“Whatever.”
Deena met my gaze and rolled her eyes. “Crystal is still young enough to believe the whole world revolves around her. She just can’t believe that I would fall head over heels for a balding horse rancher, and that his willingness to pay her exorbitant college tuition was just icing on the cake.”
“Mom, can we drop this now?”
Alice squirmed uncomfortably beside me. I felt awful for inadvertently raising such a painful subject. Worse, I was worried I had alienated Crystal before I even got around to asking her about the luau.
“I’m sorry I mentioned the scholarship,” I said.
Alice sucked in a horrified gasp; her adolescent logic dictated that apologizing for something only drew more attention to it and made it worse. But Crystal offered me a shy smile. “Don’t worry about it. You couldn’t possibly know that I lost the scholarship, and just about everything else I ever wanted, to my nemesis.”
I almost laughed at the idea of this sweet-faced girl having a nemesis, but I noticed that Deena had tensed up, her smile frozen, the knuckles of her folded hands stark beneath the skin.
Crystal, blithely unaware of her mother’s discomfort, gave a rueful chuckle. “I guess I’m going to hell for calling her my nemesis now that she’s dead. But, honestly, she beat me out for every scholarship and internship I applied for.”
And that was when it hit me that Crystal and Brittanie would have been in the same class. Brittanie got the Regents’ Scholarship instead of Crystal, and Crystal must have applied for at least one of the internships that Brittanie had—either the one at Sinclair’s, or the one at the mayor’s office, or both.
“I, uh, I hear you’re getting married,” I said, trying awkwardly to steer the conversation to more neutral territory. I didn’t want Deena to think I was trying to trick them into incriminating themselves.
Crystal’s face lit up like a Roman candle. “Yes, the wedding’s in July. Jason’s a second-year law student at Texas Tech.”
“And you’re thinking of law school, too?”
“Yeah. I’m going to wait until next year to apply, though. That way, Jason will be graduated and can support us while I get my degree.”
“That sounds like a good plan,” I said.
“Ha. Tell that to my mom.” Crystal jerked her chin in Deena’s direction.
Deena’s smile softened. “I just don’t want you waiting in line to live your life. Why should you waste time sitting on the sidelines?”
“I’m not wasting time,” Crystal insisted. She began ticking off her activities on her fingers. “I’m studying for the LSAT, and I’m going to intern at the DA’s office in the spring, and I’m making money to pay for the wedding—”
“Making money doing menial labor,” Deena interrupted. “You’re too smart to be waiting tables and babysitting.”
“Yeah,” I said, “your mom told me you were waiting tables at the Weed and Seed luau.” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Deena stiffen again. “I can’t imagine you want to spend much more of your life wearing a stupid grass skirt.”
Crystal grimaced and inhaled a hissing breath through her teeth. “True, that was not exactly ‘fun.’ But it was money. And it honestly wouldn’t have been so bad if everyone hadn’t been so drunk.”
“Really? Alice and I stayed pretty close to our van, so we didn’t get to see much of the action.”
She shook her head in disgust. “Half the guests were drunk when they got there, and I swear they might as well have slapped nipples on the margarita machine. Both Mrs. Paolino and Mrs. Jillson brought their own flasks—like no one would notice,” she added with a smirk. “And the mayor put his hand on my ass. I don’t think it was an accident.”
Beside me, Alice snorted. “That’s gross. And they say kids can’t hold their booze.”
Crystal and Alice exchanged a high five across the table.
“I’m sorry I missed all the fun.” I shot an apologetic glance at Deena, who was glaring back at me. She’d clearly caught on that I was milking her daughter for information, and she was none too happy about it. I hated testing the limits of our new friendship like this, but I really wanted to know what Crystal saw at the luau. “I heard JoAnne Simms got wasted, too, and started calling people names.”
Crystal took a long pull on her drink, then used the straw to break up the crushed ice in the bottom of the cup. Her lips twitched in a wicked little smile. “I only heard her talking trash about Brittanie. And I don’t think that was the liquor talking.”
“No?”
“Oh, no. JoAnne Simms was sober as a judge. Flat-out called Brittanie a slut.” Her gentle features scrunched up in confusion. “Or maybe it was a bimbo?” She waved away her own question. “Whatever. She definitely thought Brittanie was a ho-bag.”
That confirmed what Finn told me the night of the luau, but it didn’t provide any new insights. And I was reluctant to push harder. After all, this was supposed to be a friendly conversation, not an inquisition.
Then Alice earned her double onion rings by asking, “Why? Do you think Brittanie was sleeping with Mr. Simms?”
Deena surprised me by laughing. “Brittanie with Garrett Simms? I don’t think so.”
“Why not?” I asked with a wry smile. “She seemed to like older men.”
“Doesn’t matter what Brittanie liked.” Deena leaned in and dropped her voice to a stage whisper. “Garrett Simms is as queer as a three-dollar bill.”
“No,” I gasped.
Deena nodded, eyebrows raised. “My friend Simon says Garrett’s always out at Maudie McGee’s chatting up the college boys.”
Alice appeared both fascinated and confused. If I had been a better aunt, I would have sent her to the counter to buy dessert instead of letting her listen to such adult gossip. But with Bree as her mother, Alice hadn’t led a particularly sheltered life, so I figured, what the hey? “I thought Maudie McGee’s was a bowling alley,” she said.
Crystal pursed her lips, clearly eager to demonstrate how worldly she was. “It is a bowling alley. And it’s also a gay bar.”
“Huh,” Alice said.
“So why would JoAnne think Brittanie was a slut?” I asked.
“Maybe because she was a slut?” Crystal offered.
“Crystal Louise Tompkins,” her mother chided.
“Come on, Mom. She totally was a slut.”
Deena drew herself up and pressed her lips together, her expression as prim and disapproving as a schoolmarm’s. “There are many unpleasant truths in this world, young lady, but you do not have to call attention to all of them.”
“Yes, but Mrs. Jones asked.”
I felt the heat of a blush spread across my face. “I was just curious,” I said meekly.
Deena reached across the table and patted my hand. “Of course you were, dear,” she said. “But if I had to hazard a guess, I’d say JoAnne was angry about Brittanie and Wayne.”
I shook my head. “JoAnne Simms and I barely know each other. Why would she care if Brittanie was romantic with Wayne? Unless . . . oh.”
“What?” Alice asked impatiently.
“Unless . . .” I cleared my throat. “Unless JoAnne had an affair with Wayne, too.”
Deena pulled a face. “I suppose anything is possible,” she said. “But I was thinking more of JoAnne and Brittanie.”
Alice giggled. “This is twisted.”
“Seriously,” Crystal said. “Doesn’t anyone in this town have any morals? It sounds like everybody is sleeping with everybody.”
“Not me,” Alice said glumly, and she and Crystal giggled like little girls.
Deena ignored them. “I’ve catered enough Zeta luncheons to know that JoAnne, well, she appreciates women. But she comes from old Dalliance money, and her parents expected her to take over the family business, so it’s not like she could move someplace more accepting of alternative lifestyles.” She shrugged. “I guess she and Garrett Simms have a pretty good arrangement.”
Our l
ittle group grew silent. I shifted in my seat, trying to figure out how to get more information without being obvious about my intentions. Finally, Deena took pity on me.
“Listen, Tally, I know you’re trying to figure out who poisoned Brittanie.” Crystal sat up straight, her eyes as wide as the Texas prairie, mouth a comical little O of surprise. “So why don’t we cut through the bullshit and you ask what you want to ask?”
“Really?” Crystal breathed. “You’re investigating a murder?”
Beside me, Alice leaned back and nodded. “Cool, huh?”
“Totally!” Crystal leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table, all business. “Do you think I can help?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Were you working the table where Wayne and Brittanie were sitting? Did you see what Brittanie ate?”
Crystal shook her head. “Laura Ortiz worked that table. But Brittanie never ate anything. At least, not in public.”
Deena rolled her eyes and pantomimed sticking her finger down her throat.
“What about the ice cream and the sundae topping?” I asked. “Did you see Laura serve Wayne his red cups of dessert sauce?”
Crystal thought for a moment. “Actually, yeah. That was sort of weird. I was in the staging area, and I saw a tray with two dishes of ice cream and four of the red cups just sitting on a tray stand, and then Laura skulked around from behind the Porta-Johns to pick it up. I snapped at her about leaving the ice cream just sitting there, because it would melt.”
She looked over at her mom. “She said she needed a cigarette. That she couldn’t handle all the drunken assholes without some nicotine.”
Deena’s nostrils pinched tight. “My servers are not supposed to smoke during their shifts,” she said to me.
Crystal shrugged. “Anyway, she said Mr. Jones wouldn’t care if the ice cream was melted because he was so drunk. He’d been throwing back margaritas all night.” She cocked her head to one side. “Then I saw Laura again, not ten minutes later, with another tray of desserts including three or four more of the red cups. I got a little short with her, said apparently Mr. Jones did care about the melty ice cream. But she said, no, he already ate the first batch and wanted more.
“Laura said Mr. Jones was sort of a pig.” She threw a sheepish grimace my way. “No offense.”
“None taken, dear.”
Crystal’s story didn’t shed much light on how Brittanie might have died, but it confirmed my assertion that my sundaes were not the vehicle for the poison. After all, if Wayne ate seven or eight portions of the topping and didn’t get sick, then clearly it was perfectly fine.
“This is a pretty vague question,” I said, “but did you see anyone acting weird that night? Maybe loitering near Brittanie’s margaritas?”
“Oh, no,” Crystal said, “Brittanie wasn’t drinking. She never drinks alcohol. Too many calories.”
“Never?” Alice asked, a thoughtful frown wrinkling her broad brow.
“Never,” Crystal confirmed with an emphatic shake of her head.
“Okay. How about anyone just hanging around looking out of place?”
The young woman scrunched up her face in thought. “No. Not really. Just that one guy.”
“What guy?” Deena and I asked simultaneously.
Crystal shrugged. “I don’t know his name. He’s just this guy. Skinny, kind of skeevy looking, black hair. Looks like a stoner, but he’s old.”
Deena’s face lit with recognition. “Eddie Collins. Creepy little guy.”
Crystal glanced down at the trim silver watch adorning her wrist. “Oh, crap, I have to run. All my maids are meeting me for the fitting, so I don’t want to be late.” She looked up at me with soulful, earnest eyes. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be more help, Mrs. Jones. I didn’t like Brittanie very much, but I hope they figure out who killed her. That wasn’t cool at all.”
“You helped more than you know,” I said, even though I didn’t mean it, as Deena and Crystal scooted out of the booth. “We’ll have to do this again sometime.”
“Next time, without the felonies,” Deena said, then winked at me to soften the retort.
As I watched them leave, and Alice ordered a couple of chocolate-dipped cones to go, I felt as though I had taken one step forward and two steps back. Eddie Collins, Wayne’s newest competitor in the lawn-care business, might have had a beef with Wayne—though Eddie’s organic lawn-care alternative seemed to be pretty popular and he had just gotten into the business the summer before, so it was hard to imagine too much bad blood between the men—but I hadn’t gotten even a whiff of a connection between Brittanie and Eddie.
Apparently, I still had some digging to do.
chapter 19
Driving with an ice-cream cone is no easy feat, and it’s dang near impossible to juggle a cone, a minivan, and a cell phone all at the same time. So when my cell rang as I merged onto FM 410, I handed Alice my ice cream with a stern “lick that and die” glare.
“It’ll drip,” Alice complained.
“Fine. Then see if you can get the phone to do that speaker thing.”
Alice made a sound of sheer disgust at my technological ignorance, but she pulled my phone out of my purse, flipped it open, and pressed some button so that I could hear the open line from across the car.
“Hello?” I said.
“Hello, Tallulah Jones.”
Jesus Christ on a crutch, not again.
“Hey, Cal.”
“Listen, Tally, I think you need to come back in and have a chat with me. See, the lab boys have now found four red plastic containers and six red plastic lids, all with antifreeze on them. And, well, we haven’t found any antifreeze anywhere else in that whole big mountain of trash.” He paused a beat to let that information sink in. I glanced over at Alice and saw that she’d gone as pale as fresh cream, her mouth hanging open.
“Tally,” Cal said, “we’ve crossed the line from coincidence to highly suspicious, wouldn’t you say?”
I had a hard time saying anything, since I couldn’t quite catch my breath. Finally I choked out a reply. “That’s real interesting, Cal.”
There was another beat of silence, nothing but the faint hiss of my tires on the road and the empty ether of the phone line.
“Tally? We go way back.” All the teasing and innuendo had disappeared from Cal’s voice, and he sounded deadly serious. “If you have something to say, it might be good to say it on your terms. But bring a lawyer with you.”
“Okay,” I said softly, ashamed at the tremor in my voice.
“Take my advice, Tally. Because you’re no longer a person of interest. You’re a full-on suspect now.”
“Thanks for letting me know, Cal.” I meant it. I didn’t know much about law enforcement, but I suspected Cal was going out on a limb to warn me about how the investigation was progressing. We’d never dated in high school, and I think he flirted with me then more to annoy Finn than because he was really interested, but clearly that bond meant something to him, and I was grateful.
The line went dead, and Alice flipped the phone closed.
Neither one of us said anything for a few minutes. I was trying to figure out how to downplay what she’d just heard, make her feel secure, but all the lipstick in the world couldn’t gussy up that pig.
“Aunt Tally?”
“Yeah, baby.”
“I’m writing a paper about Brittanie’s death.”
I jerked so hard that my ice cream went flying, a big blob of white goo landing right in my lap.
“You’re what?” I asked, certain I hadn’t heard her correctly. I pulled over to the side of the road, while the drivers flying past honked and flipped me the bird. No way could I drive under those circumstances.
Alice fished around on the floor for a plastic grocery bag, dumped her half-eaten cone inside, and held it open so I could dump mine. Then she handed me a handful of paper napkins from inside the glove compartment.
As I cleaned up my pants, she explained.
>
“We have to write a term paper in physiology. I decided to do my paper on ethylene glycol poisoning and how it affects the metabolic processes. Professor Carter said it was a great topic.” She lifted one shoulder. “Of course, he doesn’t know why I picked it, but, oh, well.”
“That sounds interesting,” I said, not sure where this little revelation was heading.
“I’ve learned a lot about how antifreeze kills people.”
I shuddered, at both the gruesome nature of my baby girl’s research and the utter calm with which she described it.
“Crystal said that Laura Ortiz gave Uncle Wayne, like, six or seven servings of the sundae topping. But you said Uncle Wayne was on a diet, and really trying to cut back on his desserts. So that doesn’t really make sense.”
I smiled. “Uncle Wayne wouldn’t be the first person to cheat on his diet.”
Alice’s expression remained perfectly serious. “No, you’re right. Maybe he cheated and ate all that ice cream. Or maybe Brittanie—who pretended she never ate dessert but binged in private—maybe she took a bunch of Uncle Wayne’s dessert, and that’s why he had to ask for more. And if Laura Ortiz left her trays sitting around while she went off to smoke, anyone could have monkeyed with the cups.”
“But I still don’t see how it could have been the sundaes. Uncle Wayne definitely ate some of the ice cream—he told me later how much he liked it—but he didn’t get sick.”
Alice nodded slowly. “Well, see, here’s the thing. Ethylene glycol itself isn’t lethal. But in the body, it breaks down into different chemicals that are lethal. They create a condition called metabolic acidosis. Which basically just means your blood is too acidic. And that’s what causes your whole body to shut down.
“From what I’ve read, Brittanie Brinkman already had a bunch of strikes against her. There are other reasons your blood can be too acidic. One, called lactic acidosis, you can get from crazy amounts of exercise. And another, ketoacidosis, you get when your body starts to break down its own muscles because you don’t eat enough.”
Wow. “So if Brittanie had a severe eating disorder and was starving herself and overexercising, her blood was already wonky,” I said.
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