Софи Райан - Telling Tails

Glenn took a sip of his coffee and then held up a hand. “I forgot to ask you. How’s Rose? I heard she was in the hospital.”

I nodded. “She’s fine. She was out on Windspeare Point. Someone hit her over the head.”

“She was mugged?”

I hesitated. “Not exactly. Someone attacked her, but she wasn’t robbed.”

He squeezed one of his massive hands into a fist. “What the hell happened?”

I let out a breath. “Truth? I don’t know. We’ve been trying to figure it out. Before she was . . . attacked, Rose might have seen a body.”

“Hang on a minute. What do you mean ‘might have seen a body’?” He leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees.

“Long story,” I said, tracing the rim of my cup with a finger. “Short version: The person Rose saw might be dead or he might have taken off and left his wife holding the bag.” I took another sip of the coffee. “Do you know a guy named Jeff Cameron? He and his wife are new in town. They’ve been renting a cottage out on the point while they look for a house.”

Glenn nodded. “Yeah. Runner, right? Always wearing running shoes, never stands still.”

That pretty much described the man I’d met. “That’s him.”

“He’s been in for coffee.” A frown formed between his eyebrows. “It was his body Rose saw?”

“Looks like it. Whether he’s alive or dead is another question.”

“What do the police say? You’re friends with Michelle Andrews.”

I brushed my bangs back off my face. “Between us?”

He nodded. “Sure.”

“She thinks Rose imagined the whole thing, maybe had a stroke.”

“I bet that went over well,” Glenn said with a wry smile.

“Pretty much how you’d expect,” I said. “She’s healthier than most people half her age, and they checked her over thoroughly at the hospital. I just . . .” I shrugged. “I just don’t think she had a stroke. And I don’t think she imagined what she saw, either.”

“She’s not that kind of person.”

It was good to hear those words from someone who wasn’t so close to the situation.

“I take it no one’s been able to get hold of Cameron.”

I shook my head. “No, but if he did run off with another woman, you can see why he might not want to be reachable.”

“For what it’s worth, I saw him early yesterday morning and there was no woman with him.”

I stared at him. “You saw Jeff Cameron yesterday morning?” Rose had seen what she thought was Jeff’s body Wednesday night. If it was him Glenn had seen, it added credence to the theory that Jeff Cameron had faked his death.

“Uh-huh. I came out here early—I don’t know, maybe five thirty—and I saw him drive by. He’s kind of hard to miss in that bilious yellow Jeep.”

Before I could ask him any more questions I heard another thump followed by a muffled meow from the room behind us. I got to my feet.

Glenn followed suit. “I take it that’s the all-clear signal.”

“It should be,” I said.

Elvis was on the other side of the bedroom door holding something, large, furry and I hoped dead in his mouth. He had a look of satisfaction in his green eyes. He gave a muffled meow of thank-you when I opened the door and he started down the stairs carrying his prize.

“Can you get the back door?” I said to Glenn.

“Oh yeah, sure.” He followed Elvis down the stairs and opened the door to the backyard for him; then he came back up the stairs. I was still standing in the bedroom doorway. “That was not a squirrel,” he said.

“Didn’t exactly look like a field mouse, either.” I raised my eyebrows at him.

He made a face. “I should look around.”

“Good idea,” I said. The quilt on the bed was rumpled, hanging down much longer on one end. I pointed at it. “You might want to wash that.”

“I think we might want to wash everything in here,” he said.

The closet door was partly ajar. I didn’t remember it being like that when we’d let Elvis inside.

“Glenn, try the closet,” I said, pointing in that direction.

“If there’s something else in there, you’re going to rescue me, right?” he said over his shoulder.

There was a feather duster on the nightstand closest to me. I picked it up and held it in front of me like I was a knight holding up a sword about to go into battle. “I’ll save you. Go for it,” I said.

He looked back at me and laughed. Then he opened the closet door. There wasn’t anything inside as far as I could see, except more clothes. Glenn mumbled a swearword. “These are my grandfather’s suits.” He held up the sleeve of a gray wool pin-striped jacket. “Clayton would have to lose about a hundred pounds to fit into these. My grandfather was a beanpole.”

He rummaged around, trying to push the hangers to one side, but there just wasn’t room. I kept my feather duster at the ready, just in case.

“Okay, all right, that’s where it is,” he said.

“Are we talking alive it or dead it?” I asked.

Glenn pulled his head out of the closet.

“Neither,” he said. He pointed to the ceiling. “I found a hole from the attic. I’m going to have to go up there.”

“That’s probably how whatever that was that Elvis caught got in here.”

Glenn ran his hands back over his hair. “There’s no way Beth and I can get this place straightened out in a week.” He blew out a long breath. “Were you serious about what you said before? That you could sell some of this stuff at Second Chance?”

I struck a Statue of Liberty–style pose with the feather duster. “Don’t I look serious?” I asked.

That made him laugh. I set the duster back on the night table. “We can do pretty much whatever will work for you. You can bring things to the shop and we’ll get them ready and sell them for you. We can come out here and pick things up. We can even take over the cleanup. Talk to your cousin. And talk to Clayton. Then let me know what you need.”

“Thanks,” he said. “I owe you.”

“No, you don’t,” I said, shaking my head. “You let your business be used for a sting, for heaven’s sake. I still owe you.”

“Hey, that was the most excitement I’d had on a Tuesday afternoon in years.”

“You need to get out more,” I said.

He laughed. Then his expression grew serious. “I mean it, Sarah, I appreciate this.”

Glenn went downstairs and came back with a box of steel wool. He jammed about half the package into the hole in the closet ceiling. “That’s going to have to do for now. I’ll come back tonight and do something a bit more permanent.”

We found Elvis out on the back stoop with Clayton McNamara. The cat was licking his whiskers. He smelled like fish.

“I hope you don’t mind, Sarah,” Clayton said. “I gave him a couple of sardines.”

Elvis looked at me, seemingly daring me to say that had been a bad idea.

“I don’t mind,” I said, picking up the cat. “I think he earned them.

Glenn looked around. “Where is the—?”

“Evidence?” his uncle said dryly. “Don’t worry. I took care of that.”

“There’s a hole in the ceiling of the closet in that room,” Glenn said. “I stuck some steel wool in there for now, but I’ll be back after supper to fix it properly.”

“I appreciate that,” Clayton said. He turned to me. “And it was very good to meet you and Elvis.”

I smiled at him. “It was nice to meet you, too.”

Glenn and I walked back to our vehicles.

“Glenn, are you sure it was yesterday morning that you saw Jeff Cameron?” I asked as we stood next to my SUV.

“I’m positive,” he said. “Beth got here on Wednesday, and since Clayton gets up at the crack of dawn, I said I’d come out for breakfast and see what we could work out for a plan of attack.” He pulled the keys to his truck out of his pocket. “Like I said, I recognized the Jeep, and it was definitely a man driving. I’m pretty sure it was Cameron.” He narrowed his blue eyes. “Is it important?”