Skating Under the Wire: A Mystery (Rebecca Robbins Mysteries) (21 page)

When Pop headed out to do his holiday floor show, Halle, Erica, and Mary strolled in. The trio had gotten sprung last night after Sean received a call from Marjorie informing him that the protest had been moved to city hall and the camera crews rerouted. The curling committee was going to get its fifteen minutes of fame. Now the members of EstroGenocide were carrying large coffee cups and a take-out bag from the Hunger Paynes Diner. One sniff told me the bag contained Mabel’s famous meat loaf sandwich and the diner’s signature peanut-oil fries. The girls gave Pop high fives and told him not to worry. They were going to be here to protect me in case the driver from last night made an appearance.

Oh boy!

Lucky for me, Erica had brought her laptop, and Halle and Mary were excited to have an excuse to watch the afternoon talk shows, so I was able to eat the meat loaf sandwich and take a nap in relative peace. By the next day, my bodyguard was down to one and my head had stopped aching. Hurrah.

Now I just needed to get out of the backless nightgown and life would return to normal. And it better happen soon or I’d go nuts.

Thankfully, by the time I came out of the shower I was finally cleared to take on my own, Erina informed me, “Doc Truman stopped by. He said you’d be released tomorrow morning. Your grandfather said he’d be back later. A couple of patients in the children’s ward weren’t big fans of the King or tapioca pudding, but they had good aim.”

Poor Pop. “Was he upset?”

“Nah.” Erica smiled. “He’s going to keep coming back until they can sing every word of ‘Don’t Be Cruel’ or they get well. Whichever comes first.”

Something told me there were going to be a lot of kids feeling better really soon.

“Since your grandfather’s going to be busy singing and dancing, I told him I’d drive you home when Doc Truman gave you the all clear. We have our final fittings scheduled for the afternoon, but Tilly said she could reschedule for Saturday if you aren’t feeling up to it.”

Tilly treating my already injured body like a pincushion was the last thing I wanted to do tomorrow. However, with the wedding a week away, I owed it to Danielle and Rich to try to keep the appointment.

Hey. Wait a minute. Between the painkillers and the parade of visitors, I’d overlooked the fact that Danielle had yet to stop by. Rich had, but Danielle hadn’t been anywhere in sight. Now that I had noticed, I was bummed. Yes, Danielle was busy with work and wedding stuff, and I was sure the mother-in-law from hell arriving a week early hadn’t been easy to deal with. Still, I was supposed to be one of her best friends. You’d think I’d rate a drive-by visit or at the very least a phone call or text.

*

I was still sulking the next afternoon when Doc Truman finally signed my discharge papers and gave me a sling to wear and a fistful of prescriptions to have filled. I shoved the sling in my purse and, despite her recent arrest, had Erica make a beeline for the drugstore. The pharmacists watched Erica like a hawk while ringing up my order and even trailed after us when we walked to the door. Once we reached Nothing Borrowed Nothing Blue, I popped two pills, slowly eased out of the car, grabbed my bag Erica picked up for me with the appropriate undergarments and shoes, and hobbled inside.

“What are you doing here?” Danielle gasped as a tinkling bell announced my arrival.

I gave her my best it-looks-way-worse-than-it-feels smile and winced. The smile would be easier to pull off when the meds kicked in. “Doc says the bruising on my chin will fade by next week. If it doesn’t, Annette vows she’ll perform magic with her trusty bag of cosmetics.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Danielle looked toward the front door and then back at me. “I mean…” She swallowed hard and whispered, “What are you doing here? Rich said he visited you in the hospital. He said he talked to you.”

“He did,” I assured her. “He even brought me flowers and a dozen of Mrs. DiBelka’s chocolate éclairs. You’ve picked a winner. I guess he forgot to tell you that I promised not to eat the entire box of éclairs or in any way jeopardize fitting into my maid of honor gown. The last thing you need is to be worrying about the zipper not going up on my dress.”

“You don’t … he didn’t…” Danielle let out a loud sigh. “I asked Rich to tell you that you shouldn’t worry about the wedding. That you should focus on resting and getting better and—”

“You’re firing me?” Being hit by a car was less painful.

“No.” Danielle glanced toward the entrance again. “But I thought … it’s just that … Mother Lucas thought you might be uncomfortable having photographs taken of you with bruises on your arms and face. She also said that maybe you’d be nervous about going out in public until the person responsible has been caught.”

I glanced over to see what was so fascinating outside and spotted Mother Lucas standing on the sidewalk across the street.

“You’re firing me.” Okay, now I was starting to get angry. Mother Lucas had questioned Sinbad about me, threatened me, and now convinced my best friend to ditch me.

Did I want to go traipsing down the aisle of St. Mark’s in a dress that made me look like Barbie’s less fortunately endowed second cousin? No, but I wanted to support my friend. My friend who at this moment was wringing her hands and sending terrified glances in Mother Lucas’s direction. Danielle wasn’t easy to freak out, but I’d been scared of Rich’s mother, too, when she showed up in my apartment.

Oh God.

“Rebecca.” Tilly came into the showroom. The minute she spotted Erica browsing through a rack of bridesmaid dresses, Tilly’s smile morphed to a frown. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you came in, but I’m ready for all of you. Shall we start with the bride?”

I answered before Danielle leaped at the opportunity to escape. “Why don’t you start with Erica since Danielle and I are just doing a final fitting? We shouldn’t require much time.”

Erica grinned. Tilly sighed. When both disappeared into the fitting room, I looked back out the window. Rich’s mother was gone, but Danielle’s fear remained. “How did Mother Lucas get to Indian Falls?”

Danielle blanched. “Rich was supposed to drive to Iowa and pick her up, but she surprised us by driving herself.”

“Why did she come to my house?”

Danielle looked down at her shoes. “She asked me about the wedding plans, and I mentioned the hairstyle and Erica taking over as bridesmaid. I went to get her a glass of water, and the next thing I knew she was gone.”

“Danielle.” I took a deep breath and waited for Danielle to lift her eyes. “Where was Rich’s mother two days ago when I was walking across the rink parking lot?”

“I don’t know,” Danielle whispered. “She said she was going to St. Mark’s to pray, but Rich never saw her.”

Holy crap.

“Danielle, dear.” Tilly’s voice rang out. “You’re next. You can come back, too, Rebecca.”

Neither Danielle nor I moved because suddenly the fear made sense. Danielle was getting ready to try on the wedding dress she would wear when she married the son of the woman who’d run me down.

Fifteen

“You think Mother Lucas ran
me over?” I asked. “Why haven’t you reported her to the sheriff?”

“Because I don’t know for sure if she did it.” Danielle ran a hand through her hair and started to pace. “She came back from praying and was the nicest she’s ever been. She said the time in the church had made her reflect on how lucky she was to have a son who loved her and a daughter-in-law who was strong enough to stand by him through anything. It wasn’t until we finished dinner that I got Erica’s message about you being hit by a car and realized Mother Lucas didn’t have an alibi for the time the attack occurred.”

Danielle whimpered.

I opened my mouth to speak, but Danielle cut me off. “I don’t want to believe that Rich’s mother ran you over with her Chevy Tahoe, but I plan on finding out. If she did it, I promise I’ll turn her over to the sheriff. In the meantime, I don’t want you in harm’s way. That’s why I asked Rich to tell you—”

“Wait a minute.” I grabbed Danielle’s arm to stop her from wearing a groove in the plush gray carpet. “Mother Lucas drives a Chevy Tahoe? Was she driving that car when she went to pray?”

“Yeah.” Danielle wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “Why?”

The Toe Stop’s new handyman, Deke Adkins, owned a Chevy Tahoe. The car wasn’t as massive as Lionel’s monster truck, but it ran a close second in height and width. If a Chevy Tahoe had clocked me, emergency teams would still be peeling me off the grille.

“Your soon-to-be mother-in-law is off the hook.” Although that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to keep my distance. The woman was scary. Still. “Unless she boosted a smaller car”—a crime that wasn’t exactly unheard of around here—“she wasn’t the one behind the wheel.”

“Really?” Danielle asked. “You’re not just saying that to make me feel better?”

I wish. Knowing the identity of the crazed motorist was preferable to wondering when they’d try again.

“No.”

“So.” Danielle gave me a small smile. “Did I totally ruin our friendship, or are you still willing to walk down the aisle and help me get married?”

A normal person would probably stay offended or at least make her friend grovel before relenting, but I understood how much this wedding and the life she was making meant to Danielle. Besides, I’d just had an object lesson in how short life could be. I wasn’t about to waste time on anger.

Smiling, I said, “Just try to stop me.”

By the time the fitting was over and I was back in my sweater and jeans, I wished Danielle had taken me up on my offer. The U.S. military could adopt Tilly’s dress-fitting techniques to break prisoners of war. Hours of standing in high heels while Tilly adjusted, considered, and remeasured every centimeter of the hemline was torture. During that time, Danielle bombarded me with ideas to replace the broken table favors. Paperweights with Bible quotes (Rich had extras from the last church retreat), individual bags of potpourri, and personalized Hershey Bars topped the list. The last I thought had possibilities until Tilly reminded us that chocolate and white wedding dresses don’t mix. Bummer. By the time Danielle, Erica, and I left the store, I was hungry, achy, and in serious need of a nap. The last I planned on availing myself of as soon as I reached my living room couch.

Or not.

My sofa was currently occupied by Jasmine, Stan, and Lionel. Behind them stood several members of the EstroGenocide team, Brittany, and George. My grandfather was busy talking about his band’s recent rehearsal from the comfort of my overstuffed rocking chair. A colorful, albeit slightly askew,
WELCOME HOME
sign hung from the mantel.

When people spotted me, they broke out into wide smiles.

“There she is.” Pop got to his feet and adjusted his spangled jumpsuit. “I hope you don’t mind that I used my key. Jasmine and Stan wanted to be here when you got home.”

“You shouldn’t be alone while recovering.” Jasmine gave a toothy grin and glanced around the room. “I guess your other friends had the same idea. They even brought food.”

I wasn’t sure why being hit by a car warranted two tuna casseroles, three Bundt cakes, and a platter of cheese, but the buffet was well appreciated by the masses. So much so, in fact, that none of them seemed to notice when I snuck down the hall with a plate of munchies and my stash of pain pills. I had started to close my bedroom door when my grandfather appeared in the doorway.

“Sorry about the party. My phone’s been ringing all day with people asking how you’re doing.” Pop put a hand on my arm. “How are you really?”

I put my hand over his and smiled. “I’m a little sore, but I’m fine, Pop. Honest.”

Pop grinned. “Good, because I’ve been saying that it takes more than a speeding car to slow you down and that nothing would make you happier than helping catch the person responsible.”

Personally, I would argue that the speeding car did a great job of slowing me down, but the last part of Pop’s statement was true. I wanted to track down whoever had decided to play a live-action game of Frogger in my parking lot. Of course, to do that, I had to figure out why someone pointed a car at me in the first place.

As far as I knew, no one had been threatened or injured during the decade of investigation into the Thanksgiving thefts. Had I hit a nerve with the thief, or was Ginny’s killer concerned that I might have found something in her room? I’d been looking into Ginny’s murder for only a few hours before getting sideswiped, and I wasn’t the first one to go through Ginny’s apartment. Surely, if the murderer were concerned about what was to be found there, he or she would have targeted Sean first. Unless my logic was faulty, I took that to mean my investigation into the Thanksgiving thefts had hit a nerve. Too bad I had no idea why, but there was one way I could think of to help me find out.

“Are you and Stan still doing a photo shoot with Seth and Jan Kurtz?”

Pop’s eyes brightened. “Tomorrow at eleven. Seth wanted to do it today, but Jan is finishing up a set of mugs in ceramics class. Stan told them he’d need an hour for makeup and wardrobe and another hour to get the shots with the dogs. Seth is only bringing three of them, but that’s three less you have to deal with. If you need more time, just let me know and I’ll stall.”

“Stall what?” Lionel appeared behind Pop.

Pop turned. “Rebecca’s got a line on busting the Thanksgiving thief out of the water.” Giving me a thumbs-up, he said, “I’ll get the party crowd out of here so you can rest and be in top form tomorrow. Call if you need me to act as lookout. I can always ask Jasmine to be Stan’s assistant. You wouldn’t believe how those two have hit it off.”

Pop kissed me on the cheek, gave my hand a squeeze, and then disappeared out the door. After taking a bite of cracker, I took a seat on the bed and gratefully listened to the buzz of voices fade. The front door slammed, and then there was silence. Something I’d had far too little of in the last several days.

However, with two of us in the room, the quiet was unsettling instead of soothing. Wow, one of us really didn’t look happy.

“What’s wrong?”