Little Shop of Homicide (31 page)

“So once you found out, you contacted her husband?”

“Yep. I e-mailed him from Joelle’s own computer, then erased any evidence of the message so no one could tell it had been sent.” Anya’s tone was smug. “I thought he’d contact her and all hell would break loose.”

“But it didn’t?”

“No.” Anya frowned. “So when nothing happened, I suggested a romantic Valentine’s Day weekend for her and Noah at the Parkside and helped her set everything up. Then I contacted Etienne and arranged for him to come to Kansas City the same day.”

“Why?” It was clear that Anya wanted to tell someone about her master plan and I was willing to listen. Maybe she’d talk herself into an arrest.

“I had dated the head of security at the Parkside, so I knew how to disable their cameras.” Anya shrugged. “I figured either Noah would find out Joelle was already
married or, since I heard Louisiana men had hot tempers, Etienne would kill her. Either way, she’d be out of the running for the title of Mrs. Underwood.”

“Why didn’t you just let Nadine in on Joelle’s past?”

“I thought about it.” Anya pursed her mouth, then shook her head. “But I was afraid that psycho old pageant queen would twist things. That she’d somehow use the fact that I was the one to tell her about Joelle to poison Noah’s mind against me.”

“I see.” I could certainly understand Anya’s point about Nadine. “So, what happened?”

“I met Etienne at five fifty-five, let him into Joelle’s suite using Noah’s key card. I had swapped mine for his when I followed Joelle to his clinic earlier that day. She left the card for him on the check-in desk, and as soon as the receptionist stepped away from the counter, I made the switch. Then I hightailed it down to the lobby to meet Geoffrey.”

Ah.
So Anya was the mayor’s secret girlfriend. What he’d said about her not forgiving him if he told me her name made sense now. Cyndi had said Anya didn’t forgive or forget.

Anya continued. “Geoffrey registered. Then on our way to our room I told him I forgot to bring the condoms. I left him and went to check to see if Noah had discovered Etienne.”

“I bet you also arranged for the call from the patient who never showed up, which delayed Noah at his clinic. You intended for him to find Etienne and Joelle together, but you didn’t count on traffic, or that Noah would wait as long as he did for the emergency patient.”

“That was a miscalculation on my part,” Anya admitted in an annoyed tone. “Etienne was gone by the time I got back to Joelle’s suite, and all he’d done was handcuff Joelle to the bed and stuff a champagne bottle in her mouth.”

“So when Noah finally arrived, she could have claimed she’d been assaulted.”

“Exactly.” Anya nodded approvingly. “So I had to improvise.”

“You drove Joelle’s high-heel shoe into her heart?” Looking at the petite woman in front of me, I found it hard to believe she was strong enough to do that.

“I play tennis.” Anya flexed her right arm. “I have a wicked backhand. The tricky part was wiping off my fingerprints without getting any blood on the washcloth.”

“Amazing.” I was running out of questions. “Well, I certainly understand your motives. In fact, I sympathize with them. Back years and years ago, when I thought I was in love with Noah, I probably would have done the same thing. But now that I’ve met Jake, I’ve realized that any feelings I once might have had for Noah are long gone. Joelle was a tramp who had to be eliminated. I totally understand and promise to never tell anyone what you did.” I tried to get up, but Anya pushed me back down.

“Sorry.” Anya’s beautiful face showed not one iota of regret. “You need to kill yourself because you couldn’t live with the guilt after you murdered Joelle.”

“No. Really. That’s not necessary.” As I looked frantically around for something to defend myself with, I saw a movement behind Anya, but couldn’t make out what it was in the dark bar.

Anya dug into the pocket of her designer jeans and threw a small leather memo pad with an attached pen at me. “If you write a suicide note for me before I shoot you, I promise not to kill your grandmother.”

Kill Gran!
Okay. Now I was mad. I was taking this bitch down.

As I pretended to write, I watched Anya for my opportunity. When a board squeaked behind her and she turned her head to look over her shoulder, I launched all my not-inconsiderable weight at the tiny woman.

We both toppled to the floor, and as I lay on top of Anya, fighting to keep her pinned to the ground, I tore at her gun hand, panicking when I couldn’t free her clenched fingers from the pistol.

A nanosecond later Jake ran in, pressed his revolver to Anya’s head, and said, “Drop it.”

Anya stared at Jake for what seemed like an hour before she released her weapon.

I crawled off of the downed woman, and Jake flipped her over onto her stomach and cuffed her hands behind her back.

After he Mirandized her, I asked, “How did you know I was here?”

“Poppy figured it out and called me.”

“Did you hear Anya’s confession?”

“No.” Jake shook his head. “I came in when she was planning your suicide.”

I explained about Poppy’s hidden recording devices and he grinned.

While Jake made arrangements to bring Anya to the Kansas City PD, I telephoned Poppy to assure her that I was fine. It took me nearly as long to tell her what had happened as it did for Jake to explain everything to the KC cops.

Once we were both finished with our calls, Jake heaved Anya up from the floor, marched her outside, and deposited her in the passenger seat of his truck. He handcuffed her to the grab handle near the door. Then he helped me into the backseat and climbed behind the wheel.

Despite Anya’s constant chatter—she kept trying to explain her motives for killing Joelle—I spent most of the trip in a near comatose state. Fighting for my life had exhausted me. When we crossed into the city limits, Jake caught my eye in the rearview mirror and said, “After we turn Anya over to the Kansas City cops and you give them your statement, we need to talk.”

T
he past couple of days had been surreal. Everyone from the Kansas City police to Etienne Aponte had wanted to talk to me. Some, like the cops, I couldn’t avoid. Although to be fair, finding out that Detective Woods and his immediate supervisor were under investigation for their actions on the case was worth the trip into the city and the six hours I spent telling my story again and again.

I managed to steer clear of everyone else by putting Xylia and Hannah in charge of the dime store, holing up at home, and refusing to answer either the door or the phone. I really had no choice. Between my own precarious emotional state and Gran needing my full attention, I didn’t have anything left for the rest of the world.

Gran had not reacted well to my near-death experience—okay, neither had I—and she needed repeated assurances that I was fine. But by Sunday morning she seemed back to her old self, insisting I go to work the next day and start seeing people again. She was also adamant that we visit my father as originally planned.

Although she tried to convince me to go inside with her, I resisted her pleas. My original jail phobia had increased a hundred percent, and I still blamed my father
for ruining our family name. It would be a cold day in hell before I voluntarily set foot on the prison grounds.

But Gran never gave up, and the drive home was filled with her blow-by-blow account of her conversation with my father, including his claim that he had a lead on how to prove his innocence. Finally, about a mile from home, she fell silent. When we drove up to the house, I knew why. Parked side by side were Poppy’s Hummer and Booth’s Mercedes.

Avoiding my gaze, Gran said, “Did I mention that I invited your friends over for supper?”

“No. No, you didn’t.” I narrowed my eyes. “What’s the occasion?”

“Your rejoining the land of the living.” Gran patted my hand. “I know you needed time to regroup; so did I, but you three have been friends for nearly twenty-four years. You can’t shut them out just because there are things you don’t want to face.”

She was right. It hadn’t been very nice of me to ignore their calls and refuse to see them, but I hadn’t been up to rehashing Thursday’s events. After a brief hesitation during which I tested my emotional state, I realized I was feeling better, and now was as good a time as any to discuss what had happened.

As Gran and I got out of the car, I couldn’t decide if I was relieved or upset that she hadn’t included Jake in her little party. Maybe he was still out of town. Friday morning, he had left me a voice mail saying he was on his way to St. Louis. The prosecutor was putting him back on the stand to testify about some additional evidence that had come up.

I hadn’t heard from him since then, although to be fair, I’d silenced the ringer on the house phone, turned off my cell, and hadn’t checked either for messages.

When we walked in the door, Poppy and Boone rushed me. In between their hugs, and my thanking Poppy for sending Jake to rescue me, I noticed Gran escaping
into the kitchen. I hoped it was to cook dinner and not stir up more mischief.

Eventually Poppy, Boone, and I made our way into the living room, and I began to answer their questions.

Poppy started out with, “If Joelle or Jolene, or whatever her name was, wanted to keep her background a secret, why in the name of God did she go after a guy like Noah? She had to realize that marrying one of the town’s most eligible bachelors would cause a lot of jealousy and someone was bound to look into her past.”

“It was a calculated risk.” I settled into a corner of the sofa to relate everything I’d learned from Jake and Anya since we’d last spoken. “She had spent most of the lottery money she won reinventing herself, so she needed to marry someone rich before she ran out of cash. There were only three guys in town who met her criteria. She dated His Honor and Vaughn Yager, but they made it clear they weren’t interested in marriage. Which left Noah.”

“Who was ripe for the picking.” Boone sneered. “What kind of ‘rescue me’ fairy tale did she tell him?”

“I have no idea.” Noah was another person who had been trying to talk to me before I went incommunicado, but I knew I was far from ready for that conversation. What if he wanted to try to resurrect our high school romance? At this point I had no idea what I wanted, and I didn’t think it was a good idea to discuss the matter until I knew my own heart. Maybe in a year or so Noah and I could talk, but not now.

“How about Anya?” Boone leaned back in Gran’s La-Z-Boy and levered the footrest up. “Why was she willing to kill to get Dr. Dreary? Or was she just psycho?”

“She was definitely Looney Tunes, but her reason for wanting Noah was the same as Joelle’s.” I had decided it was easier on all of us to call Jolene by the name we had known her. “Anya’s almost out of the money she got from her last divorce settlement, and she needed a rich
guy fast,” I explained. Anya had talked freely to Jake on our drive into Kansas City, so I had heard all her excuses.

“I suspected as much.” Poppy smiled meanly. “I noticed she’d stopped getting Botox and all her expensive jewelry had disappeared.”

I continued to answer their questions until Gran called us to supper. She had made fried chicken, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, biscuits, and gravy.

In between bites, Poppy said, “Who would have ever guessed that women like Joelle and Anya could be so desperate?”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “This whole situation sure taught me a lesson. I’m going to quit comparing myself to other people. Even though you might never see it, they are probably more messed up than you are.”

“Amen,” Boone and Poppy said simultaneously.

After dessert, I walked Boone and Poppy to the door. He had some work he needed to finish before the next morning and Poppy had to get back to her bar. Hugging them, I said, “Thank you both for understanding that I needed a couple of days before I could talk about all this. I sure wouldn’t want to damage our friendship.”

Boone shook his head. “Darlin’, we’ll be friends until we’re old and senile.”

“Yeah.” Poppy grinned. “Then we’ll be new friends.”

Gran must have turned the telephone’s ringer back on when we got home, because as she and I were finishing up the dishes the phone rang. She raced past me, elbow-checking my midsection in order to answer before me. “Yes. Uh-huh. Good.”

As she hung up, I asked, “Who was that?”

“Jake. He’s coming over for pie and coffee.” Gran yawned loudly. “Sweet Jesus! I’m bushed. I think I’ll take a nap.” She disappeared into her bedroom and closed the door with an emphatic click.

Fifteen agonizing minutes later, Jake showed up. I
hadn’t noticed that it had started snowing again, but he stomped his boots on the welcome mat and clapped his Stetson against his thigh. We both seemed a little tongue-tied and unsure what to say to each other after having spent a couple of days apart.

“Hi,” I finally said, breaking the awkward silence. “Let me take your coat and hat.” Once I had hung his jacket in the hall closet and placed his Stetson on the shelf, I asked, “When did it start snowing?”