"Well, didn't you say the vehicle that struck you in the hospital parking lot was a dark-colored SUV?"
"Yes, I did. Why?" I asked.
"There was one fitting that description that followed us all the way from Rockdale out to the ranch. I think it started tailing us from right by the Alexandria Inn, almost like it was waiting for us to leave there this morning."
"Was the SUV navy blue, by any chance?" I asked.
"We couldn't tell for sure, only that it was a darker color."
"Could you see the driver?"
"No, the car never got close enough to us to even detect if it was a male or female driver, but the SUV turned every time we turned, even though it stayed quite a bit back. I'm surprised we even noticed it was following us. In fact, we weren't sure it was actually tailing us until it pulled down the gravel road the ranch is on," Wendy explained.
"It followed you all the way to the ranch?"
"Yes, but when we pulled into the Olsens' driveway, the car kept going, driving right on past the ranch. The driveway is too long to see much, you know, like the exact color of the car or the gender of the driver."
"Did you happen to notice if the left front headlight was broken out? If so, I'd be almost positive it was the same car that ran me down," I said.
"Andy said he thought the headlight casing was intact, but he could have been mistaken. And it could have been repaired already. The driver would surely be aware the police were watching for a dark SUV with a broken headlight, and gotten it repaired as quickly as possible."
"That's true," I agreed. "But why would someone follow you and Andy? You really aren't involved with the case, except for Walter's autopsy. It doesn't make any sense to me."
"Think about it, Mom," Wendy said. "If the car never got close enough for us to identify the driver, then the driver couldn't identify who was driving the Jeep either. I'm sure he thought he was following you. Your yellow Jeep is easy to spot. I think someone is targeting you, and I'm very concerned about it. Stone will be too. I don't like the idea you're being stalked. There's no telling what this guy has in mind."
"I can't honestly say I like the idea of being stalked, either," I said. "Maybe it was just a coincidence. There are a zillion dark SUVs on the road, as Sheldon Wright will tell you. Perhaps this particular one was just going in the same direction as you two were."
"Mom, the gravel road the ranch is on dead-ends about a quarter mile past the T-n-T Ranch. After we pulled up to the farmhouse, we just sat in the Jeep and watched, and sure enough, it crossed back in front of the ranch not more than a couple of minutes later. It doesn't sound like a coincidence to me."
"I see your point," I said. "Well, you two don't need to worry about it. Enjoy your day out at the ranch and I will talk to Stone and Wyatt about the SUV."
"Promise?"
"Yes. Stone is standing right here with me," I assured her. I hung up the phone and thought to myself for a moment. It unnerved me to think Andy and Wendy were convinced I was being stalked. The very idea sent a shiver up my spine.
Wow! I'd never had a stalker before. This was a whole new thing for me, and like Wendy, it concerned me. I kind of wished now I'd never gotten involved in the case, and had just let the authorities handle it, as Stone and Wyatt had recommended. All I could hope for was that the case was solved soon, before this stalker caught up with me again. I might not be as lucky next time as I was the last. And, as Wendy had said, there was no telling what he planned to do to me.
Most likely my stalker was the same person who killed Walter. On the one hand, I wanted to stay hidden away in the inn with Stone at my side until the investigating team made an arrest. If I kept completely out of the public eye, I'd probably be safe. On the other hand, he or she had walked directly into the inn to kill Walter, so what was to keep the perpetrator from doing it again? This was obviously a bold, reckless, and determined individual. This stalker had already, most likely, killed one person and had nothing to lose by committing another murder.
I wasn't keen on letting this stalker intimidate me. I was being haunted by Walter's innocent, young face in my dreams. I wouldn't rest easy until Walter's killer was convicted and justice was meted out. I also didn't like being confined to the inn. Perhaps I could split the difference by making sure I was never out in public alone or at the inn by myself. I would try to keep myself immersed in a crowd. There was safety in numbers.
"What did she say?" Stone asked me. "From this end, it sounded like someone followed the Jeep out to the ranch, and the kids think someone is stalking you."
I explained what Wendy had said, and Stone was all for my first idea of staying put inside the inn, with him never leaving my side. He wanted me to stick to him like a stamp.
"But I have a nail appointment at three," I said.
"Cancel it."
"I'd be right on Main Street, in a busy little salon. There's no way he could come in and harm me in any way. No stalker would be that brazen, would he?"
"Whoever killed Walter was brazen enough to come into the inn even though you and Wendy were here. There's no telling how far this person will go if he's worried and determined enough. I'll tell you what," Stone said. "I have nothing going on this afternoon, so I'll drive you to your nail appointment, and I'll wait in the car for you. I'll watch everyone who walks into the salon and come in myself if I feel it's necessary. If there's anywhere you need to go, until the killer is caught, I'll drive you. You need to be alert at all times, aware of everything going on around you. In the meantime, I'm going to talk to Wyatt and relate everything Wendy told you to him. He needs to know what's going on. How does this plan of action sound to you?"
I was happy with Stone's suggestions. My nails were an absolute mess. How did this kind of thing not bother me before I started dating Stone? There was a time when ragged, unpainted nails didn't faze me in the slightest, and now they were intolerable. It's funny how a person's perspective could change when love entered the picture.
Together Stone and I finished preparing the potato salad, and I made a bread pudding with vanilla sauce to serve for dessert that night. I knew it was one of Andy's favorites, and he would be flying home tomorrow afternoon. Wendy was planning on taking him to the airport, now that the fuel pump had been replaced in her car.
After the cooking was done, I took a long soak in the tub. The bruising on my hip and leg hadn't abated any, but the soreness was gradually working its way out of my body. Long soaks and plenty of Bengay seemed to be doing the trick.
"Are you convinced now it's in your best interest to put all this investigating nonsense behind you?" Stone asked me later that evening. "You've stirred someone up, and this person is a known killer. Remember, I want you to let me know if you need to go out somewhere. And I also want you to ensure the doors on the inn are always locked, even when we're in the house. Okay?"
"Okay, I will." I stopped just short of promising Stone I'd no longer pursue my quest to help identify the killer. I knew I couldn't be trusted to fulfill that particular promise. When push came to shove, I couldn't prevent myself from stepping right into the middle of things.
Chapter 20
"I'll wait right here," Stone said, parking just to the right of the front door of the nail salon. He couldn't see directly into the salon, but the two parking spaces in front of the door were taken. Still, he could see anybody leaving or entering the business, and we were both satisfied with that. "If I see anyone enter the salon, I'll be right behind them until I'm satisfied they aren't coming in to harm you in any way."
"Okay, Stone. Thanks for bringing me. I shouldn't be long. The owner told me she set me up with their new girl, who is very efficient," I said.
Stone gave me a kiss and I climbed out of the Corvette. I'd only had my nails done here once before, and I'd been assigned to a young Vietnamese gal who had done a fantastic job. I'd hoped I'd get her again, but no such luck.
The owner greeted me when I entered the salon. She was also Asian, a tiny, qu
iet woman in her early forties. She pointed back toward a woman in the rear of the shop, a younger lady with her back to me. She was hanging up her jacket, as if she'd just reported for work. When she turned to face me, I nearly lost my balance. It was Roxie Kane, Walter's one-time date, the gal I'd gotten kicked out of the anatomy class. Something told me she wouldn't be pleased to see me, and I was correct.
She walked up to the front of the shop, and said, "You again? What do you want now? I told you I have nothing more to say to you."
"I'm just here to have my nails done, Roxie." I held out my hands to show her my nails, just to demonstrate to her how badly they needed to be manicured and polished. She didn't even look down at my hands, but kept staring at me instead. I considered turning around and walking out of the salon. I wasn't sure I trusted my nails to this woman, who already had an axe to grind with me. I had to remember to tip her well, just to make up for the first time we'd met.
"How did you know I just started working here? Are you stalking me now?" Roxie asked. How did I explain to Roxie I wasn't a stalker, but rather a stalkee? Maybe she was my stalker, for all I knew.
"I had no idea you worked here, Roxie. I promise, it's just a stroke of luck."
"Whose luck, mine or yours?" She asked. "Because mine's not running so good. I had to go in this morning to do some extra credit work to make up for the test I flunked because of you. If I hadn't convinced Mrs. Herron, the professor, it was you, not me, who was interrupting the class, I would have had to take the entire course over."
"I'm so sorry, Roxie," I said. I meant it too. "I really had no intention of getting you kicked out of class. I was afraid it would be my only opportunity to speak with you. Little did I know you'd be doing my nails today."
"Hmmph!" She clearly had not accepted my apology as readily as I'd expected. Her petite Asian boss was pointing Roxie back toward her station. She wasn't about to let our petty little differences allow cold hard cash to walk out her salon's door.
"Come on," Roxie said, after an exasperated sigh. "I'm in the last station, back in the back."
I didn't say much at first, while she worked on my left hand. She had removed what little polish remained on my fingernails as I'd sat silently and watched. Roxie obviously had no desire to make small talk with me.
Finally, I thought it wouldn't hurt to chat with her about the murder investigation. If she was the person who was stalking me, and I really didn't think she could be, she'd have to kill me with a fingernail file, because it was the closest thing she had to a weapon at her station.
"I was surprised I didn't run into you at Walter's wake or funeral," I said, finally, after clearing my throat.
"The reason you didn't run into me is because I wasn't there."
"You weren't?"
"No. Why would I be? I had one lousy date with Walter. It's not like we were long, lost friends or lovers. He spent the entire evening talking about Sidney," Roxie said. "Even at the time, he had no intention of making any kind of connection with me. I was just a pawn in his game, in his desire to get Sidney to take him back."
"Didn't that kind of tick you off?"
"Well, sure, at the time. I was angry with him for using me. But now I've got a new boyfriend, and he's fantastic. He's everything Walter wasn't. I really had no reason to want to see Walter dead. I wouldn't risk my entire future just to get back at him. I only stopped by the inn the other day to let him know it was wrong to use women the way he used me, which was just to make his girlfriend jealous. I heard he had another date with a girl named Audrey. I'm sure he was just using her in the same fashion. He was a jerk. That's all there is to it," she said. "And I felt obligated to tell him he was a jerk, after I'd found out he was working at the haunted house. I'm a little too outspoken for my own good sometimes."
It didn't sound to me as if Roxie had any real motive to kill Walter. One unromantic date would not cause a woman to want to see the fellow dead. She might have disliked Walter, but she didn't hate him enough to kill him. She had no animosity against Sidney either. I got the impression they hadn't even known each other well.
"Do you know Sidney?" I asked.
"No, not personally, I only know she'd dated Walter for a long time," she replied. "Once they broke up I figured he was fair game, so I accepted his offer to go out on a date. After all, he was popular and good-looking, and I hadn't been out on a date in months. It was a mistake, but I didn't know it at the time I agreed to go."
"I understand," I said, as I watched Roxie remove the old polish from my nails, which was about gone before I arrived. I had applied it myself, many days ago.
"We went to eat at the Longhorn Steakhouse and then went on to the Legends Theatre for a movie. But I knew five minutes into dinner the relationship would never amount to anything. Walter talked about nothing but Sidney. It was very irritating. In fact, I asked him to take me home after we ate because it was obvious to me he would much rather be with Sidney. He apologized, but said he had promised me a movie and he was determined to take me to see one. I figured what the heck, since it was a movie I'd wanted to see. I don't think we said one word to each other the entire time we were at the theater."
"I don't suppose you're a diabetic, are you?" I asked.
"No, sorry. I'm happy to say I'm perfectly healthy."
It didn't sound to me like she had any real reason to kill Walter, or to hurt Sidney in any way either. I'd come to a dead end with Roxie Kane. I sat silently while she buffed the nails on my right hand. I picked out a pale pink color for the polish. Once she had finished trimming and buffing the nails on my left hand, I excused myself to use the restroom. I'd had too much coffee, as usual, to wait much longer, and I knew it would take a while for the polish to dry once it was applied. I decided I'd best use the restroom while I could.
After I flushed the toilet, I washed my hands, and ran a comb through my hair before returning to Roxie's station. She started polishing the nails on my right hand, saying very little to me. I think she was still seething at me from getting her kicked out of her anatomy class.
"Hey!" I heard the owner yell. "What's going on back there?"
I looked over at her, and she was pointing under the door of the restroom, where water was running out at a steady pace. It was pooling up in the rear of the salon, soaking into cardboard boxes on the floor, which were probably full of nail polishes, files, clippers, and other essential items for the salon.
"What did you do in there?" the diminutive Asian lady asked me.
"Nothing," I answered. "I just used the bathroom, flushed the toilet, and washed my hands. That's all I did."
She flung the door opened, and said, "The toilet is running over. If we don't get it stopped and the floor mopped up quickly, we will have to close the salon down until the mess is cleaned up and the toilet is repaired. Otherwise, it would be a code violation, and also it's hard to work around."
Both the owner and Roxie scowled at me, as if I were personally responsible for the faulty toilet. I hadn't reached down into the tank and ripped out the guts of the toilet. Why were they glaring at me?
"What have you done now?" Roxie asked me.
"Nothing, Roxie. I swear I didn't do anything but flush the toilet. It shouldn't be clogged. I didn't use an excessive amount of toilet paper or anything." I blew on my fingernails as I got up and walked back toward the bathroom. I could at least turn the water off to the toilet, something the owner had yet to think about doing.
Tiptoeing through the water, I reached inside the bathroom and flipped on the light switch. Zap! The bulb in the light fixture sparked, and then the electricity to the entire salon went out. The only windows were in the front of the salon, and it was very dark in the rear of the large room.
"What have you done now?" the owner asked. "Now I'm most definitely going to have to shut the salon down."
"I didn't do anything but turn the light on," I said. "There must be something wrong with your wiring and your plumbing. Have you got a flashlight so I
can turn the water off to the toilet?"
The owner walked quickly up to the front off the store to retrieve a flashlight. I blew furiously on my nails, hoping to dry them out before I fiddled with the shut-off water valve. Roxie wouldn't appreciate having to start over on polishing my nails. In the meantime, the water continued to pour over the top of the toilet bowl.
"What are you trying to do to me?" Roxie asked. "I can't afford to go home early. I need this money to put gas in my car, just to get to my classes this week. What have you got against me? Why are you trying to sabotage my workplace now?"
"I'm not, Roxie. I have nothing against you at all. Nothing, Roxie, I promise," I said. "I haven't intentionally done anything to sabotage the salon. Listen, my boyfriend is out in the car. He's very handy. I know he can fix the toilet and get the electricity back on. It's probably nothing but a blown circuit breaker and something equally simple on the toilet."
"Please don't do anything else to try to help us, ma'am. You've done enough already," the owner said to me. I figured it was time for me to go. I could remove the nail polish from my right hand when I got home and have my nails done somewhere else at a later time. I headed toward the exit, but before I got there, the door opened, and a large, stern-looking gentleman walked in. Stone was right on the man's heels.
"I'm from the Missouri Board of Cosmetology. There's been a recent report of unsanitary conditions at this salon. I'm here to do a thorough inspection, and also to check for valid state licenses," he said. He looked toward the back of the room where all the chaos was taking place. "What in the hell is going on here? Why is it so dark in here?"
"You!" The owner pointed at me, fury clearly etched across her brow. She stood in a pool of water, holding a flashlight in one hand and a mop in the other, and looking totally bewildered. She pointed the handle of the mop at me, and hollered, "Get out of my establishment, lady! Right now!"
I knew at this point there was no convincing them I hadn't called in the report of unsanitary conditions. Obviously, it'd been called in on a previous date. Until the toilet had spilled over, the salon had looked perfectly sanitary to me. Stone was staring at me as if I'd grown horns. I grabbed my coat off the coat rack, dropped a twenty-dollar bill on the front counter, and headed out the door. I didn't look directly at Stone, or glance back at Roxie, the owner, the inspector, or the other customers and employees in the salon. I jumped into Stone's Corvette, like it was a getaway car, and said, "Let's go!"
Lexie Starr Cozy Mysteries Boxed Set Page 53