Chapter Forty-Five
“Pammy cares,” I said to Zoley. “Where and when were vital to her. You could have killed each other’s husband and each had an alibi for her own husband’s death. But that wasn’t what Pammy wanted.”
“Deputies would have been on us right away because so many movies use that plot,” Zoley said with superiority.
I would not be sidetracked to ask if she meant Throw Momma from the Train. Too much risk of a dead end — no pun intended.
“Is that what Pammy told you? Did she also tell you that you’d come out of this rich and single? She has other goals. Some wives can feel when their husbands stray. I suppose when he moves from straying with one to another, too. She knew your affair with Damon had run its course.”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about.” Zoley gave a superior sniff.
“He dumped you,” Clara said flatly.
“Why you—”
Before Zoley could gather energy to attack my friend, I hurried on. “You knew it, Zoley. You were trying to hold onto him, but he was less and less interested.”
“That tramp Blanche, making a fool of her stupid husband—”
“He knew all along. William Alsup orchestrated the affair to try to find out what Damon was doing with the money he took in through his various schemes.”
“No, he didn’t,” Zoley said. “He had no idea that tramp lured Damon with—”
“Who told you that? Oh, Pammy. Right.” I packed that with scorn.
Zoley didn’t turn, but side-eyed Pammy, who snapped at her, “Don’t be an idiot. Don’t you see what they’re doing?”
I ignored her, reeling Zoley in again. “She needed you to get Damon to the Gallows Path spot you used for—” I considered my audience and decided against trysts. “—sex. He agreed to meet you, but his failure to pull back to the private area was him shouting that he was done with you.”
At the Georgers’ house Saturday, had Pammy been angry at Zoley for bringing up the Swindle/Swindell family name because it came too close to Swindle Street, revealing they knew Gallows Path?
“The expiration on your affair with Damon was part of why now? Perhaps worse for her, William Alsup had lawyers digging into Damon’s business. And the confrontation with Oscar brought attention from a sheriff’s deputy.
“She started the plan rolling. She threw in your fake bruises as another possible motive — Told you people would think Bryon killed Damon as a protector of womanhood.”
“He did,” Zoley said triumphantly. “Bryon was protective and possessive of me. He found out about my affair with Damon and he was so volatile it sent him over the edge.”
I addressed Pammy. “She got in all the words you wanted planted, though she’s not good at it.
And then there was the supposed bruise. Did the concealer wheel conceal too well?
So you went with globbed-on makeup. Somewhere public — dog training was perfect.
Make it do double duty along with creating witnesses to bad feelings between Damon and Bryon.
Plus, the bruising provided a backup to point to Zoley as another suspect. ”
“Me?”
“Set her up as furious at Damon for dumping her for Blanche and for hitting her.”
Keeping the gun raised, Pammy’s gaze remained on me. But Zoley’s didn’t.
She focused on Pammy.
“You said he went after Blanche. You said we both needed him gone—”
“He didn’t need to go after her. So what? If it hadn’t been her, it would have been another one.” For the first time unguarded words came from Pammy. “He was tired of you. Time to wrap it up, while you were still somewhat in play.”
Did her honesty mean she’d turned a mental corner on the future for Clara and me? Zoley, too?
Even so, my best bet was to keep her occupied, look for an opening.
“Were you tired of all the affairs? Or was it because of this one affair, the one with Zoley? The one with your best friend?”
Pammy returned to the sphinx mode.
“I don’t think so,” Clara said judiciously. “I think it was the money in the foreign accounts we kept hearing about. She had the smarts to set those up. Damon didn’t. And his increasing recklessness had to worry her. If he got himself in too much trouble, drew too much attention, she’d be stuck.”
I nodded. “Good call, Clara. She pushed Damon and Zoley together to keep him occupied while she moved money out of his reach. Used the dogs to get Bryon and Damon in each other’s vicinity in public, display competitiveness and — with appropriate prods from her — animosity.”
“That was my idea,” Zoley said.
“Yours? Yours?” Pammy hissed.
With her concentration away from us, I risked the crinkle of plastic to manipulate the bag I still held.
“Yeah, mine.” Zoley sounded confused. “But we’re a team. Like you always say.”
“A team.” If she hadn’t had disgust energizing her, Pammy might have sounded weary. Still looking at Zoley, she spoke to us. “In high school—”
“Oh, God,” Zoley groaned. “This again?”
“—she was the ultimate mean girl. Spread it around that I’d slept with everyone. But I didn’t just get even. I made her my tool. My puppet.”
“Puppet?” Zoley’s mouth went slack. “You did not. You’re—”
“I did.” The tyranny of Pammy’s secrets had festered and now their byproduct oozed from her. “You trailed along when my parents forced me to go to that backwater college in Georgia. But you became useful, sending the emails to that stuck-up bitch.”
Zoley pounced. “You got thrown out of school, too.”
“That was the whole idea.” Her tone added an unspoken, you idiot. “I came to recognize the utility of my puppet. My puppet who never once felt the strings. Not when I cut her out with Damon, then shoved her at Bryon. And not when I married Damon instead of her.”
Zoley smirked. “You might have married him, but I—”
Pammy’s smile pulled her lips back from her teeth. “And not when I pushed her to screw him so I could set up my future unimpeded—”
Zoley’s smirk faded.
“Damon was also a puppet,” I said quietly.
“A useful idiot with a feral instinct for fraud and fewer scruples than brains. Pulled in money and never noticed most of it went into accounts he knew nothing about.”
“Foreign accounts,” Clara murmured.
“If Zoley had kept his interest— But he tired of her quickly and with Damon making more and more mistakes, I had to accelerate the timeline. Got the dogs to set the guys against each other. Got her to set up Bryon, so he would have no income and be consumed by legal bills, leaving her with nothing.”
“Why you—”
No one heeded Zoley’s snarl.
“Go back to the dogs,” Clara demanded.
“They served their purpose. Dumped them.” She glanced at Zoley. “You’ve served your purpose, too.”
“Why you—” Zoley snarled again, surging toward Pammy.
Gracie and LuLu came to their feet, hesitating a beat as they assessed.
Me, too. Aided by a split-second warning of knowing Clara.
It was enough.
I shouted “Break” to the dogs as I threw as many of the stinky sprat treats at Pammy as I could dig out of the package. They hit her in the face, breaking her focus. The gun pointed upward.
Gracie and LuLu leaped forward.
“You deserted those dogs—”
Clara tried to tackle Pammy, but Gracie had already lunged. Not with bared teeth or a growl — Clara provided those.
LuLu wrapped her leash around Pammy’s legs and barked, while Gracie barreled into her chest, bringing her down, then stood on her with four feet.
Clara stomped on Pammy’s gun-holding hand with her heel.
That loosened her hold.
I wrenched the gun away.
Zoley stood with her hands over her ears against the din of barking, gabbling something. LuLu started jumping on her. Not with affection.
“I’ve got the gun, Clara,” I shouted. “Calling 911.”
Clara might have gotten in a blow or two on Pammy after my announcement, but I couldn’t be sure enough to make it part of my official statement.
All that, of course, came much later.
For now, I grinned as I called off my dog, juggling the phone and the sprats bag in my non-gun-holding hand.
Oh, heck, I emptied the bag of stink-to-high-heaven treats on Pammy. Gracie went to town. No discernment in sight.
In Gracie’s world, Timmy better have treats if he wanted her to get him out of the well.
I didn’t care.
Forget Lassie Syndrome.
Forget Lad, Lassie, and toss in Hooch and Rin-Tin-Tin.
My dog was better than any of them.