D is for Drunk

by Rebecca Cantrell

  Another whistle. Another trick. It was always about the keys.

  “I have to call Brendan,” Sofia said. “Wait here.”

  CHAPTER 40

  Sofia was too jumpy to eat another piece of cheese. Holding a half-full wineglass in one nervous hand, she circled the kitchen and then living room. What was taking Brendan and Aidan so long? She’d told Aidan to bring his camera. Maybe they were arguing about that.

  “Why are you so on edge?” Jaxon asked. “What’s going on?”

  Across the room, Annabelle laughed at something Narek had said. It sounded fake, but Narek seemed to buy it. Annabelle had her hand on his elbow and leaned in close to him. Narek dropped his hand to the small of her back. Milena was nowhere to be seen, and Rick was in the kitchen settling a new round of guests.

  “I know how he died,” she told Jaxon.

  “I thought the horse kicked him in the head,” Jaxon said.

  “She did,” Sofia said. “But I know why.”

  Jaxon cocked an eyebrow and waited, but before she could explain, the music kicked up a notch. A quiet French jazz had been playing in the background, but someone had switched that playlist to French heavy metal. It sounded like the band that had played on the night of Marcel’s death.

  Annabelle turned toward the music. Red lipstick glowed against her suddenly pale face, and her wide eyes glittered.

  Bambi had climbed onto the dining room table. She’d taken off her shoes and her leopard-print dress. She wore only a leopard-print bra and a tiny black thong. She hurled her arms up and down in time to the music and wove around on the table, looking as if she would fall off at any second. Apparently she was a nudist when she was drunk.

  Rick headed toward the Bambi.

  “I’d better help,” Jaxon said.

  Bambi saw them coming and ran from one end of the table to the other. Probably afraid of hurting her, neither man tried to pull her down. The guests gathered around the table as if it were a stage.

  Sofia found the stereo. Bambi had plugged her iPhone into it, and Sofia unplugged it. The music stopped. Sofia stuffed Bambi’s phone into her back pocket.

  “Hey!” shouted Bambi. “Put that back on!”

  Sofia grabbed a knitted blanket off the couch and jogged over toward Bambi.

  “I was listening to that!” Bambi said.

  “It’ll be like roping a calf,” Sofia told Jaxon. “I’ll wrap her and send her over to you. You catch her and bundle her onto the couch.”

  Jaxon nodded.

  Sofia kicked off her Jimmy Choos and jumped onto the table. “Party time’s over.”

  “You grieve in your way, I’ll grieve in mine.” Bambi stumbled toward the other end of the table.

  That was the trouble with giant furniture. Too much room to maneuver.

  “Do you want to come with me?” Sofia said. “We can get you an Uber, and you’ll be home soon.”

  “I’m not done,” Bambi said. “I need to finish that song.”

  Sofia advanced, holding the blanket in front of her like a bullfighter.

  “Are these your shoes?” Jaxon asked. “I think they have wine on them.”

  Bambi turned to him, an expression of horror on her face.

  Sofia charged, wrapped the blanket around her, and hooked Bambi’s legs out from under her. Jaxon and Rick caught her as she feel and carted her off to the sofa.

  The people gathered around the table started clapping. Sofia hoped none of them had filmed that altercation. Although, as videos on the Internet about her went, that one wasn’t so bad.

  Trying to ignore the clapping, she climbed off the table and put back on her shoes. The clapping quickly died away until only one set of hands was still going. The sound was coming from the front door.

  Aidan was here. And clapping.

  Sofia sketched him a quick wave and hurried over to the sofa. Bambi sobbed, and Jaxon patted her back.

  “There, there,” he said. “It’ll be all right.”

  A woman with lavender hair plopped down next to Bambi. Veda from the nail salon. Sofia hadn’t seen her at the party before.

  “You came,” Bambi said.

  “Of course I did, sweetie.” Veda tucked the blanket around Bambi and took her hand. She started massaging it.

  Jaxon looked up at Sofia.

  “We have work to do,” Sofia said, “in the stable.”

  But as she walked toward the front door, she saw Annabelle.

  Annabelle leaned against Rick and cried. Maybe Bambi’s grief had finally touched off her own. She sobbed as if she’d never stop.

  “Nice job with the deer,” Aidan said.

  “Are we ready?” Brendan asked.

  Sofia looked over at the weeping woman.

  “Maybe it’s not the right time,” she said. “Maybe we should do this tomorrow.”

  “We’re here now,” Brendan said. “A lot could change by tomorrow.”

  Sofia gestured toward Annabelle. “But...”

  Aidan scowled. “You can’t chicken out now.”

  “Chicken out on what?” Jaxon asked.

  “Meet me in the barn,” Sofia said. “And go quietly. Maybe she won’t notice.”

  Sofia hated what she was about to do, but it was part of the job.

  She walked over to Rick and Annabelle.

  “Can I get you anything?” she asked, putting a hand on Rick’s back.

  Annabelle pulled herself together. “No.”

  Sofia returned to the front door, where Jaxon was waiting for her, having apparently completely ignored her instructions to meet her in the barn.

  “What did you take out of Rick’s pocket?” Jaxon whispered.

  “I’ll tell you in the barn,” she said.

  She walked across the yard as quickly as she could. Her heart pounded in her chest, and she felt terrible. What if she was wrong?

  Aidan and Brendan were already in the stable, staying well away from Percy, as if they expected her to rear up and kill them at any second. Jaxon went right to the horse and handed her an apple slice he must have taken from the fruit tray.

  “Do you have your camera?” Sofia asked Aidan. “If not, we can use my phone, but it won’t be that good in this light.”

  Aidan held up his GoPro, and Brendan scowled.

  “Filming a horse isn’t illegal,” Aidan said.

  “It’s a gray area,” Brendan answered. “Once you start, where exactly do you stop?”

  Clearly this argument had been going on for a while.

  “Train the camera on the horse, but make sure I’m in the shot, too,” Sofia said.

  She positioned herself between Aidan and Percy. “Can you see us both?”

  “You sure are a camera hound,” Aidan said.

  “Jaxon,” Sofia said. “Please step away from the horse.”

  “Why?” Jaxon asked.

  “Yes,” said Annabelle from the doorway. “Why?”

  She walked across the stable to Percy and started stroking the horse’s ears. Rick followed, as if not sure what to do.

  “Jaxon,” Sofia said. “I need you to stand behind me.”

  Jaxon obediently followed her instruction, but his expression said he didn’t like being kept in the dark.

  Sofia really hated this. But, if she was wrong, she’d know in a minute, and they could all go home. Annabelle would probably never speak to her again, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

  She pulled Rick’s keys out of her pocket and held the whistle up for the camera. Aidan filmed it. Sofia pointed at Percy and Annabelle, and Aidan kept the camera on them.

  “What are you doing with my keys?” asked Rick.

  Annabelle finally looked at her. Her eyes widened when she saw the keys in Sofia’s hand.

  It was now or never. Sofia brought the keys to her lips and blew. The whistle let out a surprisingly deep tone.

  Annabelle hurled herself into Rick just in time to escape Percy’s crashing hooves. The horse reared and reared.

&
nbsp; Annabelle sprinted over to Sofia, grabbed the keys out of her hand, and tossed them into the stall. Percy crushed them with her foot.

  Annabelle crooned to the horse, and she settled down.

  “That was an antique!” Rick said. “One of a kind. My father—”

  “It’s not just about the whistle,” Sofia interrupted him.

  Brendan turned to Annabelle. “Would you like to explain what just happened?”

  Aidan kept filming.

  Annabelle avoided the question, singing quietly to Percy in French.

  “That’s how Marcel died.” Sofia projected her voice so that Annabelle couldn’t ignore it. “Annabelle trained the horse with whistles. It comes when she whistles, and it rears up when it hears the whistle on Rick’s key ring. Or at least it used to.”

  Percy had quieted now. Annabelle stroked the horse’s long neck.

  “Marcel always put his phone on speaker when he talked. Even Bambi noticed.” Sofia was on a roll now. “When Annabelle called him the second time on the night he died, she ordered him to bring the horse out to the trough, because there are surveillance cameras in the stable.”

  She pointed at them, and Aidan moved the camera to follow her finger. She quickly pointed back toward Annabelle.

  “The horse trough is a blind spot for the cameras. I was pretty sure before, but I checked again when I got to the party tonight. Once Marcel was in position, Annabelle blew her whistle and let Percy do what she was trained for.”

  Rick put a hand against the wall to steady himself.

  “Is this true?” he asked. “Annabelle, is it true?”

  “Of course not,” she said. “It is just the fantasies of a washed-up actress.”

  Annabelle reached out for Rick, but he stepped away from her.

  “Am I sorry that he is dead?” Annabelle put her hands on her hips and her eyes flashed. “I am not. He had run this vineyard into the ground with his expensive parties and imported foods so illegal that we could not even sell them.”

  Rick stared at her.

  “He said I would have to sell Percy,” she said. “My baby.”

  Sofia thought they had everything they needed. This couldn’t have gone better if she’d written the script.

  “But I didn’t train the horse to kill him. That is preposterous. It was an accident.” Annabelle turned from Rick to Sofia. “If she reared when you blew the whistle, it’s only because the sound hurt her ears, and you are a brute.”

  Sofia looked over at Brendan. He shook his head.

  “I must ask you to leave my house, and never to return,” said Annabelle. “Anything further you wish to say, you must say to my lawyer.”

  Rick scooped his mangled whistle keys off the floor.

  Brendan took Sofia’s arm and pulled her toward the door. Aidan stopped filming.

  “But,” Sofia didn’t move. “You saw it.”

  “I did.” Brendan put a hand on Sofia’s lower back and guided her out of the stable into the cold night air.

  “We can’t just leave,” she said. “The horse. The whistle. A man is dead.”

  She knew she sounded incoherent, but she couldn’t believe how things were turning out.

  “I’ll ride with Sofia.” Brendan stopped by the horse trough.

  Sofia looked around for cameras. There weren’t any. “It’s a blind spot here. Just like I said.”

  “Aidan, you take Mr. Ford home,” Brendan said. “I’ll drive Sofia.”

  “We’re leaving?” Sofi asked. “Just like that?”

  “Yeah,” said Jaxon. “That was pretty damning.”

  “Thank you,” said Sofia.

  “Life isn’t like it is on TV,” Aidan said.

  “On TV that totally would have nailed her,” Jaxon said. “She trained the horse, and then she used the mare like a weapon.”

  Sofia smiled at him. “Exactly.”

  “It’s not about that,” said Aidan. “It’s about what you can prove.”

  “But that was proof,” Sofia said. “You have it on tape.”

  “We do,” Brendan said. “And I’ll turn the tape over to some guys I know in Homicide. They’re determined, and they’ll do their best.”

  “That doesn’t sound encouraging,” Sofia said. “We know she killed him.”

  Brendan said, “We might strongly suspect that—”

  “Might?” Sofia couldn’t believe this.

  “Might,” Brendan said firmly. “But people can only be convicted based on proof, and we don’t have any.”

  “But...” She didn’t even know where to begin.

  “This is part of being a detective,” Brendan said gently. “Even when you think you know something, you can’t always prove it. Every case doesn’t wrap up with a neat little bow.”

  Aidan patted her shoulder. “You get used to it.”

  “I don’t want to get used to it,” she snapped.

  Brendan sighed. “Nobody does.”

  CHAPTER 41

  Sofia hadn’t been that interested in her job for the past few days. She went in, did what she needed to, and came home. Annabelle wasn’t under arrest. The police had brought her in once for questioning, but she’d lawyered up immediately and they hadn’t gotten a thing out of her.

  Sofia closed up her trailer and went for a walk on the beach. Moonlight shone against the water, and waves crashed against the shore. Usually, that was just the kind of thing that calmed her down, but lately it hadn’t been working.

  She stared out across the empty water. Surfers wouldn’t start showing up until sunrise. Maybe Jaxon would be one of them. Maybe he’d show up to surf one last time. The Riders of Randorin show was over in Los Angeles. They were going to move to the Bay Area for a week. After that Jaxon’s friend would be well enough to take back over his part, and Jaxon would head back to his ranch.

  Then her summer romance would be over and Annabelle would still be free.

  Sofia walked further up the beach. The wind cut through her thin jacket, and she shivered. She ought to go back home soon.

  She closed her eyes and listened to the waves. Underneath the sound of water crashing against rocks she heard something else. Hoofbeats.

  Her eyes jerked open, and she looked up the beach. A horse and rider galloped toward her.

  Sofia sprinted toward the rocks at the end of the beach, but the horse easily caught up to her, and she stopped running.

  “Hello, littlest detective,” said Annabelle.

  “That’s half pint detective,” Sofia corrected.

  Annabelle’s red lips slashed into a smile, and she nudged Percy with her knees. The horse circled Sofia. Its shiny hooves glinted in the moonlight.

  “You thought you have caught me,” Annabelle said. “You thought you can brought me down.”

  Sofia tried to move closer to the rocks, but the horse was in the way. Thinking of Marcel’s shattered skull, she kept her distance. “Nobody cares what I think.”

  “I thought this, too,” said Annabelle. “But it is not so.”

  “No?” Sofia stole a quick glance around the beach. It was deserted. No one was going to call for help.

  “Rick. He cares. He doubts me since that night.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.” What if she headed into the water? No. Horses could swim. She didn’t want to be trampled in the shallows or drowned further out.

  Annabelle’s hair and Percy’s mane lifted up in a gust of wind. They looked like one creature.

  “The police came for him, did you know this?” Annabelle asked.

  “What for?” Sofia wasn’t giving anything away.

  “What do you think?” Annabelle reduced the size of the circle, and the horse crowded closer.

  It really might trample her and leave her body to wash out to see. When they eventually found her body, they’d have identify it from the newly-repainted seagull on her thumb. Sofia slipped her hand into her pocket and speed-dialed her phone.

  “Do the police think that Rick was involve
d in Marcel’s murder?” Sofia said loudly, hoping that Aidan would record the call and then call in the cavalry. In fact, that was their code word. “Like he was part of the cavalry?”

  “Rick could never kill anyone.”

  Sofia was starting to get dizzy. She kept turning around to keep eye contact with Annabelle.

  “But they have taken him away.” Annabelle stroked Percy’s long neck. “They came a few hours ago, with vans and lights and sirens.”

  It sounded like they had finally moved on her pot-growing tip. That must have been what set Annabelle off.

  “This is tragic, of course,” said Annabelle. “I took Percy and I left for a while, for things to calm down, for them to let Rick go.”

  “Of course,” Sofia agreed loudly. She didn’t think anyone was going to let Rick go any time soon.

  “But he called me, did you know this?”

  “How could I know?” Sofia asked.

  “He said that he would tell that that on the night Marcel died I went out on the balcony at the hotel, that I made a call, and that I took his whistle with me.”

  That was good evidence. Maybe it would be enough to catch her.

  “That has nothing to do with me,” Sofia said.

  “It was not your snoopings that turned my lover against me?” Annabelle and the horse were closer now. A wave of horse scent surrounded her.

  “If you weren’t involved in Marcel’s death, you don’t have anything to worry about.” Sofia knew that she should try to trick Annabelle into confessing, but right now she just wanted to calm her down so that she didn’t have another crime to confess to.

  “But I do worry,” Annabelle raised her voice to be heard over the waves. They were close to the water now, and the tail end of a wave soaked Sofia’s sneakers. “I am a woman alone now, and so I must worry about many things.”

  “I’m a woman alone,” Sofia said. “And I’m doing OK.”

  “Are you?” Annabelle looked down at her.

  “Not right this second,” Sofia answered. “But usually.”

  “There is not more usually for you,” Annabelle said. “You were supposed to help me to save the vineyard once Marcel was gone.”

  She was mad at Sofia for not investing? Wow. “Maybe I can help out now.”