A Lie for a Lie (37 page)

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. And in a Unitarian-Universalist church, too, where such things are almost never discussed.

I didn’t look up. I ignored the subtle creaking of the floorboards and spoke louder. “And then, you killed him,” I said, hoping to get this over with. She hadn’t really admitted to murder yet, just the desire.

She still didn’t. “Of course I didn’t kill him. Yes, I wanted him dead, but it’s a long way from wanting to doing. Then things took a turn I would never have believed. Nora went backstage the night of the finals and murdered him herself. And Grady managed to scrawl
nor
on the wall before he died. A trooper, our Grady. Right up until the end. See what I mean? It was all meant to be.”

“Only it wasn’t Nora’s name he was scrawling, Veronica. It was
yours
. Grady was dyslexic. Lisa Lee told me in high school, he even tried to read music right to left. In those last moments, when he only had seconds to live, he scrawled the name he had known you by in high school. Ronnie. He could only manage
ron
, the first three letters, before he died. Unfortunately for poor Nora, he was printing your name, as he had so often printed others.”

I paused for effect. “Backwards.”

She stared at me, and for the first time I saw anger flickering in her eyes. “I didn’t go there that night with murder in mind.”

Man, oh man, I was hoping, yes, praying, that this last sentence had been caught on tape. I wanted so badly to see who was coming down the aisle, but as she continued, I was scared to look away.

“Yes, I set up everything just in case. I hired a boy from that ridiculous tent show to steal something from Nora’s house I could use as a weapon. I had no idea she was shacking up with a knife thrower. Another piece of divine collaboration, wouldn’t you say?”

“Or simply a coincidence.”

She ignored me. “At no time did I intend to kill Grady before the Idyll ended. No matter what you think, I did have an investment in a positive outcome. I wanted to rake in the money, then murder the son of a bitch. But that night when I went to his dressing room, he told me that he didn’t like the new song I’d given him. He said it wasn’t good enough. That he would take it, of course, but he wasn’t going to let me off that easily. Over the days he’d been here, he’d seen what my reputation meant to me. I hadn’t changed one bit from the girl he’d known in high school. So he said I’d have to produce a real hit before he gave up the tape, maybe a whole album of them. He said he was calling my bluff. I could pull out every bit of proof that I’d written that second song, as well as the one I’d just given him, but he was pretty sure I wasn’t going to risk it. Because I never took a real risk.”

I could just imagine the scene. Veronica trying to get the finals under way. Grady, sure Veronica wouldn’t retaliate, blurting out his new scheme to make her life miserable.

She smiled a little, as if she were stroking a fond memory. “So I showed him I could take the biggest risk of all. I’d already searched his hotel room looking for the tape, but I don’t think he even brought it with him. He’d known all along he wasn’t going to give it to me. I had been carrying the knife from the moment that circus freak gave it to me. I pulled it out.”

She shrugged, but her expression was animated, as if she was enjoying this. “He just smiled, because he didn’t believe I had the courage. He actually turned away from me, like he was dismissing me. Of course he wouldn’t just go quietly after I stabbed him in the back. He never made anything easy for anybody. So I had to make sure his cries wouldn’t be heard. Then I washed my hands, made sure I wasn’t splattered with blood, and wiped my fingerprints off the handle of the knife. I heard a knock on the door, but everybody knew Grady wasn’t to be bothered. Whoever it was—”

“Me, most likely,” I said. “With the reporter from the
Flow
.”

She smiled a little. “You simply left, Aggie, and I was safe. By the time I left the room, I thought for certain he was dead.”

“Mom?”

My head jerked up, and I finally got a look at who had been coming up the aisle. Not anybody I’d hoped to see. Deena was standing right behind Veronica. She had overheard the last part, and even if she hadn’t heard every single word, she knew this was not a simple conversation between friends.

“Run!” I said, diving toward Veronica.

But Veronica was quicker than my daughter, who was clearly afraid, and Veronica was quicker than I was. I had to skirt the edge of the piano to get to her, and before I could, she grabbed Deena, and although Deena struggled, Veronica was bigger and stronger. With Deena’s back against her, she locked one arm around my daughter’s throat, the second around her chest in a violent bear hug. Before Deena could do another thing, Veronica reached across her and into the purse dangling from her own shoulder. When she pulled out her hand, it contained a gun.

“You two listen,” she said, as Deena, who saw the gun out of the corner of her eye, abruptly stopped struggling. “Either of you tries to scream or leave, I’ll use this.”

I was only a few feet away now, but I knew better than to make sudden moves. “Look, calm down. Ed knows you’re here with us. You went to our house first, so you’ll be caught immediately. We can figure out what to do next. You don’t need a gun.”

“You’re exactly like Grady, you know that? You badly underestimate me. I knew you weren’t going to give up your search for a killer. Then Camille mentioned you were asking about using my songs in a fund-raiser, and I realized you might be putting things together. So I took precautions.”

She waved the gun. “Meet my number one precaution. I have no plans to kill you or your daughter, Aggie. You’ve never done anything to me except refuse to leave this alone, even after you got a good scare.”

The elephants. I wasn’t surprised, not after she’d admitted to having a “circus freak” steal the knife.

“I’m leaving town,” she said. “And I’m taking your daughter for insurance. I’d planned to take you, if I thought it was necessary. There’s no question now that I’ll have to get out of here, but I’ve been ready since Grady died. Who knows where that tape went or where it’ll show up? So I’ve been preparing. But you know what? I’m finally ready. I’ve got the cash, got the destination, got the ticket. I’m going to ditch this fluffy little life once and for all. All I need is a really good head start. So I’ll take—” She waved the gun at me. “What’s her name?”

“Deena,” I croaked.

“That’s right. Deena, the Price Girl. I’ll take Deena, and if you tell anybody what you’ve figured out, you won’t see her do those cute little flips of hers ever again. Otherwise she’ll be left somewhere she can be found once I’m out of the country. And I can assure you that nobody is ever, ever going to find me.”

“Please . . . you’re strangling me . . .” Deena sounded like she was dissolving into tears. She went limp in Veronica’s arms, and for a moment Veronica didn’t seem to know what to do. I think she must have loosened her grip just a bit. It was all my daughter needed.

Deena’s grandfather would have been so proud. Deena
had
been listening when Ray gave her self-defense lessons at the beginning of the summer. Struggling in the position in which Veronica held her made no sense because her air supply would disappear the moment Veronica tightened her grip. But Deena knew that turning to face the person holding her made that impossible. The moment Veronica loosened up, Deena scrambled to face her, then, before Veronica could react, Deena thrust her arms out straight to knock Veronica’s arms away, and simultaneously brought the heel of her sandal down on the top of Veronica’s foot.

Veronica screeched, but before the sound could begin to echo through the sanctuary, I leapt toward her and grabbed for the gun.

I wasn’t the only one leaping. Suddenly there seemed to be a dozen people in the room. People jumping across pews, fleet-of-foot men and women, some as tall and broad as elephants, coming toward us like a circus parade run amuck. One man launched himself so far and fast that I almost smelled the smoke of a cannon. But this man was driven purely by adrenaline, not gunpowder. While I was still struggling with Veronica—and winning—Yank disarmed her once and for all with one sharp kick to her elbow.

In a moment three men from Nora’s tent show had the sobbing Veronica in their grips. I had Deena clutched against me. Henry Cinch was sauntering up the aisle, seemingly unperturbed.

I hugged my daughter. “What on earth were you doing here?”

“I wanted . . . you to help me . . . apologize to Daddy.”

“Good grief.” I squeezed her harder. “What were you thinking, going after her that way?”

She was sobbing now. “I was thinking . . . I hadn’t told Daddy . . .”

I understood. Deena had been afraid if Veronica somehow succeeded in getting her into a car, she might not live long enough to tell Ed she was sorry for being so angry. She might not live long enough for anything.

“It’s okay . . .” I smoothed her hair. “Honey, it turned out okay. You were so brave. You did everything just right. Your grandpa would be thrilled.”

And the girls and I would be back in Indiana next summer for more instruction. Ray could count on it.

“Aggie!”

I looked up and saw whirling red curls, like a tongue of fire streaking down the aisle closest to me. And just beyond them, I saw Roussos.

“You’re just the tiniest bit late,” I told Lucy.

“I went out to get in the car and I had a flat! So I called Roussos on my cell and told him what might be going on here. He wasn’t far away. He got me and—”

“You have Roussos’s personal number on your cell?”

For a moment Lucy looked the same way Veronica had when Yank disarmed her. “Well, you never know,” she said, recovering quickly. “Better to be safe than sorry.”

Roussos and Henry arrived at the same moment. Roussos was already taking control of the situation. He asked the people who were not holding the struggling Veronica to move away. He asked the ones who were restraining her to take her to the back of the sanctuary and keep her there.

“She killed Grady Barber,” I told him, as soon as he stopped giving orders. “If she tries to wiggle out of it, every bit of our conversation is on tape. She was going to use Deena as a hostage so she could get away.”

“You just happened to tape the conversation?”

“I have the most incredible luck.”

He shook his head. “You two are all right?”

I glanced at Deena, who wiped her nose on the hem of her T-shirt. She nodded. I thought she meant it.

“We’re okay.” And we were. Things hadn’t gone exactly the way I had hoped. Fate will intercede in the best-laid plans. But this time Deena and I had taken on fate and won. Veronica would have a lot of time in her future to write songs, and no more fluffy little life. Nora would get out of jail and build her biosphere. The press would swarm back to Emerald Springs and have one final field day.

And me? Well, I hoped nobody ever died on my watch again. I hoped I never had to solve another murder as long as I lived. But at least this time, I had come up with the right answer
before
the murderer and I were locked in combat. My teenage daughter and I had managed to subdue her. And we were still alive to tell about it.

Roussos followed the men who were restraining Veronica down the aisle. I imagined he was going to make a call to the station, then a formal arrest.

Henry held out his hand, and I took it. “Remember, in Texas we shake when a deal is done?”

We shook. Then he turned to Deena and held out his hand to her. “You take after your mama, young lady. Not a cowardly bone in your body, is there?”

They shook solemnly, he raised her hand to his lips and kissed it, then he sauntered back up the aisle, gathering the tent show troop as he went.

“You called Henry?” Lucy was the only person left up front besides Deena and me.

“Smart, huh? I figured nobody else had more at stake and would be more help catching a killer than the folks from SNITS.”

“Stop calling them that.”

“It could be worse. It could be Sister Nora’s Original Tent Show. SNOTS.” I paused. “You actually have Roussos’s number on your cell phone?”

“Well, if Sister Nora’s right, our time on this planet could be short. It does make you think about possibilities, doesn’t it?” Lucy winked before she left me alone with my daughter.

“Who’s going to let Daddy know what happened?” Deena asked. “Somebody has to.”

“I’ll tell you what. You apologize first, then I’ll come from behind and mention we caught Veronica Hayworth in the sanctuary with a revolver. Like it’s no big deal.”

“Poor Daddy.”

I slung my arm around her shoulder, and she let me. Ed did have a lot to put up with, but I thought he was going to be so grateful Deena and I were okay, he would overlook everything else.

He was getting awfully good at that, my Ed. Better yet, I was pretty sure Deena and I could count on him not using the events of this morning in an upcoming sermon.

For this, I was profoundly grateful.

Sister Nora’s Inspirational Tent Show was pulling up stakes in the rain. Nobody seemed to mind. In fact none of us who was watching minded it, either. After our drought, rain was so special, so precious, that I thought a lot of people in Emerald Springs were probably standing, arms outstretched, to welcome it.

I wore a poncho, but my head was sheltered by an umbrella. Junie wore a yellow slicker and rain hat that made her look like a duckling. Lucy wore a double-breasted leopard-print raincoat, but instead of the matching boots, she was wearing socks and vinyl garden clogs. I think she has a date later this evening, and she’s saving the boots.

I think I know who the date might be with, although she’s strangely silent on that subject these days.

“I hate to see them go,” Junie said. “I’ll miss Nora.”