Dead in Hog Heaven (A Thea Barlow Mystery, Book Three) Read online

  We'd been following what I assumed was their usual route around several residential blocks, a short jog past the park, then onto Main Street and the business district. We slowed to a stroll. The store she pointed out, the Squash Blossom, with its coat of fresh white paint was a bright spot in a string of shabby storefronts. Recent attempts to refurbish the old storefronts were evident, but nothing could hide the fact that they were very old buildings and had suffered varying degrees of neglect through the years. Yvonne's Squash Blossom was a statement of hope for the future.

  "The window display's always worth looking at."

  And it was. Shimmering liquid silver necklaces and chunky turquoise bracelets were tucked among clusters of Indian pots and baskets.

  "And books, too," I said, noticing a stack in the corner.

  "A little bit of everything is a good store motto in a town this size," Yvonne said.

  An oversized paperback, Feng Shui Made Easy, was prominently displayed on top of several Western art books. I'd have to take a look at it. It reminded me of Clyde Bodie's dreams of a New Sedona, and I wondered what would happen to them now. I pushed the door open, activating a cowbell that startled not only me, but Jennifer as well.

  She stood behind the counter beside a curtained doorway into a back room. Something, either a slight flutter of the curtain, or the too wide-eyed look on her face, made me think that she hadn't been alone.

  "Hi." She gave me a curious sidelong glance, and self-consciously ran her hand through her beautiful hair. When she saw Yvonne and Charlotte follow me in she stepped quickly from behind the counter with just the slightest checking-type of a look at the curtain, and joined them. Heading them off at the pass, I thought, amused. But it wasn't any business of mine who she entertained on business hours.

  I sought out the Feng Shui book and looked around in the process. Not surprisingly, Yvonne's store was much like herself, spare, elegant and well-arranged. I saw Opal's paintings on the wall with her name card. Their quality was not as high as the rest of the objects in the store, still, they were nice. I recognized the bright knotted ribbon decorations on a stack of shirts as her work, as well. She'd been wearing a similar shirt when I found her. I shuddered and turned back to the feng shui book.

  I stood apart from the others, but close enough to hear Jennifer's' excited comment.

  "Did you hear the latest?" She didn't wait for an answer, but rushed on in a mock whisper charged with importance. "They say Ronnie Mae didn't die of insulin shock, after all. She was murdered, too."

  Chapter 12

  A moment of stunned silence fell over the gift shop. Yvonne recovered first. "Is this some kind of crazy new rumor?"

  Charlotte seemed more bewildered than curious. "I can't believe that. Where did you hear such a thing?"

  "Elton Rydell stopped by, not fifteen minutes ago," Jennifer said. She tossed her hair. Her eyes sparkled with excitement. She apparently loved being the purveyor of shocking news. "He's been blabbing it all over town. He—"

  The door burst open, clanking the cowbell. Elton Rydell rushed in. At least I was pretty sure that's who it was. I remembered him from the town meeting, and how his smarmy words matched his over-styled hair. He'd been apoplectic when Opal called him a hypocrite, and accused him of being more interested in lining his own pockets than helping the community.

  He breezed past me, unseeing. His large, round, slightly protruding eyes were on Yvonne.

  "Did you hear?" he asked.

  Charlotte answered for her. "Yes we did, and where did you pick up such a piece of nonsense?"

  "It's not nonsense," his voice rose several tones in indignation. "Young Billy Gavin, that new deputy who's been helping Rusty out, just got back from Rock Springs. He was there when Rusty got the autopsy report."

  "Where's Rusty now?" Charlotte demanded.

  "He's still in Rock Springs talking to the authorities. But Gavin swears it's true, Ronnie Mae was murdered."

  "Even so, Elton, I can't imagine Rusty will appreciate you spreading it all over town before he's ready to announce it."

  "Well, you can tell Rusty," he said, jabbing a stubby finger adorned with a large turquoise ring in the air over Charlotte's chest, "that I didn't appreciate him questioning me for over an hour yesterday. I have a reputation to protect." He raised his hands, palm up, in a show of innocent self-righteousness. "As if I would ever hurt a hair on the head of poor Opal Bodie. But..." he drew the word out with over-dramatic emphasis, "this piece of news gets me off the hook, because I wasn't anywhere near Ronnie Mae when she died and Rusty knows it. It looks to me like we've..."

  I didn't hear the rest. My heart began to pound. Rydell was right. He wasn't anywhere near Ronnie Mae when she passed out in City Hall. Max and I were. Oh, Lord, if proximity counted—and it might around here—was I going to be implicated in this, too? And Max? But how?

  "What killed her?" I blurted, stepping away from the window display and up to the group. From what I'd seen, Ronnie Mae had simply passed out, fainted at our feet. There hadn't been any wounds, or bleeding.

  Elton Rydell whirled around in surprise. Who..? his eyes questioned the women.

  Charlotte put her hand on my shoulder. "This is Thea Barlow, Elton. Elton Rydell." Being Charlotte, she went through the polite introduction ritual as if we were at a tea party rather than speaking of murder. "Elton owns the Trading Post down the street."

  He regarded me minutely, his eyes soaking up every detail from my sweat-dampened hair, beginning to frizz out of control, to my saggy socks. He spoke to Charlotte as if I weren't standing right in front of him. "Is she the one who—?"

  "Yes she is, but she didn't kill Opal any more than you did."

  He wasn't convinced. His eyes widened and he stepped back nervously, as if I might strike out at any minute like a rattlesnake.

  Or was it all show, I wondered, remembering Monty Montgomery's instinctive reaction when told that something had happened to Opal. The mountain man's immediate response had been to ask if Elton Rydell had whapped her with a shovel. True, at that point Monty hadn't realized Opal had been murdered, and sure, he was being facetious, but I found it interesting that, to him, harm to Opal equated with this jerk, Elton Rydell. And why would he think that being innocent of one murder would guarantee innocence in another? Unless, I thought, he knew beyond a doubt that the two murders—if there were two—were connected.

  Yvonne had been uncharacteristically silent through all of this. She had followed the conversation with a look of skepticism, then echoed my question.

  "What killed her, Elton?" she asked. "If it wasn't insulin shock, what was it?"

  I wondered if she was worried about the same thing I was. She had been there when Ronnie Mae collapsed at Max's feet. As far as that goes, Jennifer had been there also, kneeling beside Ronnie Mae. But she didn't appear to be worried about anything other than retaining her role as gossip maven of Garnet Pass.

  Elton gave an impatient shrug. "How should I know what killed her? Billy just said there was evidence pointing to foul play."

  "Which could mean anything or nothing." Charlotte's voice was rich with exasperation. "Rusty's going to have your hide for spreading this all over town."

  I tried to remember if Charlotte had been at the town meeting. I didn't think so. Not with Yvonne and Jennifer, at any rate. I didn't meet Charlotte until later that day, so chances are I wouldn't have noticed her in the crowd, anyway.

  "Come on." Charlotte beckoned to Yvonne and me. "I need a cup of coffee."

  Elton wasn't to be dismissed so easily. He stood in our path and spouted off, shaking his stubby finger again. "We haven't had a murder in this town for the fifty-some years I've lived here. Now all of the sudden we have two within two days. I say we've got a serial killer in our midst and we better watch our backs, every one of us, what with all the strangers wandering around town these days." On the word "strangers" he pivoted theatrically to face me, his earlier professed fear of me forgotten.

 
; "Oh, can it, Rydell," Yvonne said. She grabbed my elbow and, following Charlotte, steered me to the door. "I'll be back in a bit, Jennifer." And we were out the door.

  "Let's go to the Glory Hole," Charlotte suggested.

  "If nobody's there we can try Belle's," Yvonne added, then turned to me with a big grin. "We're trying to decide where the biggest gossips will be."

  The Glory Hole restaurant and bar was not far. The next corner, in fact. The rear of the building stretched long, low, and rather swaybacked, like an old horse who's been rode too long, as they say in these parts. The front had been false-fronted to resemble an old log cabin. Fortunately, I gathered, the desired look had been decrepit rusticity, and indeed, it was that. Whoever the carpenter, he'd not been sure of his tools.

  A door to the right went into the bar. We took the one on the left that lead into the cafe. The place was popular, at any rate. My eye immediately went to three saffron-robed Asian men sitting at one of the tables lining the left wall. Buddhist monks? Tibetans? Feng Shuies?

  Most of the occupants of the booths along the far wall were seated casually lengthwise, or on the end of the benches, so they could participate in the conversation taking place center stage at a large round table in the middle of the floor.

  "Oh, no," Charlotte mumbled under her breath. She turned to leave, but it was too late: her father had seen her.

  "Charlotte," Ivar Norquist called out, raising his arm for attention. His luxuriant white hair waved gloriously back from his brow. "Just the person we want to talk to. Come and sit down, ladies."

  He pulled out the empty chair beside him and motioned Charlotte into it. Yvonne took the one next to her, so I headed for the only other empty chair, which was beside an older man whose back was toward me. He appeared to have been listening to the good-looking guy standing next to him, who I was quite sure I recognized as the mayor, Chet somebody. He looked much more handsome today in a turquoise golf shirt and casual khakis than he had at the town hall meeting in his rumpled suit. He gave me a brief, curious look, obviously not knowing who I was. His cursory smile didn't lift the petulant anger that clouded his face.

  When I pulled out the chair and sat, the older man turned. It was Clyde Bodie. I froze in an agony of embarrassment and tried to move my chair back.

  Clyde reached out and patted my arm. "No, no. Sit still, young lady, sit still."

  "Thank you," I said quietly.

  Ivar picked up the conversation, throwing questions at Charlotte, impatient to know what she'd heard from Rusty and if the rumors about Ronnie Mae being murdered were true.

  Under cover of Ivar Norquist's stentorian voice, the mayor lit into Clyde, taking up where he'd left off, I assumed. At least he kept his voice low and directed at Clyde, even though he had to know I could hear every word. For my part, I pretended disinterest.

  "I can't believe you let Opal undercut me with the Astral Projection people," he said. "I had the lease, if not the sale, on the old school building sewn up."

  "I never let Opal do nothing, Chet," Clyde said calmly. "She always did what she damn well wanted to do."

  "That deal was the whole selling point of the business fair. I told everybody that one big company had already settled here, and urged them to be the next in line. Now Opal's made me look like a fool."

  Wisely, Clyde said nothing.

  "I thought you might just right the wrong and cancel the Astral Projection lease, but no," the mayor's voice rang with sarcasm, "what do I get? Another slap in the face. It was bad enough that fool Monty Montgomery scheduled his Rendezvous on the same day as the business fair. I could have worked with that. At least it would have brought more people to town. Now I find you've lured Montgomery out to Hog Heaven, too. You're sabotaging the future of Garnet Pass, for the sake of that... that two-bit store of yours. All I can say is you'll regret this." His voice had risen and he now had everyone's attention, even Ivar Norquist, who was watching him with a sardonic grin on his face.

  The mayor finally noticed the silence and looked up to find all eyes on him. A bright flush rose up his face, as well it might. He was totally out of line. All my thoughts were with the grieving old man at my side. How unfair for him, I thought, even though I was part of the unfairness. To be harangued about his newly deceased wife on one side, while the main suspect of her death sat on his other side.

  At least the mayor had the grace to recognize his own inappropriateness. He placed his hand on Clyde's shoulder and mumbled, "I'm sorry, Clyde. I don't know what got into me." He left our table and, to my surprise, but apparently no one else's, took a seat with the Buddhists, or whatever they were.

  I turned to Clyde, aware that anything I did or said at this point was going to be awkward at the least, but I wanted to say something. I decided to go with what was in my heart.

  I spoke so only Clyde could hear me. "I am so sorry about what happened to Opal, and... and Ronnie Mae, too. Please believe me when I say I had nothing to do with it."

  Before I had even finished he reached out and patted my hand again. "I never thought you did."

  "But—"

  He cut me off with what seemed like a non sequitur, saying, "You still going to write that piece on Hog Heaven?" Perhaps he too was suffering the effects of awkwardness.

  "I... well, yes." The article on hog ranches was the furthest thing from my mind at the moment, but eventually I'd have to get back to it. "I don't want to bother you."

  "No bother at all. Come out anytime. Opal'd be real proud to see that story in a magazine."

  His eyes were soft and rheumy, tinged with despair. We both fell silent.

  Ivar was holding forth again. "You'd think if there was some hanky-panky going on they would've called Clyde here. He's family, after all."

  Clyde pushed away his unfinished plate of food, the French fries pale and grease-soaked. He slumped noncommittally over his coffee cup, swirling the dark liquid around and around.

  My eyes drifted around the room and landed on the man who, just recently, I'd seen deep in an argument with Ivar Norquist. He stood by the swinging doors that led into the bar, taking long draughts from the bottle of beer he held. The too-tight, short-sleeved jumpsuit bared long, white, sinewy arms covered with freckles and abundant gray hair. He took a final pull from the bottle, put it on the floor against the wall, and came over to where we were sitting. Dragging an unused chair from another table, he positioned himself beside, but slightly behind, Ivar Norquist. There was room for him to have pulled his chair up to the table, but he had chosen to distance himself. A part of the group, but not of it, he seemed to be saying. Arrogant, I thought, though it looked like he had little to be arrogant about.

  Ivar turned to see who it was, but neither acknowledged the other in any way. When my gaze returned to the old guy, I found him staring at me. He didn't drop his eyes, but leaned back in his chair with an insolent grin on his face while he rolled a toothpick from one corner of his mouth to the other. I repressed a shudder. Disgusting man.

  I shot a glance at Clyde again. He seemed to be lost in his own thoughts, but perked up quickly enough when the waitress came around with more coffee. I suddenly wondered why he was so sure I hadn't killed Opal. What did he know that I didn't know and, hopefully, had he told the sheriff about it? I remembered how I had run to him for protection and how comforted I had felt by his presence. Despite the evidence, he had withheld blame from me and, I had to admit, from Danny as well. He had been more dismissive of Danny than accusatory.

  Was he that convinced that whoever drove the mysterious truck he claimed to have seen leaving Hog Heaven was the real killer? How big a stretch was it to think that the truck that had surprised Max and me at the dirt works might be the same truck Clyde had seen? Maybe Clyde knew who around here might take a fancy to wearing a monk's robe. I wanted to ask him, but this wasn't the place. Clyde had given me an opening, though, by inviting me back to Hog Heaven. I decided to take him up on it.

  Lost in my worries, it was difficult
to pay attention to the conversation. Difficult, that is, until it was thrown in my face.

  "We're forgetting ourselves," Ivar said. "I don't think all of you know this young lady." He made a grandiloquent flourish with his arm in my direction. "This is Thea Barlow, Max Holman's girlfriend, poor thing. I told her she should reconsider. I'm always available."

  Ho, ho, ho. There was much chuckling and laughter at my expense. Good-natured as it was, I resented it. But the slow-dawning look on many of the faces as they connected my name with the person who had been discovered standing over Opal's body was worse. Some were standing now to get a better look at me.

  "Don't look now, Thea dear," Ivar leaned forward across the table. He spoke in a stage whisper that could be heard throughout the restaurant, "but the young man sitting in the corner over there is Quentin Stubik, hotshot reporter from the Rock Springs newspaper."

  Reporter! Alarm raced through me like an electric shock. Of all the things I didn't need now, a reporter surely topped the list. I should have known that one murder, much less two—if that were truly the case—would be huge news in this small town. Like it or not, my name was going to be splashed all over the papers. A flush of humiliation rushed over me.

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw the reporter rise and move my way. He looked young and fresh-faced and had a determined twist to his mouth. No way was I going to talk to him. I started to get up when Twila Pettigrew came through the front door and waltzed up to our table.

  "Well! Here's where everybody is!" She carried that loathsome chicken, Sugar, in her arms wrapped in a tattered baby's receiving blanket printed with bunnies. "I was wondering where you all were." Her voice softened when she spotted Clyde. "How are you, Clyde? Everything going okay? Now you be sure to holler if you need help with anything at all. You know you can count on me."

  Twila's eyes lit on me at about the same time as the chicken's did. "You!" The chicken stretched its neck towards me and made a nasty little squawk deep in its throat.

  Twila swung on Clyde. "How could you, Clyde? How could you sit next to that murderer as if nothing ever happened to poor Opal?" Sugar struggled mightily in her arms, her beady eye fixed on me, wanting desperately to race across the table and peck me to death.