by Linda Ross
“What’s going on in there?” a woman called from the other side of the door, and it sounded like the French maid.
“Help me!” David called, and then he screamed. “For God’s sake, help me!” His voice had risen to a high-pitched shriek by now.
The doorknob rattled, and then someone inserted a key. The door burst open, and Leonard and the French maid stared at us and the mess on the floor. Books were strewn across the carpet, and the broken lamp and picture frame lay beside the desk.
“Well, you’re a lively one, aren’t you?” the French maid said to me.
“You!” David pointed his belt at me. “Get out of here, and don’t ever come back!”
I grabbed my purse from the floor and marched out of the room, my head held high, Leonard and the French maid escorting me to the door. Up and down the hall doors opened and people looked out to see what the commotion was about. One guy who stuck his head out was dressed as a cop, but he was obviously fake. The badge on his shirt was the kind of tin star you used to find in cereal boxes. Another guy who looked out was wearing a dress and makeup. He didn’t look nearly as good as Avery.
“Listen, honey,” the French maid said in a low voice. “If you ever want to come back as a dominatrix just let me know. We can always use someone with your talent.”
I could hear Leonard hyperventilating beside me.
They opened the front door and chill air hit me in the face, bringing me back to reality. So, I’d gotten thrown out of a B and D party, but I had another suspect for Kara’s murder. Well, two actually. I was feeling kind of proud of myself until I saw Jimmy’s blue truck parked across from the door. And there was Jimmy leaning against it with his arms crossed. He was wearing jeans and a leather jacket, and he was watching me with a smile.
I looked for Thelma’s car just in time to see her tail lights disappearing down the drive. The coward.
“I didn’t know what to do, Jim,” Leonard said apologetically. “I mean, I had no idea she was into this kind of stuff.”
“Oh, you’d be surprised what she’s into,” Jimmy said. “Puzzles, pot brownies. She’s a real wild woman.” He looked at the pair of handcuffs dangling from my left wrist and sighed. “I take it that was your ride that just left.”
“Thelma.”
“Doesn’t look like you needed back-up. I could hear the man screaming from out here.” He fiddled with the cuff, got it off and tossed it to Leonard. I realized I was still holding the buggy whip and handed that to Leonard as well. He took it as if it were a hot poker. I guess it was covered in B and D cooties.
Jimmy held open the passenger door for me and I climbed in as best I could in my milk maid outfit. We went straight to my house without Jimmy saying a word. Then, just as he turned into my drive, he said, “I don’t have to call you Mistress now, do I?”
I hit his arm, and he chuckled.
He walked me to the door and I asked if he wanted to come in.
“You’re not going to tie me up, are you?” he asked, and I hit his arm again.
“Only if you’re good,” I said.
I put my purse on the counter when we got inside, and Jimmy asked me why there was a big hole in it.
I told him about Stewart the Horrible and how he was missing now.
“Sounds like somebody might be after his owner’s lottery winnings,” he said.
“I thought the same thing, but so far no one has demanded a ransom. Of course if they tried to write a ransom note Stewart would probably chew it up.”
I let Nancy out, then cleaned up the pee on the kitchen floor. There were pee pads in various places around the house, but Nancy still hadn’t caught on to their purpose. If she used one, she tended to use the corner, so that most of the pee went on the floor anyway.
After I washed my hands, we sat at the kitchen table, and I got a Diet Coke for myself and a beer for Jimmy. I had some pizza rolls in the freezer, and I popped them in the microwave. Jimmy took a long pull from his bottle and looked at me over the lip. “What are you supposed to be anyway?” he asked. He shrugged out of his leather jacket. “You look like Gretel from Hansel and Gretel. But when you were holding that whip you were more like Indiana Jones. And your face is all flushed.”
“I’m having a hot flash. I need to get out of this thing.” I stared down at my outfit. “And I’m supposed to be sexy.”
Jimmy raised his brows.
“Here,” I said, turning around. “Unlace me. I feel like I’m in a straight jacket.”
It felt wonderful when I’d pulled off the bustier and more so when Jimmy’s hands massaged my back. I left to change into jeans and a sweater, and when I got back Jimmy had put the pizza rolls on a plate. I was starved and dug in.
“So, did you find out anything tonight, other than you’re not the B and D type?”
“I’ll have you know I was invited to return as a dominatrix, whatever that is.”
“It’s a woman who dominates others, both male and female. I don’t see you as that either.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “It actually felt kind of good when I connected that buggy whip with David Henderson’s backside. There are several men in my life I wouldn’t mind doing that to.”
Jimmy took another long drink of beer. “Maybe you’d be good at it after all.”
“Why wouldn’t I? I’m an overweight, menopausal woman who got shafted in a divorce she didn’t ask for. If anyone would want to smack a man’s ass, I’m the one.”
“Point taken,” he said. “So what did this David Henderson say? Other than Ow.”
I grinned at the memory. “He remembered Kara all right,” I said. “She tried to burn down his house after he got rid of her.”
“Why did he get rid of her?”
“She got a little too aggressive with the guests. He said that one time she nearly beat someone named Jeffrety Connell to death with a crop. Henderson was sworn to secrecy because Connell was so embarrassed.”
“I would guess so,” Jimmy said. “Do you know who Jeffrey Connell is?”
“No idea.”
“Years ago he was mayor of a little town about fifteen miles from here. He owns a car dealership and fancies himself a ladies’ man. He was talking at one time about running for Congress.”
“Oh, wow. I guess being beat up by a woman wouldn’t look good on his resume.”
“And he’s married. His wife’s the one with money. If she left him, he’d be in a bad way.”
“Double wow. I guess he might have motive to kill Kara, just to keep her quiet if nothing else.”
“Speaking of Kara, someone broke into her shed the other night. County handled it, but when Leonard came to your house looking for me he took me by there to check it out.”
“Did you find anything?”
He shook his head. “Ralph Pierce had changed the lock a couple of days before. He said kids were always trying to break in to steal anything of value. Someone broke the window and got in that way.”
“So it could have been kids.”
Jimmy agreed. “And we don’t know what they took. The place was a mess inside. All the kind of stuff farmers keep and only use occasionally. Some gardening tools, fertilizer, tomato cages.”
“Why would someone be after that?”
“No idea. Pierce couldn’t figure out what was missing, which was understandable if you saw the place.”
We both went quiet, trying to figure out what someone would want in the shed.
“Maybe it had something to do with Pierce’s weed operation,” I said. “He wouldn’t want to tell you if something that had to do with that was missing.”
“Maybe. But I can’t think what it would be.”
I couldn’t either.
“We’ve checked the video from the bait shop across from the hair salon,” Jimmy said. “Rose’s story checks out. The video is dark and grainy, but you can see her leaving the front of the salon around seven, like she said. A short time after that Kara comes out and smokes a cigaret
te. So she was alive when Rose left.”
“So who went in after Rose left?”
“Good question. Nothing on the video, and it looks like Kara was killed sometime around seven. So it had to happen not too long after Rose left.”
“So maybe the killer was waiting until they saw her leave.”
“Could be.” Jimmy sighed. “And I have an assignment for you. Rose has been reluctant to tell us anything very damning about her sister. Probably protective of her. But I’m wondering if Rose’s friends back where she’d been living would know anything. She and her husband were living in Arnold, Missouri, a little town south of St. Louis. The husband died last year. Kara had lived there before she moved here. Rose was involved in a church there, and they might know something.”
I didn’t tell Jimmy that Rose had told Thelma and me about Arnold. “You’re telling me this to throw me off the case, aren’t you?” I asked. “I’d rather talk to Jeffrey Connell.”
“Yeah, and I’d rather you go chase up information on Kara from a distance. It’s safer.”
“Well, it would give me an excuse to get away for a day since Dad and Momo are coming.”
“Your dad’s sister Maureen?”
“The very one.”
“I remember her when I used to visit my grandmother. She was always telling me to stand up straight and comb my hair.”
“You’re lucky she didn’t style your hair herself. I was on the receiving end of her comb and it wasn’t any picnic.”
“She used to braid your hair, didn’t she?” he asked and grinned.
“I couldn’t blink my eyes for two weeks. I looked like a zombie. I don’t know how Eileen and I are going to survive Thanksgiving with her here.” I gave him a sweet smile. “You wouldn’t want to come for Thanksgiving dinner, would you?”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“Is there going to be pumpkin pie?”
“Of course. And turkey and stuffing and cranberry sauce. Eileen is a good cook.”
“I don’t supposed there would be a cherry pie.”
“There might. If someone played his cards right.”
“And what would that entail?”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “You don’t mention to anyone that I got thrown out of a B and D club.”
“Too late. I’m guessing that Leonard has told everyone at the station by now, and you know that Sonya will spread the word to everyone she knows.”
I clapped my hand over my eyes. Sonya was the dispatcher, and she came from a big family, all gossipers.
“You’re just lucky Leonard didn’t take a picture on his phone,” Jimmy said.
I supposed I should be grateful for small blessings.
“I’d better go,” Jimmy said, standing and shrugging back into his jacket. “Maybe you could let me know the next time you decide to do some undercover investigating. I bet I could sell tickets.”
“I knew I should have kept that buggy whip,” I said. “Well, thanks for the ride home.”
Jimmy came around the table and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek. “Lock the door after I’m gone,” he said in a mattter-of-fact tone, but I detected the worry underneath. I nodded.
After he left and the door was locked I lifted a few free weights, then settled on the couch with Nancy to watch TV. I opened another Diet Coke and thought about what David Henderson had said about Kara nearly beating Jeffrey Connell to death with a crop. That would certainly give Connell reason to silence Kara or to get revenge by savagely beating her. He sounded like the kind of person who could lose control and kill.
I was still thinking about who the murderer could be when I went to bed, but I figured it wouldn’t make for pleasant dreams. So I thought about David Henderson instead and how he had yelped when I hit his ass with the buggy whip. I went to sleep with a smile on my face, Nancy snoring beside me.
CHAPTER TEN
Saturday morning I opened a diet Coke and found some cheesecake in the freezer for a leisurely breakfast. I thought about where to go next on the investigation into Kara’s murder, and I actually liked Jimmy’s idea of seeing what the people who knew her in Arnold might have to say. But first I wanted to check out Stephanie Riley again. It was the weekend, and surely she would be home by now. Her husband too.
I fed Nancy, then got her out to potty. Eileen’s car was gone, so she must have gone in to her gallery already. I grabbed my coat and purse and headed out to my PT Cruiser. I threw my purse on the passenger seat and started the engine. Since Eileen and I live on a bluff, we have a steep driveway. The first half is winding, but the second half is pretty much straight down to the highway. I was almost to the halfway point when I saw a movement out of the corner of my eye. My purse seemed to have a life of its own, and it was bobbing up and down. Odd, but maybe it was the bouncing of the car.
Then I saw a nose and long whiskers coming up under the purse. It didn’t register at first, and then my brain identified what I’d seen. A rat. There was a rat in my car.
I shrieked and stared at the seat. The car kept going, but now it was heading to the side. I guess it ran off the driveway, because the next thing I knew I was in the ditch on the side of the drive. My head hit the window sideways, and I saw stars for a moment. The car was stopped at an angle, the driver’s side higher than the passenger side, but I got the door open and tried to climb out. Anything to put distance between me and the rat.
I had one leg out the door when I realized I’d need my phone to call for help, but it was in my purse, and my purse was apparently sitting on a rat. Yikes, yikes, yikes.
I took a deep breath and tried to reach into my purse while staying as far away as possible. My hand was shaking, and it took three tries before I located my phone. I pulled it out and managed to scramble out of the car. Thank God I’d had cheesecake for breakfast or I might not have had the energy. The door slammed behind me, and I leaned against it to catch my breath.
It took me a couple of minutes for my hand to stop shaking enough that I could punch Jimmy’s number into the phone. My voice was shaky when he answered.
“I had a little accident,” I said. “Do you think you could come over?”
“Where are you?”
“In my driveway.”
“You had an accident in your driveway?”
“There’s more to it than that. Just get here if you can.”
Jimmy got there in his truck in under ten minutes. He pulled over to the side as far as he could, then got out and surveyed me and my car. “Are you all right?” he asked.
“I bumped my head on the window when I went in the ditch, but that’s all.”
Jimmy checked my head and gently probed the bump. “I don’t think it’s too bad,” he said. “You weren’t eating more pot brownies, were you?”
“There’s a rat in my car.”
“What?” Jimmy frowned and shaded his hand to peer into the car interior. “I don’t see a rat, but there’s a hole in your passenger seat.”
“That’s where he is.” Just then a head poked out of the hole, and beady eyes looked around. Jimmy jumped back.
“Well, you’re right. There’s a rat in your car. How did he get there?”
“Good question.”
“Was your car locked last night?”
“I thought so, but I can’t swear to it.”
Jimmy walked around the back of the car and stepped into the ditch. He looked around at the side and said, “It looks like the door might have been jimmied with something. You didn’t notice anything when you got in?”
“No, I guess I wasn’t paying any attention. I mean, who would break into my car where I live? It’s out of the way, and you sure can’t see it from the highway.’
“Well, apparently it was someone who wanted to put a rat in your car. I’ll get a guy out here to dust for prints, though I doubt we’ll find any. Then we’ll get your car towed out of here.” He made the call, and a county cop showed up fifteen minutes later.
“What’s the problem?” he asked when he got out. “Looks like you ran off the road here.”
“Well, I had help. There was a rat in my car.”
“A rat.” He didn’t sound convinced. “You sure it wasn’t a mouse?” he asked.
I stood aside and let him look for himself. He did what Jimmy had done, shaded his eyes to look inside the car. Then he jumped back. “Man, that’s a big rat.”
Another cop car was called, and someone dusted for prints without any luck. Then the tow truck came to take my car to the body shop. “What’d you do?” the driver asked. “Try to put on lipstick while you were driving?”
“There was a rat in the car,” I said.
“Probably a field mouse,” he said, rolling his eyes.
“Shouldn’t we get the rat out before they take the car?” I suggested.
Everyone agreed that was a good idea. Jimmy opened the passenger door, but the rat was hiding back in his hole. Jimmy, the tow truck driver, and two county cops all tried pounding on the driver’s side of the car, but the rat wasn’t budging.
“Okay,” one of the county guys said. “Your upholstery’s shot now anyway.” He put down my window on the driver’s side, had everyone stand back, pulled out his gun and fired a shot into the passenger seat. The rat shot out of the hole as if it had been launched from a cannon and flew through the open passenger door. The last we saw of it, it was racing through the weedy patch alongside the highway.
“Ma’am,” the tow truck driver said, his eyes wide, “I apologize for what I said. That was the biggest rat I’ve ever seen.”
Jimmy and I followed the tow truck to the body shop, and I retrieved my purse, which now had a bullet hole beside the hole Stewart had left. I gave the clerk at the desk my insurance information, and he said they would have a rental car for me as soon as they checked with my insurance.
Jimmy offered to drop me wherever I was headed, and I had to come up with something to tell him. I’d planned on driving out past Stephanie Riley’s house to see if anyone was home, and I knew that wouldn’t make him happy. So I told him I’d been going to Thelma’s house.
