“I sort of remember Candy,” Wade said. “She left school when I was in tenth grade, I think, and there was a fair amount of curiosity about the father of her baby. None of the guys I hung out with would have anything to do with her. And vice versa. She was interested in older guys.”
“And the suspicious death of an infant?” Tony hadn’t found any file about it. “Were there rumors?”
Wade shook his head. “If there were, they didn’t travel to the school. You could ask Sheriff Winston.”
“True.” Tony had occasional visits with the former sheriff. The man had run the office his way, not necessarily the way Tony thought it should have been run. Tony wouldn’t be shocked if Harvey had made his own decision about what happened and closed the case without much investigation.
Arriving at the museum, Tony felt an itch start between his shoulder blades, and he tried to scratch it away against the seat. It was a very nice folk museum, but he thought maybe he was developing an allergy to it. Just thinking about going there again made him feel itchy all over. Maybe it was the memory of his mom petting a wild bear that made him itch.
Tony and Wade finally tracked Jane down in the museum café. She was standing near the windows overlooking the new garden, planted the old-fashioned way, with homemade tools and using seeds from heirloom vegetables. Tony was no expert, but he’d swear the corn had grown a foot in the past two days. He wondered if Alvin had ever visited his mom’s garden. He’d bet the two of them would have a lot to talk about.
Sally Calhoun, hired to be the cook in the new facility, greeted them with a shy smile. “Can I get you something?”
Before Tony or Wade could greet either woman, his mom turned and snarled at Tony, saying, “Now what?”
It shocked Tony. He knew his mom could get a little testy from time to time when one of her plans didn’t work the way she expected, but this was uncommonly rude behavior for a normally sweet woman. “Mom? Is there a problem?”
Shaking her head, Jane frowned and sipped her iced tea. “I’m sorry. It’s just so hot today.”
Tony suspected there was more to her mood than heat, but he smiled at Sally. “That iced tea looks like a good idea.”
Wade agreed. “And could I have one of those carrot cupcakes as well?”
Sally smiled and disappeared into the kitchen.
Jane, her face filled with angst and despair, whispered, “Sally has a boyfriend.”
“I’d think you’d be happy.” Tony hoped Sally’s boyfriend was a better man than her late husband. Possum Calhoun had made pond scum look and smell attractive. “You don’t like him, I gather.”
“He’s a perfectly fine man.” Jane managed to look shocked that her youngest child could have suggested otherwise. “He’s nothing like Possum, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“Then what’s the problem?” Tony glanced over his mother’s shoulder and watched the arrival of Wade’s carrot cupcake. He smiled and said to Sally, “That looks delicious. Maybe I should have one of those too.”
Sally nodded and headed back to the kitchen.
Returning to the subject gnawing on her nerves, Jane said, “I’m afraid she’ll marry him.”
Feeling as though he’d come in halfway through the story, Tony just stared at her. He flipped through his mental dictionary for the right word to describe his mother’s attitude. Searching for the perfect word amused him when he didn’t have time to actually do any writing on his novel of the Old West. Peevish was the word coming to his mind. He smiled, knowing he had a winner. Peevish, for certain. His mom was peevish. He felt joy at finding the answer.
Jane frowned at his merry expression and drummed her fingers on the table. “The man lives in Tullahoma and comes through here maybe once a week. It’s been going on for a long time.”
The switch in his brain finally clicked on. “And you’re afraid she’ll get married and move away and you’ll lose your cook.”
Jane nodded.
“So, it’s really all about you.” Knowing there was nothing serious going on and that he was not the cause of his mom’s bad attitude, Tony savored the little, nut-packed, incredibly rich cupcake covered with cream cheese frosting. “Oh, my,” he moaned, fearing he was going to be addicted to another dessert. Between Blossom’s pies and Sally’s cupcakes, he suspected he’d have to run three hours a day just to keep from outgrowing his uniforms.
Sally laughed at his reaction, then turned to Jane. “I’ll be leaving now. You promised I could have the holiday off.”
Jane’s smile did not reach her eyes. “Yes, I did. Have fun, and we’ll see you on the fifth.”
“Yes, Miss Jane.” Sally was untying her apron as she scampered back toward the kitchen.
Turning back to face her youngest child, she said, “Why are you here?” Jane laced her fingers and rested her hands on the table. Her lips pressed tightly together, as if she was forcing herself to be polite.
Wade kept his head down and his eyes on his plate.
Tony decided his mother had not liked his comment suggesting a bit of self-centered behavior on her part. Fine. He kept eating. For a moment, the delicious cake had about driven his purpose from his brain. “Tell us about the Pingel baby incident from maybe sixteen, seventeen years ago.”
“I’m ashamed to say I haven’t thought of the family in years.” Jane’s expression changed to sorrow and her eyes flooded with tears. “Pingel. Yes, the last name was Pingel.”
“What happened?”
“No one really ever knew. The Pingels swore Candy Tibbles let the baby drown and Candy said the baby was fine when she left and the mom and dad or grandfather must have done something. As far as any one ever said, there wasn’t any proof either way.”
Tony felt sick. “What did you believe?”
“Actually, I believed Candy.” Jane finally quit squirming on her chair and drank some of her tea. “Her parents supervised her babysitting from a short distance and . . .” She hesitated.
“And?”
“There was always something wrong with the baby. It was born with multiple problems.” Jane paused. “There was some talk at the time suggesting the parents could have saved it but chose not to and then claimed it was Candy’s fault so they wouldn’t get into trouble.”
Tony suddenly lost his appetite.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
* * *
Tony dropped Wade at the Law Enforcement Center and started thinking. Where should he go to get the best gossipy information? Theo might have a guess about who else might have fathered Candy’s child, but he immediately discarded the notion. When Candy gave birth, Theo would have been in college. His aunt, the high school teacher, on the other hand, might know something useful. He drove from the museum to her house. She wasn’t there.
Exasperated, he called her on his cell phone, only to learn she was headed to the museum. His back started itching the moment he turned the Blazer and headed out there again.
“I need to know what you remember about Candy Tibbles. As a student,” Tony asked his aunt after going through all the ritual greetings.
“You always assume I hear every piece of gossip in town and remember it,” Martha snarled at him, shocking him with her bad attitude. Not like his aunt’s normal behavior.
Tony discarded the idea she might be trying to appear uninterested in gossip. He knew she was thrilled to be asked for information about a student. He guessed her attitude was connected to her unexpectedly having to fill in for Sally. Maybe Jane had not warned her of the change in duties. Martha was a good cook, although not in the same league with Sally and Blossom, and she wasn’t keeping up with the order coming from a late lunch for a bus tour group. He stepped into the kitchen, wrapped an apron over his uniform, scrubbed his hands, and stepped up to the grill.
Clearly relieved, Martha handed him a metal spatula and explained their system. “Good to see you. Let’s see if your time cooking in the Navy taught you anything.” She gave him a happy smile.
Tony was curious himself. He remembered how to make cinnamon rolls in huge quantities, but he’d never mastered making only a few dozen. He was pretty sure he could cook one burger or BLT at a time. With Martha’s advice and his own experience, they made it through the rush.
She brought him a tall iced tea and gestured to a pair of chairs overlooking the new lawn. “Candy was not one of my students. Thankfully. I can still remember another teacher talking about how much trouble she was having with the girl. Candy could read, only she wouldn’t. She spent as much time applying makeup in class as she could get away with. Homework assignments were not turned it. The teacher had a conference with her parents. Yes, they understood, promised to encourage her, offered incentives. Nothing worked. One day Candy came to class, stood next to her desk, plopped the textbook down on it, and washed her hands of the whole thing.” Martha sighed. “Candy never went back to school.”
“And she could just quit?”
“She was sixteen and pregnant. There was no way to force her to come to class. I don’t know for sure, but I doubt anyone tried very hard.” Martha sighed. “I’m not saying it’s right, but there is a reason for the old saying ‘you can lead a horse to water.’ ”
“No one could make her learn.”
Martha sipped her tea. “I remember she was often seen hanging out with older boys, maybe some men. Locals and visitors. She looked much older than sixteen.”
“Great.” Tony was not pleased. “That will make my investigation much easier.”
“Don’t be sarcastic, Tony.” His aunt thumped his badge. “You didn’t get this out of a cereal box. Go back to work.”
The TBI crew looked so miserable, Tony felt a bit guilty he had called them for help. He guessed they’d guzzled sixty gallons of water and were wishing for more.
The TBI lead investigator, Vince, wiped his face on his handkerchief. “We were able to get your victim processed and sent her off to the medical examiner in Knoxville. As much as I understand the importance of documenting the details, including taking photographs of the victim’s final position, I feel guilty, you know, almost ignoring the deceased while we work around them.”
“That why you’re always chatting with them?” One of the team ribbed Vince. “You should hear him work, Sheriff. ‘So what did you think when someone came at you with a blunt instrument? Did you try to run? Did you attack? Here, let’s put bags over your hands to protect the evidence.’ ”
Vince laughed. “Yeah, like you weren’t going on about what kind of person would pull back the tarps so she’d bake.”
Under the ribbing was concern. No one wanted to miss the tiny fragment of evidence that might lead them to find and convict the guilty party. If talking to a fragrant corpse was what it took, that’s what they did. Tony thought they were geniuses. He looked at the floor in the greenhouse. Packed dirt and a fresh hole.
“Did you happen to find her other flip-flop?”
“Nope.” Vince glanced around the yard again. “Just the one. I thought it would be under her body, but it wasn’t. We kept lifting branches on the shrubs and looked underneath, as well as shining a flashlight into the shrubbery. Nothing.” He sighed.
“She could have kicked it a long way. My four-year-old can launch a flip-flop into the neighbor’s yard without even trying.”
“A critter could have hauled it away too. Anyone see signs of animal tracks or bites?”
“Nope. Insects, yes.”
“It could be a trophy for a freak.” The words created a moment of silence.
“We dug up a lot of dirt and packed it in a bucket. It looked like she might have bled out from the head wound. Don’t know if the lab can tell or not.” Vince shrugged. “My money is on her being cooked.”
“Okay, are we through out here and ready to work in the house?”
No one showed any enthusiasm for working in a hot house with rotting kitchen smells, but no one balked.
“I promised to water.” Tony pulled the sprinkler close to the garden beds. “Any signs any of the garden plants were disturbed?”
“If they were, I’d say the regular gardener put everything back in its place.”
Tony wanted to know why the garden tools had been stashed in the wrong place. Why hadn’t the killer put them back into the unlocked shed? Unless he hadn’t gotten them out and didn’t know where they belonged.
Theo wiped the kitchen counter after dinner. The boys had vanished and the babies were in view, playing with a colorful toy hanging close enough for them to bat it with their tiny hands or feet. Daisy was guarding them but staying out of their reach. Tony was almost through loading dishes into the dishwasher. “Did Candy have any friends? Like girlfriends she might talk to or go to the movies with?” Theo felt a combination of sympathy and irritation for Alvin’s mother. Candy might have brought most of her problems on herself but no one deserved to be murdered.
“Not as far as I can tell.” Dishes done, Tony draped a cold wet cloth over his bald head and wandered about the kitchen heedless of the water dripping onto the floor. “She just seems to have been empty. That’s not the right word, but I don’t know what else to call it. If she had friends, hobbies, favorite foods, we have no idea who or what they might be.” He paused. “She did have an awesome collection of chips. Corn chips, potato chips, you know, like she bought a bag every time she went to the store and forgot and bought them again.”
“I know how that works.” Theo felt a laugh wedge in her chest. “That’s why we have three bottles of ketchup in the pantry.”
“I did wonder about that.” Tony flashed his pirate grin at her. “Anyway, I’m not sure I’ve ever been in a house, especially one inhabited by the same person for over thirty years, containing nothing personal. Photographs. Hobby stuff. There’s still some of her folks’ stuff, I’m guessing right where they left it, and Alvin’s room has some of his old clothes and old toys, but nothing we think belonged to Candy.”
Theo glanced around the combination kitchen and living space. She was everywhere. A quilt, a book, a potted plant. Her favorite mug. Tony was there too. His chair, magazines, and papers. The boys had toys and games scattered around them. Even the twins had their own favorite items. “That’s creepy. Who doesn’t have favorite things?”
“I know. We even went under the house. We found some old canning jars and half a bicycle but nothing that spoke of her.” Tony removed the cloth from his head and wiped his face with it before taking it out to the laundry room and dropping it into the washing machine.
Theo followed. “Did you find jewelry or trinkets?”
“Nope,” Tony said. “We looked. Our best guess is someone smashed her head with a garden tool and left her unconscious, bleeding and dying. Other than a missing flip-flop, nothing appears to be taken. Her purse was in the house, complete with her wallet containing a fair wad of cash, an unopened pack of gum, a tube of lipstick, and car keys. Nothing special in the car but dirt. It needed vacuuming.”
Theo tried to imagine Candy’s world and failed. “She didn’t even have a cell phone?”
“Thank you, sweetheart.” Tony kissed her. “I can’t believe we all missed the obvious. What should have been there and wasn’t. I’m sure she did. I’ll find out.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
* * *
Before nine in the morning of the third, Tony thought Ruth Ann had earned a raise. It had taken some real detective work by Ruth Ann to find the file connected to the Pingel infant who died presumably under Candy’s supervision. Former Sheriff Harvey Winston had put it in the box containing his personal papers.
Harvey, when he was asked, fished it out of the box and brought it to Tony. Most of the contents were letters accusing Candy of “murdering that precious baby.” Each letter had been filed with accompanying notes from Candy’s parents, refuting the accusation and accusing the infant’s parents of wrongdoing and trying to blame a fifteen-year-old babysitter for their own misdeeds.
The bottom line remained the same. N
o blame was ever established, officially or otherwise. There was simply no evidence on either side, but the overwhelming impression Tony got was that the youngster’s parents might have set Candy up to take the blame. The baby was born with multiple “issues.” If he had survived, he would always require a great deal of special care. The baby’s physician described a multitude of possible reasons the baby died. None linked the death to Candy. Or to the family.
With some reluctance, Tony and Wade drove out to discuss the past with the baby’s maternal grandfather, Charles Yates.
“Can’t you let it rest?” Yates said. “They’ve moved on, have two healthy children. They have made themselves a nice, normal, happy family.”
Tony shook his head. “We’re not here about the baby. Not specifically.” He did not like Yates and believed he might have had more to do with the family’s loss than Candy had. “What do you mean by letting it rest?”
The man narrowed his eyes and spoke with a sour twist to his mouth. “Just because it wasn’t her fault don’t mean they shouldn’t blame her.”
“Really? You think the innocent should be punished and the guilty go free? That doesn’t sound much like justice to me.” Something in the man’s expression triggered a suspicion in Tony’s mind. “How well did you know Candy?” Had the father been involved with the babysitter?
Yates made no response to Tony’s question.
Tony did not like having his question ignored. “What about your wife? Can we talk to her?”
Anger crossed Yates’s face again, deepening his appearance of disdain. “She don’t live here. Hasn’t since the kids moved away.” With that, he stepped back inside and slammed the door in Tony and Wade’s faces.
Tony stared at the closed door for a full minute, then turned to Wade. “Well, I think I’ll put a little S for suspect note next to his name.” He headed back to Wade’s vehicle. “I’d like to talk to his ex-wife. What do you think?”
Barbara Graham - Quilted 05 - Murder by Sunlight Page 13
