Page 45 of Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

I laughed. “I bet.” Then I gave her a coy smile. “I did a bit better.”

She cocked her head, narrowing her eyes. “Chip had something helpful?”

“He did indeed,” I said as I sat in my office chair and dropped my purse in the bottom desk drawer. “Lila’s sister’s name was Bethany, and it looks like she was two years younger than Lila. There were annual photos of the family in the church directory up through the year Lila would have graduated. Then the next year, the family photo only featured their parents, and Bethany was listed in the back as deceased. The year after that, Jim Bob and Celia were dead.”

She flopped back in her chair. “Wow. How could they have both died the same year?”

“I don’t know. I had hoped to get to the courthouse in time to see if Lila had passed the property through probate, but it was already closed. Next on the agenda is to see if I can dig up their death certificates.”

“I didn’t talk to Maybelline,” she said. “I figured we’d see what we can find without her.”

“Good idea.”

I logged on to my computer and searched for the death certificates online. Many states sealed the records for fifty years, but I was fortunate that Alabama released them after twenty-five years. I could have used my license to access them officially, but this was more immediate.

I located Bethany’s first.

“Found her,” I said, glancing over at Dixie.

“Bethany?” she asked excitedly.

“Yeah.”

“So give me the details!”

I turned back to the screen and scanned the certificate for the pertinent information. “She was sixteen, and her death was listed as a homicide.” My gaze jerked back to Dixie.

“She was murdered?”

I grimaced. “Looks like it. Blunt force trauma.”

Dixie gasped. “Someone beat her to death?”

I couldn’t help shuddering a little. “I guess so.”

She had been dead for around forty years, but I hated the thought of someone beating her.

Dixie’s eyes narrowed. “How is it a teenage girl was murdered in this town, and no one’s talkin’ about it?”

“Well, itwasa few decades ago…”

“There aren’t a whole lot of murders here,” she said with a shake of her head, then added, “This past summer excluded.”

I shrugged.

“I’m sure we would have heardsomething,” she insisted.

I started to grab my phone to call Luke but decided to wait until I found the death certificates for Lila’s parents. I printed off the information, then moved on to Celia, figuring Jim Bob might be a nickname and harder to find.

I located it a minute later. “Lila’s mother died in a car accident a little over a year after Bethany’s murder.”

Her brow furrowed. “A car accident. That sounds fishy.”

“Agreed.” I reached for my phone and pulled up Luke’s number. “I know a way to help clear some of this up.”

“Hey, darlin’,” he said when he answered. “How’d your meeting with Magnolia go?”

“As well as could be expected. Afterward, Belinda convinced Magnolia to go to Pensacola for the rest of the weekend.”