Chapter 7
Amateur Night
Shane let his thoughts simmer as Emily talked without pausing on the car ride home. On the one hand, he wanted to leave town. The threat of multiple murders and the memory of that terrifying night back in LA screamed at him to get his daughter out of this town. But where do we go?
Beyond fleeing, he had a new, bigger problem at hand. All signs pointed to Maria as Dave's murderer, but more concerning than not caring, he wanted to help her. Every case he'd taken on since he learned how to Raise was to provide closure for a good family. To put the bad guy away. He had yet to pick up a case where he liked the murderer. He certainly never wanted to kiss a murderer before this, and it took every ounce of self control to not kiss her full lips in that garden and wash any thought of Dave Fever from her mind. He shook his head, forcing that thought out to focus on the issues at hand. What do you do about the new dead guy? Despite a lack of evidence, he knew in his bones Maria wouldn't kill a stranger. So now he had to find a way to shield Maria from Dave's case and find out who killed the trucker, both with rapid speed so he could get Emily to a TBD town since his location was all over social media.
"Are you even listening?" Emily asked.
Shane looked over at Emily as she brought him out of his brooding thoughts. Her pale blonde hair made the freckles across the bridge of her nose stand out more, a youthful contrast to the tiny piercing on one nostril. She was growing up too fast in LA. One problem at a time. "Sorry, Buttercup. Say again?"
An eye roll preceded her sigh, "I didn't see anything off in the house, but I also didn't get upstairs. How fast can you get to the new dead guy? Any chance you could take Maria somewhere so I can go back? Ooh! I could babysit Isa. Maria's pretty. Act like you like her and take her out to dinner and—"
"Slow your roll, jelly bean. We aren't snooping in Maria's house." Shane continued before Emily had a conniption. "I'm almost positive Maria killed Dave. She all but told me while you snooped."
Her mouth dropped open, comically agape. Then she asked, "Soooo why are you pulling into Father Time's house? Let's go to the cops."
"Because she did it to protect herself and Isa. Just like you called it. Dave Fever was hitting her, and though I don't know how she did it, she stopped him before he could do it again."
Emily looked at Shane, honest and open. He didn't push her; let her come to her own ideas, "And we're OK with that?"
" I'm OK with it. He was a terrible person. Maria is a good person. It isn't square with the law, but the law should have intervened before it got to this tipping point. The better question is, are you ok with it?"
She considered for all of a second, "Yep. Told you he looked like a wife-beater. So now what? What happened when I was at the library?"
They'd reached his dad's home again, Shane could hear the TV blaring from inside. "Let’s go in. I'll need to fill Father Time in, too, so I'll explain it to both of you at the same time."
Shane had seen a lot of weird things. He saw his mother Raise dead people as a teenager and did the same thing for a Bravo TV show. He also lived in LA. But nothing could have prepared him for what he walked into. His father lounged in his favorite brown armchair in the living room with a bowl of popcorn in his lap watching The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.
"Dad?" Shane asked, grinning.
His dad startled, spilling popcorn as he fumbled for the remote and turned it to football. "Jesus, Shane. I didn't see you! Are you trying to give me a heart attack?"
Shane pictured his dad lounging to RHOBH, raging at the TV, and couldn't help but laugh. "Don't change it on our behalf, we haven't seen that episode yet." He should let this go given how red Brandon Bolles' face was. He could feel Emily gearing up for the jugular next to him.
"It was a commercial. I was flipping through," Brandon tried.
Shane sat on the couch and he said before Emily could say anything snarky, "That's fine. I can't stand Kyle anyway."
"You shut your mouth," Brandon retorted, then attempted to backtrack. "I mean, I'm sure she's a lovely person and doesn't need your critique. Not that I care. Or know who she is." He muted the TV. "Anyway. Where have you been? I got a call from Cate wanting to know if you're working on the new murder?"
"Probably," Shane said. "So I get a call from Frankie—"
Brandon interrupted, "You're still with that slimeball? I told you he was using you—"
"He's an agent, Dad. By definition he uses me. And just because he wears a few necklaces doesn't mean he's a slimeball."
His dad leaned back, arms crossed, and dismissed that argument for likely another time so Shane pressed on. "Anyhoo. I got a call from Frankie a couple hours ago to get to Dan's Diesel because a trucker with Massachusetts tags had been killed. I haven't been by yet, but apparently his throat was slit."
"And," Emily chimed in, far too cheery for the circumstance. "Maria all but confessed to Dave's murder because he was hitting her."
Shane cursed himself for not telling Emily to keep quiet. He needed a way to shield Maria from this before anyone else found out.
"Please tell me she's not going to do something stupid like turn herself in," Brandon said.
Shane blew out a relieved breath. He had a lot of issues with his dad left to resolve, but his brush over of Maria's murderer status let at least some of his guards down. He didn't realize how much he wanted his dad to be OK with his call to help Maria until he acknowledged her guilt aloud. "She didn't confess, but she looks ready to. Which is why we need to pivot and find out who murdered this trucker. I know she didn't do it, but if we can find who did, maybe the heat gets off Maria while we figure out how to help her."
"But here's another kink in the cog," Shane continued. "I don't think I can Raise the trucker. Something happened with Dave Fever's Raising." Shane glossed over the fact that Emily bore witness, but filled in his dad on what the Dave-turned-poltergeist said about multiple murders.
"So there's going to be another murder," Brandon mused after Shane finished. "OK. No, there's no way you can go back to Memorial Hospital after that fiasco. You're going to have to solve it old school."
Shane raked his hands through his hair, "I don't even know where to begin, Dad. I've only taken cases where I could Raise the dead. And even then we usually knew who was responsible before I took the case on. I could use some help."
Brandon cracked his knuckles, pulled out a notebook from underneath his chair and put a pair of reading glasses on. "I never thought you'd ask." He flipped past a few pages of scribbled notes. "All my findings pointed to Maria, though it's a shame that the toxicology report came out the way it did."
"You read the report in my file?" Shane asked, laughing.
"You left it on the kitchen table, so, yes. Obviously. Anyway, we'll figure out how to help Maria. Cate was hovering at the murder scene at the gas station. She texted me the license plate number. You can't talk to the dead guy, but you can still get access to everything that moody cop has. When are you going to the station?"
Emily piped in, fingers flying over her cell phone. "Looks like the sleuths are on it. Guy's name is Nathan Dass. Age 54. Lives outside of Boston. No kids, no wife. Trucker for Freight Folks."
Brandon leaned over to see the phone as well, mouth dropped open. "How did you do that?"
Shane groaned. He hated amateur detectives. They were like locusts, and they'd be all over this town by tomorrow afternoon. "This is going to turn into a circus real fast."
Emily was showing Brandon the TikTok videos of the social media sleuths. Brandon got up, "I need my laptop. And coffee. Want something to eat while you Tok?"
She just laughed. "No thanks. Dad, get out of here. We'll work on this end, you go talk to Chief Grump."
Shane followed his dad into the kitchen and said low so Emily wouldn't hear. "Dad, there's something else you should know." He knew he had to tell his dad what had been weighing on him for months. "A few months ago, I was kidnapped."
Brandon Bolles was his most terrifying self when he stilled. Like a predator ready to pounce. He just said, "I'm listening."
"I don't know how, but this gang leader knew what I could do. They threw me in the back of a van, covered my head with a bag, and made me raise a dead guy that was part of their crew to find out who murdered him. I didn't have a choice, so I did it, thinking they'd be done with me." Shane tried to ignore the rising nausea he felt thinking of that night. "They weren't. I get these phone calls every now and then. Not asking to do anything, but it's just his voice. Reminding me that they will need me again."
"That's why you came here."
Shane nodded. "There was a car parked outside my house last week. I can't be certain, but I had to get Emily out just in case. I didn't know where else to go."
"You did the right thing,” Brandon said, arms crossed. “Did you tell the cops what happened?"
"No, they said they were watching me. They knew where Emily went to school."
Shane braced himself for the accusations that would be thrown his way. Hell, he blamed himself. Had he not done the Dead Don't Lie show no one would even know who he was. But Brandon didn't. He just nodded once, turned on the coffee pot, and said, "OK. Emily is safe with me."
Shane looked at his barrel chested father who gave him his own height. As a kid he always felt like his dad had hands the size of dinner plates, and even now as the old man gripped the half and half his beefy hands looked cartoonishly large. He believed him when he said he'd keep Emily safe, and some of the panic he'd lugged from LA dissipated. "Thank you."
He turned to go, grabbing his keys from the side table when his dad said, "I'll keep you safe, too, Shane. Let's just deal with one problem at a time."
Shane's throat clogged and he nodded once before leaving. He believed him.
***
Maria was grateful for the fact that Mama Cate's was bustling. It didn't give her time to dwell on the fact that she’d almost confessed to Shane Bolles the day before. She looked over at Cate's face, disbelief and confusion all over it.
"You want Matcha what?" Cate asked the annoyed college girl scrolling her phone across from the register.
"I got it, Cate. Swap."
Maria explained to the girl that they didn't have Matcha and talked her into a pumpkin spiced latte instead. Mama Cate's was sweltering despite the dip in temperatures overnight. She took off her heavy cardigan for a bit of relief as she rang up the next order. The line was out the door and there hadn't been a break in customers in hours. Outside, a cop directed traffic.
Cate groaned, and Maria looked up to see who had provoked her ire this time. Maria stifled a groan herself. Clarissa Baker, the town's mayor and real estate extraordinaire was sliding her way up to the front, cutting off annoyed customers. The woman was a walking opportunistic Karen. And she'd been all but giddy talking to the reporters out front all morning.
She waved her coffee mug at Maria, "I'll do another," she sing-songed before loud-whispering, "Less foam this time, though. It was like there was no espresso."
She jaunted off, waving at someone across the shop without paying. Again. Maria glanced over at Cate who appeared ready to chew her own teeth. Cate's husband Hamby actually relinquished his seat by the door to rub his wife's shoulders. Her boss was ready to murder anyone, and the last thing they needed was to make Clarissa, who also happened to be Mama Cate's landlord, mad.
"Get a bite to eat, Cate. I've got this." Maria said, and Hamby nodded his thanks to her.
"Wait," the lanky kid at the register said. "Aren't you that woman whose husband died?"
Maria needed to nip this in the bud before everyone else in the room heard. "What, because I'm Latina you think we all look alike?"
His face paled, "Ohmygod, no. Not at all. I would never think that, I'm so sorry. I just thought—"
"Right. You just thought." She clunked his Americano on the counter. "Your avocado toast will be a few."
He scampered off.
They'd stayed open an hour longer than usual, and Maria's feet ached by the time her shift was done. She locked up and took a moment to rearrange their pumpkin display that had become jostled in the line of customers that streamed through all day. Normally the town at night was quiet, peaceful. And yet, as she walked towards Town Hall she passed several people talking in front of cameras or their phones. The gas lit lamps were reinforced by bright Ring lights scattered throughout the town square. Every snippet she overheard prompted her to walk a bit faster.
"—sleepy town faces double homicide in less than a month."
"—the cops are quiet but the locals are not."
"—with Halloween right around the corner, a serial killer—"
She thought she'd be safe by the time she reached the town meeting, but the crush of a crowd outside dashed that pipe dream. Maria shouldered her way through iPhones held aloft and spotted her mother and Isa with an open seat in between them.
"This is crazy, mom!" Isa said with a quick hug.
Her mother harrumphed next to her, but blessedly didn't add anything. "It's something, kid," Maria responded.
She glanced around the animated crowd. Almost everyone from Hinnewatcha was here. She spotted Shane and his daughter with a man she recognized, but didn't know, near the front. She tried to un-notice the way Shane’s button down stretched over his broad shoulders. Quit being a creep, she thought as she forced her eyes away from his back. Cate and Hamby sat with arms crossed in the aisle behind them, but so many of the other faces were new. Officers walked around the room, and someone argued with Shirley in her uniform even as she shut the front doors.
Levi walked to the podium on stage. He wore his badge on his hip, his button down and tie in perfect order.
Rosa whispered, "You should bring that police chief some of your tea, Maria. He's so handsome."
Maria shushed her before she could say something more mortifying. Levi motioned for the crowd to quiet down, and for a moment the only noise came from the press cameras up front.
"Thank you for coming on such short notice. I know we're all eager to get to the bottom of this. For those of you who don't know me, I'm Levi Madison, Police Chief of Hinnewatcha and the lead detective on this case. Our condolences go to the Dass family in Massachusetts, and we appreciate the open line of communication between Mr. Dass' hometown police station and ours."
"There is a lot we don't know, but the point of this Town Hall meeting is to tell you as much as we can without impeding our investigation. I want to remind everyone that Hinnewatcha is a safe, happy town." His perpetual scowl deepened as he scanned the crowd. "We intend to keep it that way."
"Ay dios mio, Maria. Why hasn't he come over?" Rosa loud-whispered to Maria as she fanned herself.
She snorted and shushed her, "Dave's been dead less than a month, Mama. I'm not thinking about my next date." Liar, she thought.
Her mother elbowed her, "Of course. But holding hands with the fancy TV detective is ok, no?"
Maria glanced around her and said low, "Enough, Mama. That's not what it looked like. Now hush, please, I can’t hear."
Rosa sniffed and pursed her lips, but fortunately didn't say anything else.
"—and we are not disclosing any suspects at this time, but we do suspect foul play." Levi continued at the podium, raising his hands at the murmurs growing in intensity from the crowd. "I'll take questions now."
Shouts rose up around them, people stood up with their camera phones rolling to catch the next words. Levi pointed at a slim reporter up front in a suit.
"Thank you, Rebecca Davis here with KMVO," she said. "Are you assuming the same murderer that killed Nathan Dass also killed Dave Fever last month?"
Maria sunk lower into her seat, squeezing Isa's hand that found hers.
Levi frowned at the crowd, silencing the pent up urge in the room to shout out more questions. "We have not suspected foul play in Dave Fever's murder and are treating these as two separate cases."
"Liar!" Someone shouted from the back, and every iPhone and head turned to the front doors.
Dave's skinny brother Greg cupped his hands over his mouth, shaking off an officer's hand that tried to quiet him.
"My brother was murdered and this two bit cop can't seem to see that! Where's the real detective?"
"I am the Police Chief and the lead detec—"
Shouts for Shane Bolles cut Levi off. Maria bristled on Levi's behalf. He'd been loyal to this town since he took this position and was a misunderstood, but respected, officer until Dave's murder. I did this, Maria thought.
The chants for Shane Bolles turned gleeful, and Shane reached the podium within a few strides. His hair was still coiffed to perfection, and Maria thought for a moment about their time in the garden when that hair fell into his eyes as he listened to her. Dios mio. I do need to get laid. Knock it off.
Shane smiled wide, but his face turned serious as soon as the crowd quieted. "I am only here to help support Chief Madison's team when needed, and I can assure you, he has the situation well in hand. Now let's give him a bit of grace here and let him finish answering your questions."
He stepped down at Levi's quick nod, and Levi pointed to another reporter from the side whose question Maria couldn't quite hear.
Levi replied, "Correct, we do not think a curfew is warranted at this time and business will continue as usual. Yes, Mr. Timble?"
The ancient local pharmacist stood up, "If we had banned AirBnBs and short term rentals when I first suggested it, this would never have happened. Too many people!"
"Here we go," Maria mumbled as half the crowd shouted encouragement and the other half groaned.
Clarissa Baker seized that opportunity to vault onto the stage. She took the microphone from Levi as she smiled her picturesque Miss Vermont smile that won her the state's crown decades ago. She tapped the mic and made a simpering smirk as she waited for the cries to die down.
"OK guys... Most of you know me, but for the new faces in town, I'm Clarissa Baker, Hinnewatcha's Mayor. I'm also the resident real estate expert, and as we've discussed, Mr. Timble, more people does not mean more crime." She clapped the syllables to emphasize her point. "In fact, I'd argue that having this many new, young, entrepreneurs and law abiding citizens in this room is a good thing. That's why I've turned the old Sheridan at the end of town into world-class AirBnBs. That's right! And I've temporarily adjusted the empty office building into six individual AirBnBs as well given how popular our small town is right now."
"You've got to be kidding me," Cate shouted from mid-crowd. She didn't stand and ignored her husband, likely trying to hush her. "Do you really think this meeting or time is the most appropriate for you to hawk your personal real estate?"
"Ouch!" Clarissa drawled out the word and put a hand over her heart in mock protest that had some of the crowd chuckling. "That's a bit harsh. I am just looking out for our community's best interests. Our lack of hospitality units are not in line with our needs, and I'm just making sure we can safely accommodate these law-abiding citizens that have come into town to help solve these cases... which will in turn, make our community more safe. And who knows? Maybe some of them will stay and need a house." She winked and pointed to someone in the crowd before continuing, "Besides, Cate. I didn't see you complaining about the newcomers when the line from your coffee shop went out the door this afternoon."
Maria whispered to her mother, "This is going to get brutal. I need to get out of here. Do you and Isa want to come?"
Isa shook her head back and forth, "No way mom. This is about to get good."
Rosa shrugged, and Maria kept her head down as she hurried out the side door. She didn't see the men standing outside until she hit one of them with the door. "Sorry, didn't see—"
She let her voice trail off as she registered that one of the men was Greg Fever and the other guy was the face-tattoo man her instincts told her to stay far away from.