by Dallis Adams
What the heck? “Then why aren’t you releasing me?”
Jack sighed. “I want to. I really do. However, releasing you isn’t going to make Spivey go away. In fact, it might make our situation worse. We need to play his game until we either find reasonable doubt or the identity of the real killer. Or some other way.”
“Like run Spivey out of town,” Orchilo added from the doorway.
“That, too,” Jack said in a wry tone. “In the meantime, I’m waiting to hear from his superiors about him overstepping his authority.”
“Open Uma’s cell door,” Orchilo demanded after she walked in carrying a ladder. Lala followed her carrying a pile of colorful fabric.
“What’s that?” Uma asked as Jack withdrew a single key and fitted it in the lock.
“Curtains to give you privacy,” Orchilo replied. She walked inside Uma’s cell and set up the ladder. Then, with an agility that rivaled her daughter’s, she climbed up the rungs. Lala handed her a tapestry panel.
Uma watched as Orchilo secured the fabric to the horizontal bar at the top. So many things had happened that Uma had forgotten Orchilo’s new beau and how the couple had left for a rendezvous at Lilith’s Lighthouse. Orchilo had been intent on making Luther suffer for whatever it was that he’d done to cause her ire. “Where is Manfri?”
“He’s not important now. I told him I needed space while I solved this mess you’re in.”
“Maybe he can help,” Lala said.
“Honey, that man is all brawn but there’s not much up here.” She pointed to her temple. “He’s fine to look at and to get physical with, but not much good other than that. We need to put our heads together and get rid of Spivey so we can concentrate on discovering who really murdered Doc Elroy.”
Lala brought her delicate brows together. “How are we going to get rid of the Marshal?”
Orchilo climbed down and moved the ladder. “Oh, I’ve got some ideas.”
As she watched Orchilo climb up again to secure the tapestry in another spot, Uma wondered what her older friend was thinking. She didn’t know if she trusted anything that Orchilo might do. But for once she hesitated on voicing her doubts. The fortuneteller was a force to contend with.
Lala flipped back her honey-brown hair and handed her mother another panel. “I’ve got a feeling that making him go bald like you did to Luther that time won’t solve the problem.”
Uma shook her head. “How did you do that? Shave him while he slept?”
“Nothing so mundane. I have my ways,” Orchilo answered absently. “Maybe I should do the opposite and make him grow hair. Not on his head, though. On his chest, back and unmentionable places. If he wants it to go away, he’ll have to quit drinking Cryptic Cove water. Oh, there are so many things we can do to make the Marshal unwelcome. I might even enlist Cat,” she added, referring to Catalina Navarra, Cryptic Cove’s herbalist, and Creed’s love interest. “Yes, I’ll make the Marshal wish he’d never stepped foot in this town.”
Uma sat on the edge of the bed and grinned. “Funny, but I’m actually looking forward to having a front-row seat in my jail cell.”
Twelve
Uma aroused from a deep sleep to the sound of somebody banging on the door. Who was visiting their loft at this hour? She snuggled more firmly against Jack’s chest, secure in his arms as she inhaled his familiar, comforting scent of cinnamon, clove and a musky hint that was unique only to him. She loved the newly invented box spring mattress that Jack had purchased for her as a wedding gift.
Pounding started again, causing the inset glass to rattle. Glass? She opened her eyes and saw beautiful tapestry hanging from the ceiling. That’s when she remembered — she’d been arrested for Doc Elroy’s murder. How Jack and others had dressed up the cell, with Jack even knocking out one side of the barred barrier to turn two cells into one. Luther — Orchilo’s long-term, on-and-off beau — had even donated a wardrobe that Orchilo had filled with blouses, skirts, chemises, corsets and pantalets. Pauline Ludermann, who worked at The Vine and was Rush’s mother, brought a washbasin and pitcher. Lala had brought a stand to hang wash towels and rags.
“Sheriff MacKissick! Open up. This is my office now.”
Jack growled. “No, it isn’t.”
As he untangled his arms from Uma, she couldn’t help but miss his warmth. However, she had to admit she loved seeing his body in all its glory.
“Stop fooling around and let me in.” Scuffling could be heard. It sounded like more than one person was on the boardwalk just outside the Sheriff’s Office. “Quit pestering me. You aren’t the killer!”
“But I am,” a child said. It sounded like Rush.
“It’s your duty to hear my confession, too,” somebody else said.
Jack pulled on his trousers, opened the jail cell door and stomped barefooted across the office toward the front door, not bothering to pull on a shirt. When he opened the door, he was greeted by several women who whistled and made cat calls.
“Easy, ladies. Remember, I’m taken,” Jack responded as a flush rose to his face.
“Sorry, Uma,” Lala called out. “We had to give Jack a hard time.”
Lala’s comment brought a chuckle out of Uma. But she still felt self-conscious because everybody knew what they’d been doing in the jail. It made Uma wish for their loft above the Sheriff’s Office. At least there she had wooden walls for privacy. Their apartment would have been fine if it wasn’t for Thistle Do Nicely situated right across the street. With all the rocking chairs on the porch, and nosy neighbors, there wasn’t much seclusion. Too many gossiping men watched her and Jack come and go.
“Of course you’re taken,” Orchilo replied. “And by a fine, law-abiding citizen by the name of Uma. We love her, and adore the both of you together. But that doesn’t mean we can’t admire the view,” Orchilo replied.
Marshal Spivey made a crude, snorting sound. “Put on a shirt, Sheriff. This isn’t a house of ill-repute.”
Jack glared at the Marshal. “No, it’s my new home since you insisted on jailing my wife. My own personal boudoir, and you’re not welcome.”
“I have commandeered your Sheriff’s Office, if you will recall.” Spivey glanced back at the growing crowd and wiped the palms of his hands down his trouser legs. Then he jerked his attention back toward Jack. “Now, get out of my way.”
Jack stood his ground by gripping the sides of the door frame. “You aren’t coming in until my wife no longer needs her privacy.”
“You can’t use this office as your abode,” Spivey retorted, his tone incredulous.
Leaning against the frame, the muscles in his arms bulging, Jack merely widened his stance. “Yes, I can,” he said softly. “Blame it on yourself for having the gall to arrest my wife.”
Spivey balled up his fist and drew it back as if he was going to throw a punch at Jack, but somebody from the crowd hit him on the back of his head with a burlap bag. The bag burst on impact. Some kind of green dust spilled from the rough sack and peppered Spivey’s head, shoulders and arms. Probably his back, too, although Uma couldn’t exactly see everything because Jack’s broad bare shoulders blocked her view. But she could see the Marshal’s face. His complexion was as purple as the cabbage in Pauline Ludermann’s garden. If anybody could commit murder in that moment, he could.
A sneeze overtook Spivey before he swiveled to face the crowd. “Who did that?”
Nobody said a word. Instead they all looked at each other, some shrugging, expressions puzzled, as if they didn’t know what he meant.
Through the open doorway she could see Marshal Spivey stiffen his spine before shaking his finger like an elderly schoolmarm — not anything Uma herself would do, whether she was young or old. Spivey continued to scold. “I’m warning you people. I’m the law. Obviously Sheriff MacKissick isn’t doing a very good job reining you people in.”
“Yeah?” Harlan, owner of the tavern called The Wandering Axe, yelled. “We were doing just fine before you butted into our business.�
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“We want Sheriff Jack back,” Luther said in a belligerent tone, shaking his fist.
“You have no business taking over Sheriff Jack’s authority,” Pauline Ludermann added.
“If I have to, I’ll call in troops from Fort Ross,” Spivey threatened, still shaking his finger. “I will have your cooperation.”
“Well, I have a confession to make,” Harvey replied, his tone still quarrelsome. “I killed Doc Elroy.”
“No, I did,” Luther called out.
“No, you don’t get credit. It was me,” Troy Coulson, the chef from The Vine, said.
“Go home.” Spivey made a swishing motion with his hand. “I have my suspect.”
“No, you don’t,” Luther replied. “We have a right to confess to any crime that we want to.”
The Marshal muttered a curse as he rubbed the back of his reddening neck. “Troublemakers is what all of you are. Come inside, then. Write down your infernal confessions.”
Two hours later, Uma couldn’t believe the outpouring of so-called confessions from Cryptians, even from those she didn’t really know. She sat in the high back chair that Jack had brought her earlier, and glanced past the tapestry she’d opened. The stack of papers had grown. There were at least thirty confessions in that pile. Jack had rounded up as much paper as he could find. Cryptians had been forced to write on the backside of previously written confessions.
The people of Cryptic Cove continued to line up in front of Marshal Spivey’s newly-acquired desk, even her students. Earlier that day, Spivey had purchased the desk from Thistle Do Nicely, since the outpouring of confessions, and had claimed the opposite side of Jack’s office. Marshal Spivey had commandeered the Sheriff’s Office, which pretty much usurped Jack’s position as Sheriff. When word had spread, the Cryptians had flocked together.
Not to mention the U. S. Marshal Deputy Director approved Spivey’s request to oversee the murder investigation since Uma was the primary suspect.
The outpouring of Cryptians weren’t necessarily to help her, she thought, but most likely to harass the brazen Marshal for usurping Jack’s authority, thereby demonstrating their support of their beloved Sheriff. It reminded her of the time when several Cryptians claimed they’d killed her mother in order to protect Jack’s mentally-challenged older brother, Buddy. Even six-year-old Tawni claimed she’d killed Uma’s mother almost twenty years earlier — an impossibility since Tawni was only a twinkle in her mother’s eye.
She was glad that Buddy wasn’t there. Seeing her locked up would only upset him. He’d gone with the Fosters on their rounds of harvesting. The family enjoyed Buddy, who entertained the younger children while the rest of the family worked.
How was Jack doing with the investigation? Before leaving, he’d told her that he was going to help Catalina with the autopsy, and look over Doc Elroy’s vardos to see if he could find any clues as to the identity of the killer.
A rash had developed on Spivey’s neck. He scratched it and scowled at Harvey Wild-Hog Harper, who stood before him on the other side of the desk. “What are you doing back? I already told you that you could leave. You’re free to go.”
“I want to be locked up. I have rights.”
“You can’t use the cell to sleep off your liquor,” Marshal Spivey retorted.
Harvey blinked and then stared at the Marshal. “Excuse me? Didn’t you hear what I said? Did you even read my confession? The one Rush wrote for me?”
Yes, sadly Harvey didn’t know how to write. She’d taught him to read. She vowed to correct that problem as soon as she was released from jail.
“I’m the murderer,” Harvey continued, jabbing himself in the chest. “I did just what Uma said when she was angry at the Doc and yelled out her instructions. I held Doc Elroy down by his throat and forced poisons that Elroy called medicine down his throat.”
“And why did you do that?”
“Because … because I didn’t like the way his medicines tasted and the way it made me feel, all woozy.”
“You’re the town drunk,” Spivey said, exasperated. “Aren’t you used to feeling woozy?”
Harvey straightened his spine and puffed out his chest. “Yes, sir, I am happy to accept that title. And you have no right telling me how to feel.”
Spivey’s eyes narrowed as he looked Harvey up and down. “I was watching you drink yesterday, on the day that Doc Elroy was murdered. By three yesterday afternoon — which was when the doc left the street to park his caravan — you couldn’t even walk a straight line, more less hold Doc down and force him to drink all that medicine.”
Harvey straightened his posture and held up his salt-and-pepper whiskered chin. “I beg your pardon. I’m a proud, functioning town drunk. After three bottles of whiskey, when Midnightbolt was at a full-out gallop, I could stand on her saddle and do flips in the air.” He suddenly squinted at the lawman, his expression suspicious. “Never mind that. How do you know when Doc Elroy was killed? How do we know you aren’t the murderer?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Spivey retorted, his face becoming splotchy. It was hard to tell if the redness was a result of anger, or if the rash was spreading. “It was simple reasoning on my part. As I said, I saw Doctor Elroy Hancock pull his caravan away to park it for the evening, per Sheriff MacKissick’s demand, around three o’clock. At approximately six o’clock I found Mrs. MacKissick with the body, holding empty vials in her hand. Lala Zorsika, and Angela Wicket were there, too. It was Angela’s scream that got my attention about the murder. The killing was done between three and six o’clock.”
“I can narrow the time frame more than that,” Uma said. “If you’ll let me.”
Marshal Spivey jumped slightly in his chair, as if he’d forgotten she was behind him, locked in the jail cell. Granted, it was a very plush jail cell. “You’re the prime suspect.”
“For now,” Uma reiterated. “Doc Elroy sent a verbal missive though Rush Ludermann, asking me to come for a visit.”
“It’s the truth, Marshal,” Rush said, and stepped out from behind Harvey.
Bright eyes in a freckled face shone with intelligence. For his nine years of age, Rush was very mature. The boy was smart. Innovative. He ran errands primarily for anybody else who needed him. Cryptians would pay him for his services. Uma thought he was very enterprising for his age.
“What time was that, young man?”
“A little past three, sir.”
Uma nodded. “Doc Elroy wanted to explain what happened to my stepsister, Tiffany, all those years ago, and ask for forgiveness for his part in causing her death. I told him I would think about granting him forgiveness. It was around a quarter to four when I left him. I walked in the Redwoods for an hour to contemplate his apology and search my heart. I decided to offer my forgiveness. But when I got back to Doc Elroy’s caravan around a quarter to five, I found him sitting in his chair, dead. Lala was with me.”
Spivey stared at her with his ice-blue eyes, causing her to repress a shiver. “Was she with you the entire time you talked to him and then walked in the woods?”
Uma frowned. “No.”
“Then you have no corroboration. You’re most likely lying.”
“Excuse me?” Orchilo retorted before Uma could issue a retort of her own. “You’re the newcomer here. You don’t know Uma like we do. Do you think we would allow our children in her care if she didn’t have good morals? What’s more, she’s Sheriff Jack’s wife. Calling her a liar is the same as calling Jack immoral and a liar, by extension.”
“Yeah, what’s your act?” Pauline Ludermann asked, obviously referring to her days on the trapeze. “Whatever it is, it’s not nearly as entertaining as the circus. How dare you malign Uma.”
“Out. Get out of here!” Spivey stomped around his desk and started herding people out, giving them nudges to make them move. He made it to the boardwalk just outside of the Sheriff’s Office.
“She’s our teacher,” Tawni retorted as she barged past Orchilo to confron
t the Marshal. She tilted her head way back to look at Spivey. When he didn’t look down, she bunched up her tiny fist and punched him in the thigh. “Are you listening to me? Miss Uma doesn’t lie, spit or make farting sounds in public. Not like Hughie does.”
A gassy-like explosion filled the air. Uma glanced behind Tawni to see Hughie cupping his armpit underneath his shirt and jamming his arm down to make the rude noise. When Marshal Spivey growled and stepped forward, Tawni and Hughie ran through the gap the crowd had opened. As soon as the kids left, Orchilo, Rick Ridley — the musician — and Harvey closed the gap, standing in the Marshal’s way.
Spivey shook his fist. “You people are a menace. I’ve had enough of all of you. Get out of here. Go about your day.”
“But we’re not through,” a burly man Uma recognized as the blacksmith, said. “I’ve still got to give my confession.”
Spivey scratched his neck again, and then his back. “Oh, you’re through, all right.”
A shiver coursed down Uma’s back. She had a feeling things were going to escalate.
Jack studied Doc Elroy’s caravan, searching for something about three inches wide, an object that curved at the ends. He and Catalina had finished the autopsy. They realized that the bruising around Doc’s neck wasn’t caused from fingers.
Doc’s medicinal vardo wasn’t as colorful nor decorated as lavishly as Orchilo’s or Lala’s abodes. The grays and purples that covered the walls were probably meant to be soothing. But all Jack could think about was Doc’s purple tongue and gray face.
He was glad he had visited Doc before his friend was murdered. Sorrow squeezed his heart. He should have spent more time with Doc.
But at least now he had a point of reference as far as the contents in the vardo. The rows of medicine against the wall had gaps where bottles used to be. Those bottles laid haphazard on the floor. The measuring and weighing apparatuses for concocting the elixirs and solutions had been scattered throughout the caravan during the struggle. Jack looked up to where the horse tackle had hung the previous day.
