by Maisy Morgan
Tripp huffed. “You’re going to close the shop? That’s stupid. I can run it.”
“I don’t think so.”
“I do,” he argued. “Why not? I know how to work the register better than you.”
While he had a point, she didn’t feel too good about leaving him on his own. “I don’t think so,” she said again.
“Why not?” he demanded. “I can watch the shop on my own until closing.”
“You would get bored,” she said.
“It’s a job. Is it really supposed to be a bunch of fun?” he reminded her. “If you had hired some other teenager to work the shop, you would leave if you needed to go take care of something, right?”
“Well –”
“I can handle it,” he insisted. “Besides, it’s a weekday in the middle of nowhere Brooks, Georgia. It’s not like it’s going to get really busy today.”
“I don’t know…”
Tripp huffed. “I’m not talking about starting up the oven or anything, Grandma. I can just man the register and clean up or whatever. Answer phone calls and do those sort of things. I’ll just sell what we have in stock which is a lot since you did a bunch of baking this week. If we are fortunate enough to start to run low on something, I will call you.”
Mary and Tripp went back and forth during the brief drive back to downtown Brooks. The problem for Mary was that Tripp was making a number of good points. Truthfully, if it wasn’t for the fact that he was her grandson, she probably would have let any other teenager she hired remain at the shop. But she hadn’t hired anyone else to help work the shop just yet. It was the middle of the summer, and the shop didn’t require that many people to man it. Now because of that, unless she took Tripp up on his offer, she would be forced to close the shop down for the day and risk losing customers in order to go help Preston, and also rely on Cindy to entertain and watch Tripp for the rest of the day. She wasn’t so sure about asking Cindy to do this again.
“Come on,” Tripp said as they parked the car in front of the shop and headed inside. “I really can handle it.”
Sweet Feet came running up to them as soon as Mary had unlocked the front door. She had left Sweet Feet by himself after she had gotten the call from Preston, throwing up a “BE BACK IN FIVE” sign on the door before locking up and bolting. The cat seemed to be rather annoyed to have been left alone for the brief amount of time Mary had been gone. In the midst of Tripp’s pleading, Mary finally threw up her hands. “Okay, okay, fine! You win. You are officially shop manager today.”
“Sweet,” Tripp said smiling triumphantly.
“Rules!” Mary shouted before he got too excited. “The first rule is do not touch my kitchen. Don’t even go back there. The second is to sell only what is in stock. The third rule is to call me if anything is getting low. Fourth rule, call me immediately if you get a phone call for an order, and do not promise a delivery date to anyone, but make sure to take down the customers number. The fifth rule, if any customer is acting shady, you call Cindy immediately because she’ll be able to get here before me. ”
“Shady customers?” Tripp questioned with a laugh. “You know we’re not in LA right?”
Mary gave him a deathly stare, and he quickly shut up. “Now the sixth rule, do not let Sweet Feet get out. The seventh…”
She continued to ramble on with a number of rules and reminders until Tripp was starting to do the ‘teenaged huff’ that Mary despised, but she realized she was getting carried away and stopped herself. “Please, just call me if you need anything, and answer me if I call you. How’s that?” she finally asked.
“Grandma, I told you, I’ve got this,” Tripp assured her.
“Okay, okay,” she said while waving her hand and then smiling at him. “When did you get all responsible?”
“I mean, it had to happen eventually,” he said, and she laughed on the way out of the door.
She loaded back up into her vehicle and began shooting Cindy a text message to ask her to keep an eye out on the shop since Tripp was there by himself for the afternoon. Next, she called Preston to let him know she was heading back to Lake Horton, and soon she was on the road again. The lake was a measly little two-minute drive from downtown Brooks, so by the time she had arrived back at scene, not much had taken place in her absence. With a serious expression on her face that showed she was ready to get down to business, she parked her car and got out.
Chapter Nine
Mary pulled up to the lake and spotted Preston still speaking with some of the crime scene investigators. She hurried over to where Preston was, glad to see the coroner pulling off with Roger’s body. When Preston saw her coming, he excused himself from the other officers and met her at the edge of the lake. “Glad you made it back all right,” he said slightly smiling. “Is Tripp all set up at the shop?”
“Looks like it,” Mary said. “I’m admittedly nervous about leaving him there by himself.”
“It’s not too different from leaving him at home for a few hours, is it?” Preston asked.
“My home doesn’t have strangers coming in and out of it all day,” Mary said. “After thinking about it though, he’s not really a little kid anymore.”
“Nope,” Preston said seeming a bit shaken up.
“You okay?” she asked.
“Not entirely,” he said. “When Tripp and I came across the body, my first instinct was to see if he was alive or not. He was still breathing.”
Mary looked mortified. “You didn’t tell me that!” she exclaimed trying to imagine what Tripp must have been thinking at that moment.
“I know, I know. I should have explained the whole story to you. I admit, I was still a bit shaken up myself. I dragged Roger to shore and started doing chest compressions, but obviously that didn’t help. I had Tripp call 911 to get paramedics here, but Roger was dead before they got here. Now the crime scene investigators just got finished telling me that Roger had been stabbed four times in the chest and once in the throat. I didn’t even notice Mary. I was thinking he had just fallen into the water, and I was worried about the wrong thing. I gave the man chest compressions, and probably all I did was pump what little bit of blood he had left out of his wounds.”
A small part of Mary wanted to get mad at Preston for not having told her about realizing Roger had still been alive when they had found him and that Tripp had watched the man die. She wasn’t sure if it made a difference or not since Tripp hadn’t even bothered mentioning it, but she still would have taken that into consideration before trotting off and leaving her grandson alone for the afternoon. However, when looking at Preston, she could tell that he was more shaken up than Tripp had been. “Preston, you didn’t kill Roger,” Mary assured him. “You tried to save his life.”
“The water had washed away a lot of the blood, and he was wearing all of that running gear. I didn’t even notice the wounds,” Preston said. “I can’t help but wonder if I had noticed the wounds and the blood, perhaps maybe we could have saved him. I made it worse. That’s all I did is made it worse!”
“You don’t know that,” Mary assured him. “Focus on finding out what happened. You can’t think about what-if’s or you’ll drive yourself crazy!”
“Well, if there was any doubt before, there is no doubt now. This is definitely a homicide investigation,” Preston said. “Come on, I’ll show you what we have so far. We think we found the spot where he was likely pushed into the water.”
Mary followed Preston around the edge of the lake until they arrived at a fairly wooded area not far from one of the walking paths. He pointed to the mud around the edge of the lake where there were obvious footprints. A crime scene investigator was kneeling down with her gloves, picking up what appeared to be leaves and tucking them away in a bag. “I found some blood,” the woman said standing up. “It’s probably Roger’s, but a DNA test will help us confirm if this is the scene of the crime or not. It will probably be based off the shoe prints over there. I’m pretty sure they belong to Rog
er.”
“Thanks,” Preston told the woman.
Mary looked from the muddy footprints to the walkway. “It looks like someone might have jumped him while he was running, maybe?”
“Maybe,” Preston said. “There’s definitely signs of a struggle. Broken twigs, mud smeared everywhere, blood…” Preston sighed, and the CSI paused before walking off.
“Preston, you know Roger probably lost a lot of blood long before you found him,” she said. “You did what you could, and the man was wearing dark colored running gear. No one else would have noticed in your situation either especially not right away. You did what you could.”
“Thanks,” Preston said with another sigh. The CSI walked off and met up with another CSI where she began discussing the blood sample she had pulled from the ground.
“Wait, I see something,” Mary said, taking a few steps away from where Roger had been pushed into the water towards the walkway. “Look right there in the grass.”
Preston waved the CSI woman back over. She handed her blood sample off to the other officer before meeting up with Preston near the glimmer of something that Mary had seen in the grass. “Right there,” Preston said pointing toward the ground as the woman knelt down to see a bag.
“Well, I’ll be,” she said lifting up a string of pearls with her gloved hands. She handled it carefully as she placed it into an evidence bag.
“Pearls?” Preston questioned. “Do you think that maybe our assailant is a woman?”
“Huh, or a crossdresser,” Mary said half-jokingly. “Do you mind if I take a closer look?” The CSI hesitated for a moment, but she eventually handed the bag over to Mary. “Oh, yeah, these are definitely real pearls,” Mary said confidently.
“How can you tell?” Preston asked.
“I’m a former LA girl,” Mary said. “We know these sorts of things. The latch on the necklace is broken as if it got jerked out of someone’s hand or off someone’s neck.”
“I doubt Josephine was wearing pearls out on her jog this morning,” Preston said. “I think I would remember seeing those around her neck.”
“There’s blood on the pearls,” Mary said, handing it back to the CSI.
“Nice eyes,” the CSI commented seemingly impressed at Mary’s eye for detail. “I’ll have it compared to the blood sample of Ryan’s and the blood we found on the leaves.”
“Let me know as soon as those results come in,” Preston said.
“Will do,” the CSI said taking the pearls with her.
“Even if she wasn’t wearing them, maybe she had them on her body somewhere, in a pocket maybe?” Mary suggested. “I mean, I have a hard time believing the pearls belonged to Roger. Josephine could have even been wearing the necklace under her clothes.”
“Maybe,” Preston said. “My bet is that the pearls, if the blood samples come back as Roger’s, may belong to whoever killed him. Maybe he was stabbed a couple of times, and he reached and grabbed at his attacker. If his attacker was wearing the pearls, maybe he is the one who broke the necklace pulling back on it?”
“That makes the most sense to me,” Mary said. “Are you sure you didn’t see anyone else at the park today other than Roger, Nathan, and Josephine?”
“It’s not a small park,” Preston said. “There could have been people on the trails or on the other side of the lake or at the playground after we got here. I can say though that there were not any other cars other than my truck, Josephine’s car, and Nathan’s car in the lot when Tripp and I pulled up here. And, I don’t recall seeing any vehicles at all by the time I got Roger out of the lake. Someone could have shown up while Tripp and I were out on the lake, though. They then could have gotten into a confrontation with Roger, killed him, dumped his body, and fled. Of course, that is just a possibility”
“You two were out on the water for a few hours at least,” Mary said.
“We got here around seven-thirty,” Preston said. “The little dispute we witnessed probably took about thirty minutes. So, the murder had to have happened sometime after eight. I think I would have seen something during the time we were getting the boat out on the water because we weren’t too far from where the crime scene happened at that time. My bet is the murder happened at least after Tripp and I got to the middle of the lake. That would probably have been around eight-thirty or nine. We then bumped into Roger around noonish.”
“So, our murder happened probably between eight-thirty and noon,” Mary said.
“That sounds about right,” Preston said. “Though probably a little later because he was still alive when we found him, and he had a puncture wound to his jugular. If he had been killed around eight-thirty, he would have been long dead by the time we found him.”
“If we use that information to narrow things down, we then have to take into account Roger would have had to have floated out to the middle of the lake from where he was shoved into the water. Then, I’d say the murder most likely occurred between ten and eleven-thirty,” Mary said.
“I think that’s a good assumption,” Preston said. “Now, we just have to find out who was at the lake at that time.”
“Agreed,” Mary said.
“And if anyone else showed up around that time too,” Preston added, pausing for a moment in deep in contemplation. “I’m trying to decide what our next move should be.”
“The pearls have me thinking we should be looking into a woman,” Mary said. “You know, maybe we’re looking at this wrong. Maybe Roger tried stealing the pearls, and a lady who was walking the path on her own fought back? She might have had a knife to protect herself in the case of self-defense if needed.”
“That’s possible,” Preston said. “If it was self-defense, then why would she run? If she stabbed him to protect herself?”
“I don’t know,” Mary said. “The whole thing could have scared her. There again, that is just a thought. For now, I say we start with what we know. We know that Nathan and Josephine were here at the same time as Roger, although we’re not sure if they were still here at the time of the murder. Either way, they were here, and they had fought with the guy. I say we go talk to them.”
“I agree,” Preston said. “Who first?”
Mary thought for a moment. “I say we go track down Josephine. If it’s a toss-up between Nathan and Josephine, I’d say she probably is the more likely one to have had a strand of pearls on her.”
“We shouldn’t have too hard of a time tracking Josephine down,” Preston said. “She still works most days at the salon in Brooks. From what I recall, Josephine is usually either there or at her new shop she’s been working on opening up in Newnan.”
“I remember her mentioning that to me at the bank,” Mary said. “She made a really terrible pun about getting out of the new owner’s hair soon.”
Preston snorted. “That is really bad. Well, she’s probably either at the place in Brooks or the one in Newnan.”
“Since we’re in Brooks, we might as well head there first,” Mary said. “Plus, it’s across the street from my shop, and I can check in on Tripp.”
Preston smirked. “You’ve only been away from Tripp while he is overseeing the shop for less than twenty minutes you know…”
“Don’t judge me,” Mary ordered. “I’m just a worried grandma is all.”
Preston and Mary headed toward his truck, but she paused after a moment. “I think I’ll take my car back to the shop and leave it parked there instead of leaving it at the park,” Mary decided. “How about I meet you at the hair salon?”
“Sounds like a plan to me,” Preston said, winking at her before hopping into his truck.
Mary followed closely behind in her car. There was a small part of her that was glad that she would be able to check in on Tripp so soon. Even though she had only been gone for only about a half an hour, she was still a bit on edge about leaving him at the shop alone. She couldn’t quite figure out why she felt this way, but she had a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach about the entire thi
ng.
Chapter Ten
Mary scurried across the street after parking her car by her dessert shop. The small, one-room hair studio sat on the corner of Brooks Road. It was one of the first buildings a person would see when driving into Brooks from the Fayette or Coweta County areas. It was a small, white building with a green roof and a small, deteriorating vegetable garden in the back. Preston was standing outside the building as Mary darted across the street meeting him there.
“Ready?” Preston asked, and Mary nodded as they headed inside.
A very short woman with curly hair was standing on a small stool as she buzzed the back of a man’s neck. “Honestly, you really need to just stop trying to do this yourself Noah,” the woman was saying. “It’s always so crooked, and then you come in here to me complaining about what a terrible job you did and how you wore your hair like this for a week. Just let me do it next time.”
“I know, Margarette, I know,” the man said, laughing as she started brushing his neck off with a small brush.
“Okay, you’re good to go. Josephine will ring you up,” the short woman said as she shooed the man off.
Looking to her left, Mary saw Josephine hurrying to a small counter as she spoke with the man, Noah, and she rang him up for his haircut. Margarette beamed at Preston and Mary giving them a warm welcome to her small studio. “Officer Preston!” she exclaimed. “I haven’t seen you in a while. Tell me, you’ve decided to stop cutting your own hair? I’m telling you, the men in this town! They all think they’re too good to go see a stylist.”
Preston laughed. “You know I only go to you Margarette. My hair just doesn’t grow like it used to, so I’m not here quite as often. Margarette, have you met Mary? She runs the new shop across the road.”
“I haven’t, and shame on me!” Margarette said, scurrying over to Mary and putting her hand out to shake. “I have been meaning to come try out some of your desserts for a while now. I’ve heard wonderful things. A few of my customers have come in here snacking on some of your miniature key lime pies before their appointments.”
