Barnyard Murder: A Cozy Mystery (Strawberry Shores Mystery Book 2) (5 page)

Chapter 12

The next morning at the library, the case was on my mind.

We'd spent a couple of hours the previous night establishing a battle plan. We'd established that the list of most likely suspects were Dana Jones, Tim Hayfield, and Kevin Drake. We would need my psychic powers and—seeing as I was only at 75 percent accurate without a radio—we resolved that we would only take into account evidence obtained while there was a radio nearby. Otherwise, we might implicate the wrong person.

Which brought us to one major problem. How were we going to go about investigating quietly?

Alex made a solid case. Daniel had figured out that we were poking around and almost kidnapped us as a result. Had we been a bit more subtle, maybe we could have solved the murder without ending up tied up in the kitchen.

If we just walked up to people and asked them, “Hey, did you kill Jeannie?” then the real killer would quickly figure out what we were doing. Maybe I could work the question into a conversation as a joke, but even that seemed fallible. Someone might say 'yes', and if they didn't take the question seriously, it might not trigger my static, which would lead to a false positive.

So we had to be discreet. And that was where we hit an impasse. How would we investigate the crime without looking like we were investigating it?

The answer came walking through the library door at about eleven in the morning.

Susan was absent-mindedly browsing the Internet. I was reading a book. I hadn't written anything since
Murder in Tomato Town
and I was hoping to find inspiration.

Usually when patrons walked into the library, they headed into the stacks and came to the desk after they'd picked out a book; this patron came straight to the desk and stood there until we noticed her.

She was a woman of medium height. Her dirty blond hair was frazzled and messy, held in place by a tie-dyed hair band. She was wearing a brown vest frayed at the bottom, which partially concealed her brightly colored t-shirt, which was a motley collection of peace signs and smiley faces. Her bare feet, clad with sandals, stuck out from her tattered jeans.

“Hi,” I said. “Can we help you?”

“The question is can
I
help
you
?”

Susan and I looked at each other.

“There's a lot of negative energy in this town right now. I can feel it, emanating from you two. It's not your fault. Bad juju happened across the street. It's only natural that some of those vibes would make their way over here, seeing as you're so close.”

“You mean the thing with Jeannie?” Susan asked.

The woman shushed her and ducked, looking around the library. “Careful about saying that name. There's a lot of bad juju attached to it. So much, right now, that if you say it too many times the library will come crashing down.”

Susan put her hand over her mouth.

“It's all right, though. I just want to let you know that I'm here for you, if you want to talk about it.” She handed us business cards, which were index cards with her name and phone number written on them. It said
Tina Sanders
.

“Originally they said
Tina Sanders, Energy Therapist
, but I got tired of writing
Energy Therapist
over and over again,” she explained. “So now they just say my name. But I'm an Energy Therapist. See, when you say words, you do more than talk. You're creating vibrations in the air. You're letting go of the bad juju in your mind. I take those vibrations, clean out the bad juju, and give the energy back to you.”

I was a bit unconvinced. “Do you have a degree in psychiatry?” I asked.

Tina shook her head. “No, it's not psychiatry. It's Energy Therapy.”

I tried again. “Okay, do you have a degree in
anything
?”

Again she shook her head. “You don't need a degree if you know how the world works, girls. I know how the world works.” She tapped the card in my hand. “If you need anything, you let me know.”

As she turned to walk away, a thought hit me. “Hold on—so you're going around to everyone in Strawberry Shores and offering your services?”

Tina nodded.

“And it's free for everyone? To talk about, you know, what happened across the street?”

“Mm-hmm.” Tina nodded again. “Like I said, lots of bad juju.”

“I'm in,” I said.

“What?” Susan looked at me like I had just grown a third head.

“You heard me,” I said. “I'm in. I want to help. I want to be an Energy Therapist.”

Tina frowned. “That's a pretty heavy commitment. I've been doing it for years now. If you don't do it right, you could unleash a lot of bad energy onto the town.”

I gave her the most sparkling smile I could muster. “Lucky I have you to train me. You're the master, right?”

Tina laughed. “Okay, well, yeah. I am.”

“Well then let's get to it. Can we start tonight, like right after I get out of work?”

“Sure, sure. Meet me at my place.” She took the card from me and wrote her address on the back. “Be prepared, we might pull an all-nighter, and that's just to get through the basics.”

“I'm ready,” I said, taking the card.

“Cool attitude,” Tina said. “You give off a lot of positive vibes, girls.”

Susan waited until Tina was out of earshot before saying: “So... an Energy Therapist, huh?”

I shrugged. “It probably pays more than being a writer.”

Chapter 13

I headed to Tina's house after work to see what she had to offer. Certifying me as an Energy Therapist took thirteen minutes, and then she lit up a joint and offered me some, at which point I remembered I had something super important to do and excused myself.

So I headed back home, calling Alex and Emily on the way. They met me at my house and we were back at it.

Now that I was a certified Energy Therapist, I had a disguise. I could go around town, asking questions about the murder under the guise of being an 'Energy Therapist' and gather information that way. Even if the killer heard about what I was doing, he (or she) would think I was just looney toons and wouldn't take me seriously.

It was a perfect cover.

The phone rang.

Alex, Emily and I were leaning over papers on the table—suspects, lists of possible motives, notes on what we knew about the case. I excused myself and answered it. “Hello? Lane residence.”

“Laur—hic—Laura?”

“Speaking,” I said.

“It's Harold. You think you can—hic—pick me up from the Pelican? It has been brought to my attention that I am unsafe to drive.”

I grimaced and looked over my shoulder at the table. “I'm kind of busy here, Harold. Can't you just call a cab?”

“Oh, come on,” he pressed. His voice turned ooey-gooey all of a sudden. “I want to see you. I've missed you. You wouldn't want me driving home myself, would you?”

I sighed. “Fine, Harold, I'll be there in a few minutes.” I hung up the phone and turned to the girls. “I guess I'm calling the meeting short. Harold needs a ride. Are you guys staying?”

Alex looked up at me and then at the fridge. “I don't know. Do you have anything to eat?” She turned and opened the fridge. “Yeah,” she called over the door. “Yeah, it looks like we're staying.” She withdrew with an armful of bread and sandwich meat. “You got any mayo?”

I rolled my eyes as I grabbed my keys. “Top cupboard. You'll have to open a new one.”

“Don't worry!” Alex called after me as I started for the door. “We'll have this mystery all sorted out by the time you get back.”

It looked to me like the only thing they'd have sorted out was how many sandwiches they were going to make. I left Alex and Emily to their own devices and headed downtown.

Along the way, I decided to use this as an opportunity to practice my skill. Harold was waiting for me on the curb; as I pulled up I turned off the radio. He stumbled in.

“Buckle your seatbelt,” I said sharply.

“Hey baby,” he said. “Thanks for the lift.”

“I'm not your baby,” I said sternly. “And it's no problem.”

I pulled away from the curb and started toward Harold's house. Without the radio, the car was eerily quiet. I didn't want Harold to turn it on so I made the first move. “So have you been working on your art?”

I had a pretty good idea that he wasn't. Harold updated me whenever he worked on something, promising that it would be the best thing I ever saw. He hadn't updated me recently, so I suspected he hadn't been working on anything.

“Oh, it's great!”

Harold was drunk, so it didn't take much effort to get him talking. He regaled me with stories about a piece he was working on, and how it was amazing, and how I'd be head-over-heels when I saw it. Meanwhile I listened with half an ear; I was mostly trying to focus on whether or not I could hear the static.

Sure enough, I could hear it very faintly, but only if I concentrated. I wondered if I was picking up radio waves from nearby vehicles. The alternative was that I was experiencing one of those situations where I
wanted
to hear the static so badly, I was imagining it.

Without the radio, the static drifted in and out. It wasn't until Harold interrupted himself mid-sentence to turn on the radio that I got something like verification—he continued the story about the art he was working on, and I heard the static loud and clear.

It started to bug me. I was fine with the static. You would think that hearing static in your head for minutes at a time would get annoying, but it doesn't. Eventually you get used to it.

What was bugging me about hearing it constantly was that it meant Harold was lying constantly. He was telling me about a piece he was working on.

Wait a minute.

Harold was telling me about a piece he was working on and I was hearing static. My assumption was that he was telling me he was working on it
today
, and since I was hearing static, he was therefore lying.

“So is this a piece you were working on today?” I asked him.

He shook his head. “No, I think the last time I worked on it was the day before yesterday,” he said. Then he continued telling me his story.

Only this time, there was no static.

Chapter 14

“What do you mean, 'it depends on how you ask it'?” Alex asked between mouthfuls of bread and meat.

When I got home from Harold's, Alex and Emily were hard at work on the case which apparently consisted of sitting on my couch eating sandwiches and watching
Seinfeld.

I took a seat across from them. Emily muted the TV.

“Okay, so Harold was telling me that he was working on a piece of art,” I explained. “I assumed he was telling me about a piece he was working on today. I was hearing static.”

“Which meant he was lying about working on it,” Emily said.

“Right, you would think so. The thing was, I was thinking he was telling me about a piece he'd worked on today. But when Harold said he was 'working on something', he didn't mean he worked on it today. He meant he was working on it
in general
.

“What happened when you clarified the topic?” Alex asked.

“When I specifically asked if he had been working on it today, he said no. The last time he worked on it was a couple of days ago. Once I'd clarified what we were talking about, I stopped hearing the static. The point is, up until that point I could hear the static, even though Harold was telling the truth.”

“A false positive,” Alex said, deep in thought. She set her plate on the table and stroked her chin. “That changes things.”

“It does,” I said. “It means hearing the static isn't foolproof, even if there's a radio nearby. If I think we're talking about one thing and we're actually talking about something else, the static might go off even if the person is telling the truth.”

“It sounds like you just have to be more specific when you ask people questions,” Emily suggested. “Leave no room for misinterpretation.”

I looked at Alex. She gave me a 'beats me' expression and went back to her sandwich.

“Suppose that had been the reason I did so poorly the other night, when we were experimenting,” I suggested.

“What do you mean?” Emily asked.

“Maybe the outcome was influenced. Maybe you knew you were lying to me and it influenced the outcome?”

“Emily was still lying though,” Alex said. “How would that make a difference?”

I thought it over for a moment. “Okay, maybe it's not what Emily is doing. Maybe because
I
knew Emily was lying about one statement and telling the truth about the others, I was getting false positives.”

“I see what you're saying,” Alex said.

“I don't,” Emily said, shaking her head.

“What she's saying,” Alex said, “is that maybe the test was flawed because Laura knew that you were lying about certain things and telling the truth about others. She's thinking her mind started playing tricks on her, and that it affected the outcome.”

“Oh, I think I see. If Laura misinterprets what someone is saying, it affects whether or not she hears static.”

“Exactly,” I said.

“So what are we going to do about it?” Emily leaned forward, leaning on the coffee table. “How do we make sure Laura doesn't misinterpret anything?”

“I think you're just going to be careful about how you ask specific questions,” Alex said. “Let's say you point to the sky and ask someone what color it is. If they say 'green', you know they're lying. If they say 'blue', you might still think they're lying because you think the color is azure. But if you ask if the sky is a shade of blue, that's an easy yes or no question. If they say 'no' and you hear static, then there's a good chance they're lying.”

“So Laura needs to stick to yes and no questions?” Emily asked.

I shook my head. “It's not that simple. Going back to the conversation with Harold, if I ask if he's been working on something, he might say ‘yes’ and give me a false positive. So I would still need to be clear and specify that I want to know if he's been working on it today.”

“One thing is for certain,” Alex said, grabbing the remote and un-muting the television, “You need more practice.”

“Yeah,” I said. “No kidding.”