Barbara Graham - Quilted 04 - Murder by Vegetable (31 page)

Tony came to attention. “So this is no accident?”

“Nope.” The doctor coughed as if he had just inhaled smoke himself. “I'm calling this a homicide. Whoever hit him and left him on a burning roof—not even his own burning roof—killed him. There was some extra damage caused by the gasoline and the fall. You want to hear about it?”

“No.” Tony thanked the doctor and said to put everything in the report. “I know his two brothers. I'll have to decide whether to arrest the first one to rat out the other, or the one ratted on. Maybe both.”

It wasn't until he and Wade entered the third house belonging to Harrison Ragsdale that they could find signs he lived there. The first house had been the official address on his employment records, and it was where his mail was delivered. The second, a block to the west of the first one, was a tiny home, maybe two rooms. A family of six lived there. When interviewed, the nervous residents admitted they paid cash to Ragsdale and used a post office box for their mail.

The third house was two blocks to the east. It was larger than the others. Several rooms remained empty, but there was a normally furnished living room with a recliner, couch, and a television, a room containing a bed, dresser, and closet full of clothes. The bathroom cabinet held toiletries and a supply of medications, including allergy-symptom reducers. Normal food items filled the refrigerator and cabinets.

“Why use a fake address, park there, and walk to this house to sleep and eat?” Tony stood in the living room, glancing around.

“To hide from your enemies?” Wade scuffed a toe across the carpet. “And how much do you want to bet he's not paying taxes on the cash he's getting for rent?”

Tony couldn't disagree. By the time he and Wade located the five remaining houses on the list, and learned the tenants paid in cash and had post office box addresses, he was certain Ragsdale was not on the up and up. In his local bank account, he maintained a decent but unremarkable balance. No safe deposit box.

“So, what did he do with the cash?” Tony absently stared out the window. “With several houses yielding monthly cash infusions, I'd think his balance might fluctuate. His salary is the only deposit.”

“Does he own all of the houses free and clear?” Wade sat forward on the chair. “Maybe every dime is used to make the payments.”

“Nope. He paid cash each time he purchased a house, but he hasn't bought one in the past ten years.”

“At least not here.” Wade scribbled in his notebook. “He could own property in other cities or states.”

“Or countries.” Tony groaned. “He had to keep his documents somewhere. Home ownership entails reams of paperwork. Let's search houses one and three again. He didn't seem to spend any time in the others.”

By the end of the afternoon, both men were exhausted. The more they explored Harrison Ragsdale's belongings and real estate holdings, the freakier Ragsdale became. Only by constant searching did they find his cache of money and deeds, hidden behind a sliding panel built into the back of a display box in the taxidermy room.

“If you keep it behind a locked door, in a locked house, can you call this a display?” Wade was busy emptying the contents of the first case into a box, keeping a running tally of the types of documents.

Semantics aside, Tony admired the beautifully constructed display. The box appeared to be made of something like maple inlaid with cherry and possessed a space containing a safe, a fireproof box requiring a key to open it. He flipped through the keys, pulling out the one he wanted. “So that's what the peculiar key opens. That lock looks like it needs the business end of a Philips screwdriver to open it.”

Wade glance up from his cataloging. “Ragsdale was a freak. Who hides money like this?”

“A paranoid one.”

“A rich one.” Wade stared at the stacks of cash resting on another sheaf of legal-sized documents. “Maybe too paranoid to pay taxes.”

“Someone is certainly going to be a lot richer.”

“Even without counting it all, I'm thinking this much money is a powerful motive. One might immediately suspect the heir.”

“Probably his wife.” Tony mused. “Or someone engaged to the heir.”

“One who was about to become an ex-heir when the divorce was final. Grab the money and run? Or possibly a tenant who felt Ragsdale was taking advantage of him. Maybe he overcharged his tenant or threatened eviction.”

“Certainly, the more we learn, the more motives show up.” Tony picked up a stack of bills, hundred-dollar bills, and ran his finger across them. “There's at least five thousand dollars in this little bunch.”

Wade sat back on his heels. “And there are piles of those.”

“Let's get the money all counted and logged into evidence before either or both of us succumbs to temptation.” Tony began working on a list of his own. “Have you seen anything like records we could check against?”

“Nope. Just cash and property deeds.” Wade put the lid on the box. “I wouldn't mind inheriting the lot.”

“With a million dollars in real estate and cash to be lost in a divorce, Jessica and Vic have a powerful motive. Do you suppose they knew Ragsdale was changing the will?” Tony was not expecting an answer. His cataloging was interrupted by a call notifying him the Farquhars were in custody. He sighed. “Let's lock it up and go talk to the remaining Farquhar boys. Like we haven't had enough fun yet.”

It was getting claustrophobic in the greenhouse. Tony sat in his favorite chair and waved his suspects, Jocko and Shawn Farquhar, into the seats facing him. Wade pulled a chair to the corner of the table, leaving the Farquhars' attorneys with what was left of the seating. Folding chairs.

Tony considered interviewing the boys separately, but decided he might learn more if they could bicker with each other.

The whining began before the brothers reached their designated spots. Jocko waved his manacles, showing them to an uninterested audience. “You see the way he treats us? Like we're some big shot criminals or something.”

Only Shawn had a response. “Yeah. Like we're really bad dudes.” His smile indicated his pride and joy in the moment. Being accused of a felony, arson, and potentially the murder of his brother appeared to be the highlight of his career in crime. He swaggered to the chair and sat.

Tony started with some simple questions, like verifying their names and addresses. Ones even the Farquhar “darlin' boys” might be expected to answer honestly. They did. Preliminaries over, Tony said, “Why were you boys at the Smith home on the day of the fire?”

“We was out for a walk, it bein' a nice day and all.” Shawn nodded to emphasize his ludicrous statement.

“So, to make sure I have this straight,” Tony squeezed his pen. Hard. These boys had never been known to walk across the street without a beer waiting on the other side. “You, all three of you, went for a walk in the sunshine.” They nodded. Tony jotted a few words in his notebook—never happened. The entire interview was being recorded on video, but taking notes was a habit, a good one so he also wrote down what they said. “Go on. Just tell us what happened next. You got to the Smith house?”

Shawn must have forgotten the script and silently began digging for something in his nose while he thought about it. Jocko took over. “It looked like someone upstairs was stuck in the window and calling for help.”

“Um-hum.” Tony wrote down a word—fantasy. “And then?”

“We climbed up to help.” Finger out of his nose, Shawn rolled his eyes, making his opinion clear. “What didja think?”

Tony squeezed his pen more tightly. When he felt it start to bend, he forced himself to relax. Thanks to the photographs he'd recovered from Olivia Hudson's cell phone, he felt he had the upper hand in this interview. “Go on.”

Jocko, marginally more perceptive than his remaining brother, said, “We shoved Geordie up on the garage roof so he could check on them. When he got to the window, it was open and he found one of them drop-down ladders and me and Shawn climbed up to help.”

Tony believed two-thirds of the story. It certainly explained how they got inside the house to burglarize it. “Who was calling for help?”

The Farquhars shook their heads.

“Okay, then, let's go on.” Tony watched the attorneys sit up a little straighter. To this point, their clients had confessed to nothing more sinister than attempting to rescue a family from an unknown threat. “What happened next?”

“Geordie fell through the roof of the garage.” Shawn waved his shackled hands making his chains rattle. “It was the owner's fault our Geordie died. We'll sue.”

Wade checked his notes and cleared his throat. “I thought Geordie went inside and dropped the ladder down?”

Shawn and Jocko looked at each other and fell silent. The lawyers stood and said their clients had said all they had to say.

Tony assumed the group hadn't quite worked out all the glitches from their confessions. He wasn't surprised. He switched off the recorder. “We'll let you confer with your lawyers for a moment. I want to hear how Geordie ended up dead.” He and Wade stepped out and closed the door behind them. “What do you think? Who's the weak link?”

Wade said, “Shawn.”

Tony agreed. A couple of minutes passed before one of the attorneys knocked on the door. When he and Wade were back into position, Tony turned the recorder back on. “What happened on the roof?”

Jocko nodded, giving Shawn permission to talk. “Geordie started actin' all goofy. Said he just come along to get some pills, only they wasn't any around and we should leave. He said those people didn't act snooty like some.”

Tony watched Jocko. He was known to be a hard case, amoral, and a liar of the first order, the worst of the younger generation of Farquhars. He turned to Wade. “Put Jocko in the holding cell.” Tony escorted Jocko's attorney from the greenhouse before turning to Carl Lee. “It might do Shawn some good to hear his options from you. When Jocko's near, Shawn's brain—what there is of it—shuts down.” He left them alone.

Carl Lee wasted little time before he knocked on the door.

Tony returned and sat after turning on the recorder. “Let's try this again, shall we?” He rested his laced hands on the table. “You said Geordie liked the Smiths.”

“He did.” Shawn's oversized upper teeth gnawed on his lower lip.

“Did he work for them?” Tony asked. Shawn stared, open-mouthed. Tony thought employment was not a concept that meant anything to him. “Okay, so how'd he know them?”

“From the park. Geordie liked kids, an' he thought the mom was good to 'em.”

“So, did Geordie know it was the Smiths' house?”

“Not until later.” Shawn wiped his nose on his wrist and struggled to wipe it onto his pants. The manacles made the maneuver difficult. “He said there's no pills, let's leave, ‘n’ Jocko hit him to wake up his sleeping brain and said Geordie should look around 'cause even if there's no pills there's got to be tons of money in a place like that, and he shoved him and Geordie fell out the window and landed all crooked on the garage roof. He didn't move.”

Tony was sure he wasn't going to like the next part but forced himself to leave his two remaining antacid tablets in his pocket. He felt acid drip into his gut and felt his stomach rumble. “And then what happened?”

“We looked around the bedroom and grabbed a pretty little box, 'cause Jocko thought it might have jewels in it.” Shawn's lower lip jutted forward. “It didn't.”

“What was in it?” Wade looked up from his notepad.

“Little bitty teeth.”

Tony doubted they would be able to recover the carefully saved baby teeth; not one treasure saved for the devastated family. “Where are they?”

Shawn didn't answer. He scrunched his face. He twitched. Using both hands, he picked up a bottle of water and gulped the contents. He shook his head. “Left 'em there.”

“Okay, Shawn, what happened next?”

“Jocko started to use his lighter to set Geordie's shirt on fire. Said we had to. Then he looked down at the ground and saw a box full of empty jars, and the next thing, he's fillin' 'em with gasoline from the mower can and we're both tossin' them at Geordie and in the windows. Splash, splash and everything went whoosh.” Shawn laughed. “Oh, man, it was an awesome fire.”

Tony swallowed hard, thinking of the damage they'd created. “Then what?”

“There was only a little gas left, and the house was burning like crazy.” Shawn's eyes reflected his excitement.

“What about Mrs. Smith? When did she come home?”

“Don't know.” Shawn shrugged. “Got no watch.”

Since Tony could see one on his wrist, he thought, as lies went, this one lacked something in cohesiveness. More likely, Shawn couldn't tell time on a non-digital watch. Tony assumed it was stolen. “Did you see her come home?”

“Yep.” Shawn grew more confident when he told the truth. “She drove into the garage and closed the door when we climbed down for the gas.”

Everything Shawn told them explained the photographs on Olivia Hudson's phone. Tony wondered if Geordie had been dead before the fire. He wasn't sure he wanted to know. “I don't understand why you torched Geordie's body.”

Shawn shrugged. “Seemed like a good idea at the time.”

Theo volunteered to drive Susan and her children to Knoxville. Susan had gotten a temporary replacement for her driver's license and needed to get to the rental car agency recommended by her insurance agent. At least they had been able to purchase a new car seat for the baby in Silersville. The downside to living in such a small community was the limited availability of certain products and services.

Twins and a toddler filled the backseat of the SUV, and the younger boy remained with his father. Thankfully, all the other children were in school. They'd have to rent a bus if they wanted to take everyone.

Theo slowed down even more than usual as they went around Dead Man's Curve. Standing off to the edge of the road was a small group of people looking at the memorial. Theo thought they looked curious rather than bereaved.

The sight of them awakened Susan from her haze of sorrow and confusion. “What happened there?”

Theo had to admit she didn't know. Suddenly she saw a man standing near the road, he lunged toward them, waving wildly. Roscoe. Theo pulled over to stop in a turnout. Before she could lower her window, Roscoe was pulling her door open.