Silence of the Jams

by Gayle Leeson

  As soon as I was outside the office, I texted Ryan: I’m sorry.

  I didn’t wait for a reply but went on to the Chamber of Commerce office. When I walked through the front door, I was surprised to see that Joyce wasn’t sitting at the reception desk.

  “Hello?” I called.

  “Back here!” Joyce answered.

  I walked back to Mr. Lincoln’s office and found her sitting at his desk. She looked tiny there in his oversized chair, but it seemed as if she was trying her best to fill it up.

  “Well, hey there, Amy! How are you? Is that thumb better?”

  “Much better, thanks.”

  “What can I help you with today?”

  “I’ve just had you on my mind today,” I said. “May I sit?”

  “Sure.” She nodded toward the chairs in front of Mr. Lincoln’s—or now I supposed her—desk. “I’ve been trying to make sense of some of the stuff Mr. Lincoln had piled up in here.”

  Maybe that was it, I thought as I sat down. Maybe she was simply tidying up the office. “So, has the Chamber named an interim president pending the election?”

  She shrugged. “They haven’t gotten around to it yet. I’m doing what I can until then.”

  “That’s good of you.”

  She didn’t disagree. Instead, she asked why I’d been thinking about her. “With that new business and gorgeous beau of yours, I’d expect to be way down on your list of ‘thinks.’”

  I gave her an awkward smile. Now that I was here, I didn’t quite know how to proceed. I guessed I might as well jump in with both feet.

  “I went by Mrs. Lincoln’s house yesterday evening after the graveside service to see how she was doing.”

  Joyce gave me a smile that I couldn’t decipher—it was either really sweet or as lethal as a shark’s. “Why, Amy, you must be without compare the most thoughtful person on the planet. First you check on Elva and now on little ol’ me.”

  “Um . . . anyway . . . Mrs. Lincoln is under the impression that you have a set of the files that Mr. Lincoln had in his possession. And if that’s the case, I’d like to see mine.”

  “For one thing, Elva Lincoln is mistaken about my having my own set of files. And for another, I’ve already told you there was nothing of consequence in your file, or Mr. Lincoln would’ve tried to use it to get you to sell to him.”

  “I see your point about that,” I said. “Do you know what was in the other files? Mr. Poston’s? Dr. Kent’s?”

  She chuckled. “Maybe I was mistaken. Maybe you aren’t the thoughtful gal I believed you to be but instead want to try your hand at blackmail.”

  “That’s not it at all.”

  All traces of her smile disappeared as she leaned across the desk. “Then what is it?”

  Yeah. What is it? I couldn’t come right out and say I was there to try to determine if she did, in fact, murder George Lincoln. After some hesitation, I made Elva Lincoln my scapegoat.

  “Mrs. Lincoln told me she thinks you might’ve killed her husband.”

  “Does she now? She really should be more careful about throwing rocks in that glass house of hers.” Joyce leaned back, allowing the chair to nearly swallow her up. “Let me guess. She’s branded me public enemy number one because I’m running for Chamber of Commerce president.”

  “Pretty much,” I agreed. “She believes you’d wanted to be president all along.”

  “She’s right. But I didn’t have to kill George Lincoln to make that a reality. He was on his way out. I’d already tipped off certain people about his corrupt ways, and they were getting ready to launch an investigation into this office.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.” She scoffed. “Gee, Amy, did you really think I was a killer?”

  “No, Joyce, of course not.” I mean, I waffled back and forth at the very least. “But we need to find out who did. That’s why I asked you if you knew what was in those files. I’m guessing something in one of those files is why Mr. Lincoln wound up dead.”

  “Could be, but that’s not my problem. We don’t need to find out anything. That’s up to the police.”

  “But aren’t you afraid the killer will come after you as well?” I asked. “If Mrs. Lincoln believes you knew what was in those files, then the murderer might think so too.”

  She shrugged. “I’ll deal with threats as they become more viable.”

  I stood. “Stay safe.”

  “Thanks. You stay safe. You’re the one with the knife wound.”

  • • •

  Had I thought my day was going to get any better when I left the Chamber of Commerce office, I was sadly mistaken. When the automatic doors at the grocery store whooshed open, who should be buying a lottery scratch card in the shopping cart bay but Thomas Lincoln?

  I tried to pretend I didn’t see him, but he called out to me.

  “Howdy, Ms. Flowers.” He ambled over to me and nodded at my left hand. “How’s the thumb?”

  “Much better, thank you.” I took a cart and started to roll it forward, but he stepped in front of it.

  “I’ve not been having any luck at this. Maybe now that you’re here, my luck’ll change.”

  I held up my injured hand. “Probably not.”

  “Yeah, you’ve got a point.”

  He still hadn’t moved, so I felt obligated to say something else. “I’m sorry again about your brother. I hope you’re able to find some peace.”

  “Won’t find any peace until my brother’s killer is caught.”

  “No, I don’t imagine you will.” I tried to move around him, but he blocked me.

  “That boyfriend of yours got any ideas?” he asked.

  “If he does, he’s not permitted to share them with me or with anyone else.”

  He gave me a leering smile. “You don’t expect me to believe that you two don’t share any pillow talk, do you?”

  “We don’t.” I caught the eye of the manager and gave him a look of desperation.

  He came toward us and anchored his hands to his hips. “Is there a problem here?”

  Thomas didn’t take his eyes off me. “Naw, there’s no problem. Just having a friendly little chat.” He stepped out from in front of my cart and held up his lottery card. “Let’s hope you brought me good luck.”

  I nodded and hurried into the store with the manager at my side. “Thank you,” I said to him softly.

  “Do I need to call security?” he asked.

  “No . . . but when I leave, would you walk with me to my car?”

  “Of course. I’ll be watching for you.”

  “Thanks. I shouldn’t be very long.”

  “Take as long as you need.” He looked back over his shoulder.

  I didn’t look back. I wanted to put as much distance between Thomas Lincoln and me as possible. Fortunately, by the time I finished shopping and had the manager walk me outside, there was no sign of him.

  Chapter 23

  I took the groceries by the café and put them away so they’d be on hand to make the special tomorrow after the breakfast rush. While I was there, I grabbed a jar of strawberry jam and a pecan pie to take to Dr. Kent. Sure, he was sending me an invoice for treating me, but he went above and beyond. And he didn’t even need to come check on Mom, and yet he did—more than once. I felt it would be a nice gesture to take him a couple of tokens of my appreciation.

  When I walked into Dr. Kent’s office, his receptionist greeted me enthusiastically.

  “Yay! Goodies!”

  I smiled. “Yes. I wanted to thank Dr. Kent for taking such good care of me.”

  “Our pleasure,” she said. “How’s the thumb?”

  “Much better, thanks.”

  “Glad to hear it. What flavor pie is this?”

  “Pecan.”

  “Yum.” She grabbed a y
ellow sticky note and wrote BTK on it. “I’ll put this in the fridge.”

  “BTK?”

  She laughed. “Yeah—Dr. Kent’s initials. When I first came here, I told him his initials really freaked me out.” When I didn’t understand why, she explained. “BTK? The serial killer? I watch true crime shows on TV, and I was like ‘Yikes!’ You know?”

  I nodded. “That is freaky all right. What does the ‘B’ stand for?”

  “Barrowman.” She rolled her eyes. “Isn’t that the worst? He said it was like a family name and that when he was younger, his parents called him Barry.”

  “Barry,” I echoed.

  “I know, right? I totally can’t see him as anything other than Taylor. I mean, we usually call him Dr. Kent anyway, but still . . . Barry? Never.”

  “No. I . . . I wouldn’t have thought that either. Um, I hope you guys enjoy the goodies.”

  “I’m sure we will.” She smiled. “I don’t know whether he’ll share the jam or not, but he’ll definitely share the pie.”

  “Okay. I . . . hope you enjoy it.” I turned and left, still stunned by the revelation that Dr. Kent was Barry.

  When I got home, I called Sarah to see if she’d like to come over for a light dinner and a game or two of Yahtzee.

  “I’d love to,” she said. “With John in Grundy, I’m bored out of my mind.”

  “Great. I’ll make some spinach dip—and I have some pita crackers—and we can have chicken salad on flat bread . . .” I paused to think.

  “And I’ll bring snickerdoodles.”

  “Sounds good.” I laughed. “This will be fun.”

  “Yes, it will. We haven’t done this in ages.”

  • • •

  By the time Sarah got to my house, I had the spinach dip and the chicken salad ready and prettily arranged with crackers and flatbread on serving trays. I also had some tortilla chips in a bowl, and had made us a fresh pitcher of iced tea. She brought the cookies on a plate covered with plastic wrap, which she had to hold up over her head out of reach of one wild, hopping dog.

  “Would you like for me to put him outside?” I asked.

  “Of course not,” she said. “He’ll calm down in a minute. He also knows it’s been too long since we had a girls’ night in.”

  “Yeah. I kinda regret not asking Jackie to join us, but it was last minute, and I’m guessing she had already made plans with Roger.”

  Sarah grinned. “I don’t mind. It’s good to have you to myself once in a while too. Sometimes I feel I can talk with you more freely than I can with Jackie.”

  I nodded. “I know what you mean.”

  As she’d predicted, Rory plopped down onto the living room rug after a while to watch us play Yahtzee. All right, he was really watching us eat, but he was being calm about it.

  “I want to run something by you,” I said as Sarah took her first turn and rolled two fives, two threes, and a one.

  She kept the fives and threes and rerolled the one. “Shoot.” She got a two.

  “Well, first off, do you know Dr. Kent?”

  Sarah rolled again and whooped when she got another five. “Full house!” She scooped the dice up and put them in the cup.

  I wrote down her score and shook the cup.

  “I know him a little bit,” she said. “I mean, he’s not my regular doctor or anything, but I think my mom went to him last year when she got that bad ear infection and didn’t feel like going all the way to Bristol to our regular doctor.”

  I poured out the dice and got all twos.

  “You lucky dog!” she shouted.

  Rory barked, and Sarah and I laughed.

  “A one-roll Yahtzee,” I said. “You can’t beat that.”

  “What about Dr. Kent?”

  “I found out today that his full name is Barrowman Taylor Kent. Now, the weird thing about that is that he told me this story a few days ago about having a friend named Barry who had an alcohol addiction.” I put the dice back into the cup and handed it to Sarah. “This friend had been to rehab a time or two, and I thought that’s why Dr. Kent could talk with us so knowledgeably about what to expect when Aunt Renee went into rehab.”

  “Makes sense.” She rolled the dice.

  “It did until his receptionist told me Dr. Kent’s full name and said that his family used to call him Barry.”

  She shrugged. “So Barry had a friend named Barry. Maybe it was a common name way back then in whatever town Dr. Kent came from. Like, remember in our class, there were at least three Austins and a handful of Megans who all spelled their names differently?”

  “Yeah, but I don’t think that’s the case here. I think Dr. Kent was the Barry he was telling me about. I believe he had the alcohol addiction.”

  “Then why didn’t he just say so?” she asked, putting two of the dice back into the cup and rolling again.

  “I don’t know.” I told her the full story Dr. Kent had relayed to me about how Barry had been doing well, went on a binge, and had a car accident. “Dr. Kent said that both he and his father tried to save Barry, but they couldn’t.”

  Sarah wrinkled her nose. “That’s even more ridiculous, unless there really was another Barry.”

  “True. How could I find out if there was another Barry in Dr. Kent’s class?”

  “Do you know what college he went to?”

  I told her I knew he went to school in North Carolina and that it shouldn’t be too hard to determine which one.

  “Then do a search of the graduating class of each college he attended and see if you can find anyone who might have been Dr. Kent’s friend. Why did you automatically think he was the Barry in the story when you found out his name?”

  “Because George Lincoln had a file on him,” I said. “I figured that if Mr. Lincoln had any deep, dark secret to hold over Dr. Kent, it could be that in his younger years Dr. Kent had an addiction to alcohol. And maybe there was something else he wasn’t telling me. I wonder if he was the driver and caused the death of his friend.”

  “I hadn’t considered that, but you’re right.” She dipped a cracker into the spinach dip. “That could be devastating to a doctor’s practice.”

  “I agree. I think that’s probably why he left North Carolina to come here in the first place—that is, if I’m right about him being the Barry who had the drinking problem.”

  “Whether he was the one with the drinking problem or not, if he was driving the car when the accident occurred that resulted in his friend’s death,” Sarah pointed out, “that’s something else I don’t imagine Dr. Kent would want too many people to know.”

  “No. Actually, I’m surprised he even told me.” I took a sip of tea. “I can’t help but think that if Joyce Kaye didn’t kill Mr. Lincoln—that’s Mrs. Lincoln’s number one suspect, by the way—it had to be someone whose secrets Mr. Lincoln was keeping in those personal files of his.”

  “The blackmail files,” she said.

  “Exactly. What I wouldn’t give to see mine.”

  Sarah barked out a laugh. “That’s rich. What’ve you ever done that someone could use to blackmail you?”

  “I guess nothing, since he never tried that tactic.” I smiled. “Being a good girl ain’t all bad.”

  She raised her glass. “Here, here.”

  “But seriously, let’s say that’s Dr. Kent’s deep, dark secret. Whether he was an alcoholic or not, and if he was, in fact, responsible for his friend’s death, that was a long time ago. What would it matter now?”

  “My guess is that George Lincoln would try to make people think that Dr. Kent hadn’t changed, or that he was making himself out to be something he wasn’t. If Lincoln could make the doctor out to be a fraud, people would stop trusting him, despite the good care they might’ve gotten from him in the past.”

  “So what about the other people Mr. Lincoln
had files on?” I asked. “Like Mr. Poston. What could he have done?”

  “Well, maybe it wasn’t what he did but what someone in his family did.”

  I froze, tortilla chip in midair. “What do you know?”

  “Very little that I can tell you—client-attorney privilege and all—but there are matters of public record that made it into the newspaper. All you have to do is Google Troy Poston, Winter Garden, Virginia.”

  “I’ll do that.” Troy Poston . . . Pete Poston’s son . . . What could he have possibly done that was all that bad?

  “But for now, back to our game.” She shook the cup and rolled the dice. “I’m afraid you’re trying to distract me so you can trounce me.”

  “Would I do that?”

  • • •

  After Sarah had left and I’d cleaned up our dishes and put away our leftovers, I got out my laptop. I was eager to see what Troy Poston had allegedly done that George Lincoln might’ve held over his father’s head.

  The search revealed that it wasn’t Troy who’d done anything other than be a willing participant—and I suppose his father had been as well. Troy had been given a scholarship to attend a college in Tennessee. The woman who’d awarded the scholarship was Troy’s aunt. Since her married name was different from Troy’s, no one had questioned it until after the young man graduated. After that, someone with an axe to grind against Troy’s aunt had come forward with documents claiming that she should have recused herself from the decision-making process for this particular scholarship and that Troy did not merit the scholarship he’d received. The college had filed suit against both Troy and his aunt requesting reimbursement for funds paid to Troy.

  Billy Hancock had been able to have the case pleaded down for the aunt, who was fired from her position at the college but did not suffer any legal repercussions for her actions. He’d also managed to clear Troy of any wrongdoing, showing that Troy had merited the scholarship and that he’d maintained the standards set forth in the scholarship guidelines throughout the time he’d received the funds.

  So, it looked as if Troy and/or his aunt had done something dicey, but neither was convicted of any wrongdoing. Other than embarrassment, what did Mr. Lincoln have to hold over Mr. Poston’s head because of this? I started to call and ask Sarah, but I thought that might be asking her something that she was unable to divulge. Maybe I could find out some other way.