Strung Out to Die Read online

  I took a leftover ear of corn from the other night’s dinner and handed it to her like she was a child. Eagerly, she took it and lay in the dog bed happily chomping away. I’d purchased the bed thinking she would use it to sleep in. Not a chance. She sleeps snuggled right up against me; hot piggy belly and all.

  “Are you ready?” I couldn’t believe those words were coming out of my mouth. Nor did I believe that I was having Bernadine get me in fighting shape. “I’m ready.”

  “The leader at Food Watchers says that if I incorporated exercise, I could have a snack or two during the day, and I’m starving for more than a carrot stick.” She pulled the bag out of her pocket and dangled them in front of my face. “Yuck.” She put them back in her pocket.

  Normally, I would smile, agree with her and crack a joke, but this wasn’t a joking situation.

  She reached out and rubbed my arm, trying to comfort me. “Plus, I want the low-down on if you heard anything about Doug since last night.” Bernadine did a couple of warm up moves, reaching her hands up to the sky and then down to touch her toes.

  “Come on, Willow.” I grabbed her hot pink leash off the kitchen chair and clipped it on her collar. “If you are going to keep up with me, you are going to have to lose some weight too.”

  Groink, groink.

  “I feel your pain,” I whispered to her. From her snorts and grunts, I could tell she wanted to walk as much as I did.

  We made it around the lake a couple of times. Bernadine yammered on about her divorce and how lucky I would be if it really was Sean that killed Doug, because then he’d be out of my life forever.

  I couldn’t help but look over my shoulder a time or two. I guess that was a natural reaction when you think someone was setting you up for murder.

  “What?” I strained to hear what she was saying. I had to walk twice as fast as Bernadine to keep up. “What did you say?”

  “I said that even though I think…” She stopped dead in her tracks. She put one hand out to stop me, and the other she put up to her lips. “Shh. Did you hear that?”

  Week, week, week, Willow scrambled toward the lake, trying to get away from the sound of breaking twigs in the woods nearby.

  “Hold on, girl.” I grounded my feet and held on as her leash snapped tight. There wasn’t any more slack, and in similar situations I’ve found myself being dragged behind her while Bernadine flailed her arms.

  “Run!” Bernadine screamed, high tailing it out of there without looking back. “Don’t kill us!”

  Week, week, week. Willow looked back at me as if I couldn’t hear the rustling leaves.

  I picked up the pace, and practically dragged sweet Willow. He-hon, he-hon, he-hon, I pulled so hard that Willow was sliding along the lakebed with her hooves sprawled out on each side.

  “Oh, my!” I ran back, picked her up, and took off as fast as one could, holding a seventy-five pound pig in their arms. “I’m so sorry.”

  We wiggled and jiggled all the way back to the cottage, not looking back. Someone was in the woods, and I wasn’t going to find out who it was.

  “What took you so long?” Bernadine panted. She was rattling the doorknob trying to get the door open. “Hurry! We have to call Noah!”

  “Where’s your cell?” On first jab, the key went right in the hole. Kicking the bottom corner of the door, it flung open.

  “I left it at home.” She ran inside, pushing Willow and me out of her way. “I didn’t figure someone was really out to kill you.”

  Willow ran back to the bedroom. Bernadine ran straight to the kitchen where the phone hung on the wall and looked out the window over the sink.

  “I bet we can see them.” She stretched the phone cord across the counter and strained her neck to see if she could see into the woods.

  Honk, honk, honk.

  I rolled up on my tiptoes and peered out over her shoulder.

  “Park City police. What is your emergency?” The person on the dispatch asked Bernadine.

  “I, um…” Bernadine muttered.

  The gaggle of geese waddled out of the woods from the exact spot where we heard those noises, and straight out to the lake.

  “Is there any way we can get some animal control out here by the lake? These geese are taking over.” Bernadine stated, pretending to ignore my giggles.

  Damn geese.

  “I guess I better go, and let you get ready for your day.” Bernadine’s mood seemed suddenly buoyant.

  “I’m afraid my day isn’t going to be like I thought it was going to be…say…a week ago.” What I wouldn’t give for it to be a week ago when I planned on holding bead classes and the Divorced Diva meeting. I wouldn’t even mind doing inventory at this point.

  “Hey, I’ve got an idea. Why don’t you come to my Food Watchers meeting with me today?”

  I’d never even thought about going to a Food Watcher meeting, but the walk did feel good, minus the tiny heart attack the geese gave us.

  Maybe I would give it a try to lose a little weight, but I didn’t want to commit to anything. My life was already complicated enough without having to try to keep track of what I was eating. These days, I wasn’t eating a whole lot.

  On second hand, maybe I needed to continue to store up my fat. From what I heard, the food in jail was pretty bland.

  “I’ll think about it.” There was absolutely zero commitment coming from me. “Do they have meetings in the Swanee jail?” I laughed, half kidding, half not.

  “You aren’t going to jail, Holly. We won’t let that happen.” She scowled. “I will let you know when the next meeting is and you can go with me.” She stretched her arms above her head. “I’ll see you tonight at the official Diva meeting.”

  I made sure that everyone from last night’s emergency meeting kept our rescheduled Diva meeting. After all, I didn’t want anyone outside our circle thinking we were up to something–like the little sleuthing we were doing.

  “Bye, Willow,” Bernadine called down the hall, and then opened the door.

  The wind whipped around the lake, creating an eerie sound from the trees and echoing down the valley. A flash of panic shot through my heart. When Bernadine left, I’d be alone.

  “Let’s walk tomorrow too,” I said and nonchalantly took a quick look around to see if anyone was outside, watching me.

  “Okay, sounds great. I’ll see you tonight.” She waved goodbye before stepping into her rowboat and heading back to her side of the lake. She hollered over her shoulder, “Call me if you need me. From that dinosaur land-line of yours.”

  I put away all silly notions that someone was watching me and took a quick shower. I couldn’t help but sing a couple lines from Rockwell’s 1984 hit, Somebody’s Watching Me.

  I peeked around the shower curtain when the door hinges creaked. Willow was licking up the water that had splashed out.

  “When I’m in the shower, I’m afraid to wash my hair,” I sang, in my best Rockwell impression. I’d just relaxed, soothed by the steady stream of hot water against my shoulders when the ringing phone caused them to tense up again.

  Quickly I shut off the water, and grabbed a towel. If any of the Divorced Divas thought they were going to call and cancel, they were wrong. I had never asked for a favor from them…ever. But now I had called it in and I expected them to deliver.

  Noah Druck’s voice echoed out of the answering machine into the cottage, and down the hall. “Holly, the police will be coming by the shop to do a onceover, making sure they didn’t miss anything. You can open the shop after lunch.”

  There was a pause.

  “We found fudge under Doug’s nails. Fudge.” He sounded intrigued. “Oh, and don’t leave town.”

  His words played over and over in my mind.

  Fudge. Agnes Pearl was the only person in town that made fudge on a regular basis and Marlene always brought it into the shop.

  Was that a clue? Doug had done work at Agnes’ recently, and he could’ve gotten some from her at the time. Also,
Marlene always carried some with her, and she was talking to Doug that night.

  To keep my mind off the possibility that someone in Swanee was setting me up, I cleaned the cottage from top to bottom. Of course it didn’t work. Every time I heard as much as a bird chirp, I’d run to my window and look out, not to mention Willow ran under the bed while squealing her little head off. So my mind continued to go over facts about the murder that I knew.

  One, Doug’s dead body was found on my bead shop floor. Two, whoever did it was definitely trying to make it look like I killed him. Three, I’m scared of geese. Four, fudge was found under Doug’s nails, which meant that he had to have been with someone who had fudge, and that wasn’t me. And five, I needed to find out if Flora got in touch with Bennie’s private investigator.

  Careful not to make any fast moves, just in case someone was watching, I shuffled down the hall with my back up against the wall, and then scooted into my bedroom. At least the bedroom window faced out to the barn, which gave me a great view if there was anyone out there.

  Grabbing the old rotary, I sat on the edge of the bed and put the cradle in my lap. Keeping one eye on the window and the other eye on the phone, I dialed Flora.

  Damned answering machine. Normally I’d hang up, but this situation was far from normal. Every minute I wasted not trying to figure out who was framing me, was a minute closer to my wearing an orange jump suit.

  “Flora, I wanted to know if you got in touch with that private investigator yesterday. Noah called and said the police are going to do another once over to make sure they didn’t miss something. I was sort of hoping Bennie’s guy,” I felt my eyes roll, and continued, “got over there and looked around.”

  Then I called the other Diva’s to remind them we were business-as-usual, and insisted they had to be there.

  Even Marlene had to be there. I needed to pick her brain, in a nonchalant way, of course, because she already accused me of accusing her. Plus, we needed to plan a visit to Ginger and the Sloan family to offer our condolences.

  None of them answered their phones.

  “It must be nice gallivanting around to who knows where with not a care in the world!” I yelled into Cheri’s answering machine, after realizing the luxury of galavanting had been stripped from me.

  Noah did say not to leave town, which I never did anyway, but if I wanted to I didn’t have the freedom.

  This was worse than being married to Dumb Ass!

  I was still going to have to rehash the details to Marlene and Agnes tonight. Not that I wanted to, but Agnes was far from being crossed off my list of suspects. But why would she frame me? Or was she framing Marlene?

  There were a lot of questions that were going to be asked tonight and I only hoped that Flora, Cheri, and Bernadine played along as if we hadn’t already had our little private meeting last night.

  Chills crawled up my spine when I glanced out the window before putting the phone back on the cradle. As if a bad movie was playing right in front of me, an image of Doug’s dead body popped into my head giving me the hebbie-jebbies–It was a picture I’ll never be able to forget.

  “Shake it off. You are going to be fine. Noah is going to solve this,” I whispered while grabbing my yoga pants off the chair next to the bed.

  Groink, groink. Willow’s snort was deep and billowy.

  Who was I trying to convince? Willow or me?

  I couldn’t go to jail. Not only because I didn’t commit the murder, but who was going to take care of my ornery pig?

  I slipped on my yoga pants and tugged at the waist. There was little space between my skin and the elastic.

  “Hmm.” I rolled up on my tippy toes and looked into the vanity mirror.

  I noticed a little slack in my derriere. I realized I had forgotten to eat yesterday. As a matter of fact, I’d forgotten to eat this morning, too.

  I wanted to lose weight, but not by the Dead Guy Diet.

  All the Divas were supposed to be at the shop by 7 p.m. for the Divorced Diva meeting. With all the stress I had had, sitting through a night of beading with Agnes Pearl might just put me under.

  Her arthritis was so bad, I wasn’t sure she’d be able to hold the wire in order to string the small glass beads. I’d even heard that her eyesight was getting worse, which meant she probably wasn’t even going to be able to see the small bead holes.

  “Come on, girl.” I patted my leg for Willow to come.

  Sitting in this house was like a duck waiting to be shot. I had plenty of time to go to the local super center so I could get Agnes some of those wooden bead jewelry-making kits for children. The beads were bigger and so were the holes. If I wasn’t mistaken, the string in the kit was actually a shoelace. Those would be perfect for Agnes.

  Chapter six

  “Stop that.” I swatted Willow’s nose away from sniffing the bag. She’d love to get her wee-piggy teeth into those wooden beads.

  Groink, groink, groink, she looked up at me with her beady black eyes begging for another sniff. She nudged the glove box, wanting me to give her one of the treats that I store in there, and I did.

  After getting Agnes’ special big hole wooden beads from the store, Willow and I pulled up in front of my darkened bead shop and parked in the empty space. The police tape was gone. The awning flapping in the spring breeze over the front stoop read, The Beaded Dragonfly. On a normal day, the dark shop didn’t spook me, but today was different.

  Life had to go on, even if Swanee was on edge with the murderer still on the loose. That meant The Beaded Dragonfly’s beginning beading class must go on too. Today was the first day of the four week class.

  There were ten people enrolled, and the only one who had any experience was Flora. She took every beading class The Beaded Dragonfly offered. She didn’t have anything better to do, other than talk on her phone.

  I took a little comfort in knowing Willow was with me. Although I didn’t know what she could do if someone attacked me. Willow can’t bark like a dog, and she was scared of her own shadow.

  With a click of the key, and a flip of the switch, The Beaded Dragonfly came to life with all its brilliant colors bouncing off each other. I was glad to see that the police didn’t feel the need to throw that fingerprint dust around again today.

  Each glass bead added a different spectrum of color, and a special touch to the shop.

  Most of the items I needed for the class were still in the storage closest. I locked the shop door behind me since I had some time before Marlene showed up and we officially opened. Today, she was going to work with any customers while I taught the class.

  Oink. Willow gave a snort with one ear perked up.

  Oh, no. My eyes widened, and I stopped dead in my tracks waiting listening for any noises. This was Willow’s something-is-outside look. She was especially good at hearing things before I did. She always knew when someone was driving up at our cottage before they put their car in park.

  The jingle of a door handle echoed throughout the shop and reverberated in my stomach. The sign clearly said ‘closed’, and someone was definitely trying to get in.

  Clunk, clunk, clunk.

  Willow darted underneath the wire shelving. Looking around for something to protect me, I grabbed a pair of needle-nose-pliers. They are dull, but pointy. And I could probably do a little damage if I needed to jab someone with them.

  I wasn’t sure if the rattling door was getting louder, or if was the clattering of my teeth. With the pliers held tight to my chest, I took in a deep breath before I plunged into the shop.

  “Good morning. Holly?” Marlene flung her purse in the air just as I came lunging at her, with my tool blazing. “What in the hell are you doing?”

  “Ouch, ouch, ouch!” I screamed, as her purse hit me square in the hand, sending the pliers flying across the floor. “What in the world do you have in that thing?”

  Click, click, click. Willow ran out of the storage as fast as she could. Once she saw Marlene, she darted under the lowe
st shelf; only the back half of her didn’t fit.

  “It’s okay.” I patted her butt with one hand and shook the other hand, trying to get the sting from Marlene’s purse out of it. “You scared the living daylights out of me.”

  She dangled her keys in the air. Her perfectly shaped eyebrows dipped as she chomped, “I have my own keys, remember?” She looked at me like I had two heads.

  “Yeah, well someone killed Doug right over there,” I pointed and snarled, “remember?”

  I bit my lip. What if I had just pissed her off and she was going to string some cat eyes around my neck?

  “Umm…” I stumbled, “I’m sorry. I’m just on edge. You can go ahead and start counting out the beads I’m going to need for the class.”

  On my way back to the storage room to retrieve the beading boards, I picked up the pliers that Marlene had wacked out of my hands with that purse, and gripped them…just in case.

  Briefly, I turned around and eyeballed her hot pink bag that was lying on the countertop. It was begging for me to peek inside. Screaming, in fact.

  “I need to get that purse,” I said under my breath, making a mental note, just as I grabbed the ten grey bead boards off the shelf, and then returned to the front of the shop.

  Bead boards were the first beading tool I would introduce to the group. It might be a self-explanatory tool, but it was useful for so much more than just laying out your design. The markings allow you to create the perfect-sized bracelet that can cater to anyone, regardless of the thickness of their wrists.

  I hopped over what I had begun to think of as ‘Doug’s spot’, and was glad to see Marlene was already working on the to-do list I had given her. She had the window cleaner out, spraying and wiping down the windows and the front door.

  It amazed me how dirty they got on a daily basis. You wouldn’t think anyone would smear their hands along a window, but they do, and Marlene was the lucky one who has to clean them.

  “That Agnes,” Marlene said. She shook her head, and then went back to spraying and wiping, every once in a while, using her nails to scrape something off. “She’s wearing me out. I really do think she is going blind.”