DIGGIN' UP THE DIRT

by Tonya Kappes

  “What are you carrying on about?” Toots Buford made her way into the room. Her…um…girls were flipping and flopping and nearly spilling out of her top, making me wonder if she forgot it was Euchre night and not boys poker night where she was rumored to turn up a time or two.

  That all was neither here nor there, though, because Viola had something to say about Lenora.

  “Vivian, get in here. You won’t believe what Lenora Moss told your girl.” Vivian held her hand up when I was about to protest.

  I wasn’t going to divulge any more than I had. Though curiosity was one of my greatest vices and if they did know something, it would be to my advantage.

  “What in the world are you gendering on about? It better be good.” Mama sashayed into the room like she was Vivian Lee instead of Vivian Lowry.

  “Are you a doubting Thomas?” Vivian glared. “I’ve got something good. Lenora is an even bigger tale teller than Woody.”

  “Or she’s taking over her husband’s place in society.” Ruby Smith had to put in her two cents all the way from the other conversation she was in, in another room. She was talented in this gossip department. I’d seen it firsthand. A true gift.

  Ruby Smith could be talking in one conversation but listening to another in a different group of people. I’d heard the skill was an envy of many Heney Hens.

  “Kenni?” Mama asked. “Tell us.”

  I knew better than to let them in on any investigation, but I was also smart enough to know the if I give them just a smidgen of information, they’d talk the lipstick right off their lips.

  It was these types of conversations that Poppa taught me to weed through the gossip to get through to the truth.

  “It’s nothing like Viola or Ruby are making it out to be.” My response to Mama was crisp and to the point. The only way she’d get it in her little head.

  “Lenora said that cuff links were the only thing stolen during the robbery. Cuff links.”

  “Did you say cuff links?” Ruby’s voice carried from the other room. She came into the Euchre game room and her bright orange lipstick looked like a blinking light while she talked. “Don’t tell me they look like knots? Gold knots?”

  “You’ve seen them?” I asked, jumping around to face her, but having to look up since she was five foot nine inches tall. A wee-bit taller than me.

  “Seen them.” She scoffed and dug her nails in the edges of her short red hair, raking the hair forward. “He tried to sell them to me years ago. It was the first time we realized he told lies.”

  “Now, now.” Viola tsk-ed. “We didn’t say he lied. We said he told heavy tales.”

  “Honey, no matter what you say or do. You can slip lipstick on a pig, but underneath it’s still a pig.” Mama shifted her head towards the floor and looked down with a pinched look on her face as she brought a shrugged shoulder to almost meet her chin. “Woody Moss had a way of telling part truth and part exaggeration.”

  At least Mama gave the dead man some credit.

  “Anytime he told a story, you’d need to cut it in half. If he said he’d eaten two big steaks out at the Cattleman’s Association fundraiser at the fairgrounds, that meant he ate one,” Mama said.

  “You’ve seen the cuff links?” I shifted back to Ruby.

  “I told you that he came in the shop trying to get me to buy them after he’d gone to see Viola about her buying them. They came clear from New York City, he’d said,” Ruby’s drawn-on brows winged up.

  “That meant that they come from the Dime Store in Gatlinburg, Tennessee,” Viola grunted. “He said they were worth a lot of money when he came to the jewelry store. I told him that he must think I was a foolish woman, and didn’t he know that women love jewelry, especially as a woman that owned the only jewelry store in Cottonwood.”

  “It’s costume jewelry. That’s what they were.” Ruby gave a firm nod.

  “Not worth more than a hill of beans.” Mama looked at her friends. All three Heney Hens looked like three bobble heads and in sync. Nodding and looking and then rolled in a fit of laughter.

  “Now she’s gone and tried to tell Kenni the same exact thing.” They continued to carry on.

  My smile had faded and lost its luster by the time they’d told a few more stories that pretty much confirmed that Moss had liked tall tales. Harmless as they were, did Lenora really not know they were fake? Was there an insurance policy on them?

  “Don’t worry.” Katy Lee had leaned real far over. The Heney Hens couldn’t hear us because they were still too wrapped up in their own hooting and hollering to notice. “I’ll check to be sure there’s not another pair of cuff links that are worth something that has a policy on it.”

  There was a bit of relief. Something I could chew on and give to Lenora about the price.

  Chapter Fourteen

  By the time Mama and the rest of the women had settled down and started talking like they’d all had some sense, I was happy to say that they hadn’t run Shelby off. She ended up staying and playing a few hands of Euchre after she’d caught on.

  I had to say that she was even good at it.

  Though at times, I could see there was a helpless look in her eyes. I wondered if behind them, she was wondering how on Earth Finn could love a small town like Cottonwood.

  With every hand of euchre dealt, my heart raced and I was so pumped up from all the stories, I’d gotten a burst of energy, that when I left Tibbie’s, I knew it needed to be put to good use. . .investigating.

  “It’s ‘bout time you left.” Poppa had ghosted into the front seat of the Wagoneer, forcing Duke to jump to the back.

  He was happy about it with a wagging tale and his head hung over the front seat. The behind the ear rubs from Poppa didn’t hurt either.

  “I wondered where you were.” I gave a side look to him and didn’t bother hiding myself talking. It was dark outside, and I was sure no one could see me. “Tonight I got some tips on the cuff links stolen from the Moss burglary.”

  I’d be curious to hear Poppa’s thoughts on it, so I quickly told him what Viola and Ruby had disclosed about him approaching both of them with similar, if not the same cuff links.

  “Do you think he never told Lenora the truth?” I asked Poppa.

  “I’ve known Woody all my life.” Poor Poppa went to the afterlife way too fast. He should be enjoying himself, riding around in this Wagoneer meeting up with his buds for some early morning coffee or even taking the old Jeep to the lake filled with chest of ice-cold brew and his fishing poles.

  Sadly, that wasn’t the case. A heart attack took him away from me and death of others brought him back to me. As much as I wanted to solve Avon’s murder, in the back of my head was the little tickle that the longer I took, the more time I had with Poppa. These were the things that I should be discussing with Finn, not whether we are going to be Baptist or Catholic.

  “Did you hear me?” Poppa’s ghost hand waved in front of my face, leaving some lingering fog.

  “I’m sorry. What did you say?” I pulled the Wagoneer right on Main Street from Oak Street heading south.

  “I was saying that Woody was a good storyteller. He might’ve lied about the value of the cuff links. But you said Katy Lee was going to check to see if there was a policy, so we just wait for that piece of the puzzle.” He let out a long sigh. “When are you going to learn patience is a key. Just breathe. Both of these crimes will be solved in no time.”

  “I’ve done what you said about keeping my ears open and trying to pick out the pieces of gossip that might have some truth, but all I’m getting about the cuff links are that they are fake. Which makes me wonder if the burglar knew that.” My thoughts shifted back to Rich, which then shifted to Avon. “I still can’t unlink Rich from both crimes.”

  “It might be two crimes with one person. The killer and the burglar are the same.” Poppa made a good poi
nt. “Maybe Avon knew he was bad and somehow knew he was going to steal. I don’t know, I’m grasping here.”

  Our little game had begun.

  “What if she overheard him arguing with Woody at the rehab center about him being cut from the will.” I threw that out there, though I wasn’t sure how or why Woody would tell him.

  “Was Rich at the rehab center when Woody was alive? I thought he was released on good behavior for the funeral.” I jerked the wheel right, making a hard turn onto Maple Street before taking another quick right and pulling down the alley behind the department.

  “I guess we are going to the office.” Poppa’s face lit up. He rubbed his hands together. “Wee-doggy, Duke!” Duke jumped up and hung his head back over the front seat. “We’ve got our Kenni-bug back to ourselves.”

  “Don’t be going silly.” I smiled and winked after I put the Jeep into park. “We’ve got to go in here and look through Avon’s purse. Get a good timeline to where she was before she was in the park.”

  “Sounds perfect to me.” Poppa didn’t wait for me to gather my bag and get Duke out before he floated into the building. Duke shot out of the back door when I opened it.

  “Here, Duke,” I called for Duke, juggling my bag and trying to look for him while fumbling getting the key into the lock of the door to the department.

  Duke’s nails got louder and louder, signaling he was coming like I’d called.

  “Good, boy.” He ran to my side just as the key slid into the door handle. “Let’s get in here and get a treat.” I turned the knob and pushed the door with my foot.

  Duke headed on inside, I dropped my bag inside of the door and ran my hand up along the wall to flip the light switch. I shut the door behind me and let my shoulders fall as I took a deep breath and let it out in one long, enjoyable sigh.

  “This place is a close second to home.” I smiled at Poppa. He’d already taken his seat in my chair, which used to be his chair, with his feet propped up on the desk.

  “It should be.” He clasped his hand behind his head and lounged back. “You spent many days and nights here with me while your daddy worked and your mama did all those fancy clubs.”

  “I couldn’t imagine where I’d be or who I’d be in life if it weren’t for you.” Without looking at him and at risk of crying, I took the lid off the dog treats on Finn’s desk and flipped Duke a treat. “Especially on this case.”

  I walked over to the vault and bent down, rolling the combination between my fingers as I plugged in the code to open it.

  “What do you have in mind tonight?” Poppa asked, still taking the moment to enjoy his old seat.

  “I want to look into Avon’s purse and wallet to see if anything is missing before I take it to Tom Geary’s lab in the morning on my way to Clay’s Ferry.” It was perfect timing to drop it off and that’s the way I liked to do things.

  Orderly.

  Most days, I’d planned my day out to make sure the stops I needed to make during the week were in the same area. It was probably the penny pincher in me since the Wagoneer was a gas hog and I used my own money to fill it up instead of the department money.

  I tried to skimp on silly things like gas when we could use that money towards something like paying a new deputy. Which reminded me of the upcoming town council meeting.

  “I’ve got to get my speech ready about hiring Scott to give to the town council tomorrow night. It sure would be good if I could get a solid lead and not just something as silly as fake cuff links.” I pulled the evidence bag out of the vault and walked over to my desk where I plucked a pair of gloves from the box.

  “He’s doing a fine job at taking orders and following protocol.” Poppa didn’t need to point that out, but it would be good to put in my speech about how thorough and reliable he was.

  “Let’s see what we got here.” I carefully removed the purse from its evidence bag and opened it. There was a bag from the Sweet Shop waded up in it. It was pink with black lines and bright yellow writing with a donut logo. “Max told me on the phone that there were still some remnants of something sweet like a donut in her esophagus and the stomach. She’d been eating or was eating at the time of the death. Chocolate too.”

  There was some icing on the inside of the bag that was left behind from where she’d taken it out.

  “I’m going to have to go to the Sweet Shop to see if she had stopped there that morning and if she was alone.”

  Poppa blurted out in laughter.

  “Tough job, Kiddo.” He licked his lips. “I sure do wish there was something like that when I was alive.” He patted his belly.

  “If it’s any consolation, we can go together in the morning. I’ve yet to go, but Daddy loves it.” I put the Sweet Shop bag aside and started to take out the rest of the contents, which didn’t make me think anything was off. But I also didn’t find anything else that most women might carry in a purse.

  Me? I rarely carried anything but my sheriff’s bag.

  I walked over to the dry-erase board and turned it around from where we’d moved it earlier. Underneath Avon’s name, I wrote the contents of her purse and noted how I was going to the Sweet Shop to check out Avon’s visit. I also documented the contents on the evidence sheet before I put the purse back into the bag.

  “Now to the wallet.” It was a brown wallet with a zipper around the entire thing.

  After unzipping it, I laid it flat open on the evidence bag. On the right side, there were pockets for credit cards. Only two contained cards. One was from Cottonwood First National, a debit card. The second was her driver’s license. The middle of the wallet was a zipper area for change. When I flipped that to the right side, the left side had two long pockets one behind the other. One was empty, but the other had one hundred dollars in twenties.

  “If this was a robbery, she got robbed and killed by a stupid one.” I noted the cash wasn’t taken on the evidence sheet and then proceeded to fill out the white board with the contents of the wallet.

  “This is looking less and less like a robbery.” Poppa had ghosted himself next to me at the white board. “Did she exercise in the park in the morning before work while eating a donut? I doubt it. She seemed to be in good physical health from the look of her, the stats Finn had found and the looks of her photo on her license.”

  “She was in good health from what her parents had said. But they couldn’t discount she had two known women who didn’t like her. Lita Brumfied.” I circled Lita’s name a few times. “And Reagan Quinlan.” I circled her name a few times.

  “You’ve talked to Lita.” Poppa pointed to her.

  “She’s got Parkinson’s.” I’d just remembered what Jolee had told me about that. “I need to write that down.”

  I went back and forth from the white board to the written file we kept and noted everything.

  “It was one bullet.” Poppa’s fat finger lifted in the air. “By the look of Lita’s shaking, she’s in the later stages of the disease, which makes me think she’s a less likely suspect. Besides, is she even driving anymore? How did she get to the park? How did she steady her hand enough to shoot one shot, kill the girl and walk out of there without someone seeing her?”

  “Gosh, I missed you.” I wanted so desperately to put my arms around him, but I knew it wasn’t possible.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I reached over to punch the alarm on my clock. There was no way it was already morning.

  “Ugh,” I groaned and went to roll over, catching myself before I hit the hard-cold tile floor of the jail cell. The sound of my phone ringing was actually what I’d mistaken for the sound of my alarm.

  I stumbled out of the cell to retrieve the phone off my desk and remembered I’d been talking to Poppa and playing our “what if” game before I’d decided to lay on the cot in the cell for a few minutes. I must’ve fallen asleep. Duke was snoring in his bed next
to my desk.

  “Mama,” I gasped when I saw her name on my phone and that it was one a.m. “Mama, you okay?”

  Vivian Lowry loved her beauty sleep. There was no way she was up this early unless something was severely wrong.

  “Kenni, get over to the Cottonwood Acres. Shelby Vincent has had a heart attack.” Her words woke me up better than the black coffee from Ben’s Diner.

  It took a second for me to process what she was saying.

  “Did you hear me?” Mama screamed into the phone. “Where are you?”

  “I’m...” I gulped, blinking my eyes a few times. “I’m on my way.” I ended the call and pushed the phone into my back pocket. “Let’s go, Duke.”

  I grabbed the keys off my desk and my bag. Duke hurried out of the door and ran over to the dumpster to do his business while I turned the lights off, locked the door, and ran to the Jeep.

  A good thing about it being one in the morning, there was no traffic. Literally, all the shops and restaurants were closed by nine o’clock in the evening, though some stayed open until ten, but that was rare. Though I don’t always take advantage of my authority as sheriff, I did drive the backroads to get to Cottonwood Acres by taking a right out of the alley behind the department and a quick right onto First Street.

  Duke jumped between the front and back seats, as though he was nervous and knew something was wrong. He was a very smart dog and my actions were probably causing his behavior.

  “It’s okay, Duke.” I tried to calm him down, but in reality, was telling myself it was okay. “Finn’s mama is going to be okay.”

  The tires squealed when I took a right on Oak Street. Rock Fence Park was on my left and I couldn’t help but notice how dark it was. The town council really did need to rethink their issue with not putting a light in there. It’s a safety measure and I needed to bring that up at the meeting too.