by Tegan Maher
"Ha-ha," she replied, scrunching her nose at me. "Watch it or I'll shrink your head for being a smart-ass."
"I'd rather you shrunk my butt," I said, which reminded me that we were out of Fruit Loops.
I was doing my best to pretend my favorite chips weren't BOGO on a shelf to my immediate right. I hated going to the grocery store on an empty stomach.
"Oh, crap," Addy said, saving me from myself. "Don't look now, but it's Lila Thomas. If she catches us, we won't get out of here until she's shown you all eighty-three pictures of her cats and grandkids."
She wasn't wrong. Mrs. Thomas was nice enough, but she tended to be a little tone deaf when it came to folks who were in a hurry. She'd been a stay-at-home mom, and now that her son and daughter were grown, it just skimmed right over her head that some people didn't have all day to stand around and shoot the breeze.
It was too late, though; she'd already caught sight of us. I pasted a smile onto my face, took a deep breath, and prepared myself to look at snapshots and class pictures ad nauseam.
Instead, Beth stepped forward, stuffing a hand into her oversized purse. "Lila! It's been forever. How have you been?"
Mrs. Thomas beamed at her, already reaching into her purse, too. "Why, just fine, Beth, just fine. As a matter of fact, I just had some great news. Bill"—her son—"is down for a visit. And Vickie called to say she and the kids are comin’ down next week. She sent me the kids' school pictures—"
Beth held up a hand. "I've had some good news, too. I've been havin' some heartburn, so the doc did an endoscopy on my throat, down into my stomach almost. I’m fine, but I can't believe what they can do with such a tiny little camera nowadays; you have to see these." She whipped a manila folder out of her bag and started to pull some pictures out.
Mrs. Thomas turned a little green around the gills and took her hand out of her purse. "I'm sure they're fascinating, Beth, but I need to get back and get supper on. Bill will be home from fishin' in an hour. It was good to see you, and I hope everything works out well."
She took a hard right with her buggy, and in her haste to escape Beth and the pictures of her innards, crashed right into Ida Crenshaw.
Ms. Crenshaw had divorced her third husband several years earlier and managed to hold onto his house and property in the process. It wasn't that surprising, considering she could afford to pay a top-notch lawyer from all the money she'd gotten from divorce number two via assets and outrageous alimony. The property was just up the road from us, so I'd grown up with her daughter, Rose, who was my age.
Unlike her mother, Rose was a wonderful soul. She used to tell Ida she was taking her required piano lessons, then sneak up to the farm to ride horses.
As soon as Ms. Crenshaw looked up to see who'd crashed into her, her nose went in the air and her lip curled like she smelled something rotten. "Watch where you're going, Lila. For the love of God, if you paid more attention to your surroundings and less attention to trapping people into looking at pictures of your horrid cats and grandkids, you'd have seen me."
I took a deep breath. Even though Mrs. Thomas was a talker and did tend to take the picture thing too far, it was because she was lonely, and that's how she passed time when her kids weren't visiting. Her husband had passed a couple years ago, and they'd been married for more than forty years, so that was understandable. She was a good egg, and the way Ida Crenshaw'd just talked to her stuck in my craw.
Clearing my throat and pasting on my best fake smile, I stepped forward. "And I'm sure if you hadn't had your nose so high in the air that you'da drowned if it rained, you would have seen us standing here, too. So how bout we just call it even and you head on in search of your next ex-husband?"
Ida gasped, and her hand fluttered to her pearls in righteous outrage. Her mouth opened and closed several times before she settled on a single, high-pitched huff and tottered away from us as fast as her high heels would allow.
Mrs. Thomas smiled, looking a little sad. "Thank you, Noelle. Your Aunt Addy would be proud of you." Of course, she couldn't see Addy hovering just to my right or else she'd have noticed how my auntie's chest puffed up a little.
"I'll let you ladies be on your way, then" she continued. "And Beth, it was good to see you. Stop by the house sometime so we can catch up."
We said our goodbyes and turned once again in the direction of the meat department. After grabbing a big pack of hamburger and a couple packs of hot dogs, we made our way to the condiments aisle for some pickles. Beth stopped me as we passed the end of the aisle that held the personal hygiene products.
Ms. Crenshaw had an extra-large box of hemorrhoid cream in one hand and was clutching her buggy with the other. Her face was flushed and sweaty, and she was swaying, a dazed expression on her face. Rae and I rushed forward and just managed to catch her before she crashed to the floor.
She was blinking and twitching, but thankfully, she was conscious. Annie Sotheby, one of the girls who worked there, came rushing up the aisle just as Ms. Crenshaw tossed her lunch right in front of the diaper-rash medicine.
"What's going on?" Annie asked, making a wide swathe to avoid the mess while trying hard to repress her gag reflex.
I lifted a shoulder, unsure of what to say since I had no idea. "She was all red in the face, then fell over. We caught her."
Annie sprung to her feet. "I'll go get Franky."
The stars had aligned, putting him right where he was needed.
He came rushing in with a gurney, followed by a guy I didn't recognize. Rae and I stepped back so they could do their thing, and within just a few minutes, they had her on the stretcher and out of the store.
"Well," said Beth, picking up the abandoned tube of hemorrhoid cream and putting it back on the shelf. "That was a little more action than I expected to see today."
"I wonder what happened.” I said. “Do you think it was some sort of stroke?"
Addy shrugged. "Looked more like a seizure to me. Or maybe all that meanness finally caught up with her and popped like a cork."
We bandied about the possibilities as we gathered the rest of our groceries, then gave it up as we stepped back out into the heat. The table and balloons were still sitting right where Franky and crew had left them, but the ambulance was gone. I stopped to collect the loose items into a pile and set a rock on them so they wouldn't fly away.
I didn't give it any thought when a row of Mr. Yuck stickers gave me the icky face from the top of the pile of alcoholism pamphlets, but I should have. I’d have appreciated the irony later.
CHAPTER 4
MATT AND SHELBY HAD gotten Kristen all settled in by the time we got back, and we waved to our newest boarder when we passed her as she was leaving.
"Who was that?" Beth asked.
I explained, and she nodded. "I think it's good you're taking on another horse. That gives you three payin’ boarders now. I know your store's doin' well, but it's never good to put all your eggs in one basket if you don't have to."
We shared that sentiment. We'd spent most of my life just gettin’ by, and in the months after Addy'd passed the year before, it had taken everything I had just to put food on the table. Things had changed so much in just a handful of months that my head was still spinning a little.
Though we weren't rich by any stretch, we were doing okay. Part of that had to do with the fact that Hank, the man who'd been sheriff of Keyhole Lake for almost two decades, had been murdered. He'd been milking us dry with double and even triple property and “business” taxes for years. When he died, Keyhole's new sheriff—who just happened to be Hunter—put the town finances and legal system on the straight and narrow, and people who'd been struggling to make it suddenly found themselves with extra cash on their hands.
And that wasn't the only way his death benefited us either. In a roundabout way, I'd helped solve the crime, and Hank's mama had paid me the fifty-grand reward she'd offered to whomever found his killer.
When you're poor, fifty thousand bucks is life changing
. I'd been able to quit my waitressing job except for picking up an occasional shift here and there whenever Bobbie Sue needed me. That meant I could spend more time straightening Shelby out and figuring out what I wanted to be when I grew up. I had a degree in criminal justice from UGA, but law enforcement wasn't an option as I'd originally planned.
I'd planned to stay in Atlanta and become a CSI investigator but barely made it through college because I was so homesick. Since Hank was running things here, joining the Keyhole force was out of the question. I'd have been the one on trial for his murder if I'd have had to deal with him on a daily basis.
Jobs in a small town weren't easy to come by. I hadn't wanted to leave Keyhole, so I'd gone to work at Bobbie Sue's Barbecue as a waitress. Rae, who'd graduated at the same time I did but was smart enough to get a business degree, had opened Brew4U, a cute little coffee shop. She'd needed baked goods to offer along with the coffee, and it just so happened I was one heck of a kitchen witch.
So, I'd made pastries and helped her out a few days a week before she could afford to hire help. She'd never taken any money for the goodies that sold like hotcakes because she knew I was struggling to keep my head above water. Between waitressing and helping Rae, I'd done well before Addy passed since the only debt I had was student loans. I’d also insisted on contributing a couple hundred bucks a month toward the bills. When she died, though, things got tight, and I was worried all the time I was gonna lose the farm.
As a matter of fact, I was worried about a lot.
Hank had threatened to take Shelby's guardianship away from me, and he'd wanted the farm something fierce. Shelby was running hog wild, and I was working my fingers to the bone just to keep the lights on; I didn't have time to babysit an out-of-control sixteen year old, too.
Then Hank died, and suddenly everything was okay again. After one ugly minute of watching him gasp his last few miserable breaths, my life—along with just about everybody else's in Keyhole—got considerably better.
Long story short, when somebody'd helped him kick the bucket, they'd done the town a huge favor. Since I'd been a suspect for a minute before they decided his wife was guilty, I'd had a vested interest in finding out who'd done it, which had led to my reward.
I'd started Reimagined, a little upcycle shop, with the money, and it was doing better than I could have hoped.
Still, the fear of being broke like that again was real, and I figured a few more bucks coming in from a different source was a good hedge, just in case.
"I like having more than just one income," I told Beth as we drove up the winding, mile-long driveway to the house, "but I don't want just anybody here. I'd rather have empty stalls than somebody who doesn't fit in." Unlike Shelby and Gabi—my friend who lived with us—I wasn't a people person, and neither was Matt.
When we pulled up to the front of the house, Max, our talking donkey, was sleeping on the porch. He lifted his head, blinking his eyes and yawning, his big front teeth shining. He looked so cute.
"It's about time you got home," he groused. "That woman brought a kid with her who had the nerve to climb on me like I was a common pack animal."
Let me amend my statement. He looked cute until he opened his mouth. He’d been a sixteenth-century noble, but had been turned to a “form more suiting his personality” by a witch when she’d caught him steppin’ out on her. We’d met under strange circumstances, but he was part of the family, bad attitude and all.
"Not to point out the obvious," Beth said, "but—"
Max lowered his fuzzy eyebrows and glowered at her. "Don't you dare say it. There's nothing common about me."
That was true enough. A common donkey was, with some exceptions, cantankerous. Max was cantankerous, mouthy, snarky, and entitled. He was also loyal to a fault and part of our family, which is why we put up with the other, less admirable traits.
Rae rolled her eyes. "You know kids think you're adorable. If you don't feel like dealing with them, why don't you just make yourself scarce when they show up?"
He gave me the hairy eyeball. "Why can't we just not have them here to begin with? This is my home. I shouldn't have to make myself scarce to avoid harassment." He shuddered. "They're such foul little beasts."
"So are you," Addy said, arching a translucent brow, "and yet we let you stay."
He cut his eyes at her, huffed, and ambled down toward the barn, no doubt in search of food.
"I swear," Rae said, shaking her head, "he gets crankier every day."
"Nah." I grinned as I pulled open the screen door. "He just doesn't want to admit he likes the attention kids give him."
Rae and Beth took a seat at our long farm table, and I smiled when Aunt Beth straightened the rubber, horse-themed placemat in front of her to line up with the crack in the table. She didn't even think about it, and my smile faded when I realized it was a quirk that showed up when she was worried.
Shelby thumped down the stairs and pulled open the fridge, then handed me the tea jug as she reached back in for some leftover chicken I'd grabbed on the way home the day before.
"Hey, Aunt Beth, Rae," she said, a drumstick in her hand. "What are y'all doin' here? Rae, I thought you were working late."
"Yeah, me too," Rae replied, "until I made a vine grow fast enough to consume my desk, then shrank it and my desk, along with everything on it, to the size of a teacup."
While I poured us all a glass of tea, Rae brought Shelby up to speed on the mysterious supercharge she'd given the plant and the resulting Honey I Shrunk my Desk story.
"Camille will be here in just a few minutes. She'll know what to do," Shelby reassured her.
My phone began playing Hunter’s ringtone, and I picked it up from the table and answered it.
"Hey, sweetie," I said. "What's up? Are you still bringing pizza over in a bit?"
He heaved a big sigh that I recognized as his I want to but can’t sigh, and my stomach sank.
"I don't know, honey,” he said. “Ida Crenshaw had an incident in the Piggly Wiggly today—"
"I know," I said, cutting in. "I was there."
"You were there?" he asked, then instantly sounded more tired. "Please tell me you didn't interact with her while she was there."
"Why?" I asked, suspicious.
"Just ... did you?"
I relayed what had happened.
"Okay, then," he said. "Good. You didn't give her anything to eat or drink or touch her in any way?"
"Um, no. Pretty sure I didn't insult her then give her a cookie, and I wouldn't touch her with a ten-foot pole." Then I realized I had touched her. I amended my denial and explained what had gone down.
"Oh," he said, relieved. "I'm not worried about that. It was after."
The others were listening closely, wearing the same puzzled expression I probably was.
"After what?" I asked, then went for the important question. "And what does Ms. Crenshaw's stroke or whatever have to do with our pizza?"
He pulled in a tired breath and released it. "She didn't have a stroke. She was poisoned. And now she's dead."
"Dead," I parroted, my voice flat.
"As a hammer," he confirmed.
As far as dead went, it didn't get much more permanent than that.
CHAPTER 5
THE GIRLS HEARD EVERYTHING Hunter had said, and I'd barely ended the call when everybody started talking at once.
Shelby'd heard my explanation, so she was all caught up.
"If you ask me," Addy said, "it was probably one of her ex-husbands."
"She's right," Beth said, nodding her head. "That woman took more men to the cleaners than most people around here do suits."
I couldn't disagree. I mean, she'd gotten a car and a boat out of the first one, a boatload of cash—including half the guy's retirement—from the second one, and a big house on acreage from the third.
"I'd lay money on the second or third ex," Raeann said. "I can't imagine anybody killin' for a boat or a car, and that was over thirty years ago
. Money and a homestead, though? You bet your booties."
Addy chimed in. "That house wasn't just a house, either. The land belonged to his parents—"
Beth gasped, her eyes wide.
"What?" Shelby and I asked.
Beth shook her finger and nodded her head, her tone emphatic. "And it reverts to him if she dies first."
The little gossip devil on my shoulder sat up straighter. Now that was a motive for murder.
I texted the info to Hunter, but all I got in reply was an OK. I figured he was knee-deep in red tape. I wished I'd thought to ask what kind of poison, but I didn't want to bother him. I wasn't even sure how long it took to get information like that back from the lab or if he’d be willing to share it.
Since pizza was no longer on the table, I reheated the chicken and pulled out some potato salad I'd made the day before to go with it. We'd just finished eating when Camille pulled up out front. She gave a quick knock on the door then let herself in, calling hello as she did.
"Hey," I said. "C'mon in."
Shelby grabbed a Coke—Camille's preferred drink since she cut loose and started living a little—out of the fridge and handed it to her. As always, she looked classy and elegant as she took a seat at the table beside Beth.
"Boy do we have news for you," Shelby said, sliding onto a chair beside her.
"Hit me," she said. "I've been at the Council office all day, and they're trying to reorganize some divisions to streamline the system. We've also got some trouble brewing up in Atlanta, though we don't know exactly what's going on yet. I'm ready for something good."
"Well," Beth drawled, "I don't know that you'd call any of it good, but we'll start with the more gossipy news. The second affects us directly." She told her about Ms. Crenshaw, then paused.
"Y'all had a busy afternoon, then," Camille said after Beth finished the story, then took a swig of her Coke and toed off her high heels.