Out for Blond Read online

  “Hurt me?” She laughed that unsteady laugh again. “He doesn’t hurt me. Why would you even say something like that?”

  “You can tell us,” said Brigit. “It’s okay.”

  Violet drew herself up. “Don’t be ridiculous. I won’t stand here listening to you insult Braxton that way. He’s a good man, and we were absolutely together that night. I remember it now, clear as day.” She took a step away from us. “I really am leaving now.”

  “Ms. Horne,” I said.

  “No,” she said and scurried out like a frightened mouse.

  * * *

  “I don’t know what to think about that,” said Brigit, “but I don’t think I believe her.”

  “No,” I said. “She didn’t come off as very reliable, did she?”

  “I think he’s beating her,” said Brigit. “Braxton Whitney is… well, he rubs me the wrong way.”

  “Me too,” I said. “Doesn’t mean he’s a murderer.”

  “I still think it’s Gunner,” said Brigit. “But Braxton is… troubling.” Her phone started ringing, and she reached down to pick it up.

  “Let it go,” I said. “We’re in the middle of a conversation here.”

  “It’s the office phone,” she said, looking at her screen. “I had the calls rerouted to my cell.”

  “Oh, fine,” I said. “Answer it, then.”

  Brigit nodded and put the phone to her ear. “Ivy Stern’s office… Oh, hi there, Ms. Hopper.”

  So, it was Laura Hopper. Wonder what she was calling about.

  “Who’s there?” said Brigit. She paused. “And that’s significant to us?… Well, yes, I can let you talk to Ivy. Hold on.” She lowered the phone. “Laura Hopper for you.”

  I reached out my hand for the cell and Brigit handed it to me. “Hello?” I said.

  “Hi there,” said Laura on the other end. “Hector Brennan is here on the farm.”

  “The developer?” I said. “What’s he doing there?”

  “The same thing he always does when he comes here,” she said. “He wants to buy the farm.”

  “Right,” I said. I remembered Gunner telling me about this now. This guy had a crazy hard-on for buying up land. “Okay, well, that’s very interesting. I assume you aren’t going to sell to him or anything like that.”

  “Gunner said you might want to talk to him about the murder,” said Laura. “He said he’d told you that he’s suspicious of Brennan. Don’t you want to follow up on that?”

  I sighed. “Yeah. Yeah, sure. We’ll be there as soon as we can.” I hung up the phone.

  “What’s going on?” said Brigit.

  On the drive over, I explained to Brigit Gunner’s theory about Hector Brennan. That he’d killed Tess so that he’d be able to convince the Clayton Society to sell him the farm, and probably even cheaper since there had been a murder on it. I expressed to Brigit that I thought it was a long, long shot, and that I personally didn’t have Hector Brennan on my short list of murder suspects.

  “Cool,” she said. “Then you won’t mind if I ask him the questions.”

  “What?” I said. “Why would you think that?”

  “Oh, come on, Ivy,” she said. “Let me interview him, please? I could use the practice. If I do anything really wrong, you can critique me afterward.”

  I sighed heavily. What was the harm?

  So, Brigit was going to ask the questions. We arrived on the farm eventually. It was a bit of a drive from Braxton’s house, which was north of Renmawr. But apparently, Gunner had been keeping Hector there so that we’d be able to talk to him, basically stringing him along on the idea that they might want to sell the land.

  When we showed up, Gunner and some other members were sitting with Hector in the dining room at a long, long table covered in a gingham tablecloth. Upon seeing us, Gunner stood up and said, “On second thought, I don’t think we’re interested in selling.”

  Hector was obviously confused. Everyone was getting up except him. “Wait a second. If the terms aren’t good, I can go back over this with you. And I think I might be able to come up even further in price. This is a good deal for you guys, and you know it. With this kind of money, you could build yourselves a state-of-the-art facility for your organization.”

  Gunner gripped the back of the chair he’d been sitting in. “We don’t want a facility. Don’t you understand that this is our home? We’re never going to sell it.”

  “So, then why have this conversation with me at all?” said Hector. “Why act as if you’re interested?”

  Gunner turned to me. “Ivy, you can jump in here any time.”

  I looked at Brigit. She wanted to do this, didn’t she?

  Brigit looked nervous. “Um, Mr. Brennan?”

  “Who are you people?” said Hector, looking us up and down.

  “We’re private detectives,” said Brigit. “We’re looking into the Tess Carver case.”

  “Okay.” Hector was still confused. “Does that have something to do with me?”

  “That’s what we want to find out,” said Brigit. “Do you have an alibi for March third at midnight?”

  “An alibi?” Hector’s eyebrows shot up. “What? I’m a suspect? I didn’t even know that girl. Why would I kill her?”

  Brigit looked at me, swallowing.

  I just grinned at her. I wasn’t going to bail her out of this one. She was the one who wanted to interview Hector Brennan. To be fair, however, I probably would have gone for a direct approach as well. Someone like Brennan was always trying to manipulate people into selling their land. He’d be wise to most attempts to try to get information from him slyly. Laying our cards on the table was the best idea.

  Brigit squared her shoulders and turned back to Hector. “Do you have an alibi or not?”

  Hector looked at Gunner, shaking his head. “This is you, isn’t it? You’re the one who’s saying this kind of stuff about me. You’ve turned this woman on me, and for what? You just want to harass me? Look, if you didn’t want to sell, all you had to say was no.”

  “I said no,” said Gunner. “Over and over again, I’ve denied your advances, and you never stop.”

  “So, you figure that if you accuse me of murder, I’ll get the message?”

  “I figure that anyone who wants to buy this land as bad as you seem to might be desperate.”

  Hector started to laugh. “You’re serious. You really think I could have murdered that girl?”

  “Yes,” Gunner said.

  “Well, that’s convenient, because you’re the one who’s under arrest for it,” said Hector. He smoothed his suit. “You know what? I don’t have to listen to this. You don’t want to buy the land. My business is done here.” He closed his briefcase, which had been open on the table.

  Brigit cleared her throat. “About your alibi, Mr. Brennan?”

  He laughed. “You’re kidding.”

  “Not at all,” said Brigit. “You do have one, don’t you? You aren’t manufacturing this outrage in the hopes that we’ll forget we asked?”

  He rolled his eyes. “You know, I really don’t know. I’d have to look at my schedule, see if I can make heads or tails of it.”

  “So, you’re saying that you don’t have an alibi,” said Brigit.

  “No, I’m not saying that. I don’t have any recollection, and you’re all on top of me here, so I don’t see how I could possibly know one way or the other.” He passed a hand over his face, laughing again. “Listen to me, you’ve got me all flustered. I don’t have to talk to you. You’re a private detective. You can’t force me to tell you anything.” He started out of the room. He stopped in the doorway and turned. “Maybe they will sell, Gunner. Maybe when you’re rotting in jail, they’ll sell. Or hell, maybe you’ll get the death penalty. And after you’re dead, they’ll sell. So, you know what? I’ll be back.”

  And, on that note, he left the room.

  Gunner heaved a huge sigh and sank down at the table. The other members, who’d been watching the exch
ange, stayed in a standing position, but they all looked a little ruffled.

  Brigit shot me a look, obviously wondering how she’d done, if she’d messed everything up.

  I just smiled at her.

  “What the hell was that, Ivy?” said Gunner.

  I turned my smile to Gunner. “Excuse me?”

  “Why didn’t you question him? Why is your assistant here doing it?” he said.

  Brigit flinched.

  “She did a fine job,” I said. “And she’s my associate, not my assistant.”

  Brigit beamed.

  “Anyway,” I said, “I told you before that I don’t really think he’s a murder suspect.”

  “Even though he doesn’t have an alibi?” he said.

  “That could be a sign,” said Brigit. “Especially if we can’t pin him down later when we follow up with him someplace where he can consult a schedule. We’ll keep an eye on him, Mr. Bray, don’t worry.”

  Gunner looked her up and down. “Keep an eye on him, huh?”

  “Gunner, we’re doing what you asked. You wanted us to look into people outside of the cult, and we’re doing that. Are you still unsatisfied?” she said.

  “Well, it doesn’t seem like you’re taking it very seriously,” he said.

  “On the contrary,” said Brigit. “We take every suspect seriously. You never know who it could be. Suspect everyone and trust the evidence. Those are Ivy’s mottos.”

  Really? I had mottos? I did agree with those two sentiments, but I wasn’t aware that I’d passed that information on to Brigit. I must talk much more than I realize.

  Gunner folded his arms over his chest, leaning back in his chair. “Well, so what have you got so far? On the boyfriend? Or Braxton Whitney?”

  Brigit turned to me, obviously unsure how to answer. I think she was probably beginning to wonder if I was ever going to talk, or if I was just going to leave it to her the entire time. I was half-tempted. She was doing a better job than I was at being gracious with Gunner.

  “Nothing conclusive yet,” I said, “but there’s really nothing to make us suspect Dalton Peck. The investigation into Braxton Whitney is ongoing.”

  He grinned. “Aha! I knew it. You see it too. That guy’s got it in him. He could be a murderer.”

  I did think that, but now I was worried that it had somehow been planted in my brain by Gunner. He had too much influence over me, and it bothered me a lot.

  “Like I said, the investigation is ongoing.”

  Gunner smiled. “So, there’s something there, then?”

  I rolled my eyes. “I’m not saying anything else about it, Gunner.”

  He got up out of his chair and crossed to me. “Thanks a lot, Ivy. Really. I was beginning to feel like you never take me seriously. Now I feel a lot better.” He gave me a hug.

  I pushed him away.

  “Thanks for coming by.” If he’d noticed the fact that I didn’t like being hugged by him, he didn’t let on. “Let me know what comes of your investigation of Braxton. I really think you might find evidence that he did it.”

  “Listen, Gunner—” I started to say.

  But Gunner was leaving the room too, leaving me there with just Brigit and the other members of the Clayton Society, who’d been watching all of this silently.

  Brigit was giving me the strangest look, probably because of that hug. So help me, if she found out that I’d slept with Gunner, I would just die. Really. Die.

  “Well,” I said to them, “I guess we should be going too.”

  There were three of them, two men and a woman, and they all smiled at me.

  I started for the door, gesturing for Brigit to come with me. But at the door, I stopped and turned back to them. “Actually, I wonder if you could help me out with something.”

  “Anything you need, Ms. Stern,” said the woman.

  Anything, huh? I wondered if they’d be as kind to me as they were to Archer Whitney. Was I being manipulated in the same way? Maybe all of this “investigating” was really just a wild goose chase that was leading me nowhere.

  “Do you know Braxton Whitney?”

  “Know him?” said the woman. “Well… not exactly.” She turned to the men for support.

  “He’s been on the farm a lot,” said one of the men, “but I guess we haven’t really been introduced to him.”

  “And what has he done when he was here?” I asked. I wondered if Laura’s allegations of spying were really accurate. If the others thought of him and the Zion’s People as spies as well.

  “Didn’t do much of anything, really, did he, Jim?” said the same man.

  “Just stood around listening a lot,” said Jim.

  “Spying, I guess,” said the woman. “As if he was looking for something he could use against us.”

  So, it was true, then. “Why would you say he was looking for something to use against you?” I asked.

  “Oh, they never made a secret of that,” said the first man, the one who was not Jim. “They didn’t like us, and they thought we were all spawns of Satan—”

  “Well, he wasn’t like that,” said Jim. “You could tell. He would sort of roll his eyes when some of the others would go on and on about that religious stuff. That wasn’t why he was here.”

  “No, I guess not,” said Not-Jim. “He was upset about Archer.”

  “Because he thinks that you guys took advantage of his brother,” I said.

  “I don’t think it was that, exactly,” said the woman. “You know, for as often as he was here, standing around and listening in on everything that was going on here, you’d think he’d be more interested in trying to see Archer.”

  “Well,” said Not-Jim, “it’s likely that Archer wouldn’t have seen him anyway. He doesn’t much like his family.”

  “I know that,” said the woman, “but he didn’t know that, right? He didn’t know whether or not Archer would see him or not. You’d think he’d at least try to see his brother, especially since he claimed he was so concerned with Archer’s well being.”

  “Truth is,” said Jim, “it wasn’t about taking advantage of Archer’s good will, it was about taking advantage of his money. That’s all that Braxton cared about.”

  “To be fair,” I said, “you have to admit that most families wouldn’t like their money all going to strangers.”

  “We do good with that money,” said the woman. “It’s like giving it to a charity. Honestly, before this awful murder, we didn’t have people so suspicious about us, calling us a cult and all of that.”

  “We did,’ said Not-Jim. “We had the Zion’s People saying it.”

  Well, I supposed I was meant to make that association. Clearly, the Zion’s People had what they wanted. It was obvious that they’d killed Tess, then, or so Gunner wanted me to think. Had he put these people up to this?

  But no, I’d initiated the conversation.

  Still, they were pretty free with their thoughts. I certainly wasn’t needing to prompt them very often, was I?

  “And that Braxton,” said the woman, “he was so interested in the Ocapotactu and that ritual.”

  All right, that was it. They were saying this for my benefit. This all seemed calculated. “Look, thanks,” I said. “You’ve been very helpful.”

  “He would spend hours standing at the back of Gunner’s talks,” said the woman, “just soaking it all in. He knew all about it. And he’s completely cold and motivated by money.”

  I swung open the door. “Right, right. I think I’ve heard enough.”

  “He did it,” the woman called after me. “He’s creepy. You can just feel it.”

  * * *

  “He is creepy,” said Brigit, moving back and forth on her office chair. “Whenever we talk to him, he just makes me feel… I don’t know, on edge.”

  “I know what you mean,” I said. “He’s oily.” The two of us were back in my office. We’d ordered Chinese food and were making an evening of organizing all the evidence that we had from the case. Th
ere wasn’t a lot, just the notes that I’d taken. They needed to be gone over and filed.

  “The thing is,” she said, “he probably is only interested in money. He probably only cares about his brother in that sense. He probably doesn’t give a flying fuck about whether Archer’s happy.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “and he probably beats his girlfriend. He’s probably a shitty person.”

  “But that doesn’t mean he’s the murderer, does it?” she said.

  “No, we don’t have any evidence,” I said.

  “You want it to be him.”

  “Want?” I raised an eyebrow at her.

  “Yeah, so long as it’s anyone but Gunner,” she said. “What was up with that hug this afternoon? You two sure looked chummy.”

  I buried my face in a carton of sweet and sour chicken. “He’s touchy feely. Drives me nuts.”

  “Yeah, he’s never tried to touch me. Wouldn’t even shake my hand. I think he knows that I don’t trust him.”

  “Well, look.” I pointed a chopstick at her. “Let’s just say that I’m aware that it’s possible that Gunner might have… an effect on my thinking.”

  She furrowed her brow. “Wait, you aren’t saying that you buy this stuff that they say about Gunner, that he could really brainwash someone?”

  “I’m not saying I’m brainwashed,” I said. “I’m not saying that at all. Look, you have to admit that the people on the farm today were laying it on pretty thick. They want me to think it’s Braxton. Really bad.”

  “Yeah, that’s true,” she said.

  “Or Gunner does. Maybe he put them up to it. Scripted the whole thing, trying to get them to influence me. I’m worried that he is the murderer and that he’s charmed me or something. Made it so I’m considering things that don’t make any sense. So, let’s go through this, all right? Braxton Whitney, as a suspect. He’s got motive.”

  “Sort of,” said Brigit. “It’s a weird, convoluted motive.”

  “Right,” I said. “But it’s a motive nonetheless. Besides, if he’s an abusive guy, then he doesn’t have a lot of respect for human life anyway. It might be something a nutcase like him would do.”

  “Suddenly, he’s a nutcase?”

  “Okay, he might be,” I said.

  “His alibi isn’t very solid. His girlfriend seemed to be under pressure to provide it for him,” Brigit offered.