pulled in air through her nose. “I walked the two blocks. No one was out. No one saw me and I figured no one would look that far away for any evidence. They’d just go out with the trash.”

  “Why didn’t you just call the police?”

  “Because who is going to believe me?” She looked at me, her eyes wild. “I’m not from here and I was standing right in the alley with him.”

  “I believe you,” I said. Then I remembered how she had asked me how I felt when I stumbled over a dead body. That had worried her.

  “You’re not the police,” she was saying. “And . . .” Her words were hesitant. “I didn’t know if I’d be able to talk about it.”

  That I believed. It took me forever to get her to tell me about it. She had to understand it was the right thing to do, though, but before I could impress that on her she said something that stopped me.

  “This isn’t the first time this has happened to me, Bronwyn.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I found a body before.”

  “Oh no,” I said.

  “When I was sixteen.” She blew out a breath trying to keep the tears at bay. “I had to go through all kinds of therapy. Feelings of guilt and depression.”

  “Why? Did they accuse you of something? Is that why you didn’t think the police would be unbiased?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “No one ever accused me. It was just so traumatizing. I was in that police station for hours. In a room all by myself. I just wanted to go home. To forget everything I’d seen. I didn’t think I’d ever get past it.” She looked at me with pleading eyes. “I just don’t want to go there again. Can’t you understand that?”

  “Again,” I repeated softly, thinking how hard it must be. Rory wasn’t anything like Maisie. Maisie found it intriguing to keep stumbling across murder victims.

  “Yeah, again,” she said. “I just can’t believe it happened to me again.” She turned, her eyes sad. “I’m sorry, Bronwyn. I just panicked.” She threw up her hands. “I panicked and I was ready to run.” She started crying again. No sniffling back the tears.

  “Don’t worry, I’m here with you,” I said. “You don’t have to do this by yourself this time.”

  “Thank you, Bronwyn,” she said.

  I stood up and brushed off my pants. “C’mon,” I said and stuck out my hand to help her up. “We’re going to the police and get this all straightened out.”

  “No!” she shouted and smacked my hand away. “We can’t!” She shook her head so hard I thought she’d rattle her brains loose. “I can’t.”

  “Yes, you can. You have to.”

  “I don’t have to.”

  “Yes, you do,” I said. “Because if you don’t they will think that you killed him.”

  “I didn’t kill him!” she shouted.

  “I know. I know, Rory. But you were here. In town. People saw you and you lied about it.”

  “I only lied to you.”

  “And my family,” I said, then I cocked my head to the side. “And you have his blood on your shoes.”

  “No one will ever know those are my shoes.”

  “Why wouldn’t they know?” I questioned. “Didn’t you take them off?”

  “Yes. I just told you I took them off and I threw them away.”

  “And I’m guessing you’re thinking that your shoes won’t have your fingerprints on them.”

  She bounced up like a jack-in-the-box. Realization lighting up in her eyes. “I hadn’t thought about that,” she said.

  “And didn’t you have to get a background check and fingerprinted before going to work at Hawken Spencer? I know I did.”

  “Yeah.” She nodded.

  “So, they will find you,” I said. “With the wrong idea in mind.”

  “I need to go and talk to the police, don’t I?”

  “Yeah, you do.” I wrapped my arm around her shoulder and gave it a tug. “It’ll be okay, Rory,” I said. “I’ll go with you and stick by you. I won’t leave your side.”

  chapter

  TWENTY

  I had been inside the Chagrin Falls police station only one other time. And, like Rory, it was to talk to Detective Liam Beverly. I knew how scary it had been for me, but I couldn’t imagine how she felt.

  When I came to talk to him, I was trying to plead with him to understand how my father could not have murdered anyone. I remembered him saying to me that everyone said they were innocent, and it didn’t mean they were.

  Still I tried to convince him that my father was a skilled surgeon and a distinguished doctor. He had an answer for that, too. He said wherever the evidence led him that was where he would go.

  That was what had made me decide to figure out who had killed the man I’d found at the bottom of the falls because after that visit, I knew the detective didn’t care anything about my father.

  Just like I was sure he didn’t care anything about Rory.

  I did find, though, by the end of that investigation, that Liam Beverly was open-minded and took pride in doing the right thing.

  I hoped that worked in Rory’s favor.

  After we got to the police station, amid my loud protests, Detective Beverly took Rory to a back room without letting me go with her. She looked back at me when they led her away, her eyes wide with fear, her bottom lip trembling, tears that wouldn’t stop falling. I felt so bad for her and I felt like I had let her down. I had told her I’d be right there by her side. She wouldn’t have to face another police interrogation about murder alone. And now she was in there. All alone. Just like she said she had been after she found that first body.

  I just hoped Rory was faring in there by herself better than I was out in the lobby by myself because I was a nervous wreck. When I had come in to talk to Detective Beverly, I had been mad. I’d come in wanting to give him a piece of my mind, and the more I had talked to him, the angrier and more determined I’d gotten. But today, like Rory, filled with fear and uncertainty, I was scared and I needed somebody to hold my hand.

  I fished my cell phone out of my jeans pocket and put out an SOS. I called my mother first, then I called PopPop. I repeated the same story on each call and they both said the same thing when I finished—“I’m on my way.” PopPop even wanted to know should he bring a thermos filled with coffee.

  Rory had made friends with my family, and when my family welcomed a person in, they were always willing to come and help out.

  I paced the floor, wringing my hands, clicking my nails, worrying about what the police were saying to her. My mind was in a whirl. I didn’t know whether they were going to arrest her or whether they believed that she’d only found the body, and that she wasn’t responsible for it being there.

  It wasn’t long before both my parents arrived and my grandfather. I was so happy to see them.

  “Daddy,” I said and buried my face in his chest. “I’m glad you’re here.”

  “Of course I was coming to see about you, Pumpkin.” He held me tight. “I don’t have to go to the hospital until later,” he said. “To check on a couple of patients. Your mom told me what happened.”

  Even though she’d told my father, my mother made me explain everything to her all over again, rubbing my arms
the whole time, trying to comfort me. Her alarm was escalating with each word I uttered, even though it was the second time she was hearing it.

  After I’d gone through the story—twice—I went back to pacing. My mother paced with me. I could see that she was just as upset as I was. My father and grandfather had this innate calmness to them that I definitely didn’t inherit.

  PopPop stood against one wall and my father against the other, both with their hands in their pockets. Both of them telling us, at different times, we should sit down before we wore a hole in the linoleum.

  But I knew if I stood still I was going to explode.

  Then after what seemed like an eternity, Rory emerged. Her eyes were as red as her hair. Her shoulders slumped. And her head was down. I don’t know if it was from shame, from disgust or because she was tired. I rushed over to her.

  “What did they say?” I asked.

  “They told me not to leave town,” she said.

  “They couldn’t think you did it,” my mother said, putting her arm around Rory. “You couldn’t ever do anything like that.”

  My mother didn’t know what kind of girl Rory was, what she was capable of. She’d only just met her. But when she said it, she looked at me, and I knew that she knew if Rory was a friend of mine, she was okay.

  I wondered why I had let thoughts contrary to those seep into my head.

  “No. I couldn’t,” she said. “I only hope they believe me.” She turned around and looked back at the door she’d appeared from. “I don’t know.” She shook her head. “They said that I could get into trouble just for not reporting the body.” Her face tuned up for another bout of crying. “I didn’t know that. I didn’t mean to do anything wrong. I just wanted to get away.”

  My mother looked at my father. “Can she get in trouble for that?” she asked.

  My father raised his eyebrows and shook his head. “That’s something I don’t know, but we sure can ask a lawyer about it.”

  “I don’t have a lawyer,” Rory said, sniffing.

  “I do,” my father said.

  My father had gotten a criminal lawyer, a superlawyer, as they’re called, after Detective Beverly put him at the top of his suspect list for no other reason but that my father was a surgeon. The detective had questioned him once at the house, then asked him to come down to the station. My father knew better than to go in without representation.

  I wished I had thought about that before I sent Rory in alone. I wasn’t well versed in all things murder. And I hoped I wouldn’t ever have to be.

  My father must have read my thoughts. “Don’t worry, Rory. I’ll give him a call. You won’t have to talk to that detective without one from here on out.”

  * * *

  WE WALKED OUT of the police station and the rush of warmth from the sun felt good after spending an hour wrapped up in turmoil and fear for my friend.

  As soon as I got outside, my cell phone rang. To my surprise, it read Morrison Kaye, Ohio Call. I put up a finger to tell my family to wait a second.

  “Hi,” I said, almost like a question. “How did you get my number?” I didn’t ever remember giving it to him.

  “Your grandfather gave it to me.”

  “He did?” I swung around and glanced over at him. He was talking to Rory, looking like he was completely innocent of anything.

  I swung back. “No matter.” I shook my head to clear thoughts of what my grandfather’s intentions were in sharing my phone number. “I’m glad you called.”

  “You are?” He sounded just as surprised as I’d been seeing his number pop up on my phone. I could hear the smile in his voice.

  “I need your help.”

  “With what?”

  “It’s confidential,” I said.

  “Okay. You know I do confidential.”

  “I have a friend—Rory Hunter—who found a body and didn’t report it.”

  “The body?”

  “Yes,” I said, letting the “s” linger. “The body.” That was a good way to put it. “Zeke Reynolds.”

  “How did you find out she found the body?”

  “She seemed to be hiding something. The time she said she got in was off, people saw her and every time someone said something about the murder, her face went pale.”

  “So she kind of gave herself away? No poker face?”

  “Exactly. Plus, she’s the owner of the shoes Maisie told you about this morning.”

  “Ohhh.” He let the word drag out. “How unfortunate.”

  “To put it mildly.”

  “Okay, and is this the girl you told me about earlier from out of town?”

  “Yes.” He remembered. “I talked her into going to the police.”

  “Liam,” he said.

  “Yeah, and he told her don’t leave town.”

  “Okay.”

  “That upset her, and I just want to try and help Rory feel better.”

  “I can try and help you do that,” he said. “She needs a lawyer.”

  “My dad is getting her one. But I’m not sure when he’ll be available to talk to her.” I shrugged. “I don’t know, can you just answer some questions maybe?”

  “Sure,” he said. “Whatever you need.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I understand,” he said. “She came down to visit and gets tangled up with this kind of stuff. She probably won’t want to come back again.”

  “Rory actually came down to get me to come back to New York and to my old job,” I said.

  He didn’t say anything, so I kept talking.

  “And then my aunt Jack came to town.”

  “The one that used to run Crewse Creamery?” he asked.

  “Yes. And I’m sure she wants to take back over the store. She doesn’t like anything I’ve done and grumbles and complains about it every time she’s there.” I huffed. “Rory thinks that it’s a sign that she came at the same time as Aunt Jack.”

  “A sign of what?”

  “That I’m supposed to go back. My boss, old boss, authorized her to tell me about a big raise they’re willing to give me along with my own office instead of a cubicle.”

  I finished my sentence and waited for O to answer. There was silence over the phone.

  “Hello?” I said, then looked at the phone to see if I had dropped the call.

  “No. I’m here,” he said.

  “Anyway, I don’t want to talk about me, I want to talk about Rory.”

  “You want me to come back to the ice cream shop?”

  “No,” I said. “Don’t you have a class?”

  “I do,” he said. “In about an hour. You want to come out here to the university?”

  “I’d have to go home and get a car,” I said.

  “How about you just ask me now, then? Ask me your questions.”

  “I wanted to include her.” I felt like I was making this hard and that was definitely something I didn’t want to do.

  “Okay,” he said. “How about we just do a three-way call?”

  “Or I just put you on speaker.”

  “That’ll work,” he said.

  “Now I just gotta figure out where me and Rory can go that’s private and talk to you.” I chewed on my bottom lip. I was more or less me thinking out loud, not expecting an answer.

  “Go in the alley between your building and the Flower Pot,” he said. “No one ventures that way.”

  I smiled. “Perfect.”

  Even though it was where we kept the garbage cans, it probably was the only place nearby where there wasn’t foot traffic and a lot of listening ears.

  “I’ll call you back,” I said. “Is this a good number?” I glanced at my phone. “The one that popped up on my screen?”

  “Yep, that’s my cell phone. Call it anytime.”

  “Oka
y. Bye,” I said breathlessly and clicked on the “End” icon.

  “You going back to work?” my mother asked when I rejoined the group. My mother had her arm around Rory and she had put her head on my mother’s shoulder.

  “I was thinking I’d talk to Rory for a minute, Mom,” I said. I looked at Rory, she looked deflated and I knew she wanted to talk to someone now. I didn’t know how long the lawyer my dad was getting would take to sit and talk with Rory, but I didn’t want my parents to think I was wasn’t grateful for their help. “I want to find out everything that happened.”

  Rory lifted her eyes to look at me. They looked like they were too heavy for her to keep opened.

  “Everything is going to be okay,” my mother said and rubbed Rory’s arm. “But you take your time. I’ve got the store covered.”

  “Rory and I will walk back that way with you,” I said.

  “Okay,” my mother said.

  My father left to call his lawyer and get over to the hospital to see his afternoon patients. He promised Rory that he’d make sure the lawyer got over to talk to her as soon as possible.

  The four of us, PopPop, my mother, Rory and me, walked back over to the ice cream shop in silence. Rory and I took our aforementioned detour—after we passed the Planted Pot, we ducked between the two buildings.

  “Don’t worry,” I said as I pulled out my phone. “Everything is going to be okay, I promise.”

  chapter

  TWENTY-ONE

  How I was going to keep my promise to Rory, I wasn’t exactly sure, but I was going to try.

  I trusted that my father would get Rory a lawyer. And he would be a good one, but I knew O would help us right now and make everything we needed to know easy to understand.

  I hadn’t ever seen O handle a case, and as far as I knew, I don’t think he even practiced law, he taught it.

  Former police officer and current law professor at Wycliffe University, O was a wealth of information. He didn’t actually tell me things, he mostly told me where I could find them. I was hoping this time to get more specific information.