Riptide (Sam McRae Mystery 3)

“You look a bit pale.”

“No, no. I’m naturally pale.” And short of breath.

Danni invited me in and offered me water, iced tea, or lemonade. I went for the lemonade, which was fresh squeezed. Boy, was it good. She also helped herself to a glass.

We returned to the porch with our drinks. I took the rocker I remembered, and she took the porch swing again.

“Danni,” I said. “Tell me about Junior. Also, anything you recall about Marshall Bower, Sr., and his family.”

“Oh, my God!” She looked like she’d just sucked hydrochloric acid. “Just thinking about those people makes me sick.”

“Yeah. I can understand.”

“Horrible. They were all horrible.”

“Did Junior ever, um, come on to you?”

“Good God, when did he ever not come on to me?”

Danni poured forth a long narrative about how every dinner at the House of Bower turned into an endurance test, in which she was required to fend off the under-the-table or in-the-other-room advances of her would-be brother-in-law.

“You’d think the guy was on a steady diet of Viagra and porn, the way he kept after me,” Danni said. “Jesus!”

“Uh huh.”

“I mean, I’d come out of the bathroom, and he’d ambush me and start humping my leg like a dog. You have no idea.”

“Oh, I think I do.”

Danni’s eyes grew large. “No way was I going to marry into that family.”

Smart girl.

“So, what can you tell me about Marsha?” I asked.

Danni blinked a few times. “Marsha?” Frowning slightly, she stared into her glass. “I hear she was the only decent one in the bunch. But she disappeared.”

“Any idea where she might have gone?”

“No,” Danni said, “I know she wanted to get as far as she could from … them. Marsha was different. That’s all I know.”

“Do you think Marsha knew anything about how her father or Billy Ray ran the poultry business? About the working conditions or hiring practices?”

Danni shook her head. “Bower only recently started that business. Marsha’s been gone for ages. Long before they got into it. Anyhow, I doubt she’d want to be involved.”

Damn it, my leads seem to be drying up!

I spent a bit more quality time with Danni, drinking lemonade, but getting little more than a full bladder to show for the effort. After a quick pit stop, I bid my kind hostess adieu, climbed aboard the scooter and hit the road. Now what?

My cell phone vibrated in my pocket. I pulled over and checked the number. Mulrooney. Good news? A dismissal? Hope springs eternal.

I answered. “Mr. Mulrooney?”

“Good day, Sam McRae.”

I might have been more charmed by the rhyming bit, if his voice hadn’t been a little too happy.

“Is there a reason you’re calling? Other than to talk in rhyme?”