by Kelly Lane
I held up my hand. “Okay. So even if that’s all true, what can Ian Collier do about it?”
“I can’t really say.”
“What do you mean, you can’t say . . .”
“All I can tell you is that, among other things, your neighbor is ‘connected,’ as they say.”
“Connected?”
Buck nodded.
“Like you? So, what does that mean?”
“I’m not at liberty to discuss it, except to say that he has a ton of money—”
“No kidding.”
“And he knows powerful people in high places. He’s one of the reasons I’m here.”
“I’m lost.”
“It’s okay, Babydoll. I can’t talk about it, anyway. Just know that Ian does a lot to monitor and protect what’s around here as well as other places.”
“Other places . . . ?”
“Other places.”
“Argh! You are so frustrating, Sheriff Tanner!”
“Thank you.” Buck grinned. Then he wagged his finger. “And you know way more than you need to know. So, I’m trusting you, Eva, to not say a word to anyone about this. This is all on the QT, got it?”
Again with not telling anyone.
I rolled my eyes. “It’s not like you’ve told me anything that I couldn’t learn on my own from Wikipedia.”
I’d exaggerated, of course. Buck had told me more about Ian Collier than I’d been able to find out after weeks of online research.
“But then, how are the Dicers connected?” I asked. “Oh. Wait. I get it. They’re the ones making all the land deals, right?”
Buck blinked. I took that as a “yes.”
“But they’re just the agents who make it happen. They’re not really ‘involved’ more than that, are they?”
Buck shrugged.
“They are?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“But you didn’t say no, either. Okay. So, wait a minute. I need to think.” I walked around the SUV as I sorted through what Buck had told me.
“I gotta go, babe.”
“Wait!” I walked another lap around the SUV. Then I mumbled to myself, “So, Debi is a ‘means to an end.’” I made a third lap around the SUV. I could see Buck shaking his head as I tried to work it all out. Was he playing Debi—“the means”—to get close to the foreign real estate buyers—“the end”? Or, was Dickey “the end”? Whichever it was, Buck was way more than just a small-time county sheriff. And his relationship with Debi was more complicated than even she might suspect. I leaned into the SUV window.
But then, maybe Debi was just a means for sex, I thought. After all, Pep heard all those rumors . . .
“Hey, where did you get that?” I cried.
Buck munched on a Butterfinger candy bar.
“Well, I got hungry,” he said with a mouthful, “just sitting here all this time while you marched around and around out there. You really need to step up your Southern hostess game, Babydoll. It’s rude not to at least invite a person in for sweet tea.”
“It’s nearly sunrise!” I cried.
“Good manners never sleep,” he said before taking another bite of candy bar.
“Give me that!” I said, snatching the final bite in the wrapper. Before he could grab it back, I popped the crispy peanut butter and chocolate confection into my mouth.
CHAPTER 38
I slept late the next morning. Later than I should have, for sure. And, as usual that summer, I woke up hot and perspiring. Even my sheets were damp.
Ugh.
After I bathed and dressed, I put fresh, clean sheets on my bed and tucked them in nice and tight before pulling up my white candlewick bedspread. And when I finally stepped outside into the bright midmorning sun and looked over toward the big house, I groaned.
“Might as well get this over with,” I said to myself.
There were two vehicles I dreaded seeing. Debi Dicer’s black Cadillac Escalade, because I was certain she’d used it to try mowing me down one night, and Deputy Eli Gibbit’s totally nondescript four-door black sedan, because I’d seen his vehicle enough during the weeks prior to know that when it was around, he was around. And when he was around, then, guilty or not, no one was safe from being hauled off to jail. It seemed that he loved working overtime trying to pin evildoings on me or some other innocent Knox family member.
I started hiking across the back lawn. Already, the temperatures were in the nineties. Dolly was out and about on her own, somewhere. Probably chasing squirrels.
Aw, heck, maybe she went back for more surf and turf at Greatwoods.
I glanced at the pond behind my cottage. Except for crushed and flattened grasses, and some tire tracks on the marshy side of the pond, the birds were flitting about, and it all looked perfectly normal. Peaceful. Like no one had drowned there and nothing bad had happened.
I shuddered.
Hopefully, I won’t think of dead Dex every time I look out there for the rest of my life.
Then I thought about what Dex had done to me all those years ago. I stopped in my tracks and took in a deep breath. Then another.
It’s okay, Eva. No one knows.
I took a few more deep breaths before I pulled myself together and headed across the lawn to the white clapboard big house. With its peaked red metal roofs and second-story balconies, the pre–Civil War homestead was an eclectic mix of neo-Gothic and Victorian architecture. And it was relatively modest when compared to most antebellum plantation homes. Our place had been built for a large working family that labored on farmland almost entirely without indentured laborers. As my family grew with the changing times, the house had been altered and added on to, many times.
Daphne’s sweetly scented roses, lilies, hostas, and other perennials perfumed the warm air as I stepped along the path through her cutting garden. I climbed the wooden back stair to the big porch and pushed open the kitchen door.
“Mornin’, Sunshine. You feelin’ better today?” asked Precious.
Sunlight streamed through the curtained window over the farmhouse sink. Precious grabbed my favorite hand-thrown, glazed blue and cream coffee mug from the red laminate countertop. She upturned the full coffee carafe and poured me a fresh cup of coffee, handing me the mug as I pulled out one of the Larkin pressed-oak chairs. I plopped myself down and set my mug on the table.
“Oh, wait, gimme that. I forgot the milk.” Precious snatched back my mug, grabbed a little pitcher from the counter, and poured milk into my coffee.
“Here, Sunshine. Just the way you like it.” She replaced the mug on the table in front of me. “Milk. No sugar. Drink up.”
“Thanks,” I said. “To what do I owe all this service?”
“That ol’ weasel, Detective Gibbit, is here. He’s been talkin’ to everyone—me, your big sis, and now the guests—for two hours or more. He asked me to summon you, but I figured if he wanted to talk with you, he could find you himself. Besides, I don’t take orders from weasels.”
“Precious, you don’t take orders from anyone!”
“Sunshine, ain’t that the truth.” She laughed. “Anyway, drink up. I figure you’re up next with the detective, and it can’t hurt to get fired up with a little caffeine in your belly.”
I took a sip. “This coffee is excellent.”
Precious nodded. “Y’all ran out of coffee beans yesterday, and I forgot to get some new. I stole this from Mister Collier. It’s Geisha cultivar. Pretty outstanding, huh?”
“Sure is. Can we get some?”
“Sure. But you’ll pay a pretty penny for it.”
“I’m sure Daphne will spring for it. Just tell her it’ll impress the guests.”
Precious chortled. “Sure thing. Hey, want some fresh-fruit pizza? Just made it this morning. I’m into out-of-the-ordinary pizzas these days. And the
y work real good with your daddy’s olive oils.”
“I think I’ll wait until after the detective has his way with me.”
“You sure? You might lose your appetite after talkin’ with him . . .”
“I’m just not hungry now. Thanks, anyway.”
“I tried to call you earlier. Tilly called me first thing. I wanted to warn you about the weasel bein’ here. And also, there’s big news! Although I doubt you’ll want to hear it. Given your relation to the floater and all . . .”
“The floater?”
“The dead guy! Dexter Codfish.”
“Codman.”
“Whatever.” Precious waved her hand. “Listen up. This is important. The whole town is talkin’ about what happened here yesterday. I got three calls this mornin’ before the detective got here. The most important call was from Coretta Crumm . . . you know, my friend who works at the bank? Remember, her brother, Bigger, works in the morgue? Well, it seems like your Codfish fellow died of . . .”
The door from the dining room swung open and banged into the counter.
“Ladies! Am I interrupting?”
“Would it matter?” snarked Precious, under her breath.
Detective Eli Gibbit ignored her. “Miss Eva Knox. I’m so glad to see you’re here. Please, don’t get up on my account. You and I need to have a little chat. Will you excuse us now, Miss Precious Darling?”
“You can’t go somewhere else to grill your next victim? I got work to do . . .”
“It’s fine, Precious. I’m sure Daphne won’t mind if you take off a little early today. I’ll finish the dishes,” I said.
“Uh, sure thing. I got some coffee to buy anyway.” Precious gave me a wink. “Sunshine, you just find your phone and call me if ya need anything. I’ll be back in a couple of hours. I’d offer y’all some coffee, Detective, but we’re all out.” Precious snapped off the lever on the Bunn coffee maker. The carafe on the warmer was still half full.
I smiled as Precious clomped across the kitchen and out the back door.
Detective Gibbit sat himself at the table, took out a pen from his shirt pocket protector, and opened his black notebook. He was an odd little man, with a proven persecution complex, for sure. With big jug ears and buck teeth, the detective’s adult-sized body parts hung awkwardly from his small, child-sized frame. And even when he smiled, he always had a peculiar sourball expression on his face.
I was pretty sure he was a miserable human being . . . always seeing the worst in people.
“Well, now. Let’s just you and me review some facts, shall we?”
“This is your party, Detective.”
“So, Miss Eva Knox, what happened Friday night? Folks have been telling me that during some sort of olive oil event you had an argument with the deceased, Mister Dudley Dexter Codman the Third, from Boston. Is that correct?”
“An argument? Well, really, I don’t know if it was an argument. More like a difference of opinion, I’d say. But, I don’t understand. What does my conversation with Mister Codman on Friday have to do with his drowning in the pond?”
“Yes, well. That’s the thing, Miss Eva Knox.” He looked up and grinned like a Cheshire cat, his little beady eyes glinting. “It seems that your old friend didn’t drown at all. Well, at least it wasn’t an accident.”
The detective licked his lips and gave me a smirky sort of self-satisfied smile.
“It wasn’t? I don’t understand.”
That wasn’t exactly true, of course. I’d heard what Precious’s friend Tilly had said. And I’d heard a lot of suspicious talk between the Boston men in the olive grove.
“Well, you see, my dear, Mister Dexter Codman the Third ingested a large amount of a substance called Atropa belladonna. Do you know what that is?”
I shook my head, no.
“Really?” He raised his eyebrows, making a point. “No matter. It’s a plant. And quite poisonous, too. I reckon most folks around these parts just call it ‘belladonna.’ Sure you don’t know it?”
I shook my head again.
“Aaannn-yway, apparently, a deadly dose of Atropa belladonna was delivered to Mister Dexter Codman the Third while he was right here, at your plantation.” He smiled. “The poison was in the olive oil he’d ingested. Your family’s olive oil. And didn’t you host the olive oil tasting party? Now, shall we begin again? Why don’t you tell me about that argument you had with the deceased?”
CHAPTER 39
My hour-long interview with Detective Gibbit hardly made for an ideal Sunday morning. It was anything but pleasant. But then, every encounter with Detective Eli Gibbit was doomed to be one of unpleasantness. It was just the way he was.
Unpleasant.
And of course, no one likes being investigated for murder.
Not that the detective had gone so far as to actually accuse me of murder. Not yet, anyway. However, even to me, it was perfectly clear that I could’ve easily done it. After all, I had motive—Dex and I had a history, and he’d humiliated and embarrassed me during the tasting party and we’d argued. The detective even pointed out that, “technically,” I’d assaulted Dex when I’d slapped him. His public insults, slapping my butt, and grabbing my breast notwithstanding. And I had no alibi—I’d been alone, sleeping in my cottage during the time the murder happened. Moreover, I’d had access to both Dex, who was staying at the plantation, and the method of delivery for the poison—our olive oil—which was everywhere at Knox Plantation.
However, two questions concerning my involvement remained unanswered. First, did I have access to the deadly poison? And, second, exactly how and when did I get the poison into the oil that Dex ingested? I believed that those two unanswered questions were the only reasons the detective hadn’t hauled me into the station that morning.
And perhaps, perfectionist Buck had insisted behind the scenes that his loose-cannon detective dot all his i’s and cross all his t’s, as they say, before hauling me in as a suspect. The detective’s quick-to-judge actions regarding suspects during two other murder investigations that summer had led to his red-faced admissions that he’d been wrong. Dead wrong.
Twice.
The only good thing was that I still had time on my side. So far, no one knew about Dex’s abusive behavior toward me all those years ago. Still, I worried that once that cat got out of the bag, my ship would be sunk, so to speak.
Good thing Daphne knows a great criminal lawyer up in Atlanta.
Still, regardless of whether he uncovered the abuse or not, I knew that chances were almost one hundred percent that the detective would be back to question me. And next time, I’d be headed to the slammer if I didn’t figure out who killed Dex before the detective returned.
I decided to spend the few free hours that I had before the garden club cleanup holed up in my cottage researching my old Boston friends on the Internet. My many years working in Boston-area public relations left me well equipped to dig into the online social and business strata.
So I grabbed one of the big ham hock bones that Precious kept stashed for Dolly, before heading across the lawn, back to my little cottage. Dolly lay under a great live oak in the yard, chomping on her prize, while I stretched out in a hammock next to my cottage and dug into the Internet via my laptop computer.
And as it turned out, my time investigating that morning was well spent. It wasn’t long at all before I struck pay dirt.
CHAPTER 40
I’d grossly underestimated the size and popularity of the Abundance Garden Club. Arriving in the village for the afternoon cleanup, along with Pep—who’d also been wrangled, er . . . volunteered by Daphne to work—we were both surprised to see that nearly everyone in town had turned out to help beautify the village. Or at least, as Daphne said, everyone who was anyone.
“Gir—rrrrls!” cried Daphne when she caught sight of us crossing the boulevard. “Yoo-hoo! O
ver here, dahl-ings!”
She waved for us to join her, as she stood chatting with gardening friends in the boulevard median. There must’ve been at least fifty people on hand, and they all wore casual clothes—brightly colored short-sleeved tops, shorts, golf skirts and skorts—and gardening gloves, thank-you gifts from Abundance Hardware store owners Merle and Roxxy Tritt.
Oh crappy! I never got them the corks yesterday.
“Guess it’s too late to turn back now,” said Pep with a sigh.
Standing next to Daphne, her best friend, tall, brown-haired Earlene Azalea Greene—the twins’ mother—welcomed me and Pep with a warm smile and a hug, as did longtime Knox family friends, poultry farmers Alice and Emmett Spencer. Sadie Truewater, Daphne’s book club pal who worked in child protective services, gave us a friendly wave as she headed off, firing up her noisy weed trimmer.
“Hiya, girls!” cried jolly Violetta Merganthal. “Nice to see y’all this afternoon. Hope y’all can forget some of your troubles for a few hours . . . Your big sis has been fillin’ us in on all the latest goings-on at your place since we left Friday night. Wowser! I sure wouldn’t want to be in all y’all’s shoes!”
She wore a purple sleeveless top over a purple and pink polka-dot skort.
“Break time is over now,” she said. “We best be gettin’ back to work.”
She turned to a raven-haired, sloe-eyed, curvaceous young woman next to her wearing a too-tight tank top with the word GOSSIP printed across the chest over hot pink sweatpants with JUICY printed across the butt.
“C’mon, Maisy, we’re off to the mulch pile. See ya, ladies!”
Violetta headed off while her husband-hunting daughter Maisy followed, chewing a wad of gum, pushing an empty wheelbarrow. Maisy looked totally bored, as if she wanted to be anywhere else but there, that afternoon.