"Lordy, Aodhagan. I think you got your money's worth. Do this crap at home—you're blocking the extra kegs."
My legs trembled to the point they could barely hold me. My entire body was screaming for me to grab Aodhagan and find a quiet spot where we could finish what he'd started, posthaste. I rubbed my hand over my swollen mouth, holding back tears of anger and sexual frustration. It had been hard enough without this. Hard enough to pretend I didn't care about him. Now it would be all for naught, because I couldn't lie to myself anymore. I did care about him. More than I had any right to. And apparently everybody knew it and already thought we were together.
How could he?
Cindy Lou returned, which was a good thing because I would have been gone either way. At least now I looked responsible. She took in the crowd. I hadn't even seen them arrive. I didn't know if they were there for kisses or to enjoy the show Aodhagan and I had inadvertently been putting on. This was horrible.
"Helen, you gotta kiss faster. Look at this line."
I waved the words away, not able to form a coherent response at the moment. I fled immediately, headed into the crowd and out of the square, intent on walking home. I heard Aodhagan's voice calling my name. I didn't stop. I got nearly through the parking lot before he caught up to me. He had the advantage as a person who ran three miles every day racing against a person wearing four-inch heels who didn't believe in working out. He was 6'3" and in my heels we were the same height, adding to the reasons he had no trouble at all.
"Helen, hey." He grabbed my arm and then dropped it like it burned.
I stopped, but I couldn't look at him. I kept my back turned, arms wrapped around my chest.
"Look, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to…it was just…I got carried away. I'm sorry, truly."
I shook my head. It took a long second to make words work out of my thick throat. "I told you I don't do romance. That includes kissing." Especially when it was kissing like that had been. Kissing that felt like it was going somewhere. Fast. It made me want to rethink my rules, and that wasn't okay.
"I know. I didn't mean for it to get out of control like that. I just…I…" He stopped talking completely, and I finally braved a glance at him. His mouth was swollen, his cheeks red, his chest working under his rumpled clothes. My breath caught like a kick to the solar plexus. He was so beautiful. He truly did look sorry. In fact, he looked almost as bad as I felt.
"That wasn't okay."
I couldn't have him touch me again, because my strength only went so far. If he ever kissed me again, that would be it. I would have no more resistance. I wasn't sure I had any now. I wasn't sure how much it was worth to me to not date anymore. Was it really so bad that every relationship I had went up in flames if I got to have Aodhagan for just a while?
"I know. I'm sorry. I just…lost it for a minute. If you're leaving, let me at least drive you home."
I shook my head. I didn't want to be in a small enclosed space with him. Even here in the parking lot, the electricity burned me with such ferocity, the hair on my arms stood up. He didn't look like he felt it. He just looked repentant, and the fact I was just a handy woman, an outlet for his sexual repression, made all of it that much the worse.
"Seriously, the car is right here. I…" His voice trailed off, and for a second I thought he'd lost interest. Then I realized we were immediately next to his car and he was staring into it, face even paler than normal. He crossed himself and then held up a hand. "Don't get any closer. You don't want to see this."
He was right. I didn't. Because I could see tobacco-stained fingers hanging over the edge of the convertible's door, bloated from heat. I wasn't sure what happened exactly, but I was now very certain where Carl Crowe had disappeared to.
CHAPTER THREE
It only took a couple of minutes for Dwight Dooley, the county sheriff, to arrive at the car. He'd already been at the festival. It was just a matter of finding him in the crowd. While we were waiting, but after there were a few others crowded around the vehicle, Aodhagan stepped forward again and stared over the side of the car. I could only hope that whatever had killed Carl Crowe hadn't involved a lot of blood, because it was a shame to see someone die, but it was worse to see them die in a car like Aodhagan's beautiful classic convertible.
Aodhagan cocked his head a few times, stood on his tiptoes, and manipulated his body in a number of bizarre ways until he could see what he wanted to see. When Dwight's deputy, Killian Hayes, a man who looked like he lived at the gym, arrived, Aodhagan held out a hand. "Can you give me a rubber glove, please?"
Hayes grunted in agreement—I wasn't entirely certain he was capable of talking—and reached into his pockets, handing Aodhagan a pair of rubber gloves folded in paper like a nurse might use. Okay, that was so weird. I could only hope he didn't keep them for recreation. It was even more disconcerting to realize that Aodhagan had probably asked him with the knowledge that he regularly carried rubber gloves on his person. Then again, Aodhagan carried baggies.
Aodhagan leaned over and began poking and prodding Carl's body, which, blessedly, I couldn't see. He let out a string of curses so creative that I was actually impressed.
Dr. Floyd, the aged coroner of Tallatahola County, ambled up to the car. "Well, darn. What we got?"
Aodhagan peeled off the glove and scratched an eyebrow slowly, stepping back from the car. "Single stab wound between C3 and C4. Long, thin, and sharp weapon."
Floyd repeated Aodhagan's curse almost word for word.
"What's the big deal?" I whispered.
Hayes shrugged. I wasn't sure why I was asking him. Every time he came around, I expected him to just tear out of his clothes like the Incredible Hulk. He was unlikely to be a source of accurate information. Unless that information was about repetitions in the gym.
"The big deal is that Carl Crowe was killed in a very effective but very difficult way. Stabbed through the back of the neck between two cervical vertebrae. Death is almost instantaneous. The person who did this is either real trained or got real lucky."
I wasn't sure what to make of that. "Knowledgeable…like a contract killer?"
He eyed me. "Knowledgeable, like a doctor."
I was still chewing on that bit of information when the Tallatahola County Sheriff, Dwight Dooley, arrived. I would be the first to admit that I hadn't been a huge fan of Dwight when first we'd met. I tended to be critical of people who accused me of murder. We all have our faults. But he'd grown on me in his blustery, Boss Hogg way over the last year. He was dumb as a post, but he meant well. Most of the time.
He leaned over the car and eyed Carl Crowe's body without a hint of emotion. Which made sense, as it was unlikely that he knew anything about Carl at all. I barely knew anything about Carl, and he was living in my house. "He's sure dead," Dwight reflected sagely.
We all nodded, as though the words were profound. Dwight chewed his toothpick for a long minute. "Shame it was in your car, eh, Aodhagan?"
Aodhagan looked horrified, but I was kind of with Dwight on this one. Carl was a stranger. The car was a 1942 Cadillac.
"Well, we better call the staties," Dwight said, waving a hand vaguely in Hayes's direction. I wondered if he was drunk. With the sheer amount of alcohol I'd seen being consumed today, I wouldn't have been surprised.
Hayes seemed alarmed by the directive. Maybe he wasn't sure what to do. It wasn't like murder was a common occurrence here. Aside from my aunt the previous summer, Birdwell had been the location of exactly one recorded murder in its entire hundred-and-seventeen-year existence. I knew from experience as a true crime writer who specialized in historical crimes that early murders weren't always recorded or even noticed. But in modern times, murder certainly wasn't an everyday event for this particular force.
I was acting like a true citizen of Birdwell now, even though I'd been there only a short time. I felt divorced from Carl's murder, and it was likely Dwight did too or he wouldn't have asked for the state police. He would have insisted he handl
e it himself, the way he had with my aunt's murder. Because he knew her, all too well, and people claimed ownership of her and of vindicating her murder. The same would not be true of a stranger from Dallas. I couldn't imagine the killer could be anyone but one of the Crowe Appliances crew.
Aodhagan and Floyd were still staring at the body in consternation, as though at some point he was going to do something interesting. They seemed concerned about that single stab wound, though to me it seemed likely it was a lucky shot. The only ones in town with enough medical knowledge to have done it on purpose were Doc Holiday and, at the moment, Floyd, and they were both one foot in the grave and probably too weak to accomplish murder, though I had no idea how much force it would take to drive a knife into someone's neck. Maybe it wasn't actually much. But why would either of those old men want to murder the small appliance king of Texas? There seemed no reason.
Aodhagan's concern about the cause of death seemed out of proportion. It wasn't as though he was a doctor. I stared at him, rehashing the staredown between him and Holiday.
"You're a doctor," I blurted out, suddenly realizing the truth.
In the half a year I'd been in Birdwell, I'd never been able to figure out what Aodhagan had done for a career before coming back. He'd started to talk about it once or twice, but it was clear it wasn't a topic he enjoyed. I'd given up even trying to figure out what he'd been doing before returning to his hometown, because it gave him pain, and that was something I didn't like doing.
Aodhagan glanced my way, clearly startled, either by my continued presence or by my words. "Well, yeah. I thought you knew that."
I couldn't very well explain that I'd thought it was some sort of secret or deep mystery. He hadn't mentioned it because he'd clearly believed I already knew. "I didn't."
He ran a hand through his hair, taking a moment to pull himself together in that way he had. Like whatever was upsetting him had never existed at all. Compartmentalization… It was a talent I didn't have. If something was upsetting me, it was all encompassing—if I let it in at all—which was why I tried so hard to keep emotions out. I had no ability to deal.
I felt like an idiot in retrospect for never figuring that one out.
He turned suddenly, as though he could sense what was happening behind us. "Don't touch that body."
The words shocked the three men behind us who were approaching his car. They all startled in unison and dropped their hands like nervous school children. It was his deputies, Junior, Earl, and Stan. He was thinking ahead about crime scene contamination, which other people, even his own deputies, wouldn't stop to consider.
There were larger concerns suddenly. Aodhagan was a doctor, which meant he knew how to kill Carl Crowe in just the exact way he'd been killed. He was also Vi's ex, and she was making it all too clear, in front of God and everyone, that she was very into the idea of them picking up where they'd left off. I knew that he'd never do that, even if I hadn't seen him give Vi the brush-off with my own eyes. Vi was married, and Aodhagan was Aodhagan.
Someone, if they were watching closely, could say he'd been channeling his affection for her to me, someone who wasn't married, but aside from both of us being thinner and taller than any woman probably should be, Vi and I had absolutely nothing in common. Physically, as she had dark hair and a stern face and I was blonde with fey features, or personality wise, as far as I had seen. Not that we were BFFs or anything, so maybe she had depths I hadn't plumbed and didn't much care to.
It did make me sad to consider that the Gods were now without a father, as if I didn't see evidence that they were already headed for a high-risk lifestyle. Actually, Carl Crowe had several children, and that wasn't cool. I'd seen no evidence that Carl had been vying for parent of the year, but still. Then again, for all I knew, one of Carl's many children had been the one to kill him.
The call was put in to the state police, and we waited while Dwight gave the body another once-over. Not once did he try to touch the body the way Aodhagan had, but that made sense to me. Even though he was a cop, there weren't many opportunities around here for him to look at bodies until he was comfortable in their presence. As a part of the medical school I'd just figured out he'd gone to, Aodhagan would have spent plenty of time looking at dead bodies. For him, Carl was just another one.
It was less than fifteen minutes before the state police arrived, and I had no idea where they'd come from. It was too far to any hub for them to have already made it and too long after Dwight Dooley's call for them to have already been at the party. I was at a loss. They were a group of three people—two men dressed in uniforms and one late sixties or early seventies blonde woman in a matching terry cloth short set and a visor. She seemed too old and sporty to be an officer, but what did I know? Maybe they'd come from some sporting event and that was how they'd gotten here so quickly.
They marched to the car and didn't bother to introduce themselves. All three bent and peered over the edge of the door. The woman had to stand on her tip toes to get a good view. "Oh, my my," she said, her accent surprisingly Minnesotan. "Right between the cervical vertebrae, don't you know?"
Dwight did what she hadn't. "This is Dr. Connie B. She's in charge of the state medical examiner's office."
I wasn't sure if he was talking to me or someone else. It suddenly struck me as very odd that no one had gotten any members of Carl Crowe's family. Nor did any of them appear to be looking for Carl. Not that they had been before we'd found the body, either, and I hadn't seen him for hours.
Aodhagan stepped away from the car to make room for Coach Connie and ran a hand over his mouth. His tension levels hadn't lowered. The two officers were already eying him suspiciously, and they didn't even know yet that this was his car.
"My, oh my." Connie B. dusted off her hands then pulled hand sanitizer from her pocket and poured it into her palms. It was lemon scented. "So, is this the victim's car?"
Aodhagan shook his head. "No, it's my car."
She cocked her head, taking him in speculatively. "I see. And who are you?"
Dwight hooked a thumb in Aodhagan's direction. "This is our mayor and volunteer sheriff here in Birdwell, Aodhagan MacFarley."
Aodhagan offered her a hand, and she sort of danced over to shake it. "Why's he in your car?" she asked sweetly.
Her dyed blonde hair and affectation of ditziness might have worked on some people, but I could see she was as sharp as anyone could be.
Aodhagan shrugged. It probably looked like he wasn't sure of anything he was saying to an outsider, but in truth he shrugged all the time. Almost every time he answered a question. "I have no idea."
"Do you know him?"
He shrugged again. "Not really. I met him last night for the first time. His name is Carl Crowe. He was here to open a small appliances factory." Aodhagan stared at the car. "It would have brought in a lot of jobs."
The melancholy in his voice should have been obvious even to Connie B., who seemed to be running this show, though she was supposed to be nothing but the medical examiner. The other two state police officials stood off to the side and watched her talk, arms crossed in front of them like they were her secret service coterie. He might not have been sad about the death of a man he didn't know, though he probably was, knowing Aodhagan, but he was sad about the potential jobs now lost.
"Did he come to your car alone?" Connie B. asked sweetly, in a tone I didn't trust. Once again I was struck with the thought she played up the impression of being a dumb blonde, and that clearly wasn't true.
Aodhagan shook his head. "I don't know. He wasn't here when Helen and I got out, but he was here when we came back."
She cocked her head. "Who is Helen?"
I raised my hand slightly. "Um, me. I'm Helen."
She turned back to Aodhagan. "Were you guys together the entire time from the moment you left your house until now?"
"We don't live in the same house," I pointed out because I just really needed to.
"We were together for the
parade and then at various moments during the afternoon, but we were not together the entire day," Aodhagan filled in.
"And are you sure the body wasn't in the car when you came?" she asked sweetly.
I couldn't keep the expression off my face, even though I knew it was going to get me in trouble someday. Hopefully, today wasn't that day since I couldn't school it. "He's in the driver's seat," I pointed out. "I kind of think we would have noticed."
She nodded slightly, and I made note of her sly expression. I was once again reminded that we were dealing with someone who used pretending to be stupid as an investigative technique. It probably worked too. Asking idiot questions very likely tripped a number of people into admitting the truth. However, we were telling the truth.
"Do you know this man?" she asked me this time.
I shook my head and then made myself a liar. "I guess I do. I mean, you know, not well. He spent yesterday at my house. Other than that, though, I didn't know him."
Her nose crinkled. "Why?"
I took a page from Aodhagan's book and shrugged. "There are no hotels in Birdwell. The people from Crowe Appliances need to stay somewhere while they tried to figure out the factory thing. I have the biggest house in town. So they were staying with me."
"Did you like him?"
The question threw me off. "I don't actually like pretty much anyone," I answered honestly. "And I barely knew him, certainly not long enough to develop strong opinions either way. Frankly, I don't think anyone liked him. His family clearly didn't. And speaking of, where are they? Doesn't anyone else think maybe someone should tell them?"
All My Exes Live in Texas Page 4