by Jean Rabe
She shook her head. “I do, but just take the book. Both of the books. Look through them. You’ll understand the boys better. But I want them back, you understand.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He took the albums and she placed the little sack with the cameo in it on top. “I’ll be careful with them. And I’ll try to get to know the boys better.”
“They were rascals,” she said. “All boys are.”
26
Twenty-Six
The coroner said she’d be a half hour.
Piper said she’d wait for her. Couldn’t leave the house, she knew, disrespectful to Mark, and the door was open because she’d broken it. Couldn’t have people wander in and steal something. Would have to get the door nailed shut or repaired, maybe replaced. Something, she thought, something needed to be done. What was the protocol for this?
She’d had enough of the alarm, so she retraced her steps to the front door and put in the code Sylvia D had supplied. Blessedly, it stopped.
Piper took a look around, anything to pass the time until Dr. Annie Neufeld arrived—anything other than sitting and staring at a dead man who’d expected her to “fix this.” She knew not to touch anything, not until she got a search warrant.
The entryway was boxy and the walls were painted slate gray over a stomp-knockdown texture. It was striking, and Piper thought if she really was going to repaint her apartment—put off moving—she might try something similar. To her left was a dining room dominated by an oval walnut table that gleamed in the light coming in through the front window. It was an antique, made to look like its carved thick center post was a tree trunk, four roots spreading away to give it balance. Five straight-backed padded chairs sat around it. The china cabinet was also walnut and no doubt equally old, with beveled glass doors behind which gold-accented dishes and cups with pale flowers were displayed. She suspected no one had eaten off those plates in more than a few years. The walls had more knockdown, but a different pattern, and were a caramel-brown. A massive grandfather clock was near the china cabinet, and the wall across from the window was filled with pictures of various sizes.
Most of them were old black and whites, of ships and Navy men. Piper looked close and saw Mark Thresher in a few, as a young man, and later in his thirties and forties in color and with medals on his uniform. He’d mentioned serving thirty years, getting out at age forty-seven and buying a farm. There were photographs of Mark on a tractor, a white dog in his lap; she guessed he was in his mid- to late fifties. Another photograph showed him and a stocky woman with a heart-shaped face in wedding clothes. The woman was in a few other pictures, too. No children in any of the pictures.
Mark had said he’d no family left, but Piper would look through his computer after she got that warrant. He was in the genealogy club, so his spreadsheet might reveal some living relatives somewhere down the line.
She padded through another doorway into a living room painted off-white and speckled like sand. Pretty, she thought. No antiques here, not much furniture. There was a brown L-shaped leather couch with a black throw on half of it—lots of golden dog hair showing on the throw, and a big matching ottoman that was roughly two and a half feet square. Two remotes were on the center of it. A flat screen television hung on the wall, had to be sixty-five or seventy inches wide. On a long cabinet beneath it were DVD and VHS players and stereo speakers. She suspected the movies were inside the cabinet.
The tour was telling her quite a bit about Mark. That when he sold his farm, despite his advanced age he opted for a nice house with nice things, that he didn’t like clutter, and that either he cleaned often or he had a maid come in. She didn’t see dust anywhere, just traces of golden retriever hair.
There was a fireplace behind the couch, free-standing and double-sided so it could heat the living room and the kitchen. Gas burning. He probably didn’t want the mess of wood and ashes. Beyond it was the kitchen, painted the same caramel as the dining room, the walls smooth and interrupted by a big dog door that led to the backyard.
Piper continued her tour and looked at a clock above the sink. She had another fifteen minutes before the coroner was expected.
The appliances were stainless steel and included a double-refrigerator and a six-burner gas stove she thought Nang would envy. The center island had only one stool against it, and next to that was a rug with dishes for the dog and cat and one of those automatic water bowls with a two-liter bottle on top. A small acrylic table with two chairs was in an alcove ringed by narrow windows. Fresh flowers—daffodils, iris, tulips—were in a vase in the middle of the table. She saw a sprawling flowerbed out the windows filled with tulips and daffodils. Mark must have recently picked some for the vase.
A doorway off the kitchen led to a laundry room with a matching Samsung washer and dryer in bright red enamel.
Everything spotless.
Retracing her steps to the living room, Piper saw a stairway leading down, a chairlift at the top so Mark could ride and not deal with the steps.
“C’mon, Annie,” Piper whispered, trying to will the coroner to appear. She headed back to the hallway and looked in the spare bedroom. It had a daybed with dog toys scattered on it. And there was a carpet-covered cat gymnasium—for lack of any other word to describe it. There were scratching posts and perches at four levels, ropes hanging down with bells and rings on them, a box-like thing at the top with a hole in it. Cat toys were stowed in a wooden bin against the base, Marmalade painted on the side. Dog toys overflowed a larger bin that read Camaro. He’d spared no expense on his clearly beloved pets and had given them their own room.
What would happen to them now, she wondered. The dog looked old, and old dogs didn’t always find their way out of animal shelters. Maybe she’d get her dad to take Camaro, give Wrinkles a little company. The cat? Oren had taken in cats from a crime scene a couple of months ago, but he’d said he was at his limit with three.
“I’ll take you, Marmalade,” Piper said. “For as long as I stay in Spencer County.” A cat could do well in her above-the-garage apartment.
She passed by the den, noting the dog and cat hadn’t moved. At the end of the hall was a bathroom done in a gray-blue like one of the shades she was considering for her apartment. No tub, but a narrow shower. Only a hand towel at the sink. He probably didn’t use this bathroom.
Next to it was a door that opened into Mark’s bedroom. It appeared huge because there was only a single bed and a small straight-backed chair that looked like it went with the dining room table. The walls were a knockdown gray like the entryway, a few large photographs on them—all of the same kind of shark, a species with a tail about as long as its body.
“Thresher for a Thresher,” Piper said.
A shelf near another door held a model of a ship, USS Bremerton in small letters on the side, a photograph of an old woman in a wheelchair with stuffed monkeys on her lap, and next to it a large stuffed orangutan. She remembered Mark talking to his tutor at the old fart’s club.
“They called her the monkey woman,” Mark had told the girl. His long index finger had tapped a name on the screen. “Because she had this box of stuffed animals, most of them monkeys. She had a big stuffed orangutan, her favorite, called it Clementine.”
“Hello, Clementine,” Piper said to the toy.
The woman in the wheelchair was an aged version of the woman in the pictures in the dining room. Mark’s wife, the monkey woman. Piper cried again and went through a doorway to find a big closet lined in cedar. It was only a third of the way filled with clothes, though there were quite a few boxes. Across from it was an impressive bathroom with a walk-in whirlpool tub, like in those commercials for seniors who want to “live independently.” Near it was a spa-like shower, and double sinks.
At least he got to live in an amazing house for a few years, she thought. She brushed the tears off her cheeks. “And he didn’t have to go in a damn nursing home.” She padded back to the den, sat at the desk, and looked at the old man.
“I am going to fix this,” she said. “I am going to find who robbed you. I promise. And I’ll throw them in jail for a long while.”
The dog looked up and wagged its tail.
27
Twenty-Seven
“Sheriff Blackwell!”
“Finally,” Piper said. “In here, Dr. Neufeld.”
“Shit,” the coroner said when she saw the body. “I knew him.”
“I think a lot of people did.”
“Did you call the shelter?”
Piper shook her head and reached for her cell phone, punched her dad’s number. He picked up on the first ring. “Back from Owensboro?” She listened as he rattled off what he’d bought and about his quick visit with Chief Hugh of the Rockport police.
“Dad, can you come out to Mr. Thresher’s? In Hatfield? I’ll help you paint the garage later. I need you to take his dog and cat. They’re going to be staying with us. At least for a while. Mark Thresher died, Dad.”
Maybe Mark the Shark had a will that specified who should take the pets. She wasn’t going to let them go to the animal shelter. To Dr. Neufeld, “He’ll probably speed to get here. He’s bored in retirement. And he’s pissed off because we had a little vandalism.”
The coroner stood in front of the dead man. “I suspect your father won’t be retired long. Santa Claus’ police chief announced his retirement, and they posted an advertisement yesterday afternoon. It was on the radio. They might promote from within, but—”
“Shit,” Piper said. If her dad applied, they’d hand him the job. No one in the county—except Oren and maybe the Rockport police chief—had more law enforcement experience than Paul Blackwell. “Shit and two is four and four is eight.”
“Yep, he won’t be retired long,” Dr. Neufeld repeated.
Piper figured she should be happy that he’d have something to do. But if he went after the Santa Claus post and got it, he wouldn’t be interested in the Spencer County Sheriff’s office when her term ended. He’d stay in Santa Claus until he retired, and he’d be near his beloved Christmas store. Paul Blackwell had been a great sheriff; it fit him. Maybe the police chief job would fit him just as well. Fifty-five? Healthy again? He needed to do something, she realized.
She picked up the cat with her good arm and carried it to the spare bedroom. The dog followed unbidden. She shut them inside and returned to the den. Piper called JJ and told her to go to court, find a judge, and get a search warrant for Thresher’s home so they could look for a will and a list of relatives.
“Get one for the safety deposit box, too,” the coroner cut in. “Get ‘em both at the same time.”
“Good idea.” She amended her request. “And do it quick, JJ. I don’t want to sit here all day. Call me when you have it.” To the coroner, “Sorry to bring you out for this, ninety-four years old, natural causes. But I didn’t have an option. It’s required.”
Thresher’s police scanner crackled behind her, something about a three-car accident near Lake Rudolf Campground.
“Car keys in his hand like that, he’d been getting ready to go meet me in the park this morning.”
“Hand clenched and fingers snagged in the neckline of his shirt, probably a heart attack. See, his index fingers caught here behind the fabric. That’s why his hand held, it’s not rigor. Sudden cardiac death, but I won’t know until I autopsy him. A good run, he had,” Dr. Neufeld said. “He had a damn good run.”
“I wish he could have run a little while longer,” Piper said. “Someone had been draining his bank accounts, and I’d promised to fix it, to catch the thief. If he’d only run just a little while longer—” Long enough to see her arrest his villain. “Autopsy? Aren’t you going to take him straight to a funeral home? I had to call you, but do you really have to cut him up?”
“Wish I didn’t have to, Sheriff.” She took out her phone and took some pictures, touched his forehead, bent over, and looked into his eyes. “Like I said, no signs of rigor yet, still feels warm. He’s been dead less than three hours. He’s an unattended death, not in a hospital or nursing home, so an autopsy is required. Hate to cut him open, but that’s the way of Indiana law.”
“I understand.” Piper did understand, having studied way the hell too much of the state’s laws for the Plainfield Sheriff’s Exam. Still, she thought that because of his age it might not apply. “I’m going outside to wait for my dad.”
“I’ll go with you and get the gurney. You can help me take him out of here. I’ll do the lifting.” Dr. Neufeld paused. “Heard you got shot. Oren said it was the Mailbox Mauler.”
“Yeah.”
“Good thing she didn’t kill you. I’d be cutting you open, too.”
When they were finished with the old man, Piper and Dr. Neufeld returned to the den, the latter with a clipboard. She talked to herself as she filled out an initial report.
“Scene of death: Mark Thresher’s residence in Hatfield, Spencer County.” Her voice was flat. Piper looked over the coroner’s shoulder and read:
—Deceased: Mark Thresher, 94
—Found: sitting in an easy chair in his study, car keys in hand, wearing jacket, likely ready to leave the house
—COD: to be determined, presents as sudden cardiac incident
—No obvious signs of a crime, front door was locked, Sheriff had to break in
—No sign of a struggle, no sign of foul play
—Alerted by: Spencer County Sheriff Piper Blackwell
—Taken to: Morgue, Evansville, Vanderburgh County, IN
—NOK: to be determined
NOK? Piper wondered. Ah, Next of kin.
“I should probably call Oren,” Piper mused, more to herself than to the coroner. “He’d know the protocol here and—”
“I wouldn’t,” Dr. Neufeld said. “Oren’s a good man, and I love him dearly, my best friend. And he’d be happy as a clam at high water if you called and asked him what to do. You don’t need him. And you don’t need to let him know you want advice. I can give you that advice. Listen, my wife—”
“Bebe,” Piper had met her once at a county board meeting.
“Bebe’s an attorney, and she’s come on a couple of calls with me. Here’s the deal. You’ll want to send a deputy around to the neighbors, see if they know any next of kin. If they do, great, call those relatives and get one to come mind this house. If you don’t find one, once you get that search warrant, you can hunt for bills and bank statements. The bank might know next of kin. Because until you get a relative shepherding the house you’ll want to send a deputy past here several times a day. A house? Once people know it’s vacant, well, there are a handful of ne’er-do-wells in the county who’d come poking around, ADT or no.”
“A will might name any relatives. He told me he didn’t have any relatives left, but he might have meant he had none around here. The warrant will let me look for a will.” Piper figured the genealogy file would be better on tracking down any relatives.
“Yep, either here or in his safety deposit box. You should be able to get the name of an attorney who prepared it. Then you call that attorney. If you don’t find a will, you might find an attorney’s business card in his desk or something.”
“I know he had an attorney. He talked about going to meet with one.”
“Good, so you’ll find a name on a business card, in his address book, circled in the Yellow Pages. Something.”
“Something,” Piper said. She was still numb.
Dr. Neufeld continued, “If there’s a will, the attorney needs to know that his client has passed away. Hell, word spreads in this county. The attorney will likely hear about it anyway. Any creditors will have to be dealt with, confirm any debts from the estate, resolve any balance. I’ll post a public notice of death. That usually brings the creditors in. But you won’t need to worry about any of that. Me? I’ll worry about Mr. Thresher. I’ll conduct an autopsy, keep him in storage until someone claims him or his attorney tells us what to do. A will might specify Mr. Thresher’s b
urial or cremation plan.”
“He was a nice man,” Piper said. “And I don’t think he was as crazy as people thought.”
“Weekend on us like this,” Dr. Neufeld said, “and this not a suspicious death, I know I won’t get a slot for the autopsy until Monday sometime.”
Piper rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet. “Oren and I have a couple of interviews Monday for the detective position.”
“Neither one of you need to attend this autopsy,” the coroner said.
“I don’t want to see Mark the Shark sliced open,” Piper admitted.
“You’ll get my report.”
Dr. Neufeld tossed Piper the keys that had dangled from Mark’s fingers. She caught them with her good hand.
“In case you need to get in and out of here once that door’s fixed.”
“Thanks.”
“You good here until your dad comes for the animals?”
“Yeah, and until I get that search warrant. I’m good.” Piper was doubting she’d wait for that warrant.
After the coroner pulled away, Piper went back to the den and starting going through Mark’s desk, the crackle of the scanner keeping her company. Yes, she should have a search warrant in hand, but it would be coming and she needed to do something. She couldn’t just sit.
She should wait, but…
The attorney’s card was the first one in the rolodex. Harlan Cook. She cringed. He had a bad reputation in the department, barely adequate in the courtroom, an ambulance chaser who represented a lot of drunks. Harlan Crook, some called him.
Piper called and got his secretary.
Yes, Harlan was Mark Thresher’s attorney.
Yes, there was a will, recently updated and filed.
But Harlan was out of town today and would not be back until Monday. The secretary assured Piper that Harlan would produce the will and “set things in motion.”