by Tegan Maher
"Same old, same old. Shelby's been practicing. We've had another murder, and I've also become a temporary foster mom to a kid who was lifting wallets off Main Street. So, you know, the usual. Oh, and I'm considering getting my motorcycle license."
She ignored everything else I said and laser-focused on one part.
"What do you mean there's been another murder? Is it suspicious? How did it happen?" Her voice was higher pitched and the questions were rapid-fire.
"No, not suspicious. I mean, yes, it's suspicious in that the poor guy got his head bashed in with a toilet tank lid, but nothing outside of the realm of garden-variety crazy. Why?"
Even over the phone, I could hear the sigh of relief. "No reason. I just worry, is all."
"Okay," I drew. "We're all fine. When are you coming home? Shelby's been wondering about her testing."
"Noelle, I honestly have no idea. I'll be back as soon as I can. Emma's coming home from her dad's in another week, so I need to be back by then or else make arrangements for her before school starts. Tell her not to worry."
"All right. Well take care of yourself, okay? We worry about more than just the testing. I don't know what you're mixed up in wherever you are, but take care."
"Will do, sugar. You, too."
I disconnected, but wondered what was going on. It wasn't like her to be gone for so long, or to not call and check on Shelby when she was away. For that matter, she sounded rattled, which I didn't even know was in her wheelhouse.
Footsteps pounding down the stairs interrupted my thinking; Justin was awake and ready to go. I'd waited to feed the horses until he was awake, so I'd let Shelby sleep in too. She came stumbling down the stairs shortly after he did, fumbling for the coffee pot as she yawned.
He was so excited and talkative that I was afraid I'd have to put him on the porch for his own protection until Shel and I were caffeinated.
She seemed a little more tolerant that morning though, and didn't try even once to kill him using Jedi mind tricks or ocular laser beams, no matter how much he chattered. Well, maybe once, but her heart wasn't in it.
We had the horses fed and turned out and the stalls clean by nine-thirty, and by ten, Justin and I were on our way to town.
We had an outlet mall on the outside of town that had just about everything we'd need except for school supplies, and I figured it would be a fun activity for him. At first, he was hesitant to buy anything that wasn't an absolute necessity, and even then, he veered toward the cheapest rather than what he actually wanted.
It was frustrating, so I gave up and decided we'd go somewhere else where he couldn’t resist the good stuff—GameStop. If that didn't loosen a kid up, nowhere would. Shoot, it loosened me up. Every time I went there, my wallet mysteriously flew open and all of the money was sucked out, but I left happy.
I didn't want to spend a fortune, but it seemed like every nine year old—yes, nine, according to the social worker!—should have a handheld video game. What was a couple hundred bucks when I had it to spare? The kid deserved a little splurge.
After that, shopping was easy, at least after I agreed he could work off some of it in chores. I may not have known his father, but the son told me all I needed to know about him.
We bought several different outfits, a couple pairs of sneakers, and some rubber boots to keep him from ruining the new sneakers. I knew all too well how easy it was to lose a shoe in the muck around the barn after a solid rain. Gotta love Georgia mud.
We were starving after all that shopping, so I decided to take him to Bobbie Sue's for lunch. I was surprised to see that Miss Ditz was working. Since it was after regular lunch hours, we pretty much had the place to ourselves, yet it still took us ten minutes to get our drinks. I was just getting up to get them myself when she finally brought them.
After she took our orders, I led him toward the kitchen. "Have you ever seen the inside of a restaurant kitchen?"
He shook his head, a little awed by the batwing doors. "Are you sure it's okay? We won't get in trouble?"
"I work here, and the owners are good people. You'll like them, and I'm sure they won't mind if I show you around."
We pushed through the doors and by the look on his face, you'd have thought we were time-warping or something. I gave Bobbie Sue and Earl a brief rundown of who he was, and they took to him like most people would a new pup. Within just a couple of minutes, Earl was teaching him how to load wood into the pit. I was starving though, so as soon as Bobbie finished our plates, I grabbed them and called to Justin that it was time to eat.
"You have the coolest life ever!" he said as we sat back down at our table. "Horses, you're allowed to go in the kitchen in a restaurant, you can do mag—," the waitress stopped by, miracle of miracles, to check on us so I silenced him with a glare.
He stopped. "Oh, oops. Sorry ’bout that."
Just as we were finishing up, Emily came in with Louise, Jarod, and Scott. They chose the booth across the aisle from us and said hello as they sat down.
"Y'all look a little better than you did the other day. I'm glad to see it. I'm sure Max wouldn't want you to be miserable."
"About that ...," Emily said.
Louise smiled and patted her mother's hand. "Daddy visited us last night and the five of us worked through a lot of things." She laughed. "That is, after we managed to get Mama in on it. I had to answer some awkward questions that only Daddy would know the answers to in order to convince Mama he was real. Then she was able to see him."
Emily shook her head. "I can't believe I was so set in my beliefs that I couldn't even see him."
"Well, the important part is that you can now," I told her.
Justin gasped and I followed his disbelieving gaze. Bobbie Sue was headed toward us with the biggest sundae she could fit in a soup bowl. Chocolate and strawberry syrups spilled down either side and a huge dollop of whipped cream held about five maraschino cherries.
"You know if he eats all that, he's going to be sick. Or bouncing off the walls. Or both," I told her.
She waved me off. "The boy's had a rough few days. One lil ole sundae's not gonna hurt him."
I raised a brow. Her definition of "lil" was way off base from mine. Still, he was grinning like a monkey in a room full of bananas, and it's not like I could tell Bobbie Sue no anyway. She's an unstoppable force of nature. "I hope you brought two spoons," I sighed.
Grinning, she handed me one and told Justin that he was welcome to come back and help fire up the pit anytime he wanted to. He thanked her and dug in while I turned back to the conversation with Max's family.
I wondered if he had the weird glitchy thing going on when he talked to them, and asked as much, leaving out the exact verbiage so as not to hurt her if there actually was another woman.
Louise pressed her lips together. "No, not that I noticed. He seemed normal. Well, except for the fact that he was transparent." Her eyes misted a little. "I wish I could have hugged him."
"Actually," Scott said, looking a little guilty, "he did do that. I couldn't sleep last night so I went to the kitchen for a snack and he popped in. We talked about the wedding and got to know each other a bit, but when I asked him about the murder, he did just what you described, except he said he had to go see the woman he was buying the RV from."
"Hold up," I said. "What RV?"
"He was buying an RV so he and Mama could do a cross-country trip. She's always wanted to," Louise said. "That's where the money was going. Once you told him Mama found the receipts, he wanted to clear the air. He'd decided before he died to tell her about it anyway, because he couldn't stand her thinking that he was steppin' out on her. But then ..."
"The woman's name is Daralynn Tenney. She lives twenty mile or so out, between here and Atlanta."
Ahh. Daralynn not darlin'.
"And what about the Cindy Lou memo?"
She laughed. “That part makes me feel really silly. Daralynn's granddaughter was a huge Dr. Seuss fan."
"Wow. Well, it'
s not like you had a lot of context. That never occurred to me either and it should have. How the Grinch Stole Christmas is my favorite holiday movie.” I turned to Louise and Jared. “So he said yesterday that y'all are thinking about staying on."
"Yeah," Louise said. "Jared's a carpenter in Atlanta, but work's scarce sometimes. And I'm waitressing in a crappy, run-down sports bar."
Jared said, "The only problem is that I know how to swing a hammer, but that's about it. I don't know anything about concrete, or architecture, or design. Emily keeps the books, so that's not a problem. I just don't have the experience to run a company like this, which puts us in a bind."
"And I don't even know how to swing a hammer other than to do simple stuff, so I'm useless," Scott added. “I’m a pencil-pusher.”
Emily scowled. "And Bo Jackson came out to the house again and offered to buy me out. Said he'd keep Jared on at twice what he's making now but offered way less than what the company's worth. I don't think he understands that I've done the books since day one."
"Is that so?" I asked, then told them about his visit to the farm.
Emily's face was crimson. "I'll kill him myself."
I arched a brow. "Considering the circumstances you may want to rephrase that."
She looked at me and cocked one side of her mouth up. "Sugar, right now I'm the grieving widow. I have a ready-made insanity plea."
Well, she wasn't wrong.
I jiggled the ice in the bottom of my glass again, hoping to catch the waitress's attention, but the witless wonder kept her butt parked against the edge of the table in the server's station, tapping away on her phone. Everybody else's glasses were empty, too.
That's when inspiration struck.
"I have a great idea, at least for one half of your problem. I'll be right back."
I picked up their glasses as well as mine and headed to the waitress station. "Refills, please. Fresh glasses."
She looked up from her phone and made a face. "Rude."
"Honey, you haven't seen how rude I can be. My name's Noelle Flynn. Ask you big sister about me. Give her my love."
As soon as she shot daggers at me with her eyes, I saw the family resemblance.
I trotted to the kitchen and asked Bobbie Sue to come to the dining room. She wiped her hands off on a towel and followed me back to the table. Justin had made it about halfway through the sundae and was looking a little green around the gills.
I narrowed my eyes at Bobbie and pointed to the ice cream, then at the green kid. "If that ends up on the upholstery of my truck, I'm parking it against the back door until you clean it up. I'll blame you."
"Yeah, yeah," she said, holding out a rock-steady hand. "See me shakin'. Why'd you really bring me out, though? I'm busy."
I gestured toward Emily's table. "You know Emily, but I'm not sure if you know her daughter. This is Louise and her husband Jared, and her son Scott. Y'all, this is Bobbie Sue. She owns this place."
After they exchanged the required pleasantries, I cut to the chase. "Louise is thinking about moving back down here to be close to her mama and brothers, but needs a job. She works at a sports bar in Atlanta—"
Bobbie Sue's face lit up like it was Christmas and she waved me off. "Say no more. When can you start?"
Louise laughed. "I'm not sure. We have to go back up and get our stuff, then there's the problem of Jared finding a job."
"He has a job," I said. "Shoot, he has a whole company, sort of. That's just a matter of ironing out the details."
Then it occurred to me that the couple may have been using the job angle to avoid moving back and I felt like a jerk for handling the situation like a bull in a china shop. I looked at her face, ready to find a way to help her back out of it, but she looked tickled pink. I breathed a sigh of relief.
She looked at Jared, who grinned and shrugged. "I'm game if you are. I'm tired of the city and you've been looking for the chance to tell your jerkface boss to get bent. It's not like we have much—we can get it all in one trip."
Bobbie Sue was glancing back and forth between the brainless bimbo in the server's station and Louise, just waiting for her to pull the trigger.
"It looks like I can start inside of a week, then."
They shook on it.
"Sunshine, welcome aboard. You just made my day!" Bobbie Sue started toward to waitressing stand with a full head of steam, but I stopped her. "You may wanna hold off on booting her out the front door until Louise is situated."
She let out a big breath and deflated a little. "I reckon you're right. But you'll let me know as soon as you're ready to start, right?" she asked Louise.
Louise grinned. "You bet your bacon I will."
I smiled as I watched my friend practically prance back to her kitchen.
"Noelle, thank you so much," Emily said. "I don't know how to repay you for everything you're doin'."
I gave her a half-smile. "Well, there's this big hole in my backyard, and a veterans memorial that needs built ..."
She laughed. "They're first on the list."
Before I could thank her, Justin tugged on my sleeve. "I don't feel so good, Noelle."
I pointed to the little boys' room and he made a mad dash. I hoped he made it, but if not, I figured her bathroom was better than my truck; it was her own fault after all, and it would give Ms. Ditz something to do.
Chapter Thirty Three
I took Justin with me to Brew, because thanks to Bobbie Sue's sundae, he wasn't quite up to shopping for school supplies yet. Honestly, I wasn't up for it either. I avoided Walmart like the plague during the day if I could help it. One of the advantages of being a night owl is that it’s much easier to go grocery shopping at two in the morning when the place is practically deserted.
He pulled out his video game and sat at one of the high-top tables, kicking his feet back and forth as he concentrated on the screen. I made myself a Lively Latte while she waited on an elderly couple.
"So what have you decided to do first?" I'd filled her in on the conversation from the night before and she was all for me checking into it.
"I think I need to talk to him and find out where that money came from. If he won't tell me, I need to go talk to some of his friends. Ten grand doesn't just appear out of thin air. Somebody knows where it came from.”
"Who else do you think might have done it? Personally, my money's on Chet. He was all fired up over his kid getting suspended. Heck, he tried to hint Cody and even lunged at you in broad daylight in front of a hundred witnesses. If his temper's that bad in public, it's not hard to imagine him beating Max to death in private."
She had a valid point and I'd considered it myself.
"He's definitely on the list. He even admitted he went to see Max about letting his kid play the morning he died, but says nobody answered the door. Then there’s Basil Bennett." A light went off. "Basil Bennett! I know where he's hiding."
I didn't want to step on Hunter's toes, but I was going to see him. So, I did the only thing I could think of—I called to see if he wanted to go with me. I figured he'd already forgotten what Max had told me, what with Larry being locked up already. The good thing about it I guess, was that old Joe was apparently off the hook. Small blessings.
On the other hand, a man I was pretty sure was innocent was still in jail.
Hunter didn't answer his phone so I left him a voicemail. Since I wasn't keen on going out in the middle of nowhere to visit a drunken potential murderer, I asked Raeann if she wanted to go.
"Does a frog bump his butt on the ground when he hops?"
That answered that.
We were headed out the door when Justin raced ahead to catch me. "Uh, where were you going? Were you just going to leave me here?"
"Pht. What? No!" I scoffed. I totally just almost left him there.
"So where are we going?" he asked.
I was torn between not wanting to put him in danger and not wanting to drive all the way back to the farm, but conscience won out. "We aren'
t going anywhere. I'm taking you back to the farm so you can unload all your stuff and put it away, then Raeann and I have to go see a man down by the lake."
"Oh, the foreman you were talking about the other night. Yeah, he'd be the first one I'd question, too."
I had to remember he was around to hear everything. On the upside though, I had the faith of two people—three if you counted Mrs. Huffman. That counted for something, right? As we were leaving, Addy popped in. I explained to her what was going on.
“Well, at least he's not focusing on Joe anymore. That was just awkward because everybody knew he was wrong but he wouldn't let it go."
"According to his mama, Larry Huffman's not guilty either. I told her about my conversation with her in the truck. She creased her brow.
"I imagine every mama would say her boy's innocent, so I don't know how much stock you can put in that. I don't know much about her because she kinda falls in that generation between me and you. She was way too young for me to have gone to school with. What was your gut feeling talking to her?"
I shrugged. "That she was telling the truth. My gut's been telling me we're going in the wrong direction."
She tilted her head at me and cocked a brow. "Then what have I always told you? Never ignore your gut. You're going in the wrong direction."
“Then we're going to go find the right one. We'll be back in a couple hours. Keep an eye on him, would you?"
"Hey! I don't need no babysitter!" Justin crossed his arms over his chest and glared at me.
"No, but you may need somebody to tell you where things are, or how to turn the water off in the barn. Get your butt off your shoulders."
That seemed to appease him, and the last thing I heard was Addy asking him if he knew how to tell if a horse was mad, or happy. They'd be fine.
Before we pulled out of the yard, I tried calling Hunter again, but he didn't answer. I looked at Rae. "You ready?"
"You kidding me? I was born ready. Let's go find us a drunk, possibly murderous, former foreman and see what kind of ax he had to grind."