Reunions Can Be Murder: The Seventh Charlie Parker Mystery

by Connie Shelton

  Feeling fidgety because of all the unresolved questions, I cruised north through the winding streets of Ruidoso and back onto the highway toward Carrizozo. I spotted two county sheriff department cars in the parking lot of the little drive-in restaurant at the town’s main intersection and, on a whim, decided to see if Buckman was driving one of them. As luck would have it, I found him sipping coffee with another officer at a back booth.

  “Sheriff? Charlie Parker—remember me?”

  Buckman looked up. His gray-flecked hair had a molded reproduction of his hat band pressed into it. His eyes looked tired, like he’d been up late last night, but he smiled.

  “Sure. I just got a call from my dispatcher saying you were looking for me.”

  I felt a little foolish, having left the message and then tracking him to his breakfast table. I guess it showed on my face.

  “It’s okay. Sit.” He indicated the bench across the booth, next to the other officer, whom he introduced as Montoya.

  “I have to head back to Albuquerque today,” I told him. “Just wondered if there’s any news I can give my clients.”

  “If you mean, should you tell them the dead guy was William McBride, we’re not sure yet.”

  He signaled the waitress for more coffee and paused while she poured it. I waved off the extra cup she’d brought for me. He stirred heavy doses of sugar and creamer into his.

  “But you think it could be him?” I asked, once she’d left.

  “Could be. We knew that McBride was pretty well acquainted with Keith there at the café and we asked Keith to take a look last night when we brought the body down. He identified the clothing as McBride’s. Apparently he was wearing those items the last time Keith saw him.”

  “Sounds like it’s probably him, then,” I said. I should have been pleased to wrap up the case so quickly, but really didn’t want to go back with sad news.

  “Very likely. But we never jump to conclusions. The body itself was badly decomposed. Randel couldn’t identify it. We’ll have to go to dental records for a positive ID.”

  Which still meant contacting Dorothy and her family and letting them know of the possibility that this was her father.

  Buckman read my mind. “We’ll contact the family,” he said. “You don’t have to do that. In fact, based on the information you gave me yesterday, I already have one of my deputies making the call.” He sipped from his mug and sent some kind of eye signal to Montoya, who had not said a word so far. The deputy nodded and excused himself. I stood to let him slide out of the booth.

  “If the body turns out not to be McBride, then what?” I asked.

  “Well, our job will be to ID this victim, then find his killer. If McBride fits in there somewhere, we’ll deal with that when we get to it.”

  “Killer?” I whispered. “The man was murdered?”

  Chapter 6

  Somehow, instinctively, I’d known there was foul play involved but the words popped out anyway.

  “There’ll be an autopsy, of course,” Buckman said, taking another sip of coffee. “But I’d guess the .22-sized hole in the shirt and the pool of dried blood on the floor of that cabin will lead us that direction.”

  Montoya returned and nodded to his boss. I stood again to let him back to his seat.

  “Family dentist’s been contacted,” he said. “Martha says he’s FedEx-ing the charts today.”

  “Okay,” said Buckman. “We’ll get on with the autopsy and should have an answer tomorrow. Meanwhile, maybe I can get you to do something for me?”

  “Sure,” I answered.

  “It’d save me a trip to Albuquerque.”

  “What is it?”

  He reached over and picked up a paper sack that sat on the bench beside him. “I want to try to ID this.” He pulled a plaid flannel shirt from the sack. It was the one the dead man had been wearing. “You’re acquainted with McBride’s family. Could you show it to them and see if they recognize it as his?”

  I took the shirt and turned it over. A neat square of material had been cut from the front. I raised my eyebrows in a question.

  “Ballistics tests. Lab cut out the bullet hole,” he explained.

  “But you’ll have the dental records tomorrow,” I suggested.

  “Just thought I’d get this as secondary proof. You never know what’s going to come in handy.”

  “Okay. I’ll probably see the daughter tomorrow,” I said.

  “Don’t leave it with them,” he cautioned. “Keep it in your possession until you can get it back to me.”

  “Chain of evidence?”

  “Something like that,” he said. “If our victim is William McBride, you know that any of his family members could be suspects.”

  That thought hadn’t occurred to me, but it wouldn’t be the first time family members reported a missing person when they knew perfectly well what had happened to him.

  Buckman had me sign a receipt for the evidence then scooted to the edge of his seat, the signal that we were finished for now. I slid out too and we walked to the front door together.

  I’d parked next to his patrol car and he noticed Rusty in the Jeep for the first time.

  “Nice dog,” he said.

  The red-brown subject wagged furiously.

  “He’s kind of the hero of all this,” I said. “He’s the one who found the kerchief and led me to the body.”

  “Kerchief? You didn’t say anything about a kerchief yesterday.” Buckman’s face had turned stern.

  “I didn’t?” I thought back to my first meeting with the sheriff at Randel’s café. I couldn’t remember exactly what I’d said. And where was the kerchief now? “Really, I wasn’t hiding anything,” I stammered. “Let me think . . . what did I do after I had it?”

  I opened the door to the back seat in which Rusty sat, noticing that Deputy Montoya lightly rested his right hand on his pistol grip. The dog wanted to leap out and greet his new friends but I ordered him back. There on the floor of the back seat was the crumpled red kerchief. I picked it up by its very edge and handed it to Buckman.

  “It was just like this,” I told him, feeling like I was having to justify myself. “All matted and dirty and muddy. Rusty had picked it up and he brought it to me. I thought Willie might have dropped it and I wanted to have the family identify it if they could. But that was before I found the body. Honest.”

  He turned the cloth over in his hand without a word.

  “I guess I carried it down to the car after I left the cabin. Must have tossed it in here when I let Rusty into his seat.”

  “I’ll take this to the lab,” he said. “This crusty brown substance might not be mud. Could be blood. Typing it may help lead to the killer.” He finally met my eyes and smiled, just a little one. “Thanks,” he said.

  Buckman and Montoya climbed into their cars and I was dismissed. I sat in the driver’s seat for a couple of minutes, deciding what to do next. White Oaks was so nearby, I really had to make one more quick run out there.

  Randel’s café was open but he wasn’t alone this time. I recognized Sophie Tucker’s compact red car in the parking area and there was another vehicle I didn’t know, a blue pickup truck.

  All eyes turned toward me, the town stranger, when I opened the door. Keith was quick to give me one of those wide grins that sent his jowls jiggling and brought out the pinkness in his face. Sophie’s face was reserved, not nearly as friendly as yesterday. I realized that my finding the body most likely meant one of two things to her: either she’d just lost her father, or there was the possibility that he would now be a suspect in a murder case. Neither choice would make her happy. The unknown truck belonged to a small, dark Spanish man wearing ranching work clothes, who was just on his way out. He nodded as he passed me.

  “Set down here, Miss Charlie, and have yourself some coffee,” ordered Keith. He’d already poured a cup and placed it in front of an empty stool near Sophie’s. I sat there, wondering what to say to her.

  “Ain’
t your fault,” she said.

  I looked over at her. Her weathered face was subdued but not angry. “Thanks,” I said. I suppressed my natural tendency to over-explain and left it at that.

  The three of us didn’t exchange another word for a good two minutes. Randel had poured himself a cup of coffee into which, I noticed, he added a healthy dash of Bailey’s from a bottle under the counter. He caught me watching him.

  “Anyone else?” he asked, extending the bottle.

  Sophie pushed her mug toward him and I did the same. We drank in silence for another minute or two.

  “Guess I better get out to my place and get some chores done,” Sophie eventually said.

  “The sheriff told me he has some dental records coming from Albuquerque. One way or the other, you should have some news in the next day or two,” I said.

  She shook her head in resignation. “If that cussed old man of mine ever went to a dentist, he sure never told me about it. If he had’ve, I’d know today.” She patted my shoulder as she stood up. “For now, I’ll just keep busy.”

  I watched her back out and pull away from the building. Keith sloshed a little more Bailey’s into his mug, but I declined a second shot for myself.

  “What’s your take on all this?” I asked him, sensing that his tongue might become slightly looser with the help of the liqueur, now that we were alone.

  “Well,” he began with a deep breath. He rested both hands on the front of his massive belly. “Want to know what I think? Or you want to know what I know?” The lazy grin spread across his face again.

  I felt the corners of my mouth pinch impishly. “Okay, I’ll bite. Tell me what you know.”

  He hit a button on the cash register and the drawer sprung outward. He wiped his fingertips on the front of his apron, reached inside and extracted the plastic section containing the coins. From beneath it he pulled out a weathered brown piece of paper. He turned and handed it to me.

  “Open it,” he said.

  I glanced up at him as I took the paper. Unfolding it carefully, I saw that it contained a hand-drawn map, similar to the one I’d found at Willie’s house.

  “Willie’s?” I asked, holding the map up.

  “His treasure map,” Keith grinned. “The old man told me, many times mind you, that if he ever disappeared this was where he’d be.”

  “This isn’t the Lost Dutchman Mine, is it?” I asked. “He’d told a lot of people about that dream.”

  “No . . . ma’am,” he said, wagging his finger back and forth. “This’s one he really found. And he said someday he’d go back there.”

  “So, how’s he going to get there if you have the map? you havh

  “Willie knew his mine backward and forward,” Keith said. “He drew this map as a safety precaution. In case he got Alzheimer’s someday, or got hit over the head or something.”

  I noticed that the drunker he got, the less ‘hillbilly’ his speech became.

  “And he trusted you with this map—why?”

  He winked at me and took a slug of the Bailey’s right from the bottle. “Because I know geological patterns and could find this place, based on this map. If he ever got lost, he knew someone could find him.”

  “And now? You think he’s hiding out here?”

  “Wouldn’t surprise me a bit.” He downed the remainder of his coffee and began wiping the counter where Sophie’s place had been. “Course, I guess by this time tomorrow we’ll have us a better idea about that.”

  “What are you suggesting?”

  “You keep that map, Charlie-gal. Somethin’s gonna come outta this. You just keep your eyes open.”

  I stared hard at him for a moment. Was he pulling my leg? Who was this guy who could talk about geology and map reading one minute and sound like he’d just come out of the Ozarks the next. I busied myself finishing the last of my coffee. When I looked up again the wide grin was back on his face.

  I stashed the folded map in a flat side pocket of my purse and finished my coffee.

  “Sure you don’t want me to fix you some eggs?” Randel asked as I began making my moves to leave.

  “No, thanks. I better be getting back to the city. Think I’ve done about all the harm I can do around here,” I said.

  “Gimme a hug,” he said. He came around the end of the counter to fold me into a massive embrace. “You take care, Charlie-gal.”

  “I will.” I walked out to the Jeep, with fond thoughts of this enigmatic man who was cook, geologist, and town confidant.

  Rusty greeted me enthusiastically, hoping I’d brought some kind of treat for him—a slab of ham, perhaps. He settled again into the back seat after he was convinced there were no goodies forthcoming. I decided to make one more run up to the mining camp before heading back to the city.

  I parked in the same spot I had yesterday, noticing that the surrounding scrubby bushes had been trampled and there were several new sets of tire tracks, no doubt from the sheriff’s department vehicles and the coroner. Once again, Rusty led the way down the trail. I followed at a brisk pace, wired by all the coffee I’d consumed.

  The little cabin at the far end of th e camp was less frightening today without the body lying on the floor. All the flies had vacated. The only sign of the violence that had occurred here was the dark brown stain on the wooden plank flooring. Without the body covering most of it, I was surprised at how large it was and that I hadn’t noticed it on my first visit.

  I looked carefully at the flooring in the rest of the small room. No other blood drops, spatters, or smears that I could see. It appeared that the victim had been shot and had fallen right where I’d found him. Sheriff Buckman had mentioned a .22 caliber hole in the shirt. That meant a pretty direct hit to a vital organ, I thought. A .22 doesn’t have much stopping power unless it hits just right. Of course, the victim had been old; I’d gotten that much from the patch of snowy white hair I’d seen. It wouldn’t take much deadly force to kill off a man in his eighties.

  For the first time, I took a close look at the cabin itself. It consisted of one room, wooden walls that had become warped enough over time to show daylight through cracks. A single window on the back wall, the glass long since broken out. A woodstove of some kind must have stood against the west wall at some point—a round hole partway up the wall with a metal flange around it indicated where the chimney pipe would have exited. Stove and stovepipe were gone now, probably at home somewhere else in the valley. A niche in the east wall still contained bits of some framing, which might mean there were built-in bunks at one time. Only a few boards remained nailed to the sides of the small enclosure. Anyone using the cabin in modern times would have had to spread out sleeping bags on the floor. I couldn’t imagine two old men being comfortable in here in February.

  More likely, they would have slept in one of the old mines. Better protection from the wind and elements. They could build a fire at the entrance for warmth and to keep stray coyotes away. I stood on the porch of the cabin and stared out toward the largest mineshaft opening, the second one I’d noticed yesterday. It might be worth a look.

  Stepping carefully, I scanned the ground at the opening. Outside, there were several sets of footprints. One was definitely mine from yesterday. The others were probably caused by the sheriff’s men, if they came up this far, or by recent casual onlookers. I doubted any footprints from a month or two ago would have survived. Just inside the shaft opening, there was evidence of a campfire, as I’d speculated. A layer of sand covered the charred sticks and blackened rocks. I walked about ten feet into the shaft, bending over to avoid bumping my head on the overhead timbers. No sign of human occupation, no vital clue, no personal possession of William McBride’s waited for me there. Detecting is never as easy as it looks on TV.

  I walked back to the Jeep and whistled for Rusty. He trotted up empty-mouthed. Even he didn’t have a clue for me today. Ten minutes later we were on the road to Carrizozo.

  Chapter 7

  I couldn’t work up mu
ch enthusiasm for visiting Dorothy Schwartzman upon my return to Albuquerque, but knew I wouldn’t be any more thrilled about it in the morning. There was the matter of having her identify the plaid shirt. I might as well get it over with.

  From my purse I pulled the address she’d given me. It was in a section of town that had been developed in the late ’50s and early ’60s, middle class three bedroom brick homes for the most part. I got off I-25 at Carlisle and took Constitution east. I found her street without any trouble. Large, deciduous trees were beginning to leaf out with fragile bright green tips and the fruit trees were in full glory, covered with pink and white blossoms.

  The Schwartzman home was a spread-out red brick with white painted trim. Twin blue spruces flanked the sidewalk that split the grassy yard in two. Neat flowerbeds, filled with flourishing pansies in purple and yellow, bordered the front porch. Two cars sat in the driveway and two more were parked in the street out front. If they had company, I was even less thrilled about showing up with my evidence bag. But I took it with me anyway and bravely rang the doorbell.

  A woman about my age answered. She had chin-length, fluffy brown hair and wore jeans and a snug-fitting white T-shirt on her slim, model-like frame. She held a streamer of white computer paper that trailed to the floor behind her.

  “Oh! I thought you’d be Bobby,” she said, gathering up the long stream of paper.

  “I’m Charlie Parker. I need to talk for a minute with Dorothy if she’s here.”

  “Sure, come on in.” She pushed the screen door outward to admit me. “Mother!” she shouted, toward the back of the house. She turned back to me. “Charlie, you said?”

  “Yes. Your mother hired me to investigate the disappearance of your grandfather.”

  She rolled her eyes and glanced back in the direction she’d directed her shout. “It’s this stupid reunion,” she whispered. “Mom’s got it in her head that everybody has to be here. She just doesn’t get it that Grandpa doesn’t care about it.”

  “Oh, Charlie! I wasn’t expecting you today,” Dorothy said, bustling into the room wiping her hands on a towel. “I’m just making up some of the desserts for the reunion.”