A Merry Branson Murder (A Tiny House Cozy Mystery Book 2)

by Abby L. Vandiver

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Hi Troian,” I said speaking to my grandfather’s aide and the assistant living complex.

  I had finally made it back to the house. Finding Levi Garza, I realized, wasn’t something I could do once I got back to my car, I didn’t even know where to start. And Lowell had gotten eerily quiet once Tangie left, I knew he wasn’t giving out any more information.

  Tangie blew in and blew out like the wind, teasing him mercilessly along the way. Her name should’ve been Mariah. And what made it even worse, I think Lowell knew she had no intentions of being with him later, and he knew I knew that too. So I got in my car and came back to the house. After all, I couldn’t keep neglecting my job, and called my Dedek as soon as I plopped down my couch.

  “Hi,” Troian said grinning.

  “What are you doing answering my call to Dedek?” I asked.

  As soon as I said the words, I could hear a ruckus in the background, my grandfather seemed to be raising his voice at someone there.

  I had called my grandfather because I decided I needed to talk to him about the day’s events. I wanted to run past him the information – or lack of information – I had gotten in my round of interviews that day, but instead I’d gotten Troian.

  At first, seeing his face had brought a smile, but then a wave of nervousness swept over me. “Is Dedek alright?”

  “Yes,” he said and chuckled. “Your grandparents are arguing.”

  “Oh,” I said. “That couldn’t be good.”

  My paternal grandmother and maternal grandfather did not get along. My parents, when I was seven, decided to become expats. They moved to France, and took me, their only child along. But with both of them busy all the time and no family close by to help raise a child, I was shipped back to the states when I was twelve. I lived with my father’s mother, Baba, but my mother’s father, Dedek was always on hand to help with discipline (not that I needed much), homework, and rides to my martial arts classes. At sixteen, I moved him with him.

  And the entire time they were raising me they clashed about everything. My Baba talking to me about my grandfather in Japanese, my Dedek talking about my grandmother to me in Slovene. And now that I had left home, you’d think they’d steer clear of each other, but no. My Baba would show up at my grandfather’s with no notice and they would argue, almost kill each other, and then he’d throw her out. But that never deterred her from coming back, and if she was gone from his place for too long, my grandfather would call Baba on the phone to find out where she was.

  “Yep. Your grandmother wants to use your grandfather’s iPad to record her video on the “tube for you.” He chuckled at the term that she used.

  “I’ve told her a thousand times that it’s YouTube,” I said. “How does she expect to be a YouTube star if she doesn’t even know the name of it?”

  “I don’t think you have to worry about that,” he said. “You should see her today.”

  My grandmother had somehow discovered that a 70-year old Korean woman had become a YouTube sensation applying makeup in her videos. My Baba was sure, with Japan being the home of the beautifully made-up Geisha girl, she could do a better job.

  It didn’t take long to find out she couldn’t.

  “Show me,” I said.

  “Are you sure you can take it?” he asked.

  “No.” I squinted my eyes and braced myself. Troian swung the camera on the iPhone around. My grandfather, a good six inches taller than my Baba was leaning on his walker while she was wagging a finger in his face.

  They had some language they used – a combination of Slovene and Japanese – that I called “Slov-anese.” Even as a polyglot I wasn’t ever able to understand it. Only they could.

  In the middle of a sentence, Baba turned toward the camera and I let out a squeal. “Oh no!” I said.

  She was a redhead. A mop of burgundy and poppy ringlets were flapping around her round face. I think her foundation must have been purchased from a 1910’s Vaudevillian grease paint and powder make-up salesman, because her skin was pasty and beige. Her false eyelashes were as long as a giraffe’s and with her narrow eyes, it was almost impossible to see her pupils.

  “Stop!” I said. “I can’t take anymore, Troian. Turn the camera off of her!”

  Troian was laughing so hard that he dropped the iPad. He scrambled to pick it up and I heard my grandfather yell at him in the background.

  “Why do you have my iPad?” he said, the clank of his walker moving closer.

  I wasn’t going to be in the middle of all of that. I’d had enough drama for one day. I hung up. And as soon I did, I heard a knock on my door.

  “You’ve been gone all day.” It was Andie standing at my door. He pushed his glasses up his nose, holding his notebook in his hand, he stared at me. “You’ve been gone more than five hours.” He glanced at his watch. “How are you housesitting when you’re not even at the house?”

  Too bad he wasn’t watching the house this well when Blu and her killer went in . . .

  “What can I do for you?” I asked.

  “Where have you been?” he asked.

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “I assumed, and I may have been wrong, although I doubt that I am, that you were out trying to solve the murder that occurred while you were supposed to be on Watch Duty.”

  I let out a sigh. “And what if I were out trying to solve the murder?”

  “Then you should share what you have found out with me.”

  “You don’t want to share anything with me.”

  “Here,” he said and cleared his throat. “I will offer you my observations about the house while you were gone.” He flipped his notebook open and found the page he was looking for. He read over it and looked up at me. “Nothing happened.”

  I chuckled.

  “And in observing that,” he continued, “you may want to note, I was doing your job. As such, you owe me.”

  I thought about answering him, telling about my “interviews” with the Detective, Lowell O’Kirk and Tangie Dumont, but before I could, I saw a green Toyota Corolla pull up and go into the Carlings’ driveway. The same green car I’d been seeing all day.

  “That car,” I said and pointed. “Who does it belong to?”

  “Covey Carling,” he said. “Why? Has she been following you?”

  I narrowed my eyes at Andie. “How do you know that?” I asked.

  “Because she lit up out of here as soon as you left this morning, which by the way, showed your lack of knowledge about being covert. Probably the whole street noticed that orange car of yours.”

  I guess it did stand out.

  “Yes,” I said and looked toward her yard. “I think she has been following me.” I turned back to look at Andie. “And why would she do that?”

  He shrugged. “To see what you were up to,” he said.

  “I wasn’t up to anything,” I said defensively.

  “Touché,” he said. “Including housesitting.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  It was nine o’clock in the morning and I’d already finished my housesitting duties, although they didn’t amount to much. I could, in a way agree, with Andie, it was robbery. I did nothing much and got paid for doing it.

  I had gotten rid of Andie from standing in my doorway without having to answer any of his questions. And I had decided not to approach Clover about her following me, although I couldn’t figure out why she would do something like that. I thought it best to let it rest, because, I found, any conversation with her always seemed to collapse into a full-on confrontation. She just seemed to like to fight. Plus, nothing had come from her following me other than her sitting in her car for hours, and that did not bother me at all.

  I started out the morning doing Tai Chi. I had planned on trying to do the exercise most mornings, not for learning defensive purposes so much, but for the health benefits and to stay limber. Traveling around I wasn’t able to go to a dojo on a regular basis. I usually did my
Tai Chi outside, but I wasn’t taking any chances on being seen by the Dallasandro’s nosey – uh, I meant watchful – neighbors.

  I was in the middle of a bow stance when there was a knock at my door. I figured it must be Andie back with something else to bother me with. His behavior was so peculiar, I was surprised that he was allowed to be in any kind of neighborhood group. I braced myself and swung the door opened.

  To my surprise it was Levi Garza.

  He was even more handsome up close.

  He wore blue jeans, and black t-shirt that clung to the muscles in his chest and abdomen and a black leather jacket. It wasn’t designed to keep its wearer warm, but it was really sharp looking.

  “Hola! Cómo estás,” I said and smiled. I tried to straighten the hair that had been tousled during my routine, and I tugged on the hem of my T-shirt. I usually didn’t let people see me this underdressed.

  I mean really, I didn’t even have on heels.

  I kept the smile plastered on my face, I didn’t know why he was standing at my door, but I wanted him not to think of me as the enemy. I wanted to talk to him, find out what he knew and to let him know I didn’t have a problem with his language barrier.

  “Hola,” he said, he had an impish grin on his face. “Busco a Nixie.”

  He was looking for me. That was good.

  “Si,” I said. “Estoy Nixie. En qué puedo ayudarle?”

  His grin spread wider across his face. “You speak Spanish,” he said.

  I frowned. He had no accent at all. “You speak English.”

  “Yeah. I do,” he said. “Born and raised in St. Louis, so, you know, you really gotta be able to do that.”

  “Tangie told me that you only spoke Spanish.”

  “Tangie lies. You can’t believe anything she tells you.”

  Good, I thought. Because I hadn’t, especially her convenient alibi.

  I shook my head. “Wait. How did you know where to find me?”

  “Tangie told me.”

  I squinted my eyes. “And you believed her? I thought she lied about everything.”

  “Ha, ha,” he laughed. “I meant when it came to Blu. She hated her, so she lied on her. All the time.”

  “Oh,” I said. “So why are you here?”

  “Because you were asking questions about what happened to Blu.”

  That answer made me take a step back. I spread my legs into my fighting stance. “So you came here to tell me to stop or something?” I asked. I balled up my fist. Then I did a glance over toward Andie’s house. Maybe he was watching and would call the police if this guy got aggressive. Andie’s nosiness might just come in handy.

  “No. I came here to help.”

  “Really?” I asked. I put my feet together and relaxed my hands. “Why?”

  “Blu was my girl.” He shrugged. “I loved her. I want to see whoever did this come to justice.”

  “Why come to me?” I asked. “Why not check and see what the police are doing?”

  “The police are doing their job.” He nodded his head. “And with Blu being pretty popular around these parts, I don’t doubt that they’ll be on it.”

  “So,” I said. And brushed another strand of hair out of my face. “What is it that you want?”

  “I want to know have you found out anything.”

  I studied him for a moment. Was this guy really serious? If Tangie had told him about me, what he’d heard couldn’t have been good.

  But him standing at my door was good, so I decided to answer him. “Not really. No,” I said. “I haven’t found out anything. Probably just things you already knew.” He was staring at me while I babbled with a smirk on his face. I took in a breath. “You want to come in?”

  “Sure,” he said. He stepped inside and I saw him grinning again. “Wow. This is tiny.”

  “Thank you,” I said instinctively, then scooted my Tai Chi mat off the floor and stuck it in a corner. “Wait.” I eyed him. “‘Thank you’ I think. I’m so used to people complimenting me on the house.”

  “I just meant it was small, but it is nice. I like it.”

  “Thanks,” I said again. “Have a seat.”

  He sat on the small couch, his long limbs bunched up. He scooted and scrunched until he got comfortable. Then he smiled at me.

  Alfie walked over to him and did her Safe Sniff routine. “Alfie, I called to him. He’s alright. Move back.”

  “Oh, no,” Levi said. “He’s fine.” He leaned over and scratched him behind his ears. That’s all Alfie needed, she was fine with the new stranger.

  “So yeah,” he looked around at the house. “If the performers for Merry Stampede had one of these,” he said, “they wouldn’t have to stay at the ranch.”

  “The performers don’t like staying at the ranch?” I said and sat on the stool next to my pulldown table.

  “No. Not really,” he said shaking his head. “Because the owners pay for their room and board, they don’t pay them hardly anything.” He stuck his hands down in his jeans pocket. “Then they don’t have money or a place to live for the remainder of the year.”

  “When the season is over?”

  “Right.”

  “Well, that’s not good.”

  “Nope. Not at all.”

  “That’s sort of one of the things I found out,” I said.

  “That the Merry Stampede doesn’t pay much?”

  “No the part about not having a place to live. It seems like the employees of the Merry Stampede would live wherever they could during the off-season. Even in people’s homes that were out of town.”

  He nodded slowly. “That’s true. You’re speaking about Blu, huh?”

  I nodded.

  “But not many people did that without permission,” he said. “I’m sure Tangie was the one that told you about that.”

  I nodded again. I didn’t tell him that the Branson police knew about people doing it too and even suggested that maybe Blu had done it. “So it’s true?” I asked. “Blu was staying in people’s homes without their permission? She wasn’t there robbing them?”

  He shrugged. “She didn’t have to do that, she could have stayed with me. Anytime she wanted to.” He glanced at me. “And no, she wasn’t going around robbing people.”

  “But she didn’t stay with you, huh?”

  “Not all the time.”

  “So you knew that she was breaking into people’s homes and staying while they were gone?” I said. “You didn’t try and stop her, or tell anyone?”

  “Well, I don’t know if I’d call it breaking in. But.” He nodded. “Yeah. I did know she stayed in places where other people lived, and no I didn’t tell anyone. I did try and stop her, like I said, she could have stayed with me. Most times though she’d stay in houses that were up for sale.”

  “Oh. How was she able to do that?” I asked. “Don’t they usually have lockboxes?”

  “They do, but she knew a realtor.”

  “Oh.” I nodded understanding what he was saying. “And this realtor would give her the combination?”

  “Yep. Until he got caught. Lost his license and any, I’m guessing, affection he had for Blu.”

  “Is that when she started breaking into houses.”

  “It’s probably not what you’re thinking.” He huffed. “She would make a key for the for sale houses she stayed in. Her realtor friend didn’t know she did, but that made it easier for her. Even though someone bought them, unless they changed the locks, she still was able to get in.”

  “Oh,” I said. I couldn’t understand how people could think of things like that. What ever happened to renting a room?

  “Which Blu said,” Levi continued talking, “was better because then they had beds, and food. It wasn’t like bumming a place to stay and sleeping on the floor, it was like staying at home.”

  “Yeah, but it was someone else’s home.”

  “Yep.”

  “Oh,” I said and snapped my fingers. “The Dallasandros just bought their house.�
��

  He shrugged.

  “We had been trying to find out how Blu got in the house,” I said. “The police hadn’t found anything disturbed. Nothing was broken or anything. We couldn’t figure out how she’d gotten in.”

  “Well that would answer that question,” he said. “She had a key.”

  “Yeah she did. That is if her friend worked at the realty company that sold this house,” I said, “or showed this house, then we’ve found something.”

  “Not the killer,” Levi said. “We haven’t found the killer.”

  “No, not the killer,” I said. “Nor do we have any idea how she knew the Dallasandros wouldn’t be at home.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  We sat quietly, then Levi slapped his hands together and rubbed them back and forth like he was trying to build up some fiction.

  “So, what do we do now?” he asked.

  “About what?”

  “About solving this thing. Finding out who killed Blu.”

  OMG. Why was everyone trying to solve this murder and wanting me to get involved?

  “I don’t know about doing anything that concerns the murder,” I said. “But I’m going to take the dogs for a walk.”

  I wanted to think about what he’d just told me and figure out my next step.

  “Good, I’ll go with you,” he said. “We can talk and come up with a plan.”

  Had he just read my mind . . .

  “You’re welcomed to come,” I said. “But I don’t know how much I have to offer to any plan you want to come up with or how to figure out who the murderer is.”

  According to Lowell, Levi hadn’t been ruled out.

  “Brainstorming always helps,” he said. “We’ll brainstorm together.”

  “Fine,” I said. “But first I have to change my clothes.”

  He looked at me up and down and said, “What’s wrong with what you have on? You’re only walking a dog.”

  “Two dogs and I have to do it outside. I can’t go outside like this,” I said and waved a hand down my body. “I have to change.”

  “Okay,” he said and shrugged. “Do what you must.”

  “And you’re going to have to wait outside,” I said.