Murder in the Milk Case

by Spyglass Lane Mysteries

“I didn’t?” I tried to remember. “Well, it’s all very confusing. I mean, I had no list and I didn’t have any coffee.”

  “What?” the detective asked.

  I shook my head and stared at the ceiling, trying to think. “Well, I really don’t know what to say. There were the knives in the deli. And Daryl’s hammer.” Was there anything else I’d forgotten? I met their gazes. “Did I tell you about those things?”

  I had never experienced stares and vibes quite like those emanating from the two officers who stood across the room from me. I felt much worse than something icky on a microscope slide—more like a butterfly pinned alive on a display board.

  Detective Scott slapped his notebook shut. “Mrs. Cunningham, we need to continue this interview at the sheriff’s office.”

  My mouth fell open. The sheriff’s office? I shivered, feeling like I’d been dropped into a play where all the cast members knew their parts but me.

  Detective Scott noticed. His expression softened a fraction. “This is just normal procedure, ma’am. We’ll drive you. And while you’re there, I’ll see to it that you speak to a victim advocate.”

  Before I could ask who that was, he had turned to the deputy.

  “Fletcher, get her ready to go downtown. You can take her. Get her whatever she needs.”

  “You got it, Sarge.”

  Detective Scott left the room. Fletcher and I exchanged glances. For just a second, I thought maybe I saw a glimpse of compassion in his eyes. Then he motioned to the table.

  “Get your pocketbook, Mrs. Cunningham. I’ll show you to my car.”

  I snatched up my purse and hung onto it like it was a life preserver.

  Chapter Two

  At the sheriff’s office, Fletcher escorted me into a room barren of anything but a table and chairs for my first-ever police interview. He seemed resigned to my chatter, which is always worse when I’m nervous. He got me a cold bottle of water, and while I yammered on, he kept eyeing me. That encouraged me to keep on talking, although after I called him Deputy Fletcher several times, he informed me that he was a corporal, not a deputy. When I asked his permission to make a phone call to arrange for Sammie to be taken care of, he agreed with alacrity, probably relieved that I’d be babbling at someone else.

  That was the extent of our conversation because while I was on my cell phone, a well-dressed, proper young woman walked into the room. I hung up, and Corporal Fletcher introduced her as the victim advocate, then he left. For some reason, I found myself wanting the big man to stay. Maybe it was one of those captor/captive brainwashing things that happens to some kidnapping victims. He’d been nice to me, so I felt pathetically grateful.

  The advocate seemed very concerned about my well-being, asking me about my distressing experience and assuring me that she would do whatever she could to help me through this difficult time. “After all,” she said, “finding a body is very, very disturbing.”

  No joke. I nodded and smiled as she spoke, only responding with “yep” or “nope” when I had to. Call me suspicious, but I didn’t believe she was on my side. In fact, I wanted Corporal Fletcher to come back. At least he was obvious about how he felt.

  When she left, Detective Scott joined me. He greeted me with a polite, professional smile, inquiring after my well-being. I didn’t bother to tell him that my well-being would be better if I never saw him or another law-enforcement officer again for the rest of my life. He informed me that our interview would be taped. Then, question by question, he grilled me. Not a moment of my time at the store was left out. He even wanted to know what I’d done in the bathroom. I laughed. My first good chuckle of the day. He wasn’t amused.

  When we were finished and I had signed my official statement, Detective Scott wanted someone to drive me straight home. I assured him I was going to be okay. I just wanted someone to take me back to my SUV, which was still in the grocery store parking lot. He frowned at me. I wasn’t sure why. Worry? Or maybe suspicion because I wasn’t collapsed in an emotional heap? Now that I thought about it, when I made that unfortunate run to the ladies’ room, I could have stabbed Jim Bob. And I suppose that my own reaction, or lack thereof, when I found Jim Bob could be a sign of guilt. I hadn’t fainted like Frank. Did Detective Scott think an innocent woman would have at least screamed? The thing he didn’t know was that I’d been raised on a farm. Though finding a dead person is distressing, death doesn’t surprise me like it might someone who’s never dragged a dead cow from a field on a chain behind a tractor.

  A young, clean-cut deputy drove me back to the store. He waited until I unlocked my SUV before he took off. While I fumbled with my key in the ignition, I heard a tap on my window and looked up. Frank Gaines stood there. I hadn’t realized he’d returned. He’d been taken to the sheriff’s office for an interview, too, and crime-scene people closed the store pending collection of evidence.

  I rolled down the window. His crisp, red jacket, complete with a bright yellow store logo, looked garish in the sunlight.

  “What did you tell them?” he demanded, not wasting a breath on civilities.

  “Hello, Frank,” I said. “How are you?”

  He snorted. “How do you think I am? What a stupid question. Anyway, what did they ask you?”

  Frank and I had had some confrontations when we were kids because of his obnoxious personality. So I decided if he was going to be unpleasant right now, I would be, too. Not the godly response, but I was past irritable and into serious grumpiness. I wanted to annoy someone.

  I stared at him with a purposefully vacuous, dumb-blond look. “They who?”

  The muscles in his jaw worked, and a red flush crawled from his neck to his cheeks like a rash. That concerned me. I didn’t want him to die of a coronary. All we needed was another body at the Shopper’s Super Saver.

  “Oh, you must mean the cops?” I asked innocently.

  He glared down at me. “Who else?”

  Even if I were going to tell him, which I wasn’t, my brain had shut down. I’d be lucky to find my way home, let alone speak coherently.

  “Well?” he asked impatiently, glancing at the squad cars still parked in the lot.

  “I don’t know.”

  “What?” He stared at me, looking ready to explode. “How can you not know?”

  Would it be possible to carry on a whole conversation with one-syllable words?

  Tiredness enveloped me like the proverbial shroud. I didn’t have the energy to continue messing with his head, so I dropped my stupid act. “Look, Frank, I’m tired and crabby. I can’t think. I’m liable to say something I don’t want to if I continue talking. I’m positive they didn’t ask me anything they didn’t ask you.” I turned the key in the ignition.

  He gripped my windowsill. “Can’t you just—”

  “No, I can’t,” I snapped. I wished he would go away. Would I be hauled to the sheriff’s office again if I ran over his toes?

  He didn’t move. I looked at his face. The redness had subsided and his expression was smirky, a look I recognized from years of attending school with him— starting with kindergarten. I call it his tattletale face. His biggest claim to fame had been telling on people. Mostly for purposes of payback. A lot of people outgrow their juvenile behavior. Not Frank.

  He leaned down, and I could see the hairs in his nose. “You had a huge fight with Jim Bob last week, remember?”

  I glared at him. “I wouldn’t call it huge.”

  Frank laughed, but not pleasantly. “You threatened to get his license as a pharmacist taken away. Everyone heard you within a mile radius.”

  “Yeah? And so what, anyway?” Oh, that sounded adult. I guess in terms of outgrowing juvenile behavior, I couldn’t throw stones. Still, he had a point. I had argued with Jim Bob. And I hadn’t told Detective Scott about it.

  “Didn’t Jim Bob see you again after that?”

  I blinked. How did Frank know that? Then I wanted to kick myself. His smirk grew. He knew he’d scored a hit. “The cops n
eed to know everything you know. For purposes of finding motivation for the killing. That’s what they told me.”

  I doubted the cops told Frank anything. I shrugged, refusing to wilt under his implied threat even though I was close to hyperventilating. Motivation was a word that scared me. Mostly because I had plenty of it.

  He smirked again and backed up, giving me a tiny little wave before he turned around and walked away. I asked the Lord to forgive me even while I thought how nice it would be to plant a foot hard on Frank’s behind. As I pulled from the parking lot, I knew I hadn’t heard the last of my unfortunate encounters with Jim Bob.

  I slouched on the overstuffed, denim-covered couch in the family room. Max had called. I whined about how I’d wasted all that time shopping and didn’t even get to bring my groceries home. He listened sympathetically and promised to pick up some milk.

  I shivered, yanked a crocheted afghan from the back of the couch, and wrapped myself up in it. Sammie was in her bedroom with enough soda, potato chips, and chocolate chip cookies to put a healthy person in a diabetic coma. I’d done that out of desperation to be alone. Poor kid would be bouncing off the walls in an hour.

  When I’d picked her up from my car pool partner’s house on the way home, the woman handed me Sammie’s backpack and whispered, “I didn’t tell her about what’s happening, but I’m going to tell my kids tonight. I’m sure it’ll be all over the kindergarten class and the school tomorrow.” No doubt. I was sure my latest misfortune would be all over Four Oaks by dinnertime.

  My Bible and the cordless phone sat on the end table, along with my latest mystery from the library. I glanced at them but didn’t think I’d be able to concentrate because my mind was running amok. I thought about calling Abbie, my best friend, but I didn’t want to talk. I had some serious thinking to do. Finding a murdered man was bad. But worse, I had known him and disliked him. In fact, if I were honest with myself and God, I felt a sense of relief that Jim Bob wouldn’t be around to threaten me anymore. Now how could I reconcile that feeling with what should be grief that a man had died?

  I reached for my Bible, running my fingers over the worn leather cover. It was my lifeline. At my most helpless times, just holding it gave me comfort. But that didn’t happen today. The guilt was too strong. I was thinking hateful thoughts and reduced to quibbling with Frank. Worse, I hadn’t told Detective Scott about my argument with Jim Bob. That alone would give me enough motivation to be at the top of his suspect list. Even Max didn’t know, because I didn’t want to tell him until I found out if what Jim Bob had said was true.

  The phone rang. Unfortunately, the caller was my mother. I love my mother, but I like to be prepared for the conversational assaults that often occur when we talk.

  “Hi, Ma.” My voice was tense, and I tried to relax.

  “Well, I would have thought you would call me first,” she said. “I had to hear all the gory details from Gail’s sister’s neighbor. After all I’ve been through with you, and this is how you repay me? By not telling me things?”

  “Sorry.” I stared at the ceiling. I tend to avoid telling my mother most anything because it’s just too hard to deal with the aftermath. Questions, sarcasm, accusations—I never know how she’s going to react. Still, I could tell she was worried about me.

  “I’m fine. I’m just not thinking clearly.” And that wasn’t the half of it.

  “Well, I guess you have good reason to not think—for once. If I’d found a murdered person, I wouldn’t think, either. I mean, the pictures left in your mind would—”

  “Yep, I’m just fine,” I said. “Sitting here on the couch.”

  “Where is Samantha?” she asked.

  “In her room eating cookies and potato chips.” My stomach growled, and I sat up quickly, an action I regretted. Spots in my vision made it difficult to hear my mother, an oddity for which I had no explanation.

  “Cookies and potato chips? At the same time? In her room?”

  I glanced at the clock. Three. “Yes.”

  “Well, I never! Do you do that all the time? Land sakes! That child will have clogged arteries before she’s twenty if you keep that up.”

  This coming from a woman who sells doughnuts for a living. I braced myself for the onslaught of lecture number one thousand, three hundred and fifty about How to Care for Children. While waiting for the tirade to end, I slowly made my way to the kitchen and heated up some coffee. Then I went to the pantry and reached behind the cans of baked beans where I’d hidden my emergency stash of chocolate. Finally, armed with a large dark-chocolate bar and a strong cup of coffee, I sat at my round oak kitchen table with the phone resting between my head and shoulder, still listening to her with only partial attention. When my mother is on a rant, I only need to grunt now and then to keep up my end of the conversation.

  “. . .although I suppose the children are fine so far.” She took a deep breath. “Was it really Jim Bob?”

  For anyone who isn’t used to her, my mother’s machine-gun conversational techniques can cause mental whiplash. I’ve just learned to anticipate the rapid shifts in topic.

  “Yep, it was Jim Bob.” I stared at my coffee, trying not to remember the knife in his stomach.

  “Brutally murdered?” she asked.

  “Um. . .yes.” Is there any other way to be murdered?

  She clucked her tongue. “Well, I’m not surprised.”

  I wasn’t, either, but I wondered just what my mother knew about him. I was sure she didn’t know he’d threatened me.

  “Your name will be in the paper tomorrow, you know,” she informed me.

  I grunted. Relieved by the change of topic, I jammed another huge piece of chocolate in my mouth, followed by a gulp of coffee.

  “Were you wearing nice clothes?”

  “Why?” I asked with my mouth full. Isn’t it enough that I always wear clean underwear because of her constant dire warnings that I might be in a tragic accident and the rescue workers will see my underclothes?

  “Why?” My mother’s tone indicated I had lost my mind. “You can’t be serious. Didn’t someone take your picture?”

  I licked my fingers. “Not that I know of.” In my stomach, coffee met chocolate in what could only be called a pitched battle. “Look, Ma, I don’t want to talk about it anymore. It’s too gruesome. My stomach feels queasy.”

  “Of course it does. I’d be worried if it didn’t. Finding someone you know like that would be enough to make a normal person throw up.”

  I swallowed hard and ignored the implication that I wasn’t normal.

  “But you know what they say. This, too, shall pass. Besides, it could be worse, you know. It could have been—”

  “I have to go,” I said, before she explained in great detail what was worse than finding Jim Bob Jenkins with a knife in him. Something like being arrested for his murder, for instance? “I’ll talk to you tomorrow, okay?”

  I hung up but didn’t move. The last of the uneaten chocolate sat in the torn wrapper in front of me. I couldn’t finish it while the rest laughed viciously at me from my stomach. That was an unexpected reaction to my favorite bad habit.

  My new side-by-side stainless steel refrigerator kicked on, and I looked toward it. The metal gleamed. I swallowed, reminded of the steel doors of the refrigerated units in morgues that I’d seen on television. I never paid close attention to the details when the shows aired. I wished I had. Where was the body from the dairy case right now? Had it begun to decay already? Was it stretched out on some cold, metal examining table with a masked and goggled doctor standing over it with a whirring—

  “Mommy, how long before dead bodies smell?”

  I choked on a mouthful of coffee and almost wrenched my neck turning around. Had Sammie already heard about her mother’s exploits at the grocery store before I could tell her myself? Relief flooded through me when I saw that my precious youngest daughter held an elaborately decorated shoebox with our deceased hamster’s name spelled out in purple g
litter on the top.

  “We can wait to bury Hammie tomorrow, but he might smell by then. Charlie says that soon the body will puff all up and turn black. Then beetles and flies—”

  “We’ll do it tonight after Daddy gets home,” I said quickly, trying not to think about her description, which was all too real for me. “Did you wash your hands?”

  “Uh-huh.” She met my gaze. “It’s okay if we wait.”

  I studied her face suspiciously. Was that hope in her eyes? Did she want to see the body puffed up and, well. . . Using all my self-control, I smiled. “We’ll have the funeral tonight.” I pulled her close to me while I avoided the box. I didn’t feel like touching another dead body, even through cardboard.

  “Okay.” She sighed.

  “Charlie can be a little gruesome,” I said.

  She nodded, her little mouth pursed, brows drawn into a frown. “Yeah, Charlie sees dead people.”

  I know from expert opinion—mine—that the challenge of following childhood conversational twists is the leading cause of brain-cell loss in mothers. Not to mention dealing with the issues said conversations reveal.

  “Charlie—sees—what?” The slowness of my speech was an outward indication of the sluggishness of my mind. Had I just heard my sweet, Christian-school-educated daughter say what I thought she said about her Christian-school-educated brother?

  Sam pulled away and put her empty hand on her mouth. “Oops. I shouldn’t have told you.”

  Charlie has yet to learn that telling his younger sister anything is tantamount to sending a taped advertisement to the local radio station. Or telling his grandmother.

  He had arrived home a couple of minutes ago. I glanced toward the doorway that led to the family room where he was watching television, his favorite activity after arguing. Dead people? I had to do something about this, but before I could think, the kitchen door flew open, banging against the yellow wall. Tommy, my seventeen-year-old stepson breezed in, followed by my stepdaughter, Karen.

  Tommy grinned with a look so reminiscent of his father that I automatically smiled. “Way cool, Mom! You’re a celebrity!”