by S. Y. Robins
She jumped up startled, noticing that it was 6AM and she was scheduled to meet with Samantha and her crew in a few minutes. She cursed, upset with herself for oversleeping and then the pounding started again. She quickly put on some clothes and left her room.
“Who could that be?” she said moving towards the door when her father stepped out of his room and stopped her.
“Let me get it.”
She shrugged and he opened the door. Detective Roonie stood there. “Is Ms. Pepper home?”
“And you are?” her father asked suspiciously.
“Detective Roonie.”
“It’s okay, Dad. I know him.”
“Dad?” Detective Roonie said inviting himself in. He then turned to Sandy, “There was a fire in the alley behind your shop.”
“What?” Sandy said startled.
“We put it out, but I thought you would want to know. There wasn’t any substantial damage.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“Let’s go,” her father said and Sandy followed him out to his truck. They followed closely behind the detective to Sandy’s shop.
Kat pulled up at the same time and Sandy realized she had forgotten that Kat was scheduled to work that day doing prep work on her own.
“Is everything okay?” Kat asked looking around.
“Someone set a fire outside the shop.”
It was then that Samantha and her crew pulled up, and behind them stopped a car and the man in the photo from Carver’s office got out quickly and stomped over to the van. Yelling ensued as he and Marshall got into a screaming match.
“What the heck is going on here?” Detective Roonie asked.
“No clue,” Sandy replied.
“Listen, Jasper. You don’t have a contract with the station. Marshall does. Son or not, Marshall’s doing the segment.” Samantha said with a bored expression.
“What are they doing here?” the detective asked looking at Samantha curiously.
“I—uhh agreed that they could do the segment.”
“Seriously?” Kat said, sounding angry.
“Well no one’s going in there now.” Detective Roonie said decisively.
Arguing ensued and then Detective Roonie said in an authoritative voice. “That’s enough. No one’s going in there, but Sandy and her crew. Move along the rest of you. Let them check everything out and then the rest of you can come back in like 30 minutes. Move it!”
There was much grumbling as everyone departed and Sandy’s father said, “Let’s check the inside, just to be sure there’s no damage.”
He entered along with Kat and Sandy. Detective Roonie leaned against the door with his arms folded keeping anyone else from even thinking about going in. Sandy looked around her shop and then stepped outside near the alley and looked around. It looked like the fire never even touched her building.
“It could have been a homeless person trying to keep warm,” Sandy volunteered, still upset but not wanting to assume the worst.
“Hmm…maybe,” her father said. “Listen, I’m going to go talk to that Jasper character. He rubs me the wrong way. You guys will be okay here, right?”
“Sure,” Sandy said and her father left, taking Detective Roonie with him.
“Alright, let’s get the prep work started. Maybe today we’ll actually have customers,” Sandy joked although she wasn’t feeling that the situation she was in was funny at all.
She went to get the supplies together and as she prepared to exit the walk-in refrigerator, she turned around and promptly dropped everything to the floor.
“Kat?” Sandy said looking at her assistant as if she didn’t recognize her. “What are you doing, Kat?” Sandy said now with fear in her voice. Kat had a gun in her hand, trained on Sandy.
“Don’t move. This is the perfect place,” she said without emotion.
“Kat what are you doing?”
“Getting rid of you.” She said without remorse.
“Getting rid of me? I don’t understand. What’s going on?”
Kat sighed, “I guess you are as stupid as you look. I killed Carver. Now I’m going to kill you.”
Sandy shook her head, not believing it and then she finally paid attention to the shirt Kat had on. It was different from her other band shirts. This shirt read Campus Forensics Club or CFC, as had been written on the flash drive.
“I don’t understand, why?”
“Because Carver used me. He promised me that we had a future together. He told me that he was leaving his wife. He was such a liar. I heard him over the phone one day trying to reconcile with her. And when I told him that I overheard everything, he just laughed at me. Told me he had other things better to do than worry about the feelings of some co-ed.”
As she spoke, she backed Sandy further and further into the refrigerator. It was then that Sandy heard a voice calling her name. Imani? She thought to herself with panic. What was she doing here?
Kat looked back at the same time and that was all the distraction Sandy needed as she tossed a bag full of dark chocolate that she grabbed from the shelf at Kat’s head. Kat didn’t drop the gun, but she was caught off balance and Sandy tossed herself on Kat knocking her to the floor. She’d never been in a real fight before, so she had no idea what to do next so she focused on trying to knock the gun out of Kat’s hand. Sitting on top of Kat she started to slam Kat’s wrist down repeatedly while Kat pulled at her hair and punched at Sandy’s ribs. Sandy screamed in pain, but eventually Kat lost her grip on the gun. The gun went spinning across the floor and stopped right at Imani’s feet who looked at the gun and then at the spectacle in front of her. Sandy was trying to stay upright while Kat bucked and flailed like a bull trying to unhinge a cowboy.
“Help!” Sandy screeched as finally she fell off of Kat and immediately went sprawling to the floor. Kat tried to reach the gun, but it was too late. Imani had it in her hand and she had it aimed at Kat.
“Honey, I’ve been shooting since I was ten. And trust me, I never miss. So stay still unless you want a bullet hole or two in you.” Imani said without pause. Her voice and her hand didn’t waver. And Sandy with a sigh collapsed to the floor, breathing heavily.
“Don’t mess with her. She grew up in Texas,” she managed to breathe out before her father came walking through the back door.
“What in the world---” he said immediately stopping and assessing the situation.
“Dad, that’s my best friend Imani. Imani this is my long lost dad. Oh and Kat’s the killer. I think I’m going to be sick now.” She then turned over and dry heaved a bit while her father went to restrain Kat. Imani put the gun down and went and placed a hand on her friend’s hair.
“You never held a gun in your life and you can barely see without your glasses on,” Sandy said wiping at her mouth.
“Yeah well, she didn’t know that.”
“Welcome back,” Sandy said with a wavering smile.
Imani wrapped her arms around her friend and said, with a shaky voice, “Next time I plan to pop in for a visit, I’ll call.”
“Hopefully next time, someone won’t have a gun trained on me.”
“Yeah, that would be nice too.” Imani said as she helped Sandy off the ground. “I’m glad you walked in when you did,” Sandy said fighting back tears.
“I’m glad I decided to fly in to check on you too. That was scary, but you held your own.” Imani said patting her friend on the back proudly.
Sandy winced, “Remind me to never try to compete as a professional boxer. I suck.”
‘“Um ladies?” Sandy’s father said and the two turned towards him as he struggled to keep a cursing Kat under control.
“Would one of you care to call Detective Roonie?”
“Oh yeah. I’m on it, Dad.” And with an apologetic smile in his direction, she reached for Imani’s phone and began to dial.
* * *
Four hours later, Imani, Sandy, Granny Pepper and Sandy’s father sat on the back porch of her grandmother
’s house. Sandy had just gotten off the phone with Detective Roonie.
“So did you find out what happened?” Imani had asked before Sandy could even sit down.
Sandy nodded and lowered her sore body into the chair. Kat had pummeled her good, even with one hand occupied by holding the gun.
“Kat’s not talking. She’s lawyered up. Apparently, she’s from a rich family in Oklahoma. But from what Detective Roonie could find out, she and Carver were having an affair. He tried to end it and she went bonkers.”
“And the flash drive?” her father asked and Sandy shook her head.
“That’s the funny part. Apparently, Kat saw me with it and assumed that I would see the nude pictures on it. She had taken them and had given them to Carver as a gift. I guess she didn’t know that Carver had protected the files until after she hit me over the head and stole the flash drive back.”
Sandy continued, “But she wasn’t taking any chances that I would eventually figure it out given that she knew I had already visited campus once. And would have eventually remembered that she was a forensic science major and put it together that the flash drive had her club’s initials on it.”
“So she deliberately set the fire near your building?” her grandmother asked.
“She claimed she didn’t, but she had used the moment to get me alone to talk to me, that's what she told the detective.”
“If by talk she meant shoot.” Imani said bitterly.
“She’s claiming that we’re all crazy and she didn’t intend to hurt any of us.”
“She clearly was going to shoot you and leave you for dead in the refrigerator.”
“That’s what I told, Detective Roonie.”
“Wow. I hope she doesn’t walk after all this,” Imani said shaking her head.
“You and me both,” Sandy said shaking her head.
“Did you figure out why Jasper was in town?” Sandy asked her father.
“Just being smarmy. He came to ask his dad for money to fund another one of his endeavors.”
“Well, all that matters is that you’re all safe. Cold beer anyone?” Grandmother asked and they all raised their hands in unison.
Granny Pepper laughed, “Drinks all around then.”
The End