5
IT WAS AUNT Donna who found poor Len Huffman, of course.
She found his body in some hidden eddy downstream from the dam around two that morning. Melody had stayed until she was literally dozing off mid-sentence. Frankie finally convinced her to let Duffy take her back to their rental cabin and promised that someone would come to talk to her as soon as they knew anything.
All the other boats fell quiet as Aunt Donna ferried the body across the river. Hell, Aunt Donna was uncharacteristically silent as she piloted the boat to shore. Len Huffman’s mortal shell was draped carefully with a clean white sheet. Donna didn’t have any funereal experience, but she took such things seriously.
Frankie went over the mental checklist of information she needed to note about his condition. Lividity, rigor, body temp, skin tone. She tried not to focus on the mundane details, like his wedding band or the tattoo on his forearm of the name Melody surrounded by little music notes. His body was in pretty good shape, considering what he’d been through. There were no wounds or obvious bone breaks. It looked like a fairly straightforward case of drowning, though she would have to run some tests at the morgue.
“Sheriff?” She looked around for Eric and couldn’t find hide nor hair of him. She could swear that he’d been right behind her when Aunt Donna called over the radio to say that she’d found him.
Frankie pulled the sheet back over Len’s face and tucked it gently around his head. “Aunt Donna, I’ll be ready to transport him in just a few minutes.”
She hopped off the boat and onto shore. “Sheriff Linden!”
Frankie marched through the base camp, watching the rescue workers and volunteers taking down the lights and equipment. It was oddly deflating, that loss of hope, even though they’d known for hours that Len was probably dead.
Somehow, Eric had managed to disappear from a very well-lit area full of people who were professional finders. It took her multiple walks around the base camp before she finally found him, up the hill, on his cell phone, filling out paperwork on his clipboard. It sounded like he was notifying the dam personnel that they’d found the body. While it was an important step, it wasn’t exactly something that needed to be done the minute they found Len.
Eric ended the call, his face pale and almost cheesy-looking in the artificial light.
She frowned at him and said, “I’m gonna contact his dentist to ask for records. If possible, I’d like to spare his wife the chore of identifyin’ him.”
He nodded. “Good thinkin’, good thinkin’. Keep him in our custody for an extra few days. Um, I’m gonna contact his doctor and ask for a list of his medications.”
“Why would you do that?” Frankie asked.
“In case something comes up on the toxicology report. We need a baseline. Are you going to run a blood-alcohol?”
Frankie shrugged. “I always do, but honestly, I don’t think alcohol or foul play are going to be an issue here. There are no beer cans or bottles in the debris field. I didn’t smell booze on his wife’s breath.”
“Let’s just see what we find, okay?” he said. “Why don’t you take the, uh, body back to the morgue. Get some rest and run the test results back to me as soon as you can.”
“All right, then. I’ll call you as soon as I know anything,” she said. “Are you gonna talk to the wife?”
Eric’s mouth bent into a pained grimace.
“I’ll take care of it.” She turned on her heel and walked off. “Might as well let someone who feels actual human emotions talk to the grievin’ widow, ya tool.”
WHEN LIFE KEPT YOU AT a morgue past ten in the morning, for nonfun reasons, the only thing that could make it better was one of Ike Grandy’s artery-clogging megabreakfasts.
Frankie sat at her usual booth in the back of the Rise and Shine, wearing a pair of oversize sunglasses while she picked at a Good Start, a buttermilk biscuit the size of a hubcap stuffed with bacon, cheese, and sausage omelet, served with a side of home fries. Because home fries.
While several of her neighbors nodded at her from their own booths, most left her alone. Word of Len’s drowning had already spread, and most Lake Sackett residents knew Frankie well enough to know that late nights out involving body retrieval did not give her a sunny disposition. She had a few hours before she was supposed to be back at work, beginning tests on Len’s body. But she knew there was no way she’d be able to sleep in this state, her nerves too keyed up and her belly too empty.
Poor Melody had been beside herself with grief when Frankie informed her of Len’s passing, collapsing against Frankie and sobbing into a stranger’s windbreaker. Even with all evidence to the contrary, she’d still held on to the hope that this was all a misunderstanding, that Len was coming home to her. The only bright spot in Frankie’s morning had been sitting on the rickety rental’s couch with Melody as she called Len’s sons. Frankie had held Melody’s hand, ready to end the call the second that Len Jr. or Marty spoke the least bit crosswise with their estranged stepmother. But she’d been pleasantly surprised by their support, asking Melody if she needed anything, if they should come to Georgia, if she wanted them to start funeral plans in Ohio.
Frankie sincerely hoped that it was the devastation clear in Melody’s voice that prompted this change in the Huffman boys, that they weren’t planning on yanking the estate out from under her while she was grieving. Frankie had spent her life around sincere grief. She knew it when she saw it, and she hoped that Len’s sons could look past their mountain of childhood issues to see it, too. Frankie didn’t understand why Sheriff Linden seemed to think her behavior was suspicious.
Eric Linden. Frankie stretched her aching back against the cracked red vinyl of the diner booth. She wondered if having a sheriff who seemed to be an antisocial curmudgeon with no apparent people skills was better than having no sheriff at all. Or even Landry Mitchell as sheriff, which had given her nightmares for about a week when Bill Rainey had announced his retirement.
How was she going to work with someone who didn’t seem to have any understanding of the town or its people? Or any people, really? Eric Linden didn’t get small towns. He didn’t get that things were less formal here, or that his rigid refusal to relax came off as snobbish. She was more than annoyed with him. She was disappointed. Somehow, she’d held out a secret hope that he would let go of his initial hostile awkwardness and start to show some sign of the man she’d met before. And it hurt her more than she thought possible. Why did she want to see those flashes of kindness in him so badly?
A large, burn-scarred hand appeared in her peripheral vision and poured a second cup of coffee into her red-and-white mug. “Mornin’, Frankie.”
She didn’t have to look up to know the hand belonged to Ike Grandy. The tall, mustachioed owner of the Rise and Shine was the only one brave enough to approach her before her third cup of coffee on most mornings. He’d been serving her breakfast for almost thirty years and was smart enough to gauge when her uncaffeinated threats were empty and when they were dangerously sincere.
“Mornin’, Ike.”
“Somethin’ wrong with your eggs?”
Frankie slid her sunglasses on top of her head and squinted up at him. “Nah, just got a lot on my mind.”
Ike nodded glumly and put a hand on her shoulder. “I heard you had some trouble out at the dam last night. Tourist from Ohio?”
“Yeah.” She nodded, sipping the hot black brew. She would never tell Ike so, but she much preferred his coffee to her mama’s, which Duffy could use to strip a boat engine on a good day. “Aunt Donna found him this morning.”
“Dead bodies don’t usually put you off your breakfast. Something else goin’ on?” Ike was staring at her face, analyzing.
“I’m just fine, Ike,” she promised. “Peachy flippin’ keen, I promise. It was just a long night.”
“I hear the new sheriff is, uh, a character.” Ike eyed her in a new way now, watching her face because he enjoyed her hyperbolic reactions to frustration. It was the basis of their friendship.
Frankie pinched her lips shut.
Ike’s thick brown mustache twitched. “No comment?”
She smiled sweetly and tilted her head at a coquettish angle. “Mama always said that if you can’t say anything nice, it’s best to just smile until the murderous urges go away.”
Ike’s blue eyes narrowed. “That doesn’t sound like your mama.”
“Well, she doesn’t say it often, Ike. That’s how you end up with witnesses.”
Ike snorted and tousled her blue hair. “Take care of yourself, Frankie.”
“Always do.”
Frankie shoved a chunk of omelet into her mouth. She refused to let thoughts of Sheriff Linden ruin her breakfast, especially when she had a long day ahead of her. The way Ike cooked, that was disrespect bordering on sacrilege.
She paused to let the flavors of perfectly cooked egg, fluffy biscuit, smoked sausage, and sugar-cured bacon meld in her mouth. Ike was an artist, and his medium of choice was breakfast meat.
An obnoxious laugh broke through her reverie. She opened her eyes to see Jared Lewis sitting in a booth near the front window with a couple of his equally obnoxious friends. Jared had his mom’s thick, pale cornsilk hair and small brown eyes. His tanned skin bore acne scars across his cheeks and chin. He was thin and short for his age, eye level with Frankie when she wasn’t in heels. It was Duffy’s theory that Jared suffered from “banty rooster syndrome,” meaning he tried to make up for his lack of height by being the biggest, loudest presence in the room. Frankie thought there might be some merit to Duffy’s notion, but she also thought that Jared was an overindulged little creep with entitlement issues.
Jared was mocking the waitress sliding plates of eggs and waffles onto the table, telling her, “Come on, come on, thunder thighs, we’ve got plans today. We don’t have time to wait around on you.”
The waitress, Peggy Taylor, was a pretty junior at Lake Sackett High with her mama’s heart-shaped face and hourglass figure. Her doe eyes narrowed at Jared and she asked, “What did you just call me?”
“I said, ‘Come on, pretty eyes.’ ” Jared smiled winsomely, or what amounted to winsome when you had a mouthful of orthodontia. “What, you can’t take a compliment?”
So not only was this kid obnoxious, but he was also an idiot. Adulting Life Lesson Number One: Do not mess with the people who handle your food.
Peggy made a disdainful face at him, and Jared held up his plate of toast. “Could you stick this in the toaster for just a few more seconds, thunder—I mean, pretty eyes? It’s a little light for my taste. I like it real dark, almost burned. Can you handle that? Or should I ask Ike for help?”
Frankie could practically hear Peggy’s growl from across the room. The poor girl worked on weekends to help her mama support her three younger siblings. Mr. Taylor had run off with Ike’s previous waitress, Pammy Entwhistle, two years ago. Peggy had accepted her early transition into grown-up responsibilities gracefully. The same could not be said of Jared.
Frankie tried to keep the Game of Thrones “I’ma kill you slowly with dragons” expression off her face. But as soon as he made eye contact with Frankie, Jared smirked that insufferable metal-bracketed smirk of his. He took a bottle of hot sauce from the condiment cart on the table, opened it, and shook it over his eggs.
Hot sauce.
Every splatter against the plate seemed to echo in her head, and Jared’s grin grew wider and wider.
Hot. Sauce.
Exactly like the hot sauce that had been poured into the ketchup bottles at the Snack Shack. He was mocking her, openly, with hot sauce.
Screw it, she was about to go full House Bolton on this kid.
He took a big bite of eggs, still staring at her, and smiled around the food. Gross.
Frankie clutched her fork in an overhanded Psycho grip and took a deep breath. Jared, unwisely, chose this moment to slide out of his booth and saunter over to her. Behind him, Frankie could see Peggy practically torching Jared’s toast against a gas burner. Watching her set Jared’s breakfast on fire was enough to get Frankie to relax her death grip on her utensil.
She smiled pleasantly, as if butter’s temperature would not drop a single degree in her mouth. “Good mornin’, Jared. How’s your daddy?”
Jared snickered. “Still your boss, the last time I checked.”
“Aw, bless your heart,” she cooed in the same sugary voice she used to talk to Tootie’s bulldog Myrtle. “That’s an interesting way of lookin’ at what is basically a volunteer position on my part, to help out my community. But if you want to see it that way, sweetie, I won’t burst your little bubble.”
Jared flushed red. He did not like being called “sweetie.” His mama called him that in front of his friends, and it embarrassed the hell out of him. Frankie smirked this time. Adulting Life Lesson Number Two: Know thine enemy.
Or maybe that was the Bible.
Or The Real Housewives of New Jersey.
“So, how’s the season treating y’all over at McCready’s?” Jared asked in a tone far too casual to be genuine. “I hear you’ve been having problems?”
“What?” She gave an exaggerated laugh. “Where would you hear a silly thing like that?”
He sneered. “Oh, I just heard you’ve been having issues with keeping the tourists happy.”
Behind him, Frankie could see Peggy holding up Jared’s strategically burned toast with a pair of tongs and running it through the gap between the hot griddle and the countertop, where even Ike’s meticulous cleaning skills couldn’t quite reach. Peggy was buttering his toast with years’ worth of old grease, grime, and who knew what else.
Frankie approved, heartily.
“Oh, not at all! I mean, I know you’re probably not familiar with this because you’ve never actually worked for anything before, but there are little, tiny, insignificant complications involved with any business. And when those minor, petty, barely noticeable problems come up, you just fix them, forget about them, and move on.”
While placing the finished piece of toast on a plate, Peggy spotted Frankie watching her and froze like a deer caught in headlights. Frankie grinned at her, and Peggy relaxed ever so slightly. Smiling, she picked up the second piece of toast and gave it the same treatment as the first.
“I don’t have to work,” Jared retorted.
“Congratulations . . .” Frankie said, ending the word on a dubious, scornful note.
“You think you’re such a big deal, with your stupid hair and your weird clothes. Everybody feels so sorry for poor little Frankie who almost died. Boo-hoo. Well, I know what you really are. You’re a freak.” Jared leaned and loomed over her . . . because she was seated and that was the only way he could loom over anyone. “And one of these days your mouth is gonna get you in trouble.”
Frankie couldn’t lie. His words stung. Not about her being a freak, of course. She dressed the way she did because it was fun and it set tight-asses like Marnette Lewis on scandalized pearl-clutching rants. But the suggestion that people in Lake Sackett pitied her set her teeth on edge. It was one thing for her to play her parents, but Frankie had never flaunted her illness around town for sympathy.
Then again, the suggestion came from a half-grown jackass, so she was going to give it all the consideration it was due, which wasn’t much.
“Next time you make a vague threat like that, you should really twist a pretend mustache at the corner of your mouth to drive home how super-duper evil you are,” she scoffed. As Jared’s face flushed an unpleasant shade of puce, she nodded to Peggy, who was walking back to his boothful of toadies. “Now, I think that sweet girl serving your food has finished your toast. Why don’t you go sit down and eat your breakfast?”
Jared’s lip curled, but he turned and started to swagger away.
“And Jared?”
He stopped, and she added, “Do be sure and tell your mama I said hello.”
He bared his braces at her, and she made an exaggerated show of shivering in her booth. He snarled and stomped back to his table, snapping at Peggy to get the hell out of his way.
Satisfied, Frankie stood and slid the cost of her breakfast, plus a generous tip for Ike and an extra twenty, across the counter. “Make sure Peggy gets this as a tip. She’s worth every penny.”
Ike wiped his hands on his apron and accepted the bills with a frown. “But Peggy didn’t serve you.”
Frankie grinned at him. “Sure she did.”