She stopped walking and looked at me. “I’m not running anymore.” She stared out over the field. “I could’ve. No one would have found me. But I have a life now, you know?”
“Yes, you do,” I said. “We’re going to figure this out. Together.”
* * * *
Two hours later, Elliott had been delivered to school. My dad was reading the newspaper, an actual print newspaper, on the back porch while I waited anxiously for Mira and Lani to return from the police station. When I was nervous, I cooked Meowio cat food. So far, I’d made two weeks’ worth of Seafood Surprise.
As usual, Trouble sensed my anxiety and wound around my ankles, either to comfort me or put me out of my misery by tripping me, I wasn’t sure. Actually, she probably wanted me to hurry up with the taste testing.
I couldn’t help but feel bad that Mira was in this mess. She’d already had such a troubled life. It seemed particularly unfair for her to be under such a cloud of suspicion.
I heard a car stop in front of the house and by the time I’d taken off my gloves and peeked out the kitchen window, Lani and Mira were coming up the steps.
“Door’s open,” I called out.
They walked in, looking somber.
My dad heard me and came inside from the back porch, folding the newspaper and putting it aside.
I put the electric kettle on, deciding that Mira needed to be babied with some hot cocoa. “How did it go?”
Mira stared at the floor.
“They let us walk out.” Lani sounded like she was trying very hard to find something positive to say.
“For now,” Mira said.
“What did the lawyer say?” I asked.
Lani looked at Mira. “We can go into details later.”
Mira rolled her eyes. “It’s not going to change reality to not discuss it in front of me. The police think I did it.”
I was stunned. “What? Why?”
“That’s not necessarily true,” Lani said. “They’re investigating several suspects.”
Mira made a scoffing sound. “Right.”
“Did you tell them your alibi?” I asked.
Silence from both of them. Mira’s expression was rebellious and Lani’s was I’m-trying-not-to-be-judgmental-here.
Lani spoke up first. “It might seem like a bad situation, but we have a secret weapon.” She winced, as if realizing “weapon” might not be appropriate. “We have Colbie.”
“Oh really?” I asked. I hoped she wasn’t going where I thought she was going.
“Yes,” she said firmly. “Mira, whether she likes it or not, is part of our family now. And we do anything for family. Including investigating murders.”
I knew it.
She turned to Mira. “I’m sure I told you that Colbie solved a murder this summer.”
“Only about a million times,” Mira said under her breath.
I laughed. “It was definitely a group effort.” I’d better not mention the near death and mayhem we experienced.
Lani patted me on the shoulder like a proud mom. “You know, we should make a list of potential suspects right now.” She gave me a narrow-eyed stare. I got it. She was distracting Mira from talking about what had happened during the police interview.
“That’s a great idea,” my dad said. He pulled out the newspaper, which had a large photo of Dennis Franklin’s wife and two sons coming out of a downtown restaurant. “I vote for these two—” He stopped. “Asinine foster brothers you had.”
“Stop, Dad,” I said. “This could be dangerous.”
Mira looked panicked and I realized it wasn’t because she was worried about danger. She needed our help. I’d been a murder suspect before. She had to be feeling the same sense of helplessness I remembered.
“But if you’re in, I’m in,” I said.
Lani stood to grab my laptop from the counter. “Let’s make a list.” She set her reading glasses on her nose, opened a new spreadsheet, and typed in Suspects, making the letters large and bold. Numbers one and two were Rocky and Will.
“Not Rocky,” Mira said in a distressed voice.
Lani paused before replying. “I know he’s been nice to you in the past, but you said he listens to his older brother too much.”
When Mira frowned, Lani added, “I’m sure we’ll cross Rocky off soon, but let’s cast the widest net at first.”
“What about his wife, Sybil?” I asked. “She’s certainly violent enough.”
Mira bit her lip. “She was too scared of him.”
My dad pointed out, “I don’t know. If she was scared of him, maybe a nail gun would seem like a good way to get him out of her life.”
Did he have to mention that? He must have read the same website I did. “We don’t know what the weapon was, right, Dad?”
He seemed about to protest and then figured out I didn’t want nasty details discussed in front of Mira.
“Sybil would never do anything that…dirty,” Mira said. “It’s not like she was a germophobe or anything.”
When Lani looked up from typing Sybil’s name, Mira explained, “She was fastidious. About everything. She hated job sites. The only time she went close to them was for the ribbon cutting ceremonies.”
“Sorry,” Lani said. “That doesn’t rule her out in my book.” She typed another number.
“I saw articles about a class action lawsuit,” I said. “Something about unfair business practices.” I told them what I’d read.
Mira seemed surprised. “I was pretty young when I hung out there, but I don’t remember seeing anything like that.”
Lani typed Employees involved in lawsuit. “What about his competitors?” she asked.
Mira nodded. “There were plenty of those who disliked him,” she said. “Boggie Markoff hated him the most.”
“Boggie? Like Froggie?” I asked.
She nodded. “He’s Russian. It’s short for Bogdan, but he goes by Boggie. I guess they were, like, big work rivals from way back.”
Lani clicked over to Google and typed in his name. “Whoa. Over ten thousand hits. He’s huge. Lots of developments in Southern California.”
“Yeah,” Mira said. “He’s got a few in San Diego but then Dennis got mad about him encroaching on ‘his’ territory and started underbidding him.”
“Couldn’t Boggie have bid lower?” I asked. His name was fun to say.
“Boggie claimed Dennis had a mole in his company, who would tell Dennis what he was bidding,” Mira said. “And Dennis claimed the same thing when Boggie won.”
“Oh man,” Lani said. “Dennis was not shy about his animosity on Twitter.”
I got up to read over her shoulder. “You aren’t kidding. I’m going to grind you into dust.” I looked at Mira. “Did he talk like that in person?”
She slouched down in her chair. “All the time. He was pretty nutty—everyone was either an enemy or his best friend.”
Lani rubbed her forehead. “How are we going to talk to this Boggie?”