Murder by Artifact (Five Star Mystery Series) Page 2

  Tony reached for the envelope. This time, he held it by only the very edge. The postmark was Cincinnati, Ohio, and mailed only two days earlier.

  “Ruth Ann! Wade!” Tony bellowed, not wanting to take the time to use the intercom.

  Ruth Ann, his secretary, arrived first. Her desk sat opposite his interior door. Her dark eyes were wide. A tissue adhered to her wet fingernail polish.

  Deputy Wade Claybough crashed into her back and spun into the hallway. Straightening, he gathered his dignity, and when he walked in, only the flush on his high cheekbones betrayed his embarrassment.

  If Tony had been in a better mood, the scene might have entertained him. He loved the Marx brothers. Instead, he glared at them both and reached into his desk drawer and retrieved three evidence bags. He left the pair standing at attention while he slipped the note, the newspaper clipping and the envelope into separate evidence bags.

  “Tell me about this envelope.” Tony held the bag out to Ruth Ann.

  Ignoring the flapping tissue dangling from her half-lavender fingernail, Ruth Ann took the bag. She lifted her shoulders and let them fall. “It arrived in the mail this morning, along with all the rest.” She handed it back. “I never open your personal mail.”

  Taking it back, he passed it to Wade. “I need you to do your fingerprint magic on this envelope and these.” Tony added the rest.

  The block letters were easy to read. Ruth Ann’s eyes widened as she read the note. “More? As in more bodies?” If her skin weren’t so dark, a shade she referred to as Godiva dark chocolate, she’d look like a ghost.

  The flush left Wade’s cheeks. “I doubt I’ll find anything but your prints, Ruth Ann’s and Fred the mailman’s. I’ll get right on it.”

  “Ruth Ann,” said Tony. “I want you to stir up the state lab. They’ve had our bones for about three months now. I know they would have called if they made an identification, but I want to know what they do know.”

  Watching the pair of them charge off to their tasks, Tony settled back onto his chair and reached for the jumbo jar of antacid tablets he kept on his desk. He pulled a well-worn road atlas from the bottom of a stack of papers on the floor.

  At just over three hundred miles from Silersville to Cincinnati, it would be an easy enough drive, mostly interstate highway. Someone could make it round trip in a day. He rubbed his bald head and tried to ease some of the rapidly building tension from his shoulders.

  He wanted to march down to the office of the Silersville Gazette and ask to see a list of out-of-town subscribers. Only knowing Winifred Thornby, the cantankerous editor, would turn his question into a front-page story stopped him.

  Lots of people in the area had relatives in Cincinnati and northern Kentucky. The out-of-state subscriber list was probably longer than the list of locals in their tiny county.

  His desk phone rang, startling him. He reached for the receiver and pressed it to his ear. “Sheriff.”

  The high-pitched whine pouring through the earpiece sounded like some kind of siren wailing. He jerked upright in his chair. A second later, he realized a woman was crying into his ear. He felt more like joining in than asking the problem. He’d heard the same sound too many times not to recognize it.

  “What’s the problem, Blossom?” Tony eased the receiver away from his ear and held it about two inches from his head. With his free hand, he began sorting the rest of his mail. If Blossom held true to form, the conversation would continue for a while before she got to the point.

  “That devil woman messed up my yard.” The whine rose another octave.

  “What woman?” Tony tossed several pieces of junk mail in the direction of the trash can. One went in.

  “You know who I mean. Queen Doreen, the mayor’s wife.”

  Tony had no trouble visualizing the mayor’s wife. The petite woman could freeze anyone with a single haughty glance. Tony tried to visualize Blossom’s yard and failed. Only the image of Blossom herself came to mind. An extremely large woman, she loved to dress in bright colors even though they clashed vividly with her impossibly orange hair. Tony enjoyed knowing her hair was nearly as thin as his own. He guessed her age at somewhere between twenty-five and thirty.

  “What did Doreen do?”

  “She stole my little donkey and cart planter.” The whine eased a bit. “And she dumped the petunias out on the grass.”

  Ah, now he could see the yard in his mind. Blossom and the rest of the Flowers clan enjoyed the liberal use of plaster figurines in their landscaping. The particular planter in question sat close to the road and leaned against the pole supporting the mail box. The paint job was reckless at best. As Tony recalled, the donkey itself had three neon green eyes, a trait he believed to be very unusual in the donkey family. Not only was the thing hideous, it also had to weigh almost as much as Queen Doreen. She was not a large woman.

  “How do you know she took it?” Tony’s gaze wandered over the piles of papers stacked on his desk and thought he really ought to do something about the mess. Instead, he rummaged in his top desk drawer and found the extra staples and proceeded to refill his stapler. “Did you see her do it?”

  Silence, broken only by the sounds of something being chewed, was her response. After a bit more smacking, she answered, “Not exactly, but . . .”

  The image of a cow chewing a cud sprang into Tony’s mind. “But?” He rested his elbow on the nearest stack of papers and leaned his forehead against his fist.

  “Who else woulda taken it? I heard her threaten to have Marmot-the-Varmint pick it up with the rest of the trash.” Her dissertation was punctuated by juicy-sounding hiccups. “It’s none of her business what I put in my yard. Even if she is married to old Calvin. Bein’ the mayor’s wife don’t make her God, you know.”

  Tony wanted to bang his head on the desk or the receiver. How had he ever let his wife talk him into moving back here once they had escaped? Silersville in general and the job of Park County Sheriff, specifically, were turning him into an old man, and he wasn’t even forty yet. “Okay, Blossom. I’ll have someone check into it.”

  “Thank you, Sheriff.” Her voice took on a tone of incredible sweetness. “I’ll be waiting for you.”

  Tony knew the drill. If he sent Sheila or another deputy by her house, Blossom would still have some excuse why she had to talk to Tony in person. Not in his wildest dreams had he ever imagined he would have a groupie, at least not in his capacity of sheriff. Occasionally, he let his errant thoughts tempt him with fame as a noted author, celebrated for his bestselling novel of the Old West. As yet he hadn’t finished it, much less achieved kudos.

  He groaned. If it turned out someone really needed to interview Queen Doreen, the responsible deputy would manage to shove the duty off on him. No one could tolerate the woman, and she had zero respect for anyone she considered second banana.

  The sheriffs of larger counties didn’t have the problem of deputies pushing work onto the boss. Tony knew for sure because he’d asked some of them. Their jobs were largely administrative. With an accepting shrug, he reached for more antacids. He might as well admit the truth to himself: being a paper pusher held no appeal for him, either.

  Being lazy worked for him.

  CHAPTER THREE

  * * *

  Outside of town, Theo urged her minivan up the hill to the back of Nina’s house. Unlike Theo’s ancient home in town, Nina’s beautiful house was spacious and constructed to take advantage of the spectacular view. It sat on a ten-acre lot. Built on part of the old family farm her father converted to high-priced lots when he realized selling real estate paid better than farming in poor soil; the modern brown brick house had an unobstructed view of the Smoky Mountains. Today the distinctive haze did make them appear mysteriously smoke-blue.

  Nina’s copper-red hair glowed like fire. She stood near her driveway, examining something in the flowerbed. The way her fists rested on her hips and the line of her spine said someone was in trouble. Deep trouble. Theo assumed it must be one of Nina’s children.

  Across the road was McMahon Park, the center of the loosely constructed subdivision. More nature preserve than park, it was beautiful and wild. Only a small section of it had been tamed into a playground area. Theo had been looking for wildflowers when she wandered in there a few months ago. Instead of flowers, she had discovered the bones of a hand. Every time she visited Nina, she wondered about them. Tony hadn’t mentioned anything about them in weeks.

  “The damned deer ate all the buds.” Nina jumped into the minivan. “What’s this all about?”

  “Jane wouldn’t say much. It sounds like someone may give the new museum a quilt labeled ‘the murder quilt.’ ”

  “Well, no wonder she called you.” Nina laughed. “Either one of those words would drag you out of your studio. Using both magic words in one phrase—wow, I’m surprised you slowed down to pick me up.”

  With a laugh, Theo stuck her tongue out. “One of your old neighbors came into the shop this morning.”

  “Who?”

  “Vicky Parker.”

  “Icky?” Nina’s eyes twinkled. “I see her uncle from time to time but I haven’t seen her in ages. She only lived up there off and on. Never for longer than a couple of months at a time.” Nina pointed to a small white house on the next hill over. “Since the county built the new road, Nelson doesn’t drive past here anymore.”

  Theo frowned. “If she calls me for lunch, you have to come, too.”

  Much later, Wade came back into Tony’s office waving the envelope. “No one, not even you, Sheriff, left a clear print on the paper.”

  The information didn’t surprise Tony. The day didn’t feel like one during which anything was going to come easily.

  “I could send it off to the FBI. In the c
lass you sent me to, they trained me to do fingerprint analysis on reasonably normal surfaces.” He leaned forward over Tony’s desk and tapped the bag holding the card. “They might be able to raise a print where I failed, although it won’t be fast.”

  Tony doubted anything would come of sending the envelope to the FBI. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to try. Let’s wait until we decide if there is something to this or it’s just some prankster.”

  He leaned back in his chair. “Speaking of pranks, someone has stolen a large yard ornament from in front of the Flowers’ house. I’m going over now, and I want you to follow me for backup.”

  “Backup?” Wade’s dark blue eyes sparkled. “Are you expecting trouble? Should I call the TBI? FBI? Maybe Blossom and the rest of the Flowers are terrorists using the lawn ornament as an excuse to lure you out of your office.”

  “Very funny.”

  Still stewing over the newspaper clipping and the note, Tony drove past the Flowers home. Set back from the road, the rambling structure was a lot like the family that lived inside. There were lots of Flowers, and each was a petal or two off in Tony’s opinion.

  The center of the large yard was a well-manicured grass lawn. Around the perimeter of the grass grew a small forest of crape myrtles and rhododendron. Blossom kept her collection of yard ornaments in plain view. Tony was not a connoisseur of plaster figurines, even so, he suspected these had to be factory seconds.

  A large, red-coated gnome squatted next to the driveway holding a hand-painted sign. Uneven letters spelled “Flowers.” There was something about the gnome’s pose that conveyed an impression of discomfort, like the little guy was searching for the outhouse and may have waited too long to begin his search. Overall, Tony thought the Flowers family presented a more tasteful display than some in town. Few homes in Silersville didn’t have at least one gnome, fairy, frog or dragonfly parked in the vegetation.

  Thinking how he preferred the goofy animal ornaments to the ones painted to look like the back end of a woman bending over, her skirt sliding up, he parked across the road and walked toward the Flowers’ yard. His arrival stirred up a pair of spotted hounds. Jumping to their feet, they stood behind a screen door baying like they’d treed a raccoon. Tony tried to ignore them as he wandered around with a camera and snapped a few pictures. It was easy to see where the donkey and cart had been. Mud and grass had been churned up as the thief had wrestled with the unwieldy piece.

  Wade pulled up behind Tony’s official green-and-white Blazer. Wade was Tony’s unofficial chief deputy and fulltime assistant. “What’s up?”

  “Someone took Blossom’s donkey and cart.” Tony stepped back and took a photograph of the street near the site. “She called me claiming Queen Doreen had done it.”

  “You could have sent Sheila or me out to take the pictures.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Tony straightened. “Then it would automatically become an official investigation and I’d have to do more damned paperwork.”

  Wade climbed out of his car. His curiosity, like Tony’s, had been piqued. “How’d they get it out of there without breaking it to bits? Or did they?”

  “And why?” Tony pointed to the gnome with the dyspeptic expression and several other smaller items, like a cross-eyed frog and a turtle holding a pink umbrella. “Those would be a lot easier to pick up.”

  “Why does Blossom think it was the mayor’s wife?”

  “I gather it’s a feud with some history.” From behind him came the aroma of cinnamon and apples. His stomach rumbled. He saw Wade straighten, and a grin lit his handsome face. Focusing on his deputy’s startling good looks, Tony realized it was time to take Wade off of street patrol. During the height of tourist season, carloads of giggling girls would run stop signs just to get a close look at him.

  Tony turned. Blossom churned her way across the lawn. A plateful of something emitting heavenly scents was clutched in her fat fingers. Dressed in an outfit resembling a recycled circus tent of orange and red, she was barefoot. Even her toes looked overweight. A sweet smile lit her homely face.

  “I’m so glad you came by,” Blossom panted. She lifted the paper napkin away from the plate underneath and exposed a pile of fat cookies. “They’re apple. I hear it’s your favorite fruit, isn’t it? I thought you and Wade might need a little something while you investigate.” She batted her stubby eyelashes at both men.

  Wade was the first to recover his poise. “Why, thank you, Blossom, you know I can resist anything but temptation.” He picked a pair of cookies off the plate with one hand.

  Tony hated to see his deputy eat alone, so he took a couple as well. Like everything Blossom cooked, these cookies tasted like a little bit of heaven, warm and moist, apples and spice and, as usual, something he couldn’t identify. He stifled his impulse to grab the whole plate and lock himself in the car until he finished them all.

  “You are one terrific cook,” said Wade.

  “Amen,” added Tony. He looked past her to the dogs, still baying wildly. “Didn’t the dogs bark or wake anyone up?”

  Blossom’s head moved slowly from side to side.

  Wade glanced around. “Is that normal? They’re going nuts here in the middle of the day and I’m not stealing anything.”

  She put on her thoughtful expression. “That must have been the night Daddy and Toot, you know, Marigold’s oldest boy, took them coon hunting.” She eased closer to Tony.

  Anxious to be away from Blossom’s adoring presence, Tony sidled toward the Blazer. “I’d better get going.” Blossom followed him the whole way, continuing to offer more cookies until he closed the door in her face.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  * * *

  Tony decided to visit the mayor’s home. In the unlikely event Doreen had taken the ornament, maybe it now sat on the Cashdollar’s lawn. It wouldn’t hurt to look. As a stalling technique, he thought it possessed multiple virtues, not the least of which would be visiting the couple outside of their work areas.

  Calvin Cashdollar made no secret of his wealth. He had a healthy income from his mortuary business. Those funds, added to the wad he’d inherited, made him rich. If he wasn’t the community’s richest citizen, he was close to it, or had been until Queen Doreen started shopping. Although Doreen owned a gift shop, she left the actual work to her employees and dedicated herself to buying. Some of the things she purchased actually ended up for sale in the shop.

  In spite of criticism stemming from being a mayor who didn’t reside in the town he represented, Calvin and the Queen lived in a rambling white-brick home outside of town. Set in the center of thirty acres, it was easily the most luxurious house in the county. Tony had heard once that the house boasted eleven bathrooms. He couldn’t vouch for the information because he had never gotten past the foyer and the mayor’s home office.

  The house was not visible from the road and only a discreet number on the gateposts signaled the beginning of the driveway. The decorative white-brick pillars supported a cast-iron gate. They were topped with urn-shaped decorations. Rumor was one contained Calvin’s mother and the other one his father. A winding drive led to an open park with the faux English manor house at the far end.