Mucky Bumpkin

by Sam Cheever

  But that certainly seemed the most likely scenario at the moment.

  Silence descended on the room, broken only by the occasional impatient snort from my dog. Hal and I hadn’t discussed the Devon thing since returning from the hangar. But we needed to talk it out.

  Devon had the opportunity to kill the unpopular realtor, since he was squatting in the outbuilding. He had a plausible motive if he thought Penney Sellers was in danger of finding out something about my mother or if he thought she was threatening me in any way. And, despite what my mother said, he had the temperament. I’d seen how ruthless he could be to meet his own ends.

  I wasn’t going to be caught off guard with him again. “Do you think he did it?” I asked Hal.

  He wiped his mouth with a paper napkin and placed it on top of his empty plate, settling it onto the table. “I don’t know. Despite being angry and uncooperative, he just doesn’t strike me as a murderer.”

  I blinked, confused. Hal didn’t trust Devon Little, and he liked him even less. He felt Dev had abused my trust and put me into danger more than once. He wasn’t wrong on either count.

  Which was why I was surprised to hear him say he didn’t think Dev had the temperament.

  Then I realized I’d made a segue in my head and forgotten to cue Hal in. He’d been referring to Junior.

  “What about Dev?” I asked carefully.

  Hal’s handsome face darkened in a frown. “He’s definitely capable. He had access to the murder weapon. And he was apparently in the vicinity.”

  I nodded, knowing what we needed to do next. “Should I call Arno?”

  His expression softened as he looked at me. But he shook his head. “I’ll call him. I don’t want you to be in the position of going against your mother and ratting out the rat.”

  Despite his harsh characterization of Devon, or maybe because of it, I smiled. “Thanks, Hal.”

  He stared at me for a beat, something that looked like regret sliding through his dark green gaze. Then he leaned forward and touched his lips to mine. The kiss was gentle and sweet, his warm lips tasting deliciously of seafood and a sweet ginger sauce. Then he broke the kiss and leaned back, pulling his phone from the pocket of his shirt, and dialed our cranky resident cop.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Much to my relief, Arno came to us. He knocked on my front door a half-hour later, and Caphy barreled toward the front of the house, barking. Her claws clicked rhythmically on the hard floor as she ran.

  “Settle, Caphy girl,” I corrected, waiting until she’d dropped to her haunches before opening the door. I kept a hand on her head to keep her from barreling into Arno and knocking him over. Not that he couldn’t handle her weight. He was a big guy and she wasn’t massive by any means, but if she caught him by surprise, she could easily take a full-sized man down to the ground in a very ungraceful manner. Only to sit on his chest and kiss him into oblivion once she had him down.

  I’d seen that particular show more than once.

  Arno accepted her smashing into his legs, curving into him as he scratched her side and ruffled her ears. Her tail hit the door with a whomp, whomp, whomp that sounded painful.

  “Hey,” I said to Arno.

  He straightened and gave me a cool nod. “Joey.”

  Arno was almost always cool with me. As if he were perpetually ticked at something I’d done. It had only gotten worse since Hal had come into my life. I didn’t know if that was because there had been two bodies on my property since then, or because I’d pushed my way into both investigations against the deputy’s wishes.

  Either way, I didn’t expect my relationship with Arno to improve any time soon.

  Caphy bounced past him and into the yard, heading toward the pond with ears flopping and tail perpetually wagging. “Come on in. Hal’s in the kitchen.”

  Hal walked into the living room as I closed the door and offered the deputy his hand. “Arno. Thanks for coming over.”

  Arno shook my PI’s hand, nodding. “I’m interested in hearing about this big secret you wouldn’t talk to me about over the phone.” There was definite censure in his voice. He directed it right at me.

  I barely kept from sighing. “It’s not a big secret. We just wanted to let you know Devon Little is back.”

  Arno stared at me for a long moment. Finally, he put his hands on his hips. “Back? Back where?”

  “Right back where he was before, apparently,” I said. “We caught him squatting in my father’s old hangar again.”

  Arno swore softly. “Where is he now?”

  “He ran from us. I lost him in the woods,” Hal said firmly. He was trying to pull Arno’s censure from me and fix it on himself. A selfless act of affection. I could definitely fall for a guy like that.

  Oh yeah, I already had.

  “That’s just great.” Arno scrubbed a hand over his chin. Despite Hal’s attempts to shoulder the brunt of Arno’s anger, the deputy threw me an accusing glare. “You didn’t think to come to me before he ran?”

  “It’s not like we had hours to figure out what to do,” I told him angrily. “We saw him, talked to him for a minute, and then he locked us inside and took off before we could stop him.”

  “Why is he back?”

  I glanced at Hal, frowning slightly to let him know he needed to keep my mother’s secret. He slid his gaze from mine, fixing it on Arno. “He still feels like he needs to protect Joey.”

  Not the whole truth, but definitely not a lie. “He’s honoring a promise he made to my father. I think he’s still spooked over the whole dead guy in the woods thing.”

  “If he’s in overprotective mode, he has the perfect motive to kill a pushy realtor who’s trying to talk you out of the home your parents built,” Arno said.

  I didn’t like Arno’s suggestion, but I couldn’t deny it. “There’s more. I kept an extra leash in the hangar, on a hook outside the office door. That’s the leash the killer appears to have used.”

  Arno looked at his boots, a muscle in his square jaw flexing. “I’m not convinced Little didn’t have something to do with the last murder, Joey. This just strengthens my suspicions.”

  “I know,” I said softly. I’d stopped thinking about Devon Little as anything but a thorn in my side, but that didn’t mean I wanted him to go to prison. “I just don’t think he did this.”

  “You’re not able to think rationally where this guy’s concerned, Joey,”

  Arno spoke gently to me, and his sudden kindness was almost my undoing. Tears burned my eyes. “That’s not true.”

  But Arno wasn’t deterred. “It’s totally understandable. In your mind, he’ll always be connected to your parents.”

  “It’s not as black and white as you think, Arno,” Hal said, dropping an arm around my shoulders in support.

  “Then why don’t you tell me the rest of the story? The part you’re both working so hard to leave out.”

  My stomach twisted with alarm. Too late, I remembered it was a mistake to underestimate Arno Willager. He was a good cop, as sharp as they came, and he knew me pretty well. “I have no idea…”

  “Save it, Joey,” he growled out. He looked very pointedly at Hal.

  I shook my head and Arno’s gaze flashed back to me. “So, that’s how it’s going to be?”

  “Arno…” Hal began.

  But Arno held up a hand. “You’re off the case, Amity.” Arno’s angry gaze found mine. “Both of you. If you aren’t going to be straight with me, I have no use for you.” He spun on his heel and headed toward the door.

  I threw Hal a desperate look. He frowned and looked away. He didn’t blame Arno and he didn’t want to lie to him anymore. I understood. But I couldn’t destroy my mother’s trust.

  Could I?

  “Wait, Arno,” I said.

  He stopped with his hand on the door, not turning back. I stared at his back for a beat and then sighed. “My mother’s alive.”

  I saw him tense, the knuckles on his big hand turning white. He s
lowly turned around, but his gaze skimmed past me, locking onto Hal’s.

  My PI nodded. “We spoke to her.”

  Arno seemed to deflate. He shook his head. “It’s not possible. I saw her remains.”

  I swallowed hard. “You saw the body of a woman and assumed it was her. But it wasn’t. It was someone my parents were trying to hide.”

  “Hide?” Arno moved closer, his face a few shades paler. “Who were they hiding, and why?”

  I gave him a quick update, skimming as quickly as I could over the woman who’d made my mother cry.

  “So, they were going to hide her here? In Deer Hollow?”

  “Only for a short time,” Hal offered. “According to Joline, they’d planned on helping her move on as soon as it was safe.”

  Arno chewed on that for a moment and then scrubbed a hand over his chin. “I feel like such a fool. I should have run DNA on the victims.”

  “There was no reason to,” I said. But I knew it would have been prudent.

  “Clearly, there was,” he said angrily. “I should have known better.”

  “None of that matters now,” Hal said. “The fact is, everything Devon Little has done up to this point has been to keep Joline and Joey safe. We have no real evidence against him.”

  “We’ll see about that,” Arno said. “I’ve sent the leash to the lab for DNA. If he used it to kill someone it will show on the leash.”

  All the blood rushed from my face. “My DNA will be on there too.”

  Arno nodded. “But I have Amity’s statement that you were with him. You’re in the clear on this, Joey.”

  I glanced at Hal, flushing as I remembered how that had ended. I shook my head. “I really don’t think he did it.”

  “We’ll let the facts speak for themselves.”

  Hal spoke up. “There’s something else. There was someone in the hangar with Little when we found him. I saw him run away but lost him. Little denies knowing there was someone there, but I’m not sure I believe him.”

  “Any idea who it might have been?” Arno asked.

  Hal shook his head. “Little speculated it could be the person responsible for the plane crash. He’s worried for Joey’s safety.”

  Fixing me with a speculative look, Arno nodded. “If he’s telling the truth, Joey could be a target. I don’t think we should take any chances. Can you stay here with her, Amity?”

  “Of course.”

  I shook my head. “That’s not necessary. I have Caphy…”

  “Which wouldn’t be any use at all against a gun,” Arno reminded me.

  I winced. The last time Caphy had tried to protect me she’d gotten badly hurt. I never wanted to experience the terror of that again. “You’re right.”

  “Where’s your mother?” Arno asked me.

  “She’s in a safe place.”

  “I need to speak to her. If the people who killed your father are here, there’s a good chance they killed Penney Sellers because she was nosing around in the wrong place.”

  “I promised…”

  “You just got her back. Do you really want to risk losing her again, Joey?”

  I chewed my lip, uncertain how to move on. He was right. If Medford’s people were skulking around my home, they might have killed the agent. And it was only a matter of time before they found my mother. But I couldn’t betray a promise. “I’m sorry, Arno.”

  “Dangit, Joey!”

  Hal held up a hand. “How about a compromise?” When Hal got Arno’s full attention, he offered his proposal. “Why don’t I interview Joline about it? I’ll come to you with everything I learn. You have my word.”

  Arno skimmed a glare from me to Hal and then reluctantly nodded. “I guess that will do. But if I find out you withheld any information, Amity…”

  “I won’t. I want this guy found as badly as you do, Arno. Trust me.”

  “I am going to trust you. Both of you. I just hope I don’t regret it.”

  After Arno left, I looked at Hal. “There’s one other person we need to talk to.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Edward Johnston. I spoke to his wife, but he was absent when I was there. At least, she told me he was gone. I’m not sure I believed her.”

  “Why not?” Hal asked.

  “I don’t know. There’s just something about their part in all this. Neither of them has an alibi, and Belle Johnston admitted she wasn’t exactly upset that Penney Sellers got clocked over the head.”

  “Joey, they’re almost eighty,” Hal said. “Besides, wanting to clock that Realtor over the head seems to be a town-wide infection, not a unique perspective.”

  “I know. But they’re hardly feeble. They take good care of themselves, and they still do all their own workaround that big house and grounds. If nothing else, I’d like to mark them off the list.”

  He nodded. “We can do that. I also want to check into Junior Milliard.”

  “You don’t really think he killed her, do you?”

  “No. But, like the Johnstons, he needs to be checked off the list. Right now, he’s a giant question mark in my brain.”

  “Okay. Do you need to go home to do your research?”

  “Yes. And I don’t want to leave you here alone, so you’re coming with me.”

  I would have argued, but then I remembered the pie. If I was really lucky, that banana cream pie he’d gotten for me would still be in his refrigerator.

  What? A girl needed energy to catch a killer.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Hal’s background check on Junior turned up a whole lot of nothing. The man had led a boring, with a capital B, life. He didn’t have so much as a parking ticket attached to his name. I shoved the last bite of pie in my mouth and licked my lips. “I guess he’s clean, huh?”

  “He has a clean record, but I’d feel better if he had an alibi. Even the most rule-following choir boy can snap under the right circumstances.”

  “I’d say losing his whole life in the form of Junior’s Market would probably do the trick.”

  Hal nodded. “Exactly.”

  “What about Edward Johnston?” Though my stomach was already sticking out from the enormous slice of banana cream pie I’d eaten, my gaze was drawn to the last piece in the foil plate on the counter.

  “Touch that and you die,” Hal murmured. He never even looked up from the keyboard, where his long, blunt-tipped fingers danced so rapidly I could barely follow them.

  “How do you do that?”

  “Hmm?” he asked.

  “Know what I’m thinking even before I do?”

  His grin made my stomach turn a little gooey. “I’m an investigator. I’m good at investigating. In this case, there wasn’t much to investigate. You. Pie. Trouble.”

  I couldn’t help returning his grin. “I shared half of this slice with Caphy.”

  “Half?” He questioned with a lift of one dark eyebrow. “You gave her one tiny bite. It’s a good thing you don’t crave her kibble like you do that pie. She’d be skin and bones.”

  “That’s a lie!” I frowned but couldn’t help wondering if it was true. If Caphy’s diet required regular slices of banana cream pie, would I leave her hungry to appease my own cravings? I hoped not. But my mind and motives were not always perfect where pie was concerned.

  LaLee jumped up onto the kitchen table to oversee Hal’s work. He frowned at the sight of the cat sitting on his pristine table, but happied up when LaLee rubbed her face on his arm, purring loudly.

  “Aw, look, she likes you.”

  “She’s probably just softening me up for the kill,” he murmured direly. But I saw the twinkle of pleasure in his sexy green gaze. I watched him type away for a few minutes. Caphy was draped over my feet, keeping them warm, and LaLee was sprawled across the table, her gaze locked on Hal’s dancing fingers.

  A line appeared between his dark eyebrows.

  “What is it?”

  “I don’t know, probably nothing.” He turned the laptop so I could see
the screen. It took me a moment to realize he was looking at the Johnston’s bank statement. “You can do that?”

  “Apparently I am,” he grinned.

  I leaned closer, narrowing my gaze at the columns of numbers. “Okay, what am I looking at?”

  “See this here, and this, and this?” He pointed at some fairly large deposits. They were irregular, no apparent pattern to their appearance on the screen. Some months he had one deposit. Other months it was several. The total in their banking account was sizeable. Much larger than I would have expected to see, given the way they lived. But whatever the deposits represented, they weren’t enough to cause alarm compared to their overall amount. “Social Security checks?”

  He shook his head. “They’re close to the same amount but different enough that I doubt its either retirement or social security.”

  “Do they all come from the same place?” I asked.

  He nodded. “That’s what’s really strange. The deposits are coming from Handy Loans.”

  I frowned. “Handy Loans? Isn’t that a paycheck funds advance place?”

  “It is. The question is, why would Edward Johnston be getting advances on money at all? He’s obviously got a sizeable amount of ready cash in his account.”

  “That is strange.” I glanced at Hal. “Shall we go ask?”

  He nodded. “We shall.”

  As I approached the big, rustic ranch house again, I hoped Edward Johnston was at home. There was a bright yellow, two-door sports car in the driveway, and I could hear piano music through the door as Hal knocked. Belle had been a piano teacher once upon a time. I couldn’t help wondering if the car in the drive meant she still was.

  Hal whistled, running his hand over the car’s curves. “Nice ride. Somebody’s got a healthy bank account. My gaze slid to the mud-covered Jeep parked next to it. “And somebody likes to go off-roading.” I wondered which of the cars belonged to Belle and which belonged to Edward.

  The front door opened, and a tall slender man with intense gray eyes and an unruly cap of charcoal-gray hair looked out at us. For a moment I thought he struggled to remember who I was. Then Edward Johnston smiled, transforming his face from slightly intimidating to handsome. “Joey Fulle.” He reached out and enfolded me in a warm hug. He smelled like fresh air and pine sap. That, and the fact he was dressed in loose-fitting jeans and a flannel shirt, made me think he’d been working outside again.