Murder by Serpents (Five Star First Edition Mystery)
Page 12
Wade cleared his throat. “Care to share?”
“Didn't you read all this?” Tony watched Wade wielding his fork.
“Not all of it, just enough to see that it wasn't Quentin.” The skin at the corners of Wade's eyes creased with his smile. “I was so excited that I got a positive hit, I had to come and brag on myself.”
“Good job. I see that he has enjoyed room and board in both Texas and Georgia. Most of the charges seem to be related to burglary and drug possession.” As he chewed, Tony examined the photographs, full front and profile. Sammy's left eye looked normal but the right one appeared to be slightly crossed as it peered through a mop of tangled dark hair. A scruffy mustache covered his lips. “Not exactly a beauty, is he? Do you remember seeing him around town?”
“Nope, and I've already made copies of this for everyone. I said to be on the lookout for him.” Wade swallowed his last bite of pie and eyed the slices left in the pie pan. “Read on down to where it describes his tattoos. I did study that. Those ‘Hate' and ‘Kill' tattoos on his knuckles have to be prison tattoos. I'll bet you a dollar he and our mysterious Mr. Mize were in the same prison.”
“Could be,” Tony shrugged. “But those are not uncommon prison sentiments. The drug possession charges interest me a lot though. I am very curious about the current whereabouts of our new boy. When I talked to Kenneth with the drug task force, he said that those serial numbers on the Oxy match up with some bottles missing from a shipment in Kentucky.”
“So do you think this is a case of a falling out between business partners?”
“I have no clue. He's on parole, so contact Georgia and see what they know about his last knowns. They are not going to like hearing where we found his fingerprints.” Tony wanted to lick the plate but settled for scraping the last tiny bits with the side of his fork. “I don't suppose you have any more on Mize, Hub or whatever?”
“Not yet, but it takes longer if they are partials.”
The lunchroom shared dishes and appliances with the jail kitchen. Daffodil Flowers Smith, Blossom's oldest sister, cooked for the jail and ran a tight ship. She considered this her domain, her kitchen. Anyone who left a mess would hear about it and then be barred from the area. Respecting her rules both men put their plates and forks in the dishwasher. Then they checked that they hadn't made a mess on the table before they headed back to Tony's office.
“If I could have gotten a clear set from all five fingers on one hand, we would be done.” Obviously thinking about the process, Wade shivered and his face lost some of its color. Working with the distorted fingers was a singularly unpleasant duty.
The expression on his face made Tony grin. “Really enjoyed that, did you?” Wade's expression promised retribution, but before he could say a word, Tony's desk phone started ringing. His intercom and the cellular phone in his pocket joined in almost simultaneously. “What in the . . . ?” Tony pushed the intercom button as he reached for the tiny phone.
Wade lifted the receiver.
Ruth Ann's voice came through the intercom. “Theo's found a body.”
Theo's voice came through the cell phone. “I found a body.”
The receiver pressed to his head, Wade said, “We just heard. Theo's found a body.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
* * *
When Theo left Nina's house, she felt better. Her friend's spirits had revived in spite of the problems she suffered. Daniel's defection hurt, but Theo suspected that Nina didn't really miss him.
From Theo's standpoint, having Nina's help with the new patterns lifted a weight from her shoulders. She knew the quilt tops would be sewn soon and that they would be constructed perfectly. Nina's workmanship was superb. If Theo's pattern had an error in it, Nina would find the flaw and tell her all about it.
Theo inhaled, enjoying the hint of wood smoke coming from one of the other houses. Nina lived in one of the new homes built along the stream that flowed from the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. Only a few years earlier, the land had been part of the McMahan family farm, a farm that produced more brambles than it did anything else but children.
Seeing the vision of prosperity and determining that it exceeded the merits of tradition, Nina's father subdivided the farm into two-and three-acre lots. Individuals built large single-family homes within the first year. Old man McMahan kept the best lot for himself and gave the second best to his only daughter, Nina. In point of fact, the land and house still belonged to him.
What had chafed Daniel Crisp turned out to be a blessing for his wife. Nina's husband could not sell the house, nor could he make any kind of claim on the property. Even if she had no money, she would have a home.
Old man McMahan wanted to preserve as much of the natural beauty of the area as he could and still make a killing in the real estate market. To that end, he made plans for wilderness areas. He protected the plots by deeding them to the county. One of those formed a small, forested park in the very center of the little subdivision.
The redbud trees were just getting ready to start blooming. Drawn by their beauty, Theo wandered in and smiled to see the first magenta blossom unfurling. Everything pointed to this being an early spring. Checking for further signs, she looked under the trees for any early blooming flowers. Delighted when she spied a few early yellow violets, the blossoms just peeping through a layer of dead leaves, she knelt down. Brushing away a few of the damp leaves that clung to the petals so that she could admire the dainty yellow faces, it took her a few seconds to identify the human hand only inches away from her own. In contrast to her small, pale hand, the skin on the other looked like it had been freeze-dried.
With a gasp, Theo jerked upright and immediately started digging in her purse. “Thank goodness for cell phones.” She mumbled to herself as she found her phone in the bottom of her purse. She pushed the button that automatically dialed 911.
Rex Satterfield's nasal voice asking her the nature of her emergency jarred her into more coherent thoughts. “Hey, Rex, this is Theo. Now that you ask, I guess I really don't have an emergency. I've found a body or part of a body, but even I can tell that it has been dead for quite awhile.” When she realized she was babbling, she pulled herself together and gave Rex a brief description of her discovery and location. She disconnected and dialed Tony's number. When he answered, she breathed a sigh of relief. “Tony, guess what?”
“I know, I know. You found a body.” His words crackled through the phone followed by another sound.
Recognizing his laughter, Theo frowned. “It's not funny.”
Tony stood with his arms crossed over his chest, his eyes trained on Theo's face. Only a hint of freckles gave it any color. She hadn't found a body after all. It turned out to be only part of a body, just a hand and forearm, but it was human. She had a right to be unnerved.
Doc Nash had been consulted by telephone and he had flatly refused to come to the scene. He claimed that he needed more than one body part to determine if someone was deceased. Growing testier by the second, the man finally shouted that the loss of one arm was not enough. A head, yes;
an arm, no.
Tony thought the doctor sounded even more out of sorts than usual.
Theo leaned against the blooming redbud, all but surrounded by her husband. “I know you'd prefer I call you before I call 911, Tony, but I swear it was almost like someone else was doing it and all I was doing was watching.” Theo peeked around his shoulder and eyed the deputies as they marked off the area with yellow tape. “The moment I heard Rex's voice, it dawned on me what I had done, and now everyone with a scanner or everyone who knows someone with a scanner is going to come this way.”
Knowing that his wife was right only made Tony's frown deepen. He tried to cheer up both of them. “Maybe no one heard it.”
The line of onlookers forming near the road squashed that idea. Drawn out by the activity in their park, the residents of the area clustered together near Nina's yard. Nina herself stood braced with a pair of crutches,
watching everything through binoculars.
Tony waved.
Park County was too small and too poor to have many of the resources available in the larger counties. One thing they could not afford was a trained canine officer. Like the fire department, the search and rescue team consisted of a small cluster of trained and dedicated volunteers. Balanced on the line between professional and volunteer were Deputy Mike Ott and his bloodhound, Dammit.
Mike didn't look like a cop. Most of the time, he didn't even look like an adult, even though he was about thirty-two. He was the average man. Average height, slightly less than average weight, his features were neither unattractive nor handsome. Born to do undercover work, Mike starred in every school play from kindergarten through high school and had even been a drama major at UT. Now he dedicated himself to law enforcement and had become so good at undercover work that other agencies wanted to borrow him. Tony didn't know what he would do without him.
Dammit, the bloodhound, was his baby. The huge, russet and black dog, with acres of skin hanging from its face, adored Mike. They first met when Claude Marmot, the area's professional trash hauler, called to report a case of animal cruelty.
Marmot-the-Varmint, as most people referred to him, spent a fair amount of time digging through the trash he carried to the dump. One day, he spotted a man beating a big puppy with a tire iron. When he refused to stop, Claude picked up a length of pipe and proceeded to give the man a taste of his own medicine.
The dog's owner had vanished by the time that Mike arrived to investigate. Mike fell in love at first sight. After the veterinarian checked the puppy for injuries, Mike took him to his home. He named the puppy Sam, but the name didn't stick. He spent more time calling it Dammit than Sam. The dog grew to be stubborn, headstrong, irritating, opinionated and bigger than his car. Mike claimed he was perfect and took him everywhere.
Over the past couple of years, Mike worked hard to train the dog to track, and it had paid off. One time Dammit had found a couple of lost campers and another time an old woman with Alzheimer's disease who had slipped away from her caregiver. Now Mike and Dammit were preparing to comb this area.
Tony couldn't imagine how they could do a decent search of this area without a dog. The terrain in the McMahan subdivision was rough and heavily wooded. There was only one small stand of evergreen trees. The other trees in the park had been shedding leaves for hundreds of years. It would be impossible to sweep them all aside to look for the rest of their new body. With any luck, Dammit would be able to locate it. After all, if he could track the scent of someone moving down the road in a car, finding something like this should be a snap.
“What do you think?” Theo asked as she watched man and dog working together.
“I don't want to think about it.” Tony lifted a curl away from her face and bent over to look directly into her eyes. Behind her lenses, her hazel gold eyes looked huge and innocent. “If that's part of Nina's husband, I have only two suspects.”
“Really?” Theo's eyes searched his face. “Who are they?”
“Let's just say that if it's him, you're only number two on my list.” The way Theo's mouth opened into a silent O amused him. He wasn't really concerned. He knew that if the hand was part of Daniel Crisp and Theo knew anything about it, she would have left it alone or, more likely, buried it.
Tony walked Theo to her minivan in silence. As she reached to close the door, the afternoon sunlight glinted on her wedding band. It reminded him that he still hadn't talked to Quentin about his cousin's wife. Hadn't he claimed that the man wasn't married while his congregation said the opposite? He needed to find that answer. Leaving Mike in charge, he headed back to town. If Quentin had sobered enough, Tony would take him over to the morgue and let him identify the body.
Tony entered the county communications office.
From his chair, dispatcher Rex Satterfield could keep an eye on the padded cell and on the holding cell at the other side of the room. The jail itself was behind another set of security doors. At the moment, Rex was talking to the deputies on duty. As part of his job, he monitored their activities and locations. He glanced up at Tony.
“Mike has found a few more body parts.” Rex might have been describing lost library books for all of the emotion he expressed. “That dog of his is really something, isn't he?” He didn't even pause to see if Tony had a response. “Sheila is on her way back without Quentin's girlfriend. Evidently Sheila couldn't find her up at the house, and now Sheila's on her way to help Mike. Darren is at lunch with his intended, and Wade is in his cubicle.” Rex had earned his reputation for being completely unflappable. “No one has reported seeing the fugitive Mr. Samson.”
“Thanks, Rex, how's our visitor?” Tony inclined his head in the direction of the padded cell. “Do you think Quentin is coherent?”
The dispatcher burst out laughing. It sounded like a donkey braying. “Oh, man, not even close. He's in there talking to his regular visitors.”
“Visitors?” Since visitors were never allowed in this area, Tony found Rex's comment intriguing. He craned his neck to see the entire area around the cell. It was empty.
“Yeah, his regular visitors are bats. A whole group of invisible bats, or is it a herd?” Rex paused to wipe his streaming eyes. “Animal-type bats, not baseball. The last time he spent some time in here, he told me all about them.”
Tony strolled over to the cell and studied Quentin. He quickly surmised that the bats were frequent visitors in Quentin's personal universe because he apparently knew all of them by name. They seemed to be hanging from the ceiling in one corner of the padded cell but, of course, Tony couldn't tell that for sure. Eavesdropping on the conversation, he did learn that one of the bats was named Elvis. Quentin seemed to be pleading with Elvis for permission to sing along, promising to only sing harmony and backup. Evidently his plea succeeded and Elvis agreed, because Quentin began warming up his voice with a series of commercial jingles.
Quentin's singing voice was a pleasant baritone that surprised Tony. Standing in the corner of the cell, Quentin began to croon, “In the Ghetto.” Shaking his head, Tony backed away from the door and met Rex's amused gaze. “Nope. He's not even close to our planet.” It would probably be hours before his orbit brought him near earth again. Tony couldn't wait that long.
Wade saved the day. Carrying a handful of papers, he found Tony watching Quentin. “I know who our corpse is. We don't have to wait for Quentin to land.” He paused to listen when Quentin, and presumably Elvis, launched into a heartfelt version of “Love Me Tender.”
Rex grinned. “That one's my personal favorite. They do a real nice job with that one.” He turned back to his screen.
“Which corpse?” Tony just loved to pull Wade's chain. The younger man made it almost too easy.
“The first one.” To all appearances, unperturbed, Wade held up his printout. “Harold Usher Brown, but he goes by Hub. He has a record of multiple offenses. His last known address was Lee State Prison in Georgia.”
“Paroled?”
“Nope. He served his time and got out eight years ago. He's been off the Georgia radar ever since.”
“Harold Brown. I know that name, but why? What had the late Mr. Brown been doing to earn his room and board?” Tony massaged his scalp and the back of his neck.
Wade ran his finger down the list. “Just about everything. Mostly small time, until he killed a man in a bar fight and had to do real time. Let's see. Grand theft auto, larceny, domestic violence, assault.” Wade shook his head. “That's a long way from being a preacher.”
Tony nodded and started pacing. “Why is that name so familiar?” A tiny blob of apple pie filling clinging to Wade's tie caught his eye. He stopped abruptly. “Ruby.”
“Ruby?” Clearly confused, Wade looked over the paper he held, reading the information again. “What's she got to do with this?”
“I'm not sure.” Tony headed for the Blazer. “Maybe everything. You're about to find out.”
* * *
“How long have you been Ruby?” Tony took a sip of coffee and watched a range of emotions chase across her face. He knew part of the story because she came to him and told him about herself shortly after he won the election. That had been two and a half years ago.
Ruby glanced at Wade before returning her gaze to Tony. An untouched stoneware coffee mug rested on the table in front of her. “Five years now.” A smile of pure delight illuminated her face “Old Ruby even sent me a pink flamingo key chain for an anniversary present.”
Before joining the two lawmen on the cafɾ deck, Ruby had removed her apron and donned a short jacket of soft, red fleece woven with a pattern of black horses. She stroked the sleeve with one finger and grinned at him. “I talked to Old Ruby just last week and she said that living in an RV in Florida is almost heaven. It is what she was born to do and she will never miss being cold.”