Thank You For Not Shifting (Peculiar Mysteries Book 2) (8 page)

“Feel-a-day?”

“
Felidae
,” he said again. “Big cats. In their case, pumas.”

“Ah.” In other words, mountain lion shifters like Rose Ann Corman, Jo Jo’s mother, had been. “She seems pretty peeved.”

“Apparently, Jerry took off the day we arrived and hasn’t been back.”

A shiver rippled through me. “Three days ago?” Why were they just reporting it now?

“He and Willy got into a huge fight,” he explained without me asking.

“Hmm.” I pursed my lips then looked at him. His brown eyes were full of mirth. “Why are you telling me all this?”

He smiled, his brown eyes glittering with intensity. “I like having a reason to talk to you.”

“Oh.” I blushed.

“I only wished I’d been quicker than Dom in asking you out.” He nudged me familiarly. “Watch out for that one. From what I hear, he never stays in one place too long or with any one girl.”

“You really are straight forward.” And slick, like Dom, in his own way. I bit my lip nervously. I hadn’t been flirted with by any man in a long time, and now I had two flirting hardcore.

“Life’s too short. I believe in pursuing something when I really want it.”

I think I must have looked like a deer in the headlights because he suddenly laughed. “Have a nice day, Ms. Trimmel. It was a pleasure to see you again.”

“Uh huh.” I gave him a crisp wave. “I’ve got to go. See you around.”

He flashed a brilliant smile. “Count on it.”

I nodded to Farraday and Connelly, who sat at their desks typing up reports or something to that effect, as I passed by. Before I got to the exit, a hand on my shoulder stopped me. I turned to see Tyler Thompson.

“You okay, Chav?” He and my brother Judah had been best friends at one time until they had a falling out. Which meant, eventually, I would forgive him for being uncharitable to Sunny when she’d arrived in town. He’d been a dick because he was afraid she’d expose a secret affair between his mother and Judah with her psychic visions. An affair that
never
happened, I might add. It had made me so angry when I’d found out, but as I stared at him now, all I could feel was pity.

“I am,” I told him. “Have you been by to see your mom today?”

“No.” He gave me a puzzled look. “Why?”

“No reason. I’ll talk to you later.” And without waiting for his response, I made a hasty exit.

* * * *

It was almost ten a.m. when I wandered up to Ruth’s yard. The Thompson’s two-story home was just on the other side of their garage. The yard was neatly trimmed and green from all the frequent rain storms we’d had in June. The border up the driveway was lush with purple irises and orange tiger lilies. Bright fuschia peonies added more splashes of color. Near the mailbox was a large wisteria bush, and the day's heat had the sweet odor clinging to the air. The splendor only added to my trepidation. I didn’t want to do this, be the one who comforted Ruth in her time of need. I wasn’t sure I was strong enough to hold up for her.

Buck up, I told myself. I didn’t have to be strong. I just had to pretend to be long enough to help my friend. Ruth had been there for me after my rescue, and I’d been damned if I would allow myself to act like a coward.

The screen door banged open, and a small tawny-haired boy ran out the door. He nearly ran me down as he passed. “Linus!” I said.

He turned his head back to look at me, a cheeky smile on his face. “Gotta go, Aunt Chav. He shook a handful of coins in his pants pocket. “Mom said I could go down to Riverfront Street. They got some carnival booths set up with games.” He was small for his age, only eight-years-old now, and I wished I could freeze-frame the look of joy on his sweet face.

I smiled at him. “Go on then.”

He rose up on his tip-toes in a quick moment of triumph and took off down the street in a sprint. My stomach hurt. I almost turned around and headed out as well. Why was this happening to such good people?

I shook my head as I thought the question. Bad people did bad things to good people all the time. Being good didn’t make a person immune to evil. Shivering, I rubbed my upper arms. This murder had been evil like I’d never seen, and I’d seen more than my fair share.

I stared at the screen door. Linus hadn’t closed the main one. There was a light on, and I heard a soft whimper.
Ruth
. My heart broke even more. I lifted my shoulders and straightened my back, and by making myself place one foot in front of the other, I headed toward the house.

When I got the screen, I opened the door and said, “Ruth.” I stepped inside and let the door close behind me. “Ruth. It’s Chavvah.”

She appeared in the hall by the living room, her eyes and nose both red, her usually flawless skin, blotchy. She sniffled. “What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to be here for you.”

She looked at me, mild surprise in her grieved expression. “Who told you?”

Oh, God. She didn’t know I’d been the one to find the body. How much had Sheriff Taylor told Ruth? “Are all the kids out? I just passed Linus.”

She nodded. “Dakota and Michele are with my parents in Branson for the day. The rest are down on Riverfront Street for the Jubilee. I already texted Emma Ray and told her to keep an eye out for Linus.” She sat on the arm of the divan, her delicate features making her appear fragile, but I knew she wasn’t.

Ruth Thompson was one of the strongest women I knew.

“I found the…” I shook my head and tried again. “It happened at the restaurant after closing last night. I found … I went outside to take the trash and … I wish the sheriff would have told you.”

She gulped, her head bobbing as if nodding agreement. “Do you think it’s him?”

I shrugged, the gesture wholly inadequate for the situation. A sweet smell wafted in from the kitchen. It had a strange but familiar bite to it. “What is that?”

“What?”

“The smell?” I followed the scent into the kitchen. Ruth made her family breakfast every morning. I know, because I often joined them. The room always smelled of home cooking. Not today. Instead, it was the spicy, sweet, and pungent scent I’d smelled the night before. I let my coyote slip forward and inhaled deeply. Strangely, my senses seemed sharper, more acute and I nearly gagged as the scent-memory took me back to the scene of the murder.

“Chavvah, tell me what you’re trailing?” As a deer shifter, Ruth’s olfactory senses weren’t as developed as mine, but how could she not smell this?

I spotted a clear jar filled with what looked like wood chips about the color of raw almonds. “What is that?”

“Sassafras root,” she said. “Why?”

“I smelled it, Ruth.” My skin tightened with a shiver. “At the restaurant last night. I smelled this.” Even over the scent of exposed flesh and blood. Although, I didn’t say so. Was it significant? Did this prove the dead man was Ed? Had he chewed it before he’d been killed? Had the aroma come from his mouth?

“Butch won it this morning from one of the carnival games. The street fair opened up around eight today. He brought it home and then grabbed his brother and sisters to go back. Except for Linus.”

“Then Ed wouldn’t have eaten it last night?”

“Ed doesn’t even like root beer, let alone sassafras. He says it’s too much like licorice.” She put her hand to her mouth. “Ed didn’t like it.” Her creamy complexion turned a milky white as the blood drained from her face.

“Sit down,” I told her. I pulled out a chair from the table. “We don’t know it’s him.”

“In all the years we’ve been married, he has never not come home and never not called if he was going to be late. This isn’t like him, Chav.” A choking sob rose in her throat. “I can’t lose him. I just can’t.”

A kick at the door had us both turning to the noise. A man stood on the other side of the kitchen screen door, scraping debris off his boots onto a mud mat. He lifted his head and pushed his way inside. “Can’t lose who, Ruthie? Did something happen to one of the kids?”

My throat grew thick. Ruth jumped up, knocking her chair off its legs. “Ed!” she shouted. Relief, disbelief, joy—and just a touch of anger—colored her voice. She launched herself into his arms and kissed him hard, intimate. I tried to fight the grin on my face but gave up after Ed’s arms wrapped around her, and they both decided they were the only two people in the room.

Before they could drop their clothes, I cleared my throat.

Ed set Ruth down, the biggest, dreamiest smile on his face. “If I’d have known getting stuck in Timbuktu would create this kind of reaction, I would have done it much sooner.”

Ruth’s face turned red. Ed had said exactly the wrong thing. “You jerk!” she yelled. “I thought you were dead. Dead!” She beat her fist on his chest. “They told me—” She wheezed in a breath. “They told me!” she accused him.

Ed pulled his wife into an encapsulating embrace, keeping a good hold as she fought against him. He kept saying things over and over, like, “I’m all right. It’s all right. There, there. I’m here.”

When Ruth stopped struggling, he just held her while she sobbed into his chest.

“Chavvah, what’s happening?” he asked me as he stroked his wife’s hair. “Why did you all think I was dead?”

“I found a body last night. He was out back of the restaurant. The sheriff thought it might be you.”

“Did he look like me?”

“No.” I shook my head as if trying to shake the memory. “He didn’t look like anyone.”

Ed’s expression grew puzzled. “Then why me?”

Ruth leaned back. “Because the man had been skinned alive, your ID was under the body, and you didn’t fucking come home last night!”

Whoa. Ed’s shocked expression must have reflected my own. I think that was the first time I’d ever heard Ruth cuss. Ed and I were both smart enough to keep our comments on her uncharacteristic outburst to ourselves.

I took a shot at helpful. “I think the first thing we need to do is call the sheriff and let him know he’s been barking up the wrong corpse.”

Ruth put her hands on her hips. “Is that supposed to be funny?”

“Uhm.” I swallowed the spit in gathering in my mouth. I phrased my response as a question. “No?” The body obviously wasn’t Ed’s, and the police needed to reassess their investigation.

Ruth harrumphed as she disengaged from Ed. “Where are you going?” he asked.

“To get my phone, damn it. I guess we better call the GD sheriff.”

I raised a brow at Ed. “Wow,” I mouthed. “She nearly went there.”

He shook his head at me and sat down at the table. I noticed then how tired he looked.

“What happened to you last night?”

“I got a call to tow a vehicle from Lake Ozark to Peculiar, a council member’s car. It took a while to get it hooked up right because of it being one of those fancy foreign cars. A sporty two-door with a really narrow carriage. I knew I should have called Ruth, but I had expected to be home in less than an hour once it got all situated on the back of my tow truck. But on the way home, I had two tires blow out. Don’t know how that happened. Anyhow, I was between here and Lake Ozarks, and it was going to be a twenty-mile walk no matter which way I played it.”

“And you left your phone in the garage.”

“Yeah.” He nodded. “That too.”

“You could have shifted. It would have been a much quicker trip.”

“I supposed I could have.” He pulled his wallet from his back pocket and set it on the table. “But I didn’t want to leave this behind, and really, I thought someone would come along and give me a ride into town.”

“Well, you scared the shit out of all of us. Where did the killer get your driver’s license from anyways?”

He furrowed his brow and opened his wallet. “It’s not in here.”

“When did you last use it?”

“It must have fallen out when I paid for lunch yesterday.”

“Can it really just be a coincidence that your ID was under the dead guy?”

“Those are questions for the Sheriff’s department, Chavvah,” Sheriff Taylor said when he walked into the kitchen with Ruth. “This is an official investigation, and beyond a witness statement, you need to stay out of it.”

I didn’t fight the heavy sigh that went with my disappointment. I stood up. “Fine. I’m glad you’re okay, Ed.” I turned to Ruth and gave her a quick hug. In her ear, I whispered, “Call me later to compare notes.”

She whispered back, “You got it.”

I nodded to the sheriff who looked less burdened. He had known Ed his whole life and having to think his friend was dead, murdered so awfully, had taken its toll. “I’ll let you know if I think of anything else.”

He gave me a two-finger salute. “Do that,” he said.

I shouldn’t have, but as I walked out of the Thompson house, I felt lighter, even more than before the murder. It was as if the scorecard of my life finally had a checked “win” box for once. My friend was alive. He was with his family and not a bloody skinned, eyeball-less corpse on Billy Bob’s slab. Someone was dead. That hadn’t changed, and even through my relief, I was determined to find out who had been left for me to find.

M
ain Street was packed with therians from all over Missouri, Arkansas, and Kansas. I think a few might have even come in from Oklahoma, even though they weren’t a part of the Tri-State Council. The news of the murder must not have gotten out yet because no one seemed frightened or alarmed as they jovially shopped the local stores and the many craft booths set up around town.

Elton Brown smiled when I walked past his furniture shop. He was helping a non-local load up a unique hand carved side table. Some of his furniture was antique, but some he made himself. The craftsmanship on this one was special.

“That’s gorgeous, Elton,” I said as he helped the young woman close the tailgate on her small truck.

“Thanks, Chav.” His whole demeanor was more cheerful than I’d ever seen him. “I can’t believe how many custom made pieces I’m selling.” He lowered his voice. “And these people don’t mind paying for quality.”

“As they should,” I said. His happiness infected me, that and Ed being alive, gave me a sense of hope. I saw a basket full of ornate walking sticks. “Are those yours too?”

“Yes,” he said. “I’ve sold a half dozen in the past three days. I think this week is going to go a long way to paying for the new addition off the back of the store. It’ll be nice to have my workshop so close.”