Hammered

by Ruth Bainbridge

  “What things?”

  “Oh, he was slick! Presented himself as this shaman/magic man. You know, a rainmaker. It immediately positioned him as someone you didn’t question. And he made sure to get that across. That he didn’t want anyone looking over his shoulder or asking questions, and I bit hook, line, and sinker. Especially when he showed me what he’d done for the few investors in his stable.

  “They were small potatoes compared to what I was thinking of puttin’ in the kitty. But even with the chump change, he’d gotten a two hundred percent profit. Of course, that should have tipped me off that he was a complete fraud, but he’d already gotten me thinking he was that rainmaker … and rainmakers—”

  “Make it rain,” she finished.

  “Exactly!” he responded, pointing his finger at her for emphasis. “That’s how it works. After setting the stage, if he’d showed me a twelve-percent profit, I’d have sniffed and gone ‘Is that all? I can do this myself!’ before walking away. The irony is that any legitimate investment specialist that rated a solid twelve-percent profit would have had me all over them to handle my portfolio.”

  “So there were no other incentives? It was this rainmaker status that got to you?”

  “That was it, honey. Sometimes it’s that or sometimes …” he said, pausing and letting his eyes feel their way down Lyddie’s body, “it’s something else that does it for you, honey.”

  He leaned forward and took a sip of wine.

  While she hated men calling her honey, the slight Texas drawl made it palatable, as did his appearance. Elliot Harper was a handsome man. Maybe it was his features that made him so attractive and maybe it was his—

  Money.

  “Then he alone convinced you?” she pried as she tugged up the neckline of her dress—but only slightly. No way would she obstruct the view.

  “I’m afraid so,” he sighed, relaxing again and pressing his back into the tufted chair. His neck craned enough to take in her legs. “No one twisted my arm, but if you’d like to—”

  “Then his wife Doris—” she said, cutting off the invitation before it gathered speed.

  “Didn’t coerce me. In fact, my wife Bliss tried to talk me out of it. Yes, she did,” he emphasized before snatching the goblet and draining the house wine. He wasn’t imbibing that much, although she’d heard rumors to the opposite. That was why it was always better going to the horse’s mouth.

  “My ex-wife is one smart cookie … and I suspect you are too, honey, which is good. I like me some smart women.” Putting the glass down, he treated her to another wink.

  She squelched the desire to scream, “Help!” and run as far as the strappy shoes could take her. But there was more to uncover, and she was the cookie to do it.

  CHAPTER 16

  “You’d better open this door! After the night I’ve been through, you’re going to hear what I have to say!”

  Damn, Lyddie was loud!

  Samantha rushed down the hallway, ditching one of the books she’d checked out of the library. The cotton flannel pajama bottoms and t-strap ribbed cami sufficed as sleepwear—and loungewear. She had the body to carry off a no-bra look. Her breasts hardly moved as she trotted down the staircase.

  “About time!” her friend blasted, pushing past the girl she shoved in the stomach.

  “What is wrong with you?” Sam asked, rubbing the spot where Lyddie’s hand made contact and closing the door. Mr. Cuddles treated the intruder to a hiss for disturbing the peace.

  “I was reading … in bed … and Taz was asleep.”

  “That cat is always asleep!” the girl dressed up like a Christmas decoration shot back. “Or eating,” she added as the calico took a swipe.

  “That cat belongs in jail!” she castigated as she picked up the borrowed paperback and took a look. Sam started to object but restrained herself from making a big deal out of nothing.

  “The Mystery of Polluted Pines?” Lyddie spat. “What the heck kind of name is that for a book?”

  “A good one … it sets a mood and is intriguing … and I like different,” Samantha defended as she snatched it out of her ex-friend’s hands. It was her duty as a reader to protect all authors from attack.

  “Only you would think so. And it’s these novels you consume at a frightening regularity that prod you into believing you can solve a murder? You cannot, Sam! Absolutely cannot!”

  Sam’s beauty was temporarily suspended by the tongue sticking out of her mouth. A childish move, but one that felt oh, so apropos under the circumstances.

  “I didn’t exactly put myself in this situation, you, you, tartlette!” she retorted. “Not unless you agree with Detective Death and think I offed Doris. But, oh!” she said, snapping her fingers. “I don’t have a motive, do I? In fact, a murder at my coffee shop would be the last thing I needed because … oh, by the way … that business I worked so hard for? I might lose it because of the homicide! I’d say that gives me the best reason to be eliminated from suspicion, don’t you?”

  “Tartlette?” her ex-bff repeated. Smoke was coming out of Lyddie’s little pink ears—the ones adorned by the mirror ball dangly earrings.

  Yes, the eighties had called and wanted their earrings back.

  “That’s all you heard? One widdle nine-letter word?” Sam continued. “Tell me this, if you think I’m so cray-cray, why the heck are you helping me, Lyddie?”

  “BECAUSE YOU ARE MY FRIEND!”

  Said at a frightening high pitch, it earned another hiss from Mr. Cuddles.

  “Or was,” she added in a mumble.

  “Ha! Like I believe that! Your insincerity is overwhelming, but what hurts more is that you’ve got my sweet kitty upset.” Samantha reached down and swept up the massive cat in her arms. “It’s okay, my little button. Just ignore the mean ole witch.”

  “Witch? Now you’re calling me a witch?” Lyddie ranted.

  “I was trying to avoid using the ‘B’ word,” she explained.

  “Well, I don’t care what you’re reading, and don’t care if your rabid badger is upset! What I care about is that I’ve been running around all day and half the night on your behalf. In fact, I just got done having dinner with Mr. Bliss—Elliot Harper!”

  Samantha’s face softened. Giving the cat one more kiss on the top of his head, she focused on the woman rubbing at a wine stain on the bodice of her dress.

  “It’s ruined … ruined!” Lyddie lamented.

  “Never mind about the dress,” Sam said as she tugged one sleeveless arm and yanked her blonde visitor to the couch. Pushing her down onto the cushions, she took the seat next to her, using Mr. Cuddles as a threat to stay put. “Spill,” she ordered.

  Taz issued an enforcer’s growl.

  “All right! All right! I first swung by and spoke to the three men on your Crushed Testicle list. The debilitating injuries to their reproductive systems notwithstanding, two, True and Rogan, harbor no ill-will and have that look in their eye that indicates they’re still moon-bat crazy about you. Why, I have no idea, because you are a bitch … and, yes, I do use that word! The only one who did indicate he wanted you dead was Corona.”

  “Corona? What did he say?”

  “He said, ‘I want that bitch dead’,” she faithfully quoted.

  Clear enough.

  Sam snatched a yellow legal pad from her computer station and jotted down his name.

  “Okay, what else?”

  “What else is that I followed up on the Investor Victim List you texted. Those were the ones you were interested in.”

  “Yes … still am. And?”

  “And they agreed to see me,” her ex-bff snapped.

  “That’s great, but why? You’re the biggest nothing burger I know.”

  Lyddie’s eyes made an orbital circuit before she delivered a hellacious stare.

  “For all your sophistication, you are out of it, Sam. Indie journalists are au courant.”

  “So you’re saying you used that you investigate old financial st
ories and don’t get paid as a ruse for the interviews?”

  “Yes, that is what I’m saying, Ms. Stating the Obvious! So I got in to see all six: Gerard Zeiterling, Hugh Champion, Kirk Lepperman, Cedric Waters, Kye-Lung Loo, and Elliot Harper. Only Mr. Champion and Mr. Lepperman seem candidates for retaliation. Course, it’s a shame because Lepperman is super-cute, charming when he’s not being bitter … and kinda my type.”

  “Lyddie!”

  “Yes, Bailey. I know. It’s why I didn’t take him up on the offer of vacationing in Hawaii with him, but having been there before, I can tell you that it—and Mr. Lepperman—were tempting.”

  “So they both harbor a grudge against Doris?”

  “Ye-ah! They were the ones that pressured the Mountain Valley police to investigate her participation … which the detectives did pretty thoroughly. But going over her back molars produced nothing … and Harper agrees.”

  “Yes, Mr. Bliss,” Sam said, grabbing a pillow and hugging it to her chest. Mr. Cuddles stayed put on the scatter rug, eyeing Lyddie and wrinkling his back. “What did he have to say?”

  “Nothing … nothing as concerns any animosity towards Doris anyway. He’s one hundred percent certain that she had nothing to do with her husband’s scandalous ways and that she had no part in the swindle.”

  “That’s disappointing.”

  A yawn escaped through the fingers of the hand covering her gaping mouth.

  It was no time for a selfie.

  “Hope I’m not keeping you up,” Lyddie jibed.

  The calico-on-steroids hopped up, concerned by the interloper’s tone. He turned his attention to his adoring hoo-manz, patting the open mouth with his paw to make sure she was still alive. Sam spit out fur before recoiling.

  “No, baby! Paws don’t go in the mouth.”

  “Gross, Sam! Can’t you teach that cat some manners?”

  The Maine Coon mix spun around, charging and spitting in Lyddie’s face. Despite the tight dress, the blonde took speedy evasive action and relocated to an armchair, whispering, “Nice kitty” at regular intervals.

  “You were saying?” Sam prompted.

  “I was saying that he did support the other contention, though.”

  “What other contention?” Sam queried.

  Another eye junket.

  “The allegation you told me about. Doris … Rudy Connors … hitting the sheets … playing hide the salami …”

  “Jeez! Isn’t there a new name for that? There should be.”

  “Why? The old one is so apt. It has that sleaze factor that booty call doesn’t.”

  “It does. So he confirmed it?”

  “Pretty much. Kept saying how the two spent ‘an awful lot of time together’.”

  “And this was during the time she ran the restaurant?”

  “Yes, but according to him, it was only the last year that they got, and again, I quote, ‘real close’. But—”

  “But what?” Sam asked.

  “But they ended it a couple of weeks before she closed her restaurant down.”

  “This according to him?”

  “Yes.”

  “So,” Sam said, sitting upright and poking her chin with her forefinger. “That might be the reason she didn’t renew the lease. If they’d broken up on bad terms, she would have been forced to see him.”

  “Makes sense, sort of. But, I mean, most adults can tolerate seeing each other for business,” Lyddie added. “Say, do you have any of that zinger tea? I’m in the mood for it and I don’t—”

  Sam held up her palm. After stomping into the kitchen, she was back in no time at all. Wrenching Lyddie to her feet, she shoved the box filled with paper-wrapped teabags into her ex-bff’s ample chest. Taking a few steps, she shoved from behind, commandeering the unwilling guest to the front door.

  “Sam! What do you think you’re doing?” she shouted.

  “Getting rid of you. No way you’re drinking tea here. I’m tired and want to get some reading done.”

  “What? You’re throwing me out? After what I did for you?”

  “In a word, ‘yes’! Besides, you’re the one that told me this was the last thing you were going to do, and that after you’d spoken to everyone on the list, you were going to shun me. So start shunning!”

  A cat’s eerie screech filled the air. Hunkered down, Taz’s haunches were taut and he was ready to strike.

  “Oh, you bad, bad, naughty, little—”

  Sam slammed the door, cutting off Lyddie’s reprimand and Taz’s attack. The cat’s leap had been precision perfect. He would have hit her throat right at her jugular but crashed into the door instead, staying flattened against it like a cat in a cartoon. The suspension only lasted a second before he slid down, his open claws slowing the fall.

  Flummoxed, he sat looking up at his mistress. She bent down, speaking softly to her furball.

  “No, Tazzie. No lethal force—not yet anyway. Now come on, we’ve got some reading to do,” she said as she pivoted and grabbed her copy of Polluted Pines before racing the floofy wonder up the stairway.

  CHAPTER 17

  Despite Lyddie’s disparaging words, Polluted Pines turned out to be a better book than Sam imagined. It kept her reading into the wee hours of the morning—all to discover the caretaker did it.

  The caretaker.

  It was the person she’d least suspected, and maybe there was a lesson to be learned. Who did Sam least suspect in the murder of Doris Cunningham?

  Her mother Grace.

  Yeah, no. There was no way her mother whacked the former restauranteur over the head. Way too violent. Now if it she’d been poisoned—

  A whole ‘nuther subject.

  She didn’t know why she was even bothering turning up at her shop these days. The place was still a ghost shop … well, except for Katy.

  God bless that girl.

  Without her on duty in the morning, and Matt reporting for duty at night, her dream would be over.

  A place for cobwebs to grow in the land of wasted ambition.

  Her eyes roamed, half-expecting to find spider webs collecting in the corners, but there wasn’t a chance of that happening. Not with the rapacious way Katy used that spray cleanser.

  Speaking of duty.

  She caught sight of a sprightly group of citizenry, standing way too erectly for this hour of the morning, marching down the sidewalk. She quickly scanned her mental database for holidays and town events, thinking perhaps a parade was planned, but there were no special events happening today. Even if she’d forgotten, the event would have been announced in the morning paper, which she scrupulously read on a daily basis. They might not get robbery suspect shootings right, but parades?

  Right in their wheelhouse.

  She forgot about the gathering. While she didn’t know where they were going, the marchers did, and that was the important thing. She smoothed the silk blouse over the noir skinny shantung silk pants.

  For whatever reason, she’d had the urge to get dressed up this morning. Call it a last gasp of hope in recapturing happier times, the blouse was one she’d worn on numerous house closings. For her, it symbolized business success, but even without it being a good luck charm, the white collar and cuffs were what made it special. The contrast of black and white lent an air of sophistication that it wouldn’t have possessed as a monotone, and above all, Sam loved clothes that exuded a timeless elegance.

  In the midst of reflecting on her blouse, she caught an anomaly in her peripheral vision.

  That parade … it was coming through the door!

  What were they doing here? The street was outside! She counted heads as she tried to attach a reason to the unexpected crowd strutting in. One fortyish ramrod-straight man neared with an extended hand as the rest lined up at the counter for Katy to take orders.

  “Samantha?” the stranger queried.

  “Yes, yes, I am …” she replied as she shook the calloused hand and scoured the man’s features for familiarity. There was none.


  “Got a call from Grant Hundle. He said you could do with a little assistance,” he explained with a smile. The craggy face was nice—and indicative of someone you could trust. The twinkle in his eye proved her assumption true.

  “And it’s the army to the rescue?” she retorted with a laugh.

  “The army, the navy, and the marines … in my case, at least. Sgt. Dash Brunner, at your service, ma’am. We’re all vets who are more than happy to lend a hand.”

  God bless Leticia Hundle! She’d come through.

  “Thank you! Thank you for coming! You’re all wonderful! May I?” she asked before giving him an appreciative hug. “And we do have a veteran discount,” she explained as she drew away. “Katy! Make sure you give these nice people fifteen percent off!” she called out to the barista who suddenly had her hands full.

  “Will do,” Katy responded as she hustled to fill orders.

  “Thank you so much,” Samantha reiterated, pushing back tears. “I can’t tell you what this means to me, Sergeant Brunner.”

  “You’re very welcome. Now if you’ll excuse me, I want to get in line before these so-in-so’s drink all the coffee!”

  Heel pivoting, the man turned and high-fived his friends as he went to the end of the line.

  More surprises!

  She’d recognize that matte gold Infinity anywhere.

  The chicly dressed woman drew glances as she sashay-walked in a new pair of Manolo Blahniks.

  “Mrs. Harper,” Sam greeted.

  “Well, it looks like some people have come back to their senses,” Bliss replied.

  “A friend sent them,” she whispered. “But why are you here?”

  “For the coffee! Why else?” she blurted. “Best damn coffee in Mountain Valley!”

  A few of the ex-soldiers concurred by raising their cups and flashing a thumbs-up of approval.

  “Good stuff!” one cried.

  “Honestly, Sam, I don’t know why you would ask such a foolish question. Your coffee is delicious, but I’m really here to support you. I am a female, and I did start my own business. I know people say unkind things about women who dare to venture into the world of business, but supporting your enterprise and making sure it succeeds is my mission.