Dying for a Dude (Laurel McKay Mysteries Book 4) (8 page)

I nodded and both officers stepped into my wood-plank entry. “We’re finishing our supper…”

Hank joined us in the foyer. “Can I help you, Tom?” Hank’s words were polite, but his tone of voice truculent. Was my ex reluctant to help the Sheriff’s Department? Or was it my detective boyfriend who needled him?

“We have a few questions for you,” Tom said, “about your relationship with Darius Spencer.”

“You already know I’m renovating that old hotel of his,” Hank said.

“Yes, I’m aware of that. It would help our investigation if you could answer some questions that have arisen.”

I’m not sure what Dear Abby would advise when your boyfriend, the head of homicide, tells your ex-husband he’d like to chat. I tried to remain calm and invited Tom and the deputy to join us in the kitchen.

Tom shook his head, declining my suggestion. “We need Hank to accompany us to the station. It’s a more appropriate venue.”

“You’re not arresting me, are you?” Hank yelled. His eyes, which he described as jade green and which I referred to as swamp green, bulged like oversized marbles as they bounced from Tom to Deputy Mengelkoch and back to Tom again. “I’ve done nothing wrong.”

I moved between the two men, resting a palm on Hank’s chest, worried he might feel the urge to punch Tom. My ex didn’t need assault against a police officer added to his other problems.

Hank’s raised voice must have carried into the kitchen. Ben skidded into the entry, followed by his sister.

“Are you having dinner with us?” Ben asked the men, his face puzzled.

Tom’s cheeks reddened. “Not tonight, but thanks for the offer.”

Jenna, a straight A student, is no slouch in the analytical department. She stared at the four adults, giving an extra long glance at Deputy Mengelkoch. The young deputy was cute, a shaggy-haired, freckle-faced preppie all suited up in his official khaki shirt and forest green slacks.

“So why are you here?” Jenna asked Tom.

“They want to talk to your father,” I said, worried Tom would extract a pair of handcuffs at any minute.

“About Spencer’s murder?” she asked.

Ben’s eyes grew wide. “Dad, are you going to help Tom solve the case?”

It was Hank’s turn to flush. “Well, uh…”

Ben reached into his pocket and pulled out Bradford’s old badge. He plopped it into his father’s hand. “See, you can be an official detective, too!”

Hank’s eyes watered as he gazed at the badge. “Thanks, son.” He turned to Tom. “Do you want me to go down to the station?”

“Yes, it will be easier for us to, um…” Tom glanced at Ben, “solve the case if we’re all together at the Sheriff’s Office.”

I felt my mascara pooling on my cheekbones as my eyes filled with tears. A mixture of emotions assailed me: fear and concern for my ex-husband combined with pride and love for my son. As for my boyfriend, despite my not being thrilled about him taking my children’s father back to the station, I was grateful for his tactful handling of this awkward situation.

Hank left with Tom and the deputy. At first, I worried they would require him to ride in the backseat of the squad car, but they informed Hank he could follow them to the sheriff’s office.

My chest flooded with relief at that statement. I reassured the kids the detectives merely wanted their father’s assistance, and my remarks seemed to satisfy both of them. After repeating my mantra to my children, I decided the statement most likely was true. After working with Spencer for several months, Hank might have personal insight into who would have wanted the man dead.

The home phone rang while I stacked the dirty dishes in the dishwasher.

“Hi, Gran.” I rested the receiver on my shoulder while I rinsed off the rest of the plates.

“Did you solve this case yet?” she squawked.

“Case? You mean Darius Spencer’s murder?” I asked.

“No, not that Spencer twit. Good riddance to political rubbish.”

“Good grief, Gran. What did you have against him?”

“Oh, he comes from a long line of political nitwits. His father, Ned Spencer, was a classmate of mine. If Ned’s father hadn’t acquired so much land around here during the depression, I don’t know how those fellows would have made a living. Ned served on the Board of Supervisors for eight years which was about seven years and 364 days too long.”

I’m not the most politically astute person in town, but I vaguely remembered Spencer’s father had been a county supervisor twenty plus years ago. Back when I was more interested in the high school quarterback than local politics.

“Anyway, child, you need to concentrate your investigatin’ on our case,” Gran said. “We gotta get Harold off the hook. And fast.”

“Harold died more than eighty years ago. I don’t think he’s in that big of a hurry to get his reputation cleared.”

“It’s not his name I’m worried about. It’s mine.”

“Settle down, Gran, you don’t want your blood pressure to jump.” The last thing we needed was for her to get overexcited and drop dead worrying about this long dead case. Putting Hank’s situation out of my mind for the moment, I asked, “Are you taking your meds?”

“I had a ginger ale and whiskey. That will medicate me for now. So what’s our plan?”

“Meet me at the county historical museum tomorrow at noon. We’ll delve through the books together and try to come up with a list of suspects.”

“That’s my girl. I’ll bring some supplies to help with our detecting.”

I envisioned my grandmother draped in a cape and deerstalker hat. “You mean magnifying glasses for reading those handwritten journals from the nineteenth century?”

She snorted. “That’s not a bad idea. I’ll throw one in with a dozen of my oatmeal raisin cookies.”

If there’s one thing my grandmother has learned over the years, it’s how to bribe her family to get her way.

The phone rang early the next morning while I assembled our lunches, trying to avoid stepping on Pumpkin, who could smell tuna from a mile away. By brown bagging my own meal today, I could devote my entire lunch break to visiting the museum with my grandmother.

I glanced at Caller ID and grabbed the phone.

“Hank, are you okay?” I’d tossed and turned all night worrying about his interview with the Sheriff’s Department.

“I’m fine,” he said. “I didn’t return home until after midnight and didn’t want to call you that late.”

“How did it go?”

“Okay, I guess. I thought Tom would interview me, but I waited over an hour for two other detectives to show up.”

Curious. I would have felt better with Tom in charge of the investigation, but maybe he was too busy with other cases.

“What did they ask?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary. I discussed the remodel and some of the issues that came up recently. They wondered how someone could have gotten into the building, but I didn’t know how many keys Spencer gave out.”

“Did they mention any potential suspects?” I opened the refrigerator door and grabbed a container of sliced fruit while I waited for Hank’s answer.

“Nah, they questioned me but wouldn’t answer any of mine.”

“What did they say about your assault on Spencer?”

“It wasn’t an assault, Laurel, merely an altercation.”

“An altercation that involved your fist and his face,” I clarified.

“Yeah, well, I explained to the detectives I had too much to drink that night. And that we shook hands afterward, so no harm, no foul.”

That might be true in Hank’s case, but someone definitely caused Spencer to foul out––permanently.

“What are you going to do about finishing the renovation?”

“I can’t do anything while it’s a crime scene, although they said they’d be done late today. I should give Spencer’s wife my condolences and find out if she wants me to continue. It would be a shame to leave the building in its current shape. The Hangtown Hotel would have been the pride of Main Street when we finished.”

And the pride of Hank McKay. I had to hand it to my ex-husband. The man knew how to renovate a building.

His tone brightened. “As long as the building construction is in limbo, I’ll have lots of free time. I can spend it with you and the kids.”

I glanced at my rooster clock hanging over the sink. I could almost visualize the cocky bird crowing at me to get my tush in gear. I told Hank that since summer break began the next day, the kids would enjoy hanging out with him. In the meantime, their mother had better things to do, like driving the kids to their last day of school and herself to work.

Promptly at noon, I pulled my Prius into a parking space next to a fire-engine-red Mustang convertible I lusted after. Sporty convertibles, unfortunately, are not practical modes of transportation for soccer moms. They are also not a sensible choice for eighty-eight-year-old drivers who can barely see over the leather-wrapped steering wheel, but that didn’t stop my grandmother from purchasing her muscle car.

Gran claimed it was a deal she couldn’t pass up. I’m sure the car salesman felt the same about his elderly customer––a sucker he couldn’t pass up.

The museum was located in one of the many buildings comprising the El Dorado County fairgrounds and staffed by volunteers from the historical society, of which Gran held a long-time membership. I pulled open the heavy door and followed the scent of oatmeal cookies to the small research library where Gran chatted with several of the volunteers.

Gran grabbed my wrist with a strong grip and dragged me over to meet her friends. “Here’s my granddaughter, our own little Nancy Drew.”

She introduced me to the three white-haired women, all of whom bore a strong resemblance to Agatha Christie’s elderly sleuth, Miss Marple. One of the women went behind a desk and reached into her large handbag. I half expected her to yank out a set of knitting needles, but instead she slid a pair of heavy-duty reading glasses out of a Vera Bradley blue paisley case.

“So, Virginia,” asked the petite woman, her pale blue eyes magnified a hundredfold behind the glasses, “I understand they found old George Clarkson in your backyard.”

Gran nodded, the platinum curls of her Marilyn Monroe wig bobbing up and down. “That’s what Laurel’s honey said.”

Three fluffy white heads spun around to gawk at me. “What Gran, that is Virginia, means is that my detective, well, he’s not actually mine, he belongs to the Sheriff’s Office, I mean…” I babbled on and their faces became even more confused. “Anyway, after the crime scene techs examined the mine shaft, they concluded the skeleton was likely to be George Clarkson. They ordered a DNA test, but it’s not a high priority.”

The tallest of the women squinted at me. “Why do the cops think Virginia’s grandfather killed Clarkson?”

Gran answered before I could. “They found a watch with my granpappy’s name engraved on it down in the mineshaft, Betty, and that’s all it took for them to decide he’s a murderer.”

“That’s all they have?” Betty folded skinny arms over her flat chest. “Lazy asses. My great-aunt, Lulu Cook, the first female deputy sheriff of El Dorado County, wouldn’t put up with such nonsense. Trust me, with us researching it, I bet we can shred their so-called evidence into mincemeat.”

The other women nodded vigorously and I smiled watching them. My very own
History Detective
team. At first, I worried the excitement might be too much for the women, but as the octogenarians zipped up and down the aisles pulling out books and manuscripts, I realized having a mystery to solve could be a gift.

The women no longer seemed to care that Placerville’s version of Nancy Drew was onsite. Since my presence didn’t seem necessary, I decided to check out the displays. It had been ages since I’d visited the museum, and I’d forgotten some of the local stories I’d learned in grammar school.

I chuckled at the sketch of Charley Parkhurst, one of my favorite characters. He was a Wells Fargo stagecoach driver by day, but he had a reputation as the toughest, most alcohol-swilling gambler at night. Old Charley set all the stagecoach speed records back in the 1860s and even foiled a stagecoach robbery. Not until a doctor showed up at his deathbed did people learn Charley was a woman.

Way to go, Charley!

Gran and her friends seemed exhilarated by the opportunity to research the 150-year-old murder, so I kissed her soft wrinkled cheek and drove back into town. A few blocks from Main Street, the traffic on Highway 50 came to a sudden halt. I slammed on my brakes and barely missed smashing into the oversized Tahoe in front of me that blocked my view. To avoid the vehicle backup, I turned right on Pacific Avenue and parked along the street in a residential area. Parking in Placerville can be a hassle during certain events like Third Saturday Art Walk and Girls Night Out, but a traffic jam in the middle of the week seemed odd.

By now, a line of cars and trucks were bumper to bumper on California Highway 49, the primary north and south thoroughfare through Placerville and the gold country. I scurried down the sidewalk, curious to know what event had attracted this lunchtime crowd.

As I drew near the Hangtown Hotel, two men shepherding huge video cameras stepped in front of me. I scooted around them wondering how I would enter the bank with such a large crowd obstructing the entrance. Not until I laid eyes on the KNBA logo embellished on a white van did it click. The media had arrived.

My boyfriend, dressed in his official uniform of khaki shirt and forest green trousers, conversed with a female newscaster against a backdrop of bright yellow tape. Tom frowned and ran a hand through his thick chestnut hair as the short-skirted, stiletto-heeled reporter prattled nonstop.

Vehicles crawled down Main Street as their distracted drivers and passengers used their camera phones to take pictures of the partially reconstructed hotel covered with crime scene tape. I had a feeling this would not be a case of any publicity is good publicity. The City of Placerville and the County Chamber of Commerce take a great deal of pride in their community. A tremendous amount of time and labor went into planning the annual Wagon Train festivities. It would be a crime if this crime eclipsed the historic event.