“I HAD A bad feeling that Florence wouldn’t have everything ready to go,” my grandmother whispered to me the second that Florence Spooner disappeared into a back room of her condominium. “Since day one of her taking over as garden club president, it’s been a disorganized disaster.”
This wasn’t the first time that Gram had groused about her fellow gardening enthusiast’s shortcomings. “Then maybe you should have stayed on as president.”
“And get stuck with that job for a sixth year in a row?” Gram shook her head, her helmet of spun-sugar curls not budging a millimeter. “No, when I turned eighty last year, I took a good look at everything I want to do before I leave this world, and serving another decade on the board wasn’t on my list.”
“Then how come you’re the one taking over as secretary? Again,” I added since I remembered my grandfather referring to her as “Madam Secretary” back when I was in high school.
Gram heaved a sigh. “Because I made the mistake of letting Florence talk me into it after Naomi’s funeral service.”
“You need to learn how to say no.”
“Ain’t that the truth.” Gram scowled past me at the top of the stack of white banker boxes labeled GARDEN CLUB in orange block letters. “You would think that, in this computer age, we could come up with a better system of maintaining historical records than stuffing paper into boxes.”
Having worked in the Chimacam County Prosecutor’s office for the last fourteen months, I couldn’t agree more because we definitely featured an overabundance of paper historical records. Unfortunately, electronic solutions often required funds that would bust most rural counties’ budgets. That left me as the lowly administrative assistant whose duty it was to stuff paper into boxes—in my case, a couple dozen metal file “boxes” that bordered the windowless beige walls surrounding my desk.
“At least there are only three boxes,” I said, my ears detecting the whir of a laser printer coming to life. “Unless she’s back there trying to fill up another one.”
“Naomi passed a couple of days after the last board meeting, so I imagine Florence is making sure the records are up to date. Although why she couldn’t have done that before we arrived, I don’t have a clue.”
There was no point in my standing there like a lump when I had a lunch date with my boyfriend after I fulfilled my pack mule duties, so this mule was motivated to get a move on. I picked up the top box and headed for the front door. “While she’s finishing up, I’ll take this to the car.”
Gram opened the door for me. “We parked so far away. Are you sure you don’t want to pull the car into the driveway first? I know that’s heavy.”
“It’s not that heavy.” Just as the words came out of my mouth the contents shifted, propelling me forward.
“Charmaine Digby,” Gram called after me, using the parental tone that used to signal that I was in deep doo-doo. “I’ll never forgive myself if you spend the rest of the weekend in traction because I asked for your help.”
I glanced back over my shoulder. “Not to worry.” I sucked in a deep breath, my flabby arm muscles screaming for oxygen. “I’ll be back in a jiffy.”
Back with the car that I could have sworn had been located a heckuva lot closer when I left it in the visitor parking area a few doors down.
“About time you got here,” an elderly man buttoned up in a tweedy cardigan said, quickening his pace as he approached.
My pounding heart didn’t need a sudden injection of adrenaline to kick it into high gear. Fortunately, I didn’t sense danger because short of tossing the box like a shot put at the old dude, I had no way to defend myself.
Huffing and puffing the last ten feet to my grandmother’s SUV, I balanced a corner of the box on the bumper while I fumbled with the tailgate latch. “I think … you have me … confused with someone else.”
He stepped up beside me. “Allow me to be of assistance, Miz Charmaine.”
I stared at the diminutive man with the steel wool hair and watched with some trepidation as he effortlessly popped the latch. Because I didn’t know him, but he seemed to know me.
Frowning, he helped me load the box into the back of the SUV. “Child, what do you have in here, rocks?”
“No, it’s—” It was none of his business. While the grandmother who raised me had trained me to be kind to my elders, she also valued her privacy. At least what little privacy she could carve out in a small coastal community dominated by a senior set fueled by local gossip. And since she wasn’t the least bit pleased to be collecting stacks of club newsletters instead of digging in a flower bed on this sunny October Saturday, I opted in favor of an evasive answer. “Actually, I don’t know. It’s not—”
“Yours?” He nodded. “I know. I saw them move the boxes out of Naomi’s place last week. You taking this one in as evidence?”
“Evidence?” Of what?
“I can’t imagine you’ll find anything very elucidatin’ in there. At least the police weren’t much interested in those old boxes when they processed the scene.”
I still didn’t know who this octogenarian was, other than the obvious—that he had been acquainted with the late Naomi Easley. But from his pattern of speech, he sounded like a transplant from the Deep South.
He gave me a hard look that I suspected had been intended to mirror the way I was staring. “Isn’t that what you and your friend, Detective Sixkiller, call it? Processin’ the scene?”
Okay, I couldn’t take it anymore. “I’m sorry. Have we met before?” Because he couldn’t have made it more clear that he knew that Steve Sixkiller and I were a couple.
The man’s expression softened, a smile dancing at his thin lips. “Miz Charmaine, I know it’s been a few years, but don’t be a heartbreaker and tell me that you don’t remember me.”
Crap. That was exactly what I was going to have to tell him if he didn’t offer up something to clue me in.
“I’d have the Reuben with extra sauce on the side, and Jerome would have the tuna melt on …”
“Sourdough,” we said in unison.
While I remembered the lunch order the southern gentlemen never varied from when they came to Port Merritt to visit family, I didn’t recognize the lines of the kindly face looking at me, nor did I have a name to go with it.
I extended my limp noodle of an arm and shook his hand. “It’s been more than a few years.” Because I was probably nineteen and still working summers at my great-uncle Duke’s diner the last time our paths crossed. “Mr. …”
“Armistead.” His watery blue eyes twinkled with good humor. “I’ll say that you haven’t changed a bit if you’ll do the same for me.”
Since I sported a thicker middle from eating my way through a divorce, and my jeans were doing nothing to conceal the saddlebags that had attached themselves to my thighs, he had a deal. “You got it, Mr. Armistead.”
“Leland, please. We’re old friends.”
Not really, but I could go along with that, too. Plus, I wasn’t picking up any nonverbal cues to cause concern. Except for the fact that this “old friend” clearly wanted something from me.
He inched closer. “So you can tell me. You don’t believe Naomi’s drownin’ was just an accident, do you?”
Despite just having worked up a sweat by walking a hundred yards, an icy shiver went down my spine. “I don’t have any reason to question the coroner’s findings.” And even if I did, since the Chimacam County Prosecutor/Coroner was my boss, I’d be committing career suicide to offer an unsolicited opinion.
“And yet, here you are at the scene of the crime,” Leland said, thumbing in the direction of the for-sale sign stationed in front of the condo across the street. “Like my daddy used to say, ‘It’s not a coincidence when you turn up where you’re supposed to be.’ ”
True, but I was going to be on the receiving end of an earful from my grandmother if I didn’t turn up on Florence’s doorstep in the next sixty seconds. “I’m sorry. I’m on a bit of tight schedule, so I wonder if we could continue this conversation another time.”
He patted my hand. “I get it. You’re not at liberty to divulge any information while you’re conductin’ an investigation.”
I didn’t know whether to thank Leland or set him straight. No coroner’s investigation, open or closed, had ever existed to determine the manner of Naomi Easley’s death. Since she’d obviously made the deadly decision to mix painkillers and alcohol before being found submerged in her bathtub, it hadn’t been deemed necessary. “I—”
“And I know these things take time, but I am at your service anytime you’d like me to make a statement. I’m sure Mavis feels the same way.”
I had no idea who he was talking about. “I’m sorry. Who’s Mavis?”
“Lives across the street.” Leland pointed at the manicured duplex in front of Gram’s car. “Had a key to Naomi’s house, so I got her to open the door when I couldn’t reach her by phone. That’s when Mavis discovered her cold as a mackerel in the tub, and I called the police to report the murder.”
Murder?!