by Patti Larsen
At least they did something. “Matt and Evelyn,” I said. “Did they know?”
She laughed, startling me. “Those two,” she said, a spark of anger in her eyes telling me she’d be okay. “They kept shoveling drugs into him and telling him he was a star. Pushing him to play when he needed to retire. Needed to quit before it killed him.” Her voice caught, a hitch at the word kill, and in that instant I knew she was innocent. Not because of proof or an alibi or anything else. Just instinct.
But could I trust my instincts when it came to protecting a battered woman from being punished for possibly murdering her abuser?
“I even caught him stealing mine,” she went on, unaware of the battle going on in my head. “I don’t know for sure, but I think he was up to thirty pills a day.” That couldn’t be good. “Regular dose is five to six, Fee.”
Okay then.
“I even stood there and watched him down fifteen in one dose.” She shook her head, as if unable to believe what she’d just said. “Right before his last game.”
“How many did he take today?” Well, yesterday. It was almost 1AM. Why was I still up? A wave of weariness made me dizzy as she answered.
“I don’t know for sure,” she said. “And it doesn’t matter, does it? Everyone knew he was taking them. That he was overtaking them. It would take a massive dose of something stronger to make him OD.”
“The Quexol,” I said. “Crew already confirmed that.” But I felt better knowing that bit of information was wrapped up.“Willow,” I said, “this is a hard question. But who would you choose if you had to? Who do you think killed Skip?”
She didn’t comment a long moment, luminous eyes locked on mine. And then she twitched, like she’d come to some decision and trusted me with the result.
“Matt,” she whispered. “He was about to lose his job because Skip reported him to the association for pushing drugs on football players.” Her lower lip trembled. “And he was going to fire Evelyn because his contract didn’t get renewed. He was done and he knew it.”
That was a bombshell. “You’re sure he wasn’t getting signed back?”
“It wasn’t official,” she said. “But I’m positive he was done. And I also know Skip was determined to take them both down with him when he crashed and burned.”
***
Chapter Twenty Four
I left Willow in her room a short time later, hoping she’d get some rest and wondering if I was going to be able to do the same soon. I took a long moment at the top of the stairs, the quiet of the house telling me everyone who was into shouting and tossing accusations had either stopped or gone to bed, too. The soft ticking of the grandfather clock offered a bit of a soothing backdrop as I finally sighed out my weariness and headed down the stairs.
I found Dad and Crew talking quietly in the sitting room, Mom with them. Petunia left me to leap up on the sofa next to my mother and snort a deep exhale of her own before settling her chin on Mom’s lap and closing her eyes. Poor pug, she was as tired as I felt.
“Jill and Robert took Mila Martin to the office,” Crew said as I settled beside Mom. And realized if I didn’t get up shortly I’d be spending what was left of the night here in this soft and welcoming cushiony deliciousness. “I’m hoping seeing her led away in cuffs will distract the press long enough to give us breathing room.
Glaring lights on the other side of the sitting room windows told me the media weren’t going anywhere soon. Funny how I’d gotten used to them out there already. And what an oasis of quiet Petunia’s felt like just now.
I filled them in on what Willow told me and, when I was done, Mom slipped her arm around my shoulders and hugged me to her.
“That poor, poor girl,” she said. “But I’m with Fee. I don’t think Willow killed her husband.”
“Or Mila,” Dad said, surprising me when he spoke. He hadn’t said much the last little while. Crew seemed to agree, nodding.
“She might have wanted him dead, but she wasn’t in a position to deliver the dose. So that leaves us with those closest to him.”
“I vote we all go to bed and let our minds rest.” Mom stood, the pug groaning her unhappiness with the loss of her pillow. “Fee, Dad and I are taking the Blue Suite in the carriage house so we can keep an eye on the yard and that fence, all right?”
“I didn’t get a chance to clean it.” Guilt over that was stronger than I expected. I was slacking at my job, the one thing I really seemed to enjoy these days.
“Already taken care of,” she said with a smile.
“Thanks, Mom. Night.” I watched them go, sinking deeper into the sofa, smiling a bit at the sight of Dad holding my mother’s hand as they waved and departed. Startled when Crew sat next to me, Petunia now between us as she scooted over to make me her new head rest.
“I’m sorry,” he said, so softly I almost didn’t think he spoke until he forged on. “About the sandwich comment.”
Oh, that. “Crew,” I said. But he cut me off, shook his head.
“I’m hard on you,” he said. “Hard on myself.” So hesitant, so still. I held my breath as he spoke again in jerky sentences that sounded like he struggled to speak them. “You’re good at this. All of it.” His hand rose, waved into the air in a vague gesture I understood anyway. “You make me crazy. But you make me a better cop.”
Wow. That was. Wow.
He rubbed his eyes, clearly tired, too, and maybe saying things he wouldn’t normally. But I was okay with that. “You impress me, Fiona Fleming.” He smiled then, the kind of smile I’d wondered if he was capable of. That reached his eyes and lit the middle of him like he was some kind of superhero. “You think differently. Than John. Than me. And I like that about you.”
“Thanks.” Oh my god, did I just say that? Just that?
But Crew nodded, stood slowly, stretched out that tall drink of water that was his wide shouldered and narrow hipped body before offering his hand. “Bed?”
That word hovered between us for a long, long time while heat rushed to my cheeks and his own turned pink, the kind of deer in the headlights look that washed over his expression so hilarious I burst in to an uncontrollable half-snort, half donkey bray that triggered a shaky laugh of his own.
“I meant,” he said. Stopped like he wasn’t sure what else to say.
“I know.” I took his hand and let him pull me upright. Was still blushing and a bit giggly when I grinned up at him. “Have a good sleep, Sheriff.”
I headed for my apartment, the sound of his boots climbing the stairs to the second floor, and felt a shiver. Maybe if I wasn’t so tired I would have reacted differently. But to be honest, I was just as pleased with the result.
Crew Turner was impressed by me. I’d take it.
My expectation when I reached my apartment was a two second shedding of shoes and bra before falling on my bed and passing out cold. I wasn’t planning to encounter my best friend sitting in the half dark of my living room, waiting for me. Daisy looked like she’d been crying and, though I fought weariness and a moment of selfish irritation, I went right to her and sat next to her, hugging her while she embraced me back.
She’d have done the same for me. Good friend, Fee.
Petunia hopped up and settled right in Daisy’s lap and when she released me, she immediately hugged the pug in turn.
“I’m sorry,” Daisy whispered. “I should have just went home. No one needs me anyway.”
“I need you.” I did, too. Despite my desire to sleep it was so nice just to sit there next to her and not think about the horror story unfolding around me.
She tried a smile, sniffled. “You have so much on your plate. I’m the last thing you need.” She blubbered a second, my beautiful friend utterly lost. “I thought this might be the right thing for me, Fee. But I’m terrible at it. I spent the whole day trying to fix mistakes I made, from damaging equipment I moved to getting in the way and ruining sound.” Wait, the crew was working despite Skip’s death? Wow, that was Hollywood, I suppos
e. “They had to reshoot an entire sequence at French’s because I was in the shot.” Daisy burst into tears. “And then all this with Willow and Skip and I couldn’t even be here to help you and do that much right.”
“You were here, helping Mom.” That attempt to make her feel better blew up in my face as she wailed briefly before speaking in a hiccupping stutter.
“I was picking up food for the crew,” she said. “And I got that all wrong, too. I gave them all meat and they’re vegans.” She buried her face in Petunia’s fur. “I’m a loser, Fee. I’m a total loser.”
I hugged her again and rocked her a little, knowing she just needed a good cry and a shoulder to do it on. When she was done, she wiped at her nose with the sleeve of her plaid shirt and did manage a little smile.
“What am I going to do?” She sounded so small and broken and it wasn’t fair. She was the best, the coolest, the most amazing person I knew. No way was life getting Daisy Bruce down. Not if I had anything to say about it.
“You,” I said, “are going to get some sleep. And then tomorrow, you’re going to try again. Because the Daisy I know isn’t a loser or a quitter or stupid. She’s awesome and they are lucky to have her.”
She shrugged. “Maybe I should come back to Petunia’s?” She said it like a question, hopeful. “I love it here, Fee. It’s the only place I’ve been happy in a long time.”
I wanted to say yes. More than anything, nothing would have made me more overjoyed. “Daisy,” I said instead, “there will come a day you and I are the two crazy old ladies who run this place, who drink too much gin out of teacups and yell at cute boys from the verandah while we cheat at poker.” She laughed. Good, perfect. “But I don’t want you to settle. You need to keep looking. Because what you want, who you want to be, it might still be out there. And, as much as I hate to think so, you might even need to look outside the borders of Reading to find it.”
Saying that almost made me cry. I’d only just found her again after ten years away myself. But I’d had the chance to live life in the real world that had nothing to do with the small town Twilight Zone that was our home. And she deserved that same chance.
Daisy seemed shocked by the suggestion but nodded. “Okay, Fee,” she said. “I’ll be brave, like you, as much as I can.”
“And when and if you’re ready,” I said, “you come back to Petunia’s if that’s what you decide you want.”
She hugged me again, sighed out her hurt. Another hug later, she let me go to bed, pulling a quilt over herself while she settled in on my couch, my pug staying with her as if sensing Daisy needed the love while I collapsed and hoped tomorrow might actually be a better day.
***
Chapter Twenty Five
One of the crappy parts about the Jones sisters leaving me in the lurch was I had to deal with all the rooms myself. No way was I neglecting that bit of business, not after my own mother had to clean the suite she and Dad used last night. So what if a guy died on me yesterday? I was such a slacker.
Regardless of my determination to keep things as normal as possible, when I woke at six like I normally did, with maybe four and a bit hours sleep under my belt, I sighed out my irritation that along with helping to solve a murder, I had toilets to scrub.
Damn it.
With the rest of the house still asleep—Daisy on the sofa included—I showered quickly and headed upstairs, Petunia following me, doing her business in quick time outside in the garden so she could get to her food bowl as fast as possible. I hefted the bucket and gloves, mop in hand, and hoofed my way to the third floor. Two doors stood open, only the third occupied, the bathroom at the end of the hall my goal. And while cleaning that space might have seemed an odd thing to do in the middle of a murder investigation, Petunia’s was my place and there was no way I was letting things slide, even at a time like this.
There was a zen kind of peace that came from scrubbing, I’d discovered, a chance to do lots of thinking and processing and percolation that could lead to ah-ha moments. And so, with determination and cleanliness in mind, I set to sorting out the mess that the single person on this floor left behind.
I recognized the shade of lipstick and the scent of perfume on the towels as Evelyn. The woman was a walking disaster, leaving trash and powder trails and toothpaste blobs everywhere, not to mention the globs of fake blonde hair clumped in the tub/shower drain. So gross. I finally finished cleaning what she’d left behind with the satisfaction that comes from a job well done, the sound of birds outside reminding me it was spring, sunshine casting sparkling beams through the window.
The trash can nearly filled the small plastic bag I brought to dump it in, but as I tipped it to empty it, the corner slipped and something hard and small escaped. The bottle bounced on the tile and rolled to a halt at the foot of the claw tub, on its side. My heart skipping, I crouched over it, tilting my head to read the label. Someone had blacked it out with a marker, but I could just make out the raised lettering under it in the sparkling light of the direct sunbeam.
Quexol.
I stood carefully and washed my rubber gloves, hands shaking, before drying them carefully on a towel. I should have left the evidence collection to Crew, but I couldn’t run the risk of leaving this here for someone to stumble on—like the murderer, for example.
A second plastic bag became that bottle’s home. I stared down into the full one for a long moment before diving into it with my gloves still on and, in short order, was carefully removing a small syringe from the depths of dirty tissues and plastic wrap, a drop of clear fluid still inside.
That followed the bottle into the bag. As soon as I finished tying it off I sank to the toilet and sat with my face in my hands, breathing steadily to keep the dizziness at bay.
Had I just found the murder weapon in Evelyn’s bathroom?
It was hard to slowly walk the hall to the stairs, to pause and listen at her door without barging in and accusing her of killing Skip. To calmly descend two stories to the foyer with the trash and my cleaning kit in one hand and the evidence in the other.
I was pretty proud of myself, actually, when I spotted Dad and Crew in the sitting room and didn’t run the last few steps, instead with a professional and detached air handing the sheriff the clear bag with the syringe and bottle like I knew what I was doing.
“Third floor bathroom trash,” I said. “Evelyn’s the only one on that level.”
Crew’s eyes widened, eyebrows shooting up while Dad whistled low.
“Nice catch, kid,” my father said.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me,” I said, turning my back on them, “I have more toilets to scrub.”
I have no idea what they thought of that particular pronouncement and nor did I care. But instead of going back upstairs, I went to the kitchen. Because after that little performance I really, really needed coffee.
I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised to find Pamela sitting at the counter, waiting for me, Mom serving her a hot cup herself while the newspaper woman waved and smiled and Mom gestured at me with the pot.
No use arguing that we were supposed to keep Pamela out. Instead, too tired and wound up to argue, I accepted a brimming mug with the perfect amount of cream and sugar and gulped my first mouthful of the hot liquid despite the temperature.
Petunia stared at her bowl in mournful silence until Mom dumped a handful of diced pineapple in it. Our conversation proceeded to the snuffle and snorting sound of the pug devouring her sugary treat.
“You look like you saw a ghost, Fee.” Mom paused her watermelon chopping and waited for me to answer.
I told them both what I’d found and screw the consequences. Of course, by the time I was done the sound of shouting out in the foyer reached through the kitchen door so it wasn’t like Pamela wasn’t going to get the full scoop anyway as the three of us, Petunia trailing after me, pushed open the door and watched Evelyn lose her crap all over Crew.
Oddly, Stella had joined her and the two were arguing at
the volume and ferocity that made it impossible to make out full sentences. This time Crew’s skill at silencing them wasn’t working, the pair of powerful women cornering him against the staircase as if they were going to skin him alive any second now.
Dad stood off to one side, a faint grin on his face, but when I met his gaze he wiped it clean and I realized then how much he was enjoying this entire mess. Hadn’t he said so at the lodge when Crew had recruited both of us to help him investigate the death of Mason Patterson? That not having to be responsible for the outcome was refreshing to him. And clearly my father hadn’t changed his mind in that regard. Maybe just being involved was enough to keep him gleefully engaged and any desire he had to take over drowned out by the utter delight of watching someone else deal with what he had to manage for so long.
Stella’s voice finally won over Evelyn’s and I made out her last statement before they both fell silent between breaths. “You can’t keep us here any longer!”
“Willow did not kill her husband,” Evelyn snarled. “And the fact you’re accusing me now tells me your Podunk, small town redneck county sheriff routine is frighteningly authentic.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Where are the real police to handle this?”
Even I winced at that blow. But Crew kept it together.
“If you would answer my questions, Ms. Prichard, instead of shouting at me and pretending to be offended, maybe we could sort this out faster. But,” his voice dropped to a threatening growl, “I can tell you right now, this Podunk redneck sheriff will pin your ass to the ground if he finds out you murdered Skip Anderson.”
That backed them both off.
“Sheriff,” Stella said, sounding mollified and a bit chastised, “it’s just unbelievable you could think any of us had anything to do with his death.”
“The lack of security around here,” Evelyn said, not in retreat like her counterpart, but at least no longer shouting, “means anyone could have had access to that bathroom. And planted that evidence against me.”