Death in a Turkey Town: A Chloe Boston Mystery (2 page)

I was assisted in unloading the latest wanderer by Caesar Moreno’s eldest son, Diego. He was grateful that another of the strays had been found and amused at its glittery feet. They were much needed breeding stock and not easy to replace at that time of year. The white turkeys had been engineered for larger breasts and had reached a point where they could no longer breed unassisted. I didn’t ask for the particulars of turkey artificial insemination from the teenage boy, but could understand the appeal of birds that could procreate the old fashioned way.

Diego offered me a reward, a loaf of banana bread that smelled heavenly. I had to decline, even the cup of coffee that went with it. Town employees have a five dollar limit on gifts we can accept from an individual or business in a calendar year and the banana bread went for six dollars in the gift shop. I wished it could be otherwise, because I think at the very least I deserved a steep discount on my holiday purchase, but rules are rules and I only flout them when I absolutely must.

Diego and I discussed how the bronze turkeys were integrating with the black and white locals while he carried the crate to the gate in the wire fence that kept the turkeys off the road. Apparently the new turkeys were not over traumatized by events and were eating well, so there were high hopes that they would be ready to begin breeding.

 By then it was full dark and Blue and I were happy to head home to Apollo and Aphrodite. Many dogs don’t care for cats, but Blue is open-minded. Also, she is old and I think both of us were ready for some dinner and a rest on the warm sofa while we watched a bit of the Home and Garden channel. My domestic interest probably wouldn’t last, but for now my Thanksgiving fever was running high and I was gathering decorating ideas. I was even ready to plunk down some serious dollars for flameless candles I had seen on a cable shopping channel. I don’t do real ones—a childhood incident at a funeral home had put me off of them.

Chapter 2

I work every other Saturday, except Christmas—if it happens to fall on a Saturday. This was my week to work and I was taking part of the Sunday shift too because I had had some time off last Halloween and was still making up. The case I had been semi-officially investigating had required a trip to San Francisco and I owed Jeffrey a few days off.

Washington is a confusing street. If you live on the west side then you are on Washington Street. If you cross over to the east side you live on Washington Lane. UPS refuses to deliver to Washington Street. Fed Ex won’t acknowledge addresses on Washington Lane. And just to confuse the issue there are some redundant house numbers.  Wilsons live at 121 Washington Street. Jacobs are at 121 Washington Lane. Every couple of years the matter is brought up before the city council and every year they avoid changing anything because the Lanes and Streets refuse to give up their designations. It’s a polite version of the Hatfields and the McCoys. I am always careful about forms when handing out parking tickets there because I want no part in the feud.

I was concentrating on writing up a ticket for some jerk who had blocked Mrs. Winters’ driveway—she has obvious handicap ramps leading to her porch so only someone really thoughtless or unobservant would block her in— when a strange car pulled up beside me with an abruptness that suggested the driver was possessed of a lead foot.

“Are you that Althea’s cousin?”

That
Althea. I admit it, I flinched, wondering what my cousin had done to annoy this stranger. It angered me that I was being bothered with it, but I still managed to find a polite voice as I answered.

“That depends—” I said to the blaze of red hair, lipstick and fingernails in an equally red Corvette. I noticed there was a bright orange gift certificate for a free coffee creation on the seat beside her. They gave them out to guests at the upscale Morningside Inn. So she had both bad taste in fashion and the money to back it up.

“Look, you just tell your cousin to think twice—marrying Dale Gordon is a dangerous business. I should know. That bastard broke my heart. He is not good husband material.”

She had my complete attention.

“But why? Is he abusive or—”

“Just tell her to call it off before it’s too late!” The burning bush pulled away quickly. If I hadn’t been in my official electrical vehicle I probably would have given chase and demanded a bit more clarification. As it was, there was no point in trying to catch the Corvette. I could be outrun by an ice cream truck—which is more than a bit embarrassing. Anyway, I knew where she was staying and could get a name if I needed it.

I probably would have to talk to Althea about this, I thought as I finished writing the citation and made note of the pale green car that followed the speeding Corvette at a more reasonable pace. GREEN14. It had been parked in the screen of Benson’s oleander bush up by the corner. I’d seen a couple other vehicles painted this odd color and with the similar license plates and assumed they belonged to the same company. Going ‘green’ had become quite a gimmick with some businesses. The driver was hard to see because of the floppy hat and unnecessary over-sized sunglasses, but I had the impression of someone intent on some grim and secretive task.

 I didn’t want to talk to my cousin about what had just happened since I disliked dealing with her even when she isn’t psychotic from planning a wedding, but I could not stand by and let her marry someone who was violent—and probably untruthful since I had heard no mention of a previous wife, and in a small town, you find out these things unless someone goes to a lot of trouble to hide their past.

However, I would talk to Gordon first. The lardhead had a right to explain himself before I ratted him out. And quite honestly, though Althea was being a pain now, I really hated to think what she would be like if anything derailed this wedding. I cravenly decided that I would let sleeping dogs lie for as long as possible.

The town was filling up with visitors. In an effort to maintain goodwill I was carrying out unofficial policy and only ticketing the most egregious offenders. Like the Toyota espousing every popular cause for the last decade parked in the red zone right outside the police station. I just hoped it wasn’t one of the Chief’s relatives. They tended to drive crappy cars and float the parking restrictions.

We don’t usually keep our cell phones on while working since we have a radio that can contact the station and personal calls are discouraged on the job. But since the turkeys had gotten loose, Jeffrey and I started carrying our cells with us so we could talk directly without involving dispatch (we were tired of being the butt of jokes by our fellow officers). My family knows better than to call me on duty unless there is a true emergency, so I was very surprised and alarmed to hear my mom’s voice on the line.

“Chloe! You have to get to the hospital right now.” My heart stuttered and then stopped.

“Is it Dad?” My father’s new career involved sharpening a lot of industrial-sized blades and he sometimes got hurt.

“No—it’s Althea. I’m driving Dorothy to the hospital now.”

“What happened? Car accident?” I wasn’t a big fan of my cousin, but I truly didn’t wish any harm on her.

“No. Someone smeared oil or something all over the stairs at work and she fell down them. She’s hurt her ankle. She is very worried that she’ll have to get married on crutches.”

I exhaled. If Althea was well enough to be thinking about her wedding then she was well enough for me not to worry about. Still, if someone had deliberately done something to the stairs at the dental office where she worked, it needed looking into. And cleaning up. If I called it in, guess who would get assigned the job anyway. And then there would be paperwork. Sometimes discretion is the better part of valor.

“Mom, I can’t go to the hospital right now, but I am going to swing by Doc Marley’s.” It was off my route, but not by much.

“But no one’s there. The doctor has gone back to Boston to see his daughter for the holiday. The office is closed.”

That was good news. I didn’t have to worry about a patient taking a header down the steep stairs at the front of the building. Like many downtown businesses, Doc Marley’s office was in an old Victorian—which was authentically picturesque but also equipped with authentically steep stone steps and sharp iron railings that could impale anyone unlucky enough to fall to the side of the walkway.

“I need to make sure that it is cleaned up right away. We don’t want anyone else stopping by the office and falling,” I pointed out.

“You’re right.” Mom was grudging, but she agreed.

“Call me once the doctor is through with Althea and let me know how she is.”

“But Althea will want—“

“Althea will want me to figure out who did this to her. This is a nasty prank that could have been a lot more serious.”

Mom couldn’t argue this point. My mother tends to look for the good in everyone, but even she had to admit that Althea was more into vengeance than forgiveness.

“Chloe, while I have you here…”

“Yes?” I knew though before she spoke what was on her mind. Mom had lost something.

“I can’t find my hand trowel—the pretty one with the red handle.”

Aunt Dot had been planting bulbs right before Halloween and she always borrowed Mom’s tools since they were newer. She tended to treat Mom’s gardening tools like rarely used serving pieces and was absent-minded enough to store them with the good silverware.

“Try the china hutch,” I said. “You know Aunt Dot.”

“Oh. Right. I’ll look there. Thank you.”

“Call as soon as you have news. Bye, Mom. Love you,” I added and then disconnected.

I hadn’t noticed any oil on the redhead’s perfectly manicured hands as she jabbed her fingers at me, but a bitter ex-wife was just the sort of suspect that sprang to mind in a case like that. The burning bush and I might be talking sooner than I had planned, though I wasn’t looking forward to it.

It didn’t take me long to reach Doc Marley’s and to see that Althea was correct about there being stuff smeared on the cement stairs. And probably also all over her clothes too. I recognized the substance as WD-40. It’s a great substance, but not underfoot.

I did my best to find some clues, but there was nothing obvious—no discarded can that might have fingerprints on it, no footprints in the dead flowerbed beside the steps. Blue sniffed around, too, but had no more luck than I did. I had a rag in the cart, so I used it to wipe up the worst of the mess and then placed a call to my father. I explained what had happened and asked if he could come over and finish cleaning up when he was done at the flea market. Dad sharpened scissors and knives on Saturdays at the flea market held in the old stables at the fair grounds once the rains begin. He was bound to have some solvent or cleaner with him.

Dad agreed and then asked if there was anything he should bring for Thanksgiving dinner. His words made my nerves trill pleasantly like they do before you get on a roller-coaster. Thanksgiving was less than a week away now and I needed to go grocery shopping and clean house so everything would be nice for Alex.

“Maybe some wine,” I suggested. Dad does a mean barbecue but the rest of his cuisine was as limited and unimaginative as mine. I like baking, the way Dad likes barbecue. But that was all we liked. Neither of us had ever advanced beyond the basics of food preparation since it didn’t interest us.

Deciding to bend a few more rules, I stopped by the hospital and found Gordon in the lobby asking directions to the waiting room. Mom had obviously called him too and he looked frantic. He shouldn’t be there on his shift, but then neither should I. It made for assured mutual silence. And I thought it touching that he cared enough to come.

“Gordon, we need to talk before you see Althea.”

I could see that he was tempted to say something snide, but my being related to his fiancée gave him pause. The old Gordon would have let fly. Now he actually stopped to consider his reply.

“It’s about Althea’s accident,” I added.

He nodded once and allowed me to lead him over to some of those nasty plastic chairs that they have only in hospitals.

I related my run in with the redhead and then asked him point blank if he knew her and if it was true that she was his ex-wife. I didn’t mention my thoughts about who might have spread WD-40 on the stairs. Gordon wasn’t entirely stupid and he would probably think of this once he heard the details of Althea’s fall.

“Yes. It’s true.” He sounded morose. “Oh God. I’ll never hear the end of it.”

“You were actually married to that woman?” I asked, still kind of shocked at the idea and showing it. Usually I know things, but this one was a bolt out of the blue. A part of me had expected him to deny it, to tell me that the redhead was a loony who had been stalking him.

“Yeah—for about six weeks. Silly and I got married in high school. It took us longer to get a divorce than the whole time we were dating and married.”

“Silly?”

“Short for Sylvia.” He added: “Silly by name and silly by nature.” I didn’t think this quip was original to Gordon and it didn’t fit the woman I had met. Maybe she had changed from when Gordon knew her. “I haven’t seen her in years.”

“Well, she wanted me to warn Althea away from you.”

Gordon blinked a few times, processing this information with typical lardhead slowness. When he spoke, he sounded baffled and a bit angry. “Really? Why?”

“Dale,” I said, using his first name. “Was there any domestic abuse in your marriage?”

“What?” He looked blank.

“Did you hit your ex-wife?” I asked bluntly.

“No!” Lardhead actually looked revolted. “Of course not! Did she say that? It isn’t true! I only threw out her Avon collectibles when she broke my fishing rods!”

“Okay,” I said mildly. I hadn’t really thought that there was much chance of there being abuse. Gordon is sneaky, not violent. And I was planning on running a check on him anyway. At work and also at home. Alex, who would be there Tuesday, was a cyber crimes investigator. If Gordon had anything fishy in his past, Alex would find it. “Then I’ll let you go up to Althea. She’ll be on the second floor, past the pediatrician’s waiting room.”