Well, that was easy.
“What one thing are we talking about here?” Freddie turned his face away from the men to shoot me a superexcited look. He loved it when people said stuff like that.
Ned tipped his chin over to the gazebo. “Well, when we first saw her…”
“God rest her soul,” Bob added.
“God rest her soul. We weren’t exactly sure what it was we were seeing.”
“That’s right,” Bob said, scratching his chin. “We just saw something strange-looking floating in the water.”
“And…?” Freddie prodded.
“So we walked up to get a better look.”
“It was a little tricky because we had to get past all the boxes for the wedding, but if you see—there at the part that looks out to the water,” Bob said, pointing at the gazebo. “That part is all clear.”
I frowned. I was trying to anticipate where they were going with this, but I was coming up blank.
“Anyway when we walked up into the main part of the gazebo, we realized we needed to stop moving around.”
“Why’s that?” Freddie asked.
“Well, we could see clear as day that it was a body in the water,” Ned said, stroking his salt-and-pepper beard.
“And there were all sorts of footprints on the floor.”
“Footprints?” Freddie asked.
“That’s right.” Bob nodded. “If you recall, it was pretty muddy that day.”
Ned rested the end of his pole on the ground and turned to completely face us. He jerked a thumb at Bob. “We both know enough not to go walking around in a crime scene.”
I frowned. “But … did you think it was a crime scene right away?”
“We suspected,” Ned answered.
“How come?”
“Because a couple of the bins had been knocked over,” Bob said, shaking his head.
Ned pointed back over to the gazebo. “And the banister of the railing was cracked. It looked like there had been some sort of fight.”
I whipped my head around. I hadn’t noticed any cracks, but then I was looking from a distance. I should get a pair of my own binoculars.
“Looked like maybe someone had been pushed into the water.”
Now it was Freddie’s and my turn to exchange glances. Freddie seemed a little disappointed. I was too. It was good to have this information, but it didn’t really move us any further ahead. We knew the police suspected foul play, and I guess now we knew some of the reasons why, but that still left us with Tommy, Lyssa’s boyfriend, Justin, and a windbreaker as suspects.
“What kind of footprints were they?” Freddie suddenly asked.
I mentally high-fived him. Good question.
“Well, that was the really interesting part,” Bob said with a smile.
“You see, we waited there a while for Amos to show up,” Ned went on, “so we got a real good look.”
Bob leaned his pole toward us. “But what we saw … it’s all a lot of speculation on our part.”
“We’re fine with speculation,” I said. “Freddie?”
“Always.”
“Well,” Ned said, scratching at his brow just underneath his fishing cap, “from what we could tell, there were at least three separate prints.”
“One looked like a pair of men’s work boots.”
I nodded. Those were probably Tommy’s … or Justin’s.
“Another had one of those really tiny heels,” Ned said, pinching his fingers together.
“Like a stiletto,” I offered.
He snapped his fingers. “That’s it.”
Okay, good chance those were Lyssa’s. I remember thinking I’d be crippled if I attempted to walk around in the heels she was wearing that night.
“But it’s the third…” Bob said, shaking his head. “That got us to thinking.”
“Thinking?” Freddie asked. “What were you thinking?”
“Well, it was weird because they were heels too,” Ned began. “Or at least a woman’s shoe.”
“The heel was bigger, though,” Bob said, picking up the thread. “Sensible.”
I chewed my lip. Okay, I didn’t know what to make of that.
“And it was kind of…” The struggle to find the word played out on Ned’s face. “Creepy.”
“I still don’t like to think about it,” Bob said with a bit of a shudder.
“What? Think about what?” Freddie was going to lose it if they didn’t get to the point soon.
“Well, most of the floor was a mess,” Bob said.
I nodded. “Right. You said it looked like there had been a fight.”
“But those shoes made a really distinct print. Like the person who was wearing them was standing in one spot for a while.”
I frowned. “I don’t get it.”
Ned sighed as a troubled expression came over his face. “Well, it’s the way the shoes were facing.”
“Like the person who was wearing them was standing by the railing,” Bob said, looking equally disturbed, “facing the water, watching … something.”
Chills raced over my body. “Oh.”
“Oh,” said Freddie.
“Oh,” the men said in unison.
So someone, a woman—not Lyssa—was standing by the railing looking out at the water watching something.
Something?
Or maybe someone.
Maybe someone drowning to death.