Death on the Range: Target Practice Mysteries 1 (6 page)

She giggled a bit more in a high, hysterical tone. “The rest of the coaches’ course is canceled. We already told Minx, Owley, and Tiger. They are being questioned by the police, and apparently they can’t leave just yet. The rest of the participants that didn’t stay at the center are meeting at a nearby hotel, and I will give them the test on what we covered and reschedule the rest of the course for a later time. If I still have a job at that time. Most of the center is closed. The firearm entrance side, the equipment room all the way to the weight room. Obviously. But this side is open, and I opened both archery ranges, long and short, so Minx, Tiger, and Owley could practice if they want. Plus, the cafeteria is open. I had to fight with the police about that. They don’t want us to leave during the investigation, but they wanted to close the cafeteria. We ended up at a compromise; the cooks aren’t allowed on site, but we could at least get to the food. Did I hear you say Mary was with you?”

At the sound of her name, Mary popped into the office. “Yep, I’m here.”

Jess nodded approvingly. “Good, you two stay together and out of trouble. Go take a nap or something. I swear if anyone else dies, I will kill them.”

“Sounds like an effective solution.” I gave her cold, clammy hand another pat as I got up to leave.

As Mary and I walked down the hallway toward the cafeteria, I was lost in my thoughts until Mary interrupted me.

“Who do we investigate next?” She was looking down at a notebook with a list of names. It was the list I started earlier in my room.

“What are you talking about? When did you grab that?”

“We have to solve Honey’s murder.”

I stopped dead, staring at her. After a second, she stopped and stepped back to stand next to me.

She took a deep breath and let it out in a huff before starting. “We are bad people because we’re not more upset about Honey’s death, right?”

I nodded my agreement. “Yes, we have cold, black hearts.”

“But if we solve her murder then we’re good people, and it all evens out.”

I shook my head. “I don’t think that is how it works.”

She shook her head at me. “No, no, I gave it a lot of thought while you were in the shower, and this is the only way. You already got Jess’s story, so now we just need to go through the rest of the list and read Honey’s memoir.”

“I thought you gave the USB drive to the police?”

She pulled out the tablet from under the notebook and waggled it at me. “I did but not before I uploaded it. I started it. It’s poorly written, but she’s right about it having lots of secrets. She threw everyone under the bus, and I’ve only read a chapter or two. The theme seems to be Honey is awesome and everyone else is a screw-up.”

“Why am I not surprised?” I started walking again, and Mary fell in step beside me. “What makes you think we could find the murderer?”

“Simple—we make a great team. You’re super smart, and I know everything about archery, plus we have the memoir. And we totally knew who the killer was on the cop show the other night!”

We had bonded our first evening together over a shared love of mystery shows on TV. We unwound after work solving crimes from the small screen, from cop shows to cartoon mysteries. If there was a mystery, we were going to solve it.

I waved a hand at her, dismissing the cop show. “That was just editing and the fact that the most famous guest star is always the killer.”

She steamed ahead, unbothered by my assertion. “We’ll be like Batman and Robin, solving crimes and stuff.”

“Wait, who gets to be Batman?”

“Duh, obviously you are. Batman’s way older than Robin.”

I stopped dead, mouth agape. “Hey.”

At least I was the hero in this scenario.

Mary ignored me and entered the cafeteria. She bee-lined for a table while yelling over her shoulder, “Grab me a bowl of cereal while I plan the investigation. Something sugary, please.”

“I don’t remember Batman getting the food. Where’s Alfred?” Would it be such an awful idea to poke around a bit and find out where everyone was last night?

I carried over two bowls of cereal, with bananas balancing on the crook of each arm. “What does the memoir say?”

“Meh, I’m still in her early years of shooting. She says that when she joined her college team, they were so excited because of her obvious talent and leadership skills that they made her team captain.”

My jaw dropped. “Are you serious? I was on that team, and she made the cut because so many seniors had graduated the year before. I don’t think anyone thought she was particularly talented. We had never finished lower than third place at any team event, so we weren’t relying on a brand-new archer to save us. Jess was the team captain our junior and senior year, not Honey.”

Mary swiped on her tablet. “Let me find it. Yes, here it is. ‘The team captain was a hysterical junior with awful greasy hair. Everyone thought she was an awful person and an awful archer. They had to make her team captain because otherwise she would cry and cry, but really everyone thought of me as the leader of the team.’ Think that is about Jess?”

I sucked air through my teeth. “Holy cow, Honey wasn’t looking to make friends, was she? If Jess had read that, she would have killed Honey.”

Mary closed the tablet cover. “Do you think Jess did it?”

It was impossible for Jess to have killed someone, but I still gave Mary’s question serious thought based on the information we had. “No, and here’s why. Honey being killed at the center is going to cause both Jess and Robbie big problems professionally. If Honey was killed somewhere else, then I guess it could be Jess but…” I shrugged my shoulders. “So that isn’t really definitive. Huh, what do we do now? I barely slept last night, and I’m about to collapse if we sit much longer.”

I gathered up the dishes and took them into the kitchen while Mary yelled after me. “I was going to read Honey’s memoir and gather all the clues for us, but I guess we could just wing it. Who do we talk to first, Batman?”

I crossed the room and turned the notebook to read it. “Hmm, Tiger’s at the top.”

Mary gathered up her stuff and stood up. “No, it couldn’t be Tiger. He’s too handsome.” She let out a sigh and stared off into the distance briefly. “Let’s see if someone is at the archery ranges.”

I rolled my eyes while grabbing a pen Mary dropped. “Oh yeah, with investigation skills like that, we’ll solve the mystery in no time.”

***

We walked past a large bank of windows that looked out over the long archery range. Tiger was set up on a seventy-meter target, which was the standard for outdoor recurve competition. He was alone.

“Seems that fate has decided for us. We can talk to Tiger first. What should we ask?”

Tiger picked up his bow and prepared to shoot another end at the long target. An end in archery is the act of shooting arrows, going to the target to retrieve them, then returning to the shooting line. Tiger had just started a new end.

Mary confidently headed toward the door. “I got this.”

By the time we entered, Tiger was at full draw.

Mary burst through the door. “Can we talk to you, Tiger, we’re invest—”

I grabbed her arm hard.

Hissing through my teeth, my whisper cut her off. “What are you doing? Did you go to the Mr. Bean School of Investigation? You don’t tell him that we are looking for the killer.”

Tiger continued to shoot, and Mary’s head bobbled between the two of us. “I figured I would just tell him we are looking into the murder and ask where he was.”

I rolled my eyes at her. “No, absolutely not. Don’t tell anyone what we are doing.”

Tiger finished his end of six arrows and put his bow down on the stand. Sauntering over to us, he plopped down on a chair and kicked his legs up on the table.

“Hey ladies, what are you inviting me to?”

In unison, Mary and I said, “What?”

A confused look crossed his face before replying. “You guys came in and said, ‘We’re inviting’ then stopped. Did I not hear you right? I was pretty focused.”

I jumped on the opportunity. “Oh, Mary tripped. She’s very clumsy.”

Mary glared at me.

“We want to invite you to…” To what? Honey just died, we can’t have a party. “Invite you to a celebration of Honey’s life. Tonight.” I smiled broadly at my own brilliance.

“Aww, that’s sweet. She was a good kid.” Tiger looked down at his hands in his lap and frowned.

I awkwardly patted his shoulder.

“I’m sorry, Tiger, how are you holding up?”

“I feel awful for her. She rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, but she wasn’t a bad person, just ambitious.” He sighed deeply and covered his face with his hands for a few seconds before dropping them on his lap again. “I want to clear the air about us dating. That wasn’t totally true, but she didn’t want me to say so. She had some agent tell her that if she wrote a book, they could get her a show, but they needed more than just her. They said she needed an interesting husband or boyfriend and wacky friends, that kinda thing. So she asked me if I could be her boyfriend for the show. I said sure, why not? She was cute enough, and we had a thing once or twice in the past. Plus, I had nothing too serious going on with anyone else. She said it was important that everyone thought we were a real couple, but I told her that you can’t cage the Tiger.”

He gave us a sad wink, and Mary chuckled softly. His words were flirty, but his tone was sad.

“The agent was probably a scam artist, and Honey was never going to write a book. Who reads books these days? But just in case, I did my best to act like the loyal boyfriend.”

I gave a snort. “Loyal boyfriend, eh? Don’t expect to win an Oscar anytime soon.”

“What can I say, my natural charisma is, like, irresistible. Need any help with the thing tonight?”

Mary and I looked at each other and shrugged.

“Have you told everyone? Arranged for liquor so we can toast?” We shook our heads no to Tiger’s questions. “Have you done anything? You two are doing an awful job of planning this.”

“Planning what?” a voice said from behind us. Turning around, I saw Owley entering the range carrying her bow and her quiver hooked over her shoulder.

“Mary and Di are planning a celebration of Honey’s life for tonight, like after dinner?”

“Ya,” I replied, “after dinner is perfect.” I looked at Owley, expecting that she would reply, but she stared at me. I looked at Tiger then Mary then back at Owley. The pressure of the silence weighed heavily on me, and I reached out for any topic.

“I like your shoes,” I blurted. Owley had black athletic shoes on with teal accents. She looked down at the shoes then back at me. Eternity stretched out before she replied.

“Huh?” Her high, thin voice wavered a bit. She shifted her weight between her feet.

“Your shoes are cute. I would totally buy a pair like that.” I gave her a big smile, hoping that the compliment would prompt a response.

“Um, Di, I think you bought the same pair last week.” Mary had gone shopping with me and would know.

I laughed, loud and awkward, in the large empty room (and feeling like a total idiot). “No wonder I like them. We could be shoe twins.”

Tiger and Mary gave a tiny laugh, but Owley continued to stare. Finally she replied, “I need to practice.” She walked over to the shooting line, put her bow down next to Tiger’s, and started getting her equipment on.

“Hey, great, good luck. Mary and I have things to do.” I gave Tiger a quick wave and dragged Mary from the range.

***

Once in the hallway, I reared around to face Mary. I kept my voice down. “We need to figure out a better way to talk to people. I don’t want anyone knowing that we are investigating.”

“Batman does, you know, in the movie.” Mary lowered her voice and said, “I am Batman.”

I chuckled but blew out an exasperated sigh while rubbing my forehead. “We’re not Batman and Robin. At best, we’re Laurel and Hardy.”

“Oh, sorry I couldn’t match the brilliance of your investigation, Miss-I-Like-Your-Shoes.”

At the far end of the hallway, a police officer was watching us. I gave him a big smile and waved then started walking toward the entrance. “Fair enough, neither of us is good at winging it. As much as it pains me, I think you’re right. Let’s go back to the room. You can read the memoir, and I can take a short nap before my head explodes.”

***

A dancy little electronic tune woke me up. I grabbed my phone and cleared my throat. “Hello,” I croaked.

“It’s me. Jess. Are you in your room? I need to introduce you to someone. Don’t move.” It all came out in a tumble of words.

“Sure, come on over.” I looked at the phone, but Jess had already ended the call. I rubbed my eyes and took in the surroundings. I was lying on the couch in the middle room of our unit. Mary was on the floor, working at the coffee table with her computer, tablet, notebook and a variety of pens spread out in front of her. I had closed my eyes for just a second when a knock on the door broke the silence again.

“Come in,” I called out as I swung my feet onto the floor. Jess entered, buzzing with excitement. Following behind her was a beautiful, tall lady dressed in an impeccable outfit. Her stance reminded me of many a CEO I had met in California, confident and observant. Her eyes landed on Mary, and she greeted her. “Hello, Mary, how is your mother?”