Guess Who's Coming to Die? Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Acknowledgements

  Praise for Patricia Sprinkle

  Did You Declare the Corpse?

  “Patricia Sprinkle gives her Thoroughly Southern Mystery a charming Scottish accent this time, but everything else is delightfully the same . . . the warm, gentle sense of humor, the impeccable classic plotting, and the smart, nice woman at the heart of it who loves her husband and can, apparently, solve anything!”

  —Nancy Pickard

  “An intricate web of suspense and intrigue leads to an enthralling mystery.”

  —Romantic Times (4½ stars)

  “[A] primer in how to write a compelling story. Additionally, Jan Karon fans who like mysteries will love Mac!”

  —Meritorious Mysteries

  Who Killed the Queen of Clubs?

  “Time to sit on the veranda with a nice glass of lemonade and enjoy this down-home mystery full of charming characters and sparkling Southern witticisms.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  When Will the Dead Lady Sing?

  “Patricia Sprinkle takes the reader on a trip to the ‘real’

  South, the South of family traditions, community customs,

  church-going, and crafty, down-home politics. Reading it is

  like spending an afternoon in the porch swing on Aunt

  Dixie’s veranda. . . . A delightful book.”

  —JoAnna Carl, author of the Chocoholic mysteries

  Who Let That Killer in the House?

  “Sprinkle’s third Thoroughly Southern Mystery is thoroughly absorbing.”

  —The Orlando Sentinel

  Who Left That Body in the Rain?

  “Forming a triumvirate with Anne George and Margaret Maron, Sprinkle adds her powerful voice to the literature of mysteries featuring Southern women. . . . Highly recommended.”

  —Mystery Time

  “Who Left That Body in the Rain? charms, mystifies, and delights.

  As Southern as Sunday fried chicken and sweet tea.

  Patricia Sprinkle’s Hopemore is as captivating—and as

  filled with big hearts and big heartaches — as Jan Karon’s

  Mitford. Come for one visit and you’ll always return.”

  —Carolyn Hart, author of the Henrie O and Death on Demand mysteries

  “Authentic and convincing.”

  —Tamar Myers, author of Hell Hath No Curry

  “An heirloom quilt. Each piece of patchwork is unique and with its own history, yet they are deftly stitched together with threads of family love and loyalty, simmering passion, deception and wickedness, but always with optimism imbued with down-home Southern traditions. A novel to be savored while sitting on a creaky swing on the front porch, a pitcher of lemonade nearby, a dog slumbering in the sunlight.”

  —Joan Hess, author of The Goodbye Body

  Who Invited the Dead Man?

  “A wonderfully portrayed Southern setting . . . MacLaren seems right at home in her tiny town.”

  —Library Journal

  “Touches of poignancy mixed with Southern charm and old secrets make Who Invited the Dead Man? a diverting read.”

  —Romantic Times

  And her other novels . . .

  “Light touches of humor and the charming interplay between MacLaren and her magistrate husband make this a fun read for mystery fans.”

  —Library Journal

  “Sparkles with verve, charm, wit, and insight. I loved it.”

  —Carolyn Hart

  “Engaging . . . compelling . . . a delightful thriller.”

  —Peachtree Magazine

  “The sort of light entertainment we could use more of in the hot summer days to come.”

  —The Denver Post

  “[Sprinkle] just keeps getting better.”

  —The Post and Courier (Charleston, SC)

  Thoroughly Southern Mysteries

  WHO INVITED THE DEAD MAN?

  WHO LEFT THAT BODY IN THE RAIN?

  WHO LET THAT KILLER IN THE HOUSE?

  WHEN WILL THE DEAD LADY SING?

  WHO KILLED THE QUEEN OF CLUBS?

  DID YOU DECLARE THE CORPSE?

  SIGNET

  Published by New American Library, a division of

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

  New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto,

  Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

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  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices:

  80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  First published by Signet, an imprint of New American Library,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  First Printing, February 2007

  Copyright © Patricia Sprinkle, 2007

  All rights reserved

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  eISBN : 978-1-429-55496-1

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  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  MacLaren Y
arbrough—Georgia magistrate and co-owner of Yarbrough Feed, Seed, and Nursery

  Joe Riddley Yarbrough—her husband, co-owner of Yarbrough Feed, Seed, and Nursery

  Walker Yarbrough—their younger son, insurance salesman

  Cindy Yarbrough—wife of Walker Yarbrough and recent heiress to Weinkoff hotel fortune

  Members of Magnolia Ladies’ Investment Club

  MayBelle Brandison—real estate developer

  Meriwether Wainwright DuBose—owner of Pots of Luck catalog company, wife of Jed DuBose

  Rachel Ford—international lawyer from New York, now runs a poverty law clinic in town

  Sadie Lowe Harnett—ex-wife of New York magnate

  Nancy Jensen—financial partner of the club and wife of the CEO of Middle Georgia Kaolin

  Willena Kenan —outgoing senior partner, one of two primary stockholders in Kenan Cotton Factors

  Wilma Kenan—her cousin, incoming senior partner, also primary stockholder in Kenan Cotton Factors

  Augusta Wainwright—queen of Hopemore society, primary stockholder in Wainwright Textile Mills

  Other Important Characters

  Charlie Muggins—police chief, Hopemore, Georgia

  Isaac James—assistant police chief, Hopemore, Georgia

  Slade Rutherford—editor of the weekly Hopemore Statesman

  Grover Henderson—stockbroker adviser to the club

  Clarinda Williams—MacLaren’s housekeeper

  Dexter Baxter—custodian of the Hopemore Community Center

  Linette Shields—Wilma’s housekeeper

  Hetty Burns—Willena’s housekeeper

  1

  If my husband, Joe Riddley, tells you, “MacLaren can’t get out of my sight without stumbling over a body,” remind him that this one time, it was all his fault.

  Outside my office at Yarbrough Feed, Seed, and Nursery, our little town of Hopemore, Georgia, was enjoying a gorgeous day in May with the sun not too hot, a frisky breeze, and puffy white clouds floating like great dollops of Cool Whip overhead. Early perennials and bedding plants were in full bloom. All the trees had new leaves. Even the pines looked fresh.

  Inside at my desk, I was grumpy as all get-out. I had gotten back from a two-week bus tour of Scotland that hadn’t turned out to be as restful as I had hoped. I had badly injured one hand, a couple of bodies had shown up, and I had nearly made a third.1 Coming back to a pile of bills, invoices, and catalogs didn’t do a thing to improve my mood.

  With my good hand I picked up a fancy envelope perched on top. Creamy and small, the size for personal notes, it was far and away the best-looking thing on my desk. Judge MacLaren Yarbrough was handwritten in a fat, round script I didn’t recognize.

  As I reached for my letter opener, I glanced across the office. Joe Riddley was watching me from his desk with the expression he reserves for those occasions when he knows I will love a present. When he saw me looking his way, he opened a new seed catalog and began to peruse it with the same fervor financiers bring to the Wall Street Journal.

  We have known each other for sixty years and been married for more than forty, and we share an office at the back of our store. He does the ordering and manages our big nursery out at the edge of town. I handle the store and the financial end of things. Generally, we work real amicably together. If he gets tired of me, he settles his red YARBROUGH cap on his head and goes down to the nursery and drives the forklift. If I get tired of him, I grab my pocketbook and run over to Myrtle’s Restaurant for a slice of chocolate pie with three-inch meringue and sugar beads on top. It works for us.

  Joe Riddley has been known to occasionally arrange for wonderful surprises, so I slit open the envelope with a tremor of anticipation. “What’s this?” I asked in an innocent voice.

  “A welcome-home present from Cindy and Gusta.” If I didn’t read it soon, he was going to grab it and read it for me.

  Even if I was disappointed it wasn’t from him, my heart beat faster. Augusta Wainwright was the richest woman in town, and Cindy — wife of our younger son, Walker — had recently inherited her grandmother’s entire estate. Since her grandmother was the last of the Weinkoffs of the Weinkoff hotel chain, Cindy and Walker finally had enough money to keep their family in the style to which they had already grown accustomed. Joe Riddley and I no longer lay awake at night wondering how they would ever meet their enormous mortgage, car payments, credit card debt, and private school bills.

  Had Gusta and Cindy decided to send us around the world?

  My bags weren’t even unpacked. I could leave tomorrow.

  Full of hope, I tugged out a creamy note card and read two sentences: You are invited to become a member of the Magnolia Ladies’ Investment Club. We meet at seven thirty p.m. on the second Monday of every month in the Wainwright Room of the Hopemore Community Center.

  There was no signature or phone number for an RSVP. The aristocracy presumes that people who receive an invitation to join them won’t turn it down.

  Before we get on with this story, I need to correct any misapprehension you may have that “small town” equals “small bank accounts.” A number of our nation’s wealthiest families live in the small towns where their ancestors started businesses that became international corporations. These families have already found what the rest of the populace is looking for: lifelong friends, good neighbors, and space to build lovely, gracious homes away from crowds, traffic, and hassles. Our own little Hope County — located in that wedge of Georgia that lies between I-20 and I-16—has birthed Wainwright Textile Mills, Kenan Cotton Factors, DuBose Trucking Lines, and Middle Georgia Kaolin.

  The Magnolia Ladies’ Investment Club was organized in the 1950s to provide a place for the women of the Wainwright, DuBose, Kenan, and Jensen families to get together, consume a lot of liquor in private, and talk about whatever very wealthy women discuss when not constrained by the presence of plebeians. They originally dabbled in the stock market only to give their meetings a semblance of purpose. After Gusta was widowed and assumed control of her own money, however, she also took control of the investment club. They added other members and became serious about investment strategies. At some point they drew up a charter and bylaws that limited membership to “Hopemore’s ten most influential women.”

  For which read, “richest and most socially prominent.”

  They had lost two members in the past six months. Edith Burkett had been murdered the previous fall2, and Pooh DuBose had died in her sleep while I was away. Cindy had taken Edie’s place, but there wasn’t a single reason I could think of why I ought to take Pooh’s. Like most other women in town who did not belong, I generally referred to the group as “the Moneyed Women’s Investment Club.”

  I looked across the office and saw Joe Riddley waiting for me to jump up and down with joy. I gave him a sour look instead. “Okay, it was logical that Cindy got invited once news of her inheritance got around. But how on earth did I get nominated? And why? Except for Gusta, most of the current members are a lot closer to Cindy’s age than mine. I scarcely know them.”

  He scratched one cheek and pretended to think that over. “You know most of them. There’s Gusta and Meriwether—”

  Augusta Wainwright was the widow of the last Wainwright of Wainwright Textile Mills and had been the self-styled queen of Hopemore society since she’d learned to toddle. And yes, I knew Gusta and her granddaughter, Meriwether DuBose, real well. Meriwether was married to attorney Jed DuBose and mother of little Zachary DuBose. She was also starting her own business, Pots of Luck, which was a catalog company specializing in pots of all sizes and shapes, and doing real well. Meriwether had her daddy’s business sense.

  “And the Kenan girls . . .” Joe Riddley wasn’t being chauvinistic. Everybody called the cousins “the Kenan girls,” although Willena was forty and Wilma fifty. I think that was in deference to their state of being what my mama used to call “ladies-in-waiting.” Until two perfect husbands appeared, they occupied themselves running�
�some said ruining — Hopemore’s social and civic clubs.

  “I don’t really know the Kenans.” I was beginning to feel balky about this. I picked up my letter opener and amused myself by stabbing little holes in the thick invitation instead of in Joe Riddley’s hide.

  “They’ve gone to our church for five generations, Little Bit.” He was getting exasperated, too. “And Willena’s real savvy where money is concerned. You might just learn something. And you and Nancy Jensen have served on a lot of church committees together.” Nancy Jensen was married to Horace, owner and CEO of Middle Georgia Kaolin.