Nina Wright - Whiskey Mattimoe 07 - Whiskey, Large (33 page)

I could believe that Dani Glancy was a stone-cold crazy-ass bitch, but I could not believe she was a do-it-yourself arsonist.

“No way Dani used her own perfectly manicured hands to blow up her sister’s propane tank,” I declared.

“Of course she didn’t. She hired someone to do it for her, or she has a lover who’s willing to collaborate.”

“Seriously?”

“Dani has had a number of lovers, and she wasn’t always discreet,” MacArthur said. “It was sometimes a source of embarrassment for Hamp, but he loved her too much to let her go. That might have been the reason he went to Lisa’s house the day it blew up.”

“You think Hamp wanted Lisa’s advice about dealing with Dani’s lover?”

MacArthur shrugged. “We’ll never know.”

I wondered aloud whether money might have helped drive Dani to murder.

“Money is often a factor,” MacArthur conceded, “though there wasn’t much to be gained here. Hamp and Dani had a lot of personal debt. His life insurance should pay off their cars, mortgage, and credit cards, but there won’t be a windfall. As for Lisa’s estate, Todd Mullen told Jenx that he and his wife have ‘conventional wills,’ leaving everything to each other. Nothing for Dani there, except the dog.”

“So Dani committed murder for debt relief and a doodle?” I asked.

“I doubt she wants the doodle,” MacArthur said, “but I do think she’s glad to be single.”

Getting even with her sister and starting fresh with no debts, plus a hot boyfriend, might entice a sociopath. Was there a hot boyfriend?

MacArthur said, “We don’t know her partner’s identity or the extent of his involvement. His hand may be stirring a few pots.”

“Such as?”

“This is a small town with few lucrative opportunities or places to hide. My guess is that Dani’s man worked with Helen, too.”

Try as I might, I couldn’t connect the dots between Helen and Dani. One wanted a baby. One hated her sister. They both wanted revenge, but there was no way to know if that was enough to unite them or put them in league with the same bad guy.

“Dani’s man might be the voice I heard on Helen’s phone,” I said.

MacArthur didn’t reply, but I sensed a high degree of interest. His phone pinged, and he excused himself to check a text. I had to admire how fast his muscular fingers flew across the smart phone’s screen in response.

“Checking in with Avery?” I chided him.

“Not Avery,” he said. “Ben Fondgren is on his way here.”

“Here? To see you?”

“No. To see Dani.”

“I’m confused.”

“So is he.” MacArthur passed me the phone. “Check out my home screen.”

He tried not to smile. The image was Dani Glancy provocatively posed in a string bikini. I had never worn one of those, and I never would.

“Where did you get this?” I said.

“We were at Dani’s house, remember? She left it in plain sight, so I borrowed it on the hunch that it might come in handy, and it has.”

Illegal for sure, but I would never tell Jenx.

Very slowly I said, “Why would Ben think Dani wants to see him at my house?”

“It’s not Ben’s job to think. It’s his job to do what Dani tells him.”

“Well, Ben can’t be Dani’s lover,” I reminded MacArthur. “He’s gay.”

“He could be bisexual,” MacArthur said, “or he could be involved with her for other reasons.”

Before I could ask about “other reasons,” the doorbell rang.

I excused myself
to check the peephole. As it turned out, my visitor was not Ben Fondgren. It was someone I had never met, yet I knew him as soon as I opened the door.

The man I had heard on the other end of Helen’s phone stepped into my home. The man who had called himself Randy Dupper. I recognized his voice and his Appalachian dialect when he said, “Are you Mrs. Mattimoe?”

Even before he spotted MacArthur, the man looked anxious. The instant the Cleaner stepped out from behind my door and slipped a pair of plastic handcuffs on him, he looked downright terrified. Too terrified to resist arrest. That was wise because MacArthur had sixty pounds of muscle and six inches of height on the guy.

“Where’s Fondgren?” MacArthur growled.

The man’s brown eyes bulged behind black plastic glasses.

“My best guess is he’s crossing the border into Mexico. Ben said to meet him here for my next payment, but the second I saw you, I knew I was screwed. They set me up.”

“Who’s ‘they’?” I said.

“Ben and Dani.”

“Where’s Dani?” MacArthur said.

“I reckon she’s in Mexico, waiting for Ben.”

If that were true, Ben probably knew somebody had Dani’s phone. Somebody in Magnet Springs, most likely. Maybe that realization had been his cue to send this lamb to the slaughter.

Tears fogged the handcuffed guy’s lenses and leaked down his cheeks into his red-brown beard. If he had ever been attractive, it wasn’t apparent today.

“Are you Reagan Duffy?” I asked.

He nodded, sniffing loudly.

“Is Ben your boyfriend?”

“Used to be. ’Til Dani got him all confused.”

This was the waiter I’d glimpsed outside the Sugar Grove Inn, and the driver of the black pick-up truck. The man who had fired at Diggs and at Napoleon.

“You shot at dogs,” I accused.

“And a human,” MacArthur reminded me. “He shot at Anouk, too.”

“People aren’t supposed to shoot dogs,” I snapped. “People are supposed to shoot people.”

“Poorly expressed,” MacArthur murmured.

Duffy said, “I didn’t hit them. I was just doing my job.”

“Which was what?” I said.

“Ben gave me orders. He said to make it look like I was trying to hit the woman or the dog but to avoid hitting any of ’em. I was supposed to scare the town silly and distract people. Ben said there was chaos already over the new pet-tourist policies in Magnet Springs. He hoped somebody would think it was related to that.”

“Nobody thought it was related to that,” I said dismissively. “It seemed random and senseless, and just plain mean.”

“Good enough, I guess.” Duffy shrugged. Snot ran down his mustache into his mouth. Pathetic. If he hadn’t shot at dogs, I might have fetched him a tissue.

“How much did Ben pay you?” MacArthur said.

“Two hundred bucks a pop.”

Duffy’s bargain-basement rates somehow made him seem even more repugnant. I told him so.

“I got more for wiring the propane tank to explode,” he said.

“You killed people,” I cried.

“I blew up a tank. That was how I saw it.”

“What about the dead dog in the rubble?” I said. “Did you kill him, too, and plant him there?”

“I didn’t kill any dog, and I didn’t ask questions. I did what I was paid to do. Ben told me to find a dead dog that looked kind of like the one I was shooting at and put his body near the foundation of the house. A friend of mine had just buried his old black Lab in the woods, so I dug him up.”

I shuddered. “How much did you get paid for that?”

Duffy shrugged. “It was included in the cost of the explosion. Hey, if I’m really under arrest, you’re supposed to read me my rights. I want a lawyer.”

“I already read you your rights,” MacArthur said. “You were blubbering too hard to hear me.”

I hadn’t heard any Miranda rights, but then we weren’t real cops. Duffy, however, was a real creep. He deserved a bad scare before the real cops got here, which reminded me…we needed to call them. When I whipped out my cell phone, MacArthur said, “I texted Jenx. She’ll be here in a minute.”

Sure enough, a siren shrieked.

“You know that’s going to wake April,” I told MacArthur unhappily.

Upstairs in the nursery my daughter was already howling, and so were Abra and Sandra. Fortunately, Irene Grace Houston was on duty.

The Cleaner said, “You know your daughter’s going to grow up hearing that sound.”

I wanted to protest. Really, I did. But I had no defense. I shared my home with a couple over-sexed four-leggers who liked every kind of bad boy.

As the siren grew louder, Duffy’s trembling increased.

“I am not a criminal,” he said.

“That didn’t work for Richard Nixon,” I reminded him.

To save Jenx the trouble of knocking, I swung open the front door. The shooter was handcuffed in my living room, so I figured we were safe. Jenx swaggered in, checked Duffy’s cuffs, and read him his rights.

“He’ll lawyer up,” she told MacArthur and me, “which is okay. We’ve already got an indictment against Helen, and a Mexican cop just busted Dani and Ben for bringing contraband across the border. They’re so scared, they’re singing like meadow larks.”

I asked what kind of contraband.

“Guns, the damn fools,” Jenx said. “Now they’re temporary guests of the Mexican government.”

I liked the idea of Dani Glancy—in heels, pearls, and perfect make-up—sweating in a Mexican jail cell. The chief, the Cleaner, and I executed a three-handed high-five.

“This is a great day for law enforcement,” Jenx declared. “Too bad Chester’s in school.”

Except he wasn’t. Even as Jenx spoke, I heard a familiar approaching engine. Over her shoulder through the open front door, I spotted the Lincoln Town Car. Cassina’s new driver was at the wheel, and Chester was leaning out the passenger window as far as humanly possible.

I stared. “Is that Avery in the chauffeur cap?”

“Affirmative,” MacArthur said. “She asked Cassina for a job that would get her out of the office.”

He didn’t sound pleased, and I could guess why. Mobile Avery would be uber-Avery.

“This is a great day for law enforcement,” Chester shouted.

“I texted him at school,” Jenx admitted. “He should be part of this party.”

She got no argument from me. Besides, he probably already knew everything his teacher was teaching.

At that moment, my sainted mother must have decided to take a break. Overhead, eight paws’ worth of dog claws scrabbled on hardwood flooring as Abra and Sandra raced toward my central staircase. Involuntarily, all my muscles tightened, including some that were still quite sore.

Out on the parking pad, Chester, holding Velcro, dropped from the Town Car window. Two more dogs tumbled out after him. All three canines emerged yapping.

“Did you take your dogs to school today?” I shouted over the din.

“Yes! It was Take-Your-Dogs-To-School Day,” Chester replied.

Every day in Magnet Springs is It’s-Great-To-Be-A-Dog Day. My two canines blasted past me to noisily greet their favorite human and his four-legged friends. Abra looked sleek in her understated black velvet collar while Sandra sported the trailer-trash look—a too-tight, low-cut red, white, and blue pantsuit with matching kerchief. Velcro, as usual, ran circles around Chester’s ankles. Still a puppy at heart, Prince Harry just wanted to play, but Diggs understood that both my bitches were ready for a grown-up good time.

Too lazy to open anybody’s door, Avery did manage to lower her window. She flicked her tongue lasciviously at MacArthur, and I glanced away.

How was this possible? Somehow my life had changed completely, while not really changing at all.

“Look, Mama!
Doggies. Lots and lots of doggies!”

April wasn’t kidding. Canines were everywhere. Felines, too, and even a few exotics. Thank God they didn’t live at our house. At least most of them didn’t.

My ginger-haired two-and-a-half-year-old daughter beamed up at me. The kid adored animals, just like her Grandma Houston did, and animals adored her. Apparently, it’s a trait that skips a generation.

Jeb, April and I, plus Abra and Sandra, were among approximately three hundred guests at the belated official grand opening of The Magnet Springs Animal Magnet. That was what Chester chose to call it, and it was his 503(b). The Magnet, as most folks dubbed it, was already operational as a spare-no-expense rescue center. Never mind that some animals in residence, such as falcons and salamanders, weren’t destined for domestication. Under Chester’s guidance, and supervised by center manager Anouk Gagné, every critter that needed help got it here.

“Daddy make music now,” April said, pointing a chubby finger at the makeshift stage.

Jeb waved at us, and April squealed in delight. I waved back, wisely ignoring the stunning women who flanked my husband, one a leggy Nordic type, the other a voluptuous African-American. When the house lights banged down, a spotlight made their brief but blingy costumes shine almost painfully bright.

“I totally love Diva Ocean!” Chester shouted above the roaring crowd.

“Of course you do,” I shouted back. “You’re in middle school.”

Everybody with a pulse loved Rusha and Keyarra, the duo known as Diva Ocean, because they sang as fine as they looked. Jeb had been brilliant to hire them for his first acoustic soft-rock CD, “Songs for the Animals.” I could admit that now. In fact, I had to admit it because the album had out-sold our wildest expectations. We knew we had a huge hit on our hands when the music video of the title track went viral, surfacing on outlets as diverse as Entertainment TV, The Playboy Channel and ABC Family.

Tonight marked not only the official opening of The Magnet but also the debut of Jeb’s follow-up CD, “More Songs for the Animals.” Pledging that half of all profits would go straight to The Magnet had made Jeb mighty popular with animal-loving freaks. I mean, enthusiasts.

“You must be so proud,” said Mrs. Dr. David, the former Deely Smarr, wife of our local veterinarian.

She bounced a baby with one hand and held a leash attached to a jumping toddler in the other. Deely had produced two offspring in less time than it took me to make one and recover.

“Down, Rex, down,” she told her toddler. “See how quiet Skippy is?”

Those names might have been better on dogs, but what could you expect from parents as zealous about animals as Deely and Dr. David? If blessed with a third child, they had already announced that the name, regardless of gender, would be Dash.

I was learning to accept animal fanatics. After all, their music purchases were making Jeb famous, and, no matter how weird they might be, most critter-lovers were good people. It was weird, evil people I wanted to avoid.