“Millie runs the best café in the Southeast,” I said. “If you ever happen through Zinnia, you should stop for some coffee and apple cobbler.”
He looked at me, then glanced at Millie and grinned. “Apple pie is my favorite.”
“With the way sparks are flying, y’all could set the woods on fire,” Cece said drolly. “Now where was the body found?”
“Prepare for a hike,” Ford said. He led the way and Millie joined him, chatting as we entered the woods.
Cece and Tinkie were as proud as if they’d negotiated a Middle East peace treaty. “They’re hitting it off,” Tinkie said.
“This will do Millie a world of good,” Cece answered. “And right at Christmas, the perfect time for a romance.”
I spoke up. “What if he’s married?”
“Simple,” Tinkie said. “We kill him.”
I glanced down at her and I couldn’t tell for certain if she was kidding or not.
We came to a clearing surrounded on all sides by trees and dense undergrowth. “There’s a tree stand over there.” The deputy pointed north. “And the other hunters were on either side of the stand. Bresland’s body was right over here in that clump of elderberries and Johnson grass. It seems obvious he was staring down that slope to that thicket. He must have been watching a deer himself, calculating a shot. But then someone up the slope saw him moving about in that tall grass and just thought it was a deer.”
His assessment made perfect sense. Except for one thing. “Wouldn’t a hunter have come down to check and see if he had a kill?”
“My guess is that there actually was a deer here and the hunter missed. When the deer took off into the woods, the hunter just assumed his shot was bad.”
“How many men were in the hunting party with Mr. Bresland?” Tinkie asked.
“Four, counting Bresland. They’d hunted together for years. Bresland wasn’t known to be an early riser, so they were a little surprised when he got up earlier than they did and headed out on his own.”
I nodded, looking around the scene. The story fit the terrain. Hunting accidents happened. Sometimes people walking in the wrong place got blasted. “Thanks for showing us.”
“It did seem pretty open-and-shut to me,” Ford said, completely at ease. “I just couldn’t tie any two things together solid enough to come up with a motive and a suspect.”
“Thanks again,” I said. “We really appreciate your time.”
“As it turned out, my time was well spent.” He smiled at Millie and started back the way we’d come.
“Deputy Ford,” Tinkie called out, “are you married?”
He stopped and turned back. “No, why?”
“Because if you were, I was telling Sarah Booth that we’d have to kill you.” Tinkie smiled really big. “No one messes with our friends.”
He laughed. “You got a set of them.” He offered Millie his arm and they strolled ahead of us.
We returned the car to the rental agency and then went back to the B and B. Darla let us use her computer. The men were still conspicuously absent, but they’d return soon. We were due to set off for the flotilla at six o’clock. Darla would prepare a light dinner for us at five so we didn’t end up on the water drinking on an empty stomach in the cold. She was really good at taking care of us.
Millie was holed up in her room talking to Deputy Len on the phone, and Cece was doing her best to eavesdrop. I tried to shame her into stopping, but she was having way too much fun. Tinkie and I left them to their own devices while we dug deeper into the death of Aurora Bresland. Coleman would have been a big help here, but he wasn’t around, so we had to persuade the Lafayette County authorities to give us as many details as they would.
We found out what we could online and then we called the Lafayette County sheriff’s office.
The deputy we spoke with wasn’t exactly forthcoming, but he did pull the file and read the case notes to us. It was exactly as Deputy Len had said. Aurora was found in her bed, empty pill bottle and the suicide note on the end table, typed but signed. Her husband had verified that it was her signature and had broken down in the sheriff’s office proclaiming that his cheating had killed his wife.
“The guy was truly broken up,” the law officer I was talking with said. “I took his statement and I felt sorry for him.”
“He was cheating on his wife,” Tinkie said with some heat. “How about feeling sorry for her?”
“Well, you know what I mean,” he blustered. “We interviewed some of her friends and they said she was distraught by what she viewed as the end of her marriage. Her husband had found a younger, more attractive model, and she felt her world was ending.”
“Any indication Bresland intended to divorce her?” I asked.
“None. And he denied a divorce was in the works. In fact, he said he’d decided to end his affair.”
“Why?”
“He said something about the woman he was involved with being a little … unbalanced.”
“Unbalanced enough to kill his wife and make it look like a suicide?” Tinkie asked.
The question didn’t catch the deputy off guard. “We thought of that,” he said, “but there was no evidence that anyone else was in the house with Mrs. Bresland when she died. And there was the note.”
Tinkie rolled her eyes, but I put a finger to my lips to shush her. “Did you interview Clarissa Olson?” I asked.
“Why would I interview her? She wasn’t romantically involved with Bresland. She was a business partner and nothing more.”
“She’s the other woman,” Tinkie explained rather tartly.
“No, she was Mr. Bresland’s real estate partner. He was involved with someone else.”
“Who?” I asked.
“He refused to say. He denied any involvement with the Olson woman except financial. She was making money hand over fist with Bresland’s contacts and managing his real estate. There was one complaint about her business ethics
