Pawsitively Swindled

by Melissa Erin Jackson

  “Good morning, Mayor Sable!” Amber said cheerily, but for reasons unknown, the greeting was tinged with an Irish accent. She blamed those Dungeons and Dragons players for putting the idea in her head! Why did she have to act even stranger than usual when she was nervous?

  “Good morning!” Yvette said, waving a hand once. “Are you from out of town, miss? You may have a better time if you try lot B or A. There’s some work being done on this section of the garden today, so it may be a bit noisy. I’m here to oversee the work.”

  “Ah, good ta know!” Amber said, her Irish accent growing heavier—perhaps it was even Scottish now. “Thank ye so much!”

  Ugh. Why?

  “Enjoy this beautiful day!” Yvette said, then continued on her way inside.

  What sounded like a leaf blower roared to life beyond the wall of blue cypresses that lined the garden.

  Was Randy here to oversee the work being done today, too? He was a land developer, after all.

  Finally deciding to risk it, Amber did her best to look casual—Alan Peterson’s admonishments loud in her head—as she finally strolled under the metal archway reading, “Welcome to Lilac Garden!” The large sign outside had said that this garden was home to many “woody perennial” plants, such as lilacs.

  Unlike Sorrel Garden, where the majority of the featured plants were leafy and green and low to the ground, this garden was full of flowering trees and shrubs. Most of the garden to the right of the path was untouched, but the left side had several men and women in matching khaki uniforms weeding, pruning, and planting. A man on a riding lawn mower tamed a large swath of wild vegetation.

  Several hundred feet up the path, a trio of people stood talking. Randy Tillman, Mayor Sable, and Chief Daniels. Tillman was facing her direction, so she decided to attach her magical listening bug to him. Plus she’d been tailing him for three days, so now she felt like he owed her a reward for her creepy efforts.

  While doing her best to look like an admirer of woody perennials, Amber conducted her listening spell. All that practice paid off, because almost instantly, she could hear their conversation.

  And, thanks to the memory spell she’d used on Simon, she knew what Tillman sounded like even though she’d never formally met the man.

  “What do you mean, you don’t know?” Tillman asked. “Isn’t it your job to know these things now, chief?”

  “Watch your tone,” Daniels snapped. “And I mean exactly what I said. The plan was foolproof. Judge Harper is known for harsh sentences and high bail. The minimum should have been $250K. House arrest shouldn’t have even come up.”

  “I talked to Harper this morning,” Yvette said. “He said it was as if he wasn’t in control of his mouth when he issued that sentence. He can’t explain why it happened either. There are four witness statements that all said the same thing. Simon had a well-known rivalry with Jameson. It should have worked.”

  “Yeah, well, it didn’t,” Tillman said. “What do we do now?”

  Amber sensed movement in the group and, worried one of them would see her trying to casually not watch them, she took out her phone and got up close and personal with a few flowers so the trio would think Amber was a flower enthusiast and nothing more.

  Ignoring Tillman’s question, Daniels said, “Last night you said you did something stupid. That’s why we’re here, right? What’d you do?”

  Tillman sighed. “I caught that Molly Hargrove woman snooping around my house last night.”

  The other two were quiet for a long beat.

  “And?” Yvette finally urged. “What was she doing when you caught her?”

  “Rummaging around our trash cans like a tiny blonde raccoon,” Tillman said. “The cameras caught her, and I literally had to chase her off. She didn’t find anything, from what I could see, but—”

  “The fact that she’s looking at all is cause for alarm,” Yvette said. “How does she even know who you are, though? It’s not like you’re in town that often, and you only moved into your rental, what, two weeks ago?”

  “Is this where the stupid part comes in?” Daniels asked. “Women have a tendency to turn you into a complete buffoon, I’ll give you that.”

  “I just flirted with her a little at Jameson’s dinner,” Tillman said, defensive.

  “Your definition of ‘a little’ and mine are different, I’m guessing,” Yvette said.

  “All I know is I was drunk enough to tell her about my sister-in-law’s birthday—she’s local—and that my wife, her sister, and both sets of kids were going to go out to celebrate, and that my wife was going to stay the night there. I hate her sister, so I planned to skip the whole thing. I may have let Molly know that I would be alone if she wanted to come by,” Tillman said. “I didn’t even remember telling her that. I woke up with no memory of it. I certainly wouldn’t have expected her to remember the date, let alone show up dressed to the nines with a bottle of wine in her hand.”

  “Oh God,” Daniels said, and Amber could see him tip his head back and stare at the sky for a moment while he composed himself. “So how did it go from her showing up to seduce you and her going through your trash? Is it possible you actually did the right thing and sent her away and she resorted to the trash as a last-ditch effort?”

  Amber could almost hear Tillman’s wince.

  “I let her in. We had some wine. I think there might have been something in my wine though, because one minute we’re talking and flirting on the couch and the next minute, I’m waking up in a puddle of my own drool,” Tillman said, mild embarrassment giving way to anger. “I’ve got a makeshift office set up in the house and I found her in there going through my files. We had words, I ran her out of there, and I thought that was the end of it. Then half an hour later, I get an alert from the cameras that she’s going through my trash.”

  It would figure that after all this time of watching Tillman, she’d missed last night’s excitement. Amber had packed it up after seven in the evening so she had seen Tillman’s wife leave, but not Molly’s arrival. This was partly because Amber needed to feed her cats, and partly because she had a crick in her neck from accidentally dozing off for a solid half hour in a weird position and was generally sick of hanging out in her car.

  Amber really, really wasn’t meant to be a PI.

  Yvette grunted. “Did she find anything? Is she going to be a problem for us?”

  “I don’t know,” Tillman said, defeated now. “She’s got to have a source close to us otherwise she wouldn’t have been after me. I wasn’t dumb enough to mention anything to her about Stone Gate, I know that much.”

  “You didn’t remember telling her what date your wife would be out of town,” Daniels said. “Who knows what else you told her. Your brain is rarely in the right place, man.”

  “Try saying that directly to my face next time?” Tillman said. “This deal wouldn’t even have a snowball’s chance if it weren’t for me. My patience is running real thin with you. You may be the chief of police in this ridiculous little town now, but it’s not like you earned it. I’m not even sure you can handle it. In fact, I know you can’t.”

  Amber glanced over to see tiny Yvette get in between the two men, a hand on either of their chests as she pushed them away from each other.

  “We don’t have time for your testosterone-fueled nonsense right now.” When the men took several steps apart, Yvette lowered her arms. “We’re sure now that Jameson was Molly’s source, right?”

  “The only proof we have of that is what Victoria apparently overheard,” Daniels said. “But yeah.”

  “We need to find out what Molly actually knows,” Yvette said.

  “She and Simon were in contact a lot up until the end, but we can’t get to him easily. That Wilson guy isn’t giving me anything,” Daniels said. “There’s some kind of internal investigation going on now since Simon’s sentencing threw everyone for a loop. Apparently there’s speculation that Simon or his lawyer paid the judge off somehow in exchange for a le
sser sentence. So Simon is basically being watched round the clock—both for his own protection and for the protection of the town. Some of Simon’s other assigned officers are even more immovable than Wilson.”

  “Definitely back off Simon,” Yvette said. “Last thing we need is for the spotlight to shift onto your department if rumor gets around that you’re fishing for information with Simon’s handlers. Bribery won’t work here either.”

  It said a lot about Daniels as a person and a cop, and Yvette as a mayor, that he wasn’t even remotely fazed by her bringing up bribery as something in Daniels’s arsenal. Chief Brown would have been deeply offended even if it had been a joke.

  “What we really need to know is what Jameson told Molly,” Tillman said. “Jameson wasn’t exactly the brightest crayon in the box—I can’t imagine it was much.”

  “Molly was snooping in your house, Tillman,” Daniels said. “That woman is both whip smart and like a dog with a bone—but even someone as good as her can’t get started without being pointed in the right direction. I think Jameson knew more than we gave him credit for.”

  Tillman cursed.

  “We could have talked Jameson down if we had more time, you know. He was just so angry that night; I really don’t know what got into him,” Yvette said. “If we had offered him something he really wanted, we could have swayed him.”

  “Yeah, well, Simon ruined that for us,” Daniels said.

  “And now Molly might,” Yvette said.

  “The gun is still safe, right?” Tillman asked.

  “Yeah. No one would even think to check the storage unit,” said Daniels. “It’s not in any of our names. Ballistics could tie the gun to the bullet. That’s our best backup plan in the wake of this Molly debacle. Maybe you can invite her to lunch one afternoon. Make sure people see you. Maybe you start an argument in the restaurant—accuse her of coming onto you when you thought she wanted to interview you for a story. Storm out. Then we plant the gun in her car and have an anonymous tip called in that Molly came back to Jameson’s after he’d kicked everyone out. We could make something up—maybe Molly was Jameson’s jilted lover. Or she found out the information he’d been feeding her had been fabricated and she was furious that he’d strung her along for a story that she thought could restart her pathetic ‘career.’”

  Amber’s stomach was doing a whole gymnastics routine. She did her best to keep her outward demeanor calm while she casually took a few more flower pictures.

  “Molly has such a reputation for being a snake, so I don’t think anyone would question any of that,” Daniels said. “Plus, you have record that she was snooping in your trash. That’s more than enough circumstantial evidence to shift some of the heat onto Molly while we figure out what to do about Simon.”

  Oh crap. I have to warn Molly.

  “It’s not a bad idea,” Yvette said. “But I say we wait things out a little longer. We don’t want to act too quickly and show our hand. If we sit tight for long enough and keep our heads down, Simon will still go down for it, just not in the way we originally planned. His court date is less than two weeks away, and Harper is furious that Simon got such a ludicrously light sentence. There will be no lenience for Simon. This is a setback, yes, but we can improvise. We’re all smart, resourceful people.”

  The men seemed to agree with that.

  “Do we know if Simon’s remembered anything?” Yvette asked. “That will be the only thing that could truly throw a wrench in all this.”

  “No clue, honestly,” Daniels said. “Wilson won’t help and my guys aren’t allowed in on the rotating shifts to keep an eye on the guy. Believe me; I’ve asked.”

  “Could you talk to Bianca?” Tillman asked, turning toward Yvette. “You’re in contact because of the flower festival, aren’t you? Maybe butter her up and offer her extra resources for the festival in this turbulent time, yadda yadda yadda, and then ask how Simon is doing. Get two women talking and in five minutes you know each other’s life stories, right?”

  “I could try,” Yvette said, though she didn’t sound remotely thrilled with the idea. “Bianca isn’t exactly the most forthcoming with personal information.”

  “You’re supposedly charming though,” Tillman said, with no hint of either sarcasm or mirth. “You won your campaign. Charm the information out of her. Simon’s reduced sentence is very bad for us. All of us. We need him to go down for this or all our hard work goes out the window.”

  I have to warn Bianca, too.

  “Have either of you heard from Victoria?” Yvette asked. “She’s not answering my calls or emails.”

  “Nope,” said Tillman. “Maybe she and Sullivan are on a late honeymoon.”

  Daniels scoffed. “Like he could afford it. Last I heard, Sullivan is defending a guy with ties to the mafia. Victoria mentioned Sullivan’s been getting paranoid about security. If you ask me, it’s because her husband is a crap lawyer. He’s never won a single case! He’s likely going to lose this case like he’s lost all the others and then his client’s ticked off business associates are gonna come after him. She might just be lying low right now. What does it matter, though? She delivered. Even if her husband is a two-bit moron, she’s not. She’s a dry-labbing artist.”

  What in the world is dry-labbing?

  Amber’s head was spinning. She needed to sit down and process all of this. Instead, she moved down the path a few inches and took yet another close-up picture of a flower. She was going to run out of room on her phone at this rate.

  “I gotta get home,” Tillman said. “I need a drink.”

  Amber took that as her cue and headed for the exit. She cut off the listening spell and there were a few blissful seconds of her head being empty of all voices—then her own filled the space with various takes on “Oh crap. Oh crap. Oh crap!”

  When she finally got into her car, the first person she called wasn’t Bianca Pace or Molly Hargrove.

  As the sound of the phone ringing played through the speakers, Amber did her best to get out of the lot before the trio made it out of the garden. She didn’t want to see any of their faces.

  No matter which of them pulled the trigger, Amber knew they were all complicit now.

  “Hi, Amber,” Chief Brown said. “What can I do for you?”

  “I may have just conducted a spying spell on Mayor Sable, Chief Daniels, and Randy Tillman and Simon was definitely framed,” Amber said in a rush.

  He was silent for a beat.

  “Come to the station,” he said, his tone weary. “I’ll make more coffee.”

  Chapter 19

  Amber walked into the police station, waved in greeting to Dolores, aka Sour Face, and moved toward the hallway leading to Chief Brown’s office, only to have Dolores stop her with a “Ma’am! Where do you think you’re going?”

  Halting in her tracks, Amber suddenly remembered that she was still the redheaded Sienna Tate, not the brown-haired Amber Blackwood. She reversed course and stopped before Dolores’s desk. The woman scowled at Amber. At least Amber knew now that Dolores had a disdain for people in general, and not just her specifically.

  “Och,” Amber said, that infernal now-Scottish accent becoming even more over-the-top. The whole of the United Kingdom was likely offended at this point. “I beg ye pardon, miss. I have an appointment with the chief of police, I do.”

  Dolores cocked a single blonde brow, as if she could see right through Amber’s glamour and already had enough of her nonsense. “One moment. I’ll see if he’s available.” She plucked the phone from its cradle on the desk without taking her eyes off Amber. “What did you say your name was again?” she asked as she slowly brought the receiver to her ear.

  “I’m called Sienna, ma’am,” Amber said. “Sienna Tate.”

  Dolores sniffed once, as if she were a bloodhound trying to scent out the lie. “Hi, chief,” she said into the phone, eyes still fixed on Amber. “I’ve got a Sienna Tate here to see you.” Dolores put a hand over the mouthpiece. “And what is t
his regarding?”

  Crap. Amber had forgotten to tell Chief Brown about her new stakeout persona; he didn’t know the name Sienna Tate. “Ah, tell him I’m here on account of the kerfuffle with the peppermint farmer.”

  Dolores stared at her a beat. “The peppermint farmer …”

  “Ay,” Amber said. “Ye could also tell ’im tha’ there be a trio of people who are up ta something right shifty.”

  Dolores blinked once. “Are you drunk, ma’am? I think I need to ask you to leave.”

  “I am not drunk, I assure ye!” Amber said, though she thought she very well could give the rum-loving Jack Sparrow a run for his money right now. “Ah! I’ve just come from Lilac Garden, I have! Tell the good chief that.”

  “Why don’t you wait in the lob—”

  Just then, Chief Brown poked his head around the corner. “Come on back, Sienna.”

  Amber and Dolores both flinched at his sudden arrival. Dolores hung up the phone and crossed her arms, then her gaze flitted back and forth between the chief and this very strange redhead.

  “I thank ye kindly for ye hospitality,” Amber said to Dolores and doffed an imaginary hat.

  When Amber turned to follow the chief, he stared at her with his lip slightly curled. Then he seemed to remember what was happening here, thanked Dolores, and headed back for his office. Amber followed quickly behind.

  Once the door was closed and locked behind them, the chief got right in her face and whisper-hissed, “What on earth is the matter with you? Why are you talking like that?”