Lily Sprayberry Realtor Box Set

by Carolyn Ridder Aspenson

  “And you did a good job of making sure they knew that, except for the letter part.”

  “They’ll find out about that on their own.”

  “I’m sure they will.”

  “I wonder who sent the anonymous email or letter or whatever it was?”

  “I’m not sure. The guy from the athletic association didn’t give me a whole lot of information.”

  “Do you think that has anything to do with who killed Carter?”

  “You mean with Bobby Yancy?”

  I repositioned myself on the couch. “About that.”

  Dylan groaned. “And, here we go.”

  “Why do you and Belle say that to me all the time?”

  “Because you do this on purpose.”

  “Do what?”

  “Try to investigate my investigations and then go back and forth on your opinion.”

  “I don’t do that. Well, okay, I do investigate your investigations, but I don’t go back and forth on my opinion, do I?”

  “One minute you think it’s him, and the next you don’t, then you do, and then when he’s arrested you change your mind. I might be off on the pattern, but it’s close.”

  “I’ve never once been one hundred percent sure he did or didn’t kill Carter.”

  “And where are you now?”

  “On the fence.”

  He rubbed his temples again. “I’m getting a headache.”

  I got up from the couch and paced a path from my fireplace to my front window, sharing my thoughts in random order. “It’s just a little too easy, don’t you think? Maybe too tidy.”

  “Tidy?”

  “You know, wrapped up with a bow? That kind of thing.”

  “As I’ve said before, criminals aren’t all that smart, especially ones that commit crimes in a hurry, like I’m assuming this one was.”

  “A syringe with something strong enough to kill a man isn’t exactly murder done in a hurry, Dylan.”

  He eyed me with a stern, serious look. “You know something?”

  I stopped pacing and mimicked his stare. “What?”

  “You’re right.”

  My eyes widened. “Well, I appreciate the acknowledgment. Thank you.” I continued my pacing and then stopped again. “Do you have any idea what was in the syringe?”

  “We have our suspicions.”

  I tired of pacing, but kept going anyway.

  “Doesn’t appear to be anything off the streets or any kind of poison because of his appearance and condition at the scene.”

  “So whoever killed him wanted it to look like natural causes.”

  “Possibly, possibly not.”

  I pointed at the front window as I paced that direction. “Which completely nullifies your theories on stupid criminals, and this one being in a hurry, and all that.”

  “Not exactly, though your point about murder by syringe does make me pause. It’s got to be something easily accessible, and something that causes death quickly.” He grabbed his phone off the coffee table and typed out a text. “I’m having Matthew look into it. We might come up with some ideas before the autopsy is back. I’ll let you know, of course.”

  “Maybe a tad bit quicker than you let me know about Yancy’s arrest, please?”

  He rolled his eyes. “Yes, ma’am. I’ll stop everything in the investigation to keep you up to date.”

  I sat on the chair facing Dylan and Bo. “Thank you.”

  He smiled. “It still doesn’t rule out my original theory though. You know that right?”

  “Your original theory?”

  “That people who commit crimes aren’t always the sharpest nail in the box.”

  “Wait. You just basically retracted everything we just said.”

  “Let me explain how the penal code in Georgia works first, and maybe it’ll help you have a better understanding of reality over your crime-fiction TV shows, which base nothing on reality whatsoever.”

  “Yes, sir, Sheriff.” There might have been a touch of the double chromosome coming out in my response.

  He must not have felt threatened by it because he kept talking. “In Georgia there are two basic types of killings, those with intent and those without. A homicide is a killing without legal justification, murder being the severest of homicides. First degree is the only degree we recognize in the state, and it’s committed in one of three ways, with malice intent, a disregard for human life, or during the commission of a felony act. Other killings fall under manslaughter, whether it’s voluntary or involuntary. Do you know the difference?”

  “Based on my fictional crime shows, isn’t voluntary when they do it on purpose but without it being planned?”

  He nodded. “Call it your typical passion killing. It’s a sudden act under the influence of a serious provocation that causes a normally reasonable person to act unreasonable. For example, I come here, find you with someone else, lose all sense of reason, and shoot the guy.”

  I winced. “You’d never do that.”

  “You never know what a person might be driven to do, but thankfully, I’ll never have to.” He rubbed Bo’s ears. “My buddy Bo here would chew the guy up and spit him out before I had a chance.”

  “Of course he would, but he wouldn’t have to because you’d never find me with anyone else.” I’d barely dated when we’d been apart for the several years we were, but I didn’t remind him of that.

  “Involuntary manslaughter on the other hand, is completely unintentional. And I’m pretty confident it’s not what happened with Bobby Yancy. It’s more along the lines of reckless homicide in other states—an act caused by illegal or reckless behavior.”

  “Like someone killed by a drunk driver.”

  “Yes, like that.”

  “So, I still don’t see how this could be Bobby Yancy being a stupid criminal.”

  “It’s possible,” he paused. “Mind you, I’m looking at this as a defense attorney might, because arguably, this could be a possible defense, so we have to consider it. It’s possible someone could have put something in a syringe, planted it nearby, and in the moment, Yancy grabbed it and jabbed it into our vic’s neck. Not bright by any means, but a sketchy line between malice and reckless intent and or heated emotions in an impassioned situation.”

  “But that still doesn’t mean the killer was stupid.” That was a stretch on my part, but I gave it my best shot.

  “If Yancy was the one that physically stuck the needle into Carter Trammell’s neck, he’s the killer, Lily. It doesn’t matter where the syringe came from, or who intended for the killing to happen. There are two potential cases there, yes, but the actual physical killer, be it through first degree murder or manslaughter, would be Bobby Yancy. See what I’m saying? So yes, if this theory rings true, we have a stupid criminal on our hands.”

  “But if Bobby Yancy didn’t kill Carter Trammell, then someone knowingly planned his murder with malice intent, and that’s first degree homicide.”

  He nodded.

  “But you think Bobby Yancy did it.”

  “I think he physically committed the crime, yes.”

  I sat with that thought stirring around in my head.

  “What’re you thinking?”

  “I think we need to find out what was in that syringe before we come to any conclusions.”

  “We?”

  “This isn’t the suburbs of Atlanta, or Atlanta itself. We don’t have the drug problems here that they do, and like you said, Carter didn’t appear to have any signs of a drug overdose, so what other options could it be?” I knew what I was talking about. I’d used this kind of information to sell the area to clients on a regular basis and had done the research.

  “He didn’t show any of the typical signs of sudden death from poisoning, many of which are the same signs from overdosing. Foaming at the mouth, throwing up, that kind of thing.”

  My stomach tightened, and I must have grimaced because Dylan raised his brow and asked if I was okay. “I’m fine. Go on.”
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  “If I were to guess, I’d say he was injected with something that stopped his heart.”

  “Like a medical drug.” I grabbed my phone and checked online. “Propranolol hydrochloride?”

  “There are a few, but that’s the most common.”

  “Can you buy that at the drug store? No pun intended, of course.”

  “The pill form is available as a prescription, but I’m not sure if the liquid form is.”

  I jumped from my seat. “Michael Longley’s wife is a nurse. He told me she took care of his sister who died of cancer. She could easily get that drug.”

  “And what, give it to her brother to kill his arch nemesis?”

  That question deflated the theory brewing inside of me, but it didn’t pop it entirely. “And Ginnie Slappey’s sister-in-law is a nurse at a hospital on Pill Hill. So, right there we’ve got two potential suspects with access to the drug that killed Carter.”

  That got a response from Dylan, only it wasn’t quite the response I wanted. “We don’t know yet if that was the drug that killed him.”

  “Fine. But still, you’ve got two other possible suspects with relatives with access to drugs that could have killed Carter. Maybe you were too quick to arrest Bobby Yancy.”

  Chapter 6

  My doorbell rang in the middle of the night. Maybe it wasn’t the middle of the night but it sure felt like it. I blindly patted the top of my nightstand searching for my cell phone to see what God awful time it really was. Five twenty-three AM. It sure felt like I shouldn’t have been jarred awake by the shrill of my doorbell and the loud growl and bark of Bo at five twenty-three AM. I also shouldn’t have been nearly crushed by my dog’s semi-truck sized paws as they used me as a catapult off the bed to rush to the door and greet whatever crazy person pounded on it. I fought in the dark to get my robe on in an effort to be appear presentable before answering.

  “I’m coming, I’m coming,” I hollered down the short hallway between my bedroom, family room and kitchen area. “Act like you’ve got some raisin’, will ya?” I peeked through the curtain on my kitchen door window and saw four old, wrinkly but smiling faces beaming at me. One of them had a missing tooth just to the right of his top front teeth, and he stuck his tongue through the hole. I couldn’t help but laugh. Billy Ray Brownlee was sweeter than a piece of cherry pie with a scoop of ice cream on top on a hot summer night. I loved him like the dickens. Even at five twenty-something AM in the morning.

  I opened the door and Bo charged them. He knocked Billy Ray out of the way and went for sweet Bonnie’s arms because she had a bag with something smelly in it.

  “Don’t you dare try and take this you little good for nothing drooler, you.” Bonnie yanked the bag up and held it over her head. That would have mattered if she was any taller than a mailbox, but she wasn’t. Unfortunately for her, Bo was, and he went right for the bag.

  “I wouldn’t do that if—” I tried to finish that sentence, but Bo had already jumped up on her and knocked her back into Old Man Goodson’s arms.

  He didn’t mind. He grabbed a hold of her and squeezed her tight around her waist. She squealed. “Eep. Not so tight, or I might potty a little. The parts don’t work like they used to.”

  Old Man Goodson let go, and Bonnie went sailing to the ground.

  “Well, that ain’t gonna go over all that well now, is it?” Henrietta, Bonnie’s best friend, said.

  Old Man Goodson was paler than a ghost, and frozen in place.

  “Don’t just stand there you big lug. Help her up,” Henrietta said.

  “Yeah, help me up.”

  He did as he was told, because that’s what men did when Henrietta and Bonnie barked an order their direction. Mostly because they scared men, especially men their age. Henrietta and Bonnie had that way about them, and when I hit their age, whatever their age was, because they were ladies, and they would never tell their age, I hoped I’d be just like them.

  I pulled my robe tight around me. “Y’all know God isn’t even up yet, right?”

  Bonnie straightened her standard potato sack style dress. “’Course we do, but seein’ as we heard what happened last night, we figured we ought to come and stand guard in case you get attacked by them tyrants again.”

  Henrietta chimed in. “Yeah, we don’t want those crazy women hurting our girl.”

  Bonnie and Henrietta had taken me and Belle in as their own several months back when we’d held a decluttering and staging class at the library, and they’d signed up. Unfortunately, the class didn’t go as planned, but that didn’t stop the two old whippersnappers from latching onto us—and us to them. Since then we’d taken part in a few shenanigans together, and I’d be lying if I said they weren’t fun.

  Billy Ray Brownlee and Old Man Goodson were their alternating gentleman friends, and I meant alternating in the literal sense. I just wasn’t exactly sure what gentleman friends actually meant, and I wasn’t sure I wanted the juicy details on that, either. They couldn’t quite make up their mind regarding which man they wanted to stick with, so they alternated. My guess was they mostly wanted companionship, and simply enjoyed the variety of company. Either way, they switched off on a regular basis, and while some might find that odd, I found it endearing and entertaining, and I was quite sure the men enjoyed it. Why wouldn’t they?

  Momma always says variety was the spice of life. I tried to think of that with a wholesome heart and head. “I don’t think you need to worry about me, but Dylan, on the other hand, you might could keep an eye on him.”

  Billy Ray laughed. “He don’t need us. He’s got a gun.”

  Henrietta punched him on the arm. “Oh bless your heart. Ain’t no bullet big enough gonna stop a momma defending her baby.”

  “If that ain’t the truth, nothing is,” Bonnie agreed.

  I nodded my head. “I’m with them.”

  They sat at my kitchen table, and Old Man Goodson rubbed his ever-growing belly. “You gonna let an old man starve or open that bag of goodies? A man’s got to eat.”

  I put on a pot of coffee, let Bo out back, and excused myself to put on some proper clothing. As I dressed, I listened to the group discuss my situation, or what they thought was my situation.

  “She doesn’t need those women all up in her business,” Billy Ray said.

  “I might could spend the day with her, but I got a doctor’s appointment for the gout at two o’clock. I could ask her to take me,” Bonnie said.

  I giggled as I pulled a pale green sweater over my head.

  Billy Ray offered to take her to that, as long as there was no county emergency that would require his assistance. He was the top volunteer paramedic. His job was of the utmost importance, and he made sure they knew that in a rather long-winded way.

  “You don’t have to hand out those Band-Aids and sweet tea every time someone gets a boo boo, Billy Ray. My gout’s flared up something awful. Look at it.”

  I could only imagine what Billy Ray had to look at, and I was glad I wasn’t there. I finished slipping my feet into a pair of socks and headed back to the kitchen where my four friends were already enjoying cups of coffee. Bo had his face in a bowl of Frosted Flakes. Milk dripped from his jowls when I busted him snarfing it up. “Bo, who gave you that?”

  Everyone suddenly studied the coffee in their cups with serious faces.

  “You guys know how I feel about this.”

  Old Man Goodson snuck a peek up from his coffee cup, and the guilt in his eyes gave him away. “But he looked so sad and pathetic with those big puppy eyes burning holes into our souls. Don’t you ever feed him?”

  I patted Bo’s muscled back. “Look at this monster. He’s not even a year old yet. Does he look like he’s starving?”

  Bonnie held the corners of her dress out for me. “He was drooling all over my dress. I paid good money for this thing.”

  Henrietta snorted. “You bought it at the Goodwill by the outlet mall. You didn’t pay more than five dollars for it.”

 
; “It’s by a famous designer. Billy Ray, check the tag. It’s that Juice person, right?” She pulled on the back of the collar. Here. What’s it say? I know I paid good money for this thing.”

  He took his glasses from the top of his head and put them on. “Looks like Faded Qlory?”

  Henrietta slapped her thigh and laughed, loudly. “Glory. That’s a designer name all right. If you’re shopping at the Walmart.”

  “I’m about ready to take this gout-fueled foot and stick it where the sun don’t shine.”

  I’d never seen two old men move as fast as Old Man Goodson and Billy Ray did right then. Even Bo sensed the battle beginning to brew and got up and hid behind Billy Ray’s legs.

  “Good gravy, she’s up and pitchin’ a hissy fit, and I ain’t even started yet.”

  I poured myself a cup of coffee and leaned against the kitchen counter. “Well, this is going to get good. Maybe I should invite Ginnie and Clarissa and their crew back? I bet y’all could take them out in a heartbeat.”

  “Darn tootin’,” Bonnie said.

  “Those young’un’s ain’t got nothing on us,” Henrietta said.

  I’d effectively redirected their energy back to the reason they’d come to my house so early. “So, tell me, how did you hear about what happened? It was pretty late.”

  “My police radio,” Bill Ray said. “Dylan reported the women at your place right when he pulled up. Said to stay prepared for a call out in case he needed back up.”

  I about choked on my hazelnut coffee. “He thought he might need back up? For a bunch of lacrosse moms?”

  “That he did.”

  “Wow.”

  “Nothing’s scarier than a group of momma’s defending their babies,” Old Man Goodson said.

  “That’s true. They were about ready to take me down, but I used my daddy’s whistle on them, and that got them in order.”