Blown To Pieces (PTO Murder Club Mystery Book 2) (12 page)

A jackalope watched me from his perch over the door to the bathrooms. I peered closer at a wall covered in bottle caps, only to realize that the mixture of Coca-Cola and Shiner Beer bottle caps was actually a portrait of Willie Nelson. Clearly, Big Tommy had been a huge Willie fan. Willie Nelson lived in the next town over, Briarcliff. I’d seen him once when I went to vote at the courthouse. That was my one and only brush with fame.

I ran my finger along a row of bottle caps. Not a speck of dust. I looked around. None of the junk stuffed everywhere had any dust. I’m kind of a neat freak, and I couldn’t find fault with the cleanliness of this place. That was saying something.

“Best chili in the world,” Haley said from behind me.

I jumped a foot in the air. “You scared the hell out of me.”

Or maybe it was all the animal heads. I moved left and then right. All the glass eyes followed me. The
Mona Lisa
’s eyes are supposed to follow you too. I’ve never seen the
Mona Lisa
, but technically, I guess, her head was also mounted on a wall.

“Sorry, you left the door open.” Haley tilted her head to the left as she analyzed a painting of Taylor Swift made entirely of lacquered Cheetos.

First it was Chewing Gum Willie and now Cheetos Taylor. I hadn’t known artists worked in food. “I guess the clear paint preserves the Cheetos.”

“Also, the chemicals inside don’t hurt.” Haley smirked. She didn’t eat Cheetos.

I took offense to her smirk. Jalapeño Cheetos are so good they should be illegal.

“I looked into that list of charities you gave me.” Haley tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “Big Tommy did volunteer at all of them, but everyone loved him. Dead end.”

“That’s too bad.” You win some you lose some. “I was hoping his killer would have raised their hand and yelled, ‘I did it.’”

She moved on to Bottle Cap Willie. “I think Big Tommy might have done this himself.”

I looked in the bottom right-hand corner for a signature, but there was nothing but bottle caps.

Since none of the bottle caps spelled out “CLUE HERE,” I headed to the door labeled “Employees Only.” The letters were lacquered Red Hots. “I think we should start there.”

I pushed open the swinging door, and we encountered a short hallway that led to a door with “Office” spelled out above it in lacquered Bazooka Bubble Gum packets. What happened to using a plain old black Sharpie or those stick-on letters from Home Depot?

“What do you suppose Big Tommy was into that got him killed?” Haley asked the question that had been rattling around in my head.

“No idea.” I opened the door, and my eyeballs went temporarily numb. All four walls and the ceiling were covered in silver CDs. They appeared to be glued to the walls. It was like being inside of a toaster or staring directly at Astrid in one of her séance outfits.

Haley flipped her sunglasses down over her eyes and leaned closer to examine the CDs. “All the CDs are Willie Nelson.”

“Big Tommy had a serious bro-crush on Willie.” I shaded my eyes from the glare of the overhead light. “I had no idea Willie had this many CDs.”

“Some of them have to be repeats.” Haley studied a velvet oil painting of a ship sailing on the churning blue seas. “Art is so subjective.”

That was Haley speak for “this is hideous.”

“Looks like Big Tommy loved him some terrible art.” The painting looked like something sold in one of those starving-student art sales held out of the back of a sketchy panel van.

“He must have seen something of artistic value in the painting.” Haley was always looking for the good in people. “And all of these CDs.”

“If you say so.” Personally, I think Big Tommy might have been secretly blind. Could someone be secretly blind? Or maybe he was just artistically challenged. Was artistically challenged the politically correct way of saying he had no taste? Look at me—I’m the poster girl for political correctness.

A huge, overly ornate gold desk took up most of the space in this little room. “Either this came from Liberace’s yard sale, or the Sultan of Brunei is missing his desk.”

Poor Big Tommy. Secret blindness and bad taste.

I glanced back at the doorway. “How in the world did he get this in here? It’s twice as wide as the doorframe.”

Haley shook her head. “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”

“Big Tommy had way too much will, if you ask me.” I scooted behind the desk and rolled the matching gold chair out of the way. The desk had three drawers on each side and a single long, skinny drawer in the middle. I started with the drawers on the left. Nothing but sticky notes and pens. I sure could have used some more sticky notes, but I refused to steal from the dead...um, okay, I refused to steal anything not related to the case from the dead. Plus, Big Tommy’s Chili Parlor was stamped on everything—dead giveaway or, well, dead steal-away.

And Haley was watching.

The second drawer held nothing but a stack of college-rule spiral notebooks. I pulled them out and flipped open the cover of the top one.

“Operetta—‘The Life of Willie Nelson’ by Big Tommy Prather.” I didn’t want to keep reading, but it was just like watching a car accident. You try to look away, but you just can’t. “Oh no. Apparently the operetta takes place in the kitchen, and it’s narrated by the ingredients inside the chili pot. Willie Nelson is the meat.” I shrugged. “Makes sense he should be the star of his own food-based operetta. All four of Willie’s wives are peppers that go into the chili. Here’s the first line. ‘I was born during the Great Depression in Abbott, Texas—now I only smoke organic and drive a biodiesel Lexus.’”

“That is factually inaccurate. Lexus doesn’t make a diesel engine, and everyone knows that Willie drives around in an old pickup truck.” Haley searched the papers on top of Big Tommy’s desk.

I scanned the rest of the page. “Look, Big Tommy assigned parts. Willie Nelson will of course be played by Willie Nelson. Martha Matthews Nelson, who is a bell pepper, will be played by Mila Kunis. I think she was his first wife—Martha not Mila.”

I flipped several pages. Still “The Life of Willie Nelson.” I picked up the next spiral. More operetta. I thumbed through the rest of the spirals. All operetta. “I thought an operetta was a short opera. Seven filled college-rule spirals is not a short opera.” I turned to the last page of the last spiral. “Spoiler alert—in the end, they all get eaten.”

I tossed the spirals back into the drawer and closed it. “I know who killed Big Tommy.”

Haley stopped riffling through papers and stared at me. “Who?”

“Willie had him killed. First it was the chewing gum statue, then the bottle caps, and now the worst and longest operetta of all time.” I nodded. I thought Willie had good cause. In fact, I was tempted to let this one go. “Willie might not have pulled the trigger, or, well, lit the fuse, but I like him for hiring someone to kill Big Tommy. It makes sense. Willie might be high all of the time, but the man has his breaking point. The operetta would have pushed even the most passionate pacifist over the edge. Or maybe it was one of the wives. I’d hate having someone call me a bell pepper.”

Haley didn’t comment, she just went back to rustling papers. “I think I found something.”

She held up a binder-clipped bundle of papers.

“It’s his tax return.” Haley leaned on the desk and flipped through the papers.

“It’s still March. Who does their tax return this early?” Like the rest of the country, I do mine on April fourteenth and rush to the post office close to midnight on the fifteenth. I’m willing to admit that I might be a procrastinator...just a little bit.

“I’ll be filing my return first thing in January,” Haley said without looking up.

“Of course you will.” I flourished my hands like a gameshow hostess. “Overachievers of the world, behold your queen.”

Haley ignored me, which was rude. That overachievers thing was funny, but since I’d vowed to stop laughing at my own jokes, I settled for a long, dramatic sigh.

“Have you ever heard of the Lakeside African Relief Fund?” Haley unclipped the papers and showed me a page. “Big Tommy donated fifty thousand dollars to them last year.”

“Where did Big Tommy get fifty grand?” I’d thought he was a have-not, just like me.

“No idea.” Haley waved the tax return. “According to this, the Chili Parlor and Oddities Emporium barely broke even. He doesn’t even pay himself a salary.”

“How did he afford to live?” I barely broke even on my salary, and the only money I donated was to the Buy Max Food Fund.

Haley flipped more pages. “I don’t see earnings from a trust or annuity.”

I wasn’t sure what either of those were. “Okay.”

“Where did the money come from?” Haley binder-clipped the bundle back together. “I guess he could have lied on his tax return.” She shrugged. “Why would he do that?”

Life must be so cut-and-dry in her world, but those of us with the view from the cheap seats couldn’t afford all of that black and white.

“Sometimes survival is more important than the IRS.” Not that I’ve ever purposely cheated on my taxes, but any errors that weren’t intentional aren’t my fault.

“You’re right...I know.” She unlooped one handle of my old, battered, leather work tote from my shoulder and slipped the return into it. “We might need this later.”

I was on drawer three of the left side. I pulled it out. Nothing but rubber bands. Big red ones, tiny blue ones, and every size and color in between. I hate to be judgmental, but I think Big Tommy was a rubber band hoarder. “Is rubber band hoarding a thing?”

Haley glanced down into the drawer. “Looks like it.”

I worked my way through all of the drawers except the bottom right. “This one’s locked.”

“Like that’s ever stopped you before.” Haley grinned. She knew me so well.

“Determination and resourcefulness are two of my finest qualities.” I wasn’t being defensive, only reminding her why she loved me.

I riffled around until I found a silver-dagger letter opener. I worked it back and forth until the lock popped and the drawer rolled open. Inside was a gunmetal-gray safety deposit box. I wriggled it around until I’d worked it free and sat it on the floor next to me.

“Good Lord, another one? The two we found at Molly Miars’s house weren’t enough?” Haley rolled her eyes. “What is it with people having safety deposit boxes not in a bank?”

“You got me. I don’t even have one in a bank.” Seriously, what would I put in it? My priceless collection of
People
magazines that I stole from my hair salon?

I shook the metal box, and several things rattled around. “It’s not that heavy, so I don’t think it’s filled with gold coins or stacks of hundred-dollar bills, like the other two we found.”

I stood and set the box on the desktop. “I vote we take it with us.”

“Works for me.” Haley straightened the piles of paper on the desk.

“Find anything else in all of that paper?” The tax return was good, but a note labeled “name of my killer” would have been better.

“Nothing special. Just some bills, phone messages...” Haley scanned the room. “Know what’s weird? No computer. In this day and age, who doesn’t have a work computer?”

I had the urge to slap myself on the forehead. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

Haley pointed to an electrical outlet behind the desk. “There’s a charger plugged into the wall, but I don’t see a laptop.” She reached down and picked up the dirty, white-at-one-time cord. “Looks like a MacBook charging cable. It’s an older model. I used to have this type of cord before I spilled red wine all over it and had to get a new one.”

The only computer I had at home was an ancient Dell that Max used for his homework. Actually, he used his iPad for his homework. When he needed something printed out, he emailed it to me at work. Come to think of it, I wasn’t sure if Donna Dell ever got used. Maybe it was time to put her out to pasture on the shelves of Goodwill.

“Maybe the laptop’s in a wall safe or something. Check around.” I really didn’t want to look directly at the really shiny CDs, but it had to be done.

Haley checked behind the velvet oil painting.

No hidden safe.

I checked the floor for a hidden compartment.

No hidden compartment.

We checked every inch of wall for a secret room.

No hidden room.

“I think we’ve found all there is to find.” Haley scanned the room one last time.

“You’re right.” On impulse, I grabbed the stack of bills and shoved them into my bag. I picked up the safety deposit box.

Haley switched off the light, and we headed back to our cars.

“Since we didn’t find a key, we could try running over it again like we did with the others.” Haley pointed to her Range Rover.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” I shook the box, and whatever was inside rattled around. “Sounds breakable. I’ll take it back to my house, and maybe we can pick the lock.” Yeah, because lockpicking was our specialty. We were new to this whole Find the Killer game. Everything I knew about investigating, I’d learned from watching
Castle
.

“Okay.” Haley sounded more polite than convinced that we could pick a lock.

I clicked the button that raised Portia’s hatchback and slid the safety deposit box into the back of my car.

Were private safety deposit boxes the newest thing in valuables safety? Should I get one? I laughed to myself. Like I have anything valuable. I’d been praying that someone would steal my TV since it had turned all green and squishy. Unfortunately, I hadn’t found a thief that was that hard up.

“I’ll pick up Max. Want to head to my house, and we can go over what we found?” My house was our favorite place to meet. True, it wasn’t the nicest, but Haley’s was full of staff, and Monica’s was full of her mother living with her.

“I wish I could. Daniel leaves in a few days for a conference in Las Vegas. We’re having family night.” Haley walked to her Rover. “Call me later and tell me everything.”

I hopped in my car and rolled down the window. “Dinner tomorrow then?”

“It’s a date.” Haley slipped behind the wheel.

We were bowling tomorrow, so I hoped Haley was okay with that.