Goody Goody Gunshots (22 page)

Chapter 28

“He’s only a little boy. He didn’t know what he was
saying,” Karen said when I told her about it the next morning. She stood in a patch of sunlight that streamed inside through the kitchen windows, which made the day look far warmer than it actually was. She shivered and nudged up the thermostat a couple of degrees. Like other old buildings, Divinity is notoriously drafty.

“He knows he hates me,” I said as I measured three cups of raisins into a bowl. Caleb still hadn’t forgiven me, and I was feeling horribly sorry for myself. Making rum raisin balls seemed like a reasonable way to lift my mood. If the scents of melting chocolate and the steps involved in making the candy didn’t work, the rum might. “I wish I could figure out what connection Kerry Hendrix had with the dead guy. He’s the one who should be leaving the team.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t like him.”

“That doesn’t make him a murderer,” Karen pointed out. “And even if it does, let the police prove it.”

Deep down, I knew she was right. I had to have faith in the system. I had to believe that right would prevail. And I
did
. . . deep down. Closer to the surface, I felt like I’d failed my nephews, and I hated knowing that they agreed with me.

I covered the raisins with rum, set them aside to soak for the next three hours, and tried to shake off the foul mood that had been plaguing me all morning. “Is everything ready for the book club meeting?”

“Almost,” Karen said. “Liberty’s setting up the new meeting room even as we speak, and I’ve almost finished putting together the sample trays.” The Paradise Pageturners had been holding their monthly meetings at Divinity for the past several years. In all the excitement of the impending holiday, the murder, and our new clerk I’d nearly forgotten that the Pageturners had rescheduled their meeting for today. Once again, Karen had covered my backside.

The ladies of the club left the selection of candies up to us every month, and we tried to give them a few old favorites along with a couple of new varieties each time.

Usually, I created the sample trays for the group, but Karen had been chomping at the bit for more responsibility for months. She’d worked part-time at Divinity for Aunt Grace while I was off living my other life, yet Aunt Grace had left the store to me. Feelings of guilt over my inheritance and gratitude toward Karen for helping me learn the ropes convinced me that it was only fair to let her exercise her creative side once in a while, so I’d turned the task over to her this time. This morning, with my nerves on fire and my mood in the toilet, I almost regretted the decision.

“Don’t worry,” Karen said. “Liberty and I can handle the book club meeting.”

“I know you can,” I said with a thin smile. “I’m just in a strange mood this morning. Ignore me.”

The bell over the front door jangled, and Karen turned away with a grin. “You got it.” She was almost out of the kitchen when she turned back. “If you need something to do, why don’t you run over to Walgreens and pick up the stuff on that list?” she said with a nod toward a sheet of paper she’d tacked to the bulletin board. “It’ll save us time later.”

I knew she was just trying to get rid of me, but maybe she was right. My mood wasn’t doing anyone any good. I pulled the list from the bulletin board and scanned it quickly. Apparently, we were out of almost everything from paper towels to ibuprofen. I grabbed my keys and the company checkbook from the office and drove the half block to the drugstore so I wouldn’t have to haul the supplies back to Divinity on foot.

Inside the store, I managed to get the cart with the wobbly wheel, and my mood dropped even lower. I could have traded it for another cart, but I was so consumed by self-pity at that point, I couldn’t even make myself do that. Battling the cart’s determined efforts to circle to the right, I loaded the basket with the items on Karen’s list and added a few of my own. By the time I’d gone around the store a couple of times looking for everything, my head had begun to pound to the rhythmic
whap-whap-whap
of the wheel as it hit the metal casing surrounding it.

Finally, I turned toward the cash register, where a young blonde of about eighteen popped her gum and waited for something to do. Britnee, according to her name tag, barely acknowledged my presence, which was fine with me. I wasn’t in the mood for idle chitchat anyway. Behind her, a young man worked a feather duster across a row of film with as much enthusiasm as Britnee showed over helping me.

When Britnee was almost finished ringing up my purchases, the young man turned his head and said, “Hey, Brit. Do you know if the schedule for next week is up yet?”

Britnee popped her gum and shook her head. “I don’t think so, Chase. She said she might not even do it today.”

The young man muttered something under his breath, and Britnee rolled her eyes in response. “I know. I know. But don’t tell
me
. Talk to her.” She hit the Total button and flashed a bored glance at me. “Comes to ninety-five ninety-eight.”

I said a silent prayer of thanks for Liberty’s enthusiastic attitude and pulled out the checkbook. As I began to fill out the check, the fog that had been hovering around my head all day lifted, and I realized I was standing in the middle of a potential gold mine of information.

Tossing off a friendly smile, I asked, “Do you mind if I ask the two of you a couple of questions?”

Britnee flicked another couldn’t-care-less look in my direction. “About what?”

“About last Monday night. Were you working that night?”

A veil of thin blonde hair fell when Britnee moved her head. She hooked a finger through it and tucked it behind her ear in a movement so automatic, I’m sure she didn’t even know she’d done it. “I can’t talk to you. My boss has a fit if we stop working to talk to anybody.”

Which might explain her stellar people skills. I glanced around quickly, saw no one standing in line behind me, and pulled handful of items from the nearby bargain bin. Still trying to look friendly, I dropped them onto her conveyer belt. “There, now you have to talk to me. Just ring them up slowly, and tell me if you were working last Monday night.”

Chase looked up from his dusting. “The night they found the dead guy in the parking lot? We were both here.”

Britnee scanned a rubber ball with colorful spikes sticking out all over it and shuddered at the memory. The lock of hair escaped from behind her ear and fell down in front of her face again. “Was that not the freakiest thing ever?” she asked, hooking and tucking without missing a beat.

For the sake of argument, I agreed that it was, indeed, the freakiest thing ever. “You know, I’m the one who found the body. At least, my dog did. Did either of you see it happen?”

“The murder?” Britnee looked almost impressed by my claim to fame as she scanned a closeout can of Pringles and slid it into a bag. “I didn’t see a thing, thank God. Did you?” She glanced longingly at Chase, as if she could feel a protective aura emanating from his scrawny body.

Chase ran his feather duster across a rack of magazines and puffed up a bit, no doubt trying to look tough. “I didn’t actually
see
it happen, but I came close. I took a bunch of boxes out to the Dumpster about five minutes before they found the guy’s body.”

Britnee scanned the last item on her belt, but I still had questions. I held up a finger in a signal for her to wait and went back to the bargain bin. I loaded up again, checking price tags quickly to make sure I wasn’t going to empty the bank account for a chance to hear what these two had to say.

“Did you see anything unusual?” I asked as I unloaded two decks of cards, a canister of tennis balls with one missing, a couple of kitchen towels, and a bubble pack of flavored lip gloss.

I could tell that Chase wanted to say yes, but he shook his head reluctantly. “No. I mean, there were cars coming and going, you know? And there were people outside. But I didn’t see the dead guy at all.”

“That’s because he was in here,” Britnee said, startling us both.

“He came inside?” I asked.

She nodded solemnly and went through the motions of tucking and looping that errant lock of hair behind her ear once more. “I ought to know. I’m the one who rang him up.”

Chase gazed at her with new admiration, as if she’d survived a brush with death in the last twenty seconds, and he’d been there to witness the miracle. “What did he buy?”

“A pack of gum, I think. I don’t think he actually wanted it. He was just trying to get away from the guy who was bugging him.”

I was finding Britnee more fascinating by the moment. “What guy?”

“The guy he was trying to get away from.” Her tone suggested that I needed to pay better attention.

“Right. This is the first I’ve heard of that,” I said. “Do the police know?”

Britnee shrugged lazily. “I guess so.”

“You don’t know? Does that mean you haven’t told them?”

She lifted her gaze to mine. “I didn’t talk to them, Sissy did. I don’t know what she told them.”

“Who’s Sissy?”

“The night manager,” Chase explained. “If you ask me, she’s gone a little nuts since she got her promotion.”

I knew the type. There’s one in nearly every workplace. “So you didn’t actually talk to the police yourself?” I asked Britnee.

“No, Sissy said she had to do it because she’s the manager. I told her that was stupid. I mean,
she
didn’t see anything, but she didn’t care. She wanted to look important.”

I sincerely hoped Sissy was about twelve; otherwise, I’d be frightened by the stupidity of that decision. “Did you contact the police later and tell them what you knew?”

Britnee shook her head. “No. I don’t want to lose my job.”

“And Sissy
would
fire her,” Chase said. “She’s like that.”

They were so young, it was almost painful. “She can’t fire you for talking to the police,” I assured them. “There are laws.”

Chase laughed through his nose. “Yeah? Well, tell Sissy that. But don’t expect it to do any good. She’ll just do whatever she wants.”

I could have enlightened them on a few facts about employment law, but we were losing focus. “Did you see the other man’s face? What did he look like?”

Britnee swiped the three-pack of fruity lip gloss across the scanner and pulled a flyer from a stack at the end of the counter. She pushed the flyer toward me. I picked it up and found Quentin Ingersol beaming up at me from a grainy photograph. My head shot up, and my breath caught. “He looked like this guy?”

“No, he
was
that guy.”

My heart thumped with excitement. “Are you sure?”

Britnee secured the wayward lock of hair behind her ear again and nodded. “Sure I’m sure. That guy’s in the store at least twice a week. I know who he is.”

“But you haven’t told the police that he was talking to the dead guy right before the murder?”

“No.”
Duh!
Britnee shook her head and frowned as if she was losing patience with me. “It’s not like he killed the guy. I mean, he’s one of our regulars. He’s in here all the time.” She glanced at the empty conveyer belt and glanced back at me. “Is that it?”

She wasn’t the only one losing patience, but I tried to hang on to mine with both hands. I pulled two magazines and a container of breath mints from the rack. “Did you happen to hear anything they said?”

“Who?”

“This guy and the dead guy. You said they were arguing ...”

Britnee scowled at me. “No I didn’t. I said that the dead guy was trying to get away from the other guy.”

“Do you know why?”

“This guy—” she tapped Quentin’s face with her fingertip, “—kept telling the other guy to back off.”

“What did the dead guy say?”

“He laughed. Like it was some kind of joke.”

“Do you know what this guy wanted him to back off from?”

“No.” Britnee stopped working again and cocked an eyebrow, waiting for me to toss a few more purchases onto the belt.

I decided I’d spent enough on worthless junk and held up both hands. “You didn’t hear anything else?”

“I didn’t hear anything except that,” Britnee said. “The guy in the picture told the dead guy to back off, and the dead guy laughed.” She hit the total button and rattled off a new amount, sliding a glance past me to something behind me. “You’d better go anyway,” she said softly. “Sissy’s back there watching.”

Chase, in a self-protective measure, had already moved away. I wrote out the check and tossed it onto the conveyer belt along with two business cards. “Do me a favor, okay? If either of you think of anything else, will you let me know? You can find me at the candy shop on Prospector Street.”

Chapter 29

I left Divinity earlier than usual that afternoon for
basketball practice. I hadn’t seen Kerry since our run-in at the convenience store, and now that Wyatt and Elizabeth had taken Brody and Caleb off the team, I had no idea what his mood would be. If he was going to cop an attitude with me, I wanted him to do it before the boys arrived.

I’d called Elizabeth earlier to see how Brody and Caleb were feeling about being sidelined. Neither of the boys wanted to speak to me, but Elizabeth assured me they’d get over their disappointment soon. Kids were resilient, she assured me. I hoped she was right.

The parking lot was nearly empty when I pulled in, so it wasn’t hard to make sure there were no dark-colored SUVs lurking in the shadows. Even though lights spilled out of the windows and illuminated the sidewalks, I didn’t see another soul until I let myself through the front door and into the reception area.

There, a young woman with curly dark hair sat at the front desk, the phone wedged between ear and shoulder. She smiled vaguely in my direction as I walked past her, but she was so deep in conversation, I wasn’t sure she actually saw me. The windows of the administrative offices were already dark, indicating that the office staff had already gone home, but the faint sound of exercise equipment floated up the stairs from the work-out room in the basement. At least one hearty soul was in the center that evening.