by John J. Lamb
“And besides, I really didn’t know how the computer got broken, so I wasn’t breaking any laws.” Sheldon might have been the quintessential uneducated country boy, but he wasn’t a fool.
“Did Marie ask you to go to the museum and talk to Frank?”
“Not directly, but I think she knew what I was going to do.”
“And what were you going to do?”
“Like I said before, I was going to give Frank a righteous ass-whipping. So, I drove over to the museum, but there was cars and people there.”
“Do you remember what kind of vehicles?”
Sheldon stuck another cigarette in his mouth and looked skyward. “I saw a white van—it was on the road—Frank’s Toyota, and an orange Hummer in the lot. Frank was out in front talking to the three Oriental guys.”
“So, what did you do?”
“You already know what I did. I turned around in the driveway and left. Usually there ain’t a damn soul at that museum.”
“Did you go back later?”
“Yeah, but you already knew that too.” He lit the cigarette.
I nodded sagely, deciding it wouldn’t be wise to tell Sheldon that this was news, and that nobody had seen him the second time. I said, “Obviously, the FBI saw you, but I’d like to hear your version of what happened.”
“Okay, but there ain’t much to tell. When I got to the museum, this time there was a couple of SUVs there: a blue one and a black one.”
“Could the blue one have been a Isuzu Trooper?”
“Maybe. But to tell the truth, all them import trucks look alike to me.”
“How about the black one?”
Sheldon looked thoughtful as he let some smoke leak from his nostrils. “A Ford Explorer, I think. Not a new one, though.”
“Did you see anybody outside?”
“No, and that was when I said, ‘Shel, you’ve got things to do. Give it up for another day.’”
“Where’d you go after that?”
“Back home to wrap hay bales.”
“And home is?”
“Over near Furnace.” He pointed downhill, presumably in the direction of the tiny community.
“So, if you didn’t do anything wrong, why in the hell were you so paranoid about me following you?”
“Mister, I’m sorry about your headlight, but the mountains here are changing.” He made a sour face. “We’ve got crank cookers using abandoned houses and other riffraff up here now. You weren’t in a police car, so I thought you were one of them.”
“If it’s that bad, why haven’t you spoken to the sheriff?”
“Because it’s our way to take care of things ourselves. And if you’re married to a Remmelkemp, I reckon you know what I’m trying to say. Nobody pushes mountain folk.”
For a moment we were silent and listened to the rustling leaves. Then I said, “We don’t know where Marie was when Frank was killed. She told us that she was at yard sales in Elkton, but I don’t believe her.”
“Mister, even if my sister did set me up, I won’t turn on family.” Sheldon turned and went to the Ford. Tossing the bat inside, he said, “I’ll move my truck, so that you can turn around. Oh, and don’t call your insurance about the headlight. I’ll mail the money to Lolly.”
Eighteen
“I can explain” is one of the most unnecessary phrases in the English language. Inevitably, the situation is such that the person being offered the explanation already has a pretty clear picture of what happened and isn’t going to be soothed by verbal damage control, no matter how skillfully or penitently it’s delivered. So, as I drove down the mountain, I tried to figure out how I was going to tell Ash that, despite her all but begging me to be careful, I’d nearly gotten myself killed for the second time in less than four hours.
I turned into our driveway and saw that Tina had returned from the autopsy in Roanoke. Her patrol car was parked in front of the house and she and Ash were sitting on the porch drinking lemonade. Ash’s warm smile turned into an expression of distress when she saw the smashed headlight. The women rushed from the porch, followed by Kitch.
Ash was standing at the driver’s door as I pushed it open. “My God, what happened?”
“I can explain.”
“Oh, Brad honey, you promised me you’d be careful.”
“I was. I’m sorry. I can explain.”
Tina bent to look at the damage. “This wasn’t caused by a traffic collision.”
“No, a baseball bat.”
“You were attacked with a baseball bat? Are you all right?” Ash began scanning me for injuries.
“I’m fine. The only thing he hit was the Xterra.”
“Why?”
“Because he thought I was a crook.”
“Do you think you could identify him if you saw him again?” Tina asked.
“ID’ing him isn’t a problem. His name is Sheldon Shaw and it might interest you to know that he’s Marie Merrit’s brother and also the owner of that green Ford pickup truck we’ve been looking for.”
“The one seen at the museum and the trash station?” Ash asked.
“Yep. I was driving home and had just come over the mountain when I saw the truck going in the opposite direction. I tried to call for backup, but couldn’t get a signal. He turned on to Callison Road and I decided to take a calculated risk and follow him.”
Tina squinted at me as if I’d just announced that I thought I looked like Leonardo DiCaprio. “A calculated risk? You went up into the mountains after a possible murder suspect by yourself, unarmed, and without communications? Are you nuts?”
“Oh, like you wouldn’t have done it?”
“No, I wouldn’t.” Tina looked away, unwilling to meet my gaze.
“Give me a break. As long you’re telling fairy tales, can I have Little Red Riding Hood next?”
Ash said, “But honey, what you did was reckless.”
I touched her cheek. “Look, I’m not going to pretend it worked out perfectly, but it was worth a broken headlight. Once we started talking, and Sheldon found out I was married to Ashleigh Remmelkemp, he gave me some very valuable information.”
“Such as?”
“For starters, Marie knew that Frank was having an affair, and on Saturday morning he’d broken the news to her that he was leaving.”
Tina arched her eyebrows. “Funny, she didn’t mention that.”
“And Sheldon also told me that she smashed the county computer with a hammer or something and then asked him to get rid of it.”
“And she flat out lied about that. Why’d she destroy the computer?”
“Frank was writing a book about the Civil War and Marie was in scorched-earth mode.” Kitch shoved his head under my right hand and I began to scratch him.
“Did Sheldon tell you whether he thought his sister was involved in the murder?” Ash said.
I said, “He refused to say anything about that. But at the same time, he didn’t offer to be her alibi when I mentioned we didn’t know where she was when Frank was killed.”
“So, is she our primary suspect?” Tina asked.
“One of them; maybe the best one. The way she wrecked the computer tells us that she has a capacity to become unhinged.”
“True.”
“However, we can’t overlook something else Sheldon said about going to the museum. By the way, his mission was to PR Frank.”
“Public Relations?” Tina was clearly puzzled.
“Nope. Pound and Release. When Marie called and told him that Frank was leaving, Shel was determined to defend his sister’s honor.” I switched to a Groucho Marx voice and waggled an invisible cigar. “Which is more than she ever did.”
“But he didn’t go into the museum when he saw there would be witnesses,” said Ash.
“Exactly, but what we didn’t know was that Sheldon went back a second time and had to postpone Frank’s ass-whipping again, because now there were two SUVs in the museum lot. He thought that one may have been a black Explo
rer and the other was a blue import SUV.”
“Gage’s Trooper?” asked Tina.
“There’s no proof of it. But if so, then he lied to us about Merrit leaving him a phone message as well as leaving out the little detail that he’d already been there that morning.”
“But if Gage was at the museum when Merrit was killed, why would he come back?”
“Maybe to pretend he’d discovered the murder. Possibly trying to throw suspicion elsewhere. Maybe he thought that if he raised the hue and cry, nobody would suspect him.”
“Ash told me what happened in Charlottesville. Are you absolutely convinced it wasn’t Ingersoll’s husband?”
“Unfortunately, yes. His girlfriend confirms that he was at her place in Burnley until eleven-thirty or so and she didn’t impress me as being bright enough to lie. Then another witness places them at the Barboursville Winery about fifteen minutes later.”
Ash said, “Well, we have some other news, so why don’t we get in out of the heat and I’ll pour you some lemonade?”
A minute later, we were seated in the living room. Kitch lay sprawled at my feet and I was in the process of giving myself a headache from drinking the iced lemonade too quickly.
Tina said, “There were no big surprises at the autopsy. Dr. Grice did some measurements and confirmed that the hammer is the murder weapon.”
Massaging my brow, I replied, “A weapon of opportunity. That might signify that whoever went there didn’t intend to kill him.”
“And then there’s this.” Ash held up the limp mohair body of the fake Bruin Manufacturing bear. “Once I removed the excelsior, I went over to the sheriff’s department to compare it with the quilt we seized from the museum. Then I drove over to the fabric store in Dayton, just to be sure.”
“You’ve lost me.”
“The style of hand-stitching on the bear is almost identical to that on the quilt and I was certain I’d seen it before. I didn’t want to believe it, but I was almost one-hundred percent certain it was Holly Reuss’s work.”
“Holly? The same woman who’s a member of the teddy bear guild?”
“Yes, and also a quilter. The last time we were at the fabric shop, I noticed that one of her quilts was for sale and hanging from the wall. I didn’t have any other samples of Holly’s work, so I went over to compare it with the sewing inside the bear.” Ash looked both incensed and sad. “And I’d be willing to testify in a court of law that all three items were made by the same person…that is, if I don’t break Holly’s neck first.”
“What do we know about her…other than the fact that we’ve been allowing a crook into our house for months?”
Tina said, “Widowed—her husband died in an industrial accident—and she has two kids at the middle school. She works at some veterinary office in Harrisonburg and supplements her income by making quilts, or at least that’s what she says. No criminal record.”
“And there’s one other thing we know about her.” Ash threw the teddy bear down. “She used the guild classes to learn how to make counterfeit teddy bears. I can’t believe she sat here, week after week, Little-Miss-Meek-and-Mildoh-Ashleigh-thank-you-for-being-my-friend, and all the while she was conning us.”
“Where does she live?” I asked.
Tina said, “Across the river, at that little trailer park on Rocky Bar Road.”
Ash punched her open hand. “And I can’t wait to talk to her. When do we go?”
“I hate to disappoint you, honey, but she’s probably still at work, so it’ll have to be later. What’s our next move, Tina?”
“Why not go over to the vet’s office and question her right now?”
“Talking to her is important, but we also want to schmooze our way into her house to see if there are any signs of the counterfeiting operation in plain sight.”
Tina nodded. “And if we make contact with Holly at work, she’ll deny knowing anything. Then, once we’re gone, she could call and have her partner-in-crime, or maybe even her kids, go and remove the evidence.”
“Precisely. So, what’s our next move, Tina?”
“I really think we need to talk to Marie.”
“I agree. Holly may be producing fake antiques, but there’s nothing to connect her with the murder…yet.”
“So, do we go back out to her house?” The look of dismay Tina wore told me that she wasn’t looking forward to another visit to the pigpen.
“No, she probably wouldn’t let us in. Besides, we need to lure her out of her safety zone.”
“But how? I don’t think she’ll come to the station voluntarily.”
“No, but what if the county risk management supervisor called the grieving widow and said he was going to recommend the insurance company pay off on Frank’s policy and asked her to come to his office and sign some forms?”
“But the board of supervisors hasn’t made a decision on that yet.”
“Never let the facts interfere with a useful story. You know she’ll break a land speed record getting to his office and we’ll be there, waiting for her.”
“But…”
“What’s the problem?”
Tina looked uncomfortable. “This may sound ridiculous, but we’d be lying. I don’t know if I want to do that, considering how corrupt the sheriff’s department was before I took office.”
From my point of view, it did sound ridiculous; I wasn’t suggesting anything illegal or even that uncommon in law enforcement practice. But I didn’t say so, because I also understood what was troubling her. Tina was acutely aware that she represented law and order in a county where, until recently, the cops had been as crooked as a mountain switchback road.
Still, I said, “Tina, it’s your investigation, and I’ll abide by your instructions. But as your consultant, I have to tell you that making a decoy call like that is perfectly lawful. Every court in the land has ruled that it’s okay to use a ruse to catch a crook.”
“I suppose.” Tina heaved a huge sigh. “But I don’t like doing it.”
“Well, God help me, I do. But then again, you’re a much better person than I am. You want me to call risk management?”
“No, I’ll do it. Can I borrow your phone?”
While Tina made the call, I took some ibuprofen for my leg and assured Ash that Sheldon Shaw was going to pay for the damage to the Xterra.
Tina hung up the phone. “He agreed to do it. He’ll call Marie now and ask her to come to his office at four. If she falls for it, he’ll call us right back.”
“Then I guess we’d better put Kitch in his crate and turn the TV on,” I said.
“Does that mean I’m coming along?” Ash had been looking downcast until that moment.
I caressed her chin. “Hey, you’re my partner. Let’s get ready to roll.”
The phone rang and Tina answered it. After a few moments of conversation, she hung up and said, “She bought it. She’ll be at the office in a half hour.”
“That’s a good sign. It probably means Sheldon hasn’t called to warn her that we’re looking at her as a suspect. But before we go, where is Saturday’s newspaper?”
“Out in the recycling box in the shed,” said Ash as she ushered Kitch into his crate.
“Can you grab it for me?”
“Sure, but why?”
“It might be useful when Marie starts lying to us.”
Ash got the paper and then we all got into Tina’s patrol car and sped into town. Tina parked the car in the sheriff’s station’s parking lot, where it wouldn’t be noticed, and we walked over to the old brick courthouse, which also housed the county’s administrative headquarters. The risk manager’s office was on the second floor. His name was Wilfred Hughes and he surrendered his gloomy wood-paneled office while repeatedly telling Tina that he hoped she understood that he wasn’t responsible if anything went wrong. Bureaucrats…it’s a shame there isn’t an official season to hunt them.
Tina sat down behind Hughes’s desk, while I took the other office chair and As
h remained standing, leaning against a filing cabinet.
“If you think I’ve missed something, please jump in,” said Tina.
“I won’t have to, if you get a twist on her and don’t let go.”
“But…I’m not…”
“A cruel and manipulative ogre like me?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“But it’s true. Despite appearances, I’m probably more of a grizzly than a teddy bear, which works out fine for cop work. You want me to give her a taste of the wild kingdom?”
Before Tina could answer, there were two tiny raps on the door and it slowly swung open. It was Marie Merrit and she was dressed in what I guess was intended to be a casual mourning ensemble of baggy black pants, a black pullover T-shirt, and ugly black shoes. Still, she didn’t look sad so much as anxious and fatigued.
When she saw who was waiting for her, Marie said, “What the hell is going on here?”
“We really need to talk to you again, Mrs. Merrit,” said Tina.
“I can’t believe you tricked me into coming here. Don’t you people have any compassion? I just lost my husband.”
“And we need to talk about that. Please, sit down.”
“So you can try to twist my words around again? I’m going home.”
Tina shot me a look that said: You can let that grizzly out of his cage any time now.
“Oh, spare us the moral outrage. It’s like a slaughterhouse worker complaining about his steak.” I stood up and shoved the chair over. “Have a seat.”
“Are you deaf? I’ve got nothing to say.”
“Wrong. You’re going to tell us the truth and you know why? You want the money, but you’ve screwed yourself.”
“What are you talking about?” There was a flicker of uncertainty in Marie’s eyes.
“I’m happy to explain. Life insurance companies live for the opportunity to deny a payoff on a policy and you’ve provided them with the best excuse in the world.”
“Really? What’s that?”
“You’ve given us deliberately false statements and we can prove it. Once the insurance investigator reads that in the crime report, he’ll tell his company that you might very well be the primary suspect in Frank’s murder. You can kiss the money good-bye.”