The Saucy Lucy Murders (9 page)

“We need to talk.”

“Excuse me?” Lexie stopped stirring the chicken soup, her spoon poised in mid-air. “Who is this?”

“Detective Stevenson.”

Lexie couldn’t stop a trace of annoyance from creeping into her voice. “Well, hello to you, too. How goes the investigation? Have you found the murderer yet?” After Lexie said that, she wanted to smack herself. She sounded like a complete dork.

“We’re making progress. And it appears we’ve found the murder weapon—we’re still conducting tests. But it’s important I speak with you ASAP.”

Lexie’s blood turned to ice cubes in her veins and she nearly choked. “Why?”

“Can’t tell you on the phone. Meet me at the Westonville police station today.”

“I’m covering the café alone this week.”

“Then I’ll come over to Moose Creek Junction. But I won’t be able to get away till Friday night.” The line was silent a moment. “Have dinner with me.”

“Dinner?” Lexie squeaked. She had to admit, the prospect of him coming here seemed somehow safer. She had the impression that if she went to the police department in Westonville she’d get sucked into a deep, dark jail cell and never come out again.

“How about six?”

“I never said yes.”

“You’re still under suspicion, lady.”

“All right,” she agreed reluctantly, hating the way
under suspicion
sounded. “I just need to be done by seven-thirty. I have a … a prior engagement.” Man, she definitely needed to find Whitehead’s murderer so the police would leave her alone. It was getting too hot to handle.

“A date?”

“I think that’s none of your business, Detective.”

“It’s my business to make sure you don’t travel outside of Moose Creek Junction.”

“Believe me, my brother-in-law would draw and
quarter me if I ventured beyond the boundaries of our fair little berg. I’m just going to MacGreggor’s Pub. In fact, they serve some awesome buffalo burgers and steaks. We could have dinner there.”

“You
eat
buffalo around here?”

“Never heard of buffalo burgers? Where are you from? The dark side of the moon?”

He chuckled. “New York.”

“You’re a long way from home, detective. Why did you move out here?”

“Be there Friday at six,” he growled, and hung up.

Ru roh.
Lexie sensed she’d ventured into the forbidden waters of Stevenson’s past and he was not happy.

Lexie hung up in somewhat of a daze. The man, Deputy Dog as she referred to him in her mind, had ticked her off, but he’d definitely piqued her interest, too. How was it possible he could annoy her and intrigue her, all at the same time?

It was baffling.

M
OM, COULD YOU SEND ME
$50?”

Lexie hugged the phone to her shoulder as she slid into her jeans skirt, then leaned over to slip on her high heels. It was Friday and she had actually dredged up a skirt, low cut blouse, and sexy shoes from her closet for the MacGreggor Pub investigation, thinking the male patrons might be more talkative if they could see a little leg and cleavage.

Or was it because she was having dinner with Gabe Stevenson?

Brushing the latter idea from her mind, she concentrated on her daughter and her latest crisis, a little peeved by the tone of her greedy greeting. “Gee, and how are you dear? What was your week like at school? And did you miss me? Of course you did.”

“Sorry, Mom. I just really need the cash.”

Lexie straightened and clipped on hoop earrings. Studying her face in her dresser mirror, she applied makeup from a mostly untouched basket of
cosmetics. “Well, I really need to know what’s going on. I don’t speak with you for a week, and out of the blue you call needing money? It doesn’t sound good.”

Annoyed, Lexie glanced at her watch. Stevenson expected her at MacGreggor’s in a half hour. It was as if Eva had ESP and knew Lexie didn’t have the time to argue. Still, she couldn’t help but wonder what was up. She was a mom, first and foremost.

“Trust me. It’s going for a good cause.”

Like what? Save the whales?

Lexie sighed and fluffed her hair like the women in all those glamour magazines, then spritzed it with hair spray. “Hon, I asked last weekend if you needed anything. I would have bought it for you before you went back to school.”

“But I
don’t
need anything, Mom. The money is for something, um … different.”

Oh my God. She’s getting a belly button ring. Or maybe a tattoo …

Lexie’s mind reeled for a minute. She wanted to ask Eva if that’s what the money was for, but then she’d stew and fret if Eva confirmed what she feared. No, maybe it was better she didn’t know what her daughter had planned. The girl was eighteen. Even mothers had to let go some time. But maybe if she changed the subject, Eva would forget about the plea for cash.

She took a deep breath. “I take it you’re not coming home this weekend?”

“No. Zoe and I are going hiking in the mountains
with a couple of guys tomorrow. Then on Sunday we’re going to do some research at the library together.”

“Zoe’s your roommate, right?”

“Right?”

“Right.”

“And the guys are …?”

“Just guys, Mom. They live in the same dorm.”

“I see.” Ah, the joys of watching your baby girl go off to a co-ed dorm at college. Would wonders never cease?

“Lighten up, Mom. It’s not like I’m gonna run away and get married. We all just figured we’d get out and enjoy the warm fall weather. Living in the dorms gets intense, you know? And it smells weird, too. Kind of stinky and moldy.”

“You’re not dating either of these guys?”

“No way. They’re both dweebs. But one of them has a cool four-wheel truck. So about that fifty dollars …”

Darn. Eva, precious child that she had always been, was not so easily distracted. “I’ll get it to you in the mail tomorrow.”

“Thanks, Mom. I’ll pay you back.”

“Don’t worry about it, dear.” Lexie knew Eva’s part-time job at the college bookstore didn’t pay much. “Just make sure that cause of yours really is worthy.”

“Oh, it is, Mom. It totally is.”

Lexie replaced the phone in its cradle, wondering about Eva. The girl’s transfer from high school
to college seemed to have gone smoothly and it appeared Eva was enjoying her higher education experience. It was just that with her being so far away, Lexie couldn’t physically see her daughter every day and gauge how things were going.

For the first time since she was born, Lexie had to loosen the apron strings and trust Eva would make good choices. She had to trust she’d instilled good morals and provided a decent enough upbringing so the girl wouldn’t wind up doing something crazy, dangerous, or stupid.

Right now, she wished Dan was still with her to discuss her fears and their daughter’s future. But that wouldn’t happen now. Dan’s brain had left earth and landed on a whole new planet. Planet Davina. Lexie knew he didn’t think much about Eva these days.

Lexie’s friend back in California had sent her a card a few days ago updating her on happenings in her old neighborhood and the news that Dan and Davina’s baby girl had been born. Leave it to Dan to let his daughter learn about her new sibling through a former neighbor, rather than talk with her himself.

Then again, maybe Dan planned on calling Eva. Did he still have a shred of human decency left in his shriveled, maimed heart?
Maybe donkeys really do fly,
a small voice told her. No, more than likely, Dan would leave the task to her. Lexie would be the one doing damage control. Eva would be hurt hearing the news second hand.

How could a little girl who had been the apple
of her daddy’s eye not be hurt? Even if she was all grown up and in college?

Damn you Dan Lightfoot. Damn you to hell.

Suddenly Lexie remembered she had a dinner date with the law. She glanced at her watch again, seeing she had five minutes to make it over to Mac-Greggor’s Pub for dinner with Stevenson. Mentally reminding herself to get a check to Eva in the mail tomorrow, she inspected her makeup one last time. Oops, maybe she’d overdone it a little.

I look like Barbie on Prozac.

But there was no time to worry about that. She put on her leather jacket and headed downstairs. Locking the door, she hustled to the garage and her truck, heels clicking like little steel nails being hammered into her coffin.

As she started up the old wreck, hearing the strange, but familiar, rat-a-tat-tat in the engine, she hoped Otis wasn’t patrolling the streets. She’d have to step on it a little to get to MacGreggor’s by six and she sure didn’t need her brother-in-law stopping her for speeding.

Lexie wondered if he’d believed Lucy’s story that the sisters were going to a movie in Westonville. Otis might not be the sharpest or the brightest crayon in the box, but he had an uncanny ability to sense whether someone was telling the truth.

Fortunately, she made it to MacGreggor’s without incident, pulling into the lot off the street and parking way in the back of the building where no
one would recognize her car. She walked toward the pub, fiddling with her fake nails and wishing she’d had the chance to rip the goofy things off.

As a last-minute thought, she undid the top two buttons on her blouse. She told herself it would have a good affect on the cowboys at the bar she intended to question. Hopefully, loosen their lips a little. That sort of thing.

“Parked kind of far away, didn’t you?”

Lexie nearly jumped out of her skin when she looked up to see Detective Stevenson observing her with his intense hazel eyes. He wore jeans again, cowboy boots, a white button-down shirt and a tweed blazer. And she swore he was wearing Drakkar, a men’s cologne that always made her weak in the knees.

Instantly she stopped fiddling with her buttons, heart pounding as she grappled for a sensible answer. “I, ah, figure my truck’s safer parked in the back where it’s not so visible to thugs.”

“Last I heard, the criminal element isn’t jacking too many ’69 Ford trucks these days. In fact, last I heard, there’s really not much of a criminal element in Moose Creek Junction.”

Lexie smiled. “Except for the murderer we have running around loose. Or doesn’t he count?”

Stevenson shrugged. “Sorry. I’m cursed with an observant nature. Guess it comes with the job.”

“Well, call me a fool for being too practical, Detective Stevenson,” Lexie said, nearly calling him
Deputy Dog. “But I don’t believe it’s a crime.”

“That’s a fact,” Stevenson agreed. “By the way, call me Gabe. We might be working together for a while.”

Good Lord, I hope not.
Lexie was still a little hot from the detective’s unwanted scrutiny, but decided it would be to her advantage to stay on his good side, so she didn’t voice her thoughts aloud. Forcing a smile, she continued toward the pub.

In one long stride, Stevenson caught up and opened the door for her. “I really didn’t mean to start off on the wrong foot with you, Lexie. I’ve got a crime to solve so we might as well get along.”

Lexie met the detective’s gaze. “What makes you think we’re not getting along?”

Later, when they’d been seated in the restaurant area of the pub and ordered their dinner, Lexie ventured another question. “Tell me, Gabe. Why did you leave the high society crimes in New York for a bunch of backwater lawbreakers in windy Wyoming?”

He observed her silently for a moment, a muscle twitching in his cheek. “Police work in big cities is intense and I’ve got a daughter to raise.”

“A daughter? How old?”

“She’s 12. I had her in a private boarding school back east but she hated it so I got us moved out here to be together.”

Sympathy twisted in Lexie’s heart. “And her mother?”

He cleared his throat and his voice tightened.
“Passed away a few years back. Cancer.”

“I am so sorry to hear that.” Lexie instinctively patted his hand, then quickly pulled back, realizing what she’d done. “What’s your daughter’s name?”

A smile twitched at the corners of Gabe’s mouth as he poured Lexie a glass of wine from the bottle he’d ordered. “Jade.”

“Very pretty,” Lexie said.

“Lexie, I wanted to talk with you about something important. Henry Whitehead was stabbed to death. We found the murder weapon.”

Lexie took a sip of wine and felt it warming all the way down the length of her body until it tingled in her toes. Deputy Dog sure got to the point when he wanted to. “OK. What has that got to do with me?”

“Have you noticed any butcher knives missing from your kitchen?”

Puzzled, Lexie sipped her wine again. “No.”

“I’m here to tell you one must be missing. It has your fingerprints all over it and it was found stuck in a tree trunk in Whitehead’s yard.”

“How do you know the butcher knife came from my kitchen?”

“It’s a strong possibility.”

Lexie cringed at the idea. Now the police must really think she was a murderer.

“Why are you telling me this if I’m a suspect? Wouldn’t the prosecution want to drop that as a bombshell to incriminate me at a murder trial?”

“You’re not on trial, Lexie.”

“Not yet, anyway. But the way your investigation is going, it looks like I’ll be wearing an orange jumpsuit any day now.” The very possibility made her shiver, and goosebumps pimpled her forearms.

Then Lexie had a thought. “But Detective Stevens … er … Gabe, my fingerprints couldn’t have been the only ones on that butcher knife. My daughter works at the Saucy Lucy sometimes and also my sister Lucy. Otis’ fingerprints are probably on them too since we have Thanksgiving dinner at the café and he carves the turkey.”

“Exactly. Which is why I set up this meeting, and why I’m not arresting you. There are several sets of prints on the knife; the evidence is inconclusive.”

Lexie blinked. “And this is supposed to comfort me?”

“This is supposed to make you want to cooperate with me. Tell me anything you know about Whitehead. Anything at all you think might help.”

“I barely knew him.”

“Doesn’t matter. Tell me what few things you know.”

A server brought their dinner and they fell silent as he handed out the sizzling platters of buffalo steak and baked potatoes. When they were alone again Lexie told Gabe what little she knew about White-head, along with what she suspected, like how things didn’t add up with his ex-wife Violet. It didn’t seem like much.