Hard.
CHAPTER 9
“Santa baby, slip a sable under the tree, for me…”
“Twyla!” I yelled. “Staaahhhp!”
As you know, I have some experience with making someone let go of something they shouldn’t have in their mouth (PhilPhilPhil), but this was the mother of someone I knew, a member of the community I respected.
Still, I grabbed her around the waist and Hobbs grabbed Blanche, who was fit to be tied, if the caterwauling she was doing was any indication.
“Mrs. Good, let go! You’re hurting her!” I urged.
But Blanche, obviously not one to back down, leaned forward in Hobbs’s embrace, reached out, grabbed Twyla’s hair and yanked so hard, I was surprised she didn’t pull a thatch of it out.
“Miss Ritter, let go of Mrs. Good’s hair!” Hobbs ordered sternly with a shout.
But these were two women scorned. They were fighting over a man. A worthless man. Though, in their defense, when it came to matters of the heart, no one understood better than I reason flew right out the window.
No one was giving in, and as the crowd around us gathered, I knew I had to do something. I just wasn’t sure how to do it without getting caught.
Wrapping my arm tighter around a howling Mrs. Good’s waist, I pinched her flesh with my fingers and leaned into her, and as Blanche clung to her hair, I whispered, “Free yourself from a jealous rage, to move forward, you must turn the page!”
Almost instantly, and to my relief, Mrs. Good let go, spitting Blanche’s finger out as though it were rancid, while Hobbs managed to peel Blanche’s white-knuckled fingers from Twyla’s hair.
Both women faced off, huffing and puffing, their chests heaving, their eyes wild. Blanche’s finger was dripping blood, a huge gash in it, but if I could get to her, I could remedy that and maybe she wouldn’t threaten what I felt sure she was bound to threaten.
Tears filled Blanche’s eyes, now dripping mascara down her perfectly made up face. “I’m going to have you arrested for assault. You’re insane! Look at my finger!”
Yep. That’s what I thought she was going to threaten.
I pulled some tissues from the pocket of my jacket and grabbed Blanche’s hand. “Let me see, Blanche.”
Before she could deny me, I reached for her hand and tucked it into mine. I didn’t want to eradicate the injury, that would be far too suspicious. But I wanted to staunch the bleeding and possibly lessen the bite wound.
As I held her hand, I assessed it and, no joke, Twyla had sunk her teeth in deep, but I covered it in the tissue as Blanche hissed in pain, then rolled my other hand over the stain seeping into the paper. Magic coursed through my veins, hot and fast, so at least I knew I was on the right track.
The worry being, if I pulled that tissue away and her finger had turned into a hot dog, due to the stress my magic experiences, there was going to be trouble, what with so many people around.
Dabbing at the wound, I made a big deal of looking at it first to be certain it was still a finger. “Look, Blanche.” I showed her. “It’s not as bad as it seemed at first. Just a lot of blood. You’re going to be just fine. How about we get you a bandage?”
Blanche’s lower lip trembled as she hesitantly peeked at her finger before her eyes were flashing angry death wishes at Twyla again. “You jezebel! You almost bit my finger off!”
Twyla, her hair sticking out around her pretty face, glared at her with narrowed eyes as Hobbs kept his arm firmly around Blanche’s waist. “You watch what you say, Blanche Ritter! He picked me. Me! He told me you meant nothing to him! So maybe he told you that and you killed him because he liked me better, you jealous hag!”
“Ooooooh!” Blanche screamed back with a stomp of her booted foot. “He did not! He told me that before he told you, and you know it! I was the last one to see him, Twyla Good!”
“Ladies!” I roared in the loudest, most authoritative voice I could summon. “You will stop this right now! You’re embarrassing yourselves!”
Almost at once, each of the women stopped and looked around at the people who’d gathered, as though they were realizing for the first time the scene they were making.
Everyone’s eyes were wide and full of surprise, their mouths open. An uncomfortable silence fell over the crowd and all movement ceased.
Twyla was the first to feel the shame. She pushed past Hobbs and ran toward the area where the bathrooms were with a raspy sob.
But Blanche? She became even more infuriated.
Her finger whipped into the cold air as she gave everyone an accusatory glare. “Who do you bunch of judgmental, small-town busybodies think you are? How dare you look at me like that!”
Hobbs came up behind me and whispered, “You take Twyla, because I think she’s in the ladies’ room. I’ll take Blanche and we’ll meet back here in ten?”
I nodded and we sealed the deal by banging fists. Like a shot, I took off for the bathrooms as I heard Hobbs say, “Miss Ritter, why don’t you come with me?”
The path to the bathrooms was pretty clear; most of the folks were still gawking at Blanche. As I pushed the dark wood door open, I heard Twyla sobbing in a stall, and it broke my heart.
Blowing out a breath of air, I pushed the bathroom door closed and leaned against the mint-green stalls. “Mrs. Good?”
She sobbed harder, leaving my heart churning in my chest.
“Twyla? Please let me help you.”
I wanted so badly to erase the memory of their display from everyone’s minds, but I knew that was a step too far. I wasn’t going to save anyone’s psyche or help them heal faster if I wiped a memory. I would only save the women embarrassment, and that was toying with things better left alone.
Lessons in life are hard, but needed in some cases, and as much as Twyla’s raspy sobs were cutting my heart in pieces, I knew she needed to recognize this for what it was. A man had used her and humiliated her, and I’d like to think she’d learn that from this experience. I hated that she’d learn this way, but I hoped it would nudge her in the right direction.
Also, Atti would have my hide if I toyed with something as big as a mass memory wipe. If it changed the outcome of a future event, I could be responsible for ripping the fabric of the universe.
I had enough trouble with my magic. I didn’t need more from the uni.
Staring down at the slushy footprints on the tiled floor, I tried to impart some comfort. “Twyla, listen to me, please. I know this hurts. I know it’s awful, but Yule Wolfram was no good. He was fooling around with more than just you and Blanche, guaranteed. I also know that doesn’t feel good to hear. And mostly, it means nothing to you right now, but I promise you, this isn’t the only experience out there. There’s more, and it’s so good.”
I heard her sniffle before she said, “But it was my first experience out in the dating world. The first one, Hal, and look what happened! I made a complete fool of myself in front of everyone! But I miss Gracie’s dad so much. I just want to go back. I want to go back to when it was the three of us. When I didn’t go to bed alone every night. When I had someone to share a meal with, a joke, my life…”
I gulped back the knot in my throat at her tortured response and rested my cheek against the stall. “I know, Twyla,” I whispered. “I know what it feels like to miss someone so much, you ache from it. But you don’t want to mourn someone like Yule Wolfram. He was a terrible person. He doesn’t deserve it.” I paused then, hoping to avoid platitudes, but it was almost impossible when they fit the problem at hand so succinctly. “Can I tell you something, Twyla? Something I haven’t told anyone else?”
“Sure,” she whispered.
“I was engaged to a real jerk back in New York when I was doing interior design. He cheated on me. I caught him with another woman in our bed. Now, before you feel sorry for me, don’t. It taught me what to watch out for, and much like all the old clichés say, it kept me from marrying someone who would only end up hurting me. He did me a big favor. But it a
lso brought me home, and that led me to Hobbs. He’s a great guy, and I think I might be falling in love. And it helped me realize, you can do that more than once in a lifetime. You do know that, right?”
She popped the stall door open and peeked a red, watery eye out. “Can you, Hal? Can you ever find someone to make you as happy as you were the first time around? Because,” her lower lip trembled as she opened the stall door a little farther, “Gracie’s father wasn’t just good on paper. He was good to his soul.”
I pulled my glove off and used my thumb to wipe the tears from her pretty cheekbones. “I know that, Twyla. I know Ralph was your everything. He was a great dad and a great husband. I think what I’m trying to say is, he’s not the only good man in existence. I found out recently, there are other good men out there, and sometimes it’s better to get the bad ones out of the way to make room for the good.”
She looked at me through her misery. “I feel like such a fool, Hal.”
“I know, and you have every right, but don’t think for one second everyone doesn’t know what a creep Yule Wolfram was—because they do.”
Her lips thinned into a sneer. “He told me he was done with Blanche, but it was all just to get me into…”
Ooo, I quietly seethed. If Yule Wolfram wasn’t already dead, I’d zap his traitorous, two-timing self to a deserted island with nothing but sand fleas and wild boars.
I nudged the stall open and pulled Twyla into my arms to give her a hug. “I know.” As she clung to me, I tightened my hold.
She tipped her head into my shoulder with another sob. “That Blanche accused me of killing him in front of everyone, Hal! The whole town. How will I ever face them?”
“To be fair, you accused her, too. I’m sure she’s as embarrassed as you.”
“But I think she really did kill him,” she murmured. “I told the police that today when they asked me about our…dalliance.”
I leaned back, my eyes wide. “What? I don’t understand what you mean.”
“She did kill him,” she said fiercely. “She said she was going to—right to his face. I heard them fighting. That’s how I found out he was still seeing her, too.”
I stiffened a little. “But do you think she really meant it, Twyla? Everyone says things in the heat of the moment. You know, sort of that offhand, ‘I’ll kill you if you don’t knock it off’?”
Her gulp was loud when she answered. “I’m going to admit something to you that I’m not proud of, Hal, and I know I have to tell the police, but I’m so humiliated by it, I want to die!”
I looked into her lined eyes, this woman in the autumn of her life, so lost without her partner, who’d just laid her heart out on a table for all to see, and I hurt for her. “I’m listening,” I said softly, smoothing her mussed hair.
Looking down at the tiled floor, she said sheepishly, “I was spying on him the night before he was killed. I heard him on the phone with someone who I figured was another woman. I mean, I’d only just caught him with Blanche, and he’d been busy eyeing up Sissy Freedman until her husband caught him and set him straight.”
“He tried to hit on Sissy Freedman, too?”
Really? I didn’t envy the bruises he’d have suffered for messing with Bob Freedman’s wife—he loved her more than he loved chew and a day spent fishing.
She twisted her fingers together into a knot, her shortly clipped nails painted raspberry. “He did. But Bob let him have it. Boy, did he ever. Anyway, Blanche caught him while he was on the phone, and she thought the same thing I did—that he was on the phone with another woman. So she told him he was a liar, and he was. Then he called her stupid, and she said she’d kill him for humiliating her like this. And he laughed at her. He laughed right in her face.” Twyla blew out a breath of air. “Now that I think about it, now that I say it out loud, I guess he was doing the same thing to Blanche that he was to me.”
Ah, perspective. Sometimes it hit you like a ton of bricks, as I’d just witnessed it doing to poor Twyla.
But I was curious about the woman on the phone.
I gripped Twyla’s arm. “You said he was on the phone. What made you think it was another woman on the line?”
Twyla pinched her temples and scrunched her eyes shut as though she had to think about it. “I heard him say, ‘That’s impossible. I don’t know what you’re talking about. That never happened.’ And then he got really angry. I could hear it in his voice. Then he said, ‘Stop calling me and bothering me with this nonsense. I’m busy.’”
As I digested that information, I asked, “Is that it? Was that all you heard?”
Twyla finally looked at me, and when she did, her eyes were red and more tears spilled from them. “He also said, ‘I don’t care if she’s here in this Podunk town right under my nose. I’ll deny everything.”
So that had to mean someone was here in Marshmallow Hollow who was a threat to Yule Wolfram, right? Someone who could damage his reputation?
Someone who might want him dead.
The plot, she thickens…
CHAPTER 10
“Feliz navidad!”
I scooped Barbra up from the kitchen counter, where she’d just enjoyed yet another meal, and snuggled her close as Hobbs walked Stephen King before coming back to compare notes on what we’d learned over a bottle of wine.
I held her up and smiled at her tiny round face and green eyes almost too big for her little skull. “I’m sorry about your mama, Babs, but I promise to be the best adoptive parent ever. Though, kudos, little one, you sure are a tough customer, aren’t you? You survived at least a whole day that I know of without your mom. I don’t know how you made your way to the ice festival, and got into that pink backpack, but I’m glad you did. Now, if you could just tell me who killed Yule Wolfram and how your hair got on him, I’d be most grateful, and I imagine I’ll sleep better, too.”
She swatted at my nose with her tiny paw, making me giggle.
Atti flew into the kitchen and landed on my shoulder. “Good evening, Halliday. How went the hunt for a killer?”
I set Barbra on the floor, and Phil automatically jumped down from his cat tree on the far side of the fireplace in the dining room and began licking her. “I don’t know if it was good or bad. I have to compare notes with Hobbs, but we did have some excitement at the ice festival. They even canceled the competition for tonight because one of the judges got into a bit of a scuffle.”
“Oooo!” Atti squealed, or as much as a hummingbird with dulcet tones to match Lou Rawls could. “Do you have time to dish before your beau comes back?”
As my eyes followed Phil and Barbra, playing on the floor, I told Atti what had transpired between Twyla and Blanche, and the phone call Twyla overheard.
“Do you mean to tell me the lovely Twyla Good, soft-spoken, sweet-natured, pretty as a picture, bit this Blanche Ritter? Bit. Her?”
I sat down in one of the armchairs by the fire, plunked a pillow on my lap, and closed my eyes, still unable to believe it myself. “Bit her finger. Might have bitten it off if we hadn’t intervened. And I’m sure Twyla’s missing some hair the way Blanche had her fingers wrapped around it.”
“My goodness. What is becoming of the people in this town? Honestly, I’m beginning to think Karen is right. Your sister opened some sort of hellmouth and if we don’t close it up, everyone’s going to go starkers.”
Ever since my sister Stevie had come to visit last year around this time, and she’d been involved in a personal affair that included a murder, Atti and Nana Karen were convinced she was responsible for our current mayhem.
“Pish-posh. Stevie has nothing to do with this,” I said, defending the sister I’d come to love and even idolize a bit.
“Oh, she’s perfectly lovely. A hellmouth instigator, but lovely.”
Chuckling, I held out my finger for him to land on, and when he did, I dropped a kiss on his head. “Have any thoughts on who might have killed Yule Wolfram?”
Rustling his colorful feathers, he l
ifted his beak. “Not a one. I, as the queen is my witness, am not a mystery solver. The biggest mystery I wish to solve is what to conjure up for dinner. Speaking of conjuring, I felt your magic this eve. Shall we discuss?”
I gave him a roll of my eyes and a ragged sigh. “I’m plenty old enough at thirty-five to decide whether to use my magic or not.”
“Of course you are, Poppet. However, I only ask in case, at your behest, I must retrieve someone from the fiery sands of Istanbul.”
Snickering, I shook my head. “I just helped Blanche Ritter with the finger Twyla almost bit off. I figured if it didn’t hurt that much, she’d be less inclined to call the police and charge Twyla with assault and battery—or whatever you charge someone with when they almost eat your finger off your hand. It only would have added to her humiliation. It’s all better now. Promise.”
The front door popped open, then came the jingle of bells signaling Hobbs and Stephen King had finished their walk.
“I shall excuse myself for the moment,” Atti said on a whisper. “But you will let me know if I need to reattach a finger before bedtime, yes?”
“Yes,” I whispered back before he took off down the hall toward my bedroom. “In here, guys!”
Hobbs came around the corner with Stephen King bounding in front of him. He instantly launched himself at me, looking for love and treats, in that order. Reaching into my pocket, I looked to Hobbs for permission before I gave Stephen King a Snausage.
He rolled his eyes as he pulled of his jacket and hat and put them on the dining room table. “As if I could stop you?” he teased.
I giggled and held out a palm to my little wigglebutt, who lapped up the Snausage before rubbing his head on my calves. “As if. The wine’s on the counter breathing. Would you pour?”
I heard him make his way into the depths of the kitchen and grab glasses, feeling a tendril of warmth in my belly at how comfortable he’d become with my kitchen and entering without knocking.
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