If Fried Chicken Could Fly (24 page)

I shrugged and tried to sound doubtful. “Maybe someone
did
put them there for the tourists.”

“But the more I think about it, who would have done that?” Jim asked. “Sounds like something Jake might do but not without telling you, Miz, and maybe the rest of the world, too. Jake likes to share his good ideas.”

I shook my head. “I’m certain that Jake didn’t.”

“And how would these coins have something to do with Everett’s murder?” Jim asked. Cliff scooted his chair over a couple inches.

“I don’t know.” I didn’t. “But it’s weird isn’t it? Coincidental, maybe, but the coins were found shortly after the murder. I’m not saying that I know for certain that the real treasure has anything to do with Everett’s murder, but it might be something you should look at more closely.” I couldn’t be more direct than that.

Jim bit at his bottom lip for a moment. Finally, he surprised me and said, “I think so, too.”

“You do?”

“Yes, I just wanted to see how you’d try to persuade me. I might have a small hunch that everything’s connected, but I have no real idea how, Betts. I hoped you’d say something that made me put it all together. You didn’t.”

“Sorry. Did your guy find any fingerprints on the coins?”

Jim’s eyebrows rose. “Actually, yes, it looks like he did. But just on one of the coins. The one that was on top of the tombstone. Unfortunately, that doesn’t help us much. The coin was out in the open. Any number of people could have touched it. Well, any number of people who happened to be looking at the tombstone lately.”

“Did you identify the fingerprint?”

“Maybe.”

“I see.”

The three of us looked at each other for a moment. It was as if we were creating some invisible triangle with our laser vision. The cuckoo chirped and I resisted the urge to grab one of their guns and shoot it.

“I processed the drops on the roof. They were blood. Good work, Betts,” Cliff finally said. “I admitted that I missed them.”

“Yes, he did, and he’s not fired yet. That was a good catch, Betts. Again, I don’t know where it will take us, but it’s another piece. Somehow the pieces fit together to form the picture, but I’m not seeing anything clearly. I’m almost positive you are, though. If something happens and you finally think you can share your information with me, will you call me right away?” Jim said.

“Of course,” I said. “But I’m not connecting the dots either. At this point, I’d tell you if I was.”

Jim nodded slowly and doubtfully. “And you’ll continue to be careful and make sure Miz is careful, too?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you for coming in, Betts,” Jim finally said.

“I’ll walk you out,” Cliff said.

The growing crowd had grown some more. People were everywhere now. There wasn’t much to see yet, but sometimes that was the best part of the day before the opening. It was easier to walk casually around town and peek into windows to see the beginning, the preparation.

The hanging platform was almost a quarter finished. The saloon and the pool hall were open and I could see customers file in and out of each business.

“Well, thanks for dinner last night and for taking me into the theater today,” I said.

“You’re welcome. It’s been good to see you again.”

“You, too,” I said. It was, but I felt like my words rang false. I hadn’t meant for them to.

Cliff looked at me with a sideways smile. “Betts, I’m new at this job, but I think I have pretty good instincts—plus I think I know you pretty well—and it’s obvious there’s something you’re keeping to yourself.”

“Hang on!” I said. “You don’t know me! You know the young teenager high school me. You don’t know the me I am today. Don’t presume that our past gives you immediate knowledge of the person I’ve become. “

The anger that lit through me like the kitchen fire was as big as an ocean. It was okay for Jim to think I was hiding something but not for Cliff to. But even I knew it wasn’t all
about Cliff’s innocent assumption. It was about the other things that had happened in between our past and our present, that gap, that defined who we were at that exact moment as we stood on the boardwalk outside the jail. I’d let him go, pushed him away, in fact. He’d gotten married and started a life I wasn’t going to be a part of. And then he’d come home, though not back to me, a single man who hadn’t shed his wedding band. Other things like my new acquaintance, the ghost, and Everett’s murder were swirling in that ocean of anger, too, but mostly it was full of me and Cliff and our choices and mistakes. I put my hand on my chest and took a deep breath. I didn’t like feeling that angry and I didn’t understand it.

“I get that, Betts. I apologize if I sounded presumptuous. All I wanted to say was this—I’d be happy if we could be friends again, but you probably shouldn’t share things with me that you don’t also want shared with Jim. I’m taking this job seriously, but I don’t ever want you to think I’m not on your side. If you tell me things that you shouldn’t, I’m going to have to make some pretty tough decisions. So, as a favor to me,” he put his hand on his chest, “please keep secrets.”

And he smiled—just a little, but enough to form that stupid dimple.

And I wanted to touch his hair.

I wondered if I had some new weird hair fetish happening or if I was just being nostalgic. Either way, Cliff’s return to Broken Rope was going to be something really wonderful or something really awful. And it might end up being my own outlook that would be the determining factor.

The ocean calmed somewhat and was replaced with deep embarrassment. I’d reacted too quickly and to something that probably hadn’t been there in the first place, but I wasn’t
going to apologize. I nodded and looked down the street at an elderly couple going into Broken Crumbs.

“Something tells me there are more things you’d like to say to me, perhaps unpleasant things. Feel free to anytime, Betts. I’d like for us to get our pasts out of our systems, if that’s possible.”

I didn’t mean to. In fact, it was almost an involuntary action. My eyes went directly to the wedding band.

“Good point,” Cliff said as he tracked my line of vision. He took off the band and put it in his pocket. “Better?”

“Only if you were really ready.”

Cliff nodded and smiled. “We’ll see.”

I nodded, too, and smiled, but only a little. There was more to discuss and I hoped we could become friends again. But only time would tell.

“See you later, Betts.”

Cliff went back into the jail as I stood on the boardwalk and contemplated my next move. I could go back and talk to Jake again, but I didn’t think that would lead to knowing much more than I already did. I knew I was going to owe Teddy even more, but I pulled out my cell phone and called Gram.

“Meet me at Verna’s office,” I said.

“Isabelle Winston, what makes you think I have time to meet at Verna’s office? Tomorrow is the cook-off.”

“Teddy can take care of things there, Gram. We need to talk. It’s important. And bring Jerome if he’s with you.”

She muttered unpleasant things that weren’t fit for fine conversation but then agreed to meet me. As she hung up her phone, I heard her say, “Teddy, come here, sweetie, I’ve got to go. Your sister’s in a mood.”

“Everything you say in here is protected by attorney-client privilege,” Verna said as she reached for a piece of candy in a bowl on the corner of her desk, unwrapped it, and popped it into her mouth. “You’ve already told me that you didn’t kill Mr. Morningside. We are sticking with that being the current story, right?”

“Of course I didn’t kill Everett,” Gram said. “But I do have a cooking school to attend to, so if you wouldn’t mind, Betts, telling me why you demanded this meeting.”

“I’m curious, too,” Jerome said from where he leaned against the wall in the corner of Verna’s small office. He had been back at the theater when he saw me talking to Cliff and then on the phone with Gram, so he’d come with me to Verna’s. He’d wanted to talk about Cliff and then the reason for the meeting, but I hadn’t. I did tell him that he had indeed
found blood on the roof and that it just might help solve the crime.

I turned my head and peered at him over my shoulder. How was he able to lean or sit, but when I touched him, there was nothing there? Verna probably wondered what I was looking at but she didn’t ask.

Verna’s office was in her home, at the back of it, to be specific. Her husband, Ben, had built on the addition some ten years earlier. There was no separate entrance so to get to it you had to come into the front door of the house, step over and around things in the front room, walk down a hallway and through the kitchen. The other option was to enter through the kitchen, but that meant going into the backyard, which was a dangerous maneuver. Verna and Ben had dogs that were trained to scare the “guilty right out of a person.” Bo and Peep were both big and quick with loud barks and teeth that could intimidate from a good block away. They were Verna’s protection for her country home. And protection was something she often noted that attorneys needed.

The walls of Verna’s office were decorated in anything that had anything to do with fishing. Pictures, posters, magazine covers, hooks, flies, taxidermy fish, and even a couple of poles covered the walls. Her desk was also well covered but with files and paperwork. I knew some of the files were for her law practice and some were for her genealogy work but it was difficult to tell which was which. Some were manila folders and others were a bright purple. If I had to guess, I’d say the purple ones were for the genealogy.

“I need some answers, Gram,” I said as I peered again at Jerome, who tipped his hat agreeably. “I thought I should
ask you in front of Verna, so you won’t feel like you’re going around your attorney.”

Gram looked at Verna who leaned back in her chair and nodded. “Go ahead.”

“All right then, Betts, ask away,” Gram said. “I suppose it’s time to answer a few things anyway. If Verna doesn’t stop me, I’ll try to be cooperative.”

“Were you and Everett romantically involved?”

“No. We were friends. I told you that when I was in jail. I also already told Verna.”

“Did you know he was married?” I was just revving the engine. The bigger question was coming in a second.

“Yes, and I told you that already, too, but his wife didn’t know he and I had become such good friends. He didn’t want her to become suspicious of the time we were spending together.”

“That didn’t work,” I said. “Why the secrecy? Why were you and Everett so close? Why didn’t you just invite Mrs. Morningside over for dinner and we could have all been friends?”

Verna sat forward. “Hang on a second, Miz. Why do you need to know this, Betts?”

“I’ve come upon some information that might help with the case but only if I have all the pieces.”

“What’s the information?” Verna asked.

“I can’t tell you,” I said, “but I assure you I’m doing everything in my power to find someone other than Gram as the killer.”

Verna laughed. “Why can’t you tell me?”

I hesitated for dramatic effect. I’d said what I’d said to get her to say what she said. Verna was smarter than most people
I knew, and I didn’t think I’d be able to lead her down any path. I was going to act coy for a moment to see if she’d bargain. If I held out a little and then finally offered the information I had, she’d be more willing to allow Gram to share her information. I didn’t have that much to reveal anyway.

“I just can’t,” I said.

“Quid pro quo, sweetie. You remember what that means?”

“Of course.”

“Then you share and maybe we’ll share, too.”

Jerome laughed. “I think I like her.”

I tried to look defeated, but I wasn’t sure if I pulled it off. I hoped so. “Fine. Gram, were you and Everett looking for a buried treasure? The buried treasure that outlaw Jerome Cowbender left behind? That’s what the information I have is about: Jerome’s buried treasure. I’m pretty sure it existed.” She wouldn’t allow me to ask her questions about the treasure when she was in the jail. I was putting money on the fact that she also hadn’t told Verna about it, and I thought that Verna would think it was important. Gram might have said she’d try to be cooperative, but she also probably thought I’d given up on the “silly treasure stuff.” It was all a guess and rotten manipulation on my part, but it needed to work.

Verna looked at Gram. “Miz, you didn’t tell me anything about this. Is this what you and Everett were doing, looking for a buried treasure?”

And I’d been right. Gram hadn’t told Verna.

“What of it?” Gram said, scooting herself taller in the chair.

“This would be pretty important information,” Verna
said. “If you were onto something, someone might have killed Everett so he didn’t get to the treasure first. You might be in danger, too.” Verna looked at me and then back at Gram. “I need you to tell me. You don’t need to answer in front of Betts. I can ask her to leave.”

“That doesn’t seem fair at this point,” I said, crossing my arms in front of my chest. Jerome laughed again, and I shot him another look.

“What in the Sam Hill do you keep looking at, Betts?” Verna asked.