Murder in Her Stocking Read online

  Books by G.A. McKevett

  SAVANNAH REID MYSTERIES

  Just Desserts

  Bitter Sweets

  Killer Calories

  Cooked Goose

  Sugar and Spite

  Sour Grapes

  Peaches and Screams

  Death By Chocolate

  Cereal Killer

  Murder a’ la Mode

  Corpse Suzette

  Fat Free and Fatal

  Poisoned Tarts

  A Body to Die For

  Wicked Craving

  A Decadent Way to Die

  Buried in Buttercream

  Killer Honeymoon

  Killer Physique

  Killer Gourmet

  Killer Reunion

  Every Body on Deck

  Hide and Sneak

  GRANNY REID MYSTERIES

  Murder in Her Stocking

  Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation

  G.A. MCKEVETT

  MURDER In Her STOCKING

  A GRANNY REID MYSTERY

  KENSINGTON BOOKS

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Also by

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Prologue

  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

  Epilogue

  KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2018 by G.A. McKevett

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  Library of Congress Card Catalogue Number: 2018944165

  Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

  ISBN: 978-1-4967-1626-2

  eISBN-13: 978-1-4967-1628-6

  eISBN-10: 1-4967-1628-0

  This new series is

  dedicated to all of Savannah’s friends,

  who have loved Granny Reid for so long.

  I would like to thank Leslie Connell for the many hours she has spent over the years reading and proofing my work, giving me suggestions, and noticing when characters arrive in two cars and leave in one or change eye color halfway through a book. I am even more thankful for her loving friendship.

  I am also most grateful to Wanda and Charles Johnson, Arden Massie, Jim Hinze, and Jerry Pierce for their generous research assistance. I pronounce you honorary members of the Moonlight Magnolia Detective Agency.

  A warm thank-you goes to my Facebook friends who helped me remember what our lives were like in the 1980s. What fun we had strolling memory lane together.

  I also wish to thank the fans who write to me, sharing their thoughts and offering endless encouragement. Your stories touch my heart, and I enjoy your letters more than you know. I can be reached at:

  [email protected]

  facebook.com/gwendolynnarden.mckevett

  Prologue

  “This has to be the absolute best Christmas ever.”

  “With Granny here in California and the new baby, too, it doesn’t get better than this.”

  “Just don’t get between me and that plate of fudge. I’m warnin’ y’all!”

  Stella Reid settled into her granddaughter’s most comfortable chair, which sat beside the glittering Christmas tree, and propped her feet on the overstuffed footstool, between a couple of warm, purring black cats.

  Ahhh, her spirit whispered. Nothin’ quite like a kitty foot massage.

  Hugging the latest addition to her family close to her heart, Stella listened to her loved ones chattering among themselves.

  She breathed in the familiar holiday fragrances: the rich pine smell of the tree, the spicy bouquet of the gingerbread house on the kitchen table, the lingering aroma of chocolate from the fudge making that afternoon, and, most importantly, the sweet scent of the infant in her arms.

  Baby Vanna Rose snuggled against her chest, the child’s tiny fingers wrapped tightly around her great-grandmother’s thumb. Her eyes glistened, reflecting the splendor of the tree’s twinkling lights and shiny ornaments.

  Stella looked around the room, adoring each friend and family member in turn. Her grown grandchildren, Savannah and Waycross, were nibbling on generous squares of her famous fudge, while their spouses, Dirk and Tammy, helped themselves to a punch bowl of eggnog.

  The family’s closest friends, Ryan and John, had just arrived and were placing gifts, wrapped in elegant silver and gold foil papers, on the glittery, fluffy “snow” beneath the tree.

  But as deeply as Stella Reid loved everyone present, she had to admit that her favorite, at least this year, was Vanna Rose, Tammy and Waycross’s tiny, red-haired imp and Stella’s youngest great-grandchild. There was nothing quite as beautiful as a baby at Christmastime, a reminder of the reason for all the celebratory uproar.

  As Stella listened to her family members express their joy and appreciation of the holiday, she had to agree with them. Christmas was a wonderous time, and this was the best one yet.

  Well, the second best.

  As delightful as this one was, there was another Christmas that held a special place in Stella Reid’s heart and that none could ever eclipse.

  “The night is darkest just before the dawn” was a quote Stella had often heard and had frequently recited herself. That year had been especially dark, its night long and deep, filled with trials and worries galore.

  When the dawn had finally broken, its warming light was badly needed and most welcomed by all.

  No Christmas, no matter how bright the tree, fragrant the food, bountiful the gifts, or merry the fellowship, would ever be as sweet, as soul satisfying, as that one had been more than thirty years ago....

  Chapter 1

  “Ain’t Christmas just the best, Gran? It’s like the magic in fairy tales, only real!”

  Stella Reid looked down at her eight-year-old granddaughter Alma, whose eyes sparkled with holiday wonderment as she gazed at the same old battered tinsel stars and ragged streamers that were strung across Main Street every year in tiny McGill, Georgia. Since it took so little time and money to decorate the dinky three-blocks-long town, Stella wondered, not for the first time, why the town council didn’t splurge and shell out a few bucks for some new ones once every quarter of a century or so.

  But the glow on her grandchild’s lovely face gave Stella reason to rethink her position. Magic, the real kind, was born in innocent, open hearts, who sought it everywhere. And found it. Even in tattered tinsel decorations.

  “Yes, Alma sugar, Christmas is the best,” Stella told the child as she squeezed her small, warm hand. “It plumb dazzles the eyes and the heart alike. A time when most anything can happen.”

  “Good,” piped up Marietta, the restless eleven-year-old who was tugging at Stella’s other hand. “Maybe I’ll finally g
et them sparkly dress-up high heels I been asking for. Ever’ year I write Santa a letter and tell ’im I want ’em, but when I look under the tree . . . nothin’! Diddly-squat! I don’t know why. Lord knows, I’m always good as good can be.”

  Stella heard a throat clearing behind her. Her oldest grand-angel, Savannah, whispered, “Yeah, Miss Contrary Mari’s good, all right. Good for nothing.”

  The third oldest, Vidalia, clapped her hand over her mouth to stifle a giggle. She almost always agreed with Savannah about Marietta’s shortcomings, but she knew a reprimand was forthcoming.

  Casting a disapproving look over her shoulder, Stella said, “I heard that, Savannah girl. If you can’t say something nice, then—”

  “I know. Sorry, Gran.”

  Marietta stuck out her lip and whirled around to face her accuser. “What’re you saying sorry to Gran for, Vannah Sue? I’m the one you insulted! Gran, make her say sorry to me, too. I’m the one who was wounded.”

  Stella halted the entire entourage of her seven grandchildren in the middle of the sidewalk and cringed a bit to see her fellow McGillians having to walk around the blockage.

  Stella had just collected her grandchildren from their mother’s house and hadn’t had a chance to give them baths or wash their hair and clothes, as she usually did once she got hold of them, a time or two per week.

  She saw the disapproving looks of some of her neighbors as they passed the Reid gang, and she couldn’t blame them. From the chocolate that was smeared on the face of the youngest, little Jesup, who had just turned six, to nine-year-old Waycross’s wild mop of dirty red curls and second grader Cordelia’s torn blouse, they were a motley mess, to be sure.

  The oldest, twelve-year-old Savannah, did her best to keep them clean and neat, but it was a heavy burden and a losing battle for any child.

  Stella’s daughter-in-law, Shirley, had surrendered long ago—if, indeed, she had ever fought at all. She possessed a talent for bringing children into the world, at the rate of one per year, and she had a knack for naming them all after towns in Georgia where she had lived at one time or another. But that was where her mothering skills and maternal interests ended. No one who knew her could say they had ever seen her pick up a hairbrush, a bar of soap or a bath towel, or, heaven forbid, an iron.

  Shirley’s time and life energy were spent sitting on a barstool at the Bulldog Tavern on Main Street in downtown McGill, beneath a picture of Elvis, listening to sorrowful jukebox songs and bemoaning her perpetual rotten luck.

  Stella tried to keep the anger she felt for her daughter-in-law to a minimum. After all, Stella’s own son, the children’s father, did even less for his brood than his wife. A truck driver who came home only a few times a year and stayed just long enough to impregnate his extremely fertile wife, Macon Reid wasn’t the sort of son that Stella bragged about at church socials. She was fine with him driving a big rig. It was honest, hard, skilled work. But she’d be a lot prouder if he hadn’t stashed a girlfriend or two in every port of call. Or if he’d put out at least a little effort to be home for the important stuff. Like Christmas.

  Wondering how Macon had turned out so badly when he’d had such a fine daddy kept Stella Reid awake at night. It also kept her from judging her daughter-in-law too harshly.

  Stella liked to think that most people tried the best they could. Some came up a mite light on the All Things Virtuous side of the scale, but Stella refused to believe that anybody started out in life determined to be good for little, if anything, to their fellow man.

  At least, that was what Stella told herself when she collected her seven grandkids from Shirley’s filthy house, with its empty refrigerator and unused washing machine. When she was carting the youngsters out the door and wishing Shirley well with the brightest fake smile she could muster, Stella was often enjoying the fantasy of snatching her daughter-in-law off that barstool, shaking the daylights out of her, and then finishing the job with a smack upside the noggin.

  Stella felt guilty about entertaining such violent imaginations, but just a little. She figured it was better to think it than do it.

  Hey, whatever works, Stella frequently told herself while indulging in those satisfying daydreams. Resisting temptation was an art that took many forms.

  Stella drew a deep breath, summoning her patience, and told Savannah, “Tell Marietta sorry, too, darlin’. Nobody should ever be called ‘good for nothin’,’ because the good Lord made ever’body good for somethin’.” She added under her breath, “Though it’s sometimes more obvious what certain folks are good for than others.”

  She turned to Marietta, whose lip was back in place and curled into as ugly a sneer as Stella had ever seen.

  “Miss Marietta,” she told her second oldest, “you wipe that nasty look off your face. If you don’t cotton to bein’ called ‘good for nothin’,’ you might try bein’ good for somethin’ come dish-dryin’ time. Hear me?”

  The lip shot out again as the child gave her grandmother a hateful glance that could have peeled the paint off a freshly polished fire engine.

  “You stick that lip back in, girl,” Stella added, “before a crow flies overhead and poops on it.”

  Demanding sparkly plastic high heels and showin’ a heap o’ disrespect to her elders, indeed, Stella thought. Lord, have mercy. That young’un’s not even a teenager yet, and she’s already giving me fits. I can see trouble comin’ a mile off.

  With some effort, Stella got her troops reassembled, and they continued their march down the Main Street sidewalk, toward the drugstore.

  History had taught Stella that taking her grandchildren from their mom for an “overnight” usually meant a week’s worth of Grandma babysitting, at least. The medicine chest was low on Merthiolate, castor oil, and bandages. In a house filled with active, accident-prone children, a well-stocked bathroom cabinet took precedence over holiday shopping.

  The army of Reids rounded a corner, and too late, Stella saw him.

  Elmer Yonce. One of her least favorite McGillians.

  He was between the Reids and the drugstore, blocking their path. Something told her that he had been waiting there for quite a while, intending to do exactly that.

  It wasn’t the first time she had tangled with Elmer.

  She noted with some amusement that his hands were on his hips in what might appear to be a grandiose and authoritative stance. But Stella had known Elmer since elementary school, and she could tell he was taking the opportunity to hold up his britches, which were in danger of heading south, due to him sucking in his belly overly much.

  For her benefit, no doubt.

  An unsettling thought.

  Any guy in the habit of pullin’ in his gut and puffin’ out his chest to impress womenfolk should probably invest in a pair of suspenders, she decided as he approached their group.

  “Merry Christmas, Sexy Stella. You’re lookin’ ever’ bit as sweet and tasty as a plate of your best fudge,” he said, waggling his right eyebrow in what was, no doubt, an effort to appear flirtatious and irresistible. “Got plans for Christmas Eve? If not, I could slide down your chimney and leave a little something in your stocking, if you know what I mean.”

  Stella bristled. This was a bit over the top even for the town degenerate. If she weren’t surrounded by her wide-eyed grandkids, ol’ Elmer’s left cheek would be glowing red and her palm would be tingling.

  “Reckon I know exactly what you mean, Elmer Yonce, you filthy-minded peckerwood,” she told him. “You best watch what you say to me. Specially when my grand-young’uns are within earshot.” She reached out and pulled her brood close, like a hen gathering her chicks when a hawk soared overhead.

  “Yeah!” snapped Savannah. “Her name’s not Sexy Stella. It’s Gran or Granny, or Sister Stella, or Mrs. Reid.”

  “That’s right,” Marietta chimed in. “She’s pretty, but she ain’t sexy. She’s our grandma!”

  “Well, I . . .” Elmer coughed and stared down at his mud-caked boots. “I know
ed your grandma for years, kids, and I always thought she was mighty, um . . . Oh, never mind. I didn’t mean no disre—”

  “Our gran’s strong, too,” nine-year-old Waycross added, equally indignant. “If she decides to smack you upside the head with her big ol’ black skillet, you’ll know you’ve been beaned one for sure!”

  “Yeah, Granny’s fierce. She’ll work you over good fore she’s done with you,” threatened little Alma, with the fury of a much-riled second grader, “and we won’t lift a finger to save your mangy hide when she does it, neither.”

  In her peripheral vision, Stella caught sight of a figure, a large figure in a sheriff’s uniform, moving toward their sidewalk assemblage.

  “Have we got a problem here, folks?” asked a deep, rich male voice—the voice of law and order in McGill, Sheriff Maniford Gilford. Though, the citizens whom he protected and served knew better than to call him Maniford.

  Born as he was on Saint Patrick’s Day, rumor had it that his daddy had been deep in a bottle of Irish whiskey when he saddled his innocent baby son with that awkward handle. Those whom Sheriff Gilford arrested on a fairly regular schedule opined that this might be the source of his contrariness.

  Though, Stella had never thought of her old schoolmate as difficult. Quite the reverse. For as long as she could remember—which was her entire life, since both of them had grown up in McGill—Manny Gilford had treated her with only kindness and respect.

  Since Stella’s husband had passed away six years earlier, the sheriff had developed an almost uncanny talent for appearing out of nowhere the moment she needed a friend. Especially one with a badge.

  “No, Sheriff Gilford. We got no problem a’tall,” she said, deciding to cut Elmer some holiday season slack. “Mr. Yonce here was just wishin’ us a Merry Christmas. He’d ’bout wrapped it up and was fixin’ to move along.”