Али Брэндон - Double Booked For Death

At her reluctant nod, the woman smiled brightly and flung her arms about Darla in an enthusiastic hug. “You literally are the answer to my prayers,” she cried. “I spent most of last night on my knees asking the Lord to intercede. And here you are.”

“Yes, here I am,” Darla agreed as she awkwardly disentangled herself from the woman’s grasp and took a step back. Managing a smile in return, she added, “Just call me the First Bank and Trust of Darla.”

Already, she was beginning to regret this impulse. For the moment, however, bankrolling a get-the-hell-out-of-Dodge fund for Marnie seemed the lesser of any evils that might befall the greater Brooklyn area should the church group keep hanging around town. Thanks to various of Great-Aunt Dee’s smaller bank accounts that Darla had inherited, she could spare the money. And if the church didn’t repay her, well, she’d make Marnie send her a receipt and call it a charitable deduction.

Aloud, however, she simply said, “Wait right here, and I’ll be back in a minute with a check.”

FIFTEEN

WITH THE MARNIE SITUATION SETTLED—OR SO DARLA hoped!—she spent the next hour or so returning the displaced books to their proper places. Of course, being the avid reader that she was, she couldn’t resist flipping through a few of her favorite novels, stopping outright more than once to sit cross-legged on the floor to read a chapter or two. Only when she found herself weeping for probably the hundredth time over Beth’s death scene in the battered copy of Little Women that her grandmother had given her as a child did she take herself firmly in hand. She was due back downstairs at Jake’s for pizza at six o’clock, which was fast approaching.

She finished with the books and spent the rest of the time doing weekend household chores. Once, she gave way to morbid curiosity and flipped on the cable news station to see if there were any updates on Valerie Baylor’s death. A brief segment regurgitated that morning’s broadcast and included the news that no charges were being filed against the Lord’s Blessing Church or its driver, Marnie Jennings.

The newscaster also mentioned that private services would be held this coming Thursday. Remembering Hillary Gables’s promise to try to finagle an invite for her to the exclusive service, Darla made a mental note to check with the agent the next morning.

When six o’clock rolled around, she left Hamlet with his kibble and headed downstairs. Jake greeted her at the door, wiping a smear of tomato sauce from her chin as she ushered Darla inside.

“Sorry, snacking on some breadsticks and marina. And watch out, Reese went a bit overboard on the food,” Jake explained, gesturing her to take a seat.

Overboard was an understatement, Darla thought with a grin. In addition to the aforementioned breadsticks, the table held an immense sausage and black olive pizza (a couple of slices already missing), a heaping plate of wings, a six-pack of imported beer (also missing a couple), and a salad—that last presumably to counteract the calorie-fest that was the rest of the meal.

Reese sat in one of the matching chrome chairs doing the Henry the Eighth routine, a wing in one hand and a slice of pizza in the other. She’d caught him in midchew, so he limited himself to a nod as Darla plopped into one of the other chairs.

“Better hurry if you want anything, kid,” Jake warned, serving herself salad and then passing the bowl to Darla. “A couple more minutes, and Reese will finish everything that’s not nailed down.”

“Yeah, you know, but at least I’ll work it off in the gym tonight,” he defended himself in a muffled voice as he swallowed. Giving her an evil grin, he added, “Which is more than I can say for some people. I think you’ve packed on a couple of extra pounds since I last saw—”

His comment was cut short as the remainder of Jake’s breadstick flew across the table to bounce off his forehead. But her tone was amiable as she said, “That’s right, pick on the crippled lady. But you know what they say: old age and treachery beats youth and skill every time. You and me ever tangle, you better put your money on me.”

“I know I will,” Darla agreed in solidarity as she dug into her lettuce. While they ate, Reese gave a more detailed account of his interview of Janie. It seemed that, after waiving her rights, she had been eager to tell her story. According to Reese, she’d grown defensive only when he’d pointed out that such a stunt, if actually sanctioned by the publisher, would not have entailed anonymous Internet advertising and cloak-and-dagger payment. When Reese had pressed her on the issue, she had finally admitted that she’d had her own suspicions, but that she needed the money for school.

“Ahem,” Darla interrupted him, putting aside her fork. “Speaking of cloak-and-dagger, I understand you put me on the suspect list for Janie’s mysterious Scarf Lady. Something about a southern accent?”

She gave those last words her best Texas drawl by way of emphasis, drawing a grin from Jake. Reese merely shrugged, but his expression was sheepish as he said, “So sue me, it’s my job. I gotta look at everyone, and you fit the bill. Accent, connection to Valerie Baylor. You would have been a shoe-in, except for that red hair. No way the girl could have missed that in her description of the suspect.”

This time, it was Darla who hurled the breadstick.

Reese was quicker this time out, catching it in midair and then taking a large chomp out of it. “ Anyhow, we’re still looking for whoever hired her,” he said as he chewed. “One of our IT guys is backtracking the email address for me. And we’ll be interviewing people who Janie says can corroborate her claim that she was long gone before Ms. Baylor ended up in the street.”

“But why leave the apology card at the shrine,” Darla wanted to know between nibbles of the chicken wing she’d moved onto, “if she wasn’t the one who pushed Valerie off the curb?”

“Apparently, she felt like she’d enticed Ms. Baylor out into the street with her protest, and that none of this would have happened if she hadn’t been outside marching around.”

“But what about that whole pushed-versus-fell thing?” Jake chimed in. “The witness statements were pretty iffy, and your YouTube clip didn’t exactly resolve the question. If it was a push, and your girl didn’t do it, you’re gonna have to line up some more suspects.”

“Yeah, thanks for pointing that out, Detective Martelli. I might not be an old warhorse like you, but I know how to do my job.”

“Just sayin’,” Jake countered with a shrug, ignoring the age jibe. “By the way, I finally called Roy in Traffic this afternoon about the Shrine That Took Over Crawford Avenue. It was bad enough today with all the rubberneckers, but tomorrow’s rush hour is gonna be a beast. He said he’d send someone out for a couple of hours during peak drive time to keep things moving.”

Darla slid a piece of pizza onto her plate while Jake and Reese continued debating the merits of tax dollars being spent to accommodate public nuisances like the shrine. Once she’d finished off her slice, she waited for a lull in the conversation to announce, “Oh, I almost forgot. Something peculiar happened after we got back from chasing down Janie.”

She went on to describe how she’d found Hamlet and the books, and how she had first thought an intruder had been responsible for the neatly stacked piles of volumes. Feeling somewhat proud, she detailed how she’d searched the apartment and then checked in with Mary Ann before finally concluding that Hamlet had been the culprit after all. The only thing she left out was Mary Ann’s poltergeist joke. She didn’t need Jake and Reese to think she was losing it.