by Kym Roberts
“I thought betting the dollar would give him some satisfaction when you showed up today. I was wrong. He’s just as cantankerous today as he was when he couldn’t stay on that stupid bull for eight seconds.”
We laughed for a moment and then Daisy turned us back to the conversation we needed to have. “What can I do you for?”
“I was wondering if you could tell me which neighbors could have seen something last night. I’d like to approach the ones you know will talk.”
“Most of them are at work right now. But Betty Walker lives cattycorner on the other side. Mike Thompson should be home. He lives with his mom on the other side of the Judge.”
My stomach dropped, churned, and did an ugly roll. “Mike Thompson?”
“You know Mike. He sang the national anthem on opening day of the rodeo.”
“Oh, I know Mike.” Mike and I went all the way back to grade school. We pretty much hated each other from third grade on. Since I’d returned to Hazel Rock we’d had a couple run-ins. Like when he broke into the Barn and tried to steal a valuable book. And when he caused me to owe Cade money because Mike insisted I pay my daddy’s debt when my dad was missing. Cade had paid Mike to shut him up. I wasn’t sure there was enough money in Cade’s vast bank account to buy Mike off now.
“I think I’ll wait to talk to Mike a little later. Is the Judge home?” From the looks of the front of the house, he didn’t appear to be, and my trip was looking like a bust.
“I’m pretty sure he’s home. He didn’t go into work today. I brought him a pan of cinnamon rolls around ten o’clock, but I don’t think he touched them.”
I gulped down my apprehension and smiled at Daisy. “I guess that means he has something to offer guests when they arrive to give condolences.”
Daisy shook her head the same way she did with her husband. “That’s our Princess.” She turned and walked back into her house, leaving me alone to get up the gumption and walk over to the Judge’s house.
I walked through the arbor and realized my path would lead me straight through Ava’s place of death. I paused to say a prayer for her, not sure if it was my idea or the influence of being in the Judge’s front yard. The silence of the neighborhood was broken by the sound of a lawn mower humming to life on the next block and a motorcycle rumbling through the stop sign at the corner. A clicking noise I couldn’t immediately identify drew my attention away from the place Ava took her last breath as I searched for some type of prayer. Now I lay me down to sleep was the only thing I could think of. I quickly modified it in my head, but that one noise kept tapping at my thoughts until I began to focus more on it than the prayer.
My head whipped up as I recognized the quick snicks of a camera shutter. At the sidewalk where the white picket fence kept people from walking across the lawn stood TV reporter Liza Twaine. Why she had a digital camera in her hand instead of her phone or a TV camera, I had no idea. But I was pretty certain I didn’t like my photograph being taken at the site of a murder.
I stomped up to the fence. “What are you doing?”
“I could ask you the same thing.”
I glared at her, dressed in a sexy-as-sin skirt with her signature high heels. “Do you ever mind your own business?”
She smiled and her perfect teeth gleamed. It was enough to make me want to mess up her smile—permanently.
“Princess,” I hated the way she said my nickname like it was a dirty word, “I get paid to ask questions. You, on the other hand, are just being nosy.”
“I’m here to pay my respects.” Sorta.
“You’re here for the same reason I am,” Liza confessed. “The Judge’s wife was in court yesterday morning accusing him of having an affair with the same woman who was murdered on his front lawn. From what I hear, you and the Judge don’t get along, yet you’re here. Wouldn’t you find that odd enough to take photos, if you were in my shoes?”
I scowled at the truth. I wouldn’t be caught dead in her shoes.
“Yet you’ve visited Isla Sperry several times in the nursing home.” Liza pushed her way through the spring-hinged gate and let it slam closed behind her.
Somewhere deep down inside me a protective streak emerged, and I immediately blocked her path to the front door. “You can’t seriously mean to question the Judge after what happened?” It was a rhetorical question, no answer required since I meant it as a Southern dressing-down for her bad manners.
“He’s a witness, isn’t he?” Liza’s voice held innocence she hadn’t owned since she was two.
“Ava worked for him for years! You can’t barge up to the man’s house and demand answers to your stupid questions!” Was I talking to Liza or myself?
Liza attempted to walk past me, but I stepped in front of her.
“Get out of my way, Charli Rae.”
“I’m not going to let you go up there.”
“You touch me and I’ll press charges.”
I got up in her face. “Who do you think Mateo is going to believe?”
A wicked gleam showed in her eyes as she leaned forward. “Are you saying the sheriff’s corrupt?”
“I’m saying he knows better than to believe the likes of you.”
Cold water smacked my cheek like a wet fish. Liza was struck immediately after. We both scooted back at the same time, which meant my reflexes were slower, or she reacted to the assault on me before her own. She screamed and I grunted as water sprayed us from three different directions from a sprinkler system that had impeccable timing. Liza tried to run up the sidewalk toward the house, but the man standing on the front porch still dressed in his robe, stopped her in her tracks.
It was the way he held his body. Stiff, rigid, and full of authority with his head held high as he looked down his nose at the two of us. “May God have mercy on your souls, because I won’t. Now get off my property before I call the police.”
I was the first to turn tail and run. The man had always put the fear of God in my soul, and the fact that he mentioned those two entities together was enough to make me hit the road and let Liza Twaine fend for herself. Except she beat me to the gate despite her high heels. Her skirt had lost some of its appeal, her white blouse clung to her, and her perfectly coiffed hair would need a day at the salon. She held her camera high above her head to protect it from the rotating heads on the Judge’s sprinkler system, and I couldn’t help but laugh. I had no doubt that I looked as bad as Liza, and when I glanced back to see what the Judge thought of the whole thing, I caught a sad smile crossing his face before he turned around to go back inside his house.
“We’re having a candlelight vigil for Ava at the Book Barn tonight at eight,” I said to his back.
He paused a moment with his front door open. Then he turned back toward me, nodded in acknowledgment, and went into the house and closed the door.
I wasn’t sure what I had expected from him in response, and I sure as shootin’ wasn’t sure how I felt about the little nod he gave me or the grin I’d witnessed. It had to have been my imagination playing tricks on me. The Judge never smiled. Never held an ounce of humor in his entire adult life. He was fire and brimstone personified. Yet for a brief moment, I could have sworn I’d glimpsed a hint of amusement cross his face, and I couldn’t help but wonder about the man under all the stoicism. In the past twenty-four hours, I’d seen more emotion out of the Judge than I’d seen in my entire life.
What exactly that meant, I had no idea.
Chapter Nine
My T-shirt and jeans were soaked, but both could hide the drowned rat look better than Liza’s outfit. The woman was a mess. Since I didn’t have time to go home and change if I wanted to talk to Isla before the vigil, I grabbed a towel I kept under the seat for those hundred degree days that could melt the skin off your legs when you sat down and tried to minimize the damage.
I didn’t want to leave a puddle in the seat at Oak Grove Manor w
hen I met with Isla in the TV room. I got busy drying my face and arms. Then I scrunched my curls and patted the rest of my body before folding the towel underneath me. I turned the vent on and angled it toward my chest. The truck didn’t have air-conditioning, which was fine until May. Then I’d be slip sliding away in sweat if I didn’t have my towel.
I looked in the rearview mirror to survey the damage to my hair.
Fuzz buckets. I called Scarlet and before she could say hello, I asked, “Is there any way you could do my hair really early tomorrow morning?”
“How early?”
“Like seven?”
“That’s not really early, Charli.”
“It is for me.”
“What happened to your hair? It looked good this morning.”
“I got attacked by a sprinkler system.”
I could hear the laughter in her voice. “Did you wage war on a sprinkler system?”
“No, I actually think it was trying to protect me . . . maybe.”
Scarlet chuckled. “What?”
“It’s a long story. Suffice to say, if the sprinklers hadn’t gone off, I’d probably be calling you to bail me out of jail.” I thought about that for a moment. Had the Judge set off the sprinklers to protect me? Or had he just wished to see both of us leave posthaste?
“Charli?”
I’d missed what she said while wondering about the Judge. “What? I’m sorry, our connection must have dropped for a minute.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m on my way to see Isla.”
“I’ll meet you there.” Scarlet hung up before I could tell her it wasn’t necessary. I glanced down at my phone and looked at the gas gauge. I needed to stop before I returned to Oak Grove. It would have made sense to stay in Oak Grove and talk to Isla first before heading back to Hazel Rock, but I’d wanted to talk to the Judge before Isla.
Since that didn’t work out, I needed to talk to her before it got too late. I pulled into the Git N’ Gone and filled up the truck. My jeans were clinging to me uncomfortably as a police car pulled into the lot. I recognized the unmarked navy-blue Charger immediately.
Fuzz buckets.
The tinted window rolled down and Mateo’s handsome face appeared. “From the look of your hair, I’d say you were with Liza at the Judge’s house.”
His delicious chocolate eyes were hidden from my view behind his sunglasses, and I couldn’t tell if it was a touch of humor in his tone or if it was frustration. My answer could have two polar opposite responses.
I walked up to his car and leaned in. “I went over to tell the Judge we’re having a candlelight vigil tonight for Ava.”
Mateo reached up and put one of my curls back in place. I could have told him it wouldn’t help, but I was enjoying the attention. “Was that your idea?” he asked.
I licked my lips and wished I could see if my action had the desired effect on him, but all I could see was the reflection of a woman with really bad hair in his sunglasses. Drat the man.
“It was Daddy’s idea.”
“And you volunteered to tell the Judge out of the kindness of your heart?” His voice sounded skeptical.
My dander stirred. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“No reason. We still on for tomorrow morning?”
“Do you still want to be on for tomorrow morning?”
“Absolutely.”
I grinned at his unwavering response. “Then it’s a date, Sheriff.”
“How about a run in the morning before we take off?”
“I’ve got to get my hair done, remember?” I pointed to the frizzy curls he couldn’t miss.
“One of these days, you won’t have an excuse to go running.”
“Other than the fact that I hate to run?”
“I’ll never give up, you know.”
I was pretty sure he was talking about more than just running, but I decided to let it go. I had more important things I needed to focus on and I wanted answers before we left town. Answers I wouldn’t get anywhere else.
“How did she die?” I asked.
Mateo’s lips pursed. He didn’t want to run his mouth. “That’s not public record.”
“Yet.”
“I plan to keep that out of media.”
“Mateo, Ava was working with us. How did she die?”
“If this gets out, so help me, Charli . . .”
“You know I won’t tell a soul.”
Mateo rubbed his forehead. I knew I didn’t have any right to the information. I just needed to know.
His voice was low, and I could barely hear it over the traffic passing by on the street. “Someone cut her throat,” he said.
My hand involuntarily traveled to my neck.
He nodded in agreement. “Yeah. It was brutal.”
“Thank you for trusting me with the information.”
Mateo lifted his sunglasses and looked me in the eye. “I trust you with more than that.”
For a moment, I got lost in the meaning of those words I never expected to hear from Mateo. I really wanted to spend my Saturday night at the Tony Bennett concert with him. We’d only had one official date, which had been cut short because duty had called. Since then, Mateo had been struggling with having enough deputies to cover the county. The man had been working nonstop. We still had lunch together and some dinners, but they were normally take out or at the Hazel Rock Diner. This weekend was going to be a first—on many levels.
I changed the subject. “Scarlet made room to do my hair first thing in the morning, but after that, you won’t need your handcuffs to get me to Dallas, Sheriff.”
He tapped my nose and said, “I think I’ll bring them just in case. See you at nine?”
My smile wobbled a bit with his comment, but then I winked and said, “It’s a date.”
Mateo drove off and I was glad the conversation went the direction it had. It broke the ice from our little spat at his crime scene the previous night and opened the path for a pleasant drive in the morning. I finished pumping the gas and hopped into the truck feeling better about my trip to Oak Grove Manor.
Scarlet pulled into the lot directly behind me and got out of her car, still looking like a million bucks. She took one look at me and said, “O.M.W. No one has seen your hair like that, have they?”
“Just Mateo.”
“Did he cancel your weekend?”
“No!” I’m not sure who I was more offended for, me or Mateo. “He’s not that type of guy,” I insisted. Then I looked in the side mirror on my truck. If my curls were red, I could challenge that Scottish Disney princess with the bow and arrow for worst curly hairdo. Mateo definitely wasn’t that type of guy.
Scarlet reached in her purse and pulled out a large clip. Then she proceeded to do her magic on my hair right there in the parking lot of Oak Grove Manor.
“Now take a look.”
I leaned over to look in the mirror again.
“It would look better with a pair of dangling earrings. Do you have any in your purse?”
I patted my hair, amazed that she’d managed to tame the untamable. “Scarlet, you’re a miracle worker. I’m fine without earrings. Come on, let’s go.”
We walked into the facility, and Joan was sitting at the front desk like she had been last time. Today, however, she didn’t have any residents to keep her entertained.
She looked up and immediately recognized the two of us. “Charli, you made it after all! Isla will be so happy. This is the best kind of birthday present she could have asked for.” She grinned and addressed Scarlet. “I didn’t know the two of you knew each other. Are you here to do Isla’s hair for her special day?”
Fuzz buckets. I’d completely forgotten Isla’s birthday. Luckily, I’d ordered an edible arrangement of her favorite chocolate-covered strawberries to be de
livered as soon as I’d left her side the previous day. Scarlet began talking to Joan like the two of them went back a long time, and I supposed they did, since Scarlet made it a habit to follow her customers all the way to their grave.
“Did Isla get the delivery?” I asked.
Joan’s smile was genuine. “She did. That’s all she’s talked about all day.”
“Good. I’m glad. It’s been a rough day for the Judge. Has he made it in yet?”
Something changed in Joan’s expression. Her smile slipped with what looked a lot like fear, before she recovered and sniffed. “He came by this morning. The first thing he asked was if Isla had walked away from the facility last night.”
By her reaction, I was glad it hadn’t been my first question. But still, I needed the same answer. “Oh?”
“I told him we were watching her closely, but Isla can be pretty slippery when she wants to be.”
It was a response without a real answer. Did it mean Isla got away from her caretakers a second time on Thursday? Or was Joan responding defensively because of an accusation of neglect from the first incident? I couldn’t tell, and Joan wasn’t about to let me ask any more questions.
“Come on. I’ll take you to Isla.”
Joan took us down the same hall Isla and I had taken toward the garden. I tried to broach the subject of Isla leaving the night of the murder several different times, but it seemed like fate decided to thwart my investigation. We ran into Frank, who I’d met on my last visit. The man’s Jimmy Durante nose was painted red, and I couldn’t help but ask, “Why is your nose red?”
His grin was so full of joy. “It’s Red Nose Day,” he said.
“Shouldn’t it be a clown nose?”
“Bert always said we didn’t need clown noses; God had already gifted us with them. We just needed to rely on a little red lipstick to do the trick and our ability to tell a joke.” He held out a Mason jar that had a red circular piece of paper taped to it. It read:
Jokes
Residents $1, Visitors $5
I reached into my purse and pulled out my wallet. The smallest denomination I had was a twenty-dollar bill.