Pies and Prejudice (29 page)

But she didn’t feel the slightest inkling of relief. Only numbness.

Chandler lowered the ice pack and looked at her. “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, but what were you two doing here at this time of night?”

Ella Mae removed the Uraeus bill she’d stuffed into her back pocket and handed it to him. “Reba helped herself to your keys during lunch today. We let ourselves in and searched your office.” She tried to meet his gaze, but his left eye was now swollen shut and shame forced her to look at the table instead. “I wanted to find out what happened to your father and to Annie. Whether I liked it or not, I was involved. The cops certainly believed I had something to do with his death and I had to prove them wrong.”

Chandler just stared at her.

“My prints were on the rolling pin the cops found at the nail salon,” she continued. “A detail that still makes no sense. Why would Ashleigh ask you to get it back? And what’s all this stuff about Loralyn? She was in Atlanta when this happened.”

“Why a rolling pin?” Chandler asked in a monotone, gazing off into the middle distance. He didn’t seem to be directing the question at Ella Mae. “It’s not something people carry around in their pockets. If it hadn’t have been in the nail salon in the first place, maybe my father…” The words died in his throat.

Ella Mae thought of the broken rolling pin sitting in her kitchen. Ashleigh said that her father was supposed to have been carrying money. He entered the salon carrying a rolling pin—one that had a hollow interior.

That’s where the money was hidden,
she realized with a jolt.
But clearly it wasn’t inside. Ashleigh wants Chandler to get it back from Loralyn. Loralyn!
Ella Mae’s hands balled into fists.
I knew she wasn’t innocent!

Looking at Chandler, Ella Mae’s resolve to seek justice
exacted doubled. “We’ll make it right,” she said with feeling. “I promise you. They’ll pay for what they’ve done.”

The shrill cry of multiple sirens cut through the night. Ella Mae imagined the tan cruisers from Little Kentucky’s sheriff’s department racing up the long drive followed by at least one Havenwood police car. She realized that this might be her only chance to interrogate Ashleigh about the rolling pin. Once in police custody, Ashleigh would lawyer up. She was exactly the type of person who believed that a crafty defense attorney could see to it that she’d serve no jail time.

Terrified by the thought, Ella Mae advised Chandler to stay where he was until the police entered the building and moved to leave, but he reached up and grabbed her by the arm.

“Thank you for saving me,” he said.

“We only helped. That was a well-aimed kick.” Ella Mae gave him a shy smile. “Does this mean you’re not mad at me for breaking in?”

He shook his head. “You were searching for the truth. I was too. I should have known what was going on right under my nose, but my father kept me so busy with other facets of the practice that I never took care of the star thoroughbreds or saw any of the billing paperwork. The latest Uraeus bill was addressed to me and I left it on Peggy’s desk with a big question mark, but she didn’t know what the products were.” He sighed. “She called Uraeus and they refused to tell her anything, insisting that they’d only discuss the matter with me. But I put it off. Between my father’s death and my trying to keep the lights on around here, I didn’t have time to deal with them.”

The sirens were getting closer. “Chandler, you did the best you could during a really difficult time.” She removed his hand from her arm and squeezed it gently. “You’re not going to go through this alone. I’ll stay with you as long as you need me. Why don’t you wait here? I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

Her words recalled the promise made to her by Hugh on Sunday morning. She felt a rush of warmth as she visualized him wearing a Charmed Pie Shoppe apron and pressing close to her in search of a kiss. The memory of their lips meeting glimmered in her eyes like tinsel, and the corners of her mouth turned up in a smile.

But then, she recalled how their kiss had gone from being warm and passionate to intense and oddly painful. Reba had warned her away from Hugh, saying that he wasn’t free—that he was bound to another just like Ella Mae was still bound to Sloan.

Once I put this mess to rights,
Ella Mae thought.
I’m going to figure out the mystery that is Hugh Dylan.

In the lobby, Reba sat in one of the waiting room chairs, a magazine open on her lap, her gun pointed at Dirk’s chest. She chewed a licorice stick and flipped through ads of horse products as if she was waiting for an appointment with her hair stylist.

Stooping by Ashleigh’s face, Ella Mae removed the silk gag. “If you shoot your mouth off, this gag goes right back on,” she warned. “I want some answers.”

“You’ll regret interfering in a family matter, Pie Girl.” Ashleigh’s voice was a dry hiss. Lying on her belly, she twisted from side to side like a serpent and Ella Mae almost moved away, but she held her revulsion in check, listening to the sound of tires displacing the gravel outside.

“Why the nail salon?” she asked, knowing there was a good chance Ashleigh wouldn’t play along.

“That little slut was supposed to deliver the money. I had no idea she’d end up in Atlanta that night. Somehow she got Daddy to come instead. And then my fool of a father shows up and tells me he didn’t bring the money. God, I wish it had been
her
. I wish his tramp had died that night.”

Ella Mae tried to ignore the multicolored lights flashing through the lobby’s glass doors. “The original meeting was supposed to be with Loralyn?”

“Yesssss,” Ashleigh answered in another snakelike rasp. “And I was going to make it clear that she wasn’t welcome in our family.”

Some of Ella Mae’s confusion ebbed away. “It was always your intention to burn down the salon that night. You wanted to scare Loralyn into breaking it off with your father.”

Ashleigh had noticed the strobe from the light bars of the four cop cars. “Daddy promised to pay Uraeus’s cut and what I’d earned in commission with bearer bonds he’d bought years ago. I opened doors for him from Atlanta to Kentucky. I
did
work for that money. But Daddy showed up that night with that stupid rolling pin and big talk about how his slutty fiancée was going to help us expand our business and elevate our family name to a whole new level. He asked us to be patient a little while longer while she set up a plan.” She snorted, her eyes blazing with hatred. “As if her plans were better than mine! He picked her over
me
!”

“Your father brought the rolling pin with him? It was supposed to contain those bearer bonds, but it was empty, wasn’t it?” Ella Mae muttered seconds before a gang of uniformed men entered the clinic.

A sheriff’s deputy reached her in two strides. “Please step away, ma’am,” he commanded and she promptly obeyed.

The looks she received from Officers Wells and Hardy when they saw her standing in between two people with bound wrists and ankles might have once terrified her. Now, however, she was too caught up in Ashleigh’s tale about the night Bradford Knox died to pay the grim-faced policemen much attention.

“Dr. Knox is in the kitchen,” Reba explained in a chipper tone utterly incongruent with the scene. “Dirk over there has a serious right hook. The poor doc is gonna have a hell of a shiner, but maybe he can tell his clients he got kicked by a horse.” She laughed at her own joke while the cops blinked at her in befuddlement.

Chandler suddenly appeared in the hallway and the four
lawmen immediately tensed, their hands flying to their holsters.

“That man and that woman”—Chandler pointed at Dirk and Ashleigh without so much as a glance at his sister—“are responsible for the murders of my father, Bradford Knox, and Annie Beaufort.” He then gestured at Ella Mae and Reba. “These women came to my rescue when it became apparent that I was going to be the third victim.”

Ashleigh and Dirk had remained quiet, but when Wells squatted down next to Ashleigh and asked for her name, she called him a dumb pig and spit in his face. While Wells wiped the spittle from his nose and cheeks, Ashleigh cursed everyone in the room.

“Please get her out of here,” one of the deputies said to Hardy. “You can Mirandize her outside.”

Hardy and Wells lifted Ashleigh to her feet and half dragged her into the night. She struggled and alternated between howling like a rabid wolf and threatening the officers with a bevy of lawsuits.

“Jesus, the mouth on that one,” a muscular deputy with a buzz cut remarked in amazement. “And I thought I heard the worst that could be heard in the corps.”

Dirk departed with much more dignity and was escorted to one of the deputy’s cars. The deputies waited in their vehicles and Wells stayed with Ashleigh while Hardy returned to the clinic. He asked for a brief synopsis of the evening’s events, and Ella Mae was more than happy to remain silent while Chandler did all the talking.

“So Ms. LeFaye and her companion were breaking and entering?” Hardy inquired at one point.

“We entered, but there wasn’t a lick of breakin’ involved,” Reba interjected, her hands on her hips. “And I’ve already given the key back to Dr. Knox. He won’t be pressin’ any charges. After all, we saved his hide.”

Hardy raised a quizzical brow but then pivoted to face
Chandler again. “Sir, it seemed like you knew the female assailant. Can you tell me her name?”

The air deflated from Chandler’s lungs. He looked at Ella Mae, his eyes entreating her to speak on his behalf.

She walked up to Hardy, moving as close to him as she dared. He smelled surprisingly pleasant. She detected pine needles and spearmint, but Hardy stiffened as she invaded his personal space.

“Officer, her name is Ashleigh Knox,” she whispered. Despite her soft tone, she could sense a wave of grief and shame rolling off Chandler. His hurt collided with the lobby’s air molecules like some devastating tsunami and Ella Mae’s eyes grew wet with tears.

Hardy nodded and Ella Mae knew that he was aware of Chandler’s pain. “I see,” he answered with deliberate gentleness.

But Chandler needed to lay claim to Ashleigh, regardless of the cost. Undoubtedly, he felt he deserved this agony for failing to save his father from his tragic fate. Following a ragged inhalation, Chandler straightened his shoulders and said, “Ashleigh’s my sister. God help me, but she’s my sister.”

Ella Mae would have done anything to avoid another two- or three-hour stint in The Havenwood Police Department, but it couldn’t be helped. She recited her role in the night’s events but omitted her theory about the bearer bonds and the rolling pin. Unbeknownst to Bradford Knox, Loralyn must have switched pins, simultaneously implicating Ella Mae in the crime and allowing her to walk away with her fiancé’s nest egg. That meant Loralyn was just as responsible for Bradford’s death as Dirk and Ashleigh were, and Ella Mae was determined to make her pay. The police wouldn’t be able to prove Loralyn’s culpability. They had no evidence against her and Loralyn would simply lie and play the part of the grieving widow. Not only that, but Ella Mae had yet to find the holes in Loralyn’s alibi.

“Let’s review your statement,” the young female officer interviewing her said.

Ella Mae recounted the details again and again until she finally put her head on her forearms and closed her eyes, too exhausted to repeat her testimony another time.

“Just type up whatever you want and I’ll sign it,” she told a young female officer. Apparently, Wells and Hardy had bigger fish to fry. “Seriously,” Ella Mae moaned. “You can blame the whole thing on me if it means I can go to bed.”

The officer pushed back her chair and came around the table. Ella Mae heard a click as she turned off the recorder. Then the woman touched her lightly on the shoulder. “I think we have enough. You can leave now.”

Ella Mae nodded gratefully. “If you need to find me, I’ll be at my pie shop bright and early. I’ll even make something special for you.”

“In that case, I might just drop by to go over a few things.” She winked and then busied herself at the computer. A few minutes later, she handed Ella Mae a printout of her statement. “Sign here and here.” She collected the papers and said, “I’m especially keen on desserts with nuts.”

“There’ll be an almond and apricot tart on tomorrow’s menu, assuming I can stay awake long enough to do any baking.”

The woman opened the door and gestured for Ella Mae to step out into the hall. “I know all about sleep deprivation. I’ve had the night shift for the past two years.”

Ella Mae was just about to ask after Reba when she appeared in the corridor, looking utterly unfazed by the whole experience. “Come on, sugar. Time to go home.”

The Buick’s cracked bench seat couldn’t have felt more welcoming had it been made of kid leather. “You rest now,” Reba ordered. “We can rehash this crazy night in the mornin’.”

For once, she obeyed the speed limit. The car rocked and swayed as it hugged the curves and climbed over gentle hills, lulling Ella Mae to the edge of sleep. She had no memory of arriving at Partridge Hill, putting on her nightgown, or curling up in bed with Chewy. Only the shrill call of her clock alarm sounding in her ear could lift her through a fog of exhaustion.