Page 11 of Grave Danger

“What the hell are you two doing here?” Lucia asked.

“Oh, do you know these two men?” the man said.

“Yeah,” Zellmer said as he hooked his thumbs in his gun belt. “We do.”

“We’re here to pay our respects to the mayor,” Demmy said. “Is everything all right? Has there been some kind of crime that requires members of the sheriff’s department?”

Lucia scowled, then turned to the man in the suit. “If you’ll pardon Deputy Zellmer and I for a moment, Mr. Chapman, we’re going to speak with these two men outside.”

“Of course,” Mr. Chapman said, looking between Lucia and Cody and Demmy. “I’ll be in my office when you’ve finished your conversation.”

Mr. Chapman walked briskly past Cody and Demmy without a second look and disappeared down a hallway behind the front counter. Cody gave the woman behind the counter a tight smile before turning away and, following Demmy, stepped outside through the door Lucia held open. Zellmer waited on the flagstone walkway, his face expressionless and eyes hidden behind aviator sunglasses.

“Always nice to see you out and about, Lucia,” Cody said. “But I have to say I’m shocked to find you at the cemetery.”

“It’s Deputy Durant, Bower,” Lucia said. “And what brings you two out here?”

“We wanted to pay our respects to the mayor,” Demmy said.

“Yeah? You did that at the visitation,” Lucia said. “I was there, remember?”

“I remember,” Demmy said. “But we wanted to pay our respects graveside as well.”

“Do you now?” Lucia looked at Cody. “I remember Bower here saying something along the lines of preferring to have his eyelashes plucked out one by one than enduring a graveside service given by Reverend McDonnell.”

“That was then,” Cody said. “I was a little tired and had been wearing a tie for a couple of hours. I’m feeling much more respectful today.”

“Right.” Lucia crossed her arms. “Why are you really here?”

“Like we said, we want to pay our respects,” Demmy said.

Lucia took a step closer, fixing Demmy with a hard look. “Out with it, Singleton. What’s the real reason?”

“All right, back down with the bad cop routine,” Cody said, taking a step toward Demmy. From the corner of his eyes, he saw Zellmer step closer and suddenly realized how quickly this situation might spiral out of control. It would be best to simply tell the truth, no matter how insane it sounded. Lucia had been through enough with them to take the situation seriously. And, besides, Cody figured the sheriff’s department was visiting because something janky had happened to the mayor’s grave.

“I called in a report of hitting someone with my truck last night,” Cody said, tipping his head toward Zellmer. “The deputy here responded. By the time he arrived, the, um, pedestrian had attacked me and chased me down into the drainage ditch. I am totally serious and stone cold sober when I tell you it was the mayor.”

Lucia stared at Cody in silence. He could see the muscles along her jaw tighten as she clenched her teeth. It was her standard reaction to being in his presence, but something was a bit different about this current stare down.

“Lucia…” Demmy started, then cleared his throat. “Sorry, Deputy Durant. What’s going on? You know us, you’ve known us a long time, and we’ve all been through a lot together. A lot of unusual stuff. Let us try to help.”

“Get in your crappy truck and follow us,” Lucia finally said.

“I don’t think they should be involved in sheriff’s department business,” Zellmer stated, his voice hard and flat.

“Your opinion is noted, deputy,” Lucia said. “Get in the cruiser.”

Cody shared a look with Demmy before they got into the truck. As he backed out of the small gravel lot, Cody saw the employees standing in a group looking out a dirt-streaked window. All had tight, concerned expressions, and he wondered if it was due to what Lucia was about to show them, or if they’d been hoping for some kind of violent arrest to be able to upload to TikTok.

“Lucia’s nervous,” Demmy said.

“She’s been wound tight ever since middle school.”

“True, but today it seems like someone’s tightened her spring a little more than usual.”

“Could be from having to drive around all day with our number one fan.”

Demmy sighed. “Ryan will always blame us for his father’s death. And I can’t really blame him for it.”