“Oh my God, yes,” Freddie said, jumping up. “It cost as much as a small car, but wait until you taste the hot chocolate.”
“Well, why are we just sitting here talking about our relationship like weirdos?”
“I know, right? Let’s go!”
* * *
Freddie and I were too excited and hopped up on hot chocolate to go back to sleep after that. Besides, we needed to get an early start to our day. Now that we were back together and had all of our neurons firing, it was time to get to work. We still had a week. We could do this.
Just like I had been checking in on the wedding preparations while Freddie and I were on the outs, he too had been doing a bit of investigating on his own. On our third cup of hot chocolate gold, he informed me that he had found out just the day before through the Otter Lake gossip mill who had first found Lyssa and called it in. Thankfully we were being supernice to one another, so Freddie didn’t point out that I really should have been on that sooner.
Freddie drove us into town right at the first glow of sunrise. It was actually a good thing we were up with the birds given who it was we needed to talk to.
Ned and Bob, the town’s most dedicated anglers, were right where we expected to find them. A little ways down from the gazebo, hooks already in the water.
“I think maybe you should take the lead on this,” Freddie said as we walked down the bike trail toward the men. He had parked his old, beat-up Jimmy at the top. It was so good to be rolling on four wheels again. “I mean, you have been on this case since the beginning.”
“But questioning is your speciality,” I said. “I really could have used you over at Tommy’s.”
“Well, aren’t you sweet.” Freddie smiled, adjusting the sling around his shoulder, and checking on Stanley who was asleep in the pouch at his hip. The sling was designed especially for dogs, but it did look a lot like the ones mothers of newborns used. The pouch had insect shield technology because according to Freddie you can’t be too careful when it comes to West Nile. “Would you look at us? We are like best-friend newlyweds again.”
I smiled back.
“Okay, so I’ll take the lead,” he said, pulling ahead.
Yup, things were pretty much back to normal.
“Ned. Bob,” Freddie called out, raising a hand.
“Told ya they’d be by,” I heard Bob say.
“Surprised it took you so long,” Ned called back. “What kind of investigation are you two running?”
Freddie chuckled. “We’ve been experiencing a few hiccups organizationally speaking, but we’re on the case now.”
The men nodded. Bob said, “We heard Erica chased you round a fire. Glad you’re both okay.”
Freddie smiled as I ran a hand over my face.
“Well, you know Erica,” Freddie replied. “So down to business.”
“You want to know about that poor girl, God rest her soul.”
We both nodded.
“’Fraid there’s not a whole lot we can tell you,” Bob said. “We just spotted her and called over to the sheriff’s department. First time I’ve actually used this damn phone my wife got me.” He patted one of the chest pockets of his fishing vest.
I sighed. “Are you sure that’s—”
“Except”—Ned exchanged looks with his fishing buddy—“there was that one other thing, Bob.”
Bob nodded. “Yup. There was that one other thing.”
Chapter Twenty-nine
Well, that was easy.
“What one thing are we talking about here?” Freddie turned his face away from the men to shoot me a superexcited look. He loved it when people said stuff like that.
Ned tipped his chin over to the gazebo. “Well, when we first saw her…”
“God rest her soul,” Bob added.
“God rest her soul. We weren’t exactly sure what it was we were seeing.”
“That’s right,” Bob said, scratching his chin. “We just saw something strange-looking floating in the water.”
“And…?” Freddie prodded.
“So we walked up to get a better look.”
“It was a little tricky because we had to get past all the boxes for the wedding, but if you see—there at the part that looks out to the water,” Bob said, pointing at the gazebo. “That part is all clear.”
I frowned. I was trying to anticipate where they were going with this, but I was coming up blank.
“Anyway when we walked up into the main part of the gazebo, we realized we needed to stop moving around.”
“Why’s that?” Freddie asked.
“Well, we could see clear as day that it was a body in the water,” Ned said, stroking his salt-and-pepper beard.
“And there were all sorts of footprints on the floor.”
“Footprints?” Freddie asked.
“That’s right.” Bob nodded. “If you recall, it was pretty muddy that day.”
Ned rested the end of his pole on the ground and turned to completely face us. He jerked a thumb at Bob. “We both know enough not to go walking around in a crime scene.”
I frowned. “But … did you think it was a crime scene right away?”
“We suspected,” Ned answered.
“How come?”
“Because a couple of the bins had been knocked over,” Bob said, shaking his head.
Ned pointed back over to the gazebo. “And the banister of the railing was cracked. It looked like there had been some sort of fight.”
I whipped my head around. I hadn’t noticed any cracks, but then I was looking from a distance. I should get a pair of my own binoculars.
“Looked like maybe someone had been pushed into the water.”
Now it was Freddie’s and my turn to exchange glances. Freddie seemed a little disappointed. I was too. It was good to have this information, but it didn’t really move us any further ahead. We knew the police suspected foul play, and I guess now we knew some of the reasons why, but that still left us with Tommy, Lyssa’s boyfriend, Justin, and a windbreaker as suspects.
“What kind of footprints were they?” Freddie suddenly asked.
I mentally high-fived him. Good question.
“Well, that was the really interesting part,” Bob said with a smile.
“You see, we waited there a while for Amos to show up,” Ned went on, “so we got a real good look.”
Bob leaned his pole toward us. “But what we saw … it’s all a lot of speculation on our part.”
“We’re fine with speculation,” I said. “Freddie?”
“Always.”
“Well,” Ned said, scratching at his brow just underneath his fishing cap, “from what we could tell, there were at least three separate prints.”
“One looked like a pair of men’s work boots.”
I nodded. Those were probably Tommy’s … or Justin’s.
“Another had one of those really tiny heels,” Ned said, pinching his fingers together.
“Like a stiletto,” I offered.
He snapped his fingers. “That’s it.”
Okay, good chance those were Lyssa’s. I remember thinking I’d be crippled if I attempted to walk around in the heels she was wearing that night.
“But it’s the third…” Bob said, shaking his head. “That got us to thinking.”
“Thinking?” Freddie asked. “What were you thinking?”
“Well, it was weird because they were heels too,” Ned began. “Or at least a woman’s shoe.”
“The heel was bigger, though,” Bob said, picking up the thread. “Sensible.”
I chewed my lip. Okay, I didn’t know what to make of that.
“And it was kind of…” The struggle to find the word played out on Ned’s face. “Creepy.”
“I still don’t like to think about it,” Bob said with a bit of a shudder.
“What? Think about what?” Freddie was going to lose it if they didn’t get to the point soon.
“Well, most of the floor was a mess,” Bo
b said.
I nodded. “Right. You said it looked like there had been a fight.”
“But those shoes made a really distinct print. Like the person who was wearing them was standing in one spot for a while.”
I frowned. “I don’t get it.”
Ned sighed as a troubled expression came over his face. “Well, it’s the way the shoes were facing.”
“Like the person who was wearing them was standing by the railing,” Bob said, looking equally disturbed, “facing the water, watching … something.”
Chills raced over my body. “Oh.”
“Oh,” said Freddie.
“Oh,” the men said in unison.
So someone, a woman—not Lyssa—was standing by the railing looking out at the water watching something.
Something?
Or maybe someone.
Maybe someone drowning to death.
Chapter Thirty
“Okay, we need to hurry if we want to catch Tommy while he’s still groggy.”
In an effort to keep the momentum going, Freddie and I decided it best to head right over to Tommy’s. Bob and Ned’s story had been disturbing to say the least, but it also left us more determined than ever to find out what had happened that night. It was time Tommy told us everything.
“Him being groggy didn’t help me much last time I was over there.”
“Yeah, but there’s a difference between first-thing-in-the-morning groggy and mid-morning groggy,” Freddie said. “He might give us the answers we need before he even registers that he’s awake.”
We had to drive through town to get to Tommy’s side of the lake. It was a beautiful morning. Calm and peaceful. The spring air fragrant with … well, spring. No one was really up and about yet, except …
“Slow down for a second,” I said, whacking Freddie’s arm.
“What?” he asked. “What’s going on?”
“Just slow down.”
Freddie slowed the Jimmy to a crawl and followed my gaze to the public park by the water. “Is that Grady?” he asked, way too much amusement in his voice. “Doing yoga?”
It was. It was Grady doing yoga. Warrior pose to be specific.
And he wasn’t alone.
There were five women in warrior pose too. It was the yoga-in-the-park crew. My mother was cofounder. She went whenever she could.
I shook my head. But it made no sense that Grady would … actually, who was I kidding? It made perfect sense. This is exactly something that Grady 2.0 would do.
Just then Grady stretched back to reverse warrior and—
“Oh crap!” I hissed. “Duck!”
“Why would I do that?” Freddie asked, stepping on the brake. He then waved at Grady before doing a double take as he caught me trying to stuff myself onto the truck’s floor.
“Because I can’t let him catch me watching him again.”
Freddie smiled. “Yeah, I heard about the knitting the other night, you little perv.”
“I am not a little … perv. Grady just keeps catching me off guard and—”
“Why are you whispering?” Freddie asked. “He can’t hear you, and I’m pretty sure he knows you’re in the truck with me.”
“You can’t be pretty sure of that.”
“Who else would be hiding on the floor of my truck? He can see me talking to someone.”
“Stanley.”
“Oh, Erica, he knows I use a crate. I never put Stanley’s safety at risk.”
I reluctantly pushed myself up in my seat. Yup, he was still in reverse warrior … and waving.
I raised a weak hand in the air before saying through my teeth, “Drive on.”
“Sure. Sure,” Freddie said. He eased off the brake and we started driving again … at maybe two miles per hour.
“A little faster,” I said.
“Whatever you say, buttercup,” Freddie answered cheerily. He then sped up … but only for a second … before parking at the side of the road.
“What are you doing?!”
“I just thought of something.” Freddie jumped out of the truck and went round back to get Stanley.
He wasn’t seriously thinking of—
Oh thank God. He wasn’t headed for the park. He was crossing the street. “Come on!” he shouted at me.
I got out of the truck. Where was he going? The hardware store?
I trotted after Freddie. “What are you doing? The hardware store isn’t going to be open yet.”
“Then we’ll wake Doug up,” Freddie called back. “This is life-and-death stuff.”
I sped up to a jog to catch up to Freddie. “What are you—”
Freddie stopped at the sidewalk and cocked his head. “Do you hear that?”
I frowned. I did hear something. Music. Coming from the workshop behind the hardware store?
“I think Doug is already awake,” Freddie said. “Come on.”
I hustled after Freddie feeling very uncomfortable. It was early. Freddie thought “2 A.M. Erica” was rude, but “6:30 A.M. Erica” felt just as bad.
We slowed our pace as we approached the small building. At least the door was open and …
Nope, that made it worse.
Because it allowed us to see Doug—respected owner of the hardware store, generally a stoic man—with his back to us, hips jerking side to side to the song “Stayin’ Alive.”
Freddie cleared his throat …
… and Doug threw a wrench into the air.
He spun around with his hand clutched to his chest. When he saw it was us, he chuckled. “You two startled me. I didn’t know anyone was there.”
“Sorry,” I said.
Freddie wasn’t feeling the least bit uncomfortable though. He walked right in. “I’ve never been back here before.” He looked at Doug. “This place is awesome.”
Doug chuckled. “My version of a man cave, I guess.”
I couldn’t quite get where Freddie’s excitement was coming from. There was lots of equipment and tools back here, and the place had the smell of old varnish and gasoline. There were also stacks of records and an old turntable.
“Would you look at all these records?” Freddie said, thumbing through one of the stacks. “This place is retro-tastic. Where did you get all of these?”
Doug shot an amused look to me then back to Freddie. “I bought them.”
“You’re a collector?” Freddie asked.
“I used to DJ,” Doug said. “Long time ago.”
“You used to … DJ?” Freddie asked.
Uh-oh.
I grabbed Freddie’s arm. “Will you excuse us one second?” I asked Doug.
He nodded, looking bewildered.
I walked Freddie to the far corner of the workroom. “Freddie, I know what you’re thinking, but—”
“Would you look at this hair?” He held up an album cover. “It’s glorious.”
The three men on the cover did have impressive hair. Especially the one in the middle. His was parted down the center and feathered at the sides.
“Do you think I could pull off this hair?” Freddie asked.
“I’m … having trouble seeing it.” I waved a hand in the air. He was distracting me again. “I know what you’re thinking, but I’m not sure Candace wants a seventies-theme reception.”
“I’ll text her,” Freddie said, pulling out his phone.
I threw my hands up. “Well, you’re just going to make sure all of Otter Lake is awake, aren’t you?”
“‘Found a DJ. Doug at hardware store. Leans heavily to seventies music though. What do you think?’” Freddie looked up at me. “There.”
“We don’t even know if Doug wants to DJ though and—”
Freddie’s phone buzzed. His eyes darted over the screen. “She thinks it’s cute and then she goes on to thank me obsessively. Doug?” Freddie called out as he walked back over to the unsuspecting hardware man. “How would you feel about wiping the dust off some of the records and DJing at what promises to be the wedding of the
year?”
“I…”
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Freddie said, snapping his fingers. “Now we need you to open up the shop. We’re going to need some equipment.”
* * *
“Ready?”
“Ready.”
It did take a little more convincing to get Doug to agree to handle the music for the wedding. We offered to pay him, but once Doug had gotten his mind around the idea, he flat-out turned us down. The only thing he wanted from us was to find out what had happened to Lyssa. Once that was taken care of, we got down to the business of why Freddie wanted to stop by the hardware store in the first place. We needed to suit up for our meeting with Tommy. And a babysitter for Stanley. Doug was kind enough to supply us with both. Afterward we made one more pit stop then headed back to Freddie’s to get his boat. We wanted to approach Tommy’s the same way I had, so we knew what to expect.
“Okay, masks down,” Freddie said.
We flipped down the visors to our hockey masks.
“Shields up,” I added.
We held up our garbage can lids.
“Okay, go time,” Freddie said, striding up Tommy’s lawn. Well, as much as one can stride over lots and lots of junk. “Tommy!” he shouted, banging on his lid with a stick. Unfortunately it wasn’t one of those old-fashioned, metal garbage can lids—so that would have made a nice sound—it was plastic, so—
Wait a minute. I picked up my own stick—actually it was half a hockey stick—and banged on the rusted-out steel drum I had hidden behind last time I was here.
Freddie smiled at me. “Nice.”
“Tommy!” I shouted.
“Get your dirty boxers out here!” Freddie yelled.
“Ew.”
Freddie shrugged.
A moment later, Tommy stumbled through the door onto his porch. Wow, that was quite the bedhead he had going on.
He squinted against the sun and scratched his head. “What the h— Oh goddammit, Erica. You brought Freddie? I hate him too.”
“Yeah, she brought me,” Freddie said. “We need to have a word with you, Tommy boy.”
Tommy looked at us a moment, then—it was hard to tell but I think he muttered something along the lines of “No, you need to eat some golf balls.”
Down the Aisle with Murder Page 16