Ryan, she thought. It was a nice thing for her to do. She had to
go to the Food Fort. Good, he could see her driving around,
know that she was here, know that she was alone. She hoped she
wouldn’t see Sheriff Gaffney because surely he’d want to talk to her.
When she got into the Toyota, she pulled out the small button
on her wristband and said,”I’m heading out to Food Fort now. The
cupboard’s bare. I’ll be back in under an hour. I want to make sure
he knows I’m here. I’ll leave the notes on the front seat of the car
at Food Fort.”Then she pushed the button back in.
She was greeted at Food Fort like she was a celebrity. Everyone
knew who she was, impossible for them not to now, what with her
photo and her story on every news station in the United States.
People peered around corners to look at her, even stare at her, but
they really didn’t want to get close enough to speak to her. She
smiled, nothing more, and put stuff in her shopping cart.
When she was checking out, a woman behind her said, “Well, finally
I get to see you. Sheriff Gaffney told me all about you, what
a pretty girl you are, how there was this big fellow there at Jacob
Marley’s house who really wasn’t your cousin. He didn’t buy that
one for a minute. You really lied to him, didn’t you, and he couldn’t
do anything about it. But now everyone knows who you are.”
“But I don’t know who you are, ma’am.”
“I’m Mrs. Ella, his chief assistant.”
It was the Mrs. Ella who’d kept her from getting hysterical when
she’d called the sheriff’s office to report the skeleton falling out of
the wall in the basement by telling her about all her dogs, every last
one of them. Mrs. Ella, who also shopped at Sherry’s Lingerie
Boutique. She was a big woman, muscular, with a corded neck and
a mustache shadowing her upper lip.
“You’re a liar, Miss Powell. No, you’re Miss Matlock. You made
up that name when you came here.”
“I had to lie. So nice to speak to you, ma’am.”
“Ha, I’ll just bet. Why are you back here?”
Becca smiled. “I’m a tourist now, ma’am. I’m going to go out on
a lobster boat.” And she hefted her two grocery bags and left Food
Fort.
“The sheriff will want to speak to you,” Mrs. Ella yelled after
her. “It’s a pity he had to drive to Augusta on Official Business.”
She heard Mrs. Ella say behind her, as she was supposed to,
“She’s back here to do more bad things, you mark my words, Mrs.
Peterson. Here she was all nice and hysterical when she found
Melissa Katzen’s skeleton in her basement wall, but it was all a lie.
If the skeleton hadn’t been so old, I would have bet she’d done it.”
Becca turned slowly in the half-open door, her arms aching
with the heavy bags, and said, “Melissa Katzen was murdered,
ma’am, and not by me. That isn’t a lie. Does anyone know anything
yet?”
“No,” called out Mrs. Peterson, the cashier, who had bright red
dyed hair. “We’re not even one hundred percent sure that it is
Melissa Katzen. The DNA tests haven’t come back yet. It takes
weeks, Sheriff Gaffney said.”
“No, I’m the one who told you that,” Mrs. Ella said. “Sheriff
Gaffney doesn’t keep track of DNA sorts of stuff, I do. As for you,
Ms. Matlock, I’m going to tell the sheriff that you’re here again just
as soon as I can raise him on his cell phone, which he usually doesn’t
carry because he hates technology.”
When Becca got back to the car, the notes in Krimakov’s handwriting
were gone. She hoped the sheriff wouldn’t get to her anytime
soon. She hoped that her little trip to Food Fort wouldn’t
backfire. Surely Krimakov knew she was here now, surely.
Riptide, she thought as she got into the Toyota, her haven once
upon a time, with its Food Fort on Poison Oak Circle and Goose’s
Hardware on West Hemlock. She drove slowly along Poison Ivy