Ruby puts her two skinny arms in the air and says “If everybody will settle back down I can continue with the narrative. Where were we before the arrival of the good detective and his merry band of lawmen? Ah, yes, the scissors! Let us talk about the scissors.”
Everybody grabs a seat, anxious for an explanation as to why Marti is a free woman. Ruby resumes her public speaker stance and digs in.
“The scissors. Calypso Cut Scissors model nine. A very specific brand of barber scissor. They stopped manufacturing them in 2010, and yet Marlene’s stalker must have had several in his or her possession. This, to my mind, was an important clue. Either the individual is themselves a hair stylist and maintained a collection of instruments from yesteryear, or else we are dealing with a diabolical mind with an eye for detail. I see no reason for a hair stylist to want to murder Marlene, except, perhaps, for the way in which she’d occasionally curl just the bangs on one side, but I digress.
“Whoever murdered Marlene moves within her sphere and possesses intimate details regarding the murder of Kayleigh Cook. You see, information about the weapon used to kill Miss Cook was never released to the press. That knowledge was possessed only by those closest to the case: the investigators, Marlene—”
“And the girl’s killer, of course,” observes young Billy, who rarely speaks unless forced.
“Yes, the killer would certainly have known.”
“And the killer of this Cook girl, that’s who you think murdered Marlene?”
“No, young man. The diabolical mind I’m describing had no involvement with the murder eighteen years ago.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because I know who killed Kayleigh Cook.”
This statement brings forth a collective gasp from a group quickly growing tired of gasping.
“Or at least who the one eye witness believes killed Miss Cook. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves again,” continues Ruby. “I must finish with the scissors business so I can get on with answering the many burning questions you have. And believe me, I wouldn’t waste your time if I did not already possess the answers to the most salient questions posed by these mysteries.
“But the scissors! Whoever had been leaving these terrifying tools for Marlene to discover must also be the same individual who visited Lacy’s home in the middle of the night to do the same. It’s hard to conceive of yet another individual learning the make and model of these scissors, hunting a pair down at last minute, and deciding the thing to do with them was to leave them embedded in Lacy’s porch.”
There is a smattering of nods and concurring murmurs. This pleases Ruby and she pushes on. “So, this individual, the stalker, must have scoured the Internet, the auction sites, and whatever brick and mortar stores exist that sell old and used barber implements. This shows a decided focus and no lack of patience. As I said before, a very diabolical mind. But even the most patient mind can panic, and that is what happened to our stalker a few nights ago as Lacy and Gretchen lay innocently sleeping in their beds.
“Our stalker, anticipating the potential for cameras and witnesses, thought she could evade identification if she used a vehicle other than her own and an expensive wig to disguise her appearance. You know, it’s a funny thing, but Inspector Butterwell—he’s the fictional detective I used to write about—was fond of observing that the clever criminal seldom subscribes to the maxim of ‘less is more’ when working to conceal their skullduggery. In being so clever in their methods of concealment they inadvertently provide the keen-eyed investigator with the means to catch them. Such is the case with our midnight stalker.”
Ruby pauses either for effect or to refill her lungs and you could have heard a safety pin drop. Everyone is glued to their chairs, with one exception. Someone in the room is shuffling and fidgeting, uncomfortable with the things Ruby is saying.
“Some of you might not be aware,” Ruby goes on to say, “that the person who deposited the scissors into Lacy’s front porch was witnessed not only by two of her neighbors but also the camera lens of the neighborhood convenience market where she parked. All spoke of a quality hairpiece of a deep red color. Now, had she purchased a cheap wig of the Halloween store variety, it would have proved impossible to trace. But I happen to know—and don’t ask me how I know!—that there are only three shops in the metropolitan area specializing in realistic wigs of supreme quality. So, I set about visiting each of them.
“I never had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of the proprietor of the third, as upon my visit to the second shop—a lovely boutique with the unfortunate moniker of Gettin’ Wiggy—I encountered a clerk with a keen eye and clear memory, to say nothing of receipts, who was able to assure me the wig in question could only have come from her store and was purchased by its owner some months ago. No expense was spared in having it tailored to fit her client’s head. The apocryphal glass slipper, wouldn’t you say?
“In any event, I now possess a witness with documentation who can prove who purchased the wig in question and when. Furthermore, while I was busy with this exercise, our good Detective Bentley was following up his own lead. It seems our faux ginger was the only person within a forty-eight-hour period to rent a vehicle of the make, model and color that appears in the convenience store video. You’ve guessed by now the renter of this vehicle and the purchaser of the hair piece are identical and proving as much will be a simple matter as soon as—Detective! Stop her, she’s getting away!”
I hear a frantic commotion behind me and see both Jessica and Billy fly from their chairs. Detective Bentley makes a dash for the street door, followed by Chase, but both are a split-second late and their target makes it outside.
“Got her!” I hear a voice yell from outside. It is the uniformed police officer that Bentley posted on door duty. So that is why he brought the backup!
The culprit is brought back inside the store, her arms twisted behind her back, her hair flying at all angles, her face contorted into a mask of guilt and antipathy. The porch post poker, the midnight stalker, the sneerleader supreme herself—Carly Van Duson.
“You’re caught, Carly,” Ruby says, her voice suffused with resolution.
“Hah!” Carly snarls, “you can’t prove a thing.”
“I believe I already have. If I’m mistaken in my evidence, you’ve done little to help your case by bolting for it as you’ve just done.”
“I know a frame-up when I see one.”
“Once the police have access to your electronic gadgets, I’m sure they’ll uncover a wealth of data, not the least of which will be your purchase of the many scissors used in your campaign of terror. That should be more than enough to make a firm believer of even the most open-minded of jurors, don’t you think?”
The uniformed officer, whose name is not known to me but who possesses an impeccable sense of timing, pulls Carly’s cell phone from her purse. Carly looks upon it as one would a spurning lover. Her cheeks quiver, her jaw melts, and her resolve gives way.
“What’s the point of lying? I did it.”
The atmosphere is suddenly electric and I expect Ruby to jump for joy, but she remains unmoved. Here is the vindication she celebrated. I’m not too proud to say I feel a small sense of vindication myself, as I had been screaming from the rooftops (metaphorically speaking only, as I’m not a nut case) that Carly had to be the murderer. It was Ruby who fought against me on the idea. But to her credit, she’s the one who uncovered the proof it was Carly and not Marti, in spite of what my own eyes told me last night.
Carly looked beaten a moment before, when she uttered her confession, but when I turn my eyes back to her I see her body stiffen. It’s as though she’s grown two inches in as many seconds. The muscles in her neck swell and her jaw juts forward. There is a ferocity in her eye now.
“I did it and for good reason. Anderson loves me; he doesn’t love Marlene. But he wouldn’t leave her. I tried to accept that, but I can’t. And when I realized there is no way I could make him leave her,
my only option was to make her leave him. And it was working! You could see that, right?”
Bentley motions with his finger for the officer to take custody of her again. “That’s about enough from you. Why don’t you go with this gentleman to the station where you and I can have us a nice little chat.”
Ruby steps forward, waving a white, slender finger at Bentley. “Wait! I have one more question for Carly, if she doesn’t mind.”
Bentley shrugs his consent. I imagine he’s thinking that if she is willing to talk without a lawyer present, let her talk. Ruby dives in, not waiting for Carly’s consent.
“Before the Chicken Hill Run, we were all present to witness Marlene finding the scissors embedded in her car tire. Would I be correct in surmising this was the last pair of barber scissors you had in your possession?”
“Yes, but—”
“You realized a pair of scissors you planted in Marlene’s office had gone undiscovered, but would be found once her disappearance was investigated, so you broke into the office to retrieve them. And these were the scissors you left in Lacy’s porch. Would that be correct?”
“It’s correct, yes, but…how? Are you psychic, or a witch, or something?”
It was like my stomach ate my heart for lunch. Is Ruby about to tell Carly—in front of Detective Bentley—that we broke into Marlene’s office and were present when the ‘real’ break-in took place? I wonder if the food in jail is as bad as they say. Will an orange jumpsuit wash out my skin?
Ruby laughs. “My dear, I’m no more psychic than you are rational. I expected the break-in of the Petrick Travel Agency would somehow be related to the other events in the case. You couldn’t have an inexhaustible supply of Calypso Cut scissors at your disposal, so I deduced you perpetrated the burglary with the objective of removing something that might implicate you. Given your modus operandi, what else could it have been but scissors?”
Carly gapes and backs up into the officer holding her arms. “Get me out of here. This woman is creeping me out.”
Bentley taps the officer’s shoulder. “You go ahead. I’m not done here yet.”
The officer escorts Carly out the door. We all shuffle to the display window to rubberneck her final walk in the open air. With a first-degree murder charge, Carly will never be a free woman again.
As the officer ushers her around the corner and out of sight I realize someone in the store is crying. It’s Gretchen. She has wadded herself into a ball and is crying into her hands.
I kneel down to offer comfort. “Gretchen, hun, what’s wrong?”
I know what’s wrong, of course. She’s been terrorized by an unknown killer who is no longer unknown but revealed as her good friend. And she’d been there to see her confess and get hauled off.
“I just can’t believe it,” Gretchen says, her voice high and raspy. “How could I not have known it was Carly? All this time…”
I feel bad for the girl, but my cynical side recognizes that she is young. Perhaps it isn’t such a bad thing she learned now that sometimes people aren’t who you take them to be.
Gretchen recovers her composure and now it’s everyone else’s turn to react and blurt their feelings. Billy is shocked but Jessica says she saw it coming. Marti sort of feels bad for Carly but Chase wants to wring her neck. Stax ponders becoming mayor of Cedar Mill and bringing back public hangings in the town square, with Carly first on the list to take the long walk. I’m pretty sure there have never been public hangings in Cedar Mill, but Stax doesn’t care. As for me, I still have questions. A lot of them.
“How long have you known about Carly?” I ask Ruby.
“Known? Not for long.”
“Suspected?”
“Oh, for quite some time.”
I could have used one of those massage balls now as a stress ball. I would have squeezed it flat. “I don’t get it. If you suspected Carly, why did you give me such a hard time when I laid out my case for her being the murderer?”
Ruby reels and looks at me as though I’d accused her of murder. “Being the mur—oh my, there’s been a grave misunderstanding.”
“I’ll say there has, but I don’t know. I think I was pretty clear about my suspicions against Carly.”
“No, it’s you who has misunderstood. Carly is no more a murderer than you are!”
TWENTY-FIVE
Stax sidles up to Bentley. “Detective, did I hear you say you have more business to attend to here?”
“You did,” he replies.
“Would this business happen to be asking my friend here out on a date?”
She grabs my arm and pulls me over. I was too busy emoting into a big pile of goo to beat Stax’s head in with my bare fists.
“What? No, that’s not… not that I wouldn’t, it’s just… I have—”
“It’s all right, Detective,” I say. “You’re off the hook. I have an idea why you’re sticking around.”
“If it’s to ask me out,” Stax says, “you already know the answer. But don’t take me for Italian on our first date unless you want to kiss a girl with tomato sauce all over her face.”
“It’s because he has another arrest to make,” I say. Bentley blinks his eyes, which I guess is a cop’s way of nodding.
Stax backs off. “In that case, keep me off your radar, dude. But I’m getting confused with all these arrests. First Marti was the killer, now Carly, but it wasn’t Carly who jumped you last night. It wasn’t Carly I raspberry’d with the massage ball. So, maybe Marti and Carly were accomplices in Marlene’s murder?”
What Stax lacks in a personal filter she also lacks in volume control. Everyone who surrounds Marti, offering their support, are now stepping away from her.
“Oh, for crying out loud! Would you all stop?” Marti exclaimed, flustered. “I am not a murderer!”
“Marti is correct,” Ruby says. “I thought we’d established that she is as pure as fresh snow. At least as far as current events are concerned. While not nearly as pure, Miss Carly is also free of any charge of murder.”
I am beyond frustrated with my little old friend, and from the cries of consternation ringing out, I’m not alone.
Bentley motions everyone to cease. “Everyone, settle down. Ruby, should I explain?”
The room quiets. “That won’t be necessary, Detective. I’m happy to elucidate matters.”
“First time for everything,” mutters Stax. If Ruby heard her, she offers no acknowledgement.
“Carly confessed all right, and it was an honest confession. But what she confessed to was not the murder of Marlene Petrick, or the assault upon Lacy’s person. She confessed—and is indeed guilty of—the stalking of Marlene prior to her murder, the breaking and entering of Marlene’s offices to remove a pair of scissors she planted, and the vandalism of Miss Lacy’s house with said scissors. But not murder.”
“Are you sure of this?” asks an incredulous Chase.
Ruby bobs her head. “Carly is a misguided soul with terrible taste in men, but she’s no murderer.”
It is Detective Bentley’s turn to be incredulous. “How can you be so certain?”
“It’s simple. Think about the scissors. Carly went to great lengths to procure the exact model of scissors used in Marlene’s shop almost twenty years ago. The same scissors used in the murder of Kayleigh Cook. And yet a different kind of barber scissor was found with Marlene’s body and used in the attack on Lacy right here in this store. Those scissors, I’d wager, were plucked off the racks of a local store without too much thought. Carly is too meticulous for that. Our stalker and our killer cannot be one and the same.”
Marti looks up from her chair, eyes dancing. “Which means…”
“The killer is still among us.”
We all look around at one another for a hint as to who conceals the darkest secret known to man—what it is like to take a fellow human’s life. I see nothing except fear, wonder, and in one case, annoyance.
“Don’t even be looking at me,” barks Stax.
Ruby clears her throat. “First things first, I think we deal with the events last night involving these young ladies.” She motions to Stax, Marti, and myself. “Miss Stax, in a nutshell, what did you see last night?”
“I saw Marti run out from the back and stab Lacy with a pair of scissors. Sorry, Marti, she asked what I saw and that’s what I saw.”
Ruby stares at her feet. “Now, Lacy, tell me what you saw. Only walk us through the details.”
I recount the story of finding the note from Marti on my door and traveling to the store with Stax and Ruby. Ruby waits in the car as Stax and I approach the store from the side entrance, where we find three massage balls rolling around loose. We pick these up and enter. The store is dark, but because of the floor to ceiling windows on the street side there is some backlighting. We can see the shelves and racks have been upturned.
I close my eyes and recount hearing someone rush from the back rooms and felt them slam into me, then the sharp pain in my arm, and seeing the fleeing figure drop to the floor behind the sales counter as Stax rocketed one of the hard massage balls at it. We waste no time in investigating and discover the figure in the hoodie is Marti.
Ruby is still staring at the floor, still nodding, her fluffy white hair bouncing around. “I believe you did as you were expected to do. You saw what someone wanted you to see. But none of it was real.”
I glance down at my left bicep, where a bandage covers a still-healing wound. This sure feels real enough.
“It was no hologram, I’ll tell you that,” Stax says, unconvinced.
Ruby smiles. “Those massage balls you found outside the entrance…they did not roll themselves outside. They were placed there in the hopes you’d pick them and throw them at the assailant. You will be pleased to know, Lacy, there was no intention of causing you serious harm. But an assault had to be made in order to frame Marti.”
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