Fifteen

“Good girl.” Dawn was sitting cross-legged on the couch when I walked back into the RV. She was having Fifi do tricks for treats for Mary Elizabeth, who was sitting next to her. Fifi had been trained to do many tricks before I had her, and she was good at it. That was one of the things that had made her a champion. . . until I ruined it by letting Rosco around her.

“Still here,” I mumbled the observation, noticing that Fifi had warmed up to Dawn. But when Dawn looked at me, her eyes were puffy and red.

“Me or her?” Mary Elizabeth asked.

“Are you okay?” I took a good look at Dawn before I started to yell about how I knew she was friends with Reed Fowler, the paparazzi that’d followed Dawn to Normal.

“She didn’t kill Nadine.” Mary Elizabeth chirped up, all while rubbing the back of Dawn’s back, comforting her.

“No. I’m not okay. My best friend is dead. Remember?” She shifted, pushing her legs out in front of her and curling Fifi in her arms. As though she had just processed with Mary Elizabeth had said, she retorted, “Did you just say I didn’t kill Nadine? Of course, I didn’t kill her. I’m just not doing well with this. No one will help me. I’ve called the police and I called that detective. No one will tell me anything. I need to go see her.”

“We’ve talked.” Mary Elizabeth pushed Dawn’s legs together. “Honey, southern ladies don’t sit with their legs spread as wide as Texas.”

“You’re giving her lessons in manners?” I looked at Mary Elizabeth in disbelief. “Listen, I know that you lied to me.” I tugged my coat off and hung it up. I took my notebook out of my purse and sat down at the table. “You acted as though you were in Chicago when I called you this morning. Then you told me that you were on your way. You showed up fast. Then I found out you’d gone to the Cookie Crumble  Bakery and got donuts.”

“I never once told you I was in Chicago. How did you know I live in Chicago?” Dawn asked me with a scowl on her face.

“Her boyfriend probably told her.” Mary Elizabeth shrugged. I glared at her.

“Who is your boyfriend?” Dawn had a demanding tone in her voice.

“Detective Hunky Hank.” Mary Elizabeth winked.

Dawn’s brows rose.

“You actually told me you came from Chicago.” It wasn’t a lie. She did tell me earlier, but Mary Elizabeth didn’t know that. “My friend Abby Fawn is sitting in jail right now because she’s suspected of killing your friend. If you think for one second that it sounds perfectly normal that you lied to me about being in town and now that we know Nadine wasn’t killed by that knife and it was pois. . .” My lips snapped together.

“Spit it out.” Mary Elizabeth eased to the edge of the couch. “What about the knife and something else?”

“You were going to say poison, weren’t you?” Dawn sat up next to Mary Elizabeth, both of their beady eyes snapping at me.

“Did you poison the donut you gave Nadine? Did you kill her because you two didn’t speak for a long time?” I questioned her like I’d seen on TV. My voice was stern. I wanted to smack my hand down on the kitchen table for effect, but I refrained since Fifi was already shaking from me yelling.

“This is nuts. Get a hold of yourself.” Mary Elizabeth stood up and tugged the hem of her Christmas cardigan sweater down over the waist of her black slacks. The bells that were sewn on the collar around Rudolph’s neck on her sweater jingled and his nose lit up.

Fifi growled and then barked at it.

“Tell her where you were.” Mary Elizabeth drew her pointer finger from Dawn to me to get her to do it. “Go on.”

“Fine. Nadine called me to come here for the holiday and help her bake. I’m a pastry chef in Chicago. Though you probably already know that.” She rolled her eyes as the sarcasm dripped from her mouth. “We’d gotten in an argument years ago when she decided to take a pen name. I told her not to, but she insisted she didn’t want people to know she wrote all the dirty talking stuff.” She uncurled her arms and clasped her hands in her lap.

Mary Elizabeth pushed Dawn’s knees together. Heaven help poor Mary Elizabeth, she was trying to keep manners alive and well while she was still kicking.

“Nadine came to Chicago to see me. We had so much fun reconnecting. She’d forgiven me after all these years and said that she did regret not keeping Dembrowski as her author name. Then she said that she was going to do this cookbook and fire Valerie. She also said that Valerie insisted she come with her here. I told her it wasn’t a good idea if she was going to fire her, but she insisted she owed it to Valerie to tell her in person.”

So far, everything I’d uncovered was coming together, but I still heard a few inconsistencies and wrote a few things down in my notebook.

“Tell her where you were last night at the time of Nadine’s death.” Mary Elizabeth tapped Dawn on the shoulder. 

“I’m getting there.” Dawn sat up even straighter. “Nadine made some sort of deal with Ty Randal to use his kitchen at night to test the recipes for her new cookbook.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “She met with him the day she got into town. The same day Reed Fowler showed up.”

“She also met with Hank to talk about security.” I recalled the event well.

“Yes. She was upset about that because she gave Hank a piece of paper with the restraining order against Reed.” Quickly I remembered the piece of paper Nadine White had scribbled on at the diner and handed to Hank. I’d been so focused on her flirting with him and the written words from her steamy romance novel along with the fear she might test her words out on him, I’d forgotten to ask him what was on the paper.

“A restraining order,” I said with a sigh of relief. “That still doesn’t clear you of killing her. You’re jealous of her.”

“Far from it. I don’t hide behind my creations and I told her not to hide behind her talent, but she couldn’t see past her ego and I think that’s what got her in trouble.” She drummed her fingertips together.

 “Go on.” Mary Elizabeth encouraged her. “Tell her your alibi so we can put this behind us and get the real killer.”

“Nadine, Ty, and I worked on a few of Nadine’s ideas yesterday afternoon. Her recipes are really good. Ty even told her he’d let her serve some to his customers during her stay here, so she could get some feedback. She even took me by surprise.” She smiled at the memory of her and her friend. “She got a phone call from Valerie.”

This got my attention.

“Valerie had fixed up a basket of goodies to give to your local librarian, which I’m assuming is your friend, Abby. Because I met her.” She swallowed so hard, I could she her throat move up and down. She licked her lips.

“Yes. You met her here.” I shrugged.

“No. I saw her when Nadine took the basket to the library. But I don’t think she saw my face.” The lines between Dawn’s eyes deepened. “Ty and I found a chemistry between us that lead to a passionate kiss. Abby let herself in the diner and saw us kissing.”

You could’ve knocked my teeth out and I wouldn’t’ve felt it, her words so caught me off guard and numbed me.

“Yeah. I think she was a little shocked and he was upset. I tried to tell him it was no big deal and that we weren’t anything, but he said something about this town and small talk and Abby.” She blinked several times. “I think he even mentioned you.”

“Are you telling me you were with Ty Randal all night long and he didn’t try to go find Abby?” I questioned. No wonder Abby was out of her mind and shocked all night.

“Yes, but not like you’re thinking. We started drinking after Abby wouldn’t talk to him. So I stayed there to make sure he was okay until we practically passed out from being so tired. When I got your call, I woke up in one of the diner’s booths. He’d left me a note on the table.” She pointed to her jacket. “It’s in the pocket.”

I hurried over to her jacket and took the note she’d referred to out of the pocket.

It was Ty’s scribble. I recognized it. He said he was going to go look for Abby. He was sorry for any problems he’d caused. It was just like him to apologize. Deep down I blamed Dawn. Though. . .there were two sides to every story and Ty shouldn’t have kissed Dawn.

“Ty is your alibi.” I had mixed emotions about this. I was glad she hadn’t killed her best friend, but I was sad on numerous levels for Abby. Now I had only two suspects. “You’re going to need to tell Hank all of this. He’s coming here for supper tonight.”

I told her about Hank coming over so she could figure out a place to stay. I was going to make it easy on her and let her stay with Valerie in Nadine’s camper since the police had cleared it, although I hadn’t seen Valerie since the police station.

“What do you know about Valerie’s job?” I asked. I wanted to know all the particulars to learn why Valerie Young would have a great motive to have killed Nadine.

“She’s the agent. She is the one who negotiates all of Nadine’s book contracts with the publisher. All the deals she made for Nadine, she got fifteen percent of each deal.” Dawn rubbed her fingers and thumbs together in the money sign gesture.

“For the life of the book?” I asked.

Dawn’s chin slowly lifted up and then down.

“How long is the life of a book?” I asked.

“Forever.” Dawn’s word had some force behind it. “Even if Nadine fired her, Valerie will still make fifteen percent of all the deals she’s made so far. Nadine said that sales do drop off after a period of time, but. . .” Dawn stopped.

I had a niggling feeling she was keeping something to herself.

“What? What were you going to say?” I had to get it out of her.

“I hate to even say it out loud and I’m not going to say that it will happen with Nadine, but you see it with stars all the time.” Dawn gnawed on the inside of the cheek. “Sometimes stars become more famous in death than they were alive, which would mean Nadine’s work so far would go up in value.”

“You have to go tell Hank all of this now.” It made so much sense why Valerie would kill Nadine.

“I’ll take her down to see him.” Mary Elizabeth walked over to get her fur coat and matching hat. “Come on, honey. We need to get this over with.”

Reluctantly, Dawn stood up.

“This town is really going to hate me now. I probably broke up a good relationship.” Dawn put her jacket on.

“No one is going to hate you.” Mary Elizabeth looked ridiculous in that fur, but she loved it.

The pairing of Dawn and Mary Elizabeth struck me as odd, but it kept them both out of my hair.

“You can even stay with me tonight.” Mary Elizabeth winked at me on her way out.

After they left, I went back over my notebook and notes, crossing Dawn off my list, but not Reed or Valerie.

I jerked the door open when I heard a knock.

“What did you forget?” I asked and found Hank standing there holding a brown bag of Chinese food.

“You forgot me, didn’t you?” He looked hurt.

“Not at all.” I opened the RV door wide to let him in. “Mary Elizabeth and Dawn Gentry just left. They’re going to the station to give her statement.”

“Yeah. I know about that.” He picked up Fifi, who was yapping at him. “Let’s take her for a walk before we eat so we can have some time to talk.”

I wanted to run to the bathroom to get a look in the mirror but there was no sense in doing that. He’d already seen me and if I was going to put on all that snow garb, it wouldn’t make a difference anyways.

“Fifi,” I called her name and held up her coat. She bounced over with a wagging tail and yipped until I got the coat on her.

“Ty came to see Abby at the station. She was pretty upset,” Hank told me pretty much the same thing Dawn had said.

 It turned out to be a nice winter night for a stroll. The snow had stopped, and the stars were out. Along with the moon, they shined so bright they lit our way.

“I know Ty and I aren’t the best of friends, but I do kinda feel for the guy.” Hank reached over. His gloved hand took my gloved hand as we walked through the campground with Fifi darting in and out of the snow piles in front of us. “I got you from him,” he teased.

“Stop it. He’s more suited for Abby. I just don’t know what happened with Dawn and him.” It was so out of character for Ty. “It gives him and Dawn an alibi.”

“And Abby too.” He pulled me to him. “I figured I’d tell you that and you’d wrap your arms around me, giving me another one of those kisses.”

“You are ruthless.” I shoved him away. When our arms extended, our fingers locked together harder and I tugged him back. “Tell me how she’s got an alibi?”

“Well, since you already bribed Colonel into telling you the stab was the secondary wound that happened after Nadine’s heart had already stopped, Abby has an alibi for up until she found Nadine. One being the time frame she was at the diner in shock. She then ran over to the library and that’s when she found Nadine. By then, Nadine had been dead an hour.”

“That’s when Abby was at Queenie’s Jazzercise class.” I dropped his hands and clapped my hands together in delight. I turned to Hank. “You’re right! I could just kiss you, but. . .” I reached down and grabbed two handfuls of snow, making the biggest snow ball and throwing at him.

He ran after me with Fifi yipping on our heels. He tackled me to the ground. Both of us were giggling like we were teenagers.

“You sure are something else, Mae West.” Hank’s voice created an echo in the night sky as both of us fell on our backs into the fluffy snow.

“This is great snow for snow angels.” I swiped my arms and legs open and closed in the deep snow to make one.

Even if I’d not figured out who’d killed Nadine White, the weight of worrying about clearing Abby was lifted off of me.

“Let’s go. I’m starving.” Hank and I stood up in front of our snow angels. “Aww. Cute.”

“They are cute.” I smiled and made a mental picture in my head of the two snow angels that looked like they were holding hands, so I wouldn’t forget this time. It was adorable. And when Hank heard all my theories about Nadine’s killer, he might regret he’d asked me to keep my nose and ear to the ground.

“Something on your mind?” He looked at me out of the corner of his eye as we were walking back to the RV. “Do I dare ask if it’s about Nadine White?”

“Since you dare, I shall tell you,” I teased hoping to cut through the tension I was feeling about it. “I think Valerie Young has a strong motive since she was Nadine’s agent. It’s been no secret that everyone who had come in direct contact with Nadine said that she was going to fire Valerie.”

He was so good at listening this time without interrupting me. Or he just tuned me out. I was going with the idea he was listening, so I continued to tell him my theory and how Dawn had told me about the fifteen percent for life.

“It’s true.” I agreed one-hundred percent with the idea stars sometimes become more popular in death. “Michael Jackson. Prince,” I rattled off a couple of my all-time favorite stars. “Their album sales went through the roof. The same could be true for Nadine White. If Valerie knew Nadine was going to fire her, Valerie had to be thinking about her income. What better way to make it go up then rely on the fact that Nadine White’s work would go up in value, making her income continue. Or at least giving her a jolt of income that could sustain her until she landed another big client.”

“You make a very good point and I agree.” Those words coming out of his mouth made my heart soar. We were connecting on so many levels that I truly believed my stars had aligned and my soul mate was actually right here in front of me. In Normal, Kentucky of all places. “If we could only find her.”

“What?” I took my coat off once we were inside and took his from him, hanging them on the hook to dry.

He took off Fifi’s leash and handed her a treat. She grabbed it and ran to her little bed near the front of the RV and began gnawing on it.

It was like Hank and I had a rhythm. He opened the Chinese bags and took out the containers while I grabbed a couple of plates.

“She came to the station to talk to me after she heard about Nadine.” He put air quotes around heard as if he didn’t believe her. He took a bottle of wine out of one of the bags and grabbed two coffee mugs since I didn’t have wine glasses. He poured some in each and set them down on the table. “She said she was going to go back to the camper after we cleared it. I’ve called the phone number she gave me, and the phone has been disconnected. We’ve had a ranger camped out in the park behind the camper to watch for any movement.”

“And?” I asked. We passed the containers between us, sharing them and putting some on our plates.

“She’s not been back. Have you noticed anything?”

“No. I was waiting to go over and give my condolences while figuring out how long she’d be staying, not to mention snoop a little.” Now I wasn’t going to wait to just let myself in and look around. “But I’m sure y’all combed the place.”

“We took some fingerprints. That’s about it. We found a few prints that weren’t Abby’s at the scene and I’m hoping to see if any of them match. We sent them off and should have those back in a day or so.” He picked at the beef and broccoli with his fork until he found a bite.

“What about Reed Fowler?” I asked.

“What about him? We had him arrested.” Hank didn’t see it as big of a deal as me.

“When?” I asked.

“The day you saw me and Nadine at the diner. That was him taking photos of her.” The images of his and Nadine’s fingers touching played in my head as she handed him that paper, which I knew was now the restraining order. “That’s when she told me about the restraining order she had against him. Apparently, if anyone got wind about what she was working on while she was here, there was a huge reward from one of those slimy magazines.”

“Yeah. I knew that. But I think he might be a good suspect to look at too. Because he has the monetary motive like Valerie. Plus,” I put my finger up when Hank went to say something, so I could finish my thought, “he had to be mad that she took out a restraining order against him and had him thrown in jail.”

“I’d say he would be a good suspect, but he’s still in jail. His hearing to post bond was postponed due to the judge not being able to get to the courthouse in this weather.” Hank’s words deflated me.

I sure thought my sleuthing skills were getting better and better.

“Okay, then. . .” I sighed deeply and reached over to the kitchen counter from my chair to grab the notebook. “I’ve got to cross him off my list.”

That only left me with one person. Valerie Young.

Not only did she have the perfect motive, she’d disappeared. Looked guilty to me.