He opened the refrigerator. "Here's something else. Julia cooked something and left what she didn't eat in a casserole dish. Didn't eat but about half of it. She was definitely planning on coming back soon, I'd think. Maybe she was just more interested in looking around than eating?"
Rhodes nodded. "Want to dust for prints anywhere?"
"No. We'll come back tomorrow. Right now, let's just make sure everything's turned off, locked up, and put a tape on the door. I've got to notify Troy Spruce. Whether he already knows or not."
"I'm not going to take any bets on that. He's not above stacking the deck in his favor. His years in office proved that." Rhodes looked as grim as his boss.
"But speaking of that, we've got to be fair. There's no motive coming to mind. The girl was planning to stay with a friend, not him. Look at the huge age difference too. And I can't see how any big amount of money or other advantage would be involved for either one of them in Julia's death."
Rhodes looked back and didn't comment as Cas closed the door.
"We'll just have to dig deeper, it'll all come out. Not in forty minutes like on television, but we'll get there. I'm going to call Connie and go over to Rainbow Cove now to notify Troy Spruce in person. I want to see the look on his face when I tell him."
Rhodes nodded. "Good luck. See you tomorrow."
Chapter 9
Tim Carpenter left his office full of work with a smile on his face. He pulled up in front of Hannah's small house at a quarter of seven, looking as happy as he felt.
Hannah had been watching for him and held the door open for him, smiling back, happy to see him.
"I'll be with you in just a minute, soon as I put up my hair." She stepped back into her bedroom and called, "Want a coke?"
"No, thanks. I'm out of breath because I ran for my life when the clerical help left," Tim laughed. "Some days I get to feeling like I was born in there. But there's no hurry, we've got plenty of time to eat and get to the eight o'clock movie."
Tim got comfortable in one of the two comfortable chairs covered in earth colors of brown, green, tan, and sky blue. Hannah had been able to furnish the place comfortably to her own taste since it didn't take much furniture to do that. It was both practical and pretty as she was and she'd used her favorite colors for everything from curtains to throw rugs. Being able to see everywhere at once was one of the advantages to her Size One house as her best friend, Gina, called it.
Hannah picked up her brush and talked to Tim from the bedroom as she put up her hair.
"Have you heard anything else from Muriel?"
"No, not really. Just that she's resting and will be back soon. I guess I just got spoiled with her always being there. But when I couldn't get her on the phone, I was getting worried until her sister, Margaret, called. She told me Muriel was staying with relatives till she gets better."
"Oh, that's good. Come to think of it, if she's sick enough to stay home from work, that would be the thing to do, Tim. Her sister would be at school and not able to take care of her. You know, chicken soup, answering the phone, things nobody thinks anything about until you can't do them for yourself."
"I guess so," Tim didn't sound too happy about it until Hannah came in looking eager for their dinner date.
She was beautiful and Tim's admiration showed in his face. She paused to give her hair a last minute pat at the back.
Tim got up. "Beautiful," he grinned then looked a little uncertain. "But you look so dressed up with you hair up, I feel like I should be in a coat and tie."
Hannah laughed, "Uh-uh. They might throw rocks at us at the Roadhouse!"
"In that case, let's not take any chances. My stomach's been growling all afternoon thinking about their barbeque."
Over Tim's rack of ribs and Hannah's sandwich and potato salad, Tim asked about her vacation plans. "Who is it that's going with you and for how long? And have you definitely decided on New Orleans or somewhere else?"
"It will only be for four days. That's all Gina and Flora will have. That's why we're timing it to start on a weekend. And it will be the three of us unless one of them invites someone else from Fort Craig."
She reached over to touch his hand. "But don't worry, it's always safer to travel with friends. Whether it's to New Orleans or New York, for that matter."
Tim gave a small, not wholly convinced nod and she smiled, a twinkle in her eye. "I'm going to invite you over for spaghetti before I leave so you'll miss me."
"Hannah, in addition to the worrying, I miss you just thinking about your being gone a week!" Tim admitted then lightened up. "But I'll take you up on the spaghetti. When is it you're going?"
"We haven't got that definite yet, but I think it will be next weekend. And Flora wants to talk to some people she knows in New Orleans and arrange to meet them, to see how they're doing. That's one of the reasons we picked New Orleans. And of course, we'll just be tourists having fun and visiting famous spots in general. I can almost taste the beignets and powdered sugar when Flora talks about them."
She touched his hand. "How about Thursday for our spaghetti? Then if they decide to go on Friday instead of Saturday, I'll be all set to go."
* * *
On the off chance Troy Spruce was still in his office Cas drove there before going on to his home. He couldn't tell if anyone was there or not, the parking spaces were in the back. He pulled up and parked in front, trying to see past the night-lights in the outer office as he approached.
Peering in the glass part of the door, he could tell the light in Troy's office was on. Cas tried the door, it was open.
"Is there a lawyer in the house?" Cas called as he stepped inside.
"Depends on who you're asking." A gruff laugh accompanied the remark.
As Cas closed the door behind him there was the sound of a chair being pushed across a plastic mat and Troy Spruce came to his office door to meet him.
Troy Spruce's office had the functional and up to date equipment some of the more drab county offices had but it looked like a decorator had had the last word from the colors, wall and floor coverings on up to a huge oil painting above the credenza in back of Troy's mahogany desk which looked like an expensive antique.
"Come in." Troy gestured toward the comfortable chair by his desk. "I don't have a family or food to hurry to at home, so we've got plenty of time. What's on your mind?"
Spruce's smile looked so innocently pleased to see him, Cas felt guilty. He thought of the coroner's head shot of Julia Timkins and quickly got over it.
"Thanks. I was hoping to catch you before you left. I've got some bad news."
"Bad news?" It came out a little puzzled.
"Yes. About one of your employees. Julia Timkins."
Spruce waited.
"I remember you telling me you had loaned your cabin to two of the young women who work for you."
"What happened, Cas?" Spruce cut in impatiently, looking concerned.
"One of them drowned. Some young boys found her out there at the swimming and picnic site. We didn't know who she was. Then her friend came in, looking for her."
"Their names were Julia Timkins and Gretchen Baker." Spruce nodded impatiently.
"Yes. It was Julia Timkins who drowned. Gretchen came looking for her. That's how we found out who she was. She, Gretchen, had left Julia there alone to come back here for some reason then when she went back to the cabin, she couldn't find Julia. She came to my office to get help and saw the picture I had on my desk. The one the coroner took."
Cas looked away. "I'm still kicking myself for leaving it outside the file."
Troy Spruce drew a deep breath. "Must have been quite a shock. Where is she? Is Gretchen all right?"
"Yes. She identified Julia Timkins then took her things and went home."
"What happened to Julia, or do you know?"
"We don't know yet. She's at the coroner's office. Not any noticeable wounds or anything as yet. We don't know what happened, how she got into the lake. She was fully cl
othed, and had her shoes on though. So it doesn't look as if she was planning to go into the water. I went out to the cabin as soon as Gretchen left and looked around, put a tape on the door and locked the place with the key she gave me. Then I came directly here to tell you."
"Thank you." Spruce bowed his head, eyes sad.
"Do you know of anyone who might have wanted to harm Julia? Or did she have any personal problems that you know of?"
"No." Spruce shook his head. "And if you're going to ask next if she would have drowned herself, certainly NOT!" Spruce's famous temper flared.
"All right, all right. These are just the first of a lot of questions I've got to ask, and you know it."
With a nod of his head, Troy Spruce apologized. "I know. It's just such a terrible thing. Her and Gretchen's lives were just beginning. Have you notified her next of kin?"
"No. I got their address from Gretchen, but I haven't talked to them."
Troy Spruce got up and took a deep breath. "I know where they live. I'll go with you. If you want me to?"
"Yes, I do. Maybe it will help comfort them some." He gestured at the phone on the desk. "I should call home."
"Sure. Help yourself." Spruce waited at the door.
* * *
Muriel Davis took her time shopping at the mall. It took some looking as well as some choices, plus some just plain guesses, to find a hair color and a product that would look like she wanted it to. Then being a change from her natural, well, almost natural, ash blonde hair color, she had to choose some make-up and an eyebrow pencil. It was a little scary, not knowing what all this was going to look like when she finished. The only thing she was sure of, was she wanted things which could be washed out or washed off when this hide and seek business was over.
She was careful, looking at all the choices the cosmetics department offered. By the time she got to the colors of hair rinses, she was smiling to herself as she shopped."I'm doing as much label reading in here as Margaret does at the grocery store." She laughed at that. She sighed, knowing Margaret was worried. "But she's better off not knowing where I am. I've got to get all this checked out and get busy."
When Muriel left with her shopping bag of calculated risks she paused to look at an overhead clock. Not quite five o' clock. "Just right. I'll get through with all this in under an hour. That will be just right to avoid the early diners and too early for the dinner at eight crowd."
Muriel worked fast and followed closely all the directions given on all her purchases. She was pleased with the results she got. Grateful for the plastic gloves that had come with the rinse, she carefully washed the outsides of them before touching them to pull them off. She used a dryer to get her hair dry and fluff her new hair do.
A different Muriel returned her pleased smile when she looked in the mirror and replaced her earrings. The color of the hair rinse she had chosen turned out just right. Warm, medium brown turned out to be brown with a reddish cast, and a few minutes with a hair dryer and a styling brush gave Muriel a different hair style. She didn't wear much make-up anyway, and the touch of auburn eyebrow pencil used with her medium brown red-in-the-sun hair color went just right with her new make-up. She squinted at the mirror. No one would recognize her now, unless they looked really close. She hoped not anyway. She wondered briefly, in spite of her current situation, if Troy would find this change attractive? She flipped off the light switch, refusing to think of Troy.
Muriel left her suite intent only on not being recognized and her hiding place discovered. She scouted the area.
Before entering the restaurant, she took a look at the people coming in and out. It was obvious she had guessed right about the break in traffic at the inn and the restaurant. There hadn't been any cars at the entry by the office nor were there very many now parked in front of the restaurant. Satisfied, she went back and changed her clothes. Wondering if anyone would recognize her clothes after all the cosmetic changes she had done. She laughed at herself. She was pleased with the image in the mirror and felt safe as she again checked her new make-up that still looked strange to her.
She walked out by the entrance and went to the front of the inn to enter the restaurant's front door. She would go through the foyer and bar to look around at the people already seated before going in to eat. She was glad she didn't know many people from Rainbow Cove.
Cas was passing by the motel at the time on his way home. He had an eye on the clock too. He'd called Connie, glad she hadn't asked any time consuming questions. As he passed the motel, he glanced at the traffic turning in at the inn and saw Muriel as she entered the front door of the restaurant.
"Looks familiar somehow," Cas mused to himself. The setting sun brought out the red on the back of Muriel's hair as the double glass doors closed behind her. He shook his head. "Reminds me of Hannah, I guess. but Hannah's hair is redder."
He smiled to himself thinking of Hannah and her friends taking their vacation trip. But he sobered as the face of Julia Timkins came unbidden to mind. He reminded himself sadly that head shots from the coroner's office were never flattering.
The vacationers entering the restaurant reminded him of the young girl whose vacation had ended in an untimely death. Julia Timkins was a caring human being who had left a paper cup of bread crumbs for the birds. It was a thing good hearted Hannah McLaughlin or Connie would have done, too.
His hands tightening on the steering wheel, Cas hurried back toward Maryvale.
Chapter 10
The following week was a busy one for Clint at the Coroner's office and Cas as well. Since Maryvale was the County Seat, Clint always had a backlog to wrestle with as well as getting help in to type up reports. Cas felt for him on the paperwork problem. He knew he was lucky to have Gladys for his own paperwork and was too busy with his own investigation to push Clint anyway.
Not expecting any success, Cas had taken an hour or two that morning to check the motels on the outskirts of Maryvale. There was no sign of Muriel's car.
The two best looking inns were popular chains. Cas had brought along an old newspaper clipping of Muriel and Spruce when he was Pine County Judge. The picture was good enough to recognize Muriel if he had any luck. The young clerks in both the inns dutifully looked at the pictures but shook their heads. Neither had seen anyone who looked like Muriel.
With a glance at the clock, Cas turned and left the second one. "Well, that's an hour and a half shot to find out where Muriel isn't," he complained to himself feeling frustrated.
He went back to his office and the file on Julia Timkins. "But I'd bet a batch of Connie's banana cupcakes Muriel's not very far away. I'm not free to do much else in the way of searching and investigation since this is not a missing persons case. Yet."
Back at his office, Cas went over again all he knew about Julia Timkins. Nothing new occurred to him and he still hadn't had a call from Clint. He put his scanty file on the Lady in the Lake back in his top drawer and pulled the phone toward him. He dialed Troy Spruce's office in Rainbow Cove.
"Thought I'd be hearing from you before this," Troy Spruce grunted when he heard Cas's voice.
Cas ignored the sarcasm. "I'll be out at your place on the lake till late this afternoon, if you want to come out."
"Yes, I guess I'd better. You said there wasn't any damage or anything, or rather I just assumed you'd tell me if there was." Troy had the good grace to sound a bit embarrassed.
"Yes. I would have mentioned it, asked you about it. We still don't know much about what happened out there. It will take a while to find out if Julia was the victim of a crime or just some sort of accident. The main question is how she got out there in the lake, and all by herself. Nice looking, good girls don't usually come up missing, and this one was alone. Could have been foul play. But then, Connie says I always suspect the worst."
Cas glanced through his door at Gladys and she smiled. She knew she was free to listen unless he shut his door and smiled back, shamelessly listening.
Troy Spruce chuckled,
sounding friendlier. "Well, I'll have to admit, there have been times the county benefited from your suspicious nature."
He paused. Cas pictured him sitting at this desk, looking at the oversized clock he'd hung where he could see it without his glasses. "I'll be on out there later, soon as I take care of a few minor things here."
Cas hung up as Rhodes came in the outer door. He got up. "Let's get us a cup of coffee. I want you to go out to the Judge's cabin with me. We'll have a last look around before he has someone come out and clean up."
Rhodes had his coffee poured and a sweet roll in his hand when Cas joined him. "I don't think the place is going to tell us anything else, but you never know."
Cas nodded. "Thanks to her friend, Gretchen, we know what went on, why she was alone out there. But she had no car, no way to get around. She was stuck there but evidently happy about it, just bird watching and waiting for her friend to come back and join her."
"Do you suppose someone approached her from one of the rental cabins? Someone who was also spending time at the lake, and was alone?"
"It could be. But they would have had to just happen by. There weren't any single men on the list of renters we got. And I don't remember noticing any young men the right age among the others or the married ones either when we were out there recovering the body, do you?"
Rhodes shook his head. "You have to remember those other people might have looked different to her young and female eyes than they did to our old, jaded, law-enforcement eyes."
"You're making me feel bad," Cas made a comical face. "Let's put it this way, do you recall seeing anyone our old, jaded, law-enforcement eyes should have grabbed hold of and asked a few questions? Anyone looking the least bit suspicious?"
Again, Rhodes shook his head. "Nope. Everyone I noticed looked like he was with his own family or group to me. And there was nothing suspicious when we talked to them. But there's always a chance someone was, as you said, just out there looking around, not renting a cabin or with anyone else."
The Mardi Gras Murder Page 6