Best Served Cold

by Susan Rogers Cooper

  ‘No. Mike said they didn’t find any in the house.’

  ‘Any? Like the whole place had been wiped?’

  ‘Hum. You know, I don’t know. Want me to call him?’ Anthony asked.

  ‘No. You take care of your women,’ I said. I seemed to be saying that a lot lately. ‘I’ll call Charlie.’

  It was getting late and Charlie had already left for home – something I should be doing. But I did have his home number in my Rolodex, so I called it. He answered.

  ‘Charlie, it’s Milt.’

  ‘Hey, Milt.’

  ‘Did y’all get any prints at Miz Pettigrew’s house?’

  ‘Nary a one.’

  ‘So the whole place was wiped down,’ I said.

  ‘Seems so.’

  ‘So how would someone have had the time to do that?’ I asked. ‘I mean, Miz Pettigrew doesn’t leave the house that much and wouldn’t, what with her bridge group showing up. And you and your people were there pretty damn quick.’

  ‘There was a little lag time, Milt,’ Charlie said. ‘The ambulance came and got the two ladies who were poisoned but everybody just thought it was food poisoning at that point. Dalton and that other woman went with Miz Pettigrew to the hospital. So the house was empty for at least an hour. Maybe more.’

  ‘That’s more than a little lag time,’ I said.

  ‘So I exaggerated. Shoot me.’

  ‘Don’t say that to me, I’m carrying.’

  ‘Any ideas?’

  ‘When you say y’all dusted everything, what does that mean exactly?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, maybe everything?’ he said. I think he was being sarcastic. I can pick up on these nuances of speech.

  ‘Somehow I doubt that,’ I said. ‘Everything’s kinda hard to achieve.’

  ‘Well, feel free to send your guys over there to re-dust,’ he said.

  ‘Did anybody tell you about the broom in the kitchen?’

  ‘What broom in the kitchen?’ Charlie asked, his voice indicating his impatience. Hell, what did he have to be impatient about? He was the one who was home, not like me, still sitting in the shop feeling sorry for myself.

  ‘There was a broom in the kitchen that should have been in a closet by the back door. Miz Pettigrew doesn’t leave shit like that lying around, Charlie. There’s a good chance our perp put it there.’

  ‘Why would he?’ Charlie asked.

  ‘I don’t know! Maybe he dropped something and had to pick it up. Maybe he dragged in some dirt on his shoes and had to pick that up so we wouldn’t know his shoe size. Hell if I know, but the thing is he did.’

  ‘She coulda left it—’ Charlie started.

  But I interrupted him. ‘No way, no how. Miz Pettigrew’s as anal if not more so than my own mama. No way would she leave a broom leaning against the kitchen counter, especially with company coming over. It would be all over town in a New York minute that Inez Pettigrew was a sloppy housekeeper.’

  ‘Bullshit,’ he said.

  ‘You obviously don’t know that generation – at least, that generation in a small town. You’re a city boy – what do you know? I’m telling you, the perp put that broom there.’

  ‘OK, fine,’ he said, obviously irritated. ‘I’ll have somebody swing by and pick the damn thing up. That work for you?’

  ‘That works for me,’ I said, grinning at the fact that he was getting pissed off. I’d obviously done my job well.

  ‘Now if you don’t have anything more you need me to do, can I get back to my supper before it’s stone cold?’ Charlie said.

  ‘Sorry I inter—’ But I was talking to a dead line.

  I decided it was about time for me to head home. Then I thought about the fact that my sister would be fixing dinner and wondered if there wasn’t something else I could do in the office. Then I chided myself for being a coward and headed to my Jeep, but I didn’t get far. One foot shot out from underneath me on my first step out the door. Ice was everywhere. The snow storm had turned into an ice storm, which meant all hell was about to break loose.

  Jean and John were alone in the house. Jewel Anne and Harmon had gone to Tulsa earlier in the day antiques shopping and had gotten stuck due to the weather. Then Milt called and said he’d best stay at the station because accidents were bound to happen. So Jean heated up a can of tomato soup, grilled some cheese sandwiches, and she and John had a picnic on the coffee table in front of the TV – something she usually didn’t allow. They were halfway through a DVD of The Lord of the Rings – for the umpteenth time – when the lights went out. Suspecting that this might happen in an ice storm, Jean had set out a couple of flashlights.

  She pulled herself up by her crutch and told John, ‘I’d better get some candles. The lights might be out for a while and we don’t want to run the batteries down on the flashlights. Could you please start a fire while I find the candles?’

  ‘Sure, Mom,’ John said, glad that she’d set him such a grown-up task. His father had taught him how to start a fire, but – until now – Mom had not seen fit to let him do it on his own. He was stacking two logs and looking for the kindling when he heard a sound at the window of the living room. He threw the flashlight beam in that direction and let out a scream.

  Seeing as how I didn’t have to eat my sister’s cooking for dinner, and seeing as how Jean was nowhere around to tell me what I could or couldn’t eat, I suggested – OK, ordered – Anna Alvarez to bear the storm and head to KFC. When she got back – the south Texas girl half frozen from the storm – I indulged big time. Three pieces of fried chicken, two helpings of mashed potatoes and a corn on the cob.

  Which may have been the reason I felt like throwing up an hour later. Before the heart attack, I could eat twice that much and have room for dessert, but after being on this stupid diet for almost two years, my belly couldn’t handle it. Although I must admit my belly no longer hung over my belt. Which I suppose could be called a good thing.

  The phone was ringing off the hook and I’d called in Emmett, Anthony and Dalton. Even Charlie Smith, police chief of Longbranch, dropped by to ask if we could back up each other on the wrecks, which I agreed to. Mostly they were fender-benders, cars slipping and sliding on the ice, but there was one bad one in downtown Longbranch that I sent Anthony to help with. Seemed old man Everett, the pharmacist at the Rexhall Drug Store, was coming out of his shop when a car slid on the ice and pinned him between that car and Mr Everett’s own. Both his legs were at least broken, if not worse. It took the EMTs over thirty minutes to get there, with Anthony and a city cop trying to take care of the old man as he went into shock. By the time Anthony got back to the station, he said it wasn’t looking good for Mr Everett.

  The phones were ringing so much that I had to answer ’em a couple of times, which, in my vaulted position, I usually didn’t have to do. The third time I answered it was my wife. All I heard before the line went dead was, ‘Milt! Help!’

  Jean heard John’s scream and hurried back into the living room. ‘What?’ she demanded.

  ‘Mom! There’s a monster outside!’ he said, his flashlight beam still focused on the front window.

  ‘John, I don’t see anything!’

  ‘It’s gone now! But Mom, I swear, there was somebody – or something out there!’

  Jean sighed. ‘It’s the storm, honey,’ she said. ‘It may have knocked a branch down or blown something against the window—’

  ‘No, Mom, I swear—’

  ‘John, did you open the flue?’ Jean asked, sniffing the air.

  Johnny Mac turned to the fireplace, which seemed to be drawing fine. ‘Yeah, Mom, I swear I did—’

  Still Jean sniffed the air. ‘Something’s burning!’ she said as she saw smoke coming from the area of the kitchen.

  She hurried that way, telling John, ‘Grab the extinguisher from under the sink! Hurry!’

  She came into the kitchen to find the back door on fire.

  My Jeep is a four-wheel drive, which works even better with chai
ns and snow tires, but both those items were back in the garage at home, what with winter being mostly over and all. Who knew that March would start out with an ice storm? I jumped in my Jeep and headed home. Unfortunately my house is at the top of Mountain Falls Road and, as the name implies, it was steep going. I had to go off road most of the way, grabbing what traction I could in the frozen grass and weeds on the sides of the road. Even so, I beat the fire truck, which was about five minutes behind me.

  I got to the house and bailed out of my Jeep, then slammed open the front door. Jean and Johnny Mac were in the living room on the sofa, cuddled up together with a blanket and a blazing fire in the fireplace.

  ‘What the hell!’ I demanded.

  ‘Go check out the kitchen,’ my wife said.

  So I did. The back door was gone and the walls on either side were scorched, the windows busted out. By the time I got back in the kitchen, Jean was up and talking to one of the volunteer firefighters standing in our living room.

  The volunteers decided to check it out anyway, to make sure there wasn’t some residual sparks, or whatever, while I went up and took my wife and child in my arms. ‘What happened?’ I asked into Jean’s hair.

  She pulled away. ‘We’re not sure—’ she started but Johnny Mac interrupted.

  ‘There was somebody out there, Dad! I swear to God there was! I saw somebody at the window,’ he said, pointing to the living-room window that looked out to the front of our property, ‘and I yelled to Mom and then, before you know it, we started smelling smoke, and it wasn’t coming from that!’ he said, pointing at the fire in the fireplace. ‘I built that!’ he added, with pride in his voice.

  I pulled him to me. ‘You did good, son,’ I said. Then, ‘Did you get a good look at whoever was out there?’

  ‘It looked like a monster to me.’

  ‘Son—’ I started, but again he interrupted. It was a new habit he was gonna have to break.

  ‘I know there aren’t monsters, Dad. I’m just saying that’s what it looked like! Like maybe it was somebody wearing a mask or something.’

  Thinking about the zombie baby someone had hung from the light fixture in our interrogation room at the station, I figured maybe our bad guy had picked up a few more tricks at that Halloween store.

  ‘Sheriff,’ one of the volunteers said as he came back in the living room, ‘the fire’s out but y’all can’t stay here. We can put up some plastic until you can get repairs done but it’s supposed to get down to the teens tonight.’

  I nodded my head, thanked the volunteers who were already coming in the house with sheets of plastic and got on my cell phone to call the Longbranch Inn. Looked like we’d be spending the night there.

  So I was tired the next day when I got to the shop. I was the last one in – except for Holly.

  ‘She’s staying with Mama,’ Dalton explained. ‘We didn’t want to leave Mama alone just now.’ He leaned in to speak softly in my ear. ‘Miz Merkle died late last night,’ he said.

  So that was two dead from the arsenic someone had put in Miz Pettigrew’s peach melba and one dead from cut brake lines. The fun and games part of this situation was definitely over.

  But I was cranky, which may have had more to do with my over-indulgence with fried chicken than lack of sleep, so I said, ‘I need Holly here to do some computer work!’

  ‘I can help, Sheriff,’ Anna Alvarez said as she came out of the bullpen.

  ‘She’s good, Milt,’ Emmett said. ‘Helped me a lot yesterday.’

  ‘Yeah, whatever. Fine.’ I turned and walked to my office. The ice storm was over but ice was still on the ground – and on the streets and sidewalks and driveways, and anywhere else that was level enough to catch it. The trees looked real pretty with the icicles hanging down like an old-fashioned Christmas tree but accidents were still bound to happen, and I was glad I had almost a full staff.

  My breakfast was skimpy, just some coffee and part of half a grapefruit. And both of those were at war with what was left of my stomach.

  ‘What’s eating you?’ Emmett asked as he followed me into my office.

  I groaned. ‘Don’t say “eat”,’ I said.

  ‘I told you not to have that fourth piece of chicken!’ he said with a grin.

  ‘It was a third, but who’s counting?’

  ‘Jean know what you did?’ he asked.

  ‘No, and she’s not going to!’ I said, giving him a look. ‘Or Jasmine will find out about your penchant for the enchilada special!’

  He held up his hands in surrender. ‘Who? Me tell? Not on your life! Did you puke?’ he asked.

  ‘If only,’ I said and groaned. I used to think not being prone to puking was a good thing, but my stomach was telling me that throwing up some of last night’s indulgences would do me a hell of a lot of good. ‘Got a Tums?’

  He left for his office, coming back seconds later with a brand-new roll of Tums. ‘Jasmine got me two at the store the other day. Haven’t even started on the first one so you can have this.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, and popped two in my mouth, chewing slowly. The burp this produced moments later was awesome. If I coulda burped that loud as a kid I woulda been king of the playground.

  ‘So what’s happening?’ I asked Emmett.

  ‘Got Anna looking up Tom Vaught’s family.’

  I frowned.

  ‘Tom Vaught. The guy Danny Evans shot in that road rage—’

  ‘Oh, yeah. I guess we gotta look at them, huh?’

  ‘They’re the only ones left,’ Emmett said.

  ‘That we know of,’ I said.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ he said with an edge to his voice.

  ‘Well, how the hell do we know the real perp is even in our list of suspects? I mean, it’s not like there haven’t been a slew of assholes we’ve put away – or killed, if it comes right down to it. And – and,’ I said, getting hopped up a little, ‘what’s to really say this has anything to do with revenge? It could be something else entirely. It could be some stranger—’

  Emmett sighed. ‘Milt, I think we got enough. Any more suspects and we’d need to hire storage to keep ’em in.’

  ‘Speaking of that, I think we should let the Permeter boys go.’

  Emmett just stared at me for a moment and then said, ‘You think that’s wise? I mean, what’s Dalton gonna have to say about that?’

  ‘We’ve got no reason to keep ’em locked up,’ I said, leaning back in my chair. ‘I’ll try to convey that to Dalton.’

  ‘Better you than me,’ Emmett said, stood up and left the office.

  ‘Coward,’ I called after his departing back.

  Then I punched in Dalton’s extension and asked him to come to my office. He came in, sat down in a chair and looked at me with those big doe eyes of his. I wished I could tell him I had one iota of evidence against anybody – especially the Permeters who nobody liked much anyway – but I didn’t. And I couldn’t legally keep the brothers locked up any more. Actually, I should never have done it in the first place. If they weren’t too stupid to realize it had been illegal and called a lawyer, I could be in deep shit. But I was banking on the fact that knowledge was not a commodity the Permeter brothers had in stock.

  So I just sighed, looked Dalton straight in the eye and said, ‘I gotta let the Permeter brothers go.’

  To my surprise, he nodded his head. ‘Yeah, Holly told me you were holding them illegally.’ He looked down at his hands. ‘And I thank you for that, Sheriff. I’ve decided I’m gonna send my mama up to her sister’s in Kansas. I’m trying to get Holly to go with her, but you know Holly.’

  I smiled. ‘Yeah, I know Holly. But she’ll be here at the shop most days and with you at night. I’ll make sure if you get stuck on a call after quitting time that she goes home with me or Emmett until you can pick her up. That work for you?’

  Dalton smiled weakly. ‘Yeah, it’ll have to. I need this afternoon off. I have to drive Mama to Kansas and I’m taking Holly with me.�
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  I stood up and held out my hand. ‘That’ll be fine,’ I said. ‘Just be real careful. There’s still a lot of ice out there.’ He took my outstretched hand and shook it.

  ‘Thanks, Milt,’ he said, ‘I’ll be real careful.’ And he left the office.

  According to Anna Alvarez, Tom Vaught’s family still lived in Prophesy County. They had a ranch not too far from the Tejas County line. Emmett decided to drive over there without calling first. Surprise can sometimes spook people into a confession. At least, that’s what he’d heard. He took his personal car so as not to alert them as to who was driving up their road, and also because he’d procrastinated about changing out the snow tires which, in this instance, was a good thing.

  The Vaught ranch was a real nice piece of property. According to the records Anna had found on the Internet, the Vaughts owned one-hundred-and-eighty-five acres and made their income off raising and selling Quarter Horses. The private road to the house was lined with white-washed fencing and lots of pin oaks dusted the grounds, icicles shining like diamonds in the sun that had decided to come out. He could see about ten horses far out in a field on the right and a couple in a corral on the left. He thought that while he was here, if he didn’t piss anybody off too much, he might check and see how much a Quarter Horse cost these days. He thought his daughter would love that. Most girls did.

  The house was a long, low ranch, well-kept with a cropped front lawn now brown from winter but shiny from the ice. A couple of drifts of snow rested against the north side of the trees. He stopped the car and noted that it had been surrounded by a pack of dogs. None of them were barking, just staring at him. Two were sitting on their haunches by his door, a couple on the other side and two more in front. He didn’t like the odds.

  Then the dogs looked up at the house and so did Emmett. A woman was standing on the front porch. She snapped her fingers and all six dogs rushed up the steps and sat down around her, all staring again at Emmett’s car. He got out slowly, holding up his hands as if the woman had a gun pointed at him rather than a pack of dogs. Of course, he thought, a bullet could possibly miss him; six attacking dogs not so much.