Calamity Jayne (24 page)

“Sorry. No problem. I don’t like Dairee Pops either. And the butterscotch one”—I put my finger on my tongue and made a gagging
sound—“isn’t really all that good. Maybe some other time. If there’s nothing else I can get for you...” I made an exaggerated
yawn. “I think I’ll just finish up and head home.”

“Aren’t you going to charge me for the Slurpee?”

I waved him off. “Professional discount. Uncle Frank always gives drinks on the house to folks in uniform. Thinks it’s the
least he can do when they put their lives on the line day in, day out.”

“Now, that
is
nice of Uncle Frank, isn’t it? Tell me, Tressa, do you share your uncle’s admiration for men in uniform?” The killer took
a long, noisy drink of his Slurpee. I felt the noose tighten.

“Uh, yeah, sure. My grandma’s father was the Chief of Police here in Grandville for years. But, of course, you knew that.”

The killer nodded. “Of course.”

“I can let you out the front door.” My stride was jerky and marionette-like as I made my way back to the short-order window.
“I’ll just grab my key.”

“That really won’t be necessary, Tressa.”

“Oh, it’s no trouble at all.”

I had almost reached the key ring, when it was snatched up by the Slurpee-sipping psycho.

“Don’t forget your laundry,” he said.

My mind drew a blank. No surprise, considering it was operating while under the influence of terror.

“Laundry?”

“In the back room. The machine is filled. Looks like you were just getting ready to add something else, maybe?”

I shook my head. “I guess I just forgot to put the lid down.”

“Really.” He took the keys and put them in his raincoat pocket. Although he wasn’t in uniform, I was under no illusions that
he hadn’t come armed and dangerous.

“You sure you didn’t want to add, oh, maybe this Bargain City vest in with the laundry? That’s a pretty bad stain there.”
He’d moved beside the coat tree and my chest felt tighter than when I’d tried to pull on last year’s one-piece swimsuit.

“Can you put reds in with dark blues?” I asked, falling back on good old ditz to save my skin. “They won’t bleed, will they?”
If I could have managed to kick myself, I would have.

My tormentor raised a brow and smiled. “So, you’re worried about bleeding?”

“Uncle Frank would kill me,” I squeaked. Hell. I’d done it again.

“Somehow, I don’t think you’re going to have to worry about that, Tressa.”

The killer, my killer, reached into his pocket and pulled out these godawful, dark purple gloves like the ones my gynecologist
wore the last time I had my yearly exam. I backed against the drive-up window wondering if it would break if I flung myself
out it. Unfortunately, it didn’t look big enough for me to fit through.

The killer put a hand in the pocket of my Bargain City vest and pulled out the manila envelope now as infamous to me as a
certain black glove in a high profile double murder case which shall remain nameless.

“You know, I’ve thought and thought about where this envelope could be. You sure seemed convincing when you said you didn’t
have it, so at first I wasn’t certain. After Dennis died, I thought I could put this all to rest and move on, but the thought
of that damned or, rather, damning envelope being out there somewhere, just kept eating at me. And the more I thought about
it, the more I had to find it. So I went back to that first night and replayed everything in my head, and when I saw you wearing
the red vest earlier today, that’s when I remembered. You were wearing the red vest the night you found poor Peyton Palmer.
So, I waited for an opportunity to get you and the red vest alone, and here we are.” He put the envelope in his coat pocket
along with my keys. “And now, Tressa, it’s time to conclude this rather unpleasant business. Once and for all.”

I pressed against the drive-up window and began to beat on it, screaming for help as I pounded. With steady rain still coming
down, there wasn’t a car on the street. It never failed. The one time I actually wanted a customer at the Dairee Freeze drive-up,
everyone was either staying home or eating at Mickey D’s.

“Listen,” I tried to reason with someone who, I feared, had lost all reason. “You’re sworn to protect life, not take it!”

He laughed. “I am protecting life. Mine.” He reached in his pocket and pulled out a rather wicked-looking knife, similar to
the ones Uncle Frank uses to slice and dice. “Let’s take a walk, Tressa.”

“I’d rather not. You see, I don’t have my new walking shoes on.”

I was about to do something incredibly brave and daring, like dive head-first through the drive-up window when the drive-up
buzzer sounded. I jumped a city block. It was then I realized that I was still wearing the space cadet remote headphone paraphernalia
designed so I could hear the drive-up customer and he could hear me, but the restaurant clientele wasn’t treated to the static,
crackling, and popping of the mechanism.

I stole a look at my knife-wielding assailant. He appeared not to have heard. “You won’t have far to walk,” he said.

I took a deep breath, knowing my life could very well depend on the words that came out of my mouth in the next few moments.
Oh, brudder. In that case, pick out a tasteful headstone, Ma and Pa. Nothing gaudy. No more than two, maybe three angels,
at most.

“Where do you want me to walk?” I said, enunciating every word.

“The back room will do fine.”

“Do you really plan to kill me with that big long knife you’re holding?”

“What’s wrong with your voice? You sound funny.”

“Fear, I guess. Terror transmitting itself into my voice. After all, you’ve admitted to murdering two people. We’re locked
in here together. You have a knife. You want me to go for a walk into the back room so you can use that knife on me.” I hoped
the doofus on the other end of the drive-up transmission wasn’t busy making out with his girlfriend and had missed my SOS.

“Something’s wrong.”

The master of understatement.

His eyes narrowed, then flew to the contraption on the top of my head. He whipped his head around and saw the
OPEN
sign lit
up.

“You sneaky little bitch.” He yanked my high tech headdress from my head. “Let’s go or I’ll do you right here. I swear.”

All I could think of was the mess Uncle Frank would walk in on when he returned from his classic car show.

“Why kill me? You’ve got the envelope with the money and the fake identification with your picture on it that proves you were
involved in Peyton Palmer’s murder. Without that, there’s no evidence.”

“There’s your big mouth, Tressa.”

“But I’m Calamity Jayne. Remember? No one listens to anything I say! I’m a joke. A ditz. A space cadet. Remember?”

He shook his head. “Once upon a time you may have been those things. But not anymore. Maybe you never were. Maybe you just
took the path of least resistance. Until it became too lonely.”

I stared at him, thinking he was either brilliant or dumber than a road bump. Either way, it spelled the end for me.

“Listen,” I pleaded, “I won’t tell a soul. I swear. I’ll move! I’ll move to London—or make that Edinburgh. I’ve always wanted
to see Scotland.” There went my big mouth again. “I’ll take a vow of silence! Just don’t kill me!”

The fiend grabbed hold of my arm. I grabbed hold of the order window and hung on for dear life. My dear life.

“You’re not making this any easier.” The officer-turned-killer grunted with exertion as he tried to pry my fingers from the
window frame.

“I hope you’re not expecting an apology,” I grunted back, trying to kick him where it hurt, instead hitting the toppings dispensers,
sending M&M’s, fun confetti, chocolate chips, crushed sandwich cookies (Uncle Frank is too cheap to use real Oreos, but don’t
tell anyone) and crunched-up candy bars (ditto) all over Uncle Frank’s highly polished floor.

“Now, see what you made me do!” I screamed.

In response, he reached out and slashed the knuckles of my right hand with the knife.

I’d like to tell you I did a Rambo here and worked through the pain. I’d like to, but I can’t. I screamed bloody murder, an
appropriate response given the circumstances, and catapulted myself backwards right into my attacker, who lost his balance
on the candy-coated crunchy floor. We both went sprawling.

I recovered first and began to crawl as fast as my bleeding hand and the M&M’s would allow. I hadn’t made it far when my ankle
was grabbed and I was tugged back, losing what progress I had made. The pain in my hand was intense, but the thought of that
pain being inflicted on other, more vital areas of my body, kept me fighting.

A wave of nausea overtook me. Everything swam. My assailant pulled me toward him. I picked up a handful of Cool Blast ingredients
and tossed them in his face. He swore, but didn’t let go.

He straddled me and pinned my good hand with one knee. I tried to bring my knee up between us, but he blocked it. I felt my
strength begin to diminish. My struggles now were more for show than substance. He knew it.

He shook his head. “I didn’t regret the others,” he said. “But I regret having to kill you. But hey, a man can live with regret,
can’t he, Calamity?”

He raised his knife.

I willed myself to keep my eyes open. It would be my parting gift to him. He would have to look me in the eye and kill me.
And replay this moment for the rest of his miserable life.

He pulled the knife back.

I bit through my lip.

An eardrum shattering crash rocked the wall of the Dairee Freeze. It sounded as if the whole world were exploding around me.
Glass was flying everywhere. The roar was deafening. My first thought was that a tornado had dropped out of the sky, and was
whipping through the building. The roar intensified. My attacker no longer had hold of me. I pulled myself up to my knees
and peeked over the counter. I opened one eye. Then, the other. I couldn’t believe what either one told me. Where Uncle Frank’s
three-inch thick, top-of-the-line, super security, intruder-proof door should have been, a candy apple red Chevy four-by-four
pickup truck was now gunning its way into the Dairee Freeze, right up to the front counter!

Just like in the movies, its driver dove out of the vehicle and tackled the bad guy who was trying to make his escape, slipping
and sliding on the goodies rolling about all over the floor. Before I could say, “Oooooo, Popeye!” my hero had Bluto disarmed
and unconscious.

“Sheriff Steve, you have the right to remain silent,” Townsend advised the prone killer, letting the sheriff’s head fall hard
against the linoleum floor.

Ranger Rick reached out and hauled me to my feet. He put his arms around me so tight I could hardly breathe. Please note:
this is not a complaint.

Geez,” I said, woozy-headed. “Uncle Frank is gonna be pissed.”

“Tressa, you’re in shock. You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“What? You don’t think Uncle Frank will fire me for a thing like this?”

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ve got life insurance.”

I pulled back and looked at his face, which was fading in and fading out. “Don’t you mean auto insurance?” I asked.

Ranger Rick shook his head. “Life insurance. And I’m going to need a hell of a lot of it if I spend much time around you.”
He bent and gave me a passionate kiss.

“Ohh!” I said. “I think I like the sound of that. But Uncle Frank’s still gonna fire me, isn’t he?”

“Does a bear crap in the woods?”

“Oooh, Popeye!” And then, Olive Oyl fainted.

C
HAPTER
23

I sat on the beach and admired the view from a chaise lounge. Townsend and my brother Craig were fiddling with their toys—Jet
Skis that neither one would let me within ten feet of.

“It’s not right,” I told my sister-in-law, Kimmie, beside me. “It’s so unfair.”

“Well, of course it is,” she agreed. “It’s grossly unfair. As we speak, I’m probably ovulating.”

I sent her an
are-we-talking-about-the-same-thing?
look. “I could handle one of those Jet Skis with no problem.”

“Your brother needs to grow up, and quit playing with toys.”

“I’m perfectly capable of operating a Jet Ski. My hand is healing nicely.”

“If I wait until your brother is ready, the quality of my eggs will begin to decline.”

“If I can wrestle a killer, I sure as heck can handle a Jet Ski.”

“He’s ready when I tell him he’s ready.”

Kimmie and I eyed the males who were giving us fits. I wasn’t exactly sure what was going on between Townsend and me, but
since that day a week ago when he’d sent his truck through the front of the Dairee Freeze in rather dramatic fashion, we’d
spent a significant amount of time together. Okay, so most of it was in the hospital and subsequent police interviews, but
somehow we had negotiated and maintained a tentative truce. No. Truce wasn’t right. It went beyond a truce. We’d established
a connection. Of what sort, I didn’t dare speculate. I did know that of all the bods on the beach, his was the hottest. At
least, in my humble opinion.

The public was just now coming to terms with the reality of an elected official and law enforcer turned dope dealer and killer.
Although the investigation continued, and Sheriff Thomason wasn’t cooperating, authorities believed that the not-so-good sheriff
had been in cahoots with Mike Hill for years. Using his drug connections, Hill had provided information to the sheriff on
other drug activities in the area while managing to operate his own home business below the radar, splitting drug proceeds
with his partner, Sheriff Thomason. Dennis Hamilton was a long-time paying customer of Hill’s and had, indeed, been stealing
from the trust accounts and estates of his clients. While investigating his law partner’s activities, Peyton Palmer had discovered
Hamilton’s relationship with his supplier, Hill, and later, the connection between Hill and local law enforcement.

The drug smuggling set up by Hamilton, Hill and Thomason was designed to warn Palmer off, to damage his credibility. The charges
would be dropped, they’d said, if he would just leave well enough alone. But Palmer refused. Later, the sheriff would try
to reason with Palmer, using money to try to secure Palmer’s silence and participation. Whether it was because of his sister’s
fate from illegal drugs or some other reason, Peyton Palmer had refused to be bought off. He then had to die. Thomason or
Hill shot Palmer and stuck him in the trunk of a vehicle Hill had stolen. The plan, police thought, was to drive the car into
the lake, and that would be the end of Peyton Palmer’s interference. If foul play was suspected, it would be directed at the
law partner who had embezzled, the wife who reportedly was not so faithful, or a disgruntled client, which every attorney
has.

However, Sheriff Thomason hadn’t planned on vehicular problems or his oafish accomplice badly stashing the car in an area
that would be dark and inconspicuous until they could return later and dispose of the vehicle and body when no one would likely
be about.

That’s where one ditzy blonde came in. I had been the rather pesky fly in the sheriff’s ointment. I had driven off with the
getaway car, the stiff and the envelope, and the sheriff had had to alter his plan. When Hill was commissioned to get the
envelope back, his aggressiveness became a liability, and later Hamilton became the perfect fall guy. Once the body count
started rising faster than Aunt Reggie’s homemade coney buns, Hamilton probably saw the writing on the wall. Knowing he couldn’t
trust Sheriff Thomason, he had decided to tell his story to the press, or a reasonable facsimile of same.

When Sheriff Thomason failed to kill me and hit Joker instead, he had to alter his plan yet again. Staging Hamilton’s suicide
was a cinch for a veteran law enforcement officer who knew exactly what to do to make the scene believable—all the way down
to the powder residue on the hands, the bullet trajectory and wound analysis. It would have been easy for the big man to chloroform
the much-smaller Hamilton, place the gun in his hand and into his mouth and pull the trigger. With all the evidence of Hamilton’s
wrongdoing collected at his home and office, his suicide would be consistent, even understandable, given the circumstances.

Except for that pesky blonde fly again—that annoying little ladybug who didn’t buy Hamilton’s suicide and just wouldn’t keep
quiet about her misgivings. The same pest who had carried around clear and compelling evidence of the true identity of the
murderer in a pop-stained, red work vest for a week without knowing it.

I sighed. Okay, so my dazzling police work wasn’t so much dazzling as accidental. I was still a star.

This “star” looked over at her hero and sighed again. He hadn’t been what he appeared to be either. All the time he’d let
me believe he was seeing Sheila Palmer socially, he’d actually been working with Sheila to try and find out what was going
on with her husband. And working with Deputy Doug Samuels, of all people! The chief deputy had harbored suspicions about his
boss for some time, like how he could afford many of the items he was able to buy on a county sheriff’s salary, and how it
always seemed Mike Hill was tipped off before an impending drug bust went down. Deputy Samuels and Townsend were working together
to discover the truth. When Sheila Palmer spoke to her friend Rick about her husband’s work troubles, after he’d disappeared,
she’d joined forces with the men to get to the truth about her husband.

I let out a long, hot blast of air. I suppose I owed her an apology for thinking she killed her husband, or that she’d had
him killed so she could be with Townsend. While I was at it, I probably owed Townsend an apology for thinking he would ever
be with someone who offed her husband.

What really bothered me, and I was sure it bothered Sheila Palmer even more, was what had happened to Peyton Palmer after
he was removed from the white Chrysler on that dark, gravel country road. The sheriff wasn’t talking—not surprising, since
much of the evidence was circumstancial, except for the attack on me and the discovery of the envelope. But without a body,
the sheriff’s attorney would argue that there was no proof beyond the testimony of one ditzy blonde that Peyton Palmer was
even dead.

And you know what that meant—no raccoon tattoo for Ranger Rick. Dang.

My eyes sought a suitable place beneath the ranger’s baggy trunks where such a tattoo might be placed, when I noticed a brunette
had joined the men.

I drew a little figure in the sand with pointy horns and a pitchfork and labeled it Annette. What was she trying to do—wheedle
her way back into Townsend’s life again? Steal Craig from Kimmie? Not on my watch, girlie, I thought, and bounded to my feet,
my flip-flops obliterating my work of art in the sand.

I stomped up to the threesome with my arms crossed in front of my black one-piece. “Annette.” I planted one foot right next
to Townsend’s. “You find a new job yet?” I asked. “With both your bosses dead, you’ll have the devil’s time getting a good
recommendation, won’t you?”

She gave me a sucking-a-lemondrop look. “Actually, I’m taking some time off before I look again. This has all been very upsetting
to me—as you can probably imagine, having gone through so much trauma yourself in the last several weeks.”

“I could ask Stan at the paper if we have any openings for newspaper carriers, if you want.” I gave her back my own eat-worms
smile.

“No, that’s okay.” She smiled at Townsend and then over at Craig. “I think I’m dealing with some post-traumatic stress issues
that I need to work through first.”

“Having two bosses murdered would tend to be stressful,” I said, trying to alert the two men that the she-devil in short shorts
in front of them was hazardous to their health.

“As is finding
three
dead bodies, I’m sure,” Annette countered. “Well, four if you count that cat.”

I stared at Annette. “My grandma’s cat? Hermione?”

“That’s right. That madman Hill hung the poor little thing, didn’t he?”

I felt my eyelid begin to vibrate. My ears started to burn. I stared at the woman in the leopard swimsuit top as if seeing
her for the first time. All those loose fragments of who, what, where, when and how coalesced into picture-perfect clarity.
Scary, I know.

“What did you say?” I asked, just to make sure I wasn’t hearing things.

“Discovering your grandma’s cat hanging in the doorway like a pinata must have been awful.”

I nodded. “The kind of act perpetrated by a bottom-dweller, for sure,” I said.

She nodded. “Most certainly.”

“So, tell me,” I said, planting myself directly in front of the busty brunette. “How is the weather down there with all the
other scum-sucking, slime-covered bottom-feeders, Annette? Strung up any other kitties, lately?”

The stunned look in the dark beauty’s eyes came and went so fast I wondered if I’d seen it in the first place.

“What absurd notion are you trying to peddle now, Turner?” she said, with a quick look at the men to see if they were paying
attention to the conversation or her rather spectacular cleavage.

“How did you know Hermione was hung in the barn?” I asked.

She shook her brunette head, her hair neatly entrapped in a French braid. “I must have heard it around town. Or from one of
the cops.”

I poked her overly-abundant chest with my finger. “Wrong answer, Ms. Bottom-dweller. You see, the cops never knew how I found
Hermione. No one knew, not even Gramma, because I never told a soul. So, the only way you could have known the cat was strung
up was if you found out from the person who hung the cat, or you did it yourself. Either way”—I gave her shoulder a nudge—“you’re
screwed.” I shoved her again. Harder. It felt good. Damn good.

Annette’s eyes grew wide and doe-like. I wasn’t buying it for a moment. She knew it. She took a step back.

“You were in on it the whole time, weren’t you?” I said. “Who better to keep tabs on both Peyton Palmer and Dennis Hamilton
without arousing suspicion than their own secretary? You could easily plant evidence without risk of discovery. It was you
who took Palmer’s boat out on Saturday, wasn’t it? You did it to make it seem I hadn’t really seen Palmer’s body in that trunk,
after all, to buy you and your new boyfriend, the sheriff, some time to rethink your plans. You probably cozied up to Dennis
Hamilton in order to keep him in line, too. When that didn’t work, you had to take him out, but you had to make sure there
was enough damning evidence found in his home to justify a suicide scenario.” I shook my head. “God, you’re good, Annette.
You fooled an awful lot of people. Funny, though—you never fooled me.”

If I thought Annette Felders was going to take this particular newsflash lying down, I was dead wrong. I put out a hand to
grab her, and she raked acrylic nails across the back of my injured hand, held together by thirty-plus stitches. I screamed
in pain and watched her push Craig away from his Jet Ski, power up and take off.

My reactions at this point, you understand, were pure reflex. I gave Townsend a hard shove that sent him backwards into the
water. I hopped onto his Jet Ski and took off in hot pursuit. We bounced over the top of water, made choppy by numerous water
skiers crisscrossing the lake. I gained on Annette, determined to bring the cat killer (oh, and people, too!) to justice.
I pulled up alongside Annette and screamed at her to give up. Her response was to ram my Jet Ski. Or rather, Townsend’s Jet
Ski. I cringed. Townsend was going to string
me
up. I shrugged. The damage was probably already done, so I rammed her back.

Up ahead, I spotted an oncoming speedboat, followed by a clearly novice water skier, a took of sheer panic on his face. Not
wanting to risk injuring an innocent person by the madcap chase, I veered off at the last minute, permitting Annette to pull
away. Annette looked back and raised a fist in the air in triumph. By the time she refocused her attention on maneuvering
the Jet Ski, she had lost precious time and misjudged the distance between her and the skier. Too late, she attempted to take
evasive action. She hit the tow rope in classic clothesline style. The Jet Ski kept going. The pond scum didn’t.

I circled the perimeter until Annette was hauled safely out of the water and onto Townsend’s boat, then discreetly headed
back to shore.

It was a somber, overcast morning when a small group lined the shores of Silver Stone Lake. I stood with a group that included
Deputy Doug, now acting-sheriff, whom I felt compelled to address with a certain amount of respect since he had turned out
to be one of the good guys, after all; Ranger Rick Townsend, and his grandfather, Joltin’ Joe; my grandmother, Hellion Hannah;
Sheila Palmer; my now full-time boss, Stan the man; and me, Calamity Jayne.

I felt my nose sting and my eyes water at the sight of the flowers tossed into the water as a floating memorial to Peyton
Palmer.

“How’s the hand?” Sheila Palmer stepped beside me and asked.

“Doc restitched it. It’ll be good as new,” I said, trying not to cry.

“Thanks, Tressa,” Sheila said.

“For what?” I asked. “For suspecting you of killing your husband?”

“For helping me find my husband’s murderer. If you hadn’t fingered Annette Felders as Sheriff Thomason’s accomplice, we might
never have known what really happened. So, thank you.”

I wiped my eyes with a bandaged hand. Faced with conspiracy to commit murder charges, Annette had talked faster than an obscure
Oscar recipient with a forty-five second time allotment for an acceptance speech. She’d just done what Sheriff Thomason had
told her to do, she said, because she was afraid not to. In exchange for a lesser charge, Annette had led law enforcement
to the location where, together, they had weighted Palmer down and dumped his body in the lake. It was unknown whether his
body would ever be discovered.