The Legend of Sleepy Harlow by Kylie Logan

but it was a smile, after all, and if nothing else, it told me he wasn’t looking to pick a fight. “I just wondered, that’s all. After two murders—”
    “Three, technically. I’ve solved three murders since I came to the island.”
    He gave in with a tip of his head. “Three. But still, you’re telling me number four doesn’t interest you?”
    “I didn’t say it didn’t interest me. I said Hank was taking care of everything. What it does do”—I wrapped my arms around myself—“is it creeps me out. Noreen was difficult, sure, but if everyone who was difficult died, there wouldn’t be many people left in the world. I saw her just last night, and she was alive and well, even if she was nasty and maddening. To think that she’s dead . . . it’s just horrible.”
    “And the thought of another murder here on the island . . .” Levi pushed off from where he’d been leaning. “It’s not what I expected when I came here.”
    “Me, either,” I admitted. “I thought this was small-town America, and—”
    “Small-town America is supposed to be boring and predictable.”
    “I’d be perfectly happy with boring and predictable, but I was thinking more like how I always thought a small town would be safe. It is safe, right? You can walk around the island any time of the day or night and not feel the least bit threatened or uncomfortable. But still . . .” I picked up my coffee cup to take another drink, but remembering what we’d seen when the lid of the coffin was pushed back soured my stomach. I set down my cup. “It’s terrible.”
    “But you’re not investigating? That’s not why you’re here? Not to ask me if I know who brought that silly coffin to the park? Or who went anywhere near it? Or if I realized something was wrong the minute I hoisted it up on my shoulders?”
    Come to think of it, I was dying (poor choice of words) to know the answers to each and every one of those questions. But no, that wasn’t why I was there, and I told myself not to forget it.
    “Actually, I’m here because of Sleepy,” I told Levi.
    “The ghost.”
    “There are no such things as ghosts.” I shouldn’t have had to remind him. Or myself, in spite of the fact that the memory of that odd, headless half shadow flitted through my mind. “I’m here because of Charlie Harlow, the real person. I told you, I’m doing some research. I thought it might . . .” My shrug should have said it all, but I knew it wasn’t enough. I had to explain. “I thought if I kept busy, maybe I could take my mind off what happened today. What we saw over at the park.”
    “Yeah.” The way Levi twitched those broad shoulders of his, I could tell he was as uncomfortable with the memory as I was. “Poor woman. It looked as if her head had been—”
    “Bashed in. Yeah.” Now for sure I knew I didn’t want any more coffee. To prove it, I pushed the cup farther away. “Rather than think about that,” I told him, “I thought I’d get to work on this project I’m helping Marianne with.” Technically, it wasn’t a lie, so I didn’t feel guilty about this part of my explanation. “This was Sleepy’s apartment.” I glanced around at the sleek countertops, the stainless appliances, the gleaming white ceramic tile floor. “Something tells me it didn’t look like this when he lived here.”
    “Believe me, it didn’t look like this when I bought the place last year. Too bad you didn’t stop by then. I bet every bit of crumbling linoleum and every chip of peeling paint went all the way back to Sleepy’s day.”
    “That would have been helpful.”
    “Really?” Levi grabbed my cup and took it, along with his own, to the sink. He rinsed them, put them in the dishwasher, then turned to face me, his arms folded over his chest. “Why do you care? What are you and Marianne up to?”
    I knew it would come to this, and I was prepared with a story. “She’s writing this book about Sleepy, you see. Not about the