"How do I know you didn't shoot the victim while you were waiting for Miss Marcus to ride to your rescue?" Gray asked.

"Check Molly for livor mortis," Ted said. "You should find the blood is starting to pool in her lower extremities. That doesn't start until twenty minutes to three hours after death. Also, I bet you'll find her car engine is cold. Josie's car is still warm."

"You got it all figured out, Sherlock," the detective said.

Extra lights had been erected in the parking lot, and a cloth shield was put up to hide Molly's car from curious eyes. The doors were opened, and white-suited techs were examining the Volkswagen. Police photographers and other crime investigators crawled around the scene like ants on an overturned hill. Uniformed officers knocked on neighbors' doors. The baggy-faced first responder was searching the bushes around the clinic.

"Detective, we found this inside the victim's car. It's been fired, sir." The uniform was so young, he looked like he was out past curfew.

Josie could see the weapon in the police car's side mirror-a pearl-handled .38 with LSH in silver. Lenore's pistol.

"Are you holding that firearm by a pencil in the barrel?" Detective Gray asked.

"Y-yes, sir," the officer stuttered.

"Didn't they teach you anything at the academy? Not only is that unsafe," he said, "it could damage potential evidence. You pick up a gun by the textured surface on the grips."

"These are pearl-handled grips, sir. There's no texturing. There are initials. They look like LSH."

"So they do. Package that firearm in an envelope so the lab can process it for prints."

"Yes, sir."

"But first, take out the ammunition and put each bullet in a cardboard pillbox."

This time, the uniform nodded.

"I've seen that weapon before," Gray said. "LSH. That's Lenore Scottsmeyer Hall."

He turned to Ted. "Aren't you the son of the pistol-packing mama?"

"Lenore Scottsmeyer Hall is my mother," Ted said. "That's what they called her on Channel Seven."

"She still in town?" Gray said.

"She's flying home Friday morning," Ted said.

Josie fought to banish the image of her future mother-in-law riding a broom.

"Where's she staying?" Gray asked.

"At the Ritz in Clayton. But there's no way she'd shoot Molly Deaver."

"That's not what I saw on TV," the detective said. "Your mother whipped out that thirty-eight snub-nose mighty quick to defend her darling boy. Used a gun that looks just like this one. Aren't those her initials?"

"Looks like them, yes," Ted said. "But I've never seen her gun up close."

Detective Gray motioned to two more uniforms combing the parking lot. "Go to the Ritz and pick up Mrs. Lenore Scottsmeyer Hall," he said. "Bring her in for questioning. She's a person of interest."

Josie could see Ted's face had gone pinched and pale. She longed to comfort him, or at least hold his hand, but she could do nothing.

The Ritz was ten minutes from Ted's clinic, but Josie thought the wait took hours. Her thoughts ran wild. Would Lenore really shoot Molly? Ridiculous. But Lenore was ridiculous. And her interview while she twirled that stupid gun had gone viral.

Josie tried to think about what she'd seen and block out the vision of Molly staring gla.s.sy-eyed into eternity. She erected a kind of mental screen, a version of what the crime scene workers had put up.

Why would Lenore leave her beloved pistol behind in the car? Wouldn't she take it with her? If Lenore didn't kill the bride, how did someone else get her gun?

Detective Gray's cell phone rang. Josie could hear him talking. "What do you mean she's checked out? Did the front desk say where she was going?

"The airport!

"That woman is fleeing. Stop her."

Chapter 13.

Wednesday, October 24/Thursday, October 25 Lenore was a stylish standout in the airport security line. Most of the straggling travelers stood slump-shouldered in saggy jeans or dreary sweats. Ted's mother wore a sleek tan Chanel suit draped with gold necklaces that would have sent TSA's metal detectors into a tizzy-except she never made it through security.

She was pulled out of the line by a TSA agent and two Rock Road Village uniforms. And-wouldn't you know it?-a Channel Seven crew happened to be in the airport. They taped the fugitive's "takedown" as reporter Wendy Lee Chase called it. She was breathless with excitement. Lenore had gone from pistol-packing mama to Florida felon in half a day.

Ted and Josie watched Lenore's arrest on television. They couldn't be with her at the airport when it actually happened. They were still being interrogated by an angry Detective Gray.

They missed the ten o'clock news that night. But Ted stopped by Josie's for breakfast the next morning after she'd dropped Amelia at school. They sat on her living room sofa watching the morning news, their plates of eggs abandoned on the coffee table.

Channel Seven newscaster Wendy Lee, eyes wide with artificial excitement, said, "Lenore Scottsmeyer Hall, the pistol-packing mama, was arrested last night at Lambert International Airport. A police spokesperson says Mrs. Scottsmeyer Hall was allegedly fleeing St. Louis after murdering abandoned bride Molly Ann Deaver."

A photo of an artistically tearful Molly flashed on the screen.

Ted and Josie groaned together as Wendy Lee recapped her version of Molly's suffering and death.

"Miss Deaver was found shot to death in her car in the parking lot of the St. Louis Mobo-Pet Clinic Wednesday evening," she said as a helicopter videoed the clinic lot. Molly's Beetle, Josie's battered Honda, Ted's Mustang and a horde of crime scene workers were bronzed by the mercury-vapor lights.

"Police searched the area and found a snub-nose thirty-eight revolver believed to belong to Mrs. Scottsmeyer Hall. Rock Road Village police were dispatched to the Ritz-Carlton to question Mrs. Scottsmeyer Hall and discovered she had fled the luxury hotel. She was arrested trying to board a flight back to her home in Florida."

"Wonder how Channel Seven knew to go to the airport?" Ted said.

"I don't think Detective Gray called them," Josie said. "He hates that station."

"Maybe it was the young officer who found Mom's gun," Ted said.

They watched the camera pan the long line of travelers dragging rolling suitcases, then stop at Lenore. Her designer suit glowed in the dreary airport lighting. The two uniforms and the TSA agent surrounded her and they blocked her progress.

"What is the meaning of this?" Lenore asked. Her voice was haughty, exactly the wrong tone to take. "I need to leave immediately or I'll miss my flight."

Ted winced. "Oh, Mom," he said to the TV screen. "This is no time for your Boca Diva act."

On camera, Lenore glared at the gawky pink-faced Rock Road Village cop.

"Sorry, ma'am, but we need to question you." He gulped and glanced uneasily at his older partner, a muscular officer with a military haircut.

"About what?" Lenore demanded.

"Miss Molly Ann Deaver," Officer Muscle said. He spoke with smooth rea.s.surance.

"That demented bride?" Lenore said. "Why should I care about her?"

Ted warned the TV, "Mom, you're walking into a trap." Josie patted his hand, but he didn't notice. He was watching his mother's downfall.

"When did you last see her?" Officer Muscle asked. His scrawny partner shifted uneasily from foot to foot.

"Tuesday afternoon, when she invaded my son's clinic," Lenore said. "You people showed some sense and hauled her away." She gave the officers a frosty smile. "But that judge is crazier than she is. He turned her loose after she attacked Dr. Ted Scottsmeyer with a knife."

"Mom!" Ted said to the TV set. "Did you have to use my name?"

"And you haven't seen her since?" Officer Muscle said. Josie thought she detected a hint of sarcasm.

"No? Why would I want to? Is something wrong?"

"Please, Mom," Ted begged. "Please watch what you're saying."

"You could say that, ma'am," the officer said. "She's been murdered."

"Why is that my concern?" Lenore looked down her nose at him.

He looked right back. "We believe you are fleeing the scene of the crime."

"That's absurd," Lenore said. "I'm going home to my husband, Dr. Whitney Hudson Hall. He's a board-certified plastic surgeon in Boca. I'm so worried about him, I didn't wait for our plane. I'm flying commercial. Now, if you'll step aside."

She tried to push her way past the men, but TSA had removed the barricade rope and smoothly guided her outside the line.

"No, ma'am. You have the right to remain silent . . ." By the time he finished reading Lenore her rights, the foursome was near the terminal exit.

"I want my lawyer," Lenore said. "I won't say a word until attorney Shelford Clark arrives from Boca Raton. I won't have a St. Louis hick representing me. I want a real lawyer."

Ted was still talking to the screen. "Oh, Mom," he said. "They're going to lock you up and throw away the key. Please don't say anything else."

After insulting the local legal community, along with the citizens of St. Louis, Lenore Scottsmeyer Hall was finally, blessedly silent.

That was when the TV report cut to Lenore's old pistol-packing mama interview. Wendy Lee said, "Mrs. Scottsmeyer Hall gave Channel Seven this exclusive interview before the murder of Molly Ann Deaver."

Now Lenore was in dead black, grinning at the camera. "I carry my pistol in a purse instead of a holster," she said, "but it's just as deadly as any man's long barrel. Maybe deadlier, because I can open my purse quicker than he can unsnap his holster. Besides, I'm an expert shot."

The camera focused on Lenore twirling her pistol as Wendy Lee said, "Police sources say Mrs. Scottsmeyer Hall's fingerprints were found on both the murder weapon and the bullets, and she cannot account for her whereabouts at the time of the shooting. Mrs. Scottsmeyer Hall declined to comment.

"Channel Seven is the only station with this interview of the victim's sister, Emily Deaver Destin, at her home in the exclusive Estates at Wood Winds in West County."

The camera panned the subdivision's entrance and a view of the lush lawns and eclectic architecture, from Victorian mansions to Tuscan villas.

"That's where Alyce lives, right?" Ted said.

"She has the Tudor mansion with the half-timbered garage," Josie said.

"Is her subdivision exclusive?"

"It's expensive," Josie said. "I'm not sure that's the same thing."

Emily's home jutted out of the ground like a cantilevered crystal. Josie thought it looked interesting but cold, like Emily.

"Emily doesn't seem anything like her sister," Ted said.

She was a big-boned woman of about thirty. Her brown hair had been chopped short. Everything about her seemed designed to save time, from her brown turtleneck to her flat shoes.

"I don't know why anyone would hurt my sister," she said. "Molly couldn't wait to marry Ted Scottsmeyer. Her wedding was all she talked about. She never hurt a soul. Molly liked ruffles and flowers and antiques and loved her fiance. I'm glad the police caught her killer."

"So you believe that Lenore Scottsmeyer Hall murdered your sister?" Wendy Lee asked.

"I have no doubt the police arrested the right person," Emily said. "I know she's a killer." She stared right into the lens.

"Mom's been tried and convicted on TV," Ted said. "What are we going to do?"

"I don't know," Josie said. "Channel Seven has set up Lenore to look guilty as h.e.l.l." And she helped them, she thought. But she couldn't say that to Ted.

"Mom didn't kill Molly," Ted said. "I wonder who'd want Molly dead? And how did the killer get Mom's pearl-handled pistol?"

"I think I can answer that," Josie said. "She misplaced her purse at the Blue Rose Tearoom the other day. The server, Jane, and I searched for it. Half the restaurant helped look for her lost purse. The server found it on the empty chair at our table. Your mother insisted she didn't put her purse there."

"Did she notice her gun was missing?" Ted asked.

"She opened it and said her wallet, money, and credit cards were there. I don't remember her mentioning the gun."

"Was the restaurant crowded?" Ted asked.

"Packed," Josie said. "People were coming by the table to see your mom. She was quite the celebrity. Anyone could have swiped her purse, taken the gun, and returned her bag during the search."

"No cop will believe her story," Ted said. "There are too many coincidences, Josie. The clinic security camera broke, so there's no video of the parking lot. Somebody stole the gun out of Mom's purse at the tearoom and she didn't notice. And Mom wasn't fleeing the city; she was going home to be with my stepfather. It doesn't help that she tried to fly commercial instead of waiting for their plane.

"Or that my stepfather, Whit, just happened to break his ankle at the wrong time."

"Have you talked with him?" Josie asked.

"Three times so far," Ted said. "Whit loves Mom and he says he'll spend every dollar he has to save her. He's already hired Shelford Clark and he's flying him here. The lawyer will be in St. Louis in about an hour."