A Reunion to Die For (A Joshua Thornton Mystery) (12 page)

Tad didn’t recognize the deliveryman, whose bushy hair was collected into a ponytail that extended to his mid-back. His clothes were worn and his face was unshaven. Phyllis was sitting in the same booth across from him in what appeared to be a break for the café owner.

“That’s what they call me.” Tad scanned the menu that consisted of a single typewritten sheet of paper encased in a plastic cover. Its torn edges were sealed with yellowed tape.

“You’re the one whose cousin killed that reporter he was screwing around with,” the man in the booth chuckled after Phyllis returned to the kitchen.

Even with the distance between them, Tad could smell the stench of cigarettes and beer on the deliveryman.

Before he could respond to the comment, Phyllis escorted Doug from the kitchen. She held up the coffeepot as if in a toast to offer Tad a cup, which he accepted. With shaking hands, her brother grabbed the cup and saucer to place before him.

“What was he afraid of? Her finding out about him and that cheerleader?” the bushy-haired man asked. “Or did she know that he was screwing around with both of them at the same time and was afraid that she was going to ruin his goody-two-shoes image?”

“Want some more coffee, Lou?” Phyllis blurted out the question.

“Nah, I had enough.”

She went back into the kitchen. On her way, she stopped to give Doug a silent order.

Lou continued, “You know, it isn’t like I give a shit about who killed that stuck-up bitch or shot some cheerleader back before the beginning of time.” He rose and put on his ball cap with “Dell Appliance” embroidered in the front. “What irks me is that just because some guy has a pretty face, he’s going to get off for murder while if it was some working stiff like me, I’d be strapped to a table with a needle in my arm.”

“Josh didn’t kill anyone.” Tad slapped the newspaper on the counter with his open palm. “Before this is over, Gaston is going to print a full retraction with the truth in it.”

“Whose truth?”

“The whole truth. People can’t get away with murder that easily anymore. Science has come too far. Whoever killed Gail was in her house. They left physical evidence of their presence there and I will find it. When I do, I’ll find them, and Josh’s name will be cleared, and idiots like you will be sorry for what you are assuming based on jealous innuendoes made up by a eunuch like Gaston.”

He realized as the words were coming out of his mouth that he was wasting his breath. Lou’s response proved it when he strutted out the door. With a sigh, Tad turned back to the counter. Seeing the picture on the front page of Joshua and Gail, the cause of the encounter with the deliveryman, he shoved the paper aside.

Doug placed the egg sandwich on a white saucer in front of Tad and a brown bag containing the freshly ground coffee with the top folded down and secured with a twisty next to it. Anxious to get out of the restaurant, Tad took a big bite from the sandwich.

He was chewing as fast as he could when Phyllis rushed out of the kitchen with a paper bag in her hand. Without taking the time to put on her coat, she ran out the door to the parking lot.

“She had no right coming here to write that book.”

Tad was so startled by Doug’s statement that he had to ask him to repeat what he had said in order to decipher the words and their connection to the argument with Lou.

“She didn’t even know Trish, not the way I did.”

“Did Gail ask you about her?”

“Yeah, but Phyllis said we didn’t know anything.”

“When was this?”

“The other night. She was here with Trish’s mom, looking through some picture books.”

“What other night?” Tad wondered if Rollins Corner Café was the last place Gail went before she was killed.

“That night. She started asking Phyllis about Trish and she told Gail that we did not want any part of her book.”

Tad wiped his mouth with a paper napkin. “Doug, do you know anything that you want to tell me?”

Doug grinned. “Trish didn’t want anyone to know.”

The slam of the door signaled his sister’s return. “Let Doc eat in peace!” She grabbed Doug by the arm and led him back into the kitchen.

“I was just telling him—”

“Shhhh!”

Normally, Tad would not notice who was behind him when he was on his motorcycle. But after he had left Rollins Corner Café, when he hit the crest of the hill on Route 30 that led to the bridge across the Ohio River, a delivery truck flew over the top and came up behind him so quickly that he thought it was going to ram him and his motorcycle across the road, over the guardrail, and down the steep slope into what had once been Rock Springs Park.

Better watch this guy,
Tad told himself. He had been riding motorcycles since getting his driver’s license and was aware that some drivers used motorcyclists as targets for whatever rage they might be harboring.

With the straight stretch of the bridge across the river, the truck bore down on the back of the Harley-Davidson.

If Tad had not been watching the truck in his rearview mirror, he would not have been able to make the lane switch that sent it whizzing past him. Wondering who could want to run him over, he looked over at the driver.

His bushy ponytail blew out the open window.

It was Lou from Rollins Corner Café.

Lou threw the steering wheel to the left to send his truck sideways in an attempt to crush the motorcycle and its rider against the guardrail acting as a lane divider.

Tad dropped back.

The truck hit the guardrail to send sparks flying when speeding metal hit metal.

The motorcycle whipped around the careening truck, off the bridge, and down Route 11 in search of the exit for the hospital.

Tad’s hope that Lou had worked out his aggression on the guardrail was in vain when he checked out his rearview mirror and saw the truck with a crumbled fender bearing down on him again.

“Damn!”

He whirled his bike around onto the exit before the hospital and hit the access road leading up the river toward Midland, Pennsylvania. After crossing under the bridge, the freeway narrowed to two lanes. It had turnoffs going up the steep hill into the East End of East Liverpool. Some roads, blocked with cement barricades, had been closed since the freeway and bridge were built.

By the time Tad crossed under the bridge with the truck a hair’s breath from seizing its prey, he knew where he was going to lead him and what he was going to do.

Now well aware of his mortality, Tad had not pulled a hazardous stunt in the decade since he had stopped drinking. He knew he could do it. Hey, isn’t drinking supposed to dull your reaction time?

He led his pursuer halfway through East End to a service road that ran under Route 39. While making sure the truck did not clip his rear wheel and send him flying, he tried to recall where the road he could use to end the chase was located.

It was the second entrance. Or was it the third entrance?

Mentally, he flipped a coin and said a prayer. He chose the second because it was closer. He leaned over the handlebars and raced under Route 39 with the truck close behind him.

If it was to work, he needed the truck right on his tail. If not, then Lou had time to slow down, go around the obstacle, and continue the pursuit.

Tad came up onto the barricade and looked for the ramp he and his buddies had made out of dirt dumped by the road crew from which to launch. If his memory served him correctly, and if kids were indeed the same today as they were back in his youth, it would still be used, if not improved, to jump ATVs.

The cyclist found the jump as soon as the barricade came into sight, and he was indeed born lucky. It was not wide enough for a truck, nor was there room on either side of the hurdle for it to get around.

Tad rose up on his haunches and hit the gas with all he had.

While sailing through the air, he experienced all the exhilaration of his youth. He wondered why he ever stopped doing stunts like this. Then, the sobering reality hit him, and he recalled why he had stopped doing foolish things.

Fear.

There is something to be said for lack of anxiety. It leaves you free to concentrate on what to do and not on what could go wrong. One of the things that can go off beam is that the state road crew can dump a pile of dirt on your landing strip.

Tad hit the fresh soil as if he were doing a belly flop into a pool of water. Upon impact, dirt flew up to create a mushroom cloud.

His chest hit the handlebars; he toppled over the front of the bike and somersaulted down the hill until he landed spread eagled on his back. The air knocked out of him, he lay while he waited for his head and the world around him to stop spinning.

He heard a roar in his ears that he assumed came from the pain and injuries he had inflicted on himself. When he regained his senses, he realized that the noise was from outside his body.

In his shock at making the jump almost perfectly (except for the landing) and in his amazement at the fact that he had survived, Tad had forgotten about the man trying to kill him. Too shaken to stand, he crawled on his hands and knees around the dirt pile.

Lou had followed the cycle up the ramp.

He tried the jump—and failed.

The delivery truck was too big for such feats. It toppled forward onto its front, shattering the windshield, before somersaulting onto its back. Propelled by its speed, it then whirled around on its back not unlike an overturned turtle. Gasoline spilled from the tank. When the sparks from the spinning metal on the cement road caught the fuel spilt from its ruptured tank, it caught fire.

The truck was engulfed in flames with Lou from Rollins Corner Café trapped inside.

Chapter Ten

“What were you thinking?” Joshua scooped a spoonful of vanilla ice cream into his mouth and devoured it, but not before a drop of hot fudge fell to his chin. “What was going through your mind?”

“That I’d pull it off.” Tad reached from where he lay on the chaise next to the swing on the Thorntons’ back porch to hand Joshua the napkin in his lap. He gestured towards his chin.

“You could have been killed!” Joshua wiped his chin and resumed swinging while eating his sundae. “You’re lucky that all you did was get your shirt dirty.”

Tad stopped petting Admiral to wipe the brown powder from his chest. “That’s not dirt, it’s coffee. I bought a bag at Rollins and it broke open.” He continued his defense of the motorcycle jump. “I couldn’t let that maniac chase me through town and kill someone. I was going to double back and go to the police. There was only one hitch. Some idiot had dumped a pile of dirt on my landing strip since the last time I made that jump.”

“Which was when?”

“Maybe fifteen years ago,” Tad mumbled into the dog’s ear.

Admiral did not enjoy the ear scratching as much as he would have enjoyed the ice cream his master was eating a couple of feet away from his mouth. He didn’t dare go for it. The Great Dane–Irish Wolfhound mongrel had already made the mistake of letting Tad coax him up to lie next to him on the chaise for a petting. Deciding to take what he could get, he pressed his head against Tad’s chest and uttered a moan of pleasure.

Joshua had been called to the hospital after Tad was taken there by ambulance. The driver of the truck was taken away by Columbiana County’s medical examiner’s wagon. Judging by what was left on the bloody windshield, he had been killed on impact. He wasn’t wearing a seat belt.

Since the attempt on Tad’s life took place in Ohio, outside of the Hancock County prosecutor’s jurisdiction, Joshua had no authority in the case. The uniformed officer from the East Liverpool Police Department who answered the call looked young enough to be either one of their sons.

The name of the trucker turned out to be Lou Alcott.

At first, Tad claimed that he had never seen nor heard of his assailant before that morning. Then he remembered that he had a patient whose name was Judy Alcott. She was Lou’s wife, now widow.

Even though Tad insisted that he had no relationship with Lou Alcott’s wife beyond that of doctor, the police officer concluded that Lou Alcott was trying to kill the man he believed to be his wife’s lover.

Tad said that it was a simple case of road rage.

After taking his cousin home from the hospital, Joshua made himself a sundae while Tad took two aspirin for the body aches seeping in from his bike jump. Joshua found Tad stretched out on the chaise with their dog beside him. Admiral took in his petting like a tired man enjoying a massage after a hard day’s work.

It was mid-afternoon and Joshua felt like the day had dragged on three days too long. He could imagine the conversation his children were having with their friends after seeing his imagined love life featured on the front page of the newspaper.

“Herb Duncan got a new truck,” Tad announced abruptly.

Joshua followed Tad’s eyes to where a truck, its red paint shining in the sun, cruised the alley at the back of the property in the direction of Fifth Street. Through the hedges, they could make out the profile of a young couple in the cab. They looked like a couple of kids out joyriding in their daddy’s new big pickup truck.

Joshua recalled the one time he had met Herb Duncan’s wife Blanche. She had come to the courthouse to bail her husband out of jail with money she had borrowed from her mother when he was arraigned on misdemeanor charges of selling stolen goods.

At the time, Joshua thought Blanche Duncan, with her pimply face and underdeveloped figure, did not appear old enough to be married. She stood out in the magistrate’s court in her spiky black hair with bronzed tips. Her clumsy attempt to look older with cosmetics and hair coloring made her look clownish.

Likewise, Herb’s lack of maturity led him to associate with men in the local bars who boasted of friends who knew of ways to make a quick buck.

In court, the prosecutor detected a sense of desperation in the young couple to achieve the American dream overnight. At least, that was the explanation Herb Duncan’s public defender offered for how his client ended up trying to sell stolen auto parts.

“Nice truck,” Joshua said before explaining what Tad already knew. “Blanche visits her mother every day.” She lived in a house at the end of the alley.

“Has to cost at least thirty thousand dollars.”

“Maybe.” Joshua was more concerned with getting the last drop of hot fudge at the bottom of the bowl that refused to slide onto his spoon.

“Where does a man who has never had a full-time permanent job get the money to buy a thirty-thousand-dollar truck?”

“They call it a car loan. You can get them either at a bank or the dealership.”

“But you have to show an ability to pay. He doesn’t have that. Blanche doesn’t work. He’s afraid that if she gets a job, she’ll meet someone else and run off.”

Joshua offered as explanation, “Maybe he inherited it.”

“None of his people have money and they are all still alive.”

“Why do you want to know?”

“Curiosity. I can’t help it. It’s in the gene pool. I hate not knowing something.”

“There’s a fine line between curiosity and nosiness.” Joshua gestured towards the truck that was now out of sight. “That is nosiness.”

“Rita told me that Herb was at the State Line the night Rex was shot. She said that he paid up on his bar tab, plus gave her a big tip.”

“Isn’t paying off your bar tab a good thing?”

“Depends on where and how you got the money to do it.” Tad asked himself more than his friend, “I wonder what Herb has gotten himself into now.”

“Why do you assume that he got the money illegally?”

“If it looks like a duck—”

“Just like how everyone assumes when they see you talking to a woman that you have, are, or will soon be sleeping with her.”

Tad disagreed. “They don’t assume that about me now. They assume that about you.”

Before Joshua Thornton had been elected Hancock County’s prosecuting attorney, he had his own law office in the heart of Chester. Located within walking distance of his home, it was more convenient than the office in New Cumberland. Since he owned the building, he kept it to work in when he didn’t need to be down the river.

His part-time secretary, Debbie, was on her cell phone when he walked through the door. “As a matter of fact, she called just today.” When she saw her boss, she flipped the instrument shut without any farewell and dropped it into her purse. “Mr. Thornton, Mrs. Wheeler is here to see you.” Then she added, “Tori Brody called.”

Pretending not to notice her suggestive tone, he took the message sheet without a word and slipped it into his pocket.

Joshua would not have recognized Dorothy Wheeler if Debbie had not introduced her. While she had the same good looks her daughter did, he recalled that when he had met her in his youth that she always looked tired.

Since her child’s death, Dorothy, he could see, had moved on and beyond her grief to get on with her life. She was dressed in a soft, fuchsia-colored sweater and black slacks under a leather coat with a matching purse. She shook his hand and greeted him in a strong voice. “I understand that you are now the county’s prosecuting attorney.”

“That I am, Mrs. Wheeler. I’m not sure if you remember me—”

“Oh, I remember you, Josh.” She smiled. “Trish talked about you a lot. I’ve come to see you because I don’t want her killer to get away this time.”

He gestured to his office at the top of the stairs at the back of the reception area. “Then step into my office, Mrs. Wheeler. I think we should talk.”

Taking up her purse and a white paper bag that appeared to come from a dress shop, she climbed the stairs. He paused to tell Debbie that he did not want their meeting to be interrupted before going to his office, where he slipped off his jacket and sat next to Tricia’s mother on his sofa.

“I was meaning to call you,” he began their discussion. “Going through Gail’s effects they found that she had called you a couple of times. I assume to discuss Tricia.”

She assured him that his assumption was correct. “A few weeks ago, she came to Canfield to interview me. That’s where I live now. I didn’t see her again until we met at Rollins’ diner right before she died.”

“Rollins Corner Café?” he asked.

She nodded her head.

“What time was that?”

“We met for dinner about six-thirty. We spent the whole time talking about Tricia’s murder. She had a couple of questions. I answered them as best I could. Then she left a little after seven-thirty.” She sighed. “How was Gail killed?”

“She was smothered.” Joshua didn’t tell her any more details. Nor did he mention that he seemed to be the last person to see her alive. “Did she tell you what she had found out?”

“I thought her main suspect was Margo Sweeney. She was always mine,” she said. “I assumed when the case was closed so fast that Commissioner Ross Sweeney had something to do with it. If Trish’s death had been ruled a murder, his princess Margo would be the prime suspect and we couldn’t have that, could we?”

Joshua nodded in agreement that Dorothy’s suspicions made sense. “Was that the route Gail was taking in her investigation?”

“She said she had another suspect.”

“Who?”

“She didn’t say. She said that she remembered something that happened and wanted to check it out before going public with it.”

He grinned at the suggestion of a lead in finding Gail’s killer. “Did she tell you what it was?”

She shook her head sadly. “I wish she had.”

“Do you remember who else was at the diner when you met Gail there that night? Maybe her killer was following her.”

“I don’t know anyone who lives here in Chester anymore,” she claimed. “There were a couple of guys in work clothes at the counter. They were staring at us, but I assumed it was because Gail was a public figure and they recognized her. Phyllis chewed them out for staring and they ate their dinners and left. They were the only people there, except for Doug and Phyllis.”

“Can you think of anything else that happened that night?” he urged her. “Anything. No matter how minor or insignificant you think it is.”

“Just . . .” her voice trailed off.

“What?”

“Phyllis practically ordered us to leave because she did not want us discussing Tricia in front of Doug.”

Joshua sat up straight with this information. He tried to make sense of Phyllis Rollins’ reaction to Gail and Dorothy meeting at her café to work on her book about Tricia Wheeler.

She explained, “I guess it was my fault. I’ve known Phyllis since she was a little girl. She’s exactly like her mother, who I thought, pardon me, was a very cold fish. But that night, since we were discussing Tricia, and Phyllis happened to be at our table refilling my coffee cup, I asked her if she could remember anything about what happened the day that Tricia died.” She added, “A few weeks ago, after Gail told me that she was going through with writing the book, I called Phyllis and she practically hung up on me.”

He understood why Dorothy would have called Phyllis and Doug. Their parents were the Wheelers’ landlords and they lived next door.

“Doug and Phyllis were right outside when I came home that day and found Trish,” she recalled. “But she always swore that they didn’t see or hear anything. I guess she got sick of my asking.”

“Why did meeting at the diner to talk about the book upset Doug?” Joshua asked.

“He had an awful crush on Tricia. He was devastated when she was killed. That night at the café, he was so upset that he dumped a whole bag of coffee on the floor. Phyllis ground another bag for Gail and practically threw it at her when she told us to go.”

Joshua nodded. “Doug is emotionally fragile. As a matter of fact, he’s been declared mentally incompetent.”

“So I heard.”

“Did you see or speak to Trish at all that day that she died?”

She responded with a shake of her head. “The last time I saw her alive was when she left for school.” She rubbed an imaginary spot on her purse with her index finger.

Even though Dorothy spoke with a strong voice, Joshua could see she was still wounded. As a parent, he couldn’t see how anyone could get over losing a child.

He swallowed. “Did Gail tell you that it will be difficult to prove Tricia’s death was murder when it was originally ruled a suicide, especially after all this time? The sheriff’s department is looking for the original case file. I doubt if there will be much there.”

“I told Sheriff Delaney that Trish didn’t kill herself. He told me she did. He said she did it because Randy dumped her. After the shock had worn off, I went to see him with a list of questions about what he found in his investigation. That man walked away from me while I was talking to him. I had questions that to this day have never been answered.”

“Ask me,” he pleaded. “If I don’t know the answers, then maybe this mess will get cleared up when I get them.”

Dorothy forgot about the spot on her purse and set it aside. She sat up straight when she asked, “Where did the gun come from?”

For his answer, he looked back at her. He had assumed that the gun had belonged to the Wheelers. Her late husband died in Vietnam. He was in the military. Most families in the rural valley owned guns because of their centuries-old feeling that they needed to be responsible for protecting themselves. Her question was one of the first ones a lawman asks in a crime involving a gun, even a suicide. Where did the gun come from?

Joshua frowned. “The sheriff didn’t ask you that?”

“I asked him. We didn’t have any guns in that house, not since the day those men came and told me that my husband was dead. Tricia didn’t know the first thing about how to use a gun. As far as I know, she had never even seen one other than on television. Tricia didn’t shoot herself.”

“Can you prove it?” he asked. “If you can prove it, then that will give me ammunition when we catch her killer. Otherwise, the defense attorney will say she committed suicide, and that will create a reasonable doubt for the jury, because that was the original ruling.”

With a grin, Dorothy picked up the white paper bag and stuck her hand inside. “I was waiting for you to ask me that.” She whipped a dress out of the bag. A slip of paper was pinned to the top of the dress. She handed them to the prosecutor. “This proves that Tricia did not kill herself.”

He unfolded the dress. It still had the tags on it. It was a pink sleeveless dress. The skirt was full with a petticoat underneath the silky material. Nowadays, it would be considered out of style, but it would have been in style for a semi-formal affair like, he recalled, the homecoming dance scheduled for less than two weeks after Tricia died. This dress was something she could have worn to the formal.

The price tag indicated that it came from a dress shop out at the mall. He knew without checking that the shop was still there. Tracy bought her dress for an upcoming formal at the same shop.

He examined the receipt pinned to the dress. It was one hundred forty-two dollars plus tax, paid for with cash. That was a lot of money for a girl who babysat for her spending money. Tricia would have worked months to save the money to buy this dress.

Dorothy was reporting what she knew about the dress while Joshua studied it and the receipt. “I found it on her bed after the police left. It was still in this same bag. She didn’t even have a chance to hang it up.”

The date and time on the receipt confirmed what Tricia’s mother knew in her heart. The dress was bought at 3:22 p.m. on October 8, 1984—one hour before Tricia Wheeler supposedly took her own life.