by Loretta Ross
“So what you’re saying is you were really bored,” Wren said.
“Which is why you did drugs,” Robin teased.
“Now listen, you!” Leona retorted.
Robin flipped open the cookbook he’d found. It was the size of a magazine but hardback, with glossy pictures. He turned it to face her.
“What in the world is that thing?” Leona demanded.
“Can’t you tell? What does it look like?”
“It looks like the Swedish Chef had a nightmare.”
Wren took the book and studied it in horrified fascination. “This does kind of support his drugs theory,” she said.
“What is it?”
She turned the book around again so she could point. “It’s a pig made out of devilled ham, on a bed of lettuce, in a wallow made of mayonnaise. And it’s suckling a bunch of piglets made of Vienna sausages.” The pig’s eyes were cherry tomatoes and its tail was a curl of carrot. The sausage piglets also had carrot tails but their eyes were slivers of black olives.
They just sat for a long minute and stared at the picture.
“Wow, that’s a lot of mayonnaise,” Wren said.
“We had good music,” Leona offered finally.
Robin took the book back and leafed through it. “Here’s a guy in a double-knit polyester leisure suit sitting on a zebra-striped, faux-fur sofa drinking a martini. I can’t decide if that’s awful or awesome.”
Wren stood up and pulled on her coat, then swatted him lightly on top of his head.
“Congratulations,” she said. “I think you understand kitsch now.”
“And that was that,” Death said. He dropped a mound of mashed potatoes on his plate and handed the bowl to Emily, to his left, and accepted the gravy boat from Randy, on his right. Edgar sat between Randy and Wren, who was in her usual seat at the other end of the table.
She looked up. “You sound disappointed.”
“I am, a little,” Death admitted. “I’d have liked to see it through and figure out who hired the lab techs, if they were hired, or why they did it, if they weren’t. But Mr. Applebaum and the museum wanted to bring the police in and turn it over to them, and it was their call.”
“Did the video have enough evidence on it to charge them?” Randy asked. “Was it conclusive?”
“Yeah, it should be. The recordings were high-definition at both places. Since we knew what to look for, we were able to zoom in on the crates and see that there were differences in the labels. Plus the nails in the crates weren’t in the same places and there were variations in the wood grain. I gave a statement to the officer who came to take the report and he got an arrest warrant for the two lab techs. Mr. Warner has promised to let me know what the techs say when they’re questioned. If it goes to trial, of course, I’ll have to testify.”
“Well, I think you’re amazing,” Wren said, smiling at him across the loaded table. “First you solve your case by being all clever and everything, and then you come home and cook dinner.”
Death grinned back at her, ducking his head a little bit. He only wished Wren’s mother agreed with her. Emily had been perfectly pleasant to him, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that she still didn’t completely trust him with her daughter.
“So what are you going to do now?” Randy asked.
“I dunno. Help Wren pack, for one thing.” Death glanced into the living room. Wren had been emptying shelves and closets and cubbyholes and it looked like the aftermath of a small tornado. “We still haven’t heard from the realtor. He was supposed to take our offer on the house to Mrs. Sandburg. But it can’t hurt to be ready to move, can it? I have no idea how long it takes to close, though.”
“Weren’t you buying a house with Madeline?” Randy asked. “How long did it take to close on that one?”
“We were,” Death agreed, wishing his brother hadn’t brought that up. “I don’t really know about the time frame, though. I got deployed right after we looked at it and Grandma helped Madeline handle the paperwork. When I came back from overseas it was a done deal and she was living there.”
“Madeline?” Emily asked.
“My ex-wife,” Death explained reluctantly. “We were married very young, just before I joined the Marines. It didn’t work out.”
Randy snorted but kept his comments to himself. Emily shot her husband a knowing glance that did not escape Death’s notice.
“And where is she now?” she asked.
“Ah, she lives here in town,” Death admitted. “We bought the place because I was supposed to be stationed up at the Air Force base after my tour overseas. She got the house in the divorce and is still there.”
“She’s dating Eric Farrington,” Wren said, her voice bubbling over with amusement.
Edgar turned to look at her and raised one eyebrow. “Voluntarily?”
Wren’s dad didn’t say much, Death had realized. When he did, he spoke softly. He had a deep, gentle voice that rumbled in his chest and he kept his opinions to himself more often than not.
“Apparently,” Wren said with a puckish grin.
“She downgraded hard,” Randy offered.
“I think it was a couple of months,” Death said, trying to change the subject. “Closing on the house, I mean.”
“Probably thirty to sixty days,” Edgar said, “depending on the loan process and whether anything turns up when you have the house inspected.”
“Wouldn’t it be amazing if we could be in the new house by Christmas?” Wren asked.
“That would be great,” Death told her gently. “Might be best not to count on it, though.”
“Oh, I’m not. And with all the things that still need to be sorted out, I’m going to be equal parts eager and stressed out, regardless.” She tipped her head to the side. “I wonder if Mrs. Sandburg decorates Bob’s grave for holidays?”
“I wonder if Bob’s family spends the holidays wondering where he is and if he’s ever coming home again,” Emily said. “I wonder if his mother still misses him. And his father. Parents generally care about their children, you know?”
The mood around the table sobered.
“You know,” Death said, “I never did make it over to the sheriff’s office. I wanted to have a look at that facial reconstruction. I think I’m going to do that tomorrow. Anybody want to come with me?”
“I’d love to,” Wren said, “but I have an auction I have to help with.”
“I’m in,” Randy said.
“Salvy wants to take the boat out again,” Edgar said. “It’s supposed to be nice tomorrow. Why don’t you boys come with us? We’ll stop by the department first and then you can pick his brain all day. Anything that’s happened in Rives County, he knows about it. Even if it was before his time.”
Much later, when everyone had said good night and dispersed for the evening, Emily and Edgar were settling down in their camper out in the driveway.
“So what do you think of Death now?” Edgar asked.
“Hmph.” Emily frowned and made a face. “He still hasn’t said a word about that baby. He even told me that Randy is his only family. Randy and Wren. I’m not so ready to give him Wren, though.”
“Well, we can’t exactly just come out and ask him. Not after all this time.”
“You mean, like we could have when we first met him?”
Edgar shrugged and ducked his head. “I still think there’s got to be more to the story. Everything I’ve seen of him and everything I’ve heard about him says he’s a good kid.”
“Everything except for the part about not paying child support. And never mentioning his son. That doesn’t say ‘good kid’ to me.”
“You realize you’re basing that opinion on overheard comments made by someone who thinks Eric Farrington is a suitable mate?”
Emily countered quickly. “You realize our daughte
r is dating someone whose ex-wife thinks Eric Farrington is a suitable mate?”
“People seem to like him,” Edgar pointed out mildly. “Chief Reynolds thinks a lot of the boy.”
“Mmhmm.” Emily frowned, skeptical. “That might just mean he’s good at pulling the wool over people’s eyes. I might be wrong,” she said, “and I hope I am, but I’m very much afraid that Wren has gone and found herself a snake oil salesman.”
“Gentlemen, meet Bob.” Deputy Orlando Jackson set the bust down on the table in front of them and slapped a file folder down beside it. “Here’s everything we know about him. It’s too bad Thomas isn’t here. He loves this stuff, though I don’t think he’ll ever forgive Bob for being found before he was born. He’s always wanted a random dead body to play with and Bob’s the only one we’ve ever had in the county.”
“And hopefully he’ll remain the only one,” Salvy said. He and Edgar and the Bogart brothers were sitting around a table in a conference room at the sheriff’s department. They were on the second floor of the old brick building. The glass in the window that overlooked the courthouse square was wavy with age and the wooden sill was thick and uneven with layer upon layer of old paint. A windstorm the night before had flipped the switch between autumn and winter. It was colder today than it had been yesterday and the oak tree just outside was nearly bare, its few remaining leaves dead and brown. The sky beyond was impossibly blue in the early morning.
Salvy opened the folder and slid it over so that Death, in particular, could see the contents. Death took it as an invitation and leafed through the papers. There were several reports dating to the time the remains were found, pictures of the skeleton in situ and of the surrounding area, and a formal report from the state crime lab.
“Race is only speculation?” he asked. The reconstructed head was that of a white male in his late teens or early twenties. He had a burly appearance, with a strong nose and chin and deep-set eyes. For coloring, they’d gone with gray eyes and dark brown hair that was styled in a soft, medium-length wave reminiscent of the eighties.
“It’s a best guess,” Salvy said. “The remains were incomplete and damaged. There were things they could tell about him and things they could not.”
“He was muscular,” Orly said. He pulled out a close-up of the skull that was taken against a light green background. “Probably average height and build, but he worked out. These bumps here and here are where muscles were attached. The fact that the bumps were so big means that the muscles were substantial.”
“And where was he found, again?”
“There’s a map in there, and an aerial photo taken of that piece of land within a year or two of the time he was found. The location is marked on both.”
Death located the two pieces of evidence. The map was folded and when he unfolded it, it covered half the table. Randy used the representation of the dead man as a paperweight to hold one corner and Death laid the photo beside the X on the map.
“I thought he was found closer to the water?”
“It’s closer now,” Edgar said. “This happened only about ten years after the dam went in. It took a while for the water to back up along the tributaries. That whole area is located along one arm of Tebo Creek, even though the name is sometimes spelled differently.”
“It’s an old French name,” Salvy told them. “The first Europeans in Missouri were French trappers and explorers and missionaries. Then came the Spanish. Those of English descent didn’t arrive until around 1804, when Lewis and Clark came through after the Louisiana Purchase.”
“It’s hard to see from the aerial photo,” Death said. The parcel of land was heavily wooded. “Is this a ravine, here? Is that where he was found?”
“It’s a creek that cuts through. It carved out a ravine in the valley between these two rises, yes. There was an old house, empty and abandoned, here.” Salvy pointed to a spot on the photo where a rusty patch was just visible among the trees. Death leaned in close and studied it, but it was little more than a blur.
“That’s the roof ?”
“It was, yes. When the lake was coming in, a lot of properties that were going to be inundated, or that were close enough to the projected shoreline that they might be inundated, were purchased through the use of eminent domain. The Corps of Engineers then auctioned them off to buyers willing to tear them down for the lumber. That place sold, but the purchaser died in an automobile accident before he could tear it down and it wound up standing there until it finally fell in.”
“You think the dead man was squatting in the abandoned house?” Death asked.
“It’s a working theory,” Salvy said. “We searched it at the time the body was found. There was no direct evidence that anyone had been squatting there, but there had certainly been trespassers. There were windows broken, empty beer cans and liquor bottles and other trash inside, and graffiti on the walls. However, there was also a road that ran through those woods, past the house. It’s the same one that runs to the yacht club on what’s now the other side of the lake. It was raised above a culvert crossing the low-lying area where the lake is now, and then it ran over a bridge across the creek between the yacht club and the Viking settlement. By the time Bob’s remains were found, the road had been closed for years. But it was still passable when the water level was low. In fact, you can still see the remnants of it during times of drought.”
“There sure are a lot of roads that disappear under the lake,” Death noted.
“There are a lot of things under the lake,” Edgar said. “Whole towns, old homesteads, one-room schoolhouses, churches, the odd graveyard.”
“They moved the graves first, though,” Orly said.
“The ones they could find,” Edgar amended.
“I’m sorry,” Randy said, “but I’m not following you all. What’s the significance of the road going through?”
“They’re thinking Bob might not have gotten in that ravine by himself,” Death explained. “They think he might have had some help.”
“It’s possible,” Salvy said, “that Bob was killed or died elsewhere and someone drove up along the road and dumped his body in the woods. If he was, though, we have no way to tell. His skull was intact and there was no sign of a gunshot wound or blunt trauma or anything that would spell murder. If he was shot or stabbed anywhere below the neck, it was done in such a way that it didn’t leave any marks on any of the bones that we found. And they found no traces of any poisons in his remains. Which is not to say that poison wasn’t used, just that if it was, they can’t trace it.”
“So how on earth do you ever expect to learn anything about him?” Randy asked.
“Good question.” Salvy turned to Death. “What do you think, genius? Do you have any ideas that will help us identify him? There’s still an outstanding reward if you can figure out who he is.”
Death thought about it. “Were the Vikings there yet?”
“No, Bob was found before they purchased the land. And it was several years after the yacht club closed. The yacht club land had been sold to a local couple who intended to open a bar and restaurant in it that catered to boaters, but they couldn’t get a liquor license and that plan never went anywhere. At the time the body was found, there was nothing at all within about a three mile radius.”
“At the time the body was found,” Death repeated. “But all the evidence suggested that he’d been there for at least a couple of years, right? Was there anything or anyone in the area earlier who might have seen something?”
Orly made a face. “Nope. Sorry.”
Death sighed. “Let me think about it?”
“Take your time,” Salvy said. “Bob’s not going anywhere.”
It being Sunday, and near the end of the season when the weather had a chance of being decent enough for a successful auction, Keystone and Sons had two sales scheduled. The twins took the larger of the two, a
working farm being sold as part of the late owner’s estate. Leona stayed there to run the cash tent and the sons who were available that day joined them.
That left Wren and Doris with a contingent of the grandsons to handle the smaller sale. A small ice cream parlor in a tiny neighboring town had gone out of business. Wren had spoken to the owners, a middle-aged married couple, when they arranged for the auction, and they’d been shocked and completely at a loss as to why their business failed.
Wren had a pretty good idea, starting with its terrible location on a dangerous curve and ending with massively overpriced ice cream. At this point, her advice couldn’t help anything, so she held her peace and simply promised to get what she could back on their investment.
They weren’t selling the property, and the whole sale, start to finish, took less than three hours. They did well, bringing in a little more than Wren had estimated, but the couple still seemed unhappy.
“I’m sure you did your best, dear,” the woman said when they were finishing up the paperwork.
Wren gave her a brittle smile and made her escape. Her mother had accompanied her to the sale and was waiting when she got back to her truck.
“Did I see you buy something?” Wren asked her.
“Yes, I got this nice little set of sundae dishes and some soda glasses and spoons.”
“Oh, those are cute.”
“That woman was a dingbat, though.” Emily rarely hesitated to speak her mind. “Did she tell you what they’re planning to put in there next?”
“They’re opening another business?”
“So she said. Are you ready for this?”
“Probably not.”
“A gourmet, year-round Christmas candy shop.”
“Oh, good grief. On Deadman’s Curve?”
“They’re going to call it ‘The North Pole of the South.’”
Wren needed to go left from the parking lot, but she didn’t trust the blind curve so she waited for a break in traffic and turned right instead.
“Where are we going?”
“Just up here somewhere to turn around. So … ” She steeled herself. “What do you think about Death?”