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

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A Merry Branson Murder (A Tiny House Cozy Mystery Book 2) Page 10

by Abby L. Vandiver


  “What? Why?”

  I gestured around the house. “There isn’t any other room I can go to get dressed.”

  “Oh,” he said looking around. He let out a chuckle. “No problem. I’ll wait outside.” Then he looked at me. “This isn’t going to take long is it? I know how you women are.”

  “It won’t take long,” I said.

  And honestly I did try to go as quickly as I could. But taming my wavy black hair and finding just the right shoes to wear sometimes can make one lose all track of time.

  After what seemed like only five minutes later, I heard a knock at the door. “Are you coming out of there,” Levi shouted through the door. “You’ve been getting dressed for half-an-hour.”

  “Coming,” I said. I grabbed the leashes for the dogs, I had been keeping Danger at the house with me. He’d had enough trauma when he was with me and we discovered the body. He kept to himself in the loft so he hadn’t seen Levi yet. I snapped on his leash and swung open the door. “Ready!”

  “Man, I thought you might have gotten lost in that little house of yours and couldn’t find your way out.”

  “Funny,” I said.

  He looked down at my feet. “Are you wearing those shoes to walk the dog?”

  I followed his eyes down. “Why? What’s wrong with them?”

  “They high heels,” he said as if I hadn’t known that. “You might want to change into something more comfortable.”

  “I’m good,” I said.

  “If you say so,” he glanced down at me feet again, then back up at me. “So,” he started and stuck his hands down into his jeans pocket. “Who do you like as the killer?”

  “What?” I chuckled. “I don’t like killers.”

  “You know what I mean,” he said. “Who do you have as suspects?”

  I shrugged. “Lowell O’Kirk told me that everyone that knew Blu disliked her.”

  “She wasn’t that bad,” Levi said. “But she could rub you the wrong way.”

  “So did she know a lot of people?”

  “Not really. She kept to herself,” he said. “People at the Wild West show, Benjamin, me-”

  “Wait. Who is Benjamin?”

  “Benjamin D’Avila. He’s the realtor, or rather ex-realtor who used to let Blu stay at his properties.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “He could be as suspect,” I said.

  “Yeah,” he said smiling. “He could be. I hadn’t thought of him.” He looked at me. “We’ll check him out. Who else do you think we should check out?”

  “Lowell, and Tangie,” I said. “Although I’ve already spoken to them.”

  “I was just going to say that. And what did you think? Did one of them kill Blu?”

  “I don’t know. Lowell literally said to me that he’d kill her. He told me she had some dirt on him, but not what kind of dirt.”

  “I don’t think he meant the kind on the ground.”

  “I knew that,” I said with a smirk.

  “I don’t know if this is it, but Blu led him on,” Levi said. “Teased him all the time. Played with his emotions and generally made a fool of him right in front of everyone at the Merry Jo Ranch.”

  “Wow,” I said.

  “Yeah. I’m surprised he didn’t pack up and leave. That’s how humiliated he had to be.” He drew in a breath. “Then she took up with me and flaunted me all around the ranch, little did I know at the time she was doing it to push the knife into Lowell even deeper.”

  “Well, now I think that Tangie is doing that to him. She kept flirting with him around me. Kissing him and stuff.”

  “Really? I guess Tangie’s taking up where Blu left off.”

  “Well, she better watch out,” I said. “If Lowell killed Blu because of whatever dirt she had on him, or because of how she mistreated him, Tangie seems to be getting in line to be next.”

  “No one can top Blu,” Levi said.

  “She was really something, huh?”

  “She was. And not in a good way, in case that’s what you meant.”

  I wasn’t what I meant. I wanted to learn about Blu and I had gotten an earful about how bad she was. “Why did people let Blu get away with all of shenanigans?”

  “Maybe they didn’t,” he said with a smirk. “Maybe they paid her back by hitting her over the head with a blunt object.”

  “You think that more than one person did it?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. Somebody who knew aboutYep this house somehow knew that she was coming here and waited for her.”

  “That could be Realtor Benjamin,” I said.

  “Could be,” he said.

  “Or,” I said. “Someone could have followed her here.” I bit my lip debating if I should tell him what happened at the Roundabout Campgrounds. After not seeing Ethan’s car and learning that he’d disappeared right after I left, he had been a suspect in the back of my mind since day one.

  “Yep. Maybe it was someone from the Roundabout campgrounds,” Levi spoke my thoughts.

  My eyes got big and I stopped walking. “The what?”

  “She was at this place called the Roundabout Campgrounds. I’m thinking she must’ve been there right before she came to the house.”

  Detective Wade knew that, but that’s all he knew, he never made a connection with me or with Swan and I had left it at that. But I needed to know if Levi knew.

  I hung my head and kicked a rock with my foot while I pretended to wait on the dogs while they sniffed the grass. “How do you know that?” I asked.

  “Know what?”

  “That she had been at those campgrounds.”

  “She told me.”

  “She told you she was there?”

  “Yep.” He smacked his lips. “And that was the last I heard from her. That’s why I was at the Merry Joy Ranch that day you were there. Well, at least Tangie said you’d been there, you know, asking questions. I wanted to ask questions. Find out if anyone else had heard from her after my call.”

  “Did they?”

  “I only talked to Tangie.”

  “Tangie is the other person that I think may have done it,” I said.

  “Tangie told me she hadn’t heard from Blu,” he said, “and that she was with Lowell when Blu was murdered.”

  “Is that true?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I didn’t get a chance to speak with Lowell. But,” he hunched his shoulders. “I guess I believe her.”

  “You said she was a liar. You said when it came to Blu she was. Right?”

  He nodded.

  “And this is all about Blu.”

  “That’s right,” he said.

  “Why did she lie about Blu?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. They had some kind of rivalry going on.”

  “At the Wild West Show?”

  “I think it was more than that. It was like Blu had something over her. She would let Blu push her buttons all the time and she’d get so mad sometimes I thought she was going to punch Blu out. But then, for no reason, she’d back down.” He looked at me. “That may be it,” he said. “She had something on her.”

  That was the same thing Lowell had said.

  “She must have.”

  “So why do you think it was Tangie?”

  I shook my head. “It’s a gut feeling,” I said channeling something my grandfather had said to me when I was trying to solve the murder in Collierville.

  He laughed. “You sound like an old person.”

  “That’s because an old person taught me about it. But I don’t know. When I was there, Tangie was very, uh, rude, I guess is how I would put it. At least she was to me. Like she was angry about something without a reason. And her temper rose so quickly.”

  “Tangie is always like that.” He hunched his shoulders.

  “Well people with quick tempers are prone to getting physical. And she knew things that I can’t figure out how she knew.”

  “Like what?”

  “She knew I was a house sitter for H
arrington.”

  “Harrington?” he asked.

  “Yeah, the company I work for is named Harrington House and Pet Sitters. There was no reason for her to know that.”

  “No one could have told her that? Maybe the police, or was it in the newspapers?”

  “I haven’t seen a newspaper, but I don’t think so. She knew the name of the family that lived in the house.” I ran down my list of reasons to suspect Tangie. “And she came up with that alibi that she’d been with Lowell, but when she said it, he looked dumbfounded.”

  “So, what you’re saying is we should definitely put her on the list.”

  “Technically,” I said, “I don’t have a list, although I probably should start one. Don’t you think?” But Levi wasn’t paying any attention to me. Something else had distracted him.

  “Look,” he said and ran over to the curb. “I know this car.”

  It was the rusty, blue VW that I’d seen every day on my walk since I’d been house sitting. “You do? Who does it belong to?” I asked.

  “Tangie,” he said. “That’s Tangie Dumont’s car.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Levi was cupping his hands trying to see inside the car. I don’t know what he thought he’d find seeing that the murder took place inside the house, and the murder weapon found at the scene. I was sure there was no “smoking gun” inside of it.

  He turned and looked at me. “You think that Tangie followed her here?” he asked.

  I thought about that. I didn’t remember seeing anyone that looked like Tangie in the crowd that day. I didn’t know her at the time, so it simply might have been that she was there and I didn’t notice her. But I was sure that she hadn’t been with Blu that day at the Roundabout.

  “Hey,” he said. “Did you hear me? I said do you think that Tangie followed Blu here?”

  “Yes, I heard you,” I said and walked over to the car. “And I don’t know if she followed her or not.”

  “I’m going to find out,” he said. He whipped out a cell phone from his jean pocket and glanced over at me. “I’m calling her.”

  “Calling who?” I asked.

  “Uhm, not Blu,” he said.

  Yeah, I guess I knew that . . .

  “And what?” I asked trying to cover up for the first silly question. “Ask her did she kill Blu?”

  “You bet I am.”

  “I guess that could work,” I said sarcastically.

  He shot a mean look my way then turned his back to me. I saw his shoulders drop, and he rolled his neck back looking up at the sky.

  “Tangie. It’s Levi. Call me when you get this message,” he said then he turned and looked at me. “She didn’t pick up.”

  “I got that,” I said.

  “Darn it,” he said. “What if she did it?”

  “Then you have figured it out, just like you wanted to do.”

  “I mean, why else would her car be here, right?” he asked.

  “But why did she leave it?”

  “This piece of junk,” he said and kicked the tire. “It doesn’t work half the time. She probably drove it out here and when she was ready to leave, it wouldn’t start.”

  “Yeah, but why just leave it?”

  “It would be suspicious,” he said. “To come back and get it, you know?” He shook his head. “Maybe she was waiting until the area wasn’t so hot.”

  “I don’t know about that. I’ve been walking down this street two times a day since I’ve been here. Saw that car every day,” I said and pointed to it. “It wasn’t suspicious sitting here, nor would it have been if it wasn’t here. And, not once did I see a police cruiser. She had nothing to fear. She could have just came back and got it.”

  He shook his head. “So what? You don’t think Tangie did it?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I think she’s a suspect.”

  “Well, I think she did it.”

  “Just because her car is here?” I asked.

  “That, and the stuff you told me she said, and the way she acted at the ranch,” Levi said.

  “Maybe,” I said thoughtfully. “But we’d need more on her to prove it. I just don’t think we have enough to say for certain.”

  “We could get more info,” he said, excitement seeping into his voice.

  Or,” I said. “We could let the police know about everything we’ve found out, let them take over and consider our job done.”

  “You’re not really into this, are you?”

  “I am,” I said defensively.

  “It would seem like you’d want to be involved. She died in a house where you were house sitting – on your first assignment no less.”

  “How do you know that?” I asked.

  “Tangie,” we both said at the same time.

  I opened my mouth to speak and then shut it.

  Why wasn’t I vested in solving in it? I was smack dab in the middle of it. It happened literally at my front door. My best friend and her husband might be dragged into, and according to my employer, I needed to do something about it. Plus, I’d been running around chasing down leads, and hanging out with strangers to find out more.

  Maybe Swan was right, I was only thinking of myself.

  And this was something much bigger than me.

  “Hey, are you still here?” Levi had his face in front of mine. “You’re always zoning out.”

  “What?” I said. I shook my head.

  I was going to have to learn to stop letting my mind wander . . . I wonder if that’s like a symptom of something-

  “Hey!” He snapped his fingers in my face. “We were talking about finding more evidence on Tangie, remember?” Levi said.

  “I remember,” I said. “And I remember we were talking about telling the police what we know.”

  “I don’t want to do that,” he said and looked at me. “Do you? I mean, sure, we can tell the police, but after we finish our little investigation. After we figure out how Tangie did it.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Okay? Really?” he said smiling. “That was easy.”

  “Yes, really, but we just can’t focus in on Tangie. We have to see where the evidence leads. To who it leads. And we should still tell the police what we’ve found out.”

  “But,” he said, a sly look on his face. “We don’t have to let the police know right away, because like you said we haven’t found out anything concrete.”

  “You seem to think so.” I asked. “Or so you said after we found the car. And what? Now you don’t think it amounts to much?”

  “I do, but if we tell them what we know now they’ll go and talk to Tangie, and if I know her, she’ll make a run for it,” he said. “Right now, just like you said, her car parked here isn’t enough to prove anything.”

  “And remember we’re not just concentrating on her.”

  “Right,” he said, although it was a half-hearted agreement. “Other suspects. We’re looking into other suspects. I got you.”

  I didn’t want to mention about Ethan, in my mind, being a suspect. But I knew if I was going to help Swan I had to be sure it wasn’t him when I talked to the police and the only way to do that was to follow the evidence. Not concentrate on one person.

  “Okay,” he said. “Who should we rule out first?”

  “That’s not how it works.”

  “How does it work?”

  “We have to follow the clues, not pick a suspect.”

  “I like picking a suspect.”

  I chuckled. “Okay, who do you want to pick?”

  “The realtor,” he said.

  “Benjamin Davis?” I asked.

  “D’Avila,” he said and chuckled. “It’s Benjamin D’Avila. And I know exactly where to find him.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  We walked back to the house to drop off the dogs so we could go and find The Realtor. When we passed Andie Halliwell’s house I could see him peeking out of his front window. How Blu got into the house, her murderer entering separately, a
nd then getting out with Andie living next door was the mystery to me. Although the whole thing had me stumped. I just wasn’t as good at figure out clues as people thought I was.

  We put the dogs in my house, I grabbed my big purse, my keys, and the keyring for the Dallasandros’ house then went and checked the locks. Although I hadn’t gone back in, not even to water the plants, I thought I should make sure it was secure before I left. I clicked the fob to unlock my car.

  “Oh no,” Levi said. He was standing outside of my house waiting for me. “I’m not going anywhere in that thing. We’re taking my car.”

  “What? Why?” I said and glanced over at my Orange Chevy Sonic.

  “It is a girl’s car for one thing.”

  “And I’m a girl,” I said before he could finish his list.

  “And two,” he said ignoring me, “it is too conspicuous to ride around it. We’re on a mission here.” He clicked the fob on his keyring. “We will be riding in the Batmobile.”

  He had a black Camaro.

  I didn’t argue with him, but did note that a Batmobile would draw much more attention than my orange car. We drove about twenty minutes, a smile on Levi’s face the entire time, I guessed from the excitement of the chase. We ended up at a Home Depot. Not very dramatic.

  “Why are we here?” I asked pulling off my seatbelt.

  “Old Benji works here,” he said. “Got a big demotion thanks to Blu James.” He tapped his hand on the steering wheel. “I just hope he’s at work today.”

  But before we could get out of the car, I heard the familiar ping that meant I was getting a FaceTime call. I knew that it was Dedek. He couldn’t talk when I had called him earlier.

  “What was that?” Levi asked.

  “My iPad.”

  “It dings like that all the time?” he asked.

  “No,” I said and sighed. “Only when my grandfather calls me.”

  “Calling you on an iPad?”

  “Yep,” I said.

  “So, he’s calling you now? Now when we’re getting ready to go in and interrogate Benjamin.”

  Ping.

  “He doesn’t know that,” I said. “It’ll only take a minute.” I stuck up a finger and with the other hand fished my iPad out of my purse. “I’ll get him off quickly.”

 

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