by Tonya Kappes
“Sheriff,” Sterling called after me. He waved me over. “I did hear something that night but I didn’t go check it out because I heard tires.”
“You heard tires?” I asked.
“You know that hairpin turn about a mile before Chimney Rock put in?” He asked. I nodded. “I heard a crash. No squealing tires or nothing. But there was another car behind it that stopped.”
“Did you see it?” I asked.
“No. I just heard it and didn’t bother going to check it out when I heard the other car. I’m assuming they were there to help.” His bushy brows furrowed.
“Help? Yeah, help kill,” Poppa chimed in.
“Did you hear any voice?” I asked.
“No. Just tires of another car. A door slammed a few times and drove off again. I went back to getting some stuff together because it was the first night the shelter opened. But it didn’t open until eleven thirty.” He gave me a time.
“Eleven thirty.” Poppa noodle the time as well as I did.
“Eleven thirty,” I repeated.
“It was about fifteen minutes later that the tow truck came.” He stopped me in my tracks.
“Did you say tow truck?” Poppa and I asked at the exact same time.
“I know it was a tow truck because the rotating round lights was exactly what I needed to help find some of the items I wanted to take with me while I stayed in the shelter.” He’d just given us a major clue.
“Did you see them?” I asked.
“No, I told you that I was getting my stuff together.” He dragged the small plate with a piece of pie closer to him.
“Manuel, Jilly, and Sean drive the two trucks,” Poppa named off my list of suspects.
“Thanks, Sterling. If you hear or remember anything else, can you call me?” I asked.
“Sure thing, Sheriff.” He forked the pie and stuffed it in his mouth.
“Someone used the tow truck to toss her SUV in the river,” Poppa said as his ghost kept up with me while I hurried around and picked up used paper plates and napkins.
My duty was clean up. Clean up more ways than one. I had a murder to clean up and it took everything I had not to run out of there and force my way into Graves Towing, giving Sean Graves a piece of my mind.
The more I cleaned, the more my mind wandered over the clues.
He had the bottle of Ambien. No matter how much he said he’d accepted Leighann and Manuel’s relationship, he still loathed them together and it was apparent on his face when I’d seen him that night at the dance. Then there was his abusive side that I’d uncovered while talking to him and Jilly. He knew all of Leighann and Manuel’s hook up places, Chimney Rock being one of them. He and Jilly left before Leighann. Leighann had plenty of time to make it home, talk to her parents, get slipped an Ambien before she was going to Chimney Rock to meet Manuel. Her father followed her and when she fell asleep at the wheel, he towed her car into the river and that’s why the seat was set back, Leighann unbuckled, with the keys in her pocket.
But did Sean Graves really kill his own daughter? If he didn’t, who lured her there?
Chapter Eleven
I barely felt like I’d slept when the alarm went off. Duke jumped off the bed, which meant he wasn’t going to last through a snooze, so I rolled over and sat up in bed. The first thing on my mind was Leighann Graves and what I had to do today.
The warmth of my slippers felt so good as I padded out of my bedroom and down the hall towards the back door where Duke was eagerly paw dancing to be let out. This was the usual activity after he’d spent some time with Finn, alone, the night before. Finn wasn’t aware of a treat limit and gave Duke a fistful of doggie biscuits.
I flipped on the coffee pot and unlocked the door, pushing open the screen door that stood between Duke and my fenced-in back yard. He darted out, yelping his way back to the fence where he smelled whatever critters had gotten into the yard while he was sleeping. He didn’t care that the temperature had dropped a good twenty degrees overnight.
I shook my head and checked the coffee pot on my way back to the bathroom to start my hot shower. Duke took just enough time to smell and do his business while I got my shower.
While the hot water felt good, it still wasn’t enough to make me feel confident that Sean Graves was who had killed Leighann. The muffles and rumblings I’d heard around town, Sean Graves was already tried and arrested, and it wasn’t a big secret he was known as a hard man.
It amazed me how something like news of a break-up took precedent over an abusive man, which would be this case. Because I’d never heard until this week that Sean was abusive.
The clues surely did point to him. I didn’t have enough concrete evidence to arrest him. No judge or prosecutor would take a case on hearsay, gossip, and a bottle of Ambien. Not even the knowledge that he abused Leighann and Jilly, even that didn’t make him a killer. Especially since Jilly or Leighann never filed a complaint.
I had to go see Rachel Palmer, Leighann’s friend, while she was home from college. Heading to the tree lot to interview Juanita’s boys was also on my list. The number one thing on my list was to check out the hair-pin curve Sterling Stinnett had told me about. There was no sense in wasting my time searching the area he was talking about without him. Having him there would shave off some time.
I’d decided to go with the street clothes today because I really was going to use my theory on Juanita and her boys to see if I could get some information out of them.
“Hello?” Finn’s voice echoed down my hall while I was in my room getting ready. His voiced was followed up with Duke’s nails tapping on the hardwood floor coming towards me.
“Hi,” I stuck my wet head out the door and looked down the hall at Finn. “I’m going to throw my hair up in a ponytail. Fix yourself a cup of coffee.”
My house on Free Row was small. It was a basic ranch with the family room in the front, kitchen in the back, small hall with two bedrooms and a bath. Off the kitchen was a small slab porch where I had a couple of chairs and premade fire pit. The chain link fence was great for Duke and Mrs. Brown, my neighbor, was nosy. It was a typical small-town neighborhood. Perfect for me since I’d spent a lot of my childhood here since it was my Poppa’s house.
“No snow yet.” Finn handed me a cup of steaming coffee and we clinked them together.
“No mentioning the ‘S’ word.” I wasn’t going to say or even think about snow until after we were on the big plane to Chicago. I’d welcome the snow there.
“Deal.” He smiled and gave me a kiss on the head. “But you could use a little Christmas cheer around here.”
“I was thinking about a Christmas tree since I do need to go to the Christmas lot today.” I took a nice long sip of coffee and stared at him from underneath my brow. “I miss not having it in front of the window this year. It was fun to come home to.”
“Just because we won’t be here for Christmas eve and day, doesn’t mean you can’t celebrate while we are here. It’s still the season.” He always made so much sense. “Maybe after your Euchre girl’s night out, I can walk over and we can decorate it.”
“I’m a lucky girl.” I walked over and gave him a sweet good morning kiss. “I guess I hate to get Mama’s hopes up so when she does barge in here, she’d get the impression that I’d decided not to go to Chicago. I’ll think about the tree.”
She always came unannounced, which was typical of how a small town operates.
“Okay. Any word overnight or was everything quiet?” He asked.
“Not a word.” I set my cup down and strapped my holster on underneath the grey sweatshirt I’d decided to wear with my jeans and duck boots. “Last night Sterling Stinnett told me that the night Leighann died, he heard a car crash about a mile away from Chimney Rock. That’s just the beginning.” My brows rose. “He also said that he heard another car come up right behind t
he crash. After a while, he saw swirling orange lights like a tow truck.”
“You’re just telling me this?” He looked at me with hawk eyes. “Let’s go.”
“Whoa. You just got here.” I had to remind myself that we were having a friendly conversation and he wasn’t trying to be my boss, which was difficult for me. “I think we need to pick up Sterling this morning from the shelter and take him to where he heard the sound. If it was Leighann, maybe the back panel is there.”
“The tow truck? Sean?” Finn’s jaw tensed. “I swear. If he hurt his daughter.” He shook his head and stopped himself.
“I’m disturbed by the fight between the Graves and Libertys. Even if they didn’t have anything to do with Leighann’s death, they need to be reminded that gun slinging isn’t on the up and up with the law. Which is why I still want to stop by the tree lot.”
“I’m coming with you today since we’ve got Scott at the department.” Finn grabbed two of my thermal mugs out of the cabinet and filled them up.
“You’re going to have to go change because...” I opened the cabinet underneath my sink to fill Duke’s bowl with kibble.
“Your theory.” Finn laughed and headed to the back door. He grabbed my keys. “I’ll meet you in the Jeep. I’ll start it up. It’s freezing out.”
While Duke ate up his food, I gathered the rest of my stuff and even stuck a uniform in my bag just in case I decided to change while at the office today. With me wearing street clothes, I didn’t have to come home and change before Euchre tonight. I could work right up until it was time to go. Plus, there was food at Euchre because all the Sweet Adelines brought their best recipes.
“Did he say it was freezing out?” I questioned, eyeballing the grey sky that was starting to waken the day. “Not today,” I said out loud to ward off any bad weather. “We’ve got a murder to solve.”
I grabbed my bag and locked the back door, whistling for Duke to follow me out the gate.
“That didn’t take long.” I jumped into the driver’s seat when I noticed Finn was already in the Jeep. He only lived a couple of doors down which made it nice for long date nights.
“I kept on the same pants but threw on a sweater.” He unzipped his coat and showed me the black V-neck he’d chosen. “I hope your theory about how wearing street clothes is less intimidating than my gun because I can tell you that a gun speaks for itself.”
“I’ve got my gun, it’s the badge that scares them.” I put the shift in reverse and then drive to head towards the south end of town where the shelter was located.
It was on the same road that we took to get to the fairgrounds, but it was still too early to go there. Not much was open in Cottonwood at seven a.m.
“You stay,” I instructed Duke after we pulled into the shelter house and parked. “Ready?”
“I sure am.” Finn opened his door and got out. I grabbed one of those peel off sheriff stickers I gave to children and stuck it in my back pocket against my phone.
The inside of the shelter house had a desk in the middle when you walked in. It was an old school that’d been converted into a men’s and women’s shelter. It was also a place where the child services and handicap services had started to work out of. The second floor was where the social security administration worked out of and I recognized a few of my neighbors.
“Hey there, Merv.” I greeted the older man at the counter. He’d been a junk man as long as I’d been alive. He drove an old, beat up truck that was loaded to the gills with junk. It was probably a hazard to drive behind him not only because the stuff could fall right off and make you crash, but also because of the fact that he drove so slow that it took three times as long to drive down Main Street as normal. Either way, he was safe and warm here.
“Sheriff.” He nodded. “What can I do you for?”
“Are you working the desk this morning?” I asked.
“Yes, ma’am.” His chin drew a line up and down.
“Is Sterling Stinnett still here?” I asked.
“Is he in trouble?” He asked with a curious look on his face.
“Sterling? Absolutely not.” I smiled.
“Then he’s here. I’ll go round him up.” Merv got up from the chair and scooted his feet along the old school tile floor on his way back through the men’s swinging door.
Finn and I stood silent while we waited, giving each other a look every time the door opened, and it wasn’t Sterling. Finally, Merv and Sterling walked out.
“Sheriff.” Sterling looked as if he’d just woken up. His disheveled hair still looked the same, but his eyes were tired. “Is something wrong?”
“Actually, do you remember when you helped me out at Viola White’s Jewelry store a year ago?” I pulled out the sticker from my pocket. “I need you again.”
A year or so ago, Sterling had stood in front of the jewelry store because it was just me and Betty holding down the fort. All he really had to do was to make sure no one would enter the store and trust me, Sterling was a little scary to most people who didn’t know his good heart, so he was perfect to stand there for an hour.
“Are you kidding?” His eyes grew wide open as they locked on the sticker.
“May I do the honor?” I peeled the sticker off the backing and held it out to him.
“Yes, ma’am.” He nodded and stuck his chest out real far. I patted the sticker right over his heart on his jacket.
“Afterwards, we are taking you out to breakfast at Ben’s.” I winked and gestured for him to follow us.
“Where we going?” he asked when we got into the Jeep. Duke jumped all around him and nudged Sterling’s hand.
“Last night at the church you told me that you heard a car crash on the hairpin turn about a mile from Chimney Rock. I want you to show me where you think that crash occurred.” I adjusted my rear-view mirror to look at him as I turned the Jeep towards the old river road.
He did the usual way everyone told directions.
“Take a left over the rickety bridge, at the wooden cross go right, go left at the fork, when you pass the old red barn with the chipped-up fence line, you’re going to veer right. The hairpin curve is yonder.” He pointed into the front seat.
Above the trees on the horizon rose a blurred and blood-red sun. The trickle of the dawn danced along the bare limbs of the winter trees and over the river.
“I’m going to pull along the side and put my flashers on so if there is something here, we don’t disturb the evidence.” I veered off the main part of the road and hugged the edge of the grass as close as I could, so I wouldn’t get into the grass.
“You’d think there’d be some tire tracks.” Finn looked out the window.
“Like I said, I heard a crash but no screeching tires,” Sterling said before he got out of the car. “Just beyond that tree line yonder is where I set up camp. It’s for that reason only.” He pointed to the painted sky.
“It’s beautiful.” Finn’s eyes had a look of awe as he turned his head from right to left, taking in all the amazing wonder. “We just don’t have this type of sky in Chicago. I don’t know if I’ll take this for granted.”
“I’m glad, but right now, we are here for the sound Sterling heard.” I had to bring them back to the moment.
“If you thinks that’s pretty, you should come stay at my camp sometimes when it gets pretty. Some people don’t understand why I like to live out here. I don’t understand why they want to stay cooped up inside when all the beauty is here.” Sterling made perfect sense and that really made me respect him.
Finn looked at me and smiled. I smiled back.
We all took time to scour the area. The grass had become stiff from the cold weather. There didn’t appear to be any car tracks. None of the tree trunks seemed to be disturbed or scratched as if a car had swung around and hit them.
“Hello!” I’d lifted my chin
and hollered out into the quiet morning air.
Hello, ello, llo, ooo, the echo of my voice came back to me.
“Hi,” Sterling said back to me.
“If there was a crash, it might’ve echoed,” Finn said, knowing exactly what I was doing.
“That means that it could be a little more this way.” I pointed and walked a little further down. “Or even this way.” I pointed behind me. “Either way, we know it’s somewhere close if Sterling saw the lights of a tow truck.”
“I’ll go this way.” Finn proceeded to walk opposite of me.
“Or over here.” Poppa’s ghost appeared across the road where the tree line was much closer to the road. “Because I think this here is a back panel.”
I took off running across the road, not playing it off cool at all.
“Finn! Here!” I yelled making it half-way across.
He bolted towards me.
“It’s definitely Leighann’s side panel.” Poppa stood with his hands down to his side.
The piece of plastic laid upside down and appeared to be the exact same color and shape as what was missing from Leighann’s SUV.
“How on earth did you see this from over there?” Finn ran his hands through his hair before he bent down to look at it.
“I’ve got pretty good eyes.” I gulped and sucked in a deep breath before I walked a little further away from the piece of car. “Here are some tracks.”
There were tracks that showed tires had gone off the road and the back tire swiveled knocking into a tree, but not enough to make much damage to the tree.
“She wasn’t going very fast.” Poppa looked back towards the hairpin curve.
“She was either passed out or passing out. Let her foot up off the gas and didn’t make the turn. The car probably wasn’t going very fast. Just enough to smack the tree, knock off the panel.” I pointed out.
“The echo must’ve made it sound much worse to Sterling than it really was,” Finn made a good point.
I took my phone out of my pocket and noticed the time. Betty should be in the dispatch and I quickly dialed the office.