Murder by Serpents (Five Star First Edition Mystery) (13 page)

Nina needed some good news.

“Hey, kid.” Theo let herself into the spacious, modern house and found her friend in the den. “Luckily, you broke your left ankle.” Ignoring Nina's glare, Theo smiled warmly as she dropped a transparent plastic box with a blue lid onto the coffee table. A grocery sack dangled from her left elbow and she balanced a couple of mysterious items on top of the box. “You might have gotten depressed if you'd broken your right foot.”

“Because I wouldn't be able to drive? I did think of that.” Nina adjusted the pillow under her foot. She lay on the couch, still in robe and nightgown. Her auburn hair needed washing. Half of it escaped the ponytail holder. The royal blue robe contrasted nicely with the lime green cast that protected her ankle.

Theo shook her head. “Because of your sewing machine. I have lots of work for you to do, and have you ever tried to use the other foot when you are sewing?” Her laugh filled the room when she spied Nina's toes. Her toenails were painted with hot pink polish. Little flecks of glitter caught the light. “No way. Did Ruth Ann come by and paint your toenails? You don't even own any polish.”

Nina's laughter joined hers. She wiggled her toes, admiring the sparkle. “Amy did it. She got a big box of preteen goodies for Christmas. Glitter filled everything. My mother always gives her the absolute best presents.” She grinned as she pointed to the pile of packages that Theo balanced in her arms. “Speaking of presents, what did you bring me?”

“No presents, just work. Lots of work.” Theo paid Nina to piece sample quilt tops for the shop and to test Theo's patterns for accuracy.

“Good.” Nina pushed herself upright. “I'm going nuts here. The kids are at school and Doc says I have to stay off my ankle for a week and then he'll okay me to go back to work.” A spark of desperation glowed in her leaf green eyes. “The substitute they stuck in my classroom knows zero French. She's called me eighty times in the past two days. God only knows how she will survive.”

“What have you been doing?” Theo glanced around and saw magazines and the television remote. “You could appliqué or hand quilt. Pretend you're at quilt camp.”

“I know, I know.” Nina lifted a pair of binoculars from her lap. “I could do something but I'm depressed. I've been propped up here like Jimmy Stewart watching the birds and the comings and goings of my neighbors. I must say that they are a dull lot.” She lifted an eyebrow. “No one has buried a body in the garden in the two days I've been watching. I don't know how Nellie Pearl stands that much spying, but maybe her neighbors are more interesting than mine.” Setting the binoculars on the floor she adjusted her position on the couch and studied Theo's face. The corners of her mouth pulled down. “Enough about me. You look a bit unraveled. Is everything okay?”

Theo sighed. Talking to Nina always helped her sort out her chaotic life. “I'm fine.” She blew a wayward strand of hair out of her face as she shuffled her armload. She managed to drop a package of cookies onto Nina's lap. “But, as usual, I am running around like a chicken looking for its head. The book deadline is coming up fast and I seem to have somehow misplaced several weeks from my calendar. I am totally unprepared to deal with going to Paducah next month.” She set the plastic box on the floor and slipped the grocery bag off her arm and held it high. “First things first. Your dinner is in here. Just heat and eat.” She vanished into the kitchen with it.

“Aren't you going to tell me what it is?” Nina opened the package of cookies and held one in her teeth even as she tightened the band around her auburn ponytail.

“No. The good news is that I didn't cook it. I picked it up at Ruby's.”

Nina's relief was reflected in her smile.” You know it's cruel to tease people with broken ankles. Just for that, I'm not going to feel sorry for you when you go to Paducah to teach and to see one of your quilts hanging in the show of shows.”

Theo grinned and shrugged as she dropped onto the rocking chair next to the couch. The thrill of having one of her quilts accepted into the American Quilter's Society annual competition and show in Paducah hadn't diminished. In her eyes, it was the World Series of quilting. Pulling the plastic box closer to her feet, she opened it with all the flair of a magician producing the rabbit from a hat and handed Nina a sheet of paper.

“Something for
you
. The next clue to the mystery quilt.”

Nina abandoned her cookies and grabbed the paper and scanned it eagerly. “I still don't know what this is going to be. What else do you have in your magic box?”

“Work. Lot's of work.” Theo handed her a sheaf of papers, patterns and instructions, before she produced a stack of jewel-toned fabrics and another of neutrals. Each fabric had a note pinned to it. “I'll leave the arrangement of color to you. I want the effect of an Oriental rug.” She handed Nina a rough sketch and dived back into the box. This time, she emerged with a stack of reproduction fabrics that looked just like the fabrics used in the 1860s. “Use the same layout but with these fabrics. That should be enough to show a contrast in styles, don't you think?”

“Is that all?” Nina sat caressing the fabrics.

“For today.” Theo pulled a brown sack from the bottom of the box and dropped a bag of M&M candies next to Nina's feet. “This should keep you going for a little while.” With a calculated smile she mumbled, “Has Jane told you about her date with Red?”

Nina was lifting another cookie to her lips when she stopped. “Did you just imply that Jane, our Jane, went on a date with Red?”

Theo nodded. “You really shouldn't miss bowling night if you want to keep up with things. And put away those damned binoculars before you do turn in another Nellie Pearl.” Theo snatched a couple of cookies from the package. “Actually, the bowlers don't know about the date. I just told them she couldn't come.” She opened the cookie and licked the center. “Jane went to a play with Red and I haven't heard anything since.”

“That's why he got home so late last night. He is usually home by five and he stays home a lot. Sometimes I see him walk over to the Tomlinsons. I think they play checkers or something.” Her eyes widened. “I
am
turning into Nellie Pearl, aren't I?”

Theo nodded. “Red's a nice man and I'm glad to see Jane get out a bit.”

“Yeah, ten years is long enough to wait before dating.” She chuckled. “Remember Old Man Ferguson? He started dating Olive Peters between the time his wife died and the funeral.”

Theo frowned. “I think he wanted someone else to cook and clean for him. He probably couldn't put sugar in his own tea.”

“That's the truth.” Nina closed the cookie package and lay back against the pillows. “I feel so isolated on this couch. Tell me what else is happening in town?”

Theo told Nina the basics of the dead man in Ruby's parking lot. Not knowing either the man or the circumstances, they concentrated on the horrifying idea of being in a car with loose snakes.

As if unable to bear the idea of the snakes, Nina changed the subject. “Did you know that Prudence is pregnant again? Who do you suppose is the father of this one?”

For a change, Theo thought she did know, but she wasn't sure. She wouldn't speculate, not even to Nina, but Deputy Darren Holt had her vote.

Prudence Sligar remained a community mystery. Born and raised in the hills around Silersville, she loved the area, and except for the time she attended beauty school, had always lived there. Her grandmother had been a seer, a wise woman, who lived life on her own terms. Maybe that had encouraged Prudence's own independence. Never married, Prudence had produced a brood of fatherless children. Local gossips had been thwarted at every turn. No one knew who any of the fathers might be. Just as she had defied them when she painted the exterior of her beauty shop, the Klip ’n’ Kurl, pink and purple, she felt no compunction to satisfy the curiosity of the citizens.

“She is engaged to Darren. Maybe he knows, but he sure isn't the father of that brood.” She smiled. “Do you think even the children know? Do they visit their fathers? Does she get child support?”

“Well if they do, they are ahead of my children right now.” Nina adjusted her position again. “That honey he met on the Internet is bound to be disappointed. I just know that he told her he has money and a fabulous body.” Her caustic grin suggested that he had neither.

“Don't you assume they were both telling lies?” Theo snorted. “Not that I want one, but I could claim that I had a forty-inch bosom.”

Nina laughed as she stared at her friend's flat chest. “Closer to an IQ of forty.”

Theo tossed a pillow in Nina's face.

Tony was puzzling over the information about the real, but dead, John Mize and his mysterious cousin when Wade burst through the doorway.

He carried an extra large evidence envelope wrapped in both arms, held closely to his chest like the game winning football. The threshold of Tony's office was the goal line. A sudden smile pulled the skin taut over the high, sharp cheekbones his Cherokee grandmother had contributed, giving him a savage appearance. A hint of wolf glowed in his eyes.

“You know those snake boxes that Stan thought were so odd? Well guess what?” Wade didn't wait for Tony to form a reply. “They have false bottoms. I found a wad of cash and a boatload of pills inside them.”

“What kind of pills? Are they identifiable?” Tony guessed from Wade's expression that the answer would not make him happy. Drugs were the bane of law enforcement. The problem existed everywhere. No community was immune. Even worse, in his mind, was the ocean of problems that drugs compounded.

“Oh, yeah.” Wade's smile grew even wider. “Our dead guy was hauling Hillbilly Heroin. Lot's of it. All twenties and forties. He had full jars of a hundred tablets and some of those little bubble packs stashed in the bottom of those boxes. If he needed that kind of medication, he had to suffer a lot of pain.” The expression on his face declared that he didn't believe pain had anything to do with the reason for such a large supply.

“Hell and damnation!” Tony stared at the envelope. “That's all we need. Someone bringing bootleg OxyContin into our area. Let's hope he only transported it and hadn't started distributing it.” Tony smoothed his scalp, wishing he had hair so he could pull it out.

It never failed to amaze him what people would willingly do to their bodies. They would take every prescription medication produced and see what else they could do with it. If they saw a new plant, they would try smoking it or chewing it or steeping it like tea. The things people would do to score drugs baffled him. They would steal, prostitute themselves, and even kill. Most of the crime he had seen as a Chicago cop related directly to someone wanting a fix of something. The night a junkie shot Tony in the stomach, he was off duty and the guy was too strung out to know the name of the planet.

“We have a big enough drug problem around here already.” Unaware of his actions, he rubbed his stomach before he slipped a few antacids into his mouth. “I haven't heard anything about more drugs than usual, have you?”

Wade shook his head. “Maybe he just suffered from a lot of pain and they were prescribed for him.” Even as he spoke, he didn't look as if he believed that story for a second. If prescribed, all of those pills would have been either in a prescription bottle or labeled with a doctor's name and instructions. “My uncle took them when he had cancer. He claimed OxyContin was a miracle drug and would have traded his car for them if he had to. I've heard that people have killed themselves when they haven't been able to get it.”

“It is powerful stuff, all right, but I'll bet your uncle didn't get very many of them at a time and didn't keep them in a box with poisonous snakes. I also bet he took it the way the doctor prescribed it.” It confounded him how people could see what illegal drugs did to others and still try them. “I don't suppose the ones you found in the snake boxes were conveniently labeled with the name of a pharmacy or distributor?”

“No, but we'll be able to track them by the serial numbers on the jars. They are factory packages. Did you know that they are delivered in an armored truck in some places?” Wade frowned as he passed the envelope to Tony. “There were only smudges of fingerprints on the jars. Nothing I would be able to identify with any accuracy.”

“How much cash?” Tony inspected the notations Wade had made on the envelope before handing it back to him. “How many milligrams are we talking about here?” He knew that the going rate for illegally obtained OxyContin continued to rise.

“I found fifty thousand in cash.” Wade checked his notes. “I make out twenty thousand milligrams in forties and four thousand in twenties in the jars. The bubble packs add another thousand or so milligrams, so a minimum value of thirty thousand.” He handed Tony a paper. “Here's a list of the serial numbers.”

A low whistle passed through Tony's lips. “I guess I'd better put in a call to the district drug task force. I'm sure they will be delighted to hear about this. Nothing makes their day brighter than hearing about some new angle.” He paused, considering the conflicting information about their drug-running, prison-tattooed, snake-handling preacher.

The facts didn't add up. The possibility existed, although it was slim, that the man had reformed in prison and had no idea what he carried in those boxes. On the other hand, Quentin had to be involved in this whole drug scenario, didn't he? But how? The man was simply not smart enough to engineer a plan to obtain that many prescription pills. Tony thought of Quentin as more of the do-it-yourself, grow-your-own kind of degenerate. That thought triggered a memory of something he had seen up at Quentin's place.

Wade stood in front of his desk, watching him. After a minute or so of silence and inaction on Tony's part, he cleared his throat. “Do you want me to call them? I need to lock this stuff in the evidence locker first, but then I could make the call.”

“No. That's okay. I was just thinking.” Absently, he smoothed his bald scalp. “I'll give them the serial numbers, and I just thought of another question that I need to ask them.”