Magnolias, Moonlight, and Murder

by Sara Rosett

  Candy’s chair was empty when I stepped inside the office.

  “Hello?”

  “Come on in,” Scott called from the back office. “Candy’s at the dentist.”

  Scott hunched over his keyboard, the bank of muted TVs flickering beside him.

  “Okay. Don’t mind me. I know my way around by now.”

  “Great,” Scott said without looking up.

  I got to work in the storage room, which already looked so much better. I’d come in for a few hours on Sunday afternoon and finished up the big items on my list. Today, I only had to put the finishing touches on the storage room. The paperwork was sorted and boxed, the Christmas items had their own storage tubs, the miscellany of useless and broken items had been carted out to the trash, and the coffeepot had its own space on a small table I’d positioned behind Candy’s desk.

  I pulled out my cordless screwdriver to finish putting the shelves together. An hour later, I had all the boxes on shelves and a small worktable set up in the middle of the storage area, complete with a tray of office supplies. I positioned the shredder and trash can under one end of the table and looked around, hands on my hips. It looked great.

  “Scott, when will Candy be back?” The volume on one of the TVs went up just as I called out, “I’d like to give you both a rundown of where everything is…” I trailed off when I reached the door and saw Jodi’s picture on the television.

  Scott stood, remote control in one hand and the other braced on the back of his chair.

  The slick-looking man who’d been on my doorstep a few days ago was speaking. “Earlier today, construction workers found the body of a young female in a shallow grave in a suburban Georgia neighborhood. Sources close to the investigation told us it is the body of missing youth sports coordinator Jodi Lockworth, who disappeared over ten months ago.”

  Oh no. I put my hand over my mouth and walked into Scott’s office.

  “The Dawkins County Sheriff’s Office has scheduled a press conference for later this morning and we’ll bring that to you live. For now, the feelings of shock and dismay are almost palpable in this middle Georgia town that held out hope for a happier ending.”

  Scott hit the mute button and I sat down heavily in one of the stiff office chairs with my hand still over my mouth. All I could think of were Nita and Gerald. When I was on the phone with her earlier, Waraday must have been arriving to give them the news. I shook my head. I’d been shifting paper, building shelves, and worrying about where to put a paper shredder when their world had been falling apart. They’d be devastated.

  “You don’t expect it.” Scott slumped down into the other visitor’s chair. “Even after all this time, even though you know it’s a possibility, you still don’t think…”

  I pulled my hand away from my mouth. “I know.” Should I call Nita? Not now, I decided. What a horrible day it had to be for her and Gerald. I knew the Find Jodi network wouldn’t disband now. In fact, I bet it would shift over to caring for Nita and Gerald. I decided I’d call Colleen as soon as I was finished here and ask what I could do.

  I was so lost in thought that I jumped when Scott stood up slowly from his chair.

  I stood up. “Why don’t I come back later? I’m finished in there. I just wanted to show you and Candy the layout…” I trailed off. Papers and a filing system seemed so insignificant right now.

  “No, go ahead and show me. I’ll fill Candy in. I need to know how it works. That way you don’t have to make an extra trip out here again.” Scott pushed up his glasses and gazed at his desk. “It’s going to be hard to get any more work done this afternoon anyway. I’ll probably close down the office and get in touch with Colleen. See if there’s anything I can do.”

  “Okay.” I went into the small room. I pointed out the various storage spaces, then handed him a schematic. “Here’s a drawing with all the areas marked so you’ll know where everything is stored. I’ve also laminated this chart of guidelines on how long you need to keep various types of paperwork. Here’s your tray of items that need to be filed. Take the time to file everything each day and you won’t get lost in that avalanche of paperwork again. I’d recommend you have Candy do it in the late afternoon as one of her closing routines. It’ll save time in the long run.”

  Scott studied the schematic and nodded. “Looks great. You’ve done an awesome job.”

  I smiled, thinking there was a quote for my business brochure. “No problem. I enjoy seeing the transformation. Here, I’ll file these papers as an example,” I said, taking the thin stack from the tray. “I found them on the floor today under the old shredder. Okay, first here’s an invoice that’s been paid. It would go over here in this filing cabinet.” I opened the drawer and tucked it in the right folder.

  “Next, you’ve got a couple of old receipts. Looks like business expenses, a hotel and some restaurant receipts. Since they’re all on the same day, they would go in the business expenses file. They’re all dated this year, January eighth, so put them over here,” I said, heading over to the far corner of the storage room.

  I pulled open the filing cabinet. January eighth. Why did that sound so familiar? I ran my fingers down the tabs and glanced at the receipts again. A Chinese restaurant in Atlanta and a Holiday Inn Express, also in Atlanta. January eighth. I slid them halfway into the file, then pulled them back out and looked at the signature.

  January eighth was the day Jodi disappeared. You can’t read most signatures, but Scott had excellent penmanship. I could even read his middle initial. I swung around, the papers gripped in my hand. “I thought you were in Washington, D.C., when Jodi disappeared.”

  He pushed his glasses up and smiled. “Here, let me see. The dates are probably from the year before. You know how those receipts get smudged.” He reached out.

  I pulled my hand back. “No. They’re not from last year.” I scanned the one from the restaurant and found the time stamp. Five-thirty in the evening.

  He’d been smiling, but when I didn’t hand him the papers, he lunged forward and I skipped back, putting the worktable between us. Atlanta wasn’t that far away. He could have been back in North Dawkins in a little over an hour.

  “Ellie. I need to see those papers. Hand them over.”

  “No.” I tried to gauge the distance to the door without moving my head. I was closer, but I didn’t want to turn my back on him. “Why did you say you were in D.C.?”

  “I’m sure you’re mistaken about those dates.” His voice cracked and he cleared his throat. “Let me see them.”

  I was sure if I let him see them, they’d be shredded before I got out the door. We were both poised and tense. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other and saw him make a mirroring move. My heart was thundering right now. I wasn’t up for this kind of cardiac workout.

  A few thoughts flashed through my mind, but I discarded them as quickly as they came. I could tell from his raspy breathing that there was no way he was going to be reasonable and let me hand the receipts over to Detective Waraday.

  Scott lunged one way and I skittered in the opposite direction. Now I was back on the far side of the door. I leaned forward and gripped the worktable. “Scott, please…”

  “No. You don’t understand and I can’t explain it right now. I need those. If you hand them to me, you can go home, and I’ll take care of it.”

  Right. I bet he’d take care of it. But it wasn’t worth it for me to do anything stupid here. I had a husband and two kids who needed me. The credit card companies would have records of the charges. It would make more sense to hand over the papers and get out of here.

  If he’d let me leave.

  I swallowed and glanced at the door. I gripped the table hard. It shifted a bit and I was so hyperaware of even the tiniest movements that I picked up on it.

  “Okay,” I said, slowly extending the papers over the worktable. “I’ll hand these to you. Then I’m walking out of here.”

  He lunged for them. I jerked the papers back wi
th one hand and shoved the worktable at him with my other hand. The edge caught him in the midsection and he folded over like a piece of paper as the air went out of him.

  I flew to the door, gripped the frame to help me swing toward the front door of the office, and ran into someone so hard that I went sprawling. A cascade of cold, sticky liquid rained down on me.

  “What the blazes is going on here?” Candy demanded. She was still standing—she was pretty solid. Our impact had only set her dangly earrings swinging. She still gripped her Coke can, but a trail of dark liquid covered her shoulder.

  I checked the papers. There were a few tiny, dark spots from the liquid, but all the relevant bits of info were still readable. I scrambled to my feet, shaking off the trail of Coke that fizzed along my arm. She glanced in the storage room where Scott was slowly standing up, but still gasping for air. “What did you do to him? Did he file something in the wrong place?” She turned around and said to someone behind her, “Well, I don’t know if he’ll be able to talk, but he’s definitely in.”

  Behind her I saw Detective Waraday and a deputy. I thrust the papers in Waraday’s direction. His eyebrows shot up as I said, “Here. The date—January eighth.” I was still a little winded. But I managed to get the basic facts across to him. As I described what I’d found and how Scott had reacted, Waraday’s eyebrows descended into a scowl. “You wait out here with Candy.”

  The deputy shuffled Candy and me into the small reception area, then returned to Scott’s office and closed the door. “Well. That was interesting,” Candy said. She tossed her almost empty Coke can in the trash and produced a container of baby wipes from one of her desk drawers.

  “Why is Waraday here?” I asked.

  She stopped patting her blouse and looked up. “You heard the news this morning? That they found Jodi?”

  When I nodded, she said, “Her body was found on that lot Scott owns in Magnolia Estates.”

  I stopped scrubbing and dropped onto one of the hard plastic chairs across from her desk. “You’ve got to be kidding.” She’d been found in my neighborhood?

  “Sadly, no, I’m not kidding. I wish I was.” She pulled out a pack of gum. “Want a piece?”

  I shook my head. “How about some chocolate instead?” I said, digging into the pocket of my fleece vest for Hershey’s Kisses. We were silent for a few seconds, munching on chocolate; then she said, “He always did act funny when that weekend came up.”

  “Scott?”

  “Yeah. Touchy. He’d change the subject lickety-split.”

  “That’s absurd and you know it, Dave.” Despite the closed door, Scott’s raised voice carried easily through the thin walls.

  We could hear Waraday’s calm reply, too. “You know I have to ask you.”

  I raised my eyebrows at Candy. “Dave?”

  “They play on a basketball team.”

  So they were friends. How seriously would Waraday investigate him? He certainly hadn’t checked out Scott’s original alibi very well.

  “Okay, here’s the deal,” Scott said. “I had a job interview at Sprinkle, the big base in Atlanta.”

  I decided he must be pacing, because the volume of his words fell into a pattern. They were distinct for a few seconds, then faded.

  “I didn’t want anyone here to know about it, so I told everyone I was going to D.C.”

  “Candy didn’t see your itinerary? Or have a number of where to reach you?”

  “No, I make my own travel arrangements and she’s got my cell, if she needs me.”

  “Why?” Waraday’s voice was faint. I could hardly hear it.

  “You know how it is. These jobs don’t come along very often and Sprinkle is bigger than Taylor. It would’ve been a good career move for me. But I didn’t want to jeopardize what I had here either, in case I didn’t get the job, which was exactly how it worked out.”

  “So take me through that weekend.”

  “There’s nothing to take you through,” Scott said. He must have been close to the door, because his impatient tone was easy to hear. “I went up to Atlanta on Friday night, met with their board Saturday morning, and drove back Saturday afternoon. I showed up to work on Monday like normal.”

  “So I’ll be able to verify your whereabouts for part of Saturday? You have the names of the people you met with?”

  “Of course.”

  “What about Friday night?” Waraday asked. “Can anyone verify you were in Atlanta all Friday night?”

  “No! I was in my hotel room from nine until seven the next morning.”

  “Don’t get sharp with me. I have to ask you these questions.”

  After a short silence, Scott’s voice shifted to a subdued tone. “I know.”

  “So, what did you do when you got back?”

  “I opened the mail and watched football. You know, normal stuff.”

  “Did you see Jodi?”

  “No.”

  “Why did you lie earlier?”

  There was a long pause. I had to strain to hear Scott’s next words. “Because I didn’t get the job in Atlanta and I couldn’t let the board here know I wasn’t completely up-front with them. One of the reasons they hired me was that I agreed to commit to staying here at least three years. They’ve had a problem keeping people in the position. I wanted to tell you, but since Jodi was missing and I’d had that disagreement with her, I couldn’t.”

  “How’d you do it?” Waraday’s voice was so soft. Candy and I exchanged looks.

  “Do it? Do what? I didn’t do anything to Jodi.”

  “Then how did you fake your alibi in D.C.?”

  “Oh, that wasn’t hard. I had a couple of receipts from a trip I’d taken up there the month before. A little work with the scanner and I had new dates on the receipts. Then I reported that my credit card was stolen two days before I went to Atlanta, so I could say the charges weren’t mine. I figured you trusted me and that you wouldn’t look into it too closely.”

  “My mistake.” Waraday’s voice was still quiet, but it had such an edge to it that I was glad I wasn’t in the room with them.

  “Dave, I had to do it. Surely, you can see that. STAND would find out I’d lied and then I’d be a suspect in a missing persons case on top of that.”

  “Well, you should have told me because it’s only going to be worse. Now STAND’s board is going to know you lied and you’re a suspect in a murder investigation.”

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  I pulled into the parking lot of the church where Livvy went to Mother’s Day Out. It was hard to comprehend that I’d dropped her off only a few hours ago.

  I’d spent the drive thinking about Scott. When Waraday walked him out to the sheriff’s car, Waraday’s face had been set, but Scott had looked like many of the kids on the first day of Mother’s Day Out, confused and scared. I’d looked at Candy and said, “Do you think he did it?” After all, she’d worked with him since he’d moved to North Dawkins. She probably knew him better than anyone else around here.

  Her earrings slapped against her cheeks. “No. He’d never hurt anyone. He couldn’t even kill the mouse that got caught half in and half out of the trap in the storage room. I had to take care of that.”

  Yuck. I wasn’t sure if it was a good thing or not that I hadn’t known about the mouse while I was digging around in the boxes and filing cabinets. Before I stepped out of the car, I remembered I wanted to call Colleen, so I grabbed my phone. I knew once I walked in the door at home that all those little details of taking care of the kids and the house would take over and then before I knew it, it would be ten o’clock at night. Colleen picked up and I identified myself, then said I’d seen the news. “How are you doing?”

  “Okay, I guess. I’m holding myself together so I can be there for Nita and Gerald.”

  “Is there anything I can do for Nita or you?” I asked.

  “She already has all the food she needs and there’s not much else we can do now. I think she’d appreciate a call in a fe
w days, maybe after the funeral. Just check on her and Gerald.”

  I closed my eyes and swallowed. “Of course, I can do that. Let me know if you need anything, anything at all.”

  “Sure.” Her voice became slightly more animated. “I knew Scott was involved somehow. Detective Waraday is going to have to eat crow when I see him next time.”

  “Well, I don’t think Waraday is arresting him yet,” I said cautiously. Of course, it might not be long because the forensic team had arrived to search STAND’s office as I was leaving. They were probably searching Scott’s home, too.

  “Yes, but Jodi was buried on his lot.”

  “I know, but wouldn’t it be stupid for him to put her body there?” It was like an arrow pointing to him as the murderer.

  “Or else he’s smart enough to know that it would look like a stupid thing to do and people will assume, like you just did, that it means he wasn’t involved.”

  It took me a second to work out Colleen’s convoluted logic, but I had to admit that it made sense in a twisted sort of way. The call-waiting on my phone beeped and I said good-bye to Colleen and switched over to the other call, a number I didn’t recognize.

  “Hi, Ellie. This is Topaz. Just wanted to let you know I’ll be there on Friday. Can I bring anything?”

  Friday? Oh, right. I was hosting a party for over fifty people in four days. “Great!” I said brightly. “No, I think we’ve got everything covered.”

  I dug out my list for the promotion party. I smoothed the wrinkles out of the page and read over it. Lots to do. Time to get focused. At least concentrating on the party would give me something to do instead of dwelling on the sad news about Jodi.

  I shoved the screen door to the back porch open with my hip, then backed through, carrying an ice chest. I stopped short on the patio. “What is that?”

  Mitch stood over a silver tube perched on a stand. It looked a bit like a rocket. A cardboard box, bits of Styrofoam, and plastic littered the lawn and patio around him. “Turkey fryer.”

  “Why do we have a turkey fryer?”