LOVE, HOPES, & MARRIAGE TROPES

by Abby L. Vandiver

  “Maybe he isn’t,” she said. “You ever thought of that?”

  “No,” I said.

  “And why did he come to Roble and get a job?” she asked. “He’s from Houston, who’d want to come here?”

  “That’s what I’m always telling you,” I said. “Why leave Chicago to come back here. And if he is in charge, then he either thinks you’re involved or he’s been using you all the time.”

  “Oh phooey, he is not using me. If he needed me as part of the sting, he could have just asked me.” She waved a hand at me. “And,” she drew the word out, “I’m not talking about you coming to a small town,” she said. “This is your home. Only family you have left is here. You should want to be here. But not Rhett. He has no reason. Unless...” She wiggled her eyebrows.

  “So that’s what you think Rhett is doing here,” I said. “He’s working at your funeral home because he is on an undercover assignment to weed out college football coaches involved in a bribery and gratuity scheme.”

  “Exactly!” she said.

  “I was being sarcastic,” I said.

  “But you hit the nail right on the head. It’s exactly what I think is going on.”

  “So in your madcap scheme of federal proportions, who is the killer?”

  “Have you been listening to me?” she asked.

  “Unfortunately,” I said, “I heard every word.”

  “Then you should know.”

  This time I was sure she was going to make me guess.

  “Uh. Let me think.” I tilted my head and rested my eyes on a spot on the ceiling. “In your newspaper article it was the coaches and marketing guy.” I looked at her. “There’s been no financial advisors around here, right?”

  “No.”

  “Okay. Then my guess is Coach Buddy and Shane Bouchard.”

  “Blanchard. His name is Shane Blanchard.”

  “Oh yeah, Blanchard.” I nodded. “That’s who I think.” I looked at her. “Did I guess right?”

  “You did,” she said. “But there’s another one to add.”

  “Who?”

  “Shhh! Did you hear that?” Auntie stood up and walked over to the entryway to the adjoining room.

  “I didn’t hear anything,” I said. “And why do you think someone would be listening in anyway? You’ve been jumpy ever since we got here.”

  “What we’re talking about is high op kind of stuff.”

  I laughed.

  “Don’t laugh,” she said, giving me a cautious look. “The ones that killed Bumper could kill us the same way.”

  “And how did they kill him?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said, her eyes darting around in the dimly lit space. “I was waiting until I did my inquest to find out. I just knew until then I had to be careful of what I ate and drank. That’s why I’ve got that closet locked.”

  “Don’t tell me you think that they poisoned their sports drink. That would be a media nightmare for them.”

  “I’m still working out the kinks in all of this. That’s what I do as justice of the peace, you know?”

  “And you know, even with you being ‘duly elected’, you still couldn’t have performed an autopsy.”

  “I was meaning to read up on the rules about that.”

  I laughed. “All the reading in the world won’t get you qualified to do that.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  I was finally on my way to perform the autopsy. It was going to be the first one in the new facility. I’d invited Auntie to go with me, she was happy to leave Angel’s Grace and whoever’s prying eyes and ears she felt were there. She was elated to be a part of the first leg of the investigation with me. You’d have thought she’d won the Publishing House Sweepstakes.

  Before we left Angel’s Grace for the ME’s office, I called the hospital and spoke to a person in the morgue at Sabine County Hospital to arrange to have Michael “Bumper” Hackett’s body brought over.

  On this leg of the trip, Auntie was Chatty Cathy. She was just as excited as I was.

  “Remember,” she said. “We have to talk to him.”

  “You remember,” I said. “I don’t talk to dead people. That’s what you do.”

  “But it’ll help us figure out what he died from.”

  “That’s the purpose of the autopsy, Auntie. Science giving us the answers because the decedent can’t tell us.”

  “Oh hogwash. There are spirits everywhere. And the dead person’s spirit keeps close to his body.”

  “That’s the difference in me and you,” I said.

  “What?” she said. “You don’t believe that spirits can give us answers.”

  “I believe we’ll solve this from the clues we’ll glean along the way. Scientific evidence will not only lead us to the killer, but will convict him. Or her.”

  “And who do you think the evidence is going to lead you to?” she asked.

  “Well, I’ve been thinking,” I said. “I came up with three people who in my mind are persons of interests.”

  “There you go using Pogue’s term. Isn’t that what he called his suspects on the last murder we solved? Persons of interest?” She shook her head. “Just call them what they are, suspects.”

  “Okay,” I said. “These are the people that made it to my suspect list,” I glanced over at her. “Ready?”

  “Shoot.”

  “Okay. Bonnie Alvarez. Piper Alvarez. And the best man. I haven’t found out his name yet.”

  “Chase Turner,” Auntie said. “I had to know it for the program.”

  “Chase Turner,” I murmured, committing his name to memory. “Do you know him? Did he play football with Bumper?”

  “No, he didn’t play ball for Roble. He was older than Bumper. I’d seen him around before, but he left and went to the military.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “Why those three?” Auntie asked.

  “Because they all disappeared at the wedding, which gave them the opportunity to poison him. I never saw Bonnie Alvarez before or after the incident. I wouldn’t have known she was there except Mr. Alvarez said she was.”

  “You said Bonnie had a ‘shotgun’ pointing at Bumper and that was the reason he was getting married,” Auntie said. “If she wanted him to marry her daughter why would she kill him?”

  “I also said Bumper was marrying Jorianne because she was pregnant. But I’ve changed my mind.”

  “I heard Bonnie and Piper talking in the room while we were waiting on the ambulance where the girls were getting changed,” Auntie Zanne said. “I’d gone in to get the guns.”

  “You heard them?”

  “Yes, I did. And they sounded pretty suspicious to me.”

  “What did they say?”

  “Bonnie and Piper agreed this marriage wasn’t good for Jorianne. That she was rushing into things, and she needed to learn to be more independent.”

  “That’s what Piper said when she was at the Hacketts’ place.”

  “I know,” Auntie said. “That’s why I asked about the caterer. I thought since they hired the caterer, they might have been able to get him, unwittingly, to serve Bumper something that was poisonous.”

  I looked over at her. “You suspected it was foul play when we were at the Hacketts?”

  “I suspected it as soon as I saw your Chief-of-Staff’s lips.”

  “Can we just call him Alex? Please.”

  Auntie laughed. “Okay, we can. I just thought you liked to call him that. So,” she turned to me, “when did you first suspect it was murder?”

  “It wasn’t then,” I said. “Not that soon. But after we got back from seeing Mrs. Hackett, I started thinking about it.”

  “Something how we thought the same thing.”

  “Yes, it is.” I took my eyes off the road momentarily
to smile at her. “So, did your questions about the caterer help your case any?”

  “It does in a way.” Auntie rubbed her fingers across her temple. “If they’re all are in cahoots—”

  “Who?” I asked, interrupting.

  “The A&M coach and the Mighty Max guy, then it makes sense that they wanted to shut Bumper up.”

  “How does that make sense?”

  “He turned A&M down sure enough, but what if there’s an FBI sting operation taking place, he would’ve been the star witness.”

  “So they wanted to eliminate anyone who could testify against them?”

  “That’s what I’m thinking.”

  “I guess that could be right if it were true that they offered Bumper money.”

  “That Shane Blanchard asked me about setting up a scholarship to be given each year to outstanding football players who are juniors.”

  “A scholarship is not a bribe. It has to be earned,” I said.

  “It could be a front. And it could be them trying to get me on their side so I won’t be suspicious. Like giving me cases of that blue slime.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “That doesn’t make me think anything out of the ordinary.”

  “Does this make you think anything out of the ordinary?” she said, and moved closer to me. “He told me that he wanted me to be their ‘supporter.’ He said as the lead booster member I could play a part in his recruitment efforts.”

  “Shane Blanchard said that?”

  “Yep. Sure did.”

  “That sounds a little suspicious, I guess.”

  “See,” she said and nodded.

  “Did he tell you how you were supposed to help?”

  “Not yet. But now that he’s on our radar we can get him to talk.”

  “He’s not on my radar,” I said.

  “Why not?” she asked.

  “Do you think anyone was actually offered money?”

  “LaJay Reid goes to Texas A&M,” she said and raised an eyebrow.

  “He does?”

  “He does. That’s the other person I’m thinking is wrapped up in this thing,” she said. “And, up until a week before he committed, everyone thought he was going to Arizona.”

  “Did he get money?”

  “He got a new car for graduation. A big, shiny new truck.”

  “So maybe you should put him on your list,” I said and glanced over at her. “He sure did have the opportunity to do it.”

  “He is on my list. I just told you he is the other person I was trying to tell you about when we were at the community center,” she said. “And, in case you haven’t noticed, he’s got a thing for Jorianne.”

  “I did notice him seeing to her when we were waiting on the ambulance,” I said. “But I didn’t think it was strange. He and Bumper were best friends, only natural he’d see to her.”

  “If they were best friends, why wasn’t he Bumper’s best man?”

  “Ahh, good question,” I said, nodding. “Why wasn’t he indeed?”

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Hello, Bumper,” Auntie walked to the front doors with me when the ambulance arrived with the body. She laid her hand on him and spoke to him through his black bag as they wheeled the gurney into the autopsy room. “We’re here to see what happened to you. To take care of everything.”

  The attendant looked at me as I signed the release form attached to his clipboard. “She talks to dead people,” I said and smiled.

  He chuckled. “Do they ever talk back?” he asked.

  “She says they do,” I said then leaned in close. “They let her out of the home for the day and we forgot to bring her medication.”

  He laughed as he took the signed form and left.

  As I unzipped Bumper from his ebony-colored cocoon, Auntie’s conversation went into full swing. She pulled up a metal stool, sat at his head and chatted away. She told him all about her having people check their guns at the door, and how much trouble people gave her when it was time to give them back. How no one ever got to taste the food, and if that might have been a good thing seeing where he ended up. Then, she told him how pretty Jorianne looked and how she wished he could have seen her.

  I pulled out the digital camera and started taking pictures.

  “What a silly thing for the groom not to be able to see the bride in her wedding dress,” she continued, “what about if he died, like you did before the ceremony? How would he ever know how beautiful she looked?”

  “Is this what you usually say to your dead guests?” I interjected, pausing my picture taking to query her.

  “No,” she said, thoughtfully. “I usually talk about their family. Like who cried the most during our initial meeting, who was the phoniest, who was willing to fork over money if the insurance didn’t cover the burial. People want to know how their love ones reacted to their deaths.”

  “Do they now,” I said, trying not to laugh.

  “Yes really,” she said. “But this is my first autopsy so I just thought I’d talk about a range of things and see what sticks.”

  “With all your talking, it feels like the only thing sticking is a dagger in my side. You’re killing me and if you don’t pipe down,” I said, “it’ll be your last autopsy.” I snapped a picture of her. “At least with me.”

  She held up her hand to shield her face.

  “Don’t take my picture. Did you see that, Bumper? She doesn’t take this seriously, does she?”

  I let her talk while I finished taking photos, putting my gear on and stuffing her into a safety shield and gown, but when I pulled down the mic close to me to start the autopsy, I had to shush her.

  “Auntie,” I said, “I can’t have my dictation peppered with your ramblings. Time to stop that inane chatter.”

  “I’m just making him comfortable so he’ll tell us all he knows. I told him we need his help to find out who did this to him.”

  “I heard you. Are you finished, yet?” I asked.

  “Yes. I think so,” she said, sincerity in her voice. “Just one more thing I need to say.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “No. I mean to Bumper.”

  “Oh. Well, go ahead.”

  “I just want to apologize, Bumper. I’m so very sorry this happened to you. Especially that it happened to you at my place.”

  “Is that it?”

  “Yep,” she said, and gave a single nod.

  I turned on the mic, and then she leaned in close to Bumper and I heard her whisper, “She’s so snippy.”

  “I heard that,” I said. “And so did my mic. I need to do the talking now. Me into my mic.” I pointed up to it. “It’s time to open him up and get down to business.”

  “Okay,” she said and hopped off the stool. “You take care of your business, while I take care of mine. I have to run to the little girl’s room. By the time I get back, you’ll probably be inside and we can see what really happened to poor little Bumper.”

  “Fine,” I said, letting my voice get louder as she moved farther away from me. “Just no more talking once you get back.”

  I took the scalpel in hand and ran my hand over his chest. I cleared my throat and spoke loudly into the mic. “Male. Caucasian. Six feet, three inches tall. Two hundred twenty pounds. All tattoos, scars and identifying marks will be documented photographically.”

  I bent over the body ready to make my thoracoabdominal Y-shaped incision, but before I did, I turned to make sure Auntie wasn’t in earshot, then turned back and looked at the young football player and almost husband and father. “Okay, Bumper Hackett,” I said. “If you can talk, now’s the time.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  During the autopsy, Bumper didn’t say one word, and, to my surprise, neither did my zany auntie. She later told me she was so fascinated and proud to watch me work tha
t she’d been flabbergasted.

  “Well what did you learn?” she asked as we stood at the sink and washed our hands. She hadn’t done anything to dirty hers, but she was enjoying the moment. “Was he murdered?”

  “I think so,” I said and nodded. I dried my hands as I walked over to the desk and sat down, she trailed behind me. “I don’t like to give anything definite until I get a toxicology report in my hands.” I threw the paper towel into the trash. Picking up the sheet of paper that I needed to fill out to have the samples taken to the lab, I waved it at her.

  “How long will that take?” she said, sitting in the chair across from me, she pointed at the paper.

  “That’s according to what it is, but probably not more than a couple of days.” I started checking off boxes, a rote activity for me. “I’ll scan this request and then email it in. They’ll have them tonight, then we’ll get the results whenever they get to it.”

  “We don’t have to wait until then to start investigating, do we?”

  “No. We can go with what we know now.”

  “Which is?”

  I looked up from my paperwork, tapping the pen on the desk. “Well...” I thought about her question. “I don’t think it was a fast-acting poison,” I said.

  “Why?”

  “Because of my observations of him on the day he died, and because of the pulmonary edema I found,” I said. “Plus, we know that Bumper didn’t take anything while he was at the house.”

  “Nothing other than his inhaler,” she said.

  “That’s what I think killed him.”

  “What?” she asked. “You do?”

  “Yep. I think it was poison in the inhaler.”

  “You didn’t tell me that.”

  “I’m telling you now.”

  “Are you going to test the inhaler?”

  “I don’t have it.”

  “Where is it?”

  “That’s a good question, Auntie,” I said. “I don’t know where it is. Do you know what happened to it?”

  “No.” She shook her head thoughtfully. “I don’t know anything about it,” she said.

  “Someone must have picked it up,” I said.