Murder by Serpents (Five Star First Edition Mystery) (20 page)

Theo grinned. “That's the mystery.”

“Oh, I see. That sounds like fun. Do you have to be real experienced? I haven't done any sewing for years.” One hand reached out to touch the fabric behind her, petting it like a dog.

“No.” Jane shimmied in between the women. “I would suggest that you get a rotary cutter, ruler and protective mat. It will make cutting your strips and squares more accurate and a lot faster than using scissors.” She pushed Theo out of the way. “Just remember that the blade is incredibly sharp. You can't let your children play with it.”

“Will you help me?” Prudence's concerns had been replaced by curiosity and she clutched a bolt of beautiful fabric printed with honeysuckle flowers. Her beautiful, bottle-green eyes glowed with lust.

“I'd be happy to teach you how to use them and give you a couple of safety tips,” said Jane. “I know the perfect pink for you to use with that fabric.

Theo had to laugh. Jane knew a convert when she saw one and she was a great saleswoman. It wouldn't be long before Prudence would be hooked for life. Not for the first time, Theo wondered if there was some addictive component in fabric sizing.

Tony got home at ten that night but it felt even later than that. Before going inside, his used his flashlight and made a quick check of conditions around the house. The creek along the side of the house was running higher and faster, but here, at least, it stayed well inside its banks.

Thankfully, the rain stopped by mid-afternoon, or the flooding would have been much worse. As the day played out, his department had been so incredibly busy that Tony had never had time to put on a clean uniform. He spent most of his time helping people out of the mud and stacking sandbags. Half of the water he'd been working in came from melting snow. The other half was just damned cold. Exhausted now, he felt frozen and miserable and hungry enough to eat the front door.

The latest hospital report listed Nellie Pearl as critical, still unconscious. She'd been airlifted to Knoxville, and the doctors there had no idea when, or even if, she would awaken. According to them, she had lost a lot of blood. Other injuries included a fractured cheekbone and severe concussion.

Tony speculated that Nellie Pearl had been watching from her window and had followed Samson up the hill. That spirited old lady must have thrown common sense aside and confronted the devil himself.

Even if Samson turned out to be innocent of some of the things he was suspected of doing, which was doubtful, he had attempted to kill a cop. His confession in front of three witnesses would nail his sorry butt.

With the blessing of his Knoxville attorney, Kate Wyatt, they arranged to jail Samson in Sevier County. Tony didn't want the creep getting so much as a hangnail in the Park County facility. Miss Wyatt might be young, but she was smart as a whip, and she would be the first one to cry foul if Sammy was treated with anything but kid gloves.

Tony eased the front door open, listening. The old house welcomed him. The moment he stepped inside, Daisy ran to greet him. As he rubbed her ears and chest, her long plumed tail swished hard enough to wag the whole dog. The boys would be in bed already. Tony hated missing their evening routine of bath and stories, but sometimes it just couldn't be helped. He locked his gun in the safe. Following the faint sound of the television, he found Theo in the kitchen, sitting in her favorite chair, a quilt in progress draped over her lap. A fire crackled in the fireplace. The room smelled of wood smoke and cookies.

She looked up and smiled at him.

He loved coming home. On a night like this one it felt like going to heaven. The old house always needed work but they loved it, and this room was its very heart. Although it had been modernized several times, it remained hopelessly out of date. Decorated with a mixture of styles and periods, it looked a little ratty but it fit their family. Long ago, the raised fireplace had been used to prepare meals, but now it only supplied heat and comfort.

Theo sometimes told them stories about growing up in this house as a child, orphaned and living with her grandparents. She would gloss over the isolating, lonely years. The Silers had been good, kind and exceedingly old. They didn't believe in electricity. Using a kerosene lantern for light, Theo had done her homework at the scarred old table. She and her grandfather had baked cookies and bread in an old woodstove.

Theo wasn't crying. Tony could tell that she knew about Sheila, but her serene smile welcomed him home. She had come to terms with her fears. Relieved, he pulled off his hat and bent over to kiss her.

She shivered. “Your lips feel like ice, and I don't think that they are supposed to be that shade of blue.” Although she smiled as she touched his cheek, tears filled her eyes. “You are absolutely frozen. Have you eaten anything?”

In response, his stomach rumbled and he shook his head. Too tired to speak, he simply stood absorbing the heat from the fire and the peace of being home.

“Go take a hot shower and I'll heat some stew for you.” She climbed out of her cocoon and stretched. Under a short robe she wore pink flannel pajamas decorated with little white lambs. She looked cute as a bug. “You'd better leave those clothes here and I'll put them in the mud room.”

He unbuckled the heavy duty-belt and put it on the table. He added his badge and emptied his pockets. Numb fingers made unbuttoning his shirt difficult. Theo took pity on him and helped. Soon he was stripped to his shorts. As he headed into the bathroom, he silently thanked the former family member responsible for installing a bathroom down here. He wasn't sure that he would have had the strength to climb the stairs. They had recently fitted the old-fashioned claw foot tub with a shower nozzle and an oval, chrome shower curtain rod. Encased in the billowing, cream-colored shower curtain, he let the hot water pound over him until Theo came to tell him that the stew was hot. Bless her thoughtful heart, she had even brought him a sweatshirt, sweat pants and wool socks.

Halfway through the second bowl of stew, he started to feel warm again. “I suppose you want to know about Sheila?” Her nod gave him the answer he expected. Cocking an eyebrow at her, he grinned even though it felt like it would make his face crack. “Just for my information, how did you find out?”

“Prudence.” Theo answered.

“How in the—? Never mind. I think I can guess.” He stole the flannel lap quilt from Theo. “Tea leaves or Darren?”

“Darren, of course. She came to me because she is worried about marrying a cop.” Grabbing a corner of the quilt, she pulled but lost her grip.

“And did you break their engagement?” Once he had the whole quilt, he reached for her and dragged her onto his lap, resting his chin on her shoulder. “Did you tell her scary stories and beg her to marry a farmer?”

Wide-eyed, she shook her head. “I told her the truth.”

“Which is?” Serious now, he waited for her answer. The firelight reflecting on her glasses hid their expression.

“Nobody's safe.” She smoothed the eyebrow over his left eye. “I told her that I would worry about you no matter how you earned a living.”

“What if I lived on welfare?” Some of the tension left him and he toyed with the curls in her hair, pulling them away from her face and releasing them, smiling when they bounced back like springs.

“Stop playing with my hair.” A devilish grin lit her face. “You could be sitting in front of the television, drinking a can of beer and eating nachos when a car crashes through the picture window and flattens you and the recliner.”

“Damned lucky then, I guess, that we don't have a picture window.” He sighed heavily and pasted a mournful expression on his face. “I suppose that was a fresh plate of nachos. Were they extra cheesy?”

“You bet. Lots of cheese and easy on the jalapenos so Daisy would be able to clean them up for you.” At her name, the golden retriever lifted her head momentarily and then went back to her nap, rolling onto her back.

“Now tell me what happened to Sheila.”

“You've heard most of it,” said Tony. “At least the part where Nellie Pearl spied on Quentin, thinking he was burying things in the woods.”

Theo nodded.

“Sheila was patrolling near Nellie Pearl's when she thought she saw a man named Samson, but he was too far away to identify.” Theo shivered and he pulled the quilt up around her shoulders. “Samson is a suspect in Hub's death. She radioed in but followed him up the hill, away from Nellie Pearl's house.” He paused for a mouthful of hot chocolate. “Sheila worked her way up behind him and got close enough to watch when she saw Nellie Pearl unconscious on the ground. Samson was either putting something into or taking it out of a hole.”

He held Theo close and steadied his breathing.

“Samson saw her, pulled his gun and shot her, just like that. The impact of the bullet hitting her vest knocked her to the ground. You can't imagine how much that hurts. She blacked out.” Tony swallowed against the lump in his throat. “While she was down he destroyed her radio. She's damned lucky he didn't shoot her again.”

“Oh, Tony.”

Theo's expression of dismay stopped him.

“It's true.” He stared for a moment at the glowing embers. “When Sheila came to, they got into a knock down, drag out fight. With the rain and the mud, I guess it turned into a realbrawl. By the time we got there she had handcuffs on him and it looked like she was wearing half of the mountain on her uniform and in her hair. Compared to her, I looked clean when I got home.”

“Is she all right?”

“Doc says that the bruise on her chest is a humdinger and that one of her ribs is cracked. She is going to be sore all over tomorrow but as much from the hand-to-hand as the shooting. In short, she gets a desk for a while.” Pressing his face against Theo's shoulder, he yawned wide enough to make his jaw crack. In the quiet room, the sound seemed to boom. “She was always the scrapper in that family. Her brothers were more afraid of her than of anyone else around.” He moaned. “I just know that she is not going to like the desk.”

“Are you afraid of her?”

“You bet.” Tony yawned again and let his eyes close. Heaven was right here. He was warm and fed and Theo wasn't mad at him.

“I think you can handle it after a good night's sleep.” Theo unwrapped herself from the layers of Tony's arms and the quilt and appraised him as she stood up. “Go to bed.”

“I'm okay here.”

“No. You look like death warmed over.” Tugging his hands to get him to his feet, she commanded him, “Go to bed.”

Without the energy to argue, he went. He gripped the banister and used it to pull himself up the last few steps. He barely made it onto the bed before he passed out.

At a very early hour of the morning, he awakened and climbed out onto the veranda. The wood beneath his bare feet felt cold and damp, sending a sharp chill through his toasty warm body. In the deep silence that comes only at night, he could hear the familiar sounds of water rushing over rocks. The lights in the park were bright enough to show him that the creek had not risen any higher.

Peeking into the room shared by the boys, he saw Chris rolled into his covers, like Cleopatra in a rug, only his hair and feet exposed to the night air. In the next bed, Jamie looked like a mattress ad. He slept on his back with his hands crossed over his chest and his blankets as smooth as they had been when he went to bed.

Daisy's bed, a big round nest upholstered with dog bone fabric, occupied the center of the room. It was empty. Daisy lay stretched across Jamie's pillow. The boy's pale blond hair blended perfectly with hers as he used her for his pillow. She lifted her head and stared at Tony until he stepped back. Tony wondered why they had ever invested in the dog bed. He wasn't sure if Daisy had ever been on it. The oversized animal alternated between being Jamie's pillow and being stretched out between Chris and the wall.

He went downstairs and toward the kitchen. Theo had moved his things from the table onto a bench in the mudroom and spread them out to dry. His body armor was dry. Dried mud clung to the belt and empty holster. He needed to clean the weapon again, even though he'd cleaned it twice the day before. Retrieving his Glock from the gun safe in the front closet, he set it on the table. Before sitting down, he collected a handful of chocolate chip cookies and a tall glass of milk. He placed those next to his gun cleaning equipment. He cleaned for quite a while, until he was convinced that no mud remained. It was a big job that required a second trip to the cookie jar. Satisfied, at last, he locked the Glock up and went back to bed.

Theo rolled over when he climbed in. She sniffed the aromas that Tony carried with him, gun oil and chocolate, and with a satisfied smile snuggled up against his back.

In the morning, Tony sat in his office, going over the events of the past day and night. Deputy J. B. Lewis stopped by on his way home to tell him about Roscoe's antics.

In Tony's opinion, Roscoe Morris was not the sharpest tack in the box. In fact, people often noted that he was about as sharp as a bowling ball. Someone suggested that his county record for the most years spent in middle school might even be the highest in the state. It was a record that he was proud of. Whatever his lack of intelligence, he did possess a certain animal cunning and, best of all, Roscoe was a genuinely nice man.

A lover of baseball like Tony, Roscoe attended every game in the community and always cheered for both sides. The little boys liked it when they could spend time with Roscoe. He would entertain them with a piece of string and nimble fingers, weaving simple designs like Jacob's ladder.

According to Deputy J.B. Lewis, Roscoe had a busy night. J.B. settled in to give his report within earshot of Sheila and Ruth Ann. J.B. loved to tell stories, so his oral reports were long and detailed, while his written reports supplied minimal information.

Tony knew that J.B. liked working nights. His patrol encompassed the town, although he was not restricted to it and because the only law enforcement agency in Park County was the sheriff's department, there was never a squabble over jurisdiction. He went where he felt like going.