“Eww.” I shook my head. “I don’t even know what to say to that image. Anyway, I barely know the man. Besides, the cute little flirt card is hardly in my usual detective repertoire.”
Eve just laughed. “Oh please, Trubble. Any woman worth her salt knows how to act dumb and flirt when it suits her. And you forget I’ve known you since you were a reckless teenager spreading your pheromones all over the place. I’m pretty sure you know how to get just what you want.”
She had a point. “Fine, I guess, if it means catching Ben up to no good. But first I need coffee.” Maybe I’d jog into town to get it. Make Eve come with me, kill two birds with one stone, and possibly one annoying woman.
I was just about to step inside Cookies & Corsets for a coffee when I first heard and then saw sirens racing into town. They shrieked past me in less than three seconds, and I had a bad feeling it had to do with last night’s espionage. The car screeched left at the lights, and I took off running. My daily fitness routine kept me in excellent shape, and I left Eve behind in the dust and made it eight blocks before I slowed to a brisk walk.
Situated on a wooded lot, Kaitlyn’s guest house was half the size of her parent’s main house but it was bigger than every other house in the area–apart from Caravan Manor and the spooky abandoned place across from Cookies & Corset. Detective Lumos’ car was parked in their driveway, his lights off but his door open. I slowed my walk, and in fact considered turning around... but what kind of journalist would I be if I ignored the story?
I forced my feet to move through the yard. The front door was flung open, and inside I could see Kaitlyn on the couch, her sister Meaghen propping her up as her body heaved in sobs. Meaghen got up and moved into the front hall before her sister had a chance to see me. She motioned for me to be quiet and pushed me off to the side.
Kaitlyn’s voice quivered. “He’s dead!” Her eyes stared blankly as she cried, and two rivers of snot ran from her nostrils.
Someone was dead. My stomach clenched.
Detective Lumos spoke into his shoulder radio from the other room, and despite the crackling feedback I got the gist of it. Kaitlyn was attempting to file a missing person’s report. He next spoke to the inconsolable Kaitlyn. “I need to know exactly what time you found the note and everyone you’ve talked to in the last twenty-four hours.”
The note?
Kaitlyn struggled to pull herself together, but it was beyond her. “It was on the table when I woke up this morning. He’s been staying with me the last couple of days but he comes and goes. He wouldn’t tell me anything–he said he was protecting me. He’s scared, Detective. He wouldn’t have written this otherwise. Somebody is trying to kill him!”
“You need to calm yourself down and tell me who he’s afraid of. I know you said he wouldn’t tell you, but do you have any ideas about what it is he’s involved in? Drugs, a gang? Was there anyone who didn’t like him?” Lumos urged, not unkindly.
“Everyone loves Ben.” She paused. Man, was this girl delusional. “Except Penelope–she’s always hating on him and she was just telling me how I shouldn’t be with him. But she’s just mad ‘cause he chose me over her.”
Meaghen’s gaze moved around the entryway until it landed back on me in an, ‘I’m sorry’ kind of way.
What? I backed out of the house. I wasn’t sure what I was more upset about: the fact that Kaitlyn had just implicated me in a man’s disappearance or that I’d just been described as Ben’s jilted ex-lover. Gross, gross, triple gross.
Time to see what Ben and his pal had been up to last night. After a quick pit stop at the Scuba Shack, where Sharon set me up with new equipment that fit better, I was on my way. I had the Corvette’s top down and I was nearly to the spot when I heard a man yelling. I slowed to a stop and listened.
“Damn it! I thought you said it’d be here.”
“It was supposed to be. I swear.”
“Well, somebody’s dinking us around. I suggest you figure out who.”
I only knew one man who used the word dink in his sentences. Sure enough, I’d pulled over just in time to see Brett ‘the dink’ Arnold’s motor home screech out of the parking lot. Jesse’s truck was quick to follow, throwing up dust as it flew by.
What on earth were those two up to now? It had to be something to do with last night. I waited a few minutes to make sure they weren’t returning before I geared up and dragged the whole unit to the water so I could use the buoyancy of the vest to help ease the heavy tank onto my back. I was soon underwater, breathing in the silence of it. This spot was more grass than sand, and unfortunately it wasn’t as clear and hard-bottomed on this side of the lake, but at least it was quiet for the moment.
I eased myself down about ten feet and began to look around, getting a feel for the area. I could see a diver in red far off in the distance–someone else up at this ungodly hour. I checked my depth gauge and kicked my way in their direction. I like to know who was in the area but I was about eighteen feet from the red diver when the goosebumps rose on my skin. I tried to look around, but I felt like there was an enemy just out of eyesight. My agitated water stroking was making the atmosphere even murkier, and I forced myself to calm down.
The water was still slightly cloudy from my panic attack, and I made haste to reach a clearer section in the opposite direction of the red diver. It took only five strong kicks through the shadowy water until I bumped into someone else–someone new. They wore one of the Scuba Shack trademark blue wetsuits, but the first thing I noticed was that the mouth piece was dangling. Then I realized the diver had no mask.
My heart paused in my chest and built enough force to pound out my eardrums when it started again. I flinched back, but I was snagged on some type of rope and I wrenched wildly to free myself, but that’s when the heavy, wet arm of the tangled body struck my head in a jerky dead swing and knocked off my facemask and mouthpiece. My eyes bulged as the rush of cold at my eyes let me know they were open. The water felt dark like a tomb, which is exactly what this would be if I didn’t get to the surface. Too late, I reflexively sucked in a nose full of water out of fear. I was sharing space with a corpse twenty-five feet underwater, and about to join him.
Of all the things I learned in police training, no one had ever gone over this scenario. I imagined the principle in every emergency; stay calm–nope, not gonna happen–and get to safety. Yep, let’s try that. As I screamed for air and my lungs burned with water, I forced my instincts down and ignored the haunted corpse floating behind me. This allowed me to grab my buoyancy compensator vest buckles in a last-ditch effort to release myself and reach the surface. For now, my brain was screaming to get to the surface, far, far away from the human carcass before I became one.
I unclasped the first vest buckle as pinpoints of light flickered behind my eyes, and I had the second one undone as everything began to go gray and my lungs blazed with the shapeless, crushing weight of inhaled lake water. My cold fingers struggled with the last black clasp, finally freeing it, and I kicked toward what I hoped was the surface. I felt the darkness pushing at my consciousness even as I thrust forward, and I realized I no longer knew up from down. I was discombobulated and I had no air bubbles in my lungs to release and guide me.
The tiny circle of light in my brain grew brighter, and I remembered that my eyes were closed.
I opened them and saw a mirage of the sun reflected through a watery mirror, and I could almost feel its heat on my face. I reached out, and my hand brushed against something warm and rubbery. My inner tube. I grasped at it desperately, hungry to hold something solid. My hand slid off once, and I dug my nails in and pulled myself up.
I was welcomed by the glory of the warm sun on my water-soaked head as I clutched at my little yellow doughnut and surfaced weakly. I hung onto the side and spewed out the lake water. Grateful fate had guided me here to this spot.
I began to kick for the shore. I wanted distance between me and that waterlogged tomb, and quickly. There were almost two de
ad bodies down there.
I crawled to shore where a tourist took pity on me and dialed the detective’s number.
“Detective Lumos,” I choked out, after he answered. “I found a dead body in the lake.”
“Not again.”
“No, for real this time. Not just bones–an actual floating body–well it was weighted down. I only got a quick look before I panicked and knocked my mask off but I’m pretty sure it was Ben Baboon.”
“How could you tell?”
“He was missing his mask and regulator.”
My throat ached and my legs were still shaking so I closed my eyes where I lay to wait for the police.
***
Strong arms encircled me and I felt myself being lifted, then placed onto a hard surface. I opened my eyes and saw a paramedic leaning over me, smiling as he pulled a blanket over my scantily clad body.
“Welcome back,” he said.
“My clothes!” I tried to push myself off the gurney.
“Sorry, Ma’am, we had to cut the wetsuit off you.”
The paramedic placed a hand on my shoulder to prevent me from moving. “You need to stay still.”
I turned my head to the side and saw Detective Cody Lumos and Eve rushing toward me. Only then did I realize that I must have passed out after making it to shore. All my senses were off.
“I’m fine,” I said. “I just need some ibuprofen and a margarita.”
Eve laughed. “You know I like your style, girl, but you’re not getting off that easy.”
I groaned.
“That’s what you get, dear. You’re supposed to report the town news, not be it.” Eve turned to the paramedic. “I’m going with her.”
“Ma’am,” the paramedic said, narrowing his eyes at Eve. “Are you family?”
Eve plopped down on a wooden bench near the gurney. “Bobby Jacobson, you know damn well I am not family, but if you don’t mind your manners I will put you next to her and drive this damn ambulance myself.”
A red flush crept up the paramedic’s face. “Yes, Ma’am.”
I hated hospitals and being confined to bedrest, especially when my mind was focused on much more important things—like the murder that just took place in our small town.
Luckily, it didn’t take long for the hospital personnel to clear me.
The door to the emergency room opened and Pike walked in. She gave me an up-and-down. “So, it’s true. Are you all right?”
I nodded. “They just discharged me.”
Pike looked over at Eve. “Is she fibbing?”
“No,” Eve reassured her. “They told her to take ibuprofen and rest.”
“Seriously?” I said. “What am I, chopped liver?”
Pike snorted.
“What’s the word on the dead body? They wouldn’t tell us much.”
Eve sat next to me and pulled acetaminophen and a bottle of water from her purse. “Take a couple of these and rest. And have a cough drop. It will help numb your throat a bit. It’s got to be sore.”
I took the acetaminophen and washed it down with the water. My throat was on fire. I popped the cough drop in my mouth and sat the water on a table next to my chair. “Give me a sip of your coffee.”
“It’s strong,” she said, handing her coffee cup over to me. “But it’ll numb your throat alright.”
The coffee cup no longer felt hot to the touch, but I took a big gulp anyway, then blinked a few times as my eyes watered.
“I really need to stop drinking out of your containers,” I said, coughing.
Eve winked.
Chapter Twenty-Three
_____________
I t was the holiday Monday, so the newspaper was officially closed today. Eve drove me home, but then insisted upon hanging around to babysit me. Dad was still away on a case so thankfully I didn’t have him hovering over me too. We were having a coffee out on the deck when it occurred to me that I needed to talk to Jesse about his possible involvement in Ben’s drowning.
Eve took a sip of her coffee. “Oh, Pen. Did you have any luck at the red gates?”
“No.”
“Well, I was thinking about it while we were at the hospital. The coded passage read ‘Diamonds are a girl’s best friend but you’ll have to bee naughty to find them or else you’ll wind up weeping,’ correct?”
“Yeah, how did you know that?”
“Your dad left his notepad lying around.”
“Yeah, he does that.”
“Anyway, I thought maybe they’re talking about the old Beekeeper’s tree.”
“What’s that?”
“You don’t know the Beekeepers tree? It’s a weeping willow, and it’s full of knots. It’s in the woods between here and the manor–along the trail.”
“Are there bees in it?”
“Oh no, dear, the burls or knots just look like beehives. There’re five or six of them in the tree.”
Note to self: Give Eve a raise.
“Say, Eve, I appreciate you staying with me but I’m feeling better and I think I should go talk to Jesse about what he was doing at the beach yesterday.”
“Great. I’ll come with you.”
“Actually, would you take Guinness home with you? I need to stop by Rebel’s house to tell her about the Leif and Samantha rumor and I may wind up there late.”
“Okay, if you’re sure.” Eve grabbed the box of dog treats from under the sink and happily took Guinness home to spoil.
A short drive brought me to the Shack where I found Jesse snoozing on the porch swing, with a bandage wrapped around his knee. I prodded him gently.
He snorted, stretched, and opened one eye. “Hey, Pen.” His wide smile was sincere.
“Hey, Jesse. Your knee looks a little rough.”
He pushed himself to a seated position and rubbed the swollen area around the bandage. “I scraped it on a rock.”
“I thought you twisted it unloading a boat.”
He looked at me once, quickly, and his cheeks flushed in embarrassment. “Both, actually. I’m quite the klutz... I twisted my ankle and fell and scraped my knee.”
Liar.
“Were you diving last night with Ben Baboon?”
Jesse looked puzzled. “Of course not. I can’t dive with my knee messed up.”
“Oh, okay. I’m just looking into something. Say, do you know the Arnolds? Brett and Sasha–Sally’s cousin’s.”
“Nope. Never heard of them.”
More lies. Did he really think I was this dumb?
“Can you get me a list of people you’ve rented dive suits to?”
“Of course. Why?”
“You haven’t heard about Ben yet?”
“Heard what?”
“I found a body in the lake this morning. I’m eighty percent sure it was Ben. He’s dead.”
“And you thought I left him there after we were diving or something? That’s cold, Pen.”
He tried to pull himself up off the swing but winced.
“No, it’s just I saw him diving around midnight with someone and they were wearing your suits.”
“Really? Oh, man. I’ll email the list to you.”
“Thanks Jesse. Sorry for accusing you.” I lied. I wasn’t sorry at all. He damn well was there. Why else was his truck hidden in the woods at the end of the road?
I waved at him and trotted back to my car. I still didn’t have the coin or know who killed Ben, but I had a nagging hunch the two were somehow connected and Jesse had something to hide.
I splayed my fingers outside my window as I drove, riding the air like waves. My radio was cranked. I chanted along in my tinny, off-key singing voice and felt empowered and capable. First, I stopped at Rebel’s. She wasn’t going to like it but it was time for her to know what I’d heard. Leif’s truck was in the driveway but Rebel’s car was gone. I punched her number into my cell.
“Penny, baby, oh my god, I wish you were here with me. This place is the bomb. I don’t think I’ve been this relaxed in years.�
�
My heart sunk. Here she was away on a love retreat with her husband and I was calling to tell her I’d heard he was cheating. Now was not the time. “Oh, yeah. Well, we’ll just have to go back there for my birthday. What does Leif think of his pampering?”
“Leif’s not here. Are you kidding? He hates this kind of stuff. No, he just bought me a package. He’s at home.”
“Oh, is he? I see. Alright, well I’ll let you get back to your pampering. Text me when you get home and we’ll have a girls’ night, okay?” I hung up without telling her about my deadly dive. There was no point in crushing her zen–she would have rushed home to be with me and that wasn’t fair to her. Tomorrow night we would have a hard conversation about her husband and so she needed all the relaxation she could get.
I cruised the three miles home and then realized I needed to talk to Detective Lumos. I punched in his number but it went to voicemail.
“Hey Detective, it’s Penelope calling. Some stuff is coming back to me. I saw this couple, the Arnolds, at the boat launch right before I went diving and found Ben’s body. I’m wondering if they’re involved. I’m going to go for a run through the woods along the Manor’s trail to check out a lead on some stolen goods, but I’d appreciate it if you called me back.”
I hung up the phone. I only had about two hours of daylight left so I switched into my black runner’s shorts and a tank top and trotted down the path.
I jogged for about a half hour, pondering the motives of Ben’s killer. When I rounded the resort’s shoreline, the mosquitoes were starting to circle like blood bank nurses and the sun was setting, sketching shades of saffron and violet across the lake’s horizon. The trees out here formed a natural archway, and the fairy light of dusk shimmered through the leaves and made the path surreal. I could smell pollen in the air, and the cupola of Caravan Manor loomed in the distance in front of me. That’s when I heard angry voices and saw the knotty weeping willow that Eve had mentioned.
Murder, She Floats Page 12