“Feel free to stay another night,” Gloria told us over breakfast the next morning. “We intend to.”
She exchanged a look with Hildy, who nodded. “As soon as it’s business hours—ten o’clock hereabouts—we’re calling the lawyers. The house is rightfully ours, and we intend to keep it.”
I wished them luck. Hopefully Vonnie would be busy elsewhere and wouldn’t have time to contest anything.
We were sitting across from one another at the dining room table, over a spread of pecan coffee cake—the one Frenetta had been preparing two days ago, I assumed—frittata, roasted potatoes, and some other things. Rafe was sucking down coffee like his life depended on it, and looked like he could use a couple of toothpicks to help keep his eyes open. He was hardly eating anything at all, just drooping over his plate.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “This hasn’t been very relaxing. I think we’ll just go on home and sleep in our own bed tonight.” Where nobody was trying to poison or shoot us.
Hildy nodded sympathetically. “Maybe you can come down again sometime? Maybe after the baby’s born?”
If the inn is still here. But I didn’t say it. Didn’t want to throw cold water on their parade, and was trying to keep a positive attitude. “Sure. Rafe enjoyed the ocean. It was just all the other stuff going on that was the problem.”
They both nodded. “I don’t understand how anyone can kill someone over a house,” Hildy said, with a shudder. “And not just anyone, but a sister.”
I didn’t either. And speaking of sisters, I still hadn’t called mine.
Before I could pursue that thought, however, there was a knock on the door.
“I’ll get it,” Gloria said. Rafe barely even stirred, so hopefully whoever was outside, wasn’t a threat.
Then again, the three of us had managed pretty well last night, so maybe that wouldn’t be the end of the world.
We heard voices in the foyer, and then footsteps coming back toward us. Gloria came into the dining room followed by Lou Engebretsen.
The sheriff looked beat, like she hadn’t slept much last night, and Hildy immediately went into hostess mode. “Have a seat, Sheriff Engebretsen. Coffee?”
“Don’t mind if I do,” Lou said and dropped down onto the nearest chair. Meanwhile, Hildy bustled about getting her a place setting and a cup of coffee.
“What’s new, Sheriff?” Gloria asked.
Lou sighed. “Nothing. Just the same as was new last night.”
“Did they confess?” I asked. “To killing Frenetta?”
“Vonnie did.” She took the mug of coffee Hildy put in front of her and lifted it to her lips for a swallow. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Hildy sat back down beside Gloria. “That’s good, right? That she admitted it?”
Lou nodded, her eyes a little clearer as the coffee took effect. “It’ll make it easier. Or at least more pleasant. I could have prosecuted her without that, but this’ll be better.”
“Did she say anything else?” I asked.
“Beyond what she said to you?” Lou shook her head. “She confessed to killing her sister. She told me why. Frenetta was thinking of selling the B and B, and Vonnie didn’t want her to. Her main concern was with Chip and Nina’s father, the developer. She didn’t realize a deal had already been worked out with someone else.”
She glanced at Gloria and Hildy. “So she put some of Groot’s sleeping medicine in Frenetta’s wine, and waited until Frenetta went upstairs to her apartment. Then she knocked on the door, ostensibly to talk about it again, and when Frenetta said it was too late, Vonnie got angry. Frenetta acted groggy, Vonnie helped her to bed. And killed her.”
There was a pause, while we all digested this.
“She didn’t seem upset,” Lou added. “No remorse that I could see. It was all about the house. And about their mother, who left the house to Frenetta and not her. That was really all she talked about.”
There was another pause.
“What about the husband?” Rafe muttered.
Lou glanced at him. “Says he didn’t know she was going to do it. Says he didn’t know she did it until the next morning, when y’all went up to the apartment and found her dead. I have no way to know whether he’s lying or telling the truth.”
“Could go either way,” I said.
She nodded. “I’m not sure it matters. Vonnie killed her. Whether Groot knew or not, he’s being punished. His wife will spend the rest of her life in prison.”
“I guess there’s no chance she’ll plead not guilty.”
Lou shook her head. “Not with a confession on record. And that’s what’ll make it easier. No trial. She’ll go before the judge in a couple of days and get sentenced, and that’ll be it.”
“Convenient.” And cheap. She wouldn’t need attorney fees if there was no trial. So much for my reassurance to Gloria and Hildy that Vonnie would need all the money she could scrape together to defend herself.
The two of them exchanged a glance. “We have the contract,” Gloria said.
Hildy nodded.
Lou looked from one to the other of them, and then decided to leave well enough alone. She turned to me. “Y’all headed back to Nashville?”
“We were just talking about that,” I said. “And I think I’d like to, if it’s all right with you. This hasn’t exactly been the honeymoon of my dreams.”
“The sex was good,” Rafe muttered.
We all turned to stare at him, and he must have realized it because he blinked. “What did I say?”
“That the sex was good,” I told him. At least it had sounded like that.
“Oh.” He thought for a second. “It was. But I was talking about the beach. The beach was good.”
“Do you want to go on the beach again before we go home? We can spare a couple hours before we head out.” We’d still make it home by tonight. I figured I’d be doing most of the driving, since he could barely keep his head up.
He shook his head. “Nah. I just wanna sleep.”
“You can sleep all the way home. I’ll get you there in one piece.”
It was a testament to how tired he was that all he did was nod. Normally, he would have fought me for the privilege of driving.
“Sheriff?” I turned to Lou.
She waved a hand. “Go on. Take care of yourselves. Stop by if you’re ever back in Davenport.”
I said we would.
“And don’t speed on your way out of town.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” I said, and turned to Rafe. “Ready?”
He nodded blearily, and pushed to his feet. I’d already put the bags in the car, so we were all set.
“Come back and see us,” Hildy said, walking us to the back door like a proper hostess, while Gloria continued to entertain—or quiz—the sheriff in the dining room. “I have a good feeling about this. We’ll be here next summer.”
She smiled.
“We’ll remember that,” I told her.
She watched while I maneuvered Rafe into the passenger seat, and moved the seat back so his legs—much longer than mine—had enough room to stretch. Then I headed around the car to the driver’s side door. “It was nice to meet you both. Good luck with everything.”
“Safe travels,” Hildy said, and waved as I drove out of the parking lot, away from the Victorian house, and the garage apartment, and the crime scene tape strung across the stairway.
When I could no longer see the place in my rearview mirror, I glanced at Rafe. “Still awake?”
He mumbled something.
“Want me to stop on the way out of town so you can splash in the water one last time before we go?”
He shook his head. “Take me home.” He didn’t even open his eyes.
“As you wish,” I said, and stepped on the gas.
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Keep reading for an excerpt of Savannah Martin Mystery #11, Adverse Possession.
Excerpt
“I’m sorry, Savannah,” Kylie said. “Aislynn didn’t even want me to contact you, she’s so embarrassed. But you were so nice when we bought the place…”
“It’s OK.” I swallowed the lump in my throat. It was the ‘didn’t even want me to contact you’ that had caused it. “I understand. People sometimes sell their houses.” Even houses they had just bought. Even houses they loved. And they didn’t always—didn’t usually—hire me to do it. Even if I had helped them buy the house in the first place. “It’s just… you’ve only owned it five or six months. And you seemed so excited when you bought it…”
“We love the house,” Kylie said. “It isn’t the house.”
I wrinkled my forehead and then immediately smoothed it out again. “The location?”
The house they’d bought back in December, a lovely Victorian cottage, sat in the middle of historic East Nashville. It was a very nice neighborhood, full of old, renovated houses, hip people, popular restaurants, and health food stores catering to dogs and people. It was hard to imagine that they weren’t enjoying it, especially considering how excited they’d been just last winter.
“We love the location,” Kylie said. “We couldn’t ask for a better place to live.”
“Then…” I glanced over my shoulder and lowered my voice, “the price?”
I was sitting in my office, a converted coat closet off the lobby at LB&A, a real estate company in the heart of historic East Nashville. The only person in sight was Brittany, the receptionist, and she had her nose buried in the most recent issue of Cosmopolitan. She couldn’t care less what I was saying. But it’s unladylike to inquire about someone’s finances, or lack thereof, so I kept my voice low anyway.
Kylie sounded amused. “It isn’t the price.”
I hadn’t thought so. Renovated Victorians in East Nashville come at a premium, but Kylie worked in banking and made good money. Unless she’d suddenly lost her job, she shouldn’t have a problem paying the mortgage.
“I don’t understand,” I said. “If you like the house and the location, and the money isn’t an issue…”
Kylie sighed. “It’s the letters,” she told me.
Letters? “Isn’t the postman delivering your mail?” That was a simple problem to fix. All I’d have to do was talk to the post office that serviced their address, and straighten things out.
“He is. That’s the problem.”
So they were getting mail they didn’t want. “You can opt out of getting junk mail, you know.”
“It isn’t junk mail,” Kylie said. “Or it is, sort of. I think we should just ignore it. But Aislynn is afraid. And I don’t want Aislynn to be afraid.”
I didn’t want Aislynn to be afraid, either. She was a sweet young woman, a waitress I had met last November, while trying to figure out what had happened to my late sister-in-law. Aislynn had fed Sheila her last meal, unbeknownst to either of them. Aislynn and her girlfriend Kylie had wanted to buy a house, and after the thing with Sheila was all over, had asked me to help them. They had invited me over to the house a couple of weeks after moving in, to eat dinner and see the place, and they had seemed thrilled to be where they were. It was disconcerting to learn, just a few months later, that something was wrong enough that they wanted to sell.
“What is she afraid of?”
“It’ll be easier if I show you,” Kylie said. “Are you free for dinner tonight?”
For a change, I was. “Rafe is taking some of the rookies out for surveillance and shadowing.”
My husband works for the TBI—the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation—training new recruits in undercover maneuvers, and once a month or so, they go out to sneak around after each other and the occasional unsuspecting civilian. It’s part of the training—how to follow someone, how to pick up on someone following you—but mostly I think they’re just out there having fun.
Anyway, Rafe wouldn’t be home until nine or ten tonight.
“We got the wedding invitation,” Kylie said. “Sorry we couldn’t make it.”
“It’s OK. I know it was last minute.” Rafe and I had intended to get married at the courthouse the first weekend in June, with just a handful of people in attendance. Instead, we’d ended up tying the knot a week later, at my childhood home in Sweetwater, Tennessee—the Martin Mansion—with almost everyone we knew in attendance, including half of our old hometown. But it had been short notice, so there were a few people who received Mother’s nicely calligraphied invitation who had been unable to make it.
“Can you stop by the house around five-thirty tonight?” Kylie asked. “I should be home by then. Aislynn is doing the cooking.”
I told her that would be fine, and I’d see them both. Then I hung up, and leaned back in my chair to gnaw the lipstick off my bottom lip.
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