Something Borrowed, Something Bleu (22 page)

_____

“What’s this all about?” Inspector Schumaker sounded downright grouchy for a guy who had just solved a murder case.
“Sheesh—will you just trust me for once?” I asked.
The Dunners waited in the parking lot, Ogden in the back of the sheriff’s Suburban and Ray in the inspector’s prowler. The air was cooler after the big storm, but still felt heavy and muggy.
“I need to go call my mom,” Tabby said. “Delight’s terrified of tornadoes.”
“Here, call her on my cell,” I said and handed her the phone Schumaker had kindly retrieved from Ray Dunner’s pocket, along with my cash.
“I need to go up to the house,” she repeated and turned to go.
“Don’t let her leave,” I said, the words chopped and urgent.
Sheriff Jaikes stepped in front of her. “Use that phone to check on your daughter. We’ll wait.” Apparently he was willing to trust me—at least for now. Still, he looked weary. His wounded arm must have throbbed like the dickens.
Tabby moved a few feet away. She dialed and then spoke into the phone, all the while darting glances my way. When she was satisfied everything was all right at her mother’s, she handed the phone back to me without so much as a thank you.
“Okay. Come on in here.” I led the way into the classroom, picking my way among the shards of window glass on the floor. “You can stay in the doorway, actually. It’s a mess in here.”
The photos of Joe Bines were scattered all over the room, and the poster board collage for his memorial had fallen to the floor. I retrieved it and returned to where Tabby stood with the two lawmen. Holding it up, I pointed to the picture of Joe with the script
First Truck
pasted under it.
“Was this the vehicle Joe drove eighteen years ago?”
Tabby didn’t answer.
I put my face next to hers. She shrank back. “Is it? They can find out, you know. Just tell us.”
Earlier the fight had gone out of her when she’d finally confessed that she and Joe had been at Rancho Sueńo the night Gwen Miller died. Then in the process of escaping the Dunners and surviving the storm she’d regained her composure. But now, as I pointed to the picture of Joe and his dark green truck, it leaked away again.
In a quiet voice she said, “Yes. That was what he drove.”
“But not that night, out here by the river.”
“No. We rode out with Krista and Gwen.”
“Why?”
Sheriff Jaikes cocked his head to one side. Inspector Schumaker inclined his. Both intrigued.
“Why didn’t you and Joe drive here in his truck?” I asked.
“Because …” She sighed. “Because Bobby Lee had borrowed it.”
The inspector’s eyes widened as understanding began to dawn.
She continued. “I don’t even remember what he needed it for, but that’s what he drove that night when he came to get us.”
“Did you tell him about Gwen?”
Hesitation, then she nodded. “He wanted to go to the hospital to check on her.”
That sounded like my baby brother. “Then why didn’t you?”
Silence. God, this woman was an expert at silence.
“
Tabby
.”
“Joe said we shouldn’t. They were arguing.”
“He and Bobby Lee?”
“Yes.”
“And then?”
“Something happened.”
Something
. Talk about an understatement.
I chose my next words with great care. “Who was driving when Joe’s truck hit that bicyclist?”
Sheriff Jaikes’ eyebrows climbed to the top of his forehead.
Tabby’s eyes filled with tears. I leaned in to hear her whispered response: “I was.”

Anna Belle had been
frantically trying to track me down all afternoon as news of the tornados east of town blared from the newscasts. Apparently my cell phone had vibrated in Ray Dunner’s pocket over and over, and he’d either ignored it or had been too distracted to notice. There were thirteen voice-mail messages from my mother by the time I got around to checking it.
I’d called her and rushed home. Finally, I had some answers for my parents.
Now Dad, Anna Belle, Meghan, Kelly, and even Erin sat in the great room, watching me pace back and forth in front of them as I related the events of the day.
First I told them about the tornado veering so close to the dairy. About how Joe had blackmailed Ogden Dunner, and then when he turned violent during the last attempt Ogden had killed him in self-defense. About how Tabby had assumed from the moment we found Joe’s body that Ray had killed him because of their long and checkered history.
Had I caused Joe’s death? I’d been deliberately vague when I’d related the contents of Bobby Lee’s letter. I had to admit that could have been a catalyst for what followed. But I wasn’t about to hold myself responsible for Joe Bines’ paranoia and violent nature. That family had built a precarious life around lies and greed and death. It was bound to implode sometime.
As for Tabby, it didn’t look like her happily-ever-after was in the cards, either. If charged with first-degree vehicular homicide she was facing a possible three- to fifteen-year sentence, Schumaker told me. If they went with negligent homicide, she might get a year in jail or even probation. For Delight’s sake I should have hoped for the latter.
I didn’t, though. Tabby’s decisions, even influenced as they had been by Joe, had placed Bobby Lee in an untenable moral quandary. His love for her warred equally against his own guilt. My sweet eighteen-year-old brother had taken the only way out he could see.
So I told my family what Tabby had revealed about the night Gwen Miller died, and Bobby Lee’s role in the whole mess.
“When I heard Ogden say Joe wanted cash and wanted it fast, it sounded like he was desperate. Like he needed the money to run,” I said. “And then I remembered the picture of the truck and put it together with the other newspaper story and Schumaker’s questions about what kind of vehicle Bobby Lee drove. That was when I realized how the two incidents were connected, and finally I understood what Bobby Lee had meant in his letter. He’d helped Tabby cover up what happened, but then he couldn’t live with it.”
I asked my parents if they knew why Bobby Lee had borrowed Joe’s truck. Anna Belle looked puzzled, but Dad’s expression was thoughtful.
“He was helping an older neighbor put in some new landscaping,” he said. “I bet he borrowed it to haul compost.”
Anna Belle said, “I didn’t even know he was gone from the house. I wonder how many times he left and we never knew.”
My father put his arm around her. “He was eighteen, and we’d lifted his curfew altogether by then.”
“Maybe we should have—” but Anna Belle cut herself off. Self-recrimination was useless now. His arm tightened around her.
“After rescuing Gwen, Joe’s feet were messed up from going in the river,” I continued. “He had a couple of frostbitten toes and couldn’t walk very well. So when Bobby Lee got there he helped Joe into the truck, and Tabby went around to the driver’s side. At first the plan was to go to the hospital, but Joe didn’t want to. He and Bobby Lee argued. Now we know Ogden had agreed to keep quiet about Joe and Tabby’s presence at Rancho Sueńo, but at the time Tabby had no idea. She just thought Joe didn’t want to get in trouble.”
“Makes sense. By then he’d already had a few run-ins with the law,” my dad said.
I went on with the story as I’d heard it. Tabby had said the boy on the bike came out of nowhere. The snow and cold no doubt had something to do with why he swerved out of the bike lane and in front of the truck. Maybe he’d been avoiding an ice patch, or had hit one and slid out of control. It had been early morning by then, two or three o’clock, and a cyclist on the streets at that hour and in that weather was unusual but not unheard of in bike-crazy Spring Creek.
Tabby had sideswiped him. Instead of stopping, she’d roared away. Bobby Lee had wanted to go back; Joe didn’t. He said he saw the cyclist getting up behind them. He’d be fine, and they were already in enough trouble. So she drove them to Joe’s apartment. The next morning, Joe’s feet were better but not great. He dropped Tabby and Bobby Lee off at our house after Anna Belle and Dad left for work.
My parents had no idea Bobby Lee wasn’t in his bed. That he had been gone all night.
I had to wonder whether that night didn’t give Joe leverage over Tabby as well as Ogden. After all, he obviously didn’t have a problem with using a little blackmail to get his way. He’d always been sweet on Tabby, but she was Bobby Lee’s girl. After Bobby Lee was gone—however tragic the circumstances—she was available. At least in theory. She didn’t love Joe, but between the land for the dairy and the fact that he knew her secret, I could see how he had persuaded her to marry him. She’d spoken of a “bond” between them. Indeed. And what a complicated thing that bond had been.
But I hadn’t had a chance to ask Tabby whether any of that was true, so I didn’t mention it. I also left out what I’d been thinking about as I drove home from the dairy. If the hit-and-run victim had lived, or maybe even if he’d been killed instantly, perhaps my brother would still be alive. If Bobby Lee’d had a chance to anonymously call 911 and get an ambulance to the site of the accident, maybe his guilt would have been assuaged. But Tabby had been terribly upset, and Joe insisted the cyclist had only been bruised. So Bobby Lee never made that call.
“So much death in order to cover the crimes of others,” Meghan murmured.
“None of the deaths were intentional,” I said. “Well, Ray shoved Gwen Miller in the river in a fit of anger, but we can’t know that he meant to kill her. Ogden will certainly argue that he didn’t. Tabby will be tried for killing that young man so many years ago and for leaving the scene of the hit-and-run. But if she’d stayed and called the police when it happened, she likely wouldn’t have gone to jail. Even Ogden Dunner realized after he’d given in to Joe’s blackmail demands that the law wouldn’t have done much to his son if they had all told the truth in the first place. And in the end, Ogden killed Joe in self-defense.”
It was all so sad. However, now that we knew the truth, a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I hadn’t even realized how heavy it had become after all those years. When Tabby revealed that she’d been the one driving, I’d been surprised at first. I really had thought it was Joe. But it made perfect sense. Joe was my brother’s best friend. Bobby Lee was as loyal as they came. Though mystified as to the connection between them, I could just barely understand why Bobby Lee would cover up for Joe. But it made oodles of sense when I realized he was covering up for Tabby, the girl he was head-over-heels in love with.
The girl with the ice-blue eyes.

_____

The subject of protecting others for their own good came up later as Dad and I worked together in the kitchen. We’d grilled steaks with peppers, onions, zucchini, and tomatoes for dinner, as well as a foil-wrapped loaf of crispy garlic bread, so washing the dishes was a snap.
“Everybody was protecting someone, weren’t they?” I leaned down to put another plate in the dishwasher then stood and faced him. “Ogden protecting Ray. Sheriff Jaikes wanting to protect his daughter. Bobby Lee protecting Tabby. Celeste protecting Tabby. And you, protecting Anna Belle.”
My father blinked. “I’m not sure I—”
“There’s no other explanation. Celeste Atwood returned Bobby Lee’s letter as soon as she got it. You happened to see it before Anna Belle did. And you kept it from her all these years.”
He licked his lips.
“Why, Dad?”
Hesitation. Then he nodded. “You weren’t here. You don’t know what your brother’s death did to her. She couldn’t have taken it then.”
“Did you read it?”
Eyes shiny with tears, he shook his head. “I couldn’t.” His voice broke on the second word.
I put my arms around my father. He hadn’t just been protecting Anna Belle; he’d been protecting himself as well.
“You have to tell her, you know.”
He nodded, and I felt the day’s stubble on his chin catch in my hair. “I guess maybe I’d better go do that right now, huh?”
I gave him another squeeze and let him go.
“I love you,” I said to his retreating back. “So does she.”
He paused. Without turning around he said, “I know.”

_____

Snow drifted to the ground as night fell outside the main lodge at the Horseshoe Guest Ranch. Flames crackled around four-foot logs in the oversized fireplace, and guests perched on the elevated hearth and the eight-foot sofa in front of the fire. Others stood talking in small groups. The jazz quartet in the corner accompanied conversations as people munched and sipped. Tantalizing food smells issued from the depths of the kitchen and from the appetizer buffet along the back wall. Elk, moose, deer, and antelope heads mounted high on the walls looked down upon the festivities, but no one seemed to mind their skulking.
There were clusters of orange gerbera daisies everywhere.
Meghan shot a look at the grandfather clock and raised her eyebrows. I nodded, and she began quietly assembling the wedding party.
A quick and simple ceremony in the middle of a reception, then a sit-down dinner later.
Starting with the reception was a bass-ackwards way to do it, Cassie Ambrose said. But Barr’s mother wasn’t opposed to doing things a little differently, and I loved the idea of getting married in the middle of a party rather than making a big production out of the vows. Everyone, including me, was relaxed and enjoying themselves, and that had to be a good sign.
And Anna Belle was having a fantastic time, moving from guest to guest, pouring Southern charm over them like honey. She wore a svelte, wine-colored suit and a matching pair of smashing Italian leather pumps. Dad stood by the fireplace in a sedate black suit and watched her with an adoring gaze. Their relationship had rekindled over the last few months to the degree that I’d had to ask my mother to stop sharing details over the phone.
I hadn’t dictated what any of my attendants wore, figuring they were smart enough to figure it out on their own. I wasn’t disappointed. Meghan was my maid of honor, of course, and wore a stylish blue silk sheath. Erin had wanted to be my flower girl, but I’d nixed the idea. The disappointment on her face lifted when I asked her to be one of my bridesmaids instead. She looked beautiful in a light blue dress with a soft, twirly skirt.
My other bridesmaid was my good friend Tootie Hanover. The cold Wyoming weather wasn’t good for her severe arthritis, but she was cheerful even in her wheelchair. She was elegant as always, tonight in a deep green satin tunic and long black skirt. Her boyfriend, Felix, hovered constantly at her side, and I wondered whether he was planning to stand up with me during the actual wedding, as well.
From behind the bar, Hannah Ambrose, Barr’s ex-wife and possible future sister-in-law, flashed a bright grin and waved when I looked her way. I bared my teeth at her—I think it came across as a smile. But if it didn’t, that was okay, too.
My deep purple lace dress was something new, but I’d also tucked the key to our newly renovated house under my garter. The key wasn’t new, but the house and living situation would be.
I’d borrowed a lace handkerchief from Erin that her Nana Tootie had given her. I figured that covered both old and borrowed. Then Barr’s mother had given me the string of pearls around my neck. They’d belonged to her mother, and I was pleased to wear them in honor of being welcomed into the Ambrose family.
As for the something blue, it was really something bleu. And no, I wasn’t wearing it. Meghan and I had started making our own fresh cheeses after returning to Cadyville from that adventurous week in Spring Creek, but my father had turned his culinary passion to serious cheese making. He’d supplied two small wheels of a young bleu he’d made, as well as flying in some of the well-aged good stuff from an artisan cheese house in New York. They were among the appetizers on the buffet table. The dinner menu also included bleu cheese dressing for the salad and guests would have the option of adding a dollop of bleu cheese butter on top of their filet mignon.
A friend of the Ambrose family, a local judge, waited to marry us. Meghan spoke to him, and he began moving toward the area in front of the fireplace where we’d decided to exchange vows. The rest of us followed. The quartet quieted, and the ceremony began.
Barr and I had written our own simple promises to love each other and stick out the rough times. Yes, Barr’s actually said that. As long as he meant it, I didn’t care how he put it.
Just before the exchange of rings, the judge asked if I wanted this man to be my husband.
I said, “I do.”
And I really, really did.