Ladies' Circle of Murder (A Lacy Steele Mystery Book 8)

by Vanessa Gray Bartal

  The deputy cleared his throat a couple of times before answering. “He won’t hear it from me,” he said, and she believed him. Regardless of whether he was only doing his job, Jason wouldn’t be happy with the man who brought in his pantless girlfriend. And a righteously indignant Jason was a fearsome thing.

  They arrived at the sheriff’s station. He drove around to the back.

  “You’re taking me through the jail?” she said, abashed.

  “Policy,” he said.

  She squeezed the bridge of her nose and tried not to cry. The jail was for criminals and drunks, not hapless business owners who fell off a fence and lost their pants.

  He opened the car door for her. She considered refusing to get out, but given his strict adherence to the rules, he would probably pull out his Taser and zap her. There was no need to add loss of bladder control to the situation.

  Gingerly, she eased from the car and followed him inside. Maybe if she kept her head down, no one would recognize her.

  “Lacy!” Travis’s voice seemed to come from everywhere. He was the one manning the doors and operating the radio. He must have pressed the speaker button by accident when he saw her because her name echoed around the jail and through each deputy’s collar radio. She winced as a few men in the holding cell woke up and started to make catcalls.

  Travis intercepted them on the long march through the jail. “Lacy, are you okay?”

  She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

  “What happened?”

  She shrugged.

  He shoved an orange ball of something into her hands. They unfurled as she looked down. Prisoner pants. Was that better than no pants? She wasn’t sure, but she stepped into them, holding Travis’s arm to keep her balance.

  “It was the only size I could find,” he explained.

  They were acres too big. Either she could maintain a constant hand on her waist to keep the pants from falling, or she could hike them up over her chest. She chose the latter, not caring at this point how ridiculous she looked. At least she was covered now.

  “I have no more words,” Travis said.

  Neither did she. She wanted nothing more than to go home, bury herself under the covers, and forget this night had ever happened. But that wasn’t to be, and she knew exactly where the deputy was taking her.

  He led her to an interview room, showed her inside, and left her alone, the door firmly closed behind him. Lacy didn’t have to wait very long. Detective Arroyo was so excited she was surprised he didn’t show up still in his pajamas.

  “Well, Lacy,” he said, his tone affable.

  “Detective,” she said, nodding coolly. Let him think she wasn’t affected by this. He needn’t know this was one of the worst nights of her life. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

  “Nice pants,” he said.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “Although I’ve never thought redheads could pull off orange. Too much clashing.”

  “I didn’t realize you were a fashion maven. Should I run all my outfits by you?” she asked.

  He didn’t like that. His happy smile slipped as he sat down. “Breaking and entering is a serious offense, as I’m sure you know.”

  “Good thing that wasn’t what I was doing,” she said.

  He quirked an eyebrow. “Oh? What were you doing? Because, I have to say, it doesn’t look good. Scaling the fence of a private business after hours, a business that you were warned to stay away from, that’s big. Might be a felony. And I don’t think your so-called press credentials will work as a get-out-of-jail-free card.”

  “I was simply retrieving personal property,” she said.

  “Hoskins was working on your car?” he asked.

  “No, my mother’s car.”

  “Then that’s hardly your personal property.”

  “I was trying to help her out. I didn’t want the car to become bogged down in the investigation. It’s a stressful time for our family. My mother is here from Florida because my sister is due to deliver her baby any day.”

  “And that’s your excuse for breaking into a car lot?”

  “You’ve obviously never met my mother,” she said.

  “What’s that supposed to mean,” he said.

  “It means that she’s been putting a lot of pressure on me since her arrival. She wanted her car, so I was trying to get her car. It seemed like the thing to do at the time.”

  “And all this had nothing to do with your investigation into Bob Hoskins death,” he said.

  “How would it? How could my mother’s car possibly connect to a dead man, even a man who was most likely murdered?” she said.

  He smacked his palm on the table. “He wasn’t murdered. Stop saying that. You’re going to start rumors.”

  “Have you looked into the possibility? Have you even considered that his death might not have been an accident?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said, surprising her. “And you know what we found? The guy was a peach. Everyone loved him. He paid his taxes and gave to charity.”

  “His ex-wife didn’t think he was great. She was angry.”

  “An ex-wife who was angry? Wow, that’s groundbreaking stuff. Maybe they’ll make a movie about it. You know what bugs me about you, Lacy?”

  “Do we have time for the whole list?” she asked.

  “It’s that you think you’re smarter. You think you’re the cleverest person in the room, that I’m too dumb to look at a case objectively and see all the evidence. Well, sweetheart, I’ve been doing this job a long time, and I’m good at it. There was no evidence of foul play here. You’re looking for something that doesn’t exist. So if you want to keep at it, then go ahead. But stay away from me, and stay away from my scene or the next time I find you without pants in a parking lot, I’ll draw up indecency charges and flash them all over this town. Think about how that would go over for your little Stakely building and downtown rejuvenation project.” He didn’t wait for her to reply. Instead he stood and slammed from the room.

  Things could have gone much, much worse. He had let her off easy, and a part of her begrudged him for that. She didn’t want to feel grateful to Detective Arroyo. On the other hand, neither did she want a criminal record. Did he have a point, though? Did she so badly want to be right about Bob Hoskins that she was chasing the wind? Maybe. But regardless of whether or not she believed he was murdered, she had promised Len that she would cover his death and write an article. She would still do that, but she would do it objectively, as a good reporter should. She would find out about the man and write a proper obituary. And if she found out his shady connection to her mother in the process, more would be the better.

  When no one came for her, Lacy decided she was free to go. She reached in her shirt and pulled her phone out of her bra. Since rescuing it from what remained of her pants, she had nowhere else to put it. Holding it in her hands hadn’t seemed like a good idea. Officer McRuleFollower might have confiscated it, had he known she had it. Now she was safe to use it again, and she had no idea who to call. All of her go-to people were out of town—Jason, her grandfather, Tosh, Michael. Travis was at work, Riley was too big to fit behind the wheel of a car, and her mother was out of the question. That left Kimber.

  “Do you know what time it is?” Kimber asked as soon as she picked up her phone.

  “No,” Lacy said. She pulled the phone away and looked at the time. It was after midnight.

  “This had better be important,” Kimber said.

  “Could you pick me up at the jail?” Lacy said.

  There were a few beats of silence and then, “Girl,” before Kimber hung up.

  Twenty minutes later, she was there. “Thanks,” Lacy said.

  “What did they do to you?” Kimber asked, aghast.

  Lacy looked down at herself. Bruises were spreading all over her arms, mingling from the road rash from her fence dive. “Dodgeball,” she explained. Now that she remembered her injuries, they stung.

&n
bsp; “You wear those pants for dodgeball?” Kimber asked.

  “It’s a long story,” Lacy said. “One I would rather not go into tonight.” She took a step toward the door, but Kimber hailed her back.

  “When you said you were at the jail, I didn’t know what you meant. I thought you might need bail money, and I don’t have that kind of money.”

  Uh-oh. “What did you do?”

  “I brought Riley.”

  Lacy relaxed. “Oh, that’s fine.” Her sister would get a laugh out of the incident, one that would last for many years, but that was okay.

  “Yes, well, unfortunately Riley laughed so loud that it woke up the rest of the house.”

  Lacy froze. “Kimber, is my mom out there?”

  “A little bit. What are you doing?” she asked when Lacy turned around and began heading toward the jail.

  “I’m going to see if I can get them to keep me until after the baby is born,” Lacy said.

  Kimber grabbed her arm. “Come on, it won’t be that bad.”

  “Have you met my mother?”

  “I meant it won’t be that bad for me. You’re on your own, but I’m tired and ready to go, so get outside and face your mother like a grownup.”

  “See, this is why I don’t normally call you in the middle of the night. It’s because you’re cranky, and you’ve been this way since college. Remember when you kicked me because I woke you sophomore year?”

  “That was a public service. You were snoring loud enough to bring down a plane,” Kimber said.

  “My sinuses were blocked by pollen,” Lacy said.

  “I’m about to pollinate something if you don’t get outside,” Kimber threatened.

  “Okay, geez, grumpy.” Maybe her mother would have compassion on her for all she had been through that night. She took a breath, pushed open the door, and hoped for the best.

  Chapter 8

  “No pants, Lacy. No pants!”

  “I know, Mom, I was there,” Lacy said. Kimber dropped them at Riley’s house and took off before the fireworks could start. Riley was doing her best to stay awake for the conversation, but she kept nodding off and smacking her face against the side of the recliner where she sat.

  “I’ll never be able to show my face here again,” Frannie said.

  “What does any of this have to do with you?” Lacy asked.

  “I’m the woman who raised you so poorly that you gallivant in public with no pants on,” Frannie said.

  “I did not gallivant. I fell off a fence,” Lacy said.

  Frannie gave her a look. “Is that supposed to make it better?”

  “I did it for you,” Lacy said.

  “For me?” Frannie screeched, and Riley startled awake again. “Well, thank you very much. Don’t bother to send a mother’s day gift because I’ll always have this to remember.”

  “I was trying to get your car. You asked me to look into it, remember?”

  “And you somehow interpreted that as ‘take off my pants and get picked up by the police,’” Frannie said.

  “I did not take off my pants! I fell out of my pants!” Lacy yelled.

  Riley spoke up. “I’m trying not to take a side here, but that doesn’t make it better.”

  “Honestly, what were you thinking?” Frannie said, and not for the first time.

  “I was thinking that I didn’t want my mother to get dragged into a death investigation,” Lacy said.

  “What are you talking about?” Frannie asked.

  “I’m talking about the fact that I saw you coming out of Bob Hoskins’ repair shop, Mom. I saw you. That’s the reason I stopped, it’s why I was the one who found him dead. Although I wasn’t, was I? Because you found him first.”

  Riley was wide awake now. “Is that true, Mom?”

  “Of course it’s not true,” Frannie said.

  “Really, Mom? So I just imagined you coming out of the shop that night?”

  “You must have made a mistake,” Frannie said.

  “A mistake? I mistook Riley’s car parked outside the shop? I mistook my own mother sneaking from the shop and getting in Riley’s car?”

  “This is a fruitless, ridiculous conversation. I’m going to bed.” She turned and left the room.

  “Are we done talking?” Riley asked.

  “I guess so,” Lacy said. She yawned and covered it with the back of her hand. “Can I borrow your car to get home? I’ll bring it back in the morning.”

  “Sleep in my bed. I don’t use it anyway. Thanks to unending heartburn, this is my bed now.” She patted the recliner. “Pajamas are in the top drawer on the right.”

  “All right, thanks.” Lacy changed and crawled into bed. She was nearly asleep when her phone rang. She didn’t answer. It went to voicemail and rang again. Again she ignored it. Finally she received a text. She picked it up and read.

  “YOU WERE ARRESTED? WITHOUT PANTS?”

  Sooner or later, someone was going to tell Jason. It was only a matter of time before word reached him. She wondered who had ratted her out. If she tried to ignore him, he would keep calling or texting, so she texted the only thing she could think of in reply. “We’re sorry but the number you’re trying to dial is no longer in service.”

  “Woman, eventually I’m coming back. Might as well get it over with now,” he said.

  “Fine, but I wasn’t arrested; I was detained,” she wrote.

  “WITHOUT PANTS?”

  “Why is everyone so hung up on that?” she said.

  “Because when one of your coworkers texts you a picture in the middle of the night to congratulate you on—and I’m cleaning this up for you—your girlfriend’s ‘fine’ assets, it makes you wonder what she’s been up to.”

  “THERE ARE PICTURES?” she said. The mortification from earlier hit her anew.

  “There was one, but it’s gone now upon fear of death. What happened?”

  “It’s a long story. Can we please talk about it later?” she said.

  “Fine, but I have to tell you that after all of the people who sat in my cruiser not wearing pants, I never imagined my girlfriend would be one of them,” he wrote.

  She set the phone down with a grimace, not wanting to think about all the other people who had sat where she sat and all the reasons they might have been pantless. The conversation wasn’t over, however. A few seconds later, she picked the phone up again. “Still friends?”

  There was a pause before he answered. “The best. How are you, really?”

  “I’m good. A little embarrassed, but okay. And I’m sorry I flashed your work.”

  “Are you kidding me? I’m a hero now. Just be safe and don’t give me reason to worry when I’m far away. Promise?”

  “Promise.” She set the phone on the dresser and, on second thought, tucked it onto the pillow beside her. Jason was far away, but the phone made him seem near and eased a little of her loneliness. It had been a night and a half, but tomorrow could only get better. She hoped.

  The next morning, Lacy went to work. Her secretary, Suze, assured her that everything was under control before handing her a stack of papers to sign and approve. It seemed that every aspect of being a landlord came with paperwork. Lacy hadn’t realized how far behind she was until Suze arrived and began to dig her out of her bureaucratic nightmare. The woman was turning out to be worth her weight in gold. She had also toned down her wild look by wearing suits she found at Goodwill. The only wild remainder of her former look was her hair. She had tried and failed to comb out the dreadlocks, and a comb was still stuck in one to prove it. Now her hair stood out all over her head, making her seem constantly surprised.

  She had given up on her dream of selling her taxidermy creations, but she hadn’t given up making them. Instead she gave them away as gifts to her friends. But since Pearl and Lacy were her only friends, Lacy’s office was stuffed with dead little creatures in various poses and states of dress. And, if Lacy were being honest, they had grown on her. The one on the filing cabinet was her f
avorite. It depicted a sled racing team with a mole dressed in a fur-lined winter coat, holding a whip aloft as six little mice ran out in front, attached to a sled.

  Suze had made an arrangement with a local exterminator to take the dead creatures off his hands. First she bathed them to get rid of any poisonous gas, then she stuffed them, posed them, and created a wardrobe. At least she had a hobby, which was more than Lacy could say.

  “Suze, do you know how to knit?” Lacy asked.

  “Sure,” Suze replied. She reached for a stuffed mouse from on top of a cabinet, one that was dressed like a Russian babushka. “I knit this purse.” Lacy leaned closer to look at the tiny purse.

  “You really are an artist,” Lacy said with sincere appreciation. She hadn’t even been able to get her yarn undone, and her secretary had knit a perfect purse for a dead mouse. Sometimes life wasn’t fair.

  “Yes, but no one wants dead rodents,” Suze said. A painful part of her metamorphosis was that she was becoming more self-aware. It was as if she never realized how strange she was until she arrived in town and started working for Lacy.

  “This is a small town. Just because no one here wants them doesn’t mean no one in the world wants them. Have you tried selling them online?” Lacy asked.

  “Pearl doesn’t have an internet connection at home. She said the government uses it to spy on you,” Suze said.

  “You can list them from here, as long as it doesn’t interfere with your work,” Lacy said.

  “Thanks,” Suze said, but she sounded sad.

  “What’s wrong?” Lacy asked.

  “You got this post card from Michael. He didn’t even mention me,” Suze said. She handed Lacy a post card, covered in lush green hills. She read it quietly to herself.

  “Having a blast, Boss. Thanks for minding my store. I’ll be back, maybe? My best to you and the Mr., Michael.”

  “I’m sorry,” Lacy said. Suze reminded her of herself in high school. She was awkward in different ways, but awkward nonetheless. And unrequited love was always painful.

  Suze shrugged. “It’s no big deal.”