They all sat silently, taking in what I’d said. Mama had the pictures now. “You can’t make heads or tails of the woman in these,” Mama said. She scrutinized them, shaking her head and muttering under her breath. “Some detective. He didn’t get a single clear shot of her.”
“She may have recognized the red hat,” I suggested. “They all look similar to you, Megan, but maybe not to her.”
Jessie Pearl snatched the picture in question from Mama and gave it a good long gander. “You reckon? I can’t hardly make out that it’s red, let alone any details.”
We flipped through the pictures one more time, looking for any other identifiers. Hoss started asking more questions.
“Tell me more about Delta,” he said, and they were off and running.
“She loved money,” Jessie Pearl said. “It always came down to money. Even as little girls, Delta, Coco, and Sherri would pool their money to buy a bag of cookies and split it between the three of them. But if she put in even two cents more than the others, Delta got a bigger piece of the split.”
While they continued to talk about Delta and her love of money, I ran through the list of Red Hat ladies in my head, wondering which of them might betray Delta by cheating with her husband. Georgia Emmons seemed too proper and ladylike. I couldn’t picture her mussing up her life with an affair. Randi Martin, on the other hand, was very free spirited. She might have a seize the moment attitude, figuring that if it was true love, why squander it?
Cynthia Homer struck me as opportunistic. If something benefited her, then I suspected she might go for it. An affair for love? I wasn’t sure that would be a motivator for her, but what if Anson promised her something she wanted, or what if, pure and simple, she wanted revenge on Delta for some reason? I discounted Sherri Wynblad and Coco Jones out of hand. They were Delta’s sisters, after all, and this wasn’t a Shakespeare play where family betrayal was front and center. Sure, Sherri and Coco had had their issues with Delta, but family was still family, and I couldn’t imagine either one of them betraying their sister on that deep a level.
Lastly, I considered Bennie Cranford. She, like Georgia, was on the prim and proper side. A homemaker who took pride in her work. I’d been in her house, and it was night and day compared to Delta’s. Bennie kept a neat, orderly home. Her taste was traditional and went with the period of her Victorian house. She had special pieces of furniture, and she herself looked like she was cut from a 1950s cloth. Very different from Delta and her abrasive in-your-face attitude. Could Anson have been drawn to her, someone so opposite from Delta? And would Bennie betray her own family, as well as her friend, for an affair with a married man?
“There she goes, a-woolgathering,” Mama said. She rubbed her hand on my upper arm, shaking me out of my thoughts. “Darlin’, you have a brainstorm?”
I gave a vague smile. “No, just thinking,” I said. I didn’t have anything worth sharing, and continuing to talk down and dirty about Megan’s parents and their marital issues in front of her didn’t feel right. Megan was older than Gracie by a good chunk, but Gracie was my barometer. I imagined how she’d take a conversation like this if it had been her family instead of Megan’s we were discussing. Not well, I reckoned.
“Jessie Pearl was just askin’ if you’re still making her an apron,” Mama said.
“That dinner thing’s just a few days off now,” Jessie Pearl said, “but if you can swing it, I’d sure love to have one for myself. I feel like I need to do my part for Delta. Be the hostess, do you know?”
Jessie Pearl needed something fresh and vibrant to boost her spirits. She needed color and style. She needed something uniquely hers. “I can definitely swing it,” I said to her.
Three days until the progressive dinner, where I had every intention of figuring out just which Red Hat lady had been with Anson Mobley and betrayed Delta. And that meant I needed to get sewing. And I needed to do it right quick.
Chapter 16
In between the hours I spent that day working on my apron projects, I convinced Madelyn Brighton to come with me to the mayor’s office under the pretense of taking some photographs for the city Web site. “Shouldn’t that wait until after the election next fall?” his secretary had asked when I’d called to schedule an appointment.
Good question. I thought quickly, saying, “That’s the point. This photo op could actually help with the election. We plan to put it on the Web site now, with a brief interview with the mayor to help him get his message out.”
His secretary started singing a different tune. “He’s free at one o’clock,” she said.
At one o’clock sharp, we stood in Mayor Radcliffe’s office, the man himself sitting behind his big mahogany desk. In appearance he was the polar opposite of his election opponent. Where Jeremy Lisle looked like an older man trying to stay young and relevant, Mayor Radcliffe looked like the leader of the good-ol’-boy network. A brown cowboy hat hung from a coat rack in the corner, alongside a rust-colored shearling-lined boar suede jacket. He wore cowboy boots under his brown slacks and a white button-down shirt. He could easily transition from the mayor’s office to Buckeye’s, a local bar where a lot of businessmen held court, to the Masons meeting at the Grange.
“I’d like to shoot outside,” Madelyn said, taking charge. Even if the photo shoot was a ruse, she took her job seriously. “The light’s not great, but I believe it’ll be better than inside shots.”
“Sure thing,” he said. “You ladies are in charge.”
She set to work, getting him up from his chair, having him don his jacket and hat. As we left his office, he stopped at his secretary’s desk. “I missed a call from Lou.”
She nodded, glancing at a pink message slip. “He said the resume didn’t check out.”
Madelyn and I waited at the door while the mayor finished his conversation. As he walked out, he donned his cowboy hat and muttered, “Interesting,” under his breath.
“Everything okay?” I asked him.
He snapped out of the daze he’d slipped into for a second, blinking hard then nodding his head. “’Course. Just the intrigues of a small town,” he said.
We went outside to the front of the old church that now served as the city offices. Madelyn got him settled against a tree and started fiddling with her camera settings, changing the aperture and the shutter speed. “Morning light is definitely better for taking pictures outside,” she grumbled to me.
“In a perfect world, sure, but this is what we have. This light has to be good enough. Work with me, Madelyn,” I pleaded.
She winked. “For the sake of investigation, absolutely, but whenever you and that darling man of yours decided to take some pictures together for, oh, I don’t know, an engagement announcement, for example, it’ll have to be in the early morning. Got it?”
I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. So Madelyn had joined the cause. Mama, Nana, Meemaw, my good friends Orphie and Josie, and now Madelyn were all determined to get Will and me hitched, and right quick. “If that happens, it’ll be in its own time,” I said, “but I’ll pencil early morning in.”
“You mean when it happens.”
“You gals about ready to get this horse saddled up?” the mayor called.
Madelyn waved. “Yes, sir!” She snapped a series of pictures, checking them on her screen before moving on to the next pose.
“Sir,” I said, trying to get his attention. He was comfortable in front of the camera, that much was clear. He could have been a model in some past life if he weren’t quite so soft around the middle. He had the moves down pat. “Sir?”
“Questions, right? Shoot.”
“Again, thank you for taking the time to meet with us. I’ll be quick. I know you’re a busy man. Sir, people are wondering where you stand on the Historic Council’s issues in town. Preservation or moving to the future instead of focusing on the past?”
The easy expression on his face tensed. “I am not opposed to honoring the past, Ms. Cassidy. Like you, I have a storied
family. My great-grandpappy was a barber here in Bliss. Ran the first integrated shop in town back in a time when there was still plenty of segregation. Then there was my mother’s granddad. He worked the oil fields up in the Panhandle. Used ranch and barbershop equipment as collateral for loans. Couldn’t do that nowadays, could you?”
“I reckon not.”
Madelyn continued snapping pictures as the mayor went off on his rabbit trail about his family’s origins in town. “My great-grandpappy, he had his share of notoriety. Caused a good ruckus when he opened up his barbershop to everyone in town. I don’t want to forget about any of that, but does that mean I want to relive it all the time and never move forward? All those houses in the Historic District, should the folks who own them really not be allowed to change things about them if they see fit?”
I waited for him to continue, but he moved to a new pose without saying anything further, all the while keeping his gaze on me as if he were waiting for my response. Finally, I spoke up. “I think the Historic Council serves a good purpose, though. If they didn’t provide a little oversight, we might end up with some pretty horrible monstrosities on Mockingbird Lane and all the streets surrounding the square.”
“Good God, you’re one of them,” he said, his voice light and laughing, but his smile tight. “I’m not saying lift all the policies and let it become a free-for-all. Someone I know, er, knew, enlightened me about the need for regulations.”
My heartbeat kicked up a notch. Could that someone be Delta? “Is that right?”
“She agreed with you. Said that the policies were in place to protect the homeowners, and that we needed the council to help monitor things. But, she also said—and this is what I wholeheartedly agree with—she also said that too much oversight could stifle the growth of a place. She said we need to be able to change with the times. Honor the past, sure, but always be movin’ forward.”
According to Jeremy Lisle, that’s not at all what Delta believed, so it sounded like it could be a lot of double-talk. But I went with it. “That sounds just like something my neighbor would say. ’Course she recently passed.” I held my breath, waiting for his response.
“You live, er, lived by Delta Mobley?”
“Is that who you were just talking about?” I asked with a big smile. I almost slapped my thigh, but Madelyn whipped her head around and frowned at me. Her message was clear. I was laying it on too thick. “I live right next door to the Mobley house. Well, I guess it’s actually the Lea house, seeing as Jessie Pearl actually owns it, but regardless. Such a tragedy about Delta.”
“It sure is. I’ll miss her support during my campaign. She could get things done. No lollygaggin’ around with her. Donated to my campaign, you know. Quite a substantial amount, between the group of ’em. Brought in her whole family to help. Her husband, her daughter and son-in-law, her mother, her sisters. Had my team running around getting their paperwork filled out and processed in no time. The whole gang, she called them. Said she had pull with each of them and that if she wanted them to help, they would. And they did.”
I kept quiet, hoping he’d continue. He did. “She could read people like nobody’s business. Do you know, she could spot a liar from miles away? Why do you think she signed on to help with my campaign? Can’t tolerate liars, she said. God knows we didn’t see eye to eye on everything, but I’m as honest as the day is long, and she knew it.”
I wondered if Jeremy Lisle would say the same. And if the implication was that he wasn’t as upstanding as the mayor.
Madelyn beckoned the mayor to another area in front of the building, this time wanting to capture some of the architectural components of the old church. Even if these shots were just a pretense to get some face time with the mayor, Madelyn was a professional . . . and a perfectionist. She’d never take subpar pictures if she could help it.
“And your opponent, Mr. . . .”
“Lisle. Jeremy Lisle,” he finished for me.
“Right. Mr. Lisle isn’t quite as honest as you?”
Mayor Radcliffe did a quick scan of the area. Lucky for me, there wasn’t another soul in sight. “She wouldn’t ever give me any particulars, in case I wanted to use them against him. She wasn’t as unethical as all that. But she was plenty clear about her intentions. I’m gonna flush out the liars, she said. No matter what it takes. Let me tell you, I believed her. I didn’t want to get on her bad side.”
“But she never said what he lied about?” Madelyn asked as she took him by the arm and escorted him to yet another area, positioning him about a foot away from the building’s wall.
“Pretty sure it had to do with his schoolin’.”
Madelyn and I both stared. “What do you mean? You think he lied about going to school?”
He adjusted his cowboy hat. “Not necessarily if, but where. Do people check where folks go to school, or is it all the honor system? Me, I’m a Red Raider, and damn proud of it. But Lisle, where’s his school pride? Was he a Longhorn? An Aggie? Hell, if he didn’t go to a top Texas school, more’s the pity for him, but he went somewhere, right? So where’s the pride?”
Madelyn turned her back on the mayor, fiddling with her camera, but she shot me a puzzled look.
All I could do was shrug. I don’t know if absence of college spirit in a man of Jeremy Lisle’s age meant you’d lied about your academic history. Seemed a stretch to me.
“So you don’t know where he went to college?” I asked, wondering if he’d ever just bothered to make an official query to Jeremy Lisle.
“No idea. We’re not exactly on friendly terms,” he said. “Delta said she was finding out, but she died before she reported back to me. Not that it would’ve mattered, anyhow. I run clean campaigns.”
By that point Madelyn had snapped a few more pictures and declared the photo shoot complete. “Got enough for the Web site?” the mayor asked.
We both nodded. Madelyn put her camera gear away in the Epiphanie bag she always carried, and I shook the mayor’s hand. “More than enough,” I said, thanking him and wondering if Delta would have called me out as a liar.
As soon as I got home, I called Boyd Investigations. It was my third attempt to reach someone there, and this time, a woman actually picked up. “Boyd Investigations.”
I learned three things right off the bat:
1) Apparently Kristina Boyd was the licensed investigator, and the business was all hers—no male gumshoes anywhere to be found;
2) She was tight-lipped about her clients, even those who fell into the deceased category like Delta Mobley; and
3) She did have a heart, even if it went against her better judgment.
“Your mother never shared the report with you?” she said slowly, after I’d given a fake story about being Delta’s daughter and needing a duplicate of the report she did for Delta.
“No, she died before—”
I broke off, hoping she would fill in the blanks. “If she didn’t give them to you, I’m afraid I can’t help you, Mrs. Bettincourt,” she said. “Your mother’s passing is a tragedy, but the investigation I did was for her use, not anyone else’s.”
She’d used Megan’s married name, so she’d done her homework on the family. I went on, summoning the feelings I knew Megan was experiencing as I went fishing for information, wondering whether Boyd Investigations had been the ones trailing Jeremy Lisle, too. “It’s just . . . I just want to know what my mother found out about Mr. Lisle, that’s all. I’m trying to hold on to her, you know? Figure out what she was thinking all the way to her very last breath.”
“Mr. Lisle . . . ?” She sounded genuinely puzzled. So maybe she hadn’t been following Lisle.
“And my daddy. I know you were investigatin’ him, but she had to be wrong. He couldn’t have been having an affair. It has to be a mistake. I don’t want to lose him, too, and I don’t know how I can forgive him if he was. But he wasn’t,” I added. “He couldn’t have been!”
There was a heavy pause on the other end of the li
ne, as if she was thinking hard about how to answer. “I’m awfully sorry for your loss, Mrs. Bettincourt,” she finally said, “but even though your mother passed, our dealings were and are confidential.”
My frustration was real, coming out in a heavy sigh just like I knew Megan’s would have if she’d actually been making the call. “Please,” I said. “Just tell me about my father.”
“There’s nothing to tell about either of those men,” she finally said. “I will say that I found no evidence that your father was having an affair.”
I drew in a sharp breath, startled that she’d given me anything, and even more startled that she’d just completely discounted the idea that Anson was an adulterer. So much for the Red Hat lady in the car with him. “Thank you!” I gushed, truly thrilled that I could alleviate some of Megan’s current pain. “Oh, Ms. Boyd, thank you so much. And Mr. Lisle?”
“I’m sorry,” she said, “I don’t know a Mr. Lisle.”
“Jeremy Lisle? I was sure De—my mother asked you to look into his background.”
If she heard my slip, she didn’t let on, but her tone became more short and to the point. “I’m not familiar with that name. Now, if there’s nothing else . . . ?”
Huh. So maybe Delta had only had Anson investigated after all, and Jeremy had imagined a car following him. “Was there anyone else she had you looking into for her?” I asked, hoping I wasn’t pushing too far. If it wasn’t Jeremy Lisle, maybe the mayor had misunderstood and he wasn’t a liar. Maybe, I thought, it was Pastor Kyle who wasn’t who he said he was. Or maybe it was one of her oldest friends, one of the Red Hat ladies. For all I knew, Delta was paranoid and had ignored Kristina Boyd’s findings that Anson wasn’t seeing anyone. After all, she’d come home with the report and had told Megan that he couldn’t be trusted.
“Mrs. Bettincourt, I’m afraid I can’t help you anymore than I already have. I’m sorry for your loss, truly.”
A Seamless Murder Page 15
