A Lie for a Lie (18 page)

Melanie followed the chief onstage and told people to keep their ticket stubs. Anybody who wanted a refund would get one, but it might take a day or two to work out logistics. She didn’t go so far as to say the Emerald Springs Idyll was now history, but the message was clear.

After everything, all the work, all the imagination, all the hope, all the kowtowing to Grady’s demands, the pediatric unit was now nearly as far out of reach as it had been when we began.

When I woke up on Saturday morning, sun was blasting straight through the shades and curtains on our bedroom windows. There was no pillow thick enough to block it, and definitely none thick enough to block my memories.

I rose and went downstairs to find Ed cooking breakfast in our substantial country kitchen. He told me Deena had taken a stale muffin and gone back to her room. Teddy was sitting at the table buttering toast. A reporter had called from a Columbus paper, but Ed had told him I wouldn’t be making any statements. I figured they wouldn’t be the last.

“Lucy called, too.” He held out a plate half covered by one of his signature add-whatever’s-in-the-fridge omelets. I didn’t have the heart to tell him I might have permanently lost my appetite. I took it with thanks and set it down long enough to pour myself a mug of coffee.

“What did Luce want?” I added a piece of Teddy’s toast to my plate and wondered where I could dispose of the contents without being caught.

“I know you’re not hungry,” Ed said, with his gaze still glued to the omelet pan, “but give that a try anyway. You’ll feel better.”

He was right. After forcing down two bites of toast and one of omelet, my stomach settled a little. The coffee helped, as well.

“Lucy wanted your version of what happened last night. Of course,” Ed added, as if the question wasn’t worthy of my high IQ.

I cut to the chase. I knew what had come next in their conversation. “So when is she coming over?”

“In about thirty minutes.”

My stomach was half full; I’d had another shower, and I was dressed presentably by the time Lucy arrived. Ed planned to be home all day with Deena and Teddy. I was free to suggest a field trip in exchange for my information.

We were backing out of the driveway before I told her where we were going. “Nora’s,” I said. “Drive slowly, and I’ll tell you everything.”

We were more than halfway there before I finished the basics. “I’m not sure about all the worst details. Roussos said he was stabbed
and
his throat was cut. I saw the throat, and that’s all I needed to see.”

Lucy was shaking her head in sympathy. “The
Flow
said he’d been murdered, but they didn’t give much in the way of details.”

I figured the details wouldn’t stay secret for long. Too many people knew the truth.

“Even somebody like Grady Barber deserves a better death,” she added.

I thought so, too. Call me foolish, but I’m always hopeful that, like Scrooge in
A Christmas Carol
, nasty folks like Grady will have a sudden change of heart and live out the rest of their lives doing good works. Now Grady would never have a chance to put his talents to a better use. Someone had robbed him of that possibility.

“After all that, what’s the connection to Nora?” Lucy asked. “Unless this trip has nothing to do with Grady?”

“Do you remember the other night when we were inside Nora’s house?”

“Sure.”

“Do you remember what was on the wall in their living quarters?”

“Circus posters.”

“Knives. She said her boyfriend, Yank, was a knife thrower, remember?”

“She said they kept guns, too.” Lucy didn’t ask where this was going. She understood. “What makes you think one of Yank’s knives did the deed? Did you get a good look at it?”

Honestly, I had tried not to look. The knife had been less important to me than the victim, and unnecessarily gruesome to contemplate. But during my middle-of-the-night review of the crime scene, I had begun to wonder if the knife that killed Grady Barber had been one of the set on Nora’s wall.

“I don’t think the murder weapon was anything ordinary,” I explained. “Not a kitchen knife, that’s for sure. Not a hunting knife.”

“What would you know about hunting knives?”

“I’ve seen a lot in my dad’s compound. Almost everybody there has one on his belt.”

“Don’t tell me why.”

“Chores, for one thing. Cutting rope, hacking down vines, as well as skinning animals.”

“I told you not to tell me.”

“Their knives are hefty, with handles that make them easy to grip. The knife that killed Grady? I don’t think it had a handle, not a separate handle, anyway. It looked like it was all one piece, and the point looked as sharp as an arrow.”

The better to stick into a target after a multitude of flips through the air.

“Is that the only reason we’re going?” she asked.

I hadn’t told her about the letters scrawled in blood on the wall, because I didn’t know what details the police planned to keep to themselves, which could be why, besides deadlines, our local paper had given only a few. Now I decided to tell her anyway, because I knew Lucy could keep a secret if I asked her to.

“The knives are the biggest reason,” I said. “I want to get a look inside the house if we can and see if the knives on that wall look familiar.” Then I told her about the letters.

“Aggie, why would somebody from the circus kill Grady Barber?”

I noted she had already discounted Nora as a possibility. “I have no idea whatsoever. He has a lot of enemies, but to my knowledge not a one of them wears a curly wig or sticks his head in a lion’s mouth.”

“One thing’s for sure, Nora wouldn’t have had anything to do with it. I’ve never met anybody so dedicated to peace and good works.”

I had to agree. Surely there were many explanations for
n
. . .
o
. . .
r
.

“I can’t imagine a connection between them, can you?” I asked at last, having tried to think of one. “I can tell you global warming never came up in any of my conversations with Grady.”

We discussed possibilities until we arrived. Lucy drove right into the gate and dispensed with trying to park on the road. There were a few protesters, but the unrelenting heat had sapped their energy and numbers. Maybe after a good rain they would reunite, to be joined by the press, who were still probably trying to find Emerald Springs on their maps.

“If the knives look too familiar, or we note some connection with Grady, I’ll have to tell Roussos,” I said.

Lucy pointed in the direction of the house. I leaned over to see beyond the tree to my right.

“I’m betting you won’t have to tell him anything,” Lucy said.

There were police cars parked in front of the house, and a small crowd had gathered just beyond them.

“We can turn around and go home,” Lucy said, as she unbuckled her seat belt.

I followed suit. “What are the chances?”

“You’ve given up investigating murders, remember?”

I recognized the taunt for what it was and gave her my coolest stare. “I’m not investigating anything. We’re supporting a friend.”

“Tell yourself anything you need to.”

We couldn’t get as close as we wanted. The police had prepared for trouble, and there were enough of them to make sure they didn’t get any. We were rows back, surrounded by tall men and muscular women, who were behaving admirably. Luckily Lucy recognized Henry Cinch, Nora’s millionaire—or was it billionaire—benefactor, and we edged our way over to him.

Henry did, as Lucy had told me, have a little topknot of hair on an otherwise bald head. He was small, probably over seventy, and both gnarled and tough. Judging from the worn Stetson clutched in his hands and the string tie with a bucking bronco clasp, I was betting he’d wrestled his money from Texas oil fields.

“Henry,” Lucy said. “What’s going on?”

He tore his stare away from the unfolding drama inside the house, which was, of course, invisible to us. When he saw who was speaking, he nodded in welcome. “They’re railroading Nora, that’s what. Charging her for something she didn’t do.”

“What?” Lucy asked, although we both knew the answer.

“That murder last night. They think she did it.”

“Do you know why they think so?”

“One of Yank’s knives was found at the scene.”

I pointed out the obvious. “Then why aren’t they arresting Yank?” Although, let’s face it, Grady had not traced
yan
on the wall before he died.

“Yank was here all night. A dozen people vouched for him.”

The crowd was buzzing, but Henry fell silent. A resounding silence, under the circumstances.

“And Nora wasn’t?” I asked when he didn’t volunteer more.

He didn’t answer.

Just then Nora came out on the porch, hands cuffed, a uniformed officer at each arm. They put her in the backseat of the closest police car while the crowd began to grow noisier. For the first time I was sorry I had decided to embed myself in their midst. If there was a riot, this could be difficult to explain to Ed.

A tall, good-looking man came out of the house and held up both hands.

“Yank,” Lucy told me.

“Nora wants everybody to go about their business,” he said. “No trouble. Have faith things are happening this way for a reason.”

Minister’s wife I may be, but my faith isn’t that strong. I couldn’t imagine that arresting Nora, unless she was truly guilty, was good for anybody or anything.

The cops doing crowd control motioned for people to divide so the car carrying Nora into town could pass. There was still some rumbling, a little shoving, but eventually people moved. In just a few minutes she was gone. People began to disperse toward trailers and tents, including Henry Cinch, who blessed us with a snippet of wisdom before he departed.

“Nobody wants to hear her message about saving the world. They’re trying to shut her up.” He stomped off.

“Your buddy,” Lucy said, nodding toward the house.

Detective Roussos had come out to the porch, and he was talking to two other men who were unfamiliar. Just as I was debating how best to approach him, he caught sight of me. I’m almost sure his eyes narrowed.

“My
buddy’s
going to come down here in a moment, ask me what in the heck I’m doing here, and harangue me about getting involved. Won’t that be fun?”

“You do know how to throw a party.”

We waited while Roussos finished a brief conversation, then started toward us.

“You’re here,” he said. “Like you have an antenna for bad news.”

“Then the news is bad? You’ve arrested the wrong person and you’ve already figured it out?”

“You know the right one? Come on, tell me. I’ll arrest him without anything except your opinion.”

“You remember Lucy, right?”

Roussos looked at her and nodded. “Hard to forget either of the Dynamic Duo.”

“Can you tell me why you’ve arrested Nora?” I asked.

He considered, which is more than he usually does.

I ventured a guess. “Somebody told you the murder weapon was one of a set used in Nora’s show.”

“You didn’t tell me that last night.”

“Last night I was pretty upset. Am I right this morning?”

He gave a slight nod.

“Detective Roussos, the knives were kept in a rack on the wall. Anybody could have taken one.”

“Uh-huh.”

“There’s more, right?”

He considered again, then he sighed. “It’ll be common knowledge before long. She was seen backstage last night.”

“No! I was there. I didn’t see her.”

“You were backstage the entire night? Guarding Barber’s door?”

I remembered my trips out front. “Well, no . . .”

“Uh huh.”

“Why would she be backstage?” When he lifted a brow I hurried on. “And don’t tell me she was there to murder Grady. But let’s say she was there. Would you know the reason?”

“That’s going to be common knowledge, too. Maybe you should wait and hear it with everybody else.”

“Please tell me. I found the body. I happen to like Nora. That gives me something of a connection, right?”

“History repeats itself. You always have connections.”

“Please?”

“They were seen arguing, okay? A stagehand saw them together, and he said that Barber was furious with her.”

“Grady was furious a lot. Nobody else thought of stabbing him.” I watched his expression. “There’s another connection, isn’t there? Something you haven’t said.”

“There is a connection. Yes. Other than the knife coming from her house. Other than
nor
on the wall, scrawled in his blood as he was dying. Other than her being there last night and fighting with him in the half hour before he was found.”

The evidence already sounded incredibly damning. But I wanted all of it. “And the rest? The part you aren’t telling me?”

“You find it in the tabloids every day. Nora Nelson and Grady Barber had a special bond. A long time ago she was Mrs. Grady Barber. Nora Nelson of Sister Nora’s Inspirational Tent Show was Grady Barber’s very first wife.”

When I left the parsonage on Monday morning, Henry Cinch was leaning against the side of a dark SUV parked in front of the house, with his arms folded around his Stetson. He wore black-rimmed sunglasses with temples wide enough to suit a chain gang boss, and sported a toothpick protruding from the side of his mouth to complete the image. At the rate he was chewing on it, I didn’t think it would remain there long.

I was glad Henry was waiting and not one of the reporters who had nosed around since they’d finally located our little burg.

“Mr. Cinch?” I shooed Teddy into the minivan with her backpack of notebooks and pens. We were on our way to the Frankels, where she and Hillary were planning to shoot a screenplay they’d written using the Frankels’ video camera. At Teddy’s age I spent my summers on all fours pretending I was Scooby Doo. I’m glad Junie didn’t have a video camera to record it.