Bleeding Tarts

by Kirsten Weiss

  “You’re not a murderer,” Charlene said smoothly. “Everything happened in the heat of the moment. It wasn’t your fault.”

  The gun moved fractionally away from my jaw.

  “Of course, it was his fault,” Marla said. “The murder of Devon Blackett was premeditated.”

  The gun barrel again pressed into my flesh, and my eyes widened. Marla!

  Charlene stepped on her foot.

  “Ow!” Marla glared. “What was that for?”

  A vein pulsed in Charlene’s temple. “You’re wrong, Marla. Weren’t you listening? They struggled over the gun. Devon goaded him into it.”

  “Unbelievable,” Marla said. “You will say anything to get one over on me!”

  “Will you put our differences aside for one minute,” Charlene snarled. She turned to Moe. “You’re no killer, and hurting us or Val will only make things worse. The police have all the information we do. There’s no sense in adding three more bodies to the stew. It’s over.”

  “I’m not going to jail.” Moe walked backwards, dragging me outside. He kicked the shed’s door closed. A wooden beam dropped into place, locking Marla and Charlene inside.

  I gasped, knees wobbly. At least they were safe. “What are you going to do?” I squeaked.

  “Keep walking.” He pressed the gun into my spine and marched me across the corral.

  “Not to make this all about me,” I said, “but why try to run me down? And why were you lurking around my house last night?”

  “It was a misunderstanding,” he muttered.

  “Misunderstanding?! You hospitalized one of my customers!”

  “I thought you were trying to blackmail me.”

  “Blackmail?” I asked, my body heat rising. “I never blackmailed you.”

  “Not in so many words. You were like that bastard, Devon, always hinting around that you knew something.”

  Hinting around? “What are you talking about?”

  “Oh, I’m not sure what I saw,” he said, mimicking me. “What was I supposed to think? That’s why I agreed to come to your pie shop for questioning, to figure out what you knew. Your pie was pretty good.”

  “Thanks.”

  “And then I overheard just enough of you and Charlene talking in that trailer of yours to believe I was right.”

  “Believe? You mean you don’t think so now?” I breathed in quick, shallow gasps.

  He laughed hollowly. “You tricked me. Or I tricked myself. Guilt will do that to a man. If I’d kept my mouth shut, played it cool, none of this would have happened. Then that Marla started shooting her mouth off, and I figured you three were in on it together.” He pushed the corral gate open with his hip, and his horse whickered.

  “You panicked,” I said. “Totally understandable.” Now let me go.

  I glanced up the hill. No one raced down the slope from Ewan’s house to rescue me. The carriage house blocked the corral from view of Main Street, where Bridget, and I assumed other workers, might be. Only Marla and Charlene knew what was happening, and they were locked in the shed. “But you know we’re not trying to blackmail you now, right? It was all a stupid misunderstanding. And the police really do know everything we do. There’s no point in hurting anyone.”

  “Maybe the cops do, and maybe they don’t.” He stopped beside his piebald horse and edged to my side, aiming the gun at my ear. “I’m going to let you go, but I’ve got my gun on you, and you know what kind of shot I am. So, don’t try anything funny. I really don’t want to shoot you. I only want to get away.”

  “Okay,” I said fervently.

  Gordon strode through the rear carriage house doors.

  My kidnapper froze.

  Gordon whipped back his blazer and reached for his gun.

  “Don’t!” Moe’s voice whip cracked. “You can’t draw faster than I can blow her head off.”

  Gordon’s hand hovered over his holstered weapon.

  I fought a wild urge to laugh. A gun fight at the Bar X corral? Really? And for the second time in a year—one year!—I was being held at gunpoint like some marshmallow fluff damsel in distress. I might as well be back in that prostitute’s costume and . . .

  And I wasn’t helpless. And I sure as heck wasn’t a damsel. What I was, was mad.

  I grabbed Moe’s gun arm and shoved it away. Stomping his boot, I dove for the ground.

  There was a shout, a gunshot, a cry.

  I looked up.

  Bent double, Moe rubbed his hand. His revolver lay in the dirt.

  “Hands on your head!” Gordon barked. “Hands on your head!”

  Hands trembling, Moe interlaced his hands on his head.

  “On your knees!”

  With two fingers, I plucked Moe’s revolver from the dirt. There was an indentation on the side where Gordon’s bullet had hit. I tossed the gun under the corral fence. My stomach contents threatened to reverse course, and I swallowed hard, sickened. I staggered to my feet.

  “Are you all right?” Gordon asked me.

  “Yeah.” I gulped. “Yeah.”

  Someone banged on the shed door.

  “Let us out!” Marla screamed.

  “Charlene!” I ran to the shed and lifted the wood beam, releasing the two older women.

  Charlene grasped my shoulders. “What happened? I heard a shot.”

  “Gordon.” Holy moly. Had Gordon actually shot the gun out of Moe’s hand? I’d only seen that in the movies.

  I looked toward the men. Moe lay on his stomach in the dirt. Gordon squatted beside him, his knee pressed against Moe’s shoulder blades, and cuffed him.

  On watery legs, I walked to them.

  Gordon hauled Moe to standing.

  “That was some shooting,” Moe said.

  “I wasn’t aiming for your hand,” Gordon said.

  Chapter Thirty

  “What do you think?” Gordon asked. He wore that blue sweater I liked, but in the darkness, it looked black.

  “This isn’t the dog park,” I said.

  Gordon and I stood in the parking lot of the White Lady, the ocean crashing faintly beneath us. The restaurant’s adobe walls glimmered, pale white, in the moonlight.

  “No,” he said. “The park didn’t seem like the best spot for a first date, especially since you’re a UFO-phobe.” He placed his hand on my elbow.

  I hesitated, pulling the fringed shawl Charlene had insisted I buy, closer. “Um. Charlene and I were recently thrown out of here.”

  “For what?”

  “Marla upset the bartender, and we were in the line of fire.”

  “No problem. I’m friends with the owner. Besides, I broke up a fight here last month. He owes me.”

  “There are fights at the White Lady?” It didn’t seem like that kind of place.

  Arm in arm, we walked up the red-tiled steps.

  “It’s got two bars,” he said, as if that explained everything.

  “What happened?”

  “Two women got into an argument about whether they’d seen the ghost or not. Words were said. Hair was pulled.”

  “You really do see the darker side of human nature.”

  “I wasn’t the one who had a gun aimed at them.” He looped an arm across my shoulders and opened the heavy, wooden door.

  My anger at Moe had faded. In spite of everything, a small part of me felt sorry for the man. His son’s death had driven him over the edge, and I believed that he hadn’t meant to kill Larry. That didn’t excuse the murder of Devon, or his attacks on me. And hitting poor Ray with a stolen Prius was just wrong.

  A waitress escorted us to a table overlooking the ocean, and Gordon pulled out a chair for me. Through the glass, the moon spread its mercury trail across the water.

  He sat across from me, and we bumped knees.

  Electricity jolted me.

  “Can I get you anything from the bar?” the waitress asked.

  We ordered drinks, and the waitress departed.

  “Has this finally convinced the Bake
r Street Bakers to retire?” Gordon asked.

  “First, never say the word retire when Charlene’s involved. Second, I made the mistake of telling Charlene we were going to the dog park. Now she’s insisting I help her hunt UFOs,” I said glumly. “She wants us to drive to Area 51.”

  He grinned. “There was something supernatural about your last intuitive leap. How did you figure out Devon had overserved Moe’s son?”

  “Heidi. She came into Pie Town so upset, that she scarfed down half a strawberry-rhubarb pie. Then she took a second pie to go.” I had it on good authority (Graham and Tally Wally) that she’d hit my ex in the face with it. It seemed like a waste of pie.

  “I’m not seeing the connection.”

  I unwrapped the white, cloth napkin and laid it on my lap. “Charlene thought we shouldn’t have let her leave. Heidi’s not used to that kind of sugar high. And then Heidi drove away, too fast, and I started making the connections. I’d been told that Devon was loose with the drinks and had a tendency to overserve. He’d been working as a bartender in Truckee at the time Moe’s son, Maurice, was killed.”

  “Still,” he said, “there’s more than one bar in Truckee.”

  “Which is why I did more digging into Maurice’s death.” It felt good to hash it out with Gordon. Maybe I really could be a detective. “Once I knew what I was looking for, it wasn’t hard to confirm that, on the night of his death, Moe’s son had left the same bar Devon worked at.”

  “Careful, you’ll put me out of business.”

  Happiness overflowed inside me. “I lack your combat skills. I still can’t believe you shot Moe’s gun right out of his hand.”

  He grimaced. “I’ve got to put in more hours at the range. I wasn’t kidding about not aiming for his hand.”

  “Speaking of guns, I assume Moe used a different gun when he killed Devon, or the ballistics would have implicated him.”

  “Yep. Moe’s got an entire arsenal.” He reached across the table and gently gripped my hand. “Now, maybe for our second date—”

  “What a week!” Charlene materialized beside us. She grabbed an empty chair from a neighboring table and wedged it next to mine. Setting her glass of red wine on the white tablecloth, she plopped into the chair. She unbuttoned her soft, bourbon-colored jacket, revealing a splashy yellow tunic. “Since that newspaper article came out about Val’s heroics, Pie Town’s been packed. I thought you two were going to the dog park.”

  Seriously? She knew how much this date meant.

  Charlene ignored my glare.

  “I don’t need to spend any more nights at the dog park,” Gordon said, smug. “I solved that case.”

  “Oh?” Charlene asked.

  “Our alien was a local ghost hunter, a guy who works at Larry’s car lot.”

  “A ghost hunter? Not Greg?” I turned to Charlene. “Why would he think the dog park was haunted?”

  Charlene sank lower in her seat. “I might have mentioned it on Twitter. Before the fairies showed up, of course.”

  “Greg was the fairies,” Gordon said. “Or the aliens.”

  The waitress set our drinks on the table. “One more for dinner?”

  Gordon’s phone chimed. He pulled it from his pocket and checked it, frowned. “Damn.”

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “There’s a major pileup on the One.”

  “Oh, no,” I said.

  “They’re calling everyone in.” Hurriedly, he rose. “I’ve got to go. Sorry. Rain check?”

  “Sure,” I said, dazed.

  He dug out his wallet and handed the waitress his credit card. “This one’s on me, Pam.” He jogged from the restaurant.

  Charlene shifted onto his chair. “Well, I won’t say no to a free dinner.” She sipped Gordon’s beer and sighed. “At least he’s got good taste. We’ll need a few more minutes to decide, Pam.”

  The waitress nodded and walked away.

  Charlene clapped my shoulder. “Don’t look so sad. So, you didn’t get your first date. It’ll happen.”

  “I might have, if you hadn’t crashed the party.”

  She unfurled a napkin. “Hey, I wasn’t responsible for the accident on the highway. You should be grateful I wasn’t in it.”

  “At least I would have had more alone time with him,” I groused.

  “No use crying over spilled milk.”

  “Right. How’s the Bar X doing?”

  “The weddings are staying canceled,” she said, “but there’s been a surge in mystery dinners. Ewan and Bridget will be okay, now that they don’t have a double homicide hanging over their heads. It’s not knowing whether Devon was Ewan’s son that’s killing him.”

  “I don’t think Devon was,” I said. “Moe had done his research on Devon. He knew about the missing father, and that he’d been born in San Diego. And he knew that the timing fit for Ewan’s service in the Navy. He was careful to send Devon a newspaper clipping that mentioned Ewan’s Navy days, suspecting that would lure him to the Bar X. But he had no real evidence of Devon’s parentage. And there were lots of sailors in San Diego at that time. Odds are low there’s a real connection.”

  “I hope you’re right. The past never goes away, does it?”

  We sat for a moment, silent.

  Not liking the table’s new somber tone, I cleared my throat. “There is one mystery that we never cleared up.”

  She blinked innocently. “Oh?”

  “Why you claimed to know nothing about the Phantom of Bar X until Ewan told you about it,” I said. “And why you peppered our suspects with questions about it, but never called for a stakeout.”

  “I’ve learned to prioritize. There was a killer on the loose. No time for phantoms.”

  “Or,” I said, “you’re the phantom. You knew that pottery had been turned upside down before Sarah Onaka told us.”

  Charlene coughed. “Well, that’s what phantoms do, isn’t it? Besides, I don’t have time to flit around haunting the Bar X. And if someone had seen me, the gig would have been up.”

  “No, you would have needed an accomplice. Like Bridget. She’ll do anything to help out her dad.”

  Charlene winced. “I might have given her a few tips on hauntings. I should have known better.”

  “Why?” I asked. “It worked.”

  “Because now we’ve created a tulpa.” She gestured, splashing red wine across her wrinkled hand. Snatching the napkin from my lap, she brushed off the stain. “Bridget swears she hasn’t been responsible for the stuff that’s been going on lately. And I’ve no idea how we’re going to get rid of the thing. Probably have to hold some sort of ritual.”

  “Of course, we will.”

  Charlene hunched her shoulders. “My involvement was that obvious?”

  “Simple psychology,” I said, modest.

  “What do you know about psychology?” Charlene asked. “You were an English major.”

  “I know that you were suspiciously uninterested in staking out the phantom, which meant you already knew what it was.”

  “Hm, I almost forgot.” She reached into the pocket of her soft jacket and pulled out a key on a ring, handed it to me. “Here you go.”

  Puzzled, I stared at it. “What’s this for?”

  “It’s the key to your new van.”

  “My what? Charlene, you didn’t—”

  “No, I didn’t. Larry’s nephew is giving you the van as thanks for solving his uncle’s murder.”

  “Charlene, I can’t accept this. That van is worth ten grand.”

  Charlene laughed. “No one wants that hot-pink van. Larry might have been trying to sell it for ten thousand, but it isn’t worth half as much.”

  “But—”

  “I’m only the delivery woman. If you’ve got a beef with the van, take it up with Greg.”

  “I will. Thanks.” I rubbed the key between my thumb and forefinger and wondered. It didn’t feel right to keep the gift, but after wrecking my bug, I needed wheels. Maybe I could work out
a discounted payment plan.

  “Now,” Charlene said, “about that ritual to get rid of the tulpa at the Bar X. We’re going to need lots of salt . . .”

  I sipped my Chocolatini and smiled.

  RECIPES

  Abril was given the job of typing up the pie recipes for Pie Town’s giant 3-ring recipe binders and got a little colorful with the language.

  PEACH-BLUEBERRY GINGER PIE

  Ingredients:

  1 package premade pie dough (2 rounds), chilled

  A small handful of flour (for rolling out the lattice top)

  4 C peaches, peeled and sliced into ¼” wedges (about

  six medium peaches)

  1¼ C blueberries

  ⅓ C + 2 tsp granulated sugar

  ¼ C cornstarch

  1 T shredded fresh ginger

  ¼ tsp salt

  1½ tsp lemon juice

  1 T heavy cream

  Turn up the heat to 375 degrees.

  Coax one piecrust along the smooth bottom of a 9” pie tin and pinch the dough along the top edge of the pan. Snuggle parchment paper into the bottom of the piecrust and fill the tin to the brim with dried rice or beans. Bake until a sensuous golden brown, approximately 20–30 minutes.

  Carefully remove from the oven and turn the heat down to a balmy 350 degrees.

  Tenderly mix blueberries, peaches, ⅓ C sugar, cornstarch, ginger, salt, and lemon in a generously sized bowl.

  Remove the beans and rice from the baked piecrust. Gently tumble the fruit ménage into the tin.

  Unroll the second piecrust, and with a pizza cutter or sharp knife, cut the dough into ten lattice strips, approximately ¾” to 1” in width.

  Lay five lattice strips vertically across the top of the pie. Place the other five strips horizontally across the first. Snip any excess dough or press it into the piecrust. Brush the strips with the cream and drizzle with the last two tsp sugar.

  Bake approximately 60 to 90 minutes, until the filling is thick and bubbling.

  APRICOT PIE

  Ingredients:

  4 C sliced apricots

  1 C sugar*

  1 T lemon juice*

  3 T minute tapioca

  Pinch nutmeg