Rose Hill

by Pamela Grandstaff

  Scott shook his head.

  “It was pretty much what we thought. He was struck on the back of the head with enough force to crush the skull into the brain. There was internal as well as external bleeding. A blow like that would render someone instantly unconscious, and if no medical intervention was made, that person would most likely bleed to death within a half hour. He probably didn’t know what hit him, and was out before he hit the floor. We’ve narrowed the time of death down to between 1:30-4:00 a.m. through our interviews, and the post mortem supports that.”

  Scott was not surprised but nodded appreciatively.

  “The toxicology tests show he was so full of drugs and alcohol I can’t believe he could stand upright let alone walk and talk. These included cocaine, Oxycontin, beer, and whiskey.”

  “That’s our Theo,” Scott said. “He was a rock star.”

  Sarah looked at him as if that was an odd thing to say, and then continued.

  “You’ll love this. Those slipped discs the doctor had the x-rays to prove? Either those were someone else’s x-rays or Theo had a miraculous recovery, because he didn’t appear to have a back problem, just a back pain medication problem.”

  Scott shook his head over this but did not comment.

  “He had advanced heart disease, cirrhosis of the liver, and his lungs had what looked to be precancerous cell activity. He was a walking time bomb, health-wise.”

  Scott was not surprised to hear any of this.

  “He had $750 in cash in his wallet, and an assortment of credit cards, so the motive doesn’t seem to be robbery. Here’s a surprise: the aluminum baseball bat was not the murder weapon. Looks like Theo used it to break in the office, but there was no hair or tissue on the bat that would be consistent with the injury he received. So, we’re looking for something shaped like a baseball bat, or another bat, I guess. There were flakes of paint and rusted metal in the wound, so perhaps a metal pipe of some sort.”

  She concluded her report and looked to him for a comment.

  “Thanks for letting me know,” was all Scott said.

  Sarah continued looking at him speculatively as she returned the report to her briefcase, and then consulted her notes.

  “Oh, here’s one for you. We found a signature under the label inside the threat card,” she said offhandedly. “It was signed by someone named ‘Lily Crawford.’”

  Scott said “huh” because it surprised him, and Sarah rolled her eyes at him.

  “I know Mrs. Crawford really well,” he said. “All right with you if I go out and see her myself?”

  “Fine with me,” Sarah said dismissively. “It was obviously a prank, and I have plenty to do without following up on practical jokers.”

  “Anything more on the whereabouts of Willy Neff?” Scott asked her.

  “No one seems to know or care,” Sarah said. “If we can’t find anyone else to hang this on, he may be our default leader in the suspect pool.”

  Scott must have looked as shocked as he felt because she looked at him incredulously.

  “I’m kidding, of course. What is up with you today?”

  Scott shook his head and rubbed his eyes, saying, “Lack of sleep, I guess.”

  “I have a couple guys going out to the lodge to look for the secret room. Unless Mr. Neff’s hiding out there with a lead pipe, it’s probably a complete waste of our time.”

  Being it was officially Sara’s case and not his, Scott was only supposed to investigate leads if she allowed it. Sarah seemed to have lost interest in the case, and Scott wondered how much effort she was still putting into it. The two pieces of evidence that Scott had contributed, the secret room and the card, didn’t seem to have impressed her.

  “Are you through with local interviews?” he asked, not wanting to seem like he was criticizing, just interested.

  “Nothing more to be gained,” she said, in the same dismissive way she seemed to answer all his questions lately. “Everyone despised the man, but no one saw or heard anything.”

  “You did talk to Tommy again, though, about Billy Davis.”

  She shook her head, saying, “I don’t know how much credence we can give the kid’s statement,” she said. “Peeping Tom could hardly put a sentence together.”

  “But you talked to Billy again?”

  “No point. Kid’s got an alibi, doesn’t he? His mother says he was home with her all night. Besides, he didn’t seem too upset about Theo decking her; seems like it was a common occurrence. Like I told you, they’re trailer trash, the lot of them.”

  Scott tried to be careful how he phrased his next words, saying, “You don’t sound confident about solving this case.”

  Sarah shrugged.

  “Not much to work with, unfortunately. Unless Tig and J.T. come up with some business associate with a grudge, we may have reached a dead end. In addition, I have my hands full with other cases. I am stretched to the absolute limit, resource-wise.”

  “Then don’t let me keep you,” Scott said abruptly, and stood to indicate she could go.

  Sarah eyed him a moment, and then said, “I could fit in some lunch if you’re interested.”

  Scott gave her a tight smile and said, “I can’t today, I’m afraid. I’m a bit stretched resource-wise, myself.”

  Sarah made a face that showed she found that hard to believe, but Scott ignored it. He was fed up with her condescending attitude.

  He walked her to the door and swung it open for her, but did not walk out with her. She was clearly disappointed, but tried to hide it with brusque cheerfulness.

  “Well, good luck with your prankster.”

  “I’ll let you know how it goes,” he said. “Thanks for stopping by.”

  As the door swung shut behind her, he shook his head at Skip, who had heard everything.

  “She doesn’t give a damn who killed Theo,” he told his deputy. “If we don’t find out, no one will.”

  Lily Crawford lived at the end of Possum Holler, a dirt road extension of Morning Glory Avenue that started at the top of the town behind the library and wound around the hillside past several dilapidated houses, including Drew’s house, Maggie’s property, and the Rose Hill cemetery. Her husband Simon, now deceased, had been a farmer who was well regarded for allowing the town to hold events in the large meadow they owned, one of the few pieces of flat ground in a town built on a hillside. The Heritage Festival took place there every September, after the hay was baled.

  The Crawford farmhouse was over one hundred years old, and overlooked the large meadow from the hillside above it. There was a big red barn and several small outbuildings, although the only animals kept at the farm now were the feral cats that lived in the barn, an old basset hound named Betty Lou, and Penny, an elderly pony.

  Hannah had pleaded with and begged Lily to adopt the pony after she rescued it from a vagrant traveling through town, selling rides on its broken-down back for a dollar. To cinch the deal she brought Mrs. Crawford out to her farm to meet Penny. Hannah explained her border collie Wally was going nuts not being allowed to herd the poor creature every minute, and the pony was agitated by that and all the dogs barking.

  Mrs. Crawford took one look at the filthy, shaggy, sad-looking pony, and her heart went out to the poor beast, as Hannah knew it would. Penny came to live on Crawford’s farm and Lily eventually won her trust in the time-honored way, using apples and carrots. Now Penny ate grass in the meadow spring and summer, ate pony chow sweetened with molasses during the winter months, and reposed in a warm barn every night.

  Betty Lou the basset hound was half-blind and had arthritis, but she was still an excellent watchdog, and bayed at the top of her lungs when anyone ventured near the house. Scott got out of his SUV and gave her a treat from a bag he kept especially for her, and she snuffled it up greedily before waddling after him up the path, hoping for more. He knocked on the back door and Mrs. Crawford appeared, drying her hands on a dishtowel.

  “Come in, come in,” she said cheerfully. “W
hat a nice surprise!”

  Scott wiped his feet before entering the big, homey kitchen, which was warm and smelled like apples and cinnamon. Mrs. Crawford was the picture of a sweet old granny, with neat white hair, wire rim glasses, and a soft, cushiony figure, but the image was misleading.

  She and her husband had been Harley Davidson enthusiasts, veteran rock festival attendees, and were known to throw some wild parties in their younger years. It was rumored that Mr. Crawford grew a small quantity of potent marijuana in a secret location on his property, and many a high school student still searched for that patch in vain.

  “Congratulations on your big promotion,” she said. “Simon would be so proud of you.”

  “I hope that pie isn’t spoken for,” Scott said. “It smells delicious.”

  “I’m baking it for Gwyneth,” she said. “She’s living up at the inn until the college president moves out of the house, and you know Connie doesn’t bake anything fresh.”

  Scott thought Gwyneth probably hadn’t successfully digested a baked good in over thirty years, but said nothing. Connie was the Eldridge Inn innkeeper, known for her obsessive sterilization of anything anyone touched, but not for any culinary expertise.

  He sat at the kitchen table, covered in a well-worn vintage cotton tablecloth with a pink and green floral pattern on it. There was a freestanding gas stove in the kitchen, and between it and the heat from the big cooking range, Scott could feel himself starting to sweat. He took off his coat and gratefully accepted the hot coffee and cookies she served him.

  “Where is the college president going to live now Gwyneth has kicked him out of his house?”

  “He and his wife are going to move into the inn until they find a place. His wife mentioned an extended stay at her daughter’s in Florida, so probably he will stay at the inn until they find something.”

  “Gwyneth sure didn’t waste any time,” Scott said sharply.

  “It’s her house now,” she admonished Scott. “Hers to do with as she pleases.”

  Lily put more homemade cookies on the now empty plate before him. Scott always felt comfortable in this slightly messy kitchen in a way he didn’t anywhere else, even in the house in which he grew up. With Lily Crawford, there were no strings attached to her maternal gestures, and no strict rules of behavior; she only wanted people to feel welcome in her home.

  Scott and his friends had been coming up the holler to visit the farm all their lives. Simon would let them help drive the cows from one pasture to another, and they would take turns riding on the back of his tractor when he plowed or mowed the fields. He enjoyed their company, and didn’t mind them hanging around as long as they did as he told them, so no one got hurt.

  Lily always had something good to eat and time to listen. Every weekend toward the end of summer she would split a watermelon for them, and they would eat big pieces of it seated on the front porch steps, seeing who could spit seeds the farthest out into the front yard. The farm had a good sled-riding hill down into the meadow, and Simon inflated tractor tire inner tubes for them to use as sleds in the winter. Scott still made it a habit every few weeks to come by and check in, but it was really for selfish reasons. She made him feel good.

  Mrs. Crawford took the pie out of the oven and the smell was heavenly.

  “You haven’t seen Willy Neff anywhere since Theo died, have you?” Scott asked her.

  “No, I haven’t seen Willy for a long time. I can remember him as a child, coming out here to sled ride with a group of kids. He was always small for his age, and never had warm enough clothes on. I knew his mother when we were younger. She ran with a pretty rough crowd. You know he grew up next to the Esteps, and Margie used to be sweet on him before all the trouble.”

  I didn’t know,” Scott said, trying to picture the frumpy postmistress as anyone’s sweetheart. “It’s hard to imagine Margie and Willy.”

  He grinned and she shook a finger at him.

  “I know you don’t think Margie looks like the romantic type, but Willy used to be a nice looking young man, although he had a horrible upbringing. His mother was a drug addict, and his father, or the man everyone assumed was his father, left soon after he was born. Margie’s father Eric took a shine to him, and Willy followed Eric around like one of those dogs he always had. I can remember Margie following Willy around in much the same way. She had a mighty crush on him.”

  Scott found it hard to imagine Willy as anything other than the smelly drunk he became.

  “What happened to Willy to make him like he is now?”

  “Well, Willy’s mother passed away, and Eric had his unfortunate accident. Margie and Willy fell out soon after, and then Willy got in trouble,” she said.

  Scott was impressed at how delicately Lily had just described an overdose, a suicide, and a charge of procuring child pornography.

  “I understand Enid is pretty much crippled with arthritis,” Scott observed. “Margie still lives at home with her, doesn’t she?”

  “She does. I know people say bad things about Margie,” Mrs. Crawford said. “That she doesn’t take such good care of her mother and tampers with the mail. I think she does the best she can for her mother, and I’ve never noticed my mail being tampered with.”

  This was the first Scott had heard people said bad things about Margie and how she handled the mail, but Lily couldn’t be induced to say more. She brought up the investigation into Theo’s murder, asking if Scott had any suspects.

  “It’s early days yet,” Scott said, “not like on TV.”

  Scott was trying to decide how to bring up the subject of the card but she made it easy for him.

  “You know, I saw Theo twice the week before he died,” she said.

  Scott made himself all ears as he crunched a cookie and sipped his coffee.

  “I went up to the cemetery to tend Simon’s grave,” she said, “and I was surprised to see Theo there. The only one of his family with a stone up there is Brad, as his parents’ are back in England, so I assumed he’d been to visit it.”

  “Theo didn’t seem like the sentimental type,” Scott said. “He was more likely robbing graves, or dancing on them.”

  “Now, you never know about people,” Lily admonished him lightly. “He talked to me for just a minute, seemed embarrassed to be seen there. He asked me again if I would sell him the farm, and of course I said no. I went home and found a picture one of you boys gave me the summer Brad died. It perfectly captured the way I remember you boys, full of life and ornery as the dickens, standing on a dock at the lake with some fish you’d caught. I put it in a card I had and intended to mail it to him.”

  “Intended to?”

  “I saw him again on the day he died, when I took the card downtown to mail it. He was in the post office, so I handed it to him rather than mail it. He asked me again about selling the farm, but I just laughed. He was tenacious, that one.”

  “Did he open the card right then?”

  “No, he had his hands full, sorting a big stack of mail at the counter next to the trash can. Margie was fussing at him for smoking a cigar in the post office. I didn’t want to embarrass him, so I gave him the card, told him I hoped he had a good weekend, and left.”

  Scott didn’t have the heart to tell her what had happened to the card and photo. Someone had obviously taken what was a kind gesture and made malicious mischief out of it. But how had this person acquired the card and photo from Theo in the first place?

  Maybe he accidentally threw it away with some junk mail, or opened it, was irritated by it, and threw it away on purpose. Anyone could then have plucked them both out of the trash, applied the label to the inside of the card, and then put the card and photograph in a bigger envelope. The Saturday postmark, however, meant Margie had stamped it and put it in Theo’s box after he left. Lily’s statement that she gave the card to Theo on Saturday combined with that postmark was pretty good circumstantial evidence that Margie could have done it, or postmarked it for the person who did.
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  Scott finished the last cookie, groaned about being full, which seemed to please her, and stood up to leave.

  “It was a funny thing, though,” she said. “Brad’s grave is in the opposite direction from where Theo was walking. I wonder what in the world he was up to.”

  Scott thanked her warmly and left with a bag of cookies tucked in his jacket pocket. He drove down the narrow lane to Rose Hill Cemetery, and turned in under the arched iron entryway. Duke the cat was sitting on the stone wall just to the side of the entrance, sunning himself and washing his face. He paused only briefly to consider Scott before resuming his bath.

  The same summer the photo Mrs. Crawford gave Theo was taken, Scott and his friends had a scary experience in the cemetery, and no matter how many years went by Scott still dreaded going there. He reminded himself as he got out of the SUV that he was a grown man, an armed police officer, and it was broad daylight.

  ‘If Mrs. Crawford can come here by herself surely I can,’ he admonished himself.

  The cemetery was not large, merely two acres of hilltop, and the graves were arranged around a figure-eight-shaped drive. Most of the headstones were modest and plain, but there were the occasional flights of granite fancy, most of which memorialized children or young people who died in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. There had been a flu epidemic, tuberculosis, German measles, polio, several mine disasters, and two world wars since this graveyard had been built.

  Scott found Brad’s stone with no problem; he had been to visit a few times on the anniversary of his death. There was a small brass plaque on the stone with “George Bradley Eldridge,” and the dates of his life engraved on it. The only sentiment was “beloved son and brother.”

  Scott walked in the opposite direction, where Theo must have been coming from the day Mrs. Crawford saw him, toward the maintenance shack, and felt the hairs rise up on his arms and neck. The feeling of dread which accompanied him into the cemetery became oppressive, making him feel almost panicked to get away. He looked at the surrounding graves but could not find any with what seemed like a direct connection to Theo or his family.