by Sharon Short
I went into the kitchen. Her cell phone was gone, but her connector was still plugged into the outlet.
I went into the bathroom. Her satin pajama bottoms and my night shirt were dropped on the floor. Her makeup and hair-styling supplies were piled up on the metal shelf over the sink.
Mama had left sometime in the middle of the night, and apparently in a hurry. It was also apparent that she’d planned on coming back because most of her things were still in my apartment.
But where could she have gone? She couldn’t have driven anywhere. I couldn’t imagine her walking very far in the snow—not in her stilettos.
I trotted back out to the exterior landing and gazed down at the small parking lot next to my building. I hadn’t noticed before, because I’d been in such a hurry to shut off the water, but now I stared at the two sets of footprints, in the night’s new snow, leading around to the front of my building. One set with a pointy toe and a dot for a heel—Mama’s trademark stilettos. Another set looked like hiking boots. They stopped by the street. Tire tracks in the road were indistinguishable.
Who had she left with?
Daddy . . .
Oh, Lord, I thought. Somehow, Daddy had broken out of the jail, stolen a car, picked up Mama, and they’d taken off again. Then he’d come by here, told her, don’t worry, May, just leave this stuff, we’ll replace it later, and they took off.
I paused before going inside. How would I feel if they really had taken off again?
A little relieved, I had to admit.
There was one way, I suddenly realized, that I could be sure if Mama had left for good, on her own volition.
I got out the area phone book—thinner, in my neck of the woods, than the weekly cable guide—and looked up Mrs. Arrowood’s phone number.
“Um, I’m sorry, did I wake you?” I asked—then immediately felt foolish. I knew from her voice I had. It was still early.
“Who is this? What do you want?”
“Mrs. Arrowood, it’s Josie Toadfern.”
Silence on the other end.
“May’s daughter.”
“Oh, yes. Would you tell May that Cherry did a wonderful job! I look—and feel—ten years younger, and of course I’d never have had the courage without May . . .”
“Mrs. Arrowood, I was hoping that maybe Mama had called you or dropped by to see you—maybe sometime in the night? Or very early this morning.”
Silence again.
“She’s left again,” Mrs. Arrowood said, her voice deflated with disappointment.
“Yes. But she said she wouldn’t leave without coming by to tell you good-bye this time,” I said. “She sounded sincere.” I took a deep breath. “Mrs. Arrowood—do you think she was sincere?”
More silence. Then, “Yes.” Mrs. Arrowood’s voice was suddenly firm with conviction. “Yes, I know she wouldn’t have left this time without coming by—not of her own free will.”
I finished the conversation with Mrs. Arrowood. Mama hadn’t gone by to see Mrs. Arrowood. Which meant either she was still in the area or hadn’t left of her own free will.
I picked up the phone again and called the Paradise Police Department.
A few minutes later, Jeanette, the dispatcher on duty, sounded amused as she said, “Of course Henry Toadfern is still here. I just served him breakfast. He asked for cappuccino—again. I explained we have the standard coffee. His tastes sure have gone upscale since I knew him back in high school. Back then—”
I tuned out Jeannette’s rambling. If Daddy hadn’t broken out to take Mama, then who had picked her up?
Lenny Burkette immediately came to mind. Mama had protested that she didn’t have any feelings for Lenny, but I didn’t completely believe her. I’d seen how they’d looked at each other the night before at the Bar-None.
And where had Mama gone after the disastrous Thanksgiving dinner, while Daddy and Uncle Fenwick were out walking? My guess, to see Lenny.
So, if Mama had left voluntarily with Lenny, that wasn’t a matter for the police. But I didn’t know for sure that that’s where she was.
And I still needed to talk to Chief Worthy. I thought I’d figured out who’d killed Uncle Fenwick.
“Look, I still need to talk to Chief Worthy,” I said, interrupting Jeanette’s chatter. My request didn’t come out as smoothly as I would have liked. I was shivering, even though I had on my coat, because I’d had to do without a hat or mittens to use my cell phone.
“He’s busy,” Jeanette snapped, clearly displeased that I’d interrupted her trip down memory lane.
“Then I need to talk to whoever else is in charge!”
“Everyone’s out on patrol, checking on the elderly to make sure they’re okay. There’s been a power outage in about half the town—ice on the lines—”
“I know that! My power is out, too! I just need to talk to someone in charge!”
“That would be the power company, but they’re well aware—”
“Not about the power!” I shrieked. “I need to talk to someone in charge at the police station!”
“Well, Chief Worthy is busy, and that means I’m in charge, I guess. How can I help you?”
I pressed my eyes shut. “You can tell Chief Worthy I’m coming down there, now, because I’ve figured out who really killed Fenwick Toadfern.”
I hung up. I looked over my dream journal notes, thought through again the conclusions I’d come to. I’d only glanced at the dream journal when I came into my bedroom to get my cell phone from my purse, but that glance was enough to trigger an important realization about the two clotheslines.
I left the journal on my nightstand, and pulled on my hat and gloves. I gave Rocky—my pothos ivy—a sympathetic look as I passed through the living room. Rocky was already looking droopy in the cold room. “Good luck,” I said.
I’d need it, too, I thought. Then I locked up my apartment and walked the three blocks to the police station.
19
“Let me see if I have this straight,” Chief Worthy said, staring at me over the tops of his fingertips.
I glared back at him across his desk. We were sitting in his office. At least I wasn’t cold any longer. For one thing, the power outage hadn’t hit the police building. Plus, I was angry because John Worthy was again treating my ideas dismissively. And anger always sent heat rushing to my face and hands.
“You think Rich Burkette killed Junior Hedberg years ago,” Chief Worthy said. “And that your Uncle Fenwick somehow knew this and was blackmailing him this whole time, and so Rich killed your Uncle Fenwick—or, at least, finished him off after your uncle tried to commit suicide, which he did, because somehow he figured the blackmail gig was up because your parents returned to town.”
All right. It did sound a little over the top, the way he described it.
“Okay, I know there are some holes in my theory—”
“Yeah. Starting with the leap that Junior Hedberg is dead, instead of just living somewhere else.”
“Why is that such a leap? I already told you, Caleb Loudermilk tried to track the man down and came up with nothing. And Caleb is a—”
“Second-rate reporter who thinks he can come up with a hot story.”
“He’s a good researcher,” I said. “Anyway, what about the rest of my theory?”
Chief Worthy glared at me. “You really expect me to go arrest Rich Burkette on suspicion of murder because a clothesline is missing from his yard?”
Without mentioning my dream as the trigger for the memory, I’d told Worthy that when I’d visited the Burkettes on Thanksgiving afternoon, I’d seen Rachel duck where the clothesline should have been. She was used to it being out, to ducking under it whenever she walked across the back yard.
“There were two clotheslines, weren’t there? There had to be. One that Uncle Fenwick tried to hang himself with.” I had already filled him in on Aunt Nora’s confession to me that Uncle Fenwick had suicidal tendencies and had come back and taken the clothesline from Mam
aw Toadfern’s yard. “And one that someone tied him up with, before stabbing him.”
“Or, there’s one clothesline cut in half,” Chief Worthy said. “And someone—and in my mind, your father is still the top suspect, based on the fact that your father and Fenwick had a fight in which they threatened each other—someone stabbed Fenwick, then tried to make it look like a hanging and really botched the job. That’s the original theory, and the one that makes the most sense to me. Your uncle was a successful man and had everything to live for.”
“Unless he was successful only because he was blackmailing Rich Burkette,” I said. “And that wealth threatened to disappear for some reason when my parents showed up.”
“Why do you think he was blackmailing Rich Burkette?” Chief Worthy asked.
I’d thought he’d never ask. “Because. Uncle Fenwick made it very clear at Thanksgiving dinner that he’d never enjoyed the plumbing business. It’s hard enough to succeed in business if you love it. It’s nearly impossible if you hate it. And yet he made enough money to buy things like that superfancy trailer.”
Chief Worthy shrugged. “Fenwick and his wife didn’t have any kids. Maybe they saved a lot of money.”
I shook my head. “Maybe. But not that much. And on the other hand, Rich Burkette, who should have a lot of money after his years as an attorney, could be living much more extravagantly than he does. But he lives modestly in what was his wife’s daddy’s farmhouse. Does that fit the personality of someone like Rich Burkette?”
Chief Worthy’s eyebrows went up a second, and he seemed to actually be considering my theory. But then he shook his head. “It’s possible that Rich and Effie just like to save their money. Maybe they’re planning to move to Europe or the Caribbean after his retirement. In any case, you don’t need to come up with scenarios to get your daddy off the hook for killing your uncle. Henry Toadfern is all yours.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“I mean there isn’t enough evidence to hold him. Oh, I still think he killed his brother, and we’ll find evidence soon enough, but for now we have to let him go. So . . . he’s all yours.” Chief Worthy stood up.
“But what about my mama taking off? I mean, my guess is that she’s with Lenny Burkette—” I’d given Chief Worthy a brief description of their past and their dancing at the Bar-None—“and if Rich really killed Junior and Uncle Fenwick, maybe she’s in danger if he thinks she knows something . . .”
“Or maybe she just took off again,” Chief Worthy said. “It’s what your parents do, isn’t it?”
“That’s not fair!” I snapped. “Look, I’ve heard about how my mama flirted with your daddy years ago, and I reckon it caused resentment in your family against mine, and maybe that’s why your parents didn’t want you to date me years ago, but as an officer of the law, you have an obligation—”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Chief Worthy said. His face had gone even stonier than usual—which, considering his jaw line usually looked like it had all the flexibility of a retaining wall, was quite a feat. “My daddy was always faithful to my mama. You and I broke up because . . .”
His voice trailed off. I grinned, rather unkindly. “Because you were unfaithful to me.”
He snorted. “We were kids back in high school.”
“It still counts,” I said. “And considering you were the one who was in the wrong, I don’t understand . . .”
“You embarrassed me by putting in your high school newspaper gossip column that I’d been seen holding hands under the bleachers with one of the cheerleaders after the big game, when you knew I was dating the coach’s daughter!”
“Of course I knew that. You fooled around with her behind my back. And yet she was so surprised when you fooled around behind her back,” I said.
“What does this have to do with anything?” He yelled. “That was years ago! In high school! Move on! I have!”
Had he? John Worthy had never settled down. He just enjoyed a series of love affairs that left a lot of women unhappy.
I slapped the desk. “You know, I’m so tired of men who think they can just get away with whatever they want. You. Sally’s ex.”
“Your daddy. Owen.” Chief Worthy interjected and grinned at me.
I didn’t know what to say. So I slapped the desk again.
“Maybe you’d better start hanging out with a better class of man, then,” Chief Worthy said. “Meanwhile, if your mama is not back in forty-eight hours, you can file a report. In the meantime, don’t let your father run off, too. We can’t hold him for now, but he’s still a suspect.”
He motioned to the door. “Now let’s go fetch your daddy for you.”
“Start from the beginning and tell us everything,” I said.
Daddy looked from me to Caleb.
We were at the Paradise Advertiser-Gazette office. After Daddy and I left the Paradise Police Department, we walked back to my apartment. My plan was to pack a few things, then call Sally and see if she could take us in, at least until the power was back on.
But Caleb was waiting for us outside my laundromat. He had, he said, the information I’d asked about. I explained about the power, and he said we could go back to the newspaper office, which happened to be in the half of the town where the power was still on.
So there we were, in the Paradise Advertiser-Gazette office, which was really just a big room with Caleb’s desk, a few computers, and bookshelves. There was a desk for his assistant, too, who worked part-time, but she wasn’t in on this Saturday morning.
Daddy, despite the neat suit—complete with silk pocket hanky—he’d insisted on changing into in my cold apartment, and despite the lined, leathery texture of his face, looked much more like a lost little boy than the businessman he affected.
“I—I don’t know,” he finally said.
“It’s all off the record, just like I promised Josie,” said Caleb. “For now, at least.”
“This is pretty simple, Daddy,” I said. “Mama left this morning with someone. I think it was with Lenny Burkette.”
Daddy frowned. “She wouldn’t do that. She knows I dislike him. Whenever there was a problem, even a little problem in our marriage, back when we still lived here, he’d always call or write or even come to town—”
“Look, she was talking with him last night,” I said. “I think there’s a reason she might have left with him, but before I tell you, you’re going to have to answer some questions.”
Daddy must have been thinking along the same lines, because suddenly he dropped his head to his hands. “I want to find her,” he said miserably. “Of course I do. Nothing matters, not even FleaMart, without her.” He looked up at me, his eyes glistening. “But I’m not sure what you want me to tell you.”
“I’m not sure, either, at least not specifically,” I said. “Let’s start with the coins. We were looking at them last night, and I could tell from Mama’s face that seeing them triggered something. A memory, maybe.”
“The coins,” Daddy said flatly.
“When you took off from Mama and me,” I said, “you left Mama a note and a bag of coins. When our trailer caught fire, just before she left, I grabbed the bag of coins. I got the coins out last night and we looked at them.”
“Oh.” Daddy looked embarrassed. “When I was working for Fenwick, we were called out to the Burkette place to take care of a plumbing problem. They’d switched over to county water and a sewer system years before, but there was a problem with standing water out near the old septic tanks and cistern.”
“Cistern?” Caleb said.
I grinned. “City boy. A cistern is just a big holding tank in the ground to hold water. Most old farms have them.”
“That’s right,” Daddy said. “Farms around here, most of the cisterns date back to the early 1900s. Cement floor, dirt walls coated in plaster, cement lid over the opening. And most have been plugged up.”
“So they’re just sitting empty?” Caleb said. “Isn’t that
dangerous?”
Daddy shook his head. “Not so long as the lid’s in place. Anyway, Fenwick took a look at the cistern. I was supposed to check out the old septic tank.” Daddy wrinkled his nose and shuddered. “I hated plumbing.” Well, at least he and Fenwick had had something in common besides an attraction to Mama and a bitter rivalry. “I can’t remember what the problem was, although I reckon we fixed it. Anyway, I found an old metal box that had been tied shut. I was curious, of course, so I pulled it out and pried it open.
“It was filled with old coins—antique ones. I’d heard about Duke Ross, Effie’s daddy, collecting them and about Junior Hedberg selling them from time to time at the antique shops in town. Then, suddenly, he stopped selling them. Shortly after that, he and Effie divorced.”
“With Rich Burkette representing Effie,” Caleb said.
“Yeah. And after that Junior took off—or, if Josie’s right, was killed. Anyway, at the time, I figured that Duke must have hidden his coins away from Junior, then never told anyone where he’d hidden them. He died kind of suddenly, from a heart attack,” Daddy said. “Fenwick came up behind me while I was looking at the coins. About startled the daylights out of me. I told him I’d share the coins with him, after I found out what they were worth.”
“You stole the coins,” I said, appalled.
“Well, now, Josie honey, Effie and Rich were doing fine, about to sell the house and build a big house in town. At least, that’s what Effie said when we came to do the job. She was really bragging about it. She wanted the house all ready when Rich came back to town—he was out of town on business, and of course by then Lenny had grown and moved out of town, so she was home alone with just little Rachel.
“Anyway, it wasn’t like they needed the money. But your mama and I did. But I knew I couldn’t get them appraised here in Paradise. I was afraid the antique dealers would recognize the coins. Since I’d followed the antique business for a while—always wanted an antique shop of my own—I knew of some good shops down in North Carolina. I figured it was safe to get them appraised there.