by Lois Winston
I wanted to tell him I’d discovered how Garth sneaked out and murdered Autumn without being detected. But he was already gone when I turned around. I was getting used to this guy disappearing while my back was turned.
I brushed the dirt off my slacks and started toward my truck parked out front. From behind the steering wheel, Maya was frantically pointing to my right.
I looked to where she was pointing and, at the same time, my pager went off.
Yeah, I see him, Maya.
Garth reached me in three long strides, his welcoming hug sliding to a halt at the expression on my face.
Damn. Why didn’t I just blurt, “Guilty!” and be done with it. But I did manage to pull myself out of a tailspin when I blurted, “I just saw Eddy McBride!”
“Where?” He pivoted a one-eighty. “Where’d he come from? Is he still here?”
“No, thank God. But I saw him coming out of your motor home!” I pointed to the hatch door hanging open under his motor home.
He ignored it and grabbed my arm. “You okay? He didn’t hurt you, did he?”
“I’m fine.” But why wasn’t he dropping my arm to run over to the motor home and see if the little brown suitcase was still in its hiding place? This reaction was a surprise.
What was it I was missing here? Everything had fallen into place. He’d obviously murdered his aunt, extracted a promise from his ex not to talk if he gave her the money, and then found a way to get to his girlfriend before she ran off with all the money he took. All I had to do was call Caleb.
Caleb strolled around the corner, followed by Detective Rodney.
Detective Rodney sneered. “Speak of the devil.”
Seeing me in Garth’s arms, Caleb stiffened, his jaw working as he tried to get his emotions under control.
I shook my head at him, mouthing the words, “It’s not what you think.”
He glared at me to keep quiet. Then he took out a pair of handcuffs. For a minute there, I thought they were for me.
But instead, he turned the unresisting Garth around and clamped the cuffs on him. “I’m arresting you for the murders of Patience McBride and Alexandra Graham.”
Garth’s mouth dropped, then he looked at me. “I didn’t do it, Lalla,” he said through clenched teeth. “Let’s get this over with, Sheriff. My lawyer will have me out in five minutes, and then I’m going to sue your department for harassment.”
Caleb grunted. “You do that.”
I stood watching Caleb and the detective march Garth to a waiting police car. Not taking any chances of losing him, two more cars with flashing lights blocked the exits.
When the police left, Caleb came back to where I stood, hands hanging by my sides.
“Uh, what made you change your mind about arresting Garth?” I asked. “I thought you wanted to use him for bait to get Eddy. What happened to that idea?”
“Garth’s daughter talked.”
“What did she say?”
“Garth was there Saturday, not Sunday. Thanks to her and the tire tracks on last Friday’s newspaper, and Autumn’s recorded testimony, we got him. It won’t take much to get Garth’s ex to talk now. We have enough for an indictment. We couldn’t chance that Garth might not get antsy and run off before the funeral.” He looked around, as if just now realizing where we were standing. “What were you doing here?”
“I know you told me to stay away from him, but I wanted to confirm an idea I had. And I found how he slipped the surveillance you had watching his motor home.”
He tipped his chin down, waiting.
“It’s under his bed, and there’s a trap door to the ground under the bus. It’s how he escaped to find Autumn and kill her before she could testify against him. And I found you a bonus. The money he stole from Eddy is in an old brown suitcase behind an awning.”
He gave me a disapproving look. “You opened it?”
“No, of course not. Come on, I’ll show you,” I said, trying to drag him along to the open storage door.
He stayed where he was, pulling me back into his arms and, brushing the hair whipping around my face out of my eyes, said, “You shouldn’t be here. Go home. If you’re right, I’ll let you know. Now go. Please?”
I still needed Caleb to verify my theory that I’d crushed Garth’s alibi. “But he still could’ve gotten out through the storage compartment, right?”
“Maybe. Not your problem anymore. Now scoot,” he said, turning me around and giving my bottom a little pat.
I glared at him, shaking a finger for emphasis. “Not fair, Caleb Stone.” Where it didn’t work on Eddy, I still held it in my arsenal for Caleb. “I was right, and you can’t even say thanks.”
The warmth in his eyes melted, leaving only steel in its place. “It’s not fair that the entire department thinks I need to spend my time keeping you out of trouble.”
“Oh, yeah. Sorry. You know I never meant to cause you trouble.”
“I know, Lalla. Now go home.”
Head down, I trudged back to the truck.
Seeing my long face, Maya said, “Did I mess up?”
“No, sugar,” I said, all perky again, since I had what I came for anyway. “You did fine. Let’s go home.” Garth had been arrested, and as far as I was concerned, Eddy could come back and pick up that damned suitcase and get out of town. Case closed.
Maya was talking. “Then how come Caleb came out and arrested Garth? Did you find what you were looking for? Any evidence?”
“Not unless you count being a pain in the ass to Caleb,” I said. My goddaughter was still giving me worshipful looks. “Oh, sugar, I shouldn’t have brought you out here.”
“Why do you say that? This was way cool. You got out without him catching you and he got arrested. What’s next?”
“There is no next,” I said. “Caleb said to go home.”
“But you don’t think it was Garth, do you? Me neither. He’s way too cute to be a murderer.”
“Of course he could be a murderer! Any cute guy could be a murderer,” I snapped. “Ever hear of Ted Bundy?”
She recoiled from my words as if I’d struck her. Now why did I do that?
“Oh, Maya! Don’t cry, baby, I’m sorry.” I dredged the bottom of my purse for tissues, and finally found a handful. I’d struck out at her because I was furious at myself. Mopping her tears, I rocked her against me, crooning. “I’m so sorry, baby. I didn’t mean it.” What was I thinking, yelling at Maya? I was going to be in enough trouble with Roxanne for putting her daughter in this mix, much less if Maya showed up at home with eyes red from crying.
She sniffled and then hiccupped. “I guess it’s not easy being a super hero, huh?”
For one lovely minute I imagined myself basking in the glow of heroine worship, but I knew the minute Roxanne heard the words Wonder Woman, she’d bust that myth off its tracks.
At the café, I told Maya if she wanted to get to New York she wasn’t to breathe a word of this little adventure to her mother. The mere mention of losing out on that city of fashion doused the teenage high she’d been on for the last hour, and with a quick kiss to my cheek, she slid her long wiggly limbs off my upholstery and out of the truck.
On the way home, I got to thinking about my reaction to Maya. What was it she said that set me off? “But you don’t think it was Garth, do you? Me neither. He’s way too cute to be a murderer.” Was it the “way too cute” part that set my teeth on edge? Hadn’t I thought he was cute when I first met him?
TWENTY-TWO
My dad was crowding me in his enthusiasm to hear what Caleb had to say.
“This isn’t a conference call, Noah. Let me talk to Caleb and then I’ll tell you.”
His eyebrows were dancing up and down, but he held up his hands in surrender and retreated a few steps.
Caleb said, “We’ve already gone through his motor home with a fine-tooth comb. That case is on the list of items we already looked at. It holds tools he uses for repairing the engine.”
“Oh,”
I said, disappointment evident in my voice.
“You did good. You got us to look at his daughter again, and this time she admitted she saw him Saturday afternoon. He’s not going to get bail this time. I have to go, but I’ll talk to you later tonight, okay? I love you.”
I giggled at the last minute and told him I loved him too. Something was going to have to happen to cement this budding romance. Maybe a real date with dinner and wine and kissing.
When I hung up, I told my dad that Garth was being held for trial.
His smile was kindly, but his voice mocking. “You’re lucky the police won’t be charging you for breaking into Garth’s motor home.”
“I had a key. Okay, maybe he didn’t exactly give it to me, but I proved how he was able to elude his keepers, and I helped them uncover his ex’s lie about the timing. They should give me a medal.”
“Mentioning angry women, do you think it was the redhead who ran you off that road?”
“Maybe in a pique of jealousy.” Then I bit at the inside of my cheek as I recounted my conversation with Eddy beside Garth’s motor home. “At least Eddy apologized for pinning the whole thing on me, then sitting back to watch the fireworks. I, and my Caddy, was a means to an end to find the real killer.” So, why wasn’t I satisfied? Perhaps those nagging loose ends could only be answered at the trial.
My dad thoughtfully pulled on his lower lip. “It was arrogant to think that none of this would come back to haunt me or hurt you. I’m sorry.”
I put my hand on his shoulder. “He did what he had to do. Otherwise, none of this might ever have come to light. Love or money, Caleb always says.” I was thinking of Autumn lying dead on the cold tile. “Love certainly doesn’t seem to be a problem for Garth, so I don’t think murder has been either.”
“I wonder what Eddy will do now?”
“I’m still puzzling over Garth’s reaction to seeing his trap door open. He didn’t act like it mattered. And he never did seem overly concerned that Eddy might be after him.” I shrugged, unable to come to a reasonable conclusion on Garth’s thinking. “It proves how he dodged the cops, killed Autumn, and then got back inside with nobody the wiser.”
“I think this calls for a celebration. I’m going to call our good friend Judge Griffin to come over and have dinner with us tonight, what do you say? He’ll be glad to hear they caught the bastard.” Noah’s enthusiasm was contagious, so I said I would join them. I went off to ask Juanita to double the casserole she was building. What the heck, let the ol’ boys have their back-slapping, congratulatory meal.
The thought of Eddy McBride lay on my mind like a sliver of metal under my thumbnail. It was sad to think his escape hadn’t saved his wife, but if Eddy showed up at the funeral and tried to shoot Garth, the courts would tack on another ten years to the time he’d have to do for the escape.
I probably should’ve invited Caleb to dinner, but I didn’t know if I could make it through the salad without doing a face plant in my plate. The exhaustion I’d been ignoring was catching up with me, and tonight I intended to get the first real sleep in a week.
~*~
I was lighting the last candle when I heard a male voice over the slam of the front door. My dad shuffled out to greet his guest, in slippers instead of socks, and because it was a special occasion, a shirt with all the buttons in their holes. I passed Juanita in the kitchen, dropping small morsels into Spike’s mouth as she cleaned up. Spike gulped down a piece of chicken and almost choked as he hurried to snap at my heels. Like I was going to take away his handout. Spike snarled, growled, yapped, and barked at every person who came into the house. Juanita was exempt, only because she coaxed him with goodies from the fridge. As for his subservient devotion to my dad, it was more than likely because my dad was a fashion doppelganger to Spike’s last owner. Or maybe they were soul mates—both of them cranky.
I shooed Juanita out the back door for home, promising to remember the casserole. I was taking it out of the oven when I almost tripped over Spike.
I looked down at him hugging my ankles. “Hey,” I asked, hoping he’d let me put the casserole on the counter before taking a bite out of my ankle, “did Juanita forget to feed you?”
But Spike wasn’t his usual devilish little self. He was as still as a small brown rock, his ears cocked forward in the tense posture of a guard dog quivering at alert. Did guard dogs quiver? This one did; he looked about to fall off his corner of the earth. From the hallway, I heard laughter, and with it the smell of cigar smoke drifting on the air.
The hair on the back of Spike’s neck bristled, the brown eyes bugged, and the ears flattened.
“What is it, Spike?” I asked, confused by his behavior. “You’re starting to scare me.”
I questioned the sanity of trying to get him outside. Spike never went anywhere I asked, so why bother now? What should I do with him?
The two men, laughing, walked into the dining room next to the kitchen where I’d left crackers and cheese and a bottle of champagne to open. They were both smoking cigars. I could tell because my dad could never draw on the damn things without coughing. What was it my father had said? Oh yeah, he smoked cigars on the rare occasion when it called for a celebration. If it was a celebration, Spike was the only one not enjoying the party.
Now the only thing between Spike and the men were the double swinging saloon doors into the dining room. His brown eyes were jumping from the door to me, telegraphing some message in doggy language. Unfortunately, I was going to need a translator, because I still didn’t get his terror.
“Dad?” I called. “I need your help in the kitchen for a minute, please.”
With a murmured excuse, my dad came into the kitchen where Spike was backed up as far as he could get against the lower cupboards.
“What’s wrong with him?” I asked, pointing.
Spike, glad to see his friend, kept his rump to the ground where it was safe, and gave my father a wag of his tail.
“What do you mean? He looks fine to me. Maybe hungry? Are you hungry, little buddy?” Dad asked. Immediately Spike stood, did a bow stretch, all relaxed now, and wagged his tail. Dad put down a bowl of doggy chow and went back to his guest.
“Crisis over?” I sputtered, exasperated with this bad-dog behavior. “Well, good. I’m glad we’ve got that sorted out so I can get back to serving dinner.”
I put on the oven mitts to carry the hot dish to the table. But once again, there was Spike, one paw on my foot, big brown eyes darting between me and the dining room.
“Now what? You’ve been fed, so what is it?”
He’d never behaved this way. Not even when he’d arrived scared, hungry and trembling from the experience of roaming the countryside until a neighbor found him on her porch. He probably ran out of the house to hide from Patience’s attacker. So why now, and why the judge? I started thinking. When was the last time the judge had been here? Not since Spike arrived. I thought about the photo from the judge’s mantel.
My wife and I could never have children. These two on her lap are her niece and nephew from Texas. The little girl had hair just like my wife’s.
Red. The judge’s wife had beautiful red curling hair. The faded photo of a little girl with long curls of a light color. Not blond, not brown—red. Just like Autumn’s. What was the diminutive for Alexandra? Lexy, the judge said. But it could also be Sandy—which sounded too much like a kid. She’d changed it to Autumn O’Sullivan for Hollywood. I held onto my head and reached for the edge of the kitchen counter to steady my trembling nerves.
She was the judge’s niece and this was the connection I’d missed. Garth might be guilty of a lot of things, but murder wasn’t one of them. I had to call Caleb.
Spike wasn’t going to wait around to see what I was going to do. He shot out of the kitchen, skidded once in the hallway and rounded the corner to scramble up the stairs. I couldn’t say I blamed him. It was all I could do to stay where I was instead of galloping after him. I just hoped I’d be able to
hold onto my growing suspicions and keep my mouth shut until I could call Caleb. Oh, brother. How was I ever going to convince Caleb a Chihuahua told me the judge was the real killer?
I had to hold it together and quell my mounting fears. Taking a deep breath, I went to greet our guest.
He had a jacket with elbow patches over one arm and a champagne bottle extended in the other. “Well, well, Lalla, I hear you did us all proud. I’ve brought champagne to celebrate.” A freshly starched and clean white shirt stuffed into clean dress pants with suspenders completed his ensemble. Jolly old Judge Griffin. And he’d shaved too, covering a knick with a piece of tape.
I smiled weakly, moved around the dining table to take the champagne, accepting a peck on the cheek, and waved them to the dinner table while I backed through the swinging doors to the kitchen. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t sit there with my growing suspicions and eat. I’d throw up first.
Seeing this as my excuse to exit, I held onto the bottle and backed through the swinging doors. “I’ll uncork this bottle and get us some glasses. You fellows have a seat.” I put the bottle down on the counter and took a right turn into the hallway and whispered, “Spike?” Not waiting for an answer, I took the stairs up two at the time, looking into corners to see where he might be hiding. I’d hide him in a bathroom where the judge couldn’t see him, then call Caleb.
I tried my dad’s room, then Leslie’s old room. Finally in my room, I heard the rapid tattoo of little nails. I knelt down and pulled back the bedspread.
“Is it the judge? I won’t let him hurt you.” His eyes bugged and he retreated even further into the nether regions under my bed.
I gave up and sat down on the bed. With one ear on the conversation below, I picked up my cell phone to call Caleb. I was hoping that, unable to resist the fragrant casserole cooling on the kitchen counter, they’d start without me.
One ring… The conversation seemed to have died… Two rings… I hoped it was because they were too intent on snacking on crackers to wonder where I was… Three rings…