Mint Juleps, Mayhem, and Murder

by Sara Rosett

  “A drug house! We have a drug house in Magnolia Estates?” Another gnatlike bug floated near my face and I swatted it away.

  “Well, not a specific house per se, but this new part of the neighborhood is usually a quiet area. Mostly deserted at night. Plenty of places to hide and it’s easy to set up a meeting here. A couple of cars parked on the street for a few minutes wouldn’t draw much attention because, well, there’s hardly anyone around to notice it. And the half-finished houses provide a place to wait or cover if the weather turns bad.”

  “But the park up the street…and what about the construction workers during the day?”

  “Sure, during the day there’s occasional traffic on this road, but at night, this stretch and the two streets that branch off of this road don’t have a single finished house. So at night, no one’s around.”

  “I’m amazed. Drug deals going on in Magnolia Estates.”

  “Don’t feel bad. We’ve been working on busting this ring for two months.”

  “So the North Dawkins Police Department is working with the GBI and the DEA?”

  He nodded. “The interstate is a corridor for shipping drugs north from Florida. Little North Dawkins is just one pit stop on the route up the East Coast.”

  “Wow. I guess that explains Waraday hanging around our neighborhood and the strange people Megan saw in the empty houses.” I leaned back against the pallet of bricks. “Did Henry ruin everything for you?”

  Gary scanned the area. A sheriff’s car had already pulled to the curb and Henry was being escorted to it. Either a police photographer or a forensic technician was clicking away with a camera. Gary checked the sky before replying. “I think we’ll fold this up before our targets—our original targets—get here. We’ve been watching them for months and they usually show up after dark. We’ll probably be able to get this area cleared and everyone repositioned before then.”

  It was the last of the long muggy days of summer and sunset was still hours away. I looked at Mitch and said, “So when I called you, you got off the street and…?”

  “Practically stepped on a DEA agent in the woods. Once he understood what was going on, he alerted everyone and they moved into place.”

  “What were they going to do?” I asked, thinking of how I’d stood in the open, so afraid and feeling so alone.

  Gary said, “We were going to do what we do best—take out the bad guy.”

  “Well, what were you waiting for?”

  “You had him on a roll. He confessed to Colonel Pershall’s murder and we were pretty sure you were safe until he had Mitch. He had to have you. You were his guarantee to draw Mitch out, so we knew he wouldn’t hurt you. If he’d closed the distance between himself and you or made a move to shoot you, we’d have taken him out.”

  My phone sounded again, playing the same Bon Jovi song. I flipped it open and saw I had a voice mail. I listened to it and began laughing.

  “What is it?” Mitch asked, concerned. I’m sure laughter was the last thing he expected from me at this point.

  “That was Geneva’s mom. She’s very upset that I haven’t made it back to pick up Livvy and Nathan.” I mimicked her annoyed tone as I said, “You’ve inconvenienced me and been very inconsiderate. You could have at least called, if you were held up.” I took a deep breath and calmed down. “I don’t think Livvy and Nathan will be playing with Geneva much from now on.”

  “That may not be such a bad thing,” Mitch said.

  Tips for Busy, Budget-Minded Moms

  Don’t forget to add household and car maintenance routines to your planning calendar, including:

  Oil changes and routine service for your cars.

  Changing the filters on your heating and cooling systems.

  Changing the batteries in smoke detectors.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  “Well, I think that’s the last of it,” I said, pulling the roll of tape across the top of the cardboard box. I noted the contents on the side and top in bold red marker, then carried the box to the small U-Haul trailer in the carport. Denise’s SUV was parked at the curb and was already stuffed with boxes except for one section that had been carefully reserved for the last minute addition of her Boston fern and spider plant.

  I returned to the kitchen and looked around. Even though the movers wouldn’t arrive until tomorrow, the house already had that un-lived-in feeling. Cabinet doors gaped open, stacks of miscellaneous debris sat on the countertops, and in the living room, Denise’s packed suitcases waited by the door. After I’d dropped off Livvy at school and Nathan at his Mother’s Day Out class, I’d spent the morning helping Denise get ready for the movers. Even though the movers do most of the heavy lifting and major packing, there were still things that Denise wanted to hand-carry or pack herself. She’d spent her time packing all the sensitive paperwork she didn’t want to lose, like old tax returns and insurance information. I’d packed her photos and special keepsakes, like the china bowl that had belonged to her mother, then moved on to taking the pictures down from the walls and removing stuff from the attic. The movers didn’t climb attic stairs and everything had to be out where they could get to it.

  I could hear Denise humming as she made her way down the hall. It was good to see her…happy wasn’t the right word, relieved or calm came closer to describing her disposition. It was certainly the complete opposite of her state of mind before Henry was arrested. The tension and worry that had etched deep lines around her mouth and given her dark circles under her eyes had faded. I knew she was still grieving for Colonel Pershall, but with Henry making his way through the judicial system, the threat of being tried for the murder of her husband was gone. Henry had been arraigned and was awaiting trial. Megan was still in California. She was living with her parents and it didn’t look as if she was going to return to Georgia. She maintained that she hadn’t known what Henry was doing and I was inclined to believe her. She and Henry seemed to live in separate spheres, despite being married.

  “I finally found it,” Denise said, waving a real estate flyer as she came in the kitchen. “I knew it was around here. Take a look. My new home.”

  It was a small condo painted canary yellow with a bold blue door and a pink flowering vine trained up around the door frame.

  “It’s only two bedrooms, but that should be all I need. Prices there are astronomical, but it’s on the water and I can swim every day.”

  “It’s beautiful,” I said. “I can picture you there.”

  “The strange thing is, I can picture myself there, too. Settling down and never moving again. Hard to believe. I’m going to be a homeowner. No more base housing for me. I’ll be grousing about having to fix my leaky pipes in a few weeks, but I’m never going to have to cut my lawn to meet regulation again.” She smiled, her eyes twinkling. “They maintain the grounds, so all I have to worry about is keeping that vine alive, and knitting. I’ve got enough requests to keep me busy for a while.”

  “So you’re going to keep your online store? I want to be able to order one of your gorgeous vests.”

  “Of course. Thank goodness Nancy is a wiz at all the technical stuff. She’s always taken care of it for me and now we won’t have to talk long distance about my Web site.” Denise had picked a condo not far from her sister’s house.

  “Well, I hope you don’t get too busy to answer knitting questions. I’m still working on that scarf, you know.” I’d seriously underestimated the time it would take to make the scarf. I’d be lucky if I finished it before Christmas.

  “I’m just an e-mail away. And speaking of knitting…wait here.”

  Denise returned with a white box. “This is for you. To say thank you.”

  “Oh! You didn’t have to—”

  “Yes,” she said firmly. “Yes, I did. It’s the least I could do and the best way I know how to say thank you.”

  I pulled off the lid. Nestled in tissue paper was a cream-colored fisherman’s sweater. “Denise, this is amazing. I love it,” I said
as I pulled it out and held it up. Thick with texture, the intricate patterns of the cable stitching boggled my mind.

  “Good. I know you won’t get to wear it much here, but you’ll be moving on someday.”

  “Thanks,” I said as I gave her a hug.

  “You’re welcome. It doesn’t compare with what you did for me. It scares me to think that I dragged you into that mess and it almost turned out terribly.”

  I leaned on the edge of the cluttered kitchen table, the sweater draped over my arm. “We were already involved in it but didn’t know it, so there’s no need for you to feel guilty. Henry had his sights set on Mitch even before you asked me to help. There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you about Henry.” I wasn’t sure if she’d want to talk about him, but she nodded, so I said, “Henry said something about a mistaken charge on his government card. Was that true?”

  Denise snorted. “There was no mistake about it. He charged a big-screen TV, at the Base Exchange of all places, and expected Lewis to look the other way. Henry lied and said his card had been stolen.”

  “So there was no identity theft?”

  “No. He went out and used it the next week. I guess he didn’t think Lewis would check on it. Henry expected Lewis to forget about the lie.” She swallowed and shook her head slightly. “Lewis wasn’t one to look the other way.”

  “No, he wasn’t,” I said quietly. Colonel Pershall always tried to do the right thing. I traced one of the diamond patterns in the sweater, feeling guilty for suspecting Denise had murdered her husband and was out to get Mitch.

  Denise began moving around the kitchen, efficiently closing cabinet doors. “He could no more change his personality than I could stop knitting,” she said with a sad smile. “Why do you think Henry sent the coins?” Denise asked me. “It’s been bothering me, wondering why he did that.”

  I frowned. “It’s so weird. It seems it was a way for Henry to thumb his nose at the investigators and throw them off the trail. For someone who thought he was so smart, it seems like a stupid move to send your victims and potential victims something that could be traced back to you. I think he was too clever for his own good.”

  Denise picked up several rolls of packing tape and stacked them on the counter. “Lewis did say that Henry always kept track of everything,” Denise said. “Henry was a hard worker, but he was a bit obsessive about making sure everyone knew exactly how hard he worked.”

  “Mitch always said Henry would have loved it if the squadron had a sticker chart like the one we use to keep track of Livvy and Nathan’s chores.”

  Denise laughed. “That’s true. How’s Mitch?”

  “Quiet,” I said with a sigh. “He’s usually so upbeat and positive, but now he’s withdrawn.” Once the adrenaline had faded, Mitch’s attitude had turned more somber.

  “Give it time,” was all Denise said, and I thought she was giving herself advice as much as she was passing some along to me. “It has to be disconcerting to know someone tried to kill you. He was targeted at home and at work.”

  “Oh, you heard that the ‘accident’ with the trophy was no accident?” I asked. I wasn’t sure how much the detectives had shared with Denise.

  She shoved the packing supplies into a box as she nodded. “Yes. I wanted to know everything. Well, everything they’d tell me. I didn’t notice any string tied to the trophy that hit Mitch.”

  “It was floss. He’d run it from the trophy up the side of the stairs and it was so thin, no one noticed it. He must have been feeling pretty desperate to try something that was so inaccurate, but he wanted Mitch out of the way and he wanted it to look like an accident.” The thick, warm fabric of the sweater weighed heavily on my arm. I shifted it to my other arm.

  “So how did he do it? How did he know Mitch was there?” Denise asked as she tucked several black markers in with the packing supplies.

  “He must have been keeping a close eye on Mitch at work because Mitch said he hadn’t used the back staircase until that day. Henry watched Mitch go into the stairwell upstairs. He must have caught the door before it closed and waited for the right moment to pull the line of floss so the trophy would hit Mitch on the head.”

  “But I thought Henry came in the door from the parking lot,” Denise said, her brow wrinkled.

  “As soon as he pulled the trophy down, he left the stairwell, went across the third floor to the front stairwell and left through the front doors. He circled around to the back of the building and came in from the parking lot with the group of flyers that included Jeff.”

  “But the floss. It wasn’t there when I went back to clean up,” Denise said.

  “I know. Henry was the last person to come in The Nest when we took Mitch in there to bandage his head. Henry took advantage of the confusion to lag behind us, then double back to the stairwell and remove the floss before he entered the break room. Detective Waraday told me they found the floss wadded up in a pocket of his pants, which were in his clothes hamper.”

  Denise shook her head slowly, “He really is disturbed, isn’t he? I keep thinking if I find out all the details, I’ll understand why he did it, but…he’s…” her voice trailed off and she shrugged.

  I remembered his conversational tone and the rising panic I’d felt as I looked at him holding a rifle aimed at me. “Denise, he’s messed up. He thought he deserved more and was willing to do whatever it took to get it.”

  Denise stared at me for a moment, then said, “It’s not ever going to make sense—what happened to Lewis.”

  I didn’t know what to say. No matter what I added or how much Denise learned, it wouldn’t bring back Colonel Pershall.

  She blinked a few times, then roughly pushed away from the counter. She sniffed, then said, “How about some tea? It’s bottled, not brewed, but it’s the best I can do with the movers coming tomorrow,” her voice forcefully brisk. She opened an ice chest and pulled out two bottles of Snapple.

  “What’s going on with Carrie?” I asked, to change the subject. “Is she still on base?”

  “Not for long. Her hand is still healing, but she’s become quite an online celebrity. She’s blogging about her activities and recovery. She wants to move, too, to San Francisco. She found a job at a new antiwar organization. What was the name? Women Against War and Aggression, that was it. I have to wonder if they’ve realized what their acronym is.”

  “And I thought the military picked awful acronyms.”

  “I know! I don’t think she’ll be able to move out of state for a while. The charges against her aren’t going away anytime soon.”

  Carrie had been charged with possession and manufacture of an explosive device, aggravated assault, and reckless conduct. Faye, the distraught woman I’d met on the night Carrie got hurt, had gone to the police and received immunity in exchange for her testimony against Carrie.

  “Well, I guess she can blog from anywhere,” I said as I checked my watch. “Oops! I better run. I have to pick up Nathan. I love the sweater and will wear it this winter even if it doesn’t get below forty degrees.” I put my Coach bag on my shoulder, tucked the box under my arm, and picked up the bottle of tea. “What are you doing for dinner?”

  “Meeting Bonnie and Rich.”

  “So you’re dining with our local writer?”

  “Yes. It’s amazing to me that he didn’t want anyone to know he was a writer. In fact, it’s amazing to me he was able to keep it to himself for so long. Now that it’s out in the open, it’s all he can talk about. Bonnie says if she hears the word ‘agent’ one more time, she’s going to forward his mail to another address.”

  “So what’s he going to do?”

  “Oh, stay in the air force, for now. It pays better than writing, apparently. He still hasn’t had any bites on his book. Bonnie’ll keep pushing him, but now that his secret is out, he seems less inclined to follow her marching orders.”

  “They are a pair. Will he get the commander slot?”

  “Nope. He’s lined up a job
in D.C. It’s a good background for his writing—that was his reasoning—and Bonnie can’t argue with the assignment because it’s at the Pentagon.”

  “And it was his idea?”

  “Yes. We’ll see if it’s the first sign of his newly apparent backbone or simply an aberration. People rarely change overnight. Now, go on. Long good-byes are terrible things.”

  I had to agree, so I didn’t linger. Once in the car, I tried not to think of how much I’d miss her. Who knew what kind of person the next squadron commander’s spouse would be? Would she try and revert to the traditional way of doing things? Would she like the idea of book clubs and playgroups?

  My cell phone rang and the strains of “We Are Family” filled the car.

  When I answered, Mitch said, “Just checking to see if Back to School Night is tomorrow or next week. The squadron wants me to pick up a night flight tomorrow.”

  “Next week, so there’s no conflict there. Nice ringtone, by the way,” I said.

  “You like that one?”

  “I do. That one’s a keeper. It’s perfect.”

  Tips for Busy, Budget-Minded Moms

  Organizing routines that you only have to do once a year

  Winter

  Sort holiday decorations, removing any broken or outdated items, then store in labeled bins until the next season.

  Check after-Christmas sales for discounted items. Create a gift storage area—a high closet shelf is ideal—to save money and time. You’ll be one step ahead when Mother’s Day or Father’s Day is near or when birthday party invitations arrive. You can also stock up on greeting cards. Store them in card files: Children’s Birthday, Adult Birthday, Sympathy, Get Well, etc.

  Clean out files and sort paperwork for taxes.

  Sort winter clothes, thinning items that you don’t want/need.

  Sign up for summer camps.

  Fill out applications for schools and scholarships. (This may need to be done up to a year in advance, so check with your intended school for application deadlines.)