The news about Ollie was utterly devastating. Word spread at 5G Internet speed, and I spent the next few hours on my phone communicating with folks about it. Brent had spent so much energy worrying about Sammy that he eventually fell asleep.
No such luck for me.
After tossing, turning, and staring at the ceiling for a few hours, I crept from the bedroom. Ursi followed me, an expectant look in her golden eyes.
“Fine.” I shook a few kitty treats into her bowl. “Don’t get used to this. It’s a one-time-only offer. I hope.”
With my fiancé enjoying some well-deserved sleep and my feline enjoying a totally unearned snack, I brewed a cup of chamomile tea and got settled on the couch with my phone. Normally, Rushing Creek’s social media imprint was small. It was a small town, after all. The business community did a wonderful job promoting tourism, but beyond that, there wasn’t much to be found that didn’t involve high school extracurricular events or holiday-related events.
At the moment, the opposite was the case. In the middle of a public park, among hundreds of bystanders, a man had been shot. As horrible as that was, another factor made it even worse.
The victim was a police officer.
Authorities, from Mayor Angela to Chief Matt, were imploring the community to remain calm and not to rush to any conclusions.
While I appreciated the idea of letting the investigation run its course, the facts were as obvious as a red nose on a clown.
Oliver Watson had been murdered.
It was my turn to rub my temples. When had people become callous? What had changed that made people so quick to take another’s life so easily? Why did it keep happening? Over and over and over?
A tear ran down my cheek. I scrubbed it away with my thumb.
I was no stranger to murder. Heck, I’d investigated five right here in my hometown. And I was a literary agent, not a cop.
Regardless, the dark storm cloud of homicide had settled over my hometown again. The kind that chilled folks to the bone and left them ill.
Experience had taught me the cloud wouldn’t lift until the murderer was caught.
With that depressing thought in mind, I succumbed to exhaustion and fell asleep right there on the couch.
All too soon, I was awakened by an insistent knocking on my front door. The bang, bang, bang wasn’t Calypso’s signature knock. Hers was playful. No, this one had a certain authority to it. I got up when the visitor knocked a second time, this time louder and more insistent than before.
My heart sank when I opened the door. This wasn’t a social call.
“Come on in, Jeanette.” I went to the kitchen as she dropped into a chair at my dining table. There were dark circles under her eyes and the usual spring in her step was missing. “I’ll start a pot of coffee.”
“Yeesh, do I really look that bad?” She massaged the back of her neck. “Don’t answer that.”
“Actually, I’ve seen you look worse.” It was true. She’d been the lead investigator when the corpse of a local girl who’d been missing for twenty years was found. My friend was one tough cookie, but that one hit her harder than the others.
“Thanks for the vote of confidence. Anything to eat in there?”
I checked the fridge. “I’ve got bagels, grapes, orange juice, and milk. Sorry. Trying to keep the perishables to a minimum. Don’t want anything going bad while we’re on the honeymoon.”
“I’ll take whatever you got. Haven’t eaten since”—she shook her head—“since yesterday at lunch.”
While I whipped up the largest breakfast I could muster, Brent shuffled out of the bedroom. He gave her a wave.
“Normally, I’d say it’s good to see you, but . . .” He shrugged.
“And normally, I’d be in bed. Dreaming of building a retirement cottage on Lake Michigan.”
“You’re here about last night.” I placed a cup of coffee and her breakfast on the table.
She nodded as she poured milk into the cup and chewed on a bit of bagel. The poor thing must have been famished because she didn’t bother adding anything to it. The grocery store’s bagels were good, but not that good.
Brent brewed himself a cup of tea and joined us at the table. “I take it the murderer hasn’t been caught yet.”
“Nope.” She slurped down some coffee. “Why do you say murderer? We haven’t stated anything along that line.”
“Isn’t it obvious? The man was shot. I was there. What else would you call it?”
“People.” I raised my voice and held out my hands between them. “We’re all sleep-deprived, and emotions are understandably running high. Eyes on the prize, though. Whether it was intentional or not, Ollie was shot, and nobody has come forward to accept responsibility. Is that the long and short of it, Jeanette?”
“Yeah. And for what it’s worth, we are treating this as a murder case. The chief has a press briefing at ten this morning. He’ll make the announcement then, so keep it under your hats.”
Jeanette drained her coffee once Brent and I nodded in unison. “Okay, Brent. I need you to tell me everything you remember from last night.”
While I fetched the coffeepot, he recounted the events from his perspective.
“Everything was going fine. Then that firework went off and I dropped the ticket. I bent over to pick it up. That’s when Ollie fell on top of me. I had no idea anything was seriously wrong until I saw Sammy limping and then had to push Ollie off of me.” He took a drink. “That’s when I saw all the blood.”
“Did you see anything unusual while you were on stage? Anyone acting odd?” Jeanette asked.
“No. It was pretty dark. Then the spotlights made it tough to see anything more than twenty or thirty feet away.”
“And what about you, Allie?” Jeanette didn’t look up from the notes she was taking. I took it as a sign that she didn’t consider me a suspect and didn’t require eye contact while I answered.
“Same here. I was looking at the stage. Calypso was next to me. Sloane and Mom were somewhere behind us.”
“That’s correct. I was standing next to Sloane,” Jeanette said.
“Fireworks had been going off for a while. People kept shooting them off even while Ollie was announcing the winners. Then there was the big boom. Scared the snot out of me. The next thing I knew, Ollie fell onto Brent and Brent fell onto Sammy, and then they were rolling off the stage. It was like watching dominos fall.”
“And then what happened?”
“I went to help. By the time I got there, Gabe was helping Ollie. That’s when I saw the blood. It was awful.”
“Did you see anybody acting strange or who seemed out of place? Maybe earlier in the day, even.”
I wracked my brain. Thanks to my lack of sleep, the cogs turned like they were clogged up with chewing gum.
“No. It was all so normal. I was either hanging out at our spot, wandering among the vendor booths, or listening to the performances. There were a few guys who had their long guns slung over their backs, but this is Southern Indiana. That’s the way those guys were showing their pride in the Red, White, and Blue. I didn’t give them a second thought.”
Jeanette nodded. “We’ve heard other reports about those gentlemen. We’re in the process of identifying them.”
“Speaking of which,” Brent said, “what about video? I remember a lot of people had their phones out when I was up on stage.”
“Kim Frye from the Beacon was taking video off and on throughout the day. She’s already shared it with us. During the briefing, Chief Roberson is going to ask for anyone who took pictures or video to contact us.”
“Good Lord, Jeanette. There were hundreds of people in the park. Maybe a few thousand. Going through all of that will be a monumental task.”
“Yes, but we owe it to Ollie’s family. You’ve gone to some extreme measures in the pursuit of justice, Allie. Doesn’t he deserve the same?”
“Of course he does. That’s an awful lot, though.” I made a decision I thought I’d never make again. Break a promise I had intended to keep for the rest of my life.
“Is there any way I can help?”
The room fell as silent as Rolling Hills State Park at midnight. Brent and Jeanette exchanged a look. Even the lap, lap of Ursi drinking at her water fountain had stopped.
History made it clear that when I asked if I could help with a murder investigation, I did more than post flyers around Rushing Creek encouraging people to call the police with any information they might have.
Way more.
Jeanette cleared her throat. “Um, well, I appreciate the offer. Your plate is pretty full right now, though. I mean you two are getting married in less than two weeks. Unless there’s something you haven’t told me.”
“Don’t be silly.” I chewed on a piece of my bagel, properly slathered with blueberry cream cheese. “The wedding’s a complete go. I just have, you know, a unique set of skills that might be helpful.”
Jeanette almost spit her coffee all over the table. “Oh my God, you did not quote from a Liam Neeson movie right then, did you?”
When she was finished laughing, she wiped a few tears from her eyes. “Sorry to laugh at you, but I needed that.”
“Well, I do.” Righteous indignation began to bubble up inside me. “I want to be part of the solution. What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing,” Jeanette said while Brent kept mum, the coward. “Both the county and state are helping. We got this. You need to focus on you. Enjoy this special time.”
I took a drink of my coffee. As much as I hated to admit it, Jeanette was right. The authorities didn’t need me. I’d played my part of amateur sleuth. Now was the time to ride off into the sunset with my beau.
“You win.” I placed my palms on the table. “But if you need anything, at all, even someone to screen phone calls, call me.”
“I will.” Jeanette’s phone buzzed. She scarfed down the last of her bagel, then drained the orange juice. “Gotta go. Thanks for the info.”
She was out the door before I was out of my chair. I wanted to give her a hug. Tell her I believed in her and her colleagues. Instead, I was left staring at my empty coffee cup.
“I guess that settles it, then.” I went to the kitchen for a refill. Once I got to the counter, I spun around to find Brent looking at me. “You sure were quiet. A little support wouldn’t have hurt, you know.”
“I know.”
“Then why didn’t—”
“Because getting into an argument wouldn’t have helped anything.” He pounded his fists on the table. “And she’s wrong. A man was killed last night. And as selfish as it might sound, my dog got hurt. What if Sammy had broken his neck instead of his leg? He might have died, too.”
My beau stepped toward me, his long loping stride crossing the floor in seconds.
“Have you stopped to think how close that bullet came to hitting me? I have.” He took my hands in his. “I don’t care what Jeanette said. I want you to find whoever did this. And I want to help.”
My fiancé was one of the most levelheaded persons I knew. He took things in stride and lost his cool about as often as Harper Lee released a book. Standing before me, though, he had a fierceness in his eyes I’d never seen before.
I recognized the look, though. He was on a mission. And he wanted me to step up and make sure the mission was accomplished.
“You sure about this? Because once you say so, there’s no going back.”
“Yes. I’m more sure about this than about anything else right now.”
“In that case, we better go get one of my notebooks. The Kickboxing Crusader and the Mild-Mannered Librarian are on the case.”