The Sweet Scent of Murder

by Susan P. Baker

  Chapter Sixteen

  Poor Annette wasn’t dead. Yet.

  First, uniformed cops arrived. Then the ambulance. Then Ben. Then, of all people, Lon Tyler. If Ben hadn’t been there, we’d have tangled more than we did.

  I was a mess. There is something about dog blood that unsettles my stomach. After I threw up, I noticed that not only did I have dog blood all over my hands, but when I slipped and fell in it, it covered the knees and backside of my best polyester pants. And when I searched around in my car for my purse for something to wipe my mouth with, I got it on the seat, my purse, and my face. I almost got sick again the next time I saw it in the light when I realized it.

  I was sitting on the floor next to Annette when the paramedics arrived and asked me to step outside, which I did. I had moved to the front stoop when Ben pulled up behind the ambulance.

  “Mavis,” he called. “That you?” Trudging in my direction, his flashlight illuminating my torso, he stopped a few feet away. “What is that on your clothes?”

  “Dog blood. I don’t think any of Annette’s got mixed up in it.”

  “Annette?”

  “The woman inside. The woman I promised to meet at Lana’s and forgot about.” I wasn’t feeling so good about myself right then.

  Lights blazing and siren wailing, a police car came to a screeching halt behind Ben’s. Out jumped Lon, just what I needed, ha.

  “Okay, Davis,” Lon said when he waltzed up like the leader of the promenade, “what did you do now?” He wore a uniform that looked not only like he slept in it but smelled like he pulled it out of the dirty clothes hamper to put it on.

  “Not a damn thing,” I said. That happened to be my problem, but I wasn’t volunteering anything.

  “I heard there was a dead broad inside. You know her?”

  “She’s not dead.” I stood and wiped my sweaty palms on the sides of my pants. “Go inside and see for yourself.”

  “I will. ” Lon trotted around to the back of the house when I pointed that way.

  “He is such a pig,” I said to Ben.

  “I hate to tell you this, honey, but tonight you’d be in a tight contest with him.”

  “I don’t need that. I’ve got to get out of here and go home and get a shower.”

  We stood looking at each other for a few moments. He didn’t act as if he wanted to touch me and I didn’t blame him.

  The front door was thrown open and a paramedic backed out, pulling a gurney, bumping the screen door wide with his butt. When he and his female partner got Annette positioned on the porch, they lifted the gurney and carried her down the steps to the yard where they rolled her to the ambulance.

  The lights lit up the house, followed by a patrolman coming from the other side and mumbling something about the breaker.

  “Did you mess with the crime scene?” Lon stood in the doorway with his hands on his meaty hips.

  I looked from Annette on the gurney to Lon. “Moi?”

  “Yes, you. There’s blood and smeared footprints everywhere, especially in the kitchen.”

  “Not intentionally. It was dark. I fell. After the paramedics came, I washed myself off with water and paper towels at the kitchen sink.”

  “And obscured the evidence.”

  I hadn’t even known he knew that word. “I said it wasn’t intentional.”

  “Sometimes you are so—”

  “That’s enough, Lon,” Ben said.

  “This isn’t any of your business, Sergeant. What are you doing here anyway? This has nothing to do with narcotics.” Ben’s face indicated that he was not at all pleased with Lon. “I’m making it my business. And you’re not going to talk to Miss Davis that way.”

  “Miss Davis—” Lon’s tone left something to be desired.

  I said in a subdued tone, “You don’t have to take care of me, Ben.”

  “Keep out of this, Mavis. I’m taking her home, Lon. She’ll come down in the morning and make a statement.”

  “She’ll go down and make it now,” Lon said.

  “I already cleared it with your captain,” Ben said. “Come on, Mavis.”

  We headed for the sidewalk.

  “I hope that’s true, Sergeant,” Lon called after us.

  Ben said, “One of these days that guy is going to push me too far.”

  By that time, we were at the sidewalk and Lon couldn’t have heard us. “I’m glad I’m not the only one who finds him annoying.”

  “Let’s go in my car. I’ll bring you back to yours tomorrow,” Ben said.

  I shook my head. “I appreciate it, but I just want to get a shower and get in bed. But thanks for getting me away from Lon. I know I can’t hug you or anything because of the blood, but thanks, Ben.” I backed toward my car. “Don’t be angry.”

  He smiled. “Guess I really didn’t want you sitting on my upholstery anyway. Talk to you tomorrow?”

  I nodded and headed for home.

  My head hit the pillow well past the witching hour and, even though I was bushed, I couldn’t do anything but stare at the ceiling in the dark, angry. Someone was jacking with me, and I didn’t like it. I was sure it wasn’t only the police. I suspected everyone with whom I’d come into contact. The whole setup, at the cabin and at Annette’s, was one of the screwiest things I’d ever encountered and the people were some of the strangest. If being rich made a person weird, they could have it.

  I must have finally drifted off, because the next thing I knew, I awoke to the ringing of the telephone. I found it and put it to my ear. The clock’s little hand was on the two and the big one on the six.

  “Miss Davis?” a voice I was too sleepy to identify said. “Who is it?” I muttered.

  “Are you awake?”

  “Am now. Who is this? What do you want in the middle of the night?”

  “It’s Tommy Lawson. I need to talk to you.”

  Nothing like a shock to make one immediately alert. “Where are you?”

  “I’ll tell you that in a minute if you’ll say you’ll come and get us.”

  “Sure. Are you okay? Is Jeanine all right?”

  “We’re fine, but we want to see you as soon as possible. It’s very important.”

  “Okay, but where?”

  “Huntsville State Park. Right at the Sam Houston National Forest.”

  “Ugh.”

  “I know it’s a long drive, Miss Davis, but please—”

  “I’ll come. Let me turn on the light and find something to write with—hold on.” I scrambled around and found the stub of a pencil and an empty utility bill envelope. “Tell me how to find you when I get there.”

  “We’re at a campsite.” He described how to find their campground.

  “Who else is there?”

  “Father.”

  “Arthur Woodridge?”

  “Yes, our father.”

  “Has he hurt you?”

  “I can’t talk any more right now, Miss Davis. I don’t have enough change and our cell phones won’t work. Just come, right away, and make sure you aren’t followed,” he said and hung up.

  That last line was getting old. I wasn’t exactly jumping for joy at the prospect of meeting Arthur Woodridge in the dark. I pulled on a pair of jeans, a shirt, tennis shoes, and grabbed my purse, which held my gun. I brushed my hair, ran a wet washcloth over my face, and was on my way, praying my sweet little Mustang would make it there.

  If I thought Interstate 45 was dark in the middle of the night, it was nothing compared to the piney woods of Huntsville State Park. Some hour and a few minutes after Tommy’s phone call, I arrived. Not knowing what the setup was, I didn’t park where Tommy instructed me to. Instead, I cut my lights early and left the car near the main park road and walked, my gun drawn but down at my side so that it wouldn’t be obvious.

  The night noises again were loud. They brought back memories of camping when I was a youngster and how in the middle of the night when I had to pee I’d be scared something was going to eat me but had to g
o so bad that I’d brave the critters and make a run for the restrooms and showers. None of my brothers and sisters ever had to go in the middle of the night. When I’d wake them up to go with me, they’d threaten to kill me if I didn’t shut up and go alone. When I couldn’t hold it much longer, I would.

  I never liked camping much. I didn’t like sneaking about in the forest now, sure there was a bear hiding behind every tree and a snake hanging down from each branch, its fangs waiting to clamp shut on my jugular vein. My version of the ideal campsite was a Holiday Inn.

  A lantern glow in the distance guided me. As I grew closer, I spotted the shadow of a tent. As I crept from tree to tree, I felt like one of the wolves in the cartoons. When they stalk their prey, their skinny little bodies tiptoe quickly to hide behind skinny little trees. Not that I could claim to be skinny.

  A concrete picnic table came into view, then the outline of a person sitting on the bench, his back to me. I scurried to the shelter of a large tree. Their car sat several feet beyond the tent. It was Tommy sitting on the bench and a girl was sitting cross-legged on a sleeping bag on the ground. I could hear the soft murmur of their voices. The girl’s laughter tinkled unmistakably in the dark.

  “You won’t need that gun,” a deep voice boomed loudly next to my ear simultaneously with something jabbing me in the back.

  I jumped at least a mile off the ground before a hand quickly closed over mine and took my revolver. “Don’t shoot,” I croaked. “It’s me, Mavis.” When I calmed down sufficiently to recover my wits, I was face-to-face with a man who, in the dark, fit the description of Arthur Woodridge, and I was defenseless.

  He wasn’t pointing my gun at me, though. He shoved it into the waistband of his jeans and took me by the elbow. It was one of the few times in my life that I was rendered speechless. He spoke softly as he escorted me to Tommy and the girl I assumed was Jeanine.

  “I’m not going to hurt you, Miss Davis,” he said, “but I can’t let you go around wielding your gun at us, either.” His voice gentle, his hand on my arm was the same. When we got closer to the light from the lantern, I saw a tall, very thin man with silvery-blond hair. State-issued wire-rimmed glasses framed his pale, washed-out blue eyes. He’d rolled up the sleeves of his blue work shirt; the tail tucked in neatly around his waist. A stereotypical criminal-type, he wasn’t.

  “Is this your Miss Davis, Tommy?”

  Tommy turned toward me and smiled. “Miss Davis, did Father surprise you?” He laughed. “He’s part Indian, you know.”

  The girl laughed then, too. So did I, albeit a bit nervously.

  “I’m glad to see that you kids are all right.” I sat on the bench next to Tommy and gave him a little hug. “You are Jeanine, aren’t you?” I said to the girl.

  “It’s nice to meet you,” she said. She was the spitting image of her mother minus the hard age lines around the mouth and eyes. The yellow hue of the lantern light made her look hardly more than a child.

  “We were so worried about both of you. Your phone calls were so mysterious. Why didn’t you tell Margaret what’s been going on?”

  I glanced from one teenager to the other. There really wasn’t any family resemblance. Tommy had definitely inherited his looks from his father. Both kids wore work shirts and brand-new jeans and tennis shoes. They appeared nothing but healthy and happy, maybe a little tired around the eyes, but after all, it was the middle of the night.

  Tommy laughed again. “I kept running out of change. Besides, I didn’t know if the police were listening in or what, Miss Davis. This thing’s become a big mess.”

  I looked at Mr. Woodridge who stood by the grill and poured what I assumed to be coffee into a cup from a tin pot. “Want some coffee?”

  I shook my head and watched as he sat down on the sleeping bag next to Jeanine and sipped from his mug. I didn’t know what he knew or what he’d done, except that he hadn’t hurt the children. He looked perfectly harmless except for my gun sitting on the ground in front of him.

  “You know your father is dead, don’t you?” I asked. Tommy stared at the ground. “You mean our adopted father,” he said softly.

  “Harrison Lawson is who I mean, and I can tell you already know about it.”

  “We read about it in the papers,” Jeanine said, her voice defensive.

  “Maybe I’d better just be quiet and let the three of you tell me what the heck is going on,” I said, giving each of them a look that would have made Margaret and Candy cringe.

  Jeanine and Tommy exchanged glances with each other and then with Arthur Woodridge.

  “We need you to help clear this thing up, Miss Davis,” Woodridge said.

  “Yeah, the papers say Daddy kidnapped us,” Jeanine said, “but he didn’t. We wanted to come. Didn’t we, Tommy?”

  Tommy said, “I didn’t know, at first, but now I do, Miss Davis. Frankie tried to get me to go see Dad when Jeanine did, but I was—I guess you could say—afraid.”

  I smiled. “I know. Frankie told me.” I looked at Mr. Woodridge. “She also told me she’d been writing to you.”

  “Every week for all those years,” he said. “Since my folks died, hers were the only letters I got.”

  “It must have been hard, being in there all that time.”

  “It was, but it’s behind me now. What I’m worried about is the future.”

  “Yeah,” Jeanine said. “What are we going to do about everyone thinking Daddy killed Mr. Lawson?”

  “I don’t know, Jeanine.” I looked at Woodridge. “I’m not a coffee drinker, but I guess I will take a cup. I need something to keep me awake while we figure out what we’re going to do and get you all back to town.”

  Woodridge set his cup down to get up when suddenly there were some crunching noises, like branches breaking, then a lot of footsteps pounding, and then a voice said, “Hold it right there. Police.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  The next few minutes were like a garbled nightmare. Everything happened at breakneck speed but seemed like slow motion. Terror flashed across Arthur Woodridge’s face. His hand flew toward his waistband and then the ground in front of him.

  An emphatic, male voice said, “Just try it, buster.”

  Woodridge raised his hands into the air. His look at me was one of confusion.

  Jeanine stiffened upright, shock on her face, and glared at me.

  Tommy cut his eyes at me and then shifted his body away. He didn’t say anything but wouldn’t look back at me, either.

  A large number of men in various departmental uniforms converged upon us. Headlights flashed and engines roared as several cars pulled close. It seemed like a war zone.

  Lon Tyler and Captain Milton in plainclothes trudged into the light. A man in a Walker County Sheriff’s uniform strode forward with a shotgun pointed at Arthur Woodridge. He snatched my gun off the ground and handed it to another deputy, then the shotgun, and yanked Woodridge around, cuffing his hands behind his back. Woodridge never spoke. His chin rested on his chest.

  “Thanks, Mavis,” Lon said loudly, sneering at me.

  “How could you?” Jeanine yelled in a strained, hysterical voice. She ran toward her father. Another cop pulled her away.

  I started to go to her, to explain that I didn’t, but Captain Milton grabbed my arm, restraining me. “Not so fast, Mavis. Stay right where you are.”

  “Tommy,” I said, turning to the boy whose back was to me. “I didn’t do it.” I grabbed his forearm, but he jerked it away and walked over to stand next to his sister.

  “Sarah,” Captain Milton yelled. “Come get these kids.” A female police officer appeared from behind Lon and approached the kids. “You’ll have to come with me.” She took Jeanine’s wrist, but Jeanine jerked away.

  “Where are you taking my father?” Jeanine screamed at the deputy who held Woodridge by the elbow.

  “To jail, kid,” Lon said. “Where he belongs.”

  “No.” She broke away from the woman and ran to Woodridge, throwi
ng her arms around him. “He didn’t do anything.”

  The woman followed Jeanine and pulled on her, but Jeanine held on for dear life, crying and saying, “He’s innocent. You have to let him go.”

  Woodridge, his shoulders slumped, his head bowed, murmured something in her ear.

  “Get that kid away from him,” the captain yelled at still another deputy.

  The female officer pulled at one of her hands, a male deputy struggled with the other, then Tommy hurried to them and said, “I’ll get her.” Tommy crooned to her, “Come on, Jeanine. It won’t do any good. Come on. Let go. It’ll be okay; I promise.” Tears streamed down his face, too, and he reached up around her and pulled each of her arms from around their father.

  She threw her arms around her brother, saying, “No,” and sobbing.

  Tommy glanced over her head at Woodridge. “We’ll get help, Father. Don’t worry. We’ll tell them what happened.” Woodridge smiled a melancholy smile. “I know you will, son.”

  The deputy took Woodridge by the arm and led him away. All eyes followed their silhouettes as they trooped toward the headlights.