Buried in Secrets

by Denise Grover Swank

  “Sadly, no,” Diane said with disgust. “There’s no doubt she killed him. There were multiple witnesses.”

  It sounded too crazy to be true. “Then I’m sure it was justified, and she’ll get off in no time.” My mind was racing, trying to fill in the blanks. Was she a victim of domestic violence? I just couldn’t see Pam committing cold-blooded murder.

  “I don’t know,” Martha said with tears in her eyes. “It’s not lookin’ so good.”

  “I’m sorry I’m late!” Sandy called out as she slid into the chair between the two women. She was wearing a pair of shorts and a dirt-smudged T-shirt. Most people didn’t dress up around Drum, especially when they came to Max’s Tavern, but these women had always made an effort to wear makeup and choose nice blouses. Not today. Sandy had dirt smudged on her cheek.

  Diane gave her a disapproving look. “Really, Sandy. Did you roll around on the ground then hop up and get in your car to come to town?”

  “I’ve caught a mole eatin’ my potatoes,” she said, as though it was explanation enough. She glanced up at me. “We’re gonna need our usual margaritas. Stat.”

  “We’ve decided margaritas are crass given what’s goin’ on,” Diane said with an upturned chin.

  “Now is not the time to have a bee up your tight ass, Diane,” Sandy said matter-of-factly, then her face softened as she looked up at me. “Good to see you, Carly. We’ve missed your happy face. Now run along and get that pitcher.”

  Effectively dismissed, I went to the bar to place their order, but Max was already mixing it up.

  “Something’s goin’ on with the ladies club,” I whisper-shouted, using the name we’d unofficially given them. “They said Pam was arrested for murder!”

  He gave me a look but didn’t say anything.

  “You already knew?” I asked in surprise.

  He turned on the blender, blocking any further conversation in a way that felt intentional. Taking the hint, I checked on the orders for my other tables, carrying out more tuna melts than I ever wanted to see again in my lifetime.

  But I couldn’t get my mind off the fact that mild-mannered Pam had supposedly committed murder, and Max already knew about it. But how?

  Then it hit me like a black iron skillet to the head.

  What if Pam had fulfilled one of Bart Drummond’s favors?

  Chapter Four

  I checked on a couple of other tables, then delivered the margarita pitcher and glasses to the ladies club.

  “What’s the special?” Sandy asked as she took the pitcher out of my hands.

  I set the glasses on the table and tried not to make a face. “Tuna melt.”

  She gave me a look of disgust. “Then I’ll have a burger.”

  “Sandy,” Diane admonished sternly. “Have you no decency?”

  “You want to talk about decency?” Sandy asked, her brows practically shooting up to her hairline. “Serving tuna melts is the epitome of indeceny. In fact, I’d appreciate it if none of you ordered one either. I’d rather not sit at a table with that fish smell.”

  “I’m not talking about the special. I’m talking about your concern over eating and”—she lifted her nose—“drinking.”

  “People still gotta eat, Diane,” Sandy said with a sigh as she poured herself a drink. “Now order, Martha.”

  Martha’s mouth rounded as she glanced from Diane to Sandy, then back to me. Her expression turned apologetic. “Since I can’t have the tuna melt, I’ll take a club sandwich.”

  I turned my attention to Diane.

  Her jaw set and she gave me a defiant glare. “The tuna melt.” She turned her glare on Sandy. “Now what are we gonna do about Pam?”

  “We can organize some meals for Rob and the kids,” Martha said, worry filling her eyes.

  “That’s a good idea,” Diane said, pulling out a notebook from her purse. “I’ll create a list of people who might want to participate, and I’ll start making calls after lunch. Those boys still gotta eat.”

  Sandy snorted. “Meals? She needs a good lawyer. She needs bail money.”

  “Has she been arraigned?” I asked.

  Diane shot me a dark look to let me know my input wasn’t appreciated.

  “We don’t know.” Sandy took a big gulp of her drink, then shuddered. “Maybe we should have gotten a pitcher on the rocks.” She glanced at Martha. “Brain freeze.”

  Diane’s glare now suggested she thought I’d made the drink extra cold to interrupt their meeting.

  I got the hint. I wasn’t welcome, not to mention I had other customers who needed my attention. Besides, it could be pure coincidence that Pam had killed someone within a few hours of Max and Wyatt’s closed-door meeting the night before. I needed to know what had happened before I could jump to any conclusions.

  While I wanted to stalk their table, my other customers kept me busy, so I didn’t get back to the ladies club’s table until I brought out their food. (I’d changed poor Martha’s club sandwich to the tuna melt she’d originally wanted.) They were talking about Pam’s kids—two high schoolers and a daughter who was married with a baby—and the support they were going to need since their father was worthless.

  I set the plates on the table and asked if they needed anything else, but Diane sent me on my way. She made it obvious they wanted privacy, so I stayed away until they’d finished eating, then came back and asked if anyone wanted dessert. Sandy ordered strawberry pie, and Martha looked like she wanted something, but Diane’s look of admonishment stopped her.

  “We’ll take our checks,” Diane said flatly, giving Sandy a look that didn’t seem to faze her one bit.

  The lunch crowd had thinned, and Ginger was busing a table, so I went over to help her. “What do you know about the ladies club?”

  Her gaze shifted to the group of women, then back to me. “You mean Diane’s clique?”

  I picked up a couple of empty sugar packets off the table and put them on a plate. “Is that what they are?”

  She shrugged as she grabbed a handful of dirty silverware and placed it on top of a plate with a half-eaten sandwich that reeked of fish. “They’ve been meeting for over twenty years, and they never invite anyone else.”

  “I thought they were just a group of friends who met for lunch every couple of weeks.”

  “They are, but it started back in high school. They sat together at lunch every day and kept meeting after they graduated.”

  My brow furrowed. “How do you know so much about them?”

  She shot a glare in their direction. “My mom went to school with them.”

  Their kids were several years younger than Ginger, so her statement caught me by surprise. A quick bit of mental math suggested her mother had had her as a teenager. Judging by Ginger’s contempt for the ladies club, I suspected they had not treated her mother kindly. “What do you know about Pam?”

  We carried the plates and glasses to the tub Tiny kept outside the kitchen.

  “Pam Crimshaw? There’s not much to tell.”

  “I know she’s married and has three kids. Does she have a job?”

  “Nope. Her husband works at a hardware store in Ewing, but she stays home. Used to run a daycare out of her house when her kids were small, but I don’t think she’s done that for a while.” She propped a hand on her hip. “Why are you suddenly so interested in her?”

  “She was arrested for murder yesterday.”

  Shock washed over her face. “Murder? Are you sure it was Pam?”

  “That’s why the women are meeting today. To discuss her arrest. They say there were witnesses.”

  “Did she kill her husband?”

  “I don’t think so. They’re organizing meals for him and the kids.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t believe it. She’s the last person I’d expect to do something like that. Do you know who she supposedly killed?”

  “No, but why did you ask if it was her husband?”

  “Rob Crimshaw is not a nice man. I figured she�
��d probably had enough.”

  If she hadn’t killed her allegedly mean husband, who had she killed? I needed to get my hands on that paper.

  Pursing her lips, Ginger said, “You never suspect the quiet ones.”

  There was probably some truth to that.

  I came back to the ladies’ table to bring Sandy her pie and deliver their checks, but all conversation ceased as I approached them. I considered asking Sandy if I could contact her with more questions later, but Diane had made it clear no further questions would be welcome.

  With a thin window of opportunity between the end of lunch and the start of Tutoring Club at three-thirty, I asked Ginger if she could cover for me while I made a quick run to the library. Everyone was used to me hanging out over there by now, and she agreed without asking any follow-up questions. Max had gone back to his office, but I decided not to bother him. I knew he wouldn’t care if I left, and Ginger could call him out to help if she needed it. Before I headed out, I went behind the bar and used the phone under the counter to try calling Marco’s cell phone. With the limited cell coverage in the county, the chances of reaching him were slim, but he always checked his phone when he was within range of a cell tower, and if I left him a message, he’d call me back as soon as he got a chance.

  Sure enough, the call went straight to voicemail. I tried to squelch my disappointment. I really wanted to hear his voice. I needed to know that we were okay. “Hey, Marco. I have a question about a murder arrest yesterday. Call me back at the tavern when you get a chance.” Then, because I hadn’t seen him in several days, I added, “I miss you.”

  Since I figured he wouldn’t call me back immediately, I hurried to the library to check out the Ewing Gazette.

  Carnita greeted me with a warm smile, but then she frowned and cast a glance at the occupied computers. “I had no idea you were coming in today,” she said. “I don’t have you down for one of the screens.”

  “I’m not here to use a computer,” I said. “I need to see this morning’s newspaper.”

  She gestured to a table in the book section. “I think Mr. Blimey left it on the table.” She shook her head and clucked. “I keep tellin’ him to put it away when he finishes readin’ it, but he never does.”

  “Makes it easier to find,” I said, hurrying over to the table and picking up the paper. There on the front page was the headline “Drum Woman Allegedly Murders Ewing Man.” Underneath the headline was a photo of an Ewing police car in a parking lot surrounded by crime scene tape. A small photo of Pam’s mug shot was embedded in the lower right corner.

  I sat down in the chair, letting out a little gasp. Somehow I’d hoped her friends were wrong.

  I started reading the article, my stomach churning. It said Pam had pulled into the parking lot of Jim Palmer Insurance, walked into his office and, without saying a word, shot him in the chest multiple times in front of two staff members and a customer. The police had found her sitting in her parked car at the Sonic restaurant down the street. She’d provided no reason for shooting him, and Palmer had died on the way to the hospital. Pam was currently being held without bail at the Hensen County jail.

  I put the paper down and sat back in my chair. This wasn’t necessarily a Bart favor. Maybe she’d been pissed about her insurance rates, or maybe she and Jim Palmer had carried on a secret affair and he’d tried to end things. Just because a seemingly innocuous woman had walked into someone’s office and shot him in cold blood didn’t mean Bart Drummond had sent her there.

  “You readin’ about Pam Crimshaw?” Carnita asked.

  It took me a second to register that she was talking to me. “Yeah,” I said shaking off my stupor. “Her friends came into the tavern today, and they told me a little about what happened. I guess I had to see it for myself.”

  “Talk about the shock of the century.” Carnita shook her head slightly. “No one could have seen that one comin’.”

  I got up and walked over to her. “Did you know her?”

  “Of course,” Carnita said. “I know most everyone around these parts. They might not be readers, but they like to watch movies.” She gestured to the rows of DVDs. “Pam used to get a lot of kid movies when she was running her daycare, but she stopped once her boys got older. Now she gets copies of Hallmark movies and such.”

  “She seemed really nice,” I said, unable to shake my shock. “I just can’t believe she’d do something like that.” Pam had always been kind to me. One afternoon back in April, Molly had been stirring up even more nonsense than usual, and Pam had pulled me aside and encouraged me to continue being my sweet, kind self and not get caught up in her drama. In that moment she’d reminded me of my mother, who’d given me that same advice after I came home from school one day, upset that a girl in my class hadn’t invited me to her birthday party. I struggled to see that kind-hearted woman as a cold-blooded murderer.

  “I can’t either,” Carnita said. “Makes you wonder if she started doin’ drugs.”

  It definitely wasn’t unprecedented. Ruth’s mother had started using when Ruth was in her late twenties, and Hank’s adult daughter had died from an overdose from a bad batch of drugs nearly two years ago.

  “Where would she have gotten them?” I asked.

  Carnita held up her hands. “I’m not part of any of that.”

  “Yeah, sorry,” I said absently. If I wanted to know whether Pam was a user, the person to ask was Todd Bingham, the local drug lord.

  “I feel bad for her kids, though,” Carnita said. “Ashlynn’s got a baby due in a few months, and Ricky’ll be startin’ his senior year in August. Poor Thad just finished his freshman year and got into a bit of trouble at school last year. He really needs his mother, and Rob isn’t the nurturing type.”

  “Do you know much about her husband?”

  “He’s stoic and on the gruff side. Not very affectionate, and as far as I can tell, he’s never really been part of those kids’ lives.”

  “Do you know if Pam knew Jim Palmer?”

  Carnita shook her head. “I have no idea.”

  “Is the copy machine working?” I asked. “I’d like to make a copy of the article.”

  “What on earth for?” Carnita asked.

  What excuse could I give that wouldn’t sound suspicious? “History,” I said a little too quickly. “To add to my notes.”

  “I can’t wait to read this book of yours.”

  “I’m not writing a book, Carnita.”

  “Whatever you say,” she said with a wink, then waved. “Just take it, you and Mr. Blimey are the only ones who read it, and he’s finished with it.”

  I grabbed it off the table and folded it in half. “You’re the best.”

  “I can beta read your book for you,” she said, her eyes shining brightly.

  “Carnita,” I said, “even if I were writing a book, I’m still in the note-collecting stage. I’m not sure it will ever make it past that. I’m just learning about the town.”

  She gave me a knowing look that suggested she didn’t believe me for a minute.

  “I’ve got to head back to the tavern,” I said, tucking the paper under my arm. “Thanks again, Carnita.”

  Her forehead furrowed. “We really should do something for Pam’s kids.”

  “Her lunch friends are starting a meal drive,” I said. “You could call one of them and sign up for a night. Diane Lassiter seemed to be in charge of it.”

  “I was hoping to do something more helpful, but for the life of me, I don’t know what.”

  “Me too,” I said, then walked to the door. What Pam needed was a good lawyer, and I knew they didn’t come cheap.

  Chapter Five

  When I got back to the tavern, I stuffed the newspaper in my purse in the locker, locked my padlock, then headed out to the dining room. Max was back behind the bar, and Ginger was busing a dirty table while a couple of older men lingered with cups of coffee.

  I slid behind the bar and leaned against the counter. “Did Marco c
all while I was gone?”

  “No,” he said, glancing up at me. “I haven’t seen him in nearly a week. Is everything okay with you two?”

  “Of course,” I said, straightening my back. “Why wouldn’t everything be okay?” It came out too quickly, my tone a bit brittle.

  “This the longest I’ve gone without seein’ him,” Max said. “I figured you’d know if something was up.”

  “You could call him yourself, you know,” I said. “You don’t have to wait for him to drop by.”

  His eyes widened. “Did he say something?”

  I laughed. “No. But I do know that he’s workin’ more hours starting last week, so it’s probably keeping him busy.”

  “So busy he hasn’t been in for nearly a week?” he asked skeptically.

  He had a point. While Marco didn’t come in every night, he usually came in every two or three. I hadn’t heard from him at all since our last conversation.

  My face must have given away my confusion, because he asked, “Did something happen between you two?”

  “What? Why would you ask that?”

  “Because you two are pretty close lately, and if you had a fight…”

  “No. We haven’t had a fight. I’m sure he’s just busy.” Which was partially true. Our discussion hadn’t been a fight, but I knew it had upset him.

  He leaned an elbow on the counter. “Then why are you expecting a call from him? He hardly ever calls here.”

  While I knew he and his brother were at odds with their father, I still didn’t totally trust them when it came to Bart Drummond. I wasn’t ready to share my working theory about why Pam might have shot Jim Palmer. Still, maybe I could switch this conversation around to my advantage. “Is everything okay with Wyatt?” I asked, then added, “You two went into the back to talk last night. I haven’t seen you do that since he was a person of interest in his ex-girlfriend’s murder.” I lowered my voice and asked, “Is he in some kind of trouble?”

  He gave me a surprised look. “No. Everything’s fine.” His gaze narrowed. “I thought you weren’t interested in my brother.”