Saving Allegheny Green (25 page)

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Author’s Journal: Good Girl’s Guide to Murder

Alternate Ending

Author Interview: A Conversation with Lori Wilde

AUTHOR’S JOURNAL:

Good Girl’s Guide to Murder by Lori Wilde

Do wear red. It’ll hide the blood stains.

Don’t snog the hottie sheriff if he’s convinced your sister is a murderer. He’ll only think you’re sleeping with him to change his mind.

Do throw away your diary. It won’t prove you guilty, but the whole world will find out what you and Johnny Fishbeck did with that Dilly Bar behind the Dairy Queen when you were in sixth grade.

Don’t change your name to Miss Scarlett. If your name is already Miss Scarlett, have it legally altered. Miss Scarlett is always guilty of
something.

Do stay out of bars with lurid names even if the suspect is lurking inside. You don’t want to get a reputation for being that kind of girl. Unless, that is, you
do
want to get a reputation for being that kind of girl.

Don’t get your hairspray and your mace mixed up. Hairspray won’t stop a two-hundred-pound psycho and mace sprayed liberally at your head in the ladies’ room won’t earn you any friends.

Do watch out for marshmallows. They can be surprisingly deadly.

Don’t wear stilettos. It’s hard to run from a killer while wearing Manolo Blahnik and even if you weren’t a target to begin with, sleuthing in toe-pinching shoes that cost more than a set of steel-belted radials could qualify you as too-stupid-to-live.

Do expect the unexpected. Be prepared. You never know when an impromptu wedding could break out.

Don’t use the alibi “I was home alone washing my hair.” That excuse only worked for Rapunzel and cornrow aficionados with obsessive compulsive disorder.

Do maintain a sense of humor. But remember, misplaced sarcasm could land you in the pokey.

Don’t admit you haven’t got a clue. If push comes to shove, you can always buy one off eBay.

Alternate Ending

What could have been…

ALTERNATE LAST CHAPTER FOR SAVING ALLEGHENY GREEN BY LORI WILDE

“I
KNOW.
”

Don’t ask me why I said it. In retrospect I should have been more circumspect, but suddenly everything made perfect sense. Rocky had been blackmailing Swiggly. That’s where he’d gotten the money.

Clearly startled, Miss Gloria stared at me open-mouthed.

“You dropped the earring when you went to confront your husband’s lover, Rocky Hughes.”

“What!” Swiggly hollered. “That dumb punk wasn’t my lover.”

“No,” Miss Gloria said through gritted teeth. “He was your illegitimate son.”

“You’re not gay?” I turned to Swiggly.

“Where’d you get a dumb idea like that?” Miss Gloria waved a hand.

Um, from Aunt Tessa. So much for Ung’s powers of clairvoyant deduction.

“Ray Don’s the biggest skirt chaser ever,” Miss Gloria said. “Although there was that one time in the French Quarter with that female impersonator.”

“I swear on God’s green earth, nobody would have figured her for a man.” Swiggly pouted. “And there’s no proof that Rocky twerp was my son.”

“I caught you diddling his mama at that tent revival in Beaumont the year we were married. That’s proof enough for me.” Miss Gloria sank her hands on her hips.

“Wouldn’t hold up in a court of law,” Swiggly said.

“No,” I interjected. “But DNA would. Is that why you killed Rocky? To keep him from going public about your relationship?”

“I didn’t kill him.” Swiggly snorted and glared at Miss Gloria. “She lost her earring at his place, she must have done him in.”

“Believe me,” Miss Gloria said, “if I’d wanted to murder someone it would have been you. I paid Hughes off to protect your ministry. And it’s not the first time I’ve had to sweep your peccadilloes under the rug.”

So apparently neither Swiggly nor Miss Gloria had killed Rocky, even though both had motive and opportunity. I was confused, not certain what to believe.

“How much did you give him?” Swiggly demanded. He threw back the covers and his feet hit the floor. His face was turning an unflattering shade of purple.

“Calm down, Reverend Swiggly,” I urged. Illegitimate dad or not, murderer or not, I didn’t want the man coding on me.

Swiggly ignored me and just kept ranting at his wife. “How much?”

“You know all that money you had in your secret account?” Miss Gloria smirked. “Drained it—every bit, gone. Gave it to your bastard son to silence him. Didn’t think I knew about that hidden stockpile, huh?”

Swiggly called his wife a very ugly word and collapsed onto the bed. I hurried over and saw he wasn’t breathing. Dammit.

“Call 9-1-1,” I hollered at Miss Gloria.

I started CPR on Swiggly and by the time the ambulance arrived and hooked him up to the monitor, he was in sinus rhythm and breathing on his own. A car from the sheriff’s department pulled into the driveway as the paramedics were loading Swiggly into the back of the ambulance. Miss Gloria climbed in with him and the ambulance took off.

I turned to the squad car. My heart leaped.

Conahegg?

But it wasn’t Sam, rather it was Deputy Jefferson Townsend.

“Ms. Green.” He waved at me, a serious expression on his face.

“Yes?”

“Sheriff Conahegg sent me to pick you up.”

“What?” I was suspicious.

“It’s extremely urgent, ma’am.” He opened the back door.

I hesitated, remembering Conahegg had told me Jefferson could not have killed Rocky. But why would Conahegg send Jefferson after me when he suspected the man of stealing and dealing drugs? Why hadn’t he already brought him up on charges or at least fired him?

Jefferson read my mind. “You’re leery about me after you broke into my apartment and found all that stolen merchandise and drug paraphernalia. You think I’ve been stealing from the evidence room and dealing marijuana on the side.”

I nodded.

“Let me reassure you, that’s not the case. I’ve been undercover, acting as a dirty cop. Sam’s been using me to infiltrate an electronics theft ring.”

“Conahegg knows about this?”

“His idea.”

So Sam had been lying to me. I clenched my jaw and knotted my fists. So much for intimacy and honesty.

“Sam didn’t tell you the truth because he couldn’t risk jeopardizing the operation. Not when we were so close to busting ’em.”

I didn’t know what to do. Trust my instincts or listen to Jefferson.

“Please, Ms. Green, get in the car. Sheriff Conahegg didn’t want me to alarm you by telling you this, but that emergency I was telling you about? It’s got something to do with your sister.”

H
EAVEN HELP ME
, I got into his car. Sissy was the lure and I swallowed the bait.

“Where are we going?” I asked as Jefferson wheeled out of Sun Valley Estates.

“Sheriff’s waiting for us,” he said, not answering my question.

It dawned on me that I was in the backseat, behind bars, where they transported prisoners and Jefferson was my chauffeur, in total control of the door locks.

I was at his mercy. Trapped.

Oh God, I’d done it again. Let my concern for my family override common sense.

“Where are we going?” I repeated.

“I’m taking you to see your sister.” His voice was calm. Too calm. A chill rippled over my spine.

I grappled in my purse for my cell phone. I should have called Conahegg before getting into the car with Jefferson. Why hadn’t I called Conahegg?

Because you weren’t speaking to him.

My pique seemed so absurdly childish now. I lifted the phone to my ear at the same time the back window slid down three inches.

“Throw the phone out the window,” Jefferson said.

I looked up to see he had his duty weapon pointed at me through the cage. Our eyes met. I’d never seen such a cold stare on anyone’s face.

“Don’t make me shoot you,” Jefferson said. “I’m not in any mood to swab your brains off the backseat of my car.”

I had managed to stab in 9-1-1 on the phone before Jefferson brandished the gun. I heard the operator say, “What’s your emergency?” as I slipped the phone through the narrow slit in the window.

“Now drop it.” Jefferson cocked the hammer.

Reluctantly, I let go and I turned my head to see the cell splattered into a hundred pieces as it hit the pavement. So much for 9-1-1.

The window whirled up.

My heart thumped hard against the inside of my chest. “You did it. You killed Rocky.”

“Ding, ding, ding,” Jefferson said, driving me farther and farther away from Cloverleaf. “You win the grand prize.”

“And Tim, did you kill him, too?”

“Yep.”

“Why?”

Jefferson didn’t answer. He pulled off farm-to-market road 51 and took a narrow, dirt lane toward the river. I realized we weren’t far from Sanchez Creek, the place where Sam and I had taken the boys camping. We bumped across a cattle guard and I realized we’d entered the backside of the Triple D Ranch, miles from the ranch house.

Jefferson dragged me out of the car, his duty weapon pointed at my temple and made me put my hands behind my back so he could handcuff me.

“Walk toward the river.”

“Come on,” I said. “You have to give me something. Why did you kill Tim and Rocky? Did it have something to do with drugs? Did they double-cross you in a deal gone sour?”

“Shut up. I’m not one of those chatty killers who spills his guts just to give the heroine time to escape. There’s no getting out of this one, so move it.” He gave me a shove.

I stumbled and almost fell to my knees. “At least tell me why you’re kidnapping me?”

“Because,” Jefferson said, “you’re my bargaining chip. Conahegg’s breathing down my neck. He’s about to arrest me. But now I have an ace in the hole.”

“I’m your hostage.”

“Bottom line, if the sheriff wants to see you alive again, he’s got to promise me free passage over the border into Mexico before I’ll tell him where he can find you.”

“Oh man, you are seriously screwed. I mean nothing to Conahegg. He won’t negotiate a deal.”

“Wrong. He’s in love with you.”

“He’s not.”

“He doodles your name and I saw you coming out of his cabin the other night and the next morning he was whistling around the station. He never whistles.”

Conahegg had been doodling my name? And whistling over me? Ah, now why did I suddenly feel sappily hopeful about our relationship?

“Sam’s not in love with me,” I denied.

“You better hope you’re wrong and I’m right,” Jefferson said. “Otherwise your death is going to be very Edgar Allan Poe.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, not really wanting to hear the answer. I stopped walking and turned to look at him over my shoulder.

“Keep moving.” Jefferson nudged me with the end of his gun.

We hiked over a hill and when we cleared a copse of trees down by the water, I saw it.

My fate.

My blood froze.

There, in the middle of an isolated pasture, in the middle of a twenty-thousand-acre cattle ranch, sat a pine box that looked eerily like a coffin, and beside it, a mound of dirt, a gardener’s shovel and a very deep hole.

Oh no way. I was not going to sit still for this.

I spun on my heels and took off at a dead run, but Jefferson anticipated my response. I hadn’t taken two steps when he stuck out his leg and tripped me. I couldn’t even put my hands up to break my fall.

Splat.

I hit the muddy earth face-first.

Jefferson grabbed me by the hair and dragged me to my feet. I’m afraid I did some blubbering. It hurt and I was scared.

Hey, I never claimed to be a badass.

He forced me into the coffin, with my hands still cuffed behind my back, and closed the lid. Darkness. The smelled of fresh-turned earth filled my nose and fear was an acrid burn at the back of my throat.

The situation was so bizarre I had trouble believing it was really happening. Jefferson slammed a lid onto the coffin and nailed it shut. I yelled until I was hoarse but it didn’t deter him.

Then he pushed me, box and all into the hole he’d dug. The top of my head whammed into the end of the coffin. A few moments later I heard the sound of dirt being shoveled in on top of me.

Panic grabbed hold hard.

I couldn’t die. Not yet. I’d never traveled. I never learned to snow ski. I’d never dined in a fancy French restaurant.

And I’d only had sex with Conahegg once! How was I going to get out of this?

Face it, Allegheny, you’re going to die.

I’d stupidly, idiotically gotten into the car with Jefferson Townsend because he told me my sister was in trouble.

Then another horrifying thought occurred. Where was Sissy? What if Jefferson had disposed of her the same way he was disposing of me? Was that how she’d disappeared?

Sissy, where are you?

I lay in the darkness of my tomb, listening to the sound of my heart beating, listening to the noise of my greedy breath desperately sucking in precious air.

That was when I realized dirt was no longer being thrown on top of the pine box.

I’d just been buried alive.

I
FLOATED
.

It wasn’t sleep. It wasn’t loss of consciousness. Rather, it seemed I’d gained a whole new level of awareness.

I’m only reporting what occurred. I have no solid explanation for what happened to me. My mind separated from my body, detached and rose up through the pine coffin, past the layers of dirt and beyond.

Suddenly, I was looking down at the mound of dirt that was my grave. I could see the area clearly. The river, the copse of oak trees, the expanse of field. Even a herd of white-faced Herefords. And I saw the tires of Jefferson’s squad car billowing up dust as he sped back up the one-lane pasture road toward FM 51.

Was I dead?

Was this astral projection?

Is this how Aunt Tessa felt when she channeled Ung?