“That’s not even true about the rates dropping after the first of the year,” I said, awed by her evil genius.
“Of course it isn’t true. Bricey is a moron. She believed me, and that’s all that matters.”
“So you went to Colton Horn and hired the cement truck.”
Tulla shook her head. “No, that was really Kathleen. It’s just that when she went overboard and didn’t resurface, I knew I had to get that wig out of her house before someone found it. It was my wig and it would trace back to me.”
Tinkie had returned the wig to the closet and came to stand beside me, hands on her hips. “I don’t believe a word that comes out of your mouth.”
“Oh, boo-hoo, don’t make me cry,” Tulla said. “Like I care if you believe me. I’m telling the truth. That’s what you asked me to do.”
“Kathleen wouldn’t work with you,” Tinkie said. “She wouldn’t. She despised all of you.”
“The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Tulla spouted the aphorism as if she’d coined it herself.
“Can you prove any of this?” I asked.
Tulla actually paused long enough to think for a bit. “I don’t have any physical proof, but I can tell you that Kathleen had it bad for Bart Crenshaw. It drove her crazy to know that Bricey, Clarissa, and I had sampled a piece of that tempting pie. She didn’t know how to go about snaring him for herself. She was so … pathetic. She’d moon over him at parties and call him about ridiculous real estate listings that she didn’t have the finances to afford. But he would show her houses and property. He wasn’t into her, so he never acted on her flagrant invitations.”
“Why not?” I asked. “Kathleen was beautiful. And nice. He’s slept with everyone else in town.”
“You are as big a fool as she was,” Tulla said. “It was the nice part that kept him away. Kathleen wanted more than just a roll in the sack or some firecracker-hot sex. She was nice. That meant she had expectations for a relationship or some such foolishness. That’s like a stake in the heart of a vampire to a real swinger. She’d be gum on his shoe he could never get rid of.”
I didn’t want to admit it, but her rationale made sense. No swinger would deliberately bed a romantic. The only thing that could come out of that would be hard, hard feelings. Bart would feel trapped and Kathleen would get her heart broken.
“Tulla, you slept with Bart,” Tinkie pointed out. “Why would Kathleen join up with you?”
“I was no longer a threat,” Tulla said.
“But Bart had broken up with Bricey,” I said. “He gave her that car as a parting gift.”
Tulla shook her head. “No, he hadn’t. That was all a farce. He wouldn’t give a $70,000 car to a woman he was cutting loose. Bart’s wife, Sunny, was on his ass all day long. She said he was embarrassing her in town. So Bart agreed to break up with Bricey—pretend break up. It took the heat off them for a while.”
She had a point. One I should have considered before now. “So you and Kathleen called the cement truck. What about the shock at karaoke?”
“It was a setup. I knew about it and made it happen.”
“You could have killed yourself,” Tinkie said, her voice rising in frustration. “How stupid can you be?”
“I knew it wouldn’t kill me. I’d rigged the circuit. I had to make it look good.”
“For what purpose? Not just to keep you off the suspect list for a ruined car.” Suddenly the bigger picture snapped into focus. “You had something else planned, didn’t you? Something where someone was really going to be hurt? Surely you weren’t going to kill Bricey? Or maybe you tampered with the stairs at Clarissa’s house. You have plenty of access there.”
“Of course not!” Tulla finally stood up and began pacing the room. “We weren’t intending to kill anyone.”
“We?” Tinkie said. “Who is this we?”
“Me and Kathleen.”
I was still finding it hard to believe that Tulla had joined forces with Kathleen, a woman she clearly viewed as her social inferior.
“When pigs fly,” Tinkie muttered under her breath. She rounded on Tulla. “You would never really be friends with Kathleen. You were just setting her up. I know it. We all know it. So why did you steal the wig back? You could have framed her, and a dead woman has no defenses.”
Tulla didn’t bother denying her lack of good faith with Kathleen. “Like I said, I was afraid the wig would track back to me. I’m the one who bought it. It was my idea that Kathleen dress up and hire Horn. Kathleen was so eager to be part of my world that she did it.”
I didn’t believe that, either. Whatever else Kathleen had been, she wasn’t a blind follower.
“Who set up Bart Crenshaw to take a tumble?” I asked.
“Not me. It could have been Bricey or Sunny.”
“Not Clarissa?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Clarissa still has it bad for Bart. She denies it all over the place, but she yearns for his touch.” She laughed. “That’s the truth. It wasn’t me or Clarissa. If Bart refused to give Bricey a new car, I wouldn’t put it past her pushing him.”
“And why wouldn’t he just say so and have her arrested?” Tinkie asked.
“That’s just not done. We deal with things ourselves.” She looked toward the door, clearly eager to be away from us.
“That’s an ominous statement,” I said. “You’re like a secret nation unto yourselves. You have your own laws, your own punishments.”
She glared at me. “I’m done.”
“Not yet.” Tinkie stepped to block her from moving. “Did you deliberately push Kathleen into the river and drown her?”
“No. That’s the truth. I would never be friends with her, you’re right
