“Hello, jailbird.” Edna’s smile dripped with condescension.
“Have I really earned that title if I didn’t even sleep over? Feels like appropriation.”
Edna wrinkled her nose. “What do you want?”
“I’d like to strike up a deal with you.”
“Too bad you don’t have anything I want.” Edna started to shut the door, but Cordelia stuck her foot out. She’d come too far to let it end here.
“I saw the drill equipment in your warehouse. I know you’re looking for oil,” Cordelia said, hoping to pique Edna’s interest.
She did not.
“And? Is that supposed to be a threat?” Edna sneered. “We’re allowed to drill on our own land. You didn’t stumble on anything our supplier doesn’t already know.”
“Is that why you want the Chickadee?”
“Who said we want the Chickadee?” Edna made a big show of examining her nails. “We don’t care what you do with your silly little chicken ranch.”
She was clearly bluffing. If they didn’t care, then Corbin wouldn’t have a full drawer in his filing cabinet dedicated to former chicks, and he wouldn’t be tracking Cordelia’s moves. They might’ve owned a few squares of nearby land, but the Chickadee’s acreage spread as far as the Dewitt County line. Ignoring that kind of reach was just bad business sense.
“If you say so.” Cordelia stepped back as if she was giving up the fight. “I was going to make a deal, but if you don’t care about our silly little ranch, I’ll just quit wasting your time.”
“Now hold on a second.” Edna stepped onto her front porch, and Cordelia had to suppress her triumphant grin. “What kind of deal are you talking?”
“If you call off your friend Sean O’Leary, we’ll let you drill on Chickadee land. Just to set your mind at ease about those oil rumors.” Cordelia was taking a risk with the offer. If they did strikeoil, they might be looking at an even bigger fight than the one they currently had with just a rumor, but she had to try.
Edna gave her a long, measured look. One that Cordelia couldn’t quite read. “I’ll think about it and get back to you.”
With that, Edna stepped back into her house and slammed the door in Cordelia’s face.
Moonlight bathed the Chickadee parking lot in a silvery glow as Cordelia sat on her front porch, twirling the stem of her wineglass. She hadn’t taken a drink yet. Sometimes, she liked to pour a glass and hold it just to prove it didn’t have any power over her. An old habit from her college days.
Ever since she’d left Edna’s house, she wondered if she was going about this entire investigation wrong. So far, nothing had been turning out like those old shows her momma liked to watch. Someone should’ve slipped up and revealed themselves by now, but even with every sign under the sun pointing to the Abernathys wanting unfettered access to Chickadee land, there wasn’t anything that definitively pointed to them killing the pastor.
What would they really gain from a move like that? Sending Daisy to jail wouldn’t shut down the whole operation. At the very least, they’d have to get rid of Cordelia and her momma. A thought that didn’t sit well with her, but it didn’t scream a frame job on Daisy either.
Was it possible James Reed-Smythe had been poisoned by accident?
The pastor told Daisy he’d gotten the wine as a gift from someone, but the poison could’ve just as easily been meant for someone else. How often had Cordelia pulled a last-minute housewarming item or Secret Santa gift from her own cupboards?
It was almost too ridiculous to consider, but the more shethought about it, the more framing Daisy just didn’t add up. There was no reason to target her.
A noise from the dark cover of the brush country caught her attention. A stilted grinding of rocks against dirt, heavier than the footprints left behind by animals. Like boots crunching on gravel. Cordelia set her wine aside and got to her feet. Of all the low-handed, rotten... She’d offered Edna and Corbin a deal. How dare they go sneaking around behind her back?
The crunching stopped on the other side of the motel, close to the wall. If it were Corbin or Edna, wouldn’t they have poked around the land? They had no use for the actual motel.
Burglars were always a possibility, though it made little sense for them to come all the way out here when there were plenty of unattended homes in town. Either way, she couldn’t sit around all night waiting for an attack. Flight was typically her first response, but she had nowhere to go. She had to act first.
Since her apartment was on the short end of the L, Cordelia grabbed a terra-cotta pot filled with marigolds and snuck around the corner.
A tall figure loomed in the darkness. He had his back to her. Without giving herself time to second-guess, she charged the man and slammed the pot over his head. A loud thwack, like a mallet striking a lobster shell, split the air. He grunted. The pot cracked, and the man went down in a heap of skin and bones.
The pads of Cordelia’s slippers dragged along the dirt as she crept up on the person lying face down in the dirt. He didn’t stir. Bending down, she reached her hand out, pulled it back, then grabbed the shoulder of his shirt, flipping him over.
“Oh, no. No, no, no.” Archer lay on the ground before her, completely knocked out.
Cordelia raised a fist to her lips, biting down hard as she paced. This couldn’t be happening. She couldn’t be involved withtwo Reed-Smythe bodies on her property. How had this become her life? She was a librarian with a serious aversion to germs, for crying out loud.
