Part 8 (2/2)
A little surprised, I paused with a shard of candy in one hand, a brush loaded with edible glue in the other. ”I don't even know who he is.”
”I know. That's weird, isn't it? Around here, I mean.” She seemed to remember that she was supposed to be working and scooped up two squares of fudge with a spatula. ”It's hard to imagine that n.o.body knows the guy.”
”I'm sure someone does.” I pressed the candy shard into place and eyed the effect critically. I was becoming bolder when it came to designing the display windows at Divinity, and this one was the most daring yet. ”I'm also sure the police will find the answers to everyone's questions soon.”
Liberty looked up in surprise. ”What? You don't want to talk about it?”
Again, an uncomfortable feeling slithered up my spine. ”A man's dead,” I said, my voice flat. ”I don't get off on speculating about what happened.”
From somewhere behind me came the sound of Karen snorting in disbelief. ”Don't let her fool you, Liberty. She's not as immune to gossip as she tries to pretend.”
I glared at the open doorway. Karen should know what I meant. I might have talked about murder with family and a few close friends in the past, but I barely knew Liberty. Karen should be able to understand the difference.
Liberty grinned and carried the empty fudge pan into the kitchen. She'd done something to her hair that morning that made her whole head look as if a skunk had nested on top of it. ”It makes you wonder, doesn't it? I mean, I know what made Rutger want to come here, and you and I just came home again. But what brings somebody like this guy to Paradise?”
Terrific. Apparently, Karen had been gabbing about me with our new employee. ”I suppose we'd have to know something about him to know the answer.”
Liberty leaned against the counter and studied the mosaic closely. ”Maybe finding out what he was doing here would help tell us who he was. Have you thought of it that way?”
”I haven't really thought about it at all,” I said. And that was mostly true. Okay . . . partially true. I'd been trying not to think about it. That had to count for something.
Karen appeared in the office doorway, a scowl on her narrow face. ”She has a point. You could have pa.s.sed the murderer somewhere along the road. Did you see anyone you recognized?”
I shook my head slowly. ”I've thought about it a hundred times, but I don't remember anyone in particular, other than Marshall. I was too busy chasing Max.” And trying to breathe, but I saw no reason to mention that.
”The killer must have known where to find him, don't you think?” Liberty said abruptly. ”Unless it was just a random act of violence.”
”I don't think it was random,” I said. ”It's too much of a coincidence that he'd pretend to be killed one day and actually turn up dead a few days later.”
”Then it had to be planned,” Liberty pointed out.
”Maybe not,” I said. ”Maybe someone just saw an opportunity and took it.”
Liberty c.o.c.ked an eyebrow. ”Someone who just happened to carry a knife with him in case he came across someone he wanted to get rid of?”
”Obviously the dead guy had some kind of connection to Coach Hendrix,” Karen said, changing tactics. ”Maybe he can identify the dead guy.”
I covered another sheet of candy with paper towel and shattered it using a rubber mallet. ”I hope you're not suggesting that I should ask him.”
Liberty picked up a stray sliver of candy and slid it into her mouth. ”Are you talking about Kerry Hendrix?”
Intrigued, Karen came further into the room. ”Yeah. Why? Do you know him?”
”I used to. We went to high school together, but I haven't seen him in years.”
My stomach dropped. ”You and Kerry were friends?”
Liberty laughed. ”I wouldn't say that. He was in the popular crowd. I spent most of my time in the parking lot or behind the bleachers.”
I hoped she was telling me the truth; otherwise, I was going to have a really tough time letting her stick around.
”Popular crowd? No wonder he's so c.o.c.ky,” Karen muttered. She came all the way into the kitchen and sat at the table. ”So why did this guy want to destroy Kerry's truck?”
”Unless Kerry's changed, it could have been anything,” Liberty said as she joined Karen at the table. ”When I knew him, he always got his own way. He p.i.s.sed a lot of people off.”
”He hasn't changed a bit,” Karen said with a rueful grin. ”People like him never do.”
Liberty seemed genuine, at least. I wondered who Kerry's friends were now that he was older, and if any of them might know what connection he had with the murdered man. Not that I had any intention of asking. The more distance I kept between Kerry Hendrix and myself, the better I'd feel.
Coach Hendrix and I didn't exchange more than a dozen words at Wednesday afternoon's practice. Apparently, he was still convinced that I'd vandalized his truck. I was still offended that he'd think so and more than a little uncomfortable around him.
With the two of us taking such pains not to interact any more than we had to, practice dragged on until I thought pulling the hair out of my arms with tweezers would have been less painful.
Finally, eight o'clock came around, and I led Brody and Caleb to the Jetta. While we'd been at practice, snow had started to fall, and the parking lot and cars were already blanketed with a thin layer of sparkling white.
Brody and Caleb reacted like boys always do, sliding on the ice that had formed under the surface and trying to pack the dry powder into s...o...b..a.l.l.s. Like generations of adults before me, I walked with my head down, trying to keep my shoes dry and my hair from frizzing.
Brody and Caleb reached the car a few steps ahead of me. Caleb opened the car door and climbed into the backseat, but Brody came to a wobbling stop at the end of an ice slide and pointed toward the other side of the parking lot. ”Hey. Lookit that. Isn't that the car that guy got into the other night?”
I followed his finger and saw a dark-colored SUV idling next to Coach Hendrix's truck. I could see Coach's shadow behind the wheel of the truck, and someone else's behind the wheel of the SUV. ”I don't know. It might be, but I didn't see it well enough the other night to be certain.”
”It is the same car,” Caleb said, practically tumbling out of the Jetta in his excitement. ”You wanna know how I know?”
Brody and I turned to look at him at the same time. ”How?” I asked.
”Look at the lights in front. The one on this side is broken.”
Sure enough, where the headlights wrapped to the side of the SUV, one of the lights was missing its yellow plastic covering. My heart thumped hard against my rib cage, and my hands grew clammy. ”Are you sure that's the same car?”
Caleb's chin jutted out stubbornly. ”I'm not a baby, Aunt Abby.”
”I know you're not,” I a.s.sured him. ”I just want to be very sure it's the same car. Next time I see it, I'll give the license number to the police. Now get in the car and let's get out of here.”
Brody reached for the door handle, but he stopped there. ”Do you want me to sneak over there and write down the number?”
”Absolutely not. We're leaving.”
Caleb didn't seem to mind, but I could tell Brody thought I was being a sissy. ”How are you going to get the license plate number if we leave?” he asked.
It was a good question, but I couldn't take chances with the boys. We weren't just dealing with a suspected carjacker anymore. A man had been murdered. Whatever these people were doing in Paradise, they meant business.
I herded the boys into the Jetta, swept away a layer of snow so I could see to drive, and got the car running. Leaving the headlights off so we wouldn't attract attention, I drove around the building so I could leave the lot by the front entrance. We might have been perfectly safe driving past the SUV, bold as bra.s.s, but it was a risk I didn't want to take.
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