Live Free or Die

by Jessie Crockett

  “I didn’t break into her house.” Chris wiped the sweat beads that had formed above his upper lip on his shirt sleeve.

  “But you killed her, right? Or maybe you and your mother did it?” Hugh said. Chris twitched like he’d stuck a knife too deeply into the toaster retrieving a bagel.

  “My mother?”

  “You made a bad tactical error,” I said. “At the bottom of things Harold is a decent man. He told us about the affair he had with Ethel and the blackmail, including the fires. He didn’t want to go into surgery with a bad conscience. You should have stopped before you killed someone. Or two someones. Did you kill your own mother, too?”

  “We didn’t kill anybody. We did set some fires. If my chickenshit old man spilled his guts, I guess there ain’t any way to keep that quiet anymore, but I absolutely didn’t kill anybody.” The jiggling under the table got stronger. I was glad I had my crutches to help keep me steady.

  “I’m not inclined to believe you,” Hugh said. “As a matter of fact, I’d prefer not to believe you. Of all the people I’ve met in Winslow Falls, I’d like it best if you were the one I was hauling away to face a judge. Unless you’ve got something you’d like to share to help me change my mind, I think I’ll ask Ray if I can borrow his desk to start the paperwork. It looks to me like this case is wrapped up as pretty as a Christmas gift.” Chris squirmed in his seat like a kid on a six-hour road trip.

  “Ethel rented a storage unit in Hoyt’s Mills. I’ve got the key on the ring Ray took from me. She stored things there that she was clearing out of the Museum a little at a time. She’d sell the items on line at auction sites or even to dealers whenever she traveled out of the area,” Chris said.

  “How did she take so much of the Museum’s collection without anyone noticing?” I asked.

  “How much attention do you think people paid to what was in that rat trap? She stuck to the most boring exhibits and the things in storage. Anything she worried about, she swapped with an item that looked similar but wasn’t worth anything. She’d pick up old teapots and jewelry at garage sales and flea markets. Then she’d make the switch.”

  “What about the upcoming inventory? Wasn’t she worried about that?” I asked.

  “Beulah accepted Ethel’s suggestion that they do the inventory together and not bother anyone else with it. Beulah already thought the trustees hated doing it and didn’t like to be bothered.” Ouch. That stung. I did hate doing the inventory. Every year Beulah would call up and remind me that it was scheduled for the third week in January. I’d been relieved when she said that she could handle it alone with Ethel.

  “That gives you an even stronger motive for killing Beulah. If she noticed the substitutions, you and your mother would land in jail.” Hugh sat down opposite Chris and parted the boxes to get a clear view. “Without an alibi you look better.” Chris flicked his eyes towards Ernesto and back to Hugh.

  “I have an alibi. Ernesto and I were making a delivery to the storage unit at the time of the fire. Ask him.” Chris straightened and spun round to face the other man. Ernesto stared back, not saying a word. “Come on, you ignorant jerk, tell him.”

  “You know, Chris, you really take after your mother in the people skills department,” Ray said.

  “Ernesto,” I said, “do you understand what Chris is saying about you?” Ernesto nodded his dark head. “It won’t help you to say you were with Chris if you weren’t.”

  “I go with Boss to little building for stuffs from Museum. When we are back to Winslow Falls, much problems with fire. I go to my sister house and say to her there is fire. Diego go to see and returned for to tell us what is happened.” Ernesto kept his eyes firmly locked on mine, never looking once at Chris.

  “See, what’d I tell you? I wasn’t even in town when the fire started.” Chris leaned forward, palms flat on the table.

  “It still doesn’t mean you didn’t kill her. For all we know you coshed her over the head and then called your mother to finish off the job while you snuck out of town.” Hugh stood up again. “At the very least you’ve admitted to committing arson. No matter what, you’re headed for the county lock-up.”

  Twenty-Seven

  Hugh offered to drop me at home on his way to the county jail, but the thought of encountering Augusta and Gene again made me uncomfortable. I wish I could say it was because I didn’t care for my sister using my guest room like a cheap hotel. The reality is I was just the tiniest bit envious. So I asked Hugh to drop me at Beulah’s instead, saying I needed to pick up some more of Pinkerton’s things.

  Feeling sorrier for myself than I had in a long time, I waved Hugh off and let myself in with the key. Dust had settled on the surfaces. Only a week after her death, the house was taking on an unlived-in look. I eased back in Beulah’s favorite chair and propped my bad ankle up on the ottoman. Without Beulah there to distract me with her conversation, I peered around in an unhurried way I hadn’t before.

  The walls were covered with mild landscape paintings in faded colors. Unsmiling faces stared out from sepia photos and daguerreotypes. I picked up one of Eustace and his wife. Squinting at the image I noticed that Eustace was gripping a cane. The head of the cane was a hand with the index finger pointing straight up. Just like the ornament on the museum clock tower. Just like the cane Beulah had used after her hip replacement surgery.

  I’d commented on it when I first saw her using it, and she said it was a family heirloom. At the time I hadn’t been aware of the Know-Nothings. Could Eustace have been a member? Beulah never mentioned anything like that, but then, maybe she was embarrassed that her family was involved with terrorizing immigrants. The cane looked like a good idea. My crutches were more than I really needed to get around, and I hated how cumbersome they were.

  I stood up and circled the room looking for a cane. If Beulah had been using it, she should have left it around somewhere. Then I remembered, she would have had it at the Museum when she died. But it wasn’t there. If the cane wasn’t there when we found her body, someone had to have been there with her when she died, someone who decided to take it.

  Leaving the front room, I inspected the dining room. It had long since ceased to function as a place to eat. Beulah had turned it into an office. Old-fashioned registers were stacked on the floor. Paperwork fanned out across the table. A wingback chair with a padded seat had displaced a wooden dining chair. Walking home at night from work, I often saw lights in this room and Beulah hunched over the table.

  I glanced over what had been the work in progress when Beulah died. Genealogy and the list for the Museum inventory lay in front of the wingback. A pad of paper covered in Beulah’s pointy scratching lay next to the inventory. I settled in her seat and scanned through the final things that had been on her mind.

  Beulah’s notes read like her conversation, scattered and informal. Notes about a cemetery with family names topped the list. Without a segue, Beulah’s thoughts had moved to the inventory. She had noted the increase in the insurance policy rates and whether the cost could be justified. She questioned the valuation of the embroidery sampler collection and the value of the toy train set gifted to the Museum by the Purington family. Ask Gene to Double Check was underlined twice with an arrow pointing at a number equaling the premium total.

  I stood up and moved around the room to warm up. Fifty degrees might keep the pipes from freezing, but it wasn’t comfortable for sitting. The kitchen wall clock read seven. The street was dark and quiet as I relocked the door behind me. I was too tired to care if Augusta still had a visitor. I tested my ankle a little as I limped down the street. If I could locate a cane to replace the crutches, it would be more convenient.

  My porch light was lit, and a note was centered on the kitchen table letting me know Augusta had gone to Gene’s for a drink and that I shouldn’t wait up. I shucked my dripping boots and went upstairs to soak in a hot bath. Just as I eased myself under the hot surface of the water, the phone rang. I ignored it and went on soaking.

/>   Christmas cards and belated packages flowed into the post office December twenty-sixth with almost as much strength as they had in the days running up to Christmas. Guilt oozed from boxes and envelopes sitting in bulging drawstring bags in the back room. Trina did not flow or ooze into the post office. In fact, she didn’t appear at all. I hadn’t expected her to after helping to arrest Chris on Christmas Day. I hoped that Kyle and Krystal had really enjoyed the video game system.

  Winston came in looking sober. Clive had been at Dinah’s bragging about holding down the fort for Ray while Winston had been busy watching television as the grandkids ripped up his living room. Ray didn’t make him feel better being in on Chris’s arrest firsthand. The most exciting thing that happened to Winston on Christmas was finding out that his new antacid medication really was as good as the advertisements said it would be.

  “I need some stamps, but don’t give me any with Christmas designs. Gimme some flags or an eagle or something.” Winston leaned his bulk up against the counter.

  “How many did you want?” I slid open the stamp drawer and pulled out a selection for him to choose from. Winston always picked flags or eagles so I don’t know why I bothered.

  “I don’t know. I need a bunch, but they’ve gotten so damn expensive, I hate to buy a whole sheet at once.”

  “Don’t be a cheapskate. You know it’s a carefully regulated industry. We only raise prices to keep up with costs. I’d like to see you go first class for what it costs to send a letter across the country.”

  “I remember when stamps cost three cents.”

  “They were three cents each for over a century. Have you ever heard of anything staying the same price that long?”

  “I think it’s all them fancy stamps. I’ll bet they’re driving up the costs. What’s the matter with good old presidential stamps? I remember Eisenhower and Roosevelt. Washington even. If they’re good enough to be on our money, why did we stop putting them on the stamps?” He scowled at the door and rolled his eyes as Clive strutted in.

  “Is Winston giving you a hard time this morning Gwen?” Clive gave me one of his snaggletooth grins. “Cause I’d be happy to take him on over to the police station and keep an eye on him ‘til he simmers down.”

  “No, thank you, Clive. He’s just sore about the cost of stamps and the fact that they aren’t making them with presidents anymore.”

  “I’ve got a bunch with presidents in my collection. They had a lot of them at the Museum, too, not that I know if they survived the fire.” Clive collected stamps along with coins, bird nests and teeth from all manner of creatures. He brought the teeth in to show me once. It was creepy. So I tried to encourage the stamp collecting. I usually kept back a couple of sheets I knew would interest him, tucked out of sight beneath the plainer choices.

  “Do you have any one-cent Washington stamps?” I rang up a book of ten flags for Winston and handed him the change.

  “I have one, but I’d like to get my hands on a nicer specimen. There were a lot of them issued so they aren’t hard to find. Nice ones are not as easy.”

  “What would you say yours is worth?” I asked.

  “Fourteen hundred probably.”

  “Dollars?” I asked. The thought of Clive having more than two months’ Social Security to rub together was flabbergasting.

  “Of course dollars. What would I want with any foreign money?” Clive disappeared out of sight, and I heard him turning the lock on his post office box.

  “If that one isn’t very good, how much would a valuable one be worth?” How could I have been working in the post office all these years and paid so little attention? I guess I was just so sick of postage by the end of the day, it never occurred to me to enjoy it during my leisure time.

  “An uncanceled one in very fine condition sold at an auction house around ten times that a couple of years ago.” Clive’s voice echoed through his postal box. A bunch of stamps at fourteen thousand apiece gave Chris a fine reason for murder.

  Twenty-Eight

  Just before lunch Gene arrived in the post office carrying a cane.

  “I thought you might be doing well enough by now to replace your crutches with this. Consider it a hostess gift for my visit yesterday.” Gene blushed and cleared his throat.

  “I can’t accept this. It could be valuable.”

  “It cost me almost nothing. Give it no more thought.”

  “I think your idea of valuable and mine don’t always overlap. Clive tells me the stamp you said wasn't valuable sells for about fourteen hundred dollars each, even in fair condition. Is that what you mean by not worth much?”

  “I believe I also said I wasn’t a stamp expert. My interests lie more with period furniture, autographs and ephemera.” Gene plucked a handkerchief from his breast pocket and buffed the silver head of the cane.

  “Clive said the museum had a bunch of those stamps. Do you think the ones in the collection could have been underinsured?” Gene’s hands sped up on the buffing.

  “Beulah seemed to think the fact that I have an antique shop makes me an expert on everything over twenty years old. Do you know she once asked me to give her an estimate on her Mason jars? She had enough of them in her attic to start a jam factory.” Gene handed me the cane.

  “Augusta said pickle factory when we saw them. So, were they valuable?”

  “Not enough to justify dragging me out on a cold evening to climb rickety stairs, they weren’t. Beulah would expect me to trot on over any time something she noticed lying around the house caught her attention. I felt like a trick dog.” Gene rolled his eyes.

  “I’d get calls about her mail or a dripping faucet,” I sympathized. “Beulah was just lonely.”

  “Perhaps, but that didn’t mean I delighted in being at her beck and call.”

  “Do you remember the cane she used after her hip surgery? It looked like the hand on the museum.” Turning over the cane in my hand, I liked the heft of it. I leaned my weight on it and felt it hold.

  “I don’t even remember her having one. Does that one suit you?”

  “It’s perfect. Thanks again.”

  “Enjoy. And give my regards to your charming sister.”

  On my lunch break I tried out the cane. As I shuffled along Diego appeared at my side, a shovel perched on his shoulder.

  “No crutches today?” he asked.

  “No. Gene at The Hodge Podge gave me this to try instead.”

  “It is easy to use?”

  “I think so.”

  “Many people use these for walking?”

  “Mostly older people.”

  “My grandfather has one in Brazil. It is yellow metal on the top.”

  “Brass, I think you mean.”

  “Yes, that is the word.” Diego nodded. “I was at the police seeing my uncle.”

  “How is he doing?”

  “He is afraid. My mother, too. Immigration will send him back, and we are better having him with us because my father does not help with money.”

  “Do you know if Ray has called Immigration yet?”

  “I am thinking he did not. The police station is not like ones on television.” We had gotten to the station and looked in the window. Ernesto sat at the table pointing at a hand of cards fanned out in front of him. Ray was gesturing animatedly and laying down his own hand. The post office was supposed to reopen in five minutes. Fortunately, we’ve never received a visit from the Post Master General, so I wasn’t worried about anything other than a few grumbles.

  “No, it isn’t really like a police station at all.” I climbed the steps to the station and pushed the door open. Ray glanced up and dropped his hand over a pile of animal crackers in the center of the table.

  “Are you gambling?” I thumped my cane to punctuate my words. “In the police station?”

  “It’s only for animal crackers. There’s nothing wrong with that.” Ray looked as sheepish as I’d seen him since the time the Sunday school teacher caught him helping himself to sec
onds from the communion wafer tray.

  “What are the camels worth?” I ate one from Ray’s pile. Camels are my favorites.

  “You owe me five dollars.” Ray stretched out his broad palm like he thought I’d pay up. I snagged an elephant.

  “Elephants are ten dollars, yes?” Ernesto looked at Ray for confirmation. Ray nodded and dug into the circus box for a camel and an elephant.

  “You knew Chris played poker with Winston, Bill, Harold, Clive and me Wednesday nights, didn’t you?” Ray dealt new cards and tossed a lion into the pot. I peeked at his hand and decided that lions couldn’t be worth more than a dollar.

  “I’d heard about it.” I wandered over to look at Ernesto’s cards. His pile of crackers was large, and with the cards he was holding, he could afford an elephant.

  “Well, with Chris locked up and Harold out of commission, we could use another player. And Ernie here is good, real good.” Ray chewed his lower lip as he watched Ernesto toss in two elephants and a camel.

  “So I see. Too bad he’s trespassing. You could add gambling to the trespassing charges, or at least you could mention it when you call Immigration.” I winked at Ernesto.

  “He’s taught me more in the last eighteen hours about poker than I’ve learned in the twenty-five years I’ve been playing.”

  “Well, then, it’ll be a shame to see him go. I’m sure he could have taught you enough to beat the pants off Clive and the rest of them if he only had enough time.” I turned to leave. “Good luck with the deportation, Ernie. I’ll tell your nephew you said goodbye.” Ray’s hand hovered over his chip pile.

  “I’ve been too busy to call Immigration. As to the trespassing thing, I may have been a little hasty. I’m a big guy. I know when to say I was wrong.” Ray threw in another lion.