Buried in Secrets (Carly Moore #4) - Denise Grover Swank Page 0,61
in dire situations without the money or the resources to escape. But then Emily Drummond had stayed with Bart for the same reason—for fear she would lose her children—so maybe it wasn’t just limited to the impoverished.
“Did the other boy’s family blame Pam and Rob for the accident?”
“Oh yes, and I think they considered suing, but they changed their tune. She only had to deal with a lawsuit from the guy in the other car.”
“Do you know why the other family decided not to sue?”
“Not a clue, but Pam didn’t seem all that surprised. I think she was numb by then.”
Was this the smoking gun that Bart had given Pam a favor?
“Does the family live in Drum?” I asked.
“Out by White Rabbit Holler”
“No kidding,” I said. “I live out in White Rabbit Holler. What’s their last name? Maybe I know them.”
“The Genslers. Their son is Spencer, and I taught both of his parents. Donald and Kay.”
Pursing my lips, I shook my head. “Don’t know them, but Hank might.” I wrote down their names, then asked, “Do you know if Pam knew Jim Palmer?”
She shook her head. “No. She never mentioned him. Travis Keeling is her agent, and before that, she had an agent with State Farm. Jim Palmer’s an independent agent.” She grimaced. “Or I guess he was.”
“Could she have known him from somewhere else? Maybe their kids were on the same sports teams?”
“The boys don’t play any sports. Poor Ricky tried to play football, but he wasn’t much good at it. Quit his sophomore year—mid-season.” She shook her head. “Rob was fit to be tied over that.”
“Did you know Jim Palmer? Did you have him as a student?”
She gave me a tight smile. “Yes. He was also my insurance agent, and his daughter, Laurie, was in my geometry class last year.”
I’d just found my source of information about Pam’s victim.
Chapter Seventeen
“What about Jim’s wife?” I asked, my pen poised over the notebook.
“No,” she said with a frown. “Jim met Melinda at college and brought her back to Ewing.”
“I heard Jim’s father owned the agency before him.”
“That’s right. Jim, Sr. died from cancer about a decade ago. When the kids were small.”
“And Jim had two children?” Marco had mentioned that fact, but it wouldn’t hurt to verify it.
“A girl and a boy. Laurie was a freshman last year, and her brother Pete is in middle school.”
“It sounds like Jim was well liked. I saw signs and flowers outside the office.”
“Oh, yes,” she said, still frowning. “One of the nicest people I’ve ever met. He coached his kids’ sports teams and his business sponsored plenty of others. He was a strong presence in the Ewing Small Business Club. He even helped organize a food drive every year.”
“Can you think of any reason why someone would hate him?”
“Jim?” she asked in surprise. “No. That’s what’s so shocking about Pam murdering him. Even if you can look past the fact that she was the one who pulled the trigger, Jim was the last person you’d expect to be murdered.”
“So he didn’t have any enemies?”
“Not that I knew of,” she said. “Just a likeable guy.”
“And his wife?”
She didn’t answer, and I looked up to see her mouth shifted to one side. She gave me a hesitant smile. “I don’t know anything for a fact.”
“I’ll take that into account.”
“She never much cared for Ewing. It was no secret she wanted Jim to sell the business and move to Memphis—where she’s originally from.”
“Memphis to Ewing,” I said. “That had to be quite the culture shock.”
“I guess you would know,” Selena said. “Since you dropped here from Atlanta.”
“True,” I said. “If they met in college, I wonder what she was studying.”
“Oh, I know the answer to that one,” Selena said. “She was studying to be a nurse, only she never finished. She was a year behind Jim, and she got pregnant toward the end of her junior year. Jim was planning on comin’ back to run his daddy’s business, so she dropped out and they got married and moved back here.”
“So she gave up her dreams to become a wife and mother in a town with a population of eight thousand?”
“Pretty much.”
“Do you know if she had a job?”
“She opened a home goods store in downtown Ewing, but it went under. After that, she worked for Jim some.”
I paused and looked up at her. “How long ago was that?”
“I don’t know…five years? Six? She made a go of it for two years, but then finally threw in