TheCart Before the Corpse

by Carolyn McSparren

  I expected her to jump on it. Instead, she took a deep breath and leaned back in her chair.

  I reached for the check and laid my American Express card on it. Ellen Stencil picked it up and carried it off.

  “Want to tell me about it?” Peggy asked.

  “Not here and not now.”

  “Fine. Over a brandy when we get home and don’t have to drive afterwards. Mutt keeps a close eye out for DUIs.”

  “Look, I’m exhausted.”

  “No doubt,” Peggy said. “But you can’t just drop a remark like that and not elucidate.” She laid her hand on mine. “I’m sorry.”

  “No, I’m sorry.” I signed the bill and pushed my chair back. “Let’s go home. Give me that brandy and I’ll tell you.”

  Chapter 13

  Monday evening

  Merry

  Peggy’s brandy was Courvoisier and the snifters were crystal. The instant I sank into the club chair across from her chair by the library fireplace, Dashiell settled across the back of Peggy’s chair and wrapped his tail across her throat like a feather boa.

  Marple jumped onto my lap, kneaded my knee a couple of times, and curled into a ball. Watson took his position across the back of my chair.

  Just as I figured we were finally settled and I couldn’t drag out my story any longer, twenty pounds of ginger Tom landed splat in the middle of my chest, knocked the air out of me and decanted Marple onto the floor. She stalked away behind Peggy’s chair and glared, not at Sherlock, but at me. Cats can always find a human to blame. Sherlock gave me a goofy grin, stretched out from my crotch to my clavicle and went to sleep.

  “He does that to everyone,” Peggy said, swirling her brandy. “So, why can’t you drive Easter weekend?”

  I took a deep breath and prepared to give her the edited version. “I had a bad accident a number of years ago, driving a feisty horse Hiram had forbidden me to exercise. He was only three years old, and way over my head."

  “Why on earth didn’t you listen to your father?”

  “He was off at some top-level show in Virginia, although he’d promised me faithfully he’d be home for my birthday party that evening. He didn’t even bother to call to say he wouldn’t be there. It wasn’t the first time he’d missed my birthday, but he’d always called. I was so mad and hurt I decided I’d show him I didn’t need his help to be as good a driver as he was.” I shrugged. “I wasn’t.”

  “Oh, dear. Were you badly hurt?”

  I shook my head. “My mother caught me driving out of the yard into the field and said if she couldn’t stop me, she’d go with me.

  “Fifteen minutes into the drive the horse suddenly went nuts from a fly bite, took off at a dead gallop, tipped the carriage going around a corner, and threw Mother out. The right rear wheel rolled over her leg. It was a heavy carriage.”

  Peggy made a sound that was half moan, half scream.

  “I managed to stop him and get the carriage back to Mother. She was unconscious, and I could see bone sticking out of her jeans and lots of blood.” “How far were you from help?” Peggy poured herself another brandy. I had barely touched mine, so she put the bottle back on her silver tray without offering me any. I’m not certain she was even aware she’d poured a new drink.

  “A mile or more. No cell phones back then. I didn’t dare move her, so I got back in the carriage and drove the gelding back to the stable, screaming all the way. They landed a helicopter in the pasture and air lifted her to Louisville. One of the farm hands drove me to the hospital to meet the chopper. I didn’t know whether I’d find her alive or dead when I got here.”

  “I’m almost afraid to ask,” Peggy said.

  “She had a concussion and some bumps and bruises, but her leg was so badly mangled that at one point they were talking amputation. The only thing that prevented them was that they said I wasn’t old enough to sign the consent form.

  “Thank God she came around and convinced them to operate and put it back together. She was in ICU when my father stormed in shouting at me. Someone had alerted him in Virginia, and his boss had flown him in on his private jet.” I gulped my brandy. I could feel the burn all the way down to my toenails. I wanted to scream all over again the way I’d screamed night after night when I dreamt my way through the whole ordeal again and again.

  Still do, as a matter of fact, although I’ve learned to wake myself up before Hiram shows up at the hospital. Peggy leaned across and gripped my knee. “Did she? I mean . . . ”

  “She lived. Through half a dozen more operations and a year of physical therapy. And through divorcing my father and marrying my stepfather. He’s the doctor who supervised her last two operations and her therapy. She limps and still uses a cane when she’s tired.” No sense in telling Peggy what a great ballroom dancer she used to be, or how I remember her at hunt balls wearing chiffon and rhinestones as she twirled in my father’s arms.

  “Oh, dear, so you feel responsible for the breakup of your parents’ marriage on top of everything else.”

  “Hiram helped. I haven’t held a pair of driving reins since and I don’t intend to start now.”

  “I thought you were at a driving show when Hiram died.”

  “Managing it, not driving in it. I still train drivers and horses, but from the ground. I use a bullhorn and wireless microphones to talk to the reinsmen. I don’t need to be riding beside the driver to teach. For years I blamed Hiram because he’d made me so angry by breaking his promise for the umpty-umpth time, but let’s face it, I chose to be angry, I chose to break the rules, I damned near got us killed.”

  “Is that why you and Hiram were estranged? Why you called him Hiram instead of Dad?”

  I shrugged. “A bunch of other stuff as well. The psychologists call it a toxic relationship.”

  I carefully removed Sherlock from my lap and earned a grumble. I had to use both hands on my knees to stand up, thereby earning another grumble from Watson, still on the back of my chair. Marple hadn’t surfaced, but I suspected she was behind Peggy’s ankles. “Don’t get up,” I said to Peggy. “I know the way home.”

  She still followed me to the back door and waited in the outside light until I shut the door of Hiram’s apartment behind me.

  I unhooked my bra, kicked off my shoes, fell onto the bed, pulled the quilt up to my shoulders and shut off the light, too worn out even to brush my teeth, much less to take my clothes or my makeup off.

  I generally go to sleep the instant my head hits the pillow, even when I’m not exhausted and half drunk. Maybe I was too tired to sleep.

  I’d wasted so much time hating Hiram. Hating is a choice, and one that hurts the hater much more than the hated.

  Now, I had somebody new to hate the person who’d robbed me and my father of the chance to love one another again. Maybe even to totter away into old age together.

  I would find out who killed my father and see justice done.

  But it suddenly struck me that wasn’t my only or even my greatest responsibility. Hiram had committed himself completely to his new enterprise. It was up to me to see that it didn’t go down the drain.

  Could I succeed in keeping his dream alive?

  Chapter 14

  Tuesday morning

  Geoff

  “Definitely murder.” Geoff Wheeler laid the coroner’s full report on Amos’s desk, sat and stretched his legs. “But probably not first degree. If you’re planning to kill somebody, there are neater ways to do it.” He accepted a mug of coffee from Amos.

  “Cream and two artificial sweeteners,” Amos said. “Used to be sugar when we were younger.”

  “Used to be I wasn’t fighting gut gravity in the gym and had brown hair. After I talk to you, I’m headed out to what should have been preserved as a crime scene.”

  “And wasn’t, thanks to the state police and Sheriff Campbell.”

  “Any motive?”

  “Not so far. Usually takes generations for real enmity to develop in Mossy Creek. We’re still f
ighting with Bigelow over something that happened in 1836. Lackland moved into Peggy Caldwell’s apartment less than a year ago.”

  “Money? Inheritance? Insurance?”

  “His only daughter is due here any minute. The land he bought will be worth a pretty penny in a few years, but not at the moment. Insurance?” Amos spread his hands. “She seems to have a solid alibi, but she could have hired it done.”

  “Sex?”

  Amos chuckled. “You’ll have to find out for yourself. Hiram was no spring chicken, but he was attractive, courtly, and a bachelor. Much in demand among the garden club ladies.”

  “Any chance I could show up at their next meeting?”

  “I thought you’d want to see them one at a time,” Amos said.

  “I’d like to announce that their extra man was murdered and see if anybody reacts. My mother ran the garden club in Athens. Those ladies make satellite communication look old-fashioned. This entire end of the state will know an hour after I see them that somebody offed their tame bachelor.”

  Mutt opened Amos’s door and stuck his head in. “Ms Abbott’s here,” he whispered.

  “Great,” Geoff said. “Send her in.” Then he looked over his shoulder at Amos. “Sorry. Your office.”

  Amos waved a hand at him. “Your investigation.”

  Mutt opened the door fully, and a second later Merry Abbott walked in.

  Geoff blinked. He didn’t know what he’d expected, but not this. Not that Merideth Abbott was a fashion model. But most of the professional horse women he’d met had skin like saddle leather and tended to look more like Clint Eastwood than Nicole Kidman.

  This one didn’t land exactly in the Kidman column, but it was close.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m interrupting.”

  Both men stood. “Not at all,” Amos said. “This is Agent Geoffrey Wheeler of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.”

  He offered his hand. “Sorry for your loss, Ms Abbott.”

  She sank into one of the wooden chairs in front of Amos’s desk. “Georgia Bureau of Investigation? Peggy was right? Somebody actually murdered my father? I kept thinking she must be wrong because. . . . ” Her shoulders slumped. “Hiram could be a butthead, but who’d want to kill him? Why? For what?”

  “That’s why I’m here, Mrs. Abbott.” Geoff eased one hip onto the edge of Amos’s desk, so that he looked down on her. Not quite as good as sitting behind Amos’s desk, but still good. “I take it you have no ideas.”

  She shook her head. “If Hiram made any enemies, I wouldn’t know about them. Hiram and I hadn’t been exactly close the last few years. ”

  “Care to tell us why?”

  “Divorced father, constant travel, spotty child support. We got crossways when I was a teenager and stayed that way until recently.”

  “What changed?”

  “We got older. I got a divorce myself a couple of years back that gave me a better understanding of why marriages implode. In the meantime, he seems to have grown. We were meeting in the middle.” She ran her hand along her cheek to brush away a tear. “I thought we’d have years to get to know one another again. I was sort of on my way down here to visit him when I got the sheriff’s call.”

  “Quite a coincidence,” Geoff Wheeler said. He tried to keep the disbelief out of his voice, but apparently he didn’t succeed.

  She glared at him. “Don’t you dare go there. I’ve got a couple of hundred people and horses to prove that I was two hours the other side of Chattanooga all weekend.”

  “I wasn’t implying anything.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Of course you were. If you’re actually interested in finding out who killed him and not simply in covering it up for the governor, don’t waste your time on me.“

  “I work for the state of Georgia, not Governor Bigelow.” Geoff tried to keep his voice even, but her barb had come uncomfortably close to the truth. Neither he nor Amos was interested in covering up a murder, but the sheriff of Bigelow County had a vested interest in keeping Bigelow safe and serene for the governor and his family. The sheriff was considered semi-honest, but he liked his job. No telling how far he’d go to keep the governor from taking an interest in county politics and throwing support to opposing sheriff candidates in the election.

  Next to simply sweeping a murder under the carpet if Sheriff Campbell was capable of that getting a citizen of Mossy Creek arrested and charged with capital murder would suit him just fine. Actually, Governor Bigelow would probably frame Ida Walker for murder in a heartbeat, given the chance. Everyone in the state of Georgia followed their particular feud. At the moment, Ida was ahead on points.

  He changed the subject. “Your father seems to have been something of a ladies’ man. Could he have been romancing a lady whose husband didn’t like it?”

  “Hiram was nearly seventy, but that didn’t keep him from flirting. If you’re asking me whether he was capable of anything beyond that, for God’s sake, I’m his daughter. He’s unlikely to discuss his conquests or his Viagra prescription with me. Does that mean you think he was a man did it?”

  “Or a strong woman,” he said, running his eyes down the strong muscles outlined by her turtleneck shirt. “Or a very small woman who had help.”

  “How about an entire garden club?” she snapped. “Like Murder on the Orient Express? They got together and decided he’d become a menace to their sisterhood.” She stood up without using her arms as leverage.

  That took strong thighs and belly muscles. Plenty strong enough to crush a man’s skull and then drop a heavy iron wheel over on him. Geoff made a mental note to find out whether all her time could be accounted for over the weekend. The drive from Chattanooga took less than three hours. She might have called her father, met him in the middle of the night, killed him, then driven back to Chattanooga. What time did she have to report for her duties as show manager? Had she spent the night in anyone’s bed? Her alibi might not be so airtight after all.

  “If you want to speak to me later, give me a call.” She handed each man a business card. “That has my cell phone and email address. I’m on the road so much, nobody can get me at home. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to drive to Bigelow to make arrangements for my father’s funeral.” She turned back as she reached the door. “If that nitwit sheriff decides not to release my father’s body after all, can either of you pull some strings?”

  “That shouldn’t be necessary,” Amos said. “Is Peggy going with you?”

  Merry nodded. “I also have an appointment with Hiram’s lawyer.”

  “To find out how much money he left you?” Geoff asked.

  She sucked in a breath and snapped, “I’ve got four horses plus a jackass to feed and a hired hand to pay whether Hiram left any money or not. I’d really like to continue to feed myself too, but if one of us has to go hungry, it’ll be me. I need to find out whether I can pay the feed bill and still buy myself the occasional cheeseburger.”

  “So you’re only interested in the horses.”

  “In my world, the horses always come first. You know that old saying, ‘dogs have owners, cats have staff?’ Compare cleaning a litter box with mucking out a stall if you want to know the difference between acting as staff for a cat or groom for a horse. As a matter of fact, why don’t you come out to the farm this afternoon about four when I’m doing the afternoon feeds. I’ll show you some real manure, and not the stuff you’ve been shoveling at me.” She slammed the door behind her.

  “Whoa!” Amos said. “I think that’s a point to the lady, Geoff. Reminds me of Ida.”

  “If she did it, she won’t be easy to rattle. The only time she got upset was when I questioned her allegiance to those horses, which are not even hers.”

  “I don’t think she killed him. You don’t seriously think she killed him, do you?” Amos said softly asked.

  “Ask me after I’ve checked out her alibi and found out how much money he left her.”

  Chapter 15

  Tuesday Morningr />
  Merry

  “You turned off your cell phone,” Peggy said as she climbed into my truck in front of her house. “I’ve called you a dozen times.”

  “Sorry. I didn’t want it to ring while I was talking to Amos and his tame GBI agent.”

  “Everybody and his brother’s been calling me asking when Hiram’s funeral is scheduled. And a couple of reporters from national magazines called me when they couldn’t get you. I don’t know how they even found out that Hiram lived downstairs, much less discovered who I am and what my telephone number is.”

  “People he worked with in the business, probably. Plus the internet.”

  “They wanted to ask you about Hiram. I didn’t realize he was such a big muckety-muck in the driving world. Oh, I knew he’d had a career, but gold medals at the Driving Worlds?”

  “Three times. But not recently.” I turned onto the highway leading to Bigelow. “It’s a very small world. Nobody outside of driving would so much as recognize his name, although he had enough silver cups and bowls and platters to fill the average jewelry store.” I glanced over at her. “Any idea what he did with them? Did he sell them for a down payment on the farm? Most of them are engraved. That must lower the value considerably. Still a lot of them were good quality sterling.”

  “He didn’t bring them with him when he moved in. You saw what he brought. A couple of suitcases, a couple of black plastic trash bags of clothes, some harness and some books.”

  “I don’t know where all his files are either. He kept notes on every horse he ever trained, every Coggins test he ever pulled, every shot or leg poultice. Are there any storage rental places in Mossy Creek?”

  “I’m sure there are in Bigelow. Couldn’t he have left all but the essentials in Aiken when he moved here?”

  That did make sense. I didn’t know how long he had wandered before he settled on Mossy Creek and went back to get his horses and belongings. He might have spent months looking for land before he found his forty acres.