Sequestered with the Murderers by Dr. Tanner (books for 8th graders TXT) 📕

Haiden had in her hands a tray with a basket of hot biscuits, a bottle of wine, and a pitcher of water. She sat the basket on the table, poured water into water goblets, and then poured the wine into beautiful wine glasses trimmed in red. She left the bottle of wine on the table in an embossed galvanized red metal bucket. When she stepped away, Boyd, the cook, walked to the table, setting before each of us a plate of appetizers—two each of three different kinds. The ladybug, cordon blue, and cucumber shrimp appetizers all looked and smelled delicious. I ate one of the ladybugs—cream cheese on a butter-flavored cracker, cherry tomatoes cut in half, two black olives, and black olive dots on the tomatoes. I then lifted my plate, setting it beside Gam’s plate. I knew if I ate more, I wouldn’t have room for the jumbo she-crab soup, the baked seafood stuffed chicken entrée, and the chocolate truffle lava cake. I knew Gam would eat my appetizers and all of his five-course dinner.

“What kind of work do you do, Gam?” Mercy asked, with his mouth full of food.

“I am a Pittsylvania County Sheriff Detective.”

“Are you working on the Duffy Radley murder, too?”

“Oh no, only Vett. It is not in my jurisdiction. She was hired by the company Duffy worked for, Brightness Bus Tours Company. What do you do?”

“I’m a dentist, recently retired. I owned my own company, and Kay did the books for me. We both retired earlier this year.”

“Congratulations to you both.”

“Thank you. We are enjoying it.”

“What brought you to Serenity,” I asked.

“It was the strangest thing. We won a contest for this weekend, a contest we don’t remember entering,” Kay said.

“Kay is always entering contests. I think she entered something and just doesn’t remember. In any case, it’s beautiful here, the people are nice, and the service is out of this world. This is our first time, but we will be back,” Mercy explained.

“This is our fourth stay. We love it here—just the place to come to for a quick weekend getaway. The food is excellent. You’ll see,” Gam said.

Boyd bought four steaming bowls of jumbo she-crab soup to the table with crackers. It smelled so good. I ate it all. Haiden came to the table and poured more wine, then walked away. In no time, she was back clearing the table. Once the table was cleared, Boyd walked over with a tray containing four entrees.

After I cut my stuff chicken, asparagus, and candied yams into small pieces, I said, “Kay, what is it that you find spellbinding about the Lacecap Hydrangea Murders?”

“I can go weeks, months not hearing about the case, then as soon as I hear the name Lacecap Hydrangea Murders, I want to know more. I want to know why the police have not found Diantha’s murderer. I want to know why she was murdered. I want to know who she was meeting. The list goes on and on.”

“Did you know the family?” I asked.

“I’m afraid not. I don’t know anyone that actually knew the family. I just know what I read in the newspaper and the gossip of others,” Kay said.

“I’m having a hard time finding answers to why Ms. Lacecap was allowed to operate a brothel in the first place and why she was allowed to operate it for as long as she did. It’s my understanding she operated it for forty years.”

“More like forty-five years. The rumor is she was twenty when she opened her first brothel. As time went on, she earned a lot of money and moved into the big house on the hill where she was murdered,” Mercy explained.

“Where were the authorities, uh, the people who were responsible for shutting her down?” I asked.

“Shoot, no one shut her down. They were her customers,” Mercy said.

“Everyone says Ms. Lacecap was a very nice lady, treated people fairly, and loved giving people bouquets of lacecap hydrangeas. I never heard anything bad about her,” Kay said.

“After she moved into the big house on the hill when she was in her early thirties or so, she no longer engaged in the sexual activities,” Mercy said.

“Well, who did?” Gam asked.

“She brought into her home young women under the pretense that they were abused and battered, but everyone knew what these women were hired to do. The women did live there until they moved on,” Mercy said.

“So everyone knew and accepted it,” I said.

“Pretty much. Some of the neighboring churches complained, but somehow they were assuaged by the authorities. The churches never liked that business going on, but they stopped complaining,” Kay said.

“Who were the authorities? Why did the people keep them in office?” I asked.

“If I remember correctly, the same people were in office for a long time. It was Holt Pruitt, Sr. and his bunch of cronies that ran the board of supervisors. You see, our county elects people to run it, hence the board of supervisors. I remember Mr. Pruitt, Sr. being the chair of the supervisors from when I was a young man in my early twenties. That was in the mid-sixties,” Mercy explained.

“How long did he stay in office?” Gam asked.

“Oh, let’s see . . . about twenty years, I’d say. Somewhere in the mid-eighties, they were voted out of office. By then, Ms. Lacecap was an institution. Just like the old regime, the new regime didn’t seem to care that she was operating an illegal business. They left her alone,” Mercy said.

“There must have been a reason for that. Prostitution is illegal. Did the Feds ever get involved?” Gam asked.

“Not that we know of,” Kay replied. “It seems like she was given some status in the community because she contributed to various charities and was known for her large contributions to the school system.”

“Rumor is Ms. Lacecap didn’t have much of a formal education, so she wanted to make sure every child got the education she didn’t,” Mercy said.

“Mrs. Holt Sr., we call