A Veiled Antiquity (Torie O'Shea Mysteries)

by MacPherson, Rett

  The hours ticked by. No, they crawled by. I couldn’t read once the sun started to go down, because I couldn’t have a light on in the house. Even my itty-bitty book light would have showed too much light had I used it. I had to sit in the dark.

  I came back from the potty, two doors down on the left, and stumped my foot on the dresser just inside the door. The sky was still lit, but the sun was nearly gone. It was behind a ridge, so that I couldn’t actually see it, but the light it gave off was evident.

  Then I saw it. A dark figure walked into the corn and nearly disappeared. I could see him emerge every now and then as he went methodically up and down every row in the cornfield. He’d be here all night, checking every single row.

  I called the sheriff at Q’s. Q’s is a bar, billiards, and bowling establishment. Very loud. We didn’t want to arouse curiosity by having the dispatcher come on over his walkie-talkie, so that’s why I just called him directly. The sheriff got on the phone.

  “Sheriff,” I said.

  “Hello? Can’t hear you, you’ll have to speak up, ma’am.”

  “Sheriff, it’s me, Torie,” I said. I raised my voice a bit, but not a lot. It’s not like the person in the cornfield could hear me.

  “Torie, do we have a show?” he asked.

  “We got a show,” I answered him. “Now. Get over here now.”

  “On my way.”

  As I hung up the phone, I looked out into the field. There was nobody there. Surely they couldn’t have left. Maybe they realized what was up and decided to leave while they could.

  I raced down the steps, which was hard to do considering it is a very narrow spiral staircase. I stopped with my hand on the back door to my aunt’s two-hundred-year-old farmhouse. What was I doing? I couldn’t run out into the cornfield and say, “Don’t leave until the sheriff gets here.” I’d probably end up dead. It would only take the sheriff five minutes to get here, especially if he floored it. But I could be dead in that time, too.

  I went to the basement door. “Psst, Deputy Miller. There’s somebody out in the cornfield.” No answer.

  So what could I do to keep him on the property?

  There was nothing I could do. I strained to look out the window in the kitchen. Nothing. I couldn’t see anybody anywhere.

  I opened the back door and stepped out on the porch. I caught a glimpse of somebody down on all fours. I was fairly certain that it was Lanny Lockheart, especially after what Eleanore had told me earlier. If Yvonne was the killer, nobody would have shown up because she was in jail. Whoever it was, he was definitely looking for something. He was convinced that something was in the cornfield. Knowing Aunt Emily, there were probably all sorts of things. She had the strangest ideas of what made good fertilizer.

  I stood around on the porch, trying to hide behind the swing and the porch furniture, for at least two minutes. All the sounds on the farm became very loud. The cows seemed to moo more than usual. The chickens clucked louder. The geese were squealing. Did they always make this much noise or were they aware that something was up?

  I went back to the basement steps. “Hey, Ralph? You down there?”

  Sheriff Brooke and Deputy Duran walked up behind me from the back porch and I stifled a scream. It came out as a squeal instead. I rolled my eyes at Sheriff Brooke. That was my way of saying thanks for scaring the pee out of me. They must have parked down the road and ran up to the house because I didn’t hear their squad car. I hadn’t heard them walk up the porch steps or open the screen door to the kitchen, either.

  They headed into the cornfield, their guns drawn. Sheriff Brooke walked slowly with his gun pointed at the ground, Duran’s was pointed in the direction of the sky. Great, they’d end up shooting each other. I just knew they would.

  About a minute went by without a sound. Then I heard some scrambling, figures darting back and forth. I think I counted three uniforms. That made me feel better. Three against one. Deputy Miller must have seen the person out in the field when I was on the phone and went outside before I ever got down the steps. Then a shot fired.

  I had not thought that maybe the bad guy had come with a gun.

  Moans came from the cornfield, and I panicked. I ran in the house and got my uncle’s twelve-gauge shotgun off of his rack. Ammunition. Where did Uncle Ben keep his ammunition?

  More sounds came from outside while I was running around the house trying to find the ammunition. Think. Think. Where did he get the ammo when he went to shoot the coyote? He walked in the door, went to the rack, and walked into the hallway and …

  The basement. I opened the door and on a shelf immediately to my left were boxes of shells of various sizes for various guns. I found the right ones, loaded the twelve-gauge, and went out to the back porch.

  “Sheriff?” I yelled. “I’m armed! Don’t worry about me!”

  It occurred to me that he’d be more concerned now than he was before. The shotgun was bigger than I was. But I could shoot it. I had on many occasions. I’d been skeet shooting with my uncle, not to mention the umpteen times I’d shot soda cans off of stumps with my cousins. I could probably even hit something.

  My hands were shaking, but not nearly as much as my knees, and I never wanted to be someplace else more than I wanted to be right now. Well, there was one other time, but that’s another story.

  Suddenly a figured emerged from the corn. It was Lanny Lockheart. He looked at me funny at first. And then he realized that this wasn’t a random police check that caught a prowler, but that he’d been set up. He had a small pistol in his hand, and my heart beat wildly. Was Sheriff Brooke dead? Oh, God.

  Lanny’s eyes looked straight into mine.

  The shotgun was raised at my hips. With a twelve-gauge I could kill him, without raising it to my face and taking careful aim. As long as I hit something.

  But I didn’t want to kill him. I couldn’t kill him. I’d never killed anything deliberately with malice. Except spiders.

  His gun was at his side. I could shoot him before he got it raised.

  “Put the gun down,” I said. “This is a really stupid thing to die for.”

  “You have no idea what consequences your actions will have,” he said to me.

  “There is no treasure, Mr. Lockheart. There are no consequences that I will have to deal with. You people need to get out of fantasyland.” I saw Deputy Duran walking up slowly behind Lanny. And the short, stocky build of Deputy Miller came from the side. “You didn’t really have an alibi, did you? You gave Andrew’s name thinking he’d back you up, which he did, although not very convincingly. You dug up the grave. You’d be big enough to carry Camille through her house and force her into the garage. But who ran me off the road? Let me guess. Andrew? How about Yvonne?”

  Fear played across his face. “You leave her out of this,” he said. “You can’t prove that she did anything. She was in Chicago the night Marie died. She didn’t do it.”

  “But she did run me off the road, didn’t she?”

  “Yvonne is my wife,” he said.

  “Which would explain how the documents got in her car,” I said. “You must have been frantic when you learned that she was arrested for the attempted murder of Camille.”

  “I’m not saying anything else,” he said and started to raise his gun.

  “I wouldn’t, Mr. Lockheart,” Duran said from behind him. Lanny dropped his gun to the ground, but his eyes never left me the whole time.

  I set the shotgun on the floor of the porch and took off running toward the cornfield. I had to get to the sheriff.

  “Sheriff?” I ran past the dry cornstalks trying to see into the rows, but it was nearly dark now. “Sheriff! Answer me, you big jerk!”

  “Over here,” I heard him say faintly.

  All I could think of was a gut wound. And I wasn’t so sure I was prepared for that kind of blood. I’m not very strong stomached when it comes to that sort of thing anyway. All I have to do is look at a freshly stitched wound and I get light-headed.
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br />   The blood ran from my face when I saw him lying on the ground with his belt pulled tight across his thigh. He’d been shot in the leg, and there was blood darkening the material of his pants. Sweat beaded on his forehead and he looked incredibly pale. I didn’t think that it was due to lack of blood, but more from pain and fear.

  “My God,” I said. I knelt down next to him. I was so relieved that he wasn’t dead.

  “Oh, no,” he said.

  “What?”

  “You almost hugged me,” he said.

  “I did not.”

  “Yes you did. I could see it.”

  “Did not.”

  “You wanted to hug me, you were so glad to see me alive.”

  “Believe me, it’s only for my mother’s sake.”

  “You really hate me that bad?” he asked.

  “I don’t hate you,” I said. “I’m just not sure how fond of you I am.”

  He smiled at me and ruffled my hair. Why does everybody do that?

  “I never gave it much thought,” I said. “I was just relieved that I wasn’t going to be looking at a dead body.”

  “Well, if you don’t shut up and get me out of here, I may get dead.”

  NEW KASSEL GAZETTE

  THE NEWS YOU MIGHT MISS

  by Eleanore Murdoch

  This year’s apple dumpling recipe winner is … ME! I won! Can you believe it? Thank you everybody who voted for me. It was my grandmother’s recipe and I am only too proud to pass it on to you wonderful people.

  On a more somber note. I have always thought that our beloved New Kassel was a safe haven, a world away from the real one. In recent months some things have happened to make me change the way I looked at New Kassel. Has the real world finally got so large and intrusive that it has finally come to rest its ugly head in my wonderful town? The answer is no. There have always been ugly things and “real world” problems going on, just on a smaller scale. I was blind to them. Now I see them. I don’t mean to scare anybody, but please, lock your doors at night. We have so many strangers from all over the country come to visit us. You never know when one will mean us harm.

  And on a much happier note, nobody has claimed Fritz. So, the O’Sheas have a dog! It’s rumored that even the mayor likes this animal.

  Until next time.

  Eleanore

  Thirty

  I wore my 1860s hoopskirt. It was easily something that Melanie Wilkes would have worn in Gone With the Wind. It was a peach dotted swiss gown with bishop sleeves and a diamond-shaped belt. I wore no hat only because the one that went with this dress had a torn tassle and was being repaired.

  Rachel and Mary had just talked Sylvia into having “olden days dresses” made for them so that on special days like this they could be festive. We hoped to have them ready by Christmas.

  I stood outside on the steps of the Gaheimer House, awaiting my next tour. My mother and the sheriff were in matching wheelchairs. He could have used crutches, but he thought this was much more romantic. He would change his mind when she beat him at wheelchair drag races.

  “Has anybody seen Rudy?” I asked.

  “He was at the pie-eating contest last time I saw him,” Sheriff Brooke said.

  “He won, no doubt,” I said.

  “How do you know?”

  I just smiled at him.

  I was about to go inside when Andrew Wheaton came walking up to the steps of the Gaheimer House. He was casual today: jeans and a pink polo shirt.

  “I just checked out of the Murdoch Inn,” he said. “I can’t tell you how disturbed I am about all of this.”

  “What do you think, Mr. Wheaton? Lanny denies killing Marie on purpose. He swears it was the result of a fight. Do you think he’s capable of premeditated murder?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I certainly wouldn’t have thought of him as a grave robber, but he was.”

  “That was sort of my thought, as well. I suppose we’ll never know.”

  “I was wondering,” Andrew began and then hesitated.

  “If I know the location of the treasure?”

  “Yes,” he said and shuffled his feet. Sheriff Brooke raised his eyebrows.

  “Do you really believe that there is a treasure?” I asked.

  “With my very being,” he said.

  “Well, I’ll tell ya, Mr. Wheaton. Since you’re such a believer. Yes. I know the location of the treasure.”

  “Torie!” Sheriff Brooke said.

  “Relax, Sheriff. See, I don’t believe there is a treasure. I think these societies prey on the fact that people want to believe in the outrageous. A conspiracy is the first thing that will get people all fired up. If the Merovee Knights spread it around that there was no treasure or that there was a treasure but it was found long ago or wasn’t what anybody expected, they’d have no members. Tons of money is spent on this very type of thing and it’s nothing but a hoax. But if there truly is a treasure, Mr. Wheaton isn’t going to kill me to get it because then the location goes with me. Nobody else knows where it’s at,” I lied. “And I’ve not written it down.”

  Andrew smiled at me.

  “It’s a classic standoff, hey, Mr. Wheaton?” I asked.

  “Were we close?” he asked.

  “Not at all,” I lied again.

  Rudy and Eleanore crossed the street then, coming toward us. Rudy had cherry stains on his blue T-shirt. His stomach protruded beyond his belt, stretched in an obvious glutonous display.

  “How many pies did you eat?” I asked.

  “Don’t ask,” he moaned.

  “Oh, Torie,” Eleanore said. “He was positively disgusting.”

  “So, you won?”

  Rudy nodded.

  “Congratulations. This is four years in a row.”

  “What did you win?” Andrew asked.

  “A dozen cherry pies,” Rudy answered.

  Andrew laughed and looked at me once more. “If you ever want to divulge that information, look me up.”

  “If I ever want to divulge that information, I will tell Camille and Sister Lucy,” I said.

  He nodded at me and left.

  “What was he talking about?” Eleanore asked.

  “Oh, nothing,” I said and giggled. Mom was trying hard to keep a straight face.

  “You’re really not going to tell anybody?” the sheriff asked.

  “Nope.”

  Just then Sylvia stuck her head out the door. “Victory! Get in here right now. You have tourists waiting!” She looked to Sheriff Brooke and snarled, “And, you, look at the display you’re making of yourself. Pretending to be handicapped. You should be ashamed. And, Rudy, you look positively like a pig!”

  I laughed heartily.

  “And, Eleanore,” she went on, “what are you staring at? What are you doing here? If you’re not going to work, then go and sit in your own house and loaf. Don’t instill discord in the troops!”

  Eleanore was flustered. “Well, I never!”

  Things were back to normal in New Kassel, Missouri. I wasn’t sure if that was good or bad.

  ALSO BY RETT MACPHERSON

  Family Skeletons

  A VEILED ANTIQUITY. Copyright © 1998 by Lauretta Allen. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  MacPherson, Rett.

  A veiled antiquity : a novel / by Rett MacPherson. — 1st ed.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 0-312-29249-X

  I. Title.

  PS3563.A3257V45 1988

  813'.54—dc21

  98-6929

  CIP

  First Edition: June 1998

  eISBN 9781466854093

  First eBook edition: August 2013

  sp; MacPherson, Rett, A Veiled Antiquity (Torie O'Shea Mysteries)