Finally, it was time. Someone opened the double doors and ghosts, witches, and goblins of all sizes shuffled into the main hall, their goody bags ready, excitement practically crackling in the air. Squealing with delight, they trooped from booth to booth in small groups, chanting their, “Trick-or-treats,” in exchange for goodies. Parents stood at the back of the room, talking amongst themselves and keeping a watchful eye on their little ones.
Aunt Gladys, Lucy, and Lexie each had a bowl of caramel apples to hand out, but the children took one look at their booth and steered clear. Lexie became angrier and angrier by the minute. It appeared the children, having been properly briefed by their parents, were purposely avoiding their booth. “I think we should go,” Lexie said. “We’re wasting our time.”
“Don’t give the old battleaxes the benefit of seeing you defeated,” Aunt Gladys said. “Show ’em what you’re made of. You are a Castleton, after all, even if you did go and marry that numb nuts boy who knocked you up.”
Lucy, who was drinking punch from a paper cup, coughed and sputtered. Turning as red as the punch, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and glared at Aunt Gladys. Another pearl of wisdom from the peanut gallery, Lexie thought. Aunt Gladys was right. She needed to stand her ground. Come hell or high water.
Finally, one little boy of about eight, dressed like a vampire, approached their booth. “Tre-e-e-k-or-tre-e-e-e-at,” he muttered through long white fangs, his brown eyes sparkling with mischief.
Lexie smiled and plopped a caramel apple into his outstretched bag. “Are you Count Dracula?”
“Uh huh,” he murmured.
“Thanks for coming to our booth,” Lexie told him.
“I like caramel apples,” he said.
“So you’re not a ‘fradie cat like the other kids, eh?” Aunt Gladys settled one bony hand on her orange, silken hip.
He nodded and Aunt Gladys plopped another caramel apple in his bag.
“Can you tell us what they’re afraid of?” Lexie asked.
Count Dracula looked around the room, as though checking to make sure no adult saw him talking to the enemy. “You guys are bad. And Theresa’s mom says you are both witches. Lots of the moms are saying that.”
Aunt Gladys snorted while Lexie and Lucy exchanged concerned glances.
“Why?” Lexie asked.
“I dunno. That’s just what they say.” He pointed at Lexie with one of his black-clawed fingers. “They say you …” he peered around again, then said in a whisper, “kill your boyfriends.”
Lexie’s heart wrenched. “That is absolutely not true.”
He shrugged. “I think they’re all goofy. Everybody knows witches are just make-believe. Thanks for the apple!”
With that, Dracula ran off, cape flying behind him, and joined the rest of the costumed children in the surging crowd.
Aunt Gladys shook her head. “I told you this town was full of backwater hogwash.”
Lucy slammed her bowl on the counter. “I’ve had about enough of this nonsense. I think it’s pointless to stay here any longer—the kids are all dodging us.”
Lexie was no glutton for punishment. They packed up their things, but left the apples and jack-o-lanterns. They removed the decorations and started to leave. Suddenly a tall woman in a red and white polka dot clown costume shouted in Lexie’s direction, “Go home. Nobody wants you here.”
“Uh, if you haven’t noticed,” Lexie snapped. “I am leaving.”
“I mean nobody wants you here in town.” Her bulbous red clown nose twitched. “You need to move away and take your trouble with you.”
“Shut up, Bozo.” Aunt Gladys snapped back. “Unless you want Elvis to knock your block off.”
“Shhh, Aunt Gladys,” Lexie said. “Let’s just leave.”
The clown’s eyes opened wider and her bright red mouth dropped. “Back off, Gladys whatever-your-last-name-is-this-week. You’re a menace to this town, too.”
“I’ll get to the bottom of this right now.” Aunt Gladys stormed toward the clown and yanked off her orange wig. She glared at the dumbfounded woman, her butterfly wings fluttering. “Why, Mazie Bannister, as I live and breathe. You always had a double chin as a baby, and I believe it has gotten fatter. You can’t cover that up with white paint, no matter how much you cake it on.”
“You old fool,” Mazie sputtered indignantly. “How dare you speak to me like that?”
Aunt Gladys threw back her head and snorted. “Because I see right through you. You’re pretentious and petty and frigid. Always have been. Why, I’m amazed Andy Bannister still keeps a lazy, pain-in-the-ass, bony shrew like you around.”
A primal growl came from the depths of Mazie’s diaphragm and she leapt from her booth onto Aunt Gladys. Aunt Gladys’ box went flying and crashed on the floor. Polka dotted and gauzy orange arms and legs tangled as the two women mixed it up, scratching, kicking, and biting.
Lucy’s hands flew to her bright red cheeks. “Dear Lord, Lexie. Do something!”
Lexie put down her box and shouted, “Aunt Gladys, stop! Both of you, stop!” She might as well have been yelling at the wind because they didn’t pay one bit of attention.
People stared open mouthed at the cat-fighting old women. Children jumped up and down, thinking it great fun to see two elderly ladies in a brawl. “Fight, fight, fight!” they chanted.
Lexie looked around, desperate for help, but realized quickly it wouldn’t come from the holier-than-thou citizens of Moose Creek Junction. This was a fight she was going to have to break up herself before either of the women got hurt.
Mazie was on top, her painted clown’s face smeared with red and white as she tore at Aunt Gladys’ butterfly tutu. As for Aunt Gladys, her wings were already in shreds, her antenna bent beyond repair and skewed atop her white crimped hair. The women’s grunts and shrieks filled the air as they knocked over chairs and smashed into tables, spilling candy everywhere.
Lexie hurried over and grabbed Mazie’s shoulders, trying to yank her off Aunt Gladys. But Mazie swung around and ripped the sleeve on Lexie’s T-shirt, then smacked her hard in the face.
“Owww!” Lexie howled as a major sting exploded in her cheek. She staggered backward from the force of the blow, unable to gain her balance before she fell into a table. When she knocked it over, she tripped and landed hard on her backside, emitting another winded squeak when a basket of potato chips dumped on her head.
Stunned, she sat there for a moment, fighting to catch her breath. Amazed an old woman could hit that hard, she shook the chips out of her hair and heard them skitter onto the floor. She rubbed her aching cheek, ignoring all the rubber neckers staring wide eyed at her, mouths agape.
Hearing the old women’s labored breathing and angry snarls, she caught sight of them rolling across the floor, hands locked in each other’s hair. This nonsense had to stop.
Right now.
Sister Lucy had finally taken action. She had grabbed a pitcher of lemonade. Taking careful aim, she sloshed the old ladies with the pale yellow refreshment.
Hit by the largest blast of icy liquid, Mazie squealed, jumped off Aunt Gladys and stood, spitting and sputtering. Lemonade dripped down her painted nose and face, leaving behind a flesh-colored trail. She shook loose the silvery ice cubes nestled in her costume and they clinked to the floor. Pieces of popcorn clung to her smashed-gray-hair-sans-orange wig, and a red sucker was still stuck to the front of her polka dot clown suit. Looking around at everyone in the room staring at her, her face puckered up like a dried apple and she started crying like a big baby, shoulders quivering.
Aunt Gladys stood to her full height and smoothed her rumpled butterfly costume covered in wet spots, bits of hay and whatever else she’d rolled in. With one wiry black antennae hanging in front of her eye, she took a deep breath and set her chin squarely. “That will teach you, Mazie dear, to keep your cake hole shut and your mitts off me and mine. Got it?”
Lexie felt something warm dribble at the corner of he
r mouth. She swiped at it with the back of her hand and saw it was blood. Brother. What a mess this had turned out to be. They never should have come. It had been a bad idea.
“Come on Aunt Gladys.” Lexie took her aunt’s arm. “Let’s go.”
As Lexie, Aunt Gladys, and Lucy left, Mazie made another run for Aunt Gladys, growling. Just then, Gabe Stevenson pushed his way through the crowd. He grabbed the crazed clown by the arm. In his deep rumbling voice, he said, “Whoa there. What’s going on?”
Otis and Cleve elbowed their way through the throng as well. Neither of the local lawmen looked very happy, especially Otis, who glared at Lexie like she’d just blown up a childcare center.
Mazie thrust a wobbling finger at Lexie and Aunt Gladys. “Those two started it. They have disrupted our entire Halloween Festival.”
Gabe frowned. “Somebody called Sheriff Parnell’s office to report a brawl. And from what they said, all four of you ladies were involved. So, guess what?”
Lexie did not want to ask; it was too humiliating.
Aunt Gladys, still sputtering and dripping, asked the burning question for the rest of them. “What?”
Otis produced a huge ring of keys from his belt and rattled it with an evil grin. “You’re all going to jail, girls.”
“For what?” Mazie asked, aghast.
“Disturbing the peace and destroying public property,” Stevenson said.
Lexie closed her eyes and groaned.
CHAPTER 16
CEHIPPIE.”
“Harlot.”
“Hussie.”
“Jez-e-beeeel—”
Lexie was about to tear her hair out. She was tired and sweaty. She smelled. Like stale caramel popcorn and rotten apples.
“No more cat fights, you two.” Lexie stopped pacing and glared over at Mazie and Aunt Gladys who were sitting on straight back wooden chairs, barking at each other like Nazi stormtroopers over their tuna sandwiches and green Jell-O, the unappetizing prison lunch.
Mazie’s clown costume was wrinkled, torn, and covered with blotches of food. Her makeup was completely destroyed and consisted of only of red and white streaks. She kept sniffing and wiping her nose on her droopy sleeve. The more she wiped, the more she streaked.
Aunt Gladys’ butterfly costume, which had once upon a time graced Las Vegas floorshows in hotels such as the MGM Grand and The Flamingo, looked like Jack the Ripper had shredded it. Food smeared her tutu. She’d removed her smashed and tangled antennae headpiece long ago and discarded it in a corner where it lay like a mangled bug.
“Lexie’s right,” Lucy told the elderly ladies from her bunk. She settled herself more primly and properly on the covers. “You’re making it worse than it is.” She had also removed her antenna, her usually tidy bun was askew atop her head, and her outfit was spattered with food stains.
For some reason, she seemed to be taking the incarceration calmly and had barely spoken since they arrived the previous evening. She appeared to be patiently waiting for the moment when they would be sprung from this hell on earth. Lexie wanted the whole episode to end. This place sucked. The whole reason they’d wound up here sucked. Otis had ignored her protests at being locked up. Turning tomato red, he’d stormed out, leaving the ladies to their own devices in the stuffy cell. Snickering, Cleve had trotted obediently after his boss, hiding the smile on his long horse face. Gabe had merely chuckled and told them, “Make yourselves at home, ladies, and if you need anything, call.”
So much for her indignant show of bravado.
Lexie watched closely as Mazie and Aunt Gladys resumed eating, staring daggers at each other over gray trays clutched in their knotted fingers. She scratched her head and looked around. Practically everything in the Moose Creek Junction jail, or the “pokey” as Aunt Gladys called it, was the same bland color. Gray food, gray cups, gray sink and toilet, gray blankets on the gray bunks, and gray walls. Even Otis and Cleve and Gabe seemed to have a creeping gray tinge spreading across their flesh whenever they brought in meals or checked on their “prisoners.”
Lexie resumed pacing the cell, her crumpled butterfly wings flopping. She refused to eat or sleep, so trays of her food remained untouched and her bunk was barely rumpled. It was demoralizing, disgusting, and demeaning. She didn’t deserve to be in jail. She wanted out.
Now.
“Psst, hey you,” one of the women from the cell across the way called. Lexie looked over at her. Last night she hadn’t paid much attention to their neighbors. She’d been too outraged.
“That’s right, sister,” she said with a toss of her head. “I’m talkin’ to you.”
The woman’s voice was unusual, Lexie thought, like a cheese grater scraping on a chalkboard. She walked over to the bars and studied the woman and her compadre a little closer.
The woman who had spoken was dressed in a tight, short, black leather skirt, a tight green blouse, boots, and a fur coat. She had poofy, long blond hair that had been teased into proper submission, but probably housed tons of illicit secrets.
The other woman, who was passed out on one of the bunks with her voluptuous rump covered in tight purple satin Capri slacks, was snoring like a buzz saw. She wore her purple-red hair in a punk rocker style and a tight purple crop top, a feather boa, and a fringed, black suede vest.
Both wore tall black boots, about a pound and a half of makeup, plenty of gaudy jewelry. The women had so many tattos and piercings, Lexie winced looking at them. The blonde’s Adam’s apple caught her eye. Tell me it ain’t so. Lexie wasn’t sure, but it looked like the blonde was a man, or a man becoming a woman, or however it went.
Transvestites. In Moose Creek Junction?
Holy moly.
The blonde tossed her head again and put one hand on her hip. “What are you staring at, girlfriend? These?” She squeezed the ample breasts that were about to bust loose from her top. “I paid an arm and a leg to a doctor in Denver to have these puppies latched on.” She gave a falsetto giggle as she continued to stroke her creamy flesh.
“No, I … um …” Lexie’s face prickled with heat.
“Never mind,” the blonde said. “I just wanted to tell you and your girlfriends you’d better not plan on moving in on our territory.”
“Territory?”
“Is there an echo in here or are you just deaf?” The blond shook her head. “Bambi and I have been working this town for the last six months. And there’s no room for anyone else. Got it?”
Lexie’s ears burned. Prostitutes, transvestite prostitutes, no less, had moved into little old Moose Creek Junction and set up shop. Incredible. “My aunt and my sister and I have no intention of moving in on anybody’s territory,” she said emphatically.
The blonde sat on the edge of the bottom bunk and crossed her long, shapely legs. “That’s what they all say, honey.” She pointed at herself with a long red nail and rolled her eyes. “Believe me, Trixie’s heard it all.”
Lexie’s mouth went dry. This was the final straw. She turned to Aunt Gladys, who had resumed grousing at Mazie. “Are you done eating?” Lexie asked.
Aunt Gladys blinked. “What crawled up your butt and died? I don’t like it here, either. The room service is crappy. We have absolutely no view.”
Lexie walked over and took her plate, then went back to the bars and scraped the gray plastic along the rungs. Thunk thunk thunk thunk thunk …
“Lexie, what are you doing?” Lucy asked, her expression horrified. “You’re going to get us in more trouble.”
“No, I’m going to get us out of here,” Lexie returned. “I’m tired of being a jailbird.”
Trixie covered her ears and squealed. Aunt Gladys and Mazie did the same. Amazingly, Bambi on the bunk continued to snore.
A few seconds later, Gabe sauntered from the sheriff’s office into the detainment area. “Hey,” he said to Lexie, irritation chiseled on his face. “What’s the problem?”
“This place.” Lexie quit scraping the plate across the bars. “We want out. Now
.”
“No can do. You’re under a 24-hour lockup.”
“For what?”
“Disturbing the peace.”
Lexie cleared her throat, seriously missing her early morning caffeine fix. She had a headache, her mouth was as dry as a desert and tasted like metal. She lowered her voice to a harsh whisper. “Those women in the other cell are …” she looked over to make sure Trixie wasn’t listening and lowered her voice even further. “Prostitutes.”
“That’s a fact,” Gabe acknowledged, folding his arms across his chest.
“They’re hardened criminals, for cripe sake.” She gripped the plate harder. “Why are we in here with them?”
He shrugged. “You broke the law.”
“I told you my aunt’s disturbed and she got confused yesterday. Lucy and I were trying to break up the argument she and Mazie were having. That’s all.”
“Really?”
Lexie clenched her jaw. “Let me take Aunt Gladys home. We’ll be out of your hair.”
He lifted a dark brow. “You’re no bother at all.”
“Don’t be smug, detective,” Lexie shot back when she heard the patronizing tone in his voice. “There’s no reason to keep us here any longer.”
“I suppose you ladies have learned your lesson.”
Lexie rolled her eyes. “I told you, Aunt Gladys is a disturbed old woman who—”
He held up a hand. “Save it. I’ll see what I can do.”
“How hard could it be to let a crazy old woman and her nieces go free? She tried to look past Gabe’s large frame and out the door into the office. “Anyway, isn’t Otis in charge? Where is he?”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Gabe repeated firmly.
Anger shot through Lexie, right down to her toes. “Why are you in town? Why aren’t you out solving the recent crime wave?”
He chuckled. “I heard about two grannies in a brawl at the Moose Creek Junction Community House on my police radio. Couldn’t resist checking it out.”
“It is absolutely not funny,” Lexie said, frowning.
The Saucy Lucy Murders Page 25