Sweeter than Blood

Chapter Eight

Meredith Eaves answered her door on the first knock. She was older than myself, reaching the end of her sixties, and not unfamiliar.

Meredith had been my father's girlfriend for nearly two decades after my mother died. They stayed together until a few months after he retired, at which point they split and I was never informed as to why.

My father talked about her often even after they parted ways; how helpful she was in the community, how dedicated she was to the little cafe she owned in the center of town, but Meredith's passion during those years had always been history. She'd sold the cafe and decided to take on the job of assistant professor at the university, working with Finlay Lancaster in his anthropology studies. What she did exactly wasn't part of my knowledge, but she was the only other person close enough to the victim to know what he might have uncovered.

"Well hello there, child!" She greeted me warmly, wrapping me up in a motherly hug. "It's been too long, how are you?"

I didn't miss the confused look Garnet gave me out of the corner of my eye, but I smiled as naturally as I could at the woman who was a mother-figure for most of my life.

"Hi, Meri," I greeted her. "It has been quite a while. I've been well, thank you, but my partner, Garnet, and I are actually here to ask you a few questions about Finlay Lancaster. May we come in?"

Meredith shuffled out of the way of the door and ushered us in. We went to the dining room and filled three of the eight plush-white chairs spaced evenly around the robin's egg blue chalk-painted table.

"Such a shame what happened to the professor," Meredith said as she sat across from me. Just as I wasn't missing the searching glances from Garnet at my right, I didn't miss the fact that Meredith had yet to look at Garnet at all.

"I understand you found his body the morning he died."

"Yes, yes, I was on my way in to the office when I saw him lying down by that old tree in the park," she said. "I thought maybe he'd just left early for work and decided to lounge a bit in the cool morning mists until I called out to him and he didn't answer, so I walked over and saw clear as day that his shirt was covered in red stains and his eyes were open and unseeing." She shivered at the memory. "Oh forgive my manners, may I grab you something to drink?"

"Water for me would be great, thanks, and perhaps Garnet would like something?" I looked to my partner, but nearly as quickly as she managed to say "no, thank you," Meredith had already hurried off to the kitchen, returning moments later with two glass of ice water. She passed one to me and sat back down.

"It was awful to see him like that," Meredith continued, taking small sips from her glass. "Never would have thought anyone would want to hurt the poor man. He was sweet as could be."

"Would you happen to know what Mr. Lancaster had been working on at the time of his death," Garnet asked, but Meredith kept her focus on me.

"Only project I knew he was working on was about his obsession with the vampire-human treaty," she told me. "Been researching that for ages, but I can't say for sure what he was looking for. I did help him some, as I was able." She stood and shuffled back out of the dining room, then reappeared with a filing box in her arms. "This was all the information he'd asked me to get from Greg—I mean, the mayor." Meredith blushed. "I suppose given our history you probably didn't know I was seeing Greg now. How is your father, by the way?"

"He is well, thanks," I said, trying to hide my shock that the woman I'd grown up knowing as my father's second chance at love was now in a relationship with the mayor of the town. It was a good thing my father had retired or else meetings between the mayor and the police chief would have been awkward.