“Okay, so you’re not rubbing that much,” she said and we all laughed.
“So what now?” Gertie asked. “We have the morning to kill.”
“It’s time to do some legwork on Tiffany,” I said.
Since I figured Casey would make a beeline for Tiffany first thing, we decided to start our legwork with a background check. That meant making a trip over to Mudbug, a town I referred to as Sinful’s equally colorful cousin. Gertie had an old schoolteacher acquaintance there and figured she’d be up for a gossip session, especially given all the recent drama. Gertie also knew the teacher favored good whiskey in her coffee, so I’d retrieved a bottle of the quality stuff from my stash and we were armed and ready.
We elected not to call first because people had a harder time declining company when you were standing on their doorstep, especially when you were holding good booze. And I preferred people have no warning because then they couldn’t think about what they might say and what they shouldn’t say. I wanted people to say everything that came to mind. A lot of it might be nonsense, but I could parse through that.
The teacher’s name was Brenda Randolph and she lived just a couple blocks from Mudbug’s downtown area. Her house was typical of the same fare in Sinful, was painted white with yellow shutters, and had yellow flowers in the beds with the shrubs. A black Lab with a silver muzzle looked up from his sleeping spot on the porch as we approached. His tail thumped twice, then he dropped back off to sleep.
Gertie rang the doorbell and we waited a bit, but there was no movement inside. An old Toyota Corolla was in the driveway in front of the garage door, so we assumed she was home. Gertie rang the doorbell again and this time I heard a woman’s voice inside, ranting about salespeople interfering with her game shows. A couple seconds later, the door flung open and the woman I assumed was Brenda glared out at us.
Mideighties. Five foot three. A hundred pounds, maybe. So little muscle content that I wasn’t sure what was holding her upright. Only a threat to the whiskey Gertie was holding.
Brenda stared for a couple seconds, then blinked and scrunched her brow.
“Gertie?” she asked. “Is that you?”
“It’s me,” Gertie said and held up the whiskey. “How are you doing, Brenda?”
Brenda broke into a smile as she turned around and started walking. “Oh hell, I’m fine. You and your friends come on inside. Here I was thinking somebody was ruining The Price Is Right and instead, it’s angels bringing holy water.”
“Celia would love her,” I whispered as we followed her into the kitchen.
“Take a seat,” Brenda said. “I’ll get some glasses. I assume everyone wants a round?”
“Maybe not for us yet,” Gertie said. “We’ve got to make a trip to New Orleans after we leave here and don’t want to get into any trouble on the way.”
Brenda nodded. “That’s smart. I’ve always had a firm policy of not drinking and driving.”
“I see you still have the old Corolla,” Gertie said.
“Yep,” Brenda said. “Sixteen years now and only seven thousand miles on her.”
I grinned.
“So what can I get you?” Brenda asked. “I can put on some coffee. I made some sweet tea last night. Should be good and cold by now.”
“Tea would be great,” Gertie said and Ida Belle and I nodded.
Brenda served us up large glasses of tea and a tea glass for herself, but full of whiskey, and sat down at the table with us.
“Pardon my lack of manners,” Gertie said, “but do you remember my friend Ida Belle? And this is Fortune, a new friend of ours, who moved to Sinful a little over a year ago.”
Brenda nodded and took a big sip of whiskey. Gertie took that to mean that introductions were acknowledged and proceeded with the purpose for our visit.
“So did you hear about our excitement over at the Halloween festival Friday night?” Gertie asked.
“Sure enough,” Brenda said. “I don’t think there’s a person in a hundred-mile radius of Sinful who hasn’t heard. What the heck is in the booze over there?”
“That’s a good question,” I said.
“Anyway,” Gertie said, “the whole thing stirred up all the talk about Tiffany and Liam and since Tiffany was from Mudbug, it made me think of you. So I figured I’d pay you a visit before we headed to New Orleans as we haven’t talked in a while.”
Brenda took another gulp and shook her head. “Tiffany and Liam…boy, wasn’t that a mess. Being a teacher for so long and having all these years behind us…Gertie, you know how it’s hard to be surprised anymore, but I have to say, that one threw me for a loop.”
Gertie nodded. “It definitely stood out.”
“I just remember thinking, what the heck was wrong with that man,” Brenda said. “Gil, I mean. Not Liam. Heck, Liam was just a boy and a nice one at that. He didn’t deserve what they did to him.”
“No, he didn’t,” Gertie agreed. “You know, I never asked you but why do you think Tiffany did it? I mean, I know sometimes women are attracted to older men, but I never got that vibe from her. Everyone in Sinful figures she did it for the money, but I didn’t know her before or anything about her situation with her family. Did she come from a poor family?”
Brenda shook her head. “Not at first. Her daddy worked the oil field and made good money, but he died when she was fifteen or so. Didn’t have much of an insurance policy, which surprised me a little, but you know how some men are.”
“Thinking they’re never going to die,” Ida Belle said.
Brenda nodded. “Anyway, Tiffany’s mother took up with this guy—I’d call him a drifter, really, and that’s being polite about it. He came through here claiming he was looking for work but all he cared to do was odd jobs—basic labor like painting and simple carpentry. From the moment I met him, I got a bad feeling. Like he was hiding things, you know?”
We all nodded.
“Well, it was hardly any time at all before Tiffany’s mother up and married the guy and moved him into her house,” Brenda said. “All of it took a toll on Tiffany. She lost weight that she didn’t really have to lose. Her eyes had dark circles under them and were sunk in, like she’d been ill for a long time. Mind you, she started to decline when her father died. It was a big life change. The money that used to support them in a decent middle-class style was gone. And her mom didn’t have any job skills. She took a job cleaning rooms at the motel after her dad passed and that’s what they had to make it on. The only plus was that the house was paid for. Her first husband had inherited it from his parents.”
“Was Tiffany dating Liam when her father died?” Gertie asked.
“I don’t know that I’d say dating, as such, as they were still kids,” Brenda said. “But there was a group from the area that hung out together and Liam was part of it. Hang on a second.”
She got up and retrieved a photo album from a hutch and flipped the pages.
“There you go,” she said. “I took these at a local rodeo right before Tiffany’s dad died. There’s Tiffany and Liam on the right.”