Murder is on the Clock

by Fran Rizer

  He nodded, still looking sick. I was glad the corpse was fairly fresh—pale but not yet discolored or slipping skin. No telling what condition Ty would have been in if the body had been what we in the business think of as “ripe.”

  “Put those cones out on both sides of the hill.”

  Ty wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his shirt and ran to the van.

  I called 911. “There’s a dead body out on Dunbar Road right near the hill,” I said.

  “Does it appear to be a hit and run?”

  “I doubt it. The corpse is hog-tied and stuffed into a garbage bag.

  “Is this Callie Parrish?” He smushed my name all into one word, “Calaparsh.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Deputies are on the way. Stay there until they arrive and don’t hang up this call until they get there.” He snickered. “When are you going to stop finding all these dead people, Callie?”

  “I didn’t find this one.”

  “Who did?”

  “Tyrone Profit.”

  “Rizzie Profit’s teenaged brother? ”

  I didn’t like his snarky tone.

  “Yes, Ty is seventeen.”

  I get all riled up when people bad-mouth teens just because of their age. Tyrone is a responsible young man who was raised by his grandmother until two years ago when Maum broke her hip and died of complications. He’s helped Rizzie run her business, Gastric Gullah Grill, both before and after school, since then.

  The dispatcher’s attitude made me so angry that I disconnected the call, wishing I could make it sound like the old days when I used to slam down the receiver.

  Sirens grew louder as they approached from a distance, and the sheriff’s cruiser pulled up and parked at least ten yards from the body. Wayne Harmon, the Sheriff of Jade County, walked up. “Good job, Ty.” He nodded toward the teenager, who was adding flares to the cones he’d placed on the road.

  I gave the sheriff a complete accounting of what had happened as we moved over to where the bag lay beside the road. As always, he had questions even after I’d told him everything I knew. “Why’d you stop if the bag was off the road, out of the way?”

  “I told you. It was in the middle of the road. Ty and I dragged it over here.” I looked down at the corpse. “I thought it was trash and was going to take it to Middleton’s and put it in the funeral home Dumpster.”

  “Why’d you open it?”

  “Ty was curious because it was so heavy.” I didn’t bother to add that if he hadn’t been, I would have wanted to see inside because when we moved the sack, it felt like body bags do at work.

  “Do you see any signs of trauma, what might have caused the death?” Because I work at a funeral home, Sheriff Harmon sometimes credits me with noticing more than an average onlooker.

  “No, but there’s no doubt that he died recently. If he’s been dead more than an hour or so in this heat, he’s been in somebody’s freezer since he died.”

  “I agree. Forensics teams are on the way.”

  “Can Ty and I leave now?” I gave Wayne a pleading look. “He has the wedding flowers in the van, and I need to go to work.”

  “I don’t mind your leaving. I’ll need signed full statements, but I can stop by Middleton’s to talk to you and Rizzie’s grill to talk to Tyrone. What you can’t do is move your car or Rizzie’s van. They’re both too close to the victim. You may have already destroyed some of the evidence. I can’t risk letting you ruin any more clues.”

  The crime scene unit arrived, and Sheriff Harmon spoke with them before they signed in on the crime scene log and began their work. Ty and I walked down the road a hundred feet or so.

  “I can’t believe the sheriff is letting us leave now and will take our statements later.” Ty kicked a pebble across the road. “I’ll bet that’s because he likes you.” The teenager’s expression changed from grim to a teasing grin.

  “More likely because it’s obvious we didn’t have anything to do with that man’s death. I’ll call one of The Boys to come get us,” I said.

  By The Boys, I meant one of my five brothers—actually one of the three of them likely to be at Daddy’s house. I call them The Boys because I don’t think any of them will ever grow up all the way. John, the oldest, was supposed to be on the way to St. Mary from his home in Atlanta. He’d recently separated from his wife again, and Daddy was furious that she wasn’t letting John bring his kids to the wedding. Jim, the second oldest, was retired career military and flying into Charleston that afternoon. Mike, Bill, and Frankie were scheduled to be over at the homeplace sprucing up the yard for the outdoor reception the next day.

  “Yellow,” Mike answered the telephone, stressing the “low” so the word rhymed with “hello.” He laughed like that was the funniest thing he’d ever heard.

  “This is Callie.”

  “I believe I can recognize my only sister’s voice.”

  “Good. I need one of you to come out to the hill on Dunbar Road and pick up Tyrone and me.”

  “Is the pony broke down or did you wreck it?” Mike asked. He always called my 1966 Mustang “the pony.” He’d wanted to buy it from me for years. I didn’t want to sell and he didn’t have any money, but he kept a keen interest in the car’s welfare in case anything ever changed. “Neither.” I eased his mind. “I may as well tell you, Sheriff Harmon has both my car and Rizzie’s van inside yellow crime tape. Don’t ask questions. Just come get us.”

  I disconnected and then got a bright idea. I called Mike again. “See if Frankie will go to the funeral home and answer the telephone for Odell while he goes to Shady Rest to make a removal. I’m late already and he’s waiting for me. Otis is out of town and Steven, the new part-timer, is home sick.”

  “We’ve been working outside and we’re all sweaty. I’ll tell Frankie to shower and get over to Middleton’s.”

  “Thanks, Mike.”

  “I made up a new song. I’ll sing it for you when I get there.”

  I disconnected without saying, “Okay.”

  Mike considers himself a songwriter because he makes up different words to songs we know. Most of the time, they’re off-color. I think he just does it to tease me and to aggravate Daddy who still tries to treat me like a little girl.

  Tyrone and I sat down under one of the big trees at the side of the road. I wished I’d thought to get the food trays and drinks out of the Mustang before the sheriff arrived, but when I asked one of the techs if I could go back to my car, he flatly refused.

  Even worse, we weren’t allowed to get the flowers out of the back of the van, and the day was growing hotter and hotter.

  2:00 P.M.

  I looked at the clock, it was quarter past two No telling what those Parrish boys would do Mike came over Dunbar Hill way too fast and had to slam on brakes like Ty had. He managed to stop before hitting the yellow tape behind the Gastric Gullah Grill van, but Tyrone’s nerves were on edge. “Why didn’t you slow down? What did you think those orange cones and flares are for on the other side of the hill?” His words were so loud that the coroner looked up from the body and stared at us for a moment.

  Personally, I knew the answer to Ty’s question. Mike hadn’t thought at all. He’d probably been making up a new song and trying to ignore his sister-in-law sitting beside him on the front seat of Daddy’s new red truck.

  Only two of my brothers are married, though everyone in the family has been married at least once except Jim. I have two sisters-in-law—John’s estranged wife and Bill’s wife Molly. Daddy had said that Bill and Molly would be helping at the house to get ready for the wedding reception, but I hadn’t expected to see her perched up on the front seat beside Mike.

  Molly climbed out of the truck to let Ty and me in. She’s petite, so when I say she climbed down, I mean it literally. Ty called, “Shotgun,” but Mike shook his head no. After Ty and I were scrunched up close to Mike, Molly took the passenger window seat. One of the deputies waved us around the crime scene, sending us almost in
to the ditch on the opposite side of the road from where the body lay being photographed.

  That’s when it hit me! “Oh, no!” “What’s wrong?” Molly’s voice sounded sweet and concerned.

  “My dress for the wedding is in the backseat of my car.”

  “Don’t worry,” Mike consoled. “You’ll get your pony back when they move the body. Who’s dead, anyway?”

  “I didn’t recognize him,” I said.

  “I didn’t either,” Ty spoke up, and then added, “Sometimes I’ve laughed at the stories about Callie finding corpses, but I won’t do that again! It was horrible.” He turned toward me. “I thought all dead people smelled bad, but he didn’t and Maum didn’t.”

  “The odor comes from decomposition which is nature’s way of recycling.” As a leftover from my days as a teacher, I tend to over explain. “The embalming process slows down the decay, and most of the deceased at the funeral home arrive soon after death before the odor becomes strong. Buh-leeve me—if he stays out here very long he’ll stink awful—like nothing you’ve ever smelled before.”

  At the end of Dunbar Road, Mike turned left, which led away from town, not toward Middleton’s.

  “Where are you going?” I asked.

  “Molly came over early and Bill was supposed to follow after he fed all the dogs.” That made sense. One of the things I liked about Molly was that before she and Bill married, she’d given me the greatest gift ever—my Harlequin Great Dane, Big Boy. Molly breeds and shows small dogs, and someone who couldn’t pay an agreedupon stud fee had bartered Molly this giant puppy. Since she only works with little dogs and miniatures, she gave him to me.

  “I’m already late. Couldn’t you drop me off first?” I didn’t whine—just said it.

  Molly looked worried. “Bill’s been awfully nervous lately, and you know he’s taking cholesterol medicine now. He’s not answering the telephone. I’m afraid he’s had a heart attack or something.”

  I didn’t think Bill had any kind of medical emergency. Probably got distracted or decided he’d rather not spend the day working at Daddy’s house. My brother Bill rolls with whatever floats past him.

  “Don’t worry.” I tried to reassure Molly. “Frankie and I are the only two members of the family who aren’t on that medicine. The doctor says high cholesterol is hereditary in the Parrishes. Bill probably got involved in playing with some of the puppies or began watching a sports program on television.”

  “I agree. He’s probably in his Man Cave, but I still want to know for sure that he’s okay.”

  After their marriage, Bill and Molly built a new house. Ex-cuuze me. I should say Molly had the house built since she was the primary breadwinner. The house had three bedrooms and what realtors call a FROG—finished room over garage. Molly planned on a big family, but they decided Bill could have the upstairs room for a Man Cave until they filled up the downstairs with kids. Bill bragged that it was a real Man Cave because Molly nor any other woman had been in there since he took over the room.

  The FROG made the house look like part of it was twostory though the rest wasn’t. Kind of like a big block on top of the roof near the end of the main part of the house. Beyond that, Molly had kennels and runs for the dogs.

  The garage doors were closed when we pulled into the driveway. Molly jumped out and ran up to the front porch with the key in her hand. She unlocked the door, but it wouldn’t open. She beat on it and screamed, “Bill, Bill! Are you all right?”

  The next thing I saw was Bill standing in his Man Cave at the upstairs window. I pointed at him. Mike shook his head no and put his finger to his lips in the age-old “Be quiet” sign.

  I couldn’t believe what happened next. Bill opened the window and lifted the screen off its hooks. He tilted its frame so that it fit through the window and pulled it inside the house.

  A bare leg came through the opening and tentatively felt around until the foot was stable on the roof of the lower level of the house.

  With Molly still beating on the door and screaming for Bill, the rest of us watched as Bill assisted a female wearing shorts and a halter top out of the window and onto the roof. Fear showed on her face and in the cautious way she tried to clutch the shingles as she attempted to crawl to the edge of the roof on hands and knees.

  If I hadn’t felt like crying, I would have laughed out loud—real loud, but I recognized that woman. I called her Loose Lucy. I’d seen her several times before Bill and Molly married. The first time, she and Bill were kissing in public at the vigil when my friend Jane was kidnapped. My thoughts flew back to that day. The woman had been dressed exactly the same as she was now—shrinkwrapped in an overflowing halter top and short shorts— hot pants, cooter cutters, whatever else anyone calls pants so tight and high that nothing is left to the imagination.

  Another time, I’d seen her and Bill in his truck, parked in the wooded section of Taylor’s Cemetery. I couldn’t tell what she was wearing that day, if anything.

  So far as I knew, Bill had been walking the line since then. I couldn’t believe I was watching him help that blond bimbo sneak out of his marital home.

  While Mike and I stared as that spectacle unfolded, Molly beat on the front door frantically and yelled, “Don’t worry, Bill. I’m coming. I’ll get the axe out of the shed and bust this door down.”

  “Do not let her get an axe,” Mike called and jumped out of the truck. Ty and I followed him up to the porch, and we all tried to divert Molly from running around the house to the toolshed which was on the same side as the garage and kennels right below Loose Lucy. Molly is a tiny woman who hates confrontation, but I had no doubt that given an axe and seeing that woman climbing out of her window would result in more than a smashed front door.

  I stepped away from the door and looked up. Can Loose Lucy get off the roof and away before Molly sees her? I asked myself like a commentator on television. I didn’t have to wait for an answer.

  The roof was steep, and the woman was already scared, but it could have been Molly’s shrieks or the word “axe” that caused what happened next. Loose Lucy had crawled almost to the edge of the roof when she slipped. She rolled the rest of the way and fell—right into a dog pen.

  “Look at that,” Ty said. He didn’t have to tell us. I stood there with my mouth dropped open. The dogs in that pen were Pomeranians—small but nervous members of the canine family. They all rushed over to the woman and began licking her face and yapping. Loose Lucy screamed.

  Molly tore to the pen shouting, “What are you doing to my dogs?” When she saw who was inside the fence, she began cussing, and it definitely wasn’t the kindergarten kind I developed when I was teaching.

  Bill finally ran out the front door. He bellowed, “She’s just a friend. I can explain,” but no one paid any attention to him. Ty and I grabbed Molly and tried to pull her back to the truck. Mike opened the gate into the fenced area and accidentally let two dogs out. They scampered across the yard with Molly flapping her arms at Ty and me, trying to pull loose from Mike and elbowing me in the chest where it would have hurt if I hadn’t had a layer of air inflation protecting me.

  “The dogs!” A gigantic roar from such a small person, but it was still hard to hear Molly over the woman in the pen squealing and the dogs barking. “We have to catch those dogs. They’re champions here for stud services. I can’t let them get away.”

  Molly, Ty, and I must have looked like idiots trying to capture the tiny Pomeranians as they ran and frolicked, obviously thinking this was a fun game.

  “Callie, go in the kitchen and get some of the leftover chicken from last night out of the refrigerator. Maybe the dogs will come to us for food.” The look I gave her must have said, Why don’t you go get it? because she added, “I don’t know if I’ll ever set foot back in that house. I might burn it to the ground.”

  Molly didn’t set the house on fire, but she did laugh when the ambulance arrived for Bill’s “friend,” put a blowup cast on her broken leg, and headed for the
ER.

  “Go on to the hospital with your ‘friend’ and stay there.” Molly was far beyond being worried about Bill’s health, but I wasn’t so sure he’d survive this incident without an injury.

  “No, I need to talk to you, to explain.” Bill sounded sincere and his eyes glistened with tears, but I’ve known him all my life, and I wasn’t sure if the tears were genuine or not.

  “If your dad’s wedding wasn’t tomorrow, I’d pack everything of yours in trash bags and throw them out right now, but I don’t have time for that today. I agreed to direct the wedding, and I’m not going to let you ruin it, but we’ll deal with this later. You’d better believe this is not over!” Molly turned toward Mike. “Take me back to Pa Parrish’s house. I’ll work in the kitchen and Bill can help outside. When the yard’s finished, the tents need to be set up. There won’t be time tomorrow morning.”

  “Yes, let’s talk on the way to Pa’s.” Bill reached out for Molly’s hand, but she swatted him away. “I’ll take my car and, Molly, you ride with me,” Bill said.

  “When hell freezes over.” Molly walked toward the truck. “I’m riding back with Mike.”

  “I’ve got to go to work,” I interrupted.

  “And Rizzie needs me,” Ty said.

  “I’ll take Tyrone back to Rizzie’s, and then Molly and I will go home to Pa’s. Bill, you take Callie to work.” Mike’s tone left no room for questioning.

  “Shotgun,” Ty called, but Molly’s expression cut him off, and he climbed into the middle of the seat again.

  I got into the car with Bill, but I didn’t speak to him. He knew how I felt about that woman. I’d confronted him for seeing her after he and Molly were engaged. He’d assured me that he was on the straight and narrow since then.

  “Let me explain,” Bill said the minute we’d both fastened our seat belts.

  “Don’t bother. I have calls to make.”

  Before I’d even brought up contacts on my phone, Bob Seger announced someone was calling me. “Callie, where are you?” I could picture Odell’s frown.