Crowning the Slug Queen (A Callie Stone Mystery Book 1) (15 page)

              "He seems to get better with age," said Audrey.

              Callie didn't want to make any accusations about Audrey's possible drug habit, so she tried to keep the conversation general. "I think he's worried about you. Worried about whether or not you're happy."
              Audrey was silent for a long moment. "I have nothing to complain about, do I? Great house, great kids and the bills are all paid. But no, up to this point I would not say I was happy."

              "Is that something you want to fix?" asked Callie.

              "Finally, I think so," she said. "I just keep feeling sorry for myself, but when I look around me, I realize any negativity that's there is coming from me, not from anything else."

              "I don't know," said Callie. "I mean, you're right on one hand, but on the other, different people find life challenging in different ways. The divorce was really hard on you."

              "I think the hardest part was when I began realizing I might have brought it on myself," said Audrey. "After I saw you the other day, I wondered what would happen if I just tried to do something differently. Like saying yes to a date or playing hookey with my high school best friend."

              "I guess you're saying that when doing the same old thing doesn't work any longer, any other option is better?"

              "I just don't want to look back on my life ten years from now and I think I wasted it."

              "That makes sense. And remember, you're not alone. I'm just a phone call away and your dad's right here. I also think Scooter would still be there for you if you needed him."

              Audrey frowned. "I'm not sure I'm ready to go that far into trying something new. But I hear what you're saying and I really appreciate it."

              The server returned with their drinks and they changed topics to discuss the more immediate question of what movie to see.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

It was getting late in the afternoon when Callie returned home. Audrey's obvious improvement and the light hearted comedy they saw together had left her feeling upbeat.

Although her mom's truck was in the driveway there was no one in the kitchen, so she went out to the cottage. She was surprised to see the door open. She walked in and saw Grandma Millie sitting on the couch with a notebook and her mom walking around the room.

"What's up?" asked Callie, setting her bag on the floor.

"You, that's what!" said Grandma Millie.

Coral frowned at her. "What she means to say, is what would it take for you to stay?"

"Stay where?" asked Callie.

"She means, we want you here, not some three thousand miles away, so do you need new curtains or a bath rug or something like that," said Grandma Millie.

Coral nodded. "I think you might like it here now, more than you did when you were growing up, and well, we'd like you to stay. What would it take? We could do some work in the cottage to make it more of a permanent residence for you. Of course, if you stay long term, you'll probably want to find your own place in town, but for the few months or so, maybe it wouldn't be too bad to live close to your family? We've really enjoyed having you here."

Callie thought about Bill's message earlier and her stressed reactions to Mara's comments. What did she really want out of life? She thought of the questions she had asked and Audrey's surprising conclusions about herself and happiness. It wasn't as if she hadn't given New York and the rest of the world a try. Maybe it was time she tried Skinner. New York would always be there if she wanted to go back to it.

"First off, I think the cottage is going to need a bigger closet." Coral and Grandma Minnie gave a big cheer.

They spent the remainder of the afternoon with a tape measure, sectioning a larger portion of the cottage for a bedroom and discussing what other sorts of furniture Callie might like to have. She was certain her things from New York would fit, but she didn't want to think about moving cross country quite yet. She still needed to survive the slug queen pageant on Saturday.

Plans laid, they left the cottage and went into the kitchen. Coral said, "What's everyone want for dinner? I have some great veggies for a soup."

Behind Coral, Grandma Minnie was shaking her head. "You know what mom? I feel like celebrating. Maybe we can go out? I'd love to take you to the Cloudburst."

"You know, that sounds nice. Let's do it."

They piled into Callie's rental car and drove into town. The rain hadn't let up yet and Callie could only hope it would stop before the pageant.

The Cloudburst Pub was busy and they waited in the front area a few minutes while a table was being made ready.

Callie saw Jorna Vitale-Cone walking through the restaurant towards them, apparently just finished with dinner.

"Callie, and with Coral too! How nice to see you both,” Callie was a little surprised at her effusiveness as she always acted reserved at the committee meetings.

"Jorna, it's good to see you as well," said Coral. She looked behind Jorna and greeted a tall gray haired man. "Mike, how are you?" she said reaching out to shake his hand. "This is my daughter Callie and my mother-in-law, Minnie. This is Mike, Jorna's partner."

"It's a pleasure to meet you both," he said. "And good to see you again, Coral. How's my favorite organic garden doing?"

"If you mean are the heirloom tomatoes ready yet, not quite," said Coral. "I'll make sure you get a batch when they are ripe."

Jorna made a grimace. "Have you heard about Dot's garden?" she asked.

"What's up with it? Every time I pass by the vegetables look so abundant I think they're going to walk off of the vines," said Coral. "I keep trying to get her to share her secret."

"You may not want to use her particular brand of fertilizer. A couple of dogs dug up a body there today."

"A body! You're serious?" said Coral in a shocked tone of voice.

Callie hoped that Jacob didn't mind that his summer of free vegetables was more organic than intended. At least now he knew why the dogs were so attracted to the garden.

"Do they know how long it's been there?" asked Grandma Minnie, always interested in details she could share at the hair salon.

"The garden was laid about 2 months ago and there hasn't seemed to be any new earth turned since then," said Jorna. "The garden's in such a public location, I think it would have been noticed if anyone had done a lot of digging after that."

"That's terrible," said Coral. "Has the poor soul been identified yet?"

Jorna shook her head. "I haven't heard anything else."

Saying goodnight, Jorna and Mike headed out of the Cloudburst while Callie, Coral and Grandma Minnie were taken to their table.

Callie's head was spinning. There seemed to be more than a few things happening all in a time frame that started two months ago. Could they be connected? She wondered if Scott had been called in to investigate the body. For some reason, she kept thinking of the fact that the drug dealer he had been trying to track down had disappeared conveniently at the same time Sheldon Normal had been released from prison and had begun dealing again.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Callie woke to the sound of heavy rain on the cottage roof. It wasn't the rain that woke her, though. Her cell phone was ringing from across the room. It was Jeremy.

"Callie?" he said. "I was wondering if you could come into town and meet with the committee this morning. I think we're having a bit of a weather problem."

Callie agreed to meet at the Newsome Center at noon.

She went back to the cottage and showered. She pulled out her index cards and began to make notes so she could have it clear in her mind what changes would need to be made to put her rain plan in action.

Callie parked and went in. When she reached the conference room, she paused at the door, hearing upraised voices.

"Jorna, it can't be that difficult. People will understand. None of this is impossible!" Callie stopped, listening intently. The day of Alex’s murder she had heard a woman's voice speaking in anger. Could this be the same person? She wasn't entirely sure.

"But you don't understand. Do you know how hard it's going to be to reverse all this PR and get everyone going in another direction entirely?" asked Jorna.

Callie pushed the door open and heard, "We hired you as the PR expert, so use your expertise. This can't be the first time in your career something like this has happened." The speaker was Dot Felson.

Jeremy, was sitting at the conference table with Jorna, Dot and Kathleen. Marty wasn't present. "Callie, I'm glad you could make it. We're just discussing what our options might be with the weather."

"What ideas do you have so far?" she asked.

"Well, we aren't really sure what to do about the parade. It seems we either go on in the rain or we cancel it," said Jorna.

Callie said, "Although I am the first to propose a rain plan, I have to admit the parade is a challenge and I think you've got it down to the only two options possible. So let's list some pros and cons. That usually clarifies which way a decision should go. What is good about canceling?" she asked.

"No one has to stand out in the rain," said Kathleen.

"None of the floats end up getting destroyed by heavy rain," said Dot.

There was silence for a minute. "So what you're telling me is this is Skinner, Oregon and no one is actually going to mind standing in the rain, right?" she asked. "Does anyone have a store of ponchos or umbrellas or anything? We could hand those out with Cloudburst Pub stickers on them and get additional marketing out of it. For the folks on the floats, we could contact each one and warn them the parade goes forward rain or no rain and it's up to them to either make their floats more water resistant or pull them from the parade."

Jeremy nodded. "The show must go on feeling, eh? This could make the parade even more of a community event than before with everyone demonstrating what troupers they are."

"Exactly," said Callie.

"What about the music stages? And the slug queen pageant?" asked Kathleen, her gray curls bobbing up and down in agitation.

"The interior lobby of the Newsome Center is large enough to put up one of the stages, sort of like a catwalk. If we use it, the pageant will still have that sort of 'out on the street' feel even if it's indoors. Then we'll use the Straub Theater as a second music stage for the other musical acts you have scheduled."

Everyone nodded. "So, I'll need the slug queens back tomorrow early so I can discuss the new stage set with them."

Jeremy said, "I'll see if I can round them up."

"Don't forget our charming emcee as well." She didn't relish seeing Kit Carter again, but he needed the practice as much as any of the contestants.

"He might be more of a challenge."

"He can be here as penance for not predicting this deluge," said Callie.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Callie dressed with care on Saturday morning, once again wearing the most formal blouse she had packed. She wanted to appear professional and look as if she was able to manage whatever the Slug Queen pageant would throw at her.

Although she had tried to reach Scott the day before, leaving 3 voicemail messages, he had never returned her call and she gave up on hearing from him.

She drove to the Newsome Center with her windshield wipers on high as the rain didn’t show any sign of stopping.

As she entered the lobby, she saw that the set-up team must have been hard at work late into the previous evening. Instead of the usual wide-open lobby, staging had been set up to create a t-shape. There was a large square main stage with a long walkway radiating out to the front. Trusses had been set up that now held colored lights. Callie’s favorite part though, were the three disco balls, spinning and casting a myriad of rainbows on the walls and floor.

She saw Scott on the other side of the catwalk talking with a uniformed officer. She waved at him and as he saw her, they both began to walk. Their paths intersected at the end of the runway.

"How come you haven't returned my calls?" asked Callie.

He ran his hand through his hair. "Police business and politics combined as a couple of dogs dug up a man’s body in the mayor's corner garden. That became my top priority yesterday afternoon."

"Do you know how he got there?"

"It looked as if the guy had been hit by a car and then buried," he said. "We're thinking he got planted right before the garden was laid down."

"Would these dogs be named Garcia and Jerry and belong to a transient named Jacob? And the body belongs to the drug dealer who disappeared a couple of months ago?"

"His name was Benny Green. Why do I even investigate this stuff? I should just be coming straight to you." His tone of voice was incredulous. "How do you know?"

"It's sort of complicated to explain," she said. "But if you understood how I knew that, you'd know the person you need to arrest for the murders of both your dealer and Alex Herrman is Dot Felson."

He was silent for a moment. "I'm thinking you must have fairly good intuition or whatever you call it to make that accusation, but unfortunately, I can't investigate a hair on her head without some sort of evidence that points directly to her."

"The timeline all fits. The garden is dug two months ago; the dealer disappears two months ago, Sheldon Normal gets out of prison two months ago and takes up where the old dealer left off."

"Wait a minute. How did we jump to Sheldon? What's his role in all this?"

She answered with a question of her own. "Why didn't Sheldon Normal get a tougher sentence?"

"It wasn't my case," he said. "I assumed he became an informant or made some sort of plea deal."

"He did. But it wasn't with the judicial system. It was with Dot Felson and then she pulled some strings to get him a deal. If you started with the deal and worked backwards, you could probably prove this. I was told someone fixed Sheldon Normal's sentence in exchange for information on drug dealing that he did and that the information went to the mayor."

"So far this all sounds good, but I'm not seeing any hard evidence," he said. "In fact, if what you're saying about Sheldon Normal is true, I'd have an easier time bringing him in than the mayor."

"Let me ask you a question first," she said, as he rolled his eyes impatiently. "It will be worth it, I promise. What exactly did Alex Herrman write to Steven in that message on the computer?"

He looked puzzled. "You saw it, just the same as I did. She just wrote 'Dear Steven' and nothing else."

"Well, if you were writing a letter, what punctuation would you use? I mean, what would you use after the main salutation?"

"I guess I'd use a comma," he said. "Why?"

"Alex's note, written in a hidden font, said 'Dear Steven, followed by an ellipsis, which could also be read as dot, dot..."

Scott finished the sentence for her. "Dot. Alex was trying to leave a message that wouldn't be deleted if Dot found it and warn Steven."

"In the committee meeting yesterday Dot was yelling at Jorna and I'm positive that was the voice I heard yelling at Molluska off-stage the night she was killed. I think Molluska knew something about Benny Green’s disappearance and was using it to try and blackmail Dot."

Scott shook his head. "Dots in an unfinished letter, unprovable voice evidence and a coincidental timeline. Got anything else, other than intuition, on this? Plus, what motive does Dot have in killing Benny? I'm not disagreeing with you here, but I'm not sure this is enough to bring her in."

"I don’t know her motive, but you should go to her auto body shop," she said.

"Auto body shop? What are you talking about?" he asked.

"She and Steven have been sharing a car because hers is being worked on. Steven said she hit a deer some two months ago and had waited to take it in to the shop. I bet her car hit something more than a deer. You could take a look at that without involving her, right?"

"At least that's something concrete," he said. "I just hope you're right about this as I’m going to have to justify investigating the mayor’s car somewhere down the road."

He pulled out his cell phone and made a call. As he spoke, he turned his back to her and absentmindedly began to pace. She stood there feeling somewhat useless.

"Callie?!" A sharp voice interrupted her concerns for how Scott was going to find evidence on Dot. Kit Carter, in a full tuxedo with a jaunty checkered black bow tie, stood in front of her.

"Kit? It's nice to see you. You look great!"

He smiled patronizingly and smoothed back his hair. "Well, it's the best look Skinner will see tonight, I'm certain."

"Are you ready? Is there anything I can get you?" Belatedly Callie remembered she had a beauty pageant to run. She'd given Scott all the help she could and now she needed to focus on her own job.

"Yes. I thought you said something about a hat and cane? Would you be able to get them before the run through begins?"

After her last adventure in the storeroom with the smoke, Callie had relegated the procurement of the hat and cane to Wade.

"Yes, let me get it and I'll bring it to you. Will you be on the catwalk?"

"Where else, darling? That was an inspired idea, by the way. It's like bringing a little taste of fashion week to Skinner."

She nodded her thanks. "That was the idea. I'll be back in a few moments." She called Wade on her cell. "Wade, were you able to find a hat and cane?"

"Yes, I did, but I forgot to bring it out here. It's in the control room backstage. I'm sort of tied up, would you mind going and getting it?"

"No problem," she said. "I want to see Kit Carter in all his glory."

He laughed and hung up. Callie left the lobby area and went into the theater.

The lights in the auditorium weren't on, as the current focus was the set-up of the Slug Queen pageant stage and catwalk in the lobby. She climbed the stairs on the left of the stage and went into the control room. Sitting on Wade's chair were the black top hat and a black and white cane.

Emerging from the room Callie returned to the stairs, but stopped when she heard a noise from above. She sighed to herself. Even though she had instructed all of the stage crew to be working on the catwalk set, some independent minded soul must have come in here to start working on the concert lighting.

Something hit the stage with a clatter. Expecting to see a tool or piece of rigging, Callie was surprised to see a shoe. It was a black peep toe heel with the distinctive red sole of a Louboutin. Callie picked it up. Callie knew there was only one person likely to be at the slug pageant with those shoes. She looked up into the rigging and wondered what Dot Felson was doing up there. Now that she was directly underneath the metal walkway, she heard sounds of a struggle coming from above. A voice called out, "Help!" but ended in a strangled gasp. Callie recognized the voice of Steven Felson.

Something clicked in Callie's mind. If Dot killed Steven and made his death look like a suicide, he could be a scapegoat for everything. His involvement with Alex Herrman was easy to prove and there were even witnesses that knew he spent time with her. As Dot was involved in selling drugs to Alex and others, she was probably thinking she could somehow pawn that off on Steven as well. What motive Steven had for killing Alex would be defined by Dot. She'd say he killed himself because he was depressed over losing her and couldn't live with himself anymore.

Callie knew she only had a few minutes. She put down the shoe and hat, but kept the cane as she had a vague idea she could use it for defense. She started to head towards the elevator, but realized that the noise of the door opening might give her away. Instead she went to the ladder that led up into the rigging. She stuck the cane through her belt loop. Ignoring the ladder’s safety harness, she quietly began to climb, hoping the struggles above would cover any sound her breathing made.

There were only a few lights on as she reached the top of the ladder and climbed on to the metal walkway. She took a second to calm her labored breathing. If she was going to stay in Skinner, she needed to join a gym.

She looked left and right, but didn't see anyone, so keeping low and hanging on to the railing, she crept to the left until she reached the first catwalk that crossed over the stage. Then she saw them. Steven Felson, recognizable by his Gastronia Creepalot attire, was lying flat out on the metal walkway. Dot was kneeling over him, her back to Callie. There was a pile of rope behind Dot and Callie realized Dot was wrapping it around Steven's neck.

Callie crept closer, the cane now in her hand, until she was only a few feet from them. Dot, finished with Steven, and turned to grab the remainder of the rope. Callie realized she was going to tie it to the railing and then push Steven over the edge. Dot saw Callie. "What are you doing here?" she snarled. Without waiting for an answer, she pulled out a small pistol from her jacket pocket and aimed it at Callie.

Callie swung the cane, hitting the gun as it went off. The shot harmlessly deflected to the side, but the force of the blow caused Callie to drop the cane. Dot aimed again, but Callie had moved closer and grabbed Dot's arm. They struggled, as Dot tried to move the barrel to an angle where she could fire and Callie kept trying to keep the muzzle from pointing at her.

Scott's voice came from below. "Callie? Are you up there?"

"It's Dot!" Callie cried, too out of breath to say more. Her arms, already tired from climbing the ladder, were not going to be winning any arm wrestling competitions, so Callie hoped she could hold out until Scott could get there.

Suddenly, Dot looked down at her foot. Steven had woken up enough to reach out and grab Dot's ankle. She still had on the one shoe, but not for long. Steven managed to sweep that foot out away from the metal grid and over empty space. The shoe fell off. Dot cried, "My Louboutin!" and lost her balance. Dot let go of the gun and it went over the edge after the shoe. Callie backed up, ready to grab Dot if she tried anything else. Instead, Dot collapsed onto the metal walkway, all the fight gone out of her.

“What’s going on, Dot?” Callie hoped conversation would stall any more action on Dot’s part until Scott arrived.

"She was going to ruin it, you know? All my years of work and she thought she could just waltz in and take it from me.

"Who?" asked Callie, although she thought she already knew.

"Alex Herrman. She thought she could do in a year, what took me over a decade to build. She took Steven and she was trying to take my job."

Callie shook her head, trying to seem commiserating. "But how could she have done that?"

"She was threatening me with the drug sales. Using it to blackmail me and have me get her a place on the city council. She kept asking me if I knew what happened to Benny. But I knew what she was up to. She wouldn't have stopped until she was running for mayor. I wasn't going to let some foreigner take away all that I'd worked for."

There was silence for a moment. Callie said, "Why were you involved in drugs?"

"For most people they're harmless. It's the weak that get sucked in. I think of it as Darwinism in action. We’re all better with those losers drugged and out of the way. Do you know what the mayor of Skinner makes? A pittance! We get international attention because of our work on the environment and our activism, but the mayor still makes the salary of a two-bit town. A World Mayor needs to make a world salary. Why else would someone take all this?" She kept talking, now almost mumbling. Callie realized it was a conversation she must have had with herself numerous times. "Always trying to take what I have. Stupid Benny, always wanting more money, always wanting to take what's mine. Take what I earned the hard way."

Callie heard the opening of the elevator doors and looked back over her shoulder to see Scott and two uniformed policemen come running out.

"Callie? Where's the gun? Are you alright? Everyone stay where they are."