by Tegan Maher
“It’s good to hear you’re doing so good,” he said. “Because I’m gonna need you to pay me what you owe me.”
“Excuse me?” I said, truly bewildered.
“This is my building, and you either need to pay me for it or clear out this junk so I can sell it.” He looked around the place.
I hadn’t done much decorating because I liked it kinda sparse, with only my pieces to draw the eye. Well, that and I hated decorating, much to Erol’s dismay. What little I’d done had mostly been because he’d nagged me into it. The back room where his TV was had a lot more personality because I’d figured it was only right to give him a nice place to live. Still, the guy’s attitude ticked me off as much as his words.
“I don’t know what you think you’re talking about, but I have a legal deed. This is my building, bought and paid for. Now, I’m sure you remember where the door’s at.” I slammed my arms across my chest and looked pointedly toward the front door.
“That deed ain’t worth the paper it’s written on,” he replied. “You bought this place when it should have been in probate.”
“No,” I said, straightening my spine, “I bought this place when it was up for taxes. That trumps probate, though I have no idea why you think the place would have gone there, anyway.” I wasn’t really sure of that, but I’d found that sometimes calling a bully’s bluff was enough to shut him down.
“Because my poor little baby brother, God rest his soul, had been missing for just a little over a year at that point. The property should have gone into probate, and my lawyer says he’s gonna make sure you pay me for it. See right here?” he held out a piece of paper. There was some legalese, but what it amounted to was that he’d been named the executor of Erol’s estate. It was dated more than a year prior, though.
“Poor dear baby brother, my white, hairy behind!” Erol barked. His form was shimmering with rage, and he flew at his brother and gave him a good shove. Rather than go right through him like he should have done, though, he actually moved him. “Get out, Richard!” he growled. “Go back to your no-good bigot of a wife and your spoiled, snot-nosed brats.”
Richard’s eyes went wide as he looked around, frantically trying to figure out where the shove had come from. He hadn’t heard Erol, which wasn’t all that uncommon in people who don’t believe.
Erol spun toward me. “Call Hunter and have him arrest him,” he snapped.
“I can’t have him arrested,” I said, a moment too late to realize I couldn’t respond.
“Of course, you can’t,” Richard said, backing into the door before reaching behind him to pull it open. “You’re the one who’s in legal trouble, not me. I’ll be back Monday morning to collect either my check or the keys. Fifty grand should do it.”
Erol charged at him again, but the door had already shut. He stopped halfway through it when I called to him, and I couldn’t believe the shape he was in when he finally floated over to me. His gray-streaked auburn hair that was always perfectly gelled was flopping over his forehead, and his breath, even though he didn’t technically need to breathe, was coming in ragged gasps. He slung his arm out in the direction of the door. “Lock that and don’t let that hateful gasbag back in here. If he does, I swear I’ll find some way to set him on fire!”
Given his current mental state and that he’d actually managed to make physical contact with the guy, I was taking that threat a little more seriously than I normally would have. Erol was one of the kindest, mildest souls I’d ever met, but he had grit, and when it came to something he was passionate about, he could get riled.
“Okay,” I said, twisting the sign to closed and pulling the little shade on the door. There wasn’t anything I could do about the wide-open display window, but the closed shade lent a little more weight to the sign.
I chewed my lip, thinking about what he’d said. When it came down to the brass tacks, I didn’t know diddly squat about probate law. He was right that Erol had been dead for just over a year when I bought the place for taxes, but the shop had also been served with notice of auction for unpaid taxes several months before I’d lucked into it.
“I think maybe I should talk to a lawyer,” I said. “Just in case.”
“Do you know one you could call on a Saturday?” he asked.
I shook my head. Most of the defense lawyers that I knew didn’t look at me favorably because I had a bad habit of helping their clients get caught and go to prison. Plus, they were shady.
“It’s probably going to have to keep ’til Monday unless one of the girls knows somebody. I don’t think I have anything to worry about, but I want to make sure.”
“Good,” Erol said, his brows still drawn down as he watched Richard scurry to a newer model Cadillac parked outside. “Get it locked in. I don’t want him to have a penny from me.”
I wasn’t too keen on handing anything over, either.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
After that encounter, I needed somebody to vent to, so I decided to go to Bobbie Sue’s Barbecue and talk to my friend, godmother, and all-around good egg, Bobbie Sue. I’d have gone to Coralee’s, but there were a ton of people in there, and I wanted to see Bobbie anyway. They’d planned to bring Justin, their son, up to the mud bogs the night before, and I’d also promised him he could compete in the youth barrel race today. Missy was good in the arena, and he’d taken to riding like a duck to water. I felt bad because he was probably crushed. He’d been looking forward to it for a month and had been practicing every chance he got.
I locked the door behind me twenty minutes later, a little worried because Erol was still stewing.
“Hey, Noelle, what’s doin’?” called a voice from behind me, and I glanced over my shoulder.
I smiled; I’d know that voice and that expression anywhere. Angus Small, a dear friend who was Keyhole’s longtime town drunk before he died—though I deplore that term because he was so much more than that—floated up to me, his girlfriend Trouble beside him.
“Hey, Angus. Trouble. What are you two into today?”
“Not much,” he said. “I couldn’t help but notice that man comin’ from your shop in a snit. Everything okay?”
I shrugged. “I’m not sure. That was Erol’s brother, and he wants me to pay him for the shop. Says I owe it to him because it should have gone through probate.”
“Well, that’s just the craziest thing I ever did hear of!” he exclaimed, indignant. “That shop’s yours by law and in spirit. Erol’s happy you got it the way you did.”
“If only that counted, though,” Trouble said, her blue eyes worried. “Do you think anything’s gonna come of it?”
“I hope not,” I said, barely feeling the warm sunshine as a chill swept over me at the thought of losing my shop. I’d just paid Shelby’s tuition, and fifty grand was above and beyond my means. “I suppose I should talk to a lawyer, though.”
“Why don’t you just talk to Peggy Sue, first?” he suggested. “Nobody knows probate or tax law like that woman does. I swear, she should be makin’ three times her salary for all the knowledge she has.”
He was right, and I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it myself. She was off on weekends, though, so I was still in the same pickle. She was a real sweetheart and wouldn’t mind if I called her, but she worked so hard through the week that I hated to bother her.
“That’s a great idea,” I said. “I’ll go see her first thing Monday morning. If nothing else, she’ll know who I should talk to. We’ve gotten a few new lawyers in town lately, now that we’ve cleaned the place up so that decent ones can make an honest livin’. I just don’t happen to know any of them.”
“Until then,” Angus said, “don’t fret over it. It won’t do you any good, because you can’t do anything about it right now, anyway. Have you had any news about the murder?”
I shook my head. “Nothing at all. If she didn’t have an alibi—or rather, if I could prove she’s lying about the one she has—I’d lay money it was his ex. She’s pret
ty bent about losing the truck, and I overheard what I now think was a text.”
Confusion crossed their faces. “How do you overhear a text?” Angus asked.
Sighing, I replied, “I was trying to use my telepathy and caught her thinkin’ that she’d timed it exactly right and now that he was dead, nobody’d ever know. Levana says people don’t think like that, though, so she suggested maybe she was texting it to somebody.”
He thought about that for a few paces. “I guess that does make sense. Did you talk to her?”
I stepped off the curb to cross the street. “I did, and she admitted that she hated him. Course, that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Look how long the entire town hated Hank before somebody actually got up the gumption to kill him.”
“So why else do you think it was her?” Trouble asked.
Thinking about that for a second, I finally replied, “I don’t know. I guess because it’s almost always somebody close to the victim. He wasn’t dating anybody seriously that we know about, and she was there.”
“That’s a better reason than most, I reckon,” Angus said. “I assume you’re talkin’ about Evie?”
I nodded. “Yeah, you know her?”
“Only because she used to come and sit on my bench in the park sometimes when I was out and about.” He hung his grizzled face. “She was always too good to talk to me, though.”
“Then that’s one more strike against her character, as far as I’m concerned.”
I hated snobbery. Even though Angus may have had a drinkin’ problem, he’d been one of the kindest, most generous people Keyhole Lake had ever known. He always helped with community events, and if any of the sick or elderly found themselves with loose railings or other small issues, he’d just do it, no questions asked and no payment or thanks expected. He’d also helped decorate the town square for the holidays and was just a good person who contributed more to the community than most, even if he did often do it with a tall boy in a paper bag in one hand.
“Anybody besides her on the list?” Trouble asked. She carried a certain amount of guilt over the way Angus had fallen apart and lived his life after she’d died, even though that made no sense. But, like Angus, she was a good person, and good people tend to take on burdens that aren’t theirs to carry.
“Sort of,” I said. “He argued with two brothers right before the races, but they alibied each other.”
“What did they argue about?” Angus asked.
I was almost to Anna Mae’s. She was doing up a new window display, and I smiled at how happy she looked. “Their little sister was mad at them because they wouldn’t let her drive, so she apparently dug through her closet ’til she found a pair of shorts about the size she wore in middle school, paired em with a barely-there top and heels, and hung out at Jackson’s tent.”
“Oh, snap,” he said, his brown eyes sparkling with humor. “You must be talkin’ about Daisy. That girl’s been headstrong since the day she was born and has about drove Carl and Ernie to drinkin’.”
“That’s exactly who I’m talkin’ about,” I said. “But how did you know?”
He laughed. “There are a lot of girls wantin’ to drive their big brothers’ trucks, but there’s only one who’d go that far if she didn’t get her way. I’ve known those three since they was just babies, and they’ve always been the same. I’m surprised her mama let her outta the house like that, though.”
“Yeah, her brothers said the same thing.” I paused. “I’m gonna stop in and say hi to Anna Mae. Y’all wanna go with?”
Angus shook his head. “No, I think we’ll go back and talk to Erol. Make sure he’s not plottin’ a post-life murder. He didn’t look none too happy when he came flyin’ halfway through the door after his brother.”
Trouble curled her pert little nose. Since she’d drowned when she was still in her early twenties, she still looked like a young hippie, right down to the bell bottoms, board-straight, waist-length blonde hair, and the colorful flowers she often wore behind her ear or in a chain on her head. I supposed you can take the girl out of the seventies, but you can’t take the seventies out of the girl.
“I can’t believe that guy was Erol’s brother. He was so seedy lookin’!” she said.
“I know. The only reason I picked up on it was because Erol was floatin’ right beside him. Otherwise, I’da never guessed.”
I’d reached Anna Mae’s door, and she smiled and waved. I turned to Angus and Trouble. “You sure you don’t want to come in and visit?”
They shook their heads. “Nah, we’ll go peel Erol off the ceiling,” Angus said. “Then maybe we’ll take a trip over to visit Carl and Ernie, incognito, of course. See what we can overhear. If it’s anything good, we’ll let you or Hunter know.”
I smiled. “I’d love to hear, but make sure you tell Hunter yourselves, too. It’s his investigation, and he may have questions I wouldn’t think of.”
Angus winked at me. “You’d be surprised at some of the conversations that man of yours and I have.”
Before I could ask what that meant, they’d blinked out.
“Hey, sugar,” Anna Mae said when I pushed through the door. She shoved a lock of her platinum bob behind her ear, then stepped back and examined her display. It had a fall theme, with lots of colorful leaves and pumpkins arranged around old-fashioned pie tins, two antique Dutch ovens, and a mannequin sporting vintage fall clothes and holding a ’50s-style designer handbag. Those were turning out to be a big hit with the older crowd in Keyhole, so since they were easy to find at sales, she grabbed them whenever we could.
“Hey, yourself,” I said. “I see you decided to work, too, since our trip got cut short.”
She rearranged the Dutch ovens so that the lids were propped on them. That way, folks could see the little nubs on the inside that captured steam and dripped it back over the food as it cooked. “Yeah, I’ve also been checking out some sales that are going down tomorrow, if you’re interested. The first one’s at nine over in Eagle Gap. Do you have any custom pieces to make?”
I shook my head. “Not right now, but I’m out of pretty much everything, so I can’t even make anything new to add to the website. I’m down to go to some sales. Pick you up at seven?”
Glancing up at me, she furrowed her brow. “Sure. You don’t sound as excited as you usually do. Somethin’ on your mind? Besides the murder, of course.”
Sighing, I nodded and told her about Richard.
She pressed her lips together and slammed her fists to her hips, her blue eyes sparking with outrage. “Who does he think he is, comin’ out of the blue like this and expectin’ you to pony up money you don’t even owe him. He’s tryin’ to intimidate you into writin’ him a check is what he’s doin’, but I’d talk to somebody first. Peggy Sue, maybe. She knows all about that stuff. Or Laura Singleton. She’d know, and I bet she’d help you, too.”
“Who’s that?” I knew most of the same people Anna Mae did, but that name wasn’t familiar to me.
“Oh, sorry. You probably know her by Laura Skidmore. She’s a couple years older than you, but you probably went to school together.”
I paused for a second, trying to remember the name. A vague image of a tall, rangy brunette popped to mind. “Is she Wade Skidmore’s sister?”
Anna Mae nodded. “That’s her. She went away to law school, then went to work for a firm in Augusta, seein’ as how a lawyer had to be in cahoots with Hank to make any money here at the time. Now that he’s dead and the crooks are mostly gone, she’s moved back home. Her mama’s not doin’ so great, bless her heart. Arthritis.”
“So what kind of law does she practice?” I didn’t need a tax attorney or a criminal one unless of course Sarah stayed at the top of the suspect list.
“Wills and deeds,” she replied. “And I think a little bit of property law to supplement.”
“Exactly the combination I need, then.”
She nodded. “Yup, and I happen to know and like her. She’s a sweetheart.
It’s nice to see people startin’ to come back. The town needs new blood, and it wasn’t gettin’ that for a long time, thanks to Hank.”
Her expression became troubled, and I knew she was blaming herself again. I reached out and squeezed her arm. “Stop that. I’ve told you a million times—and so has everybody else—that it’s not your fault your husband was a horrible person. You suffered more than most, in fact.”
Tears pooled in her blue eyes. “I know that in my brain, but people actually moved away from their homes and families, Noelle. And I sat by and did nothing about it.”
“And what could you have done?”
“I could have poisoned his pie a decade and a half before somebody else did it.”
“Well, coulda, woulda, shoulda,” I said, and Cheri Lynn popped in beside me.
“Hey, ladies! Whatcha doin’?” She took one look at Anna Mae and swooped over to her. “What’s the matter, honey?”
Anna Mae burst into tears and hid her face in her hands. “It’s just ... Hank was awful.”
Cheri looked at me, befuddled. “Yeah, he was. But he’s worm food, though I figure any self-respectin’ worm would rather starve to death. He’s been gone for a long time now. Everything’s fine.” Her delicate brows arched and she mouthed, “What happened?” to me.
I shrugged. Anna Mae was not prone to histrionics, and she’d been over the whole Hank deal for quite a while. She’d made financial restitution from a stash she’d found, and she’d gone out of her way to give back to the community. She hadn’t even mentioned him in months.