Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Summer
D ixie was sitting at her desk when I walked through the office door. She looked me over and lifted a brow. “Where are the cookies?”
“Cool your jets,” Luke said, walking in a few seconds behind me, carrying a cardboard box. “I’ve got them.”
Dixie leaned back, looking at me with a teasing grin. “So you did remember.”
“It was impossible to forget,” I said with a hand on my hip. “You sent me five texts last night and two this morning.”
Dixie got out of her seat and walked around her desk. “We both know that if we’re going to show up at these ladies’ homes, we’re gonna need to bring a gift.”
Luke set the box on my desk and flashed a toothy grin. “We have twenty plates, so that should get you through the day.”
“You got the fancy plastic disposable plates, right?” Dixie asked nervously, peeking in the box.
“Yes,” Luke said. Then a teasing glint filled his eyes. “I had a bunch left over from when ladies have brought baked goods to the police station. And when I say a bunch , I mean a metric shit ton. Like we could have a barbecue for the whole town and have enough plates.”
“Okay. Okay,” I grumbled. “No need to brag about how many women in this town want you.”
“Not just the town,” Dixie added, winking at Luke. “There are plenty of women in the surrounding county.”
Luke shrugged, grinning roguishly. “I can’t help it if they believe the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.” He laughed and lifted his brow as he pinned his gaze on me. “Too bad you didn’t get the memo.”
I snorted and rolled my eyes. “If you want a woman who’s gonna cook all your meals, you best cut me loose and cast your fishing rod back out into the Sweet Briar dating pool.”
He burst out laughing and snaked his arm around my back, pulling me to his chest. “Message received loud and clear, but I prefer the fish I’ve already caught, thank you very much.” He shot a glance over to Bill, who was emerging from the back room with a clipboard in his hand. “There’s more to a woman than her skills in the kitchen.”
Bill glanced between us and shook his head. “I’m not touching this conversation with a ten-foot pole. God only knows what Summer will do to me if I say the wrong thing. I’ll get stuck filming B-roll in a pigpen again.”
Luke burst out laughing, but I fluttered my lashes at Bill, all innocence. “You know we needed that shot.”
He grumbled under his breath about never again insinuating he could drive better than me, then turned to make some notes on the whiteboard.
“I’m still not sure why you think we need cookies,” I said to Dixie. “Sweet Briar residents seem more like banana bread kind of people.”
“And banana bread is exactly what they’d expect,” Dixie said, pointing a finger at me. “We’ll show up with something different.”
If cookies jogged people’s memories, I was more than happy to oblige. Especially since Luke took charge of the baking and I only had to help. “Do you have a list of people we can try to track down?”
“I do,” she said, making a face. “And our first appointment is in five minutes in the coffee shop. I know for a fact that three women who would have gone to school with Lila will be meeting there for their weekly gabfest. We’ll just walk over and say hello, then take it from there.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Do we want to talk to them so publicly?”
“It’s just going to be a friendly conversation,” Dixie said innocently. “And besides, I think we should just casually mention that the Brewer property might be goin’ up for sale and see what happens then.”
I studied her for a moment. “It just might work.”
A smile spread across her face. “Between me knowin’ just about everyone in this town and you knowing what to ask, we make a great team.”
I gave her a warm smile. “I couldn’t do this without you.”
“But that also means we don’t need to bring a plate of baked goods with us for this round,” Dixie said. “Since this will be an accidental encounter.”
Bill wandered over to peer inside the box. “Well, if you’re not takin’ any with you and there are plenty in there, maybe I should try some.”
Dixie slapped his hand. “Oh no, you don’t! You can have the leftovers when we’re finished for the day.”
“Agreed,” I said, “because I don’t plan on spending tonight in Luke’s kitchen again.” I had better things to do when I was at Luke’s house, although we’d had plenty of fun.
“Well,” Luke said, “it looks like my work here is done, so I’m gonna head over to the station.” He gave me a quick kiss. “Let me know if you can get away for lunch.”
“Will do,” I called after him as he headed out the door.
“We can head to the coffee shop,” Dixie said. “The ladies should have settled in by now.”
I took a deep breath. I’d only been doing this job since last April, and while I’d taken a bunch of online PI courses since we’d filmed the first season back then, I was still pretty new to this. I didn’t want to screw it up.
“Hey, bring me back an Americano,” Bill called after us as I followed my cousin out the door. Dixie lifted a hand in acknowledgment just as I was closing the door behind us.
We walked past a few storefronts, and then I turned on the recording app on my phone before we walked inside the coffee shop.
Three women who looked to be in their sixties were sitting at a table by the front window, and I realized I’d seen them before when I stopped in to get coffee, but I’d never paid much attention to them. Obviously, Dixie had.
Dixie led me over to the counter and we placed our drink orders, including Bill’s. We headed down to the end of the coffee bar to wait for our orders, close to the table of women, and then Dixie glanced over at me and said, “Are you sure your client won’t purchase the old Brewer property without knowin’ its history?”
I restrained myself from kissing her. This was brilliant. People liked to dismiss her for her looks—herself included—but this was just one more example of how quick she actually was. “Yeah. They claim to be afraid of evil spirits, but no one seems to know anything about the history of Jim Bob and Celia Brewer’s farm.”
The conversation at the women’s table had stopped abruptly.
“Excuse me,” one of the women said, leaning toward us. “Did I hear you mention the Brewer farm?”
Dixie and I turned to face her in unison.
“I’m so sorry,” Dixie said, placing her hand on her chest. “Was I talkin’ too loud? I didn’t mean to interrupt your conversation.”
“No. Not at all,” the woman said. Then she lifted her brow and glanced back at her friends, who nodded. Turning back to face me, she said, “But if you’re lookin’ for information on the Brewer property, we might be able to help fill in some of the blanks.”
“Really?” I asked. “That would be so helpful.”
“Pull up some chairs,” one of the other women said. The ladies scooted over, making room for Dixie and me to drag over chairs from the empty table next to us. We grabbed our just-completed drinks and sat down between her and her friend to her left.
The woman whose attention we’d first caught said, “I know Dixie knows who we are, but I’m not sure you remember us, Summer. I’m Linda McCafferty.” She motioned to a woman with snow-white hair and a kind face on the other side of Dixie. “This is Gayle Pierce.” Then she gestured to the woman to her right. “And this is Nancy Faraday.”
Nancy smiled, but there was a spark of judgment in her eyes. “I used to teach you in Sunday school. Surely you know who I am.”
I gave her an apologetic look. “I don’t remember you. I’m sorry.”
She nodded, but she looked a little miffed. “Well, it was a ways back.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Linda grunted. “You worked in the nursery, Nancy. The girl was three years old. How is she supposed to remember you?”
Nancy’s face flushed.
“You said you knew something about the Brewer farm?” I prodded.
“I don’t know anything about the place, so don’t hold back,” Dixie said, eyes wide with excitement. “I want to hear all the juicy details.”
Which was brilliant too. While I knew they were about to spill the tea, they’d be sure to give every last morsel of gossip to entertain Dixie.
“First of all,” Linda said, leaning close to me and putting her hand on my arm, “your client needs to know that the place is unlucky as all get-out.”
I darted a glance to a wide-eyed Dixie, then back to Linda. “How so?”
“There was a murder there,” Nancy whisper-hissed.
“What?” I exclaimed. “Who was murdered?”
“A young woman,” Gayle said with a nod. “She was Jim Bob and Celia Brewer’s daughter. I think her name was Becky…”
“No,” Nancy said, shaking her head. “Bethany.”
“Wow,” I said, hoping I was feigning the right amount of shock. “What happened?”
“No one rightly knows,” Linda said. “The parents were suspects, of course, but the police insisted they were innocent. Only they never had any other suspects. Not even her older sister.”
“So no one thought her older sister did it?” Dixie asked. “They weren’t fighting or anything?”
“Fighting?” Gayle said, pressing a hand to her chest. “Bless me, no. Those girls were best friends.”
“Well,” Nancy said dramatically. “They were until Rachel Swan moved into Sweet Briar.”
I decided to focus on the sisters before I took the Rachel Swan bait. “So you all knew the sisters? What was the older sister’s name?”
“Lila,” Nancy said with a curled upper lip.
“You didn’t like her?” I asked.
“She was always a bit too uppity for my taste.”
I glanced around the table. Gayle was looking down at her coffee cup, and Linda appeared to be biting her tongue.
“So how did y’all know Lila and her sister?” Dixie asked.
“Why, we were in school together,” Gayle said. “When that poor girl was killed, Lila was a senior and Bethany was a freshman.”
“On account of Bethany having been held back in the third grade,” Nancy added with a head bob. “We were in the same class three years in a row, but she didn’t move on to fourth grade.”
“Oh…” I said, unsure how to respond to that.
“Bethany was a quiet girl,” Nancy said. “She didn’t have many friends.”
“But,” Linda said, “to be fair, neither did Lila.” She leaned closer to me. “Lila and I were in the same grade.”
“So neither of the Brewer girls had friends?” I asked.
Linda shook her head. “They were dirt poor, so I think they kept to themselves out of shame. Their clothes were used, often threadbare. One year my mother put together a basket to take to the family for Christmas. Their father, Jim Bob, didn’t take it well and sent her away—yelling and cursing that he didn’t need our charity.” She huffed out a breath, seeming to get momentarily lost in her memories. “I was little, maybe first grade, and I remember being terrified that he was going to hurt us. But Lila’s mother came out and grabbed his arm and dragged him back inside. Lila and Bethany were standing at the window, watching us. Bethany was crying. It was only a couple of days before Christmas, and I remember being horrified that they didn’t have a Christmas tree, let alone presents. I always felt sorry for the Brewer girls after that. I tried to stop anyone who made fun of them.”
“So they were bullied?” I asked.
Linda pressed her lips together as though trying to decide how to answer.
“We didn’t call it bullying back then,” Gayle said. “But I suppose it was. It was mostly the boys. Chuck Petty was particularly mean to Lila. Even through high school. She had the misfortune of having been in the same graduating class as him.”
“Why?” I asked. “Why couldn’t he let it go?”
“Because Lila was an easy target,” Gayle said. “She didn’t fight back.”
“That is until Rachel moved to Sweet Briar,” Linda said with a knowing look, “and then she and Lila became like peas in a pod, making Lila a lot less interesting of a target for teasing.”
“Why did that change things?” I asked.
“Rachel was a little wild,” Gayle whispered.
Nancy barked a laugh. “You don’t need to be quiet about it. Rachel’s in her sixties, for heaven’s sake.”
“And she did settle down… some ,” Linda said. “We hardly hear a peep out of her now.”
“Are you sayin’ Rachel’s still here?” Dixie asked.
“Sure is. She lives about ten miles north of town. Got herself a hobby farm.”
“What’s a hobby farm?” I asked.
“She has five acres,” Linda said. “Not enough land to have a real farm. She’s got some goats and chickens.”
“She’s lived out there all by herself for years,” Nancy said. “It’s her parents’ land. Turns out her grandparents and her great-grandparents owned a whole heap of it. The family sold it off parcel by parcel. Her father moved away when he went to college, and he came back when his father—Rachel’s grandaddy—had a heart attack. They moved from Birmingham and Rachel hated it here.”
“At least at first,” Gayle added.
“She lives out there all alone?” Dixie asked.
“Yep,” Nancy said. “She was married for about twenty years, but they never had any kids. Her husband died about a decade ago, so now she’s alone.”
“So after Rachel moved to town, she and Lila became best friends?” I asked. “Did Bethany feel excluded?”
“Well,” Nancy said, “it wasn’t like we were all that friendly, but we saw them at school. Bethany used to always have lunch with her sister, just the two of them in the corner of the lunchroom. But then Rachel moved here, right before Christmas of our junior year, and she started sitting with the two of them toward the end of the school year. But then after summer break, Bethany started sitting by herself in a different part of the lunchroom.”
I exchanged a quick glance with Dixie.
“Can you show us where Rachel’s farm is?” Dixie asked. “Is it close to the Brewer property?”
“As a matter of fact, it is,” Linda said. “Their properties used to touch until Rachel’s father started selling off the land.”
“And you don’t know why Bethany started sitting alone?” I asked.
All three women shook their heads. “No idea,” Gayle said.
Bolstered to know that Rachel likely knew a great deal and was still in town, I was eager to find her.
“Well, this has been very helpful,” I said, starting to get up from my seat, but Linda gripped my arm and pulled me back down.
“We haven’t gotten to the best part yet,” she said with a smug look in her eyes.
“Do tell!” Dixie said, leaning forward and propping her elbow on the table.
“Around that time, Chuck Petty ran away.”
“Wait,” I said. “The guy who tormented Lila?”
“That’s the one,” Nancy said.
“Well, that seems pretty coincidental.” Dixie eyed me with a questioning look. She and I must have been thinking the same thing—Chuck Petty’s name was nowhere on the police reports.
“So why wasn’t he considered a suspect?” I asked.
“Because he never paid that girl any attention,” Nancy said. “He may have tormented her sister Lila, but he never said a peep to Bethany.”
“Did either one of them have boyfriends?” I asked.
“Shoot, no,” Nancy said. “They didn’t catch any of the boys’ attention.”
“So you think there’s no way Bethany fell on his radar?” I asked.
“I don’t see how,” Linda said, “which is likely why he was never a suspect, but Bethany was killed over spring break. His parents told everyone that he went to visit his grandmother in Atlanta. Only he never came home.”
“Is that why people thought he ran away?” Dixie asked.
“Yeah. But he sent postcards to his folks,” Gayle said. “From Florida. Virginia. He even sent one from Mexico. He sent them for a few years and then they stopped.”
“Why did he run away?” Dixie asked.
“No one really knew,” Linda said. “He said he wanted to see the world, but why didn’t he wait until he graduated in another month? It was all very fishy.”
“And yet he was never a suspect in the murder?” I questioned again.
“People talked, of course,” Linda said. “That’s what people in small towns do. But the police and the sheriff must not have thought he’d done it. He was never arrested.”
“Would his parents or siblings still be around to talk to?” I asked.
Linda narrowed her eyes. “Why on earth would you want to talk to them when you’re investigating the Brewer property?”
Why indeed. I couldn’t imagine they would be too excited to talk to me.
I realized we weren’t going to get any more information out of the three friends and stood. “Well, this has been extremely informative,” I said in an appreciative tone. “It’s been very helpful.”
“Glad to help,” Gayle said with a smile.
“Does that mean your client won’t buy the land now?” Linda asked with a frown.
I stared at her, momentarily speechless. My head was spinning with so much information, I’d nearly forgotten our ruse. “I’m not sure. I guess we’ll find out.”
Dixie and I said our goodbyes, and quickly headed out the door.
“I guess we know where we need to go next,” Dixie said.
“The real question is if we need to bring a plate of cookies.”
Dixie laughed. “When in doubt, always bring cookies.”