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CHAPTER8
“Ican’t believe you called Ruth.”
“She’s super awesome at this kind of thing, Chav. I just happened to mention the twisty toy, and she already had a few ideas.” The doorbell rang. “That’s her!” Sunny was excited about the new mystery, and I chalked it up to BMS, Bored Mommy Syndrome.
After hugs all around, we all sat at the kitchen table with steaming mugs of coffee and slices of blackberry cobbler with ice cream that Ruth brought. As I bit into the deliciously tart cobbler, still warm from the oven, I reassessed her added value to the clue party.
“Chav doesn’t want us touching it for some reason,” Sunny said when I held up the star.
Ruth leaned forward. Her lips pursed as she carefully kept her hands on her mug and examined the sassafras.
“It’s an eight-point star,” she said.
“I have ten fingers, so I managed to count that high.” I picked my foot off the ground. “With my toes, I can go as high as twenty.”
Ruth laughed. “Smart-aleck.”
“Do the eight points mean something?”
“Yes,” she said. “If I remember right, it has some kind of meaning in Christianity. Something about redemption.”
I grabbed up my phone and pushed the microphone icon. “Find eight-point star,” I said into the base of the phone. A bunch of search results popped up, but I clicked on the first one. “Uh oh.”
“What?” Sunny and Ruth were both scooting closer in their chairs.
“It means gazillions of things to a gazillion different people.”
“You’re exaggerating,” Ruth said.
I showed her the screen. “But not by much.”
Sunny slid her finger up my phone. “There’s the Christian reference. It means redemption or regeneration. There some stuff in here about astrology. And some witchy stuff.”
“Do you really think the killer left this last night?” Ruth asked.
“I’m not sure of anything.” Other than I was more confused than ever. Was it a coincidence? Had someone from the fair dropped this outside the restaurant? Maybe it had been in one of the trash bags that burst when I tripped over the body. Why was I making such a big deal about a scent and an eight-point star?
A phone rang. It was Sunny’s. “Hey, Babe,” she said when she answered. “Yes. All right.”
I could hear him ask her to put him on speakerphone once she confirmed I was there.
“Chav, they identified the first body. We’re still working on the identity of the second one.”
My stomach lurched. “Who was it?” Please don’t let it be someone I like. I knew it wasn’t someone I loved. They’d all been accounted for.
“Mike Wares.”
“Mike?” I gripped the star again. He’d been the prime suspect when the sheriff had thought Ed was the victim. “I can’t believe it.” He’d been a volatile man, but he certainly hadn’t earned this fate.
“Nobody deserves to die that way,” agreed Babe. “I’m nearly home. I’ll see y’all in a few minutes.”
He ended the call. We all looked at each other in shock.
“Oh, damn,” Ruth said. “Mike is Blondina’s half-brother. They didn’t always get along, but family is family.”
“Half-brother?” I asked.
“Yes.” Ruth shook her head. “They both have the same father, a grizzly shifter who’d been one of the town’s founders—Albert Ware. Blondina’s mom was Albert’s first wife. She was a bear shifter. Albert left his wife for Mike’s mother. She was a raccoon shifter.”
