Chapter 4
CHAPTER 4
Kenneally woke to the smell of sausage frying. He thought he was dreaming of being on the farm as a child in South Carolina waking, to one of his grandmother’s big breakfasts on a Saturday morning. He loved spending time with his grandparents, and he didn’t mind mucking out stalls in the barn and feeding the hogs as long as he got to eat biscuits and gravy, sausage, bacon, and eggs in return.
He got up, showered and dressed and hurried downstairs to find Ami sitting at the table drinking coffee and talking with a man in uniform, who he guessed had to be the sheriff.
“Good morning. I hope we didn’t wake you,” she said.
“No. The smell of breakfast woke me,” he said.
“Biscuits should be out of the oven in a few. Can I get you a cup of coffee?” she asked, getting up from the table.
“No need to get up. I can get it,” he said.
“I need to scramble the eggs anyway,” she said. “And you wanted to talk to the sheriff. Tom McManus, this is Mr. Kenneally.”
“Joseph Kenneally, but everyone calls me Kenneally,” he said extending his hand.
“Nice to meet you,” Tom said, returning the handshake. “Tom. So, what is it you’d like to know about the murders?”
“Everything so I can be prepared to protect the mayor. Especially if she is in danger as the medical examiner believes because of that note that was found with the council woman’s body and the…um…penis.”
“I wish Harold hadn’t shared that with her,” Tom said. “I think that has caused her to get all worried for nothing. We don’t even know the note was meant for her.”
“For nothing?” Ami said returning from the kitchen with his coffee. “I doubt that.”
“I agree with her on that. We have to look at the facts. There are two dead bodies already. And with the missing body part from the first showing up at the second we have to say they are connected,” Kenneally said. “Therefore, we have to take it very serious.”
Ami came to the doorway of the kitchen. “If the note wasn’t meant for me, then who? Everyone knows that Tilda and I are friends.”
“She has other friends, doesn’t she?” Tom said.
“Not that she is so close with that she sees on a regular basis,” Ami said reappearing with a platter of biscuits, eggs, and sausage. “Not that I’m aware of since I came to town and started working in the mayor’s office.”
“That may be true, but she had friends in high school and she had friends before you,” Tom argued. “It could be anyone. Like I said. She was friends with Judson and others, we can’t rule out any possibilities. But I’m not ruling out you either. We do want to keep you safe. I just don’t want you frightened at every turn.”
“I won’t be, not with Kenneally here with me,” she said.
She was smiling as she said that, but for some reason, Kenneally didn’t think it was genuine. He saw worry in her pretty hazel eyes.
Offering him the platter of food first, he took what he wanted and passed it to Tom. There were three types of jellies on the table as well as butter and he helped himself to that was well. The biscuits were from scratch, not out of a can or frozen and they were light and fluffy and melted in his mouth and he helped himself to another.
Halfway through their meal, Tom got a call on his two-way radio and had to leave. “I’m sorry. I know we haven’t finished discussing the murders, but maybe we can get together again soon,” he said.
“Sure,” Kenneally agreed.
“In the meantime, I will have my deputies patrolling the area when not on other calls if that makes you feel safer, Ami,” Tom said.
“No, that isn’t necessary,” she said. “I don’t want to take away from your limited resources this time of year. You have the festivals and the extra tourists coming into Dixie to deal with right now. This early morning call of a three-car fender bender out on Route 12 is a perfect example.”
Tom drained the last of the coffee from his cup and stood. “Thanks for the breakfast and the gumbo for lunch.”
“Oh yes,” Ami got up and hurried into the kitchen. She returned with a plastic container. “Four minutes on reheat should have it perfect like it was off the stove.”
“You always make the best gumbo at the potluck dinners,” Tom said. “I’ll see you at Judson’s memorial if not before.”
“I’m sure,” Ami said and walked him to the door. When she returned, she went back into the kitchen and came back with the coffee pot and refilled their cups. “I don’t know about you but all this talk leaves me so unsettled in the pit of my stomach.”
Kenneally nodded as he ate another biscuit smothered with butter and jelly.
She laughed.
“Sorry, but I haven’t eaten a breakfast this good since my grandmother passed away.”
“Really?” she said, her cheeks flushing. “That is a compliment. Thank you.” She took her dishes into the kitchen and returned to clear away Tom’s, but closed the lids on the jelly jars since Kenneally was wiping his mouth and getting to his feet.
“Here, let me take Tom’s with mine back to the kitchen,” he said.
“Sure. I’ll get the rest,” she said, gathering up what she could braced between one arm and her side while she carried the coffee pot. In record time, she had everything put away and the dishes loaded in the dish washer with last nights and she ran it. Checking the time, she ran back to her room and grabbed her satchel and purse.
“Are you ready to go?” she asked Kenneally. “My driver should be here any moment.”
“You have a driver?” he asked.
“I inherited him from Judson. I agreed to try the service out for three months to see if I liked it,” she explained. “So far it has come in handy when I need to carry on business to and from work.”
“Therefore, I don’t need to worry about having a vehicle to drive around town,” Kenneally said.
“Not unless you want one,” she said and opened the front door as the black SUV pulled into her drive. She motioned for him to go in front of her so she could lock up and then she followed him to the vehicle.
He opened the back door for her to get in and then got in beside her. “Simpson, this is Kenneally, he’s visiting for a while and will be joining me on business. Kenneally, Simpson my driver.”
“Nice to meet you,” Simpson said.
“Likewise,” Kenneally said.
“Where to?” Simpson asked.
“The office. I don’t have any errands this morning.” Ami closed the partition and glanced out the window. “I wonder where Gertrude is this morning. I hope she isn’t ill. She’s always out walking Clementine in the mornings.”
“Is that her poodle’s name?” Kenneally asked.
“Yes.”
“Maybe she was early this morning, and we missed her,” he said.
“You didn’t say anything to her last night to scare her off, did you?” Ami asked.
“No. I told you I asked her to watch the place for us,” he said. “Maybe that is what she is doing, watching without being seen, whereas before she was being seen by all while walking her dog.”
Ami shook her head. “I don’t like this. Two murders of this nature in Dixie so close to Christmas. And a threat that someone could be next. I’m not sure how I’m supposed to handle this.”
“You will be fine,” he assured. “Everyone will be fine until they aren’t.”
“Easy for you to say. You don’t have a death wish hanging over your head,” she sighed, rubbing her temples. “I didn’t sign on for this.”
“What did you think being mayor would be like?” he asked.
Dropping her hands, she looked back at him. “I really don’t know. But Judson made it look so easy. I was his communications director, and he would breeze into the office every day like it was a bed of roses. And yet he couldn’t wait to retire and go fishing. That should have given me a clue that something wasn’t right that he wanted to retire so badly.”
He patted her on the back. “Take a few deep breaths and relax. Remember what the sheriff said Tilda had more friends than you in high school. That note could have been for anyone.”
“But think about it, Kenneally? Judson was the former mayor. Tilda was a council woman. I am the mayor, and I was the communications director when Judson was the mayor. We make a nice little triangle there, don’t you see?”
He nodded and tried to understand why his insides suddenly turned molten when she said his name and not Mr. Kenneally, it had a magical ring to it.
“I see what you’re saying,” he said as the driver pulled into a parking garage and drove the roundabout to the next level up, stopping outside of the elevator for them.
He couldn’t open the door fast enough to fill his lungs with fresh air, but then Ami Novak was in his personal space as she got out of the car. She stood nose to nose with him for a second when she lost her footing, and he had to steady her on her feet.
“Are you alright?” he asked.
“I am now, thank you,” she said. “Follow me.”
Leading the way, she stepped on the elevator and pushed the button to her floor. They rode in silence, but as soon as the doors opened, she heard heated voices. She recognized Herbert Weinstock and Patricia Hathaway from the city council and she silently groaned. With Judson and now Tilda’s death, the last thing she needed right now was a confrontation with those two. They’d been nothing but pains in her backside since she’d been elected mayor.
“If you will just have seat and calm down,” Selena said. “The mayor will be here soon, and you can all talk to her then.”
“I don’t understand why she isn’t already here,” Herbert groused. “This is a city crisis.”
“She had a meeting with the sheriff this morning or she would have been,” Selena explained. “It has been a busy thirty hours since we learned of Ms. Jaynes passing. The mayor has dealt with little else to make sure the city is safe. She doesn’t need the three of you coming in here all riled up for no reason.”
“No reason?” Patricia Hathaway questioned. “I think two deaths in less than a month is plenty reason.”
“I think Ms. Sanchez is right,” Roger Ford, the city financial officer said. “We need to wait on the mayor.”
“This doesn’t sound good,” Kenneally observed, placing his finger on the open-door button of the elevator watching the scene.
“You think? All I need is for the communications director to show up and the entire council will be here minus Tilda, of course,” Ami said. She took a deep breath and finally stepped off the elevator striding across the hall to where the group stood. “What seems to be the problem?”
Herbert, wearing his customary brown and green houndstooth tweed jacket glanced at his watch and tapped its face.
“We want to call an emergency meeting of the city council for this afternoon. We need to address Tilda’s death and elect her replacement immediately,” he huffed.
Ami held up her hand before anyone else could jump in and their unnecessary two cents. “The council has no authority in the matter of Tilda’s murder. The sheriff is handling the situation. Now if you want to hold a special election or appoint someone to take her place, we can go into my office and discuss that, but otherwise there is nothing more that we can do as a city council at this time.”
“Tilda was in charge of the Dixie Christmas Cookie Crawl this year,” Patricia said. “Someone needs to be chosen to take her place and take over her duties immediately.”
“I see,” Ami said. “Yes. The cookie crawl had slipped my mind, but who could we get to take over so quickly?”
Patricia glared at Herbert. They were older members on the council and had been around before Judson took office. The only reason they were still serving was because Dixie did not enforce term limits on council members and no one else in town wanted the position.
Ami waited a moment to see if either of them had anything else to say on the matter. When neither spoke, she repeated the question. “Do you want to hold a special election or appoint someone to take Tilda’s place on the council?”
“I’d like to see Poppy Hebert take Tilda’s place,” Patricia finally said.
“Have you spoken with her about this?” Ami asked. “I will not put her name on the ballot unless she has agreed to it. And I will not force her to take on to the cookie crawl at this late date without hearing her agree to it.”
“No, I haven’t,” Patricia admitted. “But all the work is done. Tilda has it completely organized. All participants are lined up. The boxes are ordered for sharing cookies. All Poppy would have to agree to do is man the table on December eighteenth and collect the money from those paying a fee to go on the crawl.”
“Isn’t Poppy one of the houses on the crawl? Won’t that cause a problem?” Ami asked.
“Not really,” Roger said, joining the conversation. “If Poppy agrees, she will be able to finish her duties at the booth before the crawl even reaches her house when she’d need to be there to welcome guests.”
Ami considered this. “I think asking her first is where this should start. If she isn’t interested, then we shouldn’t go any further.”
Murmuring ensued among the three, but no answer came forth.
“Shouldn’t this have been decided before you came storming in here this morning?” Ami said. “You wanted action after all.”
“Now, hold on, mayor,” Herbert objected.
“No, you hold on,” Ami countered. “I’m tired of you trying to run things from the sideline just because I’m a female, younger than Judson, and ran unopposed. I get the feeling you don’t believe I can do my job because I left Dixie for several years in my teens, but I can assure you I can. You’ve been doing it ever since I was elected. You never said a peep the whole time that Judson was mayor. You cowered down to him, but just as soon as I stepped into this office it became a different story. Same goes for you, Patricia. This is going to end now. No more ganging up on me. I’m mayor and as long as I am in this office you are going to respect my authority or you can step down from your position on the council.”
She turned to head to her office, but stopped and looked back at them. “If you want to ask Poppy Hebert to join city council do that and we will talk after she says yes. If she says no, then we will table this discussion until after the New Year. There is no real rush to fill Tilda’s seat. Someone else can step in to run the crawl.”
“What about the parade on Saturday?” Herbert demanded.
“What about it?” Ami asked.
“Is it still happening?” he inquired.
“Of course, it’s still happening. And Papa Noёl will arrive as planned and we’ll hold the tree lighting in town square at dusk,” Ami confirmed. “Dixie is not shutting down because we’ve had two deaths of prominent members. I am not heartless, folks, but I am in consultation with the sheriff and he will let me know when and if we need to take precautions. As of now, there is nothing to worry about.”
“I think that is all we can do,” Roger said, opening up his padded folio. “I do have those budget figures you wanted to see. Should I leave them with Ms. Sanchez?”
“No. Come on in and let’s go over them if you have a moment,” Ami said. “Would you like some coffee?”
“That would be nice,” Roger said.
“Selena, two coffees.”
“Yes, mayor,” Selena said.
“Good to see you, Herbert, Patricia,” Ami said and led Roger to her office, closing the door behind them.
The older couple walked toward the elevator. Kenneally scratched the back of his neck and spied a vacant armchair in the corner that would give him a perfect view of her office as well as the elevator. He settled there and picked up a magazine from the side table and began flipping through it.
“Can I help you sir?” Ms. Sanchez asked him after fixing the two cups of coffee and noticing him for the first time.
“I’m with the mayor, but she obviously got distracted and forgot we came together,” he said. “I’ll just wait for her to finish up.”
“Certainly,” Ms. Sanchez said and disappeared down the hall to the mayor’s office. She returned a few moments later. “Can I get you a coffee while you wait? She said she won’t be long and then you can go in.”
“Sure. Black is fine.”
She returned a few moments later. “Can I get you anything else?”
“I’m good for now, but can you tell me what the holiday schedule is for the mayor? The council did seem up in the air with Ms. Jaynes passing and getting her a replacement.”
“One moment.” She went to her desk and returned with a four by six card. “Here you go.”
It was a festively decorated card stock with Bayou Dixie Holiday Festivities across the top with all the events listed by date on the card.
“Anyone can pick one of these up in shops and restaurants around town,” Ms. Sanchez said. “The only thing not on the card is the welcome speech the mayor will be giving at the Dixie High twenty-fifth class reunion. She was just asked to give it yesterday by Principal Holloway. And that is on the seventeenth.”
“Wonder why he waited so close to the reunion to ask her,” Kenneally said.
“Not sure, unless Tilda was supposed to give it and he was scrambling at the last minute to find a replacement, but if he was, he didn’t mention it,” she said. “Of course, he wouldn’t want the mayor to know she was second choice, would he?”
Kenneally slowly shook his head. “No, I suppose he wouldn’t. Thank you for this.”
“My pleasure.”
He studied the card again. The festival of lights started at Thanksgiving and would run through New Year’s. Then on Saturday, December tenth was the Christmas Parade and tree lighting ceremony. The tenth also kicked off the Christmas market where vendors and crafters could sell holiday items up until the twentieth of the month. Then on the eighteenth was the cookie crawl the town fundraiser for the Susan Holloway college scholarship.
He got up and walked over to Ms. Sanchez’s desk. “Sorry, to bother you, but can you tell me about the scholarship the town raises money for from the cookie crawl every year. Is it a coincidence that you said the high school principals last name is Holloway and this scholarship is also for a Susan Holloway?”
“I don’t know,” Ms. Sanchez said. “I haven’t lived in Dixie that long. I only know that Susan was a classmate of Tilda Jaynes who died graduation night. Tilda started the scholarship fund after doing a cookie crawl at Christmas for two years in a row. She eventually got the city council involved which got more participation from the town people if I remember what Tilda told me correctly. Tilda worked hard every year to earn more money for that scholarship hoping to bring it up to a full four-year scholarship.”
“And you said Tilda was doing all of this just for a classmate? That is all that Susan was to her, not a friend?” Kenneally asked.
“Not from the way that Tilda talked,” she said. “Her friends in high school were Judson, Becky and Connor Simmons, and Pastor David Weeks. Not that they stayed close afterward. She only saw Judson on a regular basis because of city council.”
“For someone who hasn’t lived long in Dixie, you do seem to know a lot,” he said.
“Only because Tilda would talk to me on occasion,” she said with a pained expression. “About certain things. Not so much about others. It doesn’t seem right that she is gone.”
“No. I’m sure it doesn’t,” he said. “Thank you, Ms. Sanchez.”
“Call me, Selena. The mayor does,” she said.
“Okay, Selena. I’m Kenneally and you’ll be seeing me around until we figure out what is going on in Dixie with Judson and Tilda passing so close together.”
Her eyes flashed when he said that. “Does the mayor think something is amiss?” she asked.
He hesitated a moment, thinking that he could trust her with at least part of the truth, unlike that nosy neighbor, Gertrude. “Yes, but we do not want anyone to know.”
“Of course. Not a soul,” Selena said. Her phone rang and she held up a finger to him before she answered. “Hello, Dr. Begley. The mayor is with someone at the moment. Is it urgent? …I see. Hold a moment and I will get her on the line.” She looked at Kenneally. “That is the medical examiner on the line.” She dialed an extension. “Mayor, sorry to interrupt your meeting with Mr. Ford, but Dr. Begley is on the line and he said it is of a most urgent matter, shall I put him through?”
When she hung up the phone, the mayor’s office door opened and Mr. Ford came out.
“Do I need to reschedule you for later today?” Selena asked him.
“No. We were finished and I was about to leave anyway. I hope there hasn’t been another death,” Mr. Ford said.
Selena went ashen. “I hadn’t even thought about that. Oh, Roger. Surely not.”
While they chatted, Kenneally walked down the hall to Ami’s door and slipped inside. She looked impressive sitting behind her desk, very much the woman in charge but her expression was solemn as she waved him into a seat. Clearly more trouble was brewing in Dixie.
“Thank you, Harold for letting me know,” Ami said. “While I appreciate you working fast on releasing Tilda’s body for burial. I don’t think you had to call me saying it was most urgent that you speak with me to tell me I could proceed with arrangements.”
“I thought you wanted to know right away,” he said. “But you don’t understand, her attorney contacted me this morning and said the arrangements had all been made so you don’t have to do that.”
“Her attorney?” Ami said.
“Yes. He is the executor of her will. Tilda had everything pre-arranged,” Harold said. “He’s been working since hearing of her death on putting her things in order and just got around to contacting me.”
“Well, that’s a relief I suppose to know she had thought ahead to if something should happen,” Ami said, frowning. “Again, she never said a word to me about any of this, but why would she? It would have been an awkward conversation to have I suppose. Now, Ami, if I should die, I don’t want you to worry about my effects, I’ve taken care of all of that…”
Harold chuckled on the other end of the line. “I see what you mean and it would be difficult for any of us that are single to have with a friend if we didn’t have family to look after things for us.”
“Yes. Thanks for letting me know.” She hung up and looked at Kenneally. “This is not exactly how I pictured my morning starting.”
He held up the festivities card. “What do you know about the fundraiser that the council does for the college scholarship?”
“It’s held every year; the community has been supporting it long since before I came back to Dixie.” She shrugged her shoulders, leaning back in her office chair. “Why do you ask?”
“I find it curious that the scholarship is named after Susan Holloway a girl who Selena says wasn’t a friend of Tilda’s, but that she has worked hard to raise money to make the scholarship in Susan’s honor big enough to become a four-year ride in the last twenty-five years.”
“That was Tilda. She had a heart of gold,” Ami said. “She was taking care of my mother when I returned to Dixie until I could get here. Did she have to do that? No. But she saw a need and she stepped in to provide it.”
“Is that really who Tilda was?” he asked.
“What are you saying?” Ami asked, leaning forward, as if to rise from it. “You didn’t know her. Why would you question her motives?”
“Isn’t it my job to question? To try to figure out why someone murdered her and Judson in order to keep you safe?” Kenneally said.
She studied him for moment before sitting back. “I suppose you are right. We can’t take anything at face value right now. I’m sorry for getting upset over your question.”
“I wasn’t trying to belittle your friend. I’m only trying to understand the killer’s motive,” Kenneally said. “And this may have nothing to do with it at all.”
Ami nodded.
“Are you part of the cookie crawl?” he asked.
“Yes, I do participate.”
“That means hundreds of people will be coming into your home on the eighteenth of December. Is that how it works?”
“Normally. But if it is a pretty day we could set up tables outside on my lawn with the cookies, coffee, and cocoa to keep the traffic outside the house,” Ami said.
“I think that might be a good idea,” he agreed.
“Other participants sometimes do that when they have small homes like mine,” Ami said. “It won’t look unusual for me to do it.”
“Now, the reason for me being here. We should come up with a story for the town. Am I going to be a friend down for a real Cajun Christmas?”
She tilted her head to the side. “Will that be believable? I mean, if you are always with me. Would I bring a friend who is visiting to work with me every day?”
“You can always say I am curious about the ins and outs of being a mayor. That I’m thinking about running for office in my own hometown,” Kenneally said. “Surely that would explain it easy enough.”
“And if not?” She asked.
“Improvise. Tell them you don’t like the thought of leaving me home alone everyday with Gertrude next door snooping around. If she’s the busy-body you say she is, then the whole town probably knows about it,” he said.
Ami laughed, then frowned. “Gertrude. I’d almost forgot I wanted to give her a call to make sure she was okay since we didn’t see her this morning walking Clementine.”
She reached for her phone and called her neighbor, but the call went straight to voicemail. She looked at him worried. “No answer.”
“Maybe she’s running errands today?” he suggested.
“I have a horrible feeling in pit of my stomach,” Ami said. “What if something has happened to her?”
Kenneally got to his feet. “Is your driver nearby?”
“Yes.” She gave him a call and told him she was on her way down before they headed out. “Selena, do I have any appointments in the next couple of hours?”
“None. What is up?” her assistant asked.
“I have to run a few errands and I’ll let you know if I will be back in or not,” Ami said.
“You don’t look well, mayor,” Selena said. “Has something happened?”
“I hope not,” Ami said.