Mom Zone Mysteries 04-Magnolias, Moonlight, and Murder

by Sara Rosett

  I squared my shoulders. I thought of the advice from Organizers Online, an e-mail discussion group that I belonged to. Networking was the key, they said.

  Okay, network.

  Chamber of commerce meetings—check. I’d been attending those since May. I’d had a few nibbles, but nothing that turned into a job. I had the Magnolia Estates Homeowners’ Association monthly meeting on the calendar, too. I frowned. What else could I do? I shifted around in the chair and my jeans caught on the drawer that didn’t close completely. I shoved it closed and began sorting though the debris that accumulated on the desktop each week. Sometimes tidying things helped me think. Other times, it did absolutely nothing for my mental organization, but at least I’d have a clean desktop when I was done.

  I put the notepad and pen back by the phone, clipped Livvy’s crayon drawing to the refrigerator, and shredded two offers from credit card companies. The last thing, Nita Lockworth’s business card, was stuck under the keyboard. I pulled it out and tapped it against my chin as I thought about an idea that might help me get the word out on Everything In Its Place and help a few other people, too.

  An Everything In Its Place Tip for an Organized Party

  Cleaning

  Before the party: don’t kill yourself doing a “military clean” of your home. Most of your guests will be so busy enjoying the company and the food, they won’t notice your floorboards. Place trash containers in the kitchen and near any buffet lines. Place several plastic bag liners in the bottom of each trash can. If you’re serving food outdoors, make sure your trash cans have secure lids to minimize bugs. A “bug zapper” near the trash area is also a good idea for outdoor parties.

  After the party: use paper plates and cups to minimize cleanup time. If your party is more formal, make sure your dishwasher is empty so you can get the dirty dishes out of sight quickly. Or, if your guests are dying to help out, put them to work drying dishes. Nothing makes people feel more at home than helping in the kitchen.

  Chapter Six

  I pulled to the curb when I saw the glittery LITTLE PRINCESS TEA PARTY sign.

  Livvy bounced in the backseat. “Are we there?”

  “Yes. I think so,” I said as I climbed out. Livvy unbuckled and clambered out without my help. Nathan was at home with Mitch. They were having a boys’ night with pizza and SportsCenter.

  We climbed the steps of the house’s wide front porch and a little girl about Livvy’s age with a long braid down her back opened the screen and grabbed Livvy’s hand. “Over here! They’ve got hats and gloves and feathers!”

  I followed the sound of giggles and squeals and found ten little girls gathered around a kitchen table. If it was pink, purple, glittered, sparkled, or had feathers, it was on that table. Livvy dug in, her eyes shining like the rhinestone tiara that she was jamming on her head.

  “Hi, I’m Kay,” said a woman about my age, decked out in a wide-brimmed straw hat decorated with silk flowers. She was wearing a dress and white gloves that reached to her elbows. “Welcome to the Princess Tea Party.”

  “Thanks. Looks like I’m a bit underdressed,” I said, gesturing to my jeans, white T-shirt, and cranberry zippered fleece.

  “Oh no. You’re fine. You’re welcome to stay and play dress-up, but I like to give the moms a break, too, so you can pick your daughter up around seven, if you’d rather. I’ve got two capable assistants.” Kay nodded to two teenage girls who were sitting with the kids. I left my cell phone number with Kay and said good-bye to Livvy. Ensconced with her friends, she didn’t mind me leaving.

  I took the state highway that paralleled the base and headed toward North Dawkins, which spread out between the base and the north-south interstate highway five miles away. Once a stop on the railroad surrounded by farmland, North Dawkins was now booming, sprouting big box stores and chain restaurants along the three major roads that connected the state highway to the interstate like rungs on a ladder.

  This part of Georgia was an interesting mix of rural areas interspersed with suburbia. I was surprised at how much I liked it. The one drawback was the muggy, buggy summer. Of course, there were still some things I didn’t quite understand, like the roadside boiled peanut stands. Those just didn’t sound good to me, but peach ice cream was another story.

  Development hadn’t reached the road I was on and I cruised through the flat green land. In the distance, I could see the thick bank of farmed pine trees that grew straight as arrows. I passed a small graveyard and felt a frisson of unease as I thought of the skulls in the Chauncey plot. I’d never look at the small cemeteries again without remembering the skulls and those gaping eye sockets. Tall grass and weeds were engulfing this cemetery and kudzu, the creeping green vine of the South that was almost impossible to eradicate, covered the nearby field and draped over a telephone pole. Unless someone did some cutting back, it wouldn’t be long before wide leaves swallowed the cemetery.

  I knew I’d pass at least two more small family plots before I got into North Dawkins. I’d never seen so many cemeteries in my life. They dotted the Georgia landscape and popped up in the most unexpected places. Small, forgotten patches of solemnity being reclaimed by the earth. Except for my quick glance at the Chauncey plot when I’d found the bones, I’d never looked at any of the family plots closely, but I assumed some of them probably dated from the late 1700s, since Georgia was one of the original colonies, something I tended to forget since the first things I associated with Georgia were peaches, the Civil War, and Gone With the Wind.

  There wasn’t much reminiscent of the old South in North Dawkins since it hadn’t really grown until the base was located here at the beginning of World War II. It didn’t have the classic small southern town look. There were plenty of towns within driving distance that had the redbrick courthouse, the town square with the statue of the Civil War soldier on horseback, quaint shops, and antebellum homes lining the streets under live oaks draped with Spanish moss.

  North Dawkins did have live oaks, but that was about it for the quaint department. No Spanish moss, no gracious antebellum homes, no courthouse square. I passed the front gate to Taylor Air Force Base and turned into the older section of North Dawkins, which had several antiquated strip malls that had been in their heyday about 1950, but were looking a bit seedy and tired now. Neighborhoods in this part of town had small bungalows and mature landscaping. The farther I drove away from the base, the newer the structures became. It was a bit like driving through a time warp from 1950 to present day.

  I suppose the trade-off of not having a picture postcard town square was that North Dawkins had used the tax dollars that flowed in with its most recent growth boom to construct a modern county government complex. City hall, the sheriff’s department, the courthouse, and the library were all built around a central concrete courtyard with a huge fountain and curved benches. What would be shade trees in fifty years were now barely taller than me. I turned into the library parking lot and went to find Meeting Room B.

  Light and airy with soaring ceilings, the library had every up-to-the-minute detail—wireless Internet, a coffee cart, racks of books on tape, and self-checkout kiosks. Oh, and books. Sometimes I wondered if the books were getting lost in the shuffle of all the newfangled gadgets and gizmos. But it looked like the books themselves were pretty popular since the aisles were crowded with people browsing the titles, even on a Friday night.

  I found the meeting room in the back. It was crowded, too, with about thirty people pressed into the small room. I took a seat about halfway to the front. Nita Lockworth was at the front, setting up a map on an easel. A tall, solid man who was probably in his fifties stood near her, situating the feet of the easel so it didn’t wobble. He had a fair complexion and one of those awkward tufts of hair at the forehead and a thinning spot on the top of his head. And I thought I had bad hair days. At least I didn’t have to deal with bald spots and tufts of hair.

  There was something about the way Nita and the man moved, a sort of nonverbal comm
unication, glances and gestures, that made me think they were married. He adjusted the map on the easel; then she patted his arm and nodded toward a stack of boxes lining the wall. He moved them to the table. If he was Nita’s husband, then he was the one Dorthea had said built homes. He certainly looked the part in his work boots, jeans, and slightly worn plaid shirt. The sunburn and creases on the back of his neck indicated he spent many of his hours in the sun.

  A young woman with short hair dressed in a white oxford shirt and black pants sat down beside me. She held an iced coffee in one hand and was sipping from it as she sent a text message. I went back to watching the room.

  More people flowed in, greeting each other. Most people made their way to the front and talked to Nita. One woman, a statuesque black woman in a lime-green shirt and brightly patterned pants, sailed into the room and broke through the crowd around Nita. The two women embraced.

  The woman beside me put her phone away and I heard her say something under her breath that sounded like “…the only one who really understands.”

  She noticed me glancing her way and said, “Sorry to be talking to myself. I didn’t realize I was doing that.” She pushed her frizzy mustard-colored hair behind her ear and said, “Seems I do that a lot, talk to myself, I mean. Hi.” She stuck out her hand. “I’m Colleen Otway.”

  After I’d shaken her hand and introduced myself, she said, “Have you been here before? I don’t remember you, but then I’m terrible with faces. And names, too, actually.”

  “No, I haven’t been here before. I’m new. Well, fairly new. We moved to North Dawkins in January. I met Nita Lockworth the other day.” I’d been about to say, “after I discovered the bones in the old graveyard,” but I stopped myself in time. Better to just leave it at that, I decided.

  “Military?” Colleen asked, like it was an inevitable conclusion.

  “Yes. My husband is a pilot at Taylor. You don’t sound surprised.”

  “Practically everyone who lives here is connected with the base in some way. Even me, I teach seventh-grade science, but my dad’s a contractor at Taylor.”

  “It’s the most military community I’ve ever lived in, and that’s saying something because we’ve moved around a little bit.”

  We sat for a few moments in silence and watched more people enter the room; then Colleen tilted her head to the front of the room and said, “I worry about Mrs. Nita. Even though she hardly ever shows it, all of this has to be taking a toll on her and Mr. Gerald.”

  “Is that her husband?” I asked, looking at the man in the plaid shirt steadily moving boxes to the table.

  “Yes, that’s Jodi’s dad, Gerald,” Colleen said. “He’s a great big bear of a man. He used to scare me when I was a kid. He’s so tall and has such a deep, rough voice. It took me a while to figure out he’s actually a teddy bear.” The smile left her face when Gerald opened one of the boxes. You could see the familiar Find Jodi flyers stacked to the brim of the box.

  Colleen sighed. “With all this rain, so much is going to have to be redone. Any flyers that were out in the open aren’t readable now, even if they’re still there.” We both looked back at the two women at the front of the room. They’d stepped apart and Nita was running her fingertip gently below her eyes. The other woman handed her a tissue.

  Colleen said, “We’re going to have to blanket the whole town again. And last time it was kind of haphazard. Some parts of town had five flyers tacked to the same telephone pole, and other parts of town didn’t have anything. There were even letters to the editor in the paper complaining about litter.” Her tone turned indignant on the last word.

  “A system might help. If you divided the town into sections, then assigned different people to each section, you could cover the whole town pretty quickly. Another option might be to only focus on businesses. If you posted the flyers in the windows of businesses, you wouldn’t have to worry about the rain anymore.”

  “That’s a great idea. You should mention it during the meeting.” Colleen’s gaze drifted around the room and she shook her head. “I can’t believe we’re still doing this. It’s been almost a year. I know the first anniversary will be a good way to get her name back in the news, but it’s so discouraging. I can’t believe she’s been gone this long.”

  “So you knew Jodi?”

  She grinned. “Yeah. You could say that. She’s been my best friend since she rescued me in fifth grade from the snotty girls.” She gave a mock shudder. “Fifth grade was awful, so cliquey, you know, and I was the new kid, which made everything ten times worse. My dad had just gotten the job at Taylor, so there I was—the geeky, short kid with the frizzy hair. At the end of my first day at school, Jodi caught up with me and asked me if I wanted to go to the mall with her that weekend. We got our ears pierced. BFF ever since.”

  I had to smile at the acronym for “best friends forever.” Funny how acronyms were becoming more and more a part of our daily lives. I was used to deciphering them when it came to Mitch’s job—the military had an acronym for everything—but now with text messaging and e-mail shorthand we had more acronyms in our conversations than ever.

  “She sounds like she was a really nice person.”

  “She is,” Colleen replied with a slight emphasis on the present tense.

  “My neighbor, Dorthea, knew her and said she was very athletic, that she worked with the youth center on base.”

  “Yes, we made quite a pair back in school. I’m a klutz. Zero athletic ability, but Jodi—she can do anything she tries.”

  It struck me as a bit odd that Colleen talked about Jodi in the present tense, since the possibility was very high that I’d found Jodi’s remains just a few days earlier. Surely, Colleen knew about that? Remembering the sight of the bones, I felt a shiver creep down my spine. It sounded like Jodi was a nice, kind person. Why did she go missing and, possibly, end up in an abandoned graveyard?

  “You know, normally she’s the type of person you’d hate, or at least be inclined to be jealous of,” Colleen continued. “She’s beautiful and smart and talented. And it’s not just sports she’s good at. She’s an excellent writer. She was working as a part-time reporter for the North Dawkins Standard and even as a stringer for the AJC.”

  “That’s an interesting combination,” I said.

  “When we were kids we watched that movie, His Girl Friday, during a sleepover. Mrs. Nita had all these rules about what Jodi could watch and what she couldn’t. Old movies were okay, so we watched it and Jodi thought the whole reporter bit was too cool. She wanted to be Hildy, ace reporter. Her parents thought it was a phase, that she’d grow out of it after she edited the school newspaper, but she just wanted more after that. Jodi got the job at the Youth Center for the pay and benefits, but if she could get a solid job at a newspaper that’s what she’d do full-time.”

  I was a bit surprised that Colleen was telling me so much about Jodi. It reminded me of how people talked about their loved ones at funerals. There seems to be this compulsive urge to vocalize what the person was like, and relive memories. I supposed when someone is missing, people experience some of those same feelings, the urge to keep the missing alive, if only in their words.

  A man slipped into the chair on my other side, smoothing down his yellow tie. Colleen looked at him and stiffened. Like a sheet of vellum paper that was worn and crinkled, he had a slightly rumpled air. He was young, probably in his mid-twenties, with wavy black hair that drooped over the collar of his wrinkled suit jacket. Black-rimmed eyeglasses framed gray eyes. His conservative suit and tasseled loafers were at odds with the longish hair and his subtle citrus scent.

  The young man leaned across me and said, “Hi, Colleen.”

  Colleen immediately grabbed her messenger bag, muttering, “I can’t believe you continue to show up here.” To me she said, “I’m going to let Mrs. Nita know about your ideas for the flyers.” She left as fast as she could, but her progress was pretty slow since she had to step over people’s knees and pur
ses to get to the aisle.

  “I think she likes me,” the man said to me as he pulled a pack of gum out of an inside pocket of his jacket. He tilted it toward me. “Gum?”

  “Sure. Thanks. If she likes you, she sure has a unique way of showing it,” I said.

  “It’s a misunderstanding. I’m Scott Ezell. You must be new,” he said.

  What was this? Did I have a sticker on my head that read Visitor? “You’re the second person who’s said that to me tonight. Is it that obvious?”

  “With the military component, we’re a pretty tight group here in North Dawkins. It’s kind of like a rotating carousel. People get off, others get on, but it doesn’t take long to recognize the regular riders.”

  “I’m a new rider, I guess,” I said, and introduced myself.

  I heard my name called and turned to see Colleen standing beside Nita and beckoning to me. “Ah, excuse me,” I said, and made my way up to the front of the room.

  Nita said, “Your idea for organizing the flyers is terrific. Would you be interesting in coordinating it?”

  I sensed I was talking to an expert in delegation. She would have to be to keep the Find Jodi campaign running this long. “Actually, I wanted to talk to you about something along those lines. I’m a professional organizer and I’d like to donate some of my time to help you out, if you’re interested. I wouldn’t charge you. It could work out nicely for both of us. I can help you with the flyers and it would give me a reference in North Dawkins and some publicity.” I pulled my information packet from my purse and handed it to her. “This tells a bit about me.”

  Nita looked through the packet quickly and then smiled at me. “Thank you. That would be wonderful. What do you need to help with the flyers?”

  “Just a map and some highlighters,” I said, and felt as if a tightly coiled spring inside me had relaxed. It might not be paid work, but I had an organizing job. It was a start.