Hairless Harassment

Chapter Two

Well, this was exactly not what I needed on moving day. My new home had already been tainted by murder, and now the place next door had become an active crime scene as well.

My mom stared at me with wide, sparkling eyes. “Well?” She nudged me with her elbow as if we were doing something as harmless as discussing reality TV gossip. This wasn’t reality TV, though. It was actually real life. My life.

“I know that look,” Octo-Cat proclaimed from his seat beside me. “It’s the same one you get right before you decide to do something stupid.”

“Well, good luck on the investigation,” I mumbled, hoping to silence them both so I could get back to packing.

It didn’t work.

My mom grabbed both my wrists and attempted to drag me from my chair. “Come with me. I need you,” she whined, drawing out each word dramatically. No wonder she’d become Blueberry Bay’s go-to newswoman. Even I found myself both wanting and dreading to know what would happen next.

I yanked my arms away and wrapped them around my waist defensively. “In case you forgot, it’s my moving day, and I still have lots to do before the movers get here in a few hours.”

Mom balked at this excuse as she moved behind my chair and put a hand on each of my shoulders, causing me to flinch. “A few hours? Why, that’s way more than enough time to take a quick glance. Besides, aren’t you curious?”

I bit my lip and tried really hard not to say anything. The truth was I had, in fact, begun to enjoy the thrill of the investigation. And despite my better judgment and bigger priorities, I was definitely intrigued by the newest murder in town having happened right next door to my new place.

A fresh corpse next door. What a housewarming gift!

Seeing that she had me on the hook, Mom began to reel me in. She put her face beside mine and tipped my chair back. “Tell you what. How about you come with me now and, after we take a quick look-see, I’ll come back to help you finish packing. Deal?”

I groaned and pressed my forehead to the table. The chair’s front legs landed back on the floor with a jarring thud. “Deal,” I murmured into the cold wood.

“Right back into the thick of it. Why am I not surprised?” Octo-Cat commented drolly before trotting off without so much as a glance my way.

“Yay!” My mom clapped her hands several times and began to yank on my arm again. Sometimes I felt like the most grown-up person in my entire family, which was saying something since Mom was in her early fifties and Nan had already high-tailed it well past seventy.

“Let’s go,” Mom said, tugging at my arm once again. This time I got up and followed. “I’ll fill you in on what I know on our drive over.”

True to her word, the moment the car doors closed beside us, my mom jammed her key in the ignition and started to talk. “I know you were never interested in politics too much, but Lou Harlow was a four-term senator. She won every term by a huge landslide and was probably going to be re-elected the next time, too. Everyone around here loved her, which makes her death all the more shocking.”

I chewed on my thumbnail as she spoke, a bad habit that had gotten more and more out of control lately.

My mom swatted me with one of her perfectly manicured hands. “Stop that. It’s gross!”

“Sorry,” I muttered, running my index finger across my jagged thumbnail as I switched my focus back to the matter at hand. “So, a political rival wanted her seat and it was easier to murder her than to try to win fair and square?”

“Maybe,” my mom said, bringing both hands back to the steering wheel now that she’d decided she didn’t need to hit me a second time. “We’ll definitely work that angle and see what we come up with.”

I sensed a but. When Mom didn’t provide it, I decided to give her the lead in. “But?”

“Why kill her at home when she spends most of her time in Washington?” she asked as if I might actually have the answer.

I shrugged. “Maybe it was more convenient.”

“It’s too obvious, though. Don’t you think?” She frowned as she considered this.

“Well, maybe our killer isn’t very smart. How did the senator die, anyway?” In my experience, killers usually were pretty smart, actually. Smart, but vain. Combine those two traits with their lack of a moral compass, and it often spelled trouble—both for their victims and for me, the fiery upstart who did my best to help bring them to justice.

Well, lately, at least.

Would I continue chasing killers around Blueberry Bay forever?

Only time would tell, but I had a sneaking suspicion that the answer just might be a resounding Oh, heck yeah!

Mom pulled up to a stop sign and switched on her blinker, then turned to look at me. Once again, her expression was filled with utter joy as she revealed, “Somebody pushed her down the stairs!”

Oh, for the love of…

“Then how do they know it wasn’t just some stupid accident?” It looked like we might have both gotten ahead of ourselves, and here I was considering myself the sleuth of the century—at least as far as Glendale, Maine was concerned.

Mom seemed flustered. “They? Who’s they? We are the ones investigating this, and we don’t know for sure, but we definitely suspect foul play.”

I bit my tongue to keep from mentioning that the police were still the true detectives here and that I was too new to the case to be a part of her royal we. It seemed I still had to learn this lesson for myself, too.

Shaking off my disappointment, I turned my head to watch the scenery flying past my window. Greenery stretched as far as the eye could see—trees, flowers, grass, everywhere life. Well, except at Lou Harlow’s manor house.

Gulls drifted on the breeze, reminding me that gorgeous Blueberry Bay was just beyond the horizon. We lived so close to the ocean that the air always tasted slightly of salt. My new house sat so close to the shoreline, in fact, that I could walk there in ten minutes flat.

“I really wish people would stop turning up dead around here,” I told my mom with a sigh. We were a small town to begin with. If the murders continued at their current clip, we’d be down half our population by the end of next year.

“Don’t you think it’s just a little bit exciting?” my mom said as she navigated us down the private drive that served all the most elite homes in Glendale—including now, rather inexplicably, mine.

I understood where my mom was coming from, though. For years, she’d wasted her journalistic talents on puff pieces and human interest stories. This new dastardly turn of events in our small town made for big news and a far more interesting job for her.

Still, people were dying, and that was definitely a problem.

I was saved from answering her question by the appearance of red and blue flashing lights on the top of the hill. My mom drove one turnoff past my new house and pulled right up to the late Lou Harlow’s estate. Cops were everywhere, definitely more than technically worked for our sleepy little town. It seemed as if the whole county had arrived—whether to help investigate or merely to gawk remained to be seen.

A few officers stood by the entryway chatting over takeout coffees. Others paraded around the property talking into their radios and trying to look important. Somebody else worked on stretching that jarring yellow crime scene tape around the porch.

I hated it. I hated it so much. The good senator deserved better than this. We all did.

Mom pulled straight up behind the nearest cop car and shut of the engine. “Ready?” she asked with a quick glance my way before charging out of the car and right over to the group of officers who had gathered by the house.

“Quite the scene you’ve got here,” she said jovially while I struggled to catch up. Even though I was taller than my mom and should have had a quicker stride, she’d always buzzed around like a hummingbird, sometimes moving so fast you could scarcely keep track.

“Yeah, and it’s a private one at that,” a county officer informed us both, making a little shooing gesture with her hand.

“Laura Lee, Channel 7 News,” Mom answered proudly, shoving a hand forward in greeting.

The officer sneered and refused to take the proffered hand. “Oh, then we definitely don’t want you here.”

One of our local boys spotted us from across the yard and shouted, “It’s okay. She’s with us.” Officer Bouchard jogged over to join us. “She’s got the needed clearance,” he told the others.

“Thank you,” my mom said, simpering at the county officer who had tried to deny our access. “Now, be a dear and catch us up, please.”

I sighed and made a mental note that How to Win Friends & Influence People would be the perfect gift for my mom on the next holiday that required such things.

“Officer Raines?” my mom read from the angry lady cop’s badge. “I just want to help.”

“Like heck you do,” the other one spat back.

I tried to block their bickering out as I studied the massive stone façade before us. Just like my new house—Fulton Manor—this one was at least five-thousand square feet and probably about as old as the state of Maine itself. Gorgeous bay windows stuck out at odd intervals around the second floor in what appeared to be a recent remodeling job. I wondered if you could see the ocean from up there. Whatever the case, they seemed like nice little nooks to hang out with a good book. Maybe I could add a window seat as part of my own remodel as well.

I’d almost fully immersed myself in this bookworm fantasy of mine when a flash of something caught my eye. I squinted to try to make out what was up there, but was met only with the fluttering of drapes. Whoever or whatever was looking out upon the chaotic scene below had now disappeared.

I left mom to continue her battle with Officer Raines and inched slowly toward the entry. Her preferred method of investigation may have been talking, but I’d always preferred to jump straight in with both feet and see what I could discover.

At least if I found trouble waiting for me on the inside, I knew there were a dozen-odd officers loitering nearby. Any of them could offer up some help in a pinch.

See?

I had nothing to worry about as I tiptoed right into the middle of this fresh crime scene.