Burned in Broken Hearts Junction: A Cozy Matchmaker Mystery (Cozy Matchmaker Mystery Series) (17 page)

“Shouldn’t somebody else be doing this, Raymond?”

“Do what?” he said, leaning close enough to me so I could smell the roast beef sandwich he’d had for lunch.

“Asking me these questions,” I said. “Doesn’t our, uh, prior relationship compromise your ability to do your job in this situation?”

“Well, it’s a small town,” he said, picking a hangnail off one of his large and yellow fingernails. “I can’t throw a stone without hitting a girl I was involved with at one time or another. Christ, I couldn’t do my job if we followed that rule.”

Officer Botkin started laughing like the none-too-bright sidekick that he was.

Both of them had seen far too many cop movies, I gathered.  

“Now, can you explain to me again where you were before you discovered Mr. Dixon’s body?”

I told him, for what must have been the twentieth time.

“Hmm,” he said skeptically, rubbing the top of his head.

I stared out the window, wishing these two fools would run out of questions soon so that I could just go home.

“Well, I’m not going to lie to you, Loretta. You’re looking at something pretty serious here.”

Raymond got up and started pacing the room, his hands behind his back like he was some sort of dictator wondering what he was going to do with me.

“A sensible man might even think you were in on some sort of conspiracy,” he said. “That Fletcher fella being there just after you discovered the body. He’s got angles on this, just like you do. Could be that he helped you take care of Dale. Could be that it was mutually beneficial to see the fat man whacked.”

Far,
far
too many cop movies.

“What do you mean, Fletcher’s got angles?” I said.

Raymond shrugged.

“Sounds like you don’t know that fella of yours all that well,” Botkin interjected.

“Your friend wanted something from Dale,” Raymond said. “Only I don’t think Dale was ready to let him have it.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I don’t know if it’s really your concern,” Raymond said. “All I’m gonna say is that I told you to stay away from him. Yet look what you’ve gone and done.”

I shook my head angrily, feeling a sense of rage deep at the base of my chest start to rise.

This was such a load of crap.

Dozens, if not hundreds, of people had touched that jukebox in the last week. My fingerprints couldn’t have been the only ones on it.

Raymond knew that. But he had another agenda. One that had nothing to do with catching Dale’s murderer.

I remembered the sound of the car engine that I had heard the night before outside my house.

It wasn’t too hard to connect the dots.

“Let’s cut the BS, Raymond,” I said. “You, me, and Officer Botkin all know that I didn’t do a thing to Dale. The only reason you’re doing this is because you’re upset with me over last night.”

He took a seat on the desk and leaned over me, trying to impress upon me his size.

“I’m trying to be your friend, here, Loretta,” Raymond said, that muscle in his neck bulging. “That’s all. Got nothing to do with last night.”

“Doesn’t it?” I said. “Doesn’t the fact that I told you I’m not going to take you back have anything to do with why you’re accusing me of murder right now?”

Raymond balled his hands into fists at his side and his face turned red.

Officer Botkin started grinning at Raymond, like the foolish sidekick that he was.  

I stood up, having had it. I’d spent too long in this stupid room, breathing the same air as them.  

“You charge me now, and I’ll get a lawyer,” I said. “But if you’re not willing to do that, then you and Robin here can go on twiddling your thumbs, doing just about everything but find Dale’s killer.”

I grabbed my bag and brushed past them, heading for the door.

“You walk out of this building, you’re gonna regret saying that to me,” Raymond said.

I turned around.

“No, Raymond,” I said. “I don’t think I will.”

I walked out, stomping my cowgirl boots hard against the dingy and dirty linoleum floor of the Broken Hearts Police Department station.

Wondering what on earth I ever saw in Raymond Rollins in the first place.

Chapter 50

“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were stalking me.”

Fletcher Hart was sitting on the steps outside the police department, staring out into the parking lot, looking a little worse for wear.

The fog had burned off, giving way to a crisp, blue, high desert day. It was actually warm in the sun, almost warm enough to take off my jacket.

When Fletcher saw me, he looked up and smiled.  

“Or maybe
you’re
the one stalking me.”

When our eyes met, I suddenly felt awkward, remembering that wild and passionate kiss in my doorway the night before.

I could still feel a little buzz from it when I thought of his lips against mine. The way his hands moved through my hair. The way he…

I rubbed my damp hands on my jeans.

“What are you doing out here?” I said.

“Waiting for a taxi to take me back home,” he said.

I sighed, the reason for him being here becoming clear. 

“Did Raymond bring you in?” I asked.

“If by Raymond you mean that cop with a neck as big as a tree trunk, then yes.”

Seemed like Officer Rollins and Botkin were building up an entire conspiracy theory.

“That guy doesn’t seem to like me much,” Fletcher said.  

“That’d be my fault,” I said.

“I thought he was your friend.”

“Not anymore,” I said. “It perplexes me now why he ever was, to be honest.”

“Hindsight’s so much easier, ain’t it?” he said, looking down at the concrete.

I got the sense he was talking about more than just me going out with Raymond, though I didn’t know what exactly. 

Was he talking about the kiss the night before?

I wasn’t sure.

But if he was, well, then, I wasn’t sure how that made me feel.

“Listen,” I said. “You don’t have to wait for a taxi. I’ll give you a ride.”  

“I’m not sure if I want to go back to my hotel just yet,” he said.

“Then where?”

He shrugged, then nodded to the building behind us.

“Your buddy in there made it sound like I only had a few hours of freedom left before they’d come and arrest me for Dale Dixon’s murder.”

I shook my head, and squinted out at the parking lot.

If given the chance, I might just kick Raymond Rollins in the face.

“Yeah, I got a version of that speech too,” I said.  

“Maybe we should take him seriously,” he said. “Live these next few hours like they’re our last few hours of freedom.”

The skin on my arms broke out in goose bumps.

I knew it wasn’t a good sign.

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” I said.

I knew that the longer I spent with the stranger, the harder it was going to be to ignore the feelings that I was starting to have.

I had to be sensible about this. There was no point in going down a path that would only lead to a dead end.

He got to his feet and stood up, like he read my mind.

A yellow cab was making its way through the parking lot, its studded tires popping loudly on the pavement.

“You’re probably right.”

He patted my arm, and then started walking down the steps to the cab.

I watched him, my stomach lurching forward a little.

Before I knew what I was doing, I was hurrying down the steps, stopping him before he could open the cab door.

I had no business doing what I was doing, going down the road I was going down.

No business whatsoever.

But here I was, making another poor decision in what seemed to be a long, long line of them.

“Okay,” I said. “But only if you start giving me real answers. Raymond said that you’ve got angles on Dale’s murder.”

He turned, a serious expression on his face.

“I want to know why he said that. No more dancing around the truth.”

He looked past me, and then nodded.

“And one other thing.”

“What’s that?” he said.

“Don’t kiss me again,” I said.  

The beginnings of a smile pulled at the corners of his mouth.

“You have my word, Bluebird” he said.

“Bluebird?” I said.

He didn’t answer. He slid a few dollars to the cabbie and told him he wouldn’t be needing that ride.

A feeling of excitement fluttered in my stomach.

For better or for worse, I always had been the impulsive type.

Chapter 51

“Poor woman,” he said, digging his hands deep into his jean pockets and letting out a sigh.  

I couldn’t help but sigh, too.

Zerelda Richmond’s story always had a way of getting to me. Of striking some sort of chord.

I could tell that it struck a chord with Fletcher, too.

We were walking along The Crooked River on the same hiking trail that the stranger had been walking on when he’d surprised me during my liquid picnic earlier that week. Some people might have done crazier and wilder things if they thought they were going to be arrested for murder in a matter of hours. But going for a walk along the river, soaking in the high desert sunshine, and breathing in the fresh air suited me just fine.

And it seemed to suit Fletcher too.

I’d just gotten done telling him about how the town got its name. About Zerelda Richmond and how she’d drowned herself in these waters over 150 years ago after her husband was swept away.

“Kids around here say you can see her ghost sometimes on the banks,” I said. “Still looking down at those waters.”

I stopped walking and went over to the bank. I stood looking down at the fast flowing river, running like it had places to go and people to see.

I took off my jacket.

“You ever see the ghost of Zerelda?” he asked.

I didn’t know how to answer exactly.

Sometimes, in my deepest, darkest moments of sadness, when I missed Jacob the worst, when I’d found myself at the bottom of a whiskey bottle, I thought I’d seen Zerelda’s ghost looking back at me in the mirror.

The stranger came up and stood next to me, and we both looked out at the water, at the bluffs in the distance, at the cottonwoods on the other side of the river. Their dead leaves shuddering in the light breeze.

Standing there like that with him made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

I turned toward him.

“Okay, that’s enough stalling,” I said. “Tell me what you’re doing here in Broken Hearts Junction, Fletcher. Tell me why they think you might have killed Dale.”

I realized that I was nervous about his response.

The thought crossed my mind, but I pushed it away as soon as it arrived.

What if Raymond was right about him
?  

Fletcher rubbed the stubble of his chin, like he was contemplating how to tell me that he was a drug dealer all along. Or a bag man for one of the gambling establishments that Dale owed money to.

Or that he was a hit man.

Another thought crossed my mind.

What if he told me, expecting me to keep his secret?

I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to do that. I wasn’t a pillar of morality, but keeping quiet about a murder just wasn’t something I—

“I’m here to buy The Cupid,” he said, looking out at the river. “Or, at least I was ready to before the owner turned up dead.”

My mouth dropped open.

Chapter 52

“Why didn’t you just come out and say that in the first place?”

All this mystery about who he was and what he was doing here, and his secret was as simple and innocent as wanting to buy real estate.

He shrugged.

“I didn’t want to say anything until it went through,” he said. “Which it hasn’t, and probably won’t now that Dale’s dead.”

I was still in shock that all along, this had been his big secret.

“How come you want to buy The Cupid?” I asked.

He got a faraway look in his eyes.

“I played there once,” he said. “When I was just a kid. Made a big impression on me.”

“
You
played there?” I asked.

It was just one shock after another.

“I played in a band, once upon a time,” he said. “We were up and coming for a time. We toured the country and then some.”

Something went off in my head.

And then I saw it.

A flash of a guy up on stage. A young guy, couldn’t have been older than 21, playing his heart out. Playing the guitar like the sun wasn’t going to rise the next day. Playing like it was his last night on earth.

It hit me.

Not only had Fletcher Hart played at The Cupid. I had seen him play.

A long, long time ago.

“My God,” I said, shaking my head in disbelief. “You’re Henry Antrim. That’s you, isn’t it? You… you were the lead guitarist for
The Rusted Spurs
.”

It all came rushing back to me like a tidal wave, the memory of him playing the guitar up on stage in the smoky bar suddenly became as clear as the sky after a rain storm.  

He smiled.

“Henry Antrim was my stage name,” he said. “I used to have a bit of an obsession with Billy the Kid. Took one of The Kid’s aliases when I was part of the band.”

“I can’t believe it,” I said. “I saw you play that night. Your music… it changed…”

I trailed off as his smile fell a little, sadness creeping across his face like a shadow.

“That night…” he echoed.

I couldn’t believe it.

I must have been going senile to have not recognized him.   

But it wasn’t just me. Fletcher Hart looked nothing like the boy who had been up on stage that night. Today, he had a busted nose and a beard, and was no longer a boy.

And he had a sadness about him that the boy onstage never knew.

Fletcher left the bank and started walking along the path again.  

“I can’t believe it,” I said, again.  

“Sometimes I can’t believe it myself,” he said. “Feels like a different life. I wake up some nights wondering if it really was me at all who lived it. If my memories don’t belong to some stranger. Some kid, stupid enough to think he could be a country star.”