Disguise for Death

by Sylvia Nickels

  Royce stuck her hand out through the crack in the door and made pushing motions to stop her. Sloan stopped and called, “What? I’m looking for Palm.”

  “No,” Royce mouthed. She put her finger to her lips and cast a quick look over her shoulder, afraid Thelma would step back far enough to see what was keeping her.

  Turning back toward the door, she held her left hand to the side of her head, index finger extended to her ear, little finger to her mouth. With her right hand, she made the little-boy gesture of shooting a gun in a cops and robbers game. She held the awkward pose for just a second, willing Sloan to understand.

  She pulled the door closed, but not all the way, and jerked open a cabinet drawer for the tape. “Stay. Stay,” she whispered to the dog. His ears alerted, and he clearly wanted to follow her as she started back to the living room. She made a hand gesture to reinforce the verbal commands. But he could be in the house in an instant if she called.

  When she returned to the living room, Palm and Chrys were sitting in separate chairs, Thelma still holding the gun against Palm’s temple. “Took you long enough. Tape their hands behind them, then their ankles. Tight.”

  On her knees, Royce didn’t have to try too hard to fumble as she bound Chrys first. She watched Thelma from the corner of her eye, mind racing, trying to think of something to do, but what?

  She heard a faint bump from the direction of the kitchen. God, no. Sloan? Or Devon? Thelma looked toward the kitchen, her gun swinging around.

  “Don’t shoot my dog,” Royce screamed. But the gun fell from Thelma’s hand as Palm shoved her down.

  Devon leapt through the doorway, and then the room seemed full of people. Teeth bared, Devon stood over the woman on the floor, one front and one back leg on either side. White showed all around the pupils of Thelma’s wide eyes. She mewled in terror, trying to slide away from the dog, but he crept along on top of her. Beside the dog, two uniformed officers looked at Royce, apparently unsure whether to try to wrest Devon’s prey from him.

  “Back, Devon. Back. It’s okay.” Royce managed to get her vocal cords to work, then scrambled over the floor to put her arms around the dog. “Good dog.”

  Agents Howard and Price stood with the policemen as they read Thelma her rights. Chief Granite knelt behind Chrys and removed the tape that Royce had just wrapped around her wrists. Lucianne Sibley spoke into a small tape recorder.

  Someone helped Royce to stand, arm around her shoulders. She looked up into Sergeant Charles Brand’s face. “Are you okay, Royce?”

  The solicitude, and something else, she saw in his brown eyes caused her breath to catch. “I’m fine, Chuck. How did—”

  He grinned. “We’ll explain it all, soon as these guys take the trash out.”

  Sergeant King handcuffed Thelma Morrell and took her through the front door. He urged her to the waiting cruiser, followed by the uniformed officers and Devon. Devon trotted back inside, and Royce closed the door.

  Chief Granite sat on one end of the sofa, Palm on the other, and Chuck Brand leaned against the fireplace surround, directly across from Royce’s recliner.

  Lucianne emerged from the kitchen. “Royce. I started the coffeemaker and put food and water down for Devon.”

  “Uh, thanks, Lucianne.” Royce returned to the recliner. Sloan sat beside Palm on the sofa, and Chrys perched on the wide sofa arm. “Are you going to keep us waiting until the coffee’s done, Jared?”

  “No. But maybe we better hear from young Palmer here about what happened after he was released.”

  “You told me I could go to my house; it’d been cleared. I wanted to clean up a little before coming over to talk to Royce and Chrys. Sloan was going to follow me. Thank God, she was held up by an accident.” He squeezed Sloan’s hand. “Thelma was inside, waiting.”

  “For what?” Royce asked.

  “Me. She said she needed a vehicle. The police would be on the lookout for her, and the Hummer would stand out. She couldn’t go to the dealership, someone might see her. She wanted to get you and Chrys over to Dad’s—my house since it had already been searched. She figured the cops wouldn’t be back for a while. But she decided Chrys might not come. So she forced me over here.”

  When Palm finished speaking, he, Royce, and Chrys all swung their heads toward Chief Granite.

  “As you saw earlier, Royce, Hal Woodstone was arrested by the FBI for harboring, aiding, and abetting a fugitive from justice. Since Fall Creek has lodged first-degree murder charges against him, hopefully they will see fit to let us have first crack at him.

  “It seems Fall Creek has been home to two fugitives from California. Your mother, Palm, married Woodstone and lived here briefly before she left when you were a year old, over twenty years ago. The other, Terri Myerson, aka Thelma Morrell, arrived before Lily and married Bert Morrell. She lived here with him, undetected. But she was quite a control freak, since she was the one with money, and she also liked to spend it. The last few years her spending and Bert’s bad management drained a lot of her money, so she developed a side business, exporting drugs hidden in some of the cars they sold.” He stopped talking for a moment. “Think that coffee’s ready, Royce?”

  “I’ll help.” Chuck Brand followed Royce out of the room and back a few minutes later, carrying a tray that held cookies, a coffee carafe, and cups. When everyone was served, Brand put the tray on the coffee table and returned to lean against the fireplace wall.

  The chief looked at Sloan, and a question seemed to pass between them. The others in the room looked at Sloan, too, then back at the chief when Sloan nodded.

  “I guess it was the fullness of time for Thelma Morrell. Our young jailer here used to know Thelma’s family in another life, you might say. Morrell, or Myerson, also knew Sloan’s family. Sloan came to work for us and was interviewed on a news clip about police department recruiting. Thelma and her sister saw the clip and began making plans to cut and run.

  “After she learned of Royce’s book from Woodstone, she really got spooked. Accelerated her plans for a quicker exit. Siphoning money from the dealership, moving more drugs.

  “Then she got a call from a woman she hoped was dead, Lily Woodstone, demanding money for keeping quiet about their past.”

  Palm made a sound.

  Sloan put her other hand over his and murmured softly, “It’s okay, Palm. I’m sure she just wanted to leave you something to make up for—you know.”

  The chief looked at Royce. “You didn’t recognize her in that fake passport picture?”

  Royce almost dropped her cup. “Thelma? But how did she get it?”

  “Suze Mackie is a makeup artist. She helped her. They lifted the shirt from the charity box where you placed your donation. To help finance their getaway plans, Thelma had also hoped to replenish her cash in another way. She accumulated a stash of personal information on local residents when she worked at the hospital, plus records on people who bought cars from them.”

  “So when I mentioned on her sister’s show that I was going abroad, she knew the fake passport would be found out,” Royce said.

  Granite nodded. “Things really started to unravel for her when Bert overheard her talking to Suze Mackie about faking a robbery of the dealership to pay off a blackmailer. He thought he could use the information to force her to leave him and the business. But they killed him and left him in his office, apparently a victim of the robber.

  “Thelma had no qualms about killing. Lucianne is lucky to be alive after she disregarded my orders, and Thelma caught her snooping around the Morrell place.”

  Lucianne made a rueful face and touched her sling.

  “Woodstone wanted Lily dead. Thelma thought she could control him, but she didn’t know the extent of his rage. She was afraid if Lily died, the truth would come out before she was ready to leave.

  “The low-life, Clupper, whom she hired to deliver the money to Lily, got scared and was going to turn her in, so she killed him, too, this afternoon. An all-points bullet
in has been issued for the sister, who managed to slip away.”

  Royce took a sip and set her cup down. “Go on, Jared. If you don’t have Suze Mackie, and Clupper’s dead, how do you know Thelma killed Bert?”

  “The receptionist at the dealership is Bert’s niece, but she worshipped Thelma. Listened in on phone calls so she could report to Thelma what went on there. But she’s decided to talk, afraid she’ll be charged, too.

  “She heard the call from your mother, Palm. And the call Thelma made to her sister, telling her they had to grab all the cash they could and leave town. That she, Thelma, would take care of Clupper and make sure Woodstone kept quiet.”

  “Has Hal confessed to killing Lily?” Royce asked. “Did Thelma know?”

  “He will.” The chief waved. “After you gave us the possible explanation for the boot business and Palm here told his story, we knew what to look for. We got another search warrant. We found the landscape fabric, and because it was rolled up, it still had traces of the chloroform he used on Palm. And the bottle containing what was left of the chloroform. It came from the Fall Creek Pharmacy.”

  “Brenda. She tried to kill Devon,” Royce whispered.

  “No, she wouldn’t!” Chrys seemed still reluctant to accept that her friend was not a good person.

  “Did she know Hal was going to frame Palm for his mother’s murder, Jared?” Royce asked.

  “Brenda Bassett has admitted to using her position at the pharmacy to procure chloroform for Woodstone, Ms. Wynter. Their affair has been ongoing for some time.”

  “I never suspected.” Chrys sagged into the sofa cushions.

  “Based on something Hal let slip, Ms. Bassett called Lucianne Sibley in Capitol City, who refuses to confirm the call.” He looked hard at Lucianne. “Bassett told her she believed the book Royce wrote was based on a real person in Fall Creek, Thelma Morrell.”

  Lucianne crossed her good arm over the other and said nothing.

  Royce let out her breath. “And she did tell Hal about—about—the letter.”

  “Woodstone believed he was entitled to the money. For his betrayal, as he put it.”

  “That must be why he asked, demanded…” Royce began and stopped.

  “That you marry him, Royce?” Palm asked in a gentle voice.

  Jared Granite made no direct reference to Palm’s last statement. “Bassett wanted to become Hal’s next wife. So she stirred up as much trouble as she could to prevent his involvement with anyone else.”

  “She called Lucianne. Did she also call Eddy’s sister in Atlanta? And the FBI?”

  Granite nodded. “There’s something else, Royce, that you should know.” Though he seemed not to relish the telling.

  She looked up at his tone. “What?”

  “We always suspected there was more to Eddy’s death. But until Conroy decided to turn state’s evidence, we had no proof. He’s a junkie, and when he was broke, he washed cars and such for the Morrells at the dealership. Thelma steered him to Woodstone for drugs. After Woodstone learned about the letter, and Palm’s paternity, he wanted the money Eddy was leaving Palm. So he hired Conroy to kill Eddy, paid him in drugs.”

  Royce could feel the color staining her face each time Granite mentioned the money Eddy left for Palm.

  Palm looked stricken. “Drugs? Where’d he get drugs?” he asked, before Royce could respond.

  “You didn’t know about the marijuana in the special greenhouse section? And the small meth lab behind that?”

  Palm leapt to his feet. “No! He wouldn’t let me back there. Said they were special plants, that I’d kill them.”

  Sloan stood and took one of his hands. Royce came and held the other in both of hers. “It’s all right, Palm. We believe you.”

  Royce turned to the chief. “So that was what Thelma was talking about at the coffee shop. I’m surprised he didn’t try to frame Palm for the drugs. Given time, he probably would have.”

  “No doubt. He needed the income though. And Thelma to move the drugs for him. The deadly root of his hatred for Lily was her desertion. And he couldn’t allow her to come back into your life, Palm. He was afraid you would give her the money Eddy left you, when Royce handed it over. He was counting on it to bail out the greenhouse so he could get out of the drug business.”

  The chief’s eyes bored into Palm. “You should know, Palm. Royce did not know Eddy was your father until after he was killed. She needed some time to come to terms with the knowledge.”

  “I think I knew that, Chief.” Palm put one arm around Royce and reached his other hand toward Chrys. She hesitated for a few seconds, then joined them on the sofa.

  Lucianne’s sardonic gaze moved from her ex-husband’s impassive face to Sloan’s wistful expression to Chuck Brand’s unguarded adoring gaze fixed on Royce.

  The redhead dropped her eyes to Devon, lying quietly on the floor. “Well, canine hero. I guess that’s my cue to head back to Cap City.”

  When no one replied, she shrugged, opened the front door, and left.

  A few seconds after the door closed, Chief Granite stood up and spoke again. “If there’s any way I can help the next few days, Royce, let me know.”

  She sat for a minute before courtesy won and she rose from the sofa. “Yes. Thank you. We’ll be all right, Jared.”

  A word about the author…

  Sylvia Nickels pursues her lifelong dream of writing from her home in the mountains of East Tennessee. A graduate of Tusculum College, she is retired from the telephone industry and active in her church and with local writers’ guilds.

  An avid reader for many years of stories and novels involving “gumshoes,” Sylvia once applied for a job as an apprentice PI, but to her disappointment, it never happened.

  Sylvia’s mystery short stories have been published in Mystery of the Green Mist anthology and Futures Mysterious Anthology Magazine. “The Sweet Taste of Revenge” won Honorable Mention in the Cape Fear Writers Conference Short Story Competition.

  Sylvia maintains the website at

  www.ramblinscribe.com

  and blogs intermittently at:

  www.mysterylanerambler.blogspot.com

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