“What can you tell us about the car fire?” I asked.
“She had it coming. I warned her.”
I felt Tucker flinch beside me. Of course she was among friends here, but that was not the sort of response that should ever come out of her mouth regarding an incident like that, especially considering the situation she was in currently. Aunt Lela needed a lesson in spin control.
Delilah had been quiet, likely because she had very little information and was at a loss for what questions to ask. But I had mentioned the car fire and the bloody gloves to her, so she now had some context.
She said, “I get it. I probably would have done the same thing. Some eighteen-year-old cheerleader strutting around the neighborhood, turning your husband’s head and continuing to flirt with him when you told her to take a hike. Who did she think she was?”
“You got that right,” Aunt Lela replied.
“You told her to stay away, and she didn’t. So you made your point.”
“Sure did. She steered clear of me and Beau after that.”
My ears perked up. “The fire happened a few days before she disappeared, right?”
Aunt Lela nodded.
“If the fire scared her off, which was your endgame, then you had no motive to kill her.”
“Right.”
“Did you discuss that fact with the police?”
She sighed. “Bob pressed that idea ’til he was blue in the face. They didn’t care. The bloody gloves evidently speak volumes.”
Delilah said, “How did the gloves come to have both your blood and Esther’s on them?”
Aunt Lela raised her palms. “No idea about hers. Mine was from all the gardening I did back then. Had dozens of beautiful rosebushes. Of course I’d snag my arms on the thorns and bleed here and there. I’d wipe it off with my gloves and go about my business.”
“So since you didn’t kill Esther, someone had to have taken your gloves. Did you notice they were missing?”
“I had several pairs. I didn’t think a thing of it.”
“Where did you keep them?”
“In my shed out back.”
“Was it locked?”
“No, it was just a potting shed. Nothing of value in there.”
Nothing of value except some reasonable doubt when her freedom was on the line. If only she’d had a lock on that dang shed, we wouldn’t be sitting here right now.
Delilah was definitely getting into this. I could tell by the excitement flashing in her eyes. She asked, “So here’s the big question—why would someone bury a body in your yard?”
Aunt Lela shook her head. “The perfect conditions. We had a break in our sewer line a few weeks prior. The jacklegs Beau hired to fix it wrecked our backyard looking for the break. He thought he was saving money by hiring those bozos, but it cost him in the end. I made him hire a landscaping contractor to re-grade the yard, lay sod, and repair all my flowerbeds that had been destroyed. I’m guessing the body was buried between the time the yard got torn up and the sod was put down.”
“When was that?”
“I can’t recollect any exact dates. I, uh…I wasn’t always sober during my early thirties.” After her admission, Aunt Lela wouldn’t meet our eyes.
Delilah waved a hand in dismissal. “No judgment here. I’ve done plenty of stuff I’m not particularly proud of.”
Aunt Lela gave her a ghost of a smile.
I hadn’t thought about it before, but Aunt Lela and Delilah were rather similar. They both had a wild streak. They took no nonsense from anyone and were tough as nails. Gruff on the outside, they were also sweet on the inside, but not many people got the chance to see that.
Delilah said, “Let’s talk about your good-for-nothing ex-husband. If he was known to be sniffing around an eighteen-year-old girl, and that girl ended up dead in his yard, why isn’t he in here instead of you? He—granted, along with the rest of the world—had access to your shed and your gloves. Why aren’t the police saying he killed her?”
“Because he can lie his way out of anything. The police said they talked to him, but they have no reason to believe he had anything to do with it.”
Tucker cut in, “Beau was out of town during the time the police believe Esther was killed. That’s another reason Aunt Lela’s in such trouble—Beau couldn’t attest to where she’d been or what she’d been doing since he wasn’t around.”
Aunt Lela harrumphed. “I’m sure he was tickled to know he put another nail in my coffin.”
Tucker flinched again. Poor guy. I imagined hearing all this wasn’t settling well with him.
Delilah asked, “What about the landscapers? Do you think any of them could help point the finger away from you?”
“Bet they wouldn’t want to lift a finger to help me. I wasn’t the easiest customer to work for. I’d come home after work, thinking they should have got more done in a day, and give them what for. They didn’t take kindly to that. Plus they were all jerks, so there’s that.” Only she didn’t say “jerks.”
“It doesn’t hurt to ask. What was the name of the landscape contractor?”
“McLeod Landscape.”
Tucker said, “I know Mike McLeod. I’m sure he’d speak with us.”
While we’d been talking with Aunt Lela, my impression of young Esther Sinclair had begun to shift. To hear Imogene McAlfrin or anyone on the news speak of her, you’d think Esther was the Golden Girl. But Aunt Lela painted a different picture—of a girl who willfully made it a point to befriend the married man next door, and when his wife told her in no uncertain terms to leave him alone, didn’t.
I said, “What about Esther’s family? Did they have any idea she was chatting up Beau in her spare time?”
Aunt Lela turned up her nose. “Her folks don’t live in the real world. Never have. Too busy beating their Bibles and sitting in judgment.”
“So they didn’t know about her interest in Beau?”
She mumbled something vulgar about where their heads always were.
I replied, “I’ll take that as a no. Were they strict, then?”
“Strict, but stupid. I lost count of how many times I saw her and that brother of hers sneaking in and out their rooms late at night. Their folks evidently never figured it out.”
Interesting, and rather typical that children of strict parents tended to act out. Besides married men, I wondered what else Esther Sinclair had gotten herself mixed up with during her teenage exploits.
“How did they react to her car fire? Did they know you did it?”
“They pitched a fit, all right. I half expected to get hit by lightning since they’d always been so tight with the Almighty. I was lucky enough to get out of criminal charges for destruction of property, but the Sinclairs sued me for damages and won. I had to pony up.”
Delilah said, “I want to know more about the Sinclairs. If they were as straightlaced as you say, do you think they might have hurt their daughter after finding out about her sneaking around and whatever else she might have done?”
Tucker leaned forward to frown at Delilah. “I thought we weren’t going to point the finger at other people. We’re only concentrating on clearing Aunt Lela’s name.”
Delilah gave him a frosty smile. “Well, that would certainly be easier if we found someone else to point at.”
“No one is going to track down a murderer on my watch.”
Delilah offered no rebuttal, which was often a bad sign. Normally that meant she was agreeing to disagree, but then would do whatever she pleased once you weren’t looking. I’d witnessed her use this tactic on our grandparents many times when she was a teenager. Now she only tended to use it when Mom overstepped her bounds and tried to tell Delilah what to do.
I changed the subject. “In all the craziness, Aunt Lela, I forgot to ask you what was insi
de the locket that made you think it belonged to Esther.”
“A picture of her and her two girlfriends. Didn’t often see one without the other two.”
I’d been noticing that Aunt Lela was getting pale and haggard as our conversation went on. She needed some rest, if that was possible inside a jail cell.
I stood. “I think we have enough to go on for now. Thanks, Aunt Lela. We’ll come visit again, if you want.”
She gave us a tired smile.
After hugging his aunt, Tucker followed Delilah and me out of the room. My heart wrenched at the thought of leaving her in there, lonely and alone.
Chapter 11
The three of us returned to the B&B to figure out our next steps. It was still plenty warm outside, so we sat on the back porch with glasses of iced tea. I found a notebook and began jotting down notes from what Aunt Lela had told us.
Tucker was quiet, not that I was surprised. He was probably learning more about his aunt than he’d bargained for. Delilah was equally subdued, seeming to be off in her own little world.
I said, “Tucker, I feel like we should talk to Beau. Are you still in contact with him?”
“I haven’t spoken to him in a while, but I can reach out.”
“Good. If you can get us a meeting with him, that would be great.”
He frowned as he keyed a text into his phone. “We might have to pay him to talk to us,” he muttered.
I marked Beau Habersham’s name down.
Delilah piped up, “What about Esther’s parents? Are they still living?”
“Alive and kicking, and still living next door to Aunt Lela,” Tucker said.
My heart ached for them. “How awful to think that their daughter was only a few feet away from them all this time. I’m honestly not sure what would be worse—thinking that your child left home and never wanted to speak to you again or finding out she’d died instead. They had to endure both. Those poor people. I feel like we should wait awhile before we try to contact them. They’ve been through enough this week.”
Tucker’s phone buzzed. He looked at it and grimaced, but said nothing.
Delilah nodded. “Agreed. We should probably talk to her brother, too. If they were both sneaking in and out of the house as teens, maybe they were partners in crime and shared their deepest, darkest secrets.”
Tucker shook his head. “Brothers and sisters don’t share secrets.”
She chuckled. “Your stuck-up sister, Margaret, never shared any secrets with you?”
“Never. But then again, there’s five years between us. We were too far apart in age to be close like you two are. But I still say sharing secrets is a sister thing rather than a sibling thing.”
His phone buzzed again, and again he got that disgusted set in his jaw.
“What’s up with your phone?”
He sighed. “Reporters have been calling me nonstop since last night. They’ve figured out I’m Lela’s closest relation, and now they won’t leave me alone.”
I put my hand over his. “I understand, trust me. I finally turned mine off last night and haven’t looked at it since. I’m so over all the requests I’ve gotten this week for interviews.”
His face clouded over. “You didn’t tell me you were being hounded by the media.”
I smiled contritely. “I didn’t want to upset you. Besides, Delilah and Papa Sal deal with the calls that come into the B&B.”
“You get calls here, too?”
“I get most of them here.”
Delilah said, “And sometimes she gets ambushed by our mother and her ‘friends’ here.”
When Tucker sent me a curious glance, I changed the subject. Sort of. “Speaking of Mom, she graduated with Esther Sinclair. She could be another good resource to get information. We’ll probably see her tomorrow.”
Delilah mumbled under her breath, “When she comes over to sponge some breakfast.”
We were quite the grumbly lot, so I tried to insert some positivity. “I think we have a good start here. I say we take an hour or so to clear our heads, and then regroup and decide who we’re going to speak to first.”
Tucker was up and out of his chair the moment I suggested we take some time for ourselves. “Sounds good. I’ll see you soon,” he said as he trotted down the steps and across the street to his home.
* * *
—
To clear my head, I engaged in my favorite form of therapy—baking. It was coming up on time for Papa Sal’s afternoon magic show, and I always provided treats and sweet tea for our guests and any neighborhood children who came over for the show. Today I used Grandmama Hattie’s tried and true recipe for “snowballs,” as we called them in the wintertime. The rest of the year, we called them Mexican wedding cookies or even Russian tea cakes, depending on our mood. I was sure there’d be a dusting of powdered sugar “snow” all over the parlor, which I’d have to clean up later, but the cookies were worth it.
I arranged the cookies and tea on the sideboard in the dining room, but unfortunately, I didn’t have time to sit and watch Papa Sal’s magic act as I often did. Tucker had texted and said his former uncle, Beau, would be available to meet with us this afternoon, so I was headed over to meet Tucker to make the drive to Tybee Island together.
Delilah met me in the foyer. “We need to talk about this ‘not investigating who the actual murderer is’ garbage. You realize that with the physical evidence stacked against Lela, we’re never going to find enough reasonable doubt to get her out of the pokey unless we deliver a viable suspect.”
I sighed. “I’ve been thinking the same thing, but I didn’t want to bring it up in front of Tucker.”
“Ha! I knew I was right.”
“Yes, you’re very smart,” I replied, heavy on the sarcasm. “However, I can’t help agreeing that he has a point about not putting ourselves in danger by trying to track down a murderer. If it’s anything like last time, we won’t know who the murderer is until we’re already in a peck of trouble.”
Delilah straightened up to her full height. “We learned a lot of good lessons last time. I’m sure we won’t make the same mistakes. Don’t you believe in us?”
“Yes, but one investigation does not a detective make.”
She squinted at me. “What?”
“We’re still newbies, D. We don’t have enough experience under our belts to guarantee we won’t make any bad judgment calls this time.”
“Fine. But promise me we won’t limit ourselves for the sake of being cautious.”
Wrinkling my nose, I asked, “Did that come out wrong?”
“No.”
“So you’re saying you’re against us using caution.”
“I’m against us being pansies when the rest of someone’s life is at stake.” When I frowned, she took my hands. “Look, I get that Tucker is torn between wanting to protect you and doing what needs to be done to get Lela out of jail. The best thing we can do for both of them is to prove we can investigate this situation fully and still be safe and smart about it. I’m sure there’s a compromise we can all agree on.”
I was still leery about throwing caution to the wind, but I knew she was right about everything else. “Okay. I’m willing to take a few chances, as long as we have some kind of backup plan.”
She smiled. “Now you’re talking.”
Chapter 12
Tucker pulled up in front of a fixer-upper beach house near the south end of Tybee Island. “Beau is trying his hand at flipping houses. That’s why he contacted my father after all this time—to find out if Dad wanted to add some of his crummy properties to the Heyward vacation rental empire.”
Delilah stared at the house, seemingly less than impressed. “I thought your dad bought nice houses.”
“And that would be why he doesn’t want to do business with Beau. Well, one of many re
asons.”
We got out of the truck and headed for the house. I hoped the rickety stairs would hold all three of us as we climbed up toward the front door. An older man with slicked-back hair and a toothy smile threw the door open as we got there.
“Tucker, my boy! So nice to see you again. It’s been years.” Beau glanced past Tucker to look Delilah and me up and down. I instantly disliked him. “And you’ve brought some lovely ladies with you, I see.”
Tucker’s posture stiffened. “This is my girlfriend, Quinn Bellandini, and her sister, Delilah.” He glanced at us and gestured toward his former uncle. “Beau Habersham.”
Beau’s creepy smile widened as he fixed his beady eyes on me. “Ooh, the one who found the bones in my backyard. Come in, come in. I want to hear every last detail.”
Delilah gave me an uneasy glance as we followed Tucker into the house. This particular interview was certainly making warning bells go off, but not because of the potential mortal danger Delilah and I had been discussing earlier. I was relieved all three of us had made the trip out here.
In the center of the living area, Beau spread his arms wide. “What do y’all think? With a little paint, this cottage could be a showplace. Tucker, you’re a contractor. You think this old place has good bones?”
Almost as bad as Beau’s grating personality was the condition of the inside of the house. It looked like feral animals had overtaken it, with raveling and busted-out wicker furniture upended in the corners and torn-up cardboard boxes scattered about. If all the windows hadn’t been open to let in the salty sea air, I was pretty sure the whole place would have smelled like a giant litter box.
Tucker was no liar. “Not especially. I think it’s going to need a lot more than paint to get it up to snuff.” He peered around and added, “And anywhere near up to code.”
Southern Harm Page 6
