01 - Playing with Poison (4 page)

“Nachos coming up,” she called over her shoulder.

“I’m starving,” Candy said, but Gina was already long gone.

We waved at Matthew Stone, presiding over his half of the bar, and he offered his standard frown. Matthew pretends to be grumpy, but everyone knows it’s just an act. We smiled anyway and maneuvered our way through the crowd. Bryce was pointing to our three favorite barstools, but I took a moment to greet my pals at the pool table before sitting down.

Bless his heart, Bryce had already poured Karen’s Corona, and had the Korbel at the ready when I finally turned around. He did a little Bryce-bounce and glanced at Candy. “It’s on the house,” he told her. “Or whatever you want.”

She pointed a hot pink fingernail at the champagne bottle, and we were offering a toast to Stanley when Gina popped over with a plate of nachos.

“I’m starving,” Candy reminded us and dug in with gusto.

I shrugged at Karen. “You see?” I said. “Business as usual.”

“Usual?” Bryce disagreed. “Haven’t the cops been bugging you guys about Stanley?”

“Oh, yeah,” Karen said and squeezed some lime into her beer. “Captain Rye wasted half my day, snooping around my workshop and asking why I was home alone last night.” She took a sip. “I guess I have no alibi.”

“He wasted the other half with me,” I said. “Asking why Stanley chose to visit me of all people.”

“You guys had it easy,” Bryce insisted. “Rye and that lieutenant bugged me over there and over here. They claim Stan had to be poisoned in one place or the other.” He held onto the edge of the bar and rocked back and forth. “So guess who looks guilty?”

“But you work over here,” Karen said.

“And you live over there,” I added.

Bryce kept swaying. “Lucky me.”

I sighed dramatically. “Apparently Rye’s interested in all of us—our jobs, our love-lives—you name it. We simply fascinate the guy.”

“He wanted a list of everyone I’ve built anything for in the last ten years,” Karen said.

“He took a copy of my class schedules for the last ten semesters,” Bryce agreed. “He kept asking why I switch majors all the time.”

“Why do you switch majors all the time?” Candy asked.

Bryce thought for a moment. “I guess because I always wanted to be a vet like my mom.”

I cringed and thought of poor Bryce’s allergy to my cat. “Not an option?” I asked.

He pointed to his nose. “First it was cats, then dogs, then horses, then—you guys get the picture. If this business major doesn’t work out, I’m thinking of journalism next.”

“You could write books like Jessie,” Candy suggested.

“Speaking of which, Rye stole one of mine.”

“Girlfriend!” Karen stared at me aghast. “He did not.”

“Oh, yes he did. There’s a big gaping hole on my bookshelf where
A Deluge of Desire
should be.”

“That one’s my favorites,” Candy said. She stopped wrestling with the guacamole and glanced at each of us. “Y’all have to promise me something, okay? Be nice to Captain Rye?”

We groaned in unison.

“No, really,” she insisted. “He’s just doing his job.”

“Yeah, but so is Jimmy Beak,” Karen said. “Sorry, Kiddo, but no way I’m being polite to that jerk.”

“Jimmy’s been bothering everyone?” I asked.

Karen shuddered, Candy whimpered, and Bryce complained that, like Rye, Jimmy Beak had bothered him both at home and at work.

“Matthew and Gina are totally fed up. But I’m the one he bugged the most.” Bryce frowned. “Lucky me—I mixed Stan’s drinks last night.”

“But you’re the bartender,” I reminded him.

“Everyone’s still real interested. Matthew and Gina both claim they didn’t serve him anything. Just me.”

“Stanley always loved your Long Island Iced Teas.” Candy said quietly. “Everyone does.”

“Everyone but you.”

“Bryce isn’t the only one who looks bad,” Karen said with an ominous glance at me.

“Jimmy knows you’re Adelé Nightingale,” Bryce explained. “He talked about it on TV tonight, Jessie. He acted like your books are illegal or something.”

“Oh, but he showed a real nice picture of you!” Candy said, and I almost choked on my champagne. “The one from the back of
Windswept Whispers
?”

I drank some more.

The fact that Jimmy Beak had shown any picture of me was horrifying in and of itself. But using the photograph from
Windswept Whispers
? Proof positive that the man is evil. I was having a bad hair month when that picture was taken, and for a few misguided and unattractive weeks, I had gone grey.

“Help me,” I begged no one in particular.

“At least Kiddo did okay.” Karen patted Candy’s knee. “You did great handling Jimmy’s questions.”

Candy finally gave up on the nachos. “He seemed real nice when we were talking. But then when I saw myself on TV, it was like he tricked me or something.” She turned to me. “I probably shouldn’t have told him where Stanley died, huh?”

I told her not to worry about it and tried to believe Karen and Bryce, who claimed that Jimmy has a very short attention span. According to them, he would soon find another supposed story to worry himself and everyone else about.

“Maybe the cops will get busy somewhere else, too,” Bryce suggested.

“No way,” I said. “Rye’s having far too much fun accusing me. He insists bitchy old women like me are prone to poisoning people.”

“You are not a bitch,” Candy said.

“I’m not a murderer, either.”

“I bet Old Man Harrison did it,” Bryce said, and the three of us jumped. “Think about it, guys.” He tapped his index fingers on the bar, playing imaginary drums. “If the cops keep blaming someone in our building, it had to be Harrison.”

“But why would Mr. Harrison hurt Stanley?” Candy asked. “Everyone loved Stanley.”

“Old Man Harrison hates everyone,” Bryce argued.

“He refused to talk to Jimmy Beak,” Karen added.

I raised an eyebrow. “So did we, Karen.”

The two of us blinked at each other until Candy broke the silence. “Umm, Bryce?” she said. “Did Stanley say anything last night? You know, when he was over here?”

“About what?”

She shifted in her seat. “Gosh, I don’t know. Anything?”

“You think he might have mentioned something important?” I asked. “Like a clue?”

“Maybe?” She looked at Bryce, but he told her to keep dreaming.

“I barely talked to Stan. He hung out with the Dibbles, mostly.”

“The Dibbles?” I asked. “You are jok—”

“Shhhit,” Karen hissed. “Ten o’clock! Ten o’clock!”

We jerked our heads toward ten o’clock, where Jimmy Beak stood in the doorway, armed with his cameraman.

“Shhhit,” we hissed in unison.

But Gina Stone was on it. She walked right up to Jimmy and spilled a drink on his bow tie. That gave Matthew time to get over there. He stepped in front of the cameraman and blocked our view of whatever followed next.

“Turn around!” Bryce demanded.

We twirled around on our barstools and faced the pool table.

“Jimmy’s blocking the door, Jessie!” That was Candy.

“And no way we can get past the camera guy,” Karen said.

“The public has a right to know.” I heard Jimmy’s voice over Jim Morrison’s baritone and knew he had made it past Matthew.

I blinked at the pool table. More to the point, I glanced under the table and then at my pool-playing pal Kirby Cox.

Bless his heart, he read my mind and cleared a path.

“Dive!” I ordered.

Karen went down first. Candy followed, and I took up the rear.

I sure did hope Jimmy’s cameraman was still preoccupied, because the sight of Candy Poppe’s miniskirt-clad bottom wiggling its way under that pool table was more than the public had a right to know. Trust me.

We crouched out of sight while Kirby rearranged the pool table crowd. “About face!” he whispered loudly. “Secure the perimeter!”

Have I mentioned Kirby is an ex-Marine?

***

“Gross,” Karen muttered and pointed to the bare toes surrounding us.

What is it with this town and sandals, I asked myself, not for the first time. Okay, so I have a thing about bare toes. I do not like them, and I do not like looking at anyone’s feet. And just then, I was looking at a lot of feet.

I recognized Kirby’s toes, and assumed the others belonged to Gus, and to Bernie and Camille Allen. “TMI,” I mumbled.

Jimmy was causing a commotion, but other than those ugly feet, we couldn’t see a darn thing. We got ourselves as comfortable as possible, which wasn’t very, and waited.

“I’ll never forget the day Audrey found out I’m a Libra, just like her,” Karen whispered at some point. “She’s wanted to commiserate with me ever since.”

I shifted slowly, since quickly was not an option, and glared at my friend. “Excuse me?”

“Audrey Dibble,” Candy reminded me. “Bryce said Stanley talked to her last night.”

I may have groaned, but perhaps it did make sense to discuss Audrey Dibble in the present circumstances. The situation was surrealistically weird. As was Audrey.

From what I could tell, she and her husband Jackson lived in their booth at The Stone Fountain. The one time I had spoken to them, Audrey asked for my birthday. I had given her the date, only to be subjected to a twenty-minute dissertation about the perils of being a Pisces.

“Was Stanley friends with the Dibbles?” I had to ask.

“Sometimes the four of us would talk,” Candy said. “Audrey’s always so interesting.”

Karen caught my eye. “Who can argue?”

“All clear!” Matthew Stone announced, and an uproar of applause exploded around the bar.

The sandals parted, and we were just about to crawl out from our lair, when I spotted a pair of Oxfords at my fingertips. They might as well have had “COP” emblazoned across the toes.

I closed my eyes and prayed for strength.

Chapter 4

Rye squatted down and stuck his head under the table.

“Ladies,” he greeted us. He glanced at the three of us until his gaze halted at me. “Pleasure to see you again, Ms. Hewitt.”

I attempted a most unladylike gesture, bumped my head, and muttered an unladylike word.

Rye offered his hand, but I slapped it away.

“I am perfectly capable of standing up on my own,” I informed him with as much dignity as a fifty-two-year-old woman could muster while crawling out from under a barroom pool table.

I stood upright, more or less, brushed the debris from my hands and knees, and gratefully accepted a bar towel from Bryce.

“And people wonder why I spend so much time home alone with my cat,” I mumbled to Karen. Lieutenant Densmore had helped her out and was in the process of getting Candy to her feet.

Rye continued staring at me.

“Unless you’re here to arrest me, Captain, I’ll excuse myself.” I tossed Bryce the towel and led my friends to the ladies room.

“Let’s get out of here,” I said as the three of us lined up at the sinks and pumped gobs of disinfectant soap into our hands.

Candy caught my eye in the mirror. “But what if Jimmy Beak’s waiting for us?”

“What? Like lurking outside, ready to ambush us?”

She shrugged and grabbed a handful of paper towels.

“Let’s wait a while,” Karen suggested. “I could use another Corona anyway.”

Testimony to my whimsical and flexible nature, I agreed to one more glass of champagne. “I’ll need it if Rye’s still out there.”

Which of course, he was. He was talking to Gina Stone, but immediately stopped harassing her when he saw us return to our barstools.

I turned my back as he approached.

“Champagne?” he asked over my shoulder.

“It’s what she always drinks,” Bryce answered. He pointed back and forth between Candy and me. “We keep a stock of the stuff just for the two of them.”

“We’re not being disrespectful to Stanley, sir.” Candy had turned to face Rye, and seemed to think he deserved even further explanation. “It’s just what Jessie and me drink is all.”

Karen also jumped on the be-nice-to-Rye bandwagon. She patted the empty seat beside her and actually asked him to join us.

I was contemplating a return to my cozy spot under the pool table, but Rye stepped away. He claimed he didn’t want to bother anyone, joined Densmore, and the two of them got lost in the crowd.

I was really, really, ready to go, but Karen reminded me of the Jimmy Beak hazard, and Candy seemed content watching the pool game going on behind us. This seemed a pleasant enough diversion. I turned to watch the game, but also kept a wary eye on the cops.

Densmore sat down with the Dibbles, but much to my chagrin, Rye had also gotten interested in the pool game. He stood in the back corner, and I noticed he had taken off his suit jacket and tie. Apparently, he had lost the gun also.

Eventually, Kirby invited him to play. Kirby Cox is, by far, the worst pool player I have ever met. But what he lacks in skill, he more than makes up for in enthusiasm.

No big surprise, Captain Rye won the game against Kirby. Then he played Gus and beat him also. He was looking around for another victim when Candy jumped up and pointed to me. I could have killed her.

“Jessie’s real good, sir. Ask her to play!”

I refused, as did Rye, but then Densmore appeared and whispered something to his boss. Rye stared at me while listening to the lieutenant and apparently changed his mind. In fact, he grinned from ear to ear and asked me to reconsider.

The two of them probably had some plan to force a confession out of me in the middle of the game, but I decided to take my chances. After all, someone had to wipe that stupid grin off his face.

I hopped off my barstool as Bryce produced my cue from behind the bar.

That got Rye’s attention. “You mean you have your own cue stick?”

We locked eyes as I screwed my cue together.

“When she dies we’re gonna dip it in gold and hang it over the table,” Bryce told him.

I chalked up and asked Kirby to rack the balls. Then I turned to my opponent. “Do you plan on arresting me when I win?”

“When, Ms. Hewitt?” He kept grinning. “Don’t you mean if?”

I repeated my question, verbatim, and gestured for him to break.