Then another thought occurred to me. A darker thought. Annie could be in there alone. A whole scenario played out in my head. Allen coming to talk to Coco about selling her shop. Her dismissing him. Words being exchanged. Then him shoving her and her falling backward and hitting her head. An accident, like Dan had said.
Then what if Allen had discovered that he liked it? He enjoyed watching the light go out in Coco’s eyes. I’d always felt the man had no moral compass whatsoever. Maybe he was a real sociopath and Coco was the first of what would be a string of murdered single women shop owners. Maybe Allen had been shamed by a woman shop owner as a child and now he was going to exact his revenge on the businesswomen of Grand Lake.
I ran down the steps of the porch and over to Annie’s. I tried the door. Locked. Damn it. Allen must have let himself in with his own key. Good thing I had my own set with the spare Annie had given me in my jeans pocket. As I dug the keys from my pocket I heard a noise. Not a noise, a voice. A woman’s voice. Inarticulate. Moaning.
My hands shook so hard it took me three tries to get the key in the lock. I charged into the little house, heading toward the noise. Allen had Annie backed up against her potting counter and she was making a noise unlike any I’d ever heard her make before. Without pausing, without thinking, without considering, I picked up one of the clay pots from the back wall and bashed Allen on the head with it, yelling, “Get off her, you monster!”
It was about then that I stopped to wonder why Annie had had her legs wrapped around his waist.
* * *
“What. Are. You. Doing?” Annie panted as she scrambled to rearrange her clothes.
I looked down at the cracked pot in my hand. Allen had a heck of a hard head. He and Huerta ought to have some kind of competition. “I thought I was saving you from being murdered.”
Annie crouched down next to where Allen lay on the floor. “Allen, honey, are you all right?”
He moaned. “What happened?”
“Rebecca happened.” Annie stood up. “Let me get you some ice.”
I followed her into the kitchen. “Do you want to explain what was happening back there?”
She shoved a couple of handfuls of ice from the freezer into a bag. “Rebecca, if you don’t know what that was after eleven years of marriage, I don’t really want to be the one to explain it to you.”
My face got hot. “I know what you were doing. I want to know why.”
Annie started to laugh as she wrapped the bag with a towel. “Do you really need me to answer that, either?”
No. I didn’t. I got that part, too. “Okay. I guess what I mean is, why him? I thought we hated him.”
Now it was Annie’s turn to blush. Finally. Apparently getting caught with your legs wrapped around the mayor in the corner of your potting room wasn’t blush-worthy. Getting caught with your legs wrapped around a mayor you supposedly hated was another story. “It’s complicated.”
“I have time.” I crossed my arms over my chest and leaned against the counter.
She shook her head and went back to the potting room. Allen was sitting up now, propped up against one of the cabinets. “Give me one reason I shouldn’t call the police and press charges against you for assault, Rebecca. Just one reason.”
“Just one?” I pretended to think. “Okay. Annie’s reputation. How about that?”
Allen pressed his lips together so hard they pretty much disappeared. “Fine.”
At least he was a gentleman and at least I wouldn’t have to explain to Dan why I’d had the cops called on me for a third time in the space of a week. Although I suspected he might have been happy to have an excuse to leave the Trout Fishing in America concert.
Annie crouched down and pressed the ice against the back of Allen’s head. He winced and shrugged away. She made a clucking noise and he settled back down.
“How long has this been going on?” I asked.
They glanced at each other. “Since the chamber of commerce meeting about the snow-plowing contract,” Annie mumbled.
“The snow-plowing meeting? The one where you stood up in front of the whole town and accused Allen of using city contracts to line his own pockets? That meeting?” It had been an epic Norma Rae moment. Annie standing in front of the council, her hair a graying halo around her face, laying out exactly how Allen’s proposal for snow clearance was going to end up profiting him and costing the town.
“Wasn’t she amazing?” Allen looked up at Annie and smiled. She smiled back.
“Yes. But she was exposing your greedy and corrupt ways while she was being amazing. Isn’t that a problem for you?” This was all so confusing.
He laughed. “A problem? No. A challenge? Absolutely. Do you have any idea how long it’s been since someone has really challenged me? It was . . . exciting. Enervating. Got my blood boiling in ways it hadn’t boiled in years.” He pulled Annie toward him and kissed her right on the mouth.
I shook my head. “And you? What’s your explanation?” I asked Annie.
She arched a brow at me. “Not that I owe you any kind of explanation, but . . . Well, I forgot my umbrella at city hall that night. When I went back to get it, Allen was the only one there. We started arguing again and then, well, we weren’t arguing anymore. That line between passion and anger can be very thin sometimes.”
Allen reached up, took her hand and brought it to his lips. “You have such fire. I don’t know how any man can resist you.”
I felt like I’d been dropped down a rabbit hole. “But you two have been mortal enemies for as long as I can remember.”
Annie shrugged. “Imagine we’re like Rock Hudson and Doris Day in Pillow Talk except I don’t have those awesome hats.”
“And I’m not gay,” Allen chimed in.
“So all the times I’ve seen you prowling around the alley you were coming to meet Annie?” My theory casting Allen as Coco’s murderer and Barbara’s assailant was rapidly disintegrating.
Allen nodded and then winced again. “We weren’t quite ready to go public. You’re not the only one who’s going to be surprised. My chamber of commerce friends are going to have a hard time getting used to Annie being at our cocktail mixers.”
“And imagine what my master gardeners’ group is going to think about having Allen for tea!” Annie giggled. “We’ve been meeting at the store so no one sees us at each other’s houses. I didn’t think you were going to go all Nancy Drew on us.”
I turned back to Allen. “So you weren’t looking for evidence you might have left behind when you murdered Coco?”
“When I what?” Allen squawked and started to stand up, then winced and sat back down again. “You thought I did what?”
I looked down at my feet. “I kind of thought you might have murdered Coco.”
“Why on earth would I do that?” He looked honestly confused.
“To get her property. I know Jessica is planning on selling it to you. Annie told me.” It finally dawned on me how Annie probably knew. Pillow talk, indeed. Ewww. I felt double dirty.
“Of course she is. I’m offering a good price so that I can consolidate my investments here downtown,” Allen said.
“And Coco wouldn’t sell. I thought maybe you’d killed her because you knew Jessica was an easier mark.” A greedier mark, I corrected in my head.
Allen struggled to his feet and over to one of the cane-back chairs Annie had scattered around. “Look. I like business. I like buying and selling. It’s like a game to me. Monopoly, but the board is real. I would no more murder someone to get access to a property than I would spit into the wind.”
“I also thought maybe it might have been an accident. You argued and pushed her and she fell and then you tried to make it look like someone broke in.” I sat down on one of the chairs. I felt tired all of a sudden.
“Please tell me you didn’t share your theories
with anyone,” Allen said plaintively.
“I maybe mentioned them to Dan.” I winced. “Sorry.”
“And what was his reaction?” Allen asked.
I looked down at my feet. “He told me I was crazy.”
“Good man. I’m going to see about getting him a raise.”
* * *
The next morning on the way to POPS, Sprocket and I were walking up Tulip Lane when we saw the black SUV go through the intersection ahead of us. I hurried down the street to see if maybe I could get a license plate number to give to Dan, but then a green Honda Civic turned onto the street. Well, the driver tried to turn onto the street, but somehow turned too hard and jumped up onto the sidewalk. After bumping up onto the sidewalk, the driver clearly tried to correct, but overdid that as well. The Civic bumped back onto the road and headed directly toward a white PT Cruiser parked on the other side of the street. The driver corrected again, but sideswiped the Cruiser, screeching along the length of the car with that awful metal-on-metal sound that everyone knows heralds no one any good.
Sprocket surged forward, barking at the out-of-control automobile. I pulled back on his leash. Who knew where that crazy-ass car was going next? One place it wasn’t going to go, however, was over my dog. Not unless it went over me first.
The driver overcorrected again, jumped the opposite curb and this time, without any cars in its way, plowed directly into the oak tree in the front of George and Cindy Calvin’s yard. In the oak-tree-versus-Civic standoff, the oak tree definitely won. Sprocket and I heard the airbag deploy with a giant pop and then there was nothing but a hissing noise coming from under the crushed hood of the Civic.
Sprocket and I started to run. We got to the Civic at about the same time Mrs. Calvin came out onto the porch in her bathrobe. “What in the Sam Hill is going on out here?”
“Not sure, Mrs. Calvin. Someone’s had an accident.” I was pretty sure who was going to be behind the wheel of that car. It wasn’t the only green Civic in town, but I thought I knew who drove this one.
“I’ll say! Who the h-e-double-toothpicks is that?” She looked reluctant to come off her porch.
Normally I admire the fact that Mrs. Calvin manages to have one of the worst potty mouths in Grand Lake without ever uttering a real swear word. It was from her that I’d learned to call someone a “see you next Tuesday.” Today, however, I didn’t have time for it. “Call 911.”
I grabbed the door handle and tried to pull the door open, but the force of the impact had jammed the door. I knocked on the window and peered in, seeing mainly the pillowy white airbag. “Are you okay in there?”
The blond head turned to look at me. I took a step back. Just as I thought. It was Jessica. Sprocket raised his head and sniffed. I did, too. Gasoline. Visions of the car suddenly bursting into flame exploded in my brain. I pulled again on the door, bracing my feet and putting my full weight into it. It still wouldn’t budge. Jessica stared at me through the window. “Jessica, can you push on the door from the inside?”
She still stared at me, her eyes unfocused.
I pounded some more. “Jessica! Unlock the door!” Still nothing. Behind me, Sprocket was barking as if he could open the car door through sound frequency.
I looked around for something, anything I could use and saw the brick edging along Mrs. Calvin’s driveway. I ran over, pulled up a brick, went to the passenger side of Jessica’s Civic and smashed the window. That got Jessica’s attention. “What the hell, Rebecca?” With her words came a puff of breath that had to be about ninety proof.
I was getting a little tired of people asking me that, so I didn’t bother to answer. I reached in and unlocked the passenger door, crawled halfway in and undid Jessica’s seat belt. “You have to get out of the car. Can you open your door?”
Comprehension started to dawn in her eyes. She turned to her door and tried to push it open. No dice.
“Climb over this way.” I slid back out of the car to give her room, but she got stuck halfway across the console.
“I can’t.” She collapsed, sprawled across the seat.
“You can, Jessica. You have to.” I bent over to look at her. Sprocket shoved his way in and licked her face.
“Oh, yuck! Your dog slobbered on me.” She tried to wipe her face, but missed, her hand waving ineffectually in the air.
My heart was thudding in my chest. “Jessica, move. There’s gasoline dripping from somewhere. It’s not safe for you to stay in the car. You have to get out.”
“I’m tired.” She laid her head down on the passenger seat. “The leather is nice and cool.”
“It won’t be for long if your car bursts into flame,” I pointed out.
She didn’t answer. In fact, I thought I heard a slight snore. Sprocket licked her face again. She waved a hand distractedly in the air like she was brushing away a fly.
Mrs. Calvin came back out onto her stoop. “I called 911. They said they’re on their way.”
I listened, but didn’t hear sirens. The gasoline smell got stronger. I reached into the car and grabbed Jessica under her armpits and pulled. She slid toward the door for a second then stopped. I gave another experimental tug. Nothing. I looked in. Jessica’s leg was caught. I clambered over her and moved her leg and then shifted back out again. I tugged again. Still nothing. So I tugged harder.
Big mistake. Jessica came free and I stumbled backward, landing hard on my back on Mrs. Calvin’s lawn with Jessica on top of me. Mrs. Calvin screamed an actual expletive. Jessica opened one eye, closed it again and then started to scream. Sprocket licked my face enthusiastically.
As I tried to catch the breath that had been knocked out of me, I heard the sirens.
Fourteen
The paramedics had taken one look at Jessica and whisked her into the ambulance. Dan took a quick statement from me and one from Mrs. Calvin and then headed to the hospital to talk to Jessica after a terse “You and I have to talk” directed at me. Mrs. Calvin offered me a cup of coffee, but I had to get to the shop, and suspected she used instant anyway. As it was, I was late. I barely had the first batch of breakfast bars ready to go before people were lining up at the door.
It didn’t help that I was moving slow. My head hurt from where it hit the ground and my rib cage was bruised up enough that it hurt with every breath I took. When the crowd thinned out at nine thirty, I almost wept with relief. I collapsed into a chair at the kitchen table with a fresh cup of coffee with good cold cream and a little sugar. I reached into my purse to pull out the bottle of painkillers I kept there and my hand hit an unfamiliar shape. I pulled it out. Coco’s to-do-list notepad. I’d completely forgotten about slipping it into my purse right before Huerta burst in to arrest me. Self-righteous indignation apparently erased my short-term memory.
I set it on the table. Coco always tended to push hard on pens. She said it was a leftover from living in the days of carbon copies. You had to really bear down to make sure the words on the yellow copy were still legible. I thought it was one more sign of her energy and vitality. Even pens had to bend to her will. Whatever the reason, I could see faint depressions on the paper from where her pen had dug in.
I picked out a soft-leaded pencil from the old sugar tin I kept my office supplies in and sharpened it. Then, holding my breath, I started to run the side of the pencil over the depressions with the same gentleness Antoine had taught me to use when making pastry. My streusels will melt on your tongue in a sea of buttery goodness, and Coco’s handwriting appeared on the notepad like cream rising to the top of a stoneware jug.
The date on the top was Thursday, the day she died. My hands started to shake.
The first item was hard to read. I held it at an angle to the light. It looked like it was possibly “Buy sponges.” Or maybe something about tongues? Hard to tell.
The next item was easy. Return library books. Coco was a voracious reader and
was at the Grand Lake Public Library at least once a week if not more.
Third item: Pick up copies of plan. Could she have meant our business plan? The one we’d been working on together? The one no one else thought existed? But pick it up from where?
Item four, however, took my breath away. Of all of them it was the easiest to read. Coco must have been pressing down pretty hard on that pen when she wrote, “Change will.”
* * *
I had known that Coco was planning on changing her will. I hadn’t thought it would happen this soon. It was part of the plan that Coco and I had been making to create our personal popcorn-and-fudge wonderland. Coco’s will, as it stood now, left everything to Jessica. Her house. Her car. Her shop. Her fudge recipe. The fudge recipe that Jessica had been trying to talk Coco into selling to one of the big national chocolatiers for years.
The new will was going to leave Jessica the house, the car, and the shop, but not the recipe. Coco was going to take that with her to the new shop she was going to open with me. I knew that, but I didn’t think anybody else did. With no one believing me about Coco and I going into business together, I figured they’d be even less likely to believe that Coco was going to give the fudge recipe to me.
Dan came in at about noon to have our little chat. He waited until I’d set his coffee down in front of him to say, “I don’t know what you were thinking, Rebecca. Why didn’t you wait for us? Why did you have to pull Jessica out of that car? You knew Mrs. Calvin had called 911. You knew we were on our way.” It didn’t escape my notice that I was no longer Bec.
“I could smell the gasoline. I was afraid the car was going to burst into flames. I couldn’t stand there and let Jessica burn. She was too drunk to get out of the car on her own.” It occurred to me that Jessica might have been happy to let me burn. I hadn’t thought that part through at the time. I crouched down next to Sprocket and buried my face in his fur. At least he was on my side.
Dan rolled his head like he was loosening his shoulders. “Cars don’t burst into flame in real life. That’s a TV thing.”
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