The mayor was a little late for that. Angeline had already taken care of my big welcome.
“You’ve made quite the splash, young lady. How are you doing? Is our fair hamlet treating you the way a lovely young professional deserves? I do hope so.”
I was still mad at him for turning all those reporters on me, so I wasn’t going reward him with false pleasantries. And I’d been tired of all the ‘lovelies’ and ‘young ladies’ long before I moved here.
“You know, mayor, you’ve got a beautiful little town here and its people are spectacularly nice. But I’d like it a lot more if I thought justice would be served to Ashley Butler.”
He frowned, clearly displeased with me. I seemed to be displeasing a lot of men in power today. Well, all in a day’s work.
“Oh, justice will be served, Miss Jacobs. Never lose faith in the machinery of our civic government.” Yawn. But what he added to this empty statement really surprised me: “Now, why don’t you come to dine with me and my wife tonight? I’d love to talk with you and I know my wife would like to meet you, as well. I’ll wager you haven’t had a good Southern meal yet.”
Once again, he was too late. Ashley covered that better than this guy could.
I really didn’t want to go to dinner with the mayor. I would have to pretend to want to be there and that was something I was not in the mood to do. I tried declining.
“That’s a very nice offer, but I don’t think I can. I have so much on my plate with this case.” And not wanting to spend time with you.
“That’s exactly why you should come. It will be relaxing and easy. You won’t have to lift a finger.”
“Oh, I don’t know…” I tried again to refuse, but he just wouldn’t take no for an answer.
“It’ll be fun. I promise. A Southern gentleman always keeps his promises.”
I didn’t want to be going back and forth for an hour, so I just accepted his invitation.
“Okay. I suppose I have to accept.”
“That’s the spirit!” He was enthusiastic again and told me where his house was and to be there at seven. This would be the first dinner I was invited to in Appleton. I wasn’t totally excited that it was this slick mayor, but it would give me the chance to ask some questions because possibly the mayor was a part of this tangled web.
He left, letting me know one last time how excited he was for our dinner tonight.
I sighed before entering the office. It was lightly furnished, lacking anything decorative. There weren’t many people milling about and I found Mr. Anderson in an office closer to the back.
His door was already open, so, I softly knocked on the wood and he looked up from his computer. There was no charm like Duggie or chumminess like the mayor. Anderson was a solid wall of emotionlessness. Outside of a furrowed brow, he gave me nothing. He looked at me for a few seconds before saying anything.
“Who are you?”
Not even a hello. Reminded me of home.
I stepped deeper into his office but stayed by the doorframe. “I’m Kari Jacobs. I had a few questions to ask you concerning your company and its plans for Appleton.”
He motioned for me to take a seat and I sat in front of him, the air in the room already tense. I wouldn’t say I was afraid of Mr. Anderson, but he did make me feel uneasy. I was running into a bunch of strange dudes today.
“Ask away.” He leaned back and waited for me to start. It was like he was looking down at me even though we were at the same basic height.
“What you do here? I’ve heard a little bit about your company, but I’m still a little unsure of what your plans are. What do you hope to accomplish here in Appleton?”
He tilted his head and started to explain, “My company looks for small towns to invest in, towns like this that are ripe for increased tourism and expansion. Towns that with a little push could grow exponentially. My job is to scout for opportunities, assessing the town to see what we can do here.”
It sounded nice, but his demeanor was still throwing me off. If he was really here to help than why was there so much secrecy surrounding all of this?
“Was Miss June’s properties one of those opportunities?”
He scratched the side of his face and threw a question back at me.
“Is she the woman who was murdered?”
I couldn’t pin down why he was making me edgy.
“Yes,” I said softly.
“We did look at it, but it was one of many. That’s what a development firm does, develop various properties. We were actually going to pass on it, before this murder business.”
Resting his arms on the table, he leaned forward, closing the space between us.
Ashley imprisoned and Miss June dead over a piece of land that no one wanted to buy.
“Did you go to the assessor’s office to look at a map of her property?” I asked.
“Of course.”
“What were you doing last night and this morning?”
“I had dinner at a local steakhouse with a few locals, went home and slept. I came to the office at around nine in the morning.”
“Can anyone confirm your whereabouts?”
He shrugged, “If asked to do so in court.”
His statement had an underlying question: would he be asked to do so? He was a lot harder to question than anticipated and I realized I would get nothing out of him. He was probably used to getting interrogated and someone like me wouldn’t shake him.
“Thanks for talking to me. I’ll see you around.”
He gave me a wordless send off, returning to whatever he was doing on his desktop computer. So, I’d hit another dead-end. But I wasn’t giving up.
I’d just need to dig deeper and harder. I still had my dinner with the mayor tonight. Hopefully, he’d be easier to crack than Jake Anderson.
Chapter Ten
July 15th 6:55pm
There was no option. I wasn’t about to subject Shortbread to the mayor’s company, so I just had to accept there’d be a few more bite marks on the furniture when I got home. I made sure he was fed and tried to tire him out, but the opposite happened. Someday soon, when I had half a second, we were both going in for obedience training.
I drove to the address the mayor gave me. I was having dinner in his house which was a lot worse than a restaurant. At least in public there would be the buffer of other patrons and a waiter, but if I was scared off by a simple uncomfortable dinner, then I’d never become a great lawyer or even a good one.
I pulled into the driveway which was one of those really long ones that wind around because the mayor lived in a full-blown mansion. Like one or two steps up would be a literal castle. The house was closer to the outskirts of town where the properties got further and further apart. This was where all the rich people lived with their sprawling lanes and golden gates.
While I wouldn’t call the mayor’s house Antebellum architecture, it was definitely an older building and it was stately. I rang the doorbell and it played ‘I Wish I Was in Dixie.’
I had somehow gone even deeper South.
His wife opened the door and I was greeted by a bleach blonde woman. She looked so happy to see me, I was caught off guard. Taking the bottle of wine I’d brought as a gift, she welcomed me to her home.
“You must be Kari! How nice to finally meet you, darling!”
She brought me into a big hug and I almost fell over for how unexpected it was.
“I’m delighted you agreed to join us for dinner. Judson has been talking up a storm about you. Come in, come in!” I stepped inside and she shut the door behind me. “We’ll be having dinner in the main dining room. Usually when it’s so few people we eat at our smaller table, but that room is being remodeled.”
She looked at me as if she expected me to find this distasteful, but I didn’t even care.
“That’s not a problem, Mrs. Harper-Lewis.”
“Call me Michelle. We’re about to break bread, let’s drop the formalities.”
“Okay
,” I shrugged.
She led me to the dining room where the mayor was already seated at the head of the table, the food set at smaller tables along the walls. Michelle took the spot at the other end, so I took the only other place that had a plate and greeted my hosts. There was so much food, it honestly made no sense. It was just the three of us, but there was enough to feed an entire dinner party. And the set-up was so ornate.
The house itself was an art piece, the interior matching the exterior’s grandiosity. The ceiling was at least three times my height and the dining table was a few feet shy of being as long as the room. There was just enough space left for the chairs to push out and for the maid and butler to move around.
“Thank the good lord you’re here, Kari. We were wondering if we were going to have to start without you.”
His comment confused me because I got there at the time he had asked me to. In fact, I was five minutes early.
“Sorry,” I apologized, since I didn’t know what else to do. “You did remember I was arriving at seven?”
Michelle burst out laughing, too much. “Of course we did, Kari,” she insisted, shooting a brief but chilly glance at her husband, “but someone forgot to alert the kitchen staff. It’s hard to find decent help these days.”
I’d expected to serve myself, but instead we were brought courses. It seemed we’d be making our way around the room until we reached the final table of food. This was going to be a long dinner.
“With this nourishment, my wife and I would like to welcome you to Appleton.”
I wasn’t sure how many times I’d been welcomed to Appleton by this point, but it was getting up there.
“It’s so exciting to have such a talented lawyer in our midst!” He talked louder than necessary, and it wasn’t hard to tell that he was not on his first glass of whiskey.
I wasn’t sure where the wine that I brought went, but it wasn’t on the table. I kept to water, anyway, wanting all my wits about me.
“Thank you. That’s really nice of you to say.”
Our first course was some kind of potato soup and it was hearty. I didn’t know if we had to finish each course because if we did, I would never get through this meal. I sipped at my soup as the mayor yell-talked at me.
“It is a pity that your first case will be a loss. While it’s an unfortunate starter, I’m sure you’ll win so many more in the future. This case will get your name out there and everyone will know what a hard worker you are. You’ll be having calls out the wazoo.”
That made me mad. One, because he was treating this murder like some kind of PR event. And two, because on such scanty evidence, everyone had already decided that Ashley was guilty. When I’d left the courthouse, before any of the court proceedings had been released, it was like the whole town was waiting for a guilty sentence. It was absurd.
“I disagree. I believe my client is innocent and I intend to prove it.”
Michelle definitely heard the added edge in my voice, her eyes widening at my conviction. “Oh, well, isn’t that nice,” was her response.
It felt condescending, but I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt since she was nice to me earlier. But the mister waved me off, throwing aside whatever I had to say.
“You know what we should focus on? The upcoming festival! This will be huge for Appleton. It’s our chance to show just how strong our community is as well as show off our rich history and culture.”
I knew a little bit of the town’s past. I knew a battle was fought here during the Civil War. When I drove in for the first time, I broke down by one of the historic plantations. I was intrigued enough, let’s says, to stay around for a little bit. I’d also had seen a tour with a class of young kids being led around and I had the chance to overhear some of what the tour guide said. The battle fought here lasted about a week. By the end, barely a single man was left standing. It sounded gruesome, but the town was sure proud of it.
“After this festival, great change will sweep through our town.”
Is that why he went to see Mr. Anderson? The mayor had seemed very eager to tell all the reporters about the festival. He had turned June’s murder into a PR plug for him and his wife. Opportunistic, but not criminal.
“What will change for Appleton?”
I was hoping his inebriated state would encourage him to divulge some secrets.
“Oh, Miss Jacobs, when I say changes, I mean big changes. Big things are coming.”
He was being just as vague as Mr. Anderson. Was it because he was keeping tight-lipped or had Mr. Anderson not trusted anyone with his plans? I didn’t want to press too hard, at least not yet.
Michelle said: “One of those big things is my statue.”
She hadn’t really been a big part of the conversation up to this point. It could have been because I was so focused on getting dirt out of the mayor that I’d neglected to think of Michelle as a source. He probably told his wife everything or she must have been privy to some details.
“Yes! Tell Kari all about your art, Shelly.”
“It’s a passion of mine. I go to the dump and find pieces that I feel could have a new life. Just because something’s been thrown away doesn’t make it unimportant. It’s technically all part of the town’s history and without our history who are we? That’s why I use quote unquote junk to make something beautiful like art.”
I found that sentiment genuinely lovely.
She offered to show me her statues after dinner and I managed to get through all four courses. If they ate like that every night, I had no idea how they survived.
While the mayor had an after-dinner drink, Michelle took me to the back where she kept her statues. The sentiment behind her pieces was lovely, but it was too bad that the actual art was ugly. And by ugly, I mean they were hideous. Was something like this really going to be displayed in the town center. Perks of being the mayor’s wife, I guess.
“These are some pieces I kept for myself. Judson likes to have art around the house. The rest were used for town charity auctions or art displays.”
“Is one of these the statue that will be in the town center?”
She shook her head, replying, “No. I still have that one covered up over there. Hidden away from prying eyes.”
She said that like people had been trying to sneak a peek, something I highly doubted.
“Would you let me see it? Your art is really intriguing, and I’d love to see more,” I lied, but a polite lie.
Once again, the missus shook her head. “I’m not ready to unveil it.”
“Aw, c’mon, a little peek for your newest citizen?”
She laughed demurely, loving the phony flattery. “You’ll have to wait, just like everyone else.”
It sounded like the town was used to these statues, so I wouldn’t have to be worried about Michelle being embarrassed at least. I was amazed an entire town would lie to keep one woman happy. The mayor had a lot of power over the people.
We headed back inside, but I was basically done. Not much was illuminated by this dinner––not that I gained absolutely nothing from it. I just needed more. I thanked my hosts for their hospitality and left.
This day had been another long one, but it wasn’t over yet.
I went home and changed out of my little black dress into some black leggings and a matching tee and got Shortbread ready for an outing.
I was going to head over to Miss June’s house and check out the crime scene. I needed to see it for myself. Plus, I was wary of leaving things up to the Sherriff’s office. Daytime would be fine for some superficial snooping, but I was technically breaking and entering and trespassing on an active crime scene, so the cover of night was necessary.
My eyes were needed to see things that the officers might disregard because they had already decided on Ashley’s guilt. Maybe I was also making assumptions, but the law read innocent until proven guilty.
I parked a few blocks away from June’s and Ashley’s houses. I didn’t want to get caught,
so I was taking all the precautions. Shortbread and I walked the couple of sidewalks it took me to get to June’s and passing Ashley’s driveway, I saw the Buick was still in the same place. I wondered if anyone would get around to moving it.
I brought gloves to avoid leaving fingerprints, but I had also brought my dog. I could see Ashley’s disapproving glare as I tied Shortbread’s leash to a railing right outside the back door.
“I’ll be back before you know it, boy,” I said rubbing his happy little head. Shortbread hardly made any noise, unless we were really playing hard. So, I added, “You could try barking if someone comes by.” He cocked his head at me cutely.
I slipped on my gloves. I took a deep breath and prepared myself for whatever I was about to see. The body would be gone by now, but I was almost certain there would still be some clean up in terms of any blood or things of the like.
I got to the door and it was unlocked. This oversight was extremely careless, but then, we were in a small town where things like murder don’t happen. Then again, I was effortlessly breaking in, so they should have locked the door.
Entering the crime scene, signs of a struggle were hard to miss. Plants were turned over, the TV broken. In the kitchen broken plates and glass littered the floor. A large puddle of blood was almost in the direct middle. This must have been where she was first stabbed. There was a little bit of splatter, but there was a trail which meant it’s not where she died.
I followed the trail up the stairs and all the way to the bedroom where it was even worse. This was where Miss June died. She must have been scared out her mind. She was a nasty lady, but nobody deserves what she got. A tulip petal drifted across the hardwood floor when I pushed the door open. I assumed the evidence team took the rest of the tulip that had been laid on June’s chest.
As I sidestepped all the blood to get a look around, I noticed the bedside table drawer was slightly open. I admit it, I’m a snoop and an open drawer is always intriguing to me. So, I pulled it open further and found a Bible along with some photos. I picked up the photos and spread them out on the table’s surface to get a better look.
Miss June's Judgement Page 6
