Barbara Graham - Quilted 05 - Murder by Sunlight

by Barbara Graham

  He tightened the last screw. “Ta-da! Grab those curtains you worked so hard on and let’s see how the room looks.”

  Obligingly, Theo vanished. She returned less than a minute later, her arms filled with white curtains dotted with vivid colored bunnies, butterflies, and caterpillars.

  He grasped the rod, sliding one end into the space for it, just below the top edge of the curtains. “Wow, these are heavy.”

  “That’s the blackout fabric lining. It weighs a ton, but without it, this room will light up like a runway the second the sun climbs over the mountains.”

  Tony immediately realized Theo was right. The twins’ current room was small as a closet and only marginally brighter than one. Moving them into an airy, sunlit space would require some adjustment for all of the family. He lifted the curtain-covered rod into place and the sunny room vanished, replaced with, if not total darkness, something close.

  Theo pushed the curtains apart, bringing in the light again, and attached the tie backs. “We have some pictures to hang on the walls.”

  “And the rugs you bought. And the cribs to move.” Tony, once again, but surely not for the last time, silently thanked his brother Gus for giving them this room. Theo’s excitement made her green-gold eyes sparkle as she walked across the shining wood-grained laminate floor. “There’s even room for your old rocking chair.”

  Theo smiled and nodded but couldn’t seem to speak.

  With little encouragement from him, she dashed off to gather the rest of the room’s décor. He, no less excited than Theo, forced himself to leisurely approach the moving of the cribs. In just a few minutes, Kara and Lizzie would get to move into their space and spread out.

  CHAPTER SIX

  * * *

  “Sheriff, you’re not going to like this.”

  Tony imagined the statement would be true, just from dispatcher Flavio Weems’s tone of voice. Tony felt a surge of adrenalin and stomach acid at the same time and poured a handful of antacids from the large jar under his desk and dropped most of them into his shirt pocket. He popped the two in his hand into his mouth and started chewing. “What’s happening?”

  Flavio flipped a switch to let Tony listen in. “It’s Sheila. She’s looking into a nine-one-one call. Man called about an intruder who attacked him in the shower. Hit him with a wrench or something. She got a little description and gave it to me.”

  “Ambulance needed. I can’t leave him. Backup needed. Now.” Sheila’s voice was clear and concise. “I have no idea where the attacker is now. I can’t reach my weapon and hold this guy. I have to stop the bleeding or we’ll lose him.”

  Tony could hear Sheila trying to calm a man. The sounds were something he’d imagine if two people were trapped in a box with a bear. Growling. Moaning.

  Tony said to Flavio, “Tell Sheila I’m on my way too.” Tony hurried through the hall, raced outside, climbed into the Blazer, flipped on the light bar, and headed out. The address Sheila had given was just past the intersection where Ruby’s Café and the Thomas Brothers Garage sat. It was a major intersection of the highway and the road connecting downtown Silersville to a less-populated residential area. It was possibly the busiest section of road in the entire county. He listened to the radio.

  Sheila’s voice. “Stay still. You’re about to faint. I need to hold this pressed against your wound.” Then sounds like a bull thrashing in a stall drowned out Sheila’s words.

  Tony kept the volume up on the radio and heard bits of the conversation between Sheila and the victim. A man’s voice, barely a whisper. “Bob, he kept calling me. Bob. And he said he knew I was there, like we were on a different planet.”

  “People call you Bob?” Sheila’s voice was muffled.

  “No. Not Bob, and none of my neighbors is named Bob either.” The voice sounded much weaker than it had.

  “We need that ambulance.” Sheila spoke clearly. “He’s out cold now and losing ground fast. So much blood.”

  “It’s on the way. They say five minutes.” Flavio knew every deputy’s location and what they were doing. “Mike’s almost there too.”

  Tony hoped help would get to the injured man and Sheila in time. He pressed the accelerator a bit more.

  Tony heard Flavio talking to Mike. Then there was quiet as Flavio listened to Sheila and relayed the information to everyone on the system, speaking clearly and calmly. “In the neighborhood of the highway and Ruby’s Café, be on the lookout for a white male, five foot six, one hundred and forty pounds, thirtyish, close-cropped black hair, last seen wearing a dirty white muscle shirt and jeans. Carrying a claw hammer and a pipe wrench, neither one new, blood on the shirt. On foot when last seen.”

  Tony watched Mike make the turn ahead of him, his vehicle almost airborne, flying up the road to the next turn and then stopping. Mike jumped out of his vehicle, spotted Tony, and signaled he was going to the back of the property. The ambulance arrived next. Tony held back, staying behind them, and parked just before the ambulance crew headed toward the house. Tony was careful to park well out of its way. He hoped it would leave as quickly as it arrived, with a living patient.

  Hurrying out of the Blazer, Tony glanced around, studying the area, hoping to see a medium-sized man in a white t-shirt. All he saw was a quiet neighborhood. Houses, fenced yards, and assorted vehicles. Lots of shrubbery and tall grass. Nothing moving. A couple of dogs barked, but not like they were frantic, guarding homes from strangers. On the radio, Mike told everyone what he could see from the back of the property, which didn’t take long. Nothing appeared out of place.

  Now running to get ahead of the paramedics, Tony gestured for them to wait for his signal before going into the house.

  He moved inside, keeping his heavy semi-automatic raised. He quickly searched for the intruder and found no one. Inside the kitchen, Sheila knelt next to a large, naked man stretched out on the floor. Blood was everywhere, including on Sheila. She pressed a wadded-up piece of fabric, maybe a t-shirt, against the man’s neck. Her hands and arms were covered with blood. She didn’t look up as she talked. “Sheriff, I’d have chased the attacker, but couldn’t leave this guy and risk he’d bleed out.”

  Thinking she’d done the right thing, Tony stepped out of the way, signaling the ambulance crew inside. They quickly freed Sheila from her life-saving job. Information from Mike was negative. “We’ll have to go house to house.”

  Sheila stepped over to the kitchen sink and scrubbed the blood from her hands with dish soap before she followed Tony outside.

  “What happened?” Tony kept his gaze moving, checking for the attacker.

  “Poor guy. From what I could understand, he was in the bathroom, taking a shower, you know, when some guy he’s never seen before breaks in and starts whacking him with this old pipe wrench and claw hammer. I guess the attacker kept calling him Bob. It’s like something out of a movie. All I could get from our victim was that he’s Not Bob. Not Bob’s got at least one good-sized gash on his head above his ear and a broken cheekbone, but most of the blood was coming from his neck. About here.” She touched a place near her windpipe. “Luckily, he made it to the kitchen and got his cell phone.”

  “You got a pretty good description.”

  “Maybe.” Sheila looked uncertain. “He was all but unconscious when I arrived. I couldn’t even get his name from him so I’m not sure how much this guy really saw, and how much he made up to fill in the blanks, you know.”

  “What do you think he saw?”

  “I’ll bet he saw the white shirt, the jeans, and maybe dark hair.” Sheila shrugged. “Maybe he saw everything he reported. He is a big guy and he was standing up when the attack began, but I’m guessing he got hit several times when he tried to dodge away from the wrench. He was blindsided.”

  Tony agreed with Sheila. Often people didn’t see as much as they thought they did or vice versa; not until everyone calmed down were they able to reconstruct events. “Motive?”

  “He said the man was screaming at
Bob about payback for his wife,” Sheila said. “Our guy’s in shock but I’ve seen him around, usually hanging out at The Okay, or when he’s at work. He seems nice enough. Not rich, not mean, not married. Just a guy minding his own business when some whack-job comes into his house and attacks him.”

  “And his work?” Tony couldn’t place him.

  “You’ll recognize him when you get a chance to really look at him. He works for the county in road maintenance. He’s usually shoveling asphalt into potholes when I’m driving through the county.” Sheila did smile then. “He wears a battered straw cowboy hat.”

  “That’s why he looked familiar.” Tony shook his head. “What a mess. We better find the guy who attacked him before he finds another Bob.”

  Wade arrived and they divided the street in half. Wade and Tony would work on one side and Mike and Sheila on the other. They’d have to knock on each door and talk to anyone at home, look in every shed, under every tarp, and still watch for suspicious movements. “Sheila, I know you can’t do anything about your clothes, but you might want to see if you can get some more of that blood off your arms. Your hands are clean now but you look like you’ve been swimming in it.” He frowned, thinking of all the blood-borne diseases she could have been exposed to. “It’s on your face too.”

  “I’ve got some heavy-duty antiseptic towelettes.” She walked toward her car. “One second.”

  So the work began. They spent hours taking pictures, talking to the few people who answered their doors, lifting trash-can lids, checking every possible hiding place. No one they talked to saw anything or noticed anything special until the arrival of Sheila’s car caught their attention. Then they watched from the windows, curious about the reason for the deputy to stop. No strangers, nothing.

  They learned Not Bob was actually named Will Jackson and the neighbors thought he was a quiet, but friendly, addition to the neighborhood. He’d lived in the house for about a year.

  By the time Sheila and Mike were almost finished searching their side of the street, Tony walked toward them to compare notes. Sheila was beyond filthy. Dirt mixed with blood coated almost every inch of her. “You looked better when we arrived.”

  “It can’t get worse.” She muttered but changed her story when she crawled under a house on a raised foundation. Holding a flashlight and gun didn’t allow her a way to cover her nose or mouth. She needed the flashlight and might need the gun.

  “Oh, nasty. Something died under here.”

  Mike relayed her message via the radio to Flavio, but omitted some of Sheila’s more colorful, extraneous words.

  “Please, please, let it be something we don’t have to investigate,” Tony said. He could happily do without any additional work.

  “Next house one of us has to climb under is your turn, Mike.” Sheila gasped. “I see what smells so bad. It’s okay, sort of. It looks like a possum.”

  Relieved but sympathetic, Tony and Wade continued their own hunt. They found lots of dirt, some termites, a cranky chicken, and at the end of the road, an even crankier citizen who didn’t want them coming into his yard. “I’ll shoot you if you come on my property.”

  “Fine.” Tony’s patience level dropped from thin to nonexistent. He’d had some dealings with the man before. Miller was his name. “Did you happen to threaten anyone else today, Mr. Miller?”

  “Yep.” Clearly surprised to be addressed by his name, Miller let the barrel on the shotgun waver fractionally. “Just a bit ago. Feller in a white shirt.”

  “Where’d he go?”

  Finally satisfied this particular group came in peace, Miller moved his finger from the trigger and lowered the barrel, pointing it at the ground. “I watched him go between those trees.” He nodded at a couple of scraggly dogwoods outside his fence. “I watched him stomp all the way down to the highway. Looked like a plumber with a big old wrench he was swingin’ like a club.”

  “A wrench?” Tony said. “What kind of wrench?”

  “It was a pipe wrench. Kinda rusty looking.” He frowned, looking thoughtful, “I almost forgot, he had a hammer in his other hand. Looked kinda odd to me.”

  “The man or the hammer looked odd?”

  Mr. Miller chuckled and a gleam of amusement sparkled in his eyes. “Now that you ask, I’d say both of them, but the hammer had a real long claw.” He gestured, indicating about six or seven inches.

  “You notice anything else?” Tony hoped the now relaxed Mr. Miller might remember seeing someone he recognized give their assailant a ride.

  The man nodded. “I might not of seen him at all but for his loud talkin’. He was fussin’ at someone who wasn’t there and givin’ them a real earful. Oo-wee, he was so mad, he was frothin’ worse’n a mad dog.”

  Hoping they hadn’t missed anything during their search, and after getting Mr. Miller’s contact information, they followed the path their shotgun-wielding witness indicated. It was a fairly decent path down to the edge of the highway, probably often used by the nearby residents. It was not a long walk down, so Mr. Miller might have been able to see any vehicle that stopped to pick their assailant up. If there had been one.

  They saw nothing on the shoulder of the highway except an assortment of used fast-food wrappers, cups, beer cans, and a couple of diapers tossed out on the grass by people Tony didn’t want to know. Litterbugs and home invaders were not on a par with each other, but Tony didn’t like either of them.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  * * *

  “Sheriff?” Deputy Mike Ott and his bloodhound, Dammit, stood in the doorway. “Have you got a minute?”

  Tony looked up from his paperwork. Even though it was the bane of his existence, he’d rather do it than have to deliver bad news to another family. “What’s up?”

  “I need to take Ruby to Knoxville for some medical tests. Sheila and Holt said they wouldn’t mind covering my schedule, but I was wondering if Dammit can stay with you. I hate to leave him home alone for very long or maybe overnight.”

  “Of course I’ll keep him.” Tony said. “Is there a problem? Do you need extra time off?”

  “No. Ruby and the baby are fine.”

  Tony thought Mike sounded more defiant than assured. “What’s going on?”

  “They just want to make sure the baby’s heart is growing properly.” Mike gnawed on his lower lip. “The test is not supposed to take long, and everyone says it’s probably just fine. Just a precaution.”

  “Leave the dog here and go home.” Tony leaned forward. “Now. Call me when you know something.”

  Mike wasted no time following his instructions. Dammit flopped on the rug near the door and stared at Tony, giving him the baleful bloodhound stare, acting as if his life would be a misery if he had to stay with Tony overnight. His homely face with its loose skin was the picture of sorrowful abandonment.

  Tony had to laugh. The dog was a fraud. Dammit loved to visit the Abernathy house because Daisy lived there. The bloodhound and golden retriever were great friends and playmates. Together the dogs weighed about two hundred and fifty pounds, and running up and down the stairs made the old house shake.

  “The man we think might have been driving the car surfer has turned up.” Wade’s voice came through the radio. “Should I wait for you, or do you just want me to bring him in?”

  “Where are you? I’ll come there.” Tony wasn’t sure he was prepared to learn what happened, and he was sure he wasn’t going to like it.

  “I’m at Santhe Flowers’s home. She called in to let us know our suspect, David Logan, is back,” Wade said. He lowered his voice. “She’s trying to make up for Blossom’s mistake.”

  A very different Santhe Flowers, having repented her former bad attitude, shepherded them into her rooming house, smiling and chatting with Tony. The large two-story house was at least a hundred years old and in need of some paint. The old white house had a wide front porch that wrapped around to one side, where the door leading into the kitchen was located. They went in through the fr
ont door. A staircase was directly in front of them, dividing the lower floor of the house in half. She waved one hand upwards. “There’s four bedrooms up there, one bathroom, and four men. No women. Not even visiting. I have my rules and standards.”

  Tony thought the glare she focused on him would intimidate anyone. “Do you spend any time with the guys, or do they come in and immediately go upstairs?”

  “Oh, I see what you want to know.” Santhe led them to the left, through the kitchen, and into an alcove. “This refrigerator is theirs to share. They can keep small amounts of food and beverages in it. Same thing with this cupboard. No food is allowed anywhere except in here, in the kitchen, out on the porch, and in the TV room. Make a mess, clean it up.” She pointed to a half-closed door. “Television’s in there. First man in gets the remote. No fighting. They can bring dates here if they want.”

  Wade pushed the door open a bit wider. “Looks very pleasant.”

  Glancing past his deputy, Tony saw a large-screen television, a row of older style but comfortable looking recliners, a video-game system, and a stack of oversized floor pillows. He’d expected a caveman atmosphere, but the room was well lighted and had nice curtains and didn’t reek of sweat and tobacco. “Very nice.”

  At his compliment, Santhe seemed to relax a bit. “My roomers are nice or they leave.”

  “Tell me about David Logan.” Tony shepherded Santhe out onto the shady porch. “How long has he lived here?”

  “Hmm.” Santhe mimicked her sister Blossom’s habit of pressing an index finger to the indentation between chin and lower lip when she was thinking. “I’d say six months, give or take a bit.”