Fame and Fortune and Murder

by Patti Larsen

  “Face it, you’re washed up,” Evelyn said in that sickly sweet tone that cut deep.

  “At least I’m not the agent for a failing football hero who’s lost his edge,” Stella shot back.

  I’m positive it would have come to blows. So sure I was already in motion, if mentally, my body leaning toward them to break things up before one of them pulled the literal claws out and took a swing. The fact Olivia hadn’t interjected made me wonder if she was hoping these two would take each other out and save her the agony.

  But it was Julian who broke up the fight, appearing on the staircase with a grunt.

  “Honestly, you two,” he said, dripping disdain and all kinds of judgment. “Grow the hell up already.”

  Stella shot him a furious look but I felt the tension between the women break as they shifted their attention to Willow’s manager.

  “Mind your own business, Julian,” Evelyn snapped.

  “Considering I’m the only one in this little trio who actually has a viable career,” he said, “you two can just shut up or get out. You’re not ruining this weekend or this project for my Willow.” He didn’t change tone or position or even really seem to do anything special. But when he spoke again, I felt the chill of his tone go through me like a knife. “Understood?”

  The women grumbled but the fight was over. At least, for now.

  ***

  Chapter Eight

  Mom appeared about five minutes after I called her. A call I place two seconds after I found Mary and Betty Jones had left me—abandoned me—only to phone and tell me so in no uncertain terms.

  “Not going to happen,” Mary grunted at me after delivering her initial “We’re so out of there for the duration of the festivities” message and I babbled something along the lines of please don’t abandon me at a time like this. Not my proudest moment.

  Instead, she informed me in no uncertain terms they would be keeping their distance until Willow and Skip and all the craziness that went with them was gone from Petunia’s. I gaped at the handset as Mary firmly turned me down no matter how much I begged, the sound of the TV blaring in the back ground. I could see the both of them in my mind’s eye. Pictured them with their feet up on the coffee table, settling in with grins on their ungrateful faces. At least they went home and didn’t decide to take over my apartment downstairs or the carriage house. All I’d need would be Petunia hopping up between them and hunkering down to a snack of offered potato chips I’d get to regret later in bed while she farted me a BBQ flavored symphony. “Olivia Walker can take her plans and stuff them.”

  “I’m not asking for Olivia,” I said, hating the wheedling tone in my voice, going for guilt this time. “They won’t be any more bother than any other guests.”

  Olivia had to choose that exact second to hurtle herself down the stairs and into my private apartment. To stare at me clutching the phone with a wild and harried look on her face before grasping me in her two strong hands and shaking me just enough to make my teeth rattle.

  “Don’t leave me alone up there,” she begged with her words and her eyes and the firm and painful grasp of her fingers digging into my flesh. “Fee, please. Do something.”

  Mary laughed out loud and hung up in my ear. I knew then exactly how Olivia was feeling and, swallowing my pride, I did the only thing I could. I asked Lucy Fleming, that most amazing of moms, to come to my rescue. And when the front door breezed open, my lovely mother entering as if she were coming to a ball, a bit overdressed in a nice suit and with her hair and makeup pristine as if she expected my call to come in, I was shocked to find my still jean and button upped favoring father had tagged along behind her.

  Wouldn’t you know the irritating man who used to be sheriff and was now retired grinned as if he couldn’t wait to see this all turn into a massive disaster?

  Olivia leaped on Mom the second she appeared, hugging her in vague desperation. Ever since the murder of Mason Patterson on Valentine’s Day and my mother’s firm and collected offer of support, Olivia had mostly avoided Mom. Whether out of nervousness she might want the mayor’s job herself or just embarrassment we’d sampled that side of her I didn’t know. But seeing Olivia’s reaction now made me grin behind one hand and clear my throat so I didn’t giggle.

  “How exciting, sweetie,” Mom said, extracting herself from Olivia and coming to hug me before offering Petunia a loving scratch on her ear. The pug’s happy groan of contentment filled the foyer. “Are they really here? Now?”

  “Upstairs.” I nodded. “Betty and Mary—”

  “Now, don’t you worry a bit,” Mom said, beaming. Like she hadn’t been dying since my grandmother passed away to get her hands on Petunia’s kitchen. Mom’s culinary skills were the envy of my tummy and I felt a whole lot better, not just thanks to her comforting presence. We wouldn’t starve and I wouldn’t poison anyone with my cooking. Things were looking up. “John and I are happy to help, aren’t we, John?”

  Dad winked at me before his old gruffness returned, the façade of his bluster making me shake my head. “I had plans for today,” he said.

  Yeah. Right.

  Olivia beamed at both of them as if she hadn’t been here the whole time and missed the subtleties of what just happened. “This is perfect,” she said. “I’m off to check on the parade. Don’t let anyone in who’s not on the list.” She hurried toward the front door while we watched her go. It wasn’t until the door slammed shut behind her—the next person that slammed my door was going to get a very firm talking to that involved physical violence and maybe an escort to the E.R.—Dad turned back with a frown and open hands.

  “List?”

  I laughed then, shrugged. “Someone has a list, Dad. Somewhere. I’m sure of it.”

  Neither of my parents answered, interrupted by the swing of the kitchen door as Mr. and Mrs. Johansen clattered out into the foyer, the sound of their rollie wheels on tile turning to muffled thuds as they crossed to the carpet and paused next to me.

  “I’m so sorry, dear,” Shirley Johansen said while she peeked up the stairs with cheeks pinking. “I suppose we’ll have to be moving on.”

  Olivia had asked for this, but no way was I going to kick out my guests. “I’m sorry to hear that,” I said. “You’re more than welcome to stay.”

  Her husband, Dick, seemed less curious about my other guests than he did annoyed. “A bit of warning would have been nice,” he huffed.

  “Tell me about it.” I turned to the sideboard and my computer, checking them out as I did. “I wasn’t given a choice. I’m so sorry this happened. If you decide to return to Reading anytime soon, please accept a night on me for your trouble.” The printer chugged off a receipt and I handed it over.

  Shirley patted her husband’s arm with one hand. “I would have loved to stay,” she said. “Maybe go looking for the treasure hoard everyone is talking about.”

  “Not with weird people lurking and peeking in windows! Damned paparazzi or whatever you call them.” Dick scowled at me. “Next time we’re in Reading we’re staying at the lodge.”

  I watched them go, my own frown forming. I turned away from my parents and glared at the kitchen door, mind whirling even as I headed for the garden with murder on my mind. Bad enough Pamela had snuck in. Were there reporters taking pictures in my yard even now?

  Mom and Dad followed, Petunia on my heels. The four of us exited the kitchen door, the normally tall plants of the English style garden just beginning to bud. While I usually had to cross to the center of the double sized lot and the koi pond to spot the carriage house’s full outline, without foliage in the way it was easy enough to see. And to catch the figure standing at the corner of the building, looking in a window.

  Dad’s hand fell on my shoulder and held me back while I huffed in fury at the intrusion.

  “Let me handle it,” he said. But before he could act—or I could helpfully shout at him to arrest the intruder even though that wasn’t his job anymore—the figure dodged toward the fence
that divided my property from the Munroe house next door and disappeared.

  “It’s a shame,” Mom said, “but it’s bound to happen, Fee.”

  I grunted at the departing figure. “I’ll have to tell Crew,” I said. “I won’t have Petunia’s overrun with reporters.”

  Dad turned me around and guided me into the kitchen, enough sympathy on his face I believed he wasn’t teasing me.

  “Do Willow and Skip have security?” He sounded like his old law enforcement self.

  “They do,” I said. And wondered where Carter had gotten himself off to. Right, he mentioned something about the sheriff, hadn’t he? “I think he’s coordinating with Crew.” When I needed them here, damn it.

  Typical.

  ***

  Chapter Nine

  I wasn’t expecting the kitchen door to swing open and for Olivia to return in a bustle. Nor for her impatient finger snap that was meant, I suppose, to make us jump to attention.

  “Change in plans,” she snarled. “The media are coming now. We need to get on the parade yesterday. Go change, Fiona. You’re up.”

  Wait, what? “Huh?” So intelligent, this internal and then external conversation. But I was stunned and stumped, thank you. Best I could muster in the face of what the actual…?

  “As host to our guests, you’re in the parade,” she said like this had already been decided and I was just being troublesome to give her an ulcer. “Go. Change. Now.” And then she was gone, the door swinging slowly shut behind her.

  It took Daisy to guide me downstairs, to pick out an outfit for me and do my hair into a reasonable facsimile of an upsweep. To apply makeup and lipstick while I softly protested, stunned all over again but now out of sheer terror. The parade? Why was I in the parade? I didn’t even like standing on a stage and handing things to people. Public displays made me nauseated. And Olivia wanted me to wave and smile at all of Reading?

  “You’ll be fabulous,” Daisy gushed as she helped me into a soft gold sweater I’d been saving for a possible date with Crew Turner or some other male personage if I ever had the chance to date again without becoming an old, withered woman with no social life. Hey, wait a minute... She fussed over my black dress pants and high heels, because black was the new black, I guess. Not exactly showgirl material, but at least I didn’t look like I plunged toilets for a living. “Just sit and wave and pretend you’re the queen of Reading.” She beamed as she showed me, nodding and smiling and curving her hand at the imaginary crowd.

  “If it’s so great,” I muttered while she shoved me up the stairs and into the foyer, past my evilly grinning father, my pug panting at my feet with more enthusiasm than she should have been showing at a time like this, “why don’t you do it?”

  “Because,” Daisy said, leading me past Mom who clasped her hands under her chin and smiled in delight at my transformation just the worst betrayal I could ever imagine. Why wasn’t she rescuing me from this massive mistake? “I’m not Fiona Fleming.”

  The bright sunlight caught my eyes, and I blinked into it like a grumpy grizzly emerging from a long winter’s sleep. If it weren’t for Daisy I would have tumbled down the stairs in the ridiculous heels she’d put me in—why did I own these monstrosities again?—and embarrassed myself and Reading by landing on my face.

  Instead, she held my elbow in a firmly practiced grip, walking me down to the street and—get this—the large and elaborately painted horse-drawn wagon waiting for me.

  Petunia tolerated Carter’s assistance when he appeared at her side to boost her into the dark green velvet seat, before turning to offer me his hand. Daisy backed off, though I wasn’t paying attention to her at the moment. Not with those eyes locked on mine and that smile and the way his hand felt when I took it in mine. Before I knew it I was sitting beside my pug, with my back to the two Clydesdales and the driver, wondering what the hell just happened and had I lost my mind somewhere since this morning…?

  Didn’t help I spotted Crew Turner across the street talking with Robert and Jill. Or that he raised his eyebrows at me before waving. I waved back, not knowing what else to do, Daisy’s ridiculous queenly curve all I could muster. I looked like an idiot.

  “Hey, Fee.” The driver glanced over his shoulder, grinned at me. Took me a second, but I smiled back at the young man.

  “Hi, Hank,” I said, releasing some of the tension and finding the ability to speak again. “How’s the ponies?” He and his father ran the local stable, though from what I’d heard they’d been struggling since the equestrian center got underway again. I hoped the developer, Jared Wilkins, would be willing to work with them, but it wasn’t up to me.

  “They’re just happy it’s spring,” he laughed, lines crinkling around the edges of his brown eyes. Boyish good looks fading in his late twenties, he needed a haircut and a shave, but I figured the horses didn’t care what he looked like. “You okay? You seem a bit pale.”

  “Just going with Olivia’s little flow for today,” I said as the door to Petunia’s opened again and the mayor swept out with Willow, Skip and entourage in tow. “Tell me why we’re doing this again?”

  Hank laughed. “For the good of Reading,” he said, voice low and with a grin before turning away while Olivia arrived with her very special guests.

  “Ah, Fiona,” she said as if she wasn’t expecting me. “Skip, I hope you’re all right with sharing with your host while I steal away with your lovely wife?”

  Oh, come on. Seriously? Only then did I look up and notice the second wagon behind us, Hank’s dad, Hank Sr., with his hands on the reins and a grumpy look on his lined face.

  Skip seemed out of it a moment, wavering slightly. Dear god, was he drunk? He leaned in to Willow who flinched away before spinning and marching to the other wagon. Skip glared after her, face darkening before he looked back to Olivia.

  “Whatever,” he growled, slurring slightly. “Just get this stupid whatever you call it over with.”

  This was going to be delightful, wasn’t it? I hugged Petunia to my hip, jaw clenching, as Skip tried to climb into the wagon on his own. He slipped the first time, swearing, hands catching at the entry to the carriage, rocking the whole thing violently. I heard Hank curse himself, the horses stomping in protest, bells on their harness jingling. Carter tucked in behind the football player and subtly boosted him, allowing Skip to finally make it up and into the wagon, landing heavily on the seat across from me.

  I peeked around his massive bulk, saw that Olivia was seated with Willow already, looking all cozy and not grumpy and stoned or boozed out or whatever Skip was. Maybe both.

  My companion, meanwhile, reached into the pocket of his sport coat, taking three tries to retrieve the flask before opening it with shaking fingers and upending it into his mouth. Yup, still could be both. Mixing drugs and alcohol could get him this wasted in the short time it took for the parade to assemble. As if as an afterthought he looked at me, bleary and unfocused, before offering his flask to me.

  I was so out of here. But the second I moved to stand, to run and hide like the Jones sisters, to leave this pathetic, overblown idiot to make a fool of himself alone, I heard it. The plaintive cries of the self-proclaimed Queen of the Bakery. And my butt cheeks clenched so hard I couldn’t move.

  Vivian French, my old rival from high school who’d made it her mission since I came home to Reading to make sure I knew nothing had changed, stood next to Olivia’s carriage. Dressed in white fur from head to toe. Fur. As if she were some kind of magical snow angel or Wicked Witch of the Nauseating or something equally ridiculous.

  “You said,” her plaintive cry reached me and warmed the cold, bitter cockles of my heart. “You promised.”

  “That’s what the convertible in the back is for,” Olivia said, big, fake smile plastered all over her face. “You’re lucky to be in the parade at all, Vivian. Get in line or don’t come. I don’t are. We’re leaving. Now.”

  Vivian huffed and puffed and looked up. Forward. To the carriage and S
kip and over that football star’s shoulder and into my green, watching eyes. Saw me smile, wave as Daisy taught me, this time meaning every single moment of it to the core of my horrible, vengeful being. And turned as pale as the fur she wore.

  For that reason and that reason only I stayed on the green velvet seat across from the horrible man I was learning to despise and settled in to grit my teeth and do my part for the good of Reading.

  ***

  Chapter Ten

  “That’s right! You know you love me!”

  It wasn’t even ten minutes later and I’d have happily traded places with Vivian and her dumb outfit. Or better yet, biffed Skip Anderson over the side and run for the hills if I thought I could get away with it. The moment the carriage began to move, Hank clucking softly to the team, Skip’s abrasive running commentary started up and didn’t stop. If anything, the slur in his voice grew worse, not better, until he was barely coherent and immensely loud.

  He’d stood for his latest tirade, in line with the towering statue of Captain Reading, perhaps triggered by the sight of the jauntily cocky privateer’s grim grin. I lived in fear of Skip collapsing on top of me and Petunia and pinning us to the green velvet as he swayed with the roll of the carriage over the street.

  “He needs to sit down,” Hank hissed over his shoulder at me.

  “So you tell him,” I shot back, hugging my pug to me for dear life.

  Skip did us all a solid and crashed to the bench, belching a massive wave of flammable gas over me, saluting the statue with narrowed eyes before grinning like this whole situation was a personal joke. “’Scuse,” he said into one fist.

  Any plans I had to follow Daisy’s advice to wave and smile were long gone. Instead, I got to enjoy the humiliation of having every single resident of Reading—lining the streets for a look at their favorite stars—stare in shock and horror as Skip Anderson proceeded to lean over the edge of the carriage and noisily empty his stomach down the side of the pretty paintjob.