by Leona Fox
But the Chief didn’t answer his phone so Sadie decided to head downtown in the direction of the station house. She was bound to find him down there somewhere. She put Mr. Bradshaw on his leash and walked into the twilight.
Mr. Bradshaw liked walking downtown. There were all kinds of different smells around the square, and while the park would always be his favorite place, the town square was good for a change of pace. He stuck his nose in the air and sniffed, his tail straight in the air and quivering.
When she got to town hall, Sadie took a right and walked down to the station. She was buzzed in, they locked the door after five and went straight to the chief’s office. He wasn’t there.
Sadie sat in his chair for a few moments, thinking of a course of action, and left the chief a note. Then she called and left a message on his cell. If she was going to be accused of anything, it would be oversharing. She tried Lois’s number on the off chance that she was at home and not out framing someone else for the crime she’d committed. That done, she grabbed Mr. B.’s leash and headed back out into the evening.
Chapter Six
She didn’t know where to look for Lois. She thought the Chief might know, but as he was MIA she was going to have to figure this one out by herself. She headed back up to town hall to see if anything was happening there. The big front doors were locked so Sadie and Mr. B. took a left and walked down the access ramp. There was a door at the bottom and that was locked too.
They were all the way around the back of the building when they found a door with a rock holding it cracked open. Sadie assumed that it was cracked open so that whoever had gone in could come back out without tripping the alarm. She pulled out her cell and left another message for the Chief. Where in the world was he?
She slid through the door first, Mr. Bradshaw following a step behind. She looked around. This was a hallway she’d never been in before. The best bet would be to make her way to the front lobby and proceed from there. Her plan, as far as she had a plan, was to find out what was going on without being seen and get the hell out.
The back of town hall was a rabbit’s warren and she kept ending up in corridors that either led to stairwells or outside exits. She didn’t want either of those. She came across the elevators but didn’t dare use them. But where there was an elevator there had to be a stair that led to the lobby. At least it seemed logical.
Finally, she found a stairway marked with a sign that said Lobby and an arrow pointing up. They went up as quietly as they could, Mr. Bradshaw’s nails making the faintest of clicking noises on the tile. The door to the lobby was closed. Sadie held her breath and pushed as gently as she could. Unfortunately, the door was heavy and gently wasn’t going to cut it. She pushed in the bar as quietly as she could and then put her weight into it. The door opened and she ushered Mr. B. through before sliding through herself.
The door swung back into place with a loud click. They stood absolutely still, barely breathing, but no one came. Sadie let her breath out and looked around the lobby. There was no point in going up to the Mayor’s office. That had already been trashed. The clerk’s office? She headed across the lobby but when she reached the door to the clerk’s office, she heard a noise further down the hall, past the conference room where she’d studied the meeting agendas.
Her heart was beating so hard it was roaring in her ears. Mr. Bradshaw pressed up against her leg and she took a breath. Before heading down that tiger trap of a hall, she stepped back out of sight and dialed the Chief. She whispered her location and what she was planning to do next.
She mutters several choice swear words under her breath and started down the hall. She glanced in and then entered the conference room. The file drawers were open and binders and papers were littered across the room. It would take someone a lot of time to clean that up. She wondered if they would just print new agendas and recycle the mess or if they would try and reconstruct the binders with the existing paper.
Mr. Bradshaw whined. It was the tiniest of noises, but it brought Sadie back to the task at hand. She stuck her head out of the room and glanced down the hall. A drawer slammed. Whoever was down there was still at it. She wondered who it was.
She and Mr. B. crept toward the last door in the hall. It was open while the other doors between the conference room and it were closed. She was having trouble hearing again. Her blood rushing through her veins was so loud. Breathe, Sadie, she told herself. Breathe. Later, when Zack asked her if she even considered going back, she could honestly say it never occurred to her. She needed to do what must be done if justice was going to be served.
She flattened herself against the wall outside the open door. She motioned to Mr. Bradshaw to stay, kneeled on all fours and stuck her head around the doorjamb. It was a file storage room, lined with file cabinets. And it was as she thought, Lois was in the room rifling through files. She seemed to be looking for something specific because every so often she’d come across a file that made her grin and she would toss it in the air scattering the papers across the floor.
Sadie ducked back into the hall. She pulled out her cell phone and loaded the camera. All she needed to do was to snap a quick picture for evidence and she could get out of there. She was summoning up her nerve to put her head in the doorway again and take the picture when Lois stepped into the doorway and pointed a gun at Sadie.
“You know, Sadie,” she said. “You’d make a terrible spy. Get up.”
Sadie got up but didn’t pick up Mr. Bradshaw’s leash. She stood between Lois and Mr. B., her blood rushing in her ears again. Damn cardiovascular system kept interfering with her stone cold criminal catcher persona.
Lois jabbed at her with the gun. “Did you hear me? I said pick up his leash.”
Sadie knelt down and unclipped the leash from his collar keeping the clip in her hand. “Go find the Chief. Run!” she said to him and then she stood between him and the gun wielding crazy again.
“You expect me to believe that mutt is going to find Chief Woodstone?” Lois asked. “That’s laughable. Let him run, I’m sure he’ll end up at the nearest butcher’s shop. Get in here.” Lois motioned her into the file room.
Sadie backed in keeping Lois firmly in her sights. She didn’t think Lois would shoot her, but she wasn’t taking any chances on getting shot in the back. She kept the hand with the leash close to her side. Surprise was her only real advantage at the moment.
That was when she saw Mr. Bradshaw in the hall behind Lois and her heart sank. Lois saw her look and glanced over her shoulder unconsciously lowering the gun several inches. That was all the lead time Sadie needed. She lunged for Lois knocking the gun from her hand.
“Mr. Bradshaw, Run!” Sadie wrestled with Lois pushing her backward into the hall away from the gun.
Lois was shrieking and swearing, but Sadie ignored the words to concentrate on keeping Lois’s nails from raking her face. She heard Mr. Bradshaw growling but couldn’t risk a look to see where he was, but then Lois started kicking backward and she thought he must have a hold of Lois’s pant leg.
“Go Mr. Bradshaw! Run!” Sadie yelled again, wanting him to get to safety. He didn’t let go of Lois’s pants.
Then two things happened at once, Mr. Bradshaw jerked Lois’s leg backward and Sadie pulled Lois’s hand forward and down catching Lois off balance. She fell forward onto her face and Sadie dropped onto her knees in the middle of Lois’s back. The air whooshed out of Lois and Sadie got first one hand and then the other hand up behind Lois’s back.
Fifteen minutes later, when Chief Woodstone came skidding around the corner, weapon drawn, Lois was still in the middle of the hall, lying flat out on her face. Her hands were tied with a dog leash and Sadie was straddling her back and Mr. Bradshaw was in her lap. The look on Chief Woodstone’s face made Sadie laugh out loud.
Five days later the hubbub and outrage had diminished and Sadie agreed to go out on another date with the Chief. This time he promised to leave his cell phone home. He picked her up just before
dusk on a lovely warm day and drove her to the town beach. It was almost deserted and he jumped the curb and drove down onto the beach and along the waterline to the far end where no one was likely to disturb them.
“Isn’t this against the law?” Sadie asked. “Driving on the beach?”
“Not if you are a cop checking for unlicensed dogs.” He winked at her. “I was sure I saw a loose dog down here.”
He parked and they laid a blanket on the sand. The Chief rooted around in the back and pulled a basket and a couple of bottles of wine out. He buried the wine neck deep in the sand and set the basket on the blanket before sitting down next to Sadie. She’d left Mr. B. to munch on a lovely dog chew in his basket so she could focus all her attention on the Chief.
“I’ve come to a decision,” she said.
“Oh?” He looked at her and raised his eyebrows.
She could tell he was amused, but better than that he seemed relaxed and completely at ease.
“Yes,” she said. “I’ve decided that when we are out casually, and when you are not in uniform, I will call you Zack. When we are discussing business, either yours or mine, I will continue to call you Chief. What do you think of that?”
“I think it’s a step in the right direction,” He said. “Now if only I could get you to stop discussing business with me.”
“Which brings me to my first problem with that decision,” she said, resting back on her elbows. She looked at him through her eyelashes.
“And what is that?” He looked as though he wanted to kiss her.
“Well, Chief,” she said holding up a hand to forestall his objection. “I want you to tell me why Lois went off the rails and what she thought she was doing trashing Town Hall?”
“Ah, I see Ms. Barnett. Yes, the strange case of Lois Hall. From what I understand, Marjorie was getting out of her car when Lois arrived at your place. Marjorie was rushing and she told Lois she needed to be there when the party started or she might not get all the jewelry she wanted. Lois lost her shit, picked up your brick doorstop and when Marjorie opened the back door to get her purse Lois bopped her over the head with it.”
“A lot of the ladies were fed up with Marjorie using her position to get the best of everything.” Sadie turned and laid her head in his lap so she wouldn’t have to hold it up. “Go on.”
Zack ran his fingers through her hair. “Well,” he said, “she didn’t know she’d killed Marjorie but she started getting worried when she never showed up. She thought Marjorie would come to and come upstairs to accuse her of assault. Of course by that time she had the costume jewelry she wanted…”
“Just call it bling,” Sadie said. “It’s easier.”
“Okay. Lois had the bling she wanted and she thought she’d be able to talk herself out of assault charges, but Marjorie didn’t show. The more time went on, the more Lois worried that something had gone wrong. So she started talking to people about how Shannon was going on about it being so much better that Marjorie wasn’t there.”
“Yes. She did that. Told me I should tell her to stop. Sowing the seeds of doubt.” Sadie waved a hand in the air. “As if I’d be that rude to one of my guests.”
“Then she realized that Shannon could be executed for killing the mayor and she looked into who else might want Marjorie out of the way. Then she was working on framing both Shannon and Ryan Pallone so that suspicion would fall on them but neither would get convicted.”
“And that’s why she had Shannon park her car down near town hall. So maybe you’d think she’d tossed the mayor’s office. But she didn’t have a motive. And both the mayor’s and clerk’s office could be pinned on Ryan, but he had an alibi for Marjorie’s murder. How long did she think she could keep this up?”
“She knew when she saw you at Town Hall that the gig was up. But she’d kind of lost her equilibrium at that point and couldn’t stop herself from trying to get away with all of it. It’s a good thing you are tough as nails Ms. Barnett.”
“Sadie, call me Sadie now Zack. We are finished with business now and I think you should take me for a walk on the beach while the sun is setting. And then I will allow you to feed me.” She smiled up at him.
He leaned in for a quick kiss and then helped her to her feet. “Come along then, Ms. Barnett,” he said. “Time for our evening constitutional.”
Sadie smacked him on the shoulder. “You rat. You are making me pay for always calling you the Chief.”
“Um – Yep,” he said.
“Well I can think of a much better punishment,” she said. “But you have to catch me first.” She ran laughing down the beach, and what could he do but follow?
~~~
Find out what Sadie discovers in book 3 of The Seagrove Mysteries! Coming Soon!
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