Murder on Rum Runner's Lane by Melissa Bourbon

Author:Melissa Bourbon [Bourbon, Melissa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Melissa Bourbon

* * *

“A person who longs to leave the place where he lives is an unhappy person.”

* * *

The quote from Not Without My Daughter was quick on its heels. The woman was unhappy and trapped.

What’s making you so unhappy, Faith?

CHAPTER 8

“It strikes me profoundly that the world is more often than not a bad and cruel place.”

~Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho

* * *

Cassie didn’t have time to ponder Faith’s life once she got back to Hattie’s rainbow house. She called Delilah to see if she’d heard anything about Mrs. Hubbard across the street. “Better safe than sorry,” she said, “so I called the Sheriff’s Department. They said they had a message from her grandson a few days ago that they were going out of town and asked if they could they do a drive-by once or twice.”

That explained it. “I’m sure she just forgot to mail the check before she left,” Cassie said.

Delilah let out a relieved sigh. “Yeah. I’ll catch up with her when she gets back.”

Cassie replaced the pink handset back in its cradle, running her hand over the twisted spiraled cord. It needed unwinding, but she’d do that later. She made herself a cup of tea, blowing the steam away as she sat at the table, thinking.

Hattie came into the kitchen, her gray kitty on her heels, meowing. Hattie crouched and scooped a little kibble from the Tupperware container sitting on the floor and poured it into the cat’s bowl.

Cassie leaned back in her chair, watching as Cucumber (a nod to Hattie’s last name of Pickle) rubbed up against Hattie’s leg, waiting for her to get out of the way. “Where does Mrs. Hubbard’s grandson live?” Cassie asked.

Hattie moved the bowl toward Cucumber with her purple-clogged foot. “What in the world are you talking about?”

“Perry Hubbard’s grandson called the sheriff to ask them to keep an eye on her house. Said they’d be out of town for a little while. I was just wondering where he lives. I mean, when you live in a vacation spot right on the water, where do you go for vacation?” she asked, the irony of her escaping her own coastal home not lost on her.

Hattie drew her head back sharply. “Perry Hubbard doesn’t have a grandson. Or any family. The Hubbard line dies out with her, just like the Juniper Pickle line dies with me.” She waggled her head with attitude. “We are the single ladies in town—at least until I get hitched again. Perry’s been alone ever since she moved into that house. I asked her once—before she became the recluse she is now, ‘course—why she wanted to rattle around in that big ol’ place by herself. She just shrugged and said, why not? So that’s what she’s been doing all these years…rattlin’ around.”

Cassie’s brain had hitched on Hattie’s first statement: Perry Hubbard doesn’t have a grandson.

“I think the loneliness finally got to her ‘bout ten years ago—” Hattie was saying, her gaze on her fingers and the cuticle she was picking at—“‘cause that’s ‘bout when she stopped coming outside.

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