by Tegan Maher
"Course I did," he said, looking at her like she was nuts. "He needed money, I needed another carpenter. Like the Good Book says, give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day. Teach him to fish and he'll never be hungry. If you ever met Marylou Simmons, you'd understand he only cussed me because he was desperate."
"Well," I asked, trying to be patient but worried he'd flicker out. "Did he take it?"
"Nope. Said he just needed a loan, not a job. Didn't much surprise me. His family always was that way—not keen to put any more effort into something than need be. That's why he was playin' poker. Easy money. That is, if you win. His problem is that tic."
Raeann started to ask, and I cut her off. "His eye tics when he's bluffing."
He continued after she nodded. "We tried not to take advantage of it—we mostly used it to keep him from taking too much of our money—but at the end, he was bettin' all crazy on even bad hands, with money we all knew he couldn't afford to lose."
I took a deep breath then released it. "When you combine desperation and laziness, murder isn't outside the realm of possibility if that'd fix the problem."
"Man should stand on his own two feet, not depend on others to do for him and his," he grumbled. "Laziness, that's what's wrong with your entire generation. Ain't nobody willing to put in the effort."
He tilted his head sideways and went pale as a sheet, then flickered in earnest and looked at his watch. I heaved a sigh as he said the now-familiar, and incredibly annoying, phrase. "Gotta go meet Darlin'."
As usual, he faded out.
"Wow," Rae said. "He's always like that?"
"Oh, no. He was actually fairly nice that time. He calls Hunter Numbnuts."
She burst out laughing. "Seriously? I'm so gonna use that the next time I see him."
I grinned. "Go ahead. He's not nearly as amused by it as you are."
She was still smiling as she picked up our empty plates and tossed them in the trash. "I don't guess he would be. Though he does seem to be usin' less starch in his shorts lately."
I fired off a text to him about the visit from Max.
"I keep meaning to ask you if you've heard from Camille," she asked me.
Camille was Shelby's tutor and had been gone for the better part of a month, which was odd. She worked for the Council of Magic, overseeing their Magical Oversight Committee. Her sole responsibility was to monitor and manage people who misused magic or had problems managing it on their own.
She was sorta like a magical social worker and had taken Shelby under her wing. She and her daughter Emma had recently moved here and Shelby, Emma, and Becki had become pretty much inseparable.
Camille was a stickler for rules and schedules. For her to miss one lesson with Shelby was highly unusual; for her to disappear for a month was unimaginable.
"I haven't, and I'm getting worried about her. Emma is out of town at her dad's for the summer, so I called the council and talked to Aurora Darkmore. She just told me that Camille was working on a case that had extended a little beyond what they thought it would. No timeframe to expect her back or anything."
"Weird. Though I'm not surprised. The council does like to play their hand close to their chest. As long as she's all right, that's all that matters."
Camille hadn't been one of our favorite people until a month or two ago when she helped Shelby through a magical quagmire, but she was warming up to us quickly.
"Yeah, that's what I figured too. It's been kinda nice having her around since she took that stick out of her butt and started acting like one of us mere mortals."
Rae snorted. "Seriously. I'd still like to know what happened there."
"No idea," I said, shrugging. "All I know is that since she moved here, she's been a different person. And I'm glad."
My phone dinged with an incoming text. I creased my brow as I read it.
"What?" Rae asked. "Is that Hunter?"
"Yeah." I read the text to her.
H: We're making an arrest.
N: Who?
"That's odd," Rae said. "You don't think it's Joe do you?"
"I really hope not. I—" my phone dinged again, cutting me off.
H: Larry Huffman. He ran when we caught up to him at Walmart and we found almost ten grand on him. All C-notes.
I READ IT TO RAE AND thought back to what Max had said about Larry wanting to get things the easy way. I don't know if I'd call swinging a toilet tank lid at a man's head easier than swinging a hammer at a nail, but it definitely paid off faster. As long as you didn't get caught.
Chapter Seventeen
"So does this mean he’s got it nailed down for sure? Did he mention anything about the flannel?"
"No, but he said that could take a week or more because they had to ship it to Atlanta." My mind flashed back to when I first saw that strip of cloth, then Max's boots and that broken tank lid flashed through unbidden. All the crime scene guys working—
"Hot damn! I know where the safe's at." I jumped from my chair, knocking over my empty cup in the process and almost dumping Rae's in her lap.
"What? Where?" She'd picked up her cup and was sopping up the mess where it had splashed over the edges.
"Behind the picture of the dogs playing poker. I'd bet my bottom dollar on it." I dug out my phone to call Hunter.
She scrunched her forehead. "Honey, you're gonna have to give me a little more than that. Do you have any idea how many of those tacky old crimes against the humanities exist in this county?"
I held the phone away from my ear while it rang. "He has one hanging in his shop. I saw it the day we found him and thought something was off with it, but my brain was on overload."
"I'da been worried about you if it hadn't been."
"Yeah, but that's beside the point. The picture was hung in a weird spot almost at eye level right underneath a window-unit AC. And it was crooked."
"Ohhh. Yeah, that's weird. Though it makes as much sense as anything else in this case, I reckon."
My call went to voicemail so I texted him.
"What do you think's in the safe? And why’s it important now that they’ve caught the bad guy?"
I shrugged. "Max was doing the whole flickering thing when he told me about it, but from what I can gather, he had ten grand in there. Besides, Larry may have killed him, but for some reason, I’d kinda like to clear his name with his wife, too. I don’t think he’s a cheater and I don’t want her to have to think that if it’s not true."
"Folks have killed for a lot less than ten grand, though. Plus, if this Larry guy was caught with that much cash, do you really think the safe is important anymore?"
"I don’t know. I just wish Max could remember more."
"Yeah, that would make things a ton easier. And it's weird that he can remember some stuff but not others."
"Yeah. It is. That's a mystery in and of itself."
My phone dinged. I read the text and groaned in frustration.
"What?" Rae said, trying to read upside down.
"He says the safe's not going anywhere, if it even exists, and that Joe's coming in for more questioning too, since his alibi fell through."
I fired back another text.
N: Have you cleared the scene yet?
Though I choose (sort of) to be a waitress and baker, I have a degree in criminal justice from UGA and had dreamed of being a forensic tech once upon a time, mostly because I can't resist a puzzle. This was definitely a puzzle.
He answered quickly.
H: Yes. Why?
N: Gonna run out there real quick. Max says it's important.
H: Max is a ghost with a memory problem. Not my most reliable witness.
I growled in frustration. Rae'd moved beside me to read the last text for herself rather than wait for me to tell her what it said.
"The man's making me batty." I turned off my screen instead of replying, then grabbed my purse from behind the bar along with a pair of rubber gloves that we used for food prep.
"Grab me a pair, too," Ra
e said. "I ain't lettin' you go out there by yourself. Besides, you may need a witness. Or backup."
My phone rang about five seconds later.
I answered it and Hunter said, "You're on your way out there, aren't you?"
I wasn’t going to deny it. "Max may not know why, but he knows it's important. It's worth at least checking into. What's it going to hurt?"
He sighed. "Fine. Emily Wheeler wants to go in and get some stuff from the office but she doesn't want to go alone and her daughter hasn't made it back into town yet. The son and the nephew are working."
I smiled. "Rae and I would be happy to go with her."
"Noelle? Be careful. And if you find anything, don't touch it. Just let me know."
"Okay."
"I'm not unreasonable, you know. I haven't quite figured this town out yet, but I have learned that it doesn't work the way Indianapolis does and that truth somehow consistently defies logic here."
"Now you're catching on," I said. "That's really not the case though; the truth follows the rules of logic just fine. It's your definition of logic that's messing you up. And thank you."
"You're welcome."
“And Noelle? I didn’t want to say anything before, but Joe’s alibi fell through.”
“What do you mean, it fell through?”
“I mean he says he was in Atlanta all day at a boat show, but his credit card was used twice here that day, with the first at ten in the morning and the second at two in the afternoon.”
I rubbed my hand over my face. Peachy. I was so sure that he wasn’t guilty, but why would he lie if he was innocent?”
Chapter Eighteen
Wheeler Construction was about fifteen minutes out of town, and I hadn't really had a chance to catch up with Rae one-on-one since I got back from the cabin. While I drove, I told her all about it.
"So what about you?" I asked. What did you do all weekend?"
She made a show of looking at her fingernails, cleaning away non-existent dirt. "Nothin'."
I narrowed my eyes at her. "Raeann Michelle, you spill right now. What are you up to?"
She tossed her hands back in her lap. "Fine. I went on a date."
I was confused. "Why wouldn't you want to tell me that?" Then her bucket list flashed behind my eyes. Hers followed the spirit of the bucket list concept, but it was more like the Bucket List: Extreme Edition.
Some of the stuff on hers was just flat-out lunacy. Bungee jumping, sky-diving ..." Wait, did you go zorbing with some dude? You better not have. I totally wanted to do that with you."
"What? No! I didn't go zorbing without you." She looked appalled and hurt that I would suggest such a thing. I suppose I should explain. You know what zorbing is; you probably just didn't recognize the name. It's that game—sport, activity, whatever—where you roll down a hill in a giant, see-through ball inside another ball.
"Then why didn't you want to tell me?" I asked.
She looked out the window for a few seconds. "I kinda didn't want to admit that I'd gone on a date until he didn't try to kill me or anything."
That sounds bizarre, but she'd been with some hum-dingers. And, as I mentioned before, her last boyfriend tried his best to kill us. Thankfully, brains aren't always at the top of her list of must-haves. Otherwise, we'd both be dead.
"I think that's actually a reason in the ‘Why You Should Tell Noelle’ column. I prefer to know who you're out with." I thought about the fake name her last guy used. "And have a picture and a set of prints on him if possible."
She pushed on my shoulder. "You joke, but it's a soul-wrenching combination of sad and embarrassing that I can just close my eyes, reach into the barrel, and pull out the bat-shit-craziest monkey in there."
I reached over and squeezed her shoulder. "Look at it this way—you're luck has to get better. I mean, you can't really do any worse now that you've got the mass murderer box checked off the list. There's no way that could happen twice, even to you."
"True," she said, smiling, then blushed. "His name's Alex, and you've met him."
I racked my brain trying to think of anybody I knew named Alex and came up empty. "I don't think so. Alex who?"
"Adams. He was Shelby's doctor when she fell off the ladder."
Ohhh. I did remember the fine doctor. Tall, dark hair, dimples. He definitely fit her physical type.
"Does he have a basement? If so, I'm afraid I'm going to have to go with you the first time he takes you home. It may be a little awkward, but better safe than sorry."
"Zip it," she said, pinching me. "See, this is why I didn't want to tell you."
I jerked my arm back and slapped her fingers. She always pinched that sensitive skin on the underside of the arm. It was her go-to move and it hurt in that special, I-want-to-punch-you way.
"And no, he doesn't have a basement." I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye. "Before you ask, no, I haven't been home with him. I worked it into the conversation." She paused. "Then I checked the city blueprints of his house to make sure he wasn't lying."
It's a good thing I wasn't drinking anything, because that there was funny, and even more so—or less depending on how you looked at it—because it seriously could be a thing.
When we pulled up in front of the building, there was already a newer-model, champagne Cadillac with an older lady at the wheel sitting in the lot when we got there.
She opened the door and stepped out as soon as she saw us.
"You must be Noelle and Raeann. I'm Emily Wheeler. Folks call me Em," she said.
After the introductions were made, she moved toward the door, jangling some keys.
"I didn't want to come here, you know," she said.
"I can't say as I blame you," Rae replied.
"It has to be done, though." She unlocked the door and took a deep breath. "Shall we, ladies?"
I nodded, then it sunk in that she was about to walk within twenty feet of where her husband had been murdered just a few short days ago.
"Emily, if you want to tell us what you need, we don't mind going in and getting it for you."
She gave me a tired smile and the creases on her face seemed to deepen. "I appreciate that, but I'm going to have to get past it. Like it or not, I now have a business to run, at least until I can find somebody else. We've saved back some over the years, but not near enough to where I can retire, or even sell the place for enough to live on. Speaking of, Bo Jackson's already had the nerve to offer to buy me out. Can you believe that?" She shook her head. "It's shameful. Max isn't even in the ground yet."
Still frowning, she stepped through the door and my respect for her was pretty much bottomless as I followed her through. She had gumption; I'd give her that.
"Sheriff said you two were here in a semi-official capacity looking for something. May I ask what?"
I shifted uncomfortably and looked at Rae, who just shrugged.
"We're looking for your husband's safe. I think it may be—"
"Behind that stupid picture of the dogs playing poker," she said. “I always told him that was a stupid place to hang it, but he said there wasn't no way anybody'd ever find it 'cause ain't nobody was gonna steal that picture." She smiled, her eyes focused on something we couldn't see.
She shook her head. "Anyway, that's where it's at. I'll open it up for you if you'd like. I need to get the emergency stash out of there, anyway. We always kept a few grand in cash, just in case. Plus, all the permits and licenses and whatnot for this place are in there." She looked a little lost. "I guess I'll need to look at all of those.
She strode through the building, keeping her eyes glued straight ahead of her.
I prayed to every god out there that the crime techs had cleaned the place up, because the last thing this poor woman needed was to see the insides of her husband's gourd splattered hither and yon. I should have known that Hunter would've thought of that; the place was spotless as she walked right over where we'd found him toward that ugly picture twenty yards or so away from the sc
ene.
"Hang on a second," I said. Something wasn't sitting right with me. I looked around to see what it was then realized the picture was straight. It was likely nothing, but it didn't make sense that one of the crime-scene techs or cleaners would have gone that far away from the scene just to straighten a picture. And if they had, they would have found the safe.
"Never mind. Just a weird feeling. It passed," I said. Rae looked at me, curious, but I gave one little shake of my head and quickly made the sign for later in my palm. We'd learned the language in grade school and it still served us well. She nodded.
"Can't say as I blame you," Em said. It's not a cake walk for me, either. I know he was found somewhere right around here, and I know you know where, so I figure that even though you didn't know him, you're probably at least as uncomfortable as I am in here."
"Actually, I'd met him," I said without thinking.
She cocked a brow. "Do tell."
"Yeah. He came out and worked up the estimate for my pool and deck a couple of months ago. I ended up going with you all. They're about a quarter of the way through," I said.
"So girl-to-girl, I'm glad to see you planning on pickin' up the reins, but I'm extra happy on a personal level because I've got a giant mudhole takin' up a good piece of my backyard."
She smiled. "I bet you are. Don't take this personal, but I know he way underbid that job and you're getting it done for a steal. I'll honor his estimate, but jobs from here on out are gonna be billed so we make a profit. Competitive, but I'm not givin' away the farm like he was."
This is what Belle had been talking about—the reason they'd been fighting. But I felt the need to set her straight. "I'm not sure what to say, other than that if he'd bid any higher, I probably wouldn't have gone with y'all because he was right there in the same range as everybody else. I picked him because of the timeframe, not the cost."
She knitted her brow. "When did he bid your job?"
"About a month ago."
"That doesn't make any sense. That means you were in the list that I reviewed. Wait, you're the Flynn girl? The one who inherited Addy and Calvin’s place? I do remember that bid. He underbid that quite a bit, at least according to the books." She held up a finger. "Hold that thought because I want you to do something for me after we take care of this."