The Fame Equation

by Lisa Wysocky

  Bill moved his cake plates away and pulled the soup bowl closer. “On another note, what do you think of those church people? Melody spent a lot of time there.”

  Hmmm. What did I think?

  “Allen is pompous and patronizing, but a hard read,” I finally said. “Emily seems to compartmentalize her life and be different people within her boundaries. Does that make sense?”

  Bill nodded, and I continued.

  “Ruthie is kind of drab until she turns on the charm. I’ve heard her preach, though, and she is moving. Did any of them kill Melody? I don’t know. I’ve always heard you should follow the money and they got most of it. Did they know they were getting it? Impossible to tell. But maybe we’re looking at this the wrong way. Did Melody seem off to you recently? Nervous?”

  “No,” said Bill. “If anything, she was excited about the single and the tour. You know what’s interesting, though. You know who wasn’t there today?”

  I didn’t understand what he was getting at.

  “Chas Chadwick. The label head. Not that you’d expect anyone to write their label head into their will, but he is a person I could picture killing someone. He’s got that dark, thoughtful look, and as insecure as label jobs are these days, you have to know that whatever decision he makes is going to be for the good of the label, not the artist. Maybe Melody had something on him and was going to blow the whistle.”

  My reply got stuck in my throat when I spotted a man trying not to look in our direction. It was the same clean-cut guy I had seen in the restaurant with Buffy. What were the chances of that? Especially when this downtown café was not all that close to Hillsboro Village, where Buffy and I had eaten. Bill saw the look on my face.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Don’t turn around now,” I said, “but in a minute, casually check out the guy in the blue shirt sitting near the far wall. Brown hair, young, clean cut, reading a paper.”

  Bill gave me a quizzical look, then knocked his fork off the table and bent down to get it.

  “Never seen him before,” he said, straightening up.

  “This is the second time I’ve seen him. The first time was yesterday in Provence, in Hillsboro Village with Buffy. The coincidence just strikes me as odd.”

  “What, that a nice looking guy would look your way in a restaurant?”

  “No,” I smiled in spite of myself. “There’s just something about him that I don’t trust.”

  “How about I go over and talk to him,” Bill said.

  “No!” I hissed.

  “Seriously, I can pretend to mistake him for someone else, start a conversation.”

  Before I could protest, Bill was out of his chair and walking toward the man. That’s when Mr. Clean Cut put down his paper and bolted from the café.

  20

  I WAS SUPPOSED TO RIDE Sally that afternoon, but my excitement about the will and my nervous energy about the mysterious Mr. Clean Cut ruled that out. Horses are intuitive and pick up on human emotion quickly. As herd animals, they need their people partners to be the herd leaders. When a horse knows the human is not capable, trouble arises in the form of poor behavior from the horse. In addition, most horse related accidents are due to human error. I knew that this afternoon I could neither earn respect from a horse nor make good judgments.

  Jon needed to know of the change of plans, and rather than text him, I decided to tell him in person. We’d been talking more lately and I wanted him to know that I would be fine by tomorrow.

  He was standing at the gate to the arena, sending a text. That in itself was unusual, as Jon rarely texted, but the big smile on his face was even more uncommon. Not that it was any of my business, but I wanted to grab the phone from his hands to see who he was texting. I restrained myself, however. Jon was allowed to have a life. I just didn’t like mysteries.

  When Jon saw me, he quickly stuck the phone in his pocket, and turned his gaze to Gigi, who was trotting around the pen with her tail up over her back. A raised tail was a sure sign of a horse in good spirits. With Gigi, though, that was her natural state of being.

  “News?” Jon asked as he scanned my face.

  “Yes, but I’m not ready to share. I, uh, need some time to process. Can you longe Sally over some ground poles?” Cavaletti, or ground poles, helped a horse develop cadence and balance.

  Jon nodded. “Maybe try some low risers?”

  “Sure. Four to six inches off the ground will make her use some different muscles. See how she does.”

  Jon didn’t ask what, specifically, I needed to process, and that was one thing I liked about him. He respected a person’s space.

  “Will you come for dinner?” I asked. “Brent and Darcy will be there and I can fill everyone in at once.”

  “Wouldn’t miss it,” he said, fingering the phone in his pocket.

  I should have gotten caught up on paperwork that afternoon, but I took a nap instead. Some of my best thinking is done when I am asleep. At five o’clock I awoke, refreshed and with a plan.

  A while back I’d tasked Darcy with cooking one night a week and tonight was the night. While I didn’t have to worry about making dinner, eating it could be an adventure. When she lived at home with her dad, they had a cook who handled all of the kitchen details. But in less than a year Darcy was going to be a college student. She needed to know how to fend for herself.

  When Brent, Jon, Darcy and I sat down to dinner I looked at my plate with some trepidation.

  “So. Chopped frozen spinach nuked with butter, salt, and parmesan,” said Darcy. “Frozen broccoli, nuked with butter, salt, and parmesan. And, ground turkey meatloaf that I, like, made all by myself with bread crumbs, onion, ketchup––”

  “And let me guess,” said Jon. “Butter, salt, and parmesan.”

  “You must have a hankering for those three ingredients,” said Brent, digging in. He was a brave man.

  “Not really,” Darcy said. “That’s all we had in the refrigerator.” This last part was said with a pointed look in my direction.

  “Grocery run tomorrow,” I replied, looking dubiously at a bite of meatloaf on my fork. I soon discovered that Darcy’s meal wasn’t half bad.

  During dinner I filled them in on the morning’s events, although I left out the part about Mr. Clean Cut. I didn’t want anyone to worry. Brandyne’s behavior and the various bequests stunned my friends into silence.

  “That’s a lot of money,” Jon finally offered after eating a full helping of seconds. He tended to consume all of his daily calories in one meal.

  “And the intellectual property rights. Cat, that could make you a rich woman,” Brent said.

  I hadn’t considered that, and because I still didn’t understand it, I put it out of my mind. For now.

  “So what are you going to do with it?” Darcy asked. “OMG! You could go on a cruise! Of course, you’d need someone to go with you. I’d volunteer for that. Lots of sun, water, good-looking guys. We could go over Christmas break!”

  As a wealthy teen who would eventually have access to her trust fund, money was less important to her than it was to most other people. I had more practical plans. Initially, I had been going to wait until I actually got the money, which would not be until the estate was settled some months from now, to decide what to do with it. But while I slept, a plan had bounced around in my brain.

  “Good idea, Darce. But first, I want to do things around here that Melody would have approved of,” I said.

  “What, like give it to the riding center?” Darcy asked.

  “No, I think they got enough today to last them a while. Every time Melody came out here, she mentioned that she didn’t like to see the horses in stalls. She understood that show horses have to be kept in more than other horses, but she also understood that horses are herd animals. Jon, I’d like you to start looking at wire mesh stalls, like the ones they have at the riding center. We’ll also need to figure in the cost of taking the existing stalls out.”

  Jon’s eyes
lit up. “I like that idea,” he said. “When it’s time, I can round up guys to pull out the old stalls. It’ll take just a day or two. Maybe do the left side on the first day, and the right side the next. That way the horses aren’t displaced for too long. I can save the wood we pull out for other projects.”

  “I like your idea, too. What other plans do you have for your windfall?” Brent asked.

  “Melody never had much growing up, but what she had, she took care of. She had to, because she needed to make what little she had last. We need to make our barn last and the biggest problem we have with it right now is the roof.”

  I turned to Jon again. “I don’t want to put too much on you, but will you get some bids on replacing the entire roof? Not with metal. I want shingles.” Jon nodded. “When the rain comes down on a metal roof,” I explained, “the sound is amplified and horses can’t hear potential predators, so they don’t rest as well.

  “Also speaking of roofs,” I said. “I think Melody would want us to put a cover over the round pen. She was a natural blond with fair skin and needed to be protected from the sun. The same goes for some of our horses. A roofed round pen also means that we could use it when it’s raining––or really hot.”

  Jon gave me a thumbs up.

  “What else?” Darcy asked. I could tell she was still hoping for something fun.

  “Well, those two things will eat up a big chunk, but I think there will still be enough for a new, or newer, truck.”

  “’Bout time,” she said, standing to clear the dishes away.

  “Jon, you’ve already been looking,” I said. “Send me your info and I’ll pick it up from there. Then you and I can go over the projected costs of everything in a few weeks. We’ll know more then. But I also want to upgrade your apartment.”

  Jon started to protest, but I held up my hand. “Keeping the apartment up is an investment. It’s cheaper in the long run to have a good, new energy efficient refrigerator in there than the old one you have now, which doesn’t even work all that well. Plus, we need to change out the flooring, put in some nice tile. The linoleum is getting worn.

  “Lastly,” I said, “and Jon, this is one more thing for your list, is one of those big, horse-sized vibration plates that we used at the all-breed invitational show last summer.”

  “Yes!” Jon rarely showed over the top emotion, so I could tell he was very pleased with this last addition to the list. The vibration plate was really a vibrating floor that horses stood on that stimulated blood circulation and acted like a deep massage. It had settled Gigi down at the show, and I admit to using it myself. I was sure we could put it to lots of good use––horses, dogs, and people alike.

  “We’ll have to budget well,” I added. “One hundred thousand is a lot of money, but we have a lot to do, so it will go quickly. I think it’s all doable, though.”

  “What’s all doable?” asked Martin, coming through the door that Darcy had opened for him. He carried a square, cardboard box that he placed on the counter. “Mama sent over one of her apple pies.”

  Brent updated Martin on our conversation while Darcy and I got out plates and forks. We looked in the freezer for ice cream, but everyone would have to settle for whipped cream. Even though I had eaten a bigger dinner than I had planned, my mouth watered. Mama Giles was an excellent cook.

  It was an issue that bothered me when I had time to think about it, which fortunately was not all that often. I could never begin to compete with Mama in the kitchen. If Brent and I stayed a couple, the issue of cooking would sooner or later come up. He was pretty good with a grill, but that was the extent of his skill. My cooking skills weren’t even up to Darcy’s level. Everything I made was either boiled or microwaved. Mama Giles would not think I was taking good care of her son if I didn’t give him a good home cooked dinner every night–– and she’d be vocal about letting me know her thoughts.

  “Tell your mom thanks for the pie,” I said when Martin sat down across the table from me. “Apple is one of my favorites.” It was an olive branch to Mama, but one that rang true.

  I had met Martin before I met Brent. Martin had responded to a 911 call I made last February when Bubba had gone missing. Then the sheriff, who had recently been voted out of office, suspected me of murdering my neighbor. Martin had the good sense to realize that I was innocent, and involved me as much as he could in the investigation. Which, come to think of it, he hadn’t done so much this time around.

  When Glenda’s murderer had bashed in my shoulder, Martin called Brent to sit with me at the hospital while he chased after the culprit. Martin later told me he had not trusted anyone else to keep me safe. That was the start and here we were in November. It was one of the longest relationships I’d ever had.

  “You went to the reading of the will, didn’t you?” Brent asked Martin.

  “I did,” Martin said.

  “You have thoughts about it?” Brent asked.

  “I do,” said Martin.

  “What about Augie Freemont, Melody’s agent?” I asked. “He’s got these weird rolls of fat on the back of his head,” I explained to Darcy.

  “Totally untrustworthy,” she agreed.

  “If you ladies are done,” Martin said. “I’ll give you some news.”

  Darcy and I closed our mouths.

  “I still can’t share a lot of what we know, but we are makin’ progress in the case,” he said. “First off, we’re goin’ through all the computers and electronic stuff that was willed to you, Miz Cat. Maybe we’ll find a lead in there somewhere. I’ll let you and Davis Young know when we’re through.”

  I nodded.

  “Then,” he continued, “the guy who found Miz Cross in the water was a Vanderbilt student who kept a cheap phone for when he went canoeing, as he didn’t want to chance that his good phone might get wet. He panicked after he called. But, he was in a chemistry lab until midnight Wednesday night, then hit the tail end of a frat party where he crashed on the couch in the living room and was seen by others as early as five Thursday morning.

  “We still aren’t sure of the time of death, so solid alibis for many people are hard to determine––assuming they killed Melody and didn’t pay someone else to. Chas Chadwick and your fat roll friend Augie Fremont were both in Dallas at a music conference from Wednesday afternoon to Friday morning. We’ve checked with the airlines and they did not get back in town until noon. They are not high on our list.”

  “What about someone from the film crew?” Darcy asked. “Maybe someone was like obsessed with Melody. Maybe––”

  Martin jumped in before Darcy got too wound up in her maybes. “Most were editing all week, but we haven’t had time to check where all of them were from Wednesday night until early Thursday––with the exception of Homer Bugg, who has been cleared.”

  “Homer Bugg?” I asked.

  “You know him as Fitch, the director.”

  “What were his parents thinking?” Brent asked.

  “Maybe it’s a family name,” said Jon.

  “Anyway,” said Martin, bringing us back on topic. “Davis Young was supposedly home alone Wednesday night and Thursday morning. His wife and kids were visitin’ relatives out of town and he says he had car trouble on his way to work. We’re waitin’ on verification of a service call.”

  Martin then said that Claudine Potts was in a bar in Toad Suck, Arkansas Wednesday evening until someone poured her out the door at closing time. “Accordin’ to several people, she was still out cold at noon on Thursday. Allen and Emily Harding were at church with Ruthie Wednesday night. Then they all went back to the Harding home until about midnight. Allen and Ruthie were back at the church by eight and were there all day. Emily home schooled Rowan until noon, then dropped her off at her mom’s and came out to the therapy center.”

  The police, he said, were still verifying the locations of a number of people during the time in question. “Keep in mind,” he said, “that just because we can’t verify where they were, doesn’t mean t
hey did it.”

  I nodded. “Find any clues on the b-roll?”

  “Nothin’ you haven’t already mentioned to us after you reviewed it.”

  “And Keith Carson?” I was full of questions.

  “We think the accidents were just that, accidents. His wife says he was home Wednesday, and all that night. Thursday mornin’ he had that interview that Miz Cross missed. We’re pretty sure she was dead by then, as she also never showed up for the lunch, or to close on her house or check into the Lowe’s.” He paused. “I can also tell you a few things that will be on the ten o’clock news tonight.”

  All eyes were on the detective and my stomach went into flip-flop mode, which didn’t sit well with Mama Giles’s pie. There was something about the way Martin delivered his words. I knew I wasn’t going to like what came next.

  “As we suspected,” he said to me, “your friend was held under water by her throat.”

  I stopped breathing. Brent rubbed my back.

  “The cause of death was drowning, and the circle of bruises around her neck were caused by someone’s palms, fingers, and thumbs. In addition, she had no skin or unusual fibers under her fingernails. We think she was wearing gloves of some sort when she was killed. That, plus the fact she was in the river, means there is no DNA from the killer on her body.”

  Cat’s Horse Tip #12

  “Safety is found in numbers. Humans can never fully understand how important the protection of a herd is to a horse.”

  21

  I COULDN’T SLEEP. INSTEAD, MY mind kept asking how Melody ended up naked in the Harpeth River. Did she start out near the church and riding center, or farther upstream? The Harpeth curved around, but she was found down stream from the Mighty Happy complex.

  And when did it happen? Melody attended the church service Wednesday evening. She would have left about seven-thirty to drive from Kingston Springs back to her rented house in Pegram, a distance of less than six miles. Then she didn’t show up at her radio interview at ten o’clock Thursday morning. What had happened to my friend between those hours?