2 A Dyed Blonde and a Dead Body (9 page)

“Dan?” Julie called out as she walked into the front of the bakery. She flipped on the light switch and gasped as the noose was revealed to her in the stark fluorescent light.

“Dan's not here,” Bekki said calmly as she met Julie's eyes. The woman had gone so pale that it was obvious she was shocked.

“What is this?” Julie demanded. “Why have you done this? Are you sick?”

Bekki folded her arms across her stomach and studied the woman intently.

“What I found that night was much more gruesome than this,” Bekki said quietly. “To everyone who saw it, it looked as if a woman had taken her own life.”

“That's because she did,” Julie said with exasperation.

“Except, she didn't do it alone. She had help, didn't she Julie?” Bekki laid the back to an earring down on the counter. It looked almost exactly like the one she had seen on the floor. “I think we both know the truth. Don't we Julie?”

Julie held her breath for a moment as she stared at the back to the earring. She reached up and lightly touched her earlobe.

“I don't know what you're talking about,” Julie insisted.

“You know, that knock to the back of my head was a hard one. Made me think you must have some experience with knocking people out. Do you Julie? Have you attacked someone in their home before?”

“You're insane,” Julie stated angrily as she stalked around the side of the counter. “I could have you arrested for this!”

“You could,” Bekki said slowly. “But you see, there's something that only Lydia and I knew.”

“What?” Julie asked, too intrigued to ignore the bait.

“See people around here are very trusting. We don't lock our doors, we don't put in security cameras. But Lydia wasn't from here. She was from Chicago, like you,” Bekki said. “She knew that danger could be around every corner. So she installed a camera. She didn't want to spook her customers, so she made sure it was concealed. The police didn't even find it when they searched the bakery.”

“There's no camera,” Julie said sternly. “Dan would know if there was a camera.”

“Oh, there's a camera,” Bekki insisted. “I helped her install it. I didn't think it was a big deal, since Lydia's death was just a suicide. I didn't want to hurt Dan more by telling him there was a video tape of it. But when I found the notepad, and then someone knocked me out and stole it, I decided it was time to take a look at that video tape. I wanted to see what really happened to Lydia.”

Julie looked a whole lot less confident as she looked all around the room for the camera. “Where's the tape?” she demanded. “What have you done with it?”

“I saw some very interesting things on that tape,” Bekki explained quietly.

“You didn't see anything!” Julie hissed. “Because there was nothing to see.”

“Really?” Bekki asked. “It would have been the perfect crime. I doubt you even put your hands on Lydia, did you? No physical evidence to tie you to her murder. But, you didn't know about the camera.”

“There is no camera!” Julie shouted, her voice nearing a shriek.

“If there's no camera then how do I know that you coaxed Lydia up on to that chair? How do I know that you watched as she put that noose around her own neck?”

Julie fell silent, her eyes wide, her lips forming words but offering no sound.

“That's right Julie,” Bekki pressed. “I saw it all. I saw what you did to your own mother-in-law, your own family.”

“She was never my family!” Julie spat out. Bekki felt the shift and knew that she had hit the right button.

“No? Did she try to break you and Dan up? Is that what happened?” Bekki asked in a more friendly tone. “I know moms are like that, always getting into their kids' business, instead of letting them live their lives.”

“She did, she was always sticking her nose into things,” Julie sighed and rubbed her forehead briefly.

“So, of course, you had to get rid of her,” Bekki prompted, her eyes locked on Julie, her tone mild and not judging.

"Damn right I did," Julie spat out with more twang to her voice than Bekki had heard before. She certainly didn't sound like she was from Chicago. "I clawed my way up out of a dirt poor neighborhood in Georgia. Do you know how hard that is to do?" she demanded. "No, I don't imagine you would."

Bekki's eyes widened as she took a slight step back.

"You must have had to work hard."

"Work?" Julie laughed and shook her head. "I had to make myself into an entirely different person. I became Julie Ann, I became exactly what a man like Dan Brentwood would want. I placed myself right in his way, to make sure that he would notice me. When he did, I knew that was it, he was going to belong to me and I was going to spend the rest of my life with more money than I could ever spend."

Bekki's heartbeat quickened as the intense scowl on the woman's face only grew darker. "It was all going just fine, until that woman stuck her nose into our business. She started whispering things in Dan's ear, about making sure that I was who I said I was, about finding out about my family and my history," she shook her head and sneered. "She held on to her son so tightly that there was never any room for me. Then the wench had me tailed. She got pictures of me with a lover, and turned them over to her son. That was it. He immediately wanted a divorce, and I was going to lose everything."

Bekki frowned as she studied the woman in front of her. It was hard for her to fathom how anyone could believe that living that way was going to end up making them happy.

"Of course you were angry," Bekki prompted her. "You wanted to teach her a lesson."

"Sure I was angry," Julie smirked. "But I'm not stupid. I wasn't going to let her win. I knew if Dan lost his mother, he'd turn to me for comfort. He'd need me again. I knew he would forgive me if she wasn't there whispering in his ear."

Bekki felt her stomach churn as she recalled the way that Julie had positioned herself perfectly to comfort Dan after his mother's death.

"But you couldn't just kill her," Bekki said quietly, as if she understood completely. "It needed to be more tragic than that."

"Exactly," Julie nodded with a subtle smile of pride. "Like I said, I'm not stupid. So I convinced her that I had Dan locked up, that he was going to die, if she didn't do what I told her to do. She was so broken up about it, as if her precious little boy was the most important person in the world. So I gave her an ultimatum, either she kill herself or I’ll shoot her and make her suffer a long death.  I knew she would choose to kill herself because her brother had been shot years ago and she watched him die slowly. She would want to be in control and die quickly. She even put the noose around her own neck."

The rage that rose inside Bekki was so intense that she nearly lost her temper. She knew that if she showed any horror Julie might stop talking. She needed the full confession. She needed the truth to make sure that Julie would not find her way out of this.

"Brilliant," Bekki murmured, though she wanted to choke on the word. "Well you didn't even really kill her did you Julie? You just let her kill herself. Did you just stand there and watch? I mean, were you too scared to get your hands dirty?"

"I was going to," Julie admitted. "I was going to make her kick the chair out and everything, but I just couldn't. I wanted her to watch me do it. I wanted her to know that it was me that put an end to her meddling. So I kicked that chair out from under her," she laughed a little and shook her head. "You should have seen her face, she was so surprised."

Bekki's hands clenched at her sides. The woman had paid the ultimate price for the love of her son, and it was not something to laugh about.

"And now Dan's ready to reconcile, right?" Bekki asked in a trembling voice as she tried to swallow back her disgust.

"He tore up the divorce papers this afternoon," Julie said proudly. "Soon I'll be right back where I belong."

"Until he does something you don't like?" Bekki pointed out. "Is he expendable too?"

"Everyone's expendable, Bekki," the woman sighed. "I thought maybe you understood that."

Bekki faked a smile and stepped closer to the woman. When she spoke, she did in a low tone.

"I just wonder what Dan is going to think when he finds out that you killed his mother? Do you think he'll still want to reconcile?"

Julie laughed effortlessly, that same disdainful laugh that Bekki heard from her before.

"Oh, he won't find out sweetheart. Did you really think you were walking out of this alive?"

Bekki felt her body tense as she recognized the flash of a gun at Julie's side. She hadn't been expecting that. Julie hadn't killed Lydia with a gun, so it hadn't crossed Bekki's mind that she would be carrying one.

“No one's going to believe I killed myself,” Bekki warned, her eyes narrowed sharply. “If you hurt me, you'll be exposing yourself as a killer.”

Julie laughed again and waved the gun in the air.

“Don't worry about that, they're not going to find your body. You'll leave a note, claiming you were so embarrassed by the false accusations that you made against me that you decided to go back to the city and leave Harroway behind once and for all. Sure, some people will wonder, but it isn't like you didn't disappear from this place once before,” she smirked and began to raise the gun.

Bekki's entire body began to move instinctively. She did not take her eyes off Julie and could sense by the woman's slightest gesture which direction she was moving, and what her intentions were. When Bekki sprang into action, Julie was caught off guard by the flourish of movement. Bekki's hand struck the wrist that was holding the gun and bent it backward, causing Julie's fingers to unclench. The gun clattered to the floor. But Julie fought back, and nearly knocked Bekki off balance. The two had just tumbled to the floor and had begun grappling when Nick burst through the front door of the bakery. He had his gun drawn and aimed it directly at Julie. From the moment he met Bekki’s eyes through the glass door of the bakery earlier in the evening, he had known she was up to something. He had been watching from outside the entire time.

“Put your hands up now!” he demanded. Julie ignored him and continued to claw at Bekki. Bekki managed to get her hands around the woman's flailing arms and pin them down on either side of her, while straddling her body. Nick kicked the fallen weapon out of the way and crouched down beside Julie. He had her cuffed in a matter of seconds.

“You can't do this!” Julie protested. “You don't have any proof of anything! I'll be out in an hour!”

Nick glanced up at Bekki who reached into her pocket and pushed the button on the tape recorder to play back their conversation.

Julie's face drained of all color as Nick helped her to her feet.

“I think you took care of the proof for us,” he said calmly, his voice wavering only slightly with the disgust he felt for her actions. Bekki met the woman's eyes as she stood in front of her.

“Lydia was never someone who would take her life, Julie. You murdered a woman who was so loving she was willing to give up her own life to protect her son. You took
her from the world, and now you're going to pay for it. Maybe heading back to Georgia would have been better than where you're going now.”

Julie gasped as tears began flowing. They were not tears of grief, but tears of rage because she had not been able to get away with her master plan. As Nick led her out of the bakery, Bekki remained in the empty space. She knew that nothing she did would bring Lydia back, but at least now the rumors could be stamped out by the truth of what a brave and strong woman Lydia really was.

When Nick returned from handing Julie over to another officer to take her in for booking, he found Bekki still staring at the last place she had seen Lydia.

"Hey," he murmured softly from behind her as his warm hands rubbed at the curves of her shoulders. "It's over now," his gentle voice sought to soothe her.

"What if she hadn't left the door unlocked for me, Nick?" Bekki said quietly as she continued to stare. "What if Julie hadn't been able to get inside? What if I had showed up just a little earlier?"

"Bekki," he slid his arms around her shoulders and pulled her back against him. "You can't think that way. There are a million what ifs. What if you gave up and stopped investigating when I asked you to?"

Bekki turned to look up at him with surprise at his words. "What do you mean?" she asked.

"I mean, what if you didn't fight this hard for someone who you barely knew?" he asked in a whisper. "I don't know how you do it Bekki, how you see the truth so clearly."

"I wish I did," she replied hesitantly.

"You do," he insisted as he brushed her hair back from her eyes. "I look at a situation and I see the evidence, the proof, but you see more than that."

"I don't know about that," Bekki frowned as she glanced away from him.

"If it wasn't for you Bekki, Julie would have been free. She would have woven her spell over Dan again, at least until she decided he didn't need to be around any longer," he paused, took a short breath and then shook his head slowly. "I'm so amazed by you."

"Even my criminal activity?" she asked with an arched brow.

"Oh that," his expression grew a little more serious as he held her closer to him. "That's something we'll have to discuss."

"I swear I'm innocent," she grinned and he kissed her lightly on the lips.

"Now that I don't believe for a second," he murmured just beside her ear. As they walked out of the bakery they found most of the town had come out to see what all the flashing lights were about. People gathered close as they watched Julie driven away in the back of a squad car. Sammy was among them. She walked over to Bekki and Nick, peering into the bakery curiously.

"Is everything okay?" she asked.

"I think it is now," Bekki said with a frown. "As okay as it can be."

***

Bekki was cleaning off the stations in the salon the next day when she heard the front door open. She didn't have any scheduled appointments. She turned to find Dan standing just inside the door.

“Hello,” he said hesitantly.

“Hi Dan,” Bekki said gently as she set down her spray and rag and walked towards him.