ONE
Francie Baldwin grunted and stretched as she reached to pin the poster to the Community Activities Board on the wall of Macy’s on Main, the bakery and coffee shop owned by my daughter. Francie was not a tall woman and she was currently fighting a losing battle with a too-short-for-her-age skirt as she yanked it down with one hand and tried to attach the poster with the other. I rushed over to offer my help before she gave Jimmy Don and the table of regulars a coronary.
“Hey, Francie. Can I help?” I offered.
Relaxing down off her tippy-toes, she handed me the poster. “Oh, thank you, Glory. I guess it’s a little too high for me to reach.” She adjusted her skirt and smiled.
“What’s this?” I perused the poster as I secured it to the board. “Class reunion, huh? How exciting!”
“It’s gonna be so much fun! I’m on the committee and we’re hoping we can have a good turnout. We’re planning it for Homecoming weekend, so hopefully that will entice everyone to come back.”
“That’s only a week away. Getting kind of a late start, aren’t you?”
“This is just a last-minute effort to remind some of the locals. We’ve already gotten several responses to the invitations we mailed out last month.”
“Sweetwater Springs High School Class of ’90. Wow, thirty years. Time flies, doesn’t it?”
She nodded. “Boy, you can say that again. Seems like yesterday we were living like we didn’t have a care in the world. Now look at us. Everybody with kids, families, jobs and mortgages.”
“Yes, life sure has a way of moving on, with or without us.”
I heard a throat clear and saw that the customer smiling from the pastry counter had made her selections and was ready to check out. “I think I’ve got a customer waiting. Hope y’all have a great time at the reunion.” I waved as she headed out the door, more posters in hand.
“Who was that?” Macy asked, as she breezed through the swinging door from the kitchen.
“Francie Baldwin. Class of ’90 is planning a reunion and she was putting up a notice about it.” I paused and shivered.
“What’s wrong? Do I need to turn up the heat in here?” Macy stood there in short sleeves, sweating from the heat in the kitchen.
“No, I was just thinking about something that happened that year. Class of ’90 had a rough go of it their senior year. One of their classmates was killed. It was a terrible tragedy for the whole town.”
“Oh, that’s so sad. Maybe getting back together to share memories will be good for all of them.”
“Maybe. Not everyone’s memories are good, though.” The bell dinged over the door and I turned my attention to customers.
After crafting a couple of mocha lattes for the two ladies, I grabbed the coffee carafe and headed toward our table of regulars.
“Morning, gentlemen. More coffee?” I circled the table, filling all four mugs being held high in the air. “What’s the game today?”
“Scrabble,” Otto said. “And I brought my Scrabble Dictionary just to keep this bunch honest. They’d try to cheat their grandmas.” He patted the massive volume lying on the table beside him. Otto was a retired attorney and still served on the City Council.
“Hmmph!” Jimmy Don Baker grunted. “I’m the one that has to watch him.” He jerked his thumb toward Otto. “He makes up words and then claims they’re all legalese.”
“Well, let’s try and keep it civil today!” I laughed.
Billy Franks nudged me as I rounded the table. “Was that Francie Bickerson I saw over there shining all the way to Christmas?”
I snickered under my breath. “Yes, Francie Baldwin. She’s married now. She was just putting up a notice about the Class of ’90 reunion on Homecoming Weekend. Trying to get the word out, I guess.”
“Tsk, tsk, tsk…” Leo Dixon shook his head. “Wasn’t that the year the Sanderson girl got killed? Sad, sad, sad.” Leo’s wife, Bonnie June, was one of Momma’s best friends and owner of the gossip mothership we all called Bonnie’s Cut and Curl.
“Yes, that’s the year. I know because my nephew graduated in that class. Didn’t Bradford Jenkins get sent up for that killing?” Jimmy Don asked, more to Otto than the rest of us.
“Yes, Bradford was tried and convicted. Thankfully, I didn’t work that case, but I sat in the courtroom and I’m here to tell you, that was one sad day when that sentence was read,” Otto said.
“Dave and I had just gotten married and moved to Texas when all that happened.” I pulled up a chair and took a seat. “I knew it was a bad time for the whole town. I’m sure everybody was relieved that her killer was caught.”
“Well, there were more than a few people in town that never believed Bradford killed her. They think he was railroaded.” Billy said, leaning back on two chair legs.
“Oh, wow. Is he still in prison?” I asked.
“Died last month, I heard. Cancer. I think he was set to be released soon,” Otto said.
“So sad.” I shook my head as I got up and replaced the chair at its proper table. “I better get back to work. Let me know if y’all need anything.”
The doorbell dinged again and in waltzed my two favorite men. My brother, Jake, a detective with Sweetwater Springs Police, greeted me with a grin and a lift of his chin as he headed straight for the coffee counter and hugged his favorite niece. On the other hand, his boss, Chief Detective Hunt Walker walked my way, greeting me with a gaze of his blue-gray eyes and a killer smile with a dimple that made me weak in the knees.
“Good morning, beautiful,” he murmured under his breath, so that the customers wouldn’t hear.
My face flushed. “Good morning to you.” I smiled.
Hunt and I met under unfortunate circumstances when he had to interrogate me about a body that I discovered at a church picnic. That was about six months ago. Thanks to well-meaning family members, we had seen quite a lot of each other at family and community functions over the last few months. After some awkward attempts at flirting, we had finally, as of late, become exclusive.
Being a widow who had never dated anyone but my late husband Dave, this was all new territory to me. Needless to say, my “flirter” was quite rusty. Hunt was a confirmed bachelor, married to the job, as they say, so he was no better at it than me. However awkward it felt, I had fallen hard for him and I hoped that he felt the same. I was finding this extremely private person a very hard nut to crack. My family and close friends claimed I was an over-sharer. Once I got to know someone, I tended to vomit out my entire life story. That’s why it had been so hard to keep the one big secret that was lying in my safe deposit box. I’d thought about sharing that with Hunt many times, but it just hadn’t felt like the right time yet.
“Do you have plans for the weekend?” He walked beside me back toward the coffee counter.
“I don’t know. Do I?” I cocked one eyebrow and smiled.
“I thought we might drive over to Bright City and catch a movie. What do you think?”
“That sounds like fun. I heard about a new Mediterranean restaurant that just opened there. I’ve been dying to try it!” I said, my voice squeaking in excitement.
Hunt wrinkled up his nose. “Mediterranean? Isn’t that like a lot of stuff wrapped up in grape leaves?”
I laughed. “Those are called dolmades, and that’s only one dish. There are lots of things I bet you would like. My favorite is a traditional gyro. It’s a combination of roasted beef and lamb, sliced and wrapped in a soft bread called pita. It has lettuce, tomato, onions, and a dressing called tzatziki. It’s yummy!”
He shrugged one shoulder. “Ummm…that doesn’t sound so bad. I guess I can give it a shot. What movie would you like to see?”
“I saw the previews to a new murder mystery that looks exciting.”
“Of course, you would choose that.” He rolled his eyes. “Do you think that we could see something not quite so closely related to my work and your bad habits?” He was obviously referring to my innate ability to get myself into situations that either put my life in danger or caused him extra stress. On the bright side, I had solved several murders in the last few months. But as proud as I was of that little accomplishment, he still discouraged my poking around in police business. Go figure.
“Oh, yeah. I didn’t think about that.” I grabbed my phone from my pocket and pulled up the app for the local movie theatre. “How about comedy or superhero? You choose.” I showed him the phone as I scrolled through the app. I figured since he was going to try my suggestion for the restaurant, the least I could do was let him pick the movie.
“We can decide later. Jake and I need to get to the station. We have a conference call from the state office that we can’t be late for.” He grabbed the cup of dark roast that Macy poured for him and gave me a wink as they walked out.
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