Literally Dead (A Pepper Brooks Cozy Mystery Book 1)

by Eryn Scott

  10

  The next day, I waited in the hall so I could question Trish and Heather about this “Katie” person they’d mentioned. I leaned against the wall as I watched the students walk by me.

  As I stood there like a creepy stalker, I mused about how Nancy Drew stories had, in no way, prepared me for the amount of awkward waiting involved in sleuthing. I mean, reading the books it was all bravery and justice and people congratulating Nancy. But in reality, it was like ninety-percent sticking your nose where it didn’t belong and hoping you found something to justify the weird things you had to do to find it.

  Down the hall I spotted that Danny guy Josh was talking about last night. He was exiting one of the classrooms. I chewed on my lip, knowing I should question him. My heart pounded and I moved to follow him.

  Just then, Heather and Trish turned the corner, walking my way. Darn. I stopped my pursuit of Danny, unsure of which lead to follow. He quickly disappeared down another hallway, making my decision easier. I walked to Heather and Trish, teeth bared in my friendliest, tell-me-all-the-things grin.

  “Hey! So I was thinking about what you two said the other day…” I paused and looked around — no Evilsworth or Destiny to be seen — “You know, about the fight between Evensworth and Campbell.”

  Heather nodded. “Yeah.”

  I continued with my question. “Who is this Katie person you said told you about the fight? Did she see it? Could you point her out to me?”

  “Don’t you know Katie?” Trish asked.

  Heather’s forehead creased in confusion. “Yeah, Katie. In our next class. Right there.” Her eyes locked on someone behind me.

  Oh no. They weren’t talking about —

  “Katie Landin?” I asked as I turned just in time to see her change course and head over.

  “Yeah! Katie.” They both smiled and nodded.

  I, however, stayed frozen in horror. They were right; I did know Katie Landin. She’d been in the same hall as me in the dorms. By the second week of school our freshman year, I’d nicknamed her Crazy Katie because of all of the wacky things she always said. Katie was the kind of crazy which was downright exhausting.

  In fact, as she pranced up to us with wide eyes and red lipstick a few shades too bright, I felt my shoulders preemptively slump from fatigue.

  “Heyheyhey!” she said and then cackled out a loud laugh.

  I gritted my teeth. “Hi, Katie.”

  “Pepper! I see you all the time but we never get the chance to chat.” She gave my arm an unsolicited squeeze.

  Yeah, I thought. That’s more than a coincidence.

  “I know! This quarter’s been crazy busy for everyone,” I said.

  Heather and Trish backed me up with supportive nods.

  “Ohmygosh, the funniest thing happened the other day, Pepper! I ran into Michael.”

  Michael was my latest boyfriend, the one who’d broken my heart last summer when he moved to Seattle to start his career.

  “Oh,” I squeaked out.

  Katie said, “Yeah, I was visiting my cousin in the city and bumped into him. He was with some model-looking girl who looked like she’d just jumped out of a J-Crew shoot.”

  Just what everyone loved to hear, right?

  “Didn’t stop him from perusing the goods, though,” Katie added, clicking her tongue as she motioned to her body.

  I almost groaned. Katie constantly thought guys were hitting on her; it didn’t matter whether they were way older or way younger than her, she was going to tell you they were totally “all over” her. And even though I was pretty sure Michael hadn’t been blatantly “perusing her goods,” I added it to the list of things I didn’t want to hear about my ex.

  Heather cleared her throat. “Well… we’ve got —”

  Trish nodded. “Yeah…”

  They turned on their heels and headed into class, leaving me as a sacrifice with only a quick glance behind.

  “I mean, was he like that when he was with you?” Katie asked, bringing me back into a conversation I was so desperately wishing I could escape.

  I shook my head. No, and that was the problem. Michael had been great, almost perfect. I mean, the guy was a little too in love with the gym and had this annoying obsession with “clean eating” — he’d never said anything, but I could feel his frustration at how I spent most of my time curled up on couches reading and eating carbs.

  I had stupidly thought that we had a future together, even believed him when he said he wanted to stay here with me. But after graduation, he’d called it off and left anyway, saying this town was too small for him. Small or not, Pine Crest was in my bones. I didn’t want to leave it, not ever. That’s when I’d decided to stop dating guys from NWU.

  Katie continued to prattle on about her run-in with Michael.

  “… I mean, you would think some woman who could’ve easily been a model could hold a man’s attention, but it’s not the case. I see it all the time. A lot of guys think they want someone who’s stick thin, but they can’t seem to keep their eyes off all of this.” Katie laughed and swung her hips as she gestured to her body.

  And just like that, my hopes of clearing Fergie’s name sank to the speckled Berber carpet of the hallway. I couldn’t trust the word of a person for whom making stuff up was as natural as breathing. For all I knew, based on how Katie twisted completely normal interactions, Evilsworth and Campbell could’ve simply passed by each other in the hall without saying hello and Katie perceived it as a huge fight.

  Despite the gloom settling over me, I faked a laugh to show Katie that yes, I agreed she had it “goin’ on” for sure.

  “Well… good talking to you,” I said, and moved in the direction Trish and Heather had gone. “See you around.”

  Once in class, I slumped into my seat. Evilsworth strode into the room. Not only had I found out Crazy Katie was the witness I’d been so excited about, but I’d also missed my chance to talk to Danny. Crossing my arms over my chest, I decided today was officially the worst.

  By the time class was over that afternoon, the only possible thing which could save me from the foul mood I’d gotten myself into was to spend some time in my favorite spot on campus — besides the library, that is. My spot was just behind the science building, next to the creek. There was a small bench next to an old willow tree. Between the babbling water and the way the wind would whip around the side of the building to rustle the willows long, leafy branches, it was by far the most relaxing place on campus. I had a book I’d been meaning to start and an hour to kill before I needed to head home and let Hammy out.

  My feet began to take me there as if they were a horse who knew the way back to the barn by heart. As I walked, I went over the facts of the case in my head.

  Motive-wise, both Evilsworth and this Danny character had reason to harm the doctor, though Danny’s was much less convincing than Evilsworth’s. But Josh had said he had a history of violence, so… Who was I to say what might set someone off? I mean, I was known to get irrationally angry when someone bought the last scone in front of me in line at Bittersweet, and I didn’t even have an anger management problem.

  I tried to be objective and think about Fergie and any possible motives she might have to off her former lover. I supposed the fact that they used to be involved brought another level of depth to their relationship, and depth was ripe for hiding all manner of strife — if reading the classics had taught me anything. Fergie mentioning how they’d been involved “off and on” definitely added a new layer of questions to this conundrum, but I still felt sure that my mentor couldn’t have killed the man.

  Opportunity, it seemed, favored all three suspects. Fergie knew Dr. C was in her office and had been slightly flustered when I’d seen her walking away from the place, but she had been with Stephanie. Evilsworth could’ve been in the building at that time, though I still needed to verify all of this since he had all but ran away yesterday when I tried to ask him about the deceased doctor — yet another tidbit
which made him seem less than innocent, I might add. And Danny, as Josh had reluctantly shared, had been on a smoke break during the exact time the doctor had been offed.

  It was the weapon that had me the most stumped, however. I mean, poison? Who used poison these days? That part definitely fit the Shakespeare quotes. When they weren’t stabbing each other in the back, or beheading each other, the characters in Shakespeare’s plays did seem to favor poison. But who could even get their hands on the stuff these days?

  Without access to the police database, without knowledge of what kind of poison it was that killed the guy, I was decidedly up a creek in this investigation. In real life, however, I was now standing beside a creek, having finally reached my destination. The fresh, crisp air wafting up off the water mixed with the quiet babbling of the water over gray and blue toned rocks. I shook my head and felt the weight of all of this on my shoulders, and I was looking forward to sitting down in silence and letting it all slip away with the breeze.

  That was when I noticed someone already sitting in my favorite spot. Just as quickly, my brain recognized the dark hair.

  Alex.

  Ugh. I really did just want to be alone. But I wasn’t about to let him kick me out of my favorite spot. So I walked over anyway, pulling my bag off my shoulder and scooting onto the bench next to him.

  Alex’s attention jumped from his book to me. “Hey.”

  “Come here often?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Huh. Me, too.” I pulled my book from my bag and opened it with every intention of losing myself in my reading.

  I thought I could feel his eyes on me, watching me warily for a few seconds before going back to his book. But even when he seemed to be reading, too, I couldn’t focus. I suddenly wanted to know what he was reading. My gaze tiptoed over his shoulder and my breath caught in my throat.

  The man was reading Dickens. A Tale of Two Cities to be exact. I emitted a small “eeee” sound before I could stop myself. I saw Alex’s lip twitch, but he didn’t look in my direction. Dickens was my absolute, hands-down, fangirl-status, favorite author. I loved him like Fergie loved The Bard.

  My lips pressed tightly together, as if that might keep the words from spilling out. But after the span of two breaths, I couldn’t hold them in any longer.

  “That’s one of my favorite books. What part are you at?”

  Alex sighed and let the book rest in his lap. “Um… there was a whole bunch of wine in the street, some guy delivered a letter, and now they’re talking with some crazy old guy who lives in an attic and makes shoes.”

  I scoffed. “That crazy old guy is Lucie’s father. She thought he was dead.”

  “Yeah, but I’m on page…” he checked, “fifty and pretty much nothing’s happened yet.”

  “Just wait,” I said. “The ending is so worth it.”

  Alex raised his eyebrows in an okay-sure-but-I’m-not-getting-my-hopes-up kind of way.

  “I’m serious, it’s lovely and heartbreaking and you won’t be able to read it without crying.” I remembered staying up until two in the morning to finish the last few pages and how tears had streamed down my face when I flipped to the back cover.

  Alex said, “So if he can write an ending that good, why couldn’t he make the rest of this stuff more interesting? Why wait to give us the good stuff until the end?”

  “The ending means nothing if you don’t get to know the characters. The less interesting part is character building.”

  He wrinkled his forehead. “A hundred or so pages of getting to know people? Seems like overkill. Take Melville, for instance. ‘Call me Ishmael.’ First line. Alright. Got it. This guy is Ishmael. Next few lines, I find out he’s poor and he’s a sailor. Cool, I care about him and now the good stuff can start to happen.”

  My head fell back and a groan escaped me. “You’ve got to be kidding me. One paragraph and you’re good?” Before he could answer, I pointed at him and added, “And don’t try to tell me your guy Melville didn’t drone on with the best of them. I definitely fell asleep more than once while I was reading that whale of a novel.”

  He ignored my cut to Melville — and my awesome pun — and said, “I guess I’ve always been able to make my mind up about people pretty quick. I don’t need more than a few minutes in real life.”

  “Really?” I asked, incredulous.

  His dark brown eyes snapped onto mine like our pupils were constructed out of the opposite poles of two magnets.

  “Yeah. Like when I first met you.” He stared at me and I could feel my cheeks heat up under his gaze.

  It was the first time he’d treated me like anything other than an inconvenience, annoyingly always where I shouldn’t be. I suddenly worried I might not be ready to hear what he thought of me and my eyes angled down, focusing on my hands instead.

  “I knew you were going to be trouble.”

  “Trouble?” I asked, waiting for yet another hilarious mention of how I’d almost sabotaged his father’s investigation. But when I met his eyes again, the softness behind them made me falter. My mouth gaped open for a second before I clamped it shut.

  Alex nodded. “The first day I saw you, you were wearing some huge gray sweater my grandpa would’ve worn, and it was eighty degrees outside.”

  I squirmed. I hadn’t worn that gray sweater for months, having forgotten it over at Maggie’s. Which meant he’d noticed me back during the summer.

  Clearing my throat, I said, “Wool is very breathable and can keep you cool, especially in humid climates.” My words were small and sounded like whispers after his deep ones.

  “You strode into that library like you owned the place, plopped your stuff down on the chair, kicked off your shoes, and tucked your feet under you as you sank into the cushion.”

  I was pretty cocky when it came to my library.

  “Did you know you move your toes when you read?” he asked, moving slightly closer.

  I nodded, glancing at his lips and then down at my lap. I could almost feel Alex’s eyes on my face, studying me. He leaned forward.

  At that point in my life, I’d kissed a good handful of guys. Some had been great, some not so much. I wasn’t an expert by any measure, but I knew enough to recognize what was happening. Alex was going to kiss me.

  I licked my lips and… blurted out the first thing which came to my mind. “I know who killed Dr. Campbell.”

  11

  Of course, I didn’t actually know who had killed Dr. C. So when Alex sat back and spat out, “What?” my eyes swiveled about.

  Alex, however, patiently waited for me to answer his question which was still hanging between us. Not that there was all that much space between us; he was still sitting very close.

  Besides the initial and most obvious flaw in my statement — that I couldn’t definitively name the killer — Alex’s furrowed brow brought to mind another important consideration which had been overlooked when my brain was grabbing the idea from the pile marked “quick fixes.” Alex had told me to stay out of the investigation and the fact I wasn’t heeding his advice was supposed to be a secret, from him especially.

  “Pepper,” he said in a low growl, his eyes darkening.

  Biting my lip, I thought up a few more reactive, and equally terrible, ideas. After going through each of them, I decided running away was my only remaining course of action. My body lurched forward.

  “Freeze,” he said in his best, commanding police officer tone. His voice cut through me and I did, in some sort of awkward squat position. “Sit back down.”

  I sucked in a deep breath and plopped my butt onto the bench, again. “Okay,” I groaned. “You got me. I don’t actually know who did it.” I paused. “Hey, I’m considering getting a part time job. Do you think you could put a good word in for me at the library?” I willed him to go along with the change in subject.

  He cocked one eyebrow, ignored my attempted diversion, and said, “I thought you were going to let this go.”

  Desp
ite how the man all but screamed skeptical vibes, there was something about those dark brown eyes and his charming complete disregard of charm which made me inherently trust him.

  “I’m still looking into the case. But only because I’ve gotten a few leads and I have to clear Fergie’s name.”

  “Leads?” he asked.

  “Dr. Campbell got in two fights right before he died. One of them with some sound guy and the other with one of my teachers, who is an awful person, by the way. I’m pretty sure that teacher is the one who did it. I just don’t have any — you know — evidence to actually prove that.”

  Alex chuckled. “Yeah, that pesky evidence gets in the way all the time.”

  I huffed. “I’m working on it. I found a witness, but I’m not quite sure if she’s reliable.”

  Alex’s forehead furrowed as he seemed to digest this news. Seconds later, his attention settled back on me. His face softened and he leaned toward me again, his hand moving to cup my cheek.

  Wait. How’d we get back to kissing?

  I panicked, but this time refrained from blurting out random exclamations — mostly because they had proven to be an impermanent solution to the problem, but also because I realized I kinda wanted to kiss Alex. I could smell his minty breath and feel the warmth of his hand.

  Just about to let my eyelids flutter closed and give in to his probably devastatingly soft lips, I watched his fingers curl and then pluck something from my hair. My skin flushed hot and cold as I focused on the crispy fall leaf he pulled from my hair and held up for me to see. He leaned back, dropping the leaf to the ground.

  Dear lord. The man hadn’t been about to kiss me after all. My mind reeled. Had I leaned in? Could he tell I thought it was a kiss?

  Alex stood up. “I could go with you. Give you a second opinion about the witness.” He folded one of the pages of his book down and then shut it.

  It took me a moment to let go of my pride, but eventually my rational brain won out. The truth was, it would be nice to have someone with actual police training there with me. Heck, I hadn’t actually questioned Katie earlier. I should at least give her a chance.