Bad Debt (Savannah Martin Mysteries Book 14) Read online

  Bad Debt

  Savannah Martin Mystery #14

  Jenna Bennett

  Contents

  Introduction

  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

  About the Author

  Savannah Martin has always been a good girl, doing what was expected and fully expecting life to fall into place in its turn. But when her perfect husband turns out to be a lying, cheating slimeball—and bad in bed to boot—Savannah kicks the jerk to the curb and embarks on life on her own terms. With a new apartment, a new career, and a brand new outlook on life, she’s all set to take the world by storm.

  * * *

  If only the world would stop throwing her curveballs...

  * * *

  When every member of a rural Sweetwater family is murdered in their beds, Maury County sheriff Bob Satterfield calls on the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation for help. While Savannah’s husband, TBI agent Rafe Collier, heads to their shared hometown to help the sheriff figure out who and what is behind the grisly massacre, Savannah goes along to assist her old friend Yvonne McCoy’s quest to gain ownership of Beulah’s Meat’n Three restaurant.

  * * *

  But when Beulah Odom’s death turns out to have been murder, suddenly Yvonne’s on the hot seat. And with the sheriff occupied elsewhere and Beulah’s family gunning for Yvonne, it’s up to Savannah to figure out the truth before her old friend lands in jail... or six feet under.

  One

  The day started like any other. I woke up on my side—I was seven months pregnant, so I couldn’t sleep on my stomach anymore, and the obstetrician had made it clear that lying on my back wasn’t a good idea, either. Rafe was sleeping behind me, with a hand splayed on my stomach and his nose buried in my hair.

  Or actually, he wasn’t. By the time I woke up, the hand was moving north and his lips were doing things to the area behind and a little below my ear.

  “Is that a banana in your underwear,” I asked sleepily, “or are you happy to see me?”

  He lifted his head long enough to tell me, “I’m always happy to be waking up next to you, darlin’,” before going back to what he was doing.

  Awww.

  One thing led to another, and after we were done, I fell back asleep. It was still early, and it takes a lot of energy to create a baby. It takes a lot of energy to have sex with Rafe, too. I sleep a lot these days.

  While I settled back in, Rafe got up and walked into the bathroom. I went in and out of hearing the shower and then the trickle of water in the sink as he shaved and brushed his teeth. Eventually he came out, wearing nothing but a towel, and I managed to open my eyes for long enough to enjoy the show. The towel disappeared, and I watched as he pulled on a pair of underwear and then a pair of jeans. Finally, he pulled a T-shirt down over all those muscles, and shrugged into a gray hoodie, before coming to bend over me. “I gotta go to work, darlin’.”

  I nodded. “Be careful.”

  “Always.” He gave me a kiss and straightened. I happen to know that he’s rarely careful, but he usually makes it home, and besides, I was too tired to argue. As his footsteps faded down the stairs, I snuggled back into the pillows and went back to sleep.

  * * *

  The second time I woke up was maybe an hour later. The footsteps were back, coming up the stairs this time. Almost running. Heavy soles thudding on the worn wood treads.

  For a second, my heart shot up into my throat. What if it wasn’t Rafe? What if it was someone else who had waited for him to leave, and who had broken in to hurt me?

  But a second later he burst through the doorway—he, himself—and headed for the closet.

  I pushed myself up on one elbow. “What’s wrong?”

  He glanced at me over his shoulder. “Got a call.”

  I sat up a little straighter, and watched as he pulled out a backpack and started shoving underwear and T-shirts into it. “From who?” Or whom?

  “The sheriff.” He chose another pair of jeans—other than the pair he was wearing—and shoved them into the bag on top of the T-shirts.

  “The Davidson County sheriff?”

  We live in Davidson County, which is the same as Metropolitan Nashville. There’s a chief of police as well as a sheriff in charge of us. But I had no idea that Rafe was on speaking terms with the Davidson County sheriff. When he gets a call, it’s usually from the Metro PD, and most often from our friend, homicide detective Tamara Grimaldi.

  He shook his head. “Sheriff Satterfield.”

  Bob Satterfield is the sheriff of Maury County, which is located an hour to an hour and a half south of Nashville, and encompasses the city of Columbia as well as the small town of Sweetwater, where we both grew up.

  In addition to that, Bob Satterfield is my mother’s gentleman friend. Once upon a time, in high school, I dated his son Todd, who is my brother Dix’s best friend.

  But I digress.

  “Does this have anything to do with Mother?”

  “I don’t think so,” Rafe said, looking around.

  “Toothbrush?” I suggested, and watched him hurry toward the bathroom. “What does it have to do with?”

  He came back, and dropped the backpack on the foot of the bed so he could close it. “Six dead.”

  “People?!”

  You’ll pardon the question. Maury County is a sleepy sort of place. Not even Columbia has much of a crime rate, and the rest of the county is even more laid back. The last time anything like that happened down there was six months ago, in May, when my ten year high school reunion was the occasion for a killing spree. Or maybe a case of serial murder. I’m not sure about the difference. Several people died, anyway. But that was the first time anything like that had happened in years, not to say decades.

  And now there were six dead? “Who died? Anyone I know?”

  “Prob’ly not. I don’t imagine you had much to do with the Skinners growing up.”

  His voice was dry. Hard to tell whether it was a comment on my upbringing—as the youngest daughter of Robert and Margaret Anne Martin, I’d been limited in the sort of company I’d been allowed to keep; Rafe himself had not been on the list—or a comment on the Skinners themselves not being the sort of people I’d want anything to do with.

  The name didn’t ring a bell, anyway. “I don’t remember the Skinners. Are they a family?”

  Rafe nodded. “I went to school with Darrell Skinner. He was a couple years older than me, though. Woulda been gone by the time you came along.”

  We had spent a year of high school together, he and I. Or not together, but at the same school at the same time. Occasionally, he’d passed me in the hallway with a wink and a sly compliment. It wasn’t until ten years later that I’d discovered he’d liked me back then.

  Not that it would have made any difference if I’d known it at the time. My family would have pitched a fit, and at fourteen, I’d lacked the internal fortitude to stand up to my mother.

  “And Darrell Skinner is... um...?”

  “Dead,” Rafe said. “Along with five of his rela
tives.”

  Yikes. “And the sheriff called in the TBI?”

  My husband works for the TBI, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. When local law enforcement comes across something they can’t handle, they can choose to call the TBI for help, since the TBI has more experience with things like serial murders and spree killers than a small town Southern sheriff would.

  “He called me,” Rafe said. “Because I’m from Sweetwater and he figured I knew the Skinners. It was up to me to square it with the brass.”

  “There’s no reason why they wouldn’t want you to go, is there?”

  He shook his head. “They cleared it.”

  “Don’t you want to go?” I’d gotten a very definite whiff of reluctance there.

  “Unlike you,” Rafe said, “I don’t have a lot of good memories from growing up in Sweetwater. And a lotta those bad memories have to do with the sheriff.”

  Understood. For a lot of years, whenever something went wrong in Sweetwater, Rafe was the go-to guy who got blamed for it. “But he apologized for that. And he likes you now. And respects you.”

  Even if there was probably still a part of the sheriff who wished I had married his son instead of Rafe.

  Rafe sighed. “I know. I just don’t like going back there. And this looks like it’s gonna be a bad one.”

  With six dead to start the day, I could well imagine that.

  “Do you know any of the details?”

  “Just that there were six people shot in their beds,” Rafe said. “And one of’em was Darrell Skinner.”

  I winced. “That’s enough, really.”

  He nodded. “I figure I’ll have to stay there a couple days, at least. Something like this ain’t likely to be solved in the first twenty-four.”

  No. Not with that many dead, and what would surely turn out to be six times however many motives.

  But most likely just one killer.

  “Give me five minutes,” I said, throwing off the comforter. “I’ll come with you.”

  “Darlin’...” He turned to watch me pad barefoot to the bathroom, and his mouth curved.

  “I’m fat,” I said crossly.

  “You’re pregnant. And gorgeous.”

  And he looked at me like he meant it, which helped even more than the words. He didn’t, however, come into the bathroom to touch me. But since I was already slowing him down and he was waiting instead of leaving me behind, I guess I couldn’t complain about that.

  After brushing my teeth and hair and splashing some water on my face, I stepped into a pair of panties and got his help in fastening my bra. And then, since we were going to Sweetwater, where I might—probably would—come face to face with my mother at some point today, I regretfully gave up the idea of wearing something comfortable and instead dropped a dress over my head. It draped very becomingly over the stomach, if I do say so myself. Finally, after getting some help in pulling on a pair of socks—the stomach got in the way of bending over these days—I stuck my feet into a pair of ankle boots. Thus appropriately attired, at least according to my mother, I shoved a few pieces of clothing into an overnight bag and turned to Rafe. “I’m ready.”

  He was leaning on the door jamb, arms folded across his chest. “You sure you wanna do this, darlin’? Ain’t like the sheriff’s gonna let you interfere with his case, you know.”

  “It won’t be his case,” I pointed out. “It’ll be yours.”

  He shook his head. “Still his. I’ll just be there to give input and help. And ride herd on the forensic team and that kinda thing.”

  There had to be at least one crime scene, and if six people had been killed, it must be a bloody one. Far beyond what a small, rural, sheriff’s department was accustomed to handling.

  “Did you already arrange that?”

  He nodded. “They’re on their way.”

  “Then let’s go, too.” I headed for the door. He stepped aside to let me through and then fell in behind me.

  “I’ve been thinking that I should make a trip to Sweetwater anyway,” I told him, as we traversed the stairs with our respective bags. “It’s been a couple of weeks since I was there. I don’t think Mother is on speaking terms with Audrey yet. I’m not sure what’s going on with Audrey and Darcy. And I think this is the week when they’re starting the hearings into Beulah Odom’s competency.”

  He glanced at me as we came off the stairs and crossed the foyer toward the front door. “Was there a question about that?”

  “According to her family there is,” I said, passing through the door he held open for me. “Thank you. She left her restaurant,” Beulah’s Meat’n Three, a Sweetwater staple for as long as I could remember, “to Yvonne,” one of her waitresses, “and her sister-in-law and niece want it for themselves. So they’ve insisted on having a hearing into her competency, to see if they can’t wrest the place away from Yvonne.”

  Rafe nodded, and locked the front door behind us. “Here.” He took the bag out of my hand. “You shouldn’t be carrying that.”

  It weighed no more than fifteen pounds, but I let him. “I guess we’re taking the Volvo?”

  It sat at the bottom of the stairs, in front of Rafe’s big, black Harley-Davidson, the one he drives to work every morning.

  He led the way to the car and popped the trunk so he could put his backpack and my bag inside. “We’re gonna have to. I ain’t letting you ride on the back of the bike the whole way there. Not in your condition.”

  And not only that, but it looked like rain. The sky was pewter gray, with low-hanging clouds.

  “Maybe I should take you to the TBI,” I suggested, “so you can pick up an official vehicle.”

  “Drive two cars?”

  “It’ll give us both something to drive while we’re down there.” Since I didn’t want to be stuck sitting in the parlor at Mother’s house while he took my car to work every morning and left me stranded.

  He shrugged. “I’m sure the sheriff has a squad car he can spare.”

  “Yes, but are you sure the town of Sweetwater will be able to handle the sight of you driving a sheriff’s vehicle?”

  It wasn’t just Bob Satterfield who had been wont to pin anything that went wrong in Sweetwater on Rafe. Everyone else in town had been only too happy to play along, too.

  “They’re gonna have to,” Rafe said. “I prob’ly shoulda requisitioned a car when I was at work, but I didn’t think about it. And now I don’t wanna take the time to go back. I’m already running late.”

  “I’m sorry.” I headed for the passenger seat. “You better drive, then.”

  “Don’t mind if I do.” He walked around to the driver’s side and got in. We took off down the driveway with spurt of gravel. “Fasten your seatbelt,” Rafe said with glance at me.

  “I’m trying.” I fumbled with the buckle. “It isn’t as easy as it used to be. One of these days, I’m afraid I’m going to get in the car and the belt just won’t be long enough to fit around me anymore.”

  He grinned. “I don’t think you have to worry about that. Not much more than a month to go.”

  An interminable month. Sometimes I felt like this was the longest pregnancy on record. Like I was an elephant waiting to give birth. And not just in girth, but in the time it took.

  I didn’t say so. He’d already talked me off the ‘I’m fat, I’m ugly’ bandwagon once today; it wasn’t fair to make him do it again. “So tell me about the Skinners,” I said instead. “I really don’t remember them. Was Darrell the only one who was close to our age?”

  “He wasn’t close to yours.” Rafe concentrated on maneuvering the car down Potsdam Street toward Dresden and the interstate. “He was a couple years ahead of me in school, making him maybe five years ahead of you. And they didn’t live in Sweetwater.”

  “Where did they live?”

  We had gone to Columbia High, which had drawn kids from all over Maury County. The two of us from opposite sides of Sweetwater, and Darrell Skinner from somewhere else, it seemed.
>
  “Other side of the county,” Rafe said. “Up in the foothills by the Devil’s Backbone.”

  The Devil’s Backbone is an outdoorsy area adjacent to the old Natchez Trail, now the Natchez Trace Scenic Parkway, which runs from the south end of Nashville all the way to Natchez, Mississippi. Originally, it was a dirt track that was used by the local Indian tribes to move between the Cumberland, Tennessee, and Mississippi Rivers. Later, it saw use by the early explorers and traders who settled in the area. Meriwether Lewis, of Lewis and Clark fame, died at Grinder’s Stand on the Trace in October 1809. Apparently old Meriwether was addicted to opium, which may have contributed to his death. His mother claimed he’d been murdered, but William Clark along with then-president Thomas Jefferson, accepted a verdict of suicide.

  Lewis was buried beside the trail, and since 2009, there’s been a bronze bust marking his grave site.

  At any rate, the Natchez Trace cuts through the upper northwest corner of Maury County, but by the time it reaches the area Rafe was talking about, it’s well outside our county and into the adjacent one. The Devil’s Backbone is not located in Maury County, but some of the foothills are, and apparently that’s where Darrell Skinner had lived. And died.

  “Sounds...” I hesitated, “rural.”

  Rafe’s lips quirked as he maneuvered the car onto Dresden in the direction of Dickerson Pike and the interstate. “You can say that. The Skinners were what you mighta called hillbilly trailer trash.”

  “I would never call anyone that,” I said, offended. “Especially now that they’re dead.”

  Rafe chuckled. “Being dead don’t mean Darrell wasn’t all that and more, darlin’.”

  “Maybe not. But you’re not supposed to speak ill of the dead.” And I would assume that went double if they were murdered.

  “The Skinners were trailer trash,” Rafe said. “I oughta know.”

  Having grown up in a trailer himself, I assumed. In a trailer park called The Bog on the south side of Sweetwater, almost as far as it was possible to get from the Devil’s Backbone while staying in the same county.