Powdered Peril

by Jessica Beck

  “It’s a deal,” I said as Momma came out onto the porch.

  “Are you two going to sit out there all day, or are you planning to come inside at some point? We’ve got company.”

  “We’re coming,” I called out, and Grace and I soon joined her.

  “What were you two nattering on about?” she asked as we approached.

  “You know us,” I said with a grin. “What won’t we talk about?”

  Momma had no trouble reading me, so she had to know that I was avoiding her question intentionally. She decided to accept that as she stepped aside. “Well, go on in. They’re waiting for you.”

  We walked in the door, and I saw that Momma had outdone herself. She must have emptied the freezer entirely, putting out a spread that would have been fitting for a state visit from the president. There were chicken, ham, meat loaf, green beans, fresh mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and three kinds of pie.

  “Who is going to eat all of this?” I asked, amazed by the splendor myself.

  “Well, I can’t handle all of it,” George said with a grin, “but I’ll do my best to take more than my fair share.” He studied us, each in turn, and then asked, “How are you two doing?”

  “A little sore,” I answered for both of us, “but we’re making a remarkable recovery.”

  “That’s what I told them before.” Emma turned back to me and asked, “And the guy just hit you out of the blue?”

  I saw that Momma was about to reply when I stepped on her next line. “What can I say? The weather was the worst I’ve ever seen it, and no one should have been out on the highway, including us. They call them accidents for a reason.”

  Momma looked cryptically at me, and I nodded ever so slightly. She just shrugged, but I knew she’d caught on. “May I fix you both plates?” she asked.

  “I think I’ll wait a bit,” I said.

  “Suzanne, you have to eat something,” Momma said, and I knew that there was no use refusing her. Besides, it did look awfully good, and I hadn’t had that big a breakfast, well, not in the scheme of things. It was amazing how adept I’d grown at lying to myself when good food was involved.

  I nodded as I took a plate, and Grace followed suit. We both tried to limit our portions, but soon enough, they were both full.

  “George, you and Emma need to grab some plates.”

  “We’re right behind you,” George said, handing one to Emma before he took a plate for himself.

  “You didn’t have to wait for us, you know,” I said.

  Momma’s cheeks flushed just a little.

  I asked her, “Seriously? You wouldn’t let them eat until we showed up?”

  “Of course I would,” she said. “I did my best to force plates on both of them, but they refused to take a bite until you two were back. You have better friends than you realize, Suzanne.”

  “Oh, believe me; I know just how good they really are.” I turned to them both, and said, “Well, we’re here now. Dive in.”

  “You don’t have to tell me twice,” George said, and then started heaping his plate with food. Emma took a much more conservative approach, but like us, she quickly added enough to it to visibly fill her plate.

  “Your mother thinks I’m too skinny,” Emma said.

  “Actually, what I really said was that you could use another pound or two,” Momma corrected.

  “You can have a few of mine if you’d like,” I said with a grin.

  Momma didn’t even shush me for it, a sign that showed she had been worried about me indeed. “I think you’re perfect just the way you are,” I said. “What do you think, George? Doesn’t Emma have a cute figure?”

  He looked up from his meat loaf, a bite on his fork suddenly hovering in the air in front of his face. “What? Er, sure, I don’t know, what am I supposed to say when someone asks you a question like that?”

  I laughed. “Well, one option is that you don’t have to answer the question.”

  “Suzanne,” Emma said with a laugh, “you are a wicked, wicked woman.”

  “What can I say? I do what I can.”

  After we’d all started eating, George asked, “I’ve been wondering about something. Did you even see the guy before he hit you?”

  “I’m sure they don’t want to talk about the accident,” Momma scolded. Funny, it worked better on George than it ever had with me. I was probably just used to it from all of my exposure over the years.

  “We don’t mind,” I said. I might as well start getting used to the story I was about to tell. “Honestly, at first it felt deliberate when that truck rammed into us, but with the rain and hail covering the road, it’s a miracle he kept from hitting us as long as he managed it. I’m sure it wasn’t intentional.”

  “Then it was a man?” George asked. It was easy to see the cop that was still inside there, just waiting to be let off the leash.

  “The rain and hail were coming down strong, and the windshield was tinted pretty dark,” I admitted. “Honestly, I have no idea who it was.”

  “Well, whoever did it should be roasted over a slow fire. I can’t believe they just left you like that.”

  “They probably just panicked,” I said. “Help came along soon enough, and we’re both fine. That’s really all that matters. George, is there anything new with you?”

  “No, not off the top of my head,” he answered, looking a little quizzically at me. “Why do you ask?”

  “I just heard that there were a few women in town who had their sights set on you, and I was wondering if any of them had hit the target yet.” I couldn’t hide my grin as I said it, and I saw the other women at the table smiling covertly as well.

  He dismissed the conjecture with a wave of his hand. “Suzanne, don’t listen to rumors around April Springs. Not a single one of them has ever been right, and we all know it.”

  “Maybe so,” I said, “but they’re fun to speculate about, aren’t they?”

  “Not for me. I have enough trouble keeping up with what’s actually going on in this crazy little Southern town of ours without adding nuance and innuendo into the mix.” He turned to Momma and said, “By the way, I’ve never properly thanked you for organizing that write-in campaign.”

  “I assure you, no thanks are welcome,” Momma said.

  “You’ve got that right,” George said with a grin. “You were clearly smarter than I was. At least you managed to back out before you were elected.”

  “George,” my mother said, “that’s because I was ill-suited for the job, and I knew it. The main reason I was running was to throw Cam Hamilton out of office. Once he was no longer in the picture, I realized that someone more qualified than I was deserved to be at the helm.”

  “And how exactly did my name come to mind?”

  She smiled. “What can I say? I hate to see a valuable resource wasted when the town could benefit.”

  “Hey, I had a full and productive life before I became mayor,” he insisted.

  I tapped his arm. “Of course you did, but just look at how much good you’re doing now.”

  He put another bite of meat loaf on his fork, but didn’t eat it just yet. “Does that mean you’re telling me that you don’t need me to help you investigate Peter Morgan’s murder?”

  “I wouldn’t say that we don’t need you, but we’re trying our best to manage without you.”

  He looked into my eyes. “You’re not trying to con me, Suzanne, are you?”

  “No, sir. I’m telling the absolute truth.”

  He nodded once, accepted the statement, and then popped the bite of meat loaf into his mouth. I was about to say something to Emma when someone rang the front door.

  “I’ll get it,” I said, easing myself up from my chair.

  “Suzanne, stay right where you are. You need to rest,” Momma said.

  “The only way I’m going to get rid of this stiffness is by moving around,” I said. “I’ll be right back. Don’t worry.”

  I made it to the door, wondering which on
e of my friends was taking time out of her day to wish Grace and me well.

  Only it wasn’t exactly a friendly face I found when I opened the door.

  It was Henry Lincoln, and what’s more, he had two bouquets of flowers with him.

  This was going to be interesting, no doubt about it.

  * * *

  “Hello, Henry. We’re having a buffet in the dining room, if you’d like to join us,” I said in my most gracious Southern accent.

  He thrust the flowers at me, and then took two steps back. “Actually, I was hoping to get a minute alone with you, but if you’ve got company, we can do this later.”

  I put the bouquets on the porch swing and turned to him and said, “Nonsense. This is fine. We can speak out here.” There was no way Lincoln was getting away from me before he had a chance to talk.

  He shrugged, and then looked a little uncomfortable as he said, “Suzanne, first off, I’m truly sorry about the accident.”

  “You don’t happen to have a white truck with a tinted windshield, do you?” I asked with a smile.

  “What? No, of course not. Why do you ask?”

  “Just making conversation,” I said. “So, what would you like to talk about?”

  He shrugged, accepting my desire to get to the point, whatever it might be. “When I heard what happened, I felt pretty mulish not giving you my alibi for the night of the murder. I didn’t want to drag the woman I was with into it, but you have a right to know.”

  “Have you told the police yet?” I asked, not sure that it was the right thing to say for my investigation, but knowing that it was important, nonetheless.

  “I just left the police station,” Henry admitted. “Anyway, I spoke with her this morning and got her permission to tell you. She said her reputation could take the hit, and if it couldn’t, she’d find some way to live with it.”

  “I’ll do my best to keep it quiet, but I can’t promise something like that.”

  “She understands that.”

  “Then I’m listening. Who was she?” A dozen names went through my mind in an instant, but when he told me his paramour’s name, it was all I could do to keep my jaw from dropping.

  “Rose White,” he admitted. “I know, she’s a little young for me, but there’s something about that woman that makes me feel alive.”

  “Were you at her place all night, or yours?” I asked.

  “As a matter of fact, we were in Raleigh at the Hilton by the interstate. Why?”

  “Just curious,” I said. So, if Henry’s story checked out, he’d just eliminated himself as a suspect, and Rose White as well. I wasn’t finished with him, though. “How did you two happen to meet?”

  “That’s an odd thing. Peter introduced us, if you can believe that,” Henry said. “We both ran into her in Union Square one day, and I got her number. Don’t worry, a dozen folks must have seen us in Raleigh together, including Denton Wicks from Copper Mill. There’s a mayor that anyone would believe. We had a late dinner and caught a show with Denton and his wife, Millie, until midnight, and then I was at the pool when it opened at five A.M. to swim my laps, and I talked Rose into going with me to keep me company on the edge of the pool.”

  If that was true, neither Henry nor Rose would have been able to get back to April Springs, find and then kill Peter, and still make it back in time for his swim.

  “Thanks for confiding in me,” I said.

  “Well,” he said, “I just thought that given what happened, you had a right to know.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  He started to leave, and then hesitated. “You know, I really do hope you find the creep who killed Peter. Nobody deserves to get struck down like a rabid dog like that.”

  “I didn’t think you were all that fond of him, Henry.”

  “I wasn’t, but that’s beside the point,” he said. “Now that he’s gone, there’s one question that I can’t seem to stop thinking about.”

  “Who killed him?” I asked.

  “More like how am I ever going to get my money back now?”

  I thought about the three thousand dollars that Grace and I were still holding that we’d found in Peter’s apartment, but I wasn’t the slightest bit tempted to turn it over to Henry. It wasn’t my responsibility, after all, and I’d make Grace turn it over to Bryan as soon as the murder investigation was over. If he hadn’t killed his own brother, at any rate.

  * * *

  “Who was that? Henry Lincoln?” Momma asked as she came out on the porch when the man drove away.

  “If you know the answer, why do you ask the question?” I asked her with a grin.

  Momma glanced down at the flowers. “And he brought gifts as well? That’s certainly out of character for him.”

  “He said he heard about the accident,” I admitted.

  “Is that the only reason he was here?” Momma asked.

  “You’re a suspicious person, you know that, don’t you?”

  “What can I say? I get it from my daughter,” she answered without missing a beat.

  “I believe that’s supposed to be the other way around,” I said.

  “No matter. What did he want?”

  I knew it was futile holding out on her. “It turns out that he was with Rose White in Raleigh the night before and morning of the murder, and he’s got some pretty reliable witnesses to back him up.”

  Momma shook her head. “Why am I not surprised?”

  “That he had an alibi?”

  “No, that he was with a woman. I often suspected that’s why he and Peter got along so well, up until the end. They were both fond of the ladies.”

  “Well, at least now I can start marking names off my list, since he was with another suspect of ours.”

  “How many are left, then?” Momma asked.

  I thought about it, and then ticked them off on my fingers as I named them. “It’s not a short one. We’ve still got Leah Gentry, Kaye Belson, Bryan Morgan, and as much as I hate to admit it, my new assistant, Nan.”

  “You really think Nan Winters could have done it?” Momma asked as George, Emma, and Grace joined us outside.

  “Think who did what?” Emma asked.

  “We were just wondering if Mrs. Orange used a slingshot in the tree house,” I said with a smile. There was no way I was going to let myself get roped into that particular conversation.

  “None of those things are from the game Clue,” George said.

  “You always were a good detective,” I said as I patted his chest. “I can’t slip anything past you.”

  “That means you’re not going to tell us, doesn’t it?” Emma asked.

  “Wow, hanging around me all this time really taught you to read me pretty well, didn’t it?” I asked as I smiled at my friend.

  “Well, we’re off,” George said. “Emma’s got some unpacking to do, and I have a meeting with the county planner in ten minutes.”

  “You two have all of the fun, don’t you?” I asked as I hugged and kissed them in turn, Grace and I trading off our thanks. “We appreciate you coming by.”

  “More than you even realize,” Momma added. “George was telling us that to keep from overwhelming you with visitors, everyone else is waiting at city hall for his report.”

  “Honestly?” I asked.

  “I wouldn’t lie to you.”

  “And Dad’s going to run a follow-up article tomorrow, with your permission, of course,” Emma said. “Folks want to know how you two are doing.”

  I thought about refusing the idea of an article, but then I realized that Ray would run something anyway, so why not let him get his facts from Emma? At least she knew the truth, no matter what her father ended up doing with it.

  “Thanks double, then,” I said.

  * * *

  After they were gone, Grace said, “That might work on them, but I want the truth. What happened when you and Henry Lincoln were out here?”

  “You two have a chat about it,” Momma said. “I’m going to sta
rt cleaning up.”

  “We’ll be inside in a sec,” I said.

  “Take your time. You both need to discuss what you just learned.”

  After Momma was back inside, I brought Grace up to speed about what Henry Lincoln had told me, and she nodded as I finished.

  “I believe it’s true,” Grace said.

  “Based on what? Do you think Henry would ever be with Rose?”

  “He hit on me once,” Grace admitted, “so yes, I believe it.”

  “Did you tell Peter about it? What did he do?”

  “Nothing,” Grace said. “I’m not sure he even believed me at the time.”

  “He was a real prince, wasn’t he,” I said, forgetting for a second how tied in with Peter Grace had been. “Hey, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “No matter what he was like at the end, he deserved better than he got.”

  I hugged her lightly. “Funny, even Henry Lincoln just said the same thing. Grace, I promise you that we’re going to do our best to see that he gets it. Momma asked me where our suspect list was now, and I was happy to tell her that it had narrowed considerably.”

  Grace nodded. “Kaye, Bryan, and Leah are the only ones who are left. That’s not bad.”

  “Don’t forget Nan,” I said.

  “Do you honestly believe that your new helper is a killer?”

  “Hey, she has ties with just about everyone involved in this case,” I reminded her, “and I know she’s been holding out on me. Tomorrow, I’m going to press her until she tells me the truth.”

  “What if she quits?”

  I just shrugged. “I’ll worry about that if it happens.”

  “Besides, you’ve always got Emma, now that she’s back in town.”

  “That’s not why I’m going to press her, Grace. I need her to tell me the truth, especially if we’re going to keep working together. If I can’t trust the woman, I can’t have her helping run the donut shop. It’s as simple as that.”

  “I know. So, if you’re going to talk to her tomorrow morning, we only have three folks left on our list. Any ideas about where to start?”