Barbara Graham - Quilted 05 - Murder by Sunlight (11 page)

“Just thought I’d drop by and make sure everything is going the way it should be.” Tony, as the sheriff, had numerous responsibilities. He might be basically lazy, but he took all of his duties seriously. His favorite day was one in which he found his delegates doing fine without him.

“Sheriff?” Roscoe grinned, exposing his entire mouthful of crowded, crooked teeth. “Veronica has somethin’ to tell you.”

Tony thought, and not for the first time, how love had forged a powerful bond between the two most unlikely candidates ever. Never in his wildest dreams would he consider matching Veronica with Roscoe. Veronica held at least one Ph. D., and Roscoe held the record for the most years spent in Park County’s middle school.

Tony couldn’t even begin to imagine what their conversations must be like.

Veronica smiled and greeted Tony with a wave, never releasing Roscoe’s hand. Today she was dressed in knee-length pants, sandals and a t-shirt proclaiming her love of books. The petite brunette did not appear, on the surface, to be a likely candidate for either Roscoe or medieval weaponry. Tony knew she was a fan of both.

“Tell him,” said Roscoe in a stage whisper.

Tony felt his eyebrows rise.

Veronica obliged. “I’ve been seeing a professor from a nearby university around the area. Often.”

Tony hardly considered her statement alarming. After all, she fit the same criteria. Lots of people visited their county and many had weekend cabins in the area, but something definitely was bothering her. “Why is this professor a problem?”

“He’s
skulking,
” said Veronica. Roscoe must have looked confused by the term because she immediately added, “Sneaking around with binoculars.”

“Bird watching?”

“Not unless they’re invisible birds.” Veronica shook her head.

Impressed by her adamant demeanor, Tony said, “Where have you been seeing him?”

“Usually, we’ve seen him in his car, up on the ridge near Kwik Kirk’s.”

Tony knew the place. The Ridge, as it had been called for at least two generations, was a dead-end road. The unpaved road saw more traffic in a week than the highway. Dating couples. Bird watchers. Occasionally artists with their easels and stools. Its semi-solitude was provided by fabulously overgrown vegetation, and the view of the mountains from there was breathtaking. He himself often enjoyed parking up there while eating a sandwich, letting the world pass him by for a brief time.

Roscoe chimed in, returning Tony’s thoughts to the situation. “He wears this floppy hat, and he’s got binoculars, and he’s always looking into Candy Tibbles’s back windows.”

“A peeper?” Tony believed these two had seen what they claimed, but watching Candy Tibbles? Even a peeper ought to have higher standards and aspirations than that. In his opinion, she wasn’t worth driving two feet to see. “How do you know this?”

“We’ve been looking at real estate.” Veronica gently squeezed Roscoe’s hand. “We have very specific needs. The most important ones are that it has to be out of town, with no neighbors to bother us, on a sizeable piece of land. We need space for Baby and the siege machines.”

With those criteria, Tony guessed their real-estate search wasn’t going to be an easy one. Park County was tiny, the smallest county in the state, and while there was land available, the county was dotted with settlements, flourishing or invasive vegetation, hills, ridges, and mountains. “Having any luck?”

“There are a couple of old farms with distinct possibilities.” Veronica flashed him a grin. “But we have gotten lost from time to time. The roads are sort of randomly marked in places.”

“They are indeed. When I became sheriff, I made a point of learning them all, every twist and curve, three-way intersections and five-way intersections, and I swear sometimes a new one pops up that I haven’t seen before.” Tony laughed, remembering his days of teenaged driving and getting lost every time he left the main roads. He felt lucky he wasn’t still driving in the same circles. “What’s that got to do with the peeper?”

“We passed Kirk’s about forty times one day and kept seeing the same car, but it wasn’t always parked in the same place. It’s a white Cadillac SUV.”

“And it’s been there, or near there, every day,” Roscoe said. “And the driver’s had binoculars and a floppy hat each time.”

“Is he alone?” Tony was curious enough to have a look.

“Don’t know.”

“Out of curiosity,” Tony looked at Veronica. “What is he a professor of?”

“Botany,” she said softly. “He was at my university, but I believe he might have been asked to leave. He may not be associated with any school now.”

Tony assumed academia had gossip grapevines like every other business. “Why did he leave?”

“I did hear there was some ‘impropriety,’ but I have no idea if it was personal or professional. Our departments didn’t exactly have much crossover.”

After the flurry of gossip Blossom had spread about Tony and another woman, it died as quickly as it began, replaced by the surfing incident, and now the upcoming parade and the quilt show. Theo’s classroom buzzed with women making award ribbons from scraps of fabric, poster board, hot glue, and marking pens with metallic ink. They chatted as they worked.

“Can you imagine thinking standing on a moving car would be fun?” Dottie, one of the regular older ladies, asked. “Honestly? I’m glad I didn’t see it. Gives me the palpitations to just think about it.”

“You always were a coward,” Blind Betty disagreed. “When I was a girl, I’d have tried it.”

“When you were a girl, cars didn’t go faster than I can walk. And I use a cane.” A voice from the corner reached them all. A white-haired woman hobbled toward the quilters. “I know we’re the same age.”

Pretty soon all of the ladies working were throwing mock insults at each other and laughing.

“What are you working on now?” one of the ladies asked another.

“A Civil War inspired quilt. Lots of small blocks.”

India Parsons had only recently begun joining the quilters. “Did she say a silverware quilt?” India elbowed her neighbor and shouted the words.

“No,” Dottie bellowed. The response was loud enough for people in the next county to hear. Several of the women jumped like they’d been slapped. “She said Civil War, not silverware.”

“Maybe I should turn on my hearing aids.” India fumbled in her purse and retrieved a small plastic case. “What about the Civil War? Isn’t it over yet?”

“The Civil War quilt has scads of blocks, and they’re each only six inches square and some have over fifty pieces.” Dottie flapped the work in progress in front of the other women. “Can you imagine sewing all those teensy pieces together?”

“That’s more ridiculous than using silverware.” Betty shoved her needle in Dottie’s face, needing thread, and almost blinded her friend.

“Did you see there’s a new man coming to the center for lunch?” India whispered. The softly spoken words stopped all conversation. “He’s pretty young, maybe only seventy.”

“Does he have a wife?” All heads swiveled in India’s direction. India stood up. It didn’t actually make her head any higher than it had been. She was about as wide as she was tall, with silver hair cropped close to the scalp and rather elegant-looking glasses with mother-of-pearl frames. Silence reigned.

India shook her head. “No. He’s a bachelor.”

After a wave of interested oohs and ahs, Betty said, “Does he have his own teeth?”

“Yes.”

Suddenly the workroom was filled with chatter. “Who is he? Where does he live? Who are his people?” India was surrounded by a cluster of excited interrogators.

Knowing the prospect of having a new male in the area, one possessing his teeth and his faculties, could entertain the women for the rest of the day, Theo made another pot of coffee for them and headed upstairs to get some of her own work done.

“Sheriff, we’ve got a suspicious death.” Wade called on his cell phone, bypassing the radio.

Tony felt like he’d been punched in the gut. Not at all what he wanted to hear. “Who and where?”

“Candy Tibbles. I’m out at her place. In the back there’s a sort of homemade greenhouse.” Wade’s voice faded and came back. “She’s inside it. It looks like she’s been dead a while.”

“I’ve seen the greenhouse. Alvin showed it to me one time.” Tony couldn’t believe the boy’s bad luck. “He’s off at some botany camp. Is there anything obvious that might have killed her? You know, a bullet hole or an arrow?”

“No. But I’d say she didn’t just drop dead.”

Tony heard the sound of Wade being sick, and then he was back on the phone.

“She looks like she might have been pushed or hit with something, but I’m not going to do more than take pictures until you get here. Should I call Grace?”

“Yes. Tell your wife I’m on my way.” Tony told Ruth Ann what little he knew and headed out. He wanted to see the scene, and then he’d determine if he needed to call in the TBI. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation had wonderful forensic experts and would come help his tiny department if he thought it necessary. He didn’t want to waste their time and effort on a whim.

Tony turned left at Kwik Kirk’s convenience store on the highway about four miles from town. As usual, a few cars were parked there: people getting gas, buying snacks and bait. Across the road, there were four houses, widely spaced, on the little turnout, not quite a cul-de-sac. Alvin’s home was the first on the left. Large old trees shaded the houses. Alvin’s grandparents had lived there, and he assumed, their daughter, Alvin’s mom, had inherited it.

Tony parked on the road, leaving the short driveway—two strips of dirt where the grass and weeds didn’t even grow—for Grace to park her vehicle. As he walked up the driveway and then around the side of the house, he looked for anything that could be considered suspicious or out of place. There was nothing immediately noticeable. No sign with an arrow pointing to something, saying, “Look here.”

Candy’s brown sedan sat in the detached garage. It looked like it had when Alvin had returned it before going to camp. A cursory examination showed no blood, no sign of a struggle. Just a dirty car parked where it should be. Tony looked up at the garage’s big overhead door. One of the springs to help raise it was broken. He made a note to remind himself to ask Alvin when it had stopped working.

Maple trees formed a backdrop for a hedge of japonica bushes with their fiendish thorns. He walked around them and entered Alvin’s garden. The sound of buzzing insects seemed unusually loud. Above the fresh warm scent of trees and grass and freshly dug dirt was the rancid smell of rotting flesh. Candy Tibbles had been dead for a while.

Alvin’s greenhouse was constructed of old storm doors, windows pulled from houses being remodeled, and all sorts of “rescued” materials. It sat next to Alvin’s well-tended garden. In the garden, rows of brilliant green plants grew in raised beds made of sturdy, weathered-to-gray lumber. Clean straw filled the space between the beds. If there were weeds, they were young and small.

Tony glanced into the greenhouse. The makeshift tables were bare. No plants were inside the building; only the pitiful body of an unhappy woman, gazing sightlessly at the sky. It looked like someone had pulled a tarp off one half of the glass roof and left it in a heap on the ground. A second tarp covered part of the back of the roof, anchored with ropes and stakes, but it exposed more glass than it covered.

Wade waited nearby and upwind. “Grace said she will be here in a few minutes. She has a couple of patients who need her care.”

“We can wait. Candy can’t be saved.” Tony stared into the greenhouse. “A few more minutes is not going to change anything.”

“True. So true.” Wade took a few more photographs. Placing his markers and making careful notes about each one. “You think she could have come out here alone? Maybe to water Alvin’s garden.”

“Nope.” Tony couldn’t imagine Candy being that helpful. “For one thing, there aren’t any plants in there, and I heard Alvin talking to her about watering. The greenhouse was not mentioned.”

“It’s almost a hundred degrees out here. I can’t begin to guess how hot it is inside there with all the glass and sunshine and nothing to circulate the air, you know, like an exhaust fan.”

Tony felt a bead of sweat, not the first by any means but larger than the others, slip down the center of his back. “We need to know. Don’t you have a thermometer in your case?”

Wade fished it out and handed it to Tony, continuing his photography.

Holding his breath, Tony pushed the thermometer through a space left between a former door with six small panes of glass at the top and an old aluminum storm door with no screen and watched the temperature rise. “Holy smoke, it’s about a hundred and twenty degrees near the ground. It must be quite a bit hotter near the top. I wonder why there isn’t a ventilation system in there. I’ll measure the temperature again up higher after Grace arrives. I’d hate to disturb the ambiance.” He stepped back and talked into his radio. Rex was on duty. Tony gave Rex a thumbnail sketch of their situation. “What’s Sheila involved with?”

“She’s got a school zone speeder.” Rex’s voice dropped into its disaster-calm cadence.

“Okay. Send her out here when she’s done. Let’s try to keep as much of this off the scanner as possible.” Tony guessed a circus caravan of cars driven by the curious out on the highway would arrive in minutes. The citizens of Park County didn’t seem to believe they wouldn’t be able to see something fascinating if they drove past the scene of an accident or anything involving an official vehicle. “We’ll need traffic control. You can send out Mike as well.”

Wade’s phone rang. After a brief conversation, he disconnected. “Grace is on her way.”

Tony studied the body. Candy lay on her back, arms spread, almost like she’d been stargazing, except the position of her body would have been uncomfortable, if alive. One leg was twisted awkwardly underneath her. She wore pink shorts, a pink and yellow tank top more appropriate to an eight-year-old, and purple flip-flops with a flower on top. Actually, he could only see one shoe. He wondered if Candy had lost the mate, was lying on it, or if a killer had taken a souvenir. Until they knew the cause of death, speculation would be just that. Candy could have passed out. Had a heart attack. Eaten a poisonous plant. Been knocked out by the hammer and wrench attacker. Just because they couldn’t see a wound from here didn’t mean there wasn’t one.