Claws for Concern

by Miranda James

  I knew he worried about me. His mother’s death had hit him particularly hard, and after some difficulties in our relationship, he and I were closer than ever. I didn’t like having him upset or concerned, but I couldn’t stop living my life the way I saw fit. He understood that, and he was always ready to help me in any way he could.

  The doorbell rang again five minutes after Sean left, and once more Diesel reached the door ahead of me. This time my expected guest stood on the doorstep. I invited him in and suggested we talk in the kitchen. He had a backpack with him, no doubt containing his files on the Barber case. I wondered if there was any material he hadn’t already shared with me.

  “Would you care for something to drink?” I asked.

  Jack looked up from scratching Diesel’s head and chin. “Ice tea if you have it, otherwise water, thanks.” Diesel stretched out by Jack’s chair. He often did that, stayed near a new person, once he decided that person was okay.

  “Ice tea coming up,” I said. “I’m ready for some myself. It’s unsweetened, though.”

  “No problem.” Jacked smiled. “As long as you have some kind of sweetener, I’m good to go.”

  “I have several kinds.” I reeled off their names, and Jack chose the natural sugar substitute that I myself preferred.

  Once I served the tea, I was ready to focus on plans for our investigation. I told Jack I had the coming week free, with the exception of Friday, my usual day at the public library.

  “That’s great,” Jack said. “We can get a lot done over the next few days. Now, I’ve been thinking about our strategy. Let me outline it to you, and you tell me if you agree.”

  I nodded. “Go ahead.”

  “We obviously will talk to Bill Delaney today,” Jack said. “We need him to open up and talk to us about the case, and about the hit-and-run. I feel sure it’s connected. If possible, we also need to talk to Leann Finch today. She was Elizabeth Barber’s best friend, and she might know things about the family that didn’t surface during the investigation. Or at least things that didn’t make it into the newspaper.” He paused for a sip of tea. “Depending on what we find out from Delaney and Leann Finch, we can move on from there. I think we need to talk to people in the community around the Barber farm. I’ve done some research, and most of them are still there.”

  “I agree. We need to find out everything we can from the neighbors. I feel sure there’s something that got overlooked,” I said. “Some incident, some piece of information that people at the time may not have realized was significant.”

  “Definitely,” Jack said. “We have to do the same with Sylvia and Bill Delaney’s neighbors. Several of the families closest to the house are no longer there, but there is one woman, a widow, who still lives next door.”

  “What about the Delaney house?” I asked. “Does Bill own it?”

  Jack shook his head. “No, from what I gather, it had to be sold to help pay for his mother’s care. Another family lives there now.”

  “I wonder where Delaney’s been living in Tullahoma then,” I said. “I never asked him because I sort of assumed he had inherited his mother’s house.”

  “I don’t know where he was,” Jack said. “Apparently he turned up out of the blue a week or so before his mother died. Nobody except maybe his mother had heard from him in years. That’s what a friend at the sheriff’s department told me.”

  “How did he find out that his mother was dying?” I asked.

  Jack shrugged. “That I don’t know. Could be that his mother knew how to get in touch with him, and the nursing home called or wrote to him.” He reached for his backpack and extracted a notebook and a pen. “That’s a great question.” He flipped the notebook open and began writing. “It might not be important in the long run, but we don’t know that it won’t be.”

  “I agree,” I said. “I also wonder where he’s been all these years and what he’s been doing? Did he maintain contact with anyone in Tullahoma besides maybe his mother?”

  Jack scribbled in his notebook. “More good questions.” He looked over at me. “Would you consider him our chief suspect?”

  “After reading all the newspaper articles and other things you sent,” I said, “frankly, I find it hard to believe that anyone else did it, based on what I’ve recently learned. He had a history of drunkenness and violence, he was overheard having a blowout with Hiram Barber not long before the murders, he felt he had a grievance against Barber.” I shrugged. “Add to that Barber’s reputation for being cheap, and I can see him refusing to pay Delaney his back wages and Delaney snapping.”

  “I agree,” Jack said. “I can see Delaney killing Barber without much problem. What really gets me, though, is killing the wife and the two boys.”

  “Yes, that part is hard for me, too,” I said. “But if they witnessed Barber’s death, then Delaney might have felt he had to kill them in order to protect himself.”

  “I know,” Jack said, “but killing those two boys . . . Well, it makes me sick to think about.” He grimaced.

  “The murders of children are beyond comprehension,” I said. “I don’t know whether you have children yourself, but I have two, with one grandchild recently born and another one on the way. A parent’s worst nightmare is violence against their child.”

  “I don’t have any children of my own,” Jack said. “My wife has three, a son and two daughters, and two grandchildren. I understand how you feel, though.”

  “All the more reason that the monster responsible should be identified and made to pay the price for what he did.”

  “What monster are you talking about?”

  Stewart walked into the kitchen, and I hastily introduced him to Jack. Diesel let Stewart know that he was available for attention, and Stewart took a chair and began scratching Diesel’s back.

  “The monster who killed the Barbers,” I said. “Particularly the deaths of those two boys.”

  “Horrible,” Stewart said. “I’ve been doing some reading about the case. I found a fair number of newspaper articles on the Internet. It’s a fascinating case. The chief suspect had an unshakable, but unprovable, alibi. Evidently Mrs. Delaney was fiercely protective.”

  “She had to have been,” Jack said, “to stand up to the kind of pressure the sheriff’s department would have exerted. They wanted Bill Delaney for the murders.”

  “Interesting thing about alibis.” Stewart glanced first at me, then Jack, then back to me again. “They work both ways. Mrs. Delaney gave her son an alibi. Said he was passed out drunk all night.”

  “Yes, that’s right.” I suddenly saw where Stewart was going with this, and I was angry with myself for not realizing it before now. I let Stewart have his moment, however.

  Jack started to speak, but Stewart got in first. “Sylvia Delaney’s only alibi was her dead-to-the-world son. That’s no alibi at all.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  “I should have thought of that before now,” I said, feeling chagrined.

  “You beat me to it.” Jack shared a rueful grin. “You’re right. I was so focused on Bill Delaney’s alibi that I hadn’t really thought seriously about his mother as a suspect.”

  “Who we know was protective of her son from what people said about her.” I finished my tea and got up to refill my glass from the fridge. “Stewart, would you like tea?”

  “No, thanks,” Stewart replied. “What do you know about Sylvia Delaney’s character? For example, was she hot-tempered like her son? Did she drink?”

  “My friend Ernie Carpenter—Charlie met her recently—told me she knew Sylvia Delaney a little,” Jack said. “According to Ernie, Mrs. Delaney was a pillar of her church, known to be a fine, upstanding woman, although she had a temper. Not as bad as her son’s, though.”

  “That doesn’t sound like a woman who had a problem with alcohol,” Stewart said. “She sounds too straitlaced to have ki
lled anyone.”

  “She might sound that way.” I resumed my place at the table. “But don’t ever underestimate what a parent might do to protect a child. Even if that child was in his midforties, as Bill Delaney would have been at the time. He was her only child, remember.”

  “Pillars of the church have murdered before,” Jack said. “I don’t know if you’ve read my books, but one of them was about a preacher in a small town in Texas who murdered three people who had left everything in their wills to his church. He needed the money to pay off his gambling debts.”

  “I haven’t read it, but now I want to. Sounds absolutely fascinating,” Stewart said. “What’s the title?” He pulled out his phone in preparation for making a note. He kept all kinds of information on his phone, I had observed. Mine could probably do those things, too, but I had never explored all the apps to find out.

  “Past Praying For,” Jack replied. “I hope you’ll enjoy it.”

  “I’m sure I will,” Stewart said as he tapped on his phone’s keyboard.

  “Obviously we need to dig deeper into Sylvia Delaney,” I said. “Besides Ernie and the one neighbor who still lives next to the old Delaney house, do you know anyone else who might have known her back then?”

  “I’m sure there are people from her church we could talk to,” Jack replied. “How well they knew her is anybody’s guess. In my experience many people are careful about what they share with people in their church, especially in a small church.”

  “There are always too many people who want to gossip in churches, just like everywhere else,” Stewart said. “The minute they grab on to a juicy tidbit, they fall all over themselves finding people to tell.”

  “True,” I said. “But if it weren’t for people willing to share gossip, then we might never find out what we need in order to solve a murder. Jack, do you know what church Sylvia Delaney attended?”

  “No,” he replied. “I’ll check with Ernie later.”

  “Now you have another suspect,” Stewart said. “My work is done. When are you leaving for the hospital?”

  “What do you think?” I looked at Jack. “Shall we go now, or are there other things you want to discuss first?”

  “We can go now, if you’re ready.” Jack shoved his notebook and pen back in his backpack.

  “Let’s go, then,” I said. “Stewart is going to look after Diesel while we’re gone. We can grab lunch after the hospital.”

  “Sounds good,” Jack said. “Stewart, thanks for your help.”

  “My pleasure.” Stewart pushed back from the table and stood. “Come on, Diesel, let’s go upstairs. Dante wants to play with you.” He explained to Jack that Dante was his dog before he walked over to the door into the hall. “Come on, boy.”

  Diesel looked at me as if to ask permission. He uttered a plaintive meow.

  “Go with Stewart,” I said. “I have to go out now, and you can’t come with me.” The cat stared at me for a moment. Then he turned and followed Stewart out of the room.

  Jack chuckled. “That cat of yours is quite a character. Does he understand everything you say to him?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Much of the time he seems to, but I’m never completely sure. He is very smart, I do know that.” I rose from the table. “Would you like me to drive?”

  “If you don’t mind, that would be good,” Jack said. “The AC in my car is acting up, and I can’t count on it working half the time.”

  “I know how that is,” I said as I led the way to the garage. “I went through a Houston summer once without a working AC in the car.”

  “Brutal.”

  Once we both had our seat belts fastened and Jack’s backpack stowed securely in the backseat, we drove to the hospital. On the way we discussed the approach we wanted to take with both Bill Delaney and Leann Finch, should the latter be at the hospital and available for a meeting.

  “Bill Delaney first, though,” Jack said, and I agreed.

  “I want to find out whether he knew Leann Finch back in Tullahoma,” I said.

  “Speaking of Tullahoma,” Jack said, “tomorrow we need to talk to Elizabeth Barber. I know where she lives, but talking to her at home might not be a good idea. I found out she has a part-time job as a vet tech with one of the veterinarians in Tullahoma. A friend of mine takes her dogs to that vet. I thought we should try there.”

  “Why there?” I asked. “Surely it would be better to talk to her at home.”

  “Catch her off guard at work and rattle her a little,” Jack said. “But if she isn’t working tomorrow, we’ll have to try her at home.”

  “Okay.” Since Jack was the one who suggested we work together, I had no problem with him taking the lead and directing the investigation. I would speak up, though, if I disagreed with him on what I considered an important point.

  I pulled into a parking space, and we left the car. Jack shrugged his backpack onto his shoulders as we walked.

  “I hope Delaney is in his room and not off having some kind of test,” I said. “I’m not fond of hospitals, and I don’t want to have to sit around waiting.”

  “I don’t care for them, either,” Jack said. “But if he isn’t in his room, we can go see if Dr. Finch is on duty today.”

  A couple of minutes later we stood at the closed door of Bill Delaney’s room. I tapped on the door, and a voice bade us enter.

  Delaney looked slightly better today, I thought, despite the fact that he was still heavily bandaged. His color had improved, and he appeared more alert than when I saw him yesterday. He was reclined at a comfortable-looking angle in bed, and the television set mounted on the wall was on with the volume set at a low level.

  I approached the bed. “Good morning, Mr. Delaney. How are you feeling today?”

  Delaney regarded me warily. “About the same, I guess. They’ve given me pain pills so I don’t feel much of anything. Who’s that?” He indicated Jack with a movement of his head.

  I introduced Jack. “He’s a friend of mine from Tullahoma, and he and I are working on something together. He wanted to come with me to see how you are and to talk to you, if you feel up to it.”

  “Talk about what?” Delaney asked, still wary.

  “We’ll come back to that in a minute.” Jack and I had agreed that we would try to get him to talk about the hit-and-run first, then move into talking about the Barber case. “Jack was shocked when I told him that somebody hit you deliberately and drove off.”

  “That could be considered attempted murder, you know,” Jack said. “Charlie is worried about you, and I can’t say I blame him. If whoever hit you finds out you’re still alive, he might try again.”

  Delaney’s expression changed from wary to blank. I figured he planned to stonewall us as he had done with me yesterday. I had to get through to him somehow, though. Jack remained near my side, ready to step in on the right cue.

  “I think you’re wrong.” Delaney shifted his gaze toward the television screen. “Nobody tried to run me down. Just an accident.”

  “I’m sorry, Bill, I simply don’t believe that.” I used his given name deliberately to try to establish a more personal connection. “My daughter is a bright, observant young woman, and I believe what she tells me.”

  “I told you, I got no claim on you. Why don’t you go away?” Delaney said, sounding weary.

  “No, you don’t have a claim on me,” I said. “We’re not related except by marriage. Your father to my aunt. No blood connection. But there’s still a connection. I can’t in all good conscience stand by and not try to help you. Your life might be at stake, and you don’t seem to have any other friends. You need my help.”

  Before Delaney could respond, Jack spoke up. “Mr. Delaney, Charlie’s right about the threat to your life. Unless you’re ready to die, you need to listen to him. To both of us.”

  “I’m not
in no hurry to die,” Delaney said. “But I don’t see what you two have got to do with it. No reason at all why someone would want me dead. I’ve been gone from Mississippi for nearly twenty years. I don’t know anybody here no more.”

  “That’s not true,” Jack said. “I can think of at least two people you know and who will certainly remember you.”

  Delaney’s glance shifted to Jack but then shifted back to the screen. “Don’t know who you’re talking about.”

  “Elizabeth Barber and Leann Finch.” I watched him closely for his reaction as Jack spoke the names. Delaney tensed but evidently realized what he’d done and immediately tried to relax.

  Jack continued, “You worked for the Barber family for years. You knew their daughter, Elizabeth. Twenty years ago she would have been sixteen or seventeen. Leann Finch was her best friend. You must have seen them together at some point.”

  Delaney’s gaze remained stubbornly fixated on the television screen.

  “Did you recognize Leann Finch yesterday in the emergency room?” I asked.

  I noticed Delaney’s hands tighten on the white bedspread, and they stayed clenched. For a moment I felt bad. It wasn’t my intention to browbeat him, but we had to get through to him.

  “I don’t remember any Leann Finch,” Delaney said. “I remember Elizabeth, though. Beautiful girl.” He closed his eyes and sighed. “Don’t know whatever became of her.”

  “You remember what happened to her parents and her brothers, though,” Jack said.

  “Of course I remember.” Delaney opened his eyes and snapped the words out. “And if you’re here to try to make me confess to killings I didn’t do, you might as well get the hell out of my room right now.” He picked up the television control, and I saw him push the call button for the nurse.

  “We’re not here to accuse you. You had an alibi, as I recall, your mother,” I said. “We do want to talk to you about the murders, though.”

  “The police will be talking to you about them,” Jack said. “They know you’re back in Mississippi now. I’m actually surprised they haven’t been here already.”