Decorated to Death (15 page)

With Stanley busy pouring gasoline around the outside perimeter of the barn, I took a last shot at asking the drunken Abner a couple of questions such as what had changed in his life that led to not one but two murders.

In words that were as slushy as they were slurred, Abner said that he made more money with the meth lab in six months than he did in six years of washing walls, painting fences, picking up trash, and repairing lawn mowers. He also said that after almost twenty years of mailing his rent check for the shed and barn to a woman he’d never met and who had never been out to the property, she notified him via mail that she was coming out to inspect the cottage and had plans to turn the place into a weekend retreat, something that would’ve put a definite crimp in his lucrative drug business.

“I thought by gettin’ rid of the old lady, I’d be back where I started, mailin’ my rent check to her next of kin, that Dona woman. Never thought she’d turn out to be nuttier than a fruitcake and have bigger plans for the property than the old biddy aunt had. I had no choice but to get rid of her, too. She was going to have me thrown off the property by the police. I couldn’t let that happen.”

Abner Wison paused and raised the refilled flask to his lips. He kept it there until it was empty once again. Totally inebriated, he struggled to continue and I struggled to make sense of what he was saying. What I gathered from his slurred speech was that thanks to Hilly Murrow’s newsy news reports he was aware of some trouble between Peter Parker and Dona Deville.

Donna called Abner at his house on Fourth Street Friday morning to inform him that she would be out to inspect the property after the book signing. Abner wasn’t home and she ended up speaking with Stanley. When asked by Dona to give Abner the message, Stanley told her in no uncertain terms to stay the hell away from the barn and shed.

When Dona heard that, she was furious and told Stanley to tell his uncle that if he didn’t meet her at the cottage by seven fifteen Saturday morning, all hell was going to break loose. Abner got the message and was ready and waiting for Dona, stethoscope in hand.

It’s been said that in the moments before you die, your whole life flashes before your eyes. The only thing that flashed before my eyes was the sight of Dumb and Dumber, the pet names I’d secretly assigned to Abner Wilson and his nephew, Stanley, running out of the barn after a heated arguement between the two over where to light the fire. Stanley favored the inside of the barn. His logic was that that way they would be sure that we hadn’t gotten free and put the fire out. The drunken Abner argued for the outside and ultimately prevailed. The reason they raced out of the barn was to move the SUV from its hiding place against the barn’s outside rear wall.

Almost as soon as they locked the barn door on their way out, I’d freed myself and was busy untying Mary. It was when I was struggling with a particularly stubborn knot that we both heard the unmistakeable whoosh of gasoline igniting. Again the luck of the Irish was with us and the knot released just as the first signs of smoke began to seep into the barn, along with the heat from the now-growing fire.

Pulling my cotton half-slip down around my feet, I took it off and tore it into strips which we then used as face masks against the smoke. In the pile of trash where Abner’s liquor had landed I found a dirty but damp rag that smelled of whiskey. Dropping down to the floor, Mary and I crawled over to Vincent Salerno, who was in the process of regaining consciousness. I thrust the whiskey-soaked rag into his face and tied it to his nose and mouth area using a strip of my slip.

I was out of ideas and I knew from the heat and smoke that we were running out of time. Hoping for a miracle, I began to pray and was unaware that in my desperation, I’d raised my voice until Vincent Salerno added a solemn amen to my prayers. Expecting Mary to do the same, I was confused when her expected amen turned into a hello. My cell phone! Mary had my cell phone!

Snatching it from her hand, my own hand was shaking so badly that I dropped the phone on the floor. In the semidarkness, Stanley had dutifully shut the light off when he exited the barn, and hampered by the choking smoke, heat, and noise of the fire, I ran my hand over the area where I thought the phone might have landed.

“Oh God, please help me find the phone.” I wasn’t praying; I was shouting. When both my companions told me to shut my big mouth, I was so taken aback that I did just that. That’s when Vincent Salerno passed the phone to Mary and she in turn passed it to me.

“It’s for you, Gin, I think it’s JR,” Mary managed to gasp before almost being overcome by a coughing fit brought on by the increasing smoke.

“JR, we need help. Call nine-one-one and tell them fire. The old barn by the cottage. Railway Road. Save us,” I shouted into the phone or at least I thought I did until I listened to JR’s response.

“Mother, I gotta go. Kerry’s late for her ballet lesson,” said JR using a rapid-fire delivery, something she does when she is especially irritated with me. “I can’t understand a word you’re saying when you cough like that, Mother. You really ought to give up smoking. Check your phone messages. I left you one about the underground tunnel that runs from the barn to the railroad station. Catch you later.” And with that JR, supermom, was gone.

Handing the phone to Mary, I asked her to call 911 for help after making sure that she, unlike JR, understood. Then turning to Vincent Salerno, and in a voice that sounded more like Walter Cronkite than me, I asked him to help me find the tunnel. JR is her father’s daughter. She never fibs. If she said there was a tunnel, you can bet your life on it. And that is exactly what I was doing with not just one life but three.

Mary was still talking to the 911 operator, who insisted that Mary stay on the line ’til help arrived, when I looked into the bin and discovered the tunnel entrance hidden beneath a couple of layers of filth and debris along with not one but two false bottoms.

With me leading the way, Vincent Salerno in the middle, and Mary bringing up the rear, still talking to the 911 operator, we hunched over and made our way through the long and very dark tunnel. Along the way I suspected that we had company of the rodent variety with very long tails and sharp teeth, but I kept that information to myself. I wasn’t sure if my back or my nerves were going to give out first, but by the time we’d reached the trap door hidden beneath the floor of the railroad station’s baggage room, the three of us, surviors all, looked, smelled, and acted as if we’d just returned from an extended stay in the wilds of Borneo.

When Matt, accompanied by Sid Rosen, found us in a heap on the floor of the station’s waiting room, he smiled and said, “Jean Hastings, party of three, your table’s ready.”

“Smoking or nonsmoking?” I managed to ask before being whisked off to Garrison General Hospital along with Mary and Vincent Salerno. Incidentally, “Just call me Vinny” turned out to be a really nice guy. So much for first impressions.

The following morning I awoke to a note that had been left on the bedside table in my hospital room. The note simply read:
If you need me, just whistle.
It was unsigned but like the notes I’d been leaving for Charlie, no signature was needed. I knew who’d sent it and understood the message.

Feeling like the drunk who sobers up in jail but then wonders when his freedom will be restored, I pressed the call button in hopes of getting the answer. Instead, all I got was a scolding from the head nurse, who informed me that the button was only to be used to summon help.

Since my vital signs were in the normal range, she ordered me to get back under the covers, turned on her heel, and bustled out of the room. As far as when I could expect to be released, I was in the same spot as the drunk—I didn’t know.

After failing to glean any information regarding my status from the student nurse who took my temperature, the aide who delivered my breafast tray, the hospital chaplain who dropped by to say hello, and an intern who had me confused with another patient, I gave up. Whoever said that you can’t fight city hall must have been in the hospital at the time.

I later leaned from the cleaning lady that Peter Parker had been in to see me when I was asleep. She overheard him tell Charlie, who was present at the time, that I was scheduled to be released the following day.

The woman was a virtual fount of information. She said that Mary had been released the night before after receiving a clean bill of health. She even knew that Denny was with Mary the entire time Mary was in the emergency room and that Salerno was up on the third floor (I was on the second floor) in room 321, Charlie’s room. Because of the concussion he’d suffered, Salerno was going to be in for a while, doctor’s orders.

“But how can he share a room with Charlie? Doesn’t my husband have some kind of unidentified, deadly rash?”

“Listen, dearie, it was much to do about nothing. He had a bad case of prickly heat. Yesterday I brought him a bottle of calamine lotion from Finklestein’s and he’s as good as new,” said the cleaning lady as she headed for the door. “That hubby of yours is a real prince of a fella. He insisted on paying me five bucks for the lotion. See ya later.” And with that said, she was gone.

Without a clock or watch, I turned on the TV in an effort to keep track of the time. The soaps were on all the network channels so I knew I’d missed the noon news out of Indy.

Switching channels, I stopped when I hit our local channel. Hilly Murrow was about to come on with what the voice-over called a special report. Assuming it would be about what had happened the day before out on Old Railway Road, I sat back and waited.

Alas, the entire report, except for a blurb about “a suspicious barn fire out in the boondocks,” centered on the Dona Deville funeral service, the luncheon, and the people in attendance. I was singled out by our ace reporter for wearing, as she put it, “an inappropriate, skimpy T-shirt, play shoes, and a see-through cocktail skirt.” When she was commenting on my outfit, the expression on her pinched face reflected her obvious disapproval.

“Yo, Miss Manners,” I hissed at the image on the TV screen, “I’m an interior designer, not Coco Chanel. And for your information, I was wearing a cotton half-slip.”

Disgusted, I switched to HGTV and watched as a talented interior designer transformed a small, narrow, outdated bathroom into a large, updated, and functional master bath.

By knocking out the wall between an unused hall closet and the bathroom’s linen closet, needed footage was added to the width of the room. Newly installed can lights and a skylight illuminated the entire space and rid it of its previous cavelike atmosphere.

Since the homeowners preferred showering rather than bathing, the tub and shower unit was removed and replaced with a large walk-in shower. The new shower area was tiled from floor to ceiling in large, chocolate-brown ceramic tiles and trimmed midway around in small, multicolored accent tiles.

Double sinks with brushed chrome fixtures were installed along with new hickory wood cabinets. The granite countertop that the homeowners, with help from the designer, had selected was basically a sandy color with streaks of cream, green, and chocolate brown. Over the sinks were twin mirrors with narrow forest-green frames.

Because the husband was a very tall man, the designer raised the height of the counter, something that the man greatly appreciated. The happy homeowners were oohing and aahing over their new master bath when Rollie Stevens walked into my hospital room. The way my luck was running, I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d come to arrest me for not wearing black to Dona Deville’s funeral.

“Afternoon, Mrs. Hastings. Mind if I sit down?” he asked as he pulled the bedside chair away from the head of the bed and moved it toward the foot.

“Be my guest,” I answered with a smile. Uncertain why he’d dropped in on me, I kept quiet and waited for him to continue speaking.

“I know it’s your line of business and all, but I would appreciate it if you’d shut off that decorator program or at least turn it down. This darn new hearing aid picks up everything. If I thought I could get away with it, I’d take it out and pretend I lost it.”

I knew he was going somewhere with his remarks. With patience, I figured I’d eventually find out exactly where. In the meantime, I used the remote and turned off the TV.

“But you know my Martha, she’d probably run right out and buy me a new one. She got this thing about helping me. ’Course I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know, right, Jean? I’ll call you Jean and you can call me Rollie, okay?”

“No problem, Rollie. How is Martha? I haven’t talked to her lately, or Charlie either for that matter. According to what young Dr. Parker tells me, she’s doing a great job getting Charlie up and moving.”

“Yeah, she’s a heck of a therapist,” said Rollie, shifting his stocky body in the too-small, uncomfortable chair. The police chief looked so ill at ease, I decided to end his misery by cutting to the chase.

“Okay, Chief,” I said, addressing him by his official title, which was a signal that I wasn’t buying his friendly banter and wanted to get to why he’d stopped by to see me. “How much do you know and how did you figure it out?”

“Let’s just say that after being married over fifty years to the same woman, there’s not much I don’t know about Martha and she don’t know about me,” said the police chief, looking as though the weight of the world had just been removed from his shoulders.

“When I started complaining about all hours she was spending with your husband, she clammed up and let me rant and rave. That’s not normal for someone who’s as feisty as Martha. Did you know she even stood up to that Castro fella? In public, no less. He tried to get her to back down but she wouldn’t do it. Instead, she went to his brother and got him to sneak her out of the country. Now that’s what I call feisty. Of course the brother denied the whole thing.”

In an effort to keep Rollie Stevens on track, I asked him how he got Martha to tell him the whole story. So far, neither one of us had used the word “deal,” but I knew the conversation was leading up to it.

“I’m embarrassed to say this, him being your husband and all, but when I couldn’t get anything out of Martha I felt something wasn’t right,” said Rollie, “so I stopped by to see Charlie. He’s a heck of a guy, but I guess you know that already.”

I nodded my head, smiled broadly, and waited for Rollie Stevens to continue.

“We had a good long talk about this that and the next thing, you know, stuff I don’t think I have to explain, but at any rate when we got to talking about the Dona Deville murder, Charlie yells ‘Bingo’ so loud, the head nurse come in and gave us both a lecture. He figured out the whole thing for me. I went home and never said a word to Martha. It would’ve ruined everything because everything she did was for me.”

I waited while the police chief removed a neatly folded, clean, white handkerchief from the inside pocket of his uniform jacket and wiped the tears that threatened to run down his gingerbread-colored cheeks.

“Darn allergies,” he said, clearing his throat and pulling a small tape recorder from the right-hand pocket of his jacket. “Now, what have you got for me?”

An hour later, and after giving him my word of honor that I would never tell Martha that the secret deal I’d made with her wasn’t a secret to Rollie or Charlie, the police chief kissed me on my cheek (that really suprised me) and said good-bye.

Maybe because I had given him a tape recorder full of information, he felt I deserved some information in return. I don’t know that for sure, but for whatever reason, before he took his leave, he explained that the hush-hush investigation Matt had been conducting tied in with the whole Deville/Wilson business. While I was busy with the Deville investigation, Matt and Sid Rosen, with the police chief’s knowledge and blessing, were hot on the trail of the meth lab and its connection to the rash of buglaries and car break-ins that Seville had been experiencing. The robberies and break-ins were being done by Abner’s young customers who needed money to fund their drug habit. They took most of what they stole to a fence in Springvale.

I was delighted that Rollie Stevens decided to share the information with me because after I had time to think about all that had happened the day before, it had puzzled me that it was my son-in-law, Matt, who had been on hand to greet me at the railroad station. Until Rollie Stevens explained how Matt’s investigation dovetailed with mine, I hadn’t realized the two investigations were even remotely connected.

After Rollie had departed, I was seriously thinking of making a run to the third floor to see Charlie, but I didn’t think I’d be able to get away with running around the halls of the hospital dressed in a skimpy hospital gown. With my luck I’d run into Hilly Murrow and be publicly taken to task for running around in an obscene nightgown. My problem of how to get to Charlie’s room and what to wear was solved when my husband came walking, or rather hobbling, through the door.

“Hi, sweetheart. Want some company?” he said, sitting himself down in the little chair that Rollie Stevens had so recently vacated.

“You better believe it, especially if it’s you,” I replied, hopping out of bed and giving Charlie a kiss and hug. “Good lord, Charlie, we’ve been like two ships passing in the night,” I said as I plopped down on the edge of the bed. “I like your robe and pajamas. Are they new?”

“Yeah, JR surprised me with them yesterday afternoon, but we can talk about that later. What we need to talk about right now is what landed you in the hospital. And before you begin with your explanation, I think I should warn you that I’ve already talked to Matt.”

While Charlie wasn’t exactly his old jolly self, at least he seemed to be reasonably calm.

“Jeez, I almost don’t know how or where to begin,” I said, knowing I had to proceed with the utmost caution. My amateur sleuthing has been a thorn in Charlie’s side from day one. If I wasn’t careful, the all too familiar lecture about me sticking my nose into other people’s business, especially police business, could reach a new level.

“I suggest that you start at the beginning with you and Mary discovering Dona Deville’s body and ending with you, Mary, and my new roommate hopping the underground express to the old railroad station,” Charlie instructed, “and don’t leave anything out, including why you made that deal with Martha Stevens.”

Trapped and with nowhere to go, I did as I was told. When I got to the part about being tied up in the burning barn, I tried to put a positive spin on the incident, which was virtually impossible.

“…and then I woke up and read your note. It was as clever as it was sweet,” I said, flashing what I hoped was a winning smile and steeling myself for Charlie’s lecture.

Like a prosecuting attorney delivering the closing arguement in a slam-dunk case, Charlie hit on all the mistakes I’d made and the dire consequences that followed, such as not going to the police and ending up in a burning barn. He also reminded me that if he didn’t love me so much, he wouldn’t care that I had developed “a taste for solving deadly puzzles.”

I was saved from giving Charlie my word that I would give up sleuthing by the appearance of Martha Stevens, who was there to escort Charlie back to his room via the wheelchair she’d brought along. She flashed me the okay sign for keeping my part of our deal as she settled Charlie in the chair and wheeled him out of the room.

Later that evening, the nursing staff arranged for me and Charlie to have a candlelight dinner in my room. All was forgiven, and like my investigation, it ended on a positive note.