Murder at the Art & Craft Fair (11 page)

Chapter
Eighteen

“Before we do anything else, Lou, I want to do
something. I might be tipping my hand, but I’m willing to take a chance. I’m
going to call Joan Arrington to see if she knows whether or not Kincaid
accepted checks, and if she knows of anyone in particular who gave him a check
this weekend.”

“You don’t think anyone would be dumb enough to cash
those checks, do you, Cy?”

“There are some pretty dumb people out there, Lou. It
doesn’t hurt to check.”

I dialed Joan Arrington’s number. She answered on the
third ring.

“Joan Arrington.”

“Joan, this is Lt. Dekker. I thought of another
question. Do you have any idea if Tom Kincaid accepted checks, and if he did,
do you know anyone who might have given him a check this weekend? Maybe someone
who also bought from you and gave you a check.”

“Well, I know that his disgruntled customer gave me a
check. I’m not sure whether or not he gave Tom one. If so, I wouldn’t put it
past him to stop payment on it. Listen, Lieutenant, I’m on my way home. How
about if I look through my checks when I get home tonight and you call me back
in the morning? I’m not sure I can tell you anything for sure, but I’ll think
about it on the way home and let you know in the morning.”

I agreed to check back with her in the morning. While
I’m not used to using a cell phone, I remembered to press the “End” button, and
turned to Lou to mull over the case.

“Well, Lou, what do you think?”

“I don’t think you’re going to be dating much these
next few days.”

“You mean you don’t think we’re going to be able to
beat a confession out of someone before the night is over?”

“I don’t see anyone we can beat a confession out of,
unless you count Frank, and I don’t think it would be admissible in court if we
did.”

“And the fact that Kincaid was robbed opens up an
entirely different can of worms.”

“I’ve found that regardless of what can they come from
that all worms taste pretty bad.”

“Personally, I’ve never felt compelled to taste them,
but to each his own. But we need to look at this from the point of view of a
fish or a bird, not you and me. If our can of worms helps us catch a fish or a
bird, then it’s a good can of worms.”

“Does that mean that we need to be early birds?”

“No, just working birds.”

“Well, my guess is he was bludgeoned to death with the
candlestick, but do you think Colonel Mustard or Miss Scarlet did it?”

“Right now, the Colonel Mustards and Professor Plums
look guiltier than the Miss Scarlets.”

“Don’t forget Mr. Green. Whatever, Cy! Let’s round up
the usual suspects.”

“I didn’t realize that we have any usual suspects.”

“We don’t, but we already have enough suspects. The
key is being able to eliminate some of them, and finding enough evidence to
convict one of the remaining ones.”

I thought about that for a minute, trying to get a
grasp on who were our suspects. The obvious ones were Earl Clements, the guy
who wanted to return his purchase, and Vernon Pitts, the guy who threatened
Kincaid because of his kid. I wondered whether I should throw Delbert Cross
into the mix. Did he pack up his tent and leave a day early because he murdered
Kincaid? And did Johnny Delmont, who said that Kincaid stole his business idea,
have enough of a motive for murder? And did the fact that Kincaid was robbed
change anything? Clements might have felt he was due some money, because he
wasn’t allowed to return his purchase. Of course if he was able to stop payment
on his check, that would be one way of getting his money back. And Pitts might
have stolen the money because he thought he was due damages because Kincaid
grabbed his kid by the collar. And Cross might have rationalized that he had damaged
goods, and recouped that money (and more). Anything is a motive if it causes
someone to think irrationally. The lesser suspects, but ones I felt I needed to
keep in mind were the two female vendors who seemed to like Kincaid, Joan
Arrington and Lois Weddington. I couldn’t think of any reason why either of
them would want to murder Kincaid, but there might be something I didn’t know
about yet. I’d have to keep an open mind. The only other woman in this
scenario, Kincaid’s wife, could well be a suspect, if we found out that she
wasn’t six hours away in Murray, but had driven to Hilldale to check on her
husband. But once she had seen he was where he said he was, wouldn’t that have
calmed her down? And what about the last person known to have seen Kincaid alive,
his last customer, Wayne Edmonds? I guess I couldn’t discount the person who
had the most opportunity. There didn’t appear to be anything out of order
there. From what Joan Arrington had to say, there didn’t appear to be any
animosity between them, but I needed to check him out, too. And was there
anyone else I was missing? Another vendor? Another customer? Or the head of the
event, Maureen Eidorn? Lou was right. We wouldn’t be doing a lot of dating the
next few days.

+++

Lou knew me well enough to know he had the right to
remain silent while I thought, and he had done so. Hopefully, he was thinking,
too. Maybe he would come up with something.

When the silent signal passed between us that both of
us had had ample time to think this over, I turned to him.

“Well, Lou, does anyone stand out any more to you than
anyone else?”

“I’d have to say Thelma Lou, Cy. She looks better to
me than anyone else right now.”

“What about suspects?”

“No, I think she looks better than any of them,
especially the guys. And I don’t think she’s a suspect. Remember, more than
likely she was with us when this happened.”

“I guess that clears the two of us, too.”

“If our alibis are to be believed.”

“What can you remember about those movies we saw last
night, Lou?”

“I remember these two lips close to mine.”

“In other words, you don’t remember a thing about
either movie. Okay, Lou, time to forget those two lips. Any idea on who might
have done Kincaid in?”

“I’m not sure anyone has enough of a motive. The guy
with the kid seems the most mad, but I can’t see him killing Kincaid based on
what we know.”

“And that disgruntled customer is running neck and
neck with him. Still, I can’t help thinking that there’s something we haven’t
found out yet. Just not quite sure what that is.”

“So, what do you propose we do now, Cy?”

“I told you, Lou. I’m not ready to propose.”

“Let me phrase it another way. What do you plan to do
now?”

“Now, as in now now, I plan to call Jennifer and see
if we have a ride home. Hopefully we do, and we get a good dinner and a kiss or
two out of the deal, too. I want to wait on everything else until after we’ve
talked to Frank in the morning. Also, I want to find out what, if anything,
happened at that motel. I want to know if Kincaid’s truck and trailer are still
there, and if so, how they got there. I want to know what happened to his
money, although I think finding that out will be a little harder. I want to
talk to someone in law enforcement down in Murray, find out anything I can
about Tom Kincaid, and about his wife. I want to see if we can find a witness
who saw her in Murray yesterday, so we can eliminate her as a suspect. Of
course it would also be nice if we can narrow down the time of the murder, and
find some people who can say for sure that so-and-so was somewhere else when
the murder was committed. Someone we can believe. That means that sometime
tomorrow morning, after we know a little more, I plan to start talking to
witnesses. I’ll start with Johnny Delmont, provided they find him and bring him
back to Hilldale. We’ll go by the jail and talk to him, see whether or not we
need to hold him or if we let him go. I plan to talk to the three men who live
here, Clements, Pitts, and Edmonds, and then decide whether to call or go visit
Cross in West Liberty.

“But all of that can wait until tomorrow. Let’s call
Jennifer and Thelma Lou and see if they’re willing to come and pick up two
tired, grumpy old men.”

“I’m not grumpy. I’m not even old yet.”

“Whatever.”

+++

“Interested in a date?”

“Sorry, Cy, but I promised Lou I’d be his girl.”

“Very funny, Thelma Lou. Are the two of you still
interested in putting up with a couple of old guys?”

“No, but if you and Lou are interested, I can start
dinner and send Jennifer over to pick you up. Are you still at the park?”

“We are. We’ll be waiting with bells on.”

“I thought you promised Jennifer you wouldn’t wear
those bells anymore. Let me get off here, and I’ll send her on over. She should
be there within a couple of hours. Spaghetti and meatballs okay with the two of
you?”

“Is the Pope still single?”

+++

Jennifer arrived a few minutes later and I almost had
to solve the case alone. Instead, I remained calm and pulled Lou out of the car
after he had scooted in next to Jennifer.

“You can drive your car if you want, but you can’t
have my best girl.”

Lou and Jennifer laughed, and she unbuckled her
seatbelt, and stepped out of the car. I opened the rear driver side door and
she slid in. Then, I walked around, got in, and slid over next to her, and
buckled my seatbelt. Then, I kissed her until Lou started complaining about
being hungry. It was the first time I’d heard him utter something like that in
months.

“Whether or not we kiss has no bearing on whether or
not you hightail it out of here.”

He thought about that for a moment, realized that I
was right, and put the car in gear.

The time we spent kissing before we left the park and
after we arrived at Thelma Lou’s but before we got out of Lou’s car allowed us
to time our entrance almost to the minute that Thelma Lou had dinner ready. Lou
walked over and gave Thelma Lou a quick peck on the cheek, and then I
complained about being hungry. They both turned to stick their tongues out at
me. Jennifer and I retaliated.

We had an enjoyable meal. Jennifer and I refrained
from reliving the best scene from
Lady and the Tramp
and both of us
stuck to our own spaghetti. We didn’t actually stick to it. Thelma Lou wasn’t
that bad of a cook, but we didn’t try to eat from the same strand. It wasn’t as
good eating it in a mannerly way, but at least the company was good. Well, one
of the company at least.

Despite the fact that Jennifer knew that Lou and I
would be working on our murder investigation, she decided to stay in town an
extra couple of days. I told her that we would be really busy the next day, and
I had no idea how far into the night we would be working. She told me she was
available as late as I was, and Lou nearly choked on a meatball.

Chapter
Nineteen

I woke up Monday morning. The first thing I thought of
was Jennifer. I lay in bed smiling. The second thing I thought of was the
murder that would keep me from seeing Jennifer. My smile turned upside down.

I popped up out of bed. Well, not like a piece of
toast popping up out of a toaster, but a lot quicker than I was able to do
before I started Wiiing. Kincaid’s murder would keep me away from Jennifer, and
it would keep me from reading, but it wasn’t going to keep me from Wiiing or
the morning time I spent with God in prayer and reading and reflecting upon the
scripture I read in my devotional book.

I get up about an hour and a half earlier than I used
to. Lou and I used to eat breakfast out, but I’ve started fixing my own
breakfast, and eating a lot less. I walked over to the back door and looked out
upon a beautiful morning. The sun had just risen. The temperature was
comfortable for an early October day. The leaves had begun to turn, but had not
yet begun to fall. When they do, it would be time to get to work, to call my
yard boy, and hope he rakes them over in my next-door neighbor’s yard so she
will have some leaves to rake, too, and her mutt will have some leaves to…never
mind.

I closed the door, walked back into the living room,
plopped down in my recliner, and leaned back to pray. Yes, I was praying, not
taking my first nap of the day. I doubted if I would have time to work in a
nap, and I was right. After I prayed, I read a passage from the Bible and then
opened my devotional book to the devotional for the day. I read it and took a
couple of minutes to reflect upon its message.

I had lots to do, so I jumped up from the recliner,
walked into the kitchen, and found my box of cereal of choice, Post Selects,
Great Grains Whole Grain Cereal, Raisins, Dates, & Pecans. I shook out a
reasonable amount, then opened a plastic bag full of raw almonds, and took out
a handful and tossed them in the bowl. Then, I opened the freezer door and took
out a bag of frozen blueberries. I added three-quarters of a cup, the
recommended amount, returned the bag to the freezer, and then opened the other
side, the refrigerator. I took out a carton of almond milk, and poured until it
almost covered my cereal. Next, I poured myself a big glass of water from the
cold water dispenser on the freezer door, and sat down to pray for the good
breakfast God had given me, and for His help in learning to like my new food as
much as I liked the fattening stuff I used to eat.

I tried to eat slower than I’d been used to eating
most of my life, but I’m not a slow eating person. Still, I paused for a
millisecond after each bite. After I finished eating, I went to the front porch
and retrieved the newspaper, hoping to get my day off to a good start by
reading the comics. It was there, in the comics, where I found the most people
similar to myself. Not all of them, but maybe one or two. I wasted enough time
reading the paper, and giving my food time to settle, before picking up my
newfound life as an exercise aficionado. Normally on Mondays, I torture myself
doing Wii Fit exercises, but I didn’t expect the rest of my day to be the least
bit fun, so I slipped in a tennis game and did my best to win a couple of sets.
I only threw my arm out of the socket a couple of times. At least when playing
tennis on the Wii you don’t have to chase down errant shots.

After I worked out hard enough that my body had taken
up an aroma that only I could live with, and even I couldn’t live with it very
long, I turned off the game, and headed off to take a shower. Before I turned
to a life that included exercise, I struggled to get in and out of the shower
each day. I still struggle to get in and out of the shower each day, but now
it’s because I’ve worked my muscles so hard before I get there. Before,
stepping into the shower was my second exercise of the day, closely following
my first, propelling myself out of bed, in less than three minutes. I wasn’t
ready for
Dancing with the Stars,
but at least I’d progressed from the
guy who could have done the commercial with the line, “I’ve fallen, and I can’t
get up.”

All of the preliminaries to my day had taken long
enough that I was sure that not only was Frank up, but that he had memorized
every mark on and in the victim’s body. I picked up the phone to see if he had
any surprises for me.

“Good morning, Frank.”

“Good morning, Cy. I’m glad you’ve finally greeted the
new day. I’ve been up long enough to have completed six autopsies.”

“I’ll have you know that I’ve been up for a while too,
and if you’ve completed any autopsies, it’s only one.”

“But it’s the one you want to know about, and I’m
happy to report to you that I have no surprises for you. Your victim died in
the manner I figured, a blow to the head by a blunt instrument, probably one of
his puzzles, since there was a splinter of wood in his scalp. He died where we
found him, and he died sometime between 6:00 and midnight Saturday night. Also,
we had someone go over his motel room. We did find his truck and house keys in
the room, as well as the key to the motel room, and we also found a maid who
did a thorough job of cleaning the room. I don’t know how the keys got from the
tent to the motel room, but then that’s not my job, that’s yours. Good luck
with that.”

“Anyone still at the motel?”

“I think our man there said there are two or three
cars, trucks, or whatever around.”

“I meant do we still have someone there?”

“We do. I figured you might want to see it, see if
anything might help solve this case, so I left a man there, told him to stay
until noon, or until I called. I assume you can get by there sometime this
morning.”

“I’ll do my best, Frank. I’ve already narrowed my
suspect list down to not more than a hundred.”

“That’s progress, Cy, considering there were a lot
more people than that in the park on Saturday. Anything else you need from me?”

“I’ll try to think of something.”

“I’m sure you will, Cy. I’m sure you will.”

I hung up from talking to Frank and placed a call to
the Sheriff’s office in Murray. Someone needed to inform the widow that she was
a widow. That is if she didn’t already know that.

“Sheriff Offutt.”

“Sheriff, this is Lt. Dekker in Hilldale. Do you
always answer your own phone?”

“It hasn’t exactly been a busy day so far, and I
happened to be right here, so I made myself useful. What can I do for you,
Lieutenant?”

“Sheriff, do you happen to know a man named Tom
Kincaid, who lives in Murray?”

“The puzzle man. Know him well.”

“Well, then I have some bad news for you. He’s dead.
Died up here. Someone murdered him.”

“Tom? Dead? Any idea who did it?”

“Not yet. That’s what I’m working on. Do you know
enough about him to know if he had any enemies?”

“No, he was harmless enough. Spent most of his time in
his woodshop in his backyard, working on puzzles. Believe it or not that guy
sells enough of those things that he stays busy year round. Even around here,
people are always buying them, especially around Christmas. Don’t guess they’ll
be buying them anymore. How did it happen?”

“Someone bashed him over the head with a blunt
instrument, possibly one of his puzzles, sometime Saturday night, between 6:00
and midnight. Well, that’s what the medical examiner said. Since we know of
people who saw him after 7:00 we can say it was definitely after 7:00.”

“Saturday, you say. Well, I guess that leaves his wife
out. Saw her Saturday afternoon around 3:00 at Kroger. Asked her how she and
Tom were doing. She said that Tom was out of town doing a show, that she was
buying stuff for supper because her sister was coming over. She and her sister
are close, and her sister’s husband was out of town, too. I can’t remember
where she said he had headed off to. Probably to the MSU-EKU football game. I
know I see him at all the home games. See, I know her sister and
brother-in-law, too. Nice couple. Do you want me to go over and break the news
to her?”

“I’d appreciate that. And let me know what response
you get. Word around here is that they weren’t all that close.”

“I don’t guess they were at that, but I’ve never had
any problem with either one of them. I’ve found both of them pleasant to talk
to, and we’ve never had any domestic violence issues. I think it’s more that
they like doing different things, and don’t have much in common. Still, they’ve
been married over ten years. Come to think of it, it might be closer to twenty,
but I don’t guess you need to know about that. I’ll be going out shortly and
I’ll head over to their place and give her the bad news.”

“And you can’t think of anyone else down there that
had anything against him?”

“No one I can think of. He pretty much kept to
himself, but he always spoke when you saw him, and, like I said, people all
over the place couldn’t get enough of those puzzles of his. I’ve even bought
some of them myself.”

“Well, we have a few suspects up here. None of them
sound all that likely to have done it, but one of them might, or there could be
someone we haven’t learned about yet. At any rate, I’ve got enough to do to
keep me busy at least the next couple of days, and I’ve already talked to a few
of these people. Any idea when you can run by and inform the widow?”

“I’ll head over in a few minutes. Give me a couple of
hours. I’ve got a couple of errands to run while I’m out, and I might stop in
the local diner a few minutes and drink a cup of coffee with the locals. People
around here like to know that the sheriff is out and about, and I want to get
re-elected. I like this job. I’ll let you know what I can.”

My next call was to Joan Arrington. Six of the people
who bought items from her paid her by check. She didn’t know whether any of
them bought from Kincaid too, but I took down the names, addresses, and phone
numbers just in case. It could be that one of these six was the murderer, or
one of them might be able to help us if they bought from Kincaid, paid him by
check, and the check cleared. Of course it would probably be at least a couple
more days before I learned anything there.

I didn’t want to be nosy, but I checked back with Joan
Arrington to see how much money Kincaid might have had on him. She said he
probably had $100-300 in change when he started, and while she had no idea how
much he sold, she would guess it to be anywhere between $300-2,500. She said
she knew vendors that barely sold $100 at a show and others that sold $5000 or
more if a show was two or three days. I wondered if I was in the wrong
business. Then, I realized that one guy making big bucks was dead and I was
still strolling along.

I thanked her for her time, hung up, and dialed the
jail. They had apprehended Delmont thirty minutes out of Hilldale, brought him
back kicking and screaming, and were holding him at the jail until we arrived.
I smiled as I hung up.

I made one more call, to God’s gift to the World of
Wii to let him know I was on my way. He thanked me for the warning.