Murder by Serpents (Five Star First Edition Mystery) (18 page)

“Says oxblood on the tin.” Orvan preened.

“Quite nice.” Tony settled onto one of the steel chairs that flanked the steel table. Bolts attached the table to the floor. “Ruth Ann said that you have something important to tell me.” With a tip of his head he made a pretense of encouraging her to sit down and take notes. In reality, he knew that it would take a stick of dynamite in her manicure drawer to convince her to leave during one of Orvan's confessions.

“She's a real jewel, ain't she?” Orvan cast her a smile of pure adoration, exposing more gaps than teeth. “Generous, too. She give me a cup of coffee.” A gentle burp through his uncovered mouth spread the aromas of coffee and whiskey around the table.

“Have you been drinking this morning?” Tony crossed his arms over his chest and tipped the chair onto the back legs. “You need to be sober to confess.”

“Oh, I'm sober. You got to believe that. Just had one little nip to give me the courage. It ain't easy telling you the horrible thing I done, you know. I killed that man.” Tears filled his red-rimmed eyes.

Tony thought they looked cloudier than usual. The old man's cataracts were getting worse.

“What man is that?” said Tony.

“You got more than one corpse?” Orvan's expression jumped from desolation to delight. If he had won big money gambling over in Cherokee, he couldn't have looked any happier. “That's really something, ain't it?”

“Who is
your
deceased?” Tony wouldn't have been surprised if somewhere along the way, Orvan had actually killed someone. The old man's life had certainly not been spotless. Someone had suggested once that guilt compelled him to confess, but he still didn't want to go so far as to give the real facts.

“Deceased?” He paused a second to process the question. “Oh, it's that there feller you found in the car. Don't suppose you could tell me about the other one?” Seeing the shake of Tony's head, he looked crestfallen but not surprised. He adjusted the buckle on his overalls. “I put him in the car after I done the deed.”

“Really? Why did you do that?”

“Well, I couldn't just leave him laying in the open, could I? Not with the others of his kind around.” His expression couldn't have been more horrified if Tony had suggested that he should drink cranberry juice instead of whiskey.

“What do you mean?” The chair legs thumped as they hit the floor and Tony leaned forward, his attention completely focused on the little man. “Others of his kind? What kind is that?”

Orvan laced his fingers and placed them in his lap and stuck out his lower lip. He looked liked a sulky child, albeit an old, old child. “You want to hear this or not?”

Tony had plenty to keep him busy, and the idea of Orvan leaving had a real appeal, but he took a deep breath and nodded.

“I seen him sliding down the wall over at the bank. I recognized him right off and I followed him. I knew that he must be one of those big bats, you know, the poisonous ones, not like them little fellers that eat bugs in the park.” His hands twitched and he laced his fingers more tightly. “No sir, he were a genuine one like, oh what's his name?”

“Dracula?” It surprised Tony that Orvan knew enough about what really happened on planet Earth to know about the little brown bats. The previous summer, small wooden houses and tiny bats had been put in the city park to help keep the insect population under control.

“Who?” Orvan looked like he had never heard the name before.

“Dracula?”

“No, I don't believe I've heard that name before.” He reached for his coffee, clutching the heavy stoneware mug with both trembling hands. Gnarled and mottled with age spots, his fingers looked a lot like they belonged on the hand Theo had found. “Well, it don't matter about the name. I knew that I had to make an arrow from a white oak branch.”

“Why white oak?” said Ruth Ann.

Tony saw her hands start to shake. He knew that Ruth Ann couldn't resist questioning the man, egging him on. He could tell that it wouldn't take much to make her laugh out loud, and it looked like she would have to laugh soon or explode.

Dead serious, Orvan gave her a look of absolute shock. “It has to be a white oak or they come back after three nights and carry away the soul of their killer. I'm surprised that you asked ’cause everybody knows that.”

“I've never heard that before, but that's okay. Go on. What happened after you made the arrow?”Tony propped his chin on his fists, his elbows braced on the table. The fiction writer in him had to admire the imagination of this old man. He forced himself not to look at Ruth Ann. He glanced up and saw that Wade had arrived and stood in the doorway, his arms crossed over his chest.

Tony ignored his expression of amused interest.

Orvan moved to the edge of his chair and flapped his arms like wings. “Just then, the thing started to fly and lucky for me, it seemed kinda slow gettin’ off the ground. That did give me time to take good aim, and I shot it right in the heart. The moment it fell to the ground it turned back into a man. I carried him to the first car I seen and put him in the back seat.” With a flourish like he'd slammed a car door, he sat back and grinned, showing them every tooth and space in his mouth. “That's how you come to find him there. Do I get a reward?”

Deadpan, Tony looked at Wade. “You did check to see if Orvan's fingerprints were on that car door, didn't you?”

“Yes sir, I did. In fact, I thought of him right away, but I'm afraid that they didn't match.”

Tony admired his ability to keep a straight face as Wade stepped aside to allow Ruth Ann room to bolt. She left, dashing through the doorway as if pursued by a giant poisonous bat.

Orvan looked crushed. Holding out his palsied hands to the deputy, he pleaded with the young man. “Will you try again? Maybe they changed?”

Before Wade could formulate an answer, something bumped him from behind and he whirled to face into the hall.

Seeing Wade's movement, Tony looked out and saw Blossom's yellow slicker headed for his office. As the slicker brushed against the walls, it created a swishing sound, not unlike the one made by windshield wipers. This time she wore the matching hat and left a trail of water in her wake. Her hands were empty. No pie this trip.

It struck Tony that anyone could reach his office. He needed to increase security or, at the least, enforce what little they had in place. To reach this area, Blossom had to walk by Rex's window, then pass through a door that should have been locked.

Tony's cell phone rang. He pressed the green button. “Sheriff.”

At almost the same moment, Tony heard what sounded like every other telephone and pager in the building ring. From the corner of his eye, he saw Wade grab his own phone.

Orvan dived under the table, wrapping his arms around his head. He didn't seem to care that his shoe polish would migrate from his hair to his sleeves.

Blossom trotted past, traveling the other direction. Her little feet moved more quickly, increasing the tempo of the swishes.

Ignoring her, Tony gave his full attention to Rex's phone report.

Rex didn't waste time with preambles. “The road is under water over at the crossroads. Deputy Holt says that two cars are stalled already.”

“When?” Tony could visualize the dispatch desk. Rex had control of contacting all emergency services, including the sheriff's department, the fire department and search and rescue.

“The first report of flooding came in five minutes ago, so I sent Holt over to check on it.”

“Did you get an estimated depth?” Phone pressed to his ear, Tony almost reached his office before he remembered that he needed do something about Orvan. Looking over his shoulder, he thought that the old man looked tired and sad. “Better go home for now, Orvan, the water's rising.”

Head bobbing, Orvan adjusted his overalls and shuffled down the hallway.

“Hang on.” Rex put him on hold for a second. “The water crossing the road at the lowest point is currently eight inches deep and rising. You ought to know that Ziggy's on his way in.”

“Okay.” Tony disconnected. From his window, he could see the first group of volunteer firemen arriving and heading for the trucks. Search and rescue workers were entering the building by another door. The two groups could work together, but the rivalry between them verged on feud status. They could not share the same door.

Tony watched as Ziggy Blackburn, the county disaster coordinator, strolled through the front door of the city building and headed for his small basement office. Of medium height and slightly more than medium weight, Ziggy exuded a degree of calmness that made the unflappable Rex look hysterical.

Ziggy's real name was Sigmund. The product of a German war bride and a dour Scot, he'd trained from his earliest days to exercise self-control and composure. When not in charge of disaster planning, Ziggy managed the local Wendy's and refereed high school basketball games. According to witnesses, the only time he looked even slightly ruffled was the night his wife, Gretchen, gave birth to twins. Her labor had begun before the game, which she attended, of course, but the babies weren't inclined to wait until the game was over.

She broke the news to him at half time. When the game restarted, Ziggy lost control and began running back and forth across the court, blowing his whistle and flapping his long arms like the stork himself. Luckily for all involved, a volunteer referee trotted onto the court and ripped the whistle out of the man's mouth and the game went on. Without Ziggy.

Tony was still talking to Rex when the dispatcher decided Sheila needed emergency backup.

Tony charged out of his office and climbed into the Blazer. Lights flashing, he tore out of the parking lot. He managed to buckle his seat belt as he drove.

Because the Blazer stood taller than the patrol cars and had four-wheel drive, he would be able to ease through areas closed to all other traffic. Sheila might be in serious trouble. That extra height could make a critical difference.

The last time she radioed in, her report put her just past Nellie Pearl's house, in the small settlement at the base of the road to Quentin's place. Due to a mudslide and fallen branches, the dirt road up the mountain had become impassable. Sheila reported seeing a man that matched the description of Hub's former cellmate, Sammy Samson. She was on her way to check it out.

After ten minutes passed without hearing from her, Rex demanded reinforcements.

Sheila always kept in touch.

The rain had moved into what Tony classified as the deluge stage. Even with the windshield wipers working as fast as they could, visibility had deteriorated from poor to none. Everything became the same shade of pearl gray. The falling water looked exactly like the water splashing up to meet it. Ahead of him, the sky overflowed with black clouds painted on the charcoal background of the mountains. Here the sky became darker than the ground. Only an idiot or someone with official business would be out on the roads now, but there seemed to be no shortage of idiots in Park County.

Tony hoped his flashing lights would be effective. He didn't want to use the siren, but he drove fast enough for everyone to need to see him and get out of his way. In his rearview mirror, he watched another set of flashing lights. Wade was coming up behind him, his patrol car throwing up a showy plume of mud and water.

When they arrived at their destination, they could see Sheila's patrol car parked, not at Nellie Pearl's house, but slightly off the road near the woods. Was that where the old woman claimed she saw Quentin burying something? The patrol car sat empty, the driver's side door slightly ajar. Around it, the grass and weeds appeared trampled, but all they could see was mud and water.

Wade pointed uphill. “There's a light.”

Tony's eyes followed Wade's finger. Sure enough, up the hill and just inside the darkness of the sheltering trees, a light beckoned them. The light jerked, illuminating first a branch and then danced across their faces to point somewhere else. It had to be a flashlight.

It could be Sheila or even children playing.

An ominous tickle at the base of his spine sent a surge of adrenaline though his system. Tony radioed Rex and released the rifle from its lock inside the Blazer. If they needed to shoot, it had better range than the pistols.

Wade trotted next to him, shotgun in hand.

They made their way up the slope as quickly as they could. Footing was treacherous; Wade fell once. Tony fell a couple of times. As he climbed from his knees back onto his feet, he couldn't decide whether the mud or the rain-slicked vegetation caused more of a problem. Even dressed in their rain gear, they were soaked to the skin before they ran twenty feet.

Cautious, they followed the light, staying low and hidden behind the trees and brush.

Sheila was alive.

She lay on the ground, curled in a fetal position, slowly moving the flashlight from side to side. It rested on a small branch, and instead of holding it in her hand, she rolled it back and forth with her palm.

The normally immaculate young woman looked as if she had been mauled by a bear and dragged over the mountain. Her blond hair hung free of its normal braid, and the ends swirled in a puddle, collecting twigs. In the mud at her feet they found two bodies. Blood slowly seeped from a cut on Nellie Pearl's forehead. Unconscious, the old woman lay as still as death. Laying on his side next to her was Sammy Samson. One pair of handcuffs held his wrists together behind his back. A second pair of handcuffs connected him to a mountain laurel.

He was swearing a blue streak.

Sammy looked even muddier than Sheila did. The way he continued to flop around like a fish in the muck wasn't going to improve his looks.

At the sight of her smashed radio, the pieces scattered about the area, Tony quickly notified Rex that Sheila was alive. Even through the poor reception, Tony heard Rex's sigh of relief.