Fatal Undertaking: A Buryin' Barry Mystery (Buryin' Barry Series)

by Mark de Castrique

  Since my father’s death last year, Wayne spent more time at the funeral home. I encouraged him to think of my old bedroom as his own, and though I kept extra clothes and a clean deputy’s uniform in the closet, I no longer assumed I’d be able spend the night whenever I wanted.

  My cabin sat on five acres of woodland several miles outside of town, giving me the privacy and independence that can be elusive in a small community. Although I could be at the Sheriff’s Department or the funeral home in less than fifteen minutes, the psychological distance created a cocoon that helped insulate me from the combined pressures of dealing with the guilty and the grieving.

  Today I’d be dealing with both: the preliminary reports from the crime scene and the funeral for Blake Nolan Junior, whom everyone called Blake Junior even though he’d been in his forties. I also expected we’d get a call from Ralph Atkinson regarding arrangements for his son. I hoped Tommy Lee had fast-tracked releasing Carl’s body from Asheville’s medical examiner so the Atkinsons could put that part of the nightmare behind them.

  A rap on the kitchen’s backdoor caught our attention. Fletcher Shaw stood on the screened porch, his face close to the door’s windowpane.

  “I’ll let him in.” I unlocked the deadbolt as Mom fetched an extra cup of coffee.

  Fletcher carried a box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts. “I brought you some health food.” He set the box on the kitchen counter. Then he looked at the table and his eyes lingered on the serving platter of eggs and crisp bacon.

  Mom handed him his coffee and nudged him toward a chair. “Sit. You’ll have some breakfast, won’t you? We’ve got plenty.”

  “Thanks, but I had a doughnut in the car.”

  “That doesn’t count,” I said. “You’ve got a big day ahead.”

  Fletcher took the seat opposite Uncle Wayne. “I’ve changed my mind.”

  “Good,” Mom said. “I’ll get you a plate.”

  “I’ve changed my mind about going to the game.” Fletcher looked at me and tried to smile.

  “But you’ve got the tickets,” I said.

  For a month, Fletcher had been planning to meet his girlfriend in Charlotte for dinner and the Bobcats’ season opener. I wasn’t an NBA fan, but Fletcher lived and breathed basketball. His girl, Cindy Todd, was in a loan officer training program at Bank of America headquarters and had managed to get great seats at courtside.

  “We’ll have other games,” he said. “Cindy and I thought it would be best if I stayed here today.”

  I could think of only one reason. “Because of the murder?”

  “Word is you’re in charge of the investigation.”

  Uncle Wayne’s old spine snapped straight. “In charge? You didn’t say you were in charge.”

  “Is something wrong with Tommy Lee?” Mom asked.

  “No. But the investigation could be very complicated and Tommy Lee’s got the whole department to run.”

  Uncle Wayne nodded. “And you’re the best man for the job. No two ways about it. I bet they said that in the newspaper.”

  I hadn’t seen Melissa Bigham’s article and wondered if she inserted some editorial comment.

  “Cindy called me at seven,” Fletcher said. “She saw the story on CNN. The paper said there’s a press conference at ten. With the Nolan funeral at two, we didn’t want you and Wayne short-handed.”

  “I’ll be okay.” Uncle Wayne tried to sound confident.

  “But don’t you need to be at the Sheriff’s Department?” Fletcher asked me. “I thought you’d want to launch things quickly.”

  He was right. I should be there all day running the investigation. Instead, I planned to shuttle back and forth from the funeral home to the department, coordinating the burial of one citizen while orchestrating the investigation into the murder of another. Nothing would be in shorter supply than time.

  “It’ll be tight,” I admitted, “but Freddy will be here for the service.” Freddy Mott was a part-timer who helped out when things got hectic.

  Fletcher glanced at Uncle Wayne and then back to me. “There’s some touch-up needs to be done right before the viewing.”

  “I can handle that too,” Uncle Wayne said.

  Fletcher just looked at me. He and I knew my uncle’s eyesight wasn’t what it used to be. An avid deer hunter, Blake Junior had been killed when his pickup hit a buck earlier in the week. He’d been thrown from the cab and wound up beside the deer’s carcass on the side of the road. The buck’s antlers measured twelve points, the largest rack Blake Junior ever bagged. The talk at Mr. P’s Barbershop was that Blake Junior must be overjoyed.

  I needed to tread lightly. My uncle carried a lot of pride, but his cosmetic work would be a disaster. I didn’t want Blake Junior looking like he’d come from a taxidermist taking a correspondence course. “I know you can handle it,” I told him. “But I could be running late. You know how reporters can be.”

  “Pesky people,” he said. “That’s for sure.”

  Fletcher and Uncle Wayne looked at each other. Most of the time they worked well together, but occasionally I had to intervene so that Fletcher’s eagerness didn’t come across as an effort to oust my uncle.

  One thing I knew they shared at the moment was their concern for me.

  “What time’s the game?” I asked.

  “Seven,” Fletcher said.

  “And dinner?”

  “We had five-thirty reservations at a restaurant near the arena.”

  “Why don’t you call Cindy and tell her to cancel dinner, but not give away the tickets. You should be able to get on the road by four-thirty. Don’t worry about unloading back here. I can handle that.”

  “Shoot, Freddy and I can do that with our eyes closed,” Uncle Wayne said.

  “If you’re sure.” Fletcher couldn’t hide his excitement and I was reminded how much he was still a kid.

  I looked at the kitchen clock above the stove. It was nearly eight-thirty. “You’d better stop Cindy before those tickets disappear.”

  He jumped up from the table and snatched his cell phone from his belt. “I’ll be right back.” He bolted through the backdoor.

  Uncle Wayne chuckled. “He’ll be all right. With a little seasoning.”

  “He’s more than all right,” Mom said. “He’s a Godsend. And you’ve enough seasoning to flavor the whole town.”

  I took my empty plate to the sink. “Just let Fletcher do all he can. He made a sacrifice to help me and I want him to feel it was worth it.”

  “I know how to let a young pup find his way,” Uncle Wayne said. “I did it with you.”

  “And you taught me well. Now I’m just as stubborn as you.”

  The wrinkles in my uncle’s face multiplied as he grinned at the compliment. He had taught me well. When my father’s Alzheimer’s got so bad he couldn’t work, Uncle Wayne picked up the slack as best he could. When I quit my Charlotte police job to return home, he guided me through every step, from required courses of study to counseling grieving families. Mom and I owed him more than we could ever repay.

  As I left the kitchen, I looked at them sitting close together, talking over the remains of their coffee. Brother and sister in a kitchen older than me, enjoying each other’s company at a table where I once ate from a booster seat. A table where we made every major decision—from where I went to college to the hymns for my father’s funeral.

  The day ahead of me might be tough, but it was no match for the family behind me.

  ***

  The Laurel County Sheriff’s Department was located in Gainesboro on South Main Street, only a couple blocks from the funeral home. As a part-time deputy, I never took a patrol car home during off-hours but drove my jeep and parked in the employee lot behind the courthouse annex. The two-story building housed the jail as well as our department’s offices.

  The arrangement was convenient for transporting prisoners through a connecting corridor for arraignments, hearings, and trials in the historic courtroom. On the downside, the
department’s proximity to the hub of judicial activity meant the prosecutors, defense attorneys, and bondsmen were always dropping by for a chat. Not that Laurel County was a hotbed of crime. Most days we helped a peaceful community operate more peacefully: serving summons, providing traffic control, and running routine investigations into petty vandalism and minor property theft.

  I knew this morning would be different. Everyone within the courthouse complex would be anxious for the inside word on Carl Atkinson’s murder. I felt guilty arriving as late as I did, quarter to nine. But Tommy Lee had ordered me not to come in before nine. He wanted me fresh and alert. After two hours of sleep, I was anything but.

  The sight in front of the courthouse sent a jolt of adrenaline through my bloodstream. Mobile TV trucks, their microwave masts extended like pale, barkless tree trunks, obscured the sidewalks. Two deputies had been dispatched to keep morning traffic flowing and direct the out-of-town press brigades into limited off-street parking. A Halloween murder in a haunted house was so bizarre even the networks sent crews. I hoped the attention would be a one-day wonder, as the 24-hour news cycle constantly demanded fresh meat.

  At the top of the courthouse steps, centered between the gothic columns, a podium stood in front of the oversized oak doors. One of the courthouse’s custodial staff rolled a wire from the podium’s base to a portable speaker angled at the corner. Apparently the ten o’clock press conference had been moved outside where the chilly November morning created the opportunity for better crowd control and television lighting. God only knew where the live pictures would be beamed. I realized I had struck a great bargain when Tommy Lee agreed to handle the press.

  A swarm of reporters clustered around the public entrance to the Sheriff’s Department, so I slipped into the annex through a side door.

  “Sheriff wants to see you.” Marge Colbert cupped her hand over the mouthpiece of her telephone headset and nodded to Tommy Lee’s office. Marge served as administrative assistant, processing the department’s endless paper flow and dealing with general questions from the community. The lights on her master phone console flashed like a Christmas tree on steroids. I wondered if any of the calls offered a lead.

  I rapped twice on the door and waited for Tommy Lee’s gruff, “Come in.”

  He looked up from his desk and laid a pen beside the half-filled sheet of a legal pad. “Phillip Jamison’s coming at nine.”

  “Why?” I eased into the steel-frame chair directly across from him. The scarred, gray furniture looked like it had been repossessed from a World War Two battleship. “What’s the D.A. got to contribute when there aren’t any suspects to charge?”

  “Are you kidding? He wants to stand close enough to the podium to be in the TV shot. I’m going to give him a courtesy briefing before the press conference.”

  I glanced at the legal pad. “What are you going to say?”

  “The usual. We’ll leave no stone unturned. Our sympathies go out to the Atkinson family, and we’re counting on the good citizens of Laurel County to aid our investigation in any way possible.” Tommy Lee leaned back in his chair. “Ralph Atkinson has offered a $25,000 reward to anyone providing information that leads to the arrest and conviction of his son’s murderer. That ought to loosen the lips of even our bad citizens.”

  The intercom line buzzed. “Mr. Jamison is here,” Marge said.

  “Send him in at nine and not a minute before.” When Marge clicked off, Tommy Lee added, “Let him cool his heels. We’re in charge of the investigation, not him.”

  He flipped over the top sheet of his legal pad and picked up the pen. “Any new thoughts this morning?”

  “I’d like to narrow down the time of death as soon as possible. And we need to check the whereabouts of Pete Crowder last night.”

  “Crowder? How’s he figure against Carl?”

  “He doesn’t.” I told Tommy Lee about Archie’s request for police protection after his sales call on Pete Crowder’s wife.

  “Damn fool. Well, that explains Melissa Bigham’s line that Archie might have been the intended victim. Anybody see Crowder at the haunted house?”

  I shook my head.

  “All right. Move him to the top of your priority list. I don’t think he’s ever been arrested so his prints aren’t on file. Check where he was last night.”

  “Okay.”

  Tommy Lee handed me a duty roster. “For the next week I’m giving you Carson and Shelton to run down leads.”

  “I thought you had Carson working the Christmas tree thefts.” Every year growers in the county lost some trees to what we nicknamed rustling. Prime trees were stolen from fields or warehouses, and some smaller fields had already been hit. The trees were practically impossible to trace, as one Fraser fir looked exactly like another.

  “Carson’s case can keep a week. A murder gets our investigative resources. But I’ll have Reece add a deputy to night patrol as an extra deterrent to more thefts.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “Marge seems to be getting a lot of calls. I guess Melissa’s request for haunted house attendees to phone is having an effect.”

  “Did you read her article?”

  “Not yet. Couldn’t find my paper. I think the paperboy tossed it in the ditch again.”

  He reached down to the floor beside his chair and picked up the thin Saturday edition of the Vista. “Be my guest. So much for your theory of diffusing the media circus. Melissa filed her story with AP and it went national during the night. We’ve jumped from a circus to a zoo out there.”

  I grinned. “At least you made someone happy.”

  “Who?”

  “D.A. Jamison.”

  “Thanks, smartass. And misery loves company. I want you standing with me at the press conference.”

  My grin vanished. “That wasn’t part of our deal.”

  “You don’t have to speak. Consider yourself moral support.” He glanced at his watch. “Now get out of here before Jamison sucks you into our conversation. I want you to use the conference room as the base of operations. I had Marge set up some easels and flipcharts just like they do on TV. Put something on them in case Jamison insists on sticking his head in.” Tommy Lee laughed. “He probably got his haircut as soon as Mr. P’s Barbershop opened.”

  I closed the door behind me. Phillip Jamison was coming toward the office. He nodded but didn’t speak. He wore a smartly pressed blue suit, white shirt, and muted red tie. I noticed short trims of newly cut black hair dusting his collar.

  I found Deputy Howard Carson on the phone in the conference room. He stood behind the long folding table that looked like a reject from a church fellowship hall. He pinched the receiver between his cheek and shoulder and scribbled on a clipboard. No information must have been important enough to put on any of the three blank flipcharts propped on the metal easels beside him.

  Carson winked as he asked the caller, “And what time was that?”

  Originally our conference room had been two interview rooms. Across the ceiling tiles, stained a dingy yellow from years of cigarette smoke, a strip of unblemished white ran where the dividing wall had been knocked out. The room still had a second door through which Deputy Shelton entered carrying another phone that he plugged into the spare wall jack.

  “Marge is going to send some of the calls back to us,” he whispered.

  Hank Shelton was the newest deputy and even I had seniority over him. What he lacked in experience he made up for in enthusiasm. The young man had recently returned from two tours of duty in Iraq. He still carried his military training—to the point he’d actually saluted Tommy Lee out of habit. The sheriff’s heroism in Vietnam was a source of community pride and Hank had grown up immersed in the local lore. I knew he wanted to earn Tommy Lee’s respect more than anything.

  “Thank you. We appreciate your help.” Carson set the receiver on the cradle and underscored something on his clipboard. “Progress.”

  “What’d you learn?” Shelton asked.

  Carson i
gnored him. The older deputy had been difficult for me to win over and he wasn’t interested in accommodating what he saw as an annoyance. Tommy Lee confided he’d turned down the application of Carson’s son-in-law in favor of Shelton. I wondered if assigning the two had been such a good idea, even though one’s youthful energy complemented the other’s greater law enforcement experience.

  Shelton let the slight pass and walked around to my side of the table. I set down the morning paper and took the clipboard.

  “That was Mattie Hildebrand,” Carson said. “She and her son remember being in the room with the casket at nine-twenty.”

  I saw he’d circled Mattie’s name and underlined the time. “How can she be so sure?”

  “Her boy had a Pop Warner football game the next day. She kept looking at her watch because Coach Easely wanted the team in bed by ten. They had to wait in line longer than they thought. Mattie said they chanced by the haunted house and she stopped on the spur of the moment.”

  “What about the casket?” Shelton asked.

  “Hold your horses. I’m getting to it.” Carson tapped Mattie’s name with a thick thumbnail. “She said both of them jumped when Carl Atkinson popped up.”

  “So, we have him alive at nine-twenty,” I said.

  “And last night I spoke with Benny Hyder. He and his wife were there with eight kids from Ebenezer Baptist Church’s youth group. They were part of the crowd still on hand when we found the body.”

  “And Carl didn’t sit up for them,” I ventured.

  “Exactly. Benny said they were out the backdoor at nine-thirty. He remembers the kids bolted as soon as they hit the outdoors, chasing each other through the pasture. That’s why they were there at nearly ten. He said it was like herding cats.”

  “Nine-twenty to nine-thirty is still a big window.” I scanned Carson’s list. “Someone could still be closer to Mattie.”

  Carson shook his head. “I suspect Benny’s watch was running a little fast. He told me that because his group was large and rowdy, they didn’t go through until everyone else was out of the front room. The last two people he saw leave were Mattie and her son.”