A Merry Branson Murder (A Tiny House Cozy Mystery Book 2)

by Abby L. Vandiver

  “Are you going to tell me?” I asked.

  “What do you mean?” she said. “You were there. You heard the whole thing. Everything I said.”

  I scrunched up my nose. I was definitely at a lost.

  “Don’t make that face at me,” she said.

  “Okaaay,” I said and tried to straighten out my face.

  “Now you look like you just swallowed a mouthful of castor oil,” she said.

  “That’s because I’m confused,” I said again trying to rearrange my face.

  “Don’t tell me you don’t remember when I told you to do karate on that woman,” Swan said.

  “I remember that,” I said. “But no one heard that but you and I.” I thought for a minute. “And maybe Ethan.”

  “You don’t remember the argument she and I had when she was flirting with Ethan?”

  That one stumped me. “I. Don’t. Think. That happened,” I said.

  “You’re just being nice, but believe me when word gets around what happened between the two of us, we won’t get any more business.”

  I turned and pointed my finger toward the door. “That parking lot had way more cars in it than it did when I was here this afternoon.”

  “Word just hasn’t gotten around yet,” she said. “As soon as it does, people will think I killed her.”

  “Killed who?” I said, my eyes wide.

  “Blu,” she said.

  “OMG,” I said.

  “You’re the only person I know that speak Text Message. It’s not a language, you know. But since you insist, make sure you add that to your resume under “Languages I Speak.”

  “Funny.”

  “Well stop acting you don’t see how serious this is,” she said.

  “Okay. Swan. There has to more to it than what you are telling me,” I said. “The incident this morning was nothing, except to you.”

  She looked at me. Her lips tight, her eyes narrowed as if she was contemplating on whether she should tell me something.

  “Go ahead and tell me, Swan,” I said. “I know there is something else.”

  “There is,” she said. Her jaws poked out from the air she pushed in them.

  She lowered her head. “Ethan was at the Merry Stampede, a few beers too many so he tells it. And he and Blu were caught in a not too flattering situation.”

  I raised an eyebrow.

  “It’s not what you think,” she said. She looked off and ran her fingers over an eye. “Although I wasn’t there.”

  “What did Ethan say happened?” I asked. I couldn’t imagine him cheating on Swan. And if he had, I couldn’t imagine that Blu James would show up at the campgrounds that they owned.

  “That’s what he said.” She shook her head. “‘It’s not what you think,’ but I didn’t know what to think. They were out in the back with the horses. She was in a stall, brushing down her horse after the show. He was in the same stall. He’d gone to find a friend, he said, and didn’t know she was in there.”

  “You believed him?”

  She shrugged. “He said she came on to him.”

  “Oh,” I said. “And what happened?”

  “Nothing. Again so he said.”

  “Don’t you believe him?”

  “I guess I believed him – believe him, because he came straight home and told me about it.”

  “Well that was good, right?”

  “Yeah. I guess. But then guess who shows up?”

  “Not Blu,” I said.

  “Blu.” She leaned her head back like she was trying to hold the tears in and not let them fall down her face.

  “Came here talking about she just wanted to apologize.” Swan bit her bottom lip. “Just think how that would have gone if I hadn’t of known.”

  “But you did know,” I said.

  “She didn’t know I knew. She just wanted to hurt me.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. She picks her people she likes and the ones she doesn’t and then digs her nails into the latter.”

  That didn’t sound right to me. People randomly hating Swan. It happened to me all the time. People thinking that I was full of myself. But liking designer wear does not a shallow person make. And I definitely wasn’t shallow. At least in my own humble opinion.

  “When did all of this happen?” I asked.

  “Last spring.”

  I hiked up my eyebrows. “And she’s still around harassing you?”

  “Yep. Ethan says to ignore her. She does it because she knows it will bother me.”

  “Yeah, well it all sounds pretty innocent to me. I think that you shouldn’t be worried about what happened between them. And you shouldn’t let it bother you, because you are acting pretty crazy.”

  “Yeah. And I probably wouldn’t let her death bother me so much if I hadn’t have side-swiped her car.”

  “You did what?” I asked. “Not on purpose, did you?”

  “No. Not on purpose.”

  “What happened?”

  “I knocked her side mirror off her Jeep while she was standing next to it,” Swan said. “That of course sent her barreling over the top of the car to keep from getting hit.”

  “You tried to hit her?”

  “No!” She batted the tears back, but this time it didn’t help, they came tumbling down her cheeks. “Aren’t you listening to me? I didn’t do it on purpose. But you couldn’t tell her that and everyone thought I did it because she was cheating with my husband.”

  “SMH,” I said.

  She sniffed back her tears. “You called that one right. It was definitely a ‘shaking my head’ moment.”

  “So whatever happened with that?” I asked.

  “Oh, it escalated into me killing her.”

  “You killed her?”

  “Nixie! Stop!”

  “I-I didn’t mean it.” I flapped my hands. “I don’t know why I said that.”

  “It’s fine. It’s what everyone is going to be saying. It’s like I tried to kill her with my car and missed, and now I’ve hit her over the head at that house.”

  I frowned. “How do you know she was hit over the head?”

  “Everyone knows she was hit over the head,” Swan said.

  Branson has some 11,000 people. It was small, but not really a small enough town that I thought gossip would get around so fast.

  “And,” she said standing up and grabbing her cup, “I’m the only one that knows both you and her. You two were at the same place. Twice today. The police will see a connection. And that connection is me.”

  “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “Yes, it does.”

  I thought about it. “I’m not sure about that, but it is an interesting point. Why was she there at my sitter house? How would she end up at the same place I was going?”

  “I don’t know,” Swan said. “Didn’t the police ask you that?”

  “I don’t think they knew that we’d met.”

  “They didn’t ask you that either?”

  “They ask me did I know her.”

  “What did you say?”

  “The truth.”

  “Which was?”

  “That I didn’t.”

  “That’s all you said?”

  “Yes.” I looked at the frown on her face. “Swan. I’d only seen her once here. That didn’t make me know her.”

  “Did you tell them I knew her?”

  “No,” I said.

  “I’m sure they will find out,” she said and came back and sat down with the coffee cup still in hand. “They’ll know about me almost hitting her, too.”

  “It’ll be alright,” I said.

  She let her eyes drift. “She must have followed you over to that house.” She turned to look at me. “How else would she know?”

  I hunched my shoulders.

  “And then whoever killed her must have followed her,” she muttered, it seemed like more to herself than to me. “But why would she go there? What was she doing in that house? Could it r
eally only be coincidence?” She looked at me. “You have to find out.”

  “Find out what?” I said.

  “What happened?” she said.

  “No,” I said and jerked my head around to look at her. “No I don’t.”

  “Yes, you do.” She nodded and swallowed hard. “You need to find out why she was at that house so they won’t think I lured her there to kill her.”

  “No one is going to think that, Swan.”

  “You don’t know Branson, Nixie.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The crime rate around here is high and the police try to solve things quickly because they have so many other crimes to deal with.”

  “What?” She wasn’t making any sense to me.

  “We’ve got like one of the worst crimes rates in the United States,” she was nodding her head, building momentum in the series of events she was envisioning.

  “And something else I didn’t tell you.”

  I was almost afraid to ask. “What?” I said.

  “Blu was murdered right in the neighborhood where they’ve been having problems. They think it’s the people from my campgrounds that’s doing it.”

  “Who is they?”

  “The police. The residents of the neighborhood. I don’t know. All I know is that I have to go to some community meeting.”

  “What kind of trouble?” I asked.

  “Breaking and entering. Lots of houses getting robbed. And they think it our guest are doing it.”

  “And what are you going to say at this meeting?”

  “I don’t know,” Swan said. “How am I supposed to defend something I don’t know anything about?”

  “Blu wasn’t your guest,” I said. “And if she was robbing the house, you fixed the problem when you killed her.”

  “Nixie!”

  Did I say that out loud?

  “I didn’t mean that,” I said. “Although with all the trouble she’s causing you . . .”

  “Don’t you say it again,” she said.

  “I’m not,” I said and held up my palm.

  “And when they found out my association with her, and her with Ethan, the car and you.” She licked her lips and shook her head. “She is like a rock star around here. They won’t stop until they avenge her death.”

  Swan was being so dramatic. I blew out a breath. “Yeah, Swan. You told me that already.”

  “They’ll want to be sure to catch her murderer.” She kept talking as if she hadn’t heard me. She tapped her fingernail on the edge of her ceramic mug. “And when they find out about all of it, they’ll say it was me.”

  “Okay. That’s enough!” I said. “You just keep saying the same thing over and over, you’re going to make it true with all your affirmations.” This time I stood up. I went over to the sink and got a cup from the drain board. I filled it up with the coffee, usually coffee from anywhere but Starbucks wasn’t my cup of tea, but I needed some caffeine. I came back and sat down. “You’re being ridiculous. No one is going to say that, Swan.”

  “I know what you did in Collierville.”

  “I . . .” She caught me off-guard. “Uh, what did you say?”

  “I heard all about Collierville. All the things you didn’t tell me. I know.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t do anything.”

  “You solved that murder.”

  “I did not.”

  “Then why did they give you a house?”

  I was going to have to remember not to brag about me getting that house anymore.

  “Swan, that was different. I was a suspect.”

  “And now I’m one.” She looked at me. “Don’t you want to help me?”

  “Of course I want to help you. But it really doesn’t seem to me that you’re in any kind of trouble.”

  “Haven’t you been listening to me?” she asked. “Or do you only care about yourself?”

  That almost made me giggle. But I knew I couldn’t do that during Swan’s nervous breakdown.

  “Swan, you know I am not like that.”

  “I know you’re not, Nixie.” She slumped in her seat and hung her head. “I’m sorry,” she said and brought her eyes up to meet mine. “I can’t understand why you won’t say you’ll help me.” She sniffed back tears. “You help everyone. It’s in your nature. That’s just you.”

  “But-”

  “But not this time?”

  I looked into her pleading brown eyes and knew I couldn’t do anything but help her. I’d probably feel bad the rest of my life if I didn’t.

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll do it. I’ll help you.”

  Chapter Eight

  What in the world had I done?

  I had to be crazy telling Swan I would help her figure out who killed Blu James. I didn’t have the faintest idea how or where to start. I had just spent most of the evening trying to figure out a way of telling my grandfather I wasn’t going to do it, then I go and tell her I would.

  I sat in the car outside of Swan’s house and thought about our conversation. Her logic just didn’t make sense to me.

  I pulled out my cell phone and opened up Google. I wanted to look up the crime rate in Branson. All I knew about the city was it was where the Roundabout Campgrounds were located and that it turned into a big Christmas-themed extravaganza around the holidays. Festive music, lights, parades, and hot chocolate all around.

  A short search of the web and it didn’t take me long to discover that Swan was right about the crime in her transplanted hometown. I learned that Branson, an Ozark town in southwest Missouri, known as a family vacation destination also had one of the highest violent crime rates in the nation.

  Although that didn’t mean that because she was right about the high crime rate that she was right about the police coming to lock up just because her and Blu had an argument. Or because she’d hit Blu’s car. Though she may have been right about the reason was in the house. I couldn’t think of any other reason. But was she right about Blu following me? If she were, that wouldn’t be good for me at my job. Like the Pied Piper, I was leading people right to an empty house, all ripe for the taking.

  I started the car, but didn’t put it in gear. I sat quietly and stared through the windshield.

  Ethan and Swan had done a lot since they moved to Branson. Buying the land, building their cabin, creating a home away from home for campers. It would be terrible for her to lose business because of false accusation. I wouldn’t ever want that to happen. And the meeting she was being made to go to seemed like it was set up just to do that – accuse her of something that she had no control over. How was she supposed to know what her guests were up to?

  I wondered if the community meeting had anything to do with the neighborhood watch program that Andie and Clover were part of. They were willing to take down anyone in the defense of that watch program. I knew that firsthand.

  I turned and looked out of the side window and noticed the empty spot next to me.

  And where was Ethan?

  Why did he leave her to go through all of this on her own? I let out a groan. Then I started thinking: Hadn’t Swan told me that Ethan had left out after me? If Blu followed me for whatever reason, had Ethan followed Blu?

  And what, Nixie, I thought. They both went in the house I was sitting and then Ethan killed her?

  I shuddered at the thought.

  Then my cell phone ringer went off and sent me lurching in my seat, my head hitting the ceiling of the car.

  “OMG!”

  I blew out a breath and looked at my phone. It was Ava Dewey.

  Fine time to call back.

  I swiped ACCEPT.

  “Hello,” I said.

  “What in the world have you done?” She was talking through clenched teeth, her voice strained, it seemed that I could hear the veins popping out of her neck and temple.

  “I didn’t do anything,” I said, totally confused, my mind starting racing trying to think what she could be ta
lking about.

  “You let them find a dead body in the house!”

  “What? I didn’t let them do that,” I said, a squeak in my voice. “It got there on its own.”

  “Dead bodies don’t go anywhere on their own,” she said her voice going up an octave and the volume going down. “Someone has to put them there.”

  “Well, it wasn’t me,” I said.

  I could hear a tapping sound on the other end of the line. I wondered if she was counting to ten.

  I waited but still nothing from her.

  Maybe to twenty . . .

  “Are you there?” I finally asked.

  “I’m here,” she said. I heard her swallow. “I know it’s not your fault, but you have to fix this.”

  “Fix what?”

  “What happened.”

  What was wrong with everyone, wanting me to take care of a murder? Had everyone forgotten that was the police’s job?

  “How am I supposed to fix that?” I squawked. “Blu James is dead.”

  “I don’t know, but do something.” Then she got silent again. This time I just held on and waited for her to speak. No prompting from me because I knew I wouldn’t like whatever it was she was going to say.

  “You better make sure you’re not involved,” she said after what seemed like an even longer pause than the first one. “Keep up with what the police are doing and keep me informed. And, Nixie,” she said, I could hear the sternness in her voice. “You’d better make sure that Harrington’s good name and reputation is not implicated in any of this.”

  I hung up and put my head on the steering wheel.

  It actually hadn’t do me any good, the police clearing my name, because everyone around me was trying to get me involved anyway.

  I drove back to the Dallasandro’s lost in thought. I needed a way to figure all of this out to the satisfaction of Dedek, Swan and Ava Dewey.

  And how was I going to do that?

  I remembered the last time I was trying to solve a murder, my Dedek had told me that I always needed to look for motive, means and opportunity.

  I stopped at a red light and I thought about that.

  Means was easy. Whoever had killed Blu just picked up something close by in the house, and hit her with it. That could mean that it wasn’t planned. No one went there to kill Blu, it just happened.