Harley Rushes In (Book 2 of the Blue Suede Mysteries) (29 page)

“What gardens—wait. You’re the guy who was digging holes for rose bushes. And you came to cut the grass, too. I knew you seemed familiar. Just how well do you know Cheríe? You looked like you knew her pretty well. What were you two arguing about?”

“I have something she wants. And she thinks maybe I killed Harry.”

“Did you?”

“No! That is why I come to you. Perhaps you can help me. I have bad experience with the American police. If they catch me, they’ll take me to jail.”

“If you and your brother were in on the smuggling, that’s probably where you need to be. It might even be safer for you if you know too much.”

“
Ay,
do not be stupid.” José shoved the gun barrel into her ribs, and in the shadows he sounded so fierce she shuddered when he said, “I want to find who killed Julio, so will do what I must to stay out of jail.”

“Okay, okay, just get that damn thing out of my ribs,” she protested, her heart slamming against her ribs even harder than the gun barrel. “No jail. Gotcha. So how do you expect me to help you?”

“I know something that may help you find out who killed my brother.”

It was tempting. Very tempting. But making deals with a gun-toting man in a ski mask would be the height of stupidity. She shrugged. “That’s not my job. The police handle that kind of thing.”

“That day at the gardens when you fell into the glass case, someone said you were in the paper. They said you found the killer of your neighbor.”

“Well yes, but that was more or less by accident. Although I did do pretty well for an amateur, if I say so myself.”

“Then you will do well for me.” He jabbed her with the gun again and she let out a yelp of pain that apparently startled him. He jerked back, smacking his head against the window.

Harley grabbed for her door handle at the same time as he grabbed for her. She let out a yell and yanked her arm free, still fumbling for the door handle with her other hand. It all went so quickly she was never sure afterward exactly how it happened, but suddenly José started screaming really loud and swinging his arms. Growling and hissing, he went into some kind of odd, hysterical fit, slapping at his knit-covered head in the dark.

Shocked, she hesitated, peering at him in the shadows while rain beat on the car and fogged up the windows, wondering if he needed medical help. Somehow, she got the interior lights on, and was startled to see a furry thing atop his head. It seemed to be alive.

Reaching out, she plucked the gun from José’s hand quite easily. Excellent. It was much better having the upper hand. And the gun.

José used both hands to pry off the cap and furry thing on his head. Harley altered her first guess that it was a raccoon as she recognized it, right before he flung it into the back seat.

“Hey, don’t hurt him!” she protested.

Holding a hand to his face and ear, José gave her a wild look and got his door open. He nearly fell out, then stumbled off into the rainy darkness around the lake. José’s still open door kept the interior light on. Harley turned to look in the back seat.

“Sam, what are you doing in the car?”

Sam didn’t have much to say, just crouched there on the seat with his ears flat and blue eyes narrowed into wicked looking slits.

She grinned. “Good boy. You’re not so bad for a cat.”

When he shook his claws free of the knit cap and started to lick himself, she decided it was time to take him home.

“There he is!” Cami reached for Sam at once, the frantic look in her eyes giving way to relief. “I didn’t miss him until I got out the food bowls. He’s always first when he hears the can opener.”

“Give him extra tonight. He saved my butt. I’ll tell you about it later, but if Bobby calls, I can tell him I don’t have to worry about my stalker anymore.”

Cami’s eyes got wide. “Did you run over him?”

“Good God. No, I didn’t run over him. You’re scary. Is your yard man’s name José?”

“No, but he has helpers sometimes. Why?”

“I think my stalker mowed your yard today.”

“Oh, I’m sure Mr. MacDonald would never hire a stalker to help him. He has his position as full time groundskeeper at the Dixon gardens to think about.”

That explained it. Well, there was an old saying about nothing in life being a coincidence, and this sure qualified.

“I’ll be back. I really need to talk to my cousins. José—my stalker—says he saw both of them at the shop after it closed the day Harry was killed.”

“
Both
of them?”

“Yep. Don’t tell that to Bobby, though. I want to be sure José’s not just lying.”

He wasn’t. Harley knew it was true the moment Madelyn and Amanda exchanged quick glances and started to deny it at the same time. She put up a hand to stop them.

“Never mind. You’re both lying. Why?”

Madelyn answered first, a little too quickly. “I’m not lying! I was there just like I said. Just me and Harry.”

“Right.” Harley turned to Amanda. “I’ve talked to a witness that you obviously didn’t see. Now’s the time for the truth, before I tell the police.”

Amanda bit her bottom lip and glanced at Madelyn, then shook her head. “No,” she said in a soft whisper, “I wasn’t there.”

“Okay, here’s the way I see it. Madelyn was having an affair with Harry, and you went to talk her out of it. Harry got angry, there was a struggle of some kind, and one of you had the gun from Aunt Darcy’s car—”

“
No!
” they both said at the same time.

“Then try the truth for a change. Remember, the truth shall set you free. Hopefully.”

Amanda sucked in a deep, quivery breath while her sister glared at Harley. It didn’t faze her. Harley stood firm. If she knew the truth, maybe she—or a damn good lawyer—could figure out a way to make it sound less damning.

“He was already dead when I got there,” Madelyn said after a moment. “It was horrible. I was supposed to meet him at his house, but when he didn’t show up . . . I . . . I went by the shop.”

“I said the truth, Maddie dearest. You weren’t supposed to meet Harry. He was at the shop to meet someone else. Who was it?” She just knew she’d say it’d been Aunt Darcy. It was the only rational explanation for her refusal to tell the truth.

“
I
know,” Amanda said unexpectedly, and her round chin came up defiantly. “No need to go on, Madelyn. It was me. He was supposed to meet
me
. Don’t look so surprised, Harley. I may not be a great beauty, but Harry never cared about that. He cared about me.” Huge tears welled in her eyes. “It didn’t matter to him that I’m fat, or that I’m not the smart one. He liked me for who I am. No one’s ever done that before. Except Madelyn.” She turned to her sister. “I know you were trying to protect me, but it’s all right. I loved Harry and he loved me. I didn’t kill him. I’d never have hurt him.”

Harley just stared at her cousins for a moment, and knew they were telling the truth. It was too weird not to be true. Damn. There went the theory about Aunt Darcy and Harry that had been building up at the back of her mind. Well, she was nothing if not resilient.

“What about you, Maddie? You were there, too. Did you kill Harry for messing around with Mandy?”

“Why would I kill Harry? I told Amanda he wasn’t good for her, but I certainly didn’t feel strongly enough about it to kill him. Or kill Juan, or whatever his name was. The Mexican guy that did all the unloading.”

Madelyn turned to her sister and said softly, “I’m sorry. Really I am. I know you cared for him a lot. I just wanted to protect you.”

Looking at Harley, Amanda said, “Neither of us killed him. I swear it.”

She wanted to believe them. And really, she thought they must be telling the truth. It was a bit of a stretch to think either of them would hang Harry on a hook after shooting him. Unless it was Julio who’d done that. But he’d died first. So back to square one.

Putting her hands on her hips, she decided a little payback for their lying was justified. “I just hope the police buy your stories, because neither of you have alibis that’ll stand up.”

That should give them something to think about.

When she was retelling the story
to Cami while digging through her Taco Bell sack to see if she’d missed anything, Cami asked, “But if Amanda was there, too, why didn’t José see her car?”

“I pointed out that flaw in their stories when they were tripping all over themselves trying to convince me they were telling the truth. Apparently, she parked in the next lot over, an empty parking lot for an accounting company. He probably never looked in that direction.”

“Do you believe them?”

Finding a few stray nachos in the bottom of the sack, Harley stuck one in her mouth. “Yep. It’s too stupid not to be true. Mandy is having an affair with Harry, and Maddie decides to confront both of them, but she gets there after Harry is already dead and Amanda has long gone. She thinks Amanda killed him, Amanda thinks Madelyn killed him—I never knew they could be so damn noble.”

“Then that means that Cheríe Saucier may have killed Harry because she was jealous of Amanda. Maybe she really wanted your cousin to get the blame for it.”

“So who killed Julio? The coroner said he was killed before Harry. My bet is that Harry did it.”

Cami put a hand to her head. “I’ve got a headache from thinking about all this. How do you cope?”

“Aspirin. Or beer. Either helps. So, how’s our stowaway? Has he recovered yet?”

“Sam? He’s fine. Hiding somewhere, but he always does that.”

“I feel like doing the same. I can’t believe it’s only ten-thirty. If it’s okay with you, I’ll stay here tonight anyway. My stalker won’t bother me anymore, I don’t think. He just wanted me to tell the cops he didn’t kill Harry. Which reminds me—have you heard from Bobby?”

“Twice. He said you didn’t answer your cell phone.”

Harley checked it and found the battery had run down. She plugged it in to charge. There were two messages from Bobby—both rather tacky reminders that she’d promised to stay out of trouble—and three from Morgan, who was still at the hideout but would call again later. The last message was from Diva, one of her melodramatic prophecies.

“Harley, watch out for the dead man.”

“What is it,” Cami asked when Harley shook her head and sighed. “Bad news?”

“No. One of Diva’s prophecies again. I’m to watch out for the dead man.”

“Ah, a ghost is your stalker.”

“He definitely seemed very alive to me. Which reminds me, his gun is in your car. Under the front seat. Bobby needs to run it for identification, I guess.”

“It’s not the gun that killed Harry and the other guy, is it?”

Harley shook her head. “No. That was Aunt Darcy’s gun. You know, I really should ask her why she even has a gun.”

“Maybe she was afraid of Harry Gordon. Or—” Cami stopped, but Harley finished her sentence for her.

“Or maybe she meant to shoot him.”

It looked like evidence was stacking up against Darcy.

Harley slept later than she meant to
the next morning. When she woke, she wasn’t all that surprised to find Sam curled up in a furry comma on her pillow. He was purring, a soothing noise that she found oddly relaxing.

“Don’t get used to this,” she said, but he only purred louder. “I know what you and Cami are up to, and it won’t work. I don’t like cats. I have scratches to prove cats don’t like me.”

Sam opened one eye, blinked slowly, then stretched out a paw and tapped her lightly on the nose. Whatever he meant by that, it satisfied him, and he went back to sleep. She lay there for a while longer, letting her mind go from possibility to possibility.

Madelyn and Amanda had arrived after Harry was dead. Aunt Darcy hadn’t been there at all. Cheríe had shown up—very conveniently—after the police arrived. That left either the sister in Atoka, or Julio’s brother. But that didn’t make much sense, either. If José killed Harry for killing Julio, he wouldn’t still be looking for his brother’s killer.

It kept coming back to Cheríe Saucier. She was the only one who had motive as well as opportunity. Jealousy over Harry, as unlikely as that seemed after having met him, had to be the motive. According to Bobby, her alibi was rock-solid, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t a good suspect. After all, Aunt Darcy had been with her mystery man, and she was still a suspect.