by Maddie Day
“Robbie, this is Isaac Rowling,” Danna said. “Isaac, meet my boss, Robbie Jordan.”
I shook his hand, but mine felt lost in his bear paw. “So pleased to meet you, Isaac. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“I’m in trouble now,” he said with a smile.
I stared at his eyes, one brown and one green. His lashes were longer, fuller, and curlier than even Corrine’s in full makeup. I tore my gaze away to greet Sue.
“How are you holding up?” I asked.
She lifted her chin a little. “I’m all right. Our lawyer was able to extricate me from the detective’s clutches today. She couldn’t hold me. She doesn’t have any evidence, because I didn’t kill Pia over no stupid loan.” She blew out a frustrated breath. “She sure as heck ruined my day, though.”
“Tell me about it,” Isaac said. “Down at the station they seemed to think because my dog and me found that lady’s body, I had something to do with her death. The poor thing.”
“I’m sorry you had to go through that,” I said. “Finding the body, I mean.”
“Yeah. Robbie knows. She found a dead body right in our store after Thanksgiving last year,” Danna added. She glanced at Sue with a quick intake of breath and brought her hand to her mouth. “Oh, I’m so sorry, Ms. Berry. I wasn’t thinking.”
The body I’d found had been Sue’s daughter. Another reason why Sue never would have murdered someone else. She knew what anguish the loved ones went through afterward.
Sue pressed her eyes closed for a moment, then opened them, swiping away a tear. “It’s okay. I have lots of good memories of her. I know it was rough on you, Robbie.”
“It was. It’s shocking and scary and really hard.” I pictured finding Erica next to my pickle barrel and shuddered. “How are you doing after discovering Pia in the bridge?” I asked Isaac.
“It was kinda of tough. I mean, I grew up hunting, so it’s not like I’ve never seen a dead body. But a person? That’s different. Reminded me of being deployed.”
“Did you recognize her? Did you know who she was?” I asked.
Isaac looked out over my head for a second or two.
“You met her at a contra dance, right, Ize?” Danna prodded.
“Right. Then she bought one of my metal sculptures and wanted to pay in installments. Except she stopped paying.”
“Really?” Sue’s eyebrows went up. “She did the same thing to me. Not for a sculpture, of course, but on a loan I gave her.”
“She must really have been hard up for cash,” Danna said, stroking Isaac’s arm. “Did you try to make her give you what she owed you?”
In front of my eyes Isaac withdrew into himself. It was hardly anything physical. It was more that the expression on his face went flat.
“Are you saying I hurt her?” he asked, his voice also devoid of feeling.
“Of course not. Don’t be silly,” Danna scoffed. “I mean, did you, like, call her, or write her an e-mail saying she still owed you? That’s all I meant.”
If I hadn’t been watching Isaac closely, I would have missed his face returning to normal.
“Of course. I sent her a second bill, and a third. But it wasn’t a huge amount of money.” He made a small waving gesture with his big hand as if the debt was so inconsequential it could be brushed away like a cobweb.
I hesitated with my next question, but my urge to know won over. “Don’t answer this if you don’t want to, Isaac, but I’m curious. Do you have any idea if Pia had recently died, or if she’d been there a long time?”
“The detective asked me the same question. I don’t know the answer. I thought I should see if she had a pulse, even though I couldn’t believe she could with the, um, wire around her neck.” He shivered, which for an instant made him seem much smaller and younger than he was. “Her skin was cold. That’s all I know.”
“A wire?” I asked.
“Yeah, almost like a guitar or banjo string.”
Garroted. Exactly what Henderson had told me. If Pia’s skin was cold, she could have been killed the night before or an hour before. Henderson and her team would have analyzed how stiff the body was and where. I thought they usually could tell within a two- or three-hour window of time.
Isaac went on. “And then, the police acted like they were suspecting me—me!—after I thought I had done the right thing by borrowing the minister’s phone.” He gave a quick shake of his head.
“I heard about that,” I said. “You didn’t have your cell on you?”
“I did, but I forgot to charge it last night. I’ve walked by the sign that’s posted down there lots of times. I didn’t want to leave the lady lying there alone, but I didn’t have a choice.”
“There’s no traffic on the bridge road early in the morning, anyway,” Danna added.
The bridge road hardly had any traffic at any time of day. Poor Pia. Dying at the hands of someone she probably knew, but otherwise alone. At night. On a lonely road.
The music changed again to an energetic fast-paced tune, and I shook off the image, focusing instead on the performers onstage. “Since when does your mom have a bluegrass group?” I asked Danna.
Danna tossed her head. “She’s completely nuts. As if being mayor doesn’t keep her busy. Anyway, she’s always played the guitar, but only at home. Then she met the mandolin player last year, the one up onstage?” She pointed. “It was during a jam session at last year’s festival and they got to talking. Next thing I knew Mom’s hosting rehearsals in our living room. It’s okay. Keeps her out of trouble.”
“Glen plays guitar, too,” Sue said with a fond look on her face. “But classical guitar, and sometimes jazz. He likes to go out in the woods early in the morning to practice. He has this bench in a clearing behind our house where he sets, or he’ll drive somewhere else to practice. Says he likes to play the sun up.”
“He told me he can’t stand bluegrass,” I said.
“Funny, isn’t it?” Sue said. “I love it, and then I get this job. Well, God made the world a big place for a reason, right?”
Isaac lightly tugged Danna’s elbow.
“I’m coming, I’m coming.” She smiled at Sue and me. “The man loves to dance. So do I. See you in the morning, Robbie.”
“Danna, by the way, I got all the pies made, and managed to do the breakfast prep, too,” I said.
“Sweet.”
“Have fun, kids,” I said, then wondered why I’d said kids. I was less than ten years older than Danna. Owning my own business, being responsible for everything, made me feel older. “I’m headed to the beer pavilion,” I said to Sue as the couple walked away.
“And I have to run over and check the Hippy Hill stage, make sure everything’s running smooth. You take care, now.” She bustled away, too.
But when I came back, cider and beer in hand, Sue was nowhere near the Hippy Hill stage. Instead, she stood huddled with Chase at the back of the audience watching the main stage. I couldn’t see hers or Chase’s face, but body language said he was trying to convince her of something, and she wasn’t having any part of it.
Chapter Sixteen
“You two rocking the concert?” Phil asked half an hour later, sinking gracefully down to sit cross-legged in front of Abe and me, beer in hand.
“Great tunes,” Abe said. “How’s it going, man?”
The musicians on the stage now, two men and two women, all siblings, were singing some amazing harmonies, even as they also played a fiddle, a guitar, a bass, and a banjo. I figured there had to be something about familial voices that made their music so much more compelling.
“Just fine,” Phil replied. He tapped his hand against his knee in time with the music.
“You seem to like all kinds of music, Phil, not only opera,” I said.
“Of course! Music is the food of the soul. There’s no bad style, no genre I don’t like.”
I scrunched my nose. “I don’t like jazz much, at least some of it. It can sound, I don’t know, discordant? It
jars me.”
Phil nodded. “I know what you mean. But that’s the really creative stuff, riffing, improvising.”
I cocked my head. “Do you know Glen Berry? He said he loves jazz.”
“The liquor store guy?” Phil frowned a little. “Sure, I know him. Kind of an odd bird, don’t you think?”
“How so?” Abe asked.
“I don’t know,” Phil went on. “All smiles, all the time. But maybe not real smiles? You know the type?”
I nodded. “I hadn’t really gotten that impression from him. I don’t suppose either of you ever saw him and Pia together, did you?”
“Now that you mention it,” Abe began, “I saw them in a car last week. I was out in Gnaw Bone fixing a line, and they were sitting parked to the side of the little food place.”
I gazed at him. “Interesting.” I filed it away in a list of pieces to this puzzle. “Just sitting there, not, like, making out or anything?”
Abe laughed. “Why would you think that?”
“I’m curious, too,” Phil added.
“It was something Glen told me. He said Pia was a slut.”
“Interesting,” Abe said.
“I know,” I said. “Sue had befriended Pia and asked her over to dinner one night. Glen had to drive her home. Maybe she came on to him.”
“When I saw them it looked like they were arguing,” Abe offered.
“I saw Pia more than once with the Broward dude,” Phil said. “And they definitely weren’t arguing. The car windows were literally steaming up.”
“Where did you see them?” I asked.
“Here and there. In a campus parking lot near the IU music department. In the Bloomingfoods parking lot. Over in South Lick by the gazebo.”
I frowned. “Those last two are really public places, right out in the open.”
“Yeah. I don’t think she cared if they were seen, but I was surprised he didn’t. Public office holder and married, too.” He smiled with a sad expression. “Pia, she was so full of life. I really liked her, despite her hanging with a married man. She was the definition of exuberant. It came across in her singing, too.”
“The flip side of exuberance, at least in Pia, was her temper.” Abe shook his head. “That woman was a volcano ready to erupt.”
I shivered. The night air was cooling, and I pulled my denim jacket closer around me. But I shivered partly at the thought of Pia’s tempestuous life ending so abruptly, so violently. And partly at the idea that whoever murdered her was still wandering among us.
The music changed to a waltz. Abe jumped up and offered me his hand. “May I have this dance, miss?”
I smiled. Exactly the antidote I needed. I let myself be hoisted out of my chair. “See you, Phil.”
He smiled back and also pushed up to standing. “I’d better go find me a lady to waltz with.”
But as Abe steered me expertly through steps, the lilting tune only accentuated the confusing pieces forming the Pia puzzle, as I’d started thinking of it. The list of clues was getting longer, but I wasn’t filling in the acrosses and downs of the crossword very fast. Not at all, actually.
I shook my head and came back to the present. I didn’t need to solve the puzzle. That was the detective’s profession, her main job. All I had to do was text her what I’d seen and learned tonight. I succeeded in losing myself to Abe, to the music, to the dance. At least for right now.
Chapter Seventeen
Six-thirty today felt earlier this morning than some days, since Abe and I hadn’t gotten home until ten, and we’d had the delectable dessert of each other to enjoy. He’d been up and off to his job by five-thirty as he always was when he stayed over on a weeknight.
I was showered, dressed, and in the store, turning sausages as the coffee brewed when Danna waltzed in. Literally. She was humming “Brand New Tennessee Waltz,” the same song Abe and I had danced to last night.
“Don’t mind me.” She grinned, twirling as she approached the kitchen. “I think I found my new favorite dance.” Her vintage dress, a rayon with sprays of blue and green flowers, twirled with her.
“Abe and I danced to that, too.” I poured coffee into a mug and handed it to her, then poured for myself. “It’s lovely, isn’t it?”
“You bet. Thanks for the brew.” She sipped it and then set it down. Still humming, she tied on a store apron and set to work setting the tables.
“You two had fun last night, then.” In California, I didn’t know any high school and college students who enjoyed bluegrass, but Danna seemed to love it. Maybe it was the effect of growing up with the music all around her, which I hadn’t.
“We did. For such a big guy, Isaac’s a light-footed dancer.”
I began cracking eggs into a mixing bowl, prepping for omelets and scrambled eggs, but thinking of Isaac. “Remind me how long you’ve known him.”
“I met him this winter, but we were only a bunch of friends doing fun stuff. He and I started hanging out in March.”
“Do you feel like you know him pretty well?”
She filled a tray with the caddies of condiments we put on each table. “What do you mean?” she asked without looking at me.
My radar sent up an alarm. “Do you trust him?”
“Robbie!” Danna whirled and strode toward me. “Do you mean do I think he killed Pia? Of course not. Of course I trust him. He’s a good man. He’s sweet to me. What’s not to trust?”
“Whoa, hang on there. I was simply asking.” I held up both hands palms out.
“But why?” She folded her arms and stared down at me. Corrine’s daughter all the way, right down to the tall gene.
“Last night there was a minute when his face got weird,” I said. “Funny, like blank. And it was when you asked him if he’d tried to get his money out of Pia. You didn’t see it?”
The ire went out of Danna’s face, replaced by a furrowed brow and pursed lips. She took a deep breath and let it out. “Of course I did. He’s done it before. Robbie, he has some kind of secret, some dark thing in his past. I’ve asked him what’s going on inside when it happens but he won’t tell me. He’s a veteran, so maybe it has to do with his experiences when he was deployed.”
PTSD? I only nodded.
“It never lasts very long, though. And I do trust him. You should, too.”
Her intuitions had always been spot on about people. Still, I thought it bore digging a little deeper into Isaac’s past. What if his dark secret was pathological? Bursts of violence? Homicidal tendencies? I hoped the sheriff would look into Isaac’s past. A sausage spit a drop of hot grease, but I raised my hand fast enough to avoid it. I turned each over, and the smell of browned meat proved irresistible, so I forked up one and waved it to cool in the air.
“I trust you, and that counts for a lot.” I glanced down, spotting a tattooed anklet on her right lower leg. “Since when do you have a tat?” I bit off the end of the sausage, savoring the smoky maple flavor.
She blushed. “I went with Ize last week. I’ve always wanted one. Do you like it?” She lifted her foot and rotated her ankle, showing off the strands of the interwoven inked-in chain.
“It’s lovely.” Not for me, but it looked nice on her. “Now, any ideas for a breakfast special?”
Her expression lightened. “I was considering specials on the way over. We should make something from Kentucky. Bluegrass, right?”
“I’ve heard of the Hot Brown sandwich, but we’d need to order in turkey breast and then make the Mornay sauce ahead of time.”
“Yeah,” Danna said. “Let’s do the sandwiches for a lunch special tomorrow.”
“How about fried apples for today? I know we have a bunch of Granny Smiths in the cooler.”
“Ooh, apples fried in butter? Great idea.” She hurried over to the Specials board and wrote Hot Butter-Fried Apples. “I think we have a container of boiled potatoes in the walk-in, too. What if I also list Bluegrass Omelet, and say it’s with country ham and potatoes?”
�
��Go for it.”
We worked in silence for a few minutes, my mind roving over last evening. “Danna, how does your mom know Chase Broward? You know, the guy staying upstairs.”
Danna wrinkled her nose as she thought. “I think she said she met him at a city government meeting. Because she’s the mayor and he’s a city councillor in Bloomington.”
“She acted last night like she supports his run for Senate.”
“Who knows? Maybe that was only for show.”
By the time we opened at seven, the apples were sizzling, I had the potatoes all diced and ready to go, and was cubing thick slices of ham. After the bell on the door jangled, Wanda Bird walked in. I did a double take. Buck’s cousin was uniformed, all right, but her uniform was brown over tan, exactly like the sheriff’s detective yesterday, not the dark blue of the South Lick Police she’d worn the last time I talked with her back in the winter.
“Howdy Robbie, Danna,” she said.
“Hey, Wanda. Hungry?” I called. “Sit anywhere.”
She approached us and stood feet apart, hand on the gun in a holster attached to her three-inch-wide duty belt. Her robust female figure strained the sheriff’s uniform as much as it had that of the local department. She’d slicked her strawberry blond hair back into a bun as severely as it always was. A shiny badge decorated the short-sleeved shirt above a name tag reading DETECTIVE W. BIRD, which was pinned above the pocket on the left breast, literally in her case. A blue and gold star-shaped cloth patch had been sewn onto the left pocket, which read SHERIFF DEPT, BROWN COUNTY, IND.
“Since when are you with the county sheriff’s department?” I asked. “Last I knew you were working for Buck right here in South Lick.”
“Well, opportunity called and I answered. Turns out the sheriff’s department had an opening for a deputy detective, and I went for it. More possibility for advancement. And after helping Buck out a few times on those cases you were involved in, I realized I liked investigative work. Plus, it’s kind of nice working for a lady for a change.”