“How bad it is?” I mouthed to him over my uncle’s chubby shoulder.
“Bad,” Stiles mouthed back, his handsome face, red from the cold and very grim, making me gulp and force myself to gather my wits in order to be strong for Uncle Darling.
Hobbs came in behind me and stood at my back, his hand on my waist, but he remained silent as my uncle cried and we both absorbed the mess the store had become.
Everything mostly looked the way it had when I was a kid, from the rows of candy and chips and a small selection of sundries, to the coolers with beer and soda.
Apparently there’d been a scuffle, because the shelves closer to the bathroom were knocked over, cans of coffee and small jugs of laundry detergent scattered across the floor. The rack that held fresh flowers from the local flower shop, where you could grab a small bouquet of carnations, was toppled over, green leaves everywhere.
And those drops of blood were all over the place, too—from the cashier’s counter all the way to the bathrooms down a short hallway. I didn’t know if they were from Monty or Gable or both, but seeing them made me shiver.
“Nooo!” I heard a female voice scream, raw and ragged. “No! No! No! Please, say it’s not true, Stiles! Please tell me he’s not gone!”
Blanching, I realized Gable’s wife, Anna, had arrived, and hearing her cry out could only mean Gable was dead for sure.
Uncle Darling lifted his head, his wide blue eyes brimming with tears, his raspy voice cracking. “We need to get to Monty, Hal. They wouldn’t let me go in the ambulance. I absolutely must go to him. He’s the love of my life. I can’t lose him! Not now!”
Hugging him hard, I cupped his cheeks and forced him to look at me. “Listen to me, Uncle Darling, I have to be sure you’re allowed to leave. So I need you to take a deep breath and answer my question. Do you know if the police have any more questions for you?”
He gripped my wrists, his pudgy face collapsing. “I don’t know, but I have to go to him, Hal. He needs me!”
Wiping his tears with my gloved fingers, like he’d done for me so many times, I nodded. “I understand, and I’ll get you to him as soon as I can. I swear I will. But first, let me check with Stiles, all right? I know it’s hard, but we can’t just run off if they need to talk to you. Okay?”
“O…okay,” he sobbed, raspy and deep as he clung to my arms.
“I’ve got him, Hal,” Hobbs said, and I gratefully mouthed my thanks.
Planting a kiss on my Uncle Darling’s wet cheek, I pointed to Hobbs. “This is Hobbs, he’s renting the cottage behind me and he’s a friend. Is it okay if he stays with you while I check to see what needs to be done?”
Now, if you knew anything at all about my uncle, you’d know Hobbs would certainly warrant a slick comment about how good-looking he was, but my uncle didn’t make a single off-color remark.
Instead, when Hobbs held out his hand, he went directly to him, his head low, his tears splotching the white tiled floor.
Hobbs pulled him away from me and back toward the beer cases, speaking to him in soothing tones.
I waved Stiles over, my nerves feeling a little frazzled. As he approached, the crisp legs on the pants of his uniform wet at the ankles, his face looked positively green.
Reaching out a hand, I grabbed his wrist. I didn’t know if he was friends with Gable in school, he’d been a year behind us, and if I’m truthful, back in the day, he’d been a terrible bully.
It didn’t seem likely that Stiles would have been friends with him, but he sure looked pretty upset.
“You okay, Fitzi?” I asked, calling him by his nickname when I tugged on his police-issued jacket.
“I’m okay, Kitten. Seeing Anna like that was tough. They have a baby, and I gotta say, it was pretty awful to see her so torn up.”
I caught sight of Anna on the other side of the convenience store, where the police were huddled around her, giving me only a glimpse of her beautiful blonde hair and her face, red from crying.
I bit the inside of my cheek at the tragedy of it all. She’d just had a little girl a couple of months ago. In fact, Gable had been showing the baby’s picture to anyone who’d look when they came into the store.
“Gosh, that’s awful.” I rubbed his arm. “So what in blazes happened here? Uncle Darling’s beside himself over Monty.”
Stiles blew out a breath. “I’m not sure of the details because Darling was hysterical and there was no calming him down. I think, and I use that word loosely, that Monty came in to use the facilities and grab you some flowers because he insisted, in Darling’s words, they be fresh for his favorite little witch. Monty took too long, so Uncle Darling decided to come looking for him, and someone in a knit mask ran out of the bathroom, almost knocking him down. He ran to the bathroom to find Monty covered in blood and unconscious, and Gable shot…dead.”
My stomach jolted. How awful for Uncle Darling. “So that was Monty being taken away in the ambulance?”
I know it was a dumb question to ask, it definitely wasn’t Gable on the gurney, but I almost needed to hear it out loud to digest the information.
He gave me a curt nod, gulping hard. “It was, and it looks pretty serious, Hal. I won’t hesitate to say I’m worried about him.”
Crap, crap, and more crap. “Okay, so can we take Darling to the hospital to see what’s happening? Or does he have to answer more questions?”
“How about I go check and I’ll get back to you in a sec. There’s a lot going on.”
I’d say. The team of forensic people were in and out of the small hallway leading to the men’s bathroom, their faces somber, plastic on their shoes, leaving bloody footprints in their wake.
No less than four police officers and Detective Godfrey were talking to Anna, and that didn’t even account for the other police officers outside, marking off the parking lot.
“Yes, please go check,” I whispered, my heart pounding as Anna began to cry again, her husky sobs agonizing to hear.
A female police officer came and took hold of her, escorting her to a car outside, her arm around Anna’s shoulders, keeping her close.
Thankfully, the car drove away, and I was glad for it…because what happened next will probably haunt my dreams forever.
There were a couple of grunts from the back where the men’s room was located and then, without warning, another gurney came out. Maybe someone hadn’t covered Gable’s body well enough or the sheet had slipped off, but I got a bird’s eye view of my first murder victim.
Four sturdy men pushed the gurney carrying Gable, his brown eyes glassy and wide, his mouth in a thin line of what looked like pain, suggesting he’d experienced anguish at the hands of his killer.
But that wasn’t the worst of it. The worst of it was the hole in his chest. From where I stood, it looked enormous and ragged, the tear in his Feeney’s Fuel and Gruel shirt blackened around the edges.
My stomach flipped upside down as someone yelled, “Didn’t I tell you to wait until I cleared everyone out, you idiots? Have some respect and cover him up!”
As they passed Uncle Darling, I heard him cry out a primal scream seconds before the ground beneath me began to swell and lift—and with no warning, I was in the men’s bathroom of Feeney’s, watching two men fight for control of a shotgun while Monty lie on the small tiles of the bathroom floor.