AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Time will tell,” said Lucy, wondering if Dave was the victim of a prank. She remembered Zach Starr suggesting that Dave was the thief; maybe Zach stole the egg and planted it as a joke. The more she thought about it, the likelier it seemed.
“Well, sorry to be the bearer of bad news but I thought you should know.”
“Thanks for stopping by, Lucy.”
Lucy walked over to the door and paused. “Keep the faith,” she said, by way of parting.
Alison managed a little smile and a goodbye wave, then reached for the bottle of glass cleaner.
Chapter Nine
Next stop was just a few doors down Main Street, at Zach Starr’s Sea Smoke vape shop. If Zach had indeed set up Dave as a prank, it was high time he learned what had happened and revealed the truth. It was fortunate that Lucy didn’t have far to go to the shop because her anger grew with each step. What a mean thing to do, she fumed, right foot. Imagine setting up an innocent man, left foot. How would he like it if someone did that to him, right foot. She marched along like that until she found herself under the billowing smoke and yanked the door open.
“Hi, Lucy,” said Zach, completely unperturbed. He presented a somewhat forbidding appearance, dressed as he was in bike leathers and sporting a bristly beard, but he appeared to be a surprisingly adept salesman as he showed a variety of vape pens to a young woman whose hair was dyed bright pink. “I’ll be with you in a minute,” he told Lucy, with an easy smile.
His estimate turned out to be wildly optimistic as Little Miss Pink, as Lucy thought of her, simply couldn’t make up her mind. And once she’d settled on a pen, which might be the right one but then again, might not, there was the large number of flavor options to consider. Lucy found herself drumming her fingers rather impatiently on the counter, which eventually prompted Zach to advise the girl to take all the time she needed to make her choice and turned to Lucy. “What’s up, Lucy? I didn’t know you vaped.”
“I don’t,” she snapped, then caught herself and moderated her tone. She wasn’t going to get much information from Zach if she was confrontational. “Sorry. It’s been a crazy day so far. Police are questioning Dave Forrest about the egg; it rolled out of his golf bag at the Closest to the Pin contest this morning.”
Zach was a pretty cool customer, but the news did seem to take him by surprise. “Really?” he asked, furrowing his brow in puzzlement.
“Yeah, so it seems you were right all along when you said he was the likely culprit.”
Zach held up his hands in protest. “I was just playing devil’s advocate, joshing, ’cause he absolutely seemed the least likely person.” He shook his head. “Dave Forrest? Wow.”
His puzzlement seemed entirely genuine, which caused Lucy to reconsider her suspicious thoughts. “You know,” she began, “I wondered if maybe you’d planted it on him as a sort of joke.”
Zach wasn’t offended, he wasn’t the least bit defensive. “That woulda been kind of funny, I guess, but it never occurred to me. Do you think that’s what happened? A joke?”
Lucy thought of Dave, who was likely sitting in an interview room, trying to convince a team of seasoned and jaded investigators of his innocence. He was no doubt terrified, wondering if life in prison was as awful as he’d heard and hoping against hope that he wouldn’t find out.
“Um, I think I’m going to go with Frulicious,” said Little Miss Pink, sounding as if she was declaring something momentous. A cure for cancer, maybe, or an end to hunger.
“Great choice!” boomed Zach, turning back to her.
“But I’m not sure about the pen . . .” she said, letting her hand, which was tattooed with a blooming rose at the base of her thumb, flutter over the display. “This one is kinda cool but that one there looks more me, maybe?”
“I’ll be on my way,” said Lucy.
“Thanks for stopping by,” said Zach, before launching into his spiel. “All of these pens are top quality but . . .”
Lucy didn’t hear the rest, she was dodging the cloud of smoke outside the shop, telling herself that it must be harmless, right? You couldn’t just pour cancer-causing chemicals into the atmosphere, could you?
Lucy went straight to the empty Courier office, where she wrote up an account of the egg’s surprise appearance at the Closest to the Pin contest, as well as Dave Forrest’s possible connection to the theft. She was careful not to identify him as the thief, he was presumed innocent after all, and she included quotes from Alison and Zach that she’d gathered. That job done, she resolved to forget about work for the rest of her weekend as she pulled the door shut and made sure it was locked behind her. The little bell was jangling faintly as she made her way to the car, intent on enjoying the remainder of her weekend.
Lucy kept to her resolve, ignoring the occasional pings from her cell phone that announced texts, and didn’t find time to check her emails, either. Sara had come home for the weekend and she enjoyed catching up with her daughter and putting together a box of Easter treats to send to her grandson Patrick, who lived in Alaska.
Monday morning came all too soon, along with a text message from DA Phil Aucoin announcing that Dave Forrest would be arraigned later that morning in District Court. No formal press conference was announced, but she knew that Aucoin would certainly make himself available to answer questions after the arraignment. Curious as to what prompted this development, she called the police department and spoke to Officer Sally Kirwan, who occasionally gave her inside info.
“I know they wanted to press Dave hard and get a confession,” said Sally, “but he got Bob Goodman in right away and he availed himself of his right to remain silent.”
“Did they keep him in the lockup?”
“No. Bob got them to agree to let him go, pending arraignment.”
“Do they really think they’ve got a case?” asked Lucy.
“Well, you know what they say about possession . . .”
