I bought three pairs of black pantyhose at the same store. I’d be bound to snag a run in one when I put them on. The second pair would get me to the funeral, then I’d snag them. I’d keep the third pair in my handbag to change into before the reception. If I ran true to form, I’d have to toss all three pairs into the trash the minute I walked in the apartment door. Pantyhose and I do not get along.
I sincerely hoped the black dress wouldn’t see any more funerals in the near future. We stopped by the funeral home to make certain that Hiram’s body had arrived from the morgue, to give Mr. Straley the items we had selected for his burial. His eyebrows went up almost to his receding hairline when I handed him Hiram’s carriage whip and top hat.
“I was under the impression that you wished a closed coffin, Mrs. Abbott,” he said. He took the hat, but merely stared at the whip.
“That’s right, but I don’t want him to spend eternity underdressed.”
“He will be wearing the suit you selected.”
“Hiram needs his top hat and his whip. Be glad I didn’t bring his brown driving gloves and his top boots.”
“Oh, I am,” he breathed. “Would you like to inspect the viewing room, Mrs. Abbott? Your father is already in place, but of course we will make the, ah, adjustments you have requested. I hope you approve of the casket. It’s not too late to upgrade, you know.”
I didn’t even want to think of what this mid-range coffin and the lead-lined vault would cost. Seeing it and knowing that Hiram was in it was the last thing I wanted, but I felt as though I had to.
I was surprised there were several flower arrangements around the room. Avoiding looking at the big brown oblong box that sat in the corner, I checked the cards from the arrangements.
“Should I send flowers?” I asked Peggy.
She shook her head. “Here’s one from Ida.”
Beautiful roses. A wonderful dark red that was nearly blue. Not at all funerally. I appreciated that.
“The garden club sent spring flowers. Well, they would, wouldn’t they?” Peggy said.
“Peggy, you sent flowers?” I asked. I showed her the card. “You’ve done so much already. He did love yellow roses.”
Peggy sniffled. “I know. He really was a sweet man, you know.”
Sure he was, to his clients and his women.
*
As we walked back toward the foyer, Mr. Straley said, “The funeral ladies will be here at ten tomorrow morning to set up for the reception after the interment.”
“Funeral ladies?” I asked.
“Oh, yes. The same group of ladies has done all our in-house receptions for many years. Since you will not be having a sit down luncheon buffet, they will provide assorted hors d’oeuvres, deviled eggs, finger sandwiches, desserts, coffee, tea, and fruit punch. Since you did not stipulate, we decided not to offer wine, but we can, of course, include white or red or both. There’s still time to make arrangements.”
Behind him, Peggy shook her head and mouthed, “No wine.”
“So long as the fruit punch isn’t that nasty stuff with lime sherbet,” I said.
“Certainly not,” Mr. huffed. “The punch will be light and not too sweet.”
“And not pink,” Peggy said.
He glanced at her. “Very well. Not pink. Nor green, it would seem. Would pale yellow be acceptable?”
I could just see the funeral ladies ladling out cups of urine-colored punch. “I’m happy with pink,” I said. “So long as it’s pale pink.” Cups of blood didn’t seem appropriate either.
“We will open the room for viewing at six this evening if that is convenient,” he said. “We generally close at ten, but arrangements can be made to stay open longer if you prefer.”
“God no!” I caught my breath. With luck nobody would show up this evening. Then I’d have only four hours alone to commune with my father’s casket in the corner. Could I possibly sneak a book in? Otherwise, what would I do? Any chat would be one-sided and not to be overheard by Mr. Straley or his minions.
“She means four hours will be ample,” Peggy said.
“Of course. Now, I’ll have one of my assistants drive you up to show you the plot you selected on the site map for your father’s eternal resting place. It lies at the top of a gentle rise. The view, especially at this time of the year when the azaleas are in bloom, is quite lovely.”
“I’m sure he’ll enjoy it.” I mentally kicked Chuckles in the crotch and hoped he’d double over in pain.
Mr. Straley knew darned well he was being got, but he was really, really good at this. He never cracked a smile. “If you prefer, we can return to my office and I can give you the virtual video tour.”
Chuckles was recovering fast. I didn’t dare look at Peggy.
“Thank you,” she said, “That won’t be necessary.” She grabbed my arm and began to pull me toward the front door.
“You have to know where the service is being held.” I could hear an edge of desperation creeping into his voice.
“We’ll follow the hearse,” she said as we bolted.
We dove into her car and spun rubber getting out of the parking lot. I was afraid to turn around for fear Mr. Straley was trotting behind us demanding that we take the virtual tour.
Suddenly I didn’t feel like laughing. “I can’t do this,” I said.
“Of course you can. I’ll be there.”
“Can I bring a deck of cards so we can play gin rummy if nobody shows up?”
“They’ll show up all right. Mossy Creek goes in big for visiting before, during and after funerals, and there’ll be a bunch of Bigelow folks as well, some of whom may never have met Hiram.”
“Why would they come?”
“There’s a cadre that attends all the funerals. Mostly widow ladies with nothing better to do. And, I’m afraid, the combination of his international reputation and being murdered has put Hiram on the local map.”
“Tell me we won’t have television cameras?”
“Probably not, but you promised the Mossy Creek Gazette an interview.”
“Do I have to wear that dress tonight? If so, I better stop for some more pantyhose.”
“Slacks will be fine.”
“What gets me is that there’s more to-do about Hiram now that he’s dead then there was when he was alive. I am running around like a chicken with my head cut off scandalizing Mr. Straley with Hiram’s hat and whip.”
“It’s your job.”
“No, my job is to decide what I’m going to do with the farm and the equipment and the horses and Jacob Yoder and get back some semblance of my life before all this happened. I want to remember Hiram alive, not continue to deal with Hiram’s death.”
My cell phone rang. I jumped. I almost always do. I don’t wear one of those Men from Mars things behind my ear, but I can’t ever leave a telephone unanswered, even when I’m certain from the number that it’s a magazine subscription salesman. In this case I recognized Dick Fitzgibbons’s number.
“Got your goodies,” he said. “Two big filing cabinets, one filled with paperwork and log books. On cursory examination, they seem out of date. You know old stuff.”
“So I’m still missing Hiram’s current stuff. The only thing I can think of is a storage locker down here and maybe a lock box, but what on earth would he have that should go in a lockbox?”
“How about deeds? Ownership papers on the horses and the carriages? Insurance documents. A copy of his will.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ll have to wait to go hunting for a lock box or storage locker locally until I have death certificates to present.”
“You didn’t let me finish about the filing cabinets. The other is stuffed with silver bowls and platters black with tarnish. Want me to get a couple of my boys to polish them up for you so you can auction them off on eBay? Some of the early things are Sterling. Might fetch a pretty penny.”
“EBay is a wicked good idea,” I said.
Peggy glanced over at me and lifted her eyeb
rows.
“Tell you later,” I whispered. “Dick, can you hang on to them for a while? The viewing’s tonight, the funeral and the reception at the funeral home, afterwards, is tomorrow.”
“Episcopal funeral ladies or plain old ecumenical ones?”
“You know about funeral ladies?”
“Indeed, yes. I know a great deal about funeral ladies.”
I could have kicked myself. His wife of forty some-odd years had died five years ago. What he’d gone through before her death and afterwards made my deal with Hiram seem like a walker in this case a carriage ride in the park.
“Want me to drive up to hold your hand?” he asked.
“Not necessary. I’d love to see you when I come over to get Hiram’s stuff, but that may be a couple of weeks. I have to get Yoder to finish cleaning up the vis-à-vis and then make certain he’s available to drive it and Heinzie around Mossy Creek on Easter Sunday afternoon.”
“Have you decided what to do with Don Qui while you’re in town?”
“Not yet.”
“If you get desperate,” he said, “call me. I wouldn’t mind driving ole Heinzie around your village. He’s a good guy.”
Peggy drove me out to Hiram’s, although I told her she should drop me at the apartment so that I could pick up my truck and save her gas. “I’d rather come with you,” she said. “I really don’t like your being alone with Jacob Yoder out there, and it’s not simply because he’s a jail bird. There’s something of the toad about him.”
“With some rat and weasel genes tossed in for good measure. Geoff must have checked his alibi by now. If it’s full of holes, he is the perfect choice for First Murderer.”
Chapter 23
Wednesday
Geoff
“Miss Sallie Sue Jones swears that she and Jacob Yoder spent Friday night, all day Saturday, and most of Sunday together in her apartment in Bigelow.” Geoff sat in the straight chair on front of Amos’s desk and arranged the perfect creases in his slacks, then shrugged and propped his calves across heels on the rim of the metal wastebasket.
“You believe her?” Amos asked.
“From what she says, she and Yoder were both drunk as skunks. The woman lives in a sty a pig would turn up his nose at, but I don’t believe Jacob could have driven out to Hiram’s, killed him and driven back without Miss Sallie Sue being aware that he was gone a bit longer than necessary for a liquor store run.”
“Even in the middle of the night? Was she covering for him?”
Geoff shook his head. “Doesn’t look like it. Couple of other weekend juking lushes swear his truck never left from in front of her apartment building, and her car’s in the shop. Perennially, from all accounts. Not much in the way of public transportation out to Lackland’s area.” He sighed. “A real pity.” He pulled his gold Parker pen out of his breast pocket and began idly working it over and under the fingers of his left hand, gambler fashion. “Guy’s a real prince. I’m going out to talk to him again this afternoon to find out precisely why Lackland hired him right out of jail.”
Amos stood and casually kicked the wastebasket from under Geoff’s feet. “Come on, ole buddy. Time to make the rounds to protect and serve.”
“Protect from what and serve whom?”
“In both cases the good citizens of Mossy Creek. You’d be surprised what shenanigans they can get up to if I’m not around to remind them I’m around. I like to police by walking and riding around. You can come along, then I might be persuaded to buy you a cheap lunch.”
As they strolled away from the station, Amos said, “Okay, tell me about Jacob Yoder.” He nodded to the lady with the Lucille Ball hair. Geoff didn’t remember her name, but he winced when he thought of all those mimosas.
“Rap sheet’s not as long as your entire arm, but I’d bet it would stretch above your elbow,” Geoff said. He managed a smile, although he wanted to avoid eye contact with the woman. Was that a smile or a sardonic grin she gave him? He collected his thoughts and said, “Jacob started with minor vandalism up around Intercourse where he’s from.”
“Amish. I guessed as much.”
“Got caught at sixteen painting naked ladies on barns under the hex signs. An Amish version of tagging. His kin would probably have taken care of that one with a buggy whip, except that he made the mistake of picking on some non-Amish barns, got caught, and the police were brought in.”
“Actually, that’s kind of funny,” Amos said.
“Juvenile authorities must have thought so too. He was put on diversion and given to his parents. He had to paint over all his naked ladies.”
“Great loss to the world of art.” Amos waved at Ingrid Beechum at her bakery. Bob the Chihuahua barked at him.
“Damn dog thinks he’s a real dog,” Amos said. “Even after he got picked up by the hawk. He just never got the memo about being more rodent than guard dog.”
Geoff cut his eyes at Amos. He knew Amos wanted him to ask about Bob and the hawk, so he didn’t. Since college Amos had found ways to drop bombs into the conversation while he fought the urge to act interested or ask questions. He’d driven Amos nuts that way since college. He wasn’t about to let his guard down now. “So. Next Yoder steals a car and wrecks it. His family paid, so he was given probation.”
“Tough on a teen-aged boy to be a motor head when your family’s mode of transportation is a horse drawn carriage,” Amos said. He nodded toward the bakery. “Incidentally, that woman makes the best cream cake in six counties.”
“Uh-huh. The next car he stole belonged to a young man who was boarding with the Yoders to learn everything about carriages. Guess what his name was?”
“Wouldn’t be Lackland, now would it?” Amos asked. He walked across the street, sat on a bench and stretched his legs out.
Geoff sat beside him. “Indeed it was Lackland. Only this time he wrecked the car and killed the teenaged town girl he’d persuaded to go partying with him. Her father was a lawyer. Yoder got two years for vehicular homicide.”
“What happened when he came out? I’ve heard those folks shun family members who get above their raisin’.”
“I don’t know who ditched whom, but he disappeared,” Geoff said.
Nearly everybody that walked by nodded and smiled at Amos. He nodded and smiled back, but didn’t invite anyone into their conversation and nobody came over. That, Geoff assumed, was because he, the outsider, was sitting beside Amos.
“Was Lackland still living with the Yoders when Yoder went to jail?” Amos asked.
“Don’t know. I’m having one of my people in Atlanta see if he can get me work history on Lackland. I suspect, however, judging by Merry Abbott’s age, Hiram was gone and married before Yoder got out of prison. He served the whole two years, by the way. Let us say he did not adjust well to prison life.”
“He must have turned into a real bad ass.”
“Not quite enough to get his sentence extended, but enough to keep him from parole. After that he seems to have kept his nose clean for a few years.”
“Wife? Children?”
“Not on record. Even if he’d wanted to come home, I doubt his community was into killing the fatted calf for the returning prodigal.”
“So at this point he’s what, thirty?”
“About,” Geoff said. “That’s when he committed a couple of robberies with violence. Held up some liquor stores. Got caught.”
“Pennsylvania?” Amos asked.
“Nope. Georgia. Did a dime out of twenty. After that a bunch of Joe jobs. I talked to a couple of his ex-employers. The ones that remember him say that he was a hard worker when he was sober. Painter, roofer, construction, drywall, the kind of guy who can fix anything including cars and trucks.”
“And when he was drunk?” Amos asked. He stood and walked away without checking to see that Geoff was following.
Geoff caught up with him. “Bar room brawls, drunk and disorderlies, and domestics. The last time he sent his current girlfriend and her new
girlfriend to the hospital for serious surgeries. That turned into grievous bodily harm and three years.”
“Did he hunt up Lackland or did Lackland seek him out?”
“Yoder says that he saw a write-up about Lackland moving down to Mossy Creek in a local paper a year and a half ago. Started corresponding. Lackland needed somebody to help him build the place. Whether he brought pressure to bear or not, Lackland went before the parole board and offered him a job. When he got out, he came down here to finish his sentence, where, to hear him tell it, he and Lackland worked like navvies. Says Lackland promised him a working partnership. Seems really pissed that Lackland got himself murdered.”
“So, what if Lackland reneged on the offer once Merry Abbott agreed to visit him?”
“Wouldn’t be the first time Yoder reacted with violence. Lackland says no to the partnership, Yoder picks up that broken shaft and hits him, then either believes he’s dead or decides that he’s got a better chance of keeping out of jail again if he finishes the job and sets it up to look like an accident.”
“What about his alibi?” Amos asked.
“I’ve got a call into the M.E. in Bigelow to see how much fudge factor there is in Lackland’s time of death. As cold as it was Friday night, and with the storm, it’s possible Lackland died earlier than originally thought. We don’t know what time he had his last meal since he brought sandwiches with him, so we can’t judge by that. The last time anyone admits to seeing him is mid-afternoon Friday. If he was killed earlier than Saturday morning, Yoder might have killed him before he drove down the mountain to meet Sallie Sue.”
“How?” Amos asked.
“Beg your pardon?”
“Yoder parks his old truck over in the trees by his trailer. So how does he get down the mountain without driving through the pasture and down Hiram’s gravel road?”
TheCart Before the Corpse Page 16