Killer Nashville Noir

by Clay Stafford

  “My grandmother, Janie Daughtry, made those. Years ago, and yet this one looks brand new.”

  “You’re right. I haven’t seen any of Janie’s Angels in years. Wonder how that got here?”

  She wasn’t the only one.

  “When did you notice the angel?” I asked the manager.

  “A few days ago,” Thelma said. “Is there anything else you need?”

  “We’re good,” Charlotte said as she guided me out the door.

  At the next stop on our burglary list, the Art Center, the story was the same. The director, Lee Ann, a sparkly, creative type dressed in flowing clothes, had no answers and yielded little information of value.

  However, my intuition went bonkers again. After Charlotte had a decent quote for the story, I asked, “Did the thief leave anything here?”

  Lee Ann shook her head as she herded us back to the foyer. Obviously, she wanted to get back to the grant writing we’d interrupted.

  “What about a ‘Lost and Found’ bin? Do you have one?” I asked.

  “Yes.” Lee Ann’s face lit up, and she looked ten years younger. “We found the cutest treasure the day after the break-in. I can’t say for sure that the burglar left it. A handcrafted angel ornament.”

  “Snowy white and lacy?” I dreaded and needed the answer.

  “Why, yes. It’s a work of art. If I knew who created it, I’d invite her to sell them in our gift shop. You don’t see that level of detail these days.”

  When the director lugged out the bright pink tote of junk from her office, I recognized one of Janie’s Angels atop the stash. This one was embroidered with a different letter, a “D”. Blood thrummed in my ears.

  Before I could say anything, Lee Ann pointed to a car out front. “Oh, look. Maisie Ryals. She says our beautiful art helps her deal with her loss, but she’s crying again. Bless her heart.”

  “We just saw her at Dollar Central,” Charlotte said. “She wasn’t crying then.”

  I knew what it was like to suddenly be alone. Maisie’s Lester died of congestive heart failure three months ago. Though the community had rallied around her, Maisie had refused all offers of help. I wondered, did she walk around their home, expecting to hear her husband’s voice? It had been two years since my husband, Roland, vanished from the military, and I still listened for his voice. That’s because I knew in my heart he wasn’t dead. “We should do something.”

  “Goodness, no,” Lee Ann said. “Don’t speak to her until she comes inside. This is the fourth time she’s visited the art gallery since the funeral. I embarrassed both of us the first time by trying to comfort her. She’s a proud woman whose heart is broken.”

  “We can slip out the side door,” Charlotte said. “I don’t want to add to her distress.”

  Lee Ann flashed a sympathetic smile. “Probably for the best. Let me know when the article comes out, Charlotte. I’ll send copies to my out-of-town family.”

  On the way outside, Charlotte muttered. “Great. Now I have to actually write the blasted article.”

  “You will, and it’ll be the talk of the town.” In my truck with the air conditioning blasting, I told Charlotte, “We may be onto something.”

  “Ya think? Two out of three places have a Janie’s Angel. If the liquor store has one, I’d say someone used your grandmother’s signature craft as a calling card.”

  I suspected the culprit wasn’t intent on framing my dead grandmother. If I was right, another family member had been targeted. Darned if I didn’t take offense to that.

  Crime scene tape crisscrossed the door to the liquor store. Undeterred, we marched next door to where the shop owner lived. Jared Tipton couldn’t let us inside his store, but he confirmed that one of Janie’s Angels showed up in his shop. My intuition pinged again, but I didn’t understand the implications.

  Sleuthing completed, Charlotte and I motored over to the sub shop, where we discussed our findings over lunch.

  “The angels must mean something,” Charlotte said. “Trying to figure out who left these vintage treasures could be hard. None of the stores had surveillance cameras, so ownership of these like-new Janie’s Angels is the only lead. If memory serves, just about everyone in town had one of those miniature angels.”

  I tried not to choke on my tuna sub. I couldn’t share my suspicion with Charlotte. Not until I spoke to my mom. Meanwhile, I needed to distract my friend.

  “What about me? Since I inherited Grandmother’s house, people might assume I also inherited a stash of those angels.”

  “Careful. You’re placing yourself on the suspect list.”

  “I know what it looks like. Good thing the sheriff missed that clue.”

  “Random thought. Could your grandmother cross over and commit burglary?”

  “Can’t happen. Or at least I don’t think it can happen. Besides, Janie Daughtry was the most upright, uptight, rules-following person I ever met.”

  Charlotte lifted a shoulder. “People change. Maybe Janie turned to the dark side after death.”

  I washed down the sub with a gulp of water. “Yeah, right.”

  “Still,” Charlotte insisted, “it might be worth asking your dad.”

  She’d boxed me into a corner. If the suspect list was my dead grandmother and me, I’d make sure nobody fingered me. If my mom was a suspect, there had to be a mistake. “All right. I’ll ask him, but if even a hint of this makes the paper, you’re in big trouble.”

  • • •

  I called Mom on the way home. “Tell me about your special angels. The ones you misplaced.”

  “I haven’t thought about them in years,” Mom said. “Why do you ask?”

  “It’s important.”

  “Mother made three angels for me, each one embroidered with one of my initials. I should’ve told her I lost them, but I couldn’t disappoint her again. She wanted me to be like her, but I had to be myself.”

  “When did you discover you’d misplaced the angels?”

  “Sometime after Tad and I eloped, but I can’t pin it to a day or a year. Why the sudden interest?”

  She’d lost them nearly thirty years ago. How did Mama’s keepsakes figure into the burglaries? How did they look brand new?

  “Baxley?”

  “Yeah. Sorry. I got distracted for a minute. Who knew about your special angels?”

  “Mother’s friends. My friends.” Mom paused. “What’s wrong, dear?”

  I stuck close to the truth. “I’m helping Charlotte with a story. We came across one of Janie’s Angels, and it triggered a memory. Nothing to worry about.”

  “You should talk to your dad. I’ve got to run some soup over to a friend. This would be a great time to catch Tad at home.”

  “Thanks. I will.”

  • • •

  My father looked puzzled. “You want to know if people can cross over from the spirit world and commit robberies, specifically Janie Daughtry.”

  I squirmed on the bench outside my parents’ cottage in the woods. “It’s bizarre, but I need the answer. Is it possible?”

  Dressed in the tie-dyed shirts and jeans of his youth, my father exuded a mellowness and demeanor associated with hippies, but he was more than that. “Anything’s possible, I’ve learned that much in my career as County Dreamwalker. Probable? Not likely.”

  “Great. That’s what I wanted to hear.”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “It’s personal.”

  “And?”

  “And…” My voice trailed off. I didn’t want anyone to know about my mother’s possible inclusion in the robberies, not until I figured out what the angels meant. But this was my father. I trusted him. “Charlotte and I investigated the burglaries. We found a connection the cops missed. Grandmother’s angels were at every crime scene.”

  Wind chimes tinkled around us as a sea breeze made its way through the towering pines. My father’s snowy white hair stirred. Shadows and sunbeams danced on the pine straw carpet. Why didn’t my father answe
r? Had I stunned him?

  “I could ask Janie about them,” he finally said.

  My insides iced. “I’m not asking you to dreamwalk, I just wanted clarification.”

  “Because?”

  “Because the angels worry me. Why are they there? Do the robberies have something to do with our family?”

  “Lacey and I didn’t rob anyone. Did you or Larissa?”

  “No.”

  “Hmm.”

  I waited for a reply, but he seemed lost in thought. “There’s something else. Two of the angels have a letter stitched on the gowns. They might be Mom’s.”

  “Lacey’s special angels? Are you sure?”

  “Grandmother told me that she only embroidered the ones for mom. Even though I’ve never seen the special angels, I recognized them on sight.”

  “If that don’t beat all. For them to turn up after all these years.” Dad sank into his thoughts again, leaving me to stare at my hands and wonder what was going through his mind. He cocked his ear to a birdcall and asked, “Did you touch them?”

  Not what I expected. “No. They’re evidence.”

  “Maybe.” My father studied me. “How did you find the angels?”

  “Uh.” Heat flooded my face. “Charlotte talked me into visiting the scenes. At the first place, I had a gut feeling something wasn’t right.”

  “A feeling?”

  The hope radiating from my father’s face humbled me. Had my lack of interest in his profession hurt his feelings? I’d never considered that before.

  “More like an instinct. I kept asking questions until I saw the first Janie’s Angel. At the other places, I knew what to ask.”

  “That’s all right.”

  “Is someone trying to frame Mom? What does it mean, Dad?”

  “You were meant to find those angels.”

  • • •

  The next morning, I puttered around in my greenhouse, pinching this back, fertilizing that, watering everything. I had no new ideas about the case, and Charlotte was mad at me for talking to my dad without her. She would be even madder if she knew the lost angels resurfacing had previously belonged to my mother.

  My phone rang. Charlotte. “You’re not going to like this,” she began.

  A cold chill shivered down my spine. “I already don’t like it.”

  “I met with the sheriff this morning to interview him about the serial burglar, and I sorta let it slip about the angels.”

  “Charlotte!” The need to hide had me crouching instinctively. “You promised.”

  “I did, and I’m sorry for blabbing. For what it’s worth, he doesn’t think the angels mean anything, but he said he’d stop by and interview you later today.”

  “Not cool.”

  I hung up on her and didn’t pick up the next three times she called back. The sheriff was coming. I needed answers. The only lead I had was Mom’s special angels. I needed to see them again. Maybe hold one, as my father suggested.

  Doing a touch reading wasn’t really using my extrasensory powers. I remained fully conscious for a touch reading, unlike what happened in a dreamwalk. Touching the angel might yield information about anyone who’d handled it in the grip of a strong emotion. It might even tell me who the burglar was. Not much of a risk, and it could help me protect my mother.

  I needed to touch an angel. So I drove to town and parked behind the dollar store to hide my truck from prying eyes.

  Thelma at Dollar Central looked surprised when I asked to hold the ornament. She handed it to me and then watched me stare at it. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a sedan ease through the parking lot. Focus. I needed to focus.

  Cautiously, I lowered my guard and opened my extra senses to any impressions on the angel. Flashes of feminine emotions surged lightning-fast through my consciousness, jolting me, penetrating my intangible walls of protection like a flash fire. Rage. Jealousy. Heartache. Misery. My senses felt like they were engulfed in flames. My ears roared with phantom fire sounds. I couldn’t breathe. Survival mode kicked in, shutting off the firestorm, shielding my extra senses.

  I wheezed in a breath of fresh air, stunned at the ferocity of what I’d felt. Ignoring Thelma’s curious expression, I gathered my will and set the angel on the counter. “Thanks,” I muttered and wobbled out.

  The woman who’d planted that ornament was obsessed with her emotions. She hated my mother. I had to warn Mom. I was so lost in my thoughts that I didn’t notice Maisie Ryals blocking the driver’s door of my truck.

  “You know, don’t you?” Maisie asked, her voice dipping into the caustic zone. Her aura pulsed and flared in an alarming way.

  I stopped short. Her presence wasn’t coincidence. It couldn’t be. She was most likely the person who planted the ornaments. If I touched her, I’d know for sure. Common sense said to get away from her, far away, but there was no telling what she might do in this agitated state. For everyone’s safety, I should try to calm her down.

  I summoned a friendly smile. “Good morning. How are you, Maisie?”

  “Don’t fob me off with small talk. You’re gonna run right to the sheriff just like your gabby friend. I ain’t stupid.”

  Pleasantry wasn’t working. It seemed the reverse. My best bet was to defuse her anger and let the sheriff deal with her. I softened my voice. “No one thinks you did anything.”

  “Liar. Nesbitts see things others don’t. Your face went wonky when you held Janie’s Angel.” She shook a trembling finger in my direction. “You. Know.”

  I raised my hands in surrender. “I’m not that kind of Nesbitt. I need to leave. I’m not feeling well.”

  “You’re not going anywhere.”

  I was six inches taller and could easily lift her out of my way, except that she wasn’t acting right. Avoidance was a better strategy. The sooner I alerted the sheriff, the better. I could skirt the truck and climb in the other side.

  The second I turned away from her, I heard a rush of air. My senses hammered me with the word jump, so I did, whirling to face her as steel clanged on steel. Holy crap. She’d nearly beaned me with a tire iron; instead, she’d dented my truck door.

  I could be so dead right now.

  This woman was batshit crazy.

  In what seemed like slow motion, I wrenched the tire iron from Maisie Ryals. Howling in rage, she whipped out her keys and jabbed at my face. I yanked the keys away and took her down. Then I sat on her, called the emergency number for assistance, and set the phone to record our conversation.

  Between screams, Maisie thrashed and ranted about the demon woman who stole her husband’s heart. Leery of accidentally poisoning myself by reading her, I barricaded my extra senses. I kept my knee in the middle of her back and a hand on her neck. It was a scary ride.

  “If you’ll calm down, we can talk about this,” I said when she paused for air.

  “It was all a lie,” Maisie sobbed. “My whole life was a lie.”

  Sirens wailed in the distance. Yep. Definitely crazy. “Come again?”

  “As Lester lay dying he confessed to me. Lacey Daughtry meant the world to him, but she stood him up for the prom. To hurt her, he stole her precious angels and hid them in his office. We were married for thirty years, and that rat bastard never said one word about her or the angels. Yet, at the end, he mentioned her, not me.

  “He asked me to return those stinking angels to her. I returned them all right. I planted them for the sheriff to find at each of my shopping trips. But you messed everything up by figuring out what was really going on. Damn you! When I think of all those years I did what Lester wanted instead of having fun, I want to cry. Now I’ve got nothing, not even memories to keep me warm at night. My entire marriage was a lie!”

  Her body vibrated with her rage, the tremors shaking me.

  My ears throbbed from her screams. “Save it for the sheriff. And you’re right. I know you’re the burglar. You planted those angels to frame my mother.”

  “So what? Lacey owes me. But you owe me
even more, for screwing up my plan. When I get out, and I will, I’m coming for you. Count on it.”

  Great. A crazy person with a vendetta. Just what I needed in my future.

  Maisie thrashed and nearly bucked me off. She wanted her freedom, but I needed her locked up. Her words carried the ring of truth. For my daughter’s sake, I couldn’t let Maisie go.

  “You’re going to jail,” I muttered, clinging to her with a strength I didn’t know I possessed.

  Sheriff Wayne Thompson arrived in a flourish of lights and sirens. When he saw us squirming on the ground, he burst out laughing. After he gave me a hand up and Virg and Ronnie secured the screamer in a squad car, he started in on me. “She’s half your size, Bax, and twice your age. Couldn’t you fight someone your own size?”

  I dusted myself off. “Maisie attacked me with that tire iron and her keys. I’m pressing charges.”

  His arched eyebrow suggested he didn’t buy my story. “She planted my mom’s special angels at the places she robbed. She hates my mom and tried to kill me because I understood about the angels before you discovered they belonged to my mom. Maisie Ryals is your serial burglar.”

  “Seriously?” he scoffed.

  I held up my phone. “I have her taped confession right here.”

  Wayne stared at me. “This is about the girly angels your granny used to make?”

  “This is about my mom standing up Maisie’s husband for the prom. Apparently Mom was Lester’s one love in life, and his deathbed confession about him stealing the angels ticked Maisie off enough to frame Mom for crimes she didn’t commit.”

  “Huh.” He glanced over at his deputies and back at me, his expression thoughtful. “If this pans out, you’ll get the reward posted for solving the case. How’d you figure it out?”

  Reward? I didn’t know anything about that. “Charlotte talked me into looking into the thefts. Once I saw the angels, I knew something wasn’t right, so I kept nosing around. Dad suggested I touch one of the angels. Maisie saw me looking at the angel. Then she attacked me and confessed.”

  “Good to know.” Wayne raked his heated gaze down my length. “I could use you on my force. None of my guys noticed the planted clues.”