Horse Drawn Homicide: A Senoia Cozy Mystery

by Susan Harper

  She entered the elementary classroom that was mostly empty apart from a woman who looked very much like the drug dealer she had just met for lunch, but she was dressed in much more reserved clothing and had her blonde hair pulled up in a bun. “So you must be Felicity Overton,” she said as she wrote an assignment on the white board. “You’ve been blowing up my phone all morning. What do you want?”

  “I just want to talk. I was a friend of Wanda’s,” Felicity said.

  “Oh,” Tiffany said, putting down her marker and turning to look at Felicity. “I’m really sorry about Wanda. We weren’t exactly friends, but she didn’t deserve that.”

  “Thank you,” Felicity said. “Would you mind if I asked you some questions?”

  “Um, actually, yeah,” Tiffany said. “You know, when someone ignores your phone calls all morning, you should probably just take the hint. I don’t know what this is about, but I don’t know you. And then you show up at my work? I only told the office to let you down here so I could tell you to leave me alone.”

  Felicity frowned. Tina had been much more communicative and willing to talk. Frankly, she expected the elementary teacher to be a little gentler than her drug-dealing sister. “Look, Tiffany,” Felicity began. “Your sister spilled the beans on your extracurricular activities, if you know what I mean. Either you take ten minutes to talk to me, or I’m going to walk right on down the street to the police department and tell them what the local elementary school teacher does in her free time.”

  Tiffany crossed her arms and pouted slightly. “Well, well, well, look who has a backbone. Okay, fine. Ten minutes. My class will be getting back from lunch soon, so you’ve got ten minutes.”

  “What do you know?” Felicity asked simply.

  Tiffany huffed. ‘I don’t know who killed Wanda or Claudia, if that’s what you mean. I didn’t know either of them well. I mean, I’ve dated Matthew on and off for a few years, but the boys never really took us around the family much. We didn’t get along well with any of them. Honestly, the relationships were always really casual. We really only dated them at all because they were twins. But that ship has sailed. It was fun while it lasted, but our personalities didn’t mesh well.”

  “You dated long enough to get to know Ricky pretty well though, right? You recruited him?” Felicity asked.

  “Well, actually, I knew Ricky first. He’s the one who introduced Tina and me to Matthew and Michael,” Tiffany said.

  “Did you know Claudia at all?” Felicity asked.

  “I only met her once,” Tiffany said. “I saw her for like five minutes at the Light Up Senoia event, though.”

  “But you really didn’t know her at all?” Felicity asked.

  “Not really.”

  “Okay, well here’s a question for you. Who is your boss?”

  “Principle Williams,” she said.

  “No, Tiffany, your other boss. The one who knows Ricky?” Felicity asked.

  “That’s none of your business,” Tiffany said and crossed her arms. “And you know what? This interview is over. You can leave.”

  Felicity sighed, realizing she wasn’t getting anywhere. “Fine,” she said and started to walk away. She paused, looking at the whiteboard. “You have beautiful handwriting,” Felicity said, opening her sleuthing notebook for a moment to look at the pretty handwriting of the note that had been sent to Wanda. It wasn’t a match.

  “It comes with the territory,” Tiffany said. “Elementary teachers always have nice handwriting. I mean, we pretty much have to if we’re going to be teaching kids how to write, you know?” Tiffany turned and faced the whiteboard. “You can leave now, please.”

  “All right,” Felicity said, but her wheels were now turning as she started for the door. Elementary teachers always have nice handwriting, she thought. She thought back to her brief run-in with Frankie and Wanda’s Uncle James. Frankie had seemed to hold a grudge against Wanda for getting Ricky arrested. Could it be because Frankie was Ricky’s boss and Ricky had been one of his dealers? Wanda got Ricky clean…and Tina said that Wanda had been trying to get her out of the game recently too. Was Frankie worried about losing another dealer because of Wanda? Felicity turned around and looked at Tiffany. “How did you know Ricky?” she asked.

  “Frankie introduced me. I used to work with Frankie back when I taught in Fayette County,” Tiffany said. “Why?”

  Felicity grinned. “He’s the boss, isn’t he?’

  Felicity had to duck as Tiffany threw a whiteboard marker in her direction. “Get out!” she screamed, grabbing more markers off the board and tossing them in her direction. “Get out! Get out!”

  Felicity hurried out into the hall to avoid the onslaught of markers and erasers. She knew now. Frankie had killed Wanda as revenge for going after his dealers. She had probably lost him a lot of money. The family probably doesn’t even know that Frankie deals, Felicity thought. She remembered his nice car and his Rolex watch. It seemed so obvious now.

  She headed straight for the parking lot, eager to get in the car and call Jack so that he could make the arrest.

  Chapter 13

  Felicity headed directly into the parking lot of the elementary school, laughing quietly to herself about Tiffany’s outburst. She had figured it out, and Tiffany knew it. Felicity could hardly wait to call Jack and let him know. She hoped that Jack would give her every detail of Frankie’s arrest; the man deserved it.

  As she was walking, she pulled out her cellphone and sent Jack a recording of the conversation she’d had with Tiffany. She had not recorded her conversation with Tina, promising the woman she wouldn’t. However, something had told her to flip her phone on and record Tiffany. Call it a gut instinct. Once the recording sent, she sent Jack a text explaining what she believed to be the details surrounding Wanda’s murder. Just as she was slipping her cell phone into her back pocket and began searching for her keys in her purse, a black Honda Civic whipped into the parking lot.

  It took the group of men less than ten seconds to grab her and throw her into the backseat. They tossed her aside and climbed in, peeling out of the parking lot. She acted quickly, slipping her hand into her pants pocket and hitting the dial button. I hope my messenger app is still pulled open on Jack’s number, she thought. “What’s going on? Where are you taking me?” she questioned. “Let me go!”

  “Shut up!” one of the four men in the car shouted at her.

  “Why are we headed down Piedmont Road?” she asked loudly. “Where are we going?”

  “Quiet!” another man said.

  “Why did you throw me into this black Civic?” she asked, also quite loudly. She was then slapped across the face by one of the men, and she shrieked in surprise.

  The man who slapped her grabbed her by the arm and reached around her backside, locating the phone. With the phone out of her pocket, Felicity could hear Jack’s voice on the other line. “Felicity! Felicity!”

  “Jack! We’re turning down Spring Street! Help me!” Felicity shouted, and she was slapped again.

  “Turn the phone off, stupid!” one of the other men shouted, and the man tossed her phone out the window.

  “Hey!” she hissed.

  “Pull over,” the man who slapped her instructed the driver. The man did, and as soon as they were parked, the three men in the backseat dragged her out, opened up the trunk, and forced her inside. Felicity wound up curled up on her side, but she certainly wasn’t going to go quietly. She kicked and screamed throughout the drive, but it was to no avail.

  Her heart began to race. Tiffany must have called Frankie as soon as I left her classroom, Felicity thought, somewhat impressed by how quickly Frankie got some of his thugs down to the school to nab her.

  Suddenly, she heard police sirens, and the car picked up speed. Way to go, Jack, she thought to herself, assuming he had gotten on the phone with the local police. The little car jolted back and forth, but it was not as though there was much room for her to get tossed around inside the tiny trunk. S
he felt every jolt as the car whipped in and out of traffic, and she was starting to feel sick to her stomach. Felicity stretched out her limbs, bracing herself to keep from knocking her head around. “Pull over, you lunatics!” she shouted.

  “Shut up!” one of the men retorted.

  I really need to learn to stay out of trouble, she thought. She could hear the tires squeal as the driver made an abrupt turn, and she smelled the burnt rubber. “Help!” she screamed, the sounds of the police sirens growing louder. The road they were on now was bumpy, and the vehicle slowed down significantly. “Idiot! You’ve trapped us!” she heard one of the men shout to the driver.

  “Let me out!” Felicity roared as the vehicle came to a stop.

  She could hear the muffled sound of an officer yelling at the men who had taken her, and the noise was followed by several gunshots. Felicity screamed and covered her head as though her forearms would be what saved her if a bullet entered into the back of a vehicle.

  Almost as soon as the exchange of fire started, it ended. All was quiet. The trunk door popped open and Felicity was relieved to see two officers staring back her. “Are you all right, Miss?” the man asked

  “No!” Felicity exclaimed as they helped her out.

  She took a look around, seeing now that the men had decided to turn down an alleyway in an attempt to shake the multiple police cruisers. One of the men who had taken her was on the ground while an officer put pressure on his wound; the other three were being escorted to one of the vehicles in cuffs. The police, she could see, had trapped the men in the alleyway as there were several vehicles parked on either end. “Do you need an ambulance?” one of the officers who had helped her out of the Civic asked. “Are you hurt in any way?”

  “I don’t think so. Just a little shook up,” she said. “Thank you so much! I don’t know what those men were going to do!”

  The next thing Felicity knew, she was riding shotgun in a patrol car toward the Atlanta police station. She was still a bit shaky, but felt in good spirits. No doubt Jack was arresting Frankie now, and that made her feel a lot better. As soon as they entered the Atlanta prescient, she spotted Jack and Jefferson waiting for her. Both men looked incredibly distressed, but when they saw her, they bolted toward her.

  “Thank God!” Jefferson exclaimed and wrapped her in a hug.

  “What is the matter with you?” Jack cried. He seemed even shakier than she did, Felicity noted.

  “I’m all right,” she assured them both, and a part of her heart melted to see how incredibly worried they both seemed. “Did you two drive all the way up here to Atlanta to meet me at the station?”

  “Well, yeah!” Jack exclaimed. “I was bringing Jefferson some coffee on my break when I got that call from you. We closed up the shop and headed straight here. Jefferson drove while I got on the phone with the local police. Geez, Felicity! You about gave us both heart attacks.”

  “You were bringing Jefferson coffee?” Felicity asked as though this was the most surprising thing that had happened that day. “Wow, you two really are friends now, aren’t you?”

  “Felicity! Stop joking around,” Jefferson insisted. “You were involved in a shootout! You were kidnapped and stuffed into the trunk of a car, and you’re laughing because Jack brought me some coffee at work?”

  “Pretty much,” she said and giggled slightly. She stepped forward, grabbing each of her friends around the neck with one arm and pulling them into a quick group hug. She then stepped back and looked at Jack. “Please tell me someone is picking up Frankie!”

  “Patrick and every other cop in Senoia are arriving at his home as we speak,” Jack said.

  “Good,” she said and smiled. “Thanks for acting so quickly, Jack. I felt like I was only in that trunk for a few minutes before I started hearing sirens. You probably saved my life.”

  “The Atlanta police saved your life,” Jack said. “I just made the call.”

  She smiled and thanked him again anyway before one of the officers asked to speak to her in an interrogation room to get her official statement of the incident. After speaking to the officer and then thanking every other officer she ran into at the precinct for the rescue, she spotted Brian darting into the building looking quite wide-eyed. “Felicity!” he exclaimed when he saw her, running past Jack and Jefferson. “Are you all right? Are you hurt? What happened?” he asked, pulling her into a hug and kissing her forehead.

  “Brian? What are you doing here?” she asked.

  “Jefferson and Jack called me and told me you all were here! I was in court, and I just got the message! I can’t believe you were kidnapped!” He looked very pale and sickly.

  She glanced over his shoulder toward Jack and Jefferson and smiled at them, silently thanking them for calling Brian. She was certain that had not been an easy decision for them to make. “I’m okay, Brian,” she assured him. “But I think I’m ready to get out of here. Why don’t you, me, Jack, and Jefferson go grab a bite to eat? My lunch has been sitting in my parked car for the past hour or so.”

  Brian frowned then glanced back at Jack and Jefferson and forced a smile. “Sure. My treat,” he said and hooked his arm into hers.

  The four of them walked out of the building together. “I can’t wait to hear about Frankie’s arrest,” she said once they were out front.

  “You did good, Felicity,” Jefferson said.

  “Why are you a party planner?” Brian asked with a laugh. “You should get into detective work!”

  Felicity laughed. “I suppose detective work is just what I’m good at. Party planning is my passion.”

  “If you say so,” said Brian.

  Jack’s phone started going off as they headed toward the parking deck where Brian’s car was. “Hey, Patrick, tell me all about the look on that smug jerk’s face when you cuffed him!” Jack said into the phone, but then he grew quiet. “Heather? Why are you calling me on Patrick’s phone?” He grew still. “What?” he questioned.

  Felicity and the others stopped walking. She watch Jack’s expressions carefully. His face grew pale, and his voice cracked. He looked like he was close to passing out. “I’ll be there soon,” Jack said, hanging up the phone. He had tears in his eyes. “It’s Patrick,” he said. “Frankie shot him and two other officers before they arrested him. They’re airlifting Patrick to the Newnan Hospital now. I…I have to go!”

  “Okay, let’s go,” Jefferson said quickly. “We took my car, so I’ll drive you there.”

  “Jack, I’m so sorry!” Felicity said.

  “Oh, save it!” Jack spat. “I should have been there with him instead up here worrying about you! I don’t even know why I care so much about you since it’s obviously never going to be reciprocated! Come on, let’s just go!” Jack began storming out of the parking deck toward wherever he and Jefferson had found parking.

  “He doesn’t mean it,” Jefferson said to Felicity before hurrying after Jack.

  Felicity felt her stomach drop slightly. Brian touched her arm. “Come on, let’s just go get your car,” he said.

  She nodded and followed him. They drove back to the elementary school in complete silence, allowing herself to contemplate what Jack had said. She felt that she really hadn’t been a good friend to Jack or Jefferson lately. It took them close to an hour to get back to the school with all of the Atlanta school traffic letting out. They parked next to her car, and just when Brian was about to say something, his phone started ringing. “Hey, it’s Jefferson,” he said. “I’m guessing it’s for you.”

  “Thanks,” she said, taking Brian’s phone. “Hello?”

  “Hey, Felicity,” Jefferson said. “We just got to the hospital. Patrick is just now coming out of surgery. He’s still out cold from the medicine, but the doctor says he’s going to be fine.”

  “Thank God,” Felicity said.

  “Yeah, and, well, Jack wanted me to apologize for him. He’s sorry for snapping at you, says he didn’t mean what he said,” Jefferson said.

 
Felicity smiled slightly. “Tell him he’s forgiven. And please tell him I’m sorry if I have ever made him feel like I don’t care about him.”

  “Will do,” Jefferson said.

  “You don’t feel that way, do you, Jefferson?” Felicity asked.

  It took him longer to answer than she would have liked. “Of course not, Felicity,” he said. “I’m going to let you go so you can give Brian his phone back. I’ll see you later. Bye, Felicity.”

  “Bye, Jefferson,” she said, hanging up the phone and handing it back to Brian.

  “Everything okay?” Brian asked.

  “Yeah. Patrick is coming out of surgery already; he’s going to be fine,” Felicity said. “And Jack had Jefferson call to apologize on his behalf.”

  “Can I ask you something personal, Felicity?” Brian asked.

  “I suppose so.”

  “Do I…need to worry about either of them?”

  “What do you mean?” she questioned.

  He looked very sad. “You know what I mean. Am I getting into something I shouldn’t? It’s obvious they are both crazy about you. I just don’t want to start getting really serious with you and find out that you feel the same about one of them.”

  She smiled at Brian, thinking about how she saw him darting into the precinct like a madman to make sure that she was all right. “No,” she said confidently. “I’m happy where I am,” she said and touched his hand.

  Brian smiled at her and leaned in, giving her a quick kiss before they parted. He headed back to work, and she headed down to Newnan Hospital to check in on Patrick.

  Chapter 14

  “Okay, so this is the newest flavor our caterer is offering. It’s similar to the red velvet you had earlier, but this one has bits of fresh strawberries in it,” Felicity said as she laid out another plate of mini-cakes for her friends to try.