I’d become like one of Pavlov’s dogs, except instead of salivating when I heard a bell ring, I flinched when I heard my cell phone ring.
Somehow the word had gotten around by early on Saturday that we’d questioned Tim multiple times about the murder of Bruce Vilsack, and now Mandy’s conspiracy theory generator was working overtime.
“Maybe I should fire Tim,” Mandy said, “just to be safe.”
I mimed hitting my head against a wall until my mom glared at me over her coffee cup. She had Mark’s autopsy report on Penny’s husband spread out in front of her. We’d been looking over it together—no gunpowder residue on his hand confirmed he hadn’t shot himself—when Mandy called. We still, however, had no way to connect the two murders. It was looking more and more like they really weren’t related.
I pressed my fingers into the pressure point between my eyes. “I don’t think you need to—”
“Or I could fire everyone and hire all new staff. Becky!”
The way Mandy yelped her name made me think Becky came up behind her and caught her by surprise. Muffled voices carried through the line as if Mandy had pressed her cell phone to her chest.
“Sorry,” she said a minute later, “Susan and Becky needed my keys to run to the store. We’re still finding things we’re out of thanks to the police search. Did you know they took all the rubber gloves?”
I did. They’d found a set in the trash with a substance that looked like blood inside and had taken all the rest they’d located to be safe. The theory was that the killer either wore them to keep from leaving prints or to protect their hands when they cleaned up some of Vilsack’s blood. Perhaps both.
“So what do you think?” Mandy asked. “Wouldn’t it be better to hire new staff, and then my guests can be certain of their safety?”
Not necessarily. She could as easily hire someone else like Bruce with shaky morals, but saying that would only result in more panicked phone calls. I already wanted to drop my phone in a bucket of water. “That wouldn’t be fair to them if they had nothing to do with it.”
“From the way you’re investigating all my staff, it sure seems like you think it was one of them.”
I had thought so, but we’d looked in to everyone other than Mandy herself without any success. Elise had floated the idea that we should consider Mandy. I’d shut her down a little harder than I needed to. Mandy wouldn’t have done this. Murder was bad for business.
And that was how I could keep her from firing everyone and starting over. Becky didn’t need another sad event in her life, and Tim didn’t need to be searching for another job, worried that he wouldn’t get one if his personal life became public.
I climbed up onto the one stool my mom had left me from the dog barricade she insisted on keeping up. “Just because we’re investigating your staff doesn’t mean one of them did it. The police have to be thorough. Besides, if you fire everyone, that’ll make it look like you think they’re guilty, and it will bring a lot of negative press to The Sunburnt Arms.”
Mandy sighed. “I didn’t think about that. You’re probably right.”
My phone beeped in my ear. Saved, as the 90s TV show said, by the bell. “I’ve got another call coming in.”
Mandy said goodbye, and I switched over. The amount of time I spent on the phone lately was getting out of hand. I liked my phone as well as anyone, but I liked talking to people face-to-face better, and the last week or so, it seemed like I’d be better off permanently implanting an earpiece. My phone-holding arm was exhausted.
I tapped the screen to switch calls. “This is Nicole.”
“Hey, sweetheart.”
If I closed my eyes, I could imagine Mark’s dimples when he said it. Maybe my day wasn’t starting off so bad after all, despite Mandy’s knee-jerk reaction to our investigation.
Mark asked how my morning had been so far, and I filled him in on the Mandy drama.
“So I received my own unusual phone call today,” Mark said when we finished talking about Mandy.
My fingers went cold. All I could think to do was to echo what he’d said to me when I’d made the same proclamation. “Good unusual or bad unusual?”
“It depends. I can’t get away today, but are you free for lunch after church tomorrow? It’s supposed to be a nice enough day that we could eat outside.”
I said yes, but my voice sounded hollow in my ears. Mark had to have heard it.
I’d accused Mandy of being paranoid, but I was no better. He’d said unusual rather than bad, which meant it probably wasn’t cancer or some other medical problem. But he hadn’t wanted to talk about it over the phone, and he seemed to want privacy.
It didn’t much matter what we had for lunch. I wasn’t going to be able to eat it. My stomach was too full of rocks.
The address Mark gave me when we met up at church brought me to Shoreline Park. It’d clearly been named by the county and not the citizens of Fair Haven because the name was too mundane.
The park itself ran along the edge of the lake, with beautifully tended grass, trees, and picnic tables. Mark had said to follow the signs along the red gravel path to The Patty Wagon, a food truck that had parked in the same spot during tourist season for so many years that the city council added signs along the path.
The path itself was well-shaded, but it ended at the beach, where the sun was heating up. Since it wasn’t full tourist season yet, the sand was still almost empty. A few couples and one family walked along the waterside.
Mark waved to me from beside a bright red truck almost the size of a bus. The Patty Wagon served gourmet burgers—the Big Kahuna burger topped with grilled pineapple; the Philly Cheese Steak burger smothered in sautéed peppers, caramelized onions, and provolone; and so many other options I could have happily come here every day for a week to try something new. If I hadn’t been so nervous, I might have even attempted the Poutine Burger. Mark explained that it was named after a traditional Canadian dish, but all I cared about was that it had French fries, cheese, and gravy all piled on top of the beef patty.
As it was, I knew any burger I’d order would go to waste, so I got onion rings and a soda. Mark got the same, and we headed away from the beach.
For the first time in a long time, walking in silence with Mark made me feel like my skin wanted to crawl off my body. I held up an onion ring. “Does this signal a milestone in our relationship? If we had a little garlic to go with them, we’d officially be as far from date food as we could get.”
Mark chuckled, but it sounded like an echo of his normal laugh. Problem was, I wasn’t sure if it really was or if my imagination was playing tricks on me.
Mark led the way to a small manmade waterfall. The water feature itself rose up out of the ground like a hill, and the water rolled down brick steps in the front. Flower beds full of hyacinths and daffodils climbed up the sides. A placard nearby said the beds were maintained by the local Rotary Club.
I loved this town more and more with every new nook and cranny I discovered.
Mark sat at the nearest picnic table. “Laura and I used to come here.”
I settled in beside him and took his hand. We didn’t talk much about Mark’s first wife, but he knew that he could bring her up whenever he wanted to. His love for her and for the little girl they’d lost was part of him, and I needed to love all of him or none. I chose to love all.
