Decorated to Death (14 page)

“We’re going where?” gasped Mary. “Did I hear you right? Tell me you didn’t say Old Railway Road. My stars, why in the world do we want to go back there?”

“Would you have felt better if I said we were going to the Springvale mall?” I asked, lighting a cigarette and watching as the combination of speed and wind sucked the smoke out of the van.

The day was what we Hoosiers like to call a real scorcher, and seeing that I hadn’t gotten around to getting the AC fixed, I had every window in the van wide open. Between the weather, the potholes, and the wind, Mary was more in danger of suffering from heat stroke, a concussion, or secondhand dust than from secondhand smoke. How she managed to hold on to the box that Ellie had fixed for me to supposedly bring to Charlie, much less open it without spilling a single crumb of brownie or glob of chicken salad, I’ll never know. I was too busy driving like Danica Patrick to look at Mary.

“Of course I’d rather be going to the mall to shop than sleuthing with you. I have to be honest with you, Gin. This whole…whoooie! Now that was a pothole with a capital P. Anyway, like I was saying, this whole sleuthing business isn’t as glamorous as I thought it was going to be. At least, not the way you do it. First you do a lot, and I mean a lot of talking to people, then you have these hunches or bouts of intuition or whatever you want to call them, then you go around annoying people and just when any normal person would call it quits, you go off on your own and eureka! You solve the crime.

“Jeez, Mar, what do you expect me to do? Run around like some hack writer’s idea of a tough dame detective? Packin’ heat, wearing five-inch heels, a tightly belted trench coat, and taking my wiskey neat? It would be interesting but I don’t think very productive.”

“Maybe not quite like that but it certainly wouldn’t hurt if you patterned yourself a wee bit along…whoooie! My stars, Gin, slow down. One more bump like that and all this nice food is going to end up on the floor.”

“Mary, would you please, please stick to what you were saying and leave the driving to me. And as far as where we are going and what we’re going to do when we get there, it may seem dull to you but it is important. I need to see a couple of things for myself. Once I do that, I’m done and the ball will be in Rollie Stevens’s court.”

“Why him and not Matt?” Mary wanted to know. Her voice sounded muffled and I knew without looking at her that Mary had a mouthful of the brownie dessert.

“Because,” I answered, steering the van around a hubcap that had fallen off somebody’s car. I’d be willing to bet that car and cap were never reunited. Like socks, hubcaps lead a very independent life and think nothing of disappearing without notice. “Matt and Sid Rosen are working on a big hush-hush case; it’s so hush-hush that even JR doesn’t know anything about it except that it keeps Matt away from home a lot.”

We were within a few feet of the driveway leading to the old cottage when Mary nearly choked on brownie crumbs.

“Gin, slow down. You’re going to miss the turn,” she screeched as the van whizzed down the road.

“Who said we were going to the cottage? What I want to check out is down the road, like here,” I said as I whipped the van into the parking area next to the defunct railway station. That’s when I saw the remains of the chicken salad on the floor in front of Mary.

“Jeez, Mar, what a mess. I know the van’s not the cleanest of vehicles, but chicken salad? When did that happen?”

“About three potholes ago. Don’t blame me. You were the one driving. If you would have stopped by my house so that I could have picked up my purse, I’d be able to clean up the mess with a towelette. I always keep a supply of the little individual packets in my purse. Maybe you’ve got some in your emergency supply kit in your purse. Want me to look?”

“Don’t bother, Mary. The only emergency supplies in my purse are two aspirin, a Band-Aid, an extra pack of cigarettes, and a couple of Midol tablets.”

“Midol? Good grief, when was the last time you cleaned out your purse?”

I didn’t bother to answer. Instead I grabbed a roll of white adhesive tape from the van’s console and was almost across the road when Mary caught up with me.

“We drove all the way out here to stand by the interstate exit ramp? If you’re waiting for someone, good luck,” said Mary, scraping a mixture of mayonnaise and chicken from the bottom of one of her low-heel, black-patent leather pumps in a patch of nearby grass. “Almost everyone going to or coming from Seville uses the exit and entrance ramps on the other side of town. They’re a heck of a lot closer to the business district and the college.”

“I’m not waiting for anyone. I’m here to look at those,” I said, pointing to the signs that stood formidably on each side of the exit ramp. The entrance ramp was located at the other end of the overpass that spanned Old Railway Road.

“Do me a favor, Mary. Read me exactly what those signs say, word for word. I think when you do, you’ll have a renewed respect for my method of sleuthing.”

Mary rolled her big, blueberry-colored eyes in exasperation. “Okay, here goes:
DO NOT ENTER
and
DO NOT ENTER
.”

“Now, close your eyes,” I instructed as I tore off two strips of the white tape and placed them on the signs. “Now, open your eyes and read me exactly what the signs say, word for word.”

“
ENTER
and
ENTER
,” gasped Mary. “Oh my stars, the signs! If someone messed with the signs to purposely trick Dona’s elderly aunt into going the wrong way on the interstate, then her accident wasn’t an accident at all.”

“You got it, Mary,” I answered as I removed the tape from the two signs. “The Washington Street sign was a prank. Stupid but still just a prank. What happened out here was as deliberate as it was deadly. In fact it was murderous.”

“And it was done with tape?” Mary asked as we made our way back across the road to where the van was parked.

“It could’ve been done that way or perhaps the signs were temporarily removed. It could’ve been as simple as turning the signs around,” I replied. “I think Vincent Salerno figured it out, which ultimately led to his disappearance.”

“If that’s the case, Gin, why didn’t he report it to the police instead of disappearing?”

“Because the murderer stopped him before he had the chance. This entire case has been a series of connected incidences like that nursery rhyme, ‘The House That Jack Built.’ Do you remember it?”

“I’m not sure I can recall the entire thing,” said Mary, “but didn’t it go something like ‘This is the house that Jack built and this is the mouse that lived in the house that Jack built.’ Then it went on about the mouse that ate the cheese in the house and then the rat ate the mouse that ate the cheese and so on and so forth.”

“And what did everything end up coming back to?” I asked, hoping that Mary would catch on to the analogy between the two murders and the nursery rhyme.

“Everything comes back to the house that Jack built,” said Mary, “kind of like how everything comes back to Old Railway Road. Am I right, Gin?”

“Right on the button. Like I said, everything about this case is connected, beginning with the supposed accidental death of Dona’s aunt and ending with the disappearance of Vincent Salerno. Everything starts and ends with Old Railway Road.”

“Okay,” said Mary, “I think I understand what you’re saying, but what in the world was the killer’s motive?”

“That, my dear Watson,” I said, adapting the mannerism of Sherlock Holmes, the great fictional detective, “is what I hope to discover next at our last stop.”

I was trying to lighten things up a bit for Mary’s sake. The reality that not one but two murders had taken place on Old Railway Road horrified her. I knew she was anxious to leave the desolate area.

“You mean there’s still more to do? Like what?” demanded Mary as we made our way back to the van.

“If you come with me, you’ll see for yourself or you can wait for me here at the railroad station. It’s entirely up to you, but trust me, it won’t take long. I plan on being back at Sally’s while the murderer is still enjoying Billy’s fabulous food. By the way, Mar, you’re right about the sandwiches being great.”

Mary’s natural curiosity made the decison for her. She was already in the van and buckled up before I put the key in the ignition.

Driving past the entrance to the old cottage, I turned down the rutted dirt and gravel side road, bringing the van to a halt behind the thick clump of trees that separated the cottage from the barn and shed. Before getting out of the van, I tooted the horn three times.

“What’s with the horn, Gin? Are we meeting someone here?”

“No, in fact just the opposite,” I said as I got out of the van. “If I’m right about what’s in the barn or possibly in the shed, the last thing I want to do is to run into someone, especially the murderer. I figure if anyone was lurking about, the blasts from the horn would’ve sent them running out here to see who was making the racket and why.”

Getting out of the van, I headed for the shed, the nearest of the two outbuildings.

“Hey, wait for me,” cried Mary, unbuckling the seatbelt and scrambling to catch up with me.

The shed was locked, something I hadn’t counted on. If it had been a movie or TV show instead of a real-life situation, I would’ve used some ingenuity and picked the lock.

“Jeez, now what?” I said more to myself than Mary, “I really need to see what’s inside that shed.”

“If that’s the case, why don’t you peek through the window?” Mary suggested. “It’s pretty dirty but I think you could probably see something, maybe even what you want to see.”

“From out of the mouths of babes,” I said, grabbing Mary and pushing her toward the window.

“In case you haven’t noticed, Gin, I haven’t grown an extra six inches in the last few minutes. It’s too high up. There’s no way I can peek in that window.”

“Me neither, but with your help, I think I can. Now lace your fingers together and give me a boost up.”

After a couple of failed attempts, Mary managed to hang in there long enough for me to get a good look through the dirty windowpane. Other than a jumble of rusty garden tools, empty paint cans, and some broken bushel baskets, there wasn’t anything of note to be seen. Disappointed and covered with grime from leaning against the window and side of the shed, I instructed Mary to follow me as I walked over to the barn.

The old barn, which dated back to the 1860s, had been repaired over the years by so many different people using so many different materials that little remained of the original structure.

“Cross your fingers, Mar, and say a prayer that the barn’s not locked, otherwise we’ll have to resort to plan B.”

“Really? What’s plan B?” Mary asked, still huffing from her stint as a human step stool.

I was saved from revealing the nonexistent plan by the carelessness of others. The lock on the door hadn’t been properly secured, allowing access to the barn.

“Thank you, Saint Patrick,” I said to the saint in charge of Irish luck.

Using two hands, I managed to pull open the heavy, reinforced oversized barn door, which Mary then promptly managed to pull closed as soon as we’d stepped inside.

“Good lord, Mary, I’m not a mole. Would you please open the damn door so I can find the light switch.”

“Oh no, I can’t get it to budge, not even an inch,” wailed Mary. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say that we’re locked in. Maybe it’s time for plan B.”

Mary never did get the door opened and I never did find the light switch, but as my eyes became more accustomed to the semidarkness of the barn (a few rays of light managed to sneak between the odd space here and there in the walls) I did find Abner Wilson’s motive for murder—a fully operating meth lab. And last but not least, I found the investigator-cum-bodyguard, the missing Vincent Salerno.

Trussed up like a calf in a rodeo, and with his mouth taped shut, “Just call me Vinny” had been tossed on the dirt floor in a section of the barn that, from the smell of it, had at one time housed farm animals. Aside from some nasty rope burns, and an assortment of bumps and bruises, Vencent Salerno was alive and for that I was grateful. So was Mary who had stumbled over him in the semidarkness and was on the verge of having another fainting spell.

“Mary Catherine Hastings England, don’t you dare pass out. There’s nothing available to toss in your face, not even dog water, unless you prefer that I use something from old man Wilson’s handy-dandy, do-it-yourself pharmacy,” I said, gesturing to the work bench that housed the paraphernalia used to make the horrific end product.

What I said to Mary, coupled with the fact that the insurance investigator was very much alive, snapped her out of it.

While a somewhat woozy Mary worked on freeing his hands and legs, I yanked the strip of masking tape from Salerno’s mouth. Contrary to what I’d come to expect, thanks to Charlie’s passion for action movies and TV shows, the first words out of the man’s mouth were not those of gratitude but rather a collection of words and phrases that would’ve made even the most seasoned sailor blush. To his credit, once Salerno calmed down and rubbed his cheeks and mouth, his civil tongue returned and he thanked us properly for coming to his rescue.

Of course, once he started talking, he was almost impossible to shut up. He began by telling us that from the beginning Dona was convinced that her aunt, whose given name was Jenny, had been a victim of foul play.

After the authorities ruled the aunt’s death an accident, the diet diva contacted the aunt’s insurance company. The insurance company gave the job of looking into the accident to him, and Dona provided the cover he needed to conduct a covert investigation.

Dona was also convinced that whoever was behind the elderly woman’s death was someone in her entourage. She believed that she and her daughter Ellie were next on the killer’s list. Because she was popping prescription drugs like candy, she’d had become increasingly paranoid about it. But when she turned up dead, the investigator began having second thoughts about the aunt’s death being a prank that went awry.

“Remember last Sunday when you asked me about my alibi for the time when Dona was murdered and I said I was following the advice of my horescope?”

How could I forget, I thought while nodding my head in the affirmative and waiting for him to continue.

“Actually,” he said, “I was nosing around the exit ramp by the old railroad station when Dona was murdered, something I wasn’t about to admit because it put me in such close proximity to the scene of not one murder but two. I was afraid if you knew that then you would hinder my investigation with your amateur efforts to solve Dona’s murder. I thought the warning I gave you about sticking to decorating would be enough to scare you off. I don’t mind telling you, Mrs. Hastings, I’m sure glad I was wrong.”

“But you still haven’t explained how you ended up here,” said Mary as we helped him to his feet.

We really needed to get out of there, so I suggested that Salerno save the rest of his explanation for the ride back to town. I assumed, that with the three of us pushing, the heavy barn door wouldn’t be a problem. Unfortunately we were about to discover that the door was the least of our problems.

We were almost to the door when it suddenly swung open. The flood of light temporaily blinded us, making it impossible to determine if we had just been saved or captured by the person silhouetted in the doorway. The moment I heard the voice, I had the answer—and it wasn’t good.

It was “Stanley Kowalski,” the boy from the top floor of Abner Wilson’s house, blocking our exit. He wasn’t yelling for Stella but he was yelling for Abner Wilson. He also flipped on the light switch, the one I had been unable to find.

“Oh my stars, Gin,” gasped Mary, “look at the shirt he’s wearing. It’s Herbie’s bowling shirt, the one with his name on it. How do you suppose he got it?”

“Most likely the same way he gets everything he wants—he stole it. He probably got the gun he’s holding the same way. It’s kind of a nice touch. It gives his outfit that extra punch often lacking in your run-of-the-mill bowling attire.”

“Hey, you with the big mouth and dirty clothes,” he snarled at me, “for your info, I found this shirt in the alley behind our house. It was still in the box, not even opened. Me and Uncle Abner deal in drugs, not stolen goods. We leave that part of the business up to our customers and the fence over in Springvale. Now put a lid on it or I’ll blow your friggin’ head off.”

Given such a narrow range of choices, I shut my mouth for the time being. The same couldn’t be said of Mary, who lit into him as only someone who has raised a family of boys can do. Mary was really getting to the nasty punk, who seemed to be on the verge of at least letting her walk out of there, when Abner Wilson came limping into the barn.

In spite of knowing zilch about firearms, I couldn’t help but notice that Abner Wilson’s gun resembled the one Clint Eastwood was holding when he uttered the memorable movie line about a punk making his day. In contrast the gun that Stanley (his given name turned out to be Stanley) held in his hot little shaking hand looked just like the one Joan Crawford used in a lot of her films. She kept it in a tiny, clutch-type evening bag that had a huge diamond clasp. At exactly the right moment, she would open the purse and pull out the gun without ever removing her elbow length gloves. Her dexterity amazed me.

But I digress—my point being that Abner Wilson’s gun was as big as Stanley’s gun was small and both weapons were pointed in my direction.

“Well, well, if it ain’t Miz Hastings and Miz England,” said the old handyman in a manner that belied the seriousness of the situation. “Fancy meetin’ you two ladies in a place like this. I see that you found what you was lookin’ for.”

“I guess you could say that, although I didn’t expect to find Mr. Salerno in here. I must say, you were very convincing when you thanked me at the luncheon for delivering your message to him, telling him to stay away. I never thought that you were holding him captive in the barn.”

“Surprised you, didn’t I. Just like I did when I walked throught that door.” Abner chuckled. “I bet you wish now that you went to the hospital like you said instead of snoopin’ around this here barn. You think I swallowed that baloney about you runnin’ up to the hospital to bring lunch to Mr. Hastings? Not me. After you left, I seen that young doctor fella walkin’ around in the yard. I asked him how your husband was doin’ and he tells me Charlie’s under some kind of quarantine. No visitors. That’s when I told Miz Birdwell I was feelin’ poorly and took my leave, picked up my grandnephew Stanley at the house, and hightailed it out here.”

Apparently, all that talk made Abner Wilson thirsty. Removing the flask from the back pocket of his overalls, he opened it and took a long drink. “With the profit we made on meth, me and Stanley are gonna live like a couple of kings south of the border.”

“Lay off the booze, old man,” ordered Stanley, “we got a lot of driving to do if we’re going to make it to Mexico before the cops are onto us.”

“Now don’t you go a worryin’ about the police. I talked to old Rollie Stevens after the funeral service,” said Abner, taking another drink from the flask. “If he’s onto anyone, it’s that doctor fella. The smartest thing I did, aside from sending that old gal up that exit ramp, was havin’ you swipe that heart listen’ thing from the doctor’s office while he was busy checkin’ my bum leg. The only two on the whole dang Seville police force worth worrying about are Cusak and Rosen. Accordin’ to Rollie Stevens they’re at some kinda profilin’ seminar being held up in Fort Wayne.”

“I don’t give a rat’s ass what they’re doing, I just want to get out of here and on our way before some of our customers either get caught by their parents for using meth or by the Springvale cops for fencin’ the stuff they stole. Got that? Now lay off the booze while I get the rope.” Stanley was halfway to the door when he turned around. “And stop talkin’ to the one in the dirty clothes. She’s got a big mouth and bad vibes.”

“The feeling’s mutual, chum,” I called after the fast-retreating figure. Stanley was bad news but so far, unlike his great-uncle, he hadn’t killed anyone.

With the blood of two people already on his hands, I knew that Abner Wilson was not about to set off to live like a king in Mexico with three witnesses for the prosecution merely tied up in the barn. No way, no how. The sunny side of the street was looking farther and farther away. If ever there was a time for plan B, this was it. Now all I had to do was think of something.

Apparently, Vincent Salerno was doing what I was doing but with more success. When Abner Wilson tipped the flask to his lips for another drink, the insurance investigator decided it was time to make his move. He rushed the old man and knocked him off his feet. Abner Wilson grabbed Salerno’s leg and soon the two were locked in a wrestling match. Shouting for Mary and me to make a run for it as the old handyman shoved his face into the dirt floor, Salerno didn’t see Abner reaching for the gun that had fallen out of his hand when the younger man knocked him down. Salerno also didn’t see the returning Stanley who, with gun drawn, blocked our exit from the barn. When the big gun hit him in the back of his head, Vincent Salerno didn’t see anything at all. He was unconscious.

Using the steel tip of his work shoe, the murderous Abner pushed the limp body of the investigator into the stable area, where it came to rest in front of an ancient, battered storage bin that was about the size of a large packing crate. My guess was that at one time the bin was used for animal feed but like everything else in the old barn, including the meth lab, it had outlived its usefulness.

“God damn,” said Abner Wilson to no one in particular, “that investigative fella smells worse than that old horse stall and that’s sayin’ somethin’. I swear that whole floor back in the stall area is ninety-nine percent horse manure and one percent dirt.”

“Yeah, I agree with you on that,” said Stanley, breaking into a sly grin and showing teeth almost as black as his stringy hair. Obviously, Stanley had been as hooked on meth as Abner was on making money from it. Neither activity requires a very high IQ. “I think that stall’s the perfect place for a couple of snoopy broads, especially the bigmouth one.”

“Well then, why don’t you herd them in there and tie them up tight while I go get that container of gasoline from the back of the truck?” the old man replied as he retrieved his flask from the top of a pile of trash.

Upon finding that all the liquor had trickled out, Abner Wilson limped over to where the insurance investigator lay pressed against the storage bin. Then he stopped short and turned away.

“He ain’t worth the bullet. The fire will take care of him along with everything else in this old barn,” he said as he began making his way toward the barn door.

“You mean you’re not fixing to take any of the lab stuff with us? Hell, there’s more than enough room in that investigator guy’s SUV. I say we take it with us,” said Stanley as he began pushing me and Mary into the stinking stall area.

“You know somethin’, Stanley, sometimes you’re as dumb as a stump. That’s all we need is to get caught haulin’ around that stuff. Use your head. When we get ready to set up another lab, we can replace all that equipment as easy as pie.”

“Even in Mexico?” replied the agitated Stanley, poking the small gun into Mary’s back in an effort to hurry her along.

“Yeah, sure. They got hardware stores, drugstores, and supermarkets same as us. And if they don’t, we’ll just cross the border back into the States and go to a Wal-Mart superstore. They got everything, like they say, including lower prices.”

“Okay then. You get the gasoline and I’ll get these two ready for toasting. See, Unc, you’re not the only one who can make a joke.” Stanley was immensely pleased with himself.

With Abner Wilson fetching the gasoline from the back of his battered pickup truck, Stanley ordered Mary and me to sit back-to-back on the floor with arms behind us and legs drawn up to our knees. We did as we were told, which led to the first of Stanley’s problems.

The twentysomething Stanley couldn’t manage to tie both of us up at the same time. He also couldn’t figure out how to tie even one of us up while keeping the other at bay without letting go of either the gun or the rope. It would have been funny except the spot we were in was no laughing matter.

My offer to hold the gun for him was met with a resounding no, but Mary reminded him that Abner was not going to be pleased with him should he return with the gasoline to find that Stanley had failed to do as he was told. Since Mary seemed to have a better rapport with Stanley than I did, I kept quiet and let her do the talking. He finally agreed to her suggestion that he hold the gun while she tied me up. Once that was done, he could then tie up Mary, who was, in her own words, a very trustworthy person.

“You know, Stanley, it hurts me to see the way your uncle talks down to you,” clucked Mary, keeping up a steady stream of motherly comments as she bound my ankles tightly before starting on my wrists, which were behind my back, “but I’m very proud of the way you hold your temper. It can’t be easy working for a man like Abner. For one thing, he’s so much older than you that he doesn’t seem to understand where you’re coming from. Do you know what I’m saying? I’ll bet he even complains about your music, something I know from having raised my own sons is terribly important.”

Mary then proceeded to rattle off names of recording artists that for the most part were unknown to me, except for the ones that had made headlines with behavior often described by the media as being lewd, obscene, or unlawful. I couldn’t have been more surprised if Mary had ripped open her blouse and revealed a tattoo of Herman’s Hermits on her ample bosom. But like I said, I kept my mouth shut except for a few loud shrieks of faux pain as Mary tied the ropes around my wrists.

By the time old man Wilson returned with the gasoline and a snootful of liquor, Mary and I sat back-to-back tied up and, as Stanley had so comically put it, ready for toasting.