“Pitch it to him,” Jeff said with a sly grin.
“Shut up,” Dee teased, tossing a pot holder at him.
Jeff rose from his stool. He let out a mournful sigh. “I better go. I need a solid night’s sleep. I have to be on my game tomorrow with O’Bryant.”
“Do you want me to come with you?” Dee asked, worried for Jeff.
He shook his head. “Thanks, but not a good idea. I get the feeling O’Bryant is looking to make his ranger bones on this case. If you come with me, we’ll be the Macbethian couple he’s got in his crosshairs.”
Reluctantly Dee conceded he had a point, and Jeff left.
* * *
“If Jeff slept worse than I did last night, he’s in big trouble,” Dee told Nugget the next morning after a long, restless night. The affable mutt, curled up at her side, responded with a yawn and a stretch that stiffened his limbs so much, he appeared to be playing possum. He relaxed and nuzzled Dee with his head.
Dee rose and readied for the day. After showering and dressing, she checked her phone and saw a text from Deputy Sheriff Aguilar. The night before, she’d alerted him to Jeff’s interview with Ranger O’Bryant, sensing the green blood was attempting an end run around Aguilar’s authority by cutting him out of the meeting. She read the sheriff’s response: Thanks for the heads-up. Will be at mtg. End of story. Full stop.
“I was right,” Dee said to Nugget, who was chomping down on a bowl of kibble. “O’Bryant was pulling a sneaky move. And Aguilar is ticked off.”
She nuked a mug of hot water and dropped a tea bag of Extra Bold Earl Grey into it. Dee was the rare human being who couldn’t stand coffee. She wasn’t one of those types who explained, “I don’t like coffee, but I like coffee ice cream.” No, she hated the taste so much that if she accidentally bit into coffee-flavored anything, she spit it out and rinsed her mouth. This led to much teasing in the writers’ room, and envy on her part, when a show sprang for a run of complicated coffee drinks—and Dee’s plain old tea.
She parked herself at the kitchen bar and inhaled the Earl Grey’s aromatic scent before taking a sip. In keeping with the theory that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” Aguilar’s animosity toward O’Bryant worked in her and Jeff’s favor. But Dee knew it could only go so far. If local law enforcement wouldn’t put the effort into expanding their list of suspects, she and Jeff would have to do it for them.
The more she considered the Katzes as suspects, the more far-fetched it seemed. Callan could have made the drive from L.A. within the window of Michael’s death, but what if he had to stop to charge his trendy EV? This would have slowed him down enough to push him out of the time frame. Plus, the murder seemed impulsive, not planned. The term “control freak” applied to every Hollywood agent Dee ever worked with. Even if Callan and/or Serena lost it and bonked Michael on the head with the heavy rock, Dee couldn’t see them leaving an incriminating crime scene behind. If nothing else, Callan would have his assistant, Marisa, clean up his mess, Dee thought. She allowed herself a moment to indulge in an image of the obnoxious assistant scrubbing up after the murder, like a crime scene Cinderella. Then she moved on.
She ran through the names Elmira had listed as having issues with Michael, then opened the Notes app on her phone and began typing:
Shawn Rand-something: personal trainer
Liza Chen: former girlfriend; cheated on
Brian Oakhurst: jealous frenemy
Jonas Jones: mysterious falling-out
She examined the list and debated who to approach first. She landed on Liza, who Elmira had informed her owned the Golden Grub Café. The old saw of hell having no fury like a woman scorned offered clearer motivation than in the cases of Shawn, Brian, and Jonas.
Dee hopped off the kitchen stool. She dreaded any trip to the hostile environs of Goldsgone, but being on a mission to target a murderer in the close community made it more daunting.
She eyed Nugget, snoozing away on the couch, his long tongue lolling from his mouth. If she showed up in Goldsgone with the doggy in tow, the fact she’d adopted the late Jasper’s hound might buy her some goodwill, or at least tamp down the overt antagonism toward her.
She removed his leash from its hook and dangled it in front of the dog. The ear that stood straight up stood even straighter. One large brown eye opened. “Nuggetty,” Dee said in a singsongy voice. “Who wants to go for a ride?”
CHAPTER 13
“Hi! Hello there! Howdy!”
As Dee and Nugget sauntered down Main Street, she dashed off a cheery greeting to anyone who made eye contact with her. Tourists responded in kind. Locals either glared or ignored her. But one or two nodded a reluctant response, which she took as a win. A horse-drawn carriage containing a family of tourists clip-clopped by, leaving a trail of horse droppings and stinky scent in its wake. Metaphor for my relationship with Goldsgone, Dee thought as she held tightly on to Nugget’s leash to keep the dog from bounding over to check out the droppings.
She and the pooch arrived at the Golden Grub, a charming café housed in, no surprise, a historic brick building. But Dee picked up on some modern touches. Wire baskets of purple freesia and begonias hung from the black wrought-iron fence surrounding the eating areas on either side of the café’s sleek glass front door. Taupe contemporary standing umbrellas provided shade for the tables, which had an Eames mid-century vibe versus the cutesy iron bistro sets Dee expected to find.
I hope the killer isn’t Liza, Dee thought. It would be a shame if it was the one person in this town brave enough not to go full Little House on the Prairie.
Since it was midmorning, there were plenty of empty tables. Not seeing a hostess, Dee chose her own seat at a table next to a big bowl of water on the ground that Nugget lapped from before splaying himself across the patio’s cement floor. Dee glanced into the restaurant through the expansive glass window behind her. She saw a young waitress dressed in the requisite old-fashioned garb—even a risk taker like Liza couldn’t break all the Goldsgone rules—conferring with a stunning Asian woman around Dee’s own age. She was dressed similarly to the waitress, yet with a touch more elegance, her dress being a solid navy with pale blue trim as opposed to the calico of her staff and pretty much every other female Goldsgonedian. She wore her thick black hair pulled back in a messy bun, an au courant style, especially when compared to the beribboned braids of the waitress.
With a worried expression, the waitress gestured toward Dee, and Dee feared she’d be kicked out of the café before she had the chance to engage with Liza. The café owner glanced out the window and happened to meet Dee’s eyes. Dee grabbed the opportunity to make contact, waving and mouthing “hello” with a big smile. Liza responded with a nod that lacked the sour reluctance of the other greetings Dee had forced. The restauranteur turned back to the waitress and gestured for her to wait on Dee.
The waitress exited the restaurant’s interior and came to Dee. She handed her a menu, a fake smile plastered on her face. “How do. Can I get you a drink to start with?”
“I’d love an iced tea, light ice.” Dee perused the menu, which boasted a clean, contemporary font that contrasted with the item’s Old West descriptions. Dee appreciated Liza’s careful attempt to find a middle ground between cool and kitschy. “And I’ll go ahead and order. I’ll take the Miss Sally the Saloon Girl Salad. Dang Good Dressing on the side, please.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
There’s that fake smile again. She hates me, like everyone else in this town. I’m leaving a giant tip. I need allies!
“Comin’ right up.”
A busboy dressed like a miner brought Dee’s iced tea and a breadbasket full of warm, delicious chunks of sourdough bread. While she waited for her salad and snacked on bread, slathering it with what tasted like farm-fresh butter, she evaluated the best way to casually engage Liza. Before she had a chance to land on an answer, the waitress brought her salad.
“Wow, that was quick,” Dee said. “You’re not trying to get rid of me, are you, ha-ha?”
She disguised the real question as a joke. The waitress didn’t respond, instead moving quickly to another table, which confirmed Dee’s suspicions.
The aroma of the warm grilled chicken emanating from Dee’s salad reached Nugget. He sat up and fixed pleading hound eyes on Dee, adding a small whimper for extra-guilt effect. “Buddy,” she said, torn. “I’d give you some, but I don’t know if you’re allowed to eat human food.”
The whimpering grew louder, drawing disapproving attention from the people at the next table. “I just adopted him,” Dee tried to explain. “I don’t know all his habits. He never does this at home. I guess because I only nuke food. No delicious smells like these. Which makes me think, I should turn on the oven at my place and see if it even works.”
“Here, Nug.”
