Toni L.P. Kelner - Laura Fleming 01 - Down Home Murder

by Toni L. P. Kelner

  I was uncomfortably aware that this only left Arthur and Thaddeous as suspects, and that Richard and I were about to sit down to dinner with both of them. Since Aunt Nora’s “bite to eat” approached feast-like proportions, I was able to subjugate my suspicions to focus on the more urgent task of eating my share of baked ham, candied yams, lima beans, fresh tomato slices, and of course, Aunt Nora’s biscuits piled high with homemade strawberry jam. Dessert was apple pie topped with generous slices of Cheddar cheese.

  Vasti controlled the conversation with her descriptions of the parties she and Arthur would be attending for the next few months. Each guest list was a veritable Who’s Who of local notables, but Vasti had no trouble remembering every name.

  Once everyone had eaten what Aunt Nora referred to as a gracious plenty and what I would have called enough to bust a gusset, we all sat back without any inclination to move.

  “That was good,” Uncle Buddy said with his usual flair for understatement.

  “I’ll say,” Arthur said. “I haven’t had a meal like that since I don’t know when.”

  “Goodness, Arthur, they’re going to think that I don’t ever feed you,” Vasti said with a touch of irritation.

  “Oh honey,” he said, patting her hand. “I didn’t marry you for your cooking, everybody knows that.” He saw the expression on her face, and realized that he had made a tactical error. “What I mean is, everyone knows you keep so busy you don’t have time to cook. Now when you’ve got the time, you can cook like nobody’s business.”

  Vasti was not consoled by Arthur’s words. “Well, anyone can see that you’re not hurting for food,” she said, looking pointedly at the buttons straining across Arthur’s belly. “Besides,” she said to me, “how am I supposed to fix a decent meal when I never know when he’s going to be home? Last Sunday I had a wonderful dinner all planned, but he left right after church and didn’t come back for hours. He said he was going to work, but when I called the dealership, no one knew where he was.”

  I sat up at this mention of last Sunday, and saw that Richard was also paying closer attention.

  “Now, honey,” Arthur said with a trace of worry in his voice. “You know I work Sunday afternoons. I told you I must have been out on the lot and didn’t hear the page.”

  “That’s what you said.”

  There was an uncomfortable silence, and I noticed that Arthur was looking at Thaddeous. Thaddeous returned his glance, gave a slight shrug, and then looked away. What was that about?

  “Well,” Aunt Nora finally said, “if I sit here any longer, I’m going to take root.” The bustle of clearing the table dispelled the disquiet, and Vasti and Arthur soon left.

  “What are you two up to this afternoon?” Aunt Nora asked after Richard and I helped stack dishes in the dishwasher.

  “We’re going out to the flea market to see Aunt Maggie,” I said.

  “Actually,” Richard said, “I thought I’d ride out to the dealership and see Arthur. Didn’t he say he was going to work after he dropped off Vasti?”

  “I believe he did,” Aunt Nora said. “What do you want to talk to him about?”

  “Laura and I have been thinking of buying a car, and I thought he might be able to give me some advice about what we should buy.”

  I was caught off guard, but I nodded in agreement. I wasn’t sure what he was up to, but I knew that he didn’t want to buy a car. Just last week he thanked our lucky stars that we didn’t have to try to park in our neighborhood.

  “You don’t mind going to the flea market alone, do you Laura?” Richard asked.

  “I wouldn’t mind riding out there with you, Laurie Anne,” Aunt Nora said. “I haven’t been out there in a while.”

  “Great,” I said. I wasn’t sure how this would fit in with Aunt Maggie’s plans for secrecy, but I figured I’d deal with that when the time came.

  After making sure that no one else wanted to go with us to the flea market, Aunt Nora drove us to Paw’s house. We left her downstairs while we went to change out of our Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes.

  As soon as we were alone, I said, “Since when do we want to buy a car?”

  “Since I saw Arthur looking at Thaddeous when Vasti complained about Arthur being gone last Sunday. You caught that, didn’t you?”

  I nodded. “Maybe they were together that day.”

  “Meaning that they were in collusion?” Richard said.

  “Or that they’re both innocent.”

  “Which would leave us back at the beginning. Arthur and Thaddeous are our last suspects.”

  “It was not Thaddeous!” I said emphatically.

  “I don’t want it to be him either, but the fact is we don’t know where he was Friday night or Sunday afternoon.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Then you think it was Arthur?”

  I frowned. “He’s the only other one who has no alibi for either time. I just can’t picture him killing Melanie or Paw.”

  “He wants to go into politics, right? Maybe he picked Melanie up as a friendly gesture, but got more friendly than he should have. He had to kill her to keep it quiet, or kiss his political aspirations good-bye. Once Paw found out, he had to go, too.”

  “How would he have known about the hole in the fence to get him into the mill? And how did he get in that locked door? He’s one of the few people in this town who has never worked at the mill.”

  “You never worked there, either, but you know about the hole,” he pointed out. “As for a key, he could have borrowed someone else’s.” He could see I wasn’t convinced. “Who do you think it was?”

  I ran my fingers through my hair. “I don’t know. Maybe you were right and Paw’s murder wasn’t connected with Melanie’s after all. All we’ve been going on is that map. We never did find any other connection between the two.”

  “Other than Thaddeous,” he said evenly.

  “Not Thaddeous!”

  “He knew Melanie, and was infatuated with her. He knows the mill, and as a supervisor, must have a key to the door.”

  “But he stayed out searching for her the whole weekend. He only joined the Klan because of Melanie.”

  “Unrequited passion can turn into something ugly, and he could have joined the searchers to make sure they didn’t find anything. Joining the Klan could have been a way to draw attention elsewhere.”

  “Maybe I could believe he killed Melanie, accidentally mind you, but how can I believe he killed Paw? You saw him at the funeral. He was crying as much as anyone.”

  “To paraphrase the Bard, one may cry, and cry, and be a villain.”

  I sat on the edge of the bed, looking at the toes of my sneakers. “I’m not being objective, am I?” I said. I was pretty sure that I’d rather never find out who the murderer was than to find out it was Thaddeous.

  “Of course you’re not, and I wouldn’t expect you to be. Besides, we may have nothing to worry about. Let’s hear what Arthur has to say before we get too upset.” He assumed a lofty expression. “After my success with Roger last night, I have every expectation that I’ll be able to wring every last bit of information from Arthur.”

  “How are you going to do that? By carrying along a keg of beer?”

  Chapter 36

  After Richard ignored my question and agreed to meet us back at Aunt Nora’s for supper, he headed for the Cadillac place and we headed for the flea market. Though I couldn’t imagine wanting anything else to eat for a week, I was interested in looking at the family photo albums Aunt Nora promised to bring out afterwards. Richard was particularly eager to see embarrassing photos of me in diapers and such.

  Despite the heat, there was a good-sized crowd at the flea market and Aunt Nora had to park near the edge of the field of sun-baked red clay that passed for a parking lot.

  Actually it was hard to tell where the parking lot ended and the flea market began. There were cars parked between booths, and some dealers had their merchandise displayed on the hoods of their cars
or in the back of their pickup trucks.

  The dealers toward the middle of the market had tables of plywood laid on sawhorses or even rough shacks from which to display their wares. They made up the larger part of the market, loosely lined up in rows across the field.

  Since neither of us had any idea of where Aunt Maggie set up, we started with the first aisle, and strolled past people selling everything from tape decks to black velvet paintings of Elvis Presley, from plastic unicorns with clocks in their sides to eight-track tapes, from socket sets to collector’s items like Occupied Japan figurines, Fiesta Ware dishes, and carnival glass.

  After half an hour of searching, I decided I’d better ask someone. I walked up to a woman selling Harley-Davidson T-shirts who had a tan that pasty-white Bostonians would kill for. Her baseball cap had “MAMA” printed across it.

  “Excuse me, ma’am,” I said. “Do you know where Maggie Burnette’s booth is?”

  “Maggie Burnette?” the woman said, “I don’t believe I know her.” She called to the young man working the booth with her. His cap had “KARL” written on it. “Karl, do we know Maggie Burnette?”

  “What does she sell?”

  I shrugged. “I’m not sure. I think she has some paperback romances.”

  Karl nodded in recognition. “Oh, the Book Lady. She’s got a spot inside Building 1, next to the Donut Man.”

  Noticing my continued confusion, the woman pointed us toward a low building made of cinder blocks covered with a corrugated aluminum roof. I thanked them, and would have gone on but Aunt Nora was fingering one of the T-shirts.

  “Do you suppose Thaddeous would like a shirt like this?” she asked. “His birthday is coming up.”

  I looked at the shirt she was examining. It bore an exquisitely detailed rendering of a motorcycle in fluorescent colors, being ridden by a pig dressed in a leather jacket. Above the picture were the words “I Luv my Harley Hog.”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “Maybe if they had one with a pickup truck.”

  Aunt Nora nodded, and we went into Building 1. It was cooler inside, and we quickly located Aunt Maggie’s booth, tucked between a tattoo artist and a booth selling fresh deep-fat-fried donuts.

  Half of Aunt Maggie’s booth was piled high with dishes, glassware, and ceramic knick-knacks of all description. The other half was piled just as high with paperback books. Hanging on the wall between them was a trio of signs. The first said, “In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash,” the second said, “The only one who cares about what your grandmother had is your grandfather,” and the third and largest said “Don’t Buy Books New—Buy Them From the Book Lady.”

  Aunt Maggie was talking to a young woman in a green blouse when we came up, but she saw us and nodded. “This is an old piece,” Aunt Maggie was saying as she and her customer examined a brown and beige striped crockery mixing bowl. “It came from my grandmother’s attic, and there’s no telling how long she had it.” She turned it over, and showed the woman the markings on the bottom. “See, it’s got McCoy written on it, and McCoy pottery is a big collector’s item these days.”

  “How much do you want for it?” the woman asked.

  “I’ve got it marked forty, but if you want it, you can have it for thirty-five.”

  The woman considered it a moment, and then asked, “I don’t know. Do you have any Fenton glassware?”

  “I’ve got a couple of pieces put back behind the counter. Come on into the booth and I’ll show you.”

  We left them to their negotiations. Aunt Nora wandered toward a table of ruffled, gingham curtains, and I went to look at Aunt Maggie’s selection of books. Most of them were romances, divided into boxes labeled “Harlequin Temptation,” “Loveswept,” “Grace Livingston Hill,” “Judith Krantz,” and so on. The only other books were a box of Stephen King books and one small box labeled “Other.”

  From the box labeled “Janet Daily,” I pulled out a book whose cover portrayed a buxom heroine with the obligatory flowing hair and attentive suitor, flipped through it, and grinned when it opened of its own accord to a torrid love scene.

  After Aunt Maggie talked the woman into buying both the McCoy mixing bowl and a pale blue glass vase with the characteristic ruffled look of Fenton, I went to join her.

  “How’s business?” I asked.

  “Not bad. Did you see that bowl I just sold? She paid thirty-five dollars for it, and I got it for two dollars last week at the Salvation Army Thrift Store.”

  “I thought you said it came out of your grandmother’s attic.”

  “Laurie Anne, do I come up to Boston to tell you how to work your computers?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Then don’t try to tell me how to run my business.” She looked over at Aunt Nora. “What’s she doing here?”

  “She wanted to come along and I couldn’t think of a polite way to tell her not to.”

  “You know there is such a thing as being too polite.” She reached under the tablecloth covering the table at the back of the booth and pulled out a thick manila envelope. “I’ll take care of it. Nora! Come over here.”

  Aunt Nora put down the curtains and came over.

  “I want to show Laurie Anne something. You can watch the booth for me, can’t you?” Before Aunt Nora could speak, Aunt Maggie untied the canvas money apron from around her waist, and tied it around Aunt Nora’s.

  “But Aunt Maggie—” Aunt Nora started.

  “Everything’s marked, and don’t come down on anything. If they want to haggle, they’ll have to wait. We’ll be back in a little while. Come on, Laurie Anne.” She took off down the aisle. I hurried to catch up, and then nearly ran into her when she stopped and called back to Aunt Nora. “And Nora, don’t clean anything.”

  “Why not?” I asked as we walked.

  “Whoever heard of clean antiques?” she answered, and then said, “Shaw Stevens—he’s the lawyer—said he’d be over at the snack bar. There he is now.” The snack bar was a tiny counter stuck in the wall and half-a-dozen formica tables that didn’t look as if they had been wiped off this week.

  I had dealt with lawyers once or twice before, but this was the first time I examined and signed important papers on a sticky table at a flea market snack bar. Despite the setting, Mr. Stevens kept everything reasonably businesslike and made sure I understood what I was signing. The agreement was straightforward as legal documents go. Upon Aunt Maggie’s death, ownership of the house would pass to me with the proviso that I not sell the house or allow it to pass out of the Burnette family. I read everything over twice just to be sure, and then nodded. “Should I sign now?” I asked.

  “Actually,” Stevens said, “it would be best if the signatures were notarized.”

  “I’ve already got that taken care of,” Aunt Maggie said. “Bob at the booth next to mine is a notary. Come on over that way, and I’ll get you what I owe you.”

  I waved at Aunt Nora as Aunt Maggie led us to the booth next door. I had assumed that Bob was the donut man, but no, the tattoo artist was a notary public. He witnessed our signatures between drawing a rose on a woman’s ankle and a Confederate flag on a man’s forearm.

  Then we went back to Aunt Maggie’s booth, and she reached under one of tables and pulled out a large, well-wrapped object. “Here it is,” she said.

  “I am mighty happy to get this,” Mr. Stevens said, starting to unwrap the parcel.

  I don’t know what I was expecting, but I was definitely not expecting a Jim Beam decanter shaped like Elvis Presley in his white jump suit and rhinestone period. Stevens looked it over carefully, his satisfaction obvious.

  “I’ve had the other decanters of the King for a while now,” he confided, “but I didn’t think I’d ever find this one. Maggie, where in the world did you get it?”

  “I’ve got my sources,” she said. “Are we all square?”

  “More than square. A pleasure meeting you, Mrs. Fleming.” He carefully rewrapped Elvis, shook our hands, and carried the
decanter away.

  Aunt Nora had been watching all of this with obvious curiosity, but was too polite to ask what was going on.

  “I’ll take that money belt back now, Nora,” Aunt Maggie said. “Did you sell anything?”

  “One man bought a dozen of your books, and a woman bought that big vase with the pagoda on it.”

  “For what it was marked? I thought I was going to have to give that thing away. Good for you.”

  Aunt Nora said, “If you don’t mind, I think I’m going to go look at those curtains some more.”

  “Let me know if you see anything you like. I’ll get you a good price,” Aunt Maggie said.

  “I’ll catch up with you in a minute, Aunt Nora,” I said. As soon as she was out of earshot, I said, “Aunt Maggie, is there anything else we need to take care of?”

  “That’s it. It’s just as well that our family never had any money—it makes settling the estate right much easier.” She slid a box out from under the table, lifted out a handful of books, and started restocking the table.

  I saw some writing on the outside of the box, and leaned down to get a better look. “Isn’t that Paw’s handwriting?”

  “Sure is. Ellis was at Red Clark’s auction with me last Friday night.”

  I started to nod, and then what she had said sank in. “You were with Paw Friday night?”

  She nodded, and said, “Ellis never bought anything at the auction, but he’d come every once in a while to help me load boxes.”

  “What time was the auction?”

  “About seven, I guess.”

  “How long did it last?”

  “It usually runs until eleven or so, but they didn’t have much that night, so I think it was over by nine.”

  “Did y’all leave right away?”

  “Ellis did, but I hung around a while to try to talk Willie Bell out of some glassware he outbid me on. Why?”

  “Where is this auction house?” I asked, ignoring her question.

  “It’s not in a house. It’s in Red Clark’s barn.”

  “Where?”