by Diane Moody
“Then I’m sorry for you.”
“Go ahead. You were saying?”
“Just that it was impossible not to love Harley. He always said he could charm the stripes off a zebra, and he truly could. You know how people loved him. Everyone loved that voice of his. They loved his creativity and all those beautiful flower arrangements. Maybe it was his self-confidence. Maybe we all wished we had that. I don’t know.”
“He was definitely larger than life,” Peyton added with a smile.
She shook her head. “But this gambling business. It was such a fierce addiction, Peyton, and just kept getting worse and worse. He was such an idiot to get mixed up with those people. I can’t tell you how many times I had to rescue him over the past year or so. How many times I had to drive down to Tunica and pick him up in some dark alley where he’d been kicked out of a casino. Often so bloody and bruised and battered, I would get nauseated just seeing him.”
“How did he keep that side of his life a secret? Didn’t folks around here wonder where he’d go or why he’d be all roughed up like that?”
“He was careful to lay low. Most often he’d come here to my house and hide out until the bruises faded. He’d have me put a Closed sign on his shop, then sleep for days here.”
“Were you ever afraid for your own life?”
“Yes.” She looked up as a shadow haunted her face. “In the past few weeks, I’ve had a few threatening phone calls late at night.”
“Threatening you?”
Her eyes dropped down again as she slowly nodded.
“Why didn’t you tell Jeff?”
“That was always part of the threat. Graphic descriptions of what they’d do to Harley if I called the police. But I never told a soul, and now they did it anyway.”
Peyton racked his brain searching for a word of encouragement. The perpetrators made good on those threats. With Harley dead, would they continue to harass Kathleen? Better to ask Jeff himself than trouble her further.
Her voice trembled when she spoke again. “To think I was in Chattanooga going about my business there, when all the while my brother was being murdered … Jeff said he tried to reach me that afternoon, but I’ve had such trouble with my cell phone lately. When I returned to my hotel after dinner last night, there was a voice message from Jeff on the phone in my suite saying he needed to talk to me as soon as possible. I think I knew then that something must have happened to Harley. It was bound to happen eventually.”
“Kathleen, how can I help?”
“Oh, I’ll be all right. I think I’m as angry as I am heartbroken.”
“What about the funeral? Would like me to help make the arrangements?”
She leaned back in her chair and yawned. “Yes. That would be a great help. But not now. I need to go to bed and sleep off this hangover.”
“Then just call me when you’re ready.”
“I will. Thank you, Peyton.”
Chapter 13
“Pastor, Miss Evans stopped by earlier.”
Interpreting his secretary’s finesse for expounding colossal amounts of innuendo within a minimal number of words was one of the first things Peyton learned when he became pastor of Braxton Community Church. He’d quickly mastered the game so that his interpretation came automatically, the variations ticking off a list before he could even respond.
“Pastor, Miss Evans stopped by earlier.” Translation: You’re the pastor of this church and don’t you forget it.
“Pastor, Miss Evans stopped by earlier.” Translation: You don’t have time for romance. Period.
“Pastor, Miss Evans stopped by earlier.” Translation: Who does she think she is bothering you at work?
“Pastor, Miss Evans stopped by earlier.” Translation: Where have you been? You’re late again.
Such a daily interrogation as he walked into the office on any given morning might grate on his nerves had the inquisitor been anyone else. But such was not the case with Sugar Simpson. Her disposition, much like her name, conveyed a motherly compassion blended with just enough sweet to disarm any thoughts of offense or annoyance.
“Good morning, Sugar. How’s my favorite secretary today?”
“I’m your only secretary, but I’m not averse to a bit of flattery, so I’ll accept your kind words.” She glanced at the bakery box on the corner of her desk. “She said she got some weird text message from you this morning.”
Translation: How’d she get your phone number? Why were you texting her so early? And I don’t even want to know what she meant by “weird.”
“Ah. Yes, I was attempting to send a message to her when I was interrupted by an important call and didn’t realize that I’d—” He stopped himself and reached for the box. “Never mind.”
Sugar said nothing, just raised those carefully drawn brows and stared at him with a smug smile. “You want some coffee with that?”
She followed him as he headed into his office. “No, I’m good. Had a cup over at Kathleen Creech’s.”
Her entire demeanor changed instantly. “That poor dear. How’s she holding up?”
“Pretty shaken, as you’d expect.” He sat at his desk and opened the carton. He smiled, recognizing the bakery’s signature pastry. Lifting the large lemon-glazed poppyseed muffin out of the box, he opened his mouth to take a bite.
“Has she been over to identify the corpse?”
His hand froze, halting the muffin halfway to his mouth. He leveled a glance at her. “Are you bingeing on NCIS again?”
“Absolutely not. Never cared for Mark Harmon after watching him play that serial killer Ted Bundy in that TV movie back in 1986.”
“Sorry, my mistake.”
She took a seat in one of the chairs facing his desk. “I watch CSI—the original, of course, but all the spin-offs as well, though I have to say I prefer CSI: NY, but that’s primarily because I love Gary Sinise and everything he does for our wounded veterans. Be careful ingesting all those carbs and sugar in your system, Peyton. Might cause a hypoglycemic episode. Just sayin’.”
Peyton smiled as he finally took a big bite of the moist muffin. “I’ll take that under advisement,” he uttered with his mouth full. “Now tell me. What’s going on today?”
“That’s rather a silly question, don’t you think, given what happened Sunday? By the way, thank you for giving me the day off yesterday. Of course, I’m still shell-shocked, but Earl saw to it that I rested yesterday between all the phone calls and what not.”
“He’s a good man, that husband of yours.”
“You never answered my question. Has Kathleen been over to see the body yet?”
He finished another bite before answering. “She took a pass. Preferred to remember him as he lived, not as he died.”
“That’s probably wise. Me, I can’t get that image of his bloated body out of my head. That, and his toupee floatin’ like a dead rat in the water.” She stared off in the distance and shivered.
“Okay, then. Let’s get down to work. How about we proceed with—”
“Did she say when she wanted to have the funeral?”
He blinked again. “No, I left her to rest a while. She’s going to call me later this afternoon to discuss that.”
“It’ll sure be strange, won’t it?”
“What?”
“Having another funeral without Harley dashin’ around town spreading the details and what not. Our very own funeral aficionado. But as he always used to say, when you’re a florist, funerals are good for business.”
“We’re all going to miss him. His dry sense of humor. And of course, his incredible voice—”
“She’s a pretty thing, I’ll give her that.”
“Who?”
“Miss Evans. And tall just like you ’n me. But she’s a Yankee, so watch out. They’ll break your heart in a New York minute and never look back. Must be something in the water up there.”
He wadded the muffin wrapper and tossed it in the trash as the first grip of a headache bega
n to finger his skull. He’d often thought of Sugar’s conversation akin to the rapid-fire volleys of an Olympic ping-pong tournament.
“Sugar, I need you to focus for me. We need to regroup after Sunday’s abbreviated service. There are a number of things we need to reschedule and—”
“Anybody home?” a voice called from the front office.
“Back here, Sterling,” Peyton answered.
“What’s he doing here?” Sugar growled under her breath; her face pinched with alarm.
Peyton had no time to respond as Sterling filled the doorway.
“Oh, I’m sorry to interrupt. My, Sugar, don’t you look lovely today.”
She continued staring at Peyton, her eyes narrowing. He could almost hear the ping-pong balls bouncing off the walls of her mind as she tried to link the connection between Sterling’s presence in Peyton’s office two days after Harley died.
Ping. Pong. Ping. Pong.
“Like I’ve always said, purple is definitely your best color.”
“Hush, now,” she said, dismissing him with a flip of her wrist. “I’ll just leave you two alone.”
She gave Sterling only a flicker of a glance as she made an awkward exit around him.
“Nice to see you, Sugar.”
“Uh huh.”
Peyton noted the furious blush of her cheeks before she was out of sight.
He stood to shake Sterling’s hand as he approached the desk. The attorney looked unusually professional from the neck down. Gray suit, blue oxford shirt, navy tie all in pristine condition. His hair? Windblown and wild as usual.
“Good to see you, Sterling. How’s it going?”
“That’s a good question,” he said, taking a seat. “I called Jeff earlier this morning, and he—”
“Hold that thought,” Peyton said, raising his index finger as he walked over to close the door. He lowered his voice as he returned to his seat. “I’d rather our conversation stay private.”
“Oh, right,” Sterling said with a knowing smile. “We wouldn’t want this going out on the Sugarland Express.”
Peyton smiled at the nickname he’d heard before on numerous occasions.
“Actually,” Sterling said as he stood back up again, “I stopped by because Jeff needs to talk with you. I had called to ask a couple of questions, and he said he’d rather have the conversation in person with you present. So, I suggest we head on over to the station, and that way eliminate any chance of someone overhearing our little chat.”
They walked past Sugar as they left the office, her eyes still narrowed with curiosity. Peyton said he’d be back in an hour or so and left it at that.
As they walked across the square, Sterling filled him in on the legal protocol for this meeting, warning him to be extremely cautious in answering Jeff’s questions.
“I know the two of you are good friends, but we all have a role to play going forward.”
“That’s not going to be easy.”
“I’m aware of that. Just remember that once all this sorts itself out, and you are no longer a person of interest, you can resume your friendship. Until then, best to set it aside. I told him the same thing when we talked.”
A few minutes later, the three of them sat in Jeff’s cramped office. Peyton grimaced at the strange tension between them and wanted nothing more than to shoot the breeze about Vanderbilt’s humiliating loss to Georgia on Saturday. Or ask how his new daughter Abby was doing. All the things they’d normally chat about.
Instead, they sat there like two adversaries avoiding eye contact.
Sterling opened his briefcase and pulled a small recording device from it and set it on Jeff’s desk. “Standard procedure, Sheriff. I’m sure you understand.”
“I do,” he said, setting a similar device alongside Sterling’s. Both men pressed to record.
“Today is Tuesday, October ninth, 2018, and this is an informal conversation between Braxton County Sheriff Jeff Carter, Pastor Peyton Gellar of Braxton Community Church, and myself, Sterling LaFayette, representing Mr. Gellar. We are here to discuss the events surrounding the death of Harley Creech whose body was found in the filled baptistry of Braxton Community Church on Sunday morning, October seventh.
“Mr. Gellar has been named a person of interest as a result of an unverified statement by a witness, Miss Ida Rose, who lives directly across the street from the main entrance of the church. Miss Rose was unavailable for deposition due to a medical procedure that took place yesterday, Monday, October eighth. We will conduct that deposition tomorrow, depending on her availability.
“Now, Sheriff, as required by law in the exchange of information in terms of discovery, I’d like to ask that you tell us about the coroner’s report.”
He opened a file folder and lifted two additional copies, handing one to Sterling and the other to Peyton. “This is the official coroner’s report from the autopsy conducted, as you can see, late Sunday evening, October seventh. While we appreciate the coroner’s expeditious handling of the autopsy, we must point out that this is only the preliminary report. The full report may take up to six weeks.”
They discussed the findings, some of which they already knew, including the time of death estimated to be between nine and ten o’clock on Saturday evening.
Jeff continued reading. “‘Cause of death was the result of a severe fracture to the fifth cervical vertebra (C5) resulting in a rapid swelling of the spinal cord, causing asphyxia.’”
Sterling continued browsing the report. “As we discussed previously, the coroner also indicates absence of water in the lungs, which would suggest that Harley was dead before he was submerged in the baptistry.
The two men took turns reading various parts of the report, much of it technical, all of which nauseated Peyton. By the time they set the file aside, his head throbbed.
“Peyton, just so you understand,” Jeff added, “I have no grounds to detain you until we get a full and detailed deposition from Ida Rose, but I would ask you to stay in town.”
“What, no house arrest bracelet for my ankle?” Peyton smiled.
Jeff looked up with a tired smile of his own. “No, I think we can forgo that for now.”
“Good, now that we have that settled,” Sterling added. “Chief, are there any further items of discovery we should know about?”
“Not at the moment. Anything from you I need to know?”
Sterling glanced at Peyton. “I think you should tell him about Tristan.”
“Yes, because it may clear this matter up sooner rather than later,” Peyton responded. “Call it a case of mistaken identity.”
“Who’s Tristan?”
Peyton leaned forward. “My identical twin brother.”
“Really? You have a twin brother?”
“Yeah, and it gets worse. He’s a bad seed.”
“Meaning?” Jeff asked.
“He’s a convicted felon.”
Chapter 14
Around two-thirty that afternoon, Aubrey slipped on a ball cap, pulled her ponytail through the back, then laced up her running shoes and grabbed her cell for a run. She hadn’t run since arriving in Braxton, and every muscle in her body seemed to clamor for her attention. She left a note on the kitchen counter in case her mother returned from the shop and wondered where she’d gone.
She had a vague layout of the little town and its surrounding roads, but she checked an app on her phone for a map to find some back roads. She set her course, popped in her earbuds, cranked up her playlist of running tunes, and hit the pavement.
Her day had started early with a slew of crisis calls from her office in Manhattan. Even on his best days, her boss Dustin Mathison had a tendency to panic, putting the entire team on alert for what her coworkers dubbed DEFCON 1. Not quite ready to call out the National Guard, but pending disaster a mere heartbeat away. They all depended on Aubrey to walk him back from the ledge, which was no easy task. In her absence, Dustin had crept ever closer to that ledge, threatening a total overhaul of the
staff after losing a major client.
One after another, she’d taken the calls from her coworkers on the situation until she had no choice but to place a video call directly to Dustin. It took over an hour to calm him down, set in motion a plan of action to stop the bleeding and limit the damage, then reset the concrete boundaries she depended on to protect herself when he blamed her absence for the entire mess.
Aubrey had learned the ropes early on and took it in stride, managing these outbursts and the resulting aftershocks in the office. Losing clients came with the territory in property management. Lose one, gain two more. That’s business. Either way, she had always loved the thrill of the game.
This morning? Not so much.
As she turned a corner and headed down a tree-shaded lane, she tried to analyze this new reaction. Maybe it was nothing more than the remnants of grief still twisting her heart. It had been only a week since her father died. The longer she stayed in Braxton, the more she missed him, but this was where she needed to be.
But more than that, it was the loss going forward. The travel they’d planned together. Trips to Hong Kong, Australia, and the Amalfi Coast—all those foreign destinations he’d flown for FedEx and wanted to share with Aubrey and her mother. The golf lessons he’d promised to give her. The mission trips to impoverished countries he’d asked her to join him.
Harder still, the dream of one day walking down the aisle of a church on his arm.
In all the years she’d been running, never once had she fought her throat closing against her emotions as she ran. It messed with her rhythm. She tried to shake it off, making a mental note to avoid such serious ponderings on future runs. For now she would set those feelings aside, finish her run, head home for a quick shower, then drive over to the Veterans Cemetery to visit her dad’s grave. With that decision made, she turned up the music and picked up her pace.
Later, as she approached town again, she noticed the church up ahead. She’d been so busy putting out fires in her office, she hadn’t thought about the muffin she dropped off there for Peyton. His early morning text message had hinted at meeting for breakfast, but when she replied, nothing. An hour later, still nothing. That’s when she’d stopped by the bakery to pick up some pastries for her mother’s shop; the muffin, an afterthought, which she left at the church for him. Sugar was nice enough and promised she’d make sure he got it, but now she wondered, since she’d never heard from him all day.