Free The Scariest Tail (A Wonder Cats Mystery Book 4) by Harper Lin

close,” Bea continued. “Instead of cutting his losses, he gets even nastier. The next thing the Roys know is that there are threatening notes being left at their house with obvious signs that someone was trespassing on their property. John would get weird calls at work, and of course Lisa would get them at home. But as Blake said, the guy rode a fine line between legal and illegal activities. There was nothing they could do.”
    “So why didn’t Lisa tell the guys about this when they were interviewing her after John’s death?” Aunt Astrid asked. “I don’t believe this Shawn character pushed John out the window, but I wouldn’t rule him out as being involved.”
    “Well, here is the icing on the cake,” Bea said. “As it turned out, the guy had gone off his medication and was acting out. But John didn’t know this. So, he paid a couple of good ol’ boys to find Shawn and beat the living tar out of him with the promise they’d keep coming back as long as he did.”
    “Okay, now we are starting to sound like Chicago politics,” I said, rolling my eyes.
    “Well, maybe so. But it worked. After Shawn had his hind end handed to him, he went to the doctor and got fixed up and back on his medication. This was almost a year ago, and there had been no incident since. But when John’s obit showed up in the paper, this dude wanted to offer his condolences in person. He kept calling Lisa. He sent her a couple of cards. He showed up at her house when everything else failed.”
    “And the man who answered the door in his sweats with a shotgun?” I asked.
    “That was Lisa’s uncle. We can only assume he was one of the guys who beat Shawn up—just by the way he acted and the way Shawn reacted.” Bea looked at me strangely for a second. “How did you know the guy was wearing sweats?”
    I stumbled and tripped over my words, sounding as though I had a stuttering problem. “I don’t know. Beats me. I mean, I mean… just a guess. I mean the guy was a rural kind of fellow, right? You said it right then.”
    Aunt Astrid gave me a look up and down as if I might have suddenly sprouted roots for feet, and Bea looked down her nose as if there was something hiding in my hair. Then they looked at each other.
    “Anyway,” Bea said, a little too heavily with the attitude, “Lisa didn’t bring it up because nothing had happened for months, and she didn’t want anyone to think badly about John. He paid money for some guys to beat up another guy. It isn’t usually how lawyers handle things. The only other people who knew about it and corroborated the facts were both their parents. Lisa wanted to make sure someone else knew just in case one or both of them disappeared.”
    “Good plan?” I asked, shaking my head. “How was this ruled a suicide so quickly if this Shawn guy gets dangerous if he gets off his medication? I don’t know, Bea.”
    “Blake is still looking into things, but it looks like Shawn has been on his best behavior for months. And he also has a pretty solid alibi as to where he’s been, including on the day John jumped from the window.”
    “I am exhausted after just hearing about all that,” my aunt said. “And it still doesn’t help us with the fact that two people have seen black-eyed kids and both suffered issues.”
    “Maybe three,” I said. “Did anyone think that maybe Shawn saw something? Maybe it wasn’t just being off his meds that made him crazy?”
    “Perhaps we could pay Shawn a visit,” Aunt Astrid said. “Bea, did the guys mention where he lives?”
    “It’s funny you should ask that,” Bea said. “Shawn gave an address to the police of where he’s living in Harrisburg. He’s been there for over a year now. Before that, he said he lived in Prestwick for a couple of years, but the address he gave was for a house that was condemned over five years ago.”
    “Is he rich?” I asked. People didn’t just decide they wanted to live in Prestwick. It had to be earned with a