Burying Daisy Doe
Page 1
“Burying Daisy Doe is a gripping story that exposes the secrets of a small Southern town caught up in three generations of evil. It took the courage of Star Cavanaugh, searching for her grandmother’s and father’s murderers, to uncover the truth in a tale that will keep you in suspense to the end.”
—Patricia Bradley, author of the Logan Point, Memphis Cold Case Novels, and Natchez Trace Park Rangers series
“I’m reminded yet again why Ramona Richards is one of my favorite suspense writers. And this may be her best book yet! Riveting from the beginning and filled with suspense … I bet you can’t just read one chapter!”
—Kathy Harris, author of The Deadly Secrets series
“Burying Daisy Doe is Ramona Richards’s most chilling, most captivating work yet. When Star Cavanaugh moves into Pineville to investigate the cold case murders of her grandmother and her father, she has no idea of the Pandora’s Box she is about to open … and I had no idea how late I was about to stay up reading to find out what happened next. The intricate storyline goes beyond a simple ‘hero versus villain’ suspense tale to the dueling capacities for good and evil that reside in us all. Burying Daisy Doe is the kind of book that makes you want to sleep with the light on yet compels you to read into the night, as answers reveal more questions. It kept me guessing and kept me up late … and I can’t recommend it highly enough.”
—Jodie Bailey, award-winning author of romantic military suspense
“I absolutely loved Burying Daisy Doe and cannot wait for the next Star Cavanaugh Cold Case. Richards seamlessly combined all the things I love into one fabulous story: a heroine to root for—and a hunky police chief she’d be a fool to resist—a tightly-plotted mystery, a small town peppered with lovable, quirky characters, and ultimately, justice for those who’d waited much too long to receive it. This series will definitely go on my ‘auto-buy’ list. Highly recommended!”
—Connie Mann, author of the Safe Harbor and Florida Wildlife Warriors series
Burying Daisy Doe: A Star Cavanaugh Cold Case
© 2020 by Ramona Richards
Published by Kregel Publications, a division of Kregel Inc., 2450 Oak Industrial Dr. NE, Grand Rapids, MI 49505.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without written permission of the publisher, except for brief quotations in reviews.
Distribution of digital editions of this book in any format via the internet or any other means without the publisher’s written permission or by license agreement is a violation of copyright law and is subject to substantial fines and penalties. Thank you for supporting the author’s rights by purchasing only authorized editions.
The persons and events portrayed in this work are the creations of the author, and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Richards, Ramona, 1957– author.
Title: Burying Daisy Doe : a Star Cavanaugh cold case / Ramona Richards.
Description: Grand Rapids, MI : Kregel Publications, [2020]
Identifiers: LCCN 2020031495 (print) | LCCN 2020031496 (ebook)
Subjects: GSAFD: Suspense fiction. | Mystery fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3618.I3438 B87 2020 (print) | LCC PS3618.I3438 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020031495
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020031496
ISBN 978-0-8254-4652-8, print
ISBN 978-0-8254-7682-2, epub
Printed in the United States of America
20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 / 5 4 3 2 1
CHAPTER ONE
Pineville, Alabama, 1954
WHEN THE WOMAN with the daisy in her hair sauntered into the Pineville Drugstore and Soda Fountain that hazy Saturday morning in May 1954, every man in the room turned and looked. Her lavender dress fit loosely, and the lightweight fabric, cinched at the waist with a matching belt, flowed easily around her as she walked. Thick curls undulated around her face with each step toward the counter, the strands so black that a bluish highlight caressed each one. Her lips formed a tight red bow in the middle of a face pale with carefully applied powder. More than one of the old farmers sitting at the cluster of tables near the soda fountain found himself staring unwaveringly at the stranger.
Roscoe Carver stared too, from his chair in the colored section of the fountain’s tables. His fourteen-year-old body responded to the woman’s long legs and curvy hips in a way that would have made his mother pray for his soul and his father for his life. Noticing Roscoe’s gaze, his father squeezed his arm in the same grip that could pull a mule out of the mud. Roscoe flinched, his eyes darting to his father’s tense face.
Ebenezer Carver shook his head, his voice a taut whisper. “Don’t you be gawking at no white woman. Doc barely lets us sit inside as it is.”
Confusion shot through Roscoe. “White? But she’s—” The grip tightened. “White!” The word was a harsh whisper. “Don’t let them catch you looking!”
Almost in reflex, Roscoe looked down at the table. It wasn’t the first time he’d heard the warning. It would not be the last. He squelched the rage it produced in his gut and found a safer outlet for his anger and curiosity: He watched the woman in the broad mirrors behind the soda fountain in furtive glances that danced between her and his plate. Unlike his father, who focused only on his food, the white men in the fountain area stared openly at the woman, occasionally nudging each other and motioning at her with quick points or nods of their heads.
Her curls glistened as they bounced out of control around her shoulders and down her back, as if she’d forgotten to brush her hair that morning. Low-heeled pumps, a light lavender that almost matched the dress, thwacked on the yellow tile floor, as if they, too, were a size too big. She ordered a root beer float instead of breakfast, and Doc Taylor started drawing it up, being that his fountain girl Ruthie had the day off. The woman clopped over to the magazine rack and picked up one with the latest movie gossip. After studying the display a moment, she plucked up a comic book as well. She paid for all three, then leaned against the fountain, sipping the float.
Roscoe tried to finish his breakfast, but his attention kept turning back to the woman’s reflection in the mirror. Maybe his father was right; she was white. But Roscoe knew that she didn’t look like any white woman around Pineville. And there was that thick makeup. She faced the fountain again, and Roscoe studied her profile. The wide dark eyes, prominent cheekbones, and sloping jawline. The smooth curls of her hair weren’t straightened like his mama’s, but Roscoe had never seen a white girl with hair that rich and black. Maybe his daddy had. His father had traveled, been overseas with the army during the war. He’d seen lots of things no one around here had.
The woman set the soda glass down and stirred the ice cream into the mixture. Doc tried to talk to her, but she met his questions with soft shakes of her head, and after a bit, he gave up and went to the high counter at the back where he made up prescriptions. The girl ate the ice cream slowly and dabbed her lips.
The clop of her shoes echoed against the high ceiling as she strolled toward the door, the magazine and comic book tucked neatly under one arm, her hips swaying beneath the pale purple dress.
Roscoe finally looked back at his biscuit, now cold on his plate. Beautiful, so beautiful that she should never be forgotten.
A thought he remembered with pain the next morning. This time he stared openly at her—her face, her nude body, the waxen look of her bloodless skin. Beautiful, even dead, with those scarlet lips now a bluish
gray, marred by a dark protruding tongue. She lay at the edge of his daddy’s newly planted cornfield, a leather strap around her neck, a bright daisy crushed beside her.
He stared, then ran to get his father, knowing that he would never forget that face.
CHAPTER TWO
Pineville, Alabama, Present Day
ROSCOE CARVER STARED at me, the look in his rheumy eyes steadily moving from bored to puzzled, then to intrigued. I had been working at the Pineville drugstore only a month, doing a short-order dance during the morning shift with the cook behind the soda fountain and grill. We served up breakfast, mostly, with the occasional ice cream treats. This was Roscoe’s first appearance in the sunrise crowd, having just returned from a long stay at the hospital in Gadsden after his last stroke. His daughter, Imajean, had told me Roscoe had eaten breakfast at the drugstore most of his life. He’d once had a store on the square and knew the breakfast hour was prime for new gossip and potential clients. Even retired, he still came, and he always made the drugstore his first stop after getting out of the hospital.
“Still stuck in the past, that man is,” his grandson Charles had muttered, causing his mama to make a shushing noise at him. Charles, who gave a whole new definition to tall, dark, and handsome, had no clue how encouraging his words were to me.
A guy stuck in the past was exactly what I needed. Especially if his name was Roscoe Carver. I had searched the morning rush every day, dodging between the tables as I delivered plates of hot biscuits, gravy, grits, and an assortment of eggs, looking just for him.
Now he was looking at me. Roscoe had emerged from Charles’s beloved red 1992 Thunderbird like a king descending to his court. Charles sped off to work as Roscoe moved slowly into the drugstore, using a four-point cane for balance, weaving among the scattering of tables, and acknowledging the dozens of greetings that sailed his way, the handshakes, and the welcome-backs. Miss Doris Rankin even rose from her table with “the girls” and gave him a gentle hug. Everyone wanted to know where Imajean was (“Working too hard”) and how Charles was doing (“Spending too much money and time on that Spencer girl”).
He moved his girth almost gracefully toward a table in the middle, and he eased down in the chair slowly, settling with a huff of air, as if getting off his feet brought serious relief. He rearranged the napkin holder, the cream and sugar, and the salt and pepper shakers, then leaned back. He clutched his hands over his stomach and looked around, ready to rule.
He spotted me quickly, the new blonde behind the familiar counter. His glance skirted over me head to toe at first, then he sniffed, as if testing the air, and settled in for a long examination.
I set a thick white mug down in front of him, extending the silver-and-glass pot that had become the morning extension of my right hand. “Coffee OK, sir?”
He cleared his throat. “Please.” The word had a whispery h at the end, and the left side of his face didn’t quite cooperate with the right. Leftovers from the stroke.
I poured the coffee, careful not to splash any, ignoring the heads that turned my way, like NASCAR spectators waiting for a crash. Pouring too fast or too hard caused the coffee to hit the bottom and bounce back out, usually all over the customer. The way I found this out was now legendary among the drugstore patrons, alienating a few but endearing me to a number of folks who disliked a certain Alabama legislator who had seen the drugstore as the perfect campaign stop. They loved that part of the story, but they rarely hoped I’d repeat the event.
I picked up the tiny pitcher from the middle of the table to check the cream level. Almost full. Most of the morning folks liked their coffee black—the stronger the better.
“You’re a drive-in, aren’t you?” His lispy voice sounded like new tires on gravel.
I paused. The question still caught me off guard, even after I figured out what it meant. Once upon a time, Pineville had been a small, isolated town, with the folks here reveling in their own self-sufficiency and survival. But it was now an easy driving distance from Gadsden and Birmingham, less than an hour for each up and down I-59. As in so many other small towns in America, developers had snatched up abandoned or unwanted farmland, constructing a series of fast-built, vinyl-siding-encased subdivisions. The ones that had popped up around the Pineville exit were mostly populated by commuters whose lives centered on the work and culture of the two cities, allowing them to arrive home only to sleep and attend the occasional school function or football game.
Vic Beason, editor of the local Pineville paper, had dubbed them “drive-ins.” It was not a compliment.
“Actually, I’m a move-in.” I pulled my order pad out of the apron pocket. “Can’t stand being cooped up in a car.” I pulled my pencil from behind my ear and pointed it at the ceiling. “For now, I live upstairs in Doc’s rental room. What can I get ya?”
“Didn’t realize Doc had hired a new girl. You’re a tall one. Surely you ain’t gonna stay upstairs in that dump for long. You have people here? Must. I see it in your face.”
He wasn’t supposed to see it that soon. “No sir, not here. I do have a grandma down in Birmingham. She’s got an Airstream I’m going to bring up soon. Doc said I can park it in his back yard for now. Eggs? Toast?”
“Three eggs, over easy, yellows runny. Toast, extra brown, dry. Grits, extra butter. Bacon, larger order. Large OJ, if there’s any left. Is it one of the classic Airstreams or one of those new fancy RVs? You sure I don’t know your people?” Every s ended with the whoosh.
A dozen answers flitted through my head as I scribbled. Finally, out came one that wasn’t a lie. “I’m afraid my people aren’t from around here. And it’s a classic. A 1969 Overlander.”
“Humph.” This sound came from deep within his gut and rode out on a thick exhale, not so much a word as a noise I would have associated with Jabba the Hutt, had I been less polite.
“I’ll get this in.” I scooted to the counter and the short-order grill. Rafe, the cook who worked wonders with eggs and gravy but kept a stash of pot taped to the underside of the dumpster out back, plucked the order slip from my hand and stuck it on the metal rack over the steaming kettle of grits. The marijuana, which he rarely used on the job, was, in part, retaliation against the pharmacist for some unknown slight. Rafe was a man of action, and he seldom spoke more than three words during the morning shift.
He motioned toward two plates near the edge of the grill, and I switched out the coffeepot for a fuller one, balanced the plates, and headed back to the floor.
After only a month, a new respect for servers had been born, and I prayed I’d never have to do this for real. To make a living at it. Some people have a calling for it. I did not. But there was no better way to find out what was going on in Pineville, or any other small town in the South, for that matter. Like a bartender, my job gave me instant access and a built-in trust.
Take Miss Doris, for instance. She and her girls—all of them retired businesswomen—clustered in the drugstore every morning to talk God, guns, and guys. Bible study with a twist, and they knew every iota of gossip floating around town. Miss Doris never met a stranger and had spotted me for a kindred soul right away, a woman who was as interested in the town’s goings-on as she was. She had invited me to the Pine Grove Baptist Church, a white clapboard structure that was the spiritual heart of the town. According to her, Sunday school was the best place for news as well as soul saving.
She started on that last part pretty soon as well. God and I hadn’t been on speaking terms in a while now, despite my grandmother’s best efforts. I’d attended Pine Grove Baptist last Sunday, although not for the preaching and singing. By Monday at lunch, Miss Doris had filled this new kindred soul in on more local gossip than I could keep straight without a scorecard, as well as working on my heathen soul. I was far more interested in the former.
Local gossip is an essential tool in my real job.
I grabbed another plate from Rafe, delivered it along with another shot of coffee, then caught my breath as
I stopped to combine the contents of the two pots and start a fresh one. The smell of the burnt coffee made my nose twitch as I dumped out the old grounds.
“Got anything left for me, sugar?” Even with my back to the counter, I knew the owner of the thick, and quite fake, Southern accent.
I dropped my own a few notches into Hollywood hick. “Sure, honeybabe. I’ve got lots for you right here.” I turned, empty mug and coffeepot at ready.
Mike Luinetti’s grin broadened, and his accent returned to normal, settling somewhere between Pittsburgh and Erie. “You’re getting to be a girl I can count on.” He slid onto a stool, his uniform shirt ominously tight.
A quick glance over his shoulder showed Miss Doris’s slightly mischievous smile. Not surprisingly, she’d been the first to notice that since I took over the morning shift, Mike had started eating breakfast every day at the drugstore, with a few extra pounds as a result.
I certainly didn’t mind the playful chatting. While he had focused on the fact that we were both transplants, I considered it a stroke of luck that the first man in Pineville to show an interest just happened to be the local police chief. Besides, with the dark looks of his Sicilian father, flirting with the man wasn’t exactly a chore. His dark-blue eyes, a gift from his German mother, provided a mesmerizing contrast, and I pitied any miscreant who tried to stare him down.
I set the mug in front of Mike and filled it. “You can always count on me, kind sir. So what can I get ya?” I pulled the pencil and pad to ready.
He paused, his blue eyes still bright, but a more serious expression on his face. “How about a real date?”
I blinked. Twice. “Are you asking me out?” Finally. We’d been flirting for a month. Apparently we both could give reticent a new definition.
He cleared his throat and shot a quick glance over his shoulder. The grin on Miss Doris’s face had moved from mischievous to wicked.
He focused back on me. “Yes.”