Hell in a Handbasket: Rose Gardner Investigations #3 Page 3

  “Because you don’t like her?” I asked, trying to contain my excitement, then feeling guilty.

  She purposely avoided eye contact. “I didn’t say that.”

  “But you didn’t say you did, either.”

  She glanced up, frustration in her eyes. “She’s just so . . .”

  “Pushy.”

  Her eyes flew wide. “Yes! She’s pushy! And bossy! And she’s trying to control him already! They’ve only been sleepin’ together for two weeks!”

  “You mean seein’ each other.”

  She made a face. Sex had been a touchy issue with Neely Kate over the last few weeks.

  “Have you and Jed . . . ?”

  “No,” she said in a curt tone that let me know the subject of her and Jed sleeping together or, in their case, not sleeping together was still off the table. Then she added, “And this isn’t about me and Jed. He doesn’t try to control my life, just like I can’t control his.”

  Jed had quit working for James, but that was before Merv, who’d been next in line, had kidnapped me and James’ brother in an attempted coup. James had been left with no one. I’d heard that Jed was still helping him, but he’d sworn to Neely Kate that he still intended to get out.

  “Has Jed decided what he’s going to do yet?”

  “He says he has several irons in the fire, but he won’t tell me what they are.” Her scowl confirmed that she was hurt by it.

  “Maybe he doesn’t want to get your hopes up.”

  She shrugged, pretending not to care. “We’ve only been seeing each other a few weeks. It’s too early for me to be so involved in his life.” Her gaze jerked up and she jabbed her fork in my direction. “Which is exactly why Dena has no right bein’ all up in Joe’s business. Who does she think she is, changing his plans like they’ve been married for twenty years?”

  I let out a breath. “Joe called you about canceling tomorrow night.”

  “What?” She got up and walked into the other room and came back about thirty seconds later, holding out her phone so I could see the screen.

  Sure enough, there was a text that said, Hey, NK. I need to reschedule tomorrow night. It was time stamped about ten minutes earlier.

  Neely Kate practically slammed her phone on the table. “When and how did you find out?”

  I cringed, sorry to have brought up what was so obviously a sore subject. How many times had Joe changed his plans with Neely Kate on Dena’s account? “The two of them drove me back to my truck on the square. When I was gettin’ out, Joe said to tell you he was lookin’ forward to your paintin’ party, but then Dena told him he’d already agreed to go to the movies in Magnolia with their friends. Tomorrow night was the only night they could go. I was hoping he’d tell her no.”

  Fire danced in her eyes, but thankfully she’d set down the fork. “That chickenshit didn’t even have the guts to call this time. He texted. And hours after he’d told you!”

  I offered her a sympathetic glance. “I’m sorry, Neely Kate. He really does care about you. He seemed excited about painting.”

  “Not excited enough to tell her no. Again.”

  “If it’s any consolation, I stood up for you.”

  Her face froze. “What’s that mean?”

  Oh crap. I’d stirred up a hornet’s nest. “Nothin’ . . . it’s just that when Dena realized Joe was double-booked, she argued she was doin’ you a favor, sayin’ no one liked to paint. I told her that you and Joe did and it was your bonding time.”

  Her jaw hardened. “And he still canceled on me?”

  I stared at her, speechless. I’d made things worse.

  She picked up her phone. “I’m gonna call him and give him a piece of my mind!”

  I reached for her hand, trying to stop her before she did something she would regret, but my own cell phone started to ring. I would have let it go, but I was worried it might be Violet. So I snatched up both phones and ran out into the living room.

  Neely Kate ran after me. “Give that back!”

  I waved her off, terrified when I didn’t recognize the number on my screen. “Hello?”

  “Is this Rose Gardner?” a woman asked.

  Was it someone from the hospital calling to tell me Violet had relapsed? That she’d be taken from us even sooner than we thought? Heart in my throat, I nodded, only to realize the woman on the other end of the line couldn’t see me. “Yes.”

  Seeing the fear on my face, Neely Kate froze. She understood. She’d been with me when I’d gotten the call over a week ago telling me that Violet had collapsed.

  “I need to hire you and your friend,” the woman said. Her voice sounded familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it.

  The rush of relief made me light-headed. My knees gave out and I sat on the sofa, nodding to Neely Kate with a soft smile, letting her know that everything was okay. “Neely Kate and I would love to help you with your landscaping needs. What do you have in mind?”

  Neely Kate pushed out a loud sigh and sat next to me.

  “Not your landscaping business,” the woman said. “I need you to clear me of murder.”

  I sat up straighter. “Murder?”

  “Are you deaf? Murder. My cousin Carol Ann’s been murdered.”

  Suddenly, I realized how I knew the voice. I was talking to Patsy Sue Clydehopper. “Carol Ann’s been murdered?”

  “Oh my God, girl. Are you deaf? Maybe I should hire someone else.”

  Patsy was talking loud enough for Neely Kate to hear our conversation. She snagged the phone from my hand and put it on speaker. “This is Neely Kate, and we’ll be happy to help you.”

  “Then I need you to meet me at the Broken Branch Motel. Room twenty-five. Like five minutes ago.” Then the call cut off.

  Neely Kate’s face beamed. “Looks like we got our first official murder investigation.”

  Chapter 3

  “We need to call Kermit,” I said. We’d made it out of the house in record time and were already driving my truck to Henryetta.

  Neely Kate waved her hand in dismissal. “We’ll call him after we know more about what’s goin’ on.”

  I frowned, but in the end, I decided she was right. Kermit Cooper was a private investigator who lived and worked out of a ramshackle trailer on the west end of town. Neely Kate was bound and determined for us to become real private investigators, but the only way to become legit was to shadow a licensed PI for two years or get a criminology degree. So a few weeks ago, Jed had set us up with Kermit the Hermit to get our training . . . only training wasn’t an accurate term. More like we did all of his work and he got paid. We’d already worked two cases for him—a lost parrot and, just last week, a cheating husband. He was essentially useless, but we’d have to bring him in at some point. The only way we could legally investigate an active police case was if we were licensed PIs—or interning for one. Still, I couldn’t imagine someone as lazy as Kermit being upset that we’d skipped a step.

  “What do you think Patsy’s doin’ at the Broken Branch Motel?” I asked. “That place is so seedy it could grow a garden.”

  “Hidin’ out?”

  I shot her a worried look. “So the police are lookin’ for her? She’s a fugitive?”

  “We really should get a police scanner,” Neely Kate said. “Then we’d know for certain. I think I can find out another way.” She held out her hand. “But I’m gonna need my phone.”

  I’d kept her phone in my pocket, but before I reached for it, I said, “No callin’ Joe.”

  Her upper lip curled. “I’m sure as Pete not tellin’ him what we’re doin’.”

  “I’m talkin’ about Dena. You need to cool off first.”

  Her brow furrowed. “That’s a discussion for another time. We’re on a case.”

  I gave her the phone, and she made a few calls—one to an ER nurse she knew, one to her cousin who knew a sheriff dispatcher, and a last-ditch call to her friend who worked at the courthouse, none of whom knew anything about a murder. I could h
ave sworn she sent a few texts too, but the not-so-innocent looks she shot me meant they were probably unrelated to the case. Something told me Joe was about to get an eyeful.

  “Maybe Carol Ann wasn’t murdered in Henryetta,” I said. “I know she wasn’t stayin’ with Patsy. Maybe she was stayin’ up in Magnolia or over in El Dorado.”

  “Maybe, but something stinks about this whole mess.”

  “I agree, and I guess we’re about to find out,” I said as the motel came into view.

  I pulled into the Broken Branch Motel’s pea gravel parking lot. Most of the gravel was gone, leaving hard-packed ground. There were only a few cars parked in the lot, one of them a shiny bright red Lincoln with the words “Baby Spice” in the back window.

  “That’s Patsy’s car,” Neely Kate said. “She just got it about six months ago and couldn’t stop braggin’ about how Calvin had bought it for her as an appreciation gift.”

  “I’m scared to ask why it says Baby Spice.”

  “That’s a story you’re probably better off not knowing, but I will tell you that it involves some kinky stuff Patsy tried to spice up her sex life with Calvin.”

  I gawked at her. “What?”

  Her mouth twisted to the side. “Like I said, you’re better off not knowing, but after that, Calvin started calling her Baby Spice.”

  I frowned. “Dena said she’d heard through the grapevine that Calvin was sleepin’ with Carol Ann. That’s why the two cousins really got into a fight. Not over the fried chicken recipe.”

  Neely Kate looked livid at the mention of Dena’s name. “Well, Dena’s slow on the uptake, because Patsy got her shiny new car after she caught her husband cheating with his secretary.”

  “So Calvin’s a serial cheater?”

  “The list is a mile long.”

  The Lincoln was parked next to a beat-up pickup truck several doors down from room twenty-five, so I parked in front of the room and got out, meeting Neely Kate on the sidewalk that ran alongside the building. “If Patsy’s hidin’ from the police, she’s doin’ a poor job of it.”

  Neely Kate shot me a grin. “Patsy may be known as a real-estate shark, but she got there through intimidation, not smarts. She probably figures she’s safe since this place is about ten feet outside the city limits. It’s the Fenton County Sheriff’s Department’s jurisdiction.”

  She really thought that would save her? And why would it matter if Carol Ann had been murdered somewhere else?

  I knocked on room twenty-five’s door. It opened a few inches, and Patsy Sue’s face appeared in the crack.

  “Do you promise to help me?” she asked.

  “How do you know Carol Ann’s been murdered?” Neely Kate asked. “I made a few calls, and no one knows about a murder.”

  “Oh my God!” Patsy screeched, opening the door a few inches wider. “You told people!”

  Neely Kate gave her a look of disgust. “Please. I’m not an amateur. I was discreet and no names were used. What I want to know is how you know she was murdered.”

  I was starting to get a very bad feeling. “Patsy. What’s behind that door?”

  Guilt filled her eyes.

  “Oh my God!” Neely Kate exclaimed. “Did you call us to the murder scene?”

  Patsy Sue threw the door open and grabbed my wrist, dragging me into the room before I had a chance to pull away. Relief made me light-headed when I saw there was no one on the disheveled bed.

  Neely Kate, who’d followed us in, sighed the moment her eyes met the empty bed. She looked as relieved as I felt.

  We’d let our guards down too soon. It wasn’t until Patsy shut the door that I saw Carol Ann lying on the floor on the other side of the bed.

  Neely Kate came to an abrupt halt as her gaze landed on the body. “Patsy Sue! What the Sam Hill do you think you’re doin’?”

  “Now you’re part of it,” Patsy said in a rush, waving her hands around. “Your DNA’s all over the place.”

  Neely Kate gave her the evil eye, not that I blamed her. “That’s not how it works, Patsy,” she snapped, “and thank you very much for trying to implicate us. We need to call the police!”

  “No! They’ll think I did it!”

  “Did you do it?” Neely Kate demanded with both hands on her hips.

  “No! I just found her here!”

  I held up my hands, my head swimming. Poor Carol Ann was lying on the floor, but I didn’t see any sign of blood. What if she was just passed out? “Did you check to see if she’s alive?”

  “No way!” Patsy Sue said, shaking her head. “I’m not goin’ anywhere near her!”

  I shot Neely Kate a look, and she tilted her head toward the bed. I was the one closest to the body, so I got the task of checking for a pulse.

  I tiptoed around the foot of the bed, then squatted next to Carol Ann. She’d showered and changed since the picnic, but her hot pink capris and white shirt didn’t seem to go with the thin blue scarf with giant white whales around her neck. It confused me until I realized it was a men’s tie.

  Oh crap.

  The tie was wrapped around her neck twice, the ends intertwined. Carol Ann’s face was pale, and I was sure she was dead, but I apprehensively pressed my hand against her neck and searched for a pulse. Her skin was abnormally cold, so I jerked my hand back and quickly stood. “Yep. She’s dead.”

  Neely Kate swiped the screen of her phone. “I’m calling Joe.”

  Patsy Sue lunged for Neely Kate, reaching for her phone. “No! I’ll pay you a thousand dollars to help me get rid of her body!”

  Neely Kate’s face paled and she paused long enough for Patsy to snatch her phone and stuff it down the front of her shirt.

  “You give that back right now!” Neely Kate shouted, holding out her hand. “Don’t you think I won’t go after it!”

  This was going from bad to worse, so I called Joe myself.

  “Rose,” he groaned when he answered. “If this is about me canceling on Neely Kate—”

  “That’s not it,” I said in a rush as Neely Kate reached for the front of Patsy’s pink button-down shirt.

  “I’ve already had my shirt ripped off once today,” Patsy Sue snarled. “What’s one more!”

  “What’s goin’ on over there?” Joe asked, sounding more alert.

  I could tell him straightaway or break it to him in person. In person seemed like the best approach. Carol Ann couldn’t get any deader. “I need you to come to the Broken Branch Motel.”

  “Why?” His hesitation was evident. “What on earth are you doin’ there?”

  “Let’s just say there’s a situation we need your help with right away. Room twenty-five.”

  “And don’t you dare bring Dena!” Neely Kate shouted while holding Patsy in a headlock.

  “Neely Kate said—”

  “I heard what Neely Kate said,” he grumbled, then hung up.

  “You called the sheriff?” Patsy Sue demanded, trying to twist out of Neely Kate’s hold. She reached into her shirt, then threw Neely Kate’s phone across the room. It hit the old TV with a hard thud, causing the screen to crack into multiple pieces as the phone fell to the floor.

  Neely Kate let Patsy go and ran for her phone, but Patsy took advantage of her momentary freedom and bolted for the door. When she threw it open, it slammed into Neely Kate, knocking her off balance as Patsy ran toward her car.

  “Come back here, Patsy Sue Clydehopper!” Neely Kate shouted as she got to her feet. “You’re paying for my new cell phone!”

  But Patsy had already gotten into her car. She backed out of the lot, sending gravel everywhere when she hit the brakes and shot onto the county road.

  “You know Joe’s gonna blame us for this,” I said, watching her speed away.

  “Yep,” she said, staring at the car too. “How much trouble do you think we’re in?”

  “I think we need to make a preemptive call to Carter Hale.”

  “My divorce attorney?”

  “My defense attorney.�
��

  She held out her hand. “Give me your phone.”

  I clutched it tighter. “Why?”

  “Because Patsy cracked mine, and I know who we really need to call.”

  “James?”

  She snorted. “How’s Skeeter Malcolm gonna help us out of this? I’m calling Kermit.”

  I shook my head. Of all the people who could potentially help us, the crotchety old detective would probably be last on my list. “What?”

  “Just give me your phone.”

  I did as she asked and she entered my password, tapped around, and then pressed the phone to her ear. A few seconds later, she said, “Kermit, this is Neely Kate.” She rolled her eyes. “Neely Kate Rivers. How many Neely Kates do you know?” She paused again and groaned. “Okay. I don’t actually need a list, but I do need you to listen. Joe Simmons is gonna be calling you, asking if Rose and I are workin’ on a case for you, and you’re gonna tell him yes.” She paused and irritation washed over her face. “Rose Gardner. The other woman who’s working with you. Listen! I need you to tell him we’re helping you prove Patsy Sue Clydehopper is innocent of her cousin’s murder. Can you do that?”

  I gasped in surprise. How could she possibly think Patsy was innocent? We’d found her in here with Carol Ann’s dead body, and she’d offered to pay us to dispose of the evidence.

  “No, I didn’t negotiate a fee,” she said. “I was too busy wrestling her for my phone, but whatever she’s payin’ is more money than you had five minutes ago, and you won’t even have to lift a finger.” She grinned. “Fine.” Then she hung up.

  I gaped at her in shock.

  Her brow lowered. “If we say we’re actually workin’ a case, we’re less likely to get hauled to the county jail.”

  “Joe wouldn’t dare haul you off,” I said. “He already knows you’re ticked at him.”

  “Good. I was worried the insults in my texts might have gone over his head. But you know just last week he threatened to haul us in after he found us takin’ surveillance photos of Edgar coming out of his girlfriend’s house.”

  “That’s because someone called us in for prowlin’,” I said.

  “And now he’s gonna find us standing in a motel room with a dead body, and we let the suspect run off. He’s gonna be pissed.”