It was all over the town by noon. A group of kids playing at one of the houses near Mr. Knight’s property had found a metal drum sticking up out of the ground. Actually, it was only the corner of a drum. The rest of it had been buried deep under the ground.

When the mom came out to see what the kids were banging on, she’d realized it might be related to the well poisoning and she’d called the police. They’d called in a state agency to look into it, and ten rusted barrels had been recovered from the site.

“I doubt we’ll know anytime soon whether they’re related to the furniture company, but they have to be, don’t you think?”

Cora listened as the women behind her in the diner talked. She was waiting for Laura, Ashley, Julie, and Presley to join her for lunch.

“There’s no way it’s not related. I mean, really,” another woman said, “the furniture company had that storage facility out that way and now, these show up buried not ten miles down the road?”

The two women were standing now, gathering their things. Cora looked up as her friends came from the other direction and sat down, Ashley taking the seat beside Cora, and Laura, Julia, and Presley slipping in across from her.

It didn’t take long for the conversation to move to the drum discovery at their own table.

“Okay, who has details to share?” Ashley asked.

“I thought you would know,” Presley said. “You’re married to the Chief of Police.”

Ashley shook her head. “He’s too by-the-book for me to get anything out of him.”

“I heard the containers were too rusted to have any labels or anything like that, but there are some numbers stamped right into the metal,” Julia said. “I bet those match the furniture company.”

Presley closed her menu and put it down. Cora wondered why she even looked at it. They’d all eaten at the diner so many times, there was no way they didn’t have the menu memorized.

“They do.” Presley looked around like it was normal for her to have detailed information. It wasn’t at all normal.

Presley and her boyfriend, James, both tended to steer clear of gossip. They were by far the most reserved people in their group of friends, choosing to stay home often, even when the whole group went out. James suffered from some serious PTSD so social situations could be hard on him.

“I went over to the site this morning,” Presley said. “I wanted to see how far it was from the ranch so we’d know if we need to worry about this affecting the horses.”

“Oh, that’s good thinking,” Ashley said.

Presley was a former grand prix horse jumper. She kept her horse over at Bishop Ranch, the ranch owned by Laura’s husband’s family. It made sense that she’d have wanted to know right away if the discovery of buried chemicals might threaten her horse’s safety.

“They weren’t letting people near the site, of course, but you could see what they were doing from the road.” She shrugged a shoulder. “It was interesting.”

“So, how did you find anything out?” Cora asked. She’d thought of calling Ethan. He lived two houses over from where the drums had been found, and they were probably on land that once belonged to his family. She just hadn’t felt right calling for details when his dad was likely sick because of those drums.

“I overheard some of the workers talking as they were leaving. They didn’t seem to notice that I was listening. One guy said the furniture company was screwed now and the other guy said a company representative was already scrambling to show those drums were turned over to a legitimate transport company who was supposed to take them to a disposal facility.”

Cora frowned. “I wonder if they can prove that.”

“I hope so,” Ashley said. “I know what’s happened to Mr. Knight is horrible, but I hate to think what will happen to all the people who work for the company if they shut down.”

“It’s not just Mr. Knight anymore,” Cora said. “There are two kids on neighboring properties that were checked into the hospital. I haven’t heard what their exact diagnoses are, but I don’t think it’s good.”

They were interrupted by Gina. “Hey ladies, we’re out of potatoes and I don’t have any more meatloaf, but the chicken sandwich today is to-die-for. Tina made a new secret sauce for it, and it’s going to make the menu permanently, it’s so good.”

The women looked at each other for a stunned second. Even though the food the sisters served was all fantastic, they rarely added anything new to the menu.

“The chicken sandwich, please,” they said in unison.

“Four chicken sandwiches,” Gina said. “Ice teas all around?”

The women nodded.

Three days later, Cora pulled up in front of Mr. Knight’s house and got out of her car. The people from the state had left, but they’d sealed off a large area of what used to be Mr. Knight’s land and there were warning signs to keep people out. Cora would bet plenty of people had ignored the signs and any risk the barrels of crud might pose and went snooping anyway.

She thought about skipping her Sunday delivery of muffins to Mr. Knight. Now that she knew Ethan was here living with him, she didn’t really need to come out and check on him or keep him company. Plus, it was a little weird since she’d had a few dates that went nowhere with Ethan. Still, they said they’d be friends and his dad had come to expect Sunday muffins. She hated to let him down.

She took the plastic container out of the passenger seat, but left her purse and phone sitting on the seat. In the hill country, you didn’t need to worry about whether someone would steal your purse or your car when you went to visit someone. Not this far from town, at least.

She’d doubled the muffin recipe this time, knowing Ethan and his dad would be fighting over them. Ethan’s truck wasn’t in front of the house, so she guessed he was working in town or out running errands.

She knocked on the door, but it swung open when she did. “Mr. Knight?” She called out and stepped into the house. She’d found the door open plenty of times before and didn’t think anything of it. She should mention to Ethan that the door latch didn’t catch well. He could probably fix it for his dad.

“Mr. Knight, it’s Cora Walker!”

She walked through the entryway and turned toward the den to see if he was in his chair napping. He liked to sit in the beat-up armchair in front of the television, even though he rarely watched any shows.

A shadow at the bottom of the stairs caught her eye as she turned and she changed course, heading deeper into the hallway toward the staircase.

“Mr. Knight?”

A crumpled form lay at the bottom of the stairs, still and silent. Dread and shock warred in Cora’s gut as she realized it was Mr. Knight.

“Mr. Knight!”

Cora dropped the muffins and her bag in the hall as she ran to his side.

Full understanding dawned as she saw the blood. He was facing away from her, but when she came close, she saw the gash in his forehead. It was swollen and bruised and blood pooled beneath him.

There was no doubt in her mind he was dead. She couldn’t say whether it was in the stillness of his body or the ashen pallor of his face. She reached out and felt at his neck anyway, but the movement took force. She didn’t want to do it.

He wasn’t cold, per se, but she could tell his body wasn’t as warm as it should be either. Some part of her wanted to go get a blanket to cover him up, but she stopped herself. There was no pulse. He wasn’t breathing.

Cora was shaking as she left the house to get her phone in the car. Her hands were no steadier when she dialed her brother-in-law’s phone number and told him what she’d found. Since Garrett was the Chief of Police, she hadn’t bothered with nine-one-one.

“I don’t suppose I need to tell you not to touch anything?” Garrett asked. “It doesn’t sound like anything other than an accident, but…”

He didn’t need to finish the sentence. Her brother-in-law had been a major crimes detective in a nearby city before coming to Evers. He would follow protocol with any dead body.

A shiver ran through her at the thought of the body inside the house. Poor Mr. Knight had been so sick lately, but that didn’t make his death any easier to face.

“Garrett, his son is probably working at the feed store today.”

“I’ll go there first. I’m sending an ambulance and Carter out your way, though. I’ll call Ashley and have her come, too.”

“Thanks, Garrett.” He was right. She wanted her sister.

Truthfully, Justin flashed through her mind first and she wanted to call him, but she couldn’t bring her current boyfriend out here when Ethan would be coming home.

Ethan was about to find out his father was dead. She should be here for him. She could go see Justin as soon as she’d been a friend for Ethan.