TWENTY-NINE

Blake leaned over the rail of their fifth story hotel room and watched the waves tumble toward the shore. Melody came up behind him and laced her arms around his waist. “Kids are ready to hit the beach again. Where are you?”

He scoffed. “Still back in Alamoville, I guess. Sorry. It’ll take a while to shake the feeling something’s happening and I should be there.”

She squeezed his middle. “Something is happening right here and this is where you should be. We won’t have many more of these times as a family. In two years, Ellie will be off to college and out of the house.”

He spun to face her. “Until her laundry stacks up or she runs out of money.”

Melody swatted him. “Grab your towel, mister.”

Blake eyed his better half’s still-shapely backside hugging her bathing suit as she walked back into the room. Yep, he was blessed. So why did he have this tingling on the back of his neck? He huffed out a breath. Let go, let God—and Hemphill, and Hornsby—do their thing. Janie as well. He snatched his beach bag and followed his family to the surf.

The rays from the afternoon sun glistened on the sand. Melodies of the mariachi band floated on the gulf breeze from the hotel lounge. They gathered around a fire pit, roasted hot dogs and made s’mores as they shared memories and laughed. Then they walked along the beach searching for seashells as the waves, still holding the sun’s warmth, rolled toward their feet, leaving a foamy trail.

Blake slipped his arm around Melody as Jamie dunked a bucket of ocean over Ellie. The rush of water doused her curls. She let out squeals of joy and turned to splash him with her hands. Melody clapped, her laughter genuine and rich. A warmth flooded him as he realized how much his kids had grown. Both edged into adulthood. Where had the years gone?

~*~

The next morning, Ethel scratched her dog’s ears as he lay beside her on the bed. She fanned out the pictures and reports Blake and Mitch Hornsby gave her to review. She went over the timeline again and the discrepancy in the two officer’s accounts. True, Aaron had given his statement while still heavily sedated with pain meds. However, from the tape recording, his speech didn’t slur. He spoke cognitively and in complete sentences. His testimony proved valid in her mind. There had been three shots. One hit him, one penetrated the burglar in a lethal path, and one...? Where had it landed?

She called Janie. “Hey, I understand we’re not supposed to cross paths right now, but Aaron Jenkins swears there were three shots. You claimed you heard two, right?”

“There may have been two right together. Bam, bam. Almost simultaneously. I assumed it to be an echo. Why?”

“If a third shot fired, where’s the bullet?”

“You want to look for it?” Anticipation hung in her question.

Ethel smiled into the receiver. “You read my mind. Meet you in half an hour at Annie’s front lawn?”

“Is it still taped off as a crime scene?”

“When has that ever stopped us?”

Janie replied with a hearty laugh. “See ya there.”

The two arrived close to the same time and waved. The police tape no longer cordoned off the area, though residual pieces fluttered from a knot around a tree trunk. Janie rubbed her hands together. “Let’s recreate the scene.”

Ethel frowned. “Rats. We need a third person. I’ll call Mildred. She’s an early riser and only lives a few blocks away.”

“She’ll think you’re inviting her to go power walking.”

“We need to resume that anyway. Despite the Texas summer heat, it’s not so bad right now. Must be, what? In the low eighties?”

Janie fanned herself. “With the same in humidity. I recall as kids we played in this stuff all day long and it never fazed us. Air conditioning has made us a nation of wimps.”

Mildred had been walking Poopsy and arrived in a few minutes. “OK. What do you need me to do?”

“Stand here.” Ethel led her by the elbow to the place Phil Edwards first told Les Holden to stop. “Janie, you be Holden and I’ll arrive on the scene as Aaron Jenkins.”

“Got it. How do you know where everyone stood?”

“It’s all in their reports. Pretty detailed. Except for one thing.”

Janie nodded. “A missing bullet. That’s what we need to find, Mildred.”

“Ah. How do we find out where it went?”

“Easy. Aaron says the perp shot twice. So, the first one must have missed. Which means he fired while upright, so it headed in...” Ethel raised her hand and pointed, “that direction.”

Janie followed Ethel’s finger. “Any idea how far it might travel?”

Ethel rubbed her chin. “I looked it up. A nine millimeter Glock has an excellent range of fifty yards. Then the bullet’s trajectory drops fairly dramatically.”

Mildred gawked. “Fifty yards? That’s half a football field. These homes are spaced only a few yards apart.”

Janie snapped her fingers. A sign a brilliant deduction had flashed across her brain. “Exactly. So, something stopped it. A tree, or brick siding. Or...” She hesitated as she scanned the area. “That mailbox over there.”

The three dashed in the direction Ethel determined must be the way the bullet traveled. Sure enough, a dent in the little red flag gave them a clue.

“It must have deflected off it and landed somewhere in the grass.”

“Or the street.”

They bent down like chickens pecking grain and slowly strutted as they ran their fingers through the green blades. Sweat beads appeared on Ethel’s back as the morning sun’s rays penetrated her t-shirt.

Mildred raised up, her hands pressed to her lower back. “This is no good.”

Janie squinted, pointed, and dashed over to a bush. One branch dangled at a weird angle. She lifted it and saw the greenish bark inside. A new break. Jammed halfway into the ground lay the bullet. She picked it up and held it up to the sun. “Bingo.”

Ethel and Mildred ran up to her and gazed at the metal object. Ethel whispered triumphantly. “The third bullet.”

The three senior citizens whooped and grabbed hands as they danced in a circle. A front door opened. A man clutched the folds of his robe. “What’s going on? Is this a rain dance? We sure need it.”

Janie wiped her brow. “Sorry, Bob. We thought Ethel had, um, lost something. But we found it.”

“Oh, OK.” He grunted as he stooped to pick up his morning paper, his hand to his sciatic nerve. He slowly straightened up with a grimace on his face and waved.

The trio returned his greeting and waited for him to go back inside.

When he closed the door, Janie spoke in a hushed tone. “I’ll take this to Chief Gates today.” She slipped it into her side pocket.

Ethel thrust her hands to her hips. “Oh, another date? For lunch?”

Mildred giggled.

“Oh, stuff it. I’m not Betsy Ann, and he’s not George. I’m simply assigned to report to him.”

“Uh, huh. Of course.”

Janie playfully stuck out her tongue and waltzed away.