We sat in Canoe Restaurant’s lower room, where a wall of windows exposes a lawn sloping down to the western bank of the Chattahoochee River. At this time of year, the brilliant azaleas and forsythia were dormant, but pervasive English ivy and holly bushes kept the view green and lush. Beyond the foliage, the river was running high. If the rain continued, the yard and Canoe’s patio might be under water, and not for the first time. The spring inundation was one of the hazards of a riverside establishment.
I turned away from the view of the roiling water to see four light brown eyes watching me.
“We actually do have something to ask you,” said Maribelle.
“Okay,” I said. “Go ahead, but remember, I’m not practicing law anymore, if that’s where this is going.” I was forever telling friends that I couldn’t advise them on how to get their nephew out of the Atlanta jail, sue their neighbour because his dog barked at all hours, or, god forbid, help them file for divorce.
“It’s not legal advice, exactly,” said Druyce.
That was a mercy. Maybe this was something that required only a sympathetic ear over an extended meal. “What, then?” I asked.
Maribelle touched my arm to regain my attention. “It’s about Junior,” she said, and then fell silent.
“Your nephew, Richard Mendenhall, Jr.,” Flynn prompted her.
“Yes.”
“And his father, Richard Sr., would be your brother?” I asked, trying to clarify the family tree.
“He was, yes,” said Maribelle. “Richard Senior died a long time ago, but we’ve called our nephew Richard, ‘Junior.’ so long, we just kept saying it.”
I wasn’t surprised they had followed that tradition. Every Southern family has its share of “Juniors,” “Treys,” and “Trips,” nicknames borne since toddlerhood by middle-aged men whose progenitors have been in the grave for decades.
“Junior married a woman a few years ago,” said Druyce with a snort. “Trash.”
“Druyce,” Maribelle said, her voice warning her sister to hush. “We went to the wedding. You could just tell what she was, the way she acted at the reception.”
What social solecism had their nephew’s bride committed? Maybe gotten drunk in front of too many Southern Baptists or danced a bit too provocatively with a man who was not the bridegroom. Maribelle was not forthcoming, and I was left speculating on what the wedding high jinks had to do with this luncheon party.
“We thought, well, you know, it was none of our business, really,” Druyce said, waggling her head.
“That’s right,” Maribelle said. “None of our business.”
The sisters sat with their hands clasped in their laps, seemingly unable to go on. I turned to Flynn for enlightenment.
“Richard Jr. passed away a few years ago,” Flynn said.
“Is there a problem about his estate?” I asked. “I’m not sure how much I can help, but I could read the will and explain to you what I think it intends.”
“No, no. That’s not it,” Maribelle said. “Flynn told us all about how you figured out who really killed that real estate developer last summer.”
I had injected myself into that murder investigation only because the police thought my old friend, Theo Humphries, had killed the man with whom she was having an affair. I gave Flynn a quelling glare.
He shrugged. “Well, you did solve the case. I wasn’t exaggerating.”
Glancing around the restaurant to assure herself that no one was standing nearby, Druyce leaned forward and said, “We want your help. We think Junior was murdered by his wife.”
I couldn’t stop myself. I had to ask. “What makes you think so?”
“Because she’s done it again,” said Maribelle.
Death with Sweet Tea, the second in the Ann Aubrey series, available in May 2022.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I’m grateful to members of two writing groups with very different styles who helped me write, revise, and finish this story. Rixey Jones and Greer Tirrell, fellow Atlantans and founding members of HHWG, heard and critiqued my earliest attempts to write a mystery about Ann Audrey and her friends. The group encouraged me and pounced on my mistakes about Southern food, speech, manners, and mores. Their friendly shredding always led to a better scene. Thank y’all. A thousand miles away, my northern Michigan writers group of Aaron Stander, Peter Marabell, and Marietta Hamady were pushy, picky, and demanded a publishable manuscript. They set a regular schedule and rarely canceled, even in the direst days of a Michigan winter; the group’s high standards and consistency gave me the structure that I needed. Many thanks for your gentle edits, your support, and for hanging with me to the finish line. To my editor Susanne Dunlap, who nudged me to reveal more of the inner Ann Audrey and tighten the plot, brava, and bushels of gratitude for all your hard work.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
This book takes place in the late 1990s, and some of the settings, in particular on Sea Island and St. Simons, are long gone. Readers familiar with Sea Island only after it was redeveloped in the first decade of the twenty-first century may not recognize my descriptions of the old Cloister Hotel or the casual Beach Club that sat across the street. Southern Soul didn’t open until 2006. I fudged the timeline to establish it in the late 1990s, as I couldn’t imagine St. Simons without that bastion of barbecue. In Atlanta, the dreary and cavernous former Sears building that once housed a division of the Atlanta Police Department is now the bustling Ponce City Market.
If you have memories of special places in Atlanta and Sea Island during the late 1990s and early aughts, I’d love to know about them, along with your comments about Ann Audrey, Theo, and Flynn. Please email me at [email protected]. I look forward to hearing from you.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Following her mother’s lead, Mississippi native Winnie Simpson was an avid murder mystery reader beginning in the third grade, starting with Nancy Drew and moving through the classics of British, American, and international crime. Winnie studied music at Duke University, later receiving an MFA in music at SUNY Buffalo, where she worked as an arts administrator before throwing it all over in order to make a decent living. After finishing law school at Emory University, she became a partner in a large firm in Atlanta, where her practice focused mainly on securities litigation. Retiring early, Winnie relocated to Northern Michigan, where she lives in a renovated nineteenth-century building that served as a former Michigan State Asylum, an address considered appropriate by her friends. For more than a decade, she has taken writing classes and participated in writing groups. She is fond of opera, hiking, cycling, and Duke basketball, most seasons. Winnie is currently working on the second book in the Ann Audrey series, Death with Sweet Tea. Follow her at winniesimpson.com.
Copyright © 2021 by Winnie Simpson
All world rights reserved
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior consent of the publisher.
Readers are encouraged to go to www.MissionPointPress.com to contact the author or to find information on how to buy this book in bulk at a discounted rate.
Published by Mission Point Press 2554 Chandler Rd.Traverse City, MI 49696 (231) 421-9513
www.MissionPointPress.com
ISBN: 978-1-954786-03-5 Library of Congress Control Number: 2021907438
Printed in the United States of America
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