Death of a Coupon Clipper (23 page)

Hayley stood as tall as she possibly could, a big smile plastered on her face, a bead
of sweat trickling down her forehead from the intensity of the klieg lights set up
all around her.

She was holding her breath.

The cashier ran her coupons over the scanner, one at a time.

Slowly.

Meticulously.

This was taking forever.

Hayley looked around. The crew members of
Wild and Crazy Couponing
were spellbound.

This was it.

The final cash-out.

Who was going to win?

Drew Nickerson, wearing a Tom Ford suit and an insincere smile, gripped the microphone
in his fist as he stared down Hayley.

She ignored his gaze. Instead, she glanced over to the next aisle, where Mona stood,
arms folded, with a scowl.

Determined.

Focused.

Like a loyal soldier being debriefed by his commanding officer on how well he performed
on the battlefield.

The show’s director, a wiry, little guy with Coke bottle glasses, frantically waved
at Mona from behind the camera. Pushing his cheeks upward with his two index fingers,
he was miming and silently begging for her to smile.

But Mona was having none of it.

This was too much of a nail-biter.

She couldn’t fake having a good time or pretend to be happy. Mona was here competing
with her best friend for a giant cash prize.

Hayley could tell she was doing well.

The coupons kept lowering her total.

She was down to $26.43.

Whoever had to pay the lowest total won the show.

Hayley was racking up whopping savings, especially from her strategy of focusing on
cleaning supplies.

Hayley took a step back so she could steal a glance at the next register, where Mona
was being checked out.

Mona was still behind with a higher total.

$49.52.

The suspense was killing Hayley.

She just wanted this whole ordeal finally to be over.

Mona finally flashed a quick smile.

Hayley craned her neck to get a look at the register again.

Mona was suddenly down to $18.36.

That’s it.

Mona was done.

And Mona was now in the lead.

All eyes turned to Hayley as she pushed the rest of her coupons toward the cashier
as if she were in Las Vegas placing all of her remaining chips on one last bet, and
praying she didn’t come up snake eyes.

The cashier picked up the last of Hayley’s coupons and slowly ran it over the scanner.

Nobody was moving. Not the camera crew, the show’s production staff, the director,
Drew Nickerson, Mona, the other cashier, or the crowd of locals who had jammed into
the store to watch the taping of the show and were standing elbow to elbow.

There wasn’t a sound in the whole grocery store. Except the low hum of the glass case
freezers in the frozen-food section nearby.

The cashier hit one last button.

Hayley’s grand total was $11.68.

The audience watching burst into applause as Hayley had to grip the black conveyor
belt in the checkout lane to keep from fainting.

Drew Nickerson strutted over next to Hayley and shoved the microphone in her face
with one hand as he firmly planted his other hand on Hayley’s butt. “Congratulations,
Hayley! You’re our grand-prize winner! You’re walking away with ten thousand dollars!”

Hayley surreptitiously reached around and grabbed Drew’s fingers and twisted them
back so hard that he actually squealed as he let go.

There was an awkward moment as the crew looked around at each other, wondering why
their suave, macho host had just screamed like a little girl.

“Thank you, Drew. You don’t know what this means to me!”

And Hayley meant it.

Ten grand.

Even after taxes, that meant she could afford a new furnace, repair her roof, and
still have enough left over to put a modest down payment on a used car.

She was finally out of the woods.

“You’re certainly now stocked up on groceries for the winter,” Drew said, rubbing
his still-throbbing fingers.

“Actually, I plan to donate all the groceries I bought today to Mrs. Imogen Tubbs.
She just got home from the hospital, but she is still recovering from her car accident
and is unable to do her weekly grocery shopping, so I figure this will help her out.”

Mona was the first one to reach Hayley and envelop her in a bear hug.

“I’m so proud of you,” Mona said, sniffling, unable to contain her emotions for once.
“I’m not going to lie to you. I wanted to whup your ass. But if I had to lose to someone,
I’m sure as hell glad it was you!”

“Thank you, Mona.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Hayley spotted Lex hovering toward the back of the crowd
in front of the sliding glass door at the entrance, looking on at all the hoopla surrounding
her. He was trying to smile, but there was an inescapable sadness in his demeanor.
He looked pale, tired, almost disoriented.

Hayley wriggled free of Mona’s grip and whispered in her ear, “I’ll call you later.
Let’s you, me, and Liddy go to Drinks Like A Fish and celebrate tonight.”

“Sounds good to me,” Mona said just as Drew Nickerson raced up to her, shoving the
microphone in her face and putting his arm around her neck.

“You were a worthy adversary, Mona, but you came up short in the end. How do you feel?”

“Not half as bad as you will if you don’t stop touching me,” Mona said, twisting her
head around as she narrowed her eyes to make her point. “I don’t like to be touched.
Unless you’re Alex Trebek. Every night I watch Alex Trebek. I’m a fan of Alex Trebek,
and you, sir, are no Alex Trebek!”

Drew instantly dropped his arm and scurried away, tail between his legs.

Hayley worked her way through the crowd that surged forward to offer congratulations.
It took her a few minutes to get to Lex. When she finally reached him, he leaned in
and gave her a light kiss on the cheek.

“I knew you had it in you to win,” Lex said.

“What happened, Lex? I can tell something’s wrong.”

“Edgar passed away a few hours ago. I didn’t want to tell you before the competition,
because I didn’t want any sad news messing with your focus.”

Hayley nodded solemnly. This was not unexpected. “I’m so sorry, Lex. If there’s anything
I can do . . .”

“There’s more,” Lex said. “The real Clark Hollingsworth is flying in tonight. He’s
the chief executor of his uncle’s will. And there are some rumors flying around that
he may sell the estate and donate the money to his charity work.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I might not get my job back,” Lex said, before catching himself and putting
on a brave face. “But why worry about something that hasn’t happened yet? We should
be celebrating your victory.”

Officer Donnie interrupted them, slapping Hayley a little too hard on the back. “I
sure am happy for you, Hayley. You took Mona down! I was really rooting for you. I
was totally on Team Hayley.”

“I’m shocked, Donnie. Imagine you wanting Mona to lose!”

“Guess we’re both winners this week.”

“How do you mean?” Hayley asked.

“Well, you won big on this game show and I collared my first killer!”

“
You?
You collared the killer?”

“Yeah, Sergio had a hard time believing it, too, when I called him in Brazil and filled
him in on all the details.”

“Oh yes, I’m sure you gave him
all
the details,” Hayley said.

Donnie chose to ignore the obvious sarcasm.

“Did you find out who he really is?” Lex asked.

“Oh yeah. Stuart Handley. He’s singing like a bird now. Wants to cut some kind of
deal. He’s been all over the world posing as relatives of famous rich people, worming
his way into people’s lives and trying to bilk them out of money. It’s been his MO
for years now. Funny thing is, he’s confessing to everything, but he’s still claiming
he didn’t stab Candace. But don’t you worry. I’ll squeeze a full confession out of
him. Earl and I are planning a little ‘good cop/nice cop’ number on the guy.”

“You mean ‘good cop/bad cop,’” Hayley said, shaking her head.

“Isn’t that what I said?”

“Donnie, does it bother you at all that Candace was stabbed with a pair of scissors
designed for a left-handed person and Clark was obviously right-handed?”

“Should it?” Donnie said, blinking, unable to comprehend the significance of that
little detail.

“Never mind, Donnie,” Hayley said. “Good luck with that confession.”

Donnie saluted Hayley; and then seeing Mona wandering over in his direction, he skedaddled
out the door back to his squad car, not wanting to risk another confrontation.

“So now you think Clark
didn’t
kill Candace?” Lex asked.

“The murder weapon keeps bugging me. Cassidy Culpepper was left-handed, and the scissors
did indeed belong to a left-handed person.”

“So it’s probably the sister,” Lex said.

“Maybe. But Cassidy Culpepper isn’t the only left-handed person in town. The killer
could be anybody! I’m certain Sabrina got the time of death wrong but will never admit
it! That means everyone who had an alibi for nine o’clock—all of them are suspects
again.”

Hayley was certain Candace Culpepper’s killer was still out there, and probably feeling
relieved that he or she had just gotten away with murder.

Hayley’s new furnace wasn’t being delivered until the following morning, so she decided
to stay one more night at her brother’s house. She was planning to whip up a delicious
dinner and spend some quality time with him before moving back home. It was obvious
to her that he was still shaken up by his traumatic ordeal at the hands of the fake
Clark Hollingsworth.

Stuff like that just didn’t happen often in Bar Harbor.

Randy was ready more than ever for his police chief boyfriend to return home from
Brazil. He was counting the days.

So was Hayley.

She wanted her kids home too.

Randy was lying on the couch, resting, watching
The Real Housewives of Boca Raton,
or some such thing, on TV, when Hayley walked in, carrying a bag of groceries full
of ingredients she needed for tonight’s menu.

“I still smell it,” Randy said, lowering the volume on the TV with the remote in his
hand.

“Still smell what?” Hayley asked, stopping and setting the bag down on the dining-room
table before crossing into the living room closer to Randy.

“Blueberry.”

“That’s impossible. I scrubbed this place from top to bottom. I didn’t miss one stain!
You can’t possibly still smell urine.”

“It’s here to stay. And if you think
my
sense of smell is good, just wait until Sergio comes home. His is like a superpower.
He can smell what the Hoopers are having for dinner three houses down the shore path.
I think we’re going to have to sell the house. I can’t live here under these conditions.”

“Now you’re just being overly dramatic,” Hayley scoffed. “Here, I’ll prove it to you.”

Hayley marched into the kitchen and found the ultraviolet light Randy had bought to
suss out Blueberry’s messes. She walked back into the living room, shutting off all
the lights in the house. It wasn’t completely pitch-black outside yet, but it was
dark enough to identify any lingering stains.

Randy sat up on the couch, shut off the TV, and watched Hayley, ready to prove his
sister wrong.

Hayley flipped the light on and swept it across the room.

No stains.

“See? I told you,” Hayley said.

“What’s that?”

“What? Where?”

“Point the light back over there. I saw a stain.”

Hayley turned the light toward the opposite side of the room. A stack of mail and
some papers were on top of a small desk in the corner. There was a tiny white stain
emanating from a small piece of paper.

“That? You can hardly see it.”

“Well, what is it?” Randy asked, standing up and hustling over to the desk to examine
it. He carefully picked up the tiny piece of paper.

“It’s a coupon. For a can of beans. I found it in the drawer when I was doing some
paperwork a little while ago and left it out on the desk, I guess.”

The coupon Hayley found at the crime scene after the snow melted.

Suddenly a thought jolted her.

She knew who killed Candace Culpepper.

Hayley threw on her jacket, told Randy she would be back in a while to cook him dinner,
and then trudged through the slushy snow straight over to Mrs. Tubbs’s house. She
knocked on the door, but she knew Mrs. Tubbs wouldn’t answer.

Hayley turned the knob and the door opened.

“Mrs. Tubbs? It’s me, Hayley.”

“Come in, dear. I’m in the living room.”

Hayley found Mrs. Tubbs sitting on the edge of her plush brown recliner, wearing a
powder blue robe and matching slippers, clipping coupons from a newspaper flyer.

And she was using a brand-spanking-new pair of left-handed scissors.

“Hayley, you stocked me up with so much food, I won’t have to go grocery shopping
until at least Memorial Day, but I still can’t resist hunting for bargains,” Mrs.
Tubbs said, giggling.

Hayley felt a presence behind her and then something tapped her leg. It was Blueberry’s
massive tail as he swished it from side to side, passing her with a look of disdain
before hopping up in the chair with great effort, due to his bulk, and settling down
in Mrs. Tubbs’s lap.

He wasn’t happy to see Hayley and never took his eyes off her.

“It was you, wasn’t it?” Hayley said softly, almost under her breath, as if she still
couldn’t believe it.

“Excuse me, dear?”

“You killed Candace Culpepper.”

“Good Lord, Hayley, what’s gotten into you? They caught the awful man who did that
horrible deed. The one posing as poor Edgar Hollingsworth’s nephew.”

“Yes. He was guilty of posing as Clark Hollingsworth. And Candace did believe he was
a fake, but he never found out she knew because somebody else stabbed her to death
before she had a chance to accuse him.”

“I’m afraid I have no idea what you’re talking about. I was in the hospital when Candace
was attacked.”

“That’s right. And Clark Hollingsworth was having dinner at the Porter House. But
the thing is, Mrs. Tubbs, the coroner got the time of death wrong. Candace died a
few hours earlier. So Clark Hollingsworth’s alibi doesn’t hold up anymore.”

“Then you see, dear, case closed.”

“And neither does yours. It’s true you were in the hospital at nine o’clock when the
original autopsy reported Candace died after the scissors punctured her lungs, but
the new time of death is now sometime around six o’clock in the evening. And you were
home then, weren’t you? Right next door.”

Mrs. Tubbs set the scissors down on an end table next to the chair and stroked Blueberry,
who kept his eyes fixed on Hayley, a barely perceptible rumble coming out of his tense
body. His tail was flapping up and down, ever more intensely.

Hayley pulled the coupon out of her coat pocket and held it up for Mrs. Tubbs to see.
“I’m assuming this coupon for beans belongs to you. It certainly didn’t belong to
Candace. She hated beans of all kinds. But I found it right near where she was killed.
You must have dropped it.”

“As you can see, Hayley, I cut out dozens, even hundreds, of coupons. I can’t remember
every one,” Mrs. Tubbs said, waving her hand over the current stack she was adding
to from the flyer.

“But this particular coupon, this one is unique, because it has a urine stain on it.
Blueberry peed on it!”

“Why are you trying to upset me like this, Hayley? I’m just home from the hospital
after a serious car accident. I’m in a very fragile state.”

“Oh, somehow I don’t think you’re as frail as you like people to believe. I think
you’ve got a lot of life left in you. I wish Candace could say the same.”

“Stop saying such terrible things. If you found that coupon next to Candace’s body
outside, any stray dog, any wild animal, could’ve been the one to pee on it. It wasn’t
Blueberry!”

“That’s true. But Blueberry left quite a bit of his DNA behind at my brother Randy’s
house. So I had a kitty DNA test performed on
this
coupon.”

“A kitty what?” Mrs. Tubbs said, a bit confused.

“That’s right. And the results just came back. It’s a match. Only Blueberry could’ve
been the one to pee on this coupon.”

This stopped Mrs. Tubbs cold.

Hayley watched as Mrs. Tubbs’s mind raced, desperate to find some way out of this
escalating mess.

“Well, if you found that coupon and had it in the house where you were staying, Blueberry
could’ve soiled it there, while you were cat sitting him.”

“Impossible. Blueberry never came in contact with the coupon after I found it. I kept
it in a desk drawer. He couldn’t have gotten near it. My brother only pulled it out
today.”

Checkmate.

“You want to tell me why you did it, Mrs. Tubbs?”

Mrs. Tubbs just stared at Hayley.

Almost a minute passed with neither of them saying a word.

Hayley was prepared to wait her out.

But finally Mrs. Tubbs sighed. “When she first moved into that house next door, we
were friends. We’d have tea and scones in the afternoon before her shift at the hospital
and watch
Judge Judy
together. But then it all went so terribly wrong. I have my newspaper delivered every
morning. I’m old-fashioned. I hate reading about current events on the computer. Hurts
my eyes. Anyway, one morning I caught Candace stealing the coupon flyer right out
of my paper. She had the nerve to deny it. And things were never the same between
us. And she kept doing it. I warned her to stop. But she just laughed and said I was
a crazy old woman and dared me to prove it. So when I saw her doing it again a couple
of weeks ago, I grabbed my scissors and ran outside and told her to give me my flyer
back or else, and she just turned her back on me and started walking to her house.”

“And that’s when you stabbed her?”

“Yes. I didn’t plan on it or anything. It just happened. She made me so mad! I stabbed
her once in the back and she turned around, like she couldn’t believe what I was doing.
Then I stabbed her in the chest and she just gurgled and turned to run away, and I
guess I stabbed her once more in the back before she fell to the ground. They won’t
send me to jail, will they? I mean it was justifiable. Just think of all the money
I would’ve saved at the Shop ’n Save if she hadn’t stolen my coupon flyers every day!”

“Are you serious? You killed someone over coupons?”

“It all happened so fast. The next thing I knew, Candace was facedown in the snow
with my scissors sticking out of her back and I was standing over her in a state of
shock. Once I got my bearings and realized what I had done, I just panicked.”

“You got in your car to flee the scene of the crime and get as far away as possible,
and that’s when you lost control because of the icy roads and rear-ended the Garbers’
car and wound up in the hospital,” Hayley said.

Mrs. Tubbs nodded. “Yes.”

Hayley fished out her cell phone and stopped the voice memo she was recording.

She had it all on tape.

Mrs. Tubbs leaned down and kissed Blueberry gently on the forehead. “It’s a good thing
I love you so much, Blueberry. Because you just made things very, very difficult for
Mommy. I’ve never even heard of a kitty DNA test.”

“Neither have I,” Hayley said.

Mrs. Tubbs looked up, her head tilted to one side, bristling. “What?”

“I just made it up. I’m not sure if there is such a thing. I just said I had the coupon
tested to get you to confess.”

“You—”

“Don’t say it, Mrs. Tubbs. It’s unbecoming for a woman your age to swear.”

“Bitch!”

Mrs. Tubbs jumped up from her recliner and, with all her might, threw her fat cat,
Blueberry, clear across the room at Hayley. Blueberry was stunned. With outstretched
paws, sharpened claws, and wild eyes, he landed on Hayley’s face like that slimy octopus-like
creature that latched itself onto the scientist in the original
Alien
movie.

Hayley howled, grabbing Blueberry by the fur as she frantically tried pulling him
off her. Blueberry hissed and growled and began biting her head as Hayley coughed
up fur, fearing she might suffocate. She yanked as hard as she could, and Blueberry
finally let go, slashing Hayley’s cheek with a claw as he dropped to the floor on
all fours and skittered away.

Mental note.

Rabies shot ASAP.

Hayley spun around to see Mrs. Tubbs halfway out the front door.

“Mrs. Tubbs, don’t run! You’ll slip and fall and break a hip!”

Hayley chased after her, but Mrs. Tubbs only made it a few feet across her lawn before
the heel of her shoe sank into the mud and she lost her balance and fell forward,
landing almost dead center in the exact same position where Hayley had found Candace
Culpepper’s body.

Mrs. Tubbs groaned.

But it was less from pain than from humiliation.

Hayley retrieved her phone from where she had dropped it when Blueberry landed on
her face and called Donnie to break the news to him that he hadn’t exactly solved
the case.