“Why are you letting her walk out of here? She killed Carrie! Everybody knows it!” Beth spat. A tiny bit of spittle clung to the corner of her mouth and disgust curled in Darci’s belly.
“She couldn’t have killed Carrie. Not unless she’s able to be in two places at once. She’s got an alibi for a solid six hours,” Kellan said as he came down the two steps, not looking at Darci. “I’m heading out to speak with said alibi and take his statement. But it’s pretty much ironclad.”
“She probably fucked him to get it,” Beth snarled, reaching up and shoving at Darci’s chest. “Hell, she’s fucking everybody in town.”
Darci batted her hand away and said, “Don’t touch me again, Beth. I’ll make allowances because you’re angry and upset. And I’ll make allowances because I know you’re probably hurting over Carrie, but do it again, and I’ll get mad.”
She heard a muffled snort from Kellan and Britt snickered. Beth’s eyes flamed. “Are you threatening me?” Beth gasped.
“You’d like that,” Darci said. “Something else for you to give your lawyer to work on. I’m not saying another damn word to you.”
Yep, he was trying not to laugh, she was sure of it, as the odd smothered cough came from Kellan again. Beth lifted her chin, trying to look arrogantly proud. “You think you’re going to get away with it,” she rasped. “It doesn’t matter what alibi you’ve come up with. You killed Carrie. You’re the only one who could have. You’re the only one who hates her.”
Darci lifted her chin. “Bullshit. Not everybody in this town is blind. She had some people fooled, but there are other people who know exactly what she was.”
Then she moved around Beth and headed on down the sidewalk.
“How can you let her walk?” Beth demanded.
“Because she’s got a damned good alibi. If it turns out she lied, I’ll pick her up. But that’s unlikely,” Kellan said, moving around her. “Now let me do my job, Ms. Morris.”
“You’ve been fooled by that pretty face,” Beth snarled. “I’m not surprised. She’s got everybody wrapped around her finger.”
Kellan compressed his lips together and continued on down the sidewalk, following in Darci’s footsteps.
“See? See? You go following after her, right in front of me,” Beth shrieked.
“No. I’m going to talk to Clive. He was her alibi. She spent the evening at his café,” Kellan said over his shoulder. “And I thought I’d follow this up with checking with damn near everybody in town, since three-fourths of the population seem to enjoy stopping by his shop for ice cream or coffee on a Friday night.”
Kellan didn’t see when Beth whispered, “Clive?” or the way her lips tightened afterward.
“Damn it,” Beth mumbled.
“It had to have been her. It had to. Doesn’t make any sense. Nobody else would have wanted to do it,” she swore as she paced around and around her studio.
Her gray hair was messy, oily from many restless passes of her hands. She had never allowed herself to look so unpresentable, but she hadn’t been prepared for the sudden knock on the door, and she had been too shaken by what had happened at the police station to go upstairs and try to make herself look as she felt she should.
Her house, damn it. Her house. If she wanted to look a mess in her own home, that was her right.
“It just doesn’t make any sense. I don’t rightly know why Clive would lie for her, but Darci is the only one who hated Carrie,” Beth said, turning and staring at her visitor, her eyes bright and burning with passion.
“Well, I don’t exactly see that as being true.”
Beth’s eyes widened as she saw the heavy glazed urn come crashing down, but she couldn’t move in time.
“I guess I should thank him one more time,” Darci said quietly, casting a look across the street at Clive’s.
“Not now. The Sheriff is about fifteen feet behind us and he needs to get his statement from Clive. Let’s let him get it. We can go across the street to the Ice Cream Shoppe. I want a cone-a double, I think-chocolate, with sprinkles. Then I want you to tell me about what happened yesterday when you went to see Carrie,” Britt said, hooking her arm through Darci’s and leading her across the narrow street.
So, over cold, creamy vanilla-chocolate for Britt-Darci told her. “She pushed me. Too far. But I wouldn’t have done this,” Darci murmured, her eyes taking on a far-off look. “I might have decked her. But this…” she sighed and shook her head. Then she took a thoughtful lick of her ice cream. “Beth seemed pretty convinced.”
“Beth is a woman who is so full of hatred, it’s easy for her to think that everybody around her hates as much as she does,” Britt said with a shrug.
The bell chimed over the door and a woman with a group of kids came in. Two of them darted toward Darci and she smiled at them, stroking her hand over a towheaded boy, tugging on a red braid. Their mom came up, smiling hesitantly. “Hey, Darci. I heard about Ms. Forrest, glad to see you…well, you know.”
Darci arched a brow. “Do I? Do I want to?”
The mom-what was her name…Janna, Janna Harton-leaned over and murmured quietly, “Beth Morris was going around telling everybody you did it. She hadn’t even made it home before she was making calls and telling everybody.”
Britt’s eyes flared. “That’s slander.”
Darci’s lips flattened out and she glanced at the kids. Shaking her head minutely, she told them with her eyes, not now. Then she brightly said, “I had the best night last night. Spent it over at Clive’s. Went over there around five or so, and did nothing but eat biscotti and drink mochas and cappuccinos until he chased me out when he closed.”
Janna’s brows rose and she nodded in understanding. “He’s got the best chocolate mochas,” she murmured.
Her six-year-old twins, Macy and Alan, poked out their lips accordingly. “We can’t have them,” they wailed in unison.
Macy said, “Mama says we’re hyper enough.”
“We have to drink steamers,” Alan chimed in, his eyes big and pitiful.
“If I remember correctly, hyper doesn’t cover it. Maniacal, overactive, bouncing bundles of supercharged energy just might work,” Darci said, smiling widely. “I can see why Mama said no mochas.”
Macy rested her chin on the table and said, “Mama promised me ice cream, too.”
Alan grinned. “Yours looks really good. Can I try a taste while Mama gets mine?”
Darci took another lick. “Hmmm. It is really good,” she said. Then she winked at Alan. “Nope. No sharing.”
Kellan had Clive’s statement, as well as three other customers who had stopped in today for a cup of coffee. They had also been in the mood for some caffeine last night, and recalled seeing that pretty art teacher, as one had called her, perched in the window, just reading away.
“She’s a talented thing-taking pictures and teaching kids,” Clive had said. “I can’t help myself. I keep buyin’ stuff from her, even when I tell myself I’ve bought enough.”
Clive had a number of framed photographs decorating his café, most of which Kellan had recognized as Darci’s work the moment they had appeared.
He was halfway back to the station when he stopped, blew out a breath and scowled.
If he went over there, it just might save him from having to deal with her later. Head it off at the pass, so to speak.
But damn it.
He really didn’t feel up to handling Beth yet.
He turned and headed down Court Street, going left onto Main, then right onto Primrose. Beth’s house was a work of art, and she took great pride in that. She preened every time somebody asked to list it on the Christmas Home Tours, but she never let a soul she didn’t know inside. And there were very few of those.
He knocked on the door, his eyes studying the woodwork and the molding that was probably over a century old.