“Who was that?” Roz asked as everyone started talking at once.
“Where was that?” Alden exclaimed. “Out back, I think.” And he was off and running, pausing only long enough to down the rest of the champagne and plop down the glass.
Roz wasn’t going to let him have all the fun. She sprinted behind him as he skirted Enolia and plunged into the back hallway. A couple of other men were on their heels, ready to help whoever was in crisis.
She practically ran into Alden’s back after he burst through the back door of the bookstore. He’d stopped just outside, then took a hesitant step forward. Roz had to step aside to see around him. She sort of wished she hadn’t.
A woman crouched next to a figure crumpled on the pavement, a man whose jacket and hair showed signs of burns.
Roz knew him by his shoes. Because not enough was left of his face to identify Wayne Vandershell.
“Are you all right?” Alden was asking.
No, Roz thought, but then she realized Alden was talking to the hysterical woman. It was Sheryl.
Oh, no.
This was horrible.
And it was going to be extra complicated to cover this story if their correspondent was involved. Roz hated herself for thinking of that right now, but it was a fact, and they had to deal with it. This was a story, and given it happened at a reading by the famous Enolia Honeywood, it was potentially a big one.
Sheryl looked up at Alden. “It’s Wayne,” she gasped.
“Come away from—come away from him,” Roz said. She’d almost said “Come away from the body.” She was ninety-nine percent sure it was a body, but Sheryl didn’t need to hear that word right now.
Roz stepped forward and helped Alden guide Sheryl away from the former Mr. Vandershell.
“You,” Roz snapped at one of the horrified men gaping at the scene. “Call 9-1-1. Ask for police and an ambulance.”
Just in case, she thought. But she knew in her heart they were going to need the medical examiner.
Roz heard the man’s call as she wrapped her arms around the trembling Sheryl, who sobbed into her shoulder. People spoke behind her, disembodied voices. Alden told curiosity-seekers who’d come to the back door to stay inside. Mae exclaimed and then ushered everyone in. Enolia, apparently speaking from the hallway, offered to continue the reading, but Mae asked her to move on to the book signing.
Which all felt sort of weird, but it would be even weirder to hear Enolia Honeywood perform a scene about a murder when it looked like one had just occurred in the alley behind the shop.
Two strips of businesses on parallel streets backed up to this alley. It was a through road, but it was barely big enough for a trash truck, and it was one-way. It didn’t get much traffic. Still, a killer could’ve driven or even walked through here with no trouble at all, if that was what happened.
Was there a killer? Or was this an accident?
All of this went through Roz’s brain as she patted Sheryl’s back and forced herself to look over the woman’s shoulder at the scene. At the body. It was a mess.
Alden quietly took notes on his phone and, even more quietly, a couple of photos. They would never run anything that graphic in The Courier-Beacon, but photos were information, and they were going to need as much information as they could get.
Just then, Hai slipped out the back door, camera in hand. Roz knew he’d try to get something tasteful they could run in the paper. But she didn’t want to be in a photo, and she didn’t want Sheryl in one, either. She shook her head slightly at him and pointed to the scene, and he nodded and changed angles.
Sirens sounded, closing quickly. That was one good thing about a small town—the police were never far away. The guy who’d made the phone call was hanging back, trying not to look. The other one had gone inside the back door, mumbling something about keeping people away. Which was a good idea, because this had crime scene written all over it.
Her eyes strayed back to the body, then drifted to something in the street. Pieces of something? Was that some kind of shotgun shell? She didn’t know much about guns, but Alden did. She’d ask him later.
The sirens were loud, now, and Roz blinked as new players entered the scene. She released Sheryl to a female medic from the newly arrived ambulance. The other paramedic knelt to examine Wayne Vandershell. It took him only a moment to verify what Roz already suspected.
It wasn’t him who said what she was thinking, though.
“This doesn’t look good,” came a familiar voice behind her. She turned around. It was Deputy Duke Dawson, an old friend and occasional date back in high school, with thick golden-brown hair and a perpetual sunburn. He was accompanied by brown-skinned Officer Naya Byrd, her black hair pinned in a neat bun, her sharp, dark eyes taking an inventory of the details.
“Is he dead?” Duke asked.
“Yes,” Roz and the paramedic said at the same time.
