A Bell in the Garden

by Sheri Richey

  “I don’t. I’ve never really known Aunt Wanda. I mean, maybe I met her when I was young, but I don’t remember. She and my mom don’t get along.”

  “So, let me see if I understand this,” Conrad said with a heavy sigh. “Your mom reported her brother missing, but now that there is a chance he may have been found, she is preventing anyone from confirming his identity. Do I have that right?”

  Karen looked down at her hands again but remained still. “I can’t explain it,” Karen said looking up to meet Conrad’s eyes. “My mother, well I just can’t explain her, really. She’s very commanding and if you go against her…”

  “I tried to talk with your mother, Miriam, about this. She wasn’t cooperative. I didn’t realize she had such a long reach though,” Conrad said. Karen looked helpless to stand against her mother. “Something you should both understand though. This evidence can be subpoenaed if it becomes critical.”

  “Oh,” Karen said with eyes bulging. “No, I didn’t realize that. Well, then I could definitely do it then. It’s not that I mind at all. I just don’t want to lose my mom over it. She feels really strongly about it.”

  Conrad tossed his glasses onto his pad of paper and stretched back in his chair to hide his impatience. Miriam was a bully, plain and simple, and she had her only daughter intimidated. Conrad couldn’t believe a mother would threaten to disconnect from her only child if that adult child didn’t cooperate with her.

  “Okay, thanks for stopping by,” Conrad said, surprised Miriam permitted it. “I’ll let the State Medical Examiner’s office know we are unable to provide them a DNA sample because no one in your family will voluntarily submit. If they need something further, I’m sure they will take it to a judge so it can be ordered and served on Miriam.” If being embarrassed in her community was what she feared most, Conrad hoped his words would get back to her so she would be prepared. He planned to make sure she was humiliated if he had the privilege to serve the subpoena. She deserved nothing less.

  “I’ll let her know,” Karen said sweetly. “And again, Chief, I’m sorry I can’t help more.”

  “It’s not your fault, Karen,” Conrad said standing. “You have a good day.”

  §

  “Mayor,” Amanda called out as she walked to the open door of Cora’s office. “Rodney is here. You said you had a picture of the train?”

  “Oh, yes,” Cora said excitedly. “Yes, Rodney, please come in. I’ll get it for you.” Bowing his head shyly, he entered the office.

  “I was delighted when Amanda told me about your idea. I think it’s a great plan and I’m excited to see it. I wish I had thought of it,” Cora said beaming.

  Pulling several photos from her desk drawer, she shuffled through them and selected one to hand to Rodney. “This is the first station.” Rodney took the photo and peered closely.

  “I also have a hand-drawn sketch of that same little building and another photo of a train. Now, the train photo dates a couple of years after John Spicer got here, but it will give you an example of how they looked in case you want to use them.”

  Still focusing closely on the photos, the silence was beginning to make Cora uncomfortable. “Please have a seat. Tell me what you think.”

  Rodney slid into one of the leather chairs across from Cora’s desk but didn’t seem to move his eyes off the photo.

  “I’m sure you were imagining something much bigger,” Cora smiled although Rodney didn’t look up. “The original train station was just a tiny closet with a hook for the mailbag.”

  Amanda was standing in the doorway and Cora gave her a pleading look. The extended silence was excruciating.

  “Would you like me to copy any of these, Rodney?” Amanda said shrugging at Cora.

  “Yes, please,” Rodney said snapping out of his trance. “I’d like to have all three. I haven’t decided which would work best.”

  “Good idea,” Cora said encouragingly. “So, how have you been, Rodney?”

  “Fine,” Rodney said nodding his head meekly.

  “Amanda told me about keeping this hush-hush and I am happy to do that if that’s what you truly want. I had planned to give you name credit on all the drawings.”

  “Oh, no ma’am. I don’t need my name on anything. It’s just tracing. I’m not an artist or anything.”

  “I beg to differ,” Cora said emphatically. “I don’t think you realize the majority of people cannot do what you can. It is very much a talent and you should be proud of it.”

  “Naw,” Rodney said grinning uncomfortably from the compliment.

  “Here you go.” Amanda handed the copies to Rodney and the originals to Cora for filing.

  “Is everything better at home now?” Cora asked gingerly. “I mean with the bones being found and your wife being upset.”

  “Oh, well. I don’t think it’s much better yet. Maybe it will simmer down soon. My stepson is having some problems over it. People can be really mean sometimes.”

  “Yes,” Cora said nodding sadly. “Yes, they can and I’m sorry you’re going through this. Maybe when school gets out, he can get away from some of that.”

  Rodney just nodded his head meekly.

  “Does Andy go visit his dad in the summers or does he stay here in town when school is out.”

  “He stays here,” Rodney said rising from his chair. “Well, I better get going. Jimmy will want me on the job right away. Thank you for the photos. I’ll get to work.”

  “Okay,” Cora called as he walked out of her door. “Take care.”

  Frowning, she looked at Amanda. “Is it just me? Or does he not talk much?”

  “He’s pretty quiet,” Amanda said. “But he even seemed more so today. He acts like he’s got a lot on his mind. Maybe he’s worried about this drawing.”

  “But adding all this difficulty to the drawing was his idea.” Cora pulled out her drawer and slid the photos back into their file. “I just wish he wasn’t so uncomfortable around me. I can’t ever really seem to get him to talk. I know Carmen is having a hard time right now. The newspaper posted an article about the press release and then allowed people to comment online. There were some scathing things said that actually named her in some of them.”

  “Really? How rude.”

  “He was right about people being mean. It was totally unnecessary to mention that type of thing online. I felt sorry for her.”

  “I feel sorry for him anyway,” Amanda said. “I don’t think he has a very easy life.”

  “I guess not,” Cora said wistfully.

  CHAPTER 15

  “Tabor is back, Chief,” Georgia bellowed down the hallway as Conrad walked in the side door to the police station and turned to go to his office.

  “Well, it’s about time,” Conrad mumbled. He had delayed going to lunch while he waited on him, but hunger finally overtook him.

  “Sorry, Chief,” Officer Eugene Tabor said when he appeared in Conrad’s doorway. “I had to wait on them to copy it.”

  “It shouldn’t take a half a day to do that,” Conrad bellowed. “I thought you called them yesterday and asked them to get it ready.”

  “I did, but it’s really big, Chief. And they kept showing me other stuff and asking me if I wanted it copied.”

  “What other stuff? I asked for a copy of the final order.”

  “I don’t know what it all was. There were a bunch of orders for different things and I just kept telling them you needed the final order. Turns out there’s like three of them though. Let me go get it.”

  Conrad was glad for the moment of peace so he could roll his eyes and take a calming breath before Eugene returned. Walking through the door, Officer Tabor held the copies in both hands and placed them in the center of Conrad’s desk. The stack was almost two inches tall.

  “This can’t possibly be a court order,” Conrad said strumming his fingers along the edges of the stack. “Or even three orders. They must have copied everything in the file.”

  “No, actually Chief, the
re were three different files. The original and then there were pleadings filed to reopen and revise the original order. That’s why the clerk thought you would need all three. There are a bunch of exhibits attached to each one and she explained it all to me, but she seemed certain you would want it all.”

  “Okay,” Conrad said pushing his chair away from the desk. “I guess this will take all afternoon. I better make coffee. Thank you, Tabor.”

  “Sure thing, Chief,” Office Tabor said smiling as he disappeared from the doorway.

  Pouring a cup from the pot he had made that morning, Conrad ran his hand over his thinning crew cut hair. He wasn’t looking forward to this tedious job. He didn’t need Carmen’s life history. He had hoped to find this in an electronic searchable format so he could pick out what he wanted. This would definitely take all afternoon.

  Glancing at the clock, he saw City Hall would be closing in less than three hours. He pulled a piece of paper from his notepad and added all the information listed for the petitioner, Andrew Gentry, to the list he had started earlier.

  “Tabor,” Conrad roared. He usually tried not to yell out his office door, but he could hear Officer Tabor chit-chatting with Georgia in the dispatch booth.

  “Yeah, Chief?”

  “Make me another copy of this,” Conrad said plopping the thick volume back into Officer Tabor’s hands. “And run these names for me.” Conrad put the note on top of the stack. “I need to know where Andrew lives now. I need contact information for Wanda and a photocopy of this birth certificate.”

  “Right away, Chief.”

  Conrad ran his hands over his clean desk again, calmed the offensive volume was gone, and reached for the phone.

  §

  At the sound of the doorbell, Cora scooted to the front door in her house slippers and peered through the frosted glass. She had only been home long enough to kick her shoes off and feed Marmalade, but she saw her dinner delivery had arrived.

  “Hey, Connie. Just bring it in the kitchen. I haven’t made any drinks yet.”

  Conrad slid the pizza box from Ole Thyme Italian Restaurant on her kitchen table. “I’ve got to run back out to the car to get the copies. I’ll be right back.”

  Walking in with the two large stacks separated by a pad of paper, he slapped them down on the table.

  “Goodness,” Cora said placing her hand over her heart. “I can see why you weren’t eager to dive right into all this.”

  “Yes, it looks ominous,” Conrad said as he picked up the plates from the counter to place them on the table.

  “Are these the transcripts?”

  “Oh, no,” Conrad said smiling. “These are just the final orders. There were three of them.”

  “The transcripts probably have their own dedicated storage room at the clerk’s office. This divorce must have been bloody.”

  “A fitting analogy, but murder trials don’t have this much paperwork.”

  “Well, here are the napkins,” Cora said pulling out a kitchen chair. “Let’s dive in.”

  “I talked to Miriam today,” Conrad said between bites.

  “Oh, how lovely for you.” Cora snickered at her own sarcasm. “Did she bite your head off again?”

  “She was surly. I may have permanently burned a bridge with her. It was obvious her daughter had relayed my threat.”

  “She doesn’t take kindly to anyone disagreeing with her or challenging her in any way. That’s why we butt heads all the time. I tend to do both.”

  “I had left a message for her to call me, which of course she didn’t do, so this afternoon I saw her parking to go in to the Chamber of Commerce office and I stopped her.”

  “Stopped her with your lights on?”

  “Oh, no. I was walking down the street, so I just walked over. She immediately made a big fuss about being in a hurry and tried to run off, but I just followed her into the Chamber office.”

  “Shucks,” Cora said chuckling. “I was hoping you pulled her over with your squad car right there on Paprika Parkway.”

  “It wasn’t that dramatic, but the way she reacted, you would have thought I had.”

  “Was she any help?”

  “No. She told me she’d look for her sister’s contact information and get back to me. I had Eugene look up the sister, so I already have the info I need, but I wanted her to know it.”

  “So, she made all that fuss for nothing.”

  “Yep,” Conrad said smiling. “I did drag it out a little though. I started off with reminding her of her promise to give me her sister’s number and that I’d left a message with the Chamber secretary for her to call me. I wanted to let her flutter on about how busy she was and how she didn’t know how to reach her sister. After she played out all of her excuses, I told her it was just fine because I’d already found her sister and had talked with her, so I didn’t need anything further from her right now.”

  Cora’s laughter burst out as she covered her mouth with a napkin. “Oh, how priceless. I wish I had seen it.”

  “I have to admit,” Conrad said, dropping his chin, and wrinkling his nose. “I kind of enjoyed it.”

  “Is her sister, Wanda, anything like her?”

  “No, not at all. She was actually a pleasant, cooperative, normal person. Nothing like Miriam.”

  “Her brother, Howard, always seemed nice, too. At least he was always friendly to me. Maybe he was a little too friendly to some of the ladies, but a regular guy. I don’t know why Miriam is so evil.”

  “Once I told her sister that Miriam refused to cooperate in the identification process and that she had forbidden her only child to submit a DNA sample, Wanda couldn’t wait to help me out. She’s living down near Atlanta, so I called her local PD and they’re going to take the sample for me.”

  “She’s not a Miriam fan either?”

  “She said she hadn’t talked to her since their mother died. I got the impression she doesn’t have any plans to speak to her ever again.”

  “Did she know Howard was missing? Did she ever talk to him?”

  “I don’t think so. She said she hadn’t seen him in years either, but it didn’t sound like she held any animosity toward him. They just weren’t close, and she’s always lived away.”

  “Well, at least you can mark one thing off your list. This should make Sheriff Bell happy.”

  “I’m going to wait until I actually have the kit in my hand before I count it a success, but I thought about shelving this whole Carmen development. The only reason I think I need to keep digging is if these bones really end up being Howard’s, I want to have some background on the situation. If the bones aren’t Howard’s, I still have a missing persons case open in my office. Either way, I decided it needed to be done.”

  “I’m ready.” Cora brushed the crumbs from her fingertips. “Would you rather move to the living room where it’s more comfortable or stay at the table so you can take notes?”

  “I’m fine here for right now.”

  Cora refilled their drinks and cleared the pizza plates from the table to prepare. “Your goal here is to answer the paternity question, correct?”

  “Yes,” Conrad said nodding his thanks for the drink. “Any proof of the adultery allegations might be useful too, in case the paternity issue isn’t proven.”

  “Okay,” Cora said, tossing a notebook of her own on the table and searching the kitchen drawer for a pen.

  “To start off with,” Conrad said as he pulled his reading glasses from his shirt pocket. “You’ll notice Andrew filed the action and he’s making an adultery allegation. This isn’t a no-fault divorce or a mutual request for dissolution. Carmen obviously didn’t want the divorce. That’s probably why it dragged on so long.”

  Cora hummed softly and began scanning the first few pages to catch up. The sound of pens scratching across paper was interrupted only by an occasional complaint from Marmalade that she needed attention. When Conrad finished reading, he stood up and stretched his back out with a groan.


  “Would you like me to make you some coffee?” Cora said.

  “No thank you. It’ll just keep me up tonight. Although reading this will probably give me nightmares.”

  “It is very scathing,” Cora said sadly. “It had to be a very painful two years for them both.” Cora stood and went to the counter to rinse out her teacup. “Let’s go in the living room. I’d like to put my feet up.”

  Conrad chose the recliner which had been Bing’s favorite. Since her husband’s death, she had privately had more than a few conversations with that chair, wishing he was still there to advise her. Cora preferred the wingback with a matching ottoman that sat beside an end table separating her from the recliner. Turning on the lamp between them, she kicked off her house shoes and put her feet up on the footstool.

  “Gloominess aside,” Conrad said flipping through his notes. “We did learn a few things.”

  “Yes, along with a lot of stuff we didn’t want to know.” Cora raised her eyebrows sheepishly.

  Conrad cleared his throat to avoid a grin and tilted his head back for a better focus through his reading glasses. “Adultery was the primary allegation, but it wasn’t just Howard Bell.”

  “I noticed that, but I have to say I was most shocked to see Rodney Maddox named in there. I didn’t even know he knew Carmen back then. I just asked him the other day how long he’d been married, and he told me it’s been ten years.”

  “When I moved here, I thought Carmen was dating Paul Henson. I didn’t meet Rodney until after he married Carmen and came to work for the city.”

  “As far as I know, Rodney was married before. Maybe they dated and he thought she was separated.”

  “Then he ends up in a court document,” Conrad said flipping another page over.

  “Andrew asked for a paternity test twice and the judge ordered it, but it was never performed. I wondered why the judge subpoenaed medical records for Carmen. I saw that in the docket sheet online. You don’t usually see that in a divorce.”

  “Carmen must have had a great attorney to get out of that because it would have been easy to test the baby at the hospital when he was born. I noticed the first order was during the pregnancy and the second was after.”