Matcha Do About Murder

by Eryn Scott

  Anger mixed with the fear already surging through my body. Just the three of you? What was that supposed to mean? The same indignity was written clearly across Jolene’s face when I let my focus slip over to her, but Tabitha only exhibited the same meek, scared expression.

  “I knew something was wrong when Michael didn’t show up at our meeting spot. Obviously, I shouldn’t have trusted anyone else to do this job. I was trying not to show my face here.” A muscle in his jaw flexed as he clenched his teeth.

  “Except the day you had Murray killed,” I said, feeling very much like a rabbit sticking my head out of a safe hole when there was a wolf around. But I needed to know why he would risk it.

  He swiveled to face me, gun and all. “You saw me, did you? Well, I couldn’t let Murray think this was an accident. I needed him to know it was me.”

  He walked toward Jolene, pointing the gun at her now. I held my breath as Stephen held out his hand.

  “I’ll take that.” He gestured to the phone Jolene still held in her hand.

  She gulped and handed it over.

  Stephen looked at it a moment before dropping it on the floor and smashing it with his heel in a sickening crunch. I thought of my own phone sitting dead in my pocket, and sweat collected at my temples. No way he would believe my story it was dead.

  “I need two more phones.” He pointed to the floor with the gun.

  I gritted my teeth as I pulled my phone from my pocket and tossed it at his feet. Tabitha did the same with hers. We all flinched as he smashed them just as he had with Jolene’s.

  “Truth time, Tabs,” Stephen said, turning the gun on his wife. “Still want to stick with the story you haven’t found anything?” He eyed her.

  Tears welled in Tabitha’s eyes. And even though every man until this point—except maybe Carl—had been smitten with her red hair and sultry voice, I realized Stephen was immune to her wiles.

  “I swear.” Tabitha held up her hands. “I can’t find them. I thought he buried them, but there are holes in the yard. I dug a dozen more, and I checked all throughout the house. I just need more time.”

  Stephen inclined his head. “You’re still here, so that tells me something. Damn you, Murray. Where are you hiding them in this dump?” Stephen muttered as his eyes scanned the house.

  I was suddenly surprised Tabitha hadn’t found them already. If they were in the house, there weren’t too many places they could be. It was a small place, and Jolene and I had combed through almost the entire house in less than an hour. Though with an old wooden building like this one, there could be hiding places that weren’t visible to the regular eye.

  It was then I remembered the shifting floorboard in the closet. I wet my lips as I considered it. That could be something. And at that moment, something was all I had, so I grasped on to it. About to open my mouth, I jumped in surprise as Jolene stepped forward.

  “I know where they are,” Jolene said.

  I spun to face her. Shock and questions took up every available emotion I possessed. Jolene’s expression held steady as she stared back at Stephen, and I decided either she did know where the jewels were or she was a darn good bluffer.

  When Stephen looked at Tabitha, Jolene seized the opportunity to flash her eyes over to mine and then to Mike’s gun, which had come to rest under Murray’s coffee table in the middle of the room. She was trying to create a distraction so I could grab the gun.

  My stomach sank. That meant Jolene didn’t know where the jewels were.

  I hated how the few options for attack that came into my mind were from a list of things the Rickster would’ve told me to do in self-defense class. Convince him the jewels are in the closet, then lock him in there. Use the jewels to distract him, and then box him in the ears. I inwardly shook my head at these options.

  “Who are these two?” Stephen asked Tabitha.

  She pointed to Jolene. “That one used to date Murray, so she could be telling the truth.” Turning the gesture toward me, she added, “This one is just nosy. I tried warning her off by burning down her shed, but she didn’t get the hint.”

  Tabitha had burned down my shed? Anger ramped up inside me. I would’ve done more than scowl at her if I wasn’t too busy worrying about the fear knotting in my chest. The most pressing dread was what would happen to Jolene when Stephen realized that she didn’t actually know where the jewels were.

  “Here,” I blurted as I walked forward and switched places with Jolene. “Your leg is only just healed. You shouldn’t be crawling around on the floor. I’ll show him.”

  She sent me a worried glance but backed up close to the coffee table.

  Stephen raised his eyebrows. “You know too? How?” Skepticism creased his features.

  I scoffed. “Jolene told me. Why do you think we’re here in the first place? We came to get the jewels, but Tabitha came home early, and we didn’t have a chance to get away.”

  Stephen studied me as if he were some kind of human lie detector. “Okay, but hurry.”

  I walked toward the closet. Knowing that Jolene was bluffing, I figured my hunch about the loose board in the closet was our best bet. I hoped beyond measure I was right. But as my hand rested on the doorknob, I froze.

  “First, I want to know something,” I said, turning around.

  Stephen’s back was to Jolene at this point, and I saw her inch toward the gun. Tabitha looked as if she were holding her breath.

  Stephen laughed. “Do I need to remind you I have a gun, young lady?” The condescending tone reminded me of how he’d immediately dismissed us all as nonthreatening.

  My self-defense lessons—even if they’d been half taught by the Rickster—coursed through my mind, and I tried to find an opening.

  Shrugging, I acted way more nonchalant than I felt. “If you shoot me, how will you know where the jewels are? Tabitha’s been searching for them for weeks. Jolene and I are the only ones who know.”

  He relaxed, appeased.

  “What happened the night you died?” I stared straight into his steely-gray eyes.

  He inhaled. “Depends on which story you want. The truth or what Murray thought happened.” Stephen smirked.

  Tabitha turned a slight shade of green. Facing the way Stephen was, Jolene couldn’t do anything without him seeing. From the way she frowned and leaned forward, it appeared that she wanted to hear the story just as badly as I did.

  “The truth,” I said finally.

  “Tabby and I wanted to level up. Murray was having second thoughts about the way we were making money. We needed a way to leave him behind and ensure he wouldn’t turn on us.” Stephen glanced back toward Tabitha. “So Tabby ran to him one night and told him I’d been shot in a deal gone wrong. My body was on the boat and she didn’t know what to do. He came up with the idea to burn the boat and to use borax and turn the flames green so people would think it was Geoff.”

  Jolene looked like she might be sick now. Murray had willingly put another man in jail for twenty years even though he hadn’t been guilty?

  “But I was only faking being dead, and I slipped over the side and swam ashore before the boat caught. Tabitha hung around long enough for the funeral, and then we hightailed it out of the country. You’d be surprised how easy it is to create a new identity if you have enough money.”

  “That’s why Murray thought you were a ghost when he saw you that day,” I said more to myself than to him.

  But Stephen responded anyway. “I knew it was a risk to come into town, but I wanted him to see me. I wanted him to know.”

  “Why?” I asked. “He was your friend. He only married Tabitha because he thought you were dead.”

  Stephen snorted. “And what was his excuse when we were supposed to be partners and he kissed her?” Stephen almost yelled out this part, and his fingers clenched tighter around the handle of the gun.

  I resisted the urge to stumble backward. It all clicked. Why Stephen had wanted to leave Murray out of the partnership, the hell Tabitha h
ad most likely been living for the last twenty years, and the desperation she felt to get out. Not that I felt all that bad for her since she’d been an accessory to a lot of murder and mayhem.

  My attention moved over to Tabitha. She and Jolene stood close at this point. Either one of them could lunge for the gun and probably make it.

  “Okay, you got your story. Where are the jewels?” Stephen’s voice pulled my focus back.

  I nodded, praying that I was right about the loose floorboard. The door was still open from when Jolene and I had jumped out, so I knelt onto the floor and felt for the place I’d been standing in the corner. The loose board wobbled as I pressed down on it. I shifted my weight to the back of the board, and it tipped up on the side closest to me.

  I didn’t even have to pry the thing up. It came out as easily as if it were meant to do this. Equal parts excitement and fear churned through me like a pot on the stove, reaching a rolling boil.

  Trying not to think about spiders or larger creatures who might hide in the hole, I slipped my hand down, feeling around. As I felt, I looked back, realizing that Stephen was still half focusing on me and half watching Jolene and Tabitha. Still, he didn’t have his gun drawn. The audacity of his dismissal of us reminded me of the ghostly Chief Butler and his underestimation of his wife.

  Visions of Lois putting her husband in his place and teaching him to never take her for granted again floated into my thoughts like a ghost floating into a room. I wasn’t able to use Chief Butler’s misogyny against him the other day, but I might be able to capitalize on Stephen’s here.

  A shiver wiggled down my spine as my fingers pushed through something that felt sticky and weblike. Distracting myself from the fear of reaching farther into the dark hole, I thought through that move the chief had tried to teach us during our very first self-defense lesson, before he’d gotten caught up in this case and let the Rickster take over. I might need to use it soon.

  Was it a spin first and then a jab with the elbow or the elbow first and then a spin?

  I hated how the only thing sticking in my memory was the crazy advice from the Rickster. Him yelling, “the element of surprise!” as he threw sugar packets in my face repeated in my mind.

  But as I opened my eyes, I realized there was nothing in the closet I could throw even if that might work. Unless I wanted to lob a bunch of wool coats in Stephen’s general direction.

  “What’s taking so long?” he asked in the same way every impatient cinematic bad guy did when the main character had taken too long thinking of a plan.

  “Still reaching,” I said, willing my fingers farther into the hole and my mind to come up with something useful. That gun was most definitely still pointed straight at me.

  And while I’d been worrying about the things that might lurk inside, suddenly the hole being empty was even scarier. What would Stephen do to us if he found out I didn’t actually have any jewels?

  Just then, my fingers brushed up against something furry. I jerked back but stopped myself when I realized it was a velvety kind of furry instead of the wiry, hairy kind you might find on a large, hole-dwelling, finger-eating arachnid.

  Walking my fingers forward like a child sneaking by their parents’ bedroom door, I let my fingers close over the shape.

  It was a bag, and it was full of small, heavy objects.

  25

  Excitement flooded me as the contents tumbled around when I picked up the bag and slid it out.

  “Got it!” I said triumphantly, standing from where I’d been kneeling in the closet. “I found them.”

  Stephen’s silvery eyes moved from Jolene and Tabitha to me. He tucked his gun into the back of his pants before reaching for the bag as if he were about to hold a baby and needed both hands to do so. His greedy fingers were outstretched just as mine had been a moment before when I’d been trying to locate the jewels.

  Returning to my “throw stuff to distract them” lesson from the Rickster, I contemplated throwing the bag of jewels at him. That might give me enough time to box the man in the ears like the Rickster had done to me.

  Seeing his attention was on me, Jolene sidled over toward Mike’s gun under the coffee table. She was just one quick squat from retrieving the weapon and turning the tide of this confrontation. I had to distract Stephen long enough to give her the opening she needed.

  In my nervous state, however, I dropped the velvet bag at my feet.

  “Sorry, I’ll grab it,” I said, bending down.

  But as I leaned down to get it, I noticed Stephen standing on the very carpet I’d almost slid on earlier when Jolene and I were searching the place. Knowing Stephen would be watching my hands, I grabbed the bag.

  As I stood, I stepped toward him, planting my foot firmly on the rug.

  Stephen’s eyes widened as he reached for the bag. I let him take it. And as he focused on the weight in his palm and heard the jumble of jewels inside, I lunged forward, all my weight landing on my front foot. The rug went sliding back, throwing Stephen forward and off-balance.

  Stephen’s hands flailed to keep his balance, and in the movement, the velvet bag slipped from his grasp. I used the opening to bring my hands down on his neck in a two-handed chop motion.

  As Stephen’s face registered surprise at the blow and his body toppled even more, I tried to think of a way I could grab the gun from behind his back. It was tucked under his waistband and shirt.

  I reached around anyway, knowing disarming him would be the only way to ensure our safety. Vaguely, I noticed movement to my left. I hoped Jolene was grabbing Mike’s gun.

  A shot rang through the cabin.

  Lurching away from Stephen, I looked down at my body, wondering if he’d shot me. I didn’t feel any pain, but there was so much adrenaline coursing through my body, I might not have felt it. In all of my flailing Rickster moves, he could’ve reached behind and grabbed his gun.

  My hands felt for blood on my stomach, my neck, my head. But I was fine.

  Stephen, however, was not.

  He staggered back, clutching his chest. The velvet bag fell, forgotten, to the floor.

  Whirling around, my eyes searched Jolene. But when I focused on the scene behind me, Jolene wasn’t holding the pistol. In fact, the gun was now pointed squarely at Jolene.

  Tabitha curled both hands around the handle of the gun. “Don’t do anything stupid,” she said, slow and measured. “All I want is that bag of diamonds, and I’ll be on my way.” She gestured to the bag on the floor, still drawn tight next to Stephen’s form.

  Squatting but keeping my focus on her and my hands up, I grabbed at the bag and tossed it over to Tabitha. She caught it with one hand. Unlike Stephen, who had put his gun away to look inside, Tabitha kept the gun trained on us. She carefully opened the pouch. I couldn’t see the contents, but it weighed a fair amount, and from the ways her eyes sparkled as she peered inside, I could say almost certainly it wasn’t full of marbles.

  Tabby held the bag to her chest greedily. She glanced over at Mike, now moving slowly. He must’ve jolted awake at the sound of the gunshot. She pointed the barrel at him.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” Jolene’s voice was calm, way calmer than this situation warranted.

  If Tabitha was going to kill Mike, she might want to clean up the whole scene. That meant me and Jolene too.

  Tabitha didn’t take her eyes off Mike. “Why?” she asked through a sigh.

  “When I was threatening to call the chief earlier, it wasn’t a bluff. I texted him. He should be here any minute.” Jolene crossed her arms over her chest.

  Her hands shook slightly as she did so, but I hoped I was the only one who noticed.

  “You’re lying,” Tabitha sneered.

  Jolene shrugged. “Maybe, but do you really want to stick around and find out?”

  Tabitha pointed the gun back at Jolene, then me, and then sucked in a breath. She pivoted to point it at Mike again. Huffing out a frustrated groan, Tabitha backed toward the d
oor leading to the backyard. She left the door open, and we could hear her feet crunching on the pebbled beach outside, the sound growing softer by the second.

  Jolene and I looked at each other. It was odd to feel so happy and relieved while in the presence of a dead body. I stepped back from Stephen’s body and moved next to Jolene. I didn’t know if we were close enough friends yet to hug, but I really felt like I needed one after what we’d just gone through.

  Just as I was contemplating throwing my arms around her, Mike groaned and got to his feet. He rubbed his head and looked around him. When his gaze settled on us, his expression hardened.

  There was no cause for relief. One killer had just left into the night; one was dead at our feet, but the other was still standing in front of us.

  My eyes flicked toward the still-open back door. I was about to suggest we run when the front door banged open. Police Chief Clemenson came through, gun drawn.

  “Freeze!” he yelled, pointing the gun at Mike.

  With a little wobble, Mike put both hands up, confusion still evident in his wrinkled features.

  Chief Clemenson gave a frustrated glance in my direction before asking, “Where’s Tabby?”

  Jolene let out a derisive snort. “Well, after shooting her not-actually dead husband over there”—Jolene pointed to Stephen’s body—“she took the bag of what I can only assume is diamonds and ran.”

  The chief took a step to his right and started as he noticed Stephen’s body on the floor. He’d been hidden from the chief’s view by the chair. The chief’s face dropped, and I watched as the man’s hopes and dreams ran out the back door just as the love of his life had. Chief Clemenson stepped toward the open back door, and for a moment, I thought he might run after her.

  But he seemed to realize that would mean leaving us with a dangerous man and the body of the man Tabitha had killed. He pulled a long inhale and kept the gun trained on Mike.

  Taking one hand off his gun, he clicked his shoulder mic. “Gerard, I’m going to need backup at Murray’s house ASAP. Kennedy, I need you to set up a roadblock out of town. Stop anyone trying to leave. If you see Tabitha, arrest her.”