Who Killed Kasey Hill

by Charlotte Moore

  “I have a little news, and I need your help with something,” Evergreen said in a conspiratorial tone.

  “Of course,” B.J. said with a smile. “What’s in the bag?”

  “It’s something that belongs to Logan Hill,” Evergreen said, “And I simply can’t take it there myself, because if I do and it gets around, everybody is going to be asking me to find things for them. I got into that once years ago when I found old Mrs. Wilson’s diamond brooch, and I honestly do not have time for dealing with all the little things people have misplaced.”

  “What is it?” B.J. asked, and Evergreen handed her the bag without a word.

  There was something gray and lumpy at the bottom. B.J. reached in and pulled out a stuffed animal that had lost an ear and part of its stuffing. It smelled a little of lavender.

  “I cleaned it up a bit. It’s Logan’s Bo-Bear,” Evergreen said. “He needs it to go to sleep. Will you take it to their house and just make up something—like maybe one of the city workers found it on the street. It could have blown around in the tornado. Well, probably it did.”

  “Where did you find this?” B.J. asked.

  “I didn’t. Lady found it,” B.J. said. “I don’t know where. I sent her a message about it yesterday, and she left it at my back door sometime during the night, but please don’t tell them that. That’s why I don’t want to take it there myself. Word gets around, and I just don’t have time to be a finder unless it’s something really important. I got into that once before and people were bothering me about every little thing they misplaced. Of course, Lady did the real work this time, but I can’t expect Lady to manifest and go looking for every last thing that gets lost. Besides, I don’t even know that she would. She already had a bond with Logan.”

  B.J. was still thinking of the dog she had seen with her own eyes, but she was accustomed to Evergreen’s occasional forays into alternate realities, and to her sometimes remarkable results.

  “I’m not even pretending that I understand this,” she said, “But if you’re sure this thing in the bag is Logan’s bear, I’ll take it over there. I need to go talk with Holly, anyway.

  “Thank you so much,” Evergreen said. “I knew I could count on you. Now, my news is that Marcilla Trice is about to decide to sell her house. It’s been very well kept-up and it has a grand backyard. You and Darcy might want to take just a peek at it, because if she does decide to sell, I can ask her to let me have a key and show it to you.”

  B.J. smiled and asked, “Where is it?”

  It’s the slate blue one at the end of Willow Street, “Evergreen said.

  B.J. was happy when the younger of the Wellston daughters answered the front door. That simplified things. If they’d never laid eyes on the bear, she would make up some story about its being blown into a tree.

  She pulled the bear out of the paper bag and asked, “Does this belong…”

  “It’s BO-BEAR!” the little girl broke in “Logan! LOGAN! The police lady brought Bo-Bear back!”

  The little boy came careening from the kitchen through the dining room. He saw his cousin holding the lumpy gray stuffed animal, burst into tears and tackled her.

  “MINE!” he wailed. “Gimmee!”

  A few minutes later, he was curled up on the sofa beside Holly, holding the bear against his face, with his thumb in his mouth and his eyes half shut.

  “Oh, that’s such a relief,” Holly said. “Roger went over there to look for it twice. Where on earth did you find it? How did you even know it was his?”

  “Well, I didn’t,” B.J. said. “Somebody left it at the station and I remembered your older daughter saying that he needed his bear. I just thought it was worth a chance, and…”

  Holly moved Logan into a sleeping position, and suggested that they talk in the kitchen.

  “I know you’ve been through a lot,” B.J. said after Holly had poured coffee and put a plate of oatmeal cookies on the table. “But now that you’ve had a little time to think about it, I need whatever information you can give me. First, have you ever heard of a man named Taylor Brownell?”

  “No,” Holly said, looking blank.

  “Was Kasey going out with anybody new?”

  “Not since Champ. Or if she was, he must have been seeing her in the trailer,” Holly said. “She hadn’t asked me to let Logan sleep over. I do know she was real worried about money since they had been sharing costs and she was probably just about broke. Well, she was always just about broke. I gave her some money. I didn’t want her to have her water and power turned off. I think maybe Chloe paid her early, too.”

  “How’d you and Champ get along?”

  “To tell you the truth, I thought he was just the kind of guy she needed—you know, steady and good –natured, with a good job, too. He was real sweet with Logan.”

  “Did he get along with your husband?”

  Holly looked a little uncomfortable.

  “Okay, I guess,” she said. “Roger didn’t think much of their living together, and he said that people were talking about her. That, and I guess he sort of felt like since he owned the trailer, he ought to be asked before somebody moved in. I wish she’d never moved out of here, but it was just one of those things that wasn’t working.”

  “Tell me about this arrangement you had with Kasey,” B.J. said.

  Holly explained.

  “It wasn’t great,” she said. “We missed the income from the mobile home, but it gave her the freedom she wanted without all of us in the way. You know my mom had her first stroke when Kasey was a senior in high school, and when we first moved in here, I had Wendy and Mom to look after. Let me tell you, Kasey didn’t think I was supposed to be in charge of her. She’d listen to Roger more than to me.”

  “That must have been hard,” B.J. said.

  “So anyway, she wanted us just to sell the house and split the money, and I wouldn’t do that, so we worked it out that she could have the trailer free and I’d keep taking care of Logan while she worked, but I was thinking that once the kids were older, I’d go back to work, and we could pay her for her half of the house … you don’t want to hear all this, do you?”

  “It helps,” B.J. said. “Now please tell me if you have any idea who Logan’s father is?”

  “No,” Holly said instantly.

  “I’m asking because he could have been the one who killed her,” B.J. said. “We have to consider that.”

  “I do not know who Logan’s father is,” Holly said, tensing up and speaking in a low voice. “We never have known. Kasey said she wasn’t sure. She was getting drunk a lot then, and sometimes she didn’t even come home. I tried to get her to be on birth control pills but she’d forget to take them. Now, does that satisfy you? I loved her but she was a real mess. I have been worrying about her for half my life and now she’s gotten herself killed.”

  B.J. persisted in the face of Holly’s growing anger.

  “Somebody strangled her and left Logan there by himself,” she said. “We need to arrest that person.”

  “And if could help you, I would,” Holly said, standing up, “But I’ve got Mr. Marshall from the funeral home coming in about fifteen minutes, and I need to find something for my little sister to be buried in.”

  B.J. would see that she wasn’t going to get any further.

  She checked her phone for messages and found one from Darby.

  “I have found Taylor Brownell!”

  Chapter 9

  “He’s in Magnolia County, near Merchantsville,” Darby explained over supper at home. The Sheriff over there saw our post and called Sheriff Harp. Brownell grew up there, but he’s been gone for ten years or more. He’s back now trying to sell his parents’ house and land. I’m going over here tomorrow. You want to go with me?”

  “Too much to do here,” B.J. said, “And remember that we’re having supper with Evergreen
tomorrow night. Should I call that off?”

  “No problem with that,” he said. “Merchantsville’s only a forty mile drive each way, and the roads are good. What have you been up to?”

  He sympathized over the problems of learning anything from Holly Wellston, and smiled over the Bo-Bear story.

  “That Lady really gets around,” he said.

  “But it really was Logan’s bear,” B.J. said. “And she said that Lady brought it to her back porch. Now unless Evergreen went over there and poked around in the woods, I can’t imagine how she came up with it. She didn’t want me to tell them that it was her because she said everybody would be bothering her to find things.”

  “But the dog you saw was real, right?” Darby said. “So, let’s just accept that Evergreen works a little magic from time to time, and by pure coincidence the dog you saw happened to be a Sheltie.”

  B.J. nodded, and changed the subject, telling him about Marcilla Trice’s house.

  “Willow Street’s right around the corner isn’t it,” Darby said, “Let’s go see what that house looks like by moonlight. I’ll even get some exercise. We can walk.”

  Five minutes later they were turning onto Willow Street, which was shadowy with big oak trees.

  The house, two-story with a wrap-around front porch, was at the end of the block where the street came to an end near the creek.

  “It has real character. I wonder if she’s really going to sell,” B.J. said.

  “I want to see the backyard,” Darby said. “I don’t care how much character it has if the backyard isn’t big enough for a garden and three dogs and maybe a kid. Come on. Let’s look.”

  “Now?” B.J. asked.

  “Sure, let’s go see! Nobody’s home.”

  “I don’t know,” B.J. said. “It’s private property.”

  “Well, I don’t know about you,” he said, “But I’m with the police chief.”

  They were almost to the end of the driveway that led to the old-fashioned garage in the back when the high-pitched barking began in the house next door.

  “Oh, no!” B.J. whispered to Darby, suddenly remembering who else lived on Willow Street. “Those are Pinky Brayburn’s poodles. That must be her house! Let’s go before she sees us.”

  “You think she’s going to call the cops?” Darby whispered back.

  The poodles were getting more hysterical. B.J. grabbed Darby’s hand and ran, pulling him with her.

  Darby started laughing as they reached the sidewalk.

  “It’s not funny,” B.J. said as they headed down the sidewalk. “She’s probably calling 911 right now.”

  “You’re worried that Demetrius is going to drive up any minute and read you your rights?” Darby asked, laughing again.

  Chapter 10

  As clear as the sky had been the night before, by morning there was a low cloud cover and drizzling rain. B.J. took one look out the window and got back in bed beside Darby who woke up and asked, “You gonna run?”

  “No. It’s raining.” she said.

  He rolled over and she was almost asleep again when he said, “Just as well to lay low. The cops probably have Willow Street staked out.”

  B.J. hit him with her pillow before trying to go back to sleep.

  When she couldn’t sleep, she sat up and said, “I don’t know if that house is such a good choice. Those dogs probably bark about everything, and Miss Pinky’s a sweet lady but she’s the one I told you about who was cutting all that time out of my morning run. Honestly you can’t get past her without being stopped for a full-length conversation.”

  “Oh, come on,” Darby replied. “Let’s not write it off. We’re going to have a dog, too, remember? Maybe more than one dog. Probably kids. It might be good to have a neighbor with a high toleration for noise, and if you’re right next door, you can watch out the window to make sure she’s not outside before you start your run.”

  “I just hope she didn’t recognize me,” B.J. said. “Marcilla Trice may not have even wanted Evergreen to go trying to sell her house for her.”

  “You worry too much,” he responded. “You can just tell her that you saw this good-looking guy prowling around the neighborhood and you were following him.”

  As it turned out when B.J. got to work early, Mildred Morris, who had taken that shift as dispatcher, had very little to report from the night before.

  “I was expecting three or four calls at least,” she said as she gathered up her purse and paperback romance. “You know, with the full moon and all that, but the only call I got was the usual from old Mr. Miller, and he just wanted to know what day of the week it was. I told him.”

  B.J. nodded, and felt a little silly. Down deep, she really had been worried that Pinky Brayburn would have called in about strange people in Marcilla Trice’s driveway.

  Chapter 11

  Sheriff Sam Bailey was younger than Darby had expected—tall with hair that had started changing from blonde to gray, tan and blue-eyed.

  He looked relaxed in his cluttered office.

  “I’ve been checking around,” he said. “Taylor’s wife did have cancer, but she apparently recovered. They lived up near Atlanta after they left McFall and they’ve been divorced for about a year, might have been living apart before that. Word around here was that his mother didn’t like his wife, but she hardly liked anybody. Anyway, she’s out of the picture. You probably already know he’s got no kind of record.”

  “He could be this child’s father,” Darby said, “And even if he didn’t murder the mother, there’s the issue of child support.”

  “Well, he’s got money for sure,” Sheriff Bailey said. “He’s come into a major inheritance. Let’s go talk to him.”

  The Brownell mansion was five miles outside of Merchantsville at the end of a long driveway that went through a vast pecan grove.

  “Nice,” Darby said when it first came into view.

  “If you like the “Gone With the Wind” look,” Sam Bailey said. “But it’s not really old. Taylor’s father built it. He cut down about fifty perfectly good pecan trees to get this driveway where he wanted it. There’s a pool in the back.”

  When they got to the end of the pecan grove, Darby could see that the yard needed mowing. There were cracks in the cement front steps and the paint on the white columns was peeling. It was a bit like an abandoned movie set.

  “This isn’t going to be easy to sell,” Sam commented as he parked. “Unless somebody just wants the pecan grove.”

  If Taylor Brownell was disturbed to encounter the sheriff and a visiting detective at his front door, and a deputy wandering around his house, Darby couldn’t tell it. He greeted the sheriff by his first name and shook Darby’s hand.

  “Laurel County? I spent a little time there. Come on in. What’s going on?”

  He was, Darby thought, the kind of guy you might see on a television commercial, talking about making the most on your investments. He was medium height with a neat beard, and foxy features—nicely turned out, even in jeans and a black t-shirt.

  After they were seated in the vast, elaborately furnished front room, Darby got straight to the point.

  “Can you tell me where you were on Saturday between noon and 4:30 p.m.?”

  Brownell looked surprised, thought about it and then looked annoyed.

  “It’s none of your business and I don’t care to,” he said, “But I assure you I wasn’t breaking any laws.”

  He turned to Sam Bailey.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Just cooperating with another Sheriff,” Sam said. “Let’s start at the beginning then. When you were living in McFall, did you know a young woman named Kasey Hill?”

  B.J. was ready to show him the photos, but Brownell folded his arms over his chest and looked exasperated.

  “Yes, I did know her. And I am not that child’s
father.”

  He turned to Darby.

  “Did she send you all the way over here to start that up again? That girl is an idiot.”

  “That woman is dead,” Darby said.

  “Huh?” The surprise was genuine. “What happened to her?”

  “She was murdered,” Darby said. “Did you have an affair with her?”

  “I had sex with her,” Brownell said bluntly, sitting up straighter. “Three or four times maybe. I wouldn’t call it an affair. That was just a bad time in my life. My mother had cut me off, I had this stupid job and my marriage wasn’t working out. Then my wife was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, and I got fired in the same week Anyway, the kid is not mine, and I’ve got the DNA results to prove that if you want to see the paperwork. I probably wouldn’t remember her name if I hadn’t had to hire a lawyer to deal with her.”

  “You knew about the child?”

  “Oh, yes. She tracked me down in Atlanta after I’d moved,” he said. “Called me and told me that she was pregnant. I told her I didn’t think it was mine and to stay out of my life, that my wife had cancer and I didn’t want her upset. Then she calls me back when the baby is two or three months old and says he looks just like…”

  He broke off in mid-sentence.

  “Look, we don’t even need to discuss this. He’s not mine. I actually got a lawyer into it so I wouldn’t have to deal with Kasey. He set things up for me and the kid to get DNA tests at a clinic in Macon. It took a couple of weeks for the results to come back. Not my kid. She got copies, too. I haven’t heard from her since then. You want my lawyer’s name? He’s the one who handled it all.”

  “You actually got paternity tests?” Darby asked.

  “Yes,” Brownell said. “I went to a clinic in Macon one day and she took the baby there next day. The thing is that I really didn’t know for sure. If he wasn’t mine, I sure wasn’t going to support him, and if he was mine, I was thinking about getting custody of him. I don’t have any kids, and if I really had a son, I sure wasn’t going to let him be brought up by somebody as dumb as Kasey.”