Prawn of the Dead, page 19
Justice shot Haskell a sympathetic look over the rim of his coffee mug. “That’s because his partner in the heist took off with all the cash. But no worries, Mr. French, Barry gave him up, and we hope with all the information he gave us about that day, we’ll have him in custody sometime soon,” he reassured.
I tried to remember how insensitive I could be when I wanted to get to the bottom of something, so I asked my next question carefully. “How the heck did Myron even figure out Barry was the one who shot him? Or did he?”
Justice grimaced. “We don’t know for sure, Lemon. We only have Barry’s side of things. He told us he followed Myron to his house after seeing him at the pawnshop that day because he was scared he’d recognize him. He watched Myron go into that room he’d dedicated to the crime at his house, and after Barry had seen what was on the walls, he thought Myron might be getting close to solving the crime. Not to mention, he ran right into Myron at the pawnshop the day before he was killed.”
At that point, my mom led Haskell into our living room, and if I know my mother, it was to keep him from hearing any more gory revelations. She knows me well enough to know I wanted to ask about the details.
I cocked my head, wiping my mouth with a napkin. “But Myron wouldn’t have recognized him because of the face blindness, would he?”
Justice nodded his dark head. “But Barry didn’t know Myron wouldn’t be able to recognize him. Somehow, during the fight that ensued at the heist, Myron yanked Barry’s mask off, and he saw him just before he was shot. We have no idea if Myron actually figured out it was Barry, and we never will. The best we can figure is Myron decided to see his neurologist about his headaches, and he wanted to ask about some new technology for his injury. We verified that with the receptionist at the doc’s office. Maybe he thought the bullet was where the origin of the headaches came from? I don’t know why the bullet was so important to him. Unless he thought the same thing Barry had misguidedly thought.”
I bobbed my head in understanding. The tragedy—the irony in all this was—exactly as I thought. Barry thought the bullet would lead back to his father’s gun.
“So you think he was trying to identify the bullet in his head, thinking if the police had the bullet they could somehow identify the shooter—sort of like Barry did? Maybe he thought he was getting close to figuring this out?” I asked.
Justice shook his head as he took a sip of his coffee. “I have no idea, but that room Myron had was pretty detailed, and we think maybe he was close to going to the police—especially because he was asking about this new technology he’d read about.”
“Okay, so how did Myron end up in the station’s bathroom?” Coco asked, plopping down on a stool next to me, running a tired hand over her eyes.
“According to Barry, he followed Myron here around ten that night. He claims he only wanted to talk to him. Didn’t plan to kill him. It just happened that Myron had a heart attack. Barry caught him off guard and freaked him out. Myron’s carotid was already ripe for the picking as I told you. Barry confronting him was just the last straw for his ticker.”
I nodded again, tucking a sleepy JF to my side. “Right. He didn’t die from the wound in his head. But that still doesn’t explain why he was in the bathroom here at the station.”
Justice rubbed a palm over his stubbled jaw. “Barry says he spooked him pretty bad when he snuck up on him and Myron ran for the bathroom, used his keys to get in, the ones May gave him and tried to slam the door shut. But Barry pushed his way inside, and he says Myron just lost it. Started gasping for breath over the sink—which is how we assume the bracelet got in the drain. It must’ve fallen out of his shirt pocket.”
I sighed in relief, my limbs going weak. “So he was dead before he dug the bullet out of his head.”
“According to Barry,” Justice confirmed.
I felt such a weight lift from my shoulders. Myron had suffered enough in the course of his life. “So why go to the trouble of digging a bullet out of his brain?”
Justice’s tired eyes gleamed. “This is where it gets a little crazy. Barry claims that if he called 9-1-1, he was worried they’d do an autopsy and find the bullet and identify it as coming from his father’s privately owned weapon. So he couldn’t just leave the body there, but he also couldn’t pick him up and dispose of him because Barry happens to have, of all things, a bad back from some robbery he got away with by falling out of a window.”
My head shot up. “How the heck did he know how to dig it out? Did he research it on Google?”
“Myron had a scar on the back of his head from surgery, Lemon,” Justice reminded me. “I don’t imagine it’s much of a leap to say Barry acted out of fear, adrenaline kicked in, and he did what he thought he had to do.”
I shook my head in disgust. “Wow, just wow. So what about the keys to Myron’s car and the station bathroom?”
Justice rolled his head from side to side, indicating he’d had a long night and he wanted to go home. “Barry claims Myron dropped the keys and a bag of prawns on the floor, he grabbed them and got the heck out of there. And then you found him.”
I closed my eyes again and allowed the full horror of this tragedy that never had to happen wash over me. “Yeah,” I murmured. “Then I found him.”
Justice patted my hand. “On a happier note, you’ll be glad to know even though Myron wasn’t really married to Fabritzia, he’d planned to give her some money. I don’t know when he’d planned to tell her they weren’t married, but his lawyers gave us a call just yesterday and said they had a check from Myron waiting for her. So, anything else you want to grill me about, Detective Layne?”
I flicked my fingers at him and laughed. “Nope. That’s it for me. Crime solved, the murderer in custody, and the zombie hunters on their way out of town and off to find somewhere else to wreak havoc.”
Justice told us the Fig Harbor police had done a roundup of all the zombie enthusiasts just that morning and sent them on their way—much to Captain Zombie Hunter Cappie’s dismay.
Justice waved a finger under my nose. “Which brings me to your snooping, Lemon.”
The lecture I’d missed last night was on its way. “How many times do I have to tell you, my mother’s freedom was at stake?” I said with a grin.
“You almost got us killed! You deserve a lecture, Lemon Layne!” Coco accused with fiery eyes.
That was very fair. Because of my snooping, Barry had found out I was in the thick of this murder investigation. “Okay, if I promise to keep my nose firmly attached to my face, can we drop it?” I teased.
Before anyone could answer, my new phone rang, and I excused myself to the hall by holding up a finger. Talk about great timing, eh?
When I glanced at the number on my phone, I froze for a moment, my fingers and toes going numb. It was a number that was very familiar to me. A Seattle number no one had ever had any success tracing.
The ringing stopped as the call went to voice mail, but when I looked at my message box, it was empty…
No message. Because cowards never leave messages, do they? Yet, that old unsettled feeling I thought I’d put behind me crept back into the pit of my stomach.
Reaching for the wall, I sucked in a couple of deep breaths and on instinct, looked out the window to our front yard, scanning the landscape. But there was nothing to see. There never was.
I shook off my dread. If whoever had called was watching, as he’d once threatened, let him. Just let him. I was no longer a slave to my fears, and there was no way I was living like that again.
No way.
I turned to head back to the kitchen and the warmth of the people I held so dear—the people I’d left Seattle and come back home for.
As I reentered the kitchen, Justice looked at me like he was about to pick up the lecture where he’d left off.
But I didn’t give him the chance. “Hey, have I told you about my new idea? How do you guys feel about Meatloaf Monday?”
And as tired as we were, we all had a pretty good laugh.
Just like families sometimes do.
The End
Note from Dakota
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About Dakota
Dakota Cassidy is a USA Today bestselling author with over thirty books. She writes laugh-out-loud cozy mysteries, romantic comedy, grab-some-ice erotic romance, hot and sexy alpha males, paranormal shifters, contemporary kick-ass women, and more.
Dakota was invited by Bravo TV to be the Bravoholic for a week, wherein she snarked the hell out of all the Bravo shows. She received a starred review from Publishers Weekly for Talk Dirty to Me, won a Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award for Kiss and Hell, along with many review site recommended reads and reviewer top pick awards.
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eBooks by Dakota Cassidy
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A Lemon Layne Mystery, a Contemporary Cozy Mystery Series
1. Prawn of the Dead
2. Play That Funky Music White Koi
3. Total Eclipse of the Carp
Witchless In Seattle Mysteries, a Paranormal Cozy Mystery series
1. Witch Slapped
2. Quit Your Witchin'
3. Dewitched
4. The Old Witcheroo
5. How the Witch Stole Christmas
Wolf Mates, a Paranormal Romantic Comedy series
1. An American Werewolf In Hoboken
2. What’s New, Pussycat?
3. Gotta Have Faith
4. Moves Like Jagger
5. Bad Case of Loving You
A Paris, Texas Romance, a Paranormal Romantic Comedy series
1. Witched At Birth
2. What Not to Were
3. Witch Is the New Black
4. White Witchmas
Non-Series
Whose Bride Is She Anyway?
Polanski Brothers: Home of Eternal Rest
Sexy Lips 66
Accidentally Paranormal, a Paranormal Romantic Comedy series
Interview With an Accidental—a free introductory guide to the girls of the Accidentals!
1. The Accidental Werewolf
2. Accidentally Dead
3. The Accidental Human
4. Accidentally Demonic
5. Accidentally Catty
6. Accidentally Dead, Again
7. The Accidental Genie
8. The Accidental Werewolf 2: Something About Harry
9. The Accidental Dragon
10. Accidentally Aphrodite
11. Accidentally Ever After
12. Bearly Accidental
13. How Nina Got Her Fang Back
14. The Accidental Familiar
The Hell, a Paranormal Romantic Comedy series
1. Kiss and Hell
2. My Way to Hell
The Plum Orchard, a Contemporary Romantic Comedy series
1. Talk This Way
2. Talk Dirty to Me
3. Something to Talk About
4. Talking After Midnight
The Ex-Trophy Wives, a Contemporary Romantic Comedy series
1. You Dropped a Blonde On Me
2. Burning Down the Spouse
3. Waltz This Way
Fangs of Anarchy, a Paranormal Urban Fantasy series
1. Forbidden Alpha
2. Outlaw Alpha
Dakota recommends … Renee George
Pit Perfect
Barkside of the Moon Mysteries, Book 1
Renee George
Chapter 1
When I was eighteen years old, I came home from a sleepover and found my mom and dad with their throats cut, and their hearts ripped from their chests.
My little brother Danny was in a broom closet in the kitchen, his arms wrapped around his knees, and his face pale and ghostly. Until that day, I’d planned to go to college and study medicine after graduation, but instead, I ended up staying home and taking care of my seven-year-old brother.
Seventeen years later, my brother was murdered. At the time, Danny’s death looked like it would go unsolved, much like my parents’ had.
Without Haze Kinsey, my best friend since we were five, the killers would have gotten away with it. She was a special agent for the FBI for almost a decade, and when I called her about Danny’s death, she dropped everything to come help me get him justice. The evil group of witches and Shifters responsible for the decimation of my family paid with their lives.
Yes. I said witches and Shifters. Did I forget to mention I’m a werecougar? Oh, and my friend Hazel is a witch. Recently, I discovered witches in my own family tree on my mother’s side. Shifters, in general, only mated with Shifters, but witches were the exception. As a matter of fact, my friend Haze is mated to a bear Shifter.
I wouldn’t have known about the witch in my genealogy, though, if a rogue witch coven hadn’t done some funky hoodoo witchery to me. Apparently, the spell activated a latent talent that had been dormant in my hybrid genes.
My ancestor’s magic acted like truth serum to anyone who came near her. No one could lie in her presence. Lucky me, my ability was a much lesser form of hers. People didn’t have to tell me the truth, but whenever they were around me, they had the compulsion to overshare all sorts of private matters about themselves. This can get seriously uncomfortable for all parties involved. Like, the fact that I didn’t need to know that Janet Strickland had been wearing the same pair of underwear for an entire week, or that Mike Dandridge had sexual fantasies about clowns.
My newfound talent made me unpopular and unwelcome in a town full of paranormal creatures who thrived on little deceptions. So, when Haze discovered the whereabouts of my dad’s brother, a guy I hadn’t known even existed, I sold all my belongings, let the bank have my parents’ house, jumped in my truck, and headed south.
After two days and 700 miles of nonstop gray, snowy weather, I pulled my screeching green and yellow mini-truck into an auto repair shop called The Rusty Wrench. Much like my beloved pickup, I’d needed a new start, and moving to a small town occupied by humans seemed the best shot. I’d barely made it to Moonrise, Missouri before my truck began its death throes. The vehicle protested the last 127 miles by sputtering to a halt as I rolled her into the closest spot.
The shop was a small white-brick building with a one-car garage off to the right side. A black SUV and a white compact car occupied two of the six parking spots.
A sign on the office door said: No Credit Cards. Cash Only. Some Local Checks Accepted (Except from Earl—You Know Why, Earl! You check-bouncing bastard).
A man in stained coveralls, wiping a greasy tool with a rag, came out the side door of the garage. He had a full head of wavy gray hair, bushy eyebrows over light blue, almost colorless eyes, and a minimally lined face that made me wonder about his age. I got out of the truck to greet him.
“Can I help you, miss?” His voice was soft and raspy with a strong accent that was not quite Deep South.
“Yes, please.” I adjusted my puffy winter coat. “The heater stopped working first. Then the truck started jerking for the last fifty miles or so.”
He scratched his stubbly chin. “You could have thrown a rod, sheared the distributor, or you have a bad ignition module. That’s pretty common on these trucks.”
I blinked at him. I could name every muscle in the human body and twelve different kinds of viruses, but I didn’t know a spark plug from a radiator cap. “And that all means…”
“If you threw a rod, the engine is toast. You’ll need a new vehicle.”
“Crap.” I grimaced. “What if it’s the other thingies?”
The scruffy mechanic shrugged. “A sheared distributor is an easy fix, but I have to order in the part, which means it won’t get fixed for a couple of days. Best-case scenario, it’s the ignition module. I have a few on hand. Could get you going in a couple of hours, but…” he looked over my shoulder at the truck and shook his head, “…I wouldn’t get your hopes up.”
I must’ve looked really forlorn because the guy said, “It might not need any parts. Let me take a look at it first. You can grab a cup of coffee across the street at Langdon’s One-Stop.”
He pointed to the gas station across the road. It didn’t look like much. The pale-blue paint on the front of the building looked in need of a new coat, and the weather-beaten sign with the store’s name on it had seen better days. There was a car at the gas pumps and a couple more in the parking lot, but not enough to call it busy.
I’d had enough of one-stops, though, thank you. The bathrooms had been horrible enough to make a wereraccoon yark, and it took a lot to make those garbage eaters sick. Besides, I wasn’t just passing through Moonrise, Missouri.
“Have you ever heard of The Cat’s Meow Café?” Saying the name out loud made me smile the way it had when Hazel had first said it to me. I’d followed my GPS into town, so I knew I wasn’t too far away from the place.
“Just up the street about two blocks, take a right on Sterling Street. You can’t miss it. I should have some news in about an hour or so, but take your time.”
