Hell to Pay (What Doesn’t Kill You, #7): An Emily Romantic Mystery

by Pamela Fagan Hutchins

  “Of course.”

  “So, why do you sound poopy?”

  I sighed. “Betsy’s foster parents have applied to adopt her.”

  “Wait, hadn’t you already been picked?”

  “I wish. No. Her foster parents are nuts, and they have a bajillion foster kids already. They’d never love her like I do.”

  “Of course not! That’s awful. I’m so sorry.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Is that all that’s wrong?”

  “Well, Jack’s pushing me to set a date.”

  “I fail to see how it’s a problem that the man you’re in love with wants to marry you.”

  “That is the problem. I told him I love him, but he ignored me. And he’s acting weird. I think he only wants to marry me to replace his old family with Betsy and me. His kids and the wife he loved, unlike me.”

  “You know that’s just crazy talk, right?”

  I yelled, “ARGH! I don’t know. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. I just know I don’t want to marry another man unless he adores me.”

  “Emily.”

  “I’m serious.”

  Her voice was gentle. “I know you are. So just take a deep breath. And do what makes you happy.”

  I heard an enormous crash through the phone line.

  “Oh no, Taylor and Oso knocked the steaks I was marinating off the counter. Broken glass and raw meat everywhere. Well, broken glass, anyway. No, Oso!” she yelled.

  The phone went dead.

  “Bye, Katie,” I said into the silence. I held my phone in my lap, imagining myself thousands of miles away on the U.S. Virgin Island of St. Marcos, watching her herd a dark-headed little boy and a black and tan beast out of bloody glass. I missed her. I was happy for her, but I missed her. She loved a man who loved her back, and she had gorgeous one-year-old twin girls in addition to Taylor. I pounded my fist on the steering wheel. Now I was jealous of my best friend. This was getting ridiculous. I didn’t have time for a pity party. I needed to do something, to chase all this crazy out of my head or it would suck me down into a deep, dark place. Snowflake whined.

  I turned. “Hey, girl, how you doing back there?”

  She wagged her tail.

  “Sit.”

  She placed her behind daintily on the seat. I got a dog treat from my purse and gave it to her.

  “Good.”

  She chomped noisily then smacked her lips.

  “That’s it. Down.”

  She dropped to her belly and settled her head between her paws.

  “Good girl.”

  I gave her another treat.

  I put my phone on the passenger seat and swished my index finger on the mouse pad of my laptop. The screen came to life, and my fingers hovered over the keys. Phil or Betsy? Phil or Betsy? Which to work on first? My heart made the decision for me.

  I pulled up Google and typed in Trevon and Mary Alice Hodges. “Let’s see more of what I’m up against,” I muttered.

  I knew the basics about the Hodges. Heck, I knew a little more than that from kinda-sorta stalking them when Betsy first went to live with them. They had a modest house on the edge of town. They were very active in the Mighty is His Word church. They fostered eleven kids that qualified as “special needs” either because of their mental or physical conditions, their race or ethnic background, their age, or some combination. Betsy, a six-year-old Mexican, fit their profile. They also had one birth child.

  I pulled up social media to see what they’d been up to. They didn’t let their kids use Facebook, but Mary Alice lived on it. I scrolled. Church stuff, religious quotes, recipes, survivalist tips, crafting, a post congratulating her husband for winning an archery competition, more church stuff. Nothing interesting. I couldn’t find Trevon on Facebook. Googling their names hadn’t yielded a whole lot more, not even their property record. I had their address memorized, so I searched for the house itself.

  The result was odd. The Mighty is His Word church owned the property. I wrinkled my nose. Did they work for the church? Had they tithed their home?

  A hand knocked on the car door beside me and I jumped.

  Peering down at me from behind mirrored sunglasses was Officer John Burrows.

  I turned to look at Snowflake in the backseat. “You’re not a very diligent watchdog.” She wagged her tail. To John, I said, “Déjà vu.” He’d arrested me in this very spot before Christmas, back when he was pretending to be a bad cop to catch a bad cop. He hadn’t made my day then, but he did now. “How are you?”

  He grinned. “I’m good. New wheels?”

  “What? Oh, no.” I told him the story, realizing as I did that he was the first person I’d shared it with, other than the employees at The Works.

  He laughed a lot longer than I thought my sad tale merited and wiped the corner of his eye. “Only you, Emily Bernal.”

  “And apparently one woman in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, according to the people cleaning it. So what are you doing here?”

  “One of my kids goes to school here now. I just got through doing a little ‘my daddy the police officer’ presentation to his first-grade class.”

  “Betsy’s in first grade. Is he in her class?”

  “I’ll have to ask him.”

  It felt funny sitting down while he was standing up talking to me, so I got out and we both leaned against the side of the Mustang. The metal was hot. I put my hand against it, then to my cheek. “Global warming.”

  “A crock. Hey, I heard about Escalante. Man, that’s rough.”

  “It sucks.” I ground the ball of one of my leather sandals into the pavement. “Kinda hard preparing a defense when the victim is dead and the client is comatose.”

  “I’d imagine.”

  I felt his eyes watching the side of my face and I remembered him flirting with me a few days before. Heat crept up my neck. Maybe I shouldn’t have gotten out of the car. I made my tone businesslike and scooched away from him just a smidge. “I sent our discovery request over to Stafford today. So what’s the deal—why do you guys think he did this?” I held up my hand. “Just the stuff I’m going find out anyway. I’m not trying to get you to spill state secrets.”

  He laughed through his nose. “Yes you are.” He took his sunglasses off and untucked a tail of his shirt and began to wipe them. I averted my eyes. “You remember I told you that a witness placed him and the vic fighting in the parking lot, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “She—her name is Millie Todd and she’s a longtime member of the swingers club he used to run—said they were arguing about Dennis sleeping with Phil’s wife.”

  All thoughts of whether John was flirting left me, and my mouth fell open so far it nearly hit me in the Adam’s apple. “Shut up. No.”

  “Yeah, that’s what she said.”

  “But Phil doesn’t have a wife. He has an ex-wife and he has a fiancée.”

  “There’s that.”

  “Emily,” a high-pitched voice squealed.

  I turned to see a tiny brown dynamo with flying black braids kicking her legs as she swung high in the swings. Snowflake stood up and barked frantically. I waved. “Betsyyyyy!”

  “I love you,” she shouted.

  I gulped and smiled. “I love you, too, baby.” I stayed turned watching her and said to John, “So which one was it?”

  “Millie didn’t know.”

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  “Did he?” I rolled my hand to signal I needed him to hurry up and get with my program, still keeping my eyes on Betsy. “Did Dennis sleep with Phil’s ex or”—I shuddered, literally shuddered at the horrible thought of it—“Nadine?”

  “Who knows? Doesn’t really matter to us.”

  “Why not?” I glanced at him.

  “What matters is that Phil had motive, opportunity, and”—John held up his two hands—“means.”

  “Says this Millie person.”

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pack of Str
ide chewing gum. He held it out to me.

  I shook my head. “Is there anything but her linking him to the crime?”

  He unwrapped a piece, put the trash and the pack back in his pocket, and popped the blue gum into his mouth. “Does there need to be?”

  My stomach clenched, but I lifted my shoulders, tried to stand a little taller. “There would be if I was on the jury.”

  “Good thing you won’t be.” He grinned. “Gotta run. Stay safe, Calamity Jane.” He patted his phone on his hip and pointed at me. “I’m only a phone call away.” As he said it, it rang, and he answered it as Snowflake catapulted herself at his phone, stopped only by her doggie seatbelt.

  “Wait, thanks, but one more thing.” I hadn’t asked him about the video and whether they’d found the guy from Phil’s party on it, or identified him.

  He shrugged and mouthed sorry. Into the phone he said, “Yes, boss.” He walked out of my line of sight.

  I watched Betsy on the playground, soaking her in, trying to keep the negative at bay a little longer. She had moved on from the swings to a game of ring-around-the-rosy with several other little girls. Their high-pitched voices sang out the words of the familiar song: “Ring around the rosy, a pocket full of posies, ashes, ashes, we all fall down.” Five little girls holding hands fell to their rumps together then clambered back to their feet and joined hands again. They skipped in a circle, pulling each other along.

  The bell rang and in an instant they separated and ran to form a line at the door of the brick school building. Seconds later, Betsy was high-stepping along with a boy even shorter than her. She waved at me one last time before they disappeared through the doorway.

  I buckled back into my seat in the rental Mustang and let my head sink to the steering wheel with the weight of John’s information.

  ***

  “You haven’t told me much about your new boss, Mother.” I shifted on my plastic-covered seat and my stomach growled. I glanced at my phone, hoping for a call back from Millie Todd. I’d left her a message after getting her number from Information. So far, no luck.

  “She’s not all bad.” Mother took a sip of her iced tea, leaving a crimson smudge of lipstick on the glass. “She’s given your father a job at the church. He’s doing the yard and maintenance.”

  It wasn’t exactly easy for a felon to land a decent job straight out of the pokey. The new pastor went up several notches in my estimation. A new job gave Dad respectability, and that didn’t hurt me any, although I felt a little shallow thinking it. I knew in time people would forget he was a felon and what he’d done to become one—maybe faster than I would—just like they’d forgotten about all my drama from when I moved back to town pregnant and in the middle of divorcing my cheating bisexual ex-husband. But it didn’t happen quickly, and it was painful while the gossip lasted.

  “That’s fantastic.” I took a sip of sweet tea.

  A waiter appeared with a tray of food. He looked about my parents’ age, except for his dour face, which made him appear a decade older. He wasn’t the same guy who’d taken our order. “Who had the quesadillas?”

  I raised my hand. “Me.”

  He lifted the plate but held it in front of him, squinting at it. “These don’t have any meat.”

  We’d already waited twenty minutes on our food and I was starving. I smiled tightly. “That’s right.”

  He pulled it farther away from me. “You had refried black beans and rice?”

  “I did.”

  He lowered it to the table in front of me, releasing it just a moment to soon. The plate clacked loudly. “And you have the beef soft tacos, correct, ma’am?” he asked my mother.

  “I sure do.”

  He set her food down. “Be sure y’all save room for dessert.” His voice sounded as bored as if he were reciting his multiplication tables. “We have Easter Bunny sugar cookies and Blue Bell homemade vanilla ice cream today.”

  Mother stared at my plate. Her mouth fell open.

  “Anything else?” the waiter asked.

  “It’s Jesus,” Mother gasped.

  “I’m sorry?” the waiter tilted his head.

  “It’s the face of Jesus in my daughter’s quesadilla.”

  The waiter put his hand to his chest and leaned over my food.

  I groaned and looked around us. Thanks to Mother’s megaphone voice, people at the next table were already peering at my food. I flicked my eyes to it, grudgingly. The browning on the side of my tortilla did bear an unfortunate resemblance to the typical rendering of Jesus, if one had a vivid imagination.

  “Dear God,” the waiter breathed.

  My mother’s hand hovered over my plate like she was praying over it. Which she was. Her lips moved rapidly.

  “She’s got the face of Jesus on her quesadilla,” the waiter shouted. Color suffused his cheeks, and he panted in his excitement. “It’s Jesus on a quesadilla!” He waved the couple breaking their necks to see from the next table toward my plate.

  Only in Amarillo, I thought. The air filled with the sound of chairs pushing back from tables all around us. Clamoring voices crowded around me.

  “It is. It’s the face of Jesus on her quesadilla.”

  “It’s an Easter miracle.”

  Voices whispered prayers around me, and I pushed my chair back. A man at the next table was ignoring the spectacle, and I muttered to him, “People in this town are freakin’ nuts.”

  He didn’t look up. I saw a hearing aid in his ear and realized he hadn’t even heard me, which was probably for the best or he’d be over here, too.

  My mother moved to the chair nearest me. “Emily, this is a sign.” She leaned over and pulled me to her, squeezing me in her excitement.

  Our waiter turned to look at her. His mouth hung open and he slowly started nodding.

  “A sign of what?”

  She ignored me and returned to her seat, smiling widely.

  The kitchen staff had now come out for a viewing of Jesus. I tugged on the sleeve of our waiter, who was still nodding. If he didn’t close his mouth, he’d soon be drooling, too. “Could I have a cheese quesadilla ASAP without any religious imagery, please?”

  He turned to me, his eyes wide, and his lips moving in what looked like the Lord’s Prayer.

  “Never mind.” I sighed. “Mother, I’m headed to the bathroom. Back in a sec.”

  I retreated to the refuge of the bathroom. There were two stalls, and high-heeled pumps peeped from under one. Turned around backwards. The unmistakable sound of retching followed by a splash and then a gagging throat-clearing followed. Great. I was in here with someone spewing germs.

  “Are you okay in there?”

  “Fine,” a voice responded.

  “Can I help you?”

  “No.”

  I entered my own stall and sat. A moment later the other stall door opened and the woman walked to the sink. She was thin, like a whippet in a business suit. She leaned over and splashed water toward her face, her golden brown hair falling forward. She made a swishing sound, and then I heard her spit. She washed her hands, used a paper towel to dry them, and left. I exited my stall and did the same, tossing my towel after I used it to open the door.

  I returned to a line at our table, Mother gesturing wildly and talking in an excited voice to everyone within earshot. I sat and motioned for her to join me. She did, but she didn’t stop her commentary. I endured it for about thirty seconds, then decided I’d had it. I’d just make a run for it, escape this crazy train, through the enraptured crowd, concrete arches, and out-of-place faux palm trees. I got up, but my exit from Abuelo’s was blocked by Melinda Stafford.

  “Hello, Emily, Mrs. Phelps.”

  I prayed for a fire alarm so I could run into her like a blocking dummy. I pictured her golden brown hair flying up in the air as I rammed my shoulder into her Ann Taylor-clad midsection, sending her tumbling off her ridiculous stiletto heels and splitting the seam of her pants as I drove her into the ground.

&nb
sp; I stood by my chair and mentally chanted my ABCs as a distraction from my current situation.

  “Hi, Melinda. So good to see you.” My mother jumped to her feet and hugged her.

  That’s when I realized the woman I’d heard throwing up in the bathroom was Melinda. Maybe she was sick. Or bulimic. She certainly looked nearly anorexic. Mother wasn’t heavy by any stretch—her legs were downright thin and her waist had only thickened a little with middle age—but she was three times as substantial as Melinda. I felt a wave of pity toward her.

  “Oh my. Mexican food and braces,” Melinda said.

  It was hard to feel sorry long for a woman as completely unlikeable as Melinda, especially when I was sure she only felt safe being this mouthy at me because of the crowd and public setting. I kept chanting. I was up to Q R S and going strong.

  “What’s all of this?” Melinda asked, pointing at the line of people ogling my quesadilla.

  X Y Z. “Jesus,” I said.

  She snorted at me, but I didn’t explain further.

  As Mother returned to her seat, Melinda pressed pale lips together and looked at me in an almost cross-eyed way. “Fastest true bill from a grand jury in the history of Potter County yesterday.”

  I started over at A.

  “I asked Judge Herring to proceed without the indictment.”

  I kept mentally reciting, but I narrowed my eyes at her.

  She shrugged. “He said no. We have to wait for Phil to be able to make an appearance. So when is he getting out of the hospital?”

  I gave up on the chant. “Melinda, he’s in a coma. The doctors have no idea when he will come out. If he will come out.”

  She looked away, and as she did, I saw her hands. They were balled into fists so tightly that her knuckles strained at her flesh. Then she splayed them open, almost hyperextending her fingers, and her long acrylic nails looked like dripping blood. I know I wasn’t imagining things when I saw her sway like a weeping willow. She put her hand on the edge of our table and seemed to find her balance.

  My mother changed the subject, bless her heart. “Your mama has been sharing some hints with us in Sunday school about your beau. She said you think he’s the one. We’re all so happy for you.”

  Melinda’s very meager color drained from her face. I hated to admit Melinda was actually pretty, but she looked like Angelina Jolie at that moment. The Angelina Jolie who needed a suntan and a month of good meals, though. “I’m not dating anyone.”