Fool's Gold (A sexy funny mystery/romance, Cottonmouth Book 2) (33 page)

What her mother probably smelled was the
swamp cooler and nothing like dirty socks. But Simone dutifully
rose to open the front door for fresh air. She could certainly use
a little herself. Maybe it would help her double chin.

She patted the underside of her chin as she
opened her front door. Della almost knocked right on her face.

Simone squeaked, her heart breaking into the
two-step. “You scared the heebies out of my jeebies.”

Worse, she wondered what on earth could have
made Della rise before her customary ten o’clock? Judge Della
Montrose never let the clerks schedule court before noon.

“Is it Maggie?” she whispered, her voice
trembling.

“When I left last night, she was fine. Well,
as fine as fine can be under the circumstances.” Della’s voice was
equally low, befitting those circumstances.

Everybody was fine. She was fine, Brax was
fine, Jackie was fine. Now Maggie was fine, too.
Fine
was an
overused, meaningless word that didn’t mean diddly.

“I have to talk to you about something else.”
Della glanced over her shoulder at the long, black car nestled
against the short picket fence. Goldstone dust covered the body
panels, hood, and roof, clinging like barnacles Kingston would have
to scrub off. “Whose car is that?”

“My mother’s. She came for a visit.”

“Simone, don’t keep your guest standing on
the doorstep. It’s extremely impolite,” Ariana called.

Holding the door wide, Simone added, “I made
fresh coffee.” Her mother had gulped the last of the previous pot
as if it were water despite the fact she claimed caffeine was bad
for her nerves and bad for the skin.

Della was perfectly decked out, in flattering
navy slacks and blazer, her blond hair fastened sedately atop her
head. Perfect, with the small exception of a skewed eyebrow that
reached much higher than the other, giving her a lopsided
appearance. Simone felt like tipping her head to bring Della’s face
back in line.

She’d almost shut the door when she
remembered her mother had dictated that it be open. Turning, she
ran smack into Della’s solid back.

Simone sidled around her, noting the glassy
eyes and dropped jaw of stargazing.

Della, not usually a stutterer, stuttered.
“Y-you’re” came out before she completely lost her power of
speech.

“Simone usually has better manners. I’m
Ariana Chandler.” As usual, her mother held out her hand like a
queen expecting a curtsy or a kiss. Brax had sorely disappointed
her last night when he hadn’t acted appropriately to the
gesture.

Della, agog, took Ariana’s finger in two of
hers. A mortal touching a goddess.

“That’s my sister, Jackie.”

“Si-
mone
. Your sister’s name is
Jacqueline.”

Maybe her name was Jacqueline, but
she
was Jackie and always would be, no matter how many awards she
won.

Kingston half rose. “Kingston Hightower,
hanging on to the coattails of these lovely ladies and basking in
their reflected glory.”

“You’ve never hung on anybody’s coattails,”
Jackie said. More than one word and without being spoken to first.
Amazing.

Simone did the expected honors. “Della’s our
mayor and judge”

“Oh goodness, the mayor
and
the judge.
How utterly impressive. We can see Goldstone is good for the
women’s movement.”

Della beamed at the compliment, but Simone
knew that facetious tone. She put a stop to anything else that
might come. “I promised Della coffee. Cream and sugar?” In her
haste, she suddenly forgot how Della took hers.

Kingston pushed back his chair and, with an
elegant hand flourish, offered it to Della. “You ladies sit. I’ll
bring the coffee. It is my greatest pleasure to serve.”

He glanced at Jackie. Jackie glanced at
him.

Very weird. Subliminal messages. Did Jackie
suspect that Kingston had finally tired of being Ariana’s glorified
gofer? Always affable, a big man with a big laugh and even bigger
shoulders, Kingston had taken a stand against Ariana twice. Once
after Wesley, when he’d forbidden Ariana to ever interfere in her
daughter’s love life again. After that, she’d interfered
surreptitiously, with cutting comments but no overt action—at least
that anyone knew of. The second time had been over Simone herself,
when her mother had a tantrum over news of Simone’s catastrophic
failure in both the business and matrimonial departments. Kingston
told her to shut up—yes, those very words,
shut up
—then he’d
offered both his shoulders for Simone to hang onto.

Kingston brought the coffee, cream, and
sugar. Della spooned and stirred, creamy liquid sloshing onto the
saucer of her dainty cup as she stared at the visions seated across
the table. Ariana and Jacqueline Chandler. In the flesh.

Simone saw it written all over her face.
Della was starstruck.

“You said you needed to tell me something?”
Simone prompted, finally capturing Della’s attention by kicking her
foot.

Della stared blankly for fifteen seconds, as
if she couldn’t remember what she’d come for, let alone her own
name. “Oh, yes.” She toyed with her cup. “Look what I’ve done,
clumsy me.” She noticed the overflow in her saucer for the first
time.

Simone tapped her hand. “Don’t worry about
it. You said Maggie was fine?” She let the question hang in the
air.

“Yes. She is. I think. But I’ve been doing a
lot of thinking, Simone. I really couldn’t sleep last night.”

“Who is Maggie, dear?” Ariana could not allow
herself to be left of center stage for long.

“Maggie’s our friend.”

“Her husband was murdered yesterday.” Della
raised her eyebrows, the cockeyed one almost disappearing beneath
her bangs.

“The day before actually, but they didn’t
find him until yesterday.” Simone felt a little tremor thinking
about Carl alone in the gorge all night long. Had he suffered?

“Oh my.”

“Who killed him?” Trust a man, Kingston, to
go right to the heart of the matter.

“Brax doesn’t know.”

“That rude man who was here last night?” Her
mother couldn’t resist a little dig.

“Brax is a sheriff.”

“I thought he was sheriff of some tiny burg
in California.”

“He’s a county sheriff, but since he’s
Maggie’s brother, he’s helping Sheriff Teesdale.”

“Elwood Teesdale is
our
sheriff,”
Della explained. She turned to Simone. “What else did Brax say?
About why Elwood thinks Carl was murdered. I still don’t
understand. I tried to find Elwood this morning, but they said he
was...tracking.”

“They went up the trail where Carl fell.”

“But why do they think he was murdered? No
one would tell me anything last night.” Della turned her cup in her
saucer.

There hadn’t been a murder in Goldstone since
Della took the city reins. There hadn’t been a murder since...well,
maybe not since Wyatt Earp shot some gunslinger right in Flood’s
End before it was called Flood’s End. Mr. Doodle renewed the
bloodstains once a year with red lacquer. When Brax and Sheriff
Teesdale brought in the villain, Della would preside over the
trial. Her first murder trail, at least in Goldstone.

“Maybe it’s better you don’t know anything,”
Simone said. “Isn’t there something about bias?”

“That’s for the jury,” Della scoffed. “Not
the judge.”

“This is all so confusing. I feel a migraine
coming on.” Ariana put a hand to her forehead. “The thought of you
living in a town where a murder has occurred. It doesn’t
bear
thinking about. We have to get you home.” Grabbing
Kingston’s hand, Ariana hung on, giving an effective performance.
“You must convince her, Kingston. She can’t stay in this awful,
crime-ridden place.”

“Brax will take care of everything.” Brax the
hero, Brax the savior. Every pair of eyes settled on her as if
she’d said the two glowing phrases aloud. She hadn’t. Had she?

“I’m going back to bed. Wake me up when this
nightmare is over. Or you find a Ritz nearby.” Ariana exited with a
hand to her brow, Kingston guiding her by the elbow.

“Your poor mother.”

Yes, her poor mother. She’d take to her bed
before she’d willingly gave up center stage to a murder
investigation. Her mother always got the last word, even when she
wasn’t in the room.

Jackie picked up the empty plate. “I’ll toast
more muffins.”

“Jacqueline Chandler toasts her own muffins?”
Della’s husky, awed whisper fell into a hush with Jackie at the far
end of the kitchen ripping apart muffins.

“Yeah.” Her sister might actually be capable
of wiping her own butt, too. Why did people insist on thinking
Jackie was incompetent? Or maybe Della meant that movie stars were
supposed to have scads of servants to see to their every
desire.

Simone suddenly wanted to drop the subject of
movie stars and Academy Awards. “So, you wanted to know what Brax
told me? Well, he didn’t tell me anything except that he and the
sheriff were going up there.” She pointed to the western hills. “I
don’t know why they think it was murder, they just do. I believe
him.”

Della sat there for a long moment, the
fingers of her left hand covering her mouth, her gaze fixed on the
blue-flecked tiles around the base of the pellet stove. Then her
eyes misted over. “I’ve made a decision. I’ve thought about this
all night.”

“What?”

“Jason Lafoote wants to name a wing of the
hotel after Carl. I’m going to grant his permits with the proviso
that he does it.”

Simone gasped. “You can’t do that,
Della.”

“It’s the only thing this town has to give
Carl. I won’t stand in the way of his memory being kept alive.”

“That’s ridiculous. Carl hated the hotel.
It’s a resort. For gambling. No one’s even going to know the name
of some wing.”

“Jason’s going to commission a statue and put
it right in the front lobby.”

Simone spread her hands, pleading. “This is a
ruse he’s cooked up. He said something about it yesterday. He’s
playing on your sympathies.”

“I’m doing it for Maggie.”

“Maggie’s not going to care about a
statue.”

Della grabbed her hand, squeezed. “Simone,
you didn’t see her late last night. You wouldn’t recognize her. She
needs something badly. I have to do this for her.”

“Brax and the sheriff finding Carl’s killer
is what she needs.”

“What if they never do? What if it was some
transient who followed Carl up there thinking he had a few bucks in
his pocket?”

That’s what they were all hoping for, wasn’t
it? That it was someone none of them knew.

Simone wrote a fantasy, sent a nasty email,
and now guilt gnawed at her belly. Della told Maggie she was better
off without Carl. She’d even called him worthless and useless and
other names Simone couldn’t quite remember. Maybe the statue was
more about Della asking for Carl’s forgiveness than anything to do
with Maggie.

Her fingers started to hurt in Della’s hard
grip.

“Say you’ll back me on this, Simone. Chloe
will, I know, then everyone else will fall in line.”

She chewed on the inside of her lip. “I’m
still not sure it’ll be good for Maggie.”

“It will. She’ll see how we all honored Carl.
It won’t bring him back, but it will show her that we all loved
him.”

It would also go a long way to helping Della
forget the things she’d said at the afternoon tea party. Guilt was
a terrible thing. It burrowed deep and changed the course of lives.
It gave Jason a foothold in their town.

A lump in her throat, Simone nodded. “All
right. For Maggie.”

Della closed her eyes and fervently
whispered, “Thank you.”

* * * * *

“So you want me to squeeze Lafoote.” Teesdale
was ahead on the trail.

“Yeah. I got him primed with all that crap,”
Brax said.

“All right. I’ll give it a shot.”

With Maggie finally in his Mom’s tender care,
Brax was free to follow Carl’s trail. He’d arrived at Teesdale’s
door a little after six, and, as he’d presumed, the sheriff was
already on the phone and making plans. He’d been more than happy to
make an earlier trek into the hills.

At the edge of the path, Teesdale suddenly
leaned over, bracing his hands on both knees. “Will ya lookee
here.”

Metal glinted in the sun. Keys.

“Hmm,” Teesdale mused. “Same make as Carl’s.”
A rubber protector with the truck’s emblem covered one key. “How do
you suppose they got here?”

Identically braced on his knees, Brax
suggested, “Fell out of his pocket?”

Teesdale turned his head. “You tried, didn’t
ya? Last night. Saw you down there in the parking lot. Don’t come
out so easy, do they?”

“Maybe he looped them through his belt and
they came loose.” Brax played devil’s advocate.

“We found the truck there.” The sheriff
pointed to the dirt lot a hundred yards back down the path. “And we
find the keys here. Awful quick for them to work themselves
loose.”

“Nothing says it couldn’t have happened that
way.”

“Nope. Nothing says that some lazy ass wipe
who didn’t want to walk too far didn’t throw ’em down here after
wiping his prints off Carl’s truck.”

Brax nodded. “Nothing says it didn’t happen
like that.”

Teesdale whipped a paper bag from his back
pocket, snapped it open, put his hand inside, and plucked up the
keys with the bottom of the sack, then turned it inside out. “We’ll
take them with us.” He dropped a swatch of the paper bag and
grounded it to the spot with a rock.

It took them less than half an hour of power
hiking to reach the small plateau above Carl’s resting place, a
mere dust speck in the gorge below, where the chickens had come
close to running him over. Yellow tape, fluttering in the morning
air, marked the precise location.

Teesdale stood at the edge of the drop and
pushed back the brim of his hat. Sweat trickled from beneath the
band.