DEAD AS a DOORNAIL

by Tonya Kappes

  “People that might’ve had a beef with her.” I shrugged and looked down into my tea while I took a sip so I could let them look between themselves without them thinking I saw them.

  “Did you check the men in the hunt club?” Ruby Smith asked.

  “What about them?” This was exactly what I wanted to happen when I told them Lucy Ellen had been murdered.

  “You know when people walk around the shop, they talk to one another.” Ruby was the owner of Ruby’s Antiques on Main Street. “If they bring in a big piece like a sideboard or something, they usually bring one of the members of the club because they need help carrying it.”

  “Did you hear something from one of them?” I asked and took a sip.

  “I overheard a couple of them talking about how Lucy Ellen had taken some cash that belonged to the club and Darnell said that he was going to replace it because Lucy Ellen thought it was their money. But you know men.” She sighed and raised a sly brow. “The hunt club men.” She looked at all the women in the room and they all were nodding and agreeing, which kept the gossip going. “They like to know exactly where their money is going.”

  “I wonder if that’s what Bosco and Darnell got into a fight about?” Viola asked. “That’s just hearsay from Alma Frederick when she came in to get that no-good diamond he got her.” She rolled her eyes, magnified under those big glasses. She owned White’s Jewelry in Main Street across from Ruby’s Antiques. “I told Bosco that it might be big, but the quality of the diamond wasn’t the best.” She laughed. “He said that she’d never know because she only wanted a big one that made all the women in the hunt club jealous.”

  “Why do you keep that trash in your shop?” Mama asked.

  “Because people that can’t afford the nicer cuts and quality do like to show off a little. I have to cater to everyone.” Viola sucked in a deep breath. “Bosco Frederick can afford a good diamond. After all the crap Alma has put up with all these years.”

  “What did Alma put up with?” I asked.

  Viola looked at me. Her eyes narrowed and glanced over my uniform. Darn. The darn uniform always stopped everyone from talking to me. It was the strangest thing. I could’ve had that dress on and Viola’s lips would’ve been flapping with information.

  “Honey, it’s all a little gossip that don’t matter a hill of beans. Well, phooey.” She scrunched up her nose when she looked at her watch. She sat her tea on the table and grabbed her purse. “I’ve got to get going.”

  “I better get back to work too,” Camille spoke up and tapped her watch. “My lunch hour is over.” She grabbed her purse and hustled down the hallway.

  “You call me!” Mama hollered after Camille.

  “And I’ve got flowers for Lucy’s service to get ready.” Myrna stood up and brushed her hands down her shirt. “I’ll talk to you gals later.”

  My job here was done. I’d put the bug in their ears. They weren’t going to go do any work. Camille was going to go back to the office to gossip, while Myrna was probably going to call the people who bought flowers and tell them about the murder. Viola was going to question everyone that came in her jewelry shop about the murder and if they didn’t know, she’d be more than happy to claim hearsay so it didn’t appear like she was gossiping. I’d given them enough gossip to go forth and do some of my investigation for me.

  It’d churn up some details on who just might’ve fought with Lucy Ellen other than Tina and Jolee.

  Why on earth would they really kill her after they’d jokingly threatened her in front of me, the sheriff?

  Most of the gossip was a lot of hot air. But my process got down to the truth. I took what was said in the gossip and whittled it down. The truth usually ended up being about half of the gossip. Still, gossip gave me leads and leads led me to questions and questioning people. It was something I’d learned from Poppa.

  “I guess I better go. Now that my happy fat will fit into the dress.” There wasn’t any sort of alarming tone in my voice, just satisfaction that I’d given them the shock of their lives. “Blanche, you’re better than any therapist out there.”

  Mama shot a look at Blanche that was filled with daggers.

  “Mama, good to see you.” I cordially nodded at both of them.

  “Choo, choo.” Poppa appeared next to Mama. “You’ve got the gossip train on a roll. Now we let that get going and sit back to listen in. There’s a little truth in each bit of gossip. We’ve just got to find it.”

  Chapter Eight

  The morgue was located in the basement of Cottonwood Funeral Home, the only funeral home in our town, and no matter how many bodies I’d seen, it never got any easier standing in the door of the cold institutional-looking room staring at the dead body lying on the stainless-steel table. Especially when you knew the person.

  “You gonna pass out?” Max Bogus gestured to the yellow paper gown hanging on the coat rack for me to put on over my clothes.

  “Nah.” I put my arms through the holes of the yellow gown and wrapped the ties around my waist. I plucked a couple of gloves from the cardboard box and snapped them on my hands. “Anything new?”

  “Yeah.” He nodded his round face. He stared at me behind his thick-rimmed glasses from over Lucy’s body. A scalpel in one hand and a magnifying glass in the other. “You aren’t going to believe this.”

  “Try me.” I took my time walking over and stopped a few feet away from the table.

  “A large portion of the cyanide is around her fingers, mainly her nail base.” He pointed to Lucy’s hand with the scalpel. “I scraped a piece of the nail polish off and ran a quick test. Full of the poison.”

  “You’re telling me that Lucy Ellen died from cyanide poisoning in fingernail polish?” I asked, knowing this was the nail in Tina’s coffin if that was the case.

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying.” He took a step back and put the items on the rolling tray next to the autopsy table. He took the gloves off, throwing them in the hazardous waste bin along with the yellow gown, and motioned for me to follow him to his office. “Of course, this was a quick preliminary test. I’ve sent a large sample off to the lab so we can get the breakdowns that I need to finish the report up.”

  I took off my gloves and gown, putting them on the counter in case I needed to put them back on since they weren’t really used and followed him into the office, which was just through another door.

  He tucked his blue button-down shirt further into his khaki pants before he sat down in the office chair behind his desk. The room was simple, nothing fancy. He had a desk full of paper piles and a chair in front of his desk, which was where I sat. On the wall were his medical license, business license, and coroner’s license. He only had up the necessary items to prove who he was in case he was audited.

  Max lived a simple life. He went to work, did his job, and enjoyed his home in the country. There wasn’t any romance or social life that I knew of, but then again, I didn’t stay in the gossip groups.

  “I’ve seen a lot in my time, but this takes the cake.” He opened a file and set it in front of me. He pointed to numbers and graphs that told me about the levels of poison and what they meant.

  Of course, the only thing I cared about was the signed autopsy report that stated the cause of death as homicide by poison, because it gave me the go-ahead to start an official investigation.

  “If you can find the bottle of nail polish, I bet you’ll find the murder weapon.” He peeled the glasses off of his face and dropped them on this desk. His elbows rested on the arms of his chair after he eased back and clasped his hands, resting them on his belly. “I never ever thought I’d say nail polish was a murder weapon.”

  “Unfortunately,” it made me sick thinking about it, much less saying it, “Tina Bowers is my number one suspect.”

  “How did you come to that conclusion?” he asked.

  “Yester
day I was at Tiny Tina’s cashing in a gift certificate.” I left out the details of how Finn had made me take a day off. This was business, not a social call. Nor did he care why I was at Tiny Tina’s. “Lucy Ellen came in all upset because Tina wouldn’t make her a hair appointment or fit her in for her nails. When she left, Tina said she probably should’ve cut her hair but let the shears slip across her neck.”

  “She said that?” His brows furrowed.

  “And she did this.” I slid my finger across my throat like Tina had done.

  “But none of that makes sense.” Poppa appeared behind Max. “You don’t tell on yourself when you’re planning on murdering someone.”

  “That’s strange.” Max sat up. “If that’s the case, it could be premeditated murder.” He reached over and shut the file. “But that’s for you to figure out.”

  It would definitely be premeditated if Tina had gone to the trouble of putting poison in her polish bottle, then calling Lucy Ellen to come back.

  “Thanks.” I picked the file up. “How did Darnell take it?”

  “He’s devastated. He’s beating himself up for going to the woods because she begged him to go to that wedding. You know how grieving people are. Playing that ‘what if’ game, trying to change the time they spent with their loved ones the twenty-four hours before death.” Max made a great point. Everyone always second guessed themselves when it came to a loved one’s death.

  “He didn’t know she was an organ donor and was real sad she couldn’t give life after death.”

  “That’s a shame.” I wondered if she’d been able to give her organs if she would’ve been remembered for that kindness instead of the mean-spirited bad reviews she’d written.

  “He wondered if he’d been there whether he could’ve stopped someone from killing her, but I’m not sure if he couldn’t have stopped her from getting her nails done.” He sighed.

  “I’m not sure anyone was going to stop her yesterday from getting her nails done.” It made me wonder if Lucy Ellen had just pushed Tina to her limit after I’d left. Maybe Tina told her to come on in and get her nails done, poisoning her in the process.

  Even though Tina had said she didn’t see or talk to Lucy Ellen after Lucy Ellen left. Was she covering up what she’d done?

  “I’m not sure she had them done so much as did them herself.” He picked up his camera from the desk and turned it on. It took a minute for him to scroll through the photos. “Here, this is the right hand. Scroll across five more times to see the photos of all five fingers.”

  Each photo showed a finger and nail. I wasn’t sure what he was pointing out.

  “I can tell you don’t paint your nails often.” He got up and stood over me. He pointed out, “Lucy Ellen Lowell was right-handed.” He took the camera from me and showed me another photo. “This is her left hand. They are pretty perfectly polished from her using her right hand.”

  “She painted her own nails because her left hand painted her right nails and the nail polish is all over her fingers,” Poppa chimed in. “Good observation, Max.”

  I repeated what Poppa had said.

  “Exactly. The poison got into her skin. Her toes are pretty perfect, but there’s some on the skin around her toes too.” Max showed me more Perfectly Posh colored photos.

  “Then Tina didn’t kill her directly,” Poppa observed.

  “Tina could still have given her the nail polish with intent for Lucy Ellen to paint her nails with the poisoned polish.” The possible scenarios rolled around in my head.

  “Tina might say that she didn’t kill Lucy Ellen and she didn’t know the polish was poisoned. So we need to find the cyanide.” Poppa was good at trying to put himself in the mind of the killers.

  “Possibly.” I nodded.

  “Kenni.” Max looked over his shoulder. Poppa looked at Max, but Max didn’t see Poppa. “Who are you talking to?”

  “Myself. Can you give me a sample of the nail polish?” I asked. “I’d like to take it to my lab and have Tom Geary analyze it for the compound. I’d like to know exactly what ingredients she uses. Tina makes her own polish. If this is the polish she makes, it makes even more evidence against her.”

  “I can do that if you sign it off as evidence in the investigation.” He put the camera back on the desk and walked out of the office. “I’ll email you the photos.”

  It didn’t take him but a second to snip off Lucy’s fingernail into a baggie that I could take to Tom Geary, the owner of the lab I used located in Clay’s Ferry, the next town to Cottonwood.

  “Here you go.” He held it out. “Let me write it in your file and mine, give me a signature, and you’re out of here.”

  “Sounds good,” I said and took a nice long look at the fingernail while he got the paperwork completed.

  After a few quick strokes of my John Hancock on the papers, I had my evidence and was back out to the Jeep where Poppa was waiting.

  “What are you thinking?” he asked.

  I turned the engine over and looked around and made sure no one was around to see me talking to myself.

  “What you said about it being a premeditated murder is right. I’m not sure Tina has that in her, though anger brings out the worst in people.” I looked out over the wheel and put my hand on the gearshift and put it in drive.

  “She might if I was right that she didn’t technically paint Lucy’s nails herself. The evidence is the evidence.” He looked down at the baggie in the seat. “Tom Geary is our guy to find out. And where is the bottle of fingernail polish?”

  “I don’t know.” The Wagoneer rattled out of town onto the country road that led to Clay’s Ferry. “Tina looked in the back of her shop while I nosed around up front.”

  “Did she really look in the back or did she get rid of the evidence?” Poppa and I loved to play the back-and-forth what-if game that came along with solving crimes.

  “We can look to see if there is a dumpster behind her building, or even search her house.” That was a good thought. “Search her house,” I said again and nodded.

  The late afternoon sun was starting to go down. Daylight savings time really did make the days feel so much shorter with less sun. If I was going to get to the lab before it closed, I better hurry.

  I grabbed my phone and called Finn.

  “Don’t tell me you’re cancelling” was how he answered the phone.

  “No.” I couldn’t stop my smile. Poppa grumbled. “I called because Max gave me the report. The poison was put in Lucy’s fingernail polish. Max also gave me a fingernail clipping so I can take it to the lab for Tom Geary to analyze. I have to see if this is Tina’s homemade polish, because if it is, I’m afraid I’m going to have to haul her in.”

  “Oh man. This is big.” Finn wasn’t joking. This was huge. “Right here before the wedding too.”

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  “When the mayor found out about this being a homicide, he came to Darnell’s house while I was securing it. He asked if we could not focus on the investigation so much since it overshadowed his wedding.” He paused and I took the moment to speak up.

  “Are you kidding me?” I gripped the wheel and pushed the pedal down to go faster. “He’s such a jerk. I’m not doing it. I’m going to get to the bottom of this with or without his approval.”

  Chance Ryland and I had a rocky past. He wasn’t a big fan of mine and it was no secret he didn’t vote for me. But we could all see who the sheriff was now. I didn’t get there by kissing his fanny either.

  It was hard to get too upset thinking about Mayor Ryland’s arrogance as I drove this stretch of country road. It was easy to get lost in the pops of fall colors and trees that lined the curvy road. The last bit of sun forced its rays through the branches and made little light dots on the pavement.

  “He knew you’d say that.” Finn laughed. “I told him you
were the sheriff and he needed to take it up with you.”

  “Yeah, I’ll take care of him.” I was so tired of him and secretly wished someone would run against him, but like me, he was running unopposed this election.

  Another four years of him as our mayor was going to be the best lesson in patience. Then I’d also have to deal with Polly Parker and her new title of being his wife. The mayor’s wife. I laughed out loud thinking about her wearing a sash around town with a crown on her head. Something I wouldn’t put past her.

  “What are you laughing at?” Finn asked.

  “Nothing.” I shook it off. “But I will say that it’s strange that the mayor would want us to actually keep the investigation on the down-low or even stop it until after the wedding.”

  “I said that same thing to him,” Finn said. I loved how he and I thought alike on most instances when it came to cases. “He said that he didn’t want anything to overshadow the wedding. He even said something so cold.”

  “What?” I asked, worry in my head. What if the mayor knew more about Lucy’s murder than he wanted to give up? He was a member of the Hunt Club. It was full of the good ole boy mentality and Mayor Ryland definitely had that attitude.

  “He said that no matter how quickly we solved it, Lucy Ellen was dead now and would still be dead after the wedding.” As Finn said these words, I could actually hear them in Mayor Ryland’s voice.

  It made me shiver.

  “I’m about to turn into the lab. I’ll be over after I grab Duke from the department and go home to change.” I had to focus on the task at hand and deal with Mayor Ryland later.

  “I got Duke a little bit ago. You won’t make it by the time Betty leaves and I didn’t want to leave him there alone.” His kindness made me love him even more. “I’ll stop by your house and grab him some food and your clothes if you want.”