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Authors: Sophie Littlefield

Tags: #Mystery: Cozy - Humor - Avenger - Missouri

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BOOK: A Bad Day for Romance
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“Stella, if they weren’t willing to leave her bedside, I doubt they’ll leave when she’s in the lockup.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Stella said dejectedly. “Thought I’d see if I could convince them to come on down for the wedding if Pearline could get Divinity sprung, but they’re going to want her to stay up this way until they sort this mess out. But here’s what I’m thinking now. We go in and separate the herd, so to speak. I’ll talk to Taffy and Marty, and you can visit with Divinity.”

“Oh, great, Stella—why do I have to take Divinity? I hate that uppity little bitch.”

“Yeah, but I’m thinking you can have Lloyd escort you, see?”

“Oh, no, don’t you for one second think I’m going to—”

“I’m not asking you to do anything you ain’t done a hundred times before, which is just let the man take a look at all that luscious the Big Guy visited upon you, and while he’s busy being dazzled maybe you can figure out why they think they got reason to hold her.”

“I’m not letting him get close enough to do more than wish,” Chrissy snapped.

Stella thought about reminding her assistant of all the times she’d traded a lot more than admiring glances with a series of engineers and technicians and other fellows who served as the young women’s entrée into the world of technology before she outgrew them and started educating herself instead. But Stella would be the last person on earth to suggest that a woman should ever have to submit to any kind of treatment from a man other than the sort she had a personal hankering for herself. As she’d explained to Chrissy at the very beginning of their association, when she was laying out her corporate philosophy, they weren’t in the business of bartering any favors they wouldn’t give away willingly.

“That’s fine,” Stella said. “Man like that’s going to work twice as hard when he hears no, anyway.”

“I still think you’re getting off way easier than me.”

Stella smiled as she reached under her seat, where she kept a few of her smaller supplies in a Tupperware spaghetti container that fit nicely next to the steel gun box bolted to the floor. “Well, now, I didn’t say
all
I was going to do was talk to the Flycocks.”

CHAPTER SIX

THE QUAIL VALLEY MUNICIPAL OFFICES WERE
slightly more abundantly funded than those belonging to the town of Prosper, whose police department still bore a drive-up window and a permanent if faint scent of cooking oil. Quail Valley’s offices had been built for the purpose they currently served. It was a solid brick structure with a flagpole anchoring a circular drive and a handsome bench out front. There was ample parking for both departmental vehicles and visitors, modular furniture that did not have coffee stains or gum stuck to it, tasteful pictures of geese flying over mountains, and a pleasant piney disinfectant smell. But Prosper had the upper hand in other ways.

Each of the four outposts of the Sawyer County legal system had an undersheriff who reported up to the county seat in Fayette. In Prosper, that was Goat Jones; in Quail Valley it was the far less energetic, and considerably tougher on the eyes, Sheriff Arthur Fairweather, who was content to let his deputies do the bulk of the work while he perused the latest Cabela’s catalog and drank Dr Pepper. At least, that was the conclusion Stella reached from observing him through the glass door to his office as she sat in the waiting room with Marty and Taffy while Chrissy got herself escorted inside by Deputy Hubbard.

What Quail Valley did not have was a receptionist half as on the ball as Irene. The young woman charged with manning the desk waited until Ian was a few steps out of view before heading out front for a smoke break, which she extended by talking on her cell phone. She didn’t look like she planned to hurry herself back inside, so Stella figured she didn’t need to worry about anyone overhearing their chat.

After expressing her shock that her sister could stand to be away from the municipal building long enough to get a meal while her niece was being ground between the gears of a miscarriage of justice, Taffy quickly established that there was no way that her precious, talented daughter would ever engage in so much as flatulence or dandruff, much less an offense as distasteful as murder.

“All she is, is misunderstood,” Marty added, standing next to the window, staring out into the parking lot mournfully with his hands in the pockets of his trench coat. It seemed to be his resting state, as though he was too morose even to take off his coat or sit down. “When a girl’s got that much talent, why, sometimes it’s hard for her to fit in with the other girls around her. It’s professional jealousy is what it is.”

“So you think those police officers were
jealous
?” Stella asked skeptically. “When they interviewed her after she dragged herself all the way to find that park ranger, with her hair all in knots and sporting that no-shower smell?”

“Sometimes she doesn’t think about her words before she uses them,” Taffy piped up delicately. “We’re working on that.”

“Taffy, Divinity’s a grown woman, not some four-year-old,” Stella said, trying to keep her incredulity in check. “I understand that you’re feeling protective here. But we need to understand what she said and what the police officers noticed or figured out or deduced that made them feel like dragging her in here and tossing her into the clink.”

“She wouldn’t tell me,” Taffy said in a small voice, as though she was about to cry. “I asked the guard, I asked that girl at the desk, I asked the sheriff before he went and closed his door, and no one will tell me!”

“Remember the part about her being a grown woman?” Stella said, gritting her teeth. “She’s over eighteen, so nobody has to tell you anything. Far as the law’s concerned, she’s a free agent. Totally separate from you guys, makes her own decisions, digs her own holes, responsible for her own messes, blah blah blah.”

“She wouldn’t even talk to me after the second time I went back there,” Taffy said, as though Stella hadn’t said a word. “And yet she let them bring that awful husky
Lardner
girl back to visit, and she doesn’t even
know
her!”

Stella’s phone chimed and she took a quick look, keeping her expression neutral. Chrissy had come through, sort of:

freezer break rm

Stella wasn’t exactly sure what to make of the cryptic text, but she didn’t have a choice: the window of opportunity would close just as soon as the receptionist finished puffing and gabbing on her phone. “You know what,” she said, “my digestion has been positively delicate lately. Will you excuse me while I visit the little girls’ room?”

Taffy grunted dejectedly, and Marty didn’t even bother to acknowledge her. She walked down the hall to the restroom, which happened to be next door to the sheriff’s office, and looked back to make sure the Flycocks weren’t watching. Then she dropped to the floor and started low crawling, a skill she’d learned from watching marine corps drills on LiveLeak.com. With her ear flat to the carpet, she brought one leg and then the other up and propelled herself forward, never coming more than an inch off the ground and making almost no sound at all.

Stella was neither lightning fast nor particularly flexible, but considering she was up against an overweight sixty-something halfway to a diabetic coma, she was able to slip past the sheriff’s office door without attracting his attention. She continued down the hall, knowing if she got to the double doors at the end she was out of luck, because it was reinforced and security-latched since the holding cells lay on the other side.

The third door she peered through gave her a view of a plastic dinette set, and she smelled the strong scent of burnt coffee and overripe bologna: bingo. Stella propelled herself across the hall with an extra-firm kick, sliding the last few inches on the waxed linoleum floor of the break room. Then she rolled and came up standing in the corner, where she was shielded from view, and took stock.

Sharing wall space with a geriatric harvest-gold fridge and a rather flea-bitten and poorly mounted deer head, from whose antlers some wag had hung a sign reading “Today Ain’t Your Day and Tomorrow Don’t Look Good Either,” was a meat freezer that was easily five feet long and more than knee-high, a padlock hanging from a hasp bolted to the top-mounted door.

Stella sighed as she dug her tools from her purse and got to work. Some day the county was just going to have to learn that cost-cutting measures should be restricted to noncritical aspects of the operation. Goat himself had let slip that while the county had sprung for proper security for the Property and Evidence Unit up in Fayette, the satellite offices had to make do with whatever they had on hand while evidence was en route to the county seat. In Prosper, Goat had lucked out: the safe that was used by the Hardees management before the restaurant converted was perfectly adequate for all but the bulkiest items.

In Quail Valley, at least they could freeze their evidence, if it took the form of, say, a severed limb or an icicle that had been used to stab someone. The downside was that anyone with a Knipex mini bolt cutter with jaw notch recess and angled cutting head—whose tagline was “cut more than you ever thought possible,” a claim that Stella had tested on several occasions—could make quick work of the padlock and make fast and loose with whatever she liked.

It took a fair amount of effort to bear down hard enough to cut clear through the padlock, and by the time Stella had the thing off the hasp she was sweating. She tucked the lock in her pocket, then eased open the freezer door as quietly as possible, pausing to make sure there were no footsteps coming toward her, and peered inside.

Lying on the floor of the freezer, wrapped in plastic like a fillet at the butcher, was a compact hunting bow. And every inch of it, save the bow sight and the arrow rest and the bowstring, was
pink
.

“Hell’s bells,” Stella whispered. She reached gingerly for the bow and picked it up carefully. It was lighter than she’d feared, but it was still half as tall as she was. She looked around the room, gaze lighting on the window, which someone had thoughtfully left open, probably to air out the offending food smells.

She’d tossed the bow out the window and made it out the door when she heard someone shooting the lock on the other side of the double doors. No time for slithering: Stella crouched low and ran, chancing a glance in the sheriff’s office as she passed. Fairweather had his eyes closed and his hands clasped on top of his generous belly, taking a noonday nap.

Stella stood all the way up and walked back to the waiting room, dropping onto the mauve couch across from Taffy and picking up a magazine off the end table. “Hot flash,” she gasped as she fanned herself, hoping Taffy would be distracted enough not to notice that her hair was askew and her clothes mussed from crawling.

She needn’t have worried. When Chrissy appeared a few seconds later wearing an inscrutable expression and her blouse buttoned two buttons higher than it had been earlier in the day, Taffy leapt from her seat.

“How is she?” she demanded. “How is my baby holding up?”

“She’s as delightful as ever,” Chrissy snapped. “We just couldn’t stop bonding over all those good old days on the pageant circuit. All them memories, why, the years just fell away.”

Taffy blinked, then narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “You didn’t provoke her, did you? Because this is a very upsetting time for her, and she needs to be surrounded by positivity. You sure seemed awfully chummy with that guard, and if she felt like you were taking his side—”

“Don’t worry, Mrs. Flycock. Divinity and I just had us a little chat and then I told her I’d talk to Lloyd about upgrading her to the better meal plan and getting her a room with a private bath.”

“Oh.” More blinking, while Marty heaved a huge sigh and turned his back on all the women to resume staring out the window. “Well, I suppose that’s all right, then.”

“Listen, I’ve got an idea,” Stella said, and then laid out the possibility of calling Pearline Moss. The bow in the freezer had shifted Stella’s estimation of Divinity’s innocence, though she couldn’t yet fathom a motive. Stealing evidence would certainly throw a wrench in the case against Divinity, but if the girl was going to get out in time for the wedding, she would need more help than Stella could provide. “Pearline’s the best there is. A real shark.”

When Stella had gone to work for Pearline, she’d had Chrissy do a bit of background checking, out of a general disregard for and suspicion of lawyers, especially those who worked on behalf of the Kansas City Mafia, members of which Stella had gone up against in the past. She still bore the scars to prove it. Chrissy had been impressed with Pearline’s record, which did not appear to have a single mobster on the roster but focused more on rich suburban ladies who got into jams embezzling from the PTA or shoplifting from Nordstrom. “She’s defended some of the best families in Kansas City,” Stella added when Marty cleared his throat and stared at his feet with a decided lack of enthusiasm. “No, er, riffraff.”

“She sounds like exactly what Divinity needs,” Taffy snuffled, dabbing at her nose with a handkerchief.

“We, er, uh, what with Divinity’s expenses since she moved up to Branson… and all… and the real estate market’s been in the crapper… ” Marty said dejectedly. “This lawyer of yours got some sort of payment plan?”

“I wouldn’t worry about that. She’ll give you a, um, generous professional discount,” Stella said delicately. “I’ve helped her quite a bit with her… sewing needs over the years, so if I give her a call and explain things, why, I imagine she’ll come down here and get Divinity out as a courtesy. There’s no reason she should have to wait in the lockup while things get sorted out.”

“Yes. Please. She’s hired,” Taffy said, pointedly refusing to look at her husband.

Stella excused herself to make the call, passing the receptionist on her way out and enduring the fumes from the smoking butt she’d crushed on the sidewalk. As Stella had surmised, Pearline was happy to help, but wouldn’t be able to come to Quail Valley until Sunday afternoon, a regrettable but unavoidable complication as Pearline was spending much of the weekend coaching a board member of the Kansas City Opera on how to appear more sympathetic to the jury at her Monday morning trial for stabbing her housekeeper with a letter opener after the poor woman dropped her Waterford punch bowl.

BOOK: A Bad Day for Romance
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