Page 29 of Trouble Comes in Threes

We headed to the checkout, and I cringed when I saw my total. I wasn’t sure I could afford to go part time with four kids to clothe and feed, but I’d worry about that later.

Chapter Eight

The sky had turned ominously dark when we headed outside, so we decided to eat at Merrilee’s Café since it was close to the office. After we ordered our food, Neely Kate pulled out the list of homeowners.

“George and Adolpha Whitlock are next on the list. They owned the home for about twenty years before the Fredricksons.”

“Where does that put us time-wise?” I asked.

“Are you suggesting we might be going back far enough that the homeowners might be dead?” Neely Kate asked.

I cringed. “Well, that’s a blunt way to say it, but yeah, given the house is nearly a hundred years old.”

“The Fredricksons only owned the home for three years, so we’re only back about fifteen years now.”

I nodded. “We definitely need to look up the Whitlocks.” I pulled out my phone.

We spent the next ten minutes looking up any combination of George and Adolpha Whitlock but came up with nothing. Neither of them was on social media under their real names, and even a simple internet search pulled up a big fat nothing.

The waitress brought our food, and Neely Kate set her phone down. “I’m going to text around and see if any of my contacts know them.”

If any other person had said that, I might have suggested they were delusional, but Neely Kate had a vast array of sources, some through her large extended family and some through people she’d met since moving to Fenton County when she was a preteen.

When we finished, the air had turned colder, and it had started to rain.

We headed out to Neely Kate’s car and drove to my one o’clock consultation. Neely Kate stayed in the car to work her magic searching for the Whitlocks, and I borrowed her umbrella to knock on the homeowner’s door. She came outside with her own umbrella, and we walked around her yard while she told me what she wanted. I took multiple photos and notes on my phone, then sent the homeowner inside while I took measurements. I told her I’d have something to her within the week.

A half-hour later, I climbed back in the passenger seat to see Neely Kate beaming.

“You found something,” I said as I strapped on my seatbelt.

“Sure did. Turns out Mr. Whitlock is dead, God rest his soul, but Mrs. Whitlock is at the Piney Rest Nursing Home.”

I wrinkled my nose. “I always hated that name. It sounds more appropriate for a cemetery.”

“True.” She lifted her brow. “So you still wanna go over there before my three o’clock appointment?”

“Sure.”

The nursing home had opened a couple of years prior, and despite its name, it had the reputation of being a well-run facility. After Neely Kate parked in the lot, we walked in through the entrance and stopped at the reception desk.

“Hi,” Neely Kate said with a huge smile. “I’m Neely Kate, and this is my friend Rose. We’re hoping to chat with Miss Adolpha. Adolpha Whitlock.”

The receptionist’s eyes lit up. “Oh, Miss Adolpha will love having the company. Her kids come see her, but not as often as she’d like, and she loves to chat with people.” She leaned to the side and glanced into an open room to the side of us. “Miss Adolpha’s over there in the great room, sitting with a new resident. She’s the one in the green and white shirt.”

We thanked the receptionist, headed into the great room, and stopped dead in our tracks when we saw who she was sitting next to.

It was my old neighbor and nemesis.

I couldn’t stop my loud groan.

“What in the world is Miss Mildred doing here?” Neely Kate asked me under her breath.

I stayed rooted in my spot. “I knew she’d moved into a care facility a couple of months ago, but I had no idea it was this one.”

Neely Kate shot me a mischievous smile. “You know Miss Mildred’s gonna do everything in her power to keep Miss Adolpha from talking to you.”

“I don’t know,” I said hopefully. “Sure, she doesn’t like me much, but things have gotten better between us.” Especially after we’d worked a case together.

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