Chapter 22
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“She lied, Granny,” I told Granny Agnes on the phone about Liz and how she had flipped the story around for me to believe.
It didn’t take any convincing for Tex and Glenda to go to Lypsnk to celebrate. They were always up for a good time, only this wasn’t going to be a good time for me because I was calling Granny to get Al to Lypsnk, since now I was sure it was Liz who killed Florence.
“Florence was blackmailing her. I can’t believe I let her feed me that story,” I told Granny Agnes and stayed on the line as she dispatched Al to meet me at Lypsnk.
“Al ain’t picking up,” she said. “He’s still picking up Alice at the Milkery. I’ll make a few calls, you sing a couple of songs, and I’ll get him there.”
“Sounds good,” I told her and hit the button to take the phone off Bluetooth. I didn’t bother calling Hank because I knew he was exhausted, and he didn’t need to worry about me driving back to Swamp Canal at this time of the night.
Besides, I bet he and the dogs were all cuddled up on the couch, watching some sort of show on the National Geographic channel, and his eyes were closed.
Before I could truly decide if I should call him, the neon sign reading Lypsnk in bright-pink flashed. I pulled in next to Glenda’s car, and when I got out, the music from inside was so loud, I could swear my car windows were shaking.
The parking lot was full of pickup trucks, motorcycles, and muddy SUVs. Glenda and Tex couldn’t get inside fast enough. The song “Friends in Low Places” drifted out the door as soon as they opened it.
“Here goes nothing,” I muttered and walked in behind them. The bouncer waved us in. The karaoke music blasted from the stage, and the dance floor was flooded with disco balls covered in lights, swirling and twirling around.
Tex and Glenda took a spot right near the stage. It was not going to be a place to talk but to do exactly what I had suggested. Celebrate the only way Tex and Glenda loved to do, and that was having a good time.
Tex looked exhausted but relieved. His cowboy hat rested backward on his head while he leaned back in the booth with one arm draped around Glenda. Both of them ordered a round of margaritas, which meant we would be getting two each.
While we waited, Glenda was busy scanning the list of songs she could put in to sing while I was busy scanning the bar to see if Liz was there.
“We are celebrating tonight!” Glenda took one of the drinks the waitress set down on the table and held it in the air. She pointed her long fingernails at me. “Pick it up!”
Tex laughed, and he picked one up too.
“Cheers!” Glenda made sure we all toasted, but Tex’s smile disappeared. “Now, don’t you be going and getting sad.”
“They burned it all down, I heard.” Tex was coming off the high of being off the suspect list and returning to the reality of the arson.
“Tucker said someone poured accelerant and did a sloppy job of covering it up,” Glenda added, shaking her head then taking a big swig of margarita.
“They told me they think Alice did it, but she didn’t,” Tex said, coming clean. “I’ve been treating her for emotional Reiki. She’s got some issues.”
“Like being a shoplifter?” Glenda asked and rolled her eyes.
“Yes, Glenda.” Tex seemed a little upset with her comment. “Some people have real problems, and she was coming to me to get some help. Reiki helps with emotional issues.”
While the two of them went back to being the two of them, no amount of finger-pointing to Alice was going to take away the fact that I couldn’t stop thinking about Liz. How she was the one who had the affair, not Florence.
Florence was blackmailing her, and she probably knew Florence was going to be at this event. She also was from here, which told me she knew what mushrooms were poisonous and which ones weren’t.
Just as I was really getting going in my thoughts and theories, Liz came out of the back hall of the bar, where I’d been before, duct-taped and tied up with Violet Rhinehammer.
I watched her slip over to the bar, where she picked up a tray of drinks and carefully balanced them. Then she walked back to the hallway, where I also knew private rooms were so people could talk.
“Excuse me,” I told Tex and Glenda as I got up from the table.
I rushed down the hallway and put my head into every open door to see if Liz was handing out the drinks.
When I got to the end of the hall, I knew she hadn’t turned back but had to be in the room behind the partially closed door that I knew very well led to the office.
With my eyes squinted, I looked through the crack. Liz sat behind the desk, which was cluttered with papers. An old oscillating fan rattled loudly next to the door, and there was a filing cabinet in the corner.
“You spilled the tea on purpose,” I said bluntly as I pushed the door open.
Liz looked up. Her face was pale.
“Not you again.” She groaned and leaned back in her chair. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”
“You certainly do,” I said calmly and walked over to her. “You dumped the tea so you’d have to reset the table so you could put the poisoned roller from Tex in front of Florence.”
“I was doing the job that your foster mother hired me to do.” She swallowed hard.
Behind us, the karaoke crowd exploded in cheers, muffling anything that we were doing in here. As she started to fidget with the papers, I could see there was something going on in her head. Her eyes were darting, and she just got suddenly nervous.
“Listen,” I said calmly. “Whatever happened, I don’t think you meant to really kill Florence Sparks.”
“I didn’t kill her,” Liz choked, and her eyes filled with tears. She pressed both of her palms to her forehead. “She told me it was harmless,” Liz whispered.
My stomach knotted.
“She who?” I asked.
“Florence. Florence said it would just make Alice sick,” Liz admitted while the tears rolled down her cheeks. “She was blackmailing me because I was the one who she caught sleeping with the governor. This was the last thing I had to do to get out of her grip.”
I stared at her, trying to put all the pieces together because my theory had been blown out of the water.
“What?” I asked, stunned, confused, and honestly my head was jumbled.
“Florence planned the whole thing herself,” Liz said, wringing her hands. “She said Alice needed to be stopped with all her conservation talk and that she was going to give her something to make her sick to leave the fundraiser. I didn’t know she was going to kill her.”
I heard footsteps running down the hall and knew they had to be Al’s from the sound of the heavy thuds, so I kept Liz talking.
“But Florence died,” I told her, because I was confused.
“I know, and that wasn’t how it was supposed to be.
She had put all the roller bottles on the table.
She gave Alice the one with the poison, and when the name tags got switched, she got nervous and told me to spill the tea so we could reset the table to where Alice would get the poison bottle again. ”
“You got all this, Al?” I asked, immediately trying to throw my voice behind me.
“Yep,” he said, stepping into the room.
“No, no, no.” Liz jerked up, profusely shaking her head. “Florence did it. I just messed up when I reset the table and Florence accidentally got the roller bottle. I was confused. She said Alice deserved to get sick!” Liz was suddenly shouting through her tears. “She was blackmailing me!”
Suddenly, Liz bolted for the door, shoving past me, knocking me into the oscillating fan.
“I don’t think so,” Al told her, standing firm as he grabbed her.
And before Liz could even wiggle her way out of Al’s hand, he had handcuffed her so fast I’d not even gotten up.