Open House Heist

by Carolyn Ridder Aspenson

  I laughed. I’d just told her what Henry and his father had said about the lividity of Jennifer Rawlings’ body, and apparently Belle considered that gory. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “So, what happens next?”

  I shrugged. “I’m here, and when I’m done, I’m going to review the timeline and how it could change based on an earlier time of death and see what I come up with.”

  She handed me a fondue stick. “Then here. Give this a try.”

  I held the metal stick in my hand. “Uh, I don’t think this will work.”

  “You’re the lock picker in this friendship, so what else did you have in mind?”

  “I picked the lock of a little diary.” I pointed to the trunk. “That thing’s got a real honest to goodness lock on it.”

  “You love a challenge?”

  “Not that big of one.”

  She walked to the trunk and wiggled the lock. “Thing won’t even budge. I don’t think Jesus could open it if he tried.”

  “I’m pretty sure Jesus is too busy to concern himself with this kind of thing.”

  She shoved the trunk, but it barely budged on the carpeted floor. “Come help me. Maybe we can figure out what’s in it if we pick it up.”

  The trunk wasn’t as heavy as it was bulky, and that surprised me. We tipped it left and right, and something inside moved, but there was no way to determine what it was.

  Belle flung herself back onto the couch and groaned. “Ugh, I’d totally forgotten about opening this darn thing until we went to Clara’s. Now it’s driving me crazy.”

  “We’ll figure it out.”

  “I was hoping to use it for your wedding shower.”

  “My what?”

  “Your wedding shower. That thing the maid of honor throws where you get a bunch of stuff you don’t need and will never use but have to write thank you cards for? You know what that is, right?”

  I plopped down on the couch next to her, and the words that came out of my mouth surprised even me. “Ugh, I don’t want to get married.”

  She jumped from the couch. “Lily Sprayberry, shut your mouth. You love Dylan, and you are not callin’ off our wedding. Er, I mean your wedding.”

  “Oh, no. That’s not what I meant. Of course I want to be with Dylan, and I definitely want to marry him. It’s our wedding I don’t want. The wedding I guess you consider yours, too.” I smiled with just the right side of my mouth because it all really wasn’t that funny.

  “Dear God, are you sick?” She sat next to me and placed the back of her hand against my forehead. “You don’t have a fever. Is it Lyme Disease? I hear that makes people act all crazy. You been bit by any mosquitos? They’re horrible ‘cause of all the rain we got this winter.”

  “I am not crazy, and I don’t have Lyme Disease.” I sighed. “This is serious, Belle. I’m saying it out loud really for the first time. I don’t want a traditional wedding. It’s just too overwhelming, and it doesn’t feel right.”

  “I don’t understand. Every woman wants a wedding, and you’ve been planning yours for years.”

  “Well, I don’t. Not anymore.”

  She leaned her head against my shoulder. “So, we’ll make it smaller. Just family and close friends.”

  “This is Bramblett, Belle. Everyone is family or close friends.”

  “That’s true. What about a destination wedding? Maybe Cancun or something? No one will go to that.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”

  She sat up and faced me. “So, what then?”

  I pressed my lips together. “I don’t know.”

  “You’re going to elope, aren’t you? Lord, your mother is going to pitch a fit the size of Texas.”

  “I didn’t say I wanted to elope.”

  She pointed at me and wiggled her finger saying, tsk, tsk, tsk. “Honey, I have known you longer than anyone else, and you don’t have to say it. I can read it all over your face. Besides, you didn’t deny it, did you?”

  I sighed. I hadn’t denied it, and she did know me well enough to know I must have been considering it, which I hadn’t exactly realized myself. “A marriage isn’t about everyone else. It’s about the man and woman. That’s how I want to start my marriage, as a man and woman, not with three hundred people throwing bird seed at my expensive dress.”

  She held her hand to her mouth. “Your mother. This will be the death of her. And your daddy. He won’t be able to walk his little girl down the aisle.”

  “You’re not helping.”

  “Well, good, I’m not trying to help. I’m trying to talk some sense into you.”

  I leaned back. “I haven’t decided, and just so you know, Dylan would be fine with it. It was his idea.”

  “Well, that man is getting a talking to tomorrow, let me tell you.”

  I smiled and took her hand in mine. “Belle, I love you to the stars and back, but this is mine and Dylan’s wedding, and it’s our decision. I know you want what’s best for me, but you know me well enough to know I’ll think through before I decide. I promise you’ll be the first to know, but you have to stop. I need to be able to think clearly, and without you guilting me into doing something because of what others want, okay?”

  She hugged me. “You’re right. Okay. I’ll do my best to keep my trap shut, but I can’t make any promises.”

  I hugged back tightly. “That’s all I’m asking.”

  “Then how about we get back to lock-pickin’? I need closure on at least one thing tonight.”

  I stood. “Can we try another night? I’m just exhausted, both emotionally and physically. I need to get home and get some sleep.”

  She popped off the couch and walked me to the door. “There’s always tomorrow.”

  * * *

  Bo and I snuggled in my bed, at least Bo’s version of snuggling. His muscular behind was bumped up against my shoulder while the rest of his body lay stretched out sideways on the pillows next to me. I wondered where Dylan would sleep when he and I became husband and wife. I doubted Bo would give up his side of the bed, so I had a feeling it would be a never-ending war.

  I turned off the light and tried to go to sleep, but as tired as I was, my mind raced too much to rest. Competing thoughts of Jennifer Rawlings’ murder and disappointing my family and friends if I didn’t have a wedding fought for my attention. Thirty minutes with my eyes shut, and I gave up. I crawled out of bed, careful not to disturb Bo, and dragged my worn out body with its ever-running brain into the kitchen to retrieve my bag. I decided to edit the timeline based on time of death change and see what I could come up with.

  Five minutes into that I realized that though my brain was on overdrive, it didn’t want to focus, it just wanted to be busy, so I opted to read though the rest of Jennifer’s diary instead. Since I hadn’t done it earlier, I figured I might as well try again. Knowing what I knew, I might catch something I’d missed before.

  Only her diary wasn’t in my bag. In my head, I retraced my steps for the day, and the last I remembered was leaving it at work. I checked the time on my phone. It was just past eleven o’clock. Belle might still be awake. I sent her a text and asked if she’d taken it or saw it there at all.

  “I don’t think you left with it,” she replied. “I feel like it wasn’t there after we grabbed coffees at Millie’s today.”

  “Did you see it?”

  “I can’t say for sure, but I don’t think you left it on your desk.”

  “Thanks.”

  I replayed that scene in my head, and I just couldn’t remember if I’d put it in my bag with the rest of my things, but I knew it wasn’t on my desk when I returned later. So where had it gone?

  Could someone have gone into our office while we were at Millie’s? It was possible. I couldn’t recall Belle locking the door, but she probably wouldn’t have anyway. Millie’s was only steps away, and we didn’t usually worry about that kind of thing. We also didn’t often use the alarm system Dylan had installed months before. We’d used it o
ften, but in the last month or two, we’d gotten lazy, until we just stopped using it completely.

  “Darn it,” I said out loud. “Someone could have taken it, and I’ll never know.”

  But who? Who would need the diary? What would it matter to anyone? I didn’t tell anyone about it anyway, so how would they even know what it was?

  Only I had told someone. I told Eric Rooting. I nibbled on my fingernail, and then grabbed my pen and timeline and got to work.

  I fought the endless racing of my brain and focused hard, staying up all night reconfiguring the timeline and putting together my case. I drank two pots of coffee to do it, but I didn’t even need the caffeine. I stayed awake from pure motivation and determination, and by sunrise, I was certain I knew what happened to that young girl.

  I knew who killed her.

  I threw on a pair of jeans and a sweater, fed and walked Bo, and brought him over to Millie’s to meet Dylan. “It all makes sense now,” I said. I talked fast and he didn’t understand half of what I said.

  “Honey, slow down. You’re not making any sense.”

  “The murder, the time, all of it. It makes sense.”

  He held my wrist. “Okay, let’s talk about this.”

  “No, I can’t, not now. I have to run. I’ve got a contract to go over with a client and houses to show today.” I grabbed my coffee and headed toward the door. “I’ll call you when I’m done.”

  Dylan rushed the door. “Lily, don’t do anything until you talk to me, you hear me?”

  I nodded. “Thanks for taking Bo.” I bent down and kissed my dog on the top of his head and rushed to my car.

  I spent an hour reviewing the contract with my client, frustrated it took that long. She questioned every detail, asked for an additional three changes, and flat out refused two items she’d already committed to.

  “Okay, I’ll go back and renegotiate this with the buyer, but I have to be honest, you’ve already verbally agreed to the terms of their offer, so they may just walk. Are you sure this is how you want to handle things?”

  She nodded. “I ain’t sellin’ nothing if I don’t get it my way.”

  Bless her heart. She was definitely determined.

  I left my client’s home and headed straight to Amy Stapleton’s. I knocked on the door three times, but no one answered. I needed to talk to her. If the timeline went the way I thought, she couldn’t have talked to Jenny because Jenny was already dead. Unless of course she killed her, and I was pretty sure she had.

  Dylan’s ringtone played loudly over my car’s blue tooth. I answered the call quickly.

  “What’s goin on?” he asked.

  “I think it was Amy Stapleton. She killed Jenny. She lied about the phone call. And she didn’t tell Pittman about it because she just thought it up when she talked to me. She’s already lied to me a few times, Dylan, so what’s to stop her from lying about the call? And with what Henry Huggins senior said, she would have had time to go to the Covingtons, kill Jennifer, and drop her body in the woods, and then go straight to work for the lunch shift at Waffle House.”

  He riddled me with questions over the line. “I’ll explain everything later. I need to go.”

  “You’re not confronting her, are you?”

  “No,” I lied. “I mean, I’m going there, but just to ask her questions. I’m not going to tell her I know. Not yet.”

  The frustration in his voice was obvious. “What can I say to stop you?”

  “Nothing, but I promise, I won’t tell her what I know.”

  “What you think you know.”

  “That either. Gotta go.” I disconnected our call.

  I arrived at Amy’s home, and Buck answered the front door again. “She ain’t here.” He went to close the door, but I spoke and stopped him.

  “Do you know when she’ll be back?”

  He shook his head. “Don’t know. Said she had something to take care of before it got outta hand. Said she’d be back later today.”

  I climbed back into my car and drove to the Rooting’s house fearing Amy’s business to handle involved them. Was she worried I’d gotten too close, that I’d figured it out? I hadn’t said anything to lead her to believe that, but a guilty person didn’t need a reason to worry.

  The subdivision’s main gate wasn’t closed, and the security hut was empty, so I just drove right in. That worried me because if Amy had come, she wouldn’t have had any problem getting in either. The Rooting’s gate was shut, and there were no cars in the driveway, but that didn’t mean Amy didn’t have access to their home another way, like climbing the fence or something.

  I pulled up past the driveway and parked, contemplating what to do. Their large home sported four garages, and as I sat there thinking, one of them opened. I watched as a large black Hummer backed out of the small space and headed down the driveway. Just like the one Belle mentioned was outside our office, and if I remembered correctly, it was the same type of car that almost hit her when we were leaving Eric Rooting’s office.

  I put my car in drive and inched further forward, not wanting the person driving down the driveway to get a look at me. I ducked down a bit and glanced into my rearview mirror as the car waited for the security gate to open and then pulled out. Eric Rooting was at the wheel.

  In the heat of the moment, I flipped my car around and crawled behind him at a snail’s pace, not wanting him to see. I crested the large hill at the top of the subdivision and stopped.

  Eric Rooting’s Hummer was angled in the middle of the road leaving me nowhere to go. He stood outside of the large vehicle and leaned against the driver’s door with his arms crossed over his chest. I pulled to the side of the road as he marched over.

  “Are you stalking me now? I told you I didn’t have anything to do with Jenny’s death. Why can’t you just leave me alone?”

  I twisted my engagement ring around on my finger. “I…I’m not stalking you. I just…” I hesitated, not sure of exactly what to say. “I spoke to the coroner who handled Jenny’s um…body, and there’s a discrepancy for the time of death. We think she was killed in the morning, not the night.”

  He interrupted me. “And you think I killed her?”

  “I…I don’t…I’m not saying that. I just wanted to…” I stared at his car. Was it a coincidence that the exact make and color of vehicle had previously been in Bramblett, where cars like that weren’t owned by most residents other than maybe someone at the old Redbecker development, and those were rarely seen? What about when a similar one almost hit Belle backing out of his office? That definitely wasn’t him driving then. “What kind of car does your wife drive?”

  He shook his head. “What does that even matter?” He stepped backward and away from my car and pointed at me. “You need to leave us alone, or I’ll file harassment charges against you. Do you understand?”

  “Mr. Rooting, I’m sorry, I just—”

  He waved his hands in front of his chest. “No. I’ve had enough. Just stop, okay? Jenny’s dead. She’s not coming back.” He jogged to his car, hopped in, and then sped away.

  I laid my head back on the head rest and sighed. That didn’t go at all like I’d hoped, though I wasn’t sure what I expected. If I was in his shoes I’d think I was a stalker, too.

  * * *

  I pulled into a spot between the office and Millie’s. I crawled out of my car feeling defeated and worn out, and it wasn’t even noon. Not only was it just Wednesday, and there were two and a half more days until the weekend, I had a busy afternoon scheduled. I had three properties, possibly four, to show a client in a bit, and I needed to focus on that. It was the last thing I wanted to do. I wanted to go home and sleep, but that wasn’t going to happen.

  I stepped into Millie’s for a cup of coffee and a scone hoping the jolt of caffeine and sugar would perk me up, and Millie greeted me at the counter.

  “Well lookie here, it’s Cupid. Or Missus Cupid, I guess.”

  I must have shown my defeat and exhaustion b
ecause Millie swapped out a big smile for furrowed brows and a downturned mouth. “You okay? You look like something the cat drug in after tossing it around in the yard a bit first.”

  “That’s about how I feel right now, too.”

  She opened the counter case and pulled out a raspberry scone. “Here, you could use the sugar. You want a cup of coffee or a tea?”

  “I’ll take a coffee. Can you add a shot of espresso, too please?”

  She nodded. “I got you. Now, what’s going on?”

  “Just got a lot in my brain, that’s all.”

  “You’re thinking about that murdered girl, ain’t ya?”

  I nodded. “But don’t worry, I don’t think it was Buford that killed her.”

  She smiled. “Never thought you’d believe that anyway.” She handed me my coffee and told me it was on the house. “Now come sit. Tell me what’s going on.”

  We sat in the corner table at the front of the café. “You think it was Old Man Goodson? I mean, I don’t see how he’d have the heart to do something like that, but you might know something from your investigatin’ I don’t.”

  I broke off a piece of the scone. “I don’t believe either of them killed her.” I finished a piece of the scone and apologized. “I’m so sorry, Millie. I hate to just up and leave, but I really have to go. I’ve got to get a bit of research done for a client I’m meeting in a bit, but I do want to come by later and talk about your time with Buford. I’m hoping you’ll see him again?”

  She blushed and her eyes lit up. “I’m going this weekend to spend the day with him.”

  We stood and hugged. “That’s wonderful, Millie. I’m so glad the two of you reconnected. You deserve to be happy.”

  “Who says I ain’t happy? Don’t need a man for that. They’re just the icing on the cake.”

  I laughed. “Ain’t that the truth.”

  I walked over to my office and unlocked the door. Belle wasn’t there, but I hadn’t checked our online calendar to see her schedule, so I wasn’t sure where she was. I knew Dylan would be worried about me, so I called him but got his voicemail and left a message to let him know I was fine. Two minutes after I left the message, I received a text from him. “Don’t do anything until we talk. Okay?”