Derby Divas (Zoe Donovan Mystery) (8 page)

“Salinger sure is taking his own sweet time,” Levi observed.

“I suppose he just wants to be sure he gets everything out of Pandora that he can before she sobers up and decides not to cooperate.”

“Why wouldn’t she cooperate?” Levi asked.

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I just have a weird feeling about this whole thing. It looks like the body in the car most likely belonged to Pepper. Pandora must feel guilty. Sometimes feeling guilty can make you defensive.”

“
Yeah, I guess I can see that. Poor Pepper. What was she doing driving Pandora’s car in the first place?”

“We don’t know. Pandora is
really
hung over. I suspect that Pepper tried to wake her this morning and, when she was unsuccessful, decided to show up at the race in Pandora’s place.”

“I’ve partied with Pandora,” Levi informed me. “She can drink more than guys twice her size.
But it doesn’t seem like her to drink so much before a big race.”

“She said she only had a couple,” I explained as I dug into my lunch.

Levi frowned. “That makes no sense at all.”

“I’ve been thinking about it. What if Pandora was drugged
?”

“Drugged? Who would drug her?” Levi wondered.

“Maybe one of the guys was trying to force her to forfeit. Maybe they figured that Boomer wasn’t going to win against a very determined little diva and decided that taking her out of the running was the best way to go. I know Pandora has managed to bruise quite a few male egos as of late.”

“I don’t know. Boomer talks the talk
, but I can tell he cares about Pandora. In fact, I think he more than cares about her. I really don’t see him drugging her.”

“Maybe it wasn’t Boomer. Pandora said that Boomer invited her to hang out in his room
, but several of the others were there as well. I think I’m going to suggest that Salinger do a drug test on Pandora if she’ll agree. It might tell us how an experienced drinker got so slammed on a couple of drinks.”

I wondered if they’d ever found
Dezee. I knew that Pepper and Dezee had been friends prior to his entering the competition this year. I wasn’t sure exactly how they knew each other, but when I’d mentioned to Jugs this morning that I found it odd that Pepper wasn’t there, she’d commented that she might have spent the night with Dezee. She didn’t know for a fact that they were a couple, but she suspected as much because she knew that the reason Dezee bought a car and entered the competition in the first place was so he could travel around the country with Pepper and Pandora.

I tried to
figure out who else wasn’t present for the race that morning.

I remember
ed seeing Zelda but not Jaqui or Rizo, and while Boomer, Masher, Big Boy Branson, Bruiser, and two of the Pencil Triplets had shown up, the third Triplet, Crank, and Crusher were all missing.

It was feasible that all those who did
n’t attend were either guarding the cars for their team or nursing their own hangovers, but I decided that when it came to creating a list of suspects responsible for drugging Pandora—if she was indeed drugged—the missing entrants in the derby competition would be a good place to start.

“I wish they’d hurry up
. This waiting around is stressful,” Levi complained.

“
If you think this is stressful for us, just think of what Pandora must be going through. I’m afraid this whole thing is going to destroy her. She was really upset when she realized what had happened.”

“Here she comes,” Levi
said as we watched Pandora walking down the hall from Salinger’s office.

“You waited
.” Pandora seemed surprised to see Levi and me sitting in the lobby.

“We wanted to be here for you,” I offered.

Pandora looked confused.

“To help. If you need help.”

“What kind of help?”

It was evident that Pandora wasn’t use
d to people being around to support her during hard times.

“I don’t know. Like give you a ride. Provide a sounding board if you need to rant. A shoulder if you need to cry.”

Pandora smiled. “Thanks. That’s nice.”

“Are you hungry?” Levi asked.

Again Pandora looked confused. I assumed that she was still suffering from the aftershock of everything that had happened.

“We can get a bite to eat. Maybe talk,” he offered.

“Okay.”

It didn’t seem that Pandora cared one way or the other
, but Levi gently took her hand and led her out to his car. I had my own truck, so we agreed to meet at the Beach Hut. I had my phone out to call ahead and have Ellie save us a table when an incoming call from Salinger showed up on my screen.

“Hey
, Salinger. What’s up?”

I know the two of us butt heads from time to time
, but we’re actually becoming friends after working together on so many different investigations.

“I hoped to catch you before you left. I have a few questions for you
, if you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind.” I had already eaten
, after all. “I’ll call Levi and let him know what I’d doing and then come back inside. I’m still on the walkway in front of the building.”

After calling Levi and explaining what was going on, I called Ellie and gave her a heads-up that Levi was on his way over with Pandora and then headed back in through the double front doors and down the hall to Salinger’s office, which I have become
very
familiar with. I’m not entirely sure where the woman who runs the front desk had gone off to, but she’d disappeared shortly after I arrived and was still missing.

“Have a seat.” Salinger pointed
to one of the hard plastic chairs that were placed on the opposite side of the desk from where he sat. “I wanted to ask you some more about the race and your impressions when you found Ms. Parker in Ms. Worthington’s room.”

“Pepper’s last name is Worthington?”

“Stella Worthington. She’s the daughter of Collins Worthington the Third.”

“Collins Wo
rthington as in Worthington Aeronautics?”

“One
and the same. So tell me about the race.”

“Have you confirmed that the person who died in the crash is Pepper
—or Stella I should say, I guess?” I asked, totally ignoring Salinger’s question.

“
The body was burned beyond recognition, but it appears to be the woman who went by the name of Pepper. We know that the person who died in the crash was female, approximately the same age and height as Ms. Worthington. We found a necklace around the victim’s neck that one of the other drivers told one of the deputies Pandora had given to Pepper for her birthday. So back to my question: tell me everything,” he emphasized, “about the race.”

I settled in for a long visit. “Yesterday
, Pandora and Boomer and I met for lunch to discuss the derby. Boomer and Pandora had very different ideas about how the competition should be handled in terms of merging or segregating the men and the women. They came up with the idea for the road race. The winner was to decide the outcome of the debate.”

Salinger narrowed his eyes and glared at m
e. “Road racing is illegal,” he pointed out.

“I know. I tried to talk them out of it
, but they were determined to follow through with the idea.”

“You realize I can have you arrested for participating
?”

There was the grumpy old sheriff I knew and loved.

“Really?” I asked. “I’m willingly sitting here missing lunch with Levi and Pandora to answer your questions and you’re seriously going to threaten me with some bogus arrest?”

“No
.” Salinger sighed. “I apologize. I guess old habits are hard to break. Continue with your story.”

It’s odd
; not too long ago I had been feeling responsible for what had happened, and now I was just feeling defensive. I guess blaming yourself for an unfortunate incident is different from having someone else blame you.

“Anyway,
” I continued, “they wanted me to show up to act as judge. I arrived at 5:20, as instructed. Everyone who was expected to be there was except for Pandora. I figured she just wanted to make a grand entrance, so I wasn’t concerned until it was just a few minutes before the start time and she still hadn’t arrived. I was about to declare a forfeit when she rolled up in her pink car. At least, I thought it was her.”

“And you couldn’t tell that the driver was
n’t Ms. Parker?”

“No. Pandora is petite
, as is Pepper. The driver wore a full racing suit, as well as a full helmet that covered her head and face. I had no reason to believe it wasn’t Pandora in the car, so to be honest, I didn’t look that hard.”

“And then what happened?”

“Levi started the race and in a few seconds it was over. Pandora won by a bumper and all the women began to cheer, but instead of stopping, the car continued on toward the cliff, disappeared around the corner, and then plunged over the side. I called 911 and you showed up.”

Salinger handed me a p
en and paper. “I want you to list everyone who was there, as well as any general impressions you can remember about each spectator.”

“Impressions?”

“Were they angry, happy, drunk? Were they part of a crowd or did they stand off to the side? Who was at the finish line and who remained at the start? Who talked or argued with whom? That sort of thing.”

“That will take a while,” I pointed out.

“I have time.”

Terrific.

“I think you should consider the fact that Pandora was intentionally drugged so that she’d miss the race,” I said as I began to write.

“I’d thought of that,” Salinger informed me.
“We drew some blood while she was here. I put a rush on it, so we should have preliminary findings back soon, although a full panel will take longer. I suspect, based on her description of what happened, that she was slipped some sort of tranquilizer with the intention of knocking her out.”

“So one of the guys most likely wanted her to miss the race,” I concluded.

“Perhaps. Have you noticed any specific tension between Ms. Parker and any of the other contestants?”

“Boomer and Pandora fight
a lot, but I don’t think Boomer would drug her. There are a few new men participating this year. I don’t really know any of them well, but it did occur to me that if someone drugged Pandora to stop the race and they had reason to believe they were successful, they might not have bothered to get up early to attend the race. I made a list of the contestants that weren’t there.”

“Please leave those names as well. Anything else about the race that stands out?” Salinger asked.

“No, not that I can think of at the moment.”

“Okay
, so on to the discovery that Ms. Parker wasn’t dead. What led you to look for her in Ms. Worthington’s room?”

“Actually
, I was looking for Pepper. She hadn’t been at the race and no one had been able to find her since. Willa was interviewing the contestants to find out who was still in for tomorrow’s competition and who was out. She hadn’t been able to locate Pepper or Dezee. It’s my job to rework the groups with the remaining contestants, so I was motivated to track Pepper down. I went to her room and knocked, but there was no answer. The door was open, so I went inside and found Pandora in the bed.”

“That must have been
a shock.”

“A bit,” I admitted. I left out the part about screaming like a girl.

“And what happened after you realized Ms. Parker was alive?”

I filled Salinger in on the conversation I’d had with Pandora
, as well as my general impression that she had no idea what had happened and really didn’t seem to remember much since the previous evening.

“Sheriff Salinger
. . .” The voice of the receptionist, who must have finally reappeared, came over the intercom, interrupting me just as I got to the part where I convinced Pandora to talk to him.

“Yes
?”

“Impound yard on line one. They say it’s important.”

“Please excuse me.” Salinger picked up the line, barked out his name, and listened. His frown deepened the longer he was on the line. I assumed the news wasn’t to his liking. He put down the phone and looked at me.

“It looks as though our accident wasn’t an accident after all.”

“What do you mean
, it wasn’t an accident?” I asked.

“The car ha
d been tampered with. Even if Ms. Parker had been driving, the outcome would have been the same. It seems that someone wanted to do more than just stop the race. Someone went to a lot of trouble to make sure that the car ended up at the bottom of the cliff.”

“So who
was the intended victim?” I had to wonder. “Pandora or Pepper?”