Page 61 of Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

“T could be a nickname,” Dixie suggested. “Same with L.”

“But the note was under the bed that was most likely Lila’s.” I said. “It makes sense that it would be addressed to Lila.”

A hush fell over us, and then Dixie said, “We could go back to the coffee shop and see if the ladies are still there. We can ask Linda and her friends if they knew anyone else who was close to Lila or Bethany.”

“No, they all said there was no one else, that the only person who ever got close to either one of them was Rachel.”

“We could find Tim,” Dixie said. “We could ask him about the alibi he gave Chuck.”

“Mm, yeah, that’s a good idea, but we don’t have his last name. I guess we could ask Linda and her friends. They’d probably know.”

“We could ask Maybelline,” Dixie said. “She woulddefinitelyknow.”

I pressed my lips together. “No, I still think involving Maybelline is a bad idea. She’s pretty smart. She might start to put it together that we’re working for Magnolia. We still need to keep her out of this.”

“It’s too bad she’s such a gossip,” Dixie said with a dejected sigh.

“But she’s such a good source of information, which is exactly why she’s a gossip.”

While there were some people who liked to collect information and hoard it, Maybelline definitely didn’t fall into that category. The only promise I’d ever gotten from her to keep something quiet had only been for twenty-four hours.

“Okay,” I said, “let’s look around some more and see if we can find the path that Lila and Rachel used to get back and forth between their properties.”

“After over forty years?” Dixie exclaimed. “It’s probably overgrown. It doesn’t take long for nature to take back the land. Enough so that you could never tell people were there.”

“True,” I said, “but let’s still look around anyway.”

“Neither one of us are exactly dressed for that,” Dixie said, glancing down at her dress and then over at mine.

She was right. Most of the land was full of overgrown weeds, tall enough that it would scratch our legs, not to mention all the bugs that were hiding in the undergrowth.

“Then let’s go change,” I said. “And in the meantime, we’ll try to figure out Tim’s last name and see if we can talk to him about Chuck.”

Dixie agreed with a nod. “We don’t have any other leads to chase, so we might as well follow that one.”

But changing clothes meant going back to our farm, which unfortunately also meant seeing Meemaw.

“Look at the bright side,” Dixie said once we were back in my car, heading that direction. “We can check on your house. I haven’t seen it since I left for Atlanta.”

“Buddy’s coming right along,” I said. “He’s determined to be on the next season ofDarling Investigations, so he swears he’s going to meet his deadline, even if they have to work twenty-four hours to meet it.”

When we walked through the front door, Meemaw was vacuuming the living room with her decades-old Hoover. I’d tried to buy her a newer vacuum cleaner that had better suction,but she was a firm believer in “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” even if it took her ten times as long to vacuum the room. She shut the appliance off when she saw us and turned a sharp glare on us. “Well, look what the cat dragged in.”

“Hey, Meemaw,” Dixie said with a cautious smile.

She and our grandmother had a contentious relationship. It didn’t help that Meemaw had blamed Dixie for the barn fire that killed Pawpaw and Dixie’s parents. While Dixie had served time in juvie for the crime, she’d been cleared of all wrongdoing this past summer. Meemaw hadn’t exactly apologized, though her guilt had been obvious, albeit short-lived. And Meemaw still harbored some irrational and undeserved resentment. The fact that Dixie was “shackin’ up” with a man only added fuel to her perpetual fire.

“We just need to change clothes and then we’ll be out of your hair,” I said.

“Are you gonna be home for dinner?” Meemaw asked. “I’m making fried chicken and mashed potatoes.”

I stopped and put a hand on my hip. “What are you up to?”

She only made fried chicken and mashed potatoes when she wanted a family dinner, which meant she definitely wanted us there tonight.

“Can’t a woman want to spend time with her grandchildren? Do I have to have a reason?” She took a breath, starting to get worked up. “MaybeI just wanna spend time with my grandchild who’s been fornicatin’ up in Atlanta.”

Dixie laughed. “So you’d rather have me fornicatin’ here in Sweet Briar?”

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