Derby Divas (Zoe Donovan Mystery) (15 page)

“Zak bought me some cotton candy,” Scooter
told me.

“Have you had dinner yet?”

“We’ll get some after the parade,” Zak said.

“He’s going to spoil his dinner with all that sugar,” I predicted.

Zak shrugged. “It’s a special occasion.”

“He’s going to be high as a kite. We’ll never get him to bed.”

“He’s fine,” Zak assured me. “A little sugar never hurt anyone.”

Dad laughed out loud. “You guys sound like
an old married couple.”

I smiled. I guess we did.

After the parade
, we headed over to the chili cook-off. There were so many wonderful options to choose from, I had no idea where to start. I decided to take just a bite of each offering in the hope of trying them all. The chili Pappy and Nick had prepared was delicious—and hot—but I think my favorite was the white bean with chicken and green chilies that Rosie had entered.

“Mom and I are going to take Harper home,” Dad informed me after we’d eaten and Nick had been declared the winner of the contes
t. “I’ll see you in the morning.” He kissed me on the cheek.

“Okay, see you then.”
I waved as they headed toward the parking lot.

“I should get Scooter home as well,” Zak added. “Charlie is still at my house
. Do you want to come by after you’re done here, or should I drop him off at your place?”

“I’ll come by. We never did get a chance to talk last night. I shouldn’
t be too late, although I should head over to the snack shack and offer to help clean up.”

“Okay
.” Zak kissed me. “I’ll be waiting.”

I looked around for Levi
, who had wandered off while I was having dinner with my family. Ellie should be just about done at the snack bar, so I headed in that direction. I still hoped to track Willa down to see if she knew Dezee’s real name. I wasn’t sure how that could help us, but at this point any answer to even a small part of the very confusing puzzle we were dealing with had to be of some help.

I hadn’t seen Pandora or Boomer all evening. I supposed they m
ight have decided that an early night was in order, given the stress of the past few days. I wasn’t surprised that Pandora hadn’t participated in the parade since her car had been crushed beyond recognition, but I was a little surprised that Boomer hadn’t shown up to showcase his Mustang Mach 1.

I’d been watching to see if Dezee show
ed up at the last minute to take part in the event, but I hadn’t seen him, and the other participants I’d surveyed had reported that they hadn’t seen him since before the accident.

“Need any help?” I asked Ellie and Tawny
, who were in the process of closing up the snack shack for the night.

“I think we
’re about done,” Ellie informed me. “It was a good day, but I can’t remember the last time I was this exhausted.”

“Were you here all day?” I
asked.

“Almost. We did get a few breaks
, but we’re going to have to make certain to line up a larger volunteer force next year.”

“Tell me about it
.” Tawny yawned. She pulled her long blond ponytail around to the front of her face and gave it a sniff. “I smell like hamburger grease. I’m probably going to have to lather, rinse, and repeat about a hundred times to get the smell out.”

“You m
ight as well just wait until after we close up on Sunday to go to that much trouble,” I suggested. “I’m betting tomorrow is going to be a long day for all of us.”

Ellie groaned.

“How about a beer? My treat,” I offered.

Tawny declined.
“I need to get home to my kids.”

“I’m in
.” Ellie bent from side to side to relieve the kinks in her back. “I haven’t been able to leave this exact spot for most of the day. You can catch me up.”

She
grabbed her backpack and, after promising Tawny that she’d be at the 7 a.m. meeting Willa had requested, looped her arm through mine as we headed to the beer garden that had been set up near the bandstand, where a band from out of the area was playing music from the fifties and sixties.

“How did the derby go?” Ellie asked.

I filled her in on the contestants and the eight who had made it to the finals.

“I’m surprised Pandora participated after what happened with Pepper. I know they were close.”

As she spoke, I realized Ellie still believed that Pepper was the victim in the crash yesterday morning.

“Let’s grab our beer and find a seat. I have news that
’s going to blow you away.”

I spent the next half hour bringing Ellie up to date on
all
the events of the day.

“Wow, it looks like you really have yourself a mystery,” Ellie stated when I had finished my tale. “I’m sorry I missed everything.”

“I’m not sure how to even approach this whole thing. The hardest part is that after the awards ceremony on Sunday, everyone involved is going to leave, so solving the mystery is going to be close to impossible. I just keep hoping we can find some small piece of evidence that ties everything together.”

“I can snoop around while I
’m working the snack bar,” Ellie offered.

“You’ll need to be careful. Remember
, most people don’t know that Pepper wasn’t the victim in the crash and Salinger wants to keep it that way. I probably shouldn’t have told you, but best friends don’t keep secrets.”

“I should hope not
,” Ellie agreed.

“
How did your lunch with Jeremy go?” I wondered.

Ellie bit her lip as she appeared to be considering her answer.

“It went fine,” she eventually said. “Jeremy is such a nice guy, and he really did have some good insights. He’s going to let me visit with Morgan once the weekend is over and I’m not so busy. He thinks that if I’m going to continue with my campaign to have a baby, I should spend some time with one. I think his intention is sweet, and I would love to have a chance to play with Morgan, but I’ve babysat a
lot
of babies in my life and I really feel I know what I’m getting into. Still, when Jeremy offered to let me spend time with his adorable little angel, I wasn’t going to say no.”

“Morgan
is
a sweetie. And I’m sure helping Jeremy with Morgan will help him out as well.”

“Yeah
, I figured. So about picking me a date . . .”

I groaned. I
’d hoped Ellie had forgotten all about that.

“I’ve narrowed the five down to three. I left my laptop in my car
, but maybe you can take a look tomorrow?”

“Of course I will. I’m sorry I forgot about it.
It looks like Willa is coming this way. I need to talk to her, and then I should get going. See you in the morning?”

“I’ll be there,” Ellie
said.

I jogged across the park to catch up with Willa before she left for the day.
It had been a long one for everyone on the committee, and I was sure she was as exhausted as I was.

“Zoe, how did everything go?” Willa asked.

“As well as can be expected given the circumstances,” I answered. “I’m looking into a few things for Salinger and I wondered if you knew Dezee’s real name. He’s still missing.”

“I have the files in my car if you want to walk over to the parking lot with me.”

I took one of the two large bags Willa was carrying and walked with her toward her car.

“It seems like we had a good turn out,” I s
aid.

She nodded.
“I’m pretty sure we had record-breaking numbers. I’m anxious to tally everything up, but I’m guessing we did
very
well today. How was the derby?”

I filled Willa in.

“The drivers who are left should draw a good crowd tomorrow.”

I agreed.

Willa set her bag on the ground in order to unlock her car doors. I put both bags on the backseat while she looked through her files on the passenger side of the front.

“According to this paperwork
, Dezee’s real name is Izick Stanford.”

Izick Stanford. As in Isabelle Stanford? Perhaps a brother?

Although I’d decided to spend the night at my boat
house in order to hang out with Marlow and Spade, I’d arranged with Zak to come by after I’d attended the 7 a.m. meeting and helped with the setup for the day’s events. By the time I’d gotten to Zak’s the previous evening, I’d realized I was much too tired and distracted to have the talk we kept promising each other we’d have, so I’d collected Charlie and headed home.

Luckily
, Willa had recruited extra help from community members not on the committee, so the setup went quickly and I was able to meet with Zak by nine.

“Coffee is on
.” Zak kissed me as I walked in the door with Charlie on my heels. Bella ran up to greet us, and the two dogs headed out the back to frolic and play.

“Where
’s Scooter?” I asked.

“Sleeping. He had a bit of a rough night. I guess you were right about the sugar.”

I smiled.

“Would you like some breakfast?” Zak asked. “I made boysenberry muffins this morning with the last of th
e berries I picked up at the farmers market.”

“When did you have time to go to the farmers market? You’ve only been home a couple
of days and you’ve had Scooter the entire time.”

“I ran over before the beach yesterday. I can make you some eggs to go with the muffins if you’d like
, or I have sausage from the butcher.”

“The muffins are fine.”

Sometimes when I’m with Zak I feel like a total slacker. The man seems to be able to juggle a hundred different things at once without breaking a sweat. He actually got up and made muffins? I hadn’t even had time to go to the store to buy milk since we’d been back from our trip. If we were meeting at my boathouse, we’d be dining on frozen pizza or canned vegetables.

“So do you want to talk or just eat?” Zak asked.

I knew we should talk about the thing we’d been avoiding for almost a week now, but what I really wanted to do was ask for Zak’s help with the murder investigation. “I hate to even ask,” I hedged.

“You want to continue with our research,” Zak guessed.

“Hate me?” I tried for a pathetic face.

Zak kissed my nose before picking up his coffee and heading to his office
, where his desktop computers were set up.

“
Where do you want to start?” he asked once he’d logged on.

“I’d like to start off by finding out whether Isabelle Stanford and Izick Stanford are related,” I answered. “Even if they aren’t
, I’m not certain this bit of knowledge is relevant to the mystery we’re faced with, but somehow I feel like this piece of information might be important.”

“Spelling?” Zak asked.

I repeated what had been on Dezee’s driver’s license.

Za
k began typing while I sipped my coffee. I was sorry Scooter had had a bad night, but I was happy we could work in peace and quiet. Scooter was nice enough, but he had the energy level of ten kids put together. I don’t know how his grandparents kept up with him. I watched Zak as he worked. He was good with the boy. Scooter respected Zak in a way he did very few adults; a stern look was usually enough to get him to settle down and take care of what needed to be done. He was going to make some lucky kid a great dad.

“That’s odd
.” Zak frowned at the screen. “I can’t find a driver’s license for an Izick Stanford. Which state was the license from?”

I thought about it. “Massachusetts.”

Zak typed some more while I pulled up the photos from Pepper’s past that we’d been looking at on the other computer. I tried to imagine what could have happened to cause Stella to leave behind such a glamorous life to follow Pandora around the country from one dive motel to the next. Not that the Ashton Falls Motor Inn was a dive motel, but it certainly wasn’t the Ritz. Based on the photos I’d found, Stella Worthington had never experienced anything other than five star or first class in her life until she’d run away and become Pepper.

“I have
a driver’s license for Isabelle Stanford from Massachusetts, but nothing for Izick.”

“Maybe I got the state wrong. Hang on
; I’ll call Willa.”

I
checked with Willa while Zak continued to search through the public records. Willa confirmed that the license had been issued by the state of Massachusetts and that the photo on the license matched the driver known as Dezee.

“According to what I can find based on the public records available
, Isabelle Stanford is twenty-nine years old.”