“Looks who’s talking.” Alice placed a hand on her hip. “Here’s the woman who faked pictures so she could be hailed as a great ghost hunter.”
Birda’s eyes bugged. Her head swiveled in Alice’s direction, and she stared, her gaze boring into the older woman until Alice mumbled under her breath, “At least that’s what I heard.”
A lightbulb blinked in my head. “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it, Birda? You found out about the pictures.”
“Get this net off me!”
I decided it was time to step in. I handed Alice the BB gun and started to untangle the net. There was one particularly nasty snare that took a bit of prodding to undo. I had to work the twig out of the messy beehive and through the netting, but I finally got Birda untangled.
Part of me wished I’d been able to keep her that way. But releasing her was the best thing for all involved.
When the net was on the ground, Birda turned to us. “Yes, I heard about the pictures.” Her eyes met mine, and she lifted her chin as if waiting for me to challenge her to a duel or something. “Cora kept my secret for years. How you got ahold of them, I don’t know.”
“Oh, that’s easy,” Alice said, “we got them off—”
Ruth elbowed Alice. “It doesn’t matter where we got them. They’re no longer in our hands.”
Birda’s expression soured. “Cora was a good friend. Agreatfriend. But now I’m about to be exposed. Devlin called and asked if I wanted to comment on the story that’s about to run. He wouldn’t tell me who gave him the photos, but I knew it had to be you, after what you said about the pictures when we picketed. Of course Alice is too dumb to find them and Ruth has better things to do, so I knew it was you, the young one.”
“Who are you calling stupid?” Alice questioned.
Birda ignored her. “I thought if I came over here, you could stop the situation.” She grabbed my arm in one of her talon-like hands. “You could go on the record and say you changed the photographs. You could salvage this.”
I stared into the face of the woman I was certain had set up my friend. There was still no proof of that, but Birda had been way too quick to point the blame at Ruth. Something wasn’t right. I just hadn’t been able to figure out what.
That bothered me to no end.
I shook my head and pulled Birda’s hand from me. Which turned out to be hard, actually, given her huge man hands and all. Every time I pulled, Birda held on even tighter. Finally I just had to jerk my hand away and tug her arm at the same time.
Released from the death grip, I said, “Cora kept your secret, but was she about to reveal it? Is that why you killed her?”
Birda gasped. “Goodness, no. I would never have killed Cora. She was my friend.” She nodded toward Ruth. “She’s the one who killed Cora. Why she hasn’t been arrested is beyond me. And all because Cora beat her to seeing the banshee.”
Ruth poked a finger in Birda’s chest. “You see here. I didn’t lay one finger on Cora. A gaggle of us were present, and it wasn’t me. I had no reason to kill her.”
“But you did,” Alice chirped to Birda. “To keep your secret.”
“Yeah.” Ruth eyed Birda. “If we checked you, would we find a weapon on you now? Did you come here last night and tonight to hurt Blissful?”
Birda’s gaze flickered to the three of us in confusion. “What? I didn’t come last night. I only came tonight to talk to Blissful. The three of y’all are crazy, thinking I would come to kill her. Have y’all lost your minds?”
I shot Ruth and Alice a confused look. Birda hadn’t been here last night? Then who had been stalking around the house?
Ugh. A wave of nausea filled my stomach. This did not make me feel good. Not at all. We’d been lucky and captured Birda, but what if the real person had seen us nab her? We’d unintentionally screwed up.
Crap on a stick.
“Sorry for hitting you with the net, Birda,” I said, “and I’m sorry about the pictures, but I’m not going to ask Devlin to go back on them. You lied to a lot of people.A lot. They deserve to know the truth. You scammed them.”
“The truth will set you free,” Ruth chimed.
“That’s right,” Alice added. “You deserve whatever you get.”
Birda’s face crumpled. “You’re right. Of course. I’ll take my blows. I have no problem doing that. But I want y’all to know everything I did was for the benefit of Haunted Hollow. I helped bring attention to this town. Otherwise we might not ever have made it onto the map.”
“I doubt that,” I muttered. “This town is haunted through and through. Some things you can’t fight.”
“You might be right.” Birda fluffed her beehive hairdo. “I think I’ve stayed long enough. Good night, ladies.”
