Liars & Lunatics in Goose Pimple Junction Read online

  “There’s nothing in particular,” she said, making the word sound like impa tickler. “It’s more like the combination of things that makes me wonder. And I don’t care what you say, my gut knows things.” Caledonia looked out the window at the Japanese Lilac trees that were blooming in the town square.

  “Combination of what things?” Paprika adjusted her black-rimmed glasses.

  “Well, for one, I don’t see him every night. Or even every other night. Often, he’ll call at the last minute to ask me out. You know, come to think of it, I don’t even know if you could call us boyfriend and girlfriend. I just assumed . . . ”

  “The man does have a life, you know.”

  “Yes, but sometimes it’s like he has to have an excuse not to see me.”

  “Maybe they’re legitimate excuses.”

  “It just feels off, you know what I mean? I don’t ask for or demand an explanation of his time, he just offers it. And he’s almost too smooth. He says all the right things, but I wonder how much of it is just practiced, not heartfelt lines.”

  “Like?”

  “Like the first night we kissed. My gosh, it was a passionate kiss. I don’t know if I’ve ever been kissed that way in all my born days. I told him I had to go, and he kept asking me to stay, just for ten minutes. Well, let me tell you, that ten minutes turned into over an hour.”

  Paprika rolled her eyes. “Oh, brother.”

  Tess nodded, knowingly. “Ah, the-just-ten-minutes line.”

  “And then one night we were at dinner, and he leered at me across the table and said, ‘I think you would look great in a bubble bath.’”

  Paprika’s eyes bugged out with an oh, come on look. Tess had just taken a drink of tea and almost choked.

  “Don’t worry, I turned him down flat. Even I knew that was a line . . . ”

  “Good for you. A really bad line, might I add.” The women laughed and sipped their tea.

  Caledonia perked up. “But he can be real sweet and charming too. He’s always telling me I’m beautiful, and he’s very affectionate.”

  “So that’s it? Infrequent dates and some hokey pick-up lines?”

  “Basically. But there are little things I pick up on, like when he related a conversation he had with a coworker. The man was asking Virgil who he was going to the ball game with and Virgil said ‘Chris.’ He said the coworker asked him how he did it—how did he go out with a different woman every night? He was laughing because Chris happened to be a man. But it got me to wondering–”

  “Why the coworker thought he took out a different woman every night and why he was often too busy to see you?”

  “Yeah,” Caledonia said softly, “that.”

  “I don’t get it.” Tess tucked her shoulder-length strawberry blonde hair behind her ears. “Why does a man like that get so many dates?”

  Caledonia sighed. “He’s very charming.”

  “Well, Caledonia Culpepper, you are not stupid. Go into this relationship with your eyes wide open. Don’t fall in love until you can be sure what and who you are dealing with.”

  Caledonia looked miserable. “It just may be too late.”

  Caledonia straightened dresses on a rack and held up one in front of her at the mirror. She put it back, glanced at her watch, and decided it was time to open up the shop. She turned the CLOSED sign to OPEN just as her cell phone sounded and Virgil’s picture appeared on it.

  “Hey, pretty lady. What are you up to?”

  She smiled. “The normal morning routine. I just opened the shop. What are you up to?”

  “I’m driving to Goose Pimple Junction as we speak. I have some business to attend to, and then I thought there’s no one I’d rather have dinner with than you. What do you say?”

  “Business? What business?”

  “I’ll tell you when I see you. Is that a yes?”

  Caledonia wavered. The boys would be with their dad tonight, and she did hate to eat alone. “All right. How about I meet you somewhere?”

  “The Silly Goose at seven?”

  “I’ll see you then.”

  “Can’t wait.”

  Caledonia returned to the dress rack and picked out the dress she’d been eyeing for a while. She wanted to look halfway decent on the date. She took the dress to the back room so it wouldn’t sell before she could try it on.

  When she came back into the main part of the shop, Tonya Munrow had come in. Tonya was every bit of six feet tall, and behind her back Caledonia called her Too Tall Talk A Lot. Lord knows, the woman did like to talk. A lot.

  “Morning, Too–T . . .T . . . Tonya. Hireyew?”

  Tonya flashed an insincere smile. “I’m good, Caledonia. Real good. Just thought I’d come in and see what you have that’s new. Summer will be here before we know it.”

  “You’re in luck. I got a shipment in and everything looks amazing. You want help or just want to browse?”

  “Browsing’s fine.” The woman began looking through a rack of blouses. She looked at Caledonia out of the corner of her eye. “Say, what do think of the big news?”

  “What big news?”

  She turned to Caledonia with her mouth gaping open. “You mean you don’t know? I thought you were still seeing Virgil Pepper.”

  “I–I am. You mean there’s big news having to do with Virgil?”

  “Well,” the woman hedged, “maybe I shouldn’t say. I just thought you woulda been the first to know and all. Maybe I misheard.”

  Tonya Munrow had a reputation for being a spiteful gossip, and Caledonia was tiring of this little game she was playing.

  “Okay, Tonya. You just browse and let me know if you need help with anything.”

  Caledonia placed a bet with herself at how long it would take before Too Tall would talk a lot. She could tell holding in whatever piece of gossip she had was about to kill the woman. Caledonia watched the tick of the little hand on the clock behind the desk, and it took less than a minute for Tonya to ask, “Can I try this on?” She held up an expensive dress that Caledonia knew she wouldn’t buy.

  “Of course. Right this way.”

  As Caledonia led the way to the fitting room, Tonya said, “You mean you really don’t know about the mayoral race?”

  “I know Mayor Buck is running. Again. What is this anyway? His third four-year term? I call him Mayor-For-Life. But what’s that got to do with Virgil?”

  A triumphant look came over Tonya’s face. “If Virgil has his way, Buck won’t have that nickname much longer.”

  “Get out! Virgil’s not even a resident of Goose Pimple Junction.”

  Tonya’s smug face said she’d gotten what she came in for. “He is now. He bought that cute little bungalow over on Cain Lane. I think he closes this morning if I’m not mistaken.”

  “Where’d you hear this?”

  A sly look came over her face. “I really can’t recall.” She stepped into the dressing room and held up the dress she was holding. “I really like this. It’s not too pretty for nice, but it’s great for good. Know what I mean?”

  Caledonia closed the dressing room door, muttering under her breath, “No. I do not.”

  Two

  Nothing shows lack of conscience better than bold-faced lying.

  –Bob Altemeyer

  Early May, six months before Dead Virgil

  Wynona bit a hangnail and stared hard out the windshield, wondering if she was crazy for going back to Goose Pimple Junction. She hadn’t excelled at being an assassin and had given up on it almost before it started. It seemed like a lifetime ago since she’d accepted that first job to kill someone. She’d only had the one assignment, and it had not gone well. First, she killed the wrong person, then her conscience wouldn’t let her kill the right person, and finally she killed the one who’d employed her in the first place. But that had been by accident. She’d gone to the woman’s house to tell her she was quitting. One thing led to another, and they’d ended up on the floor fighting over a knife. Wouldn’t it just figure th
at when she’d finally managed to kill someone, it would be in self-defense?

  She’d thought long and hard about a career change. She was really only good at two things: baking and the art of disguise. She’d been three different people the last time she was in town: Trixie was a red-headed Jimmy Choo-wearing, ditzy airhead. Waunice was an obnoxious, revolting, reprehensible fat old woman who talked loud, smelled bad, and looked even worse. And finally, John was a proper English gentleman with a ramrod straight back, a bowler hat, and a fastidious demeanor. She’d kind of liked being a man for a change.

  But that was then and this is now. She had thrown away all her past disguises and anything related to her previous aliases so she couldn’t be tied to a particular crime. She’d gotten a nose job and face-lift even though she was only in her thirties. As Trixie, Waunice, and John, she’d worn contacts to change her eye color. Her hair had been red, grey, and black, respectively. She’d worn high heels or lifts in her shoes when she was undercover. But now she was a new person, wholly and completely herself–a bare-bones version. She’d reinvented Wynona. She had to. She needed to look completely different than the last time she was in town. Now she was a brown-eyed, short-haired, butch, no-nonsense mom. Gone were her beloved Jimmy Choo shoe collection and her long blonde hair. Now she wore flip-flops and a buzz cut, fatigues, and T-shirts that hid her shapely figure, and this time her son accompanied her. She’d gotten her wish, which meant for once in her life she was a full-time mother.

  People had kept their distance from the loud-speaking and loud-smelling Waunice, but as Trixie, she’d met quite a few of the residents of Goose Pimple Junction. There was only one person in particular she was concerned with: Officer Hank Beanblossom. She smiled when she thought about how he’d taken a special shine to Trixie and ever so briefly to the former long blonde-haired Jimmy Choo-wearing Wynona. She had kicked herself for stopping at that bar on her way out of town a while back. And for talking to Hank and dancing with Hank and kissing Hank in that bar right before she left town. Now she was worried about the officer with whom she’d shared a mutual attraction. She’d have to keep her distance from him. And she’d have to change her name. No good could come out of a relationship with the man. If he ever found out about her past life, he not only would not be interested in her, he’d arrest her. She couldn’t go to jail. She had a son to take care of now.

  Her son Charlie had spent the first nine years of his life with her sister as Wy played apprentice and accomplice to hit man Zeke from a small-time mob. He was a better hit man than teacher, but eventually his career choice had done him in. She tried to use what she’d learned with Zeke, make it on her own, but she didn’t have it in her. When she thought about it, really thought about it, all she wanted to be was a mom. So she’d changed her appearance, collected her son, and set out to start a new life. She wasn’t sure what she wanted to be when she grew up, but she had saved enough money to give her a little time to figure it out. She had a dream of opening a cupcake shop. She wondered if she could make a go of that in Goose Pimple Junction.

  It would be smarter to figure it out in a big city where she could get lost in the crowd. Going to the tiny town of Goose Pimple Junction was not her smartest move, but then she never was known for her brains. She wanted the life that small town Goose Pimple Junction could give her son. Right now, her son was her highest priority.

  She’d be a mom and an entrepreneur. And maybe fall in love. That thought entered her head, and she immediately tamped it down. Oh no you won’t! You’re steering clear of Mr. Officer Man.

  “Are we there yet?” Her ten-year-old son interrupted her inner dialogue, his thumbs moving fast across a game console.

  “Not yet. But if you’ll put down that game and look out the window, you might enjoy the ride. The countryside is beautiful out here. You ought to take it in.”

  “I’m hungry,” he grumped.

  She passed him a box of raisins. “This will do for now. You’ll have to wait until we stop for something more substantial.”

  “How long will that be?”

  She pointed to the GPS. “It says forty-two minutes. Assuming we don’t get behind any tractors.”

  Suddenly, a woman rose from a lying to a sitting position in the back seat. One side of her graying hair was mashed to the side of her head. “Where are we?” Her sharp nose seemed even sharper as it sat between two deep-set beady eyes.

  “Go back to sleep, Mother. We’ll be stopping in about forty-five minutes.”

  “I wasn’t asleep.”

  “Then who was that snoring like a dead moose back there?”

  “You’re imagining things.”

  “I suppose I am,” Wynona said, as she pondered what could go wrong if they stayed for long in Goose Pimple Junction. All kinds of things, she reckoned.

  Caledonia sat on a bench in the town square, her legs crossed and her foot bobbing in the air. The smile she wore on the outside was an absolute reflection of how she felt on the inside. She was truly happy for the first time in a long while. She’d gotten through the hardest year of her life. The divorce proceedings had been long and ugly. But Virgil had been there every step of the way to help her with the legal aspects and to be a friend. More than a friend now. She was reluctant to call it love because their relationship was so new. But she felt they were headed in that direction. With his guidance, she’d been able to buy Miss Penny’s Dress Shop. Now she was a business owner as well as the mother of two boys, Pickle and Peanut. She no longer felt like a second-class citizen as she’d felt when she was married to the boys’ father, Philetus Swift Culpepper, IV. Virgil thought she was beautiful. And capable. And fun to be with. And he’d told her that often enough that she was beginning to believe him.

  Virgil. Was Tonya’s news true? Is that why he was coming to town and what he would tell her about tonight? Why didn’t he tell her anything about it before now? There goes that gut thing again, warning her he couldn’t be trusted. Maybe he meant more to her than she to him.

  A car badly in need of a muffler rolled to a stop at the corner of Main and Courthouse Streets. Caledonia noticed a young boy in the passenger seat and a woman—or was it a man—no, a woman was driving. As the car accelerated down Main Street, leaving a plume of grey smoke in its wake, she noticed it was filled to near overflowing. The pair looked like a band of gypsies rolling through town. They pulled into a parking spot in front of Slick & Junebug’s Diner. The duo got out and then a second woman, tall and thin and older than the first, got out of the back seat. All three went into the restaurant, laughing and looking carefree. Caledonia squinted and studied the woman. There was something vaguely familiar about her, but Cal couldn’t place her. Short brownish hair, a slender build in jeans and a T-shirt, feet clad in bright pink flip-flops. Where did she know her from? It was going to drive her crazy until she could remember. She stood, smoothed her green and pink paisley skirt, and headed for the diner.

  Inside, she was met by the unofficial greeting committee, Clive and Earl, two old coots who had nothing better to do than sit at the counter and argue all day. They reminded her of the Odd Couple characters, so Clive and Earl became Oscar and Felix, at least to her.

  “Oscar. Felix,” she said with a nod and a broad smile. “Hireyew two fine gentlemen today?”

  “Still standing up,” Clive wheezed.

  Next was Earl’s turn. “Not looking at roots yet. Man alive, you’re a sight for sore eyes. Where you going, pretty lady? This here seat’s not taken.” He hitched a thumb at the seat next to him—the one in which Clive was sitting.

  She cocked an eyebrow. “Well, it looks like it is to me, Felix.”

  “Aw, he’s just an empty suit. Don’t mind him. I can move him if y’ont.”

  Caledonia’s hand touched the old man’s shoulder. “Now don’t you do any such thing—”

  “I’d like to see you try, you old coot.” Clive leaned into his buddy.

  “Now, now, boys.” She put a hand on both men’s sho
ulders to break them up. “Y’all behave. I’m gonna take this booth over here. I’ll talk to y’all later.”

  “Is that a promise?” Clive hollered after her, but she was only vaguely aware of it. Her attention was on the trio sitting in the booth at the back.

  Junebug was on duty, and she appeared at Caledonia’s table right away. “What’re you doing here all by your lonesome? Where’re your boys or that yahoo you been wearing on your arm lately?”

  “Pickle and Peanut are with their daddy. And Virgil’s in town, I hear tell. We’re meeting later.”

  “That long-distance relationship crap is for the birds.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “You got to take things slow-like, though, Cal. Don’t go rushing into anything now, you hear?”

  Caledonia raised a palm at the waitress. “I hear.”

  “What can I getcha?”

  “Before you get me a sweet tea, tell me who that woman is in the back booth. She looks familiar, but I can’t place her.”

  Junebug turned toward the back and propped a hand on her hip, glancing at the spiky-haired younger woman and the wild-haired graying older woman. “I don’t know. But I can sure find out. You talking about the older one or the younger one?”

  “Younger.”

  “Be right back.” Junebug waggled her eyebrows and headed for the newcomers’ table. Gossip was a way of life in this town, and Junebug was not only part diner owner and head waitress but also head gossip.

  “Hey, y’all,” Junebug said as she got to the back booth that held three new faces. “Y’all just passing through?”

  The older woman spoke first. “We’re moving in as a matter fact.” She motioned across the table. “My rich daughter bought up a farm.”

  “Mother, I am not rich, and I did not buy a farm.” Wynona addressed the waitress. “We’re renting it.”

  “Well, then, welcome to town. The more the merrier is what I always say. Where y’all from?”