Corpse in the Crystal Ball (13 page)

All the while protecting me from getting harmed.

“Mitch?” I managed breathlessly.

“Sunny? What the hell are you doing here?”

“Me? The more important question is what are
you
doing here, Detective I’m-a-Suspect-in-This-Murder-Case Stone?”

“Oh, well, what was it you once said? Oh, yeah …I got nothin’.”

“You got somethin’, all right,” I sputtered, more embarrassed at getting caught than mad at him for putting himself in jeopardy. “A world of trouble by the time I’m through with you. And you can start by getting off me, please.”

“Are you crazy, Mitch? What in the world are you doing here?” I asked, feeling his beating heart since he’d ignored my request that he get off me, though he had shifted so I could at least breathe better.

“I was out for a run and saw your flashlight. Not very smart, Tink.”

“Nice try. I’m smarter than you think, buster. You don’t live anywhere near here. And since when do you run dressed all in black.
Black!
With no reflectors, I might add. Admit it. You were tailing me.”

“Even if I were, which I’m not saying I was, you are so obvious.”

“Am not.”

“Are too. You’re dressed in pink.
Pink!
With no gloves and no supplies, I might add,” he said, throwing my words back at me, then muttered, “Amateur.” He shook his head.
“And you might have parked a ways down the street, but no one in town owns a car like yours. You don’t live anywhere near here, either. You should have taken a different car if you didn’t want to be seen. If Abigail Brook had come home tonight, she would have spotted you instantly and turned around. Lucky for you, I kept watch.”

“Lucky? How am I lucky? You’re still on top of me.”

“Admit it. You need me.” His eyes stared deeply into mine.

“Like a crack in my crystal ball.” I shoved hard to no avail, but he finally relented and rolled off me. “You have to leave now. Won’t Selena be looking for you?” I stood.

He shrugged. “She’s sleeping. She had a rough day. Isabel’s funeral is tomorrow. Like I said, I went for a run. A long run. But since I’m here, you might as well let me help you.”

“Help me? Um, don’t you mean assist me? I am the one in charge, after all. Not you.”

“Not you, either. Fuller is,” he grumbled. “What do you have so far?”

I decided I had nothing to lose by letting him help me a little, and I
was
doing this for him. Getting his perspective couldn’t hurt since, admittedly, he was the pro. I filled him in on the crime-of-passion angle with the suspects Isabel had ticked off before she left town: Chuck the hotel owner, Gretta the grocery store owner, and finally Abigail the stalker.

“Chuck has an alibi,” I went on. “The front-desk clerk, Johnny, said Chuck was repairing the hole in the wall during the time of the murder, so it couldn’t be him, even though I still don’t trust the guy. And poor Gretta said she was home alone that night, but she has no way to prove it. I’m really hoping something turns out with Abigail. Did you see her room?”

“Yeah.” He frowned. “Guess she is a little more unstable than I thought.”

“Ya think?” I squeaked. “I mean, that could have been me.”

“The unstable one or the victim?” he asked innocently enough, but I could see his internal smirk.

“Ha ha, you numbskull. I could have been the one who got murdered.”

“Why?”

Grrr
. “Never mind.”

“Okay.” He shrugged. “Anyway—”

“Oooh, you are insufferable!” My hands balled in fists at my sides, and then I marched toward the door and headed outside into the cool evening air. I wasn’t even close to shivering.

I was fuming.

“Good idea,” he said as he joined me. “It was getting stuffy in there.” His lips twitched ever so slightly, reaffirming my suspicion that he’d been baiting me all along.

I refused to play his game. I took a deep breath and relaxed my hands. “You were saying?”

“Abigail couldn’t have just disappeared.”

“That’s what I thought, but she doesn’t have any family in town. And by the looks of her place, she left in a hurry.”

“I agree, but someone had to have seen her. I say we talk to her neighbor in the morning.”

“Okay, but morning is only a couple hours away.” I yawned.

“Exactly. We need some shut-eye. Let’s go sleep in your car.”

“Together?” I sputtered.

“It’s too late to go home and then come back. Someone might see us. Not to mention we want to be close by in case Abigail returns. What else would you suggest?”

“That you sleep in your own car. Where is it?”

“I ran here, remember?”

“Riiight.”

“Let’s go, Tink. I don’t bite. Or is that what you’re afraid of?” He tweaked my nose.

I batted his hand away. “In your dreams, you Neanderthal.”

“You’re the one who said you wanted to talk.”

“I changed my mind. I need to focus, Detective. You may sleep in my bug if you can behave.”

“May I?” He arched an ink black brow. “Fine. I agree on one condition. You keep your hands to yourself. I think I’m more in danger of
you
misbehaving.”

“Oh, please.” I rolled my eyes and led the way to my car.

“First, let’s move the car around the corner in that little turnaround in the woods so no one will see us at sunup. It’s where you should have parked in the first place.”

“Whatever,” I said as I hopped in, barely giving him time to close his door before I took off. When we were safely hidden and I’d cut the engine, he opened the door and climbed outside.

“There’s no room in the front. We’ll have to sleep in the back.”

“Works for me,” I said as I joined him.

He stepped past me, opened the door, and peeked inside. “Uh, there’s no room in the back, either.”

“Like I said, we can always sleep in yours.”

The stubborn man climbed inside without another word.

“You barely fit. Where am I supposed to sleep?”

He held open his arms and just stared at me.

“You’re kidding, right?”

“What? Haven’t you ever spooned before?” His dark eyes held a challenge.

“I’ve spooned plenty,” I scoffed. “Since the time I was born. In fact, I sleep like a spoon every night.” Good grief, I sounded ridiculous.

“Wonderful, but I’m not trying to be funny.” His teasing look had been replaced by a weary one. “Do I look like I’m laughing? I’m tired, Sunny. Get your scrawny behind in here and go to sleep.”

I should have been insulted, but I did as he requested, secretly pleased he found my behind scrawny. I guess the Zumba booty had worked, after all. I smiled slightly as he wrapped his arms around me. We weren’t spooning in the traditional fashion. He was sprawled across the back with his legs dangling over the front seats in a half-sitting position. That would teach him for being so stubborn.

No need for a blanket.

Warmth enveloped every cell in my body, and a feeling of being safe and secure settled over me. His steady heartbeat lulled me off into one of the best deep and dreamless sleeps I’d ever had.

“Morning.” I stretched and yawned, twisting around to see Mitch’s face. “How’d you sleep?”

“I didn’t,” he grumbled, looking red-eyed and cranky. “Do you know you wiggle nonstop when you sleep?” He scooted out from under me and opened the car door. “I need
coffee.” He headed back toward Abigail Brook’s house on foot.

“Wait!” I scrambled out after him. “We can’t go in there, Mitch.”

“We already did.”

“I know, and I’m probably in enough trouble for that. Maybe we shouldn’t push our luck.”

“Look.” He stopped walking and faced me. “She’s not home, and the damage is already done. I need coffee and to use the facilities. Besides, I’m not the one on duty these days, Ms. Consultant. So
you
stay outside and do your job. I’ll meet you back outside in ten.” He saluted me.

“Forget that,” I mumbled, looking around and deciding it was too early for anyone to know or care.

I darted after him and a short while later rushed inside to steal the bathroom first since he was busy making coffee. Once I was finished, I switched places with him. And then before we left he made us both wipe the place down so our fingerprints wouldn’t show in case the police ever had reason to dust the trailer.

I felt like a criminal, albeit a clean and refreshed one now.

“You ready?” Mitch asked.

“As I’ll ever be,” I responded. “Abigail’s neighbor should be up by now.”

“I agree.”

Mitch led the way to my car and attempted to get in the driver’s side. I jogged in front of him and put my hand on the door handle.

“I’ll drive if you don’t mind. My poor bug has taken enough abuse from Granny.”

“So I’ve heard.” Mitch reversed direction and slid in the passenger’s side. “You should know after last night that I’m hardly abusive.”

No, that was true. He’d held me carefully all night long no mattered how cramped and uncomfortable he’d been. I shivered just thinking about it and then pushed those feelings aside. We had a case to solve.

Abigail’s neighbor’s house sat right down the street at the corner of the dead-end road, Mystery Row, and the main road, Puzzle Drive. There was no way Abby could have left without her neighbor seeing her. If she had been home at that time, that is. I was hoping luck would be on our side. We pulled into her neighbor’s driveway, and I cut the engine. Two minutes later, we were knocking on her door.

A little old lady with gray hair and no teeth opened the door with a shotgun in her feeble, shaky hands. “What do you want? I done told you people a million times I ain’t buying nothin’.”

“Easy, lady.” Mitch held up his hands slowly in front of him. “I’m not a salesman. I’m—”

“He’s my assistant.” I glared at Mitch. If he wasn’t careful, he was going to land himself in trouble and I’d never be able to clear his name. Or he’d get us shot. Neither of which was acceptable. “It’s okay. My name is Sunny Meadows, and I am working with Detective Fuller of the Divinity Police Department.”

She stepped out on her front porch, lowered her shotgun, and tightened her housecoat around her. “This about that outsider floozy who stirred up a hornet’s nest and got herself killed?”

“Ms. Gonzales was a lot of things, but she wasn’t a floozy
and she didn’t deserve what happened to her,” Mitch ground out through his teeth.

The old lady raised her shotgun again and aimed it square at his chest.

Mitch took a step forward. “You—”

“Mind answering some of our questions?” I asked sweetly, grabbing his shirt and pulling him back by my side. I shot him a look that said,
Zip it. I told you that you were too close to this case.

The old lady looked Mitch up and down knowingly. “I see the hot tamale got to you, too. Men!” She spat a stream of what looked like tobacco juice out into her yard, confirming my suspicions she had a wad of chew behind her lower lip.

Ewww.
I suppressed a shudder.

“The whole lot of you are worthless, is what you are,” she finished, reminding me of why we were there.

“Yes indeedy.” I patted Mitch’s shoulder, fluttering my lashes at him with great relish. “Why don’t you take your worthless behind and sit in the car.” I wrinkled my nose at him. “I’ve got this,
assistant
.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He smirked at me, glared at the woman, and strode back to the car, rubbing his temples with every step. I felt a little guilty knowing I was the cause of his headache and lack of sleep.

The woman looked me over with a new level of respect and lowered her shotgun once more. “It ain’t loaded. I just like putting men in their place.” She cackled. “Come on over here and sit a spell and tell me what you want to know.”

I followed her to a set of beat-up wicker chairs that looked as though they hadn’t been cleaned since she’d still had teeth. I looked down, stifled a cringe, and then glanced at
the car. Mitch’s grin spread wide across his face, softening his chiseled features, and making him look handsome, which ticked me off even more. I felt like slapping him silly. Instead, I lifted my chin a notch and plopped my fanny down hard, nearly overturning the creaky wicker chair.

“Easy there.” The woman cackled. “These things are older than I am.”

I took a deep breath and focused. “So tell me, is it all men you hate?”

“Not all men, just men like him.” She jerked her thumb in Mitch’s direction, but he didn’t see her. He had the seat tipped back with his eyes closed, sound asleep judging by his slightly parted lips and softened features. She grunted. “Men like my worthless husband who went out for coffee and never came back. I’ve been trying for fifty years to keep this place together by myself.”

“You, um, have been doing a great job.” I smiled kindly, keeping my eyes on her face and not on the broken steps, wobbly handrail, and missing shingles on her roof. I could relate. My whole life I’d had someone to take care of me, but now I was completely alone. I thought of my own house and all that needed to be done and sometimes worried if I was up to the task.

As though reading my mind, the woman’s eyes narrowed a bit as she studied me. “I’ve heard about you. You’ve got spunk. You’ll be fine.”