May Cooler Heads Prevail (13 page)

When the four us heard Aunt Nissa say, “Of course, dear, if that’s what you really want,” there was a collective gasp that could be heard two blocks away. Then she added, “But I think I have something you might like a little better than taking a peek at some of Connie’s old stuff.” At that, the four of us let out all that air we had sucked into our lungs.

Aunt Nissa quickly took off her earrings and held them out to Maybelle. “See, I’m wearing the same glittery earrings you admired a couple of weeks ago. I’ll trade you these earrings for the briefcase.”

Maybelle’s eyes widened. “Ohhhh, Maybelle likes those earrings.”

“Dear, they’re only colored glass. But if you like them, I
would certainly be willing to take the briefcase for them.”

Pink cellophane all but forgotten, Maybelle made the trade. Once that was done and Maybelle’s cart was reloaded, we waved her a cheery good-bye, and all five of us beat it into the workshop to see what was inside the briefcase.

Aunt Connie locked the door behind us and let out a big sigh. “There! We don’t want anyone busting in on us.” She looked at Freedom. “Go pull that curtain between the workshop and the store closed. The bell at the front door will ring if anyone comes in.”

While Aunt Connie and Freedom were busy securing the workshop, Uncle Rudd was busy hugging Aunt Nissa. “Honey bunch, you are one smart little lady. First thing I’m gonna do right after we save Connie from going to jail is buy you another pair of earrings. This time the real deal, not just colored glass.” Then he gave Aunt Nissa a big ol’ kiss right on the lips!

Rolling her eyes, Aunt Connie intervened. “Well, I’m just as giddy as a baby vulture circling roadkill that you two can still ogle each other like two teenagers, but if we’re gonna keep me outta jail, we need to get that briefcase open.”

With that largely unsentimental comment, Aunt Connie grabbed the briefcase from Aunt Nissa’s hand and plopped it on the workbench. The rest of us crowded around her, nearly butting heads in the process. Aunt Connie had just placed her hands in position to unlatch the briefcase, when Freedom startled us all with, “Wait a minute, we left Scott’s
body out in the alley!”

I don’t know about anybody else, but I felt just out-and-out stupid. How were we ever going to solve this crime if we couldn’t keep track of the victim?

Without a word, we filed out of the workshop, gathered around the body, and grabbed hold of as much pink cellophane as we could get. When Uncle Rudd said, “Heft!” we carefully and respectfully picked the body up and carried it into the workshop. We laid him on the side rack of the flower cooler and shut the door. By silent consent we agreed not to discuss the incident.

Looking at each of us in turn, Uncle Rudd gave a curt nod. “Okay, back to the briefcase.”

With our enthusiasm dampened somewhat, we crowded around the workbench. Aunt Connie tried the latch. It wouldn’t budge.

“Let me try,” Freedom said, reaching into his pants pocket and pulling out his pocketknife.

It didn’t take him long to trip the locks and open the briefcase. One quick look at all the stuff in the briefcase and the incident in the alley, while not quite forgotten, no longer distracted us.

It was everyone for themselves. Each of us reached in and grabbed something. While I’m not proud of it, I must say that I was one of the worst. I nearly knocked Aunt Connie over getting an arm through the mob to grab something. She got even though by stepping on my foot. In a matter of
seconds each of us had something from the briefcase.

We were all talking at once when Uncle Rudd called a halt to the pandemonium. “All right, everybody, calm down. We can pool our information better if we each take a turn and tell the others what we found.” Then he pointed at me. “You go first, Dixie-gal.”

I was already flipping through the checkbook I had in my hand to see what information I could find. “The address on his checkbook says he lives in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. Oh my! That’s not far from where Mom and Dad live in Destin! But the name on the checks is Landon Scott. Why Landon Scott?”

“Because Landon is Aaron’s middle name,” Aunt Connie informed us. “He never liked the name Landon. I don’t know why he would use it.”

“Maybe because he was afraid to go by Aaron,” Freedom answered. “Check his bank balance, Dixie, see if there is anything out of the ordinary there.”

I flipped back to the register. When I saw the balance I felt my eyes popping. “Well, Aaron Landon Scott was not a poor man. In fact, if this checkbook is any indication, he’s fairly well-off”. The deposits look pretty normal in the sense that they are made at regular intervals for about the same amounts each time. I wonder what he did for a living?”

“I have the answer to that one.” Aunt Nissa held up a business card case in one hand and a business card in the other. “He owns a marina and rents boat slips. His business card
says: Landon’s Landing, Boat Marina, then gives an address and a phone number to call for rental fees and availability.”

“Owns a marina! Aaron around boats?” Aunt Connie grabbed the card out of Aunt Nissa’s hand. “I can’t hardly believe that! When we were together, Aaron loved to fish from the bank, but no one could get him into a boat. Said it made his stomach queasy and his head spin.” Aunt Connie stared at the business card and shook her head. “Wonder why he decided to buy a marina, of all things?”

“Even if he didn’t like boats, he wouldn’t necessarily have to get on the boats,” I said. “All he had to do was to rent the slips for other people’s boats.”

“I think he was covering his bases,” Freedom said. “Just like using his middle name instead of his first name. Being around boats might have seemed safe to him, if whoever he was running from knew that he wasn’t crazy about boats.”

“Smart man,” Aunt Nissa said.

“Always was,” Aunt Connie added.

I thought maybe with this information we could narrow the suspects a bit. I turned to Uncle Rudd. “Who was at that bachelor party that would know Aaron well enough to know he didn’t like to go out on boats?”

“Everybody knew Aaron didn’t like to go out on boats. We fished off the bank at the party because he refused to go out fishing in Latham Sheffield’s boat. None of us were too happy about that, I can tell you. Latham had a real nice boat he kept docked only a mile or so away from the cabin we
rented that night. If Aaron hadn’t been the bridegroom-to-be, we would’ve left him standin’ on the bank and gone on Latham’s fancy boat.”

“That’s no help then.” I groaned. “Anybody else got anything?”

“I found a one-way bus ticket to Kenna Springs from Fort Walton Beach and a funny-looking little key,” Aunt Connie said, peering into a white letter-size envelope. “Think that’s any help?”

Uncle Rudd asked to see the key. Turning it over in his hand several times, he finally said, “You know, I think…”

Before Uncle Rudd could tell us what he thought, he was interrupted by the loud jangling noise of the bell over the front door. Someone had come into the flower shop. Although whoever it was couldn’t see us because of the curtain between the workshop and the front, we acted like we had just been caught with our hands in the cookie jar. We threw whatever we had in our hands back into the briefcase. Uncle Rudd shut the lid on the case and quickly pulled some wrapping paper over it. When everything was put up and covered, Aunt Connie took off for the front of the shop.

“Oh dear, what if it’s Otis?” Aunt Nissa fretted.

Giving me a none-too-gentle shove in the direction of the showroom, Uncle Rudd told me to go on out and see if Aunt Connie needed any help. Once through the curtain into the front of the shop I saw that it was Latham Sheffield. Relieved that it was the tall, lanky owner of Jobina’s Jams and
Jellies and not the extra-tall, lanky sheriff, I pasted a smile on my face and greeted him.

“Hello, Dixie, good to see you again.” Then, turning to Aunt Connie, Latham said, “I heard about the break-in. News travels fast in this town, as you know. Are you ladies doing all right? Must have been pretty scary.”

“We’re all right,” Aunt Connie said. “More mad than scared. Mighty nice of you to ask though.”

Latham leaned on the counter, took a toothpick out of his pocket and put it in his mouth, then shook his head slowly. “Just could hardly believe it when I heard it. Otis got any leads on who might’ve done it?”

“Not a one that I know of,” Aunt Connie answered.

Latham looked down at the counter and rolled the toothpick around in his mouth for a moment. “Uh, I hate to bring this up, considering what you’ve been through today, but did you know that some people are saying that Aaron Scott is in town?”

I saw Aunt Connie’s back stiffen. “I know.”

“Oh, then you’ve seen him.” This time Latham looked up and smiled at Aunt Connie like she had just told him he’d won a free vacation to the Caribbean.

“I… uh… I haven’t talked to him face-to-face, if that’s what you mean,” Aunt Connie stammered.

He dropped the smile for a frown. “I’m not trying to be nosy, really. I was just wondering if you’d seen him lately. Just wanted to say hi to him, before, well, before…”

“Who told you Aaron Scott was in town, Latham?” I asked, to give the poor man time to get his foot out of his mouth, and because I was curious about how he got the news.

Looking relieved, Latham answered, “Ah, well, let’s see, I believe it was Truman.”

Aunt Connie cleared her throat and said, “I hate to hurry you along here, but I got some work to do in back. Did you come in to get Barbara some flowers? I have some real pretty deep red roses I could fix up for you.”

“Roses. Oh… no, I think I’m supposed to pick up some flower arrangements for something Barb has going on tomorrow.”

“Either you haven’t talked to your wife lately, or else you haven’t been listening real good when she’s been talking,” Connie teased. “Barb picked up those flower arrangements first thing this morning.”

Apparently Latham didn’t get the joke, because he defended himself by barking back, “I’ll have you know that I talk to my wife every day, and I assure you I listen to every word she says!” Then looking rather sheepish, he added, “I thought I was supposed to pick up the flowers. Guess not.”

It was a good try on Aunt Connie’s part, but Latham Sheffield has always been the intense, overly serious sort, and had never been known for his sense of humor.

After Latham left, Aunt Connie commented that she bet he did listen to his wife, since it was her money that
Latham used to expand the plant several years ago. Then she looked at me, winked, and we both turned to go back into the workshop.

We hadn’t taken more than two steps when the bell to the front door jingled again, and this time it was Otis Beecher, sheriff’s badge and all.

O
tis greeted us with, “Afternoon, ladies. I was on the way to the station to relieve Billy for his dinner break and thought I’d check in on you. I wondered if you found anything missing since we talked this morning.”

At least he was smiling. I felt like my tongue was glued to the roof of my mouth and only managed a weak smile back. Maybe it was just my guilty conscience at not telling Otis about Aaron Scott, or maybe it was just outright fear we were all headed for jail, but whatever kept my mouth shut did not seem to affect Aunt Connie.

“Nope, nothin’ else that I can tell. And other than being a little rattled, we’re doing all right.” Then, like an old chum settling down for a long chat, Aunt Connie leaned on the other side of the counter from Otis. “But what gets me about this whole mess is that whoever broke into my place was mighty persnickety about taking stuff off those shelves and such.”

Aunt Connie’s comment not only surprised me, it scared me. Had she forgotten that her ex-fiancé’s body was in the
flower cooler? The last thing we needed was for Otis to start exploring other options besides burglary for the break-in.

Frowning, Otis replied, “Been wondering ‘bout that myself. Somethin’ sure doesn’t seem right about it. It almost looks like the burglar was lookin’ for something specific. I can’t see what that would be in a flower shop, though. Truth is, we don’t have a lot to go on. Well, ladies, I’d better go so Billy can get some supper. I’ll keep you posted on anything I find out.” With that, Otis put his hat on and walked out the door.

Aunt Connie looked at her watch. “It’s almost five o’clock. I think I’ll just close up shop a little early. Then we can get back to that briefcase uninterrupted.”

Uncle Rudd poked his head through the curtain again. “All clear?”

“All clear. I’ve locked up for the night,” Aunt Connie told him.

As we started toward the workshop, Uncle Rudd walked out from behind the dividing curtain and blocked my path. Holding up his hands in front of him, he said, “I know you’ve already had a pretty full day, Dixie-gal, but I’ve got one more little job for you and Freedom.”

The last thing I wanted to do was to go on one of Uncle Rudd’s “little jobs.” My mind was shot, I was hungry, I was tired, and I wanted to eat and sleep, not necessarily in that order.

Reluctantly and slowly I said through clenched teeth,
“What little job?”

My tone of voice and whatever awful look I had on my face made Uncle Rudd take a step back and blink. “Let’s go on back into the workshop, and we can talk about it.”

I followed Uncle Rudd back through the curtain muttering phrases like, “Sleep would be nice,” “A trip to the Bahamas would be better,” and, “This better be important.”

Uncle Rudd heard that last comment and turned around to face me. “It is real important, Dixie-gal.” Then he started digging in his front shirt pocket and brought out the small key that Aunt Connie had found in the white envelope in Aaron’s briefcase. He held it in the palm of his hand toward me. “I think this key is one of those locker keys down at the bus station. Since Scott came in on the bus, we figured he went back there and rented one of those lockers to store his suitcase in. All you and Freedom need to do is to go down there and pick it up.”

“Can’t we go check on the locker tomorrow? It’s been a long hard day already.” I literally whined.