Chapter 5

A Belle's Cove police detective in his mid-to-late thirties with a black button-up shirt, a tan tie and pants, and a permanent frown approached me. Studmuffin and I sat on the curb next to my car, Bernadette. Red and blue lights flashed all over Speedy Zone's parking lot. The whole place had been turned into a crime scene within minutes.

"You were the one to discover the victim, ma'am?" the detective asked.

"Yes." Numbly, I stood with my familiar in my arms, craving his comfort more than anything right now.

"Name's Detective Palmer." He flipped open a little notebook and poised a pen over it. "And yours?"

"Victoria Fox."

He scribbled that down. "Cat's name?"

"Is he a suspect?"

The detective eyed us both suspiciously.

"Professor Studmuffin Salvitore III."

Detective Palmer's frown deepened as he wrote that down as well. "You knew the victim?"

"I don't know. Who was it?"

"Jake Williams."

My shoulders slumped. "Oh. Yes, I know him. I had no idea he worked here. I went to school with him, elementary through high school. We graduated the same year."

He'd always been so nice to me and had even stuck up for me whenever I was teased while trying to read aloud. The fact that he was dead, murdered, felt like a kick to the chest.

Studmuffin swatted at the red and blue lights swirling over the detective's badge he wore next to his gun holster. I pulled him away, but he was already caught in the pretty lights' trance. His huge eyes followed their every reflection in the badge.

Detective Palmer cleared his throat, obviously irritated. "Other than the relief valve on the hydraulic system missing, did you see anything suspicious?"

I nodded, folding my hand over Studmuffin's murder mittens. "Someone was in the garage when I saw what happened, but they left out the back."

"Did you get a good look at them?"

"They were wearing a yellow jacket, but the rest of them was a blur."

The detective made a note of that in his notepad. "What were you talking to Travis about?"

Studmuffin flashed both paws out from underneath my hand to catch the lights in the detective's badge. He even made a clicking sound in the back of his throat as he tap, tap, tapped the lights.

"Now is not the time for hunting," I scolded and pulled him away again. "Travis wants me to buy this shop from him, when really, it should belong to my dad. Travis's dad, Marcus Black, and my dad used to be business partners before Marcus took the money and ran. I gave Travis back his contract unsigned."

"So Sunray's is now your shop?"

"Mine and Boxy's, yes."

"Did you argue with Travis?"

"Well...yes. That's the only way to communicate with him. He's impossible." I said it like it was obvious, which earned me a sharp look from Detective Palmer.

Yep, this was going so well.

"How's business at Sunray's, Ms. Fox?"

"It's great. Never better."

"Did you come here to cause harm to Speedy Zone's business?"

My jaw dropped. "Of course not."

"Did you kill Jake Williams?"

Studmuffin chose that moment to dive-bomb the detective's badge face-first, fangs out, claws out, all the things out.

"No! Stop that!" He was in such a frenzy that it took all my muscles to wrestle him away. "I'm sorry. It's the lights on your badge," I explained. "He thinks it's a disco ball and that it must be destroyed."

Detective Palmer waited for my answer as though my familiar hadn't just attacked him. His gunmetal-gray eyes remained locked on me, unflinching in their seriousness. Broody detective was broody.

"I wouldn't dream of killing anyone, especially Jake Williams," I said.

"But you did argue with Travis. Were you still angry when you left him?"

Just his existence made me angry, which was why I'd told him to grow cement boots. Had Travis told Detective Palmer that? Today really hadn't shone the best light on me. I should've stayed home, counted Studmuffin's dots on his tummy, anything but this.

I sighed. "Travis asked me to be his fiancée."

The detective's eyebrows sprang up his forehead, his first show of emotion...ever, probably. "He asked you to marry him?"

"No. He asked me to pretend to be his fiancée for the sake of his grandmother. So yes, I was angry about that. It's a rather strange thing to ask someone."

Detective Palmer wrote for a long time in his notebook. He turned his body away from the pretty lights, much to Studmuffin's disappointment.

My familiar crossed his paws over my arm innocently and tossed me a glare as though I'd just crushed his disco-ball dreams. I rolled my eyes at him.

"Why did you enter the garage?" the detective finally asked.

"I just wanted a peek."

He gave me a knowing stare. "At the competition."

"Well, yes," I admitted. "Look, if I did kill Jake, do you really think I'd be sticking around here afterward?"

He blinked at me expectantly.

"The answer is no, I wouldn't, and no, I didn't kill him." Honestly, if he thought I was lying, why wasn't he arresting me already?

He fixed me with his steely gaze. "But you do have a motive, Ms. Fox, and you were at the scene of the crime. There's no denying that."

"Did you dust for prints on the hydraulic lift yet?" I blurted.

"Are you telling me how to do my job?" he fired back.

I forced a smile that probably made me look like I forgot to pay my brain bill. "Yes?"

"Please don't," he said, his tone crisp. "Also, please don't refer to my badge as a disco ball again."

"Right." I grimaced. "Sorry."

"You're free to go, but I wouldn't leave Belle's Cove if I were you, Ms. Fox." He turned and strode away, his footsteps abrupt and no-nonsense, just like the rest of him.

"Wasn't planning on it," I muttered and plunked down on the sidewalk again with Studmuffin. My thoughts were too heavy to drive home just yet, and my mouth had probably made everything ten times worse. "What have I gotten myself into?"