by Patti Larsen
“Our town is at stake here, Lucy,” Olivia snapped back.
“Blaming Fiona for the death of Skip Anderson isn’t doing you one scrap of good, though, is it?” Mom’s return to level, insistent logic visibly diffused the mayor as she went on. “Clearly the young man suffered from some kind of physical issue.”
That was a tactful way to put things when we all knew the truth of the situation.
“You mean he was a drug addict and an alcoholic,” a voice interrupted while the director, Stella, thudded her way down the stairs, Evelyn and Matt at her back, Julian huffing after them. “And likely died of an OD after downing a quart of whiskey and however many pills he needed to get through today.”
Well, that was interesting information Crew needed. And look at me, going all curious and investigative and everything despite what happened. That turn of focus helped me feel better than anything else had.
“I’ve heard enough of you disparaging my client,” Evelyn said, sounding like she might even mean it.
But Matt sighed as the four reached the foyer floor and shook his head. “Except, Evie, Stella is right and we’ve both been hiding it for a year now.”
“Whatever.” The director had her bags in her hands, face pinched in fury. “This has been nothing but a disaster from the instant I agreed to assist. No matter how much I adore Willow, I will not tolerate being tied to a scandal of this nature. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going home to L.A. and plan to forget any of this ever happened.”
“No one is going anywhere.” When had Crew arrived? I turned to find him silhouetted in the sunlight, standing in the doorway of Petunia’s. He calmly and politely closed the door behind him without slamming it and my estimation of him skyrocketed. Might have had something to do with the fact I was still humming over being held in those arms, against that chest. The scent of him clinging to me with insistent strength. Or the shock.
Sure. Let’s call it the shock.
“You can’t hold us here.” Stella’s splutter covered something. But what? I was just too muddled up to figure it out.
That’s what Crew was for, I guess. “Until we know for certain Skip’s death was an accident, I’m going to need to ask all of you to stay here and wait for the coroner to do his job.”
The protesting started immediately, from Matt and Evelyn, Stella’s voice louder than the rest, while Julian crossed his arms over his chest and muttered under his breath. Even Olivia seemed unhappy with Crew’s orders, hands clenched at her sides as she pushed past me and got in her own sheriff’s face.
“You can’t turn our guests into prisoners,” she snarled, her words cutting through the rest and rendering them silent.
“Yes,” Willow said, appearing at the top of the stairs, looking as fragile and wavering as I felt. “He can. And he should. I want answers as much as the sheriff does.”
“Willow.” Julian hurried up toward her though Carter stood behind her, concern on his handsome face. But her manager ignored the security guard, guiding his client down toward us when it was clear she wasn’t going to just turn around on her own. “You really should be in your room resting. You’ve had a terrible shock.”
“We all have,” she said, voice clear despite her pale cheeks, the redness of her large eyes. When I cried, I got this horrible rash like red mottling on my face and neck, even down into my cleavage. Hideous legacy of a redhead. But Willow? She looked like a waif, an elvish princess who’d wept silver magic tears for her fallen lover just before breaking into ethereal song over the loss. Not jealous or anything. “Sheriff Turner, we’re here to cooperate in any way you need. As long as Fiona is willing to continue to host us after what happened.” She came to me, hesitant and clearly distressed, opening her arms. I hugged her, feeling again the frailness of her body but this time sensing the core of steel that kept her erect and moving forward despite her grief. Much stronger than I’d given her credit for. “Fee, I’m so sorry. How horrible for you.”
“I’m sorry too,” I whispered back, surprised to find how choked up I felt. “It must have been terrible, seeing it happen and not being able to do anything.”
She blinked tears that wet her long, thick lashes, near translucent skin wet with them while they tracked from her eyes. “We didn’t know what was going on. I thought Skip fell. He was so…” She looked away, embarrassment clear from the bright red spots that formed on the points of her cheekbones, her collarbones and the way her hands flexed into fists a moment. “He was drunk and the painkillers always made him so unsettled.”
Confirmation then of what Stella was saying. I heard scratching, turned to find Crew writing her words down in his little book. He looked up and met my eyes, his eyebrows arched before he spoke, though his question was addressed to Willow.
“Was he taking a lot of medication, Ms. Pink?” Not a scrap of judgment in that voice. He was learning, then. The Crew I’d first met had a hard time putting those he questioned at ease. Or maybe that was just when he interrogated me.
“He suffered multiple concussions over the years,” Matt spoke up for her. “Not to mention other injuries.” He shrugged like it was no big deal. “The man played pro ball for a living. He was a gladiator. And that meant pain.”
Crew grunted softly while Dad shifted beside me. I was well aware my father played football in high school and college and from the expression on Crew’s face he had inside knowledge of the kind of hurt the coach was talking about.
“What was he taking?” Crew’s pen paused.
“Vicodin, mostly,” Matt said, suddenly sounding uncomfortable, head lowering, looking away from Willow.
“Mostly,” she said. Breathlessly, as if unsurprised but horribly disappointed. “What else, Matt? What was he experimenting with this time?”
“It was the last concussion,” his coach blurted. “You know it did a number on him.”
“I’m well aware of that fact.” How precise she sounded, almost offended. “What was he taking?”
“A new painkiller one of the team docs recommended.” Matt seemed to sag, sad and broken. “He called it Quexol.” Matt met my eyes. “But he stopped taking it because he said it made him feel off. So he was back on the Vicodin.”
Crew’s phone rang. The interruption as he took the call seemed to break the spell holding everyone in thrall to what was likely supposed to be a private conversation between Skip’s coach and his wife. I grasped her hand gently in mine and she met my gaze with her own stunned and disillusioned hurt.
“Stay as long as you need,” I said. “I’ll make sure the house is yours.”
“Thank you, Fee,” she said. “For everything.”
I felt her drifting, could only imagine her emotional and mental state. And held onto her hand as Crew hung up and, grim, cleared his throat.
“I take it that’s bad news.” Dad sounded so much like the sheriff—well, he’d been one enough years himself the tone never went away—I looked back and forth between them as Crew answered.
“How is this Quexol administered?” He directed that at Matt.
“Injection,” the coach said automatically. “But, like I said, he stopped taking it. Hadn’t had any in about a week. Left it home, or said he did.”
“So the injection site and small fresh bruise on the back of his thigh,” Crew said, “that Doc just found. No chance it’s from him jabbing himself?”
Willow gasped softly and for a moment I pinged with anger toward the sheriff.
But it was Matt’s grim head shake that shifted me from irritation at Crew’s return to coarseness with questioning and to the chill of certainty this wasn’t an accident. “No way. He hated the stuff. And he’d had so much of his regular dose today already if he had taken Quexol…”
He left that hanging. Because the rest was obvious.
“It would have killed him,” Crew finished. “Which means you’re all staying put. Until I figure out who murdered Skip Anderson.”
***
Chapter Thirteen
The kitchen seemed an oasis, empty without Betty Jones puttering around preparing for afternoon tea. Good thing the whole town was still in an uproar. I’d have to turn people away from our new ritual, one that seemed to have generated a great deal of enthusiastic support from locals since we started it last year.
I stared out the kitchen windows into the backyard, trying to pull myself together and failing miserably. My mind kept drifting back to being in the carriage, the towering form of Skip falling in slow, mountainous motion on top of me. Chances are I’d be in for some lovely nightmares the next little while—if not the rest of my freaking life. Good thing I had Petunia to hug at night when the terrors came to roost.
Speaking of my pug, I looked down to find her sitting on my cold and still bare toes, her big brown eyes gazing at me with the kind of vapid happiness that endeared her to everyone she met. She snorted softly when she realized I was paying attention to her at last, tongue lolling out while she shifted her position, the whites showing around her bulging gaze.
“Hungry, sweet girl?” Feeding her would give me something to do for two seconds and distract me from the endless cycle of the memory of Skip’s death. A banana didn’t take long to peel or smear with peanut butter and I sat on the stool with the drooling dog at my feet and fed her one portion at a time while she grumbled at me to go faster, cinnamon bun tail wiggling in ridiculously adorable enthusiasm. “He didn’t hurt you, did he, baby?” I had found myself talking to her a lot since I moved back home, Petunia often my only source of interaction once night fell. It had become an easy kind of thing to do, a one-sided conversation that she seemed to enjoy and certainly didn’t begrudge. So that made me a bit nuts and probably doomed me to a life alone like my grandmother with a long line of Petunia’s into infinity to fart and snuggle and grunt in response to my conversations.
I could think of harder lives to live.
She didn’t seem any worse for wear, recovered from her own shocked state and back to Petunia happy. I wiped my fingers on the tea towel next to the counter while she devoured the last slice of nutty banana goodness, considering running her to the vet just in case. And squeaked in surprise as someone moved outside the kitchen door, jerking me from my solemn pet mom thoughts.
Pamela again, damn her for scaring me like that. I waved her inside and she joined me, hugging me awkwardly like that was what you did between friends when one just bore the brunt of a murder victim’s body. To top off the uncomfortable closeness, she released me then patted my shoulder as if I were Petunia.
“You’re okay?” As weird as that whole encounter was, her concern was genuine, I could feel that and forgave what came before as her making an effort that actually touched me deeply. “We were worried. Aundrea and Jared were at the podium and watched the whole thing. They said you were hurt.” Nice to know she actually cared, that they all did, after what we’d been through together. While it could have gone the other way after the death of Pete Wilkins and Mason Patterson, I took it as a gift I had found friends in this town despite the way I left and did my best not to let the rise of burning in the back of my throat turn into sobs.
“I wasn’t hurt,” I said. “I’m fine.” Yup, and saying that word over and over again was going to make being “fine” real. Sure was.
Pamela sighed, shook her head. “It’s a terrible tragedy,” she said.
“You want to know what happened.” Not a question. I felt tired suddenly, the adrenaline and the shock finally wearing off until I felt like a noodle cooked far past al dente.
She had the good grace to look embarrassed. “I’m sorry, Fee. I really was concerned.”
“I know.” I patted her hand, sighed. “It’s okay. You’ll find out soon enough anyway. Crew said he OD’d.”
Pamela nodded, suddenly the newswoman again. “That much was pretty clear from the way he collapsed,” she said. “And I got a peek at the body. Doc owes me.” She didn’t seem ashamed to admit it. “But Crew’s keeping everyone in town. Does that mean he doesn’t think it was accidental?”
Ah, she’d be in the know the second she got to Dr. Aberstock again, so why not? “Skip was taking an experimental painkiller,” I said. “But he’d gone off it. Doc found an injection site, though, so Crew thinks someone gave him the drug to push him into OD.” I was the daughter of a sheriff telling a reporter about a case. It was official. I was going to hell.
Pamela frowned. “That’s a stretch,” she said. “Thanks though, I’ll check into this drug you mentioned. What’s it called?”
I told her about Quexol, though likely bungled the spelling. She wrote it down quickly in her notebook then tucked it into her purse.
“Professional athletes are prone to injury and often have access to excessive amounts of painkillers,” she said. “I did a piece once ten years ago just before I moved to Reading. Got me in a lot of hot water, and ultimately fired.” She wrinkled her nose like she couldn’t give less of a crap. “But I can tell you, it’s only gotten worse, not better. So if that young man did OD, he likely did it to himself.”
I let her hug me again, this time with more genuine feeling and less discomfort, before waving as she left. I looked down at Petunia who hopped from one front foot to the other, whining softly, rising to my bare feet and heading for the kitchen door, knowing what she was after.
“No pooping on the path,” I said, following as she romped out the door and toward the koi pond. Looked up and waved at Pamela who had, for some reason, gone all the way to the corner of the house instead of around the fence again. And stopped, stunned, before hurtling myself after the figure I realized wasn’t my friend after all without stopping to think about what I was doing.
It was a woman, though, that much was clear from here. She looked up at me, glasses catching the light, and squealed before taking off around the side of the house. I stumbled over some rocks on the path, cursing and hopping when pain ran up my leg through my bruised toes, bouncing around the corner in a limping run to find the woman had gone.
Had to be the same intruder as this morning. I followed the fence all the way to the street, peeking through the garden gate. The media had already started to gather, vans packing the quiet way even more than Stella’s crew had done. I spotted the curly haired man from earlier today, his camera snapping at me. He waved, grinning still, as if someone hadn’t died, the jerk. Russell, right? Wasn’t that what Skip shouted at him in his heavily drugged and inebriated state?
Whatever. The woman who’d made it onto my property for the last time was gone. I didn’t care at this point what she was after, I was done playing Nice Fee. Time to batten down the hatches and seal up Petunia’s until Crew got to the bottom of whatever happened to Skip.
With renewed energy and something to do, I returned to the kitchen door to find Petunia waiting for me, grinning like she’d won first prize, a huge, steaming pile of dog poop right in the middle of the path.
***
Chapter Fourteen
My gag reflex had obviously grown accustomed to the stink of her poo, because fetching the little garden shovel didn’t make me want to throw up like it used to, nor did scooping it with rather practiced efficiency in one quick motion. I was getting good at this. Not that dog poop scooping was going to be an Olympic sport any time soon, but if it ever came up, I’d be a contender.
Petunia, meanwhile, watched with the kind of glassy eyed happiness that was her regular expression, as if having me for a slave was par for her particular puggy course. She followed me when I deposited her offering to the gods of stink in the compost pile and carefully set aside the shovel, her bulging brown eyes seeming to gleam with glee.
“You really need to lay off the sweets,” I said, pausing at the door. She farted softly in response before licking her chops, clearly expecting to be fed now that she’d made room in her chubby pug body for more flatulence creating delectables.
The sad truth? She’d likely get them, too. If not from me then from some poor unsuspecting sucker wh
o took her yearning expression at squish face value. And I’d pay the ultimate price for that weakness. Story of my life.
I reached for the door handle, trying not to sigh over this fate life handed me and paused at the sound of raised voices, my amusement at the pug shifting to curiosity when the now familiar sound of Evelyn’s piercing words reached me from the depths of the kitchen.
“—you gave him that crap and now look what’s happened.”
Matt’s deeper voice was harder to catch, but the screen was open so when I leaned in to listen I caught his response.
“I had nothing to do with him taking Quexol,” he said. “I swear it.”
“That’s not what Willow told me,” Evelyn shot back. “You brought it with you, didn’t you?”
The awkward and uncomfortable pause between them made me wonder if they’d left. It was getting darker outside, though, the sun moving behind the mountains, so it was easier to see into the gloom of the kitchen and I caught their still forms next to the bulky stainless steel fridge before Matt spoke again.
“He’s been in a lot of pain. I just thought—”
Well now. So Skip’s coach had the drug with him.
“I’m telling the sheriff,” Evelyn snarled, jabbing him in the chest with one finger. “If you killed Skip, Matt, I’m making sure you go down for it quickly so the rest of us can get the hell out of here.”
“How dare you.” His voice vibrated with menace. I could feel it from where I stood, breathless, waiting for him to confess. “I’ve only ever had their best interests at heart.”
“Again, not what I heard,” Evelyn said, her voice dropping to a hissing whisper. “How’s your job security these days, Matt? Anything Skip might have done to jeopardize it?”
There was a lot more going on here than it first appeared, clearly. But rather than gain more information, I lost the chance to keep eavesdropping. Petunia, her tummy clearly in the way of my snooping, scratched at the door at that exact moment, whining with a yip of insistence to get to where the food was.