There was a long pause as the other women stared at each other, each waiting for the other to go first. Finally, Clover said, “Marcie did it.”
“I did not. Babe did. At least it was her idea.”
“No way, Marcie,” Babe retorted. The Vegas star did look sick. Without her stage makeup, her face was pale and translucent. She looked weak and fragile in the light of the chandelier hanging over the conference table. “I sent you those pills, yes, but you’re the one who put them in Twyman’s potatoes.”
Marcie countered the accusation with, “You’re the one who told me those cancer drugs would be fatal to a diabetic.”
Babe had been taking lessons from Clover, but her snort was weak and lacked the importance of Clover’s favorite expression of disgust. Her sarcasm meter was still running on high, though. “Especially with that incorrect dose of insulin that you gave him, Marcie. How did you talk him into letting you mix his dose? And, no, you’re the one who is the expert on drug interaction. You knew my medications would be fatal to Twyman. All I did was send you a dozen of the pills.”
It was like a tennis match, with Clover, Gabriella, and me playing the parts of the fans who sit in the stands, our eyes switching back and forth to whoever was hitting the ball. Gabriella still thought she was the referee, and she stopped the play.
“You mean your cancer drugs killed Twyman?” she asked Babe.
I wish I knew when to keep my mouth shut, but I was little miss know-it-all, and answered for Babe. “I could see where they would do that. I have this friend, well, she’s a client, actually, in Jacksboro. Juliana. And her aunt used to own this bookstore called Papyrus. Well, to make a long story short, the aunt died because she was a diabetic and the cancer drugs—she had cancer—worked against the insulin she took for her diabetes.”
Gabriella gave me a long silencing look before she asked Babe, “And you sent these drugs to Marcie?”
“And so Twyman died of an insulin reaction?” asked Clover.
“Shut up, Clover,” said Gabriella. “If you hadn’t written your memoirs, none of this would have happened in the first place.”
“It was time someone called Twyman on his plagiarism,” replied Clover. “I should have done it when he first claimed For All the Wrong Reasons was his book, not mine, but oh, no, he convinced me that the public would never accept such a book from a woman.”
“The memoirs scared him,” said Marcie. “It would have ruined his career.”
“Well, bless his heart,” said Gabriella. “And what do you think it would have done to mine?”
“You were stupid, Clover,” said Babe. “And Twyman was a real jerk.”
“Then why did you take him away from me?” asked Marcie.
“Now, that wasn’t hard to do, was it?” Babe smirked.
“Tempers, tempers, ladies,” yelled Gabriella above the accusations.
It was Clover who brought the meeting to a standstill. “What happens now?” she asked.
The collected, rejected wives of the second-best-selling author in the world all turned as one to look at me.
“I won’t say a word. Honest,” I told them.
“Liar, liar, pants on fire,” whispered Babe.
FORTY–ONE
It was when Gabriella picked up her gun that I finally got scared. The exotic-looking woman seemed all business, and the business she was interested in was silencing me. It dawned on me that I could die.
As it must have to Clover.
“Wait a minute, Gabby. Don’t be so hasty, now.” And Clover pulled a small, black two-shot Derringer from her pocket.
And Gabriella shot her.
And I wet my pants.
Marcie also had a gun in her robe pocket. She aimed a Beretta seven-shot—six in the clip and one in the pipe—at Gabriella and killed her.
“Well, shit, that about cuts it for me,” said Babe as she stood and picked up Gabriella’s fallen gun. She killed Marcie without blinking an eye.
I waited for the sounds of the reverberating shots to die down, but they were still echoing in my ears as Babe turned the gun on me.
“Relax, Honey,” Babe reassured me. She put a strip of duct tape over my mouth. “Someone has to be around to tell the whole story. You’re home free.” She headed for the door. “See you in the funny papers.”
It was Silas Sampson who told me who had what gun. I didn’t know anything about guns before being shut up with the four angry women, but what I know now I will never forget.
It was also Silas Sampson who told Janie that forensics experts have proved that 20 percent of people do sleep through gunshots, even those that are shot in the same room with them. And for her not to be so devastated that she hadn’t awakened when shot after shot careened through the conference room, waking every other guest and worker at The Bargello.
Even Steven Hyatt had heard them from outside, where he waited patiently, playing with Bailey, for me to lead him to my room. Hearing the gunfire, he used his card key to open the door and ran in to find half-naked women roaming the halls. They screamed when they saw him, certain that he was the source of the mayhem. That’s why he ran down the hall shouting, “Police, police. I’m an officer.”
It took them forever to find me.
By that time, I had managed to scoot the chair on its rollers over to the door and break two of my toes hammering them against the conference room door.
Bailey had bounded in behind Steven and it was Bailey who eventually guided him down the correct corridor. He found an attendant at the conference room door. “I’m looking for Marcie. She’s not in her room.” Then he opened the door and found her.
The worker ran to Marcie, and Steven ran to me. He ripped the silver tape from my mouth. It hurt so badly, I could hardly tell him, “I think Clover is still alive.”
Steven looked around the room that smelled of gunpowder, blood, and urine, trying to identify which bloodstained white robe belonged to Clover.
“Under the table,” I said, as I indicated where I had heard someone moaning while I had battered the door.
“Jesus,” said the attendant as he surveyed the blood-spattered room.
The room filled with people, and I lost track of events after that.
Eventually, someone took me back to my room and awakened Janie, who had fallen asleep over a bowl of ice cream while waiting for Steven and me.
It was much later, way after one of the EMTs had bandaged my toes—I refused to go to the hospital—that Janie and I had a chance to talk. Bailey lay on the bed by my side; I had insisted that he not be returned to the kennel. Janie was aghast at my story. It was not with pride but with remembrance that she said, “I told you they all did it. Just like the Orient Express. I finally got one right.”
It was Janie who told the bewildered Jefferson police to call Detective Silas Sampson in Fort Worth. He arrived early in the morning, only minutes after Abbie Gardenia and her camera crew. One of them I saw, the other I declined.
FORTY–TWO
“So, who is getting the credit for actually killing Twyman?” asked Janie.
“No one. There’s no proof he was murdered. Clover threw away the report on the blood samples along with the vials before she came to The Bargello. The drugs might have been in something Marcie got him to eat before the luncheon. If the cancer drug was in the potatoes, he didn’t have time to eat them at lunch. Remember that I saw him eat his pie first. And no one actually saw Marcie give Twyman his insulin injection that morning. No one saw Marcie at all, but Elaine has confirmed she was there.”
Janie wrinkled her nose in disgust. “So, they all get away with it?”
“Janie,” I reminded her. “They’re dead. I hardly call that walking off scot-free.”
“Just the same …” she muttered.
We were at home in Fort Worth, curled up for a postmortem on the pink and green Laura Ashley quilt on my bed. Bailey stretched his long body between us, snoring soft trumpet sounds now that most of the teatime goodies h
ad been consumed. Since the massacre at The Bargello, he hadn’t wanted to get a foot away from me.
Janie sipped her hot tea gone cold and wondered, “Honey, what did Twyman mean when he asked you about someone killing him?”
“I can only imagine, Janie, but this is my guess. I think that he didn’t have a clue that the wives were plotting to murder him; I think he meant if Clover published her memoirs, he would be dead professionally. To him, fame was everything. That’s why he was so desperate to have Clover marry him again. That’s why, when he thought I was a book detective, he imagined I could help him. To have been discovered a fraud would have killed his reputation, made him a laughingstock to the public, and ruined his career. He was a desperate man, asking me for advice.”
“What an ego,” she observed.
“Yep, that’s what he boiled down to, a super ego with a humongous appetite.”
“Speaking of … do you want that last croissant?”
“No, you can have it.”
“Thanks, although I shouldn’t. I can’t believe I gained ten pounds at The Bargello. Those places aren’t all they’re cracked up to be, you know.” She buttered the croissant as she asked, “Are you going to keep the ring?”
I looked down at the pink diamond on my finger. “I don’t know. Wait. That’s not true. I am going to keep it. Clover gave it to me, and maybe it will always remind me of something.”
“Like what?”
“Hmm … pride goeth before a fall?”
“The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach?”
I concluded, “How about always eat your vegetables first?”
FORTY-THREE
I walked slowly across the field with Steven Bondesky on a cloudy, damp summer morning, a week after the tragedies in east Texas. We supported each other in our hesitant progression toward our destination.
To divert his thoughts from our chore, I asked him about the investments he had made for me. His evasive answer could have been attributed to his current state of mind, so I chattered on to distract him, but privately, I wondered if anything had happened to my money. “I made a new friend at the Bargello. Her name is Minnie. She lives in New York, and I’m going to see her there next week when I go to Steven Hyatt’s movie premiere. Then, as I told you, I’ll go from there to London to see what I can find out about Harry.”
The old man wasn’t paying a bit of attention to me. “Where are they going to bury that movie star?”
“Her friend Kevin Richardson called me last night. He’s burying her in Las Vegas. They had a home there.”
It was Kevin who had driven Babe away from The Bargello in their limousine to a prearranged destination. Babe had still been wearing her Bargello robe when the grief-stricken man had called the police to come for her body. Babe had found a Texas version of Dr. Kevorkian; she had planned her death weeks before she came to the spa. “There was no hope for her,” Kevin told me, “and she wanted to die while she still had her dignity, before she lost all her strength and independence.”
And it was Kevin who finally answered the last question I had about Twyman Towerie. “Twyman left Clover to marry Gabriella. She was the best in the business, and he wanted her to promote his book. She didn’t know until Down by the Riverside came out that he had stolen the manuscript from one of her clients. The son of a bitch had found it in her office; the client had died, and Gabriella’s secretary couldn’t find any family to return it to, and, well, somehow Twyman got hold of it and realized what a masterpiece it was. The man couldn’t write, but he did know good work when he saw it. Gabriella didn’t have anything to do with Twyman’s death, but she wasn’t unhappy that he died. It was Clover that she was afraid of. Clover’s memoirs would have ruined her business; her clients would never have trusted her again.”
The sun broke out amid the clouds, reminding Bondesky and me that summer was still with us.
I said gently, “You’re Clover’s executor. Are you going to publish her memoirs?”
He breathed an old man’s sigh of worry and regret. “I don’t know. I honestly don’t know.”
We stopped by the sassy running waters of the creek on Clover’s land, the original spot where the ranch owner had first met the man who was eventually killed by the words he claimed to have written. Bondesky opened the gold urn and, with a sudden burst of strength, sprayed the contents of the vessel high into the air.
Clover’s ashes flew into a high arc and then fell into the constantly running water, forming a gray comet on the silvery surface before disappearing into the stream.
I looked around. The field was empty. The girls had all gone home.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Margaret Moseley has been making her living as a writer since she was eighteen, beginning on the original Fort Worth Press in Fort Worth, Texas and continuing with work for ad agencies, television, and major corporations. Her stunningly original first book, Bonita Faye, was a finalist in the Edgar Award for Best New Novel and earned her wide, and richly deserved, acclaim.
Moseley was born in Durant, Oklahoma, raised in Fort Worth, Texas and for twenty years lived in Fort Smith, Arkansas. During her time in Arkansas, she was a personal friend of the Clintons and campaigned for them as an Arkansas Traveler at the time of the 1992 election.
She is the author of four additional mystery novels: Milicent LeSueur, The Fourth Steven, Grinning in His Mashed Potatoes, and A Little Traveling Music Please, all of which are being republished by Brash Books.
Moseley is married to computer guru and novelist Ron Burris. They live in Euless, Texas, with their rescued beagles Miss Sadie and Miss (The Terror) Matilda.
A LITTLE
TRAVELING
MUSIC, PLEASE
Also by Margaret Moseley from Brash Books
Bonita Faye
Milicent Le Sueur
Honey Huckleberry Thrillers
The Fourth Steven
Grinning in His Mashed Potatoes
A LITTLE
TRAVELING
MUSIC, PLEASE
MARGARET MOSELEY
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Text copyright © 1998 Margaret Moseley
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
ISBN 13: 9781732065628
Published by Brash Books, LLC
12120 State Line #253,
Leawood, Kansas 66209
www.brash-books.com
For my beloved niece and nephews
Robin
David
Mark
Steven
Kevin
and
John
YOU MUST’NT QUIT
When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you’re trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest, if you must—but never quit.
Life is queer, with its twists and turns,
As everyone of us sometimes learns,
And many a failure turns about
When he might have won if he’d stuck it out;
Stick to your task, though the pace seems slow—
You may succeed with one more blow.
Success is failure turned inside out—
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt—
And you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems afar;
So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit—
It’s when things seem worst that YOU MUSTN’T QUIT.
AUTHOR UNKNOWN
TAB
LE OF CONTENTS
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty–One
Chapter Twenty–Two
Chapter Twenty–Three
Chapter Twenty–Four
Chapter Twenty–Five
Chapter Twenty–Six
Chapter Twenty–Seven
Chapter Twenty–Eight
Chapter Twenty–Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty–One
Chapter Thirty–Two
Chapter Thirty–Three
Chapter Thirty–Four
Chapter Thirty–Five
Chapter Thirty–Six
Chapter Thirty–Seven
Chapter Thirty–Eight
Epilouge
About The Author
ONE
My dog got a key in Thursday’s mail.
It came in a soiled white envelope with no return address and a smudged cancellation mark that looked like it came from the Balkans or maybe New Jersey. It was addressed simply to Bailey with my Washington Avenue address right here in Fort Worth.
The envelope was hand-delivered by my postman, who rang the bell at my door by turning the black, old-fashioned key bell. I think he just wanted to try out the bell because he knew Bailey lived with me — was part of my household. Sam the postman had certainly feigned enough fear when he’d delivered my daily mail as Bailey had tried to catch him in the act of lifting the mail flap in the door.
The Complete Honey Huckleberry Box Set Page 35