by Cathy Tully
“He does. If he takes the job, he wants me to move to Phoenix with him. But I’m not so sure now.” She leaned forward and drummed her fingernails on the coffee table. “He told me I didn’t have to work and that he would make enough to take care of everything.”
Susannah was silent. This was more than serious. This was walking-down-the-aisle serious.
“What if he’s one of these 19 Kids and Counting kinda guys?” She stopped drumming her fingers. “I mean, I’ve worked for years to keep Peachy Things going. It ain’t no hobby, it’s my life. And now he’s trying to take all that away and turn me into a baby mama.”
Susannah patted Bitsy’s hand. “Sounds like you should talk to him. Maybe he’s not planning on any of that.”
She nodded and looked at her phone. “He’s at work,” she sighed, slouching so deeply that her chin was on her chest, her head mashed into the cushion. “I’ll call him later.”
There was a knock on the door, and Bitsy reluctantly slid up the cushion. “You sure you don’t have no Oreos? We’re gonna need some snack foods for this meetin’.”
“I have some gluten-free crackers,” Susannah said, heading for the door.
Bitsy sat up, her eyes narrowing. “Gluten-free, again?” she whined. “I’m all in on crime solving, but can’t we be gluten inclusive?”
“Do you want them or not?” Susannah asked, struggling to stop as her momentum propelled her across the hardwood floors in her house slippers.
“I guess they’ll do.”
Susannah went to the door, and Larraine and Tina entered arm in arm. Susannah had often noted how they appeared as visual opposites. Larraine was taller, older, and plumper ,with a penchant for light-colored clothing. Tina, who preferred darker, bold-colored clothing, was petite, slim, and wiry. Despite the generations that separated them, they were inseparable. They stood in the foyer grinning.
Susannah ushered them past her office and formal dining room to the kitchen table. The house had an open floor plan, and the large eating area flowed into the living area. The appliances were set into the middle of the house with the table next to a bowed window. The curtains displayed deep green vines and dark purple grapes, an homage to her Italian heritage and her underdeveloped decorating skills. Larraine offered a hug and draped her purse over a kitchen chair. Today, a powder blue cardigan replaced the usual white she wore in the office.
“Can I help you?” Larraine asked.
“No. You relax,” Susannah said. “Sit. I’ll make the coffee.”
Larraine and Tina settled in around the oval wooden table. Bitsy plopped herself at one end. Tina scooted her chair toward Larraine, who made room for her. “I told her we need a name for our club.”
“Club?” asked Larraine?
“Ladies Crime Solving Club, is what I’m thinking.”
Larraine and Tina exchanged glances.
“Sounds good to me,” Tina said.
“Now that that is agreed upon, we also need snacks for the meetings,” Bitsy said, “But I think they should be gluten inclusive. All those in favor, say ‘aye.’” She raised her hand and looked at Tina, who avoided her gaze, and then at Larraine, who patted her hair and cleared her throat.
Susannah placed a plate of brownies in the center of the table and handed Bitsy another can of Coke. “They’re Bitsy inclusive, and that’s a start,” she said, leaning over the table and wiggling her eyebrows at her friend. Tina giggled, and Larraine sighed.
Bitsy popped the top and grabbed a brownie. “I’m an emotional eater,” she said to Tina, who watched in amazement as she ate a brownie in two bites, followed by a few audible glugs of soda.
Tina looked as if she was going to inquire about Bitsy’s emotions, but Susannah interrupted with another plate, stacked with thin, oddly shaped orange-brown wafers made entirely of pointy little seeds. Tina blinked, Larraine forced a smile, and Bitsy tapped a nail on one.
“What the heck are these?” Bitsy asked, picking one up and sniffing. “Smells like garlic.”
“They’re flaxseed crackers.” Susannah brought one to her lips. With one hand under her chin, she bit into it. It crumbled into her palm. “See, it’s got sunflower seeds and chia seeds—”
“Girl,” Bitsy cut her off, “you got to get your flavor profiles in order. I can’t have no garlic mixing with the chocolaty-syrupy symphony I got playin’ on my taste buds. Y’all go ahead.” Bitsy offered the plate to Larraine and Tina. She got no takers. “See, that there is a savory snack. It don’t go with coffee and brownies.”
“Okay, okay.” Susannah tried to hide her disappointment. She loved the crunchy crispness of the cracker. “Let’s get back on track. Right now, we have to talk about what Larraine and I learned from Olivia. And what I found out from Fiona.”
Bitsy sighed and bit into another brownie, then cocked her head to the side and ran her tongue over her teeth. “I’ve been going over what Olivia told you. Maybe Anita didn’t take so kindly to Olivia’s lecturing.”
“Did Larraine fill you in on our conversation with Olivia?” Susannah directed the question to Tina and then retreated to the espresso machine and the soothing smell of coffee beans.
“Yes.” Tina frowned, touching Larraine on the elbow. “Yes, we were just talking about it on the drive over. You don’t reckon Olivia killed Anita for revenge, do you?”
“I don’t think so,” Susannah said, placing a coffee before Larraine, who smiled and inhaled greedily. “Olivia told us that Anita only paid her to do the payroll. She didn’t make that much money.”
“But still.” Bitsy tapped a nail on the aluminum can. “It probably made Olivia mad.”
“Probably did,” Tina said. “I asked Keith if he ever heard anything about Olivia, and he said no.”
“Larraine, what’s your opinion?” Susannah asked, handing Tina a steaming mug. Thanks to the coffee, her house now smelled like a home. Tina nodded her thanks.
Larraine fiddled with the chain that held her glasses, which today was a utilitarian blue cord, and took a breath. “I’ve known Olivia since she was knee-high, and she never fit in with the other children. But she was never an angry person, and I can’t believe she has the wherewithal to commit this kind of crime.”
Susannah returned with her coffee and pulled up a chair. “I suppose we can rule Olivia out. She didn’t have access to Anita. Remember, we have to work on the assumption that Anita was poisoned.”
The women murmured their agreement and sat in silence for a moment. Bitsy picked up the can of soda, closed one eye, and peered inside. “Maybe Tomás did do it.”
“I considered that,” Larraine piped up, her face remaining its normal powdery white shade. She was adapting to the investigatory challenge of judging others. “After you left the picnic, I found some of the teens who work as servers at the Cantina. Tomás was at the restaurant all that morning. One boy told me he came in before his normal shift to help Tomás set up the bar. He didn’t see Anita that morning. So, if Anita was meeting someone outside the office for...” A slight pink shade crept in her cheeks, and she paused uncomfortably. “Well, it couldn’t have been Tomás.”
Bitsy rocked rhythmically, as if the problem were traumatizing. “Tomás could have hired someone to kill her. Maybe a phone call lured her away.”
“Hire someone to poison her?” Tina turned that thought over, eyeing Bitsy. “Uh, I suppose it’s possible. But don’t hired guns usually, you know, shoot people?”
“I see your point, Mrs. Cawthorn.” Bitsy thought for a moment. “Sometimes they hit them with baseball bats or run them down with cars.”
“Uh, that doesn’t fit,” Susannah said, trying to get control of the conversation. “There has to be something else.”
“What do you mean?”
“If someone were poisoning her, why get together at all? Let’s say it was Tomás who poisoned her. Why not just give her the poison and wait for her to drop?”
“Maybe she wasn’t dropping fast enough,” Bitsy said. “
I say we should keep him on our suspect list.” She looked around the table. Larraine shrugged, Tina nodded, and Susannah gave a thumbs-up as she sipped.
“Colin, too,” Susannah suggested. “Tomás told us he saw Colin push Anita, and she slipped and hit her head. Colin admitted as much to us the day we talked to him.”
“You all have been busy,” Tina said. She stroked the side of her face. “You’re right, not everyone could slip poison to Anita. They had to get close to her.”
“Not like those drive-by baseball bat murders you hear about.” Bitsy chuckled at her joke.
“You’re right,” Susannah said to Tina, ignoring Bitsy’s humor. “That’s what we law enforcement officers call opportunity.”
“Law enforcement officers?” Bitsy said, springing up in surprise. “I thought you rode subway trains to make sure everyone kept their clothes on.”
“That was only part of it,” Susannah said, giving her a sidelong glance. She normally avoided getting into details about her former career. Maybe that should change. “I did get trained as a police officer, you know.”
Tina leaned in. “Dr. Shine, you were a police officer?”
Susannah nodded. She had to get this conversation on track. She was about to say as much when Larraine spoke. “One of us should jot down a suspect list,” she said, handing her empty mug to Susannah. “I’ll have another. Extra sugar this time.”
Bitsy grabbed her faux calfskin bag and found a pen. “I’ll start the list.” She removed a small spiral notebook, which looked the worse for wear, from her bag and touched the tip of her pen to her tongue. She wrote Tomás’s name and then Colin’s name a few lines lower.
“Don’t forget Fiona Bailey,” Susannah said over the hissing of the espresso machine.
“Fiona? What did she do?” Tina asked.
“According to Olivia, Fiona is guilty of being a single businesswoman,” Susannah replied, and this time she couldn’t suppress the eye roll. “And possibly an evil lesbian influence.” Susannah handed Larraine her cup and placed a sugar bowl on the table as she watched Bitsy write evil lesbian influence next to Fiona’s name.
“Now, we don’t want to malign Fiona,” Larraine said. “Olivia has no proof.”
“No. But I do,” Susannah said. “She admitted it to me. They had an affair.”
Larraine's coloration tinged.
“That doesn’t seem like enough of a motive to kill Anita,” Tina said. “People are much more accepting of being gay these days.”
“Yes, but Anita owed her money. That could be the motive.”
Bitsy inked in the word money on the line under evil lesbian influence. “What about opportunity?” she said the word with a slight bounce to it, as if trying it on to see how it felt. “Come to think about it, I haven’t seen Fiona at the Peach Grove Business Association meetings the last few months. How would she have been able to slip Anita the poison?”
“I don’t know.” Susannah shifted and stretched her elbows behind her. “That will be the most important question. Who was close enough to her that they could put a drug into her food?”
“I know, I know,” Bitsy sang, raising her hand and inadvertently flinging her pen across the room. She got up to retrieve it from the hardwood floor. “Tomás had plenty of opportunity.”
“I know we have to consider him.” Susannah paused, running her fingers through her hair. So many things seemed to rule Tomás out, yet they kept returning to him. It was confounding. She inhaled, allowing the aroma of coffee to soothe her. “But then, who did she meet outside my office?”
Bitsy threw her pad onto the table, and it skittered away and bumped into the brownies. “I never realized that this detectin’ was so much talking in circles. I’m getting a headache.”
Larraine cleared her throat and placed her hands flat on the table. Her short nails, perfectly manicured with clear polish, contrasted with Bitsy’s long, colorful ones. “Tomás and Fiona should stay on the list, just in case. Perhaps Tomás was poisoning her, and she was having an affair. With someone else, I mean. The two things could have been happening at the same time. We suspect Anita was having an affair with an unnamed man, and maybe he was the one who killed her. But maybe she was having an affair and someone else, like Tomás, got jealous and killed her.”
“Ohhhh,” Bitsy said. “Now that adds up.”
“Or Fiona was the jealous one,” Tina added, and Larraine pointed at her in agreement.
“I’m gonna need another brownie,” Bitsy said, holding up a finger to interrupt. She shoved half the brownie into her mouth and waved for them to go on.
“By the way, I made those phone calls you asked me to, Dr. Shine,” Tina said, “and I spoke to a few of them, but no one said anything bad about Anita.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. The saddlemaker retired, and his son is running the business now. He said he didn’t remember the saddle. Her hairdresser told me she was a good tipper and that she felt terrible about what had happened. Anita’s insurance agent, Daniel Kim, told me to tell you, ‘Hey.’ He said Anita gave him a lot of business. He admitted she could be demanding but said she had a good business sense.”
“I guess that is a dead end.”
“Maybe, but I couldn’t find out who painted her house, and I have no way of knowing who sold her the cooking oil either. At least not without asking Tomás.”
Susannah nodded, remembering the invoices she had taken from Anita’s desk. She took them from inside her blouse and laid them on the table. The other women gathered around and read them with her. Nothing unusual was evident. Susannah shook her head. It was unlikely that a salesman would be in the position to poison one obnoxious client. Why would he bother? It would be easier to find a new client who paid without complaint.
“We’ve collected a lot of information, but we’re still missing something.”
There were nods around the table. Susannah stood and gathered the coffee mugs and placed them in the sink. “Who’s ready for lunch?”
The women at the table considered the question, an uneasy expression passing from Larraine to Tina. Bitsy nudged Tina. “See why you should have voted for gluten inclusive?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“Have you ever broken any necks?” a gray-eyed boy asked, an engaging grin spread across his face.
“You don’t waste any time, do you?”
Susannah turned to the whiteboard and jotted a few words beneath her name, which had been written by a student in perky round letters, a circle dotting the ‘i’ in Shine. She understood that you never turn your back on a classroom, so she angled herself forty-five degrees, keeping most of the class in view. Career Day at Peach Grove High School was not without its stresses.
She finished writing, “Never broken any necks,” and laughter erupted. She smiled. Career Day was a diversion from patients and a way to avoid thinking about Detective Withers and her taunting visits to the office.
“Take your seats, please,” she said, and the few students who were still standing quickly found a desk.
She enjoyed interacting with teens and had established herself as a presenter at the annual event. Every year, one or two attendees expressed interest in pursuing a career in physical medicine. She enjoyed speaking with them and found the interaction gratifying. If she could help steer one young adult toward a career, it was worth the time. Then there were the others: those who wanted to find out if chiropractic was the quackery they had heard it was. A question about broken bones usually showed up at some point, and she let them know that she was willing to answer it.
“Ever broken any bones at all?” a girl with jet-black hair asked. Her eyeliner tapered up and onto her temple, and she peeked out from under a dark fringe of hair that obscured her eyes. Susannah wasn’t sure if she was shy or if she was just embarrassed to admit that she would enjoy a career that included cracking a few ribs.
“Never.”
Susannah faced her first of five scheduled classes, juniors
and seniors who would rotate in at forty-five-minute intervals. They were on holiday from their regular class load, and there was an air of frivolity that she tried to keep in check. She had learned that if they became unruly, it would be difficult to keep their attention.
“Chiropractic is very safe,” she said, not getting any reaction from the cat-eyed girl who now chewed on a black-polished nail. The gray-eyed boy still wore his smile and seemed genuinely interested. “In fact, chiropractic malpractice insurance is much lower than malpractice for most other kinds of doctors.”
“Really? What does that mean?” asked a small girl with bushy, shoulder-length hair. She sat in the front row, wearing a T-shirt sporting the image of the University of Georgia bulldog mascot.
“It means that chiropractors as a group get sued a lot less than other kinds of doctors. And if we do get sued, the insurance companies don’t pay out as much on our claims because they are usually not as serious, compared to say, a claim made against a surgeon.”
The girl bobbed her head and pushed her glasses up her nose as she wrote something in the spiral notebook that lay open on the desk.
“Any other questions before I begin?”
“Yes,” replied a boy whose belly hung over his pants. He wore a football jersey and was as tall and broad as a linebacker. “When do we get lunch?”
There were a few chuckles, and Susannah smiled at him. Class clown and a football player, she thought. Impressive. “You’ll have to check your schedule. I’m not in charge of lunch.”
She passed around handouts and began a brief lecture. Everything went well, and it surprised her when the bell rang to release the first section. The rest of the classes proceeded smoothly without the broken neck question, and she was thrilled to greet the last section.
Finally, the bell rang to dismiss the last class, and relief flooded her. She’d made it through the day and no one had brought up Anita’s death. All the students stood, except for a girl seated in the last row. She had her head bowed and was drawing on a sketchpad. Susannah hadn’t noticed her earlier. As she looked up, Susannah recognized her as the girl she had seen leading a horse out of Fiona’s stable the first time she had visited. Today she wore her hair loose, and it fell in straw-colored strands onto her sketchpad.