Destined for Trouble (A Jules Cannon Mystery Book 1)

  “But it’s dated. They both are. Surely a judge would consider this one void,” Abby Lee said.

  “One would think, but even if a judge still dismissed her claim, it could certainly delay or halt the process of you officially taking over the restaurant in the meantime.” I looked at Abby Lee’s confused gaze. “Which means it could give Sheila the opportunity to drag the court process for as long as it takes to get you to give up and sign the restaurant over to her.” Even though we were talking about civil court, I’d seen this type of thing happen so many times in criminal court. Defendants would file countless motions or extend trial dates so that ultimately the injured parties would eventually give up and drop the charges.

  Abby Lee let it all sink in. “Oh my God, do you think Sheila killed Harvey knowing this will existed?”

  At this point I wasn’t sure of anything, but it was a pretty good argument for motive. “I wouldn’t put it past her. If that’s what really happened, I’m sure she got the shock of her life when she found out he changed his will and left you The Poop Deck.”

  “I can’t believe the police missed it when they tossed the place the other day.”

  “Because they’re idiots,” I said, perhaps a bit too harshly. “They didn’t even know what they were looking for.”

  “What about the nephew? Do you think he had any idea about the will?”

  “Seeing that neither he nor his family were included in either version, I doubt it.” I thought back to the conversation I’d had with Donald. “Besides, both were written well before the magazine write-up and his visit to the island.” There was no need to mention I had also conducted a somewhat illegal search on Harvey’s nephew.

  “I wonder why Harvey hid it?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe he didn’t like to throw things out. For his records.”

  “I guess. So what do we do now? Take it to Justin?”

  I shook my head. “No. There’s really nothing to show him. Yeah, we have Harvey’s original will, but I know Justin’s going to say it’s not sufficient evidence to charge Sheila. What we have is circumstantial at best. But it’s enough for me to keep digging further.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  After what happened back at the restaurant, I wasn’t going to let Abby Lee out of my sight. With her mother at her weekly knitting group for the evening, I invited her to come over to my parents’ house for an early dinner.

  If I thought a pleasant evening at home with the folks was in the cards, I thought wrong. I didn’t dwell on the fact that I’d been wrong a lot lately.

  We saw it as soon as we approached the front of the house. Or rather, we smelled it.

  Lying right on the front porch, on top of my mom’s welcome mat, was a dead black cat. I wasn’t superstitious or anything, but just the sight of that poor dead animal gave me a case of the heebie-jeebies. Now, I’d seen plenty of crime scene photos and had even been witness to a dead body or two within my time at the FBI, but this went beyond someone’s idea of a sick joke.

  “What the hell?” I asked out loud.

  “Is that a dead cat?” Abby Lee took a step back.

  “Yeah. Looks like someone left me a gift.”

  “How do you know it’s intended for you?”

  “Call it a hunch,” I said. After everything she’d been through, I still hadn’t told her about the threats I’d received. She would only end up blaming herself for putting me in harm’s way.

  Abby Lee just kept staring at the dead cat. “Hey, there’s something underneath it.”

  I knew Abby Lee wasn’t going to go anywhere near the lifeless feline body, so the task fell to me. I gently tugged at the white slip of paper that lay underneath the cat.

  The message was quite clear:

  Mind your own business!

  “Your gut was right,” she said. “It was definitely meant for you. Why would someone send you something like that?”

  I had hoped to avoid telling her altogether, but it was time to fill her in on the other warnings. What if whoever vandalized The Poop Deck was the same person sending me the threats? And now that the cat was out of the bag—literally—I didn’t have a choice.

  “It’s not the first message I’ve received,” I said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “The night of the reunion, someone bashed in my windshield and left a note. Then, a few days ago, I got a box of black roses with another warning. This one makes three.”

  It was obvious my confession upset Abby Lee. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I didn’t want you to tell me to stop investigating Harvey’s murder.”

  She pointed at the dead cat on my mom’s mat. “This is serious, Jules.”

  The matter was closed as far as I was concerned. I had too much invested to back out now. “I know, trust me. But I’m not going to stop until we find out who killed Harvey.”

  I just hoped Mom didn’t see the body before I had a chance to dispose of it.

  Over sweet tea, spiked with a little splash of vodka, Abby Lee convinced me to report the threats. The incidents were escalating, so I didn’t put up much of a fight. Call me foolish, but it took more than a broken windshield and ugly flowers to scare me—like a dead cat on my parents’ front porch.

  “Uh, it’s not the first message I’ve received,” I admitted to Justin. Filling him in on what had been going on, much like the conversation I’d had with Abby Lee, was a little bit like déjà vu.

  I braced myself for the hell he was no doubt going to raise. I thought he’d probably be pissed over the fact that I’d been threatened or that I’d been keeping the information from him.

  “Goddamn it, Jules! And you’re telling me this now?” he asked. “This is exactly why I didn’t want you to get involved. I’m not sure you realize how serious this is.”

  OK, maybe it was a little bit of both.

  This time, I deserved it. If I were in his shoes, I’d be just as upset. How was he supposed to do his job if I kept things from him? I might not agree with how he was handling the Boyette case, but I could trust him to get to the bottom of the threats I’d received.

  But what did he want me to say? Of course I knew there was a risk in investigating a murder on my own, but there was an even bigger risk at stake. I refused to believe that the system could fail. And right now, it seemed like my faith in the system was failing me.

  “Trust me, I know, Justin. There was a dead cat on my mother’s front porch. I get it. I’m in way over my head.”

  “When did all this start?”

  “The night of the reunion. That’s when my windshield was smashed. You had already left, so I didn’t report it. And Bill over at the garage owed Daddy a favor, so he fixed it for free, so I never got around to filing one for the insurance claim.

  “Then someone sent me a box full of black roses and another note,” I added. “Boy, you should’ve seen my mom’s face when she saw they weren’t red. Oh, and after that, someone locked me in the stockroom at Palmetto Pink. They didn’t leave a note that time. Then the dead cat I mentioned earlier. And that brings us up to date.”

  Justin’s face got redder the longer I spoke. “Since you don’t seem to care about your personal safety, I’m placing someone to keep an eye on you. I’ll have an officer patrol park outside your house to make sure you’re safe.”

  Oh, crap. “I really don’t think that’s necessary, Justin.”

  He put his hand up to stop me from talking any further. “This is not up for discussion. Either you promise to stay indoors or I’ll put you in lockup myself.”

  “On what grounds?” I demanded. “You can’t just incarcerate me for no reason.”

  “You want to bet? How about meddling in an investigation for starters? God help me, Jules, if that’s what it takes to keep you safe—”

  “OK, fine,” I said, cutting hi
m off. I wasn’t going to win this round, but I didn’t have to like it. “I’ll try to keep a low profile.”

  “That’s just not good enough,” he said.

  Officer Clemmons—the same officer that took Abby Lee for questioning the night of the reunion—showed up at my parents’ house and reported for duty later that evening. I didn’t think Justin was actually going to send someone out on security detail, but there he was.

  “Uh,” he said nervously, looking uncomfortable as I stared him down, “the deputy chief said I was to keep an eye on you.”

  “Who is that outside, Jules?” I heard Mom yell from the living room.

  I ignored her as I continued to give Officer Clemmons the stink eye. “Fine. Just see that you keep your distance. I don’t need my parents worrying, got it?”

  “Uh, yeah.” He quickly ran back to his cruiser, doing his best to stay as clear of me as possible. Justin could put him on babysitting detail, but it didn’t mean I had to follow orders. I wasn’t about to let Justin’s threats of jail get in the way of finding out the truth. Having an officer watch my house had more to do with keeping tabs on me than my protection. Officer Clemmons could sit in his patrol car and drink coffee from a thermos all night for all I cared. And if he thought I was going to bring him cookies and milk, he was seriously mistaken.

  In the end, however, it looked like I needn’t worry about being put under twenty-four-hour surveillance. Not even an hour had gone by when I heard a frantic knock on the door. It was Officer Clemmons again.

  What could he possibly want now? It better not be because he has to use the bathroom.

  “Yes?” I asked, allowing only a crack between me and the officer. Mom still hadn’t noticed the cruiser parked across the street, and I wanted to keep it that way. If she found out about the threats and the fact that I had security detail on me, she’d flip. Heaven forbid the neighbors find out.

  “Uh, do you think you could tell that lady to stand down?”

  “What lady?” I glanced past his shoulder and saw the source of his discomfort.

  Aunt Lula was standing at the far end of the porch with her 20-gauge shotgun. I wanted to laugh at the sight, but I could tell Officer Clemmons was mortified.

  “No, I don’t think I can. Is there some sort of problem, Officer? You see, that’s my aunt Lula, and she doesn’t seem to be doing anything wrong. This is my property and, by extension, hers. As far as I know, there’s no law that says she can’t be armed on personal property.”

  “Well, uh, she told me I had to get the hell off your property or she’d tell my mother.”

  I looked over at my aunt and saw the corners of her mouth twitch. She hadn’t said a word during the entire exchange, content to stand there and intimidate the poor officer instead. If Officer Clemmons had anything to fear, it wasn’t my aunt’s shotgun, it was his mama.

  For a moment there, I almost felt sorry for the guy. I was sure he was struggling with the potential fallout of disobeying direct orders from Justin, my shotgun-wielding aunt, or his mother. No matter how it turned out, none of those scenarios worked in Officer Clemmons’s favor. In any other place, this would have been a no-brainer, but this was Texas. You obeyed law enforcement, you stayed clear of old ladies with guns, and you most certainly minded your mama.

  As the officer and I argued about the merits of home protection, I saw a truck pull up behind the cruiser. The cavalry had indeed arrived. I wasn’t surprised to see Justin hop out of the pickup and make his way toward the house. I was pretty sure the neighbors had gotten the jump on Mom and called in the standoff between Officer Clemmons and Aunt Lula. They were probably having a field day—it would provide enough fodder to fuel their gossip for an entire week. Maybe two.

  “What seems to be the problem?” Justin asked, making his way up the walk to the front porch. He ignored Aunt Lula and looked my way. “It’s only been an hour, and you’re causing trouble already?”

  Aunt Lula immediately chimed in with her two cents, before Officer Clemmons and I could offer our version of events. “Deputy, I’m sure Chief Poteet wouldn’t think too highly of you authorizing spending taxpayer money to have one of your officers keep an eye on my niece.”

  “Well—” He knew as well as Aunt Lula that the chief would be none too pleased he’d approved overtime so one of his men could sit outside in the middle of the night protecting their prime suspect’s best friend.

  “And if Jules is in danger, which I have no doubt she is, I am quite capable of seeing that she remains safe.”

  “Lula—”

  “In fact, I’ve even called for backup,” Aunt Lula said with a grin.

  “Lord help us,” he said, shaking his head in defeat. Deputy Chief Harper knew when he was beat. At least when it came to Aunt Lula.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  It took something major for my dad to get involved in anything. Whether it be a heated discussion or a friendly argument, he always preferred to stay quiet and interject only when someone was likely to get injured. But this time he put his foot down.

  Between the break-in at The Poop Deck and my mysterious lethal admirer, it was decided the following day that Abby Lee and I were the killer’s next targets and needed protection. No daughter of his—or Abby Lee by extension—was going to be threatened on his watch.

  After the whole Mexican standoff between Aunt Lula and Officer Clemmons last night, I had to tell my parents everything that had been going on these last few weeks, and as a result, they insisted Abby Lee stay over until things blew over. Needless to say, Mom was furious when she found out I’d been playing detective. I also neglected to mention Aunt Lula’s role. That would have sent her over the edge.

  I was not sure if one could consider five old women suitable bodyguards in any situation, but they felt they were up to the task of protecting us. And who was I to judge? They were excellent shots. I felt more protected with them around than I would have with five of the bureau’s best agents.

  “Do you really think it’s a good idea for them to stand guard like that?” Abby Lee asked. We’d been confined to the house—Daddy’s orders—and were watching as Mom made her famous blueberry pancakes. “I feel kinda silly—having armed protection, especially given that they’re all old enough to be my granny.”

  I laughed, picturing the women that made up the Trouble Island Ladies Trap & Skeet Club. The idea itself was preposterous—five little old ladies perched on their rocking chairs on the front porch with loaded shotguns—but it gave them a sense of purpose, being needed. They had arrived earlier that morning at the request of Aunt Lula, dressed in their Sunday best, each one in a coordinating bright green dress. I think it was their version of camouflage.

  “Have you ever seen them shoot?” I asked.

  “No,” she said.

  “Let’s just put it this way, if a killer’s after you, he or she better hope they’re a better shot than they are,” I said.

  My mom, on the other hand, was not amused. “What in the world do they think they’re doing? Do they not understand the severity of the situation?”

  “They’re doing their civic duty, Livy,” Daddy said.

  “Their civic duty?” Mom asked, an octave higher than her usual shrill tone. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  Daddy held his ground. “They’re protecting the good citizens of Trouble Island,” he said, pointing to me and Abby Lee. “It seems to me these girls need a little bit of protection, so I reckon the old gals are just doing what they need to do.”

  “This is ridiculous. What are the neighbors going to think?”

  “Those old gals haven’t seen this much action since they burned their bras in the sixties,” Daddy said. Abby Lee and I muffled our giggles so as not to antagonize my mom any more than she already was.

  “Really, Boyd.”

  I was sure her concern about the neighbo
rs was the reason she stayed within the sanctuary of her kitchen, distancing herself as much as she possibly could from the scene playing out on her front porch. If we were lucky, we’d come out ahead with some freshly baked pies by afternoon.

  Truth be told, I halfheartedly agreed with Mom, but for different reasons. I didn’t exactly protest the display of firearms by my respected elders, but the principle of the matter.

  “Daddy, really. Can’t you tell them to go home or something? I don’t think anyone is going to come after us here,” I said. Besides, I didn’t want the killer to think we were hiding behind five old ladies and my daddy.

  He chuckled. “Oh, let them have their fun, Butter Bean. It makes them feel needed, and if it means they accidentally shoot a hole in my porch, well, so be it.” Even though the women were champion marksmen, it hadn’t escaped Daddy’s attention that they’d also come armed with enough bloody mary mix and vodka to serve the entire neighborhood. It was kind of like The Golden Girls, only hyped up on booze and too much testosterone.

  I sighed. There was no arguing once he made up his mind about something. “If you say so.”

  But I had something up my sleeve. Here’s a poker tip—if you’re gonna cheat, don’t get caught with cards up your sleeve.

  Don’t ask me why, but Mom didn’t say a word when Abby Lee and I decided to sneak out the kitchen’s back door. The kitchen was situated at the other side of the house, so with the peanut gallery out on the front porch, and Daddy snoozing in the den, they couldn’t hear the squeak of the screen door.

  “Thanks, Mom,” I said through the screen. “We’ll be back soon.”

  Mom kept kneading her dough, doing her best to ignore the circus going on in her home. Secretly, I was pleased she was taking everything in stride—I had high hopes for a peach pie. “Just be careful,” she said.