Matchpoint (25 page)

Holden stood up and pointed at Rosalie. “Spencer, your back!” he yelled.

Spencer froze and turned. He was quick. He ran to the lady in the maxi dress, pulled her up from her seat, and laid on a huge kiss. Not as passionate as the one he gave me, but bigger, juicier. More theatrical.

“Boy, he gets around,” Nathan said.

“Magic penis,” Belinda breathed.

Rosalie stopped in her tracks. The air had gone out of
her like a balloon. Actually witnessing Spencer’s lips on another woman, especially a woman with far less fashion sense than Rosalie, put everything into perspective for her. Spencer was not a man to be controlled. Impossible to tame. Rosalie didn’t stand a chance. Even though she was possibly a homicidal maniac, I felt sorry for her.

But Spencer’s strategy was successful, and he knew it. He broke off the kiss with the maxi-dress lady and lowered her to her chair. She stared straight ahead, unblinking. I knew that look. She would never be the same again.

“All right. So, back to you, Belinda and Tim,” Spencer said, slapping his hands together.

Tim responded by hacking. He retched, his body racked with dry heaves. It was contagious. Ruth’s private stock started the journey up my esophagus. Nathan was also having trouble.

“What the hell?” Spencer grumbled.

“It was something he ate,” Belinda explained.

“Tacos?” Spencer asked. Cannes boasted the best tacos in the world, but they came at a gastroenterological price.

“A gun,” Tim managed.

“What?” Spencer asked.

“He said, a gun,” Belinda said.

Spencer scratched his head. “Help me out here. What?”

“Tim eats things,” I explained.

“I think it was a thirty-eight,” Tim croaked.

“Nobody can eat a gun,” Spencer said, stating what should have been the obvious.

“It was my first one,” Tim explained, clutching his abdomen like he had just eaten a firearm.

“Why the hell would you eat a gun?” Spencer demanded.

“I’d never eaten one before.”

“He found it on the ground when we were running away,” Belinda said.

Things moved quickly after that. The ambulance came back for Tim, and Spencer insisted Belinda go with him. The moment he released the rest of the witnesses, I cornered Holden.

“You were amazing,” I told him. “How you saved Holly.”

“I’ll have to cancel our date, Gladie. I never got my talk in.” He wouldn’t look me in the eye. Instead, he scanned the area for Mr. Steve.

“What do you want from him?” I asked. “Who is Becky and what do you want from her?”

Here was my thinking: On one hand, sure, I had swapped spit with the sexy, womanizing chief of police right in front of Holden, and I was probably no longer involved with him, let alone possessed of any moral upper hand or the right to demand anything from him. But on the other hand, I had swapped spit with the sexy, womanizing chief of police right in front of Holden, and since we probably were no longer involved, it was now or never to get the down-low on the haps. Finally time to get the skinny and take a turn on the catwalk.

It was also probably time to get new slang.

“It’s important that I speak to him,” he said. “It’s important that I find her. Do you really need to know more than that?” He had dreamy eyes. I wanted to dive in and swim in his eyes. If I looked into his eyes during an earthquake or some equally vibratory natural disaster, I was sure to have an earth-shattering orgasm.

“I believe in full disclosure.” Unless it’s in my best interest to lie. “How are you involved with the cult? What is your relationship with Mr. Steve?”

Holden ran his hand over his face and sighed.

“I’m just trying to get my life back.” He caressed my
cheek, sending shock waves of desire through me. “Pretty girl. Perfect girl.”

“I’m not perfect,” I said, flipping my hair and batting my eyelashes.

Holden smiled, but it quickly faded. “If only I was a different man,” he said.

“Uh-oh. That didn’t sound good. Is that a version of ‘It’s not you, it’s me’?”

“I’m trying to get my life back,” he repeated. There was a desperate edge to his voice that I had never heard before. He kissed me lightly, brushing my lips with a feather touch, and left me there, no wiser, to go and talk to the leader of the aliens-are-coming cult.

“Can I talk to you?” Rosalie Rodriguez, the lunatic stalker with high-end cooking tools, had snuck behind me while I watched Holden leave me.

“I’m not in the mood for your crap, Rosalie.”

“I guess I deserve that. I was a little … crazy.” Rosalie’s attitude had drastically changed. Gone were the crazy eyes, and she seemed to have rediscovered her sanity.

“No, not crazy at all,” I said, just in case there was some residual cuckoo left in her and she was a maniacal killer.

“I want to make it up to you. I know you’re investigating the dentist murder, and I want to help, not that the jerk Dulur didn’t deserve it.”

“I don’t investigate, Rosalie. That’s a misconception about me. I’m a matchmaker.”

“Whatever. I’ll take you to talk to some parents of Dulur’s victims. I’ll pick you up tomorrow morning at eight.”

“Uh—”

“Watch out for him,” she said, nodding toward Spencer, who was watching our conversation with interest. “He pretends he’s sensitive, that he loves you, but he’s all lies.” With that parting shot, Rosalie left.

I walked back to Spencer.

“What’s the matter, Pinkie?”

“My buzz from Ruth Fletcher’s homemade hooch is completely gone.”

“Ruth Fletcher sells homemade hooch? She must have expanded her menu. Did you have a nice talk with Rosalie?”

“You have terrible taste in women,” I said. “She’s an idiot.”

“She is?”

“Yeah, like you could ever pretend to be sensitive.”

“Sometimes it’s like you’re speaking Greek, Pinkie. Come on, let’s go.”

He grabbed my elbow and tugged me toward his car.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“The hospital. On the ride over, you can tell me what really happened tonight.”

“What a night,” I said, getting into his car. “Everything happened except for the Arrival. At least it’s over.”

“Pinkie, when you’re around, it’s never over.”

“I COULD go for pancakes,” Spencer said, driving toward the hospital. “Too bad we don’t have a Denny’s in this town. Can’t get pancakes this late.”

“Grandma has some frozen waffles in her freezer.”

“I could eat some frozen waffles. Hopefully, the hospital will go quick.”

We got out onto the road, leaving the lake and the chaos of the night behind us.

“All right, Pinkie, spill,” Spencer said. “What did you see? What did you hear?”

It flooded out of me. “Holly called me and told me to meet her at the lake. She told me Dr. Dulur was a bad guy, that he deserved to die, that he was sadistic because he was trying to prove himself to the cult, and she said the night he was murdered, she left, but then she came back. I think she saw the murder or at least knew who the murderer was. She was shot before she could tell me.”

It was good to get it out, to say it out loud. I had been so close to uncovering the truth about Dr. Dulur’s murder, and then it was snatched away from me. If I didn’t solve the mystery soon, I might be next.

“Oh!” I added, remembering. “She also said the killer was in the crowd. But I guess that’s obvious, since she was shot.”

Spencer cleared his throat.

“So, what do you think?” I asked. “Who do you think did it? Any leads?”

“What do you mean, you went to meet Holly? I told you to stay out of this. You are not a police officer. You are not a private detective. You’re not even a real matchmaker.”

Spencer gripped the wheel for all it was worth, and I could tell his face was red, even in the dark car.

“That was a low blow about the matchmaker thing. I am so not sharing my waffles now,” I said.

“You are pathological. You can’t mind your own business. What’s wrong with you that you attract wacko killers?”

“You’re attracted to me. What does that say about you?”

“It says I need my head examined.” We were approaching the hospital. I wondered who we were going to visit first. “Can you mind your own business for once? Can you stay away from trouble?”

I thought about that for a moment. “No,” I said, finally. “But I can put on mascara in a moving car, and I can sing the states song straight through to Louisiana.”

“You’re a hot mess,” Spencer said.

We parked close to the hospital entrance. Spencer turned off the car. “The fact that the dentist was a creep doesn’t make any difference,” he said.

“Maybe someone wanted revenge. Maybe someone was mad at him.”

“Why, Pinkie, you
are
an investigative genius. You figured out that someone was mad at the murder victim. What gave it away? The face thing?”

Spencer really knew how to chap my hide. “Whatever,” I said.

“Here’s one thing you didn’t think of, Miss Marple: that bullet that hit Holly could have been meant for you. Maybe someone is sick and tired of you sticking your nose in where it doesn’t belong.”

My blood ran cold at the thought of being the killer’s real target. “The only one sick and tired of me sticking my nose in is you. Do you have an alibi?”

Spencer narrowed his eyes, and I thought I heard his molars grind together.

“Besides,” I added, wagging my finger in his face, “I haven’t stuck my nose in this time. People keep asking me to look into Dr. Dulur’s murder, to listen to their stories, to help them. I’m just trying to mind my own business.”

“Pinkie, you are so full of shit.”

TIM WAS first on Spencer’s list. He was resting comfortably in a bed in a hospital room with Belinda by his side.

“It was just like
Star Trek
,” Tim explained. “They used the coolest tool to get the gun out.”

“It looked like the creature in
Alien
,” Belinda told me, shuddering.

“You don’t need to describe it,” I said, getting woozy.

“Where did you find the gun?” Spencer asked. He took notes in a small notebook.

“On the ground near the stage,” Tim explained. “It was a beaut. I eat all kinds of things, but I never ate a gun before. It might have been too ambitious.”

“Any idea whose gun it was? Did you see anyone drop it?”

“Nope. There was a lot happening.”

Spencer put away his notebook. Not much of an interview, I thought. I wondered why he had me tag along, except that it was on the way home.

“Belinda, you want us to give you a ride home?” I asked her.

“I’ll get her a ride,” Spencer said. He pulled out handcuffs. “Belinda Womble, you are under arrest for the murder of Simon Dulur and the attempted murder of Holly Firestone. You have the right to remain silent—”

“What the hell?” I said. “What do you think you are doing?”

“Whatever you say can and will be used against you in a court of law,” Spencer continued, ignoring me.

“Gladie, you said the police were going to leave me alone,” Belinda whined.

I was outraged. “I thought we discussed this. Belinda couldn’t have done it,” I said to Spencer.

“Is that right?” Spencer asked me, after reading Belinda her rights. “Belinda has no alibi for the night of the murder.”

We turned to her, but she pursed her lips. For whatever reason, she would not say what she was doing that night.

“And now Belinda was at the scene of this crime, of Holly’s attempted murder,” Spencer pointed out. “And
her boyfriend tried to destroy the weapon used in the crime.”

“I didn’t destroy it,” Tim said, panicked. “I only ate it!”

Belinda sniffed and dabbed at her eyes with her sleeve. “He’s not my boyfriend. I only just met him.”

“He’s the wackjob who stuck his penis in the pipe!” I yelled at Spencer. I couldn’t believe he was arresting poor Belinda. How dumb could a person be?

“The cult made me do it!” Tim explained. “They lured me!”

“The cult! The cult!” I said, remembering. “They made Dr. Dulur do some kind of hazing ritual to prove himself. That’s why he hurt those children. Don’t you see, Spencer? They have a history of violence, and we know that Dr. Dulur was vying for power with Mr. Steve. Mr. Steve must have done it.”

“Mr. Steve was on the stage when Holly was shot,” Spencer said.