by Misty Simon
“Don’t say stuff like that about yourself. I’m stronger than I look.”
Strong enough to strangle Horace? I’d noticed the handwriting on the piece of pink stationery she had clamped to her chest. It had heart-shaped Is and loopy script. It also had her name on the top.
I backed up, afraid of her all of a sudden. What if she had tried to get rid of her husband—ex-husband, whatever—and went after Horace because he wouldn’t have her? She could have been a spurned lover. A groupie gone bad.
Oy! How did I get myself into these things?
She must have seen me staring at the piece of paper, because she held it out to me. “Read it. I’ve been trying to make sense of everything that’s happened, but I don’t know where to start.” She thrust the paper at me, again.
This time I took it. I didn’t want her to get violent on me.
But when I began reading the single sheet, I had no idea what I was looking at. Columns of numbers followed by scribbled words, followed by more numbers.
I’d waded into the emotional mess here, I’d comforted without being asked to, but I didn’t know how to ask her what on earth she had handed me. I think it had something to do with being afraid she was the killer.
She must have sensed my hesitation. “I really did love my husband, even if he was involved with that slime Horace. I couldn’t stand the fighting anymore about the greed that had infiltrated the group, and the way Nathaniel was being torn between the group and me. I wish he would have chosen me.”
“Wow, I can’t believe he didn’t.” My eyes scanned the paper, but it still looked Somalian to me.
“It wasn’t all his fault,” she said, sitting on the couch. “I didn’t trust him. I didn’t try to understand what was happening. I just demanded he stop, and never gave him a chance to work things out.”
Hmmm. I heard a little lesson in there for me, but it would need to wait for a different time. I screwed up my courage, finally, to ask her about the fan letters on Horace’s wall. “I’ve seen your handwriting before,” I said tentatively, not sure how to get this rolling.
She looked at me sharply. “How?”
Might as well jump right in. “I was in Horace’s house the other day and saw a bunch of letters on the wall.” I figured I could take her if she tried to attack.
She put a hand over her eyes. “God, does he still have those? It’s like he can’t let go once he knows he’s lost something.”
“What do you mean?” I put the sheet of paper down. It was giving me a headache anyway, and not making any sense.
“I used to follow them around, a long, long time ago. In fact, that’s how I met Nathaniel. I thought I wanted Horace, back in the day, but Nathaniel ended up being the man for me. We’d been married for five years this year.” She must have seen my brain chugging along, because she said, “Second marriage for both of us.”
“Oh, got it. So how many years are we talking?”
“About fifteen years ago they got started, but Nathaniel and I didn’t start dating until 2000. The band broke up after high school and reformed as this wedding band with songs like the Macarena. Nathaniel wasn’t completely happy. He and most of the other members wanted to go back to original songs, but they were making some serious money, so they all stayed.”
I wondered if they were making so much money that Horace could draw out stacks of cash from the bank.
Lauren seemed to read my mind. “That paper right there is me trying to figure out where the money went. I got a bank statement today and was trying to balance the books Nathaniel left, but I’m not having any luck.”
And that’s how I left with the books, the piece of paper, and a glimmer of an idea.
I figured after I tripped the light fantastic over to Mr. Hanks’ office and dropped my theories and my suppositions off, I would go back to Ben’s apartment to see if my powers of persuasion could make him drop the other black book long enough to get in some play time.
Unfortunately, a bullet ricocheted off my sideview mirror as I left Lauren’s driveway. I didn’t wait to find out who it was. I didn’t search the woods. I flew down the road like Satan was on my rear bumper.
Who was shooting at me, and were they going to follow to finish the job?
****
“I found fabulous information, almost died, and you want me to read some old guy’s memoirs?” That was me standing indignant in front of Ben after I’d driven hell bent for leather back into town. I’d thought about going straight to the police, but since they wouldn’t acknowledge I was helping on the case, I could technically report it to Jared later on, after I solved this whole thing for them. I went to Ben’s, instead.
“Yes, I want you to sit down and read this, and tell me what you think. I have to run to the paper to look up something in our archives, and then I’ll be right back. In the meantime, read and tell me what conclusions you come to.” He grabbed his jacket off the couch. “Are you going to be okay here by yourself? I couldn’t stand it if anything happened to you.”
“I’m sure I’ll be fine. I didn’t see anyone following me.” And I’d looked in my rearview mirror the whole way. “Maybe it was a hunter who thought an awfully big deer was standing in Lauren’s driveway.”
Ben laughed, as I’d intended him to. We had so much going on at the moment it was good to have a little release. I certainly wouldn’t be getting the big release I’d wanted until he returned from the archives.
He swooped down to kiss the top of my hair. “I highly doubt anyone would think your car was a deer. Good try, though. Sit tight here and don’t open the door for anyone. We’ll find out who it was before something worse happens.”
Frustrated, I watched him walk out the door still fully dressed and not writhing under me. I needed an outlet for all of this anxiety. Martha had called when I was on my way up Ben’s stairs and was demanding to know when I was going to have some answers. Horace had at least moved off the couch today, but only to get some donuts from the convenience store down the street. According to her frantic phone call, now he didn’t feel safe going back to his house because Doris seemed to think someone had broken in.
Oops.
I settled back into the duct-taped cushions of Ben’s couch and began to read, prepared to be bored completely out of my mind. But when I finished the handwritten book, there was no doubt in my mind something fishy was going on. Not to mention the fact that when I riffled through the pages and checked the final page, I found the last entry was dated yesterday, even though Horace supposedly hadn’t been back to his house in days.
****
“So what did you think?” Ben asked as he came tromping back into his apartment. He banged the snow off his shoes at the front door and brought some of the icy cold in with him.
“I think Horace is a loon with delusions of grandeur, but that’s nothing new. I also think there’s something wrong with all of his posturing. The last entry was done yesterday, but supposedly he only went out of the house today.”
“Very true, good eye. But I struck gold this time, I think. The paper didn’t have anything about the band and their performances.”
“Is that what you were looking for?”
He nodded and relaxed back on the couch next to me.
“Why? What does it matter?”
“If you’ll notice”—he took the book from me and started flipping through the pages—“Horace had marked some of their bigger gigs. I wanted to confirm they were actually doing as much work as he claimed. I keep going back to the fact that the trumpeter was shot and Horace nearly poisoned on the same night. I think there may have been a connection between the two other than the band.”
“Not to sound like a broken record, but why?” But my mind was working. Maybe I had been hasty to dismiss Lauren and her strength.
“Well, if someone was out to kill the whole band for one reason or another, don’t you think there would have been attempts on the remaining members?”
That was true, and someth
ing I hadn’t thought about. I’d been so focused on Horace I hadn’t even considered the other members. “Where do we go from here? I feel like we’re right on the verge of something, but I don’t know what it is.” I sank back into the cushions. “I wish Bella would have one of her uncanny premonitions and tell me what the hell is going on.”
“Well, until she does, we’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way. I didn’t find anything at the paper, and your ad hasn’t produced anything.”
“Not that I thought it would,” I said, twisting my face into a frown.
He patted my shoulder. “It’s all right. Not everything is going to work.”
How true those words were. It seemed nothing else was working either. “I did drop that book off to Mr. Hanks. Anything I missed in this one?”
“Some. It looks like your average diary with his wishes and dreams in it.” It looked nothing like my diary, but we won’t go there. “I don’t know. It also has some song lyrics and a couple of poems he wrote that are absolutely ridiculous.”
“Can I see?” Call it morbid curiosity after I’d heard how he could truly mess up the Chicken Dance, but I needed something to make me laugh.
“Right here, m’lady.” He handed me some loose sheets folded in half.
“Is that your sword, or are you just happy to see me?”
“I can be the sword.” He lifted his eyebrows at me. I threw a pillow at him, then grabbed the pages out of his hand.
Ten minutes later, I was horrified. I guess we had gotten off easily with the Chicken Dance. Truly terrifying, but other than wanting to gag, they didn’t do much for us. I slumped back. “Nothing.” I sighed my bangs out of my eyes. “What else can we do?”
“Did you learn anything from Lauren whatshername?”
He had to ask. “Yes.” I told him about her trying to figure out the money. I decided not to tell him about the sobfest because then I might have to tell him about the trust thing, and that would get us into territory we’d already covered. Ahem. “I think that might be our only real lead right now. Crap.”
“No, not crap yet, we still have some resources. Why don’t you check in with Bella and see what she found out from Doris, if anything.”
So I called Bella and got an earful about how I owed her forever and a day, and nothing—nothing—I did would ever repay the whole day of messing with that woman. I thought now was probably not the appropriate time to remind her that she only had Doris for approximately two hours, and let her keep talking.
I made hand talking motions and mouthed, “blah, blah, blah.” Ben laughed and Bella squawked. “You are not making fun of me right now. I know you are not making fun of me after I spent God knows how long taking care of the woman from hell while you trounced around her house.”
“No, I’m definitely not making fun of you. I’m listening with rapt attention, I promise.”
“Fine.” And she went on and on and on. I tuned her out until she made a comment that caught my attention.
“Wait a minute, back up. What did you say about the trumpeter and money?”
“You haven’t been listening, have you? I can’t believe you haven’t been listening while I’ve been pouring my heart out to you.”
Ugh. “Look, I’m sorry. Ben keeps licking my ear, and you know how I can’t concentrate when he’s turning on the charm.”
Ben quirked an eyebrow at me from across the room. Okay, so I lied. But at least it settled her down.
“Tell him to stop.”
“Stop, Ben, stop.” Yeah, it came out about as dry as it sounded. “Now, the trumpeter.”
“Well, let’s see. Umm. Right. Doris was going on and on about how the trumpeter was the accountant for the band and how he was so tight-fisted the band was hardly making any money. She wanted a new kitchen and to redo the house, but none of that came about until Horace accidentally set the kitchen on fire. She laughed about how much money they got from the insurance company.” I heard Bella inhale before she continued. “But I guess Horace had kept promising her that he would take care of things even before that. She insinuated Horace was a better money manager and was going to take the account away from Nathaniel as soon as he figured out a couple of things and took care of the man.”
Another call came in on my other line and I told her I’d talk to her later. When I clicked over, Martha howled in my ear about taking care of her houseguests now. She was at the diner escaping them. Then the phone beeped and I hung up on her to take the next call. What was this, the information hotline? I wished I’d looked at the LCD before I answered.
****
Martha’s house was awfully quiet after the way Horace panicked on the phone. I’d left Ben at home so he could follow up on the business card company Bella had found for Horace. No way had they cost thousands of dollars, even if he’d ordered a million. I’d filched one from his pocket the other day when I’d waded into the fray and fingered his jacket. Score for me.
I knocked on Martha’s front door, then heard scuffling on the other side. I pulled my two jackets closer around me to ward off the cold while I waited for someone to answer my knock.
A whole minute went by. My toes had started to freeze when I heard a crash. I tried the door myself, not willing to wait. Maybe someone had finally come after Horace again. He’d said he knew who had done in Nathaniel and needed me to come over. I had no idea what I was about to find, but I was going in.
Turned out I didn’t need to brace myself to break down the door, since it was already unlocked. Wasn’t anyone locking their doors, with a murderer on the loose?
I raced into the foyer and tried to decipher where the crash had come from. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a glint of metal a second before Horace came barreling into the living room with only a pair of shorts on. Eww!
“Horace, I’m here. I’m here. Where’s the threat?” I tried to nab his arm, but he evaded me. “Where are you going?”
“Ivy, run! He’s here in the house.”
“What? Who? Where? How? Why?” Okay, I really did make it through all of the reporter’s questions this time, and I felt my stomach churn with the need to flee. “Where?”
“Right behind you,” he said, sounding way too close.
I zipped around in time to see Horace bringing down the barrel of a gun and trying to connect with my head. I ducked out of the way, then took a startled second to breathe air in through my nose before I bellowed, like I’ve never bellowed before, “YOU BASTARD!” Exclamation point and all.
I don’t know where I gathered the strength from, nor do I know how I managed it, but I grabbed that gun from Horace like it was the last set of Tastykakes on the shelf. He tried to fight me, and the gun went back and forth in the air with both of our hands glued to the grip.
“You are not getting this from me, you sick jerk.” That was me.
“I can and I will.” The loon.
So many things were racing through my mind, like how I hadn’t been able to get a bead on anyone else for the murder. Why I had kept coming back to Horace, and how he protested his innocence over and over again—another glaring sign.
And now here he was, trying to brain me with a gun. We struggled back and forth some more, knocking over a vase and a lamp in the process. I was trying hard to stay away from his half-naked body as much as I was trying to get the gun. I did not want his skin even touching mine.
My adrenaline pumped fast and furious through my system. I’d faced down two killers so far, but no one had pointed a gun at me. I had a feeling this was not going to turn out well for someone.
“Ivy. Everyone thinks she’s so smart, and yet she’s a complete idiot.”
“I’m standing right here. You don’t have to talk as if I’m not.”
He grunted. “I know that, you bimbo!” Now that was a new one. Usually it was cow. “I nearly had it all taken care of, and you had to come ruin it.”
Blah, blah, blah. Why does everyone want to talk when they’re about to get their ass taken to
jail? “Yeah, yeah, Horace, I ruined it. But you know, Doris is going to be pretty pissed when she finds out you’ve been skimming without sharing with her.”
His whole faced dropped. “You will not say a word to my beloved. I will make this all right in the end. Your end.” He raised the gun above our heads and my sleeves slipped down. “What the hell is that on your arms? Did you use ink to write all that, because you may have given yourself ink poisoning.”
“It’s just a little information I got on you from one of your dear friends. I checked it all out, by the way, and you are going to the big house for a long time.”
“I’m going to kill you,” he snarled, really snarled, curled lips and all.
“And killing me is going to help you how? Haven’t you already made enough mistakes? I mean, how could you kill your friend and bandmate? And for nothing?”
He gave a particularly vicious yank on the gun, spinning me into the wall. “It wasn’t for nothing. I wanted more, and that’s how I was going to get it. I didn’t mean to kill him. I only wanted him to hand over the checkbook. I faked the throat bandage. I even lemoned my own water to throw off suspicion. I could have died!”
Good Lord. “Yeah, I grabbed the old medical text at your house, but I didn’t know what it was for other than collecting dust. Nice try with looking up your allergy and messing with your water.” It was one of the few times I wished he’d actually gotten something right. Then I wouldn’t be standing here with a loon who was waving around a gun. But I digress. I looked him right in the eye and said, “And you thought you were going to get away with it all because you’d gotten away with burning down your kitchen?”
I think I surprised him with that one. I finally got a better grip on the weapon, and I yanked for all I was worth. I might be round, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have some serious strength in these flabby arms. Unfortunately, when I made my final grab for the gun, it went off in my hand.
Not so unfortunately, I shot Horace’s toupee straight through the heart, er, rug. Well, whatever. The thing was now dead and mutilated. A part of me wished I could do the same thing to the idiot currently sitting in his boxers on the floor with the gun aimed at him.
