Murder on the First Day of Christmas (Chloe Carstairs Mysteries) (40 page)

     “You know where I’ve been, Bonnie Lou.”  Dave sent me one of his signature grins – the one that turns my knees into something akin to raspberry jelly.

     “I know where you should’ve been, but that isn’t quite the same, is it?”  I met his deep blues head on without flinching – a little sass goes a long way with a he-man like him.

     “I’ve been with Nick, and no, we weren’t talking about deer hunting.  Well, okay, maybe we did touch on it just a little.  Johnny Brown always was a bother, though, and you know it.  Why’d the old skunk have to go and get himself killed right before deer season starts?”  He waved for Denise to wander over when she had a chance and take our order.

     Since Denise was making girly eyes with her overly lined, crow feet enhanced browns at some trucker who wore his forehead low and his jeans lower, I figured my two over easies with a side of bacon might be a while.  My stomach, of course, just kept growling.

     “It was bad.”  Dave dropped onto the turquoise vinyl banquette across from me.  “Real bad, but don’t you go telling folks.”

     “Cross my heart.”  I leaned forward.

     “This wasn’t some kind of accident,” Dave paused and looked around, before lowering his voice even further.  “Whoever it was had tied Johnny’s hands behind his back real tight-like.  There were rope burns.”

     “And?”  I positioned the girls on the tabletop in just such a way as to interest him.

     “Nick says it looks like he was beaten first, too.  There are bruises all over his body.”

     “Sounds nasty.”  I sat back a bit, figuring that I had given him enough of a show.

     “I said it was bad.”  He relaxed in his normal lounge position against the banquette.

     I smelled Denise’s Eau de Paris before I could see her and hoped that the trucker she was after didn’t have allergies.

     “What can I get you two lovebirds this morning?”  She leered at my man, having plastered on one of her the-better-to-eat-you-with smiles, but then, I couldn’t blame her.

     Missing County’s Greatest Sheriff looked mighty fine sitting there in his uniform, especially when you compared my guy with her trucker and his big hairy hands.  Why, her dubious catch looked like he was wearing parts of a gorilla suit beneath his old oil-stained jean jacket.  I mean, really.  Who would want hands like those touching them?

     Well, obviously, someone like Denise would.

     “I’ll have one of my usuals.”  I sent her a smile as I reached out with my perfectly manicured index finger, my color looking so much better than her out of date Spicy Orange, and stroked my guy’s hand just to, you know, kind of stake out my territory.  “What about you, Davey?”

     What was that?  Oh, I did my nails just this morning.  It’s called Sizzling Pink.  Glad that you like it.  Come to the shop after this is all over, and I’ll do yours myself.

     “Fix me a plate with a couple of eggs, an order of grits, and a side of chipped beef gravy over a biscuit.”  Dave replaced the menu he hadn’t needed into the rack with its brothers.

     “Coffee?”  Denise ignored my empty mug.

     “Black.”  Dave had the good sense to turn his gaze back towards me.

     I made a show of pulling out a couple of napkins from the dispenser and laying them out for the two of us.  It’s a nesting thing, but the old girl got the message.

     “So who do you think did it?”  I asked as soon as Denise had brought a twin of my mug for Dave and left us one of those insulated pitchers of coffee that she almost spilled because she wasn’t watching what she was doing.  Women her age…  Well, we won’t go there.

     “There’s no telling.”  Dave picked up his spoon and twirled it back and forth through his fingers, just like I had taught him when we were both in the fourth grade and I still had to practice my baton twirling.  “Johnny didn’t have any friends.”

     “He didn’t have any enemies either,” I pointed out.  “He was one of those guys that are just in the way – always coming in the door just when you were going out, know what I mean?”

     “Yeah.”  Dave exchanged his knife for his spoon, and it quickly became no more than a silver blur in the shape of a circle.  “He was always in front of you in line at the Post Office, just when you were in a hurry, but people don’t kill for that.  Well, maybe in New York City or Chicago, but not here in Missing County.”

     For a moment, we both sat and sipped on our coffee, thinking of poor, bothersome Johnny Brown lying on a cold slab in the morgue.  No one, not even someone who’s such a bother, deserves that.

     Then I let out a giggle, and Dave shot me a look.

     “It sure will be quicker to mail off our Christmas gifts to your sister this year.”  I felt laughter bubble up from inside of me.

     “And the line at the movie theater will be shorter on dollar night.” Dave let out a chuckle.

     “Two over easies with a side of bacon, and just what you ordered.”  Denise finished off her statement by plopping my Chunk of Hunk’s plate down before him.  “You all need anything else?  Ketchup?  Some orange juice?  Nothing?”

     The poor floozie seemed genuinely disappointed when we didn’t ask her to stick around for a bit. After all, murders don’t happen all that frequently around here.  At least, not ones that anyone cares about.

     Anyway, it seemed kind of mean not to let her in on our conversation, but my eggs and Dave were awaiting and not exactly in that order.  So I sent her one of my steel magnolia smiles, and she got the message.  Thank goodness!

     Dave was wolfing down food like there might be no tomorrow, so I crunched on my bacon and gave him a moment.  After all, Rule # 6 in
A Southern Gal’s Guide to Keeping Your Man
is – Be agreeable, and you can believe me, there’s nothing a man wants more for his woman to be.

     Finally, he slowed down and began to chew a bit, so I waved what was left of my second slice of well-buttered toast smeared with grape jelly and asked him the $64,000 question, “So what are you going to do about it?”

     “Honestly?”  Dave glanced up from his plate, and the look on his face was just pitiful.  “I don’t know.”

     “Weren’t there any clues?  Footprints in the mud?  Something?”

     “Yeah, there were tons of them.  Everyone in Missing County goes there to fish, and you know it.”

     And therein lay the problem.  A man no one really cared about one way or the other had been beaten and shot and then dumped in everyone’s favorite fish
ing hole with no useful physical evidence to show for it.

     What’s more, deer season was starting in only two days.

↓

Okay, One More Special Treat for You!

From

Annie Acorn

Chocolate Can Kill

Chapter One

     Here she comes!  What if it doesn’t
work?  What if she doesn’t die?

     No!  Don’t think about it.  Concentrate.  Focus on the crowd.

     Why now, so long after the careful planning and firm decision?  Why these questions in my mind?

     They don’t matter – nothing else does now.  It’s just another of life’s challenges - made to be overcome.  A few minutes, seconds really, and it’ll all be over.

     It’s a shame I have to do it.  Everybody loves her, even me, but like killing a chicken to eat a drumstick, it’s a necessary evil.

     Why these shivers?  I should be hot.  When did mind and body separate – one determined and in control, the other jumpy and unpredictable?  Sweaty palms, clumsy fingers, churning stomach.  These could cause mistakes.  Flesh is weak, but I am strong!

     Good.  She hasn’t noticed.  Time to go.

     No!  Wait a moment, let her pass.  Remember, nonchalant.  Blend in.  Look around, expecting someone up ahead.

     A single thrust, a second to end a nightmare.  Make it quick and true.  It’s you or the chicken - a matter of survival, nothing more.

* * *

     Too rushed to notice anyone else around her, Emily Harris focused on the moving tread of an arrivals’ escalator, slid one foot forward and quickly followed it with the other.  Secure, she adjusted the strap of her shoulder bag, heavy with paraphernalia of travel.

     As her father’s farmhand, Uncle Reuben, had always said, the best part of any trip was coming home.  His stories, told to her as a child so many years ago, had sparked the flame that still shone brightly as her career.  As with all his wise old sayings, Uncle Reuben had been right.  It felt good to be home.  Birmingham had never looked better than when they had flown over Red Mountain and circled their approach.

     How long would it take to grab her luggage and get to the house and Warren?  Twenty minutes?  Thirty?  Anticipation washed over her.

     Behind her the crowd pressed closer as a boy and girl rushed past her.  A push, followed by a sharp jab, and suddenly she was falling.

     Someone screamed.  Was it her?

     Startled faces and clutching hands registered in her mind as she grabbed for support, felt rubber rail beneath her fingers, but failed to get a grip.  Relentless stairs descended, taking her feet with them, and she lost her hold again.

     Unable to gain control, her shoulder blade slammed against a wall, and an elbow cracked as it met metal, bouncing her forward as she desperately grabbed at something, anything that would stop her fall.  Finally, her head struck the bottom of the escalator, and she jolted to a halt just beyond the flow of passengers.

     A rush of noise filled her ears and a swirling blackness tried to overtake her senses.  Somewhere to her left, she heard a man ask, “Is she dead?”

     She focused on the circle of worried faces that hung above.  Was her mind playing tricks?  Warren was supposed to be home with dinner waiting, but he stood amongst the crowd instead.  Had he followed her on the escalator?

     “What are you doing here?” she tried to ask, but darkness came again.

* * *

     “Oh, my God!”  Warren knelt beside his wife’s prostrate body.  “Let her be okay.  Oh, God, just let her be alive!”

     Was she breathing?  Yes, but her right arm extended at an awkward angle and a large bump had risen at her hairline.

     “Em, it’s me, Warren.  Can you hear me?”  Frantically checking her pulse, he wondered what he should expect to feel, and relief surged through him as her eyelids fluttered open.

     “Warren?”  Her brown eyes seemed unfocused.

     “I’m here.”  He tugged her skirt into a more modest drape.  “You’re back in Birmingham, but you fell down an escalator.  Remember?  You’re going to be okay.  I promise.”

     “My arm hurts, and my left knee, too.”  Emily struggled to rise.

     “Shouldn’t you lie still?”

     “No.”  Her voice was firmer now.  “I’ve made a spectacle.  Just get me to a chair somewhere.”

     “Call 911!” Warren shouted at an airport security guard who was running towards them.  “I want an ambulance and some privacy!  Stat!”  Then, belatedly, he added, “Please.”

     “I don’t need…,” Emily argued, but her husband interrupted not wanting her to waste her breath.

     “Don’t worry,” he patted her shoulder.  “I’ll take care of everything.  Hold that arm tight against your waist.”  He helped her rise.  “It’ll all be over soon.”

* * *

     Embarrassment gave way as Emily mentally withdrew from activity around her, sensing a slow motion world.  What was causing this reaction?  How hard had she struck her head?  Maybe it was the pain.  No, she felt surprisingly little pain, just a weird numbness in various spots along her body.

     A huge shudder shook her as Warren half carried her to a bench.  There they remained, her head resting on his shoulder.  Thank goodness he had fetched her, despite the gulf that had grown between them recently.

     Trying not to move, she took stock.  Her head and knee both throbbed, and a jab of pain shot up her arm as numbness from initial shock wore off.  She cautiously ran a finger along her forehead.  Yes, a knot protruded there.  So much for her crowning glory as her husband called her brown hair, which was probably a mess.

     “Warren, about my fall…”  She straightened and looked into his face.

     Under strain, Warren’s features had assumed a fragile, brittle quality beneath his flyaway, sandy-colored hair.  A worried expression superseded his normal boyish optimism and his familiar gray-green eyes held what?  Concern or fear?

     Frustration rose within her.  A wife should recognize her husband’s reactions like her own.  Still, there were times when…

     Emily supposed it was asking too much for a couple to get along perfectly day after day for thirty years.  But this time was, well, worse.  Her mind reviewed a list of things they shared - their boys, their home, their memories - things worth fighting for.