Still Knife Painting

by Cheryl Hollon

  Miranda pointed her spoon down the gravel road towards the highway. “I keep expecting someone to come barreling down the road and haul me off for questioning. You know, in a grubby room, under a bright, bare lightbulb.”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “I’ve got to be considered as a principal suspect. It was common gossip that Mrs. Childers and I disagreed over the concept for my Paint & Shine business. She threatened to petition the planning committee to reject my application to serve moonshine, and to deny my building permits for the new distillery in the barn.”

  “She was a well-respected member of the community. Maybe you were right to be concerned.”

  Miranda rubbed the furrows that had sprung up between her eyes. She was worried. This situation seemed impossible. What set of problems could lead to an elderly cook getting murdered in her kitchen?

  She told herself to straighten up and shake off these negative thoughts—not as easy as it sounded. “I guess I’d better make some calls and cancel my scheduled clients, I don’t have anyone who can cook tomorrow’s meal. Besides, I’m not sure anyone would want to come here to eat after there’s been a murder.”

  “It could go either way. Folks will be curious and want to see the scene of the crime, or folks will avoid you like the plague.”

  “I don’t know which type to wish for. It feels petty to hope for the curious type for clients. But this is advertised as a cultural adventure.”

  “You know, Mrs. Hobb has two granddaughters just out of high school. They are what she calls Irish twins.” He noticed Miranda’s confused look. “That means they were born exactly a year apart. They have the same birthday.”

  “Oh, I get it. They share their birthday parties.”

  “These sisters are so devoted to each other, the school set them in the same grade. Plus, they’ve been living with their grandmother since they got into high school. In such a large family, they’ve been helping with the cooking their whole lives. What about that for a solution?”

  Miranda raised her eyebrows. “That would be fantastic. When Mrs. Hobb recovers, she could supervise, but not have to do the heavy lifting. I’m good with that.”

  “Perfect, I’ll stop by and let them know about their grandmother and see if they’re willing to fill in for a bit. You should assume yes, but if it turns out that they aren’t interested, I’ll come back and tell you so you can cancel tomorrow’s tour. Is there someplace nearby that lets your cell phone get a good signal?”

  “A bit far for convenience, really. It’s over a mile down my road down past my neighbors towards the highway. There’s a little turnout by a wooden gate that provides access to a field that holds about twenty yearling steers. Cell signal is decent at that tiny pinpoint. But you can always text me. That seems to work most of the time as soon as I move off this hill.”

  Austin stood. “Well, I’d better get on my way. Fingers crossed for the Hobb sisters.”

  “I’m still determined to make sure that Mrs. Childers get the justice she deserves. Plus, of course, that I’m cleared of any involvement. A big hurdle is that I really don’t have any way of getting reliable information about what is happening with the Lexington detective.”

  “I may have the perfect solution for that—or at least an excellent start to getting more information.”

  “What?” Miranda stood as well and took his empty glass.

  He remained silent with a furrow forming on his brow. “I’m not sure I should tell you without getting permission first.”

  “Spill it,” Miranda demanded.

  He continued to frown.

  She stared into his eyes. “You can’t say something like that and then stand there acting the strong, silent type on me. Spill it.”

  He shook off whatever reservations he was wrestling with.

  “I’m not sure how helpful this will be. It could backfire, but I have a sister who works for the Lexington Herald-Leader. She’s an investigative reporter on their crime beat. Do you want me to get in touch with her?”

  “Oh my goodness, that’s wonderful. A direct line to a reporter would be fantastic. I could help her with some insider details if she can keep me in the loop with what’s happening to the investigation in Lexington.”

  “It seems you won’t have any trouble keeping up with the Wolfe County part of the investigation.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I think both Sheriff Larson and Felicia are determined to make sure that Detective Peterson doesn’t sabotage this case. He could destroy the reputation of both the Wolfe County Sheriff’s Office and the coroner’s office.”

  Miranda pulled the frayed bandage off her finger. “If that happens, my adventure business will be ruined.”

  Chapter 16

  Saturday Evening

  Miranda watched Austin’s truck disappear towards his house. After the road dust died down, she went into her Uncle Gene’s bedroom and loaded his shotgun. She carried it in the crook of her arm. Then she walked Sandy around the perimeter of the farmhouse, back behind the barn, and along all the outbuildings for a good bit of sniffing and piddling.

  Miranda kept a sharp eye out.

  There were two reasons for that. First, they could flush out a murderer, but she had no real expectation for that. There had simply been too much police activity around the farmhouse. Second, there were poisonous snakes searching out places to spend the winter. Little Sandy wasn’t wise enough yet to let them go about their business.

  After that they wandered all the way down the road to her cell signal turnout. Austin had texted her that the Hobb sisters would be delighted to fill in for their grandmother. She rang them up and after she discussed tomorrow’s menu with them, she updated Dan on the three planned courses. He said the dishes would be easy to pair with a great moonshine.

  Her last call was to the phone company over in West Liberty.

  “Mountain Telephone. How may I direct your call?”

  “Good afternoon. My name is Miranda Trent. I’m calling to confirm that you’re installing my telephone line on Monday morning. Making business calls while standing off to the side of a dirt road is ridiculous.”

  “One moment please. I’ll transfer you to our field installation department.”

  Acting as if he had been personally insulted, a nearby black steer turned in her direction, stretched his head out, and belted out a long, mournful moo. Whatever that meant in bovine, all the nearby steers began to gather behind their leader and bellowed the same sorrowful sound.

  “Hello, this is—” All she could hear was static and garbled speech, ending with “today?”

  “Wait. I didn’t hear you. Can you repeat that?” Again, the steers seem to want to join in on the conversation and they all bawled in unison. “Can you hear me? I appear to be annoying the local beef stock. They look like they want to eat me and my phone.”

  It was hopeless. She had no idea what the field installation service person was telling her. All she heard was the lowing of the steers. She moved a little farther down the road to get out of earshot. Then dialed again but immediately lost the connection.

  She moved even farther down the road until she had three signal-strength bars and called the phone company again. Another customer service representative answered. This time the connection was clear and she could actually understand what the representative was saying. As usual, Miranda had to start from the very beginning to explain her situation.

  After going over her phone requirements for the plenty-seventh time, she queried the representative, “Can you tell me who I’m speaking to, please? Does my installation have a work order number? I want definite confirmation that you’ll install my land line on Monday.”

  Oddly, that series of questions seemed to light a fire under the installation representative. She gave Miranda an installation time window of Monday from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

  “The whole day is not a time window. It’s the whole doggone day. Can you schedule me for the first ca
ll of the day? I’ve had an emergency out here at the farm today and it was dreadful to be without phone service. I definitely need a working connection to emergency services.”

  There was a little gasp. “Oh, of course. You’re calling from out at the Buchanan farm, aren’t you? That’s where the cook was murdered. Were you at home when it happened?”

  “You heard about that already?”

  “Well, we are the phone company and our trucks are everywhere.”

  “Right. Yes, I was here and it was horrible not to be able to call the emergency services.”

  “Have they caught the killer? Do you know who it is? Is anyone else going to be killed?”

  “Um, I’m not sure I should be talking to you about any of this. But I must say it would be most helpful to the investigation of this terrible event to have a working telephone here at the farmhouse. Can you please give me your earliest appointment for the installation?”

  “Absolutely right, Miss Trent. You need our best response. I’m moving you up to be the first service call of the day.”

  Miranda looked down at Sandy, who had plopped down with his chin on her foot while she handled her calls. “Thank you, thank you. That narrows it down quite a bit, doesn’t it? I appreciate it.”

  She finally ended her call and slipped the phone into her back pocket. Sandy lifted his head and thumped his tail in the road dirt. She picked him up. “Good thing I don’t have anyone signed up for that day. Still, most adventure tours don’t have events on Mondays. There might be a good reason for that.”

  They wandered back to the farmhouse and she made up all eight backpacks for the Sunday tour and put them by the front door, ready to load into the van.

  Taking advantage of the quiet time, she sat down in the rocking chair by the front window and made a few command decisions.

  First, she would keep the dinner menu the same for the rest of the week to capitalize on quantity discount purchasing of meats, cheeses, vegetables, and dessert. It also meant that Dan could offer the same pairing of moonshine cocktails without worrying about menu changes.

  Second, she would stick to hiking down the same trail, so that she would become more practiced pointing out geological features and also get more polished at teaching the painting of the scenic overlook.

  Her original idea to offer a new view and new menu every day really wasn’t practical. She wouldn’t be having repeat clients within a week. After a few weeks, she might consider offering more variety, but everything was at risk right now and she needed to keep everything as simple and low cost as she could manage.

  These tweaks would make the business more profitable and might help her survive the reduced traffic. If her mental calculations were accurate, she could break even with four or five clients.

  She groaned. “Sandy, this is a great idea, but we have to go back to the turnout to call Dan and the Hobb sisters.” She made her calls and they started out again.

  “Ack. I didn’t call Austin.” Since they were a fair distance from the turnout, she texted the change-up of trails to him. Doris Ann would also be able to let him know if he stopped at the lodge before heading out on the trail.

  At the farmhouse, Miranda made herself a hot cup of chamomile tea, hoping it would calm her racing mind. She sat in the comfortable rocker by the fire with a brand-new black-and-white composition notebook and smooth-flowing gel ink pen. On its cover she wrote “Murder of Mrs. Childers.”

  On the first page, she wrote “Possible Suspects” and listed everyone who had been at the farmhouse at the time.

  Mrs. Viola Hobb

  Joe Creech

  Shefton Adams

  Laura Hoffman

  Brian Hoffman

  Kelly Davis

  Linda Sanders

  Dan Keystone

  Ranger Austin Morgan

  That’s a long list of people I barely know. She felt a wave of despair sweep over her. What could she possibly do? She took a breath and thought about her skills. She was both an insider and an outsider to the area, so she would be filtering things differently.

  Luckily, she felt that her New York City experience gave her confidence interacting with people and a sharp business sense. She was an artist with a fantastic memory and a trained set of observational skills.

  She felt her normal level of self-confidence seep back. Not overconfidence—that would be a mistake—but she did have a long list of specialized skills. She was observant, she was a visual artist with a memory for images, she was strong and athletic, she had an analytical mind, and she was a born puzzle solver.

  I can do this.

  I can also learn new skills. I can talk to people in a way that police officials certainly can’t. I have a strong local connection and history. I want to get to the bottom of this.

  Miranda returned to the notebook. It automatically fell open to the page she had marked for Austin. He was mostly certainly not a suspect, and as she was thinking about him, her sketch became more and more detailed. It looked like he was looking out of the page at her.

  Moving on, she then gave each suspect an individual page with their name on the first line and she drew a quick portrait in the upper right-hand corner. Then for the clients, she filled in the information that they told her from their introductions out on the trail. For everyone else, she filled in addresses, phone numbers, how they were known to her. Basically, it was a brain dump for each possible suspect.

  Flipping through the pages, Miranda realized that she really didn’t know much about anyone on the list. She needed to figure out who was where at the time of the violence so some on her list could be eliminated.

  She turned over to the next blank page and sketched a plan view of the farmhouse, barn, outhouse, and all the outbuildings. She labeled that page “Buchanan Farmhouse.” As an afterthought she added the tobacco patch that was leased out, the little creek that ran behind her property, and the location of the family cave that she had played in as a child.

  Saying she was going to investigate a murder and physically marshalling the proper skills and tools to accomplish that was going to stretch her. She would need skills that reached way beyond those she used for painting, hiking, and distilling.

  She rubbed her eyes and stretched the tension from the back of her neck.

  I’m totally unprepared for this.

  But then a complete lack of experience has never stopped me from succeeding when tackling something new. I taught myself how to create graphics for my artwork when it became vital to have business cards, brochures, and postcards. It saved a ton of money and still does.

  I can run this business.

  I think.

  Chapter 17

  Sunday Morning, Hemlock Lodge

  The lobby was bustling with activity. Whole families dressed up in their Sunday-go-to-meeting finest were gathering together to wait for straggling members before making their way up to the cramped dining room entryway. A long line had formed that threatened to reach out the main lodge door.

  Enjoying the Sunday buffet in the Sandstone Arches restaurant was a multi-generational tradition with some folks. It was a chance to catch up with family news as most of their tiny local churches only gathered for a service once a month.

  The cook staff was well prepared with traditional dishes that drew on the comfort foods of both young and old alike. The smell of bacon made Miranda regret the cold cereal she had gobbled down in her rush to be on time. Next Sunday she would get here early.

  Today’s registration list had suffered five cancellations. Miranda was definitely losing money, but she didn’t want to cancel the tour. That would give the wrong signal. She led her three remaining clients up the trail and they began to paint the view. She was surprised that with only one day of experience, she was relaxed and felt confident in her teaching.

  As expected, Austin met them at the lookout and told her clients the history of the rock formations. It seemed to her that he spent a little more time explaining the romantic background of Lo
ver’s Leap. He also seemed casual and relaxed in giving his talk. Since the group was small, the questions were lively and felt like a conversation rather than a lecture.

  Afterwards, he thanked Miranda and followed her to stand on the trail behind the clients, watching their progress. This class had some artistic talent and didn’t need step-by-step instruction.

  He folded his arms on his chest and noticed her worried expression. “This is not going to make you a rich woman.”

  Miranda laughed softly. “No, this will make me a homeless woman in pretty short order.”

  “If you don’t mind my asking, how long can you last?”

  “Not long. I have a little cash from the estate, but if this doesn’t turn around quickly, I’ll eat through that in a few weeks.” Miranda chewed on the nail of her index finger. She despised herself for this childhood habit. She had it mostly defeated. It returned during times of acute discomfort. “If I can get this murder cleared up to show that I’m not an omen of bad luck, my little business could boost the economic level of the entire area. It would definitely add to the cultural landscape.”

  “Are you getting positive support from Doris Ann?”

  “I simply can’t tell from her mixed messages. She appears to be supportive, but she also feels strongly about not having any moonshine at the farmhouse dinner. I misread the symbolic significance of having painful issues brought back into the light. Unfortunately, her support is a key strategy for encouraging guests to sign up for my tour.”

  “How’s your marketing plan?”

  “Ha! That’s a glorious label for what little I’ve done.” She thought for a moment. “No, that’s not really a true statement. I have done just about everything I can to launch this business. It’s part of the new wave of agritourist events throughout eastern Kentucky.

  Austin frowned. “I’m a luddite. What do you mean?”

  “I’ve posted on all the usual websites, but I’m crippled right now by not having high-speed internet at the farmhouse.” She pulled a sad face. “I completely underestimated the amount of time they would take to install. Meantime, I’ve been using the guest Wi-Fi at the lodge, but it only works in the lobby and that’s unreliable. It’s enough to keep me going, but it will be great to be able to check the online bookings at home.”