Death's Half Acre dk-14

by Margaret Maron

  I smiled back. Unfortunately, there was a console and a gearshift between us.

  But he was in a talkative mood and told me about the phone calls Dee Bradshaw had made the evening she was killed: two to Gracie Farmer about the dollhouse and Farmer’s umbrella, one to her boyfriend, who was too drunk to talk, one to Will to ask him to come out and make her an offer, one to Roger Flackman about the possibility that her mother had been skimming the company’s take, and one to Danny Creedmore, who claimed that she had ended the conversation shortly after eight because someone was at the door.

  “And Greg Turner says she left a three-minute message on his answering machine, but he swears she said nothing important and he immediately erased it.”

  “You think one of them killed her?” I asked.

  “Still up in the air,” he said. “I don’t know how the office manager would benefit unless she was in on some skimming, but Flackman says the books are in perfect order and we’re welcome to audit them.”

  “Are you?”

  “Hell, yes.”

  “What about the others?”

  “Well, we don’t think Will had a reason to do it,” he teased. “And Danny Creedmore’s been pretty open about the relationship. Oh, he doesn’t admit in so many words that he put her in place and has told her what to do from the beginning, but we’ve never heard a word of disagreement between them and he seems to have eased her over to Woody Galloway.”

  “To take his body or take his seat?”

  He laughed. “I don’t think he cared which. Woody’s a pretty empty suit as far as the county’s benefited, but he doesn’t take orders from Danny, so maybe backing her for the state senate wasn’t just going to be a holding action.”

  “If Woody gets knocked out of the governor’s race, will he still keep his seat now?”

  “I expect so, don’t you?”

  “Yeah. He’s not totally dumb. If we’ve heard rumors that Candace wanted to run for real, he must have, too. Sounds like a decent enough reason for murder.”

  “Except that he was in conference in Raleigh with a half-dozen senators when Candace was killed.”

  “Greg Turner wasn’t in their pocket,” I said. “He’s a Democrat and often voted against the others. He and Jamie Jacobson both.”

  “Yeah, but you read what Linsey Thomas wrote about him. Maybe Candace and Danny helped keep it quiet about him dipping into a client’s funds.” He hit the steering wheel in frustration. “I just wish to hell we could find her flash drive.”

  “It’s bound to turn up sooner or later,” I said soothingly.

  “You think?” He slowed to turn in to our drive. “If the killer took it, it’s probably been smashed with a hammer and thrown in Possum Creek.”

  Now there was a thought.

  CHAPTER 23

  I don’t know what’s happening,

  and I don’t know how to say it.

  —Paul’s Hill, by Shelby Stephenson

  Weekday mornings are normally harried and a rush to get Dwight off to work and Cal off to school, but Wednesday morning seemed to move on snail legs. Cal’s backpack was sitting by the kitchen door at least twenty minutes before he needed to leave with Dwight to catch the bus at the end of our long drive and he had already bicycled down and back with the morning paper.

  There was plenty of time for him to show us the new trick he had taught Bandit. I’ve always liked dogs, but I became particularly fond of this one after he helped get me out of a very tight spot last winter.

  “Watch, y’all!” said Cal.

  He told the little dog to sit, then gave an upward swoop of his hand.

  Immediately, Bandit rose on his hind feet and bobbled across the kitchen floor.

  Dwight laughed and I shook my head. “All that dog needs is an opposable thumb and he could be people.”

  Cal beamed and gave Bandit a small morsel of food as a reward.

  He performed twice more, then it was finally time for them to go meet the bus.

  “Lunch?” I asked Dwight as they headed out to the truck.

  “Buzz me,” he said. “I don’t know what the day’s going to be like.”

  Once I was sure they were really gone, I rushed to my computer and popped the flash drive into one of the side ports.

  To my total chagrin, the thing was password-protected. Who the hell protects a flash drive?

  “Someone with something juicy to hide,” said the pragmatist, looking up from the morning paper.

  “So give it to Dwight and take your punishment,” said the preacher. “You’re never going to get into it.”

  “Oh, don’t be such a pessimist,” said the pragmatist, laying aside the paper. “You like puzzles. Maybe you can solve this one yourself. It’s worth a try.”

  I started with the obvious things—variations of her name and the company’s name, her daughter’s name, Danny Creedmore’s, Woody Galloway’s, the Colleton Board of Commissioners, with A-B-C or 1-2-3 before and after each one. Nothing.

  By the time I was ready to bang my head against the screen, I had to quit to get dressed and go to work, but I put the flash drive in my purse and a notebook and pen on the passenger seat beside me. On the drive to the courthouse, I jotted down everything I could think of that Candace might have used as her password.

  At the break, I found a computer down in the clerk of court’s office that wasn’t being used and ran through my list in about four minutes flat.

  No luck.

  As I slowly returned to my courtroom, I had to admit to myself that I had only three choices at this point: smash this stubborn piece of aluminum, plastic, and memory circuits to bits, give it to Dwight, or slip it back in the dollhouse. I was pretty sure it would fit inside the miniature freezer and I could suddenly “remember” that I had heard the freezer clunk after I’d wrapped it and then got so distracted when Will and Mr. Bradshaw came back, that I hadn’t unwrapped it to see what caused the clunk.

  Okay, that was weak. Dwight knows how seldom I let my curiosity go unsatisfied, but maybe he’d be so glad to get the damn thing that he’d overlook how it actually turned up.

  Besides, if Candace had recorded anything about Daddy, Talbert, and me, his knowing I’d palmed it would be the least of my concerns.

  When I buzzed Dwight at noon, he was too tied up to meet me. I took that as an omen that it was okay to implement my third option and to drive over to Will’s warehouse.

  On my way out of the courthouse, I was surprised to see Daddy coming up the steps with a man I didn’t recognize.

  “Daddy! Hey. Were you coming to look for me?” I asked.

  “Naw,” he said. “I just got a little business needs tending to.”

  I looked at the other man inquiringly and Daddy reluctantly introduced us. “This is my daughter Deb’rah, Mr. McKinney. Deb’rah, Mr. McKinney’s the preacher at that new church over near us.”

  “The Church of Jesus Christ Eternal?” A sour taste rose in my throat. This was the pompous bastard who used scripture to humiliate his wife and keep the women of his church in check?

  “Brother Kezzie’s told me a lot about you, Judge Knott,” he said, taking my hand in a two-handed clasp that was no doubt meant to convey warmth and pleasure in the meeting.

  Brother Kezzie? All of Maidie’s forebodings rushed back to me. Was Daddy trusting this control freak to get himself straight with the Lord?

  I was speechless, and when I looked at Daddy there was an odd expression on his face that I couldn’t quite interpret.

  “Sorry, Deb’rah, but we ain’t got time to stand here a-chitter-chattering,” he said briskly.

  McKinney told me again how really nice it was to meet me, then they were gone, striding across the lobby to a hallway that led to the tax offices and to our register of deeds.

  Register of deeds?

  For a moment I was tempted to dash after them and demand to know what was going on. I’ve heard that McKinney has a silver tongue when it comes to talking the elderly into givi
ng parcels of their land to the church so that he could do the Lord’s work. The catch to that is that the church is his personal property, which means that all the deeds are registered in his name. It’s said he sold some of the donated land to finance a used-car dealership that was supposed to turn a profit for the church, but so far there’s been nothing to show for the prosperity except a nicer-than-usual parsonage and the well-cut suits that McKinney wore.

  Surely Daddy wasn’t about to turn over some of his land to McKinney?

  “And what if he is?” said the pragmatist in my head. “It’s his, isn’t it?”

  The preacher was silent.

  As Judith Viorst once put it, this was turning into a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

  When I pulled up at the side door of Will’s warehouse, I did get a small break. There was no sign of his van and a small, hand-lettered card in the door window informed the world that he expected to be back by one-thirty. I tried the door. Locked, of course, but with a little more luck, he had only pulled the door to without bothering to throw the dead bolt on the upper lock. One of my nephews had showed me the credit card trick and the simple lock opened on my first try.

  Just to be safe, though, I called out as soon as I was inside. “Will? Anyone here?”

  The office was empty, so I passed on into the warehouse proper and called again.

  My luck was still holding. There was no response.

  Will had left a few lights on, but they did little to cut the gloom and the floor space was so jammed with boxes, furniture, and bric-a-brac that it took me a few minutes to locate the dollhouse. When I did, I was surprised to see that half the furnishings had been unwrapped and lay strewn across the tabletop where the dollhouse sat. Happily, Will hadn’t gotten to the kitchen things yet. I’d wrapped them last and put them near the top of the second, smaller, cardboard box. I soon found the little freezer and, as I’d hoped, once the shelves were removed, the flash drive ought to fit perfectly. I took it out of my pocket, but before I could slide it inside, I thought I heard something rustle behind me.

  Trying to look innocent, I turned with the drive and freezer in my hands and said, “Will? Guess what I’ve found?”

  But I saw no one and realized that I was letting my guilty conscience spook me.

  I turned back, intending to wrap up the freezer and put it back in the box because I wanted Will here when I made my great discovery. But as I reached for the paper, two things happened. I heard a shot and my left arm immediately felt as if it’d been stung by a very angry hornet. What the hell?

  A second shot zinged past my head so close it almost singed my hair.

  I dropped everything and dived for cover behind a chest of drawers just as another shot buried itself in the wood.

  I eeled along the floor till I was behind a tall wardrobe. My arm was on fire and when I looked down, I saw that the sleeve of my white linen jacket was red with blood and I had left a trail of bright drops on the floor. Bleeding like a stuck pig, where could I hide? The shooter was between me and the only way out. Beyond the office were roll-up garage-type doors, but even if I could get there without being seen, they would be locked and I wouldn’t have time to figure out how to unlock them before the shooter heard me.

  Frantically, I looked around for a safe haven and saw a heavy metal door standing ajar nearby. Of course! The warehouse toilet!

  Clutching my burning arm, I made a desperate sprint for it. Another shot rang out and ricocheted off the metal door. As I slipped inside, I glanced back.

  Halfway down the cluttered aisle, a shadowy figure held the little gun with two hands braced on a wingback chair.

  Terrified, I slammed the door shut and rammed the sturdy lockbolt in place.

  An instant later, the door rattled and banged in manic frustration.

  “Go away!” I screamed inanely.

  Something heavy crashed against the door but the metal held firm.

  With my ear against the door, I thought I heard footsteps click away, but it could have been a trick. Didn’t matter to me at that point because no way was I coming out before Will got back.

  If the warehouse was poorly lit, this place was even darker, and the smell of urine and cheap pine cleansers almost gagged me. The single window was small and dirty and no bigger than a legal pad. Hinged at the bottom, it was probably meant for ventilation before air-conditioning. For the moment, I was glad it was at least twelve feet above my head so that I didn’t have to worry about being attacked from the outside. Too, it let me see a light switch by the door.

  The bulb hanging down from the ceiling must have been a forty-watter, but I didn’t care. It was enough to show me the sink. Also filthy. I tried to wipe it out with liquid soap on a paper towel, but by now the pain was so intense that I quit dithering about germs. Easing off my jacket, I soaked it in cold water and held it to the oozing gash the bullet had made in my arm. Ah! Better. Much better. The wound still hurt like hell, but it didn’t seem to be spurting. Not spurting was good, wasn’t it? Meant no major vessel had been hit? I tried to remember the first-aid instruction Portland and I got when we gave Girl Scouts a brief try a million years ago.

  Irrelevant thoughts and disconnected images tumbled through my head in kaleidoscopic turmoil as the adrenaline that had been pumping through my veins slowed down and leveled off. Throughout it all, I worried with the identity of who had shot me. In the dim light, that face had looked vaguely familiar, like a face I might have seen around town without ever putting a name to it.

  Whether it was the adrenaline rush or the loss of blood, I felt myself getting light-headed and sank down on the floor. Random and almost incoherent thoughts flicked in and out of my mind—the dollhouse . . . the flash drive . . . Dwight . . . Candace Bradshaw’s irritating giggles . . . insider information . . . power plays . . . playing loose and dirty . . . this dirty floor . . . Candace’s shining clean bathroom and this filthy, stinking hole . . .

  I don’t know if I actually passed out, but when my head cleared again, I thought I knew who that face was and why Candace and Dee had been killed. If I was right, it explained how John Claude had lost that big case to Greg Turner and why Jamie’s presentation didn’t win her the contract for Grayson Village.

  I looked at my watch. Ten till one and I was due back at the courthouse at one. Forget that. Call Dwight. Tell him—

  Oh. Right. Phone’s in my purse and it must have slipped from my shoulder when that first shot hit me.

  Well, it would have to stay out there. Sooner or later someone would come and then—

  Abruptly, I realized it wasn’t just the odor of pine cleanser and urine that was making me cough. Smoke seemed to be seeping in around the edges of the door.

  I managed to stand and quietly slide back the bolt, then eased the door open slowly, half expecting gunfire. Instead, I heard the crackle of flames. Horrified, I saw a wall of fire blocking my way to the doors, and clouds of smoke billowed toward me.

  CHAPTER 24

  The preacher rushes

  into his sermon, suffering

  happiness in the tears

  that drop

  in his understanding

  of our miserable lot.

  —Middle Creek Poems, by Shelby Stephenson

  In the register of deeds office, the clerk smiled and handed over the receipt for the fees the office charged to register new deeds. “Good thing for y’all that there’s no transfer tax in Colleton County yet.”

  The two men smiled and thanked her for her help.

  Outside they shook hands.

  “I can rest easy now,” Kezzie Knott said, hefting the small carrying case in his hands. “Can’t nobody ever dig up that man’s body now and I know you’ll use this for the good of the Lord.”

  To Faison McKinney’s dismay, the old man opened the case right there on the sidewalk for all the curious world to see had the world been looking. April sunlight gleamed and flashed on the tangle of bright metal and faceted gemstones withi
n.

  “Since these here earrings ain’t worth all that much, I reckon you won’t mind if I keep ’em for a souvenir,” he said and drew out the glittering pair that he had given McKinney to prove that his story was as genuine as those diamonds.

  McKinney bit back his protest. No point being greedy. Not when he was getting a pile of gems worth five or six million in exchange for land and goods worth half that. “Not a bit, Brother Kezzie.”

  “I surely do thank you for all your help, Preacher. And you don’t have to worry ’bout me ever saying a word of this to anybody.”

  “Same here, Brother Kezzie. When we do the Lord’s work, we don’t need to tell the devil.”

  As they parted, each man to his own vehicle, Kezzie wondered what he was going to do with that failing used-car dealership.

  He wished there were a way to see McKinney’s face when his jeweler friend told him that the bag contained only costume jewelry. Good-quality costume jewelry, but worth no more than five or six hundred dollars for the whole bag.

  Well, a man can’t have everything, he told himself philosophically, and drove to the outlet mall, where a black Lincoln with tinted windows sat all alone at the far end of the parking lot. He stopped beside the car and waited till the man in the backseat joined him in the truck’s cab.

  “Everything go okay?”

  “Hook, line, and sinker,” he said. “Just got to know what bait to use.” He dug in his pocket and pulled out the diamond earrings. “And them here was better’n red wigglers or crickets. You want that used-car place? It ain’t worth much and I got no use for it.”

  G. Hooks Talbert gave a sour laugh of grudging admiration. “Damn! You got that, too?”

  “Yeah. I figured as long as we was scraping him clean, might as well.”

  “Do what you like with it. I don’t want my name on anything connected to this.”

  As Kezzie drove back through town, sirens seemed to be coming from every direction. The cars ahead were pulling over to the curb and he did the same. Two fire trucks and an ambulance went flying past and in his rearview mirror he saw several police cars weave in and out around them, all headed in the same direction.