01 - Playing with Poison by Cindy Blackburn Page B

said he’d get back to me after his next session with his psychic advisor and commenced humming the tune from The Twilight Zone .
    “Laugh all you want, Jackson Dibble. But if you had just listened to Ezekiel when you had the chance, we wouldn’t be in this mess, would we?”
    Audrey spoke to me. “My husband simply does not know how to handle money. Ezekiel offered us such good advice on these things, but would he listen?”
    She waved a dismissive hand at Jackson, and I actually smiled. Maybe we were finally getting somewhere.
    “Stanley was a financial advisor,” I ventured. “I understand he was quite good at it.” I tilted my head and waited for a response.
    Nothing.
    “I invested a little with him,” I lied with a huge smile on my face. “How about you?”
    I looked expectantly at the Dibbles. But just my luck, Audrey had returned to a trance-like state, and Jackson got busy devouring his drink.
    I took my leave before he could order another round on me.

Chapter 9
    “Cue please?” I asked as I swept past the bar, Gina Stone style.
    Bryce handed me my cue, I handed him my glass, and I kept on going. Next stop, the pool table—the blessed place where I understood the rules of the game.
    “Jessie!” Kirby called out as I approached. “Play me a game?”
    “Oh, if you insist.” I smiled and reached for the triangle, but Gus took it and racked the balls while I announced my purpose to the small group of regulars. Thanks to Jimmy Beak, everyone knew more than enough about Stanley and where he had died.
    “I’ll play left-handed with anyone who can tell me anything useful about what happened that night,” I said as I chalked up.
    “Can you do that?” Kirby asked.
    “Ask about Stanley? I don’t see why not.”
    “No, no, no. Can you actually play left-handed?”
    “Not very well,” I answered honestly and motioned for him to break.
    The left-handed approach worked, at least to some extent, and at least playing against Kirby Cox. But our game took a lot longer than usual, giving the pool table gang plenty of time to reminisce about Stanley. Or argue about Stanley, as the case may be.
    As I coached Kirby on how best to make a fairly straightforward bank shot for the seven ball, Bernie and Camille Allen got into it. I would have felt guilty about introducing what was clearly a touchy subject, but I had seen the Allens bicker before. I do believe they were better at it than the Dibbles.
    Bernie kept insisting Stanley wasn’t nearly as rich as he pretended to be, but Camille was convinced otherwise.
    “You can’t fake a thing like that, Bernard.” The irritation in her voice made me glance up from the table. “Bernie’s just jealous, is all,” Camille told me. “Stan Sweetzer was a class act. Period.”
    “Did you invest with him?” I asked, and her mouth dropped open. “I did,” I chirped. This ridiculous lie was getting easier by the minute.
    But it still wasn’t getting the results I was hoping for. Camille bent down to tighten a strap on her sandals. I turned and appealed to Bernie.
    “Ain’t hardly likely,” he mumbled with his eyes on his wife.
    “Why’s that?” I asked.
    He rubbed his thumb and fingers together. “Cash-o-la, Jessie. We didn’t have enough for Stan to bother.”
    And that seemed to be the general consensus. Stanley ignored the little people, as Kirby put it. He frowned and pointed at the two ball, nestled against the left rail and blocked by my fifteen. The poor man was never going to pocket that one.
    I turned to the new guy. “Do you even know who we’re talking about, John?”
    “Not really, but I’ve seen the news. And Sweetzer’s girlfriend.” He let out a slow whistle.
    “Candy’s cute, isn’t she?”
    “Oh, yeah.”
    I looked around at the various male heads nodding in agreement and wondered how a person might approach the next delicate topic. I had no idea.
    “So, Gus?” I gave up on subtlety altogether. “I understand you used to date