“Wayne, I’m real sorry. This probably isn’t the best idea I’ve ever had.”
Bree busted up laughing. “Oh, sorry,” she said, bent over at the waist and trying visibly to regain her composure. “It’s not funny. I’m sorry.”
I rolled my eyes. “Look, Wayne, now that it looks like you were the murderer’s intended victim, we’ve been trying to figure out who would want you . . .” I paused, trying to think of a way to soften the blow. I couldn’t. “We’re trying to figure out who would want you dead.”
“And so you broke into my office?”
“Maybe I should explain,” Finn said, stepping to my side and placing a protective hand on my shoulder.
“Yes—,” Wayne said.
“No—,” I said at the same time.
“Oh, boy,” Bree sighed, before she began giggling again.
I glared at both my inane cousin and my patronizing . . . well, I didn’t know what to call Finn other than “patronizing.”
I squared my shoulders, took a determined breath, and pulled the Soil Systems analysis out of its envelope again.
“This look familiar?” I asked Wayne.
He crossed the room in two long strides and plucked the paper from my fingers. As he read through the contents of the report, the wrinkles in his forehead grew deeper and deeper.
“What the h-e-double-toothpicks is this?”
“It’s a chemical analysis of lawn-care products,” I said, watching Wayne’s expression closely.
He sighed in annoyance and shot me a disgruntled look. “I know that. I use these chemicals all the time. What does this have to do with the price of tea in China?”
Finn’s hand on my shoulder tightened.
“Wayne,” I explained, “that’s an analysis of the crap Eddie Collins is putting on people’s lawns. The stuff he’s calling all-natural and organic.”
Under different circumstances, I might have found Wayne’s expression of wide-eyed surprise comical. Even under the present circumstances, Bree found it hilarious. She had to sit down, she was laughing so hard.
“No kidding,” Wayne breathed, sinking slowly into one of the green armchairs. “No kidding,” he repeated a little more forcefully.
And then he started to laugh, too. “That son of a bitch,” he chuckled. “What a con man! Whoo-ee, I can’t wait for this to get out.”
A flash of realization brightened his features. “You,” he said, pointing at Finn. “You’re a reporter, right? You oughta run a story about this in the News-Letter . I’ll give you quotes and everything. And I’m gonna call Channel Eight.”
I interrupted his tirade before he could actually start drafting the press release. “Wayne, you didn’t ever see this before? It was sitting right there in your desk drawer.”
“Heck no, I never seen it before! I don’t know who stuck it in the drawer, but if I had dirt on that little weasel, I sure as heck wouldn’t keep it in my desk drawer. I’d be shouting it from the dang roof-tops.” He laughed and snapped his fingers. “I know: I’d put in on the side of all my trucks, just drive around Dalliance letting everybody know that Wayne’s is still the best lawn-and-garden service in town.”
I shot Finn an “I told you so” look, and he rewarded me with a wink of congratulations.
Still, if Wayne didn’t put the test results in his own drawer, that raised the question of who did.
“How about these?” I held up the clasp envelopes, the ones with the typed labels.
“What?” Wayne squinted at the envelopes. “Those are just odds and ends. Coupons and such.”
“Did you type up the labels?”
Wayne laughed again. “Come on, Tally. You ever know me to file anything in my whole life? I’m not one to label and organize.”
He had a point.
“So if you didn’t, who did?”
“What difference does it make?”
“Just answer the question.”
I’d miscalculated, pushed too far. Wayne drew himself up and puffed out his chest. “Do I have to remind you that I found the three of you breaking into my office? I should call the cops on you. I certainly won’t take orders from you.”
Bree, whose giggle fit had subsided to a lopsided smile, stepped in to smooth the waters. “Aw, come on, Wayne. You gotta admit we pretty much made your day with that news about Eddie Collins. Maybe your week. You wouldn’t call the cops on us after that.”
Mollified, Wayne grumbled. “No, I don’t suppose I would. But I’d still like to know what the Sam Hill is going on here. What difference does it make who did my filing?”
I couldn’t see much point in trying to dance around the truth. “Someone was trying to blackmail Eddie Collins. Someone using Weed and Seed letterhead, and someone who typed the blackmail note on an actual typewriter. Just like someone typed these labels.”
Wayne’s expression grew closed, and I could tell he was chewing on something, trying to decide what to tell me and what to withhold. Finally, he looked at me, narrow eyed and considering. “Can we talk in private? Without them two,” he added, indicating Finn and Bree.
I looked up at Finn. His lips were pressed tight and his brows were bold slashes above his soft green eyes. He did not want to leave. I wasn’t sure whether he didn’t want to miss the scoop or didn’t want to leave me alone with Wayne. Loyalty and opportunity looked pretty much the same right then.
“Finn, could you take Bree out for some air?” I handed him my key ring. “You two can sit in the van and listen to the radio. I’ll just be a minute.”
“Come on, big fella,” Bree purred. “Why don’t you show a lady a good time?”
“What, you see a lady around here?” Finn quipped, hooking his arm through Bree’s. They both laughed, tipping their heads together like old chums, and headed toward the door. But before they disappeared down the hallway, Finn looked back over his shoulder and raised his eyebrows meaningfully. Despite everything, I felt a smile tug at my lips. If I got in a jam, Finn had my back.
When the door clicked shut behind them, and Wayne and I were alone, he leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees and clasping his hands.
He blew out a long stream of air before he spoke. “Brittanie was getting me organized. She’s the one who put together those files. She was going to do a bunch more, too. But that doesn’t mean anything. Just because Brittanie typed up these files doesn’t mean she typed up that note you’re talking about.”
His defense of Brittanie was touching. I wondered if he would have defended me like that. Probably. Wayne wasn’t faithful, but he could be loyal to a fault. It was a distinction I was only then coming to appreciate.
“Wayne,” I said softly, coming around the desk and perching on the other armchair so I could meet him face-to-face, “it’s quite a coincidence, don’t you think? That the blackmail letter and the folders were typed rather than printed, that the subject of the blackmail was in one of those typed envelopes . . .”
“Yeah. Guess so.” He stared off into the corner of the room, his face a picture of misery. “It just doesn’t make any sense,” he said. “Brittanie and I talked about Eddie. We talked about adding an earth-friendly line of products and services so we could take away his competitive advantage. You know, the service and reliability of Wayne’s Weed and Seed but better for the environment.” I could almost hear Brittanie’s earnest voice uttering the words, the whole enterprise like one big business school class project.
“She was all set to take on the competition above-board,” Wayne added. “Why would she blackmail him?” His Adam’s apple slid up and down his throat, and his voice was tight with emotion. “Why wouldn’t she tell me about it?”
“I don’t know, Wayne.” I rested a hand on his arm, patting and stroking it gently, as if I were soothing a fussy baby.
He sniffed. “And going all the way across town to the Zeta offices just to hide it from me? Dammit, Tally, didn’t she trust me?”
My hand froze on Wayne’s arm.
/> “What?”
“What do you mean, ‘what’?” he said peevishly.
“What’s this about the Zeta house?”
“That’s where the typewriter is.” He spoke slowly, as though I were some sort of half-wit. “We don’t have a real typewriter anymore. Not since I got the computer system back in ’ninety-eight.”
“She typed up your file folders at the Zeta office?”
He nodded, a “this isn’t rocket science” look on his face.
“Didn’t that seem a little weird to you, Wayne? Why not make the file labels right here?”
Wayne shrugged. “Brit has an ink-jet printer in her office.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the office door and the hallway beyond. “But it’s older than dirt, and it can’t handle much more than paper. The file labels she bought, and those big envelopes, they kept getting gummed up in the works. So she took them over to the Zeta alumni offices where they have an honest-to-God typewriter. She was over there all the time, anyway. It was no big deal.”
My brain was racing a mile a minute. Wayne was absolutely right. This didn’t make sense. I could see why Brittanie would use the Zeta typewriter for the labels and envelopes, but why would she haul letterhead across town to type a note that could easily be run through the printer? If she wanted to keep her activities secret, she risked far more exposure typing the letter around a gaggle of sorority sisters rather than printing it in the privacy of her office. And if she was more concerned with keeping the whole affair secret from Wayne, why would she label the blackmail file—however cryptically—and leave it in his desk drawer?
A convoluted theory started to form in my mind, one that seemed ridiculous but fit with all the bits and pieces too well to be dismissed out of hand.
What if someone wanted to kill Wayne, but wanted to deflect suspicion away onto someone else? Maybe the real killer concocted this whole scheme to make it look as if Wayne were blackmailing Eddie . . . so when the cops found out about the fake shake-down, they would focus on Eddie as a suspect.
Crazy?
Heck, yeah. But I was starting to think that every last man, woman, and child in Dalliance, Texas, was crazier than a peach-orchard boar.
If I was right, that meant the killer had to be someone with access to the Zeta house and someone who was at the luau. Deena Silver spent a lot of time at the Zeta house planning their various events, and she could easily have tampered with Wayne’s food at the luau. But she wasn’t a Zeta, herself, and it would be strange for her to use the typewriter. Besides, she might have had a reason to knock off Brittanie, but I couldn’t see any motive for her to kill Wayne.
The only other person I could think of was JoAnne Simms. The whole thing just kept coming back to her. Maybe, despite all her rage at Brit for taking up with Wayne, she still harbored hopes of rekindling her romance with the younger woman. And Wayne stood in the way.
Besides, JoAnne had inside information that very few people possessed. As the owner of Sinclair’s, she would have known that Wayne bought an engagement ring. The possibility of an impending engagement might have been enough to push her over the edge.
As motives went, it still seemed a little weak, but it was all I had at the time. And I couldn’t afford to dance with JoAnne Simms anymore. I needed to confront her fair and square.
“Tally?” Wayne was waving his hand in front of my face. “Lord, girl, you were a million miles away. What are you thinking?”
I jumped up, grabbed my purse, and headed out. “I was thinking, Wayne,” I called back over my shoulder, “that you better watch your back.”
chapter 24
I slipped into the softly padded hush of Sinclair’s Jewelry like a sinner late for church. And like a rosary or a hymnal, my purse with the secret stash was clutched tight in my hands; it held the digital recorder Alice used to tape her lectures and the heaviest ice-cream spade we had lying around the A-la-mode. I wanted evidence—a confession, ideally—but I was prepared to defend myself if need be.
JoAnne Simms appeared to be the only person working that Friday afternoon, and she was busy waiting on a man in a rumpled suit. His pants needed hemming, and the attaché case at his feet was battered, but his hair was neatly combed and his shirt smartly pressed. He looked like an accountant or a lawyer, the kind of guy who has an office upstairs from an appliance repair store and who types his own letters. Professional, but not especially prosperous.
A slight shift in JoAnne’s body language, nothing more than a straightening of her shoulders and a tip of her chin, let me know she was aware of my entrance, but she never let her attention waver from her customer.
Quite the contrary, from where I stood, she seemed to be completely entranced by him. And if Deena was right about JoAnne’s sexual preferences, the woman was quite an actress. She gazed up at the man through demurely lowered lashes, as though she had a delicious secret to tell. She caressed the velvet tray with the very tips of her French-manicured fingers, long, languorous strokes. She laughed, a throaty shiver of sound, then lifted a glittering diamond tennis bracelet and draped it over her own delicate wrist. A small gesture, the spare, elegant move of a geisha, set the bracelet undulating, catching the light in a shower of sparks.
He nodded, and JoAnne sighed happily, a sated smile softening her mouth.
As he fished out a credit card to hand her, she caught my eye, raising her eyebrows in silent greeting, a flash of humor in her heavily lashed eyes. I felt like a voyeur, caught in the bushes with my binoculars in hand, but I managed a brief smile in response.
I watched as JoAnne wrote out a receipt in an old-fashioned carbon receipt book, ran the card through the scanner, and stapled the merchant copy from the card reader to the yellow page in her receipt book. The man tucked his copies of the receipts and the oblong velvet box in his lapel pocket, picked up his attaché case, and turned to go. He stood straighter now, head high, a cocky swagger in his step as though he were wearing Armani instead of off-the-rack Men’s Wearhouse.
When the glass door whooshed shut behind him, I approached JoAnne. She was tiny—if I’d stood close enough, her Texas-teased hair would have just brushed the tip of my nose—and perfectly made-up. Her delicate garnet cashmere sweater set off the luminous pearls at her throat and her gardenia-blossom skin, and the soft light of the store blended away the fine lines that normally framed her eyes.
“Well, Tallulah Jones, as I live and breathe,” she gushed in an over-the-top Southern belle simper.
“Hey, JoAnne.” I nodded toward the door. “Who’s your friend?”
She frowned, following my line of sight, then laughed softly. “Oh, just a customer.”
I must have looked skeptical, because she laughed louder. “Really,” she insisted.
I cocked my head. “Huh. Looked like you knew each other pretty well.”
She gave me a teasing wink. “Most of my customers are men, buying gifts. They don’t care about bracelets and earrings. They care about grateful wives and girlfriends. So that’s what I sell them. I show them how wearing diamonds and gold makes me feel and let them imagine their own sweethearts having the same reaction. Works like a charm.”
She shrugged. “Sales are about seduction, right?”
“Guess so,” I muttered.
Maybe that was what I’d been doing wrong with Remember the A-la-mode. I had been selling ice cream—or trying to—when maybe I should have been selling how ice cream made me feel.
I made a mental note to talk over a more seductive marketing strategy with Bree. If anyone knew how to sex it up, it would be Bree.
“So, Tally, I’ve been expecting you.”
“Really?” I asked, genuinely surprised.
JoAnne waved her hand dismissively. “You’ve been sniffing around me like a lost pup for the last week. I figured, eventually, you’d come scratching at my door.”
When I walked through the door, I knew my only advantages were surprise and sheer audacity. Now it appeared I ha
d somehow played right into JoAnne’s hands.
“Listen,” she said, “why don’t we sit. I’m exhausted, and I imagine this is going to take a while.”
She gestured that I should follow her around the display cases and into the back of the store. As I rounded the big glass and brass box, I expected to see JoAnne wearing wildly impractical stiletto heels, but she actually wore pristine white cross-trainers.
I looked up to find her watching me. She shrugged. “This”—she indicated her perfect hair, perfect face, and perfect outfit—“is all people can see from that side of the counter. I may as well let my feet be comfortable.”
As she led me through a short hallway lined with sleek black-and-white landscape photos, I started to get a little nervous. If I was right—if JoAnne had tried to kill Wayne to win back Brittanie—it might not be the smartest move ever to follow her down a deserted hallway. “Don’t you need to stay out front?” I asked.
“No. The door has a sensor. If someone opens it, we’ll hear a chime back in the office. Most afternoons, I can get all the paperwork taken care of and still have time to watch my soaps.”
The office was as utilitarian as the showroom was posh. A simple aluminum desk and wooden banker’s chair dominated the space, with a smaller table bearing a boxy monitor and CPU tower set at a ninety-degree angle. A couple of black filing cabinets, a bookshelf crammed with binders and a portable television, and two molded-plastic side chairs completed the office suite.
“Have a seat.”
I settled myself into one of the plastic guest chairs while JoAnne slid behind the desk and folded her forearms on the desk blotter. Immediately I realized what she’d done. On the showroom floor, she was a diminutive employee, but now, in the office, the height differential had been erased and she was the one in a position of power.
Negotiating has never been my strong suit, but I knew I needed to regain my footing, throw her offkilter.
“JoAnne, did you try to kill Wayne at the Weed and Seed luau?”
Her facial muscles twitched and her eyebrows shot up to her hairline, and finally she started to laugh. “What? Of course not! Why on earth would I want to kill Wayne Jones?”
I Scream, You Scream Page 19