by Blythe Baker
“My brother acted just like that man from the quarry. He acted the exact same way.” He pointed toward the direction Zane had sped off. “Especially after our mother died. He tried to sell our family home.”
“What did you do?”
“What every person in that kind of situation does. I hired a lawyer. As soon as the letters filled with legalese landed in his mailbox, he changed his tune. That’s usually all it takes.” He spoke in low tones, as if he were spilling some scandalous family secret.
“If I had the money to hire a lawyer, I’d do that,” I said. “But from what I understand, those letters cost a pretty penny. I’ll have to wait and just deal with him.”
I didn’t mention that I had a lawyer ex-husband who could probably write up one mean letter, filled with enough legal jargon to intimidate the guys at the quarry, but the idea played in the back of my head. If I got desperate enough, asking a favor from Drake was a possibility.
I turned and unlocked the door and held it open with my foot.
“It’s a shame that’s what it comes to at times.” Mr. Seeton sounded sad, as if the fact that lawyers ever had to be utilized was a truly heartbreaking aspect of life. I guessed it depended on where you were on the scale of justice.
Mr. Seeton looked a little skittery after witnessing the exchange between Zane and myself. The last thing I wanted was for another rumor to get out about hostilities between the tea garden and its neighbors. Business was going to suffer enough after everyone saw the news this morning. I didn’t want to lose the regular visitors, if I could help it.
“Why don’t you come in and pick yourself out a couple bags of tea, Mr. Seeton? On the house.” I waved him in.
“Well, that would be very kind of you. But I don’t drink tea,” he replied matter-of-factly, as he looked at the watch on his wrist again. It had a gigantic face and from the look of it probably told the time in Dubai and Australia along with Little River, Texas.
“Oh, well, maybe you’d like to pick out something else,” I replied. “It’s the least I can do for one of my regular visitors. You obviously haven’t heard the news.”
“About the interesting ‘finding’ on your property?” he asked simply.
All I could do was nod my head.
“I wouldn’t worry too much about that. The turkey vulture can lift three times its own weight. They eat just about anything. There’s no telling where that thing came from. But if I had to guess, a turkey vulture picked it up from somewhere else and dropped it.”
“Do you really think so, Mr. Seeton?” It was the first uplifting news I’d heard all day.
“Yes.” He didn’t bother to elaborate. I could tell he was anxious to get back to his bird-watching.
“I appreciate the information. I’ll let you get back to your birds. Have a great day. See you tomorrow.” I sounded pathetically desperate.
Mr. Seeton waved good-bye without a smile and ventured down another path into the garden.
He was the second person to suggest that the hand came from somewhere else. That had to be the case, since it was such a common thought.
But, when the police cars showed up a short while later and the officer in charge showed me the warrant to continue searching the grounds, I felt my heart sink.
There weren’t as many uniforms today as there were yesterday. Was that a good sign? I didn’t know. I was glad they were back on the job but, at the same time, I couldn’t wait for them to leave. Once they left, that would mean they hadn’t found anything else. Of course, the news probably wouldn’t report that. I’d already be forgotten about and the business they killed by reporting that an arm had been found would be no concern of theirs.
I wanted to cry but what good would that do me? Instead, I grabbed a package of peppermint tea and headed toward the little room to the back of the gift shop. I had a hot plate back there and a microwave for Kelly. She shouldn’t have to eat a cold lunch every day.
I put a pot of water on the plate and watched as the bubbles started to form.
“Maddie, you didn’t have anything to do with this hand,” I said to my coffee cup. “This is just going to have to be dealt with by someone else. It isn’t like you don’t have enough on your plate.”
I dropped the teabag into the cup. The smell of peppermint was supposed to be a mood enhancer. I could agree with that. It brought back memories of Christmas and candy canes. I had the gloomy thought that it might actually be Christmas before this mystery surrounding the hand was settled.
5
The day ended with the police telling me they hadn’t found anything new but that they’d be back tomorrow to finish up checking the furthest corners of the property. One of the guys in charge assured me there was no need to close the entire place to the public—yet.
“But if we did happen to come across anything else unexpected, we might have to shut you down awhile.”
What could I say to that? I nodded and headed home for the day, where I tried to put the whole business from my mind for a bit.
“One more day and then all of this will literally be yesterday’s news,” I muttered, as I looked through the mess on my dining room table, searching for a couple of take-out menus. I didn’t feel like cooking tonight.
“Ordering out again?” Mamma Jackie complained, entering the room.
“Yes. Do you want something?”
“I guess if I want to eat. Although I think it might suit some people if I starved.”
She made her way over to the small side table, mixed herself a peach julep, then turned to face me. “Anything but that Indian place. The naan makes me sick.”
“Okay. How about we order Chinese food? A couple of egg rolls. Some fried rice. We can share.”
“Fine,” she grumbled.
When the food arrived, Mamma Jackie and I sat on the couch in the front room with the classic movie channel playing a film with Bette Davis as a southern belle.
“She was so pretty,” I said around a mouthful of egg roll.
“She was,” Mamma Jackie said.
This was one thing we really could agree on: food in front of the television, as long as it was an old movie. There was no way Mamma Jackie would sit through any movie made after the year 1979.
We barely spoke as we enjoyed the film. When it was over, I cleaned up the dishes and Mamma Jackie poured herself a nightcap. Moonshine was allowed out of his cage to sit on her shoulder, as she watched the news in her room.
I sat at the dining room table and studied the bills against the balance in my bank account.
After the windfall from a valuable antique cat statue I had recently discovered in the house and sold, I was sitting pretty for awhile. But as they say, if you want to make money you sometimes have to spend it. So, I had enough to cover the completion of the kitchen, the repairs to the plumbing down in the basement, and to landscape a rather wild part of the tea garden that currently was just a patch of trees.
That was where Zane Jones had said my workers were trespassing.
The sudden thought of that guy made me jump. I had a strange feeling that he, like his boss, would resort to any unsavory means in order to get what he wanted.
“Even robbing a grave just to leave the body parts on my property? I sound like Mamma Jackie with all my silly suspicions.” I shook my head. “Not parts. A hand. A hand was found and nothing else. It had to be what both Michael and Mr. Seeton said. The thing was scooped up by some sort of scavenger and dragged into my garden.”
I had decided from the beginning that this was not my mystery. Not this time. I was going to butt out and leave it to the professionals. Still, if for no other reason than to get even, I wanted the police to know about Zane Jones. He had said he heard about the find on the news. It was possible. But maybe he knew about it before then. Maybe he was the one who tipped off the press in the first place. He might have been watching the area where he’d dumped the hand for weeks, hoping somebody would discover it.
The more I turned his
words and attitude over and over in my head, the more suspicious I became.
“Sure. It could all be some coincidence,” I said, as I dialed Michael’s phone number. “But, it could also be an overzealous quarry manager, eager to please his equally corrupt boss. Or, maybe Daniel Walker is using Zane while he has a great alibi, being away on vacation.”
I was spinning myself into a frenzy.
“This is Detective Michael Sullivan. Please leave a message at the beep.”
“Hi, Michael. It’s Maddie. About that hand on my property. I was thinking…”
I froze. What was I doing? I had said I wasn’t going to get involved. I was going to leave it up to the real police who carried guns and badges and knew what to look for in a case like this. I cleared my throat.
“…I was thinking that I hadn’t heard anything today. Is there anything new? No hurry to call me back. In fact, I’m going to bed soon so I’ll just speak to you tomorrow. Thanks. Bye.”
I clicked the ‘off’ button and hooked the phone to the charger, before I knocked on Mamma Jackie’s door.
“Yeah.” She coughed.
“I’m going to bed. Can you make sure Moonshine is in his cage before you go to sleep? Otherwise, he’ll poop all over everything.”
“It’s good luck.”
“It’s gross.” I stuck my head in the room to see her with a deck of cards playing solitaire as the news was on. “Please.”
“Yeah, yeah.” She shooed me away.
“Rawk! Lazy!” screeched the parrot.
“Good night, Moonshine.” I managed a smile.
“Goodbye, Lazy!”
Mamma Jackie chuckled as Moonshine and I exchanged comments.
I clicked my tongue and left the room. Once I was upstairs and in my soft bed, I started to think of how my landscaping project was going to enhance the rest of the park. It was exciting.
Tomorrow the guys would be hauling away the larger trees they cut down, clearing the smaller trees, and bringing in some decorative boulders. It wouldn’t be long after that before they started to dig up the ground for the pond I wanted there. It would be the biggest one on the property so far. I couldn’t help but think lots of engagement pictures and even wedding party photos would be taken there. It was going to be that pretty.
When I awoke the next day, I felt well rested. As soon as the issue of the severed hand came to mind, I pushed it right out and focused instead on my morning coffee.
“I’m going to the back of the garden to meet the excavators. They’re clearing that patch of woods past the pagoda,” I told Mamma Jackie, after I’d showered and come downstairs happy that my coffee was finally ready.
“Who cares?” She shrugged and looked at me over the tops of her reading glasses.
“Right. Well, in case you fall and break a hip, you’ll know where I am. Just lie on the floor until I get back.”
“You’d like that wouldn’t you?” she grouched.
“Immensely.”
I walked outside, holding my full coffee cup and hoped any rain that might be hiding in the overcast sky would hold off until the guys were done cutting the trees down.
Kelly had arrived at the tea garden before me and already had the chain off for people to come into the parking lot. She’d opened up the souvenir shop too.
When I stepped into the shop, she was shaking her head wildly.
“What’s the matter?” I asked, concerned.
“The window is broken,” she told me.
“What window?”
“The little one in the back room. I found it that way when I got here this morning. It looks like someone threw a rock through it.”
She walked me to the back room and pointed to a jagged shard of heavy stone lying on the floor, next to some broken glass. To me, the stone looked like something that might come from a quarry.
“I didn’t touch it. I thought it might have fingerprints on it,” Kelly said nervously.
“It was probably just vandals,” I said, hoping my dismissive attitude was convincing. “With the news of the hand being found, there are probably going to be more incidents like this. You know, crazy kids looking to play pranks at midnight or something.”
I wasn’t sure I believed my own story but it seemed best not to freak Kelly out.
“This is creepy,” she said, as if reading my mind. “Are you going to call the cops?”
“Not this time.” I imagined Zane Jones creeping around on my property at night, thinking that this little act of vandalism was something to brag about. It was probably discussed over beers in town as he and his co-workers at the quarry talked tough about running me out of town. “But if it happens again, I’ll file a report.”
Kelly and I nailed a scrap of plywood over the small window. She swept up the glass, as I checked the cars in the parking lot.
“We’ve got a good crowd this morning, not including the two squad cars,” I said.
“Yeah. Remember you had that adorable old engaged couple, Minnie Harris and Joseph Colpepper visiting with family. They were having some pictures done at the pagoda and around the grounds.”
“Oh, yeah.” I snapped my fingers. “Did you see them when they arrived?”
“I did, but I got distracted by the glass on the floor,” Kelly admitted.
“I just wondered how they looked.”
“Oh, she was wearing a red dress and he was wearing black trousers and a red Polo shirt. They looked cute.” Kelly pointed to the front window of the shop. “Here they come. Are they done already?”
When I looked up, I could tell by the expressions on the approaching couple’s faces that something had gone wrong with their photo shoot. My first thought was that one of them had suffered from exhaustion from the walk or perhaps a misstep along the path. The pagoda was at the top of a flight of stone steps but the stairs weren’t steep or chipped.
“Hello,” I said cheerfully, as the couple arrived in the shop’s open doorway. “Minnie, Joseph. How are your engagement pictures coming along?”
“We don’t know,” Joseph gasped, his face looking damp and his cheeks pink. “We were nearly killed by a piece of that pagoda.”
“What!” My heart jumped into my throat.
“It’s true,” he continued. “Minnie and I had just started to pose at the base of the steps. We climbed up a little higher. Our photographer told us he thought it would be nice with the contrast of light and shadow to stand at the base of the pagoda.”
“It really is a beautiful structure,” Minnie offered. “But I won’t risk going back up there. The piece of roof that fell was the size of a football.”
“It shattered into a million pieces,” Joseph added. “Right in front of us.”
“If we had been just a foot further out, one of us would be attending the other’s funeral, instead of our wedding.” Minnie’s eyes filled with tears.
“I am so sorry.” I was horrified. “I’ll refund your money, of course. If there are any other parts of the grounds you might like to visit for your pictures, please feel free to…”
“I don’t think so,” Joseph spoke up. “We appreciate your understanding of the situation and we’ll take the refund for our entrance fees.”
I gave Minnie and Joseph the money and encouraged them to walk along the paths, as there were so many exotic flowers and beautiful trees that they could still get some lovely pictures of.
But they declined. It was the pagoda or nothing.
I told Kelly, “I had the pagoda inspected, along with the other garden structures, as soon as I signed the legal papers after my grandmother died. Everything passed inspection. I was told the pagoda was completely sound.”
“Maybe a branch knocked something loose during a storm or that day last week when it was so windy. Remember?” Kelly tried to help.
“I’m going to go check it out.”
I went into the supply closet and grabbed a yellow warning sandwich board. It read, “WARNING: UNDER REPAIR”. It should be enough to k
eep my head above legal waters should anyone think of going up there before I had someone inspect the building again.
The sky started to run a little grayer as I wove through the garden. It made the flowers look even more radiant against the gloomy day. It rained so rarely in Little River that the chance of a shower, no matter how brief, was almost as exciting as fireworks.
I came across a handful of people who were bird watching, hiking and just strolling through the grounds. I told them to steer clear of the pagoda as there were some loose stones on the roof that needed to be tended to.
When I made it to the structure, I looked up. It was so beautiful. It had been repainted in that dragon red and the roofs of each floor were a rich dark green. As you looked at the door and around the windows, you’d see the dragons and Japanese symbols for peace and prosperity and half a dozen other positive wishes painted in gold. When I focused on the tower, I could imagine myself in Japan. At the moment, I wished that was where I was and not in Little River, Texas.
I walked to the southern side of the building. There I saw the small chuck of roof tiles that had come off. I looked up and saw one of the peaks along the first eave from the bottom broken away. Upon closer inspection, it wasn’t easy to tell if it had been cut or if the peak had come loose from regular wear and tear. The bracket that held the eave up looked like it had been cut but it was also broken along a joint where it met another piece of wood. Just because there were no jagged ends didn’t mean it was sabotaged. A few tiles were dangling like loose teeth in a kindergartener’s mouth. People needed to stay away with those things still hanging there. A strong gust of wind could tug them loose.
“This can’t be a coincidence,” I muttered to myself, as I propped up the sandwich board and looked around. Part of me expected to see a pair of eyes peeking out from some bushes and then a dark figure taking off in the direction of Daniel Walker’s stone quarry. But nothing moved.
