Chapter 8: Sheriff's Questions

The hard, wooden seat across from the big, wooden table in the small, wooden room hurt my butt. About as much as knowing Daisy, as sweet as she was and as hard as she tried, had not only tossed me to the wolf that Crew had turned into, but had done so with a smile on her face and not a trace of awareness she'd thrown my carcass under the bus.

My suffering cheeks sighed as I shifted and tried to get more comfortable while the blah blah blah of the sheriff's voice washed over me. Because the questions he asked me? Yeah, I'd heard them three times already and stammered through answers all three times, thanks.

I wasn't an idiot. My dad was sheriff for years of this small town and I'd watched enough bad TV to know this kind of pushy, bossy and endlessly wearying tactic was meant to make me break down and cry or confess or something equally stupid. Except I had a secret weapon. See, the five years I'd lived with my lawyer boyfriend, I'd learned how to block him out when he went off on his arrogant spiels about people and things that I didn't give a crap about. Just tuned his ass out completely and thought about things that mattered to me. Even learned to nod and grunt at appropriate moments, so honestly? Being questioned by Crew Turner wasn't that big a deal.

From the increasing redness of his face and the way his shoulders had bunched, he knew he wasn't getting through to me the way he would have liked, though. I wasn't intentionally trying to piss him off. I just didn't know how else to tell him I hadn't drowned that jerk Wilkins in my koi pond regardless of the means, motive and opportunity Crew seemed to think made me his main and only suspect.

"Let's get this straight, for the record." I tuned back in because it sounded for a moment like he might finally be wrapping up. But nope, not really. Just reiterating what I said in prep for another round of Fiona Fleming, heartless murderer. "You were presented with paperwork that cedes ownership of your B&B by the victim less than twenty-four hours before finding him dead in your back yard-"

"Garden," I muttered for the fourth time because he didn't get the terminology the first three and why, oh why was it men didn't know how to listen?

"-and have no idea how it happened, who killed him or why he died in your pond. Nor do you have an alibi aside from sleeping because no one saw you doing it." He sounded like he believed me. Not. I opened my mouth to protest and his index finger shot into the air, a hissing intake of breath silencing me. "Correction. Aside from your pug, Petunia."

Well, maybe he was listening and was being purposely obtuse. That was worse.

I shrugged and sighed. "I don't know what you want me to say." I couldn't just produce an alibi I didn't have. "I got up this morning, went upstairs, Petunia went out. She barked, I went to check on her. Someone screamed. And boom."

"Boom." Crew sounded less than pleased with my choice of terminology but I was honestly at the end of my own patience by now.

"Splash?" It's not that I wasn't taking this seriously, but I was frankly tired and honestly this was insane.

Crew's left eye twitched.

"I hadn't even seen a lawyer about the papers," I said, sitting forward, trying to diffuse this if I could. "Why would I kill a total stranger who made such a wild claim when I hadn't even confirmed the man wasn't a raving lunatic?"

That made Crew pause at least. You know the worst part of all this? Even being a jerk to me, he was still hot with those deep blue eyes and that wavy black hair and the way he filled out his jeans like there was a lot more to him than a pretty face.

Leave it to me to lust over the very person who thought I was a deranged murderer. But it had been over a month since I slapped Ryan across the face for cheating on me and stormed out of our apartment in New York City. A girl had needs.

Someone slammed a door in the main room of the sheriff's office, just outside Crew's personal space. And it didn't take a rocket scientist-or the booming command that clearly reached my wincing ears-to figure out who had come storming in just then.

Crew's door hit the wall about two seconds later, a small framed photo shaking free from its nail to crash to the floor, glass shattering outward in glittering protest to such treatment. I knew exactly how it felt. I turned, returning circulation in one butt cheek making me flinch as I glanced up and into Dad's furious face.

"Fiona," he said, not looking at me, staring Crew down. "We're leaving. Now."

I stood, old habit. I was my own girl, don't get me wrong. But an early lifetime of doing as my father said wasn't something I forgot. And besides, I was so ready to go.

"I'm not done questioning the suspect." Crew wasn't as loud as Dad, but he was just as firm.

"The suspect," Dad snarled, "is lawyering up." He shot me a look that could have set fire to a soggy woodpile. "If she hasn't already."

Whoops. Hadn't I just tried to convince myself I wasn't an idiot? That tuning him out was my best defense? I clearly needed a careful head examination, because I freaking knew better. What was I thinking? That Crew's cuteness meant he wouldn't charge me with murder? That my innocence would protect me? Jeeze, what was wrong with me?

I moved toward Dad in a jerking motion of utter shock, the chair squealing on the wooden floor as I pushed it out of the way with one thigh. Glass crunched under my sneakers, but I was the only one who seemed disturbed by that fact. The two men didn't even glance my way, testosterone flaring between them while the ex-sheriff and his replacement did battle with a pair of steely gazes that actually shook me out of my shock at my own foolishness and instead made me want to smack both of them.

And made my heart stop for the briefest of moments as I realized I hadn't killed Pete Wilkins. But my dad...?

Where was Dad last night?

No, no way. Absolutely not. I rushed to his side, grasped one hand, tugged while my traitor brain gasped at the thought that tracked from start to horrifying finish. He'd been pissed, furious, over the top angry. Rushed out of the house after reading and then crumpling the paperwork. And Mom wouldn't talk about their history, his and Pete's, but it was obvious they had a story that left a lot of bad blood between them. But my father was a police officer for the majority of his life. He would never kill anyone. Not in a way that would get him caught.

Or do so in a way that set up his own daughter for murder.

Fiona Fleming. You stop that right now.

"Dad." He looked down at me at last. "You're right. I want a lawyer." I fixed Crew with my best Fleming stare, no match for the real thing standing next to me but at least we were a united front. "I'm done answering your questions."

Crew grunted but backed off. Looked like it hurt. "Don't leave town, Miss Fleming."

"Where exactly do you think I'm going?" Okay, now I was jacked and you know what? So done thinking this jerk was even remotely attractive. "And can you tell me what single scrap of evidence you have beside the fact the victim was trying to steal my place of business and happened to have the very bad taste to die in my koi pond," Dad snarled at me to shut up but screw that, "and probably poisoned them in the process? You got nada, and we both know it. Because I didn't kill him. And, from what I saw at the scene? Dude slipped in the mud, hit his damned head and drowned his fool self. So you'd better have some excellent evidence the next time you come after me."

So there.

"I'll bear your expert crime scene forensics evaluation in mind," Crew said.

Why did I get the impression he was being sarcastic?

I led the way out, totally done with this entire train wreck that my day had turned into. I caught the sorrowful expression on Toby Miller's face, Dad's former secretary-now Crew's-clearly miserable about the whole thing. But the middle-aged woman who'd been like a second mom when I was small refused to meet my eyes and scrambled for her desk the instant we appeared so I let her have her retreat. Besides, I was a bit distracted when the main door opened and two people stormed in.

The elegantly dressed, dark haired woman wore sunglasses, the young man a scowl, neither looking in Toby's direction but both staring down Dad like he was public enemy number one. The woman seemed familiar, but I couldn't place her but cut myself some slack. It had been a heck of a morning and I hadn't lived here in ten years, after all. Still, something in me said I should know who she was.

Dad stepped aside, pulling me toward him as the pair strode past us and directly into Crew's office, stopping his exit and slamming the door behind them. So no goodbye from the sheriff then?

Toby turned her back on us and I heard a distinctive sniffle from her direction. Dad paused, hurt and worry on his face an instant, a crack forming in the ever present Fleming façade of stone and stern. And then he moved on, stomping past me and out into the late morning sunshine.

Free, if only for the time being, I sighed at the weight that settled over me, the weariness that I still had work to do and questions to answer-and a father's whereabouts to worry about-and followed him outside.

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