Pies and Prejudice (12 page)

Looking strangely pleased, her mother opened a cabinet and pulled out a flower vase made of cobalt glass. “You make a pie and I’ll put together an arrangement of my Fast Friends roses. Between the two of us, we’ll have Knox’s entire office confiding their deepest secrets to you.”

With that, she put her wide-brimmed hat back on and left the kitchen. Ella Mae remained at the table, mulling over which pie to make. Seeing her mother pass beyond the patio doors, shears in one hand and a gathering basket in the other, Ella Mae felt a warmth bloom inside her chest. She scooped Chewy up from the floor and kissed him on the nose. “Is this what it takes to bring my mother and I together? A murder investigation?”

Chewy squirmed out of her arms and stood at attention in front of the refrigerator. Ignoring the plaintive look in his nutmeg eyes and the hopeful wag of his tail, Ella Mae opened the pantry and waited for inspiration to sweep over her. She’d expected it to be swayed by the smell of fresh peaches and warm honey, but today, its breath was redolent with the scent of chocolate.

Because time was of the essence, Ella Mae had to forgo a cream pie. It would take too long to chill. Fortunately, she had stocked up on several staples and had both pecan halves and chocolate waiting patiently on the shelves.

Ella Mae closed her eyes and pictured a frazzled office manager phoning clients to cancel Knox’s appointments, having to explain to the few people who hadn’t heard that the equine vet had passed away. Each call became more and more difficult as cries of dismay and words of condolence were heaped upon the woman.

“At least I hope it’s a woman,” Ella Mae murmured as she began to crush chocolate wafers over the bowl of the
food processor. “Because this pie will be so rich and chocolaty that one bite should have her seeing me as an instant confidante.”

After pressing the cookie crumb mixture into a glass pie dish, Ella Mae put it into the oven to bake and then began work on the filling. She warmed a saucepan on the stovetop and added a stick of butter, watching it spread into a puddle of liquid gold. She then poured in corn syrup and white sugar. Mixing the ingredients with a wooden spoon, she closed her eyes and thought of the times she’d gone out for coffee with her classmates from culinary school. When her mind was awash with the sounds of remembered laughter, comfortable banter, and the intimate exchange of aspirations and fears, she set the pan aside to cool.

Ella Mae turned her attention to the large mixing bowl on the counter. She expertly cracked four eggs into its shiny metal basin and then beat them until they frothed and bubbled like a storm wave rushing onto the shore. After stirring in vanilla and a pinch of salt, she paused, frowning.

“Something’s missing,” she said to the silent room. “Music, for one thing.” She pushed the play button on Reba’s CD player and was delighted to hear the opening strains of “Long Time Gone” by the Dixie Chicks.

“Better,” Ella Mae said as the beat burst into the room with the energy of a hard rain. She drummed on the counter with a pair of wooden spoons, singing along while Chewy bounced up and down as if there were springs attached to the bottom of his paws.

Ella Mae opened the bag of pecan halves and inhaled their sweet, woodsy aroma. She hesitated before adding them to the bowl. She was still overlooking an essential ingredient.

“Bourbon!” she exclaimed. That was what the filling needed. An extra dose of richness to unite the pecans and chocolate. Once she’d added a quarter cup of her mother’s Maker’s Mark to the egg blend, she smiled with satisfaction. Next, she stirred the cooled sugar mix into the bowl and
then added the pecans and chocolate. After a final stir, she spooned the filling into the cookie crumb crust, willing the pie to loosen the tongue of whoever sampled it.

An hour and a half later, with a warm bourbon chocolate pecan pie tucked in a nest of dishcloths, a vase of roses wedged into a box stuffed with newspaper, and Chewy whining in anxiety inside his pet carrier, Ella Mae eased her mother’s Suburban out of the driveway and headed south.

Knox’s practice was located two towns away in a burg named Little Kentucky. In the fifties, a family of horse breeders had relocated from the bluegrass state and established what would be the first of several well-known horse farms. Over time, Little Kentucky’s reputation as an equine community grew and horse lovers from across the country had settled there.

The downtown area was small and tried to cater to both stable hands and upper-class farm owners. At one end of town there was a cluster of sad-looking cafés, bars, and discount stores. These reluctantly gave way to a grouping of posh boutiques and overpriced restaurants catering to the wealthy horse enthusiast.

Ella Mae had never cared for Little Kentucky. It was too insular for her tastes and she didn’t speak horse. Like her aunt Dee, she was an animal lover, but she’d taken a nasty fall from an uppity mare when she was a girl and hadn’t felt comfortable around the powerful creatures since. Loralyn Gaynor being the show champion of northern Georgia since toddlerhood had served as an additional deterrent to Ella Mae getting too interested in the equestrian world. She hoped only to remember enough terminology to ask the right questions of Knox’s employees.

The Equine Center was a long, sprawling structure located down a narrow road called Saddle Brook Lane. Several rectangles of neat green fields divided by split-rail fences surrounded the building, and a mare with a wizened
appearance moved to the end of the paddock as if to greet the Suburban.

Ella Mae alighted from the truck and was assaulted by the unmistakable odor of horse. It was a country smell and didn’t bother her, but Chewy’s nose was working double-time. He showed the whites of his eyes upon hearing the old mare snort a hello.

“It’s all right, boy,” Ella Mae cooed. “I’m sorry to use you like this, but I promise to buy you a nice bag of treats for being such a good sport.”

Chewy’s ears turned into twin mountain peaks upon hearing his favorite word. Ella Mae whispered encouragingly to him all the way to the front door. She juggled the pie, the flowers, and the carrier while wondering how she’d ever make it through the front door. Luckily, a woman holding a watering can suddenly appeared in the doorway.

“My, you’ve got your hands full,” she said in a musical drawl. “I was just going out to give the ferns a drink, but they’ll keep for a spell.”

Ella Mae was relieved to find such an amiable individual from the onset. “Do you work here?”

The woman, who wore her gray brown hair in a tight ponytail, nodded. “I do, but we’re not seeing patients today. I’m only open for folks in need of something from the pharmacy.”

Feigning confusion, Ella Mae gestured at the carrier. “Oh, dear. I just moved here from New York and my little guy here has been acting kind of lethargic. He’s barely touching his food, and for him, that’s a big deal.”

The woman, who was dressed in jeans and a white scrub top covered with designs of running foals, gave Ella Mae a perplexed look. “We’re a horse vet, hon. Dr. Knox doesn’t tend to dogs and cats. He only sees…saw…” Becoming flustered, she put her hands to her head and smoothed her already tidy hair. “I keep forgetting that he’s gone.”

Ella Mae put the carrier on the floor and took a step
toward the agitated woman. “Are you okay?” Without waiting for a response, she put the vase and pie on the counter dividing the waiting room from the office manager’s area and removed the aluminum foil covering the pie. A current carrying browned pecans, warm chocolate, and baked crust encircled the woman in scrubs.

“I brought this in hopes of bribing Dr. Knox into seeing my dog, but I’d like you to have it instead,” Ella Mae said softly. “I shouldn’t have just showed up like this. It was impolite and I apologize.”

Clearly influenced by Ella Mae’s contrite demeanor, the woman’s gaze flickered to the pie. “Don’t worry about it, hon. I’m just a complete mess today, what with all that’s happened. The world’s gone crazy. Just crazy!” A sob rose in her throat and lodged there like a stone in a drainpipe.

Without a word, Ella Mae put her hand under the woman’s elbow and steered her around the counter to a vacant rolling chair. “Why don’t I cut you a piece of pie? You look like you haven’t eaten for days.” She pointed to a closed door at the back of the room. “Do you have a kitchen?”

The woman nodded and reached for the box of tissues on her desk. “Thank you.”

Ella Mae found two plates, forks, and napkins in the third room on the left. She took a quick minute to walk down the wide hallway, noting that other doors were labeled with placards such as Imaging, Surgery, Reproduction Center, Ambulatory Center, and so on. Knox wasn’t just a vet popping around to area farms to offer vaccinations and advice on injuries; he ran a state-of-the-art facility offering a number of specialized and undoubtedly very costly services.

“I’m Peggy, by the way,” the woman said upon Ella Mae’s return. She’d drawn the flowers closer and was touching the cantaloupe-colored petals.

Ella Mae introduced herself and then pointed at the carrier. “That’s Charleston Chew. Chewy for short.”

“You can let him out,” Peggy offered after Ella Mae
handed her a generous wedge of pie. “He can’t get into too much trouble.”

Chewy shot out of the carrier and danced in between the women with relief. He then set about sniffing every square inch of the floor. “He is so precious!” Peggy exclaimed and then took a bite of pie. Her eyes went wide as the bourbon-tinged filling coated her tongue. Biting down on the soft, roasted pecans, she uttered a low moan. She chewed the second and third forkfuls with her eyes closed while Ella Mae waited patiently.

“Would you like to tell me what happened?” she asked when there was just a triangle of pie left on Peggy’s plate. “You seem sad.”

“I am. I really am. My boss, Dr. Knox, who was simply a lovely man, was killed. Some terrible person murdered him and now we don’t know what’s going to happen to the practice or how we’ll manage without him.” She made a sound between a hiccup and agonized sigh, put down her plate, and took Ella Mae’s hand. “He treated us all like gold, and even though he left this place to Chandler—that’s his son—it won’t be the same. Dr. Knox was good with people
and
horses. You don’t meet that kind of vet every day.”

Ella Mae nodded as though she understood completely. “Is Dr. Knox’s son an equine vet as well?”

“He is. He’s…pretty good, but I’ve never warmed to him like I did to Brad—I mean, to his daddy. Chandler’s had a chip on his shoulder because his daddy wouldn’t make him a partner in the practice straight away, but he got worse when Dr. Knox started dating Ms. Gaynor. And the horses can tell that boy walks around with a knot of anger in his heart. They sense things about people.”

“I used to go to school with Loralyn Gaynor,” Ella Mae whispered. “We never did get along.”

Peggy shrugged. “Everybody calls her a gold digger, but Dr. Knox was the one who’d be in a higher tax bracket after their marriage. You see, Ms. Gaynor was going to introduce
him to all the top breeders and thoroughbred race farms. He’d have so much business that he planned to make Chandler an equal partner. Everyone was going to get their happily ever after. Well, almost everyone.” A shadow surfaced in her eyes and Ella Mae couldn’t help but wonder if Peggy had carried a torch for Bradford Knox. “But no one’s going to be happy now….” She reached out to stroke the embossed letters of Bradford’s name on the clinic’s business card and began to cry in earnest. Her fingers squeezed the card into a tight ball, her knuckles turning white with tension.

Is this grief or anger?
Ella Mae wondered. Whichever emotion Peggy’s hands were betraying, it was obvious that the office manager had had strong feelings for her employer.

And Loralyn? What would she have gotten out of the marriage?
Ella Mae pondered this question while she watched Peggy.
When I saw her at the school, she didn’t act like a woman in love. More like a woman with a strategy. Did she plan to help Knox build a lucrative practice and then file for divorce once her coffers were full?

“Did Dr. Knox have any other children?” she asked Peggy to keep the conversation going.

Sniffling, Peggy nodded. “A daughter. Ashleigh. Now there’s a gold digger for you. Divorced three times. Lives in a posh suburb in Atlanta and spends money like it grows on trees. She doesn’t come to Little Kentucky much. We’re all a bit too country for her tastes, but she and the good doctor talked on the phone all the time. She was the apple of his eye.”

“Ashleigh sounds a bit like Loralyn. They both have a string of ex-husbands.”

Peggy didn’t reply. Instead, she opened her napkin and covered her face with it. Ella Mae couldn’t decide whether she was drying her tears or trying to conceal a telling emotion.

Placing a second slice of pie on Peggy’s empty plate, Ella Mae tried to think what else to ask. Either the dessert had
loosened the office manager’s tongue or her grief had freed her inhibitions to the point where she was confiding intimate details about her employer to a complete stranger.

“It’s quite a shock to hear that Dr. Knox died…violently,” Ella Mae said and looked nervously around the waiting area as if the perpetrator might be hiding behind one of the potted palms. “These parts are usually so peaceful. Did your Dr. Knox have enemies?”

While mechanically cutting off a triangle of pie, Peggy considered the question. “I suppose, but I couldn’t name names. He was always sweet to me and I never heard him raise his voice or say a bad word behind anyone’s back.” She hesitated and seemed to be fighting against herself over saying anything more.

“Go on,” Ella Mae prodded, her voice barely audible.

Peggy’s lips seemed to part of their own accord, but her eyes glittered with anxiety when she spoke. “He’s been acting secretive ever since we opened this facility last year. I don’t know whether it’s mortgaged to the eyeballs or not because I only handle the patient billings, but for the last six months or so Dr. Knox started coming in at night. He’d never done that before and said he came to check on post-op patients, but the next day, he’d be edgy as a thoroughbred in the starting stall. I knew he hadn’t been here just for the horses. That had always been Chandler’s job.” She put her hands over her heart. “The night before he died, I left my cell phone here and came back to get it. Dr. Knox was in the back, arguing with someone.”