“You’re going to have to talk to me sometime.”
I swerved to avoid a jackrabbit and continued to drive in silence.
“It was such a surprise, seeing Bull after all these years.” Auntie gurgled out a girlish giggle and reached up to pat her bun. “He said I hadn’t changed a bit. I couldn’t believe he even recognized me. I’m sure I’ve put on a little weight and there’s gray in my hair. I never imagined in all my days that I would run into Bull Jenkins again.”
“You knew perfectly well he would be there tonight. I saw you giving him the eye at the Blue-Ribbon Babes taping.”
“I thought he looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place him.”
“You knew he was Elvira’s husband.”
“How could I? I haven’t seen her for years.”
“Come on! Jenkins? A coincidence?”
“There are lots of Jenkins in the world.”
“And you just happened to go to the mat over this particular one?”
“A long time ago, Sissy. How could I know they’d still be together? Once Bull left town to join the army, I never heard from him again. Elvira left not long after, and though I’m sure her intent was to harass him into marrying her, I had no idea how it all turned out.”
“You’re unbelievable. Admit it. As soon as you saw Elvira Jenkins walk out on that stage, you knew who she was, and you knew she married your old sweetheart. You probably knew it all along! That’s why you flew all the way to Arizona to attend the taping of some lousy baking show premiere!”
She pressed her lips together, and a flush ran up her cheeks. “Sissy Chandler, you hold your tongue. How dare you call me a liar?”
I turned into the driveway and slammed the brakes so hard that we both lurched forward.
I turned sideways in my seat and looked directly into her pale blue eyes. Mother considered it possible that her sister had done away with her rival. Who would know Auntie better than her own sister?
“Tell me right now. When you disappeared to go to the washroom, were you really paving the way to become the next Mrs. Stan Jenkins?”
Auntie fussed with her seatbelt, but in her agitation, she couldn’t unclip it. “I don’t have to sit here and listen to this.”
“Yes, you do, because you made a public spectacle of yourself tonight, and it’s only a matter of time before Bowers discovers you lied to him about, well, about everything!”
“That nice young man? He couldn’t think anything of the kind. I’m sure he recognizes an innocent person when he sees one.”
“My mother—your own sister—thought you were capable of killing Elvira.”
“That’s because my little sister has always had a lot of faith in me.”
I dropped back against the seat. “You’re taking it as a compliment?”
She jerked at the buckle again, muttering, “Of course I’m capable. That doesn’t mean I did anything about it.”
Watching Auntie struggle with her seatbelt, the idea of her having the finesse to kill a person seemed stupid, and I felt the urge to laugh. This woman couldn’t even get out of the car, and here I was accusing her of having the stealth to murder a woman not fifty yards away from an entire room of revelers. And she couldn’t keep a secret if her life depended on it. If she murdered Elvira Jenkins, she would have burst into the room, breathless, and shouted, “I haven’t seen Elvira Jenkins. Why do you ask?”
“It’s push, not pull.” I reached over and undid the clasp. “Somebody knocked Elvira on the head with a cast iron skillet, and it must have been someone from the reception or someone who worked on the show. Who else would know the skillet was under the counter with the rest of the leftover baking stuff?”
“Well, it wasn’t me.”
“Fine. We’ll go with that assumption. For now,” I added to let her know that I was still ticked off at her for lying to me. “I took a wrong turn when I went to the washroom and that hallway leads right back to the set. Anyone could have left the reception and returned without raising suspicions.”
I said black, so naturally Auntie said white.
“Not necessarily. There’s an entire studio. Someone could have entered the building the same way we did. Or someone might have already been in the building working on another show. All they had to do was lure her back there and kabong! After all, Elvira lived around here. Unless she changed from when I knew her, she must have had enemies.”
“When you put it like that, it makes her murder impossible to solve.” I opened the car door.
“Well, starting tomorrow, I’m going to get a move on solving it. I don’t want that reporter fella to think I’m a liar.”
“Why not? Paul Simpson is a big fat liar himself.”
“I have my reputation to protect.”
That sounded too much like what Elvira Jenkins said on the set of Blue-Ribbon Babes.
“What about the police?” I said. “The fact that you never told Bowers about your little love triangle means that he has good reason to haul you away for obstructing his investigation. That doesn’t bother you?”
“Don’t be silly. He never asked me if I knew Bull Jenkins or if I ever dated him.”
“But you didn’t offer the information, either.”
Auntie shook her head. “Sissy, if we had to read every policeman’s mind to figure out what information he wanted, well, we’d have to be psychic, for real.”
That was one topic I wanted to stay away from. Instead, I tried to show her how ridiculous the idea of Gertrude the Investigator sounded.
“What did you have in mind? Have you made out a list of suspects? Are you going to drop by their houses and demand they spill all?”
“As for suspects, I say we start with people we know. There’s Heather Ozu, Donna Pederson, Natasha and Bert. Betty seemed too nice to kill anyone, but I suppose we should keep her on the list. That’s good for starters.”
“None of them seemed as if they knew Elvira well enough to want to kill her. And what if they refuse to talk to you?”
“I’ll hint that I know something, and I’ll take it to the police if they don’t talk.”
“That would be a bad idea. If you stumble onto the killer, you’ll give him or her a reason to shut you up. And what about the family? You’ve conveniently left them out.”
“Bull wouldn’t hurt a fly, and I can’t believe his son or daughter-in-law would either.”
“You better come clean with Bowers and tell him about Bull.”
“If he asks, I will.”
I kind of hoped he wouldn’t ask.