A Taste of Murder

Caitlin collapsed onto the bed. She looked up at Jazzy. “Are there enough towels? I wouldn’t mind grabbing a shower before the rehearsal.”

“I’ll check.”

Jazzy hefted her suitcase up on the mattress beside her violin and turned toward the bathroom.

“And see if there are three soaps,” Liz added. “No offense, girls, but I want my own.”

Jazzy opened the bathroom door and stepped inside. Caitlin was right about the smell of barbecue sauce. It was even stronger in here. Odd. Maybe the bathroom was vented to draw air from outside, where the contestants would be cooking their festival entries.

The room was small, with a bathtub instead of a shower stall, and a thick white curtain pulled closed. The white fixtures sparkled, thank goodness. She counted four towels and four washcloths, but only one small cake of soap. There might be another in the bathtub soap dish, though.

She grasped the top of the shower curtain and jerked it open. Rings slid across the rod with a metallic scrape.

The strong odor of barbecue sauce slapped her in the face. At the same time, her heart skidded to a stop. Blood drained from her face, leaving her cheeks clammy.

Now would be a good time to scream. One gathered in her diaphragm, but her throat seemed frozen. Instead of a scream, she barely managed to produce a whimper.

A man lay in the bathtub. Fully clothed. Mouth open. Eyes fixed on the ceiling. Tongue hanging grotesquely out.

Dead.

Her stomach lurched as she scanned the sticky red stuff covering his body. Blood?

She placed a hand over her mouth and swallowed back a sudden surge of acid.

Not blood. Barbecue sauce. The man’s body was covered in barbecue sauce.

TWO

Derrick pulled his pickup beneath the covered entryway to the Executive Inn. Though today was only Thursday, the parking lot was already full. If the ensemble ladies had been lucky enough to find a parking space in the hotel’s lot, they’d better ride to the church with him. That way they could leave their car parked until they were ready to go home. Since the Executive Inn marked the western end of the festival route, finding an empty parking space within miles of the place before Sunday afternoon would be nearly impossible.

Of course, they could have easily walked the three blocks to the church. But he figured they’d be lugging instrument cases and music stands and what-have-you. Plus, he wanted an opportunity to welcome them to town before they got swept into the wedding chaos.

He stopped the pickup and peered through the glass doors for three musicians who, hopefully, were watching for him. When nobody emerged, he pulled the pickup forward and over to the yellow-painted curb behind three deputy sheriff vehicles.

“Hey, you can’t park there.” The teenage parking attendant removed an earbud from his ear and punched a button on his iPod when Derrick got out and slammed the door. “That’s a tow zone.”

Derrick kept walking toward the door. “Yeah, well I wouldn’t call the tow truck if I was you. I’m here to pick up the musicians who’ll be playing at the sheriff’s son’s wedding tomorrow. We don’t want them to be late for the rehearsal, now, do we?” He winked at the kid to take the sting out of his words.

The guy blanched. “Uh, no, sir, we sure don’t.” Apparently he was familiar with Sheriff Maguire.

Derrick grinned. The sheriff was well known among the local teenagers. And they all sincerely hoped they were not well known to Sheriff Maguire.

“What’s with the cop cars?” He pointed toward the trio lined along the curb.

The kid shrugged and replaced the earbud.

Derrick glanced up the street, where a crew was hard at work setting up a bunch of carnival rides in the grassy lot in front of the American Legion building. Smoke from the nearest barbecue crew’s pit billowed toward them and filled the air with the smell of burning hickory. A merry-go-round and a small Ferris wheel were already in place, and the men were tightening bolts on the curved red seats of another ride. Derrick shook his head. Barbecue and a Tilt-A-Whirl. What a combination.

He stepped from the humid Kentucky spring heat through a cold blast of air-conditioned wind rushing from the hotel lobby. The place was packed, as he knew it would be. They were expecting more than ten thousand festival-goers this year, and every hotel in town had been sold out for months. Chelsea had been lucky to snag the last few rooms for the wedding guests and out-of-town relatives who hadn’t planned ahead. Of course, the fact that she was marrying the son of one of Waynesboro’s most prominent citizens might have helped a bit. The hotel management was eager to keep her happy.

Derrick stood in the lobby, looking around for three young women with musical instruments. Odd. He frowned down at his watch. Why weren’t they down here waiting for him? They were supposed to be at the church in fifteen minutes.

Ignoring the line of people waiting to check in, he approached the front desk when a guest walked away clutching a magnetic key card. The clerk looked up, an unspoken query on his face.

“Could you ring a guest’s room for me?” He leaned an arm on the high counter. “Miss Jasmine Delaney.”

The young man’s mouth gaped, and his gaze flickered toward the line of guests waiting to check in. “Uh, she’s not in her room.”

“She’s not?” Derrick cocked his head at the guy. “Hasn’t she checked in?”

He gave a quick nod. “Yes, sir, about an hour ago. But there were some, uh, some problems.” He lowered his voice and caught Derrick’s gaze. “She’s being questioned by the police right now.”

“The police?” Derrick couldn’t help it. Surprise made his voice carry through the lobby.

The kid’s eyes flicked sideways again. “Yes, sir. But we’re supposed to keep it quiet because of, you know.” He nodded toward the line of guests. “The boss doesn’t want anyone to panic.”

“But what has she done?” Derrick’s thoughts whirled as he tried to conjure a picture of the girl’s ShoutLife profile. She had looked safe enough. Her blog posts openly proclaimed her Christian beliefs and her passion for music. Of course, most of the people she listed as her favorites were complete unknowns to Derrick. He barely knew a flute from a tuba.

“I don’t know.” The clerk’s voice lowered even more. Derrick had to lean over the counter to catch his words. “But I heard somebody’s been murdered.”

Derrick reared back. Murdered? Oh, great. Terrific. His little sister was supposed to get married in less than twenty-four hours, and her musicians were being arrested for murder. And to make matters worse, he was the one who’d hired them.

Sheriff Maguire was going to throw a fit.

“Listen, I need to talk to the deputy in charge,” he said. “Miss Delaney’s ensemble is supposed to play at my sister’s wedding tomorrow. In fact, I’m supposed to have them at the rehearsal in—” he glanced at his watch “—ten minutes.”

The young man considered him for less than a second. “They’re in the Governor’s Room, just past the restrooms.”

Derrick strode through the lobby in the direction the young man indicated. He weaved around a cluster of people huddled before a festival event marquee and passed the ladies’ lounge. The hallway beyond contained several meeting rooms, the doors all closed. He found the one labeled Governor’s Room and entered without knocking.

The people inside sat in chairs around a conference table, two men in uniform and three women. Everyone’s attention seemed to be focused on the young woman at the end, the one he immediately recognized from the photos he’d studied online. Jasmine Delaney. He’d spent enough time examining images of her face, with its pixie chin and arresting green eyes, to pick her out in a crowd. She looked very different at the moment, though, with a red nose and eyes puffy from crying. A box of tissues sat on the table, and several crumpled-up white wads littered the surface before her.

She looked up at him when he came into the room, and their eyes met. Something surged between them, and the shock of it glued Derrick’s feet to the carpet. For a moment he couldn’t look anywhere but at her. In that instant he knew that this girl was not guilty of murder.

A wave of relief washed over him, mixed with something else. Compassion, maybe? The poor girl looked fragile, almost frail, and absolutely terrified.

One of the deputies rose and took a step toward him. “I’m sorry, sir, but you can’t come in here.”

“Fine.” Derrick tore his gaze from the girl’s. He unclipped the cell phone from his belt and held it toward the man. “But could you do me a favor? Call Sheriff Maguire and explain why I’m not at his son’s wedding rehearsal with the musicians.”

The deputy stared at the phone, suddenly hesitant.

“’Lo, Derrick.” Matt Farmer, the deputy on the other side of the table, nodded. They’d known each other for years, had grown up in the same neighborhood. “We’re just about finished here. I don’t see any reason we can’t release these ladies and let them get on to the rehearsal. You got anything else, Frank?”

The other deputy directed his words toward Jasmine. “Yeah, I want to hear about that electrician one more time.”

Her lips tightened before she answered. Good. A show of spunk meant she wasn’t one of those women who collapsed into an emotional heap under stress.