An Unthymely Death (4 page)

I glanced toward the house. A colorful flock of bantam chickens was chasing bugs through the grass, while a black dog napped on the porch. He raised his head when he saw us and gave a short, sharp bark. A moment later, we saw a stooped old man in denim overalls and a wide-brimmed straw hat, hoe in hand, going through the gate into a vegetable garden. Ignoring us, he began to chop weeds along a row of healthy-looking garlic.

“Are you Mr. Bucher?” Ruby called.

“That’s me,” the old man said shortly. “What d’ya want?”

We walked closer. “We’d like to talk to you about your sister,” I said. “We were friends of hers.”

“We were very sorry to hear about her death,” Ruby said softly. “It must have been a terrible shock.”

Harold Bucher went right on hoeing. The man might have been in his late seventies, his face lined and gray, his eyes slitted against the bright sun. “She was an old woman,” he said sourly. “People die when they get old.”

“But your sister didn’t die of old age,” I replied. “You’ve heard the results of the autopsy?”

“Luella told me. Said the sheriff arrested that Jessica woman for poisoning her.” The old man turned his head and spat. “Well, all I got to say is, Hannah’s fancy new will won’t do Jessica no damn good in jail.”

He was right, of course. A murderer cannot profit from her crime. If Jessica Powell was convicted of killing Hannah, she wouldn’t inherit. But who would?

“Are you Hannah’s nearest relative?” I asked.

 

 

“What if I am?” He eyed me obliquely. “How come you wanna know?”

I shrugged. “Just curious, that’s all.” I looked around the place. It must not be easy for a man his age to live so far from civilization. What if he got sick? “You ever think of moving into Cedar Crossing?”

“My girl Luella’s been after me to move,” he said grudgingly. “Reckon I might, if I could find me a pretty place with a nice garden.” He spat again. “Wouldn’t feel right if I couldn’t get dirt under my fingernails every day.”

I nodded, knowing how he felt. My fingernails have dirt under them most of the time. I wondered if the “pretty place” he had in mind was Hannah’s. “Did you visit your sister often?”

He stopped hoeing and straightened up. “Saw her the day ’fore she died. We had some fam’ly business to transact. Didn’t get it done, though. Got interrupted by that nosy neighbor of hers. Mildred Rawlins.” He reached into the pocket of his bib overalls. “You wanna know about Hannah, you see Mildred. Her an’ Hannah was thick as a pair of thieves.”

He took his hand out of his pocket. He was holding a can of chewing tobacco.

 

 

“Do you think Hannah’s brother could have killed her?” Ruby asked thoughtfully as we drove back to Cedar Crossing.

“He seems to have had a motive,” I said. “According to Barbara, he was furious about the will. And from what he said about wanting a place with a nice garden, I’d guess that he was hoping to inherit Hannah’s house.”

“Not just motive, but means,” Ruby replied grimly. “Did you see that can of chewing tobacco? And he admitted that he was with Hannah the day before she died, so he had opportunity, as well!”

“It’s certainly something to think about,” I agreed. “Let’s see what Hannah’s neighbor has to say.”

Mildred Rawlins’s garden was smaller than Hannah’s, but very pretty and bordered with a low, clipped hedge of germander, a plant that was cultivated in many medieval apothecary gardens for its usefulness in treating rheumatism and gout. Ruby and I were knocking at the front door when she came around the house, carrying a tray of seedlings. She was a tall, thin woman with gray hair in short, tight curls all over her head. We introduced ourselves, but she already seemed to know who we were. She put down the tray and invited us in.

Ruby and I went into the living room while Mildred went for tea and cookies. She obviously enjoyed garden crafts, and the room was full of her work—bouquets of dried flowers, some small framed pictures made with delicate arrangements of pressed pansies, lavender, and dried herbs, and a sweet-smelling bowl of rose potpourri.

In a few moments, Mildred was back with a tray. “Hannah talked about you two often,” she said, pouring a fragrant tea out of a china pot. “She was anxious for your visit. She hoped you could help her.” She sighed heavily. “I certainly do miss her. We were good friends—it’s hard to believe she’s gone.”

 

 

“Did she tell you what she wanted to talk to us about?” I asked.

“Not directly,” Mildred said. “But I got the idea that something odd was going on and she hoped you’d help her straighten it out.”

“Her death was tragic,” Ruby said with a sigh. “I’m glad they’ve caught the killer.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that if I was you,” Mildred replied darkly. “Jessica Powell isn’t much liked around here. Folks don’t forget or forgive the past, and that husband she killed grew up in this little town. But Hannah gave Jessica a job and a place to live when she got out of prison. That took courage, and Jessica was grateful. She’d never have done anything to harm Hannah.”

“They found a can of tobacco in her room,” I pointed out.

“What does that prove?” Mildred tossed her head. “Lots of folks in this town have tobacco in their houses. Cigarettes, pipe tobacco, chewing tobacco. Even nicotine patches. I read somewhere that you can die if you put too many of those patches on yourself.”

“But if Jessica didn’t do it,” Ruby asked reasonably, “who did?”

Mildred shook her head, tight-lipped. “I’m not one to accuse, mind you. But that brother of Hannah’s—he’s a devious old man, with a terrible temper. And he was here the day before Hannah died. I know because I walked in on them. They were having a fight.”

“What were they fighting about?” I asked.

“About the house, that’s what,” Mildred said fiercely. “They’d been arguing about it ever since Hannah made that will.” She stood up and went to a corner cupboard. “Hannah asked me to keep something for her until you got here.” She turned, holding a large manila envelope.

“What’s in it?” Ruby asked curiously as I took the envelope.

“Papers,” Mildred said with a little shrug. “That’s all Hannah told me—just some old papers.”

 

 

It was almost noon by the time we got back to Barbara and Ramona’s house. Barbara was still at her office, but we found Ra- mona at the picnic table in the backyard, repotting several scented geraniums.

“Hi,” she said, looking up from her project. “Did you learn anything new?”

Ruby shrugged. “We learned plenty—we just haven’t figured out what it means. Let’s have a look, China.”

I opened the envelope Mildred Rawlins had given us and slid the contents onto the table. But if we were hoping to see something dramatic—a threatening note, or a map to a long-lost treasure, or old love letters tied with a faded pink ribbon—we were disappointed.

“Why, these are nothing but canceled checks,” Ruby said, sounding disappointed. She picked up one of the two rubber-banded bundles and flipped through it. “They’re all made out to the Texas Fidelity Investment Company. Looks like they go back about three years.” She pointed to the signature. “They’ve all been signed by Hannah.”

I glanced through the other bundle. “These are made out to Texas Fidelity, too.” I looked closer. “There’s an account number typed on the check.” I read it aloud.

Ruby frowned. “But these checks have a
different
account number. Hannah had two accounts?”

“I wonder why she wrote the checks but typed the account numbers,” Ramona remarked. “If I were going to the trouble of typing anything, I’d type everything. Except for my signature, of course.”

“Maybe somebody else typed the numbers,” Ruby suggested.

“Maybe Hannah didn’t know there were two accounts,” I said slowly. “Maybe, when she signed the check, she thought she was depositing the money in her regular account. Then somebody else typed in the account numbers—making some deposits to Hannah’s regular account, and some to a second account.”

Ruby snapped her fingers. “And then maybe Hannah discovered the second account and figured out that somebody was stealing her money! And that’s when she called you, China—to help her put a stop to it.”

Ramona stood up. “I’ll phone Barbara and tell her what you’ve found. As Hannah’s lawyer, she can contact the investment company and get the names on those accounts.”

Barbara called back in fifteen minutes with what she had learned. Ramona put the call on the speaker phone, so we could all hear.

“You were right, China,” Barbara said. “There were two investment accounts. One is in Hannah’s name, and has about thirty thousand dollars in it. When the other account was closed last Thursday, the balance was nearly seventy thousand.”

“Last Thursday!” Ruby exclaimed.

“The day after Hannah died,” I said. “That can’t be a coincidence. Whose name was on the account?”

“Jessica’s?” Ramona asked.

“Hannah’s brother?” Ruby guessed.

“Hannah’s niece,” I said.

“That’s right,” Barbara said. “The name on the account was Luella Mitchell.”

“But just because Luella was investing her aunt’s money under her own name doesn’t mean she’s a killer,” Ruby pointed out.

“Let’s see if we can reconstruct what might have happened,” I said. “Luella figured out that her aunt had discovered her scheme and was planning to expose it—and perhaps to have her charged with embezzlement. She brewed a nicotine concentrate and put a fatal dose into her aunt’s coffee, or into some other strong-tasting food. Hannah died of cardiac arrest, and everybody thought it was a simple heart attack.”

“Until,” Ruby said, “the autopsy report came back.”

“Right,” I said. “The autopsy that Luella herself had requested. If she hadn’t insisted on an autopsy, the death would have been put down to natural causes.”

“So what are you saying, China?” Ramona asked, frowning.

“I’m saying that Luella wanted the autopsy in order to prove that her aunt had died of nicotine poisoning. Then she hid the tobacco can under Jessica’s mattress and tipped off the police that it was there.”

“But why incriminate Jessica?” Ramona asked in a puzzled tone. “If all Luella wanted was to get out from under a possible embezzlement charge—”

“Because,” Ruby said triumphantly, “that’s not
all
Luella wanted. If Jessica were convicted of Hannah’s murder, she couldn’t inherit Hannah’s estate.”