Chapter 1
“Is that the music from Dateline I hear in the background, Lemon?” my BFF Coco Belinski asked, her tone rife with accusation.
I clicked the television off in guilt. “Don’t be silly, Coco. I was just getting ready for bed. You know too much stimulation is a sure trigger for my insomnia.”
“I do. That’s why I bought you that MP3 of a bunch of monks chanting. To help you sleep. That’s also why Dateline and all other murder mysteries, either real or even the tamest of strains known as Murder She Wrote, should not be a part of your daily diet anymore, Detective Layne. We’ve discussed this, haven’t we? This is your mental health calling and it likes status quo.”
I snorted at her favorite endearment as of late as I made my way to my bathroom to brush my teeth. I was no more a detective than she was a sheep herder.
It’s been almost three months since Coco and I were a given a bird’s-eye view of a real-life murder investigation, involving my mother’s ex-boyfriend, Myron Fairbanks. An investigation that brought up tons of unresolved issues, for me in particular. Issues from my past…
An investigation that also reminded me, solving a crime on a television show is decidedly different than solving one in real life.
Coco’s overprotective nature is the reason she’s calling me just before bedtime, and has every night since that chaos all went down—because she knows me well enough to know I’ve been having a bout with insomnia.
Though, my insomnia doesn’t all surround the murder of Myron, mind you. But I admit, there are nights when the vision of him in our gas station bathroom with a hole cut out of the back of his head does still haunt me.
So when given too much time on my hands, like when I can’t sleep, I inevitably turn to any sort of mystery I can get my greedy hands on. That’s always been my way.
It doesn’t have to be a murder mystery. It could be something as uncomplicated as the case of the missing thumbtack, and I’m britches deep, all on board to solve the case. My problem is the total immersion that occurs when I sink my teeth into any kind of puzzle.
The bigger problem? I can’t let go. I jump in both feet to the exclusion of all else until I figure it out.
Now, you’d think after the last mess I’d ended up in—which, by the by, included the invasion of a zombie hunting club in our small town of Fig Harbor, WA, mass hysteria over government conspiracies, a killer with his gun pointed at both Coco and I, and a brush with death—my mystery-solving days would be over.
Nope. In fact, that very encounter is what continues to fuel my passion—because I wasn’t nearly as good at solving a crime as I’d once thought. I’d missed things. Important things. There were clues I didn’t investigate thoroughly or look more deeply into because quite frankly, I’m an armchair sleuth at best.
And that bugged me no end. My mother’s innocence had been in question for a moment or two during the investigation, and I’d fumbled the ball. It left me kicking myself, mostly late at night when the shadows of the trees in our backyard made black-talon silhouettes out of their limbs on my walls.
“Lemon? You still there?”
I sighed as I squeezed minty toothpaste onto my toothbrush. There was no lying to Coco. She could see right through me. I’d been caught.
Looking away from my reflection in the bathroom mirror, I confessed as such. “Okay. Confession. I watched Dateline. Guilty. But The Bachelor’s on hiatus and there was nothing else on. Anyway, it’s over now and I’m going to bed. Promise.”
She yawned into the phone. “Give JF a big smooch from me and tell her I’ll see her tomorrow. Now get some sleep, fledgling detective. When I walk into the store tomorrow, I don’t want to see those unbecoming shadows under your eyes. Sweet dreams.”
I clicked off the phone and brushed my teeth, yawning, too. I thought about the irony of my yawn as I turned off the light. Sure, I was yawning now—before I got into bed. Once I got there, all snug under my favorite comforter, my mind whirled like a dervish.
But I prepared for another sleepless night anyway by scooping up my rescue spider monkey, Jessica Fletcher, from her fake tree limb perch in my room and dropping a kiss on her mischievous head from Auntie Coco. She gave me a sleepy coo and snuggled against my chest before I deposited her in her cage and tucked her favorite stuffed unicorn against her cheek.
I set about brushing my unruly, shoulder-length hair, a fruitless act for sure. No matter how many fancy highlights I got in burnt umber slathered all over my muddy brown hair, no matter how much product I used, it would always be too kinky-curly and uncontrollable to do much with but put in a ponytail.
Dabbing moisturizer beneath my eyes, I had to admit if I had nothing else, I had clear, bright eyes and decent skin. I’d acquired a light tan from the occasional outing to the docks in town for lunch or drinks with Coco, giving me a healthy glow and naturally blushed cheeks.
Unfortunately, that’s sort of all I have going for me. I’m pretty short, and while I’m wiry and in decent enough shape, I’m not exactly bodaciously gifted, if you know what I mean. Sighing, I set the moisturizer down and put my brush away, dreading this time of night.
And then I turned and looked at my bed in all its big, beautiful king-size glory, with plump pillows in ivory and periwinkle blue, the matching fluffy comforter with eyelet trim, and sighed again. Lately, my bed had become my torture chamber, but I was trying to do what the doctor in town told me to do after I’d finally seen him about my insomnia—keep a regular schedule for sleep. No coffee after three in the afternoon, go to bed at the same time every day, rise and shine at the same time every day, exercise, eat well, blah, blah, blah.
Throwing my bathrobe over the end of the bed and turning off the soft-blue glass lamp on my nightstand, I did the same thing I’d done for the last three months—got in, flipped on my monk chants on my phone and waited for my thoughts to spin out of control.
As I hunkered under the covers, forcing myself to think about the coming of spring and all the things I wanted to do with my koi pond out back, I found a rather pleasant spot in my brain where tulips and daffodils swayed gracefully in the breeze amongst the rocks surrounding my fish. While I imagined the wind, warm and filled with the tang of the ocean, ruffling my mop of unruly hair, I closed my eyes.
A sudden banging from somewhere far away startled me to an upright position. I bolted forward, pulling the comforter from around my midsection, and blinked at the sun streaming across the bottom of my bed.
Glancing at the clock, I noted it was seven in the morning.
Holy cats, I’d slept for seven uninterrupted hours until that incessant banging. Seven lovely hours without dreams of zombies and brains, dead men and detached limbs, walloping me over the head.
Pushing my way from the bed, I grabbed my robe and stuck my arms in, pulling it around my body as I slid into my slippers and peeked out the window of my bedroom—the one overlooking the front of the house. Leon was supposed to open our family-owned convenience store/barbecue, the Smoke and Petrol today.
My mother May and I own and operate the store, but we have occasional help, even in the off season. Fig is a tourist town, set amongst the trees, mountains and water of the Pacific Northwest, and just a quick ferry ride from Seattle. Leon’s our most reliable part-timer, a high school kid who often opens for us before he goes to his classes.
But why would he be banging on something? Leon was astute, responsible, and quiet. But all that banging sounded like he was in the process of rebuilding Rome.
I left Jessica in her cage and flew down the stairs, hoping to avoid waking my mother. She’s seventy now, and about as easy to keep track of as a herd of greased cats. But even greased cats need their rest when they play as hard as Mom does, and she’d had a late night last evening at her current obsession, hot yoga.
As I plowed down our wood and wrought iron spiral staircase to the front door, I realized the banging came from someone rapping on the door. I hesitated, and if you remember what happened to me a few months ago, you’ll understand why I’ve had a new security system installed, complete with intercom.
Pressing the button on the intercom, installed right next to our beautiful wood door with the stained-glass cutout in bright blues and oranges, I asked, “Who is it?”
There was a shuffling noise, as though someone were trying to get their footing, or maybe even rearrange the porch furniture for all I knew, and then I heard, “Who’s there?”
I tilted my head. Maybe it was because I was awakened from a very sound sleep, but I didn’t recognize the gruff voice. “I don’t know. You rang my doorbell. Who the heck are you?”
“Lemon-Meringue? Is that you?” someone crooned with a croak. “Or is it just somebody who sounds like Lemon? Like a pod Lemon who invaded the real Lemon’s body?”
Sighing, I realized I didn’t need to look out the window to see who it was. Only Waylan Caprice—or Cappie, as he’s known to us Figgers—could think I’d been abducted by alien body snatchers. But I wanted to be sure.
“Is that you, Cappie?”
“Yeah, it’s me. Question is, is that really you, Lemon?”
I was still a little ticked at Cappie after all the trouble he’d stirred up by broadcasting one of his crazy conspiracy theories when Myron was killed. The unusual circumstances of Myron’s death had turned into a sensationalistic nightmare after Cappie got on his YouTube channel and told his bananapants followers Myron had been killed by a governmentally engineered zombie (you know, because of the hole in his head and the piece of his brain missing).
All hell had broken loose in Fig because of him. People insane enough to believe that theory had shown up with signs and zombie-killing weapons, hoping to see and maybe even capture a real zombie. They’d camped out in the woods and all over the docks in town, creating havoc everywhere they went, and the only thing they’d ended up catching was the flu and the poor mayor, who’d been out fishing. But that’s another story for another time.
Suffice to say, I’m still a little chuffed with our local doomsday prepper/conspiracy theorist. “Yes, it’s me, Cappie,” I said, typing in the security code and flinging the door open.
Cappie hopped back into the sunlight, his customary clogged feet doing a nervous jig. He looked up toward the bright blue, almost cloudless sky and squinted as though he’d actually find aliens commandeering the Enterprise or something.
“How do I know it’s really you, Lemon? Where’d that voice come from? Was it generated by the mother ship somewhere up there in the big blue beyond?”
“Cappie?”
He rocked back on his heels, his skinny legs poking out of a pair of scruffy knee-length shorts as he tugged at his peace sign T-shirt and gave me a suspicious glance from his glazed eyes. “What?”
“It’s Lemon. Really and truly. The one and only Lemon Layne.”
“Prove it!” he yelped and took another cautious step backward.
I wiped the sleep from my eyes and tried to smile reassuringly at him, even though without my glasses, he was sort of blurry.
“You rang my doorbell, Waylan Caprice. Maybe you should be doing the proving. How do I know you’re the real Cappie and not some governmentally engineered decoy of Cappie?” I teased. “Maybe you’re a robot who looks just like the Fig Harbor version of Cappie.”
“That ain’t true! Who’s been telling ya that pack o’ lies? I’m just Cappie and that’s all.”
I grinned at him and reached for his weathered hand. “And I’m just Lemon. That’s all. Now, there’s a certain amount of trust we’re going to have to allow one another at this point. So, either I close the door and go back to bed—because by the by, it’s seven in the morning, Waylan Caprice—or you believe I’m the real Lemon and tell me what it is you want.”
He paused, evading my reach for him, and fisted his hands together behind his back. “Oh, right! That’s right. I came to ask you something. It’s important.”
I leaned toward him, holding my breath to avoid the stench of turkey jerky and stale beer, two of Cappie’s life staples. “And that is?”
“How come that lady’s asleep in your fish pond out back? I was collectin’ cans in the woods and I saw her, plain as day. Swear to ya.” He peered intently at me. “She a relative a yours? Or just some drunk tourist who wandered out there?”
I sighed. Cappie once thought he saw Bigfoot, too. Thankfully, it had been before he’d discovered YouTube, so he didn’t rile up as many people back then as he had with the zombie scare.
So the question is, to indulge or not to indulge? That’s always the question with Cappie. Everyone in Fig knows he’s a lot left of center, but we mostly humor him because he bothers no one except for the occasional “down with the government” rant, and if he’s nothing else, he’s ours, and in one way or the other, we all try to look out for him.
He’s a vivid part of our community, and while we usually dismiss the idea the rubber soles on our shoes are rigged with listening devices for the CIA, or that the power lines are tapped, he’s still ours. Though, I don’t envy his daughter Noreen, who essentially chases after him like one would a toddler. To say he’s a handful is to say the least.
Cappie lives in a beat-up camper in Noreen’s backyard, where he thinks he’s successfully hiding from The Man. He spends his days cooking up conspiracy theories and filming videos about doomsday prepping (because the apocalypse is just ’round the bend and down the road a piece, you know). Then he has some poor high school student upload them for him at the library so he won’t leave behind any Internet footprints.
He won’t live in Noreen’s house with her because of her birds—a collection of cockatoos Cappie’s convinced are government informants because they’re trained to speak. She decided the safest place for him, short of her house, is in her backyard. And mostly he stays out of trouble back there.
Mostly.
Cappie tapped me on the arm with a gnarled finger. “Lemon, you listenin’? You better wake that lady up. If the boys in blue see her, they’ll throw her in the clink. They always haul me off to the tank when I fall asleep in ol’ Major’s backyard after I been drinkin’.”
I gave him a sympathetic smile and stepped out onto our whitewashed front porch, hooking my arm through his as we meandered down our wide stairs and into the sun. “That’s because you crawl into the doghouse and fall asleep when you’re drunk on too much homemade apple whiskey. Major already told you, Stewie is afraid of you, Cappie. That’s his doghouse and his favorite place to take his morning nap when it’s warm out during the summer. When you creep inside his house and cover yourself with his blanket, Stewie gets territorial and makes a fuss.”
Cappie snorted as we walked the path around to the back of the house where my koi pond was located. “Dang near took my leg off last time I did that. Mean old cuss.”
I chuckled, inhaling the warmth of the sunshine. It was nice to have some sun after a long, rainy winter. Our feet clicked on the slate pavers, but as we rounded the corner, Cappie stiffened, stopping dead in his tracks. I pulled him along with me, encouraging him to move closer to the koi pond.
More than likely something had blown into the koi pond, or maybe the plaster statue of David my mother insisted on having as lawn art had toppled over into the water. She’d gotten it at a flea market in Oregon somewhere, brought it home and planted it right where she could see it while she sunbathed in the summer with a glass of iced tea and her favorite erotic novel. Leave it to my seventy-year-old mother to adorn our backyard with a replica of a naked guy.
Either way, I couldn’t tell what it was without my glasses. Right now, all I saw was a big blob of something, but I was pretty sure Cappie, whose eyesight couldn’t be any better than mine, mistook whatever it was for a sleeping lady, because that’s what Cappie does—blows everything out of proportion.
Yet, Cappie clung to my arm, his fingers digging into my biceps.
I patted his hand to reassure him as we drew closer, passing a cluster of hedges and ornamental grass, my slippers soaking up the dew of the early morning. I squinted as the bright sun shone on the water of my beloved pond, sparkling and clear.
We’d turned the backyard into a nice little oasis with a small brick patio, white wicker furniture with cushions in bright teal and stripes of orange, a barbecue, and a small fire pit. To the left of that, flush with spring daffodils, tulips and more ornamental grass, sat my favorite spot in the entire backyard—my koi pond.
I loved my pond, and the newest addition to it, a white koi fish Coco and I had laughingly named Koi George. It brought me peace to watch the fish swim, slicing and arcing through the water, sleek and quick.
But you know what I didn’t love?
The woman sprawled out half draped over my koi pond.
How strange.
I pushed a trembling Cappie behind me as he whispered, “See? Told ya. She’s sleepin’ right there with your fish. Bet she had some of that new brand of vodka Shrimpie was talkin’ about the other day. He said it packs a wallop. Came all the way from Russia.”
She’d definitely had something… Whether it was vodka from Russia remained to be seen.
Her head was tilted back on the rocks surrounding the pond as though she’d used them as her pillow, but I couldn’t see her face well enough to identify her, only her chin and the creamy expanse of her throat.
The ends of her gleaming red hair, darkened by the water, swished in the gentle swell of the pond, making her locks fan out behind her. The rest of her body sprawled out on the grass in front of the pond, her legs relaxed, her arms at her side. In fact, she looked so peaceful, I half expected her to snore.
For someone who’d probably tied one on at Shrimp Cocktails, our local bar and the closest watering hole to our house, she sure was dressed nice. Most of us locals were pretty casual for the most part. But she wore a cute black leather shrug jacket with silver studs around the sleeves over a form-fitting black dress with matching ankle boots. Boots I knew shoe-loving Coco would envy.
“Do you know who she is, Cap?”
He squinted his eyes and shook his head. “Can’t tell for sure. Looks a little familiar, but I can’t see from this far away. Didn’t want to wake her in case she wakes up fightin’, ya know? Can’t ever tell what a hangover’ll do to some.”
Still, I turned to Cappie and smiled to reassure him everything was fine. “I’ll take it from here, Cap. It’s okay. She probably just drank too much. Though, how she stumbled all the way here from Shrimpie’s without getting run over or, at the very least, getting some dirt on her clothes and the heels of her shoes, is a miracle.
It was darn dark around here at night and the road to and from town was especially treacherous—not to mention a good fifteen-minute walk, and only if you undertook such in a brisk manner.
But Cappie gripped my arm and pointed over my shoulder. “What’s that next to her?”
Turning back around, I squinted and moved even closer to see what he meant. “Looks like a cup,” I muttered—and that’s when I stiffened.
“Lemon?” Cappie’s voice was shaky. “What’s wrong?”
I squeezed his hand to shush him as I stared hard at the woman’s chest and leaned forward, taking all of her in with an intense, thorough gaze.
Sure enough, there was no rise and fall to indicate she was breathing. I might not be able to see details from a distance, but I can surely see the big picture.
My stomach tightened and my limbs began to feel like butter. In that moment, I forgot Cappie and everything else as I fell to my knees and reached for her wrist to see if she had a pulse.
Of course, my sudden movement frightened Cappie, who hopped backward and slipped, falling on the wet grass. “Lemon, what’s goin’ on?” he squealed, frazzling my already tenuous nerves as he crab-walked backward on the heels of his hands and feet.
“Cappie, shush!” I almost yelped in alarm as I grabbed her wrist again and pressed my fingers into her cold flesh to be sure my initial assessment was right. Dread swept over me when I was unable to locate a pulse. Dread and sorrow.
“Lemon?” Cappie called again, only this time his voice filled the air with panic.
Fighting the swell of dizziness, I forced myself to remain calm. “Cappie, you need to listen to me, please. Stay calm and go to the store right now. Tell Leon to call 9-1-1. Do it now.”
“She’s dead, ain’t she, Lemon?” he whispered, obvious fear in his tone. “She’s dead!”