A Bad Day for Romance (12 page)

“I’m on my way and I’m armed! Sheriff’s right behind me!”

Situations like these were a tough call. If Stella had misunderstood, and Chrissy had simply suffered a splinter in her foot or run out of Coke to mix with her rum, it might prove a little embarrassing to show up hell-for-leather. If she’d run afoul of the twitchy sort of trouble—say a hopped-up gangbanger wanting cash for a fix—coming on strong the way Stella was might get Chrissy hurt or worse.

But since the likeliest scenario had to do with the fact that she and Stella had stumbled into the investigation of a murder, and said murderer was probably highly invested in not getting caught—

A figure streaked across the green in front of her. He or she was dressed in black, wearing a tight shirt and cap that obscured any hints as to gender. “Over here,” Chrissy yelled, sounding a bit exasperated. “Took you long enough.”

Stella didn’t let up on the gas, bouncing over sand traps and putting greens, following the sound of Chrissy’s voice to a corner of the course that cozied up to a wooden restroom with a bench out front. It looked pretty and a little spooky in the moonlight, and as she neared, an owl joined in, adding its own commentary on Stella’s arrival.

She ditched the cart, almost tripping as she clambered out of the seat, and ran to the restroom.

“Warmer, warmer… oh, look at you,” Chrissy said as Stella threw open the door to the restroom.

Chrissy was standing next to the stalls with her arms up in the air, her wrists tied around the pole leading from the stall to the ceiling. She looked unharmed; the worst damage she had suffered was a mussed hairdo and a broken dress strap that trailed off her shoulder.

“What on earth!”

“You got your multitool with you?”

“Do I ever not?” Stella demanded, getting the lightweight little Leatherman Skeletool she carried for more formal events out of her evening bag. She used the carbon fiber blade to make quick work of the knots. “Shitty rope,” she added, testing the gauge of the nylon cord. “I wouldn’t tie up a dog with this. You would have got yourself out in no time. Where’d you call me from, anyway?”

“He dropped the rope out there. When he went to get it, he made a point of waving his gun around.”

“He had a gun?”

“Yeah, just some cheap-ass Diamondback .22. I don’t know if he even knew how to use it—he was wearing gloves, like gardening gloves? I don’t think he could have got off an accurate shot, but I called you instead of finding out. I don’t think it was exactly a brain surgeon who dragged me out of there.” Her face fell. “Course, he did get me when I came out of the john, which I guess either makes me a dumbass or him smarter than I gave him credit for.”

“Oh, now. What’s important here is you’re not dead or even beat to hell, right?” Stella gave Chrissy an encouraging pat on the shoulder.

“Well, someone ain’t very happy we’re poking around, looking into Bryant’s murder.”

“Yeah… let’s think that through a minute, okay?” Stella said, tossing the rope into the trash. Even if she had the resources to investigate, the rope’s fibers probably wouldn’t reveal much other than that it was made in bulk in some developing country. Besides, Stella’s investigative techniques had never been the sort to rely on technical details. “My friend’s cousin’s child’s fiancé gets killed. We have never even met the man face-to-face, but we go hunting down the killer so Dotty can get married.”

“Pretty thin motivation, you ask me,” Chrissy grumbled.

“Yeah, well, it ain’t
our
motivation we’re trying to figure out here. Now, the murderer stands to lose if we find him, obviously.”

“Yeah, I’ll be mighty pissed off at him for wasting my time
and
making me miss the chocolate fountain.”

“But what we got to figure out,” Stella said, ignoring her assistant, “is what he stands to gain with Bryant dead. ’Cause it’s got to be something big enough to risk dragging you out here in the middle of the night just to send a warning. And if he’s got any kind of grasp on the whole escalation of threat thing, he’s got to be willing to do you worse next time. Or me, for that matter.”

“Or she.”

“Huh?”

“I said, or
she
. Wasn’t any particularly big person dragged me out here, I hate to say. And he or she didn’t say nothing the whole time, and it’s not like those knots are tied in a particularly manly way.”

“How do you tie knots in a manly—oh, never mind,” Stella interrupted herself hastily, realizing Chrissy probably had an opinion on the subject. “Okay. What
woman
do you think might be wanting us to back off looking for her?”

“Well, considering Divinity got Bryant stolen right out from under her by her own roommate, maybe he had other gals on the side that weren’t too happy about his catting around.”

“Or he might have had dissatisfied clients who felt like he wasn’t turning them into Taylor Swift quick enough.”

“Yeah. Our trouble is, we don’t know enough about the man.” Ordinarily, when Stella took on a case, she made a point of knowing all about her future parolee before their first encounter: what made him tick; what he ate for breakfast; where he drank, gambled, and washed his truck; and most especially how he was likely to respond when faced with an uncooperative female. But nearly all she knew about Bryant Molder was that he’d gotten in the way of a crossbow bolt.

“I don’t know if you want to be going back to ask Divinity about him, since they’re still kind of pissed about their evidence walking off, and if you show up it might jog someone’s memory that you were in spitting distance of it earlier today.”

“Oh, shit,” Stella said, smacking her forehead. “I didn’t even ask. Did Lloyd let on what happened after we left?”

“Yeah, but I had to pour like three peach margaritas down his throat to get it out of him. Get this, Fairweather’s blaming the Fayette folks. I guess he’s hopping mad at Daphne, thinks she forgot to lock the freezer after he told her the combination. They’re trying to figure out if one of the boys ran the bow up to Fayette and forgot to tell anyone, but Harvey and Charlie got the weekend off and they’re fishing down at Little Dixie Lake and can’t no one get a hold of ’em.”

“Wow, there’s so many holes in that chain of evidence it makes my head hurt,” Stella said. “Almost makes me want to give them their padlock back so they’d have somewhere to start.”

“Nah, probably quicker if you just find them the real killer and then they won’t have to worry about it.”

“Ain’t that the truth… Listen, before I go digging for dirt on Bryant’s personal life, I guess we should also rule out anyone you might have pissed off concerning unrelated matters. Ian got any ex-wives or girlfriends who might have an issue with him seeing you?”

“Nope, and you can bet I checked.”

“Hmm.” That was a scary thought—ever since Chrissy had blazed her way around the Internet, picking up hacking skills like a vacuum cleaner picks up toast crumbs, she’d learned how to find things that most people were shocked ever got recorded. “I’m tempted to ask what all kinds of secrets you turned up on the man, but just in case you decide to keep him around I guess you can keep them to yourself. I don’t need to be looking across a Scrabble board one day knowing all his dirty laundry.”

Chrissy followed her out to the golf cart, jumping in rather daintily for someone who’d just endured a kidnapping. “What if it was Goat? Would you want to know then?”

“Chrissy! You haven’t—”

“Naw, course not. Just saying, what if I had?”

“
No
,” Stella said shortly. A year back, Goat’s ex-wife Brandy had turned up and caused a fair amount of trouble for Stella, including an automotive explosion, not to mention a ruined dinner date. If the man had any more surprises like that up his sleeve, she figured they could just stay hidden. “I already know what I need to know about him.”

“Which is what?”

Stella jammed the pedal all the way to the floor, causing the cart to take the bumps and ridges in the road a little more forcefully than necessary. “Only that he’s—well, he’s good, and kind, and fair, and strong, and he does things with a pair of polyester pants that I’m not sure are entirely legal.”

“Stella Hardesty, it’s about time you came out and admitted all this,” Chrissy exclaimed. “Usually you won’t say boo about the man. What’s got into you?”

“I’m not sure,” Stella admitted. “I guess maybe, what with BJ all laid up, I’m thinking about what I’m really looking for in a man. I’m not sure I even really
want
a man if he’s going to need me to wait on him and take care of him. I already done that, for thirty years, and I don’t need to spend one more damn day being anyone’s servant. I mean, not that that’s what BJ expects from me, but thinking about him there needing Jorge to fetch him his clicker just makes me want to run the other direction. And besides, I got everything I need already—friends, family, a job I like—maybe throwing a man into the mix would be like putting a purse on a pig, you know?”

Stella’s phone rang, and she squinted at the display. “Imagine that,” she sighed. “BJ, just like I conjured him. Here, take the wheel, will you?”

Chrissy obliged, steering them around the long way toward the pro shop, which Stella had to admit was a better idea than returning to the resort’s entrance with a stolen vehicle.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Stella, it’s me. BJ.” He sounded like a man trying to be cheerful. “Thought I’d call and see how the party’s going.”

“It’s fine. You aren’t missing anything, though, it’s pretty tame.” Stella winced, trying to put images of Goat standing in the back of the room, with that ironlike jaw and glinty glowering gaze, out of her mind. “I mean, don’t waste any time worrying about not being able to come up here for the wedding. Things have gotten a little complicated, anyway.”

“I heard that one of the guests got himself shot up in the woods. They figure out if it was a hunting accident yet?”

“Well, that’s—”
Too much to go into
, Stella thought, and she didn’t feel like taking the time to explain. “Yeah, looks that way. Wrong place, wrong time, too much camouflage, and not enough common sense. You know, same old story. It’s just that since he, ah, was close to the family, they’re going to have to delay the wedding. Dotty and Kam decided they’re just going to do a little ceremony on Monday.”

“Really?” BJ’s voice brightened. “Well, the doc says I can get up out of bed soon. I got to start slow, of course, but maybe by Monday I could get on up there. We could still have us that nice romantic time you was talking about.”

Even over the phone Stella could tell the man was blushing—his voice got a little thready whenever he ventured into sexy territory, which unfortunately meant that when he said her name in moments of passion it sounded a bit like he’d sucked down helium.

“Oh no, don’t bother,” she found herself saying. “I mean, it’s just going to be a handful of folks who stay over. Chrissy and I’ll probably share a room Sunday night and come back right after, anyway.”

“Oh.” BJ sounded crestfallen. “Well, what’re y’all doing tomorrow?”

Stella gave him a condensed rundown—Kam’s romantic gesture, the prewedding reception. “I mean, they got the caterers and what all already lined up. So I guess it made sense.”

“Well, what about during the day?”

It almost sounded like BJ was considering hobbling his way to the Ozark Shores resort, aches and pains and all, and Stella said the first thing that came to her by way of diversion, as Chrissy pulled into the end of a row of carts on the side of the pro shop.

“Golf tournament.”

Chrissy gave her a surprised look, and Stella winced and shrugged. She wasn’t good when she was put on the spot.

“But you don’t golf,” BJ said. “I’ve tried to get you to go with me any number of times.” After his truck and bowling, golf came in high on BJ’s list of passions.

“Ahh, you know, it’s for charity. Me and Chrissy, we got roped into it. I mean, I wouldn’t, except it’s for a good cause.”

“What’s that?”

Stella cast around wildly for ideas. That was the problem with lying—you got bogged down in the details. When she was on the job, truth stretching and outright fabricating came easy to Stella, since it was all in the name of justice, but when it came to personal matters, her own disloyal conscience tended to trip her up. “It’s, ah, um. I mean…”

Her gaze shot past the main building down the road, which was lit up gaily, music and laughter drifting out from the party. She took in the moon shining down on the piney Ozark hills, the water glistening in the distance down by the boat docks. Nothing, not one speck of inspiration. In front of her, the shop windows were full of golf clothes and clubs and all kinds of sporting paraphernalia. A flyer in the window caught her eye, and she made a desperate pitch.

“The Historical Society Fall Fairy Golf Event,” she read. Then, squinting, she realized that it read “Fall
Faire
,” which on reflection made a lot more sense. “It’s a fund-raiser. You golf, and, um, people sponsor you and the money goes to the historical society. They’re putting on a new roof,” she added hopefully; in her experience the little details added credibility and made all the difference.

Chrissy smacked her on the shoulder. Stella turned off the ignition and tried to ignore Chrissy’s eye rolling.

“How’s that got to do with fairies?” BJ said dubiously.

Stella, who nearly broke an ankle trying to get out of the cart while simultaneously ignoring Chrissy’s silent jeering, said the first thing that came into her head. “Oh, you dress up as a fairy. Fairy golf. It’s a thing. Started in L.A., you know how they are out there. They finish off with a parade Sunday afternoon.”

“Uh-huh.” Dubious had given way to outright incredulity. In the background, Stella heard a burst of rapid-fire, heavily accented English.

“Please say hi to Jorge for me,” she said quickly. “Oh, dear, I need to run; time for toasts.”

“You’re just now getting around to the toasts?” BJ said. “Thought you said it was winding down.”

“Oh, these are just, the, um, closing toasts. You know. Okay, bye now.”