Died in the Wool

by Rett MacPherson

  I like Mort. Young, smart, and intuitive. He knows more about the way I think than Colin does, and I’ve only known Mort for about six months. We’d only worked one real case together, and yet he understood that if I didn’t question something, I wouldn’t bother him.

  The CSI finally showed up. I recognized her from a few other cases I’d been involved in, although I’d never actually been introduced. “Hi,” she said. “I’m Darla.”

  “Nice to meet you,” I said.

  “Oooh, doughnuts,” she said, and began chomping one. Darla was short, dark, and exceptionally congenial.

  When she finished eating, we made our way through the house and up the stairs to Rupert’s room. “Here’s the blood,” I said. “I don’t want the sketches around it to be disturbed, though, if at all possible.”

  Darla looked carefully at the wall and then said, “That shouldn’t be a problem.”

  I went out onto the front porch and made some business calls while Darla did her thing. I called Professor Nathaniel Whitaker, a historian, teacher, and biographer who lives in St. Louis and teaches at Oldham University. We’ve collaborated on some research projects, and he considers the history of New Kassel one of his “hobbies.” He picks certain areas—a city, a community within a city—and certain eras, like Victorian or colonial, and then learns everything he can about them. Since his area of expertise is the First World War and the first quarter of the century, his interest was piqued when I started the conversation with “I’ve discovered an amazing piece of World War I history.” He agreed to come out and study the mural and bring a photographer.

  Geena Campbell called to tell me that she had a woman interested in depositing three of her grandmother’s quilts with us in the museum, whenever we got it up and running. I hadn’t even closed on the Kendall house yet, and I had items lined up to go in the museum. I found this very exciting.

  Right before lunch, Mort came out onto the porch and motioned me back up to Rupert’s room. “I think you need to call an art historian, too,” he said.

  “Oh, that’s a good idea,” I said. “I never thought of that.”

  “And maybe a restorer or somebody who can tell you what’s been done to this part right here,” he said. I watched him point at the corner where the sketch of Glory Anne was.

  “What?” I said.

  “That,” he said, and stepped closer. He pointed to the monster, the Nosferatu look-alike, that hovered behind Glory Anne. “That’s been messed with. That’s not the original drawing.”

  Goose bumps danced along my spine. “What do you mean, that’s not the original? How do you know?”

  “I studied art before I became a sheriff,” he said. “Can’t make a living at it. I can make a living carrying a gun, not a paintbrush. Anyway, that’s been messed with. I can tell. See, that’s two different pencil leads.”

  I dialed my cell phone without even looking. There was only one person I knew personally who would know an art historian off the top of his head. “Professor Whitaker, please.” When I got off the phone, the historian, the photographer, and the art historian/restorer were all set up to come and see Rupert’s mural the next day.

  I sighed and watched Darla frame the room in what seemed like a hundred different red laser lights. “I’ll be back,” I said.

  I went to the Gaheimer House to catch up on some work. I needed to keep busy so as to not think about Darla and Mort back at the Kendall house. My dad surprised me by stopping by my office to see if I wanted to get some lunch. We went to Fraulein Krista’s to eat, and he told me all about his new hollow-body guitar. Of course, things digressed to politics after that. I don’t do well in political talks. I get too angry because I feel helpless to change anything. Dad loves political talks because he gets to call a bunch of people a lot of really bad names with no repercussions. It makes him feel better. Three hours later, I asked for the check. I think Krista was glad to see us go, but I was fairly grateful that my dad had taken me to lunch. Not only did it make the time go by faster, but I hadn’t seen him in what seemed like a month of Sundays. I missed him. Funny how even as a grown-up, I can still miss my mom and dad. Of course, I see my mother every week, so I don’t get as much of a chance to miss her.

  I did some shopping. I stopped in Norah’s Antiques, which is actually owned by Colin. He only works one day a week in the shop. The rest of the time he’s doing mayor types of things. Today he was behind the counter. “Hey,” he said. He was reading Fish & Wildlife with his feet up on the counter and his stool leaned all the way back to the wall. “What’s up?”

  “I wanted to see if you had any old milk cans. I want to set one out in the yard for decoration.”

  “I probably do,” he said. “What’s going on with the Kendall thing?” He came from behind the counter and wandered into a very disorganized and cluttered corner of the store. When Norah owned the shop, it was very neat, orderly, and feminine. She’d carried quite a lot of items that made it look chic and maybe even a little Victorian. Colin bought it, and within a few months it looked like an indoor flea market, with lots and lots of antique fishing gear. He moved an old wooden Coca-Cola carton, and beneath it was a milk can that had been used on dairy farms.

  “Cool,” I said, ignoring his question. “How much?”

  “Fifteen,” he said.

  I had no idea if that was a good price or not. The only way I can tell with antiques is by finding the same item at five different stores and comparing prices. If they’re all relatively the same, then I know that the item is most likely worth that. I trust Colin, though, and he might have even given me the wholesale cost on it. We might fight like cats and dogs, but I do trust him to do what’s right. “I’ll take it,” I said.

  “So, what’s going on with the Kendall thing?” he asked again.

  “Mort is over at the house right now with a CSI doing a trajectory analysis on that blood splatter,” I said.

  You would have thought I said that a dozen naked Playboy bunnies were jumping rope outside. He got a faraway look in his eyes, and I could see the yearning in his expression. “Blood splatter analysis, huh?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Which CSI?”

  “Darla,” I said.

  “Oh, she’s the best,” he said.

  “Good.”

  “So … what made you decide to have the stains tested?”

  “I don’t think Whalen shot himself.”

  “No?” he asked.

  “No. Trajectory is all wrong.” I handed Colin the money for the milk can. “I gotta get back over there. They should be about finished. I hope.”

  “Can I go with you?” he blurted.

  “No,” I said. “You’ve got the shop.”

  “It’s Sunday. I close in an hour anyway,” he said.

  “Well, all right,” I said. “Just meet me over there.”

  “What do you think happened to Whalen?” he asked.

  “I think somebody else shot him.”

  Nineteen

  Turns out, Colin made the trip to the Kendall house and closed the shop early for nothing. Darla had no immediate answer for me. Nobody had immediate answers for me, so I had to go home on that Sunday evening and watch TV. It was the only thing I could do to take my mind off the fact that some stupid lab somewhere held all the answers that I needed. I ended up watching Shrek with my son. We shoved our faces full of popcorn, followed up with some Fig Newtons. I eat when I’m nervous. Okay, I just eat, but that’s beside the point. Turns out Matthew wants to be an ogre when he gets older, because ogres can smell and nobody cares. I love children’s logic. It’s so pure. He fell asleep on my lap, and Rudy carried him to bed, complaining that either Matthew was way too big for his age or his back was getting old.

  At about two, I managed to force myself to go to sleep, and I awoke the next morning feeling like a kid who’s about to go to Disney World—exhausted but overwhelmingly excited. I had three experts coming to look at Rupert’s mural today. In the middle of th
e night, my ordinary eyelids had been replaced with little pieces of sandpaper, and my brain had skipped about three seconds ahead of the rest of my body. I’d think about reaching for the orange juice, but then it wouldn’t happen for, like, three seconds.

  Mary said nothing to me about the e-mail I’d sent her, so I assumed she hadn’t gotten the chance to sneak her mail before I changed the password. She ate her cereal with her hair hanging half in her face, narrowly missing the milk in the bowl. Rachel twittered about, merrily making Eggo waffles and drowning them in a gallon of syrup. It was the last week of school for the year. No wonder she was so happy. Mary was still pouting about getting grounded, or she would have been just as happy. Although Mary wasn’t human until almost noon, so maybe she wasn’t pouting. I finally got everybody off to school and then dropped Matthew off at my mom’s so I could meet Professor Whitaker at the Kendall house.

  Professor Whitaker is much like the archetype of what I’ve always thought a history professor is supposed to be: older, with white hair, a crooked tie, ink stains on his fingers, and lots of nose hairs. Okay, maybe that’s not everybody’s idea of what a history professor looks like, but it’s mine, and Nathaniel Whitaker fits it perfectly. He speaks with a slight eastern accent, like maybe he spent his formative years in Boston, and he smells like chalk dust and brown sugar.

  He introduced me to his two colleagues. Roy Hrabowski was the photographer, and Emilia Leon was the art historian/restorer. Roy was one of those ordinary types that I would forget as soon as he left here today, while Emilia could not have been more exotic if she tried. She had dark, dark black hair and pale white skin. Dark eyes peered behind bright blue cat-eye glasses. If I didn’t know any better I’d swear those were the exact glasses that my cousin had worn in her third-grade year back in 1966. Emilia wore a red blouse and a long black skirt with a very large and brilliant silver belt and buckle.

  “This is amazing,” Emilia said as she peered around the room.

  “I know,” I said. “World War I is not my area of expertise, but I have read about how horrible the trench warfare was. I think Rupert captured it perfectly.”

  “Historically, artistically, it’s brilliant,” Professor Whitaker said.

  “From a human standpoint as well,” Emilia added. “What do you plan to do with it?”

  “I plan on opening a textile and quilt museum here,” I said. “Rupert’s sister was an incredible quilter, nationally recognized. She won an award in San Fransisco at the World’s Fair. So I don’t plan to change a thing in this room. It’ll be part of the museum.”

  Emilia’s gaze went to the back of the door. “Are those claw marks?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I’m not sure when they were made, but I know that Rupert was uncontrollable at times.”

  I wanted Emilia to get a chance to study the whole mural, but I made a special point of showing her the part that I really wanted her opinion on: the monsterlike creature trying to claim Rupert’s sister.

  As the trio got to work, my cell phone rang. It was Mort. Maybe he was calling with trajectory news. “Hello?”

  “Hi,” he said. “The pins came back with traces of strychnine. Probably the only thing that saved Maddie was the fact that there was so little of the poison left on the pins.”

  “Then Glory was murdered for sure.”

  “Yes,” he said. “Looks that way. Unless she committed the most bizarre suicide in history. But I can’t believe with all the ways to kill herself, she’d pick something as painful as strychnine and then go to all the trouble to put it on her sewing pins, rather than just ingesting it outright. It especially makes no sense when you realize she could have gotten her hands on laudanum, for real, if she’d wanted to.”

  I was silent.

  “Are you there?”

  “Yeah,” I said. The poor girl had been murdered. In her own house. By some despicable person who used her quilting—the one thing she loved—against her. I had expected this. Hell, I was the one who thought from the get-go she had been murdered. Even so, hearing Mort tell me I was right was a little weird—as if at the last minute I was hoping I had been wrong. “That’s really crappy.”

  “I thought so, too. How’s it going there?” he asked.

  “Oh, we just got started.”

  “I’ll let you know if I hear anything else.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  I hung up the phone and wondered about Glory Anne Kendall. Who would have wanted to kill her? Her father was crazy about her. He went to all the trouble to get special dispensation to have her buried next to him and his wife. I was right on that. He knew she hadn’t committed suicide, so I would bet money that he confessed this knowledge, and the priest allowed her to be buried in the Catholic cemetery.

  Was Whalen capable of murdering his sister? He was obviously a controlling individual, but did that mean he could have killed her? And not just killed her in a rage, but meticulously planned her murder ahead of time? Why would he have done such a thing? Had Glory decided to marry Anthony Tarullo anyway, and that news sent Whalen off the deep end? Even then, what sort of brother kills his sister over a bad love match? Wouldn’t he have taken his anger out on Tarullo instead? Or even killed Tarullo? Who did that leave? Anthony Tarullo?

  If it was Anthony Tarullo, why would Sandy and Whalen go to all the trouble of covering his back? Why not say Glory was murdered, have an investigation opened, and get the news out to the public? I would want my sister’s or daughter’s murderer brought to justice. Why cover it up for him? The very act of making the murder look like a suicide suggested guilt on the parts of both the brother and the father.

  My cell phone rang again and I jumped. I didn’t recognize the number. “Hello?”

  “Torie O’Shea?” a female voice asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Hi, it’s Judy Pipkin,” she said.

  “Oh, hi,” I said.

  “Marty said you might want to speak to me.”

  “Marty … Tarullo? Why would he tell you that?” Although it was true, I still wanted to know why Mr. Tarullo would think to share this with Judy Pipkin. As far as I could remember, I never mentioned her name to him when I spoke to him about Glory.

  “Because I’m Doris Jenkins’s granddaughter,” she said. “My mother was ten years old when Glory Kendall died. My mom’s older sister, Tilda, married Marty. I think I might have some information for you.”

  * * *

  I’ve known Judy Pipkin my whole life. I went to high school with her youngest son, David. Judy is about sixty-eight and worked on the county cemetery project with me, as well as a few other projects involving the historical society. That’s a great thing about the people of New Kassel. They may not hold an office or even belong to the historical society, but from time to time they will jump in and help on a project, either because that particular project is near and dear to them for whatever reason, or because they just have the spare time and decide to help out. At any rate, Judy Pipkin really enjoyed historical work, though not the touristy stuff so much. She lives in the house right next to the Murdoch Inn. Sandwiched in between the Murdoch and the Old Mill Stream restaurant, right where the road bends, it’s a beautiful Colonial home that was built in the forties.

  I knocked on her door a half-hour later, and she answered right away. “Hi, Judy,” I said.

  “Torie, come in,” she said, waving me indoors. “How’s your mother?”

  “Oh, she’s doing great. She’s got her hands full with Colin right now,” I said.

  “I’ve heard that he’s going stir-crazy,” she said. “One rumor even said that he was thinking about resigning as mayor and going back to being sheriff.”

  “He can’t do that,” I said. “Mort is in office.” I said that more for my comfort than to quell any rumors she may have been spreading. Judy is a thin and wiry woman, with lots of dark hair for her age. I know she doesn’t color it, because she has plenty of gray around the temples. That’s where the gray stops, thoug
h. It doesn’t spread around her head like mine. Now that I thought about it, I realized she had less gray than I did, and I’m almost thirty years her junior. I couldn’t help but wonder why Mother Nature was so inconsistent.

  “Listen,” she said, “I heard you were looking into the Kendall suicides.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I bought the Kendall house.”

  “Oh, that’s great,” she said. “I’m so glad somebody is looking into this. Somebody who can tell the story right.”

  “Well, I don’t know if I can do that or not, but I’ll try.”

  “My mother always told me that she thought the girl, Glory, had been murdered.”

  “Based on the whole laudanum thing?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Did she have any ideas as to suspects?” I asked.

  “Mom said that Glory was one of those girls who just got too much attention.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Her brother-in-law didn’t just love Glory, he worshipped her. According to my mom, he would have killed for Glory,” she said.

  “Your mom would have been pretty young at the time. Are you sure about this?”

  “I’m only telling you what she told me her whole life. Whether or not she witnessed this stuff, or if maybe her mother told her, I don’t know, but my mother was adamant. Anthony would have done anything for Glory Kendall.”

  “People throw phrases like that around pretty loosely. Sitting at the drive-up window at the bank the other day I was saying how I was going to kill the teller if she didn’t hurry up. Are you sure she meant it literally?”

  Judy shrugged. “Of course, I can’t know for sure, but I think she was serious. Anyway, she said that everybody felt very strongly about Glory. You couldn’t just like her or tolerate her, you adored her or worshipped her. Everybody felt that way about her, and I mean everybody.” She narrowed her eyes and cut them around her living room.

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying her brothers were no different than anybody else.”

  It was really quiet in her living room.