Murder by Artifact (Five Star Mystery Series) (18 page)

“I’m going to see if any of the food is left.” Wade patted his flat stomach. “Maybe someone in the hall will look suspicious.”

Tony’s stomach rumbled. “If there is any pie left, bring me a slice, would you?”

“Sure, boss.”

Orvan Lundy was waiting for him when Tony got back to his office. Standing in front of the wall quilt Theo made, the little man seemed even smaller than usual. Stooped and gnarled and still tough as hickory, Orvan liked to make confessions. After the last confession, and hoping to keep him out of the office, Tony had suggested to Orvan perhaps he might look into converting to Catholicism. Not only could he make his confession, he might even find the penance to redeem himself.

Old Orvan probably hadn’t seen the inside of any church in the last sixty years, but the Baptist in him was still too strong to accept the idea of conversion. His expression suggested Tony had taken leave of his senses.

Tony needed one of Orvan’s confessions today like he needed more work. He knew all too well delaying the inevitable took longer than getting it over with right away. It was a lot like ripping a bandage off instead of peeling it slowly away from a cut. “Take a seat.” Reluctantly, he waved his visitor to one of the heavy vinyl chairs facing his desk.

Orvan took his time. He adjusted his bib overalls and tugged at his shirt sleeves before sitting down. It looked like he planned to stay for a while. Even in this heat, the elderly man wore a long-sleeved flannel shirt over a long-sleeved thermal undershirt. His only concession to the vile heat had been to leave the collar button on the outer shirt undone and rolled up the sleeves a couple of inches above his bony wrists.

Tony felt tiny beads of sweat forming on his scalp. Just looking at Orvan’s costume made his temperature rise. He adjusted the thermostat accordingly.

“I suppose you went to the funeral today.” Orvan launched into his topic without wasting time on any of the preliminaries. “Quite a sight, I hear.”

When Tony failed to rise to the bait, Orvan cast his hook again. “Shoulda been fun watchin’ Her Majesty peerin’ into her own coffin.”

A sudden wheezing sound came from the old man and alarmed Tony. At least until he realized the sound was laughter. He’d never heard the old guy laugh before. He couldn’t suppress his own grin. “You heard about the mix-up pretty fast. Were you there?”

“Nossir, I wasn’t. I guess there ain’t nothin’ wrong with my ears, though. Even the bees were a-talkin’ about the confusion and spread the story across the mountains.”

Gossip always traveled like lightning. Tony had never suspected the bees were responsible for the speed at which it spread. “Bees, huh?”

“Yessir. They done came to me whilst I was caning a chair and told me I must come in and explain how it was I killed the wrong woman. I am powerful sorry about that.” Tears welled in Orvan’s rheumy eyes and his slumped shoulders almost met over his chest.

Tony mentally shrugged, admitting defeat. He knew Orvan would not leave until he finished his story. Tony lowered himself onto his desk chair and sat with his head resting on one hand, shielding his expression, his elbow on his desk. With the other hand, he reached for a pen and paper. Theo would kill him if he left out any details of Orvan’s latest confession. “What happened?”

Orvan wiggled his scrawny butt on the seat until he was almost falling off the front of the chair. “It were an honest mistake. I got the feeling in the middle of the night. I needed to kill her. Don’t know why it were any different that night. I awoke knowing what I had to do. I grabbed up my old shotgun and lit out. It took me nigh on to three hours to hike my way to her place. I was plumb tuckered out when I got there.” He stopped, a pitiful expression pinching his wizened face. The shoe polish darkening his hair was melting, sliding into the deep wrinkles of his permanently weathered neck. He panted softly.

Tony understood. He reached for the intercom button. “Ruth Ann, I’d like you to come in here, and would you bring Mr. Lundy a bottle of cold water.”

Ruth Ann appeared so quickly Tony knew his secretary had been lurking near the door, waiting for a reason to come in. Her customary preoccupation with her fingernails was no competition for hearing one of Orvan’s confessions. She handed Orvan the bottle and plopped down on the other chair. Her dark eyes glowed with satisfaction.

It would take a stick of dynamite to dislodge Ruth Ann now.

“So where did you go, exactly?” Tony smiled at the little man.

“Don’t you know, Sheriff? I swear I don’t know why the county pays you to look into things.” He frowned at Tony then turned to address Ruth Ann. “He ain’t any sharper than my cousin Sid, is he?”

Tony worked to keep the smile pasted on his face. He knew being compared to Sid Lundy was like being accused of having a brain like a cabbage. Actually, a cabbage would score higher on any IQ test. Tony tamped down the urge to defend himself.

Orvan cast an adoring expression in Ruth Ann’s direction. He might have reached over to pat her knee if he could reach far enough without falling off his chair. Luckily for him, he didn’t, because Ruth Ann would not put up with behavior like that. Orvan did wag a finger in the air, making a scolding sign. “I kin remember when I come in here and drew the sheriff a map to old Matthew’s still and darned if he did anything about it.”

Tony wasn’t about to tell Orvan he had already known the location of the still and had passed the information along to the ATF. There was more going on up on the mountain than a simple moonshine business, and Tony felt lucky to be well out of it.

In fact, he was determined not to become involved. If the Feds wanted to clear out a nest of homegrown terrorists for him. Good. More power to them.

Orvan dragged a few more details of what he considered inefficiency on Tony’s part into the conversation.

“Stop.” Tony’s sharp word brought a sharp halt to the recitation. It looked like Orvan was settling in to detail everything he considered Tony had done wrong and everything he felt the county had been responsible for. Tony wasn’t in the mood to let Orvan sit in his office and insult him. “Just tell us the details.”

“Okay, okay.” Forgetting he held anything, Orvan waved his hands and water sloshed out of the top of the bottle and soaked the bib of his overalls. The cold shower seemed to shock his mouth into action. “I went to bed, same as usual, after having my evening dose of cure-all. Long about three in the morning, I got the call, if you know what I mean, and I was headed to the privy when it come clear I needed to get my old shotgun and take care of that moaning, whistling banshee for once and forever.” He paused and took a rather theatrical swig of water. “I was guided by this here old hoot owl. He led me down to town and over to this house I ain’t never seed before. All this time, the old owl was a-screechin’ and the banshee was a wailing, I thought my poor old head would plumb explode.”

“You were in town?”

“Didn’t I just say so?” Orvan stuck his lower lip out.

Since neither the museum nor the Cashdollar residence was within the town itself, Tony tried to imagine what Orvan might have been shooting. Tony took down the confession in his scrawled handwriting, suspecting the cure-all was moonshine and the banshees wailing were the result of overimbibing. On the other hand, confusing Queen Doreen for a banshee wouldn’t be much of a stretch. He didn’t say so, just nodded for Orvan to continue.

“Well, sir, I seed it coming toward me, through the rhododendron and I lifted my old shotgun and held my ground. It was a-screechin’ even louder, and I could see it had red eyes like the devil. Then I looked again and saw it had four eyes, two red and two little white ones. I let go with both barrels and I knowed I killed it because them eyes stopped starin’.”

“Excuse me a moment, Orvan, while I go check something.” Tony hurried out of his office before he started to laugh. Only a few long strides took him to dispatcher Rex Satterfield’s desk.

Unflappable as ever, Rex looked at him. “Sheriff?”

“Can you check to see if anyone reported having their taillights shot out in the past couple of weeks?”

“Taillights?” Rex mumbled to himself. “Probably happened on the night shift, huh?” His fingers flew over the keyboard of his computer. All the time he typed, he continued to monitor the locations of the deputies. “Here we go. Four nights ago, we got a call claiming someone shot Roscoe’s truck with a shotgun, knocking out all of his taillights. J. B. Lewis stopped him and took his report.” He stared at Tony. “How did you know?”

“Orvan just confessed.”

“Why’d he shoot Roscoe’s truck?”

“He thinks he killed a banshee, the mayor’s wife.”

“Better luck next time.” Rex cackled. “I heard about the funeral and the theatrical melodrama.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “At least we can say we solved one major crime today. I wish I could get my brain wrapped around the idea of Doreen having a double. It was weird. They even had the same hairstyle.”

Rex’s eyebrows flew up. “That is weird. The Queen changes her hair more often than my wife buys groceries.”

Tony nodded. Theo had made a couple of major changes in her hair in the ten years they’d been married, but usually her blond curls varied in length by only several inches. “It is very odd.”

Only half of his thoughts dealt with Doreen’s hair. The other half were busily involved with needing to find a way for Orvan, who had nothing, to repay Roscoe, who also had nothing. He felt compelled to find a solution even though it wasn’t strictly speaking part of his job.

Roscoe Morris was as nice a man as ever lived. Unfortunately, Tony recalled a local wag once mentioning Roscoe’s load had shifted and he didn’t always think things through. Any man in love with a vending machine couldn’t be reality based.

By the time Tony reached his office, he came to a decision. Even though Orvan couldn’t afford to pay for the taillights, he could make Roscoe a pair of ladder-back chairs. Tony wouldn’t offer the plan to Orvan just yet. He needed to talk to Roscoe first.

Orvan was still perched on his chair, although he had gone from confession to flirtation. He batted his eyes and leered at Ruth Ann in a most determined fashion. For her part, Ruth Ann was busy keeping him at arm’s length. She did look somewhat relieved when Tony returned.

“I’m disappointed in you, Orvan.” Tony frowned and placed his fisted hands on his hips. His stance in front of the wizened old guy brought Orvan back to attention. It was all Tony could do to keep a straight face. Orvan had evidently run his hand over his melting hair darkener and then wiped the same hand across his mouth. Smudges of black shoe polish coated a quarter of his face. It did not make him look like a killer, even though Tony had long suspected Orvan might have killed someone in his younger days.

“Go home, Orvan.” Tony sat and began pawing through one of his desk drawers. “I’ll get back to you on what your punishment is going to be.”

The little man didn’t hesitate. As eager as he always seemed to make his confession, it certainly didn’t take him long to scuttle his skinny butt out the door afterwards. This time he didn’t even take the time for his customary last leer at Ruth Ann.

“Is it my imagination or did he actually shoot something?” Ruth Ann turned, curiosity burning in her expression.

Tony nodded. “He shot the taillights out of Roscoe’s truck.”

“Poor Roscoe. How’s he going to get the money to fix it?”

“You really want to know how he can afford to make payments on Dora and afford new lights, don’t you?” Tony tried to squelch his grin. Poor Roscoe had fallen in love with a vending machine named Dora, and the only way he could keep her was to make weekly payments to the Riverview Motel. “What do you think about having Orvan make some chairs for him?”

“As restitution?” Ruth Ann ran her little finger back and forth across her lower lip as she gave the matter some serious thought. “Unless he sells them, it still won’t solve the problem. He can’t drive a truck without lights. Maybe the chairs should go to the Thomas Brothers Garage instead.”

“Excellent idea. Why don’t you use your law school training to work out the negotiations and clear this mess up? I’ve got a couple of other fires to put out.” Tony leaned forward and rested his hands on the cluttered surface of the desk. “Oh, and while you’re at it, see if you can make the deal include fixing Roscoe’s fan belt or whatever causes that god-awful screeching noise. It’s enough to set my teeth on edge every time I hear it.”

Nodding her agreement, Ruth Ann strolled out, leaving the door open.

The next time Tony looked up, Wade stood in the doorway, a worried expression pulling down the corners of his mouth. “What’s wrong?” Even as Tony asked the question, he was reaching for the omnipresent antacids.

“They were out of apple pie.” Creases now wrinkled Wade’s forehead.

“I doubt it’s a reason to be concerned.” Tony felt a chill. “Is it?”

“Blossom’s on her way to fix a special pie, just for you. She’ll be here soon.”

War broke out. Tony’s mouth and stomach wanted pie and his brain screamed. Dealing with Blossom and the funeral fiasco seemed too much for one day. “She’s probably coming to check on our progress with her case. We still don’t know what happened to her yard ornament.” He lifted one of the files on his desk and waved it at Wade. “What’s the latest count of missing gnomes and garden things?”

“Fourteen.” Wade tapped the copies of the police reports. “A few people lost two items in one night.”

Ruth Ann’s voice came to them through the intercom. “Sheriff. Mr. Sonny Cochran is currently at his daughter Doreen’s house and would like to talk to you. Should he come in or will you go there?”

“I’ll be there in just a few minutes.” Tony shut the gnome file and smiled as he rose to his feet. “With any luck we won’t be back when Blossom arrives.”

Wade laughed and followed him. “Yeah, so you get the pie without the baker.”