Something Borrowed, Something Bleu by Cricket McRae Page A

a receding chin. He removed his sunglasses to reveal small, watery blue eyes. “Hear you’ve had some trouble here.”
“Somebody killed Joe.”
He stroked that barely-there chin. “Shot him?”
She shook her head.
“Looks like they hit him with a bottle of cream,” I said.
His eyes cut my way, then returned to Tabby. “Who did it?”
“I don’t know,” she said.
“Hmmm. We’ll find out, don’t you worry.”
Beside me, Tabby only sighed.
The sheriff’s attention turned to me. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”
“Sophie Mae Reynolds,” I said.
“Friend of Tabitha here?”
I glanced at her. “I’m visiting my parents in Spring Creek, and Tabby’s teaching me how to make cheese.”
“Visiting from where?”
“Cadyville, Washington.”
“I see.” He watched me. There was considerable intelligence behind those pale eyes. It didn’t take long to make me squirm. I tried a smile, but even I could tell how weak it was.
Thank goodness a flurry of voices attracted our attention. Jack Spratt and his buddy came back from the side of the outbuilding, spied Sheriff Jaikes, and came over.
The first words out of Jaikes’ mouth were, “Separate these two and conduct preliminary interviews. Where’s the body?”
“Right around the corner there, Boss,” the skinny deputy said.
The sheriff tipped his hat to us. “Ladies.” And off he went to survey the mayhem.
    _____
     
    I got Jack Spratt, whose real name turned out to be Inspector Thomas Schumaker. We spoke in his car, with the motor running and the air conditioning on full blast. That right there made me like him. It was soon clear he knew the Bineses, especially Joe. I got the feeling Tabby had glossed over Joe’s “bar fights.”
First he asked me to tell him everything that happened. I did my best to keep it simple, ending with, “and then I called 911 on my cell phone, and Tabby called her mother.”
“Her mother?”
“To ask if Celeste could leave work and go pick up Tabby’s daughter from school.”
“Ah.” Schumaker mopped his flushed face with a graying handkerchief. The air conditioning didn’t seem to make much of a dent in his overheated state. I wondered whether men got hot flashes.
“You didn’t leave the body after finding it?” he asked. “Neither one of you?”
“Well, we didn’t sit beside it, but we stayed there by the building, waiting for you.” Except for when I got my tote bag out of my car.
“Both of you.”
“Uh huh.”
“And you both saw him leave the house late this morning.”
“Yes.”
“Both of you.”
“Yes.”
“And you and Tabby were together the whole time up at the house.”
I nodded. For Pete’s sake, was this guy thick or something?
“And then you both came down here and found the body together.”
“Yes.” I tried not to grit my teeth. “She was out of my sight for less than fifteen seconds.”
“Hear or see any vehicles come or go?”
I tried to think. “The window in the kitchen was open, and I heard a lot of traffic. Most of it was on the county road, but someone could have driven in here, I guess. The drive and the parking lot are far enough away from the house that I might not have noticed. Tabby would be more tuned into the sounds of coming and going here at the dairy.”
He made a couple more additions to his notes. “You didn’t help her kill him, by any chance.”
“What!”
He held up a hand. “Just checking. Because it sure looks like you give her a solid alibi.” Skepticism leaked out around his words. “Mind telling me why your shirt’s dirty and your hands are all scraped up?”
I looked down at my hands sitting in my lap. The scratches from earlier were red against my pale palms. “It was a goat.”
“Pardon me?”
My not-so-friendly billy goat was eating weeds over by the chicken house. I pointed. “That one. It came up behind me while I was walking up to the house from the parking lot here and, well, butted me.”
Beside me, Inspector Schumaker struggled not to laugh.
“Right in the tush. Sent me flying. See? My knee’s skinned, too. He hit me hard.”
A quick snort, and he