Death Before Diamonds (Sky High Pies Cozy Mysteries Book 10) (15 page)

CHAPTER
32

“This is Deputy Chief Walsh with
the Crescent Creek Police Department,” Trent said when I called him after
getting back into the car outside of Bitsy Curlew’s house. “How can I assist
you?”

“It’s me,” I said.

“Which me?”

“Katie.”

“Which Katie?” he asked.

I took a deep breath and counted to
ten. Then I said, “Trent. It’s Kate Reed. Why are you being so cagey?”

“I was born that way,” he said.
“It’s part of what makes me a good cop.”

I had my own opinion about his
ability to evade simple questions, but decided we could save that conversation
for another day.

“What do you know about Polly
Ladd?” I asked.

“Nada,” he said. “Who’s Polly
Ladd?”

“She lives across the street from
Bitsy Curlew,” I explained. “Over on Edgewood Road.”

Trent groaned softly. “Is this
going somewhere, Katie? Or do you plan to just keep calling out a bunch of
names until I say ‘uncle’ and throw in the towel?”

“It’s related to Rex Greer,” I
said. “He took a cab to Edgewood Road the other day a few hours before he was
found in front of the post office.”

“And you think that one of those
women zapped him with a Taser?”

“I don’t know,” I answered. “But
they both acted a little shifty when I talked to them.”

“Doesn’t everybody act shifty from
time to time?” Trent asked.

“Not me.”

He laughed. “Uh-huh. You’re an
absolute angel, aren’t you? Squeaky clean, unimpeachable and honest twenty-four
hours a day, seven days a week.”

I waited until he finished. Then I
ignored his remark and asked about Polly Ladd again.

“Didn’t I already make that
obvious, Katie? I don’t know the woman. What are you getting at?”

“I’m not exactly sure yet,” I said.
“But my gut’s telling me that there’s something fishy over here on Edgewood
Road.”

He chuckled. “Your intuition is
usually right on the money,” he said. “But we haven’t had any calls or reports
of suspicious behavior from that part of town.”

“I guess no news is good news,
huh?”

“That’s what I hear.”

“Hey, before we hang up,” I said.
“What was the deal with how you answered the phone?”

“What was wrong with it?”

“I’ve never heard you sound so
formal before,” I explained. “You’re usually a little more direct and to the
point.”

“You mean gruff and impolite?”

I laughed. “No, not at all. Just
like someone who’s busy or in a hurry.”

“It’s part of our new departmental
program to be more well-mannered on the phone,” Trent explained. “They brought
in a consultant from Dallas to listen and provide constructive criticism.”

“Yeah? How did they rank your
performance?”

“They told me that I was gruff and
impolite,” he growled. “Like people give a lump about somebody being all sweet
and courteous when you’re dealing with matters of life and death. We need to
get to it, Katie. Know what I mean? By the time you’re all unicorns and
rainbows and sugary sweet, somebody could be stretched out in the middle of the
street with a life-threatening injury or something.”

“Kind of like Rex Greer?”

He grunted.

“I heard that several cars went
by,” I said. “They ignored Rex when he was propped up in front of the post
office bleeding from his wounds.”

“That’s unfortunate,” Trent said.
“But to people driving along, the guy probably looked like a vagrant or
something.”

“Really?”

“Oh, heck. I don’t know, Katie. I’m
kind of cranky from hunger. This new diet’s going to kill me.”

“I didn’t think you were starting
for another couple of weeks.”

“My doctor busted me in the drive
thru at McDonald’s,” he muttered. “Third time in as many days.”

“What’s he doing there so often?” I
asked. “Isn’t that like enemy territory to him?”

“He goes to that health food place
across the street,” Trent answered. “It’s just my bad luck that he was shopping
for nuts and seeds or whatever every time I was trying to enjoy one last McMuffin.”

“Keep it up, big guy. You’ll feel
better and be less crabby.”

He groused again. “No kidding,” he
said. “It’s hard to be crabby when you’ve passed out from hunger.”

CHAPTER
33

Zack and I were standing at the end
of the MiniMart checkout line that night at six-thirty buying the things that
I’d forgotten during my Food Town stop the previous day. There were a half
dozen people ahead of us, and the crowd hadn’t moved for ten minutes because
Libby Durwood and her arch rival were in a heated battle about the store’s
policy regarding discounted boxes of pudding mix.

“It says three to a customer,” Fern
Rivera said calmly. “You’ve got twenty-three in your basket, Libby.”

The two middle-aged fusspots had
been adversaries since Fern’s recipe for caramel shortbread cookies took top
honors a few years earlier at the Crescent Creek Food & Wine Festival.
Although Libby had filed a formal complaint with the judges, the request was
denied due to a confidential note the festival organizers had received along
with a grainy black-and-white photograph of Libby buying chocolate-dipped
pizzelle—the traditional Italian waffle cookies that she presented to the
judges as her own—from an Italian bakery in Denver the afternoon before the
contest.

“I’m so happy that you can count,”
Libby hissed. “But you know what they say, dear heart! The customer is
always
right!”

Zack groaned. “I’m going to lose my
mind,” he whispered. “Can we
please
just order a pizza? I still have to
finish something at the office before I’m done for the day.”

He’d already suggested putting the bacon
and mayonnaise that I was holding back on the shelves and ordering a delivery
from Pepper & Roni’s. But I had my heart set on BLTs and tomato soup for
dinner.

“Do you want to take my car?” I
suggested. “I can walk home from here.”

Zack shook his head. “That’s okay,”
he said quietly. “You can drop me at the
Gazette
office. My car is there
anyway, and then I’ll come by as soon as I wrap up the last few things.
Besides, if these two are going to end up in a brawl, I want front row seats.”

I shot him a disapproving look.

“What?” he said with a grin. “I heard
a rumor that Libby and Fern both carry brass knuckles at all times.”

I swatted his rear. “Stop that!”

Someone tapped my shoulder a moment
or two before I heard their voice.

“Is that you, Kate?”

I glanced back and saw Mildred
Nelson.

“Twice in one week,” she said with
a warm smile. “What a pleasant surprise!”

“How are you?” I asked.

She glowered at Libby. “I’m about
ready to violate a few of the Ten Commandments,” she said. “Beginning with
‘Thou Shall Not Rip Libby Durwood’s Greasy Dyed Hair From Her Head.’”

Zack’s laugh was instantaneous and
extremely loud. Libby wobbled around on her heels and glared at the three of
us.

“What are you all staring at?” she
said.

Mildred raised one hand and waved. “Hi,
Libby! How are you?”

The grumpy shopper frowned and went
back to arguing with Fern about MiniMart’s policies.

“Should I find the store manager?”
Zack asked. “This could turn into either a hostage situation or a homicide at
any second.”

I gave him a gentle nudge with my
arm. “That’s a wonderful idea, handsome. I’ll wait right here in case the
United Nations arrives to negotiate a peace settlement.”

After Zack went in search of the
manager, Mildred and I stood and watched the action for a few minutes.

“I’m glad that I ran into you
tonight,” she said eventually. “I was going to call you in the morning.”

“About what?”

She glanced around and stepped
closer. “Polly Ladd.”

“What about her?” I said.

“Remember how you told me that she
was out of town?”

“Right. Because that’s what she
told me.”

“Well, there’s no truth to that
whatsoever,” Mildred said with a mischievous smile.

“Meaning what?”

Mildred put one hand beside her
mouth. “Polly lied about being out of town,” she whispered. “And she also lied
about the day when that young man came to the door.”

“Do you mean that Polly talked to
Rex Greer?” I said.

“You bet,” Mildred answered. “And
if she lied about that, what else isn’t she being truthful about?”

CHAPTER
34

After dropping Zack at the
newspaper offices, I drove over to CCPD Headquarters to see if Trent was still
in his office for a quick face-to-face about the Rex Greer case. When I walked
through the door, he was leaning back in the chair with his feet up on the
desk. A bowl of baby carrots and a carton of onion dip sat beside his stack of
case files.

“This stuff taste like dirt,” he
said, dunking a tiny orange nub into the container. “And it smells rank, too.”

“But it’s healthier,” I said as he
chomped contentedly. “Think how many calories you’re saving.”

He glared briefly and grabbed
another carrot.

“What’s up?” he said after the first
bite. “Or did you drop by to check on my dietary habits?”

I shook my head. “I really think there’s
something shifty going on with Bitsy Curlew and Polly Ladd,” I said.

Trent popped the rest of the carrot
into his mouth. He grimaced at the taste of the dip before swallowing and
taking a big slurp from a glass of water.

“The same thing applies to about
half the people in town,” he said. “If we were going to start arresting people
for being shifty, we’d have to use Mile High Stadium as a holding pen.”

I reached over and took a carrot.
Then I scooped up some of the low-fat dip, took a small bite and felt my mouth convulse.

“Oh, Trent!” I said after spitting
the bite into a napkin. “That stuff is horrible! Where’d you buy it?”

“Gas station over on Jansen and
Hightower.”

I checked the expiration date on
the container.

“Well, here’s your problem, big
guy.” I pointed at the small, faded numbers. “This batch went bad when you were
still in middle school.”

He lurched to one side and spewed a
mouthful of carrot into the trash can.

“
What
!” His face was twisted
and red. “Are you
kidding
me?”

I leaned back in the chair. “Maybe
just a little,” I said. “It expired four months ago. That might explain the
tang and foul odor.”

He reached into his shirt pocket,
dug around for a moment and came out with a crumpled receipt.

“You mind returning it on your way
home?” he said, putting the lid on the container. “See if they’ll give me a
full refund?”

Instead of reaching for the
wrinkled slip of paper, I went for another nibble of my carrot.

“You too busy to do me a solid?” he
asked.

“No, Trent,” I said. “Just let the
dip go. It’s not a plot to pilfer a couple bucks from your wallet. I’d guess it
was a simple mistake. Someone probably forgot to rotate the stock and that
carton accidentally ended up getting lost in the shuffle.”

He dropped his legs to the floor
and sat forward. “Food poisoning, Katie! Ever heard of it? That stuff could
kill me.”

I moved a copy of
Sports
Illustrated
on the desk, revealing a box of M&Ms from the vending
machine.

“What about these guys?” I said.
“Any chance they might not be super healthy for you?”

He grabbed the candy and dropped it
into a drawer. Then he asked me to explain my theory about Bitsy Curlew.

“And Polly Ladd,” I added. “Don’t
forget about her.”

He nodded. “Got it,” he said. “Why
do you think they’re being shifty?”

“I can’t exactly put my finger on
it yet,” I said. “But, first of all, there’s the fuchsia Wunder Under Pants.”

Trent’s head turned slightly to one
side and he narrowed his gaze. “What was that?”

“They’re purple tights,” I said. “Polly
Ladd told me that she gave two pairs to Bitsy as a thank you gift.”

He scowled. “What’s fishy about
that? Is it a crime to
give
somebody purple tights or to
wear
them?”

“They were in the background of
Theo Greer’s picture.” I paused, but Trent’s expression remained unchanged.
“And I talked to a couple of people who remember seeing Theo arguing with a
woman wearing fuchsia tights.”

An eternity passed before he turned
in his chair and lifted his legs to the desktop again.

“Fascinating, Katie. But I’m not
smelling anything fishy.”

I took a moment, drawing in a long,
slow breath and pushing a few stray hairs from my eyes.

“Well, it’s not just the tights,” I
said. “Bitsy also lied about knowing Rex and Theo Greer. I found a picture
online from a picnic that all three of them attended. And when I talked to Polly
the other day, she was acting…well, she was being pretty reticent and
cautious.”

“How so?” asked Trent.

“It seemed like she wanted to tell
me something,” I explained. “But she stopped short.” I paused to think about my
conversation with Polly on her front porch. “There was something almost too
slick about her, okay? It was like she’d rehearsed all of her answers and had
this sort of…well, almost professional skill with appearing casual and
conversational although the corners of her eyes kept tightening.”

Trent selected another carrot from
the package. “Maybe she had stuff to do,” he suggested. “And she didn’t want to
be rude.”

I nodded, considering the
possibility.

“Or maybe,” I said, “she knows
something about Theo Greer and couldn’t get away from me fast enough.”

“You’re being paranoid,” he said
with a ragged grin. “Probably too much coffee and not enough sleep.”

“That’s always possible.” I got up
from the chair. “But something’s going on over there. I can feel it, like one
or both of those women are keeping secrets.”

“Oh, here we go again,” Trent said
with a deep laugh. “Keeping secrets is as prevalent around here as people
acting shifty. One out of every four residents tells three lies a day.”

I smiled at the statistics. “Did
you do a survey or something?”

Trent leaned back his chair. “No, I
did not,” he said. “I just lied. But it sounded pretty believable, didn’t it?”