Asking Fur Trouble

by Ally Roberts

  The passenger side window lowered.

  Daniel Ford was inside.

  “Oh,” I said, trying to hide my surprise. Here was another person I was looking to talk to and he’d just shown up. “Hi.”

  “Out for a walk?”

  I arched an eyebrow. I was pretty sure it was obvious what I was doing but I went ahead and nodded.

  He jerked his head, indicating Ginny’s house. “I didn’t know you knew Ginny.”

  I played dumb. “Ginny? I just met her. Said good morning and we got to chatting a little bit.”

  He chewed on his lower lip. “What did she have to say?”

  “Not much. She’s pretty broken up by Caroline’s death.”

  Daniel ran a hand over his hair, patting it in place. Probably trying to cover a little of his exposed hairline.

  “Is she?” His tone clearly indicated he doubted this.

  “They were business partners, weren’t they?”

  His chuckle was harsh. “Sure, but what does that have to do with anything?”

  I frowned. “I’m not following…”

  He stared at me, and the look in his eyes sent shivers down my spine.

  “Trust me. Ginny isn’t crying over Caroline’s death. She’s upset because she got cut out of the business.”

  THIRTEEN

  The dogs weren’t getting much of a walk.

  Because Daniel Ford parked his car and was now getting out to talk to me.

  “We should keep walking,” he told me. He glanced nervously at Ginny’s house. “I don’t want her to see us talking.”

  So maybe the dogs would get a walk.

  I started and Daniel fell into step next to me. I shifted the leashes so both dogs were walking to my right. Thankfully, they didn’t seem to mind. Duke took the lead and Trixie followed, happy to be sniffing the sea air, and the grass and weeds that occupied the shoulder side of the sidewalk.

  “What did you mean, she got cut out of the business?” I asked, when it felt as though we were a safe enough distance away from the house.

  “I mean she got cut out of the business.”

  I looked at Daniel. He looked a lot less pale than he had the first time I’d met him, and I wondered if his color had simply improved or if his cheeks were flushed because he was struggling to keep up with me as I walked.

  I purposely slowed my pace. “Cut how?”

  “Look, Caroline decided to close up shop because she couldn’t work with Ginny anymore.”

  I’d entertained that as a possible reason and here Daniel was, confirming it.

  “Why?” I asked.

  Daniel snickered. “How many reasons do you want? Because she did shoddy work. Because she was slow and not terribly detail-oriented. Because Caroline was forever having to go back and fix Ginny’s work.”

  “No, I mean why did she close the business? Why didn’t she just fire Ginny if she wasn’t doing her job?”

  Daniel shook his head. “Because that’s not Caroline. She didn’t have it in her to fire someone.”

  “Even if Ginny was messing things up?”

  “No. Caroline was too nice.” He added, his voice low, “To everyone except me.”

  I waited for him to elaborate but he said nothing.

  Part of me wanted to press, to ask questions, but I stopped myself.

  I’d recently gone through a divorce, and I would be the first to admit that Greg and I had said and done some nasty things to each other as we went through the process. We’d ended things on cordial terms, but it wasn’t as if I was going to call him up or send him Christmas cards or anything. I didn’t hate him, but I didn’t exactly like him, either.

  If Daniel and Caroline had been going through the divorce process, and especially since it was a move Amber said Daniel hadn’t wanted to make, I could see how he would say that about his wife. To him, it probably did seem like she was nice to everyone. To everyone except him.

  I decided to pose a different question instead.

  “Have you heard what the police are saying?” I asked.

  He glanced in my direction. “That it was a homicide?”

  I nodded.

  “Yeah.” His hand went to his hair again. The breeze was like a sail, lifting those long strands of hair, exposing far more of his scalp than he was probably comfortable with.

  “Do you think…?” I paused. “Do you think Ginny might have had anything to do with it?”

  He didn’t answer right away.

  “I don’t know,” he finally said. “Maybe.” He stopped walking and turned so he was fully facing me. “But the chief said they were looking at a couple of suspects. I don’t think Ginny was one of them.”

  I swallowed.

  Because I knew the chief was looking at me.

  “What do you think, though?” I asked. “If you had to wager a guess.”

  “Wager?” He actually smiled at this. “Funny you should ask.”

  I stared at him.

  “I would wager a guess that even if Ginny was responsible, Chief Ritter won’t do a thing.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because Ginny is his cousin,” he said flatly. “And I don’t know if you know this, but family is pretty important in this neck of the woods.”

  He was talking to me as if I were a newcomer, as if I hadn’t been born and raised on Sweetwater Island.

  I didn’t bother correcting him.

  Mostly because my experience with family had been far different than what he was describing. My dad was the first to criticize and the last to come to my defense. Not exactly the family bond Daniel was saying was so pervasive among the resident of the island.

  I started walking again, but Daniel did not.

  “I’ll tell you something, though,” he said. “There is more to that woman than meets the eye.” He glanced back toward Ginny Potter’s house, which was now a good block away and no longer visible.

  “Like what?” I asked.

  “Go to Clancy’s,” he said.

  Clancy’s was a tavern down by the marina.

  “Clancy’s?”

  He nodded. “Just go. Tonight. You’ll see what I’m talking about.”

  FOURTEEN

  The last place I wanted to be was at Clancy’s.

  Not because I didn’t like bars, and not because I didn’t like greasy bar food, but because I was alone. What kind of person went to a bar alone on a Friday night?

  Me.

  That’s who.

  I tried to draw as little attention to myself as possible as I stepped into the tavern and made a beeline to an empty table back by the bathrooms. I knew I would probably be exposed to a lot of foot traffic—bathrooms were popular places in bars—but I also knew that I didn’t want to be on center stage at one of the more visible tables.

  I sat down at the table and took in my surroundings. I’d been in Clancy’s only once before, when I was little and desperately had to use the bathroom after a summer concert on the beach and the bar was the only business still open. My mom had rushed me toward the back of the building, marching me directly past the table I was now sitting at, and then guided me back out before we caused too much of a stir. Clancy’s was a strict 21 and up kind of place.

  It was charming, in a small town sort of way. Pictures of local little leagues and soccer teams lined the wood-paneled walls, interspersed between neon signs advertising domestic beers. There were a few pictures of celebrities who had somehow managed to come visit Sweetwater Island—Burt Reynolds and Miranda Cosgrove were the only two I recognized—and a couple of pictures showing off catches from the local fishing tours, massive fish that looked entirely too big to have hauled from the sea using just a fishing pole.

  A server approached my table. “Get you something, or are you waiting on someone?”

  I gave her a smile, but I was cringing inside. “Nope, it’s just me. I’ll have a Diet Coke, please.”

  She tried to hide her frown, and I knew she was disappointed a low-spender l
ike me had sat down in her section. I felt like reassuring her that I wouldn’t be staying long. I was already beginning to regret my decision of coming in the first place.

  Daniel had told me to go to Clancy’s and I had, no questions asked, and with no idea what I was supposed to be looking for. His statement had been cryptic, at best. I was supposed to show up tonight, keep my eyes open for Ginny…and then what?

  Would all be revealed? Would she grab the microphone reserved for the local musicians that played there and just magically confess to the murder? Would she scribble out a confession on a paper napkin and leave it behind for me to find?

  I was going to guess no to both of those ideas.

  The server returned with my soda and set it down in front of me. She reached for one of the wrapped straws tucked in the pocket of her half apron.

  I held up my hand. “No thanks.”

  “No straw?”

  “I don’t need one.”

  She looked at me as if I were crazy, and I felt like I needed to justify my decision and tell her I was trying to do my part to prevent unnecessary plastic from ending up in the world’s oceans.

  But then I realized that would probably make me sound crazy, too. At least to her.

  “We have fish and chips tonight for eight bucks,” she told me. “And soup of the day is clam chowder. If you’re wantin’ something to go with that soda.”

  “I’ll have the fish and chips.”

  She arched her brows. “Yeah?”

  I nodded.

  Her demeanor immediately improved. She smiled and pivoted toward the kitchen.

  I wasn’t hungry, and fish and chips didn’t actually sound that good, but at least the waitress was no longer irritated with me. I thought about the cash Asher had given me, the cash I’d transferred from my pocket to my wallet.

  And at least I had the money to pay for it.

  It took twenty minutes for my food to come out. Twenty long minutes where I sat and people-watched and waited for Ginny to arrive. Every time the door opened, my head swiveled in that direction. And every time, I was disappointed when someone else strolled through the door.

  “You need ketchup?” My server was back holding a large white platter loaded with fried fish and a mound of French fries. A silver cup filled with cole slaw was also on the platter.

  I nodded. “That would be great.”

  “Tartar sauce?”

  Another nod.

  “I’ll be right back.”

  She set the plate down and I picked up a fry. The smell of the food made me realize I actually was hungry. Biting into the crispy fry and tasting the saltiness confirmed this.

  She came back and dropped off the condiments and I got to work squirting a puddle of each onto my plate. I was so busy doing this that I didn’t notice someone had stopped in front of my table.

  “Wendy.”

  I looked up, recognizing the familiar voice before I saw who was standing there.

  “Tate.”

  He grinned. “Fancy running into you again.”

  “Yeah.” I couldn’t manage much more of a response. I was too fixated on the person standing next to him.

  A woman. A cute woman with strawberry blonde hair and thick black glasses that made her look like the smartest person in the room.

  Tate caught me staring at her. “Do you two know each other?” he asked.

  The woman shook her head.

  “This is Wendy. Wendy Walker,” he told her. To me, he said, “This is Betsy Lewis. She works for the Island Gazette.”

  “Wendy?” Betsy’s eyes widened behind her glasses. “We had a couple of classes together our freshman year. English and algebra, I think.”

  Her name rang a bell, and now that I studied her face more closely, she definitely looked familiar.

  “Yeah, I think that’s right,” I said. “You were just at the high school freshman year, right?”

  She nodded. “I went away to boarding school after that. Magnolia Prep.”

  Of course. Only the most prestigious and expensive boarding school in South Carolina.

  Bits and pieces came back to me. Her family had moved to the island the summer before high school. If memory served, her father was a doctor, although I couldn’t remember his specialty, and worked at the hospital on the mainland.

  “It’s great to see you,” Betsy said. “You look exactly the same as I remember you.”

  That was becoming a common theme, at least with the two people standing in front of me. It was almost verbatim what Tate had said.

  I couldn’t say the same about Betsy.

  I remembered a gangly girl, tall and thin, with glasses and braces and frizzed out red hair and freckles. The woman standing in front of me had grown into her body. Her teeth were white and straight, her freckles had somehow disappeared, and her hair was as silky and smooth as a horse’s mane.

  “We were just going to visit the bathroom before we grabbed a table,” Tate told me.

  Disappointment settled in my gut. He said ‘we.’ They were here together, which probably meant a date. Heck, for all I knew they were probably boyfriend and girlfriend. Just because Shannon and I hadn’t seen any pictures of Tate online with a significant other didn’t mean one didn’t exist. A lot of people didn’t post that kind of stuff…myself included.

  He looked at the table where I was sitting. It was small, with only one extra chair. “Do you want to join us?” he offered. “I’m sure we can find a bigger table.”

  I shook my head. The last thing I wanted to do was be a third wheel on their date. I’d take sitting by myself in a bar on a Friday night over that.

  “No,” I said quickly. “I’m not staying long.”

  He looked at the full plate of food sitting in front of me. “You’re not?”

  “No. I…I’m actually not that hungry. I’ll probably just take this to go.”

  I was suddenly eager to leave as quickly as I possibly could. Whatever Daniel thought I might see in relation to Ginny didn’t matter. I just knew I didn’t want to stay there.

  Tate shrugged. “Okay. Well, the offer stands. It would be fun for all of us to catch up.”

  Betsy smiled. It looked genuine, not forced, but what did I know? “Yeah, it would,” she said.

  “Maybe another time,” I mumbled.

  They finally walked away, each heading into their respective bathrooms, and I breathed a sigh of relief. All I needed to do was flag down my server, get a to-go box, pay, and then get out of there.

  I looked around, trying to find her, and then did a double take.

  While I’d been talking to Tate and Betsy, someone had come into the bar.

  Someone I’d been waiting for.

  Ginny Potter.

  I tried not to stare. I picked up my soda and took a sip, still keeping my eyes on her.

  She was sitting alone, at a small table that was an exact replica of mine. She was in the same outfit I’d seen her in earlier that day, the navy slacks and the butterfly sweatshirt. It looked as though she’d put on a little makeup, as both her cheeks and lips were a rather startling shade of pink.

  I grabbed a piece of fish and dunked it in the puddle of tartar sauce. I bit into it, and was again surprised by how good this tasted. Clancy’s was batting two for two in the food department.

  I tried to be discreet as I watched Ginny. She had a beer in front of her but no food, and her eyes were locked on the television mounted above the bar. It was a basketball game, but I was too far away to be able to tell who was playing.

  Tate and Betsy walked by, casting glances in my direction. “Offer still stands,” Tate said with a smile.

  “Thanks, but I really am going.” I bit my lip. I was going to have to follow through with what I’d said; otherwise they might think I was just being rude and unfriendly by not joining them.

  I glanced back at Ginny. If she was going to do something, she needed to do it sooner rather than later.

  As soon as I was about to give up hop
e, a man walked by her table and handed her an envelope.

  I munched on the battered fish in my hand and watched. Ginny opened the envelope, pulled out a sheet of paper, then grabbed a pencil sitting on the table and scribbled something down. She reinserted the paper and slid the envelope to the edge of the table. A minute later, the man was back. He said nothing as he picked up the envelope, shoving it into the inside breast pocket of the tweed sports coat he was wearing.

  I had a million questions.

  Who was the man? What was on the paper? What had Ginny written down? And how did Daniel know that all of this was going to go down at Clancy’s?

  Yes, a million questions, and no real way to get answers.

  But I knew I needed to find a way to get them.

  I reached for my purse. I needed to go home, to think this through. Maybe a call to Shannon was in order.

  “Well, hello,” a voice said.

  It was a voice I recognized.

  Slowly, I straightened.

  And looked into the smiling face of Asher Ellsworth.

  FIFTEEN

  Before I could respond, Asher was sliding into the empty seat across from me.

  “Fancy seeing you here,” he said.

  He’d changed clothes since I’d last seen him, when I returned Duke after our second walk of the day. The polo shirt was gone, replaced by a light gray t-shirt. The sleeves hugged his biceps, and I didn’t think it was because it was a fitted shirt.

  “I was just grabbing dinner,” I told him.

  He smiled. “Best fish and chips in town.”

  “They’re definitely good.”

  “You planning to stick around?” he asked. “Can I buy you a drink?” His smile widened. “To thank you for taking such good care of Duke today.”

  “You’ve already paid me for that.”

  He shrugged. “So maybe I just want to buy you a drink…”

  I felt the heat rise to my cheeks. “Um, okay.”

  I didn’t know how to refuse. And I didn’t know that I wanted to.

  I dropped my purse back to the floor.

  It looked like I was staying for a while.

  My server walked by and Asher flagged her down, ordering a local beer for himself and looking to me for my order.