Murder, Mayhem and Bliss (Myrtle Grove Garden Club Mystery Book 1)

by Loulou Harrington

  “Is this enough to get into the account?” Jesse laid the paper on the table, turning it toward him so he could get a good look at it.

  “No. You’d need passwords, or someone who could hack the system. That’s not me. I can barely get into my own accounts.”

  Jesse retrieved the paper and tucked it safely back into its interior purse pocket. Then she stood and extended her hand. “Thank you, Mr. Dawson. You’ve been a big help.”

  He took her hand and shook it. “All I’ve given you is a lot of suspicions without any proof. In accounting, that’s pretty much the same as nothing.”

  Sophia laid her hand on his arm. “Your suspicions have helped confirm our suspicions. Tell me something, Mr. Dawson, if Harry Kerr knew nothing about accounting, would he have needed a partner to help him accomplish his theft, embezzlement, or whatever you wish to call it?”

  “Oh, yeah, sure. Something this complicated, this subtle, done over years, and, I think, something that incorporated a whole network of used car sales, he would very much have needed a partner. And one who had a solid understanding of business in general, car sales in particular, and accounting.”

  Sophia smiled. “Thank you, again, Mr. Dawson. You have, indeed, been a great help.”

  “If you think of anything else—anything,” Jesse said. “Please let us know.”

  “Sure thing.” He lifted his dog into his arms and held it there, watching them walk away.

  As they rounded the corner of the barn, he was still standing there, staring after them. Jesse waited until they were almost to their car and well out of earshot before saying, “Well done, Mom. Great question. And that little flirting thing you did? Right on target. You are an excellent Watson.”

  “Thank you.” Sophia gazed up through batting eyelashes. “You, however, are an easily distracted Sherlock.”

  “I know. I’m really going to have to work on that if we’re going to go around solving crimes on a regular basis.”

  Sophia’s simpering look turned to horror. “Is there any chance of that?”

  “Not a chance in hell,” Jesse said with a firm shake of her head. “Nope. No way. One and done. I don’t care who’s in trouble the next time. I am not getting involved.”

  “Well, as your mother, I would just like to say ‘thank you.’ I’m getting too old to spend all my time following you around making sure nothing happens to you. No matter how good I am at it.”

  At the car, Sophia opened her door and slipped inside. Jesse followed suit, pulling her phone out of her purse as soon as she had buckled up.

  “Where to now?” Sophia started the car and backed out of the driveway.

  “Vivian’s, I guess. We’ve got a ton of info to hand over to that auditor she’s called in.”

  Sophia turned the car toward home while Jesse shifted her attention to the multiple message indicators on her phone. There was voicemail, texts, more voicemail, more texts, everything but carrier pigeon, and all from Connie.

  “Uh, oh,” she said, retrieving her texts first.

  “Uh, oh, what?” Sophia asked.

  “Lots of Connie.” Jesse frowned as she read the first, which said, “Call me.” The second said “Call me, call me!” The third one was “Call me. Now. Dammit!”

  She pushed the button to retrieve her voicemail, which consisted of, “Where the hell are you? Call me when you get this.” The next was, “Honestly, this is really important. Call me.” The third was Matt’s voice saying, “Jesse, Connie’s starting to get upset. Really. Call.”

  Her heart pounding, Jesse returned the call.

  “It’s about time,” Matt said without preamble. “Listen, I’m just going to tell you, and I don’t care if you like it. I’m not getting in between you two. Joe was coming into the building as Connie and I were leaving Adele Culpepper’s. He wanted to know what we were doing there, and I told him. He wanted to know what she said, and I told him. I’m giving the phone to Connie now.”

  “Coward!” Jesse cried into the void of the phone.

  “I am not,” Connie answered. “I’ve been very brave. You weren’t here.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Joe was so mad. And not at us.”

  “What did Adele say?” Jesse asked. She hoped all the urgency wasn’t just about Joe Tyler. And she wondered why he was going to see Adele. Maybe because of what Bobby told him. If Joe found out about the envelope of pictures and the Cayman account…

  “I showed her the pictures,” Connie said, interrupting Jesse’s mental meltdown. “And you’re not going to believe this.”

  “Tell me,” Jesse said through gritted teeth. There wasn’t much left that she wouldn’t believe at this point. It had been quite a day.

  “She recognized the two people she had seen visiting Ginny’s with Harry.”

  “Two?” Jesse’s pounding heart pounded harder.

  “Bill Marshall and Cindilee,” Connie said in a voice that seemed to have its own drumroll.

  Jesse’s brain hit a brick wall. Of all the people she could imagine doing anything with Harry, neither of those two were included. So she went to a point she could deal with. “How did she get upstairs in a wheelchair? Is there an elevator in that building?”

  “Yes, there is,” Connie said sounding smug. “But Cindilee wasn’t in a wheelchair. She was walking.”

  Oh, yeah, definitely a drumroll.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Jesse put her other hand against the side of her head and cradled it between her cell phone and her palm. “Oh, my goodness. My brain hurts.”

  “Did we do good?” Connie asked cheerfully.

  “Yes,” Jesse answered, still holding her head to keep it from flying apart. “And I don’t know what to do next. Could you two meet me at Vivian’s?”

  “Sure.”

  “What now?” Matt demanded in the background.

  “Don’t fuss,” Connie said. “We’re going to Viv’s.”

  The call disconnected, and Jesse was caught between a void of confusion and a head that just didn’t want to accept reality.

  “What in the world is going on?” Sophia asked gingerly.

  Not for the first time, Jesse was grateful for her mother’s perception. Where others might stomp in unaware, her mom always seemed to know when she should tiptoe. It was a wonderful trait, especially in a parent.

  Jesse took a deep breath. “Do you think you could find someplace to pull over up here? I’m in the process of stirring up a hornet’s nest over at Vivian’s, and I’m just not sure I can face that right now.”

  “Sure. Is there anything you can tell me before I find a good place to pull over?”

  “I think Bill Marshall’s in this up to his earlobes, and I don’t think poor, pitiful Cindilee’s very far behind him.”

  “Oh, my heavens,” Sophia said in hushed tones. “Are they the couple Adele saw visiting Ginny? How could Cindilee get up to the second floor?”

  “The building has an elevator. But it appears that Cindilee was walking.”

  Sophia let her breath out in a huff and didn’t make another sound until she found a quiet place off the side of the road next to where a creek wound under an old concrete bridge. It was apparently a popular fishing spot and well-worn by frequent visitors.

  “Experienced in business, car sales, and good at accounting,” Sophia repeated as soon as they were parked. “That’s what Fred Dawson said.”

  “That’s what I was just thinking,” Jesse agreed. “A perfect description of Bill Marshall. But all three of them were at Ginny’s. If it was just Bill and Harry working together, Cindilee wouldn’t have been there.”

  “So we know what Bill’s part in it would have been, but we don’t know Cindilee’s. Weren’t you going to talk to her today?” Sophia asked. “While Bill was at work?”

  Jesse nodded absently, her mind working. “I was just thinking that Maria and Bill are probably both at Vivian’s right now, meeting with the auditor to try to figure out what’s been going on.”


  “Wouldn’t you like to be a fly on that wall?”

  “Well, we were going to be,” Jesse said. “But I think I need to do something else first.”

  “Like drop in on Cindilee? Has it occurred to you that you could be talking to a murderer who obviously isn’t nearly as helpless as she pretends?” Sophia asked quietly. “I’m not sure I like that idea too much. It’s a good thing there’ll be two of us.”

  “I think it would be better if I talked to her by myself, Mom. Why don’t you take me by the house and let me get my truck. Then you can go on over to Vivian’s and see what’s happening there.”

  Sophia started her car and headed it toward the turn off that would take them either to Myrtle Grove in one direction or to Culverton in the other. Culverton was where Bill and Cindilee Marshall lived, and that’s the direction Sophia took when she got to the turn.

  “You are so stubborn,” Jesse said, secretly relieved that her mother was going. No one wanted to face a possible murderer alone, not that she actually thought Cindilee was the killer. “You have your phone with you, right?”

  “Yes,” Sophia answered.

  “I want you to stay in the car. I seriously think I’ll be able to handle her better by myself. She probably thinks she’s smarter than everyone else anyway, so I should be able to make her think I’m not a threat. And she does like to talk.”

  “And how am I supposed to know if she’s trying to kill you?”

  “I can call you on my phone before I go in and put it in my purse pocket.” Jesse focused on logic. She really didn’t want to think too far ahead right now, because everything seemed to turn a uniform murky gray when she tried. “If you don’t make any noise, there’s no reason for her to know you’re listening. And if anything really bad happens, I can just scream.”

  “And then I, what, run in waving my phone?” Sophia asked, persisting in combining practicality with maternal worry.

  Recognizing a good question when she heard one, Jesse scanned the passing countryside for a nice-sized stick. Then inspiration struck.

  “Do you have a tire tool in your trunk? You know, one of those old, long ones with a crook and a lug-nut thingy on one end and that pointy end on the other?”

  “I think the pointy thing is for a hubcap, which no one seems to have anymore,” Sophia explained. “But yes, I do.”

  “Well, whatever it’s for, it helps make it a scary implement and a lot easier to swing,” Jesse said. “We can get that out of the trunk before we get to Cindilee’s house. And you can use it to lay waste to her if it becomes necessary.”

  “I’m a mother.” Sophia nodded, pleased with the idea. “I can do that in defense of my young.”

  Jesse giggled. “We’re both insane.”

  “I prefer not to think about it,” her mother answered. “Things have a way of snowballing out of control, and we appear to be deep inside one of those snowballs. By the way, is there any good reason why we’re not calling the sheriff?”

  “Because we have no real proof of anything. And I’m not sure he’s going to rush out here and snatch me from the jaws of death on the basis of rumor and innuendo. Especially when all I have to do is go home and leave it up to him to handle.”

  “Is there any good reason why we’re not doing that?” the ever-sensible Sophia countered.

  “It’s that snowball thing,” Jesse said. “And don’t look at me like that. I offered you the option of going home, and you wouldn’t go.”

  “It’s all my fault, then. Insanity apparently runs in the family.”

  “Okay, we’re almost there. I guess we’d better get out that tire tool.”

  ∙∙∙•••●●●•••∙∙∙

  Jesse drove the last few blocks to the Marshall’s house. It was, of course, just outside of town, sitting well back from the road and hidden behind a wall of trees. The positive side of its isolation was that any car approaching wouldn’t be visible until the last bend in the gravel driveway. Jesse rounded that last curve and pulled in under a tree, parking close enough for a shout to be heard from the house, and far enough away to give her mother some protection should things go wrong.

  Sophia slumped lower in the passenger seat until the top of her head barely cleared the dash, leaving her just able to see through the bottom edge of the windshield. The convertible’s top was up and its windows were down.

  “I’ll leave the keys in the ignition,” Jesse said as she dialed her mother’s cell phone, put her own phone on speaker and stored it in the front pocket of her purse.

  “This is all becoming terribly real.” Sophia sounded breathless as she answered her phone and plugged in the ear bud that would let her hear the slightest sound from the other end. “You’re not going to do anything stupid like try to arrest her, are you?”

  “No.” Jesse looked out the driver-side window, facing away from her mother just in case someone was watching from the house. “I just want her to talk. Maybe she’ll say something we can use.”

  “You don’t think she did it, do you?”

  Sophia seemed to be seeking reassurance, and Jesse was happy to give it to her. “I don’t see how she could have.”

  “Right. Me either.”

  Jesse got out of the car and closed the door, looking toward the simple house about twenty yards away. Gray brick on the bottom, pale yellow siding on the top, with its front porch and trim a crisp white, it conveyed a welcoming charm in the warm October sunshine.

  “Just a casual conversation,” she said, speaking as much to herself as to her mother as she began her walk away from safety and toward the unknown. “Maybe with a little confession on the side. A little unburdening. Nothing that would matter. Just some girl talk. Remember to keep your head down.”

  She didn’t dare look back and could only hope her mother could still hear her. Her mind swirled with warring questions. She had originally planned to arrive at Cindilee Marshall’s on nothing more than another fishing expedition, similar to one she had just left.

  Now she had to wonder if the Marshalls’ involvement was anything more than a theft that had nothing to do with either a murder or a questionable suicide. Maybe somebody else out there cared who had stolen a bundle of money from the car dealership, but Jesse didn’t.

  Bliss didn’t need the money. Vivian certainly didn’t, and the worst thing that could happen right now was to have the murder investigation sidetracked by anything that didn’t have a direct impact on who had killed Harry Kerr. So, Jesse decided she would keep the subject of embezzlement out of the conversation as long as she could, saving it for shock value if that became needed.

  She had arrived at the front door by that time. Pausing to square her shoulders, she told the small voice in her head that kept whispering “run” to shut up. She pushed the doorbell with perhaps a little more force than was necessary, and inside, the Boomer Sooner song rang out and continued to ring out long enough to make Jesse regret not simply knocking.

  When the OU fight song finally died away, a woman’s voice called, “Come on in. The door’s unlocked.”

  Jesse turned the knob and entered. The short foyer opened into a small, tidy living room that was almost overwhelmed by a fat-cushioned sectional that started with a settee, curved into a sofa and ended with a chaise where Cindilee Marshall sat tucked into the corner.

  Pillows hugged her back and a quilt was draped across her lap and legs. She wore no makeup and her hair didn’t look as if it had been brushed recently. She lifted the remote next to her and turned off the television that had already been muted.

  “Well, my goodness, what a pleasant surprise.” Her voice was soft. “I hope you don’t mind if I don’t get up.” She motioned to the sofa. “Please sit down.”

  Choosing a chair at the end of the chaise so that Cindilee wouldn’t have to twist herself around to talk, Jesse set her purse on the coffee table less than two feet away, carefully positioning the mesh phone pocket to face their direction. Sophia might not be able to hear everyt
hing that was said, but she could hear any loud noises.

  “How are you today?” Jesse asked. The other woman certainly didn’t look well, but then she appeared to have made a profession out of pretending to be ill.

  “I have good days and bad days. Today is not one of the good ones. But I’m glad you came. It gets very boring sitting here alone all day.”

  “I apologize for not calling. I really should have, but I was out this way on another errand, and I just got the impulse.”

  Cindilee smiled and nodded, seeming detached and just a little dreamy. “I suppose you’ve been out chasing killers,” she said gaily, her tone at odds with her physical appearance. “Any luck?”

  “Well, it’s certainly been interesting,” Jesse answered. “But everything I find out just seems to make it more confusing.” Thus far this was going a lot better than she could have hoped, but as nonthreatening as the other woman seemed at the moment, Jesse reminded herself to keep her guard up.

  “Confusing how?” Cindilee leaned her head against the pillow at the back of her neck. “Let me play couch detective with you. What have you learned?”

  Jesse watched the hands that lay limp on top of the quilt. No hidden weapons there. Instead, her hostess seemed as friendly and confiding as she had on Saturday, which had apparently been one of her better days.

  “Well, I would love to get your opinion on a few things.” Jesse leaned forward and looked closely at the almost translucent skin of the woman across from her and at her obviously enlarged pupils. “But first, and I don’t mean to be intrusive, but are you okay? I know you’ve been in a wheelchair for a while, but you seem so much worse than you were just two days ago. Do you need to see a doctor?”

  Cindilee waved her hand dismissively. “Oh, poo. That wheelchair’s mainly for Bill. I get a little tired when I walk, and I sometimes go too slow, so Bill likes to use the wheelchair. At home, I just take my time. Or I sit.” She shrugged and swept her hands over herself to illustrate.