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Bonnie must have been standing just inside the passenger pickup doors at the Southwest terminal. No sooner had I pulled up to the curb than she appeared out of nowhere.
“Is this it?” I asked after getting out to take her single, carry-on bag.
“That’s it. I’m not about to pay them their ransom for extra bags. I got everything I need right there.” She waited until I closed the tailgate, then threw her arms around me. She hugged me like her life depended on it. “It’s so good to see you again, Jake. Margot was driving me crazy.”
I wanted to hug her back, but she had my arms pinned to my side. “Well, I’m glad you’re back, Bon. Tigger hasn’t been the same since you left.”
She let loose of her grip, backed up, and looked at me with eyes the size of quarters. “Is she okay? You have been feeding her, haven’t you?”
I smiled and pointed to the tailgate window where Tigger and Fred were watching us. “Yes, I have, and she looks fine now. I haven’t seen her that excited since she brought us a field mouse for dinner a few days ago.” Evidently, Fred had missed Bonnie more than Tigger had; did. He had the Jeep shaking back and forth from the wagging of his tail, while she simply meowed.
Bonnie’s face lit up, and she popped open the window to grab her cat. Fred tried to lick her face when she reached in with her free hand to pet him. “Boy, I missed you guys,” she said, tears welling in her eyes. The driver of the car behind us honked his horn before she started crying.
Bonnie’s mood changed instantly. I knew she was about to give the guy the one-finger salute and had to act fast. I grabbed her arm before she could flip him off and led her to the passenger door. She was about to pull free of my grip when we saw why the guy had honked. A middle age woman and two teenagers came from behind the terminal doors and headed toward his car.
***
“SO, HOW IS MARGOT?” We were on the freeway, heading toward Kansas City before either of us spoke. I knew from the silent treatment that she hadn’t appreciated me grabbing her arm and practically throwing her into the Jeep.
“Fine.”
“I’m sorry, Bon. With all the crazy stuff in the news lately, I didn’t want you to provoke him.”
“Maybe that’s why there are so many lunatics lately. Everyone’s afraid to stand up to them.” She kept petting Tigger while she spoke and didn’t bother to look at me. I decided to let it be and didn’t say a word.
***
WE WERE PAST MOST OF the traffic, heading south on I-Forty-nine, when I saw a Denny’s up ahead. Neither of us had spoken in the last thirty minutes. “Can I buy you dinner, Bon? I know they don’t even offer peanuts on those flights anymore. You must be famished.” Fred had been relegated to the back seat where he pretended to sleep but woke at the mention of food and placed his head on the front seat between Bonnie and me.
Bonnie smiled when Fred looked over at her, his eyes saying please. “No, but you can buy me breakfast. They serve it twenty-fours a day. I can’t function without it.” She reached over and patted Fred on the head. “And I’ll order some sausages for you, big boy.”
***
“SO, TELL ME WHAT YOU guys have been up to besides chasing all over Missouri to save Margot a couple bucks?” Bonnie asked as she put down her fork and reached for her coffee cup.
“Well, things were coming along until recently. I finished the insulation in the attic and replaced the floorboards in the upstairs bathroom. I’d planned on starting on the siding and windows I’d bought at the auction when Kelly kind of asked for my help. I may have to postpone everything for a few days while I check out a few things.”
With her coffee cup held in mid-air, she cocked her head and asked, “I thought Kelly was renting. I hope she’s not spending too much fixing up a place that’s not hers.”
“Nothing like that, Bon.” I paused to choose my next words carefully, knowing Bonnie would jump at the chance to get involved in another murder investigation. I waited too long. She saw through me.
“Surely, she isn’t asking for help on a case, is she?” she asked, slamming her cup on the table. Coffee flew out from the violent jolt, spilling all over the table. She barely noticed and stared at me with full-moon eyes.
I tried my best to ignore the mess she’d made. “I’m afraid so, except it’s not her case. Some guy got electrocuted while swimming at his lakeside dock, and Bennett ruled it an accident because of faulty wiring. The wife insisted it wasn’t, and asked Kelly if she knew of anyone who’d help her. Guess whose name she gave?”
Bonnie’s eyes sparkled, and her smile turned into a grin. “We have a new case!”
“We?”
She ignored me. “You’ve got to tell me everything, Jake. And don’t leave out a single detail.”
I waved for our waitress and thought about how I would tell Bonnie I didn’t need her help. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings and needed to think of a nice way to tell her she would be in the way. “Okay but wait until we get back on the road. Fred and Tigger have been alone too long.”
Her expression told me she wasn’t happy. She seemed to wince and took a deep sigh, “It’s not like they’ll die of heat stroke, for crying out loud. It’s barely forty degrees outside.”
I was saved by the waitress who came over to see what I needed and noticed the mess on the table. “Oh, dear. Someone had a little accident,” she said, looking at Bonnie.
Bonnie had daggers in her eyes. “Don’t look at me that way. If your coffee wasn’t so hot, people could hold the cup without dropping it.” She didn’t wait for a response and looked over at me. “I’m going to the ladies’ room, Jake. Don’t let her take Fred and Tigger’s treat.” It began to look like I needed a refresher course in telling people to butt out.
Our waitress stood with my check in one hand and a coffee pot in the other, watching Bonnie head toward the restrooms. “Sorry about that,” I said.
She turned and placed the check next to my plate, away from the mess Bonnie made. “Do you need a box for those?” She nodded toward Bonnie’s plate.
I got up and fished my wallet out of my pocket. “No, thanks. I’ll wrap them in a napkin.” The waitress shook her head and left. I took a ten from my wallet and put it on the table before heading for the register.
***
FRED STARTED SHAKING the Jeep the minute he saw Bonnie and I coming out of the restaurant. Even Tigger looked like she was happy to see us. I made that assumption based on the fact she was watching us. When it was just me, she always pretended I wasn’t there and went about doing whatever she’d been doing. I guess saving her life last spring didn’t count as much as leftovers in a napkin.
Tigger jumped in Bonnie’s lap the second Bonnie sat down, and Fred tried to lick Bonnie on the face from his perch in the back seat. I had given Bonnie their treat and Fred must have smelled it in her purse. I was beginning to feel like a third wheel. “I’m sorry, Jake,” she said, no longer able to feign being upset.
I rubbed Fred’s head while turning to back out of our parking space. “Nothing to be sorry about, Bon. It’s not like I have a list of suspects and need help interrogating them. All I can do at this point is check whether the GFCI and wiring were tampered with.”
She stopped petting Tigger and looked at me. The lines in her forehead made her look every day of her seventy years. “GF what?” Tigger stopped purring and Fred looked at me with brow lines borrowed from Bonnie.
I spent the next forty minutes bringing Bonnie up-to-date, including my feeling that Kelly was avoiding me. Fred either got bored or realized he’d heard it already and decided to take a nap. Bonnie didn’t interrupt until I’d finished. “Romance is like a flower, Jake. If you don’t fertilize it, it will die.”
I realized I’d made a mistake telling her about Kelly. “Too much BS will kill a flower even sooner,” I replied, trying to keep a straight face.
She shook her head and sighed. My cell phone started playing Beethoven’s Für Elise before she could think of a comeback. I'd programmed it to play that tune when Kelly sent a text. I was torn between taking my eyes off the road to read it or having Bonnie read it for me. I chose not to do either for the moment because traffic was merging from the Harrisonville on-ramp, and I wasn’t sure if Kelly had texted me something personal.
“Aren’t you going to get that, Jake?”
“I’m sure it’s a telemarketer.” I didn’t want to say I was too busy driving, because I knew she’d offer to answer it. “Hey, there’s a gas station up ahead. I’ll let Fred out before we get on Highway Seven, and you can use the restroom if you need to.”
She shook her head again. If she wasn’t careful she might shake it loose, but my ploy seemed to work. “Now that you mention it, I did drink a little too much coffee at the restaurant.”
***
FRED SNIFFED A SMALL patch of grass on the far side of the gas station-slash-convenience store while I waited for Bonnie to go inside before checking my phone. Kelly’s message said to call her in the morning because she had some information for me. I decided to call her back instead.
“Hi, gorgeous,” I said when she picked up. I heard a lot of people talking in the background. “Hope I didn’t catch you at a bad time. I didn’t think you’d still be in class.”
“It’s not a class, Jake. We’re having a few drinks to get to know each other—sort of a team-building exercise. It’s why I sent the text.” The noise seemed to get lower. She must have found someplace quieter to talk.
“Oh. Sorry. It sounded important. I thought you had something new on Matt Edward’s case for me.” Fred was back, acting like he was ready to leave, so I headed for the Jeep while still talking on the phone.
“I just wanted to let you know I talked to Johnson, and he assured me there was nothing to indicate foul play. It really looks like you’re wasting your time trying to prove otherwise.”
“Did he say if they checked the circuit breaker?” She’d hit a nerve, and I might have answered a little too harshly. I couldn’t believe she was ready to accept Johnson’s theory before I had a chance to look into it.
She didn’t say anything for a few seconds before coming back online. “The circuit breaker? No, he didn’t mention it. Did you find something we should know?”
I heard a man’s voice say something I couldn’t make out in the background. “It sounds like your team-building partner needs you. I’ll call you in the morning, Kell. I’ve gotta go.” Bonnie was in the Jeep, waiting.
“Was that Kelly?” She'd caught the last part of the conversation just before I hung up.
“Yeah. I thought I’d call to tell her about Rob Croix and ask her if the deputy who first investigated the accident bothered to check the circuit breaker.”
She opened her door but paused before getting in. I could see the wheels turning in her head. “Because he’s an electrician? You think he rigged it, don’t you, Jake?”
***
IT WAS LATE WHEN WE got back to the farm. Bonnie was tired and took Tigger upstairs while Fred and I went to my room at the back of the house. The room was an extension put on years ago by a previous owner. The old homestead was at least a hundred and fifty-years-old and had been added onto over the years. My room—or I should say, Fred’s room, because he spent more time sleeping in it than I did—was a drafty addition that had been converted from a sunroom. The plan was to turn it back to its original glory when everything else was finished and before we headed back to Colorado.
Like Bonnie, I was tired and should have gone straight to bed, but I needed to do my homework and bone up on electrical codes and docks before we went to the scene of the accident. Fred fell sound asleep at my feet within fifteen minutes of my internet searches.
I did find that the Army Corp of Engineers owned the lake but gave its management over to a Saint Louis-based company, Ameren Missouri. It was their job to issue dock permits, and if the dock had electricity running to it, to issue those permits, too. But I already knew that. What I didn’t know were the details of what they required. After reading several online regulations and articles on dock wiring, I knew enough to be dangerous. I decided to call it a night and get some sleep. It looked like Fred and I were going to have a busy day tomorrow.