Father Knows Death Part 9

I shrugged. "Pretty much."

He turned his attention back to Mama. "We are investigating. When we have something to share, we will. Until then, who we question and what we ask them is our business. If you'd like to dictate every single question, then maybe you should be the private detective, instead."

I worried for a moment that she might try to tackle him and I wasn't sure how I'd intervene if that was the case. I definitely would've been on Victor's side, but I wasn't exactly sure how to appropriately remove an old woman from a midget. They don't teach you that in part-time private detective school.

"Maybe I'll do just that and ask for my retainer back," she said with a smug smile.

"I'll write you a check right now if you'd like," Victor said, fixing her with his own smug smile. It was fun watching them play chicken with each other.

Her smile dwindled.

She didn't know Victor well enough to understand two things about him: the worst thing you could do was threaten him, and he had more money than he knew what to do with. He wasn't kidding. He would absolutely have written her a check right there on the spot.

But, of course, she backed away from her threat.

"Well, when am I gonna know something?" she asked, waving a hand in the air. "No one seems to know anything. The police don't know anything and neither do you two."

"As soon as we know something, we'll let you know," Victor said, satisfied that he had once again swung an argument in his favor and gained the upper hand. "We still have more people to talk to."

"Who?"

"People who might know things."

She scowled at both of us and looked like she was about to say something, but instead stormed off to her car.

A brand spanking new BMW.

17.

When I got home, Carly was already pa.s.sed out after the long day at the fair. I checked in on her and gave her a good-night kiss on her forehead before heading to my own room. I remembered Julianne's orders from earlier and found her stretched out on our bed in cotton shorts and a tank top that barely covered her ma.s.sive belly, reading a magazine.

As I undressed, I told Julianne about Mama's car and about the motorcycle club.

"I think I remember hearing something about the motorcycle club," she said while I brushed my teeth. "Bunch of guys going through their mid-life crisis together. Not sure I've ever seen them, though. But I think I remember hearing the tail end of some story where they got kicked out of Sturgis or something."

"That sounds about right," I said, lying down next to her. "This guy didn't exactly give off a biker vibe to me. He wasn't even riding a bike tonight."

"Was he wearing a leather jacket? With, like, a skull and crossbones on the back?"

"He's an accountant."

"So there were dollar signs and a ten-key machine on the back of it? How terrifying."

I laid my hand on her stomach. "How's baby?"

"Still in me." She sighed. "Carly asked if it was going to come out her size since it was staying in there so long."

I laughed and so did she, placing her hand over mine.

"You feel okay?" I asked.

"Like Shamu, but, otherwise, yeah, I'm okay. Tell me more about the meeting."

When I finished sharing the details, she was staring at the ceiling, mulling it over. "So was this Butch guy suggesting that they were sabotaging the fair?"

"I'm not sure what he was suggesting, but I think it could certainly be interpreted that way."

"That makes no sense, though," she said, shaking her head. "Why in the world would the board do that?"

I agreed, and it was what I had kept working over in my head on my way home from the meeting. It didn't make sense. If they were skimming from the coffers of the fair, what exactly did they have to gain from sabotaging it? I didn't see any way that that would work in their favor.

"I don't know," I said. "But the things he was saying? He was sort of right. All of those things are happening this year. Not to mention what happened with the replacement freezer. And it's hard to look at any of them and not think that they make for a substandard fair."

"Maybe it's coincidence."

"Maybe."

She rolled her head in my direction. "But what? I can hear the doubt in your voice."

"You know I don't really believe in coincidence," I said. "Lunacy in this town, I absolutely believe in. But coincidence?" I shook my head. "Almost never."

"But let's say this," Julianne said, putting on her trial lawyer hat. "Let's say the Ferris wheel really is broken. That's not hard to imagine. Those carnival rides look sketchy to begin with and I'd imagine that depending on the problem, they could be difficult and time-consuming to repair."

"True."

"And I could absolutely see the insurer declining to cover a demolition derby or raising their coverage fee so exorbitantly that it was difficult to pay."

"Okay."

"The elementary school snow cone thing? Who knows? Maybe some teacher said the wrong thing to her and p.i.s.sed the old lady off. That could be any number of things."

"Sure."

"And no one counted on you finding that guy in the freezer," she continued. "Except for maybe me, because these days it seems like you get in trouble as soon as you leave the house."

"Ha."

"But no one counted on that, so no one could've predicted it and what it's done to the food stand and overall attendance. And who's to say that new freezer was even working to begin with? Maybe it was an old one that sat around for years and no one ever used." She nodded to herself, liking her own argument. "So when you separate all of those things out, I think you could very much say that it's all bad luck and timing."

This is why she was such a good lawyer. She could divorce herself from the situation and look at it with fresh eyes, with no agenda or loyalty toward anyone else. She didn't just play devil's advocate. She brought the devil's advocate to life.

"So you think I'm being paranoid?" I asked. "You think it could all just be due to circ.u.mstance and that Spellman's murder could be totally unrelated?"

"Yes." She thought for a moment. "But, maybe not."

"What does that mean?"

"I think it means you should look at the fair and at Spellman's death separately," she said. "Focus on Spellman. If the stuff that's going on at the fair is related, I'd think it would reveal itself as you look at what happened to him." She paused. "Since you are now, very clearly, knee-deep in this case, after ignoring my pleas to stay out of it."

"Wait. I thought you gave me permission before to ignore your earlier pleas."

"Permission was never granted. You just ignored me. And I have learned to just live with you and your maddening ways."

I kissed her cheek. "Yes, you have. Thank you."

"Whatever," she said, barely suppressing a smile. "Now. You have a job to do. Or are you ignoring that, too?"

Of course, she remembered that. Pregnancy brain wouldn't get in the way of a mission. "You really are quite the seductress today," I said.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," she said, rolling her eyes and pushing herself up. "Now roll over on your back so I can climb on top of you and try and get this enormous infant out of me."

18.

The infant did not leave Julianne's body that night, but not for my lack of trying.

Twice.

She was up before me and already cooking breakfast by the time I made my way downstairs. The kitchen smelled like scrambled eggs and coffee.

"No luck?" I asked, kissing her cheek.

"None," she said grimly. "I'm moving to Operation Hot Sauce now."

"Is that my new nickname?"

She produced a bottle of orangish-red liquid from the fridge and held it up. "This is my new boyfriend."

"I'm a little jealous, but I think I can take him."

She unscrewed the cap and covered her eggs with the liquid. "I'm going to chase the baby out with hot sauce. It's going on everything I eat today."

"Everything?"

"Everything."

"I don't recommend ice cream, then."

She shoved a forkful of sauce-soaked eggs into her mouth. "Everything."

"You're sure that's okay for the baby?" I asked.

"The hot sauce?" She rolled her eyes. "Yes, Deuce. It's fine."

"Okay . . ."

She narrowed her eyes at me. "I know what I'm doing here. The s.e.x, this . . . all are tried and true methods for natural induction."

"Sort of like the Drano test was supposed to predict we were having a boy when you were pregnant with Carly?"

The Drano test involved adding a few drops of the chemical cleaner to Julianne's own urine and, then, based on what color the urine changed to, we'd know what gender our child was going to be.

She ate another forkful of eggs. "That was an old wive's tale. I just thought it might be fun to try."

"You were halfway to ordering an entire blue wardrobe and engraving the crib with the name Carlos before the voice of reason stepped in."

"Yes, your mother did convince me I shouldn't put too much weight on that particular . . . test."

I sat down next to her. "I meant me."

"Hmm." She changed the subject. "Speaking of the crib, did you finally get it a.s.sembled?"

I cringed. The nursery had been a sore spot for the last month. Julianne had insisted we wait to work on the baby's room, mostly because she knew she'd want to keep busy with it during her nesting phase, but also because she'd been so busy setting up her new practice, she'd barely had time to think about it.

At the beginning of month eight, she'd tackled the guest room with a vengeance, hauling out the old furniture and stripping wallpaper in preparation for converting it into a nursery. She'd ordered a new crib and a whole slew of baby items.

Boxes arrived daily. Carly thought it was Christmas. I thought it was April Fool's Day.

"What on earth is this?" I'd asked, holding up a s.p.a.ce agelooking trash can.

"A Diaper Wizard," Julianne had said.

"And it's magical how?" I'd asked as I examined the opening.

"It's supposed to keep diaper odors at bay."

"So do plastic Walmart bags."

"No, this is different," she'd said.

"Yeah," I'd told her. "This cost fifty dollars. Plastic Walmart bags are free."

And then the crib had arrived. A crib that supposedly converted into a toddler bed and then a twin bed. I'd stared at the slats and springs and the 72-page instruction manual and thrown my hands up in frustration.

"Why can't we just use Carly's old crib?" I'd asked.

"Because Victor has it," Julianne had reminded me.