by Vickie Fee
“I don’t have to. She does a pretty good job of that without any help from me,” he said, the righteous indignation on his face suddenly melting into sadness. “Just leave the questioning of witnesses to me, okay?”
Dave abruptly ended the conversation and walked away. I was really starting to worry about those two.
Back at my desk I got down to work on my seemingly endless to-do list. Surprisingly, I didn’t have the usual phone calls and interruptions, so I was able to tick boxes off my list at a furious pace.
I’d made it to the next-to-last item when the desk phone rang. It was Di.
“I tried to call your cell phone, but didn’t get an answer,” Di said. “When I drove past your office a little while ago, I saw your car parked out front.”
“You called? How come I didn’t hear it ring?” I said. I picked up the cell phone sitting beside my computer. It was dead.
“Oh, great,” I said. “I forgot to charge it. What time is it anyway?”
“It’s about five-twenty.”
“I completely lost track of time,” I said. “There’s just so much to do before the fund-raiser. But I’m beat. If you’re not busy, I’ll wrap things up here and come over to your place. In all the excitement last night, I forgot to tell you about my meeting at Bryn’s office yesterday.”
“Sure,” Di said. “Come on over.”
I locked up the office and drove to the trailer park. Di opened her door for me and I walked in, plopped down in the recliner, and pulled the lever to put my feet up.
I briefly filled Di in on my conversation with Bryn, the weird fog that filled the room momentarily, and the erased messages.
“I don’t think Bryn erased that message,” I said. “I saw the green light on the answering machine showing messages after she played the recording. It was just an instant later when that mist rose up and we rushed out.”
“I can’t believe you and Bryn went back in the office after that,” Di said. “What if that stuff was some kind of toxic gas?”
I hadn’t even considered that possibility, but since it had been more than twenty-four hours, I figured I’d probably live.
“We have to work out what we’re going to tell Dave about Pierce and Lucinda—and what happened at Bryn’s office,” Di said.
“I have a headache and I’m starving. Why don’t we talk about it over supper at Taco Belles,” I said.
“Okay,” she said. “Where’s Larry Joe?”
“He’s got a Jaycees meeting tonight.”
“I’ll drive since you’ve got a headache,” Di said.
We climbed into the Buick and made the short drive to Taco Belles.
As we entered the restaurant, Di and I passed Mitzi leaving with a sackful of takeout containers. She just scowled as she walked by.
We snagged a back corner booth where we’d have relative privacy and ordered our usual—catfish tacos and mango slaw, along with margaritas.
“What about what happened at the chamber office?” I said.
“Let’s start with what Lucinda told us. That might be less complicated,” Di said.
“Okay,” I said. “Assuming Lucinda was telling the truth, the real question is whether Pierce was telling the truth.”
“Let’s break it down and see what we’ve got,” Di said. “A. Pierce was telling the truth. Morgan was just playing Lucinda to get what she wanted from her.”
“Morgan manipulating someone to get what she wants is entirely believable,” I said.
Di nodded.
“B. Pierce was lying. He and Morgan really were planning to get married, but now that she’s dead he doesn’t want anyone to know,” Di said.
“That one doesn’t ring true to me,” I said. “Why wouldn’t he admit it to Lucinda? And if he really was in love with Morgan, wouldn’t he have seemed at least a little upset about her death?”
The waitress delivered our margaritas. We slurped the frozen beverage through our straws as we pondered for a long moment.
“Hmm,” Di said. “Or, C. Morgan really believed she and Pierce were going to be married, but he never intended for that to happen.”
“If C is the correct answer, then Pierce could have had motive to kill Morgan. If she was starting to believe her own fairy-tale version of things, and even saying so to a few select friends like Lucinda, he might have wanted to shut her up—permanently,” I said.
“Especially with his political ambitions,” Di said. “Scandal could hurt his chances of getting elected, or even getting a campaign off the ground.”
“Right,” I said.
The waitress returned with our platters and a squeeze bottle of chipotle tartar sauce.
“Of course,” Di said, waving her fork in the air, “B would give Bryn a pretty strong motive for murder, if she found out Pierce was planning to dump her and marry Morgan.”
“Although, for it to be a motive for murder, Bryn would have to actually care that her husband was fooling around, which I don’t think she does,” I said. “I don’t pretend to understand it, but some marriages seem to work with that kind of arrangement.”
“Okay. So it seems Pierce may have had more of a motive to kill Morgan than his wife did. But it was Bryn, not Pierce, who had the opportunity to slip poison into her drink at the retreat,” Di noted.
“I guess so,” I said before taking another bite of my taco and mulling things over for a minute. “But Pierce could have hired one of the caterers to kill her. He’s got plenty of money, and the bartender could have easily slipped poison into Morgan’s drink.”
“Or, maybe Nell’s husband, Billy, killed Morgan because she was threatening to tell Nell about the two of them or because he found out about Morgan and Pierce and became insanely jealous,” Di said.
“So basically we’re right back where we started,” I said, feeling frustrated.
“Pretty much,” Di said. “We have plenty of suspects, but all the real evidence points to Jasmine.
“No, no, no. . . .” My brain was suddenly racing, new possibilities darting through my head. “If we factor in what happened at Bryn’s office this afternoon, all the evidence doesn’t point to Jasmine.”
“You think Lucinda made that phone call to Bryn,” Di said.
“Not only do I think Lucinda left that phone message, I think she sent one of her lackeys to erase the message. Think about it, Di. That message had been sitting on Bryn’s answering machine for over a week. Why would someone decide to get rid of it at that very moment?”
Di thought for a minute and said, “Because she played it for you?”
“Exactly,” I said.
“So what, you think Lucinda had Bryn’s office bugged or something?” Di said. “How would she know?”
“I don’t think the office was bugged,” I said. “I think the answer is far simpler than that. We confronted Lucinda about her meeting with Pierce. After that, I think she told someone on her payroll to keep an eye on us. I don’t know if one of her goons was eavesdropping or if Lucinda just got worried when they phoned and told her where I was. But either way, she decided it would be a good idea to make sure that recorded message was erased. I have no idea how they managed the instant smoke or whatever it was, but it was obviously meant to drive Bryn and me out of the building—which it did. That gave someone just enough time to slip in through the back door and erase the messages.”
We ended supper with more questions than answers and decided to go back to Di’s to continue our conversation.
We got into Di’s car and pulled onto the road headed for Sunrise Mobile Village, and I was asking Di if Dave had mentioned anything new about the case recently. Just then, I felt something furry brush against my hand. I looked down at the seat between us and saw the biggest, ugliest, hairiest spider I’d ever seen in my life. It was the size of a baseball. I jumped as high as someone wearing a seat belt can jump and pressed myself against the passenger door.
“Di, there’s a tarantula right next to you,” I said in a high-pi
tch whisper.
“Don’t be ridicu . . . oh, sweet Jesus!” Di yelled as the giant spider climbed onto her leg. Both of us shrieked as she careened into oncoming traffic. Then she jerked the steering wheel hard to the right and drove headfirst into a ditch.
The car was lodged, headlights down, taillights up. We each scrambled out of our respective doors. I clawed at the steep embankment, trying to pull myself out of the ditch and as far away from the monster spider as I could.
On her side of the car, Di had managed to escape the ditch by climbing up over a culvert. She was standing in the driveway of Dixie Savings and Loan, screaming into her cell phone.
“Get over to the bank right this minute. Bring a shotgun—and call a tow truck,” she yelled, sounding as crazy as I’m sure we looked to passersby.
Moments later, Dave and Ted pulled into the bank’s well-lighted parking lot. While Di was trying to explain to Dave what happened, Ted grabbed a rope from the trunk of the cruiser. Following his instructions, I tied it around my waist. After making sure the spider was nowhere in sight, I steadied myself against the side of the car and took one big step up, followed by a series of tiny steps up the embankment as Ted tugged on the rope.
I walked over and stood beside Di just in time to hear Dave say, “Now you know it couldn’t possibly have been a tarantula. Fishing spiders can get a pretty good size, but they’re not poisonous. And any spider can startle you if it climbs up on you.”
“Do not treat me like some hysterical female,” Di said, her eyes flashing with anger. “I am telling you, it was a tarantula. Liv saw it. Tell him, Liv.”
“I swear, Dave. It was as big as your fist.”
“I’m sure it seemed that way,” Dave said patronizingly. “Did you two by any chance have drinks with dinner?”
Di’s eyes shot daggers in Dave’s direction.
“Ted, would you kindly drive Liv and me home? I’m sure your boss here can wait for the tow truck.”
Ted looked over to Dave.
“We’ll all wait for the tow truck,” Dave said. “After he pulls it out of the ditch, we need to see if the Buick is drivable.”
Di threw her hands up in the air, walked up to the bank steps, and sat down. I joined her.
“Insinuating I’m drunk. He’s got some nerve,” Di muttered.
I decided silence was golden on this one.
The tow truck arrived. Dave blocked off the lane next to the ditch with a couple of orange cones retrieved from the trunk of the patrol car. Ted directed traffic, allowing a few cars at a time to pass in one direction before switching the traffic flow.
The tow truck driver attached a winch to the back of Di’s car and hoisted it from the ditch. He then backed into the bank parking lot and lowered her car onto the pavement.
Ted got in the car and turned the key, which Di had left in the ignition. After making an awful grinding noise, the engine fired up. He jumped out of the car, fetched a cardboard box from the cruiser, and went back to Di’s car. Ted’s head disappeared as he leaned across the front seat. In a moment he stood up, walked over to Dave, and showed him the contents of the box.
Dave took off his hat and raked his fingers through a mop of wavy dark hair. He took the box from Ted and walked over to where Di and I were sitting.
“This look familiar?” he said, lowering the box for us to peer inside. After a quick peek, we both recoiled.
Di jumped up and said, “I hope that’ll teach you to doubt my word, Sheriff Davidson.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said.
I took another peek at the spider from a safe distance. “We could have been killed.”
“Actually, Ted has a keen interest in insects and spiders,” Dave said. “He’s always watching those nature documentaries. He says tarantulas rarely bite, and their venom isn’t dangerous to humans.”
“I’ll keep my distance all the same,” Di said.
Ted was lying underneath Di’s car, his legs sticking out, while the tow truck guy took a look under the hood.
“Doesn’t look like there’s any damage to the undercarriage,” Ted said, standing up and brushing off the seat of his pants.
“Things look all right under the hood, too” the truck driver said. “They built ’em solid back in the seventies.”
The body of Di’s Buick Riviera is vintage 1972, albeit not in mint condition. But the engine is newer and completely rebuilt with only 77,000 miles on it courtesy of Di’s ex-husband, who’s currently cooling his heels in the Texas State Penitentiary.
Di asked the tow truck man what she owed him, and he told her it had already been taken care of. She gave Dave the faintest of smiles.
The sheriff asked the guy if he’d mind dropping Ted off at the sheriff’s office.
“Ted,” Dave said, handing the box over to the deputy, “take our little friend back to the office and put him in that old terrarium Terry used to keep her turtle in. I’m going to follow Di’s car to make sure these two make it safely home,” Dave said in an ominous tone.
Chapter 20
Di pulled onto the gravel pad in front of her trailer and parked next to my SUV. Dave pulled in behind her.
Once inside, I collapsed into the recliner and Di flopped down on the sofa. Dave remained standing, his lips pursed together tensely.
“The thing that concerns me most, ladies,” Dave said, “is that tarantulas aren’t exactly indigenous to this area.”
Di interrupted him.
“Really? That’s what concerns you most. Not the fact that Liv and I could have both been killed?” she said, looking like she was ready to burst into flames.
“I know you had a fright, but I told you tarantula bites aren’t deadly to humans,” he said from his high horse.
“Forget about the spider, bites or no bites,” she said. “When that thing attacked me, I lost control of the car. Fortunately, we ended up in a ditch instead of having a head-on collision with oncoming traffic. That could have killed both of us—and maybe even some other people.”
“You’re right. And I am very thankful that no one was injured,” he said. “But the fact remains, that spider did not stroll out of the woods and climb into your car. Which means somebody put it there,” Dave said, his eyes darting from me to Di and back to me.
“And my best guess is that it was intended as some kind of warning,” he said in an accusing tone. “I think you better tell me what you two have been up to lately.”
Di and I looked at each other blankly, then suddenly our eyes widened.
“Of course,” I said. “We know exactly who put that giant spider in the car, don’t we?”
“Yeah, we do. But something tells me you’re not going to like it,” Di said, looking at Dave.
After a beat, Dave said. “Well . . . who was it?”
“Lucinda Grable,” Di said.
Dave threw his hands in the air and paced back and forth for a moment.
“Lucinda Grable, Lucinda Grable,” he said. “Everybody in this town is obsessed with Lucinda Grable. Can I ask why Lucinda would want to put a tarantula in your car?”
“Well, to be precise,” I said, “it wasn’t Lucinda herself who put the spider in the car. It was that lapdog assistant of hers, Mitzi.”
“That’s right,” Di affirmed. “We saw her at the restaurant tonight.”
“Even so,” Dave said. “What reason would Lucinda or her assistant possibly have to want to frighten you?”
“Because she knew we suspected she was involved somehow in Morgan’s death,” Di said.
“And how did she know that you suspected her?”
“Because we told her, in so many words,” Di said.
“And when and where did you have this conversation?”
“Tuesday in her hotel suite,” Di said.
Before Dave could say anything else, I jumped in.
“Look, Dave, we saw Lucinda meeting with Pierce Davenport at Red’s. It was all very cloak-and-dagger. They slipped in the side door and into the
small private dining room. We told her that we saw her.”
“And you two just happened to be at Red’s when they showed up?”
“No,” I said. “We just happened to be in the strip shopping center across the street when they showed up.”
That was a bold-faced lie. But I wasn’t about to throw Nell and Sindhu under the bus at this point.
“And from your vantage point across the street, you could see that Pierce and Lucinda went into the little private dining room in the back of the restaurant?” Dave said, shifting into interrogation mode.
“No, Mr. Smarty Pants,” Di said. “After we saw them go in, I walked across the street and went inside the restaurant to take a good look. Just to be absolutely sure it was them.”
“Even if she did meet with Pierce, how does that prove she had anything to do with Morgan’s death?” Dave said.
“It doesn’t prove anything,” Di said, jumping up from the sofa. “But it does suggest that Lucinda may have had other reasons for coming to Dixie besides speaking at the PWAD retreat. It also suggests that maybe Lucinda didn’t come as a favor for her dear old friend Morgan, out of the goodness of her heart. And it might also explain why she’s still hanging around town like a bad cold after you’ve told her she’s free to leave. If she wants, she could always fly back in for Morgan’s funeral after the medical examiner releases the body.”
Dave looked like he was holding his breath, and Di had that familiar expression on her face like she’d said all she had to say. I intervened.
“Dave, you said yourself that tarantulas aren’t native to this area,” I said. “Nobody in Dixie walked into the woods and scooped up a tarantula. But the globe-trotting Miss Grable could have easily procured one. In fact, a big hairy spider crawling across a tombstone is just the kind of creepy thing they’d do on her show.”
“Yeah,” Di said. “She may even have a spider wrangler on staff for all we know. And tell him about that weird fog that just suddenly came up in Bryn’s office,” she said, motioning toward me. “Fog hugging the ground is another special effect they’d use on her ghost show.”
