Maggie stood on Summer Haven’s porch, her hand shading her eyes from the welcome spring sunshine, when a man in a car as big as the Torpedo pulled into the driveway. What was it with those old cars? They all looked as if they needed angioplasty.
She walked down the steps, taking in the way Lil’s family estate was beginning to come alive. Grass sprigs pushing through the ground had turned the lawn a vibrant green and all of the pruning and planting she and Sera had done last fall was starting to pay off in new buds, giving the place a breath of fresh air.
Lil would miss one of her favorite seasons at her home. Sad for her, but thank goodness Maggie had enough time to get the Tucker back in tip-top condition.
A gray-haired man pushed open the other car’s door. “You must be Maggie.”
“And you must be Chuck. Thanks so much for coming out. What kind of car are you driving?”
The man looked at the big honkin’ ride like it was the sexiest woman he’d ever laid eyes on. “It’s a ’46 Hudson Commodore,” he crooned. “They don’t make ’em like this anymore.”
“It’s one hunk of a car,” she said, not really meaning it as a compliment, but he clearly took it as one. It probably sucked down a tank of gas to get from here to the corner in that thing.
He gave her a wink and rubbed his hands together. “Where’s your Tucker?”
“Follow me.”
He walked alongside her, his head swiveling with each step. “Nice place here.”
“Thanks.” He didn’t need to know Summer Haven was a money pit. From the outside, the white Georgian still had all the grandeur of a stately old mansion.
As she moved forward to lift the garage door, he cut in front of her and said with a smile, “Allow me.”
Was he flirting? After the online dating case she, Sera and Abby Ruth solved a few months back, Maggie was constantly noticing when men noticed her. Or maybe it was just wishful thinking on her part. Or possibly senility. Whatever it was, it was nice.
The garage door rumbled up into the rafters.
“Waltz blue,” he said. He gave a couple appreciative nods, then pulled out a magnet from his pocket. He slid it down the side of the car, catching it several times as it lost connection.
Maggie hated a cheap magnet, and she was half tempted to get him one of her good ones.
He opened the driver’s side door and stooped, examining the doorjamb. He ran his hand along the door pillar as if he were reading Braille. “How about we take a look at the engine?”
“Sure.” Maggie moved to the front of the car and fumbled for the hood release.
Chuck’s brows were knit together so tight they looked like one big woolly caterpillar. “What are you doing up there?”
She popped the hood and motioned to the motor. “You said you wanted to check out the engine.” It looked quite impressive. If size mattered, this sucker had clout, and lots of shiny parts too. That had to be a plus.
He walked around and joined her at the front of the car, then let out a hearty laugh.
“What’s so funny? Looks right impressive to me.”
He braced one hand on his hip and the other on the huge front end of the car. “The good news is I don’t think this will cost you much to fix.”
Maggie let out a whoop. “Thank goodness!”
“Less than a few grand, I bet.”
Nothing to whoop about there.
“The bad news is—” his already gravelly voice lowered further, “—this ain’t no ’48 Tucker.”
Maggie whirled toward him. “Of course it is. Lincoln William Summer loved this car as much as he did his wife. His daughter, who’s my best friend Lil, has ridden in it in more parades than you can shake a stick at.”
“That may be true. But I’m here to tell you this is not a Tucker. First of all, the Tucker was a rear-engine car.”
Maggie’s heart shrunk. “All the models?”
“Let me show you.” He whipped out his phone and pulled up a website featuring a Tucker with its trunk open. Unfortunately, the car’s engine was clearly visible inside the trunk. “Look here. See the rear engine.”
“That can’t be right.”
“Afraid so. Up there, where your motor is, should be the spare tire and trunk. Besides, I can’t find a chassis or body number on this thing.”
“That’s not good, is it?”
“Not really. Plus this car has been fabricated. Did you see the way my magnet didn’t stick to the body? A real Tucker body would be all metal. Every place you saw the magnet drop? That’s where the body has been sculpted to look like a Tucker.”
That couldn’t be true. Not with the way Lil had carried on about this car for years. “Surely there’s some mistake.”
“It’s a decent imitation, but this is no more than a kit car. I guess it might bring you five grand from the right car guy.”
Five grand? But Abby Ruth had claimed it could be worth a million. He must think Maggie was an idiot. She folded her arms across her chest. She knew what was going on here. He was probably getting ready to offer her a pittance for it and steal it from her. Two could play this game.
She lifted her chin and studied him. “Are you interested in buying it?”
“No, ma’am.” He spread his arms wide and shook his head. “Not at all.”
Darn it all, he was telling the truth. “What about the 20 thing? Doesn’t that prove something?”
“Only that your friend’s dad nicknamed his car after the year he was born. Probably kind of an inside joke. The Tucker 1020 is somewhere in Japan, and it’s not waltz blue. That one is color code 600, which is maroon.”
“Oh, dear.” Disappointment stung at Maggie’s skin, making her feel raw and tired. She wasn’t sure how this could be true. Although Lil had been surprised when she’d learned Abby Ruth thought the car was worth so much money. Great. Telling Abby Ruth she’d been wrong wouldn’t be any more of a picnic than telling Lil the Tucker-that-wasn’t-a-Tucker wasn’t worth much more than sentimental value.
Was it possible Lil’s daddy knew all along it was a kit car? Maybe he’d been the one to build it and that’s what had made the car so special to him. With his mechanic dead and gone, they might never know.
“I guess you could have any decent auto body person work on this car. Just contact your local shop. I wouldn’t bother going the route of trying to find parts. No one with a Tucker will part it out to a non-Tucker owner anyway, but you can probably get someone to pound the dent out or Bondo this puppy for two or three thousand bucks. The paint’s what’ll cost you the most. This one has…had a super nice paint job. Well taken care of, in fact.”
Maggie walked Chuck back to his car. “Thank you so much for driving out here. I’m sorry it was for no good reason.”
Chuck took her hand and kissed the top of it. “Meeting a lovely woman, such as yourself, is never a waste of time.” He slid behind the wheel of his tank of a car and drove off.
Maggie waved goodbye, her heart still thumping from the combination of Chuck’s smooth talking and relief she wouldn’t have to worry about finding special parts to fix the car. That made things a lot easier. The last time she’d spoken to Lil, she’d sounded optimistic about getting released at the one year mark rather than the full fourteen months of her sentence. That still gave Maggie some time to handle the car situation before Lil came home.
Between now and then she’d have to decide how to break the news to Lil.
If she even had to tell her. Wasn’t like Lil would ever sell her daddy’s beloved car. Maybe she didn’t need to know. Maybe no one needed to know.
After Chuck the Tuckerlover left, Maggie dragged herself back into the house. Was it better or worse that Lil’s car was a big ol’ fake? Sure, it would cost less to fix it, but three thousand was more than they had to spare—even with Hollis’ very generous donation.
She plodded into the kitchen where Sera and Abby Ruth were sitting at the farm table. “We need money.” She heard the misery in her own voice
.
“Lordy be, isn’t that always the way of it around this house?” Abby Ruth said.
If it wasn’t one thing falling through the ceiling, it was another thing falling from the sky. And even if they found a way to pay to repair the Tucker, they were still left with a tree that might land on Summer Haven at nature’s whim.
“How much money?” Sera asked.
“I don’t know for sure. I’m going to have to hunt down a good body and paint guy. But Chuck the Tucker guy thought maybe two or three grand.”
“We still have the envelope from Hollis,” Sera said. “I know we didn’t think there was much to this trash thing, but we need that cash more than ever. We have to keep all of it. Which means we need to get busy and earn it.”
“Wait a minute.” Abby Ruth thumped the toe of her boot against the table leg. “I thought we might use some of it for me to fly to Palm Beach.”
“And we said we were going to use it for repairs around here.” Feeling defeated and wishing she could turn back time, Maggie closed her eyes. “We’ve spent that money three ways already.”
“Now, don’t give up, Maggie. That’s not your style.” Abby Ruth paced the kitchen like a caged tiger. Her boots clicked out a tune like one of those Cocklebur Cloggers. “You know, if Hollis is willing to spend that kind of money on his trash, how much do you think Colton Ellerbee would pay for us to look into his missing sculpture?”
“Oh,” Sera breathed. “She’s got a point.”
“Plus, it would kind of clear our names. I hate a liar and I sure don’t like being accused of being one,” Abby Ruth said. “Makes me cranky.”
Maggie tried to turn a deaf ear to most of the Summer Shoals gossip, but the whole town had been buzzing with the news of the sculptor’s success since he won the Annual Holiday Art Fest. If someone had paid fifteen grand for a wayward nativity scene sheep, Colton was obviously rolling in money like a horse in green clover.
Abby Ruth waved a hand toward the laptop sitting on the kitchen desk. “Sera, go do your magic and see if you can find out the names of those folks who bought that junk Colton is convinced we sold out from under him. I didn’t catch the whole name on the paper before he yanked it back.”
“Then how did you plan to find them once you made it to Palm Beach?” Maggie asked. Sometimes this woman had more guts than sense.
“Don’t ever underestimate a Cady.”
Couldn’t argue with that.
Sera slid into the chair and cracked her knuckles like a prizefighter. Then her fingers tripped over the keyboard. She clicked and hummed. Hummed and clicked. Not three minutes later, she said, “Got it! The people who bought the sheep are Lorna and Sidney Caliper.”
“Well,” Abby Ruth drawled, “since we know we didn’t sell that thing, we should find out who stole it.. Because if someone was willing to pay that kind of money for it, we could sell a couple wise men for the Torpedo’s repairs.”
“Lord, that’s all we need.” Maggie rubbed a spot over her eye. “Can you imagine what Colton would do if he found out we’d profited from his hard work? He’d be living on Summer Haven’s front steps hooting and hollering about his art from sunup to sundown. No, thank you. I’d rather pay for the repairs with Hollis’ trash cash.”
Abby Ruth gave Sera a hip bump. “Can you get me a phone number for those Caliper folks?”
“561-555-6269.”
With a motion like she was drawing a Wild West pistol, Abby Ruth pulled out her cell phone and dialed. “Hello, there,” she said. “This is Deputy Cady from the Bartell County Sheriff’s department up here in Georgia. How’re you today?”
Maggie clapped a hand over her mouth. They’d sunk to new depths, impersonating a law enforcement officer. She glanced at the ceiling because it was inevitable they’d get struck by lightning again for spinning this yarn.
“That’s good,” Abby Ruth continued. “If you don’t mind, I need to ask you a few questions about a sculpture you recently purchased.”
All Maggie could hear was a garbled answer from the other end of the line.
“No, you’re not in trouble. And I’ll be happy to tell you everything I know once we get to the bottom of this. But for now, I can’t divulge the details in an ongoing investigation. You understand. Of course. Can you tell me who you purchased the piece from?”
Pause.
“You say it was Colton Ellerbee?” Abby Ruth raised her brows until they disappeared under her choppy gray bangs. “And you’re sure of that?”
Maggie glanced at Sera. Could Colton be the dishonest one? But why would he do something like that and try to pin it on them? The man was annoying, but he wasn’t malicious.
“Well, we’ve got some conflicting stories about the provenance of that piece.”
Sera mouthed provenance? at Maggie. Yes, their former sports journalist was a lot more sophisticated than she sometimes pretended. Abby Ruth Cady was handy to have around on occasion, not only because she was pretty darned smart, but because she would do anything it took to get a job done.
And Maggie admired that in a gal.
“Don’t worry,” Abby Ruth said into the phone. “If we determine the sculpture is a big, fat phony, then we’ll see to it you’re compensated. Would you be willing to send me a few close-up pictures? We want to verify the artist’s signature and techniques. You can send them to [email protected]. Oh, my official email address? Know what? Our IT folks up here in Georgia are having a heckuva time keeping our network up. I’d hate for your pictures to disappear into the wild.”
Pause.
“Yep, we’ll definitely get back with you.” When Abby Ruth clicked off her phone, she wore a self-satisfied grin. “Well, girls, we’ve just kicked off our third officially unofficial investigation. Sera, you might want to hook us up with a professional-sounding email address for future use.”
Sera’s fingers clicked at the keyboard. “I’m on it. And technically, this makes four investigations if you count the crockpot crooks. Which I do.”
“Damn, we’re good,” Abby Ruth said.
“Okay, ladies, our new business email account is up and running.” Sera twisted the screen toward them to show them the new account for [email protected].
“SHH?” Abby Ruth asked. “Sounds like one of those backup group do-wa-diddies, and I ain’t dancing. I’m telling you that right now.”
Sera said, “It’s an acronym. Summer Haven Hotshots.”
“Hotshots? It’s more like hunting Summer Haven style,” Abby Ruth said.
“Well, fine. You can be a hunter, I’m being a hotshot.” Sera seemed satisfied, and Maggie pondered which H she’d rather be.
Abby Ruth’s phone boinged. “We’ve got mail.”
Maggie pursed her lips. “I don’t like it. Not one bit. What if Teague contacts those people down in Florida and finds out Deputy Cady got there first?”
Abby Ruth lifted her chin. “How many times do I have to tell you? Y’all just leave Teague Castro to me.”
Chapter 7
Teague shoved another stack of paperwork to the corner of his desk. Being a short-staffed sheriff sucked. It gave a whole new meaning to hump day, and he hadn’t had one extra minute all week to look into that stuff for Colton. Not only was he on patrol more than normal, but as soon as he handled everyone’s reports, they piled up again.
This was what happened when a guy was down a deputy. He’d been searching for a replacement but wasn’t fully satisfied with any of the candidates. Summer Shoals might be small, but that didn’t mean he should compromise when it came to the citizens’ safety.
But continuous backlog of work and reports around the clock was killing him.
Then again, work was the only thing keeping him warm at night since Jenny and her son weren’t able to move down to Georgia as quickly as both he and Jenny had hoped. Every time his phone rang, he grabbed it as fast as he could, his heart thumping with anticipation that someone had made an offer on her condo. Otherwise, she couldn’t affo
rd to come to Summer Shoals until her residency started in the fall, and fall was too far off as far as he was concerned. Still, she’d be here for a year.
A year he wanted to turn into a lifetime.
He opened a folder and was scanning a report on a kid who’d replaced the local Baptist church’s holy water with cherry Kool-Aid when a head popped around his open doorway.
“Got time for a chat, Tadpole?” Abby Ruth asked. “Or better yet, a beer?”
He slapped the folder onto his desktop and sighed. “Not sure even a fifth of moonshine would wash away all the crap I need to get through.”
“Any luck on the deputy search?” The gleam in Abby Ruth’s eyes told him she’d be happy to step in at any time. Lord help him if that ever came to pass. She’d have him booted out in a patrol car and take over his job within twenty minutes. This woman was one of the shrewdest folks on God’s green earth.
One of the reasons he loved her. And her daughter.
“I’ve been interviewing candidates. I’m getting closer.” Careful to not get her hopes up, he pushed out of his chair and motioned toward the door. “Don’t have time for a drink, but how about a walk?”
He needed to stretch his legs, and a stroll would get Abby Ruth away from the temptation of the sheriff’s office. Once outside, he asked, “What’s up?”
“Talked with Jenny Monday afternoon. She mentioned she had a couple of people looking at her place today. One looked like a real good prospect.”
Teague immediately groped in his pants pocket for his phone, snatched it out to check for texts from Jenny. Nothing. She hadn’t mentioned it, but then maybe she didn’t want to get his hopes up until it was a sure thing.
He plowed a hand through his hair. “I wake up every day thinking this could be the day she’ll call with good news and be on her way.”
She eyed him, and he figured out why when they passed by the gleaming glass front of the flower shop. His reflection even startled him a little with the way his dark hair stood on end like one of those old troll dolls. She grinned. “You could always swear me in. That would give you some breathing room. Maybe enough time to fly up to Boston for the weekend. Wouldn’t that be nice?”
In High Cotton Page 6