by Susie Gayle
When I’m only a few feet away I hear Patty tell him, “Thank you, Mr. Casey. If you think of anything else, you can reach me at this number.”
“My pleasure, Chief.”
I glance over my shoulder to see Mr. Casey, who appears visibly shaken up, step away. And Patty Mayhew is staring right back at me.
“Hi, Will,” she says flatly.
Patty is a great police chief; under her watchful eye, Seaview Rock has been a very safe place to live. In the past year or so, however, we’ve had a rash of bizarre murders. And I sort of have a habit of being nearby when they happen, so it’s only natural that she’s not terribly surprised to see me.
“Hi, Patty. Looks like something awful happened here, huh?” I try to act concerned.
Patty sighs. “Don’t play dumb, Will. You’re not good at it. You saw who it was.”
“Is she going to be okay?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know. Externally she looked fine, but unconscious. She’s in the doctors’ hands now.” The chief narrows her eyes a little and asks, “Shouldn’t you be at the Pet Shop Stop?”
“Normally, yes. But today…” I point to Melinda, who has her arms crossed over her chest and looks none too happy with me. “I’m taking Sarah’s mother to lunch. Just happened to be in the area.” For the very first time (and also maybe the last time), I’m glad Melinda is with me. Looks less suspicious that way, even if I really was just happening by.
“Uh-huh,” Patty says slowly. “Well then, I’ll let you get back to it.”
“Thanks, Chief. Good luck with the hit-and-run.” I smile, but inside I’m losing my mind. Someone hit Rachel Stein with a car in broad daylight on the same day the story of her affair with Tom Savage broke. Seems too far out of the realm of coincidence to me.
I trot back over to Melinda. “Sorry about that, just wanted to—”
“Hey,” Denny says quietly, joining us suddenly from out of nowhere. He adjusts his black skullcap and stares at the sidewalk.
“Denny, I was worried about you!” Melinda gushes. “Where did you run off to?”
He jabs a thumb in the air, in the direction we came from. “There’s a comic book store down the road. I was just poking around.”
“We checked the comic book store,” I tell him. “We didn’t see you.”
“Obviously we didn’t look hard enough,” Melinda says curtly. “What a horrible afternoon. Now, can we go have some lunch?”
I blink a couple of times. “You still want to eat, after all that?”
Melinda blinks back at me. “I don’t know her.”
Right. And I guess it’s too far beyond her to ask if maybe I do. Whatever; I don’t want to argue with the woman anymore.
“Fine, let’s go.”
***
The Runside is one of my favorite places in the whole world. These days it’s a pretty fantastic bar and grill that brews their own craft beer and serves up seafood they catch fresh daily, but once upon a time it was a tiny dive bar made from the planks of the original Seaview Rock pier.
Of course, when I tell Melinda Walsh that, she looks around distastefully and says, “Hmm. Yes, it looks like it.”
Holly, the proprietor and bartender, glances up at us and says, “Hi, Will. Sit anywhere you like.”
We take a table near the rear and I almost immediately excuse myself to make a phone call. I step outside and quickly call Sarah. She doesn’t answer, so I leave a brief voicemail asking that she calls me back as soon as she can. Then I call Sammy.
“Hey, what’d you find out?” he asks right away.
Right. I’d almost forgotten that I told him I’d talk to Hammond Dobes and the reporter. “I talked to Ham,” I tell him. “He knows… a little more. But don’t worry; he won’t say anything.”
“How do you know?” Sammy insists.
“I paid him.”
“You paid him.” He sighs through the phone. “That sounds like a temporary fix. I haven’t been able to get away from the barber shop long enough to talk to Savage or Stein—”
“Sammy, listen. That’s part of the reason I’m calling. Rachel Stein was just hit by a car right on Center Street.”
“Good god! By who?”
“Don’t know. I wasn’t there, I didn’t see…” I trail off as I see the old man hobbling toward the entrance to the Runside. “But I know someone who might have. Call you later.” I hang up before he can say anything more and hold the door open for Mr. Casey.
“Ah, Will!” He smiles at me, but it vanishes quickly. “How are you, son?”
Mr. Casey owns the auto repair shop in town, Sockets & Sprockets. A while back I discovered that one of his mechanics was responsible for the death of Jerry Brahms, another of his employees—which was also around the same time I found out about the blackmail scheme.
“I’m well, Mr. Casey. How are you?” I follow him inside as he props himself up on a stool.
“Been better,” he admits.
“Yeah, I saw you downtown. I’m guessing you saw it happen.”
Holly slides a Whale of an Ale in front of Mr. Casey and he wraps both his gnarled hands around it, staring straight ahead. “I did.”
I glance over at Denny and Melinda, the latter of which is eyeing me up. “Give me just one second, Mr. Casey.” I hurry back over to their table.
Before I can say anything, Melinda speaks up. “Tell me, William, is it customary around here to ignore your guests?”
“Sorry,” I mutter. “I just need to talk with Mr. Casey for a minute. Lunch is on me; order whatever you’d like.”
Melinda mumbles something under her breath, but I don’t hear it as I return to the bar and slide onto the stool beside Mr. Casey. “Sorry about that. Um, can I ask you a question?”
“Sure, Will.” He takes a long swig.
“Can you tell me what you saw?”
He shakes his head slowly. “I had just come from Miller’s. I walked, because it’s such a nice day out. I got to the intersection and was about to cross when I heard brakes squeal. I looked up; Rachel Stein was crossing the street. The car ran the light and struck her. She rolled up onto the hood and then… tumbled into the street. Then the driver took off.”
“Mr. Casey, did you see who it was?”
“No. The windows were tinted. I couldn’t see specifics. But I’m very confident it was a man, and I’m equally sure he was wearing dark clothing and… I think he was bald.”
“Bald?”
The old man shrugs. “Or possibly wearing a hat?”
“But you said you heard brakes squeal. It could’ve been an accident, right?”
For the first time, he looks over at me—right in the eye. “Will, I know cars. I’ve been working on them my whole life. The one that struck Ms. Stein slowed down, but right before it hit her they let go of the brake.” He takes another swig. “This was no accident.” He turns his attention back to the void in front of him.
“Thank you, Mr. Casey. If you need anything, don’t hesitate to give me a call.”
He waves a hand in the air. “I’ll be fine. But I have a question for you, Will.”
“Yes?” I ask as I slide off the stool.
“Are you going to be looking into this? Like you did with Jerry?”
“Between you and me? It seems likely.”
“Then there’s one more thing you should know,” he tells me. “The car in question had dealer plates.”
CHAPTER 7
“That doesn’t convince me that it couldn’t have been an accident,” Sarah says quietly, for the sake of the few customers milling about the pet shop.
“Casey knows what he’s talking about,” I practically whisper back. “I believe him. He says that the car slowed down, but then let off the brakes before it hit Stein. It was deliberate, Sarah.”
After the Runside, I brought Denny and Melinda back to the shop. (Surprisingly, Melinda didn’t complain once about the food; though, on the way out,
she told Holly that she was “surprised to find food that good in a place that looked like this.”) Still unable to check into their hotel and not content to mill about the shop, Melinda took Denny to meander around town—for which I’m thankful, because not only does it give us a break from her, but it also allows us to talk freely about the Rachel Stein situation.
“So, what are you thinking?” Sarah asks. “That whoever did it might have almost had a last-minute change of heart?”
“Either that, or they were trying to hurt her, but not kill her,” I suggest. “I don’t know. But the dealer plates on the car…”
“That doesn’t necessarily mean it was him,” Sarah cuts in, practically reading my mind. “We can’t jump to conclusions. That’s how we’ll alienate people, who might start pointing fingers.”
“You’re right.” I hesitate before saying, “There’s something else, Sarah.” I take a deep breath. “Your brother went missing for about a half hour before Rachel Stein was hit.”
“So?” Sarah arches an eyebrow, pretty much as high as an eyebrow can physically arch.
So he wasn’t where he told us he was, I want to say. So he has a history of stealing cars. So he was wearing a black shirt and a black hat, just like Mr. Casey described. But I don’t say any of that. I just let a heavy silence span between us for several seconds, her eyebrow remaining arched—as if it’s challenging me to follow up on my thought.
Luckily I don’t have to. The door to the pet shop swings open and a short woman with dirty blonde hair rushes over to the counter.
“I wanted to come sooner,” Karen tells us quickly, “but I had to wait for my lunch break. I heard about Stein.” Not only is Karen Bear my ex-wife and now-friend, but she’s also privy to the blackmail scheme, same as us, thanks to her penchant for snooping.
“And now we have reason to believe it wasn’t an accident,” I tell her gravely.
“That it might not have been an accident,” Sarah corrects.
“Yeah, I was kind of thinking the same,” Karen admits. “People are angry. Everyone at the bank is talking about the affair and how they used it to push their agenda. No one seems to know the whole truth, but…” She shakes her head. “I heard one guy say he was glad about… what happened.”
I sigh. I like to try to see the best in people whenever possible, but a lot of them make that really hard sometimes.
“So what’s our play?” Karen asks. “Have you talked with Sammy or Savage?”
As if by serendipity, the door swings open once more and Sammy-Boy bursts in breathlessly. He glances from one of us to the next.
“Good, you’re all here.” He smoothes back his hair and takes a deep breath. “Something’s happened.”
“What?” All three of us ask almost at the same time.
He glances around the store, sees the customers, and lowers his voice to a conspiratorial whisper.
“Rachel Stein… just passed away.”
My jaw drops. “But I saw her at the scene. She looked okay.”
Sammy stares at the tiled floor. “Internal bleeding. She’s gone.”
“Which means this hit-and-run just became vehicular homicide,” Sarah murmurs. We all look at her. “Someone needs to get to Tom Savage, right now.”
“She’s right,” I agree. “Savage is already kind of an anxious guy. If he thinks any of us had anything to do with this—”
“He might squeal,” Sammy finishes my thought.
“And with Stein gone,” Karen chimes in, “he could blame the bad accounting on her, the blackmail on us, and play the victim.”
“And even if he did it, he could still do the same,” I muse. “I’ll go.”
“I’m coming, too,” Sammy says.
“Sure,” Karen agrees, “I have about forty-five minutes.”
“You guys are not leaving me here alone,” Sarah protests.
“No, you’re right. We’ll all go,” I tell them. “Either he’ll know we’re serious, or… I don’t know, maybe we can wheedle something out of him. As soon as these last two customers are gone, we’ll go.”
“What about Mom and Denny?” Sarah asks. “I don’t know when they’ll be back. If the shop is locked, I’ll never hear the end of it.”
I think for a moment. “I’ll leave the backdoor unlocked. Text Dennis and tell him they can wait for us inside. Your mom will just have to deal with it.”
***
Less than ten minutes later, the four of us—me, Sarah, Sammy, and Karen—pull into the parking lot of Savage Cars, the councilman’s used car dealership. I start to drive toward the entrance, but suddenly slam on the brakes halfway across the lot.
“What gives?” Karen complains from the back seat.
“Look.” I point out the windshield, where all four of us can see Patty Mayhew leading Tom Savage out of the dealership with his hands cuffed behind his back. Two police cruisers sit just outside, and as we watch, Patty stuffs Savage into the back of one of them.
“Is he being arrested?” Sarah asks—not because she doesn’t understand, but likely to confirm that what she’s seeing is real.
“Sure is,” I say glumly.
“Not good,” Sammy mutters behind me. “Not good, not good, not good.”
CHAPTER 8
* * *
I pull into a parking spot and we wait a few minutes until the police cars leave the lot.
Sammy finally says what we’re all thinking. “Patty is a tough cookie. She’ll break Savage in no time. He’ll tell her everything.”
“Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt.” I glance out the window to make sure the cops are gone. “I’m going inside. You guys stay here.”
“Will, do you really think that’s a good idea?” Sarah asks as I open the car door.
“Not really,” I reply. “Be right back.”
As I pull open the glass door to the dealership, a female voice says sharply, “Stop, please!” I freeze and look up to see Savage’s niece and receptionist, Beatrice, a dark-haired woman in her early thirties that I’ve met a couple of times (neither of them under pleasant circumstances). Her face is chalk-white and her eyes are uncertain. “We’re closed right now.”
“I know,” I tell her. “I saw what happened.”
Her eyes narrow as she recognizes me. “I know you. You’re the one that gave my uncle an anxiety attack… what, a week ago?”
“Give or take. Listen, Beatrice—”
“No, absolutely not. Get out. I can’t deal with whatever reason you’re here right now.”
I put both hands up, palms-out, and tell her, “Please, I want to help.”
She raises an eyebrow slightly. “Help how?”
“First I need to know why your uncle was arrested just now.”
Beatrice stiffens. “I’m not going to tell you that!”
“Fine, then I’ll guess. He was arrested on suspicion of murder of Rachel Stein. The car that struck her had dealer plates that traced back to here. How am I doing so far?”
“That’s… that’s exactly right,” she says softly. “What do you know about all this?”
“Not enough. Not yet. But I do know that if your uncle is innocent, then he has an alibi. Beatrice, can you confirm that he was here at the dealership around twelve thirty today?”
“Yes,” she says quickly. Then she lowers her gaze to the floor and says, “Well, no. Not exactly. Around a quarter after twelve, I asked him if I could go to lunch. He told me, ‘not yet.’ He said he had to go out to the lot for a few minutes. He didn’t say why. Then I didn’t see him again for about a half an hour.”
“Did anyone else see him during that half hour?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “It was just me, him, and two salespeople here today, and both of them were in here with me.”
Thirty minutes would be plenty of time to take a car, drive into town, and drive back. But for that to be true, Savage would have needed to know that Stein w
as going to be crossing that intersection at that precise moment.
“You can’t help him, can you?” she asks me.
“I…” I’m at a loss here. Not only can I not help him, but it seems that Patty Mayhew made an educated guess and might be right.
“I don’t know what to think anymore,” Beatrice sighs. “Just… please. Tell me one thing. Is what they’re saying true? Did he have an affair with that woman?”
I hesitate for too long. Beatrice can see it in my face. She closes her eyes and slowly shakes her head. I want to offer her some sort of condolence or apology, but before I can she suddenly puts her hands up and says loudly, “Stop, please! We’re closed right now!”
I turn. Behind me, a woman with brown hair tied into a bun and horn-rimmed glasses freezes halfway through the door. She smiles sweetly. “I apologize for intruding, ma’am. My name is Beverly Quigley from the Seaview Rock Gazette. I just want to ask a couple of quick questions—”
“Absolutely not,” Beatrice shakes her head fervently. “No press. In fact, I’d appreciate it if you both leave, right now.”
“Sorry,” I murmur to Beatrice. I skirt around Beverly Quigley and head outside.
As I’m walking back to the car, I hear her call out to me, “Sir? Excuse me, sir?”
I turn toward the reporter. “Yes?”
“Would you tell me your name?” she asks.
“No.”
“Would you tell me what you’re doing here?”
“Nope.” I turn back toward the car.
“Would you tell me why you waited for the cops to leave?” When I turn to her again, she has a little smirk on her face. “I saw you. I was in the parking lot, too. See, I came here to see if Mr. Savage would comment on Rachel Stein’s death, but then I saw the police. Then I saw you pull in, park, and wait for the cops to go before you went inside. Why is that?”
I shrug. “I’m looking for a new SUV, not a police cruiser.”
“Mm-hmm.” She waves the tip of a pen at me. “Well, between you and me, I think there’s more going on here than just an affair.”