you would win the Kewpie doll. I was the one who always ended up being embarrassed because I was such a rebellious little creep.”
“Not like Cassie at all.” He relaxed his long body against the wall.
I breathed a sigh of relief and took at least one foot out of my mouth.
“No. Cassie has been a lady since the day she was born. Just like her grandmother.”
“Mrs. DeLeon, thanks for coming. I really appreciate it. I’m sorry for all the trouble I’ve caused you and your family.”
“Goodness, Ethan, you haven’t caused us any trouble. You’re the one in trouble—or haven’t you noticed?”
He gave that “aw shucks” grin again, and I could tell he was feeling more like his old self.
“I have to admit that I was badly thrown when they arrested me. I’m afraid it took me a while to come out of my depression. I’ve been in some tight spots before, but never something as low on the totem pole as this.”
He stood up and walked over to the high little cell window. He was tall enough that he could see out.
“My mother will never understand.” He turned back, his face grim again.
“She’s like your mother, but without the kindness and sense of humor. To her, appearances and professional demeanor are everything. This will be the last straw in my checkered career. She’ll wash her hands of me even if I do get off scot-free. And it’s a given that she’ll fire me.”
“Fire you, what do you mean, fire you? Mothers can’t stop loving their sons.”
“You don’t understand. My mother is my boss at CDC.”
“Dr. Eloise Haywood is your mother?”
He seemed genuinely surprised that I knew her name.
“Eh, I went with Cassie to send the e-mail to your office.”
I thought quickly for a moment and decided to tell him everything.
“We also brought your computer back to the farm for safekeeping,” I whispered.
He sat down hard on his bunk. The springs made a loud and musical protest against his weight. I held my breath for his reaction.
“Wow! Thank you, Mrs. DeLeon! At least she can’t accuse me of being careless with confidential information. Thanks to you and Cassie.”
He got that goofy lovelorn look on his face.
“I bet it was her idea, huh?”
“Yes, Ethan,” I lied.
The deputy yelled a terse warning for us to stop whispering.
“Look, Ethan, Chief Joiner won’t let me stay in here much longer. We’d better get on with it. Why did you ask to see me?”
He cleared his throat, and the Romeo look vanished.
“Cassie told me when we first met about your work, I mean your detective work—writing the books and all. I was hoping you would help me out. Maybe you can find out what really happened.”
He had turned a peculiar shade of red.
“I want to ask you and Leonard Paisley to get me out of this mess.”
Chapter Nine
The afternoon was beautiful—sunny and warm—with a soft breeze from the south which lifted my hair and kissed my cheeks. High above, little fluffy white clouds scooted across an intense cerulean sky like naughty chicks scurrying home to mama. It was perfect weather, and there were no bars between me and the great outdoors. One hour in a jail cell was more than enough for me. I had left feeling infinitely sorry for Ethan.
Too unsettled to go home just yet, I decided to walk around and sort out my feelings. Ethan’s request that I help him was not unexpected. I was already trying to help to some extent. But now that he was really counting on me to solve his problems, I wasn’t sure I was up to it.
I tried to explain to him that I was not really a detective—just a writer who seemed to get in the middle of murderous muddles and had to figure her way out. I could not guarantee any results at all. But like others before him, he simply ignored what he called my modesty. He’d brightened like a hundred-watt bulb when I said I would do the best I could.
Damn! Another muddle. Leonard had better put on his thinking cap for this one. It was a dilly.
Rowan Springs had two main streets—one went north and the other south. When they met at the courthouse square, they divided and went east and west as well. It had been a very nifty plan when the town was founded over a hundred years ago. Amazingly enough, it still worked today—with the addition of one or two traffic lights and a four-way stop sign here and there.
The jail, firehouse, and City Hall were on the north side of the square. The pharmacies and clothing stores were on the south side. A barber shop, a beauty shop, and one Tai Chi studio were on the west.
When I was a little girl, I used to shop for groceries with my grandmother at the A&P on the east side of the square. Rowan Springs was still a little country town back then. Farmers brought their wagons to town filled with fresh produce and live chickens and sold them off the tailgate. My grandmother always bought a nice fat hen for Sunday dinner. I usually made a pet of it before we got home and cried all night after she swung it by the neck until the body popped off and went flapping across the backyard. Somehow the violent demise of my new feathered friend never stopped me from devouring the juicy meat off the crispy fried pulley bone after church the next day.
The hitching racks were long gone and so were the grocery stores. They had moved out to the mini-mall on the road to the lakes where there was more parking space.
Once abandoned, the high-ceilinged old stores had been turned into offices for lawyers and accountants. Bruce Hawkins, Mother’s lawyer, had been the only one in town to rebel against having an office on “Lawyer’s Row.” Instead he had turned the old Capitol Theater into a wonderful art deco homage to the movies he used to love and made his offices there.
I walked around the square lost in reflection and memories. My mind was a hundred years in the past as I admired the wonderful old carvings on the fronts of the buildings.
I did not see the crowd gathering outside of the jail until I rounded the corner of the courthouse. Andy Joiner was standing on the steps in front of his office trying to disperse what appeared to be the beginnings of an unruly demonstration.
I crossed the street and stood behind an obese, middle-aged woman with stringy grey hair. She was waving a homemade placard with the word “feend” misspelled in bright orange letters. I watched in morbid fascination as the flabby fat under her arms swayed grotesquely with her every movement. She noticed me watching her and turned around.
“You got daughters?”
She thrust the placard under my nose and waved it dangerously close to my brand new Ralph Lauren sunglasses.
“That crazy doctor inside the jail is killing
