A Waffle Death, page 7
CHAPTER 12
Beaver answered after just one ring.
“Erin?”
Erin could hear her chewing her gum. Beaver was constantly chewing a wad of gum. Erin sometimes wondered what it did to her jaw. Would it make it stronger because she was always chewing, or break the joint down because it never got a rest? Erin suspected that the reason Beaver chewed was not that she’d had an addiction to chewing tobacco in the past, but because she needed something to keep her busy, or because she ground her teeth when she had to be still. Beaver moved languidly, as if she were calm and relaxed and nothing could affect her but, underneath that, Erin knew she was coiled like a viper just waiting to strike. Chewing gum made her appear casual and unconcerned, but she knew that Beaver was anything but.
“Hi, am I interrupting you from anything important?”
Beaver might have answered right away because she was awaiting a call. It might mean it was a bad time for her to talk.
“No, everything is quiet. What can I do for you? I hear you’ve been out tripping over bodies again.”
“Again?” Erin repeated. Had word of the body in the park spread that far already? She supposed Beaver might be listening to a police scanner and know what was going on the instant she had called Terry for help.
“I heard something about a body in the basement of the bookstore? Or have you found too many lately to remember such an insignificant thing?”
“Yes, that’s right. I did find one there. And then again…”
“Again?” It was Beaver who repeated the word this time.
“Yes. You heard that the body I found in the bookstore disappeared before the police could get there?”
Beaver chuckled. “I did hear something about that. Sounds like something from an old Three Stooges flick. Or Keystone Cops.”
Erin was gratified that Beaver was blaming the police department rather than her. “Well, as it turns out, I found him… again.”
“In the bookstore?”
Erin laughed. “No. In the park this time. Canyon Park.”
“Don’t know it. Is it close?”
“It’s in Bald Eagle Falls.” Erin suddenly wondered whether Beaver was even in town. She was often in the city or elsewhere in the state for an investigation. Though she spent a lot of time in Bald Eagle Falls with her boyfriend Jeremy—Vic’s brother—she didn’t actually have a residence in town. “Are you… around?”
“I haven’t been called in by the boys in blue to consult. Do they need my expertise for something?”
“No. I just need a ride home from the park and was wondering whether you were even in town.”
“Ah. I could do that. Though I would need to harass the locals first,” Beaver warned, laughing. “They need someone keeping them on their toes.”
“I think you could say I have been doing that already.”
“So you have. Two bodies in two days. Or one body in two different locations in two days. Now, why did you find him and not them? They should have been all over it today.”
“I’m just lucky, I guess.”
“Will Canyon Park show up on my GPS, or is it too small of a place to matter to the GPS gods?”
“It should show up, I think. I looked it up on the internet, and it was on their map with all the access roads and satellite imagery. Even street-level pictures.”
“It should be on the GPS then,” Beaver agreed. “I’ll see you in a few minutes.”
When Beaver showed up in her clunker a few minutes later, Erin heard Terry swear and ask, “What is she doing here?”
He had worked together with Beaver plenty of times in the past. But Erin supposed he still didn’t like to find that she was on a case he had thought his, or that a seemingly innocuous death was something bigger that the feds were already interested in.
Erin stood up to walk to the car and get in, but Beaver had already warned that she intended to harass the local police department about the case, and she hadn’t just been joking. After getting out of the car, she loped over to the cordon taped off with a slow, lazy gait.
“What’s up, Beaver?” Sheriff Wilmot asked. “Haven’t been told you have any involvement in this case.”
“When have the higher-ups ever told you I was involved in a case before I showed up at the scene?”
“Well… not very often,” Wilmot admitted.
“Probably never. What’ve we got?”
“DB. No identification yet, so I don’t see how you could be involved. Unless you already knew who it was when Erin found him in the bookstore.”
“It’s not anything to do with any of my cases.” Beaver shrugged and chewed her gum, mouth partially open. “I’m just rubbernecking.”
“Well, don’t be asking questions about the case if you’re not involved. You can get it from the newspaper like everyone else.”
“Will this even make the news?”
Wilmot laughed sharply, like a cough. Had Erin been finding so many bodies in Bald Eagle Falls that it wasn’t even noteworthy anymore?
“I’m sure there will at least be a footnote,” he said. “Maybe a letter to the editor.”
“About how you need to be keeping the parks clean?” Beaver suggested. “Free of trash like this.” She gestured toward the dead body.
“Trash?” Wilmot repeated, looking at the shiny shoe that was visible from where they were standing. “Doesn’t seem to me like you are in a position to be making that kind of judgment.”
“Just a joke, Sheriff.”
“Hmm. What are you here for, if you don’t have any involvement in the case?”
Beaver nodded toward Erin.
“Ah. Good.” Wilmot nodded. “Glad she’s got someone to take her home. Now don’t you go putting any ideas in her head. We don’t want her contaminated or biased by anything you might have to say.”
“Would I do that? I told you it isn’t my case.”
But Wilmot’s suspicious look suggested that he was not convinced of the fact. Just because Beaver said she didn’t have any interest, or didn’t yet when the body had not yet been identified, that didn’t mean that she didn’t know something that he didn’t, or that it wouldn’t become a case that she was officially interested in in the future.
Beaver gave a nod of acknowledgment or farewell. “See you later, Sheriff.”
He nodded and turned back to the body. Beaver strode over to the bench and Erin stood up. Despite the fact that it was hot and she had warmed up her body with the walk, her knees and back protested at having to get up from the bench after sitting there for a while. Erin straightened and stretched.
“Thanks for coming to pick me up.”
“No bother at all, Miss Erin.”
“I appreciate it.”
“Always good to see what’s going on in the neighborhood.”
“I didn’t interrupt you from anything important?”
Beaver didn’t answer as she led the way to the car and climbed in. She looked over at Erin as she slid into the passenger seat.
“If I couldn’t get away from what I was doing, I wouldn’t say yes. I would tell you no, and you could go to the next person on your list.”
Erin nodded, feeling a little better. She didn’t like to impose on anyone and didn’t want Beaver to help her out just because she felt obligated by her relationship with Jeremy or because of something Erin had done to help her out in the past. But Beaver was one of those people who was upfront about how she felt and didn’t make her guess.
“Okay.”
Beaver pulled out. “What’s your relationship with this guy?”
“What? With Terry?”
Beaver snorted. She chewed her gum and her eyes roved back and forth when she drove, as if she were waiting for something to happen. A sniper, maybe, or a drive-by.
“Your relationship with the guy with the knife in his chest.”
“I didn’t put it there. I’ve never even seen the guy around Bald Eagle Falls before.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Erin shrugged and stared out the window. It was quiet. Despite Beaver’s vigilance, there wasn’t anything going on outside to distract Erin’s attention or explain why she wasn’t answering Beaver.
“You just happened to find this guy in the park,” Beaver said, in a tone that told Erin she knew it wasn’t true.
“I wasn’t expecting to find him there. There’s no way I could have known that someone would dump his body there.”
“Yes. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?”
“I didn’t put him there. I’m the one who called the police, remember? If I had something to do with it, do you think I would have called the police? I especially wouldn’t have called the police to an empty basement, telling them that there used to be a body there. And then dump it somewhere else and call the police again to tell them that I’d found it again! You think I want to end up in this kind of situation?”
“Nope. Which is why I’d be interested in finding out exactly what is going on.”
“Nothing is going on. This doesn’t have anything to do with me. I appreciate the ride home, but I really don’t want to talk about it all. I already talked to the sheriff about it, and I know he’s going to want to talk to me again, and I know Terry is going to want to talk to me about it when he gets home. Whenever that is. I don’t want to have to discuss it with you, too.”
“You’re not going to be able to mislead everyone.”
“I’m not trying to.”
“No? Huh. Could have fooled me.”
Erin looked at her sharply and almost repeated that she didn’t want to talk about it with Beaver. But then she didn’t. That would be denying it too much. Beaver would want to know why she was so resistant if she hadn’t had anything to do with the death. If Erin just kept it casual, and shrugged off any of Beaver’s theories, she would be in a much better position.
It only took a few minutes for Beaver to drive her home. Erin climbed out of the car. “Thanks again. I really appreciate it. Now I’m going for a cool shower and fresh clothes. And maybe a nap.”
Beaver chewed. “Sounds like a plan.” She shifted the car into drive. “You know how to reach me if you want to talk.”
CHAPTER 13
Of course, Erin was right about Terry wanting to talk to her about the case when he got home. She wouldn’t have expected him to be home early, but he finished in plenty of time to make it home to dinner, leaving the others in the police department with whatever other processing and paperwork needed to be done. Terry had, Erin supposed, been elected as the person most likely to be able to get the full story out of Erin.
She had been thinking of what to say to him but still hadn’t come to any decision. She couldn’t lie to Terry, and she couldn’t tell him the full story, and that left her in a difficult position. It had been the same since she moved to Bald Eagle Falls. Terry knew that Erin didn’t want to talk to him about her past, that she had things she didn’t want to be part of their relationship, and he’d had to accept that. But he never really had. He’d kept quiet about it, played along with her, and pretended he was happy with her, but she knew all along that he had doubts. He wanted to know the whole story, no matter how unhappy he might be to hear it.
And when he found out, how was he going to react? Would he dump her? Tell her that things weren’t working out? Say that he just couldn’t live with her, but it was his own fault and not hers? She would be alone again. Just she and the animals. And she would miss K9.
But maybe it was better to be alone than in a relationship that wasn’t open and equal. She’d been deluding herself into thinking they could be happy together.
Terry walked in the door and saw her in the kitchen, putting the finishing touches on dinner.
“I’m going to have a shower,” he told her, pinching his uniform shirt between his fingers and making a face. “Change into something more comfortable. I’ll only be a few minutes. You can keep it warm?”
“It will keep,” Erin agreed.
He was true to his promise and didn’t take long to shower off the day’s sweat and dust and change into a light t-shirt and shorts to keep cool. Erin fed K9 and the other animals while he washed up, so she was ready to eat once he sat down at the table.
Terry ate without any comment. He probably couldn’t even have told her what he was eating. He shoveled the food in steadily and didn’t seem to enjoy it or even notice that he was eating.
“Is everything okay?” Erin asked.
She meant the food, but he didn’t take it that way.
“Is everything okay? No, I don’t think everything is okay. I keep trying to figure out how it happened and how everything fits together, but I can’t. Of course you didn’t have anything to do with this man’s death, but… what’s going on? How did you find him? Not just once, but twice? What were you doing in the basement? What were you doing in the park? You shouldn’t have been in either place. Are you trying to cover for someone? Are you trying to mislead us? It just doesn’t make any sense.”
Erin took a few more bites of her dinner, chewing carefully and pretending to give the food all of her attention.
“I told you what happened,” she said finally. “If you don’t believe me…”
“How can I believe you? You just happened to go over to The Book Nook when it was supposed to be closed but someone had left the door open, happened to go down the stairs where you shouldn’t have been, and happened to find a body. And then lost it. You walk to a park that you’ve never been to before just out of curiosity or an impulse, and you come across the same body again. You don’t have a good explanation for why you were in either place.”
“I went to The Book Nook to get my platters,” Erin said evenly.
“But you didn’t get them. They were on the kitchen counter waiting for you, if that was what you really wanted. There was no reason to go downstairs. If you didn’t want to wait around for Naomi or another employee, you could have just gone back to Auntie Clem’s.”
“I thought I heard a noise.”
“But you didn’t. By your own account, the man was dead and no one else was down there. So you didn’t hear anything. You didn’t have a reason to go down there.”
“I thought I heard a noise. You can think you hear a noise when there isn’t anyone else there to make it. The house makes all kinds of noises when there is no one else there. Creaking and tapping and all kinds of other noises. Sometimes I think I hear someone on the stairs going up to the attic. But there isn’t anyone else at home and no one has pulled down the stairs. It’s just the house making noises. Or ghosts, if you want to believe in a supernatural explanation. It’s the same thing with The Book Nook. I thought I heard a noise. Maybe it was just the pipes or the ventilation.”
He stopped eating for a moment and stared at her. Then his eyes dropped to his plate again. It was obvious that he was trying to avoid seeming confrontational. He was trying to act casual about the whole thing. Like it was just a conversation between couples, not a custodial interview.
“Maybe that’s true. But then explain to me what you were doing in the park today. Exactly what you were doing there, in a park you had never been to, where someone just happened to have dumped the same body again.”
“Bald Eagle Falls is a small place.”
“Not that small. I patrol this town regularly, and I can’t think of the last time I walked around that park looking for any trouble. I’ve never found a body over there.”
“Well, I hadn’t either. Until today.”
“You’d never been there before. You just happen to hit the jackpot the first time?”
“It wasn’t exactly the jackpot. That would imply that it was something I wanted to find. Trust me—it was not. That was the last thing I wanted to find in the park today.”
Almost the last thing. The second-to-last thing.
“Why were you there? What possessed you to go there today on this little walk? A walk that took you out of the way in the heat of the day, so far from the house that you couldn’t make it back safely.”
“I could have made it back. I just… didn’t think it was a good idea to push myself too hard.”
“Why, Erin?”
“I just wanted to check it out. I wanted to see what kind of a park it was. If it was nice. Someone mentioned it when we were talking about places to go and things to do around town. I thought I would go have a look.”
“Places to go and things to do in Bald Eagle Falls? I have never heard anyone put Canyon Park on that list. There is nothing to do there. Literally nothing. It is some grass and a pathway through some trees. You have more wildlife in your backyard.”
“There was a deer,” Erin argued.
“What?” Terry was momentarily derailed.
“In the park. I saw a deer. It didn’t stay long, but… there is wildlife there. I don’t usually see deer in the woods here.” She pointed toward the woods beyond the back fence.
She was too noisy when she walked through the woods. She was clumsy and always seemed to put her feet in the wrong places, rustling the leaves, breaking dry sticks, rustling through the bushes. The deer didn’t stay long enough to see who was there. Only when Erin stopped and was quiet and still like she had been sitting in Canyon Park.
“I’m not talking about the wildlife.” Terry shook his head irritably. “I’m talking about you going there for no reason and finding a body. Like you knew it was there. Like you went there looking for it. How are you involved in this? How did you know that’s where the body had been dumped? Who told you?”
“Reg would tell you that I just happen to stumble across these things,” Erin said. “I attract trouble. Like… karma or something. I don’t know. My psychic energy.”
“Reg? Reg Rawlins? You think I want to hear what some scam psychic has to say about it? That would settle things for me?”
Erin shrugged. She nibbled at her meal. “No. But sometimes there are coincidences. You can’t explain why something happens; it just does. You believe in miracles, don’t you? I know you’re not very religious, but you believe that those stories in the Bible really happened. And you believe in people in modern times being healed, or guided to do something, or protected.”
