Mystery Bundle (Saints Preserve Us, Pray For Us Sinners, Murder Most Trivial)

by Leigh Ellwood

  “I’ll tell you, but only if you’ll tell me what you’ve been dipping,” Ronnie wheedled.

  “What? How did you...” Lew dug his tongue into his lower gums and groaned. “Look, it’s only been this one time. It hasn’t been a good day, okay? You’ve had your share, I’m sure you can sympathize.”

  Ronnie traced the rim of her mug with her forefinger. “Since Jim’s death the bad days seemed endless, I suppose.”

  “Quid pro quo, Clarice,” Lew teased with a smirk.

  “I don’t know who tipped me off,” Ronnie returned sweetly. “Gloria relayed a message to me, and I didn’t think to ask who had called her. I just ran out of the building and left some reporter in my office. Right now he’s probably interviewing the entire English department about Lorena’s canonization. Either that, or he’s going through my drawers.”

  They heard a light gasp; Ronnie looked right up into a heart-shaped face tinged with guilt. Loni stood over them, poising a coffee dispenser over Lew’s mug.

  “I’m sorry,” the restaurant owner whispered. “Was I not supposed to say anything? I came in early and saw all the police cars and people heading toward the back. I didn’t even think. I just called the school.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Ronnie told her. One mystery solved, she thought, perhaps two. Now whenever she saw Gloria gabbing carelessly on the phone Ronnie could safely guess that she was on the gossip line, with her ear pinned to Loni’s lips.

  “Speaking of phone calls,” Ronnie tossed away her napkin, “I better call Gina before she hears about this from somebody else.” She brushed a hand against Lew’s shoulder as she scooted out of her chair. “Do I need to call Gina or has that been taken care of, too?” she added more pointedly to Loni.

  “Uh, no, just made the one call.” Loni shuffled meekly behind her station. Lew stifled a chuckle as Ronnie ducked in the back to use her cell phone.

  She emerged several minutes later and asked Lew if he was free for the evening. “Gina wants you over for dinner,” she explained. “Nana will be there, too, along with Father Joel. She’s making a lasagna.”

  “It was supposed to be a celebration dinner,” Ronnie added somberly as Lew accepted the invitation. “All of the proper papers are in order to present to Rome, and Nana and Father Joel were going to leave next week. Don’t think they’ll be doing that now.”

  “Is Gina going to tell them? How did she take it?”

  Ronnie shook her head. “Not too well, but I could tell she was trying to mask the shock. The boys must have been nearby.” Ronnie’s nephews, eleven-year-old Ian and nine-year-old Elliott, were homeschooled by their mother, who normally did not let the phone disturb them during the day. Today, however, she answered on the first ring. Must have taken a short break, Ronnie decided.

  Lew pulled a crumpled a five-dollar bill from his pants pocket and signaled Loni with it. “I never thought I’d be welcome at Gina’s house, considering...”

  “Lew,” Ronnie sighed. “Bill wasn’t even in the picture when you two were dating, and that’s ancient history anyway. I’m sure my brother-in-law isn’t threatened by you.”

  Lew chuckled. “Fair enough. I think I’ll be due for a dinner break in the midst of this new case. What time do they want me?”

  “Come around six, and bring some beer, please?”

  “The Hayes household is still dry, eh?”

  “Like the Sahara. One other thing, she wants that Sanders couple to come, too. Kind of as a combination thank you/apology.” When Lew’s eyebrow shot straight upward in surprise, Ronnie added, “I guess she doesn’t want them to think Ash Lake is full of grave robbers and murderers, you know how she gets. Everybody’s got to have a good impression.”

  Lew nodded. “Yeah, I know. I know also this town isn’t full of murderers and grave robbers, either, and I imagine the Sanderses will have some interesting stories to tell their friends when they get back to Tarpon Springs.”

  “I’ll let them know of Gina’s offer,” he added, accepting his check and leaving a good tip behind for Loni despite her gossipy indiscretions. “It’ll be up to them to decide if they want to stick around.”

  Ronnie smiled sadly. “So you aren’t going to lock them away?”

  “Why bother? They did us a favor breaking into the cemetery. Who knows how long Paul Dix would have remained in that grave before somebody figured it out.” Lew sighed. “Not only that, we may have been given some extra time in finding the perpetrators.”

  He glanced out the picture window beyond the reversed painted-on design of a coffeepot pouring into a white mug. Nearly all traces of the morning’s activity were gone now; only one of Ash Lake’s deputies surveyed the area with a man in a brown suit, a man Lew assumed was the manager of the cemetery.

  “So what happens now?” Ronnie asked.

  “Well, Mr. Dix has been sent to Jacksonville for the autopsy and coroner’s report, so hopefully we’ll have the time of death narrowed down to the hour. I still think it had to have been around the small hours of the morning, and judging from that crusted-over dent on the back of the man’s skull I think we can assume cause of death.”

  “Anything left behind?”

  “Just some trash, which we’re going to analyze. Apparently our men have a taste for Taco Bell.” Lew shook his head, disgusted. “We have the tools from the maintenance shed, too, but my bet is that the killer used his own shovel to do both jobs.”

  Ronnie shuddered as a vision of a blood-soaked shovel blade digging into Lorena’s grave came to mind. “Why would the caretaker be there in the middle of the night? What work is to be done that late that couldn’t wait until morning?”

  Lew fingered the keys to his cruiser. “That’s the next thing on my to-do list, find out why Dix was there and whether or not he might have been involved in Lorena’s disappearance. It’s possible,” he said to Ronnie’s jaw-dropping stare. “He can’t defend himself now. I can’t imagine why else he’d have been there at that time, either.”

  He glanced at his watch. “Now I have to be the bearer of bad news. I wish I knew how Mrs. Dix was doing. She had to have noticed her husband was missing when she woke up this morning.”

  “Yeah.” Ronnie slumped against the table. “I’ve seen Paul Dix around town, he doesn’t appear to be an early morning jogger.” She straightened suddenly. “His wife, hasn’t she been sick?”

  Lew nodded. “Lupus, but from what I hear she’s been in remission.”

  “Ugh. You have no idea who did this?” Ronnie asked. “Who steals a dead body? Why?”

  “I was about to ask you that. Have you or Gina or Miss Julie received any threats lately? Anybody threatening the canonization committee?”

  Ronnie tapped her chin. “I can’t speak for anyone else, but I haven’t heard a peep. I was telling this reporter before I left school that I’m not involved...”

  Her voice trailed into silence as something far away caught her eye. Lew followed her gaze out the window to the light traffic puttering up the street and around the corner. “Go on,” he urged.

  “Oh, hell.”

  “What?” Lew twisted in his chair and followed Ronnie’s gaze out the window. The source of her sudden consternation had just parked his navy blue town car in the last vacant spot in front of the deli and was presently digging into the pocket of his plaid shorts for meter change. Ethan Fontaine then straightened the collar of his powder blue Polo shirt and glanced appreciatively at the shining sun.

  “Maybe he won’t come inside,” Lew offered to Ronnie, hardly sounding hopeful himself.

  “Please,” Ronnie scoffed. “Where else is there for him to go in the square? He won’t be going into the used bookstore next door. I don’t see him carrying any Bible tracts to stuff into the Catholic books and Ellen Degeneres biographies.”

  “Ronnie, he’s not as bad as all that.”

  “Just watch,” Ronnie glowered as the white-haired man pushed into the restaurant and wove through the nearly empty dining are
a to where the two sat.

  “Sheriff, Mrs. Lord.” Ethan’s greeting was civil, yet Ronnie detected a hint of scorn in the older man’s voice. Perhaps it was because Ronnie was in Lew’s company, she thought, that the fundamentalist Christian did not immediately launch into the anti-Catholic rhetoric he normally spewed every time they met. As long as she could remember, Ethan Fontaine had a passionate dislike for her family that was based solely upon their religious affiliation.

  Ethan, she knew, was convinced the Catholic Church was the Whore of Babylon, thereby making the Algers in particular the local spokespeople for the Dark Lord. As much as she tried to let his comments roll off her back, though, Ronnie found it to be a difficult task. Ash Lake was a small town, too small not to avoid the likes of Ethan Fontaine. She hoped the old man had not come by way of the cemetery road. She could only imagine how joyously the slight senior gent would react to the Algers’ misfortune.

  “Mrs. Lord,” he continued with a leer in Ronnie’s direction, “I trust you have received my latest e-mail newsletter? I composed and sent it this morning. Sheriff Caperton, I would be happy to add your address to my subscription list as well.” The old man laid a liver-spotted hand on Lew’s shoulder. Ronnie watched the sheriff’s face for his reaction; he who had been silently chuckling at her discomfort now winced at the touch.

  “It’s nice of you to offer, Mr. Fontaine,” Lew said as he stood and prepared to leave, “but I try to keep my e-mail address for official business only. I don’t have a personal account, else I’d be happy to give it you.”

  “I, on the other hand, haven’t checked my e-mail yet, Mr. Fontaine,” Ronnie added acidly. “Rest assured, though, that when I do I’ll give your message the attention it deserves.” She bolted from her seat and brushed past the puzzled old man out the door before he could quote something from the Old Testament. She met Lew at his cruiser and lingered across from him at the passenger door. The sheriff could no longer contain himself.

  “Now was that so bad?” he laughed.

  “Yes, and if you dare to leave me alone with that man at any time I’ll give him that personal e-mail address you claim doesn’t exist.” Ronnie scowled as she watched Ethan take the table next to the one she and Lew vacated. “You know, you should still be in there, talking to him.”

  “What?” Lew cried. “Ron, let’s not get silly. Just because Ethan Fontaine doesn’t like Catholics doesn’t mean he’d rob Lorena’s grave and kill a man to spite you. He’s got to be pushing eighty, for crying out loud!”

  “He could have hired somebody, Lew.”

  The sheriff shook his head and unlocked the driver side door. “Ron, there’s no sense in accusing everybody in town of this. I’ll find Lorena, don’t worry.”

  Ronnie returned Lew’s assuring smile, but it soon faded into a straight line as he opened the car door. “You’re going to see Mrs. Dix now?” she asked.

  “No sense prolonging it.”

  “Take me with you?” When Lew made no effort to disguise his discomfort, she added,

  “I’ll call Gloria and tell her to leave a note for my students today. They can take the test without me. I want to be there when you tell her, Lew. I’m involved in this now, too. That was my ancestor buried in that grave, and we don’t know where to look for her. Who knows where this will escalate?”

  She pumped the door handle on the passenger side of the cruiser. “Today people are digging up my relatives, tomorrow I could be burying more! Unlock this! I’m coming with you.”

  Lew lumbered into the car and leaned over to pop the lock. “All right, get in,” he wailed. “Just let me do the talking.” He softened a bit as he turned the engine over. “You know, it might do good for Mrs. Dix to see a friendly face.” He patted her knee and shifted the car into reverse.

  Ronnie blushed, and she strapped herself in for the ride. Lew’s touch still lingered. It was not the first time he had complimented her, so why did she suddenly feel so modest?

  Chapter Five

  Ron easily recognized the look on Mrs. Dix’s kindly, aged face. No doubt she had that same expression, a cross between bewilderment and dark foreboding, that horrible day a little over a year ago when Lew appeared at her door, grim-faced and eyes cast downward. The only difference between then and now was that Lew, having come straight to the Lords’s cottage after Jim’s body was removed from the wreck, was spotted with blood. Not his blood, either.

  Ron, I’m sorry... that was all he could get out before Ronnie dissolved into uncontrollable tears. She shook her head as she backed into an end table, trying to sit down on the sofa. Some days when she was missing Jim she could still feel the sting on her left hip where she made impact, a pain to match the one in her heart that would not go away. That Jim died when his cruiser collided with a truck, and not in the line of duty, did little to make Ronnie feel better. Dead was dead, and she would be forever without Jim.

  Elena Dix reacted no differently. Lew was not able to get past “Mrs. Dix,” when the woman clasped a hand to her heart and escaped into her kitchen. “No, not my Paulie,” she repeated with a shaking voice, each time growing louder and more hysterical. Ronnie followed Lew down the darkened hallway of the Dix’s home, passing framed photos offering a timeline of faces from birth to graduation. She felt grateful for having talked Lew into bringing her here. He was going to have a time calming the woman enough to get her to speak coherently.

  “Not my Paulie, no,” Elena was whispering now between hiccoughs as she clutched the folds of her floral print housecoat. Ronnie moved past Lew to where the woman was standing by an oak butcher’s block in the center of the Dix’s spacious kitchen. She ducked slightly underneath a low-hanging pot rack laden with cookware and led Elena toward the breakfast table, which was set by a bright bay window that offered a view of the expansive backyard.

  “Mrs. Dix, I’m so sorry,” Ronnie consoled her. “I know just how you’re feeling, and I really wish there was something I could do to make it go away.” Gently she detailed the circumstances of Paul Dix’s death and clutched the woman even closer as new tears streaked down Elena’s face.

  Ronnie moved to offer the woman a tissue, then realized she had left her purse in the cruiser. She glanced across the kitchen and motioned for Lew to hand over some paper towels. “Can we make you some coffee? Or some tea?” It was a silly thing to ask, Ronnie knew. When she found out about Jim, the last thing she wanted was a drink.

  The drinking came later.

  Elena sniffled and shredded the paper towels handed to her as she scrubbed her face raw. “No,” she cried meekly. “I want Paulie.”

  Ronnie expected that answer. Lew stood awkwardly by the kitchen counter, fingering the morning paper left open to the crossword puzzle. Elena must have been working on it when they arrived, she thought. “Well, I’m going to get you some water for those hiccups, okay? Lew?”

  Lew knelt beside Elena as Ronnie searched cabinets for a juice glass. “I keep some bottled water in the refrigerator. I don’t drink tap,” she heard from behind her. Then, directed to Lew, “How? Why?”

  “Mrs. Dix.” Lew took Elena’s trembling hand in his. Her skin was soft and nearly translucent; heavy blue veins marked a road map of age up her arm. He reiterated the discovery of her husband’s body, how it was believed he had been murdered sometime after midnight, and apologized for not having any more information.

  “Do you have any idea, Mrs. Dix, who could have done this to your husband?”

  Ronnie returned with the water, which Elena gratefully took. After a few generous sips the old woman sighed. “I wasn’t worried I didn’t see him this morning,” she began. Her red-rimmed eyes widened. “I don’t want you to think Paulie and I were having any trouble. It’s just that since I’ve been sick he’s been sleeping in Tom’s old room. Tom’s my oldest.” She directed this comment to Ronnie, as if now realizing they had not met before. “Paulie’s lodge meeting was last night, he’s an Elk, and they usually stay out late. Even so, he alway
s gets up early in the morning.” Her voice broke and new tears rolled down her cheeks. “He doesn’t have an enemy in the world…”

  Ronnie looked from Elena to Lew. She thought she saw him flinch, as he tended to do when something was awry. Why would he have reason to be suspicious? Elena Dix hardly looked the part of a woman who arranged for her husband’s demise. Lew had briefed Ronnie more about the widow’s illness on the drive over, was the caretaker rich in life insurance?

  “Mrs. Dix, do you have any idea why your husband would have been at the cemetery late last night?” Lew asked Elena, who was now shifting nervously in her seat. She looked to Ronnie as if she wanted to explode in a maelstrom of grief; the glass in the old woman’s hand shook violently with the next drink. “Perhaps your husband left something at work, and just happened upon some people making trouble?”