Barbara Graham - Quilted 04 - Murder by Vegetable (30 page)

They found Carl Lee sitting in the hallway outside the courtroom. “Hey, Sheriff. Hey, Wade.” Carl Lee smiled broadly as he watched them approach. “How's it going?”

Tony looked into the man's pale blue eyes and saw no concern in them. “We're still looking for clues about the poisoner of Harrison Ragsdale.”

“He was poisoned?” Carl Lee's focus flickered away and then back. “I suppose you've heard about me threatening to feed him a bit of ground glass.”

Tony nodded. “So you did threaten him?”

“Not to his face. I was spouting off about him in the serving line.”

“You didn't take a little extra something with you and slip it in his food?” said Wade.

Carl Lee shook his head, but there was anger in his eyes and expression. “I wasn't planning to be one of the food servers, or I might have. My wife cried for days. Ragsdale drove by and her cat went missing. It might not have been quite so traumatic if he hadn't done it right in front of her.” He held out his skinny wrists. “You want to slap the cuffs on me, go ahead.”

“Did you hear anyone else talking trash about the man?” Tony kept his hands away from the handcuffs on his belt.

“Everyone.” Carl Lee lowered his hands. “I can imagine the Farquhar boys thinking it's cool to have everyone in the county either hate you or fear you, but what did Ragsdale get out of being so mean-hearted? Since I'm a stay-at-home-in-the-evening kind of guy, I guess he could have had a secret life, hanging out in the bars or going to city for fun kinds of things. For all I know, he was a karaoke fan.”

“Not that I've found out so far.” Tony paused to think about Carl Lee's question. What had Ragsdale done with his spare time? He thought maybe he'd explore the man's house. He might learn something useful.

He had already checked Ragsdale's cell phone records. Besides lots of calls to his office, most of his calls were to Pops Ogle. What did those two men have in common? Pops's loves were music and fundamental religion. Tony tried to imagine Harrison Ragsdale being involved with either of those things and failed miserably.

The Ragsdale house sat at the far end of the two-block long street from Blossom's house with the new, and quite lovely, white picket fence. It was not the house Ragsdale grew up in, but in a town the size of Silersville there wasn't a lot of distance between any two buildings.

Wade parked in front of the house, and he and Tony stared at it for a while.

Tony thought it looked like half the houses in the county. A single story, white house with a sloping roof that extended over the front porch. Four large posts supported it. The front door was painted dark green and neatly divided the front of the house in two sections, each one with a pair of sash windows placed side by side.

He climbed out of Wade's car, adjusted his heavy-duty belt and glanced at his deputy. “Take as many pictures as you want.” Walking over to the ruts worn into the lawn, he looked to the back of the property. A detached garage sat at the end of the ruts. It was big enough to hold a single car. Ragsdale's work vehicle, a pickup with the official insignia on the doors was parked at the curb. “Wade, do you have any idea what happened to the vehicle he drove to the museum?”

“Not right offhand, but I'll find out.” Wade talked into the microphone clipped to his shirt while he took the camera from its case and took a few pictures of the house and lawn. He glanced up at Tony. “No vehicle was abandoned or towed to the storage lot.”

“So how'd he get out there?” Tony checked the mailbox. There were a few pieces of junk mail, nothing personal. “It's hard to imagine he went with friends and they kept it secret.”

Wade shook his head. “Frankly it's hard to imagine he had friends, isn't it?”

“There's not a tree or a bush or a flower, just grass.” Tony's gesture encompassed the entire site. “Considering the growing habits of plants around here, that's quite a feat. Most of us spend time chopping stuff down.”

“Maybe he poisoned everything else.” Wade snapped a picture of the barren patch where a former flower bed had become simply dirt with some clumps of grass.

Tony thought it looked like someone had been digging there recently.

He took the keys from the evidence envelope and unlocked the front door. He didn't know what he expected the inside of Ragsdale's house to be like—maybe one or two recliners and a giant flat-screen television or plain bare rooms—but when he stepped inside, he came to a sudden halt. What would be a living room in most houses was here set up as a workshop. Unfinished furniture pieces sat at one end, and large, well-maintained and very expensive tools filled the dining area. Two closed doors, one in the dining area and one in the living area, were the only parts of the main wall not covered with peg boards displaying small tools. “Wow.”

“You got that right.” Wade's voice was almost drowned out by the clicking of the camera shutter. “Who knew?”

“Let's see what else he has, and then you can come back and take more pictures.” Tony guessed the door on the left would be the kitchen and on the right, maybe a pair of bedrooms. He headed into the kitchen. He was correct. It was a plain room filled with a sink, stove, refrigerator, a worn countertop, and cabinets. The flooring looked like it hadn't been replaced since the house was built, probably seventy years earlier. A rescued school desk, the kind with the seat attached to it and a wooden writing surface hinged over a storage area was the only place to sit or to eat.

“That's weird.” Wade had opened the refrigerator. “He's got piles of sandwiches made up and wrapped in bread sacks.”

“Ah, hell, I'm going to have to say something nice about him.” Tony recognized the bags. He'd seen some like them not long ago. Rumor said an unidentified man had been handing out bags of cheese sandwiches and peanut butter sandwiches to the hungry and homeless. “Either he was the secret sandwich fellow, or he was stealing bags of sandwiches from the needy.”

“So he probably planned to deliver these on Saturday afternoon or evening. That's the usual schedule.” Wade started to reach for a bag. “He missed this week. I could take them if we knew the drop spot.”

Tony was pretty sure he knew the spot and positive the sight of a county sheriff's department vehicle would keep the intended recipients from accepting them. “Let's call Pops Ogle and get him to do it. I'll go out on a limb and say he was involved anyway.”

“How could Ragsdale make peanut butter sandwiches and not have an allergic reaction?”

“He was only allergic to tree nuts.” Tony was quite proud of knowing the answer. “Peanuts do not grow on trees.”

Minutes after Tony's call, Pops Ogle arrived at Ragsdale's house. He opened the back door of his car, and Tony could see a row of insulated totes. Pops trotted to the kitchen door as if he'd done the same thing many times in the past.

“I thank you, Sheriff, for calling me. It was making me ill, thinking about all this good food going to waste.” He started loading the bags of sandwiches into a cardboard box he carried. “I drove him to the festival and planned to pick up the sandwiches and stuff when I dropped him off again. After he died, I took the bags I had and passed them out there and told them I'd be back with more, but between you and me, I weren't real sure if I could.”

Tony and Wade helped Pops carry the food to the car. “Is this the normal amount?”

“Yessir.” Pops's whole body nodded along with his words, then he stopped. “No, there's the right amount of sandwiches, but there's usually a treat and some cartons of milk for the young'uns.”

The three men trooped back into the kitchen. Once the bags of sandwiches were out of the refrigerator, there was not much left except a half-bag of deli fried chicken and some orange juice. They checked the freezer. Bingo. It was filled with snack cakes. A picnic cooler sitting near the door held small cartons of milk and cooler ice.

Tony picked up one carton of milk and pressed it against his cheek. He was relieved to find it very cold, so they loaded all the stuff into Pops's car. “Why'd he ride with you? Why not drive out there in his own vehicle?”

Pops wasn't known for his ability to tell convincing lies, so when he said, “It had something to do with an undercover operation,” Tony believed it was what he'd been told.

They sent Pops on his way to deliver the food.

“Undercover operation?” Wade watched the car disappear around the corner and looked back at the open kitchen door. “I never would have guessed Hairy Rags would do anything halfway decent. I just don't know what to think. All these years, all the bad feelings.”

“He certainly didn't make any attempt to make people change their minds about him. Maybe he was told to do something good in the community, or else?” Tony wasn't proud of his feelings, but the cynical part of him distrusted the idea of there being such a wide gap between Ragsdale's public image and the private do-gooder. “Maybe we should see what's in the rest of the house. So far, I'm wondering if he actually lived here.”

“It's a bit creepy. I'd feel more at home in Quentin's trailer.” Wade grabbed his camera again.

Tony tried to stifle a laugh, but comparing this living space to Quentin's dilapidated trailer was like comparing a jet airplane hangar to the Thomas Brothers' garage. Not quite in the same league in size or cleanliness.

The single bathroom was functional. One bath towel hung from the shower curtain rod. There was no soap or shampoo in the shower. Without realizing he was doing it until Wade turned to locate the sound, Tony pressed his lips together and made a humming sound.

There were two small bedrooms. One was used as the lumber storage area. A rack made from two by fours held the boards flat and up off the floor. Tony could almost feel Wade's anticipation, mixed with his own, as he turned the knob on the second door. It was locked.

“Okay,” Tony mumbled. “I'm going to get into that room if I have to take an ax to the door.”

Wade jangled some lock picks in front of his face. “Won't be necessary,” Tony said. “This one fits.” Seconds later, the lock released and the door swung in.

Tony stared, not as surprised as he was shocked. “Look at them all.”

“Do-it-yourself taxidermy?” Wade's camera clicked several times. “Or professional?”

“And why lock this door? It's his own home.” Tony flipped on the light switch, and the overall effect became more of a natural history exhibit than trophy room. “Are they valuable?”

“Where did he sleep?” Wade stepped inside, taking more photographs. “There's no furniture in the house.”

“Did you see a basement?” Tony backed out of the taxidermy room. “I'll check.” He did find some stairs behind a door in the kitchen that had been overlooked in the excitement of the sandwich situation. Opening it, he found a pull cord to turn on a light. It lit three bulbs spaced out along the length of the basement. A dirt floor. A water heater and the furnace. The ceiling was too low to make the space useful for much else. He'd have to walk bent over at the waist just to get to the far end.

They returned to the woodshop. “Where did he live?” said Wade.

“The garage is the only place we haven't checked.” Tony doubted it doubled as a bedroom.

So they trudged out to the garage. The door wasn't one of the newer “overhead” doors but two wide, hinged doors. A padlock kept it shut. Wade had it open in seconds.

Tony wasn't sure why, but he held his breath as the well-oiled doors swung open. A perfectly ordinary pickup truck sat next to a perfectly ordinary lawn mower, and perfectly ordinary yard and garden tools hung from hooks and nails. With a whoosh, the air left his lungs. He felt better when he heard the same sound from Wade.

Just for fun, they placed seals on the house and garage doors and strung yellow tape about the place to discourage visitors. “Let's go have a chat with our county clerk and see how much more property Ragsdale owned. So far his wife and her fiancé think it's two to six houses.”

“He owns
how
many houses?” Tony stared down at county clerk Marigold Flowers Proffitt's wig of the day, noting absently how much it reminded him of an apricot poodle's fur. Not his favorite of her rotating supply of wigs and turbans. She was one of Blossom's sisters, and her approach to the family tendency to carry thin hair and excessive weight was to shave her head and not eat. “Did you say eight?”

“Yes, eight.” Marigold squinted at the screen. Just as she refused to eat, she also refused to wear glasses. “I can print this list of addresses out, and you can take it with you.”

“Thank you.” Tony understood the message. She wanted him out of her office. He probably smelled like apple pie, and she wouldn't stand for it. He felt a bit dazed as he carried the printout from the courthouse to his office in the next building over. The paper gave the addresses, legal description of houses and lots, and current values for property taxes. The late game warden owned roughly a million dollars' worth of land and buildings. Tony considered his and Theo's own financial empire, a house she'd inherited and her shop building they owned jointly with the bank. Her bright yellow SUV was a gift or they'd never be able to afford it.

As he walked past Ruth Ann's desk, she waved her nail polish brush to attract his attention. She'd purchased a headset so she could talk on the telephone and leave both her hands free for her day job, the manicures. She spoke into the headset. “If you'll hold on just a second, I'll see if the sheriff is available.” She pushed a button with the eraser end of a pencil.

“Do I want to be available?” Tony thought he wanted to study the real estate papers, but Ruth Ann was capable of running his office, studying for the bar exam, and painting her fingernails. He didn't want to admit, even to himself, how much he depended on her. She nodded. “It's the pathologist. He's made positive identification of your crispy critter from the fire.”

Tony hurried into his office and picked up the telephone receiver. He knew this was news he needed. He doubted it was going to improve his life or solve his problems or cases. “Doctor?”

“I'm busy, you're busy.” The doctor's staccato words punched through Tony's haze. “Your dead body is Geordie Farquhar. He suffered a severe blow to the back of his neck, possibly paralyzing him. I talked to the arson boys. According to them and the burn pattern, someone splashed his body with gasoline before he fell to the garage floor.”