“I was, but then I started thinking about it, and, if Nick had already started an investigation of my ex and reported his bimbo lawyer’s improprieties, it is quite possible that my ex would have done what he could to shut me up.”
“To include killing you?”
She stopped and stared. “Well, he didn’t kill me though, did he?”
“No,” he said, “but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t on his mind.”
“No, or it was just a warning.”
“Warnings are usually clearly warnings,” he said. “In this case, somebody literally attacked you, and you didn’t even get a chance to defend yourself.”
She frowned. “It could also have been any one of the other cold cases I worked on.”
“Yeah, like I said, we have a plethora of suspects in this case regarding your attacker.”
“I guess maybe I have amassed my share of enemies.” She sat back in her chair and stared at him in dismay. “I so wanted to make friends here, you know? I just wanted to be in a community where I felt wanted and where I belonged,” she muttered. “Instead it seems like I’ve gone about this the wrong way.”
“It’s not that you went about it the wrong way,” he said, “but your need to do something to help, that curiosity, and the way your mind works,” he said, “has gotten you into a fair amount of trouble, time and time again. And, with that, we have disgruntled people.”
“Do you really think they’re after me?” she asked, staring out the kitchen window. “I didn’t think I made that many enemies.”
“You only need to make one,” he reminded her.
“Well, I certainly have that, haven’t I?” She groaned.
“And maybe it’s somebody completely unrelated,” he said, looking at her.
“Which would be even worse because we would have no idea where to start. That would be a stranger-danger deal, and we would have no way to track down anything.”
“And, yes, before you ask, we did look at the vehicles coming in and out of the cemetery.”
“Anything?”
“A rental,” he muttered. “We tracked it back and found it was rented to a John Smith.”
She laughed at that. “Wow, they’re not even trying to be original.”
“No, they aren’t, which leads us to thinking it was deliberate. Deliberate to rent a vehicle. Deliberate to go to the cemetery. But was it deliberate to attack you? That’s the part we can’t ascertain for sure.”
Chapter 24
Doreen and Mack continued with their meal, and, when they were done, Mack said, “Come on. Let’s take our coffee outside and sit on the deck.”
“Even if it’s not on a chair?”
“You can have the chair,” he said. “I’ll sit on the steps.”
“Do you think we could find a table and some chairs for it?” she asked. “It really would be so lovely to eat out here.”
“I’m sure we can, and I don’t think it’ll be all that much money,” he said. “Even brand-new, the cheap sets are a couple hundred bucks, so we should be able to get something better than that.”
She nodded, smiling. “That would really be nice.” They quickly cleaned up the dishes and made some coffee. Then, when she pushed open the screen door, it wouldn’t easily budge. She started to chuckle. “Has he struck again?”
Mack stared at her in outrage, then peered through the glass window. “Seriously?”
“I wouldn’t be at all surprised,” she said. “But I didn’t hear a thing.”
“Neither did I,” he said, glaring at the door. “I’ll sneak around the side,” he said. “I’ve been looking out here the whole time, so it must have just happened when I put on the coffee.” He turned and raced out the front door.
She thought he would go around the right-hand side, but instead he went around Richard’s side, and, next thing she knew, there was a squawk outside, and she cried out in joy. “It looks like he got him!”
Mugs started barking, and Thaddeus called out, “Big guy, big guy.”
“Well, Mack’s our big guy,” she said, looking at Thaddeus. “Surely you’re not confused on who big guy is?”
He just bobbed his head up and down and flapped his wings, “Big guy, big guy.”
Suddenly the rock was removed, and the door was flung open. And there was Mack, with a glare on his face, holding a skinny kid by the upper arm. “Do you know this guy?” he asked.
She looked at the boy, frowned, and said, “He was one of the kids chasing Thaddeus down the river,” she said slowly. She looked back at Thaddeus. “That’s why you’re crying out big guy, isn’t it?”
“Big guy, big guy, big guy.”
Mack looked at Thaddeus, looked at the kid, and said, “What do you want with this bird?”
“I don’t know anything about the bird,” he protested.
Mack released his grip on him, and the kid shrugged his shirt back into place and glared at both of them. “I wasn’t doing nothing.”
“Well, you were trespassing,” she said, calmly studying him. “He looks like he came from that same corner,” she muttered to Mack.
“He’s a long way from home then.”
“Could have come by bike without any trouble,” she said. “It’s not all that far as the crow flies. Especially considering he’s in the other side of the eco center.”
Mack frowned, as he stared at the kid. “What’s your name?”
But the kid’s face turned sullen, and he shoved his hands in his pockets.
“Take him down to the station and lock him up for the night,” she said. “Maybe come morning, he’d be more willing to talk.”
The kid started to sputter.
“What do you expect?” she asked the boy. “You leave threatening messages on people’s doorsteps. You trespass on people’s properties, and you’re here, trying to steal my bird,” she said, the outrage in her voice growing. “Do you think you’ll get a warm welcome?”
“I’m not trying to steal him,” he said, looking at Thaddeus. Then his shoulders slumped. “But I sure wouldn’t mind having him.”
“Well, you’re not going to,” she said. “He’s mine.”
He glared at her. “You didn’t look after him though, did you?”
“Meaning?”
“I saw him around the cemetery,” he said, “and he was all alone, and nobody was there to look after him.”
She turned and glared at Mack, who at least had the good graces to look apologetic. “Actually,” she said, flipping back to look at the kid, “I was attacked and unconscious at the cemetery. You don’t happen to know anything about that, do you?”
He looked at her in surprise, then the bird, finally at Mack. “What? Why would I? I wasn’t even on the grounds.”
“The detective here picked up my animals because he came to find out why I wasn’t at home. In fact, my animals found me unconscious in the cemetery. Mack knew that I’d gone to a funeral there, so he came by and grabbed them, as they are well-known for searching out trouble,” she said, for lack of a better term. “And they did find me, but, when I woke up, with the paramedics and police all around me, Thaddeus had disappeared.”