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“DANA, I CAN’T BELIEVE you’re dragging me down here to the lake to get into more trouble.” Katie slammed the car door shut after she got out of Dana’s car.
Dana had already told Katie about the suspicious guy she’d seen outside the Antique’s store, the card that had Sammy’s name and address on it, and how she thought he might have something to do with the killing. Katie agreed to go with her to check it out, but then later had regrets for agreeing to go along.
The wind blew hard down by the lake. The tree branches swayed and the water rolled over in huge waves while it lapped against the rocks on the shoreline.
They both walked on the rocky sand toward the area where Chuck’s car was found with his body in it. She noticed a few cigarette butts and some garbage strewn about.
“More trouble? Why on earth would you think we’d be in more trouble?” Dana replied. She picked up a few of the crumpled pieces of paper to glance at them to make sure nothing important was written on them. It seemed as if the water had ruined the ink on the paper.
“It’s bad enough that your fingerprints were on that iron fire poker. Did you have to pick up a heavy antique like that?”
Dana playfully rolled her eyes. “If I had known it was going to be used to bop somebody over the head and toss their body in a car and drive it down by the lake, then the answer is no. But since predicting the future is not one of my talents, I had no idea.”
It was Katie’s turn to grin and roll her eyes. “Fine. You’ve got a point Ms Touchy Feely.” Katie always took the opportunity to tease her though it was all done in good spirit. Dana always returned the favor and they’d be back and forth pulling pranks and teasing each other while growing up.
“Look here,” Dana said. “It’s a button. A blue button that looks as if it had been ripped off a shirt or something.” Dana’s heart sprung into full drive. It was a blue round button with four small holes with loose thread hanging from the back.
“Could it belong to the killer?” Katie asked.
“Probably. I’m going to bag this and give it to Troy. It might even have something to do with this Sammy character I saw acting suspicious around the store...”
Dana’s heart almost stopped.
Tiffany had a blue shirt and her top button was missing, wasn’t it?
“What’s on your mind, cuz? I can see the wheels in your head spinning away like crazy.”
“Oh, it’s nothing. I just had this crazy idea, but it’s nothing.”
“What? Tell me? Oh, no you’re not going to leave me guessing.”
“Well, it’s just that Tiffany had a blue shirt, too, but she couldn’t have done it. She was at the café all morning.”
“Oh, right.”
“But I’m not going to push it completely to the back of my mind.”
“But Dana, won’t that hot detective Troy be upset that you’re scouring the crime scene?”
“How could he be?”
“Oh, wait a minute. You’re just making an excuse to see him again.” Katie gave a sly grin.
“No, I’m not. I really want to find the real killer.”
“Yeah, yeah, that, too.” Katie continued to look around the area.
“No, seriously, this whole murder thing is bothering me like crazy. Someone took the time to make it appear as if Ned murdered Chuck.”
“Why do you say that, cuz?”
“Well, there were several people who were in the store at the time of that crash including his assistant, Tiffany, his ex-wife Kim and a few customers who saw what happened and who had access to the iron fire poker.
“True.”
“So, I would love to know which culprit decided to follow Chuck out here and strike him over the head with the iron fire poker the day after the crash.”
Dana fished around inside her handbag looking for something to put the button into to carry to the police station.
Dana carried a small clear sandwich bag inside her handbag at all times. She’d watched one of those YouTube ‘What’s in my Designer Handbag’ videos and it had been very informative.
One of the videographers stated that she always carried certain items in her handbag just in case because one never knew when they would need it. Like a clear plastic bag. A small shopping bag, a small umbrella. Those sorts of stuff in addition to the usual purse, ID, keys, tissues, feminine products, makeup, pain killers, etc. and a small plastic bag in case one needed to dispose of garbage in the absence of a bin, like get rid of gum in the mouth or a used tissue or something. Not that Dana had thought she’d ever need to use a plastic bag as an evidence bag. But still it came in handy now, didn’t it?
Dana scooped up the blue round button with the four holes in it and white thread hanging from the holes. “You never know. Maybe this could be the clue that they’re looking for.”
“But Dana,” Katie said, walking over to her, the wind tousling her dark strands of hair. Katie often dyed her hair depending on her moods. Last week her hair had blue tints to it. But she’d changed her color back to jet black, along with wearing thick black eyeliner and her pierced nose and her earrings pierced all along her earlobes.
“Yup?”
“Don’t you think it’s strange that the button just happened to show up now?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, come on, the forensics team have been here already, right? They must have combed the area?”
“Right?”
“So, what if that button was planted there by the killer to throw us off? Maybe his wife Kim did it and then tried to frame his mistress Tiffany.”
Dana’s heart plummeted in her chest. Trust Katie to come up with all sorts of scenarios but she did have a point. “You know something you could be right. What if the killer planted this button? But then again, what if the killer didn’t plant it?”
“True. Okay, let’s take it down to the station.”
Just then something else caught their vision. Both of them had eyes wide opened as the waves lapped against the shoreline.
An empty cupcake wrapper from the Cozy Cupcakes Café with a message on it was on the ground. Often their wrappers had sweet sayings on them to brighten up customers days, but this one seemed too eerie to discover at the scene of a murder. It read: The day is still young, enjoy it while you can.