The next morning, after going over the pictures I’d looked at last night in my head until it spun, and fueled by the assumption Myron was the victim of that bank heist, I decided I needed coffee more than ever. That in mind, on four hours’ sleep, a quick shower, and the run of a haphazard brush through my unruly hair, I headed to Gabby’s Grind.
Situated in the heart of Fig, Gabby’s colorful café did a brisk business, but she sure didn’t do the kind of business where people were left outside waiting in line to get their morning caffeine fix. Not in droves, anyway.
Don’t get me wrong. Her coffee’s amazing, but I can’t remember the last time I saw a long line like this one—not even during tourist season.
Yet, that was exactly what greeted me as Lou-Lou, and I pulled up to the curb—nearly half of Fig lined up outside Gabby’s door, everyone chatting in excited tones, their hands animated. The news vans from all the local stations were there, too, dotting the landscape across the street by the docks. The reporters who’d haunted S&P still waving their microphones and polished smiles around like starving vultures.
My mouth dropped open as I smoothed my hands over my jeans and watched everyone for a moment. This had to mean some kind of break in the case; otherwise, the news vans would still be bumper to bumper in our store’s driveway like they’d been yesterday.
I pushed my way out of my car, confused. Justice caught my eyes over the crowd and headed my way, pushing through the throng of people.
“What the heck’s going on, Justice? Another zombie sighting?” I snorted.
“Nope.”
I looked up at him, the fine mist of rain hitting my cheeks. “That’s all you have to say? Are you still mad about last night? I told you, the guy was looming, I had no choice but to clock him in the nose.”
Justice jammed his hands in the pockets of his trousers and rocked back on his heels with a click of his tongue. “I’m not still mad about last night, Lemon.”
Planting my hands on my hips, I rolled my eyes at him. “Okay, so if you’re not mad, why the one word answer? Can I at least get a noun? Maybe an adjective?”
He gave me an apologetic glance. “Sorry. I’m still just a little stunned. The coroner released Myron’s cause of death. It was just on the local news, and it’s in the paper. Brought everyone out of the woodwork, as you can see.”
And then he went silent again while I fought not to jump up and down with excitement. So I nudged him in the arm. “And the cause of death was?” My pulse raced in anticipation.
“Heart attack,” he said flatly.
I gasped with a sharp intake of sound. It was like someone had punched me in the kidneys and stole the breath right from my very lungs. Heart attack? A heart attack? Who dies of a heart attack when there’s a hole in their skull?
Blinking, I pinched my tension-filled temples. “So you’re telling me Myron had a hole in his head the size of Montana and he didn’t die from someone cutting his head open? Instead, he died from a heart attack?”
Justice, calm as ever, nodded his head, his angular chin dipping downward while the crowd of people gathering somehow grew in proportion, pushing up against the façade of Gabby’s and squeezing under her striped white and pink awning. “Yep. That’s what I’m telling you.”
As people watched the newscast on the big screen in Gabby’s from the exterior of the store, I wondered, “What caused the heart attack? Is that in the report from Vern, too?”
“Bunch of gunk clogging up his carotid.”
I had a moment of relief. “So that means Mom’s off the hook then?”
Justice grimaced, his reply sheepish. “Nope. Still doesn’t explain why he had a hole in his head, or why he was in the bathroom of your station.”
I cringed with a shudder. How awful. The idea Myron hadn’t been unconscious when someone cut his head open made my stomach turn, but I was glad to hear that hadn’t been the case.
“So Vern’s not relating the hole in his head to his heart attack at all?” Obviously, he wasn’t, but I had to ask out loud so I could wrap my head around the notion.
“Nope.”
“And Chief Burrows is leaving the investigation open?”
“Yep.”
Shoot. “So everybody came to watch the news together…” I muttered.
If there was one thing about Fig I warred over, it was the locals’ love of a good piece of gossip. But those same gossipmongers would be at home in an hour or so, making casseroles to take to Fabritzia to console her in her mourning. It was a double-edged sword.
“Everybody got wind of the fact there was gonna be an announcement because who can keep a secret in this town? Can’t say as I blame ’em, though. This is the biggest news since Cappie told everyone he saw Bigfoot sitting on a piece of driftwood, shucking oysters. They’re a nosy lot, but they’re loyal, and folks want to know what happened to Myron because he was pretty well liked. You know what Figgers are about, Lemon.”
I nodded and smiled up at him through the onslaught of rain. Oh, I knew all right. “Yep.”
Justice smiled back at me. “Can I get a noun with that?”
I chuckled. I had plenty of nouns yet to come, and there was no time like the present. “Is Fabritzia okay?”
“She’s doing fine.”
“Oh, good. A windfall of syllables. I knew you had it in you,” I joked, pulling my hoodie over my hair when the rain began to pound harder. “So do you guys like her and Valdis for the murder after you questioned them? I guess they’re not in custody or Coco would have called me, for sure. She has eyes and ears everywhere.”
“Like?” He clucked the word as though it tasted bad. “Aren’t you all sorts of police lingo, Detective Layne?”
“Well, do you? Because I don’t believe it for a second—despite the fact that her alibi is sketchy.”
He cocked an eyebrow at me. “Meaning?”
“Meaning I know the approximate time of Myron’s death, and she claims she didn’t know he wasn’t at home… That looks and sounds sketchy.”
Justice didn’t say anything, but he didn’t have to. The thin line of his lips and that tiny tic in his jaw told me he knew I’d been asking questions.
Not that I was going to let his reluctance stop me. “Anyway, she might not have been madly in love with Myron, but she cared about him. In case you wondered.”
“Yep. It kept me up all night, in fact. The wondering, that is,” he offered with amused sarcasm.
Fine. Dead end. He wasn’t going to give any information up. I decided to go in another direction and test the waters by asking about Myron’s face blindness and the bank heist he’d been a victim of.
“Okay, so I’m just going to throw something else out here, and you can answer or not. But remember, I’m doing this for May. Think of May. The lady who makes you tuna on lightly browned toast for over half of your teens. Anyway, I’m guessing you guys at the station know about his face blindness, right?”
Justice’s jaw clenched and did that tightening thing it did when he was annoyed with me once more. “Lemon, you know darn well I can’t comment.”
I jabbed a finger in the air and grinned. “That means you guys know! That also means you’ve made the connection to the hole in his head and the shooting during the robbery ten years ago. Myron was the victim of a shooting during a bank robbery, wasn’t he?”
“Lemon…” He growled a warning at me.
Poking him in the ribs, I chastised him with a stern glance upward. “Don’t ‘Lemon’ me. If this were your mother, you’d do the same, and you know it. So here’s what I can’t quit thinking about. Spitball with me, okay? The bullet in Myron’s head couldn’t be removed because of the risk he’d go blind. I read that in an article about the heist, and it set off my internal alarms like nobody’s business.”
He rolled his eyes at me in disdain, wiping the rain from his cheeks with his thumb. “I forgot about your Google fu. I should have known you’d be eyeball deep in this with the Internet.”
I ignored his jab and didn’t mention I hadn’t googled Myron at all until I saw that room of his. I didn’t know I had to. In fact, I purposely avoided telling Justice about the room I’d seen at Myron’s—one he already knew about after last night anyway, I’m sure, because he’d eventually make the connection himself.
How else would I know about the bank heist if I hadn’t seen the room? Especially since they’d taken such care to keep Myron’s name out of the press. Justice was sharp. He’d find out I knew about that secret room soon enough.
“So, the bullet, Justice. That bullet, still in Myron’s head, means something. He was going to see a neurologist. He was having headaches. Don’t bother to deny it, because I heard as much, and I’m not telling you from whom.”
“You were in that room of Myron’s, weren’t you, Lemon?”
Told you he’d figure it out.
Still, I simply smiled. “I can neither confirm nor deny. So what does the bullet mean? Why would someone want that bullet? It’s clearly the person who shot him in the first place or someone who knows who shot him. But what’s so important about it? I don’t know a lot about guns and ammo, but I’m going to make it my mission to research them for future informational purposes.”
He cocked his head and glared at me, rain dotting his face. “Future purposes?”
I shot him the “duh” look. “Well, yeah. If I knew more about bullets, I’d know why someone wanted the one in Myron’s brain.”
“You don’t know anyone wanted anything, Lemon!” he whisper-yelled, looking around to see if he’d caught any onlookers’ attention.
“Again, duh. That’s why I’m asking you, buddy, I said, poking him in the chest. “So fess up and tell me what the big deal is with the bullet.”
“There is no deal with the bullet—at least not one you have any business with. I’m not gonna say it again—keep your nose out of this.”
Well, he hadn’t denied there was a deal with the bullet. In fact, he’d almost verified there was a deal with the bullet by telling me I had no business asking about it.
But I forgot all about that when chaos ensued. Just then, there was a roar from behind us. Not just any roar, but the kind I’d grown used to hearing in the last couple of days when the zombie patrol was on the hunt.
From out of nowhere, a swarm of ragtag zombie hunters, desperately in need of showers and fresh clothing, exploded from the end of the road with glazed eyes and greasy hair.
I frowned as I met Justice’s confused gaze right before the crowd at Gabby’s erupted in a shocked gasp.
The hunters paraded down the middle of Main Street, mock weapons held high, with a body trussed up like a Christmas goose, squirming and twisting in their grasp.
My eyes widened in horror as the group plodded down the wet pavement, chanting something I couldn’t quite make out, a look of triumph in their eyes.
Right then and there, I decided the world had officially gone bananapants, but it only got crazier as the hushed whispers from everyone outside Gabby’s turned loud and raucous.
Justice immediately put his hand over the gun at his waist and said something into the radio on his shoulder about backup before he spat, “These nutcases are gonna be the death of me.”
As the group moved closer, it was no surprise to me at all to see Cappie leading the pack, his greasy hair slicked back from the rain, his favorite X-Files T-shirt glued to his thin frame.
He danced his way toward us, his clog covered feet surprisingly light and quick, and exclaimed with glee, “We caught us a killer, Figgers!”
Justice pushed his way through the crowd, racing toward Cappie with strong strides. He stopped short in front of him, holding up a hand to prevent him from going any farther. As the people behind Cappie slowed to a halt, bumping into one another, Justice frowned.
Nothing good could come of that glare. I knew that glare. It was the glare he gave me when I’d crashed his brand-new ten-speed bike into the docks—the one he’d saved an entire summer for, mowing lawns and raking seaweed at the shore.
He leaned down and hissed between clenched teeth, “What the heck is going on Cappie?”
Cappie’s eyes were wild with shiny victory as he flung his reed-thin arms in the air and danced in a circle. “We did your job for ya, Copper!” he belted out with pride. “We caught Myron’s killer, didn’t we boys? Hoorah!”
The zombie hunters raised their fists and shouted in support of Cappie’s statement with a rebel yell, clapping each other on the back.
While I watched this play out, I dug my glasses out of my hoodie pocket so I could clearly see exactly whom they’d caught. I got a quick glimpse of a bald head peeking through what looked like a bunch of dripping-wet seaweed and moss. Judging by the size and shape, it was definitely a man.
And he was struggling, twisting and turning, his rotund body wrapped in frayed rope. He grunted as he tried to get away from his captors, straining against their grip.
Someone from the crowd at Gabby’s called out in squeaky disbelief, “Isn’t that Mayor Leonard?”
The mayor. My eyes widened in surprise. Oh, there was gonna be some kind of devil to pay if whoever they’d caught was an official. Putting a hand over my glasses to stop the rain from hitting my lenses, I squinted upward in the gray gloom and blinked.
Oh cheese and rice, they really had tied up the mayor like a common criminal.
Justice, who’d clearly had his fill of zombies and shenanigans, gripped Cappie’s bony shoulder and ground out, “Cappie, who the blazes do you have tied up?”
Cappie grinned wide, obviously proud of himself. “A zombie, you gosh-dang fool. The zombie that killed Myron Fairbanks!”
The sound of rushing feet pounding the pavement as the Fig Harbor Police surrounded the group, made all the locals back away and part to various spots on the sidewalk.
Officer Winwood—or Epson, as we called him back in high school—pushed his way into the mob and mimicked Justice by placing his hand over his gun. Rain battered his face and flew from his lips when he roared, “Tell them to put whoever it is down, Cappie! Now!”
As they lowered their hostage to the ground and set him upright, I gasped. There was Mayor Leonard, soaking wet, covered from head to toe in leaves and seaweed, and spitting mad.
Cappie gasped, too and attempted to skulk away, but one of the officers stopped him cold.
Another officer immediately went to aid the mayor, yanking the duct tape off his mouth. He peered at him with tentative eyes, and asked cautiously, “Mayor Leonard?”
The mayor coughed and sputtered with a shiver, his round cheeks crimson. “Yes, it’s me, and I want you to arrest every one of these idiots—and that includes Cappie, too!”
“Aw, c’mon, Norman! I didn’t know it was you! We were all shoutin’ and yellin’. I just got caught up in the moment!” Cappie whined. “You can’t lock me up! I was just tryin’ to do my civic duty!”
“By helping these men accost me and tie me up like some hoodlum?” the mayor blustered, his voice thin and high.
Chief Burrows was suddenly in the mix, ordering someone to find the mayor a blanket and a paramedic. “Sir, how did this happen?”
The mayor’s cheeks went red with fury, his small eyes swallowed up by his chubby cheeks. “I was just out fishing on the edge of the woods, for Pete’s sake! Just me and a nice quiet day away from the stress of running this town, and all of a sudden this bunch of crazies ties me up and drags me off out of the woods, yelling something about zombies!”
“Your mayor’s a zombie?” one of the mob who’d literally helped carry the mayor asked in disbelief and scratched his head as though he had no idea how he’d gotten here. He actually looked quite stunned that he’d participated in allegedly capturing a zombie.
“No, you fool!” Dan Koppel, the deputy mayor, shouted at him as he rushed to cut the rope from the mayor’s wrists.
Another man gave the bewildered guy a shove with the flat of his hand. “Yeah, he’s a zombie, Mahoney! Why do ya think we were all chanting ‘zombie’?”
As I watched all this play out in utter disbelief, my mouth hanging wide open, Coco showed up and pushed her finger against the underside of my chin to close my jaw.
Her gaze penetrated mine. “Okay, so I come to get coffee for the office, and the whole town’s exploded. What have you done now, Lemon?”
Wiping the rain from my glasses, I pretended offense. “Hey! Why is it always me who gets blamed for things exploding?”
Coco gave me side-eye from beneath her chic raincoat. “You have to ask?”
I nudged her in the ribs with my elbow. “Oh, stop. It was one minor incident in chemistry class. I just wanted to see if a can of soda really would explode with some antacid. Turns out it’s true,” I said with guilt. Guilt I still felt to this day, which Coco lapped up.
“I remember. Do you also remember it ruined my favorite sweater ever?”
“I apologized a hundred times for that. Now, fill me in on the coroner’s report. You know, the office speculation, gory details not released to the press. Etcetera, etcetera.”
She rolled her eyes at me and flicked the air at me with her fingers. “You don’t really think I’ll ever be that distracted, do you?”
I shrugged and grinned at her with a guilty look. “It was worth a shot.”
“Not on your life. I like my job, and I want to keep it. Either way, it doesn’t matter. Whatever you know is probably all I know. I’m just a glorified receptionist, Sherlock.”
“Right. With eyes and ears like a hawk.”
She made a face at me. “Do hawks have ears?”
“Coco,” I growled at her.
She lifted her chin in haughty fashion. “I’m standing by my original statement. I have nothing to say other than I was shocked to find out Myron died of a heart attack, and not from the big hole in his head. So what did you find at Myron’s—and you’d better tell me, Lemon, because I know you were knee-deep in some discovery. It was all over your face last night.”
“Me? Find something?” I pooh-poohed. “I’m just a glorified snoop.”
Coco didn’t have time to respond before all the zombie hunters were shouting at once as the police began to take their statements and they carried Mayor Leonard off to an ambulance.
As I shushed Coco and cocked my ear, it was all I could do not to bust a gut laughing at the story Cappie spewed. As told by the Mayor Leonard, Apparently, he really had been out fishing, slipped, fell into the water and a pile of slimy seaweed.
With no one there to help him and a sprained ankle to boot, he’d somehow managed to crawl his way through the mud and leaves inland. As he righted himself, his sprained ankle dragging behind him, he ran into the zombie hunters, who, after a long night of drinking, decided he was a bona fide zombie.
But not just any zombie, the government-manufactured zombie they were convinced was responsible for Myron’s death. So they duct taped his mouth, tied him up like a hog at the 4H fair, and made a citizen’s arrest with Cappie at their helm.
Coco poked a finger under my nose and wiggled it toward Gabby’s. “When you’re done eavesdropping, let’s make a break for the coffee shop while everybody’s out here.”
I nodded and began ducking my way through the crowd until we were able to push our way inside Gabby’s. I really needed some coffee after standing out in the rain. My bones were chilled.
I got in line behind Francis Munson, the owner of Francis’s Fish Market, and held my breath. I liked Francis a lot. He knew how much mom loved her prawns, so he was always pretty generous when I grabbed a pound for us to share, but I didn’t like that he reeked of them, too. A hazard of the job, I suppose.
He was busily chatting with Nadine Brown when he pointed a knobby finger at the television, and I overheard him say, “Can’t believe Myron’s dead.”
I know everyone always teases us short people, but there was an advantage to being of small stature, and hiding behind Francis’s two-hundred-and-fifty-pound bulk was one of them.
Nadine, a spry sixty-five-year-old who rode her bike—complete with a basket and a horn—everywhere, turned to him and nodded her head with vigor. “None of us can believe it, Francis. And the way he died? It’s appalling. Who’d cut a hole in a man’s head like that? And for what?”
Francis shook his head and adjusted his black knit cap. “It’s a dang shame is what it is. We used to play chess all the time in the summer down by the docks. He was a good customer, too. I’m sure gonna miss him,” he said with a cluck of his tongue. “And he was so happy that day.”
My ears instantly perked up as I tried to lean in closer without being obvious to anyone in the coffee shop. Had Francis seen Myron the day he died?
Nadine snorted with a cackle. “I guess a man at that age should be happy all the time, married to a looker like that Fabritzia.”
Francis leaned in low, making Nadine wrinkle her nose, his next words aimed at Nadine’s ear. “It had nothin’ to do with Fabritzia.”
Now my ears burned, but I continued to avert my gaze as though they weren’t even there.
She gasped in surprise and frowned, tugging at the short length of her frosted hair. “What do you mean, Francis?”
Yeah. What do you mean?
Francis rolled up the sleeves of his sweatshirt, covered in fish guts, and puffed his cheeks out on a breath. “I mean, while he was buying a pound of prawns, he was doin’ what Myron does…er, did best. Gabbing.”
“About what?” Nadine’s tone had gone from mild interest to rapt attention.
Driving his hands into his pockets, he blew out another breath. “Aw, a bunch o’ stuff. How he realized he’d made a mistake breaking up with May Layne. He said he was going to tell her so that night.”
Nadine’s eyes went wide as she gripped Francis’s arm. “He was going to divorce Fabritzia? But he only just married her, and he broke up with May to do it!” She clapped a wrinkled hand over her mouth when Francis shushed her, but her twinkling blue eyes were wide.
Leaning in close, Francis clucked his tongue. “Turns out their marriage wasn’t real a’tall. They got some guy from the Internet to marry them, but he wasn’t legit. Myron just found out that day. So since he was off the hook with Fabritzia, he said he was gonna go try to win May back.”
Oh, dear.