We sped up our pace. Shortly, we were standing under Bert's porch.

Annie Mae jabbed the doorbell a few times.

The door opened. Bert, in shorts and pressed shirt, looked us up and down. "What the h.e.l.l are you two doing here again?"

"We need to talk to you," I said.

"Jeez." Bert grimaced. "Cat, you look like h.e.l.l."

"It's been a rough day." I ran a hand through my hair, only to get it stuck.

"What's that smell?" Bert's nose crinkled.

"Scent of a campfire, right?" Annie Mae added.

Bert nodded.

"It's us. Perfume of the burning dumpster," I said.

Bert raised an eyebrow.

"Never mind." I sighed.

Bert asked, "So what do you want this time? You've got two seconds, because I have even less patience for you two than I did the first time you showed up."

"What's with the message on her windshield?" Annie Mae asked Bert while motioning toward me.

"What are you talking about?" Bert held the door halfway open.

"The message *Back off Bert' written in lipstick," I said.

"I don't know anything about that." Bert raised an eyebrow. "How do you know it's about me?"

"You're the only Bert I know," I said.

"That doesn't matter. I didn't write any message on your car. You need to leave now." Bert began to close the door.

"Whoa, hold on, there. It was written in pink lipstick." Annie Mae grabbed on to the door.

"So?" Bert furrowed his eyebrows.

"Doesn't Susie wear that color?" I asked Bert.

Bert blushed and looked at the ground.

"Speechless, huh?" Annie Mae said.

"Bert, this is not looking good for you or your girlfriend. Yes, we know about your mistress, Susie. First we almost get cooked in a dumpster, and now a threatening message is left on my vehicle," I said.

"What does that have to do with me?" Bert turned his palms up.

"You lied about where you were when Lucy died. That is suspicious in and of itself," I said.

"Your mistress may've wanted her compet.i.tion, Lucy, out of the way." Annie Mae shook a finger in Bert's face. "So she killed her. Or maybe you schemed together to kill her."

"That's enough. You both need to get the h.e.l.l out of here. If you don't, I'm going to get a restraining order on you." Bert huffed as he nudged Annie Mae away from the door.

"Oh, h.e.l.l no. You're not going to restrain-" Annie Mae lunged at Bert.

I grabbed her arm, keeping her from Bert. "Fine, Bert. We'll leave. Just know that you and Susie are on our list of suspects."

"If I ever see either one of you here again, I promise, I'll call the police next time." Bert slammed the door.

"That went well." Annie Mae brushed her hair with her hand. "I think I'm getting this detective stuff down."

"How so?"

"You see how I made him nervous? That's called backing him into a corner."

"So?"

"Now that he's scared, he's going to have to react. Maybe we'll catch him doing something that'll prove that he killed Lucy. We'll have to keep close tabs on him."

"Not too close, or he'll get us arrested."

"I've never been in jail before. I wonder what it's like." Annie Mae held her purse over her head as we both dashed to my SUV. "Although I did play Roxie in Chicago."

"Somehow I think real jail is different from that." I fobbed my doors open and got in.

"He wouldn't call the police." Annie Mae plopped into her seat.

"I wouldn't put it past him." I turned the key. "He's still a murder suspect, which means he could do worse to us."

"Like what?"

"Kill us."

Chapter Fourteen.

"We need to go visit Susie. I hope she's still at work. I think the Red and White is open from nine in the morning until nine in the evening. But I have no idea how long she works." I pulled away from the curb.

"One way to find out." Annie Mae scrolled through her phone. "I'm calling the store."

Annie Mae held the phone to the side of her head. "I got some bad peaches, rotted with worms. I need to speak to your manager, Susie.... No. No. Don't get her. I'll just stop in later. How late will she be there?... Uh-huh..." Annie Mae held five fingers up. "Great. Thank you. Bye."

Annie Mae turned to me. "We have a half hour to get there."

"We're only a few minutes away."

"Now let me look up some questioning techniques." Annie Mae tapped her iPhone.

"I'm sorry I got you in all of this."

"You don't have to apologize. This is the most excitement I've had since the last time Ernie and I were amorous. The week before his heart attack." Annie Mae looked at her phone. "He was quite the skilled lover."

"Too much information." I smiled.

"I do miss him." Annie Mae looked up. "If it weren't for the Chubby Chicks, I'd be so lonely. Don't ever tell Jose that."

Keeping my left hand on the steering wheel, I reached over with my right hand and held hers.

Annie Mae's eyes watered up. "I'm so glad I have you as a friend."

"Me, too."

Five minutes later, I pulled into the lot for the Red and White Grocery Store and parked alongside a red VW Beetle.

"I have to get myself together before we go in." Annie Mae grabbed a tissue and dabbed her eyes.

"Take your time." I shut off the engine.

Annie Mae blew her nose into a tissue. "So I web searched *questions to ask a killer,' and I only came up with killer interview questions. Neither of us needs a job, so that won't work. But I remember seeing on a TV show that when the motive is found that can lead to finding the killer."

"A motive to kill Lucy?" My gut twisted. "I cannot think of one single reason. None."

"Of course you can't think of one, because you're not a murderer." Annie Mae stuck a finger on her forehead. "We need to get into the head of a killer. This will help us find him and prevent any more deaths."

I wanted the person who killed Lucy and my dad behind bars forever. Ever since I could remember, I've had this intense drive to right wrongs. One of my grade school teachers often told me that I had to understand life was not fair. But I couldn't accept that. "So you're saying to find the sc.u.m, we have to think like one."

Annie Mae nodded. "Yes, now you're on the right track."

"Money usually is the root of crimes." Although, when my dad died, nothing was stolen.

Annie Mae rubbed her fingers together. "Money is a big reason."

"Bert could've wanted the money from Lucy's life insurance policy, a.s.suming she had one. They were upper middle cla.s.s. Bert did pretty well as an accountant, and Lucy had quite a client list as a designer, so I'm thinking they probably had a policy."

"Or maybe he wanted the house to himself so he could walk around in his underwear. Some men like doing that. My Ernie spent more time in his boxer shorts than real pants. I used to buy him all sorts of colorful patterns and prints just so that I'd have something nice to look at."

I giggled. "Okay, we'll add that to the mental list of motives."

Annie Mae bounced in her seat. "Here's another one. The mistress could've been jealous and wanted Lucy gone so that she could have Bert to herself. Although I can't fathom why. Maybe that's just me."

I furrowed my eyebrows in thought. "Can you think of any more?"

"What about her neighbor? The fight about the tree."

"You're right." I stopped in my tracks. "But why would she kill my dad, too?"

Annie Mae's eyes went wide. Then she hung her head. "I'm so sorry. I forget we're looking for his killer, not just Lucy's."

"Maybe it wasn't the same person. Who could've had a motive to kill both Lucy and my dad? There's nothing that connects them, not Bert, not Susie, not the neighbor."

"Now that you said that, you're right. It doesn't make sense that it'd be the same person after both of them. Sorry, babe." Annie Mae put her hand on my shoulder. "What do you want to do?"

I twisted the ring on my thumb as I thought of my dad. This whole time, I had thought we were after his killer, too, and now I realized that Lucy's could be a different person. "No matter how long I live, I won't give up trying to find the person who took my dad's life. But I think we should focus on Lucy's case first. We're getting close."

"Did you just say case? That makes this sound so professional." Annie Mae waved her hands. "Almost like we are legitimate detectives."

The clock on my dashboard displayed 4:50. "We have ten minutes to get in there and talk to Susie before she leaves."

"Since I didn't find any useful things to ask a killer, we're going to have to improvise," Annie Mae said.

"That won't be a problem. With four kids, my whole life is on the fly."

The automatic doors whooshed open, and cool air greeted us as we entered the store. Loaves of bread in white paper bags sat on a table in front of the registers. A sign read, "Just baked." Next to it was a table of peaches.

"It smells like a bakery in here. I'm getting hungry." Annie Mae lifted a loaf of bread and stuck her nose next to it. "I have to get this."

Cynthia stood behind the register, playing with her phone. She looked up at us. "Hi again."

"Hi, Cynthia," I said.

"Just giving you a heads up. The bread is good. But, like, I wouldn't get the peaches if I were you. Someone just called and said they've got worms."

"Oh, really?" Annie Mae strode past the registers while looking around.

Cynthia rang up a customer as Annie Mae and I wandered down an aisle.

"Do you see Susie?" I asked.

"Follow me." Annie Mae walked down the cereal section as she pointed to the boxes on the shelf. "What ever happened to Quisp? I loved that cereal."

"Gone in the 1970s with Tang and feathered hair."

"Too bad." Annie Mae rounded a corner, and I followed. "That was my favorite decade."

We entered the dairy section in the back of the store.