Murder, Mayhem and Bliss

by Loulou Harrington

  “You’re not dying on me! Do you understand? You are not!”

  “Am to.” Cindilee opened one eye, and it rolled wildly around to the side.

  “Stand up, damn you!” Jesse shouted. In response, Cindilee giggled, turned her head to the side and puked on the floor.

  Jesse jumped back out of the way and pumped a jubilant fist in the air. “Yes!”

  “Whoa!” a male voice said from very close behind her.

  She turned, too relieved to be surprised by the quick arrival of Joe Tyler.

  “I was going to help you get her up and walking,” he said. Stopping shoulder to shoulder with Jesse, he pointed to Cindilee, arched over the side of the chaise and still violently heaving. “But she’s going to finish that first.”

  “I have never been so glad to see anybody in my whole life,” Jesse confessed, fighting the urge to give him a big, grateful hug.

  He stared down at her, grinning. “Well, that won’t last long.”

  Chapter Thirty

  “Mom,” Jesse said as the taillights of the ambulance disappeared around the bend in the Marshalls’ driveway, “would you call Vivian for me and tell her it’s okay to convene that meeting of the Myrtle Grove Garden Club now. You and I will be heading that way in a few minutes, and I think everyone else is already there except for Lindsey and SueAnn.”

  With a nod, Sophia retreated to her Cutlass to retrieve her phone.

  Joe Tyler tore his gaze from the driveway to watch Sophia until she was almost to her car. “Myrtle Grove Garden Club?” His left eyebrow arched dramatically.

  “It’s a group we recently formed. We’re thinking of landscaping a plot on the town square,” Jesse said, refusing to look him in the eye but unable to ignore his presence next to her. Now she would just have to warn the rest of the group about their new landscaping project before he had a chance to talk to any of them.

  Then she remembered her shock at the sheriff’s sudden arrival in Cindilee’s living room. “How did you get here so fast?” She forgot her resolve not to look directly at him. “The words were barely out of my mouth before you appeared. And do you not own a pair of sunglasses that aren’t tinted black?”

  “Why do my sunglasses bother you so much?” he asked, ignoring her first question.

  “Because I’m a person who looks into the eyes of the person I’m talking to. And thank you, by the way,” she said, veering back to her original subject. “All I know about dealing with an OD is what I’ve seen in the movies.”

  He adjusted his hat, checked on what Sophia was doing, and glanced down the driveway a second time. “Once Mrs. Marshall started throwing up, she wasn’t going to die. Unless she got choked on all those pills she was tossing up. And you were on the right track, trying to get her up and moving. If you could have done that, you would probably have kept her alive anyway until the ambulance got here.”

  Jesse looked past her mother’s car to where his pickup was parked well behind it, tucked under the shadow of the trees. He had arrived at Adele Culpepper’s shortly after she and her mother had left. And Matt had confessed to telling his buddy Joe about Adele’s identification of the Marshalls before he had told Jesse herself.

  She tilted her head to the side and stared up at an angle, into the shadows cast by his hat and the blank expression created by the sunglasses. “You were already here when I asked Mom to call you, weren’t you? Let me guess—you were on your way into the house, and my mother stopped you and had you join her in the car so you could listen to what was being said through the phone. So, how much of that could you hear?”

  “The confessions came through pretty clear. You sort of rambled a little, but…”

  “Oh, no!” Jesse’s hand reached out to clutch his forearm as she remembered that Bill Marshall was on his way out of the country and beyond extradition. “What about…”

  “Bill?” Joe Tyler asked. An indulgent grin tugged at the corners of his mouth.

  At least it looked indulgent to Jesse, indulgent and smug. “Yes,” she snapped, wanting to tell him to quit grinning and do something. But she’d seen that grin before. It was the one he used when he thought he’d done something smart and was waiting for her to do something stupid. “Did you catch him before his flight left?”

  “No, she stalled you too long for that. But I guess they forgot that nothing leaving Tulsa goes very far before it has to connect with something else. He was picked up in Houston while he was waiting for his international flight. We’ll have to sort out jurisdiction, since we’re dealing with embezzled funds that were moved offshore. And we’ll have to get him back here and question him before we can pin down the accomplice-to-murder charge.”

  “Good luck with that,” Jesse said grudgingly. “Part of me believes Cindilee, and part of me doesn’t trust a word that comes out of her mouth. It’s not that I don’t think she would, it’s that I’m not convinced she could. And him… I think he’s just worthless, whatever he’s guilty of.”

  One corner of Joe’s mouth drew up in another grin even as he shook his head. “Yeah, ole Bill’s gonna have a lot of people scratching their heads over that one for awhile.” Then the fleeting smile was gone. “And, just so you know, we started looking into the Marshalls’ personal and business finances yesterday. By this morning, we had enough for search warrants. There’ve been people at his used car dealership since noon. And I wasn’t chasing you when I came here. I was here to execute a search warrant for their house, which I still intend to do just as soon you head on over to your garden party.”

  “Garden Club,” Jesse said, then conceded. “Okay, so you had it all under control with no help from me. But I did get a confession and unearthed some facts in Ginny Spurber’s death that had been lost in the shuffle.”

  “Withheld,” he corrected emphatically. “Facts that had been withheld. And you… Just what the hell did you think you were doing, confronting a possible murderer by yourself? And leaving your mother alone out here with no protection?”

  Jesse started to explain about the tire tool, but sanity forced her to agree with him, even if she would never say it aloud. “Having a conversation with a dying friend,” she said instead, feeling as phony as she sounded. “Or acquaintance, anyway.”

  “Dying?” He frowned down at her and shifted his body subtly closer. “What do you mean dying?”

  “Cindilee says she has terminal cancer. And she had started taking whatever those pills were before I got here today, apparently. Then she took more while we were talking, but I didn’t realize what she was doing. When I caught on, she said she was intending to confess and then die, and wanted me to stop interfering.”

  “She said that? Actually said those exact words?”

  He seemed excited, almost eager, and no longer upset with her, which made Jesse more nervous than his yelling did.

  “Well, maybe not those exact words,” she answered hesitantly. “I was kind of distracted at the time, but it was pretty close to that.” Warming to her subject, Jesse continued, “When I tried to get Cindileee up and walking, she said I was ruining it. She insisted that I leave her alone because she had it all planned. She was supposed to take the pills, confess, and then die. She even had me get her a glass of cognac before I realized what kind of pills she was taking, or how many she had already had.”

  Joe readjusted his hat, pushing it back, then pulling it forward again, clearly agitated. “Which makes it a deathbed confession,” he said, his mumble indicating he was talking mostly to himself, “and admissible in court.”

  “You mean she doesn’t have to say it again in front of more people when she’s not drugged out of her skull?” Jesse asked, wanting something more definite before she got too excited. “What she said there, in front of just me and a phone, was enough?”

  Still distracted, Joe nodded, his attention focused somewhere around the treetops. “You heard her, I heard her, and your mother heard her. And Cindilee Marshall didn’t expect to live. That’s as good as written and s
igned. It’ll stand up.”

  “So, it’s over.” Jesse’s knees felt weak suddenly. This whole thing had been a nightmare. It wasn’t exciting. It wasn’t rewarding to get the bad guy. It was just sad. The whole damned thing was sad.

  A nineteen-year-old girl was dead for no real reason. A successful businessman had turned out to be a truly awful husband and all-around bad person and had died for it. And a respected pillar of the community and his invalid, church-going wife were revealed as a thieving, murderous couple who served their own needs at the expense of everyone else, including each other.

  If the murder of Harry Kerr had sent out shock waves over a quarter of the state, then the truth behind his death and the people responsible would rock their own small community and its neighbors to their foundations.

  “Yeah, it’s over.” Joe’s hand cupped her shoulder and turned Jesse to face him. “Are you okay? What is it?”

  “How do you do this every day?” She stared into his eyes and saw only her own reflection in those damned sunglasses. She looked lost. “How do you face the awful things people do to other people?”

  “People do awful things to other people all the time. People like you…” He tapped the end of her nose with the tip of his finger, making sure he did it gently. “…just have to live with it. People like me get to arrest them for it. I like that.”

  “I’m glad it’s over. I’m never getting involved in anything like this again. Not unless something happened to threaten someone like my mom.” Jesse stopped herself before she could continue mumbling any of the other exceptions running through her head.

  “Good,” he said, not giving her any chance to keep talking. “Hold that thought. Because the next time, we’re not even discussing handcuffs. I’m just putting you in a straightjacket, sticking you in the seat next to me, and not letting you out of my sight until it’s over.”

  She ducked her head and started grinning. “I’ll be sure to remember that if I start feeling crazy again.” The engine on the Cutlass rumbled to life, and Jesse looked up to see that Sophia had put the top down on the convertible and had her scarf and sunglasses on. She smiled and waved when she saw Jesse looking.

  “Uh, oh. Looks like Mom’s getting restless. Now that I’m thoroughly depressed, am I free to go?”

  “I know where to find you, if I need you.”

  He fell into step beside her. When they reached the car, he opened Jesse’s door for her and tipped his hat to Sophia. “You ladies drive careful. I don’t aim to lay eyes on you again till at least tomorrow.”

  By the time Sophia had turned the car around, Joe Tyler was retracing his steps back toward the house. Jesse watched him over her shoulder until the car rounded the bend in the driveway and he disappeared from sight.

  “Was Vivian upset when you talked to her?” Jesse was suddenly eager to see her friends. They were a relief valve and a soft, warm robe on a cold evening. They soothed her and cheered her. And they were so much better than being alone when the realities of life weighed too heavily on her soul.

  “Not upset, just curious. She sounded very, very curious. And she would never admit this, but she really sounded to me like she needed a hug,” Sophia answered.

  “Then this is a good time, I guess, because I know exactly how she feels.”

  ∙∙∙•••●●●•••∙∙∙

  When they pulled up in front of Vivian’s house, the drive was lined with vehicles. Jesse recognized Lindsey’s battered green SUV, great for grocery runs and deliveries. Behind that was SueAnn’s cheerful yellow Jeep. Farther down the drive was Matt and Connie’s dignified sedan. Bliss’s car was probably in the detached garage next to Vivian’s sporty Mercedes.

  Sophia parked in the gap between Matt and Lindsey. While she removed her scarf, carefully folded it and tucked it into her purse, Jesse took off the baseball cap she had pulled on and tossed it into the back seat. Then she ran her fingers through her shoulder-length hair and shook it out.

  Checking herself in the visor mirror, Sophia patted her hair, fluffing it up and out. “Well, I’m gorgeous. How about you?”

  “As long as I don’t look in a mirror, I’m just fine.” Jesse got out and walked around the car, giving her hair one more finger comb and head shake as she went.

  They had reached the bottom step on the porch when Connie came out of the house and hurried to intercept them. “Jesse.” Her hands shook and her fingers were icy as she caught Jesse’s hands in hers. “Is it true? Was it really Cindilee?”

  “Who said that?”

  Sophia cleared her throat in a nonverbal confession.

  “Vivian told me,” Connie answered. “Why would Cindilee, of all people, do something like that? And how could she?”

  “Well, she says that she did, and we’ll just have to respect that. The sheriff has accepted her confession.” Jesse gave the cold hands a squeeze. She knew how Connie felt, or at least in part. None of it sounded very reasonable, but then most murders didn’t.

  “She has to feel so alone.” Connie looked at Jesse with eyes that mourned. “I’m just so sorry for her, and I don’t know if anyone else is ever going to understand why.”

  “I understand,” Jesse said, grateful to find someone else as warped as she felt. “I think I may regret it, but I’ll probably be visiting her. You can go with me, if you want.”

  “Yes.”

  Before Connie could say more, the door opened again and Bliss came out, glancing stealthily back over her shoulder as she pulled the door closed behind her.

  “Oh, I’m so glad you two are still out here,” she whispered. Soundlessly, she cross the porch and joined them midway on the steps. “I can’t believe it was Cindilee. I feel so awful.”

  “But you said she was the one,” Jesse reminded her.

  “I know. But I didn’t really mean it. How in the world could someone that frail have done something like that? And how desperate did she have to be?”

  “Wait, don’t tell me,” Jesse said. “You feel sorry for her. You still want to be her friend, even though you weren’t really her friend to start with. And if we…” She gestured to herself and Connie. “…go visit Cindilee in jail, you want to go with us.”

  “Oh, could we? I’d feel so much better. And it’s not that I want to be her friend, exactly…” Bliss shrugged and just stood there, looking as confused and conflicted as she sounded.

  Jesse looked from one woman to the other. They reminded her of Snow White and Cinderella. Beautiful and kind and gullible. She didn’t know what her own excuse was. “I hope you realize that she may just spit in our eyes. She’s not vulnerable and sweet. She’s conniving and self-serving.”

  “She’s also alone,” Connie said softly. “And has been for most of her life. And she’s a lot more vulnerable that she would ever want anyone to know. So she can spit in my eye if she wants to. It’s not going to bother me.”

  “If she never liked me, she had a good reason,” Bliss added. “I knew Bill had a crush on me. I knew it hurt her. What I never knew was that Bill was no better to her than Harry was to me. She and I could have been friends.”

  “She says she has terminal cancer,” Jesse warned. “It could be the truth, or it could be one more manipulation.”

  “That’s so sad.” Connie shook her head and her turquoise eyes shimmered. “Do you think it’s true?”

  “She seemed pretty sick to me,” Jesse conceded. “And it didn’t look fake.”

  Bliss bobbed her head, looking more determined than ever. “Well, that settles it then.”

  “I would also like to mention that the woman’s probably a sociopath,” Jesse added. She knew that fact didn’t matter to her, but Connie and Bliss needed to realize that their kindness might be going out to someone who could squash them like a bug and not feel a thing. “And people might find it a little odd that you’re befriending the woman who killed your husband, Bliss.”

  Bliss’s shoulders squared and her chin lifted defiantly, a gesture that look
ed for the world like Vivian Windsor. “I’m through caring about things like that. The only people whose opinions I care about are the ones who are here tonight.”

  “I think it might be time for us all to go inside now,” Sophia said gently, reminding them for the first time that she was still standing there.

  Jesse hooked her arm through her mother’s and together they followed the other two women into the house, where there appeared to be a party going on.

  The laughter broke off and turned into applause as Jesse slowed to a halt and faced the group that poured out of Malcolm’s study and into the cavernous foyer. SueAnn bounced as she clapped. Lindsey moved one step to the side to allow more space between them and resumed her more restrained applause. Matt put two fingers in his mouth and whistled.

  Vivian crossed the area between them and took both of Jesse’s shoulders in her hands. “Oh, my goodness, I’m so glad to see you.” She pulled her closer into a cheek-to-cheek hug and whispered, “I have spent three days cooped up in this house, dodging the news media and babysitting Bliss. How can I ever thank you?”

  “I believe I said that thanks weren’t necessary,” Jesse whispered in return.

  Vivian drew back, though not far. “Well, I’m still grateful. In fact, I haven’t felt this alive in years. Oh, and I gave that account information you sent to the auditor.”

  “According to Cindilee, Bill’s already transferred the funds out of it. She said he was going to return part of it to the dealership’s corporate account. Also, a full confession of his actions and Cindilee’s is supposed to be in the mail to Bliss.”

  “Why?” Bliss demanded, having moved close enough to overhear. The edges of her mouth were a pinched white and her cheeks were flushed.

  “Apparently, he wanted to make sure that you were cleared,” Jesse explained. “And he assumed that he wouldn’t be here to talk to the police directly.” If she were a betting person, she would wager that an apology and possibly a declaration of love were included in that note.