Down Home and Deadly (21 page)

“May I help you ladies?” His voice was calm and courteous.

“You betcha boots,” Jolene answered. “We wanta bury a guy. What’s the cheapest funeral we can have in this fancy place?”

Tom looked at me
,
and my face turned red. I fought the urge to turn and walk out as if I’d never seen Jolene before. Instead, I shrugged slightly and introduced her.

“I got a paper right here that says I’m the executor of Jimmy’s will, so I got to do my duty and see him in the ground. I want it done decent, but I don’t want to be ripped off, neither. You understand?” She wagged a pointed red fingernail under Tom’s chin.

“Yes,
m
a’am. We aren’t in the habit of ripping people off. Now, if you will follow me, I will show you our selection of caskets.” He turned
,
and we followed.

An hour later, we emerged. Jolene was torn between exhilaration
and gloom,
because
even though
she’d talked Tom down on the price of his cheapest casket, the funeral was still going to ‘eat a hole’ in her inheritance.

“But that’s okay,” she assured me
.
“Jimmy had a big wad in his bank account, and it’s all mine. Whoo
.
 
.
 
.
” She shook her head. “It just goes to show. I never dreamed I’d be an heiress. I may just have to help them rube cops find the killer.”

“Speaking of killers, have you thought any
more about why someone might have shot J.D.?” I hated to question her outside the funeral home, but I needed to know. “I mean, what was he like? Did he leave enemies everywhere he went?
W
e have very few murders here in our small town. And with him not being from here, I wondered if maybe he brought his killer with him, so to speak.”

“Well,
h
oney, if you’re hintin’ I offed him, you can get over it. I didn’t even know where he was
’
til that lawyer dude called me. And he said he had a whale of a job locatin’ me.”

“I didn’t mean to imply anything about you, Jolene. Sorry if it sounded that way.” She looked menacing when she was angry, though. I could imagine that snake tattoo shooting its fangs out at me. I hurried to soothe her. “I just thought you might give me some insight into J.D.’s character. But you don’t have to.”

“That’s okay. I fly off the handle a little fast sometimes. Jumpin’ to conclusions and missin’ as my old gramma used to say.” She sent me a forgiving grin. She mused for a minute then continued, “Wonder when Jimmy took to callin’ hisself
‘
J.D.
’
Sounds right fancy, don’t it?”

“I guess.”

She ignored my answer. “Now that I think about it, he did make a few folks mad. You know, my best girlfriend back then
—
Melody was her name
—
she married herself a rich old man
.
T
ook her forever to find one
,
but she did.” She shook her head in wonder. “He was an old coot
—bald-headed
and didn’t have his own teeth. But he was loaded. That’s the best kind of m
a
n, you know.” Wink, wink.

“Well, I—”

She cut off any Dear Pru advice I might impart with a wave of her hand. “So, one night Melody and me have a girls’ night out
,
and we meet this guy, a real hunk. I don’t know how she does it, but before the night’s over, she gets him to give her his number. The rest of the night, she’s all braggin’, you know, how she could pick up men without even tryin’. I kinda lost my cool and blubbered to Jimmy, wantin’ him to tell me I was prettier’n Melody—which I was—but the next thing I know
,
he’s callin’ her and threatening to blab to her husband if she don’t let him borrow her fancy car.”

“So she was mad at him?”

“I’ll say she was. Mad at both of us. Even though I was innocent as a newborn baby. She wouldn’t speak to me for a long time. In fact, as long as Jimmy and me was together. She come around after I showed him the door, though. Should we put an obituary in the paper? Sort of let folks hereabouts know when the funeral is?” she asked without ever taking an audible breath.

“I’ll take care of it. The editor and I are friends,” I answered.

“I knew you was the right gal to take up with soon as I laid eyes on you.” She slapped me on the back. Not lightly.
She dropped me off at the diner
,
and
I left her to her Mustang and musings and went home to get ready for work at the health club. On the way, I called Marge at the
Monitor
,
and together we came up with an obituary for Jimmy Dean Finley.

*****

I stuck my head into Bob’s office. “If it’s okay with you
,
I’m going to come by tomorrow night for a couple of hours and see what all needs to be done.” I thought it might be easier if I had some time by myself to get reacquainted with the running of a health club.

“Sounds good. Let me get you a key.” He motioned me to come inside. “Got a minute?” He made a pushing motion toward the door, so I shut it.

Poor Bob. He’d aged so much in the last few days. “Of course.” I sat down. And tried not to think of how often I had dreamed of owning this place. And how aggravated I’d been at Bob and Lisa when I quit. Time to put those thoughts behind me.

He pushed the key across the desk toward me. “I guess you heard that they may arrest Lisa any minute now. I know it’s the talk of the town.” His shoulders slumped
as if
the weight of the world rested on them.

I nodded.

Bob leaned forward. “I think she’s being framed, Jenna.” He lowered his voice. “Some stuff happened a long time ago. And ever since,
Harvey
has hated me. Remember how he and Hank Templeton teamed up on the zoning board to keep my business outside of town? I think he did this just to get back at me.”

“Killed an innocent person just to get revenge on you, Bob?” I wondered if self-centeredness was an inherited trait.

“No
.
 
.
 
.
” Bob suddenly looked very uncomfortable,
as if
he hadn’t thought this far ahead.

I considered telling him I already knew, but I couldn’t
think of
a tactful way.

“The thing is
.
 
.
 
.
J.D. was involved back then, too. In the stuff that happened. So
Harvey
hated us both. This way he killed two birds with one stone.” He studied the framed picture of Lisa and Fluffy. “Killing J.D. and setting Lisa up for it settles the score with both of us.”

I nodded. In some twisted way, I could see his logic. If Lisa were found guilty
,
it would be worse for Bob than if he, himself, were sent to prison.

“You know, don’t you?”

I looked up into Bob’s questioning eyes. I didn’t see any reason to deny it. “How could you tell?”

“I’d braced myself for your questions. I knew as soon as I hinted at the past, you’d want to know it all. But you didn’t ask me anything.”

“I just didn’t want to make it any harder for you than it is already,” I said quietly.

He spun his chair around, turning his back to me. When I heard his voice, thick with tears, I knew why. “Wilma and I, we’d just moved here from
California
not long before all that. She wanted to settle down, but I liked the fact that the kids all thought I was cool.” His voice broke. “They made me feel young. I didn’t see any harm in it.”

I stared at his shaking shoulders.

He shook his head and didn’t speak for a minute. Even from the back, I could see he was struggling to keep any composure at all.

“We didn’t know about the drag racing, but if I could go back and live that part of my life over, I would. We both told Harvey and Alice how sorry we were. And they seemed to forgive us to some extent. Dropped the suit, which you probably know. But when Lisa was born a couple of years later, all the old feelings of hate boiled up again. They both looked at us like we had no right to have a daughter when they’d lost theirs because of my stupidity.”

“So now you think
Harvey
wants to take your daughter away from you?”

He nodded, with his back still toward me.

“Does Lisa know about this?”

“No!”

“J.D. didn’t tell her?”

“No. He probably would’ve. But he died before he got a chance.”

My heart thudded in my chest.

He spun around to face me, mindless now of the tears coursing down his cheeks. “I didn’t mean it like that. I didn’t kill him.”

“So he wasn’t blackmailing you?”

“Not really. He just kept reminding me that he had one over on me.”

The precursor to blackmail. Reason enough to murder someone? Maybe. But I didn’t believe for a minute Bob would kill someone and let his precious daughter take the blame. In my eyes, that fact alone exonerated him.

I stood and put the key in my pocket. “I’m sorry.”

He nodded. “Me
,
too.”

I left him to his thoughts.

On the way home, I stopped by Carly’s to tell her what Bob said about
Harvey
being the killer.

“You know, as bad as I hate to say this, the same things could be said of
Alice
,” she said.

“
Alice
? You’re just mad because she bosses you around in the kitchen,” I teased her. “
And
she makes better pies.”

“Ha. She does not make better pies. She just has more years of practice.” Carly fluffed her short curls. “Just wait until you taste the pies I make when I get as old as she is.”

“You’re right, though. She does have the same motive.”

“But not the same opportunity,” Carly said suddenly. “Because
Harvey
took the trash out.”

I put my hand to my mouth. “You’re right. He could have shot J.D. then walked right back into the diner.”

“
He would have stayed out there long enough to see you and
knock you in the head. But as busy as we were
.
 
.
 
.
”

I remembered how long it took anyone to realize I was hurt. “Nobody
even
would have noticed.”

*****

*****

Chapter Fourteen

You catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar
.

“Jen?” Carly sounded harried on the phone. “I have a huge favor to ask.”

“Let’s hear it.”

“Is there any chance you’re going out to the athletic club tonight?”

“I was planning on it. Why?”

“The girls and I need a ride to school.”

“No problem.” The school was out near Bob’s gym anyway. “Is your car torn up?”

Silence.

“Carly, you still there?’

“I’m here,” she said, embarrassment evident in her tone. “Technically, my car isn’t ‘torn up.’ It’s more like ‘out of gas.’
 
”

Any other time, she’d have called Elliott to bring her some gas or give her a ride to school. I certainly wasn’t complaining, but it made me sad to see them drifting apart.

“I’ll be right over.”

When I pulled up in front of their cabin, Carly and the girls came running out and jumped in.

“How long will your school thing last?” I asked when we got on the road.

“It’s an open house,” Rachel said from the backseat.

“So there’s no set ending time,” Hayley finished.

I glanced at Carly. “In that case, why don’t you just drop me off at the gym
,
and I’ll work until you pick me back up?”

“Really? That would be perfect. You’re a lifesaver.”

“That’s better than a dum-dum, I guess.” I tossed her a silly smile.

The girls giggled and Carly groaned. “That was corny, even for you.”

“Yes, well, I’m getting cornier in my old age.”

“You only use that term because you know I’ll always be older than you,” she said.

“You’re probably right.” I swung the car into the almost
-
deserted parking lot of the Lake View Athletic Club and jumped out.

Carly jumped out
,
too
,
and ran around to the driver’s seat. She gave me a quick hug before sliding in. “Bye, Jenna, and thanks again.”