by Tegan Maher
I was surprised to see Peggy Sue rummaging through a file box when I pushed through the doors to the office.
“Hey, Peggy Sue,” I said, smiling when I realized she was wearing jeans rather than her typical business-style floral dress. I rarely saw her in jeans and with her hair down, so her appearance seemed off to me. “What are you doin’ here?”
She pivoted toward me, her hand on her chest. “Noelle! You scared the daylights outta me. The sheriff needed a file, and he couldn’t find it. Since I was gettin’ my hair done, I figured it’d be easier to just pop over here and get it for him than it would be to try to explain where to find it.”
I smiled—that was Peggy Sue. She had the place ruthlessly organized, but her filing system was her own. If I didn’t know her better, I’d wonder if she’d done it just for job security. Regardless of whether that was the goal or not, it was most certainly the result. Even if her filing system was as easy as her kind smile, she’d have still had a job, though.
Her cornflower eyes crinkled at the corner. “You know how it goes—it’s faster to do your job than to try to tell somebody else how to.”
“I know exactly what you mean,” I said. “Do you have a sec? If not, it can wait ’til Monday.”
She glanced at the gold watch on her dimpled wrist. “I still have fifteen minutes before my appointment, and she was just starting to put the last row of perm curlers in Mable Tenney’s hair, so sure. Whatcha need?”
“Oh, I don’t need you to do anything for me, or at least I don’t think I do,” I explained the whole situation with Richard.
Consternation creased her face. “I posted that in the paper three times just like I’m required to do before I posted it to the auction. And you have a bill of sale to prove you paid for the place fair and square.”
I held up my hands. “I don’t think either of us did anything wrong. I have no doubt you posted everything just like you were supposed to. My concern is that neither one of us had all the information, so I’m worried there’s something to the whole probate thing.”
She pressed her lips together, then strode down the middle aisle of bookshelves. Stopping halfway, she ran her finger down the row, then pulled out a thin blue folder, took it to the copy machine, pulled off a couple of paper clips, then slid the whole stack into the holder and hit copy. She winked at me as she put the paper clips back on fifteen seconds later and handed me the copies. “And that is exactly why I don’t use staples in these types of files!”
“What should I do with this?” I asked, glancing through the papers. It was info on my building.
“It has all the dates of everything to do with that property since Erol bought it. The purchase date, the amount of taxes he paid, when the property went into default, when I posted it in the papers, copies of all attempts at correspondence—everything. Do you know an attorney?”
I shook my head. “No, but everybody says to talk to Laura Singleton.”
Peggy Sue nodded. “You won’t get better than her, and she’s fair, too.” She sighed and gave me a wispy smile. “I don’t think you have anything to worry about, Noelle, but just in case, it never hurts to be prepared. I’m sorry the jerk reared his head trying to get money outta you.”
I smiled. “It’s gonna be fine, Peggy Sue. Thank you for everything you’ve done for me. Now, get back over there and get your hair cut. I appreciate your help, and so does Hunter.”
She jumped a little bit when I said that and grinned as a slow flush drifted across her cheeks. “I almost forgot to take him the files he asked for.”
“Here,” I said, holding my hand out. “If it’s nothing confidential, I’ll take it to him so you can go.”
Pausing for just a split second, she shrugged and handed them to me. “No, nothin’ that isn’t public record, I don’t suppose. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.”
“You, too, Peggy Sue,” I rushed to call before the door swung shut behind her.
“Peggy Sue—” Hunter poked his head around the corner that led to his office, then smiled when he saw me.
“I’m not Peggy Sue, but maybe I’ll do.” I held up the file in one hand and the bag of barbecue in the other.
His eyes glittered appreciatively as he glanced from one to the other, then waggled his brows at me suggestively. “You know, the only thing hotter than a beautiful girl holding a bag of barbecue is a beautiful girl holding barbecue and real estate plot numbers.”
I laughed. “I had no idea you were into that sort of thing. Well, I knew about the barbecue, but what is it about the property numbers that does it for you? Do you like, picture the actual land or—”
He swept me up, then growled and nipped me on the neck, tickling me as he did.
“Okay, okay,” I gasped, struggling against the iron hold he had on me. “Uncle! Peace! I come bearing food!”
“Finally, the magic words!” He loosened his grip and plucked the bag from my fingers. “Oh, man. Bobbie Sue’s. I haven’t had a sandwich from there in forever.”
I raised a brow. “Yeah, it’s been at least a week.”
He lowered his brows. “Barbecue is nothing to joke about, young lady.”
“Food in general is nothing to joke about,” I said, my stomach growling as I caught a whiff of the sauce. “Let’s take that to your office and eat it. I’ve learned a few things that you probably want to hear.”
“Good,” he replied, “because I haven’t come up with squat, though I’m starting to think you’re right. I think Evie and Stuart are lying. I just don’t know how we’re going to get them to admit it.”
I grinned like the cat that ate the cream. “Oh, I know they’re lying, and we don’t even have to get them to crack; Louise and Earl both saw Stuart at the restaurant at just before seven last night.”
It took him all of two seconds to return my grin. “I knew it!” he said, unwrapping his sandwich. “Now I can really enjoy this. I’d have hated to squander the experience by just sucking it down mindlessly while I looked through this file for connections that probably aren’t there.”
I grinned and pulled my lunch to my side of the desk, then shook a napkin open. “If you like what you’ve heard so far, then buckle up, sir, because there’s more where that came from.”
“Do tell, young lady,” he said, shoving his straw into his tea.
“Andy loaned Jackson money. Apparently, our boy put the truck up for pawn and didn’t have the cash to get it back. Alyse saw them arguing in the Pigs parking lot a month or so ago. She couldn’t hear what they were saying, but both guys looked fit to spit nails.”
Hunter drew his brows down in thought and shook his head. “I keep hearing about all this money he borrowed, but I don’t see any evidence of where he spent it. He had the truck, sure, but Evie paid for it. His daily driver was a beat-up F150 and he lived in the house he grew up in. Which, by the way, is mortgaged to the hilt. When he inherited it, it was paid for.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” I said. “I assumed his house was gonna be full of expensive gadgets and that he drove a fancy vehicle. What about his garage? You’d be surprised how expensive they can be.”
He raised a brow at me and took a long draw off his straw to wash down a big bite of beans. “Would I, now? Tools are expensive? Really?”
My cheeks grew warm. He’d just finished building a motorcycle, he did nearly all the maintenance on his own truck, and he was in the middle of renovating his house all by himself. Well, with help from me and Matt. He had pretty much every tool known to man.
“Fine, I’m sorry. I take it back. But you know what I mean. That’s not where the money was?”
He shook his head. “He had a good collection, but most of the expensive stuff belongs to Roger Queen, the guy who’s done most of the work on the truck Evie paid for. He did have state-of-the-art electronics in his house, but I can’t imagine it cost as much as what he’s borrowed.”
“So where was it going, then? No matter how often it feels like it, money
doesn’t just disappear into thin air.”
We ate in silence for a few minutes, both of us lost in thought.
“What about gambling? Drugs?” I asked.
“Not that I’ve found evidence of,” he replied, shoving the last bite of his sandwich in his mouth.
I mulled it over in my head and shrugged. “Then maybe he just had expensive habits. Who knows? Maybe he had a secret obsession with caviar or cashmere socks.”
Hunter smiled and stuffed our empty containers back into the bag. “Maybe so. It’s a loose end, though, and I’d like to figure it out. You know how it goes—love or money is likely what got him killed, and I’m not seein’ the love.”
“What next, then?” I asked, swooping a hand and sending the bag to the garbage can. “What’s your gut say?”
He sighed and leaned back in his chair. “My gut has no idea on this one. I feel like I’m missing something obvious.” He glanced at the folder Peggy Sue’d given me. “What’s that?”
“That,” I replied, “is all the documentation related to my building. Erol’s brother stopped in at the shop and seems to think I owe him fifty grand.”
“Say what?” his dark brows shot into his hairline. “How does he figure that?”
I lifted a shoulder. “Apparently, he had himself appointed Erol’s executor, and he seems to think that the shop should have gone through probate.”
“Surely that can’t be right.”
“It doesn’t feel right to me, either, but I don’t know the law. The girls told me to go talk to Laura Singleton. She’s an attorney.”
He came around and pulled me to my feet. I was trying hard not to sweat it, but I was worried. Everything had gone so well for me that I couldn’t help but worry that the bubble was about to burst.
“It’s gonna be okay,” he told me, pulling me into a hug. “Worst case scenario? We have to pay him the fifty grand. Not ideal, but we’ll figure it out.”
When he put it that way, I realized he was right. I’d lived hand-to-mouth for so long that panic was a knee-jerk reaction when it came to large sums of money. And it wasn’t like I was rich now. Not after paying college tuition, for sure.
He was right—paying the money wouldn’t sink me, but it sure would take the wind out of my sails.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I stopped at the grocery store on the way home because I needed baking supplies. I’m a night owl by nature, but I also had to get up at five the next morning to go work at Brew. The day was still gorgeous as I drove up our winding drive. The fence shone a pretty white, and sunshine dappled the road. No matter how bad a day I had—and I’d had a few—I always felt better as soon as I hit that driveway.
Matt’s truck was there, which was unusual. Since he’d taken over as foreman for Wheeler Construction, he was rarely home during the day. A buzz saw whined from the second barn that we used as a storage shed and workroom, then shut off. The thunking of lumber hitting the ground sounded, followed by some colorful swearing. I picked up the pace for the last few strides just in case Matt had lopped something off and needed saving.
He did not, but from the way he was hopping, I imagined his toes were gonna be sore for a bit.
“You okay?” I asked, just in case, and he spun toward me.
“Yeah, I will be. Who needs five toes, anyway, right?” He limped toward me, then lowered his tall frame onto a stump and unlaced his boot. “Better check just to be sure, but it’s not like they can do much for a broken toe, anyway.”
“True,” I said as he toed off his boot and peeled off his sock, “but you never know. Haven’t you seen that one medical show where the chick broke her toes, and marrow or something leaked into her blood and killed her because she didn’t go to the hospital?”
He scowled at me. “No, but thanks for telling me about it. I live through people shooting at me and lobbing grenades at my head and come home to die of a broken pinky toe. Seems about right to me.” He held out his bare foot and wiggled the offending digit along with the other four.
“Looks like they’re all workin’,” I said, craning my neck to take a look without getting close enough to get a whiff, “but it does look a little puffy.”
“It’s fine,” he said, taking one more look before pulling his sock back on. “It’s too far from my heart to kill me.”
“What are you building, anyway?”
“Nothin’. There are a couple fence slats about to rot clear through in the back pasture. I noticed them yesterday when Anna Mae and I were four-wheelin’ back there. I don’t have anything goin’ on today, so I figured I’d take care of ’em.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I hadn’t even noticed ’em yet.” Matt had been in a rough spot when we’d met, and he’d originally paid his rent by helping me around the farm. Now that he had a good job, he insisted on paying me cash every month, but he still helped out around the place as much as he could. As a matter of fact, between him and Hunter, I rarely had to do any of the handyman-ish chores I’d grown accustomed to doing on my own before I’d met them. Being inherently lazy, I was okay with that. And appreciative. Addy’d been an absolute tyrant once she’d lost her physical body, so it was nice to have somebody else for her to nag.
Wiz, Matt’s German Shepherd, whined and butted his head against my hand, begging for an ear scratch.
“Whatcha doin’, big guy?” I crooned as I squatted down to accommodate him. “Is Daddy not givin’ you enough lovins?”
His whole body wagged as he bounded to the other side of the barn and came back with a tennis ball covered in slobber and dirt. I scrunched my nose and took it from him, then turned around and threw it out the barn door and into the yard. He bolted after it, and I grinned. “If only it was that easy to please everybody.”
“I hear that,” Matt said, wiping his brow with his wrist. “You got any tea made? I’m parched.”
“Silly question,” I replied, smiling. “C’mon up. I gotta get these groceries in the house, anyway. Butter doesn’t do too well in this weather.”
We ambled toward the house, stopping to get the groceries from my truck on the way. Once we were inside, I popped the bag with the butter into the fridge and pulled out the tea jug. Once I’d poured us both a glass, we went back out to the porch and took a seat. Wiz was waiting for us, the ball clamped between his teeth, and Max lifted his head from the bed he had on the porch.
“Please make him keep that horrid thing away from me. For some reason, he’s failed to notice I have no thumbs because he brings it to me when you’re not around.”
I rolled my eyes. “He just wants to play with you.”
Max grumbled something about not being a play date, then put his head back down to finish his afternoon siesta.
“Phew, that’s good,” Matt said, draining half his glass in one go. “Anything good happening in town?”
“Plenty of stuff happenin’,” I replied, pushing off the porch with my toes to set the porch swing in motion, “but there’s plenty happening.”
I gave him a rundown of the day, from when Erol’s brother came in to what I’d found out from the girls.
“Oh, and I stopped in to see Anna Mae,” I said, frowning a little.
“Yeah, she said you two are going to a couple sales tomorrow. I’m glad you have something to do, anyway. It sucks that our getaway was shot.”
Smiling, I replied, “I know. How rude of somebody to up and murder somebody else before we even had our first beer.”
“You know what I mean,” he said, shooting me a look. “Yes, it sucks that somebody died. It sucks doubly bad that it happened to ruin our mini vacay. I’ve met Jackson a few times. Far as I’m concerned, the vacation’s the bigger tragedy.”
“Wow,” I said. “Say how you really feel, why don’t you?”
“He was a class-A jerk.” He took another long pull off his tea, and I flicked a wrist toward the kitchen and summoned the pitcher. I wasn’t normally quite that lazy, but I was happy right where I was at. Matt opened
the screen door to grab it out of the air, then divvied up the rest of the jug between his glass and mine. There was just enough to fill them both back up.
“I can’t argue that. I met him before he died, and let’s just say he made a less-than-stellar impression.”
“So, I realize this is the question of the day, but does Hunter have any idea who did it?”
“He has a couple people he’s looking at, but none of them really stand out more than the rest. My money’s on Jackson’s ex, Evie. It seems she paid for the truck he was racing last night and she’s understandably salty.”
“I wouldn’t discount an angry husband, either,” he said. “He almost got popped in the chops last a couple weeks ago at the feed store. Some lady was at the feed store buyin’ hay, and he made a comment about her, uh, backside, only the joke was on him. The woman’s husband was standin’ right behind him. The only reason the guy didn’t lay Jackson out was because he was carryin’ a hay bale in each hand and Jackson made himself scarce before the guy could drop them.”
“Yeah, I kinda met him in the same way. Two guys were arguin’ with him because he was treatin’ their little sister like a prize pig. But was he actually involved with a married woman, or did he just like to leer and be a perv?”
Matt lifted a shoulder. “There was a bottle blonde with him that day. I didn’t look for a ring or anything, but they were cozy.”
I narrowed my eyes, thinking about Daisy. “Was the bottle blonde barely legal?”
He shook his head. “Nope. She had some years on her. She wasn’t old, but definitely not a teeny-bopper. I’d say probably mid-thirties. Lots of makeup.”
That fit the description of a lot of women around Keyhole, so I didn’t get any immediate ideas about who she might have been. “You said last week?”
He nodded. “Yeah. Tuesday, in fact. I know because I was there to pick up straw for a yard we’d just seeded. You could talk to Henry.”
I pulled out my phone. “I’m gonna text Hunter with that info right now.”
Matt gave me a minute to tap out the message, using the time to throw the ball again for Wiz. When I looked back up, he was staring at me.