CHAPTER EIGHT
We spent the next two hours at the house of the town harlot, aka Becky MacDonald, because Karen had arranged for Nettie’s husband to be there. I took the camera Lauren had provided and snuck around the house, peeking into the windows and taking photos. Then I got multiple shots of Nettie’s husband running out the front door toward his truck. Thankfully, Becky and Earl supplied plenty of drama, from her running out in her lingerie to him tripping over a tree root as he tried to pull a shirt over his head, so I didn’t catch any more grief from Lauren for being too boring. The topper was the policeman who showed up claiming someone had turned me in for being a Peeping Tom. Since he put a pair of handcuffs on me, I suspected that someone had been Lauren.
The next stop was staking out the disability-claim guy in his doctor’s parking lot. That was a whole lot less interesting, so either Lauren had some surprise planned, or I was going to have to come up with something fast.
Karen gave us the address, and we headed to the office and parked in the back lot.
“What are we lookin’ for?” Dixie asked.
I grabbed my phone out of my pocket and pulled up Lauren’s e-mail. “Tommy Kilpatrick, twenty-seven years old. He’s five-ten, one hundred and eighty pounds, and has brown hair and brown eyes.” I held out my phone screen so she could see his photo. “He lives here in Sweet Briar and works for Acme Concrete. He hurt his back on the job. He’s been on disability for three months and claims he’s still too injured to work.” I looked up at Dixie. “We need to prove he’s lying.”
My cousin nodded. “Got it.”
They’d want footage of us scoping the place out, so I rolled down the window and picked up the camera, aiming the lens at the entrance to the doctor’s office.
“What kind of car does he drive?” Dixie asked.
“The paperwork didn’t say.”
She pursed her lips. “I think he just got out of a brand-new Range Rover.”
“What?” She pointed in the direction she’d spotted Tommy, and I held up the camera and zoomed in on him. “I think you’re right.”
Dixie reached for the camera. “Let me have a look.” She held it up and focused on the man walking into the office, remembering to snap several photos—something I hadn’t done. “Yep. That’s gotta be him.”
As he disappeared into the office building, I turned to Dixie. “How much do you think Tommy makes at Acme Concrete?”
“Not enough to buy a new Range Rover.”
“I wonder if he’s married. Or if his parents have money,” I said, forgetting, for a moment, this was all make-believe.
“I think I’d know if his parents had money. Only a handful of people have that kind of money here. The Dunbars, a couple of doctors . . . your mother.”
My mother. I’d deal with that issue later. Hopefully off camera.
Right. And I had a bridge to sell on QVC during my next gig.
“Maybe he got some kind of settlement,” Dixie said.
I pulled up his file on my phone, which actually looked like a real case file. “Um . . . I don’t think he did. He’s on temporary leave until he gets better.” I glanced back up through the windshield. “Maybe he borrowed it from a friend.”
“Or he’s up to no good.”
We were supposed to be private investigators. Shouldn’t we have access to license-plate information? “Can you make out his license-plate number?”
She looked through the camera lens again. “It’s parked at an angle. I can’t make it out.”
I reached for the door handle. “I’m going to find out what it is.” It wasn’t until I was out of the truck that I realized I’d forgotten I was supposed to be doing this on camera, but Lauren didn’t stop me. It didn’t take me long to figure out why. Tony stood next to his truck with his camera aimed at me.
I walked over to the SUV and pulled out my phone. “It’s a Georgia license plate,” I said to myself, taking a few photos of the vehicle and the plates. The sound of a motorcycle caught my attention, and I saw a big Harley pulling into the parking lot of the strip mall next door. That lot was nearly empty other than a white cargo van parked on the opposite side. When the driver parked the Harley and took off his helmet, I realized it was the guy who’d been talking to the mayor in the alley outside the café. Acting on impulse, I lifted my phone and snapped several photos of him as he walked into a dry-cleaning place—an odd choice given that he wasn’t taking anything in, and it hardly seemed practical to carry dry cleaning home on a bike.
I’d made it across the small grass strip separating the two parking lots before Lauren started shouting at me like a mother rounding up a disobedient child. “Summer! Get back here!”
I planned to ignore her, but the guy walked out seconds later with a brown paper bag tucked under his left arm.
“Summer!”
Dammit. I took several more photos, pretending to take photos of the entire parking lot as I watched him stuff the brown paper bag into the side-saddle pouch on his bike. Which was why I saw the brown bag tumble out onto the pavement as he drove off. He didn’t appear to notice.
That curiosity kicked in again, and I sent Dixie a text. Distract Lauren.
Seconds later, Dixie started screaming inside the truck cab. The crew ran over to her to see what was wrong. I took advantage of the distraction to make a grab for the brown bag. It held a rectangular wad, and a quick peek inside revealed it to be a stack of money.
Holy crap.
“What the hell are you doing?” Lauren screamed after me. “The show’s in this parking lot!”
I heard Dixie shouting something about a spider.
I held the bag at my side, hiding it as I turned. “Just looking around.”
“Get over here!”
What was I going to do with it? Take it into the dry-cleaning store? Put it back on the ground? What would Lauren do if I told her? Keep it?
Who dropped a bag full of money?
A police car pulled into the parking lot, and I saw Cale through the window. He parked in the space next to me and got out. “Are you a hobbit goin’ for your second lunch?” he asked as a grin spread across his face. “You must have a hollow leg.”
“It’s not a lunch,” I said with a snort. “It’s a bag full of money.”
“Where’d you get a bag of money?”
“I found it here in the parking lot. A motorcyclist just peeled out of here, and it dropped out of his bag.”
“You don’t say,” he murmured as he reached for it. I handed it over, and he whistled when he glanced inside. “I’ll take this down to the station. Anyone who drops a bag of money’s gonna go lookin’ for it.”
“Okay.”
He leaned down and tossed it into the passenger seat of his police car.
“What are you doing here anyway?” I asked.
His grin grew even bigger as his eyes twinkled with mischief. “Luke’s got us takin’ turns keepin’ an eye on all y’all. He assigned us shifts at our meeting.”
“So that’s why Officer Hawkins showed up at our last location.”
“I guess it seems less like harassment if we take turns,” he said with a laugh that suggested he thought the task was ridiculous. There was a sinking feeling in my stomach. Luke was doing his level best to boot me out of town.
“What exactly does he think we’re going to do?”
“That remains to be seen.”
“Well, tell Chief Montgomery that he should do his own dirty work.”
He laughed again. “There’s no way in hell I’m telling him that. You can do it yourself.” He glanced over at the crew behind me. “That one woman looks pissed as hell. If Luke asks, I harassed the shit out of you all. Otherwise, I’m out of here.” He got in his car and gave me a little wave before he backed up.
As he pulled out of the lot, I realized I hadn’t given him any details about the guy who’d dropped the money. I turned around to deal with the pissed-as-hell woman.
“What was that all about?” Lauren asked as I approached her. “Why did you go over there in the first place?”
“You said you wanted drama, and this case seems dull as dirt, so I went lookin’ for trouble.”
“How did you come across a bag of money?” she asked with a hand on her hip.
“How . . . ?” That damn microphone. “I found it in the lot. The guy on the motorcycle dropped it, and I went to see what it was.”
“Why in God’s name did you give it to that police officer?”
“Because it was lost money, Lauren. He can try to give it to the rightful owner. I couldn’t very well refuse to hand it over.”
“You deviated from the plan. I never told you to get out of the truck. I never told you to go pick up a bag of money. You need to clear things with me first.”
“Is Tommy Kilpatrick even a real case?” I asked.
She shrugged. “They’re all varying degrees of real.”
“So Acme Concrete really thinks he’s faking his injury?”
“They gave us two weeks to prove it.”
Strangely enough, that made me feel better. “So what do you have planned for the rest of the afternoon?”
She checked her watch. “I think we’ll send Bill to get some B-roll of Kilpatrick’s house, and Tony will get some B-roll of you and Dixie working at the office this afternoon.”
“How will Bill explain taking footage of Tommy’s house if he sees him?”
She shrugged. “He can tell him he’s filming for Google.”
I had to admit that was a good idea, but plenty of other things weren’t adding up. “That should have us finishing up between five and six. I thought we were pushing ten-hour days.”
Lauren hesitated. “I have everyone on a special project tonight.”
Oh, Lord. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know, but if the wicked look in her eyes was any indication, I was going to find out—and soon.
When I got back in the truck, I could see Dixie was dying to find out more about the money, but I didn’t dare tell her in the bugged-up cab. It was bothering me that I hadn’t yet told Cale about the connection between the guy who’d dropped the money and the mayor. I knew in my gut they were related somehow. I just wasn’t sure how.
We spent another half hour doing retakes of Dixie and me in the truck cab talking about the case, then Tommy Kilpatrick walked out, got into his Range Rover, and drove off.
I was dying to follow him, but Lauren insisted we head back to the office, which included more grueling, slo-mo filming of us driving and then parking in front of the office.
Karen had gone back and put cones in an empty spot to save it for us, and the cones had caught some attention, so there was a small crowd outside the office. Karen blocked the sidewalk off with the cones, and Lauren, who clearly thought she was a paragon of generosity, told the gathered people they could cross our shot one or two at a time (possibly getting some screen time in the process) so long as they agreed not to stop and dawdle . . . which was like asking them to walk past a spaceship. They kept gawking and even waving at the camera. Lauren was fit to be tied by the fifth take.
She balled her hands into fists at her sides, and her face turned red as she screamed, “Can you morons get anything right?”
That didn’t exactly earn her any love, and an earsplitting fuss quickly rose up. It was interrupted when a now-familiar man’s voice shouted, “Everyone calm down!”
The crowd quieted, and Officer Hawkins, who’d almost arrested me for peeping earlier, passed through them with his thumbs hooked in his waistband and a grin on his face. This had to be his most exciting day in ages. “Ms. Chapman, do you have a permit to be blocking the sidewalk?”
“No, but—”
He held up his hand, his smile widening. “There are no buts in the law, ma’am.”
“No,” she sneered, practically nose to nose with him, “but apparently, there are plenty of asses.”
Oh, crap.
“She’s gonna get this show kicked out of town, ain’t she?” Dixie asked, her voice tight. We were in the truck, having returned to the cab after the last disastrous take.
“It sure looks that way.” I wasn’t sure which outcome to hope for.
Dixie and I got out and tried to sneak into the office, but a few people in the crowd saw me and asked me for autographs. Since I didn’t have anything to hand out, I signed two receipts and a church program from a month ago before we slipped inside.
Lauren and the officer’s disagreement ended in a spectacular shouting match before she stomped into the office and down the hall. She was back moments later with a bag slung over her shoulder. Heading for the door, she barked at Bill, “Stay here and get the B-roll of Summer and Dixie at the office, then send Dixie home and get some footage of Summer alone.”
“Okay.”
“Tony and everyone else, come with me to the farm.”
The farm? “Wait? My grandmother’s farm?”
Lauren paused at the door and turned only long enough to give me an evil smile.
Shit.
I nearly attacked Dixie as she walked in the door. “Why are they going out to the farm?”
She gave me a blank look. “For the family dinner.”
The blood rushed to my feet, leaving me light-headed. “What family dinner? Who’s coming?”
“Just me and Teddy. And Meemaw, of course. And you. Didn’t they tell you?”
I stumbled backward, resting my butt on the edge of my desk. “Oh, thank God.”
“Who did you think would be there?” Her mouth formed a perfect O. “Your mother.”
I nodded.
“We haven’t seen her in ages. She came back to town actin’ like you’d taken her for a ride, but it smelled mighty fishy after she started buildin’ that big house. As far as I know, she and Meemaw haven’t talked in a couple of years.”
“Really?”
Her lips pursed and she gave me a half shrug. “Yeah.”
I looked up to ask Bill what he wanted us to do to start the B-roll, but he was already recording. I was horrified anew. “Tell me you didn’t record that.”
“Sorry, Summer. Part of reality TV is catching the candid moments.”
I snorted. “After a whole day of scripted filming.”
“Some part of it has to be reality.”
Part of me wanted to flee. To pick up and move to some remote country where no one would recognize me. While everyone suspected my mother and I had had a falling-out, neither of us had publicly confirmed it. Still . . . as much as I hated the thought of people knowing the truth, maybe it was time. If this got out, it might even put some of the worst rumors about me to bed.
I sat down at my desk. “We’re supposed to look like we’re working, right?”
“Yeah. I’m going to be moving in and out of the office. Just pretend I’m not here.”
Yeah. Right.
He kept filming as I opened my laptop and booted it up, seeing what programs were loaded. It was pretty bare-bones, not that I was surprised. I’d actually expected the computers to be props.
“We need to run that license-plate number,” I told Dixie. “There has to be a program we can use. Can you do a search to see if we can get one now that I’m an official PI?” I almost laughed, but the business license on the wall assured me that Darling Investigations was in the business of private investigation.
“On it.”
“Are there many serious crimes around here?” I asked.
Dixie seemed to understand what I was getting at. “No. Burglaries, of course. A lot of DUIs. Some drug possession and dealing. The occasional assaults, but few rapes or murders. There’ve been a few drug overdoses over the last few months. That seems to have Luke on edge.”
I started doing an Internet search for Tommy Kilpatrick in Sweet Briar, Alabama, coming up with a couple of hits about his years on the Sweet Briar High School baseball team and an arrest for a DUI. There was also a post in the Sweet Briar Gazette about his accident at Acme Concrete, but it didn’t go into much detail. I jotted down some of the names of his fellow baseball teammates, hoping they’d kept in touch and could give me some information. But all the while, I kept wondering about that bag of cash. What was it for? How much money was in there? And what did the mayor have to do with any of it? I really needed to call Cale.
I was snared up in my thoughts by the time Bill returned to the doorway. “Okay, that’s enough with you, Dixie. Lauren wants you out at the farm.”
“Okay.” Dixie closed her laptop and stood. “You okay being here on your own, Summer?”
I smiled. “I’ll see you at dinner.”
She left and Bill spent the next twenty minutes taking more shots of me alone from varying angles before he said we were done.
“Do you mind if I head out there by myself?” I asked. “I need some time alone.”
“Yeah,” he said. “No problem. It’s probably hard being thrust back into it all after being gone so long.”
“Yeah. It is.” I grabbed my phone and keys. “Okay. See you out there.”
He gave me a wave as he started to pack up his camera.
When I got out to the truck, I noticed that my two suitcases were in the truck bed. It occurred to me that they’d never told me where I was staying. Crap. It would have been nice to go to my hotel and freshen up before dinner, especially since I hadn’t seen Meemaw for so long. I considered calling Karen, the only one who’d given me her number, but the sun was already low on the horizon, and there was a stop I wanted to make before I went to the farmhouse.
I got in the truck and started to head out of town. I was passing the police station and thinking of Luke when I saw flashing lights in my rearview mirror.
Great. This was harassment, plain and simple. I’d been going the speed limit—a couple of miles below, actually—and I’d broken no traffic rules.
I pulled into the empty parking lot of a sign business, which looked to be closed since it was after six. Shifting the old truck into park, I leaned over to get the registration paperwork from the glove compartment.
“License, registration, and proof of insurance,” Luke barked, for all the world like he hadn’t been wrapped around me eight hours earlier. I started sifting through the mess of papers, but I couldn’t find what I needed.
“I’m looking,” I said, straining against the seat belt.
“I’m goin’ to need you to step out of the truck.”
“I’m trying to find it!” I insisted.
“Now.”
After my crap day, he was about to catch the brunt of my wrath.