A Fatal Fall: A Senoia Cozy Mystery

by Harper, Susan

  “Sounds good to me,” Monte said.

  “Are you three sure you want to take a cab all the way to Newnan?” Felicity questioned.

  “Not a big deal. Jack’s obviously on a mission tonight,” Autumn muttered. “I’d rather not tag along.”

  Felicity thanked her friends for being so understanding, and she, Jack and Jefferson headed out into the parking lot to locate the Overton’s Event’s van.

  Chapter 11

  After driving halfway home, Felicity and Jefferson had managed to convince Jack to leave his uncle alone for the night. It was almost three in the morning as they drove through Fayette County toward Coweta, and it was unlikely that Roger would cooperate if they woke him in the middle of the night. Jack was still very fidgety; he was wired, and truthfully, Felicity felt that way too. She was certain she would not get to sleep any time soon.

  “I just don’t feel right,” Jack said from his seat in the back of the van.

  Jefferson, who had started to fall asleep in the passenger’s seat, sat upright and rubbed his eyes. “Right about what?” he asked, yawning loudly.

  “About just…just not doing anything,” Jack said. “Mack has something to do with this. You both know it. I can’t just…just go home and sleep.”

  “You’re drunk,” Jefferson said. “Just go to sleep and we’ll drop you off on your front porch.”

  Jack kicked the back of Jefferson’s seat. “I’m not drunk! Don’t make me say it again! I only had three drinks.”

  “Last time you said two.”

  “I forgot about the first one.”

  “Yeah, because you’re drunk.”

  Jack reached around and punched Jefferson in the arm. “Hey!” Jefferson spun around in his seat to swing back at Jack, but Felicity popped him.

  “I swear, when you two get together, I feel like a mom ushering her two bratty sons around!” Felicity snapped, and they both slouched in their seats and turned away from one another. “We’ve gotta drop the van off at the shop anyway. Why don’t we, you know…go look at the scene of the crime. We haven’t done that yet.”

  “You’re suggesting we break and enter?” Jefferson questioned. “Breaking and entering is bad enough; I can imagine it’s worse since it’s an active crime scene, Felicity.”

  “Is it really breaking and entering if there are no doors on the building? I mean, honestly,” she said with a huff.

  “Um…yes. Yes, it is,” Jack said. “But I’m down. They wouldn’t let me anywhere near there the night it happened.”

  “Okay. We’re headed there anyway, so we might as well,” Jefferson agreed rather reluctantly.

  It took another twenty minutes or so, but soon they were driving down the empty Main Street. They parked the van around back and headed inside the shop to grab some flashlights before stepping over the yellow crime scene tape and ignoring the ‘No Trespassing’ signs. Felicity felt a little nervous trespassing, but she supposed this was better than Jack’s uncle calling the police on them in the middle of the night for showing up at his house and harassing him.

  They walked around the area where Jamie had landed first, but there had been a lot of foot traffic there the day of the murder. Any evidence that had been there was likely tampered with, so they all elected to go to the top. The only door on the entire building was the one door leading to the roof—the door that Abigail had locked the night Jamie had been pushed. The door was unlocked, likely left unlocked by an officer.

  The three of them walked out onto the roof, and Felicity felt a cold chill run down her spine. They could see where the police had marked off where evidence had been found with little flags. The three of them split off slightly from one another to look and see if anything had been left behind. “Oh, geesh,” Jefferson mumbled under his breath when he came to one of the flags. Felicity came over, and she could see from the light of Jefferson’s flashlight a slight splatter of what was now dried blood. “Jamie really did put up a fight.”

  Around some of the other flags was debris from an obvious struggle. Paint cans, a cooler, a couple of lawn chairs, and various other items had been thrown about and knocked over during the tussle.

  Felicity was regretting coming here. It gave her goosebumps. From the flags and the blood splatter and kicked up dirt, she could mentally visualize Jamie fighting off her assailant, and it made her sick to her stomach. Felicity continued walking around, and her flashlight streamed across the roof only for the light to dance across a crouched over Jack. Her stomach sunk as she walked over toward him. He was curled up, his arms wrapped around himself in an apparent attempt to fight off a panic attack. “Jack?”

  “We shouldn’t have come here,” he said, his voice shaking. “Patrick’s right. I should have just stayed out of this. I want to leave now.”

  “Okay, Jack,” Felicity said in the most soothing voice she could muster. She bent down and touched his shoulder. “Come on, let’s go.”

  “Guys!” Jefferson called from near the edge of the building. “I found something!”

  Jack rose to his feet, and the two of them hurried over to Jefferson. “What do you have, Jeffrey?” Felicity asked.

  “Look.” He waved his flashlight down, and Felicity saw what appeared to be a small, golden military pendant partially buried in sawdust.

  “Interesting,” Felicity said. She snapped a photo of the pendant, and then she pulled out a Ziploc bag from her pocket.

  “Did you really bring a Ziploc bag up here?” Jack asked.

  “She’s always prepared, Jack,” Jefferson said as Felicity scooped up the pendant.

  “It’s not much, but it’s something,” she said.

  Jack was still shaky and eager to leave, so they hurried away from the crime scene. Jefferson’s car was parked out back, so they all climbed in. He drove toward Felicity’s home first to drop her off, but by the time they got there, Jack was passed out in the backseat. “Great,” Jefferson grumbled. “Told you he was drunk.”

  “He’s just tired and overwhelmed,” Felicity said. “Maybe I should let him stay here with me tonight? He probably shouldn’t be alone. I think taking him to that rooftop was a bad idea.”

  “I’ll take him back to my place,” Jefferson said. “You’re right. He shouldn’t be by himself. And it’s probably not a good idea for you two to be alone anyway. He is your ex-boyfriend, after all.”

  Felicity smiled at Jefferson. “Thanks, Jefferson.” She gave him a quick hug before walking up to her home. She headed inside as Jefferson pulled off and she sighed, knowing she wasn’t going to be getting any sleep that night; the rooftop had spooked her almost as much as it had Jack. Going there had made it far too real for her. She fiddled with the military pendant that was in the Ziploc bag before tossing it down on her coffee table. Her laptop was sitting there open next to her camera; she sighed and plopped down on the couch.

  She had been meaning to upload the pictures from the party at the apartment complex as well as the party they had done in Fayetteville for a new sample book. Deciding she wasn’t quite ready to go to bed, she started up her laptop and plugged in the camera. While the photos were downloading onto the photo book website she used, she decided to start up a slideshow to view the pictures. She had yet to look at them, so she needed to sort through which ones she wanted to use in her new sample book. She poured herself a glass of wine and curled up on the couch with the laptop on her knees. If she was ever going to get any sleep, she needed to wind down after such a crazy night.

  The event from Fayetteville came up first since they were the most recent upload, and she smiled. The event had gone over really well and Jefferson had taken a ton of pictures. Soon the pictures from the party at the apartment complex started rolling in, and she felt a little sick looking at them. Just when she was about to close the laptop, deciding she didn’t have the stomach for it, a picture of her and Jefferson smiling together popped up. She paused the slideshow. They were both smiling big, and their faces were squished together in order to
both fit into the frame. She hadn’t noticed before, but while she was looking at the camera, he was looking at her. Felicity put down the wine glass and gazed at the photograph. He looked so happy, and it made her happy too. It made her heart flutter slightly. Just as her mind was starting to drift to that night in the hospital when she had kissed him, she noticed something in the background of the photo: Jamie.

  They had taken the picture in front of the DJ station, and the girl was just barely visible in the background, seemingly shooting Mack the finger. That certainly ruined this picture, Felicity thought. Thinking back on that night, Mack had made a joke after they had snapped the picture. “Make sure you get my good side,” he had said. Jamie must have just walked off, or perhaps she hadn’t even noticed the young woman. It had been years since she had seen her. She was right behind us, she thought sadly. She had been right there behind her, and Felicity hadn’t even noticed.

  Felicity pulled the photo up into a separate document and attempted to zoom in on Jamie to see if she was indeed giving Mack the finger. She was. Jamie had certainly become quite a feisty young woman. There was no doubt that Jamie had spoken with Mack at the party and that he had bought her drinks. Could Mack be the killer? Felicity wasn’t too confident in that just yet. She zoomed in as much as her computer would allow. Jamie looked very drunk in the picture, and she looked furious. If Mack was having an affair with Nadine and Jamie found out about it, well, that was certainly motive. The computer took a moment to clear up the zoom, but when it did, Felicity gasped.

  On Mack’s shirt was a golden pendant. She reached for the golden army pendant sitting on her coffee table and held it up to compare. Her jaw hung open. The army pendant was the same. “You little…” She gritted her teeth. She wasn’t going to waste any time. She returned her laptop and the pendant to the coffee table, and then she grabbed her phone. Her first instinct was to call Jack and Jefferson, but she decided against it. Jack was bound to overreact again like he had done at the club. She looked at the time. It was four in the morning now. Mack was probably home or just now getting home. She thought back to the Charles Jones case; she had nearly gotten herself killed confronting Jones’s murderer. I’m not about to do something stupid like that again, she decided.

  She paced for a moment, then she hurried to find her notebook. She printed the picture of her and Jefferson and taped it in with the rest of the evidence and notes she had gathered. She also stapled the Ziploc bag containing the pendant inside. She took a deep breath. While she would have liked to have solved this thing entirely by herself with only Jack and Jefferson’s assistance, it was time to let the police in on what she knew. Mack was the murderer. It was time to call Patrick.

  Chapter 12

  “Uh…mmm… hello?” a groggy voice spoke on the other line.

  Felicity shook her head. Poor Patrick probably thinks I’m crazy, she thought. “Patrick, its Felicity Overton.”

  “It’s four-thirty in the morning?” he said as though he was questioning whatever clock he was looking at.

  “I know. I’m sorry, Patrick. Listen, I know you told us to back off, but I found something,” she said.

  There was a loud groan on the other line, and after another minute, Patrick spoke, “Okay, what is it? I’m awake now. Talk to me.”

  “I know who killed Jamie,” she said as she started throwing everything together in a small tote—her notebook, the pictures she had printed off from the party, and of course the pendant.

  “What do you mean you know?” Patrick questioned.

  “I mean I have proof that Mack Flyn murdered Jamie,” she said.

  “What proof do you have?” Patrick asked, and based on the background noise she was hearing, she ventured that he was likely getting dressed and stumbling quite a bit in his hurry.

  “First, those photos you showed Jack that Jamie had been spying on Mack and her Aunt Nadine. Second, I have a picture from the party of Mack arguing with Jamie. David, the bartender, confirmed for me that Mack was buying Jamie drinks all night to get her to back off. I also have a picture from the party of Mack wearing this military pendant on his shirt, and when I went up to the roof of the apartment, I found the same pendant buried under some sawdust. He was on the roof.”

  “Mack was wearing some big combat style boots that night,” Patrick said. “With all that dirt and sawdust up there, you would think that with something like that he would have left a big boot print or something. Are you sure about… Wait, what do you mean you were on the roof? That’s an active crime scene, Felicity!”

  “You can chastise me about it later. Do you want the evidence or not?” she questioned.

  “Fine. Fine!” Patrick snapped. “Can you meet me at the station in fifteen minutes? I need to see the evidence, but if everything is as you say it is, I’m going to have a judge issue a warrant for Mack’s arrest first thing in the morning.”

  “Already on my way,” she declared as she locked her door behind her, the tote with all the evidence thrown over her shoulder.

  “All right. I’ll see you soon,” he said and hung up the phone.

  She called Jefferson as she headed to her car, nearly tripping over her potted plant in the darkness. She rolled her eyes at her own clumsiness. Jefferson was probably asleep by now, but he answered on only the second ring as she was climbing into her car. “Everything okay? Why are you still up?” Jefferson questioned and then yawned.

  “You know me, always the busy bee,” she said and smiled. “Tell Jack I have proof and I’m going down to the station to meet with Patrick about issuing a warrant for Mack’s arrest.”

  “Are you serious? Felicity, what did you find?” Jefferson asked; he sounded excited.

  “I have a picture from the party of Mack, and he’s wearing the pendant that we found,” she declared.

  “You got him, Felicity,” Jefferson said proudly. “Way to go.”

  Felicity cranked up her car and started to back out of the driveway as she said, “We did it. I’m sure Jack will be relieved to hear—” Her car tilted and she shrieked in surprise.

  “What’s wrong!” Jefferson called. “Are you okay?”

  Felicity banged her left fist against her steering wheel in frustration. “I got a flat tire!” she complained and started climbing out of the vehicle. She saw that her front left tire was flat. “Yup, it’s flat,” she said into the phone.

  “You need me to come help?” Jefferson offered.

  “Jefferson,” she chided. “I’m from rural Georgia. This girl knows how to change a flat.”

  Jefferson laughed. “Well, excuse me.”

  “I’m going to let you go, and I’ll call you when—” She paused. “There’s…there’s a knife in my tire,” she muttered. Looking across the yard toward her front door, she spotted a shadowy figure approaching. She leaped into her car and locked the doors. “Jefferson, call the police! Someone’s in my yard!”

  “What?” Jefferson yelped. She heard him shout, “Jack, wake up, call 911! I said wake up! Felicity’s in trouble!”

  Felicity’s heart began to beat rapidly as the shadowy figure starting lurking nearer. There was a glimmer, and she was certain the figure held some sort of weapon. Felicity threw her car in reverse and rammed the gas; the wheels spun and kicked up dirt, and she heard a gun go off, followed by the clanging of metal on metal. The bullet made contact with the outside of her car. She screamed and dropped her phone. She could hear Jefferson’s voice coming from the floorboard of her vehicle. “Felicity! Felicity! Did I just hear a gunshot? Felicity! Felicity!”

  She did her best to steer with the flat tire, but by the time she hit the road and put it in drive, her vehicle was completely out of control. Felicity’s car nose-dived straight into a ditch. “Felicity! Felicity, are you there?” she heard Jefferson’s voice. She grabbed for her phone and hurried out of the vehicle.

  She saw the figure still in her yard across the way, and the moon came out from behind the clouds for just a moment. “Jefferson,
it’s Nadine!” she screamed into the phone and took off running, wishing that she had put on tennis shoes instead of flats.

  “Felicity, Jack and I are on our way,” Jefferson assured her. “Jack already called the police.”

  She ran through the open field near the ditch and toward her neighbor’s yard that was flooded with Georgia pines. She could hear Nadine running a good distance behind her. “She’s got a gun, Jeffrey,” Felicity said, panting as she attempted to lose the woman amongst the trees. “She’s going to kill me!” Her phone beeped in her ear, and she looked to see that the call was dropped. It was one of the joys of living in rural Georgia. “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me!” she shrieked.

  She heard another shot, and a bit of wood splintered off a nearby tree. “Felicity! Where are you?” Nadine sang.

  Felicity kept running toward her neighbor’s home. Once she reached it, she banged on the front door, but she saw that there were no cars in the driveway. That’s right, they’re out of town, she scolded herself for not remembering. She ran around the back of the house. She could hear Nadine’s voice carrying through the trees. “Felicity! You should have just stayed out of it. Mack told me you and your friends were piecing this one together. Jamie should have just kept her little nose out of my business!”

  Did Nadine kill Jamie? Felicity wondered. The evidence seemed to suggest otherwise. She continued into the woods toward her neighbor’s barn. At first, she thought to run inside, but then she worried about getting trapped by Nadine. She flung open the doors to make it look like she had run inside, then she ran behind it. Felicity’s breathing became heavy. She pressed her back up against the outside of the barn, and she could hear Nadine walking around toward the barn’s entrance. “You must think I’m stupid!” Nadine shouted. “I go in there, and you’ll just lock me inside!”