Following her precise instructions and trying not to breathe in, Tony lifted. It wasn’t easy, as the body seemed to be stuck on something and gravity was working against them. The way the legs dangled on one side and the shoulders and arms on the other, it could probably withstand gale-force winds without falling out.
“Stop.” Grace shone the light under the body while Tony held it. “Okay, you can let go. I’ve seen something like this before. We had a rash of these kinds of things in Georgia when I was doing my internship. This is the first time I’ve had one die in a tree though.” She backed down the ladder to the ground and waited for Tony. Wade and Sheila joined them immediately. Grace glanced up again. “I’ll want to examine the body once it’s down, of course, but I think this guy might have been car surfing.”
“Surfing?” Sheila frowned. “On a mountain road?”
Grace nodded. “I didn’t say he was smart or sober. I’d say he was standing on the roof of a car or pickup when he hit the branch and was impaled. It’s possible he might even have survived with immediate, proper medical treatment.”
Tony shook his head, denying what she told him. “So the driver just left him up there?”
Ignoring his question, Grace pointed to the body. “I need the measurement from that limb to the ground. Then we’ll be able to figure the height of what he was standing on.”
Wade pulled a measuring tape and markers and the camera out of his investigation kit. He took pictures from all directions and then measured the height his wife requested. Tony and Sheila walked along the road, searching for anything that might have fallen off the body. The only thing they picked up was a half-full can of malt liquor.
“I’ll bet this can has got some interesting fingerprints on it,” said Sheila, holding it with her gloved little finger inside the can.
Tony agreed. “Driver, or surfer, or neither?”
“Loser buys pie?” Sheila suggested. “I’ll say surfer.”
“You’re on. I’ll take driver.” Tony saw the ambulance waiting and waved it closer. “Let’s get this guy down and give him to Grace.”
Getting the body off the branch and into the ambulance proved more difficult than originally thought. They ended up cutting the branch from the tree with a chain saw. By the time the body and a significant section of the tree were loaded into the ambulance, most of the crowd had dispersed. Tony made sure Sheila got names and addresses for everyone watching. He was almost certain one of them had been driving the surfer.
The surfer’s wallet was in his pocket. Grace held it open so Tony could get the dead man’s name and address before she placed it in the bag with the body. The license photograph matched their body.
Grace rolled her shoulders and loosened her neck. “I’ll go with it. I’m sure there needs to be an autopsy and I can’t do it, you know. I’ll let you know what’s happening.”
Half wishing their county’s coroner hadn’t taken off on a well-deserved vacation, Tony saw nothing else he could do here. He turned to Sheila, “I’m going home to change my clothes before we call on the family.” The absolutely worst part of his job was death notification, and doing it alone was not a good idea.
“I’ll meet you there.” Sheila glanced up from her notebook. “Fifteen minutes? That will give me enough time to at least wash my face and hands.”
It didn’t take him long to change his clothes and drive to the address on their body’s driver’s license. He didn’t know the man, Miles Curry, which rather surprised him, since he would guess it had taken a lot of alcohol to inspire surfing on a moving vehicle. Many of the county’s heavy drinkers had passed through his jail or at least their names showed up on reports. He wasn’t sure he could drink enough to give him the artificial courage to do it.
He was startled by a tap on the passenger side window. Sheila.
“I left my car on the side street.” She gestured in the general direction.
“Okay, let’s do it, it’s not going to get any easier the longer we wait.” He followed Sheila up the sidewalk. The door opened at almost the same time as Sheila rang the bell. Tony thought either someone was expected or the resident was on her way out.
A pleasant-looking woman, maybe in her mid-forties, held the door wide. Tony knew her professionally. Her name was Paula and she worked as the guidance counselor at the high school. It was inevitable their paths were bound to cross many times. He knew little about her personal life.
“Miles Curry lives here?” Tony had no idea what their relationship might be. As Paula stared at the badge on his chest, the expression on her face changed abruptly from welcome to dismay.
“May we come in?” Tony didn’t really give her a chance to say anything. Sheila walked in and Tony followed, shutting the door behind himself. “This is the residence of Miles Curry?”
Paula nodded. Finally responding to Tony’s question.
“Are you his wife?”
Paula shook her head. “No, we’re not married.” Her breathing changed, increasing until she was almost panting. “What’s happened? Is he dead?”
Sheila took her arm and gently steered Paula to a comfortable chair and finally got her seated. “Yes, I’m afraid so. It looks like he was involved in an accident.”
“I’m afraid we need to ask you some questions.” Tony sat across from her. “Does Mr. Curry have family?”
“They hate me.” Paula’s voice was low but intense.
“We need to contact them.” Tony took out his notebook and pen. Usually the sight of the items inspired people to at least give him an address or a name.
Instead of cooperating, she pressed her lips tighter.
“Let’s start with some simple questions.” Tony waited until she nodded. “What is your full name?”
“Paula Louise Merkel Smith.” She stared at the floor.
“Thank you, Paula.” Hers had been one of the names Alvin Tibbles mentioned as references during his emancipation hearing. Tony had to ask questions he already knew the answers to.
“I believe you still work in the high school counseling office.”
Paula nodded. Sudden tears ran unchecked down her face and her nose started to drip.
Sheila offered water and headed for the kitchen, returning seconds later with a full glass and a box of tissues she’d found somewhere.
Tony waited until Paula sipped a bit of water and blew her nose. He tried again. “Where is Miles’s family?”
“Kentucky.” Much calmer now, she stared at the wall behind him. “He’s from Louisville or Lexington, I’m not sure which one, just that it’s one of the ‘L’ cities.” She paused. “He moved here about a year ago and works as a janitor at the middle school.”
It surprised Tony to hear the Curry family disapproved of Miles’s and Paula’s relationship. He thought she seemed very nice; she certainly had worked hard to help Alvin. “Do you have any idea why his family objected to you?”
“I’m divorced. They consider me a fallen woman. Plus, I’m quite a bit older than Miles. Six years.” She pulled a few more tissues from the box and wiped her eyes. “We want . . .” she hesitated on the word. “We wanted to marry and hoped his family would come around, but they seemed to find the idea of his marrying me embarrassing.”
Tony shook his head in sympathy and managed to keep his words to himself. He couldn’t help thinking that if it was determined their son Miles actually died while surfing on a car, and most likely while under the influence of a great deal of alcohol, his family might not be too proud of him either.
They talked for a while, but Tony didn’t learn anything particularly useful. He guessed the family would take over planning the funeral and all Paula would have left would be her sorrow. While they chatted, Sheila worked on finding the right family in Kentucky, and she finally did. Once Tony talked to the family on the telephone, they prepared to leave. Paula would be alone.
“She didn’t want us to call a friend or a neighbor, but . . .” Tony hesitated on the porch. “Can you
stay with her for a bit?”
Sheila nodded. “I’ll see if she’ll tell me if this was regular behavior for Miles.”
“Maybe when she calms down she’ll know who else might have been with him.” Tony didn’t understand what drove people to do such potentially self-destructive things. Standing on a moving car? Allowing someone else to do it? There were enough ways to get hurt that it didn’t seem necessary to go hunting for more.
CHAPTER THREE
* * *
Theo was surprised to find Blossom Flowers waiting for her when she arrived at her quilt shop the following morning. The generously proportioned cook had been Tony’s “admirer” and pie supplier for years. Blossom had always tolerated Theo, but had never shown any interest in being friends. Even though Blossom now had a fiancé and would become a stepmother when she married, Theo doubted Blossom’s adoration of Tony would cease.
Twenty years earlier while Tony was home on leave from the Navy, he had stopped a couple of sixteen-year-old boys from tormenting the chubby ten-year-old. The boys had grown into frequent guests of the county jail and Blossom remained Tony’s most ardent admirer.
Theo hauled the babies up the stairs and Blossom trotted behind her, a pie clutched in both chubby hands. It was not the apple pie Tony preferred; this one was coconut cream, Theo’s personal favorite. The woman knew her pies and her customers. The diamond flashed on Blossom’s ring finger, making Theo think the engagement was still on. At least one good sign.
“Can we talk?” Blossom panted from her exertion on the stairs. “This is for you.”
Still reeling from surprise, Theo managed a weak, “Of course” before setting the girls, still sound asleep in their car seats, in the kids’ end of her workroom. When she turned, the pie, tantalizing and fully six inches tall, sat on Theo’s cutting table. “You don’t have to bring a pie to talk to me.”
Blossom blinked back tears in her large, bulbous blue eyes. “It makes me feel good.” A couple of tears couldn’t be stopped and traced over her chubby cheek, dripping onto her chest.
Discounting the woman’s obvious lack of accuracy about baking making her happy, Theo waved Blossom to a chair near the window. Blossom’s thin, rust-orange hair looked uncurled and unkempt. Not Blossom’s style at all. The plus-size woman always took the time to look her best. “What’s wrong?”
“I’ve got to talk to you.” Blossom sniffled into her hand and fell silent.
Hoping there was a tissue in the hand, Theo sat across from her and waited. With the exception of more sniffling, production of the tissue, and loud nose blowing, the conversation had stalled. “What’s wrong?”
Blossom seemed to shudder all over. “He’s cheating.”
“Who? With whom?” Theo asked, assuming Blossom would say it was her fiancé. Theo doubted he was. She’d seen them together recently, and Kenny and his little girls all adored Blossom.
“T-Tony.” Blossom’s next sob almost knocked her forward and out of the chair.
If Theo ever sat down and tried to imagine the oddest conversation in history, she certainly wouldn’t have come up with this one. Tony’s groupie crying because he was cheating on his wife. Theo didn’t believe it for a second. The cheating part. Even if he wanted to, and she didn’t think he did, when would he find the time? “How do you know?”
“ ’Cause I saw him, holding her.” Blossom rummaged in her bag and came up with a whole box of tissues. She blew her nose about six times, using a fresh tissue each time, and lined the used ones across her lap.
“Who is her? And where were you?”
“It was Paula Smith. She lives across the way. Me and Kenny was out for a walk with the girls and Miss Cotton—you know, my dog.” Theo nodded. “And there he was, going into the woman’s house across the way.” Blossom shuddered. “She’s got a live-in boyfriend, but I saw Tony wrap his arms around her and then they both went inside and he closed the door behind him.”
“Oh.” Theo wasn’t sure what to say. What she learned from gossip, she shared with Tony. What he told her concerning his job, she couldn’t talk about. She guessed the whole thing was tied to the man who’d died in a tree. So she patted Blossom again and murmured something inane about it not being a problem, and she already knew about it.
Blossom reared back in her chair. “You knew about his cheating and you don’t care?”
“Well, of course I care, but what can I do? It’s part of his job.” Theo heard the way her words sounded but couldn’t grab them out of the air and start again.
Hearing Theo’s ill-advised statement, Blossom lurched from her chair and waddled toward the stairs, making good time for one her size. A row of balled-up tissues dropped on the floor marked her progress. Theo started after Blossom, hoping to clarify her statement, when both babies began crying and the telephone started to ring. By the time Theo decided to ignore the phone, let the babies cry for a minute, and dashed down the stairs, Blossom was already headed out the front door of the shop. It looked like she was talking to someone on the sidewalk. Her arms waving, fat jiggling, Blossom kept looking back toward Theo’s shop. In a town like Silersville, Theo knew the gossip would travel like lightning, and by the time the story got back to her, she hated to think what it would sound like.
Trudging back up the stairs, she soothed the infants’ tears and called Tony. As expected, he wasn’t amused by Blossom’s story. It might have been because Theo mentioned the coconut cream pie several times in passing and he was jealous about the pie, but she suspected he knew there was about to be a fire-storm of gossip. About them.
Neither of them really enjoyed being the center of attention.
Tony might have found the story somewhat amusing if two things hadn’t just happened to moderate his attitude. He received a preliminary report from the pathologist in Knoxville who was handling the tree victim’s autopsy, and the deceased young man’s parents wanted to talk to him.
As far as the cause of death, physically it was massive trauma to his heart, liver, lungs, and spleen. Much as Grace had predicted, and estimated with scientific probability, the impact of man and tree took place at something around a hundred miles an hour. Curry’s neck suffered whiplash injuries, most likely from the sudden stop. But, there was a chance he might have lived with prompt medical attention. The embedded branch had missed all vital organs.
Tony’s department needed to find the driver of the vehicle upon which Miles Curry had been surfing.
In the meantime, his visit with Curry’s grieving parents from Kentucky was not going well. Mr. and Mrs. Curry sat in the visitors’ chairs in his office, staring at him. They were as stiff-necked and unpleasant as any two people he’d ever met. They didn’t seem as concerned about their son dying as they were about word of his drinking being spread about.
Tony, sitting on his side of the desk, was thinking of using the case as a deterrent to both over-imbibing and vehicle surfing. The photographs of the deceased, impaled on a branch, were enough to make him want to throw up in a bucket, like Wade. What a waste of a young man’s life. Tony couldn’t give the family what they wanted and he had work to do, so he gave the almost-grieving parents directions to reach the Cashdollar Mortuary.
Wade knocked on his door frame as soon as the couple left. “They doing okay?”
“It’s hard to tell. They have to be in shock. They’ll feel worse when it wears off.” Tony shook his head, hoping the couple cared more about their son than was apparent. “What did you learn? Any idea who his companion in the deadly adventure was?”
“I’ve got a couple of maybes. I did a little survey at both The Okay and The Spa. Found someone who thinks one possible works at the school with him, and another one lives down the block from him.” Wade rubbed a thumb up and down the bridge of his nose. “According to my sources, both of them were kind of heavy-drinking guys he liked to hang with, but only occasionally. Curry wasn’t a regular.”
“How’s Grace handling this?” Tony had seen many worse sights than a
dead guy in a tree and imagined Grace hadn’t gotten through medical school without being involved with even dumber people than this one. Inherently self-destructive people made up a sizeable amount of the population in every state.
Wade finally smiled. “She thinks its sweet you’re worried about her. I have to warn you, sir, behind her lovely, gentle manner is a very down to earth, pragmatic, mule-stubborn woman.”
The description of Wade’s bride made Tony smile. His deputy might have been describing Theo. “I just don’t want her running off to a better place—robbing my children of a pediatrician and causing me concern about their health.” Tony leaned back in his chair. “Not to mention that it has taken me a long time to train you.”
“Yeah, I thought so. I’m not wild about the idea of Grace running off myself. It took me some time to convince her to join me here.” Wade shifted position. “Did you manage to finish painting your addition?”
“I did.”
Wade’s cell phone rang at the same time as both his own cell and his desk phone did. Not a good sign. Tony reached for the desk phone and his antacid supply at the same time.
Dispatcher Rex Satterfield’s distinctive voice came through the earpiece. “Sheriff, you’re not going to like this.”
Tony believed him. He always believed Rex. “What happened?”
“Nothing yet, at least nothing’s been reported but I received a nine-one-one call from an obviously intoxicated woman. Emily Austin’s the name. She’s claiming her cell phone was stolen, the one she’s calling me from, and she’s chasing the thief, driving down the highway after him.”
“Anything else?”
“It sounds like she’s waving the phone around and telling someone named Jeff I’m phobic because I knew her name.”
Barbara Graham - Quilted 05 - Murder by Sunlight Page 3