Doggone Dead (12 page)

“I’m tryin’ to tell you folks, I don’t serve ice cream here. This is a coffee shop,” Earl said, wiping his hands on his apron.

“But they said free ice cream.”

“Who said it?”

I pulled the boys back toward the doorway.

“Where’s Mama?” Danny asked.

“I don’t know.”

“I have to find Mama,” Danny said.

“No, we need to stay here until Uncle Judd tells us it’s safe.”

“Is he with Mama?”

“Probably.” I had no idea where my father was or if Maggie was with him. Having Danny walking around out there was not an option. He outweighed me by about 60 pounds, and stopping him would have been difficult. After losing his father, Danny’s greatest fear was losing his mom.

“Oh! My Noodles!” Mellie Nicholson cried from behind me. “Why did he have to go and shoot Noodles?” Much to Earl’s relief, the assembled crowd turned their attention to her and her granddaughter. They were still unaware of anything other than free ice cream. Had the shooter wanted to kill the dog? I was beginning to become leery of duded-up cowboys. I wondered if I hadn’t been the object of the shooter, who just happened to be a lousy shot.

“It was the ghost of Charlie Loper,” one old man said in the crowd. “I recognized his six gun. He’s back to right the wrong perpetrated against his daughter by this town.”

People all around him whispered in agreement. “He’ll not rest until he searches out the wrongdoers.”

“Wait a minute,” I said, raising my hand before the man procured a posse and a hanging rope. “If he is after the wrongdoers, wouldn’t that have been Hunter Grayson, the butler who was stealing from her? Why would he randomly target a poodle in the parade?”

“Don’t know, but he was shooting at Ben’s Bayou Restaurant just a few days ago.”

“Betsy was there, she knows about that,” Danny volunteered. The crowd’s eyes now turned toward me.

The old man’s bony finger extended across the room to me. “It’s you! You’re the one the ghost wants. What have you done to his daughter? Were you in cahoots with the butler?”

I could feel the crowd moving in on me even though no one had taken a step. My grasp on Zach tightened.

“First of all, there’s no such thing as a ghost who shoots live bullets. Second, I didn’t even know that woman lived in that house until our dog crawled under her gate.”

“That’s it. Charlie Loper thinks you stole her dog.”

Zach squared off with his hands on his hips. “We never stole that dog. She stole him from us.”

“Yeah,” Danny said, duplicating Zach’s pose.

“How could you?” Mellie Nicholson said. “How could you endanger all of us with your petty squabble with a ... ghost?”

“We need to get away from this woman. She’s raised the ire of the ghost,” the old man said, pointing that bony finger my way. In silent agreement, the people rose from the floor and started leaving the store, glancing back at us.

“I don’t think it’s safe to leave yet,” I said.

“It’s a hell of a lot safer than being around you,” said the old man. He picked up his dachshund, decorated like a hot dog, and hugged it to his chest.

As the people started toward the doorway, it became filled with my father and George, standing there blocking their way.

“Sorry, folks. I’m going to have to ask you to stay for just a few more minutes,” my father said.

“It’s not safe here. That woman is going to get us all killed!” one woman shrieked. “We have to get the children out.”

“What woman?” my father asked. They all turned and pointed to me. My father smiled and nodded.

“I think you’re safe, but why would being around her make you targets?”

“Because,” Nora Nicholson said, “obviously if you had been paying attention, Officer, you would have put together the clues that this lady is the person the cowboy was trying to hit. He tried to kill her at the restaurant and now in the parade. It’s her fault that the cowboy ghost shot my grandma’s dog.”

“Ya know, you got a point there,” Judd drawled. “Still, I need to ask you-all some questions.” With that the crowd collectively groaned, and I started to feel a little less like I was about to be lynched.

“I saw the ghost of Charlie Loper up on the balcony over at Simmons Hardware,” a man in the crowd said.

“No,” said another woman, “he was in the window over the locksmith shop. It was clear as day.”

“No, no, he’s right,” said Nora. “I saw him too, and it was over Simmons Hardware where Santa Claus stands every year at Christmas.”

“Dad,” I said, “not to complicate things any more than I have already, but I saw him in both places – first over the hardware store and then over the locksmith shop.”

“How long in between those two sightings?”

“That’s the weird part. I saw him over the hardware store. Then, only seconds later, he was over the locksmith store.”

“Did he have a gun?”

“I saw one when he was over the hardware store,” I said. “When he was in the upper window of the locksmith shop, he just stood there with his arms to his side, and the next time I looked he was gone.”

“Ghosts can’t hold their earthly orbs for too long, you know,” my Aunt Maggie said, pushing her way through the door.

“Mama!” shouted Danny, who jumped up and hugged her small form.

“You knew I’d find you bubby,” she said. “Besides, I knew you were safe and sound with Betsy and Zach.”

“And Butch. Don’t forget Butch,” Danny said, smiling.

Maggie turned to face the crowd. “I am a member of the Pecan Bayou Paranormal Society, and I can tell you that Charlie Loper probably expended all of his energy just shootin’ at that poor unfortunate dog.”

The crowd nodded, respecting the expert in the room. Too bad I didn’t quite agree with her theory. Where does a ghost get a gun? The haunted pawn shop?

“Maggie,” my father said. “Did you see this cowboy?”

“Yes, I did. He appeared to me as a full apparition over Simmons Hardware.”

“Did you see him on the other side?”

“No, sorry to say, that was all I experienced.”

“What about Noodles?” Mellie Nicholson said.

George cut in. “Don’t worry, ma’am. We’re finding Dr. Springer to see to your dog. Someone said she ran back to the clinic to get something right before the parade.”

I hadn’t seen Dr. Springer since the beginning of the parade when she was lining us up. I would have thought she would have stayed to see the parade she worked so hard to organize. Hopefully she would get to Noodles soon, but from the looks of the dog, the bullet had ended its life. A few inches more and it might have been me laying out that street. I shivered at the thought of it. Had the shooter been trying to get me? And if so, what for? I had never done anything but discover Hunter Grayson. Maybe it was really the ghost of Hunter Grayson back to get me for climbing his stupid fence.

Now that the crowd had settled down and begun to disperse, I gathered Zach and Butch to leave. Maggie and Danny followed behind us. How could the shooter be on both sides of the street at the same time? Was there really a pistol-packing ghost out there? It almost made me want to believe it. That was the easiest theory.

As we entered Main Street I saw several others straggling out of the stores and folding up chairs. Mayor Obermeyer was straightening his toupee as Rocky Whitson was attempting to get a “man on the street” interview from him for the paper. Benny’s Barbecue had reopened its doors, no longer worrying about dogs straying in. Several people were now rocking in the rocking chairs usually filled by tourists, drinking sweet tea and fanning themselves in the heat.

Noodles was still in a sad heap in the street. From behind me, Mellie Nicholson and her granddaughter ran out to their dog. A mournful wail came from Mellie as she approached the dog.

“Betsy. Will the white dog be all right?” Danny asked.

“I don’t think so, Danny.”

“What’s wrong with him?”

“Don’t worry about him,” Aunt Maggie said. “Dr. Springer will do all she can for the dog, but sometimes...”

I looked up to the balcony where the cowboy shooter had stood. It couldn’t have really been the ghost of Charlie Loper. Whoever it was had to have entered through Simmons Hardware and then taken the stairs in the back behind the windshield wiper display.

“We were lucky,” Zach said. “It could have been Butch. Just what did Charlie Loper have against dogs anyway?”

I didn’t stop to correct him and to acknowledge what was going on in my head. Charlie Loper – or whoever it was – hadn’t been aiming for the dog. He had been aiming for me.

“Are you okay?” Adam Cole came from around the corner holding the leashes of both Sunshine and Elena Morris’s border collie.

“Yes, we’re fine,” I said, “but the dog in front of us was shot. Where is Elena? Is she all right?” Adam glanced out into the street where Noodles was awaiting veterinary assistance.

“Elena is fine. She had to work the scene, so she handed me her dog. You know, Betsy, nothing personal, but I’m really glad I got bumped in line. Being next to you seems to be a dangerous thing.”

“Yes, I need to put that on my dating profile – ‘draws sniper fire.’”

“Well, look, the two of you are together again and there’s a shooting!” Rocky snapped a picture, leaving a flash trailing across my eyeballs.

“Rocky, I hate to disappoint you, but Adam and I were not standing together this time.”

“That’s okay,” he said. “The town will want to know what local celebrities were victims to the specter of Charlie Loper.”

“Really? That’s the headline you’re going with, Rocky?”

“Ghosts sell papers, sweetheart.”

“Ghosts don’t shoot guns,” I said.

“Nope, but that’s not my problem.” Rocky started walking away with his camera.

I shouted after him. “Rocky, I don’t give you my permission to use that picture! The last one got me in trouble with...” I stopped cold. Did I really want to announce my relationship status across Main Street?

“With whom?” Adam asked.

“With ... oh ... It’s none of your business.”

I turned and discovered that Maggie had taken Danny, Zach and the puppy into the ice cream parlor, which was now having the biggest rush in its history of doing business. I knew Maggie was probably trying to get her son and nephew away from the now-dead corpse of Noodles. I turned back to Adam.

“I need to go,” I said and started walking across the street to Simmons Hardware.

“You know, Betsy, now that I’ve been here a while, I’ve started hearing stories about you,” he said.

“Not all bad, I hope.”

“No, but you do seem to run across an inordinate amount of crime scenes. I don’t know whether to arrest you or put you on the payroll.”

“Money’s always nice,” I said and ducked into Simmons. I made my way to the back of the store and tried the door to the stairs. I had never really been up the stairs before, although I had seen the door open from time to time. I shot up the stairs and found a storeroom with boxes stacked high containing various auto repair manuals. I squirmed through them and found Pecan Bayou crime scene tape stretched across the doors that led to the balcony. Here we were in small-town Texas with our very own book depository crime scene. I didn’t need to see so much where the shooter stood but needed to know how he could have gotten from one side of the street to the other so quickly. I glanced at the second hand on my watch and started down the stairs and took the back alley behind the store. From there I ran around the other store. The only way I could get across the street in a hurry would be to actually cross the street. The ghost of Charlie Loper would have stuck out in full cowboy garb. There was no way a shooter could get from one side to the other in that amount of time.

“Betsy.” I recognized my father’s voice from behind me. “What are you doing?”

“Trying to figure out how whoever shot at us ended up in two places at once.”

My father sighed. “Yeah, well, just don’t get in the way.” He paused and then admitted, “Actually, I’ve been doing the same thing.”

“I just tried timing it, and it would have taken at least two minutes to cross the street and go up the stairs on the other side.”

“There’s no explaining it,” my father said.

“Unless it was truly the ghost of Charlie Loper.” Aunt Maggie stood behind us with a fresh cone of rocky road ice cream.

The next morning I woke up with a slight headache, which became less slight when I saw the special Saturday edition of the Pecan Bayou Gazette.

“Town Victims of Crazed Ghost!” screamed the headline.  Rocky had filled the front page with eyewitness interviews, pictures of people in the parade, pictures of dogs in the parade, and of course his celebrity corner with me, Adam and the mayor. Today’s paper would have made The Enquirer envious. Too bad we didn’t have Elvis’s alien baby in the parade. That would have sold a few copies.

The town of Pecan Bayou was hoping for a big turnout for the Watermelon Festival. With a front page like this, we might have to rent more port-a-potties. Leo had talked about coming down for the festival, but after our last conversation I wasn’t counting on it. He’d seemed pretty mad, and then my switching the emails between him and Adam probably finished off my last chance at having a fulfilling relationship in my life. Maybe if I tried to call him, I could sort some things out.

I started to reach for my cell phone but then heard the squeak of my back door opening. Could this be him now, ready to forgive and forget? So what if he had pictorial proof of my dating another man behind his back. So what if he had an email proof of my pursuit of another guy. Anyone could get past that, right?

“Betsy?”

“In here, Dad,” I said.

“Is Zach up yet?”

“No, I was letting him sleep. After all the excitement yesterday, he had a hard time settling down last night.”

“Two scoops of bubble gum ice cream probably didn’t hurt too much, either.”

“Did you see the paper? Rocky has gone tabloid on us.”

“Yes, I did. We called over some relief help from Andersonville for today. We just don’t know what to expect.”

“I thought you were on limited duty?” I said.

“No such thing around here.”

“You think the shooter might try again?”

“I think,” Dad pulled out a chair and set his Stetson on the table, “I think that the shooter might try again – and that the person the shooter is trying to get is you.”

“Me? You think Charlie Loper has some crazed vendetta against me for organizing his daughter’s house?”

“I don’t know for sure, darlin’, but I’m thinking you need to hand your beauty pageant judgin’ to somebody else today.”

“Dad, I can’t do that. I promised Stan and Rocky.”

“Oh, Rocky – the one who just plastered your picture on the front page for the second time in the last week?”

“Okay, I promised Stan,” I countered.

“Betsy, you aren’t seeing things clearly. Whoever this shooter is, they have two victims now.”

“Two people? Are we really classifying Noodles as a human, now?”

“No, we’re not.” Dad bit his lower lip, making his cop mustache wiggle slightly. “We found Dr. Springer this morning.”

I pulled out a chair and joined him at the table. “Where? I didn’t hear about this.”

“We haven’t let the media know about this yet. It’s kind of a strange thing, but we might have solved the mystery of the ghost of Charlie Loper.”

“You found the ghost?” I stopped to think about this revelation and struggled with a basic fact.

“Shouldn’t that person be dead?”

“No, we found Dr. Springer...nearly dead.”

“What does that have to do with the ghost of Charlie Loper?”

“We aren’t sure yet, except for the fact that we found her dressed up like a cowboy.”

This wasn’t making any sense. I had seen Dr. Springer right before we started the parade.

“And she was shot? Who shot her?”

“That’s the part of the mystery we’re still figuring out.”

“The last person I saw her talking to was...” I searched my mind. “Clay and Lina Bonnet. They were at the front of the line.”

“Okay. Was she dressed like a cowboy then?”

“No,” I said. “Why would she dress like Charlie Loper, and why would she be shooting at me?”

“Did you pay your bill on time?”

“Dad,” I scolded. Gallows humor was a sure sign of a lifetime cop.

“Where did you find her?”

“She was in the alley behind Earl’s Java underneath some black plastic bags. Earl didn’t discover her until he took out the trash this morning.

Just another reason to decaffeinate.

“Is she okay?” I asked.

“We can’t be sure yet. She lost a lot of blood, but it looks like she made a homemade pressure bandage to try to stop the bleeding.”

“Did she say who might have shot her? Did she shoot herself?”

“From the lack of searing or powder burns on her body, we feel she was possibly shot by someone else. We can’t be sure who shot her. She wasn’t able to talk when we got to her,” he said. “Whoever shot her, they left her for dead.  I guess she was just like one of those cats she treats and had a few extra lives to trade on. She’s in a coma right now.”

“So, Dr. Springer was impersonating Charlie Loper and could be our shooter, but we can't question her if she’s in a coma and possibly shot by someone else? Do the doctors think she'll come out of it?”

“Maybe,” my dad replied. “One thing we figure is that whoever shot her wanted her dead, and for all intents and purposes we are saying she’s dead. We have her in the hospital under another name. So if all of this is true, I need you to be out of danger. Is there any way you could cancel all of your public appearances for the few weeks?”

“‘If’ is the word I’m going to focus on in that sentence,” I said. “So let me counter you with an ‘if.’ If I promise to be vigilant, safe and observant, will you lighten up?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“No.”

We heard little feet shuffling into the kitchen. Zach was standing there with his slingshot in his hand. “Don’t worry, grandpa. I’ll protect Mom. I can get a shot off from pretty far these days.”

“Yeah, well, it’s just lucky for us all that even though I’m under investigation, Chief Wilson has agreed to let me be out there with my gun and my badge today.”

“So do you think he’s starting to realize that Bonnet’s charge is false?”

“The only thing I’ve heard lately is that the Bonnets seem to have something else to share with Mr. Cole,” he said. “There’s some sort of additional evidence now.”

“Well, I’ve been looking through all the pictures I turned in and can’t see anything else that could be interpreted as planting evidence,” I said with my hand across my heart.

“No, it’s something weird. Did you know that the Bonnet farm used to be a ranch run by Charlie Loper?”

Now that was amazing. “No, when did they buy it?”

“That’s the thing. They didn’t. They’ve been renting it for the last ten years. At least that’s what Clay told the chief.”

“So who were they paying rent to? Hunter Grayson?”

“I guess so. I suppose Libby is handling it now,” he said. “I don’t like the idea of her having to go out there and collect rent from those people.”

I envisioned their Rottweiler growling at her when she tried to collect rent. She would do well to get rid of them as tenants.

“If I had to put money on this, as of yesterday I would have pointed at the Bonnets to be Ghost Charlie. Now with Dr. Springer found dressed up like him, I don’t know what to think.”

“Did she have a gun on her?” I asked.

“Nope, and Art Rivera didn’t see any powder burns on her hands. She might have been dressed like Charlie Loper, but she hadn’t shot a gun.”

“Maybe Dr. Springer was a decoy,” I said.

“Could be. And if she was, the shooter is still out there.”

“Shooting most of the time near me. I would say at me, but it’s always near me.”

“Maybe someone is trying to scare you,” said my father.

“They’ve accomplished that,” I admitted. “I wish they’d move on to something else on their list.”

“Darlin’, I would like for you to wear something today.”

He rose from the table and went out the back door with a squeak and a slam. He returned momentarily, carrying a white vest connected together with Velcro.

“This here is a covert Kevlar bulletproof vest. You can wear it under your blouse and no one will know the difference.”

“Dad! Do you know how hot is out there today? It’s the freakin’ Fourth of July! I’ll die of heatstroke.”

“Yeah, well at least we can treat that better than a bullet wound,” he said.

“Mom, you need to wear this.” Zach put his hands together, pleading. “Please.”

I had planned on wearing a white tank top with blue shorts today. Now I’d have to wear something to cover this monstrosity.

“Okay, okay. I’ll wear the darn thing. But you’d better be running large cups of sweet tea my way every fifteen minutes.”

*****

After Dad left, I had the rest of morning to get ready for the pageant. I was scheduled to be there at 12:30 and planned to enjoy being cool before I had to put on the heavy vest my father had left for me.

I decided to try to call Fitzpatrick one more time. If he had checked out the paper on the Internet today, I had to make it clear to him that I had no interest in Adam Cole. This was probably better than an email, and now I would tell him everything. As I rehearsed in my mind what I would say, I realized something a little bit scary. This was more important to me than I had thought.

The phone rang on the other end, two and then three times.

“Hello.” His tone was abrupt.

“Leo? Is that you?”

“Yes.”

“Leo, I just wanted to say to you that...”

“Betsy, this isn’t necessary. I understand.”

“But it is necessary. You need to know that I was never involved...”

“Betsy. I saw your picture. Twice.”

“You did?”

“Sure. Your latest escapade was caught in the Pecan Bayou Gazette online today, and while I have to say I’m extremely upset you’ve been shot at again, I was also not pleased to see you standing with Cole.”

Darn that Pecan Bayou Gazette online. Just another reason to take Rocky off my Christmas list.

“No, you don’t understand. Adam had just walked up to me and...”

He stopped me cold. “Betsy.”

“Yes?”

“Are you all right?”

I was quiet for a moment. I felt my insides melt. Maybe he was going to forgive me. It felt so good.

“Yes,” my voice quavered.

“Good. Bye.”

With that, the phone clicked silent. Was he saying “good you’re not hit,” or good as in “goodbye”? I tried a redial, but he didn’t pick up. That was it. He was out of my life. My weatherman blew in like a hurricane, and now all I had to do was call the insurance guy and calculate the damage. How could I have been so stupid as to have let this happen?

I slammed my fist down on my desk, sending the printed photos from the Bonnet farm to the floor. I had just lost Leo. I lost him because I was trying to play spy/seductress. Which I also failed at miserably. I felt the tears rushing up as I bent down to pick up the papers, now strewn across the floor of my office. I was so stupid. As I picked up the pictures I had taken of the shed, I leaned up against the desk and sat cross-legged on the floor. When my tears were spent, I sat quietly, the picture still in hand. The color blue caught my eye.

My father was being framed, and now I had proof.

My dad had insisted on George taking us over in the squad car.  As soon as we got to the pageant, I would try to tell him.