“Tulla!” I screamed. She stood frozen like a deer as the arrow buried itself in her shoulder. People everywhere began to scatter. I stood, mouth agape. I knew who the shooter was. Kathleen Beesley. I’d seen her clearly before she’d faded back into the crowd.
“Sarah Booth!”
Someone was calling my name from the opposite side of the road. Cece had jumped off the float and was photographing the mayhem. Millie and Tinkie were huddled together in fierce conversation.
“Sarah Booth!”
I scanned the other side of the road and saw her—but it couldn’t be. Kathleen Beesley was waving at me from the back of the line that crowded the road. That was impossible. I’d seen her on the other side of the road with a crossbow. Now she held only an umbrella.
“Kathleen!” I yelled her name but she didn’t look at me. Tinkie and Millie looked over and saw her.
“Kathleen! Kathleen!” They began yelling at her.
She looked at us, turned, and faded into the darkness on the fringe of the crowd.
“She isn’t dead!” Tinkie said to me. “We were right.”
“There are two of her,” I said. “I saw her on the other side of the road with a crossbow. She’s the one who shot Clarissa and probably Tulla.”
“That’s not possible.” Tinkie was just blunt. “Not unless she has a twin.”
“I know.” It didn’t make any sense. Kathleen had disappeared, presumed dead. Now she was back in duplicate.
“Let’s go!” Tinkie grabbed my hand as she jumped off the float and into the street, pulling me with her. “Tell Coleman we’re on the trail of a ghost,” Tinkie said to Millie before she dragged me into the crowd of people.
34
If Kathleen was trying to hide from us, she did a terrible job of it. Ten minutes after we jumped her trail, we found her in a dark corner of a dive bar drinking tequila shooters. I wondered if she’d somehow hit her head and lost her memory, or perhaps suffered from a case of dissociative identity disorder, where an alternate personality had emerged. This tequila-chugging mama in tight leggings and a body-hugging sweater and boots was not the woman I’d met in Darla’s kitchen.
“We’ve been hunting everywhere for you,” Tinkie said to her. “You should have let us know you were alive.”
She threw back another shot of tequila and ignored Tinkie. That was the wrong thing to do after the week we’d had. My fingers curled in her abundant hair and I twisted until I had her attention. “Where the hell have you been? We’ve been worried and Darla is sick with all the nightmares she’s been having thinking that you drowned.”
“Don’t mind me, I’m just the diversion,” she said.
“You’re going to jail,” I said. “You can’t jerk law officers around and have volunteers spend hours looking for you when all along you were safe.”
“I don’t think I’ve broken any laws. Not yet, anyway.”
“Not broken any laws? You shot Clarissa and Tulla with arrows.” I was furious.
“Did I?”
“You hid a boat in the marsh along the river, and when you knocked Clarissa off the Tenn-Tom Queen, you swam to the boat and let everyone think you’d drowned.”
“That’s not illegal, unless you can prove I deliberately hit Clarissa, and you can’t prove that.” Kathleen knocked back another shot.
“Why? Why did you do it?” Tinkie demanded.
“I didn’t do anything.”
“Right,” Tinkie said. “Tell that to the law when they get here.” She dialed 911.
My phone rang, and I answered, expecting Coleman. “Ms. Delaney, it’s Deputy Ford. I have that information you wanted.”
“Aurora Bresland’s maiden name?”
“Yes, it was Lofton.”
“What?” I didn’t believe what I’d heard.
“Lofton. I hope that helps.”
“Are you with Coleman?”
“He’s assisting the EMTs. Clarissa Olson has a severe stomach wound, but the other one, Tarbutton, she’s going to be fine.”
“Is Officer Goode with you?”
“Yes, why?”
“May I speak with him?”
“Sure.”
A few seconds later Goode answered.
“The shooter is Darla Lofton. She’s wearing a red wig and is made up to resemble Kathleen Beesley. You have to find Darla and arrest her. And we have Kathleen Beesley here at Dirty Harry’s bar.”
“Are you sure about this?” Goode asked.
“Positive.”
“We’ll pick Lofton up.”
I turned my attention back to Kathleen. She shrugged. “Clarissa poisoned Darla’s mother and then had her father shot. So she could inherit everything.”
I’d figured that out. “You couldn’t have turned this over to the law?”
She shook her head. “Some scores you have to settle on your own. All of them. All the cheaters had to pay.”
“But you were in cahoots with Tulla Tarbutton. You hired that contractor to fill up Bricey’s car with cement. We have it on video.”
“Yes.” She didn’t deny it. “I used Tulla’s money to make Bricey pay. They all had to pay, and pay hard. It was quite the game to come up with revenge plots and make them pay for their own punishment.”
“And Bart Crenshaw? You could have broken his neck.”
“Bart was collateral damage. He wasn’t supposed to take a fall.”
“You sabotaged the step thinking Clarissa would tumble down the stairs.” It was so clear now that I had the pieces in place. “Why, Kathleen?”
“I love Darla. You don’t go through what we’ve been through without learning what’s important in life. We’ve been friends since the orphanage. More than friends. We’re sisters. We honor that bond of sisterhood above all else. I’d do anything for Darla.” She sat up. “Clarissa had it coming, and so did the rest of them. I don’t regret a single thing. Darla and I hunted them together, because it was justice.”
“Artemis,” I said. It was the clue I hadn’t fully understood. Artemis was the goddess of the hunt, the protector of children and women, the deity that honored the scared bond of sisterhood. I finally understood.
While Cece, Millie, Oscar, and Jaytee manned the float as the parade continued, Tinkie and I waited until Jerry Goode arrived to take Kathleen into custody. Darla had also been apprehended. Clarissa and Tulla were in the hospital, and initial reports were that they’d recover. Coleman was helping the
