Page 67 of Fish and Chip: Nine Lives One Murder
“It was professional, not personal,” she counters. “Ned and I buried our romantic hatchet decades ago. In fact...” she hesitates, then seems to make a decision. “We were working together on something.”
Plot twist! Incoming!Fish announces.
“Working together?” I ask with every cell of my body suspicious.
“It was an exposé, but not about me.” Vivian lowers her voice. “About someone else. Someone here at the park.”
Well. That was not on my bingo card.
“You’re looking in the wrong direction, Josie. I didn’t kill Ned. I had no reason to.” She adjusts her blazer, composure fullyrestored. “When you’re investigating a murder, look at who has the most to lose. Ned had discovered something in this park’s history—something in the old records that someone desperately wanted to keep buried.”
I open my mouth to respond, but I’m cut off by another conference attendee calling Vivian’s name from across the midway.
“I need to go,” she says, already turning away. She pauses, then adds, “I will say this about Ned. He mentioned something about being knee-deep in an investigation regarding someone who was at the Hidden Gems Conference. He said they used to work right here at the park, and now that they were back, he had them right where he wanted them.”
She walks away, her heels clicking in perfectly timed defiance, leaving me with two cats and a brain suddenly racing in an entirely new direction.
Well, that was illuminating,Fish comments.I knew she was just another hooman with impeccable taste in cats.
If it’s not the fancy pin lady, then who?Chip stretches luxuriously.Because I have exactly one brain cell left and it’s reserved for dinner planning.
I pull out my phone, my fingers flying across the screen as I search for information that’s been niggling at the back of my mind since Vivian’s parting words. Someone who used to work at the park. Someone who’s back now. Someone with everything to lose.
Then it hits me just as the resultsload, and I gasp. “Oh my. I know who the killer is and why they needed Ned Hollister silenced forever.”
Because sometimes the most dangerous people aren’t those with obvious motives—they’re the ones with secrets buried so deep, they’d kill to keep them covered.
CHAPTER 26
Aburst of carnival music from a nearby merry-go-round nearly drowns out my gasp as I stare at my phone screen. My fingers tremble slightly as I zoom in on the crime scene photo I snapped the day Ned Hollister’s body was found.
The two enamel pins near Ned’s body—the Tree and the Haunted Gold Mine—looked like incriminating evidence when I found them missing from Vivian’s vest. But now that I study them more carefully, they look deliberately placed. Too perfect. And far too obvious. Like the killer was trying too hard to be sloppy.
I zoom in further, focusing on those strange white triangular marks on the floor that had puzzled me. They’re not random patterns or equipment marks like I initially thought—they’refootprints. Three distinct triangular impressions form a repeated pattern.
My fingers fly across the phone screen, searching for shoes with a triangular tread pattern. The search results load, and my heart hammers against my ribs and files a formal complaint.
“No way,” I mutter, staring at the image of pink nubuck hikingboots—identical to the ones Patty Sherwood wears everywhere like they’re some kind of political statement about being outdoorsy and relatable. The signature triangular treads are unmistakable, like a fingerprint made of rubber and bad intentions.
Are we looking at shoes now?Fish says, dry as ever.I wasn’t aware footwear had replaced murder solving on today’s agenda.
Maybe she’s thinking of upgrading from those orthopedic nightmares she calls sneakers,Chip offers, stretching across the bench like a furry noodle.Though I don’t recommend pink. It would be impossible to hide bloodstains.
“It’s not a fashion emergency,” I whisper. “It’s forensics.”
My eyes scan the crowd. There she is—Patty Sherwood, mayoral hopeful and soon-to-be cautionary tale, leaning against the popcorn cart like she hasn’t a secret in the world. She’s eating from a souvenir bucket shaped like Chip’s face, which just adds insult to felony.
She’s eating from a bucket with MY FACE ON IT,Chip huffs.That’s cannibalism once removed.
At least your likeness serves a functional purpose,Fish says with an eye roll.Mine is on socks. And they’re not even cashmere.
I scoop them both up and make a beeline for Patty. It’s time to put this popcorn princess on the defensive.
Patty beams when she sees me. “Josie! That parade is a homerun!”
I stop before her, slightly out of breath from nerves more than exertion. Fish and Chip eye her suspiciously from their position in my arms.
“Thanks,” I manage. My heartbeat is so loud in my ears I wonder if she can hear it. “I love your boots, by the way. The pink ones you’re always wearing.”
