Dead Wrong

by Vannetta Chapman

  Stuart sighed heavily, then put an arm across the back of his wife’s chair. Leaning toward her, he said, “We need to tell them. We can trust Agatha and Gina. And we need to tell someone.”

  Brooklyn glanced at Stuart, and if anything she paled even more.

  “Whatever it is, I assure you that you can trust us. We only want to figure out what’s going on. I’m trying to run a business here, and I want this to be a restful, peaceful place, not one where my guests are plainly terrified.”

  Brooklyn finally raised her gaze to Agatha’s, and when she did her resolve crumbled. “I didn’t know what else to do. You all are on the wrong track.”

  “We’re dead wrong?”

  “Yes! But I couldn’t come right out and tell you. If they know I know, if they know about the picture, we could be next. I wanted to just leave, but Stuart said—”

  “I said we needed to act normal.” He sat back and rubbed a hand across his face. “I don’t know if we’re in any real danger or not, but I felt it was better to act as if each day is just another day on vacation.”

  “Perhaps if we take things from the beginning,” Agatha said. “But first let’s get you a glass of water.”

  Gina jumped up to fill a glass from the pitcher in the refrigerator. By the time she’d handed it to Brooklyn, Stuart had taken the baby back into his arms and was again encouraging his wife to tell them everything.

  Brooklyn didn’t seem to know where to start. Her left hand rested at her throat, and with her right she attempted to raise the glass of water. She took a sip, sloshing some of it over the side, then gently put the glass back on the table and pushed it away.

  “Let’s start with your seeing Dixon in the pantry,” Agatha suggested.

  “That was true, but it wasn’t because Hudson was teething.”

  Agatha and Gina shared a look. They’d both already figured out that Hudson was too happy to be suffering the pains of cutting teeth.

  “Stuart and I had an argument, so I came downstairs to cool off. I was puttering around in the kitchen when I heard Dixon in the pantry.”

  “Like you told Tony.”

  “Exactly, but...there’s more.”

  Silence enveloped the room so that Agatha was aware of the ticking of the clock on the wall and the call of crickets outside the window. She was surprised when Brooklyn reached for her camera, pushed a button, and began scrolling through pictures on the digital screen.

  “I went back upstairs, but I couldn’t sleep. I was still...angry. Plus I was embarrassed. Happily married couples with a beautiful child don’t fight on vacation.”

  Agatha tried not to laugh, but something in her demeanor caught Brooklyn’s attention.

  “It’s not funny.”

  “I never said it was.” She thought of her four sons and daughter and their families and suddenly felt an intense urge to be with them, to touch them, to know they were all right. But of course, they were all right. God was watching over each and every one of them, and she’d see them again in August. The thought cheered her mood immediately.

  Agatha splayed her hands out flat on the table. “Do you find yourself crying over the drop of a bonnet?”

  “Ummm...yeah. I guess.”

  “Tired all of the time?”

  “Exhausted.”

  “Scared of things that never bothered you before?”

  “Yes! Just today I was sure one of those goats was going to take a bite out of Hudson.”

  Gina leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. “Sounds like a solid case of post-partum depression to me.”

  “We called it the baby blues.” Agatha scooted forward and claimed Brooklyn’s hands in hers. “Stuart and Hudson will get you through this, and we’ll pray that the heaviness in your heart lifts a little more with each passing day.”

  “Ummm...thanks.”

  “Now show us what’s on that camera,” Gina said.

  Twenty minutes later, the Willis family was upstairs taking a nap. Agatha had penned a note and stuck it on Tony’s door.

  “You could just text him.”

  “I don’t have a phone that texts.”

  “I do.”

  “Well, I don’t think it’s that kind of emergency.”

  “It’s something.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “We have to get into McNair’s.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that.”

  “Her picture plainly showed someone walking from McNair’s to your place, at the exact moment Dixon was out of his cabin arguing with the Cox brothers.”

  “What could that possibly mean?”

  “It means the Cox brothers were distracting him while someone else snuck onto your property and changed his food with a peanut-laced muffin—a muffin that killed him.”

  “I don’t know. Something’s missing in your assessment.”

  “I agree, and whatever it is, we might be able to find it in McNair’s house.”

  Agatha turned and studied her friend, and Gina was that—her friend as much as her employee. They were standing next to Gina’s car. “Even if that’s true, I can’t break into McNair’s house. I can’t do that. It’s wrong. It’s trespassing. It’s illegal, and I won’t do it.”

  If she’d thought that mini-lecture would temper Gina’s enthusiasm, she was sorely mistaken.

  “What if I can get us in there, without breaking in?”

  “How would you do that?”

  “Just let me handle it. You’re going to be here the rest of the day?”

  “Ya. Sure, I am.”

  “Then I’ll be back. It could be later—after dark for sure. Wait for me, okay?”

  Which seemed a silly thing to ask, because Agatha had nowhere else to go and nowhere else she wanted to be.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Tony had gone to the local real estate office, but his old friend Charles wasn’t in.

  “Fishing—again. Says he can sell a house from his boat same as he can from his desk.” The receptionist, who couldn’t have been over nineteen, shrugged and resumed tapping on her cell phone.

  “Did he say where he was fishing?” When she didn’t answer, he leaned across the reception desk and put his hand between her phone and her eyes. She glanced up, clearly surprised he was still there.

  “What?”

  “Where did he go fishing?”

  “North Fork of the river—I’m not really sure where.”

  Tony was already walking out. He knew where. Charles had a favorite spot along the North Fork. They’d fished there together a dozen times, and it would explain why he wasn’t answering his texts—cell service that direction was notoriously terrible.

  The sun was inching lower by the time Tony pulled up behind Charles’s crew cab truck. Five minutes later he’d snagged a cold Dr. Pepper from his friend’s cooler and was watching him pull in a nice-sized bass.

  “I know you didn’t come out here to drink my soda and watch me fish.”

  Charles was Tony’s age. Tony and Camilla had purchased their house through him. Charles’s wife was a teacher at the Hunt middle school, and the two couples had developed a close friendship. Since Camilla’s death, Tony had ignored his friend’s calls and texts. He regretted that now, but it wasn’t the time to explain why he’d been hiding away for ten months. He needed answers, and something told him he needed them quickly.

  “Tell me about the Guadalupe Resort.”

  “Not much to tell, since it doesn’t exist yet.”

  “But McNair has a plan for one?”

  “He does. I haven’t seen the drawings myself, but rumor is that he has investors.”

  “Has he presented anything to the city council?”

  “He has not.” Charles skillfully pulled the barbless hook from the fish’s mouth, then set it gently back into the water.

  “How big is it?”

  “The resort? Big, if you believe the rumors.”

  “Do you?”

  Charles stopped what he was d
oing and peered at him from underneath his fishing hat. “McNair’s always been an ambitious fellow.”

  “Meaning?”

  Instead of casting his hook back out into the water, Charles took a seat on the log beside Tony, pulled out a bottle of iced tea, and uncapped it. When he’d drank a third of it, he recapped it and cleared his throat.

  “There’s been noise about McNair’s development for a little over a year. This is all scuttlebutt, mind you, but it’s from people that generally know what they’re talking about. He came up with this big plan to bring a five-star resort to our area, and even procured a few investors.”

  “I’m hearing a ‘but’ coming up.”

  “Something threw a monkey wrench into his plans.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know. Nobody seemed to be surprised. You know how it is—there’s always rumors of some big development, but then something happens and it falls apart. Anyway, when his plans fell through everyone thought it was par for the course, and we didn’t give it much thought.”

  “I’m sensing this isn’t the end of the story.”

  “Ten months ago, the talk starts up again. Whatever was impeding his plans suddenly wasn’t, and more investors were signing on.”

  “And then what?”

  “Nothing. That’s the last I heard.”

  Tony told him about the signs on McNair’s property.

  “Anyone can make a sign. Probably had them put there for investors that came out to take a tour of the site.”

  “Wait a minute. What site?”

  “The site for his resort. Maybe you need to slow down on that Dr. Pepper. The sugar content might be messing with your brain processing.”

  Tony stood up and pulled his keys out of his pocket. “The resort was going to be on McNair’s property?”

  “That’s what I heard.”

  “How big was it going to be?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine. Big, though, like I said. Big enough that he was flying investors in to see it. An agent I know in San Antonio asked me about it recently, and another in Houston mentioned it during a conference call.”

  “But he doesn’t own that much land.”

  Charles shrugged and stuck the bottle of iced tea back in the cooler. “Guess he found a way to buy some more.”

  “I need to go.”

  “Hey. Are you okay?”

  “Ask me tomorrow.”

  It was an hour back to Agatha’s, and the sun had already sunk below the horizon. It would be fully dark well before he made it back. But as he sped toward her B&B, he realized Agatha’s place wasn’t where he needed to go first.

  He needed to go to McNair’s.

  He needed to figure out what was going on, and if whatever it was had been worth killing for.

  Chapter Thirty

  Agatha was turning off the last lantern and about to lock the front door when Gina appeared out of the darkness.

  “You took a year off my life.” Agatha pushed the screen door open. “Come inside. What are you doing out this late?”

  “I got us in.”

  “In?”

  “Next door.”

  “Oh.”

  “You know you’d like to see what’s going on over there.”

  Agatha turned lanterns on again as they moved through the house. When they reached the kitchen, Gina began pulling items out of her shoulder bag.

  “What are these?”

  “They’re part of our uniform.”

  “Our uniform?”

  “There’s bound to be cameras. We need to look like we belong. This is our disguise. See? It says Merry Maids across the top of the ball cap.”

  Agatha reached for her glasses, couldn’t find them, brought the cap closer, then held it at arm’s length. Either way, it was plain as day that Merry Maids had been penned on with permanent marker.

  “This won’t fool anyone.”

  “It’s nine o’clock at night, and my source...”

  “You have a source?”

  “A guy who does security over there...Nate.”

  “Nate Luscombe?”

  “How do you know Nate?” Gina cocked her head to the side and stared at her as if she’d sprouted bunny ears.

  “He did a little work here when I first moved in...before I knew you.”

  “Nate’s handy. And now he’s doing security work next door. He said he could get us in, but we have to hurry. He makes his rounds every half hour. So we have...” She glanced at her watch. “Fifteen minutes before he leaves the front gate.”

  “We want him to leave?”

  “No, we want him to be there so he can let us in. Now go put on your blue jeans and this t-shirt.” The t-shirt had also been haphazardly decorated with the words Merry Maids, and to add more credibility, a broom and dustpan as well. “I know you have blue jeans. You wore them that time we cleaned out the back room of the barn.”

  “Ya, but I only wear them in an emergency.”

  “This is an emergency. Hurry. Now we only have thirteen minutes.”

  Which got Agatha moving, because she really did want to know if what was going on next door had anything to do with Russell Dixon’s murder.

  Within five minutes, they were out the front door and creeping toward the neighbor’s. Gina insisted Agatha carry a mop and bucket. She was carrying a shotgun.

  “What do you plan to do with that?” Agatha felt comfortable with hunting rifles since she’d grown up around them, but she didn’t like the idea of Gina carrying one while they snuck onto her neighbor’s property.

  “I plan to not use it, but if things turn sour...”

  “If what things turn sour?” Tony stepped out of the bushes, taking yet another year off Agatha’s life. She’d soon be aging backwards if the night held many more surprises.

  “What are you doing here?” Gina hissed.

  “The same question I was going to ask you.” Tony shone his flashlight on the two of them. He’d wrapped red plastic wrap around the end, and it produced a ghastly glow. “And why is Agatha wearing Englisch clothes?”

  “I can answer for myself.” Agatha straightened her t-shirt as if that would explain things. “We’re undercover.”

  “Don’t tell me you two are planning to break into McNair’s.”

  “We don’t have to break in. I know someone on the inside. What was your plan?”

  “I was watching—legally, from outside the perimeter.”

  “Oh. There’s Nate.”

  Before Agatha or Tony could pull her back, Gina dashed across the driveway and to the guard hut.

  “She’s fast for a woman her age,” Agatha muttered, then darted after her.

  If Nate was surprised to see all three of them, he didn’t say anything. He did remind them to be back at the gate between the quarter and half hour. “The rest of the time I’m making my rounds.”

  “Is the house locked?”

  “No. It doesn’t need to be. Mr. McNair has the gate...and me.”

  “Have you seen anything suspicious?” Tony asked.

  “Nah. Rich people are a little crazy, though. There’s folks in and out all the time here.”

  “Anyone in particular?”

  “Some investors from Houston were here last week. Since then...no one.”

  Nate told them to watch their backs, hopped into his golf cart, and took off into the darkness.

  “You know this is breaking and entering,” Tony said as they hurried toward the house.

  “Gina said it was perfectly legal if someone on the premises let us in.”

  “And why is Gina carrying a shotgun?”

  “Says she brought it just in case, but she didn’t say just in case what.”

  “Tell me you’re not armed,” he muttered.

  “Of course not. I’m a pacifist.” Agatha stared at the items in her hands. “Unless you count this mop and bucket. You?”

  “I have a license to carry.” Tony patted a bulge on his hip.

  “As
do I.” Gina was still adamantly defending her constitutional rights.

  “That license does not permit you to carry a shotgun onto someone else’s property.”

  Agatha hushed both of them. They’d reached the front door. Tony turned them both away from what must have been a security camera. It was only then that Agatha noticed he was wearing a ball cap too, only his was black and had no permanent marker writing on the front of it.

  “Pull your caps down low, and don’t look up.”

  They stepped into a house that looked like something out of a fancy Englisch magazine. In front of them was an extremely large room, with a ceiling that stretched two stories high. The far wall, the one that looked out toward the river, was solid glass. To their right was a giant fireplace, and on both sides of that several animal heads including a giant deer, a mountain lion, and a zebra.

  Agatha stepped closer to Tony. “Is it legal to shoot zebras?”

  “Not here. He had to go overseas to get that one—at least I hope he did.” Tony moved past them into the room, then turned and faced Gina and Agatha, crossing his arms and planting his feet shoulder width apart, as if daring them to shove their way past him. Plainly, they wouldn’t have to do that. The room was huge. They could dodge to the left and right.

  “Before we take another step, before you incriminate all of us, tell me your plan.”

  Agatha pulled in a deep breath to explain, but Gina beat her to it.

  “We know the Amish guests were invested in Dixon’s company.” She put air quotes around the last two words.

  “But we don’t think they knew what they were getting into,” Agatha quickly added.

  “I’m checking into that. I told you—”

  “Everyone leaves tomorrow, Tony.” Gina shifted her shotgun to her left hand. “We need to solve this tonight.”

  “You can’t solve a mystery in one night because someone has travel plans.”

  “The boot print in the garden was facing toward my property,” Agatha pointed out. She normally chose the path of caution, and she appreciated his concern, but she was ready for this to be over. If looking around McNair’s house solved the mystery, she was willing to do that. It wasn’t as if they were there to steal anything. “The person who made that boot print was coming from this property.”