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Her stomach rolled at the image that came to mind. “Any idea what killed her?”
The smile slid off his face. “Not yet. The medical examiner is on her way.” He ran a hand through his sandy blond hair. “This is a tough one.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “The whole town is going to be upset. Tempers will flare for sure.”
He turned toward her. “I know the chief is counting on her Honor the mayor to help diffuse the situation.”
She made a non-committal noise. To put it mildly, Susan Duggan, the Mayor of Cedar Bluff, Maine, did not like Alvin Clark, the current police chief. The two fought like cats and dogs. No, Harper had seen cats and dogs get on way better than the mayor and police chief. “I’ll do my best…But you know how she can be.”
“Yeah, I know. But Harper, we need everyone on the same side on this one. Throwing stones at each other will not help all of us get through this.”
He was not wrong. Cedar Bluff had a population of about ten thousand souls. Every one of them would closely follow this situation. Throwing the police under the bus wasn’t going to help matters. It wasn’t their fault they hadn’t found Astrid.
Of course, suggesting Astrid had just run away had been stupid. Anyone who knew Astrid would have, and did, tell them that. Even Harper had known in her heart of hearts that Astrid must be dead when she hadn’t shown up in the first twenty-four hours. It was too late for the police to do anything but search for her body, but the police had maintained it as a missing persons case. With no proof of foul play, they had to continue the motions of searching for her.
Astrid’s disappearance had bothered everyone in Cedar Bluff. It was just so unlike her. The grim reality was that someone had killed one of their own. Harper cursed silently.
“Detective Merritt,” a young guy in a suit called. He gestured toward the sky. “Do you think we should?”
Jason looked over at him. “Go ahead,” and then turned back to Harper. “There’s a storm coming in. We’re gonna put a tent over the burial site to try and protect it.”
“I didn’t know you guys had tents for this type of thing.” God only knew her boss would go ballistic when she found out. She complained bitterly about the police department budget on a regular basis. Emergency services ate up a huge percentage of the budget and Susan resented it.
“We don’t. The tent belongs to me. I bought it for my sister Carly’s wedding a few years ago. It’s been sitting in my garage. With the storm coming I thought it might help.”
“Good thinking,” she agreed. She nodded toward the guy in the suit. “How’s Lazlo working out?”
Jason sighed. “Good kid, but a little excitable.”
Billy Lazlo was an overgrown Labrador retriever puppy. He was all flailing limbs and goofy grins. At six feet, five inches, he should have been great at sports, basketball, or football but he was also clumsy and, sadly, he seemed to lack a competitive nature. He must have felt Harper’s eyes on him because he turned and gave her a wave and a smile. Not the most appropriate reaction while standing over a murder victim. His red hair flapped in the growing breeze while his big brown eyes focused on the mystery of how the tent pole worked.
“Lazlo is smarter than you think. Look, we’re going to do everything we can on this, Harper.” Jason’s soft blue eyes were sad. “I just wanted you to know that. Please try and get your boss to see that. Her tendency to throw up roadblocks won’t help anything.”
Harper’s phone vibrated and she looked at the screen. “I know, Jason. I’ve got to take this.” She moved further down the path away from the commotion. “Hello?”
“Harper, what’s going on out there? Do they know anything yet?” the mayor demanded.
“Other than it’s obviously foul play, no. It is Astrid, though. I recognize the necklace.” Bile rose and she swallowed to force it down.
“Are the press there yet?”
Harper turned back and studied the scene. She was standing on a bluff next to the ocean about a mile and a half down a local jogging path that followed the cliff. Around her were empty fields and a few stands of trees. It was hard to believe that her condo was about two miles down in the other direction. At the moment it seemed a world away.
She craned her neck but couldn’t see the parking lot at the beginning of the path from where she was standing so she had no idea if the press had arrived yet, but they would. In droves, she had no doubt.
“I don’t see them yet, but I’m sure they’ll be here soon.”
“I’m heading your way. We need to look like we’re on top of this. The people of Cedar Bluff deserve the truth.”
“Yes, but we need to be rational about this,” she reminded her boss. “We can’t go blaming the police department.”
“Why not? They should have stopped this. They should have found Astrid before this happened.”
Harper clamped her jaws together and drew in a deep breath. If her boss made that stupid of a statement in front of the cameras, she’d look like a hysterical female. “Susan,” she started, “you can’t say that on camera. No police department on earth could have found Astrid before she was officially missing. Just take a beat. I know you’re stressed and there’s a lot going on, but throwing Chief Clark under the bus will not help. We need the police to help keep people calm. They need to find out who did this so Astrid’s family gets justice. Claiming the cops are idiots will just make it harder on Astrid’s parents.”
Susan didn’t respond for a moment, but in the end, she acquiesced. “Fine. I can see what you’re saying but Clark better not fuck this up or I’ll have his head on a platter.” She hung up.
Harper let out a long breath. Susan was a pain in her ass every day, all day, but she was also a damn good mayor. She’d brought new jobs and businesses to Cedar Bluff. New people were moving in every day. The plans Susan had put into place were revitalizing the town.
