“Oh nothing. It’s just a grand day outside. I think big things are going to happen for us today, Boss.”
“Big things huh? You wouldn’t happen to have gone out with Fred last night would you?”
“A lady doesn’t kiss and tell, my dear.”
“Who said anything about kissing?”
“Oh boy you got me. We had a hot date last night. I think I’m in love.” She started singing “Love is a Many-Splendored Thing.”
The front door chimed and a little old lady walked in.
“Hello, how are you today?” I asked.
“Oh I’m fine honey.” She slowly made her way to the front counter. She was steady on her feet, just slow. “I need to order something to put on the grave of my husband. It’s his birthday coming up.”
“Would you like us to make a nice wreath for you?”
“That would be lovely, but listen dear, I don’t want it too fancy because one time my son and I bought this beautiful, expensive hanging basket and one of those nice shepherd hooks to hang it on. We spent a small fortune on it. Well no sooner than my son had helped me into the car—I’m ninety two you know and—where was I?”
“You said no sooner had your son helped you into the car…”
“Oh yes, well we were just driving away and we saw a grown woman sneak over to the basket and she took it off of the hook and ran off.”
“She stole it right in front of you?”
“She certainly did.”
“What did you do?”
“We just kept driving. We were worried she might hurt us if we confronted her. We called the police and reported it, but there isn’t a lot they can do.”
After her terrible story, I showed the woman a very simple grapevine wreath that would mostly be decorated with ribbon and would cost less than twenty dollars. She left the store and I could see a younger man of maybe sixty, who had waited for her in the car, get out to help her.
“K.C.,” I said as I walked to the back room, “you will not believe what I just heard. Stealing a wreath from a ninety two year old woman before she has driven out of the cemetery. It’s sickening.”
“I used to put nice little mementos on my husband’s grave, but people steal everything, even bits of ribbon. I’m surprised they don’t steal the gravestones out of the ground.”
I was truly angry for a good hour. I imagined a gravesite covered in freshly cut sod, with funeral flowers resting nearby, the “Beloved Husband” banners floating in the breeze.
Honestly, who would be disturbed enough to steal useless pieces of ribbon…
A chill spread across my body.
“Stolen ribbon…stolen ribbon! That’s it, K.C. They stole my ribbon.”
“What in tarnation are you talking about, Boss?”
“Danny called me to say that the casket spray on top of Derrick’s casket had a banner on it with the same type of tacky lettering that only I have.”
K.C. placed her hands on her hips. “Well that was rude of him.”
“The point is—that ribbon was a link between me and the murder. K.C., someone stole that banner from the cemetery after a graveside service that we provided the flowers for. The murderer stole my design identity to frame me.”
“Why would anyone do that…I mean why did they choose you?”
“They had to have known about my fight with Derrick.”
“That sounds like a definite possibility,” K.C. said.
“This just helps me to prove my innocence. I’ve been taking pictures of all of the funeral work that I do before it goes out the door. I’ll just look at whose funeral we did a day or two before they found Derrick, and match the flowers and banner to the ones that were on Derrick’s casket. I’m going to call Danny. He can tell me what color the ribbon was, and I can share my pictures with his brother.”
K.C. clapped her hands and danced a little jig. “Way to go, Boss. I told you big things were going to happen today.”
###
Before I clicked off the electric sign and reached for the light switches, I remembered I had left my cell phone on the desk. I walked back to retrieve it and saw the blinking voicemail message light. I hadn't heard my phone ring; it must have done so when I went into the cooler.
I looked at the caller ID, and there it was. Alex’s number. Thumb hovering over the keypad, I stood still for about twenty seconds staring at the phone, trying to decide whether or not I wanted to hear what he had to say.
I’d had enough time to think about things since the night with Camille LeFay. I had entertained the possibility that maybe I'd jumped to conclusions about Alex’s involvement with Landon Powell. I wasn’t completely convinced of his innocence, but maybe there was more to Alex’s story than I knew.
After taking a deep breath, I dialed the code to my voicemail as fast as I could—no stopping allowed.
“
Quincy, I know you’re mad at me, but you need to listen. I can’t talk long…I shouldn’t be calling you now. I know about them finding Camille LeFay’s body in your van. Powell and Arroyo had alibis for that night but I think they were involved. I’m only telling you this so you’ll stay away from them. They’re dangerous. Do not go snooping around. Be careful, stay close to home and work. You’re safer that way. I miss you. I’ll talk to you again as soon as I can.”
“I miss you.” That’s the only thing I retained from the voicemail. I missed him, too.
I had to play the message back. He’d said something about danger, something, something and that he missed me.
The phone rang before I could push replay. My heart jumped in my chest in anticipation of hearing Alex’s golden-honey voice once again.
"Hello?" I answered expectantly.
"Quincy, is that you?" It was LaDonna Shaw and she sounded upset.
"Yes, it's me. LaDonna, what's wrong?"
"Oh Quincy, its Irwin. He's stormed off. I'm really worried he might be mad enough to come back here and hurt me. We argued about Bobby and the store and…everything." Her voice began to sound hysterical. "Quincy, we drove in together and he took the car. I didn't know who else to call."
"LaDonna, you should call the police if you think Irwin might be violent."
"I don't want to call the police. This is a small town. The neighbors will know and we'll be ruined. They won't come to our store anymore." I could see what she meant. Everyone knows everyone's business in a small town. "Can you help me, Quincy? Just come and give me a ride. I can figure out where to go, but I need you to get me out of here first."
“Okay. I'll be there as fast as I can. It's a twenty-minute drive. Make sure to lock the doors. Lock yourself in the office with the phone.”
"Okay, dear. I'm such an old fool. I'm so sorry to drag you into this."
"Nonsense, LaDonna. I’ll be there as quick as I can. Stay safe."
###
As I entered the highway I checked my rear view mirror. Two cars had turned onto the road behind me. Ten miles later, the second car, a silver sedan still followed me. I told myself to calm down. I was on the way to help LaDonna and I needed to stay focused. Smooth asphalt gave way to bumpier travels as I turned off the highway onto the narrow country road leading to the Shaw’s. After a glance in the mirror I was relieved not to see the silver car.
Until I turned the corner.
The silver car was still behind me. Fingers strangling the steering wheel, I scrutinized my options. I had to get to LaDonna, but if these were the two morons that worked for Landon Powell, I couldn’t lead them to the Shaws. Who knows what they were capable of?
I knew just what to do. I had the zombie van and I knew my way around the back roads. I took a sharp right at the next intersection that took me to an old cattle farm.
The gravel road faded into dirt with the ruts carved into the roadway over years of use. Between the ruts grew tall, thick thistle and cheat grass that rattled and whipped the undercarriage on the van. I knew the dirt road would eventually return to gravel and empty out onto the main road. I looked in the mirror.
Tall grass and weeds slowed the silver car, but not enough for my comfort. The distance between the silver bloodhound and Zombie Sue could easily be closed when we reached gravel.
I was banking on something I remembered from high school joy rides. At the junction where dirt led back into gravel was a massive divot in the dirt side of the road. It was more like a sinkhole and had the reputation for eating up the kinds of little cars you would drive in high school. I came upon the sinkhole, full of water left over from wicked microbursts that dumped on the higher elevations as they curled around the mountain ridge.
Zombie Sue and I whizzed through the dip as fast as we dared. Muddy water splashed as high as the top of the van. The water resistance on the van was powerful and it made a deafening sound on the bottom of the car. I slowed down on the way out on the gravel side of the road. I anticipated the impending splash out with fear and glee.
The weeds were high enough that driver of the shorter sedan couldn’t see over them well enough to stay on my tail. That little silver car took a nosedive into the sinkhole and never came out. I shouted out loud and then drove as fast as I could to LaDonna.
I pulled up and got out in front of the store and knocked on the door. As I leaned on it, I realized it was loose, it wasn't locked. I pulled it open and called out.
"LaDonna?"
"I'm back here, dear." Her voice came from the office. I ran back, rounded the corner and found my nose smashed into the barrel of a revolver.
"Thanks for coming so quickly. Dear."
"LaDonna I..."
"Wasn't expecting such a cold greeting? It was a heck of an idea having me back in this office. No way for you to see the gun. I didn't even have to hide it."
"LaDonna, I don't understand." My legs felt like they had been wading in a spring-cold river. They were numb. The only thing I could feel was the pounding of my heart.
"You have been more than helpful, dear and I hate to impose, but I do need your help just one more time. Now you walk yourself outside to your van, and don't you try anything funny. I may be a shriveled old prune, but I'm a sharpshooter champion in my age division. Father made sure I could hunt and fish like any of the boys and I was better than all of them. When you get to the car, you get in to the driver's seat and wait for me to get in the shotgun seat. Oh ho," she giggled, "shotgun. I've made a pun. Now move it! And don't you think you can drive off without me. I can fell a deer a mile away. A thin little windshield is nothing."
I walked to the front of the store. LaDonna had the gun jabbed into the small of my back and she walked along side of me like I was helping her. The charade really wasn't necessary; there was no one within a two-mile radius. No cars passing by. Nobody.
I got in the drivers seat and she trained the gun at my face like a gangster in a movie while she slid around the front of the car and got in. This Grandma didn't have any trouble in the feeble broken hip department; she hopped into the elevated van seat like she was doing the high jump.
"Back out and drive that way." She waved the gun indicating west. I was sweating so much my palms almost slipped off of the wheel.
I tried to talk to her, to calm her down and get any type of information I could.
"Shut up and drive where I tell you to."
I did exactly as she said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
We pulled up to a rural farmhouse on an ages-old property. The house sat back behind a huge fenced pasture full of tall weeds. There hadn't been any four-legged foragers to keep the lawn down in years. The weeds concealed the house from passers by. A large, faded red cattle barn made of aging wood stood behind the house, and to the side of it was a huge grain barn made of metal siding. The entire farm property was surrounded by tightly spaced rows of Lombardy poplar trees. The weathered, unused cattle chutes coming out of the barn provided another block to the line of sight anyone might have from the street in front of the house. LaDonna made me drive all the way back on the gravel driveway to the side of a metal shed.
"LaDonna, please tell me what you want. I just want to help you."
"Oh dearie, I know it. You're a regular Florence Nightingale,” she said in a sarcastically sweet voice. She sighed heavily. “Let me tell you something, sister,” her voice was no longer light and sweet. “There's nobody in this world you can trust, and that includes your husband." She waved the gun at me indicating I should get out of the van.
"Uh, uh, uh," she said, as I turned off the ignition. "I'll take those keys."
Fingers trembling, I handed her the keys and got out of the van. She zipped right up next to me and jabbed the gun into my side.
"Go in that door over there."
I walked toward the side door of the barn. I heard the distinctive click of the van doors locking and then the clinking of keys as they hit the ground. LaDonna mumbled unintelligibly to herself. I couldn't think of anything to do to distract her besides talk.
"I know what you mean about not being able to trust your husband," I said.
"Oh is that so?” She ordered me to wait and she twisted the door handle, all the while skillfully pointing the gun at me. She swung open the door and motioned for me to go in.
Once inside, I saw old stacks of hay
bales, a big tool bench, pulleys hanging from the ceiling, and lots and lots of different kinds of tools hanging on the wall; most of them looking like they could slice someone's head off. A strange, out-of-place stainless steel box, the size of a cement truck, took up almost one complete side of the building. It looked like a big walk in cooler but it had drawers in it. A stainless steel table stood to my left, in the center of the room. Much like the one I imagined Linda found Doug and Mrs. Powell using. It occurred to me this was an embalming table, and the big metal chest of drawers was the place where they kept the bodies of people after they went to the big refrigerator in the sky.
"How do you like it?" LaDonna asked proudly. "Looks pretty darn professional don't you think?"