Death of a Domestic Diva

by Sharon Short

  And—truth be told—they did. Because I realized exactly what route we were taking. I’d driven it a hundred times before, only in my little car. What with the up-high view from the bookmobile—and with everything else that was distracting me, like Winnie out of it in the seat next to me and the siren blaring behind me—I’d taken awhile to recognize it. We were driving the route I always took to Owen’s house.

  Pretty soon, Steve and Linda Crooks were out of sight.

  So I slowed down—which was a relief—figuring I’d go on to Owen’s house and see if my hunch was right. Besides, I didn’t trust myself to pull the bookmobile over to the side of the road without getting stuck in the ditch. Or pulling in with too much tilt, and rolling the whole thing over.

  Chief Worthy wasn’t giving up on me. He stayed right on my tail, all the way to Owen’s house, his siren blaring.

  At Owen’s, parked in front of the fourth garage over from the house, was the car Steve and Linda had been driving, parked right next to Paige’s SUV. They weren’t in the car any longer.

  I stopped the bookmobile and turned off its engine, leaving the keys in the ignition. I checked on Winnie. She was snoring. I stood up and almost crumpled to my knees, my legs felt so weak. Now that my bookmobile heist, tailing, and car chase were all over, I was shaking. But I pulled my hat firmly down on my head, straightened my shoulders, opened the bookmobile door, and walked down the steps and out the door, as tall and proud as my five-feet-three and three/eighths inches—and tufts of orange Bozo hair sticking out from under my hat—would allow.

  Chief John Worthy was right by me, angrier than I’d ever seen him. He was breathing hard in an effort to keep his voice under control—but his voice shook anyway.

  “Josie Toadfern, that beats all you’ve ever done in the past! Why, I’m going to arrest you for hijacking a bookmobile, operating a commercial vehicle without a license, fleeing while in pursuit—”

  I pulled my arm from his grasp, kept going toward Owen’s house. “Then you’d better add resisting arrest,” I said. “Because I’m not going anywhere with you until I know what’s going on here—and why it’s going on at my boyfriend’s house.”

  I was all set to stalk off dramatically to Owen’s front door—but suddenly Steve Crooks came around the corner, waving a gun at both of us.

  Chief Worthy started for his holster—all set for a shootout, I guess—but then Steve waved something else at us. A shiny badge. Even Chief Worthy looked stunned.

  “FBI,” said Steve. “You’d both better come with me.”

  Chief Worthy and I followed Steve around to the side of the garage, then through a door into the garage.

  The normally empty garage held several boxes. I recognized the boxes—they held the hot Tyra Grimes T-shirts.

  Billy leaned against one of the stacks of boxes, his arms crossed, a bemused expression on his face. Owen stood in the middle of the garage, looking so tense I thought he might shatter into a thousand little Owen-bits any second. Paige sat in a lawn chair, legs crossed at the ankles, hands in her lap, as if she might be served tea any moment. She gave me a little nod. Billy moved to her, put a protective hand on her shoulder. Which made Linda—who stood facing the Billy, Owen, and Paige lineup with a gun—frown.

  Owen started hopping from one foot to another, as if he were doing a little kid’s I-gotta-pee-now dance. “I’m sorry, Josie, I wanted to call you, but after Billy got me to agree to hide the T-shirts here, after he told me everything, I just knew if I talked to you, I’d end up telling you what was going on, and Billy didn’t want me to—”

  “Just what in the blazes is going on here? I’m a sworn officer of the law—”

  “Shut up, Worthy,” said Steve Crooks.

  Linda looked at Chief Worthy and gave him a little smile. “Pardon my partner’s crankiness. We’re FBI agents—we can’t tell you our real names—”

  “Or you’d have to shoot us?” That was Billy, smirking.

  “Precisely,” said Linda. “And these boxes contain important evidence in a federal investigation against Tyra Grimes. They’re stolen property. We’ve tracked them here to get them back—and to find the people who took them, who are also important witnesses. We were about to confiscate them from an abandoned building, but they disappeared. So we posed as writers to try to discover where the boxes could be—and also to learn as much as possible about why Tyra Grimes was here. We figured she must be up to something to counter the case we have against her.”

  “Well, just hold on a minute, what does Winnie have to do with this—and why is Paige here—and—and—” I was so confused, I was hollering.

  “Actually,” Steve said, “Winnie tracked us down at the Red Horse yesterday, thinking we were writers. She said she wanted to meet with us because she had some really shocking information about Tyra’s background, and she wanted to see if we wanted to use it in our book.”

  That sounded like Winnie. She wouldn’t be able to resist helping with a book.

  Linda went on, “But, she told us she couldn’t reveal the information until she talked with you in private. We followed her this morning. Whatever she knew, we wanted to find out before you—God only knows what you’d do with it. We confronted her, took her off for a little—ah—drive—but she can be very—ah—stubborn. We finally did get the information from her, though.”

  We all stared at them, waiting.

  Finally, Chief Worthy snapped, “Well? Is she fine? And what did she tell you?”

  “She is fine. And she can tell you what she told us when she comes to. What she learned about Tyra’s past doesn’t have any bearing on our investigation. The important thing was that once she got scared and started talking—she kept on talking—and told us about the T-shirts here, and—”

  I did something then I’d wanted to do ever since we’d been marched in here. I hauled off and slapped Steve Crooks, good and hard. He looked stunned. “Hey—” he said, waving his gun in my face.

  “Don’t wave that thing at me, you bully! You scared my friend! You used strong-arm tactics on her . . . gave her ether, kidnapped her from her own bookmobile! You’re in big trouble, mister, because you violated a whole bunch of rights set down in the Constitution and . . . and in the State of Ohio and in the town of Paradise—”

  “Don’t talk to me about the Constitution! I work for the government and I—I—I—”

  Steve Crooks sputtered to a stop, looked at Linda for help.

  She just sighed. “Well, I’m afraid Josie here is right, Steve. We haven’t behaved properly. But we did find the evidence here, and of course, by harboring stolen property, which is also evidence in a federal investigation, Josie’s other friends are also potentially in big trouble, so if Josie wants to insist on any of them pressing charges against us, then—”

  “Enough!” Paige stood up. “I don’t know why Tyra wanted to come here to Paradise. She was very guarded about that. All she would tell me is that she had a plan for damage control once it became common knowledge that she was using illegal labor to create her T-shirts. A plan, she said, that would put a whole new spin on the illegal labor practices.” Paige patted the big handbag that hung over her shoulder. “In here, I have enough documentation to give you what you need to shut down Tyra Grimes’s operation—permanently. Although, with her dead, it would have closed anyway.”

  So Paige had really taken Tyra’s papers—not Steve and Linda. I was taken aback by how matter-of-factly Paige spoke about Tyra’s being dead. But she was in a negotiating mode, and wasn’t about to be ruffled. She looked evenly at Linda Crooks, then at Steve.

  “I would suggest that—if you want the documents I can show you—documents Tyra kept with her at all times, at least until I took them from the apartment—then you will not be pressing any charges against anybody in this room for anything. Nor will you pursue the people who transported the T-shirts here.”

  Linda smiled, showing just the edges of her teeth. “We could just forcibly take the documents
from you.”

  Paige smiled right back, showing even less of her teeth, which somehow made the smile more ferocious. “You could. But then you’d have lots of witnesses who I’m sure would be willing to testify for me that you violated all those rights Josie just referred to. Not too good for your FBI careers, I don’t think.”

  Linda dropped her smile, sighed, and stuck her gun back in her belt. “All right. Fine. We’ll need you to come with us, though.” She shot a look at Billy and Owen. “But these T-shirts better not move again, got it?”

  Paige took a step, but Billy put a hand on her shoulder. She looked at him, smiled, this time for real. “I’ll be fine.”

  He nodded.

  Paige left with Steve and Linda.

  Billy moved over to Chief Worthy. “I’ll be going with you.”

  “What?” Chief Worthy frowned. “Why—”

  “Because you need to arrest me,” Billy said. “For the murder of Tyra Grimes.”

  “Billy, what are you trying to do—”

  “It’s okay, Josie,” Billy said. “I know what I’m doing.”

  “No, you don’t.” Chief Worthy said. “I’ve got Hazel Rothchild locked up for that. I have more than a few witnesses who say she was heard threatening Tyra at the gathering over at her house, following Lewis’s viewing.”

  “Now, Chief, you know poor Hazel was just upset,” I said.

  “And now you’ve got a confessed killer,” Billy said. “I killed her because I was so upset about how she was using people to further her own commerce.” He grinned. “It’s my new cause. Striking out against what amounts to slavery for the sake of commercialism.”

  Chief Worthy stared at Billy. Then he said, grimly—but with some satisfaction—“I always knew you’d turn out on the wrong side of the law.” He slid a glance at me. “You Toadferns always do. All right, Billy. Turn around. I’m going to handcuff you. You have the right to remain silent. You—”

  “Wait! Stop! Billy, why are you doing this?”

  He gave me that long, deep look that had become his ever since he’d taken up with Ramon and Aguila. “Because I want to help, Josie. And the only person I can help right now is Hazel. No one in charge in this case wants to question what’s easiest to believe.”

  “But what about—” I dropped my voice to a whisper—“Ramon and Aguila and their daughter? Shouldn’t you be trying to help them?”

  Billy smiled. “They’re long gone. Tyra did respond to Paige’s letter, making arrangements for Ramon and Aguila to get home and for Selena to get the help she needs.”

  “But I thought maybe Ramon and Aguila were Lewis’s killers. If they’re long gone . . .”

  Billy shook his head. “Josie, they’re not guilty of anything like that. And neither is Paige.”

  I thought about his gesture earlier, putting his hand on Paige’s arm. Somehow, I knew he’d know if Paige had killed Tyra. And he wouldn’t cover up something like that.

  “Then Elroy really did . . .”

  “I don’t know. I still find that hard to believe—but my instinct tells me that Lewis’s and Tyra’s murders are connected.”

  “Would you two hush? I’m trying to make an arrest . . .”

  “Shut up!” I hollered at Chief Worthy, which shocked him into silence. I didn’t want to see Billy dragged off, locked up for a crime he didn’t commit.

  And that is precisely what Billy understood. He smiled at me. “Josie, it’s up to you now. Find out why Tyra really came to Paradise. It’s the only way you’re going to find out who really killed her—and Lewis.”

  Chief Worthy finished reciting Billy his rights. Then he escorted him out of the garage.

  That left in the garage just a few boxes of Tyra Grimes T-shirts—and me and Owen. I turned away from them and faced Owen.

  “You had these T-shirts here. You had Billy and Paige here. And you didn’t call me? And Winnie was involved, too?”

  Owen looked miserable. “We love you, Josie . . . but we know how you are. Billy told me later that he and the Cruezes had seen you out at the old orphanage.”

  Ah. Guess I hadn’t been as stealthy as I thought.

  “They got worried that you might say something to Tyra, and so started moving the T-shirts here on the night of Tyra’s party, without telling me, thinking I never come out here to the garages.”

  Ah. The “deer” I thought I’d heard by Owen’s garage that night.

  “But then the Cruezes’ truck broke down on one of their runs. The Cruezes hiked on back to the Red Horse, while Billy went back to your apartment, hoping to borrow your car. Instead, he encountered Paige. This was after everyone left. He confronted her about Tyra’s T-shirts and the working conditions, without yet mentioning the Cruez couple. This was after everyone had left and Paige was cleaning up.

  “Not wanting Tyra to encounter Billy again—knowing how upset the first encounter had made her—Paige convinced Billy to let her drive him back to the Red Horse. I guess on the way there, he made a pretty convincing argument against Tyra’s business practices.”

  Ah. The “cocoa” stain on Paige’s sweater. Billy would have been muddy from all that work, and she could have easily brushed against him as they argued or in the SUV. And she’d thoroughly cleaned my apartment before my return—that’s why I hadn’t seen any mud there. But she could have easily missed the smear of mud on her sweater sleeve—and she wouldn’t have wanted to tell me about her encounter with Billy if she was already starting to think of turning away from Tyra.

  “Later that night, Billy met Paige at the Red Horse again, and this time she met the Cruezes and finally decided to help them. They used Paige’s SUV to transport them here in the middle of the night. But I had a restless night, thinking about you, and discovered what was going on. I agreed to let them use my garage and to stay here with me after they left the Red Horse, but Billy insisted I not tell you.”

  Ah. That’s why Owen had been avoiding me.

  “If you knew Billy and Paige were here, you’d come out and start asking questions, and then those agents would have followed you—”

  Ah. The old Nosy Josie thing again . . . “You could have told me to stay away. You could have told me on the phone—”

  “Josie,” Owen said in his quiet, smooth voice that makes him irresistible to me. “You would not have stayed away.”

  I thought about that for a second. I knew he was right. “They found Billy and Paige and the T-shirts, anyway,” I muttered. “And now Billy—” I stopped, my voice catching. I hate it when I don’t want to cry, but I do anyway.

  Owen brought me to him in an awkward hug. I didn’t hug back—I was still sore at him. But I didn’t resist, either. “Billy did what he thought was right,” Owen said.

  Yeah. Just like Billy. But now it was up to me to get him out of jail. And the only way to do that was to figure out who really killed Tyra—and while I was at it, Lewis. The only thing I could think of to do next was to fetch Winnie from the bookmobile and see if what she had learned about Tyra’s past might help.

  So we went out to the bookmobile. Winnie wasn’t awake yet. I picked her up at the top end, while Owen got her at the foot end, and we hauled her into Owen’s house, then put her down on his couch in the library. I was getting pretty good at moving bodies. At least this one—though dead weight—was alive.

  I sat down on a chair, pulled off my hat, wiped my brow. “Whew,” I said. “Do you have any lemonade, maybe, Owen, or—”

  I stopped. Owen was staring at me—with a look of horror.

  My hair. I’d forgotten that my hair had turned Bozo orange. Oh, great. Just what I wanted the (potential) love of my life to see.

  “Uh, Josie, uh, what happened, what—”

  Owen was stuttering. Owen never stutters.

  Then, this incredible idea—this impossible, wonderful idea—popped into my head.

  I grinned at Owen.

  “Owen,” I said. “Did Billy happen to bring his Cut-N-Suck with him?”


  16

  “You sure you want to go through with this?” Owen asked.

  I looked at Billy’s Cut-N-Suck, now hooked up to Owen’s old Hoover canister vacuum on the kitchen table. Of course I wasn’t sure. What woman is ever sure that going bald is the right decision?

  Still, the other option was Bozo hair.

  Even if my own tatty, dishwater blond hair never grew back, bald was a better choice than Bozo.

  But there was more to it than that.

  Truth be told, I had gotten Tyra to come to Paradise. And as soon as word got out that she was coming, the whole town had started going nuts. Even I’d gone and tried to change myself, to be better, but not to really be better. Just better to be good enough in someone else’s judgment.

  In the end, all of Paradise was a mess. Two people were murdered. And I had Bozo hair.

  So now I had to put things right.

  And I was starting with my hair. Maybe, in a funny way, like a reverse sort of Samson and Delilah thing, Owen cutting off all my hair would give me the strength to put everything else right, too.

  So, I looked at Owen, and with a voice as pointed as the scissors he held, said, “Yes. I’m sure.”

  There’s something very strange and intimate about having your hair cut, then shaved, by the man you care about.

  Owen was organized and neat.

  He set the cutting station up at his kitchen table—scissors, mirror, Cut-N-Suck attached to his vacuum, trash can.

  Owen was gentle.

  First he cut my hair close to the scalp, putting each tuft in the trash can. Then he gently used the clipping tool, which comes with every Cut-N-Suck, giving me an orange burr, while the vacuum chugged down the tattered ends of my hair. Then Owen went over my head one more time—this time with the shaving tool, and cleaned off the last bits of my hair. He didn’t nick me once.

  Owen was kind.

  When he was all done, he gave me the mirror without saying a word. I looked into it. Yes, it was me—Josie Toadfern—but with a totally bald scalp. I started to tear up, then fought against the sudden strong urge to cry.