“Thank you.” Tony’s thanks were sincere. “I meant to ask, have you ever had trouble with Candy Tibbles? Your name, along with everyone else’s in the county, has crossed my desk.”
“Really, was she complaining about me?” Ruby’s eyes flashed. “I threw her out and told her to stay away.”
“When was this?” Tony retrieved his notebook.
Ruby’s mouth dropped open. “Is there something I should know?”
Tony merely waited.
“It was maybe a month ago. She was harassing a customer, asking for money. The next thing I knew, she punched him in the face and starting swearing a blue streak.” Ruby was breathing hard. “I threw her out and told her never to come back into my café. I might have thrown your name into the threat along with Mike’s.” She fidgeted a bit with her apron strings. “Sorry.”
“Did it sound like a panhandling situation, or maybe something else?”
Ruby considered his question for several minutes. “It was definitely something else. Like she’d been expecting money and hadn’t gotten it.”
“I don’t suppose you remember who the customer was?”
Ruby shook her head. “I’ll call if it comes to me.”
After she left them, Tony and Wade sat not talking, just eating pie and guzzling more water and iced tea. Sitting at the next table was a young man in low-hanging jeans, half of his underwear showing, and myriad tattoos exposed by his muscle shirt. He had a ring in his nose and a chain connecting it to the ring in his ear. It was his educated, articulate telephone voice that captured Tony’s attention as he chatted on his cell phone with what might have been a client—something to do with computers.
“Can’t tell anything by the wrapper, can you?” Wade slid his sunglasses down from their perch on the top of his head to cover his eyes.
“Nope,” Tony agreed. “I’d have expected the conversation to be more, or rather less, well spoken.” Tony watched a few people walking up the zigzag path away from the highway and over the hill to downtown Silersville.
Wade said, “I ran into Matt Barney this morning.” Tension tightened the skin over his cheekbones. “The man would set law enforcement back about a hundred years if he’s elected.”
Tony couldn’t disagree. Barney might even take it further back than that. He wasn’t completely convinced the man could read. It irritated him to think how much valuable time he’d had to spend defending his own actions in the past four years. “He actually called our county Murder Central.”
“What will you do if you lose the election?” Wade shifted in his chair.
Tony sighed, suddenly tempted to withdraw from the election and let Barney have the job. Tony could be a stay-at-home dad and spend the entire day with his baby girls and enjoy the quality time and intelligent conversation. Only the spector of chaos and more crime to follow his departure made him hesitate. “If I lose the election or quit, will you stay on the job, Wade?”
Intelligent dark blue eyes turned to meet his gaze. Wade’s shock was obvious. “Are you kidding?” His head was moving from side to side. “I’d end up in our jail. The temptation to shoot him would be too much for me to handle. You could fit his whole brain into one of those little pimento jars and have room to spare.”
Unable to suppress a smile, Tony said, “I probably shouldn’t use your description in my campaign, no matter how true it is.”
He changed the subject. “Sounds to me like Candy’s been a busy blackmailer.”
“Yes, it does.” Wade leaned back in his seat. “I know there has been a fair amount of rumor and speculation surrounding her lifestyle, but there is a definite pattern here.”
“Suddenly people have stopped paying her.” Tony drained his glass of tea. “Why not? Why would you suddenly stop paying blackmail you’ve been paying for sixteen years?”
“If you broke down and confessed, got it off your conscience.” Wade shoveled pie into his mouth. “You wouldn’t need to keep her quiet anymore.”
Tony nodded. “Or your marriage disintegrated and there was no further need to try to cover up the affair.” He tried to remember if any of the names they’d heard belonged to someone recently divorced.
Wade said, “What if the blackmailed person simply moved away?”
“Or you’re too broke to pay.” Tony crunched a few pieces of ice. “Maybe he recently lost his job and Candy wouldn’t cut him any slack, even after sixteen years of payment.”
“Maybe the father’s decided he’d been supporting the boy, not the mom, and Alvin has moved out, so the payments stopped.” Wade lifted an eyebrow. “Any chance Alvin’s started receiving money that used to go to his mom?”
Tony moaned with frustration and loathing. “Can we even guess how many people have been sending or delivering cash? And for how long?” The vision he had in his mind developed nightmare implications.
“And why?” Wade looked confused. “Surely there aren’t that many men who could have fathered the boy. In a town this size?”
“A few older men, some younger men, boys her age.” Tony gripped the edge of the table. “I don’t want to consider all the possible choices. I’m feeling lucky I can scratch myself off the list.”
“Me too.” Wade laughed, but it was humorless. “That’s two, as long as neither of us is lying.”
Tony said, “She was definitely getting money for Alvin. And I suspect we can add in a category for ‘cheating spouses.’ ”
“Drug dealers.” Wade suggested. “That one’s a two-way street though.”
From the highway came a series of honking horns, and they turned to see a caravan of antique cars winding down the hillside, near Not Bob’s home. The last Tony heard, the man had been moved from intensive care but was still not nearly well enough to go home.
“I talked to Alvin this morning.” Tony rubbed his temples with his thumbs, hoping to relieve some of the tension growing there. “He told me where to find the second mailbox key. Let’s go to the house and see what we can learn. Knowing Candy’s energy level and low-level imagination, I’ll bet she has a simple system for keeping track.”
“Names, phone numbers, if everyone was expected to pay the same amount on the same day.” Tony stood, put his money on the table, and trudged around the side of the café. “I hope we’re jumping to the wrong conclusion.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
* * *
Tony had seen a few mailboxes similar to Candy’s on other rural routes. There were several different brands and styles but with each kind, the mail was slipped through a slot, then it dropped into another portion of the box requiring a key to open it. It prevented someone from stealing the mail, or having it blow out if the door opened, and it allowed the mail to accumulate without anyone being aware that no one was collecting it. Alvin’s key unlocked the mail storage compartment below the outgoing mail shelf and incoming mail slot. The small door covering those did not require a key.
“Alvin told me that his mom said he always had to guard his mailbox key, protect it with his life. For a woman who seemed to care nothing about anyone or anything, I find that interesting, don’t you?”
Wade agreed, studying the outside of the box, as he pulled gloves on. “Let’s see what she has.”
With a turn of the key, the front panel opened, exposing a moderate accumulation of mail. Tony imagined the upper layer of mail would be the most recent deliveries. There were a few advertising flyers and a coupon book. No magazines, but why get magazines if you have no interests? There were also two sealed envelopes with “Candy” printed on the front. No stamps.
Tony wondered how they had been delivered. Obviously not through the U.S. Mail without a stamp, unless the postal carrier was one of the blackmailed persons and dropped them in with the rest of the delivery, which was possible. Anyone could drop an envelope in the box. But how likely was it that none of the three sets of neighbors would not have seen it done over a period of sixteen years? Not very. Even if the delivery happened at three in the mo
rning, someone would very possibly be up ill, or with a child, or on a bathroom trip, or hushing a barking dog. Get up in the night, look out the window, and see a strange vehicle next to the box. Seen a second time, it would form a pattern, not an oddity.
With gloved hands, Tony held the box they’d brought along for the job, while Wade carefully removed the contents, his own hands in gloves. “This mail on top is loose and looks like it fell in naturally. The bottom stuff is neatly stacked, like she’s been storing it in here.”
Tony pulled a bag from his pocket. “Put the stack in here.”
“Out of curiosity, do you see a flip-flop?” Wade asked. He illuminated the inside of the box with his flashlight while Tony looked over his shoulder.
“No.” Tony looked in the top, toward the back of the outgoing mail shelf. It looked like something might be blocking the light. “Wait. This mailbox is huge. I think I can see it, jammed all the way against the back. There’s a kind of silhouette. Let’s see if the key will open the box’s back door.”
Sure enough, when they opened the large back panel, a purple flip-flop, complete with attached flower, was lodged into the space. “Let’s get this bagged and tagged and see what, if any, fingerprints or skin or whatever we can find to nail the SOB.”
A cursory examination of the neatly stacked envelopes made Tony think of a filing system. Envelopes presumably filled with cash were labeled with handwritten or typed names on each envelope. Fun names like “Blue Cow” and “Yellow Buzzard” couldn’t disguise the smell of extortion. Sorted by name, the system looked more organized than they would have expected from Candy. This was her passion.
Although they discussed it briefly, Tony and Wade couldn’t shove everything back inside the mailbox and lock it again and pretend they’d never seen it.
“You’re going to have to fingerprint the envelopes before we open them. Front and back.”
Wade nodded. “It will take me a while to dust, photograph, lift the prints, and label each of them.”
“It takes as long as it takes.” Tony knew the job would be tedious but the county had paid for Wade to take the course of specialized training so he would be able to do it, and do it correctly. “If you don’t have enough of some supplies, I’ll bet we can borrow from our friends.”
At least they were saved from having to dig through all of Candy’s belongings looking for her records. She had left a cheap spiral notebook under the stack of envelopes inside the mailbox, along with a pen with a bright green feather on its cap.
They made a quick check through the house to make sure it was undisturbed, and Tony placed fresh seals on the door when they left. “I’ll bet you’re as anxious as I am to spend the day in there.” Hot and rancid were the words he’d use to describe it.
Wade wiped a line of perspiration from his cheek. “I’m thinking we’re lucky the TBI got rid of the rotten meat for us.”
“That’s right.” Tony felt a rush of relief. The house still reeked, but at least the worst offender had been removed from the kitchen. The air did smell better. “Okay, tell me, Wade,” Tony popped a handful of antacids into his mouth and chewed slowly, meditatively. He felt a bit like a cow chewing its cud. “If the killer took the key from Candy’s neck, why not use it? Collect some free money and destroy some of the evidence?”
“Maybe she wasn’t wearing it. Or,” Wade mulled the problem for a moment. “Maybe whoever killed her knew nothing about her blackmailing business.”
“Oh, good. Now we can add everyone else in the county to our list of suspects.”
Tony needed to talk to the neighbors again. But how could he bring up the people making deliveries to Candy’s mailbox without suggesting the idea? “I’m going to check Alvin’s garden before we go next door. Might as well be watering while we work.”
Tony stood on one of the tidy paths through Alvin’s garden and slowly turned, looking up and down, searching. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for—inspiration maybe—before they turned the water on and talked to the neighbors. He focused on the house next door. The house where the Pingel baby had reportedly died.
It reminded Tony of how little he had liked the baby’s grandfather. If hunches were admissible in court, he’d have arrested the man on two charges, murder and false testimony. Tony had no evidence, no facts, but deep in his gut, he knew the lies told about Candy had scarred her and made people either shy away from her or condemn her.
The house wasn’t close, not really, and it was separated from the Tibbles property by some mature trees. What caught his eye was movement behind a second-floor window. “If I can see you, you can see me.” He spoke out loud.
“What’s that, Sheriff?” Wade’s head popped through an opening in the vegetation.
“I was just thinking. We might want to have another chat with the family next door.”
“You think they lied?”
“I think they have a ringside seat to the most popular of all spectator sports,” Tony said.
Wade grinned. “Watching the neighbors?”
“Exactly.” Tony continued his survey. “Let’s go over now. I can see someone’s at home.” As he walked past, he turned on the faucet, sending a spray of hot water into the air. The plants, drooping in the afternoon heat, would be happier soon. “Don’t let me forget to turn this off when we leave.”
“Should I go with you or go work on my fingerprints?”
“Come with me. This shouldn’t take long.”
“I know what it’s like,” Tony used his most soothing and sympathetic voice. “You’re up all hours. Day and night get confused. The baby is only calm if you keep moving, so you stand in front of a window and sway back and forth.” Tony watched Etta Vanderbilt’s expression.
The young mother looked surprised. Tears rose in her eyes. “Yes, that’s it exactly. I guess I thought ours was the only baby keeping a parent on the move.”
“Not even close.” Tony gave her a reassuring smile. “Just tell us. What did you see as you wandered from window to window? Don’t try to sort it out or make sense of it.”
Etta sighed and met his gaze. “One night is like all the others. I don’t know what day of the week it is, or was.”
“That’s fine.” Tony waited.
“We didn’t lie.” The tears—Tony guessed most likely from fatigue rather than sorrow—slid silently down her face. “We did not like Candy. She played loud music, sometimes all night long. There were men coming and going. The cul-de-sac should be quiet, but cars came past at all hours, pulling into her driveway, stopping by her mailbox.”
“She was interesting to watch.” Wade suggested.
“Better than the soaps.” With a gasp, Etta’s tears turned to laughter. “Paul, my husband, and I are quiet people. We work, have a meal, play with the baby, watch a little television, off to bed. We grew up in homes like ours, and I guess we thought that was the way everyone lived. Being next door to Candy was amazing because of the contrasts between our worlds.”
Tony nodded, listening carefully for what she did not say as much as for what she did say.
“One night, the baby and I were doing exactly what you described. I was walking around in the dark, trying to get her to fall asleep. I saw headlights up on the old road on the ridge that runs behind our house and Candy’s. The vehicle was stopped. That’s normal.” She suddenly laughed, humor dissolving some of her fatigue. “I see a lot of cars up there on the ridge from early morning to late night, but they usually have the headlights turned off.”
Tony smiled. He thought he might have parked up there a couple of times himself, when he was in high school. “Which direction were these lights facing?”
“That was the weird part. The driver must have parked at a right angle, you know, facing Candy’s backyard directly, so the lights shone right at her house.” She paused. “And then I thought I saw a shadow moving down the hill, like someone was using the headlights to see where they were going.”
“You didn’t call to repor
t it?” Tony knew the answer before she opened her mouth.
“Sheriff, if I called your office to file a report every time some person was parking on the ridge or visiting Candy in the middle of the night, you’d need a much bigger department.”
“You’re right, of course.” Tony found himself reminded, though, of the recent seemingly random attacks on the citizens of the county. Was someone ignoring what they saw because they didn’t want to bother him or his staff? He hoped not.
As soon as Tony and Wade returned to the Law Enforcement Center, Wade carried the mail to his fingerprinting cubicle and began the process of checking the exterior of each envelope. Front and back.
Tony called out, “Ruth Ann, I need you to make notes as we go along.”
Arriving in the room, she whistled at the stack of envelopes. “Candy was a real cottage industry.”
Tony placed Candy’s notebook on the top of the stack. “First thing. Let’s see if anyone besides Candy has been reading this.”
Wade removed his fiberglass latent-print brush from its protective tube and poured a small amount of black print powder onto a clean sheet of paper. He picked a little powder up with a brush and swept it across the front of the notebook, side to side and top to bottom. A couple of smudges appeared. He photographed them. Then he made a note on the lifter he was preparing. “Because it’s paper, I have to use special lifters.”
Ruth Ann looked over his shoulder, studying the small hinged item designed to lift and protect a fingerprint permanently between thin plastic pages. The hinge on the lifter was like a paper tape, where the date and case number could be written on it. “Look at all the different sizes you have.”
Tony heard the sound of the cash register ringing in his head. “Use what you feel you have to, but . . .” His words ground to a halt.
Barbara Graham - Quilted 05 - Murder by Sunlight Page 16
