Sympathy For The Devil Page 2

  “Invading my privacy—”

  “While you were violating your marriage vows—”

  He hadn’t slowed, still heading straight for her. Her back struck the side of the restaurant, the window behind her rattling—the door was three feet away and now Gordie Martin was too close to avoid, getting right in her face, his still-pointing finger nearly striking her throat.

  “Neighbor’s kid took a picture of you up in the tree outside my window!”

  Damn technology. It wasn’t like the good ol’ days in movies anymore—now people in her line of work were as likely to be recorded as whoever she was hired to spy on. Gordie’s wife probably could’ve hired the neighborhood kids with cell phones to film her husband and his mistress, and saved a lot of money.

  “At least any photos of me were G-rated,” Tash offered with a shrug.

  His face went redder, which she scarcely thought was possible. Gordie launched himself at her and she pulled her fist back to punch him.

  Instead another body collided with his, grasping Gordie’s wrist and jerking his arm back. The stranger twisted her attacker around and thrust him forward, slamming him on the hood of the car.

  While she didn’t have her gun, she did have her cell phone in her back pocket, which she withdrew and began dialing. “Charges of threats and attempted assault will look great for you during your divorce proceedings, I’m sure,” Tash said with a dramatic sigh. “Can’t wait ’til this info goes public.”

  Gordie muttered under his breath. When the stranger stepped back, the other man moved, shoving off the car, casting a glare at Tash, and then returning to his car.

  She kept the phone at her ear until he’d sped off and the car was out of sight. Well, that was going to go over well with her client—the woman would not be happy that she’d been made. She’d have to get the photos to her first thing in the morning—and get paid—before Gordie could explain or apologize convincingly.

  “Exciting times in Stirling Falls.” She ended the call mid-dialing and returned her phone to her back pocket, then shifted her attention to the man who had intervened.

  His back was mostly to her as he stared in the direction Gordie’s car had gone. He wore a dark jacket despite the heat, chocolate-colored hair cut short—it looked like a fresh trim. Caucasian. Little else she could make out. Tash took a step to the right, casually, angling herself to at least see his profile. His nose was well-cut and proud, jaw square and a flicker of movement suggested he ground his teeth. She couldn’t make out the color of his eyes with the shadow streetlights cast, but they were narrowed, still, on where Gordie had disappeared.

  “Thanks,” she offered as she continued to study him.

  He turned, shifting his attention away from the direction Gordie had taken. The hardness of his expression faded as his eyes settled on hers.

  A rolling heat burned under her skin, her heart fluttering with just a smoldering look. Her mouth was dry. She licked her lips, tried to find her voice. “Buy you a beer?”

  His lips parted to speak when the door to the Bar & Grill opened. Noise spilled out, as did people. He snapped his mouth closed and turned his head away.

  Natasha glanced over her shoulder to see a couple exiting the restaurant, arm in arm, chuckling. She swung back, but the other man had left. A glance both left and right down the street, and she found no sign of him.

  Out-of-towners are weird.

  Well, she’d just have to buy herself a beer. With a sigh, Tash headed back inside for one more drink before heading home.

  Chapter Two

  Laced up and sports bra keeping her ‘assets’ in place, Natasha set out at five-thirty in the morning for her daily jog. Her black hair was tied up high, springy curls bouncing against the back of her neck. Though she wore earphones and had her iPod pinned to her cropped yoga pants, it wasn’t turned on—pretending to listen to music kept most people from trying to talk to her, but enabled her to ensure she was aware of any threats.

  South of her apartment ran fields and lightly wooded areas, Hastings Creek running along the outskirts of town. She varied her path day-to-day and found Saturday was usually the best time to run through that area—it tended to be quiet, most residents sleeping in on the weekend.

  She followed a narrow trail through a field, tall grass swishing at her sides, settling comfortably into an easy nine-minute mile. Sun was waking to the east but not enough to shine gold over the grass; for now everything had a cool blue hue. Mornings were deceptive, giving no hint of the dead heat approaching in just a few hours.

  Trees rose ahead, the well-worn path running through them. Tash continued on, though the sound of voices, dulled by her earphones, slowed her steps. She frowned, peering ahead and picking through the trees. Lights flashed faintly, the woods blocking out much of it.

  But the lights were definitely red and blue.

  She pulled out her earphones, tucked them around her neck, and sped up, cutting a jagged path left through the trees toward the growing sounds of people. Figures were moving back and forth, the swirl of a police car light growing brighter.

  Twigs cracked under her sneakers and her heart hammered harder even as she slowed down. Police officers ducked back and forth under bright yellow tape, heading to and from the creek. Cop cars were parked as near as they could get, along with an ambulance, but all vehicles were still a dozen yards away.

  Tash went right, not stepping out of the trees just yet but wanting to get closer to whatever was going down. Yellow tape sectioned off a large space leading down to the water. She spotted the coroner crouched low, looking over something she couldn’t see.

  Though, shot in the dark, it’s a body.

  It wouldn’t be the first time someone drowned in the creek—there were stories, of course, used as cautionary tales for kids in town. But there was a lot of foot traffic for a drowning this time.

  She inched closer, slipping quietly through the woods. The ground sloped downward and she braced her hands against tree trunks, as tumbling in the water would be sure to get her caught—

  “Whitaker!”

  She yelped, lost her balance, landed on her ass and slid three feet downward before digging her heels into the dirt and stopping.

  Steps trundled over and she scrambled back up, slipping once more before gaining her feet again. She stood straight, smoothed her hair, and was pretty sure she streaked dirt over her forehead.

  Deputy Chief Perry planted his hands on his hips and stared down at her.

  “Just out for a jog,” she said, indicating her hair and attire, and batting her eyelashes innocently.

  He didn’t buy it.

  Perry was a tall, reedy man whose hat always looked like it was about to slip from his head and thick mustache twitched when he was irritated. He was in full uniform this morning, the sight of him always throwing her back to her troubled youth when she had many problems with authority figures. Sheriffs, nuns—they were all the same to her: trouble.

  Plus Perry didn’t like Malone and that had trickled down to her. He gestured away from the creek. “Get the hell off my crime scene.”

  Her brows rose. “Crime scene?”

  His face reddened. “Out!”

  “Who was killed?”

  “Whitaker!”

  “C’mon, Perry—”

  He crowded her space, urging her away from the creek, though she tried to look past him. She glimpsed plastic, the coroner saying something to another officer, then her view was cut off.

  When she was a sufficient distance from the apparent crime scene, Perry gave her another long look, then turned away.

  No way could she sneak up on him. Not on this side. But the place was teaming with cops and at least a couple liked her. She just had to find them.

  She picked her way around the tape, listening for something she could piece together but no one was talking.

  Near the ambulance, she recognized a familiar round face with dark eyes and hair pulled tightly back. Officer Keisha Brya
n was a cousin on Tash’s dad’s side and just a few years older than Natasha herself. Keisha liked her, she’d talk. Maybe not at the scene, not yet, but at some point, and Tash could lay the groundwork now.

  She sidled up to the ambulance, skipping around the back and out of view of the other officers talking. She peered around the side. “Keish!”

  Keisha met her eyes and shook her head, stealing a glance around her before slipping around to the back of the ambulance. “What the hell?”

  “I promise I will leave the crime scene, just tell me what’s going on.”

  Her cousin sighed, like she knew there was no point in arguing. She kept her voice low. “A body.”

  “I guessed that with the coroner—whose?”

  Keisha shrugged. “Don’t know yet. No one recognizes her, but the body’s pretty badly damaged.”

  Tash shuddered at the thought. “Damaged?”

  “Maybe a combination of being beaten and then tossed around by the water. We’re not sure. Definitely murder.” She hesitated as if she was about to say more and thought the better of it.

  Natasha, of course, both noticed and pounced. “What? What aren’t you telling me?”

  The officer groaned. She leaned close, her voice hovering at a whisper. “They said this looks...familiar.”

  Tash’s eyes widened. Familiar crime scene? Here, in Stirling Falls? “What else?”

  Keisha visibly backed off, lifting her chin and straightening her spine. “That’s it. Nothing more I’d tell you anyway.”

  She had her own cases and clients to worry about, but Tash was itching to find out what was going on.

  “If you don’t mind,” her cousin continued, “I have work to—”

  A man stepped around the ambulance and Tash was ready to launch into an explanation for Perry but it was only Officer McKay.

  Leo grinned, a big rugged sort of guy who had half the girls in town giggling over him. Blond hair contrasting with dark eyes, there were worse partners her cousin could’ve had. Not that there was anything going on between Keish and Leo—Natasha pegged them both too shy for it—but he was at least easy on the eyes for her cousin.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” Leo warned in a mock-stern voice.

  “My morning jog—I innocently stumbled across the scene. I promise.”

  “Oh please.” Keish rolled her eyes. “You probably had the police scanner on.”

  Though she owned one, it was rarely on—nothing was so disappointing in a small town than that police scanner. Right when she thought something was about to go down, it turned out to be someone’s cow got out or Old Mrs. Miller’s keys fell down a well.

  Keisha patted Leo’s shoulder as she started back around the ambulance. “She’s not allowed to know anything. Perry’ll have your ass, you know.”

  Officer McKay waved her off. He had a notepad in his other hand, which Natasha angled herself so she might see.

  “C’mon,” Tash whispered. “Tell me something. Some little tidbit. And I’ll be on my way.”

  He gave her a look that all but shouted Liar, liar, pants on fire.

  “You don’t want me to hear it on the streets, do you? Plus, think about how often misinformation is spread around. It’s a giant game of telephone in a town like this and everyone talks to me. If I know the truth, well, I can correct some things before they get out of hand.”

  He relented with a sigh and a shake of his head, fingers drumming on the notepad that she still couldn’t see. “Okay.” He leaned in and she mirrored him, coming close to follow his lowered voice. “We don’t recognize her, no one local, at least, but because Hastings Creek runs through a few counties, she could’ve come from about three places—we don’t know how long she’s been in the water. Harrison Jameson found her this morning when he was out fishing.”

  “Keish said murder.”

  Leo nodded. “She was mostly naked and rolled up in some kind of plastic—the thick kind, you know, that covers mattresses.”

  “Sexual assault?”

  “We don’t know. A lot of evidence of physical trauma, though. Bruising like she’d been tied and hit.”

  A horrid chill crept up Tash’s back, her stomach turning. She was nosy, yes, but this was a bit too unsettling even for her. She crossed her arms, hugging herself, and suppressed a shiver. “Shit.”

  He waved his finger at her in warning. “You hear nothing.”

  She swallowed dryly and nodded. “Of course.”

  “Get out of here before Perry finds out.”

  Again, she nodded, and watched while he ducked back around the ambulance in the direction Keisha had taken. Tash peered around the corner for a moment, watching the scene continue to unfold. There was more to learn about it, of course, but she didn’t need to stick around and see the body.

  Besides, Mrs. Martin was on her way to the office early and Tash still had to get ready for work.

  Creepy dread following her, Natasha turned away from the scene of the crime and started jogging again, but the whole way home she couldn’t shake the chill echoing her steps.

  A murder possibly in Stirling Falls. This was going to be big.

  Chapter Three

  The office of Malone and Associates opened officially at 9:00 a.m., though Natasha had already been working for an hour by that time. Her former boss had old case files from when he first started, over thirty years ago; half were in storage, the other half were still waiting for her to finish sorting them.

  She sat on a braided rug in the middle of the floor of his office—now hers—with half a dozen stacks of paper all around her. It being Saturday, she hadn’t dressed business formal, figuring anyone arriving today would take what they got. Though she’d showered after her jog, she didn’t look it. Her hair was once again bound up with corkscrew curls bouncing. She did put on cropped cotton pants but paired them with just a tank top. Despite the updates to the small office—a storefront at the far end of town between an ice cream shop and a used bookstore—they had yet to obtain central air. The air conditioner in the front window, facing the tiny waiting room, had quit at the start of the month. A ceiling fan whirled noisily above her while another fan twisted back and forth on the desk, but none of it was cooling her off. Sweat soaked stray curls to her forehead and the back of her neck.

  Her eyes were starting to glaze over, staring at the same papers over and over again. Whoever Malone’s secretary was back in the late eighties, she needed to be smacked. At first she thought these ones were organized alphabetically but then she saw Mr. Conway’s possible insurance fraud stuck under Hoyt’s Burgers & Stuff investigating an employee, one in 1989 and the other from 1985.

  Completely indecipherable.

  She swiped at her brow, blew curls from her eyes, and glanced at the clock.

  It’s gonna be a loooong day in this heat.

  She’d listened to the police scanner while getting ready that morning, but nothing particularly exciting was said. They were keeping the whole murder thing under-wraps but when Liliah Jean from The Coffee Hut brought over her morning iced java and jelly donut, she was buzzing about it and said all of Stirling Falls knew.

  Technically the PI office closed early afternoon on Saturdays and for once she might head out on time, if only to catch some local gossip. The town’s one and only full time reporter, Harry Ingram, owed her a favor or two. He might talk.

  The bell over the front door chimed. No one was working the front desk on the weekend—in fact, Malone’s regular secretary was on holidays for another two weeks—so Tash leapt up, nearly knocked a stack of file folders as she did, and hopped over the towering papers to slip out the door. She thumped barefoot down the narrow hall, only realizing once she reached the waiting room that she would probably make a better impression on people if she was in shoes.

  A slender, impeccably dressed woman waited just inside the closed front door, a small purse hanging on her arm. Her gray-threaded hair was coiled up and if the heat bothered her under her dark blue suit
, she gave no indication of her. Her chin was lifted so she literally looked down at Tash.

  “Hi Mrs. Martin.” Natasha immediately went for the secretary’s desk, reaching for the single manila folder waiting on the top. “I’ve got everything right here—”

  “My husband filed for divorce this morning,” Mrs. Martin said sharply.

  Tash paused, the envelope in her hands. “Um...that was what you wanted, right?”

  “I wanted to surprise him and have him on the defensive. He’s already started shifting money around, met with his attorney at the crack of dawn—I no longer have the element of surprise.”

  “But,” Tash extended the envelope and tried to smile, “you have photographic proof of infidelity—”

  “Which he already knows about—there is no way to throw it in as a surprise during court proceedings.” She shook her head, eyes narrowing. “Malone never would’ve gotten caught. You have absolutely no idea what you’re doing.” Mrs. Martin nodded at the envelope, still hanging between them from Tash’s outstretched hand. “And you’ve not only lost me as a client but I will be sure to tell everyone precisely how incompetent you are.”

  Before she could respond, Mrs. Martin abruptly turned and stormed back outside, the door slamming in her wake and bell overtop jangling.

  Natasha stared after her for a moment, blinking, then dropped the envelope back on the desk. She muttered a string of expletives and sank onto the edge of the desk herself.

  I can’t believe that’s a thing that just happened.

  Sure, Mrs. Martin might be exaggerating her reach but this slip up certainly wasn’t going to help. Briefly, Natasha had been a bit of a celebrity for helping to find and catch Dani’s stalker last year—it had been a boost to the office as well as Tash’s reputation. But people quickly forgot the good and tended to remember the bad.

  Malone was on his way to a lake house with his wife for a week—there was no sense bothering him. Besides, she could no longer go running to him for help.

  With a groan of frustration, she fished the keys from her pocket and headed for the door. A double scoop of butterscotch ice cream seemed in order.