And Death Goes to . . .

by Laura Bradford

  I stopped chewing and pushed the remaining duds into the corner of my mouth so I could speak as intelligibly as possible. “Excuse me?”

  “The grandmother. She’s the one who suggested Sam go behind the building to make his call. Even pointed the spot out to him, herself.”

  “Mavis Callahan knows about Kevin and Lexa?”

  “Sam said she was angry but not surprised. That implies knowledge, Tobi.”

  “Snort! Snort! S-nort!”

  This time, I rolled my eyes.

  “That’s right, Rudder, I’m talking to Tobi!”

  “Snort! Snort! S-nort!”

  It was on the tip of my tongue to ask her why she encouraged my nemesis’ nastiness, but my thoughts zipped right back to Mavis. “Wow. That has to be so hard. I mean, she loves those grandkids like crazy… You could see it all over her face at that table Saturday night. And think about it…this creep’s father did the exact same thing to her. Right down to the award and—”

  Oh. My. God.

  “Tobi, you still—”

  “Snort! Snort! S-nort!”

  “Mary Fran, I’ve gotta go! I know who did it!”

  “Did what?”

  “I know who killed Deidre Ryan!”

  ~Chapter Twenty-Seven~

  I’m not sure where I thought I was going, or what my plan was once I got there, but I was running. I ran out of my office, I ran past JoAnna and her desk, I ran out the front door of my agency, and I ran to my car (a slightly longer process than expected thanks to the momentary brain fog regarding the location of my parking spot). I’d like to say all that running helped birth a plan, but I can’t. Because it didn’t.

  I pressed the unlock button on my key fob, heard the answering echo of the driver side door, and slid into place behind the steering wheel with my phone at the ready. I was virtually positive I knew who had killed Deidre (albeit by accident), but what to do with that information was a little less clear. Sure, I could take it straight to the police, but I was pretty sure they’d look at me like I was nuts if I came in off the street claiming to have solved a crime. Besides, my grandfather would have my head if I denied him the thrill of apprehending a killer.

  I dialed my home number, counted six rings, and then hung up as I asked myself to leave a message after the beep. Next, I dialed Carter’s number in the event my grandfather was hanging out upstairs, but six rings (great minds!) morphed into his canned greeting and I hung up without leaving a message there, either. I almost tossed the phone into the cup holder but opted to try my grandfather’s cell in the rare event he actually had it turned on.

  He picked up on the second ring.

  “Stu here.”

  “Hey, Grandpa, it’s me. I need you to tell me where you are at this exact minute, and then I need you to stay put in that spot until I can pick you up.”

  “Where’s the fire?”

  “I know who did it, Grandpa.”

  A pause gave way to something that sounded almost squeal-like. “I just left Fletcher’s and I’m on the way to see you.”

  I stuck my key in the ignition, turned on the car, and shifted into drive. “Don’t move a muscle. I’ll be there in three minutes—tops.”

  Two and a half minutes later, I pulled to a stop less than a block from the newsstand and welcomed my grandfather into my car with a kiss on his cheek and a reminder to buckle up. He accepted the first, groused about the second, and then rubbed his hands together as if he were preparing to warm them over an open fire. “It was Cassie, wasn’t it? Why, I—”

  “It’s not Cassie.” When I was sure he was buckled, I checked my side view mirror and pulled back onto the road, my destination suddenly crystal clear. “It’s Mavis.”

  “I said her name that very night, remember? I thought…” My grandfather stopped the hand-rubbing thing as my words finally registered in his ears. “Mavis? Who’s Mavis?”

  “Kevin Callahan’s mother, or, rather, stepmother.”

  “The old one?”

  I turned right at the stop sign and headed toward the highway, my answering laugh seeming both inappropriate and needed all at the same time. “The old one? Seriously? Isn’t that a little like the pot calling the kettle black?”

  “Maybe. But she wasn’t even on our radar.”

  “Because she wasn’t… But we also thought Deidre was the target then, remember?” I pulled onto the highway, heading east, and did my best to fill in the gaps the way JoAnna had explained it to me earlier in the week. I told him about Shamus Callahan and his prominence in the advertising community back in the day. I told him about the first award show and how Shamus had started it as a way to fawn over his pregnant mistress. I told him how the awards, themselves, had been designed by Shamus’s wife, Mavis—a woman who’d had a real talent in art yet given it up to support his career and his goals. And I told him how Shamus had knowingly asked her to design the evening’s biggest award for his mistress.

  “Did she know?”

  I stole a quick glance at my grandfather before looking back at the road in front of us. “You mean, did Mavis know about her husband’s affair when she was doing all this for him? JoAnna seemed to think everyone in town knew except Mavis in the days leading up to the event, and then when he had to tell her he was finally going to be a father, Mavis was absolutely humiliated.”

  “Going to be a father by way of the mistress?” my grandfather asked.

  “Uh huh.” I got off the exit for Market Street and continued east. “Care to venture a guess as to who that child is?”

  Grandpa scratched his head for a few seconds before the reality train stopped at his station. “That young man? The one you pointed out as running the whole award show?”

  “The award show, his father’s agency, the family foundation, all of it.”

  “He’s the one that had Sam so upset the other day, isn’t he? The one that was fooling around with that one you were up against for that same award?”

  “Lexa Smyth. The one we now know was the intended target on Saturday night.” When another peek at my grandfather revealed a healthy dose of skepticism, I filled in a few of the gaps I’d managed to piece together myself. “My guess is that Kevin’s affair with Lexa stirred up repressed feelings or something for Mavis and she lashed out. Or tried to before Susan went and switched the envelopes.

  “And if you think about it, Grandpa—really think about it—it makes a ton of sense. I mean, you saw how inconsolable Mavis was in the immediate aftermath of the accident, yes? You heard her screams, you saw her face… And it wasn’t much different when she was interviewed by that reporter afterward. She became so inconsolable, in fact, that Kevin stepped up and fielded the rest of the reporter’s questions without so much as a flinch.”

  “But if she set it up… If she loosened the bolts and somehow managed to cut the safety rope… Then she would have to have known it was going to happen.”

  “To Lexa, not Deidre,” I reminded.

  My grandfather grew silent as he tried my theory on for size. I, in turn, pulled into the parking lot behind the Callahan building in time to see Sam coming out the back door with his camera bag in one hand and a white envelope in his left.

  I slowed to a stop and lowered the passenger side window. “Hey, Sam, is Mrs. Callahan inside by any chance?”

  He leaned into the window, greeted my grandfather, and then shook his head. “No. Today’s the day she’s meeting what’s-her-name for some bonding time at her stables, remember? Which, for the record, is pretty screwy if you ask me.”

  “What’s-her-name?”

  “You know, the one her son is cheating with.”

  I felt the weight of my grandfather’s stare as he turned his attention from Sam to me. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking, Sugar Lump?”

  I hit the unlock button for the back door and motioned Sam inside.
“Do you know where these stables are?”

  “No, why?”

  I hung a U-turn in the middle of the parking lot and sped toward the exit, tossing my phone to my grandfather as I did. “Call JoAnna. Ask her to figure out where the Callahan stables are—STAT.”

  * * * *

  By the time we got out to Wentzville (thank you, JoAnna), Sam was not only up to speed on Mavis Callahan as the killer, but also on our shared suspicion that her purported bonding time with Lexa was really about righting a wrong.

  Translation: Lexa was in danger.

  I drove through the gates of the Callahan ranch and watched as plumes of smoke, kicked up from the dirt beneath my tires, followed us up the driveway to the stables. When we reached what appeared to be the main door, I threw the car into park, tossed my phone into the back seat with Sam, and ordered Sam and my grandfather to stay in the car and call the police.

  Neither listened.

  Fortunately for them, time was of the essence and I took off inside with Sam and my grandfather close on my heels.

  “Tobes, you take the stables on the left, I’ll take the stables on the right,” Sam said as he caught up to me.

  “And what am I supposed to do?” my grandfather groused.

  I looked left as Sam looked right. “Keep your focus straight ahead.”

  Stall by stall we made our way through the building. We passed a light brown horse, a black horse, a white horse, a gray horse, another gray horse, and then we heard it.…

  It was fast.

  It was faint.

  But it was definitely a woman’s cry.

  I held my finger to my lips and slowly, step by step, led the way in the direction the sound had come—toward the last stall on the right. Unlike the other stalls we’d passed thus far, the stall appeared to be lit. As we drew closer we saw two shadows on the wall—one low—as if sitting, and the other looming above the first.

  “I know your type, Lexa. You set your sights on things and people that don’t belong to you because you can. You don’t care if you destroy lives. Hell, I think that’s half the fun for women like you, isn’t it?”

  I signaled to Sam and my grandfather to stop and, when I was sure they had, I bent forward at the waist and made a beeline for the half wall separating me from Mavis and Lexa. With the only sound beyond Mavis’s voice that of my pounding heart, I worked to steady my breath and remain calm.

  “Someone just like you ruined my life more than half a lifetime ago. And like you, she didn’t care who knew it. Looking back, I was a fool to stay…to write off my own happiness in favor of playing a role my husband never respected to begin with. But that was the old Mavis…the weak Mavis.

  “But I’m not that Mavis, anymore. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to sit by and let another heartless run-of-the-mill hussy rob me of the two greatest things in my life.”

  I heard muted footsteps and guessed, thanks to a peek at the shadows, that Mavis was on the move. But she didn’t go far. “Do you know what happens to a horse if they get into just a wee bit of rat poison?”

  I saw the top half of the lower shadow move. By process of elimination, I figured the shadow belonged to Lexa and that she was likely sitting on the ground, shaking her head in response to Mavis’s question.

  “They go crazy.”

  A soft whinny on the other side of the wall let me know that Mavis and Lexa weren’t alone. A check of the sign just above my head told me Muffin Man was the likely third party.

  “Did you know a horse can trample a man—or, in your case, a woman—to death when exposed to something like rat poison?”

  The muffled cry I heard next let me know Lexa was likely gagged.

  “Fortunately for me, Muffin Man doesn’t need to ingest rat poison to get a little wild. All I have to do is put his bit shank in wrong and then pull on it really hard. When that happens, he rears up like a crazed beast. So that’s what I’m going to do now…with you in stomping range. Because I’ll be damned if you’re going to be the reason I lose my grandchildren.”

  I started to stand but stopped as my grandfather motioned for me to wait. Before I could respond via a shake of my head or a pointed widening of my eyes, he grabbed hold of a shovel that was propped against a nearby wall and headed in my direction. I tried to hold him off, to tell him I’d come to him, but my grandfather was on a mission.

  He also wasn’t the most dainty of souls.

  Translation: he bumped the handle of the shovel on a wall as he approached, silencing Mavis in the process.

  The silence, however, didn’t last long thanks to the sound of approaching sirens and a responding flurry of movement that told me it was now or never.

  I grabbed the shovel from my grandfather, ran the length of the half wall, and dashed into the stall just as Mavis guided Muffin Man closer to Lexa.

  “Please, Mavis!” I shouted as I inched my way toward Lexa while using the shovel my grandfather gave me as a makeshift shield. “This isn’t the way.”

  “It’s the only way, Tobi.” Shoving the horse forward, Mavis pulled on the male horse’s shank and then stepped back as Muffin Man reared up on his hind legs in anger.

  “No!” With a speed I had no idea I possessed, I tossed the shovel to the side and lunged forward, wrapping my hands around Lexa’s feet and pulling with all my might. Seconds later, Muffin Man’s front legs came crashing back down, narrowly missing Lexa’s hair as it dragged behind the rest of her body.

  I wanted to stop, wanted to plead with Mavis to think about what she was doing, but there was no time. Before I’d even made it halfway across the stall, Mavis was at it again, steering the incensed animal toward Lexa (and now me). I tried to pull harder, faster, but I tripped over the shovel and went down just as Muffin Man’s front legs flew into the air above us. “No!”

  With the last bit of strength I could muster, I pushed Lexa to my right and rolled to my left as Muffin Man’s front hooves crashed down between us, drowning out everything but the steady beat of rapidly approaching feet.

  “Police! Mavis Callahan, put your hands above your head, now!”

  ~Chapter Twenty-Eight~

  I saw his rolling bag the second I stepped out of my bedroom. It was there, next to my couch, with a single bus ticket sitting atop the handle.

  Even without getting any closer, I could see the details imprinted across the top half:

  One Way.

  Depart: St. Louis, 4:30 p.m.

  Arrive: Kansas City, 7:45 p.m.

  “Good morning, Sugar Lump, how did you sleep?”

  I turned toward the voice I’d loved my whole life and mustered the smile he deserved. “As much as I hated to do it, I think calling JoAnna and taking today off was a good idea.”

  “Still sore like you were last night?”

  “A little, I guess. But it’ll go away.”

  “Susan Callahan called last night. She heard what happened and she wanted to apologize.”

  “What happened in that stable wasn’t Susan’s fault. Mavis… She let her pain, her anger, and old wounds guide her actions. And that’s never a good idea.” I pointed toward the kitchen. “I know I slept in, but I’d love to make you breakfast. Maybe some eggs? Or…French toast?”

  “Do you even know how to make French toast, Sugar Lump?”

  I shifted my weight from one foot to the other while I tried to remember if I’d ever attempted to make French toast. “Honestly, I’m not sure. But even if I haven’t, how hard can it really be?”

  “I’m good. I actually scrambled some eggs for myself a few hours ago.”

  I glanced around him and into the kitchen, my eyes narrowing in on the clock above my back door: Twelve thirty.

  Oops.

  “I could make you some lunch, instead. Maybe a grilled cheese sandwich…or some peanut butter and jelly?”

  �
��I’m not really hungry, Sugar Lump. But I’ll sit with you while you eat, if you’d like.”

  “I would.” I stepped around him and led the way into the kitchen, my desire to make things right winning out over any and all hunger pangs. Still, I knew I’d get a lecture if I didn’t eat something, so I popped a piece of bread into the toaster and joined my grandfather at my kitchen table. “Thanks for being by my side yesterday, Grandpa. I don’t know what I’d have done without you.”

  “You’d have done exactly what you did—which you did without me, I might add.”

  “I didn’t call the police.”

  “Neither did I. Sam did.”

  “Because you told him to.”

  “Trust me, he’d have done it whether I told him to or not.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, the fact is you told him to call. And because of that, Lexa is still alive.”

  “Because of you, Lexa is still alive.”

  My grandfather leaned back in his chair and studied me with an expression I couldn’t quite read. I considered asking him about it, but figured he’d get to it in due time. Besides, there were things I needed to say. Mistakes I needed to correct. Forgiveness I needed to seek.

  “Grandpa, I need you to know how sorry I am about what I said about Ms. Rapple. It’s just that we have a bit of a history and, well, I was acting like an immature brat.”

  “Not wanting to see me with someone other than Grandma doesn’t make you an immature brat, Sugar Lump.”

  “But that’s the thing, Grandpa. I don’t have anything against you dating. I really don’t.” I stood, transferred my toast to a plate, and carried it—along with a small glass of milk—to the table. “You sure you don’t want anything? A glass of milk? A piece of cheese? Anything?”

  “I’m sure.”

  I set everything at my place but left it behind as I pulled my chair closer to my grandfather’s. “While I wanted to believe my issue with you and Ms. Rapple being together was one hundred percent about her propensity for nastiness, I realize my refusal to see the same changes in her that Mary Fran, Andy, Sam, and even Carter noticed when she was around you was because I was jealous.”