Black Monday, A Stan Turner Mystery Vol 7

by William Manchee

  Chapter 5

  THE FUNERAL

   

  Rebekah and her mother volunteered to do all the arrangements for Lottie West's funeral. I was greatly relieved as I didn't like funerals. I guess that was because I'd only been to two funerals in my entire life—my father's and Rita Andrew's. Both of their deaths haunted me. For years all my father talked about was retiring and traveling around the country with my mother. But shortly after his 65th birthday he developed cancer of the esophagus and travel was out of the question. For the next six months we watched him slowly starve to death.

  Rita Andrews was a nurse who had the misfortune of falling in love with me. I was in the Marine Corps and ended up in her ward at Quantico Naval Hospital after being beat up by my drill sergeant the first day of boot camp. She cared for me and eventually gave her life so that I wouldn't have to stand trial for murder. I loved them both and felt so guilty that I wasn't able to do anything to save them.

  It was a perfect day for a funeral. The sky was clear, the wind was still, and temperature was a pleasant sixty-three degrees. The service drew a respectable crowd of twenty-five souls paying tribute to a mysterious woman whom they knew nothing about. As three vocalists led us in Rock of Ages, I wondered about Lottie West. Who was she? What had happened to her friends and family? Why had she died alone? Would there be someone to meet her in Heaven or was that her destination?

  After the funeral, Rebekah, Derek, and I went to Lottie's home to do an inventory of her property. The house reeked of natural gas and dog odor and was in such disarray that we considered abandoning the venture and hiring someone to do it. But after a few minutes we got used to the smell and started rummaging through Lottie's property.

  "I'm going to see if I can find any records," I said. "Rebekah, why don't you take a legal pad and start making a list of what personal property she has."

  "Okay," Rebekah said, grabbing a legal pad from my briefcase.

  "I'll check out the house—see what's working, what's not," Derek said.

  "Good," I replied and headed for the bedroom.

  Lottie's bedroom was in much better shape than the rest of the house. She apparently had kept the dogs out of her room. I was glad to discover this, as the thought of her sleeping with a dozen dogs was unsettling. I noticed several family photos on a desk. The first was a man in a full dress Army uniform who looked to be in his early 30s. He was tall, fair skinned, and handsome.

  The second photo was a family shot of Lottie, the tall stranger, another woman and two children—a boy and a girl. I sat down and started going through each drawer one by one. In the bottom drawer I found a stack of envelopes held together by two rubber bands. When I picked up the stack, the rubber bands broke and the envelopes scattered.

  "Shit," I said and then heard a dog barking and growling in the other room.

  "Ahhhh! Stan!" Rebekah screamed from the kitchen.

  I jumped up and ran into the kitchen. A skinny black dog had Rebekah penned in the corner. It was pacing back and forth and growling at her.

  "He's going to bite me!"

  Cautiously I approached the dog and said, "Just be still, honey. He won't hurt you. Will you, nice doggy?"

  I eased myself between Rebekah and the dog. The dog continued to growl and bare his teeth. Then the back door opened and Derek walked in. Seeing the opened door, the dog bolted for it and was gone. Rebekah breathed a sigh of relief.

  I said, "Where did he come from?"

  "Somebody shut him in the closet, I guess. When I opened it, he ran out. Scared the livin' crap out of me."

  I couldn't help but laugh.

   "It isn't funny," Rebekah said, still shaking.

  Derek replied, "You're lucky he didn't take a bite out of you. By my calculations he hasn't eaten for at least three days."

  "How did he survive the gas?" Rebekah asked.

  "And how about the crime scene crew? I can't imagine how they could have overlooked him," I said.

  Derek walked over to the closet where the dog had emerged. He turned on the light and looked inside. "There's a hole," he said.

  I walked over and looked over Derek's shoulder. There was a passageway big enough for a dog or a child to go through. "It must lead to the crawl space under the house," I said.

  "Maybe we should check it out," Derek said.

  "Why?" Rebekah said. "There's probably nothing under there but rats and spiders."

  I smiled. "Probably, but there may be other dogs trapped in there. I suppose we should take a look."

  "Let animal control do it," Rebekah said shuddering. "I don't like the idea of either of you going under this house. This place gives me the creeps."

  Ignoring Rebekah's protests, I said, "Don't worry, I'll get a flashlight and take a look from the outside before we go in."

  "I've got one," Derek said. "I'll go get it."

  Derek left to go get a flashlight and I went outside to look for a way into the crawl space. In the backyard I found a wooden door that led under the house. When Derek came back with the flashlight, I kicked the door opened with my foot and shone the light inside. There didn't appear to be anything under the house but some old paint cans and a lot of cobwebs. Then I noticed a red cooler over in a corner.

  "Somebody left their Igloo under here," I said.

  "Probably the plumber—had a few beers while he was working," Derek surmised.

  "I doubt it. He'd have taken it with him. I think I'll crawl under there and see what's in it."

  "No!" Rebekah moaned. "Don't go under there. Come on. It's just a stupid cooler."

  "Oh, don't worry. Derek will keep the flashlight on me."

  I crawled through the hole and carefully made my way to the cooler. The cobwebs were thick. I prayed that none of them had been spun by the infamous brown recluse spider which was common in North Texas. Their bite was deadly. When I got to the cooler I tried to pull it around so I could open it, but it wouldn't move.

  "I don't know if this is just heavy or it's caught on something," I said.

  "You want me to come help," Derek asked.

  "No," I said as I finally got the cooler to move. "That's weird," I said, noticing the cooler was padlocked.

  "What?" Rebekah asked.

  "Somebody took their beer drinking quite serious."

  After I had towed the cooler out from beneath the house with much difficulty, we all stood over it wondering what was inside. Since we didn't have a key, Derek went back to his car for a tire iron. When he returned, he stuck the narrow end of the tire iron under the lid and pried it open. The old plastic gave way without much of a battle. As the contents of the cooler came into view, Rebekah exclaimed, "Oh, my God!"

  We all stared into the cooler in disbelief. It was filled to the brim with gold and silver coins. Derek said, "Well, look at that little stash. And I was worried about having enough money to pay for her funeral."

  "I wonder what all that is worth," I said.

  Derek knelt down and picked up a handful of the coins. They were a mixture of old silver dollars, gold pieces, and other coins that I didn't recognize.

  "Thousands—maybe hundreds of thousands. Some of these coins may be pretty rare."

  "What are you going to do with them?" Rebekah asked.

  "Inventory them and then get an appraisal," I replied. "I guess I'll have to get a safety deposit box too."

  "We better check this place out very carefully. No telling what else Lottie may have stashed around here," Derek said.

  We continued our search of the house all afternoon but found nothing but a lot of books on art history. Apparently Lottie West had been an art lover. The final shock of the day came when I got back to my office. Detective Besch of the Dallas Police Department had called. He wanted me to know that Lottie West's death hadn't been accidental. The gas had been intentionally injected into the house from the gas furnace through the heating and air condition ventilation system.

   I wondered why someone would murder an old la
dy who lived alone. Then it dawned on me why she had so many dogs. She was scared, needed protection, and a good alarm system in case whoever was looking for her got too close. Unfortunately, dogs were as susceptible to natural gas as humans. I wondered how much the killers had stolen after they killed her. There was obviously a lot I didn't know about Lottie West and needed to find out to protect the estate from further looting.