by Gayle Leeson
I opened a new tab and searched for Dr. Kent’s graduating classes. I started with North Carolina medical schools. Fortunately for me, Dr. Kent’s school had turned out to be the first one listed in the search. Since it was the class of 1979, I didn’t hold out a lot of hope for finding a class directory. I was surprised that the search instantly turned up an archive document that contained not only a list of students, but their majors, interests, and even nicknames as well. Dr. Kent was there, but the bad news was that I could not find another Barry in the bunch.
That brought me back to the question of why Dr. Kent had lied to me about his friend Barry. When I’d asked about the photograph, he could’ve simply told me that he and his friend had gone into business with his father when they were first starting out and left it at that. There was no need to tell me the extraneous stuff about Barry’s addiction or the accident or any of that. Why go out of the way to lie to me rather than simply say nothing?
Chapter 24
On Tuesday morning when Homer came in, I first asked the obligatory question—who’s your hero? Today’s hero was Robert Frost. Then, as perceptive as ever, he asked me what was on my mind.
I hesitated.
“‘Freedom lies in being bold,’ as Mr. Frost once said,” Homer told me.
“You and Mr. Poston are friends, right?”
“I consider us to be.” He gave me a look of mock concern. “You haven’t heard otherwise, have you?”
“No.” I asked Jackie to get Homer his sausage biscuit, and then I looked around to make sure that neither of the other two people in the café were listening to us. “I came across an article about Troy Poston’s scholarship coming into question.”
“Now, how did you happen to come across that?”
“Okay. Time to fess up. Sarah and I were talking about those stupid files that George Lincoln kept on some of the townspeople. And I wondered what he could possibly have on Mr. Poston—on any of us, really—and she mentioned that I might want to do a search for Troy and the scholarship scandal.”
“And what did you turn up?”
“Well, from everything I read, it all turned out okay. I mean, Troy’s aunt was fired from her job, but no legal action was taken.” I shook my head. “If that’s what Mr. Lincoln was trying to use as leverage over Mr. Poston, I don’t see what he hoped to gain by it.”
“The reason Phil was concerned was because Mr. Lincoln threatened to bring the scandal up again and try to get the college to rescind Troy’s engineering degree.”
I gasped. “They can’t do that! Can they?”
He nodded. “Indeed they can. Phil and I did exactly what you did—we went to the Internet and looked it up. If there is any misrepresentation or omission from a college application, that college can later rescind the applicant’s degree.”
“But—” I simply stared at Homer with my eyes wide and my mouth gaping. “That’s terrible! But just because they could doesn’t mean they would. If they were going to rescind the degree, wouldn’t they have done so when the scandal first came to light?”
“You’d think so. Still, Phil didn’t want to take any chances, and I don’t blame him.”
Jackie arrived with Homer’s sausage biscuit. “There you go. May I get you anything else?”
“Just a refill on the coffee, please,” he said.
She went to get the coffeepot.
“I’d appreciate it if we could keep this conversation between us, please,” he whispered.
“Of course.” I turned to go back to the kitchen.
“And hey.”
I spun around.
“Mr. Frost once warned, ‘Don’t ever take a fence down until you know why it was put up.’ It’s good advice you might want to heed.”
I nodded. “Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.” Actually, I had no idea what Homer was trying to tell me. I supposed he was saying to either to mind my own business or to be careful of what I was digging up.
• • •
Sheriff Billings called the café at around one o’clock and ordered five of “those daily specials.”
“The special is that stuff you brought by the station yesterday, isn’t it?” he asked.
“Yes, sir, it is.”
“Good. That’s what we want. I’ve even got my wife coming in to join us.”
“You know, you’re welcome to dine at the café anytime,” I said.
“Oh, I know that. We just need to stick close to the station today. We’re shorthanded. Any biscuits or anything come with that pasta stuff?”
“Garlic bread—is that all right?”
“That suits me just fine. And what kinds of pie are you serving today?”
I told him we had peach, strawberry, apple, chocolate, and peanut butter.
“Well, hey, just cut us a slice of each and we can do some swapping around.”
“Okay. And will you be needing drinks?”
“No, thanks. We’ve got some here. I’ll send your favorite deputy over to pick up the order. I know you’d rather see him than my ugly mug.”
Um . . . yeah . . . I would, but I couldn’t very well say so. Instead I said, “We’ll have that order ready for you in about fifteen minutes.”
Sheriff Billings thanked me and hung up.
I asked Donna to get the slices of pie while I packed up individual servings of the baked beef and cheese pasta. By the time I got everything packed up, Ryan was there.
“Have you got a second?” I asked.
“Maybe, but not much more than that.” He grinned. “Sheriff Billings is awfully anxious for me to get back with this. You really impressed him with this dish yesterday. He’s even buying for all of us.”
“That’s fantastic.”
“I know. He seldom volunteers to pay for anything unless it’s a holiday,” he said. “What did you want to talk with me about?”
“I’ll walk out to your car with you.” I looked back over my shoulder. “Donna, I’ll be right back.”
We walked outside to his patrol car. He opened the passenger side door, put the order inside, and looked at me expectantly.
“In a nutshell, I’ve found out some things about the people George Lincoln was keeping files on,” I said. “I realize you guys have the actual files and that my observations might not make much of a difference to you, but—”
“Amy, as much as I’d like to, I’m not at liberty to discuss an ongoing investigation with you. Just rest assured that we’re narrowing down our suspect list and know that you need to be careful. You can’t trust everybody . . . not even some of the people you think you can.”
• • •
After work, I went straight to the big house. Ryan had left me with the parting thought that I couldn’t trust anybody, but I knew one person I could absolutely trust—Mom.
She knew I was upset when I walked in the door. “Come into the kitchen, and let’s have some tea.”
“Where’s Aunt Bess?”
“Jackie took her shopping. She thought it might do her good to get out.”
“That’s nice,” I said. “It’ll probably do them both good.”
“So what’s up?”
I started to ask, “Can’t I just visit my mom because I feel like it?” but she could tell this wasn’t a casual visit. What I actually asked was, “Do you have any munchies to go with that tea?”
“Must be even more serious than I thought. Will pretzels work?”
“Yeah, pretzels will be fine.”
She poured the tea and put a bowl of pretzels on the table between us. “Spill.”
I started with Dr. Kent and his tale of Barry, the friend who’d been an alcoholic and had wound up dead in a car accident. “I did an Internet search and couldn’t find anyone named Barry in Dr. Kent’s graduating class, adding more fuel to my assumption that Dr. Kent was talking a
bout himself as the addict.”
“Makes sense. Sounds like the old ‘I’ve got a friend’ story you tell when you don’t want to implicate yourself . . . even though the listener knows the friend is really you.”
Needing something in my hands, I took a handful of pretzels. “Yeah, but that’s the point, Mom. I never thought it was him until I found out from his receptionist that his first name is Barrowman and that his family called him Barry. What do you make of that?”
“I still think he went with the friend thing because he was ashamed.” She took a pretzel and nibbled it. “And it’s apparent he feels responsible for his friend’s death. I doubt that happened the way he described it either. Maybe they were both alcoholics. The point is, what difference does it make?”
“What do mean what difference does it make? He lied.”
She scrunched up her face. “Lied could be too strong a word here. I think it’s possible that he wanted you to know how he knew so much about rehab—why he’s so understanding and supportive and why he gave us the warnings about Renee—without actually coming out and saying that he’d been through it himself.”
“But that’s nothing to be ashamed of. He came out the other side of the tunnel. If anything, it gives us hope that Aunt Renee will be okay too.”
“True. But Dr. Kent has a reputation in this town. Some people would stop going to him for their care if they even suspected he’d ever had a history of substance abuse.”
“Yeah, that’s kinda what Sarah said last night. We figured that was what George Lincoln had in his file about Dr. Kent.” I took a drink of my tea. “I think he’s too old for you, by the way.”
“Dr. Kent?” She laughed. “Yeah, he is. But he’s a nice guy, and it’s good to be friends with a doctor when you do something stupid like cut your thumb at work.”
“Oh, ha, ha. You’re hilarious.”
“But I’m right,” she said.
“I didn’t say you weren’t.” I went on to tell her about Troy Poston and the fact that George Lincoln was trying to blackmail Mr. Poston by acting as if he’d contact the college board and try to have Troy’s engineering degree rescinded.
“What could Mr. Lincoln have possibly wanted from Mr. Poston? A lifetime supply of books?” She shook her head. “I’m sure the man does all right with his bookstore, but he’s not John D. Rockefeller by any stretch of the imagination.”
“Exactly. I’m beginning to think that Mr. Lincoln simply wanted to have some kind of power over people—that he didn’t necessarily want anything from them. He simply wanted them to know that he could destroy them if he chose to do so.”
“Well, that’s pure evil.”
“Isn’t it, though?”
“Good thing he never found out about your working as a stripper to pay your way through college,” she said.
My jaw dropped, and I playfully tossed a pretzel at her.
She laughed. “I thought that might lighten the mood.” She turned to see where the pretzel had landed. “Too bad Rory isn’t here to get that for me. My joke will cause me to have to get down and reach under the fridge for that thing.”
“I’ll get it,” I said. “Maybe. And I’m glad George Lincoln never found out about your working at that speakeasy to pay for your college.”
“Oh, touché. Aunt Bess—I wouldn’t be terribly surprised—but I’m far too young to even know about speakeasies.”
We both laughed. Now that the conversation had turned silly, we had a silent mutual agreement to keep it that way. I didn’t ask about Aunt Renee, knowing she’d tell me if she’d heard anything more about how my aunt was doing, and she didn’t question me further about George Lincoln and the people of Winter Garden who he might’ve been trying to manipulate. After all, what difference did it make now? Unless, of course, his killer was one of those people . . . or if Joyce Kaye had taken up his mantle.
• • •
When I got home, though, the thought of Dr. Kent’s unreasonable duplicity kept nagging at me. What if Dr. Kent had been driving the car instead of his friend? After all, he’d said Barry was driving. And I knew that if Dr. Kent had been the person driving the car in which his friend was killed, there would at least be an investigation into involuntary manslaughter. And that was even if Dr. Kent was completely sober. If he had been drinking, then it was a definitely involuntary manslaughter. Had Dr. Kent served time in prison? Once again, I turned to the trusty Internet.
I first looked up North Carolina law dealing with involuntary manslaughter to see what the rules were in that state. The webpage I found reminded me of the fact that even if a person is charged and acquitted in an involuntary manslaughter case, the deceased’s family could file a wrongful death claim in civil court.
Armed with this information, I conducted a search for Barrowman Taylor Kent, involuntary manslaughter, trial, hearing, arrest, wrongful death. I tried the search using various combinations of those words, and yet each search yielded zero results.
So maybe Dr. Kent hadn’t been lying about his friend being the one who was driving the car. At least, he wasn’t trying to cover up an involuntary manslaughter or wrongful death conviction.
Chapter 25
First thing Wednesday morning, Joyce Kaye strolled into the Down South Café. I was surprised. She’d never actually been there to eat before—just to pick up food to go or to distribute her campaign materials. When Joyce saw that her poster wasn’t on the door, she looked around the dining room and then stormed over to the counter.
“Where’s my poster?” she demanded. “Those things aren’t cheap, you know.”
I was in the kitchen mixing up blueberry pancake batter. I put down my bowl and spoon and came out to try to appease the woman. Before I could get to the counter, Jackie beat me to it—although appeasement was the farthest thing from her mind.
“I took that poster down,” she said.
“What right do you have to take anything down in this establishment? Are you part owner or something?”
“No, but Amy is family, and having that poster on the door of the Down South Café was not professional. Amy shouldn’t have let you put it up in the first place, but she was too nice to tell you no.”
“I see that you certainly don’t share that quality,” said Joyce.
I put my hand on Jackie’s shoulder, hoping to try to calm her down a bit. “Joyce, the flyers are still right there by the cash register where everyone can see them and take one if they’d like.”
“Gee, thanks for your support.”
“It’s nothing personal,” I began.
Joyce shot me a look of disgust and left in a huff.
Jackie shrugged as I went back into the kitchen to finish mixing up the pancake batter. Almost immediately, Mrs. Lincoln strolled in.
“Good morning!” she effused, also coming over to the counter to talk with me. “Isn’t this place lovely?”
“Thank you.” Once again, I set aside the bowl and spoon and walked out of the kitchen.
“And I just saw Joyce Kaye leaving,” Mrs. Lincoln said. “She looked upset.”
I was beginning to wonder if there was a banner outside proclaiming, Murder Suspects: Fifty Percent Off Your Total Purchase Today!
“She was angry with me,” said Jackie. “I took down that campaign poster Joyce had put on the door.”
“Good for you, dear!” Mrs. Lincoln looked as if she might burst from her delight. “Amy, you don’t need her business anyway. I’ll invite my bridge club to come here for lunch tomorrow.”
“That’s very nice. Thank you.” I wanted to tell her that I might not need Joyce’s business but that I’d like to keep it. I didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. Instead, I asked Mrs. Lincoln what I could get for her.
“I believe I’d like an omelet. Do you make those? And if so, what kinds?”
“I can make you about a
ny kind you’d like,” I said.
“All right. I’d like an omelet with ham, Swiss cheese, onion, and green peppers.”
“I’ll have that ready for you in a jiffy.” As I headed back to the kitchen, I heard Mrs. Lincoln tell Jackie that she was going to sit at “that little table by the window.”
Since blueberry pancakes were on the menu as the breakfast special but no one had ordered them yet, I placed the bowl of batter into the refrigerator and made Mrs. Lincoln’s omelet. Fortunately for me, a family of four came in just as I’d about finished the omelet, so I simply rang the bell for Jackie or Donna to pick up the order and I didn’t have to deal with Mrs. Lincoln anymore that morning. It wasn’t that I minded her coming in, and it would be great to have the bridge club’s business, but I hated the thought of anyone feeling excluded. I felt the need to go and apologize to Joyce after work. I didn’t necessarily want to put the campaign poster back on display—I didn’t know what Jackie had done with it anyway—but I wanted to let her know that I felt badly about how everything had happened this morning.
• • •
Apparently, my imaginary sign welcoming George Lincoln’s murder suspects hadn’t been taken down because just before noon, Thomas Lincoln strolled into the café.
“I’ve been watching this place all morning,” he said, leaning insolently against the counter. “I found it real interesting that the two people at the top of my list of suspects for the murder of my brother were both in here today.”
“I’d just as soon you take your business elsewhere, Mr. Lincoln.” I stayed far enough away from the counter that he couldn’t reach over it and grab me if he was inclined to do so.
“You know what I’m wondering?”
“No, and I don’t care. Please leave.”
Jackie shot by me into the kitchen and out the back door.
