“Good,” I said, giving Cleo a quick scratch under the chin. “You know, you’re a good queen.”
“I’m aware,” she replied, not an ounce of humility in her body. “Now, you need to fix Rudy’s leg.”
A couple of Google searches later and we found out a splint was probably best.
“A 3-D printer would come in handy right about now,” Kaillie said. “We could make him a custom one.”
“Yeah, but until then we can use a couple popsicle sticks,” Leanne replied. She went to the freezer, grabbed a popsicle, and started eating it. “I know I’m not supposed to eat desert before dinner, but this is for the squirrel.”
“Right,” I said with a laugh. When she was finished, Leanne washed and dried the stick and brought it over. We used a steak knife to cut it down to the proper size and then taped it to Rudy’s leg.
“In the morning maybe we should take him to the vet for X-rays to see if it’s really broken,” Kaillie said.
“Good thinking. Maybe the vet can tell us what to do, too.”
With Rudy safe and sound in the shoebox, we put him in the living room to sleep off what had to be a painful broken leg and started on dinner.
Chapter 17
Even though I was completely exhausted, I slept terribly that night. I figured it was probably because of all the things going on in my life – the murder investigation, Cleo deciding she was queen of the animals, and now a baby squirrel with a broken leg living in my living room – but I tossed and turned all night before eventually giving up and getting up groggily.
Looking at my phone, I groaned when I saw it was four-thirty. Seriously? That was so early it wasn’t even a time that should exist.
Cleo murmured something in protest as I got up, probably complaining about the fact that I was moving around, but quickly fell back to sleep as I slipped on some clothes and made my way into the living room. I checked on Rudy, and after assuring myself that he was fine and happily sleeping away, his little stomach rising and falling slowly with each breath, I went into the kitchen and poured myself a bowl of cereal.
When I was finished, it still wasn’t even five. I didn’t have to be at work for over an hour. I was tired, I was stressed, and I just wanted to clear my head.
Then a flashing memory of Janice telling me she did yoga classes between five and six every morning passed through my head.
No, that was ridiculous. I wasn’t going to do that. I hated yoga. I did like how I felt when I was finished, but when I was tired was a dumb time to even try.
But of course, short of mainlining about ten cups of coffee, I also wasn’t sure I was going to make it through today after the terrible night I’d had. I was trying to convince myself to duck back under the covers or at least try to rest on the couch for a little bit when Leanne came out of her room, wiping her eyes.
“What are you doing up this early? You don’t normally get up until five-thirty.”
“I couldn’t sleep,” I sighed. “I think everything is getting to me.”
“Come to yoga,” Leanne suggested. “It’ll be good for you, I promise.”
“I’ve already considered it and immediately settled on that being a hard no.”
Leanne stuck her tongue out at me. “Come on. This way you get to tell Janice you tried it but you also don’t have to wake up early on purpose. Besides, if you don’t do it, I’m going to just keep bugging you about it until you do.”
I sighed again. “Why is there always a worse way to do yoga? First it was doing it in the first place. Then there was strength-building yoga. And now there’s yoga at five in the morning? Ridiculous.”
“Is that a yes?”
What was even the point of arguing with Leanne? I knew she was just going to bug me until I said yes, and it would take less energy to just agree straight away. Besides, if I fell asleep doing child’s pose, at least I would get a little bit more rest in.
“Fine,” I said. “But only because I don’t have the energy to argue with you.”
“Ok, meet you at the car in five minutes,” she said. “I’ll text Kaillie to grab a ride in with her mom this morning.”
Fifteen minutes later, I was bleary-eyed, stifling a yawn as I put my yoga mat down on the ground and resisted the urge to lie down on it and just have a nap. How on earth were there so many people here, and why were they all so cheery and awake?
The two women behind me, in their forties, were discussing their husbands.
“Well, Tom went and got me a new bracelet from Tiffany’s for our anniversary,” one woman said, her brown hair tied back in a perfect ponytail. Was she wearing makeup? When had she woken up for this, three a.m.?
“I wish Pete would do that for me,” the other laughed. “Though he did surprise me with a few nice self-care items the other day. It’s nice when they think of you randomly like that. I swear, we’ve been married twenty years and it’s like the last five are the first ones where he’s figured out how to be romantic.”
“No kidding. Tom used to think a Dutch oven in the morning to wake me up was romantic. Now at least I get a present on our anniversary.”
I scrunched my nose and turned to the front of the room where Janice caught my eye and waved. I waved back at her, trying to look cheerful, but it was hard when I felt like a beached whale.
The yoga class started, and the two women behind me kept talking. Honestly, I started listening in to their conversation since it was easier than listening to my own muscles screaming at me to do something, anything else in life.
“The annoying thing about Tom is he’ll still go out in the middle of the night without telling me,” the woman said. “I’ll wake up at two, three in the morning and he’s gone. He says he just goes for a drive. It’s ridiculous. Do you know what normal people do at that hour? They sleep. Besides, it’s not like you can just get on the highway and have a casual drive for an hour. It’s got to take him twenty minutes to do a loop of the whole island, and that’s if he’s obeying the speed limit.”
“Maybe he’s just stressed,” the other woman replied.
“It could be. He keeps complaining about money, but then he did buy a Tesla but told me we have to keep it at the cabin down at Mt. Hood. You can’t tell anyone about that, though.”
“I won’t, don’t worry.”
“Then the other day I woke up and he still wasn’t home. It’s ridiculous. He told me he was at the office, but I’m starting to think he’s cheating on me.”
“Do you really, Jordan?”
“I mean, what else could he be doing? You’d think he would be a little bit more careful. But I don’t know who his mistress might be.”
“You know, I could follow him one night if you’d like and see where he goes.”
“Would you? That would mean so much to me. I feel like I can’t do it.”
“How long has this been going on, Jordan? You haven’t told me about it at all.”
Jordan sighed quietly behind me. “I don’t know. It’s only in the last month or so that he’s been acting very differently. He’s been going out at night our whole marriage, but the last two months or so is when he’s been all squirrelly about things.”
“Sweetie, you should have told me about this earlier. I have your back on this. I’ll take my bike and follow him. It’ll be dark, so he won’t be able to see me.”
“You know what, Michelle? You’re the best friend a woman could have ever asked for. I love you for doing this. I’m so glad you’re back in town. It’s not the same coming to morning yoga without you.”
“Hey, if that man is cheating on my best friend, then he’s going to pay. And yes, I just don’t feel the same if I haven’t gotten an hour of exercise in first thing in the morning.”
I had to smile to myself as I listened to the women behind me planning on catching this Tom guy cheating on Jordan. If nothing else, it was entertainment, and before I knew it, the hour was up, and everyone was packing away their mats.
“So?” Leanne asked, p
acking up her mat. “How was it?”
“Did you overhear the conversation between the women behind us?” I asked, and Leanne shook her head.
“No. I could tell they were talking, but I couldn’t make out the words.”
I motioned to the one with the brown hair. “That one there thinks her husband is cheating on her.”
“Really?” Leanne said, her eyebrows rising. “That’s Jordan Jeffers, wife to Tom Jeffers, one of the municipal councilors here in town.”
“Oh,” I said, my mouth dropping open. “Well, in that case, I think we need to tell Aunt Lucy to come to the coffee shop today. I have some information she’s going to love.”
Chapter 18
We got to the coffee shop and set up for the day. Janice came in for her coffee right on time, as usual.
“Did you enjoy your morning session?” she asked me with a smile as I took her order. I had already had one latte, and the caffeine was starting to make me feel a little bit better, so I didn’t even tell Janice I’d rather sleep in a bed made of shards of glass than do that again.
“It was ok,” I answered. “I probably prefer the after-work ones, but given as I was already up, it wasn’t too bad.”
“That’s the spirit,” Janice said with a smile. “The important thing is that you get that practice in. Do it when it suits you, but you have to try different things. You never know what your body is going to decide is the right time to practice yoga.”
“I do, and the answer is never,” I said to Leanne when Janice left, and she laughed.
“Oh, come on. It wasn’t that bad. And besides, because we went to yoga in the morning you found out that Tom Jeffers has a lot of vampire-like tendencies and probably took the bribe money from Barry.”
“That’s true,” I conceded. As if right on cue, Aunt Lucy chose that moment to walk through the door. “Give me a minute.”
I made my way out from the counter to where my aunt was standing and motioned for her to join me at one of the nearby tables, away from any other customers.
“I have a lead for you,” I said.
“Ooh, do tell.”
“Tom Jeffers just bought a Tesla, but he’s keeping it at their family’s place in Mt. Hood,” I said.
“Now that is interesting.”
“I thought you would like to know. Did you suspect him before?”
“Absolutely. Tom Jeffers has been a strange cat for years, and I wouldn’t have put it past him at all to take a bribe. But I didn’t have any proof.”
“Your trip to the bank didn’t pan out?”
Aunt Lucy gave me a stern look. “Mind your business. But I do appreciate this tip. Thank you for that.”
“I’m thinking he might be the killer, too,” I said, wanting to run my theory past Aunt Lucy.
“Oh? Why do you say that?”
“Well, he seems to have some vampire tendencies. His wife says that he gets up in the middle of the night a lot, apparently just to drive around. She seems to think that he’s cheating on her now, but he’s been doing it for their whole marriage. Could it be more than just normal human insomnia? Could it be he’s a vampire who can’t quite get used to living normal human being hours?”
“It’s possible,” Aunt Lucy said, stroking her chin and nodding slowly. “I could see it. If he’s the killer though, why would he have killed Barry?”
I shrugged. “That part I’m not quite sure about. Maybe there was a disagreement about how much money Barry owed him for the vote at the municipal council? Maybe Barry paid half upfront and promised to pay the other half after and didn’t hold up his end of the deal? Then Tom got mad and killed him before Barry had a chance to finish the project? I don’t know.”
“Those are all plausible reasons. I think you might be heading down the right avenue, at any rate. Well, thanks for the tip. Let me know if you find out anything else.”
“Bye,” I said, heading back to the counter as Aunt Lucy walked to the door. I didn’t ask her if she broke into any other highly secured buildings. She probably wouldn’t have told me even if she had.
“Do you think Tom could be the killer?” I asked Leanne.
“It’s possible,” she said. “After all, he sounds like he could be a vampire. I think we need to put him at the top of our suspect list. Although, I haven’t written off Sean, either. He told us he didn’t kill Barry, but we shouldn’t just take him at his word. Same with Hugo.”
“Plus, Hugo would have been likely to go in and buy something from Don since he works construction,” I said. “I still don’t like that Don couldn’t or wouldn’t tell us whose receipt that was. I mean, it’s one thing if he forgot but entirely another if he purposely didn’t tell us.”
“True,” Leanne said, nodding. “It could have been any of them, really. We can’t eliminate anyone yet.”
“I like Tom as a suspect, though,” I said. “Honestly, the fact that he’s up all night convinces me more than anything else. Does he come into the coffee shop ever?”
“Sure,” Leanne said. “You’ve met him a few times, but he’s not regular enough for you to recognize him, I don’t think. He kind of looks like every single other politician on the planet. Hundred-dollar haircut, white smile, etcetera. Orders a black coffee with cream and sugar. He literally couldn’t be more boring. I don’t know why people vote for him, but he’s been a municipal councilor for years and years.”
“So the odds of him coming in here so we can question him are pretty low.”
“Yeah. Plus, my guess is as much as Aunt Debbie lets us more or less have free rein in here, she wouldn’t be too pleased if we annoyed a customer by accusing him of murder.”
“That’s a fair point,” I said. “I still think we should look into him, though. Maybe if we look in his house it’ll be obvious there was recent plumbing or flooring work done or something.”
Leanne nodded. “Let’s keep him at the top of the suspect list, for sure.”
After we closed, however, before we were able to investigate the murder, we had something else to take care of. The three of us drove back home, and then I took Rudy back into town to see the local veterinarian.
Doctor Kylie Chiu worked out of a small office at the far end of Main Street, a cute converted old cottage with huge windows that let the light in. The walls inside were decorated with thank you cards from happy clients, and a woman behind the reception counter flashed me a smile when I walked in.
I walked up to the counter holding the shoebox that contained my little rodent friend.
“Hi, I have an appointment for an injured squirrel that I found,” I said.
“Eliza? Of course. Please have a seat and we’ll call you in in just a moment.”
Five minutes later I was sitting on a small bench inside the examination room. Rudy was squeaking inside his shoebox.
“It’s ok, little buddy,” I told him. “We’re just going to see the vet soon, and she’ll have a look at your leg.”
Doctor Chiu was about thirty with dark eyes and a huge smile. As soon as she walked in, she greeted me warmly.
“Hello, you must be Eliza. How can I help you today?”
“My cat found an injured squirrel,” I explained. “He seems to have a broken front leg, and I’m not entirely sure what to do.”
“Oh, well, aren’t you awesome for bringing him in,” Doctor Chiu said, making her way to the shoebox. “I assume he’s in here?”
I nodded and she opened the box where Rudy was happily chirping away.
“Well hello little guy,” she said. “It looks like your leg’s already got a splint on it.”
“We did that last night,” I explained. “We didn’t want him to hurt it further.”
“Good work. I’d like to take an X-ray to see if this leg is really broken, and if so, we’ll make him a more permanent splint. You’ll have to take care of him for a few weeks while he heals, but then he should be able to go back out into the wild, if you’re willing to do that.”
“I
am,” I replied. I figured Cleo would never forgive me if I said anything else. After all, this was one of her subjects as queen of the island, and I had to do what I could for Rudy.
Plus, he was a little cutie, and I didn’t want him to be hamstrung for his whole life because of a broken leg.
Doctor Chiu picked Rudy up carefully, and he chirped away happily as she went to the back room to give him the X-ray. A few minutes later she returned, and as soon as she placed him back in the shoebox Rudy sniffed around for a minute before curling up in a corner of the tea towel and going to sleep.
“So, his front left paw is broken,” Doctor Chiu said. “It’s good that you have a splint on it, but I’d rather something better-shaped and more permanent. One of the technicians here has a 3D printer at home; I’ve taken some measurements and she’s going to make him a better-fitting cast tonight. If you can come by tomorrow with him, I’ll put it on him. It’ll allow him better freedom and range of motion, which will be important as he heals since he’s so young.”
“Do you think he’ll make a complete recovery?”
“He should,” Doctor Chiu replied. “It’s a good thing you found him. You’ve given him an excellent shot at a normal squirrel life. I’ve also got some meal replacement you can use to feed him. He looks to be about five weeks old, so he’s not quite old enough to be weaned yet.”
I made a mental note to let Cleo know what the vet had said.
“Thanks,” I replied. “I fed him some milk before.”
“Yes, the meal replacement will be much better. And you’ll want to feed him every couple of hours. I’ll see you tomorrow. I’ll just charge you at cost, too, since this isn’t actually your pet, and I’m glad you saved him.”
“Oh, thank you,” I replied gratefully. I carefully closed the shoebox, said goodbye to Dr. Chiu, then went back to the front reception area to pay.
A Cauldron of Hot Coffee: Enchanted Enclave Mysteries Books 1-3 Page 40