by Jean Rabe
Chris was red-faced, and the veins stood out even more pronounced. He took a deep breath and coughed, a smoker’s cough, and continued. “My Joan, she said we should call somebody. She said we should really make sure Conrad was dead and just wasn’t, I dunno, unconscious or something. I said he was dead, and she asked me a few more times if I was sure. Of course I was sure. He didn’t blink when I unhooked the bells. He was frozen solid like an icicle. But I went back over there anyway, to keep Joanie happy, made sure he wasn’t breathing, and went inside…that’s when I went inside, only once…and I hollered, just to see if his loser son was around, went into the living room and called 9-1-1. See…it happened mostly as I told Oren, but two trips instead of one. And when I came back out, all my guests and Joanie were on the lawn around the sleigh. I told ’em not to touch anything. Happy now?”
Randy didn’t say anything. Oren watched the red fade from Chris’s face.
Oren decided to try one. “Your brother Mike, he tried to buy Conrad’s gas station, didn’t he?”
Chris glared. “Mike made him a couple of offers, but Conrad…he wanted too much for that damn little gas station. Wasn’t worth what he was asking. Everybody around here knows that, knows that he asked too much.”
“Maybe we should talk to Mike again,” Randy said. “Bring him in and—”
“Mikey didn’t kill Conrad, and certainly not over some stupid gas station.”
“He didn’t come to your New Year’s Eve party.”
“Mikey doesn’t drink.”
“And he lives just down the road from you, doesn’t he?” Oren and Randy both knew where Mike Hagee lived. “Not far from—”
“Hell, call him in if you want. Call the whole town in if—”
“Calm down,” Oren cut in.
“I didn’t kill Conrad,” Chris repeated. “I wouldn’t kill nobody. You can’t possibly think that I—”
“Do you know Abigail Thornbridge?” Randy fired out the question, keeping it present-tense. Oren figured word of the Thornbridge murder might not have reached across the county yet. “Down the road from Fulda, Miss Thornbridge?”
Chris blinked. “Sweet Abby T? The retired school teacher?”
Randy nodded. “So you know her.”
Chris shrugged. “Sort of, but not really. I know who she is. I didn’t go to that school, my son didn’t either, but I know of her. Always popped up and popped off at the county school board meetings, you know, and I was on the board a couple of years back when my kid was in track.” A pause. “What’s she got to do with this? Had Conrad willed her the bells?” A longer pause. “Do you think she killed Conrad? That’s not possible. Abby T’s gotta be pushing a hundred, you know.”
“Eighty-two,” Oren said softly.
“And she sure as hell didn’t put him in the sleigh.”
“Somebody did,” Randy said. “And he’d sat there a while.”
“And right across the street, apparently you didn’t notice,” Oren put in.
Chris looked defiant and defeated at the same time. “You don’t get it. That damn spotlight on that damn sleigh. I avoided looking at it, that’s probably why I didn’t see Conrad sitting out there. Come night, Conrad would leave that damn spotlight on, sometimes to ten, eleven, sometimes all night if he forgot to turn it off. Our bedroom’s at the front of the house and that light…even with the shade down…had a helluva time getting to sleep sometimes, you know. Inconsiderate, I tell you.”
“I guess you won’t have to worry about the spotlight anymore,” Oren said.
Chris’s foot stopped tapping. “Can I go now?”
“Bring the bells into the office before we close today, Mr. Hagee.” Randy turned off the recorder. “Otherwise I’ll come out and get them—and you. Understand?”
“They’re just bells.”
Randy made a humming noise. “Trespassing, vandalism, theft…by your own admission. Disturbing a crime scene. Tampering with evidence. And about fifteen other charges. Back before we close up, you hear?”
“Yeah, I get you.” Chris stood and reached for his coat, eyes on the floor as he left.
“He didn’t do it,” Oren said.
Randy put the recorder in his pocket. “He lied, didn’t tell us he’d went over there twice. Stole the antique bells. I don’t trust a liar. They never stop at just one lie. Lives right across the street, retired, no alibi for the window we’re setting for Conrad’s death. And therefore no alibi for Abigail’s either. Claimed he didn’t really know Abigail. That’s bullshit. Called her Sweet Abby T and mentioned the school board meetings. He knew her. And Chris is a drinker. I checked on that. No arrests, but Rockport police answered a couple of calls at a bar on Main last year, and Chris’s name was mentioned. The bartender says he’s a regular—and regularly drinks too much. I’m putting him on the boss’s whiteboard as our current suspect. Motive: he was pissed about the sleigh display. Means and opportunity: had that out the whazoo. Maybe got drunk and offed Conrad and figured he might as well get Abby T while he was at it.”
“You put his name up on that board, and I’ll be erasing it.” Oren stood and stretched, looked down at Randy. “Chris Hagee didn’t kill Conrad Delaney.” He decided he wasn’t too old for the job, after all. “Yeah, you caught Chris in a lie. Ha! Maybe he was the one who stole that stuffed bear a few years back. But a liar doesn’t make a murderer. Sometimes a liar is just a liar.”
“And what makes you so sure he’s innocent?”
“Well, innocent of murder. Chris wouldn’t have set Conrad up in that sleigh. Oh, he probably could have lifted him, dragged him…Conrad was a little hefty, but not that hefty. But Chris wouldn’t have put him up on display like that. Killing was premeditated, and so some planning was involved. Chris is more of a spur-of-the-moment fellow, outside of his annual party…and he’s been doing that for so many years it’s probably by rote.”
“I don’t know, Oren, I think—”
“If Chris was the doer, he would’ve killed Conrad in the house, left him there, and unplugged the spotlight in front of the sleigh before he went back home.”
“There is that I suppose,” Randy said.
“And he didn’t kill Sweet Abby T either. Might not have liked her from his school board days, a good while back—and yeah I’m sure he probably knew her better than he let on. But Chris is retired, and he retired early. He’s on the lazy side, and setting Abby T up like that with the curling ribbons and everything. Setting Conrad up for that matter…too much work, too much thought into it, and like I said, too much planning. Probably took all his effort to make his lit’l smokies for that New Year’s Eve party. So I’d say the only thing Chris Hagee is guilty of is stealing some old sleigh bells and trying to lie about it.”
“You should have won the election, Oren.”
“Yeah, I should have.”
The next man in wore a leather Indianapolis Colts jacket.
“We’ve got a few questions for you,” Oren began.
Nineteen
Thursday, January 4th
The man in the leather Indianapolis Colts jacket was Elias Gerald Hagee, a nephew of Chris, and he had a solid alibi for the window of both Abigail Thornbridge’s and Conrad Delaney’s murders. Piper listened to Randy’s recording of the interview and read the follow up verification before she called her shift done for the night.
Elias Gerald, as he preferred to be called, had been in the Bahamas with his ex-wife, and showed off his sunburn to prove it. They’d taken a weeklong reconciliation vacation and flew back on a red eye that got into the Louisville, Ky., airport at 5 a.m. on December 31. He wouldn’t have had enough time to kill Conrad, set him up on display and let the body freeze. Elias Gerald told Randy and Oren that Freeport was fun, and lots of sex and alcohol were involved, but at the end there was no reconciliation. Elias Gerald said he slept most of the day, then got up and went to his uncle’s annual New Year’s Eve bash and drank more than he should have. His ex- did not attend, apparently having fou
nd a different party to go to.
Elias Gerald had an alibi, too, for when Piper was run off the road. He worked at the Rockport power plant; the shift manager saw him clock out right at 5. Piper had left the Delaney house five minutes after that, and he could not have met her on the road in time to put her in a ditch. Besides, Elias Gerald drove a Chevy Equinox, and didn’t own a truck.
Piper yawned and clicked on the radio and turned up the window defrosters. She was headed to the Indianapolis airport. According to MapQuest, it was three hours and twenty-one minutes from her apartment. She’d set the alarm for 4 a.m. and put it out of reach so she couldn’t hit snooze, showered fast when it chirped, wolfed down two frosted strawberry Pop-Tarts without bothering to toast them, and allowed herself an extra half hour of travel time…in case. In case of what? In case someone tried to run her off the road again? She was still sore from the first joust and had a deep purple bruise on her chest from the seatbelt.
She had been so certain the man in the Colts jacket was at the heart of this. She’d returned to the store in Santa Claus just before it closed yesterday, showed the manager pictures of the people at Conrad’s party—and according to her not one of them looked like the man who bought the Merry Christmas mugs.
Now they had to pursue another possibility—the roofer Abigail and Conrad had in common. Maybe he had a Colts jacket, too. Unfortunately, one of her deputies reported that the roofer was on an extended vacation.
Anthony Delaney’s flight was due in at 8:20, and if it was on time she’d be back in the office before noon. When she’d told Anthony about his father during their phone call, he said he wanted to come back for the funeral, hadn’t seen his father in four years—since his previous trip to the States. He arranged travel immediately, which entailed a bus ride to Bangkok, a flight to Los Angeles, and then a fast connection to Indianapolis.
Anthony had planned another bus trip that would take him to Evansville, where a friend would give him a ride to Fulda. Since Piper wanted to talk to him anyway, she said she would pick him up. Piper wondered how he was paying for this; maybe the temple had a fund for family situations. Maybe it’s none of my concern, she thought.
Whoever had rented this car before her had set the radio to an oldies station. She was about to remedy that when a favorite tune came on: Chicago performing 25 or 6 to 4. It had a heady, relentless beat that she set her thumbs tapping in time to against the steering wheel. One of her soldiers during her second tour in Iraq played a trumpet, and 25 or 6 to 4 was his go-to piece, others around him banging on footlockers or knocking their boots together in accompaniment. He’d told her that Robert Lamm composed it when he lived with hippies above the Sunset Strip. In the Hollywood Hills, overlooking the city one very early morning was where Lamm supposedly sculpted the classic. It was either 3:35 a.m. or 3:34 a.m.—hence either twenty-five minutes to four or twenty-six minutes to four—when Lamm looked up from working on it.
Piper’s trumpet player was killed shortly before her unit returned to Fort Campbell. IED, downrange assignment, prophetically closing in on 4 a.m. It could have been her had she went into that trapped house, but she’d been checking out the one next door. They played 25 or 6 to 4 at the memorial service.
Piper brushed the memory away and instead turned up the volume and focused on the road. Loud music was therapeutic, she believed. If you cranked it high enough it wouldn’t let you think.
His flight had arrived early, and he was waiting for her at the gate. Piper had a small picture in her pocket that she’d taken from the Delaney house. She hadn’t needed it to recognize him. Anthony was bald and wore heavy dark orange robes, a backpack slung over one shoulder. He walked straight toward her. Piper was the only soul in a sheriff’s uniform.
“You’re going to be cold,” she told him as he slid into the passenger side and placed his backpack on the seat behind him.
“My robe, Sheriff Blackwell, will keep me warm. It is so designed that way. Beyond a reminder that I am a member of a great universal community and have pledged myself to lofty spiritual ideals, this robe wards off cold, heat, insects, and the wind.” He buckled the seatbelt. “But I intend to ask my brother to take me to the J.C. Penny outlet store in Owensboro so I may acquire jeans and a sweatshirt and something to wear to my father’s funeral tomorrow. I did not have time for such shopping before my flight left Bangkok. It is important I look nice for my father’s funeral. I did not attend my mother’s, and though I am not supposed to carry regrets, I cannot seem to lose that one.”
Piper had turned off the radio. “So you have a little money to spend. For clothes?”
“An allotment of baht for my expenses. I will need it converted to dollars.”
Piper had a better idea. She had a Kohl’s card and stopped at one of their stores on the way out of the city and bought Anthony a pair of jeans, a sweatshirt, dress shirt, blazer, tie, and nice pants for the funeral—everything off the discount racks, including a pair of Nunn Bush Bourbon Street oxfords that were half-price. He wore the jeans and sweatshirt right then, declining a winter jacket as he was certain something of his father’s would fit. At the checkout she added a cheap prepaid cell phone, and in the car she programmed her number into it and collected his number as well.
“In case you need to contact me,” she told him.
“You are gracious, Sheriff Blackwell.”
“Don’t mention it.”
“And I will pay you back after I get my baht converted.”
She didn’t give him the grisly details of the staging of his father’s body, but Piper did confirm he was murdered, and that Abigail Thornbridge was strangled, too.
“Sweet Abby T,” Anthony said. “She was nicknamed that because she always had a glass of ice tea on her desk. Every year she sent me a fruitcake for Christmas, even this past year. They were always awful, at least I thought so. But old Chaow—one of my mentors—loved them. Every year my father sent me a card and a few mystery novels for Christmas. The books were always good and welcome, and those I did not pass along to old Chaow until I’d read them twice. I am especially fond of the works of Robert Crais and Jeffery Deaver.” He stretched around behind him and fumbled in the pack, brought out the Christmas card she’d asked him about.
His smoothed tan face was handsome, Piper judged, with a strong jaw, perfect nose, and bright brown eyes highlighted by long lashes. Anthony came close to resembling the picture in her pocket, though in it he had hair and his cheeks looked fuller.
“This is the last thing he wrote to me,” Anthony said. “He knew I wasn’t Christian, but he still always sent a Christmas card, always a photo one.”
Piper noticed the writing on the back was tiny so Conrad had been able to fit a long note on it.
“Read it to me, will you? I gotta keep my eyes on the road.”
“Dear Anthony.” He laughed softly. “He always called me Anthony, never Tony, the name I used in school. Or Tiger, my nickname for most of my life here…Tony the Tiger because I ate Frosted Flakes and played for the Fulda Wildcats. Always called my brother Zachary, too, never Zach. Dear Anthony, I hope this finds you well and happy. The doctor says my heart is fine, and I have my blood pressure under control, so I’m up for travel. I thought I’d come visit in April. I know it is hot then, and that we’d talked about July, but the airfare and hotel prices are too good to pass up, probably because of the heat, you think? You know me and sales. I found a package for a jungle tour, meeting hill tribes, a place to ride elephants, a boat trip to Shampoo Island. I’m not interested in the beach part, so I thought we’d spend time together then. I might take a little side trip to Vietnam. My friend Nang went last year and stayed in Hoi An, said he loved it. Better go before I’m too old, you think? Past time I spent some of the money from selling the gas station. I put my sleigh out again, painted it a glossy black this time. You’ll see it on my next Christmas card. Your old school friend Jacob took my picture in it when he was here setting down a new kitchen floor for me. He put
a roof on the house back in September. Best prices I could find in the county for the work. Seems young to have his own business, but then everyone seems young to me. Love, Dad.”
Piper had plenty of questions. She’d jotted them down last night and read them over several times, essentially memorizing them. She had a recorder in her pocket, too, but decided not to use it. That wouldn’t feel right, taking the conversation all formal.
“So the last time you saw your father was four years ago?”
“Yes. I was with a small delegation to California, and my father flew out to visit for a few days when there was an airfare war going on. Buddhism is one of the largest religions in the States, more than a million practitioners, and a great percentage of them are in California.”
“I didn’t know that,” Piper said. “How did you—” She paused, trying to find a way to phrase it, but he intercepted the question.
“Become enlightened? I was doing a paper on Eastern influences the first semester of my senior year in high school, and as part of my research I read about Buddhism. Something clicked for me, like all my issues started falling into place. I found a temple in Louisville and visited, and right before Easter went on a weekend retreat at the Buddhist center in Furnace Mountain. That’s in—”