Murder by Artifact (Five Star Mystery Series) (22 page)

Now, after years of neglect, garbage and kudzu, it was little better than an open cesspool. By all accounts, Roscoe loved it there. His trailer home had once been white with red trim and decorative red shutters. Tony stared at it as he turned toward it. It had definitely passed its glory years.

Roscoe’s ancient pickup was parked in front.

Tony stared at the back end of the truck. The taillights were shattered. Newly exposed spots of primer gave the tailgate a speckled appearance. There were shallow dents in the finish. Tony wondered if he needed to talk to old Orvan again. The man must have loaded some pretty big shot to do this kind of damage. If he used it on a bird, nothing would be left. Maybe he’d been standing closer than he claimed. Either scenario was possible.

In a three-way trade set up by Ruth Ann, the Thomas brothers promised to fix Roscoe’s taillights in exchange for the ladder-back chairs built by Orvan. The old pickup sat next to the dilapidated trailer that Roscoe called home. There was no sign of Dora-the-vending machine. Maybe she watched morning talk shows.

Joe Thomas, the brawnier of the mechanic brothers, squatted in the dirt replacing the pickup’s light bulbs and covers. He would soon have the truck put back together. It would never be pretty, but it would be safe to drive.

Joe grinned as he worked and listened to a running commentary from Roscoe, whose knowledge of baseball was encyclopedic. Roscoe waxed eloquent, giving an almost play-byplay account of the last game he’d umpired.

Tony stayed long enough to see that everything was under control. Neither Joe nor Roscoe seemed to notice either Tony’s arrival or his departure. He checked the dashboard clock as he pulled into his official parking space. He was back in plenty of time to meet Wade and Sonny.

From the corner of his eye, he spied Blossom carrying a pie pan, hoofing it toward him. As much as he wanted the pie, he wasn’t in the mood to deal with Blossom and her adoring gazes. He sighed, looking for a way to escape. There was none.

“Yoo hoo, Sheriff.” Blossom managed to balance the pie pan on one hand as she waved, setting the loose flesh of her bare arms in motion.

“Blossom.” Tony paused, assailed by guilt. Her face was beet red and her breath came in great gasps. “Slow down. It’s already too hot this morning to be charging around like that.”

“I know. I know.” She followed him into his office.

Disappointed that neither Sonny nor Wade was waiting for him, he stood hoping she would get to the point.

“I wanted to bring you this ’cause we ran out of pie yesterday. Wasn’t it something? I was there when the mayor’s missus came back to life, so to speak. You think she’s a vampire or something?” A sparkle of mischief glowed in her bulbous eyes. “I’ll bet Calvin about dumped in his pants.”

Tony gulped and bit his lip. If he’d had anything to say to that outrageous comment, it would be hard to get a word in edgewise. Blossom’s color was returning to normal. The little tufts of her orange hair stuck to her sweaty scalp and she was in full-bore excitement.

“Pansy told me the mayor was crying something fierce last night. Relief, I guess he’d say, but I’m not so sure.”

Waiting near his office door, Tony watched as Blossom rearranged the papers on his desk and then set the pie in the very center with a theatrical flourish. He didn’t comment. His stomach growled as he eyed the delicious concoction of apples, spices and the secret family ingredient. Blossom’s words flowed over him like water.

“So didja?” Blossom squeezed her hands together and looked anxious.

“I’m sorry, Blossom. I was enjoying the aroma of the pie. Did I what?”

“Find my lawn decoration. You know, the donkey?” She reached into her pocket and retrieved a handful of candy-coated chocolates. The bright-colored candies formed a small mountain in the palm of her hand. In one practiced movement, she sucked the whole pile into her mouth and began to chew. Her mouth remained open just far enough for him to see the different colors passing by. The sight was as mesmerizing as watching clothes through the glass of a front-loading washing machine. Her bulbous eyes bore a startling similarity to those belonging to his cousin’s pug dog. She swallowed, leaving just a slight chocolate ring around her lips. “I read somewhere if a crime is not solved right away it never gets solved.”

The specter of the unidentified bones moved into his head. “Not always, Blossom. Some cases just take a bit longer.”

He didn’t try to convince her that missing lawn ornaments weren’t in the same category as murder. To Blossom, the loss of her beloved item was more important. She didn’t like Doreen and didn’t know Patti. She would have been a child when the murders Harrison Duff claimed to have committed with Vicky had taken place.

“That’s good. Still, I wanted you to have the pie.” She dug in her pockets and came up empty. “And to tell you your dead lady drove past Ruby’s in an old beater. Of course at the time, I thought it was the Queen and it about knocked me over to see her driving such a wreck. She’s kind of persnickety about her stuff, you know, always actin’ like she’s better than God.”

When she paused to inhale, Tony interrupted her tirade. “Can you tell me what kind of car it was or the color?”

“It was dark green.” Blossom pursed her lips and wrinkled her forehead into her practiced “thinking” mode. “And it looked really ordinary, which is why I noticed.”

“Two doors or four?”

Blossom tapped her top chin with her index finger. Her face brightened. “Four. And it had a reddish door behind the driver.”

Tony felt a real smile lift the corners of his mouth. “Reddish like paint or rust?”

“Like paint.” She checked her watch, lifting it out of the fold of flesh surrounding it. “Oops, gotta go. Miss Ruby needed me to come in and bake some extra brownies for something.” Without another word, she turned and swished out the door, nearly flattening the arriving Ruth Ann in the process.

Tony smiled at her back. Blossom’s description of the car, although poor, was better than Sonny’s reference to a green Chevy. Obtaining the license plate number along with the year, the make and model was easy. The detail about the primer wouldn’t be in the computer.

When Ruth Ann made it inside the office, he smiled and told her about the car, knowing that a few taps from her now-purple fingernails on her computer keys would produce all the details he needed.

Tony wrote himself a note, adding a few questions to ask Sonny and Patti’s employer.

When he glanced up, Wade and Sonny stood in his office doorway. Wade looked rested and alert. Sonny looked like death.

Time to go.

As they neared Chattanooga on the interstate, billboards for Ruby Falls, the Incline Railroad and Rock City Gardens guided them toward Lookout Mountain. The mountain directions seemed unnecessary because the distinctive promontory dominated the skyline, almost pointing to the city on the bank of the Tennessee River.

For a while Sonny roused himself from his silence in the back seat and managed to give Tony and Wade a brief commentary about the changes to the landscape in recent years, especially to the riverfront area near the Tennessee Aquarium.

Tony didn’t need the guided tour. Out of sympathy, he let Sonny chatter on, still thinking they should have left him behind. They would have, except he might be able to spot something out of place or out of the ordinary in Patti’s home.

Sonny seemed to be imploding.

Tony thought the man must have lost ten pounds since they first announced Doreen’s death, and now his skin looked grayer than his hair. The loss of a beloved child was too horrible for Tony to contemplate, so he turned his conjecture toward the hell on earth he’d consider living with Mrs. Sonny, the Queen Mother, to be. Even on a good day, life would have to be bad. Tony half wondered if Sonny got to use her first name in private, if he had to call her ma’am, or if they spoke at all.

“Turn left here,” said Sonny, distracting him from his meandering thoughts. “It’s the second house on the right.”

The house Sonny directed them to was built on the west slope of Missionary Ridge and blessed with a good view of Lookout Mountain. Maybe the smallest house in the neighborhood, Patti’s cottage appeared well-kept. Red brick and shaped like a box, it sat in the center of a postage stamp–sized lot landscaped with a manicured lawn and carefully shaped mature trees. A detached garage looked like a miniature version of the house. Everything appeared measured and symmetrical, as if the yard and garden were expected to conform.

Wade parked in the empty driveway and the three men climbed out in silence.

“Abernathy?” A man spoke through the open window of a dark blue sedan parked on the street.

“Zeller?” At the answering nod, Tony suppressed a grin and watched the Chattanooga cop unfold from the driver’s seat and amble up the sidewalk. This was no sixteen-year-old. The perky voice and phone manner belonged to a veteran cop on the verge of retirement. Tall and slender, with just a touch of a paunch, Zeller wore his thick white hair cropped into an old-fashioned flattop. Alert brown eyes seemed to miss nothing as he joined the three men.

They all headed toward the front porch.

Handshakes and introductions took minimal time. Tony immediately realized how private the front door was. Only the neighbor directly across the street would have any chance to see who went in or out of the house.

“Did y’all bring the key?” The lanky detective looked at Sonny.

Tony thought Zeller’s voice held more of the rich cadences of Georgia than Appalachia, which was not surprising since the city sat on the Tennessee–Georgia border.

Realizing the men were waiting for him, Sonny nodded and reached into his pocket. His hand shook badly and it took him several attempts before he eventually managed to insert the key in the lock. The instant the door swung inward, a gray-striped cat shot past them and dashed away.

“Muffin!” Sonny lunged after the cat, leaving the key in the lock. Muffin leaped over the fence and dashed up the street. Only the stench of an overfilled litter box remained.

The inside of the house looked as rigidly ordered as the exterior. The compact living room had two beige chairs arranged to face a beige love seat across a blond wooden coffee table. The walls were a slightly lighter shade of beige. Nothing hung on the walls. Even the most generic motel room would look gaudy in comparison.

Tony had lived with the colorful Theo too long to not be affected by her penchant for hanging things, usually quilts, on the walls, sofas and tables. Her choice of colors and patterns did not always “go together.” If anyone mentioned their opinion to her, she invariably would laughingly agree with the assessment and ignore the criticism.

Theo’s heart did the decorating. If she loved something, it was included, just like the different people in her life. There were times when Tony thought she’d overdone the colorful mix. Gazing around this barren room, he swore to himself he would never think that again. This room gave him the creeps.

“It’s like no one lives here.” Wade walked around the room studying the minimal furnishings and freshly painted walls. “Was she preparing to move?”

“No.” Staring at the sea of beige, Sonny stood frozen at the doorway. “I never really noticed this room before. Patti was always my focus.”

The other rooms were nearly as bad. No personal touches. No knickknacks. Order reigned in the kitchen; not even a coffeemaker sat out on the counter. Only the reeking litter box in the laundry area and a photograph in the bedroom gave any sign that this was a home. A small photo in a tarnished silver frame sat on the blond wood dresser. It showed Patti and her husband on their wedding day, laughing at the photographer.

“I took the picture,” said Sonny.

“They looked very happy,” said Wade.

“I believe they were.” Sonny couldn’t seem to pull his eyes away from the photograph. “At least they were at first. The longer they tried to have children, the more she began to resent their life. I’m afraid she treated her husband like a second-rate citizen after learning he would never be able to father a child.”

“What about adoption?” Tony stared at the photograph. “Do you know if they discussed either that or artificial insemination?”

“I offered to give her money for either one. She refused and didn’t say why.” Sonny’s shoulders began to shake. They left him sitting on the edge of a chair while they continued the search.

Zeller pulled Tony and Wade to one side. “I’ve talked to lots of neighbors.”

“And?”

“And nothing. Everyone says the same. Patti was pleasant. Her husband was pleasant. No one knew them well. They didn’t make noise, mow the yard too early in the morning, get drunk and have fights on the sidewalk. Nothing. Occasionally they had visitors. Pretty ordinary stuff.”

“Thanks anyway,” said Tony.

In the bedroom closet they found a small metal box containing her car title, house papers and a simple will. Everything was to be sold and the money donated to the Red Cross. No motive there. Charities were hungry, not murderous.

Zeller volunteered to stay with them or call for the forensic unit. There seemed to be no need. This was not the crime scene.

Patti had died in Silersville, in the museum trailer.

Even more subdued than before, Sonny directed them downtown.

Wade found a space on the street, parking near the office building where Patti had worked.

Sonny led the way as the three men walked into the reception area. A young woman behind the front desk wore a headset and seemed focused on the note she wrote in a book of phone messages, the kind that made pressure copies. She looked about twenty, with a magenta streak across the top of her black hair. A tight, low-cut aqua blouse displayed a fair amount of freckled chest and lacy black bra.