A Rip Roaring Good Time (31 page)

Rip was no more anxious to confront Mattie Hill than I was. He fought to have Lexie and me contact Detective Russell and turn the information over to him. "I may have a law enforcement background, but I'm nothing but a visiting citizen here in Rockdale, or anywhere else now, for that matter," he argued. "I don't want to overstep my bounds and I can assure you that Wyatt, as a local detective, wouldn't want me to put my nose in where it doesn't belong either. As a former police officer, I know how frustrating it can be when citizens take it upon themselves to exact justice. It's not their place, or yours and mine, to take the law into our own hands. It almost never turns out well, and I can see where this situation could end badly as well. I still think we should bring Detective Johnston into this and let him handle it from here on out."

"I don't want Wyatt to put his neck on the line. Chief Smith would have his job if he found out Wyatt was going behind his back and taking suggestions from us. The big buffoon considers Lexie and me as no more than 'old airheads'. And if we don't approach Mattie with our suspicions, who will? Besides, do you recall how successful we were in getting the detectives to take our Piney theory seriously?" I asked.

"My point exactly. Do you realize how ridiculous you and Lexie would look right now if you'd been successful in convincing the detectives to raid the Piney residence? The investigating team would never have taken any evidence you two brought them seriously again. For that matter, they'd have sloughed off a written, signed, and notarized confession if you and Lexie had managed to get one from Georgia or Lori. Detective Johnston could decide whether or not to take our suspicions to the investigating team, or not. He might even decide he should take it straight to Chief Smith, providing we hand this matter over to him."

I felt strongly that we'd be wasting our time trying to get any credible tip taken seriously, even if it was Wyatt, a Rockdale detective with sixteen years of service under his belt, who brought it to the chief's attention. It took a lot of begging, complaining, pleading, whining, and worst of all, having to give Rip a lengthy foot massage, before I was able to get my husband to commit to helping Lexie and me put our plan into action. I could convince Rip to tap dance on a table at Applebees if I promised him a foot massage in exchange. And, sorry to say, I wasn't above using that weakness against him.

A couple of hours later, Lexie remarked she'd been too weary to prepare a decent supper and offered to take the two of us, Stone, Wendy, Andy, Wyatt, and Veronica to supper. We begged off with the excuse that I was experiencing a rare migraine and Rip's hip was throbbing so bad he wanted to rest with his feet up all evening. I hadn't had a real migraine in years but Rip's hip was aching nearly 24/7 now, so we didn't have to tell a complete prevarication to get the inn to ourselves for a couple of hours.

* * *

I was pacing back and forth across the parlor and Rip was sitting in an ornate, intricately-carved ivory chair, nervously spinning his cane in his hand. As a police officer, Rip had experienced many more nerve-racking confrontations than the one we were preparing for at that moment, but seldom had the outcome meant so much to him on a personal level.

He stopped spinning his cane and looked at me as he asked, "What ruse did you use to convince Mattie to drop everything and rush over here to the inn?"

"I didn't use a ruse," I said. For a second I feared I'd have to pick Rip up off the floor. I can only imagine what he was thinking, and unfortunately, it probably wasn't much off the mark. "I told her the absolute truth."

"Swell." With a sigh, Rip pulled a handkerchief out of his back pocket and wiped perspiration off his bald head. And then he asked me, as he was in a habit of doing, "Do I even want to know?"

"I merely told her we were almost certain we'd determined who killed Trotter Hayes. She asked who we thought killed him, of course. So I told her we were so excited we wanted to tell her all about it in person. Obviously, I didn't let on it'd only be you and me at the inn when she arrived, or that she was the individual we suspected of having committed the murder. She sounded apprehensive as it was when she agreed to head right over."

"And when she gets here and asks who you've discovered the killer is, what are you going to tell her?" Rip asked.

"Oh, yeah, I didn't think about that aspect of it. But maybe I can act confused, like maybe I'd downed too many Miller Lites before I called her and asked her to come over."

"Oh, God." Rip groaned, and then asked, "What the hell was I thinking when I let you talk me into this lunacy? I suppose it's just that I really wanted a foot massage. And I should know by now it's never worth the price I end up having to pay for it."

When I didn't respond, he shrugged his shoulders and said, "I guess it's too late to back out now. So, remember, Rapella, we want to go about this as judiciously as we can. Kind of tiptoe around the subject until we see how she reacts to it. In other words, we don't want to accuse her of anything. We want to try to entice her to offer the information voluntarily."

"I'll be subtly tactful, Rip. I'm nothing if I'm not diplomatic. You know how I am better than anyone."

"Yes, I do. And that's what concerns me."

"Don't be silly. Well, it's six-thirty, so I expect Mattie to be here in about twenty minutes."

As if on cue, the phone rang. I expected it to be Mattie, telling us she was going to be late, or if she had a hunch we'd figured out that she was the perpetrator, she might be begging off altogether. Instead it was Georgia Piney.

"Hi, Rapella, is Lexie there?"

"Not at the moment, dear, but I'd be happy to take a message," I replied.

"No bother. This is Georgia. When I went to put away the blue bowl you two brought by, I took a closer look and realized it wasn't my bowl after all. My bowl was already in the china hutch, and even though they look very similar, mine is not an Anchor Hocking as I'd suspected. Please tell her I'm sorry. I should have taken the time to check it out when you two ladies were here earlier today. I feel badly that I just assumed it was mine."

"Oh, don't worry about it, sweetie. You know Lexie. She'll understand. Would you like us to run by and pick it up tomorrow?" I was relieved to hear Lexie's prized possession was going to be returned to her.

"No, that's all right. You've made enough trips out here on my account. Lori's delivering Lexie's bowl to the inn right now. She should be there in about ten minutes, give or take. I wanted to use it as an excuse to get her out of the house. She's been totally withdrawn this week. Worse than normal even, you know, with the timing of the murder, and all."

Before Georgia hung up, she reminded me to apologize to Lexie for her. I passed on what the phone call was about to Rip and went to sit down in the ivory chair that Rip had just vacated. He was now playing his own rendition of "Chopsticks" on the piano, and after about the seventh time he repeated the tune, it began to grate on my nerves. I considered asking him to give it a rest, but didn't. I was still in his debt for going along with Lexie's and my plan and didn't want to push my luck.

Rip stopped halfway into his eighth playing of the simple tune and said, "If Lori gets here first, take the bowl and send her on her way so she won't be here when Mattie arrives. I don't want her mixed up in this. Lori's under enough emotional strain. And getting Mattie to admit her part in the murder is going to be a delicate enough conversation as it is."

Georgia's comment over the phone about the "timing and all" had intrigued me. Before I'd taken her call, I'd been playing solitaire on the iPad to calm my nerves. When Rip went back to torturing my ears with his piano playing, I Googled Tori Piney's obituary and was astonished to discover that she'd died exactly ten years to the day of the surprise party. Because of the coincidental "timing" as Georgia put it, Tori's death had to be taking a toll on both of the Pineys' state-of-mind, I realized.

Could that traumatic milestone anniversary have triggered a violent reaction in her identical twin?
I asked myself.
Could it have been enough to make Lori want to kill the man she held responsible for Tori's death? Could Georgia have no idea what lengths her surviving daughter would go to exact justice for her deceased one?

It was reasonable to believe that at the time of Tori's suicide, her twin had vowed to avenge her sister's death. Because the two sisters shared a room, the odds were good it was Lori who found her dead twin's body there. Could Lori have gotten a hold of some cyanide in the same way her sister had and decided to use it for retribution against Trotter Hayes? And wasn't it possible she'd thought to hide some of it years ago, in the event she ever got a chance to give Trotter Hayes a dose of his own medicine, so to speak?

When the doorbell rang, I was suddenly not sure which of the two girls on their way to the inn was the real killer. And I was now in a quandary about how to find out. Puzzled, I went to the front door, which led through a vestibule and right into the parlor. The opening into the vestibule was situated about fifteen feet from where I sat. I slowly opened the door and was shocked to see Alice Runcan standing on the doorstep with a gaily wrapped present in her hands.

Alice smiled, but her smile quickly changed to one of surprise. "Hey! Ms. Ripple, I didn't know you knew Wendy's family. How are you feeling? I was so disappointed the waitress job at Zen's didn't work out for you."

"Yes, me too, Ms. Runcan. The gout in my big toe is still giving me fits. What can I do for you? I'm afraid we have company coming shortly."

"I was so shook up at the party, I grabbed my birthday gift to Wendy as I walked out the door. It was so nice to be invited, and I didn't want my old friend to think I hadn't thought enough of her to bring her a present." Alice's smile had returned.

"I know Wendy was very happy to see you at the party, too, Alice," I replied politely. And then to hurry her on her way I added, "Thanks for dropping off your gift. I know Wendy will be touched that you made the effort to get it to her. Have a wonderful evening, my dear."

"It had been years since we'd seen each other. It was wonderful to see her, Mattie, Rayleen, Joy, and Tro-ot-ot-ter for the first time in years. In fact, it brought ba-ba-ba-back a lot of mem-mem-mem─"

"Memories?" I asked. Alice's sudden speech impediment caught my attention. It had appeared to me to be triggered by nervous lying the first time I'd spoke with her, and I wondered if this were the case today as well. Now I wasn't so anxious to see her on her way.

"Yes."

"I'll bet seeing another one of the three musketeers show up at the party with Trotter was kind of a shock to your system, wasn't it?"

"Uh-uh-uh, I wa-wa-was ─"

"Didn't it take you back to the homecoming dance all over again?" I asked. "Having both of your best friends stab you in the back like that had to hurt, even if it had been years ago since Trotter humiliated you the way he did."

The unsettled expression on Alice Runcan's face morphed into one of pure hatred. There was an evil glint in her eyes, and I knew I'd touched a nerve. I decided to work on that nerve to see if I could make it jump. With the sudden disappearance of the stuttering, she was furious when she nearly spat at me as she said, "It was Trotter's fault! He lied to them just like he lied to me! He's what caused the three musketeers' friendship to dissolve and all three of us to go our separate ways. I haven't had a really close friend, male or female, since. All I do now is work at the diner, work at all the Baptist Church's events, and work at trying to get ─ "

Alice stopped talking suddenly. She had the look of a rabid raccoon in a trap, practically foaming at the mouth. I took another stab at that adversely affected nerve by finishing her sentence for her. "By trying to get another man to show interest in you? Like, say, Detective Russell for example? Too bad he was only interested in the photos you took of Lexie standing over your victim, instead of being interested in spending time with you."

The frayed nerve burst like a frozen water pipe. Alice was snarling with fury. I thought back to my conversation with her in the diner. I'd wondered then if she'd been tested for schizophrenia. Now I was almost positive she really did have some kind of mood or personality disorder. Alice Runcan had many different sides to her. She could be the taskmaster boss at her own business, the devout Christian at her church, the kind friend delivering a birthday gift, the shameless hussy throwing herself at a potential suitor, or, as I now suspected, a cold-blooded killer. I didn't think Alice even realized what personality she was exhibiting at any given time.

I took the package out of her hands and set it on a small table in the entryway. Then I grabbed her arm and pulled her into the parlor, as I said, "I'll bet just seeing those two together made you want to kill that son-of-a ─"

"You're damn right it did! It was like he was rubbing my nose in it. Taking perverse pleasure in reminding me of that night he snubbed me and made me feel like I would die of embarrassment." As Alice ranted, I signaled to Rip to turn on the voice recorder on his cell phone. I'd watched Lexie do it with her phone before we went to see Georgia, and I'd shown Rip how to do the same thing with his.

Alice was on a roll now, needing no more provoking on my part. She exclaimed, "Yeah, I killed him! I should have done it years ago, but I fought off the temptation. After I heard what happened to Tori Piney, I went to visit her sister. I knew Lori was a potential ally in wanting retribution against Trotter Hayes. She told me her sister had found the key to her father's safe in the desk drawer in his workshop and found a tin container marked 'cyanide' inside it. Lori said her father was devastated when Tori used that cyanide to kill herself, and he always felt responsible for his daughter's death, even though she and her mother blamed only Trotter. Lori was so emotionally distraught the day I visited her that I was able to talk her out of some of the cyanide crystals she'd hidden in an old jacket pocket in her closet. Later, when she'd given it more thought, she asked me to return the poison. Said she wanted to have it destroyed before it could cause any more pain."