Calamity Jayne And The Trouble With Tandems Part 47

I raised my hand.

"You said, Kenny admitted to several other incidents," I said. "Can you be more specific?"

"And you are?"

"She's my friend, Tressa. Tressa Turner," Keelie said.

I looked at Keelie.

"Gee, thanks!" I said.

"You're friends?" Vinny snapped. "Since when?"

"Since I've started taking back my life," Keelie snapped back.

I raised my hand again.

"Uh, Agent Marshall, in the interest of full disclosure, I should tell you I'm also a journalist," I added.

"I see," the agent said. "Well, as the sheriff here indicated, Mr. Grey has admitted to various incidents connected to what appears to have been a campaign to get Miss Keller to quit the bike ride."

"Sorry to disappoint," Keelie said.

"There are, however, some...discrepancies in Mr. Grey's story we are concerned about."

"Discrepancies? What discrepancies?" Vinny barked. "The kook confessed, you said. It's a wrap!"

"That's right!" Keelie's mother jumped to her feet. "You got your guy. Why drag the rest of us in here? Hasn't my daughter been through enough?" She shoved me aside and put an arm around Keelie.

"There are always loose ends to tie up in any investigation, ma'am," the agent said. "Corroborating evidence to gather. I'm certain you wouldn't want us to cut any corners when it comes to your daughter's safety."

"Is what Kenny told us true, then?" I asked. "Is there still reason for Keelie to be concerned?"

"What did Kenny say?" Not one. Not two. Not three. But four people in the room blurted.

I raised a Spock eyebrow. Interesting.

"We've interviewed Kenny extensively. He owns up to certain criminal acts and misdeeds. He's offered to take a polygraph examination, which we're arranging for at this time. However, based on our preliminary investigation, we have reason to believe we may be dealing with more than one perpetrator," the agent said.

Keelie gasped. "What? What do you mean more than one perpetrator?"

"It might be helpful if we started at the beginning," Patrick Dawkins said. "With the rat."

Duke Wayne would have put it, "Let's get to the rat killer."

"Kenny Grey denies any role in sending Keelie the rat," Agent Marshall stated. "He flat out denies it. Which, makes one wonder, considering the serious nature of the crimes he's admitting to, why he won't cop to a dead rat."

"Why? Because he's a whack job," Vinny said.

"Kenny says he got the idea to start pranking Keelie after she got that package," Patrick said.

After the rat package?

That meant someone else sent Keelie the rat. Someone with his or her own agenda."

The room grew quiet.

"I didn't do it!" I finally yelled, feeling a lot like Mr. Green from the movie, Clue. "I didn't send that parting gift!"

"Of course, you did!" Vinny charged. "You and Keelie had that dust-up at the dance. You wanted to get back at her so you stuffed a dead rat in a d.a.m.ned cookie box and sent it to her. I was right all along. It was you."

Each set of eyes in the room turned in my direction.

"Hold on. Wait a minute," I said, rewinding his outburst in my head. "How did you know the rat was in a cookie box? You weren't even there."

And...ba-zing!

There it was. That "oh, c.r.a.p" moment-that oh-so-telling hesitation that comes when you realize your motor mouth just sealed your fate.

"I, uh, saw the package later," Vinny said. "Manny showed it to me."

Manny crossed his arms and shook his head. "Manny never showed you the box. Manny gave it to the cops."

Vinny swallowed several times in succession. You could tell by the yo-yoing of his Adam's apple.

"No, I'm sure you showed it to me first, DeMarco."

Manny uncrossed his arms. "You callin' Manny a liar?" he said.

Up and down. Up and down went Vinny's Adam's apple.

"Oh, my G.o.d, Vinny! What did you do?" Jessica Rabbit...er, Candice Keller yelled.

"Vinny?" Keelie asked. "Was it you?"

Vinny took one look at Manny and back at Keelie.

"Sorry, kid. After you got into it with the cowgirl here, your fans ate it up. I figured, what the h.e.l.l could it hurt to stir things up a bit? Get a little road rage goin'." He shrugged. "In this business, it's all about publicity, kid."

"But I trusted you, Vinny," Keelie said. "How could you do something like this?"

"You hired me to help your career, make you a star. I was doing my job. No harm. No foul."

Keelie's face turned the color of her hair.

"No harm? No foul? I blamed her," she motioned to me. "Not to mention the psycho who took his cue from your little PR stunt and decided to up the ante. Why didn't you say something when things started to happen that you didn't do? Like getting knocked cold. And Tiara's attempted abduction. Didn't you even care that people were getting hurt?"

Vinny shrugged. "It isn't the first hard knock I've taken for a client's career," he said. "And the mileage we were getting in terms of publicity? Priceless, kid. Priceless. The ratings were soaring. I told myself, 'Vinny, you might as well see how it plays out.' Like I said, kid. It's my job."

"Not anymore," Keelie said. "You're fired."

"Keelie!" her mother started to protest.

"Be quiet, mother," Keelie said. "This doesn't concern you."

"Well!" Jessica stomped back to her seat.

"Well, that takes care of the rat," the sheriff said. "Let's move on."

"There's more?" Langley Carlisle the Third said.

"There's the little matter of the Porta-Potty incident number one," Agent Marshall said. "Uh, number one as in the first kybo incident," she clarified.

Ah. So state agents have a sense of humor, after all. Good to know.

"Porta-Potty incident number one?"

Okay, I know what you're thinking. The story has devolved into toilet humor. Be patient. It'll all come out in the end. (Yikes! Didn't mean to go there.) "We have the first incident involving the kybo at the Winterset location where Miss Keller and Miss Turner were...entrapped," the agent said. "The second incident involves Jax Whitver. Apparently, Kenny Grey saw how well the technique worked in Winterset that he utilized a...er, similar method to hold Jax Whitver captive."

Keelie gasped.

"Oh my G.o.d! He really trapped Jax in a portable toilet!" she exclaimed. "We know just how he felt, don't we Tressa? But he was all-alone! No one to share the horror with! Oh, my poor, poor Jax! I say we throw the book at the Klingon warrior!"

"Actually, Kenny wasn't responsible for your...er, entrapment," Patrick said.

"He wasn't?" Keelie and I both said.

"Vinny!" Keelie went for her former agent. "You slime!"

The DCI agent stepped between Keelie and her target.

"Actually, it couldn't have been Mr. Vincent, Miss Keller. If you recall, he was still in the hospital at the time."

I frowned. "If not Kenny or Vinny, then who?" I asked.

"Me," Langley Carlisle Number Three said. "It was I. I did it."

I blinked. Hollywood screenwriters couldn't script a whodunit with more plot twists and turns. I was getting a wee bit carsick just trying to keep up.

"You, Langley? You locked us in that kybo? Why?" Keelie asked. "Why would you do such a thing?"

"Wagers," he said.

"Wagers?" I said. "What wagers?"

"The online wagers on who would finish the ride first, you or Keelie." he said. "You see, I'd wagered heavily against Keelie finis.h.i.+ng-sorry, love. So I got a bit desperate when, despite all the kerfuffles, Keelie wouldn't quit."

"So, you thought trapping me in an outdoor toilet was the way to go?" Keelie said.

Way to go? No pun intended, I a.s.sumed.

"I hadn't planned to do it at all. I saw you go in, and I propped the door closed as a joke. Then I noticed the big roll of gray tape sitting on the ground, and I thought, why not? No one will suspect me. Maybe this harmless prank will be the proverbial straw that breaks the camel's back, and she'll quit. But you didn't. You surprised me, Keelie. I didn't think you'd hang in there."

"How much money did you bet, Lang?" Keelie asked.

"Too much," he admitted.

"And you bet against me."

He hung his head.

"I feel like a traitor," he said. "Apologies, Keelie."

"Not accepted," she said, and sat down.

"And next we come to Tiara's attempted abduction," Agent Marshall said. "Tiara, do you have something to say about that?"

What was this? True confessions of the rich and famous?

Tiara, who sat curled up in a poor-pitiful-me ball sighed-one of those jig-is-up sighs.

"Tiara? What did you do?" Keelie asked.

"I faked it," she mumbled.

"What?" Keelie gasped.

"I faked the attempted abduction. You were getting all the attention, and I was just along for the ride. It wasn't fair."

"Fair? It wasn't fair? It wasn't fair I was getting the attention, not you? That I was being cruelly targeted, not you? You can sit there and say that now after knowing how terrifying it is to be someone's target? What is wrong with you?"

She shook her head.

"I've always played second fiddle to you, Keelie. I just got tired of it."

Keelie sagged in her chair. I felt so very sorry for her. She'd just learned the people closest to her-the people she trusted the most-had conspired behind her back and lied to her in order to further their own ends.

It had to hurt like h.e.l.l.

The door suddenly burst open. Jax Whitver rushed in.

"Keelie!"

"Jax!"

They ran into each other's arms and-just like you see on the big screen-it was pure magic!

"Are you okay?"