“Well, he deserved it.”
“He didn’t hurt Mama Cat, did he?”
“No! Of course not. He was just acting like a jerk.”
They sat in the library and drank some cocoa, letting the warm sweet chocolate soothe their ruffled nerves. Mama Cat walked in and head-butted Mo’s leg for some ear scratches.
After a few minutes of silence and marshmallows, Lisa said, “Dylan asked me to look into the murder, to try to clear his name.”
Mo’s eyebrows rose. He stroked Mama Cat’s head in silence.
“I told him I would.”
“You should let the police handle this.”
“You sound like Toby.”
“Toby’s right. This is a murder case, Lisa,” he said, his voice rising.
“I can’t turn my back on someone in trouble.”
“It could be dangerous.”
She shook her head. How could he ask her to let someone go to jail for a murder he didn’t commit?
“I don’t want to lose you,” Mo whispered.
Chapter 21
Lisa paced up to the front window and peeked out again. The setting sun turned the snow outside a rosy shade of pink.
Toby’s police cruiser pulled up outside and her tall crewcut cousin ambled up the porch stairs. Lisa held the door open for him.
“A little coffee before we go?” she said.
“You’re a mind-reader, cuz.”
Coffees drunk, Lisa dropped the cups in the sink and locked up. She skipped down the porch steps, ready for a fun time with her cousin. He opened the car door for her and shoved a pile of paperwork onto the floor.
“Thanks for driving,” Lisa said. “They said they’d get to my snow tires today between noon and seven.”
“Precision. I like that.”
She laughed. “I’ll show you some precision today.”
“Precision or accuracy?”
“Which one is which, again?”
“Precision is hitting the same spot every time. Accuracy is hitting what you’re aiming for.”
“Oh. Well, I’m still pretty rusty, so maybe neither.”
“That’s what practicing is for, right?”
“Don’t you mean meditating?”
Toby laughed. “Meditating. Yes.”
“Hey, did they ever catch the Slim Jim robber?”
“The what?”
“The one with the prop gun,” Lisa said.
“Oh him, yeah. Deputies picked him up at his trailer. He took a plea.” Toby shook his head. “They gave him community service, if you can believe that.”
“Why, because the gun wasn’t real?”
“Who knows why judges do anything?” Toby said.
Lisa nodded. “What about the gun? Does that have to stay in evidence?”
“Nope. If he went to trial we’d have to keep it, but with his plea we don’t.”
“Good. Tyrone will be glad to have it back in the props inventory. He’s a cool guy, but I think having something missing from inventory was driving him batty.”
Ruby’s old blue Ford was the only car parked in the lot at Moss Creek Guns and Ammo. Toby backed his cruiser into a spot near the door.
Ruby looked up from her paperback as Lisa and Toby came inside. She gave a little wave and set a clipboard of paperwork on the counter.
In the shooting lanes, Toby and Lisa got into their individual rhythms. With the ear protection on, Lisa felt like she was in her own little world. It was a world with only her and the target and the bullets that never quite went where she was aiming. Still, the shooting was starting to feel a little less haphazard and a little more like a skill she could learn.
Lisa reloaded the gun and fired more shots at her paper target. She tried to remember to breathe the way Toby had showed her, and to squeeze the trigger with steady pressure.
A terrible thought passed over her like a cloud across the sun. What had it felt like for Dylan to be shooting on set and then find that he’d shot and killed a man? Paper targets were one thing, but the idea of sending a hunk of hot metal through the flesh of another person, that was a horror.
Had Kaden really set that up? Lisa tried to imagine the nerve it would take to stand in place, knowing you were about to be shot, expecting to be killed.
Sobered, she loaded the last of the bullets and tried to aim carefully. Her last paper target came back with half the holes within two rings of the center bullseye. Lisa nodded to herself, satisfied with her shooting, until she looked over at her cousin’s lane.
Toby had a neat stack of used targets behind his lane. She inspected them, and found that she could put a finger through the middle of the entire pile.
“Both accurate and precise,” she yelled.
He raised an eyebrow and pointed to his ear, then nodded toward the door. They packed up their things and left the range. It was a relief to take off the hearing protection and feel the pulse of ordinary sound rush back in.
“You were saying?” Toby said.
“Both accurate and precise,” she said, pointing at the targets in his hand.
“You could be that accurate, too. It just takes practice.”
They brought the earmuffs back to the counter and waved to Ruby before going outside.
The fresh smell of pine trees was a welcome change from the close air of the gun range. Lisa took a deep breath. Toby took out his pack of cigarettes. She shot him a look, and he put them back in his pocket unopened.
“Nice out here,” he said. “Fresh air.”
Lisa nodded, still thinking about Kaden. “Do you ever think about what it would be like to be shot?”
Toby leveled a look at her and then fished the cigarette pack out again. “Yeah, I’ve thought about it.”
She scowled at the cigarette but said nothing as he lit it.
Toby took a long drag and looked off into the dark woods across the road. “A guy I went to the academy with got shot, first year out on patrol. Traffic stop.”
“Whoa. Did he make it?”
“Yeah. Quit doing police work, though.”
“That makes sense, I guess.”
“I guess.” He leaned against his car, smoking.
Lisa rubbed her arms against the cold. “What do you think it would take to stand in front of a bullet, knowing you’re about to be shot?”
Toby raised an eyebrow. “What are you talking about, cuz?”
“Nothing. Just thinking about Kaden.”
“Any idiot can stand in front of a prop gun loaded with blanks.” He took a puff. “Or what he thinks are blanks.”
“What if he knew some of the bullets were real?”
“Seems kind of far-fetched, cuz.”
She shrugged.
“But with those Hollywood types, it’s hard to know what they’ll do.”
“Hey, I was one of those Hollywood types.”
“Naw, you’re a Moss Creek, Arizona type,” he said, reaching over and swatting her braid.
*
Toby dropped Lisa off at the mechanic to pick up her car with its new snow tires. She drove to Carly’s house and went to knock on the front door.
Carly answered the door with her hair in a ponytail that had gotten scrunched over to one side. She yawned and covered her mouth.
“Sorry, I must have fallen asleep,” she said. “Did we have plans tonight?”
“Not really. I just hoped we could hang out, maybe sort some baby clothes.”
Carly’s eyes snapped open. “Ooh, are you starting to get the baby fever?”
“No,” Lisa laughed. “More like the miss-my-best-friend fever.”
Carly gave half a laugh that turned into another yawn. “Sorry,” she said.
“Maybe this isn’t a good time?”
“Ugh, I wish it were. But the class is just wearing me out every day, and then I get home and do grading, and by the time the sun goes down I’m ready to sleep. I hardly even see Gideon these days. I tell you, this baby is going to be the death of me.”<
br />
“Oh, I understand. I mean, not technically, since I’ve never had a baby, but… oh, you know.” She hugged her friend. “I’ll see you later. Sweet dreams.”
Carly padded back inside, giving Lisa a little wave before she closed the door. Her eyes were drooping enough that Lisa could imagine her friend falling asleep before Lisa even got back in her car.
Lisa turned on the car and put the heater on full blast, then sat for a moment, unsure where she wanted to go. Carly was sleeping, Mo had late hours at the veterinary office, and she’d just seen Toby. It had been a while since she’d seen her mother. Lisa put the car in gear and headed for Penny’s house.
Driving up Penny’s street, Lisa could see that lights were on inside the wood and glass house. Good, her mother was at home.
As she approached, preparing to pull into the driveway, she saw an unwelcome sight. Her headlights reflected off the shiny new paint job of a red pickup truck. Jake Peterman’s red pickup truck.
Her stomach flipping over, Lisa took her foot off the brake and drove on by. What was that tasteless developer doing at her mom’s house? In the evening? Lisa realized she’d been holding out the hope that their date would be a flop, and Penny would remain single and available to get back together with Lou.
She sighed. It looked like her parents were truly split up.
At loose ends, Lisa drove out to Lola’s Burgers and More and got in the drive-thru line. A chocolate milkshake and some onion rings were never a bad thing.
Cruising around town munching on food from the drive-thru felt like a flashback from high school. Lisa drove as though on autopilot, and found herself on Dylan’s street. Was the ghost of her younger self in charge? She drove the speed limit, resisting the urge to slow down in front of his house, in case he was there.
She took a big slurp of milkshake and headed back toward downtown. Could Dylan really have killed Kaden on purpose? Or could Kaden have been suicidal? How would she ever solve a puzzle like that when no one could look inside the human heart?
Chapter 22
It had been a late day leaving set, with Gavin seeming desperate to get one more shot done even though the crew grumbled and shifted from foot to foot. Something about the early sunsets of January made even a normal workday feel longer. Coming home after dark felt like there was no private time left.
Lisa was tempted to go immediately to bed after putting away the trunk full of supplies. She looked at the clock. It was only six. What kind of person went to bed at six in the evening at age thirty? She thought of Carly, the last time they’d tried to get together in the evening. Ok, maybe new parents.
She should go out and do something fun. Where could she go in a small town like Moss Creek after dark in the winter? She had meant to start keeping the café open some evenings and inviting people to perform, but hadn’t started that yet. There was always a walk across the town square and a drink at Nero’s. Maybe a dessert, too. Lisa smiled. The thought of Nero’s desserts could coax a smile from a corpse. She cringed at the idea of Kaden, his body cold on the slab at the morgue, smiling. It had been a million-dollar smile in life, but would be ghastly now. She would have to think of a new way to express how delicious Nero’s food was.
Lisa put her coat on. Mama Cat came into the room and meowed at her before rubbing against her legs.
“Sorry, beautiful, I can’t bring you to Nero’s. You wouldn’t appreciate his tiramisu anyway.”
The cat meowed again, as though to protest that claim.
Lisa laughed. “You’re adorable.” She scratched the cat behind the ears and grabbed her keys and phone.
The walk across the square was cold but invigorating. The stars overhead were bright in the clear winter sky. Lisa picked out two of the easiest constellations, then gave up on identifying more. She’d meant to study up on stars, but never gone past the Big Dipper, Little Dipper, and Orion.
Lisa opened the door to Nero’s and was met with a blast of warm air that smelled wonderfully of freshly baked bread.
Nero spied her from across the room and a big smile spread across his fleshy face. He danced nimbly between tables to the doorway to greet her.
“Bella, bellissima! It is so good to see you. It’s been too long since you’ve come to see Nero.”
They exchanged a pair of cheek kisses.
“Thank you. I’m glad to be here, Nero. How is your family?”
“Oh, the little ones were so excited for Christmas, and now that school is back, it’s like this.” He made an exaggerated sad face, like a tragedy mask in the theater, holding it for a moment before laughing.
Lisa laughed with him. “I remember those days. It doesn’t seem so long ago.”
Nero agreed with her, then wiped his hands on his apron. “Will you be eating dinner tonight? We have a nice special on scalloppini.”
“Oh, I thought I would just have a drink and a dessert. I needed to get out of the house,” Lisa said. “When it’s dark so early I’m tempted to hibernate.”
Nero nodded. “Yes. As you can see, you are not the only one.” He gestured around them at the half filled seats of the restaurant.
Lisa nodded. A figure sitting at the bar caught her eye. It was Kari Ajax, the costume designer from the film. She’d meant to talk to her anyway, and maybe ask what she’d meant when she’d referred to Tyrone’s accident as ‘another’ one. How much did Kari see, working on a set, and would any of her insights help clear Dylan’s name?
“I think I’d like to sit at the bar,” Lisa told Nero.
He nodded and led the way. “Gino,” he said to the bartender, “Miss Lisa Chance will be eating at the bar. Get her anything she likes.”
Kari turned around at this, an eyebrow quirked at the restauranteur’s effusiveness.
Lisa pulled out the stool next to Kari. “Do you mind if I join you?”
“Sure, kid,” Kari said in her gravelly voice. “Sounds like everyone in this town knows you.”
Gino approached their end of the bar, polishing a glass. “Good evening. How may I serve?”
“Just a white wine, please, Gino,” Lisa said.
He poured her a glass of the house white and moved back to the other end of the bar, giving Lisa and Kari room for conversation.
“I was born here,” Lisa said. “Born and raised.”
“That explains the celebrity treatment. Even Kaden didn’t get that when we came in here the first night, god rest his soul.”
Lisa nodded. “I don’t expect he liked that too much.”
Kari swirled the melting ice in her glass. “That’s actors for you. All ego. Any little thing and they’re off the rails.” She chuckled. “God, I miss the days when you could smoke at the bar. What’s this world coming to?”
Lisa smiled, but privately she was glad she wouldn’t be going home with her clothes and hair smelling like cigarette smoke.
“How are you enjoying Moss Creek?” Lisa said. “Aside from the smoking, of course.”
Kari laughed. “You can’t smoke indoors in LA either, so that’s nothing new. I should go out to Las Vegas after this shoot is done. Get some sunshine, smoke at the blackjack table like a civilized person. Your little town is ok. Be glad to put this film in the rear view mirror, though.”
“Oh?”
“It’s been a strange one from the start. Little things at first, like a prop goes missing. So many accidents on set. And now Kaden, of course.”
“There were other accidents on set?” Lisa said, hoping to encourage Kari to share details without being too obvious about it.
“Tyrone, of course. You were there for that.”
Lisa shook her head. “I was away getting supplies, so I didn’t see it in person. But I’ve never even heard of a director’s chair collapsing like that.”
“They look flimsy, but they’re pretty strong,” Kari said. “A bit like Tyrone himself.”
Lisa drank her wine and studied the costume designer’s face. She had little wrinkles around her lipsticked m
outh, the tiny lines a testament to years of smoking.
“The opposite of that Ralphie Blunt,” Kari continued. “Everything I make him to wear, he has to have it changed lately.” She shook her head. “When did you ever hear of a stuntman who was such a prima donna? Kari, change this. Kari, change that. Kari, make it zip on the other side. Last night I had to redo his whole rig to put the zipper on the right instead of the left.”
“Weird,” Lisa said.
“That’s the word for it,” Kari said. “Weird.” She tossed the last of the melted ice into her mouth and stood. “See you on set, kid.”
Surprised by Kari’s sudden move to leave, Lisa couldn’t find the right words to keep her talking. Instead, she watched Kari slide a couple of bills under her glass and weave her way toward the door. Her hands were already in motion, getting out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter in anticipation of the open air on the sidewalk. Lisa shook her head. What a thing an addiction like that was. She hoped her cousin Toby would be able to kick the habit, as he’d been trying for months.
Gino floated over to her end of the bar and cleared away Kari’s glass. “More wine for you?” he asked.
“Please. And a dessert menu,” Lisa said.
As she looked over the tasty Italian desserts on the menu, she considered what Kari had told her — that Ralphie had been acting weirdly. She thought of the big man with his broken nose and his shy smile. It was hard to picture him demanding a total change to his wardrobe like that. But it seemed there was more to him than met the eye. Maybe it would be worth looking into him some more. He had been on set for the shooting. In fact, he had as much access to the guns as Dylan, maybe more. Maybe more than anyone aside from Tyrone, who’d been in the hospital that day. Could he have tampered with a gun?
She nodded to Gino that she was ready to order her dessert. She would definitely look into Ralphie Blunt further. Had he held any grudge against Kaden?
*
At the craft service table the next morning, Lisa gave Ralphie her best smile.
“Good morning, Ralphie. Care for a muffin?” she said.
“Sure, thanks.” He put a muffin on a paper plate and picked it up with his left hand.
Shooting on Location (Lisa Chance Cozy Mysteries Book 2) Page 14
