“A writer never has enough shelves. Between storage space for paper, ink cartridges, envelopes, and all the miscellaneous odds and ends, I’ve filled most of the shelves up already, as you can see.”
“So you have. Fortunately, my needs are minimal. I’ll just take a couple of legal pads and two pens.”
“That’s fine.” Carly wasn’t sure what to say next, but she was saved from having to make a decision. Trooper regarded her with a question in his eyes.
“You indicated that you want to talk to me about something,” he said.
Carly nodded and tried to force a smile. She feared Trooper would think that her desire to write about his parents’ deaths was purely a moneymaking proposition on her part. And while he would be wrong, she wasn’t at liberty to share her real reason with him.
“Yes, I did want to discuss something with you. Why don’t we go to the kitchen? I wouldn’t mind having a glass of tea. How about you?” She wasn’t really thirsty but she figured she soon would be. Tension usually dried her mouth up.
Trooper looked at her hard for a few seconds, then gave a half shrug. “I’m not particularly thirsty, but I don’t mind going to the kitchen with you.” He gestured for her to precede him.
Carly grabbed a notepad of her own, then led the way down the stairs and into the kitchen. She wasn’t sure when the kitchen table had become a meeting place for her and Trooper. It had just happened.
She motioned for him to have a seat while she retrieved a glass from the cabinet. “Are you sure you don’t want something to drink?”
“I’m fine, thanks.” He pulled back the chair at his usual place and sat down.
Carly filled the glass with ice and had reached for the tea pitcher when a sharp tapping on the back door startled her so much, she almost dropped her glass.
She turned to look at Trooper, who stood. “Do you want me to answer that?” he asked.
Carly swallowed and set her glass on the cabinet. “No, I’ll check it. I just can’t imagine who it could be.”
She noticed that Trooper stayed on his feet as she hurried over to gaze through the glass in the top part of the door.
She almost didn’t recognize her next-door neighbor. The few times she’d seen Ralph Abbott had been at a distance and usually just as he climbed into his car to drive to work or in the evenings as he was getting home. Occasionally he’d wave but often he’d just duck his head and hurry to get in or out of his vehicle.
This afternoon his ruddy face appeared dangerously flushed, and Carly had no idea whether it was from anger or some other strong emotion. She unlocked the door and opened it. “Good afternoon, Mr. Abbott. Can I help you with something?”
He took a deep breath and his lips twitched for a second before he managed to speak. “I saw Nelson’s car in your driveway. Could I come in for a minute?”
Carly glanced toward Trooper, who gave a quick nod. She stepped back to give Mr. Abbott room to step inside. “I was about to fix myself a glass of tea. Can I get you something to drink?”
“No thank you. I just wanted a word with you and Nelson.”
Carly was pleased to see Trooper smile and walk across the kitchen with his right hand extended. “Good to see you again, Mr. Abbott. You’re looking well.”
Carly suspected Trooper’s compliment was a white lie, but his friendly approach appeared to ease some of her neighbor’s discomfort. Mr. Abbott shook Trooper’s hand.
Hoping to relieve the tension, Carly shot both men a smile and motioned toward the table. “Why don’t you gentlemen have a seat and I’ll get us something to drink.” Both had declined already, but she figured having a glass in front of them would give them something to do with their hands and set them more at ease.
Ralph Abbott bit his lip, then nodded.
Trooper stepped to the table and pulled out a chair for Mr. Abbott, who plopped down as though his legs had just given out on him.
Carly stuck a lemon wedge on the edge of each glass and carried them to the table. “It isn’t sweetened, I’m afraid. Sweet tea is one Southern custom I haven’t yet embraced, but I have both sugar and artificial sweetener.” She placed a dish holding packets of both on the table between the two men.
Trooper sipped his tea. “I’m fine with no sweetener. How have you been, Mr. Abbott?”
Carly spoke up. “I’ll be glad to leave the two of you alone if you have some business to discuss.”
Mr. Abbott sighed. “No, you sit down too, Miss Morrison. “This involves you also.”
Carly wasn’t sure she liked the sound of Mr. Abbott’s statement, but on the other hand, she was pleased not to be excluded from the conversation. She suspected whatever Mr. Abbott had on his mind related in some way to the twenty-year-old tragedy that had involved his son and Trooper’s parents.
So she nodded and seated herself. Now that the three of them sat around the table with their glasses of tea sweating onto the vinyl placemats, an uncomfortable silence ensued. Carly glanced at Mr. Abbott, who was biting his lip and drawing circles in the moisture that had pooled in front of him.
Finally he took a deep breath and turned to Carly. “You’re fairly new in town, Miss Morrison, so I’m wondering if you know about what happened to my son Larry and Nelson’s parents.”
“I do, yes.” Carly risked a glance at Trooper but his gaze was fixed on Mr. Abbott.
“What you may not know, Miss Morrison, is that Larry was mine and Marge’s only child and when he died, well, some part of Marge died with him. She’d been a happy person until that day, but when Larry passed on, she withdrew into herself. To this day, she won’t talk on the phone or go out of the house.”
“I’m very sorry, Mr. Abbott, both for the loss of your son and for the devastation this caused in your and your wife’s lives.”
He nodded. “The thing is, with Nelson here coming back to town after all these years, it seems to have caused Marge to slip back into her old ways where she thought everybody was down on Larry, blaming him after he was dead for things we don’t think he ever did.”
He looked up and caught Trooper’s gaze. “You need to know that Marge thinks you’re going to open up this case again, to drag it all out and have people talking again. And that makes her angry. She doesn’t want Larry’s name blackened more than it was to begin with. So you need to watch out for her. I don’t think she’d do you any harm, either of you, but it still wouldn’t be a bad thing if you was to be careful.”
Carly looked toward Trooper, whose expression hadn’t veered from that of a mildly interested observer. “I saw the wash tub this morning by the trash. Did you put it there?”
Mr. Abbott blew his breath out in another sigh. “I did. You figured, I guess, that she’d used it to try to frighten you, to make you go away again.”
“Yes, I assumed as much.”
“I don’t know what else she might try to do. She’s not rational where Larry’s death is concerned. I’ve tried to get her to see a counselor or a doctor of some sort, but she won’t do it. Says she knows what she knows and talking about it won’t change anything.”
Trooper grimaced. “Do you think that Mrs. Abbott is angry with Miss Morrison also?”
“Not that I know of, but she’s noticed you coming over here a lot and…” He shifted his gaze to Carly. “I don’t think she’d hurt anybody on purpose, but I just felt like you ought to be aware.”
“Thank you, Mr. Abbott.”
“Well then, I’ve said all I came to say.” He pushed back his chair and stood. “I thank you for the tea, Miss Morrison.”
Carly stood too. “You’re welcome, Mr. Abbott.” She walked him to the back door and watched as he shuffled across her backyard toward his own property. She felt sorry for the man and couldn’t help thinking that it would be wonderful if the book she hoped to write might somehow bring a bit of closure for him and his very disturbed wife.
When she turned back around, Trooper had picked up Mr. Abbott’s glass. He carried it across the room an
d set it in the sink. “I’m sorry you’re getting dragged into this mess.”
“It’s not your fault. And I can’t help feeling sorry for the Abbotts. Even if their son was guilty, they’re victims too.”
Trooper regarded her closely. “You sound as though you have doubts about the part Larry played all those years ago.”
“I do. In fact, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Okay.” Trooper nodded toward the table. “Want to sit back down?”
Suddenly too tense to continue sitting, Carly shook her head. “Let’s go for a walk.”
“Okay. Just walking, or are you headed for some destination?”
“Just walking. Let’s go to the corner and turn down Dahlia Way.”
“Fine.” Trooper took a step toward the door and Carly grabbed his arm.
“No, let’s stay inside. It’s too hot to walk.” Her tension was increasing by the minute and she didn’t fully understand why.
Trooper placed his hands on her shoulders and looked into her eyes. “What’s wrong, Carly? You’re as antsy as a worm on a hot rock.”
She stifled a giggle. “Aren’t you mixing metaphors? Or something?”
He continued to look into her eyes. “Or something. Maybe this.” He leaned toward her, holding her gaze as his lips neared hers. “Definitely this.”
His kiss was tentative at first, as though he wanted to give her a chance to pull away, to end it quickly. But she didn’t have any desire to pull away. She leaned into the kiss and wrapped her arms around him, being careful not to put too much pressure on his shoulder. She reveled in his warmth, his slightly tangy scent, and the lemony taste of iced tea on his lips.
It was so wonderful that he wanted to kiss her, considering how awkward she had felt after trying to kiss him under the willow. Nice that the attraction wasn’t just on her part.
Unless…
Oh God, unless this was a pity kiss. She pulled back and he released her.
He smiled, a bit crookedly. “Sorry. I was hoping maybe you wanted this too.”
Carly swallowed. Could she ask if it was a pity kiss? No, she couldn’t. But she wouldn’t let him think she didn’t welcome his kiss either. She smiled and placed a hand against his cheek. “To tell you the truth, Trooper, I loved it. But before we go any further, there’s something I need tell you.”
He sighed and stepped back. “Is this thing that you need to tell me what’s making you so tense?”
“Yes. I don’t know how you’ll feel about it, but I need to tell you.” She paused, trying to gather her thoughts.
“Go ahead.”
Carly bit her lip. He made it sound so simple. Just like a man, she fumed to herself. But maybe he was right. She should probably just say it. She should probably just say it right now. She pulled in a deep breath. “I’m hoping to write a true crime novel about the deaths of your parents.”
Oh God! She shouldn’t have phrased it that way. Now he was looking at her as though she were vermin. The lowest kind of vermin. Maybe something lower than vermin. She spoke again quickly. “Let me explain.”
He raised his brows and thinned his lips. “Okay. Go ahead.”
“I would only write the book if I was able to find some proof that it didn’t happen the way the suicide note said it happened. From what I’ve read about the incident, I’m convinced the note was written by someone else.”
“What makes you think that?”
“For one thing, Marge Abbott swore at the time that Larry suffered from dyslexia and couldn’t have typed such a perfect note, especially if he was terribly upset.”
Trooper lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “You heard what Ralph Abbott just said. Marge is half crazy.”
“But if Larry was dyslexic, she was probably correct. Not that I’m an expert, but from what I’ve heard, that suicide note was rather long and explicit.”
“So I’ve heard.”
Carly gaped at him. “You haven’t read it either?”
He sighed. “They wouldn’t let me, of course, at the time. They said that I was upset enough without reading the suicide note. But I heard through the grapevine what he wrote. That he’d been having an affair with my mother. That she wanted to break it off. That if he couldn’t have her, nobody could.”
“Did anyone check his hand for powder burns?”
“Supposedly, yes. And the results were positive.”
“Is there any way the results could have been positive if he weren’t the shooter?”
“Sure.”
“How?”
“One way would be if someone held the gun in his hand and pulled the trigger after he was already dead.”
“Was there any signs of an extra bullet somewhere in the room?”
“I don’t know. That’s one of the things I intend to ask about while I’m in Holly Grove. Unfortunately, the person who bought my parents’ house had it torn down so I can’t even ask to examine the room.”
“Who bought it, do you know?”
“A couple who had just moved to the area. Aunt Myrna says they bought the house without knowing about the murders that took place there. Of course a real estate agent couldn’t get by today without revealing the house’s history, but that was then. When the people found out, they tried to sell the house, and when that didn’t work out for them, they had it razed and built another in its place.”
“It sounds as though you’re going to have a difficult time researching the murders after all this time. How would you feel about my trying to help you?”
Trooper shot her a quizzical look. “Do you have any investigative background?”
“Not in the same sense that you do as an FBI agent, but as a writer, I’m well versed in research, not to mention the people I became acquainted with when I was a crime reporter. So I could research the news stories from that time, maybe even hunt down the reporters who covered the crime. Sometimes there are details that can’t be included in a story because they’re based on rumors. I’ve run into that myself. But if I could get the reporter to talk to me off the record, well, it might be helpful. It certainly couldn’t hurt.”
Trooper frowned. “I suppose you could try, but even if you found a reporter or two who covered the story, I’d be surprised if they remembered the details of a twenty-year-old case.”
“Oh, they’d remember. As a former reporter, I can assure you that the details I absolutely never forgot were the ones I wasn’t able to use in my stories.”
Trooper was silent for a couple of minutes, obviously thinking. Finally he smiled. “There’s a lot of logic in your suggestion. And, as you said, it couldn’t hurt. Do you have any idea where to begin?”
“Sure. First I’ll see if any newspapers have archives going back that far that are now online. If not, I’ll make some phone calls. I still have friends in the business who would be willing to do a little research for me.”
“That sounds reasonable. When do you plan to start?”
She glanced at the wall clock. “It’s too late this afternoon to make any phone calls, but I can begin researching online. Tomorrow morning I can start making calls.”
He leaned back against the cabinet. “What about your writing?”
“Oh, don’t worry, I’ll work that in. What about your research? When do you plan to begin?”
“I’ll start in the morning by introducing myself to the current sheriff and asking to see the records.”
“Is the former sheriff still around?” Carly asked.
“He retired a few years ago and moved to Florida. From what I’ve been told, he was showing early signs of dementia before he left Holly Grove, so I don’t hold out much hope of getting help from him.”
“That’s too bad. He might have remembered something that wasn’t in the records. You know, just an impression or a feeling of some sort that he couldn’t put in a report because there was no proof.”
“I’d thought of the same thing, and I’ll still check into his condition if it comes to
that. What I’m hoping, of course, is to find enough information without having to bother him.”
“Okay.” Carly squared her shoulders. “I’m going to get online tonight and see what I can locate.”
Trooper pushed himself away from the cabinet and straightened. “I appreciate your help. And it will be good for me to have someone to bounce ideas off, that is, if you’re willing to listen.”
“I’ll be glad to listen. In fact, it would probably be good if we could meet and compare notes at least once a day.”
“Sounds good to me.” Trooper lifted his right hand to massage his left shoulder.
“Are you in pain?” Carly asked, frowning.
He lowered his hand. “Just a habit I’ve developed. I’d better go. Aunt Myrna will be wondering what’s become of me.”
“I’ll walk you to the door.” On the way to the front door, Carly debated about what she should do when they got there. She’d ended the kiss in the kitchen, so she felt it was her place to initiate another, but she wondered if he would give her an opportunity to do so. Women learned early on in the dating process how to indicate they were willing or even anxious to be the recipient of a kiss, but did men know the procedures? She doubted it.
Sure enough, as soon as they reached the front door, Trooper reached for the doorknob. “Call me if you find anything interesting online,” he said.
“Wait!” Carly practically shouted the word and he turned back to her, surprise clear in his eyes.
“What?”
Carly bit her lip, then straightened her shoulders. “This.” She placed a hand behind his head and tried to pull him toward her. Most men, she decided, had an advantage on women because all they had to do was lower their heads a bit to indicate they’d like a kiss whereas females actually had to exert a little pressure.
For a split second, she thought he was going to resist. Then he grinned and allowed her to pull him toward her. Even then, he didn’t fully lower his head and she had to stand on her toes to reach his lips.
By this time, Carly’s temper had kicked in and she was determined to kiss the blasted man if she had to hogtie him to do it. She wrapped both arms around his neck and pulled herself upward.
Holly Grove Homecoming Page 13