Jed Had to Die

“Plenty of people around here forget things. Like the guy who helped you pass Geometry and gave you the name for your coffee shop,” Leo informs me with a cocky smile.

Son of a bitch. SON OF A BITCH! Leo used to always call coffee Liquid Crack and teased me about how I couldn’t survive without it back when he was tutoring me. I can’t believe I forgot about that. When it came time for me to pick a name for the shop, it was the first thing that popped into my head. I can’t believe I forgot that it came from Leo. No wonder he’s taking such great pleasure in torturing me since I got back here. Great, now I owe the guy TWO apologies. This is officially the worst week ever.

“Seriously, I need you to come into the backyard, Sheriff. Right now,” Buddy reminds him, his eyes darting up to me and Emma Jo.

“Just spit it out, Buddy. You’ve been standing here stammering and stuttering for two minutes, and I don’t have time for this right now. I need to make sure the town doesn’t start protesting in the square, demanding I lock up Miss Lambert for pissing everyone off,” Leo tells him, aiming another smirk in my direction.

“Ha, ha, you’re hilarious. Go do something useful and shut that damn dog up,” I complain as Bo Jangles’ barks get louder and more yappy.

“What the hell is he barking at?” Leo mutters.

“He’s barking at him!” Emma Jo whispers in my ear, yanking me out of the doorway and back into the foyer. “Oh, my God, we’re gonna go to prison!”

She’s back to freaking out again, and I suddenly regret my decision of introducing her to copious amounts of wine last night. It clearly ate away all her brain cells and her hangover has made her crazy.

“Did you find another stash of wine I don’t know about? What is wrong with you?” I ask as she paces back and forth in front of me, stopping suddenly to look out into the yard at Leo and Buddy as they walk to the side yard to get to the back.

“The pie. It’s not on the windowsill. I checked when you answered the door, and OH MY GOD, THE PIE IS GONE!” she screeches, her voice louder now that the two men aren’t within hearing distance.

I step around Emma Jo and look into the kitchen to the window above the sink and sure enough, the pie we left there to cool last night is gone. Under normal circumstances, we probably shouldn’t have left a window to the house wide open all night when there was a lunatic out there somewhere probably waiting for the right opportunity to come back and make good on his threats, but we knew Leo was parked outside all night and he’d make sure nothing would happen. And also, wine…wine had a lot to do with us leaving the window open all night.

Turning back around to face Emma Jo, I shrug. “So, the pie isn’t there. It’s not like everything we did last night is exactly clear. Maybe we only thought we put it there. I’m sure it’s in the fridge.

Emma Jo shakes her head frantically. “No. It’s not in the fridge, it’s not in the oven, and it didn’t fall out of the window. I checked. WE KILLED HIM!”

“For the love of all that is holy, will you stop talking crazy? Take a deep breath, slow down, and tell me what the hell you’re talking about.”

Emma Jo grabs my hand and pulls me down the hallway instead of replying. I let her drag me to the back of the house and into the laundry room, glancing out the window when she pulls the curtain aside and points to the backyard.

All I see is Leo and Buddy standing next to each other, staring down at something, until Buddy suddenly races away toward the side of the yard, bends over, and throws up all over a pink rose bush.

My eyes go back to Leo and I finally get a good look at what they were looking at, and the source of Bo Jangles’ incessant barking all morning.

“WE KILLED HIM!” Emma Jo screams again.

I clamp my hand over my mouth as I stare out of Emma Jo’s laundry room window, at Jed Jackson lying face-up in the grass, still wearing the same three-piece suit he had on when I saw him last night, unmoving with his eyes wide open in death.

“Never mind. Now, it’s officially the worst week ever,” I mumble, before turning around and racing back down the hall to the guest bathroom, making it to the toilet just in time to throw up all of last night’s wine and bad decisions.

CHAPTER 10

Recorded Interview

June 2, 2016

Bald Knob, KY Police Department

Deputy Lloyd: You spoke to your daughter on the phone right before the body was discovered, is that correct?

Ruby Lambert: Yes. I called to tell her what a horrible child she was for not letting me know she was home. Can you believe I had to hear it from Starla Godfrey that my own daughter was in town? Thirty-seven hours of labor and she doesn’t even care about her own mama. Not to mention the apologies I had to make around town all the time when she was growing up and causing trouble. I still have to make Pastor John twenty pumpkin rolls every year for the church bake sale so he won’t kick Payton’s father and I out for what she did Christmas of 2001.

Deputy Lloyd: What happened during Christmas of 2001?

Ruby Lambert: She rearranged the Three Wise men in front of Bald Knob Presbyterian into vulgar poses. It probably wasn’t the best idea for the church to use old department store mannequins with bendable joints, but that’s neither here nor there.

Deputy Lloyd: So your daughter regularly did things to rile people up and often times broke the law?

Ruby Lambert: Well, only when people did something that put a bee in her bonnet and she wanted to get back at them. Pastor John’s sermon that previous weekend was about making amends to people we’ve wronged, and he singled Payton out, asking her if she’d like the opportunity to apologize to Mo Wesley for hanging a sign on his Gas n Sip coffee machine that said “Don’t drink this coffee. It tastes like farts smell.”