Witcher Upper - Amy Boyles Page 0,22

What happened was an accident, plain and simple.”

My jaw dropped. “An accident?” I murmured. “There’s no way that it was an accident.”

I said that a bit too loudly, because Chief Sluggs glanced in my direction. “I’m sorry, Clem, but that’s mine and the coroner’s conclusions. Accidental death caused by tripping on her high heels.”

What the heck? My gaze darted to Liam, who looked lost. Anger burned inside me at Slugg’s decision. Accidental death my foot. Sadie did not trip and die. No. Someone killed my best friend, and I would be darned if I didn’t find out who had done it.

My eyes narrowed. First thing in the morning I would start my own investigation, and I would get this whole thing figured out—no thanks to Tuney Sluggs.

Chapter 9

I did not sleep well that night. Heck, I didn’t sleep at all. A bout of crying came over me and never let go. Tears streamed down my face every time I thought about Sadie and what had happened.

Then anger would fill me when I thought about how incompetent Tuney was. How could he honestly have ruled Sadie’s death an accident? He and his deputies hadn’t even been at the scene long enough to determine that. Shouldn’t there have been an autopsy—something? Thirty-year-old women do not just up and die in wet foundation.

By midnight I’d made the decision that I would head to the police station and talk to someone—Earl Granger maybe. He had a head of smarts on him, or at least he appeared to. I’d discuss my concerns with him and see if at least someone would listen.

But then there was Rufus. What was I going to do with him? Obviously it was impossible to watch him 24-7, not with the barn to renovate and Sadie being gone.

Clutching my pillow, I buried my face in it, hoping that would dissolve some of the pain that riddled my body, but no luck.

By three a.m. I realized that sleep wouldn’t come, so I got up and made a pot of coffee. There was no point in lying in bed, so I started scanning the Internet for knickknacks that might look good in the barn when it was finished.

It soothed me to shop, even if the idea of butting heads with Dooley Hutto made me want to punch him in the face.

Scanning websites, I came across an old milk jug that only needed some sanding and a little paint. It would be perfect in the kitchen. It took me a minute to locate my purse, but I found it and my wallet, then punched in the numbers on my business credit card and waited for the sale to go through.

It was declined.

I sucked my teeth. There should be plenty of credit on the card—plenty. Sadie always kept great track of our spending, and she would let me know when we got close to our limit and would pay it off. That’s how we did things.

Suddenly her being gone hit me again, and fresh tears pearled in my eyes. After a draining cry that lasted a good ten minutes and left me with a throbbing head, I returned to my computer and pulled up my bank account to see what had happened.

When I logged into the credit card part of the site, my jaw dropped. The card was maxed out. I stared at the transactions and saw lots of purchases at a store called Frank’s. What the heck was Frank’s? There wasn’t a store in town with the name, not that I knew of. I jotted it on a notepad and decided to pay down the card with money from the account.

No problem. Even though finances were Sadie’s department, it wasn’t like I was incapable of paying a few bills.

When I logged back into the business account, I searched for our balance and did a double take. The number staring at me on the screen couldn’t be right, it just couldn’t. There was no way that we only had one hundred dollars to the business’s name.

What transactions had taken place? It took a moment to find the right tab to search (note to self—learn how to maneuver the bank’s website), but I eventually did and clicked it.

Three large checks had been written, checks that I hadn’t authorized. There was one for five thousand dollars, another for three thousand, and the last was for a whopping eight grand.

Fiddlesticks. No wonder the account was empty—that was all we had in the bank total. Who the heck could