29
JAGG
After following Sunny home, I headed back to Frank’s Bar, where I was greeted like a bad rash. Still, my little display had rattled the crowd enough that I got a confession in under five minutes. According to Sandy, the waitress, the overweight redneck was the one who keyed Sunny’s truck. So, I drove to his house, dragged him out of bed by his hair and fined him five hundred bucks—because a broken nose just wasn’t good enough.
I’d gone to bed with visions of Sunny Harper—legs around my waist, curls in my face.
By sunrise, I was behind my desk, coffee in hand. The morning was spent catching up; the afternoon, at Julian Griggs’ autopsy. The temperature hit ninety-eight by noon, and the dress shirt I’d thrown on felt like a straitjacket. Funerals and autopsies were the only times I wore button-ups. I’d rolled up my sleeves halfway through the Y-incision, but it didn’t help. I’d been in a constant state of damp all day.
I’d sat through dozens of autopsies, and while child cases were always the worst, one where the victim’s face wasblown off came close. Jessica Heathrow, our ME, didn’t bother softening the blow. “Helps light a fire under an investigation,” she always said—and she wasn’t wrong.
Griggs had died from a single shot to the head. Scratches and bruises on his torso backed up Sunny’s story that he’d attacked her—but didn’t help prove someone else had intervened and pulled the trigger.
Ballistics was still pending to confirm whether the casing matched Sunny’s gun. I hadn’t heard back from the art investigator Briana Morgan, Sunny’s father Arlo Harper, or the prison warden overseeing Kenzo Rees.
And I was no closer to finding the Black Bandit.
Next stop was Donny’s Diner for a side of gossip and some food.
Donny’s was packed with both locals and tourists in town for the Moon Magic Festival. Calls to the station were up more than fifty percent. The heatwave, the looming full moon, and the festival energy had the whole place buzzing like a live wire.
I’d just made it to the corner of the counter when?—
“Detective Max Jagger.” The southern accent was as thick and slow as the syrup on the plate next to me. I turned to Mrs. Berkovich, the town’s unofficial watchdog, gossip queen, and moral compass—tilted permanently south. She had a talent for showing up at the worst possible times and delivering the worst possible news with the glee of a schoolyard tattletale. Everyone in Berry Springs groaned when they saw her coming.
My appetite vanished.
“Ma’am.”
“Don’tma’amme now, son. What’re you and the other police boys doin’ to keep these hippies under control? Saw two of ‘em sleeping on the square last night. Right thereagainst the fountain. Probably smoking dope and conjurin’ up some spell for another Slayin’ in the Park. I spent this mornin’ cleaning my shotguns.” She squinted. “I want them out of here. The whole damn town smells like patchouli.”
My gaze flickered to the gold cross around her neck. A forgiving God, indeed.
“Are they bothering you personally, Mrs. Berkovich?”
She lifted her brows with an attitudinal shrug. “All I know is ever since these beatniks came to town, something’s been eating the flowers on my front porch. All my plants, close to death.”
“You think the hippies are eating your front porch flowers?”
She scowled. “They eat all sorts of weird natural stuff.”
“So do deer, Mrs. Berkovich.”
“Well, in that case, I’ll shoot to kill next?—”
“Hold on there, Annie Oakley. Stop. I’ll drive by your house the next few evenings. Keep your sawed-off shotgun away from the windows and under your pillow where it belongs.”
She lifted her chin and nodded. “Thank you, son. By the way, I ran into Patricia yesterday.”
I stilled, no way on earth had I heard that correctly. I turned fully.
“You say Patricia?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Mymother?”
“You got more than one, son? Hell, wouldn’t surprise me these days.”
