by Tegan Maher
I pinched my lips together and shook my finger at her. "That's a lie. Those planters didn't come in until the day he died. Plus, you left a scarf there. One just like the ones in Lily's wedding."
Gabe cleared his throat. "You might as well come clean, Lynn. You're gonna leave here in cuffs anyway."
She spun toward him, and rather than expressing guilt or looking apologetic, irritation and resignation warred on her face. "Fine," she said. "I was there. And I was gonna give him what for and make him give me the rest of my money back, but he wasn't there. I waited in the main building and looked in the smaller one, but he was nowhere to be found. I reckon somebody'd done clocked him by then, but I didn't go out back to look."
"And the planters?" I asked.
"He had 'em marked at forty bucks each, so I took three of 'em. He owed me a hundred and twenty, so I figured we was square." Her gaze pivoted back to me. "And I don't know what scarf you're blatherin' on about. It's too hot for a scarf, and they ain't my style, anyway."
One glance at her faded cornflower-blue slacks and flannel shirt confirmed that—Lynn Small wasn't a scarf kinda girl.
Gabe shook his head when I looked at him, indicating what I was afraid of—we had it wrong yet again. I pulled in a deep breath and released it. We were running out of suspects.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
"THAT ONLY LEAVES ONE person," I said once we were back in the truck, "and she has an alibi."
"Actually," he said, "she might not. I've been thinkin' about that. All we really have is one girl's statement that Kristina was in class, and anybody could have signed her in."
I mulled that over. "I never even thought about that."
"I didn't either until just now, but it's a possibility. Unless she can offer some other sort of proof, I'm not considering it an air-tight alibi."
"And I'm not completely willing to let Lynn off the hook yet, either," I said.
"No, but my gut says she didn't do it."
I sighed. "Yeah, mine too. But we're running out of suspects."
"We are," he said, pulling off the rutted driveway and onto the main road, "but we can't just arrest somebody for the fun of it. Plus, as bad as I hate to say it, Amelia's starting to look pretty good for it again, at least in the eyes of the law. I wish she wouldn't have gotten all high and mighty with the mayor the day before she got arrested," he said. "That's why he's so set to convict her."
"What did she get onto him about?" It didn't surprise me that she had, but it might be relevant.
He shook his head. "Nothin' in particular. He just happened to run into her at Mean Beans and asked her what she thought of the town. Makin' conversation, is all."
I rolled my eyes. "I can imagine her response."
"Yeah, you probably can. So he's convinced she's the devil incarnate."
"I don't necessarily disagree with him," I said. "But I don't think she's a murderer. The more I think about it, the more I believe she's innocent."
He gave a noncommittal grunt. "Let's see what Kristina has to say first."
It only took about five more minutes before he pulled up in front of a large antebellum house that had seen better days. The grandeur of days gone by was covered in a thick layer of neglect, and I shook my head, remembering what Ms. Maisey had told us about it.
An older but well-kept sports car was parked beside an SUV, and we pulled in behind them. Before we even made it to the porch, the front screen swung open and a pretty, twenty-something brunette in a hunter-green business suit greeted us. She was one of those women who didn't need makeup to look great.
"Hello, Sheriff," she said, her gaze drifting to me. "And you are?"
"Toni Owens," I said, sticking out my hand.
"Oh yeah, the girl who bought the lodge." Her expression was friendly, but guarded.
Gabe scouted the area, then turned to her. "Hi Kristina. Are your brothers around?"
She gave a small smile. "No, Sheriff, they're not. You don't have to worry about trouble today. It's just me and Mama, and she's sleepin'. But I do have to ask, why are you here? Did one of them do something again?"
"No," Gabe said, shaking his head. "We're here to talk to you."
"Of course," she replied, dawning crossing her face. "Charlie. Come on up to the house where we can have a civilized conversation."
I don't know what I'd been expecting, but she wasn't it. I'd heard all the stories about her family and had pictured somebody much more ... Lily-like in my mind. This woman may have been a murderer, but she wasn't a white-trash one.
We followed her into the house, and I was surprised to see that it was elegantly appointed. The furniture was old, but antique rather than dated, and the floors were scarred but clean.
"I've been trying to bring the house back around since my brothers moved out," she said. "I've seen the pictures of way back when they used to host fancy balls and parties here." She gave a self-deprecating smile. "I doubt we'll ever see those days again, but there's no reason to let such a great place fall in on itself. It passes to me eventually, and I want it to be nice."
"I hear you're opening up a flower shop," I said as a way to bring the conversation around to where we needed it to be.
She nodded. "I am. It's been rough, though. I wanted to set boutique prices. Charlie was great, but he was way undercharging compared to most places these days. Shoot, his prices were lower than Walmart. He wouldn't budge, though."
"That must have been infuriating," I said.
She lifted a shoulder. "At first, yeah, because he was sorta cuttin' me off at the knees and shootin' himself in the foot at the same time. But I thought on it long and hard on the drive to the conference and came up with a few ideas that might have worked for us both."
"Such as?"
"Such as Charlie didn't care much for workin' with cut flowers. He liked makin' up live arrangements best. I thought maybe we could come up with somethin' where I handled the cut end of the business in town and he kept the arrangements. I'm more into the art end of things anyway, and live flowers aren't as easy to do. That would have given me the funerals and weddings, which he hated doing anyway, and he would have kept the live stuff. Or most of it, anyway. I wanted to see if maybe he'd sell me some smaller arrangements at a discount."
That sounded totally rational and not at all murderous. My stomach fell.
She brushed an piece of lint off her sleeve, and that's when I realized she had a green scarf tucked into the pocket of the jacket.
"That's a nice outfit," I said. "Are you going somewhere?"
"Thank you," she said, smiling. "I just got back, actually. I went down to the bank to talk to them about a business loan."
"How did that go?" Gabe asked.
"Not as well as I'd hoped. They approved me, but for a smaller amount than I asked for." She gave us a wry smile. "I blame the suit."
"Come again?" I asked.
"This is just a plain old suit. I should have worn my lucky blue one, but I lost the scarf to it, and I just don't feel put together with an empty pocket."
I thought back to the puddle of silk that had almost been my demise. "And where did you lose it?" I asked.
She smiled and gave me a polite but plain duh look. "If I knew that, it wouldn't be lost."
"Kristina, can you prove you were in class at the time Charlie was murdered?" Gabe asked.
Her brow furrowed in confusion. "Didn't Cynthia back up my statement?"
"She did," he said, "but that's only one person. When I talked to the guy who gave the presentation, he didn't remember talking to you specifically. He just said your name was on the sign-in sheet.
"Okay," she said, "so that's proof, right?"
Before either of us could respond, a ratcheting sound behind us caused my heart to drop to my toes. I may have been a city girl, but I knew what it sounded like when somebody was racking a shotgun shell into the chamber.
Kristina's eyes grew wide. "Mama, what on earth are you doing?"
I turned—sl
owly and with my hands in the air—to stare down the barrel of that shotgun. Behind it stood a sixty-ish woman with murder in her eyes.
"I'm doin' what I shoulda done all along," she said. "I'm standin' up and makin' sure you're happy."
"Ms. Bell," Gabe said, moving slowly toward her, "I'm gonna need you to put down that shotgun."
"Afraid I can't do that, sheriff. I can't let you take her to jail. Not now, when she's just about to make somethin' of herself. She's the only one of my youngins who turned out worth a diddly squat, and that's my own fault for not standin' up to their daddy and lookin' after 'em like I shoulda. I'm doin' it now, though."
"Mama," Kristina said, taking a few steps toward the older woman. She was crying. "Not this way. You can't do this."
"Move, Krissy. It's Saturday, and I'll bet dollars to donuts nobody knows they're here. You're gonna get that little flower shop you been wantin' ever since you was a little girl."
Everything seemed to happen at once. Kristina lunged for her mom, and the shotgun went off. I jumped one way and Gabe jumped the other while Kristina wrestled her mom to the ground. I rushed to her side and picked the shotgun up, then unloaded it, making sure the chamber was empty.
"Here," Gabe said, tossing me a pair of cuffs from his spot on the floor. Get those on her before she manages to get away. I'm sure that's not the only gun in the house."
I did as he said, and it didn't occur to me to wonder why he was still in the floor until Ms. Bell was cuffed and sitting on the floor. Kristina had her arms around her, rocking her and crying. The minute Kristina had tackled her to the floor, the older woman had spilled her guts.
"I just wanted you to be happy, Krissy. That's why I went to Charlie's to begin with. I just wanted to talk to him, make him see you were right about the prices and convince him to go along with you. But he said he wasn't raisin' his prices. He gave me a pot with a carnation plant in it and said maybe there was some other way you could get up and going, and I got so mad! I smacked him with it before I even realized what I was doin'."
She sniffed and touched her daughter's cheek. "I wore your blue scarf for luck, but it musta fell off when I was runnin' out of there. I'm sorry, baby."
"Uh, Toni," Gabe said, and I finally picked up on the strange note in his voice. He was standing, but the sleeve of his shirt was crimson. The blood rushed to my head and spots appeared in my vision.
"Don't you dare pass out," he barked. "Grab that towel off the oven bar."
I sucked in a few deep breaths and did what he said.
"It's deep, but it's just a graze," he said, wincing when I pressed the towel to his bicep. "It's a good thing she was usin' a slug instead of scattershot. Otherwise, I'd be leakin' like a sieve."
Kristina's voice sounded from behind me as she called 911.
"I'm pretty sure it's your head that's leaking like a sieve," I said. "What were you thinking, walking toward a crazy woman with a shotgun?"
"Well I obviously wasn't thinkin' she was gonna pull the trigger," he said. "But I was worried she'd accidentally shoot one of us. Turns out I was right."
I shook my head. The man was standing there shot, and the first thing he thought of was that he'd been right.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
THE MEDICS CLEANED his arm for him and tried to convince him to go to the hospital, but being the stubborn man he was, he refused, insisting it was just a scratch. He wouldn't even let me drive us back to town. He did let his deputies book Ms. Bell in, though, and didn't even go into the building.
I'd called Dee on the way back to town despite his protests, and she was waiting when we got to city hall. She fussed and clucked over him, then insisted that he get in the truck and let her drive. Even though he was fine by that time, he was smart enough to know better than to tell her no.
Nikki'd cooked a big pot of spaghetti and meatballs, and the smell of garlic bread made my stomach rumble when I walked in the house.
"Sorry we didn't wait on you," Dee said when we walked through the door, "but we were starvin' and had no idea you were gonna get yourself shot."
"I'm sorry," Gabe said, rolling his eyes. "Next time, I'll try to give you some advanced notice."
"That'd be the polite thing to do," she said, grinning. "I'm glad you're okay."
She and Annie were sitting on the couch with their feet pulled under them, watching some reality show.
"Did Sheila's mom come pick up her cake?" I asked. The woman had called the day before to postpone because her daughter fell off a jetski and broke her ankle.
"Yup," she said, "though she nearly dropped it on the way out the door. I had to do an emergency touch-up on it, but thankfully it was all aesthetic. I think I'd have cried harder than she would have if it had hit the floor."
I went to the fridge and poured Gabe and I glasses of tea before dipping myself up a heaping serving of the spaghetti. Thankfully, it was still warm. As hungry as I was, I'm not sure I'd have taken the time to heat it.
Gabe filled himself a plate, the we split the last four slices of garlic bread and headed to the living room.
"That stuff'll rot your brain," I said, motioning to the night-vision scene on the reality show they were watching.
"Of course it will," Dee said. "I don't watch it for intellectual stimulation. I watch it because it's a great way to remind myself that my life isn't nearly as bad as I think sometimes. And just so you know, Jake and Kate hooked up, but nobody knows yet."
"What about Rocky?" I asked. "Last week, he was the love of her life."
"Yeah," Nikki chimed in, "but Jake won the challenge and is free from elimination this week. He gets to pick one person to save."
"Ahh," I replied. That explains it."
Gabe's gaze bounced back and forth between us, confusion scrawled across his features.
Dee laughed. "This is Island Paradise," she said. "The goal is to—"
He waved her off. "I know what the goal is. I'm just trying to figure out how Jake fell for Kate's crap. Everybody knows she's an opportunistic skank." He shook his head and took a big bite of garlic bread. "I'm disappointed in him," he said, mouth full.
All three of us stared at him, then burst out laughing.
"What?" he said after he chased his bite down with a swig of soda. "I like to put my life into perspective once a week, too."
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
THE WEDDING WENT OFF without a hitch, and even Amelia, whom Gabe had ordered released immediately, had been pleased. She'd even given us a resounding compliment after the service.
"Well," she'd said as she wrote us the check, "Congratulations. You did the best you could with what you had to work with."
I figured that was about as close to a ringing endorsement we were gonna get from her, but I was surprised when I looked at the amount. She'd added on an extra three grand.
When I'd asked her why, she'd said to consider it my PI fee. Then she'd looked around and told me to put it toward installing modern facilities. That had been when I'd decided to consider it my fee for dealing with her.
Now that the lodge's first wedding was officially on the books and we had some extra cash, we decided to put some of that windfall into steaks instead of burgers and dogs for the get-together we had for the crew. I figured it was the least I could do, since there wouldn't have been a wedding without them.
"You outdid yourself, sweetie," Scout said as he wrapped his arms around me from behind. We were standing on the porch, and I smiled when two kids raced past, SuperSoakers spewing water back and forth. Adults gathered in clusters just talking and hanging out, and southern rock trickled from the speakers we'd set up around the yard.
"Annie got a design gig," I told him as I watched my friend chat with the woman who'd hired her. I could tell she was talking about velvet this or lace that, and I almost laughed at how animated she was.
"I heard. I think it'll be good for her," he said. "I hate to see her work so hard all the time just to get by."
I'd spent mo
st of the morning cleaning up and getting things ready for a second go-round, and hadn't noticed that Nikki was missing until right then.
"Where's Nik?" I asked, my gaze roaming the crowd.
"Right over there," he said, pointing toward the grill. "And apparently that's Chris with her."
I finally caught sight of her and gave a low whistle when I saw the tall, sandy-haired drink of water she was talking to.
"Wowzer," I said. "He's a looker."
I squealed when he gave me a playful nip on the neck. "What was that for?"
His deep laugh rumbled against my ear. "Just to remind you that I'm standing right here."
I turned in his arms and gave him an Eskimo kiss, followed by a real one. "I said he was a looker. I didn't say he was the most amazing man in the world. That one's already taken. By me."
I slipped back around so that I was facing our group of friends, and couldn't help but compare my new life to my old one. A year before, I'd had no idea just how empty my life was. Now, I couldn't imagine it any different. I sighed, content, as kids laughed, adults mingled, and teenagers played cornhole on the side lawn. Good food, good times, and family.
That's what my new life was all about, and I wouldn't trade it for my old one for anything in the world.
<<<<>>>>
Thank you!
I hope you enjoyed reading this installment of the Haunted Lodge series as much as I liked writing it. I take great joy in writing about life in small towns because it takes me back to my roots. This particular series is special to me because, like Noelle Flynn of the Witches of Keyhole Lake series and I, Toni and I have a lot in common. I work best when I work from my heart, and I hope that shines through! Thank you for giving me a few hours of your time, and I hope you enjoyed your visit.
If you haven’t read my Witches of Keyhole Lake series, I invite you to do so. I’m including Chapter 1 for you to preview in the following pages.
Thank you again, and happy Reading!