Bound to Execute

by ACF Bookens

  Daniel walked with Renee to the sheriff, who was just coming back off the screened-in porch and held onto her while the sheriff put her handcuffs. Then, Dad let Dillard up and walked him to the sheriff’s patrol car where he and his mother were both put in the backseat.

  I stared at Daniel a long minute and then the dogs and I finally sprinted to him, jumbling into a mass of paws and arms that brought us all to a heap on the ground.

  After I got a good look at him when Stephen and Walter took control of the dogs, I could see he was fine. “The shot?”

  “I’m not sure if she was aiming at me or just trying to scare me, but there’s a pine back there missing some bark about twenty feet in the air.” He gave a rough laugh and helped me to my feet.

  “You okay?” he asked as he looked at me closely.

  “I am.” I leaned into his chest. “But I almost wasn’t.”

  He squeezed me tight, and I leaned hard into him as the tears began to fall.

  11

  Only after the sheriff pulled out with Dillard and Forsham in his car did I notice that most of my friends were there. Mom and Dad, Lu, Stephen and Walter, Henri and Bear, Pickle, Cate and Lucas, Woody, Mart, Elle, even Ariel and Cynthia. It looked like even Pickle had canceled his weekly date with his wife to come help Ariel. I felt a little embarrassed that everyone had needed to come help me, too. They’d all come to my rescue, and just the sight of them set loose my tears again.

  Daniel walked me to the bed of his truck and helped me up so I could sit there while Woody, who apparently was also a part-time paramedic, could look me over. “How did you all find me?” I asked the semi-circle of people I loved who had formed around me.

  “Good thing Taco likes to eat,” Pickle said as a tiny, black woman next to him laughed.

  “Wait, are you Mrs. Pickle?”

  The woman doubled over. “Why, yes. Yes, I am. Matilda.” She put out a hand. “Nice to meet you, Harvey.”

  I leaned over and shook her hand, admiring the many rings as I did. “Oh, it’s so nice to meet you finally. Sorry for all the excitement.”

  “Are you kidding? This is a huge step up from wings!” Pickle squeezed her close.

  I smiled and then looked at Daniel, “What’s this about Taco’s appetite?”

  He shrugged. “When he was a puppy, he’d take off all the time, following Lu’s truck. So I got him a GPS tracking chip for his collar.” He bent down and picked up the portly pup to show me the blue chip by his ID tag. “When you didn’t show at Ariel’s apartment, we started to get worried. I knew you’d have the dogs with you, so I just checked out Taco’s location on my phone. You were way out here, and I knew that wasn’t right. There’s nothing out here.”

  Woody stepped back from checking my eyes with the penlight he always had in his chest pocket and said, “So we all loaded up and headed out. Tuck called the station to ask Dillard to come out, too, but Harriet told him that Dillard hadn’t been in all night.”

  Lu jumped up onto the tailgate next to me. “Tuck had been suspicious of Dillard ever since that incident with Cynthia.” She smiled at the young woman standing by the side of the truck.

  “So that’s why he came in lights going and dust flying.” Mart said as she pushed her way onto the tailgate next to me. “She okay?” she asked Woody.

  “Yep. She’s fine.”

  “I told you,” I said. “They didn’t even tie me up.”

  “Why in the world didn’t you run then, Knucklehead?” Cate said.

  Stephen, Walter, and Mart all said at the same time. “The dogs.”

  I smiled, and Cate rolled her eyes.

  “You know you’d do the same for Sasquatch,” I said.

  She looked back at her car, and I could see a pair of shiny black eyes watching from the front seat. She shrugged. “Probably.”

  * * *

  If Mom and Mart had gotten their way, I would have been shuffled off to bed immediately, but I was still shot through with adrenaline. More, I was still craving pizza, white pizza with extra garlic.

  So most of us caravanned our way back to Ariel’s while Dad and Daniel went to get my truck. I ate two pieces of white pizza and two cupcakes in the time it took them to get back, so when they returned, I was a little less shaky.

  “The wiring for your lights had been pulled. All fixed,” Daniel said with a small smile that quickly turned into a grimace. “He did nick the paint when he popped the lenses off.”

  At that point, all the decorum I’d been trying to keep in place fell aside, and I let loose a tirade of swear words that made me feel much better. Even Mom, the prim and proper lady she was, applauded my outburst.

  Mart then got me a cup of hot tea and a third cupcake, and I sat down on Ariel’s very comfy used sofa and let the adrenaline leave my body.

  “So Forsham is Dillard’s mom?” Cynthia looked appalled.

  “I know. That’s a little creepy what with the love notes and things on those flowers,” Marcus said.

  “I’ve been thinking about that,” I said. “I think she intended for you to think they were from Dillard, not from her.”

  Cynthia sighed. “That’s less weird, but no less creepy.” She leaned her head on Ariel’s shoulder.

  “So any idea why?” Cate asked as she picked up my feet and began to rub them.

  “I’m not totally sure.” I slid down on the couch. “But I think it may have something to do with gambling.” I described their weird game of poker and their conversation. “So maybe he was in debt and needed the money or something.”

  At that moment, Sheriff Mason came in and, hearing me, said, “That was it. Dillard was in way over his head with some unsavory folks from Atlantic City. Seems he has a bit of a gambling problem.”

  “Oof,” Lucas said. “Gambling addiction is some serious stuff. My roommate in college battled that a long time.”

  Tuck nodded. “He probably didn’t murder anyone, though. Right?”

  Lucas shook his head. “Not that I know of.”

  “Addiction is an illness. Murder, not so much,” Lu said.

  “I’m still confused, though,” Mom said with her arms stretched over her head like she was reaching for the explanation up in the ceiling fan. “Why murder Wilma Painter?”

  “Oh, that one’s easy. She figured out what was going,” Ariel said. “Right? She was going to turn them in?”

  The sheriff opened a beer and then sat down on the floor between Lu and Henri. “Yes, but not only that, apparently, Wilma and Renee had been rivals for a long time. Believe it or not, Renee was jealous of Wilma’s life here, small and somewhat unhappy as it seemed to be. So when Wilma said she was going to come to me about this scam Renee had concocted to pay off Chad’s gambling debt, Renee convinced Chad that the only recourse was to kill her.”

  “He killed her or she did?” Rocky asked.

  “She ended up doing it. Dillard refused. Some code of honor as a police officer or something.” Tuck shook his head. “But he didn’t hesitate to cover it up, so not much honor there.”

  I let out a hard laugh. “The funny thing was they thought I had all this figured out and was going to expose them before they could take their money and run. But I had no clue. If they hadn’t kidnapped me tonight, they probably wouldn’t have gotten away with it.”

  “Thank God for small blessings,” Mart said with a wink.

  “Always a silver lining,” Cate chimed in.

  “A glass half full,” Stephen added.

  I rolled my eyes. “You guys sure know how to cheer a woman up.” I stood. “Now, can someone kindly drive me and my dog home. I’m not sure I trust myself behind the wheel.”

  * * *

  The next morning, the crowd that gathered for Wilma’s memorial service was substantial. Marcus had offered to cover the store for me so I could go. I wanted to pay my respects.

  Surprisingly, it turned out that she had been equally kind to most of the people in town, giving extensions on loans and offering great i
nterest rates for most of the businesses on Main Street. Even Henri was seeing the way Wilma dressed her down in a new light. “She warned us. Not everyone would have done that.”

  As one person after another stood to praise Wilma or to tell stories about her temper and sullen attitude, I thought of how kind she had been to Cynthia about the theft, and it made me wonder if she had known about Ariel’s living arrangement all along. I suspected she had and had just let it be.

  After the service, my friends and I gathered to do what you do when remembering someone who has died. We spoke of her kindly and wished goodness on her in the next part of her journey. Then, we decided to go get lunch. None of us felt like going to the potluck lunch in the church’s Fellowship Hall. It was a little too much to make conversation just now.

  We headed toward Lu’s food truck, which was parked a tasteful distance up the street from the funeral, to provide sustenance without being predatory. Lu was a wise business woman.

  “Wilma loved the chicken mole,” Lu said as she handed me my two tacos. “Every Thursday, that was her lunch.” I smiled at the image of Wilma eating from a food truck. Those little things, they remind me that no matter what a person may seem on the outside, they always have more to show.

  Tuck joined us for lunch and let us know that both Forsham and Dillard had been charged with theft, and Forsham was also being charged with murder, with Dillard as an accessory. Their confessions, given in the hopes of gaining leniency, would make the process of justice swift and clear.

  I was relieved, but also sad. Jealousy. Addiction. They had stolen so much in that family. It broke my heart a little.

  * * *

  Back at the shop that afternoon, Stephen and Walter came in with Ollie following behind, a large canvas in his hands. “We want to show you something, Harvey,” Stephen said. “Let’s go in there.” He gestured to the café.

  I lifted my chin and looked at him from beneath my narrowed eyes. “What’s going on?”

  “Just want you to see this, okay?” He put a hand on the small of my back and steered me to a table in front of the window. “Sit.”

  I glanced at Rocky, and she shrugged before coming around to stand beside me.

  Ollie set the sheet-covered canvas in front of me. “I hope you like it,” he said quietly before pulling the sheet off.

  There, in the most amazing array of blues, greens, and silvers I had ever seen was my face. It was a portrait of me, wild, graying hair, green eyes, blue glasses, and a massive armload of white peonies in my arms. All crafted from folded pages of books.

  I clamped my hand to my mouth and gasped. “That’s me,” I finally said.

  Ollie looked at me with his eyebrows high on his forehead. “Do you like it?”

  “Are you kidding?” I stood up and hugged him. “I have never loved a piece of art so much in my life.”

  “And that’s saying something,” Stephen added, “because she never likes pictures of herself.”

  “Ollie, it is amazing. But why me?”

  “You’re a kind person, Harvey. To everyone. Always. Even to people who you think have done horrible things, you ask why, instead of just writing them off. I wanted to capture that.” Ollie seemed a little embarrassed by his own eloquence.

  Still, now I was really crying. The kindness in those words stole my breath.

  “But the other reason was because Daniel asked me to paint you. He commissioned this piece.” Ollie looked over my shoulder, and there, on the sidewalk, Daniel was smiling.

  I raced outside and hugged him.

  “I think he got you. I think he got you perfectly,” he said and kissed me.

  Plotted For Murder

  Book 4 in the St. Marin’s Cozy Mystery Series

  When Mart dismissed my idea of covering All Booked Up’s Harvest Festival float with entirely pumpkin-themed book covers, I knew she was probably right. But it wasn’t until I realized that I’d need to scan and then print approximately 80 bazillion covers and then pay to have them blown up to a size that people could actually see from the side of the road that I gave in. As much as I wanted to both introduce people to great titles like How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin? and Pumpkin It Up!, my favorite cookbook of the season, I wasn’t up for that much investment in time or money.

  Besides, Mart’s idea was much better. Cate, our friend and artist, had already made the huge pumpkin for the center of the float, and everyone had their costumes all set. The only thing left was to convince Taco that the treats would come to him if he just sat on that doghouse by the typewriter. The problem was, Taco wasn’t much interested in being Snoopy. Still, I knew we’d make our Great Pumpkin float work, especially since my boyfriend Daniel had agreed to be Charlie Brown, bald cap and all. Mart was going to be Lucy, of course. She had the attitude and the black hair after all, and I knew my best friend could be as disdainful as the part required.

  I was going to be Peppermint Patty, despite Mart’s protests that I should be Lucy since clearly Daniel fawned over me like the football-missing Charlie mooned over Lucy. But I had been Peppermint Patty’s biggest fan since my seventh birthday when I realized she was the smartest and the most laid-back of all the Peanuts. Plus, I sort of already had the hair for it.

  This was going to be our first year for the bookstore to have a float in the parade, and I was determined it would be win the competition. I wanted those bragging rights, and the trophy would look great in the shop’s front window.

  But I knew we had stiff competition. Our friend Elle Heron, who ran the local farm stand and a cut flower business, had taken the title for the past two years with her Rose Parade-inspired floats made entirely from autumn blossoms, and despite Cate’s willingness to help with our float, I knew the art co-op’s creation would be stellar what with all the painters and sculptors involved. Then, when you factored in the Maritime Museum’s tall ship made in exactly the same fashion as an actual cutter and the sheriff department’s whimsical and totally overblown HeeHaw theme, with our African American sheriff dressed as Minnie Pearl, we had to bring our best game.

  Good thing my hound dog Mayhem loved to wear costumes because she was our piece de resistance as Woodstock, and I knew the crowd would love our friend Woody as Pigpen. He was creating his costume by doing a lot of sanding that day and not showering.

  We had five days to finish our float, and I was determined it was going to be amazing. Well, it was going to be amazing if I could actually manage to apply this red paint without streaks. I hated painting, but Snoopy’s doghouse was the last big prop for the float. Everyone else had done their part – Woody built the doghouse, Cate did that “great” pumpkin, Daniel had made that mechanical football to fly over his own head again and again. The least I could do was paint.

  Just as I was doing the final trimwork around the opening for Taco’s very soft dogbed, a necessity if we wanted him to actually make the ride, when Daniel showed up with what smelled very much like a breakfast burrito from Luisa Tucker’s food truck.

  I looked up only to see the burrito waving like a mirage in front of my eyes. It was 8am, and besides Mrs. Chevalier’s cinnamon rolles, nothing was better than Lu’s burritos. They were cheesy and spicy and filled with the best eggs and sausage I had ever tasted, and that’s saying something because I’m a southern woman and I know my eggs and sausage. “You sure know the way to my heart, Daniel Galena,” I said as I reached up and snatched the burrito from his hand.

  “I sure hope so,” he said as he bent and kissed the top of my head. “But if all it took was a burrito, I would have started there.” He winked as he sat down on a paint bucket next to me. “Looks good.” He nodded toward the doghouse as he ate half a burrito in one bite.

  “You think so? I feel like it’s pretty sloppy.” I eyed the streaks I could still see in the bright red paint.

  “It does. Plus, it’ll be far away. It doesn’t need to be perfect.”

  I dropped the brush. “That settles it, then. I’m going to silence the 10% of me t
hat is perfectionistic and let the ‘good enough’ 90% hold sway. I declare this dog house complete.” With that, I tucked into my burrito with force.

  After I had inhaled that cheesy goodness, I looked at Daniel. “So what brings you by besides the promise of the sheer joy on my face when you handed me Lu’s food?” Daniel and I were together most days, but he wasn’t exactly what you’d call a morning person. Most days, he and Taco came by just as I opened at 10, headed to his mechanic’s shop up Main Street.

  “Taco was lonely.” He pointed over to where he had tied up his basset hound next to Mayhem on the bike rack at the backside of the alley near an open field.

  I grinned. “Oh, Taco was, was he?”

  “He was. He misses his girl when he doesn’t get to see her for a couple of days.”

  “Oh yeah? Well, I’m glad you brought him by then.”

  “How was Mart’s race anyway?” Daniel reached into his backpack and produced two more burritos, and my heart skipped a beat.

  I kissed him on the cheek as I grabbed my second full meal and said, “It was good. Kind of fun to be back on the West Coast again.”

  Mart was a runner. It was a part of our friendship that would never align. I ran only under threat, and Mart ran half-marathons once a month and full marathons a couple times of year. We had long ago agreed to not try to understand the other’s running perspectives. But I went to every race I could, and when she said she was going to run the Humboldt Redwoods Marathon in Northern California, I immediately signed on as her roadie.

  It had been more than a year since I’d been back in northern California, the place Mart and I had lived before coming back to my home here on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, and I was eager to visit the eucalyptus forests again. I missed their smell, and I ached for the Pacific Coast with it’s cliffs that looked out over the ocean and lines of pelicans diving into the surf. Plus, Humboldt County was perfect. All evergreen forests and pretty lakes plus just enough town in Eureka to find really good food, even better wine, and some good music, too. As soon as Mart had signed up, we’d decided to make it a long weekend out there.