Chapter 3 The Sheriff Arrives #2
"That is a bald-faced lie!" I gasped, my cheeks burning with sudden, furious heat.
"I told him he wouldn't be removing any furniture from this property without a certified court order!
Birdie was standing right next to me—ask her!
She told him he had cashmere armpits, but neither of us threatened his life! "
"I know you, Maggie," Frank said softly, holding up a weathered hand to stem the tide.
"Known you since we were sophomores at North Buncombe High.
I know you wouldn't swat a horsefly if you could shoo it out an open window.
But Julian Croft was a connected man with fancy lawyers in Fulton County, and right now, the only person with a key to this building, a documented public shouting match with the victim, and sole custody of the murder scene is you. "
"That's absurd," Luke rumbled, stepping half a pace forward, his broad frame casting a shadow over the sheriff. "Maggie was in the main house all morning. Birdie was with her. I was hauling cedar chests out to the barn until one o'clock."
"And between one and three?" Frank asked, his eyes fixing squarely on me. "Where were you, Maggie?"
"I was in the second-floor master suite," I answered steadily, meeting Frank’s gaze without blinking. "Cataloging linens, boxed quilts, and sterling brush sets. Alone. Birdie had driven into town to pick up packing tape and bubble wrap from the hardware store."
Frank sighed—a deep, weary exhalation that stirred the brim of his hat.
"Look, Maggie. The state bureau will be sending an investigator up from Asheville by nightfall. Until they process the room and the medical examiner gives us a time of death, I have to document every detail by the book. That means your statement, Birdie’s statement, and a full timeline. "
He turned toward the carriage house door, where Deputy Tyler had managed to staple crime scene tape to a fence post, a drainpipe, and accidentally to the sleeve of his own jacket.
"Tyler!" Frank barked. "Get that flashlight over here. Let's go take a look."
Frank pulled a pair of blue nitrile gloves from his pocket, snapped them over his thick knuckles, and walked through the carriage house door, Tyler scurrying after him like a nervous terrier.
Luke stayed beside me on the tailgate. His hand reached down, his fingers briefly closing over mine where they rested on my knee. The grip was warm, reassuring, and completely silent.
"He doesn't think you did it, Maggie," Luke said softly. "Frank just has to protect his own backside from the county commissioners."
"My business, Luke," I whispered, the crushing weight of reality finally settling into my chest. "If word gets out that a certified appraiser was bludgeoned with an artifact under my watch, Callahan & Company is finished. No estate executor in the state will hire us. We'll be toxic."
"Not if we find out who actually swung that brass scale," Luke countered, his jaw set with a stubborn, quiet resolve.
Before I could answer, Frank stepped back out of the carriage house. His face was paler than it had been five minutes ago, his lips pressed into a grim line as he peeled off his gloves.
"Whoever did it wasn't just mad, Maggie," Frank said, walking back over to the truck. "They were looking for something."
"What do you mean?" I asked, my heart skipping a beat.
"Croft’s trousers were unzipped. His pockets are pulled clean inside out.
His leather folio is shredded on the floor, and his smartphone is smashed to splinters against the cobblestones.
His wallet’s still there with four hundred dollars in cash, so it wasn't a vagrant looking for lunch money.
" Frank pinned me with a searching look.
"Was Croft carrying anything unusual when you saw him this morning? A valuable ring? Rare coins?"
My mind flashed instantly back to the parlor—to the 1820s Moravian cherrywood secretary desk, the freshly pried edges of the hidden pigeonhole compartment, and the hollow void where a heavy leather-bound book had once sat.
The 1845 ledger. The record Julian Croft had been so desperate to devalue and secretly pocket.
"A ledger," I said, the words slipping out with chilling certainty. "Eleanor Vance’s great-grandfather’s personal account ledger from Old Salem. It was hidden in the central desk compartment. It was there when we inventoried the room on Monday. It was gone this morning."
Frank wrote the words down, his pencil digging into the paper. "A book? Someone cracked a man's skull over an old notebook?"
"In this town, Frank," Luke observed dryly, "people have burned down barns over a surveyor’s boundary line from 1890. An old ledger with family secrets is practically dynamite."
Frank snapped his notebook shut and shoved it into his pocket. He looked at me with genuine regret in his weathered eyes.
"Maggie, I'm officially declaring Blackwood Manor a sealed crime scene. Callahan & Company’s liquidation contract is suspended until the State Bureau of Investigation clears the property. I'm putting padlocks on the gates, and I need you to surrender all eleven keys right now."
I swallowed the lump in my throat, reached into my utility apron, and unhooked the heavy brass ring. The iron keys clinked mournfully as I placed them into Frank's gloved palm.
"And one more thing," Frank added, his voice dropping to a low, authoritative register. "You don't leave Buncombe County. Don't go running off to visit your daughter in Denver, and don't go poking around the local historical society asking questions. You let the badge handle this."
"Of course, Frank," I lied smoothly. "I wouldn't dream of interfering."
Frank gave me a long, skeptical look that said he didn't believe me for half a second. He nodded to Luke, adjusted his hat, and headed back toward the yellow tape to direct the bewildered deputy.
I sat on the tailgate of Luke's truck, wrapped in his canvas coat, watching the flashing blue lights paint eerie shadows across the ancient stone walls of Blackwood Manor.
Frank thought I was going to go home, sip chamomile tea, and wait for a state investigator to comb through my business records and decide whether I belonged in an orange jumpsuit.
He had clearly forgotten who he was dealing with.
Someone had walked into my estate, murdered a man with my inventory, and stolen an artifact that was under my legal protection. They thought they could frame a fifty-two-year-old widow and bury two centuries of mountain secrets under yellow plastic tape.
I pulled Luke’s coat tighter around my shoulders and set the empty coffee cup down with a firm, decisive click.
They had severely underestimated Maggie Callahan.