Sitting, I looked for Doug but didn’t see him around. When the bartender approached, I said, “Is Doug working tonight?”
“He is,” the young man said, “but he stepped out a minute ago. He’ll be back soon. You want a drink while you wait?”
“No, thanks.” I was already wound up enough without adding alcohol to fuel my fire.
“He’s driving Hyacinth home,” someone said as she slid onto the stool next to mine. “I passed them on my way here.”
“She’s been drinking again?” I asked.
“Still,” Mayor Barbara Jean corrected as she ordered a vodka tonic and glanced my way. “She hasn’t stopped since Haywood died. She was bad off tonight. Her grief is killing her.”
I didn’t think it was the grief so much as the booze.
A second later, Barbara Jean asked, “Why are you looking for Doug?”
“No reason in particular,” I said, evading like a pro.
The mayor slid me a dubious glance. “PJ told us how you’re trying to investigate Haywood’s death to help clear her name, bless your heart. But don’t you think stalking all her friends—and their husbands—is taking it a bit too far?”
“That depends.”
The bartender set her drink in front of her and she picked it up. “On what?”
“On whether one of you killed him. If one of you did, then no, it’s not too far.”
“You’re not serious?” she said, sipping her drink.
“Deadly.”
A group at a table nearby erupted in laughter, and it seemed so at odds with the conversation I was having that it almost made me smile.
Leaning back, Barbara Jean draped one arm over the back of the stool. “Why? Why would one of us kill a friend?”
“The blackmail.”
“Not that again,” she said. “I heard how you peppered Hyacinth and Patricia. Ridiculous.”
“Is it? And how about your blackmail letters?” I asked, suddenly exhausted. “How did you feel about someone threatening to expose your gambling addiction? Ridiculous?”
Her mouth dropped open, but she didn’t say anything. She just kept staring.
I sighed. “Look, I don’t care what you do in your free time, as long as you do it with your own money. You’ve never used Harpies’ or town funds to gamble, have you?”
Through clenched teeth, she said, “Never.”
A lie.
Dang.
I could practically feel the time slipping away. I pushed harder. “Okay, let me run this theory by you. Let’s say your wife’s a gambler. Maybe she’s racked up some debts, and you’re having trouble paying them off . . . You need cash quick. Your friends are loaded but you just can’t ask for a handout straight-out. Pride’s on the line. So you concoct a plan to use some secrets you know to bring in some money. No harm. No foul. Except what if one of the people you’re blackmailing suddenly stops paying? And threatens to track you down and expose your identity? Your house of cards is about to collapse. You panic. And you kill him.”
Barbara Jean set her glass down and started clapping. “That’s not a theory. That’s a wonderful work of fiction. You get your storytelling skills from your mama.”
Anger surged through me, and I forced myself to calm down. It had been a low blow, bringing my mama into this. “Why were you breaking into Haywood’s house on Sunday? At first I thought it was because you were looking for the papers that proved Haywood was an Ezekiel, but that couldn’t be. You didn’t know.”
She stared at her fingernails, cleared her throat, and said in that beautiful voice of hers, “Let’s theoretically say I might have been looking for evidence that Haywood was in fact the blackmailer.”
I understood. She’d have wanted to get rid of any proof he might have had against her. “But he wasn’t the blackmailer.”
“Then who was, Carly?” she asked.
It was a good question. One I didn’t have an answer to.
I glanced toward the door, wondering what to do next, and saw a bald head bobbing through the crowd, the light glinting off the bare skin.
At first I thought it might be Doug returning, but it wasn’t. Just a man passing by to use the restroom.
“You’re forgetting one thing, however,” she said.
“What’s that?” I asked, distracted by what I’d just seen. The bald head. The glare.
It sent me back to yesterday when Virgil was talking about the man who’d hit him. A bald man in a black SUV.
The Ramelles had a black SUV. I’d seen it myself parked yesterday at the Ezekiel house. And their house was just a block from where Virgil was killed. It was nighttime, and he’d been wearing dark clothing while out walking Louella . . .
“I was blackmailed too,” Mayor Ramelle said. “Why would a husband blackmail his own wife? That doesn’t make sense. Besides, if we were in financial straits—which we’re not—I wouldn’t have had the cash to pay anyone.”
It took all I had to focus on what she was saying. Annoyingly, she made sense. I’d been so sure Doug was the blackmailer, that I’d overlooked some key facts.
Okay, I relented. So maybe Doug wasn’t the blackmailer who killed Haywood.
But was he the man who killed Virgil? “Where did you and Doug spend Founder’s Day? That night, specifically.” I’d been in the Ring, watching the fireworks.
She stared at me as though my neck had sprouted another head.
“Have you been drinking, Carly Bell?” She sniffed the air around me. “Were we not just talking about a blackmailer?”
“Founder’s Day?” I asked impatiently. “Where were you that night?”
“I was at the town fireworks for my duties as mayor, but the Harpies had an event at the country club that night, too. Doug filled in for me until I could join them later. Why?”
“How late were all of you there?”
“Until midnight or one. Well, except Hyacinth left early, around eleven, because she had a little too much to drink and got into a fight with one of the waitresses.”
Hyacinth who lived less than a block from where Virgil had been killed.
A bald man . . . Glare. “Who drove her home? Was it Doug who took her? It was Doug, wasn’t it?”
“You’ve lost your mind, Carly. I’m done talking with you. Pack up your crazy and go away.”
I hopped off my stool. Fine. I’d leave. I’d ask Doug instead. And I knew just where to find him.
I just hoped he was still at Hyacinth’s house by the time I got there.
• • •
The lights were on at Hyacinth’s as I strode up the front walkway, but there was no sign of Doug or his SUV. Frustrated, I wasn’t sure what to do.
Since I was here, I could ask Hyacinth what time Haywood’s funeral was so I could let Avery know, but if Hyacinth had been drinking, I didn’t really want to deal with her at all.
I glanced up at the moon. It had to be eight o’clock by now.
Four hours left.
I’d go back to the Delphinium. Find Doug. Get the answers I wanted about Virgil’s death.
But, no, . . . I couldn’t focus on Virgil right now. He had already crossed. I needed to keep trying to uncover who killed Haywood.
Sighing, I sat on Hyacinth’s front step, at a loss for where to go next. I’d exhausted all possibilities.
After stewing for a minute, I decided I’d go home. Maybe Dylan had the results of the search warrants. I needed to have faith that something would click before time ran out.
Standing, I started down the walkway when a sudden pain burst at the back of my head. Wincing, I turned and found Haywood floating near Hyacinth’s front door. Frantic, he motioned me to follow him inside.
I sprinted toward the door, a sick feeling in my stomach. I tried the doorknob, but it was locked. Scooting over to the window, I peeked inside but didn’t see anything.
Looking back at Haywood, I saw he was pointing at the mailbox.
Apparently, he and Hyacinth shared the same hiding pla
ce for the spare key.
Reaching inside, my fingers closed over a piece of cool metal. I quickly slipped the key into the dead bolt and clicked the latch.
“Hyacinth?” I called out.
Haywood flew up the stairs. I followed, my stomach roiling.
“Hyacinth! Hello! It’s Carly!”
Haywood waved me down a long hall, and as soon as I entered the bedroom, I saw why he was so frantic.
Hyacinth was lying facedown on the bed, an empty bottle of hooch in one hand, and an empty container of prescription something-or-other in the other.
“Hyacinth!” I rolled her over, checked for a pulse. It was there, weak but steady.
Looking around, I found a phone on the nightstand and called for help.
“Come on, Hyacinth!” I urged after speaking with the dispatcher. “Wake up.”
Gently, I slapped her face and she moaned a bit but didn’t open her eyes. “Come on, come on!”
I held her hand and talked to her, telling her how Avery wanted to come up to Hitching Post on Thursday and how she knew Hyacinth had only been trying to protect her. I couldn’t bear to look at Haywood. Watching his heart break was almost too painful to take. “Hyacinth! Open your damn eyes,” I pleaded.
I heard a pitiful moan, and at first I thought it was Haywood, but it wasn’t. It slipped from Hyacinth’s lips, quiet as a whisper.
“Open your eyes, Hyacinth! Open them!”
She lifted one lid, moaned, and let it drift closed again.
“No, no!” I cried. “Wake up!”
Blinking slowly, her brow furrowed. “Sorry,” she murmured, squeezing her eyes shut again.
“Nothing to be sorry for,” I said. “Help will be here in a minute. You’ll be fine.”
“Didn’t mean to kill him,” she said quietly, the words slurred. “Sorry. So sorry.”
“Kill who?” I asked, my heart pounding. “Haywood?”
“No,” she moaned. “Virgil. So sorry. Didn’t mean—” Her head lolled to the side.
“Hyacinth!” I felt for a pulse again. It was weak, so weak.
The sound of sirens grew louder, and I silently urged them to hurry.
Before it was too late.
Chapter Twenty-four
A half hour later, I walked through my back door, dragging the weight of the world behind me.
The ambulance was on the way to the hospital, and there wasn’t much I could do now but say a prayer that she’d survive.
I was still stunned by her admission that she’d killed Virgil. Her reaction to seeing Louella now made sense as did the overwhelming guilt I’d read in her energy, but what didn’t was the fact that Virgil had claimed it was a bald man who’d run him over.
Hyacinth certainly wasn’t bald, nor was she a man.
She had, however, previously owned a black SUV. She sold it in June when Haywood bought her the sports car. Just a month after Virgil had been hit.
I didn’t know what to make of it, and my brain was starting to hurt from trying.
It had been one seriously long day, and though I wanted to crawl into bed so badly, I had such little time left to help Haywood.
The last I’d seen of him, he’d been in the back of the ambulance with Hyacinth, driving down the road. I didn’t know when he’d be back. Whether it would be a few minutes, an hour . . . or, if I couldn’t figure out who killed him soon, a whole year.
I checked the note on the counter to see if Dylan had added to it. He had.
Still going over reports. Will be back as soon as possible. Is Louella okay?
I called for her as I walked into the living room. I found her curled into the corner of the couch, barely moving. I sat next to her. “I know you’re sad, but you have to eat. And drink.”
She blinked at me.
Roly and Poly watched over her from the back of the couch, and I gave them scratches before going back into the kitchen to prep a feast of varying dog food flavors.
Back on the couch, I used the dull side of a plastic knife as a fork and waved it in front of Louella’s little black nose.
It didn’t so much as twitch. I tried another flavor and another.
Nothing.
I set the paper plate on the coffee table and said, “Virgil loved you. He wants you to be happy. You need to eat.” I rubbed her head, and when she didn’t nip, I ran my hand down her spine as well.
And was horrified when the motion made some of her fur fall out. I petted her again, and more fur came off, leaving behind a bald patch. I reached for the cordless phone, didn’t even bother with calling the emergency number for the vet clinic. I dialed Doc Gabriel at home.
“Sorry for calling so late,” I said after Idella put him on the line. “It’s Louella. She’s not eating or drinking and her fur is falling out, and she can’t die after all this. She just can’t.”
“Carly, take a deep breath.”
I breathed.
“How soon can you get her to the clinic?” he asked.
“Five minutes at most.”
“I’ll meet you there,” he said. “It’s going to be okay, Carly. Louella’s tougher than she looks.” He hung up.
When I put the cordless down, I noticed that Roly and Poly had helped themselves to the plate of dog food. It was completely licked clean. Both sat on the coffee table, swishing their tails innocently. “I’ll deal with you two later,” I said.
Neither seemed scared by my words.
They knew me too well.
I thought about calling Dylan at work, but if he was deep in the middle of scouring those bank accounts, then I didn’t want to disturb him. If there was even the slimmest chance he could uncover Haywood’s killer in that information, I had to let him do his job. It might be the last hope Haywood had.
I added to the note on the counter, grabbed my Jeep keys, scooped up Louella, and headed out.
After loading her into the Jeep, I looked at her and said, “Don’t you dare die on me.”
She blinked. I figured that was her way of telling me to mind my own business.
Driving as fast as possible, I pulled into the vet clinic four minutes later.
A cold wind whipped my hair around as I ran to the passenger door to grab Louella, carrying with it the scent of woodsmoke from a nearby fireplace.
The smell made my stomach churn with bad memories as I cuddled Louella close to my chest and ran for the door.
Doc was waiting for us and took Louella out of my arms. He rushed her back to a treatment room and set her on the table. “I haven’t seen her like this since Virgil died.”
“Apparently she didn’t like me as much as I thought.” I bit my thumbnail as I paced nervously.
I didn’t want to talk about Virgil. Not right now.
As he went about checking her over, pulling gently on her skin, looking in her mouth and eyes, he said, “Sit down, Carly, before I have to treat you, too.”
I sat.
The building was eerily quiet this time of night, even with the occasional bark from the kennel.
“You’ve had quite the night,” he said. “Our phone has been ringing off the hook. The Harpies are in a twitter between you asking questions and what happened to Hyacinth . . .”
“You know about Hyacinth already?”
I gave me a small smile. “I believe there’s already a billboard on Dogwood Street.”
I groaned.
“It’s a miracle you found her when you did.”
“It is,” I said. “I’d actually gone there looking for Doug.”
“Doug?”
“He had driven her home from the Delphinium.”
“That’s right,” he said, holding up a wait-a-sec finger as he used a stethoscope to listen to Louella’s heart and lungs. He finished and picked up the conversation. “I’ve done the same many times.”
“Do you think she’s an alcoholic?” I asked.
“I think she overindulges, especially when she’s upset. Lately, that’s a lot.”
&nbs
p; He crossed the room to grab supplies from a cabinet, and pipe tobacco wafted in his wake.
It stung my nose, at once stirring a memory . . . I tried desperately to tease it from the back corners of my mind.
“Well, I can’t say I blame her,” I finally said. “There’s been a lot to get upset about lately, between being blackmailed and her boyfriend being murdered.”
“An understatement,” he said, then added, “Louella’s dehydrated. I’ll have to start an IV, okay?”
I realized he was asking because I was her owner. “Yes, yes. Do whatever it takes.”
“It’s good you called when you did. She could go a few days without food, but dehydration gets serious really fast.”
“So she’ll be okay?”
“Just fine. A transition to a new home is often traumatic for animals. She needs time to adjust. She’ll come around.”
I leaned my head back against the wall and took a deep breath. I felt the sting of tears in my eyes and willed them away.
“Do you need some water?” he asked, walking past me again.
The woodsmoke. That pipe tobacco scent . . . The combination was familiar, yet I couldn’t quite place it.
I rubbed my eyes. “I’m okay. It’s just been three of the longest days of my entire life.”
He prepped Louella’s paw for the IV. “Idella mentioned you were trying to help clear Patricia’s name?”
I couldn’t tell him my main goal had been to help Haywood, so I said, “I thought it would help patch our relationship. It didn’t work out so well.”
“Because she’s guilty?”
I laughed. “No, because she hates me.”
I thought about Twilabeth and nearly groaned again.
“I don’t think that’s true,” he said, carefully inserting the catheter into Louella’s paw.
“You’re a nice man. Blind but nice. It doesn’t matter anyway. She’s made it clear that she doesn’t want my help.”
He glanced up. “Yet, you were looking for Doug tonight.”
I shrugged. “It’s complicated.”
“Not in Barbara Jean’s eyes,” he said, smiling again.
Geez. “She told you?”
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