Death of a Coupon Clipper (14 page)

Lex’s face lit up when he opened his front door to find Hayley standing there; she
was holding a covered green Tupperware container.

“I brought you dinner,” she said, handing it to him. “And I made enough for two.”

Lex reached down and kissed Hayley on the cheek; then he ushered her inside. “You
just made my night. Come in.”

After extricating herself from Mark and Mary Garber’s bone-chilling deck chat, Hayley
returned to Randy’s house, where she opened the refrigerator and saw enough shrimp
left over, thanks to her two-for-one coupon, to whip up some more of her garlic shrimp
pasta dish. She had been feeling guilty for basically ignoring Lex lately, so why
not prepare him a home-cooked meal and deliver it to him in person? The Hollingsworth
estate was walking distance from Randy’s house. So after checking her watch, she knew
she would have enough time to prepare it and then rush over to Lex’s caretaker house
before he had a chance to slap some baloney between a couple slices of Wonder bread,
lather on some mayonnaise, pop open a Bud Light, and call it a night.

She knew Clark Hollingsworth was working Lex’s fingers to the bone ever since he blew
into town, and Lex wasn’t getting home from all his estate duties until well after
eight every night.

Lex went upstairs to take a quick shower, having just walked through the door seconds
before Hayley showed up. She went about setting two places at the kitchen table, lighting
some candles for ambience, and heating up her dish in the oven. It felt good having
a meal with Lex, relaxing with some cheap red wine, and just catching up.

She was still contemplating her feelings. They had been in a holding pattern for some
time now, not sure whether either was ready to take it to the next level. So it was
nice, finally, to spend a little quality time together.

Lex wolfed down his meal gratefully, downed two glasses of wine, and then checked
his watch.

“What could Clark possibly want you to do this late at night?” Hayley asked.

“It’s not Clark, babe. We got six inches of snow today and I promised a few friends
I’d come by tonight and plow their driveways.”

“Do you have to do it tonight?”

“Afraid so. Clark’s got a list of chores in the morning and I have to be up and out
the door by four-thirty.”

“What a slave driver,” Hayley said, shaking her head. “I really can’t stand that guy.”

“You and me both. I’m going to be done by noon, though, and could sneak away for a
few hours. Why don’t we take some time and do something fun, like go cross-country
skiing in the park or something?”

“Oh, that’s right. I forget you’re ‘Action Man,’ someone who considers grueling physical
exercise as fun.”

“Damn straight. I wouldn’t mind doing something physical right now,” he said, throwing
his napkin down on the table and standing up. “But duty calls. So, how about tomorrow?”

“Tempting. But can I have a rain check? I’m working tomorrow,” she said with a sigh.

“Come on, take a personal day. You must have a dozen or so stockpiled. You’re always
at that office.”

It was true. She had plenty of free days coming to her, but she didn’t want to admit
to herself that she was also demurring because she didn’t want to waste time skiing
in the park when she could be following up on leads connected to Candace Culpepper’s
murder. She couldn’t admit that to Lex; he would most certainly take it personally.

“Let me think about it,” Hayley said. “In the meantime, you go be the town’s sexiest
snowplow driver and make sure everyone can back their cars out of their driveways
in time for work tomorrow. I will clean up here and load the dishwasher and call you
tomorrow. Deal?”

“Deal,” Lex said, leaning in again and kissing her. He cupped his hand around her
neck and pulled her closer this time. Her lips pressed against his, and her first
thoughts were wondering if she put too much garlic in the pasta and if he could smell
it on her breath. But then she realized he had eaten twice as much as she did, so
it didn’t really matter.

She grabbed his neck too and pressed his lips tighter against hers.

Lex reluctantly threw on his coat and a hat and headed out the door, winking at her
as he left. Hayley blew him a kiss and then took their dirty dishes to the sink and
began rinsing them off with water as she watched the headlights of his truck come
to life before he drove off the property toward town. She dropped the dishes and wineglasses
and empty Tupperware container into the dishwasher, added in a little detergent, locked
it up tight, and pressed a button to begin the cycle. She stood at the window for
a moment, soaping up her hands, when she noticed something going on inside the main
house on the estate.

She could see through the windows to the living room, where Clark Hollingsworth was
waving his hands and yelling like a crazy man. He was having some kind of argument
with someone, and it looked as if he was losing his cool big-time.

Hayley kept telling herself over and over again
not
to get involved. Just ignore it and go home. She put on her coat and zipped it up
and walked out the door, closing it behind her. But deep down she knew there was no
way she would not trot down and peek in the window to see what was happening, and
that’s exactly how events unfolded from that point.

Hayley crunched through the snow as quietly as she could. Her eyes were fixed on the
living-room window, where Clark was pacing back and forth, still yelling. She was
close enough now to see his face and it was beet red, and his head was twitching as
if he was experiencing some kind of seizure.

She stepped over the hedges and ducked down underneath the windowsill to stay out
of sight. Slowly raising her head, Hayley peered through the window in time to see
Clark angrily swat at his own head with his hand, like some disturbed child trying
to injure himself. That’s when she realized there was no one else in the room with
him. He wasn’t having an argument with anyone. He was just yelling and screaming to
himself.

It sent a shiver up her spine.

This guy was whacked out of his mind.

Suddenly a dog barked.

Hayley swiveled her head around to see where it was coming from. The barking was faint,
from the direction of a neighboring seaside estate, off in the distance. The wind
was carrying the barking sound and it soon began to fade away. Hayley turned her head
back around to look inside, only to see the living room empty.

Clark was gone.

She took this as a sign to beat it and started to stumble through the hedges to get
back on the plowed path, which would take her back up to the main road and home.

She was about halfway there when a stern voice called out from behind her, “What are
you doing here?”

She spun around. It was Clark. Glaring at her. Not at all happy to see her on private
property. “I, uh, brought Lex some dinner. He’s been working so hard and not eating
right, so I wanted to make sure he had at least one proper meal that didn’t involve
a Snickers bar this week.”

“Where is he?” Clark asked, stone-faced.

“Well, we finished dinner and he went to plow some driveways around town.”

“He works full-time here. He shouldn’t be moonlighting for extra cash. We pay him
very well.”

“He’s not doing it for the money. He’s just a very kind and generous man who likes
helping people out.”

Something rich 1-percenter Clark Hollingsworth would never understand.

But she wasn’t about to say that.

“Why were you looking in my windows?” he asked, not moving, staring her down.

“Well, as I was leaving, I saw you in the house and you looked upset and I wanted
to make sure you were all right,” Hayley said, clearing her throat, not wanting to
set him off.

“As you can see, I’m fine,” he said, folding his arms. “Did you check out my alibi
at the Porter House?”

“Uh, yes, I d-did,” Hayley stammered.

“And?”

“And you were right. You were there most of the night.”

“So I couldn’t have stabbed my uncle’s nurse. Now that we’ve settled that, are you
going to leave me alone?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Okay. When are you planning to start? To leave me alone.”

“Right now.”

“Good. That works for me too.”

“Clark, I think we may have gotten off on the wrong foot and I would hate for you
to think ill of me because I remember we were quite friendly when we were kids.”

Clark bristled, clearly not wanting to go anywhere near the past.

Hayley was very perceptive when it came to body language.

But, of course, she kept going anyway.

“I remember when you were around ten years old and would come up here for the summer,
and your uncle Edgar gave you that big, goofy Great Dane and you would walk him around
town, or, I should say,
he
walked
you
around town.”

Hayley laughed at the memory.

Clark didn’t crack a smile.

“He was such a sweet dog. What was his name?”

Clark’s eye twitched and his face started turning red again; he clutched his fists
tightly.

There was a long, agonizing pause, until finally Hayley couldn’t take the tension
anymore. “Amos! That was his name, right?”

“Yes. Amos,” Clark said quietly.

“You would bring him into the ice-cream shop where I worked during the summers and
you would always order the same double scoop, peanut butter cup and chocolate chip
mint.”

“Yeah.”

“And Amos would stand in the doorway, watching me like a hawk, waiting for me to spill
some so he could swoop in and lap it up.”

Still, no smile from Clark at the childhood memory.

“No, wait. My friend Liddy’s favorite was chocolate chip mint. Yours was cherry vanilla,”
Hayley said.

“I guess so. Yeah, cherry vanilla,” he said, resisting the urge to grab his face to
stop his eye from twitching.

“We went to the same summer camp one year, remember?”

Clark folded his arms and nodded.

“I think that was the last time I saw you, until I ran into you at the supermarket,”
Hayley said. “I remember that summer we both signed up for the drama production of
West Side Story.
You were a Jet and I was a Shark, because I had spent most of the summer at the beach
tanning, so I looked at least a tiny bit Spanish.”

Finally he spoke. “Yes. I remember. I was a Jet. Who the hell cares? I didn’t have
a very happy childhood like you, apparently. I don’t remember it so fondly. And I’d
really like it if you left my property now.”

His
property?

Edgar wasn’t dead yet.

This guy was definitely planning ahead.

“Okay, Clark, I’ll go,” Hayley said. “But just for the record, the drama production
was
Hello, Dolly!
and I played Minnie, the hatmaker, and you were Ambrose Kemper, the artist. So your
long-term memory really sucks.”

Hayley turned and began walking away.

“I was in a car accident in my twenties,” Clark called after her. “Messed me up pretty
good. Did a number on my brain and affected my memory, and a lot of other things.
It’s not something I really like to talk about. It’s very painful.”

This took Hayley by surprise. “I’m sorry.”

She then turned and walked backward, staring at him one last time, raising a mitten
to give him a quick wave. He just stood in the snow, watching her go. His eye was
twitching so rapidly now that his whole face was contorting.

Hayley could have bought his story about the car accident. It would explain why he
barely remembered his summers in Bar Harbor. But a little voice inside her told her
something else was going on here.

And she was determined to find out what.

The headlights blinded Hayley and she stumbled back, tripping over her own boots,
trying to get out of the way. The car slammed into a mailbox just a few feet from
her, sending the letter box hurtling up in the air. Hayley knew she was about to be
mowed down, so she hurled herself to the right, praying she wouldn’t be hit. The front
end of the car whooshed past her as she landed facedown in a snowbank. She heard the
tires squealing as it spun into a hairpin turn, finally coming to a stop on the sidewalk.

And then there was silence.

Hayley sat up slowly and rubbed her knee. She banged it against the concrete sidewalk
when she jumped out of the way and it hurt like hell.

She couldn’t believe she was almost hit by a car. She was just walking home from the
Hollingsworth estate, minding her own business, going over her bizarre conversation
with the mysterious and creepy Clark, when all of a sudden the car appeared out of
nowhere and sped directly toward her. Was someone intentionally trying to take her
out by breaking every bone in her body with a four-thousand-pound automobile?

She heard the door open and someone struggling to get out, huffing and puffing, unable
to stand up. The person stopped, sighed loudly, and tried again. This time, though,
the driver managed to climb out, but had trouble maintaining balance and grabbed the
door for support.

“Hayley, is that you?” a woman’s voice slurred.

She recognized the voice immediately.

It was Cassidy Culpepper, Candace’s sister.

And she was stinking drunk.

“I want to talk to you,” she bellowed, pointing a finger at Hayley, or trying to,
since she was pointing nowhere near where Hayley was standing.

“I’m over here, Cassidy,” Hayley said. “I hope you realize you just nearly killed
me.”

“Oh, don’t be so dramatic,” Cassidy sneered, stepping into the light from a streetlamp,
her eyes half closed, her body swaying from side to side.

“Please don’t tell me you’ve been at my brother’s bar all night.”

“Yes, I was, as a matter of fact, ‘Miss Know-It-All,’” Cassidy said, nearly slipping
on the icy sidewalk as she made her way toward Hayley’s voice. “But he cut me off
hours ago. Said he didn’t want me drinking and driving, and tried calling me a cab,
but nobody bosses me around! So I left and went to the store and bought my own bottle.
I am not a child. I am a grown-up, who can make my own decisions about how much I
can drink before it affects my ability to operate a motor vehicle.”

Clearly, she was in no condition to make any decisions—let alone be driving. Hayley
noticed the car keys jangling in Cassidy’s hand. Hayley waited until she was close
enough and then snatched them away from Cassidy.

“What are you doing? Are you trying to steal my car? Well, joke’s on you. It’s a rental.
It’s not even mine. So go ahead. Take it.”

“I’m not stealing your car, Cassidy. I just don’t want you driving anymore tonight.”

“I don’t like you,” Cassidy hissed.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Hayley said.

“I don’t like nosy people, who butt into everybody else’s lives and stir up trouble
and mess everything up.”

“I’m not sure I know what you’re referring to, Cassidy.”

“Yes, you do. I’ve heard the rumors. I overheard your brother talking to some of your
friends at the bar tonight, Middy and Lona!”

“You mean Liddy and Mona.”

“Whatever! Who cares? I heard all about how you’ve been running around town asking
questions about my sister. Well, I don’t appreciate you sticking your nose into a
private family matter.”

“Private family matter? Your sister was stabbed to death with a pair of scissors!
Aren’t you the least bit curious about who did it and why?”

“It’s none of your business! Just stay out of it!”

“Why wouldn’t Candace’s own sister want to find out the truth about what happened?
Unless you already know.”

Cassidy’s head nodded forward and she slumped over in a desperate attempt to look
mean and threatening.

But, really, she just looked drunk.

“I don’t like what you’re implying. Why on earth would I ever harm my this-ter . .
. sister?”

“Well, you said yourself, now that she’s gone, you’re coming into some much needed
cash, which will feed your obvious shopping addiction.”

“You think you’re so smart, don’t you, Doctor Phil . . .
Phyllis
? Well, I am warning you. Don’t keep digging up stuff that has nothing to do with
you. It slows everything down, and makes it harder for me to get what’s coming to
me, so I can finally get the hell out of this freaking lame-ass town.”

Cassidy was now right in front of Hayley and trying to focus on her. She thrust her
hand out at an invisible person next to Hayley. “Now give me back my car keys so I
can go.”

“No,” Hayley said firmly. “I will walk you back to wherever you’re staying or call
you a cab, but I will not hand these keys back to you. And if you’re seeing double
of me, you’re looking at the wrong one.”

Cassidy snorted and turned her gaze to the real Hayley. She reached out and touched
Hayley’s coat, just to make sure.

“Oh. Okay. Keys, please . . . ,” Cassidy said, tugging at Hayley’s coat, forcing a
smile. “Let’s not take this to the next level. I don’t want to have to hurt you.”

“I’m not giving you the keys, Cassidy,” Hayley said, speaking a bit louder.

“You’re a bitch!” Cassidy screamed, stepping back, clenching her fists.

Hayley knew what was coming. Cassidy was going to try and punch her. As she reared
back, Hayley ducked to the left, anticipating her move. The only problem was, Cassidy
didn’t raise her right arm. She was left-handed; and when she took the swing, Hayley
leaned right into it.

Cassidy’s fist caught Hayley in the jaw, a direct hit, and Hayley crumpled to the
sidewalk.

Cassidy loomed over her and stuck out her hand again.

“I said keys, please!”

Hayley threw the keys into the darkness, like a Red Sox starting pitcher, so Cassidy
could not get her hands on them.

At least not tonight.

She was way too drunk to ever find them in the snow.

Hayley then rubbed her jaw to make sure it wasn’t broken.

Finally, giving up, Cassidy stumbled off down the street, still swaying from side
to side and muttering to herself.

Hayley climbed to her feet, to continue her walk home. She may have gotten clobbered,
but at least she probably saved a life tonight.

Even if it was Cassidy Culpepper’s.