Murder, Mayhem and Bliss

by Loulou Harrington

  Jesse stifled a groan and slapped on a smile. One more lecture, more or less, wasn’t going to kill her. She had been naughty, but she had also gotten a good look at the pool area and the entire crime scene, all completely surrounded by yellow tape. Very naughty, in fact, and she hadn’t really learned a whole lot. She could only hope the police knew more than she did, or nobody was going to get very far in solving this thing.

  “Where have you been?” Marla demanded while there was still a fair amount of distance separating them.

  Jesse continued to smile. “Admiring Bliss’s beautiful gardens. They are truly amazing.” She turned her gaze to Bliss. “Did you do all of this yourself?”

  Still looking worried, Bliss nodded and glanced from the woman next to her to Jesse. “I hired some workers to help with the digging and planting, but the design is mine, and I do most of it by myself now. Of course.” She spread her arms to indicate the rolling expanse of green on either side. “Someone else takes care of the lawn.”

  “Frank Haney called me,” Marla said, still agitated. “He said you were all the way down behind the pool poking around.”

  “I heard there were some pretty impressive vegetable beds on the back side, and I wanted to get a look at them. We raise a lot of our own vegetables for the tea room, and we’re wanting to expand.” Jesse reminded herself to stay loose and play innocent. All she was doing was looking, and they couldn’t prove what she was looking at.

  “Joe’s not going to be pleased when he hears about this.” The nice deputy sounded worried, and Jesse realized that she might be getting her into trouble for the second time in as many days.

  “I’m really sorry,” she said sincerely. “I didn’t mean to cause any problems for you. You can blame it all on me. I didn’t mean any harm, truly. And I didn’t touch anything.” Jesse held up a hand as if she were swearing. “Nothing.”

  “Frank says to make sure you leave and not to take my eyes off of you until you’re gone.”

  “I’m gone,” Jesse promised. “Are you ready, Bliss?”

  “Yes.” She started down the steps in a hurry, then stopped and turned back to the deputy behind her. “Are you through with me?”

  “Yes.” Deputy Murphy nodded, shifting her gaze briefly to Bliss before turning to Jesse. “I’m done here. I just need to lock up the house after you’re gone.”

  “Sorry,” Jesse said again, then beat a hasty retreat with Bliss hurrying at her side.

  “What did you do?” Bliss whispered, once they were safely around the corner of the house.

  “I just looked,” Jesse assured her. “But I looked all around the pool, and every place else I could think of, without really finding anything. And nobody caught me there, so nobody can get mad at me about that. It was when I went to the back, by the pool house, that I practically tripped over Deputy Haney.”

  “What was he doing?” Bliss asked, still whispering while walking briskly toward Jesse’s maroon Silverado.

  “He was squatted on the ground, looking at some marks in the dirt that looked like the base of a cane or crutch. They were at the edge of the pathway, so whatever they were accompanying stayed on the path and didn’t leave a mark.”

  “So he knows you saw it?”

  “Oh, yeah. We had a discussion.”

  “So that’s what they’re mad about,” Bliss confirmed. “That you saw those marks.”

  “Mainly. That, and a footprint,” Jesse said, remembering it belatedly. “A very partial footprint.”

  “Really?” Bliss sounded excited. “A footprint?”

  “A partial footprint,” Jesse qualified again.

  “How big did it look?”

  “That part was hard to tell. It was just the side, and most of the toe.”

  “Was it bigger than my foot?” Bliss stopped walking and held out one stylish leather ballet flat for appraisal.

  Jesse paused to stare from Bliss’s small shoe to her own neon pink sneakers, while searching her memory for the details of what she had seen. “Put your foot down.” Bliss complied and Jesse aligned her foot next to the younger woman’s, which appeared to be a size or two smaller than Jesse’s.

  “Well,” she said after another minute of study, “I couldn’t put my foot next to the one in the dirt, but it seemed to me that it was bigger than my shoe size. And that would make it several sizes larger yours.”

  “Yea!” Bliss pumped her fist in triumph. “One thing that doesn’t point straight to me!”

  Jesse started to smile. Then she began laughing. “Yea!” She waved her hands in the air. “At least, I’ve done something that made someone happy.”

  “Oh, no!” Glancing over her shoulder, Bliss hooked her arm through Jesse’s and started tugging her toward the pickup. “Deputy Murphy’s headed our way. Let’s get out of here!”

  “Be careful. If you hang around with me too long, I may lead you down the path of civil disobedience.”

  Bliss’s laughter pealed merrily. “Oh, Jesse, that’s so funny. I’m about to be arrested for murder any minute now, and you’re worried about being a bad influence.” She started laughing again. “You do realize how funny that is, don’t you?”

  Jesse shrugged. “Anything I can do to keep your spirits up.”

  The other woman stepped closer and dropped her voice to a whisper. “Is it too awful of me to say that I’m starting to think whoever did this, maybe did me a big favor?” She blushed and glanced over her shoulder as Jesse did the same. Deputy Murphy was locking the front door while keeping watch on them out of the corner of her eye.

  “So, you’re starting to do better with your grief, huh?” Jesse asked.

  “Less grief, more guilt.” Bliss sighed and leaned against the front fender of the truck on the driver’s side. “I loved him a lot once. But that was a long time ago. Lately, even I knew he was a mistake I was going to have to do something about. I just hadn’t made up my mind exactly what to do.”

  “Do you think you were headed toward divorce?” Watching a flush steal over Bliss’s face for the second time in as many minutes, Jesse wondered if a murderer could still blush.

  “Eventually?” Bliss nodded and the heat in her cheeks subsided. “Yeah. It was inevitable.”

  “Do you think he knew?”

  Her pretty face looked sad as she stared off into the distance. “I don’t think a narcissist like he was could do a very good job of figuring out what other people were feeling.”

  Jesse noticed that Deputy Murphy was leaving the front porch and heading toward her car. “Hop in. Let’s ride. We promised to be out of here.”

  While Bliss went around to the passenger side, Jesse climbed in and started the truck. Old as it was, it still had a sweet motor that purred when she started it and rolled down the highway with the smoothness of butter. The pickup and the house were all her grandfather had to leave her, other than the knowledge he had shared with her, and they were all treasures that she cherished.

  Once they were away from the Kerr house and driving back toward the small town of Myrtle Grove, Jesse asked, “Do you always adjust this quickly to something so life-altering?”

  Bliss shrugged. “My parents died when I was eleven. In a plane crash. In Africa. Aunt Viv and Uncle Malcolm already kept me half the time anyway, so they just finished raising me. Then I lost Uncle Malcolm when I was in my twenties. I guess I’m improving with practice.”

  “Sometimes when you keep losing people, you shut yourself off,” Jesse suggested. She thought of herself and knew that’s what she had done. Bliss still seemed vulnerable in a way that Jesse doubted she herself would ever be again. “Vivian wouldn’t let you, would she?”

  “No.” Bliss smiled gently. “Aunt Viv said a bunch of sentimental and very wise things, and then she refused to allow me to close myself off just to keep from being hurt again.”

  Jesse thought back to the days after Michael’s death, to all the things that had happened and all the things that would never be the same, all the ways t
hat she would never be the same. Shutting down your feelings to protect yourself sucked in the long run. “It’s probably for the best,” she said. “Vivian’s a smart lady.”

  “Yeah,” Bliss agreed. “I owe her a lot.”

  “We all do.”

  Just then the short blast of a siren jerked Jesse’s attention back to the present. Her gaze flashed to her speedometer, which was not above the speed limit.

  “Oh, my God.” Bliss’s shaky whisper held fear and dread, and Jesse’s heart went out to her. Maybe a healthy layer of self-protection wasn’t such a bad thing.

  Her foot moved to the brake and she slowed. Preparing to pull over to the shoulder, she checked the rear view mirror.

  “Hellfire and damnation!” she ground out as she recognized the big, white truck belonging to Joe Tyler directly behind her, lights flashing. The siren gave another short blast. “What the hell do you want?”

  She pulled all the way over and shoved the transmission into park. “You just better not ask for my license and registration,” Jesse warned the image in the mirror. “That’s all I’ve got to say.”

  “Oh, my God.” Bliss’s voice warbled as she collapsed against the back of the seat and slumped down.

  “Are you going to be okay?” Jesse asked the sheet-white girl next to her.

  Bliss’s teeth began to chatter. “I don’t know.”

  Jesse turned on the heater and directed the vents toward the passenger side. “Don’t pass out. He’s probably mad about something I’ve done.”

  “God, I hope so. I thought I could be brave.” Tears sparkled in Bliss’s eyes. “But I’m not ready to be a murderess yet.”

  “Driver!” a loudspeaker said. “Get out of the vehicle and walk to the back.”

  “Damn that man!”

  Chapter Eighteen

  As directed, Jesse walked to the back of her pickup and stood. She momentarily debated raising her hands, then reminded herself that she was making a new effort not to be deliberately irritating.

  So, she hooked her thumbs in the front pockets of her jeans and tried not to tense as she watched the tall, raw-boned sheriff exit his truck, slam the door shut, and then stand there staring at her across the vehicle length separating them.

  Hat pulled low, sunglasses hiding his eyes, he looked intimidating as hell, and Jesse steeled herself not to fidget. She’d been really sleepy when she’d dressed that morning and now regretted the blue jeans, pink-and-black plaid flannel shirt and fuschia running shoes she’d settled for. It wasn’t exactly a power look.

  “I wasn’t speeding,” she said, unable to stand the silence any longer.

  He jerked his head up an inch or so and motioned. “Walk toward me.”

  “I wasn’t weaving either.” Jesse didn’t like the sudden vision of her doing a heel-to-toe drunk test across the twenty or so intervening feet. It was the middle of the day on a Sunday. You couldn’t even buy liquor around there on a Sunday.

  Ignoring her, he motioned again. “Just walk normally. To here.” He indicated a spot about a foot in front of him. His voice was firm but not raised, and the words came slowly, as if he were speaking to someone who might not understand English well. “And then just stand still. I want to talk to you.”

  Obediently, Jesse walked toward him and stopped where he’d indicated, which was uncomfortably close. “Okay. I’m here.”

  “Good. Now, what the hell did you think you were doing wandering around a taped off crime scene unescorted? Huh?” His voice was a low growl, and he practically bounced on his toes as he leaned in.

  The effect was not at all reassuring. Instead, Jesse felt like she was being towered over by someone at least a foot and a half taller than she was and she had to make a real effort not to cringe.

  “I had phone calls from two different deputies,” he continued. “One to complain, and one to apologize for letting you be there in the first place and then for letting you get loose in the second place.”

  Jesse bit her tongue to hold back an apology of her own. She was damned tired of having to say she was sorry for every little thing she did, and she was doubly tired of being yelled at about it.

  “Frank Haney wants you arrested,” Joe went on, still leaving no room for a response. “Did you know that?”

  “Why?!” Jesse couldn’t help it. The word was out before she knew it, and then it was too late to bring it back. So much for good intentions.

  “For interfering with an officer in the performance of his duty and for offering him a bribe.”

  “I did not!” Bribe? Really? There was no bribe. Jesse was sure of it. “And he was just looking at some stupid marks in the dirt.” She held out her hands, palms up, hoping she looked vulnerable and misunderstood. “And all I was trying to do was…”

  He waved her off and went on talking. “Don’t even try to give me that crap about just looking at the gardens.”

  “But…”

  “Don’t go there,” he warned. He nodded toward the pickup she had exited. “The lady in that truck with you is about a blink away from being brought up on murder charges. And all your tromping around on crime scenes is not helping.”

  “Bliss’s foot is too small to be the shoeprint he was looking at,” Jesse said, giving up most of her claim to innocence. “And it was an accident anyway,” she hurriedly explained. “I had no idea Frank Haney was back there. Or that he was looking at evidence.”

  “Not necessarily evidence,” the sheriff quickly corrected. “Just because they were there doesn’t mean they have anything to do with Harry Kerr’s murder. Those marks in the dirt could have been left at any time.”

  “Not really,” Jesse said, remembering the rain that had ended a month-long dry spell just days earlier. “We had a real downpour, what was it? Wednesday? Yeah, Wednesday night. Any footprints from before that would have been washed away.”

  Having said that, she knew she should stop while she was ahead, but she was too wound up. “And any imprints from Thursday would have sunk deeper into the mud,” she continued, excited by the thoughts that were coming quickly. “But by Friday night, the ground was drying out some. Enough to leave a good, clear impression. Like the one Frank was looking at.”

  Joe Tyler frowned behind his sunglasses. “They have a gardener, don’t they? It could have been his footprint. Or maybe it was Harry Kerr’s.”

  “You haven’t already made a cast and compared it to the shoes Harry was wearing?” Jesse’s tone made it clear that she was sure they had, and that he was only arguing with her because he didn’t want her to think she had actually learned anything.

  Trying very hard to show no hint of gloating, she added, “My guess is that Harry’s foot was bigger than that partial print next to the path. And I don’t think he walked with a cane or a crutch.”

  “Just wandering by, huh?” Joe rocked back on his heels and crossed his arms over his chest, not bothering to hide his own gloating. “Frank said you had a lot of opinions. Most of which he found… How did he put that? Oh, yeah, ‘offensive and intrusive’ were his exact words, I believe. And that the only way he could get rid of you was to threaten to arrest you on the spot.”

  Clearly on the defensive, Jesse opted for a quick subject change. “You know, it’s really uncomfortable talking to you when I can’t see your eyes through those sunglasses.”

  “Do you find it intimidating?” he asked, embracing the new direction.

  “A little.”

  “Well, good, because God knows I try. But I can’t honestly see that anything I say has any effect on you. And I’m getting very tired of it. Any minute now, I’m getting ready to slap some cuffs on you and haul you off to jail. And then we’ll see if that makes a dent in your thick skull.”

  The last few words had risen in volume, and Jesse winced as his finger stabbed the air just inches from her face.

  “Offering to comp somebody lunch is not a bribe,” she defended. “And I can’t help it if I’m naturally observant.”

 
“Observant?” He drew his head up and back, a little like a rattler getting ready to strike. “How about nosey? Huh? Does that work for you? Cause it works for me. And interfering and nosey will both get you arrested.”

  “Oh, really? Well, you know what?” Nose in the air, chin defiantly tilted, she planted her fists on her hips. “I’m getting pretty tired of being yelled at by you guys every time I turn around. Good grief! You could all use some anger management classes, you know that?”

  “Let me tell you something, lady.” One foot moved forward to support the weight that now towered over her in earnest. “We’ve had anger management classes, and that’s the only reason you aren’t already doing your natural observing from inside a jail cell. I’m going to say this one last time. You are not helping your friend. You are not going to magically solve this crime. You don’t know what you’re doing and you’re getting in the way.” His voice rose with each sentence and ended on a crescendo.

  Adrenaline pumping, Jesse stopped herself an instant away from “oh, yeah?” Instead, she took a deep breath, stared into her own reflection in Joe Tyler’s dark sunglasses, and said quietly, “I don’t know if I can. I don’t know what else to do, and I can’t just stand aside.”

  “You need to learn how,” he said just as quietly. “This is very serious. And it’s no place for amateurs, as well-meaning as they might be. Now, get back in your truck and drive away, slowly and sanely. And stop playing your little detective games, because the next time, there won’t be any discussion.”

  With that, he turned on his heel, walked back to the driver’s door and reentered his pickup. The sound of his engine roared to life as Jesse did the same. Inside her truck, a blast of heat wrapped around her, soothing her jangled nerves for an instant before it began to suffocate her.

  Bliss glanced nervously over her shoulder to where the sheriff’s white pickup, ram bars on the front, still sat with its engine rumbling. “What in the world was that about?” she whispered.