Ignoring me, Aunt Shirley looked over at Larry, assessing him. “Let me get this straight. You will pay for all these drinks and give me a description of the person that opened the box, and all I have to do is take a ride on the mechanical bull?”
“Yep.”
Aunt Shirley’s face lit up. “Whoop! Let’s ride!”
Chapter 14
I ran back to where Mom and Paige were sitting. No way was I letting Aunt Shirley get up on a mechanical bull. While I love the old lady, I didn’t love her enough to have her come live with me again. And if she broke a hip or anything else, that’s exactly what would happen.
Mom took one look at my face and knew something was wrong. “What’s up? Did you find out who rented the box? Was it Trent?”
I shook my head. “It’s worse. The guy said legally he can’t give us a name, but he didn’t think it would be a problem to give us a description. But there’s a catch. Aunt Shirley has already had like three or four shots with this man and —”
“Yes,” Paige said. “We’ve been watching.”
“But that doesn’t explain why you look worried,” Mom said.
I took a deep breath and wished I had a drink in my hand to gulp down. “Larry said before he’d give up a description, Aunt Shirley had to ride the mechanical bull!”
Paige gasped and Mom stood up. “Over my dead body will she be riding a mechanical bull.”
Relief flooded me. I knew if anyone could get us out of this situation, it was Mom.
“Get your purses,” Mom said. “We’re out of here.”
“Wait,” I said, my stomach sinking. “We can’t leave without the information. I just need you to make the man tell us without Aunt Shirley getting up on the bull.”
Mom didn’t say anything, just marched over to Aunt Shirley. “We need to leave.”
Aunt Shirley slowly turned to face Mom. “I ain’t leaving until I’ve ridden the bull and gotten the information I came here for.”
Mom and Aunt Shirley squared off. I felt my lower lip tremble as tears fill my eyes. I didn’t want to see Aunt Shirley hurt, but I also didn’t want to see her dragged out of here, either. Maybe getting Mom involved wasn’t such a good idea.
“You’re too old to ride a mechanical bull,” Mom insisted.
“Please don’t fight.” I didn’t think anyone heard me over the loud country music being played, but something must have come through, because Mom and Aunt Shirley both turned to glare at me.
After a few tense seconds, Aunt Shirley grabbed my mom by the arm and hauled us all over to an empty corner.
“I’m only going to say this one time,” Aunt Shirley said. “I’ve lived my life on my own terms. I’ve done everything I ever wanted. I am an independent woman who relies on no one to do for her.”
Mom opened her mouth to interrupt.
Aunt Shirley shook her head. “Not this time, Janine. This time you are going to listen to me. I grew up in the shadow of my perfect older sister, your mother. I loved her with all my heart. But it was impossible to compete with her. I was nothing like her or my parents. I learned at a very young age that I couldn’t be what they wanted me to be, nor did I want to be that person. That left me with the option of running. I left home and struck out on my own. On my own…meaning I’ve never had to answer to anyone but myself. And now that I’m older, suddenly everyone wants to treat me like I’m a child again. Telling me what’s wrong with me, telling me I have to act a certain way, telling me I’m too over-the-top and I need to calm down. Well to hell with them and to hell with you.”
Tears streamed down my face as I listened to Aunt Shirley give us the what-for. Mainly because it’s not like we didn’t deserve it. I was constantly trying to micro-manage her. Trying to control every situation we got into. I wiped my eyes and looked at Mom’s rigid face. Paige grabbed my hand and squeezed.
Aunt Shirley turned to me. “I love your daughter, my great-niece. And I see a lot of her inside me, even though she rides me hard about my behavior.” Aunt Shirley turned back to Mom. “But know this, Janine, never have I ever put Ryli in danger that she couldn’t handle.”
Hmm…well…
“And if I ever felt that we were in so much danger that we could be killed, believe me, I’d give my life to protect her. I love her like the daughter I never had. I wouldn’t risk her life on a whim.”
If it were possible, I think my heart broke and leaped at that admission from Aunt Shirley. I swiped at my nose with the back of my hand.
Mom looked up at the ceiling for a few seconds and then back at Aunt Shirley. “She’s my only daughter, and I love her like she is my own. And yes, it scares me to death when you take her along on one of your wild rides.” She sighed heavily. “But I know you love her and you wouldn’t want anything to happen to her. So fine, I’ll back off and let you two do what you do without complaint.”
A grin split my face and I grabbed Mom and hugged her. Mom backing down was a huge deal. Something I didn’t know she had in her to do. It was always Mom’s way because she’s always had to be in control. At a young age, she was both mother and father. She wasn’t used to giving up the reigns.
Aunt Shirley clapped her hands. “Good. Now, let’s get me on a mechanical bull so I can go back to Mystery Farms and get me a killer!”
Mom frowned. “Don’t you mean get the information you need, call Sheriff Simpson, tell him what you know, and let him make an arrest?”
Aunt Shirley waved her hands in the air as she walked toward the bar. “That’s what I said.”
“I’m going to order another drink,” Mom sighed.
Paige hugged my arm as we walked back to where Larry Tubbins sat. “That must have been cool to hear them say such nice things about you.”
I smiled. “It was. Who knew Aunt Shirley felt that way?”
“Me,” Paige said.
“Okay, Larry, let’s get this show on the road,” Aunt Shirley yelled out over the music.
Larry slammed his hands down on the bar and let out a whoop. “Right this way, Twila.”
Paige snickered. “Twila? Why Twila?”
I shrugged. “I have no idea.”
The four of us followed Larry over to the side of the shed where the mechanical bull was currently throwing someone off. My steps got slower the closer we got.
“What’s wrong?” Paige asked.
“I don’t know if I want Aunt Shirley doing this. What if she really gets hurt?”
Paige chewed her lower lip. “I know what you mean. I guess we have to trust she knows what she’s doing.”
I rolled my eyes at Paige. “She never knows what she’s doing.”
Mom, Paige, and I stood by the roped off area. My hope was bolstered a little when I realized the mats were heavily padded. Maybe when she fell it wouldn’t hurt too much. Who was I kidding, this would be brutal.
Mom chuckled beside me. “I can’t believe she’s going to ride that bull in a dress.”
I nodded. “She’s going to show the world her underwear.”
“That should sober everyone up fast,” Paige snickered. “An old lady in granny panties.”
If only Paige knew how close to the truth she was. A few months ago when Aunt Shirley and I busted a burglary ring, we ran across some red granny panties she wanted to keep for herself.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the guy running the mechanical bull controls boomed into his microphone, “let’s give a warm Lazy J welcome to first-time rider, Twila Blackstone!”
The crowd clapped and whooped and whistled as Aunt Shirley took a huge bow in front of the announcer’s table. Larry Tubbins was grinning like a fool.
“Twila Blackstone?” Mom asked. “Do I even want to know?”
I laughed. “I have no idea where she comes up with half the things she does.”
I watched with trepidation as a studly young cowboy gently led Aunt Shirley to the bull. She was grinning and blowing kisses to the crowd. When she got to the bull, she put one foot into the strap
and swung her leg over. Her dress rode up dangerously high on her thigh.
Aunt Shirley pulled her dress down as modestly as she could, then made a big show of wagging her finger at the young cowboy as though he was wanting to take a peek at her goodies.
The crowd roared with laughter. The cute cowboy played along and shrugged like he was caught red-handed. He tipped his hat to Aunt Shirley, turned to the crowd, winked, then sauntered away from the bull, leaving Aunt Shirley alone in the center of the ring.
I held my breath and waited for the bull to start moving. Aunt Shirley made a motion to the guy at the controls and he pushed a button.
The bull started off gently, only rocking back and forth a couple times. But then it suddenly shifted and dipped Aunt Shirley down and spun her around in a half circle. She was now facing us. She spied us and let out a whoop in our direction. Before I could lift my hand and wave, the bull dipped again and she spun around again. This time the rocking back and forth was faster. Aunt Shirley’s white-knuckle grip on the reigns was the only sign she might not be totally in control.
“How long does she have to do this?” Paige asked shakily.
“Until she falls off or for eight seconds,” I said. “At least, that’s usually how it’s done.”
By this time, the bull was going full speed, swinging, dipping, rocking, and doing everything it could to buck Aunt Shirley off. The crowd was going wild as the fringe on Aunt Shirley’s dress swung this way and that. Her tuffs of purple and white hair glittered under the neon lights.
When the buzzer finally sounded, I couldn’t believe my ears…or eyes. The crazy old bat had actually stayed on the full eight seconds! The roar of the crowd was deafening as the cute cowboy came out to help Aunt Shirley down.
She grabbed hold of his hand and jumped down, then took another bow and waved before staggering out of the ring. She sauntered over to where we were standing, grinning from ear to ear.
“Told ya so!” Aunt Shirley boasted.
I gave her a hug. “That was awesome!”
Mom and Paige each congratulated Aunt Shirley on her amazing ride.
“How do you know how to ride a bull?” I asked incredulously.
Aunt Shirley smiled wistfully. “Burt Lancaster. He didn’t just star in westerns, he lived them. I met him and his second wife, Norma, when I was living in LA. I learned how to ride bulls from Burt.”
I lifted an eyebrow. Could some of her movie star stories really be true? I always figured she made them up to seem important. Bragging about dating Clint Eastwood, hanging with famous people. Maybe I needed to rethink my image of Aunt Shirley.
Larry stumbled over and slapped Aunt Shirley on the back. “Mighty fine riding there, little lady!”
Aunt Shirley curtsied. “I kept up my end of the bargain. Now it’s your turn. Describe the person you rented the box to.”
Larry Tubbins turned serious. “Well, I only remember this because it was so odd. The person opened the box under a John Smith, but the person may or may not have been a female.”
We all collectively sucked in a breath.
“A female?” I asked. “Are you sure?”
Larry said nothing, just smirked at us.
Was it Dayna? None of this made any sense.
“Well,” Aunt Shirley demanded, “what did she look like?”
Larry shrugged. “She may or may not have one attribute that makes her impossible to forget.”
I furrowed my brow. “An attribute that’s hard to forget?” I thought about the females we had as suspects. Dayna and Cybil didn’t really have any outstanding features. No obvious tattoos, basic hair color, body shape. Olivia was also in that same boat. Tina, on the other hand, could stand out because of her ample cleavage, but I wasn’t sure that would be enough to identify her on. So that left Bessie.
I inhaled sharply. “Could this possible female have frizzy red hair and be a little on the plump side?”
Larry just grinned.
“Bessie Terrance,” the four of us said together.
Chapter 15
“Why?”
“This makes no sense!”
“What’s the motive?”
We were all talking at once…shocked at the information we’d just received. I couldn’t begin to make heads or tails from it.
We paid our bar tab and hurried out of the Lazy J Saloon toward the Falcon. Aunt Shirley and Mom were arguing over whether or not to call Sheriff Simpson with the information we’d just gathered. Mom said yes, but Aunt Shirley said she wanted to go home and think about it some more.
“That was some ride you had.” We all turned and stared at Big Bad Bouncer guy.
Aunt Shirley grinned and shrugged her shoulders. “Thanks. It was nothing.”
Big Bad Bouncer grunted. “How did your recon mission go? Did you get the answers you needed?”
“You bet I did,” Aunt Shirley said. “Just like I said I would.”
I sighed. “But now we’re more confused than ever.”
He nodded sagely, never once smiling. “That’s how it goes sometimes. Best thing to do is study it from every angle. Don’t make any rash decisions. Sometimes what’s in front of you is not always what it purports to be.”
I wrinkled my brow. What he said made sense. So much so, I felt like my brain was trying to tell me something. What was I missing?
It was a silent ride back to Mystery Farms. In the end, Mom agreed to go along with Aunt Shirley’s request and not call Sheriff Simpson immediately. After all, it was really just circumstantial evidence. We couldn’t place Bessie in the barn with the weapon. Not unless fingerprints came back from the lab with a match.
By the time we pulled into Mystery Farms, the house was shrouded in darkness. The front porch light was on, and the light in the foyer, but everything else looked dark and eerie.
Mom unlocked the front door and we quietly tiptoed up the stairs. I couldn’t help but wonder where everyone else was. Did Bessie know we were on to her? Were we making a big mistake by not calling Sheriff Simson immediately? I couldn’t imagine she’d run in the middle of the night, but who knew?
We whispered goodnight to Mom and Paige and then quietly made our way to our room—each of us deep in thought about what we’d discovered.
“I’m completely baffled,” Aunt Shirley admitted as she shut and locked our bedroom door.
“I couldn’t agree more. Of all the people it could have been, I never really saw Bessie as the killer.”
Aunt Shirley wiggled out of her country dress—fringe flying everywhere. “I can’t even think of a motive as to why she would blackmail the other women. Was she jealous of them?” Aunt Shirley wrinkled her nose. “Maybe she’s a cougar and wanted Trent for herself.”
I laughed at that thought. “That seems a little far-fetched.” I pulled my pajamas out from the dresser and undressed. “Although, let’s be honest, we’ve uncovered crazier things. How does the camcorder fit in? Obviously Trent knew about it because one of the last things he did was walk toward it to shut it off when he was with Tina.”
“True.”
“So did Bessie find out about Trent videotaping these women?” I asked. “Our first night together Gary Wainwright did say she was pretty tech savvy. Maybe she found out about the camcorder and somehow made photos. That’s possible on those camcorders.”
Aunt Shirley grabbed her silky, floor-length nightgown from the dresser. “The motive? Just to get money? Jealousy? Those are powerful reasons to kill. But I still think we are missing something.”
I sighed and went into the bathroom to take off my makeup and brush my teeth. “All of that is for Sheriff Simpson to figure out. We have pretty sufficient evidence that she is the killer. How he makes it stick is on him.”
Aunt Shirley leaned against the bathroom frame and watched as I finished getting ready for bed. Once I was done she reached over and snagged a container off the counter and popped her teeth out of her mouth. She looked over at my blanched face and smiled a wid
e gummy smile at me.
“And that’s how you go to bed when you’re an old woman,” she gummed out.
As we snuggled down in the bed, the room pitch black, I expected to hear immediate snores. Usually it didn’t take but a second for Aunt Shirley to fall asleep. Instead, she softly nudged me.
“I want to tell you something,” she said. It was hard to understand her without her teeth, but I did my best to focus on what she was saying. “All those things I said about you tonight. I really meant them. I think of you as the daughter I never had. You’re a smart girl with a good head on her shoulders. And you’re good at solving mysteries.”
I blinked back the sudden onslaught of tears that sprang to my eyes. That was probably one of the nicest things Aunt Shirley had ever said to me. Usually she just rolls her eyes and says sarcastic things to me about my life, my boyfriend, and my ability to solve a crime.
I turned on my side to face her in the dark. I tried not to laugh. She had her mouth wide open and was already snoring. So much for that bonding moment.
***
I tossed my suitcase on the bed the next morning after I’d dressed. “I’m going to go ahead and pack up some of this stuff so we don’t have to spend too much time after the arrest this morning packing. Something tells me the Wainwrights aren’t going to want people hanging around for very long. This is going to pretty much decimate their bed and breakfast.”
Aunt Shirley poked her head out of the bathroom. “Sounds good. After I finish putting on my face, I’ll do the same.”
“What time are you calling Sheriff Simpson?” I asked.
“Right before we go down for breakfast. I’m still not convinced we haven’t missed something, but we do need to at least get Bessie brought in for questioning. I did some thinking during the night last night. Your snoring kept me up.”
I rolled my eyes. I don’t snore. She probably just had heartburn from all the drinking she’d done and didn’t want to admit it.
Aunt Shirley came out of the bathroom carrying her gigantic makeup bag. “I guess with the knowledge that she opened the P.O. Box, and the added bonus of Bessie knowing her way around a computer so she could just send herself the pictures from the camcorder, it’s pretty open and shut.”
Bed, Breakfast and Murder (A Ryli Sinclair Mystery Book 4) Page 10
