Murder Welcomes You to Buxley Read online

  Murder Welcomes You to Buxley

  by Maddie Cochere

  Copyright 2015 by Maddie Cochere

  All rights reserved, which includes the right to reproduce this book or portions therof in any form whatsoever except as provided by US copyright Law.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please return to Amazon.com and purchase a copy for yourself. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used factitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.

  Breezy Books

  www.breezybooks.com

  Cover design by Gillian Soltis of Columbus, Ohio

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter One

  If that was Mama banging on my front door, I was going to kill her and take my inheritance early.

  The annoying buzz of my alarm clock sounded again. I had already hit the snooze button twice. Whoever was at the door apparently had no intention of going away, so there was no reason to hit it again.

  I climbed out from under warm blankets, slipped into fuzzy orange slippers, and grabbed my robe. Opening the front door was going to let in an arctic blast. I could only hope my flannel pajama and robe combination would keep me warm long enough to tell her to go away.

  Mama bowled in a Monday night bowling league with her sister, Bee, and two of their cronies. Lucille couldn’t make it tonight due to a death in the family, and Mama had been badgering me all weekend to fill in for her. I enjoyed bowling, but not with this crew. They were loud, uncouth, and talked of bodily functions far too much for my taste. The shirt alone kept me from wanting to bowl with them. They had named their team The Dependers.

  “What?” Mama asked when I made a face at the name. “It’s funny, and you know what happened to Lucille last year in the tenth frame when we bowled the Alley Cats. We aren’t taking any chances this year. All four of us are wearing adult diapers. You never know when you think you have to pass a little gas, and you get a surprise instead.”

  Mama was the worst offender when it came to bathroom humor. Here she was still laughing and telling anyone who would listen about Lucille’s unfortunate accident a year ago. Pepper, Hank, and I had grown up with whoopee cushions, fart machines, and semi-dirty jokes. We thought Mama was hilarious then. She was wholly inappropriate and embarrassing now.

  “I’m coming,” I yelled as the banging on the door resumed. “Hold your horses for crying out loud!”

  I raced down the stairs and jerked the door open. “Mama, I told you-”

  It wasn’t Mama who rushed into my living room. It was Curt Hendershot, the local bank manager.

  “Jo, I need your help,” he said.

  I slammed the door shut. “Curt. What the hell?”

  For the most part, I had stopped swearing. Ninety-nine percent of the time, I was under control and could find a replacement word, but I wasn’t fully awake yet, and it was at times like this when the one percent surfaced. The cold rush of air he brought in as he swept past me didn’t help. More swear words swirled through my mind.

  “It’s not even eight o’clock,” I said and headed for the kitchen. “I’m not dressed. I haven’t had coffee. Couldn’t this have waited until I was in the office?”

  “No,” he said. “And I thought this was your office.”

  I motioned for him to have a seat at the breakfast bar while I made coffee.

  “You know full well I work with Arnie out of the flea market. I’m there every morning. Or you could have called and left a message on my answering machine.”

  “You mean voice mail.”

  I pointed to a small table in the living room. My red rotary phone with its bulky black answering machine beside it was clearly visible.

  I set a mug and a half-empty box of chocolate donuts in front of him. “Help yourself to the coffee when it’s done. I’m going to get dressed and then we’ll talk.”

  My effort to run up the stairs was more like a slow motion jog. I wouldn’t be moving with any speed until after at least two cups of coffee.

  I changed into jeans and a flannel shirt before grabbing a sweater from the back of a chair where I had tossed it a few days ago. I slipped the sweater over my head, brushed my teeth, and ran a brush through my hair.

  I felt discombobulated as I traipsed back down the stairs. I disliked when my morning routine was disrupted, and having Curt Hendershot in my kitchen was a clear disruption.

  He had draped his overcoat neatly over the stool beside him. He looked rather nice in his double-breasted navy blue suit as he sat eating a donut, drinking coffee, and reading my newspaper. He momentarily reminded me of my ex-husband, Alan. I felt like throwing him out of the house.

  “Hope you don’t mind,” he said. “I went out and got your paper. I saw it in the snow in your front yard when I pulled in. It’s kind of wet.”

  Of course it was wet. The carrier never managed to find my front porch when pitching the paper. It was a small miracle Curt had spotted it at all.

  “Anything new?” I asked.

  “Have you found any bodies lately?”

  “Nooo,” I drawled sarcastically.

  “Then there’s no news.” He folded the paper and attempted to tuck it all back together as though he hadn’t opened it. I grabbed it from him and tossed it behind me onto the counter. It hit the edge and fell onto the floor.

  “What do you want, Curt?” I asked.

  “I need your help. I was over in Patterson last night, and my car was stolen. The police took a report, but they wouldn’t look for it even though it had only been gone a little over an hour. They told me to file an insurance claim.”

  I poured a cup of coffee and sat down across the counter from him.

  “That’s the way it works these days,” I said. “The police don’t spend man hours looking for stolen vehicles. File the insurance claim.” I was even more irritated with him now. “Is that why you were banging on my door?”

  “I’ll file the claim, but I want you to find the car. There’s something in it I need to get back.”

  “Such as?”

  “A personal item.”

  “Such as?” I asked again.

  He didn’t answer right away. He appeared to be mulling over whether or not he should confide in me.

  Curt wasn’t one of my favorite people. After Alan and I had divorced, I wanted to refinance the house for a more manageable monthly payment. Because I was five days late with a payment one time, he said he couldn’t do it. That might have been the bank’s policy, but I knew rules had been broken for other people in town, and I took it personally at the time. This morning, I didn’t care someone had stolen his car, and I didn’t particularly care to help him.

  He frowned. “If I give you information, you have to
keep it to yourself, right? Like attorney-client privilege?”

  “No,” I said. “I can tell anyone anything I want, and you do know I’m dating Glenn Wheeler, don’t you? Officer on the police force? So, if you tell me there’s a car full of embezzled money or drugs out there somewhere, I’m going to tell him.”

  “It’s not like that. I want to know if you’ll be discreet.”

  “I can do discreet,” I said.

  “I’m not prepared to tell you what the exact item is, but it’s incriminating. You just find the car and let me know where it is. I’ll take it from there.”

  If he was involved in something illegal, I didn’t want to be complicit. On the other hand, I didn’t want him to spread word around town that I was turning down business, so I made him an offer I thought he would refuse.

  “It’ll cost you two fifty per day plus expenses. I need the first two days upfront.”

  He didn’t balk and pulled out his wallet. Five crisp one hundred dollar bills were placed in front of me on the counter.

  I could have kicked myself. I should have asked for twice as much.

  I grabbed a pen and a piece of scrap paper from the kitchen junk drawer. “Give me details,” I said.

  He took a drink of coffee before saying, “I was over at the new hotel complex in Patterson - The Patterson Plaza. Have you been there? Hotel, restaurants, shops, couple of bars, movie theater – it’s a nice place. I was in The Broken Nine Iron having a few drinks around eight o’clock before meeting a friend for dinner at The Black Bison at nine. I left the bar at eight forty-five to grab something from my car, but it was gone. The police were there by nine to take my report, but they wouldn’t offer any assistance.”

  He stopped talking and waited for me to catch up with my notes.

  “What make and model car?” I asked.

  “It’s a new Dodge Charger. Silver, black interior, fully loaded. Vanity plates – BANKER7. There’s a Friend of Buxley Police sticker in the back window on the driver’s side.”

  “Where’d you get that?”

  “The sticker? I donated to the department last November when they were collecting money for some children’s charity for the holidays. It’s supposed to keep me from getting tickets.”

  I didn’t believe him. If giving a donation to the police department could do that, everyone would donate. “Says who?” I asked.

  “Rorski, that’s who.”

  I shook my head. “Sergeant Rorski would never tell you that. And you better not park downtown and not feed the meter, or my Aunt Bee will ticket your car with or without a sticker.”

  “Maybe it was all a wink-wink scenario, but the officers are supposed to issue warnings or look the other way if you have the sticker in your window. Why are we talking about this? Do you have everything you need?”

  “I guess. For now,” I said.

  He pulled one of his business cards out of his wallet and placed it on the counter with the hundred dollar bills. “Call me as soon as you know something. I wrote my personal cell phone number on the back.”

  I walked him to the door. I dreaded opening it and letting in another blast of cold air. He stepped out onto the porch and turned to say something, but I wasn’t leaving the door open another second. I slammed it shut.

  Before I could gather my thoughts, the red phone rang. I grabbed the handset. “Two Sisters and a Journalist. This is Jo Ravens. How may I help you?”

  “You can help me by filling in for Lucille tonight,” Mama said. “I’m on my way over to drop a shirt off for you. Do you want a diaper, too?”

  I didn’t respond. I hung up and went to the kitchen to finish my coffee and look through the newspaper.

  The phone rang again. I let the answering machine get it.

  “Jo, I know you’re there,” Mama said. “I’ll be by in an hour. Don’t leave until I get there. And make sure you find your ball and shoes before tonight. I don’t want you being late. Bring cash for the tip boards. The pot’s five hundred dollars.” She raised her voice and yelled, “Roger, put your shorts on before you sit on that couch!”

  She hung up.

  A slight shudder ran through my body. I still had a hard time accepting that Mama was dating. As far as I knew, she hadn’t been on a date since dad ran out on us twenty-seven years ago. She was probably still married to him. She met the large, heavily tattooed Roger online a few months ago and discovered he worked at the local flea market. It was all very bizarre, and the thought of him naked on her sofa gave me the willies.

  I scanned the newspaper. The current deep freeze we were experiencing dominated most of the articles. The temperature wasn’t expected to go above eight degrees today, and with the wind chill, it would feel like six below.

  I flipped through to the police log. There wasn’t anything worth following up to bolster business. Most of the reports were for burglaries, drunk and disorderlies, or domestic disputes. Anything more serious, like arresting six members of a prostitution ring, had taken place over in Patterson.

  I poured a second cup of coffee and carried it upstairs to the murder room. The room was a guest bedroom I had converted to a cozy office with a desk, chair, credenza, and a love seat. A whiteboard hung on the wall. I originally put the room together to have a place away from prying eyes to go over clues and information while I tried to exonerate a friend in the murder of her husband. A husband whose body I had stumbled across in the Buxley Cemetery.

  The room was now used for any investigation I was working on, but after dubbing it the murder room, I never thought of it as anything else.

  I set my coffee on the desk and erased half of the whiteboard. The stolen meat from Miser’s Meats had been returned Friday night. Not that Mr. Miser could sell it after it had been in Norma Miser’s freezer, but at least he had it back. His own mother had been stealing meat on the weekends when she helped out in the store. It wasn’t a small amount of meat either. She had hundreds of pounds stashed away. One of her grandchildren had frightened her by telling her about the coming zombie apocalypse, and she had begun stashing food and making preparations.

  I had to smile as I wiped away the drawing of a zombie that Pepper’s son, Keith, had drawn on the board. He wasn’t supposed to be in here, but I couldn’t be too mad at him. He was curious about the room, and I should have had it locked when they were here last week.

  I grabbed my coffee, sat down in the chair and swiveled around to look at the other half of the board.

  Johnny Wyler. Eighteen years old. Missing for eight days.

  Johnny was a neighbor. Pepper and I lived on the same four-house cul-de-sac. My house was the first house on the right. Hers was the first house on the left. I lived alone, while she resided with her husband, Buck, and their two children, Kelly and Keith.

  The Irwin’s home was next to mine. They didn’t have children, and with both of them working, I rarely saw either. Dana Wyler lived in the house next to Pepper’s. She was more sociable, and I knew she and Pepper visited with each other every now and then.

  It was last Wednesday evening when Dana came over to knock on my door. Glenn was working, and I was hunkered down on the sofa in pajamas and a Snuggie with a bowl of popcorn. A Columbo marathon had been on Retro Television all day, and I wanted to catch a few episodes. He had just delivered one of his famous just one more thing lines when the knock sounded on my door.

  With my Snuggie hanging off by half, I opened the door to find her teary-eyed on the front porch. I quickly ushered her in and offered her a seat on the sofa along with a box of tissues.

  “Jo, you find living people, too, don’t you?”

  If she wouldn’t have been so upset, I would have laughed at the question. “Of course,” I said. “Who’s missing?”

  “Johnny. He left Saturday afternoon and never came home.”

  “Did you notify the police?”

  She grabbed a tissue from the box as tears began to come. “I did, but there’s nothing they can do. He’s eighteen now, and h
e left the house voluntarily. I didn’t look to see who picked him up. I assumed it was one of his friends. There’s no sign of foul play, and with no accidents reported or John Does in the hospital, there’s nothing they can do. They assume he’s a runaway. I don’t believe it.”

  “Where was he going when he left the house?” I asked.

  “He didn’t say. He’s been quiet lately. We used to talk about school, friends, and even girlfriends, but for the past couple of months, it’s mostly been hello and good-bye. There’s been a change in him, but I don’t know what’s causing it.”

  “Does he have a girlfriend?”

  She shook her head no. “I think he broke up with the latest girl about two months ago.”

  “Do you think he might be drinking or using drugs?”

  “It crossed my mind, but I looked up the symptoms of drug abuse online, and other than being quiet and withdrawn, he hasn’t show any other symptoms.”

  “Have you checked with his friends?”

  “That’s part of the problem. He seems to have broken ties with his friends, too. Everyone I called said they haven’t seen him in weeks.”

  I glanced at the time on the DVR beside the television. It was nine-thirty.

  “I know it’s getting late, but would you mind if I took a look at his room? I might find something that will help point me in the right direction.”

  “No, of course not,’ she said. “There’s not much to see. I looked around his room, but I didn’t find anything. Maybe you’ll see something I missed.”

  There wasn’t any reason to get dressed. This wouldn’t take long. I pulled on a pair of warm boots and threw my coat on over my pajamas. A few minutes later, she was standing in Johnny’s doorway, while I stood in the middle of the tidy room.

  “Is his room always this clean?” I asked.

  “Pretty much. He’s a bit of a neat freak.”

  Not only was his room too clean, but there were no posters, pictures, trophies, or prized possessions. It could have been a guest bedroom.

  I made a fast pass through his closet and dresser drawers. I looked under the bed.