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Lexianne is a young real estate agent who is finding dead bodies in her showings. |
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Chapter 2 Lexianne made it all the way back to her small brick cottage without even realizing she had made the drive. It was a thirty seven mile trip and she had seen very little of it. She couldn’t get the images out of her mind. That poor man had been beaten to death with a hammer. Paul had told her he would give her the details that he could when he became privy to them. But she knew it would be difficult to find out what the police knew simply because of the rules. She went straight to the shower to try her best to get the stench out of her nostrils and off her skin. She dropped keys, cell phone and purse on the half moon table in her foyer. The catch all was already stacked with mail; bills mostly. Her parents had helped her through college but she was independent now and didn’t want to accept help from them. Her name was enough. At twenty seven she should be able to take care of herself not still rely on Daddy’s money to help her. She harrumphed at the pile of mail and went on to her happy, barely kissed blue bedroom. The sheer of the silver curtains made her smile. The way the sunlight peeked in as if everything were alright. She shook her head, gathered her things and went into her tiny bathroom. Of course there was no chance to expand it in this little house but she was quite happy with it. After the renovations the house was perfect. She placed her undies, t-shirt and socks on the counter and turned on the shower with the water as hot as she could stand it. Letting her suit crumple into a heap on the floor she climbed in to get rid of the stress and odor of the day. With her skin scrubbed to redness, soap actually stuck in her nose and feeling almost clean she got out of the shower. She slipped into her tee. She wrapped the towel around her head like a turban and went to flop onto her fluffy queen sized bed. One bounce was all she had time for before the landline rang. With a groan she flipped over onto the side of the bed grabbing for the cordless. Err. She saw the caller ID, Nassau Police Department. Moaning she reluctantly answered it. “Hello?” She hoped it wasn’t him. “Ms. Ramsey?” It was. “Yes?” Playing off and praying she was wrong. “This is Detective Richard Holland, with the Nassau Police Department. I attempted to call you on your cell and was rewarded with a verbal onslaught of curses by a very angry little old lady. I am sure you must have given me the wrong number by mistake.” He said in a scolding voice. Instantly she was pissed, set off by her three rules for living. 1. You aren’t paying my bills. 2. You’re not my parent and even if you were I am grown. And... 3. You aren’t sharing my bed; therefore you have absolutely no freaking say in my life. This guy could get bent. She didn’t hit the guy in the face with the stupid hammer. She had only been there showing the freaking house. She didn’t even know who the man had once been. It took all of two seconds for Lexianne to lose her mind on the big buffoon. “Look, Detective, I gave you a number, you may have written it down wrong,” With a little snide tone she added, “there was a lot of stress going on at the scene of the crime.” He could hear the snippy snarl of her southern tone come out in her voice. She was trying his patience and he didn’t like it one bit either. Being from Michigan he had had about enough of these prissy little southern women always trying to interfere in his work, cut in line at the grocery store or wait for him to open a door. Women wanted equal rights then let them open doors for him, he thought on a daily basis. He was thankful he was divorced and didn’t have to listen to a woman complain all the time anymore. Of course maybe if he had ever listened he wouldn’t be divorced now, but that thought didn’t cross his mind, much. “Whatever the case may be Ms. Ramsey, we will need you to come to the station and give an official statement.” He was going to stick to the basics with this one. The less he had to listen to that awful accent the better. “When? Because I just got home and cleaned up. I am really not up for it right now.” She said in a single breath. It really bothered him that the women down here had to say everything they thought. It did help in solving a case, just let people droll on and on and eventually something good would fall out. This one wasn’t a suspect though. He knew she wasn’t up for it yet. He wasn’t a monster for Christ’s sake. “As soon as possible, the facts tend to jumble if we wait too long. 0I understand this has been a little traumatic for you.” He held the phone away from his ear as Lexianne replied loudly. “Well Duh Sherlock! I just walked in a house I have been in a hundred times and found a freaking dead guy. Of course I am little traumatized. Who the hell wouldn’t be?” Detective Holland leaned back in his office chair, making the bolts underneath it squeak with the strain of his size. He rubbed his eyes while he continued to hold the phone with his other hand. He was ready for this assignment to be over. He had been sent in six months ago to sit a position of homicide detective for this Podunk town. It was a trade off position, a foreign exchange student program of sorts. Trades within departments had been tried before but this was a new program. He was part of a pilot project. Cities and towns, big and small across the nation had been selected to participate in this effort. Idea was to close more cases given fresh but experienced eyes, increase training potential due to the open minded view it should create and increase cooperation between law enforcement agencies. Everyone always thought they were better than their neighbor. It really was just a pissing contest. He didn’t mind at first. He wasn’t leaving any family so the transition was simple. But now Good God, never again would he venture south of the Mason Dixon line that people in this town seemed to believe was a tangible thing. “Okay, okay Ms. Ramsey. You tell me when it would be convenient for you to come in?” He shook his head. He didn’t even care. Her statement was just for the books. He knew that the beautiful blonde didn’t have anything of value to say. She was one of those pretty women that survived on looks and family money. Clueless, he thought, although she was a looker. “Um, well I can come over that way tomorrow about noon. I have a little break. Would that be alright?” She wasn’t happy about driving all the way across the county just to record something they already heard her say. Heck they should see what she already spent on gas each month showing houses that people didn’t always buy. Real Estate was only good money when you made good sales. There was no hourly wage to fall back on in rough times. “Fine, I’ll be expecting you about nine?” He picked at the cuticles on his right hand, bored of their conversation. “Sure. See y’all then.” Lexianne hung up the phone and tossed it on the bed. She lay back for a few minutes on the pillow and began to feel a little guilt for being selfish when a man had actually died. This guy, whoever he had been, was dead and she was whining about gas and taking time from her day. She really was behaving like the selfish brat some people thought she was. When you come from a wealthy family and have decent hair it just makes people in small town talk about you like you’re a snobby bitch; even though Lexianne had spent most of her life trying to do good deeds for her community. Now here she was just wishing she didn’t have to know some things that went on in this town, that she didn’t worry about taking care of things herself, that she was not so bent on being independent that she refused her daddy’s money. That’s what she was worrying over while someone lay on a slab at the morgue in the next town over. Selfish bone still working, she thought Thank God there’s not a morgue here too. She went to kitchen and started her pot of her Chai tea. It was a treat for days when she needed to feel better about herself. The tea seemed to ease her stress levels and relax her mind. The pot was still percolating when changed her mind about being unproductive today. She calls her best friend and together they make plans to meet that night for a game of pool at Rocky Top. The local bar and grill. The food is awful, but the juke box works, and the beer is cold. It is also a place filled with gossip. If anyone knows anything it should be talked about within those walls. News travels fast in a shit- hole town, sometimes good sometimes bad but always fast. Plans made, Lexianne turned on her iPod and went to work cleaning her small house. After starting a load of laundry she found the freaking hose has busted and all the water poured out the back side of the machine. Lexianne had to call her mother. She needed clothes for the week. “Mom can I please come over and do some laundry? This dang machine is broken again.” She asks before even saying hello “Of course honey, but fair warning your dad is pulling his fishing gear outta the garage because of that tournament coming up. So you know he’s gonna wanna chat a bit. You know how he gets.” She could hear the stress in her mother’s voice. Apparently her dad was driving her mother crazy again. He would start a project but never complete it without help from his wife. The man was brilliant when it came to investments and automotive restoration, but ask him to find his own socks in his sock drawer and you would have thought you asked him to perform brain surgery on a chipmunk; Completely lost. “Okay mama, thanks for the warning, maybe I can at least get a load started before helping him rig his lures. That thing isn’t for another two weeks. Why's he’s getting everything out already?” “You know him, he wants to see what new stuff he gets to buy before the hardware store is sold outta the good stuff and he has to drive to town. The man drove to town for thirty years, don’t see why it’d hurt him now. He’s a nightmare since he retired. I wish he would find a nice friend to go do projects with so he would get out of my hair. I tell you the man is slap crazy!” Lexianne laughed at her mother’s description of life with her husband. “Alright Mama, I’ll be over in about an hour.” “Okay honey, I’m gonna to run up to the grocery store but Daddy’ll be here. You want to stay for dinner?” “Of course, thank you.” As if that was really a question. Lexianne hung up and went to put on clothes appropriate for her parents garage, which she knew that would be the place she ended up spending the day. Her parents dressed the part for everything. Her mother didn’t dare go out of the house without full makeup and jewelry. Her father always dressed nice. The way her mother told him to. The man was a very well trained husband. He had made his money from a chain of automotive restoration businesses around the state. He started his career as a mechanic and built it from the ground up. He was a genius when it came to business but of course Lexianne’s mother wanted to dress the part of a wealthy wife. She was an upstanding citizen and wife of a self made millionaire. She wasn’t a snob by any description but she did prefer to look “Nice” at all times. Lexianne would swear her mother would be one to tell the Grimm Reaper to hold on a minute if her hair and makeup weren’t done. No way would she want the coroner to see her looking less than perfect. Lexianne laughed to herself as she pulled on cute little black Capri pants and a dressy aqua and black striped tank top. Thank God she just had a pedicure and her toes still looked great. Black sandals on then her hair went into a loose bun. A touch of lip gloss and mascara, flipped off the tea pot and out the door she went, laundry in tow. She would be at her parent’s house in time for dinner, bonus. |
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