Die a Yellow Ribbon

by Teresa Trent

  “Who is that?” Belinda asked.

  “My husband.”

  “Why is he here?”

  “What can I say? He worries too much.”

  “About what?”

  Leo tapped again. “Let me in.”

  As I opened the door, he said, “Did you think I was going to let you do this by yourself? Are you crazy? There have been two murders in this town, and you want to go back to one of the crime scenes to spread your organizational love? What woman in her right mind would want to do this?” His gaze switched from me to Belinda. “Hello.”

  “Yeah,” she said, not gracing him with a return greeting. “As long as you’re here, hold this end of the tape measure. I’m going to try and build a counter to fit here.”

  Leo gave a quick nod and took the end of the tape measure.

  I had to admit being married to me could be a struggle sometimes. I was also pretty darned glad that he showed up. “What about Coco? Who will put her to bed?”

  “The boys can handle it.”

  I wasn’t sure how I felt about him leaving our daughter in the hands of two incredibly distracted babysitters. We had been gambling on the attentiveness of adolescents all day, and nothing seemed to be improving. “You know they forget to read to her.”

  “She’ll just have to miss a chapter of Junie B. Jones tonight.”

  “You’re right. I guess it’s not such a big deal if we miss one night.”

  “Stand over there,” Belinda said after writing down a number. Leo obliged and changed his position. Belinda noted the number when she reached her second measurement but began scribbling with her pen. “That’s the end of that one. I need to go to my car anyway. I brought some catalogs for store equipment. I want you to take a look at them, Betsy. Be right back.” She took the end of the tape measure from Leo and returned to the street.

  Once she was out of earshot, Leo said, “So have you figured out what you might be missing?”

  “Not yet. There probably isn’t anything, but I can’t stop feeling like the answer will come to me here.”

  “Even with Belinda around?”

  “Actually, I’m not sure if the killer might not be Belinda. If it is her, it will give her a chance to pounce.”

  “What? Come on, let’s go.”

  “Come on, Leo. This isn’t some kind of rabid killer who knows all. You’re being paranoid. We’re just here helping Belinda and giving my thoughts a place to formulate.”

  “I don’t often do this, because I think of our marriage as a partnership, but get your purse. We’re going home. This is much too dangerous for either of us. I don’t know if you caught onto this, but no one has ever called me ‘Dwayne the Rock’ Fitzpatrick. Neither one of us is prepared to tackle a killer.”

  Once again, there was a tap on the glass. To my surprise, Ruby Green stood there as she waved with her synthetic fingernails.

  “What is Ruby doing here? Hasn’t she followed us around enough today?” Leo looked a little disappointed.

  I opened the door. “Hi there,” Ruby said. “I know you probably don’t need any help, but I thought maybe I could help you…organize. What do you think? I keep my stock of beauty products pristine. I’m pretty good at this tidying up business even if I haven’t read that woman’s book.”

  I felt a warm glow. Ruby was there to protect me. I wasn’t quite sure how much help she could be, but she had come to my rescue once before. It was just the fact that she thought she could that made me love her even more.

  “Come on in,” I invited her.

  “We were just leaving,” Leo said.

  “Leo thinks I’m putting myself in too much danger with this being a crime scene and all.”

  “Posh. You’re not in any danger, especially with someone like Leo.”

  I cast a sideways look at my “Dwayne the Rock” Fitzpatrick.

  “Besides that,” Ruby said, “we’re here to clean up this place so that Belinda can open up a yarn store. If she’s selling skeins of yarn, then maybe her replacement as meter maid won’t be such a stickler for timed parking. I’m going to have to have a perm sale to pay for all those parking tickets. Who knows? Maybe I’ll to take up knitting. Maybe it will satisfy me more than a singles cruise.”

  “You don’t understand what Betsy’s true purpose for being here is,” Leo said.

  Ruby smiled. “Of course, I do, dear.”

  Just as I was about to put my opinion in, there was another, much stronger knock on the door. “It’s me, Bunny. I’m here to help you properly dispose of this toxic waste. Let me in.”

  I went to the door and opened it, and Bunny marched to the middle of the store. I looked to see if Belinda was right behind her, but Bunny had driven up in her own car. “If that’s product from the store, you just can’t throw this stuff in the trash. Who knows what kinds of toxins and evils this garbage has in it?”

  “Come on in,” I said. “Belinda should be back in just a minute. She ran out to her car. Now, before you get too excited, all we’re doing is measuring tonight. You don’t have permission to start throwing bottles against the wall.”

  Bunny harrumphed. “If you say so. I still think this whole place needs to be wrapped up and left at a toxic dump. When will people realize eating a healthy diet will give you everything all these powders and pills offer.”

  “I think we should all go home,” Leo said.

  Bunny looked confused. “Why? This cleanup needs to happen. Even if we’re not doing it tonight and have to wait for this guy’s relatives to show up and pack this stuff up, we can at least make inventories of what he has for proper disposal.”

  “I care a lot about our planet, or I wouldn’t be a meteorologist, but we can do this during the day. I don’t think it’s safe here.”

  Bunny looked around the store. Then to my surprise, she agreed with Leo. “You may have a point there. This place reeks with bad karma.”

  “Thank you,” Leo said. “I say we all leave together as soon as Belinda returns.”

  I grabbed the trash bag I had already filled. “I’m going to take this out to the alley. The trash pickup will be in the morning, and I don’t want to miss it. Besides, we don’t want to leave it open because of the odor.”

  “Let me take it,” Leo said.

  “It’s not heavy. I can get it.”

  I hurried out the door to the alley. The sun had gone down completely now, and there was very little light except for the faint drift of glow from the streetlights several feet away. As I lifted the dumpster lid and attempted to hoist the heavy bag, I heard footsteps behind me.

  “Can I help you with that?”

  Vic Butler took the bag out of my hands and tossed it into the dumpster, carefully replacing the lid.

  I gasped. “I didn’t expect to find you back here.”

  “No. I suppose that you didn’t.”

  “We were just helping with some clean up but decided to do it tomorrow.”

  “That was very nice of you. I admire your community spirit.”

  “There isn’t much to clean. Mark Valencia was a pretty tidy guy. You know, I’ve been to the store several times, and I found one drawer open and an old coffee cup. That’s about as messy as he got.”

  “Interesting. Whose coffee cup did you find?”

  That was a strange question. Why would he ask that? Wouldn’t he assume a cup would have belonged to Mark, the store owner? And then it clicked. “You.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You put Bosco’s cup in the store.”

  “I beg your pardon? Why would I do that?”

  “I’m not really sure…yet.” Vic, the ex-rodeo cowboy, bank president, and all-around hero of Pecan Bayou. He was married to the beauty queen. The only thing I could find wrong with him was he was messy. He didn’t close cabinets or put the cap back on the water bottle. I had a feeling if I went into his bathroom, I would find the cap off the toothpaste. “You know, I’ve been seeing your trail everywhere, but never connected it
to the murders. For some reason, you killed Mark Valencia. You also killed Bosco.”

  “I think you’ve had a long day, Betsy. Maybe you should go home and forget we ever had this conversation.”

  “No. I think I’ve finally figured out why I needed to come here. It was the drawer that was opened. Mark wouldn’t have done that, but you would. You’re forgetful. Messy, even.”

  “My, my. You are the observant one. I guess I’m just a messy guy. Lucky for me, though, you are the only one who is tuned into those fine details because you’re some organizational ambassador. Frankly, I couldn’t care less. I have bigger things to worry about.”

  “I’m actually surprised you’re messy because you always seem so regimented in your work.”

  “When it comes to my profession, I am very regimented, but sometimes I just like to kick back. I’m not a geek all the time. Not unusual.”

  “Was it tough for you?”

  “What?”

  “Being married to such a beautiful woman. She gets prettier every year, but you are starting to look a little weathered.”

  “Thank you, I think. I’ll admit I got incredibly lucky when Sarah agreed to be my wife. I would do anything to protect her.”

  “Even lie about the fact that she has something to do with Poppy Donaldson’s death?”

  “Even that.”

  “So why did you kill Mark Valencia?”

  He gave me a cold grin. “He was walking by the bridge that night. Swears he took a cell phone photo of what happened. He wanted money. Lots of it. I guess when you work at a bank, people assume that money in the vault is yours. That was why I really had you searching this place. I needed to find that phone.”

  “You mean you killed him because he was blackmailing you? What if I had found the phone and found the pictures?”

  “Like I said, I would do anything to protect my Sarah. She’s fragile. I can’t have her going to prison.”

  “You think she killed Poppy?”

  “I’m not sure, but it’s not a chance I was willing to take.”

  “So, you killed Mark because he could implicate your wife?”

  “You see, Mark had been following her that night. He was a rather strange man who likes to take pictures on his cell phone. Sarah was in one of her sleep states, and when she rushed at Poppy Donaldson, knocking her off the bridge to her death, Mark got it all on video. That was when he began blackmailing me. I had to kill him. He refused to turn over the video file.”

  “And Bosco Brown?”

  “It appeared Bosco didn’t have two brain cells to rub together, but somehow he figured out that I killed Mark Valencia. Apparently he showed up to visit Mark just as I left, after I killed Mark. Bosco said he’d keep quiet if I told him where the golden pecan was. But that would be cheating and so unfair to the good people of Pecan Bayou. I will not have anybody cheat in my contest.”

  “And that was when you lured him to Benny’s basement?”

  “Yes. I waited for Bosco, and when he came down the stairs, I threw him the golden pecan and then rushed him with a fire extinguisher I found placed upon the wall. You really did a nice job down there, by the way. His head split open like a watermelon. He didn’t even know what hit him. You’d think a guy who had been to prison would have quicker reflexes than that.”

  Vic sighed. “Oh well. Some people are such a disappointment, don’t you think? I had found Sarah by that time, and she saw me kill Bosco. Of course, she was in a sleep state and tried to protect Bosco. That’s how the blood got on her dress. She picked him up from the floor and held him in her arms. When I tried to get her away from him, she slipped out of my grasp and ran out the back steps to the alley. I needed to make sure I hadn’t left any fingerprints. When you called, I was just starting to look for her.”

  My head was spinning with all the double standards that Vic Butler was handing me. If it had anything to do with protecting his Sarah, then it was okay by him.

  “Now that I know all this, what are you going to do about me?” I asked. Vic knew I was going to run to the police just as soon as I found a way to get myself out of this situation. I had to find a way to keep him calm.

  “Yes. Sometimes I wish you were more like Sarah. As beautiful as she is, I found her easy to control. Unfortunately, your strength is not in beauty but intellect.”

  “Then you should know I’m smart enough to keep my mouth closed. I’ll give you time to get away. That’s the best I could do.”

  “Are you kidding me? We both know you are lying. I’m sorry, but you should have stuck to writing your little column and let all this alone. I’m afraid you can’t straighten this out, Happy Hinter.”

  “That may be, but there is a little detail you have accounted for. You’re always missing the little details. I am not alone. Leo, Ruby, and Bunny Donaldson are all in the store right now waiting on me and Belinda’s out here somewhere looking for something in her car. She may be watching this whole scene and dialing the police right now.”

  Vic glanced toward the store and then took hold of my arm.

  “Then we’ll just have to do this somewhere else won’t wait. Won’t we?” Putting his hand over my mouth, he began to drag me out of the alley.

  Chapter 20

  I screamed as hard as I could but couldn’t make enough sound to let the people in the store hear me. Bunny was going off on some topic having to do with the environment her raised voice ruining any chance of them hearing me. He put an arm around my neck, covered my mouth, and dragged me out to his car that was parked on the side street. Pushing me into the back seat, he slammed the door. As he rounded to the driver’s seat, I pulled on the handle, but the door didn’t open.

  “Childproof locks. What a wonderful invention. You may as well make yourself comfortable.”

  “Where are we going?” I asked as Vic took off down the street. All the while, I began to calculate if I could get over to the front seat without wrecking the car. A drop of sweat dripped off his temple. This was the first I’d ever seen him sweat. Even in the torturous heat of the contest, he always seemed cool and composed.

  With his eyes never leaving the road, he answered, “To my house, of course. You don’t think I walk around with murder weapons, do you? I’m a little more civilized than that. Just like a small business loan, this kind of thing takes planning and patience. Be patient, Betsy.”

  I was glad I would have more time to stall with the hopes that someone would find me, but I didn’t relish the idea of him going home to find a weapon to use on me. I tried to keep the conversation light.

  “What about Sarah? Did you say she was at your house?”

  He gave a confident smile. “Sarah won’t be a problem. I made sure she had more of her sleeping medicine before I left. She’ll sleep through the whole thing.” He snapped his fingers in the air as if having a “eureka” moment. “Better yet, I might tell her she did it. She’ll need a lot of comforting when she finds out what a monster she is.”

  “You act like you’ve done this before.”

  “Do I?” Even though he was sweating profusely, his tone was light as if I had just told him he had a speck of lint on his shirt. This was what distinguished a normal man who committed murder to a man who thought committing murder was normal. Vic was in the latter group.

  Vic pulled into his driveway, put the car in park, and turned off the motor. He then turned back to me. “You’re not going to give me any trouble, now are you? This murder thing is getting easy. You would hate for me to take out your lack of cooperation on another family member after I finish with you. Trust me in this, you really don’t want to make me mad. That’s what happened to Mark Valencia. I never would have slit his neck with that bottle, but there was just something about him that got under my skin.” He started to giggle to himself. “I guess I got under his skin too.”

  As Vic put his hand on the door handle, I began to run through escape strategies. I could attempt to scramble from the back seat to the front the minute he ex
ited the car. The chances were, he would be there to grab me in the front seat. I seriously doubted I was faster than him. No, if I were going to escape, it would have to be after he opened the door. Because Vic must’ve known I was planning my escape, he opened the door quickly and grabbed my arm so hard I was sure he disconnected it from my shoulder.

  “Let’s go.” He pulled me up to the steps with his hand over my mouth to muffle any screams that might alert neighbors.

  Once inside, he threw me into a chair and grabbed a cord out of a lamp.

  “I’ve never liked this lamp. One of Sarah’s finds. Such a shame it broke.” He began to secure me to the chair, and my several escape plans were narrowing down to nothing. Securing the last knot, he leaned in, close to my ear. “Now, you sit still here, Betsy. Let me just go to the kitchen and pick the perfect instrument. It’s lovely having the luxury of picking something instead of grabbing the first thing I can find. I’ll be sure to shut the drawer this time. Oh, and I’ll probably need some trash bags. Getting dirt out of this carpet is a bear. Of course, you already know about that kind of thing, don’t you? Back in a flash.”

  He danced off to the kitchen. He was going to enjoy killing me. He was beginning to like killing people. As I sat there, I realized I was way out of my league trying to find a killer. Why would I ever think I could outsmart somebody devious enough to get away with murder? The problem was no one suspected him, and they couldn’t imagine that I was sitting tied up in the house of the president of the chamber of commerce. Vic had complimented me on my attention to detail, but in this case, like an errant sock or an unfolded shirt, it had slipped by me. Somewhere, sometime, I lost control of the situation. I never really had control even though I fooled myself into thinking that I did. Surely Leo must’ve checked the alley by now. I was surprised he hadn’t shown up before Vic nabbed me. But of course, once Bunny got on a subject, it was hard to step away.

  In the distance, the sound of metal kitchen utensils rattled in a drawer. Vic was looking for the perfect murder weapon. I tried to focus on my escape. I pulled my wrist to see if I could free myself from the lamp cord hold. After several tries, I surmised, Vic must’ve have used a cow securing knot because nothing was moving. I could try to bounce the chair to the door, but then how would I get the door open? That would also produce enough noise to alert him. The last thing I wanted was for him return any faster.