That’s what she was doing at the Everglades Hair Salon, hoping to mine some nugget from Grace’s memory.
“It’s your turn,” Grace said, breaking into her thoughts. “And none too soon. You’d have destroyed that magazine ’fore long.”
Kim looked down to see she’d mangled the header, “Using your mouth for more than words.” She tossed the magazine on the table and let Grace wash her hair and lead her to one of the chairs. Outside and across the street she could see two of her least favorite people. They looked as though they were staring right at her.
Buck was mean enough to kill Rhonda and Elva and arrogant enough to think he could get away with it. So far, the killer had. She remembered JoGene saying they had a corporate group coming in that weekend. That would be a good time to take a peek. Checking the main lodge or Buck’s house for the rifle would be tricky. Though Buck was often out hunting or checking his animal stock, his cowed wife usually stayed at home.
She wasn’t sure what she’d do if JoGene caught her snooping around his cabin. Maybe apologize for blowing him off and tell him she wanted to be friends. Buck, on the other hand, would be a much harder sell. He’d probably just shoot her.
“What’cha thinking?” Grace said, picking at strands of Kim’s hair. “Can’t go much shorter, really, without looking butchy.”
“I’m only looking for a trim.” A trim that she didn’t need since she’d recently had her hair cut.
Grace started combing Kim’s hair. “How’s Oscar doing? I heard you’re keeping him.”
“Yeah, he kind of grew on me.”
“We bought one of Elva’s pigs when she was breeding them. Miss Piggy’s almost as much our child as Martha Lee is.”
“Does Miss Piggy like to tear paper?”
Grace laughed. “Oh, yeah. We buy her packing paper so she can have at it once in a while.”
“So, it’s a pig thing, then, huh? I woke to the sound of tearing paper this morning. Stepping on a gooey, wet wad in the hallway totally woke me up. Oscar was in the living room tearing out pages from my magazines. He’d shake the page free, take it into the back room, and prance around with it for a few seconds before chewing it up and depositing it on the floor with the other spit wads.”
Grace nodded her head. “Oh, yeah. Ain’t it cute?”
“Cute wasn’t quite the word I used, though it has the same number of letters.”
Kim had run into the living room to retrieve what was left of her decorating ideas. Then she went around the house picking up spit wads, all before having her morning tea.
“Ernie said you stopped by. Did you find out what Elva was buying from him?”
“Ah, no, but I don’t think it was drugs. I hate thinking about him getting into trouble. It’s a shame, him losing his mother so young. Maybe he would have turned out better if Rhonda had lived.”
Grace snorted as she snipped Kim’s hair. “Not likely. Rhonda wasn’t exactly a pillar of the community, you know. Oh, she did try her best by Ernie, but she wanted the easy ride. Can’t say as I blame her. Guess we each have our ways of bettering ourselves.”
Kim led her a bit. “I wish they’d found out who killed her.”
“Well, you tried to pin it on Winnerow and Buck. That sure was ugly.”
“You don’t think they did it?”
Grace measured out the ends of Kim’s hair as she talked. “Well, I dunno. Buck, he can be ornery and all, but I can’t say nothing bad about him. My hubby works for him at the club. Winnerow did give her a ride a few times, but so did a lot of guys around here. Heck, even JoGene gave her a ride every now and again, and I ain’t only talking about the driving kind.”
“JoGene was seeing Rhonda? When?”
Grace flushed red, and her movements became more hurried. “I forgot about you and him dating. It was nothing serious, mind you. He came by a few times, maybe in the year before she died. He was always complaining because his girlfriend wasn’t giving him any.” She gave her a sheepish look in the mirror. “I guess that was you.” She shrugged. “It’s no big deal. If a guy’s got a need…”
JoGene had slept with Rhonda. The thought twisted inside her. Not only because JoGene had cheated on her, but because he’d had a sexual relationship with a woman who was later murdered. During the trial, the prosecution made the point that Rhonda had known and trusted her killer. She’d known JoGene.
“What do you think?”
Kim had hardly been paying attention to Grace’s performance as they’d talked. Now she looked in the reflection, and her heart did a somersault. Crap. She looked like a boy.
Kim had called Heron’s Glen just to be sure. No one had answered. She had no idea what Zell was up to, but since he lived so far from the main house, she should be safe. She pulled down the road and paused at the intersection. The farm was straight ahead. She saw a truck parked near the buildings, but saw no one outside. Zell could be at his house to the right. That made a strange, itchy feeling run across her skin. She took it as a warning and quickly turned left.
Her heart started hammering as soon as she pulled up to the house. Was she crazy? Did she really want to do this? The real question was, did she have a choice?
There was no place to hide her truck, so she parked out front and looked at the house. “If I were a rifle that someone had stolen from a murdered person, where would I be?”
She rang the door chimes and waited an interminably long time to make sure no one was around. People in Cypress weren’t especially worried about robbery, but she figured the front door would be locked. It was. She walked around to the back.
Her mother’s voice echoed with all the excitement of a girl’s: Wow, Kim, look at this pool! We’re going to have a good time here. All the hard times are behind us now, I swear. Please, Kim, let’s be happy. Though in the end, Kitty discovered the money and name hadn’t made her happy after all.
The pool cage was as tall as the house and kept the immense pool and upstairs balconies within its mosquito-free confines. She walked inside the cage, wishing she could find the peace her mother had found at the sound of the waterfall that splashed into the pool. Rocks, palms, and bromeliads added to the tropical look. She walked to the bank of French doors surrounding the leisure room and tried a handle. Bingo.
First, she checked the garage, but found nothing. In the gallery she found an elaborate rifle case and tugged on the door, but it was locked. Good, she supposed, since there was a young girl in the house. Bad for Kim, though. She looked at the rifles mounted inside but saw nothing like an old hunting rifle.
Why would the murderer have taken the gun? Elva hadn’t been shot, but she had been bludgeoned with something. Maybe the murderer had used the rifle and then taken it so no evidence would be found. Of course, if it had been treated like a potential crime scene, investigators would have found particles of whatever had been used embedded in Elva’s skin.
The study had been turned into an extensive workout room. If Winnerow were working out here, then maybe he was capable of murder after all. She remembered Charlotte saying he’d been working himself to death lately. Had she meant working out?
She caught her reflection in the wall of mirrors and started again at her haircut. Not only did she plain hate it, something else bothered her about it. She pushed it from her mind and left the room.
Winnerow’s suite was past the study. Kim had hated the thought of her mother sleeping with him. Kim slipped into the room and went right to the massive walk-in closet. She could hear her mother’s voice the first time she’d shown Kim the room. Look at this closet! It’s as big as our old living room. Kim dropped down to her knees and crawled beneath the hanging clothes. She searched the upper shelves and then beneath the bed, but found no rifle.
She tiptoed up the curving staircase, looking out the terraced windows as she went. She remembered Zell sliding down this banister. He’d taunted her into doing it once, and she’d gotten in trouble when Winn caught her. There were three bedrooms upstairs.
The one at the top of the stairs used to be Zell’s. Now she guessed it was Charlotte and Owen’s room. They had a tall waterbed with a headboard filled with alligator skulls, statues and knickknacks. A large sitting area held a blue couch and an exercise bike. Like Winnerow’s room, this one overlooked the bay. Would Owen hide a gun nearby that he couldn’t explain? Doubtful. She headed toward the closet…and found nothing.
She walked across a bridge that looked down to the living room and foyer. Charlotte’s old room, which now belonged to Tullie, was rich with little girl graces and pink ruffles. She wondered if Tullie liked this style or if Charlotte was forcing it on her. Tullie seemed too old and too serious for this kind of room. Kim’s eyes lit on the aquarium containing a baby alligator, about the size of the one Charlotte and Zell had put in her bed. That seemed more suitable for the girl than the ruffles.
Kim’s old room was now a storage room, a perfect place to hide a rifle. Only she didn’t get to look. The sound of a garage door opening shot adrenaline into her veins. She was blinded by the glint of sun against glass as a door opened. Two vehicles, one inside the garage and one parked out front? She didn’t take time to investigate. At the top of the stairs, she gripped the banister…and perched her behind on the smooth wood. She pushed off and slid down the banister, jumping to the tile at the bottom. Voices filtered in from the utility room, where the garage door entered.
“She won’t be in the house, Daddy,” Charlotte said.
“She’d better not be.”
They would walk into the gallery any second and spot her at the base of the stairs. Her throat was so tight she could hardly swallow. She darted across the galley to the study. Her feet slid on the tile just as their footsteps sounded on the floor. She had to weave through the maze of workout equipment toward the French doors leading out to the lanai. Their voices grew louder, though Kim’s heart was pounding so loud, she couldn’t hear what they were saying. Something grabbed at her, pulling her back. She twisted around to see that the pocket of her pants had caught on one of the handles. She extricated herself and lunged at the brass lever.
It was locked. She fumbled at the lock and jerked down on the lever again. The door opened, and a rush of humid air enveloped her. She pushed it closed and started toward the screen door to the right in time to see Zell coming around the corner of the house.
Buck and Sam wandered into the hair salon. Buck removed his cap and smiled at Grace.
“Hey there, Mr. Waddell, Mr. Wharton. You in for a cut or a shave?”
“I might be in for a shave.” Buck rubbed his grizzly chin and sat in the chair. Grace went right to work, rubbing warm lather on his face. “Saw Kim Lyons was in earlier.”
She gave him a nervous laugh. “Yep, sure was. Don’t think she was too happy with my cut, though. I think I snipped it a little too short for her.”
Wharton had taken a seat in the waiting area. “Was she asking you questions?”
Her gaze darted around a bit. “I…well, I suppose she was. Made me uncomfortable, to be honest. I know you didn’t hurt my sister, Mr. Waddell. I never thought that, not even back then.”
Back before her husband didn’t depend on him for a job, she didn’t say. “I appreciate that, Grace, I do. Are you saying Kim was accusing me?”
“No, sir, no, not at all. She was asking who I thought had done it.”
Buck traded a look with Sam. Yep, just like he thought. She was digging into Rhonda’s murder again. “What’d you tell her?”
Grace ran the blade over his skin, but she was tripping over her words. “How I didn’t think you’d done it, and how Mr. Macgregor wasn’t the only one that gave Rhonda rides.” Her face flushed red. “I told her what I figured she already knew.”
“What was that?”
She dropped her hand. “That JoGene had been seeing Rhonda. I thought everybody knew. I guess she didn’t.”
Buck needed to see Winn, and he needed to talk to JoGene. That boy had to be careful what he said around Kim. The fact was, he needed to stay away from her. Buck was going to move ahead with his plan. If things had been done his way ten years ago, none of this would be happening now.
Kim knew she had all the telltale signs of someone caught doing something she shouldn’t be as she walked around the pool toward Zell: flushed face, her words rushing out like a waterfall, and shaky hands. Had he seen her coming out of the house?
“Hi, Zell! Fancy meeting you here. I was looking for Charlotte.”
His expression was eerily blank. “Kim,” was all he said. Not an accusation exactly, but close enough.
Charlotte walked out of the house, followed by Winnerow, who was…walking. His left leg dragged a little, but he still made good time. They’d known she was there, of course, as soon as they’d pulled up to the house. But what were they doing back so soon?
“What the hell is going on?” Winnerow demanded when he saw her. “What is she doing here?”
Tullie and Owen followed up the war party. Kim had to fight the urge to look toward the door for escape. Instead, she pasted on her best, most innocent smile and focused on Charlotte.
“You mentioned us having lunch and it turned out I had time. Anyway, I came on over and when no one answered, I walked around to see if you were out here.” It wasn’t the best excuse, but it was all she had. “I see you refinished the pool in black. It looks pretty cool. How do you know if there’s a dead scorpion or a snake in the pool? I don’t think you could see it down at the bottom.”
Winnerow turned to Charlotte. “Did you invite this woman here for lunch?”
“Yeah, but not today.” She gave Kim a stern look. “Remember, I told you I was taking Daddy to the doctor’s in Naples.”
“Oh, I thought you said Owen was taking him.” She casually walked closer to the door—and away from the encroaching circle of Macgregors. “Sorry for the misunderstanding.”
Winnerow wasn’t buying it by the red infusing his face. He walked forward and blocked her way. “When will you Lyonses learn that breaking into other people’s homes can get you killed?”
Charlotte squeezed Winnerow’s shoulder. “Daddy—”
That wasn’t going to stop his tirade, not now. “You’re like your daddy, nothing more than a two-bit thief! I trusted him, and he broke in here and tried to steal from me. I’ll never trust you.” His finger shook as he pointed at her. His mouth gaped silently as the rage in his eyes turned to cold realization at what he’d just said.
Kim looked at Zell and then Charlotte. “My father wasn’t a thief.”
“The hell he wasn’t,” Owen said, and would have said more if Zell hadn’t given him a look that silenced him.
“You’d better go,” Charlotte said to Kim. “Now.”
Her gaze skipped from one person to another. There was something going on here. A conspiracy that colored Winnerow’s and Zell’s faces with the tint of shame and pity. “Not until you tell me what’s going on. My father wasn’t a thief.”
Desperation threaded through Charlotte’s voice when she said, “We don’t have to tell her anything. She’ll make trouble for us like she did before.”
Zell said, “No, she won’t, not when she knows the truth.” He went ahead without consulting them further. “The night your father was shot—it wasn’t a hunting accident.”
She’d known that, deep in her heart, she’d known. “Then…what?”
Zell said, “There had been a string of robberies in town. Someone had broken into our hunting camp and stolen a radio and some ammo. Other people in town discovered guns, equipment and cash missing. And there was a robbery at the convenience store heading toward Naples. Everyone was thinking transients or folks from Miami, but it didn’t make any sense them coming here. There wasn’t much for them to take in this place. Everyone was on alert.”
One night we heard someone downstairs and came down to investigate. Dad was the first to hear it. He saw someone standing by the rifle case, a silhouette of a man taking two of the rifles out.
When Dad told him to stop right where he was, the man jerked around with the rifles in his hands. Dad thought he was going to fire, so he shot him out of instinct. When I turned on the light…it was Donnie.”
“No,” she said, backing away from them. “You’re all lying.” Her blind devotion to her father warred with the truth she saw in their somber expressions and the sympathy in Zell’s.
Winnerow spoke now. “Of course, we called Kinsey over. He looked at the evidence, but it was clear what had happened. Donnie’s face was smudged with black charcoal, he was wearing black clothing, and he was in my house in the middle of the night.”
Charlotte said, “There were some guns in his truck that he’d stolen from Angus.”
Zell moved a little closer, as though he thought she might bolt. Or maybe it was a way of offering comfort without touching her. “There had been rumors going around that your dad was into something pretty bad. We think he was running drugs for someone in Miami. Not regularly, but on a once-in-a-while basis. The trouble seemed to have started right after a tropical storm blew through here. Do you remember that, about a week before he died?”
Kim nodded, feeling numb. Her father had taken out the boat earlier that day and was going to head up the west coast of Florida for another one of his fishing excursions. Excursions that netted him a wad of cash. An unexpected storm blew through and capsized his boat. Kim remembered being surprised at how upset he was over losing that old junk heap of a boat. He left the house to make phone calls and became a chain smoker. Then he started going on overnight hunting trips.
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