The light bulb in the janitor's closet flickered. If that thing shut off, I'd make a run out of the school. No way did I want to be stuck in a horror slasher flick. The large, thick, black trash can in front of me wobbled, and I used my free hand to steady it.

The other hand held back the mound of trash I'd already searched through with no luck. A pile of dirty socks sat on the next layer of disgusting filth waiting for me in this bin, and I wasn't ecstatic about digging through them.

"Who threw away this many socks at a high school?"

Why were they in the janitor closet's trash can?

The whole thing reeked.

Literally.

Thankfully, I still had an enormous bottle of hand sanitizer from my allergy attack in February. Later I planned to take a bath in it. When the bin stabilized, I stuck my hand on the edge of the socks. Something sticky on the trash bag rubbed against the outside of my palm.

I gagged.

"Don't think about it, Vonnie. Just keep going," I whispered to myself.

Beyond the socks, the corner edge of something plastic scrapped against my knuckle. My fingertips grazed it but not enough. I leaned forward more, putting half my body into the trash can, and held my breath.

"Are you stuck?" Anderson said behind me.

I jerked from being startled at his presence and banged my head against the side of the can. Freaking wonderful. Now I'd have that sticky shit in my hair.

Trying my best not to look frazzled by the socks, I popped out of the trash can with a smile. Pieces of my hair stuck together, and I pulled a ripped piece of paper from the strands. After this, I planned to go home and take a two-hour bath.

It's fine.

Totally fine.

Everything is fine.

I chanted the motto twice in my head to avoid a mental breakdown.

"Everything is golden," I said to Anderson as he blocked the exit of the cleaning room with his body.

He leaned against the doorjamb and shook his head. His signature tan trench coat covered up the crappy paint job on the inside wall.

My phone buzzed, and I checked it quickly.

VIVI: Don't talk to mom. I'm home and she's mad.

Hmmm. That solved that problem. I slipped the phone back in my pocket.

"It's not the janitor," Anderson said. He had his hair slicked back, and the gel glittered in the light. I didn't love the new style on him. It looked like he'd gotten hair lessons from Frankie.

I leaned against the trash can until it slid to the side, and I had to regain my footing. "How do you know?"

The side of the can bent in as I rested my arm against it. Stupid can. I forgot my cool stance idea and did the popped-out hip stance instead. It gave me that cool and composed but slightly annoyed demeanor. Cops hated it when their presence didn't rattle you. I enjoyed playing mind games with cops-mainly Anderson-but he deserved it.

He didn't answer quickly enough, so I added evidence to my statement. "The last high school janitor attacked Katy."

She and Anderson were cousins... or something. Hopefully, it made him sympathetic to the cause.

"I'm pretty sure she attacked him first," he said.

I shook my head and popped out the hip more. "Not the way I heard it."

The janitor also killed someone, but I wanted to keep the topic to our current murder victim. Katy already closed the case on the janitor's dead body.

"It wasn't Chad, Vonnie," Anderson said, still all leany against the door.

I needed something to lean against. And fine, if he wanted to make this about dead bodies, we would. "The last janitor killed someone. Janitors are killers, so you can't be sure this one hasn't stuffed a few bodies in random places. Have you checked the meat source for the school cafeteria?"

He cringed, but I had a valid point. What exactly was in the mystery meat they served at this school?

"The meat is fine, and I can be sure of this one. He has an alibi."

I narrowed my eyes at him. No one told me about this alibi. That would have been useful information to have. "What's the alibi?"

We didn't have time to waste fighting over alibis, but I still wanted to hear it. I had to find my evidence and soon or he might leave. While Anderson stood by and watched, I half crawled back into the trash can and resorted my garbage. He might have had time to stand around all day, but I didn't.

"A trip to Jamaica with his wife for their anniversary."

My eyes narrowed to the point I had trouble seeing the trash. "Do you have footage of them boarding the plane?"

I stood up from the trash can so Anderson got a glimpse of how narrowed my eyes were. For a man who questioned everything I did daily, he bought this Jamaica story pretty easily.

Anderson had his eyes closed by the time I made it out of the trash, so he didn't get to see my expression of utter disbelief at his shoddy police work.

I waved my hand at him, even though he couldn't see it. "It's fine. It's not the janitor, anyway."

This time.

Anderson's mouth parted slightly, and he opened his eyes while readjusting his stance against the door. "Then why the hell do you have your head in the trash can? Why are we here?"

"Did you know Tabitha wants a baby?" I asked and returned to give the trash can one last rifle through it.

The evidence I wanted wasn't in there, but the school had trash cans everywhere. I'd find it.

"What?" Anderson asked as I pushed past him into the hallway on the hunt for another trash can.

I found one halfway down the hallway and made my way toward it. At some point, Anderson would get annoyed with me enough he'd threaten to kick me out of the school on trespassing charges. I needed to find my stuff before then.

"Really, Anderson. Get with the news. The interim chief needs to know what goes on in his town." He followed me to the trash can like I wanted. "And soon you're going to have little baby bikers on your hands. It's an entirely new generation."

Rain pattered against the large window in the hallway. Ugh. We needed April to end so the rain might give us a break. We had very few pleasant months in Maine and I didn't want to spend them soggy.

"Vonnie, I have actual police work to do," Anderson said as he stood on the other side of the can.

I noticed his lack of helping.

"I'm almost ready," I lied.

Someone had rubbed a rotten peanut butter sandwich against the edge of this can. Sure, I was banking on the cans being full, but didn't they clean them out at least once a week? The school had an early release day and left at 11:30, but someone should have done the bags by now. Although. My digging slowed.

"It smells like wet socks in here. What are you looking for?" Anderson asked, peeking his head over the edge of the can.

I dropped an empty box of markers into the pile of crap. "Tapes."

He sighed and returned to his spot. "I told you there are no tapes."

"You say a lot of things I don't listen to, Anderson." The trash can muffled my words, but he probably heard them.

Why did I always have to do his job for him? I fixed my hair as I stood, feeling around for any peanut butter. "Yeah, of course there're no tapes. Because the murderer disposed of them."

They'd toss them somewhere as quickly as possible. Only extremely stupid murderers kept the evidence after their crime.

"The janitor had the tapes?" Anderson asked.

I threw my hands up. Seriously. Did I need to find my red yarn and Sharpie?

They had another can further down the hall, and I walked in that direction. "No, I told you the janitor didn't do it."

"Then who?" Anderson asked as he followed me.

I reached the can and leaned over to peek inside. Empty. Wow, someone actually did their job and emptied it. The janitor might not have been a killer, but they also weren't great at trash can dumping. It should have worked in my favor.

"The murderer."

"Lord, help me." From his weary expression, I had about two minutes before Anderson gave me the "I will arrest you for trespassing" portion of this encounter. I needed to buy myself more time and look somewhere else. "Vonnie. I'm done."

"Fine," I said and held up my hands.

He followed me toward the exit at the end of the hallway, probably wrongly thinking I'd given up.

We stopped at the door together. "You really don't know?" I asked.