Murder by Gravity

by Barbara Graham

  Tony found the phrasing interesting. More intriguing were the beads of perspiration on the man’s forehead, and his flushed cheeks. The café was far from being too warm. His visitor was breathing hard. “What’s the emergency?” Tony was halfway out of his chair when his visitor waved him down.

  “No emergency.” The man gasped and swallowed hard. He managed a half smile. “It’s not like they are going to get any deader.”

  “More dead,” Tony corrected silently. He tried to pretend the meaning of the words had not disturbed him. “Have a seat.”

  As the man settled into the chair across from him, Tony pushed his empty coffee mug to one side and turned to a clean page in his notebook. He noted the date and time. “Let’s start with your name.”

  That did bring a jovial grin to his visitor’s face. “Chuck Wilson. I guess we’ve both changed a bit since elementary school.”

  Tony laughed. “I had hair back then.” The name put everything into place. Chuck and he had been good friends in fourth and fifth grade. They hadn’t had a fight; as they grew older they just didn’t share the same interests. Tony was all about sports and Chuck had his nose in books.

  The café door opened and Wade walked in. The handsome deputy greeted everyone with a smile and made his way to Tony’s table.

  “Have a seat.” Tony waited until Wade complied. “Mr. Wilson is about to tell us about our next new job for today. I trust it will be more exciting than traffic accidents and lighting pilot lights.” He omitted the possum episode.

  Wade’s eyebrows lifted. “Sounds interesting.” He pantomimed drinking coffee to Pinkie Millsaps, the morning cook who was doing double-duty as waitress. Two more mugs of steaming black coffee arrived in seconds.

  While waiting for the coffee, Chuck Wilson had been carefully breathing, gradually calming himself so he could speak. “The wife and I recently moved back to Tennessee from Minnesota. Better winters and lower taxes.” His smile widened. “Plus, we’re closer to our families. My mom’s in a care home in Knoxville and Sherrill’s originally from Pigeon Forge.”

  Tony didn’t interrupt. There was something innately competent and organized about the man, and clearly he was shaken.

  “We’re renting a small place for the moment, but we’ll move out of the old house and into a bigger newer house after the current owner gets a few things fixed.” Chuck started breathing hard again and paused to wipe the sweat from his face. His shaking hands made the task harder. “My wife’s afraid of spiders, so she sent me down into the old root cellar. I’m the gofer who’s supposed to clean it out so she can store, you know, roots I guess.”

  Wade suggested the man drink some water. The glass had been in front of Chuck for a while but he hadn’t seemed to notice it.

  Chuck used both hands to lift the glass and still the water sloshed over the rim but he managed to swallow some. “I’ve got this big orange cat who thinks it is fun to wrap himself around my neck like a fur collar and ride around everywhere I go.”

  At that departure from their topic, Tony’s mouth opened, but, before he could say anything, Chuck continued.

  “So we’re down in the root cellar, the cat and me, and I’m kinda hunched over, when suddenly the cat leaps from my neck and runs through a space down there. It looked like a big mouse hole to me. The cat won’t come out and I’m waving the flashlight around and slapping the wall and suddenly pieces are falling off and I find out it’s some kind of a false wall. I pulled a board loose and there’s my cat s-sitting on b-bones.” He paused, heaving for breath again. “Bones. There’s bones. Human bones.”

  Tony didn’t ask why he was so sure. Human skeletons were pretty distinctive. “Did it smell bad?”

  “N-no. At least I didn’t notice it.” Chuck managed a few more gulps of water. “I was so shocked to see a skull, I didn’t notice much else.”

  Tony guessed the bones had been down there a long time. “Why didn’t you just call me?” Tony looked around the café. “Why come here?”

  Chuck sat silent, wide-eyed. “I, uh . . .”

  “Okay, let’s try this question.” Tony thought “shock” was the correct answer to his previous question. “Where is the house?”

  “Oh, I didn’t tell you, did I? I live just across the road and up a little.” Chuck finally seemed a bit less panicky. “One of your deputies, a girl, visits my neighbor sometimes. As you’re going up the hill, his house is to the right, mine is to the left and down a bit.”

  “The old house?” Tony could visualize the row of newer homes and the much older home that had been there forever.

  “Yes.” Chuck smiled. “A very old house.”

  “I know that house,” Wade said. “My best friend in the first grade lived in there. His name was Billy Bob Buchanan.”

  “Mr. Buchanan is my landlord.” Chuck seemed a little puzzled. “I thought his name was William.”

  Wade nodded. “Oh yes, he’s officially William Robert, but he was always Billy Bob when we were in school.”

  Tony let the name game flow around him thinking it was funny how today’s conversation seemed to connect so many people from the past. The mundane name story would distract Chuck, and maybe he wouldn’t stroke out on them. Once he settled down, he’d most likely slap himself in the forehead for not being able to process Bobby being familiar for Robert. Tony pulled a couple of antacids from his shirt pocket and chewed them slowly.

  It wasn’t the first time someone had found human bones around here. This section of East Tennessee had several old settlements even before the town was founded. Many souls had passed on and many more had been born. Gardens had been planted over unmarked graves. But this situation was new to him.

  Bones inside a root cellar. What were the odds of the house being built on top of an old burial ground? Remote to none. Some group or another would have mentioned it by now or passed around a petition for preservation. Plus, putting bodies in a root cellar was not the same as burying them.

  Tony decided it was too late to quit his job. If this situation had come up in the summer, he could have either not run for reelection or he could have come out in support of his idiot opponent. Matt Barney made dirt look smart. So now, Tony had almost four more years left to serve. On top of the wacky weather and buried bones, Halloween was almost here. Oh, goody, a skeleton for Halloween. What kind of horror stories would arise from this? One thing the citizens of Park County had plenty of, was imagination.

  “Let’s go over and have a look, shall we?” Tony rose to his feet. Wade and Chuck jumped up to follow him.

  It took them maybe five minutes to get to the house. Most of that time was waiting for traffic on the highway to clear so they could cross it.

  Chuck led the way down the rickety ladder into the root cellar. As he had described it, the space was small. Twentieth-century shelving leaning against one wall was empty except for a few canning jars filled with green beans, at least that’s what they appeared to be through the thick coating of dust. The three men standing took up all the floor space in the main area. Two of them had to press against the wall to let the third one bend over and peer into the tiny chamber containing the bones.

  Being careful not to touch anything, Tony was folded in half as he studied the bones. To him, it looked like at least three complete skeletons neatly lined up side by side. Two were smaller than the third one. He thought maybe there was a fourth one, but he couldn’t be sure without disturbing the others. Shards of rotten fabric were strewn about, but the bones themselves seemed undisturbed. His immediate impression was of nonviolent death. He saw no apparent damage like bullet holes in the skulls or shattered limbs. The bodies had most certainly not been thrown into the cellar and landed in this position.

  “We’ll leave them here for now,” Tony decided after some consideration. “Wade, why don’t you take some photographs and I’ll call and see if the TBI is interested in antiques.” Not for the first time, Tony was thankful the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation was prepared to
lend a hand to the investigations in smaller counties. His county, Park County, was the smallest geographically, but not in either staff or crime. “And, after you get your photographs, Wade, let’s go chat with your old friend Billy Bob.”

  Tony shook hands with Chuck and promised to stay in touch.

  On her way to her quilt shop, Theo remembered she had promised to stop by the county dump and check on her friend Katti Marmot. The Russian mail-order bride was almost due to deliver her first child. When Theo had been pregnant with the twins and confined to a wheelchair, Katti had been her assistant and the women had bonded. Theo was anxious to see what Katti had decided to do about decorating the nursery. Katti professed not to know the gender of the new little Marmot and the mother’s passion for all things pink had created a lot of community interest in her nursery decorations.

  Katti was happy to see her. “You had two.” She patted her own huge belly. “How you sleep?”

  “I didn’t sleep.” Theo had brought the twins inside with her and released them near Katti. The girls immediately smiled and reached for Katti, who cooed and blew kisses at them. “How can I help you?”

  Katti ignored the question. “Come see baby Valentine’s nest.”

  Whether the baby would actually be named Valentine remained to be seen. The parents-to-be had referred to their unborn offspring as Valentine from the beginning.

  Since the day he’d decided to find a mail-order bride, garbage guru Claude Marmot had added onto his tiny house, twice. Using scraps of this and rescued pieces of that, he had tripled the space. It was still small. A tiny alcove created by the bedroom addition had now become the nursery.

  The walls in the nursery alcove were painted a joyous pink. Not a timid pale pink but one requiring more than a single coat to bring it to its full depth. Katti had called it “Valentine Rose.”

  Theo, something of a color expert, called it “dark flamingo.”

  Frilly white tieback curtains covered the window, splitting over a roll-down shade. The shade itself was pale pink, but it had been carefully hand-painted with white bunnies, green grass and trees, and a pair of brilliant blue birds. The nearby cradle glistened with glossy white paint. Theo couldn’t guess what its original purpose had been. It might have begun as anything from a lobster trap to an antique nail barrel, but now it was a perfect cradle hanging in a stand made from a tree branch. “It’s beautiful, Katti.” And it was.

  “See the blanket.” Katti’s smile was luminous as she fluffed the cradle’s contents. “My Valentine thanks you.”

  Theo laughed. It had taken very little time for her to make the small blanket of lusciously soft plush fabric. It was napped like thick velvet but softer. Theo had put pink plaid on one side and mint green on the other. Predictably, the pink side was facing up.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Tony and Wade found William Robert Buchanan, aka Billy Bob, without difficulty. He had moved away from Silersville but not too far. He was now Professor William Buchanan at Maryville College. According to the plaque on the wall next to his office door, his field was psychology.

  “Come in, come in,” Wade’s friend enthusiastically greeted them. “I just love to learn how people think. We’re like seashells and snowflakes, you know, no two are exactly the same. Not even identical twins.”

  Tony sat back and let Wade and Billy Bob chat and reminisce for a bit and then slipped in a question. “Do you own your parents’ old house in Silersville now?”

  “Oh, no.” Billy Bob relaxed in his professorial leather chair and steepled his fingers. “I’m only the landlord. When my folks moved to coastal Georgia, they appointed me their agent.”

  “How long ago?” said Wade.

  “Oh, gosh, it’s been maybe five years now. They didn’t want to sell the house, in case living in Georgia didn’t work out and they decided they wanted to move back.” Billy Bob rolled his eyes like a teenager. “Now they think selling it will be the best plan. I’m just the middleman and feel a bit like a Ping-Pong ball.”

  Tony worked the timeline out in his head. The Buchanans had moved away about a year before he was elected sheriff the first time. Tony guessed he’d be chatting with their former sheriff, Harvey Winston, before long. The old man’s mind was still sharp and his memory for people had always been outstanding. “You don’t want the family home for yourself?”

  “Not really. I thought about it a lot.” Billy Bob’s shoulders rose and fell. “It’s not a huge drive from here so we could commute, but there’s miles of stairs in the house and my wife’s already talking about having her hips replaced. She’s barely thirty but she already has this terrible arthritis, and the fewer stairs she has to climb, the happier she is.”

  “And the rest of your family, they’re good with selling the old place?” Wade asked. “I mean, they do know what you’re planning?”

  Billy Bob’s grin widened. “You mean because I’m trying to sell a house that’s been in the family for over a hundred and fifty years and comes with a ghost?”

  Tony nodded.

  “Yes. It is hard. I love the old place, but I don’t want to live there and I’m the last of my immediate family line.” He laced his fingers together and rested them on his desk. As he leaned forward, all trace of humor vanished from his face. “I’ve thought long and hard about this and talked with my folks until we are all sick to death of the subject. We want to see the house owned by people who love it. People who will plant flowers in the window boxes each spring and mow the yard. And paint. Gallons of paint. You know what it is like with these old houses. Maintenance is a nightmare.”

  Tony did know. He loved his wife’s old family house. In fact, it was the oldest brick home in the county, and her family had lived there for generations. Now he and Theo had added a new addition to it and had destroyed its historical purity. One of the topics raised by his opponent during the August election had been the new addition. The historical preservationists group was headed for them with torches and shovels, but luckily his opponent was worse than a cartoon figure or Tony might have lost his job. “I do know.”

  “So, what do we do about the skeletons down there?” Billy Bob had been totally surprised when they’d described the situation. “I had no idea there was a false wall, but then, it was mostly my mom and grandmother who used the space.”

  “Your new renter was certainly upset by the discovery.” Tony met Billy Bob’s steady gaze.

  “No kidding. That’s quite an understatement. Did you know they called me and cancelled the lease before you arrived today?” Billy Bob shook his head. “I was shocked, you know, just when you think you can guess what people will do or say, they just blow you away.”

  Tony found it surprising as well. It wasn’t like they had found something grisly and nasty in the bedroom closet. He said, “I’ve called the TBI. We’re supposed to collect the remains and the surrounding dirt and anything else down there that might tell us who these people are, or were, and how they came to be dead and not even actually buried in the root cellar.”

  “And then?”

  “Since this is not a crime scene, we’re to ship it all to some anthropologists.” The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation supplied forensic assistance to the local sheriff’s departments. Tony had taken a fair amount of ribbing in the past, with TBI people calling Park County the murder capital of Tennessee, but he couldn’t fault the work they did. All those man-hours and state of the art equipment were invaluable. Without them, his forensics would be radically different. He might be able to solve some of his cases without their help, but any halfway competent defense attorney would have a field day with them.

  Billy Bob leaned forward. “I can remember my grandmother climbing up and down this old ladder into the lowest area. The ladder didn’t look like it could support two June bugs, but Gram liked to keep her jars of beans and jam down there. I went most of the way down once; it was dark and narrow and then kind of opened up, and there were a couple of shelves. It was cool down there, but it
creeped me out. I kept expecting some giant mutant bugs or rats to attack us.”

  “Anything else you might recall from the past that might have been connected to the old house or the cellar?” Tony looked at his notes. “You mentioned a ghost.”

  “I always thought the place had a ghost, but it was in the house, not the cellar.”

  “Rattling chains in the dark?” Tony was surprised. The man did not seem like a believer in the supernatural. “Screams in the night?”

  “No.” Billy Bob closed his eyes, almost like he was listening to the past. “It was rather benevolent. Like old family members checking on the new ones, keeping watch. Whispers.” He grinned. “No screams, moans, or chains.”

  Tony wasn’t sure if he believed in ghosts. “Did they visit often?”

  Billy Bob’s eyes opened and he blinked against the sudden light. “No. There were just times when they dropped by for a visit. Except for when my mom was so sick with pneumonia, they came every night during that episode. Keeping a vigil, I guess. They didn’t come back for a long time once she recovered.”

  Wade said, “But you didn’t live there full-time when you were a child, did you?”

  “No.” Billy Bob shrugged. “Our family had a different house. After my grandparents passed away, then we moved in there. But even when I was younger, I probably slept as many nights in that house as I did our own.”

  In the wide and complicated world of annoyances, petty to major, Theo thought getting a grocery cart with a wonky wheel raced to the top of the list once it was too late to exchange it. The twins filled up most of the basket, leaving the seat and the underneath shelf for delicate grocery items like eggs. The girls couldn’t damage cans. Theo chatted with them and laughed, even as she stacked tuna and soup cans around their chubby legs.

  As Theo struggled to turn the increasingly awkward cart down the next aisle, she barely tapped a display of Halloween treats with one corner of the cart. In seconds, the entire cardboard tower filled with popcorn balls—dyed orange to look like jack-o’-lanterns—flipped onto its side. The cellophane wrappers kept the treats clean, but they managed to roll, awkwardly, an amazing distance down one aisle and toward the checkout area.