Lost Legacy (A Zoe Chambers Mystery Book 2) (5 page)

Nadine deposited a gargantuan purse on one of the kitchen chairs. “Come on, Dad.” She guided him toward the living room. “I think your favorite TV show is on.”

TV? Pete opened his mouth to protest. How long did they plan on staying? But his sister shot him a look that reminded him of his mother when he’d been in serious trouble as a kid. He closed his mouth.

Once the old man was settled on the sofa in front of the television, Nadine returned to the kitchen. “We have to talk.”

No man alive wanted to hear those four words from any woman. “I wish you’d have called first. This isn’t a good time for a visit.”

“Which is precisely why I
didn’t
call first. It’s never a good time.”

“But this really isn’t. I have to be in Brunswick to attend an autopsy in a half hour.”

“Tough.”

“What?”

“You heard me.” Nadine stripped the bright red elastic thing from her hair and made a production of slicking back the few stray wisps before rebinding them. “I’ve been taking care of Dad with virtually no help from you for almost five years now.”

“You volunteered to take him into your house when they first diagnosed him.”

“Yes. Because the Alzheimer’s wasn’t that bad yet and I didn’t want to see him put in a home.” She drew a deep breath and blew it out. “I still don’t. But I need some help from you.”

“I work. You don’t.”

“I do.” She slammed a fist down on the table. “I work from home.”

Pete winced. “You know what I mean.”

“You said exactly what you meant. Your work is more important than mine because you go out into the world and arrest bad guys and all I do is transcribe doctors’ notes.”

Pete wanted to charge across the room and grab his sister by her shoulders. Shake her. But that would mean putting weight on his ankle. “What do you expect me to do? Quit my job?”

Nadine stuck her chin out. He remembered this same obstinate pose from when they were kids. One time he’d given in to temptation and belted her. He’d been six. She’d been four. But their dad had made it clear that hitting a girl—any girl, but especially his sister—would not be tolerated.

“I’m the one who’s quitting,” Nadine said.

“What?”

“Okay. Not quitting. I’m taking a vacation.”

Oh. Were she and Dad headed somewhere and simply dropped in along the way? Was this entire argument over nothing? But somehow, that chin and the look in her eyes...

“I need a break. You never listen to me when I tell you I need you to take Dad for a weekend every now and then. If you’d even come stay with him for a few hours once a week so I could go shopping. But no. You have your precious job.”

“Now hold on. I come out to visit every chance I get.”

“Oh, sure. Once, maybe twice, a month. Never when it’s convenient. Never with enough advanced warning I could plan to do something while you’re there. Fine. I’ve had all I can take. If I don’t get away for a few weeks, I’m going to...I don’t know. I don’t want to find out.”

So she and Dad weren’t going on vacation. “What are you getting at?” Pete knew the answer, but hoped—prayed—he was wrong.

“Dad will stay with you for the next two weeks. Maybe three. I’m going to the ocean to rest and regain my sanity.”

Damn it. He wasn’t wrong. “Nadine, I can’t take him today—”

“I’m not asking you. You’d never say ‘Okay, Sis. Sure I’ll take him.’ It’s always ‘Not today.’” Her impersonation of his voice wasn’t particularly flattering. “I’m telling you. This is how it will be. He’s all yours. I have a suitcase of his stuff in my car. You can bring it in. It’s the black one. The other suitcases are mine.”

He glared at her. She glared back. And he knew damned well, she was not going to back down.

Nadine hoisted her massive handbag from the chair and thumped it on the table. She flung it open and dug around inside, coming up with a large zippered plastic bag filled with pill bottles. “These are Dad’s meds.”

Holy shit. There had to be a whole pharmacy in there.

After more digging, she came up with a sheet of paper, which she shoved at Pete. “This tells you all you need to know. Which pills he gets when. Don’t mix them up or forget.”

Pete took the paper and unfolded it. “Are these all for his Alzheimer’s?”

“No. The donepezil is for his dementia. The lisinopril and atenolol are for his heart and blood pressure.” She waved a dismissive hand. “You don’t need to know what they’re all for. Just make certain he takes them on time. And I made sure there’s enough so you won’t have to bother with refills.”

Pete read down the list of drugs, dosages, and times to a paragraph at the bottom. “What’s this?”

“Dad needs to keep to a routine as much as possible. That’s his favorite shows, meal times, bath time—”

“
Bath
times?”

“Relax. He can still bathe himself. You just have to remind him to do it.”

“Great.”

“And on occasion, he gets rambunctious in the evenings.”

“Nadine, how am I supposed to conduct police business with Dad around? Take him with me?”

She shrugged. “Not my problem. For the next month, it’s up to you to work it out.”

Month? “You said two weeks.”

“I said maybe three. Maybe even four. My plans are what you call open-ended.” She added arms-crossed-in-front-of-her-chest to the jutted-chin pose.

Pete knew he didn’t stand a chance. Reining in his anger, he dropped the bag of pharmaceuticals and the note regarding the care and feeding of his father on the table. He flung the door open, and attempted to storm across the porch. The best he could manage was a stomp and a hop. Damned ankle.

“Why are you limping?” Nadine called after him.

For a fleeting moment, he pondered playing the pity card. But he’d never used that one before in his life. He wasn’t going to start now. “It’s nothing. I’ll be fine.”

As he heaved his father’s weathered black bag from Nadine’s trunk, he struggled with the worst part of the situation.

His sister was absolutely right.

Pete had largely been avoiding his dad since he’d starting showing the early signs of dementia. Harry Adams had always been a tough old cuss. Take no prisoners. Take even less shit. Seeing the old man deteriorate in bits and pieces had been too hard. When Nadine volunteered to be caregiver, Pete had happily—and gratefully—allowed her to take on the role. He’d never intended to become an absentee son. But his work gave him every opportunity to do just that.

Now Nadine had thrown down her cards. Pete had no grounds to argue with her.

When he returned with the bag, Nadine was in the living room kneeling next to their father. She whispered something to him and kissed him on the cheek before rising and bustling past Pete, snatching her purse, and bustling out the door.

Pete gazed into the other room at the old man who was engrossed in whatever was on the TV. How the hell was he going to manage taking care of his dad while investigating a possible homicide?

“Hey, Pop,” he called. “Feel like going for a ride?”

Pete entered the Monongahela County Morgue in the Brunswick Hospital basement exactly fifteen minutes after nine with Harry shuffling alongside him.

Coroner Franklin Marshall and Forensic Pathologist Lyle “Doc” Abercrombie, both in blue surgical scrubs, stood next to a stainless steel table on which lay James Engle’s body. A short, stocky autopsy tech had already created the Y incision and was cutting through the ribs with a pair of loppers very much like the ones Pete used to prune his shrubs.

“You’re late,” Franklin said. “And who did you bring with you?”

Pete introduced his father to the coroner and the pathologist with a cursory mention of a surprise visit before directing Harry to a metal stool on one side of the room.

“You can sit here, Dad.”

“Okay. Where are we?”

“The morgue. I’m observing an autopsy.” Pete had answered the same question at least five times since he parked his car.

“As long as it isn’t mine.” Harry winked at him. At least the old man’s sense of humor was still intact.

“Stay here. And don’t touch anything.” Pete wasn’t much concerned about his father contaminating anything. But he knew the condition of some of the bodies in this place. God only knew what diseases some of those stiffs carried.

“He can watch if he wants,” Franklin said.

“Thanks, but he’s fine where he is.” Pete didn’t care to explain that he hadn’t brought his father along because he was interested in his son’s work, but because he hadn’t had time to find someone to sit with the old man.

The tech set the loppers aside and lifted the sternum with portions of the ribs attached away from the chest, as though removing a lid from a box.

Franklin picked up a camera and snapped some shots of the chest cavity before the tech made a few snips and removed the heart. He set it in a scale, the way ladies at the market used to weigh their produce. Doc Abercrombie stepped in and moved the organ to a cutting board on an adjacent stainless steel counter where he used a scalpel to slice some tissue samples. As he worked, the pathologist mumbled notes into a recorder.

“I thought Detective Baronick would be here as well,” Franklin said, his voice low.

“He’s at the victim’s house again this morning.” Searching for whatever had the surviving Engle so spooked. “Did I miss anything here?” Pete asked.

“Nothing unexpected. Petechial hemorrhages indicate asphyxiation. The bruising on the neck is consistent with hanging by rope. The ligature marks slant upward from left to right.”

“So no indication he had assistance?”

“None yet. It’ll be at least a week or so before we get the tox screens back. Of course, with advanced lung cancer, I’d expect a high level of morphine in his blood.”

“Time of death?”

“Considering the temperature in that barn and the rate of decay, I’d say our victim had been dead a couple of days before they found him.”

The pathologist bent over the body, peering into the open chest cavity. “Gentlemen, I think we have a problem.”

Pete and Franklin moved closer. With the victim’s heart out of the way, they had a clear view of the lungs.

Abercrombie made a few cuts with his scalpel and lifted one of them out of the body.

Franklin squinted, removed his glasses to wipe his eyes, and put them on again. “Well, I’ll be damned.”

Whatever fascinated the two death experts eluded Pete. “What am I looking at?”

Franklin scratched his head. “Didn’t you say this man was dying of lung cancer?”

“Yes. His brother said he only had days or weeks to live.”

The pathologist gave a short laugh.

Franklin pointed to the mound in Abercrombie’s hands. “Chief, this is one of the healthiest-looking lungs I’ve ever had the pleasure to autopsy.” He motioned to Engle’s chest cavity. “And from what I can tell, that one’s a perfect match.”

Pete looked at Franklin for some sign the coroner was joking, but found none.

Doc Abercrombie nodded his agreement. “I’m going to run further tests, of course. But from what I see here, this man did not have lung cancer.”

Pete stepped back and winced when his ankle reminded him of its presence. With a swarm of questions buzzing in his brain like angry bees, he turned away from the body. No lung cancer? What was going on? Both Carl Loomis and Wilford Engle had told him of the diagnosis. Had they both lied? Had James Engle lied to them? Or had Wilford Engle lied to his brother’s farm worker to cover up a murder?

Pete blinked away the litany of questions when a new one overpowered them. Across the room sat an empty stool.

Where the hell had his father gone?

Five

Zoe often threatened to hang a thermometer in the hay mow, but figured she didn’t really want to know how hot it was. Sweat, mingled with chaff and dust, trickled down her back. She squirmed against the itchy stuff sticking to her skin under her shirt. 

“Hold up down there,” Patsy shouted over the racket of the hay elevator to Mr. Kroll and Tom, who were unloading the wagon parked in the indoor riding arena and tossing bales onto the contraption.

Patsy played catch at the top, handing the forty-pound bales to Zoe, who stacked them in the loft above the stalls that flanked the arena on the two long walls of the barn. In her effort to position the bales in the perfect pattern—fit the most hay in the cramped space without having the whole darned thing come crashing down like a house of cards—she’d fallen behind the pace. At the moment, Patsy had half a dozen bales at her feet waiting for Zoe.

“What are you girls doing up there?” Mr. Kroll shouted to them. “Quit your lollygagging. We’re almost done.”

The harassment was all in jest. During hay season, no one ever criticized the help. It was too sparse. Zoe had been shocked when Tom accepted her request that he assist. She had an ulterior motive, of course. She hoped he’d open up about his relationship with James Engle, but her questions would have to wait until the work was done.

Patsy lugged two bales back to the corner where Zoe perched five rows up, wrestled a bale into the space against the sloped roof. “You never mentioned your dad was so good looking.”

“
Step
dad.” Zoe emphasized the
step
part of it. “My real dad died when I was eight. And isn’t Tom a little old for you? He’s in his sixties.”

“Age has nothing to do with it. He’s hot.”

Zoe glanced over her shoulder at her grinning friend. “You plan on stealing him away from my mom?”

“Maybe.” Patsy winked at her.

“Good luck with that. For some reason, he’s completely devoted to her.” A fact that had always puzzled Zoe. Patsy was right about Tom. Zoe remembered thinking what a hunk he was back when she’d been a hormonal teenager. Her mother, on the other hand, had always been self-absorbed and needy. More so after the car crash that claimed Zoe’s father’s life.

Poor Tom. He could have had his pick of women. Instead he played caretaker to Kimberly and her daughter, marrying the young widow less than a year after the accident.

Patsy heaved another bale up to Zoe. “Your mom’s a lucky woman.”

“I guess.”

“Don’t you get along with your stepdad?”

“He’s great. Mom, on the other hand, is a little too perfect for my taste. I’ll bet she’s on the phone right now calling in a cleaning service to sanitize the house. My half at least.”

“As long as she pays for it. And at least you know your parents. I never did.”

Stunned, Zoe shot a puzzled look at Patsy before snagging another bale. “What are you talking about? I’ve met your mom.”

“I mean biological parents. I’m adopted.” Patsy sneezed from the dust before Zoe could ask more. “Shall I ask the boys to crank up the production line again?”

Zoe crammed the last of the bales into place and jumped down from her perch. “Yeah. Let her rip.”

They returned to the top of the hay elevator which continued to clatter, chains driving paddles up a stainless steel slope that reminded Zoe of a sliding board. Or the uphill part of a roller coaster.

“Okay, fellows,” Patsy shouted over the noise of the electric motor. “Let’s wrap this up.”

Mr. Kroll stood on the wagon deck with the last few bales ready at his feet. “Amen to that.” He tossed one of them to Tom, who dropped it onto the elevator.

With assembly line precision, they finished off the load within minutes. Tom yanked the elevator’s cord from the electric socket, and glorious silence fell over the barn as the machine rattled to a stop. Patsy headed for the ladder, but Zoe climbed onto the elevator and slid down, easing over each of the paddles on the way to the barn floor.

“Tom was just telling me that you were over at Jim Engle’s place yesterday,” Mr. Kroll said once Zoe’s feet hit the ground.

“Yeah.” She glanced toward her stepdad, but he was busy helping Patsy move some sacks of feed. “Did you know him?”

“Yeah, I knew him.” Her landlord eased down from the wagon, accepting Zoe’s hand to steady him. “Didn’t have much use for him, but I sure wouldn’t wish something like this on anyone.”

“Why didn’t you like him?”

“Oh, now, Zoe, you know it ain’t polite to speak ill of the dead.”

“I understand.” She wondered if Pete and Franklin had uncovered anything interesting. The autopsy would have been completed by now. “I don’t suppose by any chance you knew the Miller brothers who used to own that farm?”

Mr. Kroll dusted off his coveralls. “The Miller brothers? They were a bit before your time, weren’t they?”

“Yeah. But they were my mother’s uncles, so I’ve heard stories.”

Mr. Kroll moved toward the tractor hitched to the now empty wagon and climbed into the seat. “I didn’t realize they were your relatives. I knew of them by name. Don’t recall ever meeting them, though.”

“Oh.” Zoe made no effort to hide her disappointment.

Mr. Kroll fired up the Massey-Ferguson. With a sputter and a roar, the old tractor lurched out the big doors.

When the barn fell quiet again, Tom appeared at Zoe’s side. He slung an arm around her shoulders, putting her in a playful neck lock. “Well, kiddo. What d’ya say we head back to the house and get cleaned up?”

“A cool shower sounds great right about now. I itch from head to toe.” Zoe leaned against her stepdad, resting her head briefly against his chest.

She’d forgotten how much she missed him. No matter how rough things got with her mother or with her teenaged exploits, Tom had always been Zoe’s champion.

“I’ll take you and your mom out to lunch,” he continued. “Is that hot dog shop still open in Dillard?”

“The Dog Den? Yeah. It’s still there. I can’t imagine Mom eating there, though.”

He released her. “You don’t give your mom enough credit. What about your friend?” He turned toward the tack room. “Hey, Patsy. Want to join us for lunch at the Dog Den?”

Patsy appeared at the door armed with a bucket full of brushes. “Thanks, but I’m going to take Jazzel out for a ride while I have the chance. By the way, did Zoe invite you and your wife to my picnic?”

Tom shot a curious glace at Zoe. “Picnic? No, she didn’t.”

“My birthday’s next Friday. I’m having barbecue and beer at my place. If you’re still here, I’d love for you to come.”

He nodded. “Sounds like fun. Count us in.”