Murder by Kindness

by Barbara Graham

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “Sheriff?” Rex was now on the dispatch desk.

  Tony wasn’t sure if Rex sounded amused, concerned or if he was suppressing laughter. The day had been arduous so far, and Tony would appreciate some relief. “Yes?”

  “Blossom Flowers Baines is on her way back to your office.”

  Tony was a little shocked to hear that Blossom was headed his way. Since her marriage several months ago, she had not been delivering as many baked goods to him. He had lost a couple of pounds. Tony hated to admit how much he missed her visits. It wasn’t just the baked goods, although that certainly was the largest reason, but Blossom was sweet and entertaining and often as not had information about things going on in the county that he was unaware of.

  Sitting just outside his door, Ruth Ann spotted her and said to him, “She looks serious.”

  When Blossom waddled into his office, Tony saw how true Ruth Ann’s observation was. Physically, Blossom looked much the same as ever. Her overweight body was encased in an amazing, flamboyant, pink and purple ensemble. He thought it resembled flamingos in a flower garden. However, her thin, shocking orange hair did not appear to have been combed. Not typical Blossom. Instead, she looked like she had gotten dressed and left the house in a hurry.

  Tony checked her hands and noticed she did not arrive empty-handed. Normally Blossom would deposit her baked goods, given as gifts, on his desk and greet him. Now that she was a married lady, her normal expression around him was no longer one of adoration, but even so, Blossom appeared totally distracted. Instead of speaking to him, she managed to wedge her oversized bottom onto the visitor’s chair while balancing an apple pie in one hand and clutching the handle of a paper shopping bag in the other. Her tote bag–sized purse hung over one chubby forearm. After releasing a giant sigh, she sat in silence.

  Concerned by her appearance and attitude, Tony said, “Is there something I can do for you, Blossom?”

  Blossom didn’t immediately answer. She just stared at the floor in front of his desk. Then she heaved a great sigh and tears flowed over her cheeks, dripping onto her bright blouse.

  The moment she started crying, Tony reached for the box of tissues always on the corner of his desk and, as he offered it to her, he asked, “What’s happened?”

  They both realized at the same time that she could not take a tissue and hold onto the pie as well as the bag. A flicker of amusement crossed Blossom’s face as she seemed to notice she had not even given him his pie. She held it up to him. With a smile, Tony moved the pie onto his desk and returned to offer the tissues. Blossom grabbed a tissue from the box he held and at the same time handed over the shopping bag.

  “A pie? And a bag of . . .?” he asked but Blossom was occupied with the tissues and didn’t answer. Tony thought the shopping bag had to weigh about ten pounds. He waited patiently while Blossom blew her nose using a succession of tissues and lined them up in a neat row across her lap. He smiled. At least this was normal behavior for Blossom.

  Suddenly, like a switch had been thrown, Blossom seemed to recover from her unhappiness. Her chubby cheeks lifted, almost obscuring her bulbous blue eyes, and she managed a smile. “There are cookies in the bag, the kind you like with the big chunks of chocolate, caramel and extra pecans.” She blinked back a few errant tears and wiped her face. “I made them just for you.”

  Tony felt his stomach growl, and his mouth began to water. Through the open doorway, he saw Ruth Ann watching them from her desk. Evidently seeing Blossom making a recovery, Ruth Ann relaxed in her chair and extended a hand, palm up, begging. Tony spoke to Blossom. “Cookies and a pie? This looks like a serious case of bribery to me.”

  Blossom’s answering laugh was quite musical.

  When Blossom began to laugh, Tony was able to relax a bit. “We haven’t seen you for a while.”

  “Well, what with the little girls and being a married lady now, I’ve been rather busy.” The mention of her stepdaughters and her husband brought a wide smile to her face. Finally done with her meltdown, Blossom rose to her feet and disposed of the tissue collection in his trash can.

  Tony felt sure whatever her problem was, it did not involve her stepdaughters or husband. So far, so good. “I guess you woke up this morning and decided I needed fattening?”

  “No, not that.” Blossom pressed her finger against her chin, thinking. She seemed to be taking his question seriously. “Mostly everything’s okay, you know with Kenny and the girls. It’s my sister Dahlia.”

  “Dahlia?” Tony thought he had met all of Blossom’s flower garden of sisters but he didn’t immediately recall Dahlia. “Does she live around here?”

  “Oh, no, she moved off to the city years ago.” Blossom waved a clean tissue for emphasis.

  “What city are you talking about, Blossom?” Tony was still recovering from his surprise that a member of the Flowers clan had left not only the county, but the eastern end of the state.

  Blossom glanced up like she expected to find the answer to his question written on the ceiling. “Well, first Dahlia moved to Atlanta, but then when she got married, she and her husband moved to Nashville. He’s a musician.” Clearly satisfied with her statement, Blossom rummaged in her bag and found a miniature candy bar she unwrapped and popped into her mouth. She chewed contentedly.

  “Is she your oldest sister?” Tony knew Blossom was the youngest of the Flowers sisters.

  “No, she’s the second oldest.” Blossom pasted on her well-rehearsed “thoughtful” look even as she continued chewing. “Let’s see . . . Dahlia was older than Chrysanthemum and Marigold.”

  Tony was afraid Blossom was about to launch into the recitation of the entire family tree and interrupted before she could say another word. “That’s okay. Let’s just go back a step. Tell me about Dahlia and why you are so concerned about her.”

  “She’s gone missing, of course.” Blossom squinted at him as if wondering why he didn’t already know the information and, since he was ill-informed, she might have to reconsider involving him. Maybe she’d even repossess the pie.

  Tony persisted. “Since she doesn’t live around here, how do you know she’s missing?”

  Blossom ran her fingers through the thin, orange hair, fluffing it up a bit. “Because she left a message on my cell phone.”

  “Is the message still on your phone?” Tony thought maybe listening to the exact message would be more effective than getting it thirdhand.

  The light of understanding illuminated Blossom’s eyes and she reached into the tote bag still dangling from her elbow, just the way it had been when she had carried it into the room. She started digging in her bag and eventually held up a very modern, and expensive, cell phone. Her chubby fingers flew over the screen, making Tony jealous. Nothing made him feel larger and more awkward than trying to push the buttons on his own cell phone.

  “Okay, listen to this.” Blossom held the phone to face him.

  Tony leaned forward, listening to the call on speaker setting. At first he couldn’t make any sense out of what he was hearing, and then he was able to separate the words in his mind. According to the phone message, Dahlia was in trouble. The type of trouble was unclear. It sounded like she had been involved in a car collision, and whether she was injured or someone else was seemed to be the topic. What didn’t make sense to him was why she called her sister instead of emergency services.

  “You know your sister. Does this sound like one of her normal messages?” Tony was thinking specifically about his own mother’s telephone calls when, to her, every event seemed to be an emergency. The woman who raised him had a gift for melodrama and for getting herself in tight places.

  Blossom stared at him for just a moment and then suddenly smiled as she realized what he was asking. “Dahlia does have frequent, um, emergencies. Uh-huh, yes she does. Usually though, she calls Marigold, who is much better at dealing with her.”

  Tony thought they were finally on track. “Have you checked with Marig
old to see if she has heard from Dahlia?”

  “No, Marigold is off on a Caribbean cruise. Everyone knows all about it.” Blossom leaned forward as if telling a secret. “Marigold said she wasn’t even taking her telephone with her. I know Dahlia knew all about Marigold’s trip, because she’s been going on and on about it for weeks.”

  In most cases like this, Tony knew the family simply hadn’t been given all of the information. But certainly not in all cases. It was true something serious could have happened to Dahlia. “I’ll need some information from you and then I’ll see what I can find out. Okay?”

  Blossom nodded and wiped her eyes again.

  “Where does Dahlia live now?”

  “Nashville.” Blossom pressed a finger against her chin, her preferred thinking position.

  Tony thought if Dahlia was living in Nashville and decided to visit her family, it was just over a two-and-a-half-hour drive, maybe three, unless she decided to do some sightseeing along the way or had car trouble. With information about the car and the license plate, he would check first to learn if the vehicle had been involved in an accident. It could be as simple as her running out of gas in one of the few areas where there was no cellular service. “Can you give me her address, and do you know what kind of car she drives?”

  Blossom’s fingers flew across the cell phone’s screen, retrieved her address book in the device and read off her sister’s home address. “She drives a dark red Cadillac. A brand new one.”

  “Dahlia’s still married?” Tony seemed to recall there had been talk about some brother-in-law who was not getting along with Blossom’s laundry list of sisters.

  “Sort of.” Blossom wiggled on her chair. “The last time I talked to her, she said she told that no good sack of dirt he could live under the bridge but not in her house.”

  “And how long ago was that?” Tony considered the statement to indicate a less than idyllic relationship. It added both a greater reason for her to come visit her relatives and, unfortunately, perhaps another reason to be disturbed by her disappearance.

  “It was just a few days ago.” Blossom hesitated. “She was mad. ’Course she’s usually mad at somebody most of the time.”

  “I’ll see what I can learn, Blossom.” He handed her a notepad and pen. “If you will write your new cell-phone number down for me, I’ll get back to you as soon as I learn anything.”

  Nodding and chewing on another chunk of chocolate, Blossom painstakingly wrote her new phone number in nice large numbers. Once done, she drew a flower face around it and then handed it to him.

  “You be sure to call the department number and let us know if you hear anything from her.” Tony waited for her to respond.

  Finally, Blossom agreed, and heaving herself to her feet, left his office.

  The moment she was gone Ruth Ann and Wade showed up in his office carrying a stack of plates, a knife and three forks. Tony laughed. At least he was not the only one who had been missing Blossom’s pies.

  A quick check with other agencies did not show Dahlia’s Cadillac to have been involved in any accident, nor had it been reported abandoned in a parking lot. Even if Dahlia left her husband and drove to Los Angeles, there was nothing illegal about it. Officially, she wouldn’t even be listed as missing. If she remained missing without checking in with her family, or if the Cadillac was located under suspicious circumstances—something like being left in a ditch with the driver’s door open—then they would be able to pursue her disappearance.

  Tony placed a call to a friend of his in the Nashville police department. After the initial greetings and questions about family, Tony got to the point. “It’s not an official investigation at this stage, but I would consider it a favor if someone could check her house to see if her car is parked there or if she is there herself, or if there is some reason to believe she is in any danger.”

  “What’s going on?” Sergeant Byrd asked. “You don’t usually deal with us citified folk.”

  Tony ignored the jibe. “The woman’s sister, the best-of-the-best baker of pies in East Tennessee, is concerned. She’s one of those people who believe everything shown on TV, even if it’s science fiction. She thinks we can find her sister’s car anywhere on the planet, pretty much at the touch of a button.”

  “Does she have reason to believe that something has happened to her sister?”

  “Only that the sister’s recently told her husband to leave.” Tony sighed. “In my experience, we would be just as likely to find them in the local motel, kissing and making up, as finding her deceased.”

  “I hear that.” Byrd heaved a heavy sigh. “Just last week, I found myself in the middle of an intense marital spat. As far as I could tell, the only thing the couple agreed upon was they didn’t like me interfering with their argument.”

  “No kidding.” Tony could sympathize. The same thing had happened to him, too, more than once. “I think only one time in recent memory was I greeted with ‘Yes, I called you and now I absolutely want you to lock this sack of manure up and throw away the key.’”

  Byrd chuckled. “Okay. Give me the address and I’ll swing by and check on the house. With any luck, she will be there and everything will be fine.”

  “Sounds great.” Tony read off the address.

  “I’ll be in touch.”

  Tony was in the middle of some paperwork when Byrd called back. “What did you learn?”

  “Well, I learned she’s not in the house. He is not in the house. The neighbors haven’t seen him for about a week now, and they saw her drive off at maybe ten this morning.”

  Tony checked his watch. It was almost three o’clock in the afternoon. “There’s no way she’s been driving for five hours and hasn’t reached here yet.”

  Sergeant Byrd said, “She could still be in Nashville. She could be at the mall having a little shopping therapy, or she could be at the bank closing the account, or she’s having her hair done.” He mumbled, “The best thing about being an adult is not having to account for every single action.”

  Tony knew he was right. “Well, thanks for checking. I’ll let you know if she shows up here.”

  Tony had barely gotten off the phone when his radio crackled with a new call. Rex’s voice said, “There’s another fire in a still.” Dispatch controlled all emergency calls, whether for an ambulance, a fire or the sheriff’s department.

  “Where is this one?” What Tony really wanted to ask was, how many stills existed in the county? And how did someone know where they all were? A memory of a fairly recent conversation he’d had with Quentin about bootlegging was triggered. Maybe these were only high-school boys looking for free alcohol? Was there a chance they had known the location of several stills and had crept in and stolen some and set them on fire to cover their tracks? Was he trying to make the case too complicated by turning bad behavior into a tidal wave of arson?

  “Orvan Lundy’s place.” Rex’s voice held its normal calm intonation.

  “Is the old man okay?” Tony hadn’t heard of anyone with a still being targeted twice.

  “As far as we can tell. Ruth Ann’s husband, Walter, called it in.”

  Why Tony was so relieved that Orvan was safe, he couldn’t have explained to himself or anyone. He liked the old man, in spite of, or possibly because of, his contrariness. Orvan lived life on his terms. “I’ll go up there, too.”

  He pulled Wade away from his fingerprint project.

  Driving the Blazer up the twisting road, he was glad he didn’t have to drive the fire truck. The road barely qualified as one. Up here, it was actually two strips of bare earth carved into the stony ground. Wade bounced around in the passenger seat, even with his seatbelt strapping him down.

  “Thank goodness for the invention of seatbelts.” Wade grinned like a kid on a roller coaster.

  “Certainly saves a lot of wear and tear on the head.” Tony had actually bumped his head on the ceiling of the Blazer on a couple of particularly rough bounces. “I do believe this road
is getting worse.”

  “Maybe we should tell Not Bob to work up here.” Wade’s voice sounded like he was gargling underwater when they thumped through the deepest pothole.

  Tony was amused. Not Bob actually had a very nice name but he’d never heard anyone in his department use it. The first time they’d heard of him he’d used the name Not Bob to identify himself. It stuck. “I’ll let Sheila tell Not Bob. My guess is he would be more likely to mention the condition of this road to his boss if it would make his sweetheart happy.”

  “Speaking of Not Bob, I thought he would give Sheila an engagement ring for Christmas.” Wade sounded displeased.

  Tony made it his policy to try to stay out of his employees’ personal lives as much as possible. However, in this case, he was as curious as the rest of the citizens about the romance between Sheila and the man known as Not Bob. Besides being the victim of a vicious attack, the man was known to everyone who drove in Park County as the well-built young man who filled potholes during the day and attended college at night. “Well, as I recall, you kept your courtship of the lovely Mrs. Wade Claybough pretty quiet.”

  “Yes.” Wade laughed. “It wasn’t easy, though. Having Grace living in Georgia at the time helped a lot.”

  Their conversation ended the moment they made the last curve and Tony saw Orvan’s home. Orvan Lundy owned very little. The land was his, but it had belonged to his family forever. Orvan lived in a tiny cabin almost as old as the mountain it sat on. Behind the cabin was a shed or barn, or something in between the two. It was there Orvan did his work of building and repairing ladder-backed chairs. He made each of them by hand, using tools even older than the cabin. He was particularly well-known for fine quality cane seats that he wove in his own distinctive pattern.