by Gen Griffin
“I need another drink,” David said.
“I gave the rest of my cash to Makinsley.” Addison frowned in the direction of the bathroom. “I don't know what takes her so long in there.”
“She's reapplying her fucking face,” David told him. “You don't know it, but she's really an ogre under all that make up.”
“I always thought her nose and her height made her look more like a troll, personally.” Addison grinned wickedly at David. The tension that had existed a moment before had already evaporated.
“Jesus Christ. I never thought about it that hard. Yeah. She does look like a troll,” David agreed. “And you're screwing her.”
“Everyone is sexy in the dark,” Addison informed him.
“Says the guy who's giving multiple orgasms to the troll.” Cal reached into his own pocket and pulled out a wad of cash. “I'm fixing to go get me a Jack and Coke, hold the coke. Y'all want anything?”
“Same as you,” David said.
“Addy?”
“Double shot of tequila?” Addison shrugged and then shook his head. “Fuck that, get me the whole bottle. It's been a long damn week and I'll bet every last dime I have to my name that this upcoming weekend is going to be even worse.”
“Considering that we're currently two days away from the wedding and the girls are all running around like chickens with their heads chopped off, yeah. I can see the next couple of weeks being a bit chaotic.” Privately, Cal thought chaotic was an understatement, but he didn't want to admit that to his buddies. Even best friends have their limits and he figured that everyone they knew was pretty close to reaching their wedding drama limit for the decade. Gracie's parental drama and lack of planning had spiraled into a full blown disaster during the last month.
“I was actually referring to Kerry being arrested on suspicion of murder,” Addy revealed as he racked the pool balls..
“What?” Cal nearly dropped his wallet.
“When?” David asked.
“This afternoon. Neither one of y'all put a human head in the trunk of Kerry's car, did you?”
“A human head?” Cal made a face. “No.”
“I wouldn't even know where to get a human head,” David said. “Though as far as stunts go, it has creativity. I'm kind of jealous that I didn't think of it first.”
“Frank thinks its just a prank,” Addison acknowledged. “But they're still holding him in one of our jail cells until they figure out the full details. Can't be too careful, you know.”
“You said they arrested him on suspicion of murder?” David asked. “Seems like a heavy charge for a prank.”
“Sully says the head is real. I talked to him on the phone when I was on my way over here. He wanted to make double-triple sure that I wasn't responsible for the head. I don't know why no one wants to believe I didn't put a human skull in Kerry's trunk.”
“You did put decaying shrimp in his air conditioning vents.”
“You also reversed the wiring on his taser so that it shocked him when he pressed the button.”
“You baked laxatives into his wheat muffins last week.”
“You refilled his asthma inhaler with pepper spray.”
“The hair removal cream in his shampoo was downright classy. So was the poison ivy you rubbed all over the seats of his cruiser.”
“Okay, okay. Y'all have made your point.” Addison tried and failed to look innocent. His bright turquoise eyes were sparkling in the dim light of the bar. “I like to have a little fun with Deputy Longwood. Point is, I wouldn't rob any graves to do it. I don't know where the head came from. All I know is that Sully found a head in his car and now Kerry's in lockup.”
“I'd pay good money to see Kerry rotting away in a jail cell,” David mused.
“You want to?” Addison offered. “We can go down to the Sheriff's department and pay him a friendly little visit.”
“That would be evil.” Cal was smiling as he said the words. “But fun. Definitely fun.”
“Screw the drinks. Let's go.” David set his pool cue back onto its rack.
“Go where?” Makinsley had returned from the bathroom with a fresh round of shots.
“The sheriff's department,” Addison told her. He took the shots from her, keeping one for himself and passing the other two to David and Cal.
“We're out drinking. Why would we want to go the sheriff's department?” Makinsley tossed back her heavily highlighted blonde hair, swallowed her shot as if the liquor were water and then jammed herself into the relatively small space between David and Addison. She wrapped one of her arms around Addison's waist and tucked herself underneath his shoulder so that he had his arm around her. “Isn't avoiding the police part of the point of being drunk in a bar?”
“Kerry's been arrested. He's locked up in one of the cells,” Addison supplied.
“We're going to go taunt him and throw shit at him,” David offered.
“Oh. Well. That changes everything.” Makinsley grinned. “What are we waiting for? I call shotgun!”
Chapter 15
The toilet paper and duct tape wedding dresses were, without a doubt, the ugliest things Gracie had seen all week. With that said, she couldn't stop laughing as she watched Trish layer Katie in roll after roll of discount brand TP. Every so often, Trish would briefly stop wrapping and fasten a small strip of duct tape to the layers.
Holly was sitting on the floor in front of them, tearing strips of toilet paper into thin ribbons and attaching them like fringe to a long strip of duct tape. She'd made six of the fringe strips so far. Each one was longer than the first.
“I still think Gracie would have been a better model,” Katie said as Trish started fastening the first of the fringe strips to her hips. Clearly, the fringe was supposed to make some kind of skirt.
“Gracie's dress is too hard to work with as a base layer,” Trish said. “It's short, clingy and nothing wants to stick to that fabric. Your dress is longer, flowy, cotton and easy to build on.”
Katie snorted. “But I'm not the bride-to-be.”
“So?” Gracie wasn't helping much with this process. She'd never cared for arts and crafts. Still, this game seemed to be going better than the first one they had played. Women all over the room were laughing and giggling as they attempted to fashion the best bridal gown possible out of a six-pack of toilet paper and one roll of duct tape. Every team had received exactly the same supplies. “Besides, you're shorter and skinnier than me. Less chance of running out of toilet paper before we're done.”
“There is that,” Katie acknowledged as Trish continued to add to her skirt.
“Think we should do the fringe across the neckline?” Holly asked.
“Why not?” Trish said. “Are we running out of paper yet?”
“We still have two rolls.”
“Go for it then.”
Holly began making another layer of fringe. She was just fastening the first strip of toilet paper to it when the doors opened and someone let out a squeal. A noisy round of applause started up among the girls who were standing closest to the door.
“Woohoo!”
“Oh my god!”
“Yee yee!”
Gracie frowned at Katie and Trish. “What's going on?”
“I have no idea.” Trish passed one strand of toilet paper fringe over to Katie. She walked towards the edge of the room and peered past the crowd of other girls so that she could see the door.
Gracie watched at Trish's eyes widened and she moved one of her hands to cover her mouth. Most of the other girls were laughing and yelling now. A loud bust of music suddenly blared through the room. Gracie recognized some of the words. It was an old pop song and the guy was singing about being too sexy for his shirt.
Suddenly the crowd parted and, accompanied by another round of jeering cheers, Gracie saw what everyone was getting so worked up over.
The man who had just come strutting through the door was naked except for a sash across his chest and a thin g-string th
ong that left very little to anyone's imagination. He danced his way across the empty dance floor, his hairy legs and chest were on full display as he flexed and posed, grinning happily at every woman in the room. He couldn't have been a day under seventy. Gracie saw that the sash on his chest had writing on it as he made his way towards her with obvious purpose.
She had to squint to read the words as he continued to sashay towards her, shaking his geriatric hips. The sash read: Sexy Grandpa-Gram.
Someone had sent her a senior-citizen stripper.
Gracie's cheeks were on fire as two more men who looked to be approximately the same vintage as Cal's Pappy came prancing into the room. One was using a cane. The other hand a walker.
Women all around Gracie were laughing and howling as the three strippers began their show. The first stripper who had come in was still honed in on Gracie. He met her eyes directly as he hopped towards her, thrusting his pelvis like Elvis with a hip replacement.
“Go with him, Gracie!” April Lynne called out. “He's here just for you.”
Gracie only needed one look at the broad grin on April Lynne's face to know who was responsible for this one. She pointed her finger at Cal's smirking, round-faced cousin. “I owe you for this one, don't I?”
April Lynne tossed her head back and howled with laughter. Her tight, low-necked blue tank top looked like it was about to rip in half as she chuckled. “Me and a few friends!” She gestured to Cissy and Laurie, who were on either side of her and laughing just as hard. Cissy was wrapped up like a mummy in sagging toilet paper.
Laurie gave a prom queen wave. “Love you Grace!”
It was everything Gracie could do not to flip them the bird as the grinning elderly stripper grabbed her by the wrist and drug her out onto the dance floor with him.
Chapter 16
“Are you looking at your email?” Lora's voice crackled excitedly through the phone.
“I can be.” Sully clicked away from his current browser window and opened up his email. “Whatcha got for me?”
“Words won't do it justice. Open the image files I sent you.”
Sullivan opened the images. He frowned in confusion as an x-ray image popped up onto the screen. There was a hard, solid circle sitting in between the skeleton's teeth. “What the hell is that?”
“A diamond ring,” Lora replied. “A humongous diamond ring. Easily 5 carats.”
“Its real?”
“Absolutely,” Lora replied. “I didn't know it was in her mouth until I took the x-ray. After I saw it there, I pried her teeth apart and pulled it out. Its easily a 20K to 30K ring. Maybe more. I put it in an evidence bag for you. Unfortunately, it doesn't have any fingerprints on it. I did check.”
“You're amazing,” he said.
“I'm not done. The ring looks like a custom piece, Sully. We're not dealing with a mass produced item. This diamond is big and it is distinctive.”
“It'll be easy to trace.”
“Exactly. Also, it's really clean.”
“Okay. So what?”
“Too clean to have been sitting inside a dead person's mouth for weeks. The ring is a very recent addition to the overall package.”
“You think whoever put the ring in our victim's mouth is also the person who put the head inside Kerry's trunk?” Sully suddenly felt wide awake, despite the late hour and the fact all of the caffeine he'd consumed earlier had worn off.
“Someone killed your victim, chopped her head off with an ax, jammed a diamond ring in her mouth and then stuck her head in your off-duty officer's car.”
“I think we can rule out the possibility that this was some kind of childish prank being played on an unpopular deputy,” Sully mused out loud.
“Looks to me like someone was trying to send him a message,” Lora said.
“I agree. Question is, what was the message and how does it relate to the corpse?”
“Sully, if whoever killed your victim left her head behind for your deputy as message then he may be in trouble.”
“He's safe enough for now. I've got him locked up in a cell.” Sully clicked over to the next image Lora had sent him. She hadn't been kidding when she'd said the massive antique ring was distinctive. It if was real then it was worth a small fortune. “Wonder what Kerry can tell me about this ring?”
“Huh?” Lora asked.
“Talking to myself. Sorry. I'm wondering what Kerry can tell me about this ring. No one would just drop an expensive diamond down a corpse's throat if they weren't trying to make a point by doing it.”
“I agree. Looks like you've found a solid clue.”
“Maybe. Give me a name to go with my head and I'll really be on my way.”
“Run the dental records through the missing person's system and see if you get lucky,” Lora suggested. “You can't expect me to do all your work for you.”
He laughed. “Thanks Lora. I really do appreciate you and the miracles you work. I'll come by and pick up the diamond ring and the head on my way out of town.”
“Bring me a chocolate bar, will you?”
“I'll bring you anything you ask for,” Sully promised as he hung up the phone. His mind was already focused on the ring. It was his first real lead towards finding out where the head in Kerry's trunk had come from.
Chapter 17
“I'm going to kill April Lynne,” Gracie announced as Katie shoved the door to the party room closed behind the last of their guests. The private party room was a disaster. Long strips of toilet paper trailed across the floors and stuck to the furniture. Stray drink cups littered nearly every visible surface. The two trashcans the country club had provided were overflowing with paper plates and squashed napkins.
“You really think she was the one who sent out the extra invitations?” Trish asked.
Katie wrinkled her nose as she nodded. “Without a doubt. No one else would think it was funny to invite people Gracie doesn't like to her bachelorette party. And the frog gifts were classic April Lynne humor. Didn't you see how how hard she was laughing while Gracie was going through the presents?”
“Not to mention that she likes to cost Cal and his parents money,” Gracie added. “She's always trying to get, and I quote her here, her 'fair share of the Walker money'. She doesn't care if its a lunch charged to a company credit card instead of her own or a bag of free dog food she took home from the inventory Pappy keeps in the back room. If April Lynne can get it on Pappy's dime, she's going to take full advantage.”
“I don't get it. She's Cal's first cousin, isn't she?” Trish asked. “I wasn't exactly under the impression anyone in that family was hurting for money.”
“April Lynne's Daddy was Cal's Daddy's brother,” Gracie explained. “He died in a car accident when she and Leroy were both babies. He had a life insurance policy but their parents weren't married and Pappy had been listed as the beneficiary when the policy was first drawn up. She wanted Pappy to give her the insurance check, but he knew how bad she was with money so he refused.”
“Pappy left her penniless?” Trish covered her mouth in horrified surprise.
“No. He bought her that big brick house they live in and then put the rest of money in a trust that pays out a certain percentage of the interest every month. It would be enough to live on if April Lynne or her mother could ever stop shopping. Its ridiculous how much money those two women blow through every month. They both have full time jobs plus the trust income and they're still broke before the 15th. They're always showing up at the store or the house and demanding more money from Cal's Dad because he's the one who Pappy put in charge of the trust after he got tired of dealing with them.”
“Oh lordy.”
“Trust me when I say that I'm not looking forward to the day that Cal is named as custodian for that trust,” Gracie said. “Miss Loretta says that if she had things her way, she would give April Lynne's mother full control of the trust, fire April Lynne and Leroy from the store and just flat out wash her hands of the entire mess. I think it's
a marvelous plan, personally.” Gracie surveyed the mess surrounding them and then let out a long sigh. “Or maybe they should just turn the conniving bitch out on the street without a penny to her name. Did y'all see how many drinks April Lynne guzzled down?”
“She must have put away nearly two full bottles of top shelf tequila.” Katie's eyes shone with exhaustion as she began walking from table to table and gathering up all of the forgotten and abandoned paper products.
“You don't have to clean up,” Trish reminded them. “Miss Loretta paid for the cleaning service to handle the after-party mess.”
Katie deposited an armful of cups and plates into a black plastic garbage bag that had been hung over the back of the chair. “We don't have to clean, but I'm going to straighten up a little bit anyways. The room was so clean and pretty when we got here. Now it looks like hogs have been wallowing across the dance floor. I'm embarrassed to leave it in this condition.”
“This is why her house is never a mess,” Gracie stage-whispered to Trish.
Trish laughed, but she also began gathering up the trash that was scattered around the room. “Addison's desk must drive you nuts,” she said to Katie.
“Addison's everything drives me crazy. The boy is a total and complete slob. He's the only person I've ever seen leave his stray laundry in the middle of the sheriff's department floor. He left one of his shirts on my desk the other day.” Katie rolled her honey-colored eyes as she deposited several mostly full but forgotten drinks into the trash. “By the way, I've been meaning to ask but I keep forgetting, is he bringing Makinsley to the wedding?”
“I don't know. I've been too afraid to ask.” Gracie looked down at her bare feet and tried to remember where she'd left her uncomfortable high heels. “Did I tell y'all that she offered to be one of my bridesmaids?”
“Ugh, no.” Katie made a face at the half eaten slice of pizza she'd just picked up off the beautiful hardwood floor. “She probably just wanted to walk down the aisle with Addison.”