The Cantaloupe Thief by Deb Richardson-Moore

After closing the door in his face, she went to her bedroom and cried off and on for twenty-four hours.
    For weeks afterward, her chest felt tight, as if there were a vise squeezing her lungs. Or more likely, her heart. She refused her parents’ invitations to dinner, regretful that she was adding to their hurt but unable to face her co-conspirators in this awful decision. The only time she didn’t feel like crying was when she was working.
    So she worked.
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    She got back to the newsroom and glanced at the large desk calendar she kept as a backup to her iPad. Only then did she realize what she’d done: the word BEACH was written in large capital letters across Friday, June 5. She wasn’t even going to be at the farm this weekend.
    â€œOh, no!” she said, laying her head on her desk. “Now what am I gonna do?”
    Could she leave Davison at the farm alone? No. To his mind the place was full of great drunken memories. Could she take him with her? She didn’t want to. But maybe he and Cleo could stay at the beach house while she conducted interviews. It wasn’t perfect, but it was better than leaving him under the bridge where the crack and alcohol flowed freely.
    She updated an online story about a fundraiser for the public library. She answered email, confirming interviews with Mrs Resnick’s daughter at nearby Lake Hartwell, then her granddaughters in Edisto and Isle of Palms.
    She called the South Carolina Department of Corrections, and left a message for the public information officer, asking if Billy Shepherd was still in prison. Then she called Liam to ask if he’d gotten any leads on the Resnick case.
    â€œYes and no,” he said. “I brought it up at this morning’s meeting. Sixteen of our guys were there — which is rare. More are usually working third shift and I don’t ask them to wake up. Anyway, only six remotely knew what I was talking about. Four remembered the story from news accounts back then. But two — Dontegan and Jess — said they’d heard vague rumors over the years. Let me get my notes.” Branigan heard scratching as Liam searched his desk, then a yelp and a curse.
    â€œWhy, Saint Liam, what did you do?”
    â€œKnocked my coffee over.”
    â€œSorry.”
    â€œI do that at least once a day. Okay, here you go. Jess said that a man named Max Brody — he’s a bad alcoholic — got drunk one night and was babbling that ‘this evening’s drunk is courtesy of an old lady who had the good taste to get stabbed’.”
    â€œThose were his exact words?” She began scribbling. “‘This evening’s drunk is courtesy of an old lady who had the good taste to get stabbed’?”
    â€œYeah, as well as Jess could remember, anyway.”
    â€œWhen was this?”
    â€œDon’t know.”
    â€œOkay, I’ll need to talk to Jess and this Max Brody. What did Dontegan say?”
    â€œDontegan said he’d heard a woman talking about a lady who got murdered downtown, but the woman was drunk and he couldn’t make much sense of it. I pressed him, and he said it was a homeless woman who eats here a lot. Rita.”
    Rita again?
    â€œCan you describe her?” Branigan asked.
    â€œTiny. In her forties, but looks sixty. White, horribly sun-damaged and wrinkled. Washed-out blond hair. She’s a prostitute and a bad alcoholic and, from the look of her teeth, a meth addict. She’s been impossible for us to reach out to.”
    â€œI’ve met her.”
    â€œHow?”
    â€œI ran into her on Main Street. Pretty drunk. And Davison stayed in her shack under the bridge last night.”
    â€œNot good. No telling what kind of diseases she has.”
    â€œI know. I’m taking him to the farm then the beach with me until he can get into the mission on Monday.”
    â€œHmm. Are you sure, Brani G?”
    â€œNo, not at all.”
    He laughed.