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Authors: Kaye George

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BOOK: Smoke
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She had taken her online test on The Crime Scene on her work computer while Mike was at lunch. It would take a week to get the results. The questions weren’t too hard and she thought she’d known most of them. It wouldn’t be too much longer before she finished her courses and could be a real PI.

On her way home, Immy swore she’d never get roped into anything by Louise again. She kept telling herself it was a good thing to do for Amy JoBeth. When the party was finished, she’d sit down with Amy JoBeth and see if she couldn’t figure out a way to track down Gretchen’s killer for her.

* * *

The day of Amy JoBeth’s party started fine. The weather had taken a slight cool turn and it looked like the icing on the cake would hold up.

Just before the guests were to arrive, Immy and Hortense bustled in and out, setting out sweating pitchers of iced tea, piles of festive red, white, and blue paper ware weighted with a couple of real plates, and platters of vegetables, dip, pickles, and cheeses. Drew and Zack were assigned the task of keeping Marshmallow away from the picnic table and there was only one minor mishap when the pig nosed a dish of ranch dressing dip onto the ground. Luckily, they had lots more.

Louise didn’t show up until the first guests, some Cotter cousins from Fort Worth, had arrived. Soon, the yard was filled with Cotter relatives and a few locals that Amy JoBeth and Louise had met since they’d both moved to the area.

As the party was gearing up, Immy started to relax. She found an empty folding chair and sat to eat her cake and watch. Although she still felt she’d been railroaded into this, and wondered if Louise would ever repay her for the money she’d spent, she was doubly glad she’d done it now. Amy JoBeth, her wiry hair tamed into what might almost be a bob, and wearing a denim skirt and sandals instead of her usual overalls, looked relaxed. She sat on a lawn chair and chatted with some of her cousins about plans for the wedding—flowers and colors. Maybe Louise was right and this was just what she needed to bring her out of her doldrums and her bunker.

Cathy was due soon and they could get down to discussing makeovers. They’d decided she would just do makeup today, but would suggest new hair styles that would be optional, and would be accomplished by appointment in her shop, Cathy’s Kut and Kurl.

At one point, Drew and Zack took the pig to the front yard to play, while the party continued in the back, under the spreading live oak tree next to Marshmallow’s new quarters. Marshmallow hadn’t spent much time there yet, though. He’d taken to the litter box inside and had slept with Drew every night after the first one, when he’d squealed for three hours outside until Immy let him in.

As Immy finished her cake and stood to toss her plate into the garbage bag tied to a lawn chair, the two children rushed around the corner of the house from the front yard. Immy’s first reaction was alarm. Had Marshmallow run away and been shot? But he trotted behind them like a puppy dog.

Behind Marshmallow strode Chief Emmett Emersen. Immy wondered if he had been invited and, if so, why he was so late, but one look at his beefy red face told her this was a business call.

He stopped and surveyed the yard full of females, then made straight for Amy JoBeth. Now Immy pictured all of Amy JoBeth’s pigs loose and lying dead, shot by drunken hunters. Immy started toward the chief.

Amy JoBeth’s hand, holding a forkful of cake, stopped halfway to her mouth. Heads swiveled and silence fell at the sight of the beefy, ruddy-faced, fully uniformed cop.

“Amy JoBeth Cotter Anderson,” Chief said in his most official tone, “I arrest you for the murder of Beryl Bucket, also known as Rusty.” Amy JoBeth slumped to the ground, exactly as her mother had done in their kitchen a few days ago.

Chapter 8

At church the next morning, the sanctuary was abuzz with the news of Amy JoBeth’s arrest as Immy and her family walked in. Louise hadn’t shown up, so Immy thought most of the talk was speculation. She’d have to see if Ralph could give her some concrete information on the charges later.

The rumors were wild. Amy JoBeth was in a coma in the hospital. She was in a coma in the Saltlick jail. She was awake, but babbling incoherently. She was awake and coherent, but crouching beneath the cot. Immy knew this was possible because she’d spent a night there once herself and the cots were built as shelves, with one bunked atop the other.

Immy shuddered as she pictured Amy JoBeth hunkering on the floor of the cell, getting as close to being underground as she could, since she couldn’t get into her tornado shelter. Once she got out of jail, she might never come out of her cave again, no matter how many brownies Immy offered her.

Mrs. Wilson, the woman who kept her Rottweiler chained in her yard, and one of the biggest gossips in Saltlick, gave two conflicting versions, the coma in the hospital and the incoherent in jail. She had another rumor, though, that Immy didn’t hear from the other parishioners.

“I was talking to Ophelia Jenkins before the service,” she whispered to Hortense during the offertory. Immy, on the other side of Hortense, could hear her perfectly. “She was praying at the altar, down on her knees, and bawling. She’s just beside herself.”

Hortense scanned the congregation. “Where is she coexisting next to her own person at the moment?” she asked. “She’s not present in the sanctuary.”

Mrs. Wilson shook her head to clear it of Hortense’s extraneous words.

Immy leaned forward to whisper to Mrs. Wilson. “Mother means, where is Ophelia?”

“Oh. She decided she couldn’t stay for the service. She’s too upset about her daughter. Poppy didn’t come home from her last shift at Jerry’s Jerky. Ophelia doesn’t know where she’s at.”

“That is peculiar,” said Hortense.

“Has Ophelia investigated?” asked Immy.

“All rise,” intoned Reverend Klinger, and they rose and sang the doxology.

Immy wondered if she should take on another case, The Case of the Missing Poppy. It sounded like a gardening mystery novel. Or a drug mystery?

After the service, Immy dropped Hortense and the children at home and swung by the jail to see if she could cheer up Amy JoBeth.

Tabitha, the bleached-out blonde guardian of the bullet-proof window in the small police station lobby, acted like she didn’t know Immy, as usual.

“Please sign your name on the roster and write down who you want to see.’

“Tabitha, you know very well who I am and I want to see Ralph. Which you also know very well.”

Tabitha looked up from inspecting her long nails. “You have to sign the roster.”

“I didn’t have to last time I came in here to see Ralph.”

“Well, we have new procedures now.”

“Since when?”

Tabitha went back to her nails, which badly needed cutting. But all she was doing was buffing the blood-red polish on them. Immy gave up and signed her name on a tablet on which Tabitha had printed headings: NAME, PARTY TO BE SEEN, TIME IN, TIME OUT.

She was able to put her NAME, Imogene Duckworthy, and her PARTY TO BE SEEN, Ralph Sandoval, but she didn’t know what time it was. Probably about one. She wrote: daytime.

Tabitha examined the tablet, gave Immy a hard stare from under her pale eyebrows when she got to TIME IN, but left for the innards of the station. The innards were not vast, but were fiercely guarded by Tabitha during her working hours. Sometimes, when Immy came to the station after Tabitha had gone home, she could rap on the heavy door beside the empty glass cage and Ralph would usher her to his closet-sized office.

Tabitha returned after a leisurely ten-minutes and told Immy that Ralph wasn’t in today.

“What the hell? You knew that when I walked in here. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I thought maybe Chief would want to talk to you.”

“What are you doing working Sunday anyway?”

“Making up hours. I’m taking vacation next week.”

“Good,” said Immy, and left the station. Outside the door she reconsidered. She went back and asked Tabitha if she could see the chief instead.

Tabitha pointed to her damn roster and Immy filled it out, using Chief Emersen’s name for her new entry, glaring the whole time.

Chief Emersen eventually ushered her through the door, down the hall and into his office. It couldn’t be called spacious, unless you’d seen Ralph’s office first. She’d never sat in his office before. She’d walked past it and peeked in the door, but it was even smaller from the inside. Bigger than Ralph’s office, which had been converted from a storage closet, but not by a lot. A bank of tall file cabinets lined one wall and a computer with a bouncing screensaver logo took up a lot of the gray metal desk that, in turn, took up a good portion of the room. But the two side chairs were nice, with leather-looking cushions and arm rests. A window faced out on the side street to his right.

“Immy, how’s your mother doing?”

Chief sure was becoming sweet on her mother. Could Immy use this? Turn it to her advantage? Probably not, Chief was an upstanding guy.

“She seems to like Drew’s new pet,” said Immy. “She decided to cook special treats for Marshmallow.”

“The pig eats marshmallows?”

“No, no, Drew named the pig Marshmallow.”

“That’s right. I remember Drew telling me that.”

“Mother thinks Marshmallow needs special pig treats. He seems to like Cheerios and popcorn just fine, but Mother found a recipe for peanut butter flavored pig treats in the ‘Potbelly Insider Magazine’.”

Chief drummed his pencil on his desk blotter and glanced at the clock on his wall. “Immy, what did you want to see me about?”

“Oh yes. I wanted to talk to Amy JoBeth. If I could.”

“Why do you want to see her, Immy?”

“Well, I guess I want to cheer her up. She has a history of depression. It’s not good for her being locked up.”

“I don’t believe being locked up is good for anyone. But we don’t release prisoners because they’re upset about being locked up.”

“I don’t want to get her released. I’m not going to try to spring her. Honest.”

Chief pondered for a moment. “How about if I let you talk to her through the bars?”

“That’s fine.” Immy especially disliked the confinement of jail cells.

So she was escorted to Amy JoBeth’s cell, relieved to find it wasn’t the one she’d spent a night in once. She got a cold feeling inside when she glanced at that one as she passed it. Of course, there were only three jail cells, so it wasn’t far away. The other cells were empty, and the chief left her alone to talk to Amy JoBeth. Immy was glad about that. It might give her a chance to suss out some good dope.

Amy JoBeth looked up at Immy with dull eyes. She wasn’t on the floor under the cot, but she didn’t look well. Immy stepped to the bars and grabbed them. They were as cold and unyielding as she remembered.

“Hi, Immy. What are you doing here?”

“I, uh, would you like some brownies?”

“No, Immy. I would not like some brownies. I would not like anything. Except to redo the past. I never should have left Ernest.” Amy JoBeth returned her gaze to the concrete floor.

Did that mean she regretted killing Rusty?

“What are they charging you with? Do you have a good mouthpiece?” Immy had read every piece of detective fiction in the Saltlick library at a young age and slipped into the lingo with ease.

“What do you think? Murder. They think I killed Rusty.”

“Why?”

“Because he killed Gretchen.”

Oh. “That’s not what I meant, but I didn’t know Rusty killed her. How did you find that out?” How could she get her career going if all her cases were going to solve themselves?

“Vern told me Rusty did it. He said Rusty told him.”

Immy pondered this for a minute. “When did that happen?”

“You know how Vern brought me that jerky when I came out of the storm shelter?”

That moment was vividly etched in Immy’s mind. She hoped it had given Amy JoBeth an accurate assessment of Vern’s intelligence level.

“Vernie said Rusty told him when he was there to buy jerky. He saw Rusty putting Gretchen into the smokehouse. Into the smokehouse! He told Vern to tell me he was so sorry he’d shot Gretchen.”

Since she was still calling him Vernie, Immy guessed she still loved him. “Rusty told Vern that? Why would Rusty do that?” But then, why would Vern buy pork jerky for Amy JoBeth? And why in the hell would Rusty think he should smoke Gretchen? Were those two men just that dumb?

“He said he’d take it all back if he could.” Amy JoBeth squeezed her eyelids shut and tears streamed over her round cheeks.

“But the shop was closed so he couldn’t, I guess.”

“What?” Amy JoBeth looked straight at Immy for the first time, animation playing across her face.

“I said Vern couldn’t return the jerky because the health department closed Jerry’s Jerky Shoppe.”

“I was talking about Rusty taking back what he did, not Vern taking back the jerky. Are you crazy, Immy?” She rose and approached the cell bars.

Ha. Coming from a person who locked herself in a tornado shelter, those were fine words.

Amy JoBeth dashed the tears from her face with her sleeve. “Why did you come here?”

Oh yes, she must remember her mission of mercy. “To cheer you up.”

“You’re doing a hell of a job.” Amy JoBeth returned to the cot and slumped, hard, against the wall it was fastened to. “I feel
so
much better.”

“Do you want me to figure out who killed Rusty?”

Hope glowed in Amy JoBeth’s damp eyes. “You mean you don’t think I did?”

Well, no, she hadn’t thought that. Until now. But what if Amy JoBeth really did kill Rusty? She pondered that for a moment. She didn’t think PIs were supposed to ask their clients if they were guilty. Maybe Immy had better figure out if Amy JoBeth did it or not. “Why do the cops think you’re good for it?”

Amy JoBeth’s shoulders rose and fell in a long sigh. “They have some pretty good evidence, my lawyer says.” She held up her piggy fingers and ticked off her points. “First, because I knew he killed Gretchen. And I was mad enough to kill him, I admit. Second, because my signature confetti was found under his body. Third, I don’t have an alibi.”

BOOK: Smoke
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