by B K Baxter
“This molding looks original,” she said brightly. “It could use some TLC though.” The older woman looked at me, a polite grin on her face. “So could the rest of the place. Did you know you had a loose step on your front porch? And I noticed a few nails coming out of the hardwood boards in the parlor as I came in. The baseboard in the sitting room is pulling away from the wall as well.”
I kept my expression neutral, but my body was stiff. I wondered when she’d had time to catalogue the deficiencies in the old plantation house. I spent most of my time in the library, so maybe I hadn’t paid much attention to the condition of some of the rooms. There were too many of them to keep up with anyway.
“It’s a shame to have such a lovely property and not keep up with it,” she said, her tone imitating that of a friend with some needed advice. But I hadn’t solicited any advice, and something about Dinah rubbed me the wrong way. Still, she continued, failing to pick up on my body language. “Someone could be hurt, and you could end up with a lawsuit on your hands. Not somewhere you’d like to be.”
I opened my mouth to suggest we rejoin the group, but she put a hand on my arm and leaned in, her tone sweeter than cane sugar. “This might be too much house for someone your age, sweetheart. Have you ever considered selling? You could buy yourself a cute little bungalow and end up with a nice nest egg.”
“I’m not really interested—”
“It’s important to preserve our history, you know,” she said, her grip tightening slightly and her eyes going glassy. “This place could be a real jewel in the right hands.”
“It certainly could,” I said, choosing the path of least resistance. “Now, let’s get back to the others. I’m sure they’re pretty thirsty by now.”
I pushed past Dinah but waited at the doorway to make sure she followed me. Back in the library, the group was still chattering away. Public opinion seemed to be split. Some thought it was Stanley, or Taz as most called him, on account of his favorite shirt. A couple others thought it unlikely that Stanley had it in him.
I felt a little better knowing that others shared my doubts. Still, I realized I wasn’t going to get anywhere with the book club ladies in a group like this. There were too many distractions. I decided that I’d do my investigating one on one from now on.
I’d never really been a fan of mysteries, preferring instead plots that didn’t try to cheat readers with false fronts and dead ends. And now that I was living inside one of those darn books, I couldn’t say that my opinion had changed.
Maybe I could change the narrative, though. Turn it into a story of redemption.
That was better than the tragedy it seemed destined to become.
Chapter 6
I was the only customer in the Tip Top Grocery that morning, meaning Sally had time to continue our conversation about what had really happened to Tabby Means.
“I still can’t believe this is happening,” Sally said, shaking her head while stacking cans of tomato paste onto a shelf, a job I was certain Stanley used to help her with. “How anyone could think he could do such a thing is beyond me.”
“You mentioned someone named Jimmy Beal at the last book club meeting. You said maybe he was looking for some kind of revenge against Tabby?”
Sally paused in her shelf stocking. “Jimmy is a local boy who went to high school with Tabby. They used to run around together a lot in her beauty pageant days. He suited her much better than Vince in my opinion.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Well, because they were the same kind. You know? Trailer trash.” She’d leaned in to whisper those last two words.
I nodded. “And Vince is wealthy.”
Sally laughed. “That’s putting it mildly. His refinery employs most of the town. His family has been in New Orleans for ages, and their influence stretches back generations. Although he might be a philanderer, Vince still comes from wholesome southern stock, or some people might say.”
The pieces of the puzzle were getting closer together, but I knew I still wasn’t close to putting the edges of the thing together, let alone the puzzle’s innards. “Does Jimmy seem like the type of person who could do this?”
Shrugging, Sally resumed her stocking. “He’s had a couple run-ins with the law, but nothing too serious. He likes to drink and get rowdy sometimes, not unlike several other gentleman of New Orleans, Louisiana.”
“If Jimmy is a better suspect, I wonder why the sheriff didn’t haul him in.” Without a better idea of the evidence against Stanley, I couldn’t be sure of why Rains had zeroed so conclusively in on the poor boy.
“I wish I could tell you.” Sally let out a little huff. “But Jimmy isn’t the only person I’d put on my suspect list. Tabby wasn’t exactly well liked around here. There are plenty of people who are probably privately rejoicing that she’s no longer around to act all high and mighty. Folks used to say that she thought her Miss Bon Temps crown was real so she acted like royalty, but a wealthy husband and a plastic crown couldn’t make people like her when she acted like she owned the place.”
“So Jimmy isn’t the only person with an ax to grind?”
“No ma’am. I don’t think her own husband even liked her anymore. And we already know Mercy hated her guts, and with good reason. Then there is anyone else who Tabby talked down to, offended, or treated like dirt. Throw a rock in New Orleans, and you’re bound to hit someone Tabby ticked off.”
It sounded like I had my work cut out for me. It would be tough to narrow down a list of suspects if everyone had a reason to hate Tabby Means. This just reinforced my need to find out what evidence Rains had against Stanley. I had to understand what I was up against.
“Do you have any more of those pastries? The ones with the powdered sugar on top?” I’d picked up a couple last week and I’d been craving more ever since.
“The beignets? Sure, I think I have a few more.” Sally straightened and headed to the small glass case that held an assortment of baked goods. “I’ll give you all I got left.”
I watched as she loaded a small brown paper bag with the tasty treats. “I’m gonna go down to the sheriff’s office again,” she said. “Gonna see if I can bring Stanley a few things to eat that aren’t canned baked beans and Wonder Bread. That jail food is atrocious.”
“That’s very nice of you,” I said as she passed me the bag. “What do I owe you?”
“Girl, you can just take those off my hands for nothing. If they stick around too long, they end up in my belly.” Sally put her hands on her stomach, which was flat as could be.
“Well, I appreciate the sentiment, but now they’re going to go in my belly where they will join the ghosts of the others I’ve taken down.” I would be as fat as Chonks soon if I didn’t stop pigging out on southern cuisine.
Sally chuckled. “I think your figure can take it. Men like girls with meat on their bones.”
I held back an eye roll at her comment. Men were the last thing on my mind. I’d had a couple run-ins with the opposite sex in my day, but I’d never found one worth keeping around. At least with a good book, you could reread and be transported into a world of wonder. The only place a man had ever transported me was a Captain Larry’s Bar and Grill, and I’d had to pay for my own Mermaid’s Delight.
“Thanks for the pastries and the chat,” I said, waving as I headed out the door.
It was another sultry spring day, and I wondered how I was going to survive the heat of the summer. Maybe this was where Baum had gotten the idea for the Wicked Witch melting in the Wizard of Oz. The humidity certainly made me want to collapse into a puddle.
Char’s clinic was close, which meant that my car’s air conditioning hadn’t wrestled the warmth to a standstill yet, so I’d rolled down the windows. My hair now resembled a bird’s nest that had been condemned by the bird city council.
I tried to tame it as I rushed toward the entrance, in need of the sweet relief of conditioned air. Relieved that the waiting room was empty, I ducked into the re
stroom and managed to comb my hair out to something a little less ragged in the mirror.
When I returned to the waiting room, Char was just coming out of the entrance to examination rooms with an older man dressed in a white undershirt and a pair of overalls he filled to overflowing.
“You didn’t hit the tuning fork and hold it to the bottom of my feet,” he said. “Dr. Loomis does that every time.”
I could tell by the look on Char’s face that she was exercising extreme patience. “I told you last time, Lou, that I don’t have to do the tuning fork at every exam. You weren’t coming in today for your diabetes. We were looking at that rash on your back. Your feet have nothing to do with it.”
“You gonna complain about my sugars now? Dr. Loomis said I can have sugar in my coffee as long as I stay active.”
“Lou, I didn’t bring up your sugars, but since you did, I don’t think Dr. Loomis knew you drank a gallon of coffee a day and took two spoonfuls of sugar in every cup. You need to cut down or consider artificial sweeteners if you really can’t give it up.”
“Damnation, doctor. You’ll be the death of me. Dr. Loomis said—”
Char’s restraint finally broke. “Dr. Rains says that you can take yourself back to Dr. Loomis if you don’t like the way I practice medicine. Now kindly haul yourself home. I’ve got another patient.”
Lou turned his squinty eyes in my direction and let out a snuff of air. “She’s ornery as a pig with an empty trough.” The man shook his head and made an exit at last.
Char heaved an enormous sigh and threw herself into a chair, putting her hand to her forehead in dramatic fashion. “My trough is empty. But I can smell Miss Sally’s beignets, and they’re sure to cure my orneriness.”
I laughed and tossed her the bags of pastries. “Rough day?”
“I really shouldn’t complain,” she said between bites of beignets. “I’m grateful for every patient at this point. Except Lou. That man could drive me to abandon medicine and work in a Waffle House.”
She dusted the powdered sugar off her white coat and thanked me. “Lou was right. I really needed that dose of fat and sugar.”
Shaking my head, I sat down beside her. “Sally and I were talking about possible suspects, since we both believe Stanley didn’t do it.”
Char nodded. “You haven’t been here long, Jade. What makes you so certain Taz didn’t kill Tabby?”
I leaned back, eyes wide. “You think he did?”
Char’s face was neutral. “My brother does, and I tend to trust his judgment.”
“He couldn’t have. He’s shy, bright, and harmless. I saw him carry a spider outside so it wouldn’t be harmed, a spider I would have killed without a second thought. It just doesn’t add up.”
Her neutrality crumbled. “I know,” she said, throwing up her hands. “I tried to tell Charlie he was wrong, but he ignored me, instead chewing me a new one for telling you about Tabby when he told me to keep it quiet.”
“Sorry,” I said, biting my lip and snagging a beignet from the bag before Char inhaled them all.
She shrugged. “I don’t blame you. It’s just that he told me to keep my mouth shut about the results of the tox screen too, and I knew I’d end up spilling the beans. I don’t think Taz did it either.”
At last, hard evidence. “What did the tox screen find?”
“It wasn’t suicide, unless Tabby somehow got her hands on a lethal dose of benzodiazepine. She doesn’t have a prescription. We checked with Mercer.”
“Could she have taken some pills and gone the carbon monoxide route? A double dose, just to make sure the job was done?” Those might have been the most brutal questions I had ever uttered.
Char’s brow furrowed. “It wasn’t pills. It was liquid and very fast acting. And there’s no way she could have done both. The cause of death was an overdose, not carbon monoxide poisoning. She was already dead by the time her car was parked in the garage.”
I swallowed hard. “It really was murder.”
Char nodded, staring down at the floor. “And the killer tried to make it look like a suicide by staging her in the garage.”
“The murderer must have chosen that location with a reason in mind,” I said. “He wanted people to think she’d killed herself where her ex-boyfriend would find her.”
“The killer had to make her suicide plausible so Charlie wouldn’t investigate, but then he found Taz’s shirt at the scene,” Char said.
“Making it look like Taz—er, Stanley had something to do with it.”
“And his prints were all over the car.”
“Yes, but Tabby was giving him a ride home, so of course they would be.” I ran my hands through my hair, realizing I’d probably just fluffed it up again. “It doesn’t make sense. Your brother thinks Stanley somehow overdosed Tabby then staged a suicide. He went through all of that trouble just to leave his T-shirt behind?”
“And where did Taz get that much benzodiazepine? He’d never get a prescription for that amount.” Char pursed her lips, her face filled with confusion.
“I still keep coming back to the question of motive. It seems like half the town has a better motive for killing Tabby than Taz does.”
An unnamed emotion flittered across Char’s face before she shut it down, but I still caught it.
“What is it?” I asked. “Would Taz have a motive?”
Char frowned. “They went to school together. Our Lady of Perpetual Help. That’s where everyone around here went, me included. But I was gone by the time of Tabby’s heyday.”
“Let me guess. She wasn’t the shy, retiring type in high school?”
“She was not.” Char dug the last beignet out of the bag. “She was a bully, and there were plenty of reasons to pick on a boy like Taz.”
“Could something have happened back then to—”
The door opened and I froze mid-sentence as the most attractive male I’d seen in the flesh entered the clinic, one of his hands holding the other, which was wrapped in a paper towel.
My heart beat faster. Maybe I’d been premature to write off the appeal of the opposite sex. Please let him have a slow southern drawl and still open doors for ladies and call his mother every week.
And please, don’t let him be allergic to cats.
Chapter 7
“Ethan,” Char said, coming to her feet. “I thought I just sewed that hand back on.”
The handsome man chuckled. “Sorry, boss. I told you I’d be better off with a robot hand but you said organic is better than inorganic.”
“That does sound like me.” Char turned to me. “Jade, this is Ethan Millbank, handyman extraordinaire.”
“Hi,” I said, restraining myself as I got hold of my imagination. It was clear my hormones weren’t as dormant as I’d thought.
“Nice to meet you,” he said. “I’d offer to shake your hand, but I cut myself on a rusty nail, which is why I’m here.” Ethan addressed Char, one corner of his mouth coming up in a lopsided grin. “What do you say, Doc? Once more into the breach for old times’ sake?”
“Follow me,” Char said, leading him into the back. She gave me a wave. “I’ll see you at the funeral.”
“Not if I see you first.”
Ethan looked at me a little strangely, and I realized how inappropriate that might sound after Char’s mention of a funeral. Blushing red until my skin was the same shade as a Halloween demon, I rushed out the clinic’s door, berating myself for my idiocy.
So much for Ethan, I told myself as I jogged to my car before I wilted. I slid behind the wheel, glanced in the rearview mirror, and blanched. If my corniness didn’t scare him away, my hair definitely had.
Giving up, I rolled down the windows and started the car, heading toward Mercer’s pharmacy. I didn’t know if I’d be able to get any information out of Patrick Mercer, but he’d seemed friendly enough when I’d stopped in for tape. If anyone would know about where a person could get a lot of liquid benzodiazepine, a pharmacist should.
> I was grateful that the drug store was empty because at this point, I was afraid my hairstyle would frighten small children and dogs. Luckily, Mercer’s Drug was a cavalcade of odds and ends, a cavalcade that included a hat rack littered with ball caps with silly phrases. I grabbed one with a fish in lipstick on it and shoved it over my head just before Patrick came out from behind his pharmacy counter to greet me.
“Out of tape already?” he asked with an affable smile.
“Thankfully no. I just came in for something to keep the sun out of my eyes.” I pointed at the cap.
I’d expected the odd look he gave me and laughed, saying I collected joke hats. That made him chuckle, and he spent a couple minutes pointing out some choice caps, telling me how seriously he’d taken the ordering process, which seemed to consist of him opening a light beer and paging through the catalog while reading the sayings on the hats to his dog.
“Bubbles has a wonderful sense of humor.”
As he adjusted his glasses, I tried to think of a way to turn the conversation to the Means murder. “Humor is so important, especially in such tragic times.”
Patrick blinked. It was clear he wasn’t certain what I referring to.
“Her funeral is coming up,” I continued. “I bet half the town will be there, dressed in black.”
“You mean the Means girl,” he said, his voice low. “If I know Vince, the funeral—if there is one—will be private.”
I was surprised by his response. “The newspaper said she’d be laid to rest tomorrow.” There’d been no mention of a private ceremony.
Patrick took off his glasses and began methodically cleaning them with a thin cloth. “I never knew Tabby well, but I’ve had more than a few run-ins with her mother. There’s no way Tammy Carter is going to miss an opportunity for some kind of dramatic display if Vince has a public funeral. Vince will want to head that off.”
It appeared that bad blood existed between Tabby’s mother and her husband. I filed that information away for later. Lowering my voice to take on a conspiratorial tone, I said, “I’d heard rumors that it was suicide, but now someone has been arrested. I thought I’d left murder behind in Baltimore.”
