Burned in Broken Hearts Junction Read online

  But then again, I’m sure plenty of girls had thought that very thing about Ted Bundy.

  Either way, it didn’t matter. He didn’t take me up on my offer.

  He said he’d walk, and left, leaving behind that expensive bottle of whiskey on my kitchen counter.

  He sure seemed to like to walk a lot.

  That was the other thing I’d been thinking about all morning.

  The stranger.

  What was his game? What was he doing hanging around The Stupid Cupid Saloon? What kind of business was he in, and why hadn’t he been upfront about it if it wasn’t something illegal?

  And why, I wondered, did we keep running into each other? Why had he come over to my house? A man shows up on a woman’s doorstep at night with a bottle of whiskey, he’s usually got an ulterior motive for being there.

  But I hadn’t gotten that impression from him at all.

  My phone suddenly rang, knocking Fletcher Hart loose from my thoughts.

  I sat for a few moments, looking at the name, trying to ready myself for who was on the other line.

  I wasn’t ever good when it came to offering condolences.

  Chapter 33

  “I wouldn’t be asking if you weren’t absolutely my very last resort.”

  I held my tongue, keeping it from clicking against the roof of my mouth in offense.

  That felt real nice. I was her last resort.

  Courtney had a way of putting things sometimes that just grated on me more than a zester against citrus.

  But I decided to let it go. She had, after all, just been through an awful lot.

  And frankly, me working again on a temporary basis at The Cupid would just about solve my rent problem until I could find myself another job.

  “Okay,” I said, holding back a sigh. “When do you need me?”

  “The police haven’t let us open the place back up yet,” she said. “But I need your help going through the… through his…”

  Her voice got thick and she started sniveling.

  “Through the office,” she finally squeaked out.

  “Courtney, are you sure you shouldn’t just take some time off?” I said. “I could run the place for however long. Maybe you oughta just take some time and grieve prop—”

  “No,” she said, rather harshly. “I need to keep busy. That’s the best thing. Keeping busy.”

  Her voice was tight and high strung, and I could tell she was barely holding it together.

  “Okay,” I said. “When do you need me?”

  “This afternoon,” she said.

  She sniveled some more into the phone.

  “I’ll be over in a bit, then.”

  She hung up.

  I shook my head and looked back outside.

  My driveway was buried under a solid foot.

  And it wasn’t going to dig itself out.

  Chapter 34

  His old fingers grabbed the worn top of the black castle piece. He slid it across the board, taking my knight out of commission and placing it triumphantly on his side of the table.

  “You’re something else, you know that Lawrence?”

  He grinned devilishly. I’m sure he’d been building up to that capture for a while now.

  “I’m only as God made me,” he said slowly, lacing his fingers together and leaning back in his wheelchair.

  “Yeah, well, God must have been having one hell of a time that day,” I said, making a feeble move forward with one my pawns. My pieces were disappearing faster than a line of pickle shots on St. Patrick’s Day.

  Chess had never been my strong suit. But even if it had been, I’d probably have let old Lawrence beat me. He seemed to take such enjoyment out of it.

  Though it wasn’t a Sunday, I’d been in the mood to see the old bear. Maybe it was seeing Dale dead like that, but I felt like spending the morning around family.

  And old Lawrence was just about the best family I had.

  I know. That sounds cold, considering that I had my mom too. But sometimes there’s the family you’re born into, and then there’s the spiritual family you feel most at home with.

  And when it came to me, I felt most at home with a wise-cracking, poker-loving, donut-chomping old man.

  Lawrence studied the pieces on the board a while in silence, no doubt scheming about how to draw my queen out.

  “I’m glad to see you handling Dale’s death so well,” he said, pushing a pawn across the board. “I was worried when Nurse Ratched told me that you were the one that found him like that.”

  “I wish it hadn’t happened that way,” I said. “But I’m okay.”

  “Can you tell me about it?” he said. “I mean, only if you feel up to it. But I’m interested in the details. It’s about all anyone can talk about here, you know.”

  I sighed.

  It wasn’t much of a story to tell right before the old man’s nap hour. But I knew Lawrence, and I knew that despite having sold The Cupid, he was still very much invested in what went on at the place.

  So I indulged him. I told him every unpleasant detail.

  He smiled when I brought up the song.

  “Tex Ritter,” he said, stroking his beard. “Now that’s interesting. I always did like old Tex. You’ve seen High Noon, haven’t you? I just love that theme song.”

  He chuckled.

  “Growing up, there was nobody I wanted to be more than Gary Cooper,” he said. “I guess that’s why when folks started calling me ‘Law Dog,’ I just let them.”

  He started fidgeting with the chess pieces he’d collected from me.

  “You ought to rent that movie sometime. Bring some donuts, and I’ll give you an education in the history of Western cinema.”

  “Deal,” I said.

  I pushed my castle out to the middle of the board in an aggressive assault.

  “So what do you think about all this?” I said. “Do you think Dale was really murdered?”

  “‘Course he was,” he said.

  “Well, who would’ve done such a thing?” I asked.

  He shrugged.

  “My money’s on the wife,” he said, moving his bishop diagonally, threatening my castle.

  “You think Courtney did it?” I said.

  He nodded.

  “Didn’t you say they were always fighting? That’s usually how these things go,” he said. “I tell you, getting involved with someone is just about the most dangerous thing a person can do. You know most murders are domestic? Better to be safe and keep to yourself, I say.”

  I noticed that a shadow had crossed over the board.

  Lawrence bit his lip in disappointment, like he knew what the shadow meant without having to look up.

  “I hate to break this up, but it’s time for a nap, Mr. Halliday.”

  Nurse Ratched, aka Belle, stood over us.

  “Aw, c’mon,” Lawrence said, gesturing toward the board game. “I’m just a few moves away from sealing the deal on this one.”

  He eyed me suspiciously.

  “You put her up to this, didn’t you?” he said to me. “You knew you were floundering, and your only way out was an intervention.”

  I grinned mischievously, even though both of us knew that I would have rather been beaten by Lawrence than to be deprived of his company so soon.

  “How are you today, Belle?” I said, looking up in her direction.

  She had her hair pulled back tightly behind her head. Heavy bags clung beneath her eyes.

  “I’ll admit, it’s been a rough couple of days here,” she said, glancing down at me. “All I’ve been thinking about for the last 24 hours is going home, getting in the tub, and digging into a pint of Haagen-Dazs.”

  “Amen to that, sister,” I said.

  “You could do it now if you like,” Lawrence said as she grabbed the handles of his wheelchair. “Leave my lady friend and me to play some more chess.”

  “I’m afraid not,” she said. “I’ve still got four hours left on my shift, and whether or
not you want to admit it, you’re getting tired.”

  Lawrence sighed as she started wheeling him away.

  “Wait,” he said, glancing back at me.

  He cleared his throat.

  “Have you heard anything from my grandson?”

  He had such a hopeful and eager tone in his voice, it kind of killed me just a little bit.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Just yesterday. He’s doing really good. He wanted to make sure you were doing okay.”

  I don’t know why I felt the need to lie about the last part like that, but I did.

  The old man smiled.

  “Did he say when he’s coming back home?” he asked.

  “He said maybe after he goes on tour with the band,” I said “He seemed like he really wanted to be here.”

  Lawrence scanned my face, the smile fading a little from his.

  “Hmm,” he said, rubbing his chin.

  Belle wheeled him across the cafeteria floor, turning a corner, and disappearing down a hallway.

  I leaned back, looking at the half-finished game of chess, sighing.

  Lawrence may have been old. But he was still smart enough to know a lie when he heard one.

  Chapter 35

  I stared at the lily-shaped bloodstain on the barroom floor, thinking about all of Dale’s unpleasant characteristics.

  Wondering if one of them might have gotten him murdered.

  Dale hadn’t been the most likeable character. He wasn’t the most friendly. He burped whenever he pleased. He didn’t always wear deodorant. He didn’t care for the saloon the way he should have.

  He had a gambling problem. A drinking problem, too, when Courtney pushed him far enough.

  He fired perfectly good employees.

  But to my knowledge, Dale didn’t get much worse than that. But then again, I hadn’t known Dale all that well.

  And just about everybody had a few skeletons in their closet.

  I wondered how many Dale had had in his. I wondered if one of them had reared its ugly head the day before and blindsided him.

  I stared at the blood stain a while, having a hard time peeling my eyes off of it.

  A high pitched voice coming from the back office interrupted my thoughts.

  “This place is such a damned mess!”

  Courtney’s grief sounded like it had evolved into rage. Which was her natural state most of the time when it came to Dale. Between their epic arguments and her nearly-constant badmouthing of him, it seemed that the two of them were always teetering on the brink of divorce. But they’d somehow stayed together all of these years. Maybe she had really loved him, in her own way.

  Or maybe that was just an act.

  I thought back to what Lawrence had said about his money being on Courtney as the murderess.

  They had had one of their worst fights shortly before Dale was found dead.

  They’d been bickering for weeks now about the same things. About Dale gambling too much, and about Courtney online shopping too much. Both of them having their own addictions. Both of them stealing away money and time from the business.

  Lawrence’s theory seemed entirely possible. She might have killed him. Might have rigged Old Velma to fall on him. She could have been planning it for weeks now, waiting for the perfect moment to present itself. Given herself the perfect liquor store alibi.

  Or maybe it had been in the heat of the moment, one insult too many, driving her to murder her own husband by bashing him over the head.

  But try as I might to envision either scenario, both seemed a little far-fetched to me.

  But then again, Dale being killed by a mounted ox head in his own bar was pretty damn farfetched in and of itself.

  “How in the hell am I ever gonna find a goddamn thing in all of this junk!” I heard Courtney shout again.

  I took a deep breath, carefully sidestepped the bloodstain, and went into the back. She was hunched over his desk, her orange hair frazzled around her head like she’d just been hit by lightning.

  She looked up when she heard me knock on the door. Lines of dried mascara stained her cheeks. I wondered why she had even bothered putting any on this morning.

  “Thank goodness you’re here, Bitters,” she said. “I’ve been going in circles all morning in this office. I can’t find a thing.”

  She stood up and surveyed the mess of papers.

  “My… my Dale wasn’t atall organized.”

  Her voice cracked at the end, and a few more tears slid down her face, following the already broken trail of mascara dribble.

  “What are you looking for?” I said.

  “Contracts,” she said, not going into any more detail.

  Contracts… like life insurance?

  She waded through some paper, coming over to me. My heart sped up a little as she clamped her hands over mine.

  I wondered if these hands had—

  “Can you help me?” she said, her blood-shot eyes boring into mine.

  I stared back, trying to read something in those eyes. A flicker of something that might have given her away.

  But I couldn’t make out anything other than panic.

  I didn’t know whether or not she was capable of murder.

  But regardless, I had given her my word I was going to help.

  And until I knew more, that was what I was going to do.

  I rolled up my sleeves, and got to work.

  Chapter 36

  “Son of a horehound!”

  I jumped to my feet, placed the stack of taxes on the desk, and bolted out of the bar’s dingy office like a bat out of hell.

  All day, I’d had the sneaking suspicion that I’d forgotten about something.

  It only hit me when I realized that it was the dinner hour, and that my stomach was growling. I was just about to head home to cook up a steak when I remembered.

  I’d made previous plans.

  I glanced at my phone as I hurried out to my truck. It was already 10 minutes past when I said I’d be there.

  Not that my mom was a stickler for serving dinner exactly on time. But I knew that the later I was, the more ammo I gave to them regarding my particular lifestyle. I could just see my sister’s smug face as I rolled up to the house, half an hour late. Judging me, the way she always did.

  I turned the engine over, realizing I didn’t have any time to go home and change into something more dinner-appropriate. Hell, I barely had any time to stop at the grocery store to buy a bottle of wine.

  No. Not wine. Even though I’d threatened to bring it when I spoke to my mom, I wasn’t going to. I’d be the only one at the table drinking it. And, once again, that’d only add to their ammo supply.

  Pie, I decided. It was hard to go wrong with a down-home pie. Even if it was from the grocery store.

  Nobody judged you when you showed up with a pie.

  I stopped at Ray’s Grocery, settled on a nice tart cherry pie, and sped over to my mom’s house as dusk faded into night.

  I pulled down the old familiar street of my childhood and parked the car across from her house.

  I glanced at her driveway, packed with cars.

  I recognized one of them all too well.

  My hands gripped the wheel tightly without me having any say in the matter.

  I couldn’t believe it.

  Oh no.

  She didn’t.

  Chapter 37

  Oh yes.

  Yes she did.

  My backstabbing mother opened the door, a smile on her face when she saw me.

  “Loretta, honey!” she said, embracing me with a big, disloyal hug. “I’m so glad you finally made it. It just feels like we haven’t seen you in forever.”

  She was wearing a pink and green flower print blouse. Her greying hair was pulled up into a high bun. She wore clunky gold jewelry that clanged together at the slightest movement.

  Behind her, I could see him sitting on the sofa, talking to my brother-in-law, Gary and my stepfather, Morg. Dressed in a nicely-ir
oned collared shirt and a jacket.

  He looked like he was going to church.

  “Mom,” I said quietly, between gritted teeth. “I can’t believe you.”

  The thought crossed my mind to drop the pie and make a run for it, leave behind what was sure to be a torturous night with my family.

  And my ex-boyfriend.

  “Oh, don’t make such a fuss over it,” she said, following my gaze. “I thought it might be nice to invite him too. You know, we all like Raymond an awful lot.”

  “I don’t care if you like him, Mom,” I said. “We broke up weeks ago.”

  “I know, hon. But I just thought… well, I saw him at the grocery yesterday, and I told him that you were coming over for dinner. And well, one thing led to another and I found myself inviting him too.”

  “This is crazy, Mom,” I said, taking a step back, my truck looking more and more like a path to freedom.

  “Look, I thought it might be a nice opportunity for the two of you to talk things over,” she said, grabbing my hands. “C’mon, if it’s that bad, then we’ll kick him out, okay? But I’m making up some blue cheese potatoes and lemon chicken because I know it’s your favorite. This whole night’s in your honor, hon.”

  I bit my lip.

  It was a moot point, but the blue cheese potatoes and lemon chicken weren’t my favorite – it was Molly’s, my sister’s, favorite. My mom always got that mixed up.

  I was a steak and sour cream mashed potatoes kind of girl myself.

  But despite mixing up my favorite dish, I knew my mom was making an effort, and despite the fact that the last thing I wanted to do was sit at the same table with my family and Raymond Rollins, I was in far too deep to turn around.

  Bolting out the door was just a pipe dream.

  “Is that a cherry pie?” my mom said, taking the pink box from me. “Well, Loretta, that’s just what we were missing.”

  I took a deep breath, stepped over the threshold, and prepared for what I suspected might just be one of the worst evenings of my life.

  Chapter 38