I nodded and led her out. Then I realized I’d had a full-on conversation with someone I didn’t know. Someone suspected of involvement in the murder. I realised that I was friends with someone dangerous and my skin crawled. I got up from the couch and walked to the café where I’d met Alison for the first time. I regretted the decision as soon as I walked in.
The place was teeming with people, and it was buzzing from the high and low voices of those speaking. All the buzzing and noises stopped as soon as I set foot in the place.
“Who is she?” Some random guy whisper yelled. He might have meant to whisper and keep his voice low so I couldn’t hear. Poor guy needed education and training in that field because I’m sure the whole town heard.
“She’s Poppy’s niece. The one that’s been helping Detective Lawrance with the case of the beach lady.” The woman sitting next to him said loudly and sipped her tea.
“Oh, yes,” another man exclaimed. “I thought so. I knew her from somewhere.”
They all ogled me as I stood there contemplating my next move; to leave or to stay.
“Did you hear she had a sister…” I turned and looked at the owner of the voice. I didn’t recognise the scumbag, but jeez, did he have a loud voice! When he saw me looking at him, he didn’t stop talking; he moved closer to the other people and lowered his voice. I scowled.
I groaned, looked around for a seat, and I found one at a table with three other women. My heart fell. If there’s anything I’d learnt in my short time in Lesbrook, it was that there were gossips. Half the town was like a gossip club. The entire town was full of gossip. But not only that, there were tiers to the gossip club.
There was the absolute ‘gold medalists’ tier where all the biggest and best lay, the ones with binoculars in their purses at any given moment. And these were the ones I was going to sit next to. Then came the other levels until you go to the amateur tier. The ones they called ‘trash’, but not to their ears.
My aunt was in the ‘silver medalist’ tier. She knew things about everyone, but still kept enough dignity not to carry around a pair of binoculars.
The three women I had to sit with were the three most talkative women I had ever been in contact with. Not even my mother was that bad, and she was talented in that department. One of the women was called Dorothy. She was the quietest, with average words per minute of fifty-five. Next was Martha. She averaged seventy words per minute. Then came Thea. She topped the cake at about a hundred words per minute.
“How are you, dear?’ All three of the women inquired of me as soon as I sat down.
“Good and you?” I asked. The reason I was keeping up with this was that any information was free with gossiping busybodies. You could ask them anything and they’d be happy to fill you in.
“As good as anyone can be in these circumstances,” Dorothy said, and shook her head. The other two women sighed softly, as if the weight of the world had become too heavy for them to bear.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
Their eyes widened as they stared at me. “What?! You mean you don’t know?”
“Know what?” I asked. Even I was astounded at how calm I sounded. The place was loud, and everyone had obnoxious voices. My name came up every few minutes, regardless of how everyone tried to whisper their gossip.
“Why, the woman that died, of course,” Martha said, and shook her head. I wondered what the head shaking was supposed to accomplish because they did it too much. It was probably to solicit some sort of sympathy and sadness in the listener; me.
“Oh.”
“Yes. It’s such a sad affair. It shows how we could all die tomorrow. If he wanted, the killer would kill us all and have us washing up on the beach in no time.” Thea said solemnly, but with a serious expression.
“Why would he kill you?” I asked. “Don’t you think his job is done now that he’s killed the woman?” I almost said ’Celine’ but I figured that would turn their attention towards me instead of keeping me on the sidelines as they were for the time being.
“Why?! You sweet child. So innocent. You don’t quite understand how this world works yet, but you will soon enough.” Martha gave me an anguished look. I could tell she pitied me for my ignorance in the workings of this world. “If a person kills once, they are likely to do it again.”
“But wouldn’t the killer have a target?” I thought he or she had a target in this case. This wasn’t some serial killer. He or she had a reason.
“No, she doesn’t have to have a target, does she? It could be about the thrill of the kill.” Thea exclaimed. I noticed she’d said ‘she’ this time instead of ‘he’.
“But do you think Mr. Hedgepeth would kill for the thrill? What’s…” I was going to ask what the point was. But I noticed they’d all stopped eating their muffins and were now looking at me with concerned and intrigued gazes.
“Who told you he did it?” Thea inquired. “Whoever placed that stupid notion in your head needs a psychiatric evaluation. He couldn’t have done it, he had no reason to.”
“Yes, but I thought the motive here was the thrill,” I said. I knew I sounded sarcastic and disrespectful.
Thea gave me an indignant look, opened her mouth as if to speak, then closed it again before giving Dorothy a helpless look. “Yes. But Alan needs a reason to do things. He’s a police officer after all… or he was.” Dorothy explained. I stared at her.
“She means that if he was to kill her, he’s one of the few people who needs a reason. He wouldn’t have killed her for the fun of it, he has a bit too much pride to do that.”
“How do we know that pride wasn’t the motive, then?” I asked.
“It couldn’t be.” They all said with way too much conviction. “But other people around him could have. There are so many people who could have done it, but Alan? No. We don’t think he did it and we’re always right.” They started laughing, which became wheezes, then sputters. I looked at them, half expecting them to fall to the floor and all die.
“What about Alison? How does she know Alan?”
They now gave me concerned looks. They had a way of portraying the same emotion on their faces at the same time. At that moment, I knew they thought I was insane and needed a mental checkup.
“Who is Alison?” Thea asked me.
I described her to them; they gave me pitying looks while telling me they knew no one of the sorts. But the more we talked, the more I registered something.
It was possible I was going insane. I was the only other person to have seen Alison, so I stood up and went to talk to Maggie. And OMG! What a big help she was. I left the cafe enlightened and maybe having cracked half the case.
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