Fatal Fiction (A Book Barn Mystery) Read online

  Joellen came out of the back room with a steaming cup of coffee and I took it, attempting to smile at the young woman and grateful for something to do with my hands while Scarlet rambled on about Texas pecan coffee, which you could only find in the Lone Star State.

  I thought about telling her, “It’s available on Amazon,” but kept my mouth shut and took a sip. If I was going to be stuck waiting for the county sheriff, who I’d been avoiding most of my life, while listening to Scarlet, I was going to do my best to get my thoughts in order. This fiasco was costing me a day’s wages, a plane ticket, and cab fare my dad obviously wasn’t going to reimburse me for. Even though Marlene had promised he would.

  And the fact that I was worrying about money when poor Marlene was lying on the floor across the street in need of a makeover, a manicure, and a beating heart, made me feel about as low as cow manure smeared between the sole and heel of a cowboy boot.

  Closing my eyes, I took another drink of the steaming brew, aware that even my lips were trembling. A glance at the clock told me it’d been seven minutes since I’d dialed 911. Scarlet continued talking through it all. She was currently touching on the subject of family plots in the town’s cemetery while I convinced myself the killer had snuck out the back door and was long gone.

  A police cruiser pulled up and parked two stores down. I watched a cop I didn’t recognize cautiously enter The Book Barn with his gun drawn. He didn’t wear the standard issue cowboy hat, and his uniform fit snuggly across a broad chest and chiseled physique.

  All the women stopped what they were doing to watch the cop, who definitely wasn’t the old-as-dirt sheriff I remembered, and then they turned to look at me. Waiting for me to answer the questions they weren’t asking. Everyone, that is, except Scarlet. She’d returned to her customer and was cutting her hair as if nothing was wrong. Her sniffle proved otherwise.

  I took a gulp of the hot pecan coffee and concentrated on the burn that would scar my esophagus for life as I waited for the cop to exit the store, preferably in one piece.

  It took him five minutes to come out. Five minutes that went by without a word from the women in the salon, at least nothing past a whisper as everyone excluding Scarlet and her customer, who I remembered owned the quilt shop in town, huddled at the front window. When the officer finally did step outside, the women ran to their separate stations as if they hadn’t been plastered to the picture window waiting to see what would happen next.

  They struggled for topics to talk about. Mary was rambling on about the new patch her doctor had given her to help her quit smoking, while Joellen tried to show Scarlet’s customer the design she’d painted on her fingernails and the older woman “oohed” and “ahhed” about her skill. From where I sat, it looked as if at least two of them were smudged beyond repair.

  Thanks to a stern look from Scarlet, not one of them said a word to me or quizzed me about what was happening, even though I knew they wanted to. Another cruiser pulled up outside and the sheriff gave the arriving deputy instructions about taping off the crime scene as he pointed around the perimeter of the store.

  He spoke into his shoulder mic a few times but never let his gaze stray from the salon for too long. When he finally crossed the street, I got a better look at the man with skin almost as dark as mine. He had large brown eyes accentuated by a row of dark curly lashes and his thick, dark hair was cut short like a military man’s.

  I’d always been a sucker for tall, dark, and dangerous, but that uniform was the last thing I wanted to see on my bedroom floor. He caught my assessment as he walked in the door and returned it.

  “You must be Charli Rae Warren.” He looked around the beauty shop as Scarlet went over and shook his hand. Then he nodded hello to Joellen, who was back at her table doing something to her nails. He tipped his chin to Mrs. Walker in Scarlet’s chair, then Mary and her customer. I didn’t catch the last woman’s name as I watched him amble toward me.

  “You must be Sheriff . . .” My voice trailed off. He certainly wasn’t the sheriff I was expecting. The man I’d known my whole life should be in his seventies, if not older, and would be spouting verses from the good book by now, just like he had every time I’d sneezed the wrong way as a teenager. No, this sheriff was my age and very attractive. If I was in to the type of guy who wore a uniform and a gun. Which, again, I reminded myself, I wasn’t.

  “Espinosa. Mateo Espinosa, ma’am.” He held out his hand to shake mine and I nearly spilled my coffee all over my lap. He steadied the cup and shook my hand without batting an eye. “You called 911?”

  “Yes, sir.” I looked at the other women, who leaned forward to get the details so they could spread them through the county gossip channels. Scarlet interrupted, thank God.

  “Mateo, Charli grew up here. She came back to sign off on the sale of The Book Barn Princess, but . . .”

  Sheriff Mateo nodded his head in understanding, but his eyebrow lifted in my direction. I didn’t take that as a good sign.

  I gulped down the last of the still steaming coffee and suffered through the trail it blazed down my throat. I stared at my cup while trying to figure out a way to talk to him without everyone and their sister getting the scoop before the sheriff could notify Marlene’s family. Fortunately, he was one step ahead of me.

  “Ms. Warren and I need to speak in the back room for a minute or two, if that’s all right with you, Scarlet?” He didn’t wait for a response, and the next thing I knew, I was following his orders and standing in a break room with a table, a refrigerator, and a microwave while being crowded by the new—to me—sheriff.

  “Why don’t you tell me what happened, Ms. Warren?” He pulled a notepad from his shirt pocket.

  “It’s Marlene Duncan. She’s dead . . . on the floor in the back room of The Book Barn.”

  He nodded and looked toward the door. “When did you find her?”

  I removed my phone from my purse and glanced at the time. “Nineteen minutes ago. I walked in and there she was.”

  After giving what I thought was a pretty good account of what had happened, Sheriff Espinosa said, “Why don’t you start from the beginning.” It wasn’t a question.

  “I’d rather not.” I glanced at the curtain, pretty sure one of the women had strayed closer to get an earful.

  He looked at the swaying curtain and nodded in understanding. “I need to get your formal statement. Would you be more comfortable in my patrol car?”

  “I don’t think I can make it,” I confessed.

  “I’ll help you,” he insisted.

  “I need more time to rest.”

  “If you don’t come with me, I’ll have to make you,” he warned.

  My hands suddenly stopped shaking. “What the Sam Houston for?” That’s the way a good girl from Texas avoids using a four-letter word. Sheriff Espinosa was lucky I remembered how to hold my tongue.

  His jaw tightened. “There’s a dead woman in your father’s store. Right now you’re the only lead I have. Time is critical in a homicide investigation.”

  I’d already told him everything I knew. Now, it was time for me to get the heck out of Dodge—or rather Hazel Rock—so he could do his job and I could calm my nerves. “I called you. I told you everything. What more can I possibly do?”

  “You may have more information . . .” I shook my head, but he continued, “That you don’t even realize will help the case.” He looked at my purse draped across my body as if it could hold a gun the size Dirty Harry carried.

  Granted, we were in Texas, but I’d just arrived from the airport. Stopping to buy a gun hadn’t been on my agenda. “It’s not big enough to hold any weapons,” I said, answering his unspoken question.

  “Ma’am, can we go have a seat in my car so I can get your statement?”

  “Fine.” Then I decided to take my final stand, digging the heels of my boots into the floor. “Why don’t you understand that I don’t want to go near the store?”

  “I understand completely, ma�
�am. You won’t have to see Marlene.”

  I didn’t give up. I knew what he was saying wasn’t true. “What about when they take her body out of the store?”

  His jaw tightened, again. I suspected he wanted to force me to comply with his demands, but he wasn’t willing to use actual force. Yet.

  Taking hold of my arm, he walked me over to the far wall and pulled a chair out from under the table. I plopped my butt in the seat a little harder than necessary.

  “Have you talked to Bobby Ray?” he asked.

  I froze before managing to say, “No. Have you?”

  He shook his head, pulled out another chair, and sat down in front of me. “He wouldn’t answer his phone.”

  “He wasn’t there and I just kind of forgot about everything when I found Marlene behind the curtain. Is he at the diner?” It was too late for his morning breakfast, but maybe Dad had started eating lunch there too.

  “Stay here,” the sheriff ordered.

  I leaned back, thankful for the physical reprieve. “I’m not going anywhere.” I was doing my darnedest to hide the wobble in my legs, but I wasn’t about to admit that to the bossy man in front of me.

  He looked at my vibrating legs and then my hands before starting back toward the front of the beauty shop. Pushing through my embarrassment, I remembered what made me run from the building—aside from the dead body, that is. “Did you find anyone upstairs?”

  He turned back toward me as he reached the doorway. “No, just Marlene.” His frown became a determined straight line and he puffed out his chest. Taking in my short dress and boots, I got the impression he was trying to determine if I was in danger, or a danger to the women in the beauty shop.

  “I’ve been cooperating completely,” I reminded him. He obviously didn’t know what I was like when I didn’t cooperate. “Besides, I couldn’t make it three feet right now.” I was really regretting skipping breakfast and not grabbing something to eat at the airport.

  “Don’t move. I’ll be back as soon as I talk to some of the others,” he instructed. I nodded and he left the break room.

  Scarlet’s voice carried through the swinging door. “Mateo, what in the Sam Hill is going on?” She didn’t wait for an answer, just plowed on with more questions. “Is it Bobby Ray? Who’s going to tell Marlene? She’s going to be heartbroken, but she’ll do right by his daughter and take care of her.” There was a long pause before she added, “We have a right to know what’s going on in our town.”

  “Ladies, as soon as I can give you the facts, I will. Until then, if you could make sure Ms. Warren is comfortable, I would be in your debt. I’ll need everyone to stay in the salon until I come back. Now, if you’ll excuse me for a moment . . .”

  The facts. I wanted to laugh, except it might sound hysterical if I did. Because the real truth was in the sheriff’s actions. He had a job to do. He didn’t trust me but didn’t completely believe I was guilty either. So, to cover all his bases, handsome Sheriff Mateo Espinosa had left me in the company of the best interrogators the world had to offer—the ladies of Beaus and Beauties hair salon.

  If I survived until he returned it’d be a miracle.

  Chapter Three

  It’d been almost three hours since I’d found Marlene’s body, which was now zipped up tight in a black bag and being wheeled to the rear of an unmarked black minivan. I’d made it through the worst of the women’s questions without disclosing who’d died. They’d moved me back up to the front of the salon, where the barrage of inquiries and demands came nonstop.

  The man pushing the gurney with Marlene’s body wore a nondescript white button-down shirt with black slacks. He opened the rear lift gate to the van and loaded the gurney like an ambulance driver, the legs folding up as he pushed it against the vehicle. Then he got in the driver’s seat and drove away at the speed of a funeral procession.

  The mood in the salon fit the somber atmosphere of a wake.

  The crowd inside and out had diminished throughout the afternoon; the heat of the sun kept many people from gathering. Each woman who’d left the salon spent some time talking to the sheriff while sitting in his patrol car, no doubt telling him what kind of crazy woman I was.

  At the moment only Scarlet, her younger sister Joellen, and Mary, the hairdresser with the raspy voice, remained, all three shedding tears as the vehicle drove down the street. I felt the lump in my throat return, sad for them and the woman who’d died too soon.

  After combing the town for more witnesses and taking numerous statements outside and inside his patrol car, Sheriff Espinoza seemed to have the scene organized to his standards and finally returned. He broke his silence as he closed up his pocket-size pad of paper. “Why don’t we go back over to the shop so you can walk me through what happened.”

  Again he wasn’t asking me a question; he was doing that polite suggestion/order thing he liked to do so much.

  I nodded in agreement this time, too exhausted to argue. The last thing I wanted to do was return to the crime scene, but he seemed determined, so I pulled myself out of the chair and stood on wobbly legs. When this was over, the first thing I was going to do was wolf down a large burger and fries with an extra-large Coke.

  Scarlet hugged me a little less awkwardly this time and Joellen rubbed my back. Mary turned away and went into the break room, ignoring me as if this whole affair was my fault. The sheriff grabbed my arm, but I wasn’t sure if he was trying to help me or keep me from running away. Which was ridiculous because I wasn’t sure where I was going to go after we were done. My return flight was just an old pipe dream at this point and I didn’t have enough money to stay at the B&B in town. I was praying my dad would return at some point and give me the financial remedy I’d been promised. Sooner rather than later would be nice.

  We made it across the street with a few glares and whispers from the mini-crowd gathered outside of the crime scene tape. There were faces I recognized and others that were strangers. Based on some of their expressions, I was lucky not to be stoned or pulled away and hanged without a trial. Firsthand knowledge of the way rumors could poison a community’s viewpoint caused me to move closer to the sheriff.

  He looked at me from out of the corner of his eye and I gave him a forced smile that probably looked more like constipation.

  Crossing the threshold of The Book Barn Princess, the doors swished open and the buzzer sounded as I tried to slow my erratic breathing. I wasn’t quite sure why the trek from the salon to the bookstore seemed to be so difficult for me. It wasn’t as if I ran this time. Yet one minute I was relatively calm and the next my breathing was racing, my blood pounding through my ears, and my chest heaving as if I’d just finished a marathon. Not that I’d ever run more than a mile—which nearly killed me every time I did it—but I imagined it would feel similar to the boulder currently pressing on my lungs.

  “Did it bother you that Marlene convinced your father to sell the family business?” the sheriff asked.

  “What?” Surely I hadn’t heard him correctly. We stopped in front of the antique register that was lost in all the girlie junk cluttering the counter.

  The sheriff stared at me, waiting.

  I stared right back. Dad was selling the business because he was in debt. At least that’s what Marlene had said on the phone. It was the only reason I’d agreed to sign on the dotted line. But if that wasn’t the case, why was he selling the dream he’d shared with my mom? And why would Marlene lie to me?

  The sheriff dropped another bombshell. “Witnesses heard you threaten your father as you walked in.”

  Before I had time to respond, the door swished behind us and we turned in unison. I was hoping it was my father, maybe out of breath because he’d been down at the diner and finally seen that something was amiss at the store. The sheriff was looking for something more sinister as his hand touched the weapon on his hip.

  “Sheriff, what’s going on?” Another taut masculine voice echoed through the bookstore and made this day officially
the worst of my life. My heart stopped its frantic beat and felt like it’d never beat again.

  The last thing I heard before the world faded to black was, “Holy mother. You’re back.”

  * * *

  “You’re damned lucky I was there to catch her.”

  “You’re damned lucky you did.”

  “You both can stick it where the sun don’t shine and get away from me,” I croaked.

  My ex–high school sweetheart, Cade Calloway, and Sheriff Espinosa were hovering over me like two bickering mother hens.

  “Are you pregnant? Do you need an ambulance?” Espinosa asked.

  I balked and shuddered at the sheriff’s insinuation. “What?” I screeched, then cleared my throat and asked again. “What would give you that idea?”

  “You fainted,” he stated.

  “I passed out from lack of food, seeing my first dead body, and being accused of murder.” I sat up and batted his hand away.

  “Your blood sugar is low, isn’t it?” Cade said accusingly and then handed me a glass of iced tea and a cookie.

  I accepted the drink and the snack without a word. He was right, but I wasn’t about to admit it as I sipped the heavenly sweet brew I hadn’t tasted in more than a dozen years. Texas sweet tea is sugar heaven in liquid form.

  “You were fine until Cade walked in the door.” The sheriff eyed my ex.

  “Yeah, well, he triggered everything and made it all real.” I yanked my dress down as far as I could, then looked at Cade.

  My heart skipped another beat. “Where did you get the tea?” I asked.

  “Your dad created a little teahouse over there when he remodeled the store.” He nodded in the direction of one of the larger side stalls I’d missed earlier. White lace table cloths draped several small, round tables, each one adorned with centerpieces of wild flowers in mismatched antique milk jugs and vases. Old and rusted tin food advertisements decorated the stable walls. It was exactly the way I’d described my idea to my dad back in high school. And it was the only place in the entire store that didn’t need to be toned down.