Claws for Concern

by Miranda James

  “You’re welcome, Jack,” she said, batting her eyelashes at him. “Anytime.”

  Jack chuckled, and I smiled at Thelma as we left the desk. Her eyes grew big when she finally caught sight of Diesel. I kept smiling and following Jack down a hallway.

  He paused in front of an open door and knocked on the door frame. “Come on in,” a gruff-sounding voice said.

  Jack entered, and Diesel and I went with him.

  “Thanks for seeing us, Elmer Lee,” Jack said. “I know you’re busy, but we think this is important.” He stood aside and motioned me forward. “This is my colleague, Charlie Harris, and this is Diesel.”

  Sheriff Johnson rose from behind his desk and walked around to shake my hand. Then, to my surprise, he squatted until his face was almost level with the cat’s. He held out a hand to Diesel and let him sniff. After a moment, Diesel butted his head against the hand, and the sheriff scratched the back of Diesel’s head. The cat responded with a couple of happy chirps. The sheriff rose from his squat and looked at me.

  “I know who you are, Mr. Harris. Kanesha Berry has talked about you at the Mississippi Sheriffs’ Association meeting. I been knowing her for a few years. She speaks pretty highly of you.”

  “I’m happy to hear that, Sheriff Johnson,” I said. “I would also like to thank you for talking with us this morning.”

  Johnson nodded and moved back around his desk to resume his seat. He waved a hand to indicate that we should sit. Jack and I pulled chairs in front of the desk, and Diesel sat between us.

  Johnson leaned back in his chair and regarded Jack. “So what is this all about, Jack? What have you got your nose stuck into this time?”

  “The Barber case,” Jack said.

  The sheriff’s eyes narrowed. “How come you got interested in that?”

  “Perhaps I should explain,” I said. “I recently made the acquaintance of Bill Delaney.” I noticed that Johnson stiffened slightly at the mention of the name. He obviously recognized it immediately. “It turns out that his biological father was married to my late aunt. He apparently only found out who his father was when his mother, Sylvia Delaney, passed away recently.”

  “Where is Delaney now?” Johnson asked.

  “In the ICU in the Athena hospital.” I gave him a quick summary of the situation. “I haven’t had a chance to call the hospital to get an update since this morning when they told me he was still in stable condition. He’s in bad shape physically, though, so his long-term prognosis isn’t good.”

  “Why are you so interested in the Barber case?” Johnson asked again.

  “Because of Bill Delaney,” I replied. “I know he was suspected, but his mother gave him an alibi that no one could break.”

  “That’s true,” Johnson said. “I was a young deputy at the time, and I worked on the case. His mama was a tough lady. Looked sweet as they come but tough. But again, why are you poking into this?”

  How could I explain that I felt a responsibility toward Delaney because of my aunt? I wasn’t sure whether Johnson would buy it. I settled for a simpler answer. “I need to know the truth because of his connection to my family.”

  Johnson shrugged. “Okay. So are y’all here to ask me questions about the case? What’s going on?”

  “We have information that could help break the case, once and for all,” Jack said. “We’re ready to give it to you, but we want something in return.”

  “What information could you possibly have?” Johnson sounded skeptical.

  “Information about an alibi,” Jack said.

  Johnson stared hard at both of us, his eyes narrowed again.

  Jack continued, “In return for that, we want to know the details of the autopsies.”

  Johnson laughed. “You don’t want much, do you? Do you seriously think I’m going to give you information like that?”

  Jack sounded confident when he replied. “If you want to hear what we found out, you will.”

  They looked like two combatants about to engage. All I could do was sit there with my cat and wait to see who emerged victorious.

  THIRTY

  Evidently Elmer Lee Johnson’s curiosity won out over his desire to deny Jack the information we wanted to barter. “All right, Jack, I’ll let you see the autopsy report.” The sheriff leaned forward and put his elbows on his desk. “So what’s this big new information about an alibi? You talking about Bill Delaney?”

  “Yes,” Jack said. “Charlie and I came from interviewing the Delaneys’ next-door neighbor, Mrs. Cooper, and her son, Ronnie. Do you know them?”

  Johnson snorted. “Everybody in town knows Ronnie Cooper and that expensive car of his. What did he have to say?”

  “Not anywhere near as much as his mother did. That woman sure can talk,” I said. “But what Ronnie told us will probably surprise you.” Diesel meowed, and Johnson looked startled. Then he grinned.

  “I heard that cat acts like he knows what you say.” Johnson shook his head. “Next thing you know, he’ll be reading a book. Okay, now, what did Ronnie Cooper tell you?”

  “He heard—and saw—Bill Delaney leave the house that night around ten and come back a little after midnight,” Jack said.

  “He couldn’t’ve been more’n about seven or eight back then,” the sheriff said. “How can he remember that far back and know what he’s talking about?”

  “He’s been keeping a notebook since around the time his father died, maybe a year before the Barber murders. He’s an impressive young man, I have to say.”

  Jack took up the narrative. “He told us the Delaneys’ car had a distinctive whistle in the engine. His bedroom is the one next to the driveway for the Delaney house. Did you know that?”

  Johnson shook his head. He was starting to look intrigued. “Go on.”

  “The Coopers had a dog that would bark every time it heard the engine whistling,” I said. “The dog woke Ronnie up twice that night, and Ronnie recorded it all in his notebook. Jack, why don’t you show the sheriff the pages?”

  Jack pulled the folded papers from his pocket and handed them across the desk. Johnson took them and unfolded them.

  “Down toward the bottom of the first page,” I said.

  Jack and I remained quiet while the sheriff read. When he finished, Johnson dropped the papers on his desk, slammed his fist on top of them, and uttered an obscenity. I flinched at it, but I understood his emotion.

  “How the hell did we miss this twenty years ago?” Johnson shook his head. “Delaney was out of the house after all. His mama sure put on a good act, though. She swore up and down he was out of it all night, sleeping it off in his room.”

  “He might have fooled her into thinking that,” I said. “Maybe Mrs. Delaney really thought he was in his room.”

  Johnson shrugged. “Too late to ask her now, but I’m sure the hell going to talk to Delaney the minute he’s able.”

  “Now do you understand why we want to look at the autopsy reports?” Jack asked.

  Johnson glared at Jack. “Of course I do. Time of death. You want to know if the Barbers were killed during that window of time.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “There was maybe a little more than an hour when Delaney could have killed the Barbers. If he had left the house another time, the Coopers’ dog would have alerted them. So the key time is between ten and midnight, minus the time it took him to go back and forth from home to the Barber farm.”

  “Wait a minute,” Johnson said. “What time did Delaney get home the first time? I can’t remember what his mama said.”

  “According to Mrs. Cooper,” Jack replied, “it was around seven. He was drunk all right, so drunk he couldn’t find his own house key. He was making all kinds of noise, beating on the door and yelling to be let in.”

  “He couldn’t’ve been that drunk if he was going out again at ten o’clock, driving
a car,” the sheriff said. “I saw him a few times when he was bad drunk. He’d conk out and the trumpets of Jericho couldn’t wake him up.”

  That was an interesting point, one I hadn’t considered yet. What if Delaney pretended to be drunker than he was? Could that be an argument for premeditation?

  “The autopsies,” Jack said, his rising impatience obvious. “Come on, Elmer Lee, we made a deal.”

  “I know that,” the sheriff replied, sounding testy. “I can tell you what you want to know, though, about the time of death.” He paused. “About the times of death, that is.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked. “Weren’t all four of them killed within a short span of time?”

  Johnson shook his head. “From what we could tell at the time, it looked like they had been. We thought Barber was shot first, then his wife and the boys. Turned out that was all wrong.”

  “So Barber didn’t die first?” Jack asked.

  “No, siree, he didn’t,” Johnson replied. “He was the last to die. In fact, he probably didn’t die until over two hours after his wife and the boys were killed.”

  Jack and I exchanged startled glances. This wasn’t something either one of us would ever have suspected.

  “That’s bizarre,” I said. “What was going on during those two hours? Was Barber out of the house during that time, with the killer waiting for him after he murdered the family?”

  Johnson shrugged. “We don’t know. Between that and the shotgun disappearing, we couldn’t figure out what the hell happened in that house.”

  “What about the times?” Jack asked. “Did the pathologist establish the relative times of the killings?”

  “That I can answer,” Johnson replied. “Mrs. Barber and the boys were killed somewhere between approximately seven and nine o’clock.”

  “So that means Barber was killed sometime between nine and eleven?” I asked.

  Johnson nodded. “Roughly. The house was cold. Barber’s daughter told us he wouldn’t let them turn on heaters until the outside temperature got down under thirty-five degrees. It was a cold night, probably in the forties, and the house wasn’t insulated worth a damn.”

  “So the cool temperatures slowed down the postmortem processes,” Jack said.

  “Yeah,” Johnson said. “Now, the interesting thing about what you found out is that Bill Delaney has an alibi for the murders of Miz Barber and the boys.”

  “But not for Hiram Barber,” I said. “Wouldn’t you think the same person killed all of them? It stands to reason, doesn’t it?”

  “Normally, I’d say so,” Johnson replied. “But Delaney could have killed ol’ Hiram, couldn’t he? The timing fits with what Ronnie Cooper says in his notebook.”

  “That’s true,” Jack said. “But don’t you think it’s more likely that Hiram Barber wasn’t home when his wife and the boys were killed? The killer waited for him to come home and then killed him, too.”

  “Probably,” the sheriff said. “But then where was Hiram Barber while his family was killed? We talked to everyone we could find near the Barber farm, and nobody remembered seeing him after about five o’clock that evening. Nobody heard the shots, either.”

  Jack shrugged. “Just because they didn’t see him doesn’t mean he wasn’t elsewhere at the time.”

  “You got me there,” Johnson said.

  “Elizabeth Barber reported the deaths the next morning, didn’t she?” I asked. “Around seven?”

  “Call came in at seven minutes past seven,” Johnson said.

  “I must say you have an incredible memory to pull all these details out of your head,” I said.

  “I’ve studied that case on and off for years,” the sheriff said. “I’ve pretty much memorized most of the details. Always hated the fact that we weren’t able to crack it.”

  “Now that this new information has come to light,” I said, “will you reopen the case?”

  “I’d like to,” Johnson said. “First I have to find the money to pay for the investigation. I can’t just reassign people to this when I’ve already got men working overtime as it is to cover all the shifts.”

  “I hadn’t considered that,” I said.

  Johnson sounded bitter when he replied, “The almighty budget runs things these days. I’m the one who gets the blame when we run over, and I’m not looking to lose this job in the next election.”

  “So for now, what’s the plan?” Jack asked. “It doesn’t sound like you’re going to reopen the case.”

  “I can’t right now,” Johnson said, “much as I’d like to. If I’m going to ask for the money to run an investigation, I have to have more to go on.”

  “What if we keep digging and find more?” Jack asked.

  Johnson shrugged. “Then I reckon if you found something big enough, I could get the money.”

  “So you’re okay with us continuing?” I asked.

  “As long as you don’t break any laws,” Johnson said. “I can’t stop you from talking to people. Now, if they call me and complain about harassment, that’s another story.”

  Jack looked at me, and I nodded. He turned back to face Johnson. “Then I think Charlie and I are going to keep talking to people. But first, the autopsy reports?”

  “Normally something like that would be in the files in storage,” Johnson said, staring at the wall past us. “But sometimes I keep copies of things right on top of my desk.” His gaze drifted to a metal tray on one corner of his desk and then back to the wall. “If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen, I need to step out for a minute.”

  “Sure thing,” Jack said.

  The moment Johnson cleared the door, Jack was on his feet, examining the contents of the metal tray. He soon extracted a file and shoved it partially down the back of his pants. His jacket would keep anyone from seeing it.

  I was amused, both by Jack’s quick action and by the sheriff’s method of sharing information with us. We got what we wanted, and in the long run he might get what he wanted, a conviction in a cold case.

  By the time the sheriff walked back into the room, Jack was in his chair, relaxed and leaning back, his left leg crossed over his right. Johnson didn’t give any indication that he suspected one of us had removed the file. He never glanced at the metal tray.

  When he was seated again, he said, “Well, gentlemen, I think I’ve told you everything I can. Is there anything else you want to tell me?”

  “I can’t think of anything else right now,” Jack said. “Charlie?”

  I shook my head. “Same here.”

  “Guess we’ll be going,” Jack said. “Thanks for your time, Elmer Lee.”

  I echoed Jack’s words, and then we walked out of the office. Diesel preceded us. He sniffed as he walked and his head went side to side as he checked out interesting sights and smells. We got several startled looks, and a couple of deputies grinned when they saw me with a large cat on a leash. We didn’t stop to talk to anyone and proceeded out to the car.

  “Where to next?” I asked once we were settled in. Jack stuffed the autopsy folder under the seat.

  “Depends on how hungry you are,” Jack said. “We could have lunch now, and then head out to talk to one of the Barbers’ neighbors. I thought Mitzi Gillon would be a good person to talk to. I taught her grandson last year.”

  “Let’s eat first,” I said. “Diesel is probably ready for some water, and I noticed a small section of grass by the diner where I can let him do his business if he needs to. I suppose we can eat in the office?”

  “Probably so,” Jack said. “Let’s go back to the diner. Do you know how to get there from here?”

  “I’m pretty sure I remember,” I said. “Tell me if I make a wrong turn, though.”

  My memory and sense of direction didn’t fail me, however. We soon arrived at the diner. This time I parked in front, and I took Diesel around th
e side to see if he needed to do anything. Jack entered through the front to let his wife know we were back.

  By the time Diesel finished sniffing and selecting a place to urinate, Jack stood at the open side door waiting for us.

  “Good news,” he said. “Melvin’s going to let us eat in the back dining room. They’re not too busy at the moment, so we can sit in there, shut off from the front. Nobody will know there’s a cat back there with us.”

  “Sounds good,” I said. We followed Jack to the back dining room, where I found a bottle of water and a large bowl. I filled the bowl for Diesel, and he lapped thirstily at the water.

  Served by Wanda Nell, Jack and I dined on a variety of vegetables, cornbread, and fried chicken, all excellent. Diesel had a few bites of my chicken and was happy.

  Thirty minutes after we arrived at the diner, we headed out for the Gillon farm. Jack directed me, and the drive took about twenty minutes. As he’d mentioned earlier, once we left the highway, we drove along paved country roads that curved frequently. It would be difficult to drive fast here without having an accident at some point.

  We turned off the road onto a paved driveway that led to the Gillon farm. We drove through a stand of trees about a hundred yards from the road, and when we emerged on the other side, I could see that we were at the foot of a gentle slope. A large frame house, painted a pale green, with a porch on the front and one side, stood atop the rise.

  I brought the car to a stop on a circular driveway in front of the house. We got out of the car and approached the front door. Jack rang the bell while Diesel and I stood slightly to one side.

  After a few seconds the door swung open and a small girl, probably no more than four or five, stood there. Diesel warbled loudly because he likes children. The girl looked at the cat. Her eyes widened in terror. She screamed and slammed the door.

  THIRTY-ONE

  “This doesn’t bode well,” I said to Jack. Diesel had shrunk back against me when the little girl screamed. She was obviously afraid of cats, and she had probably never seen one as large as Diesel.