Terror Flower (River Sunday Romance Mysteries Book 5) (9 page)

The Sheriff added, “Don’t think I don’t take all this seriously. It’s just hard to figure why there would be a crime, why someone would want to hurt the old man.”

“My question too when Smote first came to me,” agreed Tench. Then he wished he had not said anything because he knew from seeing the Sheriff’s quick smile he had just let Satter off the hook. The Sheriff’s next statement proved him right.

“So you got doubts too.”

The mayor nodded. “Such a fine old man.”

She pulled at his arm and he followed her to her office. “Come here. I want to show you,” she said, no longer interested he knew in talking about Smote. She pointed to the plans for the proposed River Sunday sports complex.

“I’ve seen these at Smote’s house,” Tench said.

“Right. With all his sports background, we asked his opinions. I guess pretty much everyone in town had seen them for one reason or another.”

She began to fold the plans.

“I haven’t been able to get up to see Mister Strake about the first check. Everything is in hold. Apparently he’s just not feeling very well, according to Stagmatter. You can see why I don’t want any trouble.”

She tapped on her desk. “OK,” she said, “I like Bill Strake and he likes me. Also I wanted to tell you something else you might put in your cap. I don’t think Bill or his family like Stagmatter taking care of his cars. I think there’s friction up there at the farm. Bill’d offer you the job if he knew you were interested. Would get you a nice little income, maybe allow you to build your race cars. Think about it.”

Chapter Seven

9 AM Wednesday August 18

Tench was at his desk and, glancing out his office window at the diesel noise, noticed the oversize truck go through town for Strake’s earlier at about ten o’clock. It had a canvas top strapped down over the sides which Tench thought strange since the cargo was antique cars and they should have been secured inside a totally metal box. The phone rang.

“You better get up to Strake’s, Jimmy,” said the sheriff. “I think those seaport drivers have finally put one of the eighteen wheeler container trucks into the old bridge framework. I’ll meet you.”

He and Smiley took the wrecker out of the lot in the back of the garage land. The truck was an old General Motors machine, with a vacuum shift rear axle and plenty of low gears. “Jimmy,” she reminded him, especially at those times he needed the machine and he was more than angry at the old rig for not starting, for having a low battery and for all the other plagues of old vehicles, “You got to remember you passed his test. He told me you were the only one he figured would never sell the old GMC. He died happy because of you, I think.”

He’d answer her, “I suspect he knew I was either too young to know any better or just plain too damn dumb to do anything about it.”

The biggest problem with the old truck was because of its low range of gears, was it was slow. The most speed running up the road toward the wreck averaged fifty miles per hour with the engine winding pretty high.

Years ago, Katy, when her father wasn’t watching, had painted large black flowers with yellow petals on each door. “Black-eyed Susan, the state flower of Maryland,” Katy had explained. She had danced about, paintbrush in hand, singing,

“Clap your hand, Black Eye Susan,

Black Eye Susan, Clap your hand.”

They pulled the truck from the weeds which had grown around it in the last month. Tench stretched back on his part of the bench seat as Smiley worked the gears. He had a knack for driving the truck.

A winding country road to the north and west of River Sunday led to Strake’s estate. The only way to get to that road was to come off the main highway and to drive through River Sunday itself. Tench and the rest of the inhabitants of River Sunday observed every truck that went up to the Strake farm. It got to be a subject of conversation as the big trucks with containers full of antique cars came through, the smoke from their diesels dirtying the air of the town, the noise not appreciated by the hordes of tourists who came to this once pristine small town to get away from that kind of pollution.

After leaving River Sunday, the road was macadam most of the way but turned into a dirt and oil road about halfway. The farm and its museum were on the west side of Allingham Island, the “Island,” which was reached by a narrow bridge off the dirt road. This was the place where Tench had supposed for some time that one of the big trucks might have an accident. The bridge itself was derelict, having been almost replaced by another large landowner on the Island but then, at his untimely demise several years ago, was left to continue to rust and collapse. Strake however had no intention or so it seemed to repair this entry bridge to his holdings, probably again thinking of security for his cars. Stagmatter, with his customary brusqueness, ordered these city truckers to go fast, to haul the containers over the weak structure regardless of danger to them or their trucks.

The drivers, for their own part, didn’t take any care either. The drivers were brusque types, most wanting only to deliver the cars and make an immediate return to Baltimore. As a matter of fact, they tended to run their trucks at high speed. They blared their truck horns as loud as possible with no interference by Sheriff Satter as they scared local drivers out of their way.

After they had driven out of River Sunday, Smiley spoke. “We make any money out of working these jobs for the sheriff?” he said.

“Figuring it’s Strake’s truck, we’ll get paid good,” said Tench. “If it had belonged to the town, forget it. If we got paid at all, we’d have to wait a few months.”

“I thought the Mayor was your aunt.”

“I love my aunt, but I can tell you I pay when we go out to dinner.”

Smiley was quiet for a while as he worked the gears. They had to be shifted constantly to keep forward speed.

“Katy tell you I want to drive your dragster?”

Tench said, “You sure Kate wants you driving?”

“Shit man, she don’t say what I do.”

Tench smiled. “We got those disc brakes installed to slow her down. Still, you got to hold her straight.”

“Man can press as much as I can, you bet I can handle it.” They drove in silence for a few miles until Smiley motioned ahead where the wrecked container truck was coming into view.

“Boy, he really smashed, didn’t he?” said Tench.

He left Smiley with the GMC and reported to the Sheriff who, in his gray outfit was directing, more like yelling, at the impatient drivers who were lined up back almost a half mile waiting to get on to the Island. Tench had no idea how many had to halt on the other side of the Nanticoke River waiting to drive across in the opposite direction. The truck driver sat beside the road, his face in his hands, the Sheriff standing next to him.

Satter said, “Tench, I want you to pull the trailer out soon’s Mister Stagmatter get offs his freight.” The iron support bars of the bridge, as rusty and worn as they were, had collapsed around the top of the trailer creating an inextricable maze of bent spars infested with bits of torn canvas.

“Let’s start pulling the truck now.”

“I’ve got my orders. He’ll get the freight free first and then you can tow away the truck.”

Stagmatter who stood at the side of the wreck was directing the services of a self-propelled crane which had arrived just before Tench arrived. The overseer seemed concerned with the cargo and his African crew retrieved large wooden boxes once stored under the trailer tarpaulin. They lifted each and placed it on the green Strake farm trucks. At Stagmatter’s side, checking off on a clipboard what was apparently a freight manifest, stood Marengo, his face unusually worried.

The last box had been damaged by the girder of the bridge and had split open. Tench pointed to shiny flat sheets of aluminum which were exposed to the sunlight.

“What in hell?” he asked Smiley.

Just then, Marengo jumped up on the deck of the crane and ordered two of the Africans to rush some plywood sheets to recover the metal in the box. The men hustled the big sheets of wood upward and using hammers and nails, the aluminum was quickly covered from sight.

“Big cars,” said Smiley.

“Yeah,” agreed Tench. “Not like the panels of any car I’ve ever seen.”

“Me either,” said Smiley. “Anyway, the truck is clear. We better get started.” He reached forward, started the truck engine and put the transmission in gear.

Smiley moved the GMC closer. The crane was pulled off to the side of the road and Satter and his men allowed some of the waiting traffic to pass by the wreck. Stagmatter drove off with the last carton, saying nothing more to Satter.

Tench and Sheriff Satter conferred on the best procedures to free the truck wreck. The GMC was attached to the trailer. Air pressure in the trailer tires was reduced and the driver was ordered to run his tractor in reverse as Smiley pulled backward. Smiley revved the GMC and with a slight hesitation the trailer broke loose bringing one of the rusted bridge struts with it. The strut itself then fell off and tumbled into the Nanticoke River while the trailer, its rear-most carriage almost toppling off the road and into the water, finally caught on the edge of the highway and was pulled by the GMC towards Tench. After it was fully back on the blacktop, Smiley eased off.

When they were finished and traffic was running smoothly, Tench decided to take the invoice directly to Stagmatter. He thought he might get paid a little quicker than sending it by mail. The afternoon was well along when he and Smiley drove up to the farm gate. He was surprised to find Doctor Owerri standing near the gate with one of the Africans who was apparently the gate guard. She was taking pictures of the gate ironwork. The guard held up his hand and Tench pulled over the GMC. While Smiley waited, the big engine rumbling, he got out and went over to where the doctor and guard were standing.

“Admiring some of our colonial architecture?” asked Tench with a grin.

“Your colonial architecture?” she asked coldly.

“I meant Mister Strake’s,” said Tench, smiling.

Doctor Owerri studied the gate design for a few minutes. Then she laughed and said, pointing to the metal work, “These magnolia leaves you call them. They are not leaves.”

“What do you mean?”

“They represent palm nuts from the palm specie
elaeis guineensis
. They are the kind growing in West Africa, the kind giving Africans our life.”

“They’ve always been called magnolia leaves,” said Tench.

She smiled as if Tench was the most ignorant man on the planet. “Count them. What you call leaves are sixteen nuts. Eshu, our legendary trickster, was given sixteen nuts by the monkeys.”

“The trickster?”

“In my country the trickster is one of our old gods, before the Christians came and taught us, a god who communicated between the people and the highest gods.”

“Like the angels?”

“Something like them but our trickster liked his women too,” she said and smiled. She went on, “This iron work on the gate is like the man who throws out a bottle on the ocean, asking to be saved from his desert island. I am so sure the man who made this fence was also pleading for help, telling me three hundred years ago he wanted to be free. Most important he fooled his masters while he hammered this message in the iron he welded.”

She moved her fingers across the iron designs. “Here is a flower shape.”

“The pineapple leaves, I was told.”

“It is the bloom of the flower of freedom. You call it the black-eyed Susan, I believe.”

She stood back from the ironwork and motioned to the guard. "Let them in." she said.

He and Smiley revved the truck and drove past her. As they came up to the house Tench noted the old mansion with its huge side porch pointing out toward the far away shoreline. The car museum was to the side of Tench’s truck as he came in the driveway. The building was square and at least a hundred feet on each side. Garage doors were on the front side towards the Bay which allowed the cars to be brought in for storage. A stairway connected to the side of the building which led to offices on the second floor.

“Strake is bringing in his gasoline,” said Smiley. He pointed to the two large tanker trucks pumping into filler pipes near the mansion.

“Nothing special about it. Most of these farms have their own underground fuel tanks for farm equipment,” he said.

Tench said, “Two tankers. Fills a lot of farm equipment.”

Smiley said, “Maybe some for the cars too.”

“Lot of cars. I guess you’re right,” agreed Tench. “Anyway, it’s none of our business how much gas he keeps up here.”

Between the mansion and the museum was an area Strake apparently cleared for a new building. A bulldozer rested, silent, its blade in the ground, ready to work on more construction. Behind the mansion was a long structure, perhaps three hundred feet, reached by a small gravel path going off from the main farm road. “I’m going to get our money.” Tench left Smiley in the truck and went up the stairs where he assumed Stagmatter’s office was located. A door at the top of the stairway opened into a space with desks and a door on its rear wall which was closed. Marengo sat at a metal desk covered with invoices and bill of lading. Seeing Tench he stood up.

He said. “I see you at the bridge. You did a good job.”

Stagmatter called out through the closed door at the back. “Send Tench in here.”

When Tench opened the office door and entered, Stagmatter sat behind a large mahogany desk covered with papers and cash journals. “Close my door behind you,” he said. Tench complied and sat down. He reached over to Stagmatter’s desk and plopped the invoice down, saying, “Just delivering your bill.”

Stagmatter said, “I’m sure it’s a fair price.”

“We value your business,” said Tench.

“Good,” said Stagmatter, picking up a large commercial checkbook. He began to write a check.

“Haven’t seem Mister Strake today,” said Tench.

“Even when he’s home, he spends most of his time at his own office up at the mansion. I just take care of the cars.”

“Those car parts we rescued on the bridge seemed like they were for some really big automobiles.”