Before I could reassure my sister that no one was accusing her of killing Mayor Bob, the front door opened and a man walked into Sip & Spin. He was average height, a few pounds overweight, and white. He had light-colored short hair and a bulbous nose. He wore slacks with a polo and had a messenger bag slung around his body. For a second, I was paranoid that one of the salespeople from Best Used Cars had followed me to work to give me the hard sale. Again.
“Howdy,” I greeted him. “Welcome to Sip & Spin Records. We’ve got the best selection of new and used records in all of Cedar River, and we specialize in local Austin bands. We also make a killer cup of coffee.” I paused. Considering what had happened to Mayor Bob, I might want to tweak my pitch. “Today’s special is All My Ex-pressos Live in Texas, made from a rich local bean with just a hint of pecan flavor.”
“Actually, I’m looking for Tansy Jessup,” he said.
Tansy stepped forward. “Hi. I’m Tansy. Can I help you with something?”
He looked at me, and then back at my sister. I’ve been told that all three of us Jessup sisters bear more than a passing resemblance to one another. Personally I didn’t see it, but folks that didn’t know us well claimed we looked enough alike to be clones. But by the way he was looking at us with confusion on his face, I guess there was something to that. “A friend of mine is hardcore into vinyl, and he told me if I was ever in the neighborhood, I should look you up.”
“I love to hear that. Anything particular you’re looking for?” Tansy asked.
The man looked stumped at the question. “He gave me a list of artists to start with, but now that I’m here, I can’t think of a single one of them.”
“That’s okay,” Tansy said with a smile. “I’m sure I can recommend albums you’ll love, and you can check them out over there.” She pointed at the listening stations.
“No, no, that’s fine. I don’t want to waste your time. I’m meeting up with my friend later, and then we can come back. How long are you open?”
“We’ll be here until seven,” she said.
“Great. Thanks.” He hurried out.
“Did that guy strike you as odd?” she asked me.
“Very,” I agreed.
Instead of gathering up her things and leaving me alone to work the afternoon shift, Tansy poured a beverage for herself. “You want an All My Ex-pressos Live in Texas?”
“I’d love one. But aren’t you off work?” I asked as she started preparing my drink.
“Got nothing better to do.” She sat the coffees down on one of our café tables and took a seat. “You might as well take a load off.”
After another hour of no customers, it became clear that Sip & Spin was done for the day. Tansy fed the cat as I cleaned the barista station. Then we closed up early and headed home.
As we pulled into the driveway, I noticed that the front door was open. “Tansy, look at that,” I said, pointing it out. I glanced over at Mom’s cottage. The lights were off, the shades were drawn, and her car wasn’t parked out front. “Do you think one of us forgot to close the door?”
“I doubt it. And if we had unexpected visitors, they wouldn’t leave the door open for the air-conditioning to get out. Think we should check it out?”
I gave my sister a sidelong glance. “As the baby of the family, I shouldn’t be the one making the smart decisions, you know.” I pulled out my phone and called Beau.
“Junebug, you better not be calling to cancel on me,” he said in lieu of a greeting. I could picture him leaning back in his chair with his cowboy boots propped up on his desk. “I’ve been looking forward to our date all day.”
“Tansy and I just pulled up to the house, and the front door’s wide open.”
His flirty banter voice was replaced by his all-business one. “Where’re y’all at now?”
“In the car,” I said. “In the driveway.”
“Pull out and leave. I’ll be there in just a minute.”
I relayed his instructions to Tansy, who backed out of the driveway. She drove past three houses and parked against the curb on the other side of the street, where we still had a view of the front of the house. “We’re just supposed to wait? What if someone’s inside right now? Or worse yet, what if no one’s inside and we panicked for nothing?” She let the car idle.
She had a point. The other night when I came home and found Uncle Calvin on my couch, I just about jumped out of my skin. I’d been on edge lately, ever since I found Mayor Bob in his office. “Better safe than sorry, right?”
“I guess there are perks to dating a cop,” Tansy said. “Which, for the record, I still think is the Titanic of bad ideas.”
“Your objection has been noted, counselor,” I replied sarcastically.
A police car pulled up in front of our house and an officer I didn’t know got out of the driver’s side. As he walked around the perimeter of the property, Jayden Holt emerged from the passenger side. She headed straight up the walk and through the open door with her flashlight in her hand. A minute after they arrived, Beau’s truck parked behind them. He headed into the house and met Jayden at the door. After exchanging a few words, he turned around and headed for us.
I rolled down my window as he approached. He leaned over so he could address us both. “Afternoon, ladies. I’ve got good news. No one’s in the house, and it’s safe to enter.” When I reached for the door handle, he put a hand on mine. “Bad news is it looks like you did have uninvited company earlier, and they ransacked the place.”
“They what?” Tansy exclaimed.
“I’m gonna need y’all to walk me through the house and tell me if anything’s missing.”
Tansy maneuvered around the police cars to park in the driveway. A few seconds later, Beau joined us on foot. She’d driven only a few yards, but it said something about my sister’s state of mind that she hadn’t even thought to offer him a ride.
We entered the house and I stifled a gasp. Tansy had never been as meticulous as our sister Maggie, but she was neat. Tansy dusted and vacuumed every week. Maggie vacuumed daily and routinely dry cleaned her curtains. I was happy if my dirty laundry was in a basket instead of on the floor.
The living room looked worse than I’d ever let my room get, even when I was a sullen teenager. Couch cushions were slashed and their fluff tossed around willy-nilly. Pictures had been ripped off the walls. The plant that had been hanging in the macramé was on the ground in a pile of dirt. Tansy’s hope chest was open, and quilts were strewn about the floor.
The kitchen was much the same. The refrigerator door stood open, its contents spilled onto the floor. A tub of Blue Bell Blackberry Cobbler ice cream was melting on top of a half-empty bottle of ketchup and a container of leftovers. The cabinets hung open, and dishes were stacked on the counter tops. Even the silverware drawer had been yanked out and emptied.
“I think you interrupted them,” Beau said gravely as we surveyed the carnage. “Either that, or they found what they were looking for and left, because the bedrooms are untouched. Well, Tansy’s wasn’t tossed. With Juni’s, it’s impossible to tell.”
“We would have seen them leave,” I said, ignoring his dig on my housekeeping skills. I had more important things to worry about. Some stranger had come into our house and riffled through it. Or, at least, I hoped it had been a stranger. The mere thought that someone we knew might have done this was too much to bear.
“The back door was wide open,” he said.
From our parking spot a few houses down, we would have seen someone leave through the front door, but not the back. “Have you checked Mom’s cottage?” I asked.
He jerked his head at Jayden, who was hovering behind him.
“On it,” she said. Tansy followed her out the door.
“Why would anyone do something like this?” I asked him.
“Money. Drugs. Revenge. Boredom. Pick one,” he replied.
“We don’t have any money, or drugs for that matter. We don’t have any enemies that I know of. You mentioned boredom. Have there been a lot of break-ins like this in the neighborhood?” I asked, even though I was certain I knew the answer. I might not be the town gossip like Mom or Tansy, but if there had been a string of burglaries in Cedar River, I would have heard about them.
“Nope. Do you lock your doors?”
“Always.” I know that there’s a perception that no one locked their doors in small towns, but my family had locked our doors as long as I’d been alive. It was a habit so deeply ingrained in both Tansy and I that there was no way one of us forgot to lock them this morning when we left the house.
“Is anything missing?” Beau asked.
“Other than our security, dignity, and peace of mind?” I looked around and shook my head. “Impossible to tell in all this mess.”
“You haven’t upset anyone recently, have you, Junebug?” he asked, eyeing the mess as he wandered from room to room.
“Me? Not that I know of,” I said, trailing after him.
“You haven’t been, and I’m just spitballing here, sticking your nose somewhere it didn’t belong? Asking too many questions? Interviewing murder suspects?”
I felt myself go pale. “Of course not?” It came out sounding like a question.
“Good to hear. Because someone capable of killing the mayor might be capable of hurting a sweet record shop owner, too.”
Tansy and Jayden returned before I had a chance to think too hard about that. “Mom’s not home, and they didn’t touch the cottage. Ran out of time, I guess,” Tansy said. “I called her, told her everything. She wanted to come home immediately, but I told her it might be better if she spent the night with a friend. Just until we straighten things up. We can straighten up, right?” She directed this to Beau. “It’s not like an active crime scene or anything?”
“Of course. Officer Holt, if you’ve gotten all you need, y’all can go. I’ll stick around here for a little longer.”
“Sure thing, Detective,” Jayden said. Then to me, she said, “Sorry about all this.”
I smiled at her. “Thanks for coming so fast.”
“And thank you for calling us instead of dealing with it on your own,” she said. Then she and the other officer left.
Beau led the way into the kitchen. “I know this looks bad, but we’ll have everything set to rights in no time.” He reached inside the pantry and grabbed a broom.
“If y’all have the kitchen, I’ll get started on the living room,” Tansy said.
“Give a shout if you need a hand,” Beau told her. Several bottles that had been in the refrigerator had shattered on the floor, and he began sweeping up the broken glass.
“You don’t have to do that,” I told Beau.
“What do you think they were looking for?” he asked.
“I have no earthly idea.” I reached past him to get a dust pan, and held it so he could sweep the remnants of a bottle of cherry salsa that I hadn’t even opened yet into the pan.
“That jerk,” I muttered. I’d been looking forward to trying that salsa.
“More likely ‘Those jerks,’” he corrected me.
“What makes you think so?” I asked. It was hard enough coming up with one person who disliked Tansy or me enough to do this, but multiple people? My mind boggled.
“Look at your refrigerator. Whoever went through it just tossed stuff around. But the cabinets were emptied without so much as a chipped plate.”
“Great,” I said with a sigh. The thought of two strangers standing side by side in my kitchen, poking into every crevice gave me the creeps. “I think I’m gonna need another raincheck on that date tonight,” I told Beau. “Sorry. This is getting to be a habit.”
“No worries. I’ll order us some pizza.” He double-checked the fridge. Almost everything was ruined. “And beer.” He pulled out his phone and placed an order. Our local pizza place didn’t deliver, but we had a service called Roadrunners that would. “And before you argue, I’m staying here tonight, just in case they come back. Don’t worry, I’ll sleep on the couch.”
“Do you really think they might come back?”