Chapter 11
ELEVEN
“Hello, Miss Green,” Sheriff Strong said evenly as he entered Aunt DeeDee’s room, where we stood staring at the ring.
Katie and Summer shrank back as if we were wayward children, and I could understand why. His intensity, along with his evergreen scent, filled the room.
“May I ask what you found?” He stepped beside me, taking in the object in question, and I hated the way that his nearness made my face flush. “Something shiny?”
“Something that’s… that’s none of your business,” I stammered. I wanted to keep my cool with him this time. He was just a man after all, a man who was trying to prove my aunt guilty of who knew what. But still.
“My business is anything in this room,” he said just as quickly.
I gripped my palm around the ring and slid it into my pocket as I glared at him. Momma’s words from the past—Family matters most—and Aunt DeeDee’s plea from earlier—Don’t believe a word they say—rang at once in my mind.
He seemed content to wait for me to hand over the object as he folded his arms. “Did you know that the first-ever beauty pageant was staged by P.T. Barnum, the circus guy? He had all sorts of contests—the cutest babies, the finest flowers, the best chickens…”
“And the prettiest girls?” I asked. “How very progressive of him.”
“You’re the one competing,” the sheriff said. I glared at him, and he was the one to backtrack this time.
“Not that you’re not pretty… or that you shouldn’t compete,” he said, scanning my face.
I could almost swear he was embarrassed, and I had the urge to laugh.
He held out an open hand, waiting for me to deposit the ring. When I didn’t move, he tapped at his badge. “Miss Green, please.”
I didn’t budge, and neither Summer nor Katie Gilman said a word. If this were a Western, we’d be in a good, old-fashioned stand-off.
“I’d rather not accuse you of withholding evidence. But if I must…”
“If you must? Surely you get to decide your own fate, Sheriff Strong.”
“Not as an elected official, I don’t.” He reached out his hand again.
“Fine.” I let out a heavy grunt and dropped the ring in his palm, refusing to touch his skin.
He moved his hand up and down as if feeling the weight of it.
I could see the machine churning in his mind, coming to the same conclusion I’d reached.
This was a man’s ring, not one that belonged to Aunt DeeDee.
I knew her jewelry. I didn’t like most of it—too gawdy—but I knew it.
This looked exactly like the ring that Mr. Finch had been wearing earlier.
I hoped the sheriff hadn’t made the same connection.
“I thought you were taking my aunt to jail,” I said, attempting to distract him.
He reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out a small clear plastic bag, and dropped the ring inside before stepping back on his heel.
“I sent one of my men with her. I had a feeling I should stick around. Now I know why.” He glanced between me, Summer, and Katie.
“My men already searched the room, so what exactly are the three of you doing in here?”
“I wanted to check out the curtains,” I said with an innocent shrug. “See if I could make myself a nice dress.”
“Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn,” the sheriff said without missing a beat.
Shoot. I hated that he could keep up with my classic film references.
“We plead the fifth,” Summer said a moment too late as she straightened her back and looked the sheriff in the eye.
I wasn’t sure if pleading the fifth even applied in a situation like ours, but sure.
Crossing my arms, I took a long look at the sheriff, appraising him.
“You arrested my aunt on theft charges, but I didn’t see what was inside the black bag your man carried.
What exactly did he find? A shade of blush that will work for him? ”
I was pretty sure I already knew, since my first clue had been the empty spot in the case filled with crowns.
Still, I wanted to see how the sheriff would answer.
If he told me this was classified information, I would suspect him of trying to pin something on her, but if he was straight with me, then he might be someone with whom I could reason.
“We found the Miss 2001 crown among your aunt’s things,” Sheriff Strong answered. “That evidence, combined with the letter that Mr. Finch left behind, is concerning, to say the least.”
Okay, fine. His response was reasonable, which I hated.
“You know my aunt only arrived this afternoon—”
“Yesterday,” he corrected as he raised his eyebrows, highlighting how little I knew about my aunt’s comings and goings. This wasn’t a great start.
“Fine. Yesterday.” I tightened my jaw. “My point is that someone could’ve easily removed the crown from the case before she arrived—or, even after—and planted it in her room.”
“Except she’s one of only four people with a key to the case.” He began listing off the owners of said key, the same owners that Summer had mentioned: “Mr. and Mrs. Finch, Savilla, and your aunt.”
“Anyone can make a key out of… I don’t know… a paper clip.” Now I was just saying random words to combat the sheriff’s logic, logic that I didn’t appreciate.
“This is a beauty pageant, not MacGyver,” he said. “Regardless, do you know the significance of that particular crown, Miss Green?”
I didn’t answer, so he turned to Katie Gilman, who stiffened before raising her hand as if answering a question on my behalf. “It belonged to the missing contestant. From 2001.”
“Very good.”
Summer seemed surprised by this information, and I realized that the story of that former winner’s disappearance must not be a common conversation topic among current pageant participants.
Perhaps only those who’d grown up in this town or been a part of it for decades knew anything about the mystery.
“Mrs. Finch was runner-up,” Katie continued. “Miss 2001 disappeared and Glenda stepped in and took the crown.”
Those last three words conjured Mr. Finch’s note: I’m only getting what I deserve from the one who took her crown.
“So you’re saying that in 2001 the actual winner disappeared, and all these years later her crown went missing from the display case?” Summer asked.
“Mr. Finch’s note suggests that whoever stole that crown is enacting some kind of revenge on him for the disappearance of the original winner,” the sheriff said.
“I love that you’re relying on a letter Mrs. Finch could’ve written herself.” A snort of derision escaped from me. “If he did write it, he could be saying that whoever originally took the crown from Miss 2001 is out to get him. That would be his wife.”
Summer blinked and one of her eyelashes stuck to her cheek before coming off entirely.
She yanked at the extension and stood there with one eye suddenly appearing smaller than the other as she considered the situation.
“So, Sheriff, you believe DeeDee is involved because of that letter… and because the crown was in her room?”
“That seems circumstantial at best,” I added.
The sheriff’s expression was blank, which was maddening. “We are still gathering information at present, but from witness statements we do have probable cause to—”
“—to take my aunt into custody?” I met him eye to eye as much as his six inches on me would allow. We stared at one another for a beat too long, and my hands began to sweat again. I noticed the stubble running along his jawline, his matter-of-fact stoicism.
“For now, we’re holding Deanna Green for the theft of the crown, but we’ll be questioning all suspects as we search for Fred Finch.
” The sheriff took a deep breath as if weighing how best to proceed with three misbehaving women.
When he began speaking again, his words slowed, as if we were children.
I was not amused. “We had a tip from someone who said they saw a woman who looked like Deanna Green carrying a black bag and hurrying away from one of the ballrooms.”
“Was it Jemma Jenkins?” I asked. “Or Dr. Bellingham?”
He paused and studied me. “Would you like to list everyone here this week?”
I did not appreciate his tone or the fact that he knew more than me. I would need to remedy that.
“Every woman here could look like Aunt DeeDee from a distance,” I said. “What about Mrs. Finch?”
“The intel we received about DeeDee seems to check out. Your aunt has been in this world for decades; you have no idea what she’s seen or done.”
“She would never take something that didn’t belong to her.” I answered without hesitation.
“If your aunt knows something, I hope she’ll talk.”
She wouldn’t talk because she had nothing to say.
That’s what I wanted to scream at him. I wanted to shout, There is no crime.
There can’t be! And you know how I know?
Because that was the woman who forced me to go to church, who taught Sunday School to obnoxious fourth graders every week, who tried to keep me from listening to anything other than gospel music for most of my childhood.
More than that, she was the woman who returned to the register at a restaurant if she thought they hadn’t charged her for a fountain drink.
She was the woman who lived “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” and up until this moment, I hadn’t appreciated that moral compass like I should have.