Hell in a Handbasket: Rose Gardner Investigations #3

by Denise Grover Swank

  “Neely Kate Rivers,” Charlene said in a low tone. “What the hell are you doin’ here?”

  Neely Kate took off her hat and turned around to face the back. “Givin’ you a free ride home.”

  “I knew it was too good to be true,” she said in disgust, grabbing a towel off the floor in the back. “Pearl never gives me nothin’ for free.”

  “Well, now that we’re all here, you can answer a few questions,” Neely Kate said.

  Charlene started to wipe her face, muffling her words. “I already done answered your annoying questions the other day.”

  “I have a few more. I think you know more about Carol Ann’s business plans than you let on.”

  “Maybe I do. Maybe I don’t.”

  “Cut the crap,” Neely Kate spat out. “Your cousin’s dead and we’re tryin’ to find out what happened to her. Why don’t you want to help?”

  Charlene sobered. “You don’t have to be so bitchy about it. I was just havin’ a bit of fun.”

  “And I’m sure Carol Ann’s havin’ a lot of fun in the mortuary.”

  That shut her up.

  I’d pulled up to a stop sign and realized we didn’t have a destination. “Where are we goin’?”

  “Turn right here,” Neely Kate said.

  I did as she said, then asked, “Why did Carol Ann come back home when she did?” Neely Kate was supposed to be running things, but I was hoping we could get back to the business in a roundabout way.

  “She said she was wantin’ to settle down. She was tired of the movie star life.”

  Neely Kate coughed. We were both fully aware of the extent of her “movie star life.”

  “She came directly to you?” I asked. I knew Neely Kate had asked her some of these questions already, but she didn’t exactly seem the reliable sort. I was hoping we could compare her answers now to the ones she’d given Neely Kate before to suss out what was true.

  “Yeah,” she said, getting irritated. “And since we have nothin’ to do with her momma, she didn’t tell that bitch she was stayin’ with us.”

  I bit my lip to keep myself from defending Carol Ann’s mother. Maybe I could take advantage of her anger at Lucille and trick her with my next question. “Did she have the plan for her business when she arrived, or did she come up with it after she got here?”

  “She already had the plan. She just needed to get her ducks in a row.” Charlene groaned. “How many times do I got to tell y’all this?”

  “Well,” Neely Kate said in a smug tone, “seeing how you never even admitted to knowin’ anything last time, it looks like our badgerin’ is working.” She put her hands on the backseat and leaned closer. “Now what was the business?”

  Charlene let out a few curses, then finally said, “She wanted to open a whorehouse, only she wasn’t callin’ it a whorehouse. She was callin’ it a gentleman’s club and plannin’ to have the men meet women there.” She shook her head. “She’d worked at one out in Nevada and wanted to run her own and not lay on her back so much. She figured it would be easier to run one here, but it was harder for her to get the money than she expected.”

  I glanced at Neely Kate, who was still staring down Charlene.

  “How much money did she get?” Neely Kate asked.

  “Do I look like a banker to you?” she snorted.

  “No,” Neely Kate said. “You look like a used-up drug addict who’s so stoned she took part in a riot in the middle of a painting class.”

  My mouth dropped open. It wasn’t like Neely Kate to be so ugly, but I could see that she was good and irritated. A quick glance over my shoulder confirmed Charlene’s pupils were dilated. She was definitely high.

  “Why keep all this from me when I visited you before?” Neely Kate asked. “Why hide it?”

  Charlene squirmed. “Who said I was hiding anything?”

  “Please,” Neely Kate said with a groan. “How much money had Carol Ann managed to raise?”

  “Not much,” Charlene finally said after a couple of seconds. “Enough to put a deposit on the building, but she was having trouble gettin’ girls.”

  Neely Kate shot me a look, then turned back to the woman in the backseat. “We heard she was lookin’ for money from her momma’s side of the family a couple of days before she was murdered. Why then? Why not ask them when she first got back to town?”

  “First of all, she wanted nothing to do with her slimeball cousin, Patsy Sue. I knew she was screwin’ Patsy’s husband because she thought it was funny. But last week, she got desperate enough to go to her for help, and when Patsy refused to invest any money into her project, Carol Ann decided to go after Patsy where it really hurt—her reputation of makin’ the best fried chicken in Fenton County.”

  Neely Kate rolled her eyes. “Best fried chicken in all of Fenton County? Wow. Patsy’s got some good PR goin’ if people believe that.”

  “Where’d she make the fried chicken?” I asked. “Your house?”

  Charlene shrugged. “She bought all the ingredients and let us have some, so why not?”

  “If she made the chicken at your house, why was she stayin’ at the Broken Branch Motel when she died?”

  “For her big business deal on Sunday.”

  “What business deal?” I asked.

  “She was gettin’ a list of women to hire and men who wanted to screw them.”

  My eyes flew wide—that was the first real lead we had on Wagner’s list, not to mention it was a solid connection between him and Carol Ann.

  Neely Kate picked up her phone, keeping it low enough to stay out of Charlene’s view, and sent a text. Who was she sending it to? Jed?

  “Who was she meetin’ to get the list?” I asked.

  “Some kid she met while makin’ a drug run for me. She’d met him several times, and somehow they’d figured out the kid could get her the list. I think they were shootin’ up together and it all came out.” She laughed.

  “What’s so funny?” Neely Kate asked.

  “I’m high as shit and I’m doin’ the same thing.”

  She had a point.

  Neely Kate launched her next question. “Do you know where the list was comin’ from?”

  She held up her hands. “Didn’t know. Didn’t want to know.”

  “When did you find out about the list?” Neely Kate asked, and I could see she was struggling to hold her temper.

  “A few weeks ago, although it weren’t until last week she found out she could get it. But she needed money, so she got desperate enough to hit up the rest of her family.”

  “So where’d she get the money?” Neely Kate asked.

  She gave a flippant shrug. “Beats me.”

  “You didn’t lend it to her?” I asked.

  Charlene released a sharp laugh. “I ain’t no fool. Givin’ Carol Ann money was like pissin’ money in the toilet.” She shifted in her seat. “Look, here’s the thing about Carol Ann. She had lots of big ideas, but she could never make them work. I have big plans of my own, and I knew this one was destined to fail.”

  “And how’d you know that?” I asked in a dry tone.

  “Because Sheriff Simmons would have been all over her in about two seconds flat if she tried to run a whorehouse. Callin’ it a gentleman’s club would be like slappin’ paint on a pig and callin’ it a billboard.”

  “Joe Simmons isn’t the sheriff,” Neely Kate said, sounding pissed.

  “He might as well be,” Charlene said. “He sure acts like it.”

  “Skeeter Malcolm would never have allowed it either,” I said. “He has very strict rules on that sort of thing.”

  Her eyes lit up. “Hey! You’re her, ain’t ya?”

  I resisted the urge to squirm and ignored her.

  She got excited, scooching forward on her seat and leaning into my ear, her breath blowing the hair around my ear as she said, “You’re the Lady in Black.”

  “She’s Rose Gardner,” Neely Kate said in a steely voice.

  “Yeah, that’
s her Clark Kent. The Lady is her Superman.” She sat back and leaned down into the floorboard. “Where’s your costume?”

  I shot Neely Kate a look of panic.

  “Charlene,” Neely Kate barked. “Get up right now. There’s no black hat or veil back there.”

  She sat up, but she resumed her place behind me. A quick look in the rearview mirror showed her wide, excited eyes. “What could I do with you?”

  I didn’t like the sound of that.

  Apparently neither did Neely Kate. “That’s enough nonsense out of you, Charlene. Rose, that’s her place right here.”

  I turned off the county road onto a gravel drive that led to a rusted mobile home with a sofa out front under a makeshift covered patio.

  Neely Kate’s phone vibrated, and she scanned the screen.

  I pulled to a stop, and Charlene reached for the door handle. “Thanks for the ride.”

  Neely Kate hit the lock button. “Not so fast.”

  “What the hell?” Charlene blurted out.

  Neely Kate unbuckled and spun all the way around to face her. “Why didn’t you tell me and Jed any of this when we talked to you on Monday?”

  “You didn’t ask.”

  “That’s malarkey if I ever heard it,” Neely Kate said. “Why’d you really hide it?”

  Charlene jerked on the door handle. “Let me out.”

  “Here’s what I think,” Neely Kate said. “You did give Carol Ann the money to buy the list.”

  She jerked on the door handle harder. “You’re crazy! I done told you I didn’t and why.”

  “Yeah,” Neely Kate said. “You knew Joe Simmons would be all over the whorehouse, but only if it was out in the open. You wanted to take it underground.”

  “You’re dumbass crazy,” she said, still jerking the handle. “I’m not that stupid. I wanted no part of that mess.”

  Then it hit me. “No, but you needed more money,” I said, turning back to face her. “And you caught wind that there might be something else in that file. Something you could use to get seed money.”

  She stopped jerking on the door handle.

  “You gave Carol Ann the money so you could get the other part of that file,” I said. “You were letting her keep the list of prostitutes and johns, and you were supposed to get the rest. It was perfect, because you knew that Kip Wagner would put it all together and Carol Ann would take the fall . . . only something happened after she worked out the deal.”

  She shot me a hateful glare. “How would I know what happened? Do you have other superpowers to go along with the hat and veil?”

  Other superpowers? Was she just making a dig to save herself, or did she know about my visions? Was there something about me in that file?

  Neely Kate gave me a worried glance, then renewed her attack. “Because I know you were in the motel parking lot the evening she was murdered.”

  Charlene got a wild look in her eyes. “Liar!”

  “Am I?” Neely Kate asked as she handed me her phone. “Then why does the owner of the Broken Branch Motel say he saw you sittin’ in that car in the parkin’ lot around five thirty?” She pointed to an ancient-looking pale blue Buick parked in front of the trailer.

  Sure enough, there in her text history to Bill Peterson was the photo she’d taken of Charlene at the rec center—sans paint—as well as a photo of Charlene’s car parked next to a red pickup truck, something she must have taken before or after their first meeting. Neely Kate had asked him if either the woman or the vehicle had been at the motel at any time over the weekend.

  He’d just texted back that he’d seen the woman in her car between five and five thirty on Sunday. She’d gotten out of the car, but he hadn’t seen where she’d gone. Then, fifteen minutes later, the car was gone.

  Holy moly. Neely Kate might have just solved the murder. I grabbed my phone and turned on the recorder.

  Charlene jerked harder on the handle. “He’s a liar. You’re a liar. You’re all liars!”

  “You sat outside while the kid brought Carol Ann the list, didn’t you?” Neely Kate asked, as calm as if she were having iced tea on a warm summer’s day. “You were her backup.”

  “Let me out!”

  “When the kid left, you went in to see what you’d purchased,” Neely Kate said.

  Charlene stopped jerking on the door handle again.

  “What happened when you got inside?” Neely Kate asked. “Carol Ann must have pissed you off. I bet she changed the plans once she realized what she’d agreed to.”

  She remained silent, staring out her window at the trailer.

  I picked up where Neely Kate left off. “You’d given her enough money to be part owner of the file, and then she didn’t want to include you at all.”

  “Part owner!” Charlene shouted, nearly leaning over the seat to get to me. “Complete owner! I gave her all the money!”

  “And she was claiming full ownership, wasn’t she?” I asked, still staying calm.

  “That bitch thought she could keep it from me!”

  “So you killed her,” Neely Kate said. When Charlene didn’t respond, she said, “Aren’t you worried about the camera Carol Ann hid behind the picture on the wall?”

  Charlene gave Neely Kate a sarcastic look. “They won’t see nothin’. I knew about the camera. I made sure they didn’t find it.” Then her eyes flew wide.

  “I’m sure you were justified for killin’ her,” I said, trying to sound sympathetic. “She screwed you over, just like her daddy did to yours.”

  “Yeah!” Charlene said, getting riled up again. “I said I wanted my cut, but she laughed and told me to leave. Said she’d texted Patsy Sue to come over so she could blackmail her with them photos she had of her in bed with Calvin. She was headin’ to the bathroom to freshen her makeup, just dismissin’ me like I was a piece of trash. Like she was better than me. So I picked up the tie on the dresser, and then lassoed her around the neck and strangled her.”

  “Where’s the file?” Neely Kate asked.

  “It had other sorts of information about people in the county.” She shot me a wicked smile. “Even you, Lady.”

  My breath stuck in my chest.

  Charlene lifted one shoulder into a dismissive shrug. “So I found one of those people and worked out a deal.”

  “What’s that mean?” I asked.

  She grinned. “I found a buyer and sold it.”

  “To who?” Neely Kate asked.

  The front door of the trailer swung open, and an older woman carting an oxygen tank behind her stood in the opening with a shotgun pointed at the truck.

  Well, crap.

  “Charlene? What’s goin’ on out there?”

  I hit the unlock button.

  Charlene grinned. “That’s my cue to leave. But if you girls were smart, you wouldn’t tell anyone about what I just told you. The person who bought the list wouldn’t like it.” Then she got out and waggled her fingers with a cocky grin. “On the off chance you ignore common sense and call the sheriff, I might have to let slip some of the information I read in that file.” Her crazy eyes landed on me. “And I don’t think you want that to happen.”

  Chapter 25

  I didn’t waste any time getting out of there in case the woman with the shotgun decided to use it on us anyway.

  Neely Kate snatched up her phone and placed a call. “She can’t threaten us like that.”

  “Who are you callin’?” I asked as I turned off my recording app.

  “Jed.”

  That was a good idea.

  “Jed,” she said when he answered. “I’ve put you on speakerphone so Rose and I can both talk to you.” She paused. “Charlene just confessed to murdering Carol Ann.”

  He hesitated for a second. “Where is she now?”

  “We just dropped her off at her trailer. Her momma was standing at the door with a shotgun.”

  “Are you two okay?” he asked, getting worried. “Did she shoot at you?”

  “No. She ju
st stood there. Charlene was pretty cocky.” She paused. “She had the file, Jed. She said there was other stuff besides a list of prostitutes and johns.” She shot me a worried look. “She said there was stuff about the Lady in Black in there. She told us if we told the sheriff about her confession, she’d share things she read in the file. She told Rose she didn’t want that to happen.”

  “Did she happen to mention any specifics?” he asked.

  “No,” I said, trying not to panic. There was a list about God-knew-what floating around, and Mason was back in town to rain down justice on the county. Talk about bad timing. “But we need to find out who she sold that list to and what they plan to do with it.”

  “She sold the list?” He paused a beat. “She’s at her trailer now?”

  “Yeah,” Neely Kate said.

  “You girls get as far from her as you can get. I’ll call Skeeter and we’ll figure out how to handle this. Obviously someone needs to pay her a visit and ask a few questions.”

  “What will you two do after you get your answers?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said, not sounding happy about it. “But before I go, I have a good news/bad news situation,” Jed said.

  “Give us the good news first,” I said. It felt like we sorely needed it.

  “I found Becky.”

  “What?” Neely Kate shrieked. “Where?”

  “I tracked down a friend of Bubba’s and found them holed up in a hotel up in Magnolia.”

  “Is she okay?”

  “Yeah . . .” He paused. “Now for the bad news . . . Bubba was playin’ Marshall the whole time.”

  Neely Kate sank back in her seat.

  “He found Becky’s phone after the robbery and started texting Marshall to set him up. Becky didn’t realize it when she called Marshall out at the farm, but Bubba was listening. He tipped Wagner off, but Wagner called him in a rage after he walked away empty-handed from the farm. Bubba was worried, so he took off with Becky.”

  “Was she part of it?” I asked.

  “Nah, but I don’t think she had any intention of goin’ with Marshall.”

  “Yeah,” Neely Kate said, getting riled up again. “Because Bubba is holding her hostage.”

  “This is different,” Jed said softly. “This isn’t . . .” His voice trailed off, and I realized he’d stopped because he’d almost said something they didn’t want me to know about.