Chicken Scratch (The Sisters, Texas Mystery Series Book 1)

by Becki Willis

  “There has to be another explanation. I refuse to believe that Curtis Burton would cheat on his wife. He’s been in love with that girl since they were in junior high, but he was too afraid to tell her until they were in high school. I was the one to coach him on how to finally ask her out! You can’t tell me he would cheat on her, not after all these years.”

  “Yeah, well, even the best ones are capable of cheating,” Madison said, allowing bitterness to seep into her words.

  “Not Curtis Burton,” her grandmother insisted.

  “We’ll find out soon enough. George Gail has a dentist appointment tomorrow at two, and I’m supposed to follow Curtis when he meets this mysterious woman.”

  “Won’t do you any good, because that man is not cheating on his wife. But I suppose you need to at least make a show of earning the money she’s paying you. If he spots you following him, just create a diversion,” her grandmother advised as she shoved the box she had been digging through into Madison’s arms and motioned for the stairs.

  “How on earth do you-”

  “Never mind how I know how to spy on someone. Here, take these on down to the kitchen table. I’ll come down and make us both a power shake. How does kale and cabbage sound, with just a pinch of grapefruit juice and honey?”

  As Madison stomped noisily down the attic steps, she muttered against the cardboard box, “It sounds like I should have never given you that juicer for Christmas!”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Madison felt guilty about leaving her job at Cessna Motors to take on her newest assignment.

  In truth, there was nothing at the dealership needing her attention; she had already done payroll, all the filing was complete, and the phone lines were particularly quiet that day. Still, she asked Granny Bert to cover for her while she slipped out to spy on Curtis Burton.

  George Gail was in charge of making certain her husband came home for a late lunch. Madison nibbled on her own sandwich as she watched the house from two blocks away. Five minutes after George Gail left for her dentist appointment, Curtis Burton crawled into his blue pickup truck and pulled out in the opposite direction. Madison allowed him a good head start before trailing slowly behind.

  This was her first surveillance mission and she did not want to blow it. When he made an unexpected stop just one block after turning onto Main Street, she feared he had spotted her. But he pulled up in front of Posey’s Petals & Plants and went inside without even glancing her way.

  The string of quaint wooden houses along Main Street’s east side had long ago been converted to businesses. Posey’s sat on the corner, across from the Big House. Per Miss Juliet’s strict requirements, any side buildings or unattractive necessities for the nursery were relegated to the back of the property, well hidden from the street view; and of course, only lush plants and gardens could face the prized mansion.

  Madison dawdled at the stop sign down the street, thankful no cars were behind her. A few minutes later, she watched as Curtis came out of the florist carrying a small bouquet of fresh flowers. As he folded his long, thin body back inside his pickup, Madison pulled slowly away from the stop sign and followed him as he crossed the railroad tracks and headed into the town of Naomi.

  Madison hated to admit it, but so far, George Gail’s assumptions of an affair seemed to be correct, especially when the blue pickup pulled into the parking lot of the Bumble Bee Hotel.

  Madison parked across the street, where she had a clear shot of Curtis Burton as he carried the flowers up the front steps of the old mansion-turned-hotel and disappeared inside. She snapped off a few pictures, zooming in on the small bouquet he held in his hands and the look of anticipation upon his face. She was a bit surprised to discover Curtis was still a very handsome man.

  Madison soon grew bored as she waited for Curtis to come out. How long could an afternoon liaison take, anyway? She finished her lunch, listened to the entire Bryan Adams Tracks of My Years CD two times through, filed her nails, and sent a dozen or more text messages as she sat in the car.

  Staring at the hotel once again, Madison willed the door to open. You could only stare at a yellow and black house for so long, she decided, before your eyes began to cross and your stomach felt nauseous. Her skin was even beginning to itch and there was a humming in her head, as surely as if there were bees buzzing about.

  Except for the bright color scheme, Naomi Randolph’s old home looked identical to the Big House. But like their original owners, the houses were as different as the sisters themselves. Juliet’s pristine white mansion had always been haughty and elegant, cool and inaccessible except for formal invitations to visit. The Big House now stood vacant and empty, echoing the life of the lonely woman who once lived inside.

  Across the railroad track, Naomi’s old home was still vibrant and alive. Long before her death, she had painted the house a robust yellow trimmed in black and opened it to the public. Now her granddaughter ran The Bumble Bee Hotel, a three-story structure that featured community rooms on the bottom floor, lodging on the second, and two extravagant suites on the third floor. The grounds served as an outdoor venue for weddings, parties and family reunions.

  There was little activity, however, on this Wednesday afternoon in early February. Madison was getting a crick in her neck from staring in one direction for so long. She was considering giving up when the front door finally opened, and Curtis Burton stepped outside.

  She snapped off a few more photos, documenting the time of his departure. Instead of a bouquet, he carried a piece of paper in his hands and wore a satisfied smile on his rugged but handsome face. He reminded Madison of a movie star from an old western, tall and thin with a long handlebar mustache and the air of timeless strength and virility. Judging from the hour and twenty minutes he had been inside, she decided he was definitely virile.

  Madison ducked as he pulled out of the parking lot and drove past her. A good five minutes passed before a woman came out of the hotel, carrying a bulky leather bag and a familiar bouquet of flowers.

  “Now we’re getting somewhere,” Madison mumbled aloud. She took several pictures of the small woman in the fur-lined leather jacket. Even though the weather was sunny and mild, she wore the coat cinched at her tiny waist with matching fur-lined boots beneath black leggings. A fur bubble hat sat smartly upon her coiffed head.

  Madison felt a stab of sympathy for her client. This woman was everything George Gail was not: small, dainty, and fashionable.

  Who am I kidding? I’m none of those things, either, Madison thought wryly.

  At five foot seven inches, Madison’s arms and legs were too long and thin to ever be considered ‘dainty’. She might be slim, but she was hardly small. She had broad shoulders and ‘a good understanding in life’, which was Granny Bert’s way of saying she had big feet. And fashionable? Madison refused to glance down at her own sad wardrobe, not after taking in the other woman’s appearance.

  As she zoomed in on the woman’s face, she saw that the smartly dressed home-wrecker was not a day under sixty.

  The woman gracefully tucked her petite form behind the wheel of a late model Lincoln. She took a moment to slide on designer eyeglasses and to adjust her seatbelt before putting the car into gear. Jotting down the license plate number and car details, Madison noted the window sticker on the back glass. There were no trendy women’s gyms here in The Sisters, but the franchised brand might be found in Bryan-College Station or Waco; even Houston was within easy driving distance.

  Judging from the woman’s attire and overall aura of sophistication, Madison guessed she was not a local. She must be meeting Curtis here from out of town.

  “Well this poses a problem.” Madison spoke aloud to herself as she trailed behind the white Lincoln through the streets of Naomi, heading toward the highway. She had enough gas to follow the car all the way to Houston, but did she have the time? The kids would be home from school soon. She promised to take Bethani to a friend’s house to practice for cheerleader try-outs, a
nd Blake would undoubtedly be starved after baseball practice.

  On the other hand, if she let the car out of her sight she might never find whom it belonged to. She couldn’t very well ask Chief of Police Brash deCordova to run the license plate number, not after he made it clear she should not be “playing junior detective”.

  Deciding to follow at least long enough to know which direction it turned, Madison kept back at a safe distance.

  The highway by-pass was another new addition to The Sisters since Madison moved away. The handy overpass sailed right over the railroad and the towns spreading out on either side; newly constructed double lanes raced off in either direction, eager to offer an escape route. For most towns, a new highway meant new growth, new businesses popping up alongside the roadways, even when that growth often meant the death of the old downtowns. But here in The Sisters, the land bordering the highway was still controlled by deCordovas and the estates of Juliet Blakely and Naomi Randolph. By rare mutual agreement, only two businesses were allowed access to the highway trade: one on the southbound side of Juliet, the other on the northbound side of Naomi.

  To Madison’s surprise, the car crossed the highway and immediately took the Juliet exit on the other side of the highway, pulling into the convenience store’s parking lot. Was I that obvious? she worried. Does she know I’m following her?

  Madison parked several spaces down from the Lincoln and gave the woman time to go inside before she opened her car door. Maybe she could get in line behind the woman at the register and get a peek at her driver’s license when she opened her wallet, or overhear someone calling her by name. If she was meeting Curtis Burton at their ‘usual place’, she may have been in here before. It was worth a try, especially if it kept Madison from following her all the way to another town.

  The fashionable woman was nowhere to be seen along the aisles of the small convenience store, nor at the back counter where questionable-quality pizza was offered. That left only the restroom.

  Madison stepped inside the ladies’ room, just in time to see the middle stall door closing. She caught the tail end of the woman’s conversation.

  “No, the wife doesn’t suspect a thing!” she laughed merrily.

  She’s bragging about her affair? For the sake of George Gail, herself, and unsuspecting wives the world over, Madison felt a rush of fury at the woman’s cavalier attitude. Unbelievable!

  “Okay, I had to make a pit stop. You know my bladder’s not what it used to be,” the woman chirped into her cell phone. “I’ll meet you there in about forty minutes. Tootles.”

  Madison flinched as the woman carelessly tossed her fur-lined coat over the top of the stall’s door. She resisted the urge to barricade the hussy—as George Gail called her—inside the stall. The woman may have looked dignified, but obviously she was no better than the trollop George Gail accused her to be.

  A soft thump suggested the trollop hung her purse from the hook on the other side of the door.

  Unbidden, an old story Granny Bert told Madison years ago came to mind. According to her grandmother, a woman’s purse was stolen from a similar hook, keys and wallet still inside. A good Samaritan called the next day to report finding the purse and arranged a meeting to return it. As the story went, while the grateful woman was gone the thief used her own house key to go inside the house and steal her blind. To this day, Madison always took the time to wrap her purse strap around the hook or to stash her bag elsewhere.

  A wicked idea slipped inside Madison’s mind. George Gail had paid her a thousand dollars to learn the woman’s identity, but even if she followed the Lincoln all the way to another town, there was no guarantee of success. But there was another way.

  And Granny Bert had suggested a diversion.

  Ignoring her conscience, Madison dug into her pocket and found a roll of breath mints. She swiped a piece of toilet tissue from the adjacent stall and wrapped it around the mints several time, leaving a long twisted ‘tail’ sticking up. She waited until she heard another rustle of clothes and was certain the home-wrecking woman was otherwise occupied, then rolled the mints along the floor beneath the middle stall.

  In what she hoped sounded like a frightened voice, Madison squealed. “Oh my Gosh! What is that? It that a rat?”

  The home-wrecker immediately shrieked. Madison’s hand slipped over the door, snagging the purse as she heard the commotion on the other side. She could just imagine the woman jumping to her feet, black tights tangled around her knees, frantically dancing around the tiny space and scanning the back wall for a glimpse of the rodent.

  “Oh, it is a rat!” Madison cried again, even as her hand made quick work of jerking the wallet from the designer purse. A silver compact came out alongside the expensive wallet and clattered to the floor, adding to the noise and confusion. As it rolled into the stall, Madison added urgently, “Watch out, there it goes again!”

  Obviously terrified, the woman inside blubbered incoherently. Her heels tapped out a frantic tempo on the tile floor as she hopped from one foot to the other. By now, she was in actual sobs.

  Tamping down feelings of remorse, Madison flicked the wallet open and quickly scanned the driver’s license inside.

  Claudette Ellingsworth

  562 North River Oaks

  Naomi, Texas

  She’s a local? From right here in Naomi? Madison absorbed the surprise as she quickly slipped the wallet back inside the purse, yelled another warning that the rat was along the wall, and quickly dropped the purse over the stall door. Not bothering to find out if the strap snagged on the holder, she headed for the exit.

  “I’ll call for the manager!” she assured the frightened woman as she hurried out.

  By the time she reached the front of the store, guilt washed over Madison. That had been a cruel trick to pull. What if the woman was so frightened she had a heart attack, or got tangled in her state of un-dress, fell, and broke a leg?

  She’s breaking up a home and George Gail’s heart, a stubborn little voice reminded her.

  Still, Madison stopped at the cash register and reported there was a woman in the restroom in obvious distress. Madison quickly left the store, her conscious feeling somewhat better.

  And then, as Granny Bert would say, she left Claudette Ellingsworth to her rat killing.

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