The Case Of The Ballot Burglary

A Magnolia Bluff Micro Mystery

By Ricky Fitzpatrick

Ruby Nell Hightower always said you could smell trouble before you could see it. That morning, it drifted through Magnolia Bluff like scorched bacon.

Election Day.

“Folks are keyed up tighter than a banjo string,” Dot announced, settling onto Ruby’s porch swing with a paper cup of gas-station coffee. “I told Homer at the counter it’s just an election, and he said I’d better hush before the ‘wrong people’ hear me. I said, ‘Homer, I am the wrong people.’”

Ruby bit back a smile. She had decided, quietly and deliberately, not to take sides. She liked both candidates in different ways and distrusted the heat that comes off politics like steam off fresh asphalt. 

Besides, in Magnolia Bluff, politics was less a blood sport and more a casserole contest: ruthless, public, and judged by people with forks.

There was the incumbent, Mayor Buford Talmadge, who’d occupied the office for twenty-four years the way old moss occupies a live oak…steadily, peacefully, and with a firm grip. Kind to a fault, slow to anger, and allergic to change, Buford had become part of the furniture.

And then there was Councilwoman Eugenia Ashford…native daughter, polished shoes, sharp mind. She was pushing a platform of “the future”: downtown revitalization, younger families, grants, broadband, “data-driven decisions,” and other phrases that made Magnolia Bluff clutch its pearls. 

She was no carpetbagger, but in a town where protocol was a sacrament, announcing you intended to unseat Buford Talmadge counted as a breach of etiquette on par with bringing a store-bought pie to a funeral.

“Eugena’s gonna catch it,” Dora said, stepping onto the porch with her spiral notebook.

From inside the house came a voice like a silver bell dipped in vinegar. “It’s Eugenia,” the councilwoman corrected, appearing at the bottom of Ruby’s steps in a navy sheath dress and a campaign button the size of a tea saucer. “Yu-GEE-nee-uh. Not Eugena. Not You-jay-nuh. Not Yoo-jeen-uh. Honestly, I do not understand why this is so hard.”

Dora grinned the way a cat grins at a songbird. “Morning, Eugena.”

Eugenia’s left eye twitched so precisely you could’ve used it to set a metronome. “Bless your heart,” she said, in a tone that canceled the blessing.

Ruby rose and met her halfway down the steps. “Mornin’, Councilwoman. How are you holding up?”

“I’m composed,” Eugenia said, which is what people say when they’re barely hanging onto the rope. “I just wanted to be seen at the polls.” She adjusted the angle of a yard sign that was already perfectly straight. “It’s important that people understand this is not personal. It’s a matter of direction.”

Dot whispered to Ruby, “I’ll be honest. I don’t know if we’ve got direction. We’ve got momentum…toward the dessert table.”

Ruby gave Eugenia’s arm a light squeeze. “Best of luck to you today.”

“Luck is not a proper strategy,” Eugenia answered, and sashayed off, clicking like punctuation.

“Ruby,” Dora said, flipping open her notebook, “in case you’re wondering, I am today’s official recorder of sayings and slip-ups. Democracy needs a secretary.”

“You just want to write down all the ugly things people say so you can read them back later,” Ruby said.

“Correct,” Dora said, pleased. “Accountability, but with flavor.”

#

By seven o’clock that evening, the whole town had packed into Magnolia Bluff Elementary’s gym. Ceiling fans churned; bleachers creaked; the air smelled like popcorn and boiled peanuts, with a faint undertone of debate and deodorant failure. 

On the stage, tables were covered with yellow legal pads, pencils, tally sheets, and a half-dozen old cigar boxes with masking-tape labels: Precinct 1, Precinct 2, Precinct 3, and so on.

At the center stood Marlene Cates, town clerk, nervous and luminous like a head waitress on her first night. Sheriff Troy Delmer leaned against the wall with his arms folded and his I-am-begging-you-to-behave face on.

Buford Talmadge sat front row, hat in hand, suit too big around the middle, fielding pats on the shoulder and murmured benedictions from people who’d voted for him since flip phones. He looked kindly, tired, and so thoroughly Magnolia Bluff it hurt.

Eugenia held court near the bleachers, smile firm, posture immaculate, a neat stack of color-coded notes in her purse like a talisman. 

A college kid in a campaign T-shirt tried to hand Dot a sticker that said FUTURE > PAST. Dot read it, frowned, and then flipped it to the other side to see if there was a recipe.

“All right, folks,” Marlene called, tapping a microphone that did not work. “We’re going to tally by precinct. Please remain calm and respectful.” She held up a pencil like a sword. “We appreciate your patience.”

“No we don’t,” Dora muttered, already scribbling. “Quote her accurately.”

Precinct One: the counters murmured, pencils scratched, totals added. Candidate totals close, respectful applause. 

Precinct Two: a near match. The bleachers buzzed like a hive.

Then came the aggregate, read out loud in Marlene’s careful schoolteacher cadence:

“Candidate Talmadge—one hundred seventy-eight.”
“Candidate Ashford—one hundred…seventy…eight.”

Silence. Then a roar.

“A tie?” Lurlene gasped, fanning herself with a church program she had not asked the church for. “Magnolia Bluff has broken math.”

Edna Mae, who had not spoken yet, spoke for the Lord and herself: “Oh, honey. This is biscuits-for-dinner bad.”

Up on the stage, Marlene went pale and then paler, counting and re-counting. Her hands moved across the table like a pianist’s. She looked at the cigar boxes, then at the tally sheets, then at the labels again. “Where is…”

“Where’s Precinct Three?” someone hollered.

It was not a nice holler. It had hard edges.

Marlene’s face collapsed. She shuffled boxes, flipped lids, checked under her notes. The counters checked the counters. Sheriff Troy stood up straight. The crowd leaned forward, all at once, as if a giant magnet had been turned on.

“Precinct Three is…temporarily, um…misplaced,” Marlene said, which sounded like something a person says when they cannot say “lost.”

The gym came apart like a biscuit with too much butter.

“Sabotage!” someone cried.

“Conspiracy!” cried another.

“Where’s the FBI?” a third demanded, as if they were in the habit of dropping by.

Ruby stood so smoothly that the ladies rose with her on instinct. “All right,” she said, voice low but carrying. “Ladies, let’s move.”

Dot cracked her knuckles. Lurlene adjusted her hair and her attitude. Edna Mae tucked her Bible app more securely into her phone case, just in case scripture was required. Dora clicked her pen like a trigger.

Ruby led them to the stage. Marlene clutched her clipboard like a life raft.

“Marlene, sweetheart,” Ruby said, gentle as cream. “Tell me the last time you laid eyes on that box.”

Marlene inhaled, exhaled, and steadied herself. “Right before somebody brought in the food from Hank’s. I had just finished stacking the precinct boxes in order. I washed my hands, came back, the counter volunteers were asking me which pads to use, the reporter from the Gazette wanted a statement, Buford needed to know where the extra pencils were…”

“And when you turned around,” Ruby said, “the box had grown legs.”

Marlene nodded miserably. “I’m so careful,” she whispered. “I label everything, I count everything twice.”

“Bless your systems,” Ruby said. “We’ll find it.”

They fanned out. The gym, on any normal night, was home court for children hopping across taped-down lines and kicking dodgeballs. Tonight it was a whodunit with bleachers.

Suspects abounded:

• Buford’s faithful people, who had perfected the art of never fixing what wasn’t broke and never acknowledging when it was.
• Eugenia’s supporters, younger by an average of twenty years and armed with terms like pilot grant and municipal bond and deliverables as if they were throwing stars.

Ruby moved like a shadow with pearls. She listened. She watched. She took in the heat of folks’ cheeks, the tremble under their jokes, the way a person’s eyes slide left when their conscience slides right.

Dot interrogated the bake-sale ladies. “You see anybody acting guilty? Or hungry?”

“Everyone’s hungry,” said Miss Lorene, offended at the stupidity of the question.

Lurlene insinuated herself among the volunteers. “Now sugar, I don’t mean to pry…” (she lied) “but did anybody touch those boxes who ain’t s’posed to?”

A teenage volunteer blinked. “I mean, I touched one when we moved the lemonade so it wouldn’t sweat on the tally sheets.”

“Which one?” Lurlene asked, sharp as a safety pin.

He pointed toward the cafeteria doors. “I…don’t remember.”

Edna Mae cornered the janitor, Mr. Bunk, who claimed he’d seen a “shadow go by like a ghost.”

“Could you be more specific than a ghost?” she asked.

“It was a skinny ghost,” he said, offended.

Dora stood next to Eugenia like a mosquito next to a racehorse. “So, Eugena…”

“Eu-GEE-ni-a,” Eugenia snapped. “Yu. GEE. Ni. Uh. I am from here. This is not a stage name. It is the one the Lord and my mother agreed on.”

“Duly noted,” Dora said, writing YOU-GEE-KNEE-UH in her notebook in letters so large the people three rows up could read them. “How’s it feel challenging a man who’s practically furniture? Is that a statement on upholstery or on freedom?”

“My candidacy is a statement on trajectory,” Eugenia replied, chin high. “Magnolia Bluff needs to stop confusing familiar with good. Also, I support upholstery.”

“Mm-hmm,” Dora said, noncommittal, as if upholsterers were a suspect class. “Where were you between the pulled-chicken trays and the potato salad?”

“I was answering questions from the Rotary Club and correcting people’s pronunciation of my name,” Eugenia said crisply. “Which, I might add, is now forty-two times tonight.”

“Forty-three,” Dora said. “Thank you, Eugena.”

Eugenia’s nostrils flared in Pentecostal fury. “I will not be baited.”

“Good,” Dora said. “I only brought one hook.”

Across the gym, Ruby slowed. Something had snagged in her mind: a detail so ordinary it almost wasn’t there.

On the floor near the cafeteria doors, a faint smudge. Not dirt. Not dust. Grease. Three dots in a line, like someone with fried-chicken fingers had pushed a box through with rolling knuckles.

Ruby followed the trail.

#

The cafeteria doors swung open with theatrical creak. A chorus of fluorescent lights hummed. 

Behind the hot line, near a stack of styrofoam cups, sat a cigar box half-tucked behind a tray of rolls, looking like it had scooted itself there out of modesty.

Ruby smiled despite herself. “I swear,” she said softly, “if you want to find the beating heart of Magnolia Bluff, follow the smell of chicken.”

She waved. The ladies filed in behind her.

Dot put her hands on her hips. “Well butter my biscuit and call me supper.”

Lurlene laughed. “The evidence was fried.”

Edna Mae bowed her head. “Lord, we repent of thinking evil, when the answer was grease.”

Dora wrote, underlined, and added three exclamation points: FOUND: PCT 3 HIDING BEHIND ROLLS!!!

Ruby examined the box. The masking tape read Precinct 3 in Marlene’s tidy block letters. On the lid: a constellation of shiny fingerprints.

“Here’s what happened,” Ruby said, and the ladies leaned in like schoolchildren. “Marlene set the stack of boxes in order before the food came. Someone slid this one behind the serving line to make space for the chicken and rolls. Then it got lost in the scrum. Not malice. Just Magnolia Bluff’s spiritual gift…hospitality…running over.”

Dot nodded. “We’d misplace the Constitution if somebody set a casserole down on top of it.”

They marched the box back into the gym like a parade of common sense. People cheered. People clapped. Someone shouted, “Praise the Lord and pass the potato salad!” which, if not scripture, ought to be.

Marlene cried and then tried not to cry. Sheriff Troy took off his hat. Buford stood up and put a hand on his heart. Eugenia closed her eyes, breathed out, and looked almost human for a second.

“All right,” Marlene declared, wiping her cheeks. “We will proceed.”

Counters gathered, pencils went back behind ears. The gym held its breath. Ruby felt the next turn coming and set herself like a person bracing on a moving bus.

“Hold up,” she said.

Everyone looked at her. Ruby didn’t shout. She didn’t need to. She turned to the Mayor, after having had a terrible thought.

“Buford,” she said in that gentle voice she reserved for dogs with porcupine quills in their noses. “Honey…did you vote?”

The gym stilled so hard you could hear the air think.

Buford blinked. His mouth opened and closed. He did the math of his day in his head…unlocking the gym, checking the pencils, finding the extra tally sheets, greeting the volunteers, fetching the coffee, hugging the old ladies, shaking the young men’s hands, calling the custodian about the tight door hinge, answering a reporter’s question, hearing someone had lost Precinct 3, watching the town come apart like a wet paper plate…

and then his face folded.

“Oh, Buford,” Ruby whispered.

He swallowed. “I…forgot,” he said.

Dot clutched her chest. “Sweet Lord. He had one job.”

The gym erupted, but this time in laughter. The clean, rattling, cathartic kind that scrubs a room. 

Eugenia stared, eyes wide. “You forgot?”

Buford looked so stricken, Ruby put a hand on his sleeve. “He was making sure we all remembered,” she said. “Sometimes shepherds don’t eat because they’re feeding the flock.”

“That is not how shepherds work,” Dora said, but quietly.

Eugenia pressed her lips together. Her nostrils flared. She inhaled, sharp, like a person about to deploy a speech. 

Then she exhaled, and something in her face softened…the part that remembered Buford officiating her daddy’s retirement ceremony, or delivering extra folding chairs to her mama’s memorial, or showing up to ribbon cuttings for businesses that didn’t last the year but appreciated being taken seriously for the day.

“For the record,” Eugenia said, tone precise, “I will never get used to this town.”

“That’s mutual, sugar,” Lurlene called helpfully.

Eugenia almost smiled. Almost.

Marlene, voice trembling but game, tried to steer the train back onto tracks. “So…do we count Precinct 3 and…see where we land?”

Ruby glanced at Buford. Then at Eugenia. Then at the town she loved so thoroughly it sometimes scared her.

“Count them,” Ruby said. “Whatever the number is, we’ll accept it like grown folks.”

#

The counters tallied. Pencils scratched. Dora, who had positioned herself so she could plainly see the numbers, did mental math with a whisper of profanity that would’ve gotten her shushed in church.

Marlene stood. Her voice shook, then steadied. “Including Precinct Three,” she announced, “we remain…at a tie.”

The gym didn’t roar this time. It sighed. And then laughed again, because a tie felt more like Magnolia Bluff than anything else. 

It was symmetrical. It was ridiculous. It was neat, like two pecan pies cooling side by side.

“Well,” Buford said into the hush, “if I’d voted, it would’ve tipped it.”

“Likely,” Eugenia said, crisp as a fresh bill. “Given your longstanding popularity.”

Buford blinked at her. “Is that…kind?”

“It’s accurate,” she said. “Do try to keep up.”

Dot clapped once. “All in favor of Buford keeping the office till the next election because he forgot to vote, like a ninny?”

“Dot,” Ruby said, even as hands shot into the air and laughter rolled back and forth in the bleachers like surf.

Eugenia lifted a hand. “Before y’all codify a decision with a show of hands that’s not in the charter,” she said, “two things.”

She looked around the auditorium. “One: it’s Eu-GEE-ni-a. That’s number forty-four. And two: I withdraw any formal challenge to the result. The town can’t afford a court fight over a chicken-adjacent misplacement and a human lapse.” She turned to Buford. “You’ll sit another term. I’ll sit across from you and try not to grind my molars to powder.”

Buford’s face did a whole weather pattern: stunned, grateful, relieved. “Eugenia,” he said, pronouncing all four syllables so carefully you could have graded him on it, “that’s very neighborly.”

“Don’t get used to it,” she said, and for the first time that day, she laughed. A clear, unguarded laugh that, if we’re being honest, made some people like her a little bit against their will.

#

The evening unraveled into something like a party. People who’d refused each other’s potato salad three weeks ago now traded recipes like hostages. Sheriff Troy put his hat back on and stopped watching the door like the Four Horsemen were due any minute. Marlene put the boxes back in order with hands that trembled less and smiled more.

Ruby and the ladies drifted to the side of the stage, crisis released from their shoulders like a shawl shaken out.

Dot leaned in. “If we can keep this town from tearing itself up every time it wants a stoplight, I’ll name my next cat after you.”

“You don’t like cats,” Ruby said.

“Then I’ll name my next fern after you,” Dot amended.

Eugenia approached, a careful smile on her face like a person testing a bridge. “Mrs. Hightower,” she said, each syllable a step. “Good work tonight.”

“Ruby,” Ruby said. “Call me Ruby.”

Eugenia nodded once. “Ruby. I hope you’ll consider joining the downtown advisory committee I’m forming.”

“Forming already?” Dot asked, delighted and horrified.

Eugenia didn’t look at her. “Plans don’t bake themselves.”

Ruby considered. She thought of how the town had laughed together, and how quickly laughter turns to character when it’s put away carefully. “Maybe,” she said. “But I warn you…I’m big on meetings with hors d’oeuvres.”

“I can tolerate hors d’oeuvres,” Eugenia said, “as long as they don’t include anything that’s been deep fried.”

“Lord, girl,” Lurlene said, “you’re gonna make this hard, right out of the gate.”

From the corner of her eye, Ruby saw Buford trekking toward them, hat in hand, gratitude in his face. He reached them and tipped his hat like it was still 1959.

“Ladies,” he said. “Councilwoman…Eugenia.” He did it so slowly you could’ve spelled along.

“Mr. Mayor,” she replied.

“I, uh…” Buford looked at Ruby. “Thank you.”

“We’re glad you’re ours,” Ruby said simply. “Don’t make me regret it.”

“Yess’m,” Buford answered, and if he’d had a piece of straw, he would’ve chewed it.

He wandered off to accept more back-pats and forgive more people for telling him last week that they were tired of his “old ways,” which in Magnolia Bluff typically means “ways we’ll miss the second they’re gone.”

Dora shut her notebook with a satisfied thwack. “I’ve got enough quotes to start a museum.”

“You can open it right next to the Pie Hall of Fame,” Dot said. “Speaking of, is there any pie left or did democracy eat it?”

“Save your fork,” Edna Mae told them, eyes twinkling. “There’s always something sweet at the end.”

#

Later, Ruby eased back onto her porch swing, the summer night soft around her like a promise. Magnolia Bluff lay quiet and stubborn under the stars. She could see the courthouse clock face, steady and sure, as if it hadn’t almost presided over a riot about cigar boxes and chicken rolls.

Her phone buzzed. Sheriff Troy: You owe me the play-by-play. Start with how chicken committed a felony.

Ruby typed back: No felonies. Just the unholy trinity: food, hurry, and habit. You and Talulah come by tomorrow. Bring your sweet tooth.

A second text arrived, this one from an unknown number that introduced itself in four crisp syllables: Eugenia Ashford.

Thank you for handling tonight with grace.
P.S. If Dora calls me Eugena again, I will run for governor.

Ruby laughed so loud the night birds startled.

Sleep well, Councilwoman. Magnolia Bluff needs you fresh…and our mayor, reminded.

She set the phone down, wrapped her hands around her teacup, and listened to the cicadas preach the world back to rights. 

Folks in Magnolia Bluff would wake tomorrow with stories. They’d tell them as jokes at breakfast and prayers at bedtime. Some would brag they always knew it was the chicken. Others would swear they voted for both candidates just to keep things interesting. Most would quietly forgive one another for the things said in heat, because that’s how towns like theirs survive.

Ruby watched her porch light halo the steps. She wasn’t naive; she knew the town would fight again. 

About a stoplight. About parking. About the parade route and whether the high school band’s uniforms were too modern. 

They’d fuss, they’d flare, and then, if they were lucky, they’d find a reason to laugh at themselves.

She let the swing drift, gentle as a rocking chair at a good funeral. “Lord,” she said into the warm dark, “keep us soft with one another.”

From the sidewalk, a voice floated up, bright and precise: “For the record, it’s Eu-GEE-ni-a.”

Ruby peered over the rail. Eugenia stood on the sidewalk, heels in hand now, hair let down a little by humidity and relief.

“I know,” Ruby said, smiling. 

Eugenia drew in a breath that began like a correction and ended as a sigh. “Goodnight, Ruby.”

“Goodnight…Eugenia.”

THE END

Thank You for Visiting Magnolia Bluff!

Well, bless your heart for reading!

If you’ve made it this far, you’ve spent a little time with Ruby, Dot, Dora, Lurlene, Edna Mae, and the rest of our beautifully peculiar Magnolia Bluff family. 

They’re all near and dear to my heart and I’m sure they’ll be the same for you too. (If they aren’t already.) I hope they made you laugh, think, and maybe even feel a touch of home.

Every story in the Magnolia Bluff world is written with love, humor, and a deep appreciation for small-town Southern life, where the tea’s sweet, the gossip’s sweeter, and the truth usually shows up right about the time dessert is served.

If you enjoyed The Case of the Ballot Burglary, you might also love our other books and short stories set right here in Magnolia Bluff:

The Last Supper Club, Second Helpings, Trouble at Tallulah Falls, and more AND more coming soon.

You can find them all, and stay up to date on new releases, stories, and events, right here:

👉 Amazon Author Page: 
https://www.amazon.com/author/rickyfitzpatrick 
👉 Official Website: www.rickyfitzpatrick.com

Thank you for supporting independent Southern storytelling. Your time, laughter, and kind words help keep Magnolia Bluff alive.

Until next time, keep your heart soft, your coffee strong, and your porch light burning.

— Ricky Fitzpatrick