She creaked when she stood up, and I giggled like a schoolgirl. I swear, I could almost hear the leather drawing up. It must have been the power of suggestion, because I doubt that small amount of water would have done the trick.
Holding the Bic aloft like Lady Liberty’s torch, I led the way down the hall to the living room. I could hear Rayna going through stuff with thumps and thuds. She sounded out of breath.
“Hey,” I called softly, “we found it! We found a copy of next week’s column in the dining room. Rayna?”
She didn’t answer, just kept banging around, and as I got to the open doorway, I saw why. Rayna's flashlight was on the floor, and silhouetted against its beam were two struggling figures. One of them I recognized as Rayna. I had no idea who the other one was. Being quiet didn’t seem nearly as important as helping Rayna.
“Hey!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. “Stop it!”
I rushed forward as Bitty asked, “What’s going on?”
Thrashing about, both of them seemed to have hold of one another, and I looked frantically around for a weapon. Dust motes hazed the air when I grabbed what I thought was a ceramic statue to hit Rayna's attacker.
The ceramic cat statue bit me and I dropped it. Screeching, it ran out of the living room and down the hallway. I heard Bitty ask again, “What’s going on?”
Not bothering to answer, I grabbed a real statue this time. It was a happy Buddha that I cracked over the head of the person struggling with Rayna. The Buddha didn’t break and the person didn’t collapse, but did let go and stagger a few feet. I followed with the happy Buddha and aimed for the head again. This time, the person turned quickly and thrust the heel of his hand under my chin before I could hit him. I dropped like a sack of flour, still holding on to the statue.
Above me I heard Rayna swearing and saw her sports shoe flash past a few inches above my nose. At least, I think that’s what it was. My vision was blurred and it was dark, and the flashlight on the floor was shining directly into my eyes. It could have been anything. Whatever it was, it connected with the bad guy and I heard him grunt. For some reason, the grunt sounded odd. As grunts go.
I could hear Bitty calling from the hallway, “What’s going on?”
“Come back here, you coward!” Rayna yelled as the bad guy headed for the front door. “Come on! You wanna fight? We’ll fight! Come back here!”
“What’s going on?” Bitty yelled.
“Oh,
hell
no!” Rayna shouted. “Get your butt back here!”
The front door swung open and banged back against the wall. I rolled over on my side just in time to see whoever it was escape. Rayna was right behind, and disappeared into the night.
“What’s going on?” Bitty demanded loudly.
I moved my jaw from side to side and was gratified that it still worked. The guy had a healthy punch, that was sure.
“Dammit,
what’s going on?”
Bitty shrieked.
With Buddha clutched under my arm, I managed to get to my feet. I was woozy but functioning. I leaned against what felt like the loveseat, and finally answered Bitty:
“I hear police sirens.”
CHAPTER 19
Some days you’re the hammer, some days you’re the nail. Bitty, Rayna and I sat at the police station feeling like the nails.
We had been questioned—I thought of it more as interrogation—separately, and then together. Finally the police must have been satisfied with our versions of the story and allowed us our phone calls.
Bitty called Jackson Lee, and Rayna and I decided it would be better for us if we just quietly got a ride back to our cars. The less known about this, the easier it would be for us. We were already facing charges of illegal entry, violating a crime scene, and a few other things that Jackson Lee would sort out.
One thing about Jackson Lee, he can get to the heart of a thing very quickly when he chooses. Once we were in his car, he said, “You ladies are going to end up in jail or dead if you don’t stop your amateur snooping. If that’s what you want, keep it up.”
None of us said anything. We all knew he’d made a very valid point.
It wasn’t until he dropped us off at the Piggly-Wiggly that we said anything to each other. We all thanked Jackson Lee profusely, of course, and Bitty paused at his car window to talk to him in a low tone before she joined us.
“Well,” I said, “I guess we need to put away our detective badges and whistles.”
Rayna nodded. She was still miffed that she hadn’t been able to catch the guy who attacked her. He’d just disappeared between the houses. Fortunately, he hadn’t hurt her, but she was pretty sure she’d landed a few good blows before he got away.
“I just wish I could have gotten a good look at him,” she said now, frowning.
“It was that ski mask. All I could see was that he wasn’t real tall and he was pretty skinny,” I said in commiseration. “You almost got him, though. Too bad we didn’t get what we needed. I guess we’ll never know if what Bitty found was it.”
Coming up behind us, Bitty said, “Did I hear my name?”
I turned to look at her. “You did. We’ve decided to hang up our detective hats. We don’t seem to be very successful.”
“Speak for yourself, Doctor Watson. You may call
me
Mister Holmes.”
“You sound more like Charlie Chan. I hope you don’t regard tonight as our crowning achievement.”
“Maybe not yours, but then, you left without the prize.”
“What on earth are you talking about? We left because the police came and asked us to leave. Not very nicely, either.”
Bitty began to unzip the top of her leather jumpsuit. I put up my hands to block the sight. “Oh for heaven’s sake, Trinket. I’m not undressing. But, since I don’t have any pockets, I had to improvise. Look what I have!”
She produced a folded sheet of paper with a flourish worthy of any operatic diva, and we were immediately impressed.
“You got it!” Rayna said. “Oh Bitty, you’re so clever!”
“Aren’t I? While you two were chasing shadows, I took the flashlight and went back to the dining room. It took a minute to get it off the floor without tearing it, but I think I got it all. I’m really good at this kind of thing.”
“And so modest, too,” I said, trying not to roll my eyes.
“Just for that—here, Rayna. You can read it first. Your flashlight still works, right?”
Bitty held the flashlight while Rayna read what she could of the still wet paper. I could tell from her face that it didn’t live up to our expectations.
“Damn,” she said with a disgusted sigh. “It’s a copy of next week’s column, all right, but so much of it is wet . . . wait. I know what we can do. Let’s take this back to my house. I’ve watched enough
Forensic Files
to figure out how they dry things and use light to get it to come up better. Maybe I can improvise.”
“We
are
mistresses of improvisation,” I said hopefully.
“Don’t get your hopes up too high,” said Rayna. “On TV they use sophisticated equipment that I don’t have. And this is laser jet, so it may not come out right. But we can give it a try.”
We all trooped over to Rayna's house for our experiment in forensic technology. If it had been something involving duct tape and a fingernail file, I’d have been very helpful. Since it probably involved chemicals and know-how, I would just watch.
When we got there, Rayna's husband Rob was home. She thought it best not to tell him that A: we’d been carted off to jail in a squad car again, or B: what it was we were attempting to do. Not that she’d lie to him if he asked, of course. But unless he asked specifically if we’d been at the jail or had taken evidence from a police-sealed crime scene, there would be time enough later to confess all.
“Hello, ladies,” the unsuspecting Rob greeted us cheerfully. “And how is your evening going?”
“Just fine,” Bitty lied. “Except we’re all thirsty. I don’t suppose you have any wine?”
“Ah,” said Rob with an eager gleam in his eyes. “Come to the wine cellar and see my latest purchase. It just came in yesterday. An entire case of Beaujolais from California. A new vineyard I wanted to try.”
“Delighted,” Bitty said promptly, and as she followed Rob from the hotel lobby to the kitchen and cellar door, gave us a wink over her shoulder.
“Clever girl,” said Rayna. “Rob’s out of the way for at least a half hour. She’ll keep him down there talking about wine, while we see what we can do with the paper.”
“I didn’t know Rob was into wine.”
“It’s something new. Always something new with him. He’s expanding his horizons, he told me. In fact—he’s thinking about hiring someone to help him with the insurance investigations he does. That way, when he has to be out investigating fraud, there will be another person to help out here.”
“Why don’t you write bonds for him? That way you can keep the money in the family.”
“Not me. I’m not getting out at two in the morning to bail some drunk out of jail. I like my sleep. Besides, I have my artwork that I prefer. It pays me enough to buy more paints and canvases.”
And then some. Rayna has an excellent eye and produces beautiful work. She sold most of it, but still has a few pieces hanging on her walls. I love the colors she uses. Bright greens, reds, yellows and blues, and usually a cat peeking out somewhere in the paintings she keeps.
The infamous Merlin of Chen Ling and mouse-racing fame, curled around her ankles when she went into the kitchen. He’s a fat, lovely cat. He’s also insistent and a bit spoiled. When his meowing got too loud, Rayna opened a jar of cat treats and gave him a handful. This had the immediate effect of causing several more cats to miraculously appear in the kitchen.
“If you’ll keep the cats off the counters,” Rayna said, “I’ll see what I can do with a light bulb. And some vodka.”
“Kinky,” I said as I took the jar of cat treats she handed me. “How many cats do I feed?”
“All of them. Just scatter treats on the floor, and they’ll take care of the rest.”
While I fed the motley assortment of felines, Rayna got to work using a lamp with a bare light bulb. I’m not exactly sure what treatment she gave the paper, but she heated it over the hot bulb until she got the results she wanted.
“Eureka,” she said calmly. “We have a few more sentences here. Okay. Here’s what it says as far as I can tell: ‘What cool blond in our town square had more than a tiny bit of involvement with one of Holly Springs’ recently deceased citizens? Readers, I can tell you that law enforcement officials are asking the same questions. Too bad they don’t have the same sources I do, because—’ and part of that sentence didn’t come out, but it picks up here: ‘so you will soon know the rest, dear readers. Don’t forget, you heard it here first.’ There’s other stuff in her column, but this is the only part that refers to the murders. So, what do you think?”
“Rose Allgood is definitely a suspect. But that leads to the question—who was the guy who attacked us tonight?”
“I’m not
sure
it was a guy.” Rayna opened a cabinet and got out a tumbler. Then she poured a small bit of vodka into it and offered it to me. I shook my head. Straight vodka, even real expensive vodka, is not my thing.
“You think it might be a woman who was in Miranda's house tonight?”
After downing the vodka, she coughed. “That’s powerful. Anyway, it may have been. Whoever it was, she’s a strong woman if she’s not a he. You know what I mean.”
I did. I thought about Rose Allgood. She was tall, blond, and could be athletic; it was possible. I squinched up my eyes and tried to visualize her, but all I could remember were the shelves of dildos and her cool stare. Everything else was vague.
“Has it occurred to you that Miranda Watson could be wrong?” I asked after I was out of cat treats and Rayna poured herself another smidgen of vodka. One of the cats got a little aggressive about the lack of more treats, and Rayna shooed it away.
“Constantly. She always thinks she’s right, but there have been times when she’s wrong.”
“Then she could be wrong, now.”
“Yep. But I wonder . . .”
“What?”
“Let’s sit down and go over everything we know, and what we think we know. It may make more sense on paper.”
It seemed like a good idea to me.
We were still on the first fact, Race’s murder, when Bitty joined us. She pulled out a kitchen chair and sat down. “He already knows,” she said to Rayna. “He’s decided to sample his wine for a while before he asks you why you have your head up your ass.” She held up a hand. “His words, not mine. I say let him sample quite a while before you talk to him about us going to the Watson house tonight.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Rayna said after a heartbeat of silence. “Okay, we’re making out a list of what we know, what we don’t know, and what we need to know. Or really, just putting down things in chronological order.”
Bitty looked mildly interested. “I take it the column holds no great revelations.”
“Just what we already know from Gaynelle. Now we have to figure out if it’s true and if so, how do we prove it.”
“Did Gaynelle say how she found out?”
We all looked at each other. Rayna reached for her cordless phone and dialed a number.
“Gaynelle? This is Rayna—yes, I know it’s late. No, no one else has been hurt. It
is
important. Now listen. How did you find out Rose Allgood is under suspicion? Uh huh. Uh huh. I see. Okay, thanks. Go back to sleep. Yes, but I’ll tell you about it tomorrow. It can wait. G’nite.”
“Well?” demanded Bitty when Rayna thumbed the phone’s off button and shook her head at us. “What’d she say?”
“She said she heard it from Miranda Watson.”
“Oh great,” I said. “It all leads back to her. So if she’s wrong, then—”
“Then we wasted time and energy tonight,” Rayna finished. “Well, let’s not waste any more time. Let’s see what we can figure out.”
We listed Race on one notebook page, Naomi on the flip side, then what we knew related to each under their names. It ended up being a pretty long list, longer than any of us had expected, I was sure.
“Okay,” said Rayna, skimming the list under Race’s name, “we have Race found dead in Trina and Trisha Madewell’s rental cottage. Trina and Trisha both dated him. Trina was once engaged to him. He ended the engagement. Trina has motive. She has opportunity. But it was Naomi’s pistol that killed him. Both sisters knew Naomi.