Chapter 10
The next morning, we’re filming in front of the Spinning Teacups of Terror in Storybook Hollow—don’t ask me why the word terror is tucked in there. I’m pretty sure some previous owner thought alliteration trumped logic.
The moment they yell cut, Cooter takes off faster than a vampire from a garlic festival, leaving nothing but the scent of excessive cologne and ego in his wake.
It takes Georgie, Ree, and me all day to track down his whereabouts.
Multiple phone calls, three bribes to production assistants, and one uncomfortable conversation with Crystal later, we discover he’s hiding at Hogs & Kisses—the very biker bar where his ex-wife’s romantic replacement slings wings and broken dreams.
I left Fish and Chip at the Country Cottage Inn with Bizzy, who promised to keep them entertained with cat treats and murder documentaries. “They love true crime,” she’d said, which explains a lot about their investigative enthusiasm.
Now I’m standing outside a bar that looks like it was decorated by someone who’d only heard descriptions of biker bars secondhand. The bar itself is a rectangle of a building, covered in roughed-up bricks and highlighted with a neon sign featuring a pig leering at a scantily clad woman.
I’ve gussied myself up in a denim skirt, hot pink sweater, and matching heels that are already making me feel like I fit right in with the other women walking up and down the street, looking to make some spare cash while pretending to have a good time.
“Hey, I wanted to fit in,” I tell my reflection in the window.
The reflection seems skeptical. As it should be.
“You look good, Toots,” Georgie says as she admires her own look for the evening.
She’s gone full biker chick—black leather pants that somehow fit her eighty-something frame, a studded vest over a Harley-Davidson tank top, and enough silver jewelry to set off a metal detector from three blocks away.
Her gray hair is swept back with a bandana, and she’s wearing aviator sunglasses even though the sun set an hour ago.
Ree takes one look at her and sighs. “You look like you’re auditioning for a biker gang retirement home.”
“Says the woman who dressed like she’s heading to book club,” Georgie shoots back, gesturing at Ree’s sensible khakis and cardigan—and well, the book tucked under her arm.
“This is in case we have a little downtime,” she says, wagging her paperback at us. “And besides, I dressed appropriately for a stakeout, not a midlife crisis.”
“Honey, I’m about forty years past midlife. This is my I’ve-got-nothing-to-lose crisis, and it’s fabulous.” Georgie strikes a pose. “Besides, someone has got to blend in. Josie looks like she’s working the street, and you look like you’re here to discuss the latest bestseller.”
“I do not—” Ree starts, then catches sight of herself in the window. “Okay, maybe a little.”
“A little?” Georgie snorts. “You’re one knitting needle away from starting a craft circle.”
Inside, Hogs & Kisses is exactly what you’d expect and somehow worse.
Dark wood paneling absorbs what little light struggles through the neon signs featuring every beer known to man.
The air is thick with smoke that’s probably illegal, but nobody seems to care.
Country music twangs from speakers that peaked in 1987, and everything smells like steak, French fries, and bad decisions that are pretty much incoming.
Waitresses with skimpy bikini tops navigate between pool tables where bikers pretend they’re not watching the door.
A mechanical bull sits in the corner like a leather-wrapped threat.
The dance floor is packed with people boot-scooting to something that might be music or might be someone strangling a guitar.
“Fresh meat!” Georgie cries out, surveying the crowd like a lioness spotting particularly slow and rather old gazelles.
“Good thing the steak smells grilled to perfection,” I say, hoping to redirect her predatory gaze.
“I’m not talking about food, hon,” Georgie is quick to set me straight. “Look at all these leather-wrapped possibilities! That one looks like he could bench-press me. And that one. And—is that a tattoo or a road map to heaven?”
She’s not wrong. This place is crawling with men clad in leather, beards, and beer.
Ree adjusts her cardigan nervously. “I feel like we should have a safe word.”
“The safe word is run,” I suggest, already regretting this entire adventure.
That’s when I spot a familiar platinum blonde at the bar.
“Oh my word!” I say, taking a step in her direction.
Savvy Sparrow is dressed like a country girl’s dream—or more accurately, a cowboy’s fantasy. Tight jeans that look painted on, boots that mean business, and a teeny-tiny lace top that’s doing its job enthusiastically. She’s surrounded by three men who look like they bench-press motorcycles for fun.
“Ladies!” Savvy calls out, waving us over with so much enthusiasm, it alerts me to the fact she’s three drinks into a bad decision. “Welcome to my natural habitat!”
We wade through the crowd, and I’m trying not to think about what my shoes are sticking to. It’s either beer, blood, or something I’d rather not identify.
“You come here often?” Ree asks, looking around like she’s cataloging safety violations.
“Sugar, I practically have my mail delivered here!” Savvy cackles and about three different people applaud for no good reason. “They’ve got the best hot wings in three counties, and the men aren’t bad either. Speaking of which—” She grabs Georgie’s arm. “Y’all know how to line dance?”
“I know how to line up at a buffet,” Georgie says, deadpan, as she eyes the men in the room as if they’re moving targets.
“Close enough!” Savvy drags us toward the dance floor where a new song is starting—something about trucks and heartbreak and possibly a dog. Basically, the holy trinity of country music.
“Now, it’s all in the hips,” Savvy demonstrates with a mean swivel, and I’m pretty sure she just dislocated something. “Step, step, rock, step, turn, and shimmy!”
My attempt at following her instructions looks like I’m having a medical emergency.
Georgie’s interpretation involves a lot more arm waving than seems necessary, like she’s trying to land a plane.
And Ree is gyrating like someone trying to parallel park a minivan—technically correct, but missing the spirit entirely.
“Loosen up!” Savvy shouts over the music. “You look like you’re doing the robot at a funeral!”
“That’s my signature move!” I protest, nearly taking out a passing waitress with what Savvy generously called a turn.
“Honey, your hips are supposed to move independently from your shoulders,” Savvy corrects, demonstrating a move that defies my understanding of how spines work. “You’re not stirring cake batter!”
“I’d rather be eating cake! I might be having a stroke,” Ree announces, attempting something that could charitably be called a grapevine step. “Is anyone else seeing double?”
“That’s just the whiskey shots I ordered,” Savvy says cheerfully. “They’re coming around now!”
Sure enough, a waitress appears with a tray of shots that look like liquid regret.
“To murder investigations in inappropriate footwear!” I toast, because at this point, why not?
We knock them back—well, I knock mine back. Georgie knocks back two because symmetry is important.
Ree waves off the liquor. “I’m in charge of driving these lunatics home.”
“Okay, now the complicated part,” Savvy says, and I want to point out that we haven’t mastered the simple part yet, but she’s already demonstrating something that looks like it requires a medical waiver.
“Is that even legal?” Georgie asks, attempting to copy a hip swivel that makes my lower back cry.
“In three states it’s considered assault.” Savvy grins. “Now add the arms!”
The arms are a mistake. Georgie clotheslines a passing biker, I nearly poke Ree’s eye out, and Savvy’s just laughing at us as if we’re the best entertainment she’s had all week.
We might be. All year, more accurately.
“You ladies move like raccoons on ice,” she points out. “Beautiful in your own way, but definitely not what nature intended.”
“Nature never intended for me to wear these heels either,” I say, “but here we are, making bad choices to a country soundtrack.”
“Speaking of bad choices…” Savvy takes in the crowd. “The Morning Coffee & Chaos crew has some serious eye candy. That camera guy with the shoulders? Lord, have mercy. Shoulders like that should require a permit and a warning label.”
“The sound engineer isn’t bad either,” Georgie adds, still attempting what might be dancing or might be a seizure. “I like a man who knows how to handle equipment.”
“You ladies are terrible,” Ree says with a laugh. “Although that assistant director does have nice production values.”
“Ree Baker!” I gasp in mock horror. “Was that an innuendo?”
“It was an observation about his professional capabilities,” she says primly, then leans in, “and his backside.”
The three of us break out into cackles just as the song ends and another starts—something slower and more dangerous. Without warning, a pack of bikers descends like leather-clad locusts.
One literally sweeps Savvy off her feet, spinning her into a dip that would make a romance novelist spontaneously applaud. Two more claim Georgie and Ree with varying levels of success—Georgie goes willingly, Ree looks like she’s being kidnapped by the Village People.
A fourth approaches me, all stubble and diesel fumes. He’s handsome in that I- make-bad-decisions-look-good way, with arms that could lift a Harley. Or me. Possibly both at the same time.
“Dance, darlin’?” he growls in a voice that sounds like whiskey and gravel had a baby. I’ll admit, he has his charms. And probably a few felonies.
I scan the bar in desperation for the potential killer I came to see and finally spot the two-timing cheat.
Cooter Lovejoy is hunched in a corner booth, trying to become one with the upholstery while a bleached blonde leans into his personal space, gesturing wildly with her drink.
Could be Sassy Shug, could be anyone. From here, all I can tell is she’s talking, and Cooter looks like a puppy who’s found his favorite toy.
“Sorry,” I tell the biker, whose cologne is aggressive enough to warrant a leash. “Murder before pleasure.”
He backs away so fast he nearly trips over his own boots with his hands up as if I just pulled a gun. Apparently, that’s not a typical rejection line at Hogs & Kisses.
“Your loss, lady,” he mutters, disappearing into the crowd.
I watch my friends waltz, two-step, and in Georgie’s case, possibly tango around the floor.
Savvy looks like she’s having the time of her life.
Ree appears to be learning about motorcycle maintenance while slow dancing, which is actually impressive multitasking.
Georgie... well, I’m not sure what Georgie is doing, but it involves a lot of giggling and at least one biker’s hat.
Time to earn my amateur detective badge for the night.
I navigate through the crowd, my heels sticking to the floor with every step. It’s like walking through maple syrup, if maple syrup was made of beer and twenty years of happy hour.
Tomorrow, I’m burning these shoes.
Tonight, I’m getting answers from Cooter Lovejoy, even if it means wading through a sea of leather, denim, and enough cologne to qualify as a biohazard.
Because somewhere between the line dancing disasters and the whiskey shots, I remember why we’re here—someone murdered Duffy Banks, and Cooter might know who. Heck, Cooter might be who.
Time to find out if America’s least favorite morning show host is also a killer.