Die Like an Eagle (32 page)

“Yeah,” I said. “First time anyone's suggested a reason for Shep to be the real target instead of just a sad victim of mistaken identity. That I know of,” I added hastily. “You probably already thought of it.”

“Actually, I hadn't,” he said. “I've been pretty busy investigating the dozen or so people Mr. Brown has either sued or been sued by over the last several years, here or in Clay County. Some of them could well have benefited from Biff's demise. But if Shep was planning to inform on his brother—this should be interesting.”

“And I'll leave you to it,” I said, turning to go.

“One more thing,” he said. “Is there anything you can tell me about your meeting with Mr. Brown that would help us track him down?”

“No,” I said. “But I might know someone who does know something about his whereabouts—let me check.”

He frowned slightly, then nodded.

“I'd appreciate knowing anything you find out.”

Then he took a deep breath and walked back toward his office, carefully carrying the cup of water.

I hurried back out to my car, waving in passing to Caroline, and pulled out my cell phone. Then I called the number Caroline had given me when I wanted to check on Biff's whereabouts. The same perky young woman answered—or maybe being perky was a job requirement in Zoo Security.

“Hey, Meg—you want the location on those two tracking devices?”

Two? I'd almost forgotten the device we'd removed from Biff's car—only yesterday afternoon, though it seemed ages ago.

“Yes, please,” I said aloud.

“Hang on.”

As I waited, I felt around in my tote and retrieved the tracker, thinking what a shame it was that I'd been so ingenious about retrieving it. Having it still on Biff's car would have made short work of this morning's manhunt.

“Got them,” the cheerful young voice said. She rattled off the locations. One was, of course, my location—nice to know the trackers were so accurate. And the other was more or less where it had been spending most of its time since Thursday night—out at Biff's scrapyard. Evidently the windbreaker had not made the cut when Biff packed for his great escape.

“Thanks,” I said, as cheerfully as I could manage.

I hung up the phone and looked back at the front door of the police station, feeling a distinct sense of being let down and left out. Inside, the chief was sifting through the files Gina had brought, learning everything possible about Biff's misdeeds—including misdeeds against the baseball league I was supposed to be running. Inside, Callie had already made her hit-and-run accusation against Biff, and the chief was already trying to sort out how much of her story was true and how much was the result of her patronage of the Clay Pigeon. Even now, the chief might be getting word back from the crime lab in Richmond on whether the test bullets from Callie's gun matched the one they had taken from Biff's body. Or news that Biff had been spotted or even apprehended. For all I knew, the chief was already investigating the alibis of Samuel Yoder, Adolph Pruitt, and the rest of those dozen people who'd been in legal battles with Biff.

And here I was on the outside looking in. Of course, as a civilian this was exactly where I belonged, but that didn't make it feel any less frustrating.

As I reached to start my car, I realized my original goal in coming to town—working on the revised town square renovation project—might be entirely useless. If Biff was on the run, what were the odds he'd show up for that Tuesday morning meeting?

Of course, I could still pick up the contract and work on it at home, just in case.

Or I could avoid the creepy, deserted halls of the courthouse and go home to spend time with my family.

I pulled out my phone and sent a quick text to the county attorney about the need to revise the contract.

And then another thought hit me and I called Cousin Festus.

“You're going to hate me,” I said, when we'd finished the usual greetings.

“Probably not,” he said. “But why would you think so?”

“I got you all excited about buying Mr. Yoder's farm, and now it's all tangled up in a murder case—well, you knew that going in—but what if Biff killed Shep Henson because Shep was going to blow the whistle on his brother's financial crimes, and what if one of those crimes involved cheating Mr. Yoder? I mean, I don't wish Mr. Yoder ill, but I know you want the farm, and if he gets his money back from Biff—”

“It's okay,” Festus said. “I already knew Biff Brown had cheated Mr. Yoder. And frankly, even if Biff hadn't come along, Mr. Yoder would have lost the farm eventually. His wife died last year after a decade of debilitating and expensive illness. Biff was just the last straw. Although Mr. Yoder's plenty angry with Biff—not just for cheating him, but also for making his wife's last days even more stressful than they had to be. To tell you the truth, Mr. Yoder's so over-the-top angry with Biff that I've been a little worried.”

“That he might be the killer?” I asked.

“Not really,” Festus said. “Okay, maybe a little bit, but more worried that people will start to think he's the killer even if he isn't. Because he really isn't rational on the subject of Biff.”

“Do you know if he's alibied?” I asked.

“No idea. And speaking of alibis, I thought Biff had one.”

“The theory is that he subcontracted out the actual murder,” I said. “If he's responsible. Even if he's not the murderer, he's probably going to have some legal entanglements before too long.”

“He already does.” Festus chuckled slightly. “Though I gather you're referring to the criminal side of our justice system. He's already neck deep in the civil side. I did my due diligence before starting to bargain with Mr. Yoder. I not only checked him out, I checked out Biff. Pretty amazing—the man is either suing or being sued by twelve different people in Caerphilly and Clay Counties.”

“Who?” I asked, getting out my notebook. I heard more clicking and key rattling—presumably Festus had done his searching electronically. And then I scribbled rapidly as Festus read out the names.

I didn't know any of the Clay County litigants, though I recognized most of the last names. Two Dingles, two Whickers, a Peebles, a Plunkett, and a Smith. Not surprising, since at least two thirds of the Clay County phone book was made up of people named Dingle, Peebles, Plunkett, or Whicker. I jotted the names down anyway. On the Caerphilly side, Will Entwhistle was on the list, along with the Fluglemans, who owned the feed and garden store, one of Randall's Shiffley cousins, and two Pruitts, Adolph and Herbert.

“That's twelve,” I said. “But you left out Mr. Yoder.”

“He can't afford to sue Biff,” Festus said. “I'd take on the case myself if I thought there was any point to it, but I have a feeling my fellow attorneys are the only ones who'll make any money out of suing Biff.”

“So what is Adolph Pruitt suing Biff about?”

I heard more clicking and keyboard rattling.

“Adolph claims Biff owes him three thousand dollars in return for personal services.”

“What kind of personal services?”

“Doesn't say. Though I have heard rumors that Mr. Pruitt assists Biff in his cash flow management.”

“Are we talking about the same Adolph Pruitt here?” I asked. “I'm not sure the one I've met could count to eleven without taking his shoes off.”

“Cash flow management was actually my diplomatic way of saying that Biff used to send Adolph to encourage reluctant debtors to settle their accounts.”

“Adolph's his enforcer?” I said. “Do we know if Adolph's alibied for the time of Shep's murder?”

“We do not, but the odds are the chief has already thought of that,” Festus said. “Although I'm sure if Adolph was responsible for Shep's death he has already arranged for a suitable alibi. An alibi the chief will know to be fiction, but which will need to be disproved by solid forensic evidence. Let's hope our cousin Horace can save the day. Look, don't worry about me and the farm. I'm very well qualified to navigate whatever tangled legal waters may be involved. But you—take care of yourself. Don't go around accusing any of those litigants of killing Shep. They're not all nice people.”

With that we said our good-byes and hung up. I headed home—a good thing I could do the drive on autopilot, because my brain was still turning over what I'd learned from Festus and at the police station.

I got home just as Mother was organizing the family to go with her to Trinity Episcopal for the eleven o'clock service. Hard to believe it wasn't even eleven yet—it already felt as if I'd put in a full day's work. In the interest of setting a good example, I decided to go along with the rest of the family and postpone by much-needed nap until afternoon.

No doubt the Reverend Robyn appreciated having a somewhat larger congregation than she would have had if baseball had been in session. The boys seemed a great deal more attentive than I would have expected them to be, though about halfway through the proceedings I figured out that they were less interested in the service than in an intense discussion of whether the sanctuary was large enough to play baseball in.

Damn the weather, anyway. I could already tell that, deprived of the opportunity to pursue their new obsession with baseball, the boys would be cranky and bored. For that matter, Michael wasn't quite his usual self.

Inspiration struck. Risking the stern and withering stare Robyn would give me if she caught me using my cell phone during church, I quickly sent out an e-mail to the Eagle families, inviting all the players to an impromptu batting practice in our barn.

“What a great idea!” Michael exclaimed when I told him about it. “Even if no one else comes, Cordelia and I can work with Josh and Jamie.”

But to everyone's delight, all twelve of the Eagles showed up. Chuck and Tory Davis arrived with a carload, and the rest were dropped off by parents who were delighted to find something to amuse their kids on a rainy afternoon.

Which eventually became merely a cloudy afternoon, thank goodness, meaning that we'd have at least a fighting chance of playing baseball in the morning.

At around six, we fed the assembled Eagles with leftovers from the various picnics. Then Chuck and Tory and I divided the ten nonresident players between their SUV and the Twinmobile and set off to take them home. It was dusk by the time I dropped off the last player, Sami Patel, made sure he had his bag, and set out for home.

As I was helping Sami with his baseball bag, I noted a litter of unfamiliar objects left behind. Miguel's glove. Jake's left shoe. Someone's left batting glove.

If I were a better person, I'd deliver the stray items. Or at least the shoe.

But I was tired. When I got home, I could send out a group e-mail with an inventory of stray items I'd be bringing to the game tomorrow.

As I was heading out of town, I noticed a familiar car approaching from the direction of our house. It was Caroline. Then she took a left turn, onto the Clay Swamp Road.

Odd. What reason could Caroline possibly have for taking the Clay Swamp Road? Especially at this time of night. Most people who wanted to get to Clayville took the Clayville Road, which at least had the virtue of being more or less direct and containing about as much pavement as pothole.

About the only thing of interest on the Clay Swamp Road was the Brown Construction Company scrapyard.

I turned to follow.

 

Chapter 26

I followed Caroline as she passed the last few houses on the edge of town. She was definitely heading to Biff's. Considering how spooky the place was in the daylight, I didn't much like the idea of anyone going there at this time of night. I pulled out my cell phone and called her.

No answer.

And she was going pretty fast. Not a smart thing to do. Between the vast number of deer that lived in the surrounding woods and the vast number of deputies scouring the roads for Biff, following the speed limit seemed advisable. So I did. I soon lost sight of Caroline. But I wasn't too worried. If she was going where I thought she was going, I could still catch up with her before she got into too much trouble.

Sure enough, when I came to the end of the long, scantly graveled road through the swamp and pulled into the junk-infested clearing in front of Biff's front gates, I heard frenzied barking and saw Caroline's car parked by the fence. Caroline herself was dangling near the top of the fence, gazing at two dogs who appeared to be trying to hurl themselves over the fence at her.

I stopped my car a little way short of the gate and rolled down my window.

“Evening,” I said.

“Don't just stand there,” she said. “Get me down from here.”

“And how were you planning to get down if I hadn't showed up?”

“I wasn't planning on getting stuck. Hurry!”

I carefully maneuvered my car until it was jammed up against the fence directly below Caroline. Not that I couldn't have climbed the fence under ordinary circumstances, but I didn't much like my odds of losing a few fingers or toes to the frenzied watchdogs. From the car's roof I was able to climb up at a level past where the dogs could easily reach. I untangled Caroline's sweater from a broken end of one of the chain links and then lowered her to the roof of my car. Then I jumped down myself and helped her from the car roof to the ground.

She stood a few feet from the fence while I moved the car to a safe distance.

“What a dump,” she exclaimed, when I strolled back to join her.

“Bette Davis,” I said. “In both
Beyond the Forest
and
Dead Ringer
.”

“I'm serious,” she said. “How are we ever going to find that tracking device in this dump?”

“If I'd known you were planning on burgling Biff's business for the tracking device, I'd have told you what a bad idea it was.”