Free Don't Take Any Wooden Nickels by Mindy Starns Clark Page A

sudden absence and the fact that he hadn’t left any work for me to do while he was gone. “I’d give anything for a little unexpected vacation.”
    “I suppose,” I said, though suddenly the rest of the week felt long and empty before me. The murder investigation of Eddie Ray would surely wrap up in a day or two as soon as the police stopped concentrating on Shayna and found the real killer. After that, I was left with nothing more exciting to do than clean out a few closets.
    “Do something fun, for goodness’ sake,” Harriet said.
    “Well, why don’t we try to get together this weekend?” I asked. “I could come into the city. We could go out to eat, do some shopping…”
    “I’d love to, hon, but I’ve got that line dancing competition over in Chincoteague. I’ll be up to my ears in the Double Split Pony till Monday.”
    I smiled, picturing Harriet in all her line-dancing glory.
    “You could join us,” she continued. “There’s always room for one more.”
    “No, thanks,” I replied. “I’m sure I’ll find something to do around here by myself.”
    “That’s what I’m worried about,” she said. “We’ve just got to get you out and about more.”
    “I get out! Goodness, I’m gone more days than I’m here.”
    “I’m not talking about work. I’m talking about your social life.”
    “My social life is fine, thank you very much.”
    “Yeah, right,” she replied. “When’s the last time you did anything social with anyone else but me? And trying to arrange a quick rendezvous in an airport with your boss doesn’t count. Neither does that thing you do with your church, helping out those young women.”
    I thought of Shayna, currently cooling her heels in jail.
    “I’m…I’ve been busy,” I hedged.
    “How ’bout when you were on your vacation?”
    “I spent most of that time in my canoe.”
    “Oh, Callie,” Harriet moaned. “We’ve just got to find you a man.”
    “I don’t need a man,” I said, bristling. “You know very well I’m perfectly happy on my own.”
    “Well, at the very least, you need some more friends.”
    “I’ve got friends!”
    “Count ’em, hon. If it takes more than one hand, I’ll be flabbergasted.”
    “Whatever,” I said, trying not to sound hurt. Harriet was half teasing, but there was an undercurrent of truth in her voice.
    I changed the subject, but I felt a bit edgy for the rest of the conversation. Once we had hung up, I thought long and hard about her comments. So what if I preferred to keep to myself? Was that really so bad? I knew how to be friendly. I just didn’t seek people out.
    “There’s a difference between being lonely and being alone,” I said out loud, defensively, to no one but my dog, Sal. She answered by burrowing her head into the side of my leg, placing her chin on my knee, and then giving a little wag to her tail. If Harriet wants me to count the number of my friends, I thought, then good old Sal is at the very top of the list.

Twelve

    I couldn’t sleep. An hour later my mind was still spinning, drifting back to Shayna and the conundrum of who killed Eddie Ray.
    By the time I had left the scene of the crime, the police were still busy collecting evidence and floating theories. Shayna remained their primary suspect, though as far as I knew, she still hadn’t been charged with anything beyond drug possession. I was comforted to know no other drugs or drug paraphernalia had turned up in her apartment; that lent much more credence to her claims that she was clean and sober and that the bag of marijuana found in her car wasn’t hers.
    Still, her boyfriend’s dead body had been found in the trunk. I thought about that, floating some possible theories of my own. I decided it was most logical that Eddie Ray had taken Shayna’s car during the night, some time after he stormed over to the bar and spent a while there. Where he was going in the car so late at night was anyone’s guess, but he must’ve been on his way