Claws for Concern

by Miranda James

  I discarded the banana peel and washed my hands. I had barely finished drying my hands when my phone emitted the new text alert sound. I read Stewart’s response to my message. Evidently Haskell was on duty tomorrow, so Stewart was planning to spend the day at home. I texted back to ask if he would mind babysitting Diesel for a while, and he quickly responded that he’d be happy to. After a quick Thanks back, I put the phone in my pocket.

  “Come on, Diesel, let’s go to the den,” I said. “Time to check e-mail.” He ambled along beside me as we left the kitchen.

  A few minutes later we were comfortably settled on the sofa in the den. Diesel lay stretched out beside me, his head against my leg. I had the laptop open, waiting for my e-mail to finish loading. The process was taking a little longer than usual because Jack had evidently sent me several large files.

  Finally the last of them loaded, and I opened the one that had arrived first. Jack had written a brief explanation of the contents of the file, in this case scans of all the newspaper articles he had been able to find about the Barber case. I opened the file and discovered that there were nearly sixty pages of scans. If the other files were this big, I would do well to read them all and digest the information before our meeting tomorrow.

  I heard a beep that alerted me to a new incoming message. From Jack again, this time marked with a red exclamation point, denoting that it was sent with high importance. I opened it to find out what was so urgent.

  Managed to track down Elizabeth Barber’s best friend from high school. Girl she spent the night with the night her parents and siblings were murdered. Turns out she’s a doctor and lives in Athena. Leann Finch. Know her?

  TWENTY-ONE

  The ER doctor, Leann Finch, was Elizabeth Barber’s best friend in high school. What an odd coincidence, I thought, like my son-in-law turning out to be related to the Barber family. Frankly, it wasn’t all that unusual in Mississippi to stumble over connections like these. At least, I thought so, after all those years in Houston where the population of the metropolitan area was more than twice as large as that of the whole state of Mississippi. Since I moved back to Athena, I had encountered this phenomenon more than once.

  My thoughts focused on Leann Finch. If she and Elizabeth Barber had been such good friends, would Leann have known the Barbers’ hired man, Bill Delaney? In light of this new information, I considered the scene in the emergency room. I never saw any sign that the doctor was acquainted with her patient, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t aware of his connection to the Barbers.

  The connection might mean nothing at all, at least in terms of solving the murders. Jack and I couldn’t ignore the possibility that it did, however. We would have to talk to Dr. Finch about the case. We definitely had to go to the hospital tomorrow afternoon, and if Dr. Finch wasn’t there, we would have to track her down somehow.

  I fashioned a quick reply to Jack’s e-mail to explain how I knew Dr. Finch and share the rest of my thoughts about the connection. Jack responded a few minutes later, saying that he agreed with me.

  With that out of the way I could focus on all the reading material Jack sent. I was tempted to print it all because my eyes tired more quickly from staring at a computer screen than from reading hard-copy printout. I decided, after considering the advantages of having a more portable paper copy as opposed to having to use the laptop, I would go ahead and print.

  The process took twelve minutes to complete. One file was sixty pages, another ten, and the final one eight. I put the laptop away and settled down with the pages. I decided to start with the largest one first, all the scans of the newspaper coverage.

  Jack had them organized in chronological order, and his sources ranged from the Tullahoma paper to those of other towns and cities, including Jackson and Memphis. The early headlines were lurid, especially one from the Tullahoma paper: Barber Family Butchered in Their Sleep. I snorted as I read it. I wasn’t sure how anyone could be butchered with a shotgun, but I reckoned the editor had wanted to grab everyone’s attention and sell more papers. Despite the headline, however, the article itself was not sensational in tone.

  After reading the early accounts of the crime, I had a fairly clear picture of the opening stages of the investigation. Elizabeth Barber had come home around nine in the morning after spending the night with an unnamed friend, who turned out to be Leann Finch. She discovered the bodies and started screaming the place down. One of the hired men heard her and came running. He got her out of the house and called the sheriff’s department to report the discovery. He then took Elizabeth back to the Finch home, where Leann’s mother ministered to the girl.

  Suspicion quickly focused on Bill Delaney, who was known to be a heavy drinker with a sometimes violent temper. One of the other hired men, a man named Sonny Willis, had overheard a loud argument between Delaney and Hiram Barber two days before the murders. During the altercation, according to Willis, Delaney threatened Barber’s life if Barber didn’t pay Delaney his back wages.

  The investigation limped along after Sylvia Delaney gave her son an alibi for the night of the murders. She could not be shaken, and the sheriff’s department reluctantly (my interpretation) had to start looking for other suspects. The fact that the murder weapon belonged to Hiram Barber but had disappeared wasn’t mentioned until several weeks after the first account in the Tullahoma paper. The sheriff’s department, assisted by volunteers, did an extensive search in the area around the Barber farm but without result. The murderer had apparently taken great pains to make sure the weapon would never be found. If it had turned up at some point in the past twenty years, Jack hadn’t mentioned it.

  Reporters had talked to residents in the community where the Barber farm was located. No one had any information to offer on potential suspects but several allowed as how Hiram Barber was extremely difficult to deal with and not highly regarded in the community. The locals liked his wife, however, and generally felt sorry for her and the children. One person, a Mrs. Mitzi Gillon, told the reporter from the Jackson paper that poor Mrs. Barber was always embarrassed about how worn and out-of-style her clothes were. Barber begrudged his family any money spent on fancy things, with the exception of his teenage daughter. Elizabeth, Mrs. Gillon concluded, got most anything she wanted as long as it wasn’t too extravagant, while her mother and brothers had to make do with very little. “They didn’t even have a TV,” Mrs. Gillon said at the end of the interview.

  Hiram Barber sounded like a thoroughly unpleasant man, a skinflint of the worst kind. The other farmers in the area who spoke with reporters said Barber’s farm was prosperous enough that the family didn’t need to go without. Barber simply hated to let loose of money.

  Such a sad story, I thought. A miserable man who deprived his family—except for the daughter—of ordinary things like decent clothing and a television set. It sounded to me like Hiram Barber was stuck in the 1930s, the Depression era. I wondered if his parents had been like that. He must have learned that behavior somewhere.

  His daughter had done well for herself, despite the loss of her family. She had sold the farmland and ended up marrying a man who became a prominent businessman in Tullahoma. She had children of her own and no doubt a nice house with as many amenities and luxuries as they could afford. A far cry from her early life, certainly.

  Eventually the press revealed the name of Elizabeth’s friend. Leann Finch and her family provided Elizabeth Barber’s alibi, though it didn’t seem to me that the sheriff’s department had seriously considered her a suspect. According to Leann, the two girls were up most of the night, talking in her bedroom. Leann was home for the weekend from her first semester of college, and the girls hadn’t seen each other in several weeks. Elizabeth wanted to know all about college life, and college men in particular.

  The case languished due to the lack of new leads or viable suspects, and the press coverage dwindled away. Jack had found a few articles across the intervenin
g years, all of which mentioned the main facts of the case but offered no fresh insights as to who might have been behind the killings. It seemed like an impossible case to solve, and I had momentary doubts about my involvement in the whole thing.

  Then I remembered my daughter’s conviction that the car deliberately swerved to hit Bill Delaney. Things like that hadn’t happened before in Athena, to my knowledge. It might be a regular occurrence in big cities, but unless we had a crazed psychopath on the loose, targeting victims with his vehicle for some twisted reason of his own, this was no random event.

  I wondered whether the sheriff’s department had investigated neighbors from the surrounding farms at all. Given what people had to say about Hiram Barber, one of the other farmers could have had a grudge against the man. Perhaps some kind of property dispute? An argument over a boundary line, or cattle straying from one property to another because of inadequate fencing?

  Most of these ideas sprang from old television shows I had seen growing up—my father watched just about any Western that came on—because I had no real experience of farm life other than what I had seen on television. I knew from things I’d read that farming was a hard way to earn a living, especially on a small farm, nothing like the big plantations in the Mississippi delta, for example, which were enormously profitable.

  I set aside the printed-out newspaper scans and picked up another one. This was the ten-page document, which I had not even examined before printing. The contents turned out to be photographs with captions. I had an excellent laser printer that could handle color, so the photographs had turned out pretty well. Five of the pages contained photographs of the Barber farmhouse from various angles along with the different outbuildings: a barn, a tool shed, and a much larger shed for tractors and other farm equipment.

  The single-story house had been built of wood, probably at least fifty years ago or more, or so I judged from the style and the condition. The boards appeared weathered in the photograph, worn to a dull gray. The steeply pitched metal roof would have ensured that rain didn’t collect on it. The house appeared to be large in size, and a porch extended across the front and down one side. Judging by the number of windows on the front of the house, I guessed that there was either a large front room, perhaps a parlor, and two smaller rooms, or else there were four rooms at the front of the house, two on either side of the front door. There were four windows on the side of the house with the porch, spaced well apart. I wondered if there were surviving photographs of the interior of the house. Elizabeth Barber might have some, of course, but I wasn’t about to ask her simply to satisfy my curiosity.

  The other five pages consisted of photographs of the Barber family. One was a family portrait, and I wondered, based on what I’d learned of Hiram Barber’s skinflint ways, how he’d been persuaded to pay for it. I could see in the photograph that Mrs. Barber and the twins wore noticeably worn clothes, while Mr. Barber looked even shabbier in old overalls and a plaid work shirt. Elizabeth, a striking girl with flame-red hair, was the only one wearing decent clothing.

  I thought I could detect signs of strain and unhappiness in Mrs. Barber’s expression in the picture, and the two boys seemed to peer at the camera as if they were frightened of it—or perhaps by something else. Elizabeth faced the camera with confidence. She actually looked a little flirty, offering a saucy, knowing smile. Her father, on the other hand, glowered. He was probably thinking of the money this was costing him, I figured.

  The rest of the Barber photos were some of the children’s school pictures. The photos of the twins were basic head shots, and the boys were hard to tell apart. There were three of Elizabeth engaged in various school activities, two of which were cheerleading and playing basketball. An interesting combination, I thought. The third showed her in the school beauty pageant standing next to a girl with a crown. I deduced from this that Elizabeth was probably the first runner-up.

  Having finished perusing the pictures, I picked up the final printout. Eight pages of information on other people with some potential connection to the Barbers and to Sylvia and Bill Delaney. Occasional statements in quotation marks popped out at me as I skimmed through.

  Sylvia would do anything to protect that boy of hers.

  Bill was a spitfire from the time he was fifteen, always getting into trouble with somebody.

  Spent time in jail on assault charges. This also referred to Bill Delaney.

  Mean as a snake, Hiram was. Didn’t want nobody setting foot on his property if he didn’t know they was planning to come.

  I always felt sorry for Betty Barber. Never could figure out what she saw in a man like Hiram.

  I laid the pages aside. I would go back to them later. All these terrible things people had to say depressed me. Now that I knew more about Bill Delaney’s past—and his reputation for drunken violence—I began to believe Sylvia had forsworn her very soul to keep her son from being convicted of four murders.

  Would Jack and I be able to prove or disprove that after all this time?

  TWENTY-TWO

  By nine thirty the next morning my impatience hit peak levels. I should have asked if Jack could arrive earlier than ten. I was eager to brainstorm with him, and I planned to suggest that we head to the hospital by noon instead of waiting until the afternoon. Thinking about the week ahead, I had realized that I wouldn’t have much time to assist Jack if I stuck to my usual schedule. With that in mind, I had e-mailed my boss last night to let her know I wouldn’t be in this coming week. I apologized for the short notice, but within a few minutes she responded, “No problem. Have a good week.”

  Now I was free to focus on the Barber murders without the distractions of work. Helen Louise was back to a full schedule at the bistro because of Henry’s accident. He wouldn’t be back up to full speed for a week, perhaps longer. I felt bad for Henry, but I supposed accidents like his occurred even with professionals in the kitchen.

  The doorbell rang, and Diesel meowed to make sure I’d heard. Then he darted out of the kitchen. One of these days I was afraid he would figure out how to unlock the front door. He already knew how to open the door onto the back porch, as long as it was already unlocked, of course. I glanced at the clock on my way to the front door. Jack had come early after all, nearly twenty-five minutes early.

  Except that it wasn’t Jack at the door. “Sean, this is a nice surprise. I didn’t think I’d see you today. Come in.” I stood aside to let him enter.

  He rubbed Diesel’s head, and the cat meowed in appreciation. “Morning, Dad,” he said. “I hadn’t planned on it, but after I had a talk with Laura last night, I decided I needed to talk to you.”

  I knew that tone. Lawyer Sean had decided I needed a lecture. I rolled my eyes at his back as he preceded me into the kitchen. Diesel ambled along beside me. He stretched out on the floor by my chair when I resumed my place at the table.

  Sean stood behind the chair across from mine. Any moment now he was going to fold his arms across his chest, fix me with a stern gaze, and lecture me. I settled back in my chair and awaited the inevitable.

  “Now, Dad, about this Bill Delaney,” Sean began, his hands on the back of the chair. “As I understand it, he has no legal claim on Aunt Dottie’s estate. Has he been asking you for money?”

  “He has not,” I said. “All he wants is information.”

  “So far.” Sean frowned. “Are you sure he’s who he claims to be?”

  “He has a birth certificate that looks legitimate,” I said. “He also looks just like Uncle Del. I’m sure.”

  “Nothing I say is going to stop you from getting further involved in this, I suppose.” I saw his hands tighten their grip on the chair back.

  “There are things you could say to stop me,” I replied. “But they wouldn’t be worthy of the man I know you to be.”

  He smiled at that. “You don’t always play fair, you know.” He shook his head. “I would never, I
hope, say those kinds of things to you. As always, I’m concerned about your welfare. Keep this in mind, if nothing else: Whoever killed those people twenty years ago may still be around, and they’re not going to be happy to discover you’re trying to find them, whoever it is. You need to be really careful.”

  “I know that,” I said. “I’m not going to be working on this alone. Jack Pemberton is actually taking the lead in this.”

  “I’ve read his books,” Sean said. “He’s good at what he does, so he must be pretty smart.” He laughed suddenly. “Maybe the two of you can keep each other out of trouble.”

  Diesel warbled, and Sean laughed again. “Make that the three of you. I know Diesel will help, too.”

  That last statement elicited another warble and a couple of chirps. “Diesel agrees,” I said. “Now, the really important thing is: How is Alex?”

  Sean grinned and let go of the chair back. “Ready to be done with it and have the baby, but she’s got another five or six weeks to go. I’m ready, too. I want to hold my baby in my arms.”

  “Same here,” I said. “Have you settled on any names yet?” So far neither Sean nor Alex would reveal their choices.

  “Not yet,” Sean replied. “We’ve got it narrowed down to about five. We’ll know when the time comes, I hope.” He checked his watch. “I’d better get going.”

  I got up from the table to escort him to the front door with Diesel’s assistance. Right before I opened the door Sean gave me a hug. “Be safe, Dad.”