Deadly Southern Charm

by Mary Burton

  They stood in Roydon’s study. “You’re going to get rid of that guitar? The one signed by Johnny Cash. At a garage sale. It’s probably worth a lot of money,” Sarah said. Even though the area was rural, people would flock to this garage sale once word got out.

  “I don’t need the money. I need revenge. Hmm, maybe that should be my next song. What do you think?”

  Carol and Sarah looked at each other. “It sounds good?” Carol’s voice went up on the word “good.”

  “You’re sure Roydon doesn’t want any of this stuff?” Sarah asked again. Roydon had walked away not only from his family, but everything else in his life. It didn’t make sense, even after June had shown Sarah the emails from Roydon saying he didn’t want any of it.

  That night they sat around the kitchen island. One that was so big it really could be an island.

  “I’m writing a new song,” June said.

  Sarah thought that was a good sign. Anything to get June’s mind off the nanny. “Tell us about it.”

  “It’s called ‘You Made My Halo Crack.’ It’s a song of love, betrayal, and revenge.”

  Sarah and Carol exchanged glances. “It must be therapeutic,” Carol said.

  “Damn right. It’s perfect for Carrie Underwood. She loves a good revenge song.”

  “I just don’t get it,” Sarah said. “Roydon’s always been so crazy for you.”

  “Yeah, well now he’s just crazy. Maybe that would be a good song ‘Now He’s Just Crazy.’”

  “Are you sure?” Carol asked.

  “After he left I found a burner phone in his study. Full of torrid text messages.”

  This was hard to ask, but something nagged at Sarah. A burner phone carelessly left out. Roydon didn’t want any of his things. It just didn’t add up. “Were there any, uh, personal photos?”

  “No, but the messages said it all.”

  “When’s the last time you talked to him?” Sarah asked.

  “I haven’t. We are corresponding through email.”

  Sarah thought that anyone could send an email. “And when’s the last time he talked to the kids?”

  Tears spilled out of June’s eyes. The first full on tears Sarah had seen since they’d arrived. Before this she’d been pissed. Her lip quivered. “He hasn’t.” The tears overflowed, followed by sobs, and a gut-wrenching moan.

  Carol glared at Sarah across the island. “I’m sorry, June.” Sarah reached over and patted her hand.

  A “yoo-hoo” from the back door saved them. A redhead with big hair and too much makeup walked in and set a bottle of bourbon in the middle of the isle. “Looks like y’all need some of this.”

  “Hey, Ella Mae,” June said, “Let me grab some glasses.”

  “I’ll get them for you,” Ella Mae sashayed over to a cabinet and grabbed four on-the-rocks glasses.

  They’d met Ella Mae yesterday when they arrived. She’d been “keeping company,” as she said, with June like someone had died. Ella Mae was June’s closest neighbor. You could see her house on a crest of a hill across the way.

  Ella Mae splashed bourbon into four glasses giving June a heavy pour. Bourbon wasn’t Sarah’s favorite, but she put on her game face. She’d already made June cry once and didn’t want to do it again. After they clinked glasses, Sarah knocked back a tiny bit of the bourbon.

  “Now, June honey, why on earth are you crying?” Ella Mae asked. “Roydon ain’t worth crying over.”

  “You’re right, Ella Mae. You always have been.” She took another large swallow, intercepting the raised-eyebrows look Carol and Sarah exchanged. “Ella Mae’s my best friend ever since I moved here.”

  Sarah had heard all about Ella Mae over the years. She’d greeted June, delighted to have a new neighbor close to her age. They had their babies at about the same time, took care of each other, went horseback riding together, and shared their secrets. June was lucky to have her.

  “Ella Mae told me early on that Roydon had a wandering eye. She wasn’t the only one around here that warned me Roydon fell hard and left easy. Hey, that would make a good song.”

  “But you are the only one he married,” Carol said.

  “And you stayed married a long time,” Sarah added.

  June’s eyes watered again and Ella Mae gave Sarah a ‘what the hell’ look.

  “Hey, June do you remember the time…” Sarah started off with a tale about a night that Carol, June, and she had decided a late-night dip in Monterey Bay was a good idea—until the sheriff’s deputy arrived.

  “Remember how June buckled her knees. That young deputy almost had a heart attack trying to catch June before she hit the sand?” Carol said.

  “Well, he let us go, didn’t he?” June said.

  “After he got your number,” Sarah added.

  They spent the rest of the evening drinking bourbon and laughing over crazy things they did when they were young. It was like a tonic.

  Sarah walked Ella Mae to the door as Carol and June said their goodnights and went upstairs. “Keep June out of the nanny’s room if you can,” Ella Mae said.

  “Why?”

  Ella Mae shuddered. “She was obsessed with Roydon. There’s pictures of him plastered everywhere. I went up there to search for clues of their whereabouts right after they first took off.” Ella Mae shook her head. “It’s bad. I plan to clear it out for June but haven’t been able to sneak back over. Maybe you can do it and save June from seeing it.”

  * * * *

  Sarah went up to Roydon’s study. She’d been in here on a past visit, and it hadn’t changed much. The walls were lined with photos of June and the kids. Yes, there were also some mementos of his singing career, but the room was more homage to his family than anything else. Old maps lined one wall. Why would a man who had a room like this run off with the nanny?

  Sarah knew celebrity marriages weren’t easy and lord knows Roydon had his faults. He had a big ego, but when it came to June and the kids, he had always put them first. Roydon hadn’t had a big hit in five years, hadn’t been nominated for an award for six. Did the nanny stroke his ego and fill something empty in him? Maybe Sarah could slow this whole garage sale thing down until she had more answers or until Roydon came to his senses.

  Sarah had one more stop before she headed to bed. She grabbed keys off the hook by the back door and climbed the steps to the apartment above the garage where the nanny had lived. Seconds later she stood in the middle of the nanny’s room. Holy crap. Sarah turned in a slow circle of the spacious studio apartment. Almost every inch of wall space was posters or framed pictures of Roydon. Some had been printed out and some had June cut out. Others were pictures of the nanny laughing with the kids and Roydon. Pictures that June must have taken.

  The nanny was cute but not a stunner. She wasn’t the young ingénue that Sarah had expected. She was just on the far side of plump, but it suited her. She did have dark eyes, gorgeous thick hair, and lush lips. Dimples lent her face a happy look. But the way she’d betrayed June and the kids meant her heart must be darker than mountain shadows.

  Sarah started going through the room methodically—a skill she’d learned doing garage sales. Halfway through, she realized she was too tired to finish. So groggy that she wouldn’t know if she’d found anything important. She decided to call it a night.

  As Sarah left the nanny’s room, she wondered if June had known just how obsessed the nanny had been with Roydon. It was scary, and it left Sarah wondering if all was as it seemed, or if something else was at play here. The idea that Roydon would run off with the obsessed nanny didn’t sit well. Sarah crept back to her own room, plagued by questions. Questions she needed to ask June but was hesitant to. June might be full of bravado, but Sarah knew she was fragile. Who wouldn’t be under the circumstances?

  * * * *

  The next morning Carol was sitting alone at the big island when Sarah walked into the kitchen, grabbed a cup, and poured coffee. A plate of croissants sat in the middle of the island. She snagged
one and put it on a small plate. Next to Carol was an empty coffee mug with June’s favorite shade of lipstick on the rim. A croissant sat on a plate beside it, crumbled to pieces, but not eaten.

  “Where’s June?” Sarah asked.

  “She and Ella Mae took the horses out for a morning ride,” Carol said.

  “I’m glad she’s keeping up some routine. Her days must be pretty empty without Roydon and the kids here.”

  Carol nodded. She had a husband and kids of her own.

  “Carol, I think something is off here.”

  “No kidding. Roydon’s a dick.”

  “That’s not what I mean. I’m starting to wonder if he left on his own.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Don’t you think it’s strange that no one has heard from him except through emails?”

  Carol shrugged. “Not especially.”

  “He loved June. And even if he left her, I can’t imagine him cutting the kids out of his life.”

  Carol frowned. “Roydon was always crazy about them.” Carol chewed her croissant while she puzzled over what Sarah had just said. “What’s your point?”

  “I’m not sure, but what if he didn’t leave voluntarily. What if the nanny kidnapped him?” Sarah sipped her coffee watching Carol over the rim of the cup.

  Her face turned a pasty color. “What even gave you that idea?”

  “Come with me. You need to see the nanny’s room. It’s disturbing.”

  Sarah flung the door open and let Carol go in first. Carol stood in the middle of the room and turned a slow circle just like Sarah had the night before. She watched Carol take in the pictures, watched emotions flicker across her face. “Are you going to tell June about this?” Carol asked.

  “Not until I know more.”

  “Yeah, if you were wrong it would only make things worse.”

  “Way to make me feel better.” But Sarah knew Carol was right.

  “How do you plan to figure this out?”

  “While I’m pricing things for the garage sale, I’m going to be searching for clues.”

  “What are you looking for?” Carol asked.

  “Anything that will tell us where they could be.”

  Carol glanced at her watch. “We’ve got about fifteen minutes before June comes back. I don’t want her to find us up here.”

  “I hear you. I’d love to take all these pictures down so June doesn’t have to deal with it.”

  “Why don’t we?” Carol asked.

  “Because it might be part of a crime scene. We have to figure out what happened first.”

  They searched for ten minutes before Sarah held up a passport. “Look! It’s the nanny’s. Looks like they didn’t flee the country at least.”

  “Do you know where the nanny is originally from?” Carol asked.

  “I found some paperwork last night that said Minnesota. June used an agency to hire her.”

  “And you always hear how nice people from Minnesota are. All that water and fresh air.” Carol paused. “Are you sure you don’t just wish that Roydon hadn’t run off with the nanny. That you aren’t just trying to make things right for June? Remember she found that phone with the text messages.”

  “Messages but no pictures,” Sarah said. “It would be easy to pick up a couple phones and fake messages back and forth between them. Then plant one of them.”

  “But why do that?”

  “To make June believe the narrative. That Roydon’s a cheat who fell in love with the nanny.”

  “That’s one diabolical nanny.” Carol didn’t sound convinced. “We’d better put the rest of our search on hold. Let’s go back to the house and start pricing things. Maybe something will come to us.”

  * * * *

  Sarah had been working in Roydon’s study all morning. She was certain that if there was a clue around, it had to be in here. She’d already searched his desk. Thank heavens for the wooden floors in hall. June’s heels clicked down them and alerted Sarah before June came in.

  “June, this picture is an original oil painting. It’s worth around twenty thousand dollars.” Sarah had looked it up online when she recognized the artist’s name.

  “Put fifteen on it,” June said. “It’s one of his favorites.”

  “Fifteen dollars?” Maybe Sarah should buy it all and give it back when June and Roydon came to their senses. Surely, one of them would.

  No use arguing now. Sarah drifted over to the old maps. “These look really old.” They were hand drawn on old parchment paper. Yellowed with age.

  “Oh, they are. They’re from his great, great, great granddaddy’s homestead.”

  Sarah studied the maps. One of them had streams and forests and little buildings scattered across it. Things were marked—Ford Creek, Pickens Cabin, Washington’s Woods. “I’m just going to try to figure out a price on this,” she told June.

  As soon as June left, Sarah brought up a maps program on her phone. From what she could tell, if the Pickens cabin was still there, it was only about ten miles from here.

  * * * *

  Twenty minutes later Carol and Sarah bumped down a dirt road with more ridges than an antique washboard. Trees were thick and flamed with fall colors.

  “Good lord. It feels like my head is going to rattle off,” Carol said.

  Sarah kept a tight grip on the wheel of Roydon’s red pickup. “Look. There’s the cabin.” The porch slumped to the right and the roof sagged to the left. Sarah pulled the truck off the road. “We’d better walk from here.”

  “I don’t see any cars or signs of life.”

  “I might be wrong, but what better place to stash someone?” It was quiet out here. The creepy kind of quiet or maybe Sarah was just to used to living in a metropolitan area where there was always some level of noise. “Maybe we should take something with us.” Sarah looked in the bed of the pickup truck. There was fishing gear, a collapsible shovel, and a heavy-duty flashlight. Sarah tossed the flashlight to Carol and kept the shovel.

  They crept toward the cottage and tried to peek in the windows, but all of them had shades pulled down or curtains closed. They stood on the porch looking at each other. Carol nodded and Sarah opened the door. It slid open easily.

  Sarah walked in with Carol on her heels. Roydon was tied to a bed with duct tape over his mouth. A scene ripped right from the book Misery. But a wide-eyed Roydon shook his head and tilted it frantically toward a closed door.

  Sarah whispered to Carol. “Go outside. Call 9-1-1.”

  Carol took out her phone. “No signal.”

  Sarah looked at her phone. She didn’t have one either. “Go back up the road until you get a signal. Take the truck if you have to.”

  As Carol left, Sarah tiptoed over to the door. She put her ear against it, but didn’t hear anything through the thick planks. Sarah glanced back at Roydon. He nodded. Go on, he seemed to be saying. Sarah slowly twisted the knob, her palm a bit damp. Now or never. Sarah flung the door open.

  The nanny was out cold. Tied to the cast iron headboard of another bed.

  Sarah froze in the doorway, looking back and forth between the nanny and Roydon. The nanny couldn’t have tied Roydon up and then herself. Someone else did this, but who? Sarah decided to free Roydon, since at least he was awake. He could explain what the heck was going on and help her with the nanny. Sarah hadn’t taken two steps when the front door of the cabin banged against the wall. Carol was shoved in, and Ella Mae followed her. Holding a gun. She looped an arm casually around Carol’s neck.

  “Why’d you have to come here and snoop around,” Ella Mae said. “You’ve complicated my life.”

  “I don’t think we’re the ones who complicated it.” The shovel Sarah held felt as useless as a feather. “Looks like you’ve done a fine job of that yourself, kidnapping the nanny and Roydon.” Ella Mae was delusional if she thought Roydon would fall in love with her.

  “Why?” Carol asked.

  “Because Roydon and me were meant to b
e. Hey, that sounds like one of those stupid songs June Baby writes.” Ella Mae lowered the gun to her side. “But I bided my time waiting for the perfect moment to make sure Roydon and I could get away together without anyone figuring it out.”

  “You thought if you waited long enough, Roydon would just go with you?” Sarah asked.

  Ella Mae nodded. “I told June Baby to leave you two out of this. That she didn’t need you. But you turned up anyway. And I’m sorry to say, it ain’t going to end well for either of you. The sheriff will think the nanny killed you both, along with Roydon.”

  Roydon made a squeaking sound.

  “Now don’t you worry Roydon honey, I’m not going to kill you. If you’re a good boy. We’ll just leave a bit of evidence around to make them think the nanny buried you before these two made their rescue attempt, and that she killed them and offed herself.”

  I noticed movement behind Ella Mae. June stood there with a baseball bat.

  “Buckle,” Sarah yelled at Carol hoping she’d remember the story Sarah had retold last night about Monterey Bay. Hoping Ella May wouldn’t.

  Carol plopped down like a hound dog on a hot day. June whacked Ella May’s gun arm and then her head for good measure. Once Ella May dropped the gun and crumpled to the floor, Sarah ran over and picked up the gun.

  Minutes later, Roydon was untied and Ella May was hog-tied. Carol went up the road to call for help. Everyone else helped the nanny.

  Thirty minutes later they watched while the sheriff tucked a handcuffed Ella May into the back of a squad car and an ambulance transported the drugged nanny to the hospital. Roydon explained that Ella May had found out the nanny had faked her papers for the agency and started blackmailing her. She’d made the nanny put up the pictures over time and send the texts to the burner phone.

  “How did you find us, June?” Sarah asked.

  “I was a might suspicious when you asked to borrow Roydon’s truck to run errands, so I followed you. When I got here and spotted Ella May’s Cadillac, I knew something was wrong.”

  Roydon had his arm around June. “Might be the best day of my life,” he said, kissing the top of June’s head.