Spackled and Spooked

“When you put it like that,” I admitted, “I guess I can see your point.”

“So where do you want to eat?” He turned the car onto the main road.

“How about we just stop by Guido’s again? It’s close, and we can get Brandon a calzone or a meatball sandwich or something.”

“It’ll be fast,” Derek nodded. “I don’t want to leave Brandon alone too long.”

I opened my eyes wide. “You’re not afraid he’s suicidal, are you?”

He snorted. “Hardly. I’m afraid he’ll go hog wild with my tools and destroy something. I want to get back there before he decides to try to work on the plumbing on his own and floods the place, or something.”

I leaned back on the seat, teeth worrying my bottom lip. “But we have to go get the sinks and plumbing stuff, don’t we?”

“It’s getting late,” Derek answered. “We’ll take our time over di

“That’s true. All right, then. We’ll do that.” I sat back in the seat and watched Derek’s hands on the wheel until he stopped the car in the parking lot of Guido’s and turned off the ignition.

The interior of the small building was just as it had been when we’d been here last. Loud and boisterous, with lots of people. Candy, the waitress, was wearing the same tight jeans with her hair in the same jaunty ponytail; she might even have been chewing the same wad of bright pink bubblegum. And over in the corner, the same familiar faces were sitting around the same table. They didn’t even blink when they saw us. “Have a seat,” Josh said, scooting a little closer to Sha

Ricky looked different today. He was still dressed the same, in a plain button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows. But when I greeted him, he didn’t peer furtively out at me through a curtain of shaggy, dark hair, nor did he mutter an almost inaudible response. Instead, he looked straight at me, and smiled. “Hi.”

I blinked. When Ricky smiled, his whole face changed. Lit up. Became handsome. And not only that, but I realized something else, too. John Nickerson may have thought Patrick-Ricky-looked like his mother, but when he smiled, he was the spitting image of his father. He had his mother’s coloring, yes, but he had his father’s smile.

None of the others reacted, and I found myself wondering if they knew. Would Ricky have told them? Safer to assume they didn’t know, I decided, and that Ricky preferred it that way. “You look like you’re feeling better today.”

He blushed. “Yes, thanks.”

“Too bad you had to leave so quickly last night,” Derek said blandly. “Avery’s Bailey’s fudge cake was great.”

“It was more Kate’s Bailey’s fudge cake than mine, but thanks.”

“So what’s going on with you two?” Josh wanted to know. “Did my dad let you go back to work on the house today?”

Derek nodded. “We left Brandon there while we went to get something to eat. We’re supposed to bring something back for him.”

“ Brandon?” Josh’s brows drew together. “What’s he doing there? Has something else happened?”

“Oops,” I said softly. Derek nodded, responding to what I was thinking rather than what I said.

“It’ll probably be all over the news tonight, if it isn’t already, Avery. We may as well tell them.”

“Tell us what?” Sha

“Poor Brandon!” Her voice was warm, full of sympathy. Josh sent her a sideways scowl, but he didn’t speak. “Of course he’d never do anything like that!”

Paige shook her head in agreement.

“I don’t know,” Josh said darkly. “Seems to me a pretty girl can get a man to do almost anything.” He stabbed his straw through the ice in his drink with savage force. I suppressed a smile, and so did Derek. Sha

“How can you say that, Josh? You know Brandon; he’d never hurt anyone!”

Josh shrugged sulkily. “It happened a long time ago. We didn’t know him then.” Sha

“He wouldn’t have done that,” Sha

“ Wayne doesn’t think so,” Derek said, “although he’s not sure, either. Not totally. I don’t think Brandon did it, but I wouldn’t leave Avery alone with him.”

“I’m not worried,” I said. “I’ll buy that he could have killed Holly by accident. It could have happened to anyone. I’ll even buy that he might have panicked and buried her in the crawlspace. But that he’d leave her bag of clothes and jewelry sitting in his garden shed for four years? He’s not that stupid. Nobody knew she was missing. He could have gotten rid of it at any time, and nobody would have known. And it’s not like he’d place an anonymous phone call implicating himself, either.”

Everyone was silent for a moment after I finished speaking.

“She has a point,” Sha

Josh nodded. “So someone else killed Holly and left the bag in Brandon ’s garden shed to throw suspicion on him. Or get him off the case?”

“Or throw suspicion off himself,” I said. “Or herself, if it was a woman. Even if Holly’s death was an accident, and the only crime was in covering it up, we’re way past that now. Venetia Rudolph’s death was no accident. Someone deliberately picked up that flower arrangement and bashed her over the head with it. And I definitely can’t see Brandon doing that.”

“Who do you think did it, then?” Paige asked, her soft voice even softer than usual, almost inaudible in the loud room. I shrugged.

“I have only been in Waterfield a short while. You’d be better able to determine that than me.”

“Who are the suspects?” Josh asked.

“Well.” Derek and I exchanged a glance. “There’s Brandon, because he dated Holly and because her bag was found on his property. Also because Venetia Rudolph would most likely open the door for him, especially if he were in uniform.”

Then there was Ricky, but I wasn’t about to mention that with him sitting across the table.

“There’s Holly’s mother,” Derek said. I nodded.

“Linda White. She lives on Becklea, so she’d know that the Murphy house was empty and would be a safe place to hide the body. Holly’s friend Denise said that Holly and her mother argued a lot. If Holly didn’t write her own good-bye note and pack her own bag, Linda had the best opportunity to do it.”

“But to kill your own child…!” Sha

“It happens,” he said.

“Yes, I know it does, but the thought…!” She shook her head.

Josh, who was very sharp and a lot less emotionally charged than Sha

“Then there’s Denise herself,” I said. “She lives on Becklea, too, and she was Holly’s best friend. Except Brandon says they weren’t as close as Denise makes out, and Linda says that Holly and Denise had a falling out a few weeks before Holly disappeared. Over a boy.”