Skating Under the Wire: A Mystery (Rebecca Robbins Mysteries) (3 page)

Pop shook his head. “My car’s in the lot. Besides, I’m going to wait and see how Ethel’s holding up before heading out. She’s in the lounge, talking to Deputy Holmes.”

Poor Ethel. I’d been grilled by Deputy Sean Holmes more than once since coming back to Indian Falls. Sean’s interrogation style had all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Ethel was going to need Pop’s sparkly shoulder by the time it was over.

“Why is Sean talking to Ethel?” I asked. “Does he think there was foul play?”

“Nothing that interesting. I overheard the paramedics say something about a heart attack. Sean just needs something to write in his report.”

“I guess that’s good.” I felt a knot of worry ease. Lately, too many of the deaths in town had involved foul play.

“Real good.” Pop smiled. “Sean will be busy squaring away paperwork. That gives you time to get a head start on tracking down the Thanksgiving Day thief. Did Julie give you a list of the victims? If not, I probably remember most of them.”

Oops. Ethel’s surprise announcement had pushed my agreement to investigate off the radar. “Mrs. Johnson gave me the list, along with a check for my fee. What are you doing telling people I charge a fee?”

Pop’s smile widened. “No one’s going to take you seriously if you don’t charge for your time.”

No amount of money was going to make me a legitimate source of detective work. “I run a roller rink, Pop. That makes me qualified to burn pizza and schedule birthday parties.”

My logic failed to impress my grandfather. “I called a couple of PIs in Moline and asked them what the going rate was. Then I knocked off twenty-five percent, seeing as how Julie gave you As in all her classes. I figured that was worth the discount.”

I ignored the flash of indignation I felt over the implication I needed to buy my grades and focused on the real problem. “Pop, I can’t charge for investigating crimes.”

“Why not?”

“Because I have no training.” Duh.

My grandfather waved off my concern with a flick of his wrinkled hand. “Training is overrated. I’ve never had a singing lesson, and look at me now.” Pop gyrated his hips to the left, causing the women behind him to break into enthusiastic applause.

With all that sparkling it was hard
not
to look at Pop. I might even have been inspired by the comparison if Pop actually had talent. Pop’s singing sounded a lot like a hedgehog in heat, and that was when he remembered the words. What he lacked in talent he made up for in shiny, tight clothes, unparalleled enthusiasm, and bribery. He gave away imitation silk scarves by the truckload. I had a closet full of them. Still, while lack of talent hadn’t gotten in my grandfather’s way, my pride wanted me to be good at what I did.

Pop finished one last pelvic thrust. Then he got back to business. “I can take a look at the list and give you background on the victims. Heck, I can even ride along when you interview them. With me helping, what can go wrong?”

I could think of at least a dozen things off the top of my head. Still, it couldn’t hurt to get Pop’s take on the victims, right? After all, I had promised Mrs. Johnson I would try to track down the thieves.

I pulled Mrs. Johnson’s envelope out of my pocket and unfolded the sheet of paper inside. The list was long and arranged by the year of the theft. The most recent thefts were written at the top. In three of the years, more than one house had been hit. All combined, there were thirteen names listed. Something told me that if the thief had his way there would be fourteen come December. At least.

One of the names caught me by surprise. “I didn’t know Annette was robbed. Mom never mentioned it.” Annette was the owner of the town’s hair salon and had been my mother’s best friend.

Pop nodded. “For a while no one was certain whether the Thanksgiving thief cleaned her out or if it was her ex-boyfriend. The man was a skunk.”

My mother had told me about the skunk. If she had mentioned the breakin, I hadn’t been paying attention, which made me sad.

I quickly scanned the rest of the list. Some of the names—Betsy Moore, Nan Thain, and Doc Truman—were familiar. The rest were not. Pop started to give me a rundown on the victims, but after hearing about Betsy Moore’s controversial methods of inseminating a horse, I tuned him out. Sometimes too much information is a bad thing.

“So who are we going to question first? My vote is for Barna Donovan. Last summer he said one of his goats was eaten by an alien.” Pop’s eyes glittered with excitement, which was way better than the sorrow that had been there earlier. Too bad I was going to disappoint him.

“If I’m going to look like a professional investigator, I need to talk to victims on my own.”

“You’re probably right.” Pop frowned. “We don’t want to get your new business off on the wrong foot. Just keep me posted on how things are going. I have fifty dollars riding on you catching the crook before Sean Holmes does.”

The women in the room stopped talking, and their eyes settled on something behind me. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end as I slowly turned around.

Well, crap. Leaning against the doorjamb, looking at me, was Deputy Sean Holmes. His ash-blond hair stood up as though he’d raked his hands through it a bunch while questioning Ethel, and his smoldering eyes had me ready to duck for cover.

“Where’s Ethel?” Pop demanded. “We want to make sure you didn’t rough her up.”

Sean gave Pop a flat stare. “I don’t rough up old ladies.”

“Who are you calling old?” Ethel appeared behind Sean. Her eyes were swollen and her nose was red, but the way she was swinging her purse said she was ready for a fight.

The crowd of women near the bikes took a step forward. Pop glared. Elvis and the septuagenarian Supremes were ready to rumble. Sean swallowed hard.

Call me crazy, but I decided this was a good time to clear out. I said good-bye to my grandfather, who was slowly advancing on Sean, skirted around the action, and headed out of the room. Shrieking voices and shouts for an AARP uprising followed me all the way down the hall and out the door leading to the parking lot.

The temperature was somewhere around freezing as I zipped up my coat and trudged to my car. Somewhere above the clouds the sun was probably shining, but it wasn’t making its way down here. The mist of rain falling from the sky made me glad I hadn’t walked the two and a half blocks from the rink to the center.

“Funky Town” was blasting from the sound system as I strolled into the rink. Kids and adults of all ages boogied counterclockwise on wheels while laughing, screaming, and inevitably falling. The smell of popcorn and pizza made my stomach growl, and I remembered I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. After a quick talk with my staff, which today mostly consisted of responsible high school students, I decided everything was under control. I told them to call if they needed me and then headed back outside and around the side of the rink to the door leading to my second-story apartment.

The apartment was blissfully quiet thanks to Mom’s decision to soundproof when she refurbished the place a few years ago. Kicking off my wet shoes, I made a beeline for the kitchen. I poured myself a bowl of Cocoa Puffs as my cell phone rang. Almost certain the call was my grandfather needing to be bailed out of jail, I dug my phone out of my purse. Then I smiled with pleasure as I read the display. Lionel.

I flipped open the phone, and a warm, sexy voice said, “Hey, I’m sorry, but I’m running a little late. Mrs. Pendley’s horse jumped a fence and hurt its leg.”

Lionel was a large-animal vet. When he wasn’t tending to the four-legged critters around town, the two of us were working to define our current relationship status. Lionel was the love, commitment, and marriage kind of guy. I was still trying to figure out what kind of girl I was. Right now, I was a girl who’d forgotten she had scheduled a date for tonight. Oops.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “We can reschedule for another night.”

“I should be done here in another hour. Would you mind waiting a little longer to eat dinner?”

The idea of a real meal instead of a bowl of cereal had its lure, but I’d seen Lionel after one of his emergency animal visits. While nothing could detract from the appeal of his sculpted features and deep green eyes, dirt, blood, and manure were serious appetite suppressants.

“Why don’t I meet you at your place?” I suggested. “That’ll give you a chance to clean up before we eat.” Plus, since one of last year’s Thanksgiving theft victims lived just down the road from Lionel, I’d have time to pay her a visit. Could I multitask or what?

Plans made, I ate another handful of cereal, changed into jeans and a fitted blue sweater, and then rummaged through the end table in my bedroom for a pad of paper. In the movies, investigators wrote things down. Columbo, the
Law & Order
gang, Inspector Gadget—they all had pen and paper on hand when doing their work. While a spiral notepad wasn’t exactly a stamp of legitimacy, it made me feel like I was at least trying to look the part.

Finishing the last handful of cereal, I brushed the crumbs from my sweater and shrugged into my white winter jacket. The coat was bulky and made me look like the Michelin Man. Perhaps not the look a person should go for when meeting the world’s sexiest vet for dinner, but I didn’t care. What the coat lacked in attractiveness it made up for in warmth. Anyone who’d lived through a Midwest winter would agree that warmth won out.

Checking to make sure my gloves were in my pocket, I opened the front door and walked smack into the chest of Deputy Sean Holmes.

The impact threw us both off balance. Sean staggered down two steps before regaining his footing and catching the back of my jacket as I started to sail past him. He hauled me onto the stair he was standing on, and for a moment we both looked down to the bottom of the steps, contemplating what might have happened.

Sean recovered first. After taking my arm, he walked me up the three steps to my apartment, pulled me inside, and closed the door behind us. “You can’t stay out of trouble, can you?”

“I didn’t expect you to be lurking behind my door.” We both knew he wasn’t referring to our close encounter of the almost painful kind, but I was hoping he’d believe I was shook up enough to avoid the other, less appealing topic.

No such luck.

“Your grandfather seems to think Julie Johnson hired you to catch the Thanksgiving Day thief.”

My grandfather really needed a lesson on when to take his dentures out of his mouth. Without his dentures, Pop sounded like he was speaking Yiddish. I was faced with two choices: Tell the truth or lie. I opted for something in the middle. “Mrs. Johnson was at Danielle’s bridal shower. The thefts might have come up in conversation.”

He crossed his arms and stared at me.

The clock on the mantel ticked.

Sweat dripped down my back. Outside the coat would be perfect. Inside it was stifling. I tried not to fidget under Sean’s unblinking gaze.

I failed.

Crap. “Mrs. Johnson really wants to know what happened to the things that were stolen. She asked me to talk to the other victims and see if I could uncover something new. Since I don’t know much about the thefts, she thought I’d have a fresh perspective.” I took a step back and braced myself for Sean’s wrath.

“She might have a point.”

Maybe I’d actually fallen down the stairs and was currently hallucinating. “What?”

Sean smiled, enjoying my confusion. “You have a disturbing knack for conning people around here into giving you information. It pisses me off, but I’m not above using it to catch the thief.”

Huh. I was pretty sure I had just been insulted. I was going to complain when Sean added, “The victims are angry with the department for not catching the perp, and I can’t blame them. If we have another burglary this year, the sheriff can kiss his job good-bye and I’ll be demoted to dogcatcher.”

Sentencing Sean to a life of yappy Pomeranians and annoyed pit bulls was appealing payback after his past threats to arrest me for obstruction. If it weren’t for my promise to Mrs. Johnson, that image might encourage me to sit this one out. Oh well.

“So you aren’t going to yell and threaten to arrest me for nosing into your case?”

Sean leaned back against the door. “Nope. In fact, I’m encouraging you to go out there and be your nosiest.”

This seemed too good to be true. Maybe my luck in Indian Falls was changing. I should probably stop at Slaughter’s Market and pick up a lottery ticket before it changed back.

“Just remember that you’re required to report any new evidence to our office. Otherwise, I might have to revoke the nice-guy routine.” Sean opened the front door and added, “I’d really hate to upset your grandfather by arresting you during the holidays.”

“Wait. You’re saying you want me to do the work and let you take the glory?”

Sean gave me a cocky smile. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. Have a nice night.” With a wink and a slam of the door, he was gone.

So much for thinking my luck had improved. Well, at least I wasn’t alone. Sean had just ensured I’d do everything in my power to catch the Thanksgiving thief. If he thought I was going to give him all the credit, though, he was going to be sorely disappointed.

Fueled by righteous indignation, and a need to see Sean running after dogs with a net, I headed out the door to my car. It was time to question Betsy Moore and get this investigation started.

Three

The Moore farm was a
fifteen-minute drive from downtown. Betsy had taken over the family business of raising horses and growing soybeans when her parents up and moved to Miami. She had been three years behind me in school, and the age gap had prevented us from being chummy. We still weren’t what you would call friends—especially not since this summer, when she showed up on Lionel’s arm at the town’s dinner dance. Had a well-meaning person not shared her identity, I certainly would never have recognized her. The Betsy I’d known had had stringy hair and braces and was flat as a pancake. Postpuberty Betsy had perfect teeth, a great stylist, and a D-cup bra size. Lionel had picked buxom Betsy as his dinner-dance date to make me jealous. By the time the night was over, Lionel had defected from her side and she’d been consoling herself with the new lawyer in town. Word on the street said Betsy and the lawyer were still together. I hoped the gossips were right. Otherwise, this visit could get downright awkward.