It was like old times. Almost.
Claudia and I lounged in the comfy, chintz-covered wicker chairs in her four-seasons room overlooking the fifteenth fairway, enjoying a cup of hot chocolate-not just your run-of-the-mill hot chocolate, but Godiva’s finest. There’s nothing like hot chocolate on a chilly afternoon to cure what ails you.
I glanced over at Claudia, curled like a giant tabby in a corner of the settee. She reminded me of Tang, that dad-blame cat Krystal was determined to tame. I have to admit that the girl was making progress coaxing him inside, using my albacore tuna as bait. The silly animal was as picky about people as he was about his diet. He showed a distinct preference for Krystal while pointedly ignoring me.
“I wish you had kicked me in the shin at the sheriff’s office,” Claudia murmured.
“The Claudia of old would have kicked back.”
“BJ warned me to keep my big mouth shut. But did I listen? Instead, I spouted off about what a jerk Lance turned out to be. I might as well wear a big letter M on my chest for ‘motive.’ ”
“Everyone knows you’d never hurt a flea.”
“Everyone but Sheriff Wiggins.” Claudia stared out the window. “He’s bound and determined to send me to prison-or worse.”
Worse, I knew, meant the death penalty. I shivered, cold in spite of my turtleneck. It would mean the sheriff would have to upgrade the charge from manslaughter to first-degree homicide. But first he needed to build a stronger case.
For a while neither of us spoke. Instead, we sipped our hot chocolate, which had grown lukewarm, and avoided looking at each other.
“I haven’t told this to a soul, Kate,” Claudia admitted, “but Lance and I were having serious problems.”
“Problems?” I repeated putting on an innocent act. I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear this, but what kind of girlfriend would I be if I didn’t listen? In some instances knowledge may be power, but in this case knowledge might be incriminating.
“It wasn’t bad enough Lance turned out to be a phony, but he was slowly killing me financially.”
Killing? I shuddered inwardly at her poor choice of words.
“At the rate he was going, it wouldn’t take long. The bank called to inform me Lance withdrew thirty thousand dollars. When I confronted him, he claimed it was for a surefire bet on the Super Bowl.”
“Wow!” I blew out a breath. “Thirty thousand? That’s a huge chunk of change.”
Claudia nodded, her expression glum. “You can say that again. The icing on the cake was getting a call from the manager of a car dealership regarding an order for a Jaguar.”
“Jaguar, hmm.” I toed off my loafers, stretched my legs out on the ottoman, and wiggled my stocking feet. “I thought Lance loved his vintage Camaro.”
“He claimed a Camaro no longer fit his image, whatever the hell that meant.” Her lips twisted into a bitter smile. “His hopes were set on being discovered by some hotshot in Atlanta with Hollywood ties. He was convinced Forever, My Darling would be snatched up and optioned for a screenplay-starring none other than Lance Ledeaux, of course.”
“Of course,” I murmured.
“It irked Lance to be called a ‘has-been,’ or ‘second banana. ’ He yearned to be a leading man. Said he was tired of people remembering the face, but never the name.”
I sipped my no-longer-hot hot chocolate. “Yeah, it must’ve been rough on his ego.”
“His ego knew no bounds.” Claudia nodded thoughtfully. “He was happy only when in the limelight-or gambling.”
“You mentioned the Super Bowl. Was he into sports gambling?”
“You name it; he bet on it. Vegas was his version of heaven on earth.” She set her cup down on the glass-topped table. “That’s why I was surprised when all of a sudden he wanted to leave Vegas and come here.”
“Whatever the reason, all of us were glad you came home.”
I stared out the wall of windows overlooking the fairway. The green, green grass of summer had changed into the brittle beige of winter. The afternoon had turned overcast with the high only in the low fifties. Only a few hardy duffers, bundled in fleece jackets and hats with earflaps, braved the course. I have to admit I haven’t played much golf since four of us Babes made a grisly find on the eighth hole some months back. Maybe this spring…
“I’ve always loved this spot,” Claudia said, looking around at the profusion of greenery that rimmed the room, the same Boston ferns and various houseplants I manage to murder on a regular basis. Suddenly she lowered her head into her hands and burst into tears. “Kate, I don’t know what I’m going to do if I’m sent to prison and have all this taken away.”
I went over, put my arms around her, and patted her back. “There, there, Claudia, everything’s going to be all right. You’ll see.”
When her sobbing finally subsided, I handed her a box of tissues.
“I didn’t deliberately kill Lance. I could never kill anyone.” Sniffling, she blotted her tears. “I’ve thought about that night over and over again. There’s only one explanation, one person to blame.”
“Who’s that, sweetie?”
“Bill Lewis.”
“Bill…?” I echoed, stunned by the accusation.
“Think about it, Kate. Bill didn’t like Lance. Remember how the two argued just before Lance was shot? You can’t deny Bill knows his handguns. Polly told me he’s the newly elected president of the Rod and Gun Club. And,” she concluded, “it was his Smith and Wesson.”
After leaving, I drove around aimlessly. Claudia certainly couldn’t have meant my Bill Lewis. Not my sweet, shy hunk of a handyman with the killer blue eyes. Yet she seemed convinced he was responsible for Lance’s death-either accidentally or accidentally on purpose. Was Bill equally convinced the chamber was empty when he’d loaned Lance his gun?
And if Bill wasn’t responsible, who was?
I wouldn’t be able to rest until I knew the answer. Before I lost my nerve or changed my mind, I decided to pay Bill a visit. I spotted his pickup in the drive and parked behind it. I felt a little nervous as I traipsed to the front door and rang the bell.
Though I’d been there before, I wasn’t in the habit of dropping by unannounced. Did this make me a shameless, man-chasing trollop? Back in the day-my day-it was taboo for a woman to even phone a man. A lady waited for the gentleman to call her. She might grow old and wrinkled in the process, but she never, ever, phoned him. Times may have changed, but I’m still on the low end of the learning curve.
No one seemed to be home. I rang the bell a final time and was just about to leave when the front door opened. And there he stood, my own personal version of Mr. February. A pair of safety goggles dangled around his neck; a tool belt hung low on his narrow hips. A gray waffle-weave Henley peeked from a plaid flannel shirt, and a spattering of sawdust covered his faded jeans. Suddenly I felt transported back to fourth grade and my first school-girl crush on Joey Trapani. I still have the Valentine he gave me at recess tucked away somewhere.
“Kate!”
Bill actually sounded happy to see me. I took this as a good omen. “Maybe I shouldn’t have come. I can see I’m interrupting your work.”
“Nonsense. Feel free to interrupt anytime.” He held the door wide. “Come in, come in.”
Still feeling a bit nervous, I trailed after him through the foyer. I glanced around, unobtrusively I hoped, but didn’t see any changes since his return from Michigan. Simple and uncluttered. Neat as a pin. Some might even call his style of decorating Spartan. A card table and four folding chairs made up his dining room set. A leather sofa, recliner, and flat-screen TV were the only furnishings in the great room. It was a home in dire need of a woman’s touch. I bit my tongue to keep from volunteering. Down, shameless hussy, down!
“How about I put on a pot of coffee?”
“Sounds perfect.”
“Great. May I take your coat?”
“I’ll just keep it here,” I replied. Shrugging out of my lightweight jacket, I draped it over the back of a kitchen bar stool. “Looks like you’re in the middle of another of your woodworking projects.”
“I’m making a gun rack.” He tugged off his safety glasses and tossed them on the counter. “The guys in the Rod and Gun Club asked me to make one as a sample for them.”
Making a gun rack? Swell. A perfect segue. “Do you own a lot of guns?” I asked with the studied casualness worthy of a seasoned detective-at least my version of a seasoned detective. I’m no Lennie Briscoe from Law & Order, but I’m learning.
Bill moved about the kitchen, his movements efficient and economical. He filled the carafe with water, then carefully measured coffee. “I have a rifle for hunting and a couple handguns I use for target shooting.”
“Including the one you loaned Lance?”
“Yeah, I’ve got a concealed weapons permit. Took a class the sheriff’s department offered.” He took a partially empty bag of Oreos from the cupboard and heaped them on a plate, which he set in front of me.
Now, some men might ply women with alcohol, but they should take a page from Bill’s book. I say, ply them with chocolate, gentlemen. They’ll be putty in your hands. First hot chocolate at Claudia’s, now Oreos with Bill; the chocolate gods were smiling on me. I must have been a good girl to rate this kind of treatment.
“Bill,” I said, nibbling a cookie, “there’s something I need to ask.”
“Shoot.”
Shoot as in bang-bang? Another segue I couldn’t ignore. “Since you brought up the subject of shooting, is it possible you might’ve left a bullet in the gun you gave Lance?”
He turned, looking as unhappy as I’d ever seen him, a half-filled mug in his hand. Oh dear. Was I about to hear a confession? If so, what next? Turn him in to the sheriff? Wave as he was hauled away in a squad car?
“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve asked myself the same question,” he said at last.
The cookie in my mouth turned tasteless. “Is there even a remote possibility?”
“I’ve gone over this a thousand times, Kate.” Resuming his role of host, he finished filling a mug for me, then poured another for himself. “As I told the sheriff, I cleaned the gun that morning before handing it over to Ledeaux. If there was a bullet in the chamber, there’s no way I could have missed it.”
“You’re positive?”
“Very positive.” He sat down beside me at the breakfast bar. “I’ve been around guns since I was a kid. No way I’d be that careless. Face it, Kate. This was no accident. Someone wanted Lance dead.”
“But who?”
Ever since the shooting, I’d had trouble wrapping my mind around the notion that Lance had been murdered. The word accident seemed safer, less frightening. As I said before, denial is a wonderful thing; best defense mechanism God ever created. But time had come to take my head out of the sand and face facts. Bill was absolutely certain he hadn’t left a bullet in the chamber. And the only place Claudia would’ve killed Lance was in a divorce court.
“Time to get down to business.” I reached for the large purse I always intend to trade in for a smaller one. At times like these, though, it’s good to have everything at your fingertips-things such as latex gloves, an LED flashlight, and my very own little black book, which bore an uncanny resemblance to the sheriff’s. I dragged out the notebook and rummaged around for a pen. “Let’s make a list.”
“What kind of list?”
“Work with me, Bill.” I flipped open to an empty page. “We need to write down all possible suspects. Then we’ll eliminate them one by one.”
“How do you propose we do that?”
I sighed. Clearly Bill needed guidance-my guidance, that is. I’d be more than happy to take him under my wing and teach him the ropes of being a PI. “Remember what Sheriff Wiggins said about the Big Three?”
Bill frowned. “General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler?”
I sighed. Figures coming from someone who lived in Michigan most of his life. “The Big Three in detective work are motive, means, and opportunity. Everyone backstage had means and opportunity. All we need to do is find out who, other than Claudia, had a reason to want Lance dead. A walk in the park for two pros like us, right?”
“If you say so,” Bill agreed reluctantly, but didn’t look convinced.
I proceeded to write down the names of everyone who had been present at rehearsal the night Lance was shot. “Let’s start by crossing both of us off the list since neither of us is guilty. I’ll scratch Claudia off the list, too, since we believe she’s innocent.”
Bill pointed at the next name on the list of possible suspects. “Monica?”
I shook my head. “Monica would never shoot anyone.”
“Why’s that?”
“She has a weak stomach and can’t stand the sight of blood.” I drew a line through her name. “If she ever decided to kill someone, she’d use poison.”
Bill’s eyes danced with amusement. “Has anyone ever told you that you have a devious mind?”
I refused to be sidetracked by a pair of baby blues. “Rita would never kill anyone either.” Hers was another name to cross off.
“She have a weak stomach, too?”
“Rita’s a gardener. She likes to plant things and watch them grow. I once saw her refuse to throw out an African violet infested with mealy bugs. That’s not the type of person who’d cold-bloodedly kill a human being.”
“Guess not.” Bill took a sip of coffee. “That leaves only Bernie and Gus on your list. Since Gus met Lance for the first time when I introduced them, what motive could he possibly have?”
I crossed Gus from my ever-shortening list. I stared at the plate of Oreos. Wasn’t chocolate supposed to be good for you? Dark chocolate, Monica had preached, not white chocolate, not milk chocolate. Yep, Oreos looked dark to me. I helped myself to another cookie. “That leaves Bernie Mason as the prime suspect.”
We sat for a moment in silence, contemplating the possibility.
Heaving a sigh, I suddenly knew what I had to do. Slowly, and with some regret, I drew a line through the name of our lone suspect. “Bernie has the backbone of an amoeba. He’d never get up the nerve to murder someone.”
I flipped a new page over in my notebook. “Let’s look at this a different way,” I said, bowed but unbroken. I then proceeded to tell Bill about Polly seeing Lance looking chummy with a dark-haired woman she swore was Krystal.
“But Krystal’s new in town. What motive could she possibly have?”
“I confess it’s a long shot. The only possible connection I can see is that both she and Lance had previous acting experience.”
“You’re overlooking the fact she wasn’t at the rec center that night.”
I didn’t want to hear the voice of reason. I wanted to solve the case, clear Claudia, and get on with my life. Next I told Bill about seeing Lance arguing with a dark-haired woman behind the Piggly Wiggly-a woman driving a luxury car identical to that of my new neighbor, Nadine Peterson.
“Since this Peterson woman wasn’t at the scene of the crime either, even if she had motive, she still lacks means and opportunity.”
Bill was proving a star pupil in the Kate McCall School of Private Investigation-a school about to go defunct without a single suspect.