Murder Wins the Game Page 10

  “Rumors are spreading fast,” I said under my breath. “Where did you hear that?”

  She looked embarrassed . “I don’t want to spread rumors, but I’m pretty sure that’s what I heard. They just put those two nice port-a-potties along the walking track at the park. I can walk there now without worrying about accidents.”

  Mama interrupted her. “You should wear an adult diaper. They’re great for walking tracks. You get all your exercising done without stopping, and then you change out of the diaper later. I’m wearing them next week for the trial. You guys should, too. Nothing makes the judge madder than a juror interrupting and asking to go to the bathroom.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Wilma said.

  She didn’t say any more about her theory. I prompted her again. “What do the port-a-potties have to do with the maid killing Richard?”

  “Oh, yeah. I was using the port-a-potty, and two men walked by. They must have stopped close to the toilet, because I could hear them for a minute. One sounded older than the other, and he was mad. He said something about how the police would know it was the maid who committed the murder.”

  “Do you know for sure if they were talking about Richard’s maid?”

  “I guess I don’t, but he was mad and said the police would suspect the maid.”

  “But they might not have even been talking about Richard Munson,”

  She became defensive. “I don’t know. You’re confusing me. I don’t know what I heard. Come on, Estelle. I’m hungry.”

  She made a quick about face and headed down the sidewalk. Mama faced me and said, “You have a nice way with people. No wonder your job is going so well.”

  She walked off, too.

  Alone on the sidewalk, I realized Mama hadn’t mentioned anything about the lottery. I wondered if Pepper and Hank had already talked with her.

  I walked the three blocks back to my truck. Even though I knew I should go to the office, I decided to try one more time to deliver Bernie Drucker’s subpoena. I didn’t want Arnie fussing because the job wasn’t done yet.

  I pulled in front of Bernie’s house, made my way around to the back, and walked up the stairs. I banged on the door like I meant business.

  A short man with a goatee answered. “We don’t want any,” he said.

  “I’m looking for William Drucker.”

  “That’s me.”

  I hesitated. Bernie was much younger than this man. He had to be his father.

  “Do you have a son with the same name?”

  “He’s sleeping.”

  “Could you wake him for me? It’s important.”

  “Not a chance. You want to come in and try and wake him yourself? You’ll be lucky to get out of his room with all your teeth.”

  “He’s expecting a subpoena from Rose and Ryder Associates. I have it for him.”

  “Like I said, lady. You can wake him or you can leave it with me. It’s on you.”

  Booger bars. Now what? I didn’t know if it was all right to leave a subpoena with a family member or not. These were the first subpoenas I had ever delivered, and Arnie hadn’t given me any instructions.

  “Sure,” I said and handed the envelope to him. “Don’t forget to give it to him. He doesn’t want to miss the date or be late, or they’ll send a sheriff out for him and toss him in jail.”

  The man took the envelope and sneered, “Yeah, right lady.”

  He slammed the door.

  That went well. At least I would be able to tell Arnie all the subpoenas had been officially delivered.

  I looked across to Dave Jackson’s property. He hadn’t yet purchased any new vehicles with his millions. His old, beat-up Buick was in the garage, while the beat-up Chevy truck he used for his plumbing business was in the drive. He was probably home, and now was as good a time as any to apologize to him for Mama’s abusive behavior.

  I walked over to his back door. The inside door was open, allowing the outer screen door to let fresh air in. I rapped on the small space beside the screen. There was no answer. I called out a loud, “Hello.”

  When there was no response, I called louder, “Dave? Are you home? It’s Jo Ravens. I want to talk with you about Mama.”

  I cupped my hands around my eyes and peered through the screen into the kitchen. I didn’t see him at first. He was almost out of my line of sight, but I did spot him.

  I opened the door and stepped into the kitchen. Dave was slumped over in his chair at the kitchen table. It didn’t take a forensic degree to deduce the pipe on the floor beside him was what had caused the head wound. Even though he was clearly dead, I tiptoed over and felt his neck for a pulse. He was already stiff.

  My heart and my mind took off like a shot at the same time. Mama! Mama was here yesterday. Was she the last person to see him alive? Could she have been so out of control as to kill him? Did anyone else know she had been here? Did anyone other than me see her?

  Panic caused my chest to tighten. That crazy, eccentric woman. Was she capable of killing someone?

  My stomach churned. If it had food in it, I would have thrown up for sure. I didn’t want to, but I knew I had to call Sergeant Rorski.

  I stood near the back door and pushed the station’s number on my speed dial. I asked for the sergeant and was put right through.

  “Rorski,” he said calmly.

  I suspected he hadn’t been told it was me on the line. I knew better than to mess with the man, but it was as though my mind suddenly had a mind of its own.

  “Mrs. Peacock, in the kitchen, with the lead pipe.”

  He hung up on me.

  I pulled out a chair and sat down opposite Dave. “What happened here, Dave? Who did this to you? Give me a sign. Tell me it wasn’t Mama.”

  My phone rang. Officer Collins asked, “Where are you, Jo?”

  “I’m in Dave Jackson’s kitchen. He’s been bashed in the head with a pipe, and he’s stiff.”

  “Don’t touch anything. I mean it, Jo. Not a print on anything. You hear me?”

  “I hear you,” I said.

  “We’ll be right there,” he said.

  I dashed a text off to Jackie. I knew I only had a couple of minutes before the Sergeant arrived. I slipped on a pair of plastic gloves from my bag and began a quick search of the kitchen. A ham sandwich, a pickle, and a handful of potato chips remained uneaten on the plate in front of Dave. There weren’t any other place settings at the table. There wasn’t any food on the counters.

  I quickly opened cupboards, but everything appeared normal and in its place. I began opening drawers. Once again, everything seemed normal until I pulled the handle of a deep, bin-type drawer like the one my grandmother used for storing onions and potatoes. There were two of them side by side, and they were crammed full of hundreds, maybe thousands, of scratched lottery tickets.

  A quick glance at a few of them showed they were non-winners. I shoved my hand down into the first bin to see if the tickets went all the way to the bottom. They did. When I shoved my hand into the second bin, I felt something at the bottom. I grasped onto it and pulled. Tickets flipped out of the bin onto the floor. The object turned out to be a soft canvas satchel with a zipper. I pulled the zipper back and wasn’t entirely surprised to find it filled with banded stacks of hundred dollar bills. Each band had a dollar amount of ten thousand dollars written on it. There were ten stacks totaling one hundred thousand dollars.

  Dave was old school, and although he would have to keep most of his money in banks or investments, it wasn’t surprising that he would stash cash in the house.

  I couldn’t get the bag back to the bottom of the bin, but I did shove it deep down the side and tossed the tickets from the floor back in. I’d let someone else discover the money.

  I hurried from room to room. There was nothing to indicate anything had been taken or even touched.

  Sirens sounded as I walked into an upstairs bedroom. A framed antique photo of a man and woman above the dresser was slightly askew. I couldn�
��t resist pulling it back a bit to look behind it for a safe. There wasn’t one, but there was a hole cut into the wall. I lifted the photo from the wall and peered inside the hole. There was another canvas bag in the hole.

  “Ravens!” a voice bellowed from the kitchen.

  I replaced the photo on the wall and crammed my gloves into my pocket. The photo was no longer askew, but I didn’t have time to set it as I had found it.

  I tried to look innocent as I walked into the kitchen.

  “I’m here. There’s no one in the house.”

  The sergeant’s face turned red.

  Officer Collins spoke before the sergeant could find his words. “It’s not your place to check to see if someone’s in the house. What if they had a gun?”

  I made a pshaw noise. “Dave lived alone. Do you think whoever killed him spent the night? Because I’m pretty sure he wasn’t killed today.”

  Sergeant Rorski yelled, “Get out!”

  I didn’t wait for him to tell me again. I rushed past him and into the back yard. I checked my cell phone to see if Jackie had sent a text or if I had missed a call from her. I couldn’t understand why she wasn’t here yet.

  Officer Winnie came around from the front of the house. He had a pen in one hand and a notebook in the other. “What were you doing here, Jo?”

  I didn’t want to go into it with him, and I didn’t want to point any fingers Mama’s way until I could talk with her. “Wouldn’t it be easier if I went down to the station and wrote a statement?”

  “You can do it later. Sarge wants some answers now. What were you doing here?”

  “I delivered a subpoena next door and thought I’d stop over and say hello.”

  It wasn’t a lie. I did yell hello through the screen door.

  “Are you friends with Dave?”

  “Now that Dave’s won two million dollars, he’s everyone’s friend. Aren’t you friendlier with him than you used to be?”

  He frowned. “Was he expecting you, or would he have been surprised to find you at his door?”

  “He wasn’t expecting me, but I don’t think he would have been surprised to find me at his door either.”

  His frown deepened. “I know Collins gives you a hard time, but I never have, so what’s the deal, Jo? Give me some straight answers.” He looked at his notes. “I’m supposed to ask you where we’ll find your prints?”

  “On the door handle and on one of the kitchen chairs. I sat down after I called the station.”

  He looked at me like I was nuts. “You sat down at a table with a dead man?”

  “He didn’t seem to mind.”

  I smiled. I didn’t mean to, but I couldn’t help it. And the smile almost made me laugh. Almost. A sort of chuckle-cough came out instead.

  Officer Winnie couldn’t hide a look of disgust. “I’m going to ask you one more time, and if you don’t level with me, Jo, I’m going to tell Sarge he has to ask you himself. Why did you stop to see Dave Jackson today?”

  I sighed. I’m sorry, Mama. I can’t protect you any longer. “I wanted to apologize.”

  “For what?”

  “For Mama.”

  “Why? What did she do?”

  “She’s jealous of Dave.”

  Officer Winnie glared at me. “How so?”

  “She’s jealous he won so much money.”

  “Everyone in town is. Were you going to apologize for them, too?”

  “No. They can do their own apologizing.”

  “Geez, it’s no wonder Glenn’s mad at you,” he mumbled under his breath. “This is like pulling teeth.”

  I reached out with my hand and pushed him on the chest. “What did you say? Glenn’s mad at me? What do you know about that? Did he tell you he was mad at me?”

  “Forget it, Jo. I didn’t say anything.” He turned to go into the house.

  I would have followed and insisted he tell me what Glenn said, but the house was quickly filling with police and emergency personnel. Sergeant Rorski had demanded I get out, so that’s exactly what I did.

  I walked to my truck and drove home.

  Chapter Eight

  “That’ll be ten dollars,” I said to the woman with the green paisley snake in her hand.

  I couldn’t believe people were paying for the goofy snakes, but they had been Pepper’s bestselling item so far this morning. Some people were buying the repurposed ties for their intended use - to place along the bottom of a door to keep drafts out. Others were buying them for children to play with, and some were buying them simply because they thought they were cute. I had to admit, the red felt forked tongues and large wiggle eyes made it hard not to smile when you saw them.

  The felt Christmas ornaments were selling well, but not like the snakes. Pepper also had several boxes of Kelly and Keith’s paperback books for sale and dozens of homemade chocolate chip cookies. She should have made more cookies, because they were going to be gone soon.

  The biggest surprise was when she opened two smaller boxes filled with colorful bead necklaces and bracelets. I had no idea Kelly had been making them. The rest of the items on Pepper’s tables were standard garage sale fare.

  “Hey, you break it, you bought it,” I yelled down the table to a boy who picked up a snow globe Keith had contributed to the cause.

  “Jo, stop it,” Pepper said. “You can’t yell at the customers.”

  She was irritated with me, but I didn’t care. It was only ten o’clock, and I was tired, hot, and miserable. “I’m only saying what Roger used to say when he had his space in the flea market. You didn’t seem to mind when he said it.”

  She rolled her eyes. With the mood I’d been in all week, she knew better than to argue with me.

  “Give me the keys to the truck,” she said.

  “Why? We didn’t leave anything in the truck.”

  “I have to go to the bathroom.”

  “What do you mean you have to go to the bathroom? The restrooms are up in the main building.”

  “I know they are, but it’s too far to walk. I brought a couple of gallon jugs. I can go in the truck.”

  My eyes bugged out of my head and my mouth hung open so wide, I felt something fly in. I loved my sister dearly, but she was out of her mind if she thought I was going to let her pee in my truck.

  “No! Absolutely not. Start walking, because you aren’t getting in my truck until we leave.”

  I took a ten-dollar bill from a woman who quickly scurried away with her SpongeBob snake. Our arguing was keeping customers from approaching our tables - all but the boy who had picked up the snowglobe. He was still at the end of the table and laughing at us.

  “What’s so funny?” I asked.

  “Let her pee in your truck. My mom keeps soda bottles in the car for me to pee in. Everyone does it.”

  “Take me to your car,” I said. “I’ll bet you five bucks it smells like pee.”

  The smile faded from the boy’s face. He shook his head and walked off.

  Pepper pushed her small frame up against my taller one and looked up into my face. “Jo, I know you’re unhappy, but I’m at the end of my rope with you today. You said you would help me, not make things hard for me. Quit yelling at people, and quit being so mean, or so help me, I’ll never speak to you again. I’m going up to the bathroom. I’ll be back in an hour, because that’s how long it’s going to take to get there and back. Don’t screw things up here.”

  She took off at a jog, but that only lasted for about twenty feet. She slowed to a walk.

  I knew I was being a monster today. It didn’t help that I was so upset last night, I ate an entire order of ribs from Smitty’s. I felt bloated and sluggish this morning when I hauled myself out of bed at four o’clock.

  Pepper had rankled me right away, not only because she was happy and bubbly so early in the morning, but also because she wanted me to help her load my truck. I thought she was driving, and with Buck having arrived home last night, I figured he would have her car loaded and ready to
go.

  “Of course we have to take your truck,” she said. “There’s no room for tables and boxes in my car.”

  I watched her disappear into the crowd and turned my attention to a woman fingering the necklaces. They were easy to steal, so they commanded extra attention.

  A short, plump woman stopped and stood next to the woman at the necklaces, but she didn’t browse. Almost as quickly as she had stopped, she began walking again. I yelled after her, “Wait!”

  I slammed the lid on the cash box and bolted around the tables to her.

  “Where did you get that?” I asked, pointing to the red telephone she was holding.

  The woman smiled broadly. “From a vendor in the main building. Isn’t it a dandy?”

  “Can I see it?” I asked.

  She looked at me and then at my unattended tables. She must have figured I wouldn’t run off with her phone. “Sure,” she said and handed it to me.

  I held it, but didn’t examine it. “I’m going to turn this over,” I told the woman. “If there’s a deep scratch on the bottom that looks like a number eight, this is stolen property.” I turned the phone over, and we both saw the mark.

  The woman reached for the phone, but I held it closer to me. “I know this is stolen property, because it was stolen from my house this week.”

  A man at one of our tables held up a houndstooth snake. I could see he wanted to ask me something.

  “Wait a minute,” I told him.

  “It’s mine now,” she said. “I paid for it.”

  “It doesn’t matter if you paid for it or not. You’ll have to surrender it to the police, since it’s already been reported as stolen. How much did you pay for it?”

  “Fifty dollars.”

  I reached into my jeans pocket and pulled out a twenty. “I’ll give you twenty, and we won’t have to involve the police.”

  A look of defeat crossed her face. She took the twenty.

  The man held the snake up again. “Are these things guaranteed to-”

  I cut him off and said impatiently, “Wait a minute. I’ll just be another minute.”

  “Did the guy you bought the phone from have a big beige chair, too?” I asked the woman. “With a refrigerator in the side?”