“Vivienne, I don’t understand what is going on,” Orly said. “But I don’t think it matters. Let’s get Esther to a doctor and we’ll sort it all out.”
“Right. The police are going to let me go, even after I killed Norman and shot Esther? I doubt it.”
“Why did you kill Norman? Why would you hurt Esther?” Orly said.
Vivienne laughed again, even more maniacally this time. “I didn’t even mean to kill Norman. I meant to kill Cody.”
“Why?” Orly said.
“Because he knew what I was up to. He found out I was trying to get Norman and Esther to buy into my idea and blackmail you.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I would ruin your reputation if you didn’t pay up, but they had to be in on it with me. It wouldn’t have worked otherwise. Both Cody and that other guy, Teddy, overheard what I was doing. I talked Cody into helping me with Teddy, and then I knew I had to get rid of Cody, too. I thought Teddy was dead. I tried to kill Cody, but hit Norman instead.”
I thought about Amy’s measurements and her words. She thought that an accident or a mistaken aim might have been a possibility.
“Why in the world didn’t Cody come forward?” Orly asked, but it was more to himself than to Vivienne.
Jake had said that Cody was one of the better actors he’d seen in Broken Rope. Apparently his appraisal had been spot on. Cody had acted the goofy innocent so well that almost everyone, including myself, had believed his act.
“Ended up I had to promise him some money, too. I brought Esther out here today to try to convince her again that you owed her something, anything. But she wouldn’t listen.”
“So you shot her?” I said.
“I was only threatening her with the gun. It went off by accident.”
I wanted to say something about Vivienne’s horrible gun-handling skills and suggest that she should never, ever again carry one, but it didn’t seem like the right time.
“Now, here’s—” Vivienne said as she wielded the weapon at Orly. Evidently she was going to tell us again what we were all going to do. I hoped Orly would just listen this time and we could all get out of the small space without further injury. I thought about pushing my way out the door and running for help, but I was afraid that Vivienne just might shoot at someone because she was angry I’d tried to escape.
But before she could finish, the world shifted. It was as if the light dimmed a little and we were all suddenly inside a walled-in cave.
“What’s going on?” Vivienne said.
“I don’t know,” Orly said.
“Uh-oh.” I looked at Gram and then at Jake. “You seeing this?”
“Yes,” Jake said. “Totally.”
Not only did the sights transform, but so did the smells. Suddenly, we were in something like a real station, one from olden times, but without distinct walls, and so were a couple horses—seemingly real horses. The scents that went along with horses, their feed, and their riders were all around us.
“Miz, what’s going on?” Orly asked.
“Everyone will be fine,” Gram said. “Just hang on. We’re about to see a show, I think.”
Gram and I had both experienced something similar with the old bakery, but the other living souls in the room had probably never seen a real ghost or been part of a real ghostly experience. Jake was clearly interested, but his concern for Esther took priority. Esther was having a hard time remaining conscious, and though she was a small woman, was becoming heavier and heavier for Vivienne. Vivienne was just as perplexed as Orly and wasn’t sure where to aim the gun or what to do with the body she was trying to keep hold of. I sidled my way that direction with the hope that I might be able to get either Esther or the gun away from her—or both. Jerome stayed close by my side.
A loud rumble preceded the arrival of who I hoped was our last ghost of the day.
“I’ll be jiggered,” Astin Reagal said as he pulled his horse to a strong-reined halt on the open side of the station. The space had become bigger than it would have been in reality and the walls had all but disappeared into a muddy murkiness. He looked behind himself at some of the murkiness and laughed, and then looked at us.
“Hello,” he said with a blink. “Where’s my man? Where’s the next rider?”
“Astin,” Joe said as he got off his horse and walked to Astin’s side. “I’m here. I’m here, Astin.” Joe turned to me. “You have a letter, I presume.” At first, I had no idea what Joe was talking about, but then I realized that he meant the one I’d put in my pocket. I nodded. “Read it. Now.”
I pulled it out. It was in terrible condition, but I carefully opened the flap and reached inside for the small piece of paper.
I looked around at the confused and concerned faces in the station. I wanted to get this over with, but I saw no shortcuts. I was going to have to read the letter.
“My dearest Josey. If you find this, I’m sure I will have passed to the great beyond. I fell off the horse, sweetheart. I took a shortcut and somehow the horse’s legs got caught in some bramble and I went down, and broke both my legs. The horse ran off. I’m sure to die if no one finds me soon, and I don’t see that many people will travel this way. I love you and our dear son. I’m sorry to leave you. Astin.”
Sure to die. They were the few legible words from Joe’s last letter. This must somehow be the same letter.
I looked up to see Joe removing his hat. His—no, her long black hair cascaded down her back. Her grimy face became distinctly ungrimy and very pretty—that’s what I’d been seeing, a watery version of the beginnings of that transformation.
“I searched for you, my love,” she said as she looked up at Astin. “I searched for so very long.”
“Oh, Josey, I’m so, so sorry.”
“No need to be. I found you now.” Josey looked at Gram. “I couldn’t tell you. It was . . . well, I don’t know why, but I think it was some sort of punishment for abandoning my remaining family, but I just couldn’t say the words. I couldn’t admit to who I was until I did what I’d set out to do. My name is Amelia Josephine. Astin always called me Josey or Joe. I hope you understand.”
“I do,” Gram said.
Josey looked at me. “I’m so terribly sorry for the trouble I caused you, but I’m beginning to think that if it weren’t for you, we still might not have a solution. An end to my torture. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” I said.
“I think things are good now,” Josey said.
“We had our fun over the years. Thank you, Joe. Josey,” Gram said.
“We did. And Astin and I will be back someday, I’m sure. And we’ll be together,” Josey said.
“We’ll see you down the road, then,” Gram said. “And, Josey, I’m ever so glad you aren’t alone anymore.”
Josey’s horse stomped and looked directly at me. Our eyes made contact, and I was certain he was trying to tell me something. It was too bad that even in the midst of all this weirdness, it seemed that animals still couldn’t speak. I wish I could have known what he was trying to tell me right before he faded away completely, but I’m going to go with gratitude. The horse was either happy to have the truth come out or was so fed up with the rest of us for not being able to figure out that Joe was a she and not a he that he needed one last look of “sheesh.” No, I’m going to go with gratitude.
Astin pulled Josey up onto his horse. She sat behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist. They smiled at each other as he heeled the horse and pulled on the reins to turn it back toward wherever he came from. In a moment, they were all gone, except for Jerome.
The stress of the haunted moments, as well as holding the now-completely-passed-out Esther, had worn on Vivienne. As Astin and Amelia Josephine and the horses completed their disappearing act, Esther slid from Vivienne’s arms. The unconscious woman fell backward onto Vivienne’s knees, causing her to fall over, too. On their way down, the trigger of the gun got pulled.
The next thing
I knew I was flat on the ground with my face in the dirt, and Jerome was on top of me.
“What happened?” I said.
“The bullet was headed your direction,” Jerome said. “It missed you.”
“But it got you, young man,” Orly said as he crouched down next to us.
Jerome rolled off me and then sat up. I pulled myself up to my knees and looked at the hole in his shoulder. It wasn’t bloody. It was just a hole.
“Oh, Jerome, I’m so sorry,” I said.
“I’m fine,” he said with a smirk. “Can’t die twice, remember?”
“Excuse me,” Orly said.
“Look, you two need to kiss and get this over with. We need to help Esther,” Jake said. Gram had the gun, and Jake held Vivienne’s arms behind her so she wouldn’t get away.
I looked at Jerome. “You think you’re done here?”
“For now.”
I tipped his hat back and leaned toward him. I held his face, now so real and stubbly with the paranormal juju all around. I kissed his forehead. I felt him and he felt me. The light around wasn’t bright daylight again, but it was bright enough that we shouldn’t have been able to feel each other. But we did. Some things just might never be understood or explained.
“I have a boyfriend. I’d better stop kissing other boys on the lips,” I said.
“That you’d better. Good-bye for now, Isabelle and Miz. See you next time,” he said before he disappeared.
“I can’t wait,” I whispered.
“Holy moly, what’s going on?” Orly said.
The scene shifted again. We were no longer in a cave-like tunnel. There were no horse smells. We’d made it back to the place we belonged.
“I’ll explain later,” I said to Orly. “It’s a darn fun story.”
“I bet.”
The police weren’t there quickly. We had to call them again. Fortunately, Cliff answered his phone this time, because Jenny had left her post and no one answered the dispatch phone.
Once Esther was taken care of, we knew we’d have to live up to what I’d promised Orly—a darn fun story. And I thought we did okay.
Chapter 28
“If I’d noticed that his wife’s middle name was Josephine, we might have figured it out sooner,” Jake said. “Or if I’d had time to do a complete genealogy for Esther, maybe.”
“Maybe,” Gram said. “I’m not so sure I would have ever thought Joe was a Josephine. It was a real surprise for me. I never once sensed that he was a she.”
“Seems like we’re full of surprises lately,” I said.
“I have another one,” Jake said. “They found some human bones out by where we found the mochila. It’s too soon to know much about them, but there will be a thorough investigation.”
“Must be Astin’s,” I said.
Jake shrugged. “Probably, but having seen the real man, well, almost the real man, I suppose, I’m not sure I find the bones as interesting. We’ll see what conclusions the forensic team comes to.”
Gram, Jake, and I were in Bunny’s. Orly and Esther would be joining us soon, but the rest of the cowboy poetry convention attendees had gone home and the big plot of land behind the high school was now vacant and, I thought, lonely and far too empty.
Orly was Esther’s biological father. Norman’s, too. He’d had a fling with their mother at a convention twenty-five years earlier. Their mother, also Vivienne’s mother, already had one child at the time—Vivienne—and no husband.
As Vivienne got older, she remembered back to the time when she was very young and her mother started gaining weight. Then she went to the hospital and came home thinner. Vivienne never put the pieces together when her mother was alive, but after she died Vivienne found half-written and never-sent letters to Orly in an old shoe box. Choosing to give the babies up for adoption had been difficult for Vivienne’s mother. From the letters, Vivienne determined that her mother didn’t want to burden Orly over a one-night stand, but there was no way she could have afforded to raise the babies on her own. She and Vivienne were struggling as it was. Ultimately, the letters weren’t sent and the babies were given up for adoption. Orly never knew about them. He was never put into a position where he could have offered to help financially or in any other way. When Vivienne found out Orly was a well-off Kansas cattleman, she thought she might be able to use her knowledge of his fatherhood to her advantage, and she thought his offspring would only help her with her plan.
It didn’t take her long to find what had happened to the babies and where they were currently living. And Vivienne researched Orly from top to bottom, once reading an article that mentioned that he was a descendant of a Pony Express rider from Broken Rope, which was coincidentally where the cowboy poetry convention was going to be held this year.
Vivienne got both Norman and Esther to the convention by writing them letters that mentioned their Astin Reagal ancestry, and by promising them that they’d find out even more information about their birth families if they attended the convention. Norman thought it would be fun to also get an acting job, and Esther just thought it would be a fun and interesting vacation. Neither Esther nor Norman knew about each other, and until Vivienne told them at the convention, they had no idea that Orly, the man running the convention, was their biological father.
The best we can put together is that Teddy overheard Vivienne telling Norman about Orly. He also overheard Norman tell Vivienne that he didn’t want to have any part of blackmailing Orly. Norman and Vivienne hadn’t been interested in each other romantically, but they’d had a passionate and heated conversation or two. Vivienne couldn’t believe that Norman wouldn’t help her with the blackmail scheme. Teddy is only now remembering that Vivienne was upset that he overheard her blackmail ideas. The reason she made such a scene of yelling at him that night at the convention was with the hopes she would diffuse any accusations he might have toward her. She had no idea that his memories had been jumbled enough that she had nothing to worry about.
Cody hasn’t given the police all the details yet, but we learned that Vivienne told him that Teddy accosted her the night before their brutality toward him. Cody was taken by Vivienne’s beauty enough that he believed her lie and went along with her request to help get Teddy out to the woods and beat him up. They’d hoped to death. Cody’s criminal record might not have been violent, but he had easily crossed over to that side of things.
Teddy didn’t remember the specifics of what happened to him. I hoped he never would.
Apparently, Norman had been a longtime fan of Orly’s and his poetry. He’d known about Orly the poet for years, but Orly being his father was news that didn’t necessarily bother him, though was still not something he could easily accept. He hadn’t had a falling-out with his adoptive parents, and we learned that they had spoken frequently over the last year. Jim wasn’t happy to hear that he had misinformation from the Kansas City police. Apparently, the morning Norman was killed, the morning that Jake found him on the boardwalk talking about a “make-or-break” day was the result of a phone conversation with his adoptive parents. They’d told him they loved him and were glad he’d found his biological father and welcomed him into his life if that’s what made him happy.
Vivienne hadn’t been the cowgirl to bring Teddy back to the campsite. It had been the old guy, Gary. Gary wasn’t quite “right in the head” according to Orly. He left Teddy on the edge of the campsite, close to Orly’s tent, afraid that he’d be accused of the beating. Orly found Teddy with Vivienne standing over him. When she saw Orly, she took the credit for finding Teddy in the woods and bringing him back to the campsite. Orly had no reason to question her, and at that point Teddy didn’t have any idea what was going on. Cliff and I had tried to make Gary’s odd story/poem fit with what he’d done, but it still didn’t make sense.
We think Cody panicked when he learned that Teddy was alive. Vivienne probably thought there was a chance he would go to the police about the beating, and place the blame on her. Vivienne�
�s plans to kill him failed, but her act of getting rid of Norman scared Cody into silence. It was no wonder he wanted to get out of town so badly.
The gun used to kill Norman was Orly’s .38 Special. Vivienne had stolen it out of Orly’s toolbox. I doubted he’d ever forgive himself for that, but we’d tried to make him understand that it wasn’t his fault.
After she pulled the trigger and realized what happened, she ran into the woods and threw the gun under a rock beside the same river that Jerome and I had been fishing in, but a good ways down from where we fought the catfish. Vivienne hurried back to town and found Esther, and the two of them went into Stuart’s shop. Vivienne hadn’t been faking the “damsel in distress” act. It had been real, just more real than anyone knew—she was overwhelmed and distressed by what she’d done.
Esther also wasn’t interested in blackmailing Orly, but she was much more distressed by the news that he was her biological father than Norman had been. Shocked, in fact, but then deeply curious about her biological heritage. Before she received the letter from Vivienne, she had no idea she was a descendant of Astin Reagal’s. In fact, her last name wasn’t even Reagal—she’d been adopted by the Andersons of Kansas City. And it wasn’t until after the bullet wound on her arm was attended to that she learned that Norman was her twin brother. Vivienne had told them separately about Orly, but never about each other, apparently with the hope that they wouldn’t conspire together and leave her out of whatever plans they made.
Esther had lied about who she was to Jake because it simply seemed like the best way to get more information about Astin Reagal and still maintain her privacy—something she thought was important after Vivienne told her the shocking news about Orly. Later, and when she realized she really liked Jake, she felt badly about the lie and wasn’t quite sure how to get out of it without looking deceitful at best, and somehow guilty about something at worst, considering all the violence that had been occurring at the convention.
If Catfish Had Nine Lives (Country Cooking School Mystery) Page 23
