Page 36 of Poison Apple Crisp
“Attention, ladies and asses,” she calls out into the microphone, and I see now that it’s Alyssa Thompson making the tawdry announcement. “I’d like to invite the ladies in the room to come on up and take part in the entertainment for the evening.”
“Gotta go.” I don’t hesitate, and I certainly don’t wait for her to finish her spiel. Not because I’m super excited about donning a pair of donkey ears and shaking my tail at the patrons, but because I’m hoping to land me some alone time with the suspect in question.
“That was fast!” Alyssa’s eyes sweep over me as a handful of other ladies join the endeavor, and a group of waitresses quickly herd us to the back. “You look familiar.” She motions for me to follow her, and I do.
“Oh, we’ve met,” I say as we make our way to a large room in the rear of the establishment where women are being outfitted with furry ears and tails. A plume of orange dust explodes to my right, and Ginger sneezes three times straight, blowing the supernatural dust clear across the room.
“Oh?” Alyssa squints as she takes me in. “We’ve met?”
“She’s guilty as sin, Lottie,” Ginger barks. “Look at those beady little eyes! I know you don’t like me saying so, but I’m telling you, my mother was never wrong.”
I wrinkle my nose at the fuzzy wuzzy. I suppose if you accuse everyone of being guilty, you’ll eventually be right.
“My name is Lottie Lemon.” I nod to Alyssa. “We met at the fundraiser the other night.”
“That’s right.” She snaps her fingers. “So did they catch the killer?” Her left eye comes shy of winking. “I bet it was Rachelle.” A laugh bumps from her, and I marvel that I didn’t even have to pull that little tidbit from her. “She was Brenda’s sidekick. I’m sorry.” She squeezes her eyes shut a moment. “You probably have no idea who I’m babbling about.”
Ginger barks. “But we do! Tell her, Lottie. We met Rachelle—and I know my Brenda.”
“I think I’ve met Rachelle,” I say. “She’s helping organize the do-over fundraiser at my mother’s B&B. They’ll be doing it in two parts. You’re welcome to come.”
She shrugs as she reaches into a box behind her and plops a pair of foot-long donkey ears over my head.
“I might show up.” She plucks a bobby pin from inside her blouse, and I’m terrified as to where it actually came from. “But if I do, it’ll only be for the food. God knows I’ve given enough to that school already.”
“Monetarily?” I’m curious if money played a factor in Brenda’s death.
“That, too, but I was thinking more along the lines of my tattered soul. I’d be careful not to get too involved with the inner workings of that place if I were you. It has a way of chewing you up and spitting you out. Although”—she reaches back into the box and fishes out a furry tail before motioning for me to turn around—“I’ve given plenty of cold hard cash to that place, too. Brenda was a master at getting people to open their wallets.”
“Were the two of you close?” According to Cokie, they were, but I leave that part out.
Alyssa glances past me as if she was looking right into another day long ago.
Ginger takes a seat right over my shoulders, and thankfully, she feels lighter than air.
“That’s the look of a guilty woman, Lottie,” the tiny pooch does her best to whisper, and it’s so stinking adorable I just want to snuggle with her right here, with my new ears, tail, and all.
“We were friends.” Alyssa sighs as she puts on a pair of ears herself. “Brenda and I used to head up all of the school carnivals together. I used my business license to get the school a discount on decorations, prizes, and whatnot. We got along pretty well in the beginning. But then, her big personality got in the way. And I’m not a person who takes anything from anyone. We had a little falling-out.”
“What do you mean by big personality?” I ask as one of the waitresses gives the other tail-wagging girls the 411 on how this donkey show is about to go down.
Alyssa laughs to herself as she pulls a lipstick tube out of her jeans and proceeds to apply a crimson ring over her mouth.
“Brenda Phillips wasn’t happy unless everything was going exactly how she wanted it to,” she says right before she blows herself a kiss into the mirror. “She put the control incontrolling, if you know what I mean. And if someone dared to disagree with her, she’d smile really nice to their face, but you could tell she was about to rain down a whole lot of misery over them.” She blinks back. “Come to think of it, Rachelle crossed her shortly after we met her. The day Brenda and I met Rachelle, that is. Rachelle was new in town, just married, and was excited to join the PTA. You know, she was all gung-ho to be a good stepmother. But Brenda wanted her to become a one-woman cleanup committee. At first Rachelle was up for it, but once she saw that Brenda was giving her all the lackey positions—and lots of them—she had a change of heart. They argued over something silly, and Rachelle actually accused her of being a nasty control freak.”
“And then what happened?”
She chortles to herself. “Brenda was humiliated, of course. Rachelle just so happened to have her little outburst right after one of our infamous PTA meetings. But the strange part is, right after that, maybe not even a few days later, Rachelle was suddenly eager to do anything Brenda asked of her. And Brenda, being the vindictive snake she was, had her dress up as a clown and be the only victim in the dunk tank that year at the Halloween carnival. Usually the teachers and a few students would take turns at it. Something about that one-eighty felt so very off to me. Nevertheless, they were inseparable after that. Brenda always needed a right-hand gal, and Rachelle turned up just in time. But I wasn’t privy to why they were suddenly besties.”
Ginger barks. “Because this woman and Brenda had that falling-out. Ask her about it, Lottie. Ask her.”
I nod. “Alyssa? Can I ask what kind of falling-out you had with her?”
Her eyes widen as she looks vacantly past me once again.
“I’ll tell you because you asked nicely, but I’d appreciate it if you didn’t repeat this to anyone.”
“I wouldn’t think of it.” With the exception of Noah and Everett. And maybe one of my sisters or Keelie. Come to think of it, I might need to process the case out loud to either Lily or Carlotta. I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to fill the ghosts at my mother’s B&B in on it as well.