Black and Blueberry Die (A Fresh-Baked Mystery Book 11) (13 page)

She looked at the clock and said, “It’s almost Bobby’s bedtime. They’re going to have to finish soon or else suspend the game until tomorrow night.”

“I’ll go and tell them that if somebody wins not to start another game.”

“Thanks. I’ll be in there in a minute.”

Phyllis turned back to the computer and started closing down her searches. She wished all of life’s problems could be closed down as easily. Just click on an “X” in the corner, and it was gone.

Or in this case, thinking about Brian Flynn and Roxanne Macrae Jackson, was it “Ex”...?

Maybe tomorrow would bring the answer.

Bobby had inherited a lot of his traits from Mike, including a reluctance to get out of bed in the morning and go to school. However, rousting a youngster from the covers and getting him up and moving proved to be like the old proverb about riding a bike, Phyllis discovered: once you knew how, you never really forgot.

When Bobby was good and awake, he was actually eager to go, since he liked kindergarten. After breakfast he piled into the pickup with Sam, and they headed for school.

Phyllis got dressed while Sam was gone. He wasn’t back yet when she walked into the kitchen and found Carolyn and Eve sitting at the table and nursing second cups of coffee.

“I guess you’re going out to investigate that murder again today,” Carolyn said.

“I am...but if I have time, I might stop by the store and pick up some things for that black and blueberry pie.”

“You know,” Eve said, “I have a friend who grows berries. She and her husband live between here and Springtown and have whole fields of berries. They would probably let us pick some fresh ones.”

“Would there still be any this late in the season?” Phyllis asked. Fresh fruit was always better than canned or frozen.

“Well, I wouldn’t know about that myself, of course, but I could find out.”

“I’d appreciate it. We could have a little berry-picking expedition this weekend. Bobby might enjoy that.”

“Goodness,” Carolyn said. “I haven’t picked berries in years. We used to when I was a little girl. We went and picked up pecans, too. I remember filling up bushel baskets with them!”

“It was fun, too, wasn’t it?” Phyllis said.

“It was work, all that bending over...but I remember enjoying it,” Carolyn admitted. She frowned. “Not picking cotton, though. I never enjoyed picking cotton.”

“I can certainly agree with you on that,” Phyllis said.

Sam came back in a short time later. Smiling, he said, “That kid sure loves to talk. He barely shut up the whole way to school. I wanted to tell him to take a breath.”

“You didn’t, did you?” Phyllis asked.

“Oh, no. Anyway, as smart as he is, it was pretty good conversation. Funny, too.” Sam poured himself some coffee and went on, “What’s on the agenda for the rest of the day?”

“I’m not sure. I thought about talking to Brian Flynn again. But if I come right out and tell him I know he used to date Roxanne in high school...”

“He’s liable to clam up and not say anything else.”

Phyllis nodded. “I’m afraid so. I’d also like to know if he ever came around the beauty salon while Roxanne was working there.”

“Times when Danny wasn’t around, you mean?”

“Exactly.”

Carolyn said, “If they were having an affair, they wouldn’t meet where Roxanne worked. That would have been too blatant.”

“And they couldn’t very well get together at the paint and body shop,” Sam said. “Roxanne wouldn’t have had any excuse for bein’ there when Danny wasn’t.”

Phyllis considered all that and nodded. “So they met elsewhere. The farm house, maybe? Brian could have told Danny he was going to go pick up some parts or something whenever he had a rendezvous with Roxanne.”

“Or maybe wherever Brian lives,” Sam said. “To tell you the truth, I never did any sneakin’ around like that, so I don’t really know how it works.”

“Neither did I,” Phyllis said.

Carolyn turned her head and gave Eve a long, speculative look.

“What are you looking at me for?” Eve demanded. “
I
never played around with a married man!”

“Really?” Carolyn said.

“Yes, really! Why do you think I got married so many times? If they wanted it, they had to put a ring on it. I’m no more an expert on adultery than any of the rest of you.”

“All right,” Phyllis said. “Let’s start with Estelle Prentice, Sam. You remember her.”

“The lady who keeps her horses in the field across the road from the Jackson place?”

“That’s right. She said she lives in White Settlement. Let’s see if we can find an address for her.”

••●••

Looking up someone’s address and phone number online was fairly easy if you didn’t mind paying for the service. Phyllis had found in previous cases that the expense was well worth it. Jimmy D’Angelo would usually reimburse her for things like that, but she didn’t even make a note of it this time.

This was Danny, Mike’s old friend, and her efforts were strictly
pro bono
. She couldn’t make any money off someone who had sat at her kitchen table eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

There were a number of people named Prentice who lived in White Settlement, but only one with the initials E.F. Phyllis recalled that Estelle had said her husband had passed away, so it was possible the phone was in her name. The fact that it was a landline was another indication that its owner was an older person, since a lot of young people had done away with what they considered an antiquated system.

“Are you gonna give her a call?” Sam asked when Phyllis had found the name and address on the computer.

“No, I don’t think so. Maybe we can catch her at home. I’d like to talk to her face to face.”

“That’ll probably mean droppin’ the story about paintin’ old farm houses.”

“That’s fine,” Phyllis said. “I think it’s probably time we started dropping some pretenses.”

She put the address she believed belonged to Estelle Prentice into her phone, then she and Sam set out. White Settlement was on the west side of Fort Worth and had been there since pioneer days, but it had only begun to flourish during the Second World War, when it served as a bedroom community for the nearby Consolidated-Vultee aircraft plant where the B-24 Liberator bomber had been manufactured. The so-called “bomber plant” was still there, although it had gone through numerous name and ownership changes and had turned out many different types of aircraft over the years, but many of the people who worked there still lived in White Settlement. A lot of other businesses had moved in, too, and it was now a bustling suburban city.

Many of the residential streets still looked the same as they had fifty or sixty years earlier, however, including the one Phyllis and Sam found themselves driving down half an hour after leaving Weatherford. It was lined with frame, one-story houses, most of them appearing to be well cared for behind neat lawns and flower beds.

“If it weren’t for the cars parked along here, it’d be almost like we were back in 1957,” Sam commented. “In some ways, that wouldn’t be a bad thing.”

“But in some it would,” Phyllis said. “There have been a lot of advances in society and technology since then.”

“That’s true. It’s a shame we can’t sorta take the best of both worlds and leave the bad parts behind.”

Phyllis couldn’t argue with that.

She pointed out the street number they were looking for. It was painted on a mailbox next to the driveway of a light green house with white metal awnings extending over the windows. Shrubs grew along the front of the house, next to the small front porch. There was an attached one-car garage and a pickup parked in the driveway. Phyllis thought she recognized it from their encounter with Estelle Prentice a few days earlier.

“This must be it,” she said.

“And it looks like she’s home,” Sam replied. He parked his pickup at the curb, and they got out.

Phyllis pushed the doorbell next to the screen door. A moment later the wooden inside door opened and Estelle Prentice looked out. She said, “Can I help—Wait a minute. I recognize the two of you.” She nodded toward Sam. “Especially you, Stretch. What can I do for you? I know you’re not here to make a painting out of my house!”

“I’m afraid we fibbed a little bit to you the other day, Mrs. Prentice,” Phyllis began.

“So you
are
real estate people. I don’t care if you want to buy my property out there on Silver Creek Road. It’s not for sale. The scavengers can come along and fight over it when I’m dead and gone.”

Sam held up a hand and said, “We’re not realtors, and we’re not lookin’ to buy any property.”

“We’re investigating Roxanne Jackson’s murder,” Phyllis said.

Estelle’s eyebrows went up in surprise. “You’re detectives? A couple of old geezers like you?”

Sam grinned and said, “Right on both counts.”

“Really?”

“It’s true,” Phyllis said. “We’re working for the attorney handling Danny Jackson’s appeal.”

“You mean you’re trying to get him off after he killed that poor girl?” Estelle reached for the door as if she intended to slam it.

“We don’t believe he’s guilty,” Phyllis said quickly. “We’re not just investigators. I’ve known Danny since he was a little boy. He was my son’s best friend in school. Regardless of how the case looks, I know he couldn’t have killed Roxanne.”

Estelle squinted suspiciously at them for several seconds, then said, “Well, why didn’t you say so to start with? What are you doing here? You got questions for me?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, come on in,” Estelle said, still with obvious reluctance. “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt anything to talk to you for a few minutes.”

She let them into a living room that looked very much like the one in Phyllis’s house, not surprising since they were from the same generation and same general background. Phyllis and Sam sat on a sofa with crocheted doilies draped over the tops of the cushions. Estelle sat in an armchair opposite them, next to a big TV in a heavy wooden cabinet that had to be at least forty years old.

“What do you want to know?”

Phyllis had saved and printed out two pictures from Facebook: the one of Danny and Brian when they opened their shop and the yearbook picture of Brian and Roxanne. She took them from her purse and stood up to hand them across to Estelle.

“Could you look at them and tell us if you’ve ever seen that blond man?”

Estelle took the pictures and studied them. A couple of minutes went by before she said, “This is the same guy in the yearbook picture and the later picture, isn’t it?”

“That’s right.”

“He was Roxanne’s boyfriend in high school?”

“Yes.”

“And Danny’s friend now.”

“They’re business partners,” Phyllis said.

Estelle looked up. “Does Danny know about this guy and Roxanne?”

Phyllis shook her head and said, “We don’t think so.” Eventually they were going to have to confirm that with Danny, she told herself. She had hoped to postpone that until they had more answers, just to avoid upsetting Danny unnecessarily, but that might not be possible.

“You ever see that fella out at the farm house across from your pasture?” Sam asked.

“Especially if he was with Roxanne when Danny wasn’t around,” Phyllis added.

“Oh, I get it,” Estelle said. “You think there was some hanky-panky goin’ on.”

“It’s possible. High school sweethearts getting back together again...” Phyllis’s voice trailed off as Estelle began shaking her head.

“I hate to disappoint you, but I never saw this guy before in my life.” She poked at one of the pictures with a fingernail, and Phyllis knew she was indicating Brian Flynn. “I can’t say he was never there, mind you. But
I
never saw him.”

“We’re not disappointed,” Phyllis said. “We just wanted to know what information you might have, and you told us.”

“Roxanne never confided anything about her personal life to you, did she?” Sam asked.

“You mean like telling me she was havin’ an affair?” Estelle let out a curt bark of laughter. “Not hardly. We were friendly acquaintances, that’s all. It’s not like she would spill her guts to me.”

That comment made Phyllis frown in thought as something tickled the back of her mind again, but she couldn’t identify it.

“Look, I wish I could help you,” Estelle went on. “I was friendlier with Roxanne than I was with Danny, but I don’t have anything against the kid. If he didn’t do it, he shouldn’t go to prison for it.”

“That’s the way we feel,” Phyllis said. “Thank you for talking to us.”

“Sure.” The woman cocked her head to the side. “So you don’t paint pictures of farm houses after all, eh?”