by Tegan Maher
I was grateful that both Hunter and I had already been there and done that with school and were more established. I couldn't imagine something like money coming between us, but I suppose that's what most couples say before they get married.
Still, it made me wonder if we should sit down and work some things out before we actually tied the knot. I wondered where the fine line was between going into a marriage with faith that it would last forever and making sure that your funds were covered if it didn't. Fortunately, neither Hunter nor I were rich, nor did we have a bunch of assets, so I couldn't imagine it being an issue.
Since he’d run out of things to share, it was my turn. “Levana and Rory are friends with them. Rory works with Curtis, and they've gone out to dinner a few times and gotten together outside of work. Levana says she's a sweetheart and that they got along well. She doesn't seem to think that Val would be capable of killing him. She doesn't know where she would've gone, but she's convinced she's not on the lamb because she put a slug in her husband's chest."
He took a drink of coffee and nodded. "I tend to think that myself because everybody that I've talked to said down to a person that she's amazing and would never have harmed him. Personally, I tend to think that her husband, if nothing else, was the lesser of two evils. From what I've heard her mom's a real humdinger.”
I took a big bite of my muffin and winced when I noticed it was a little dry. I never did that, so I was a little irritated at myself. "Yeah, I've heard the same thing. That's pretty typical in southern towns, though. The older generation tends to rule with an iron fist, and if you don't conform to their idea of traditional roles, some of them can really dig their heels in. What about these people in the SUV? Did the guy who saw them happen to see who was driving?"
That would be super helpful because then at least we’d know whether we were looking for a guy or woman. I tended to lean toward it being a guy, but I wasn't sure why. It just fell right in my gut.
"Nope, that would be too easy. I did manage to talk to the guy who rented them the cabin, and he said that they hadn't had any plans to meet up with anybody at the cabin. The impression that he got was that it was going to be a romantic getaway for two."
I pressed my lips together, not wanting to follow the train of thought I was having but not being able to stop myself. "What if they had a big fight, and he took off walking? That would explain why she wasn't at the cabin and why the car was gone, though it won't explain why she's missing now. Do you suppose something happened to her too?"
He scratched his jaw, and I could hear the scrape of whiskers. "I've thought about that too, and I'm not sure what to think about it. I don't think we have enough information to go down that road, but it is critical that we find her. I've put a flag on all their credit and debit cards, but I'm still waiting to see if she's used it since yesterday. That takes a little longer."
I tried to think what I would do if I got in an argument with Hunter and wanted to get away and already had a bag packed. I’d probably still go home. Why take off when I had a dozen people in town I could go visit to cool down.
“What about their neighbors and friends? Has anybody talked to them? Around here, that could be gold. Especially considering the walls in that building are paper thin. Sally Jensen over at the Piggly Wiggly used to live there, and she complains about it constantly.”
He shook his head. "Not yet, but it's on my agenda. I do have a list of names though." He smiled at me. "Care to take a field trip with me? I really could use your BS meter. It'll be a lot faster to suss it out with a little bit of magic than it would be if I have to track down every Tom, Dick, and Harry in the building to see who is reliable and who isn't."
Though I hated to admit it, the nosy side of me was all about it. And he had a point. I was really good at telling if somebody was lying or not. “Sure thing, let's do it. Can we go now, or do you need to do something else before we do?"
"Nope," he said, popping the last bite of his muffin into his mouth and scraping a few crumbs off of his desk into his hand. "I'm good to go now. I figure the faster we knock that off the list, the faster we can move on to something else if it doesn't pan out. Plus, I can't do a whole lot until we find her, and that might take a little bit."
"Then let's do it. It might be fun to get into somebody else's problems for a change. And besides that, you know how much I love being nosy." I gave him a sassy wink.
I didn't say it, but I was glad he wasn't focusing too heavily on Val being the guilty party. After all, it would really suck to put a friend of a friend in jail.
9
On the drive there, I noticed Hunter glancing at the bracelet on my wrist. I’d found it a few months back and had learned it had once belonged to my grandmother. The gems in it sparkled in the sun streaming through the windshield. I knew what he was thinking: all I had to do was take it off, and it was possible I’d get a free flow of thoughts from the people we interviewed.
I sighed. “You want me to read their minds, don’t you?” He’d never ask me to do that because he knew how much I hated it, but he was human, and he had a problem my skill might be able to solve.
He pulled in a deep breath and blew it out through puffed cheeks. “No. I know you don’t like it. And I agree that it’s invasive.”
I smiled because I knew he was bowing to my wishes rather than asking me to go against them to do what would be best for him. Still, it was a tool just like any other, and if I didn’t use it to do good, what was the point of having it? Besides, all the bracelet did was help me control it rather than allow everybody’s thoughts to bombard me 24/7, which had been my life before I’d found it.
“I tell you what. I’ll try to listen without taking it off. In an apartment building full of people, I’d rather not walk past doors and hear what’s going on behind all of them.” I shuddered. That part of my gift had been hell. You have no idea what runs through people’s heads when they think nobody can hear. Trust me: almost everybody has a filter, and you do NOT want to hear what goes on before what they’re thinking runs through it.
When we pulled onto the street that led to the apartment building, I was pleasantly surprised to see the progress that Marybeth had made. It had been almost a year since she’d purchased the properties for taxes, and she’d made good on her promise to make the area pleasant to live and work in.
Instead of the ramshackle buildings and seedy businesses that had been there just a year before, signs of improvement were evident everywhere. Where an adult bookstore had once been, there now stood a day care center. Not that there's anything wrong with adult stores in general, but that particular one hadn’t had the best of reputations. For a long time, people had suspected that it was a front for much seedier things, but under the previous administration, that sort of thing had not only been overlooked but encouraged.
"Wow," I said looking around. "Marybeth wasn't lying. She's been hard at work down here."
She’d promised when she found the million dollars in the wall at the mansion that she bought that she’d use the ill-gotten money to pay back the dancers at Tassels that it had been stolen from, then use the rest to make the East Side a nice place to live. Even after she’d paid the girls back, there'd been almost half a million left. Since all of the properties went for taxes after Jim Simpson went to prison, she basically got the entire neighborhood for next to nothing. The east side of Keyhole Lake had always been the area that we referred to as “across the tracks.” That was both literal and figurative, but it looked like the figurative part of it was disappearing quickly.
Hunter nodded as he flicked on the blinker to turn into the apartment complex. "Yeah, and not only does the place look better, the crime rate down here is down almost seventy percent, and the complaints to the board about poor upkeep and safety hazards has decreased by ninety.” I shook my head. It's amazing what just a little bit of loving care could do. Because she didn't have enough funds left over to renovate all the buildings by herself, she sold a lot of t
he houses to the people that had lived in them. Since most of them didn't have the funds or the credit to get traditional financing, she'd taken on that role herself by creating land contract deals.
I'd been a little skeptical when she’d first told me about her plan, but it appeared that it was amazing what people would do when you put a little faith in them. She’d kept several as rentals also, so she had a steady stream of income coming in on top of the monthly house payments she was collecting. Plus, she had the apartment building, and it had eighteen units in it.
Even though she could have increased the rents, Jim had already been charging through the nose for them. She figured that even with just that amount of income, she’d be able to do to the buildings what needed done. She did have the advantage of running two successful bars, and now she was about to open a third place — a bed-and-breakfast that used to be Jim Simpson's old mansion.
The last time she'd given us a tour, I'd been amazed at what she'd done. Gone was the tacky art and brothel-like wallpaper and carpet, and in its place was classy, understated paint and wood floors. She'd also ditched all the tacky furniture that he’d had. Not only had it looked hideous, she didn't want anybody sitting on it for fear of catching some sort of nefarious disease.
Although the apartment building was several decades old, it now sported a fresh coat of paint, and the entryway had been spiffied up with fresh mulch and flowers. Before, the clapboard siding had been so rotten in places that it had completely fallen off. Half the building had been completely re-sided, and the scaffolding and cordoned off areas were signs that the job was being finished. It made me happy because nobody should have to live in squalor just because they were poor.
I glanced at the clock on the dash of his truck. It was almost eleven on a Thursday morning, and it occurred to me that most of the people that lived there were probably at work. I said as much.
Hunter frowned as he navigated into a parking spot marked off with fresh white lines. "I thought about that. Hopefully, we can at least run into a few people who are retired or work from home. I also hate to bother anybody who’s worked all night. I guess we'll just have to apologize and hope for the best."
The minute I stepped out of the truck, the heat slammed into me, and I breathed a big sigh. As we strode across the parking lot, I was surprised to see that there were a lot of newer-model vehicles in it.
"It looks like people are doing a little bit better for themselves. I gave a girl a ride home from work a year and a half or so ago, and this lot was only half full. The vehicles that were here were old rattletraps."
Hunter looked at me and smiled. "That's what happens when you clean up an area and give people a living wage.” Over the last few years, folks had been able to hire more staff and increase wages because they weren’t paying double or triple the taxes they owed.
The foyer was nothing fancy, but blessed AC washed over us as soon as we opened the door, and the smell of fresh paint assaulted our nostrils.
My respect for Marybeth, which had already been at the high end of the spectrum, ratcheted up another notch as I looked around. She could have just taken over the place and ran it like it had been, but instead of just sucking people dry, she decided to take the high road and do right by them.
Not only had she painted the place, she’d done it in shades of light gray with dark gray trim and had decorated with potted plants and pretty prints, which really classed the place up a little.
“Their apartment is 202, right?" I asked.
Hunter nodded. "Let's start by knocking on the doors on either side of him and across the hall. Those are probably the people that will know the most about them."
I was grateful it was only on the second floor. My legs were sore from riding the morning before, which annoyed me. I usually rode so often that those muscles stayed in shape, but I’d been so busy over the last couple of months that my daily dose of tranquility had fallen by the wayside. Also, the bruises Aurora had seen fit to distribute over my body weren’t just for looks. I scowled and vowed I’d get a little payback for that at some point.
Curtis and Val's apartment was right in the middle of the row and had one on either side of it plus another three apartments were situated across the hallway.
"Do you think Val’s here?" I asked.
He shrugged. “Not unless she left her car somewhere else. I checked the lot for it when we pulled in. That sure would make things easier though, considering she's our top suspect right now.”
I frowned. "It just doesn't feel right to me. By all accounts, they were happy as clams. Levana has a good feel for people, and she also has a bullshit meter that’s at least as good as mine. I can't imagine that she would've gotten it that wrong."
He headed toward apartment 202. “Yeah, but I can't go off that right now. All I can go on is the facts, and the main fact is that she's gone, and he's dead. Whether we like it or not, we have to consider that she might've done it."
"You have to," I pointed out, "but I don't. I have the luxury of going off gut feelings and instincts rather than facts. Especially when the facts are muddy."
He rang the bell on Curtis and Val’s door, then stood back and clasped his hands behind his back. "I appreciate that, and you know as well as I do that more often than not, yours are right. I don't know about Levana's, but I’m willing to take your word for it."
We waited a solid thirty seconds for somebody to answer, and when nobody did, he rang the bell again.
I smiled at him. "Hope springs eternal? Otherwise, you would've just started with the other apartments."
He shrugged. "I always want to give people the benefit of the doubt. In this case, my gut feeling is aligning with yours, and I'd rather not focus just on her."
"What about her mama?" I'd been thinking about that ever since Levana and Peggy Sue had told me about her. It wouldn't be the first time a mother-in-law had gone off the deep end and offed someone. Usually, it worked in the opposite direction, though. Usually, it was the son-in-law or daughter-in-law that ended up losing it, though I didn't know of any that had resorted to flat out murder.
He glanced at me. "I thought about that, too. Clara doesn't have an alibi, and from what I've heard, she's a real ball breaker."
"I'm surprised Levana didn't mention her. Usually that's her thing, so if she didn't bring it up, I have to wonder why."
"Maybe she just didn't think about it. After all, it's not uncommon for mother-in-laws to be battle axes. If we haven't learned anything else, we have learned that you can never really guess who's capable of murder and who isn't."
That was the God's honest. We’d dealt with our share of murders and then some over the past several years, and a lot of times the killer ended up surprising even us.
We waited another twenty seconds, and when nobody answered, Hunter pressed his lips together. "I was really hoping she’d had a flat or something and had just left the car somewhere. Now it looks like we’re going to have to hunt her down. It would be nice if I got her credit card reports before too long. At least then we'd know if she's bought any plane tickets or made any charges anywhere."
I worried my lip as I thought back to what Peggy Sue had told me about her relatives, and my gut clenched a little. She did have places outside of Keyhole to go, so it wasn’t off the table that she’d killed him and fled. The more I thought about it, the more I wondered whether Levana had been off on her assessment.
I backed away from the door and glanced around. “I guess it doesn't really matter which side we started on, since we don't know anything about the people that live here."
"I did do some checking," Hunter said his brow raised. "Believe it or not, this isn't my first rodeo."
His smile let me know he was kidding, but I still felt a little guilty for doubting him. "Okay, then. Where do you suggest we start?"
His gaze bounced from one door to another. "Doesn't really matter, I guess. According to what Peggy Sue said, the lady in 201 is retired, and the guy in 203 works
evening shift. None of them really seem like they had any reason to kill Curtis, so let's just pick one and work our way around.”
With that, he strolled down to the apartment on the left and jabbed the bell.
“Is this the little old lady or the guy?” I asked as we waited.
“The little old lady. Mrs. Margaret Dawdy.”
“What do we know about her?” If we were gonna be met with a rolling pin, I’d like a little notice. Little old ladies were unpredictable at best. She could be the nice one that handed out candy to kids, or she could be the crotchety one who hated people and just wanted to be left alone.
“Not much,” he replied. “Just that she’s retired and a widow.”
That didn’t do much for my confidence, so I figured we’d take a walk on the wild side and hope for the best. After all, it seemed I was living my entire life by the seat of my pants lately, so at least I was in my zone. Bring on the candy or the rolling pin. I was ready for either.
10
We had to ring the bell twice, but then a cranky voice called to us. "Hold your horses, for Pete's sake! I ain't able to make it to the door like I used to. Cut an old lady a break!"
The voice was rusty with age and raspy from what I guessed was a lifetime of smoking cigarettes. Probably unfiltered if I had to venture a guess based on just her voice. The snick of a chain lock being slid in its track sounded a moment before a little lady barely five feet tall yanked the door open.
The woman standing there glaring at us was wearing a pink house coat, and her gray hair was in curlers. She continued to scowl at us, her lips pressed together in a way that only people with no teeth can pull off. "You better hope this building is on fire! My stories are on, and I ain’t got the hang of that DVR thing yet. Chase is right in the middle of asking Angelica to marry him, but Sue Lynn just came back from the dead." She shook her head. "That floozy’s died half a dozen times, but she just keeps popping back up like a bad penny.”