Will I be blamed for the corpse Jo had in the mortuary today, as well?
Heart pounding, I grabbed the coffee and food and hurried off to the store. At the door, I put the tray down to insert the key. The smell of stale beer and rotten eggs hit my nostrils. A pale hand reached out of the bushes, grabbing for the bag of croissants.
“Get your hands away from that!” I snapped.
A head snapped up from the bushes, wrought with guilt and shame. It was the homeless dude, Earl Larson – the man we were certain had been inside the shop on the night of Ashley’s murder.
He did it. Of course he did.
My stomach flipped as I stared into the eyes of a murderer. Torn between anger and terror, I froze. Earl took the opportunity to grab my food bag.
“Hey!” I grabbed his wrist, jiggling it up and down until he released the food. “I need to talk to you.”
“Leggo. I ain’t done nothing!” He tugged at his hand, his eyes wild with fear. I kept my grip firm around his tiny wrist, surprised at how light he was. I forced myself to ignore the empathy welling up inside me.This guy killed Ashley.
“You were here the other night when Ashley was murdered.”
“I told the police, I didn’t see nothing!” He snapped his wrist back, wrenching it from my grasp. He grabbed his bags and shuffled away, peering back over his shoulder.
My mind ticked over, weighing up my possible actions. Jo’s anxious face flashed in my mind, and I made my decision. I shoved open the front door, yelled “coffee’s up,” placed the tray on the floor, and took off down the street after Earl.
I peered around the edge of the bakery. Earl shuffled along the high street, darting between pedestrians and peering into windows. Shop owners came out of their stores to shoo him away. He darted a look over his shoulder, but I flattened myself against the wall. When I peered around the corner again, he stood outside the market, staring into the window. A woman exited the shop and said something rude to him, but he didn’t move, didn’t react.
He thrust his hand into his pocket and set his face with an expression of determination. Flinging open the market door, he marched inside.
My heart in my throat, I crept around the corner of the wall and peeked in the market window. Earl wandered the aisles, picking up boxes and holding them against his chest. His lips moved in continuous conversation with himself. Again and again he plunged his hand into the front of his jacket.
He had money in his pocket.Heathcliff’s money.
Rage bubbled inside me as Earl walked to the counter with a couple of boxes. He pulled a set of crumpled bills from his pocket and tossed them on the counter. The man picked up each note between his thumb and forefinger as if they might explode and laid them in the till. Earl shoved his boxes into his trench coat and hurried out of the store.
Right into me.
I grabbed his lapels and slammed him against the wall. Up close, the stale beer smell overpowered his usual rank aroma. “Where’d you get that money?”
“Tooth fairy.”
“I’m not playing games here, mate. The police think I killed Ashley. I know I didn’t, and I also know you were there that night, and that the person who killed her might’ve known she had a lot of money. So if you don’t want me to drag you down there and tell them what I know, you’d better tell me straight what’s going on.”
“All right,” Earl yelled, his whole body trembling. “I did it. I took the money from the till! But I didn’t kill that girl. I never even touched her. I never hurt no one.”
“Then why did you steal from Heathcliff? He was nice to you and you took advantage of him.”
“I didn’t wanna, I swear it. I like Mr. Heathcliff. He’s good to me, he lets me sit in his shop and read the books. But I saw you go into the shop an’ I thought it’d be nice to sleep in the warm an’ I was just sitting in my chair and I kept thinking about the money, an’ he wouldn’t ever have to know it was me.”
“I bet Heathcliff would have given you some money, if you’d just asked for it.”
“It ain’t for me, see.” Earl opened the flap of his coat. Inside, wrapped in a tangle of rags, was a tiny ball of grey fur. Two brilliant eyes peered up at me, and a mouth opened to reveal a pink tongue. A kitten.
“Mew?” It squeaked, tilting its head to the side. Its eyes grew wider.
“Oh, how adorable!” I touched the kitten’s soft cheek, hoping Grimalkin wouldn’t smell my betrayal later.No wonder he had his hand in his jacket, and he was reading that cat book, and no wonder Grimalkin hissed at Earl when he was in the shop. She must’ve smelled the kitten.
“Vet says he’s sick, an’ he needs a special kind o’ food.” The homeless man said, shoving one of the boxes he just purchased into my hands. “An’ that weird kid from the market lives right above the butcher’s shop, so he could find me if I stole. So I need money to pay for it, only I don’t want to ask Heathcliff on account of he’s already been so nice to me. I didn’t kill that girl an’ I didn’t see nothin’.”
“But you were in the shop at the same time she was! You must’ve seen or heardsomething.Was Ashley in the shop when you came in, or did she come in after you?”
“Weren’t no one around,” he said. “But I did pass a lass standing outside. She tap-tap-tapped on her phone an’ she was looking up at the windows.”
