Dead Man's Carve (A Tickled to Death Mystery Book 1)

by Kym Roberts

  “But why?” I croaked, realizing for the first time that my hands were behind my back and my chest was bound to the back of the chair with duct tape. My feet remained free. Like that was any consolation.

  “Because you brought the police back. They’ve been all over town asking question about Max and Ryan. They asked for video from my store and Woody’s. With all this video floating around, my business will be under suspicion. So it’s time to put an end to it all.”

  Between the splitting of my brain and his rantings, I felt like I was watching a Shakespearean tragedy unfold. The only problem was that I was trapped in the middle of the damn thing. Three men had died, Bob was still knocking on death’s door, and Tommy and I appeared to be next in line. Wasn’t there a play in which all of the main characters died, leaving behind one man to be king?

  Would that leave Brendan, Stone or my dad to run the town? And where did Brandy Kay fit into the mix? Two days ago I thought she’d decided to forget it all to be with Tommy. Today she seemed aligned with Brendan, even if it was by force.

  Church bells chimed and I couldn’t help but wonder if my cell phone was signaling a funeral or a miracle.

  “For Whom the Bell Tolls?” Brendan smirked.

  Really? This had to be a nightmare. Wasn’t it time for a cowboy to ride in and save the day?

  Where the hell was Stone?

  My phone chirped notification of a voicemail, and Brandy Kay moved toward her cubicle where my bride stood on the counter. Back to the beginning. The story would come in full circle — back to where it began.

  “Why did you kill Max?”

  Brandy Kay’s eyes shot to Brendan. “We didn’t. He committed suicide.”

  “I saw the video of Tommy telling Carl to follow Max into the woods. Carl had a very large knife. The police have the knife and the video now.” I really hoped Stone had given the video to the police by now.

  Brandy Kay’s head began shaking back and forth in denial. She looked at Tommy, then Brendan, who gave the same damn shit-happens shrug.

  “Why?” I asked again, dying for answers yet wanting to stall for time as well. Although if given the chance, I might kill for some Tylenol at this point.

  “It all started when a stripper came to town and tried to use a forged prescription in my store.” Brendan smiled at Brandy Kay.

  The color drained from her face, making the handprint stand out even more as she shook her head in denial.

  Brendan nodded. “Unfortunately, my dear, that is where it started.” It was as if he was telling her the facts were the facts, and Brandy Kay had to face them.

  Still shaking her head, Brandy Kay explained. “I was just trying to get some pain killers for Tommy. We couldn’t afford a doctor.”

  “Ahhh, but you used a stolen prescription, didn’t you dear.” Brendan turned back to me. “I liked Brandy Kay. She was an excellent dancer, so instead of turning her over to the police, we went into business together. She obtained the prescriptions, I submitted them for claims.”

  My brow furrowed. Tommy had said Brandy Kay worked for a doctor in Georgia, but that was years ago. Where was she getting the scripts and what did that have to do with Max and Ryan?

  “I see you haven’t put as much together as I’d thought. Pity.” Brendan shook his head as if he was sorry. Unfortunately for me, it wasn’t genuine. “You received Ms. Warren’s package of prescriptions much like our young Max did. Unlike Max, you didn’t question them. Just sealed it back up and gave it to our Tommy. Who so kindly gave it to my Ms. Warren without even asking what it was.” Brendan snickered. “So we were able to let it slide, but now…” He shook his head again and I swore if he said, ‘Pity’ one more time, I was going to bum rush him, chair and all.

  “The prescriptions?” I still couldn’t fathom what I knew that would put me in the position of being shot and taped to a chair.

  “Do you think I was able to finance the renovation of Lucky Drugs on the income I get from the residents of Tickle Creek? Brandy Kay and I had the perfect thing going. She bought the prescription in the names of VA patients from a friend who works there, and I submitted the claims for an assortment of medications without dispensing a thing. But when Max accidently opened Brandy Kay’s mail and recognized one of the names, he didn’t forget about it like you did. The name belonged to a buddy of his who’d recently died of cancer after serving in Afghanistan.” He shrugged like his decision to take a life meant nothing. “My renovation had just started, and he wouldn’t let it go.”

  Brandy Kay looked like she was going to be sick. I pushed for more. “So you hired Carl to kill Max, and Tommy told Carl where to find him.”

  “Something like that.”

  “Tommy didn’t know a thing about it. I told Brendan that Max got the package, I had no idea — ” Brandy Kay denied. Her voice lost in pain but strong in support of the bouncer at my feet.

  My eyes met Tommy’s, but he wasn’t looking at me. He was looking for the place in the past when everything fell apart. That one moment in time when if he’d done something different, life would have put all of us somewhere other than here and now. His lashes fluttered closed and I knew he just wanted to block out the truth.

  Unfortunately, that was my aha moment. I saw that Brandy Kay was telling the truth, and I also realized this was the first she’d heard about Max’s death. She may have suspected something before now, but she didn’t know for sure.

  With my fate sealed, I needed all the answers. “Why Ryan?”

  “That’s my fault.” Brandy Kay confessed.

  Tommy struggled to turn and see the woman he loved.

  “Alex came asking questions about Max. I knew he was a vet because of his — his leg and I thought maybe he was the person I’d heard Max talking to about the prescriptions. I sorta freaked and called Brendan.”

  “She does tend to be on the dramatic side.” Brendan flicked some imaginary piece of lint from this pants.

  “Who’s Alex?” I asked, afraid the stripper knew his name when I didn’t.

  “Alex Stone, the vet who pulled you from the creek.”

  I nodded, trying not to let anyone see how much that information bothered me. It shouldn’t, considering the predicament I was in, but it did.

  Brandy Kay started to finish her story. “Brendan told me to calm d—down.”

  “But of course, Brandy Kay wouldn’t listen. So I had Carl keep an eye on her, just to make sure she didn’t squeal.”

  Brandy Kay defended herself. “I did what you told me to do. I told Stone I would look into Max’s life.”

  “But you couldn’t let it go there, could you?” Brendan’s voice was beginning to grate on my nerves.

  Brandy Kay came toward me, pleading for me to understand. “I thought Ryan and Steve were feds. They were new, and acted…differently. Steve in his preppy clothes and Ryan in his suit. I probably wouldn’t have noticed them, except guys like that want to show off how much they can tip. They didn’t. Neither one was really into the dancers. They argued and pointed, but they didn’t fit our clientele. Ryan looked everywhere but up on stage. I was going to tell him —”

  “That I made her do it, of course.”

  Brandy Kay recognized something in Brendan’s voice that I missed. Her eyes welled with unshed tears, she nearly begged me to believe her. But then she looked at Tommy and I saw her mouth the words, ‘I’m sorry.’

  “Carl tended to get as spooked as she did, and he killed the poor guy before Brandy could even tell him why his life was in danger.”

  Tommy screamed. A tormented noise behind the duct tape that was worse than any animal stuck in a trap. His agony was soul chilling and caused Brandy Kay to cry as she attempted to kneel down at his side. But Brendan wouldn’t allow it. He grabbed her and pulled her away, which made Tommy yell and wrench at his bound shoulders.

  “I — I thought Carl would k — kill you, too. I had to make s — sure that didn’t happen.” Brandy Kay no longer cared what I thought. Tommy’s
opinion was all that mattered. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  Brendan of course, was happy to fill me in on the details I was missing. “It seems Tommy thought Brandy Kay needed rescuing and went out in search of her. What he found was your poor dead customer with Carl’s knife in his abdomen.”

  Brandy Kay’s brows puckered as she continued to plead with Tommy. “I thought he would kill you.”

  “Can you imagine?” Brendan seemed to be thoroughly enjoying the situation. “Fearing Carl would continue on his rampage and kill our brutish Tommy?”

  The way he emphasized the word kill sent chills up my spine.

  “How could little old Carl get the better of a man with all those muscles?” Brendan was gloating now. It was so sickeningly vicious, I was having a hard time reconciling the Brendan I knew with the man in front of me. “But then, I got the best of all that brawn, didn’t I?”

  I couldn’t take it anymore. “What did you see in him?”

  Tears streamed down Brandy Kay’s face. She answered my question, but her eyes never left Tommy. “I just wanted a better life for us. A nice house with a yard and a dog. Two cars, I just wanted what we dreamed of back in Georgia.”

  Brendan chuckled and Tommy closed his eyes, no doubt wishing this was all just a really bad dream. “You believed her. Never dreeeamed she would lie to you in a situation like that, with so much on the line. You actually believed Carl would come to the rescue of our charming Brandy Kay. And you sealed your fate by helping Carl put that man’s body on the tracks.”

  My breath hitched and I looked at Tommy for confirmation, but he never opened his eyes. It was as if all the fight was finally out of him.

  Missy had been right. Ryan loved her. I had judged him according to what I expected from men who visit strip clubs. But Ryan hadn’t been ‘one of those guys.’ Like my Jacob, he was capable of loving and desiring one woman.

  There was one question that still plagued me. The one that brought me to being taped to a chair in a stripper’s dressing room. “Why’d you take the carving and run off into the woods with it? Why’d you keep it?”

  Brandy Kay wiped her nose on the sleeve of her shirt. “I saw him leaving and I had to know if he, and the guy he was with, were feds. At first it was just a ploy to get Ryan to talk to me.

  “Because the feds walk into strip bars all the time.” Brendan shook his head.

  I wanted to remind him of a recent scandal involving prostitutes and the men who protect the most important man in the free world, but I let Brandy Kay finish.

  “I asked him if he got the carving at Tickle Me Timbers and asked to see it. But then the tow truck came, and I knew if he left, I’d never have the opportunity to…”

  “To play the innocent stripper trapped in the middle of a drug scheme and strike a deal with the feds.” Brendan smirked.

  Tommy now glared over his shoulder at my former friend while I gritted my teeth, unable to fathom how I had not seen Brendan’s condescending personality.

  “I ran off with the bride, hoping he’d follow. And h — he … did.”

  If I hadn’t made the cake topper, Ryan would be alive. If Steve hadn’t gone into Woody’s, Ryan would be getting married tomorrow. If Ryan had just let Brandy Kay take the stupid sculpture, Missy would have never known it was missing and she’d be leaving for her honeymoon — tomorrow.

  Tommy stirred at my feet. I looked down and met his eyes. His heart, openly bleeding on his sleeve, every bit of his love for this woman visible to anyone who cared enough to look. Who needed poetry when you had that?

  Brandy Kay tried to reach out for Tommy, but Brendan wouldn’t allow it. “Tommy helped pull his body on the tracks because I told him that Ryan had attacked me, that ‘No one would believe a stripper tried to fight off a man trying to rape her. They’d think Carl and I were trying to roll him.’”

  There was truth in that statement. Carl and Brandy Kay would have been brought up on charges if Tommy had tried to explain the murder away with her lies.

  “Who killed Carl?” I looked at all three people, wondering who could have killed the killer. Then the events of that night came back to me. “Brendan.”

  “Bravo, Rilee. Maybe the little widow has more brains than I gave her credit for. Unfortunately our little Joan of Arc’s crusade to save the poor down trodden of Tickle Creek, has backfired.”

  I scoffed at his insult. “What’d he do, want more money?”

  A slow grin spread across his face. “Money was never an issue with Carl. OxyContin and alcohol were his choices. But his decision-making skills to kill the poor groom were pathetic at best, and they were only getting worse. He rambled more and more frequently about things he shouldn’t and his paranoia was becoming increasingly difficult to deal with. It was time to take out the trash.”

  If anyone would agree that Carl was trash it would be me, but I valued human life a little bit differently than Brendan. I wanted to put Brendan in his place, he’d made his fair share of mistakes. “But when you tried to set me up for murder, not only did you not stab him, you didn’t count on me finding the knife.”

  “Yes, that was a miscalculation on my part. I’d accidentally taken one of your knives from class. I never dreamed you’d be so resourceful before the police arrived.” He smiled, an evil fire lighting up within him. “Let me guess. Mr. Stone helped you find it.”

  ‘The little compartment under the radio?’ Yes, Stone had led me to the knife.

  “I can see from the look on your face that I’m right. He just might be a challenging man to deal with.” Brendan’s eyes glimmered with anticipation.

  The thought of him touching Stone had my blood boiling.

  “Ahh, I see you’re smitten with our war vet.”

  Tommy tried to roll over, but his body, too drugged or too sore from the awkward position, wouldn’t cooperate. He rocked back to his side while looking at me.

  It was Brandy Kay that surprised me. “Let her go, Brendan. We can disappear together. No one will find us.”

  “Brandy, darlin’,” he took on her Southern drawl with ease, “I’m bettin’ your just messin’ with me to help her, and you just done pissed me off for the last time.”

  Jumping to his feet, Brendan began kicking her ex, the man who loved her enough to drag an innocent man’s body onto the railroad tracks for her. Strike after strike, he aimed for Tommy’s kidneys.

  “Stop it!” Brandy Kay and I screamed together. Tommy’s eyes closed hard, but I didn’t think the physical pain was what hurt him the most.

  Brendan actually listened. Breathing hard, his anger was in check once more, but his eyes flicked up and down my body, dismissing me. Permanently.

  Looking around the room, he moved behind me and I waited for the hammer to fall once again. But he wasn’t ready to kill me. Instead he rummaged behind me for some unknown object.

  “Brendan, don’t do this. We can just leave, together.” Brandy Kay’s pleading reached the desperation level as she watched her partner’s every move. I twisted to see what increased her anxiety.

  Terror like I’d never felt, swept through my body. Nothing existed but the man I’d called a friend and the can of paint thinner in his hand. Highly flammable paint thinner.

  “Isn’t that romantic?” Brendan asked while holding up the can and a package of matches. His voice sounded so sweet, so innocent, it hurt.

  Unable to answer, I stared in horror. My body shaking, I was quickly becoming hysterical. I knew it, but I was powerless to stop it.

  Brendan smiled. “You should see your face.”

  “Where is it going to stop?” My voice screeched, but I didn’t care.

  “When our town is purged of this awful bar.”

  “This isn’t your town. Mayor…”

  “Yes, our mayor. He has been a trying sort with his cameras everywhere. Thank you for letting me know they were there. If it hadn’t been for you, I would have never known to look for them. But again you meddled. It would have been so
much easier if you didn’t take all of the DVDs out of the store.”

  “You did that to Bob?” Was there no end to the violence this man had committed?

  “I must say that was the first time I’d ever gotten my hands dirty. It was quite delightful to feel Bob’s skull crush under my tire iron. My enjoyment was cut short however when your vet almost caught me, peg-leg and all.”

  My body stopped shaking. Hatred consumed me. If I’d had a tire iron I would know exactly how ‘delightful’ it felt to crush in Brendan’s skull. “You son-of-a-bitch. Stone’s going to see you in hell.”

  Brendan went unfazed. “I think we’ve shared enough, don’t you?” Not waiting for a reply, he opened the can of paint thinner and sloshed it across the room – the fumes filled my nostrils with a preview of death.

  Tommy refused to give up. He openly struggled with his hands and feet. Brandy Kay looked frantically from Brendan to Tommy, and then me.

  “Brendan please, let’s just go.” She begged.

  Brendan winked. “Almost done, darling.”

  Dowsing the strippers’ costumes, he sauntered toward the door like a righteous victor. “I guess you are like Joan of Arc, after all. She died tied to a stake. You’ll die taped to a chair. Maybe adding a little fuel to the fire will make the comparison complete?” Liquid splashed at my feet sending Tommy rolling in the opposite direction and me hopping sideways with the chair.

  Brendan’s laughter filled the air, “Au revoir, mon amour.” He pulled Brandy Kay with him as she tripped in her heels and closed the door. I’d expected him to light a match and toss it in, but he didn’t. I had no doubt he would start a fire. But for now, we were alive.

  I swore I would never trust another person who had a good laugh. Or someone who thought so much like myself. Joan of Arc was my hero. Why did he have to fill my head with images of dying at the stake?

  This was it. I was going to be seeing Jacob. I didn’t think I was ready, but what choice did I have? I was taped to a chair, my legs were splattered with paint thinner. Any minute Brendan would start a fire.

  My head continued to pulsate with pain, the fumes compounding the torment. Maybe I would pass out before the fire reached me. If I welcomed the smoke, it would end quicker, and less painfully.