“Will you need us?” Brooke asked, not anxious to revisit the death scene.
“Stick around, if you would. I’ll need to talk to you after this,” Goolsby said.
***
Brooke and Gabe sat on the stiff upholstered furniture in the living room.
“I feel like I’m living in the middle of an Agatha Christie novel,” Brooke said, clasping and unclasping her hands.
“If Agatha Christie had ever written a book set on the Georgia coast,” Gabe said.
“You don’t think they’ll think something… bad happened, right?”
“I don’t see why they would,” Gabe said. “This is all strictly procedural.”
“This is all just so… bizarre,” Brooke said. “I’m sorry I dragged you into this mess.”
“Don’t be. I’m glad I got to meet Josephine Warrick and see all of this,” he said, indicating the house. “The whole story she told us last night was unbelievably fascinating. And of course, I’m glad to be working with you again, Brooke. I just wish we’d gotten that damn will executed.”
She heard herself say her father’s favorite phrase. One she’d always hated. “It is what it is.” Brooke nodded in the direction of the closed library door. “Yeah. About that. Should we mention Russell Strickland to the sheriff?”
“God, no,” Gabe said quickly. “It’s just a story, right? No need to muddy the water, especially since we have no firsthand knowledge of what happened back then.”
“That’s what I hoped you’d say,” Brooke said. “I also don’t want to drag Varina into any kind of trouble since, as far as we know, she’s the only living witness to… that night.”
The library door opened, and Louette emerged. “They want to talk to y’all,” she said.
***
Brooke was relieved to see that a blanket had been placed over Josephine’s body. Kendra Younts was busily dumping Josephine’s medications into a plastic bag, and Sheriff Goolsby was sitting on the chintz wing chair, scribbling in a small notebook.
“Y’all can come in,” he said without looking up from his notes. “Just finishing up here.”
“Okay, Howard,” Kendra said. “I’m gonna bring in the stretcher if you’re all set here.”
“All set,” the sheriff said.
He looked up at Brooke and seemed puzzled. “You look awful familiar. Have we met before?”
“Probably. I’m a lawyer, and I think our paths have crossed at the courthouse.”
He snapped his fingers. “Now I got it. You’re Brittni Miles’s lawyer, right?”
“Afraid so,” Brooke said, laughing. “But please don’t judge me by my clients.”
“I’ll try not to,” Goolsby said. “That is one crazy little gal, though. You know she went on a hunger strike because my deputies wouldn’t bring her a Diet Dr. Pepper?”
“She’s still in your jail? I thought her stepfather was going to bail her out.”
“Not yet. If he doesn’t come get her pretty soon, though, we’re fixing to take up a collection and bail her out ourselves.” He closed his notebook and rested it on one knee. “What’s your connection to Mrs. Warrick?”
“She hired me a couple of weeks ago, in a legal capacity, to help her find the heirs of her oldest friends. And she also wanted me to draw up a new will.”
“And did you do that?”
“We ran into some complications. It turns out that one of the people she wanted to leave a bequest to, the daughter of her late best friend, is my mother, Marie Trappnell. Which is why she hired me in the first place. Once I realized we had a conflict, I suggested she hire Gabe, who I used to work for in Savannah.”
Goolsby nodded at Gabe Wynant. “Savannah, huh? You know Wayne duBose?”
