A Dangerous Departure From Hillbilly Hollow Page 10

  “That isn’t what I want. Maybe if you turned yourself in and faced the consequences, you could find some relief.” I thought of the way I’d run home to Missouri to try and escape the visions I was having. Being in a new place, away from the memories of the accident felt good at first, but it didn’t last. The visions returned, and the anxiety that came along with them didn’t go away until I faced them head on. Until I accepted them for what they were—spirits.

  His mouth twisted to the side, unsure. “Maybe.”

  “Just consider it,” I said. “I won’t press charges.”

  “Emma, what are you saying?” Tucker asked.

  I gave him a sharp look and shook my head. He pinched his lips together and looked out the window, practically vibrating with frustration. It was clear that as a police officer, the idea that I was going to let this man walk away did not sit well with him.

  “You can pull over here,” I said, pointing towards the side of the road. “You don’t need to take us all the way back to Brooklyn.”

  Ernest pulled over without arguing, probably as anxious to get me out of his cab as I was to get out.

  “I am sorry,” he said, turning around to look at me, face to face for the first time.

  All things considered, he looked like a nice man.

  “Thank you,” I said. “Me too.”

  16

  Tucker didn’t say a word as I found us another cab and we drove the remaining fifteen minutes back to my apartment. It was very unlike him. Usually, he would be pointing at things through the window and asking me if I’d ever eaten at any of the thirty restaurants we passed. I’d spent most of our trip wishing he would just leave me alone, but now the silence was unnerving.

  When the car pulled up in front of my apartment, I paid the fare and slid out, the dress for Annie’s wedding draped over my arm.

  “Could you wait here for a second?” Tucker asked the driver. “I’ll be right back.”

  He got out of the car and stood in front of me, arms crossed over his chest, jaw clenched.

  “I’m sorry about that,” I started to say, but Tucker held up a hand.

  “I don’t even know what that was, but there’s obviously a lot about this trip that you didn’t tell me,” he said. “I’ve been here for you every step of the way. I’m a Sheriff, for goodness’ sake. I could’ve helped you track that man down. I could’ve helped you confront him. But instead, you sprung the whole thing on me.”

  My face flushed with embarrassment and shame. Tucker was right. I’d excluded him even when he could have been an asset to me.

  “I came on this trip, because…I don’t know,” Tucker said with a shrug. “I guess I thought maybe there could be somethin’ here between us, but it’s obvious you don’t respect me or my position.”

  “That isn’t it,” I said, eager to jump in. “I just didn’t know how to explain everything. It felt too complicated. I didn’t know if you’d understand.”

  That was only partially true. I knew how to explain everything. I’d told Billy without any trouble. It all just felt too personal for Tucker.

  “I’m not dumb, Emma. I can understand plenty of things,” he said.

  Another rumble of shame moved through me. Suzy and I had long whispered behind his back that Tucker was dumber than a box of rocks. And as true as it was, it still wasn’t kind to say.

  “Sure, you’re not, Tucker. I know that. It’s just—"

  “It’s just that you’d rather keep yer secrets and stick close to yer friends and refuse to let in anyone new,” he said, rotating away from me, looking off down the road, his eyes narrowed. “I should’ve seen that. Maybe I am dumb for thinking you’d ever think of me over him.”

  “Who?”

  “You aren’t dumb, either,” Tucker said, pursing his lips. When I still didn’t respond, he shook his head. “Billy. I was talkin’ about Billy.”

  What was with everyone pushing me and Billy together? Why couldn’t a man and a woman just be friends without people getting other ideas?

  The driver of the taxi honked his horn even though we were only standing a few feet away. Tucker waved to him and turned back to me. “It doesn’t matter. I just wanted to let you know I’m gonna head home tonight. Or as soon as I can get a flight back.”

  “Tucker,” I said softly, torn between feeling relieved and guilty.

  He opened the door and shook his head. “Thanks for being my tour guide around the city. I’ll see you back in Hillbilly Hollow.”

  Before I could say anything else, he ducked into the backseat and the cab drove away.

  On one hand, Tucker’s romantic interest had finally been dealt with. But on the other hand, I felt terrible and I didn’t understand it. Tucker had never been one of my close friends. He had never been a major part of my life, either before I left Missouri for college or after I’d returned. So why did his obvious disappointment in me bother me so much?

  As I turned back towards the building, a flash of blue caught my eye. Instantly, my body reacted. My heart rate increased, and my breath caught in my throat. Seeing things move along the edges of my vision used to be the result of an overactive imagination, but now it was because of an overactive spirit world. However, when I looked towards the movement, I only saw a bright blue bird perched on the edge of a feeder dish, and my shoulders relaxed.

  Mable kept a small array of animal feeders outside of her first-floor window. There was a hummingbird feeder on a metal pole that she filled with a sugar liquid, a hanging bowl of bird seed, and a small wooden box with a hole in the side just large enough for a squirrel to stick its arm through. The feeders were Mable’s way of connecting with an outside world that she no longer entered. If she didn’t want to go out into nature, she would bring it to her.

  The blue bird—a welcome sight among the thousands of pigeons I saw in the city everyday—hopped along the edge of the bowl, tipping forward and rooting through the bowl of seed, spilling some over the side and onto the ground. It extended its vibrant wings for a second as it glided down to the ground and began pecking at the fallen seeds. The sight was so familiar to me that I smiled. When I was little, Grandma and I would spread feed for the chickens and then watch as they all squawked around and pecked at their dinner. Even as a teenager, when I began to resent the small-town charm of Hillbilly Hollow, I still loved to go out with Grandma or Grandpa in the morning and feed the animals.

  Standing there, watching the bird, I realized how much I missed Hillbilly Hollow. How much I missed the farm I’d grown up on and seeing my grandparents regularly. Being away from home for so many years, I’d been able to forget why I loved it so much. But after having spent a few months back there with my family and friends and the farm, I was beginning to realize that the middle of nowhere, Missouri was home to me. My grandparents and Suzy and Billy were my home. They always had been, and I couldn’t wait to get back.

  The bird was still picking up the seeds when I climbed the stairs and closed the door softly behind me, hoping the slamming wouldn’t scare the hungry critter away.

  17

  I paused in front of the basement stairs for a moment, contemplating going back up to my apartment and lying down for a while. I’d taken the three flights of stairs two at a time and hung my dress up in the coat closet behind the door before closing it and going immediately back to the lobby. It was the middle of the afternoon, but it felt like I’d been awake for three days straight. My eyes burned, and my legs felt heavy. But the information Tucker had passed along at lunch pestered me, like a continuous tap on the shoulder, pushing me onward. Blanche had been poisoned.

  The hallway that led to Jay Wilkins’ apartment seemed even darker than it had the last time I’d walked it. The walls seemed to be pressing in on me, growing more and more narrow the further I walked. Halfway down, I contemplated turning back. It was a longshot that Jay would even talk to me again. After I’d bombarded him with questions the first time and then had my sheriff friend show up at his door, h
e probably wouldn’t be too excited to see my face. Though, I didn’t imagine Jay was ever too excited to see many people’s faces.

  Still, I knocked, and Jay answered after the second one. He flung the door open, eyes wide as if he was expecting someone. When he saw it was me, his shoulders drooped in disappointment and he sagged against the door frame.

  “Oh. Hi.”

  “Hi,” I said, trying to sound marginally more cheerful than he had.

  “If you’re here about the window, Paul said he took care of it this morning,” Jay said.

  I furrowed my brow in confusion before remembering my leaky window, which I was almost positive Paul had not fixed simply because he had been unable to fix it the previous five times he’d tried. “Right, yes. I’m sure he did great.”

  “Then why are you here?” he asked suspiciously.

  I leaned forward and lowered my voice. “I heard from a reliable source that your mother’s death has been ruled a poisoning.”

  Tucker had told me to keep it quiet, but I had to assume that even if Jay was a suspect in the murder of his mother, the police would have told him the results of her autopsy. If they had, then I did nothing wrong by repeating the information. If they hadn’t, I could gauge his reaction to see whether I considered him a suspect.

  Jay’s expression didn’t change at all, but suddenly, he stepped towards me, closing the distance between us, and whispered harshly. “Have you told anyone else?”

  “No, no,” I said, too surprised to say anything else.

  “Keep it that way,” he said. “That is the last thing I need getting out. The tenants would panic.”

  “Why would they panic?” I asked. “Do you think there’s a serial killer on the loose or something?”

  “What? No,” he said, scrunching up his nose like he thought I was crazy. “I don’t need them to think rat poison will find its way into their food, too.”

  I gasped. “Rat poison?”

  Jay seemed to realize what he’d let slip and took a deep breath. “I have an inspector looking at the building now. I’m actually waiting on the results. But there are no rats. We’ve never had a problem with rats. I’ve searched the maintenance closets and my mom’s apartment several times and haven’t found any rat poison. I have no idea how she came into contact with enough of it to kill her. Her cat eats almost everything she eats, and the cat isn’t dead, so it isn’t just lying around. I don’t know.”

  Jay’s face reddened the longer he spoke, and his breathing was growing more and more labored. I wanted to ask him many more questions, but I was growing a little worried that he’d pass out. He looked overwhelmed, which seemed appropriate considering everything he’d dealt with in the preceding days.

  “Your mom had a cat?”

  He looked at me like he wasn’t sure he’d heard me correctly, but then he slowly nodded his head. “Yeah, she had a cat.”

  “What happened to it?” Jay’s apartment showed no signs of a new furry roommate.

  “It’s still in her apartment,” he said with a shrug.

  “By itself?”

  “I’m allergic,” he said.

  My animal loving heart shattered. Poor kitty. How long had it been in the apartment alone?

  “I go up and feed it twice a day, so it’s fine,” he said.

  That settled it. I’d already accepted that I wouldn’t get much more information out of Jay Wilkins and would have to find answers myself but hearing about Blanche’s lonely cat solidified a plan in my mind. I’d break into her apartment to conduct a search of my own, and then take the cat with me.

  18

  With foul play suspected in Blanche’s murder, I had to be especially careful about breaking into her apartment. Not only did I not want to disrupt anything that could be a clue, I didn’t want to leave any new ones that would point investigators towards me rather than the true killer. Also, I didn’t need anyone—mostly Mable—seeing me sneak into the dead woman’s apartment. As nice as Mable was—assuming she wasn’t the murderer—I had no doubt she wouldn’t hesitate to turn me into the police for breaking and entering.

  I opened the door from the basement stairs to the lobby as quietly as possible, letting it gently click back into place behind me, and then crossed the lobby, sticking as close to the wall as possible. When I got to Blanche’s door, I slid my debit card along the crack in the door and felt the locking mechanism shift and then release.

  One of my most enduring complaints about the apartment building—aside from my leaking window—had always been security. The ancient and inefficient locks could be picked with nothing more than an envelope or a credit card. It was why I’d installed my own deadbolt in my door, despite Blanche warning me I would have to pay for the “damages” to the door when I moved out. That was fine. I’d told her I would pay for an entirely new door if it meant I wouldn’t have to worry about anyone breaking into my apartment.

  As I closed Blanche’s door behind me, I wondered whether someone hadn’t broken into her apartment before she died. They could have snuck in and poisoned something in her fridge. Or, more horrifically, they could have force fed her the poison. I shuddered at the thought, and then pushed it away. There was no sense in dwelling on something that might not have even happened.

  The room felt stale and oddly warm, despite the chill in the air outside. I didn’t see any sign of the cat as I moved into the living room that looked remarkably like mine, except Blanche’s furniture was at least ten years older and covered in a floral pattern. But as soon as I moved into the hallway, the strong scent of ammonia hit me. I covered my nose.

  “Here, Kitty Kitty,” I said in a nasally voice.

  I could see the litter box through the open bedroom door at the end of the small hallway, but there was still no sign of the cat. I froze, trying to listen for any rustle of movement. I was even holding my breath, so when my phone vibrated in my back pocket, the surprise of it made me yelp and lurch forward a step. As soon as I did, the shuttered doors covering the washer and dryer to my right burst open as a black streak of fur shot out from between them with a yowl.

  Whatever air was left in me came out in a whoosh as I slammed back against the hallway wall, hand pressed to my heart, trying to bring the rhythm back to normal. When I felt prepared, I stepped away from the wall and moved slowly back towards the living room. The cat was lying on its side on the living room floor, paws extended. It looked submissive, but I knew better. Cats lay on their sides to better showcase their claws. Blanche’s cat was simply showing me her weapons. I turned my body away from her, letting her know I wasn’t a threat, and then stood still. My phone vibrated again, but I ignored it. It was probably Billy checking in on me since he’d given me the information about Ernest a couple hours before and hadn’t heard anything from me yet.

  Slowly, over the next few minutes, I worked my way closer to the cat, who had shifted from a defensive position to a seated one and finally to lying down with its head on its paws (gender was still a mystery). When I dared to reach out and pet the cat, not only did it nuzzle its head into my palm, but it purred. Sweet success.

  Jay said he was feeding the cat, but the food and water bowls were both empty. I found some dry cat food in the pantry and ran cool water from the tap, and the cat ate and drank like it had been days since its last meal. My heart broke. Its owner had died, and then no one had cared enough to properly take care of the animal. It was one-hundred percent decided. I would definitely be taking the no-name, mysterious gendered cat home to Missouri with me.

  While the cat ate, I poked around Blanche’s kitchen very carefully. Jay had been in and out of his mother’s apartment a few times since her death, at least, and he was still alive. So, my fear of secondhand poisoning was slim, but it was better to be safe than sorry. There were a few less than fresh items in the fridge and a moldy loaf of bread in the pantry. Otherwise, everything seemed okay. The trash can under her sink stunk to high heavens, but a little bit of poking through the rubbish didn�
��t reveal anything sinister. Just a discarded pound of hamburger—the source of the smell, no doubt—a spoiled bag of spinach, and a paper plate and some plastic wrap. Normal. Completely normal.

  I closed the cabinet, ignoring the very strong urge I felt to take Blanche’s trash to the dumpster. I didn’t need Jay coming back and growing suspicious that someone had been in the apartment. Though, based on the fact that the cat had been near dehydration and the trash can was full of rot, he probably wouldn’t have noticed if I’d decided to clean up the place a little bit.

  I wondered where in the apartment Blanche had been found. Jay hadn’t offered up the information, and I hadn’t wanted to ask. It felt personal. However, not knowing made every step in Blanche’s apartment give me the feeling that I was walking over a headstone in a cemetery. I felt like I was disrespecting her in some way. Had she collapsed in the kitchen after ingesting whatever poisoned item she had been given? Or had she managed to make it to the living room and drop onto her sofa before succumbing? The obvious dent in the middle of the sofa suddenly took on a more ominous meaning. I blinked a few times to clear the mental picture my mind was drawing and turned away.

  The cat had finished eating and was grooming itself in the middle of the living room floor, licking its paws and then batting at its face. When properly taken care of, the animal was clearly very docile. He or she would probably make a great friend for Snowball. I smiled to myself, thinking what my grandpa would say when he found out I was going to be sleeping in the attic with a cat in addition to a goat. I shook my head. My life sure had changed in the past few months.

  My phone vibrated in my back pocket again and I remembered the calls and texts from before. I pulled it out and, just as I’d expected, it was Billy.