by ACF Bookens
With Tiffany squeezed between us, Daniel pulled around to the side of the building and then quickly dialed Tuck while I encouraged our friend to take deep breaths. Within a few moments, she was breathing more normally and had stopped crying. But then, her jaw clenched in what I recognized as rage, and I couldn’t blame her. Someone had the audacity to come to an event for an organization that helped the victims of sexual assault and scrawl a victim-blaming message – that someone had a lot of nerve . . . and a lot of rage.
I could feel the threads of some understanding beginning to knit together at the back of my mind, but I didn’t have space or energy to attend to them yet. Right now, Tiffany needed me, and Tuck was going to need our statements.
Daniel tilted his head toward the building, and I nodded. One of us needed to let Mart know what was going on – if she wasn’t already aware. Plus, if I read his look correctly, he wanted me to figure out why Tiffany had come outside after she had said she was staying behind to help. Something wasn’t adding up here, and it was time to divide and conquer.
“Daniel is going to get Mart, Tiffany, okay?” I rubbed tiny circles in a counterclockwise motion on her back in the way my mom said her Reiki practitioner suggested was calming. “I’m so sorry you saw that. Are you okay?”
Tiffany took a big, shuddering breath and nodded slowly. “I am. Or I will be. I think.” His voice was tiny. “I just came out to catch you so I could grab my bag from the truck . . .” Her voice trailed off.
I pushed myself up in the seat and saw Tiffany’s duffel with her clothes from earlier. “You wanted to change for clean-up,” I said. That made perfect sense, and the gnawing pit of suspicion in my belly faded away. “Well, what do you say we head in and get you into your jeans? I’ll find a coffee pot, too.”
Tiffany briefly rested her head on my shoulder. “Thanks, Harvey.” Then she frowned and looked me in the eye. “No, wait. You need to get home and rest. That was the whole point of you leaving.”
I stepped out of the truck and grabbed Tiffany’s bag. “I’m already on it,” I said as I pulled my phone from the glovebox of the truck. “Marcus will be fine to open.” I hoped I was right as I texted him. His response was immediate. “Rocky and I R on it. Keep me posted?”
I replied and then tucked my phone into my bra and felt like one of those tough old women who keep their cash up there. Then, I tucked my arm around Tiffany’s elbow and led her through the door that Daniel had gone through. When we got inside, we were at the side of the stage, and I could see Mart and Daniel near the front door, talking with one of Tuck’s deputies.
I spotted an empty chair by the now-dismantled sound system and pointed to it. I smiled at Tiffany then said, “Go directly to the bathroom to change. Do not pass the front doors. Do not talk to anyone. Return to this seat immediately to collect your, um, two-hundred dollar coffee.”
A small smile lifted the corners of Tiffany’s mouth, “Clearly, you have played too many rounds of Monopoly?” She lifted her bag and headed toward the bathroom at the back of the room. I watched the swinging door close behind her before I headed toward my friends.
“Tuck’s on his way,” Daniel said as I walked up. “I already gave our statement.”
I nodded and then looked at Mart. “You okay?” The blood had drained from her face, but I expected that was some combination of fatigue and shock.
“I think so. But who would do this, Harvey? I mean it takes a special kind of hate to graffiti a fundraiser,” she said.
“It does, and that scares me. I want you all to clear out, okay? We can take care of clean-up tomorrow.” Tuck was striding through the front doors, and several deputies came in just after him. “Seriously, we need to empty the building.”
I felt my pulse quicken again. Tuck’s voice had that “no-nonsense tone” he used when he didn’t want to be questioned, so I didn’t unfurl the million queries at the back of my tongue. Instead, I glanced around at the couple dozen people in the room and headed toward a cluster of waitstaff who were pulling the linens off the tables and putting them in a rolling bin.
Behind me, I saw Daniel and Mart disperse, too, and within a few minutes, the three of us and Tuck and his team had spread the word that the building needed to be emptied. While Mart gathered her things, Daniel and I waited by the front door. I was hoping Tuck might explain what had just happened before he shoo-ed us out, but I didn’t think it likely. He still had the gait of a man with a purpose as he checked the kitchen and coatroom. He clearly had something on his mind.
The sheriff was just poking his head into the men’s restroom when I realized Tiffany hadn’t come out of the bathroom. I sprinted across the dance floor and reached Tuck just as he knocked on the women’s room door. “Tiffany was in there, but she didn’t—”
Tuck didn’t even wait for me to finish before shouldering open the door and charging in. I was right behind him, but his broad shoulders kept me from seeing anything but Tiffany’s feet, one still in a silvery heel, sprawled across the bathroom floor.
“Call 911,” Tuck said, and I whipped my phone out from my bra and dialed.
Then, I burst back out the door and screamed for Daniel and Mart. “Tiffany’s hurt. Don’t let anyone else drive off.” Then I went back to my friend.
Fortunately, by the time I came back in, Tiffany was sitting up against a stall door while Tuck squatted beside her. “So no idea then?”
Tiffany shook her head. “I didn’t see a thing. I was bending down to slip off my shoe and them somebody clobbered me on the back of the head.” She reached a hand back to the base of her skull and winced. “Whatever they hit me with was heavy.”
“Why do you say that?” Tuck asked, and I rolled my eyes. Clearly the woman would know if something heavy hit her.
“Because they swung it up at me, I think. It felt like it was swung from below, like someone slung a heavy purse or something.” She winced again. “I don’t know. Maybe that doesn’t make sense, but I don’t think they could lift whatever it was over their head.”
I sighed. Once again, it was clear I was not a seasoned investigator because I never would have thought to ask that question. I looked around the room . . . nothing seemed out of place, and I didn’t see anything heavy.
“You see anything, Harvey?” Tuck was now standing and watching me with a tiny smile on his face.
I gave him a sheepish smile. “I don’t—,” I started to say then a silver trashcan behind him caught my eye. I had been in the bathroom earlier that evening, and I thought the trashcan had been right beside the door, not by the window beyond the stalls. “I think that’s in the wrong place.” I pointed.
Tuck slipped gloves on his hands and leaned over the trashcan to look. “Ladies, move quickly toward the door and on out. Take everyone with you.”
When Tiffany and I just stared at him, he shouted, “Now.”
I grabbed Tiffany by the arms and hauled her to her feet, and then we ran. As soon as we were through the bathroom door, I started shouting, “Get out! Get out! Everyone get out!” I wasn’t sure what Tuck had seen in that trashcan, but if it was what I thought it was, we needed to get as far away as fast as we could.
Daniel took one look at us running, Tiffany still in one heel, and took up my shout, amplifying my voice throughout the room. “Get out of the building right now. Everyone!!”
Fortunately, it looked like only the police officers, Daniel, Mart, Tiffany, and I were still inside, so within seconds, we were all out the front door, and a heartbeat later, Tuck burst out, too. “Move back. Get off the steps. Now.”
We kept running until we were at the back of the parking lot. For a moment, we all looked at each other, and then all our gazes turned to Tuck. He had just opened his mouth to speak when an enormous explosion rocked the air as the windows of the winery blew out.
Tiffany screamed again, and instinctively I grabbed her and pulled her face into my shoulder. She continued to scream even as the sound of her voice was overcome by the scr
eams of sirens. An ambulance pulled up next to us, and two EMTs jumped out.
“Do you have something to calm her?” Tuck asked the female EMT. The young woman nodded and then took a firm grip on Tiffany’s arms before spinning her from my body to her own and leading her to have a seat on the tailgate of the ambulance. She handed Tiffany a bottle of water and some pills, and Mart went to sit with them.
Only then did I think to check on our local sheriff. “Are you okay?” I asked as I took hold of his upper arms. “You cut it close in there.”
He let out of a long, slow breath. “I took a bomb diffusing workshop once, so I hoped I’d be able to do it. It was a silly risk, but the winery—”
“No building or business is worth your life,” Daniel said. “Glad you’re okay.”
Tuck nodded, and for a minute, I thought I might have seen a shudder in his breath. But then he straightened his shoulders and turned to the deputies beside us. “Time to work the scene, folks,” he said, the authority back in his voice.
I glanced over at Tiffany and Mart and then over at Daniel. “Someone was trying to kill Tiffany.”
He sighed. “It appears that way. She’s very lucky.”
“We all are,” I said and dropped to the curb with my head on my knees.
* * *
The events of the next few hours went by in a blur. At some point, Mart called the winery owners to explain what happened, and they were perfect – gracious, kind, and confident that their insurance would cover everything. Their only concerns were that everyone was okay and that RAINN would still get the proceeds from the event.
Fortunately, the director and her wife as well as all the donors had already left that evening, and all the arrangements for donations had already been made, so RAINN wouldn’t suffer at all. In fact, I expected that one unintended benefit of the explosion was that RAINN would get more press than ever, and I hoped maybe that would make some good come out of such a horrific night.
Sometime in the night, my parents showed up with yoga pants, a giant T-shirt, and coffee. “It’s decaf,” Mom said as she pressed a warm travel mug into my hands, “just in case you might actually get a chance to sleep.”
I smiled and took a sip. Mom had mixed in a little cocoa and a little cinnamon with the cream and sugar. It was a perfect drink for a cool night. And she’d brought enough for everyone. Once she’d checked on me, confirmed that Daniel, Mart, and I were sound of body and mind, she gave Dad his marching orders, and they moved out into the crowd with a tray full of coffee mugs.
Soon thereafter, Mart jogged over to me – how she had the energy to jog after all this I could not imagine – and said she was going to ride with Tiffany to the hospital. “She needs someone.”
“Of course,” I said. “Keep us posted?”
Mart nodded crisply and ran back to the ambulance. She waved from her seat next to Tiffany’s stretcher as the EMTs closed the door.
I felt a little knot of emotion against the back of my throat as they rode away. Both of them could have been killed, I thought. Tears pooled in my eyes, but now was not the time for me to sink into all the emotions that were swirling inside me. There’d be time for that later. Now, we needed to figure out who had tried to kill Tiffany, and I had a strong suspicion that this attempted murder was linked to the actual murder of Coach Cagle. I couldn’t tie the two crimes together, though, not yet.
Tuck and his team were still interviewing everyone who had been inside, and the bomb squad from Annapolis was clearing the building as we spoke. I reached down into my bra again, and when Daniel looked at me with one eyebrow askew, I shrugged and said, “No pockets.”
He laughed and then led me to the truck, where he draped a towel that we kept inside to wipe the dogs’ feet across the windshield. Then, he stationed himself by the passenger side window, which was facing the now bustling police command center, and let me climb in through the driver’s side with the tote of clothes Mom had brought. I was eager to get changed, but it had been a number of decades since I’d dressed in a car, and I had clearly lost all the skills I’d acquired during my busy high school years when my social calendar sometimes required me to change from band uniform to baggy jeans in my Toyota Tercel hatchback. Fortunately, I managed not to lean on the horn until I was decent because everyone assembled looked over when I did. But in a night of wild emotion, the embarrassment I felt then was only a mild twinge.
When I tapped on the glass behind Daniel, he climbed in beside me and handed me my phone. “I trust you have pockets now.”
I grinned. “I do.” Mom had brought my favorite comfy pants – drawstring, Lycra, and pockets included. “Now, we need some help.”
Daniel looked from me to the ever-growing assemblage of police officers and looky-loos from town and back to me again. “We do?”
I waved my phone at the window. “No, sorry. Not with this. We need help figuring out who did this to Tiffany.”
“Harvey Beckett.” Daniel’s voice was low, almost like a growl. “The sheriff has this well in hand.”
I nodded. “I know he does. I know.” I leaned the side of my face against the dashboard as I watched the police officers dart from tents and vehicles to the building and back. “But I need to do something, Daniel. I can’t just sit here and act like nothing happened.”
“You’re not acting like nothing happened, Harvey. You’re letting the police do their jobs.” He took my hand and pulled me to him. “That could have been you in there.” His voice was thick with emotion.
I looked up at him, and for the first time since I’d known him, he had tears in his eyes. “Please, Harvey.”
I sighed and gave him a quick kiss before letting my head sink to his chest. “Okay,” I said. “You’re right.”
Daniel grabbed me by the shoulders and pushed me away from him so he could look me in the face.
“What?!” I squeaked.
“Just wanted to be sure you hadn’t dozed off and said that in some sort of dream state.” He smiled and pulled me against him again.
“Very funny,” I murmured.
My phone kept buzzing against my hand while Daniel and I sat and waited for Tuck to give us the word that we could go home. Each time I lifted the screen, I felt Daniel tense, but I made a point of answering each check-in message with the screen facing toward Daniel. One by one, Cate, Henri, Woody, Pickle, and Marcus checked in, and I let them each know that everyone was okay and that I’d see them sometime tomorrow at the store.
As I was sending my last note, this one to Rocky, Tuck strode over to the truck. “Ya’ll can go. I got your statements, and it doesn’t look like we are going to get a lot more information from anyone there.”
I sat up straight. “Don’t you need to ask us all about who we might have seen going in and out? Try to figure out who was out of place?”
“Someday, woman, I’m going to send you to the police academy so you can learn how to do real policing, not this TV stuff. “ Tuck squeezed my shoulder. “But since you asked, we did check to see if any of the staff saw anyone out of place, and no one did.”
“You didn’t ask us?” I said with a huff.
“Man, somebody needs sleep,” Tuck said with a smile. “I presumed that you, Ms. Detective, would have already told me if you had seen such a person. Was that not a reasonable assumption?”
The last of the fight went out of me. “Sorry. You’re right. I didn’t see anyone either.”
Tuck turned back toward the building. “That’s because the person came in through the bathroom window. We found marks where they’d pried open the frame from the outside. They never went anywhere but the women’s restroom.”
“Ah,” Daniel said as he began to shift away from me. “Well, that explains it.”
I looked at him and frowned. “No, it doesn’t. How did the person know Tiffany would be in there, assuming Tiffany was the target?” I looked at Tuck for confirmation, and he nodded. “So how did they know Tiffany would go in the bathroom?”
> Daniel tilted his head as he climbed into the driver’s seat of the truck. “Most of us used the bathroom at some point, right?”
“True,” Tuck said, “but Harvey’s right. He couldn’t have hidden in there all night. Someone would have noticed.”
“Someone definitely would have noticed a man in the women’s bathroom,” I said with a smirk.
“Caught that, did you?” Tuck said and sighed. “Yes, we expect the bomber was a man.”
“Because they used the heavy trashcan to hit Tiffany?’ I asked.
“Because they used the trashcan.” Tuck slipped his baseball cap off his head and ran his hand over his shorn hair. “But not a word, Harvey. You, too, Daniel. To keep Tiffany safe, we need to be sure the bomber doesn’t get word of anything about our investigation, okay?”
I nodded. “I just promised Daniel I wouldn’t do any sleuthing, so don’t worry.” I stretched my back away from the truck seat. “I’ll be good. Now, is it okay if we go home? I’m beat.”
“Yes, please go home and rest. I’ll come by the shop tomorrow to check on you.” He pushed the door of the truck closed and thumped it twice in the universal symbol for “drive safely.”
We pulled up to a small canopy that my mom used at festivals when she was volunteering for one of her many causes and found her and Dad elbow deep in sandwich fixings. “Everyone is beginning to get hungry, so we’re going to stay a while,” she said. “As long as you don’t need us,” she said.
I would not have dared pull my mother away from her element. She was practically glowing at the thought of being able to help people. “Nope, I’m all set. Just going to go home and get some sleep. See you all at the shop tomorrow afternoon?”
Dad walked over and put his hand through the truck window. “Glad you’re okay, Harvey. We’ll bring lunch for everyone tomorrow.” He waved a half-made ham and cheese sandwich at the table full of veggies, meats, cheese, and breads. Then he leaned in and gave me a one-armed hug. He smelled like his aftershave and mustard. He smelled like comfort.