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

by Leigh Ellwood

  “And it’s not going to be a lot of money,” Nana insisted. “Only five thousand dollars, I was thinking.”

  “Five thous-” Arthur gasped, and Ronnie thought the man’s eyes would bug out of his head like that of a cartoon character. Five thousand dollars was not much for the Algers to miss, Ronnie knew; then again, the reason the Algers had quite a lot of money was likely because Arthur was loath to spend it. “He pinches pennies so hard he leaves scars on Lincoln’s cheek,” she had heard Nana quip more than once.

  “Arthur, stop yelling,” the old woman scolded.

  “I will not, Mother,” Arthur’s face was reddening with rage. “I will not allow you to waste good money on a dead girl’s body. That’s not why Dad worked all those years.”

  Nana stiffened, and instinctively Ronnie scooted her chair back to avoid any coming backlash. Her grandmother may have been old, but her temper belied her age. Nana could explode with all the power of TNT.

  “That dead girl is family, Arthur,” she said coldly, “and if you ask me five thousand dollars is a mere drop in the bucket compared to what she’s really worth. I suspect if your father were still alive he would agree about setting up a reward.”

  Arthur threw up his hands. “Mother, I know how you feel about Lorena, and I know how important this canonization business is to you and the church, but honestly I don’t see the point in taking this kind of action. Let the police do their job.”

  “Because they’ll do it for no extra charge,” Ronnie finished his thought with a wry smile.

  “Because they know what they’re doing, and because the whole town doesn’t need to know how much money we have.” Arthur opened the refrigerator for a canned soda. “You do this, and every nut in the state will be calling to get their hands on the money. Somebody might even try to break into the house, thinking the money’s laying around here somewhere in tens and twenties. Forget it.” With that, he stormed out of the kitchen, with a finality that told his mother the case was closed.

  Nana, however, proved to be as stubborn as her son. “Never mind him,” she told Ronnie, pinching crumbs from her slice of cake. “Not all of my accounts are joint. I can get the five thousand on my own. Now,” she folded her hands, “how do we proceed?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never done this before,” Ronnie admitted. “I guess we can call the paper, maybe work something out with the police so they can be sure all leads are legit.”

  Nana scratched her chin. “You don’t suppose that Chet person would write up something for us, do you?”

  “That Chet person would give you a full page ad if he could,” Ronnie mumbled. Thinking a moment, she added, “Who else knows about this idea?”

  “Father Joel, for one. I called him at the church office. Oh, and I talked to Lew, but he already knew about it after talking to you.” Nana cocked her head toward Arthur’s room. “Then there’s him.”

  “Yeah, Lew and I were at the deli when I checked my messages, which means everyone there probably knows.” Which means the person who had leaked the earlier information about the case to Chet Hoskins would probably do the same with news of the reward.

  “Should I call the newspaper tomorrow morning?” Nana asked.

  “Don’t bother. It’ll probably be in the morning edition.”

  ~ * ~

  Not quite.

  Tuesday’s Jacksonville Journal was free of Lorena Alger-related news, though interest in the case had yet to wane if Chet Hoskins’s determination was any indication. His early morning phone call roused Ronnie from her sleep.

  “Who’s dead?” Being in a semi-conscious state, the crudeness of her greeting did not register.

  “Well, for one I’m glad to hear it’s not you. Good morning, Professor Lord,” Chet Hoskins’s cheery voice tickled Ronnie’s ear, and she groaned. Above her, Ian and Elliott clomped down to breakfast before beginning their day of homeschooling. Since she did not work on Tuesday, Gina would likely request her presence for a lesson or two.

  “What do you want?” Ronnie squinted at her alarm clock. “Isn’t there a ribbon-cutting ceremony at some pharmacy in Amelia Island you should be covering?”

  Chet laughed off the remark. “Actually, I’d rather combine coverage of the Dix murder and Lorena’s disappearance. You know, we’ve been getting a lot of feedback on those articles. You’d be surprised to hear how many people are sympathetic to your family’s plight.”

  “I certainly hope they’re more sympathetic to Mrs. Dix. She’s the one whose husband was murdered. Lorena’s been dead, we just want her back.”

  “I’m aware of that.” Chet’s voice was suddenly serious. “I’m also aware of the reward being set up to ensure that safe return. Can I get a quote on that?”

  Ronnie felt the fingers curled around the phone go numb. How long ago had she and Nana talked about this? Now Chet already knew? She asked him just that.

  “Now, Professor Lord, we’ve had this discussion before. You know I can’t tell you that.”

  “Well, I don’t have to tell you anything, either,” Ronnie retorted. “Besides, it’s not my money, it’s my grandmother’s.”

  “I know that, too. I called her house and her son hung up on me.”

  Ronnie grinned wickedly. “Well, you should know that I take after him. ” Quickly she hung up her end.

  Three seconds later there came another ring. Ronnie jerked away the receiver so that the phone tumbled off her nightstand.

  “Piss off, Hoskins! I’ll sic the Jehovah’s Witnesses on you next!”

  “Uh, Professor Lord?”

  “Jeanette?” Ronnie sat up in bed, fervently hoping Jeanette was not a Jehovah’s Witness. “Oh, hi. I’m sorry I thought you were somebody else.”

  “I tried calling you all last night.” If Jeanette was put off somewhat by the tone of Ronnie’s voice, it did not show in her own. Jeanette sounded more panicked than angry. “I called your house and then your office and your cell phone, all the numbers you gave us. I kept getting your voice mail.”

  “Oh?” Ronnie leaned further over the nightstand at her answering machine; uncollected messages blinked incessantly. “Yeah, I forgot I had my cell turned off, sorry. I don’t know where my head is these days. What’s up?”

  “It’s about that dead saint relative of yours. I think I know who has her.”

  ~ * ~

  Ronnie could not get dressed fast enough. After instructing Jeanette to call Lew with directions to the trailer park, she slid on a pair of ash sweatpants and a gold Florida State University T-shirt and bolted up the stairs two at a time out the kitchen door to await Jeanette in her Corolla.

  Gina had just left the boys to some arithmetic problems so she could refill her coffee. She frowned at her sister. “Where’s the fire?”

  “At some trailer park.” Ronnie grabbed her purse and slammed the door behind her, hoping Lorena was not being used as kindling for somebody’s barbecue.

  She paced in the morning dew for a good fifteen minutes before a rusted hood poked around the corner with a confused Jeanette at the wheel peering at house numbers. She saw Ronnie flagging her closer and braked with a screech.

  “The sheriff said he was sending people over,” Jeanette explained as Ronnie fumbled with the seat belt. “I was giving them directions but it turns out they already know where to go.” She rolled her eyes. “Like I’m surprised.”

  Ronnie dug out a comb from her purse and brushed back her bangs. “You’re sure these guys have Lorena? What would possess them to steal her?”

  “Well, I was reading in the paper about how the police suspected that girl was stolen for ransom. Landon and Lorne were in the bar the other night bragging about how they were going to come into an obscene amount of money, so I put two and two together. Those clowns open their big mouths every time they pull a stunt like this,” Jeanette laughed, then quieted upon seeing Ronnie’s concern. “Oh, I’m sorry, you don’t think this is funny...”

  Ronnie’s smile was weak. She gri
pped the door handle as the Corolla turned sharply down a dirt road. “Oh, I imagine twenty years from now we’ll have a good laugh. Well, my nephews and I will, anyway. My sister doesn’t see much humor in things like this.” She cranked down her window as the car slowed at the railroad tracks; after a pause to listen for an approaching train, they heard nothing and Jeanette mashed the gas pedal.

  “Knowing Landon and Lorne, this has been nothing but laughs,” she scoffed.

  “They certainly won’t be laughing at a murder charge.”

  “What?”

  The Corolla skidded to a halt just outside a rundown chain-link fence surrounding a tan and brown mobile home. Children with chubby faces peered timidly from behind the plaid curtains at the two strange women idling near their home.

  “Professor Lord, these guys have pulled some crazy stuff in the past, but one thing they do not do is kill people.” Jeanette was serious. “They only deal with petty stuff, and I’ve never seen either of them get in a fight.”

  “Jeanette,” Ronnie sighed. “They left a man to die in Lorena’s empty grave, and he did die. Now, whatever reason they had in taking Lorena is going to pale in comparison to how they’re going to be charged.”

  Reluctantly Jeanette resumed driving. “I don’t believe it, I know these guys,” she said, shaking her head. “They don’t kill people. Landon can be a jerk, but he wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

  They turned a corner and bright blue strobes appeared over the dashboard. In the foreground Lew and his men milled around the dirt yard of the Dennis’s home and in the back, sifting through the tools and car parts left outside to rust.

  Jeanette grabbed Ronnie’s arm before the latter could exit. Her green eyes were glassy with forming tears. “You believe me, right? Landon couldn’t have been involved in that murder. He’s just not that kind of person.”

  “Jeanette, any man who is capable of robbing a grave is capable of doing much worse. I don’t know your boyfriend, and I can’t explain how Paul Dix could have been killed without their being involved. He’s going to have to explain that himself.”

  “Well,” Jeanette stammered, “m-maybe that Paul guy showed up to work and saw the empty grave and had a heart attack.”

  Yeah, and those shovel indentations on the back of his head were self-inflicted, Ronnie wanted to retort, but she kept silent. Lew had spotted the car and was fast approaching the passenger side window, his expression grim.

  “They’re long gone,” he announced, leaning into the open window. “We found some dirt in the living room which we’ll test to see if it came from the cemetery, but other than that this place looks like it hasn’t been lived in for months.” He looked at Ronnie. “I have some other news for you. Turns out that second ransom call, the one you thought was a prank, came from this trailer.”

  Ronnie felt a pain at the pit of her stomach. “Oh, great.”

  Jeanette mentioned that the Dennis brothers were not exactly the neatest people in the holler, to which Lew concurred. “Yeah, the place is pretty much a sty,” he added, fanning himself with the search warrant. “I don’t doubt they took Lorena and kept her here, and it’s a sure bet they took her wherever they went. We haven’t found her on the premises, and there’s nothing to indicate a grave was dug to bury anything.”

  He looked hard at Jeanette. “You wouldn’t happen to know where it is these boys are, do you?”

  The girl shook her head. “I don’t know their friends very well. They were either at home or over at the bar where I work.” She snapped her fingers. “I have some pictures of Landon at home. Could you use them?”

  “I think we have some mug shots already, but bring yours to the station. They may have altered their appearances. We’ll get their automobile info from the DMW, and put out an APB on them.” Lew scratched his head and looked at Ronnie. “Sorry I didn’t have better news for you.”

  Ronnie patted his hand. “Don’t worry about it, at least we might be a step closer in getting this case closed. Mind if I come down with Jeanette?”

  “Not at all.” Lew smiled and drifted back to the investigation.

  Jeanette executed a three-point turn in the front yard and rumbled down the dirt road. “I don’t live far,” she said, “just a few miles up the road, by the bar.”

  “That’s fine. You can leave me at the station when you’re done.” She studied Jeanette’s face, curious to see the girl biting her lip nervously and squeezing the steering wheel.

  “Jeanette? Is there something else you need to tell the sheriff? I know you’d want to protect your friend, but please understand it’s important to my family that Lorena is returned to her rightful, er home.” She tilted her head for a better angle; the tears were rolling down the girl’s cheeks now.

  “I don’t know if it means anything, but that man who was killed...”

  “Paul Dix, the caretaker.”

  “Him,” Jeanette nodded. “He comes to the bar on occasion, or rather, he came.” She sniffed back the tears. “But he was there last Thursday night, talking with somebody I’ve never seen before, it didn’t look like one of his friends. There were talking serious like. I’ll bet that’s the guy you really want to talk to, if I could just remember what he looks like.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Hey, Lorne?”

  Lorne was curled on a lumpy, plaid love seat too short for his six-foot-two frame. He adjusted his head on a fringe-bordered throw pillow and turned his gaze toward the darkened prone figure on the carpet that was his brother. “What?” he barked.

  Landon lay on his back in the living room of Gary’s efficiency and stared at the yellow lamplight spreading across the ceiling; the plaster bumps and nodules appeared shadowed and sinister in the dark, like a close-up of the moon’s surface. “You think the cops are searching the trailer now? Do they know how to find us?”

  “Relax. Nobody knows where we are, and nobody knows about Gary giving us this job and putting us up for the night,” Lorne said with a grin. Nothing in the house to alluded to their whereabouts, either. “The only chance the cops have of nailing us is if they stake out the Wild Rooster, and since we won’t be going back there anytime soon you can forget that. We can get beer anywhere. And speaking of beer…”

  Lorne rolled off the love seat and padded into the galley kitchen to discover a nearly empty refrigerator. “Man, did we drink all that beer we brought over?”

  Landon held up an empty Michelob can. The light from outside reflected against the silver and red label and he tossed it over his shoulder. “Yep.”

  “Damn.” Lorne twisted his torso, hands on hips, scanning the kitchen for any clue to solve this latest dilemma. After much consideration he dialed the kitchen phone and asked the bored teenager on the other end to get Gary, who was currently finishing his shift at his regular job, swing manager at Kentucky Fried Chicken.

  Landon listened for his brother’s end of the conversation but could not distinguish the words for a sudden outburst of emergency sirens blaring below them. He managed to hear a guttural goodbye as the noise dissolved and Lorne loped back to where he lay.

  “Gary’s gonna pick up some beer after he makes his drop at the bank,” Lorne said absently, crawling back on the love seat and stretching his legs over the armrest. “He’s got a bucket of chicken that they didn’t sell, too.”

  “Cool. I could eat some chicken.” Landon sat up and rubbed the carpet indentation from his bare shoulders and back. He crooked his head toward the window. “Hey, what are we gonna do about, you know.”

  Lorne leaned over the sofa and peered out the window. Lorena’s coffin was right where they had left it, covered with the tarp in the bed of the pickup, which was parked along the curb outside Gary’s building. Gary had not blinked an eye when they arrived, much to their relief, and the plan was to say that the box was full of equipment for another job should the question arise. They would think of a company and job later. “Still there.”

  “We can’t leave her out there,”
Landon said, worried. “What if somebody sees? Or tries to steal her?”

  “Nobody is going to take her. We’re off the main road, and Gary says it’s pretty quiet around here. Besides, we can’t bring her up here.”

  “Oh, right.” Landon nodded. “Probably just as well. I don’t know if Gary would rat us out or want a piece of the cut.”

  Cut. There was that image of the girl’s bloodless, disembodied finger again, beckoning in eerie silence in his thoughts and pointing its blame. As old as she was, her skin had felt spongy and new as he placed it in the box. Landon was surprised not to hear her cry out as he cut her; only in his dreams did that happen. Was that her voice or his?

  “So what’s the plan then?” Landon wanted to know. “We’re laying low, we got the girl. How do we get the money without getting picked for that guy’s death? You know that old lady’s got to have a trace on her phone by now.”