Page 41 of Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

“She won’t,” Dixie said with a grin. “I know how to handle Maybelline. She’s been trying to figure out my personal life for years. I can get the information by giving away very little. She’ll be none the wiser.”

I gave her a pointed look.

“You can talk to Luke’s dad and figure out if he knows anything. At least we know he won’t be gossiping about it.”

“True.” I still thought the library would be the safer choice, but if anyone could get anything from Maybelline, it would be Dixie. “I’ll need to drop you off at the office.”

“My car’s back at the house, so we’ll need to reconnect at some point,” she said.

“Okay. But let’s see if we can find anything else here in the house first.”

We looked under the sister’s bed and under the mattress, but we didn’t find anything at all, let alone anything that would help us with our investigation. Their parents’ room wasn’t much better. All we found was a box with old utility bills and bank statements. I started to pull out some of the bank statements, then picked up the entire box.

“We can go through it all more thoroughly at the office,” I said. “Plus, I want to take a closer look at their financial records. Lila had to have been paying the taxes on the property. Where did the money come from? Especially for the first few years?”

“Good idea.”

Balancing the box on my hip, I headed for the door. “After you talk to Maybelline, you can get started on looking those over.”

“What do you want me to look for?”

“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “I guess you can see if they had enough money to cover the taxes until Lila and her husband could afford to cover it. Or anything that looks weird. Maybe they had a life insurance policy on their younger daughter.” I wasn’t sure if that would make a difference, but any information might help.

“Okay.”

We walked outside and found Belinda and Magnolia still in their vehicle, but Belinda got out and greeted us as we headed for my car.

“You found something?” she asked in surprise as her gaze dropped to the box.

“Just a box of bills,” I said. “But we want to look them over and see if anything jumps out.” I cast a glance toward Magnolia. Her head was leaned back against the headrest, her eyes closed. “I don’t think this will take long, but it could be spread over several days. Maybe you should take Magnolia home.”

Belinda gave me a weak smile. “She’s agreed to go to Pensacola for a couple of days. I already reserved a hotel room overlooking the Gulf.”

I sighed with relief.

“Sunshine and the ocean will do her good,” Dixie said. “And it’ll be easier for us to ask questions if she’s not in town.”

“Agreed,” Belinda said. “We’re going to pick up our things at the hotel in Dothan and head down tonight. If you need us for anything, we can pass back through on Sunday.”

“I’ll let you know if I find anything,” I said. “Well, we did findsomething. A note.”

“Did Magnolia know which bed was her momma’s?” Dixie asked as I dug the note out of my pocket.

“We both figured it was the lavender one.”

“Us too. We found this under that bed.” I handed the note to Belinda. “We’re going to see if we can figure out who T is.”

She quickly scanned it, then looked up. “That’s good. It’s something, right?”

“Right. We also think the family might have attended the Methodist church in town,” I said. “I know someone who’s been a member his entire life and has a mouth like a steel trap. He won’t tell anyone I’ve been askin’ questions. He can be a little obtuse about the things going on around him, but it’s worth a chat. He might know something about Lila’s sister.”

“I guess word will get out about what y’all are up to at some point,” Belinda said.

“Doesn’t mean we can’t try to keep it under wraps as long as possible,” I said.

“We appreciate you trying,” she said.

“We just want to help Magnolia,” Dixie said. “We want to at least give her this.”

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