If the Coffin Fits Page 19

  She looked confused. “What would that have to do with Violet?”

  I shook my head. “Nothing,” I said. “Never mind.”

  I walked back toward the gym and my car. The person at the gym with the clearest motive to want Violet dead didn’t really want her dead and I felt like I’d hit yet another dead end.

  *

  It was getting dark. I didn’t think I’d find out anymore by hanging out at the gym. As I was driving home, my cell phone rang. I glanced at the Caller ID. Jasmine. I hit the button to put the phone on speaker. “Okay. Talk now.”

  “So what have you found out?” she asked.

  Orion barked at the sound of Jasmine’s voice.

  “Hello, good boy,” she said in that funny baby talk voice that people use with animals.

  He barked again.

  “Hello,” I said. “I’m right here.”

  “Right. So what did you find out?”

  “That pretty much everyone in this town has a secret they don’t want anyone to know about and that Violet Daugherty somehow knew about all of them.” That seemed as succinct a way to put it as possible.

  “Hmm. She must have been a very observant person.”

  “I’m an observant person. I wouldn’t have known to follow any of those people around to get photographs of them doing stuff they shouldn’t do.” Of course, I also wouldn’t blackmail any of them, despite them all seeming to think that was what I was setting out to do. I turned onto Robin Street and drove past the corn maze. There was something extra creepy about it in the twilight.

  “There are different levels of observation. She clearly saw something—”

  A loud cracking noise cut her off. Glass exploded into the car from the side window. I screamed and swerved.

  “Desiree, Desiree. What happened?” Jasmine sounded frantic.

  “My side window. It just exploded.” I pulled over to the side of the road to try to catch my breath. My hands shook as I brushed glass off of Orion. My hand came away bloody. It took me a minute to realize that the blood was mine and not his. “Jasmine, I’m bleeding.”

  “A lot?”

  The blood started to trickle down my arm. “Enough.”

  “Can you drive to the emergency room?”

  I took off my jacket to wrap it around my arm. “I think so.”

  “I’ll meet you there.”

  I screeched away from the curb. The hospital was on the other side of the freeway from most of Verbena. I raced over to Sparrow Street and then onto Nightingale. I came up over the rise of the overpass and saw the sign for the emergency room on the right.

  Jasmine pulled in seconds after me. “Let’s get you inside,” she said, taking my unbloody arm.

  “No,” I said. “You have to stay out here. You have to stay with Orion. I can’t leave him out here in a car full of glass.”

  “Fine,” she said. “But I’m calling Nate. Someone needs to be inside with you.”

  I didn’t want to admit how relieved that made me feel.

  Verbena Memorial Hospital’s Emergency Room was a surprisingly calm place. A little too calm. There was no one there. Seriously no one. I stood for a second, dripping blood from my arm to the tile floor before I noticed a bell to ring by a window. I did. A man in scrubs came into the little room behind the window, calling something to the people behind him. “What seems to be the problem?” he asked, biting back a yawn.

  I held up my arm. That made him sit up.

  “Nasty cut,” he said in a tone that suggested he admired it. “We probably should take a look at that.”

  There were a surprising number of questions to be answered before that actually happened, though. By the time I was in one of the little curtained-off exam areas, Nurse Bob knew more about me than most of my friends. “Doctor will be in to see you soon,” he said, drawing the curtain around me. It rattled on its metal clips.

  Nate arrived before the doctor did, though. “Can I see?” he asked. I nodded and he unwrapped my jacket from my arm. “Not too bad,” he said. “You’ll need some stitches, though. Tell me what happened.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. We were driving along by the corn maze. The window just exploded. Maybe a rock hit it or something?”

  “It would have to be a big rock.” Nate rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m going to go look, okay? Keys?”

  “Jasmine has them.”

  “Great. I saw her outside. Back in a few, okay?”

  “Okay,” I said, but my voice sounded a bit shaky. He paused, came back around and kissed my forehead. “I’ll be back fast. I promise.”

  This time I just nodded.

  The doctor who came in was brisk and businesslike. She took a look at my arm, made me move it a few different ways, then called for a suture kit. “It’s a slow night,” she said. “We’ll have you out of here in a few minutes.”

  Nate came back in and the two had a spirited conversation about possible infections while I pointedly looked the other way as she stitched. “All done,” she said. “You’re going to want to follow up with your regular doctor to get those stitches out in a few days. Keep it dry for forty-eight hours. If you have more pain or it gets swollen or there are red streaks, get yourself back over here right away. Okay?”

  “Okay,” I said. I stood up, feeling a little wobbly.

  Nate put his jacket around my shoulders. “It’s cold out,” he said. “And yours is kind of a lost cause.”

  He was right. My fleece was a mess. “Can you give me a ride home? Is Jasmine still here?”

  “She’s waiting for us outside with Orion and of course I’ll give you a ride home. There’s something you need to see first, though.”

  “Can it wait? I’m so tired.”

  “No. It can’t wait. You need to come now.” His voice was tight.

  I looked over at him. Nate didn’t panic easily. He never had. He’s awesome in crisis situations. Whatever it was, he really needed me to come look at it. Probably some huge shard of glass that had narrowly missed my face or something like that.

  We went outside. The Element looked like a sickly color of gray under the street lamps. It reminded me of the one in the photo of my father. Could it have been weird lighting? Was the car in the photo really gray? Jasmine got out of her car with Orion as we walked up.

  Jasmine opened the driver’s side door and pointed to something on the dashboard. Or perhaps I should say in the dashboard. Something had made a round hole right in the radio. Whatever CD I had in there was toast. That was for sure. I hoped it wasn’t my Dad’s favorite Beatles’ album.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  She brushed her hair back as it tangled in the wind. “I think it might be a bullet hole.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Luke Butler sat across from me at the table in the Lilac Room at Turner Family Funeral Home the next morning. He’d relented and let me go home the night before. He’d arrived so hot under the collar I thought he was going to arrest me to get me to go to the station to answer questions. I won’t lie. I shed some tears. He agreed to wait until the next day. He also agreed to come to me since my car was currently being processed as a crime scene.

  Luke rubbed his hand over his face. He looked tired and a bit older. Or maybe I was starting to see him for who he was now rather than the obnoxious high school boy who had been close to the bane of my existence. “So you were going around town confronting blackmail victims in order to ascertain which one might also be a murderer?” he asked.

  It wasn’t how I would have described it, but it wasn’t factually incorrect so I said, “Pretty much.”

  He slammed his fist down on the table. “Damn it, Desiree!”

  I jumped. Orion jumped and squeaked. The newspaper on the table shuffled. Uncle Joey stuck his head in the door. “Is everything okay?”

  Luke shut his eyes and took several deep breaths before answering. “No. Everything is not okay. Your niece is endangering herself unnecessarily.”

 
; Uncle Joey took a step inside the room. “We’ve tried to dissuade her. She’s hurting business.”

  “Well, she damn near became one of your customers last night and I simply won’t have it. I won’t.” I thought he was going to pound his fist again, but he seemed to think better of it. Luke was a big guy, but Uncle Joey was bigger.

  This wasn’t actually the response I’d been hoping for. I’d hoped that he would leap into investigative mode. Apparently, Luke didn’t leap anywhere at anytime unless there was a beer involved. I shooed Uncle Joey away. He didn’t need to hear all this. “I didn’t know what else to do,” I said.

  He threw his hands up in the air. “Talk to the police? There’s a crazy idea.”

  “I tried. You wouldn’t listen,” I reminded him.

  Now it was his turn to look chastened. “So give me the names of the people you spoke to.” He pulled out his notepad and pen like he was about to make a grocery list.

  I was afraid that was where he was going to go. I shook my head. “Nope.” I needed him to dig out the bullet and check ballistics and fingerprints and all that stuff the super smart people do on those TV shows with the labs and stuff. The people thing? Well, that was going to have to stay with me.

  He looked up, surprised. “Why?”

  “I’m protecting my sources.” Violet had asserted power over these people by threatening to expose them. They’d all made mistakes. They’d all done things they shouldn’t have done. They’d all found ways to straighten out their lives and to make amends. That deserved to be protected, not threatened.

  Luke shoved back in his chair. “So now you’ve got journalistic integrity?”

  My face grew hot. I narrowed my eyes. “I’ve always had journalistic integrity. I didn’t have discretion, but integrity I had up the wazoo.” Discreet people didn’t mock their boss on a hot mic. I knew that. It didn’t make me a bad reporter, though.

  He blew out a breath and tapped his foot for a few seconds. “I could take you before the court.”

  “Go ahead.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “I still have Janet Provost on speed dial. You want to go up against her?” I held up my phone.

  He shuddered and for good reason. Janet was a damn good lawyer and a formidable opponent. He’d gone up against her before and it hadn’t worked out in his favor. Plus anytime you dealt with her, you’d probably gain five pounds because she also liked to bake. “Can I see what else is in the box? Maybe someone got wind of what you were doing and tried to head you off at the pass? If you haven’t talked to them yet, you can’t have made any promises to them.”

  I thought about it. Then I shook my head. I wasn’t sure how many more of the things in the folder were illegal, how many people I’d be getting into trouble, how many people had turned their lives around because of Violet’s threats. I wasn’t sure how my father was involved in the whole mess. “Nope. Definitely not.”

  He stood and loomed over me. His fists that were clenched tight enough that the knuckles were turning white. “I can probably subpoena you.”

  I shrugged. “Go for it, big guy. Until then, though, it’s time for you to leave.”

  If I’d thought the wrath of Luke Butler was the only thing I was going to have to face, I had a whole set of other thinks coming. He was barely out the door when Donna came in and sat down across from me, arms crossed over her chest. Uncle Joey followed her in. He sat on her side of the room. “You promised,” she said.

  I cringed. “I know.”

  “You pinky swore.”

  “I know.”

  “You double pinky swore.”

  “I know.”

  “Then you did whatever you wanted anyway.” She threw her hands in the air. “What were you thinking?”

  “I was thinking that if I could prove Violet had really been murdered then everyone would understand that they wouldn’t be randomly accused of killing their loved ones when they brought them to Turner’s.” I crossed my arms over my chest and uncrossed them right away. It pulled at my stitches.

  Uncle Joey tilted his head as if he was considering the validity of my statement. Donna did not look like she would ever consider the validity of anything I ever said again. She put her face in her hands. “Someone shot at you. With actual bullets.”

  “Bullet, singular. At least, as far as I know.” I reached down to pat Orion.

  She straightened up fast and glared at me. “Don’t make jokes about this. It isn’t funny. It’s … it’s …” She didn’t get farther than that. She cried.

  “I’m fine,” I said, rushing over to her and kneeling by her chair. “Look. I’m totally fine. It’s only a few stitches.”

  She slapped my shoulder. “But you might not have been fine. You might have been hurt. You might have been … dead.” Then the sobbing began in earnest. “Stupid pregnancy hormones.”

  Then Orion was there, nosing into our embrace. He pressed his head against the two of us.

  It took us a few minutes to get ourselves back together, but we managed it. I got a doggie treat for Orion and tissues for Donna.

  Uncle Joey pointed at Orion. “Does he always do that when you cry?”

  “I haven’t actually cried that much in front of him, but you should have seen him with Annamarie Oh. He put his chin on her lap and let her cry on him as long as she needed to. She thought he was a therapy dog.” I gave Orion another treat. I mean, he was doing an awfully good job.

  Donna went a little still. “We don’t have a therapy dog.”

  “I know. It’s not like I told her he was one. She assumed he was one because of how he acted.”

  “I understand.” She blew her nose again. “You’re not getting rid of this dog, are you?”

  It wasn’t a question. I shook my head. “No. I don’t think I can. I think my heart might break if I did.”

  “Then why don’t you find out what you would have to do to make him into a real therapy dog. Then he could earn his keep around here.” She reached down and scratched behind his ears. “Because then you would be a very good dog, a very good dog indeed.”

  Orion thumped his back leg.

  Then Donna turned back to me. “You really have to drop this Violet Daugherty thing, though. It’s too dangerous.”

  I was going to have to come clean and tell her everything so she’d understand why I couldn’t do that. “There’s something I haven’t told you.”

  Donna rolled her eyes. “Color me not surprised.”

  I didn’t think the situation called for that much sarcasm, but there were too many important issues here. “There was a picture of dad on that thumb drive of Violet’s.”

  She grabbed a tissue and mopped at her eyes. “So?”

  “It was a photo of dad in front of a house I didn’t know with a car he didn’t own talking to a little girl I didn’t recognize.”

  “Show me,” she demanded.

  I went upstairs and got the laptop and thumb drive and came back down. I pulled up the photo and turned the laptop so both Donna and Uncle Joey could see.

  Uncle Joey took a shuddery breath.

  I reached over and put my hand on top of his. He covered my hand with his other one. It was like being sandwiched by giant paws.

  Uncle Joey is a big man and with his size comes a certain kind of gravitas. Not all big men have it, but a lot of the good ones do. They’re aware of their presence and they use it to calm things, to make things more serene, to defuse situations and emotions. Because of that, sometimes their own emotions got overlooked, or at least Uncle Joey’s did.

  Except by Zenia. She apparently didn’t overlook them at all.

  I was pretty wrapped up in how much I missed my dad. I was aware of the ache that Donna felt when she thought of him. Sometimes I forgot how much Uncle Joey must miss him, too. My dad was more than his brother. He was his business partner and his friend. When Grandpa Turner—a blessed memory—died and left the business to the two of them, there’d been an immediate and easy divvying up of the tasks asso
ciated with running a funeral home. Uncle Joey was responsible for the behind the scenes work. Dad took over the front office stuff. I didn’t remember ever seeing them argue about anything. Not that they didn’t disagree. They totally did from time to time. They just didn’t fight about it. They discussed.

  When Mom died, Dad wanted to be the one to lay her out. Uncle Joey backed away and let him while staying close enough to steady his hand when it was needed. In the photos we had of Dad and Uncle Joey’s childhoods, they were almost always in the same photo because they were so rarely apart. I asked Dad about it one time. “We get each other,” he’d said. “I never had to explain anything to him and he never had to explain anything to me.”

  Uncle Joey had lost that person in his life—a person like Greg was to Donna knowing that she needed the salt before she knew it herself—and instead of losing it like I had, he’d done what he’d always done. He’d provided that big strong solid presence for Donna and me. He’d been our rock. I’d forgotten that sometimes rocks can break.

  “No,” Donna said. “No, no, no. We’re not going down this rabbit hole again, Desiree. This photo could have been taken anytime, anywhere.”

  “Or it could have been taken a few months ago. I don’t recognize that house or that child. I’m pretty sure that car is the same one I saw months ago out at Cold Clutch Canyon. Back when someone left that little hiking boot charm on my car.” Dad’s old car, I added in my head.

  “You can’t tell one gray Element from another. There’s no way.”

  She was right about that. I also wasn’t even one hundred percent certain it was even gray anymore. I told them about the storage space, too. “Don’t you think it bears some looking into?”

  “You’re losing it, Desiree. You have to drop this stuff about Dad. It’s making you nuts and it’s going to destroy our business, his life’s work.” Donna pounded the table with her fist. Her face had gone red. “My life’s work. Maybe you can decide to waltz out of here whenever you want, but I can’t. If you destroy this place chasing a ghost, you destroy me, too.”