Murder on the Prowl (14 page)

30

Harry dropped the feed scoop in the sweet feed when the phone rang in the tack room.

She hurried in and picked up the phone. It was 6:30
A
.
M
.

“Miranda, it had to be you.”

“Just as Rick Shaw said, the story of Roscoe's poisoning is finally in the paper. But no one is using the word ‘murder.'”

“Huh—well, what does it say?”

“There's the possibility of accidental ingestion, but deliberate poisoning can't be ruled out. Rick's soft-pedaling it.”

“What has me baffled is the motive. Roscoe was a good headmaster. He liked the students. They liked him, and the parents did, too. There's just something missing—or who knows, maybe it was random, like when a disgruntled employee put poison in Tylenol.”

“That was heinous.”

“Except—I don't know—I'm just lost. I can't think of any reason for him to be killed.”

“He wasn't rich. He appeared to have no real enemies. He had disagreements with people like Sandy Brashiers, but”—Miranda stopped to cough—“well, I guess that's why we have a sheriff's department. If there is something, they'll find it.”

“You're right,” Harry responded with no conviction whatsoever.

31

The repeated honking of a car horn brought Harry to the front window of the post office. Tucker, annoyed, started barking. Mrs. Murphy opened one eye. Then she opened both eyes.

“Would you look at that?” Harry exclaimed.

Miranda, swathed in an old cashmere cardigan—she was fighting off the sniffles—craned her neck. “Isn't that the cutest thing you ever saw?”

Pewter bustled out of Market's store. She had put in an appearance today, primarily because she knew sides of pork would be carried in to hang in the huge back freezer.

Jody Miller, her black eye fading, emerged from a red BMW sports car. The fenders were rounded, the windshield swept back at an appealing angle. She hopped up the steps to the post office.

Harry opened the door for her. “What a beautiful car!”

“I know.” The youngster shivered with delight.

“Did your father buy you that?” Miranda thought of her little Ford Falcon. As far as she was concerned, the styling was as good as this far more expensive vehicle's.

“No, I bought it myself. When Grandpa died, he left money for me, and it's been drawing interest. It finally made enough to buy a new car!”

“Has everyone at school seen it?” Harry asked.

“Yeah, and are they jealous.”

Since she was the first student to come in to pick up mail that day, neither woman knew what the kids' responses were to the newspaper story.

“How are people taking the news about Mr. Fletcher?” Miranda inquired.

Jody shrugged. “Most people think it was some kind of accident. People are really mad at Sean, though. A lot of kids won't talk to him now. I'm not talking to him either.”

“Rather a strange accident,” Miranda mumbled.

“Mr. Fletcher was kind of absentminded.” Jody bounced the mail on the counter, evening it. “I liked him. I'll miss him, too, but Dad says people have a shelf life and Mr. Fletcher's ran out. He said there really aren't accidents. People decide when to go.”

“Only the Lord decides that.” Miranda firmly set her jaw.

“Mrs. Hogendobber, you'll have to take that up with Dad. It's”—she glanced at the ceiling, then back at the two women—“too deep for me. 'Bye.” She breezed out the door.

“Kendrick sounds like a misguided man—and a cold-blooded one.” Miranda shook her head as Pewter popped through the animal door, sending the flap whapping.

“Hey, I'd look good in that car.”

“Pewter, you need a station wagon.”
Mrs. Murphy jabbed at her when she jumped on the counter.

“I am growing weary, very weary, of these jokes about my weight. I am a healthy cat. My bones are different from yours. I don't say anything about your hair thinning on your belly.”

“Is not!”

“Mmm.”
The gray cat was noncommittal, which infuriated the tiger.

“Do cats get bald?”
Tucker asked.

“She is.”

“Pewter, I am not.”
Mrs. Murphy flopped on her back, showing the world her furry tummy.

Harry noticed this brazen display. “Aren't you the pretty puss?”

“Bald.”

“Am not.”
Mrs. Murphy twisted her head to glare at Pewter.

“Wouldn't you love to know what this is about?” Harry laughed.

“Yes, I would.” Miranda looked at the animals pensively. “How do I know they aren't talking about us?”

“And this coming from a woman who didn't like cats.”

“Well—”

“You used to rail at me for bringing Mrs. Murphy and Tucker to work, and you said it was unclean for Market to have Pewter in the store.”

Mrs. Hogendobber tickled Mrs. Murphy's stomach. “I have repented of my ways. ‘O Lord, how manifold are thy works! In wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches.' Psalm one hundred four.” She smiled. “Cats and dogs are part of His riches.”

As if on cue, the Reverend Herbert Jones strolled in. “Girls.”

“Herb, how are you?”

“Worried.” He opened his mailbox, the metal rim clicking when it hit the next box because he opened it hard. “Roscoe Fletcher murdered . . .” He shook his head.

“The paper didn't say he was murdered—just poisoned,” Harry said.

“Harry, I've known you all your life. You think he was murdered, just as I do.”

“I do. I wanted to see if you knew something I didn't,” she replied sheepishly.

“You think his wife killed him?” Herb closed the mailbox, ignoring her subterfuge.

“I don't know,” Harry said slowly.

“Fooling around, I'll bet you,” Miranda commented.

“A lot of men fool around. That doesn't mean they're killed for it.” Herb lightly slapped the envelopes against his palm.

Miranda shook her head. “Perhaps retribution is at work, but there's something eerie about Roscoe's obituary appearing in the paper. The murderer was advertising!”

“Some kind of power trip.” He paused, staring at Mrs. Murphy. “And Sean Hallahan is the cat's-paw.”

“Yes, Herb, just so.” Miranda removed her half glasses to clean them. “I know I've harped to Harry about the obituary, but it upsets me so much. I can't get it out of my mind.”

“So the killer, who I still say is a coward, is taunting us?”

“No, Harry, the killer was taunting Roscoe, although I doubt he recognized that. He thought it was a joke, I really believe that. The killer was someone or is someone he discounted.” Herb waved his envelopes with an emphatic flourish. “And Sean Hallahan was the fall guy.”

“In that case I wouldn't want to be in Maury McKinchie's shoes or Sean's.”

“Me neither.” Harry echoed Miranda.

“Then perhaps the killer is someone
we've
discounted.” The Reverend Jones pointed his envelopes at Harry.

“You've got to be pushed to the edge to kill. Being ignored or belittled isn't a powerful enough motive to kill,” Harry said sensibly.

“I agree with you there.” Herb's deep voice filled the room. “There's more to it. You think Rick is guarding McKinchie?”

“I'll ask him.” Miranda picked up the phone. She explained their thinking to Rick, who responded that he, too, had considered that Maury and Sean might be in jeopardy. He didn't have enough people in the department for a guard, but he sent officers to cruise by the farm. Maury himself had hired a bodyguard. Rick requested that Miranda, Harry, and Herb stop playing amateur detective.

Miranda then replayed this information minus the crack about being amateurs.

“Cool customer,” Herb said.

“Huh?”

“Harry, Maury never said anything about a bodyguard.”

“I'd sure tell—if for no other reason than hoping it got back to the killer. It'd put him on notice.”

“Miranda, the killer could be in Paris by now,” Herb said.

“No.” Miranda pushed aside the mail cart. “We'd know who it is then. The killer can't go, and furthermore, he or she doesn't want to go.”

“The old girl is cooking today, isn't she?”
Pewter meowed admiringly.

“That body in the Toyota has something to do with this,”
Mrs. Murphy stated firmly.

“Nah.”

“Pewter, when we get home tonight, I'll take you there,”
Mrs. Murphy promised.

“I'm not walking across all those fields in the cold.”

“Fine.”
Mrs. Murphy stomped away from her.

Susan walked in the backdoor. “Harry, you've got to help me.”

“Why?”

“Danny's in charge of the Halloween maze at Crozet High this year. I forgot and like an idiot promised to be a chaperon at the St. Elizabeth's Halloween dance.”

“You still haven't figured out how to be in two places at the same time?” Harry laughed at her. As they had exhaustively discussed Roscoe's demise over the phone, there was no reason to repeat their thoughts.

“All the St. Elizabeth's kids will go through the maze and then go on to their own dance.” Susan paused. “I can't keep everyone's schedules straight. I wouldn't even remember my own name if it wasn't sewn inside my coat.”

“I'll do it”—Harry folded her arms across her chest—“and extract my price later.”

“I do not have enough money to buy you a new truck.” Susan caught her mail as Harry tossed it to her, a blue nylon belt wrapped around it. “Actually, your truck looks new now that you've painted it.”

“Everything on our farm is Superman blue,”
Murphy cracked,
“even the manure spreader.”

That evening Mrs. Murphy and Tucker discussed how to lure a human to the ditched car. They couldn't think of a way to get Harry to follow them for that great a distance. A human might go one hundred yards or possibly even two hundred yards, but after that their attention span wavered.

“I think we'll have to trust to luck.”
Tucker paced the barn center aisle.

“You know, they say that killers return to the scene of the crime.”
Mrs. Murphy thought out loud.

“That's stupid,”
Pewter interjected.
“If they had a brain in their head, they'd get out of there as fast as they could.”

“The emotion. Murder must be a powerful emotion for them. Maybe they go back to tap into that power.”
The tiger, on the rafters, passed over the top of Gin Fizz's stall.

Pewter, curled on a toasty horse blanket atop the tack trunk, disagreed.
“Powerful or not, it would be blind stupid to go down Bowden's Lane. Think about it.”

“I am thinking about it! I can't figure out how to get somebody out there.”

“You really don't want Mother to see it, do you?”
Tucker saw a shadowy little figure zip into a stall.
“Mouse.”

“I know.”
Mrs. Murphy focused on the disappearing tail.
“Does it to torment. Anyway, you're right. It's a grisly sight, and it would give Mother nightmares. Didn't like it much myself, and we're tougher about those things than humans.”

“In the old days humans left their criminals hanging from gibbets or rotting in cages. They put heads on the gates in London.”
Tucker imagined a city filled with the aroma of decay, quite pleasing to a dog.

“Those days are long gone. Death is sanitized now.”
Pewter watched the mouse emerge and dash in the opposite direction.
“What is this, the Mouse Olympics?”

A squeaky laugh followed this remark.

“Those mice have no respect,”
Tucker grumbled.

32

Hands patiently folded in his lap, Rick sat in the Hallahan living room. Sean, his mother, father, and younger brother sat listening.

Cynthia had perched on the raised fireplace hearth and was taking notes.

“Sean, I don't want to be an alarmist, but if you did not act alone in placing that obituary, you've got to tell me. The other person may have pertinent information about Mr. Fletcher's death.”

“So he was murdered?” Mr. Hallahan exclaimed.

Rick soothingly replied, opening his hands for effect, “I'm a sheriff. I have to investigate all possibilities. It could have been an accident.”

Sean, voice clear, replied, “I did it. Alone. I wish I hadn't done it. Kids won't talk to me at school. I mean, some will, but others are acting like I killed him. It's like I've got the plague.”

Sympathetically Cooper said, “It will pass, but we need your help.”

Rick looked at each family member. “If any of you know anything, please, don't hold back.”

“I wish we did,” Mrs. Hallahan, a very pretty brunette, replied.

“Did anyone ever accompany your son on his paper route?”

“Sheriff, not to my knowledge.” Mr. Hallahan crossed and uncrossed his legs, a nervous habit. “He lost the route, as I'm sure you know.”

“Sean?” Rick said.

“No. No one else wanted to get up that early.”

Rick stood up. “Folks, if anything comes to mind—anything—call me or Deputy Cooper.”

“Are we in danger?” Mrs. Hallahan asked sensibly.

“If Sean is telling the truth—no.”

33

Later that evening Sean walked into the garage to use the telephone. His father had phones in the bathrooms, bedrooms, kitchen, and in his car. Sean felt the garage was the most private place; no one would walk in on him.

He dialed and waited. “Hello.”

“What do you want?”

“I don't appreciate you not talking to me at school. That's a crock of shit.”

Jody seethed on the other end of her private line. “That's not why I'm ignoring you.”

“Oh?” His voice dripped sarcasm.

“I'm ignoring you because you've got a crush on Karen Jensen. I was just convenient this summer, wasn't I?”

A pause followed this astute accusation. “You said we were friends, Jody. You said—”

“I know what I said, but I hardly expected us to go back to school and you try to jump Karen's bones. Jeez.”

“I am not trying to jump her bones.”

“You certainly jumped mine. I can't believe I was that stupid.”

“Stupid? You wanted to do it as much as I did.”

“Because I liked you.”

“Well, I liked you, too, but we were friends. It wasn't a”—he thought for a neutral word—“like a hot romance. Friends.”

“Friends don't sleep with each other's best friends . . . and besides, you wouldn't be the first.”

“First what?”

“First guy to sleep with Karen. She tells me
everything
.”

“Who did she sleep with?” Tension and a note of misery edged his voice.

“That's for me to know and for you to find out,” she taunted. “I'm never letting you touch me again.” As an afterthought she added, “And you can't drive my BMW either!”

“Do your parents know about the car?” he asked wearily, his brain racing for ways to get the information about Karen from Jody.

“No.”

“Jody, if you had wanted . . . more, I wish you'd told me then, not now. And if you don't speak to me at school, people will think it's because of the obit.”

“All you think about is yourself. What about me?”

“I like you.” He wasn't convincing.

“I'm convenient.”

“Jody, we have fun together. This summer was—great.”

“But you've got the hots for Karen.”

“I wouldn't put it like that.”

“You'd better forget all about Karen. First of all, she knows you've slept with me. She's not going to believe a word you say. And furthermore, I can make life really miserable for you if I feel like it. I'll tell everyone you gave me my black eye.”

“Jody, I never told anyone I slept with you. Why would you tell?” He ignored the black-eye threat. Jody had told him her father gave her the black eye.

“Because I felt like it.” Exasperated, she hung up the phone, leaving a dejected Sean shivering in the garage.