“I guess.” Dylan was the expert, so he was probably right. Finding Myrtle dead was stressful, and who knows what kind of tricks my mind could play on me in that kind of situation. Ask me about selling a house, and I was the expert. Ask me about murder and my knowledge was limited to fictional crime solving from prime-time TV. Gosh, Belle was right. I really did need a hobby.
“How much home improvement work did you have Myrtle doing around the house?” he asked.
“None, actually. Like I said, she’s planning, or she planned to sell the house to a multi-unit builder, not a single family. I suggested she keep the main lawn area and the house tidy, but no changes. Why do you ask?”
“The attic’s tore up pretty bad. Wasn’t sure what the point of that was for the home sale.”
“The attic?”
He nodded. “Holes in the drywall and the floor’s pulled up in spots. From the fresh drywall dust everywhere, looks like it’s new work. Figured you’re the one that told her to do it.”
“Can I take a look?”
He flicked his head toward the stairs. “Come on. I’ll show you.”
I appreciated that. Even though the killer was obviously not in the house at that moment, I didn’t feel comfortable going to the attic alone.
Dylan was right. The entire attic was in shambles. The walls had holes randomly punched throughout them, and the old wood floor was pulled up in various spots, no rhyme or reason to any of it whatsoever.
I had to climb over books, boxes, tools, and all sorts of odds and ends tossed around on the ground from the shelves and maybe the drawers of the cabinets and dressers just to get around the crowded, tight room. If I had any sort of claustrophobia, it would have sent me into a panic attack, but thankfully, I didn’t. “Dylan, I didn’t tell her to do this, and it wasn’t like this the other day, I swear.” I carefully maneuvered through the small, stuffy room. “I was just here. In fact, Myrtle had asked me to take a look up here and make sure the door was locked. She didn’t want anyone coming up here when viewing the property. Said there were some family things she didn’t want disturbed. I told her she wouldn’t have to worry about it, but she insisted.”
“You sure about that?”
I climbed back down the stairs. “Yes, Sheriff Roberts, I am sure.”
That annoying adorable twitch thing at the corner of his mouth started again. “What day were you up here?”
“Thursday.”
“And as far as you know, Myrtle didn’t have any plans to alter this room in any way?”
“She told me to lock the door so she could keep people out, Dylan. She was eighty-five-years-old. You think she was going to come up here and do a remodel herself? No, she had no plans to remodel this room.”
He nodded and headed toward the front of the house.
“Why would someone do this? Do you really think it was Jesse?” I hit him with a list of questions a mile long. By the time we got to the front door, I could tell I’d worn him out. “Maybe you’re right.” I kind of talked more to myself than to my ex-boyfriend. “Maybe there’s something of value to Jesse up here, and he wanted it, so he killed her and came looking for it after? Or maybe he came looking for it before he killed her and couldn’t find it, so he killed her because she wouldn’t tell him where it was?”
He stepped outside and rubbed his short, cropped blond hair before putting his hat back on. “Is there anything else you can tell me?”
I cocked my head to the right and shook it. “You didn’t hear a thing I said, did you?”
“Sure, I did.”
‘Liar. You’re doing exactly what you did when we dated.”
His head flinched back ever so slightly. “I’m what?”
“You acted like you listened then, but you didn’t, and you’re doing the same thing now.”
“I did listen, both then and now.”
“Fine. Then answer my questions.”
“Which ones?”
“All of them. Any of them.”
He couldn’t.
“You didn’t hear any of them.”
“I’m sorry.” He sighed. “I don’t have any answers at the moment anyway, Lil. What I do have is more questions for you.”
I tensed my jaw, focusing hard on letting the past stay where it belonged for the moment so I could focus on poor Myrtle Redbecker. “Okay, go ahead.”
“You didn’t notice anything before you went inside? Maybe you heard something you didn’t realize before?”
I replayed the events back in my head. “I don’t think so. But you know, Sonny Waddell mentioned he came by to see Myrtle last night. He gave me the impression they had words. Maybe you should talk to him.”
“Did he say what time he came by?”
I shook my head. “But I talked to her at about 4:30, so she was alive then.”
He nodded. “Anything else?”
“Not that I can think of.”
He held onto the brim of his hat with his thumb and forefinger and tipped it toward me. “Thank you, Lilybit.”
“You know I hate that.”
His mouth twitched. “I know.”
That twitch. Lord, that twitch. It would be the death of me.
* * *
On my way to the office I stopped at Millie’s Coffee and Cakes to grab an iced vanilla coffee and one of Millie’s famous raspberry lemon scones to go. I ordered a sweet tea and blueberry scone for Belle also. I went through the motions of my normal day even though Myrtle’s death left me a bit shell shocked and out of sorts. I figured it was the best way to return to normal.
Millie handed me the change from my twenty-dollar bill. “Can you believe it?” She shook her head. “Myrtle Redbecker dead. Bless Patsy, I knew that old coot would kick the bucket, but I never thought someone would kill her.”
Word traveled fast in a small town.
“It’s sad, I know. No one deserves to die like that.”
“It’s awful, just awful.” She closed her register and leaned toward me. “I’m not one for spreading gossip, but I hear Sheriff Roberts already has her killer, that nephew of hers. That poor boy, he just ain’t been the same since his family passed. And I heard he’s in debt something fierce. Bad business deal or something like that. Needs the money from the sale of the property to keep his garage now, I hear.”
“Now Millie, don’t you go assuming something without knowing the facts. You know what my momma always said about that.” I winked without saying exactly what my momma always said about that, thanked her for the food and headed to the office.
I figured I’d let that one sit with Millie a bit. Sometimes the small town gossip got on my nerves. Having been the center of it once, I had a little empathy for Jesse Pickett. I wasn’t sure if he killed his aunt, though I strongly suspected he did, but I couldn’t participate in throwing him under the bus without any real evidence against him.
The drive to my office was so short I could have walked, but I liked having my car a few steps from our store front location, and within eyesight of our office window. I handed Belle her tea and scone and plunked myself into my desk chair, the events of the morning already catching up with me, and it wasn’t even afternoon. My stomach ached, but not because I needed sustenance, because I’d found my client dead from a head wound and had a horrible feeling her only living relative was the person that killed her. I needed to focus on work so I didn’t focus on Myrtle’s death.
“Why are you even here?” she asked. “If ever you need a day off, it’s today.” She bit into her scone and swallowed it down with a sweet tea chaser. “I can handle things here.”
“I know, but I’ve got the Wilkinson property paperwork to get ready, and that new relocation company sent me their presentation a week ago, and I still haven’t watched it yet. I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed.”
“That can all wait. Maybe you need to go take a spin class to destress. Pull those blonde curls up into a ponytail and go hop on a bike. It’ll make you feel better.”
Spin classes were my go-to exercise and destressing avenue of choice, and Belle knew that. She also knew I had a slight addiction to staying in shape ever since I’d learned most of the women in my family ended up with first Type 1 and then Type 2 diabetes. I’d made a conscious decision to eat fairly well and exercise often hoping to not end up like the rest of my family. I knew I’d end up exercising soon, but something about the situation with Myrtle Redbecker had my brain working on overdrive. “I’ll go later.” I took a bite of my scone, too, forgetting, at least momentarily, about the risk of diabetes. “Something’s not right.”
“Goodness, don’t go telling Millie that. The last time someone complained about her scones she banned him from the store for life. Remember that?”
I laughed. “Caroline Chastain’s great grandpa. We had to bring him scones every morning on our way to school. Poor guy.”
Belle leaned back in her chair and laughed too. “I know. He even brought her flowers to apologize, but she wouldn’t even let him inside. Locked the door and told him he could put the flowers where the sun didn’t shine.”
“Obviously he didn’t know that no one should ever mess with a woman and her scone recipe.” I took another bite of the creamy but dry treat. “And really, what is there to complain about anyway?”
“Absolutely nothing.”
I finished chewing. “That’s not what I’m talking about though. I’m talking about Myrtle. Dylan thinks Jesse killed her, but I’m not sure I agree. You were right by the way.”
“About what?”
“There was someone in the house when I got there. I think they left between the time I arrived and called the police.”
She straightened in her chair. “Oh my gosh. You could have been killed. Did you tell Dylan?”
“I did. He thinks I’m just stressed because of the whole situation.” I filled her in on the details.
“How long did it take Dylan to get there after you called 9-1-1?”
“Not long. Maybe a few minutes. Five at the most.”
“Well, he is the one with training in this kind of thing.” She grabbed a hair clip from the collar of her shirt, twisted her long, straight black hair into a bun and clipped it on the top of her head. I envied the neatness of her stick straight hair.
“You don’t have to remind me about that.” The amount of baggage I carried because of Dylan’s decision to become law enforcement could fill a land fill. I wasn’t prepared to go there and dig any of it up any time soon. I picked a pen out of the cup on my desk and twirled it in my hand. “Do you think Dylan’s right? About Jesse?”
“I’m leaning that way. Maybe he heard you yelling for Myrtle, and he ran out when you called 9-1-1.” She stared at out our office window onto the town’s main street. “Maybe It’s Sonny Waddell. He said he was there the night before, remember?”
“Millie said she heard Jesse Pickett got involved with some bad business deal and is in a lot of debt because of it. Apparently, he might lose the garage over it. She thinks it’s him, too. Poor guy’s been proven guilty before he’s even gone to trial.”
“He’s never been the same since losing his family.”
“That’s what Millie said.” My thoughts kept going back to the attic. What could be up there that Jesse, or even Sonny Waddell might want that would be worth killing Myrtle Redbecker over? “I saw what’s in that attic, and there’s nothing of any real monetary value up there. Yeah, Myrtle said there’s some family things she didn’t want anyone to touch, but all that’s up there is a bunch of photos and stuff like that. She actually asked me to make sure a few of the boxes were removed and attended to if something happened to her. Said there’s a letter at the bank in her safety deposit box if the need arises that’ll tell me what to do with some of the items.”
“One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”
“You watch too many home improvement shows.”
“I’m a realtor. Of course, I do.”
I tapped the pen on my desk. “There’s something going on. I don’t know what, but I don’t think we can sell that property until we figure it out.” I kept tapping the pen on my desk. Tap. Tap. Tap.
“If you don’t stop that there’s going to be another murder.”
“Stop what?”
“The tapping with the darn pen. Please, go work out. When you get like this, you drive everyone around you crazy. Expend that energy before I stick that pen where the sun don’t shine.”
“Oh, my.” I grabbed my gym back from under my desk. “Testy this morning, aren’t you?”
“If your best friend was Type A, you’d go crazy from all the tapping too, trust me.”
I tapped the pen on the desk a few more times, and Belle threw a pad of paper at me.
“Get out of here,” she yelled, smiling the entire time.
I ran out laughing.
An hour and a half and a full-throttle spin class later, my stress level lessened, but I hadn’t changed my mind. We still couldn’t finalize the sale of Myrtle Redbecker’s property without figuring out who killed her.
Chapter 2
Getting answers about families in small towns wasn’t all that tough. Everyone knew something about everyone, and they all had an opinion about it, too. The tough part was determining fact from gossip and truth from lies, so I decided to just ask questions first and worry about separating the answers later.
In college, I’d learned to attack every business situation with a plan, and I’d made that a practice in most areas of my life, too. Belle swore I did that with dating too, and that I needed more spontaneity in my life, but I had a very specific list of requirements for my special someone, and a plan of when I’d start the process of finding him, and I had no intentions of changing that plan. Spontaneity caused heartache; I knew that from personal experience. Personal experience I had no intention of repeating ever again.
I didn’t have a detailed plan to figure out what the story was behind Myrtle’s murder, but I wasn’t flying by the seat of my pants, either. I had a general idea of what to do—ask questions and go from there. Sometimes that was what I did when securing a client, too. I asked questions, a lot of questions, and eventually I’d hit on something that clicked, and I made the sale.
I had two possible suspects with at least one potential motive and something just on the other side of a motive, but it was better than nothing, so I went with it. The obvious, Myrtle’s nephew Jesse, and the not so obvious, her neighbor, Sonny Waddell. The motives weren’t all that solid, if Sonny even had one, but digging a little deeper into both stories wouldn’t hurt.
I opted to kill two birds with one stone and headed over to Odell Luna’s house. I plugged my nose as I got out of my car, but that didn’t do me a whole lot of good. The ammonia scent hit me so hard anyway, I tasted it. Myrtle Redbecker’s murder was tops on my list, but I definitely needed to address the chickens. Someone had to.
I kept my nose plugged and knocked on his door. He acknowledged my knock with a cranky holler of, “I’m coming, quit your banging.”
I’d only knocked twice.
“What do you want?” When he finally made eye contact, he blushed. “Oh, Lily Sprayberry.” He pushed his greasy gray combover that had dropped over his left eye, to the side. “Nice to see you.”
“Nice to see you too, Mr. Luna. May I come in?”
He straightened the bottom of his no longer white undershirt. “I reckon so, though I don’t got nothing for you to drink but beer and water. You want one of those?”
I waved my hand. “No, thank you. I’m fine. I’d just like to talk with you about Mrs. Redbecker’s property if you don’t mind.” I sat on his worn green and yellow couch. His house smelled as bad inside as it did outside.
“Don’t mind one bit. Terrible thing to happen to her. Myrtle wasn’t the sweetest berry on the branch, but me and her, we got along all right. Hate to see her go that way.” He shook his head. “Eighty-five years and then hit over the head with your cast iron skillet.�
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“It’s terrible, I know. I overheard you talking with Sonny Waddell earlier. You mentioned something about not having to worry about Myrtle selling the property now because Jesse would get it. That got Sonny’s tail up, and I’m wondering what he meant when he said neither Jesse or his aunt would be getting his property. I’m not aware of Myrtle trying to purchase Sonny’s property. Do you know what he was talking about?”
Odell unearthed a bottle of moonshine from his TV cabinet and poured some into a paper cup. He offered me a sip, but I kindly declined. I’d tried the stuff in high school and after a hangover the size of the state of Texas, decided alcohol wasn’t my thing. I hadn’t had a sip of the stuff since.
“Myrtle didn’t tell you about the property dispute? I’d have thought you’d be the first to know considering you’re the real estate agent of record and all.”
“No, she didn’t. I’d love for you to explain it to me. If you don’t mind, of course.”
He chugged the rest of his drink and poured himself another cup full. “’Course. Looks like there’s a bit of a disagreement over part of the land. Sonny claims it’s his, but Myrtle had a different opinion. Now that she’s gone and Jesse’s getting the house, he’ll have to deal with him over it.”
“Do you know what section of land Sonny thinks is his?”
He nodded and wiggled his finger for me to follow him outside. “See that corner over there? The one next to that big River Birch? On the left of the tree, that’s what everyone’s always figured was the dividing line, but Sonny claims it ain’t. Says it’s actually on the other side of the tree.”
I knew nothing about the property line issue and assumed it was because Myrtle believed there wasn’t one. “Has he had survey done?”
He nodded. “You know who used to work for the county appraiser’s office, right?”
“Wilbur Redbecker.”
“Sonny thinks he rigged the property lines in his favor. Said he doesn’t care what the survey says, he knows his land and he ain’t sellin’ it to nobody, and he’s tired of letting that old biddy tell him what to do with it, too.” His cheeks turned a touch pink. “Excuse me. Those were his words, not mine. I don’t speak ill of the dead.”
Deal Gone Dead Page 3