Kiki Lowenstein Books 1-3 & Cara Mia Delgatto Books 1-3: The Perfect Series for Crafters, Pet Lovers, and Readers Who Like Upbeat Books!

by Joanna Campbell Slan

  “There. It needs to steep. How are you? So nice to have visitors. Cookies?” She buzzed around, pulling out cups, spoons, sugar, and plates. Before he could protest she’d set everything out before him. A large red cookie jar tempted him. He gave in and carefully selected a golden oatmeal raisin cookie.

  “How well did you know the Wentworths?” he asked.

  “Why don’t you spare us both the chitchat, Detective Murray? I’m an old woman, but I’m not stupid. Jenny Beth accused me of poisoning her husband, didn’t she? LaTisha called me to warn me.”

  If he hadn’t had the cookie in his mouth, he would have let his jaw flap open.

  “Yes, my husband made a foolish business deal with Josiah. Yes, Josiah took advantage of Frank’s trusting nature. Yes, we lost our business,” she said. “Yes, I was so angry I could commit murder.”

  Lou hoped the coffee was ready soon because he needed to wash down the cookie and ask more questions. The suspect was clearly ready to talk!

  “But the person I wanted to kill was my husband,” said Honora. “I repeat: I am NOT a stupid woman. I warned Frank. I begged him. He wouldn’t listen. Josiah was always a sneak. You can’t blame a fox for wanting to eat chickens, can you? So Josiah gobbled up my husband’s business. It was Frank’s fault, not Josiah’s.”

  She got up and poured him a cup of coffee. The smell was fantastic. He reached for his cup and savored the deep dark fragrance.

  “Furthermore, if I’d wanted to kill Josiah Wentworth, I wouldn’t have done it with Cara Mia in tow. She’s an innocent. Too innocent for her own good. And I wouldn’t have waited all these years to exact my revenge. So if you want to take me in and throw me in jail, go right ahead. But I warn you that you’re going to look pretty silly.”

  He wasn’t sure how to respond. As he tried to gather his thoughts, the woman added, “Now let’s talk about what’s really bugging you. How are you planning to make things right with Skye?”

  87

  ~Cara~

  4:45 p.m. on Monday

  While there isn’t generally a lot of traffic along Federal Highway, we do have our own version of rush hour—and we were in the thick of it. Even a sleek Porsche can’t make a lot of progress when it’s trapped behind a line of cars. As we got closer to the Stuart Bridge, Jason said, "I know it’s still early, but there's a great Thai restaurant on the other side of the bridge. How about having dinner with me?”

  “I’d love to have dinner with you, but I’d rather have it on a day not overshadowed by a funeral, if you don't mind,” I said.

  He looked sheepish. “Yeah, pretty awkward, huh?”

  “Sort of. But I enjoyed the ride, and being with you made a tough situation much more bearable.”

  “I’d like to see you again. How about if I call you tomorrow night? We could plan something for the upcoming week.”

  “Works for me,” I said. “Do you have my cell phone number?”

  “Your grandfather gave it to me as an emergency contact.”

  Emergency. The word echoed in my head. It got me wondering why Davidson hadn't attended Kathy's funeral. He'd planned to. Had there been an emergency? Belatedly, I remembered that Sid’s paperwork had included a time sheet. By choosing not to give it to Lou, was I holding up Sid’s paycheck?

  Oh, snap!

  I decided to text message Nathan as soon as I had the chance.

  The store had been closed for ten minutes when we arrived. Jason walked me inside, did a fast look around, pronounced me safe, and gave me a quick hug. His arms were strong, and he smelled terrific. I was sure that he would kiss me. Instead, he stared at me as if trying to make up his mind. He brushed my cheek quickly with his lips and said goodbye.

  “Oh, well,” I said to Luna, as we watched the black Porsche pull away from the curb. “Maybe next time.”

  I grabbed my cell phone and texted Nathan: I have information from Sid. Please advise how to get it to you. Cara

  Jack whined at me from his crate.

  “Just give me a half a sec to change,” I told him. I parked my purse under my desk and raced upstairs. After putting on a pair of jeans and a tee shirt, I took care of my pets' needs. Only then did I sit down at my desk. Finally, I had the place to myself.

  MJ had left a note detailing the day’s sales. We'd done well, and she had a few interesting leads on vintage Florida merchandise. Sid also left a note. He had made headway with putting our inventory into a new program to help us track sales and merchandise.

  My thoughts turned to Tommy, who'd left me a message on my phone. I messaged him right back, telling him that I was still looking for paperwork that would force his father to keep his word regarding college. In the meantime, I told my son: Things are better here at the store. If need be, I'll take out a loan for your tuition.

  His response came quickly: Mom, you're da bomb. I love you.

  With that warm thought spurring me on, I opened a search engine. The name "Dozier" had now come up twice in the past few days and I was eager to know more about it. Both PeeWee Heckler and Wallace Eberly had spent time there. After plugging Dozier into the search engine, I watched the citations fill page after page.

  The Florida School for Boys, also known as the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys (AGDS), was a reform school located in Marianna, Florida, and operated by the state for 111 years. Boys from the ages of 8 to 21 were sent there for "crimes" as small as truancy. At one time, Dozier was the largest juvenile reform institution in the United States, expanding to a second campus in Okeechobee.

  Most chilling was this from Wikipedia, "The school gained a reputation for abuse, beatings, rapes, torture, and even murder of students by staff. Despite periodic investigations, changes of leadership, and promises to improve, the allegations of cruelty and abuse continued."

  Continued?

  I swallowed.

  For one hundred and eleven years?

  That was, what? Nearly five generations?

  Jack pawed my leg. He was eager for attention. I lifted him onto my lap, giving myself much needed comfort by stroking his fur.

  I stared at the computer screen while keeping my finger on the scroll-down button. Surely someone had gone to jail for all this! Even gotten the death penalty!

  I was wrong. As far as I could tell, no charges had ever been brought. Nor had the situation been investigated by a crack team of specialists.

  Only recently had a group of survivors convinced the courts to allow a team of forensic anthropologists to exhume the Dozier graveyard. They dug up 55 bodies buried in the cemetery and in a wooded area nearby. The school's records stated that 31 boys had been sent to rest in the school’s graveyard.

  That was just on the “white” side of the equation.

  African-American boys had been segregated, even after death, and buried elsewhere. No one knew how many of their bodies were hidden on the grounds.

  The search for more bodies was ongoing.

  I followed links and heard the stories of survivors. They spoke of being beaten so severely that particles of clothing lodged in their flesh. They also spoke and wrote about unspeakable acts of depravity committed against them.

  In 1968 there had been calls to make changes, but the institution had survived and kept its doors open, even though officials knew that boys had died under the state's care. In response to every challenge, the officials from the State of Florida either turned a blind eye or downplayed claims of impropriety, suggesting that Dozier was no worse than any other institution of its ilk.

  How could that have happened? How could so many administrations have looked the other way? My mouth tasted of bile. I couldn’t take much more. I shut down the computer, put Jack in his crate, went to the bathroom, and brushed my teeth.

  The break helped, but only a little.

  I took a copy of the Kathy Simmons' photo out of the pile on my desk. Sure enough the background in that black and white matched one of the pictures of Dozier. Rather than put the photo away, I tacked it up on the bulle
tin board. I planned to tell my staff what I’d learned about Dozier. Of course, maybe they already knew. Maybe I was the only one who found the situation so shocking.

  If I got the chance—and if I had the stomach for it— I decided that I would try to find out more about the Senator's visit to Dozier. I wondered what he’d seen. He must have visited the school as part of a delegation conducting an investigation. How could he have been so blind to the plight of the children?

  I shook my head to try to clear it. I went on to open a few emails, but my mind wasn’t on my work.

  I couldn’t quick thinking about those poor little boys! No wonder PeeWee Heckler killed himself! What if something like that had happened to Tommy? I wished that my son was close by so I could give him a hug, look into his eyes, and confirm that my child was safe. With a heavy sigh, I decided to content myself with a cup of coffee. Better yet, I decided to make a fresh pot.

  The caffeine helped. Brought me back to reality. Time to tackle my "to do" list. The top five tasks were bookkeeping items. Those were quickly squared away. I moved on to my most pressing job, coming up with new promotions. The Old Florida Photo Gallery had done wonders for our business. Now I needed another brilliant idea.

  As a prelude to brainstorming, I decided to clean my desk. There’s something about a clean surface that helps me feel creative. I came across a sheet with Sid’s hours on it. He’d scrawled my name on the top. This was the duplicate of the information Sid had given me for Davidson. That envelope was still in my purse.

  I went and pulled it out, planning to tuck it into my file drawer for safekeeping. As I did, I noticed the brad Sid had used to close the flap.

  He should have sealed it.

  A corner stuck up of the flap was folded back, exposing the adhesive.

  I could open the envelope.

  No one would know.

  Technically it belonged to me. Sid had done the work on my dime. At least until the police department reimbursed me.

  Why not?

  Page one detailed Kathy's cloud account in general. Included were directions for accessing the cloud storage site she had used. Tommy often talked about the cloud as a place where teachers left assignments.

  How hard could it be to access?

  Sid's directions looked easy enough to follow. Tap, tap, tap, and voila! I was floating on a cloud, bay-bee.

  I felt inordinately proud. Now I could tell my son that I, too, had been on the cloud. Or in the cloud. Whatever. Of course, there wasn't much for me to see. Only a landing page. I logged in using Kathy Simmons' name. Her files showed up, as tempting as treasure chests of gold. Scratch that. Padlocked treasure chests of gold. If only we knew her password!

  On page two of his report, Sid had created a table. Row after row appeared, and in each there were sixteen boxes, representing the number of characters in Kathy’s password. Sid had done his best to crack the code.

  Kathy's full name hadn't worked. Darcy's full name hadn’t either. Sid had tried their street address. Their street address and their birthdays. Their names and their birthdays. Next he used the street address for the Shoreline News. The permutations seemed endless. Only two of them added up to the required sixteen characters.

  I sat back and stretched. Luna jumped up on the desktop. She rubbed her face next to mine. Her whiskers tickled my nose and made me sneeze.

  "You have a full tummy so you're feeling particularly lovey," I said to her as I stroked her back. Her tail twitched. She put one paw on each of my shoulders so she could touch her nose to mine.

  "Okay, tuna-breath," I said and picked her up to move her. As I did, my fingers brushed the tag on her collar. "I need to get that changed, don't I? Looks like you’ve found your forever home right here with me."

  I stared at the words on the metal charm: Darcy+ Kathy4Ever.

  I counted the characters.

  Sixteen!

  88

  ~Cara~

  I tried the password.

  I held my breath.

  I watched the "busy" icon go around and around on the screen.

  A directory of files filled the page. Seven file folders and three pdfs, image files.

  "Woo-hoo, uh-huh, uh-huh," I said to Luna as I did a seated gyration. "Who's the smartest chick the in room, huh? I am!"

  I sent a text message to Davidson, telling him that I'd figured out the password. My iPhone made that iconic sound like a toilet flushing, but he didn't return my message.

  "As long as I'm in these files, I might as well have a look around," I said to the cat.

  The first folder looked pretty boring. The files in it compared salaries of local officials to their counterparts in other parts of the country. The second folder was salacious. File after file showed internal memos about teachers who were acting inappropriately with their students. Notes from parents, and responses from administrators were part of the mix.

  The third folder promised information about bid-fixing by architects. A cold tickle ran down my spine. Was there something in there that related to Cooper? Was that how Kathy had drummed up the guts to threaten me?

  I began reading.

  Kathy Simmons found a source who claimed that local architects had conspired to fix bids. They took turns proposing contracts that were too high or too low, while one of their number suggested a reasonable figure. If the bid was awarded to anyone in the group, the others received a bonus. My heart sank as I read the names. Most were unfamiliar, but one dealt me a jab to the stomach, Cooper Rivers.

  Cooper, the upstanding, honest guy I'd fallen in love with.

  No way!

  Was it possible that Kathy had it wrong?

  A sick feeling told me differently. Especially when I saw how meticulous her research had been.

  Beneath her notes, she'd completed a spreadsheet. Sure enough, Cooper had always submitted bids on the same projects as the others. I didn't know much about the projects, because I had been living in St. Louis at the time, and all of these were local. Nor did I know what Cooper was qualified to do, but the fact he'd always submitted along with the other guys certainly looked suspicious. Once in a while, a stray architect would also submit a bid, but he never won the job. It always went to a member of the close-knit group. I scribbled down the names of the projects, closed the file and logged onto Google.

  The earliest job listed was a huge waterfront development. It was also Cooper's first bid right after getting his license. I couldn't imagine him having the sort of background that would make him a contender for a job of that size. I searched for newspaper articles about the project and didn’t find much.

  The next project on Kathy’s list was a municipal parking lot. Cooper's bid was the lowest of five. The others submitted bids as did one “outside” firm. That firm didn't win. An architect from the group did. A quick glance confirmed an ominous pattern.

  At the bottom of her spreadsheet. Kathy had listed people to interview and specific questions to ask. The list of names was long, but one jumped out: Jodi Wireka.

  If she turned him in for bid fixing, would he go to jail? Certainly he’d lose his license. Even if he was innocent, the stain on his reputation might be impossible to remove.

  Could this be the devastating information that my sister was holding over Cooper's head?

  Would Jodi really use this against Cooper? Would she leverage what she knew to force him into marriage?

  Yes, she would. I had been on the receiving end of letters and pranks that proved how vindictive my sister could be. Jodi had shown me that she was capable of carrying through on a threat. There’d been more than a touch of triumph in her eyes when she'd told me that she'd never let Cooper go.

  Ever.

  She had meant what she said. One question lingered, “Where did she get such power over him?”

  The answer was in these files.

  89

  ~Cara~

  My finger hesitated over the keys. Should I erase the files pertaining to Cooper?

  I d
idn't want Cooper to go to jail. While I wasn't sure about the accuracy of Kathy's reporting, but I still had feelings for the boy I'd loved twenty years ago. My instinct was to protect him. Would erasing the files do that? Or would tampering with evidence only make a bad situation worse?

  A more chilling thought: What if Cooper had killed Kathy Simmons?

  She had certainly collected enough information to jeopardize his career.

  Kathy had threatened to use my past against me. What if she'd done the same with Cooper? What if they’d quarreled? What if he’d lost his temper?

  Should I try to protect him? Was that fair to her? Didn't she deserve justice? Was it fair to him? He deserved the right to clear his name.

  Except that reputations, once stained, can never be snowy white again.

  My finger wavered over the delete key. I could erase the file, but would that keep Cooper safe? Deleted files could be recovered on a hard drive. Could they be retrieved on the cloud?

  First you would need to know to look for them.

  And wouldn’t that make me a liar? An accomplice of some sort?

  I felt torn. I wanted to talk to him and ask if this was the complication, the problem that kept him from leaving Jodi. Was he really involved in this shady scheme? If so, why had he gone along with something so wrong? That didn't sound like the Cooper Rivers I once knew.

  A knocking at the back door interrupted my dithering. Rather than answer it, I hesitated once with finger poised on the delete key.

  What should I do?

  The knocking grew louder. My moral dilemma would have to wait. I quickly closed the folder and shut down my computer.

  That decision made—or more accurately, avoided—I ran to the door, opening it, expecting to see Nathan Davidson. I would gladly leave the decision regarding Cooper’s guilt or innocence to the Police Captain.