Hoedown Showdown

by Misty Simon

  “See, it’s not always bad that I think you guys are acting suspicious,” he said triumphantly.

  I let it slide this time.

  More cars came down the line. Bartley got out of her car, and so did Jameson. He nodded to me, then moved beyond me to get to the guy on the ground.

  “You’re not back on the force, young man, but I will not send you home to your mother just yet. I’ll give you another chance, but this time I’m not stepping out of the way to let you grow and hoping that you’ll listen to someone else better than you would listen to me.”

  Lordy, Rukey really was Jameson’s son. Now we’d never get rid of him.

  ****

  After they took Pickle Guy away, I made a point to call Debbie and ask what would happen next. He’d threatened to make us into fertilizer, and I wondered if he’d done the same thing to Mac over his Pickle Fest.

  The answer there was “no.” He had an airtight alibi at the local flower shop, and no way could he have handled wasps, because he was allergic to them. It was more prevalent than I thought around here.

  And we were back to square two.

  But where to go from here?

  I really felt the need to find Chloe and ask her about the picture, and how, or why, Mail Guy was at the house digging in the mailbox.

  Harlow had managed to locate her at another man’s house about an hour ago, so apparently I did not have to tell him that he should probably move on from her. I found her at Martha’s eating pie. I ordered a slice of cherry and asked my first question.

  “Did you know about the picture?”

  She looked up when I slid it across the table to her.

  “Oh, jeez, yes. What a slob, and what an idiot, but he was so enamored with the idea that someone younger than him wanted him and all his hairiness that he never asked why I didn’t want to face away from him, ever. Mac had cameras installed. I guess those houses over on the south end weren’t building themselves, and he didn’t have nearly as many people interested in them as he thought he would.”

  I’d never thought to go look at the development. I wasn’t interested myself, and I had heard that a lot of people in the area were against them. But I’d never heard his name attached to it until after his death. Maybe he’d been afraid to rock local opinion until he delivered on a new crop of income coming into our town.

  “And you let him photograph you like that?” I asked, not sure why that would surprise me from the bored look on her face.

  “It wasn’t a big deal.” She shoved the picture back to me. “He paid all my bills, and he didn’t ask anything more than a little help with his schemes. It allowed me to do whatever I wanted. But now that he’s dead, I don’t know what I’m going to do. I could never get Harlow to come to my room. He was always trying to wine and dine me and treat me like some kind of lady. Hell, we’ve been seeing each other for three weeks, and it was only last week that he finally let me get naked in front of him. I thought for sure that would be a first-night thing. I’d get the picture, Mac would get his hold over the newspaper so they’d only run positive stories about the new development, and we’d own one more person. But now I’m going to have to get a job, or something. Ford’s check wasn’t even in the mail the other day when I went to Mac’s. He probably thinks he can stop paying now that my uncle’s dead, but we’ll see about that. I might have to get a job, but I won’t be working full time.”

  I didn’t think now was the time to let her in on the little secret that I was pretty sure she was going to be doing some jail time before she had to worry about getting a job. Let the police handle that.

  And really, Mac? For a guy everyone had liked and who’d been thought of as a great citizen of our small town, he’d sunk much lower than I had ever dreamed. Using his own niece as essentially a prostitute for extortion was far more than I would have been able to dream up. Disgusting.

  I left her to the rest of her pie, because it might be the last non-prison food she had for a while.

  So now no Pickle Guy, no Chloe, which only left the mail guy. But how did we go about trapping him and getting him to do that all important long-winded confession? I had no real evidence other than the blackmail and the sneaking around.

  I couldn’t exactly walk up to him and tell him I knew what he had done, especially when I had no idea how he’d done it.

  And there were still the tomatoes out on that little island that were bothering me. Who was growing them and for what purpose?

  I went home with all these thoughts whirling through my head. I put it all out on the table for Ben, and we came up with something that might have the right note without sinking to a level we weren’t prepared to go to.

  I put in a call to Ford now that we had a definite name, and a woman answered the phone. I asked to speak to him. There was a beat of silence before she called out his name.

  “Hello,” he said anxiously, his voice squeaking before settling to almost a whisper.

  “Look, you don’t know who I am, but I have something you want. I don’t want anything in return for it, and I’m not going to send it in the mail. Can you please meet me at the Masked Shoppe at eight tonight? I’ll give you back that thing that’s been making your life hell.”

  He hesitated, and all I heard was a hum on the line. “Why should I trust you?”

  “There’s no way for me to prove that I’m trustworthy, but I give you my word. I don’t have a stake in this at all, and I found it at Mac’s. I just want you to have it back so no one can make you do anything you don’t want to do again.”

  “Eight?”

  “Eight,” I confirmed.

  He agreed and then hung up quickly. I did the same. Now we had to figure out how to get him to confess.

  Chapter Seventeen

  I installed Ben in the attic above the main sales floor, just for safety’s sake, making sure the door was closed so it didn’t look suspicious when Ford arrived. I had no intention of bringing the police in on this until it was all wrapped up in a tight little bow.

  Debbie had gotten Pickle Guy to confess to ruining the crops in hopes of making this tournament a failure and the town ripe and ready for something with a little more vinegar in it.

  Actually, he’d also been in the process of growing those tomatoes out on the island, just in case his dream never came true. He’d laced the soil with ground-up marijuana, which he grew under the trees at the back of his grass manufacturing—sod farm, I was told it was called. Apparently Pickle Guy was multitasking and keeping his options open so no one would pay attention when he entered his tomatoes and won over everyone with their mellowing effects. And though Ben had thought they looked like Irma’s tomatoes, they hadn’t been. Close, but not quite.

  So we really were left with just Ford. I couldn’t do anything about getting his money back to him, but I could stop this from happening again. Unless he was stupid enough to get caught in a compromising position again in the future. Then it wouldn’t be up to me.

  Eight on the dot and a knock came on the front door. I had drawn the blinds so no one could see us. I planned to take him into my little office to give him the picture, since it was at the bottom of the attic stairs in case of any trouble.

  I thought I had planned for it all. I guess I didn’t factor in that one last factor. That the wife might come instead.

  Francesca Moorehead, the woman who was supposed to be my biddy to get me in, the woman who had led me around to see that there were no wasps and started the clapping in the Shoppe when I’d told Rukey off, ran at me as soon as I opened the door. She had a gun and did not look afraid to use it.

  “Give me the picture.”

  “What picture?” I asked dumbly, hoping Ben would hear her voice and come down. My God, we hadn’t even discussed a code word, or a signal or something if things went wrong. I might be okay with the investigating, but I did not rock the “prepping for any possible outcome” part.

  “The picture. Don’t be dumber than you already are.”

/>   “I…” I had nothing to say to that, and she apparently got sick of waiting for me to finish that sentence, I guess, since she didn’t give me more than two seconds of silence.

  “And don’t try to weasel your way out of an attempt to get any more money. I’m not any fonder of you than I was of Mac. I thought for sure this would be done when I shoved him in that shed with a plastic bag of wasps inside his shirt and then punctured it with the garden stake and ran. But, no, then you have to get the pictures. I thought it would be the girl, but she’s a complete imbecile. You, well, you’re just an idiot.”

  On the one hand that was an amazingly thought out and smart way of killing someone and making it look natural. On the other hand, this woman was not right in the head.

  “I didn’t see a plastic bag.” Probably dumb to admit, but true anyway. Plus, it would keep her talking. Had the coroner found the plastic bag? I hadn’t heard anything about that.

  “That’s because I’m on the board at the coroner’s office, and I got to the body before he did. The stake I couldn’t do anything about except wear gloves, but the bag I took with me.” She smiled, and I realized I had never seen anything more feral in my life.

  Okay, then.

  I guess at this point I could have puffed up and taken issue with the imbecile thing, but honestly, I didn’t want to. And now my life really did flash before my eyes. I wanted more time with my kids, and getting involved in this had not been a smart thing to do just for the approval of people who would never totally get me anyway. I’d survived for years without the old biddies’ approval. I could do it for a hundred more if I had to.

  “I have the picture, but it’s in the office. May I go get it?” See me being all polite and stuff.

  “I’ll come with you. I don’t want any funny business.”

  Believe me, I wasn’t laughing.

  ****

  Ben still hadn’t come down, and now I almost hoped he wouldn’t. If he did, she might shoot without a thought and either take my life or that of the man who meant the world to me.

  I walked behind the desk and used two fingers to push the picture toward her. She was quick to snatch it up, but not so quick with lowering the gun.

  “You have what you want, now go.”

  “I think you’re going to have to go, too. That stupid man got on my last nerve, and I have him in the car now. He’s not exactly breathing, but I think I could arrange it to look like you tried to blackmail him and he shot you, then shot himself.” She tapped the gun to her chin. “Yeah, I think I like that. Why don’t you get me some rope, and we’ll see what we can do about making that scene just right?”

  “I don’t have rope.”

  “Then get me one of those stupid boas. I swear you people are all obsessed with sex anymore. It’s only good for breeding, and only then if you’re able to produce someone you can guarantee won’t have your husband’s stupidity. I let him touch me once on the first night, but never again, because I was not in it for the kids but for the freedom that being a Moorehead gives. Now I’ll have even more freedom, plus all that life insurance I took out on him.”

  “There’s going to be a problem with your insurance policy if you set this up the way you want to.” Just keep her talking, and maybe eventually Ben will get a fricking clue and come downstairs.

  “How so?”

  “Well, most policies don’t pay out for suicide.”

  “Damn, you’re right for once. At least you got to do that once before you died.” She tapped her gun against her chin again as if deep in thought. I wanted to lunge at her, but I thought that would probably only hasten the killing-me part.

  “I know,” she said. “You can kill him and then kill you.”

  “But why would I do that? You’re going to need some motivation here. I have nothing at stake with him. I barely know him, so why would I kill him?”

  I almost swallowed my tongue as she started stalking around the room, and I caught a shadowy glimpse of Rukey outside my window. I never thought I’d be so happy to see him. I tried to gesture to him, but she turned around quickly, and instead, I made it look like I was nervously playing with my hair.

  “Then we have a quandary.”

  Someone had to come soon, because I was not going to get out of this one on my own.

  A floorboard creaked out in the main room, and she held her gun on me. “You call out and let them know you need some alone time, or I will kill you.”

  “You’re going to kill me, anyway,” I said right before I shouted, “IN HERE!”

  Rukey front-rolled in and knocked Francesca down at the knees. He had his foot on her chest and his gun drawn in one smooth move that almost made me want to hug him. Instead, I went after Ben to yell at him for not even attempting to rescue me.

  ****

  True to my predictions, and after a good night’s sleep, everyone came to my house for a delicious lunch of BLTs—I was popping toast like no one’s business—and Bella yelled at me.

  “I cannot believe you cut me out of the action. How dare you go out and have that kind of fun without me!”

  She didn’t let me get a word in edgewise, so I just waited her out.

  “I thought we were friends, and now I guess I’m just not enough for you.”

  That could not go on. “Now stop it. Things worked out the way they were supposed to, and you had the kids to take care of. I don’t want to put you in danger, and I did not want to get my ass handed to me by your husband if something happened to you.”

  “Well, at least my husband would have come and saved me.”

  Low blow. “And mine would have, too, if he hadn’t locked himself in the attic closet.” Seriously, how did he walk and talk sometimes? Not that I had a lot of room to bitch.

  “And would you do it again like that?” She clamped her arms over her chest.

  “Nope, if there’s a next time…” Which hopefully there wouldn’t be, but you know, this is my life and all. “Then I will have you right by my side. Pinky swear.”

  That seemed to mollify her. (Good word! Excellent use!)

  “Now can we go eat sandwiches? I want to get in there before all the good tomatoes are gone.”

  Because he was still feeling the need to be repentant over his son, we’d sent Jameson out after the tomatoes on the island while Bartley was here having sandwiches with us and Charlie. Jameson wanted them as evidence and had taken yellow crime scene tape with him, from what I’d heard, to rope off that piece of ground. Whatever worked for him. I wasn’t the cops, so I didn’t know what all had to be done. That, at least, I’d leave to them.

  I’d talked with Charlie, and they were going to put off having kids for a few more years. Bartley wasn’t ready, and seeing Jameson’s kid in action had shaken her a lot. It was her major concern.

  But I told him that she could look at my kids and see how much fun they were. They were thinking about it, but Charlie had decided he wanted his wife more than kids. If it was a deal breaker, then this would be one time when he would just know he had enough and be happy with it.

  Jameson, though, was in for it. He had to deal with Rukey. Seriously, though, once Bartley was freed to talk about stuff, she did say he wasn’t a bad guy, he just needed to unwind a little. We’d see about that.

  At least Jameson was in no danger of getting hit with a speedboat on his little mission out to the island. That boat-wielding maniac had been Pickle Guy, who had stolen Ford’s boat to scare us away from his crop. I knew Pickle Guy’s name, of course, but I wasn’t using it, since he had wanted to turn me into fertilizer.

  The Tasty Tomato Tournament had been cancelled for this year due to so many crops being destroyed, but it would resume next year, and if Ben thought I was going to be any more open to those gnomes being in the house than I was now, he’d better start finding a different place to do his gardening. We’d have ourselves a little showdown if he thought I’d let those things back in here. Ever. I was just happy to have the tomatoes back out in the
yard where they belonged and my hallways back to the way they should be.

  Oh, and Jerry was taking the remaining tomatoes and divvying up the prize. Which was fine with me. Who wanted to be a kept woman anyway, when I had so many awesome things going on in my life?

  My husband was awesome, and we still had two more days without the munchkins running around. I had plans, once I shooed everyone out of my house.

  Epilogue

  Six years later

  Long, long ago in a life that seems light years away, I opened an inheritance letter from an attorney, and it changed my life. Maybe it was really only fifteen years ago, but I’d done more living in these last fifteen years than I had in the previous twenty-four.

  No longer was I Ivy Morris of the weak backbone and the constant need to wear brown. Instead, I was confident, the mother of two awesome girls, the wife of a fabulous man, and the owner of a magnificent Shoppe.

  And now, I was also a private investigator.

  Heaven help us all. Jameson was going to hit the freaking ceiling in the police station down the road. Hee-hee!

  I tore open the envelope that had finally come in the mail. After almost six years of cramming studies in between getting the girls to my dad’s dance studio for lessons and keeping the back room of the Masked Shoppe fully stocked with all things naughty, along with keeping the front of the Shoppe filled with the latest costumes and accessories, the day had finally arrived. Diploma Day!

  Pulling out the certificate from an online college (I know, I know, I used to tease poor Ben for not being the real deal because he’d gotten his license off the Internet, too), I admired the glossy paper and the words “Private Investigator.”

  I was a certified investigator. I’d thought hard about actually doing this. And finally the time had seemed right. Ben needed help, as his business had really started to grow. We went from him working for the newspaper and doing his investigating thing on the side to him being a full-fledged, highly sought-after investigator who wrote articles when he had time.