Who Killed Kasey Hill

by Charlotte Moore

  “Good guy,” Darby said when Champ was gone. “I’d like to round up Roger Wellston next, and then head up to McFall and see what I can learn about Kasey’s wild times before the baby came along.

  Evergreen was pulling into the parking lot at Azalea Terrace Assisted Living, glad that she had made a habit of visiting Marcilla Trice at least once a month, or when her dreams told her that she was falling short in her charitable duties.

  Marcilla had been living at Azalea Terrace for well over a year now, following a broken hip that simply wouldn’t mend, and she seemed to Evergreen (who planned to die in her own bed) to have made the best of it. That was in part because she had a little apartment of her own that was kept tidy for her, in part because the owners had been wise enough to hire local cooks, but perhaps still more because she had discovered three bridge players there and had a game going almost every day.

  The bridge games, Evergreen knew, were in the afternoon, so it was best to visit in the morning.

  She found Marcilla dressed for the day and in good spirits but prepared with her standard guilt trip.

  “So, Evergreen, you finally found a moment in your busy, busy schedule to visit an old friend.”

  “Yes, and I brought you a new crystal,” Evergreen said. “This one’s been moonlighted, and I need to take the other one back to put it outside for a while.”

  “As well you should,” Marcilla said accepting the blue quartz as if it were her due. “My arthritis has been getting worse, especially in my hands, and I absolutely cannot let people start seeing my cards.”

  And then they settled down for their usual long conversation, which began with that dreadful business about Janie Hill’s daughter, Kasey, went on to the luncheon at the country club and the absurd cost of fine china which the young people were never going to use anyway, and wound up a half hour later with what was most on Marcilla’s mind.

  “I’m settled here,” she said, “And I just can’t see going home anymore. I couldn’t possibly deal with the stairs and I’d wind up with a hospital bed in my dining room and Meals-on-Wheels, and then how would I have bridge games and see so many people? It’s just that this place does cost an arm and a leg, and I’m going to have to sell the house to pay for living here. I asked Elaine what she thought I could sell it for, and she looked shocked and said, ‘Mother! I always thought you would leave it to me.’”

  “I thought she and Will had a nice house already,” Evergreen said.

  “Well, they do, out at Oaks Landing. And you know none of the younger people want to live in the old neighborhoods. I think she meant that she always thought she’d get my house to sell after I pass on,” Marcilla said. “Of course, I don’t want to hurt her feelings, but…”

  “You must make the right choice for yourself,” Evergreen said firmly, and dug into her purse for another quartz crystal—this one in a small blue velvet drawstring bag, and was colorless except for a rainbow when held to the light. It was one she carried for herself, but she handed it to Marcilla. “What’s this one for?” Marcilla asked.

  “Clear-headed resolve,” Evergreen said. “But it’s just on loan until you get your decision made.”

  B.J. and Darby had walked in on Roger Wellston at his plumbing business, and he was none too happy.

  “I’ve got work to do,” he said.

  “Would you rather do this at home?” B.J. asked.

  “Home? What’s home?” he asked in a grouchy voice “We’ve got non-stop company. Some people I never laid eyes on before, and the kids are going crazy.”

  “How’s Logan?” B.J. asked.

  Roger’s voice softened a little.

  “I don’t think he understands things. You know he’s spent half his life with us, but who knows what he saw, and he’s not getting enough sleep, and keeping Holly up. He’ll settle down, I guess, but it might be faster if things got back to normal. We’ve got the funeral set for tomorrow, so maybe people will stop coming by after that.”

  “I hope it will,” B.J. said. “Now, one thing we’ve heard mentioned, but don’t have much information on is the arrangement you and your wife had with Kasey about her living in the mobile home. I understand that you own it.”

  “And the land,” he said. “I bought that when Holly and I got married.”

  “So, was Kasey renting from you?” Darby asked innocently.

  “Not exactly,” Roger said. “We worked out this agreement because, well, to be honest, because she and Holly weren’t getting along that great. It was no big deal. I know my sisters wouldn’t. Anyway, my last tenant moved out and Kasey came up with this idea of moving in there with Logan. Of course she said she didn’t expect to pay any rent since we were living a house she was half-owner of. I wished we could have bought her out and owned the house, but we weren’t in any position to do that. I already had a loan for the business, so we kinda worked out a deal. I know now that Kasey bit off more than she could chew, because she never had lived anywhere but home and she couldn’t manage money.”

  “And you lost the income from the rental property,” Darby said. “Didn’t that put a strain on your finances?”

  “Yeah, it did,” Roger said. “But it sure made the house more peaceful, and I made up a written agreement about what we’d pay her for her share of the house once Holly could go back to work and we could get another loan. Tell you the truth, we really want to sell that old house in due time, and we were both hoping Kasey would settle down and get married sooner or later.”

  “So, what did you think of Champ Brennan?” B.J. asked.

  “I’m not making any accusations, but I think y’all oughta find out where he was on Saturday afternoon,” he said. “Last time I saw him, he was out-of-his-mind mad at her for throwing him out.”

  “We’ve talked to him already,” Darby said. “He didn’t kill her. He was working at the lumberyard that afternoon. And he says he was the one who ended it. He left her.”

  “Yeah, right.” Roger said. “And if Champ Brennan told you about my getting mad at him for bringing Logan around at the crack of dawn, that was because he took it on himself to decide we ought to be looking after the kid first thing in the morning, trying to make Kasey look bad, instead of just waking her up.”

  “You think it wasn’t a good relationship for Kasey?” Darby asked.

  “All I’m saying is that he has a good job, and he was living on my property and he probably could have come up with rent,” Roger said. “I mean that deal we made was with Kasey, not with him. Now if y’all are finished, I need to get some work done. I’m gonna lose all day tomorrow for the funeral.”

  “One more thing,” B.J. said. “Do you have any idea who Logan’s father is?”

  “No,” Roger snapped. “And I sure hope he doesn’t turn up, because we want to adopt Logan and change his name to ours, make him our son. And we sure don’t need anybody butting in. Logan already calls me Daddy.”

  As they drove away, B.J. said, “I haven’t ruled him out. They’ve solved the problem with the house. He’s got his land back, and he would have been expecting to get the rental money again. They were looking after Logan a lot of the time anyway.”

  “Plus, you don’t like him,” Darby said.

  “Did it show?” she asked.

  “I saw it,” Darby said. “He might not have.”

  “What if he’s Logan’s father,” B.J. said. “What if that’s why he went along with letting her have the trailer free, and that’s why he dislikes Champ. Competition for Kasey and for Logan.”

  “I hope not,” Darby said. “That would destroy the whole family, wouldn’t it? Let’s rule out the other possibilities before we dig into that. The way I have my timeline, she got pregnant when she was still working at Glam in McFall. I want to talk to some people up there.”

  Chapter 7

  Darby’s first visit in McFall was to Kasey Hill’s former
employer at Glam, which was a hair salon in front, with waxing, tanning, massage and other mysteries behind a quilted door in the back. There was one man there among all the women having their hair transformed.

  Madge DuPree, the platinum blonde owner, who was soaked in perfume, took him to an office so small and cluttered that he wound up having to stand in the doorway while she sat in her swivel chair looking up at him.

  “So,” she said, crossing her chubby knees. “I was so sorry to hear about Kasey, but you know she left here over two years ago—before she was even pregnant. And she’s been working for Chloe Patterson since then.”

  “Why did she leave?” Darby asked.

  “I fired her for coming to work drunk,” Madge said flatly. “I think she was probably already pregnant then. I mean just based on when the baby was born. I hoped she stopped drinking. You know we all loved Kasey, and she was just a genius with the scissors, but I never let her do perms or anything like that. She was just too scatterbrained.”

  “Who were her friends up here?”

  “Bree Sexton was the one she partied with, but she’s gone, too. She married some guy who stationed at the air force base, and I think they’re in Germany. She and Kasey liked to go out to the Red Barn, and Kasey spent some nights with her instead of going home. I think that started after she got stopped for driving drunk. Twice. One more time, her picture would have been in the Laurel County Leader, so I guess she got more careful.”

  “You know any men she was dating?”

  “Dating? You mean like they’d pick her up and take her out to dinner? No. But, you know, mostly once we were open, we were all working.”

  “She was living in Laurel Grove with her sister and brother-in-law. Did you ever hear her complain about her family life?”

  “One time,” Madge said. “We were having lunch on my birthday, and she went into this thing about how her mother left it to both of them, and it was her house, too, and her sister always acted like she was in charge of everything and her sister’s little girls got into her things. One of the girls finally reminded her that it was my birthday.”

  “She say anything about her brother-in-law?”

  “I don’t remember,” Madge said with a sigh. “Can we wrap this up? One of my customers will be here in a few minutes.”

  “Just one thing,” Darby said, taking a wild chance. “Do you know of a lawyer with a beard who lived here? He would have had a wife with cancer.”

  “Oh, of course,” Madge said. “Taylor Brownell. Why?”

  Back in Laurel Grove, B.J. put down her phone. Neither Dr. Jake Hathaway, the older vet, nor Dr. Priscilla Payne, the newer one, knew of anyone with a Sheltie.

  Dr. Hathaway said that the last one he remembered was Evergreen Tinsley’s Lady.

  “If the dog was running loose, you might call Animal Control,” Dr. Payne had suggested.

  B.J. had just made that call when LaKeisha called on the intercom and said, “There’s a lady here to see you from the Laurel County Leader.”

  Emma Price could passed for a high school student. Her blond hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail, and she was dressed in faded jeans and a black turtleneck. She had a camera case slung over her shoulder and was gripping one of those reporter’s notebooks that could be held in one hand, or stashed in a back pocket.

  “Hi! I’m Emma,” she said, dropping the notebook on the floor as she held her hand out. “I hope you don’t mind dumb questions because this is my first day working for The Leader, and I don’t know anything about Laurel Grove.”

  “I’ll be glad to help you,” B.J. said. “Please have a seat. You know this is the first time a reporter from the Leader has ever come to my office.”

  “Oh, I know,” Emma said. “There’s a new owner, and I just hired and this is going to be my job: to cover Laurel Grove and the southern part of the county, and do the on-line version so we won’t have to wait until Wednesday if there’s a big story like this one.”

  “You take pictures and report, too?” B.J. asked.

  She grinned.

  “It’s easier. They’ve got two photographers, but one of them only does sports, and the other one’s an artist and nobody can tell her what pictures they want. I already got some of the tornado damage pictures, and I wanted to ask you about the Kasey Hill murder and how that investigation is going.”

  “The murder of Kasey Hill is under investigation,” B.J. said. “The cause of death was strangulation. We have made no arrests at this time. The Sheriff’s Office is assisting. Her funeral service is tomorrow at 2 p.m. at the Memorial Park Cemetery. And that’s about all I can tell you.”

  “Did you know her?” Emma asked.

  “I’d never met her,” B.J. said.

  “Well, I’m going to talk to that guy named Jazz at Chloe’s Clips,” Emma said. “I already called there and he said they were good friends.”

  “I think they were,” B.J. said. “They’re cousins, too.”

  “Oh, good! That will help me get the family stuff right. I already got the obituary the funeral home sent out,” Emma said. “And they had a picture that her sister had given them—one of her and the baby. Now, Mayor Fuller told me about your jumping over that power line to save her baby? Can you tell me about that? Was the baby crawling or what?”

  “Really, I don’t want any focus on me,” B.J. said. “But Logan isn’t really a baby. He’s almost two, I think and he was walking. I just happened to be there, and there was a dog with him. When I called out “Stop!” the dog started trying to stop Logan, and then grabbed him by the back of his overalls and pulled him down flat on the ground and held him there until I could get to him.”

  “Wow!” Emma said. “A hero dog! The mayor didn’t know about that. What kind of dog? Whose was it?”

  “It was a Sheltie,” B.J. said, happy to think she might have some help with finding the dog. “I’ve been trying to find out whose dog it is, because I think the owners ought to know. Maybe you can help with that.”

  “Great!” Emma said. “What does a Sheltie look like?”

  “Like a collie with shorter legs,” B.J. said. “This one was sort of reddish-brown and black with white legs. It would be great if you found out whose dog it is. It looked very well cared for.”

  The conversation wound on a bit, and B.J. slowly realized that Emma Price might look like a kid, but she was good at her job.

  Emma had just left when Darby called.

  “I’m on my way back and you’re not going to believe this,” he said, “But there really was a lawyer with a beard and he really did move because his wife had cancer. I even have his name. It’s Taylor Brownell.

  “Where is he?”

  “That’s the problem at the moment,” Darby said. “The last address the Bar Association had was in McFall. He left Williamson & Kaye two years ago. They say they don’t have an address for him, and don’t know where he’s practicing if he’s practicing. I’ll find him though. I may need the sheriff’s influence with Williamson & Kaye. I couldn’t get past their office manager.

  “That’s good news,” B.J. said. “Maybe that tale Kasey told Jazz was the truth.”

  “That’s what I’m thinking,” Darby said. “Except maybe this guy wasn’t as nice as she made him sound. Maybe she invited this guy to come and take a look at his son and he showed up and strangled her. So what have you got to report?”

  “Nothing,” B.J. said, “Except that we’ve got a few pointless messages on the hot line, and the Laurel County Leader has actually assigned a reporter to Laurel Grove. She’s going to try to help find the Sheltie’s owners.”

  “The vets weren’t any help?”

  “No, and neither was Animal Control.”

  “You worked all day Saturday and Sunday, and now we’ve got a real lead,” he said. “I’m going home to see what I can find on my computer. What do you think abo
ut being ordinary people and having real food for supper?”

  “You shop,” she said, “And I’ll cook. Just be sure to get some green vegetables.”

  On Tuesday morning, B.J. got her two-mile run and didn’t encounter Pinky Brayburn until she was on her way back with only one more block to go.”

  Pinky waved for her to stop, shushed the poodles, and said, “I just wanted to ask you if you found the dog.”

  “Which dog?” B.J. said, catching her breath, and bouncing a little to let Pinky know she still had some running to do.”

  “The Sheltie,” Pinky said. “Mary Frances Singletary told me that it was on the computer… something new from the Laurel County Leader. Of course, I don’t know the first thing about computers, but she’s always finding out things on hers, and it was all about the dog helping to save that little boy, She wanted to know if I knew anybody else with a Sheltie. I don’t though. The last Sheltie I remember around here was years ago. That was the one Evergreen Tinsley had. Lovely dog.”

  She stopped talking as an older model white Toyota slowed down and the woman behind the wheel stared at them and then waved.

  The poodles barked. Pinky waved back and then frowned slightly as the car moved on.

  “Betty Jean Baker is the nosiest woman in Laurel Grove,” she said. “She can’t even let two people have a conversation on the sidewalk without stopping to see who it is.”

  Darby’s whose office was in the Sheriff’s Department in McFall had decided to work from home with his computer and telephone and was clearing boxes of books off B.J.’s dining room table, which he had pushed against the wall to make room for his computer chair.

  “You have got to have an office of your own when we find a house,” B.J. said. “Call me if you find out where this guy is.”

  Chapter 8

  B.J. arrived at work to find Evergreen waiting in the parking lot, dressed in a many-tiered skirt and a peasant blouse, with a crimson shawl. She was holding a brown paper grocery bag.