Found Dead in the Red Head Read online

  Any description he might add would stay with me forever. “Let’s go sit in my car. It’s too public here. I have lots to say.”

  “Okay, be right there.” He took the carafe. “I gotta go again.”

  Pushing the remote, I unlocked the doors but waited outside the car for him.

  He carried a takeout cup, and I nodded over the top of the car. “Get in.”

  We met in the middle, but I leaned against the door putting plenty of space between us. Weaken by the events, his kiss on my cheek and as needy as I felt, I might not be able to trust myself.

  Shoving my hands into my jacket pockets, I leaned my head on the headrest. “I can’t believe Walker killed him. He’s not that kind of kid.”

  He rocked back. “What did you say?”

  “Walker. I heard he killed Belly. It must’ve been an argument.” I wasn’t about to admit I foolishly marched into Dick’s office thinking I had evidence.

  Teddy stared out the foggy windshield. “Huh? Walker didn’t kill him.”

  “I have my doubts, too. But you never know.” Dare I mention Dick’s comments over money troubles?

  "I think you’re right, it’s the Floyd clan. Belly stepped into uncharted territory.”

  I closed my eyes, lowering my chin. “Guess that’s good news. Whatever uncharted territory means.”

  “What that means is, Hot Springs looks like a cozy little touristy town, but underground it’s still a gangster’s playground.”

  I watched the busy intersection chilled to the bone. “Dick’s worthless. I must find out what happened to Belly. It’s vital to my family’s future. Belly told me he had a late-night pickup. A sheikh or another foreigner.”

  “Really? First time I heard that. How do you know?”

  “Belly told me after the parade. He came to open house, pretending to be drunk, but I know him… knew him… he was a real prankster. Now I think he was covering for someone.”

  There I go speculating again, but bouncing ideas off him wouldn’t hurt.

  “Let’s go see Walker. I’m sure he’s at the shop.” He shifted nervously.

  “No. I can’t. I have to check in with Sandy first.” I can’t just traipse around town investigating a murder. I’d need a good excuse to get out of work, so she wouldn’t drive me nuts speculating, I do enough of that on my own.

  What I wasn’t telling him was wearing on me. If I didn’t leave his company, I’d blab everything about Ally and Allison. The fewer people who knew about them the better.

  “Things have changed drastically since yesterday.”

  “I’ll say.” He popped open the car door. “I’m gonna make calls, see if I can dig up any dirt. In the meantime, don’t say a word to Dick.”

  I huffed. “Cross my heart.”

  I unlocked the Row’s backdoor greeted by a rush of warmth and scents of gingerbread. The lights were on and Sandy murmured, pausing like she was talking on the phone. Peeling from my overcoat, I noticed the gift bags were missing. That’s either good or bad news.

  Hanging my coat on the coat racks, I whispered, “Fanny, are you here?”

  I listened for a rustle and watched the tissue papers on the end of the workbench. Nothing moved, and all I heard was Sandy’s monotone voice.

  “If you’re in trouble and need help, please let me know. Maybe I can help?”

  I’m not my ghost’s keeper. If she got into trouble haunting the grocery store, I wouldn’t be able to help. I shook off my weird feelings about Fanny’s whereabouts. She’s a grownup ghost and until a few months ago, she didn’t need my permission or approval to haunt people or places.

  I came into the showroom just as Sandy hung up the phone. “Mornin’.”

  Sandy glared without a reply. At least, she was her usual glum self, if she acted chipper and happy like she did with the customers, I might think she was body-snatched. Occasionally, I love a good horror movie but recently, my real life felt surreal. Horror didn’t sufficiently describe my life, it had become a nightmare of terrors.

  “What happened to the gift bags?” No point in sharing niceties since we were both in bad humors.

  “That Etta. She’s a miracle worker. She finished all the bags.” She pointed to the floor underneath the two showroom tables. “We’ll deliver them this afternoon. I’ll fill up her car with gas, and she can make fast work of them with Google Maps.”

  I leaned overlooking at the beautifully done boxes. “Wow. Those look great!”

  Etta’s flare of creativity added off-center bows and curly ribbons flowing down the sides of the boxes. “I’m never making another gift box.”

  “Don’t say never. You know how I feel about never.”

  I grinned, because she thought saying never jinxed you. For all her sure-footedness, she has a few superstitions and off-balanced ideas. “You’re right. Never is a long time.”

  “Like well is a deep subject.” She smirked trying to be funny. “Sales were brisk yesterday. I’m thinking we need another part-timer.”

  I sighed, nodding. “Me too. There’s so much going on, I can’t focus.”

  “How’s your sweet child?” Sandy lifted her chin.

  “Good. They were sleeping when I left this morning.”

  “Fabulous. I printed off the web orders. Guess never wasn’t long enough.” She giggled, passing the orders across the counter.

  “Geez. When will it end?” I read the top order.

  We set a seventy-five dollar minimum on online orders, and all these orders were well over a hundred dollars. “You need to tell the web guy to add delivery fees, if we’re making delivery a standard perk.”

  “No way. We’re only doing delivery through Christmas.” She straightened the pens and sticky notes perfectly with the edge of the counter.

  “I wouldn’t if I were you. Most of these gifts are being sent to people here in town. A few we’ll need to ship.”

  “True. I’ll put him—”

  The doorbell tinkled, and a customer entered the shop. She cheerfully greeted the shopper, dropping her glum attitude, and going into the workroom, I held the swinging doors so they wouldn’t clack shut. I was happy to have a handful of orders to process, I needed to think.

  “Where have you been?” Fanny glimmered at my nose as I turned, the orders in my hand sliced through her midsection. A small puff of smoke drifted up from her cummerbund.

  “Stop that.” I backed up so I wouldn’t walk through her. It gives me the willies to pass through her energy.

  Sandy peeked over the doors, shaking her ruffled feathers like a wet hen. “Shush! Keep it down.”

  I scooted away from the opening, and Fanny moved with me. “You didn’t come back last night. I missed you.”

  “I didn’t have time. The baby and all.” I flopped the web orders onto the workbench and searched for boxes. She paced, flittering in another oily looking mishmash of runny colors.

  “What’s wrong with you? You look terrible.” I almost snickered, but checked my humor. I shouldn’t be entertained while Belly’s murderer was loose. “Stop pacing.”

  Fanny flittered back and forth. “I’ve been thinking.”

  “Can a ghost think?” Stifling another grin, I put a stack of flat boxes on the workbench. Working felt good, it kept me from thinking too much.

  “I used to think all the time. I measured people. Buy fabric. Count money. All of that’s thinking?”

  “You must think to do. What are you thinking about?” I tried hard not to laugh at her angst over thinking.

  She perked into vibrant greenish yellow, loosing her strange watery dimension and looked more like a row of twinkling Christmas lights. “I went into the store. Then I thought about where I wanted to go next.”

  “Yeah?” I read the first order planning my route picking up the ingredients from the showroom.

  “That means I can go anywhere.”

  “Probably. Guess we were wrong about your limitations. It’s mind over matter.” I popped up two boxes and ar
ranged them side by side looking at the next order.

  “Mind over matter?” Fanny faded into her normal hazy grayscale.

  “Never mind. Don’t fret over it. You had fun at the store, then?”

  “I had more fun at the cemetery.”

  I looked up. “You went where?”

  She flickered beside her tombstone etching hanging on the wall. “It was strange, seeing where my body lies.”

  Frowning, Sandy asked over the doors. “You got time to make a quickie gift box?”

  I waved her off. “Go away. I’m never making another gift box.”

  Carrying the purchase, she walked into the workroom. “Never say never.” She almost broke a smile, but not quite. “If you’d stop talking to yourself, you’d get more work done. She’ll be back in an hour or two.” Under her breath, she hummed a bad rendition of Jingle Bells.

  “Sure.” I pointed at an open box. She laid the bath bombs, soaps and salt scrub into it, turned on her heel and flipped from the room.

  “She’s got a bug up her—”

  “Don’t say it. So, you went to the cemetery. Did you find anyone else you know… knew before you died?”

  “Gahd. I did, but did not find Willie.”

  Gathering handfuls of crinkled filler, I swished it into both boxes at once. “That’s a good thing, isn’t it?”

  I didn’t want to tell her the unlikelihood of him being buried in Hot Springs. Many things could’ve taken her child to another town where he lived and died. Until we had more evidence of what happened after she died and where Angus ended up, finding Willie would be difficult.

  “I’ll remind Anita to look for him. Maybe he served in the military or moved away. During the depression lots of people moved to California.”

  I didn’t want to give her false hope. At the moment finding Willie wasn’t paramount on my list of to-dos, but he was a good distraction.

  The doorbell tinkled, and Fanny passed into the showroom. “Who’s he? A good-looking dawster?”

  Chapter 17

  Walker

  I was about to look over the swinging doors when someone knocked on the backdoor. A muffled voice carried, and they thumped the door kicking it.

  “Coming! Hang onto your horses.” I dusted crinkle filler from my fingers and released the emergency bar with a hip to hold open the door.

  “Damn Mom. Let me in the wind’s blowing cold.” Cold air swooshed blowing crinkle filler across the workbench.

  “Ally! What are you doing? Get in here.”

  Carrying a baby carrier and diaper bag, she headed for the loveseat. “I took Allison to the doctor. Had her checked out?”

  She sat the carrier on the sofa, rubbed her hands together and grabbed my cheeks.

  “Stop that.” Her hands felt frozen. “You’re an iceberg.”

  She snuggled into me. “Warm me up.” She may be a mother, but she still needed mothering.

  “Go stand by the space heater. It’s warmer than I am.”

  I peeked into the blankets at Allison and she slept soundly. “Checked out. What does that mean? Is she sick?” My worry levels bumped up a notch.

  Ally sat down beside the carrier, sinking into it. “Dang! This couch is broken.”

  “You need coffee? I could make… No sorry, the coffeemaker is broken. There’re cocoa packets. You can microwave a cup.”

  “Like everything else around here.” Ally gurgled. “I’m good. I had Allison in the back of Jason’s van. So, I thought—”

  My head bounced in a super double-take so hard my neck popped. “You did what?”

  “Not that hard. We watched YouTube videos on how to do it.”

  My daughter is worse than me. I refused to have my head examined, but she had the nerve to give birth in a vehicle with deadbeat Jason as a coach.

  My hands landed on my hips. “A YouTube video?” I glanced over my shoulder because I did not want our resident nurse to hear that tidbit. “Whatever you do, don’t tell Sandy. She’ll have a conniption.”

  “Mom. Childbirth happens, even outside of hospitals.” Ally cocked her head, chuckling. “The worse part was the mess. He pulled the ruined carpet out of the van afterwards.”

  What was I going to do with this willful self-driven child of mine? For a starter, I’d buy her a pair of scissors to cut off those dreadlocks, after that I’d figure out the rest.

  Sandy pushed open one swinging door, but couldn’t see Ally sitting on the loveseat.

  “Uh, yeah? There’s a fellow out here.” She whispered nodding backwards over her shoulder. “Says he needs to talk to you about Belly’s murder.”

  If I could rewind this scene, I would because all I heard was Ally. She didn’t scream, it was a more sputtering stutter and a strangling choking of the word murder.

  “What is going on?” Whispering, Sandy stepped into the room. “Oh, hey. I didn’t know you were here. He’s acting kinda antsy.”

  Ally’s rosy cold cheeks faded into a ghastly gray. “Stay here with her. She didn’t know about Belly.”

  Tapping her foot, Sandy’s hands landed on her hips. “Sorry, I didn’t know. Yeah, he was murdered in the Red Head. It’s in the paper today.” Her bedside manner was exactly like her ordinary manner, abrupt and brusque, but she had a hint of sympathy underlying her normal tone.

  “Is it a reporter?” I wiped my hands on a paper towel. The night of the parade, people who saw Belly here might have gossiped. The Row couldn’t handle anymore rumors about being involved with another murder.

  I whispered, hunkering out of view of the showroom. “I don’t want to talk to anyone.”

  “He didn’t say he was a reporter. Said his name was Walker.”

  I gasped, but not louder than Ally. She hissed, cowering over the baby carrier, covering Allison. “Mom! Why didn’t you tell me already? For God’s sake.”

  Sighing, I didn’t reply. What could I say? I was keeping the news from you, because I heard Walker killed his father. Secrets were my downfall, I shouldn’t keep such big, life changing events from her.

  “Don’t let him see me—us.” Ally grabbed the community afghan and tossed it over herself and the carrier.

  “See who?” Walker, six-feet tall, sapphire blue eyes, square shoulders and jaw, looked over the swinging doors. Sandy backed up, spreading her hands like she could keep him from seeing Ally ridiculously hiding under the throw.

  “Walker, what a surprise. We need to talk, don’t we?” I jumped into the doors, pushing him back out of my way.

  “Who’s that?” He glanced over the top of the doors, trying to get another glimpse of Ally.

  “Etta. Our part-time girl. She’s feeling sick. Stomach virus. I told her to go home.”

  At this point, lying to him didn’t matter, but I was glad to see him.

  Walker stepped back, cramming his fists into his jacket pockets. “Guess I’m… intruding. I need a… friendly face.” His chin quivered as he held back tears.

  Poor kid, while I was worrying about myself and Ally, he needed support. Before the big breakup, I had treated him more like a son than just my daughter’s boyfriend. “You can talk to me…it’s fine.”

  My eyes burned, but I gathered my gumption for both our sakes. He needed comfort, and I needed to make sure he hadn’t murdered his father.

  “Come sit behind the counter. On the stool.” Scooting toward the front door, I flipped over the closed sign and snapped the deadbolt locked. And I took the time to glance both directions on the sidewalk, no telling who might be lurking about ready to pounce on the Row.

  Peeking through the doors, Sandy got the message I sent by locking the door, and she flipped off all the showroom lights. Going over to the counter, I stayed on the opposite side of it, putting a solid between me and Walker.

  From the glazed look in his bloodshot eyes, he hadn’t shaved in days or slept.

  “Can’t have a funeral until the coroner releases his body.” He was cut from his father’s cloth, stating the facts clearly,
even if they were disturbing.

  “I am so sorry.” Now I wish I’d taken Teddy’s clue and gone to visit the kid on his own turf. A girly soap shop wasn’t the place for him to share his father’s last needs. He bit his lip and focused on a pen lying crooked on the counter.

  “He was here.” I worked hard trying to keep it together. I don’t know if it was because of his father’s death or if I wanted to scream—Ally’s back and you have a baby.

  “We chatted on the loveseat, he said something about the Floyds… gangsters. Were you aware of the problems he was having?”

  “Yeah. We talked about that kid. I didn’t think he’d go this far, though. He’s kinda wormy, but I don’t think he’s a killer.”

  Walker sighed, and his weary gaze looked unfocused and dreamy. Sandy would diagnosis him with shock. Trying not to mother, but I asked, “When did eat last?”

  His parched lips meant he was dehydrated. If Ally wasn’t hiding in the workroom, I’d take this poor kid in there, give him a bottle of water and prop up his legs.

  Just then, a cold breeze passed along the floor, creeping up, giving me a chill, then the security door thudded shut. The coast had been cleared, Ally left and I took a big breath.

  “He also mentioned a sheikh picking up a truck.”

  “The step side? Huh? I didn’t know.” He winced, pressing his fingers into his eyelids. “We’re stilling waiting on one last part… he wouldn’t have.”

  “Etta, our girl,” I twirled my finger at the cake plates holding the soaps. “Rode on the bathtub throwing soaps for us, she said he was drunk.”

  Pausing, I gave him a moment. He huffed, holding back and this time, he breathed deeply.

  Putting an elbow on the counter, he rested his chin in his palm. “It’s not suicide, he was shot with a high caliber pistol, through the Red Head’s window. His brains splattered all over the passenger seat.”

  My stomach lurched. Just about every child in Hot Springs rode beside Belly in the passenger seat, including Ally and Craig, and now I’ll remember his description instead of my sweet memories. He hadn’t killed his father, I know it, and shame on Dick for even suggesting such a horrific thing.