Chapter 18
“Have you been spying on me?” Stacy Jo said in a clipped tone, attempting to fold her arms across her chest, but unable to do so in a convincing manner due to her access cleavage.
“I just find it a bit curious that you lied to me about when you arrived in town,” Hayley said, hands on her hips, bent over and trying to catch her breath.
She had literally been running all over town trying to track down Stacy Jo.
When Hayley had called the hotel asking to speak to Stacy Jo, she was put through to Wade’s room where Billy Ray answered.
She was relieved when Billy Ray told her Wade had insisted Stacy Jo get her own room if she was going to spend time in Bar Harbor and stay for his concerts.
At least they weren’t cohabitating.
Billy Ray last saw her going for a run when he returned from an early morning sound check at the Criterion.
So Hayley took an early lunch, dashed home and threw on some running shorts and a t-shirt, laced up her Reeboks, and took off in search of Stacy Jo.
She knew Stacy Jo was unfamiliar with the town and wouldn’t know much about the park trails, so chances were she was just doing a loop around the downtown area. Hayley was hoping to find her soon because she was dying from the run. She should have stuck to her plan to use that gym membership.
Hayley’s instincts paid off. She was just about ready to give up after nearly an hour of jogging up and down the streets of Bar Harbor when she spotted Stacy Jo rounding the town pier just a block away from the Harborside Hotel. Stacy Jo was listening to her iPod, lost in her own thoughts, veering left toward the gift shops that would lead her back around to the hotel.
Hayley took a sharp turn and intercepted her. Stacy Jo pretended not to see Hayley, but Hayley ran straight at her until she was forced to stop.
Stacy Jo grimaced and yanked out her earbuds, staring at Hayley.
That’s when Hayley hit her fast with her accusations.
How she had proof Stacy Jo lied about her arrival in town.
How taxi driver Larry Shaw backed up her claims.
When Hayley finally stopped talking, Stacy Jo took her sweet time responding. “When I got here is none of your damn business,” Stacy Jo said. “Who are you to be stalking me? Don’t you already have your hands full stalking Wade?”
“Please. I’m not exactly a fan of yours, Stacy Jo. I only own one of your songs, and it happens to be a duet with Wade, and, trust me, it would’ve done better on the country charts if he was singing with Shania.”
“Oh, no, you didn’t just say that,” Stacy Jo said, flashing her incredibly long talons. “Watch your mouth, or I might just take an eye out.”
“You don’t scare me, Stacy Jo,” Hayley said.
Stacy Jo glared at Hayley and then tried to push past her, but Hayley blocked her escape by stepping in front of her.
“I really think it’s in your best interest to come clean,” Hayley said. “If not to me, it’s going to be to the cops, because they’re going to find out anyway.”
“Get out of my way,” Stacy Jo barked as she gave Hayley a violent shove.
Hayley stumbled back and had to catch herself from falling to the ground. This sent a wave of fury surging through her, and she ran up behind Stacy Jo, who was running off, and grabbed her by her pink hoodie and spun her around.
“What are you doing? You’re a crazy person!” Stacy Jo wailed before slashing her nails across Hayley’s face and drawing a line of blood on her right cheek.
Then Stacy Jo reared back and swung her leg up in the air to deliver a swift kick to Hayley’s stomach. But Hayley had enough time to step back and grab Stacy Jo’s foot. She yanked it up, and Stacy Jo lost her balance and fell, landing hard on her butt.
She screamed bloody murder and sprang to her feet and charged Hayley, pummeling her with her fists.
Hayley felt like she was being attacked by a cougar. And given Stacy Jo was in her forties, that’s exactly what she was.
Only, in another kind of jungle.
Stacy Jo was strong, a scrappy girl from a backwater town in the Deep South and she knew how to fight. That much was clear.
As they scratched and kicked and punched each other, Hayley saw out of the corner of one eye the harbor master calling 911 on his cell.
Hayley grabbed Stacy Jo by the wrists in an attempt to calm the situation. “Stacy Jo, listen to me. We’re causing a public disturbance and I think we should call a truce because other wise . . .”
That’s when Stacy Jo head-butted Hayley.
Hayley felt dizzy and saw those flashes of light like little stars in the sky. When she opened her eyes, she saw Stacy Jo running at her screaming some kind of indecipherable battle cry as if she were in that Mel Gibson movie
Braveheart
with blue paint on her face and wearing a kilt. Hayley loved that movie. She used to love Mel Gibson. Before all that bad publicity that exposed him as a drunk and a racist and a homophobe.
Well, at least she still had Mark Harmon.
Stacy Jo collided with Hayley.
More scratching.
More biting.
More kicking.
And then they were both falling. Locked in an embrace. Falling into an abyss. No, it wasn’t an abyss.
It was shivering cold ocean water. Their vicious cat fight had led them right off the town pier.
Hayley screamed as she surfaced.
The water was freezing.
She grabbed at the seaweed tangled in her hair.
Stacy Jo screamed, too.
A desperate, frightened wail. “I can’t swim!”
“Calm down, Stacy Jo,” Hayley said, spitting out the salty water. “Your breasts are the perfect flotation device.”
Stacy Jo splashed frantically in the water, coughing and sputtering to the point where Hayley felt bad for her and had to swim over and wrap an arm around her neck. She pulled her toward a rope ladder that would enable them to climb back up to the pier.
It was a good thing she remembered her training from her days working as a lifeguard in the summer. Her official reason for doing it was her innate need to keep visitors to the island safe and happy, but she actually did it to spend the summer with bronzed and blond German exchange student Rolf Hoffman, who was heading up the lifeguard program.
“Grab the rope, Stacy Jo,” Hayley sputtered, her lips blue and shivering as she guided Stacy Jo’s hand to the thick rope.
Stacy Jo managed to hoist herself up, carefully navigating the ladder before finally reaching the surface of the pier. Hayley was right behind her, and when she reached the top, her face smashed into Stacy Jo’s butt.
Could this day get any worse?
Yes, as it turned out, it could.
Stacy Jo had stopped suddenly, which was why Hayley was nearly smothered by her ample booty.
She was staring at the two uniformed police officers waiting for them.
It was Donnie and Earl.
“How are you doing today, Hayley?” Earl said, unhooking a pair of handcuffs from his belt.
“I’m great, Earl. Thanks. Donnie, how’s your mother?”
“Fine, Hayley,” Donnie said. “Just fine.”
“Tell her I’m going to send her my pumpkin pie recipe. She’s always asking for it and Thanksgiving is just a couple of short months away.”
“No, ma’am,” Donnie said. “I’m sure she’ll appreciate it.”
“If you don’t mind, Hayley, could you please turn around? I’m sure you know the drill by now.”
“Yes, Earl, I sure do,” Hayley said as she turned around, facing a distraught Stacy Jo, as Earl snapped the cuffs on her.
This wasn’t her first time arrested.
In fact, she was starting to get used to it.
Donnie went to put handcuffs on Stacy Jo, but she backed away, horrified. “You can’t arrest me! Do you have any idea who I am?”
“Yes, ma’am, and I’m sorry, but I’m just doing my job,” Donnie said, gently taking her by the arm and turning her around so he could get the cuffs on her. “Even if you were Carrie Underwood, I’d have to arrest you for causing a public disturbance. And I like her music so much better than yours.”
It was a good thing Donnie had snapped those cuffs on Stacy Jo before he made that remark.
Otherwise, she would have mauled him like a Maine black bear.
Donnie and Earl drove the ladies to the station and, after booking them, put them in a cell together. Then they called Chief Alvarez, who at the moment was meeting with Sabrina Merryweather, the county coroner, to discuss her findings regarding Curtis King’s Smith and Wesson.
Hayley and Stacy Jo were served a hot lunch including a piece of ham, mashed potatoes, buttered carrots, and a dry piece of chocolate cake.
Not bad for prison food.
Hayley had recently led a crusade to improve the quality of food served to anyone who might have the unfortunate experience of spending time in the local jail. Sergio had listened and implemented the changes, and Hayley was grateful they had been put into effect before her most recent incarceration.
Two times in jail in just over a year Not a good track record.
And this certainly was not going to insure her good standing in the P.T.A.
Stacy Jo refused to look at Hayley for the first hour they spent in jail together.
They ate in silence.
Stacy Jo asked to make a phone call, but was told by Earl she would have to wait until the chief got back. But, not to worry, she would have plenty of time to consult a lawyer before she was called before the judge.
Stacy Jo went to the opposite side of the cell to be as far away from Hayley as she possibly could. But as time wore on, and after Donnie refused to give her back her iPod so she could block Hayley out with music, she softened a bit.
“This is insane. We were just having a disagreement on the street. How is that a public disturbance?” Stacy Jo sighed.
“I think the harbor master called the police because it looked like we were going to kill each other.”
Stacy Jo couldn’t help but crack a smile. “Well, I have to admit, you were a much better fighter than I thought you’d be.”
“Thank you,” Hayley said. “I’ve never been accused of being a lady.”
“What’s that saying? You can put lipstick on a tiger, but she’s still a tiger.”
“Actually, it’s lipstick on a pig.”
Stacy Jo thought this over. “Forget it. I don’t like that saying.”
Now it was Hayley’s turn to crack a smile.
There was a long pause. Hayley could see Stacy Jo thinking hard, eyes downcast.
Finally, she looked up at Hayley. “You were right. I lied. I did arrive in town on Saturday night and I did go to see Mickey.”
Hayley nodded.
She didn’t want to push Stacy Jo too much now that she was talking.
“I guess I didn’t want anyone to know, because if people found out I was with Mickey the night he was shot, the police would consider me a suspect. And I just couldn’t risk people making assumptions about me, especially when I have a new album coming out in a few weeks. I didn’t want to endanger my career.”
“That’s understandable,” Hayley said. “So what did you two talk about when you saw him?”
“Oh, we had quite a row that night. You should’ve seen the scratches I left on his face,” Stacy Jo said, laughing. And then she sobered up fast. “But I guess nobody saw them because he was burned to a crisp.”
“Was the fight about him breaking up with you?”
Stacy Jo’s eyes widened. “Where on earth do you get your information?”
“I read a lot of mystery novels,” Hayley said.
“Well, you’re right, we did quarrel about that. But not because he broke up with me. I couldn’t have cared less about that. I was already over him. In case you didn’t get a chance to meet him, he was a real grade A scuzzball.”
“I did have the unfortunate experience of meeting Mickey, so at least the two of us have finally found one thing we have in common.”
“Other than us both being jailbirds?”
“Okay, two things in common. So if you didn’t have feelings for him anymore, what was the fight about?”
“It was the way he did it. He tweeted that I was a bad lay and he was bored with me because he had met someone else, a local here in Bar Harbor, who could really satisfy him in bed.”
“He said that on Twitter?”
“Classy, huh?”
“So Mickey met someone here in town? Do you have any idea who it was?”
“He wasn’t exactly forthcoming with a name. Just said she was a real spitfire and much more fun than I ever was.”
“What a bastard,” Hayley spat out.