A Parfait Murder

by Wendy Lyn Watson

  “So she maybe could have pulled herself up to the balcony where the saloon girl was sitting. She has the upper body strength.”

  “Had,” Finn corrected.

  “She’s still real fit,” I insisted. “I bet she still has some moves.”

  “Look, I’m not saying she didn’t do it,” Finn said. “I’m just saying you need a lot more to go on if you think you’re going to shift the blame from Bree to Eloise.”

  “I know. Will you help me get it?”

  Finn’s expression grew serious. He reached out to take my hand. “You know I’d do anything for you.”

  A warm stillness came over me, as if Finn and I were in a bubble of quiet apart from all the crazy in our lives.

  Finn liked to tease, and I liked to laugh, so our relationship was mostly pretty lighthearted. Lord knows, we needed a little light in our lives to help us forget all the sorrow and fear: Finn’s mom out at the Garrity Arms Nursing Home, slipping further and further away from us with every tiny pinpoint stroke. The A-la-mode, where every step forward seemed dogged by two steps back. Alice’s pain over her daddy. Bree’s fear of being arrested.

  But in that solemn moment, I didn’t just forget about those things . . . they simply ceased to exist. The entire universe was me, Finn, and the yearning heat between us.

  He tightened his grip on my hand, his eyes burning into me. “You know, right?”

  I opened my mouth, but no words would come. I nodded.

  He pushed away from the table and gently tugged me to my feet. One step brought him up against me. His gentle kiss on my lips was a benediction.

  Walking backward, his eyes never leaving mine, he led me to the stairs, and together we climbed to his room. Everything else—Bree, Alice, the murder—it would have to wait.

  chapter 10

  I’ve heard tell that the Eskimos have thirty different words for white. In Texas, we reserve that granularity of description for our summer heat. You’d think Texans would simply be used to hot, would suck it up and go about their business. But we’re the biggest wusses in the world when the mercury inches into the triple digits.

  That particular summer strained our collective ability to describe heat. We stretched every metaphor to the breaking point, and still we couldn’t quite capture the ungodly, never-ending, smothering, oppressive, makes-you-want-to-turn-your-own-skin-inside-out quality of the weather that August.

  It kept the daytime crowds at the fair thin and listless, but it meant good business at the A-la-mode.

  After a long but enjoyable night with Finn, I stood shoulder to shoulder beside Kyle Mason, both of us dipping cones until our hands cramped, trying to keep the fairgoers from expiring.

  During a brief lull just before lunch, I caught Kyle watching me out of the corner of his eye. His head was tipped down so his dark mop of hair—this silly-looking combed-forward bowl cut that all the teen boys seemed to wearing—fell nearly to the tip of his nose, but I could still see the lines of worry around his mouth.

  When he met my gaze, he tossed his head, flipping his hair back in a practiced move that was just a bit too self-conscious to be genuinely cool.

  “Is Alice okay?” he asked.

  I sighed. “I think so. Or at least, she will be. She’s a tough girl. She’ll get through this.”

  He picked at his thumbnail with his teeth. I made a mental note to have him use the hand sanitizer liberally before serving any more customers.

  “CnnnItllsmtg?” he muttered.

  “Enunciate, Kyle. Learn to use your words,” I teased.

  “Can I tell you something?” he repeated, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

  The tremor of emotion in his voice made me get real serious real fast. Kyle was a surly teenage boy with a significant juvie record. He did not emote unless something was wrong.

  “Of course. You can tell me anything,” I soothed.

  Please don’t let Alice be pregnant, please don’t let Alice be pregnant, please don’t let Alice be pregnant . . .

  “The other night, after Alice found out her dad was back in town, I let her borrow the Bonnie.”

  Our intellectual prodigy, Alice, had to take her driver’s test three times before she passed. She still had a limited learner’s permit, which meant she wasn’t legally allowed to drive without someone twenty-one or over in the front seat with her. In other words, she wasn’t supposed to be tooling around Dalliance in Kyle’s Bonneville.

  On the one hand, I didn’t want to condone this behavior. On the other hand, I didn’t want to spook Kyle. I got the feeling there was more to this story yet to come.

  “Huh,” I hedged. “Know where she went?”

  He shook his head, shaggy hair flopping back and forth. “After the midway closed down, I was stuck here. I called her like ten times, but she didn’t answer. Finally, she showed up after midnight. Wouldn’t tell me where she’d been.”

  I had this mental image of Kyle just sitting out behind the A-la-mode booth, alone with his thoughts, patiently waiting for Alice to come back with his car. He hadn’t called any of his friends, or his parents, or us . . . he’d just waited for her. He might be a big dork with a rap sheet, but I got why Alice liked him so much.

  “I’m worried about her,” Kyle said, raising his head to look me square in the eye. “I don’t know how to help her.”

  I took a risk and looped my arm around his shoulders, pulling him into a reluctant hug. “I don’t know, either. We just have to be patient. I think you can do that.”

  His body spasmed a bit, something I took for a laugh. “Guess so. Not like I got anyplace else to go.”

  I let him pull free. “Oh, Kyle, that’s not true. I’m happy you and Alice have each other, but you shouldn’t stay together just because you don’t feel like you have other options. You always have other options.”

  His shoulders jerked up to his ears. I spoke “teenager” fluently enough to know he didn’t agree.

  “You do. I know you struggled in school, but that’s because you were bored. You’re not stupid. Heck, if you were stupid, Alice wouldn’t waste her time with you. If you want to learn a trade, or go on to school, or whatever, you can do it. You really do have options.”

  “I guess.”

  By that point, the boy’s ears were as red as my brandied cherry sauce. Thankfully, we were saved from further awkward bonding by a new onslaught of customers.

  “Kyle,” I snapped as he reached for a sugar cone, “sanitize first, my friend.”

  He huffed a melodramatic sigh, but did as he was bid. We were back in familiar territory, and I smiled softly at the return to normalcy.

  “Tally Jones, I have a bone to pick with you.”

  Bye-bye, smile.

  Eloise Carberry bore down on the A-la-mode booth like a semi hurtling down a steep grade. She still had a gymnast’s build, slender and straight. Not that you could make out much of a figure beneath her no-nonsense tan chinos and her embroidered chambray shirt. Her frosted brown hair was set in face-framing layers sprayed into fierce submission, much like a mideighties Mary Lou Retton. Eloise was a handsome woman, might have been on the homecoming court, but would never have been queen. She ruled the League of Methodist Ladies with dictatorial efficiency, but she’d never crack into the Junior League set. There was just something a little too practical about her. A little too workaday. A little too matronly.

  But that very no-nonsense quality made her seem bigger than she was. And when I found myself in the crosshairs of her thin-lipped frown, I took a step back.

  “Hiya, Eloise. Enjoying the fair?”

  “It’s too hot to enjoy anything.” Something about the way she said it made it seem as if the weather were her own personal cross to bear.

  “Oh. Sorry to hear that.”

  “Tally, we need to talk. Tucker Gentry competing in the ice cream category is an absolute travesty. You and I both know he stole that flavor profile from you. Why, the man should be disqualified from all the ed
ibles contests.”

  Given the number of second-place ribbons Eloise took home the year before, I could just imagine how anxious she was to have her biggest competition disqualified from the events.

  “Now, Eloise, I trust Garrett’s judgment.”

  She snorted. “Letting Garrett Simms make that call,” she huffed. “That’s the fox guarding the henhouse if ever I saw it.”

  “I’m not sure I follow,” I said. In fact, I was pretty certain she was using the idiom all wrong.

  “They’re both, you know. . .” She leaned in close, but didn’t bother to drop her tone a lick. “Perverts.”

  I smothered a sigh. While I had managed to remain in the dark until the year before, Garrett Simms’s preference for men was one of the most unsecret secrets in all of Dalliance. It didn’t bother his wife any, and as long as the two of them were happy with the arrangement, most folks just let them be.

  But Tucker Gentry was a youth pastor at a very conservative church. An allegation that he was gay, whether it was true or not, could do him some serious damage.

  I stepped off to the side of the counter, pulling Eloise as far from my line of customers as I could. “Eloise,” I hissed, “it’s not like gay people all have some secret handshake. Even if Tucker is gay, there’s no reason to think that Garrett would show him any favoritism.”

  “Oh, he’s not . . . well, that,” Eloise said. “He’s just a pervert. Spends all his time with girls young enough to be his daughters.”

  “He’s a youth pastor. It’s his job.”

  Eloise crossed her arms and set her lips in a mutinous frown. “Exactly.”

  “You’re not making any sense. Are you suggesting that everyone who chooses to work with kids has an unnatural attraction to them?”

  “Not at all. But that man is creepy.”

  Now we were getting to the heart of the matter. It wasn’t that poor Tucker had done anything at all. He was just odd. And for Eloise, “odd” had to be put into some sort of box. Apparently she’d chosen “pervert” for Tucker.

  “Creepy isn’t a crime. And even if it was, Tucker being creepy doesn’t put him in the same boat with Garrett, who isn’t creepy at all.”

  I mentally crossed my fingers for the fib. Garrett Simms was supercreepy. Hard to explain, but he looked like a big, hairy baby . . . but he was such a nice man. It wasn’t his fault he looked like he looked.

  “I know what you’re thinking, Tally Jones. You’re thinking that I’m close-minded and judgmental.”

  Bingo.

  “But I’m telling you, Tucker Gentry chaperoned an interfaith youth group trip to South Padre Island last spring break, and my Dani got some very bad vibes from him. She was deeply shaken. To prey on her in her condition . . .” Eloise’s eyes filled, and I thought she might actually start weeping.

  “Oh dear,” I soothed, reaching across the counter to lay a comforting hand on her arm. “I’m so sorry. I just heard about Dani. You must be beside yourself. But honestly, Eloise, you have to be careful what you say about Tucker. You could seriously damage his life with accusations like that.”

  She sniffed, and pulled away. “Maybe that’s what he deserves.”

  She turned and stormed away, my pleas to her to stop so we could make amends falling on deaf ears.

  I quickly fell back to scooping with Kyle, but when Beth arrived to spell us for dinner, Kyle tugged on my sleeve.

  “That lady’s full of crap,” he said.

  “What lady? And don’t say ‘crap.’ ”

  We shared a smile at the absurdity of me telling him to watch his language. “Sorry, Miz Tally,” he mocked gently. “That lady who was talking about Mr. Gentry.”

  “Eloise?”

  “Yeah. Mr. Gentry is a nice guy. And he’s got a girlfriend who’s doing mission work in Peru. She’s older than him, too.” He said this last as though it were beyond comprehension, that a man might date an older woman. I decided to let it slide.

  “How do you know so much about Tucker Gentry? You don’t go to One Word, do you?” I was pretty sure if Kyle Mason stepped foot inside the One Word Bible Church, they’d launch a flash exorcism.

  “No, but my buddy Matt’s in Mr. Gentry’s youth group. He talks about Mr. Gentry and his girlfriend all the time. I think Matt’s going to go on some mission trip with them at Christmas. If he can convince his new secret girlfriend to go with him.”

  Despite myself, I was intrigued. “Secret girlfriend?”

  Kyle snorted. “Matt’s kind of a dork. He’s real romantic.”

  I’d seen the way Kyle looked at Alice. If being romantic was dorky, Kyle’s cool cred was gone.

  “I confess, Kyle, I’m surprised you hang out with someone in an evangelical youth group.”

  Kyle grimaced. “Matt’s okay. He’s straight-edge.”

  “Straight-edge?”

  “He’s in a rock band, really hard-core, but not into drugs and stuff. Like ‘punk rock for Jesus.’ He’s got all these tats and piercings, but he won’t drink caffeine.”

  “And that’s okay with the One Word folks?”

  “I don’t know about the rest of them, but it’s okay with Mr. Gentry. He even gave Matt’s band a place to practice.”

  “I guess that is pretty cool.”

  “He understands the kids. Cuts ’em slack when they mess up. On that spring break trip? Those Methodist kids all got loaded at some bar called Juan McCool’s. Tequila slammers. That Dani girl threw up all over the inside of the van they rented. Mr. Gentry lost the deposit.”

  “Dani Carberry got drunk on tequila? She’s not even eighteen!”

  Kyle looked at me as if I were the biggest nerd in the world. Which, I suppose, I was. Just because kids couldn’t get booze legally didn’t mean they couldn’t get booze. Especially cute girls on spring break.

  “Well, didn’t she get arrested?”

  “No. Like I said, Mr. Gentry’s a cool guy. Not cool like I’d want to hang out with him, but okay. He didn’t turn in the kids to the cops because he knew that it would make it harder for them to apply for scholarships and stuff.”

  I wasn’t sure Tucker showed the best judgment in letting the kids off so easy, but it made me wonder why Dani Carberry and her mother would be so dead set against a man who had actually done Dani a big favor.

  chapter 11

  A few hours later, Kyle and Beth were taking care of business at the fair while Grandma Peachy and her girls—me, Bree, and Alice—spent some quality time at the A-la-mode. Peachy had decided the ladies’ room needed repainting, so she and Alice were in ratty shorts and T-shirts, do-rags tied around their heads, and paintbrushes in their hands.

  Peachy’s scrawny legs, the skin tissue-paper thin and traced with dark veins, sticking out from the hems of her saggy cargo shorts, made me want to hug her tight. It reminded me how very old she was, something I tended to forget because her mind (and her temper) was still so sharp.

  “You missed a spot, little girl,” she snapped, stabbing her paintbrush at a spot above Alice’s head where the original white still shone through the robin’s-egg blue Peachy had chosen.

  “Cut me some slack, old woman,” Alice quipped back. “I’m shorter than you.”

  Peachy cackled in delight. Peachy’d raised us to be feisty, and it pleased her that Alice had a little vinegar in her.

  The bell at the door rang, and I hushed Peachy and Alice. Their good-natured sniping was fine for family, but I didn’t want them scaring off customers.

  But it wasn’t a customer coming to visit. It was Cal McCormack. And by the grim set to his mouth, he wasn’t popping in for a milk shake.

  I approached him cautiously. “Hey, Cal. What’s up?”

  “Is Bree here?” he asked softly.

  “In the back.”

  He glanced over my shoulder to the propped-open door of the ladies’ room. Inside, Peachy and Alice were flicking paint at each other. I was going to have to pay Kyle overtime to clean up the mess they were making.
>
  Cal cleared his throat. “Let’s mosey back there and have a chat with her.”

  I shot Cal a questioning look, but he wouldn’t meet my eyes. That was bad news, indeed.

  We found Bree in the back, whistling softly as she poured a batch of cinnamon-scented custard base into a whirling vertical batch freezer. She set the empty plastic tub on the floor and, with a practiced move, lowered the long, screwlike blade into the freezer.

  She grabbed the tub and turned to toss it in the industrial-sized sink, but she froze when she saw us.

  Some silent exchange passed between Cal and Bree. Even knowing my cousin as well as I did, I couldn’t read all the emotions that flitted across her face. But in the end, she sighed.

  “Really?” she asked.

  “‘Fraid so,” Cal replied. “I’m not gonna use the cuffs, and we can go out the back so Alice doesn’t see, but . . .” He shook his head. “Listen, I don’t want to do this, but better me than someone else.”

  “It’s okay, Cal,” Bree said with a sad smile. “If I’m gonna be arrested, it may as well be by a tall, handsome lawman. Like in a romance novel.”

  At her backhanded compliment, Cal’s neck colored above his buttoned collar. “Look, this isn’t a question, Bree, and I don’t want you to say a word without a lawyer, but I want you to know. We pulled your phone records from the night before Kristen was murdered, looking for that call you said you got. According to the phone company, only one number called your home line. And that’s a cell phone listed in the name of Alice Anders.”

  “What? My daughter didn’t—” Bree began, but Cal cut her off with a sharply raised hand.

  “Not a word. You hear. That was just information.” He shot me a meaningful look.

  Holy guacamole, but I thought Cal McCormack, who’d spent much of the last year trying to convince me to mind my own beeswax, was encouraging me to meddle.

  “I gotta do the official stuff now.” He cleared his throat again. “Bree Michaels, you are under arrest for the murder of Kristen Ver Steeg. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say. . .”

  I listened to Cal reciting the words I’d heard on the TV so many times before, my whole body numb as I watched Bree nod calmly to indicate she understood.