Murder Hits the Road

by K. J. Emrick

  Stacia’s voice was flat. “So I hired these two people to help me kill my husband, huh? Tabitha and Brock, you said? What if I tell you I’ve never heard of them?”

  “Well, then that would be another lie,” Jerry said bluntly. “We’re getting used to it from you but let me ask you this. How long do you think it will be before the police make the same connection we have? Or, how long do you think it will be before Tabitha or Brock break down and spill everything? A professional might be able to keep their mouth shut. An amateur? They always break under police interrogation, believe me.”

  She took a deep breath, and when she exhaled she seemed almost to deflate. “If those two weren’t involved…”

  Cookie smiled. It was a sad smile, but they were finally breaking through Stacia’s shell. This was the moment of truth.

  “That’s right,” Jerry said, sensing the same thing that Cookie did. “Oh, you might have gotten away with it if you could have found some professionals, instead of these two. But again, I’m guessing when Cookie and I showed up, you had to improvise. They’re just people who needed to make some extra cash, I’m guessing. Here’s some more free advice. If you’re going to commit murder, involve as few people as possible. If the police hadn’t arrested them along with us for an illegal speed contest, then you wouldn’t have gotten worried about being found out again, and you wouldn’t have had to hit yourself with that rock to fake another attack. You wouldn’t be in this hospital bed. We wouldn’t be having this lovely conversation. So, yeah. That’s mistake number three.”

  As he spoke, Stacia’s stare became icy. Her hands fisted into the thin white sheets of the hospital bed. “Is there anything else, oh great detective? Did I perhaps make another startling error that will send me straight to prison for the rest of my natural days?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact there is.” He leaned forward, emphasizing each of his next words. “Like I said. You didn’t count on Cookie and me being here when you killed Ernesto.”

  She went back to sitting there silently, but Cookie could tell from the change in that mask she wore that she knew she was ready to give up. The sugar was out of the bag, and there was no way to put it back in now.

  “You see,” Cookie said, “here’s what we think happened. It’s odd, how when you go on a trip like this with so many people you find out their true natures. We’ve encountered so many people who don’t like pets. Humphrey hates the world, but he hates dogs, too. The manager of Whispering Maples, Abraham Selk, hates dogs. Franky LaRock hates dogs. I have a feeling that your husband, Ernesto, hated them as well, didn’t he?”

  When there was no answer, Cookie took that as a yes.

  “So,” she continued, “Ernesto hated Boxer, the pet that you dearly loved. Somehow, either on purpose or by accident, he killed Boxer. We know from Franky that you and Ernesto weren’t in a loving relationship. He was older than you were, and you must have had trouble connecting with him, and you were having an affair with Franky. Him killing Boxer was the last straw for you. I don’t blame you for being angry about that. I would, however, blame you for being a murderer. You took someone’s life for your own selfish reasons.”

  “Fine!” she exploded. “You two think you’re so smart. Yes, Ernesto killed my dog. I couldn’t forgive him for that. I just couldn’t. Do you know I almost called it off? I almost said no, Stacia, you can’t do that to him. He loves you, even if you don’t love him anymore, but then he killed Boxer and… all bets were off.”

  Cookie sighed. Killing a pet. What sort of monster had Ernesto been?

  “So yes,” Stacia went on, “I found two losers in Whispering Maples who wanted to make some quick cash, and I hatched a plot that used poor Boxer’s blood to frame someone else which I thought was a really, really nice touch. It was fitting that Boxer got some revenge out of this, too. I beat Ernesto to death that night with a frying pan. That’s why the police couldn’t find the real murder weapon. It was hanging right over the stove the whole time and they never gave it a second glance.”

  Of course, Cookie said to herself. Why hadn’t she thought to check the frypan that day?

  The answer was simple, unfortunately. It was because just like everyone else, she’d been fooled by Stacia Ferris.

  “And the tears,” she asked Stacia, “the emotions, all of that? All of the things you said about being so upset that Ernesto was gone?”

  “Faked, and I fooled you all with my performance.” Stacia said it so callously. So matter-of-fact. “I really didn’t like my husband much. I spent years pretending to love him, and I fooled him. You think I couldn’t fake a few tears for his death? Goodness, that was the easy part.”

  Jerry shook his head. “I have to say, you fooled me. The tears looked real.”

  “Look, she’s a chef.” She pointed at Cookie. “She knows what happens when you throw pepper in your eyes. Tears. Pinch the inside of your arm. Tears. Think of my dead, lovable, adorable puppy? Well, actually that just made me want to kill Ernesto more, so.”

  “And everything you told us since then,” Jerry summed up, “has been a lie. So let’s try a little bit of the truth. You were saying how you killed Ernesto with a frying pan. Let’s go back to that.”

  “Yes. I killed him with a frying pan,” she said, “and then I dragged him into bed and left him there. I had that idiot Brock drive the motorhome, so I could wave to all of you out the window. Tabitha followed us in the car. Then I parked the motorhome for the night and waited. When everyone was asleep we broke into Humphrey’s motorhome—easier than you think—and stole his cane. We left it for someone to find. Then, all I had to do was wait for someone to come into the motorhome and find me.”

  Cookie marveled at the machinations at work in Stacia’s brain. To orchestrate all of this, to try so many different ways to cover it up… if she was evil, then she was an evil genius.

  But even evil geniuses make mistakes.

  Stacia turned to Cookie with a smirk. “I waited for someone to find me and wasn’t it just my bad luck that it was you? Because yes, I hit my head hard against the corner of the bathroom vanity as soon as I heard someone at the door. I bled in there, and so there wasn’t any blood on the sheets, and how many people in this whole wide world would have even noticed something like that? Nobody! Just you and your husband, you old, meddling, busybodies. No matter how I tried to throw you off my track you just kept figuring it out. This last time I put myself in the hospital just to get away from you two, and it still didn’t work!”

  Jerry turned to Cookie with a wink. “We are that good, aren’t we?”

  “Well, it doesn’t matter,” Stacia told them. Her mask had dropped entirely and what had once been a pretty face was now strained and red with anger. It was like she had cracked, and she was trying to hold the pieces together as they slipped between her fingers. “No one’s going to ever know about this conversation. I’m going to leave as soon as you go to call the police. I’m going to run and keep running. You’ll never find me. No one will. I killed Ernesto, and I don’t regret it. He was a horrible husband to me and he… he killed my dog…”

  This time the tears that fell down her cheeks were real. Cookie had the feeling that she loved Boxer far more than she had ever loved Ernesto. Certainly more than she had loved Franky. Cookie wondered to herself what she would do to anyone who harmed a hair on Cream’s head. Would she want revenge? Would she want to kill the person who hurt Cream?

  Yes. Of course she would. Any pet owner would feel that way.

  There was no version of events, however, where she could picture herself killing, and lying, and involving other people in a scheme to seek revenge. There were ways to get justice that didn’t involve becoming the monster you despised.

  That wasn’t what this was about, however. No, Stacia had been planning to kill Ernesto before Boxer had been killed. This wasn’t about Boxer. This was about a selfish, evil woman who put her own desires ahead of someone else’s right to live. Stacia killed Ernesto. Ernest
o had killed Boxer. They were both murderers.

  Stacia had to pay for her crimes. That was something Cookie and Jerry would make sure of.

  “It was all there,” Cookie said to her now, with a sad shake of her head. “Every clue. Every fact. We just had to know what we were looking for. If it’s any consolation, Stacia, you were very hard to catch. What did it take us, Jerry? Three days?”

  “Two, I believe,” he said. “Well. Two and a half, if you want to get technical.”

  “There, you see?” Cookie laughed softly, but try as she might she just couldn’t put any humor in it. “A truly hard case.”

  “Well, you won’t ever put me in jail,” Stacia said. She got up from the bed in a rush, her hospital gown barely staying closed at the back. Apparently, she was feeling much better than she let on. “I’m leaving. I’m getting out of here and you won’t stop me. You won’t stop me!”

  Jerry didn’t try to stop her. Cookie just moved out of her way. Stacia ran to the door and threw it open and went to take a single step outside.

  Lieutenant Duke Fairfield caught her by the arm and placed a handcuff on her wrist.

  “You aren’t going anywhere,” he told her. “You’re going to stay right here until the doctors say you can leave, and then you’re coming with me to see a judge.”

  “Oh dear,” Cookie said, false concern dripping from her every word. “Did I forget to mention that Lieutenant Fairfield came with us? Oh yes. We called him on the way here and explained everything to him. He was more than happy to join us. Why, that must have slipped my mind.”

  Duke gave her a grateful nod of his head. “That worked out really well. I’m starting to see the wisdom of letting you and your husband do what you do best.”

  “We’re a team,” Jerry said, as if that summed it up.

  Which Cookie supposed it did.

  CHAPTER 11

  “Y ou know, it’s funny,” Cookie said.

  “Oh really?” Jerry said. “I’m glad you found something to laugh at. This trip hasn’t been a real barrel of laughs so far. I’m supposed to be giving you a honeymoon, not put you in a room with a murderer.”

  From the passenger seat she leaned across to take Jerry’s hand. It was electric to feel his fingers in her, just like always. “Being with you has been wonderful,” she assured him. “Proving a friend was a murderer wasn’t pleasant, to be sure.”

  “But we did it together.”

  “Exactly. Everything is better when we do it together.”

  “Well, after this I want to head back home. Together.”

  She stood up and kissed him on the top of his forehead. “Yes. Together.”

  Behind her, Cream danced up on his hind legs, wagging his tail and barking for her attention.

  She bent down to pick him up in her arms, hugging him tight as she scratched the fur along his back. “Yes, Cream. Me and Jerry and you, together.”

  Cream licked at her hand to show his agreement.

  They had the motorhome parked in the extra long spaces at the back of the nicely maintained parking area. They had arrived at Titan’s Gorge, and Cookie felt excited to finally be here after everything they had gone through to get this far. Besides several other motorhomes there were dozens of cars scattered across the smaller spaces all leading up to a large kiosk manned by three people in uniform. Next to the kiosk was a turnstile gate. Nobody got into the state park without paying the fee first.

  Jerry joined them, putting his arm around Cookie’s shoulder to look out the windshield. “You know, we could just start home now. We could take our time, and park this RV wherever we wanted to, and spend every night reminding each other exactly why we got married in the first place.”

  “Oh, I think I like that idea,” she said, but then she sighed. “We probably shouldn’t blow our friends off like that. Not after everything that happened.”

  “Yeah, I suppose you’re right. Besides, I’ve always wanted to see Titan’s Gorge. It would be a shame to have made it all this way and not at least get a peek at the twentieth wonder of the world.”

  “Twentieth?” she laughed. “Why twentieth?”

  “Well, it’s not up in the top ten, with the pyramids and Stonehenge. I figure it’s down at the bottom of the second set of ten wonders. So, yeah. Still amazing.”

  “Silly man. I want to see it, too. As soon as our friends arrive—”

  There was a knock on the motorhome’s door just as she was saying it. Perfect timing.

  Jerry kissed her forehead. “That’s them. Time to go.”

  Cookie slid on her comfortable hiking boots and made sure to clip Cream’s leash onto his harness. While she did that, Jerry put on his blue windbreaker. The day was just as warm as the rest of the week had been, but the breezes at the top of the gorge were supposed to be pretty strong and chilly.

  When they were both ready, Jerry opened the door.

  Franky and Penny stood there with matching smiles on their faces.

  In Franky’s hand was a purple leash. At the end of the leash was a brown collie, a beautiful dog with expressive brown eyes. He wasn’t much more than a puppy. Cream looked down at the other dog, tipping his head sideways with a little chuffle that was doggie speak for, “Hello, and who are you?”

  “Hey, look at that,” Penny said. “They’re friends already. I knew they would be!”

  “My, my,” Cookie remarked, “how on Earth did you ever get Franky to agree to get a dog?”

  Franky looked embarrassed, one corner of his lip curling up in a wry grin that emphasized the dimple on that side. “I’ve spent all this time hating dogs and, honestly, I’ve been a pretty rotten person all around. This trip has taught me that I need to change a few things. For one, I need to give dogs a chance. Boxer didn’t deserve what happened to him. After I saw what that kind of hate did to Humphrey, and to Ernesto, and to Stacia too, I guess… well, I didn’t want it to happen to me.”

  Penny reached her hand out to her husband, and he took it, and held it fast. Just like Cookie and Jerry did so often. There was an honest love in Penny’s eyes. One that Franky returned.

  Cookie beamed at them both. “This is so nice to see. You’ve forgiven each other, I take it?”

  “Um, well,” Franky hemmed. “I’m not really sure I deserve Penny’s forgiveness. Not yet. I figured out that I need to work on my relationship with my wife. I have something very special with Penny that I nearly threw away. I don’t want to lose her.”

  Penny snuggled herself into his side. The collie looked up at them with his tongue lolling out the side of his mouth. He was enjoying being with these new owners. Franky really was changing his ways.

  Stepping out of the motorhome—making sure to lock the door behind them—Jerry and Cookie put Cream down on the ground, so he and the collie could sniff at each other and walk together. After a minute of them tangling their leashes they got into a rhythm and walked side by side. A gorge was no place to let dogs roam free, but as long as they stayed on their leashes they would be fine. Cookie had checked ahead to make sure animals were allowed within the Titan’s Gorge state park. Maybe later they could find somewhere to let both dogs off their leash to run with each other. For now, there was a lot of walking to do. Best to get started.

  “You’ll have to tell me everything,” Cookie said to them. “About how you found your new furry friend here, I mean.”

  “The last town we drove through had a pet store,” Penny said. “In the window was this guy here. I fell in love right away.”

  Franky didn’t hesitate to tell the rest of it. “But she didn’t dare tell me, because she knew how much I… um, how much I used to hate dogs. I could see how badly she wanted him, though, and I figured it would be a good first step toward making up for all my mistakes.”

  “So we named him Pax. For peace,” Penny explained, giving them the Latin translation. It seemed to Cookie that she’d heard that somewhere before. In church, perhaps.

  One of the men in uniform at the kiosk
took their money and passed them all day ticket passes. He made sure to list off the rules of the Titan’s Gorge state park for them, including keeping their dogs on a leash. He was very certain to spell that one out for them. Twice.

  “There’s also pet waste disposal bins along the trail,” he said, pointing as if they could see them from here. “Please make sure to deposit any of your dogs’ waste in those. Don’t leave anything behind, that’s the park motto.”

  Cookie thanked the man but was glad when they were out of his sight. He seemed a little bit too interested in the rules, and she wanted to just relax and enjoy the rest of the day.

  The gravel path was bordered by a wood fence, made of rough posts and rails that had been painted white once upon a time, until weather and time had taken away most of the paint. Along the way were signs that had interesting facts about the gorge, how wide it was and how deep it was and when it was discovered, and things like that. Cookie made sure to stop at each one and read everything. Jerry took pictures on his cellphone, of the surrounding trees and the signs and the four of them, and the dogs too. It would make a very interesting photo collage once they got back home to Widow’s Rest. Cookie couldn’t wait to show it all to her granddaughter Clarissa.

  “By the way,” Franky said to them as they rounded a turn in the trail. “Did you ever find your wallet, Jerry?”

  “Yeah, I did,” Jerry said, with an ironic twist to his lips. “Turns out I dropped it in the American Heritage museum. They left me a voicemail on my cellphone that I only got this morning.”

  “Wow. And to think, if you hadn’t lost your wallet you might never have solved the mystery.”

  “Good thing, too,” Cookie added. “If you hadn’t lost that wallet we never would have called Abraham Selk and found out that Boxer had been murdered. Thank God for life’s little mistakes.”