She was obviously quite proud of herself. She did well.
“And would you believe he asked me what I did to that goon we tied up?”
She had no intentions of awaiting my answer.
“He noticed the scratches on his face and when questioned, the guy told him we’d set a puppy loose on him. Guess Cooke couldn’t keep that laughter in although this was no laughing matter. He told him if it’s true what he said about the puppy that dog sure got him good!”
“Merlene...”
“Well, Detective Lance Matthews was there too and got a statement from me while the coroners were taking care of Luke’s body in the shed. Matthews said they’d follow up with me later.”
“Merlene...”
“Yeah?”
“You did well. I’m proud of you,” I said.
“Why, thanks, Lucille—considering I wouldn’t have ever been in that very distasteful situation if it wasn’t for you.”
“I’m trying to tell you something, Merlene,” I said, evenly.
“What?” She looked at me cross-eyed.
“Let’s sit down. You won’t believe what I came across.”
We settled next to each other on the couch and I showed her the document I’d read after I arrived home.
Minutes later, her jaw dropped. “Can this be true?”
“The proof is right there,” I said.
“According to this obviously carefully laid out family tree, Harry James Tucker was Luke’s real grandfather and not Alfred, unlike what most folk around here had thought all along,” she indicated.
“Right. Alfred had secretly adopted Stuart Tucker, Luke’s father and raised him as his own child. But Stuart was actually Harry’s child. And guess what else?”
She looked at me curiously. “What?”
“Harry didn’t have the same mother as Sir Clement and Alfred. He was their half-brother!”
“How do you know that?”
I handed her the other sheet of paper which was in the same file as the family tree.
“I guess this is why Sir Clement and Alfred were closer, huh?”
“Guess so.” I nodded. “But I wonder why Alfred raised Harry’s son if they weren’t on good terms. At least I assume they weren’t. And why keep it a secret? And I also wonder who sketched out this family tree and scribbled the info about Harry not having the same mother as his brothers and why Luke obviously didn’t want anyone getting their hands on this stuff.”
“It’s all complex to me,” Merlene said. “Giving me a headache right about now.”
“Don’t forget—Luke’s killer—that guy you overpowered was very happy to have gotten his hands on these very files, for some reason.”
“Yeah. So what now? Does any of this tell us who killed Sir Clement?”
Merlene had a habit of asking the dumbest questions.
“Of course not!” I yelled. “This tells us the Tucker family is great at keeping secrets and maybe the reason for Alfred’s scoffing at Harry’s collapse after Sir Clement’s death is deeper than what meets the eye.”
“You lost me.”
“Look at the deeds again and see if there’s anything that stands out.”
She did...for a while. “Oh, I see!” Her eyes widened.
“We have to pay Sheriff Cooke a visit and nicely ask him to reopen Sir Clement’s case,” I told her.
“I just hate dealing with Cooke and those goofy detectives downtown. Today, I had no choice, of course, thanks to you.”
“Would you stop saying that? This is a serious matter, Merlene. You need to put aside your feelings, as hard as that may be, and demand that this case be re-opened so Sir Clement will get the justice he deserves.”
I knew she was still bitter about how Sheriff Cooke and Lance Matthews, in particular, handled her son’s case when he was detained for the alleged murder of his girlfriend. But sometimes in life people must let bygones be bygones.
“From what you said earlier, it didn’t seem like you had such a harrowing experience dealing with them today. Let’s just focus on the here and now, okay? Are you going to come with me or not?”
Silence.
After a while, she sighed heavily. “Okay, let’s get this mystery unraveled and get Sir Clement his justice.
8
_________________
“Are you out of your mind, Lucille Pfiffer?” Sherriff Cooke barked as I sat on the opposite side of his desk, next to Merlene. We showed up there shortly after nine the following morning and without hesitation, he called us inside his office and shut the door behind us.
“I’m perfectly sane,” I answered. “Of course, I can’t swear for Merlene.”
Merlene cut her eye and she probably thought I didn’t see that.
Cooke leaned on the desk and interlaced his fingers. “What do I possibly have as evidence to be able to reignite a decades-old case?” he asked. “Let me put this correctly, so you’ll understand. Sir Clement Tucker’s case technically has never been closed. We never close unsolved murder cases. If, after a period of time, we don’t acquire enough evidence to convict someone or we’re out of leads, they simply go cold. That’s how it works. Is there an active investigation currently going on with regards to his death? No. And I can honestly say, there hasn’t been for the majority of the time I’ve been on the force—and I’m about to hit my thirty-fifth anniversary on the payroll next month.”
“If we were to give you something concrete, Sheriff, would you work on the case?” I asked.
He gave it a moment’s thought, then said, “Lucille, you’re asking me to awaken a cold case that has to do with perhaps the wealthiest man in Chadsworth at the time. In order for me to look into anything concerning that matter, the evidence pointing to a guilty party would have to be strong.”
“There he goes taking a backseat again,” Merlene blurted.
I’m sure Cooke perfectly understood her deep-seated resentment toward him and the Department, and didn’t bother to respond.
He kept his eyes on me. “What have you got?”
“This.” I placed the sketched out Tucker family tree, as well as the accompanying document that revealed Stuart, Luke Tucker’s, father’s adoption and the title deeds.
He picked them up one by one and had a look. For a few minutes, he said absolutely nothing, and perused the documents at least twice. Then his eyes met my blank ones again.
“Where did you get these, Lucille?”
“It doesn’t matter where she got them,” Merlene rightly answered. “What matters is what you read there.”
“Lucille, I asked you a question. Were you at Luke Tucker’s place yesterday with Merlene?”
“Why on earth would you think that, Sheriff?” I asked in the softest Chadsworthian accent I’d managed to muster up.
“You know that guy Raymond Allister said he’d been attacked by a little puppy—a Shih Tzu, to be exact.”
“Nonsense!” I exclaimed. “He must’ve imagined it all. What purpose would I have served being there and even worse, bringing along my sweet, little Nilla there? Besides, she hasn’t been a puppy in ages, so I have no clue what puppy he’s talking about.”
“Well, something bit the guy for sure. Those little teeth marks and scratches didn’t magically appear on him. Your friend here seems to have amnesia when questioned about that little detail.”
Merlene said nothing.
“Back to why we’re here detective...”
“I want to know where you got these documents from, Lucille,” he interjected, looking at both of us suspiciously. “Let me tell you ladies something. If you removed anything from Luke Tucker’s house without permission, it’s called stealing and it’s a criminal offense, as I’m sure you know.”
“I’d like to see someone prove that we stole anything from anywhere,” Merlene smartly replied.
Cooke shook his head.
“For your information, Sheriff, the information on those deeds you have in front of you is public knowledge,”
I calmly reminded him. “Copies of those documents, as you know, are easily located in the local Registry. And as for the other papers, why would you assume that Luke Tucker would’ve been the only human being in possession of that knowledge relating to his own family? It truly seems like you’re more interested in things that should be of no concern to you at all when weighed against the actual information you see before you.”
He leaned back in his chair. “Is this the concrete proof you alluded to?”
“I presume it’s something to get you moving again as far as Sir Clement’s case is concerned.”
“How so?” he asked, brusquely. “So what if Alfred wasn’t Luke Tucker’s real grandfather and Harry was? So what?”
“It should have you wondering why the whole thing happened and why the adoption was a secret,” I said.
“That doesn’t make me wonder about anything. From what I recall, Harry didn’t keep in touch with his family and wasn’t wealthy like the rest of them were, so maybe the other brothers thought less of him because of that. Simple.”
“So, if they thought basically nothing of him,” Merlene chimed in, “why would Alfred take his son and raise him as his own when Harry was clearly capable of doing the same thing—if he wasn’t a drug addict or alcoholic, as far as anyone knows?”
“Maybe Alfred thought the kid deserved a better life,” Cooke replied.
And that possibility did make sense to me too, but then the deeds convinced me that maybe that wasn’t the reason.
“You have four deeds in front of you,” I said to Cooke. “Who’s the presiding judge recorded on each of them, other than that of the original owner of the property?”
He looked at the documents again. “Judge Tobias Simon,” he uttered, quietly.
“Each transfer of land was signed by Judge Simon. The deeds show that Harry James Tucker inherited Sir Clement’s property after the murder. I assume it was because Sir Clement had no children and Harry would’ve been his next of kin—more accurately, the oldest surviving brother. Then after Harry died ten months later, it wasn’t like the land was passed on to his next of kin. According to records, lo and behold, Tony Brawn, who used to think he was the greatest realtor of all time, came by and successfully obtained a Quieting of Title order for all of Sir Clement’s property, other than the acreages Harry had already managed to sell within the ten months he owned it. I guess that’s why Alfred Tucker and the remaining Tucker family felt a grave injustice had been committed.”
“More like a grave crime,” Merlene stated. “I smell a rat here.”
Cooke sighed. “I see you girls have done your homework.”
“Apparently more than you guys have,” Merlene replied.
He only looked at her. I couldn’t tell if his stare was one of wonder or annoyance.
“So, what are you going to do about all this?” I pressed.
“Nothing,” he said.
“Nothing?” Merlene and I both asked, simultaneously.
“There’s nothing here that spells murder. The whole thing is suspicious, all right, and I think Sir Clement Tucker’s case should’ve probably been looked at from the angle you presented here today, then maybe some headway would’ve been made, but I need something more. I can’t risk reviving this case based on all this circumstantial stuff.”
“He’s thinking of his own tail, Lucille,” Merlene asserted.
“You’re damn right!” he agreed. “I’d be a fool to have the mayor and governor all over me for acting prematurely on a famous cold case, solely based on this convoluted stuff right here on my desk. My retirement and pension mean too much to me. Yeah, I said it!”
“Now, I really see why some cases go cold, as you say, and never get hot again,” Merlene charged.
I patted her knee, and as always, she got the hint.
“We understand, Sheriff. Let’s go, Merlene.” I grabbed my cane and stood up.
I saw the confused look Merlene gave me as she stood as well.
“The Sheriff here simply wants more concrete evidence, so we’ll give him what he wants,” I said.
Cooke raised his hands in a halting gesture. “Look, Lucille... Merlene... I don’t know what interest you possibly have in Sir Clement Tucker’s murder case, but I’d like to warn you two about sneaking around and getting involved in stuff that’s much bigger than all of us here put together. This matter is better left alone if you don’t have anything that directly points to the man’s killer. I wouldn’t advise you to go poking around looking for it because you don’t know what you’ll find, okay?”
I smiled. “We’ll be back, Sheriff—no matter how long it takes. And when we do, I expect you to do your job or I will fight as hard as I can to make sure you don’t have one.”
Merlene pretended to help me along and we left.
“Can you believe that guy?” she said, after we sat in the car.
“Yep. I surely can,” I replied.
Clearly exasperated, she gripped the steering wheel with both hands. “So, what now?”
“We dig some more and get him his evidence; that’s what we do. I have a heavy hunch that guy who killed Luke knows something. We’ll start by finding out exactly who the hell he is.”
“How are we going to do that? None of us have any worthwhile connections on the police force, who’d be able to tell us anything concerning his background.”
“We don’t need the cops,” I replied. “Brittany—Carla’s daughter—owes me a huge favor. She’s really good with the internet.”
“Okay, but why her? Why not ask Theodore or Anthony?” she said.
“I don’t want the boys to know what I’m up to; they’ll only try to talk me out of it. Furthermore, I don’t think Theodore is much into computers and Anthony is away visiting family, remember?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“So, Brittany, will definitely do. I’ll give her a call when I get home.”
Merlene started the car and we drove away.
9
_________________
Around a quarter of five that evening, Brittany came over on her cute purple and white bicycle. Carla had bought it for her as supposedly another method for the youngster to stay in shape after she’d given up gymnastic classes. I thought it was a brilliant idea when Carla had shared that bit of information with me. I had suggested both of them get one and they can ride together sometimes. Carla frowned at the idea.
“Do you think one of those regular, adult-sized bicycles could support my weight? I’m no little girl,” she said.
I seconded that, and maybe she had a valid point.
“Why not join the gym then?” I asked. “I’m sure they have equipment that are good and safe for you.”
“I’m going to be completely honest with you, Lucille. I’ve tried exercising and it just doesn’t work for me.”
“It doesn’t?” I was flabbergasted.
“Not. At. All.”
Well, I couldn’t argue with her, even though I figured it was a lame excuse for her simply being lazy. Again... I was glad that Brittany was making better choices for herself and hopefully, one day, Carla will follow suit.
“Would you like a bite of my apple, Miss Lucille?”
Brittany and I were sitting in front of Anthony’s computer.
“No, thanks, health nut,” I replied with a brief smile. “I had a banana a while ago.”
“It’s not the same though,” she said, as we waited for the system to boot.
“Yes, it is. They’re both called fruits.”
“You’re too funny, Miss Lucille.”
I really had no idea why young people, in particular, seemed to take me for a joke. I used to think it was a compliment, but I was starting to wonder if it was a subtle insult.
“You’re gonna love this site where I’m going. You can literally find out anything about anyone once their birth has been registered in our local Registry Department,” she said.
I knew I’d found the right one! These teenagers tod
ay know everything and I mean everything about technology. “Are we hacking into the government system?” I asked.
“Not at all. It’s a special app that’s widely available, but not everyone knows about it, especially you older folks.”
I only smiled.
“What’s the name again?” she asked as she clicked onto the site’s search bar.
“Raymond Allister. All I know is he’s a Chadsworth native.”
She typed in his name and a long list of Raymond Allisters popped up, but I noticed not all matched the location I’d indicated.
“It’s given me a list of the exact name, so I’ll sift through to see if I can find a match,” she said. A few moments passed, then she asked, “Miss Lucille, can I ask you a personal question?”
“It all depends on what it is, dear. You’ll have to shoot in order to find out, huh?”
She seemed reluctant. “What does it feel like to be blind?”
Well, that sort of surprised me. It’s not like I’m asked that every day. She had no idea that I could see everything on the computer screen in front of us, including everything around us in Anthony’s room, as well as the underwear in his underwear drawer; the socks in his socks drawer; the multi-colored short pants in his shorts drawer, and everything else he had laid out so orderly and neatly. Anthony was surely Theodore’s opposite. I was beginning to think there was no hope for Theodore.
“I guess the best word for it is dark,” I said.
“Dark,” she asked.
“Uh huh. As I understand, it’s not that way for everybody though. Some people actually see slivers or shades of light, even shapes, but let me explain what it’s like for me. Do you know what it’s like to wake up in the middle of the night and your room is so dark you can’t see your hand in front of you?”
Lucille Pfiffer Mystery Series Box Set Page 24
