Death By a Dark Horse

Another nod and a questioning look at my sister.

'You're doing all right?'

Juliet blushed. She blushed. 'Yes, sir. I'm fine.'

'Got things straightened out with your young man?'

'Yes, sir.'

'No more weeping?'

Weeping?

'No, sir. I'm sorry about that.'

'That's okay.' He smiled and patted her arm.

Oh, did I have questions for my sister.

'And you, Miss Fuller…' Thurman shook his head as Sarah blubbered, then he looked around. 'Hausman!' The deputy I'd seen at the sheriff's office trotted over. 'Take Miss Fuller to the office and get her statement. Hold her as a material witness, possible accessory.'

Hausman led a wailing Sarah to a patrol car as another ambulance pulled in.

'You two,' Thurman addressed Juliet and me. 'Give your statements to the officers over there. Then go home. I'll talk to you both later.'

I started to follow Juliet then stopped. 'Detective?' Thurman looked a question at me. 'Frederick Parsons killed his daughter. He was going to shoot all of us. Joey saved us.'

Thurman shook his head and smiled. 'Thea, you saved yourself and everyone else when you left the connection to the 9-1-1 operator opened. That was quick thinking. And pretty damn brave. You let us know just how and when to approach the situation.' He winked and waved me off. 'Go on. I expect you'd like to go home. We'll take it from here. I'll be in touch when we get this sorted out.'

I smiled as I headed to the deputy who would take my statement. The backyard was now full of vehicles of all description, their strobe and flood lights illuminating the area that had been so empty and terrifying to me a short while ago. I took a deep breath and caught the definite scent of spring, mixed in with diesel and other exhaust. It was not raining. In fact, the sky was bright with a nearly full moon.

A deputy approached and pulled a pen out of his pocket.

'You'll need more than one clipboard for this statement,' I said.

Chapter Twenty-Three

When I was done dictating the evening's events I grabbed Juliet. She wasn't going to avoid talking to me again.

'Tell me about the weeping with Detective Thurman. And do not blow me off this time.'

'Oh, I, uh -'

'Spill it,' I said, through gritted teeth.

Juliet's flaming complexion was evident even in the poor light. She stuttered a bit more, then her shoulders dropped. 'Oh, all right. When I went in to Detective Thurman's office to be interviewed I thought he was building a case against Eric.'

I narrowed my eyes at her. I knew there was more.

'Okay, okay, I even thought Eric may have – you know, by accident. Anyway, I had a story planned about how we spent the afternoon and evening together, but when I walked into that awful conference room I burst into tears. God, Thea, it was worse than you can ever imagine. I couldn't stop crying. Then I found out Eric thought I had done something stupid and was prepared to take the blame himself… I must have gone through a box and a half of tissue.' She cringed when she looked at me.

I skinny-eyed her. 'Juliet, I can't believe -'

I stopped as a familiar gray Honda roared into view. I nudged Juliet and she followed my gaze. Both the driver's and passenger's doors flew opened almost before the car stopped rolling. Paul and Eric jumped out and ran in our general direction, but before they had gotten far Paul stopped Eric, taking hold of his arm. He immediately jerked out of Paul's grip. They exchanged a few words before scanning the crowd.

''Bout time the cavalry got her,' she said, and laughed. 'Oh, no wait! We're the cavalry! She laughed again.

Despite the hubbub of radio noise and people talking, Eric picked up the sound of Juliet's laughter. He slapped Paul's arm, pointed at us, and took off. Juliet grinned as she watched Eric run toward her. There were tears in her eyes. He swooped in and grabbed her in a crushing hug. Rapid Spanish spewed forth when he wasn't covering her face with kisses. I caught a few 'Dios mios' and 'queridas' but that was all.

Paul cleared his throat, drawing my attention. The truth is, I was afraid to look at him. My heart thudded as if Greg still held his gun to my head. All I could think of were our parting shots on Tuesday.

'You're okay?' he asked, eyebrows tilting up.

'Yes, fine.' My smile wobbled.

We were saved from further conversation by the paramedics rolling a gurney past with a body bag. When the second gurney transporting the second body rolled past both Eric and Paul were visibly paler and identically slack- jawed. The third gurney, with a barely conscious Greg strapped to it, caused Eric to cross himself. Paul cleared his throat several times.

Greg, if anything, looked worse than before. Cotton wadding filled his nostrils and was held in place with tape. An IV bag hung from a pole and bounced along with them. Blood soaked the front of his shirt. Each time the gurney hit a bump, he moaned. It hit lots of bumps.

'Did you do that?' Eric asked Juliet.

She looked at me and grinned. 'Actually, Thea did.'

I held up my bloody hand and shrugged.

'Holy shit,' Paul said.

'Juliet finished him, though.' I smiled at my sister.

'Yeah, we make a pretty good team.' We bumped fists.

'And the other two?' Eric asked.

'Not our work,' Juliet said.

Eric looked relieved. Paul ran a hand over his mouth and studied the ground. Detective Thurman chose that moment to come by and give both Eric and Paul a professional once over. He scrutinized Paul an extra moment before turning to me.

'Is this the one you dumped the other evening?'

How he got wind of that I'll never know.

'No,' I said, then pressed my courage into service once again and turned to Paul. 'It was the other one.'

Delores refused to ride in the ambulance to the hospital, so Paul drove her. Eric, after another lingering kiss from Juliet, took Delores's car back to Copper Creek.

Shortly after nine we all sat down at the dining room table in my aunt and uncle's house. It felt like midnight. Aunt Vi had a large tureen of soup on the table and hot bread just out of the oven.

'I knew Greg had to be involved all along,' Delores asserted. Despite the cast on her arm, her appearance had improved considerably. So had mine, once I'd washed and put on fresh clothes.

'How could you have known that?' Aunt Vi asked, ladling another bowl of minestrone soup and passing it.

'It makes sense -'

'Ha.' Juliet snorted.

'She must have pushed Frederick past his limit,' Delores said. 'When we got that description from the big fellow at the Broken Axle, I knew it was Greg and I really believed he killed Valerie.' She turned her attention back to her soup.

'I think I was so stunned at how the description fit Jonathan that I didn't think it through.' I wasn't particularly