My parents hadn’t been a major player in my grandmother’s life since they moved to Portland for a good job right after I graduated high school. My dad ran the electrical grid at the board of water and light in town and my mother enjoyed having more places to shop.
But she knew nothing about Nanna’s wishes. Nanna was a Kadish, which meant she wanted the whole town to attend her damn funeral. She didn’t want white flowers and sad music. She’d told me repeatedly it needed to be a bright affair. Everyone needed to talk about how amazing her life had been. Basically, Nanna in a nutshell.
My mother wasn’t a Kadish, and she didn’t understand. While I fought for Nanna’s wishes, my father—her own son—kept his mouth shut while mom picked out boring white flowers. She chose lilies, which were a traditional funeral piece, but my grandmother didn’t want traditional. There was nothing traditional about Ruth. She wanted big sunflowers. Big bright yellow sunflowers.
My mother said they were impractical.
“Ow!” My foot hit the ground just right, and I stepped on a rock instead of the soft dirt. The bit of cobble felt like a knife trying to pierce through my shoe. I tittered to the side and fell against an ear of corn hanging off a stalk like it was mid childbirth. The shaking of the leaves sounded loud in the quiet evening and birds flew off into the air squawking to my left.
“Stupid corn,” I whispered to the stalk and hit one of the long green leaves with an open palm. It flapped once in the breeze before returning to its position.
A car whizzed by on the road sounding close. I had to be reaching the other side of the cornfield. It drove past and I froze. I didn’t know how much of the cornfield they saw from their vantage point or how badly my steps moved the stalks, but I wouldn’t risk getting caught. Tonight’s operation was important and I didn’t have time to screw it up.
I waited to be sure the car left and then stepped out of the cornfield on the other side right on the dirt road I needed. A thin blue and white double wide rested on an acre of land with tall corn growing up on every side. If Chip hadn’t been found in the janitor’s closet, I would’ve guessed he’d been eaten by someone living in his cornfield.
It was the dead of night, so I’d see if car headlights headed in my direction. Still I stopped and checked the road before I crossed. Some things you learn in kindergarten and can never forget. The lights were off in the trailer, as you’d expect when the owner has been killed, and I darted across the open path in the yard looking for a new hiding spot or way into the home.
The front door was an obvious choice, but I needed something with more cover and crossed my fingers as I shimmied down the side of the trailer, hoping it had a back door. Quiet as a mouse, or as quiet as a 125-pound person, I worked my way around the trailer. In the dark night, I fist bumped the air when I saw three steps raising up to a door on the back side.
Some things were meant to be.
My mother overrode every single one of my choices that afternoon. I slipped my lock-pick into the trailer door knob and twisted a few times with no success. The funeral would be ruined. Nanna would be so pissed she’d probably wake up and tell everyone off during the eulogy. They’d close the lid of the casket and her hand would shoot up, propping it open while her body rose unnaturally as she glared at everyone in the funeral home before shouting, “Is that it? What about the year I won a blue ribbon for my peach cobbler at the fair?”
It was so something my grandmother would do. If anyone forgot her blue ribbon, she’d rain hell fire on the entire town. I laughed at the visual right as the lock clicked and the door popped open. I couldn’t do anything about Nanna’s shit funeral, but I planned to catch a killer. No one else in this town concerned themselves with who offed Chip Martal at a high school reunion, but I wouldn’t sit around and let someone ruin the city. Ridge took care of one of the largest drug dealers in the county and now the time came to do my part.
If Chip left Ashley while she was pregnant, it was possible he left info on his new girlfriend in the house. She could be the missing link—the reason he was at the reunion for a school he didn’t attend. I had many questions that weren’t being answered, and I refused to stand around and let things happen.
I walked into the home and turned immediately left into the kitchen. A pile of mail sat untouched on the corner of the kitchen island, and I picked up the first piece before remembering I forgot to bring gloves.
“Dammit,” I whispered to the empty house. There wasn’t enough light coming to through the windows to read the names on the envelopes, so I held the small flashlight I purchased from Dollar Tree in my mouth and went through the pile quickly.
It was a bunch of junk mail containing such things as offers to cut the grass and fertilize with fall weed and feed. Clearly Chip hadn’t taken advantage of them from the hayfield he called a front yard I walked past to reach his trailer. Only two envelopes were sealed and one in particular caught my eye. With my cell phone I took a picture, wishing I could open it and see the contents, but not willing to chance it. I wouldn’t risk going to a pound-you-in-the-ass federal prison for mail fraud. Thank you for that visual Office Space.
The home smelled of stale cigarettes, but I didn’t see an ashtray anywhere in the kitchen. A few dirty dishes sat in the sink, but none of them held butts. I turned, frustrated with the lack of evidence. What happened to the good old days when somebody would write “I killed your best friend” in blood on the wall and then you tested the DNA? All those crime shows were making criminals smarter.
The kitchen was empty, but on a last hunch I opened the fridge only to be disappointed at the lackluster contents. It was mostly bare except an open case of cheap beer.
Next, I moved into the living room, which was surprisingly clean for a bachelor who ended up dead in the janitor’s closet. The flashlight beams highlighted the floor and then I slowly raised it higher. The only thing out of place in the room was a stack of DVDs piled high by the television. Who didn’t subscribe to Netflix?
Even Pearl was constantly in the bakery discussing the latest episode of the streaming service’s most recent release. Maybe Chip was too cheap, there wasn’t decent internet access this far out of town, or he used to be a DVD aficionado. I still had questions, but few answers were coming from the trailer.
With one last place to look, I had hopes for this room in the house, which was the reason I saved it for last. If you couldn’t search a man’s truck for answers, then everything you needed to know about a person you’d find in their bedroom. I could write a paper about the information you learned about a person from the way they organized their underwear drawer.
Tabitha said it was a bunch of crap, but the next day she admitted Ridge was a fold-over and roll kind of guy. It fit his personality to a tee. Ridge was not a man who balled up his underwear and threw them in the drawer. She didn’t admit whether they were color-coded, but I had my suspicions.
A short hallway led to three doors, and I pulled my shirt over my hand before touching the last knob, getting ready to twist and let myself into what I suspected was a master bedroom when a new flash of light hit my back, lighting up the hallway.
“Put your hands in the air!” The male voice gave no leeway when he made the demand.
“Shit,” I said slowly raising my arms with my hands open and letting the flashlight fall to the ground with a thunk. The beam swayed on the wall and came to rest against my foot.
I turned, hopeful this wasn’t one of the new recruits on the Pelican Bay police force and rather someone I had sway with for these types of scenarios.
“Fuck, Katy. Anderson is going to kill you,” Bradley said. He’d been on the force at least three years and was well-acquainted with a few of us in town—mainly me.
I smirked, hoping he saw it as regretful rather than cocky. “Not if we don’t tell him.” What these cops in town never understood was that if we didn’t tell my cousin, Detective Anderson, what I got around to in the evenings, he would never know. Simple math and deductive reasoning, but they always reported back to him.
He shook his head and his lips pinched together in annoyance. The light shining in my eyes made it difficult to see his facial features. When I figured he wouldn’t shoot me, I lowered my hand to block the light and caught his expression.
