Free Shay O'Hanlon Caper 04 - Chip Off the Ice Block Murder by Jessie Chandler. Page B

the person who had bailed my caboose out for a second day in a row.
    Coop said, “I think we’ve all had better moments. Mind scoring me a Bud?”
    Lisa kicked off the counter and pulled a bottle from the cooler. She popped the top, and as she handed it to Coop, she shot me a quick, questioning glance. Somehow I knew she was wondering if she should charge him. I subtly shook my head. She acknowledged with a quirk of an eyebrow.
    How the hell had Lisa read me so well? I closed my eyes and let a feeling of odd familiarity wash over me. Had Lisa and I suddenly become clairvoyant, or whatever the hell the term was? I hadn’t had that kind of nonverbal clarity—or maybe it was simple silent comprehension—that fast with anyone. Well, not since I met JT, anyway.
    Eddy startled me back to awareness with a pointed jab of her bony elbow. “Shay? Answer Lisa.”
    My head snapped up and I met Lisa’s eyes. They were greenish-hazel, depending which way she turned in the hit-and-miss lighting of the bar, and they were currently boring into me.
    Oh my god. Were we having a moment? Whoa. Slam on the air brakes a minute. What was I thinking? I cashed in my player’s ticket when I got serious with JT. Jesus. Get your mind back in the game, Shay. I felt bewildered and speechless.
    Frowning at me, Eddy saved the day. “She’ll have one of those sissy drink-like things. You know, with that syrupy peach cough medicine and some OJ.”
    “Fuzzy navel,” Lisa said. The corners of her mouth curled, but she didn’t say anything as she got busy mixing my admittedly girly concoction.
    I let out a bark that was meant to be a laugh. “Right. Thanks, Eddy.” I suddenly found the gleaming surface of the bar top highly absorbing. I had no idea what my brain was doing. I should have big red neon letters attached to my forehead that blinked off and on, flashing Overload Alert.
    Eddy again applied her elbow none-too-gently to my ribs. I was going to be bruised after this. “You learn anything we can sink our dentures into?”
    I suppressed a grunt and scrambled to pull my jack-rabbiting thoughts together. “Not exactly. Like I said, Dad was nowhere. I checked all the usual spots. Nada.”
    Coop tilted his bottle at Eddy and said, “I ran up to the cabin. Locked up tight. Didn’t look like anyone had been around recently. There weren’t any tire tracks in the driveway since at least the last snow.”
    We hadn’t been up to the cabin since early winter, so that made sense.
    Lisa set the glass containing my cough syrup concoction on a napkin in front of me.
    I gave her a semi-stiff, businesslike thank you and said, “JT went in to work this morning, and she called a bit ago.” I wasn’t completely comfortable discussing my father’s potential problems in front of Lisa, but after all she’d done for us, I wasn’t going to kick her to the proverbial curb. She was a big girl, and if she wanted to escape the nut house, she knew where the exit was.
    Eddy straightened, shifting her position on the stool to face me more fully. “What’d JT have to say?”
    Oh boy. “Nothing you want to hear.”
    “Child, what is it?”
    This was one secret I knew I couldn’t keep. “She found out that Dad’s handgun was found frozen in a block of ice.”
    “Ice?” Eddy asked. “That doesn’t sound too ominous, so why you still have a donkey face?”
    Coop momentarily covered his eyes, waiting for the reveal and the inevitable explosion. Lisa looked between Eddy and me and shot a questioning glance at Coop, who shrugged.
    I said, “There was a body in the ice along with the gun. And no,” I added quickly, “the body isn’t Dad’s. But the gun is.”
    Eddy’s smooth forehead crinkled and one eye got squinty. “A gun? A body? Like one of those department store mannequin things?”
    I shook my head.
    Lisa’s eyes widened, but she didn’t utter a sound.
    “No, Eddy,” I said quietly. “A dead human body. And the cops want to talk to Dad because