by Abigail Keam
I pulled off my straw hat. “Detective Goetz, that is the best news I have had for weeks. Can I buy you a drink?”
“Like right now?”
“Yes, I feel like celebrating. I feel like my life has been given back to me.”
“Like to, but I’m on duty. How about a rain check?”
“Okay,” I said, giving him my best smile.
Goetz started to walk away but then turned. “By the way, why did you call him?”
“Who?”
“Your cell phone. Pidgeon’s number really was on your cell phone log.”
“I thought you and O’nan made that up. I never called him.”
“Check your bill. You will find his number on it.” He waved goodbye.
I now knew why Goetz came. He was making a last ditch effort to pin something on me before his buddy got the boot. That son of a bitch!
I closed up my booth early. On the way home, I called Shaneika on my cell, leaving a message. When I got home, I heard the phone ringing. I hurriedly unlocked the door and reached for the phone, “Hello?” It is a ridiculous fact of my life that my cell phone stops working in the house, causing the expense of a traditional phone.
“You sound out of breath.”
“Just a minute. I gotta turn off the security system.” Finishing the sequence of numbers, I plopped down. “Goetz paid me a call today. He said the case was closed.”
“That’s why I am calling. It was officially ruled as a heart attack, but they can still open the case again with cause,” said Shaneika.
“So this is a temporary reprieve.”
“Unless something pops up that makes the police want to look at the case again, I would say it is over.”
“You don’t sound certain.”
“Nothing is certain in this world.”
I frowned. “And O’nan?”
“I filed a formal complaint. I couldn’t find a college picture to ID him but the socials were the same. He has been pulled off the case and is now up for a review.”
“Did he lose his baseball scholarship?”
“Yes, he did. If I were you, I would cross the street if you two are ever on the same sidewalk.”
“Hates me that much, huh?”
“Like a firebrand.” Shaneika muffled the phone to talk with her secretary. “Back. Look, it is over. You don’t owe me a thing. Like I said, I owed your daughter a favor, so you don’t have to worry about that. Get on with your life. I really do think it is over for good.”
“Thanks for all you did. I appreciate it,” I said.
“Just make sure your daughter knows what I did for you,” Shaneika replied coldly before hanging up.
11
It was one of those crisp mornings when fall was broadcasting its arrival. As usual on a Saturday, I was at the Farmers’ Market peddling my honey. Every weekend the vendors supplied local meat, homegrown produce, eggs, fruit, baked goods, fish, and cheese to over five thousand customers who enjoyed purchasing their food outdoors to the sounds of live music and yarns of their favorite farmer. The atmosphere was always festive.
I was placing glass honey jars in a basket when Officer Kelly rolled up on his Segway. I never failed to think of Kelly as a cliché that walked and talked. His wicked grin, his thick red hair falling over his freckled forehead causing his green eyes to peek out, and then a cop on top of that. And, of course, Irish, a descendant of immigrants who built the nineteenth-century stone fences that the tourists refer to as “slave walls.”
I tried to be angry but couldn’t. Officer Kelly was one of my dearest friends. He was a man who had never said an unkind word to me, who was always gallant, and who brought me food on every occasion that we saw each other. We had many things in common such as the belief that the Templar Knights still existed and the grassy knoll was overlooked in the Warren Report. Kelly introduced me to absinthe and some other bad habits about which I will never utter a word. He was a good cop, but a decadent man.
He was really my daughter’s friend whom I had adopted when she moved away. Kelly was so affable, I couldn’t stand to lose him so I collected him, I guess, as I did my paintings. I was there for his wedding and his children’s christenings. His family and I usually had dinner once a month, but since the “incident,” things had been put on hold. I hadn’t seen him since this mess started with Pidgeon’s death, although his wife had called several times to offer her support.
Kelly stretched out a gloved hand, which held hot chocolate and a bagel. “There is no use being mad at me, Josiah. I had to stay away, but I want you to know that I was working behind the scenes on your behalf.”
“You are a liar and a coward,” I replied, jerking the food out of his hands. “You cops always stick together. I’ll not listen to any of your Irish glib defending your bad conduct.”
“O’nan is a mean piece of work. He was watching everyone who had contact with you, especially me. But I did talk to Goetz on the sly,” said Kelly.
“What did you say?”
“I said you were not the murdering type. It didn’t even look like a murder case to me.”
Mollified somewhat, I asked, “What did Goetz say?”
“He thought the investigation was headed in the wrong direction, but couldn’t speak up because O’nan was the primary. It wasn’t until your lawyer filed that petition that Goetz was able to pull free of O’nan.” Kelly laughed. “Oh, man, does O’nan look like a horse’s ass – getting back at his high school art teacher. He’s a big joke around the station for pulling that one.”
“College professor,” I corrected.
“Whatever. Hey, don’t be mad at me. I stood up for you.”
“Who is the primary now?” I asked.
“No one. Pidgeon’s death is listed as a heart attack. The medical examiner let it go.”
“But it could come up again if someone pushed it?”
“Whoa, don’t you know good news when you hear it?”
“Just thinking out loud. I want to know more. I know you have read the file.”
“Man, don’t make me,” whined Kelly.
“I need help.”
“But it’s over.”
“No, it’s not. Someone is trying to put the whammy on me. Please. For old times’ sake? Come on, didn’t I introduce you to your wife?”
“No, you didn’t, but you’ll bitch to her until she makes me help you. Okay, meet me at Al’s in a couple of hours. I get off my shift then,” replied Kelly before speeding away on his Segway.
Al’s Bar was a gritty little saloon on the corner of Sixth and Limestone where trendy urban dwellers and earnest poets hobnobbed with permanently down-and-out alcoholics. It looked like a place Hemingway would come to sip his whiskey and write a masterpiece novel. Like me, it was a little rusty around the edges, but solid at the core. At least, I liked to think so.
I got there first. Sitting in a duct-taped vinyl booth, I asked for a Long Island iced tea. After a cheery waitress brought my drink, I ordered two cheeseburger platters with all the trimmings, knowing that Kelly would be hungry. Just as the food arrived, Kelly plopped wearily into the booth. Happily, he poured ketchup on his plate while asking the waitress for a Corona and extra napkins.
“What’s it going to take for you not to be mad at me?” he asked, licking ketchup from his fingers.
“Why did the police think Pidgeon’s death wasn’t an accident?”
“Because it looked funny. The missing car is the main reason. If Pidgeon’s car had been at your place, then we would have assumed he died while vandalizing your hives.”
“But why look at me? Why not Tellie?”
Kelly took a hearty bite out of his cheeseburger and answered with his mouth full. “She was the first person they looked at, but she had an airtight alibi. Her co-worker swore that Tellie left work at her usual time at 7 a.m. Richard died around seven. Not enough time for her to drive him to your place. Tellie claims that you called Richard, and that you must have picked him up. She said s
he drove straight home after work and went to bed. Didn’t know anything until we knocked on the door.”
“She’s a nurse at the LETC on Tates Creek. That’s only twenty minutes from me. She could have easily slipped out early,” I said, grabbing some of his fries after eating all of mine.
“Couldn’t shake her alibi. Like I said, with her co-worker vouching for her, and the time card punched out at the correct time, Tellie’s untouchable.”
“Nurses don’t use time cards.”
“They do at this place. New policy.”
“Damn.” I thought for a moment. “Who is this co-worker?”
“Name is Joyce Kramer.”
“Where does she live?”
“In Meadowthorpe.”
“This phone call that I supposedly made – did Tellie know for a fact that I had made it? Did she hear it?”
“She said Richard told her about it.”
“So she could be telling the truth. Maybe Richard lied to her about a phone call?”
“Plausible.”
“You do know that Richard might be a wife-beater.”
“Of course, we heard rumors. We asked Tellie but she denied it.”
“Did you check the ER records?”
“There was nothing in the file about that. O’nan was not going down that path.”
“What about Taffy?”
“Never laid a hand on her that we know of.”
“She could have been trying to protect her mother like Cheryl Crane killing Johnny Stompanato.”
“Who?”
“You know, she killed her mother’s boyfriend – her mother was the actress Lana Turner.”
“Oh, movie stuff,” dismissed Kelly, who thought I was too fascinated with old movies. “Taffy had an alibi with six witnesses. She had gone to a wild party the night before and passed out on her hostess’ couch. Apparently, others had slept over too. She’s clean.”
“Any gambling debts, women?” I asked hopefully.
“Richard was a hardworking schlep with a bad temper. As far as we can tell, he was faithful to his wife, purchased everything with a debit card so he would have a written record and was obsessed with the appearance of his house and yard.”
“So he wouldn’t gamble because he couldn’t have a written transaction of the bet.”
“Exactly. You are now starting to know the man.”
“I went to see Agnes, his first wife,” I confessed.
Kelly seemed interested. “Agnes did not have an alibi for that morning.”
“I guess it doesn’t matter. She told me that she hadn’t seen him since they were divorced.”
“Really? According to Richard’s desk calendar, they had lunch together several days before his death.”
I was flummoxed. “That lying twit. And here I was feeling sorry I had bothered her. Do you know what the meeting was about?”
“She said it had to do with the divorce, a detail they had missed but she discovered while making out her will.”
“What was the problem? Who is the beneficiary of the will?”
“Richard was.”
“Richard?” I thought for a moment. “Did Agnes ever remarry or have kids?”
“Nope.”
“Then that doesn’t seem so far-fetched. She loved Richard. I don’t think she really wanted to divorce him. It would make sense that she would make him her beneficiary if she has no other kin.”
“But that doesn’t explain why she needed to see him. She wouldn’t tell O’nan. According to the case file notes, she told O’nan to go to the devil and that he was to speak to her lawyer.”
I chuckled. “She is a spitfire. And she didn’t tell O’nan that I had been to see her?”
“Apparently not.”
“Hmmm. Maybe I should pay Agnes another call.”
“Please don’t, Josiah. It will come out that I talked to you. I don’t want my butt on the line.”
“Quit whining. I still don’t think you are telling me everything.”
Kelly paused for a moment. I could tell he was thinking. “Somebody keeps sending letters to the station claiming that you killed Pidgeon.”
I slapped the table. Customers looked up from their booths and peered at me. “I knew someone was trying to put the whammy on me. What do the letters look like?”
“Typed.”
“As in a typewriter?”
Kelly talked around his food. “Very old school.” He swallowed and took a sip of his drink. “Nobody but O’nan took them seriously.”
“How many are there?”
“Just two. You have picked my brain entirely. I don’t know anything else. Honest. Does this even the score now?”
“You could have me over to dinner.”
“That I can do.”
“By the way, what happened to Goetz?”
“He has a new partner. Seems happier now.” Kelly winked at me. “I think he’s sweet on you.”
“Really?”
“Ask him to go out with you. He’ll jump at it.”
I laughed. If I were going to be dating anyone, it certainly wouldn’t be Goetz. I threw a twenty on the table and left Kelly with a reminder not to talk with his mouth full. He just grunted and kept chewing.
That night, I felt out of sorts. I restlessly paced the house. Matt was staying in town with his new boyfriend. Baby was in a spiteful mood, chewing on my glasses, which I had to pry from his slobbery mouth. He fought as I tried to clean his face with a washcloth. To wash the dog gunk off my hands and arms, I took a dip in the pool, noticing that the water was cool. I guess the heater was going out and I lacked the money to replace it. Was this going to be my life now? More and more things would fall into complete disrepair until I would become one of the shabby, faded gentry. The house would become a mockery of what it once was.
I had $7000 in my checking account and a $16,000 CD emergency fund. The rest of my money, which was not much, was tied up in retirement funds that would not be available for another twelve years when I turned 62.
When Brannon died, I collected his life insurance policy, which paid off the farm. I earn just enough money with the bees to pay the property taxes, gas, utilities and food. There was not any extra money for luxuries such as vacations, nice clothes, repairing fences or getting my hair done. I didn’t even have health insurance. On paper I was a millionaire but in reality I was dead broke.
I was spiraling downward. If I didn’t take action soon, I would stand to lose everything I had managed to keep after Brannon’s death. Except for Matt, I felt isolated and depressed. I had to change my circumstances. I simply had to. Falling into the bed, Baby spooned me. My dreams were dreary, cloudy snippets of Brannon admonishing me; sleep was no comfort to me. Baby nestled his muzzle next to my neck, effectively taking away my pillow. His steady snorts of deep, contented slumber finally persuaded my whirling mind
to push deeper until a numbing sleep claimed me.
12
On Monday morning I made an appointment with Shaneika’s secretary. I put on a thick dose of mascara and dressed in an expensive but tightly fitted dress. I was going to have to lose weight, but like Scarlett, I’d think about that later. With resigned determination, I lifted a painting off my concrete wall and wrapping it in an old comforter, placed it carefully in the back of my van. The traffic was awful as usual downtown, but I was able to find a parking space near the remodeled nineteenth-century bank building where her office was located. I was only a few minutes late for my appointment, but Miss Shaneika made me wait for twenty more. She could be petty like Matt. I doubted whether either one would ever tell me if I had spinach in my teeth.
Finally, I was let into a well-appointed nineteenth-century corner office with a restored mosaic floor that contained detailed Mason symbols. The room had glorious views of both Main and Short streets with their quaint buildings buffered by the old courthouse and glass skyscrapers. The furniture was mahogany, massive and expensive. Shaneika’s desk had stacks of files on it as w
ell as a silver-framed picture of a handsome young man smiling. I assumed he was her boyfriend. There were oil paintings of Kentucky Derby winners such as Aristides, Ben Brush, and Man O’ War on the walls.
Also hanging was a Confederate officer’s sword, a tintype of African-American women on wash day at Camp Nelson, and several letters, one of which was from Abraham Lincoln congratulating his brother-in-law, George Rodgers Clark Todd, upon his graduation as a doctor from Transylvania University.