Toni L.P. Kelner - Laura Fleming 05 - Tight as a Tick

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by Toni L. P. Kelner


  Then she opened the envelope from the cousin, but after a minute, she shook her head. “Just some clippings from the classifieds in Wilmington from people with knives for sale.”

  She opened the last envelope, slid out a note and a smaller envelope, and read the note aloud. “Carney, here’s your envelope back with the stamps cancelled. Hope your sister is enjoying her stamp collection—my mother has collected for years and has a real good time with them.” She looked up at us. “I don’t collect stamps.”

  It was hard not to grab the sealed envelope from her, but I managed to wait as she opened it and pulled out an old piece of paper that had been folded several times over. “It’s a map,” she said, and spread it over the counter.

  I recognized the outlines of Byerly and Rocky Shoals even before I saw the title on top.

  “A treasure map?” Richard said, only half joking.

  We all looked to see if any location was marked, or if there were any directions scribbled on it. We even checked the back. Nothing.

  “Carney certainly didn’t need a map,” Sadie said. “The only place he ever drove to was Tight as a Tick.”

  “Which is right there,” I said, pointing to an area that straddled the town line. That’s when I realized what we had. “I’ll be darned. I think this is the map they’ve been looking for, the original one that shows where the town line is.” Sure enough, the border between the two towns was plainly marked with surveyor’s marks.

  How had Carney ended up with it? It had to be what the killer was looking for, but why was it worth killing for?

  Chapter 38

  “This is very interesting,” Mark Pope said, but I could tell he wasn’t at all interested. Richard and I had talked Sadie into letting us take the map to the Byerly Police Station, and even though we’d explained how we’d found it, Mark still asked, “But why do you think this map has something to do with Carney Alexander’s murder?”

  I explained Richard’s and my reasoning, and it did sound a little specious, but Junior would have believed me, and I told Mark so. That was a mistake.

  “I’d never contradict my superior,” Mark said, “but she left me in charge, which means that I have to rely on my own experience. In my experience, hidden maps don’t have anything to do with police cases except in Hardy Boys books.” He had the gall to smile at us. “I am curious as to why you’ve been involving yourself in this case after I asked you not to.”

  I didn’t want to tell him that Junior wanted me to, or that Aunt Maggie didn’t think he was up to the job, so that didn’t leave me much in the way of explanations. “Let’s just say I’m a concerned citizen.”

  “Uh huh,” he said in a tone that made it clear just what kind of citizen he thought I was. “Then let’s say that I appreciate your concern and I’ll be sure to take note of this important information.”

  “Don’t you want to keep the map?”

  “That’s all right. I’ll let you know if I need it.”

  Trey looked embarrassed, but there was nothing he could do. There was nothing I could do either, except to try to hold on to my temper until I got back out to the car.

  “What an idiot!” I said as soon as I slammed the car door shut. “He hasn’t got enough brains to direct traffic, let alone run a murder investigation.” I gunned the motor and screeched out of the parking place.

  “You’re absolutely right,” Richard said. “Watch out for that telephone pole.”

  “I should have known better than to try to talk to him, but I told Junior I would,” I said, jerking into traffic.

  “I’m sure she’ll appreciate it. That’s a stop sign.”

  I braked sharply. “She better. I don’t take that kind of abuse from anybody.”

  “Unless they’re related. That car is turning—you might want to slow down.” Then he asked, “Would you rather I drive?”

  “Sorry.” I made an effort to slow down to something resembling the speed limit. “The last thing I want is for that nitwit to have an excuse to give us a ticket.”

  I continued to rant about Mark’s lack of intelligence, manners, and physical charms for the rest of the drive to Aunt Maggie’s house. Of course, I was as mad at myself as I was at Mark, and Richard knew it. Partially it was because I hadn’t found a way to convince Mark we were right, but mostly because the map was a dead end. I’d thought that once we found what the killer wanted, we’d know who he was. As it was, all we had were more questions and no idea of where to go to ask them.

  That’s what I told Aunt Maggie and Augustus when I found them eating a late lunch at her house. I finished with, “I know the city council wants this map to establish the town line, but why would anybody kill for it?”

  “Are you sure there’s not something else written on it?” Augustus said.

  “We didn’t find anything,” I said, but I spread it out for us all to take another look. Aunt Maggie pulled out the magnifying glass she uses to check for trademarks, and we went over every inch, back and front. We even held it up to a lightbulb to see if something had been written in invisible ink. Mark Pope would have been sure we’d been reading Hardy Boys mysteries if he’d seen that, but I wouldn’t have minded his jokes if we’d found something. We didn’t.

  Richard said, “If Carney was running true to form, he would either have been using this map for blackmail or for revenge. Our remaining suspects are Evan, Obed, and Tattoo Bob. Aunt Maggie, do you know how any of those three would be harmed by this map being found?”

  “Certainly not Evan. He wants it found so he can sell the land,” Aunt Maggie said.

  “Maybe Carney told him he’d hidden it and wouldn’t give it to him unless Evan did something for him,” Richard said.

  “That dog won’t hunt,” Aunt Maggie said. “Evan would have called the police and told them. It’s public property so Carney would have had to give it up.”

  That was another mark against Mark, come to think of it. Even if he didn’t think the map had anything to do with Carney’s death, he should have realized its importance to Byerly. I said, “Whether Evan knew it or not, with his agoraphobia, Carney would never have risked being arrested. Besides, killing Carney meant that the map might never be found, which is the last thing Evan would want.”

  “How about this?” Richard suggested. “Carney knew that if the map were found, Evan would sell the flea market, ruining Carney’s only way of making a living.”

  “Nope,” Aunt Maggie said. “Evan told us a while ago that he has another lot for us to use. He’ll never shut down Tight as a Tick as long as he can make money off of it.”

  “Wouldn’t it have been hard for Carney to move?” I asked.

  “He could have paid Thatcher and the other point men to move his things,” Aunt Maggie said. “As long as his new booth was close to a door, I think he’d have been all right.”

  “What about Obed?” I asked.

  “What about him? It would have been easy for him to move to another lot—his booth is on wheels.”

  “Does he have property near there?” Richard asked. “Maybe he didn’t want Arthur building a car dealership next door.”

  “I’ve never heard him mention owning land, but even if he did, I can’t see him killing over it.”

  “Tattoo Bob?” I said. “Maybe the zoning regulations at the new location won’t let him do tattoos there.”

  “Laurie Anne, I think you’re grabbing at straws,” Aunt Maggie said.

  “I know,” I said, and Richard reached over to rub my shoulders. “It’s just that I’m sure this map is important, but I don’t know why.”

  “Ask Arthur,” Augustus said. “He’s been hunting for it high and low, so he might know something.”

  “That’s not a bad idea. He should still be at work.” I reached for Aunt Maggie’s phone book to get the number of the dealership.

  “Why don’t you use that pager Vasti’s been making him carry?” Augustus said with a snicker.

  “A pager?” I asked.


  Aunt Maggie rolled her eyes. “So she can get him at any time of the day. I told her that people have been having babies without pagers since Adam and Eve, but she won’t listen.”

  Aunt Maggie said that by dialing the number she gave me, Arthur’s pager would beep and flash Aunt Maggie’s number. I tried it, and a few minutes later, the phone rang.

  “Is Vasti there?” Arthur asked, sounding tired.

  “Not this time. I want to talk to you about some city council business, if you’ve got a minute.”

  “You bet,” he said, sounding considerably less tired. “It’s quiet around here, anyway. Why don’t I come on over to Aunt Maggie’s?”

  “That would be great,” I said, and hung up. “He’s on his way.”

  “I’ll let you handle him,” Aunt Maggie said. “I want to ride over to the flea market and drop off the stuff I bought today. The basement is full, and I need the space in the car because there’s another auction tomorrow night.”

  Richard, Augustus, and I exchanged glances.

  “You want me to come with you, Aunt Maggie?” Augustus said.

  “I thought you said you had to get Nora’s car back to her,” she said.

  “She won’t care if I’m late. In fact, I think she’d pass out on the floor if I showed up on time.”

  Aunt Maggie shrugged, and Augustus winked at me again. Clearly, my cousin was on the mend.

  Arthur got there a few minutes after they left, and after the preliminaries of getting something to drink, deciding to sit at the kitchen table instead of in the living room, and talking about how hot it was, he asked, “What can I do for you, Laurie Anne?”

  “Actually, I think I can do something for you.” I spread the map out in front of him with a flourish. “Is this what you’ve been looking for?”

  He looked at it, and did a double-take. Then he took the magnifying glass Richard had ready and took a closer look. “Damn! It’s genuine and it’s dated before the Rocky Shoals map! Where did you find it? Vasti said you were up to something, but I didn’t know you were looking for the map.”

  “We weren’t,” I said, and explained how we’d ended up with it. “I know you’ll want to get this to City Hall, but before you do, do you know why anybody would want to prevent Evan Cawthorne from selling the Tight as a Tick lot?”

  “Not as far as I know.”

  “What about the neighbors?” Richard said. “Would any of them mind having a car lot next door?”

  “They’d rather have that than a flea market. They’re expecting the value of their land to go up.”

  “What about zoning? Could they prevent Tattoo Bob from running his business in another location?” Like Aunt Maggie had said, I was grasping at straws, but straws were all I had left.

  “No, zoning isn’t a problem,” Arthur said. “In fact, I’ve already started the paperwork to change the Byerly side from residential to business. Once Evan gets the taxes squared away, and we agree on a price, we’re all set. I sure do appreciate your finding this map. I just wish it was helping you with your problem as much as it’s going to help me with mine.”

  “I do, too,” I said. I was so busy feeling disgusted that I missed something he’d said.

  It was Richard who asked, “What about taxes?”

  “Evan has to pay back taxes before he can sell the property,” Arthur explained. “With the town line in dispute, neither Byerly or Rocky Shoals could collect, so he owes for quite a few years.”

  “You mean he’s never paid taxes on that property?” I said.

  “Not a penny. There was no way to figure out how much he owed each town, and our tax rates are different, so he was given a special extension until the town line is settled.”

  “Didn’t he have to pay estimated taxes or put money in escrow?” Richard asked.

  “No, and I’m surprised Big Bill let him get away with it. Evan must have done him a big favor. Big Bill even arranged the same deal with Rocky Shoals.”

  “How long has it been since Evan paid taxes?” I asked.

  “He never has,” Arthur said. “Byerly and Rocky Shoals didn’t start collecting property taxes until 1964, and that was a couple of years after he got the land.”

  “How much money are we talking about?”

  “I’m not sure,” Arthur said slowly. Like any good car salesman, he always carries a calculator, so he pulled it out. “From this map, it looks like about sixty percent of Evan’s lot is in Byerly and forty percent is in Rocky Shoals, so if I multiply the acreage by …” He mumbled about tax rates and such, then said, “Is that right?” He punched more numbers. “Well, I’ll be. He owes nigh about as much as the land is worth! By the time you figure in closing costs and lawyer’s fees, Evan could actually lose money by selling!”

  “Are you serious?” I said, suddenly excited. “He’s in the middle of a deal that’s got him mortgaged up to his eyeballs. If he has to take a loss on that property, he could go bankrupt.”

  Aunt Maggie had said that Evan was tight as a tick. What better motive for murder could he have than money? “He could have heard about Carney’s agoraphobia from one of the dealers, and must have known that Carney came early,” I said. “He’d have known that Bender was going to take Rusty to the vet, and Rusty wouldn’t have fussed if he’d smelled Evan at the flea market the day Mary Maude was attacked.”

  “Do you think Carney knew about the back taxes?” Richard asked.

  I remembered something Thatcher had told me. “Of course he did! Not long before he was killed, Carney told Evan that he’d heard that his business was taxing. I thought he was making fun of that tax audit, but I bet he was really teasing him about the map, just like he teased China and J.B. He must have tried to get something out of Evan in return for not giving the map to the city council.”

  “Free rent?” Richard suggested.

  “Maybe. Either Evan wouldn’t give it to him, or he thought that Carney was going to give it to the city council anyway. So he killed Carney, and hid the body so he’d have time to search for the map.”

  “Which he couldn’t find, because Carney didn’t trust Evan, either, and hid it in the mail,” Richard continued. “He broke into the dealers’ booths a second time so he could search more thoroughly, making it look like vandalism so the police couldn’t be sure it was connected to Carney’s death.”

  “He must have been tickled to death when Belva Tucker came up with that gang theory, but he still didn’t have the map.”

  “Why did he come back to look for it the day he attacked Mary Maude?”

  I thought about it for a minute, then said, “There were two boxes of scrap paper in Carney’s booth that Bender was going to throw out, and Evan was there when Aunt Maggie asked if she could have them.”

  “You didn’t tell me about that.”

  “I didn’t think it was important.” Aunt Maggie had said something about taking notes, and I should have listened to her. “Anyway, Evan came back to check out the paper, and Mary Maude caught him at it. So he clobbered her to keep her quiet.”

  “Which means that Aunt Maggie wasn’t in danger after all,” Richard said. “That’s a relief.”

  “Are you sure about this?” Arthur asked.

  Richard nodded, so I said, “Pretty sure.”

  “Can you prove it?”

  “I don’t know.” Before we could try to think of a way, the phone rang. I picked it up. “Burnette residence.”

  “Laurie Anne? You better get down here right away!”

  “Augustus? What’s wrong?”

  “I think something’s happened to Aunt Maggie.”

  Richard told me later that every drop of color drained out of my face when I heard that. “What happened?”

  “Mr. Cawthorne asked if I’d help him with some boxes in his office, and when I turned my back, he hauled off and hit me. It wasn’t enough to knock me out, but it was enough to keep me out of commission while he locked me in. Now he’s out there with Aunt Maggie, and I think I heard guns
hots.”

  “Which Mr. Cawthorne?” I said, but I already knew what he was going to say.

  “Evan. I think—” The line went dead.

  Chapter 39

  “Augustus? Augustus!” There was no answer, and after a second, a dial tone kicked in. I slammed the phone down, shouted, “Come on!” and was halfway out the door before Richard caught me.

  “What is it?”

  I explained it as fast as I could.

  “We can’t go off half-cocked,” Richard said. “We need a plan.”

  “We need to get out there,” I said.

  “What about the police?” Arthur asked.

  “There’s no time,” I said. “Mark doesn’t trust us, and I don’t know Belva well enough to trust her.”

  “But—”

  Richard said, “Arthur, go talk to Mark. Throw your weight around, threaten him—do whatever it takes to get him out there. If that doesn’t work, call the rest of the Burnettes and get them out there.”

  I think he said he would, but I was already out the door by that point, with Richard right behind me. This time, he didn’t complain about my driving.

  When we got to Tight as a Tick, I drove around to the back door. Aunt Maggie’s car was there, but every one of her tires was flat.

  “I think they’ve been shot out,” Richard said.

  I was out of the car and reaching for the doorknob when he said, “Wait a minute. I want to get into the trunk.”

  “What for?”

  “To see if Aunt Nora has a tire iron.”

  I threw him the keys, and while he got the tire iron, I told myself that running around like a chicken with its head cut off wasn’t going to do Aunt Maggie or Augustus any good. I needed a weapon, too. My Swiss Army knife wasn’t going to do it, but there were some rocks about half the size of my fist on the ground. I don’t have much of an aim, but I shoved a couple in my blue jeans pockets anyway.

  Richard, carrying Aunt Nora’s tire iron, said, “Okay, let’s go in. But be careful. And quiet.”

  I nodded, took a deep breath, and turned the doorknob. Thank goodness it was unlocked. Breaking it down wouldn’t have been careful or quiet. I opened the door slowly, and we peered inside. There was nobody in sight, and all I could hear was the pounding of my heart.

 

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