Gail Oust - 'Til Dice Do Us Part

I raised a brow. “He might if he was being blackmailed.”

Bill took up a post next to me at the counter, arms folded, ankles crossed. “Sure would hate to call in the authorities, what with Krystal being pregnant and all, if this turns out to be nothing.”

I sighed. The last thing I wanted to do was to upset an expectant mother. I wanted only the best for Krystal and her unborn child, yet… “We still need to address the matter of the gun in her drawer.”

“Honesty is always the best policy, Kate. Just come out and tell her you found it. Hear what she has to say.”

I mulled over his advice. “What if we bend the truth a little? I could say she left her vanity drawer open and when I went to shut it, I noticed the gun.”

Bill nodded, then asked, “Have you thought about what you might say if she asks why you were in her room in the first place?”

“Well, first I’d act highly offended that she might think I was snooping. Then,” I said, warming to the role of indignant innkeeper, “I’d make her feel even guiltier by acting hurt. I’d end by informing her I was only being a conscientious hostess bringing her fresh towels.”

The corner of Bill’s mouth quirked in amusement. “Don’t you mean conscientious detective?”

“Bingo!” I grinned. “Come on. Let me show you the gun.”

I led the way to the guest room and showed him what I’d found.

Bill removed the gun from its hiding place and held it almost reverently. “Sweet,” he said in admiration. “A Sig Sauer. Can’t be more than five and a half inches in all. Must weigh less than a pound. Perfect weapon for a lady.”

Sweet? Perfect? It didn’t look either of those to me. But it did look deadly, like a water moccasin, coiled and ready to kill an innocent bystander deader ’n a doornail.

After checking to make sure there were no bullets in the chamber, Bill slid the magazine out and pocketed it. “This way, if Krystal doesn’t like the direction the conversation is heading, at least she can’t shoot us.”

“Thanks,” I said dryly. “That makes me feel much better.”

Over coffee-decaf this time-and chocolate-chunk cookies, we agreed on the script we’d follow when Krystal returned. I silently congratulated myself on calling Bill in as a consultant on the case. I felt immeasurably better knowing I wouldn’t be alone when I demanded some answers from Krystal.

“By the way,” I said, “while I was out today, my daughter called and left a message on the answering machine. She wondered if I was still seeing ‘that man,’ as she refers to you.”

“My brother, Bob, called today, too. Wanted to know if I was still seeing ‘that woman.’”

I studied Bill over the rim of my coffee mug. “And what did you tell him?”

Bill’s eyes met mine, steady and direct. “I told him ‘that woman’ is the best thing that’s happened to me since Margaret died. Told him not only was I seeing you, but I intended to keep right on seeing you. I should’ve known better than to listen to Bob in the first place.”

I couldn’t help but smile as I reached across the table for his hand. The sparkle in his pretty Paul Newman baby blues told me all I needed to know about the way he felt.

Bill and I retired to the great room, but we were still holding hands when Krystal burst in carrying an assortment of shopping bags from various stores at the mall.

“Hey, you two,” she greeted us. “You look all nice and cozy. Hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

“Krystal,” I said, bracing for the inevitable confrontation, “set your things down. We need to talk.”

“Uh-oh.” She laughed. “Am I in trouble? Mom used to use that exact tone whenever I tried to sneak in after curfew.”

When neither of us returned her smile, her eyes slid from me to Bill. “Sure.” She dropped down alongside me on the sofa. “What’s up?”

Bill gave me a nod of encouragement.

I moistened my suddenly dry lips and took the plunge. “It just so happened as I was bringing you fresh towels that I noticed a vanity drawer ajar. When I went to close it, I noticed this.”

Hearing his cue, Bill produced the Sig Sauer and the box of bullets from beneath a pile of throw pillows.

Krystal stared at them for a long moment, then seemed to collect herself. “So, what’s the big deal? I have a concealed weapons permit. The gun’s perfectly legal.”

What was she going to tell me next? That she won the role of Annie Oakley in a revival and needed the gun for target practice? “The shells are nine millimeter-the same caliber used to kill Lance Ledeaux.”

I couldn’t be positive, but I thought she paled at the mention of his name even though her expression remained impassive.

“Why kill someone I didn’t know?”

Aha! Now we were making progress. I’d caught her in a bonafide fib. “I don’t believe you,” I told her calmly. “Polly saw the two of you together, acting very… friendly.”

“Polly?” Krystal scoffed. “The woman’s half blind. The eye doctor told her months ago she needed cataract surgery, but she refused. She made me promise not to tell Gloria.”

“Polly confided all this to you, a virtual stranger?”

Krystal shrugged with elaborate casualness. “She let it slip one day at the diner when she was having trouble reading the menu.”

“I wonder if Gloria is aware of this,” I murmured half to myself.

“I doubt it. Maybe you should give her a call.” With this, Krystal jumped to her feet and started gathering her purchases.

“Not so fast.” Bill stopped her, his voice quiet but firm. “Kate and I aren’t finished.”

Krystal plopped back down on the sofa. “I’m tired,” she whined. “Is this going to take long?”

“You lied when you said you didn’t know Lance.” I watched her expression closely. “Diane did some research online. She discovered you and Lance both had parts recently in a revival of Grease in Atlanta.”

Krystal pursed her lips. “What if we did?” she asked, sounding more like a petulant teen than a woman with her biological clock ticking-clearly a case of arrested development. “All right, all right, I confess. I was Marty Maraschino. Lance was the Teen Angel. At first I thought he was a little old for the part, but he had the right look. It’s not against the law to be friends.”

Friends, my foot! In for a penny, in for a pound, as my daddy used to say. I drew a deep breath and went for the jugular. “How do you explain being in the dressing room the night Lance was killed?”

My question was met with stunned silence. I felt Bill’s gaze on me, but I couldn’t afford to lose ground at this point in my interrogation. Keep your eye on the prize, Kate. Don’t get sidetracked. “Trust me, Krystal, it’s much easier answering me than it will be answering Sheriff Wiggins. He makes grown felons cry for their mamas.”

“What makes you so sure I was there when Lance was shot?”

Hmm, she was trying to bluff her way out of it. But I was prepared for such a contingency. I pulled the ace from my sleeve. “We have proof.”

“Proof…?”

I wasn’t about to elaborate on the single dark hair found by a woman with cataracts and identified by a crime-and-punishment junkie. Come to think of it, it was nothing short of miraculous that Polly with her faulty eyesight had spotted the strand in the first place. Talk about Divine Intervention.

All of a sudden, Krystal’s resistance melted like a Popsicle at a Fourth of July picnic. “OK, I admit Lance and I knew each other.”

“And…”

“And we agreed to meet after rehearsal the night he was killed. He told me to wait for him in the dressing room.”