Barbara Graham - Quilted 05 - Murder by Sunlight (17 page)

“And she could just quit?”

“She was sixteen and pregnant. There was no way to force her to come to class. I don’t know for sure, but I doubt anyone tried very hard.” Martha sighed. “I’m not saying it’s right, but there is a reason for the old saying ‘you can lead a horse to water.’ ”

“No one could make her learn.”

Martha sipped her tea. “I remember she was often seen hanging out with older boys, maybe some men. Locals and visitors. She looked much older than sixteen.”

“Great.” Tony was not pleased. “That will make my investigation much easier.”

“Don’t be sarcastic, Tony.” His aunt thumped his badge. “You didn’t get this out of a cereal box. Go back to work.”

The TBI crew looked so miserable, Tony felt a bit guilty he had called them for help. He guessed they’d guzzled sixty gallons of water and were wishing for more.

The TBI lead investigator, Vince, wiped his face on his handkerchief. “We were able to get your victim processed and sent her off to the medical examiner in Knoxville. As much as I understand the importance of documenting the details, including taking photographs of the victim’s final position, I feel guilty, you know, almost ignoring the deceased while we work around them.”

“That why you’re always chatting with them?” One of the team ribbed Vince. “You should hear him work, Sheriff. ‘So what did you think when someone came at you with a blunt instrument? Did you try to run? Did you attack? Here, let’s put bags over your hands to protect the evidence.’ ”

Vince laughed. “Yeah, like you weren’t going on about what kind of person would pull back the tarps so she’d bake.”

Under the ribbing was concern. No one wanted to miss the tiny fragment of evidence that might lead them to find and convict the guilty party. If talking to a fragrant corpse was what it took, that’s what they did. Tony thought they were geniuses. He looked at the floor in the greenhouse. Packed dirt and a fresh hole.

“Did you happen to find her other flip-flop?”

“Nope.” Vince glanced around the yard again. “Just the one. I thought it would be under her body, but it wasn’t. We kept lifting branches on the shrubs and looked underneath, as well as shining a flashlight into the shrubbery. Nothing.” He sighed.

“She could have kicked it a long way. My four-year-old can launch a flip-flop into the neighbor’s yard without even trying.”

“A critter could have hauled it away too. Anyone see signs of animal tracks or bites?”

“Nope. Insects, yes.”

“It could be a trophy for a freak.” The words created a moment of silence.

“We dug up a lot of dirt and packed it in a bucket. It looked like she might have bled out from the head wound. Don’t know if the lab can tell or not.” Vince shrugged. “My money is on her being cooked.”

“Okay, are we through out here and ready to work in the house?”

No one showed any enthusiasm for working in a hot house with rotting kitchen smells, but no one balked.

“I promised to water.” Tony pulled the sprinkler close to the garden beds. “Any signs any of the garden plants were disturbed?”

“If they were, I’d say the regular gardener put everything back in its place.”

Tony wanted to know why the garden tools had been stashed in the wrong place. Why hadn’t the killer put them back into the unlocked shed? Unless he hadn’t gotten them out and didn’t know where they belonged.

Theo wiped the kitchen counter after dinner. The boys had vanished and the babies were in view, playing with a colorful toy hanging close enough for them to bat it with their tiny hands or feet. Daisy was guarding them but staying out of their reach. Tony was almost through loading dishes into the dishwasher. “Did Candy have any friends? Like girlfriends she might talk to or go to the movies with?” Theo felt a combination of sympathy and irritation for Alvin’s mother. Candy might have brought most of her problems on herself but no one deserved to be murdered.

“Not as far as I can tell.” Dishes done, Tony draped a cold wet cloth over his bald head and wandered about the kitchen heedless of the water dripping onto the floor. “She just seems to have been empty. That’s not the right word, but I don’t know what else to call it. If she had friends, hobbies, favorite foods, we have no idea who or what they might be.” He paused. “She did have an awesome collection of chips. Corn chips, potato chips, you know, like she bought a bag every time she went to the store and forgot and bought them again.”

“I know how that works.” Theo felt a laugh wedge in her chest. “That’s why we have three bottles of ketchup in the pantry.”

“I did wonder about that.” Tony flashed his pirate grin at her. “Anyway, I’m not sure I’ve ever been in a house, especially one inhabited by the same person for over thirty years, containing nothing personal. Photographs. Hobby stuff. There’s still some of her folks’ stuff, I’m guessing right where they left it, and Alvin’s room has some of his old clothes and old toys, but nothing we think belonged to Candy.”

Theo glanced around the combination kitchen and living space. She was everywhere. A quilt, a book, a potted plant. Her favorite mug. Tony was there too. His chair, magazines, and papers. The boys had toys and games scattered around them. Even the twins had their own favorite items. “That’s creepy. Who doesn’t have favorite things?”

“I know. We even went under the house. We found some old canning jars and half a bicycle but nothing that spoke of her.” Tony removed the cloth from his head and wiped his face with it before taking it out to the laundry room and dropping it into the washing machine.

Theo followed. “Did you find jewelry or trinkets?”

“Nope,” Tony said. “We looked. Our best guess is someone smashed her head with a garden tool and left her unconscious, bleeding and dying. Other than a missing flip-flop, nothing appears to be taken. Her purse was in the house, complete with her wallet containing a fair wad of cash, an unopened pack of gum, a tube of lipstick, and car keys. Nothing special in the car but dirt. It needed vacuuming.”

Theo tried to imagine Candy’s world and failed. “She didn’t even have a cell phone?”

“Thank you, sweetheart.” Tony kissed her. “I can’t believe we all missed the obvious. What should have been there and wasn’t. I’m sure she did. I’ll find out.”

Before nine in the morning of the third, Tony thought Ruth Ann had earned a raise. It had taken some real detective work by Ruth Ann to find the file connected to the Pingel infant who died presumably under Candy’s supervision. Former Sheriff Harvey Winston had put it in the box containing his personal papers.

Harvey, when he was asked, fished it out of the box and brought it to Tony. Most of the contents were letters accusing Candy of “murdering that precious baby.” Each letter had been filed with accompanying notes from Candy’s parents, refuting the accusation and accusing the infant’s parents of wrongdoing and trying to blame a fifteen-year-old babysitter for their own misdeeds.

The bottom line remained the same. No blame was ever established, officially or otherwise. There was simply no evidence on either side, but the overwhelming impression Tony got was that the youngster’s parents might have set Candy up to take the blame. The baby was born with multiple “issues.” If he had survived, he would always require a great deal of special care. The baby’s physician described a multitude of possible reasons the baby died. None linked the death to Candy. Or to the family.

With some reluctance, Tony and Wade drove out to discuss the past with the baby’s maternal grandfather, Charles Yates.

“Can’t you let it rest?” Yates said. “They’ve moved on, have two
healthy
children. They have made themselves a nice, normal, happy family.”

Tony shook his head. “We’re not here about the baby. Not specifically.” He did not like Yates and believed he might have had more to do with the family’s loss than Candy had. “What do you mean by letting it rest?”

The man narrowed his eyes and spoke with a sour twist to his mouth. “Just because it wasn’t her fault don’t mean they shouldn’t blame her.”

“Really? You think the innocent should be punished and the guilty go free? That doesn’t sound much like justice to me.” Something in the man’s expression triggered a suspicion in Tony’s mind. “How well did you know Candy?” Had the father been involved with the babysitter?

Yates made no response to Tony’s question.

Tony did not like having his question ignored. “What about your wife? Can we talk to her?”

Anger crossed Yates’s face again, deepening his appearance of disdain. “She don’t live here. Hasn’t since the kids moved away.” With that, he stepped back inside and slammed the door in Tony and Wade’s faces.

Tony stared at the closed door for a full minute, then turned to Wade. “Well, I think I’ll put a little S for suspect note next to his name.” He headed back to Wade’s vehicle. “I’d like to talk to his ex-wife. What do you think?”

“I think I’d leave him too, if I was dumb enough to marry him.” Wade fell in step next to Tony. “I also think I’d like to know a lot more about his finances. But if he’s been paying blackmail all this time, why suddenly kill her?”

“I’d be willing to bet he’s not one of Candy’s supporters. I’d guess he’d brag about having a young girlfriend. Unless . . .” Tony climbed into the passenger seat. “Maybe he’s been paying to keep her quiet for another reason.”

Wade sighed loudly. “That brings us back around to motive.

Why wait so many years, and kill the woman now?”

“Speaking of suddenly killing a woman, why don’t we go pay a visit to Mrs. Marsh and see if she thinks her next-door neighbor, Mr. Austin, shot her by accident or if it was the culmination to an escalating problem?”

“Lots of accidents happen in the kitchen.” Wade turned the key. “I’d like to think she’d be the first to cry foul if she thought he did it on purpose.”

Tony was silent for a moment. “I quit thinking people would do anything sensible years ago. There is absolutely nothing rational about humans. We get straighter answers from caterpillars.” Tony glanced at his watch. “I’m supposed to go hang some quilts.”

Leaving the quilters’ husbands, including Tony, hanging the largest quilts for the show in the museum barn, Theo hurried to the shop for the forgotten name cards and award ribbons. As she was leaving, she ran into, and almost knocked down, a woman standing on the stairs just outside her office door, the one with the huge “Private” sign on it.

“Mrs. Abernathy?”

Theo nodded. The woman looked vaguely familiar. She was probably forty, but she dressed as if she were seventy in an old-fashioned print dress and heavy makeup. The overly dark dyed hair was glued into a smooth cut at chin level and made her head look just like a bowling ball.

“I’m Bonnie Hicks from Children’s Services.” She was not smiling.

Theo’s first thought and her immediate comment were both wildly inappropriate. “Thank you, but I have all I need.” When she saw the woman’s whole face suddenly flush scarlet, Theo found herself wondering if someone thought she was being a bad mother and had reported her. Humor might not be the best approach. “May I help you?”

The woman sniffed. “This is private.”

Theo glanced around but didn’t see anyone within hearing. “What is it?”

“You employ Alvin Tibbles.” Mrs. Hicks made a firm statement, not a question.

“Yes. He does yard work for us.”

“Would you recommend him?”

“Yes.”

“Fine, thank you.” Mrs. Hicks turned and walked down the stairs and out of the shop.

Theo simply watched her until the door closed. “That is the single strangest conversation I’ve ever had.” She was so distracted by the event, she went back into her office and sat down.

“Mrs. Fairfield wants to talk to you, Sheriff.” Rex’s voice sounded a bit muffled. Tony suspected he was chewing on his hand to keep from laughing. “She’s here, in person.”

Since he’d been dodging Mrs. Fairfield’s calls, not her complaints—those had been carefully investigated—for a week, he assumed his time was up. “Send her back.”

He postponed his visit to Mrs. Marsh, telling Wade to be ready to leave the moment his visitor departed. He removed a stack of papers from the center of his desk and placed them on the floor. Tony also popped three antacid tablets into his mouth although he doubted they’d be enough to prevent his heartburn from flaring up. It promised to be a long, difficult day. He’d finally signed all the forms and papers involving Candy Tibbles. Tony really wanted to go home.

Ruth Ann ushered the woman in and left, leaving the office door open. She was obviously not going to miss a word. The increased workload and upcoming holiday would require his staff to work extra hours. No one was going home at their normal time.

“Let’s not beat around the bush, shall we, Sheriff?”

Mrs. Fairfield had a stage-ready voice, capable of reaching the back of an auditorium, and she spoke with an unidentifiable accent. He guessed, without any facts to back up the idea, that she’d created her own personal accent. Maybe it was supposed to sound British, but it failed. Instead, it made her sound like a cartoon character.

Mrs. Fairfield launched into her complaint. “I have been waiting to talk to you for hours. We must work together to solve this mystery.”

Thinking the woman had been watching too much television for her own good, Tony tried the polite approach. “It’s been a busy day. Please remind me, Mrs. Fairfield, what mystery?”

Her mighty bosom heaved and her eyes filled with tears. She dabbed at them with a lace-edged handkerchief more suitable for a wedding than a visit to law enforcement. “Why, the disappearance of Mr. O’Hara, of course. We had an appointment, and he failed to arrive. I’m positive something dastardly has occurred.”

Tony sighed. If he had a rating system for complaints, he’d give the woman points for persistence and vocabulary. Dastardly wasn’t a word he’d heard before in an investigation. Mrs. Fair-field had purchased a home in Silersville and moved in only about a month earlier. In that time period, she’d begun working on breaking the record for the most calls by an individual to the sheriff’s department in a three-week period. If it wasn’t witches in the park, it was the amount of noise created by the garbage truck or a Peeping Tom. She had reported lost glasses, lost keys, phone messages from people making vile threats.