Key Lime Pie Murder (35 page)

“They did?” Ruby looked absolutely delighted. “I’ll tell Sam. I’m going over there now. He’s driving Brianna and me to the hospital to take Curly some flowers.”

“Curly’s awake?”

“Not yet, but the doctor upgraded his condition to good, and he’s going to wake up him tomorrow morning. He’s almost positive that Curly’s going to be all right. We want Curly to see our flowers first thing and know that we were there.”

“That’s nice. I’m really glad he’s going to be okay.”

“Me, too. About the robbery…do you know if they recovered any of the stolen money?”

Hannah shook her head. “The only thing I know for sure is that the thief was a rodeo cowboy who was fired on Tuesday.”

“Buck Jones,” Rudy said with a frown. “I knew he was trouble the second I set eyes on him. He gave Sam a hard luck story, and Sam hired him to help with the setup and do some of the roping demonstrations. I gotta say he was good with a rope, but Riggs caught him taking shortcuts with the setup for the Brahmas.”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s supposed to be a barrel every fifteen feet and a stand between the barrels. That’s to protect the clowns. The barrels are reinforced and they’re heavy, and Buck wasn’t bringing them all out the way he should.”

Hannah’s mind spun into high gear. “How about when Curly was hurt? Were all the barrels in place?”

“I’ll have to ask Riggs. But that was yesterday, and Buck was already gone.”

“I know. I was just wondering if he could have gotten rid of some barrels so he wouldn’t have to roll them out. And maybe the guys that did the setup yesterday didn’t know how many there were supposed to be.”

Ruby’s eyes narrowed. “That would explain a lot! Curly’s fast on his feet, and he’s great at diving in those barrels with a bull hot on his heels. But if a barrel wasn’t where he expected it to be, it could have thrown him way off.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Hannah said. “Let me know what Riggs says, will you? They might be able to charge him with…” Hannah stopped short. “I don’t know what the charge would be, but I’m sure there’s something.”

“I’ll let you know. If that lazy little twerp had anything to do with Curly’s accident, I’ll take him down myself.”

There was no way she should be hungry, but she was. Hannah got her order in right before the lights started flickering for the five-minute closing warning. She headed for a deserted table, sat down, and wolfed down the funnel cake. She was just starting in on her coffee when she spotted a familiar swagger heading her way. It was Tucker Smith.

“Hannah,” Tucker said, grinning his gal-winning grin. “Mind if I join you?”

Hannah was tempted to say no. Tucker wasn’t the killer, but that didn’t mean she had to like him. At the same time, it would be rude to refuse. “Pull up a bench,” she said, hoping she sounded more welcoming than she felt.

“I’m glad I caught you.” Tucker stepped over the bench with an ease Hannah could only admire, and sat astride it, like a horse. “Somebody told me you were investigating the murder, and I wanted to see how you were doing.”

“Why?”

Tucker shrugged. “I guess I was just curious, being that it happened right here at the fair and all. You are investigating, aren’t you?”

“No.”

“No?”

Hannah shook her head. “I was investigating, but I’m not investigating now.”

“Why not?”

“Because they caught him.”

“No kidding! Well…that’s good news. Did you catch him yourself?”

“Not me. Our local marshal picked him up trying to break into the Great Northwestern office again tonight.”

“You mean…the guy who broke into the office is the killer?”

“It looks that way.”

“No kidding!” Tucker exclaimed again, causing Hannah to wonder if he had a limited vocabulary. “Did you think he was the killer all along?”

“Not exactly,” Hannah said, deciding that the truth was in order. “If you must know, I thought that you were the killer.”

“Me?!” The lights flickered for the second time as Tucker leaned closer. “Why did you think that?”

“It’s a long story,” Hannah said. “Do you have an hour?”

“I’ve got all night for something like that,” Tucker shot right back.

“Unfortunately, we’ve only got three minutes or so,” Hannah said. “I don’t want to get locked in.”

“Oh, you won’t. I can let you out the back way.” Tucker jingled the ring of keys in his pocket. “You didn’t tell anybody else what you thought about me, did you?”

“No. And now that they caught the real killer, I’m glad I didn’t.”

“Me, too.” Tucker gave a little chuckle. “Why did you suspect me anyway?”

The lights flickered again and Hannah took another sip of her coffee. She really wanted to head for the gate with the crowd, but she owed Tucker an answer. “Because one of the 4-H kids saw Willa with a cowboy and I thought it was you,” she explained. “And because when Willa walked past the roping demonstration with me, she almost passed out cold from shock. I thought you were her husband, Jess Reiffer.”

“Her husband?” Tucker looked completely mystified. “But I’m not married. I’m engaged to Brianna.”

“I know that. And I realize that if anyone was Willa’s husband, it’s Buck Jones.”

“Hold on.” Tucker held up his hand as the lights flickered for the fourth time. “Buck Jones is the bum we fired right after the rodeo on Tuesday. Sam said Riggs caught him slacking off on the setup.”

“I know. Ruby told me about it. We think that’s what happened when you got thrown and Curly got hurt. Ruby’s almost sure there were supposed to be more barrels. She figures Buck hid some so he didn’t have to move them all out.”

Tucker’s mouth dropped open. “So that’s what was different! I knew something wasn’t right, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. What do you think Buck did with the barrels?”

“I don’t know. You’ll probably find them when you pack up the show.”

“Probably.” Tucker glanced up as the lights flickered again. A moment later, there was a hollow thunk and then the dim strings of nightlights went on.

“I’ll take you out the back way,” Tucker said, looping his leg over the seat and standing up.

“Okay,” Hannah agreed taking a bit longer to extricate herself from the picnic-style table with the attached seat. “What really threw me off was the engagement ring.”

“You mean the one I gave Bri?”

“That’s right,” Hannah followed him past the deserted food booths and onto the midway. “It was the inscription inside.”

“Yesterday and Today,” Tucker repeated. “And her wedding ring is gonna have, Tomorrow and Forever. What’s wrong with that?”

“Those same words were written on a florist card that Willa kept. That’s why I thought she was tied to you somehow.”

“You don’t know?” Tucker asked, grinning his engaging grin.

“Know what?”

“It’s from a Country-Western song. Somebody big sang it. I forget who. You must not listen to Country-Western music.”

“Not often,” Hannah admitted. She was about to ask him the name of the song so that she could tell Norman, when she heard the first two bars of the William Tell Overture and they seemed to be coming from her purse. “What’s that?”

“Sounds like a cell phone.”

Hannah reached in to grab it. “Oh, great! Andrea must have turned it on. I hate these things. Hold on a second and I’ll shut it off.”

In the dim glow from the strings of nightlights all the icons looked alike and it was impossible to tell the green phone from the red phone. Hannah pressed buttons at random trying to find the right one and dropped the phone in her purse again. They’d just started to walk down the midway when she heard her sister’s voice. It was muffled from inside her purse, but it was perfectly audible.

“Hannah? We were wrong about Buck Jones. He stole the money, but he didn’t kill Willa. Are you there?”

She really didn’t need to hear this now. Hannah hoped that Andrea would assume she wasn’t there and hang up. But her sister’s voice continued to resonate from the depths of her purse.

“Hannah? I’m just hoping you’re hearing this and it didn’t go to voice mail, because they checked out his alibi and it’s good. Buck Jones was at the Corner Tavern when Willa was killed, eating a sixteen-ounce porterhouse and a rock lobster. Nick Prentiss remembers him because he had too much champagne and he tried to dance with Albert, the grizzly. Anyway, call us back. We’re getting worried about you.”

Buck Jones hadn’t done it. And that meant every one of her suspicions about Tucker were still valid. Hannah turned to glance at him and swallowed hard. His boyish, gal-winning grin had turned into a nasty gal-slaying grin. And he was grinning it straight at her.

“Uh-oh!” Hannah breathed. And then she was off and running as fast as she could, down the midway heading for…

She didn’t know what she was heading for, but that didn’t slow her pace. She’d stop at the first place she found to hide. It had worked before when she’d hidden behind the hay bales from Willa’s killer. And now he was after her. And nobody knew she was here at the fairgrounds in danger!

Hannah shut off her mind and concentrated on making her feet move. Left, right, left, right, as fast as she could go. She didn’t turn to look, but she could feel that Tucker was behind her and that made her run faster. She rounded a corner, hurtled a fence with the grace of an elephant and found herself in the enclosure that housed the tilt-a-whirl.

Hide, Hannah’s mind said. And she did. Before anyone could say There’s a psychopathic rodeo cowboy killer after you, and you should take cover, she was huddled in one of the tilt-a-whirl carts, hoping against hope that Tucker hadn’t seen her tumble in.

Hannah huddled on the floor of the round orange cart. She could see the moon above her through the double bars of the safety handle, a thin sliver of pale blue-white. Not a full moon. That was in her favor. And the fact that the string of dim nightlights was not directly over her cart was in her favor, too.

Footfalls pounded past her on the dirt path and Hannah held her breath. Would he find her hiding place and kill her? But the sound receded and Hannah realized that he’d run past the tilt-a-whirl and around the corner.

She wasn’t out of the woods yet, but perhaps she could stack the deck in her favor. Without even realizing that she’d generated two clichés in a row, Hannah rummaged in her purse for her cell phone. Norman was number one. She’d call him and tell him to send Mike out to the fairgrounds to save her. At full speed in his powerful cruiser Mike could be here in ten minutes.

There was a clinking sound and Hannah felt her hold on reality slipping. Tucker was doing something two rows over, and she thought she knew what it was. He was taking the chain from the strong man mallet. Mike might be able to be here in ten minutes, but she could be dead in five!

She had to think of some way to delay Tucker if he found her. She’d kept killers talking for longer than that in the past. They seemed to like to tell her about their exploits, to explain why they’d done what they’d done. Perhaps it was ego. Perhaps it was stupidity. Whatever it was, she’d take it.

Hannah’s fingers punched in a one, and then the button she thought contained the green phone icon. And then, wonder of wonders, the phone started to ring.

“Call Mike!” she gasped when Norman answered. “I’m hiding. Tilt-a-whirl. Tucker killed…”

And that was when it happened. Her phone went dead. Hannah heard it go with two clicks and a beep. The dying swan had gasped its last breath and Hannah could only hope that she wasn’t in the same boat.

That was when she heard it, a squad car with siren screaming in the distance, racing down the highway that led to the fairgrounds. But she also heard something else and that was the sound of someone running straight for her. Hannah looked down at her choice of weapons. Nothing. And then she looked down at her means of defense. All she had was her saddlebag purse and while it might deflect one blow from the strong man mallet if she was very lucky, it couldn’t last forever.

Frantically, she looked around her for ammunition, anything that she could use to thwart a killing blow. There was nothing, unless a piece of grape bubblegum sticking to the safety handle counted. She’d have to depend on her wits to save her. And at that moment, she felt quite witless.

The night wind picked up, blowing down the midway and kicking up debris from the trash cans. They were in for another summer storm. A crumpled Dixie cup zipped past Hannah’s cart, closely followed by several scraps of paper.

She heard rather than saw him coming. The sound of his boot heels hitting the dirt was like thunder. Hannah did her best to emulate a piece of flat cardboard in the bottom of the cart and prayed that Mike would get here soon. She no longer heard the siren. Perhaps it hadn’t been a police cruiser after all. It could have been an ambulance, or a fire truck, or…Hannah deliberately stopped thinking of other vehicles with sirens. She had to believe that it was a police cruiser and help was coming. The alternative was unthinkable.

And that was when it happened. Something she’d never expected. Opportunity dropped in her lap. It occurred quite literally as a black plastic raincoat someone had left on the seat of the cart just above her was blown up and out. It hovered in the air for a moment, looking like a huge black bat, and then the wind ceased and it dropped down to land in her cart. Some would call it fate, providence, perhaps even divine intervention. Whatever the origin, it was incredible timing. The coat spread over her like a welcome blanket only seconds before he walked through the opening in the fence and stepped up to her cart.

The raincoat was directly over her face. It was nearly suffocating her, but she dared not move. Through the narrow slit of one buttonhole, she could see him looking down at her and she held her breath and fought her urge to scream. Was this how a mosquito felt a split-second before a giant human palm came down to flatten it into oblivion? If that were true, she’d never kill another mosquito as long as she lived!

Several thoughts ran through Hannah’s mind so fast they seemed simultaneous. Was the plastic raincoat thick enough to camouflage her shape and render her nearly invisible in the dim light? Had she told her family that she loved them lately? Would Norman take Moishe after she was gone? Would it hurt when Tucker killed her? Would Lisa manage to work the quirks out of the recipe for Black Forest Cookies that had her stymied?