As soon as the waitress came back with our drinks and menus, Chip and Nina left. Nina hadn’t even finished her beer when Chip dragged her away. And I don’t think she wanted to leave, because she was looking over her shoulder as she went. It might have been the beer, but I think it was probably Rafe who was the draw.
We glanced at the menus—there were only a half dozen items to choose from—and then Rafe ordered a shrimp po’boy with onion rings, and I had to settle for a chicken sandwich with shoestring potatoes, since there was no roast beef to be had.
The waitress took our orders and the menus, and I turned to Rafe. “Do you think he did it?”
“Chip?”
I nodded.
“Dunno,” Rafe said.
“What about Nina? Do you think she did it?”
He shook his head.
“Why not?”
He shrugged. I sniffed. “Let me guess. It’s because she’s blonde and pretty with big breasts.”
“Is she?” He smiled. “I didn’t notice.”
“Sure.” I rolled my eyes. “When she’s forty, she’s going to look sixty-five, you know.”
He didn’t answer, and I added, “You said the police think Frenetta was drugged before she was killed, right?”
He nodded.
“Does that mean whoever killed her wanted to be sure she couldn’t fight back?”
“It’s possible,” Rafe said.
“That might mean a woman did it. Not that that’s very helpful. Other than Groot and Chip—and you—everyone in the house is a woman.”
“Groot’s old,” Rafe said. “Older than Frenetta by a couple years, at least. He might could prefer that she wasn’t in a position to fight back.”
“Chip wouldn’t care,” I said. “He’s young. Big. And looks strong. Or at least not wimpy. Between the two of you, you could probably take him with one hand tied behind your back. But he’d be plenty strong enough to smother an old woman.”
Rafe didn’t deny that he could annihilate Chip with one hand tied behind his back. Instead he just said, “If a woman killed her, most likely the drugs in the wine was to keep her from fighting back. But a man coulda killed her and just wanted to avoid the fight, too. It’s hard to make murder look natural.”
I’d take his word for it, because I wasn’t about to ask how he knew. I was going to continue the conversation, though, when I voice said, “Mind if I join you?”
The voice was female. So was the speaker. Very much so.
Here was someone middle age had treated very well, indeed. I put her above forty, maybe closer to forty-five, but she had the toned body of a woman twenty years younger. I wished I looked as good, even when I wasn’t pregnant. She was dressed in skin-tight jeans and a tank-top, one that emphasized toned arms and a very nice—natural—pair of breasts. The face was natural, too: high cheekbones, full lips, and big blue eyes with long lashes, under platinum blond hair—also natural, best as I could see—pulled straight back into a heavy chignon at the back of her head.
It should have made her look prim. The first time Rafe and I went on a date, I’d styled my hair like that, the better to indicate that there’d be no hanky-panky going on. I’d dressed in a school-marm blouse and calf-length skirt for the same reason. It hadn’t worked. Rafe had told me the clothes and hair was a turn-on, because it made him wonder what I’d look like without the clothes and with my hair down.
So much for that plan.
Anyway, this gorgeous—slightly older—woman stood next to the table, grinning down at us—or at Rafe. I started to bristle, and was about to set her straight, when Rafe told her, “Sure, Sheriff. Have a seat.”
Sheriff? This was the sheriff whose office he’d spent the afternoon in?
She grinned at me. “You must be the wife. Good to meet you.”
She held out a hand. I took it, because it would be rude not to. “Savannah Martin. Collier.”
“Tallulah Engebretsen. You can call me Lou.”
Or maybe I’d just call her ‘Sheriff,’ the way Rafe did. “What can we do for you?”
“I saw you sitting here,” Sheriff Engebretsen said easily, “and figured I’d introduce myself.”
“Uh-huh. I suppose you were here with someone else, and he or she just left? Maybe right behind Chip and Nina?”
Rafe chuckled. The sheriff looked a bit chagrined. “Something like that.”
“So you’re following us? Why? We didn’t have anything to do with Frenetta’s death. We never even met her.”
“So your husband told me,” Lou Engebretsen said, with a glance at him. “If it makes you feel better, I’ve got people on all y’all, to make sure nobody tries to leave town before I figure this out.”
That did make me feel better, actually.
“Are you any closer?”
“We’ve pretty much eliminated the two of you,” the sheriff said. “The sleeping pills were in the wine. It was a new bottle. She opened it after dinner, and had a glass while she was preparing breakfast for this morning. The bottle was in the kitchen during that time, and people came and went. Anyone in the house might have added something to it.”
“Except Rafe and me,” I said. “We were still in Alabama at dinner-time.”
“And that’s why I’ve pretty much eliminated you,” the sheriff answered.
‘Pretty much’ was better than nothing. “So was it one of the other guests?”
“It seems likely,” Lou said. “None of the locals have come forward to say they were in the B and B last night. And none of the guests reported seeing any strangers.”
“So I guess the guests are trying to blame each other?”
“The ladies from Boston are blaming Chip,” Lou said. “Chip’s blaming everybody but himself. And Vonnie thinks it was a natural death.”
“Any chance it was?”
Lou shook her head. “Doesn’t look that way. After cleaning up the kitchen, Frenetta took the bottle up to her apartment and finished it. It was still there this morning. Empty. And we can tell, from the residue in both the bottle and glass, that someone added a sleeping medication to it. In the form of ground-up pills, most likely.”
Not much chance that was accidental, no. “Could she have done it herself?”
“I wouldn’t think so,” Lou said. “Most sleeping pills don’t mix well with alcohol. And she wasn’t stupid. She would have taken one or the other, but not both.”
“Unless she was suicidal. She wasn’t, was she?”
“If she was, no one’s mentioned it,” Lou said.
“The pills didn’t kill her,” Rafe added, “even mixed with the alcohol. The mixture just knocked her out.”
“And then someone went upstairs and smothered her.”
Lou nodded. “We’re not sure if she left her door unlocked or whether her murderer had a key. Or whether she let someone in.”
“Surely she wouldn’t have gone to sleep with someone there.”
“Depends on who it was,” Lou said. “If it was her sister...”
“Sister?”
“Vonnie,” Lou said.
“Vonnie is Frenetta’s sister?”
“Yes,” Lou said. “Why?”
Why? Well, first of all because I hadn’t known. And then— “I guess I’m just surprised she left it to us to check on Frenetta this morning. If it was my sister who didn’t come down to breakfast, I would be the first one up those stairs.”
Of course, I was a perky twenty-eight, at least when I wasn’t carrying ten extra pounds of baby. Vonnie was older. Mid-sixties, at least. Maybe she had a hard time getting around. So far I’d only seen her sitting down. For all I knew, she was in a wheelchair.
“Frenetta and Vonnie didn’t always get along,” Lou said.
“Why not?” Bad blood might be a good reason for murder.
“When Mrs. Wallin died,” Lou said, and added, “Frenetta and Vonnie’s mother—”
I nodded.
“—she left the house to Frenetta. Vonnie had married and moved to Tallahassee by then, and Frenetta was the one who stayed in Davenport and took care of her mother. I guess the old lady figured Vonnie didn’t need the house, but Frenetta would be taken care of if she had it.”
That made sense. “So what happened?”
“Vonnie tried to contest the will and lost. Frenetta turned the place into a B and B and ran it on her own. The sisters didn’t speak for years. Maybe decades. It’s only been in the past year or so that Vonnie and her husband have been coming back here.”
“That’s sad.” Good that they had made up, I guess, before it was too late. But sad that the sisters had lost so much time together, and wouldn’t have any more, now that Frenetta was gone.
Lou shrugged. “Anyway, the sleeping medicine in the wine would have been enough to knock Frenetta out, but not enough to kill her. And if she’d smothered herself, I would have expected you to find her facedown in the pillows. But you didn’t.”
Rafe shook his head. “She was lying on her left side. Blankets up to her shoulders, dressed in a nightgown, with a pillow under her head and another on the floor next to her. No sign of a struggle.”
He had noticed a lot more about the crime scene than I had. I had seen Frenetta curled up on her side, with a blanket over her, but I hadn’t noticed the nightgown or the second pillow.
“There was saliva on the pillowcase,” Lou said.
“Maybe she drooled.” I do sometimes. Not that I like to admit it.
Rafe hid a smile.
“This was the pillow on the floor,” Lou said. “Not the one under her head. Someone placed that pillow over her face and held it there, and then dropped it on the floor when she was dead.”
“Or she knocked it off the bed herself.”
Rafe shook his head. “She was dead to the world, darlin’. Probably didn’t stir at all after she crawled into bed.”
Fine. “So someone went up to the apartment and smothered her. And it was one of the people in the B and B. Either before Rafe and I got there, or after.”
She could have been asleep as easily as dead when we arrived in the parking lot at ten o’clock.
“That’s about the strength of it,” Lou agreed.
“Why? I never met her, but she was an elderly innkeeper in a small town in Florida. Who’d want her dead? Was she rich?”
“Not as far as I know,” Lou said, “although I expect the property is worth a pretty penny.”
I expected she was right. Beachfront property isn’t my specialty—Tennessee is landlocked, although houses and building lots on the river or lake go for a nice chunk of change—but it didn’t take expertise to see that the Davenport Inn B and B was a beautiful, old house on a large piece of land across the street from the beach, and there are only so many of those around.
“I heard rumors that a developer was sniffing around last year sometime,” Lou added. “Nothing ever came of it, that I know. People in Davenport are resistant to change. Nobody wants the town to become another Destin or Panama City Beach. We like it peaceful. But I remember there was talk about some developer in Atlanta making an offer.”
Those Atlanta developers are everywhere. They’re buying up large chunks of Nashville, too. Just a couple of months ago, a sub shop on West End Avenue, that had been there for forty years, had had to close its doors after an Atlanta developer bought the land. The plan was to raze the old building and put up a thirty-story apartment tower. And while that would mean more homes—or condos—for yours truly to buy and sell, I still wasn’t thrilled about it. I’d only been in Nashville for eight years: three at Vanderbilt University, two with Bradley after I dropped out to marry him, and these last three on my own... but I’d already seen a lot of changes, and not all of them for the better.
Progress is necessary, and sometimes even good, but I don’t think we have to lose everything old and original in the name of it. The idea of Frenetta’s B and B being knocked down to make room for highrise apartment buildings with parking garages and pools and a view of the ocean from the thirtieth floor, gave me a bad taste in my mouth.
“Chip and Nina live in Atlanta,” I said.
“That’s what they said.”
“Gloria and Hildy said they overheard Nina arguing with Frenetta yesterday morning. About Chip.”
“So they told me,” Lou nodded.
“Do you think Chip did it? Is that why you’re following him?”
“I’m not following him. David’s following him. I’m following you.”
Right. “Did you ask him what he does for a living? Chip?”
“I don’t think he does anything,” Lou said, “but Nina’s father is a developer.”
“Land developer?”
She nodded.
“That’s quite a coincidence.” What were the chances that last year’s developer from Atlanta and Nina’s father were one and the same?
“We’re looking into it,” Lou said. “The land the B and B sits on is worth a fortune. And a fortune’s a good motive for murder. However—”
I nodded. This was something I knew about. “It isn’t like Chip will get the land now that Frenetta is dead. I guess it goes to Vonnie, unless Frenetta had a will.”
“She had a safety deposit box at the bank,” Lou said. “I’ll be checking it tomorrow morning. I’ll also be checking with the local attorneys, once they open for business. But if there’s no will, then yes, I assume Vonnie will get the house. Frenetta never did have any children.”
“Nice for Vonnie, getting the house after all.”
“It was thirty years ago,” Lou said. “I’m sure she’s over it by now. And as far as I know, she and her husband have a very nice house of their own in Tallahassee. They don’t need this one.”
“Did you make sure of that?”
She refrained from rolling her eyes, but I could tell she wanted to. “Yes, Mrs. Collier. We did. Financially, they’re doing just fine.”
Rafe chuckled. “Leave the sheriff be, darlin’. She knows how to do her job.”
I’m sure she did. I was just used to bouncing ideas off Tamara Grimaldi, and I guess I’d gotten a little carried away. “Sorry.”
“No problem.” She got to her feet. “I see your food coming. I’ll leave you alone to enjoy it. Don’t leave town without letting me know.”
She walked away without waiting for an answer. She and the waitress slithered around one another halfway to the door, and then Lou disappeared inside, and the waitress stopped beside our table to drop off the po’boy and chicken sandwich.
“That was interesting,” I told Rafe after she’d walked away.
“What? Lou?” He was busy getting a good grip on his sandwich, and didn’t even look up.
I nodded. “I’m no longer surprised they let you go this afternoon. You didn’t mention that the sheriff was female.”
“No reason to.” He lifted the po’boy and took a bite. Remoulade oozed out and decorated the corners of his mouth. I smiled.
“It explains a lot. Women like you. You said so yourself.”
He shrugged. “As long as you like me, that’s all I care about. Eat your food, darlin’. You gotta build up your strength for later.”
That sounded promising. I lifted the sandwich and took a bite. It was good, but the compulsion to speculate was too strong. I put it down again and picked up a fry. “I didn’t know Vonnie was Frenetta’s sister.” Nibble, nibble, nibble. “Did you?”
The fries were good, too.
Rafe shook his head. “The only time I saw Vonnie and her husband, was this morning at breakfast. And a lot of old ladies look alike.”
They do. Frenetta probably hadn’t looked like herself when we saw her. Corpses rarely do, I’ve found. And it stood to reason that if she didn’t look like herself, she wouldn’t look like Vonnie, either.
“What do you think of the real estate angle?”
Rafe chewed and swallowed. “For someone who said she was starving, you sure ain’t eating much.”
“Sorry.” I picked up another fry and put it in my mouth. “But what do you think?”
“I think it’s none of our business,” Rafe said. “I think Lou’s capable of figuring it out without our help. And I think you oughta eat your dinner so I can take you back to the room and have my way with you.”
“That’s fine. But I’d still like to talk about who killed Frenetta and why.”
“Married less than forty-eight hours,” Rafe said, “and you’re already tired of me?”
“I’ll never get tired of you. But it’s not like we can do anything about it now. We’re here.”
At the Sandbar. Not in the privacy of our own room at the B and B.
Rafe shook his head. “Fine. Talk about Frenetta.”
“Well...” Now that I had permission, I wasn’t quite sure what to say. “Someone killed her. And tried to pin it on us. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that, as soon as we left the house to go up to the apartment above the garage this morning, someone called the cops. They wanted us to be discovered standing over the body. I think it was Chip.”
“It mighta been Chip,” Rafe said, still enjoying his sandwich.
I took another bite of mine. Chewed and swallowed. “Lou said a real estate developer from Atlanta is trying to buy Frenetta’s property. Nina’s father is a developer. Gloria and Hildy said Nina and Frenetta argued about Chip yesterday. Nina said something to the effect that Frenetta better do right by Chip, or else.”
Rafe nodded, his mouth full of shrimp.
“What do you want to bet Chip is here to try to convince Frenetta to sell the property to Nina’s dad?”
Rafe swallowed. “That could be. But killing her ain’t gonna get him the property.”
No, it wasn’t. “Could it have been an accident? Maybe the sleeping pills in the wine really did kill her. Maybe Chip did it so he could get her to sign on the dotted line while she was groggy and didn’t know what she was agreeing to, but then she died?”
Rafe shook his head. “Saliva on the pillow,” he reminded me.
Right. I thought about it some more while I had a few fries and another bite of the chicken. “So maybe Chip put the sleeping pills in the drink, but someone else killed her.”
“I thought you wanted it to be Chip.”
“I do want it to be Chip. It just doesn’t make any sense for it to be Chip.”
Rafe shook his head. “You gonna finish those fries?”
There were a lot of them, so no. “Help yourself.” I took another bite of the sandwich. “Who do you think did it?”
“Dunno,” Rafe said, reaching for my fries. “Don’t care.”
“How can you not care?”
“Very easily.” He popped a couple of fries in his mouth. “We didn’t know her. We don’t know any of the others. And figuring it out is somebody else’s job. I’m on my honeymoon.”
“That’s never stopped you before.”
“I’ve never been on my honeymoon before,” Rafe said. “All I wanna do is have a good time and a lot of sex. Let Lou worry about it.”
“But doesn’t it bother you that we’re sleeping in a house with a murderer?”
“We slept in a house with a murderer last night, too,” Rafe said.
“But we didn’t know about it then!”
“Right.”
I blinked at him, chagrined.
“You almost finished?” Rafe asked, polishing off my French fries.
“I guess.” The sandwich was so big I couldn’t eat all of it. And I had very few fries left.
He dug a couple of bills out of his pocket and tucked them under his empty glass—enough to cover the bill and a tip—and got up. “You wanna walk on the beach?”
Obviously he did. “Sure.” I put my napkin down and got to my feet, as well. He took my hand and led me across the deck and down the stairs to the sand.