A Tiny Collierville Murder

by Abby L. Vandiver

  Then I noticed a wine glass with a very familiar frosty colored lipstick on it.

  Courtney Lynne.

  OMG!

  I got up and walked over to the glass. It set next to an identical glass that was still filled with white wine. I picked up the glass and held it up to the light. Oh yeah, I’d know that shade anywhere. I set it back down next to the bottle of wine just like how I’d found it. The bottle was a Sauvignon Blanc from California. Nearly all the bottle was gone.

  Looks like they were having a good time.

  What were the two of them up to? My eyes darted around the room, and I saw an ashtray. I walked over and sure enough two butts had her signature color.

  Maybe she was in cahoots with Grant in killing Big Willie. Maybe that’s why she disappeared after the police arrived.

  Come to think about it, Courtney Lynne did arrive back right before Grant showed up.

  “Here she is.” Liam’s voice brought me back from my reverie. “I told her to come down and see your houses, but she wanted to wait here.”

  “Oh it’s the girl from last night,” he said. “The last one to see Big Willie.”

  “I’m not the one to have that distinction,” I said, suddenly feeling a little bold.

  I guess that’s what happens when people accuse me of murder and I find evidence of them committing it.

  Okay, maybe not hard evidence. But certainly circumstantial.

  “That would be you,” I finished.

  “Oh,” Liam said. “Are you okay, Nixie?” he asked and went and sat on one of the bar stools. “Come over here and sit next to me.”

  “Yes,” I said, and did as he asked sitting on the stool where I’d sat when I first came in.

  “I don’t know,” Grant said and walked over to the two wine glasses. He picked them up, put them in the sink and turned on the water. After he’d rinsed them clean, he got the bottle and threw it into the trash.

  I guessed he got what he wanted from Courtney Lynne and didn’t need it to soften her up anymore.

  “She couldn’t be too okay,” he talked as he cleaned, “if she didn’t want to come down and see my houses. I make the best ones in the country.”

  “Oh,” I said. “I thought Big Willie told me his were the ones on television.”

  “They are now,” he said and looked over at Liam. “But I’m going to see what Liam and I can do about that.”

  “What do you mean?” Liam asked.

  “Well right now, I’m the only one with a full-fledged tiny house business.”

  “No. We still have a business,” Liam said.

  “Are you sure?” he asked. “Who did Big Willie leave that business to? I know you boys weren’t his partners.”

  “No we weren’t,” Liam said. “But it’s still our business.”

  “What does the will say?” Grant asked.

  “I don’t know,” Liam said. “Never even thought about it.” His tone and demeanor had become indignant.

  “Calm down, boy.” Grant walked over to the other side of the island where we were sitting. “I’m trying to help. Big Willie would have done the same for me.”

  “How is it helping by acting as if you were going to take our family’s business?”

  “Go talk to Big Willie’s lawyer,” Grant suggested. “See what’s gonna happen with the business. I’m not ever going to try and take it. I just want to make sure that you boys get what’s coming to you.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “Okay. That’s my father’s lawyer’s office right there.” Liam pointed to a three story red brick building. “But you can park at one of the meters. Right here, across from it.” He gestured to open parking spaces. “We shouldn’t be that long.”

  Although he seemed upset with Grant when we left, Liam took his advice. He called his father’s lawyer who told him he could drop by anytime. So that’s what he was doing, even though it was a Sunday afternoon. Liam still hadn’t said anything about going to get his car, so I was still driving.

  “Look!” I said and did a quick jerk of the steering wheel and swerved over to the curb.

  “Whoa!” Liam said. “What is going on? Is that the way you parallel park?”

  “The sign in front of there says Harrington’.” I pointed to a sand-colored brick structure, with two white columns in front and black shutters. I finished reading the sign. “House and Pet Sitters.”

  “Yeah, what about it? You know that place?”

  “That’s where Stalker Guy said he worked.” I thought about the conversation that night at Molly Fountaine’s. “But he said it was in Memphis,” I mumbled. I looked at Liam. “Stalker Guy said that Harrington’s was pretty popular around ‘here,’ and he had told me he was from Memphis. But aren’t we still in Collierville? I thought he meant around Memphis since that’s where he lives.”

  “We’re in Collierville,” Liam said. “But you know it’s a suburb of Memphis so to speak. Outskirts of it. Harrington’s is just pretty popular all around these parts, only because the guy who owns it owns a lot of other businesses.”

  “Wait,” I said. “That’s why he was on the road I was on. He was driving into Collierville from Memphis, just as I had only he was coming here.” I looked at Liam. “Stalker Guy was coming to work.”

  Liam looked at the building and back at me. “I sure will be glad when you find out that guy’s real name.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “So. Why you so pumped about finding Harrington’s?”

  “They’ll know who he is.”

  “True.” He nodded. “I’m sure they would. Then what?”

  “What do you mean, then what?” I asked, surprise written across my face. “They could give me his name and I could make my police report.”

  “I thought you made one already?” he said.

  “I did, but it didn’t have his name on it because I didn’t know it,” I said. “How are they going to find him if they don’t know his name?”

  “True.” He looked at me. “So, what are going to do?”

  “I’m going to go in there and ask them his name.”

  He held up his hands. “Just like that?”

  “No. First I am going to tell them that they have a stalker creep working for them. Then, yes. I am going to tell them just like that.” I looked at him. “What’s wrong with that?”

  He shook his head. “Nothing. As long as I don’t have to play sheriff and come in there and pull you off of anyone.”

  “What?” I frowned up. “What are you talking about?”

  “Don’t go in there Karate chopping anyone, is what I mean.”

  “I’m not,” I said and huffed. What kind of martial artist did he think I was? I’d never used my powers for evil – or to show off. “I just want to let them know that they have a psychopath working for them and for them to tell me his name so I can turn him in.”

  He looked at me, and narrowed his eyes like he was studying me.

  “What?” I asked.

  “You want me to go in with you?”

  “No.” I said. “I can do this on my own.”

  “They might not take too kindly to strangers coming in bad mouthing their employees.”

  “Then they shouldn’t have creeps for employees. And how will you going in with me help?”

  “I know Ava Dewey.”

  “Who in the world is Ava Dewey?” I asked.

  His mind sure does wander. We were talking about Stalker Guy and Harrington House and Pet Sitters.

  “She works there.” He nodded his head toward the building. “She runs the office.”

  I glanced over at the building and back at Liam. “Does she own the place?”

  “No. She runs the office. She’s nice, but she’s a no nonsense type of girl.”

  “So am I,” I said and nodded in confirmation.

  “Oh I know you are,” Liam said. “Just offering my help.” He shrugged. “I know her. I know the place.”

  “Then you know the guy that ran
me off the road?” I turned in my seat to face him. “All this time you knew the guy and you didn’t tell me.” His actions, for some reason, were upsetting to me. “Are you protecting him?”

  He chuckled. “Don’t get all worked up. I don’t know the guy. Didn’t you just tell me he was from Memphis?”

  “That’s what he told me.”

  “Well Memphis is a big place. I don’t know everyone there.” He nodded toward the small brick building. “But Collierville is different. I know practically everyone here.”

  ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊

  “So did you have any luck finding out your stalker’s name,” Liam asked when he got back in the car. I had been waiting for him for almost twenty minutes.

  “No,” I said. “She couldn’t give out that kind of information and you’ll never guess why.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she said I might be a stalker.”

  Liam laughed.

  “I’m glad you find that funny,” I said.

  “Well did you tell her what happened?”

  “No, but I did tell her that whoever he is, he is a creep and they shouldn’t trust people like him to go into other people’s homes or sit with their pets.”

  “And what did she say?”

  “She’d take it under advisement.”

  He laughed again. “Sound like you didn’t make any headway.”

  “No I didn’t. Which, by the way, is not funny.” I shook my head. “I am tempted to just stake out this place. This is probably where he was coming the day he saw me on the road, he’s bound to come back.”

  “Maybe he was picking up his paycheck and he won’t have to pick up another one for a week.” Liam looked over at me. “Or maybe two.”

  “Still. Not funny.”

  “And what happened with you?” I asked.

  He blew out a breath. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he said.

  What could I say to that? I didn’t know him well enough to use some kind of psychological tactic on him to make him divulge information to me. Plus, he’d gone through a lot and his face showed me that what he’d learned from the lawyer wasn’t good news.

  Whatever good news he was searching for.

  And I guess it was okay for him to keep secrets from me because I was keeping secrets from him. I hadn’t told him about Courtney Lynne and Grant Granville’s little tryst, or my sinking suspicions. If he wasn’t sharing, neither was I.

  “So where you want to go now?” I asked pushing my reservations about the two to the back of my head. “You want to go and get your truck?”

  “Nope,” he said. “Just take me home. “I’ll have Jacob bring me my truck.”

  I got him back home, we pulled up just as Cynthia Carter, Big Willie’s newly made widow, was getting in her car. She looked haggard and her eyes were bloodshot from crying.

  “Gotta go out to the funeral home,” she said to Liam after he got out of my car. She ignored me. “Want to ride with me?”

  He looked around. “Where’s everybody?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “But Jacob said he’d meet me out there.” She looked at my car – not me – and turned back to him. “Jacob still got your truck in jail?”

  “Yep,” he said and flapped his arms. “I guess I will ride with you.”

  He got into his stepmother’s car and waved to me as she backed up and turned around in the wide drive.

  I probably will never see him again, I thought. I hope things go well for him.

  Chapter Twelve

  “A murder!”

  I finally had the opportunity to call my grandfather and I had been wiggling in my skin with anxiousness until the moment I pressed SEND.

  I needed my Dedek.

  “Did you do it?” he asked me first thing.

  “Dedek! No! How could you think that?”

  “When you have your eyes set on one of those designer things, there is no telling what you might do.”

  “I wouldn’t do that, Dedek.”

  “On that I am not too sure,” he said and nodded firmly. “So tell me,” he leaned in close, “what happened.”

  So I told him the whole story, leaving out the part about Stalker Guy, of course since I hadn’t told him about the incident at Mollie Fountaine’s.

  “Why were you at those people’s house in the first place?” was the next question he asked me.

  Oh what a tangled web we weave . . .

  “I told you, Dedek,” I said trying to figure out how to keep from telling the truth. “They were having a party.”

  “I thought you said the party hadn’t started yet?”

  “Oh yeah,” I said and scrunched up my face. “Uhm, that is true, it hadn’t started yet.”

  “And how did you know about the party?”

  “Liam told me about it. I told you that, too. Are you listening?” I said.

  “Oh yes. I am listening. Now tell me, how do you know Liam?”

  I rolled my eyes. There was no way of fooling him, at least not one I’d been able to think of. So I decided to come clean. I told him the whole story.

  “I don’t think it is a good idea for you to be traveling all around the country by yourself,” he said after I finished telling him.

  “I know that’s the way you feel, Dedek, but right now I need to worry about clearing myself. Haven’t you ever seen My Cousin Vinny? Authorities in the south charge people with murder just because they’re passing through.”

  “That is a movie. This is real life, but,” he pointed a finger at me, “sometimes they will use a scapegoat and I do not want that to be you.”

  “Me either.”

  “So if you didn’t do it, who did?”

  “How am I supposed to know that?”

  “Think,” he said. His voice stern and decisive. “It had to be someone there.”

  “I don’t know, Dedek. For all I know, they all could be murderers.”

  “All of them!” He threw up his hands. “What kind of house did you go to that the entire family could be capable of murder? You should pick better friends, Princeska.”

  “They aren’t my friends.”

  I had already explained to him how I ended up at that tiny house ranch. And the term “friends” encompassed a lot. A friend was someone who would stick with you through thick and thin. Someone you could count on for anything. For everything. They’d be there in a pinch. None of those people met that criteria with me. In fact, in my life I couldn’t think of anyone who did other than my parents, my Baba and Dedek.

  But the Carter family seemed to have a lot of them. Jacob had a friend that he trusted enough to start a business with. Liam had one that took him off the street when he was distraught and drunk and gave him refuge – a police officer who understood the term serve and protect. And even Big Willie.

  Liam told me that Big Willie and Grant had been friends for years and even the competition from being in the same business hadn’t put a damper or destroyed that. But bestie or not, if my grandpa needed a name it was Grant Granville. He was at the top of my list.

  “You should figure it out,” Dedek said bringing me back from my digression. “I was a spy in WWII for America. I could speak different languages, just like you and could get in where others couldn’t go.”

  “A spy?” I never knew when he was telling me the truth. “You never told me that, Dedek.”

  “Nixie, you can’t go around telling people you are a spy, then they won’t tell you information and it is a good possibility that they will kill you.”

  I guess that made sense. “Still, Dedek. By the time I was born you weren’t a spy anymore so you could have told me about it at some point.”

  “How do you know I wasn’t a spy anymore?” he said and waggled an eyebrow.

  Sometimes I wasn’t sure if my grandpa was a tad bit looney or he really had led such a life – spy, Casanova, fifteenth (or so) in the line to the throne of Yugoslavia . . .

  “Back to
my problems, Dedek. Please.”

  “Yes. I think that we should make a suspect list.”

  “For what?”

  “So that you can catch the killer.”

  I opened my mouth to protest.

  “Now, tell me again all the names,” he said before I could.

  “All the names?” I whined.

  “Not all of them. Just the ones you suspect. Then if they are not the murderer, we look into the other ones.”

  “Grant Granville. Agnes. I don’t know her last name,” I said starting to list them. “Jimmy. Don’t know his last name either, and Courtney Lynne Foster.”

  “What about the one who brought you there? Who is he?”

  “Uh . . . Liam?”

  “Yes.”

  “No. Definitely not,” I said anticipating what he was going to ask next.

  “Why?”

  “Because I . . . I just . . .” I hunched my shoulders and scratched my head. “I had a reason.” I sucked my tongue. “I forgot. But I just know it isn’t him.” Then my reason popped back in. “Oh! I know. Liam didn’t know how many shots were fired. He thought it was only one.”

  “‘Just because’ is a good reason,” he said. “It’s okay not to know why exactly.”

  “But I have the reason. The number of gunshots.”

  “Yes, I know,” he said. “I was just saying that sometimes you have a hunch that it’s not a certain person.”

  “A hunch?”

  “Yes, some people, how you say, have a gut feeling. I get them all the time.”

  “Really, Grandpa?”

  “Why you seem surprised?”

  Actually surprised wasn’t the emotion I was trying to portray, it was disbelief.

  “So is that all?” he asked.

  “Isn’t that enough?”

  “Who is the wife?”

  “Her name is Cynthia.”

  “You know, the wife is always a suspect. I would bet it was her.”

  “Well, you’d lose that bet, Dedek. And how can you be sure? You don’t know anything she’s done that was suspicious.”

  He hunched his shoulders. “That’s the way it always is. The spouse pulls the trigger.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Not this one, Dedek. She was so distraught. I just saw her today and her face was still red, and her eyes puffy.”