Candy Apple Dead (23 page)

“Last Monday. About five-thirty.”

My stomach lurched. “Where?”

“At the store.”

“You mean Man About Town?”

Lucas nodded. “He just about took the door off its hinges when he came inside, too.”

I wasn’t sure I wanted the answer to my next question, but I had to ask. “Do you know what he was upset about?”

“Do you really have to ask?”

“Do you know the answer?”

Lucas looked away and started gathering the tools he’d scattered across the lawn. “It was about his old lady, okay?”

“Elizabeth.”

He looked up sharply. “What?”

“She’s not his ‘old lady,’ she’s his wife. Her name is Elizabeth.”

“Yeah?” Lucas stared at me for a minute as if he was having trouble following. He scratched at the hair on his chin. “Okay. Whatever. All I know is that Wyatt was madder than hell.”

“And what did Brandon do when Wyatt showed up at the store?”

“You knew Brandon. What do you think?”

Patience,
I told myself. I wouldn’t accomplish anything without it. “Why don’t you just tell me?”

Lucas raked a glance at me. Shrugged. “Whatever. He didn’t sound all that upset. He just kept saying it was all over. Everybody was going to know the truth.”

“The truth?
What
truth?”

“Whatever your brother doesn’t want people to know about.”

Thank you, Captain Obvious!
“Did you hear anything my brother said? Details would help.”

“Just enough to know they were fighting over his old lady.”

“Elizabeth,” I said automatically.

This time Lucas shook his head. “That wasn’t the name.”

My next question froze on my lips. “It wasn’t? Are you sure?”

“I was there.”

“Well, if it wasn’t Elizabeth, who was it?”

Lucas tossed off a shrug. “Don’t remember.”

“Well,
think
.”

He dragged another lazy glance across my face. “Look, all I know is they were fighting over money and some woman.”

“Money?” I actually felt myself do a double take. “What money?” Wyatt doesn’t have any money and, apparently, neither did Brandon.

Lucas wiped his forehead with the back of his sleeve. “I don’t know.
The
money. That’s all I could hear.”

“You weren’t in the room?”

He shook his head. “Me and Chelsea were unpacking a shipment in the back when your brother went after him. It got pretty ugly, though. Chelsea was bawling like a baby, and Max was going berserk. It was insane.”

The more I learned, the more confused I became . . . and the more guilty Wyatt seemed. “I suppose you’ve told the police all of this.”

“Sure. I have nothing to hide.”

A breeze stirred the leaves in the trees, and the clearing was filled with the
hush hush
of dancing aspen leaves. There were things that didn’t make sense. Parts of the story that didn’t add up. Had I missed something?

“What time did you say this happened?”

“About five-thirty.”

Before Elizabeth met Brandon. Before—according to her story anyway—Wyatt found out about the meeting. But if that were true, why had Wyatt gone to see Brandon? What money—what
woman
—were they fighting about?

“At what point did Brandon ask Chelsea to take Max?”

Lucas shook his head. “He didn’t. She just did it.”

“She just took him? Brandon didn’t tell her to?”

“You have to know Chelsea. She was scared. Said she knew that’s what Brandon would want her to do.”

“And Brandon didn’t mind?”

“Of course he minded. He was royally pissed when he found out. And you know what? If she hadn’t done that, Brandon would probably still be alive, and your brother would have been in a dozen pieces. Max would have torn him apart if he could have.”

“Why did she take him?”

“I just told you. Max would have taken your brother apart. Chelsea knew that if Max hurt somebody, there’d be a law-suit. It wasn’t something she worried about most of the time, but that day—”

It was hard to imagine Max, who lay at my feet with his head propped on his paws, worked up enough to take my brother apart, but I knew firsthand how strong the dog was. Even Wyatt would be hard-pressed to hold his own against him.

“What happened then?”

“I picked up the phone to call the police, but your brother left before I could.”

“He left? Just like that?”

“Yeah. I guess he didn’t want trouble with the police. I mean, he threatened Brandon before he left, but that’s about it.”

“Was it a serious threat?”

“Obviously serious enough.”

I was having trouble working the scenario out in my head. If Wyatt had been that angry, he wouldn’t have turned tail and run off just because Lucas picked up the phone. “Did you think it was a serious threat at the time?”

Lucas’s dark eyes clouded as he gave that some thought. “I guess not,” he said after a while, “or I
would
have called the police.”

That’s what I thought. Wyatt might have wanted to make Brandon nervous, but he hadn’t been trying to harm him. “Besides my brother, who else do you think might have wanted to hurt Brandon?”

Dropping the last of the tools into his toolbox, Lucas toed the lid shut. “Who knows?”

“Tell me about the bounced paychecks.”

He laughed without humor. “Seems to me, you already know about ’em.”

“I want to know how you felt when you didn’t get paid. Were you angry?”

With a grin, Lucas leaned against the pickup truck. “I wasn’t happy, but it wasn’t that big a problem for me. Chelsea was mad as hell, though. She never has money when she
gets
paid. Missing a paycheck or two was big trouble for her.”

“She was angry? I thought she understood.”

Lucas laughed again. “Is that what she told you?”

I nodded. “But it’s understandable if she and Brandon were engaged.”

“Engaged?”
Lucas’s amusement shifted in front of my eyes. “They weren’t engaged. Brandon never even looked twice at her.”

“But I thought—”

“I told you that you had to know her. She’s crazy. Always talking about her ‘special relationship’ with Brandon. Acting like she owned the place. Every time she got pissed at me, out would come the ‘Brandon’ card. It was bogus.”

“They didn’t have a special relationship?”

“In her head.”

“So then she wasn’t understanding about the bounced checks.”

“Not even close.”

“Do you think she was angry enough to kill him?”

Lucas pushed away from the pickup with a sharp laugh. “If you think I’m going to answer that,
you’re
crazy. I’d be careful if I were you. You can’t go running around Paradise saying shit like that without causing trouble. Somebody might take you serious.”

The way someone had with Brandon? I suppressed a shudder. “I wish somebody
would
take me seriously.”

“Not that way, you don’t.”

I met his gaze and held it. His eyes were brown, flecked with bits of green, and they flickered nervously as he stared back at me.

“What do you know about Brandon’s death?” I asked.

“Nothing. Look, Abby, I know you’re wigged out about this, but don’t do something stupid, okay?”

A shiver skittered up my spine. Was that a warning? Or a threat? “I’ve heard that Brandon was seen arguing with another man the night before the fire. Do you know anything about that?”

He turned away and started toward the house. “This is getting old,” he said over his shoulder. “I’m done.”

I couldn’t tell if I’d spooked him or if he’d really just grown tired of all my questions. “Who was the guy? Do you know?”

He ignored me and ran up the stairs, leaving me with a lot more questions than I’d had when I arrived.

On my way into town again, I stopped at Mc-Donald’s
and ordered a Big Mac and large fries for myself, a Quarter Pounder plain for Max. After they shoved the order at me through the drive-in window, I drove to the edge of the parking lot and invited Max into the front seat so I wouldn’t have to eat alone.

He took an experimental lick or two, but even beef didn’t lift him out of his lethargy. After a few minutes, he curled onto the seat and dropped his chin on my leg.

I munched for a while, running over the conversations I’d had over the past few days. Stella Farmer. Chelsea Jenkins. Lucas Dumont. Had one of them murdered Brandon? Or was someone else responsible?

The whole thing was giving me a giant headache. I couldn’t make sense of anything I’d learned. Time lines confused me, and the stories were all twisted up together. Maybe I needed to stop trying so hard and think about something else for a while.

But that was easier said than done. I was tearing open a package of ketchup with my teeth when something broke through the fog in my head, and I realized that I was sitting directly across the street from Paradise Auto Body. Actually, it occurred to me that I should get an estimate on the damage to my car. It probably wouldn’t hurt to call my insurance agent, too. She’d left half a dozen messages for me, and to get Karen off my back I’d finally left a couple in return, but we hadn’t actually made contact yet.

Meanwhile, I was driving around with a missing taillight and a dangling bumper. I was lucky I hadn’t earned a glove-box full of tickets, compliments of Detective Jawarski. When I finished eating, I tossed the trash and drove across the street. A few cars dotted the parking lot, but both work bays were empty. Only the strains of a country-western song blaring into the night gave any sign of life.

Someone must have been watching, though. Before I could get out of the car, a burly mechanic with too much body hair strolled into the light. He wore grease-crusted jeans and a shirt that might once have been blue on which someone had stitched “Orly” in dark thread.

He ran a glance across the front of the Jetta and strolled toward my open window. “Help you?”

Max looked up at him without much interest. The mechanic looked back without so much as a blink.

“Do you have time to give me an estimate? I had an accident a couple of days ago, and I guess I really should get the damage taken care of.”

“Sure. Whatcha looking at?”

Dislodging myself from beneath Max’s chin, I slipped outside and guided Orly toward the back bumper. “I’m missing a taillight, and the bumper needs help.”

With a soft whistle, Orly shot a glance at me. “Sure does. How’d you manage this?”

“Don’t ask.”

“It’s just strange, is all.” He scratched his belly and hunkered down to inspect the bumper. “I had another car in here yesterday. Broken headlight. Smashed-up grill. Belonged to a cop.” Orly grinned up at me, revealing a set of badly stained teeth. “Said some crazy lady backed into him.”

“If I admit it was me, will it change the estimate?”

He stood again and shook his head. “No. Just curious. But I’ve gotta tell ya lady, there’s smarter ways to smash up your car than backing into a cop.”

“Next time I’m looking for a way to smash up my car, I’ll remember that. How much do you think it will cost to fix it?”

“Hard to say.” He strolled slowly along the back of the car, ran a hand along the fender, cocked an eyebrow at the door, and flicked something from one of his teeth with his tongue. “You the lady that runs that candy store in town?”

I wondered if I should admit it. Divinity’s trendy location just might make him think I had money, but lying wouldn’t get me anywhere. “I am,” I said. “Are you a customer?”

“Me?” He laughed through his nose. “Not me. My sister loves that place, though. She’s got the money to burn, I guess. Bought me a box of your stuff once for Christmas. Them caramel doohickeys with the cherries in ’em were damn good.”

Fix my car for a reasonable price, and there’s a whole box of Divinity’s Damn Good Caramel Doohickeys with Cherries in ’Em for you.
Worried that offering such a precious bribe might cause me future problems, I held back the offer and worked up what I hoped looked like a sincere smile. “I’m glad you liked them. They’re an old family recipe.”

“Well it’s a good’un.” He jerked his head toward the car again. “How soon you need ’er done?”

“That’s negotiable, but I don’t want to get a ticket for driving around without a taillight.”

He curled a yellow-toothed grin at me. “Seems to me, a missing taillight might be the least of your worries.”

“Not if Detective Jawarski is a vengeful man.”

That seemed to tickle his funny bone. Laughing through his nose again, he turned back to the building. “I’ll write you up a form, but if you want ’er fixed here, you’ll have to call and make an appointment. Probably won’t be able to get to ’er ’til next week sometime.”

I trailed him into the small office, but when Max let out a mournful howl of protest I moved back into the doorway so he could see me. I hoped he’d get over his depression soon. Life might get a little confining around a dog with emotional issues. Then again, life with Max would be pretty confining even if he was in perfect emotional health.