Highway to Homicide

by Lucy Quinn

  “Right.” Cookie put her notebook away. “Well, I’d appreciate it if you could let me know if you see anything suspicious that could help with the investigation.”

  “I will,” she said with a firm nod, her hair not moving from all the hairspray. “I’m not giving up. If there’s anything we can do to stop this travesty of shoddy condos, I’m a thousand percent on board.”

  “I understand,” Cookie said. “Thank you for your time.”

  “It was good to see you again, Julie,” Dylan said.

  “You too, Dylan,” she cooed and…

  Cookie peered at the other woman. Did she just bat her eyes at Dylan?

  Julie placed her arm through Dylan’s and added, “Let me walk you out.”

  Cookie rolled her eyes and followed them out. The moment they stepped out into the sun, Cookie pulled Dylan away and gave Julie a tight smile. “Thanks for your time.”

  “Anytime,” she said, smiling up at Dylan.

  It was all Cookie could do to keep her mouth shut. She knew Dylan had no interest in the older woman, but Cookie was starting to form a new appreciation for Rain’s irritation with Julie. The way she was flirting with Cookie’s boyfriend right in front of her was completely inappropriate. Cookie slipped her hand into Dylan’s, looked Julie right in the eye, and said, “We better go. Dylan’s taking me to lunch.”

  “Oh.” Julie glanced at her thin gold watch. “At ten in the morning?”

  “It’s really more of brunch,” Dylan said, grinning at Cookie.

  “That’s not really a meal,” She scanned the two of them with her judgmental gaze. “But whatever you say.” Julie disappeared back inside.

  Dylan started to chuckle.

  “What are you laughing at?” Cookie asked, narrowing her eyes at him.

  “You. You’re jealous of a woman your mother’s age.” His eyes were sparkling, and he was enjoying this far more than he should as far as Cookie was concerned.

  Cookie shrugged. “She was being annoying and touching you.”

  He draped his arm over her shoulders and pulled her in close as they walked down Main Street. “You’re a little possessive, you know that?” he asked, his tone teasing.

  Laughing, Cookie shook her head. She had let Julie’s antics get the better of her. She squeezed his arm and glanced up at Dylan. “Just wait until some dirty old man starts flirting with me. We’ll see how you handle it.”

  “I’m sure I’ll handle it just fine.” His gaze met hers, the amusement dancing in his eyes. “Unless of course you dump me for this dirty old man. Then I might have to rough him up.”

  “Well, you’ll just have to keep me happy, otherwise, who knows what I’ll do?”

  “You seemed pretty happy last night and when you woke up this morning,” he said with one eyebrow raised.

  Heat rose to Cookie’s cheeks as she recalled what he was referring to. “Looks like you’re safe for now.” She paused, lifted up on her toes, and kissed him. When she pulled away, she said, “Ready to go check on Rain? I’m sure she’s going to love hearing all about Julie and her antics.”

  He nodded. “Lead on.”

  Chapter 13

  “Mom?” Cookie asked, her eyes wide with disbelief as her mom walked back and forth across her cell, her hips swinging and her hair flying behind her. “What are you doing?”

  “Practicing my catwalk. What does it look like I’m doing?” Rain was wearing white cotton pajama pants that had words like Freedom, Peace, Fight, Love, and more Cookie couldn’t quite make out written all over them in brightly colored ink. She’d paired the pants with a bra that looked to be made out of pink and blue mini cupcake wrappers, and she’d somehow managed to score white strappy high-heeled sandals. In the corner of her cell, a small television set was playing America’s Next Top Model, where Tyra Banks was holding a set of pictures and announcing the week’s remaining contestants.

  “Why?” Cookie asked.

  “Because, honey, when you finally spring me from this joint, I’m planning to try out for the next season. Don’t I look avant-garde? I made this bra last night because I needed something edgy. The sweet, pretty ones are never interesting enough to succeed on the show.”

  Cookie blinked as she gazed through the bars of Rain’s cell. “Where’d you get the cupcake wrappers?”

  “Henri brought me the most delicious chocolate cupcakes last night. I conned him into bringing me the rest of the paper cups he had on hand.” She lightly grasped her breasts and lifted them up so that Cookie would have a better view. “I think I need to dismantle a wire whisk to fashion this into a pushup bra. This current version is falling down on the job… literally.” She let go and her breasts drooped considerably.

  “That’s… really some plan, Rain,” Dylan said, trying to keep a straight face.

  “Thanks.” She beamed at him. “If I can even make it in the house for three or four episodes, think about the exposure I’d get for the Pussycat Posse.” She turned to Cookie. “I bet Scarlett can make these wrapper bras better than I can. Will you take this one to her so she has an example? And mention the whisk idea too.” She started to reach behind her back as if she were going to take it off right there.

  “Whoa, Mom! Stop.” Cookie quickly covered Dylan’s eyes with her hands, trying to save him from being traumatized.

  “Oh, Cookie. He’s a grown man. I assume he’s seen his share of boobs before. I hope he’s seen yours. Otherwise—”

  “Mother!”

  Rain threw her head back and laughed. “You’re so easily provoked, Cookie. Relax a little, huh?” Rain deftly removed the cupcake wrapper bra and tossed a tank top on, one that did nothing more to support her ample bosom.

  “Goodness.” Cookie sighed and stared at the ceiling.

  “Is she decent?” Dylan asked.

  Cookie removed her hand and grinned when she noted that his eyes were squeezed shut. She chuckled. “Decent is pushing it, but she is covered. You’re safe.”

  He slowly opened one eye, and when he deemed it was safe, he opened the other one. Letting out a relieved sigh, he backed up to lean against the wall, clearly wanting to stay far away from the conversation.

  “Geesh. How did you two end up such prudes?” Rain grabbed a box of chocolates that was sitting on her air mattress and lifted it up toward Cookie. “Chocolate covered caramel?”

  “Let me guess, Henri again?” Cookie asked, referring to the island’s newest resident who’d assumed the identity of a chocolatier.

  “Isn’t he the best? I know he started out on shaky footing, but he really knows how to take care of a girl. I think those cooking classes are really paying off for him.”

  “Is he making his chocolates now?” Cookie asked, still skeptical of the former mobster who had taken on the identity of his dead chocolatier boyfriend in order to stay alive, with the FBI’s approval.

  “Some. Others he’s buying from a fancy place in Boston. He has them shipped.” She popped one of the caramels in her mouth and moaned her pleasure.

  “Someone, kill me now,” Dylan said under his breath.

  Cookie turned her attention to him, more than ready to leave. Her mother was obviously fine. “Now that we’ve seen you’re okay, Mom, we’re going to go check on June.”

  Rain giggled. “I think she’s still traumatized over the mitten clips. I’ve caught her checking out my rack more than once. I told her she should try them because—”

  “Mom!”

  “Huh.” Rain grinned with her glee. “June had the same reaction.”

  “Bye, Mom.” Cookie said as she began to walk away.

  Dylan said, “Your mother takes great pleasure in horrifying you. It would be funny if—”

  “If it wasn’t actually so horrifying?”

  Dylan laughed. “Yes.”

  When they got to the deputy sheriff’s office, more than one item on June’s desk caught Cookie’s eye. She pointed to the pile of clothes that looked to be some sort of costume. “What are those?
”

  Dylan picked up the first item and frowned as he inspected it. It was a silver corset that was large enough to fit a woman about twice Cookie’s size.

  “Do you think that’s June’s?” Cookie asked, incredulously.

  “It looks like it would fit her,” Dylan said. He looked at Cookie with a mix of amusement and horror. “Maybe the things she found at Hale’s have brought out desires—" He shuddered. “Never mind.”

  Cookie was glad he hadn’t continued. She walked over and grabbed the bright pink wig off the desk and eyed the size twelve high heels. She raised her eyebrows and said, “This stuff looks like it belongs to a drag queen.”

  “Not a drag queen,” Loon said as she strode into her office and plucked the wig from Cookie’s hands. “At least he says he isn’t one, but I wouldn’t put it past him.”

  “Whose are they?” Cookie asked.

  “Blake’s. You know, Winter’s boyfriend.” She shook her head as if Cookie and Dylan were idiots. “We found them this morning in a trunk at the end of his bed.”

  Cookie frowned. “Okay. So? Why did you confiscate them? Do they have evidence on them or something?” Yes, it was strange to think about Blake dressing up as a woman, but that hardly made him a killer.

  June rolled her eyes and dropped the wig back on the desk with a swoosh. “For a former FBI agent, you sure are unimaginative. I rather thought it would be obvious.”

  “What’s obvious about a man wearing a wig and corset?” Cookie asked, not at all following June’s reasoning. Though she rarely did, so she wasn’t surprised.

  “It’s a disguise,” June stressed. “You know, so he can run around incognito. Do the dirty work necessary to blow up a barge and not be identified.”

  “You think Blake was wearing a silver corset, high heels, and a pink wig while trying to rig explosives on a barge?” Cookie asked just to make sure she was hearing June correctly.

  “Well, of course. Or at least it’s possible. It wasn’t enough for an arrest, but it’s all part of the big picture.” June made a small noise of disgust. “Honestly, Cookie. I’d think you’d be grateful for all the legwork I’ve been doing. This case is all but solved. Soon you can go back to your inn and enjoy the rest of your summer.”

  With her mother and her friends locked up because the local law was completely incompetent? Cookie had no intention of letting that happen. Unfortunately, she was going to have to find a tactful way to tell June what the items were so that the deputy sheriff would stop her ridiculous line of thought. “Your theory is certainly… interesting. But…” Cookie let out a sigh. “I fear this might be something else.”

  June cocked a speculative eyebrow at her before Cookie continued. “I think it’s more likely that Winter and Blake like to role play than it is that he was using these items to dress up like a drag queen so he’d go unnoticed.”

  “Role play?” June asked. “Role play what?”

  Cookie nearly rolled her eyes as she once again found herself in the unenviable position of explaining the activities of adult relationships to the clueless woman. “Role play during date night, June. You know, dress up as someone else to play a sexy character in a bedroom kind of activity.”

  June blinked. Then she cut her gaze to the pile on the desk before she blinked again. “You can’t be serious.”

  Sometimes Cookie wondered how June Loon had managed to get through life so untouched by reality. “Is there anything about my expression that says I’m joking?” Cookie asked.

  “Not everything is about sex!” the deputy sheriff cried out with the determination of a child who was trying to dispute the truth behind Santa Claus. “This is Secret Seal Isle, for goodness sake, not the Playboy mansion. Who does Blake think he is? Hugh Hefner?” She let out a big sigh and flopped into her chair, making it squeak with the impact.

  “I think he fancies himself as more of a George Clooney,” Dylan said. Cookie cut him a look of disbelief and Dylan shrugged. “It’s just something I heard at poker night.”

  “Right.” Cookie turned her attention back to June, who had retrieved an antiseptic wipe from her desk and was cleaning her fingers with great care. “So, as I was saying, I believe these items prove nothing more than the fact Blake has an active imagination.”

  June looked up at Cookie with a dejected expression bordering on tears. “Before you and your mother moved here, this island was a safe place. It was my happy place as a kid, and when I moved back, I expected it to be just like I remembered. And now…” Tears brimmed in June’s eyes, and for a moment Cookie felt sorry for her. But the nasty streak the deputy sheriff was known for returned in a flash. Her tone was surly when she said, “If I don’t die of an STD by the end of the month, it will be a miracle. No wonder you wear those gloves all the time. Make sure Ned orders a box for me too.”

  Cookie had a lot she could say in rebuttal, but Dylan cut her off before she even opened her mouth. He grabbed her arm and yanked her out of the office as he called out, “I’ll make sure of it, Deputy Sheriff. Bye!”

  Chapter 14

  “Her happy place?” Cookie practically screamed as Dylan led her away from the sheriff’s office. “How about the rest of the island’s residents? Huh? Don’t they deserve to be happy too? Because before she arrived, we were!” Cookie kicked at a cardboard coffee cup someone had dropped, and coffee splattered out of it as it flew through the air.

  Dylan stepped out into the street to grab it.

  Cookie sighed, her anger deflated a bit after the outburst, and she realized how foolish she must have looked. “Sorry,” she said as Dylan disposed of the cup in the trash receptacle on the sidewalk. “That woman is just insufferable.”

  “She is,” he agreed. “She has a way of really getting under your skin.”

  “Exactly. And she’s the most incompetent officer of the law I’ve even encountered.”

  “Worse than Swan?”

  Cookie considered that for a moment. June’s brother, who’d died an untimely death, used to be the island’s deputy sheriff. And once his position was open, June had taken over. The man had been drunk more often than sober, and he was the kind of bumbling idiot who couldn’t detect his way out of a paper bag. But he wasn’t cruel, and Cookie wasn’t sure which of the two was worse. “It’s a tossup.”

  Dylan chuckled and glanced at his watch. “Rain and Loon had a lot to say today. It’s after noon already. Let’s get some lunch and then I guess we’d better solve this crime. What do you say we grab a couple of lobster rolls and before we go find Jerry and get his story on the fight he had with Hank? We can probably find him at the Tipsy Seagull chatting up the tourists.”

  Cookie laughed softly at Dylan and herself. She’s just had a temper tantrum over her frustration with a colleague, which was way too kind a term for what June was to her. And Dylan had known exactly how to deal with it by letting her get it out and then moved on as if it was normal operating procedure. She hooked her arm in his as they walked and leaned against his strong, steady body for a moment. “Have I mentioned you’re the perfect man?”

  “Not nearly enough.”

  “I’ll have to fix that. By the way, you’re so much hotter than George Clooney. Just thought you should know.”

  Dylan laughed.

  She asked, “Do I want to know how you are aware that Blake fancies himself to be like George Clooney?”

  “Poker night. Let me tell you, cards with Hale and Blake has been eye opening.”

  “Oh.” Cookie grimaced when she imagined the kinds of stories those two men might tell considering Rain and Winter were their significant others. “I’d rather not know.”

  Dylan chuckled as he tugged on the door to the Salty Dog. “Me neither.”

  Just as they were sitting down, Cookie’s phone buzzed. She pulled it out of her pocket, expecting to see Hunter’s number, but instead Jared’s name flashed on the screen.

  “Hey, Jared. Do you have some information for me?” Cookie said by way of greeting.
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  “I wish I did, Cookie, but the finger isn’t giving us any match in the system. Either the victim doesn’t have a record or the print itself is too compromised by the explosion. I’m sorry, but I don’t think we’re going to get an easy ID.”

  “Crap. That’s not good news. Can you run a DNA test?” she asked.

  “Already on it, but I need to send it to the forensic lab and it could take up to a week to get results.”

  Cookie bit back a sigh. “Okay. Let me know what you find out.”

  “Will do.”

  Disappointed, Cookie ended the call and glanced at Dylan. “Dead end on the fingerprint.”

  “DNA maybe? Jared will figure it out,” Dylan said.

  Cookie nodded, knowing he was right. Patience just wasn’t her strong suit at the moment.

  After lunch, they made their way to the Tipsy Seagull and stepped into the formerly dark-and-dreary establishment that had turned a corner as of late. Once Alex Balboni, the embezzling bookkeeper, was arrested, the owner had started to bring in enough money to spruce the place up a bit. A few more windows had been cut into the wall facing the water, and a deck had been added. Cookie had even spied a drink or two with an umbrella in it the last time she’d been there. Heck, even the sign outside that had a seagull which tipped back and forth with the wind had been repainted and its mechanism oiled, making it appear whimsical instead of pathetic.

  With the new look, tourists had discovered the charm of the Tipsy Seagull, and it was quickly turning into a very profitable business for Bernie Flanders, a man who deserved a few good things to happen in his life.

  A quick glance proved Dylan right, and he pointed to Jerry sitting at the bar talking to two young women. His hands waved as he told them a story, and when Dylan and Cookie approached him, the girls laughed.

  As Dylan appeared in Jerry’s line of vision, the fisherman grinned. “Dylan Creed! What brings you out on this fine day?”

  Cookie noticed the shine in Jerry’s eyes and it made her assume the man had sipped on more than just one cocktail. It wasn’t unusual for the fisherman to spend their afternoons in the bar, and that day was no exception.