Flea Market Fatal (2 page)

Missy was sitting on the steps of the front porch and rubbing between Cody’s ears when the cruiser pulled up. Grove City had a small police force and she knew every cop in town, but at first she didn’t recognize the man sitting behind the wheel of the car. Until he got out.

“Hi, Missy,” Tyler Brock said.

“Tyler.”

He was wearing the black short-sleeved uniform. It fit him well. Really well. For a moment she just openly stared at him, wondering what he was thinking of her. He’d aged, but he didn’t really look different. She’d been what she called cute-chubby in high school but since then had put on some pounds.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

Without realizing what she was doing, Missy got up and met him on the lawn. Tears filled her eyes and she started crying. Tyler put his arms around her.

They stood there for a moment, till Missy began to feel awkward in his arms. She broke away from him just before the ambulance pulled into the mouth of Switzer’s driveway. Aaron Gottlieb got out in his uniform. Black, baggy pants and a white shirt that was always wrinkled.

“Hey, Missy! You okay?” He hurried over and put a hand on her shoulder, making a point to ignore Tyler.

“Yes, thank you.” She turned to the house as an excuse to move away from Aaron. He was a nice guy and had asked her out at least once every couple months for years now. At times she’d been tempted, but had always politely declined because she’d never felt a spark for him.

“Where is he?” Aaron started to ask.

“Hold on.” Tyler faced him and gave him a hard stare. Missy had never seen that look on his face before. “This is a crime scene. I go in first, Aaron.”

Aaron pursed his lips. “What if he’s still alive? I should get in there first.”

Missy shook her head. “I checked. He’s not. Trust me.”

Aaron seemed to deflate and Missy immediately felt bad. He was just trying to help, but it was clear that Tyler was going to take charge here.

“Missy, please wait out here.” He gave Missy a curt, professional smile. Without looking at Aaron, he said, “I’ll be a few minutes.”

***

Aaron wouldn’t take his eyes off her. She began to feel self-conscious and tugged at the bottom of her t-shirt to make it billow more. Right now, her boobs felt like eye-magnets.

“What happened?” Aaron asked.

Missy shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess a heart attack.”

“No blood?”

“Aaron, I don’t really want to talk about it.”

He held out a palm. “Okay, sorry about that. Where was my head, right?” He laughed. “How have you been? I mean, otherwise?”

Missy wasn’t in the mood for small-talk. “Okay.”

“I haven’t seen you in awhile.” Aaron smiled at her. “I’ve been thinking about you.”

Oh boy. She smiled politely at him.

“One of these days you’re going to say yes. I just have to keep asking.” He winked at her. “So how about tonight?”

“Sorry, Aaron, I can’t.”

He was still smiling. “Can’t or won’t?”

“How’s Kate, by the way?” She’d heard that Aaron and his ex had gotten back together again recently.

He nodded like he’d been expecting the question. “I wouldn’t really know to be honest.”

“Oh no?”

He shook his head. “We haven’t talked in awhile.”

Missy didn’t know what to say next. She just wanted to get in her truck and go home. Aaron was nice enough but she didn’t want to talk and she really didn’t want to have to politely reject his advances right now. The image of Switzer sprawled in his own living room, dead, kept filling her mind.

“Seriously, how about we grab a coffee sometime this week?” Aaron asked. “Or we could try that new ice cream place?”

Missy said nothing. She was distracted by Cody. Who was going to look after the dog? The Irish setter looked up at her, like it had read her mind, and wagged its tail. Missy patted her thigh, and the dog bounded over.

“Nice dog,” Aaron said.

“Yeah.” Missy rubbed between her ears and Cody practically salivated.

Just then the screen door opened and Tyler came out. Aaron began walking over, but Tyler held out a palm.

“Sorry, you can’t go in there just yet.”

“Hey, what gives, Tyler? You’ve done your thing. Now let me do mine.”

Tyler blocked Aaron on the steps. “You can’t go in there just yet. I’m not done.”

Aaron looked up at him and balled his fists. “Why not?”

Tyler was answering Aaron when he next spoke, but his eyes drifted over to Missy. “Because Mr. Switzer was murdered.”

“Why were you here?” Tyler asked.

Missy laughed incredulously. “You’re talking to me like I’m a suspect.”

Tyler’s neutral expression didn’t change. When it was obvious he was expecting a serious answer, Missy turned and pointed to her truck.

“For that cabinet.”

“The cabinet,” Tyler said, like it was the most ridiculous idea ever.

“Yes, the cabinet.” She felt her anger rising. They might not have seen each other in a long time, but Tyler had known her well back in high school. Did he really think she was capable of killing the nice, older man?

“You came to buy it?” he asked.

She nodded. “You know I work the flea markets, right?”

He shook his head. “I thought you worked at the bookstore.”

“Yes, I work there also. But in my spare time I try to find old furniture and repurpose it for resale. It’s one of my hobbies.”

Tyler was taking notes. It made Missy nervous.

“Have you seen that show, Flea Market Flip?” she asked hopefully. “That’s kind of what I do.”

As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she knew it’d been a stupid question.

“I’ve never seen it.” He looked down at his notepad before asking the next question. “Was he alive when you got here?”

“No!” she blurted out. Her outburst produced the tiniest of reactions in him. One eyebrow arched briefly. She realized she needed to calm down.

“I mean, I don’t know…”

“What do you mean?” Tyler asked.

“I mean, he didn’t answer when I showed up, Cody came out—”

“Who’s Cody?”

“The dog. Cody, the dog.” God, why was she so flustered? She was innocent, so she had nothing to worry about. And surely Tyler didn’t think she’d killed Switzer. In fact, she hadn’t even realized it was murder until Tyler had announced it from the porch to gauge her reaction.

“The dog came out and I called out Switzer’s name but he didn’t answer. He’d told me he might not be outside, because he was expecting company—”

“Was there anyone else here when you arrived?”

She gave him a
come on
look. “Tyler, I would have mentioned that by now if there had been.”

He kept his gaze on her. “Go on.”

“Switzer and I had already agreed on a price for the cabinet, so I loaded it in my truck. I wasn’t even going to bother him but realized I needed change.”

“If you’d already agreed on a price, why did you need change?” he asked.

“Really?” Missy couldn’t keep her attitude in check. It always came out at the worst times. “I don’t go around everywhere carrying exact change.”

“But you had already agreed on a price.”

“Not until I called him, actually.”

“You called him?”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t say that.” Tyler scribbled some more notes.

Missy wanted to punch him but figured that wouldn’t get her much of anywhere and she’d probably hurt her own hand more than him.

“Okay, let me start over.” She took a deep breath and went over her entire morning, leading up to their call and her discovery of the body.

“So you hadn’t agreed on the price of the cabinet till you called?” Tyler asked.

“Yes, that’s why I didn’t have exact change.”

“Did you two argue about the price?”

Missy couldn’t believe he was really asking her these questions. She looked into those blue eyes she had once found so gorgeous but now found so cold. She was amazed this was the same man she’d dated almost twenty years ago. He was a totally different person.

“We haggled. It happens all the time.”

“I see.” He stopped taking notes. “But you came to an agreement?”

“Yes. Fifty dollars.”

“What was he asking?”

“When I first talked to him a couple weeks ago, he wanted one twenty-five.”

“You’ve been
haggling
for several weeks on the price?”

Enough was enough. She felt her fingernails dig into her palms. “Yes. This is how it works, Tyler. My margins at flea markets are so narrow that I have to be careful what I spend. Sometimes I can’t come to an agreement with somebody. I offer what I think is fair and never take advantage of anybody.”

“He wanted one twenty-five initially and you talked him down to fifty?”

“Do you have any more questions for me?” She was seeing red.

He thought about it. “I might later. For now, you’re free to go.”

“Thanks so much.” Missy began to walk away but stopped short of her truck. “What about Cody?”

Tyler looked from her to the dog. “I guess we’ll have to take her to the pound…”

“You can’t do that!” Missy shook her head. How could he be so callous? And before she realized what she was doing, she said, “Can I take her?”

Missy knew that Noreen was closing up shop by herself tonight. Rather than go straight home, she’d decided to stop in to decompress with her best friend. With Cody riding shotgun, Missy pulled into the parking the bookstore shared with a doctor’s office and a bar.

Missy told Cody to stay in the car, but the Irish setter started barking immediately. So she opened the door and Cody sprung out. Missy hadn’t found a leash in Switzer’s house so the dog had free rein.

Missy opened the door to the bookshop. Cody rushed inside. “Hey, Nor! I brought a friend!”

“Is he hot?”

Missy just laughed.

The bookstore was a tiny little hole in the wall place. Once upon a time it had been a typical store with all the new releases and bestsellers but about a decade ago, it had shifted models and become a used bookstore. All the volumes were dusty, the pages yellowed, and most of the spines of the paperbacks were cracked.

“Aww, hello there!” Noreen was in the back but must have seen Cody. “There’s a good boy, there’s a good boy!”

“Girl!” Missy announced.

“Good girl, good girl.”

Noreen appeared at the end of the far row, a bunch of books in her arms. She wore her usual outfit: stretch pants and a fitted t-shirt. Noreen was Missy’s age but still dressed like she was in her early twenties. Not that she couldn’t pull it off. Despite her never worrying about what she ate and hardly ever exercising, she stayed really trim somehow. Good genes went a long way.

Cody sat at Noreen’s feet and looked up.

Noreen said, “Who’s this?”

“Cody,” Missy said. “She belonged to Switzer.”

“Okay, that’s a little weird.”

“How?”

“You’re a suspect, and you asked for the dog?”

“You said on the phone I wasn’t a suspect!”

Noreen motioned with her head for Missy to follow.

“You’re still coming tomorrow, right?” Noreen asked. She was making her final sweep of the store, looking for books that needed to be returned to their proper places on the shelves.

Missy had completely forgotten about the crop. “I don’t know if I can scrapbook tomorrow, let alone lead a crop. I had all these things I wanted to get done today…”

“Oh no, you don’t. I need you there because Riley is coming.”

Missy did a double-take. “Riley?”

“Yeah. You might know him. He’s the tall, dark, and handsome bartender I’ve been flirting with for the past month. I talked him into coming to the crop.”

“I know who you’re talking about, since that’s all you’ve talked about the last week. But I was surprised because I don’t think any men have ever come to one of our crops.”

“Yes, something we really need to remedy,” Noreen said. “So will you be there? I need my wing girl.”

Missy laughed. “When did you ever need my help in that department?”

“Every little bit counts. And it won’t hurt to have my best friend of all time there, saying nothing but positive things about me.”

Missy held out her palms. “Alright, alright. I’ll go.”

“Thanks.” Noreen shelved another book. She still had five more in her arms and paused in her work. “By the way, you never said. How was Switzer murdered?”

“Tyler didn’t say.”

“Did you ask?”

“Uh, no.”

“Oh my God, Miss!” Noreen stopped what she doing and turned. “You should have asked!”

“Why?”

“Because if you don’t ask it looks like you already know how he died, which means you’re the killer!”

Missy folded her arms. She wasn’t in the mood for a lecture from her best friend. “Or it just means I was being polite and not trying to ask for details about how somebody died.”

Noreen shook her head. “Girlfriend, right now you look guilty. Trust me, I know these things.”

“Because you read mysteries?” Missy said, thinking she actually read more mysteries than Noreen.

Noreen pointed at her. “Exactly why. I know how cops think. Right now Tyler is wondering why you didn’t ask any questions. Believe me.”

Missy wanted to argue but got the feeling that Noreen was right. The protest she was about to voice died in her throat.

Noreen went back to filing. “You really need to use your advantage here.”

“What advantage?”

Noreen rolled her eyes. “Obviously, Tyler still has feelings for you and knows you well—”

“He does not have feelings for me still, and we haven’t spoken in a long time.” Missy didn’t know why she felt the need to argue the points.

“You haven’t changed much since high school, so he still knows you well—”

“Gee, thanks.”

“—enough to know you didn’t kill Switzer…by the way, you didn’t, did you?”

“Nor! Of course I didn’t kill him!”

She smiled. “Just kidding.”

Missy’s anger dissipated and she laughed. “Sorry, I’m not in the best of moods today.”

Cody continued to follow as they snaked their way through the aisles of the bookstore.

Noreen said, “Why? You got to see your old flame who obviously still has feelings for you. That’s got to be worth something.”

“He doesn’t have feelings for me, and if he still did, today’s events probably changed them.”

Noreen came to the end of a row and put her last book away. “All I’m saying is, make sure you ask him questions about the murder. But not too many questions, okay? Because then it will look like you’re worried about what he’s investigating.”

“Any other advice?”

“Yes, actually.” Noreen put her hands on Missy’s shoulders. “The best way to prove your innocence is to find the killer. That’s how it always works.”

“In books.”

“In books and in life. Why do you think they write the books like that?”

Missy chuckled. “How am I going to solve the crime? You’re the alleged expert on mysteries.”

“That’s a really good point.” Noreen’s eyes lit up. “I really need to help you do this.”

“Do this? Slow down, Nor. Let’s not pretend to be Nancy Drew just yet. A minute ago you were telling me everything was fine, because Tyler could never suspect me.”

“Better safe than sorry, Miss.” Noreen gave her that infuriating smile.