Authors: Rae Davies
Tags: #comic mystery, #dog mystery, #Women Sleuth, #janet evanovich, #cozy mystery, #montana, #mystery series, #antiques mystery
3 Loosey Goosey (27 page)
Honestly, I was a bit afraid if I did move, my knees would buckle.
Before Peter could say anything, I heard the front door open again.
Peter took my hand and pulled me to my feet. “You’re fine. Don’t let him get to you.”
The words were barely vocalized before Stone stood in my bedroom doorway. Something about seeing him there in my house, in the place where I should have felt most safe, brought everything that had happened home.
I bent forward, ready to crumble, but Peter placed a wide warm hand on my back, reminding me that I wasn’t alone.
“Why don’t we talk in the living room,” he said, his voice strong and assured.
Stone stepped back, giving me a moment alone with Peter, Pauline, and Kiska. It was all I needed. Gaze straight ahead, I walked into my living room.
Stone started. “Can you tell me what happened?”
I could and I did, complete with the cocoa, the note that Handle had wanted me to think was from Peter, and Kiska’s newly found talent for opening the laundry room door.
More uniformed officers came in and disappeared into the bedroom. A few minutes later, one came back out and spoke in low tones to Stone.
He looked at me. “There was water in the bathtub.”
“Eric did that.” The world went a little fuzzy. I took a step back, hitting Peter’s reassuring form.
His hand moved from my back to my waist. “How much of the cocoa did you drink, Lucy?”
I didn’t know, and I couldn’t answer. My lips were thick, and my eyelids seemed to weigh a thousand pounds. I turned, landing in Peter’s embrace.
He was warm and welcoming, and he smelled like cinnamon.
Cinnamon would have been good on the cocoa.
“Lucy?”
The world shifted. At first I thought I’d fallen, but then I realized Peter had picked me up. My head rested on his shoulder, and his arms were under my legs.
Then we were moving, fast. I wasn’t sure where we were going, and I didn’t like that we seemed to have left Stone alone in my house with Kiska and Pauline, but Peter wouldn’t listen to reason... or maybe he didn’t understand
my
reason. I placed my hand on my mouth, checking to see if it was open.
“Lucy... stay awake...”
o0o
I woke up in the hospital, feeling like a towel that had been rung out one too many times. My stomach felt hollow, and there was a bad taste in my mouth.
I groped around on the rolling tray for a pitcher of water and drank straight from its plastic spout.
“She’s awake.”
Betty, Phyllis, and Rhonda crowded around my bed. Peter was there too, but in the back. I could see his hat above Betty’s crocheted silk beanie.
“He was going to drown you!”
“A tree-hugger. Put more stock in cows than he did people.”
They continued babbling their indignation and offering bits of information on Eric Handle, what he’d done to Tiffany and Hope, and what he’d tried to do to me.
Betty pushed her way to the front. “HA! had tapes of animal abuse at factory farms owned by...” She named one of the top fast food companies in the country. “Tiffany convinced Handle to back off in exchange for some moola.” She rubbed her fingers together. “He used his part to start his food company, and Tiffany used hers to go to culinary school.”
Rhonda piped up. “Their relationship couldn’t survive the lies.” Always the romantic, she made the loss of the two’s love sound like a Shakespearean tragedy. Never mind that they’d sold out their cause for cash.
I glanced from one eager face to the other. “How do you know all this?”
The three turned to stare at Peter, who raised one eyebrow and smiled.
“No thanks to him,” Betty grumbled.
Rhonda continued, “Daniel told us most of it. Once
you
found out who the real killer was and Handle was arrested, Daniel was able to get some worthwhile information out of the other HA! members.” She patted my hand. “He really isn’t half the investigator that you are.”
I appreciated that she was giving me credit and stroking my ego, but at the moment, I was more interested in learning the details, whether supplied by Daniel or not.
I looked back at Betty, who picked up where she had left off before. “Tiffany called Handle that night threatening to tell all if he didn’t call off HA!”
That explained the phone call Carl had claimed Tiffany was waiting on.
Not to be outdone, Phyllis elbowed her way into the front. “Instead, he fed her...” She looked at Peter too.
This time he answered. “Death camas.” His gaze moved to me, knowing. “The bulbs look like onions.”
Onions
. I wasn’t sure whether to gloat or feel sick. “But what he gave me...”
“Were wild onions.” Peter confirmed.
Which explained Stone’s confidence that I’d known something that I hadn’t. Not that I was going to be forgiving him any time soon for not listening to me.
“Part of Eric and Tiffany’s relationship was based on their mutual love of food,” Rhonda explained. “Daniel guesses that after everyone had left, Eric came by ‘to talk things out,’ and suggested they cook, like they had done in the past.”
“Except this time the ingredients included death camas,” I added.
Betty nodded. “He fed her the plant and probably planned on that being the end of it, but she wandered out onto the street.”
Where Daniel had seen her.
“Rather than try and get her back in the building, we think he just took her to where he knew Ben had left the Lemon. With Ben owning Pauline, and Tiffany serving goose liver, Ben made a perfect patsy.”
“Then he left her there.” No one responded to my statement, but then I hadn’t expected them too.
After a moment, I swallowed and asked, “What about Hope?”
Peter shrugged. His way of saying he wasn’t telling. I looked at Rhonda.
“I think when you asked her about the flowers that they’d found in Ben’s Egg, she guessed that they weren’t flowers at all. She’d been with Eric for a while. Long enough to have taken his foraging class. She must have realized that Eric killed Tiffany and how.”
And stupid, starry-eyed girl that she was, she’d probably asked him, never suspecting that he would kill her too.
”The paper said this morning that there were sedatives in her system,” Phyllis chimed in.
We all looked at Peter. He looked back, giving us nothing.
“He must have knocked her out and then dropped the hay on her,” Phyllis mused. “That fits, since the doctors said you had sedatives in your system too, and he was going to drown you,” she added, a little too clinically for my taste.
Rhonda jumped in. “You didn’t take anything on your own, did you?”
I shook my head no. “He was making me drink cocoa. That must have been why.”
“And drawing you a nice warm bath to fall asleep in and under...” Phyllis added.
Betty muttered something and elbowed her in the back.
The two of them turned on each other, but Peter stepped in immediately, ushering them out of the room.
A few seconds later, he was back, holding a phone. “Someone wants to talk to you.”
I glanced at Rhonda, but she shook her head and stepped back.
“Lucy? Oh, my goodness, are you okay? Ben called. He’s been released, but then he said you were in the hospital, and some crazy man tried to kill you.”
Ben walked in the door, looking none the worse for wear for his time in jail. Seeing me on the phone, he grinned.
Mom ranted on, blaming everyone from the president to FriendTime’s CEO for my near brush with death. I let her talk for fifteen minutes before assuring her that I was okay and would definitely call her as soon as I knew anything.
“Every ten minutes someone is asking about you on online. I really need to start answering them.”
Of course she did. I sighed.
“And I’ve been talking to your father. I told him enough is enough, next summer we are going to Montana, cost be damned.”
Ben took the phone and pressed disconnect. “Don’t worry. She’ll forget.”
Or not.
o0o
Ben got his Egg back and moved it to my front yard. He and Pauline stayed another week. When they finally loaded up, I’m not sure who was more sad, Kiska or me.
But they would be back. He promised.
Mom’s summer trip plans, it seemed, weren’t a fleeting idea. She’d already been on the phone with the head of Montana tourism, demanding information on everything from rodeos to Rocky Mountain Oyster eating contests.
If she was coming, she said she was doing it right.
Which meant, as far as I was concerned, my baby brother had better be right beside me, ready to suck up her loving attention.
Betty and Phyllis were still at war, but once Leslie Danes cleared out the Antlers’ merchandise, they were forced to calm down some. Betty, however, had apparently been taking notes and was now out looking for leads of her own.
I was pretty sure I’d walk into the store any day to find it re-outfitted into a 1920s speakeasy. On the plus side, that would mean there’d be alcohol. Which might get me through at least one day.
Daniel did not get his phone or his notebook back. He didn’t apologize for being so sure Ben had been the murderer either.
But then I hadn’t expected that.
Peter had shown up at my house while Ben was still there with all new locks for my doors. I felt sad giving up my skeleton keys once and for all, but I wanted any future late-night visitors to be limited to those I’d actually invited.
Speaking of, Peter invited me to stay at his house when my parents were in town. I’m not sure if listening to my mother’s suppositions of what me staying with Peter might mean would be worth it, but I am definitely taking the proposition under consideration.
-o0o-
If you enjoyed this book or any of the books in the Dusty Deals Mystery Series, reviews are always appreciated!
Look for Book 4 in spring 2013.
Author’s Note
Thanks so much for reading
Loosey Goosey
, book 3 in the Dusty Deals Mystery Series. This book, like all of the books in the series, is set in the real town of Helena, Montana, but all the people, most places and most events are fictional.
There is to my knowledge no Beef Ranchers Association, a restaurant serving goose pâté or a planned cattle drive through the heart of Helena. There is also no HA!, or murdering founders of such an organization.
And while I wish I knew a goose with the personality of Pauline, sadly I don’t. If you do, let me know!
Contact Rae
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For romance and urban fantasy novels, visit Rae’s other persona, Lori Devoti.
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Also by Rae Davies:
Romantic Comedies...
Love is All Around
Love is All You Need
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