by Sandi Scott
Ashley did feel a little bit giddy. Ryan came to the table and said, “I think… I hate to jinx myself here, but I think we have things under control for a while. Want to take a walk along the beach with me?”
Ashley grinned and jumped up. “That sounds delightful.”
“What about your catering business, mademoiselle?” Patty asked.
Ashley grabbed a handful of flyers. “I’ll pass these out along the beach.”
The two of them left before Patty could bring up any other objections or some actual emergency could come up, and walked down the aisle, past the karaoke tent, toward the beach.
As they passed Betty’s truck, Ashley looked over to wave at her new friend but saw that Betty was too busy to notice her. Surprised, Ashley saw the woman from Sparrow’s tent—Moonbeam—walk over to Betty’s truck, holding a plastic Thank you! bag and a large cardboard box. Betty had leaned out and was pointing at Moonbeam’s eye. Moonbeam shrugged and tilted her head to the side. Oh well. Then she held up the plastic bag.
Betty looked both ways, then quickly relieving Moonbeam of the bag and the unwieldy box, she disappeared from the service window. Her rump reappeared at the back door of the truck, which was open to try to catch a breeze. Ashley saw her dig her keys out of her pocket, unlock one of the cupboards, pull something out of it, then lock it again. After a moment, Betty reappeared at the service window and handed the plastic bag back to Moonbeam. It looked to Ashley like there was now a Styrofoam to-go box inside the bag. Moonbeam opened the lid a tiny fraction, then gave Betty a barely noticeable nod before wandering along the grassy aisle, nodding her head back and forth as if she were moving it in time to music that only she could hear.
The exchange made Ashley wonder if maybe she could trade her food for other things at the festival. If Betty was paying for hemp goods with food, maybe Ashley could do something similar. That would have avoided this whole receipt fiasco. Plus, it would be a fun way to get to know people.
Ashley watched the exchange until Moonbeam left and Betty reappeared at her window. She hadn’t seemed to see Ashley, so Ashley just kept walking, tuning back into what Ryan was telling her about the bonfire.
5
After the bonfire the previous evening, several of the volunteers had stayed late in order to build an even bigger pile of driftwood for Saturday night, dragging in dry wood from along the beach and setting it up in a rough teepee shape surrounded by even bigger logs. Ryan said that they had finished it at about midnight.
Throughout the day, organizers had been announcing the new, official bonfire, saying that there would be acoustic music, a singalong, and free soda. Several of the volunteers and a pair of uniformed police had been assigned to watch over the area. The festival organizers didn’t want a repeat of the previous night.
Ashley had to agree that that was a good plan.
It was a pretty sunset, the sky speckled with colorful clouds and the waves crashing against the shore. Ashley took off her clogs and socks and walked with her feet in the sand. Sunlight streaked across the sky, turning gold, then orange.
Ryan reached across and took her hand. His was warm and strong, not exactly soft but not thick and calloused, either. “I’m sorry I’ve been such terrible company these last two days,” he said.
She smiled at him. He was holding her hand.
He made a face. If the sun hadn’t been shining on his cheeks and turning them red anyway, she would have thought he was blushing.
She was supposed to be the nervous one.
Ryan looked at her face for a moment and then turned toward the beach again. “It’s beautiful,” he said.
“Wonderful,” she agreed.
Someone behind them cursed. Ashley looked over her shoulder, annoyed that someone had decided to come up behind them and spoil the mood.
Ryan looked, too. “Gordon?” he said.
A man in an orange shirt with a large bald spot on the top of his head was standing near the unlit bonfire, peering through the branches. He cursed again, then pulled out a walkie-talkie and spoke into it, too softly for Ryan or Ashley to hear what he said.
Even in the red light of sunset, Gordon’s face was pale. He sparkled with sweat. He peered through the branches again.
“Mr. Jessup?” Ryan called again, this time louder. The man straightened up and saw the two of them.
“Ryan,” the man said. “Come over here. I need to contact the police. Keep everyone away from the bonfire. We can’t light it.”
Ryan jogged toward the pile of dry driftwood, and Ashley followed him. A cold hand seemed to squeeze Ashley’s chest. “Oh no!”
They reached the pile of logs. Gordon said, “Whatever you do, keep it quiet. We can’t afford a panic, not with the record numbers we’ve been having.” He straightened up, standing almost on tiptoe.
“I see the police coming now,” he said. “Stay here. Keep people away. Don’t talk to anyone. Got it?”
“Got it.”
Gordon ran down the beach, giving a fake smile to the people he passed. Two uniformed officers were walking quickly toward the beach from the edge of the parking lot.
“That’s the volunteer lead, one of the head organizers,” Ryan said. “He’s really self-conscious about every single negative thing that’s happened this weekend, and he takes everything personally. It’s admirable, but… wait, Ash, what are you doing?”
Ashley was already looking between the branches of driftwood. At first, she couldn’t make out what Gordon had been looking at because of the sunset, but then she pulled out her phone and turned on its flashlight app for better light.
The shape of a man’s face looked back at her.
“My God!” she gasped, nausea suddenly rising in her throat as she turned away. “Ryan?”
She had seen a man between the branches, the side of his skull splattered with blood. It was Sparrow Soulbrother. She felt sick to her stomach—he had seemed so alive that it was impossible that he could be dead.
Ryan grabbed her phone and turned out the light, then shoved it into her pocket.
Gordon and the two officers arrived.
“Nobody came near us,” Ryan told Gordon and the police officers.
“Good.”
The two of them hung around until the police took their phone numbers, addresses, and dismissed them firmly, telling them they were no longer needed. The fact that Sparrow Soulbrother’s body lay in the middle of the bonfire wood wasn’t mentioned.
“Will the festival still be held tomorrow?” Ashley asked, somewhat hoping for a surprise day off. One police officer looked at her to answer, but before he could, Gordon jumped in. “Of course! This is just a minor setback that will be cleaned up by morning.”
Ryan and Ashley walked back toward the food tents, both stunned and silent.
The sunset had turned into twilight. The waves were beautiful, catching the colors of the sky like an Impressionist painting. A few boats lay on the gentle waves like silhouettes, and couples walked along the beach with the multicolored waves rolling onto their feet. On the landward side, Ashley could see streetlights starting to twinkle, and the distant taillights of cars driving in town seemed almost peaceful.
It seemed impossible that there was a dead body under the bonfire, just up the beach.
Ashley kept taking big, slow breaths to try to calm herself, but she was shaken. Fortunately, Ryan was rock steady and very protective. He put his arm lightly around her shoulders and glared at anyone who looked like they were going to jostle her.
“Are you all right? What exactly did you see?” he asked. “I just caught a glimpse.”
“Sparrow Soulbrother. His head had been smashed in.”
Ryan squeezed her tight. “I’m sorry you saw that.”
“Me, too. But I’ll be fine in a minute.” She gave him a strained smile.
He walked her back to the tents. Patty, who seemed to be able to pick up Ashley’s mood like a radar, was already walking toward them.
R
yan said, “Are you sure you’re going to be okay? I’d stay, but someone has to keep Gordon from having a meltdown.”
“Patty will be with me.”
Patty frowned at the two of them as she reached them. “What happened?”
Ryan gave Ashley a hug. She felt tears begin to well up and buried her head in his shoulder, then squeezed him tighter for a moment longer and stepped away. She sniffed hard.
“I’ll be okay. Just let me talk to Patty.”
“Okay.” With a worried look on his face, he left to help Gordon deal with the fallout that was sure to come. Canceling the bonfire was bad enough, but a dead body—that would really put a crimp in the festivities that had been planned.
When Patty heard what had happened, she insisted that they pack up for the night and go home early. Ashley’s and Patty’s panic the night before led them both to prepare way too much food for Saturday and Sunday, and now they only had a few tasks to accomplish before they could head home.
After stopping at Fresh Start Kitchens to put away their food and supplies, they drove the van to Ashley’s house, which was closer, and decided to drink wine and eat greasy pizza before calling it a night. At least Sunday—that is, if the festival wasn’t canceled entirely—would be less busy.
Patty put some light jazz on the speakers and went through Ashley’s bottles of wine in her built-in wine cupboard. “You really like sweet wine, you know that? Ports and sweet whites. Do you not possess a single bottle of a full-bodied red to your name?”
“No,” Ashley said ruefully. “I guess I can pick some up later, just for you.”
Patty threw her hands up. “You make me feel guilty!”
“Try one of the ports.”
“Pizza and port.”
“This may not be our best wine-pairing night ever,” Ashley said. “But I for one am too tired to care.”
After placing the pizza order, Ashley had rolled on the floor with Dizzy for a while, both of them trying to make up for a second day away from each other. After a few minutes, they both settled down on the couch. Dizzy crawled up into Ashley’s lap like she was still a puppy. Even after the day she’d had, it still put a smile on her face.
The doorbell rang and Ashley and Dizzy jumped up to get it. She sorted through her cards, pulled out her personal debit card, and opened the door.
The pizza smelled good, and the driver had a smile on his face as he greeted them and handed her the bill. Ashley traded him her debit card for the pizza and put it on the coffee table while the driver ran her card through a portable card machine.
“I’m sorry, ma’am, it’s been declined,” he said.
Wait… what? She’d transferred more cash in this morning after Dizzy’s walk. Ugh. She’d screwed something up again.
Ashley frowned and pulled out her business card; that one ran through just fine. She shrugged it off and waved the guy good night before closing the door.
Patty had already taken out three plates and arranged forks, knives, and cloth napkins in napkin rings next to them. Two generous glasses of port waited nearby. One of the plates held several of Dizzy’s favorite peanut butter treats.
“You’re not seriously going to eat pizza with a knife and fork, are you?” Ashley asked.
“Of course I am.”
“You’re back in America now.”
“I refuse to sink to barbarity, no matter what country I happen to be in.”
Ashley chuckled and sat down at her computer desk, which was in a corner of the living room.
“Come on, eat,” said Patty.
“I’m going to check out my card first,” Ashley said. “I’m so tired I might forget.”
She logged in to the banking website and pulled up her information—then froze. There was a message: Attention Customer: Your account has been frozen for your security. Please call us to answer security questions and reactivate your account as soon as possible during normal business hours.
What a pain! Normal business hours were literally a day and a half away. She looked at the charges in her account to see if anything looked off, and then she saw them—numerous smaller charges from “LUCKYSTART#10” that had been processed on the first day of the festival. Even with money Ashley had transferred, her account was still overdrawn by $247.81.
The charges had come in after she had purchased her sandwich from Betty’s Bayou Cuisine and Dizzy’s new dog collar.
“Is something wrong?” asked Patty.
“My account is frozen, and I think that jerk who sold me the dog collar charged me for the same collar twenty times.” Ashley didn’t want to speak ill of the dead, but she was peeved. Luckily, her local credit union was awesome at security practices, ever since she and hundreds of their other customers had been caught up in an information hack from a large retail store a few years ago. After that episode they had been proactive in making sure even slightly suspicious charges didn’t go through without question.
She’d have to wait it out, but she was sure she could get it taken care of on Monday. She made a face at Patty, then stomped over to the couch and dropped onto it, taking a big gulp of the port and then shoving a mouthful of pizza in her face as she gave Dizzy the okay to take one of the treats off her plate with a careful nip.
“Will your credit union refund you?” Patty asked as Dizzy crunched through the treat.
Ashley nodded. “Probably, but I opted not to get a receipt from that guy, so I don’t have any proof. My card was declined this morning at the coffee shop, but I thought I had just gotten careless with spending because I’ve been so busy with the festival planning. I tried to go back and ask him for a receipt, but he wasn’t there… and now, well… it’s too late now.”
“The Ashley Adams I know doesn’t let a little murder stop her from getting what she wants,” said Patty, raising her glass in a cheers fashion.
“Oh, Patty.” Ashley giggled. “You’re too much.” Ashley’s mind started spinning. She’d done it before, maybe she could do it again—solve a murder. It’s not like she had asked to be thrust into the middle of these mysteries, but she seemed to have a knack for solving them. And, if she were being completely honest, she enjoyed it.
“But you might be right,” she continued. “How hard could it be? If he ripped me off, then maybe he ripped off someone else, too—someone who has a few more anger issues than a pastry chef.”
6
Ashley pulled her catering van into the festival parking lot. Ryan had texted her late last night to assure her the festival was going to still be open, but looking at the lot, she wasn’t so sure. There were hardly any vehicles aside from a half dozen police vehicles and a few other catering vans.
Dizzy was sleeping on the passenger seat next to her, so peaceful-looking that Ashley didn’t want to rouse her. Ashley just stared at the sleeping dog, thinking to herself how much she loved the dumb mutt.
Just then, a knock on her van’s window startled Ashley. It was Patty, smiling and signaling for Ashley to roll down the window.
“Not sure if the festival is going to be officially closed,” she said through Ashley’s lowered window, “but it might as well be. There’s no one here but police and vendors.”
“Ugh,” responded Ashley. “Should we just pack up and go home? We did better than expected yesterday—maybe it will be enough to cover the lost day of sales.”
Just as Patty was about to respond, a rangy man in a sheriff’s uniform walked up to the two women and tipped his hat—Sheriff Mueller.
Sheriff Mueller and Ashley weren’t exactly enemies, but they certainly weren’t friends, either. Frenemies maybe? Ashley had helped Mueller solve a few mysteries before, but he never thanked or seemed to appreciate her.
“Mornin’ to ya, ladies,” he said. “I’m gonna need to have you both follow me to the police tent for questioning before you unload your wares today.”
Patty let out an indignant gasp and clutched her hand to her chest. “Questioning? What on earth about?”
&nb
sp; “Surely you’ve heard about the murder, Miz LaFontaine?” said the sheriff. “I know the rumors in this town travel faster than wind.”
“But you know we have nothing to do with that,” she said, moving both hands to her hips.
“It’s just protocol, ma’am,” said the sheriff. “We gotta ask everyone who was here yesterday what they might have seen. Especially those who saw the crime scene like Little Miss Detective Ashley here.”
Ashley bit her lips for a moment in embarrassment, then laughed and tried to wave her hand dismissively. “You’re too much, Sheriff. I didn’t even know it was a crime scene; I was just trying to take a nice evening stroll along the beach.”
Mueller looked her up and down. “I don’t know if I believe you or not, Ashley, but in any case, both of you need to come to the sheriff tent for questioning.”
Ashley left Dizzy in the front seat of the van with the windows down, hoping the questioning would not take too long. Dizzy would likely sleep through the whole thing, unaware.
The inside of the police tent was hot, even though it was early in the day. There were about five tables set up inside the tent, each with two chairs—one occupied by a police officer or detective and the one opposite to it occupied by a vendor, volunteer, or other staff from the festival. Mueller told Patty to wait to talk to an officer in the center of the tent, then ushered Ashley to a table on the far side of the tent, just under the awning. Ashley was relieved to feel a little breeze on her arms as they sat down.
“Okay, Miss Adams.” Sheriff Mueller turned formal as he got down to business. “I think you know the drill. Tell me about any interaction you had with the murder victim.” He pulled out a picture of Sparrow Soulbrother and put it on the table between them as a formality; they both knew she already knew who had died.
“I bought a hemp dog collar from him on the first day of the festival,” she said. “He seemed like a nice enough guy. He guessed I had a dog and helped me pick out the perfect collar for Dizzy.”