Bleeding Tarts

by Kirsten Weiss

  The lights flicked on, flooding the uneven lawn with illumination.

  “There,” I finished, my voice cracking.

  “I don’t see anyone,” Charlene said softly. “Do you?”

  I shook my head, widening my eyes in an attempt for better night vision. “Maybe the light scared him off.”

  “Val?” Gordon’s voice drifted through the phone. “Is that you?”

  “Ah . . .” I pressed the phone to my ear. “I don’t think we’re alone.”

  “Is that a UFO joke?”

  Something bammed against the side of the trailer, and I shrieked.

  “Right,” Charlene said. “That does it.” She rose and yanked open the door. “I’ve got a shotgun, and I’m not afraid to use it!”

  The sound of running footsteps, the crashing of underbrush, the start of a car engine. The car roared off, the sound fading.

  “Val?” Gordon asked. “Val!”

  “Someone was here.” My voice trembled. “Outside my house.”

  “Was? Is he still there? Are you alone?”

  “I’m with Charlene. I think she scared him off.”

  “Coward!” Charlene shook her fist at an invisible opponent and slammed the door.

  “You think?” he asked.

  “She scared him off.”

  Charlene leaned close. “Don’t worry,” she shouted into the phone. “It’s not one of those dog-park aliens. Whoever was here had a car.”

  “I’ll be right there.” He hung up.

  “He coming over?” Charlene asked.

  “Yeah.”

  She waggled her brows. “An old woman’s not much protection.” She reached for the door. “Maybe I should just leave you two—”

  “No. Stay.” Sagging in my chair, I pressed my palms to my eyes and discovered I still held the phone. I set it on the table. Whoever had been here—and someone had definitely been here—was gone. But I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of being alone. “Gordon will want your statement too.”

  “Still can’t get your nerve up, can you?”

  “What does that mean?”

  “You don’t want to be alone with tall, rugged, and handsome.”

  “Actually, we have a date. Friday night. Seven o’clock.”

  “Where?”

  “The dog park.”

  “You’re going alien hunting with him, but you won’t come with me? Thanks a lot. Maybe I’ll just ask Heidi to come with me next time.”

  In a blazing flash, I remembered what I’d been forgetting all day. Kahlua really did help me think, and we’d been wrong on so many things. “Forget the UFOs. I know who killed Devon.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  I closed the wooden gate behind us and climbed inside the pink rental van.

  A wind shivered the dry grasses, presaging an ocean fog. The afternoon heat was oppressive, smothering.

  But it wasn’t the weather that had set me on edge. I knew who wanted me dead, and I couldn’t do much about it. My skin twitched, my nerves bunched, and sweat dampened my Pie Town T-shirt.

  I cleared my throat and glanced at Charlene, dressed in a violet tunic and matching linen slacks. “It feels weird to be here.”

  Blue eyes wide, ears twitching, Frederick lay draped over her shoulder.

  Neither responded.

  “Given what we know,” I continued.

  “What we suspect,” Charlene said. “As your boyfriend pointed out, we don’t have any actual evidence.”

  “He’ll get the evidence, and he’s not my boyfriend.” The van hit a pothole, and I winced, angling the rearview mirror toward the pies on racks in the cargo space. They hadn’t shifted. For an old van, it had excellent shocks, and I wondered again if there was any way I could buy it. Maybe lease to own?

  She adjusted the seat belt over her violet tunic. “You heard him. He has to work this through Shaw. What are the odds our new police chief will admit he made a mistake? And while we wait on the politicking, everyone suffers.”

  Something in her tone made me glance at my piecrust specialist. She stared blandly out the windshield. “Marla called last night.”

  “What did you tell her?”

  “I told her we’d given everything we knew to the police. I don’t think she believed me.”

  My hands flexed on the wheel. “At least the event at the Bar X tonight didn’t cancel,” I said. The murders hadn’t completely wrecked Ewan’s business.

  “It’s a western-themed murder mystery dinner. Haunts and murders are a bonus.”

  “Oh.”

  “Do you know how often Ewan books western-themed murder mystery dinners?”

  “No.”

  “Almost never.” Her gnarled fingers tapped her knee.

  We rounded a bend, and the faux ghost town spread before us. I parked the van in front of the saloon. “I’ll unload . . .” I stumbled over my words, my hands falling to my lap.

  Chic in jeans and a pressed, white blouse, Marla stormed from the carriage house and stalked toward us.

  “What’s she doing here?” I unbuckled my seat belt and wiped my damp palms on the front of my Pie Town apron.

  Charlene grimaced. “Here we go.” She opened the van door and hopped to the ground.

  I leaned across the seat. “Just follow the—”

  She slammed the door.

  “Plan.” Ears ringing, I stepped from the van and went to stand beside Charlene.

  “It’s only because of the work I did that you figured out who killed Devon and Larry,” Marla shouted.

  “What exactly did you tell Marla?” I asked, horrified. Gordon had ordered us not to tell anyone what we’d discovered.

  Marla planted her diamond-studded hands on her hips. “You’ll do anything to make me look bad. This is low, Charlene, even for you.”

  “We did the same thing you did.” Charlene grinned. “We gave everything we knew about the murders to the police. Unless there’s something you didn’t tell the police?”

  “I don’t believe you,” Marla said. “This is all a scheme to draw out the killer. Why else would you two be back at the Bar X?”

  “Because we owe them pies for tonight’s event,” I said, exasperated. “Why are you here?”

  “Because you two aren’t going to beat me.”

  “Beat you?” Charlene asked. “This is a murder investigation! There’s no winner.”

  “There’s a loser.” She pointed to Charlene and mouthed, “That would be you.”

  I groaned. “Oh, come on.” They were worse than fifth graders.

  “Since I’ve returned to the Bar X,” Marla said, “I’ve learned some new things about the killer.”

  What. The. Hell. I rubbed my temple. This couldn’t be happening. Marla was going to get herself killed.

  Charlene’s face sagged. “Tell me you haven’t been revisiting the crime scenes and trying to figure out where you went wrong?”

  And blabbing to all the suspects. “We’ve told the police everything,” I said weakly.

  Marla shook a glittering finger. “I don’t know what cockamamie scheme you’ve got going, but I’ll figure it out.” She stalked toward the road leading to Ewan’s house.

  “We need to do something,” I hissed. “You don’t think Marla told people we’ve got some scheme cooked up to catch the killer?”

  “She might have.” She opened the van door. Rummaging in her purse on the seat, she drew out a fat pen. “Put this in your apron pocket.”

  “What is it?”

  “Spyware.”

  “Isn’t that for computers?”

  “It’s a wire. You know, a recording device.”

  “A wire? Why would I need . . .” Understanding cracked over my head like a rotten egg. “You’re trying to provoke the killer.” This was not the plan!

  Her jaw set. “Fair’s fair. The killer’s provoked me.”

  “We had a plan! What did you tell Marla?”

  “I didn’t tell her anything. You know how she is.”


  “Then why did you bring a secret pen recorder?”

  “I always carry one.”

  I blew out my breath. “We’re dropping off the pies, we’re getting Marla, and then we’re leaving.”

  “That’s the plan.”

  “No visits to Ewan’s house,” I said. “No interviewing our murder suspect. Leaving.”

  “Of course,” she said reasonably. “You can’t leave Petronella in charge at Pie Town all afternoon, even if she is on the high end of a mood swing.”

  I swallowed, my head spinning. “Wait here.” Feeling exposed, I opened the van’s rear doors, hopped in, and unstacked pies. I dug my cell phone from the pocket of my jeans and called Gordon.

  “Hey,” he said, his voice warm.

  “Gordon, we’ve got a problem,” I whispered, so Charlene wouldn’t overhear. “Charlene might have told Marla that we know who the killer is.”

  Silence.

  “And Marla’s at the Bar X trying to unearth the truth,” I said. “It’s become a twisted contest of wills between these two. Charlene and I are here too, delivering pies.”

  “I’ll be there in ten minutes.” He hung up.

  Okay. So, our plan had been blown to perdition. New plan: we’d keep Marla from getting herself killed, grab her, and get out. If my brain hadn’t been stunned stupid, I would have come up with this strategy sooner.

  In a louder voice, I said to Charlene, “We need to get Marla out of here, even if that means throwing her in the back of the van.”

  I turned, and yelped.

  Bridget, wearing a plaid blouse and jeans, stood framed outside the open van doors. Her long blond braid cascaded over one shoulder. “Hi.”

  “Hi.” Had she heard that? She must think we were plotting a kidnapping.

  “Can I give you a hand?”

  “Uh . . . Sure.” I grabbed some pies and handed them to her.

  She didn’t budge. “Marla told me you know who killed Devon and Larry.”

  Silently, I cursed. “That’s not quite true. We found some evidence and turned it over to the police.” So, there’s no reason for anyone to kill us. “Who knows? It all may be nothing. Probably nothing. What we learned most likely won’t lead to the killer after all. Marla was exaggerating.”

  Her face crumpled. “I hope you’re wrong. This has been a nightmare. I had to tell my father . . .” She swallowed, looked down the dirt road toward the chapel, its doors shut fast. “He didn’t know that Devon might have been his son. But he said it’s possible. He’s devastated. And there’s no one he can ask for the truth. Devon’s mother is dead.”

  “I’m sorry.” I thought of my own wayward father, who’d abandoned my mother and I when I was too young to remember. If Devon had only said something to Ewan, maybe none of this would have happened. But, if I met my father tomorrow, how open would I be to an honest conversation? Grimacing, I duckwalked to the open van doors.

  Bridget stood aside, and I hopped to the ground. Stomach bottoming, I circled the van. Charlene was nowhere in sight.

  “What’s wrong?” Bridget asked.

  “I told Charlene to wait here.” I should have known better. When had Charlene ever followed my orders? Answer: only when they fit in with her own plans. She’d even insisted on using her own piecrust recipe in Pie Town. Granted, her recipe was better than mine, but that wasn’t the point!

  Fuming, I grabbed more pies from the van and thrust them into Bridget’s arms. “I have to find Marla and Charlene.”

  “But—”

  I hurried down the street. Charlene wouldn’t be in the photo shack, because the photographer was standing next to my van in front of the saloon. I popped my head into the bathhouse/bathrooms and checked beneath the ladies’ room stalls. “Charlene!”

  No dice.

  That left the carriage house, the corral, and Ewan’s house.

  The odor of horses and fresh hay blew through the breezeway created by the carriage house’s two open doors. I whipped through the carriage house, passing the coach, glancing in the stalls. Horses whickered, but no Charlene. I walked outside and continued down the dirt road to the corral. The arena was empty, but a piebald stood tied to the wooden fence. It flicked its tail as I strode past on the narrow road to Ewan’s yellow Victorian.

  Pausing, I turned. At the far end of the corral was a small outbuilding behind the wooden “bad guy” targets. I imagined they kept supplies there. Odds were that no one lurked in the shed, but . . . I glanced at the horse. Was its owner nearby?

  I opened the corral gate and strode inside. If I’d felt exposed standing beside my van, it was a gazillion times worse inside the empty corral.

  My stomach churned. I hurried across the corral to the painted wooden figures, mustaches curling, black hats broad.

  “Don’t look at me,” Marla’s voice carried from inside the shack. “I had nothing to do with it.”

  “This isn’t the time,” Charlene snapped.

  I breathed a sigh. It was only Charlene and Marla, arguing per usual.

  And then annoyance reared its tricksy head, and my fists clenched. After everything that had happened, those two were still at each other’s throats. There was a killer on the loose, and all they could think of was their petty personal problems.

  Plus, I’d asked Charlene to stay by the van! All we had to do was act like everything was normal and then go. Simple. Easy. But when you’re dealing with an eighty-something going on thirteen, nothing was easy.

  I stormed inside the shack. “Enough! What is wrong with you two?” The small, dark room was cluttered with cardboard boxes. Thin beams of light filtered through the wood slats and the high, narrow windows.

  Charlene’s jaw dropped.

  “Oh, that’s helpful,” Marla snarled.

  Someone grabbed my chignon and yanked me backward. Cold steel pressed beneath my chin.

  “Moe?” I gulped.

  “Thanks for joining us,” he said.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The barrel of the revolver pressed into the soft skin beneath my jaw. My breath came in quick, dusty gulps.

  Charlene and Marla crowded together at the opposite side of the compact shed. Stripes of light made prison bar shadows across their faces.

  “You don’t need to do this,” Charlene said.

  “I didn’t mean to do any of it,” Moe shouted.

  The revolver jammed into my flesh, and I winced, standing on my toes to escape the pressure.

  “You’re saying Devon’s murder was accidental?” I gasped. Maybe if he thought we believed it, he’d let us go. “That Curly’s horse throwing a shoe was a coincidence? And then you took the opportunity to talk to Devon, and things went wrong?”

  “I only wanted to scare him,” Moe said.

  “And Curly’s horse?” My heart thundered, determined to beat itself free of my chest.

  “I loosened the shoe to get rid of Curly,” he said. “I feel terrible about putting the horse at risk, but I didn’t mean to kill Devon.”

  “Balderdash,” Marla said. “You knew Devon was going to die, and you made sure your partner wouldn’t have an alibi.”

  “That bartender deserved to die!”

  “No,” Charlene said. “He didn’t. He made a mistake, and so did you. We can fix this.”

  He laughed, a harsh sound. “Fix it? You can’t fix it! My son would be alive today if it weren’t for that bartender.”

  “What are you talking about?” Marla asked.

  “Moe’s son died in a drunk-driving accident in Truckee after leaving a bar,” I said.

  “Devon worked in Truckee,” Marla said.

  “As a bartender,” Charlene snapped. “Do we need to connect the dots for you?”

  “Little wonder you blamed Devon for your son’s death,” I said.

  Dust tickled my nostrils. I scrunched my face, working not to sneeze, imagining Moe’s finger jerking on the trigger.

  “That bartender overserved my son,” Moe said. “And
he hadn’t learned a damn thing. He was still serving too many drinks here at the Bar X. He didn’t care! My son’s death meant nothing to him. Nothing!”

  “So, you confronted him,” I said, “and things got out of control.”

  “I only wanted to scare him,” he pleaded.

  Even if I believed it, and I didn’t, it didn’t explain what had happened to Larry, or all the attempts on my life. But as long as I had a gun pressed to my neck, I was willing to go along for the ride.

  “So, why did you shoot at Val?” Marla asked. “To scare her away?”

  “Devon and I struggled with the gun,” he said. “A shot went off before I got it away from him. Your near miss was an accident.”

  So, he’d gotten the gun away first and then killed Devon, an unarmed man. I’d suspected as much—the bullet that had blasted the pies from my arms had been followed by a second shot. “And then you killed him,” I said.

  “It was in the heat of battle!”

  “You’d gone there to kill him,” Marla said. “You’d planned it out. Why kill poor Larry?”

  “Larry suspected the truth,” I said. “We’d asked Larry if the horseshoe could have been tampered with, and he denied it. Later, we saw him in the corral looking for something—the nail, I’m guessing. What did he find on it? He knew about your son’s death. He knew about Devon’s role in it too, didn’t he?”

  Moe’s breath was hot against my neck. “I didn’t mean to kill Larry,” he said.

  “And he didn’t want to rat you out,” Charlene said. “Larry felt sorry for you. He suspected what had happened, but he couldn’t believe it was intentional.”

  “Larry was near the saloon that morning,” I said. “Did he hear you and Devon arguing?”

  “He told me he had.” His voice trembled. “Larry was a better friend than I deserved. He wanted me to explain what happened, tell him I was innocent. I couldn’t. We argued. I pushed him away, and he fell. He must have hit his head on something. His death was an accident.”

  “And then you dragged Larry’s body into the horse stall,” I said, “trying to make it look like a horse had kicked him. But his horse was tied up and couldn’t have done it.”

  “You two walked in on me. I had to pretend I’d just found him.”