Lethal Lineage (24 page)
Slumped in his pickup on the shoulder of the road, his arms circling the steering wheel, Chip appeared to have simply pulled over to take a nap. I walked over and looked at his clenched jaw and pressed my fingers on the side of his neck and glanced at my watch and called the EMTs.
Another unattended death. Another job for the district coroner. Another trip to Hays. In fact, another death of a person with no family.
But this time, I had a full record of his life story. I knew exactly who his people were. While we waited, I told Keith about Myrna’s and Chip’s unlikely affiliation. “Her kids were just crazy about him.”
When the ambulance sped toward us, I waved, directing the driver to park directly behind Chip’s pickup. They unloaded the stretcher and pulled out a body bag.
“Wait, Lottie,” Keith hollered suddenly. “Tell them to wait a minute. Don’t anyone touch one single thing.”
“What are you talking about?”
“That,” he said. “That. On his neck. There’s a little gouge mark there. On the back of his neck.”
I whirled around and went to Keith’s Suburban and used OnStar to call Sam.
“I’ll call the KBI immediately,” he said. “We’re going to do it right this time.” He called back. “Stay there. Everyone is in high gear. They’ll have someone there as soon as possible. Do not touch anything.”
I went over and stood by my husband a short distance from Chip’s pickup. We did not want to muddle the crime scene with our footprints.
Keith looked at the road. “There are no skid marks, Lottie. Chip simply pulled over. He knew the person that did this.”
Keith stayed there and I went on over to Myrna’s.
***
“I’m so terribly sorry for your loss,” I murmured, wishing I knew a more effective, more comforting canned phrase. “I need to ask you some questions.”
Tim Bedsloe stood in the doorway, looking like a needy child. The children began quarrelling fiercely over a yellow dump truck and Myrna started to rise and tend to them.
“Wait. Sit back down. Tim, were you with her when she found Chip?”
He shook his head.
“Then please take the boys to another room. I need to ask your wife some questions.”
Startled, the boys looked up and then took off after their father.
I pulled out a notebook. Myrna wept uncontrollably. “I just loved Chip. He was like a father. Or a grandfather. He took me under his wing. He told me what to plant and when, and my little boys, they just lit up when that old man came around.”
I let her talk.
“He was lonely, Lottie. He didn’t have a family. Not another soul in the world. Just worked all his life.”
“So tell me what happened, Myrna.”
“Chip called and asked me to meet him at the church. He said there were some things he wanted me to know. Some things he wanted to show me. Said it was time.”
St. Helena again. All roads led back to St. Helena.
“I started over there, and saw him parked. I supposed he’d seen me coming and had pulled over to talk to me. I drove up behind him and parked and got out and went up to talk to him. He was dead! Then I went back to my car and called you.”
“You did everything right.”
She shuddered and her aching sobs subsided into hiccups. “Was it a heart attack?”
“This was an unattended death,” I said carefully. “So I can’t speculate, but we’ll know soon enough. Sam called in the KBI.”
She nodded.
“I have other questions, Myrna. First of all, do you have any idea at all, any indication whatsoever why he would want you to come over to the church? He wasn’t a donor to the project. Wasn’t an Episcopalian. I know that because I just finished compiling a list.”
“He wasn’t religious. I know that because we talked about everything. He came over here to the house a lot after we got acquainted. He played with the boys, ate supper with us.”
“And Tim?” I asked carefully. “Did he get along with Tim?”
“That’s another thing I loved about Chip. He was nice to Tim. Real polite. Not everyone is.” She stopped and blew her nose. “Oh, I know what people say behind my back. That I wear the pants and my man is hen-pecked.”
Yes!
But I suspected Chip was a shrewd judge of character and struck just the right chord. One doesn’t amass a fortune without being able to read people.
“Sometimes Chip asked me to meet him at implement dealers, and he pointed out different features of the latest tractors and drills and combines.” She began to sob again. “He’s the only one I’ve ever met that loved the land as much as I do.”
“And Tim?”
“He doesn’t care as much. When we were first married, I was disappointed. Then I looked on the bright side. I’m a better farmer than Tim. He talks a good game, but if he was in charge, we’d be ready for the poor farm.” Her eyes misted again. “We were meant for each other. Most husbands wouldn’t let a wife just plumb take over.”
Most wives wouldn’t want to
, I thought. “Back to the church,” I prodded.
“This was the second time Chip had asked me to meet him there.”
I pressed. “I assume the first time was the other day when I drove past St. Helena and you were there with him and Irwin Deal and Bishop Talesbury. You all seemed to be quarrelling. What was that all about?”
“That all broke up right after you drove past us. We all saw you and just left. Have you ever felt like things are going on you don’t understand? It was weird. I got there late because Mom had a problem.”
“But you were right in the thick of things, Myrna, shaking your finger at Deal. I saw you.”
“Damn right, I was. I walked up just as Deal started calling Chip names. Terrible names.” She looked away. “No need to mention them all here. I lit right into Irwin and told him what I thought of his whole inbred family. That bastard isn’t worthy of breathing the same air as Chip Ferguson.”
I rose and grabbed a fresh batch of tissues and handed them to her.
“Anyway, it turned out Chip wanted to buy the church land and Deal just blew up. Just freaked out. Then Talesbury said it was his land. His and his alone. Then he and Deal got into it. Deal said he was imagining things.”
“Myrna do you have any idea why someone like Chip would want those worthless acres?”
She lifted her tear-stained face and looked at me with her red-rimmed hazel eyes and shook her head. “No. Not a clue. But I’m sure of this. If he’d lived long enough today to make it to the church, I would now know. That’s what he wanted to tell me.”
***
After the KBI processed the scene, they transferred Chip’s body to Hays. Both Brooks and Dimon were present to witness the autopsy. The Forensic Department at Topeka had anticipated certain complications.
Brooks called as soon as the lab was completed. “Chip Ferguson was murdered, Lottie. The gouge mark was from a very thin instrument.”
I took a deep breath. “Like a stiletto?” I asked.
“Yes, but that’s not what killed him. It was tipped with poison from a poison dart frog.”
“Like Mary Farnsworth? Just like Reverend Mary?”
“Actually, no. This poison came from the
Dendrobates azureus
. A bright blue frog. The poison that killed Mary was from the
Phyllobates terribilis.
A bright yellow frog. One came from Africa, the other from South America.”
I couldn’t speak.
“Drag Talesbury in for questioning. Right now. He’s much more than a mere person of interest. We’ll help. But especially in light of what Myrna told you, we want him off the street.”
“I agree, Nancy,” I said unhappily, “but he still couldn’t have killed Mary. There was simply no way.”
***
Sam and I went to Irwin Deal’s together. I watched Talesbury’s face when we told him he was wanted for questioning in connection with the murder of Chip Ferguson. Stunned, he took a faltering step forward and braced himself on the door jam. When Sam launched into “you have a right to remain silent,” he stiffened, his face no longer a self-protective mask, but distorted with grief.
“I want a lawyer,” Talesbury said immediately. Deal stood to one side, his arms across his chest and watched as we arrested his uncle.
“I’ll get you a lawyer. Right away,” Deal said at once.
Talesbury shook his head. He whirled around and gave Deal an angry look.
“No. A lawyer of my choosing, not yours.” He turned back to me. “I am not a killer.” His eyes begged me to believe him. “I do not kill people. I save them. In the name of Jesus Christ.”
It was I who remained silent, feeling that any words I uttered would somehow be used against me.
“Please contact the Diocese,” he said. “I want a lawyer furnished by the church.”
When we arrived at the jail, he sat at the little table in the room where we now questioned persons. His elbows were braced on the table and his fingers laced through his long hair as though his head would topple if he removed their support. The county commissioners had upgraded our facilities. We now had the kind of mirror the men had so admired on various TV shows. This was the first time it had come in handy.
I called Bishop Rice and told him Talesbury had asked for a lawyer from the Diocese. Rice’s first stunned response was carefully worded as he sorted through the ramifications of a second death that might be tied to the Diocese of Western Kansas. “Miss Albright, Ignatius Talesbury is simply not attached to this Diocese and we have no responsibility to protect him.”
“I understand that, sir. But apparently he does not.”
“And furthermore,” he said thoughtfully, “despite what this man seems to think, this is not the Diocese of New York and we do not have attorneys on staff. Apparently he has no concept of how little money is available.”
“He’s out of touch, sir. It’s as though he doesn’t understand how anything works.”
“Nevertheless, he needs a lawyer.” His voice softened. “He’s a brother in Christ. He needs our help. Whom would you suggest? There has to be a lawyer in your area.”
I thought of Curtis Matthews who had been present during Edna’s questioning, and said I would call him.
“Let me know how it goes,” Bishop Rice said. “How is he doing?”
I gazed through the mirror. “He’s terrified, sir. Absolutely terrified.”
***
Curtis Matthews arrived and spent fifteen minutes conferring with Talesbury, then Sam and I joined them. We slogged through a fruitless monosyllabic interview. Yes, he knew Chip Ferguson. Yes, he was familiar with lethal poisons obtained from frogs. Yes he owned a stiletto. No, he had not killed the man. We questioned him for about three hours without extracting any confession or pertinent information. Matthews intervened frequently.
Sam glanced at me and jerked his head toward the door. I followed him outside.
“We’re getting nowhere.”
“I agree.” There was no point in holding this man until we obtained a warrant and searched his car and Deal’s house.
We went back into the room. “You are free to go,” Sam said.
Talesbury stiffened and sat motionless, his eyes trained on a spot on the far wall. Then he broke his trance and beckoned to Matthews to bend down. He spoke to him in a low voice. Startled, the lawyer shook his head then bent and whispered in Talesbury’s ear. The bishop did not reply, but simply resumed staring at the wall.
Matthews looked at him, shrugged, picked up his briefcase and the three of us left the room.
“Bishop Talesbury requests protective custody,” Matthews said after we closed the door. “He would like to remain here.”
“I know your communication is privileged,” Sam said, “but do you have any idea what in the hell is going on? I would like to remind you this man is not under arrest. Yet. So far we have no reason to charge him with a thing.”
“I know that and he knows that. But he still wants to stay here.”
“Lottie? Have you noticed anything I didn’t?”
“Only that Talesbury was petrified when we picked him up and told him there had been another murder. Scared to death. But I’m sure you saw that too.”
Sam glanced through the glass at Talesbury. Then he went over to the ashtray on his desk and tapped old ashes out of his pipe. “Well, Curtis, you’re the lawyer. You tell me. Can we do this? This hasn’t exactly come up before.”
“They didn’t cover this in law school.”
All three of us trooped over to the window and studied the man. He hadn’t moved since we left the room.
“We’ve had homeless people work for us for a place to stay overnight, but I believe this is the first time I’ve had someone want to stay here that had another choice,” Sam said. “But after the KBI does a search, if they don’t find anything, he has to leave. I’m not running a hotel.”
“He’s scared.”
“Doesn’t matter. We can’t do this.”
“I would be terrified if I had to stay with Irwin Deal.”
“No,” Sam said. “It’s not Deal. Talesbury wasn’t frightened when we first went to the door.”
When I got home, I found Keith listening intently to a recording of “Limerock,” Old Man Snyder’s winning song. He held the remote in one hand and his fiddle in the other.
“Going to try it?”
He paused the recording.
“I shouldn’t. But then plenty of other folks do who shouldn’t.”
I walked over to the crock pot and lifted the lid on the beef vegetable mixture I’d set simmering early morning.
“Josie called,” Keith said. “You’re to call her back.”
After adding more seasoning to the stew I dialed my sister.
“We were wondering.”
“And ‘we’ is?”
“Tosca and I, of course. We were wondering if we’ve worn out our welcome. We have a three-day weekend coming up.”
“Are you kidding? I’d love it.” Thanks to Zola, she would have fresh sheets and would not have to suffer through my usual mumbled explanation that I planned to have the cord repaired on her favorite reading light as soon as I had time.
“Good. Keith and I have talked and I’ve decided to take on Old Man Snyder.”
“You’ll lose.”
“Maybe.”
I laughed. It was a toss-up as to who was the more competitive, Keith or my sister. But beyond that, I knew neither one of them could resist mastering this piece. “I’ll love it for whatever reason you’re coming. Besides I want to pick your brains.” I told her about bringing in Talesbury for questioning.
“You can’t keep him,” she said. “There’s no probable cause for arresting him. You’ve risked making a first class mess out of any conviction.”
“You’re right, but he’s not under arrest. We’ve just agreed to sort of keep him for a while.”
“God, Lottie. This sounds loony.”
“Don’t I know. Sam’s relieved that we’re not in charge of this investigation. Since Ferguson’s death occurred in our county, we had full authority to request the KBI’s help from the very beginning. So they are the ones who will snoop around Deal’s house.”
“Ah yes, Deal. What has he been up to without his badge?”
“We may have dealt him a death blow. When we picked up his uncle, he just stood there and didn’t put up a bit of resistance. He didn’t even threaten us. It was like confronting a high school bully.”
“He was used to hiding behind his badge,” Josie said. “He probably feels powerless without it. Harold believes once that man reorganizes his thinking, he’s going to be dangerous. He’s worried that Deal will explode if the right trigger occurs.”
“And do you agree?”
“I don’t. I think he’s a different kind of crazy. A planner, not an exploder. Since he relishes getting to people through animals, he’s into a sly kind of torment. Psychological torture. That’s a lot different than someone who blows up.”
“But he’s so damn stupid, Josie. This is the great mastermind who ended up a laughing stock by throwing us in jail. He can’t think his way out of a paper bag.”
“Evil stupid people do as much damage as evil smart people. The only difference is, the former often self-destruct in the process, and the latter get away with it. But the damage to innocent people is the same, either way.”
“If I had to vote, it would be for planner, not exploder.”
“Exactly. He got to Keith’s oats field, his equipment, and one of his cows. Deal knew right where to stick the knife.”
“We got him in the end. Nothing could have hurt him more than losing that badge.”
“We’ve got him if he stops. Nevertheless, I’m sticking to my perception that Deal is remarkably talented at figuring out what will cause his enemies the most pain.”
***
Margaret’s eyes brightened when I walked through the door the next morning.
“You have something to tell me,” I observed. “What? God’s truth according to the coffee shop boys?”
“Yes. But it really is this time.”
I poured the dregs of yesterday’s coffee into my cup and heated it in the microwave. Then I took it to the chair opposite Margaret’s desk.
“Chip had a will. Quite recent. And you’ll never guess who he left his money to?”
“The historical society? I can always hope.”
“No. Myrna Bedsloe and her kids. Specifically to Myrna. Left her husband plumb out of it.”
“She’s worth millions now!” I tried to imagine the impact this would have on her life. Would she put Tim’s mother in an Alzheimer’s unit? Travel? None of the above, I decided. Myrna would buy more land. “Wow,” was all I could manage.
“That’s not the big news,” Margaret said. “I mean it is big news, but that’s not what everyone is talking about. It’s Irwin Deal’s reaction when he heard about it. He’s at loose ends since he got booted out of office, and madder than hell at anyone in Copeland County who voted against him. So he comes over here to Carlton County to buy gas.”
She eyed my coffee cup. “You know, I really don’t know how you drink that stuff.”
I wrinkled my face. “Never mind. And then what?”
“So the other day, after he filled up, he just strolled over to the booth where my husband and his buddies were sitting, and asked ‘what’s up?’ like he was the most popular man in Carlton County and they should all just scoot over so he could sit in their booth.”
I laughed. “I’ll bet no one moved an inch.”
“They told him they were just talking about Chip leaving all his money and land to Myrna and then according to Leroy, Deal just blew up.”
“Blew up?”
“Looked like he was going to pass out. Then he started cussing and left. Leroy said a lot of the men were shocked anyway that Chip was worth so much.”
“Margaret, you usually know as much as anyone what’s going on in the county, do you have any idea why Irwin would be so upset?”
She leaned toward me. “Irwin has been sidling up to Tim Bedsloe. This came straight from the horse’s mouth, Lottie. Tim himself. He told the coffee shop boys that Irwin had heard that Chip hung around their house all the time. Then he asked Tim to talk Chip out of donating building materials to that bishop.”
“Chip was going to help out Talesbury?” It made no sense.
“Yes, at first Chip wanted to buy those forty acres. Then when the bishop wouldn’t sell to him, Chip asked him not to sell out to anyone else.”
“So where does Irwin fit in to all this?”
“I don’t know. According to Tim, Irwin was fit to be tied when Chip volunteered that building material. As you can imagine, the boys had a big laugh over Irwin assuming that Tim made the decisions in that household.”
“That’s Irwin,” I said. “He never gets anything right.”
Land again. It always comes up out here. A perennial question: who owns the land?
***
Brooks stopped by the sheriff’s office the next morning. She waved a search warrant at Sam.
“That fast? What? You have some judge in your pocket?”
“As good as. Magistrate Judge Willard Clawson didn’t bat an eye when we told him why we wanted to search Deal’s house. He simply reached for his pen and wished us luck.”
“I’ll bet he did. It took all the self-restraint he could muster to stay out of the recall election.”
“We want you to come too, Lottie. Everything is set. In fact, it was the information you gave us about Talesbury using the stiletto at the church that gave us the specifics for the warrant. The tip of the weapon used in the murder was unusual. A triangular shape.”
“Sure you don’t want in on this?” I asked Sam.
“No.” Then he raised his eyebrows and tapped his lips with his finger, and jerked his head indicating he wanted us to follow him. We stepped outside. “I want to stay here with Talesbury.”
“You know you can’t keep him here,” Brooks said. “If we don’t find anything, you’ll have to let him go.”
“Not let him go, make him go,” I said. “He’s not under arrest. We got around a few little minor considerations such as state law by charging him with vagrancy. But what’s changed, Sam? A couple of days ago, you complained that Talesbury seemed to think we were running a motel.”
Sam stared at the sidewalk and thrust his thumbs in his jeans pockets. “That was before I saw his back. And other body parts too. I let him use the shower this morning and brought him a different shirt. Something bad happened to that man. Maybe he’s not so crazy wanting to be locked up.”
“Nevertheless,” Brooks said, “if we don’t find anything that might be the basis for filing charges, he has to leave.”
“I know that,” Sam muttered.
“But in the meantime, having him here for a couple of nights was a lucky break. He didn’t have a chance to dispose of anything, because Lottie said Talesbury seemed stunned when you picked him up. Apparently he wasn’t expecting that at all.”
***
“We have two men waiting at the rest stop,” Nancy said as she drove toward Copeland County. “The warrant is limited to Deal’s house and Talesbury’s car.”
Caught off guard, when Deal came to the door he glared at me like I had engineered the search instead of the KBI. He stomped off to his pickup.
We searched the entire day without finding the weapon. By evening we were exhausted, and after looking through Talebury’s car, Brooks clearly felt like a fool. I did too. No doubt, she had trusted my information about Talesbury’s owning a stiletto. She dropped me off at the office and headed for the motel.
“You know what you have to do,” she said. “Tell Sam to get that man out of there before we all get sued for something.”
I went inside and told Sam we didn’t find the stiletto. His guest had to leave. Then I went back to Talesbury’s cell, but of course he was already on his feet, having heard everything that said in the dispatch office including my comments about the botched search.
“You are free to leave. But I suggest you don’t take leaving too seriously. It’s best if you stay around here.”
A strange look came over came over his face. “You didn’t find what you were looking for?”
“No. Go. We can’t keep you here.”
“Were you careful with my things?”
“Yes. Despite what you’ve seen on TV, the police don’t delight in destroying property when they do a search.”
What things?
I thought. I’d never seen a man with so few things.
“My sacred items. My vestments, my cross. The items in my satchel. They were all in the car. You’ve touched them.”
I froze. Was he implying that his so-called sacred items had somehow been soiled by contact with mere mortals? A man had been murdered, and he hadn’t volunteered one whit of information and all he cared about was our having touched his precious things?
I spun around. “We left everything in perfect shape.” I wished we hadn’t. Then I looked at him hard.
He was no longer afraid.