“I know who killed Traci.”
“You what?” Justin breathed quickly. “Where are you?”
“I’m at the pooch party section of the fairgrounds. It’s Jennifer. The footprints. I know it. They’re hers.”
“Stay there. I’m on my way.”
I disconnected the call.
“You shouldn’t have done that, Missy.”
I flipped around and saw Jennifer standing behind me. As I stood, she waved a gun at me and my chair.
“Stay put.”
I sat. “Jennifer, I don’t…what’s going on?” I lied, buying time and hoping Justin would arrive soon.
“I knew you’d figure it out over anyone. You have a way, don’t you?”
“A way?”
“Of sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong.”
“I found Traci by accident, Jennifer. I wasn’t out looking for a dead body.”
“I’m sure that’s exactly what happened with your husband too, wasn’t it?”
I flinched.
“Sam this. Sam that. All you do is talk about your dead husband like he was some saint or something. No man is a saint, Missy, that’s for sure.” She wiggled the gun at me some more. “Take good old Jake Fielding for example. They’re all the same.”
“Jennifer, listen, we can talk to the police. Get you a good lawyer—”
“A good lawyer? For what, killing a woman that deserved to die? Everyone knew the great, the perfect Traci Fielding was a bitch on wheels. No one even liked her.”
“But no one wanted her dead. No one tried to kill her.” I grimaced as I’d said that, but it was the truth.
“Because no one had the guts.” She pointed the gun at me again. “No one but me.”
“This is about Jake isn’t it?”
“Well I sure as hell didn’t do it because of your stupid dogs.” She stared briefly at the turfed area. “Jake tried to get me to push back on your little thing here. Said it would do him a world of good if I could help him get your little party spot taken care of, and when I said I wasn’t going to try, he dumped me. Moved on to Gina Palencia, and I guess she got the job done.”
“What job?”
“What do you think? The beer garden. It’s his contract. Why do you think Traci was so against it? She didn’t give a crap about your dogs. She just didn’t want her husband to profit from the festival.”
It all made sense. Jake’s businesses. Sports bars. That had to be the company handling the beer garden. How had I missed that connection? “But why kill Traci?”
She laughed. “Why not? The obvious suspect would be her husband, right? I had the perfect plan to set him up, but you and that nose of yours kept getting in my way. If you’d have just left well enough alone you wouldn’t be next on the list.”
“Left well enough alone? You tried to poison my dogs.”
“It was an unfortunate turn of events, but necessary.” She smiled. “For the record, cyanide isn’t hard to get.”
“Yes, you made that clear before, then tried to act like you didn’t.”
She narrowed her eyes.
“You wanted Jake and Gina to take the fall, because he’s with her and not you. You thought if you vandalized my turf, that would push Gina to move it, and effectively throw both her and Jake under the bus.”
She wiggled the gun at me once again. “Bingo, and it was working, too. I listened to the volunteers. They knew about Gina and Jake. People see and they talk. It was perfect.”
“But.”
She moved closer, the gun maybe a foot from my head. My eyes shifted back and forth. I needed to do something. Justin wasn’t there yet and I couldn’t hold her off much longer. Where was he?
“But I knew you were digging in, trying to figure out what was happening, and I needed to figure out what you knew.”
“That’s why you came to my house.”
“Of course I did.”
“And you’re the one that came back and took my computer.”
She glanced at her feet and then smiled. “I deleted the pictures of the boot prints. You’ll never be able to show them to the police now.”
I smiled. “I have the cloud.”
She stepped closer, and I had to react. My purse was just inches away, but I didn’t have enough time to grab it and my gun, but I could use what I’d learned in jujitsu. I swung my left arm up, knocking her left arm with my forearm, and sent the gun flying out of her hand. Without pausing, I bowed my head and charged her from the seat, forcing her to fall back onto the ground, smacking her head onto the hard Georgia dirt. It caught her off guard, and for a moment she lay there disoriented. I pushed her out of my way and threw myself at the gun, landing with my chest on top of it. I rolled over and grabbed it with my dominate hand just in time to roll over again and point it at Jennifer Lee standing above me. As she bent down, I lifted my leg and kicked her in the knee, and I heard something crack.
She screamed as she fell back again, rolling to her side and cursing loudly. She stood and rushed toward me again. I pushed myself up off the ground and pointed the gun at her, but she kept coming. I didn’t want to shoot her. She may have been a killer, but I wasn’t. I threw the gun over her head and it sailed through the air, landing several feet behind her and stood with my feet slightly separated, my hands in fists protecting my face.
She stopped and growled, “You son of a b—”
“Cursing isn’t ladylike,” I said and threw a jab at her face with one hand. When it surprised her, I grabbed a handful of her hair and yanked her back down to the ground. “And I’ve learned that where the head goes, the body follows.”
She screamed out as she dropped on her injured leg just as Justin and Detective Bruno arrived, guns drawn. I kept at it, throwing myself on top of Jennifer to keep her from going anywhere. Later, I’d learn I’d broken her leg with that kick, and it was unlikely she could have stood on it again.
“Missy, stop. We got this.”
* * *
Max met me at the police station. I’d already given my statement to Bruno and Justin, but they weren’t ready to let me go home. Max talked with them both, privately, and after he finished, he sat with me in the private lounge the officers used. “Jake wanted Jennifer to kill his wife.”
“I had a feeling.”
“And when she refused, when she wouldn’t help him with his mission or whatever he called it, he enlisted Gina Palencia.”
“Yes.”
“So, Jennifer did it anyway, trying to frame them.”
“You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know,” I said.
“I was wrong.”
“About what?”
“Jake Fielding is a killer.”
I nodded. “Just not one that wanted to get blood on his hands. Literally.”
He held my hand in his. “I’m sorry.”
“About what?”
“About not protecting you. I made a promise to Sam and I didn’t follow through. In fact, I did the opposite by asking you to help a friend who ended up wanting to kill someone. I’m—"
I turned and faced him. “Max, stop. You’re wrong. This was personal for me, and Sam would know that. I know that. You didn’t make me do anything. It started with me finding the body.”
He half-smiled. “I should have done something.”
“You did. You stayed on my couch. You kept me safe. Sam would appreciate that. I appreciate that.”
He nodded. “Thank you for that, but I still feel like I let you both down.”
I smiled as I squeezed his hand. “I know Sam, and I promise you, you haven’t, neither of us.”
Justin knocked on the door and stepped into the small lounge. “We have Gina. She’s admitted to her part in Jake’s plan. Said he tried to get her to push Traci out, and told her if that meant his wife had to die, he was okay with that.”
“Is she under arrest?”
He shook his head. “But we’ve got someone picking up Fielding now.”
I exhaled. “That’s good.”
“You need to go home.” He squeezed my shoulder. “And you need to call your daughter.”
“I will, but I really need to—”
“No, Missy. She knows. She’s waiting to hear from you.”
But I didn’t need to call Hayden. Her car was in my driveway when Max pulled in.
“I can stay,” he said.
I shook my head. “It’s okay. She’s harmless, for the most part anyway.”
He smiled. “I’ll call you later?”
I nodded, and we both stared at each other again, our eyes locking with that awkward desire I wasn’t ready or willing to acknowledge. I looked away and said goodbye as I stepped out of his car.
* * *
Hayden hugged me and cried.
That night she slept in my room with me. The night Sam died, she stayed in my bed, too. We both cried each other to sleep then, and in some odd way, I think it made us both feel better, or maybe just feel less alone. I was grateful she was there, but I knew it was more for her than for me. I’d already lost my husband. Being close to death didn’t scare me, but I knew the thought of me dying scared Hayden.
The next morning, I got up extra early to get to the shelter and organize the dogs to head out to the festival. I was grateful Hayden had come over again because Max had driven me to the police station the night before and I’d left my car at the fairgrounds.
When we arrived at the festival, hours before it was to start, I groaned about the long walk to the back of the fairgrounds to the pooch party area. As we walked, Gina Palencia stepped out of a specialty hot chocolate booth.
“Missy.”
I stiffened at the sound of her voice.
“Gina.”
She touched her lips. “Your…the…if you’re going to your area, you need to turn around.”
“What do you mean?”
“Several of the volunteers moved it back to its original location.” She shrugged. “I thought it was the least I could do.”
I nodded. “What about the beer garden?”
“It’s back there. Drives foot traffic through the whole festival.” She smiled. “I’m…I’m sorry.”
Hayden grabbed my arm. “Mom, we have things to do.”
“One minute,” I said, and steeled my eyes on Gina. “Are you? I could have been killed.”
“I know that now. I didn’t think any of this would happen.”
“Can I ask you a question?”
She nodded.
“Do you love him?”
“I thought I might. I don’t know now.”
“Next time you might want to choose better.”
Hayden coughed.
“Yes,” Gina said.
We walked away.
“You just owned her, Mom.”
I smiled. “I like to think I was giving her valuable advice.”
“As you owned her.”