Scoop to Kill (16 page)

It sent chills down my spine to have our sweet Alice describe the particulars of murder with such clinical precision, but she painted a compelling picture.

Alice leaned forward earnestly. “Whatever she’d figured out about Bryan’s death,” she said, “it got her killed.”

“And whatever she’d figured out,” Bree said to her child, her voice tight with emotion, “she thought you had the answer.”

“But I don’t have any idea what she was talking about,” Alice said.

“Shit,” Finn said again. “It doesn’t matter what you know or don’t know, Alice. Emily said you held the key, and her murderer was probably standing right there when she said it.”

B
y morning, news of Emily Clowper’s death had spread clear across Lantana County. The official cause of death might take weeks, but the preliminary statement by the coroner’s office was that Emily had died from self-inflicted asphyxiation.

Somehow the staff at the
News-Letter
had taken that informal conclusion and cobbled together a brief story for the Saturday morning edition, throwing in a few seemingly offhanded references to Emily’s connection to the recent murder of Bryan Campbell. The innuendo led to the obvious conclusion that guilt drove Emily to despair. It seemed impossible to imagine that her suicide and Bryan’s murder weren’t somehow connected, especially when linking them created such a neat TVMOVIE story line.

And that sort of storybook closure made for better PR—for the Dalliance PD, the Chamber of Commerce, and Dickerson University—than the notion of a killer on the loose.

Bree spent the whole day mulling over the fact that Emily had probably been murdered over some kernel of information her daughter possessed. She got more and more torqued up as the day progressed, until finally she exploded.

“No way in hell are you spending one minute more than you have to on that campus.”

We were sitting at the kitchen table, wolfing down plates of leftover meat loaf and mashed potatoes while Kyle watched the A-la-mode during the dinner-hour lull. Alice carefully mounded a dab of potato on top of a tiny square of meat loaf and levered the perfect mouthful onto her fork.

“No problem. Once the May term starts on Wednesday, I’ll only have to be on campus for the three hours of class in the morning and maybe for another hour or so afterwards, for helping students and meeting with Reggie. I can do my grading at home.”

“Nuh-uh,” Bree said. “I mean it. You’re not going to campus. You just tell that Reggie person you’ve changed your mind and you can’t help him with that class.”

“Mama—”

“Don’t ‘Mama’ me, Alice Marie Anders. Unless you turned eighteen when I wasn’t looking, you still gotta do as I say, and I say you’re not stepping foot on the Dickerson campus until they catch this murderer.”

“Why not?”

Bree rolled her eyes. “I musta dropped you on your pointy head one too many times. Two people are dead already, and you’re smack in the middle of the trouble. It’s not safe for you to be on campus.”

Alice tipped her head in that calculating way she had, all cold logic to Bree’s fiery emotion. “Dr. Clowper wasn’t on campus when she was murdered. If someone wants me dead, they’ll find me.”

Her words found their mark, and all the color drained from Bree’s face. She couldn’t shelter her child from danger; no place was safe. Her breath hitched audibly, and I thought she might start to hyperventilate.

“At least if I’m on campus,” Alice continued, “there will be lots of people around. I’ll probably be safer there than, say, the alley behind Remember the A-la-mode.”

Bree rolled her lips between her teeth and squinted hard at her troublesome child. I swallowed a groan, because I knew that look. Alice came by her smarts honestly, and she got them from her mother. When Bree gave up the footloose and fancy-free persona and got down to business, she was a formidable opponent for her genius child.

“I don’t like it,” Bree muttered.

Alice reached out to pat her mother’s hand. “I know you don’t like it, Mama, but I can’t back out on my obligation. I’ll be okay.”

“Yes, you will. Because I’m not letting you out of my sight.”

“Mama—”

“Save your breath, little girl. I know you want to TA this class. So I’ll just go with you.”

“Mom!” Alice shrieked, all horrified teenager. Her fork clattered to her plate.

“It’s not open for discussion.”

“You can’t just follow me to class.”

“Watch me.”

“No, really, you can’t. The school has a policy against people sitting in on classes unless they’re registered. They don’t want people getting an education they haven’t paid for.”

Mother and daughter faced off across the remains of our family meal, each sizing up the other, looking for tells, any indication that the other was bluffing. They could have given lessons on brinksmanship to Cold War-era diplomats.

“Fine,” Bree conceded. “I’ll register for the class. American literature, right?”

Alice snorted.

“What? I may talk like I got a banjo up my ass, but I
can
read, you know,” Bree drawled.

“You can’t just register for a class like that.” Alice snapped her fingers. “Dickerson is a selective school.”

Check.

Bree’s eyes lit with triumph. “But they have that community outreach program for folks who aren’t getting a degree. Vonda Hudson took a class on art history before she took that trip to Italy, and she’s a lovely woman but she’s dumb as a box of hair.”

“But Vonda has a high school diploma,” Alice countered.
And you don’t
. Alice didn’t say the words, but they echoed in the silence anyway.

Checkmate.

The stricken pain in Bree’s eyes was so raw I had to look away. A flicker of uncertainty, maybe a little shame, flashed across Alice’s face before she stuck out her jaw in resolve.

Bree made out how she was a party girl and pretended to be a screwup in school, but she actually got really good grades in high school. A pregnancy scare forced her to drop out and get married. In the end, she lost that baby along with her dreams of getting out of Dalliance, going someplace where she could shed her hell-raising reputation and make something of herself. She talked a good game, but her lack of an education shamed her.

I watched as she got a grip on her emotions and straightened her spine. She reached out for the bowl of mashed potatoes and spooned up another serving onto her plate.

“Fair enough. I didn’t graduate high school, but your aunt Tally did.”

“What?” I piped up, not sure how I got dragged into this spat.

“Aunt Tally can register for the class and go with you every day. She’s already told Reggie Hawking that she’s interested in going back to school”—she paused to give me a pointed look, reminding me that I owed her big for helping Alice search through Bryan’s office—“so it shouldn’t surprise anyone when she registers for the class.”

“Now wait a minute,” I protested. “I have a business to run. I already applied for a permit for a booth at the Bluegrass Festival, and now I’ve got this benefit for Bryan Campbell to plan, not to mention Crystal Tompkins’s wedding . . . it’s going to be a busy summer.”

Bree turned the full force of her glare on me, and all the good reasons why I shouldn’t go back to college that summer melted away like soft serve in the sunlight.

After we put away the dishes and refilled Sherbet’s kibble dish, we headed back to the A-la-mode.

“Y’all go ahead,” I said. “I’ll be right there.”

Once Bree and Alice were out of earshot, I pulled my phone out of my purse and dialed.

I got voice mail, and said a little “thank you” for that bit of luck.

“Hey, Cal,” I said to the machine. “Tally here. Uh, I want to be straight with you, okay? This is my official notice. I’m fixin’ to meddle.”

B
ree promised she would take care of the A-la-mode while I embarked on my new career as a part-time college student, and she honored her word. She headed out the door at five a.m. Monday morning, her flaming curls tied in a sloppy topknot and a travel mug of lukewarm day-old coffee clutched to her breast like a long-lost lover. As she shoved out the door, she speared me with an accusatory finger: “Register. Today.”

I did as I was told, schlepping down to the Dickerson registrar’s office. Thankfully, the school played fast and loose with registration for community members who weren’t seeking a degree. If you were willing to pay the tuition, they’d let you register.

My hand shook as I wrote the check. After nine months, the A-la-mode had finally drifted into the black, and I had money in my checking account. But not much. As I scrawled the zeros on the tuition check, I couldn’t help but envision all the things I wouldn’t be buying for another few months. The professional sign to replace the one Bree and Alice had painted freehand. The new waffle cone press I coveted. The brake job for my wretched old van.

But family came first.

First and second, as it happened.

After I got myself officially enrolled in Reggie Hawking’s American lit class, I met Cal by the entrance to the Gish-Tunny Center. He’d set up a meeting with Jonas Landry and George Gunderson to discuss the benefit for Bryan’s scholarship.

Before we got down to the specifics of the party, though, Cal decided to take me to the woodshed.

“Dammit, Tally, what sort of nonsense are you and Bree cooking up now?”

“It’s not nonsense, Cal.” I explained our logic about why we thought Emily had been murdered. “If someone killed both Bryan and Emily and if that someone thinks Alice is a threat, she’s in danger. I’m not about to sit by and let someone hurt our baby.”

“Those are some mighty big ‘ifs,’ ” Cal said.

“Maybe. But it’s mighty big trouble if we’re right.”

He sighed. “Listen, I would ride you more about this, but there’s nothing left for you to meddle in. It’s not official, but it looks like the detectives are closing the book on Bryan’s murder and there won’t be much of an investigation into Emily’s suicide.”

I noticed he didn’t qualify that word at all. As far as Cal and the cops were concerned, Emily definitely killed herself.

“If there’s no official investigation,” he continued, “there’s nothing for you to muck up. You may be a busybody, but you’re not a criminal.”

“Gee, thanks,” I said.

He tipped an imaginary hat. “No problem, darlin’.”

The two professors joined us as we picked up paper cups of sweet tea from the Jump and Java. They both bought coffee, waving their identification cards in front of the little red eye the way Reggie had done, and then they led us up to the third-floor ballroom.

“This is the space,” Landry said. “We can drape the whole room in crimson and gold bunting, and we have a parquet dance floor we can lay over the carpet there.”

The room stretched before us, empty and a bit forlorn, but with the enormous crystal chandeliers blazing and the space softened with furniture, fabric, and music, I could imagine how lovely it would be.

Cal nodded. “We’re planning on a silent auction,” he said, “so we could set up the items along that wall.”

I piped up. “Deena Silver is pretty busy with her daughter’s wedding, but Crystal and Jason knew Bryan, so she’s willing to do the catering at cost as long as we don’t hold the event the weekend of the wedding, which is the third weekend in June. And I’d like to provide dessert, if that’s okay. Since it’s a more formal dinner, I thought I could do an ice cream cake.”

A faint smile graced Cal’s lips. “That would be just fine, Tally. Since Bryan came to Dickerson, he’s been focused on the finer things, but when he was a kid, he had an ice cream cake from the Tasty-Swirl for every birthday party.”

He cleared his throat. “So how’s the second weekend in June look? That would work with the college baseball season and still leave Deena free the weekend of Crystal’s wedding.”

Landry pulled a face. “Unfortunately, I’ll be away that weekend. I have to attend the IAFS conference in Vancouver.” He looked at me. “Sorry, that’s the International Association of Film Scholarship.”

“Is it official, then?” Gunderson asked.

Landry chuckled. “As of Friday. I indulged in the osso buco at Fra Cirilo to celebrate.”

Gunderson explained. “Jonas’s most recent book was nominated for the IAFS Tamke Award, their highest honor. It seems he’s won.”

“Congratulations,” Cal and I said.

It must have been a big deal to rate a dinner at Fra Cirilo, north Texas’s poshest Italian restaurant.

“Yes, well, it means I’ll have to miss the benefit. What a disappointment.”

Maybe I was projecting my own lack of enthusiasm onto Jonas Landry, but he didn’t sound disappointed at all. In fact, I thought I detected a note of relief in his voice, like he was downright delighted to have an excuse not to attend the benefit.

“Nonsense,” Cal said. “We couldn’t have this event without you there. We’ll just have to move it up a week.”

I smothered a curse. Did these men have any idea what this event would involve? I could already imagine the stream of profanity spewing from Deena’s mouth when I informed her that we had less than a month to plan this shindig. And now that I would be trying to balance the A-la-mode and this literature class along with the preparations . . . just thinking about it made me tired.

 

That evening, after a day spent running errands, I found a package on my doorstep, a flat rectangle wrapped in brown paper and tied with a big, sloppy pink bow. Were it not for the pink bow, I might have thought it was a bomb, but the pink bow gave me hope it was a real live present.

And it was. Of sorts.

I sat on the couch, carefully pulled the ribbon off, and then ripped through the paper, and found a book.

I like books. I like to read mysteries and romances, cookbooks and the occasional biography. But I never had much of an inkling to read
Disciple of Denmark: The Life and Filmography of Christer Rasmussen
, by Jonas Landry, which was—I flipped open the back cover—472 pages long.