Hell in a Handbasket: Rose Gardner Investigations #3 Page 4

  That was an understatement.

  Ten minutes later, we heard a knock on the partially closed door and Joe pushed it open. “What the hell is goin’ on, Rose?”

  “What’s wrong?” Neely Kate asked in a bitter tone. “Was Dena pissed that you had to leave her to come help us?”

  The scowl on his face suggested she was onto something.

  I held up my hands. “Y’all can continue that conversation later. We need to focus on this first.” I held Joe’s gaze. “I need you to keep in mind that this wasn’t our fault.”

  Joe groaned. “Oh, God. Did you break into this room?”

  “We’ll have you know that we were invited in,” Neely Kate said.

  Joe’s gaze landed on the busted television screen. “Why’s the TV broken?”

  “Because Patsy Sue Clydehopper threw my phone at it,” she said matter-of-factly.

  His gaze jerked back to his sister. “What was Patsy Sue Clydehopper doin’ here?”

  “She’s the one who invited us,” Neely Kate said.

  Joe turned to me with a look that suggested he was done with nonsense. “What in the hell’s goin’ on here, Rose?”

  I grimaced and moved around the end of the bed. “I think you’re gonna want to see this.”

  With a look of trepidation, he followed—and then abruptly stopped in his tracks. “Is that what I think it is?”

  “Are you thinkin’ it’s Carol Ann Nelson’s dead body?” I asked.

  Joe’s face was beet red as he glanced up at me. “It’s like you’re a damn mind reader.”

  “Nope,” I said, forcing a light tone to ease the tension. “I just see the future.”

  “Well, it’s not gonna take a vision to see that you’ve got some explaining to do.”

  Boy, did I know it.

  Chapter 4

  “How did this happen?” Joe shouted as he pointed to Carol Ann’s body. “Please tell me that neither one of you had anything to do with this.”

  “I already told you we didn’t,” I said. “I got a phone call from Patsy Sue sayin’ she wanted to hire us to clear her name in her cousin’s murder, but I swear, I had no idea she was standin’ over Carol Ann’s body when she made the call.”

  “Why on earth did you agree to meet her here?” he demanded.

  Neely Kate put her hand on her hip. “We thought she was hidin’ out from the law.”

  “This would be the absolute worst place to hide out,” Joe said, now flinging his hand toward the open door. “The parking lot is right off the highway, and everyone knows the look of Patsy’s brand-new Lincoln. How many red Lincolns do you see driving around sportin’ Baby Spice on the back window?”

  He had a point.

  “Not only that, but Bill Peterson owns the place and is as gossipy as they come. If Patsy had rented a room here, half the town would be whispering about it by now.”

  Neely Kate shook her head. “And how would our client know that? She’s a fine, upstanding, church-going citizen.”

  Joe gave her a blank look. “Her back window says Baby Spice, Neely Kate, and we both know that’s not referring to a member of a nineties girl band.”

  “How do you both know this and I don’t?” I asked.

  Joe shot me a dark look. “We’re getting off track here. Patsy Sue called and asked you to meet her here to help clear her name in her cousin’s murder. What happened when you got here?”

  “I’ll admit she was acting suspicious,” I said. “She only opened the door a crack. We asked her if she’d called us to a murder scene, then she jerked me inside. I found Carol Ann lyin’ there with the tie wrapped around her neck. Dead. Patsy hadn’t even checked for a pulse. Neely Kate was about to call you, but Patsy managed to wrestle her phone away. She threw it at the TV and ran off.”

  He stared at us both for several long seconds. “Have either of you touched anything in this room?”

  I shook my head. “Other than Carol Ann’s neck, no.”

  “And you have no idea where Patsy went?”

  “No,” Neely Kate said. “But even if we knew, we wouldn’t be at liberty to tell you the location of our client.”

  “It doesn’t work like that, Neely Kate,” Joe said in exasperation. “You fancy yourself to be a PI, not an attorney, and the truth is you’re neither!”

  “Not true!” she protested. “We’re working this case with Kermit Cooper. Just call him and ask.”

  He started to say something, then shook his head and made a call. For a second, I thought he had Kermit Cooper on speed dial until I heard him say, “Jennifer? This is Joe. I’ve got a dead body at the Broken Branch Motel. Send a homicide team out.” When he hung up, he pointed toward the door again. “Both of you out, but don’t you dare leave.”

  * * *

  More sheriff’s deputies showed up, followed by the coroner and the forensics team. Neely Kate and I sat on the tailgate of my truck, which made me think about all of the times James and I had sat together on my tailgate behind the Sinclair station.

  I missed him more than I cared to admit, and it took every bit of willpower not to text him and ask him to meet me at the station later.

  Neely Kate was lost in thought too. I’d made several attempts to ask about her day with Jed, but she’d brushed them off. From what I could tell, they’d been up to Little Rock three times now. I still had no idea what they’d been doing there, but her reluctance to talk about it still made me think it was related to Kate.

  After an hour, Joe finally came back to talk to us, and I was pretty sure he’d made us stay about fifty minutes longer than necessary just to punish us. He delivered a scathing lecture about how we could have contaminated a crime scene or—worse—been killed or framed by Patsy Sue (thankfully, he had no way of knowing she’d suggested our DNA now linked us to the crime), and that we weren’t private detectives, no matter how deluded we were. That was the tipping point for Neely Kate, who had been surprisingly quiet throughout his lecture.

  She hopped off the tailgate and poked him in the chest. “You might not like that we’re working with Kermit Cooper, but we’re not doing anything illegal.”

  “I’d call tampering with a crime scene illegal.”

  “We weren’t tampering with the crime scene, and you doggone know it,” Neely Kate said.

  “Why do you like to flirt with danger?” Joe demanded, his face turning red.

  “What are you talkin’ about?” she said. “We were meetin’ Patsy Sue Clydehopper! Who would have thought it was dangerous?”

  “What about Little Rock?”

  The anger fell off her face. “What about Little Rock?”

  Oh, crappy doodles. Did Joe know that Neely Kate had been seeing Jed? Surely not or he likely would have led with that, dead body or no.

  “Don’t play dumb with me, Neely Kate,” he said. “I know you went to see Kate this afternoon.”

  For once Neely Kate looked speechless.

  “What were you doin’ up there?”

  “What does it matter to you, Joe?”

  “Because I care about you!”

  “Care about me?” She released a bitter laugh. “If you cared about me, you wouldn’t have canceled our plans again through a text so you could go see a movie with your girlfriend of two weeks!”

  He groaned and rubbed his eyes before dropping his hand. “I screwed up.”

  “You’re doggone right you did!” She looked madder than I’d ever seen her. “Either you want to spend time with me or you don’t, Joe Simmons, and you’ve made it clear as a bell multiple times that you don’t.”

  His expression softened. “Neely Kate, it’s not like that . . .”

  “We’re leaving. Come on, Rose.” She stomped toward the passenger door of the truck and climbed inside.

  I gave Joe a questioning look.

  Looking exasperated, he nodded and gave a short wave toward the truck. “Go. I know where to find you.”

  I started to walk toward the driver’s door but turned
around and said in a low voice, “She’s more fragile than she looks, Joe.”

  He ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah, I know.”

  * * *

  I let Neely Kate have five minutes to mull things over before I asked, “Why were you seein’ Kate this afternoon?”

  “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “Try me.” When she didn’t answer, I asked softly, “Are you at least gettin’ the answers you’re looking for?”

  She gave me a look of surprise. “No.”

  “Then why do you keep goin’?” I prodded gently. “I know she’s goin’ out of her way to hurt you.”

  “Just call me a fool,” she said in a bitter tone.

  “You’re one of the last people I’d call a fool, Neely Kate.”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Jed’s been takin’ you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “After she drags your heart through the muck, does he clean it off and make you feel better?”

  A soft smile lit up her eyes. “Yeah. He does.”

  “Good. You deserve someone who supports you through the good and the bad.”

  Her smile fell. “Where does that leave Joe?”

  The look on her face made me want to wring Joe’s neck. “Joe cares about you, Neely Kate. I know he does, but he’s feelin’ his way through this new relationship just like you are. Besides, this is his first girlfriend after what happened with Hilary. He seems happy.”

  Tears filled her eyes. “Yeah.”

  “He’s caught up in the whirlwind of a new romance. He’ll realize what he’s doing and come to his senses.”

  “Funny . . . I’m caught up in the whirlwind of a new romance, and yet I still have time for him.”

  There was no arguing with that.

  “It’s like I told you. This isn’t the first time he’s canceled on me because of her.” Her chin trembled, but she kept her eyes on the road. “I’m done with lettin’ people treat me like I’m disposable.”

  I sucked in a breath. Of course she saw herself that way. I reached out a hand and touched her arm. “Oh, Neely Kate . . .”

  She flinched and pulled away. “I don’t want your pity, Rose,” she said in a tight voice. “I just thought you should know.”

  “Pity? I don’t pity you. I’m so stinkin’ proud of you.” Tears stung my eyes. I wished I wasn’t driving so I could get a good look at her, but knowing Neely Kate, we wouldn’t be having this conversation if we’d been sitting face-to-face.

  “I’m done waitin’ for people’s leftover scraps of attention, and Joe’s made his priorities clear.”

  I wasn’t sure Joe saw it like that at all, but now didn’t seem like the time to bring it up.

  She lifted her chin, clearly putting her issues with Joe behind her. “We both know that Joe’s gonna go after Patsy as the murderer, so we need to come up with a plan of attack to clear her name.”

  “What?” I asked. “Are you crazy? We found her in the motel room with Carol Ann’s body lyin’ on the floor. She offered us money to help hide the body, for criminy’s sake! She’s lookin’ pretty guilty.”

  “Which is why she needs our help.”

  I shot her a look of disbelief. “You’re tellin’ me you think she’s innocent?”

  “Why would she call us if she was guilty?”

  “For this very reason. To make us doubt what our own eyes saw.”

  Neely Kate was quiet for a moment, then said, “It would take someone really brilliant or really stupid to come up with that plan, and Patsy Sue Clydehopper is neither. Which means she’s innocent.”

  She had a point.

  I pushed out a sigh. “Okay. So what do you want to do? You seem like you already have a plan.”

  “Well, first we need to find out who rented the room. I can call Bill Peterson and ask him.”

  “You think he’ll tell you?”

  “Please . . . ,” she scoffed. “He’ll be dying to tell me. He plays bingo with Granny, and I know he loves a good story.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Sounds like a good place to start. That was a men’s tie, so we need to find out who it belongs to.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “Bill might be able to help us with that too. I’ll see if he noticed any guys comin’ and goin’.”

  “Good idea.”

  “I’ll call him when we get to the farm,” she said. “I need to get a notebook. I let Jed borrow mine.”

  I grinned. “Jed’s carryin’ around your pink sparkly notebook?”

  She laughed. “He looked pretty cute holdin’ it.”

  “I really like him for you, Neely Kate. He’s a great guy and I can see he makes you happy. I know you’re frustrated that he’s takin’ things slow, but I think that means you’re special to him, you know?” I couldn’t help thinking that Jed’s care and attention had helped her find this new sense of self-worth . . . even if it was at Joe’s expense.

  “Yeah.” A soft smile lit up her eyes.

  “And he seems to be tryin’ to go the straight and narrow. That’s a plus.”

  “Yeah, even if I have no idea what he’s up to.”

  “He’ll tell you when he has it figured out.”

  She nodded, not looking so certain.

  So many people had hurt Neely Kate in her twenty-five years. I couldn’t bear the thought of someone else letting her down. But Jed was a good man, and from the way he watched her with a mixture of hope, awe, and devotion, it was easy to see he’d never purposely hurt her.

  “If we’d been thinkin’,” Neely Kate said, “we should have had you force a vision of Patsy to see if she murdered her cousin.”

  We both knew it didn’t exactly work like that. We’d need to find Patsy first, since I couldn’t force a vision without touching the person. Still, I couldn’t deny she had a point. She didn’t know about the change in my visions.

  “Things were happening so fast,” Neely Kate continued. “It’s no wonder we didn’t consider it.” Then she sat up straighter, excitement washing over her face. “Hey! When we get home, you can force a vision of me, of what you and I will find out about the murder.”

  I gave her a pained look.

  “What? You think it’s a bad idea?”

  “No . . . ,” I hedged. “It might work.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “When was the last time you had a vision?”

  I shot her a long glance. “The night I was kidnapped.”

  “The night you almost died having a vision?”

  “Yeah,” I said softly.

  “Have you tried to force one since then?”

  “No.” I kept seeing Jeanne’s face in my head, the trusting look in her eyes.

  Her death was on my hands. The few times I’d brought it up to Neely Kate, she’d refused to discuss the matter, insisting Merv’s crew was responsible, not us. She would also remind me that we’d tried to get Jeanne to go to the sheriff or even James for protection. And while that was all technically true, there was no denying I’d started the wheels in motion. No denying I’d carelessly put her life in danger by talking to her in a public place where anyone could have seen us. I hadn’t tried hard enough to ensure my vision of her death didn’t come to pass. I hadn’t followed up.

  Maybe I would have been more willing to accept Neely Kate’s account of it if I hadn’t seen the guilt in her eyes too.

  She watched me for a moment. “Okay,” she finally said in a comforting tone. “We won’t force a vision.” Then she grinned. “We’ll do it the old-fashioned way.”

  “Really?” I asked in surprise.

  “I know how much you hate them. What if you force one and it kick-starts them into high gear? You’ve got a lot to consider.”

  “Thanks for understanding.”

  My phone started to ring. Neely Kate snatched it off the seat next to me and looked at the screen.

  “Well, I’ll be . . .” She answered it and put it on speakerphone. “You’ve got a lot of nerve, Patsy Sue!”

  “I
’m sorry!” Patsy said. “I panicked.”

  “You left us with one heck of a mess,” Neely Kate said.

  “I know. I know. I’m sorry, but I knew I’d get arrested if I stayed.”

  “Because you’re guilty as sin?” Neely Kate asked. She was obviously taking the bad cop role.

  “No! Because I was set up.”

  “Who on earth would have set you up?” I asked in disbelief.

  “Trust me, I’ve got a lot of people who would love to see me gone. You have to figure out who did it.”

  “Let me get this straight,” I said. “You think someone killed your cousin, then invited you to come to her motel room?”

  “Carol Ann texted me. So I went to see her.”

  “You two had just had one doozy of a fight at the First Baptist Church. Why would you go see her?” Neely Kate asked.

  “I had my reasons,” Patsy Sue said with plenty of attitude.

  “So if someone set you up, how did they know about Carol Ann’s text? Did they take her phone and pretend to be her?”

  “No. I’m sure the text was from her.”

  “How do you know that?”

  She hesitated. “I just do. And I didn’t kill her. I found her like that when I got there.”

  “Look,” I said. “You have to know running off just makes you look guiltier.”

  “I’m not comin’ back,” she said. “Not until you clear my name. I can’t afford riskin’ even one night of my skin care regime if they toss me into county lockup.”

  I groaned. “If you want us to help you, you need to tell us more than that. We need to know everything that’s happened between you two since she came back to town. And what she sent in that text.”

  “We need your alibi too,” Neely Kate said as though Patsy was a simpleton.

  “If you two are such ace detectives, you can figure it out,” she said in a condescending tone.

  I opened my mouth to tell her thanks but no thanks, but Neely Kate cut me off.

  “How much are you payin’ us?” she asked. “We do good work, so we don’t come cheap.”

  “I’ll pay you two thousand dollars,” Patsy said, sounding desperate.