A Lie for a Lie (24 page)

“I can talk to Sue.” Junie’s eyes were glowing. “I wonder what I should wear?”

“Please, no Sherlock outfits, okay? Just talk about other things, then slip in the subject of Grady, and maybe mention Madison. Say you understand Madison had a costume problem the night Grady died, and Sue tried to fix it. Maybe what a good thing it was that Madison wasn’t there when Grady’s body was found.”

“I’ll work on my lines. This is exciting.”

I had a twinge of doubt. My mother’s terrific, but I wasn’t sure I should have enlisted her help. Junie’s lines might go something like: “Were the Sargents with you on Friday night when Grady Barber was murdered? Because, you know, if they weren’t, they probably murdered him.”

My cell phone rang before I could repeat that this was really a simple thing, and she should approach it simply.

I opened my phone and put it to my ear. This much I can manage.

“Aggie? I just heard about Grady.” The line crackled, but the voice was unmistakable.

Fred!
I pointed to the entrance to signal I was taking the call outside and headed there while I greeted him, hoping the reception would be better.

Outdoors the heat was smothering, and I rested against the side of the house where there was a couple of feet of shade. “Thanks for getting back to me. Where have you been that you just heard? It was all over the news.”

“Not where I was. I’ve been at a retreat center in Big Sur. When they say retreat, they mean retreat. No phones. No newspapers or connections with the outside world. I needed to get my head together. I went straight there from Emerald Springs.”

This would be easy enough to check, but I was inclined to believe him. Plenty of time had passed since my first phone message, and Fred could well have invented a better scenario if he’d needed one.

“Sounds like a place I need to go,” I said. “What’s the name of it?”

“The Enlightenment Center, just south of Carmel. I’d say you need a day there for every three you spent with Grady. What in the heck happened? His ex-wife murdered him? Nora Nelson was the only one in the bunch who wasn’t after him. I should know.”

“What do you mean?”

Fred sounded happy to be gossiping again. “He was married twice more after Nora and lived with another woman long enough that she got common-law status. Nora was the only one who wasn’t constantly dunning him for more money. I don’t think he ever paid her a cent. I never spoke to her or communicated with her in any way. She was well and truly out of Grady’s life.”

“I’m having trouble believing she did it.”

He must have realized he was a suspect, but Fred didn’t sound the least offended. “Well, it wasn’t me. I can see why you might wonder, but my story’ll check out. So who else is on your list?”

“There was a man backstage that night, fighting with Grady. I caught the end of it. He looked a little familiar, but I can’t remember where I saw him the first time. Tall, dark haired, a little older than I am maybe. Thin. He was dressed casually. I know that’s pretty vague.”

“Could you have seen him at the welcome party?”

“I don’t think—”

“As the police chief was evicting him?”

“Oh!” That was exactly where I’d seen the guy. I’d only glimpsed him on Veronica’s porch, which was why I hadn’t been able to place him. Still, the circumstances should have alerted me. I was chagrined.

“His name’s Rob Taylor,” Fred said. “Remember when Grady jumped all over me that evening because I wasn’t at his beck and call the moment he arrived? I couldn’t tell him in front of you, but I’d been out on the street trying to deal with Taylor. I followed the guy after the chief sent him away. He was fit to be tied.”

“What’s his story? And where can he be found?”

“His wife was a contestant in an event like your Idyll, only in Pittsburgh. He’s from some little town north of there. Zelienople I think. She was talented. A country, soft rock voice and repertoire. Pretty, too. Grady was taken with her, too taken with her, if you catch my drift.”

“The way he was too taken with Madison Sargent?”

“I’m sorry. I hoped that wasn’t the case.”

“I don’t know for sure, but I’m afraid it was.”

“Grady just never caught on. I did a lot of damage control. I don’t know why I put up with him so long. The money was great, and every time I would threaten to leave, his manager and accountant came up with more. I got greedy. I just kept milking the cash cow and ignoring my beef with him.”

“The Enlightenment Center probably serves a vegetarian diet, right? You’re fixating.”

“I’m starving. I’m on my way to get a steak. Anyway, Taylor’s wife told him what was going on, and he came after Grady. He was ready to kill him. Grady denied it all, of course, and what proof did she have? Grady said she was blackmailing
him
, making up stories so he would be forced to declare her the winner. But Taylor was smarter than some of the others in the same situation. He started tracing Grady’s steps, going back to towns where he’d been and interviewing contestants. He compiled a list of women Grady had come on to. A couple of those who had succumbed even said Grady had videotaped them together, and he was holding that over them.”

“That’s beneath contempt.”

“Yeah, he was a scumbag. I never saw any tapes, although I do know he had a camera set up in the bedroom of his house out here. I came across it once when I was looking for something he’d sent me to fetch. He said it was just for fun, that he and his last wife had enjoyed taping themselves and playing back the tapes when they got bored. I guess that should have been enough of a clue, huh? Anyway, I never saw irrefutable proof Taylor wasn’t making up at least some of his story to get even. I do know Grady had affairs with contestants, and broke a few hearts along the way. But I wasn’t there. I didn’t know who initiated what. So I just ignored what I could and went on until I couldn’t go on anymore.”

“What did the two of you fight about that last day? The day he fired you or you quit. Whichever.”

“Rob Taylor had gone to Veronica Hayworth, but she tossed him out and said he was just trying to destroy a good man’s reputation.”

I tried to put myself in Veronica’s position. Childhood friend. The reputation of our fund-raiser in jeopardy. No good way to verify Taylor’s claims without hiring an investigator. Still, had she done anything to protect the Idyll contestants, just in case? I wondered if she had spoken to Grady and asked for his version. I bet she had, and I bet she’d been snowed by his response.

“And you fought
why
?” I asked.

“When I got to his room that last morning, I found a purse.”

“Madison’s?”

“No, Julia’s.”

Julia, the folk singer.

Fred went on. “I told him this had to stop, that I wasn’t going to do any more damage control with contestants, no matter how much he paid me. I reminded him Rob Taylor was after him, and all the guy needed was more proof. Eventually Veronica or somebody like her would listen to Taylor, and nobody would ever hire Grady to judge again. Grady said Julia was an adult, single at that, and that he hadn’t made any promises. They were just hanging out, and one thing had led to another. I asked him if he’d made a tape of them together, and that’s when he hit me.”

“It sounds like you believed he was capable of blackmail.”

“Yeah. It came to that when I stopped looking the other way. In fact maybe that’s why I never had any contact with Nora Nelson. Maybe Grady had something on her, too. Maybe his career as a blackmailer went way, way back.”

I supposed that was possible, although there again, Nora didn’t seem like the kind of person who would put up with blackmail. She’d admit her sin, whatever it was, ask forgiveness, and move on.

“Do you think this Taylor guy was angry enough to kill Grady?” I asked.

“He was furious. And more furious because nobody was taking him seriously enough.”

“What about Julia? Would she have been angry?”

“Doubtful. I’m sure she was going to be eliminated after the next round, he as much as told me so. He called her Joan Biased in private and said she was hopeless. So maybe after she got the axe, she would have been furious, but not before. Look, I need a T-bone. Or ribs. I love ribs.”

“Just one more thing, Fred. Please?”

“Quick, quick. Onion rings are calling my name.”

“You said once that Grady’s career wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. I’ve been trying to find out more. I want to read his autobiography, but so far I can’t find it.”

“They printed very few copies. Remember, it was published before he came back into the public eye with ‘Remember Me in April.’ I’d send you my copy, only I burned it a couple of months ago. Very therapeutic.”

“Somebody’s trying to find me one.”

“Well, when you read it, look for all the things that aren’t there. Friends who are real players on the Hollywood scene. Big contracts. Major films. ‘April’ was a surprise hit, but not another song on that CD went anywhere. When he sang other people’s material, he was okay, but nothing special. And he didn’t record another song of his own that was worth listening to. Out here you’re hot only as long as you’re making money for everybody. If his next album hadn’t had another ‘April’ on it, he would have been toast.”

I thanked him for everything. “Any jobs on the horizon?” I asked in closing.

“Three offers so far, all promising. Grady’s death was good for me, even if it wasn’t so good for him. Now I don’t have to explain why I’m not working for him anymore.”

I hung up so Fred could get his steak, although I did suggest a big salad and a baked potato to go along with it. He had given me a lot to think about. The least I could do was keep him from heading straight from meditation and spiritual cleansing to a heart attack.

 

 

Since so much of the case against Nora revolved around the knife from Yank’s collection, I decided I had to make another trip to the farm to see if he had any ideas how one could have ended up in the green room. Nora had extolled the security in her living quarters, but clearly something had gone wrong. How long had the knife been missing? Had Yank paid close enough attention to his inventory that he would have noticed? As I remembered it, the knives had been distributed across a magnetic strip. Could someone simply have spaced out the remaining knives, so no gap was evident?

Before I left the quilt shop I told Junie I planned to talk to Yank that afternoon. She offered to accompany me, and since people will tell Junie the oddest things, I was happy to have her ride along. We debated whether to bring Teddy, but since I wasn’t sure how the tent show performers might feel about anyone from town, now that Nora was in jail, I decided to leave her at home with Ed, who was writing his sermon. He had promised there was no mention of family in this one, a situation that would continue, I was fairly sure, well into retirement.

Junie dressed down, which meant she wore khakis, a leopard-print camp shirt, and something too close to a pith helmet for comfort. The “helmet” was tied under her chin with a camouflage scarf. I decided to steer her away from the menagerie tent, just in case her ensemble brought up bad memories.

The picketers were out in force today. Nora’s arrest had probably stirred them to additional action. Despite temperatures inching their way to a record high, there were eight adults and three elementary-school-age children carrying signs. I could tell the heat had sapped all creativity, or perhaps the subject didn’t lend itself to any. “You’re not wanted here” went straight to the point. I wondered what these people were most upset about. Wild animals, an influx of strangers with children to educate, the lights and noise of the tent show, Nora’s claim that God had chosen a circus performer as his newest prophet, or just her message.

I suspected the message trumped everything else. Even people who believe every dire prediction linked to global warming aren’t happy to hear they’re required to make serious personal changes to combat it. It’s easier to think of it as somebody else’s problem. And easiest to think of it as some subsequent generation’s hurdle. Nora claims disaster is imminent. Easier to get rid of Nora than fix the things that are wrong. All through history there’s been a lot of that going around.

I hadn’t met Yank, but I had seen him the day of Nora’s arrest. Now, after one of the residents pointed us in the right direction, Junie spotted him under the big top. From a distance Yank looked like any reasonably sincere male on the midway, working hard to win a stuffed bear or kewpie doll for his lady love. He was tossing something at what looked like a target, but as we drew closer, I saw the tossies were knives, maybe even from the set that had killed Grady Barber, and the target was a spinning disk with what looked like a human form attached.

Junie, who apparently saw nothing to be alarmed about, caught me up on his history as we headed in that direction.

“Yank grew up in a circus family. He’s fourth-generation in the impalement arts.”

“That’s what he calls it? Impalement arts? Has he ever, uh . . . missed?”

“Your genes run true, precious. I asked him the same thing.”

I tried to imagine in what other ways I might be like Junie. As much as I love her, I wasn’t sure how good that piece of news might be. But then, would I be happier to more closely resemble my father? Would Ed be willing to join me in a commune or compound someplace where land was cheap and neighbors looked the other way as the walls grew higher and higher?

“What did he say?” I asked, stowing away thoughts of genetics for a rainy day—if we ever had one again.

“He said he’s nicked his assistant a time or two, but never more than a simple flesh wound.”

“Does this seem even slightly odd to you? This desire to throw deadly weapons at people?” I narrowed my eyes and saw, to my vast relief, that today there was only a spinning dummy for Yank to avoid. I wondered how this act fit in with Nora’s message. Yank as the devil in Nora’s interpretation of hell? I hoped I could avoid that particular night’s entertainment.