A Parfait Murder (6 page)

While Bree submitted to the ministrations of the crime techs and photographers snapped pictures of poor Kristen’s body, Cal grabbed me by the elbow and pulled me aside.

“You,” he barked, indicating a female officer who was hanging back from the crowd. “I want you to set up a perimeter around that . . . uh, that zombie over there.”

“Sir?”

“You heard me. The one with the hat and the gun. Make sure no one messes in that part of the room until the crime scene guys can process it.”

She scurried away to do his bidding, and Cal turned that frown on me. “Tally, you make me crazy.”

I sighed. “I know, Cal. I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re not.”

I sighed again. “I’m not sorry for what I did, but I am sorry I make you crazy. I just couldn’t stand back while Bree was in trouble.”

He shook his head. “She’s still in trouble. A passel of it.”

I pulled out of his grasp and stepped back. “You don’t think she had anything to do with this.”

His right eyebrow cocked up. “Tally, she’s smack in the middle of it. We both saw her chase after Kristen and pile into the ride right behind her, right?”

“She wasn’t chasing Kristen. You heard her. Kristen asked to meet her here this morning. They happened to be going to the same place—at
Kristen’s
suggestion—and Kristen got there first.”

“Mmm-hmm. Right. And we both heard her say she and Kristen were alone in here when the shots were fired.”

I held up a hand. “No way. She did not say they were alone. She said there was a man in here with them.”

“Oh, right,” Cal said, his voice thick with sarcasm. “The man with the gun. Except she only saw one figure in that doorway, and he’s still standing there: a plastic zombie cowboy and his plastic gun. That gun
she
was holding, on the other hand, that’s the real deal. Serial number’s been filed off, so who knows who owns the thing? But it was in Bree’s hands, Tally. It’ll take a while for ballistics to check the bullet that killed Kristen against that weapon, but if it’s a match . . . well, she’s in trouble.”

I gave him a narrow look, trying to see behind his bluster to what was really going on in his mind. “You’re pretty quick to dismiss the plastic cowboy, but you told that lady cop to keep an eye on it.”

He looked past me, and when I followed his line of sight I realized he was looking at Bree.

“Just doing my job, Tally. I have to preserve evidence if there is any, and if there isn’t . . . I have to tell a judge and jury, with a straight face, that I looked.”

I’d seen Cal’s softer side at the beginning of the summer. I knew it was buried down deep beneath that tough-guy shell. And I thought I detected a glimmer of it as he stared at my cousin. My cousin who appeared to be blowing into a Breathalyzer at that very moment.

Interesting.

“When can I take her home?” I asked.

“What?” Cal jerked his attention back to me. “Oh. We need to take her down to the station to get her official statement. You, too, actually.”

Lord a’mighty. In the past year, I’d seen more of the inside of the Dalliance Police Station than any lawabiding citizen should.

Dang
, I thought.
Here we go again
.

A
fter I gave my statement to the cops, I waited at the station for Bree. They’d brought her in in the back of a Dalliance PD cruiser—providing a photo op sure to make the front page of the next day’s
News-Letter
—so I drove her back to the fairgrounds in my van.

While I navigated around the courthouse square to head north to the fairgrounds, Bree was quiet. A scratchy cassette tape of Dolly Parton was working its way through my stereo, and Dolly wailed about the mangreedy Jolene, until Bree stabbed the button to shut off the music.

“So,” I said as I turned onto North Hazlett, “are you gonna tell me what happened in there?”

Bree was looking out her side window, so I couldn’t see her face, but she sniffed softly. “I’m in big trouble.”

“So what’s new?” I quipped, trying to draw her out.

“No, this is real bad, Tally. She asked me to meet her at the ride, I swear. But the cops don’t believe me.”

“If she called, there must be phone records.”

“They checked her phones—home, cell, office—and there’s no call to me.”

“What about your cell records? Just show them the incoming call.”

“She called me on my home line.”

Bree and Alice lived with me in my crumbling 1925 Arts and Crafts bungalow. Even though we all had cell phones, we’d kept the two landlines into the house. Habit, partly, and insurance against losing the phones or letting their batteries die (which happened with alarming regularity). One of the phones was in the kitchen—the house phone, we called it—and the other was in Bree’s room, a room that used to belong to the previous owner’s teenage daughter.

“How’d she even get that number?” We kept those old-fashioned phones, but we hardly ever used them. We were all out and about so much, we usually relied on the cells.

“I don’t know. The cops said they’ll pull the records for the landline, but I could tell they’re just humoring me. They think I’m lying. After all, I was holding the gun.”

“But I saw them swab your hands for gunshot residue. That’ll prove you didn’t shoot her.”

Bree crumpled in the seat, her shoulders hunched over in pure misery. “The residue test was positive.”

I slammed on the brakes, causing the driver in the car behind me to lay on the horn and swerve around me. The driver threw me the finger as he sped away. I pulled the van to the side of the road, parking it in front of Dalliance’s new natural birthing center.

“Did the stupid crime tech guys mess up?” I demanded.

“No. I did shoot the gun.”

“You what?”

“I shot the gun. I just didn’t shoot it at Kristen.” Bree slapped her hand against the dashboard. “It all happened so fast.”

“Okay, walk me through it,” I soothed.

“The little train car was making its way through the ride. Kristen was trying to talk to me from her seat in front of me, but I don’t think she figured it would be so loud in there. I couldn’t hear a word she said. But she looked mighty pissed, and she kept shaking her head.

“When we pulled into that last room, there was a crack, the train car suddenly jolted to a stop, and the music died. The detective I talked to told me it looked like a bullet hit a power box, shutting down parts of the ride. Anyway, I freaked. I hit the dirt. I mean literally, down on the floor of that grimy car. The only thing I heard was the crash of the saloon doors swinging open and that zombie cowboy sliding in on his track. Then there was a pop, like a shot, and someone screamed. I think it was me. I think.”

Bree hugged her arms around her body, and I reached out to lay a comforting hand on her shoulder.

“I heard a clatter, and from where I was in the bottom of the car, I saw that gun skitter across the floor. I don’t know what I was thinking, but I scrambled out on all fours, grabbed the gun, and when I peeked over the poker table, I saw a man. Or I thought I saw a man. Maybe it was just the dummy zombie. But I was scared, so I shot at him.”

She looked at me. “I fired the gun, Tally. Away from Kristen, but the cops don’t believe that. The gun’s a revolver, so there aren’t any shell casings to prove where anyone was standing when they fired the gun. Every shred of physical evidence points to me. And the whole dang fair saw her serve me with papers just yesterday.

“Tally, I’m scared.”

I leaned across the seat and hugged her tight. We were too close for lies. “I’m scared, too, Bree. But I’m right by your side, you hear?”

 

That night we left Kyle and Beth working the booth at the fairgrounds and the whole family—Bree, Alice, Peachy, and I—retreated to the A-la-mode and holed up, waiting for a siege.

Sure enough, just before eight, Sonny Anders and his new lady friend paid us a visit.

Bree’s close call had triggered an early truce in the mother-daughter conflict, and Bree and Alice were in the back of the store, their arms tangled in a needy hug as they watched ice cream form in my special vertical batch freezers. Peachy had camped out on a chair in the back, unwilling to take her eyes off either one of them.

That left me to serve as welcoming party.

Ha.

They took their time strolling into the store, Sonny making a big production of looking around, so I took my time sizing them up.

I was particularly interested in Sonny’s female companion. I have to admit, the woman had it going on: copper hair piled atop her head, porcelain skin, legs up to her armpits, and a body like a men’s mag centerfold, all perky peaks and seductive valleys. She wore a twilight gray suit that clung to every curve, a wide belt of creamy leather cinched at her waist, and impossibly tall heels. I knew that look drove men crazy, all prim and proper but with the suggestion that pulling just one hair pin from her tidy French twist would unleash a total vixen.

When I met her gaze, I saw a mix of curiosity and calculation.

Sonny’s new girl wasn’t just arm candy. There was a brain behind all that beauty. I could see it in her eyes.

“Hey there, Tally,” Sonny said, a big ol’ grin spreading across his face like an oil slick. “I see you’ve spruced up the Dippery.”

For years, an ice cream parlor had occupied our spot on the Dalliance Courthouse Square. During my lifetime, it had been Dave’s Dippery. It just happened that David Thompson decided to move to San Antonio to be closer to his grandkids at about the same time I split with my ex, Wayne Jones. I took over Dave’s lease, bought most of his equipment, supplemented it with my specialty French pot ice cream makers, and the A-la-mode was born.

“What do you want, Sonny?”

He shivered. “Brrrr. Must be all that ice cream. It’s mighty chilly in here.”

I swallowed a cussword. For Alice’s sake, I needed to be civil to this slimeball. “Sorry. I’m just guessing you aren’t here for a banana split.”

His eyes narrowed for a second, but then his grin cranked up to full power. “You guess right. I was hoping to see my g—”

The redhead knocked her hip into Sonny, cutting him off.

He cleared his throat. “Is Alice here?”

I didn’t answer him directly, because I wasn’t sure how Bree wanted me to play this. “Just a minute.”

I hustled to the back of the store, where Alice and Bree were packing pints with a batch of our Rusted Roof ice cream: cinnamon ice cream dotted with slivers of smoked almonds and flakes of dark chocolate.

I dragged Bree aside as discreetly as I could and whispered in her ear, “Sonny’s here. With the woman. Wants to see Alice.”

Bree’s arm tensed beneath my fingers. “Well, let’s get this over with.”

She pulled away from me and returned to Alice’s side. “Honey,” she said softly, “your daddy’s here. He wants to see you. But if you want us to send him away, we will.”

Alice’s body grew utterly still, but she looked her mama in the eye. “I told you I want to see him.”

“I know. I just thought you might change your mind.” I could hear the hope in Bree’s voice, the quiet prayer that her daughter would stay away from Sonny Anders.

Alice shook her head and headed for the front of the store with Bree, Peachy, and me right behind her.

Sonny froze when he saw Alice. Even from across the room, I could see his Adam’s apple slide up and down his throat as he studied her. Although her hair and eyes were lighter, and her frame was a bit more petite, Alice had her mama’s looks. For Sonny, seeing her must have been like seeing a pale reflection of the Bree he had married all those years ago.

Alice stared at her daddy the way she stared at a particularly intractable math problem. Her sweet, childlike features remained utterly expressionless, but her clear aqua eyes blazed with determination.

I could only guess what she was looking for in his face. An echo of something familiar. A primal recognition of kinship. A glimmer of sorrow or regret. Something to make sense both of his absence and his return.

“Hey, baby.” Sonny managed to smile as if this were no big deal, just another “howdy” in his busy social calendar, but his voice betrayed his nerves. Apparently he wasn’t totally heartless after all.

“Hello,” Alice answered, carefully formal.

“Uh. . .” Sonny rocked back on his heels and dug his hands in his pants pockets. He puckered up as if he was gonna whistle a tune, but then tipped his head toward the woman at his side. “This here’s Char.”

Alice’s mouth got tight as if she was trying to hold something in. Then a little burble of laughter escaped. “Cher? Sonny and Cher?”

The redhead’s mouth, held in a carefully neutral smile, tightened at the corners.

“Ha!” Sonny barked, as if he’d never hear the joke before. “No, no, not Cher. Char.”

“Charlize,” the redhead clarified, her tone and accent as neutral as Switzerland. “Like the actress.”

“How you been, baby?”

Alice frowned. “How’ve I been? You mean recently? Or all my life?”

Oh boy.

Bree reached out, grabbed my hand, and squeezed. I did the same to Peachy. We all braced ourselves for the coming storm.

Sonny’s smile faltered, then hardened. “Show your daddy a little respect.”

“Of course,” Alice snapped. “You seen him around?” She swiveled her head around as if she were looking for something, then straightened up in mock surprise. “Oh, you mean
you
!” She snorted. “I thought my daddy was the subject of litigation.”

“I’m just making sure, baby. That’s the smart thing to do. I hear you’re a real smart girl, so I’m sure you understand. Let a judge figure everything out.”

Alice laughed. “You’re right. That is smart. And until a judge tells me you’re my father, you’re nothing to me.”