Dying for Dominoes

by Jane Elzey

  Her imagination took off like a horse from the starting gate. What if Zelda went to the parking garage to meet Zack? What if they argued and she got in the Hummer to drive off? What if he stepped in front of it and she hit him by accident? Maybe it wasn’t an accident. Maybe she hit him with the car and left him there to die. Stood over him and watched him bleed.

  Perhaps Zelda didn’t know he was dying, didn’t see the glass shard in his neck.

  And Genna? Had Genna really hit a deer as she claimed? Maybe it was Genna who bumped Zack with her Mercedes. But why? The thought struck her hard, like a punch to the gut. Genna and Zelda could have made this murderous plan on their way to Hot Springs. They could have conspired to put Zack out of Zelda’s life. Vamoose!

  Amy shook her head. Unbelievable! How could she have such thoughts about her friends?

  She crossed to the bathroom and, sitting in the dark, perched on the side of the antique tub, drinking deeply from a cup of tap water. The tiny black-and-white tiles of the floor seemed to swim at her feet.

  And then she saw the shoes.

  Zelda’s favorite Jimmy Choos were in the tub, a thin line of red leaking into the drain. She stared at them for a long time before she picked them up. Turning them over, she saw that only the slightest trace of rusty red remained in the treads in the soles. Most of it had been washed free and now ran somewhere out of sight in the Hot Springs sewer.

  Out of sight but not out of mind.

  She didn’t need to think about it. Tossing the shoes into the trashcan, she yanked out the liner, then twisted it closed. She let the shower run long after the red stain was gone.

  Retracing her steps to the bedroom, she paused only for a moment to gather the hotel key. She walked out of the hotel and several blocks before turning into an alley, tossing the bag into a dumpster. The shoes hit the bottom with a thud of permanence. It was a thud of satisfaction. No one else needed to know what she had just done, not even Zelda. Whatever secret lingered on the soles of those shoes, it would now stay hidden.

  Chapter Nine

  Amy stood in the doorway behind Zelda at her home in Bluff Springs.

  “Who was that?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” Zelda said. “Never seen her in my life.”

  The kitchen counter behind them overflowed with covered dishes brought over by friends and neighbors who had stopped by to offer condolences. She accepted the dish from Zelda’s outstretched hands and added it to the collection on the counter.

  Food was a peace offering. An effort to console. She knew that. She also knew it was a good excuse to find out the sordid details, the little particulars that had not been included in the newspaper. The word about Zack’s death had taken to the streets of their little town like a fire in the wind. The news of Zack’s death had broken the headlines as one would expect in such a close-knit town.

  Local dies in a hit-and-run.

  The effort of their peers was sincere, but none of it was wanted. Not by Zelda.

  Amy yanked the phone cord from the wall, drew the curtains, and made Zelda a stiff drink. She didn’t know what else to do.

  They arrived home mid-afternoon. She drove the Hummer and Zelda drove Amy’s Miata.

  The Hot Springs authorities concluded the Hummer was not involved in the accident, with the interior swept clean and evidence collected. Receipts from a gas station, mall boutique, and liquor store told the story of Zack’s last errands. Nothing seemed out of place. Zack kept a clean car. There was no evidence stuck to the Hummer’s grill, no cracked windshield, nothing to place suspicion on anyone.

  Red tape and protocol with the funeral home had taken more energy than Amy had to give it, but she refused to leave Zelda alone. She herded Zelda through it all like a protective mother hen. Like a sister. It was all she could offer.

  Now back in Bluff Springs, Amy should have felt relief, but she didn’t. She had gone home briefly to check on Victor and his food and water supply. While the closed-for-repairs sign was still up at the Cardboard Cottage & Company, the cash register wouldn’t be ringing up any sales, although bills were still piling up. Lots of things were piling up. She couldn’t get the bits and pieces out of her head. Zelda’s shoes. Genna’s busted grill. Time and place. Wishes and dreams.

  The authorities said a reckless driver would soon come forward and confess. She didn’t know what to think about that. A reckless driver full of rage.

  Amy eyed Zelda now, silent behind the dark lenses of her oversized Fendi shades.

  “Not again!” she bellowed as the doorbell rang. Amy opened the door and her mouth, ready to pounce on the unsuspecting well-wisher.

  The officer smiled in greeting. “Mrs. Carlisle, I’m sorry to impose at this time considering your loss, but there are a few questions that have come up regarding your husband’s death.”

  “I’m not Mrs. Carlisle,” Amy said curtly. “She’s resting. Now is not a good time.”

  She heard Zelda rise from the chair behind her.

  “I’m delivering a message from the Hot Springs criminal investigation team. They need to revisit Mrs. Carlisle’s statement,” he said rather stiffly as if he were following a script from the procedure manual. “They’ve made arrangements here at the local police department. I presume that it will be acceptable. We also need to talk to, uh . . .” He glanced at his notebook. “Amy Sparks, Genna Gregory, and Rian O’Deis? O’Dees?”

  “It’s pronounced oh-day,” Amy replied.

  “They would like to speak with Rian Oh-day,” he said with emphasis, his tone suddenly gruff.

  “But why?” Zelda pushed her way past Amy. “Why do you need to talk to them?”

  The officer answered her with silence. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a business card, and handed it to Zelda. “I’m sure it’s just routine,” he said. “If you could tell them to be there tomorrow at 9 a.m.?”

  He turned away just as Amy slammed the door.

  Chapter Ten

  The Miata bounced over the gravel road to Rian’s homestead. She turned her face to the sun flooding the car, its top down, every inch bathed in the brilliant spring sunshine. Cotton ball clouds puffed through a radiant sapphire blue sky, and the pungent, sweet smell of honeysuckle wafted from the roadside.

  She didn’t come out here often, but when she did, she felt like a pioneering woman. Rian’s home was a small log cabin with white chinking and a covered porch with two rocking chairs facing the mountains to the west. It was rustic, the way most old Ozark homesteads were. A family heirloom, the cabin was left by Rian’s grandparents who milled the logs from the land.

  Amy parked at the toolshed and got out.

  Lucky guess. Rian’s truck and her Fiat were parked on the grass in front of the house, but she wasn’t on the porch. Scanning the grounds, she spotted both Rian and Genna.

  The pond was at the end of a gentle slope. The dock jutted out into the water about twenty feet. It was an Ozarks postcard kind of view. The kind Norman Rockwell would paint if he ever had reason to visit. She laughed to herself thinking of a calendar of the four of them painted with rosy cheeks and naïve smiles. A poker game would be perfect. He’d paint Genna with a cigarette in her mouth as she tried to slide an ace out of her sleeve, sleight-of-hand. Rian would be feeding the dog under the table, and Zelda would be staring at her cards in deep contemplation. If Rockwell was kind, and he would be, she would be beaming ear to ear at the royal flush in her hand.

  “Speak of the devil,” Genna called as Amy strode across the grass toward them.

  “Gee, thanks. I guess I won’t take that to heart.”

  Rian and Genna were perched on the dock, their legs swinging over the lake. Except for their age, they looked like teenagers at summer camp. She kicked off her sandals and stood on the warm planks, letting the sun dapple her feet.

  “We were just talking about you and Zelda,�
�� Genna said. “Were your ears burning?”

  “My everything is burning,” Amy said. “It’s a top down kind of day.” She plopped down on the dock beside Rian.

  Genna pulled a pack of cigarettes from the neck of her Ralph Lauren boots that were standing empty beside her. Rian pulled up the trap moored to the piling and fished out a can of beer.

  “Thanks,” Amy said again. The can was spring-water cold. She popped the lid and took a sip. “Perfect. I needed that!”

  “What brings you out my way?” Rian asked.

  “The police showed up at Zelda’s door today. We’ve all been summoned to the station downtown tomorrow. I couldn’t reach either of you by phone, so here I am. A messenger in the flesh.”

  “I bet this is about that deer,” Genna said. “I called my insurance company and they asked if I filed a report with the police. They sounded like they didn’t believe me.”

  Amy wasn’t sure she believed it herself. And yet it made as much sense as the rest of it.

  Genna flicked her ash. “It’s the truth. They can take it or leave it.”

  “You don’t have any proof,” Rian said. “Except for that spot of dried blood I saw on your bumper and a big fat dent.”

  “That’s what happens when you hit a deer.”

  And a body. Amy squirmed with the thought. She drank deeply, hoping no one else would see that thought in her eyes.

  “So they want to talk to us,” Rian said. “What about?”

  “He didn’t say. He just asked for us to show up.”

  “Well isn’t that a boot to the britches,” Rian said. “What do you have to say about the accident?”

  “Me?” Genna asked. Rian was looking straight at her. “Not much to say. I hit a deer that ran in front of me.”

  “I meant the other accident,” Rian said wryly.

  “I don’t know anything about that,” Genna claimed. “I don’t know why they would ask me questions about that. I was on my way home.”

  “What if it wasn’t an accident?” Amy ventured. “I got a feeling it wasn’t just a hit-and-run.”

  Genna blew smoke into the air where it hung heavily over the dock. She waved it away with her hand. “Your Spidey sense telling you that?”

  Amy bristled at the tone and the cheeky look Genna gave her.

  “Look, I left Zelda in the bar at the Bennfield Hotel. She was one martini short of drunk and pissed at Zack for being late.”

  “Zack was late?” Zelda had told her that, too.

  Genna nodded. “He told Zelda he would meet her there by six thirty.”

  “You didn’t see him when you left the hotel?” Rian asked.

  “No.”

  “Did you see anybody you know?”

  “No.”

  “Did anybody see you?”

  “What are you getting at? Did anyone see you, Rian? Didn’t you say you met Zack down south that day?”

  Rian twisted a sprig of hair between her fingers and tugged.

  “I met him outside of Hot Springs,” she answered after a pause long enough to make Amy wonder if Rian was going to answer at all. “I wasn’t planning on going that far south with my deliveries, but it was a pretty day for a drive in the Fiat. We met down near one of the cell towers.”

  Rian took a sip of her beer and swung her legs in the water.

  “He showed up. I gave him what he wanted, and he went on down the road. He said he had business there before he went on to Hot Springs to meet Zelda. Said they were going to play the ponies. That was the last time I saw him.”

  “What time was that? If I may ask.”

  “You can ask,” she said, looking sideways at Amy, a grin on her lips.

  “Okay,” Amy said. “I get it. You’re not going to put yourself in the picture.”

  “And here’s another thing I’m not going to do.”

  “Not going to do what?” Genna asked. “Pay your taxes? Buy new shoes?”

  “I’m not going to the police station.” Rian shoved her hand into her jeans pocket as if anchoring her decision. “I don’t want to be anywhere near cops asking questions I don’t plan to answer. Maybe you don’t want to answer questions, either, Genna. In case somebody gets the wrong idea in their heads about your dimpled bumper.”

  Rian pulled out a joint she had tucked in a book of matches in her shirt pocket.

  “Where is Genna’s car?” Amy asked.

  “We took it to my detail guy to fix it quick like a fox,” Rian said, passing the joint to Genna. “He’s good that way. No one will ever know it was wrecked.”

  Why was Rian being so James Bond with Genna’s car? Clandestine, even. Did she think there was a connection between the Mercedes and Zack’s death? If so, Rian was trying to put some distance between Genna, the Mercedes, and the hotel parking garage in Hot Springs.

  Amy had done the same thing with Zelda’s shoes.

  The lake and its quiet pulled her in as they settled into silence. She plunged her toes in the cold water.

  “Brrr . . .” She yanked her feet out and then settled them back in. The water was clear even though the mud bottom made it look dark at first glance. It was too cold to swim in yet, even if she was brave enough to slide in. Warm sun and the cold beer made her content, like Victor in the windowsill at home. She closed her eyes and leaned against the dock post.

  “You know my granddaddy used to stock this lake with bass and bluegill,” Rian said. “I bet there’s fish in there as big as Nessie. They raised what they butchered and grew what they ate. Right here on this homestead for more than sixty years.”

  Amy opened her eyes and turned her face to the water. It was a beautiful spread.

  “What’s happening with you and Officer Handsome?” Genna asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “You know Ben wants to be with you.”

  “And you know that’s none of your business.”

  “Ouch,” Amy said. “That’s a touchy subject.”

  “Well, what’s wrong with him?” Genna pushed. “Nasty feet, stubby fingers? Why don’t you want to be with him?”

  “Seriously? He’s a cop. I grow pot. We’re like Dave Starsky and Jane Goodall.”

  Genna chuckled. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

  Rian grinned back. “How about Belle Starr and Dudley Do-Right?”

  She pointed a finger at Rian. “I’d say you’re getting closer.”

  “Exactly. That’s why I’m keeping my distance.”

  Amy giggled. She had only met Ben a few times, but he didn’t have that tough cop air. When he showed up to help with Tiddlywinks after the break-in, she saw why Rian liked him so much. Theirs was definitely an odd pairing, though, if she thought about it. No wonder Rian kept him a semi-secret, even from her friends.

  Amy giggled again. The dragonflies buzzed over the lake like toy airplanes landing, fueling, and taking off again. A chorus of nature serenaded them with shoreline song, and the peepers peeped unseen from the river reeds. She felt the beat. The bullfrogs added their noisy baseline like syncopated jazz.

  “Arkansas means south wind in the language of the Quapaw tribe,” Amy said dreamily. “They lived here a gazillion years ago, you know. The French Jesuits called them Oo-gaq-pa. Another tribe called them Ar-ka-na-se. Then the white men showed up. They wrote down what they heard. And now they call us Arkansawyers.”

  Genna chuckled. “That reminds me of playing that game ‘Telephone’ as kids. By the time the whispers made it around the circle, the comment was a bit lewd and always funny.”

  “Hmm,” Rian hummed.

  “Sad about Zack,” Amy said.

  “Crying shame,” Rian added.

  Genna drew her bare feet from the cold water, wrapping her arms around her knees. “We missed a perfect photo op for the Cardboard Cottage & Company, and now we’
ve got another dead husband. What a mess.”

  Another dead husband? Maybe Genna was talking about her deceased. God rest their souls. They both died of natural causes, albeit a bit prematurely.

  “You know we’re going to have to answer to Zelda sooner or later,” Genna said.

  “Later,” Rian snipped.

  “We can’t collect on the insurance until we do.”

  “They know. They’re watching. Someone is always watching.”

  “Your paranoia is showing, Rian. Don’t you think we’ll get our money?”

  “Your greed is showing, Genna.”

  “It’s a legitimate claim. Zack died in an accident, didn’t he?”

  Amy’s head buzzed. “What are you talking about? What insurance? What claim?”

  Genna exhaled the last drag from her cigarette and stuffed the butt into the empty beer can. The smoke curled out of the opening like a chimney and then fizzled out in the wet dregs.

  “Well, that’s a cat out of the bag,” Rian said. “That’s not at all how I thought that should’ve been played.”

  “What is going on?” Amy asked. Her head was starting to ache. Was there anything that appeared on the surface the same as it was below?

  “Genna and I have a financial interest in Zack’s cell tower business.”

  “It started out as a very simple arrangement,” Genna said. “Zelda didn’t know about it. Unless Zack told her. He wanted to keep it quiet for the time being.”

  “But why?”

  “I’m not sure,” Rian said. “And now I regret that. I regret the whole thing. Zack was one scary, shady dude.”

  Genna turned to face Rian. “Now what are you talking about?”

  Rian was silent, her gaze on her hands in her lap. Amy looked at Genna and then back at Rian. Like watching a silent ping-pong match between fortitude and grit. Tenacity and defiance. Guilt and blame.

  “Look,” Genna said, “if there’s something you need to tell me, now is a good time to do so.”

  Amy heard the anger. Genna was dauntless when she was angry. Her stomach fluttered, and a sense of panic took flight. If anyone could battle it out with Genna and win, it would be Rian. Whether it was physical or not.