Barbara Graham - Quilted 05 - Murder by Sunlight

by Barbara Graham

  “But you didn’t try to correct the story.” Tony clenched the pen, breaking another one. He was going to have to find stronger pens or find another outlet for his anger.

  Pingel waved his hands, forgetting he held the coffee cup, and black coffee flew through the air. “Yes, yes, we did. Right after the funeral we apologized to Candy. Gave her some cash to add to her college fund.”

  “College?” Tony hadn’t heard anything about plans for higher education.

  “Well, she was planning to become a hairdresser. We said we’d give her a good recommendation as a babysitter, if she needed one.” Pingel’s words tumbled over each other. “But the gossip had started and couldn’t be stopped. It got worse and worse, and my father-in-law added false details and spread the story, and we finally moved away just to shut him up.” Pingel fell silent. “We thought it would be better for us and Candy if we moved away.”

  “Where is your wife now?”

  “I’d guess she’s gambling.” Pingel frowned. “I called earlier, and the babysitter said she’d taken off for the weekend. She does it about four times a year. I can give you a phone number for her.”

  Tony called Mrs. Pingel and learned her location. Thanks to a cooperative deputy in the North Carolina casino town, Tony verified in only a few minutes that Mrs. Pingel had been at the poker tables during the time of the murder.

  After Pingel left his office, Tony felt a deep sense of relief. He believed Pingel’s story, especially after he asked Sheila to check it with Mr. Yates. The bitter man admitted the truth, and Tony felt they could cross the Pingel family from the suspect list.

  “Let’s see what other dots we can connect.” He stood in front of his white board, talking with Sheila. “Opal Dunwoody claimed she saw a woman walking toward Candy’s house.” Tony checked his notebook. “Then they argued.”

  Sheila didn’t look convinced the story meant anything. “Opal would not have been able to see if the woman went into the house through the front door or walked around the side toward the garden and greenhouse area.”

  Tony agreed. “Or neither. It’s possible she talked to Candy out front and then left. Opal was pretty vague about the time.”

  “And unless her glasses were clean, which I seriously doubt has been the case for years, she could have been watching through a smudge as thick as a curtain.”

  “They certainly were not clean when I talked with her.” Tony suspected cataracts caused Opal all kinds of visual confusion that, mixed with some greasy dirt on her glasses’ lenses, would render her almost blind.

  “And as for the day”—Sheila fanned herself with her hand—“she’s a nice old lady, but she spends lots of time in her front yard watching the neighbors and the traffic over at the convenience store. Even as mentally sharp as she is, Monday and Wednesday would be easy to mix up.”

  “True.” Tony gestured with the marking pen. “I don’t think we can ignore or confirm the events seen from her angle.”

  Sheila studied the board. “Who took the code book? And how did they even know it existed?”

  Tony’s shoulders twitched. “I’m guessing our victim, the something-less-than-brilliant blackmailer, probably let the information loose herself. Can’t you just hear Candy going on about her code book? She could have waved the notebook in their faces, telling each one how she’d know if someone didn’t pay on time.”

  “Silence at any cost.” Sheila nodded. “It’s the blackmailer’s job security. Can you imagine having something you needed to keep hidden so desperately that you handed over your family’s grocery money to Candy Tibbles every month?”

  “Thankfully, no.” Tony considered that particular situation well out of his area of personal expertise. But all people, including himself, were fallible. “We all like to think we’re too smart, too lucky, or in control of our destiny, but it might not be true.”

  Sheila nodded her agreement. “Especially when someone is fighting an unseen enemy. The story doesn’t even have to be the truth. Think of the mayor’s situation, paying blackmail even though he didn’t need to. The same thing could happen to you. I could claim I saw you steal something at the grocery store. Even if it was untrue, the accusation would tarnish your reputation. Maybe you’re afraid you won’t be reelected. You don’t want your family to suffer from embarrassment or your joblessness, and so I suggest you give me your lunch money every week and say I’ll keep my silence.” Sheila frowned. “Maybe Candy was smarter than we give her credit for.”

  “Or maybe not. Maybe one day you want a raise. Greed raises the cost of silence. The payment increases.” Tony lifted an eyebrow. “What if I can’t pay? Trying to save the family budget, Theo begins packing me a lunch instead of having me buy my own.”

  “I’m screaming at you, telling you to give me the money,” Sheila jumped in. “I don’t care where you get the cash.”

  “So I whack you in the head to shut you up,” Tony said. “It works. You fall down and all I care about is you aren’t yammering at me anymore.”

  “So,” Sheila said, smiling. “What did you hit me with?”

  “I wish I knew.” Tony shook his head. “It was hard, cylindrical, and smaller in diameter than any of the tools we found under the house.”

  “Who was our guy with the map?” Tony himself had almost forgotten the odd report. “On a cul-de-sac with only four houses, it sounded like he couldn’t find the right address.”

  “Maybe he didn’t have any trouble finding the right house but was just covering his actions. Spying on your neighbors is a sport played everywhere. Spying on strangers is encouraged as a crime deterrent.” Wade had joined the impromptu meeting.

  “So he could have as easily been watching Mrs. Vanderbilt as Candy.” Tony thought the young mother was much easier on the eyes, but probably not fascinating to watch for long periods of time, and Candy might have been.

  “What about the surveillance video from the convenience store? Maybe it caught the license plate.” Sheila flipped through her notebook. There is almost always traffic at Kwik Kirk’s.

  “Maybe he went into the store for a snack.”

  Tony sprang to his feet. “The video. I forgot all about it. Kirk gave it to me days ago and then I went back to Candy’s place.”

  “Hopefully you put it some place safe.” Sheila gave him a smile. “And still have it.”

  He had. The moment he remembered it, he knew he’d shoved it in the briefcase he kept in the Blazer and almost never used.

  It didn’t take long to find the information they were looking for. Only one man wore the hat described by Roscoe and Veronica. A few minutes later, the mysterious man with the binoculars was finally positively identified as Ulf Erikson, a botanist from North Carolina.

  It wasn’t much after that when Sheila found him sitting in the car on a back road and called in her sighting. She said he appeared to be studying the back of the Tibbles’s property. As expected, he had a pair of powerful binoculars, a camera equipped with an extra-long lens, and a notebook on the seat next to him.

  Tony said, “I’d like to have him in my office.”

  “I’d be more than happy to arrange it.” True to her word, only a few minutes passed before Sheila ushered Erikson into Tony’s office. “I checked him for weapons, and he didn’t do anything stupid when I suggested he come with me.” Aggravation laced her words. “He did whine the whole way here. Not a pleasant sound at all.” She took a step toward Tony’s open door.

  Tony raised a finger, signaling for her to wait.

  “I didn’t do anything wrong,” Erikson said. “I heard the boy had discovered a beetle-resistant strain of beans. I just wanted to talk to him about it.”

  “Interesting, but the last I heard, no one uses binoculars for conversational purposes.” Tony found the man annoying and a liar, but he couldn’t imagine Erikson was likely to bash Candy in the head and leave her to die in an overheated greenhouse. Why would he bother to pull the tarps away and leave her in the full heat of the s
un? Unless . . . “Did you sneak into the garden and get caught?”

  “Caught? Sheriff, you make it sound like I was doing something illegal.” The weasel’s eyes moved constantly, hiding something.

  In spite of his bluster, he wasn’t convincing. Movement of his Adam’s apple showed he was swallowing convulsively. Tony relaxed in his chair, toying with his pen. “I’m convinced the law is still on the side of the homeowner. Trespassing is frowned upon.”

  “I knocked.” Erikson fidgeted a bit. “When no one came to the door, I walked around back to see if someone was in the garden.”

  “And?” Tony leaned forward abruptly.

  Erikson flinched at the sudden movement. “I didn’t see anyone.”

  “So you left?”

  “Well, not right away. I did take a few photographs.” He seemed to be strangling on his words. “I needed to be able to compare the plants with their later appearance.” His words ground to a halt.

  “But these are not your plants. Are they?” Tony pointed his pen at the man.

  The botanist meshed his fingers tightly together and leaned forward. An expression of great intensity pulled his lips tight against his teeth. After a few moments, he shook his head.

  “So you were trespassing?”

  Erikson nodded.

  “Did you go into the greenhouse?” Tony guessed some of the man’s reluctance to tell the truth came from what he witnessed in there.

  Erikson’s head swung back and forth like the clapper in a bell. “I heard the insects and looked in.” He suddenly gasped as if he’d been holding his breath. “It was horrible. They were feasting, but I couldn’t help her. I mean, she was obviously dead, and I didn’t want to be involved.”

  “Why not make an anonymous phone call?” Tony could not understand the way the man thought. “If you weren’t doing anything wrong, how could you just leave any person, a human being, in the dirt, in that situation? Have you no feelings, not a whit of conscience?”

  Silence. One shoulder twitched.

  It was all the answer Tony received. He glanced past the man to Sheila. “Get copies of his ID and cut him loose. I want to be able to locate him if we decide we need him after all.”

  “I think he’s a liar and a potential thief,” Tony snapped, adding more documents to the ever-increasing file on Candy’s murder. “What do you think I can charge him with?”

  “Do you think he ever encountered Candy?” Wade leaned against the door frame.

  “Yes. I do.” Tony didn’t know why he was so certain the man had not told them everything he knew. “I think he’d been staking out the greenhouse for several days before she died, and he’s still doing it.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense to me, but maybe rivalries in botany operate under special rules. I assume they are much the same as in other industries, though. Whoever crosses the finish line first will win.”

  “Let’s say he’s telling the truth.” Wade stared off into the distance. “He went out there, and Candy told him what? That Alvin wouldn’t be home for a while, or that he didn’t live there any more, or that for fifty dollars she’d give him a couple of plants, thinking Alvin wouldn’t miss them?”

  Tony sensed Wade was on to something. “But he comes back with the money and doesn’t find her. He’s angry. She’s promised him one thing and doesn’t deliver. He stomps out to the garden, and she taunts him and starts to walk away. He picks up a hoe or something and swings it like a baseball bat and hits the back of her head.”

  “She falls into the greenhouse. Or maybe that’s where he struck her. He can see she’s still breathing and panics. He begins ripping the tarps off the glass ceiling and stops when he sees he’s making the situation worse. The temperature is increasing, and he hears someone coming.”

  Tony rubbed his bald scalp. “And?”

  “Panicking, he slinks away and tosses the hoe under the porch. But that’s all wrong, because the weapon wasn’t the hoe, and nothing under the porch was the right size. He has to pretend he’s still looking to talk to her and Alvin.” Wade appeared less certain.

  Tony took up the thread Wade had started. “He slips away so he can come back, pretending to just be arriving. Maybe the weapon was under there with the other tools, and he took it later. Maybe he even intended to call for help, saying he arrived and found her. That he was just doing a good deed.”

  “Okay, so why’s he still spying on the house from a distance? He’s established his reason for being there and his reason for leaving. Why stay?” Wade shook his head. “I don’t get it.”

  “He wants the plants.” Tony glanced at the white board. “People are coming and going from the convenience store until after dark and on to midnight. If he trots up there with a flashlight, one of the neighbors will see.”

  “True,” Tony agreed. “So what’s he going to do? He plays innocent, and when he sees that it’s safe, he can walk down from the road without anyone seeing him. Then maybe he slips and slides a bit on the ridge, but digging deep enough to grab the plants is quick work. Walk back the way he came until he’s out of sight of the neighbors, slip over to the highway, and walk the rest of the way to his car.”

  “That works,” Wade said. “Mostly.”

  Tony thought the scenario had possibilities, but it didn’t make him want to jump up and yell, “That’s it.”

  “I’m not sure if this is good news or bad news, Tony.” The voice on the phone belonged to Vince of the TBI. “We’ve gotten the preliminary information back and so far, nothing links your wrench wielder and your female victim.”

  Tony wasn’t sure if the news pleased him or not. “What have you learned?”

  “There were any number of substances on your wrench, mostly around the adjusting screw, and they transferred to the injury sites. Oil, grease, soil, paint, and that’s just for starters. And, of course, some of the victim’s blood transferred onto the tools.” Vince growled like a bear. “We did find blood from the guy Sheila calls Not Bob on the shirt belonging to the hitchhiker someone clobbered later on. Definitely transfer.”

  Tony considered the possible implications. “And the Tibbles woman’s injury?”

  “Clean.” The sound of computer keys provided background sound for a moment. “She had soil in her hair, not imbedded in the wound. What you might expect if you fell onto a pile of dirt. There’s no connection between the tools, but it could be as simple as the attacker using whatever is available.”

  “Back to square one.” Tony mumbled.

  “Not necessarily. At least, if you find a dirty wrench and your attacker hasn’t developed a miracle cleaner, we should be able to match the substances. Right down to matching the blood. It would be a slam dunk, evidence-wise.”

  “And the other weapon?” Tony thought he knew the answer.

  “Probably not, but we could try.” Vince used his professional voice. “It does not appear, at this time, to possess any unique qualities. However, just because it didn’t transfer much onto your victim, that doesn’t mean she didn’t transfer conclusive evidence onto it.”

  “In other words, we need to find the right weapon.”

  Theo stood in the kitchen, staring at their backyard. The boys and Daisy were tearing through the grass but avoiding the new garden patch. That might have had something to do with the new wire mesh fence surrounding it. She felt concern and affection for their teenaged gardener. “Do you think Alvin is going to be okay? I heard he decided to come back from camp today, and I told Martha she should bring him along for dinner. I guess he didn’t feel up to dealing with all of us.”

  “He’s a strong young man. Thankfully. Between Martha, Mom, and Sheila’s mother, he’ll crave the day he can get away from all the surrogate mothers in his world. I just hope they don’t drive him crazy.”

  “Aren’t you including me in your wish list?” Theo teased. “You, of all people, should know I have a gift for nagging.”

  Tony kept his mouth care
fully closed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  * * *

  Theo kept smiling. There was nothing else she could do. Winifred Thornby from the newspaper was taking pictures and asking questions at the same time. A few of the questions had nothing to do with her shop and it being featured in a national quilting magazine, and everything to do with her husband’s investigation.

  Sometimes Theo felt like the referee. Tony and Winifred did not have a good relationship.

  Thinking what an understatement this was made Theo’s smile widen. Tony and Winifred didn’t just have a strained relation-ship—they destested each other. Luckily, Winifred took a photograph that satisfied her before Theo dissolved into hysterics.

  Winifred put her camera in the bag and stared at Theo. “That worthless husband of yours had better catch the attacker with the wrench, and what else, a hammer? If he’d spend more time doing police work and less time eating pie, our county would be a safer place to live. Two victims, no, three with Candy, and maybe more to come. How can you tolerate it, living with someone that lazy?”

  So much for the good mood. Theo couldn’t address Tony’s investigation. “You might want to talk to some of the quilters working on the charity quilts.” Theo tried to move Winifred closer to the frame surrounded by women working on the current quilt. “It would make an interesting story.”

  Tenacious and single-minded, Winifred didn’t budge. “I’ll assume your refusal to discuss the matter as agreement with my assessment.”

  “No.” Theo shook her head for emphasis and felt her curls bounce. “I do not agree with you. He’s working hard, but I do not have specific information to give you.”

  Winifred’s eyebrows flew up in an overly dramatic fashion.

  “Are you implying he is withholding information?”

  Theo couldn’t respond. Or, at least, she managed not to.

  “Haven’t you heard of freedom of the press?” Winifred moved closer, stalking her.

  Theo pretended to hear a baby cry and trotted up the stairs. She locked her office door behind her.