Southern Fried Read online

  “Since you’re here as my guardian while I’m wearing this badge, we have to solve this crime fast.” My heart tugged. It had been so hard having him gone. Since I’d gotten him back, I didn’t want to imagine life without him. “Because I’m not ready to lose my job or you.”

  “Then let’s get to it.” He vigorously rubbed his hands together.

  “Tell me about Sandy,” I encouraged him as I took the flashlight out of my bag and shined it all around the darkness. Unfortunately, it was almost too dark for me to see anything.

  “From what I heard, pure speculation from some of the Sweet Adelines who use to bring me suppers,” he leaned in and winked, “Sandy had been a Sweet Adeline and when she left Owen, the girls said something about there being jealousy between Sandy and her sister-in-law.” Poppa snapped his fingers. “Umm...umm...”

  “Inez?” I questioned.

  He jutted his pointer finger toward me. “That’s it.” He tapped his temple. “The old memory is still going a little.”

  “I couldn’t imagine Inez being jealous of anyone.” It was out of character from what I remembered of her. She was the bank teller that my mama so desperately wanted me to be. She always greeted me with a smile when I came in. “I guess I need to find out where Sandy is and check into this.”

  Not that I was sure either of them had anything to do with Owen’s death, since it still wasn’t an official homicide. But they might have leads on who hung out with Owen, or even who might have a grudge against him so bad that they wanted him dead, in case it was a murder as I suspected. By the looks of Owen’s ankles, I was pretty positive he didn’t do that to himself. Inez and Stanley had both retired. She should be easy to track down.

  “Why the hell not, Kenni-bug?” Poppa smacked his thigh. “Right now you should think everyone that had even an inkling of a conversation with Owen is a suspect.”

  My phone chirped from my pocket. I pulled it out and saw a text from Finn.

  “Those darn cell phones,” Poppa spat. “Who in the world can’t wait for you to get home?”

  “It’s Finn.” I tried to hide the smile from seeing his name scroll across my phone. “He just moved into the apartment above Lulu’s Boutique and Lulu already made him a big Kentucky Derby Pie.”

  “Are you smiling because of the thought of how delicious that pie is or because it’s a message from him?” Poppa questioned. “I’d understand if you were smiling about Lulu’s pie because it is to die for. But that boy…” Poppa hesitated. “I’ve seen those boys before. I’m not saying I don’t like him. I do, Kenni-bug, but as a partner, not a lover.”

  “Poppa!” My mouth flew open. My face felt hot from embarrassment.

  “I know it’s nothing you want to discuss with your Poppa, much less your dead one, but these cops from big cities come in and think they want to get involved in the small community, which they do with good intentions.” Poppa sucked in a deep breath. “But when there is little to no crime or excitement, they start to get restless and itch to go back home to the hustle and bustle of the fast pace crime-ridden world they are used to.”

  “Well, you don’t have to worry about that,” I lied, annoyed that Poppa planted that seed in my head. “You know me. Mama and Daddy’s good, well-mannered southern girl who will extend hospitality to anyone.”

  I also wanted to say that Mama was the one who had begun to plant romantic ideas about Finn in my head. As much as I had tried to push back on Mama’s idea of me and Finn, the idea pushed back on me.

  “As long as that’s all it is.” Poppa looked at me out of the corner of his eye, but I continued to squat down and look under Owen’s truck with the flashlight.

  The thought of Sandy and Inez made my gut twirl. They would know who Owen talked to or even who he complained about.

  “Let’s go on in.” I headed toward the trailer and walked up the two cement blocks he used as steps. I knocked on the door with the butt of the flashlight. “Sheriff. Open up.”

  Poppa and I waited to see if anyone came to the door. I leaned my ear in and listened for footsteps.

  I tapped again and said a little louder, “Last time. This is Sheriff Lowry and I’m coming in.”

  I glanced back at Poppa and he nodded. Him giving me the go-ahead felt so much better than me doing it on my own. I put my hand on the doorknob and tried to turn it. It was locked.

  I took my keys, where I had kept a bump key for times just like now.

  “This is a bump key—a basic key that can open most door locks. The academy teaches you that you should keep one on your belt in case you need to get into a door and quickly. And since Owen is a victim in our case, we can enter without a warrant.”

  “Things sure are different than since I had my police training.” Poppa scratched his head.

  Within seconds, I was standing inside the small trailer and found the light switch, illuminating the inside. There was an old leather couch that looked all dried up with cracks popping along the seams. There was a beat-up coffee table with an old Guns and Gear magazine with torn edges and a coffee cup halfway filled with coffee on top. To the far right was a card table set up with a two-burner hot plate on it, along with the coffee pot.

  I put my hand on the pot. It was cold to the touch. I knew Owen liked coffee as much as me, because when I did see him, he always had a cup in his hand. But not tonight. Next to the pot were a few empty bottles of medication prescribed by Doctor Camille Shively.

  I headed back toward the end of the small trailer. There was a single mattress lying on the floor and an old quilt knotted up on top of it.

  “He lived pretty simple. No wonder he worked delivering flowers. I couldn’t imagine he was making much.” I shrugged.

  “Both boys got what they wanted, from what I’d heard.” Poppa referred to Owen’s mama.

  “What did they want?” I asked.

  “That I don’t know, but I do know that Rae Lynn and Ruby Smith were close.” That was a good bit of information. Ruby Smith would be more than willing to do a little gossiping.

  I took out my phone and typed her name in my notes. I was in need of a new clock, and since I had gotten my last one at Ruby’s Antiques, it was only fittin’ to get my next one there.

  “Nothing looks out of place, which makes me think that the end of Owen’s life didn’t happen here.” I looked around the small trailer again. “I’ll put up some crime tape and secure the trailer and his truck in case there’s something here we can’t see in the dark.”

  “Sounds good,” Poppa said before he disappeared. It was a trick he was good at. One minute he was there and the next he wasn’t. I locked the door behind me and trotted down the cement blocks before the feeling of someone watching me knotted around me. I clicked my flashlight on and shined it all around, anticipating I was going to see glowing eyes from afar.

  When I saw nothing, I chalked it up to a very active imagination due to the fact I had a feeling there was a killer was among us. Within minutes I had taken the crime tape from my bag and stuck it all over the trailer door and around Owen’s truck. I made sure the tape was along the creases of the doors so if someone did try to get in the trailer or truck, they’d have to break the tape.

  Before I could go home and let Duke out, I knew I had to go see Stanley Godbey. He was Owen’s next of kin in Cottonwood that I knew of, since I didn’t know where Sandy was.

  Stanley and Inez’s house was a few acres over from Owen’s. They too had a gravel drive that went way back on the property. Most people who lived off of Catnip Road had gravel. It was just too expensive to get a blacktop driveway, and concrete wasn’t an option because it cracked so much easier and had to be replaced. So the luxury of a blacktop drive made sense only if you could afford it. By the looks of things, Stanley could afford it.

  His house was much different than Owen’s hook-up trailer. It was an actual two-story home wit
h a wraparound porch covered by a tin roof. The bottom half of the house was covered in stone, real stone, not the fake stuff, and there were three dormer windows on the top floor. Next to the house was a steel barn, the kind you could take down and move around if you had to. But by the looks of the tall grass around the base of the barn, Stanley hadn’t used his Weed Eater in a while.

  The front porch light flipped on, and it wasn’t on an automatic timer, because the front wooden door flung open too. It wasn’t just a wooden front door; it was a custom door with the most beautiful glass cross inlaid in the middle. I could see where Owen could be a little envious of Stanley if this was the house he’d inherited.

  “Sheriff.” Stanley stood about six feet tall. He was bald, by choice from what I’d heard down at Tiny Tina’s, because he was too cheap to pay for a haircut. But by the looks of their property, there was no way he couldn’t afford a fifteen-dollar trim. “It’s awfully late for you to be making a friendly call, so that means there’s somethin’ wrong.” His steel-blue eyes zeroed in on me. “Is this official? You don’t have on your uniform.”

  “I’m sorry to come by so late. I was at the festival when I got a call that Myrna Savage found a body in her greenhouse.”

  I walked up onto the porch. Over his shoulder I could see Inez turn a corner and walk down the hall that led to the door. Her brown hair was parted down the middle and pulled back in a low ponytail, exactly how she’d worn it every time I’d seen her at the bank. The usual skirt suit I’d seen her in was replaced by a pair of jeans and a conservative pullover white sweater. Small diamond stud earrings twinkled from her earlobes. Her bare feet showed her toenails were painted a pretty pearl.

  “Kenni?” she questioned when our eyes met. “Oh no. What’s wrong, Stan?”

  “I’m sorry to tell you that your brother, Owen, was found dead in Myrna’s greenhouse. At this time, we are investigating his death and I’m not going to lie. It looks suspicious.” This was the part of the job that never got easy. No matter how I delivered the news about a death—although it was usually of natural causes—it was the immediate reaction on the loved ones’ faces that made me pause.

  Immediately, and unexpectedly, Inez let out an audible groan, her hands flew to her open mouth, and she curled over at the waist. Stanley put a hand on her back to try to comfort her.

  “I’m not surprised if someone did kill him,” were Stanley Godbey’s first words after hearing of Owen’s death.

  “Excuse me?” I questioned, a little taken aback.

  “The way he lived.” Stanley shook his head. “He didn’t take care of himself. He was always asking for money for his medication.”

  “That’s still no reason for someone to kill him,” Inez bit back. “Oh, Kenni, how?”

  “We aren’t sure he was killed. I’m just saying it looks suspicious so we are doing an autopsy to rule anything out. Max has his body at the morgue, so I’m going to have to ask you to go down and identify him.” That was the second thing I hated to tell people about their loved one. “Do you know what medications he was on?”

  Inez cleared her throat. Both of them shook their heads.

  “God.” Stanley ran his hand over his shiny bald head. “I knew he was going to get in trouble.”

  Inez shushed him.

  “Do you know if anyone had a grudge against him?” I asked, hoping they’d offer up some information I didn’t have to dig for. “You know I’m just covering all my bases.”

  “Sandy.” Inez’s lashes drew down, making a shadow on her cheeks.

  “Enough.” Stanley put his hand out to shut Inez up.

  “She wanted that cookbook. She wanted him dead.” Inez nodded her head and then pinched her lips when she saw the look on Stanley’s face.

  “What cookbook?” I questioned, hoping for some more clues.

  “Nothing.” Stanley’s voice sharpened.

  “Stanley, if you know something, in case this is a homicide, I need to know.” I rocked back on the heels of my cowboy boots and planted my hands to my side. I was going to have to play hard ball with Stanley Godbey, who I’d heard wasn’t a person to mess with.

  “We don’t know nothin’,” he said with easy defiance. “Inez here is talking out of school. We don’t air out our dirty laundry to no one, especially the police. And he never exercised. I kept telling him that since he was single he needed to take better care of himself. It could have been a heart attack.”

  “Stan.” Inez put her hand on his forearm. He jerked it away. She pulled back, took a deep breath, and curled her shoulders backward. “Thank you for stopping by, Kenni. We’ll go in the morning to identify Owen’s remains. As you can see, this is a shock to us and we need to process what’s happened.”

  I wasn’t sure, but I think she just blessed my heart without saying it.

  “I’m going to let you have peace tonight, but I do expect you to come down to the office and answer some questions tomorrow.” My brows lifted and I boldly met Stan’s gaze.

  “You tell your mama and them we said hello.” The door shut in my face. Behind the cross, I could see the Godbeys nose to nose and I couldn’t help but wonder what all the secrets were about. When Inez brought up Sandy and the cookbook, things got icy.

  Chapter Five

  My phone chirped a text when I made it back to the Jeep. Finn wanted to know if I’d found anything out at the trailer, then asked if I wanted to stop by and have a piece of Derby pie before he ate it all.

  Poppa’s voice echoed into my head about how cops like Finn got restless in small towns, the itch they got to go back to where they’d come from.

  I chewed on Finn’s offer as the Wagoneer rambled down the gravel driveway and back into town. Lulu’s Boutique was on the north end of town and it just so happened I had to go through the north side to get to Free Row where I lived.

  A shiver of recollection of me and Finn sitting in the buggy of the Ferris wheel a few short hours ago breezed through my mind. If Poppa was right and if Finn did have an itch, I was going to try and scratch it while he was here.

  Before I could even protest my own thoughts and replace them with the reasonable cop side of my brain, the Wagoneer had pulled up to the curb right outside of the small clapboard house Lulu McClain had turned into a cute shop selling locally made knick-knacks, candles, crocks, rag rugs, fashionable scarves, chunky jewels, bath salts, and much more.

  She had a craft room, or what Lulu herself called a craft room—I liked to refer to it as the gossip suite. Lulu hosted all sorts of girlfriend events like canvas painting, wine tasting, ceramics, and Mary Kay parties, as well as Shabby Trends. This week our Euchre group was meeting here.

  Quickly I looked in the rearview and ran my hand down my honey-colored hair and pinched some color back into my tired cheeks. There was no hope for the bags that’d settled under my green eyes.

  “Back here,” I heard Finn call when I got out of the Jeep.

  He stood near the entrance to the craft room. He had on a white t-shirt and pair of jeans. He was barefooted, like Owen Godbey, and held a beer in his hand.

  “Did you find anything?” He held the beer out. “Come on in and get a beer. I had enough time to not only grab my little bag of clothes from the motel but also a six pack.”

  I followed him up the back steps to the apartment, trying not to focus on his broad shoulders and muscles that were clearly taunting me through that white tee. The edges of his dark hair were brushing the collar of the tee, a little too long for how I was sure Finn liked his hair. I stood in the threshold of the apartment, trying to talk myself out of going in.

  There was just something so personal about going into my partner’s home. I was being silly. I’d gone into Lonnie’s home several times before he retired. Granted, Lonnie was saggin’ and draggin’ old, not like the virile, strapping Finn.

  “Well?”

  F
inn’s voice jarred me out of my head. He was standing in front of the refrigerator on the far side of the open floor family room and kitchen combo with the fridge door wide open.

  “Didn’t your mama tell you not to stand there with the fridge door wide open?” I asked and stalked over, trying to get ahold of myself. And lying to myself by trying to believe I was being hospitable, when I knew that if Lonnie had called me late at night, I wouldn’t have gone to have a piece of his Derby pie. “You’re burning electricity.” I reached around Finn, ignoring his natural scent that made my heart quicken, and went to pull out a beer.

  “Seeing how Lulu pays the utilities, I’m not too concerned,” he teased. “Here, let me get that for you.” The touch of his fingers on mine when he gave me the beer caught me off guard and I stumbled backward and landed in the crook of his arm. “Whoa, are you okay?”

  I looked up into his big brown eyes and his voice seeped into my chest, warming up my insides.

  “Yes.” I cleared my throat. “I guess I’m just tired.” I shook my head, my hair brushing past my shoulders.

  “Sit down and I’ll get you a piece of that pie.” He gestured to the couch. “Nice place, huh?” he called over his shoulder as he cut the pie.

  “It is.” I had been in here once before when I’d moved back to Cottonwood. “When I moved back, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to live on Free Row even though it was my Poppa’s house, so I asked Lulu to see the apartment.” I rolled my eyes before I took the plate he held out. “My mama showed up while Lulu was walking me through. Mama insisted that their friendship would end if Lulu rented to me.”

  “Why?” Finn’s lips thinned.

  “Because Mama knew I didn’t want to live on Free Row and that if Lulu didn’t rent to me, I’d probably move back home and she’d talk me out of running for sheriff.” I shook my head and put a big bite of pie on the fork and stuck it in my mouth. I closed my eyes and let the sugary treat dissolve. “Mmmm.”

  “I can leave you alone with the pie if you’d like.” He grinned.