I decided I’d better get out. In case of problems, I should be there, too. I followed them behind the house, where the dog was running ahead to a stand of walnut trees. The ground under the trees was clear of weeds, and I could see a mound of something there. As I got closer, I saw what looked like rags and bones. My stomach turned over. Of course Andrea went right over and began inspecting that unappealing pile of stuff.
“I’m afraid we’ve found the remains of Ollie Logan—or someone.”
“You’d better call 911.”
“I will…in a minute.” She reached into her purse and pulled out a couple of vinyl gloves and put them on. Always prepared, my sister. Then she got out a plastic bag and opened it.
“What are you doing?”
“I want to check the pockets of these clothes.”
Andrea is not only always prepared, she’s a law unto herself. “Shouldn’t you leave that to the authorities?”
“Probably.” She continued rummaging through the rags and dropped a couple of things into the plastic bag.
We went back to the car with the dog trailing along behind. “Did you find anything interesting?”
She placed the bag under a blanket in the trunk. “I’m not sure, but we’ll take a look at it when we get home.” She took off the gloves, turning them wrong side out in the process, and placed them under the blanket also. “I didn’t find a billfold. Whoever ransacked the house probably took it.”
She took out her phone and called 911. After telling them what we’d found and where we found it, she hung up and said, “We’ll have to stay here till the deputies arrive.”
The dog had retreated to the porch. I took a closer look at it. It was nothing but skin and bones. I figured it was part lab and part hound of some kind, a fairly large dog. “That must have been Ollie Logan’s dog.”
“I suppose it was. I guess she’s been hanging on here since he died—if that’s Logan in the back, that is.”
“Considering the condition of the body, I can’t imagine how she survived that long.”
“Let’s get in the car. I want to back out to the highway and park there. If a deputy’s car comes in here behind us, they’ll have to move for us to get out, and I don’t want to have to stay here as long as they do.”
I was surprised she didn’t want to investigate the interior of the house, but I didn’t say anything—I didn’t want to give her any ideas. “That’s a good idea, going out to the highway. We can walk back to the house.” My shoes already were smeared with mud, so more mud wasn’t going to make a lot of difference. At least the drizzle had stopped.
Andrea backed down the narrow road and found a wide spot for parking along the highway. We headed back toward the house, and we just reached it when we heard a car approaching. “That must be the deputy,” I said.
Actually, it was two deputies. They got out, looking curious as to why two older ladies were at this dismal crime scene. At least I was assuming it was a crime scene. I suppose it was possible Ollie Logan had died of a heart attack.
They introduced themselves—their names escape me now—and Andrea told them who we were. “We’re volunteers with the Baxter County Sheriff’s Office, and we came here looking for a man named Ollie Logan. I imagine his name is Oliver.”
“Why were you looking for Ollie?” The tall, good-looking officer said.
“We’re working on a cold case—the murder of Lea Logan, his daughter. We wanted to talk to him to see if he could shed any light on the circumstances of her death.”
“His name is Oliver, or was. Can you show us to the remains?”
They followed us back to the walnut grove and immediately began stretching yellow tape around trees. “Ollie drank a lot,” the shorter deputy said. “It’s possible he just went on a binge and drank himself to death.”
“Do you have a card?” Andrea asked. “I’d like to get back in touch and see what you find out about the cause of death.”
The tall one handed her a card; then he turned to his partner. “Call animal control and get them out here to pick up that dog.”
“Don’t bother. I’m taking her with me,” Andrea said.
Oh, brother! Just what I wanted—to ride all the way to Pine Summit with a wet, smelly dog in the car. I didn’t say anything, since I figured it would be useless. But what was Andrea going to do with the dog once she got her to Pine Summit?
“That’s a nice thought, lady, but that dog doesn’t look like she’ll survive another day. Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
And when Andrea’s sure of something, that’s all there is to it. We exchanged a few more words with the deputies, and Andrea called to the dog, who came off the porch and stood looking at her. We walked to the car with the dog trailing behind. Andrea opened a rear door. “Get in the car.”
The dog looked as if she didn’t have the strength to climb into the back seat, but by half dragging herself, she made it.
We got in. Andrea chuckled and looked at me. “Don’t say it.”
I simply shook my head and lowered my window a little, hoping to keep the smell away from my nose on the ride home.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Giving the dog a bath was top priority when we got home, so Andrea asked me to go to her house, in case she had difficulty getting the mutt into the tub. It turned out that there wasn’t a problem; Andrea lifted her easily. She was a fairly large dog, but so thin that I doubt she weighed more than thirty pounds. After a scrubbing with flea soap we picked up on the way home and the final rinse, I did help rub her as dry as possible before she had a chance to shake water all over the bathroom.
Andrea put out bowls of water and dry dog food—something else we picked up on the way—and the dog ate all the food. Soon after she was snoozing on a nearby rug.
“What are you going to do with her?” I asked.
“I’m going to get her in decent shape, and then I’ll turn her over to the Humane Society in Martindale. They’ll find a home for her. I figured that if animal control in Marshall County took her to the pound, she’d be put down immediately, considering the shape she’s in.”
“Aren’t you going to get her some shots? It wouldn’t be wise…”
“Yes, of course, I’m going to get her some shots. I’ll take her to a vet in Martindale Monday and get her checked out.”
I wondered whether this dog would ever end up at the Humane Society after Andrea had kept her long enough to get her in good enough shape for adoption. Somehow, I didn’t think so. “What are you going to call her?”
“I don’t know. Any suggestions?”
“How about Piglet? We found her on Hog Run.”
Andrea laughed. “That’s kind of demeaning, I think. How about Rosy? She’s bound to have a rosy future now that we’ve rescued her.”
“Rosy is good, I think.” And with that Rosy got up, came over, and laid her head in my lap. What could I do but pet her?
“I believe she knows her name already,” Andrea said. “Anyway, there are a couple of things we need to do, and it’s early yet. I’m going to take a look at Lea’s laptop and see if I can figure out her password. Maybe she used Ollie or Oliver in some way. While I’m doing that, how about taking a look at that photo album we brought from Mrs. Logan’s house?”
We’d been ignoring the album, figuring it didn’t contain anything that would be of real help in solving the case. “Sure, I’ll be glad to look at it. I don’t suppose there’s anything in there of value, but at least we can eliminate it as something that could provide clues.”
I took the album to a comfortable chair by a window that looked out on the backyard, which was neatly trimmed but devoid of anything but grass. Andrea doesn’t have much interest in gardening. Beyond the yard, which was fenced, was a thickly wooded area, the same type woods that borders all the houses on Summit Drive.
The beginning of the album contained photos from Lea’s childhood. It was interesting to see her mother at a much younger and better-loo
king age. She actually looked pleasant, smiling at the camera as if she hadn’t a care in the world. There was a man in some of the photos, and someone had written Ollie at the bottom of one of the pictures. He wasn’t a bad-looking man. He didn’t look like he’d end up on Hog Run in a run-down shack. I wondered what had happened to them. The deputies said he drank a lot. Maybe that was the family’s problem.
I saw a picture of a very young Lea, sitting on a porch swing with her arm around a dog that sat beside her. Someone had written Lea and Frisky on the photo. I wondered whether Terry Forsythe had been confused about the name of Lea’s first dog. This might be useful information in finding the password to unlock the computer.
I carried the album to the desk where Andrea was working. “Here’s something interesting. It’s Lea with a dog named Frisky. She’s practically a baby in the photo, so I’m wondering whether Frisky was her first dog.”
She glanced at the photo. I’m going to call Terry Forsythe and get his opinion on this.”
“Why bother? I just thought you’d want to use Frisky in trying to discover the password.”
“I’m just curious about his reaction when I mention the picture.” She took her cell phone from her pocket, and when Terry answered, she had him on speakerphone. “Terry—this is Andrea Flynn.”
“How are you, Miss Flynn? Have you made any progress in finding my sister’s killer?”
“I’m afraid not, but I want to ask you about something. In looking through the album Lea had in her room, we see a photo of her as a toddler with a dog named Frisky.”
There was a long pause, and then he said, “Let me think… ‘
“Is it possible you were confused about the name of her first dog?” Andrea asked.
“I think I was. Sorry about that. I guess Stubby came later. I guess you still haven’t been able to get into her laptop.”
“Not yet, but we will,” Andrea said. “We’ll keep you informed.”
“That’s interesting,” I said when she hung up. “Do you think he steered us wrong because he’s afraid of what we’ll find on the laptop?”
“We have no way of knowing at this point. This is just another small piece of the puzzle.”
I went back to the album and found a series of ten school photos. A couple must have been lost. The last one showed Lea in her cap and gown. There were several with young people her age, some boys, some girls. Mrs. Logan had called her a floozy, but I didn’t see any evidence of that in the album. Finally Hank Weaver began to show up frequently, as well as his family.
There were many of Lea with the three members of the Weaver family. They certainly seemed to have taken her into their family as one of their own. This was the impression I had gotten, too, in talking to Hannah Weaver.
Then one photo near the end of the album gave me a bit of a jolt. The only two people in it were Lea and Henry Weaver, Hank’s father. He was standing behind her with his arms draped over her shoulders. He was smiling as if this were the best day of his life. The picture gave me an uncomfortable feeling. I took the album to Andrea’s desk, where she was working on the computer.
“What do you think of this?”
“Hmmm. Are there any preceding photos of Lea with the Weaver family?”
“Yes, there are many. I just thought this one seemed unnaturally cozy, that’s all.”
“It does seem a little cozy, as you call it. It could be nothing at all. I did find it somewhat odd that Mr. Weaver disappeared and didn’t come back to the room when we interviewed Hank. However, this photo is very little to go on, clue-wise.”
“I agree—but this man has just become my favorite suspect from a gut-feeling point of view. He’s replaced Rick Smith.”
“Don’t let your imagination run away with you,” Andrea said. “We have to weigh everything carefully.”
I sighed. “Yes, I know. It’s just that we have so little to go on so far. Have you been able to find the password for the laptop?”
“No luck. I don’t think I found anything useful in the pockets of Ollie’s clothes, either—if that was Ollie, that is.”
“I forgot about that. What did you find?”
“Not much. There was a scrap of paper and then something else. I don’t know what it was. I just looked in the back pockets, because I didn’t want to disturb the body. Or maybe I should say the bones. I’ll get the bag so we can take a look at those things.”
She left the items in the bag, and we took it and a magnifier to the deck. Andrea turned the bag over and looked at both sides of the paper. “There’s part of a phone number here, and I think it’s the same as the burner phone number Lea called. The last two digits have been eaten away by insects, but the first five match.”
“You remember the burner phone number?”
“Yes, I remember it, but this isn’t going to do us much good, since we don’t know who had the phone.”
Rosy had followed us outside and was standing there, looking around. “Why don’t we take a break and have a cup of coffee out here?” I said. “It’s turned out to be a nice day, now that the rain’s cleared up.”
“Sounds like a good idea. First, though, let me look at this other piece of evidence in the bag. It appears to be a coin or medal of some kind.”
The item was probably an inch and a half wide, round, and bronze colored. “What is it?”
She was turning the bag over and moving the magnifier around, trying to get a better perspective. “It’s an AA emblem. Alcoholics Anonymous. He must have been a member at one time.”
“I wonder if anyone in their organization would have information about him.”
Andrea shook her head and smiled. “We must concentrate on Lea. We need to look for information that sheds light on her murder. Those Marshall County deputies have the task of finding out what happened to Ollie.”
“Could you tell what had happened? You got a closer look than I did.”
“I saw a hole in the skull. That seems to be suspicious, to say the least.”
I pondered this for a moment. “What if that isn’t Ollie’s body? What if he killed someone else and fled the area. Maybe he’s living in Florida with an assumed name.”
“We won’t know till they do some testing. I feel sure they have a record of Ollie’s DNA, since the officers seemed so familiar with him. That’s one more thing we can’t solve right now, so I’ll make some coffee.”
She brewed a couple of cups quickly in her Keurig. I’m surprised she bought it, since she’s as big a tightwad as I am, but I’ll admit it’s convenient. I still plod along with my old five-cup Mr. Coffee.
We sat down on the deck chairs with Rosy curled up between us. “Do you suppose there’d be fingerprints on that coin? They could use that to identify Ollie.”
Andrea sipped her coffee, and I was beginning to wonder whether she was going to answer. Finally she said, “I’ve been thinking about that. We need to go back to that house, and maybe I’ll decide to leave the coin there.”
“We’re going back to that dump? I thought we were just going to concentrate on Lea’s murder.”
“I think we need to check to find out if there’s anything there that could shed light on her death. If that was Ollie we found, and if he was murdered, and if his death is connected to hers, well, we might find something worthwhile.”
“That’s a lot of ifs. Besides, those deputies probably carted off everything important.”
Andrea smiled and drank more coffee. Her look told me what I already knew, that she finds evidence where paid professionals have failed.
“Okay,” I said. “When are we going?”
“Tomorrow morning—early.”
“Why are we going so early?”
“We want to get there before any deputies show up.”
I looked at Rosy. She smelled like flea soap now, which, I admit, is a lot better than the way she smelled before. “Are we taking Rosy with us?”
“No, she’ll stay in the backyard. I’ll put a rug on the bac
k porch for her to snooze on. She’s clean now, and I don’t want to take her back up there where she’ll get filthy again.”
“I have only one more question about this,” I said. “Why didn’t we just investigate the house while we were there?”
“I thought it was important to call 911 right away, and I thought someone might show up while we were still in the house. We had an excuse for being in the area, because we were looking for Ollie Logan to question him about Lea. We didn’t really have a good excuse for being in the house.”
And what if someone showed up while we were in the house tomorrow? We wouldn’t have an excuse then, either. I guess Andrea thought that’s a chance we were willing to take.
#
Andrea picked me up at eight—that’s early for us—and we headed for Hog Run. We’d be there by nine or shortly after. I read Ben Rehder’s Bum Steer on the way, reading the most hilarious passages to Andrea so she could enjoy them, too. She was farther along in the book than I was, but some of his work is even funnier on second reading.
The hollow was deserted when we got there and just as muddy as the day before. This time we’d brought our rubber boots, and we put them on before we got out of the car. “I imagine the deputies tracked plenty of mud up the steps, across the porch, and into the house, so we don’t have to worry about our tracks showing,” Andrea said.
Crime scene tape was stretched across the railings of the steps, but we’d squeeze under it, I was sure. I learned long ago that if I hung out with Andrea, I’d be going over or under plenty of the yellow stuff. Andrea was right about the mud; we could see that there was plenty tracked all over the place.
“First, let’s look at the site where we found the body,” Andrea said.
We went behind the house. The tape had been removed from the trees, and the spot where the pile of rags and bones had lain was bare. “It looks like they cleared up everything that could have been found here,” Andrea said. “Let’s go inside.”
We got out our flashlights and shined them all around the interior. A small wooden table lay on its side beside a rusted coal-burning stove. The stovepipe was missing, even though the hole in the wall where it went through was still there.
Evil Under the Moon (Moon Mystery Series Book 5) Page 8
