FIFTEEN
WITH THE MARNIE SITUATION SETTLED—OR SO DARLA hoped!—she spent the next hour or so returning the displaced books to their proper places.
Of course, being the avid reader that she was, she couldn’t resist flipping through a few of her favorite novels, stopping outright more than once to sit cross-legged on the floor to read a chapter or two.
Only when she found herself weeping for probably the hundredth time over Beth’s death scene in the battered copy of
Little Women
that her grandmother had given her as a child did she take herself firmly in hand.
She was due back downstairs at Jake’s for pizza at six o’clock, which was fast approaching.
She finished with the books and spent the rest of the time doing weekend household chores.
Once, she gave way to morbid curiosity and flipped on the cable news station to see if there were any updates on Valerie Baylor’s death.
A brief segment regurgitated that morning’s broadcast and included the news that no charges were being filed against the Lord’s Blessing Church or its driver, Marnie Jennings.
The newscaster also mentioned that private services would be held this coming Thursday.
Remembering Hillary Gables’s promise to try to finagle an invite for her to the exclusive service, Darla made a mental note to check with the agent the next morning.
When six o’clock rolled around, she left Hamlet with his kibble and headed downstairs.
Jake greeted her at the door, wiping a smear of tomato sauce from her chin as she ushered Darla inside.
“Sorry, snacking on some breadsticks and marina.
And watch out, Reese went a bit overboard on the food,” Jake explained, gesturing her to take a seat.
Overboard was an understatement, Darla thought with a grin.
In addition to the aforementioned breadsticks, the table held an immense sausage and black olive pizza (a couple of slices already missing), a heaping plate of wings, a six-pack of imported beer (also missing a couple), and a salad—that last presumably to counteract the calorie-fest that was the rest of the meal.
Reese sat in one of the matching chrome chairs doing the Henry the Eighth routine, a wing in one hand and a slice of pizza in the other.
She’d caught him in midchew, so he limited himself to a nod as Darla plopped into one of the other chairs.
“Better hurry if you want anything, kid,” Jake warned, serving herself salad and then passing the bowl to Darla.
“A couple more minutes, and Reese will finish everything that’s not nailed down.”
“Yeah, you know, but at least I’ll work it off in the gym tonight,” he defended himself in a muffled voice as he swallowed.
Giving her an evil grin, he added, “Which is more than I can say for some people.
I think you’ve packed on a couple of extra pounds since I last saw—”
His comment was cut short as the remainder of Jake’s breadstick flew across the table to bounce off his forehead.
But her tone was amiable as she said, “That’s right, pick on the crippled lady.
But you know what they say: old age and treachery beats youth and skill every time.
You and me ever tangle, you better put your money on me.”
“I know I will,” Darla agreed in solidarity as she dug into her lettuce.
While they ate, Reese gave a more detailed account of his interview of Janie.
It seemed that, after waiving her rights, she had been eager to tell her story.
According to Reese, she’d grown defensive only when he’d pointed out that such a stunt, if actually sanctioned by the publisher, would not have entailed anonymous Internet advertising and cloak-and-dagger payment.
When Reese had pressed her on the issue, she had finally admitted that she’d had her own suspicions, but that she needed the money for school.
“Ahem,” Darla interrupted him, putting aside her fork.
“Speaking of cloak-and-dagger, I understand you put me on the suspect list for Janie’s mysterious Scarf Lady.
Something about a southern accent?”
She gave those last words her best Texas drawl by way of emphasis, drawing a grin from Jake.
Reese merely shrugged, but his expression was sheepish as he said, “So sue me, it’s my job.
I gotta look at everyone, and you fit the bill.
Accent, connection to Valerie Baylor.
You would have been a shoe-in, except for that red hair.
No way the girl could have missed that in her description of the suspect.”
This time, it was Darla who hurled the breadstick.
Reese was quicker this time out, catching it in midair and then taking a large chomp out of it.
“ Anyhow, we’re still looking for whoever hired her,” he said as he chewed.
“One of our IT guys is backtracking the email address for me.
And we’ll be interviewing people who Janie says can corroborate her claim that she was long gone before Ms.
Baylor ended up in the street.”
“But why leave the apology card at the shrine,” Darla wanted to know between nibbles of the chicken wing she’d moved onto, “if she wasn’t the one who pushed Valerie off the curb?”
“Apparently, she felt like she’d enticed Ms.
Baylor out into the street with her protest, and that none of this would have happened if she hadn’t been outside marching around.”
“But what about that whole pushed-versus-fell thing?”
Jake chimed in.
“The witness statements were pretty iffy, and your YouTube clip didn’t exactly resolve the question.
If it was a push, and your girl didn’t do it, you’re gonna have to line up some more suspects.”
“Yeah, thanks for pointing that out, Detective Martelli.
I might not be an old warhorse like you, but I know how to do my job.”
“Just sayin’,” Jake countered with a shrug, ignoring the age jibe.
“By the way, I finally called Roy in Traffic this afternoon about the Shrine That Took Over Crawford Avenue.
It was bad enough today with all the rubberneckers, but tomorrow’s rush hour is gonna be a beast.
He said he’d send someone out for a couple of hours during peak drive time to keep things moving.”
Darla slid a piece of pizza onto her plate while Jake and Reese continued debating the merits of tax dollars being spent to accommodate public nuisances like the shrine.
Once she’d finished off her slice, she waited for a lull in the conversation to announce, “Oh, I almost forgot.
Something peculiar happened after we got back from chasing down Janie.”
She went on to describe how she’d found Hamlet and the books, and how she had first thought an intruder had been responsible for the neatly stacked piles of volumes.
Feeling somewhat proud, she detailed how she’d searched the apartment and then checked in with Mary Ann before finally concluding that Hamlet had been the culprit after all.
The only thing she left out was Mary Ann’s poltergeist joke.
She didn’t need Jake and Reese to think she was losing it.
Even before she had finished her story, however, both Jake and Reese rounded on her with equal sternness.
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“Why didn’t you call Jake?”
Jake, in particular, appeared upset, pushing back from the table and giving Darla a dark look.
“Rule number one, kid.
You come home and it looks like someone’s broken into your place, you get your butt right out again and call 9-1-1—or me—but you don’t play cop.
Better safe than sorry applies in spades here.”
“But it wasn’t a break-in after all,” Darla defended herself.
Jake shook her head.
“This time, maybe not.
But if it really had been a B and E, and you’d found the perp hiding in the back room, we might have had two dead bodies in two days.
And for the record, just because Hamlet wasn’t raising hell wouldn’t necessarily mean that the bad guy took off.
It could have been someone he knew, and that person could have still been there.”
Darla hadn’t considered that last.
Nodding soberly, she held up both hands in surrender.
“Okay, I get it.
Bad decision.
I promise next time Hamlet strikes that I’ll drag Jake up to see his handiwork.”
She paused for a deep breath.
One revelation down and another to go.
Might as well get it all out into the open.
“Oh, and there’s a Part Two to what happened this afternoon after y’all left,” she added in a bright tone.
“While I was talking to Mary Ann, she mentioned seeing a woman mixing with Valerie’s fans.
It turned out to be the van driver, Marnie Jennings, handing out Bible tracts to the goth kids and scaring the bejeebers out of them with her lectures on how Valerie Baylor is burning in hell right now.”
The announcement had just about the effect that she anticipated.
Reese choked on his beer, while Jake missed her mouth completely with her pizza slice and dumped half the toppings into her lap.
“That’s pretty damn cold,” Reese said with a shake of his head when he could speak again.
“You run over someone and kill them, and then hang out at the accident scene talking smack like that?
She’s lucky those kids didn’t take her apart.”
“Yeah, well, I doubt she was running around with a name tag on,” Jake countered, muttering a few choice words as she scrubbed tomato sauce off her jeans.
“Now, don’t tell me, Darla .
.
.
while I was sitting all snug and clueless down here, you went outside and had a chat with her, didn’t you?”
“I was only out there a few minutes.
I rescued some boy she was trying to save, basically told her what a jerk she was, and loaned her a thousand dollars so she could fix her van and leave town.”
She mumbled that last in a rush, but Jake didn’t miss a word.
She shoved her chair back from the table and stared at Darla.
“You loaned her a grand, just like that?
What, so you two are BFF’s now?”
“I wasn’t doing it to be nice,” came Darla’s defensive reply.
“She and her friends were going to be stuck here until her church could raise the money for the van repairs.
I was just trying to get her out of town before anything else happened.”
“Like running over one of the most famous authors of the decade?”
was Jake’s ironic response.
Reese’s reply, however, was even more stinging.
“Hate to tell you this, but someone might think you were paying off this Marnie to leave town.
A little hint, Darla: it just doesn’t look good, handing over that kind of cash after an incident like this.”
“It was a personal check,” she countered.
“ And why would I need to pay her off?”
Reese merely quirked a brow, but it was enough for Darla to realize just where his thoughts were headed.
Her redhead’s temper flared from zero to volcanic as she leaped from her chair and stared him down.
“Oh my God, don’t tell me you think Marnie and I were in cahoots, that we planned to kill Valerie Baylor together!”
She shot a look at Jake, who promptly raised her hands as if to ward off a similar accusation.
“Calm down, kid, I know you’re in the clear,” Jake hurried to assure her.
Turning a stern look on Reese, she added, “And Mr.
Detective over here does, too.
But as for Princess Wackaloon .
.
.”
She trailed off with a shrug and then added, “Yeah, yeah .
.
.
I know it was an accident, but I have a sneaky feeling your buddy Marnie isn’t as sorry as she acts.”
“Now, that’s not fair, Jake.
In her own narrow-minded way, she really
is
devastated by what happened,” Darla shot back, a bit surprised to find herself taking Marnie’s side.
No doubt it was one of those reflexive support-your-homegirl things.
Jake must have picked up on that vibe.
“Jeez, kid, just because she knows your sister doesn’t mean you owe her a damn thing.
Have you forgotten that letter she sent, trying to blackmail you into cancelling the Valerie Baylor autographing?”
“Letter?”
Reese interjected before Darla could answer.
His gaze whipped between her and Jake.
“What letter?
And what the hell did Jake mean about the Jennings woman knowing your sister?”
Jake raised her brows.
“You didn’t mention any of this to Reese when you gave your statement?”
“I guess it kind of slipped my mind?”
Still offended by Reese’s earlier unspoken accusation, Darla gave him a defiant look.
When her questioning tone didn’t buy her a pass from either of them, she went on, “All right, I was tired, and I figured the cop handling things outside would share with Reese.
It didn’t seem that important anymore, especially once they decided not to charge Marnie with anything.”