by Curry, Edna
“Humph,” Ben said. “Don’t let it happen again. Get Chance on this and be sure to tell him she was there. It’ll be a couple hours before I can get there, myself.”
Relieved, Tom hung up and dialed Chance.
***
Ben snapped his phone closed, swore, and found Cassie’s number in his contacts. She was a good person to know, and he called her every once in a while. People thought his officers had nothing better to do than rescue them when they locked themselves out of their houses or cars. He had a small force, already spread thin. And nowadays, they did double duty patrolling the small towns that couldn’t afford their own police forces, so they contracted with the county to provide protection.
Relief flowed over him when Cassie’s sleepy voice answered.
“Hullo?”
“Cassie! Are you okay?”
She recognized the raspy tones of the county sheriff. “Sheriff Ben? Yeah, I’m fine. What’s up?”
“I’m not sure yet,” he lied. “Just got a call to the Lilliput Bar. Tom said he sent you there to open a car last night. Anything unusual happen there?”
“Nope. Only the usual—a dr…guy locked out of his car. Why?”
“Just wanted to make sure you got home okay. I’ll explain later.” He snapped the phone closed before she could ask anything else.
***
Detective Chance Martin swore when he got the call from dispatch. A murder case. His stomach churned and knotted in frustration. He’d moved out here six months ago and had hoped to spend a few peaceful years in the country. But he might as well have stayed in Minneapolis if the same damn problems followed him here. At least his salary had been a lot better there and he had a lot more resources to work with.
Two other police cars were already on the scene when Chance arrived. He strode into the bar where one officer was stringing yellow crime scene tape. Deputy Roger was talking to a heavy-set woman sobbing into her hands.
Roger looked up and sent him a relieved glance. “Chance, Mildred Weeks, the owner, is back in her office, dead. Gunshot. Looks like a robbery, too. Reggie here, found her when she came to work.”
Chance nodded and strode on to the back office. The coroner, a forensics officer and a photographer were already there, taking pictures and busily gathering evidence. Chance stood back and surveyed the scene, trying to picture what had occurred there. The office had only one tiny window, too small to be an exit, so the murderer had to have come in through the door. Mildred lay sprawled out, face up on the floor, her usually neat, silver hair spread in an untidy tangle beneath her head. Blood covered the front of her once-white blouse and one leg had bent at an odd angle beneath her body, the other stretched out straight. Her open black leather purse and a cash tray holding only coins, sat on the desk.
Chance turned to the coroner. “Any estimate on the time of death, Dr. Lans?”
Dr. Will Lans, a middle-aged family doctor who merely filled in on the rare occasions a suspicious death happened in this county, glanced up at him and nodded. “At least eight hours ago, maybe more. I’ll know more when I do the autopsy.”
Chance nodded. Most likely, Mildred had been killed soon after the bar closed. The cash drawer indicated she’d been totaling the day’s receipts. Only small change remained in the money tray. As soon as the officer finished dusting for fingerprints, Chance could check the purse to see if it had been cleaned of cash as well. The filing cabinet behind the desk appeared locked and untouched. “Let me know when you’re finished here.”
“Sure thing.”
Chance went back to the main room of the bar. Deputy Roger had left. “Reggie?” he said to the red-eyed woman sitting at a table near the bar. She nodded.
“I need to talk to you for a minute. You’re the one who found her?”
Another quick nod and she moved the wad of tissues in her hand up to wipe her eyes. “Mildred was always very good to me. Why’d they have to kill her? She’d have given them the money without a fight,” she said, ending with a sob.
“Good question,” Chance said, sliding onto the chair opposite her and pulling out his notebook. Did the perp kill her because she could identify him? Did that mean she knew the person who did this? “Tell me exactly what happened when you arrived.”
Reggie frowned and swallowed hard. “I parked out in back like I usually do and walked around to come in the front door.”
“Employees don’t come in the back way?” Chance asked.
She shook her head. “We used to, but now we have this alarm system. You have to come in the front door and disable the alarm as soon as you unlock the door or it sets off a loud screeching noise and rings at the sheriff’s office.”
He nodded. Quite a few businesses in the area had alarms, though he didn’t keep a list of them in his head. “Go on. So you have a key? And you unlocked the front door?”
“Yeah. I always do. I’m usually the first one here. I stepped inside and turned around to disarm the alarm. But I didn’t have to turn it off this morning because it wasn’t set.”
Chance raised an eyebrow. “The door was locked but the alarm was off?”
Reggie nodded. She wiped her eyes again and blew her nose.
He looked up at her. “Why do you suppose the alarm was off?”
She shrugged. “Maybe Mildred forgot to set it. But that doesn’t make sense. She told me once that she always sets it when she’s in here by herself at night.”
“She didn’t like being here alone?”
“No,” Reggie said, shaking her head vigorously. “Especially not since John died. We had a robbery two years ago and that shook her up, too. Right afterward, she installed the alarm system.”
He remembered hearing about the robbery here, but not John. “John was her husband?”
Reggie nodded, swallowing hard. “He died about two years ago, now. Mildred ran the bar since then, but she was always jittery about working at night, after the other employees left.”
His instincts jumped to attention. Something was wrong here. Who disarmed the alarm? Was this an inside job? He chewed his lip. “How did the employees like Mildred?”
Reggie stared at him, her mouth open. “Everybody loved Mildred. She got along good with everybody, customers as well as employees. You think one of us could have shot her? No way, man!” Her tears flowed again in earnest.
She sounded sincere enough. Yet it had to be someone with inside information. “Who else, besides you, has keys or knows how to work the alarm?”
“Just M—Mildred, Jack, Kathy, I guess.”
“Full names please, and what they do here. Who was working last night? I’ll need the work schedules of the rest of the employees, too.”
Reggie got up and rummaged in a drawer behind the bar, then handed him a work schedule, then sat opposite him again. “You can keep that one, I have another copy.”
He wrote the information in his notebook as she filled in the details. “Jack Thomas. He lives here in town down in the apartments on River Street. He tends bar and keeps the rowdies in line.”
“Like a bouncer?”
She shrugged. “I suppose you could call him that. But most of the time our customers behave. They just take one look at big Jack and settle down fast. Nobody wants to tangle with him. Kathy Marks lives in Canton. She usually comes in about five in the afternoon and helps with serving. Jack mans the grill and makes up the drinks and she takes the orders out to the tables. She likes to work later in the evening, so she’s here to help with cleaning up at closing, but she doesn’t actually lock up very often. Only when Jack or Mildred wants the evening off.”
“No one else?”
“Well, the bakery delivery man. I don’t know his name. He comes through town really early and brings our buns for the hamburgers.” She pointed at the trays of buns sitting on the next table. The plastic wrappers identified them as coming from Joe’s Bakery.
Chance frowned. “He has a key?”
“Sure. We used to have him put them ou
tside the door, but once they got stolen and a couple other times some stray dogs got to them.” She wrinkled her nose in disgust. “So Mildred gave the bakery a key and the delivery guy knows how to disarm and reset the alarm system. He’s very reliable.”
“I’m sure,” Chance said, adding him to the list in his notebook.
“What about Mildred’s family?” When Reggie looked at him blankly, he added gently, “Who shall we notify about her death?”
Reggie raised a pudgy hand to wipe tears from her face. “She only has a son, Bobby.”
Chance wrote it down, asking, “Do you know where he lives? Works?”
When she just shook her head, he added, “Or his phone number?”
She sniffed. “He travels a lot, mostly in the Southwest, I think. He’s in sales of some kind.”
“Most people carry cell phones now.”
She wiped more tears and blew her nose. “Mildred must have his phone number in her address book. She keeps stuff like that in her desk.”
“Okay, we’ll check there. Who’s in charge now?”
She stared at him blankly.
Chance sighed and tried another angle. “Who runs the bar when Mildred’s not here?”
“Oh. I guess Jack and I do. Usually we’re both here if Mildred isn’t.” She glanced up as the door opened. “Here’s Jack, now. I called him right after I called 9-1-1.”
Chance turned to see a very large, dark-haired man about thirty-five years old coming toward them. “Reggie, could you call the other employees or give me their addresses? I’ll need to talk to all of them.”
“Sure.” She wiped her eyes, trying to smile at Jack as he approached.
Jack gave her a hug, then held out his hand to Chance. “Awful thing, this.”
Reggie rose. “What shall we do, Jack? About the bar today, I mean?”
“Definitely close it for today,” Chance said. “It’s a crime scene.”
Jack nodded. “Of course. Make a sign for the door. We don’t want the curious milling around now.”
“Okay.” Reggie went behind the bar and rummaged on the shelves below it.
Jack asked, “Have they taken Mildred to the mortuary yet?”
“We’ll have to do an autopsy, first,” Chance said quietly, glancing at Reggie.
“Ugh.” Jack’s face paled.
For a minute, Chance thought the huge guy would faint, but Jack swallowed and sat down. Chance hid a smile. Funny how the biggest guys were often the most squeamish. “Stick around,” he told Jack. “I need to get your statement.”
“Sure,” Jack agreed. “I can be here as long as you need me.”
Reggie looked up from the sign she was making. “Can I leave after I call the other employees? There’s nothing for me to do here if we’re closed. Jack can lock up after you’re all done here.”
Chance nodded and headed back to Mildred’s office.
Chapter 2
After a few hours of sleep, I pulled myself out of bed again, took a quick shower, made coffee and wolfed down some cereal. Glancing at the clock, I saw I had enough time to throw a load in the washer, so I stripped the sheets from the bed. I could drop back in between jobs to move them to the dryer and they’d be ready to go by tonight. I always get housework done in bits and pieces.
Singing under my breath, I put my phone on call-forwarding to my cell, locked my house and got in my van. I had a job rekeying Agnes Johnson’s house, right here in Canton, so I only had to drive a few blocks.
She lived in an older, two-story frame house that probably still had the original locks. I looked at them and realized they were long past worn out. A new red Cadillac sat in her driveway, so I assumed she could afford new locks. I convinced her to let me install new ones instead of rekeying the old ones as she’d originally asked me to do.
She needed three, for the front and back doors and garage entry and wanted them keyed alike so I sat at her kitchen table having coffee with her while I rekeyed them. A slim, energetic woman of about eighty years, with snowy white hair and sparkling blue eyes, she intently watched me put in the tiny pins.
“How did you ever get into this kind of work?” she asked.
“I don’t know. I’ve always been intrigued by how things work. My Grandpa Joe was a retired carpenter and did odd jobs for people when I was a kid. He did mostly small jobs that full-time carpenters wouldn’t take on, usually fixing things around the house. I tagged along, handing him tools and watching.”
“So you’ve always wanted to do stuff like this?”
I sent her a grin. “No, I majored in English Literature in college. After I graduated, jobs were scarce in that field, so I ended up helping Grandpa Joe for a while. Finally I decided to try lock-smithing and went back to technical school to study that.”
“So you gave up on the English Lit?”
“Not entirely,” I said with a wry laugh. “I work on writing the Great American Novel in my spare time.”
“Huh. This looks more interesting. I always wanted to do something fun like this,” she told me. “But I didn’t get out of the house much. Except to church and family outings, of course.”
“Oh?” I concentrated on putting the lock back together without spilling the pins and securing it. I tried the key to make sure it worked, then laid it aside.
She nodded, staring off into space. “Had ten kids. Three girls and seven boys. They sure kept me hopping.”
I realized what she’d said and gaped at her. “Oh, my God! How did you manage ten kids?”
She looked at me and laughed. “Well, the older ones helped with the younger, you know. Keeping an eye on them and helping them dress and so on. They all had their chores to do. I taught them all to make their beds, do dishes and pick up their own stuff. And later, some were off to college while the others were still at home. They’re all gone now, of course.”
College? With ten kids? “What did your husband do?” I pulled apart another lock and dumped out the old set of pins. With tweezers, I chose the new combination of little colored pieces of metal.
“He had a good job with Honeywell in the Cities. Drove a hundred miles back and forth to work every day. I don’t know how he stood it. Maybe that’s why he had a heart attack and died young. All that stress of work and traffic, you know.” Her face grew pensive.
I tried to change the subject to something happier. “You must have great family get-togethers at holidays.” I tried to imagine cooking for twelve every day. I had trouble with dinner for two, the few times I’d had company at all.
She nodded. “We sure do. All the in-laws and grandkids together make a nice bunch. Loud, but fun. Thirty two of us now.”
The phone rang and she went to the counter to answer it. I could hear only her side of the conversation, of course, but it sounded like something exciting had happened. My ears perked up when I heard the Lilliput Bar mentioned. Sheriff Ben had said he had a call to the Lilliput when he’d phoned me earlier, but he hadn’t explained.
Finally, Agnes came back to the table.
“That was Lucy, my good friend in Landers. She says somebody shot Mildred Weeks last night! Can you believe it? The dear woman never hurt a soul.”
“The owner of the Lilliput Bar?”
She nodded and sat down heavily. “Robbed her, Lucy says. Right in her own office after she closed the bar. What is the world coming to?”
Ice slid down my spine as Agnes chatted on. My hands shook so I could barely hold the tweezers. The bar closed around one. The employees probably spent time cleaning up after that. I’d been in that parking lot, opening a car only an hour and a half later. Had my client been the murderer? He could have had a gun under his leather jacket. He’d appeared harmless enough, just drunk. But how could I tell? People sometimes acted drunker than they were. I needed to talk to the sheriff.
But he’d be very busy. Dispatch had told Ben he’d sent me there. So the sheriff or his detective would come to me when they had time to talk. Now I knew why he’d been
in such a hurry when he’d called this morning. He knew about the murder and wanted to be sure I was home and okay. Maybe he really was concerned about people in his county like he claimed.
Did I still have the drunk guy’s license number? Or had I tossed it after he refused a bill? I tried to picture it as I’d written it down, but couldn’t. I sighed and tried to concentrate on finishing this job. One thing at a time.
***
After searching Mildred’s office and finding her address book, Chance learned her son Bobby’s address was in Las Vegas. Remembering Luke Kent, a friend he’d worked with in Minneapolis, had taken a job with the LVPD there, Chance decided to call him before calling Bobby. Luke answered on the first ring.
“Hey, old buddy. Long time no see.”
“Chance! Yeah. Haven’t heard from you in ages.”
They played catch-up on personal news for a few minutes, then Luke said, “When are you coming down here for a fun weekend? I could line up some girls and—”
“I don’t know. I’m pretty busy right now.”
“Oh? The country job isn’t so peaceful after all?”
“Not really. The reason I called, Luke, is I have a homicide up here with a connection in your neck of the woods. Can you help me out?”
“Sure. About time you called in a favor.”
Chance told him about the murder and gave him Bob’s address and phone number. “I need you to locate Bob and break the news of his mother’s murder. I think it might be helpful to see his reaction in person.”
“Sure thing,” Luke agreed.
“And could you check out Bob’s whereabouts at the time, as well? Be sure he wasn’t up here last night?”
“Can do. I’ll call you later.”
***
Chance went back to the main room of the bar to talk to Jack.
“I made some coffee,” Jack said. “Want some?”
“Sure.” He accepted the Styrofoam cup Jack handed him. They moved to a table off to one side so as not to be in the way of the officers working.
