Ax to Grind

by Tonya Kappes

  I shook my head no. I shifted, hoping to get my hand on my gun.

  “Ah, ah.” She moved forward. I winced when she stuck my own gun in my gut. She reached down and flipped the holster snap, taking my pistol. “I’m old. But not stupid.”

  “I never said you were.” I wanted to butter her up as much as I could.

  “Anyways.” She tossed my gun into a barn stall. “Beryle sent in one of the crazy short stories I’d helped her write and some publisher read it. They contacted her, and that’s when she told them she had some big story ideas. She didn’t. She lied. She used all of my ideas. Her father let her when I went to him and told her. To keep me hushed, I was paid handsomely by them with each book idea.”

  “Tag, you’re it,” Hattie whispered.

  “Shut up!” Paige yelled back.

  “Shut up, shut up,” Kiwi said. I could hear his little claws hitting the roof of the car and secretly prayed that he’d suddenly take flight and land on Paige’s eyeballs.

  No such luck. Paige just kept on talking. I adjusted myself up against the car, my shoulder with my walkie-talkie leaning against the door.

  “What about Hattie?” I asked.

  “Her.” Paige’s nostrils flared. “It wasn’t just me that Beryle’s father was giving hush money. He paid the facility where they’d put Hattie too. When the money stopped coming, they found Beryle and told her about Hattie.”

  “That’s when Beryle brought Hattie here.” My jaw dropped as more and more of the puzzle pieces started to fit together.

  “Now you’re using your noggin.” Paige tapped her temple.

  “You got paid more money to take care of her.” All of what Darby was saying fit. “And you still fed Beryle the gossip that gave her the ideas for her novels.”

  “I renegotiated.” Paige strolled back and forth, haphazardly rolling the butt of the shotgun under her arm. “I started to get half of her advances to keep my mouth shut.”

  “So, you were blackmailing her? No wonder Beryle wrote this.” I pointed to the hidden manuscript we’d found.

  When she turned away me for a moment, I slid my hand up to my walkie-talkie, turned off the beeping option, and leaned closer to the car so the talk button was pushed in, in hopes that Finn or Betty would just so happen to hear the conversation and maybe come save us.

  “What happened? Why would you kill Cecily?” I asked again, just in case someone was listening on the other end.

  “Kill Cecily, kill Cecily,” Kiwi shouted.

  “Shut up, you dumb bird. I’ve been waiting to do this for a long time.” Slowly, Paige dragged the shotgun up to her chin level and pointed it at the bird. She got eye level with the sights and curled her finger around the trigger.

  “Paige!” I stood up between Kiwi and Paige. I sucked in a deep breath. “I can’t believe I’m doing this for a bird. You’ve got to turn yourself in.”

  “No. No, I don’t.” She shook her head from behind the gun. Her arms trembled, which gave me a little hope that she wasn’t used to holding a heavy shotgun and that her aim would be off. Really off. “Here we are. You’re about to be killed by your own shotgun. I slipped it under that warm quilt you gave me.” A deep laugh escaped her. “What type of sheriff leaves her gun sitting on her backseat?” She made fun of me. “I mean, seriously, you’re the sheriff? If I didn’t hate Lonnie so much, I’d help him get elected, but right now I need that manuscript. I need it now.”

  “What is in there that’s so important that you wanted Cecily dead?” It was the moment I’d been waiting for.

  Poppa pointed to the painting.

  “The painting. The painter. Crimson Hearts.” My mouth dried. “Beryle and Lonnie?”

  “Wouldn’t you like to know that you’re right.” She jutted the gun forward, pointing away from Kiwi and instead at me. “‘I hear Beryle wrote a tell-all. I heard that Beryle knows a lot of secrets.’ Blah, blah, blah.”

  “Beryle knew she was dying of cancer.” I was pushing my luck, but if I was going to die at the hands of Paige Lemar—and she obviously wasn’t scared to kill me since she’d already killed Cecily—I wanted answers. “She had nothing to lose, and she’d have a clean conscience.”

  “Things in my world aren’t as pretty as you’d think. And Lonnie,” she scoffed. “He’s no innocent man in this.” Her hands were visibly shaking. “He’s just as much of a murderer as I am. He killed me years ago.” She pounded her chest with a tight fist.

  Paige dropped the shotgun to her side. She paced in front of Hattie and me with the gun pointing down.

  “I’ll never forget it. Never.” She looked down at her feet as she walked. “When Beryle was on her deadlines, she’d come back here to stay. No one knew but me and Lonnie. I’d bring Hattie here to visit her while I’d come and work. Lonnie would go to the sheriff’s office with Elmer.” She referred to Poppa, Elmer Sims. “At least that’s what I thought he was doing. Until one day I got what they call the writer’s block. It was the last novel I did for her. Desires of the Heart.”

  “That was the movie from the early eighties, right?” I recalled Lauren Bacall had played the part in the big-screen version. It was likened to Gone With the Wind, only a modern version for that time.

  “It was.” A single tear dripped down her cheek. “I knew it was good, and Beryle had promised me all sorts of things. So, I was working on the last scene, and I wanted to make it perfect. I got stuck. I put so much pressure on myself, so I decided to go for a walk.” She pointed to the car. “It was right there that I found them. Beryle and Lonnie. It was like she wanted my life and I wanted hers. She took whatever it was she wanted.”

  Poppa ghosted himself next to the car. “Kenni-bug, I remember now.” Poppa ghosted next to Paige. “Lonnie wanted to leave Paige for Beryle.”

  “I was working my fingers to the bones to help give her the celebrity status she was used to. The publisher loved the chapters, and they knew it was going to be a big success.” She gulped. Her eyes filled with tears. “I just wanted to come out for some fresh air. I noticed the barn door was open and I walked in. The car top was down and there they were. Kissing, embracing each other.” Her voice faded off, as did the memory.

  “I’m so sorry, Paige.” There were no words to comfort her.

  “I’m not sorry for them.” Her sad features hardened back into the angry stare, pursed lips and harsh words. “They deserved everything I did to them.”

  “Are you talking about Cecily and Beryle?” I asked.

  “No. Beryle and Lonnie.” A disgusted tone spat out of her mouth. “I’ve been threatening all these years to expose their affair. Every chance I got, I emailed Beryle, called her and threatened her. Lonnie continued to beg me not to. He was a productive member of society. A deputy. One day to be sheriff. Only your poppa refused to die, and Lonnie accepted that. I was going to go ahead with the divorce and sue Beryle for what was rightfully mine. My money.”

  The rain had started up again, this time pounding so hard on the barn roof that Paige had to yell louder.

  “She came back to Cottonwood and brought little Cecily with her. She told Cecily they were here to clean up a little mess, sell the estate, and give the money to the charities. She quickly set up all the necessary paperwork with Wally Lamb so she could die with nothing hanging over her head. Only I knew the little secret about Hattie and what would happen to her reputation if the adoring public knew she’d kept her sister a secret all these years and that I was her ghostwriter, not to mention the affair. That’s when she told me that she was here to make good on her life with the people she left behind, including Lonnie. She was going to expose him right here before the election with this tell-all. She was even going to list every book with the real-life people behind the characters and expose their secrets.” Her face lit up with pride. “I stayed with Lonnie all these years. I’ve waited a long time to be the sheriff’
s wife. I put up with his affair, and I wasn’t about to let her waltz in here and ruin it again for me.”

  The thunder rolled over top of the barn. The rain poured like a waterfall from the loft through the hole in the ceiling into the guts of the barn. With each lightning strike, the barn lit up.

  “Wait.” I stalled for more time thinking, there was no way I was going to get out of this one, and if I did, I could read Edna Easterly’s headline now: Sheriff Taken Hostage By Own Shotgun. “I’m confused. Did you talk to Beryle recently?”

  “The cancer claimed Beryle before I could kill her. I was never going to let her live. I figured the threats were over. That’s when the stupid bird picked up on me talking to Hattie.” She pulled the shotgun up to the roof of the car, and with her eye on the sights aimed at Kiwi again. “I decided to be sure there wasn’t a manuscript to check out the house for myself. That’s when I met Cecily. Cecily insisted there was a secret tell-all and though she never said it, I could see in her eyes that the secret was my secret.” She chuckled. “Wally Lamb didn’t waste a moment getting Beryle’s things out of here and letting Ruby Smith know that she was the executor because Hattie couldn’t be. It was then that I wondered if Beryle had decided to put the manuscript in one of her antiques, that way someone would happen upon it and sell my life’s secrets along with my money just because they found it. Beryle was conniving. She’d do that, you know.”

  I nodded just to agree with her. There was no way I was going to be able to convince this crazy person of anything. I could see it in her eyes. She was on a mission to kill anyone in her way of getting the manuscript.

  “I told Cecily to meet me at the antique shop. I’d lied and told her that the estate would get a lot more money for Hattie if we found the manuscript and sold it. We went inside and looked around. We went into the storage room where Ruby had left the inventory sheet to make sure we’d checked all the furniture,” she said.

  “Yep. That’s where that feather you found came from. Paige worked at the Inn all day. She’s pretty much in charge of Hattie, who Kiwi practically lives with. The feather must’ve stuck on Paige’s clothes and when she went to the antique store, the feather floated off her during the scuffle.” Poppa paced behind Paige. He rubbed his chin. “Now I need to figure out how to get you out of this pickle.”

  I glared at him as he ghosted away. Leaving me wasn’t going to help at all.

  “It was then that I knew it was time to kill Cecily. I grabbed the ax and hit her over the head. I never figured she’d fight back. She swung her arm and knocked the ax out of my hands. She hit me with the handle. That’s when I was knocked out.” She shrugged. “Apparently, she didn’t have enough gumption to kill me, so she dragged herself out into the alley and died.” She looked up at the falling rain through the loft. “When I woke up in the hospital, I was surprised you didn’t know it was me. I thought I was off the hook. Then Lonnie…” Disgust fell from her lips.

  “What about Lonnie? Where is he?” I asked.

  “He’s an idiot. After you left the hospital, he started using his investigative skills. He started to put two and two together. He stood in my hospital room and solved every single detail. He had a leg up on you because he knew he’d had the affair with Beryle. He claimed it was a perfect motive for me to kill her. He told me that I’d now ruined his run for the sheriff’s office and he was going to turn me in. I wasn’t about to let that happen.” She tsk’d.

  She threw her head back and let the rain that was falling from the loft pound down on her.

  “Lonnie left and I slipped out of the hospital. Not like Cottonwood is so big that I couldn’t make it home on my own. There he was. Sitting by the fireplace, his phone in his hand. When he saw me, he told me that he’d just spoken with Finn Vincent, and Finn was on his way over to get Lonnie’s statement.”

  Suddenly my heart fell. Finn. What did she do?

  “What?” she asked. There was a look of satisfaction on her face. “Did that get your attention, Kenni Lowry?” She laughed out loud. “Funny, I’d heard something about you and Finn at the church group. I was a bit nervous since I knew I needed to attend to have an alibi, so I didn’t get the full story, but it seemed that you were being a little town floozy right in front of Ben’s. Your poor mama. Such a shame.”

  “Say cheese!” a voice called from the front of the barn.

  Hattie looked up and smiled while Paige and I turned toward the voice. A click of a camera flashed so brightly, I looked away. When I did, I saw that Paige had brought her arm up to shield her eyes. I scrambled to my feet and let the adrenaline of how mad I was from her words about Finn take over. With a thud like the rolling thunder ahead, Paige went down with me on top of her. The shotgun, my shotgun, skidded across the floor.

  “I’ve got you covered.” The sweet sound of Edna Easterly’s voice rang above the clapping thunder, right before the yellow flashing light of Graves Towing’s truck lit up the inside of the barn through the open doors, giving me the light I needed to get Paige Lemar into handcuffs.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  “Edna, I don’t know why you’re here, but I’m sure glad,” I said after I’d used Sean Graves’s phone to call Betty at home to tell her to send an ambulance.

  Luckily, Paige hadn’t hurt Lonnie or Finn; instead, she’d cuffed Lonnie to the foot of their claw foot tub with his own handcuffs and used his gun to cuff Finn to their bed post, something I kind of wished I’d seen.

  “You can thank Jetter.” Edna pointed to the visiting tabloid reporter who was giving her statement to Finn, who’d been released and headed right over. “She’s been following Beryle Stone around for years, since her mother retired from the tabloid. She took over for her. Her mother was obsessed with Beryle Stone and her reclusive life. She was even on the trail of Hattie being the sister after she’d traced money from a bogus charity going back to the Inn. She’d also been hot on the trail about a ghostwriter but never figured it was Paige. Somehow, she used her contacts to find out about the results of the Kim’s Buffet tape. She’d also overheard at the diner how you were looking for Sterling. She found him. He told her he saw Paige and Cecily arguing. He’d hidden by the dumpster, and when Cecily stumbled out of the shop all bloody and half dead, he got spooked and ran off. He’s been in hiding because he wasn’t sure how to tell anyone that it was Paige.”

  “And that’s how the video got him and why we couldn’t find him.” I tried to wrap my head on exactly how they had gotten here. “How did you know to come to the barn?”

  “Jetter said it was the strangest thing. She was in her room at the Inn working on the article. Sterling was with her, using her room as a safe haven until she figured out how to get him to open up to you about that murder. She said the papers on her desk flew around like the wind had hit them.” Edna continued, but it was Poppa standing behind her that had caught my attention.

  He’d hung his thumbs in his belt with a big ol’ grin on his face.

  “That was me.” He pointed to himself. “I blew them papers off to make the hospital information float right on top of her laptop. I made her think about Paige and if she’d woken up yet.” Poppa tapped his temple. “Jetter called the hospital and they told her that Paige was no longer a patient. They left out the part that she’d skipped out. But she was smart enough to go by the Lemar place. She thought she was going to get an exclusive from Paige and what happened that night at Ruby’s shop before she turned her in. Sterling went with her.”

  “They happened to go in the house when no one answered.” Edna’s voice overtook Poppa’s, so I diverted my attention back to her. “That’s when she saw Lonnie and Finn all tied up.” She leaned in and whispered, “Between me and you, I’d have taken a few pictures of that hunk Finn just for my records.” She winked. “If you know what I mean. In handcuffs and all.”

  “How did you get here?” I asked, rushing the story and trying to get the
image of Finn handcuffed to a bed out of my head.

  “Jetter called me and told me what she’d found and how the reserve officers were on their way over to get her statement. She said that Finn had mentioned something about you and Hattie at the estate. We decided I’d come to the house to see if I could uncover anything about Hattie, and that’s when I noticed the barn door was open. That’s all she wrote.”

  “We didn’t see your headlights because the lightning was so bad.” I never thought I’d say this to Edna. “I’m so happy you have that new crazy flash camera.”

  “Well, I will forgive your harsh words. But I want an exclusive for the Chronicle.” She patted the camera hanging around her neck.

  “You drive a hard bargain, Edna.” I teased. “Go on. Take all the photos you want. This case is closed.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Knock, knock. I lightly tapped on the door of my new neighbor’s house.

  “Come in!” Finn Vincent’s voice echoed through the house and out of the screen door. Music blared from inside. Paint fumes drifted out to greet me.

  “Just moved in and already feeling at home enough to yell ‘come in’?” I mimicked him.

  He stood on the ladder in the family room with a paintbrush in one hand and a paint can in the other. He had on a pair of blue faded jeans and a white V-neck tee.

  “Don’t just stand there. Grab a brush.” He turned back to cutting in underneath the ceiling.

  “I don’t do painting. Unless it’s my nails.” I wiggled my fingers in the air. “Mama took me to Tiny Tina’s. She said I needed a good spa day since we solved the murder and Lonnie told everyone at the council meeting last night that he wasn’t going to run against me for sheriff.”