“Hey everybody,” Freddie shouted. “This is my friend Erica. Actually, not just friend, soon-to-be partner. She just needs to get over this really weird obsession she has with having a normal job with normal people.”
A few individuals raised their beer cans at me, including Freddie, who had bent over to pick his up. Great. Just what this situation needed. More beer.
“And this,” Freddie announced, swinging his beer can over, “is the ever-gorgeous Matthew Masterson.” He briefly flashed me some questioning uh-oh eyes before adding, “Somebody get that man a beer. He could use it.”
I was fully expecting Matthew to decline, but instead he looked over at me and shrugged before reaching for the beer a man sitting on a cooler was holding out to him.
“Um, Freddie,” I called out. “It’s kind of late. Don’t you think we should be go—”
“Boo,” someone shouted, rapidly joined by about ten other people.
Freddie spread his hands out wide. “You heard the people. Can’t disappoint my fans!” He harshly strummed a chord on his guitar. “Now who wants to rock?”
The small crowd cheered.
A moment later Rex, the man with the handlebar mustache, walked over to me holding out a beer. “You want one?”
A waved my free hand out in front of me. “Can’t. I’m boating.” My eyes darted back to Freddie. “Uh, everything cool between you two? It’s Rex, right?”
He nodded. “It was the weirdest damn thing,” he said, shaking his head. “Your friend came busting in here shouting something about taking us all in, and all I did was hold up some chicken saying he should chill out, and then he was all, I love you man … and here we are.”
I nodded.
“Erica, come on,” Freddie shouted, waving a hand at me. “We’re just about to do another round.”
Matthew scooted over on the giant cooler he was now sitting on and patted the spot beside him.
Oh boy.
I spent the next hour or so trying to make up excuses for why we needed to leave without tipping Matthew off—and trying to ignore the signals my body was sending me thanks to sitting so close to him. Unfortunately, Freddie wasn’t having any of it. Not while there was chicken, and strangely enough there was a lot of chicken. After a while I had to admit it was actually kind of fun … well, it would have been if I hadn’t been feeling so guilty.
Finally, after what felt like hours, some of the workers started to head off to their RVs.
“Well,” Matthew said, getting to his feet, “I think it’s time for me to go too.”
I jumped up after him. “Let me give you a ride. You can’t run home now.”
“I think I’d better after all that food,” he said with a pat to his belly.
“You can’t seriously run in the wee hours of the morning after a meal of chicken and beer?”
He cocked his head quizzically.
“Or maybe you can.”
He walked a few steps then turned. “Thanks for a good night, Erica. I think I needed that.” He waved and trotted off to the road.
Freddie and I said our good-byes to the rest of the group and left for the marina. The wind had completely died, and even though the sun hadn’t yet come up, the birds were already singing. Once we were out of earshot, I said, “So, don’t you want to know if I got it?”
“Um, given that it looked like you were about to kill us all with a concealed weapon the entire night,” he said tiredly, “I’m thinking you got it.”
“Well, then, pick up the pace! Let’s go watch this puppy.”
“Aren’t you an eager little Otter Lake beaver in the morning! But I think you’re forgetting one thing.”
“What?”
“I don’t have a VCR.” He belched quietly, but it sounded painful.
“What! What do you mean you don’t have a VCR?”
“I don’t have a VCR! Seriously, who does? Hoarders?” He groaned. “It broke a while back, and it wasn’t like I was going to rush out and buy a new one. Now stop talking so loudly. I’m tired.”
I threw my hands in the air. “Well, what are we going to do? Oh! We should go back and get the VCR from the pole!”
Freddie shook his head. “The sun’s coming up. Everybody will see what we’re doing, and then we’ll never get the chance to view the tapes before the law comes down on us. But speaking of Grady, where the heck did Matthew come from?”
“What are you talking about?” I said, trying to sound as normal as possible. “What does Grady have to do with Matthew … or Matthew with Grady, for that matter?”
“Uh-huh,” Freddie said knowingly. “You know exactly what I’m talking about. Seriously, though, what was Matthew doing there?”
“He said he was out for a run because he couldn’t sleep.”
“And you believed him?”
“Yes, I believe—” I stopped dead in my tracks. “What exactly are you implying here?”
“Implying nothing. I’m saying outright that we have a killer on our hands, Matthew is the victim’s son, and he just happened to be running by the only camera that might have caught the murderer on tape.”
“Come on. You’re reaching. Matthew’s not the type! He’s too—”
“Dreamy to be the killer?” Freddie asked, cocking one eyebrow.
“He rescues geese trapped under porches!”
“Quite the elaborate cover if you ask me.”
We made it back to Freddie’s boat and got her started up, probably waking half the town. Seconds later we were pulling up to Freddie’s place. Driving Lightning this time was even more difficult. Speed and sleep deprivation weren’t a good mix. I tried to slow down, but it was like the boat wouldn’t let me. I was starting to think Lightning wasn’t the best name for this piece of machinery. Demon might have been better … or maybe Christine.
Freddie stood up shakily and grabbed the boat’s edge to hand-over-hand it to the side. He only managed to get one foot over the lip before I shouted, “What would his motive even be?”
“What?” Freddie asked. I was pretty sure he was at the phase of being hung over where talking hurt. “Who?”
“Matthew!”
“I don’t know,” Freddie said, shaking his head before grabbing his forehead with his hand to stop it. “It’s family. Maybe he didn’t like the fact that his father was cheating on his mother—”
I gripped the boat’s wheel and twisted it in my hands.
“Or maybe it was money. Or…” Freddie paused, shaking his head, “It could be a million things! Maybe he just wanted to get his hands on the manse.”
I made a noise while pulling my lips down into a grimace.
“What?”
“Well, Matthew does love that house,” I said slowly. “But he doesn’t strike me as the type of person who couldn’t wait a few years to inherit it.”
“Well, maybe that’s it. For all we know, his father wanted to leave it to somebody else.”
“Maybe.” Then I slapped the wheel. “Oh! But … aha! You’re forgetting one thing.”
Freddie rolled his bloodshot eyes over to me. “Am I now.”
“Matthew only came to town after his father’s death!”
“And you know that for sure how?”
I felt my face drop. “I don’t. I just assumed.”
“Uh-huh,” Freddie said again. “You really want him to be innocent.”
“I do not.” In fact, maybe if he were a murderer I’d stop having all these inappropriate thoughts about him. “Okay, can we just talk about what’s next? We need to find a VCR and—”
“No. No. No. Freddie must sleep now.”
“But—”
“Erica, I know this is hard, but even if there is evidence on those tapes that clears Tweety, no one’s going to let her out at this time of night … morning? Let’s get some sleep, and then we’ll figure everything out.”
I grumbled in response.
“Do you want to crash at my place?”
“You know I can’t sleep with your snoring.”
“I have a deviated septum!”
“I know. I’m sorry. I’m just tired and worried.”
He nodded. “Okay, well, you can take Lightning, but you’ve got to promise me you’ll take care of her.”
I sighed.
“Hey! Most people would consider it both an honor and a privilege to drive her.”
“I know. It’s just kind of like being lent a double-decker bus for a quick trip to the market.”
“Are you going to be able to handle her on your own?”
“Yeah. Yeah. I’ll figure out some way to dock her. It will be fine.”
He nodded and turned to walk up the stairs to his house. “Oh, and don’t forget to cover her in case it rains.”
* * *
A few hours later, I was lying snug in my bed. I still felt ridiculously tired, which led me to question why I was awake. I was nice and warm, really toasty actually, with my arms wrapped around my pillow. My mom had replaced my mattress with some organic hemp one that was way comfortable. It was all nice and quiet … except for the calming pitter patter of rain outside my window.
Oh crap! Lightning!
I tried to jump up in bed, but my arm was pinned under my pillow. My pillow … that wasn’t my pillow!
“Caesar?” I shouted at the cat in my arms. “Oh my God!”
He blinked his eyes into slits and looked around as though trying to figure out how he’d gotten there too. He kicked his back legs into the air then rolled off the bed with a solid thump. I guess not all cats land on their feet.
I leaned over the bed.
“You okay?”
He looked up at me, still on his back, and hissed.
“Back at you,” I mumbled, throwing off the covers.
I yanked on Freddie’s jacket over my tank top and boxer shorts, and slipped on some old flip-flops. This was going to be cold, cold, cold. But there was no time to worry about that now.
I hustled out of the lodge’s front door, thankful that nobody seemed to be around. How could I have forgotten to put the rain cover on Lightning? I was just so tired after last night’s festivities. God, had any of that even happened? It just seemed so surreal. Chicken … RVs … campfires … Matthew …
I trotted down the log steps of the hill that led to the dock, trying to watch my step on the slippery wood. When I reached the bottom and looked up to see how bad the situation was … I saw a police boat pulled up alongside Lightning … and a man … snapping the last part of the cover in place.
“Grady?”