Original Secrets: A Whispering Pines Mystery, Book 3

by Shawn McGuire

Landscaping is more involved than I realized. I’m capable of pots on the deck, but if I’m going to do justice to this house, I’ll need help.

  Morgan had told me that our grandmothers met at a gardening show. That had to be what was coming next. I could hardly wait to meet Morgan’s grandmother.

  “Good afternoon, Sheriff Jayne.”

  I looked up to see Lupe standing in my doorway and my heart sunk a little. I liked Lupe and enjoyed the spirited conversations we sometimes had, but right now all I wanted to do was read.

  She looked casually around the station, poked her head in my office, and then frowned.

  “He’s not here,” I said.

  “Who’s not here?”

  “Reed. He went to get lunch and patrol the village.”

  She slumped into the chair across from my desk. “I stopped by earlier today. Martin told me you weren’t in yet. Were you out investigating that death?”

  “You mean Barry? No, I spoke with the medical examiner late yesterday afternoon. Turns out it was accidental. There’s nothing suspicious about his death.”

  I filled Lupe in on the preliminary results and how there was nothing further to investigate. She looked heartbroken. As much fun as she was having putting together her pieces about the village for the online magazine, village life wasn’t for everyone. I got the feeling that Lupe Gomez was really a big city, hard news reporter at heart.

  “Is the enchantment of Whispering Pines wearing off for you?”

  “It’s not.” She shrugged. “I don’t know. I like it here. I like the people.”

  “But?”

  “But I’m starting to feel like I am regurgitating the same story over and over. ‘Tell me about your childhood . . . Have you lived in Whispering Pines your whole life . . .? No? What brought you here, then?”

  “I thought you were moving on to the fortune tellers. They’ve got to have some interesting stories for you.”

  “Maybe. I don’t know.” She slumped further into her chair. “I didn’t make it over there yet.”

  “Don’t you have a deadline?”

  “Four o’clock tomorrow afternoon.”

  She really was in a funk. “Have you met Lily Grace yet?”

  “Doesn’t sound familiar. Who is she?”

  “Teenage fortune teller. She’ll give you a great story. Her ‘gift’ turned on a few months ago, so unless her elders have instructed her otherwise, she’ll give you the real scoop on what it means to do a reading for someone. Go talk to her. I’ll be shocked if she doesn’t give you something good.”

  “Okay, I’ll give her a try.” She sighed like she doubted it would work, but I saw a little gleam in her eye. “Otherwise, I might have to hide a body somewhere just to have something juicy to write about.”

  I stared at her. “You do remember that I’m the sheriff? I arrest people for things like that. Then you’ll have to write about life from inside the pokey.”

  She made a face, like she was considering the option, and then smiled at me. “And you know I’m joking.”

  The front door opened then and Newt James, the village delivery guy, poked his head in the doorway.

  Late-twenties, six foot two, beachy blonde hair, blue eyes, athletic build.

  “Hey, Sheriff.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “I’ve got boxes for you.”

  “Excellent.” I stood and went to hold the front door open for him. His battery-operated delivery cart was fully loaded today.

  “I thought vehicles weren’t allowed in the village,” Lupe said from behind me.

  “We make an exception for Newt,” I explained. “He’s the only delivery guy for the entire village, except for the restaurants. They’ve got a separate food service. Some days Newt has so many items to deliver, it would take him all day if we forced him to use a handcart. Mr. Powell rigged a golf cart with a flatbed, bumper hitch, and small trailer. It’s battery-operated so there’s minimal noise and no emissions. Nature lover approved.” I turned to find Lupe’s eyes lingering on Newt’s wide shoulders and muscular arms. “I thought you were hot for Martin.”

  She blinked. “What?”

  “You never order this much,” Newt said. “Planning something special?”

  “It makes you a little crazy sometimes, doesn’t it?” I asked. “You’re sort of like Santa, but you have no idea what’s in the packages.”

  He laughed. “At Christmas time I wear a red coat and elf hat.”

  I swear, Lupe drooled a little bit.

  “I don’t think he meant that’s all he wears,” I whispered to her.

  “How do you know I don’t know what’s in the boxes?” He flashed Lupe a grin and a wink. “These, for example, have walkie-talkies.”

  He set four matching boxes on the simple wooden bench next to the front door.

  “That’s because,” I pointed out, “there’s a picture of walkie-talkies on the outside of the box.”

  “That does help.” He went out and came back in with a large, flat box. “I have no idea what’s in this one.”

  “Portable whiteboard,” I explained. “Helps me think better when I can scribble ideas on something bigger than a piece of paper. I ordered one for the house as well. Did it—?”

  “Yep, delivered it about an hour ago.”

  “Great. They said one was on backorder. Must’ve found an extra.”

  Newt gave me a little salute as he dropped two final boxes with office supplies on the bench and left the station. “See you next time, Sheriff.”

  “Walkie-talkies?” Lupe asked.

  “Since cell phones don’t work around here,” I explained, “and I’m not always in my office, I figured I would distribute these to various businesses. This way they can call me if they need me.”

  “Smart.” She stood, hands shoved in her pockets, looking bored. “Where did you say Martin went?”

  “To patrol the village. If you head over there, you might run into him.”

  “What makes you think I—”

  “Hate to tell you this,” I interrupted, “but you are as easy to read as a front-page headline.”

  “He worked for the station before? Was he a deputy then, too? Has he always lived here? What else can you tell me about him? Have you ever noticed how super-hot he is? Wait, do you have a thing for him?”

  “Stop.” I held both hands up in front of her face. It was like a floodgate opened, and the last thing I wanted was to be caught in a flood. “First of all, I’m his boss. Second, not my type. Third, I have—” I almost said Tripp.

  “So Martin is available? Do you know if he has a girlfriend?”

  Fine. I’d deal with this now or the topic would keep coming back at me. “As far as I know, Reed is single. Why don’t you go find him and ask him for yourself? If you hang out at the pentacle garden, you’ll probably see him.”

  The normally bold and daring Lupe Gomez was rendered speechless. Literally. She opened her mouth, and nothing came out. Really? She was shy around guys?

  “Guess I need to go that direction anyway if I’m going to meet up with this teenage fortune teller of yours. What did you say her name was?”

  At that moment, Reed entered the station. He froze as soon as he saw Lupe standing there, then cleared his throat, and continued to his desk. No way was I going to hang around and watch the two of them making googly eyes at each other again. Besides, I hadn’t done any actual police work yet today.

  “Right on time,” I said. “The walkie-talkies I ordered just arrived. I’m going to deliver them. Would you plug in two of the units to start charging? One is for me, the other for you.”

  “Walkie-talkies?” Reed asked.

  I explained my plan to him.

  “Good idea. Tracking down Sheriff Brighton could be a nightmare sometimes.”

  He looked impressed with me for the second time that afternoon. First my knowledge of touch DNA and alerting potential victims locked in the trunk and now this. I was on a roll. That meant I should leave before I did s
omething stupid and he took points away from me. Besides, the googly eyes had started.

  Chapter 13

  Since the healing center/yoga studio was literally one hundred yards from the sheriff’s station, I delivered the first walkie-talkie unit to Jola. Next, my trusty K-9 and I jumped into the Cherokee and headed for the east side of the village. First stop there was Sundry, the general store, and then to the area the villagers referred to as Hotel Row. The four hotels, right along the lake, had been there for almost ten years now. I didn’t know anything more about their history than that, but Gran used to complain that the modern buildings didn’t fit in with the village’s Old World atmosphere. At least the hotels were short, none of them taller than three stories, and they all honored the “dim outdoor lights only” rule the village established long ago. The villagers liked having as little interference with the night sky as possible. It took me a little while to get used to minimal lighting, but I had to agree with them; seeing that many stars every night was amazing.

  Since I only purchased twelve units, ten of them already spoken for, I flipped a coin to see which of the hotels would get one. Technically, they were outside of the village limits and needed to contact the County Sheriff if they had problems. If there was an emergency, however, I would come over and do what I could to help.

  My last stop on the east side was the rental cottage office, a tiny one-room building that looked like it had been plucked from the rolling emerald fields of Ireland. It even had a thatched roof, although I was pretty sure the thatch was cast cement; had to be mindful of fires around this many pine trees. After leaving a unit with them, I drove past the rental cottages and patrolled the area.

  When I came through the area the first time, to investigate Barry’s death, I was focused on the investigation and didn’t pay attention to the area. Now I saw that almost all the cottages scattered around the twenty heavily-treed acres that made up the rental grounds were an eclectic mishmash of styles and sizes—cottage, log cabin, Cape Cod, Tudor . . . All, as was standard for the village, were charming.

  I stopped at the two A-frames where Barry and his friends had been staying. There were no cars, but someone was sitting at the picnic table by the fire pit.

  “Angel? Are you here alone?”

  He looked over his shoulder at me, slowly, as though it took a great deal of effort to do so, then turned away again.

  “Everyone else left, but I wasn’t ready to go yet.” His voice dragged as much as the rest of him. “We still have both rentals for another week.”

  It had only been a couple days since I’d seen him, but he looked like he’d been through hell and back in that time.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I guess . . . Maybe . . . I don’t know.” He said nothing for a minute. “Barry and I knew each other longer than anyone else in the group. When I think about the stupid reasons we’d been going at each other for the last five years . . . I don’t know if I’m more pissed off, embarrassed, or sad.” He put his head in his hands, elbows on knees. “That first year we were roommates, we were good friends. The annoying stuff was just that, annoying. More like brother stuff. You know? I figured I had a lifelong buddy.”

  Technically, their friendship had lasted a lifetime. Sadly, one of those lives hadn’t been very long.

  “I’ve been sitting here trying to figure out what happened.” He looked up at me, his eyes red rimmed. “I wish I could take it all back and have another chance.”

  “I understand. We all wish there were things we could take back or do again.” He barely registered that I’d spoken, so I moved to stand in front of him. “You look like you’re in rough shape, Angel. Are you eating? Sleeping?”

  He shrugged and answered with a simple, “Some.”

  “Would you do something for me?” He just stared without answering. “I’m worried about you. I’d like you to go to the healing center.”

  A small fire ignited in him. “That the place you wanted Barry to go? The place that would’ve saved him if you insisted he go?”

  I felt a little nudge of guilt at his words. Dr. Bundy had assured me I’d done nothing wrong, that getting him to the healing center wasn’t my responsibility. Dr. B had never been anything but honest with me, so I chose to believe him on this one and stopped the guilt from creeping any further. Angel was in the anger stage of grief now and taking that anger out on me. That meant I was not the person he should talk to.

  “That’s the place. Go there and ask for my friend Jola. I’m guessing you have a lot of questions, and you’ve clearly got a lot of emotion going on right now. I think Jola can help you.”

  I gave him directions and repeated that I was worried about him. He grunted at me.

  “You’ll go find Jola? I’ll take you there right now if you want.” I waited, but he didn’t respond. “You’re not thinking about doing something stupid, are you?”

  “I’ll go,” he snapped.

  I stood there, deciding if he was a danger to himself or just really angry. He said he’d go, and there wasn’t much more I could do other than check on him again later. I could give Jola a call. Maybe she’d come over here.

  “Don’t do anything that can’t be undone,” I begged. “Okay?”

  He grunted again, and after standing with him for another minute or so, I went on my way.

  ~~~

  The next walkie-talkie unit was for Creed and Janessa up at the circus. By the time I got there, everyone was preparing for the afternoon performance in the big top, which meant I shouldn’t bother them.

  “Is it okay if I leave this with you?” I asked Colette at the ticket booth.

  Colette was big, as in, she stood nearly seven feet, with red hair that was probably as long as I was tall.

  “No problem,” she said in her deep voice. “I’ll drop it off with Janessa later.”

  Meeka tugged hard on her leash. She loved the circus grounds. Big cats to watch, food scraps to eat, and about a million smells to decipher. I let her retractable leash extend as far as it would go.

  “How’s everything going up here?”

  “Little better every day.” Colette looked down at her hands, which were twice the size of mine, and sniffled. “I miss them. All four of them. Especially Joss.”

  Full of empathy, I answered, “I know you do.”

  Creed had told me that the wounds from the deaths were healing, but that most of the carnies were still mourning the loss of their “family” members. I was proud of them for remaining professional and continuing to give the tourists what they came for.

  “Do you have a new closing act yet?”

  “Not yet,” she confirmed, “but rumor has it that there’s a woman who’s stepping down from a Cirque du Soleil show that’s been touring in Vancouver. I think she’s coming to do a tryout for Creed next week.”

  “That’s good. Bringing in new talent will help everyone move forward.”

  We chatted for another couple of minutes, Meeka tugging on her leash the whole time. I gave her a gentle tug back, and then we were on our way.

  “No lions and tigers today, girl. We need to deliver more walkie-talkies.”

  She snorted, a sound that said she couldn’t care less about walkie-talkies.

  “Even if it means we get to see Violet and Morgan?”

  She looked up at me, ears perked and tail suddenly wagging double time. Violet and Morgan were two of her favorite people in the village. And not just because one always gave her dog biscuits and the other always scratched her ears with her long, black fingernails.

  ~~~

  We dropped the Cherokee at the station and made our way around the pentacle garden, dropping off units at The Inn, the marina, and Grapes, Grains, and Grub.

  At Treat Me Sweetly, not only did Meeka get a dog biscuit, I got a scoop of ice cream. While Honey prepared my lemon-lavender cone, I stepped across the store to where Sugar was placing raspberry-filled pastries into the display case.

  “Do you remember wh
en you told me to dig into the village’s history?” I asked.

  She looked over her shoulder at me. “I remember. Are you trying to find out what happened to Lucy?”

  I made sure no one was close enough to hear us and leaned in even closer to her. “I got her autopsy report. It wasn’t an accident.”

  “That’s what I thought, too. Accidents happen, but no way would Lucy have an accident related to water.” She glanced past me and held up a finger, signaling her customer she’d be right with her. “Your Gran was a water witch, you know.”

  I didn’t know. Nor did I have any idea what that meant. I played dumb, pretending that I did, and made a note to ask Morgan about it later.

  “I found Gran’s journals last night.”

  Sugar took me by an arm and pulled me into a corner behind the counter.

  “Be careful, Jayne.” She was serious, almost angry. Then she relaxed and seemed almost sad. “And keep an open mind. You are going to learn things that will surprise you, and possibly rock your beliefs.”

  “My beliefs? About the village?” Or worse. “About Gran?”

  “Look, Honey and I were just little kids at the time. I don’t remember the details anymore.”

  “Details about what? What are you talking about?”

  “Never mind.” Sugar turned to help her customer. “I shouldn’t—”

  “Sugar, stop trying to protect me. My grandmother was murdered, this is a legal matter.” I stopped myself before saying Don’t make me bring you in for questioning. “I can tell you’re battling with whatever this is. If it’s this hard for you, that seems like an even bigger reason to tell me.”

  She closed her eyes and after a few seconds admitted, “Let’s just say that Yasmine Long was not the first murder in this village.” She put a big smile on her face and spun to her waiting customer. “Welcome to Treat Me Sweetly. What can I treat you with today?”

  “Here you go, Jayne.” Honey handed me a cone stacked high with two generous scoops of lemon-lavender. “You okay, hon?”

  My gaze drifted from the cone to Honey’s concerned face. I considered asking her what she knew about the years in question. Sugar was the older sister, though, and if she couldn’t remember details, Honey probably had no recollection whatsoever.