The Claudia Hershey Mysteries - Box Set: Three Claudia Hershey Mysteries

by Laura Belgrave

  “I don’t recall being left with much choice,” said Marty. But her words were without rancor and she smiled slightly. Her eyes fell curiously to the wrench in Claudia’s hand.

  “Just finishing up a minor plumbing job in the kitchen,” Claudia explained. “Come on. Can I get you something to drink? Ice tea? Coffee? A glass of wine?” She waved the wrench. “Shouldn’t be but another minute with this thing.”

  “No problem.”

  Introductions were made and while Claudia mixed iced tea and fought with the faucet, Robin and Marty chatted lightly. Robin’s dreaded algebra book made a good prop and Claudia listened in, now and then taking a peek.

  “I resisted any type of math until I got to college, and then I had to take some kind of flunky course to catch up,” said Marty. She tapped Robin’s algebra text. “Algebra was one of the worst.”

  “Makes me want to heave a lung,” said Robin with conviction. “I mean, it’s not like it helps me tie my shoes or anything. And the teacher I have is the grossest thing on the face of the earth.”

  “Yeah? Then just wait’ll you get to physics,” said Marty. “The teachers don’t get any better and the subject’ll put you in the hospital.”

  “Fantastic. Something else to look forward to.”

  They both laughed, and a few minutes later Claudia realized that despite Marty’s claims to the contrary, she knew her way around numbers. Claudia could hear her guiding Robin through a few problems and felt a stab of jealousy.

  With a final twist, Claudia locked the faucet handle back in place. She stepped back, drew a hand across her forehead, and examined her handiwork. She turned the water on, then off. Then on, then off.

  “Voila!” she said triumphantly.

  Marty and Robin looked up, and at that moment the faucet let loose a drop. Another fell, and then another. In seconds, the drips were as insistent as before, maybe worse.

  Claudia cursed silently.

  “Here, let me give it a try,” said Marty. She slid off her chair and took Claudia’s wrench. “What I didn’t tell you before is that I had three older brothers. They taught me how to climb trees, aim a good punch, play football, and fix faucets.”

  “Yeah, but this is the house Jack built,” Robin murmured, giving Claudia a look.

  “We’ll see,” Marty said. She undid Claudia’s handiwork in minutes and took off the offending washer.

  “I don’t get it,” said Claudia. “The thing is brand new. Right out of the package.”

  Marty held the washer at eye level. “Wrong size, is all.”

  “It looked like a perfect fit!”

  “They can fool you,” said Marty. “Where’s the old one?”

  Claudia searched the counter top, found it under some coiled twine that she’d pulled from the makeshift tool box.

  “Until you get one that fits just right, sometimes the old ones will do if you just turn them over,” Marty explained.

  She anchored the worn washer back on, then reassembled the faucet and turned on the tap. When she turned it off, the dripping was gone.

  “Presto-chango, no more drip.” Marty smiled at Claudia. “That won’t last forever, but it’ll hold until you have a chance to get to the hardware store.”

  “Wow,” said Robin. “Is there, like, anything you don’t know how to do?” Her eyes pitched admiration.

  “Plenty,” said Marty, laughing.

  Claudia thanked Marty and sipped at her iced tea. She would give anything for the unaffected laughter her daughter was giving so freely to a stranger.

  “Hey, kiddo,” Claudia said, forcing lightness into her tone. “If your homework’s all done why don’t you hit the hay? I’ve got a lot of work to go over with Marty.”

  “What? It’s not even ten o’clock,” Robin protested.

  “I know what time it is,” Claudia said.

  Robin slapped her algebra book shut, collected her folders and pencil, and after favoring Marty with a tight smile, stalked off.

  Claudia winced.

  When Robin reached the hall, she turned around. “By the way, it was that new boyfriend of yours on the phone,” she said. “That Dennis guy.”

  “Heath, and he’s not exactly a boyfriend.” Disconcerted, Claudia shot a half smile in Marty’s direction. “He’s just a friend.”

  “Whatever,” Robin said. She rolled her eyes.

  “Am I supposed to call him back?” Claudia asked.

  “He didn’t say.”

  Without another word, Robin turned the corner and disappeared down the long hall.

  Claudia had walked into the middle of family tension often enough to know that Marty couldn’t help but feel the charge between mother and daughter. But Marty negotiated the awkwardness easily, filling the silence with pleasant chatter as she sorted through her attaché case.

  Finally, they got down to business.

  “I might as well tell you up front that I’m not any more thrilled about getting involved in this than I was when we spoke this afternoon,” Marty said.

  “Understood.”

  “Even with confidentiality, the integrity of my research will automatically be compromised—not to mention my word.” Marty clasped her hands together. “In fact, I spoke to my Ph.D committee and the reality is that they’d just as soon see me go to jail as give up anything.”

  Marty paused and made a face. “There’s a very good chance that not only will I have to forfeit everything I’ve done to date—two years of work—but that I won’t be able to conduct research like this ever again without this breach being thrown in my face. Probably, there isn’t a university anywhere that’ll give me the time of day.”

  “Well, I’ll talk to whoever—”

  Marty waved a hand. “Don’t bother. The cards aren’t in, but if it comes to it, then that’s just the way it’ll have to go down. I’m not the first to face a situation like this and I’m sure I won’t be the last.” She sighed. “I’m not being noble. The truth is, I think it’ll be easier for me to live without a Ph.D than to live with the idea that someone killed that woman and is freely moving around. I don’t suppose it’s out of the question that the person could kill again.”

  “Actually, that’s not likely the case,” said Claudia. She paused to remove her glasses and rub the bridge of her nose. “The killer probably had a singular motive related exclusively to his relationship with the victim. That’s almost always true. But whether that person gets caught, it’s a matter of time, Marty. The longer it takes us to get a bead on the guy, the greater the possibility that he’ll never get caught at all.”

  “That’s almost an invitation to back out,” said Marty softly.

  “No. But I know this is hard for you. You deserve to understand what the perspective is.”

  “Okay. Let’s get this over with then, shall we?”

  After Marty Claudia wiped the rings from their iced tea glasses off the table and dimmed the lights. She fooled around with her oboe for ten minutes, then settled in with it on the couch and let its brooding notes take her away for awhile.

  Later—time was losing meaning—Claudia forced herself through stretching exercises, then fell into bed.

  Thank the Lord for Marty. Finally, Claudia thought she had a solid lead.

  Chapter 11

  Years before he needed it, Richard Andrew Matheson built a three-story brick house in a Tallahassee community known for attracting power brokers whose influence reached as far south as Key West. It was a spacious house with expansive rooms and all the accouterments money could buy: tennis court, sauna, stables, pool. It cost a bundle, but Matheson never lived there. He rarely even visited—not in those early years.

  Where he spent his time was on his ranch in an unincorporated patch of Flagg County, a somewhat more modest spread from which he could comfortably oversee his vast citrus operation and spin money he didn’t need with the right combination of shrewdness and ruthlessness. For someone who had never finished high school, Matheson had done quite well. He kn
ew it. He liked it. He guarded it fiercely.

  Had the tables not turned on Florida’s economy in the early ’70s, he might never had thought to consider politics as a logical extension of the power his wealth could buy. He was, at heart, uncomfortable with the sophisticated veneer of wealth. For Matheson, it was an effort to talk to people whose education clearly exceeded his own. He knew he didn’t sound polished. Indeed, as bright as he was, he agonized over the cracker twang he could never quite erase, sure that it reduced him in the eyes of those whose wallets he matched. It took an iron will not to flash his temper on those occasions when he suspected someone of looking at him with condescension.

  So no one was more surprised when political power brokers began to cozy up to him, looking not for money but for “a man of the people” at a time when economic conditions made politicians without an accent suddenly suspect. Matheson was intrigued, but skeptical. For at least eighteen months, he kept his distance. He had money, a wife who still looked good on his arm, the welcome distraction of women even more attractive, and land he could call his own. And still, the power brokers came at him. They worked on him as diligently as Jehovah’s Witnesses.

  Look, they told him, at how well Bob Graham did. A millionaire, and no bones about it. But the man managed to get elected governor—southern twang and all—because people wanted precisely that kind of politician. Matheson’s education—or lack of it—would be an asset. People would identify. People would vote for him, and Tallahassee desperately needed someone around whom voters would rally. The state’s capitol had taken it on the chin.

  Of course, they weren’t proposing that Matheson go all-out and run for governor. At least not yet. But over time, a state seat? A slot on the right committees? They told him it would be easy.

  The whole notion began to have some appeal. In truth, Matheson was beginning to get a little bored. The more he prospered, the less he felt the thrill of achievement. A deal was a deal was a deal, and no one much cared except for other rich people.

  He agreed to test the waters. Speech writers flew into action. Image makers chose his clothes—a nice mix between wealth and downhome, country-spun. A public relations firm saw that his face became recognizable outside of Flagg. The power brokers made sure he and his wife got connected to just about every community event that made it into the papers.

  Matheson stopped being bored. He started to like it, and then he started to love it. He won election as a state representative twice, built the Tallahassee house, spent time in it during legislative sessions, and imagined himself there permanently in the next year. One term as state senator and, well, who knew what might come next? It was all a lot easier than he ever would have imagined. He created a political agenda for himself that was every bit as impressive as the agenda he’d created in business.

  Claudia’s eyes burned. She’d been reading yellowed newspaper clippings about Matheson for an hour. What they didn’t tell her Chief Suggs did—mostly truth, partly folklore.

  She stood and stretched, reaching for the Styrofoam cup beside her. It was empty again, and that was probably just as well. If she was to catch Matheson and his wife before they went about their day, she needed to move now.

  Officer Mitch Moody, his uniform shed for a suit, waited patiently, tugging on his mustache. Claudia signaled that she would be just a minute, and hit the ladies room. Tumblers turned in her mind. Matheson—or rather his wife, Eleanor—was the wild card in the deck. Maybe it would play. Maybe not. But that the name was among clients reluctantly given up by Marty screamed significance.

  Lysol clung to the air and Claudia didn’t dally. She emerged and started toward Moody.

  “Whoa, whoa, Claudia! Lieutenant!” Emory Carella skidded into view, his tie flapping over one shoulder. “You got just a minute?”

  “Make it fast, Emory,” Claudia said.

  “Okay, here’s something that ought to tickle your interest. You know all that door-to-door canvassing we’ve been doing?”

  Claudia nodded.

  “Yeah, well, it wasn’t amounting to much until last night when I did a follow-up with one of Overton’s neighbors.” Carella distractedly straightened his tie. “But this woman, Stella Barr, she mentioned that about a week before Overton was killed she fired her lawn boy because she’d caught him spying in her bedroom window. I got one of the patrol guys to pick the kid up. He’s in the back, waiting to talk to you. Name’s Billy Pyle, nineteen years old. Works for Bindle’s Lawn Care.”

  Moody joined Claudia and Carella. “Does the kid come with papers?” he asked.

  Carella grinned. “While patrol was picking him up, I ran a computer check. Three priors, two for indecent exposure and one for fondling himself in an adult theater.”

  “Just your garden variety pervert,” Moody observed.

  Anxious as she was to get going, it didn’t sound like talking to Pyle should wait. “What’s your make on him?” Claudia asked Carella as she set her handbag on a desk.

  “Hard to say. The guy’s the size of an ox, but when he opens his mouth the IQ of a moth floats out. Of course,” Carella said quickly, “it could be he’s just jerking me around. I only talked to him for maybe five minutes.”

  A parade of potential suspects had crossed through the Indian Run Police Department since the murder investigation began. Anyone who may have had business with the dead medium received at least cursory scrutiny. Those with any sort of police record at all merited far closer attention. Pyle fit the bill. Although Pyle’s profile ran to sexual deviancy and Overton had not been raped, he had reason to hold a grudge.

  Claudia told Moody to hang loose and followed Carella to a makeshift interrogation room converted from a supply closet for the duration of the investigation. The room had just enough space for a card table and two metal folding chairs. Billy Pyle sat motionless on one, his hands curled protectively around a faded baseball cap on his lap. He looked up blinking when Claudia entered.

  “Hey, Billy,” said Carella, “how’s it going?” When Pyle responded with a blank expression, Carella said, “This is Detective Lieutenant Claudia Hershey, the one I told you about. She wants to talk to you for a minute.”

  Pyle must have weighed close to two hundred and fifty pounds. Beneath a bristled flat-top, his face was soft and his eyes wide. He wore a torn T-shirt so stretched across a massive belly that it was threadbare in the middle.

  “How do you do, Billy?” said Claudia. She gauged the vacant expression, the droopy eyelids and slightly opened mouth. “Do you know why you’re here?”

  “Uh-huh,” said Billy. His voice was thick, and with little inflection. He pointed at Carella. “He told me you wanted to see me. Do you want me to cut your grass? I’m real good.”

  Claudia and Carella exchanged looks. “No, Billy,” said Claudia. She pulled up a chair and sat beside him, offering a smile. “I cut my own grass when it needs it.”

  “Oh.” The boy looked disappointed and puzzled.

  “But I’d like to know about some of the grass you have been cutting,” Claudia continued. “You used to take care of Donna Overton’s lawn, didn’t you?”

  Billy Pyle nodded vigorously, animation lighting his eyes. “Every week. I’d cut it every week. She liked the way I cut her grass and I was always on time. You can ask her. She thought I did a good job.”

  Claudia watched Pyle’s face. “You’re not cutting her grass any more, though, are you, Billy?”

  “Not any more,” he answered, looking down.

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know,” said Pyle in a halting voice. His fingers, stubby appendages with folds of flesh at the knuckles, methodically traced circles over the top of his cap.

  “You sure you don’t know?” Claudia asked softly. When he shrugged, she said, “Is it because you peeked in her window?”

  Almost shyly, Pyle said, “Maybe.”

  “Is that why she told you she didn’t want you cutting her grass anymore?”

  Pyle nodded glumly. �
��I think so.”

  “Did that make you mad, Billy?”

  “A little mad.”

  “Just a little?”

  “A little.” Pyle pinched his forefinger and thumb together to demonstrate how much. “Like that,” he said.

  “What did you do when she told you she didn’t want you coming around anymore, Billy?” When he didn’t respond at first, Claudia touched Pyle’s wrist. “You were a little mad. What did you do?”

  “I . . . I said a bad word.”

  “What bad word, Billy?”

  “I don’t want to say. It was bad. My mom used to get mad at me when I said bad words. She’s dead now.”

  “It’s okay,” Claudia said reassuringly. “We won’t tell anyone. What was the bad word?”

  Pyle looked beseechingly at Carella. “Do I have to say? I’m not supposed to use words like that.”

  Nodding, Carella said, “Go ahead, Billy. Nobody will ever know except us and we won’t tell.”

  “Well, I said . . . I called her a bitch. But I didn’t mean it! I didn’t mean to say it!”

  The air in the small room didn’t circulate properly. Someone needed to install a fan. Claudia took her glasses off and wiped her cheekbones under each eye. When she put them back on she leaned in closer to Pyle.

  “Billy, when you said that word to Donna Overton, did she say anything back to you?” Claudia tilted her head, watching the boy’s face. “Billy?”

  “She said I should go away and never ever come back.” Pyle licked his lips. “She said I shouldn’t look in windows like that.”

  “And have you stayed away?” Claudia persisted.

  “Yeah,” he replied softly.

  “You didn’t say anything else? You didn’t do anything? You didn’t hit her?”

  “No!” Rabbit-like, Billy Pyle looked frantically from Claudia to Carella, then back again. “I would never hit her!” he said. “She’s a nice lady. Maybe one day she won’t be mad at me anymore. And then I can cut her grass again. Do you think she’d let me cut her grass again? I cut grass real, real good.”