by Meg Muldoon
But maybe his sort didn’t need any reason to be unpleasant. It just came naturally.
“And to think, we were getting along so well just the other day,” I said, leaning my head back against the wall, recapturing my cool.
“Oh, we can still get along,” he said. “In fact, that’s why I’m here. You see, what I was saying, before you interrupted, is that the chief is wrong about me. I’m a good cop. I don’t belong writing traffic tickets. Everyone at the department knows it.”
We were just going to have to agree to disagree on that one, I thought. But I bit my tongue before the mean-spirited words escaped my mouth.
“I’m going to be part of this case, whether they want me to or not,” he said, stepping closer to me. “And I think I can do that with your help, Loretta.”
I raised an eyebrow.
I didn’t much like the tone he was using. As if I owed him somehow for him making a fool of himself during the Dale Dixon investigation.
“I already talked to the cops about what happened that night,” I said. “Why would I talk to you about all of it again?”
“Because right now, they’re looking at Floyd Gallagher as their primary suspect,” he said. “Now as you know, Floyd’s older brother happens to be one of my good friends. And try as I might, I just can’t see this kid shooting Clay Westwood with an arrow. No matter what dispute they were having earlier in the evening.”
I bit my lower lip.
Floyd Gallagher. Of course it made sense that the cops would suspect him. He’d gotten into that fist fight with Clay in front of the whole bar and had left in quite the unhappy mood.
But anyone with half a brain, including Raymond, would know that Floyd wasn’t the murdering kind. His transgresses didn’t go much farther than getting in a few barroom brawls every now and again.
Raymond stepped close enough so that he was towering over me.
“And it’s not just because they’re about to arrest the wrong man either,” he said, lowering his voice. “Yesterday…”
He trailed off, clearing his throat, then started again.
“Did you know that Clay Westwood showed up at the police station yesterday afternoon?”
“What?” I said, furrowing my brow.
Raymond nodded.
“Most everyone but me and the chief had cleared out for the lunch hour. I went to the little boy’s room, and when I come back to my desk, guess who’s sitting there in the chief’s office? Clay Westwood himself. Talking to the chief. Kind of angry like, if you ask me.”
I guess maybe Raymond expected me to be surprised by that revelation, but I wasn’t.
Clay had come to Broken Hearts Junction on a mission: to get to the bottom of what happened to his father 25 years ago. It made sense that he might stop at the police station to ask questions about it.
“But you know what’s strange about all that?” Raymond asked.
“What?”
“That the cops working the case don’t know that Clay Westwood was in our office a few hours before getting shot. The chief hasn’t told them about that. Now don’t you think that’s a little odd?”
I furrowed my brow.
“I suppose so,” I said.
“I’ve been trying and trying, but I can’t wrap my head around why the chief would keep something like that quiet,” he said. “Wasn’t like he was doing anything wrong by talking to Clay. It just doesn’t make much sense to me.”
He scratched his chin.
I scanned his face, sizing up the situation.
Raymond was implying that the chief of police somehow had something to do with all of this. And while he could have been right, I also knew that much of this probably had to do with a grudge Raymond had been holding against the chief since he demoted him last year.
But while Raymond’s motivations for looking into the case were probably selfish, there was one thing we agreed on.
That Floyd Gallagher didn’t do it.
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll help you with what I can. But my help doesn’t come for free, Raymond.”
“What do you want?” he said.
“I want you to tell me what you find out,” I said. “Before you tell the cops and the reporters about it.”
That made him smirk a little bit, the prospect of fame and glory dancing in his head on account of him cracking the case, no doubt. The books, the movie deals, and the like.
“Do we have a deal?” I said.
He hesitated for a moment, rubbing the back of his neck.
“You’re not gonna go all Nancy Drew on this, are ya, Loretta?”
I shook my head.
“Of course not,” I said, the words as untrue as a married woman sitting alone at a bar on a Saturday night. “But Clay’s a close friend of Fletcher’s. And it seems only fair to me that you keep us informed.”
Raymond furrowed his brow, then finally nodded.
“Fine. It’s a deal,” he said. “Now I need to hear everything about that night. Take me out to the bar and show me exactly what happened.”
I swallowed back hard, suddenly doubting whether this deal was a good idea. Wondering if I hadn’t just made a deal with the devil.
After all, Raymond was doing this for all the wrong reasons.
But I had a feeling that something was off about all of this.
If Raymond was to be believed, the cops were trying to turn this into an open and shut case. More than a dozen witnesses saw Floyd get into that fight with Clay. Some of them had even taken videos with their phones of it, and the clips were circulating through the internet right now like wildfire.
But the way I saw it, this wasn’t an open and shut case.
Not by a long shot.
And if getting to the bottom of it meant making a deal with the devil, well, I was just going to have to get used to it being hot around here.
Chapter 36
I looked around the dim, empty barroom, a deep heaviness settling in the center of my chest.
I didn’t know if it was my imagination, but I swore, I could smell a coppery, tinny aroma in the air.
It was the same kind of smell that now permeated Fletcher’s flannel shirt at home.
It made me shudder something awful.
Raymond had left out the back door after I gave him a rundown of everything I’d seen the night before. I didn’t tell him what Law Dog had said about Clay’s reason for being in Broken Hearts Junction, knowing that it wasn’t my place to tell him without asking the old man first. I only told Raymond that a similar crime had once taken place at The Stupid Cupid in the early 90s. And that it’d be worth looking into, since the crime was never solved.
That seemed to satisfy Raymond for the time being. He left shortly after, not sharing much of what he discovered in his preliminary investigation. Which wasn’t a surprise.
I didn’t think Raymond exactly knew what the term quid pro quo meant to begin with. But I figured that wasn’t worth getting into an argument over at this point.
I had planned on waiting a spell before leaving the saloon myself, in an attempt to thwart the hordes of reporters outside as best I could.
But waiting in here would be a little harder than I had anticipated.
I looked at the yellow tape surrounding the spot where Clay fell. At the blood still on the pine floor. At the broken glass everywhere.
How familiar this scene all looked to me suddenly.
I shuddered again, thinking about how I found Dale Dixon the year before. His body splayed unnaturally out on the floor. Velma the Ox, a mounted ox head that had practically been The Stupid Cupid’s patron saint, lying atop his crushed skull.
For a saloon that had brought so much joy and happiness and excitement to so many people’s lives, including my own, it sure had a way of attracting a lot of blood and violence.
I thought Dale Dixon had been the only one to die in this place. But now I knew that there had been another.
Jake Warner.
I closed my eyes,
seeing the woman in the vision again.
Jake had been so taken with her. Absolutely thunderstruck. A hot, fiery feeling welling up inside of him that was so strong, I could almost feel it standing here alone in this quiet, empty place.
In my time as a matchmaker, I’d learned a thing or two about the different kinds of love.
There was the slow-rolling kind of love. The kind that Beth Lynn and Robert had, for example. Where two people didn’t immediately feel attracted to one another. In fact, sometimes they plain didn’t like each other when they first met. But as time goes by, feelings start rising to the surface, and sooner or later, the two fall slowly and deeply in love with each other.
That’s one kind of love.
Then there’s the smoldering kind of love. The one where the pair are instantly attracted to each other. Where there’s a kind of chemistry between the two that ignites when they touch, setting their hearts on fire with happiness and joy and vivaciousness.
That’s the kind of love I liked to think Fletcher and I had. At least on days when I felt like he was in my corner.
Then there was the third kind of love.
It wasn’t slow or smoldering.
It was a wildfire burning out of control. Consuming everything in its path. Destroying anything it touched. The desire was so profound, so wild, so brutal and all-encompassing, that all it left behind was a trail of ash.
Cleopatra and Caesar had that kind of love. Bonnie and Clyde had that kind of love.
And Jake Warner had that kind of love for the singer up on that stage in the vision.
And I knew, in my bones, it was that love that got him killed here at The Cupid that night.
I didn’t know why or how, but I knew.
We’ll find who did this to you, Jake, I thought, looking around the deathly quiet bar. To you, and to Clay.
I wasn’t expecting any sort of response from that, but when I was met only with silence, I couldn’t help feeling a little disappointed.
I wasn’t psychic. At least not in the conventional way. But maybe the vision I’d had, maybe somehow it’d been Jake, reaching out from beyond the grave. Searching for justice. Trying to tell me something about himself, and why, all these years later, the same thing had happened to his son.
Or, maybe I was just crazy.
Chapter 37
I sighed, leaning against the bar.
The Cupid was a mess. Aside from the yellow tape, the blood on the floor, there were untouched, half-full glasses and beer bottles strewn everywhere. The new late-winter menu, which I had so cheerfully written out on a chalkboard with such drinks as the Rosemary Lemon Drop Special and the Canyon Sling and the Whiskey Love Bug, was splattered with drops of Clay’s blood.
It took just about everything I had to not go grab a bucket, a mop, and a bottle of bleach and start scrubbing the entire place down.
But this was still a crime scene, and the cops hadn’t given us the go ahead yet to clean up the mess. In fact, they hadn’t even said yet when we’d be able to reopen again for business. Which probably should have concerned me more, being that I was the Cupid’s co-owner. But it was the least of my worries at this point.
I glanced at my phone.
Enough time had passed, I reckoned. Hopefully, the reporters had forgotten about me, and I’d be able to sneak out of here unnoticed.
I glanced around the room once more and then started to head for the back delivery door. A whiff of something rank and acidic him me strong as I walked by the bar.
The trash was full of fruit rinds, fried food, and coffee grounds and the like, and it was starting to smell real bad, no one having been able to throw it out.
I stopped in my tracks and looked around.
Surely the cops wouldn’t mind if the trash was taken out. It’d save their sense of smell a lot of trouble when they came back here, I figured.
I went over and pulled at the plastic bag, loosening it from the can. I started tying it together.
Then, something caught my eye.
I stopped what I was doing, peering down at the heap of lemon slices and old food.
There was a crumpled up napkin with writing on it.
I didn’t make it a habit to reach into bags of garbage.
But before I knew it, I was digging in, unearthing the crumpled-up napkin.
I put the trash bag down, and unfolded the creased, rough paper.
I read the crudely-written words, my eyes growing wide.
“C: Forget the past & get out of this town NOW.”
The hairs on the back of my neck stood straight up on end.
Chapter 38
The sun was sinking fast in the powder blue sky as I drove back over to the hospital.
The icy roads, which hadn’t melted a bit in the cold sun, made driving a sluggish, arduous process. But after spending the better part of my life here in Broken Hearts Junction, I’d gotten used to winter driving and all the pains that it entailed. Broken Hearts was a place of extremes. Summers were bright and hot in the high desert. Winters were cold and treacherous and sometimes felt like they might not ever end.
I picked Fletcher up from the hospital. Even more reporters were stationed outside the large building. Some fans too were standing out there in the cold, holding up signs that said things like “We Love you, Clay!” and “Get Better Soon!”
Maybe it was all their well-wishing, but Fletcher said that Clay’s condition had improved some. Clay seemed to be a fighter, the doctor had said.
I’d felt relieved, hearing the news. But the doctor had also said Clay wasn’t out of the woods yet. And that once he was, there was a long road to recovery ahead.
It was quiet in the car most of the way back to Fletcher’s house. That awkwardness between us was still there from our argument earlier.
I tried not to think too hard about any of that, mostly because I didn’t have the energy for it.
When we hit a red light, I pulled from my pocket the napkin I’d found in the trash earlier, which I had placed in a plastic bag, and handed it to him.
He examined it for a long while.
“Where’d this come from?” he asked.
“The Cupid’s garbage can.”
“So this means…” he said, pausing for a moment. “This means someone was trying to warn Clay that night?”
I nodded, hitting the accelerator as the light turned green.
That revelation sent Fletcher into deep, quiet thought.
“I’ve been thinking about it,” I said. “And I think there’s a good chance that that person was in the bar when Clay was shot. The napkin looked like it had been thrown away in a hurry. And there weren’t that many people in the saloon that night, so if we could just eliminate some—”
“Hold up, Loretta,” Fletcher said, rubbing his face, the way he did when he was concerned about something. “Now I’m no great believer in the local cops’ ability to solve crimes. But don’t you think you oughta give this evidence to them? I mean, the guy who did this is still out there. You start asking the wrong questions, and…”
He trailed off, shaking his head, unable to complete the thought.
I glanced over, noticing that he was pale again.
He was worried about me.
“I would turn this in,” I said. “‘Cept I don’t much believe in their ability to solve this crime either. You know what Raymond told me earlier? He told me—”
“Wait, you spoke to Raymond?” Fletcher said, sitting up in his seat.
I swallowed hard.
“Yeah,” I said. “I told you the cops wanted to see me.”
“Yeah, but you didn’t tell me he was there,” he said.
Obviously, Fletcher didn’t care much for Raymond given our history, and the way the cop had tried to pin Dale Dixon’s murder on me last year.
I knew I should have told Fletcher that it was Raymond I was going to see.
But for some reason, maybe because of our earlier argument, I had decided to hold back.
“I’m sorry,” I said, looking over at Fletcher. “I should have told you. But there’s something important he told me. He said that Clay paid Chief Longwell a visit yesterday during the lunch hour. But that the officers assigned to the case don’t know anything about this visit. And that they’re getting ready to arrest Floyd Gallagher for shooting Clay.”
Fletcher didn’t say anything.
I pulled up to the driveway of his house, letting the engine run.
He shook his head.
“Loretta,” he said. “I don’t like this.”
We sat in silence for a little while, that notion lingering in the air.
“Please stay tonight,” he finally said, looking over at me. “We need to talk more about this.”
“All right,” I said. “But I’ve gotta go home and pick up Hank.”
“Well let’s go to your place then.”
Just then the curtains in the front window moved. Lawrence’s silhouette came into focus.
“No,” I said. “Law Dog’s been alone all day. And he shouldn’t be alone any longer than he has to be. I’ll be back in less than 20 minutes.”
“Loretta—”
“It’s okay,” I whispered. “Just… look at him.”
Law Dog shot off a short wave in our direction.
Fletcher let out a sigh and then unbuckled his seatbelt.
“You promise you’ll drive right back?”
I nodded.
“Promise.”
“Be careful,” he said, squeezing my hand.
“I will.”
He got out and shut the door. I watched as he slogged through the snow up to the front porch of the house, his head hanging low. Law Dog opened the front door, and I watched as Fletcher embraced the old timer as he walked into their home.
I shook my head.
Even when we had our differences, even when things didn’t run as smoothly as I liked, I still loved that Fletcher Hart a hell of a lot.
I backed away down the driveway, and then pulled out into the twilight.
Chapter 39
I hugged Hank hard, patting his large chest and kissing his soft fur.
