Redneck's Revenge

by Joan Livingston

  Copyright © 2018 by Joan Livingston

  Artwork: Adobe Stock © chika_milan

  Design: Soqoqo

  Editor: Miriam Drori

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or Crooked Cat Books except for brief quotations used for promotion or in reviews. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents are used fictitiously.

  First Black Edition, Crooked Cat Books. 2018

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  For Fred Fullerton, a reader, writer, and dear friend.

  Acknowledgements

  I extend my appreciation to anyone who encouraged me to write. You know who you are.

  Also, I offer special thanks to Laurence and Steph Patterson, of Crooked Cat Books, and my editor, Miriam Drori.

  About the Author

  Joan Livingston is the author of novels for adult and young readers. Redneck’s Revenge, published by Crooked Cat Books, is the second in the mystery series featuring Isabel Long, a longtime journalist who becomes an amateur P.I. The first is Chasing the Case.

  An award-winning journalist, she started as a reporter covering the hilltowns of Western Massachusetts. She was an editor, columnist, and most recently the managing editor of The Taos News, which won numerous state and national awards during her tenure.

  After eleven years in Northern New Mexico, she returned to rural Western Massachusetts, which is the setting of much of her adult fiction, including the Isabel Long series.

  For more, visit her website: www.joanlivingston.net. Follow her on Twitter @joanlivingston.

  Praise for Redneck’s Revenge

  "The second book in the Isabel Long Mystery Series bounces along with humor, plot twists, colorful voices and rich character development. Redneck’s Revenge is also a human story, a well-crafted tale of small town secrets, complicated relationships, life changes and lies. A romantic storyline adds spice and warmth to this cozy mystery."

  Teresa Dovalpage

  Author of Death Comes in through the Kitchen,

  A Girl Like Che Guevara,

  and The Astral Plane

  "Set in the frozen Northeast, author Joan Livingston’s spellbinding descriptions of small town America and classic Yankee characters weave humor and a love story with murder. The story sweeps us along and there are enough plot twists and turns in this deftly written work to satisfy the most hard-core mystery fan. A great choice."

  Brinn Colenda

  Award-winning author of

  Homeland Burning and

  The Callahan Family Saga

  "I particularly like Joan Livingston’s folksy, no frills style. I think that’s a nod to her years as a newspaper editor (something her main character, Isabel shares with her). She knows how to turn a phrase. The reader has a sense of the setting. One can see it, feel it and smell it. I have the itch to go explore Western Mass. because of her writing. The characters are colorful and entertaining. It is almost as if I know them somehow, and you will too."

  Joseph Lewis

  Author of Author of Caught in a Web and

  the Lives Trilogy

  Praise for Chasing the Case

  "The story unfolds in a small town in New England at the onset of winter, a community so vividly depicted you can hear the snow fall. Written with meticulous attention to the details mystery readers relish and a welcome playfulness, this novel zips along like a well-tuned snowmobile. I can’t wait for the next installment in what promises to be a great series."

  Anne Hillerman

  Author of the New York Times bestselling

  Chee-Leaphorn-Manuelito mysteries.

  "Joan Livingston has delivered a smart, fast-paced mystery, with a savvy and appealing protagonist who knows her way around the backwoods of the New England hilltowns. I can’t wait to read more about journalist turned private investigator Isabel Long."

  Frederick Reiken

  Author of Day for Night,

  The Lost Legends of New Jersey, and

  The Odd Sea

  "Lurking beneath the surface in small town, Back East life, there is always a mystery. In Chasing the Case, Joan Livingston, as only she can do, digs down into the underbelly of a small town to solve a crime. Take a trip to the land of pot roast and murder with Joan. I did, and I liked what I read."

  Craig Dirgo

  Author of The Einstein Papers,

  The Tesla Documents, and

  Eli Cutter series

  Redneck’s Revenge

  The Second Isabel Long Mystery

  Franklin Pierce

  Isabel Long. The man’s greeting was more of a statement than a question, but then again, Franklin Pierce is expecting me. He’s a private investigator and I need his services. It’s not what you think. I don’t have a case for him to solve. I want him to hire me for three years, so I can be a bona fide P.I. We are meeting at his office, which is just a narrow storefront between a Cumby’s – that’s Cumberland Farms to those who don’t live in New England – and a pizza joint. The sign on the window says:

  FRANKLIN PIERCE

  LICENSED P.I.

  FRAUD, DIVORCES, LOST PEOPLE.

  Franklin Pierce is on the pudgy side, pushing seventy or more, maybe, with glasses and a double chin that hangs loose like a turkey’s wattle. He’s got to be about five-foot-two or shorter because I tower over him. Get this. He’s wearing a cowboy hat and a long canvas coat as if he’s a cattleman out West. But when he opens his mouth, he’s pure Yankee with those missing Rs and added Rs, plus a twang that says his folks have lived in this part of the world, that is, Western Massachusetts, since the white folks found it and the people who lived here before them.

  He clutches a set of keys as I make my approach to the front door. Naturally, I was ten minutes early, my M.O., and waited in the car with my mother before he arrived. Yes, Maria Ferreira, my ninety-two-year-old mother, soon to be my ninety-three-year-old mother April 2, is with me. But when Ma saw Cumby’s, she hightailed it out of my car. She says she’ll go to the pizza joint afterward to get something to drink. She could have stayed home, but it’s February, and like the rest of us, she’s got a bit of cabin fever from the seemingly endless winter that began in October.

  I smile and extend my hand to Franklin Pierce. I feel a bit self-conscious my skin is colder and rougher than his. I’m curious why someone would name their kid after one of the worst presidents so far although I can think of a few other contenders. But now isn’t the time to bring up that observation. I need to win this man over. So, what will it be: Franklin or Frank although I seriously doubt Frankie. I play it safe.

  “Mr. Pierce, hello.”

  “Please call me Lin. And you? Is it Isabel or Izzie? Which do you prefer?”

  I shake my head.

  “Never Izzie,” I say.

  “I’ll remember that.”

  “Okay, Lin. How do you spell that?”

  “L-I-N.”

  Gotcha. I follow him inside. For a man who makes money investigating private cases, this office is a bit of a joke, or maybe he doesn’t make much. Someone could easily move in one of the cheapo dollar stores or a salon where they fix blue hair for old ladies. A cracked vinyl couch is set near the entrance along with a coffee table stacked with magazines I bet aren’t current. The only art on the walls are a print of Norman Rockwell’s “Runaway,” the one in which a cop talks to a boy inside what looks like a diner, and framed newspaper pages t
hat are yellow and faded. We’re moving too fast toward the back of the office for me to read what they say. A desk piled high with papers but no booze bottles or ashtrays, I’m relieved to see, is semi-hidden by a partition along with two chairs for guests, a file cabinet, and beyond them a door I presume leads to a bathroom. I smell pizza through the walls from the joint next door.

  Lin places his cowboy hat on the desktop and throws his long canvas coat over the back of his chair before he sits. He wears a dark suit, a bit frayed in the cuffs. His striped tie has a stain, perhaps coffee or a drop of grease. He shaved this morning. And he’s almost due for a haircut. Yes, my observation skills are getting sharper. I will need them if I continue to investigate cases.

  I take Lin’s cue and choose one of the chairs opposite him. He studies me as I unbutton my coat and slide it away. I came dressed for this interview in a blouse and skirt. I pulled my silver hair back into a twist, now that it’s long enough. I haven’t dressed this fancy since I got canned from my job as the managing editor of the Daily Star. Now that I’m not sitting at a desk all day, I’ve lost some weight, a welcome development. My cheekbones are even more pronounced.

  “Nice work on the Adela Collins case,” Lin says. “I was impressed. It’s tough to solve a missing person’s case after so many years. How many was it?”

  “Twenty-eight.”

  He repeats the number.

  “Yup, that’s a long time.”

  “I read the stories in the Star. I’m familiar with Jack Smith and his sister, kind of a tragic situation. I hear she’s on permanent house arrest. I suppose that was the compassionate thing to do, uh, given her mental capacity.”

  Eleanor Smith may not have gotten enough oxygen at birth, but she managed to fool everybody, well, except me. But I admit I figured out she killed Adela purely by accident, or as I used to say when I was a journalist, a reporter’s good luck.

  “That was Adela’s father’s doing,” I say. “Andrew Snow.”

  “Yes, I’m familiar with him, too. Jefferson is just down the hill from Conwell after all. I’ve spent some time up there.”

  “Business or pleasure?”

  His lips form a slight smirk.

  “Both. Actually, Andrew Snow hired me to investigate his daughter’s case shortly after her disappearance when it appeared the police had given up. I focused on whether Adela could have just walked away and started a new life somewhere else. I came up empty.” He bows his head for a moment. “You did a much better job even after so many years.”

  I recall Andrew Snow telling me he hired a P.I. in hopes of bringing some closure, mainly for his ailing wife’s benefit. But there was no evidence Adela Collins had started a new life somewhere else, as Lin put it. Now I’m facing the man who Andrew hired. It’s a small world, much smaller in the hilltowns, where familiarity trumps coincidence.

  I’m ready to talk business, but like most Yankees, Lin Pierce needs a little more to get him going.

  “I see.”

  “What do you believe was Eleanor’s motive?”

  Ah, yes, motive. He wants to talk more about the case.

  “Eleanor was super attached to her brother, Jack. He’s all she has, well, except for her dogs. At the time, Jack and Adela were, uh, involved. Eleanor called to tell Adela she knew she was fooling around with other men. She was going to tell her brother.” I pause. “Our understanding is Adela went to see her. We don’t actually know what happened next, but Eleanor ended up strangling her. You read the news story. You know how she got rid of her body and her car.”

  “I heard she tried to do you in.”

  “She didn’t strangle me at least. I think she panicked. She hit me over the head in the woods and left me there. Luckily, Jack came home and found me.”

  “Yes, you and Jack.”

  Yes, me and Jack. Lin wants me to know he knows about Jack. Actually, there isn’t much to say these days. We talked it all out a couple of weeks after I solved the case. Let’s say things have cooled to zero although they were hot and heavy before that all broke. He’s got his sister to watch and a business to run after some rotten publicity.

  The Conwell Rod and Gun Club even cancelled its annual Deer Supper at the end of shotgun season for the first time ever. Jack and his murdering sister were supposed to be the cooks. It sure complicated things for the supper and Jack’s business when I solved the case.

  My moles in the Conwell General Store’s backroom, those snoopy, old guys I call the Old Farts, say Jack’s trying to get back on his feet. Having a sister who’s a killer did draw a lot of curious-seekers at first. But nosy out-of-towners don’t stick around. It’s a long trip to Conwell for a drink and a snoop.

  The whole Adela connection was bad for local business, except for the True Blue Regulars, who stuck by Jack. Besides, the Rooster is their second home, and for a few, better than their first. There hasn’t been any music on Fridays yet, the Old Farts told me one morning, but Jack found a cook, one of the gals in town, the wife of a buddy, so he’s back serving food on the weekends. Jack doesn’t need my help these days. He told me he couldn’t afford to pay me anymore. I haven’t been back to the Rooster since but not because of that. Let’s just say it’s personal.

  “We’re still friends,” I tell Lin.

  “Is it true what I heard about your mother?”

  “Depends on what you heard, I suppose.”

  He chuckles.

  I find myself slipping back into my sassy self. It feels good. For the past few months, that part of me was buried. I was too afraid to offend anybody, everybody.

  “What I heard is she helped you with your case.”

  “Yes, you heard correctly. I guess you could call her my Watson. I went over the clues with her. Ma’s read enough mystery novels and watched enough crime shows to help steer me in the right direction. While she didn’t figure out Eleanor was the culprit, she was the one who suggested Adela left her home that night and wasn’t dragged out of there.”

  “And she’s ninety-two?”

  “Yes. She’ll be ninety-three in April.”

  Ma moved in with me last year because she was tired of living alone. I was alone, too, after my Sam died. Our three kids, Ruth, Matt, and Alex, are out of the house although they don’t live too far from me. It’s worked out well with Ma. She’s a fun companion. Who would have thought when I was younger and wilder? She’s a good cook, and like the fine Portuguese woman she is, she keeps me in kale soup, a staple of our people. Yes, Long is my married name. Ferreira is the name I got at birth. I’m a hundred percent Portagee and proud that I’ve invaded a Yankee stronghold in the hilltowns.

  All right, Lin, enough with the dillydallying. Let’s get on with it.

  “As I said over the phone… ”

  He waves his hand.

  “Yes, that. You said you want to work for me to fulfill one of your requirements to get a P.I. license.”

  “That’s right.”

  “So, what would make you qualified to be an associate? Have you ever worked in law enforcement?”

  I shake my head.

  “A cop? No. I was a journalist for over thirty years. I started as the Conwell correspondent for the Daily Star. Adela Collins’ disappearance was my first big story.” I watch his head bounce in recognition. “I knew how to chase a story. I found the pieces and put them together. I believe the skills are transferable, except I’d never carry a gun or wrestle anybody to the ground.”

  He squints as he thinks.

  “I recall reading your stories. Didn’t you used to run the paper?”

  “Uh-huh, for fifteen years until it got bought out,” I say. “As I explained over the phone, I’m not looking to take your cases although I’d be willing to help if you need it. I’ll find my own.”

  “Well, I’ve never hired anybody and frankly, I couldn’t afford you if I did.” His voice drops. “I’d say I’m semi-retired. I own this building, so it’s convenient to keep an office. It helps with taxes.”

/>   I was prepared for this.

  “How about a buck a day? Could you afford that?”

  He chuckles.

  “You work cheap, Isabel.”

  Yeah, I do. I’m doing okay moneywise because of Sam’s insurance. The house is paid off. Ma chips in. I did like it when I brought in a little spending money working at the Rooster. Twenty, twenty-five dollars a month from Lin isn’t going to amount to much, except lunch out with my mother.

  “You could say that, Lin. And if I get hired to work a case, I will give you a cut, say ten percent.”

  Lin Pierce hums as he ponders my proposal. I got a visit from the state cops after I solved the Adela Collins case. Without any show of gratitude, the sergeant informed me I needed to get a license if I planned to do any more investigating. He didn’t even know Adela’s father, Andrew Snow, paid me. Cash. That’s a secret between us two. Could there be other juicy mysteries to solve? Sure. The hilltowns may seem like sweet little spots with their quaint homes and maple trees, but they have country-style darkness. Some real nutcases live here. I’ve seen bad feuds and bad blood. Cheating. Thievery. Fights. Grudges. Revenge. They just don’t take pictures of that stuff and put them on calendars. Norman Rockwell didn’t paint them either.

  The paperwork the sergeant left me says I have to be honest and of good moral character, which strikes me as amusing. Plus, I have to find three citizens willing to testify that’s true. Really. They can’t be blood relatives. I may ask the Old Farts to vouch for me. I bet they’d get a kick out of it.

  I also can’t have committed a felony. Check on that one. The sticking point is I must have been a cop, no thanks, or work for a licensed private investigator for three years. I didn’t want to work for a P.I. in the city. I do have my mother to think about. Lin Pierce’s office is in Jefferson, the last hilltown before the closest city, Hampton, the county seat actually. Jefferson is rural but not as rural as Conwell and the other tiny towns around it with populations of a thousand and under.