TheCart Before the Corpse Page 4

  “Say what?”

  “I told you we were crime free on paper. Nobody gets officially murdered in Bigelow Country, Georgia, except the occasional drug dealer or gang-banger. The governor keeps a country house in Bigelow and half his relatives live in the county. He likes to pretend his presence cuts the crime rate, and the sheriff plays up to his fantasy.”

  “But won’t the county medical examiner recognize a murder?”

  “I hope so, but don’t count on it. Tomorrow morning first thing I’m calling Ida Walker, the mayor of Mossy Creek, to get her to call in Amos Royden, our Mossy Creek chief of police, to stick his nose into the investigation if there is one. She can make a big enough fuss to bring in the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, governor or not. The governor hates Ida, who happens to be his aunt, and the sheriff hates Amos, so it should be interesting.”

  She pushed away from the kitchen table. “That’s enough for you to take in tonight, young lady,” Peggy said, as though I were fifteen instead of forty. “Come on downstairs and let me show you the apartment. Unless you’d prefer to stay up here with me?”

  “Better get it over with.”

  “Fine. We can get your bags out of your truck on the way.”

  I trundled after her as though I really was fifteen. She might not have been in shock, but I sure was. My day had started at five this morning and gone steadily to hell ever since. I’d driven two hundred miles through the mountains on two lane roads, and now to be hit with murder! Assuming the nice lady wasn’t the actual killer or completely insane—neither of which was a given—I was simply too exhausted to feel much of anything. Even my grief was on hold.

  Peggy took my suitcase and my duffel bag out of my truck. I probably would have dropped them from sheer exhaustion. We walked down the driveway to the freshly painted door beside the bottom of her kitchen steps. “I wasn’t certain the sheriff would locate you, or that you could get down here tonight, but I straightened up the apartment and changed the sheets and towels before I went to my daughter Marilee’s for Sunday dinner, just in case,” she said as she inserted a shiny key in the lock, opened the door and clicked on the lights.

  Tonight I would sleep in my father’s home, in my father’s bed, but I would never see him, hear his voice, his laugh, see his grin, feel his hands grown rough from handling reins. Bad enough to lose him through a stupid accident, but if some human agency took him away from me, they’d better pray I never found them.

  I dragged my bags past her and dropped them in the tiny entrance area, then spun to look at her. Obviously I was a darned sight more exhausted than I thought if it had taken me this long to remember what she’d said. “You filled the water trough? Hiram’s already got horses out at his farm? I didn’t know he’d actually started training. Who’s feeding them and looking after them?”

  “Don’t worry about them. I’ll just come in and show you where things are. You need a good night’s sleep.”

  “You’re looking after them? I can’t ask . . . ”

  “Oh, no. Not me. Hiram’s handyman, Jacob Yoder, is caring for the place and feeding the animals until you decide what to do.”

  Peggy moved past me, flicked on a light switch beside the door and stopped dead. “Sweet Patience on a monument! What on earth . . . ”

  I peered around her. If this was what she considered straightening up, she could use a maid service. Or a dump truck. Hiram had never been known for excessive neatness except with his horses and carriages, but he’d hit a new low.

  “Look at this place!” Peggy flew into the room.

  I turned in a circle, taking in the books lying broken-spined under the small bookcase, sofa cushions tossed around, pictures lying face down, mail strewn everywhere, and leather harness and reins crawling all over the floor like that snake scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

  Peggy pulled a cell phone out of the pocket of her jeans and dialed. “Sandy? Peggy here. Somebody broke into Hiram Lackland’s apartment while I was at Marilee’s.” She listened. “Well, of course I want you to send somebody over here. What?” She shut her mouth. “No, I don’t think there’s anybody still here.” Her eyes widened. “No, I haven’t checked . . . ”

  She grabbed my arm and yanked me through the door onto the driveway. “Come on, Merry.” She kicked the door shut behind her. “All right, Sandy. We’re outside. We’ll wait for Mutt.” She clicked the phone shut. “Sandy is the police dispatcher. She said she’d come herself, but she’s due to go off duty right now.” Peggy grimaced.” Probably a good thing. She’d have her gun out before she climbed out of her car and wind up shooting one of the cats.”

  Some police dispatcher.

  “She says there may be somebody still inside and wanted us out until Mutt gets here and checks it out.”

  “Who’s Mutt?”

  “One of our real policemen. Works for Amos, the police chief.” She’d barely spoken the words when a squad car squealed to the curb and a large man climbed out and came toward us.

  “Obviously, someone knew Hiram was dead and I was away at Marilee’s,” Peggy said. “I’ve heard about burglars hitting houses during funerals, but this is ridiculous.”

  She introduced me and stood aside while Mutt went over Hiram’s apartment. When he came back, he shook his head. “Nobody there. What’s missing?”

  “We haven’t checked, but who could tell?” Peggy said.

  “Computer, electronic equipment?”

  “The TV and VCR are there.”

  “Computer?”

  “His laptop’s upstairs on my library table. I’ve got DSL.” She glanced at me. “He enjoyed having company while he worked.”

  “Uh-huh. Maybe looking for cash, judging from the mess. Would he have found any?” He turned to me.

  “No clue,” I said. “But I’d say no. He liked plastic. Said it made doing his taxes easier.”

  “Looks like somebody didn’t find anything worthwhile, got royally PO’d, and trashed the place,” Mutt said. “How about the door?” He shown his light against the door jamb and knelt down to peer at the lock. “Not a scratch. Who had keys?”

  “Me and Hiram,” Peggy said, then caught her breath. “Did they find them in his truck or on him?”

  “Don’t know, but it would be in the sheriff’s report.”

  I shivered. For the first time, the idea that my father might actually have been killed got through to me. Why would anybody want him dead? He was never a rich man, although he lived and worked among the richest of the rich.

  Apparently, he had enough money to buy his farm, build a new stable, and do the place up, but that probably used up his available capital and left him with a hefty mortgage besides. Had he done something illegal to make money to buy his farm? Hiram never used banned substances on his horses, and so far as I know had never even smoked weed in the sixties.

  But would he have gotten involved with people drugs? I didn’t know him well enough any longer to say yes or no. He would definitely have been able to hook up with a drug connection. I couldn’t see him actually selling dope, but he wouldn’t be the first trainer to use his rig to transport drugs across country.

  And people did get killed over drugs.

  If someone took his keys and drove to Mossy Creek to search his apartment while Peggy was out, then the two events had to be connected. But if they wanted to rob Hiram’s apartment, why drive out to his farm and assault him just to get his keys? It would have been easy to break in while neither Hiram’s truck nor Peggy’s car was here. Were they searching for money or something else? Did they force him to tell them where they were before they killed him? I sank back against front fender of my truck and closed my eyes against the very thought that he might have been tortured.

  A moment later Peggy took my arm and said, “You are certainly not going to spend the night downstairs while someone’s wandering around with a set of Hiram’s keys. I’ll have the locks changed tomorrow, and you can move downstairs then.”

  “She’s right,
ma’am,” Mutt said, “I’ll make a report on this. Tomorrow morning Amos can lean on the sheriff in Bigelow and get him to cough up a copy of the report on Mr. Lackland’s death. Oh, and I’m sorry for your loss. I didn’t know Mr. Lackland all that well, but he seemed like a real nice guy. He was going to drive a carriage around town on Easter Sunday afternoon and give folks rides like they do in New Orleans. Most around here never have ridden in a carriage.”

  My eyes stung. Typical Hiram. He did love showing off his carriages. He was probably planning to use the vis-à-vis. That might well be why he was working on it when he died. He must have at least a couple of new carriages in his stable area if he was actually training the horses on the farm, but they probably wouldn’t hold enough passengers at one time to give Easter carriage rides.

  I didn’t know how many horses he had, what kind, or whether any of them actually belonged to him. They might all belong to owners who had sent them to him for training.

  In that case I’d have to send them home as quickly as possible. I sure couldn’t drive them. I hadn’t touched a set of carriage reins since my mother’s accident and didn’t plan to start now.

  Chapter 7

  Monday morning

  Peggy

  Before she climbed out of bed Monday morning, Peggy called Ida Hamilton Walker, mayor of Mossy Creek.

  “Peggy, I’m so sorry about Hiram,” Ida said. She sounded wide-awake. As the owner of an estate that included a working dairy farm, she’d probably been up for hours.

  Peggy should have realized she’d already know. In private, she probably wore one of those aluminum foil hats that received direct input about everything happening in Mossy Creek from her command post on Alpha Centauri.

  “I want you to ask Amos to investigate.”

  “I can’t do that. Hiram’s farm isn’t in the Mossy Creek city limits. It’s Sheriff Campbell’s jurisdiction.”

  “Since when has anybody around here given a hoot about jurisdiction when one of our own is in trouble? He may have died in the county, but he lived in Mossy Creek. That ought to count for something.”

  “I know you liked him, Peggy, and I know he lived in your apartment, but he wasn’t actually a Mossy Creekite.”

  “I’m an incomer too, in case you’ve forgotten.” She considered offering a veiled threat about being a voter, but since nobody ever ran against Ida, that wouldn’t cut any ice and would probably get her back up. “At least ask Amos to find out what’s happening with Hiram’s body. I’m afraid they won’t even do an autopsy. They’ll just put it down to an accident, bung him into his coffin and the ground in that order. If they do, somebody’s going to get away with murder.”

  “Who said anything about murder?”

  “I did, dammit,” Peggy said. “I’m headed down to the police station after breakfast, and I plan to convince Amos that I know what I’m talking about. Sheriff Campbell would call the massacre at the Little Big Horn a terrible accident to keep the governor happy. We need an investigation from somebody who can’t be bought or intimidated.”

  Ida laughed. “That’s Amos all right.” She thought for a long minute. Just as Peggy opened her mouth to interrupt, Ida said, “I seem to remember a few years ago we ear-marked that area of Bigelow County to take into the city limits of Mossy Creek at some future time.”

  “We did?”

  “I have no idea, but I’m sure I can turn up a memo to that effect if I look hard enough.” Ida chuckled. “Thank God for laser printers. That should give Amos enough clout to ask questions and poke his nose into Campbell’s business.”

  Peggy let out a breath. “I knew you could fix this. Thank you.”

  “Tell Amos to call me after you talk to him.”

  “Will do.”

  *

  Merry

  I waited in the small reception area of the Mossy Creek police station while Peggy tried to convince the police chief that my father was murdered. I attempted to read an aged copy of Golf Digest, the only reading material available, while Sandy, the gung-ho dispatcher, snuck glances at me around the edge of her computer. She must have known who I was, but we hadn’t actually been introduced. I decided she didn’t know how to speak to me about my father, so she ignored me. I couldn’t hear a thing that was going on in Chief Royden’s office, but after twenty minutes, Peggy came out with a smile on her face and gave me a thumbs up.

  A tall, attractive man in a beautifully tailored police uniform followed her out of the office and shook my hand. “Ms Abbott, I’m Amos Royden. I liked your father. I’m sorry for your loss.” He nodded at Peggy, went back inside and shut his door.

  Peggy gave a sharp glance at the dispatcher and whispered, “Come on, we’ll talk outside,” Once we were on the sidewalk, she said, “Bless Sandy’s heart, but she does love to gossip.”

  “What happened?”

  “He promised he’d talk to Sheriff Campbell and the medical examiner. That will make them aware that they won’t get away with sloughing off. Depending on what he discovers, he’ll call in a favor from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.”

  Chapter 8

  Monday morning

  Geoff Wheeler, Georgia Bureau of Investigation

  “I can’t come up there to be your tame investigator,” Geoff Wheeler said into the phone. “It’s Monday morning and I haven’t even checked what’s happened over the weekend, much less finished my second cup of coffee.”

  “Sure you can,” Amos Royden said. “The governor ought to be ordering half a dozen of you guys up here just to protect his mother and the rest of his kith and kin.”

  “You know darned well the GBI has to be invited into an investigation. Sheriff Campbell is not about to let an Atlanta agent into his quiet little county without a fight. Not to mention the governor would have a fit.”

  Geoff cradled the phone under his cheek, shucked his coat and hung it up. His extra-large mug of coffee steamed on his desk blotter where it wouldn’t make a mark on the top. He wanted that coffee badly. He did not want Amos Royden trying to embroil him in Georgia police politics. “If he brought us in, he’d be admitting his presence didn’t awe the criminal element into total submission.”

  “Governor Bigelow does not think that way. A few years back, he let his momma, Ardalene, bring in a bunch of convicts to landscape her garden.”

  Geoff leaned back in his chair and ran his hand down the back of his head. His coffee looked cool enough to drink without causing major damage to the roof of his mouth. One sip told him he’d been wrong, so he set it down again. He’d never courted pain. “I heard about that. Didn’t they plant a bunch of opium poppies in the side yard?”

  “Pretty things. Big orange red blooms. Pity the Governor’s security detail had to pull them all out and dispose of them.” Amos hesitated. “I’ve always wondered just how they did that. If they burned ’em in the incinerator at the dump they’d have turned Bigelow into one giant opium den. Whole county would have been stoned. Vast improvement, come to think of it.”

  “Bet there wasn’t a dry eye in the prison when they heard they got caught,” Geoff said. “Actually, it might have quieted down the hard cases for a while if they’d gotten away with it.” He hesitated and tried the coffee again. Good to go. “I still can’t come up there and butt into the Sheriff Campbell’s investigation.”

  “What investigation? I just spent half an hour on the phone with him and twenty minutes talking to the medical examiner in Bigelow. The sheriff’s ignoring the medical examiner’s preliminary findings that the man was knocked out first and then had his throat crushed by a carriage wheel.”

  “Hell of a way to die if it actually was murder and not a crazy accident.”

  “Oh, it was murder all right,” Amos said. Then he chuckled. “Peggy Caldwell, one of our leading citizens, who has read entirely too many Agatha Christie’s, came into my office this morning before I had my first cup of coffee to show me a bunch of what she called ‘crime scene photos.’”

  Geoff c
hoked on his coffee. “Say what? The last thing we need is some dotty Miss Marple turning an accident into a killing to amuse her bridge club. Where the heck did she get the photos?”

  “Took ’em on her digital camera before the cops arrived. Darn good, too. Shot everything I would have shot. Thing is, Geoff, after talking to her and the medical examiner and going over those photos, I’m as certain as I can be without seeing what happened first hand that something’s not right about Hiram’s Lackland’s death.” He took a long breath. “If you can’t investigate the death, then come up here and investigate the break-in at Lackland’s apartment that happened last night. Got to be connected.”

  “Could have been one of your local felons who figured the pickins were good and the coast was clear. What was taken?”

  “At first glance, not a thing, but whoever did it made one hell of a mess.”

  Geoff leaned back in his chair and ran his hand over his head. “C’mon, Amos. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation also does not send officers at my level to penny-ante break-ins where nothing was taken in burgs like Mossy Creek that have their own estimable police forces led by police chiefs of exemplary character.”

  “Riiigght. Look, Geoff, the guy was murdered. He was a nice guy, and he chose Mossy Creek to start up his retirement business. I don’t give a hoot whether he was actually offed in Mossy Creek proper. I feel personally responsible and really pissed off. The mayor’s placing Hiram’s place in the Mossy Creek reserve zone, so we can say it’s technically under our jurisdiction. Ida loves doing sneaky, underhanded things to Bigelow. She’ll make it happen, but maybe not right away, and right away is when I need you. Consider it a personal favor.”

  “It’s not by the book.”

  “The heck with the book, Geoff. For God’s sake unbutton your damned starched collar before you choke yourself. You can be the most hidebound, ornery, stuff-shirted, stiff-necked pencil-pushing . . . ”

  “That’s because doing it by the book wins cases against defense lawyers, my friend. My cases do not get thrown out of court on technicalities, nor do the people I arrest get off because some tech screwed up. Or I did, which is worse.”