Death Wore Brown Shorts (Happy Holloway Mystery Book 1) (4 page)

A
nnie pulled
into her driveway and cut the engine. She twisted around toward the back seat and grabbed the two bags she had placed there. Every time she told herself she wouldn’t go to the grocery store in the middle of the week, she did anyway. Maybe if her life depended on keeping a budget, she would actually keep it.

As she gathered the bag handles, she caught sight of something in her peripheral vision and looked up. Marianne jogged down the road and passed Annie’s driveway. Sure, Marianne kept herself in top shape being a gym trainer, but as far as Annie could recall, she never jogged.

Annie squinted after Marianne as the trees obscured part of her from view. She wasn’t dressed for the activity either. Annie climbed out of the car in time to see Marianne’s boyfriend Jason following. Across the street, another neighbor popped into view and left her home to join in the processional, another then another.

“Now hold on,” Annie muttered. “Everybody didn’t decide to get a little exercise at the same time. Something’s going on.”

She checked the time and found that it had just gone past seven in the evening. Being late summer, the sun hadn’t gone down yet. Everyone would be off work, except those with late shifts tonight. A ding sounded on her phone, and she switched over to the messaging app.

“Annie, get down here quick.”

Annie frowned. What could Stacy want? Well, everyone had been migrating in her direction. She hesitated. All the hullabaloo lately had scattered her mind. She hadn’t written close to as many words as she needed to. In fact, she had intended to shut herself inside her office the moment she stepped into the house.

“Darn it, I have to know.” She hurried to the house and dumped the bags and her purse inside. A moment to put the ice cream in the freezer and grab a pen and small notebook was all she allowed herself. Then she took her purse with her and locked the door to run back to the street.

At the end of the half block, she paused to catch her breath. A small crowd of neighbors formed around the spot where Paul died. Annie joined the fray and stood on her toes to see above the taller people. She failed. Her heels hardly left the ground, and being of average height had its disadvantages.

Not to be deterred, she elbowed a couple people aside and squeezed her plumper figure between a few others. At last, she popped out at the front to come face to face with a man she had never seen before. The man, about six foot two stared at Annie, mouth tight, nostrils flared, and eyebrows low over iced caramel eyes.

What did
I
do?

“Who are you?” he demanded.

Not to be intimidated, Annie flashed her best grin. “Hi, I’m Annie Holloway. I live right there.”

She hooked a thumb in the direction of her house although she might have been pointing to the trees from the look of it. The big man’s gaze never left hers. She waited a beat for him to introduce himself, but he said nothing. Was he a new detective assigned to the murder case?

Nothing in his clothing gave a clue as he wore blue jeans and a collared, long sleeve shirt in this heat. Even at seven, it must be eighty degrees. His shirt neglected to hide the muscular arms, broad chest, and wide shoulders. Annie peered past him, and before the crowd shifted, she got a quick peek at his car. The sticker on the back gave it away.

“Does the fire department normally get involved with a murder investigation?” she asked.

His brows rose. He started to speak and then glanced over his shoulder, but he didn’t have to see what she had seen. His expression cleared. “Very observant, Annie. I do work for the fire department, and no, it’s not involved.”

Stacy worked her way through the melee. “You’re a firefighter. How romantic.”

“What’s your name, hero?” Marianne asked. The rest of the women chimed in. Jason eyeballed the new man as if he were the murder suspect. Annie didn’t rule it out.

“I’m Flynn Aikens,” the hero said. “Paul was my cousin, my
only
family, and I want to know what happened to him. Can any of you people give me answers?”

“Someone killed him,” Stacy said unhelpfully.

“I think that’s clear,” Marianne added.

Stacy pouted, and then she grinned. “Flynn, Annie is good at figuring these things out. Plus, she was the one who found the bod—uh—your cousin. I bet if you talk to her in a quiet place alone, you can learn a lot more about what happened.”

“Me?” Annie took a step back, but she bumped into someone. Sure, she had decided she would try to find the murderer, but to be tossed before his cousin, who looked like he wanted to flame broil the first person he suspected, was not on her agenda. “I don’t know any more than the rest of you. Besides, you might do better to talk to the police, Flynn. I’m sure they’ve learned a lot since it happened.”

Flynn flashed a smile that must have melted many women’s hearts, and it didn’t fail in this instant either from the murmur around her. Annie came to see the family resemblance in the charm if not looks between Flynn and Paul. Flynn raised a hand and indicated where he would like to go. The crowd parted before his royal presence.

Annie on the other hand was shuffled along from behind, both of them headed toward his car. “Mind joining me for a drink?” Flynn asked.

“I have work to do. Maybe you can call me tomorrow—”

“No time like the present.”

He turned the smile on her, and Annie spotted the single dimple in his right cheek. So unlike her thighs, she thought irrelevantly. Here was another similarity. Paul and Flynn both had one dimple and a matching smile. Flynn wore long pants, but she dared to believe his legs rivaled his cousin’s. Too bad for him, she never fell for male charm.

“Go on, Annie,” Stacy encouraged her. “You can bring back the juicy news for all of us. Stacy pressed her lips close to Annie’s ear. “Ask him if he’s married.”

Annie thought she meant she wanted Annie to learn Flynn’s status because she wanted him for herself. Stacy’s next words brought a groan to Annie’s lips.

“The two of you would make a great couple.”

Annie should have known the diehard romantic that Stacy was would think that way. She gave in not because she hoped Flynn would be attracted to her, but because she agreed with him. No time like the present to learn more about his cousin.

“All right.”

Flynn unlocked the car doors, and Annie climbed into the front passenger seat. He folded his long form behind the wheel, and they were off. In the rearview mirror, Annie caught relief in Stacy’s expression, annoyance in Marianne’s, and she noticed Evie wasn’t among the group. She tried to recall whether Evie was with everyone the morning she found the body and failed.

Flynn took the corner almost on two wheels, and Annie pressed a hand to the dash. “Slow down. This is a residential street, and kids play in the road all the time.”

Flynn eyed her. His mouth tightened, but he did lower his speed. “Sorry, I’m just…”

She recalled Paul. “I apologize, and I’m sorry for your loss. Paul was sweet.”

Flynn snorted. “He was a lot of things, but sweet wasn’t one of them.”

“What do you mean?”

Amusement brightened the caramel eyes. “Were you one of the women who fawned over him all the time?”

Her back rose. “I don’t remember fawning over anyone, ever.”

He didn’t appear convinced. “Paul always told me he had women on his route eating out of his hand. He said they gave him all kinds of gifts and invitations, so many you wouldn’t believe.”

Dislike rose in Annie for both Paul and Flynn. She didn’t dislike people easily. In fact, Annie was the kind of person who loved the diversity that the human race produced. She enjoyed human nature in its myriad forms. What turned her off was when a person pretended to be something they weren’t. Even that she dismissed often because most people wore masks to protect themselves.

“Are you saying Paul pretended to like us and bragged to you about it?” She recalled what Killer had said. Paul wasn’t the nice guy everyone thought he was.

“
Like
you?” Flynn repeated. “If you’re hoping everyone likes you, Annie, you’re in for a rude awakening. The world doesn’t work that way. What kind of work do you do? No, let me guess.”

His gaze passed over her slowly, and she flushed.

“Secretary?”

Annie folded her arms over her chest. “For your information, I’m an executive at a mid-level corporation. The finance department.”

He grinned. “No, you’re not.”

“Excuse me?”

He grabbed one of her wrists and held her hand up before her face. “Those rough red tips and terrible nails aren’t those of an executive.”

Her mouth fell open. “What kind of firefighter are you?”

He seemed to hesitate, and his hands gripped the wheel tighter. “The kind that prefers detective work, but I’m not a cop, and nothing else I’ve done pays the bills. So, what are you?”

Annie’s curiosity switched from Paul to the man sitting across from her.
Flynn Aikens, Private Eye. I like the ring of it. Maybe a new series.

“Well, you should stick to your day job because my fingers didn’t get this way from too much typing.”

“How did they get that way?”

She fell silent. No sense telling him all her secrets. Plenty more lurked in her closet, and no one in her circle nor this stranger needed to be privy to them. “There’s a great coffee shop not far from here. They’re local.”

“I usually only go to—”

“Don’t say it. I’m a big fan of supporting the little guy, and Sam’s is great. They haven’t branched into a franchise, but they could. Come back in October. The pumpkin crème brûlée coffee is so yummy you’ll think you’re eating a donut. Or I guess I should say drinking one.”

“Sam’s it is,” he agreed.

A
scant few minutes later
, they pulled up into a full lot of twenty or so cars outside a small coffee shop. Annie loved Sam’s not just for the coffee but for the treats as well. Her sweet tooth was served satisfactorily with pastries, which Sam’s wife baked fresh each morning. During those rare times when Annie was strong enough to stick to a healthier diet, she enjoyed the flavored coffee with nonfat milk.

Pink wood trim lined both French windows on each side of a mostly glass door. The displays behind the glass showed off an assortment of items from all across the Southern United States, which the owners collected during their travels.

Once a year, the coffee shop closed for a three-week road trip. Annie had thought this was a crazy move that would destroy their business, but Sam’s survived and thrived despite the gap in service. She supposed it was the stories Sam shared afterward that brought the customers back—that and the baked goods.

Flynn opened the door for Annie, and she strode ahead of him. At the counter, she eyed the assortment of desserts and considered whether she would be embarrassed to eat something good in front of Flynn. From the corner of her eye, she surveyed his form. Long and lithe, he probably didn’t have to suck in his stomach to get his favorite jeans closed or hop around the room trying to jiggle the extra pounds into the material.

Darn it all, she was many things, but Annie Holloway wasn’t a closet eater. She enjoyed life and its offerings right out there for the world to see.

“Two apple crullers please, and a large mocha latte,” she told the girl behind the counter. Sam appeared a minute later from the back and broke into a bright smile.

“Annie, we don’t get to see you this time of day. Are you running away from the computer?”

The color pink exploded all over Sam, from the childish but cute headband around her short-cropped curls to the pink spirals dangling from her ears, and the hot pink polish on her nails, she was an electric sight.

“Me running away?” Annie scoffed. “Never.”

Sam snorted. “Uh-huh.”

Her gaze slipped over to Flynn, who hadn’t ordered yet but stood close enough to appear to be with Annie, and Sam’s eyebrows rose. Annie saw the question in her eyes and gave a tiny shrug.

Sam was not to be put off. “Who is this, a new friend?”

Flynn shifted his focus from the board over Sam’s head to Sam’s face just as Sam’s wife, Lila moved up to the counter. The girl running the register stepped to another one as Lila took her place to serve Annie and Flynn.

“Annie, good to see you, hun,” Lila said.

Annie always imagined Lila with a cigarette hanging from her mouth and running a greasy spoon kind of restaurant flipping burgers. That’s how her devil may care her attitude came across to Annie. Instead, her bleach blond short-cropped hair, piercing blue eyes, and rolled up sleeves fit somehow amid the crazy designs Sam decorated their shop with.

“Hey, Lila. Guys, this is Flynn. He’s Paul’s cousin.”

Both women’s faces fell. “Oh sorry for your loss, hun,” Lila offered.

Flynn gave a stiff nod. “Thank you. Did either of you know my cousin?”

They shook their heads, but Sam spoke. “No, sorry. I feel like I knew him because so many of the ladies gossiped about his legs every time they hung out here. I may have seen him once though, with someone else, but it’s not coming to mind who.”

Lila agreed. “Yeah, and his legs aren’t anything special. Let me tell you.”

Sam elbowed her wife. “Silly, stop.”

Flynn didn’t smile at the teasing but leaned heavily on the counter. “Can you think who it might have been, the person he was with?”

“No, but does it matter?” Sam seemed taken aback with Flynn’s intensity, and Annie poked him.

“Easy. I’m sure Sam will tell us if she remembers. For now, let’s enjoy the goodies.”

Annie all but dragged him away from the counter. If they held up the works any longer, the line behind them might threaten attack. One didn’t get in the way of a person needing a coffee fix, even in the evening. Sam’s stayed open until two in the morning, and many people liked to work that late. Coffee helped.

Annie and Flynn found an empty table near the window, and Annie let out a small squeal. “Lucky! If you’re willing to wait a while, people come and go all the time here, but it can be tricky around this time.”

Flynn sat down and sipped his drink. Annie slid one cruller from the bag and took a careful bite. Apple and cinnamon flavors burst on her tongue, and she moaned. When she looked up, it was to find Flynn watching her, and she held the bag out toward him.

“Good stuff. Want one?”

He blinked. “I wanted to question them more. Maybe the person Paul was here with had something to do with his death.”

“Maybe.” Annie took another bite and took her time chewing. “Sam’s got a thing for faces and names. I love that about her. She’ll remember eventually. Give her time, and she’ll probably let me know.”

“You come here often. Have you seen Paul with anyone here?”

“Nope. I’ve never seen Paul here. If Sam said he’s been here once, that’s all.”

He frowned.

Annie licked a thumb and leaned on the table. “So tell me about you, Flynn. What’s your story? You said doing detective work doesn’t pay the bills. Why not? You look like a gumshoe. Firefighter, not so much.”

He smirked, and Annie got a flash of the dimple again. He named a town that sounded vaguely familiar.

She racked her memory. “In North Carolina?”

“The same. That’s where I’m from. We’re small,
too
small to sustain a detective, and I refuse to take jobs like finding a lost pet.”

Annie laughed. “So Aunt Em asked you to look for Snowball, huh?”

“Something like that.”

“You could spread your wings more, advertise online, and encompass the surrounding counties. A bigger city’s what, fifty miles? Not so bad, and you never know when a real crime will strike a tiny community.”

Too late, she realized she’d reminded him of his cousin and shut her mouth. They sat in silence a few moments. Annie brushed a flake of glazed sugar off her finger.

“I’m sorry. I tend to get too excited about, well…
everything
…and shoot my mouth off before I think.”

“Don’t worry about it. I plan to have this thing wrapped up quickly.” His mouth tightened into a determined line.

“How close were the two of you? I know you said he was your only family.”

Flynn nodded. “His mom died in child birth with his little sister, and his dad…who knows. He took off. Paul came to live with us at ten, and my parents raised him as one of their own. He was independent even then, refusing to give an inch.”

“Stubborn?”

“And more. Paul saw us as family but not
his
family. He believed he didn’t belong with us, and from the beginning he gave my parents a hard time. At some point, I think it was his sophomore year in high school, he figured out how to manipulate others into giving him what he wanted. The sad part was he never went far enough with it. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been a delivery driver. He’d have owned the company.”

Annie toyed with the bag holding her second cruller. “Maybe he didn’t want anything more than that. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be ordinary. You know, like somewhere in the middle where you don’t stick out.”

“Is that where you like to be, Annie?”

She snorted. “I stick out in several places.”

He chuckled. “You’re certainly unique.”

“I am, and you’re Sherlock Holmes?”

“No, I’m not that good. I can’t tell you how much a guy weighs from his footprints or if one leg was longer than the other. I can’t tell you what I don’t see, but I take special notice of what I do. Would you like an example?”

“Sure.” A tingle of excitement raced over Annie’s arms, raising the hair on them. She pulled her notebook from her purse and clicked her pen in readiness to take notes.

Flynn hesitated. “It wasn’t going to be that big a deal. I only intended to point out the woman who saw us together, and all the blood left her face.”

Annie whipped around to search the coffee shop. “What woman?”

“She backed out and fled.”

Annie surged to her feet. “Why didn’t you say anything? Come on!”

“Wait, Annie.”

She snatched her purse and slapped the strap onto her shoulder. Then with the pastry in a tight grip, she ran for the door. By the time she reached the parking lot, whoever Flynn was talking about had vanished.

Annie scanned the lot. A mom and her kids arrived, and she smiled at Annie as she passed by to enter the coffee shop. An older gentleman was just pulling out onto the road. The rest of the cars sat empty, their owners probably already inside. No one else seemed likely to be the woman Flynn referred to.

“Darn it,” Annie grumbled.

Flynn moved up behind her. “You’re pretty impulsive, aren’t you?”

“And you move too slowly for a man of your size.”

He appeared somewhat insulted, and Annie tried not to laugh. “So what did she look like? Maybe I’ll recognize her by the description.”

“Five foot three or four, medium build, reddish hair just above her shoulders. I’m not sure, but maybe there’s a tattoo right here.” He indicated the side of his forearm.

“Not a tattoo, a scar.”

“You know who it is?”

“I think I do. Evelyn Westra. Evie. She’s one of our neighbors who lives up the block. She’s a little bit of a you-know-what, but mostly to her husband. She’s a vet’s assistant, and an animal bit her once and left the scar.”

“Any particular reason she would run from you?”

Annie tapped her lip. “She could have run from
you
.”

“That’s worse, but I doubt I look that much like my cousin to warrant such a reaction.”

“You haven’t seen your smile.”

His gaze turned speculative, but Annie patted his shoulder.

“It’s the dimple, but don’t get worked up. News travels fast around here. I bet the second Evie got home from work—maybe even before—everyone in our neighborhood told her you went to get coffee with me.”

“If that’s the case, she wouldn’t come here. Didn’t you say this is a favorite coffee shop?”

“Oh. That makes sense.” Annie strolled toward his car as she thought. The low-slung sports car that looked like it would hug the road when reaching top speeds didn’t seem to be the type of vehicle a firefighter would drive. The candy apple red might be right down Flynn’s alley though. Brake for Firefighters, the sticker read, but she suspected
he
needed to brake much more often than not.

“So why did she come?” Flynn said.

“I’ll ask her.”

Flynn opened the passenger side door for Annie, and she slipped into the car. She watched Flynn walk around the car and then pause frowning at the front driver side. She stretched to look and found that someone had let a glob of ice cream or whipped cream land on the paint job.

Flynn looked pretty murderous himself as he snatched open his door and began rummaging around without getting in. When he didn’t find what he searched for in the glove compartment, Annie opened her bag and withdrew tissue and a bottle of water.

“Here, try this,” she said.

He eyed her with suspicion and then took it. Annie had no idea why he would look so distrustful. Most women carried tissue in their purses, didn’t they? The water wasn’t so weird either.

After he cleaned up the car, he threw away the trash and climbed in beside her. The engine roared to life. “Do you always carry rubber gloves in your purse, Annie?”

She froze. He’d seen them in the moment it took her retrieve the tissue and water.

Darn his eyes!

Her respect for his sleuthing skills multiplied. “Doesn’t everyone?”

Her cell phone rang before he could answer, and Annie stabbed the button as fast as she could.

“Aunt Annie?”

“Paisley, what’s happening, sweetheart?”

“Say I was hanging out with you for the last couple of hours, okay?”

“Um, no.”

“Come on. You always look out for me when I get in trouble.”

“Correction, I’ve picked you up twice when you needed me to. You’re fourteen. Shouldn’t you be into romance novels or Disney movies, or…” She ran out of ideas. Actually, she had no idea of what a fourteen-year-old liked these days. Maybe the Disney movies thing was Ben.

“Okay, how about this? You come get me and drop me off at home, and I’ll tell Mom I was with you. That way you’re not lying to Mom, but you don’t tell her it was like five minutes or whatever.”

“What were you doing?”

“Does it matter?”

Annie sighed. Paisley pulled her into this position every time, and Annie kept telling herself to be tougher, but she couldn’t muster the strength.

“I’m not at home, and I don’t have my car.”

“Okay, I’ll take care of it, but don’t say anything to Mom if she calls. Deal?”

Annie groaned.

“Aunt Annie, please?”

“Okay, but I want to know the details.”

“You got it.”

She hung up. Guilt assaulted Annie, and she played with the phone in her lap for a few minutes. Since Paisley hit her preteen years, Annie had never ratted her out. No, it was before then, the girl manipulated Annie with a just a few words.

She couldn’t blame Paisley. Annie let the kids get away with far more than Jane ever would, but she didn’t spend all that much time with them either to lead them down a dark path. Realizing this little truth helped her feel better, and she dismissed the worry.

“Tomorrow I’m visiting my cousin’s apartment. Would you like to tag along?” Flynn offered.

Annie clapped her hands. “Yes, absolutely. I can be a big help since I’m pretty good at detective work too—at least on paper I am.”

“I’ll handle it. I’m bringing you because I want you close.”

Warmth stole over her. “Oh.”

“I haven’t ruled you out as a suspect.”

“Oh.”
Her ego deflated. The gloves had done it. She was sure. “Well, I’ve already decided I’m going to find out what happened to Paul.
You
can tag along with
me
, and we’ll compare notes.”

One side of his mouth rose. “Okay, I’ll pick you up at nine.”