2 Lost Legacy

by Annette Dashofy

  “That’s why I called you.”

  “Pete Adams, are you insinuating I’m old?” Sylvia planted her plump fists against her ample hips.

  “I would never insinuate such a thing. But you’re the biggest local history buff I know.”

  “Bullshit. I am old. That’s why I know my history. I lived it. Let me think. The Miller boys were bachelors. Quite the ladies’ men. Handsome devils, the both of them.”

  Pete wondered about the faraway twinkle in her eyes as she took a seat at his dining room table.

  “It was a tragedy. Rumor has it they got into a fight over a woman.”

  “What woman?”

  Sylvia opened her mouth. Shut it again. Scowled. “There were rumors galore at the time, of course. But I don’t think anyone ever narrowed it down. Anyhow, apparently Vernie shot Denver. Then, when he realized what he’d done, Vernie hanged himself.” Her eyes widened. “It all happened in that barn. The one from yesterday.”

  “That’s why I asked about it. Was there any connection between the Millers and the Engles?”

  Sylvia tapped one finger against the table’s surface. “Well, one of the Engle boys worked as a hand on the farm for several years before this all happened. When the wills were read, there was some sort of dust-up because Vernie and Denver left the farm to him instead of their sister and her family.” Sylvia stopped tapping and shook the finger at Pete. “And their sister happens to be Zoe’s grandma.”

  “Which Engle? James?”

  “I believe so, yes.”

  “Makes you wonder who will get it now. I met Wilford. He doesn’t look well either.”

  “I can’t help you there. I do remember there was an investigation of sorts at the time, although nothing came of it. You should give Warren Froats a call.”

  “Froats?” Pete had replaced the old chief of police almost ten years ago. “Was he chief back then?”

  “Warren was chief when the dinosaurs walked these hills. He’d probably still be chief if his cardiologist hadn’t put his foot down and insisted he retire.” Sylvia’s face pinched into a scowl. “Good thing, too. Everyone loved Warren, but he wasn’t much of a stickler for details, if you know what I mean. I’m not sure how many cases he solved. Mostly I think he just talked folks into forgetting about them.”

  “Yet you think I should speak with him about the investigation into the Miller homicides?”

  She shrugged. “I can promise you one thing. If he did find anything, he’ll still remember it. Nothing wrong with the man’s memory.”

  “Okay.” Pete added a stop at Froats’ house to his itinerary for the day. After his trip to the morgue.

  Sylvia pushed up from her seat with a grunt. “I’d better be going. I imagine you have an autopsy to attend to.”

  Pete stood, careful to keep his weight off the bad ankle without being obvious about it.

  She paused in front of him. “You never said. Do you think there’s a connection between Jim Engle and the Miller brothers’ deaths?”

  “Probably not. I’m just checking all the angles.”

  “All right then.” She made a move toward the door and then hesitated. “And what happened to your leg?”

  “My leg?” Pete straightened, striking the best invincible pose he could.

  “Yes, your leg.” She pointed at his right one. “The one you’re trying hard to pretend doesn’t hurt like the dickens.”

  He eyed her, but gave up the charade. “Injured in the line of duty. I’ll be fine.”

  “Uh-huh. Get the doctor to look at it. And I don’t mean the pathologist.”

  “Yes, Mother,” Pete quipped and then leaned down to plant a kiss on her cheek.

  She opened the door to leave. “Oh. You have more company coming.”

  Damn it. He glanced at the clock on the wall. Eight-fifteen. He needed to be on the road no later than eight-thirty to be in Brunswick by nine. Whoever was paying him a surprise visit this time had better make it quick.

  He looked past Sylvia to see a black sedan parked at the end of his walk. A tall, slender woman wearing her brunette hair in a ponytail was helping an elderly man from the passenger seat.

  Realization hit Pete with the force of a baseball bat.

  No. Not now.

  Sylvia nodded politely to the pair as she ambled down the sidewalk toward her white Ford Escort, showing no signs of recognition. Why would she? She’d never met his sister and father.

  “Hello, Pete,” his sister said as the couple approached his door.

  “Hey, Sis. Hi, Pop.” Pete tried to keep the what-the-hell-are-you-doing-here tone from his voice.

  “Son,” Harry Adams said, beaming. He caught Pete in a hug that forced him to put full weight on his bad ankle. The old man mistook the groan as a result of his embrace and laughed, flexing his muscles. “I still work out in the gym, you know.”

  Nadine deposited a gargantuan purse on one of the kitchen chairs. “Come on, Dad.” She guided him toward the living room. “I think your favorite TV show is on.”

  TV? Pete opened his mouth to protest. How long did they plan on staying? But his sister shot him a look that reminded him of his mother when he’d been in serious trouble as a kid. He closed his mouth.

  Once the old man was settled on the sofa in front of the television, Nadine returned to the kitchen. “We have to talk.”

  No man alive wanted to hear those four words from any woman. “I wish you’d have called first. This isn’t a good time for a visit.”

  “Which is precisely why I didn’t call first. It’s never a good time.”

  “But this really isn’t. I have to be in Brunswick to attend an autopsy in a half hour.”

  “Tough.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me.” Nadine stripped the bright red elastic thing from her hair and made a production of slicking back the few stray wisps before rebinding them. “I’ve been taking care of Dad with virtually no help from you for almost five years now.”

  “You volunteered to take him into your house when they first diagnosed him.”

  “Yes. Because the Alzheimer’s wasn’t that bad yet and I didn’t want to see him put in a home.” She drew a deep breath and blew it out. “I still don’t. But I need some help from you.”

  “I work. You don’t.”

  “I do.” She slammed a fist down on the table. “I work from home.”

  Pete winced. “You know what I mean.”

  “You said exactly what you meant. Your work is more important than mine because you go out into the world and arrest bad guys and all I do is transcribe doctors’ notes.”

  Pete wanted to charge across the room and grab his sister by her shoulders. Shake her. But that would mean putting weight on his ankle. “What do you expect me to do? Quit my job?”

  Nadine stuck her chin out. He remembered this same obstinate pose from when they were kids. One time he’d given in to temptation and belted her. He’d been six. She’d been four. But their dad had made it clear that hitting a girl—any girl, but especially his sister—would not be tolerated.

  “I’m the one who’s quitting,” Nadine said.

  “What?”

  “Okay. Not quitting. I’m taking a vacation.”

  Oh. Were she and Dad headed somewhere and simply dropped in along the way? Was this entire argument over nothing? But somehow, that chin and the look in her eyes...

  “I need a break. You never listen to me when I tell you I need you to take Dad for a weekend every now and then. If you’d even come stay with him for a few hours once a week so I could go shopping. But no. You have your precious job.”

  “Now hold on. I come out to visit every chance I get.”

  “Oh, sure. Once, maybe twice, a month. Never when it’s convenient
. Never with enough advanced warning I could plan to do something while you’re there. Fine. I’ve had all I can take. If I don’t get away for a few weeks, I’m going to...I don’t know. I don’t want to find out.”

  So she and Dad weren’t going on vacation. “What are you getting at?” Pete knew the answer, but hoped—prayed—he was wrong.

  “Dad will stay with you for the next two weeks. Maybe three. I’m going to the ocean to rest and regain my sanity.”

  Damn it. He wasn’t wrong. “Nadine, I can’t take him today—”

  “I’m not asking you. You’d never say ‘Okay, Sis. Sure I’ll take him.’ It’s always ‘Not today.’” Her impersonation of his voice wasn’t particularly flattering. “I’m telling you. This is how it will be. He’s all yours. I have a suitcase of his stuff in my car. You can bring it in. It’s the black one. The other suitcases are mine.”

  He glared at her. She glared back. And he knew damned well, she was not going to back down.

  Nadine hoisted her massive handbag from the chair and thumped it on the table. She flung it open and dug around inside, coming up with a large zippered plastic bag filled with pill bottles. “These are Dad’s meds.”

  Holy shit. There had to be a whole pharmacy in there.

  After more digging, she came up with a sheet of paper, which she shoved at Pete. “This tells you all you need to know. Which pills he gets when. Don’t mix them up or forget.”

  Pete took the paper and unfolded it. “Are these all for his Alzheimer’s?”

  “No. The donepezil is for his dementia. The lisinopril and atenolol are for his heart and blood pressure.” She waved a dismissive hand. “You don’t need to know what they’re all for. Just make certain he takes them on time. And I made sure there’s enough so you won’t have to bother with refills.”

  Pete read down the list of drugs, dosages, and times to a paragraph at the bottom. “What’s this?”

  “Dad needs to keep to a routine as much as possible. That’s his favorite shows, meal times, bath time—”

  “Bath times?”

  “Relax. He can still bathe himself. You just have to remind him to do it.”

  “Great.”

  “And on occasion, he gets rambunctious in the evenings.”

  “Nadine, how am I supposed to conduct police business with Dad around? Take him with me?”

  She shrugged. “Not my problem. For the next month, it’s up to you to work it out.”

  Month? “You said two weeks.”

  “I said maybe three. Maybe even four. My plans are what you call open-ended.” She added arms-crossed-in-front-of-her-chest to the jutted-chin pose.

  Pete knew he didn’t stand a chance. Reining in his anger, he dropped the bag of pharmaceuticals and the note regarding the care and feeding of his father on the table. He flung the door open, and attempted to storm across the porch. The best he could manage was a stomp and a hop. Damned ankle.

  “Why are you limping?” Nadine called after him.

  For a fleeting moment, he pondered playing the pity card. But he’d never used that one before in his life. He wasn’t going to start now. “It’s nothing. I’ll be fine.”

  As he heaved his father’s weathered black bag from Nadine’s trunk, he struggled with the worst part of the situation.

  His sister was absolutely right.

  Pete had largely been avoiding his dad since he’d starting showing the early signs of dementia. Harry Adams had always been a tough old cuss. Take no prisoners. Take even less shit. Seeing the old man deteriorate in bits and pieces had been too hard. When Nadine volunteered to be caregiver, Pete had happily—and gratefully—allowed her to take on the role. He’d never intended to become an absentee son. But his work gave him every opportunity to do just that.

  Now Nadine had thrown down her cards. Pete had no grounds to argue with her.

  When he returned with the bag, Nadine was in the living room kneeling next to their father. She whispered something to him and kissed him on the cheek before rising and bustling past Pete, snatching her purse, and bustling out the door.

  Pete gazed into the other room at the old man who was engrossed in whatever was on the TV. How the hell was he going to manage taking care of his dad while investigating a possible homicide?

  “Hey, Pop,” he called. “Feel like going for a ride?”

  Pete entered the Monongahela County Morgue in the Brunswick Hospital basement exactly fifteen minutes after nine with Harry shuffling alongside him.

  Coroner Franklin Marshall and Forensic Pathologist Lyle “Doc” Abercrombie, both in blue surgical scrubs, stood next to a stainless steel table on which lay James Engle’s body. A short, stocky autopsy tech had already created the Y incision and was cutting through the ribs with a pair of loppers very much like the ones Pete used to prune his shrubs.

  “You’re late,” Franklin said. “And who did you bring with you?”

  Pete introduced his father to the coroner and the pathologist with a cursory mention of a surprise visit before directing Harry to a metal stool on one side of the room.

  “You can sit here, Dad.”

  “Okay. Where are we?”

  “The morgue. I’m observing an autopsy.” Pete had answered the same question at least five times since he parked his car.

  “As long as it isn’t mine.” Harry winked at him. At least the old man’s sense of humor was still intact.

  “Stay here. And don’t touch anything.” Pete wasn’t much concerned about his father contaminating anything. But he knew the condition of some of the bodies in this place. God only knew what diseases some of those stiffs carried.

  “He can watch if he wants,” Franklin said.

  “Thanks, but he’s fine where he is.” Pete didn’t care to explain that he hadn’t brought his father along because he was interested in his son’s work, but because he hadn’t had time to find someone to sit with the old man.

  The tech set the loppers aside and lifted the sternum with portions of the ribs attached away from the chest, as though removing a lid from a box.

  Franklin picked up a camera and snapped some shots of the chest cavity before the tech made a few snips and removed the heart. He set it in a scale, the way ladies at the market used to weigh their produce. Doc Abercrombie stepped in and moved the organ to a cutting board on an adjacent stainless steel counter where he used a scalpel to slice some tissue samples. As he worked, the pathologist mumbled notes into a recorder.

  “I thought Detective Baronick would be here as well,” Franklin said, his voice low.

  “He’s at the victim’s house again this morning.” Searching for whatever had the surviving Engle so spooked. “Did I miss anything here?” Pete asked.

  “Nothing unexpected. Petechial hemorrhages indicate asphyxiation. The bruising on the neck is consistent with hanging by rope. The ligature marks slant upward from left to right.”

  “So no indication he had assistance?”

  “None yet. It’ll be at least a week or so before we get the tox screens back. Of course, with advanced lung cancer, I’d expect a high level of morphine in his blood.”

  “Time of death?”

  “Considering the temperature in that barn and the rate of decay, I’d say our victim had been dead a couple of days before they found him.”

  The pathologist bent over the body, peering into the open chest cavity. “Gentlemen, I think we have a problem.”

  Pete and Franklin moved closer. With the victim’s heart out of the way, they had a clear view of the lungs.

  Abercrombie made a few cuts with his scalpel and lifted one of them out of the body.

  Franklin squinted, removed his glasses to wipe his eyes, and put them on again. “Well, I’ll be damned.”

  Whatever fascinated the two death
experts eluded Pete. “What am I looking at?”

  Franklin scratched his head. “Didn’t you say this man was dying of lung cancer?”

  “Yes. His brother said he only had days or weeks to live.”

  The pathologist gave a short laugh.

  Franklin pointed to the mound in Abercrombie’s hands. “Chief, this is one of the healthiest-looking lungs I’ve ever had the pleasure to autopsy.” He motioned to Engle’s chest cavity. “And from what I can tell, that one’s a perfect match.”

  Pete looked at Franklin for some sign the coroner was joking, but found none.

  Doc Abercrombie nodded his agreement. “I’m going to run further tests, of course. But from what I see here, this man did not have lung cancer.”

  Pete stepped back and winced when his ankle reminded him of its presence. With a swarm of questions buzzing in his brain like angry bees, he turned away from the body. No lung cancer? What was going on? Both Carl Loomis and Wilford Engle had told him of the diagnosis. Had they both lied? Had James Engle lied to them? Or had Wilford Engle lied to his brother’s farm worker to cover up a murder?

  Pete blinked away the litany of questions when a new one overpowered them. Across the room sat an empty stool.

  Where the hell had his father gone?

  Five

  Zoe often threatened to hang a thermometer in the hay mow, but figured she didn’t really want to know how hot it was. Sweat, mingled with chaff and dust, trickled down her back. She squirmed against the itchy stuff sticking to her skin under her shirt.

  “Hold up down there,” Patsy shouted over the racket of the hay elevator to Mr. Kroll and Tom, who were unloading the wagon parked in the indoor riding arena and tossing bales onto the contraption.

  Patsy played catch at the top, handing the forty-pound bales to Zoe, who stacked them in the loft above the stalls that flanked the arena on the two long walls of the barn. In her effort to position the bales in the perfect pattern—fit the most hay in the cramped space without having the whole darned thing come crashing down like a house of cards—she’d fallen behind the pace. At the moment, Patsy had half a dozen bales at her feet waiting for Zoe.