by Gail Oust
“Gracious! What’s wrong with him?”
“Um … he’s not moving.”
“That’s not a good sign, is it?”
Gingerly, I bent and placed two fingers on the side of his neck as I’d seen dozens of times on TV crime shows. Chip’s skin felt cold enough to send shivers down my spine. I quickly withdrew my hand. His myopic eyes had a cloudy cast as they stared up at me.
“Did he pass out? Is he all right?” Melly inquired from the top of the stairs.
I stared at blood the color of beet juice that formed an obscene halo around dishwater blond hair. Chip’s neck was bent at an unnatural angle. The poor guy looked so uncomfortable, I felt an irrational urge to tuck a pillow under his head.
“Should I call an ambulance?”
“Mmm, Melly,” I hedged, reluctant to send her into a tailspin. “I think you’d better call nine-one-one.”
“Oh, dear.” She wrung her hands. “Do you know the number?”
The number? Melly’s reaction—or lack thereof—was beginning to scare me. “Don’t worry, Melly, I’ll call. I have it on speed dial.”
That was meant as an ill-timed joke. A lame attempt at levity. Inappropriate, perhaps, but I’d atone for my sin later. I dragged my cell phone from the pocket of my hoodie and keyed in the three digits.
Dorinda, the police dispatcher on the day shift, answered on the first ring. “Hey, Dorinda,” I said, trying to sound more cheerful than I felt. “Could you send Chief McBride over to Melly Prescott’s ASAP?”
“You are aware, aren’t you, Piper”—the woman either recognized my voice or had ESP—“that this line is reserved for emergencies only? I know you and the chief are on friendly terms, but if you want to chitchat, call his cell. Need the number?”
“I have his number,” I replied. I probably shouldn’t, but I did.
“All right, then,” she said, her voice curt.
“Dorinda, wait!” I shouted when I sensed she was about to hang up. “This is a police emergency.”
I rattled off Melly’s address, then disconnected before Dorinda could question me further. Not that McBride needed to rush. I knew death when I stared it in the eyes—in this case, cloudy, wide-open eyes. The only place Chip Balboa was going anywhere soon was the morgue.
I trudged up the steps. Melly hadn’t budged from where I’d left her. “Melly … what’s Chip Balboa doing in your basement?”
“I haven’t a clue.” She shook her head, bewildered. “Do you think I should put on a pot of coffee before the police arrive? Or do you suppose the men prefer tea?”
Coffee? Tea? What was she thinking? This wasn’t a meeting of the garden club. Now, I’m no shrink, but it seemed to me like a textbook case of shock or denial. Putting my arm around her shoulders, I steered her away from the coffeemaker. “Why don’t we wait for Chief McBride in the living room?”
“Whatever you think best, dear,” she said as I led her away. “I baked gingersnaps yesterday. They always go nice with coffee, don’t you agree?”
“You can never go wrong with gingersnaps,” I said as I guided her out of the kitchen. What was taking McBride so long? I wondered. The Brandywine Police Department was on Lincoln Street, only a few blocks away. Had he stopped for breakfast first? Shame on me. McBride was a professional through and through when it came to his job. Duty first, coffee and doughnuts second.
I urged Melly down onto the sofa, where she perched on the edge, her hands folded primly in her lap, a lost expression on her face. “Chip said he’d never tasted better gingersnaps than mine. I told him my secret ingredient—cardamom. Not all recipes call for cardamom, you know, but I like the extra flavor boost it gives.”
“Cardamom’s popular in Scandinavian countries,” I said, hoping talk of a spice would distract her—and me as well. A little taste of normal before harsh reality sank its fangs. “Scandinavians use it in breads and pastries. Cardamom comes from a shrub in the ginger family. It’s also used quite extensively in India.”
“Hmm, India. I’m not much on foreign food.”
I crossed the room, pulled aside the sheers, and peeked out the picture window. Still no sign of reinforcements. “The cost of cardamom is right up there with saffron and vanilla,” I continued in the same vein, “because harvesting is labor intensive.”
Melly hugged the lightweight cardigan of her twinset tighter around her shoulders and shivered. “When Chip stopped by last night, I offered him tea and cinnamon toast. Tea and cinnamon toast seem to go together like … ham and eggs … peanut butter and jelly … shrimp and grits…” Her voice trailed off.
In spite of a corpse in the cellar, my stomach made an unladylike noise. What did that say about my character? I asked myself. Not much, probably. It wasn’t as if Chip Balboa and I were bosom buddies. We’d met only once. I’d mourn his loss later, but on a full stomach.
I started to pace. Food temporarily forgotten, my thoughts returned to Chip Balboa, dead in Melly’s basement. So far, I’d blocked out a rather nasty, unsettling thought, but now it returned with a vengeance. Chip’s skin had felt cold. It should have been warm if the accident had just occurred. That meant the fall had happened hours—and not minutes—before Melly called me. What had taken her so long to phone for help?
“Melly?”
My question went unanswered because McBride picked that moment to make his arrival. I released a pent-up breath when two squad cars screeched to a halt in front of the house. McBride sprang out of the lead car. Sergeant Beau Tucker, CJ’s whiskey-drinking, cigar-smoking, poker-playing buddy, followed at a more leisurely pace.
I hurried to open the door. McBride groaned when he saw me. He actually groaned out loud before his cop mask slipped into place. How unprofessional was that? I wanted to ask. Beau stared at a point somewhere over my left shoulder and hitched his trousers higher over his paunch.
“Dorinda failed to tell me you made the nine-one-one call. Please, don’t tell me you stumbled over another dead body.”
“No,” I said with all the dignity I could muster. “I didn’t stumble. I merely opened the basement door and … there he was.”
“He … who?”
“Chip Balboa,” I said. “Come, I’ll show you.”
Melly gave McBride and Beau Tucker a parody of a smile. “Can I offer you gentlemen coffee? Sorry, but I don’t have any doughnuts. Have to watch my cholesterol these days, so I never buy them. I read that they’re high in trans fat.”
Beau frowned at Melly, then spoke to me in a stage whisper, “What’s goin’ on with the ol’ gal? She okay?”
“Shock,” I whispered back. “It’s not every day someone tumbles down her basement stairs.” As I led the way to the kitchen, I couldn’t help wondering what had happened after the tea and cinnamon toast last night.
“Don’t touch anything.” McBride tugged on a pair of latex gloves. Beau Tucker followed his example and did likewise.
I fidgeted at the head of the stairs, the same spot Melly had occupied not long ago. McBride, aping my earlier actions, felt for a pulse. I might have saved him the trouble, but checking a dead body for a pulse was probably protocol.
Grim-faced, McBride reached for the two-way radio clipped to his shoulder. “Dorinda, call the coroner. Tell him we have a body. Tucker,” he ordered, “get the crime scene kit out of the trunk. Soon as you get back, start taking photos.”
Beau brushed past me without a word.
McBride peered up at me. “Are you certain the victim is this Chip Balboa person?”
I swallowed. “Yes, I’m sure.”
“I don’t suppose you were here when Balboa took a header down a flight of stairs?”
“No.” I shook my head so vigorously, my curls bounced. “I came after Melly called and told me to come right over.”
He mentally cataloged the information. “How well do you know the victim?”
“Melly introduced us yesterday when she brought him by Spice It Up!” I darted a glance at the body sprawled a
t the foot of the steps. “Chip and his partner, Rusty Tulley, are from California. They’re in town to see Melly on a business matter.”
McBride’s eyes narrowed. “Business? What kind of business?”
“Something to do with computers. You’ll have to ask her for the details.”
“I’ll do that.” McBride removed a pad and pen from his uniform pocket and jotted notes, my presence seemingly forgotten.
I cleared my throat to regain his attention. “Mm, McBride, is there anything I can do?”
“Keep Mrs. Prescott occupied while we do our job,” he said without looking up. “She seemed pretty shaken. I’ll need to talk with both of you later and take your statements.”
I started to leave but turned back. “McBride?”
He shot me an impatient glance over his shoulder. “Yes?”
I fumbled around, trying to find the right words. “This was just an accident. That’s all, a tragic accident. People trip and fall down the stairs every day. Surely, you don’t think—?”
“At this point, I’m still gathering information. For the time being, however, this is being treated like any other crime scene.”
A crime scene? I swallowed a lump in my throat. Impossible. Ridiculous.
Or was it?
CHAPTER 6
I FELT DAZED as I walked through the dining room and back into the living room. Surely McBride was simply flexing his hotshot homicide detective muscles. Chip’s fall had been just that—a fall. An accident. Why did McBride have to turn it into a federal case?
Poor Melly. I couldn’t help feeling sorry for her. Nothing in her sheltered existence had prepared her for finding a dead man in her basement. I also worried about her. Her color wasn’t good, much too pale. Though we hadn’t always been on the best of terms, we’d reached a detente of sorts. Our current relationship could best be described as borderline friendly. Guess you could say we’d come a long way since the early days of my marriage to her only child.
The screen door opened and slammed shut. Beau Tucker stalked past me clutching a stainless steel box with FORENSICS stenciled on the side. The thing looked big enough to satisfy an avid bass fisherman. I knew that for fact, since Reba Mae’s late husband, Butch, had regularly competed in fishing tournaments. It was his love of bass fishing that did him in. He’d been so excited at the hefty striper dangling from his line, he lost his balance and toppled overboard, striking his head on the bow of his boat, and drowned. It had been a sad, sad day in the Johnson household.
I heard the wail of sirens. Anyone with an official title of some sort was about to descend on Melly’s place like a swarm of boll weevils in a cotton field. The entire Brandywine Creek police force—off duty and auxiliary—along with EMTs in their brand-new ambulance, and firefighters who didn’t want to be left out of the action, all felt obligated to hear the details firsthand, spurred by the “need to know.” They were the town’s first line of defense. And just as often, its first line of gossip.
Before I had time to take a seat next to Melly on the sofa, John Strickland, county coroner and owner of the Eternal Rest Funeral Home, rushed in. “Which way to the basement?” he asked, not bothering with pleasantries.
“Straight through the dining room,” I told him.
“All these folks in and out,” Melly murmured. “Where are my manners? I’m not being a very good hostess.”
I patted her shoulder. “Don’t worry about a thing, Melly, you’re doing just fine.”
As soon as McBride released us, I was going to insist Melly see a doctor, get checked over. She’d had quite a shock. At her age, most anything could happen healthwise.
The front door opened again, and CJ charged into his mother’s home like the proverbial bull in a china shop. If this kept up, Melly might want to consider installing a revolving door.
“Police cars at the curb. Coroner’s van out front. A crowd congregatin’ on the lawn,” he ranted. “Momma, what in tarnation’s goin’ on?”
I sprang to my feet. “CJ, don’t speak to your mother like that. Can’t you see she’s upset?”
He glared at me. “What in blue blazes you doin’ here, Piper? Trouble seems to follow you around like that damn fool mutt of yours.”
I bridled at hearing this. It was one thing to attack me, but leave my dog out of it. “I’m here because your mother asked me,” I informed him.
Melly fiddled with her pearls. “Seems a gentleman caller took a rather nasty fall.”
CJ scowled at her. “Momma, shame on you. You been seein’ some man behind my back?”
“CJ!” I gasped, caught between outrage and outright laughter. I had a hard time wrapping my mind around the thought of Melly dating.
“Really, son,” Melly said with a hint of asperity in her tone. “Mind you, even if I did have a gentleman friend, it’s none of your concern.”
I was relieved to see a trace of color return to her cheeks. “Mr. Balboa—Chip—was a partner in Trustychipdesign.com,” I explained. “If you recall, that’s the firm interested in your mother’s software expertise.”
“Whatever,” he said dismissively. “Thanks to Beau’s heads-up, I got over here before all hell broke loose.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, CJ,” McBride drawled. His tall frame filled the arched doorway separating the two rooms. “If you’re worried about hell breaking loose, you’re a day late and a dollar short.” He turned to Melly. “Mrs. Prescott, I’m aware these are trying circumstances, but I need to ask a few questions.”
Melly let out a fluttery sigh. “Very well, if you must.”
I sank down next to her, hoping my nearness would lend moral support.
“Please explain why you didn’t call nine-one-one immediately upon finding Mr. Balboa? Why you called your former daughter-in-law instead?” McBride asked, pen and notebook at the ready.
“Now, just a cotton-pickin’ minute.” CJ raised a hand, which made him look like a cross between a traffic cop and a first-grader in need of the little boys’ room. “Don’t you go upsettin’ an old lady.”
“Don’t you call me an ‘old lady,’” Melly snapped. “Must I remind you, son, age is a number, not a state of mind.”
I silently cheered her on. Evidently, CJ had forgotten that with many women—and his mother in particular—age was a sensitive subject.
“I believe you wanted to know, Chief, why I called Piper and not the police.” Melly took a moment to collect her thoughts before answering. “I admit I panicked. I had no idea why a man would be lying on my basement floor. Or even who he was. Piper’s levelheaded in an emergency. Who better to call?”
McBride continued his questioning. “Mrs. Prescott, when did you last see Chip Balboa?”
“Let me think.” Melly’s brow knit in concentration. “It must have been around nine or so last night.”
“You certain about the time?”
“Listen here, McBride,” CJ interrupted. “I don’t like the direction these questions are headin’.”
“It’s all right, son. The man’s just doing his job.” Melly stopped fiddling with her pearls and smoothed her skirt. “Yes, Chief McBride, I remember the time quite well.”
“And why is that?” McBride asked.
The room grew so still, you could’ve heard a pin drop. All eyes were fixed on Melly.
“Chip complained of a headache, so I went upstairs to fetch him Tylenol. When I happened to glance at the clock on the nightstand, I realized it was time for Vanished, my favorite TV show, to start. Even though I set my DVR to record, I thought, what’s the harm in watching for a minute or two while I freshen my lipstick? By the time I returned to the kitchen, Chip was gone. I assumed he grew tired of waiting and left. I cleaned up, then went upstairs to finish watching my program.”
“There, McBride.” CJ smirked. “Satisfied?”
McBride ignored him. “Describe how you happened to find Mr. Balboa this morning.”
“It was breakfast time.” Melly clenched her hands togethe
r to keep them from trembling. “I like strawberry preserves on my toast, but I remembered I’d used the last of it yesterday. I knew I had another jar or two in the fruit cellar. I opened the basement door, switched on the light, and that’s when I noticed something—or someone—at the bottom of the steps. I had no idea what to do, so that’s when I decided to call Piper. If I hadn’t needed preserves, it could have been days before poor Chip’s body was discovered.”
“That all?”
“Maybelle Humphries gave me the preserves. Shame she’s still off gallivanting with that Texan she met up with at the barbecue festival. Maybelle’s preserves were the best, don’t you agree, Piper?” Melly looked to me for confirmation.
“Absolutely,” I concurred. “Maybelle’s preserves won first place at the county fair more times than I can count.” Melly’s mind seemed to be veering off topic again. She was obviously more comfortable talking about cinnamon toast and strawberry preserves than about a corpse in the cellar. Can’t say I blamed her.
McBride flipped through his notes. “According to the coroner, body temperature and lividity indicate the victim’s been dead for nearly twelve hours.”
“Twelve hours!” I gasped.
“Twelve hours?” CJ echoed. “John Strickland may be one hell of an undertaker, but that doesn’t make the ol’ boy a whiz-bang coroner.”
I quickly did the math. That meant Chip had suffered his fatal fall at tea-and-toast time, not at the strawberry-preserve hour when Melly had reported the incident. That confirmed my earlier suspicion that Chip’s death had occurred long before Melly’s frantic phone call.
Melly appeared genuinely perplexed. “B-but that’s impossible! He was fine last I saw him.”
“Body’s in full rigor,” McBride stated matter-of-factly.
Who were we mere mortals to dispute forensic science? I tugged my lower lip between my teeth. This didn’t bode well for Melly. Surely she was telling the truth about the events, but convincing McBride of that fact was a whole other matter.
“What are you inferrin’, McBride?” CJ asked, sounding belligerent.
