Tropical Threat (#3 - Semper Fi Series )

Chapter 2 - Shatter

As she drove off, she wondered what it was that bothered her. Something seemed off, and Natasha just wasn’t sure what. The way Annalee would only talk to her outside, the way she answered the door, the boy in the window ... all of it just seemed wrong. She didn’t see the car, but she could almost sense that the woman was hiding something. Or someone.

She made a mental note to go back later that day with Bill or one of the others. That way if they sensed the same thing, she would have confirmation of what she was already feeling: they were hiding something.

She parked, walked into the modest but modern Sheriff’s Department and went to her desk. A stack of phoned in messages were there, and she’d respond to them in turn. She looked through the first ten, though nothing stood out. Then she looked at the calendar, making notes on her desk-sized agenda.

A small note was stuck to her phone. It said: “Leroy. 4:00. Make time.” She laughed. She’d think it was suspicious if she hadn’t known him so long or so well. That meant he wanted to just talk to her at the end of the day with no interruptions. She loved that about him. He always made time to hear how the day went for her, to check on her emotional status, and fill her in on what he could tell her about his. Sometimes, but only a few since they’d met, he was out of circulation for days, or weeks, on end. The longest had lasted almost three months with only two calls the whole time, and they were short. He was technically still on Active Duty, though officially he was hired by an outside agency. Ah... the government: they could always find a way to word it so that you were given what they wanted you to have without having gained any information at all. She chuckled as she placed the note on the desk and went to talk to the Sheriff.

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After a pointless meeting, Natasha headed to visit the good employees of Grubbstown Pharmacy. She knew this is where Marilee had worked after graduation. The Pharmacy had candles, pictures of the girl, crosses, and a myriad of flowers.

Shaking her head, she opened the door, causing an old-fashioned bell on the door to tinkle. “Good afternoon. How may I help you?” The greeter was a young woman, probably in her early to mid-twenties. She seemed too chipper for the job she had.

“Hi! My name is Natasha Graves. I’m a detective for the Sheriff’s department.” The girl’s face fell immediately. “Don’t worry,” she had to look at the nametag for the woman’s name, “Kerri, I’m not here to do anything but learn more about Marilee: who her friends were, how much she worked, her goals, ambitions, and dreams. I’m one of the good guys, and I want to find the person who did this to her. Okay?”

A nervous and unsure head bobbed up and down slowly. “Okay. Well, Bryan’s not in right now.”

“That’s her dad, right?”

“Well, he raised her. Her dad died when she was young.”

“Oh, I didn’t know that. How well did you know Marilee yourself?”

“Pretty well. We’ve worked together since she was fifteen. That’s when she started coming to work with Bryan, and he taught her everything he knows about running a pharmacy. I think he wanted her to take over when he retired. She was excited about it. She was going to study to be a Pharmaceutical Tech in the fall at Grubbs Tech.”

Natasha tried not to snicker at the name of the local Technical College. She like living where she did, but the name reminded her of the fat worms the cartoon characters ate in the movie “The Lion King, “ and no matter how hard she tried, she could never get that image out of her mind. “What else can you tell me?”

“Well, she was dating a guy on the football team when she graduated. Marcus.” Kerri seemed to be both unsure, and to be hiding something.

“Do you know his last name?”