Red After Dark (Blackwood Security #13) - Elise Noble Page 0,54
lot alone the previous day.” Alone, not with Kyla or any of her other friends. Another symptom of the homecoming feud? “Anyhow, I’ve started canvassing the neighbours on Aspen Canyon, where Barb lives, but I want to go into town to check out the pharmacy angle, just in case. Can you and Beth carry on where I left off?”
“Just let us know who you’ve already spoken to.”
“I’ll email over a list. Although at this point, I’m beginning to think there’s something in Barb’s extraterrestrial theory. Nobody saw a thing.”
Nobody saw a thing. Those words echoed in Alaric’s head as he guided Beth towards the front door of the farmhouse, glancing towards Irvine Carnes’s private wing as he did so. Red After Dark was still through there, and it was as if Dominique and Emerald were both laughing at them all.
CHAPTER 21 - BETH
GROWING UP, I’D always thought being a private detective was such a glamorous job. Sherlock Holmes, Magnum, Nancy Drew, Veronica Mars… I bet none of them spent two whole days traipsing up and down driveways in intermittent drizzle, asking questions that no one—absolutely no one—knew the answers to. Either the people hadn’t lived there thirteen years ago, or they hadn’t seen anything, or they couldn’t remember back that far.
At first, Alaric and I had started off canvassing together, but after an hour or so, he let me take the lead on the questions, and when I didn’t screw that up, I was finally allowed out into the big wide world on my own. He was twitchy, though, and I could understand why. If Piper had come to a nasty end, then her killer was still walking free. What if it hadn’t been Kyla? Quite honestly, I struggled to believe that a teenager could not only murder a person, but also hide the body successfully for over a decade.
Which meant I was twitchy too.
Dan had dug up a voter registration list, and Alaric assigned me all the houses with either women or retirees listed as the only occupants. Plus I had to call him after every visit. So far, I’d worked my way down Aspen Canyon, a twisty road where ramshackle wooden homes and trailers nestled among the trees, and onto Lakeshore Drive. Alaric had twice as many properties to visit as me, but somehow, he was still farther ahead. I raised my hand to knock on another door.
“Hi, my name’s Beth, and I’m working with a team of private investigators to—”
The lady stared at me. “You’re English.”
“Yes, from London. I’m just helping—”
“We don’t like strangers around here.”
On the contrary, all of her neighbours had been extremely welcoming. Half the pensioners had invited me in for cookies, and if I had one more cup of coffee, I’d never sleep again. Plus I really needed to pee.
“I promise I won’t take up much of your time. We’ve been hired to look into the disappearance of a local girl, Piper Simms, and—”
“That was years ago.”
Was I ever going to finish a sentence?
“Her grandma still can’t sleep at night from wondering what—”
“Barb Simms thinks she got beamed up by little green men. You want my two cents? Look at that pothead she hangs out with. Homer. He always looks at my Lisa funny, don’t he, hun?” She turned to the girl who’d materialised behind her, a redhead who didn’t look more than twenty. The girl nodded. “See?”
“Thank you, that’s very—”
“There, you’ve had my help. Now scoot. Some of us have got useful things to do.” She began to close the door in my face. “You’re hunting for a ghost. Waste of time.”
Click.
Was it a waste of time? Who was Homer? I hurried down the drive and dialled Alaric, feeling a tiny buzz of excitement. Was this what detective work was all about? Hours of tedium followed by a lead that might help to solve a murder?
“Everything okay?” Alaric asked.
“The lady I just spoke to, she told me about a man called Homer. Apparently, he’s a friend of Piper’s grandma, and he’s a bit, well, creepy towards her daughter.”
“Homer? Did you get a surname?”
“No, but she mentioned he smoked a lot of marijuana.”
“Okay, I’ll call… Wait. Homer? I bet that’s a nickname for Bill Simpson. Dan already ruled him out. He went drinking the night before Piper disappeared and got arrested for urinating on a cop. Took him two days to sober up enough to make bail.”