Lilliana saw immediately who had drawn his attention. Fox Fordyce, dressed in a fringed shirt, jeans, boots, and cowgirl hat, strode across the field in the direction of the bandstand.
“Miss Fordyce,” Buckley called out. “May I have a few words with you?”
Fox had a different attitude toward the reporter than Lilliana did. She flashed him a smile and diverted her route to head in his direction.
“Let’s go listen to the band,” Lilliana said.
Willie chuckled and followed her as she headed away from the reporter. They passed by a jumping castle, noisy with the sound of the fan and generator that kept it inflated, as well as the happy squeals of the children inside; a section set up for ring toss; and the Frisbee players.
They sat in the next to last row as the band began playing “Stars and Stripes Forever.” Lilliana took off her wide-brimmed hat and fanned herself with it. She knew it wasn’t a good idea to expose her scalp and fair skin to the strong July sun, but there wasn’t even a hint of a breeze, and she desperately needed something to cool her down. They listened to a few more tunes and, at last, the sun started to fade behind the mountains.
After applauding for the third or fourth time, Willie pushed himself up from his chair with his walking stick. “I could use a glass of lemonade,” he said. “Can I get you anything?”
“A glass of lemonade would be wonderful. Wait one minute.” Lilliana dug in the pocket of her sundress until she found the meal tickets she’d gotten from Beverly, the receptionist at the retirement community. She pulled out the red one labeled DRINK and handed it over to Willie. “Thank you.”
She was smoothing her skirt when a man slipped into Willie’s vacated seat and said in a soft Scottish burr, “Is this seat taken?”
Her heart pitter-patted. Had Christopher been waiting for Willie to get up? What should she say?
“Are you enjoying the festivities?” he asked.
“Yes, I am,” Lilliana answered. “But, you see...”
A motion slightly to her right caught her attention. Willie, carrying two cups of lemonade, smiled and shook his head. He turned and handed one of the cups to Bernadine Meade, another resident of the retirement community, and led her to a seat on the other side of the center aisle.
“See what?” Christopher asked.
“Nothing. Nevermind.” She paused to swallow, trying to moisten her throat. “What about you? Are you enjoying yourself?”
“I have been,” Christopher said. “I’ll think I’ll enjoy it more now.”
Flustered, Lilliana cast about for another topic of conversation. “Is this awkward for you? I mean, it is a holiday celebrating our independence from Great Britain.”
Christopher laughed. “If Robert the Bruce ha’ been more canny, Scotland would also be celebrating her independence.”
“Oh, of course. Do you really think there’s a chance Scotland will vote to break off from England?” As she remembered, the vote had been close last time.
“Probably not. The young ones have shorter memories than we do. They don’t have as much appreciation for history.”
The band ended another tune, “Yankee Doodle” Lilliana thought, although she hadn’t been paying much attention since Christopher sat down next to her, and the leader turned to make an announcement.
“We’ll be taking a twenty minute break,” he said. “In the meantime, enjoy the games and the food and the merchandise from all of our local vendors.”
“Would you like to get something to eat?” Christopher asked.
“Why, yes.” Lilliana rose from her chair and followed Christopher toward the food vendors. She started to angle off toward the grill where hotdogs were laid out in rows sizzling in the heat of the fire when Christopher took her elbow.
“I think I’m in the mood for something Southwestern,” he said and headed toward a truck serving tacos and burritos with rice and beans.
Embarrassed as she fingered the meal tickets remaining in her pocket, Lilliana stumbled over her words. “I, I, uh, didn’t bring any money with me.”
“I did,” Christopher said, and firmly steered her toward the more expensive Mexican specialties.
She supposed it would be all right to let him buy her a meal just this once. She chose a taco salad, lettuce and tomatoes with refried beans on the bottom of a crisp tortilla shell, with ground beef in a tomato sauce spiced with taco seasoning on top. She was happy the truck also served iced tea.
Christopher ordered a burrito plate with rice and beans and a Coke. When their food was ready, he asked, “Shall we sit at a table?”
A few picnic tables had been set up next to the food truck, and, just as Lilliana was about to protest that all the seats were full, a family rose from one of them. They gathered up their trash, and Christopher smoothly slid onto a bench. Before Lilliana could go around to the other side, a group of teenagers claimed it. She had no choice but to sit next to Christopher.
She busied herself with unwrapping the plastic tableware from her napkin, then removing the paper from the straw and sticking it into the plastic lid of her iced tea before glancing over at Christopher. She started when she saw his deep blue eyes fixed on her.
“Shall we eat?” he asked.
Lilliana nodded and lifted a forkful of meat to her lips. She chewed slowly and wondered what topic of conversation she could bring up. She still wasn’t sure why a man like Christopher chose to live in a retirement community, but she didn’t want to appear too nosey on that subject.
“Have you ever been married?” she asked, then realized that question was quite a bit nosier than why he was living in Rainbow Ranch. Would Christopher get the wrong impression from her question? Then a worse thought crossed her mind. What if it was the right impression?
She needn’t have worried about the topic of conversation. Instead of responding to her question, Christopher regaled her with tales of his travels: riding camels in Egypt, working on a sheep ranch in the Outback in Australia, consulting on an IT project in Japan. Lilliana thought about her own life, so dull in comparison. She and Charles had lived quietly. She went to her job at a branch of the Boston Public Library—and later the Pima County one—every day, Charles taught his English literature classes at the University of Arizona. In the evening, they’d read or attend a concert or a lecture or sometimes a movie. Vacations had been to London or Paris or Rome. Charles went off to do research while Lilliana sought out museums and gardens. It was much like their life at home, except they did it in another country.
“Do you have any children?” Christopher asked, shocking her out of her reverie.
Even after twenty years, Lilliana’s eyes grew moist, and she quickly reached for the tissue in her pocket. “I did,” she whispered through her constricted throat.
Christopher put his hand on hers. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up a painful subject.”
“You couldn’t have known.”
“You don’t have to talk about it. Some day, perhaps when you feel more comfortable with me, you might tell me about it.” His voice was consoling, easing her away from the pain.
She was rescued from further awkwardness by a tapping on the microphone that echoed off the school building.
“We’re about to begin the evening festivities,” the band leader announced. “I hope you’ve enjoyed the celebration so far. We’d like to do this every year if it’s successful.” Cheers went up from the crowd. He cleared his throat. “Now will you all rise for the playing of the National Anthem.”
The band leader turned and raised his baton. He looked at each section of the band to make sure they were ready, then lifted the baton above his head and gave it a firm stroke downward, signaling the players to commence.
Voices rose around them, and Lilliana joined in with her sweet soprano. She was surprised to hear Christopher singing as well, since he wasn’t an American by birth, and she’d thought he probably didn’t know the words. But he sang confidently in a rich baritone, not missing a
lyric or a note.
When the anthem ended, Christopher asked, “Do you want to go sit up front?”
“I’d just as soon stay here,” Lilliana said. “I think we’ll have a better view of the fireworks if we’re not quite so close.”
As if on cue, a rocket whistled into the night sky, then exploded in a burst of red, white, and blue, followed by a chorus of oohs and ahhs from the crowd.
“I’ll be right back.” Surprisingly, Christopher got up and headed toward the row of portable toilets set up behind the vendor tables at the edge of the field. Lilliana wondered if he had prostate trouble.
For several minutes, explosions came from the platform that had been set up behind the backstop, followed by cascading colors and sparkles. Christopher rejoined her, sitting slightly closer than he had before.
Several of the golden brown fireworks that looked like pine cones spread their trails across the sky; others erupted in a cloud of fireflies dancing overhead. Many, in red and white and even green, trailed streamers against the black backdrop of the night. All too soon, a cluster of pops and booms sent the finale of multiple pyrotechnics into the air, blinding them with a sky full of rainbow flashes.
The crowd burst into applause and whistles. People started stirring, rising from chairs or blankets spread on the ground, gathering up their things, and rounding up children.
Lilliana glanced across the aisle. Willie clutched his walking stick and pushed himself up out of his chair. He glanced at her and raised his eyebrows. He was asking her if she wanted to walk back with him. She moved her head very slightly first to the left, then the right. Her stomach did a little flip flop as Willie grinned at her and started on his way back to the retirement home.
“Have a safe trip home,” the conductor announced.
“I walked down this evening,” Christopher said. “Would you like to walk back with me, or did you come in a car?”
Lilliana shook her head. “Oh, no. I don’t own a car, and I walk into town so often, another trip is nothing major.” She hesitated. Through almost the entire fireworks show, she’d been conscious of a full bladder. Too much iced tea, or maybe it was just the length of the celebration. She’d been hoping to wait until she got back to her apartment since she didn’t like to use portable toilets, but if she were going to walk with Christopher, perhaps at a slower pace than she would have taken alone, she thought she’d better take care of that need. “If you wouldn’t mind waiting a minute, I think I need to use the... uh... facilities.” She indicated the row of portable toilets.
“Of course I wouldn’t mind. I’ll just wait here.” Christopher sank back onto the picnic bench.
Lilliana hurried off to her destination. The ten structures had been set up in a line with the doors facing away from the field, probably to give an illusion of privacy. In her experience, you could hear everything that was going on inside of one if you were within five feet of them. But at this point, it didn’t matter to her.
She detoured to the end of the row, and turned the corner. The hum of a generator supplying electricity to a small light greeted her, and she was glad she’d be able to see where she was going.
But the first thing she saw brought her to a sharp stop. Nancy Gardner was standing just outside the open door of a portable toilet with a gun in her hand. And the body of Fox Fordyce at her feet.
CHAPTER NINE
“Nancy!” Lilliana said. When would Nancy learn not to touch a murder weapon?
The petite woman turned around, a finger crooked in the trigger guard of the pistol. Her face crumpled as if she were on the verge of tears. “Lilliana,” she sobbed.
Feeling guilty over having yelled, Lilliana rushed to Nancy’s side and put her arm around her. “Everything will be all right,” she said, knowing it wasn’t and wouldn’t be for the foreseeable future.
“What’s going on here?” DeeDee, the town secretary, probably with the same aim in mind, had joined them behind the toilets. Horror replaced her confusion as she saw exactly what was going on. “I’ll call the chief.”
“Put the gun down,” Lilliana whispered in Nancy’s ear. It was too late to keep her fingerprints from being found on what Lilliana assumed was the murder weapon, but she thought Nancy should avoid being seen with it in her hand. It was an image hard to forget, and Chief Cartwright was liable to jump to what Lilliana thought was an unwarranted conclusion.
Nancy slowly lowered herself and placed the gun beside the rodeo queen’s body.
“Is that where you found it?” Lilliana asked.
Nancy nodded.
Much as she didn’t want to leave Nancy alone, her bladder was getting insistent about filling—or should that be unfilling—its need. And, if she wasn’t mistaken, the first thing Cartwright would do would be to block off the entire area behind crime scene tape. “Wait right here,” Lilliana cautioned, then dropped her arm and hurried to the cubicle farthest away.
When she returned, she was able to think much more clearly. In the brief time she’d been absent, the news must have spread. A crowd had formed around Nancy and the victim, kept at bay only by DeeDee’s constant repetition of “Keep back!”
A ripple passed from the back of the crowd toward the front as people jostled one another. Eventually the young Chief of Police emerged. Behind him marched Sam Horn, editor and publisher of the Rainbow Ranch Gazette. Just as Chief Cartwright opened his mouth, Biff Buckley and his cameraman came running from the opposite direction. The cameraman turned on a bright spotlight and started taping the scene. He was met with angry cries from those whom he’d blinded.
“Turn that off,” Cartwright ordered.
The cameraman followed the order, a disgruntled expression on his face.
“Who was killed?” Buckley asked.
“I’ll be answering questions later. At Town Hall. Meanwhile, clear the crime scene.” Cartwright turned his attention to the crowd. “That means you, too.”
Fortunately, people moved back voluntarily, not leaving, but at least not impinging on any evidence in the immediate area. Since Cartwright was the only cop in town, it wasn’t as if he could call for assistance with crowd control.
Satisfied the crime scene would remain clear, the chief approached Nancy and Lilliana and spoke in a soft but authoritative voice. “What happened here, Mrs. Wentworth?”
“I have no idea. I came to use one of the toilets and found Nancy standing over the body.”
Cartwright pulled a pad and pen from his pocket and addressed Nancy, who looked as if she was going to burst into tears again. “Can I have your name, ma’am?”
Nancy flinched at the sound of his voice.
“Nancy Gardner,” Lilliana volunteered.
The chief flicked a glance in her direction, then tried asking Nancy another question. “Mrs. Gardner. Did you find the body?”
Nancy nodded.
Cartwright peered down at the victim, and Lilliana thought he might be regretting telling Joey to turn off the light. Even in the dim light that remained, she could see the blossom of blood surrounding the bullet hole dead center in Fox Fordyce’s chest.
“Who is this anyway?” Cartwright asked.
“Fox Fordyce,” Lilliana said.
“Fox Fordyce?” The chief sounded impressed. Apparently even he had seen the article in the Gazette. Giving up on Nancy, he asked Lilliana, “Any idea what happened? Or who shot her?”
“Not a clue. DeeDee called you as soon as we saw her.” She avoided mentioning anything about Nancy being there first. She also avoided mentioning her holding the gun.
Belatedly, Cartwright must have realized that the entire town could be suspects since everyone had been at the Fourth of July celebration, and that many of them had already headed for their homes. “Everyone stay right here until DeeDee gets your name and address,” he shouted at the crowd.
“What will I write on, Chief?” DeeDee asked.
Reluctantly, Cartwright handed her his pad and pen. The chief had a pretty good memory. Li
lliana could only hope he’d remember whatever he could pry out of Nancy. “Wait right here, Mrs. Gardner.” He glanced at Lilliana, questioning with his eyes as to whether she minded remaining behind. She dipped her head to indicate her agreement to stay.
“Sam, can you give me a hand stringing some crime scene tape?” he asked.
The portly older man came forward and asked, “What can I do?”
Cartwright scratched his head. “First, make sure no one comes any closer—especially that Biff Buckley—until I get back with the tape.”
“That would be a pleasure.” Sam grinned.
The chief took off at a trot toward his police car and returned a few minutes later with the yellow and black tape. “We’ll attach the tape to each end of the toilets,” he said. “We’ll have to figure out some way to anchor it out about there.” Cartwright pointed toward the generator.
As it turned out, they used the generator for one corner of the rectangle. Sam fetched a folding chair from the softball field for the other corner. It wasn’t the most secure arrangement, but it was probably the best they could do at the time.
“Just one more minute, Mrs. Gardner.” Cartwright took out his cell phone and dialed the central dispatch number, or at least so Lilliana assumed based on his conversation. He requested a crime scene unit to come to Rainbow Ranch from the Sheriff’s Department. It would take close to an hour for them to drive up from Bisbee, but there wasn’t a choice. Rainbow Ranch was too small to have its own forensics team.
Nancy looked as if she might collapse at any moment. Lilliana’s own feet had started to hurt from standing so long. “Chief, do you think we could have a couple of chairs?”
“Sorry. I should have thought of that.” Cartwright looked around, trying to locate Sam to have him fetch some chairs, but it wasn’t necessary.
“Over here, Constable.” Christopher stood just outside the crime scene tape with a folding chair in each hand.
Christopher! She’d forgotten all about him. She couldn’t possibly leave Nancy to walk back to the retirement community with him. Would he wait for her? Lilliana followed the chief. After Cartwright took the chairs, she lingered to speak with Christopher. “I don’t want to leave Nancy,” she said. “You can go back if you want to. It will probably be hours before we’re done. I’m sure the chief will give us a ride back.”
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