Corpse on the Cob

by Sue Ann Jaffarian

  I cleared my throat. “That was a very nice thing you did for Mrs. Rielley. I had no idea you were that handy around the house.”

  “What can I say, I’m a jack of all trades.”

  “Right, and I’m the Queen of England.” I leaned in close. “My guess is you checked out the bags of corn Cathy brought for the Rielleys.”

  Still looking out at the trees, Willie smiled. “I did fix her faucet, little mama.”

  “And?”

  He turned in my direction. “And it seems our observations hit a bull’s-eye. Cathy is definitely packaging up drugs with the produce—both pot and coke. While Mr. Rielley hunted up some tools for me, I put the bags into the trunk of their car and took a peek. There were about three to four dozen ears of corn, and I doubt the packets hidden in each bundle were oregano. A few smaller bags held squash and coke.”

  “That sweet little old lady is a drug user?”

  “Please, Odelia, all old people are drug users, just that most use prescription drugs. More likely, Mrs. Rielley is a mule.”

  “She might not even know about the drugs, Willie. Didn’t she say her niece ordered the corn?”

  “Could be she doesn’t. Then again, old people are having a tough time making ends meet, just like everyone else. A little under-the-table money can help a lot.”

  “For someone who stole millions from retirement funds, that comment seems very out of place.”

  Willie turned his head so that he was directly facing the trees in the distance, showing me only a profile. “Don’t you mean disingenuous?”

  “Just making an observation, Willie.”

  “Stop trying to give me a conscience, little mama. It’s too late for that.”

  He sounded like my mother.

  Cathy, Grady, and Troy took off almost as soon as their plates were clean and their bellies full. A bit later, Willie left, with the excuse he was meeting a friend for drinks. Greg and I knew he was off to do some more digging for information. We decided to hang around and help with the clean-up. Greg was in the kitchen helping Mom, saying it would be a good time for him to get to know her. He also thought she might relax around him, seeing that he wasn’t a kid she’d left behind. He had a point and a special way with people. I was counting on his natural charm to garner some results.

  “That’s a good man you have there, Odelia.” Clark was cleaning the grill.

  “Yes, he is. The best.”

  “Wheelchair or not, I’d hate to go up against him on the court.”

  I beamed with pride. “He’s the star of his wheelchair basketball team.”

  “I’d like to see one of those games.” He glanced my way. “Maybe one day Mom and I can come out for a visit.”

  “Anytime, Clark. We have room for both of you, as long as you don’t mind two annoying cats and one overeager dog.”

  “I love both.” He continued cleaning. It seemed it was taking him a long time, making me think he was using it to occupy his hands while we talked. “That cousin of his is an interesting fellow.”

  I held my breath.

  “He’s only been here two days and already he has drinking buddies.”

  “He and one of the waitresses at the Blue Lobster hit it off. He said she works at a bar at night.”

  “Ah, that must be Sybil Johnson. She works nights at the Kettle over in Derek’s Grove. She’s been married three times. One kid, a son. He lives in Alaska.” Looking down at the grill, Clark smiled to himself. “That woman sure likes to party.”

  “Did you ever party with her?”

  Clark’s private smile turned into a short laugh that dissolved into a self-conscious cough. He turned to me. “Don’t worry about Willie, Odelia. Sybil’s a very nice person. She just doesn’t take men too seriously. Kind of a wild, independent spirit. Always has been.”

  “Sounds like his type of woman.”

  Inside my head, I had a laundry list of things I wanted to talk to Clark about but wasn’t sure where to start. There was the drug issue. The money issue. And the probable leak in his department issue. Eeny. Meeny. Miny. Mo.

  “I need to talk to you, Clark. About several things.”

  “From the change in your tone, it sounds serious.”

  “It is.”

  Clark finished the grill and turned to study me. Then he looked into the kitchen where Greg and Mom were chatting away while they worked. “Would you like to take a walk?”

  “Sure.”

  Clark went inside and washed his hands. He told Greg and Mom that we were going for a short walk together.

  “You two are going to talk about me, aren’t you?” My mother’s words, full of vinegar, drifted out to me through the open window.

  “Absolutely, Mom. It’s what keeps Odelia and me alive.”

  As soon as we cleared the driveway, I opened the conversation. “I think you have a leak in your police department, Clark.”

  He stopped, looked at me in confusion, then fell in step again with me. “That certainly wasn’t what I expected you to say.”

  “It’s just the lead topic. A little something to warm you up.”

  “I see.” We took a couple of steps in silence. “So what makes you think there’s a leak at the PD?”

  I gave him a brief rundown of my speculation on the connection between Brenda Bixby and Joan Cummings, and how much of the information Brenda was spouting could only have come from a police insider.

  “Nina Cummings is Joan’s daughter.” Clark shook his head. “Joan, Joan, Joan,” he mumbled to himself. He looked my way. “How did you know that, about Nina and Brenda?”

  “You think you’re the only one who knows their way around a computer?”

  “Fair enough.” He blew out a short gust of air. “I can’t understand why Joan would do something like that, even for a close friend of her daughter’s. It’s not like her at all. Especially after everything the department’s done for her.”

  “You mean like not charging her son with possession when he was found all doped up the day of the killing?”

  “Yes, that and all the other times we’ve turned a blind eye to Marty’s indiscretions on Joan’s promise that he’d change his ways. Marty was a good kid, but after his father left them a few years back, the boy turned to drugs. Dropped out of high school. Stuff like that. No one could reach him.” He sighed. “I’ll look into the leak issue.”

  “Now the next topic—money. Did your father hide a large sum of money?” When Clark didn’t answer, I added, “Because I don’t like being accused of being here for the family fortune—especially that of a family that isn’t really mine.”

  “Brenda give you that scoop, too?”

  “It’s one of the things she told me.”

  “That’s the story, Odelia. Supposedly, he did hide a bundle. I’ve never seen it. Have no idea where it might be if he did.”

  Now it was my turn to stop and stare. A car drove by. Clark gave a friendly wave to the people in it.

  “I swear to you, Odelia. I only know as much as anyone else, and it’s all based on rumor. I’ve even asked Mom about it over the years, and she just laughs it off. My father was a loving but odd man. Probably came from not being able to be himself. He was a homosexual. Did Mom tell you that?”

  I nodded.

  “Except for us, he kept to himself. He had a good job. Traveled a lot on business. Might even have had an out-of-town lover, for all I know. We wanted for nothing but never had any showy extravagances. When the time came, there was money enough to send both of us to college. That money came from college funds he set up for us boys, but how he funded them, I have no idea. I always thought he was simply a good investor and saver.”

  As he talked, a thought occurred to me. “Grady hasn’t been very friendly to me the few times I’ve seen him. Does he think I’m here for money?”

  Clark looked at the ground and hemmed and hawed like an old woman deciding between oatmeal or bran flakes. His hesitation gave me my answer.

  “Well,
tell him I’m not. If there is any money buried anywhere, I just heard about it.” I wasn’t sure if I should add anything about Cathy hooking up with the Littlejohns for the money. In the end, I decided, in for a penny, in for a pound.

  “Does Grady know that you and Cathy were once an item?”

  Clark stared at me, open mouthed. “Guess I shouldn’t be surprised that you know that. You seem to have plugged into the local gossip stream.” He moved his head to look down the road, then started walking again. “To answer your question, yes, he does.”

  “Cathy thinks there’s a lot of money in the family, doesn’t she? Is that why you broke up with her, because you thought she was trying to get her hands on it?”

  “One of the reasons.” He looked up at the sky and laughed. It wasn’t a joyous laugh but one coated with regret. “One day I took Troy out for a movie. He was only about seven at the time. Anyway, Troy ate too much candy and didn’t feel well, so I brought him home early. He fell asleep on the way home. Rather than wake the boy, I carried him into their house. The door was open—Cathy hardly ever locked it. I came in quietly so I wouldn’t disturb Troy and overheard Cathy talking on the phone in her bedroom. I don’t know who she was talking to, but she was saying stuff like as soon as she got her hands on the money, she was leaving Holmsbury. It was clear in the conversation that she was talking about the money she assumed our family had hidden.”

  “Did you ask her about it?”

  “Of course. She wouldn’t tell me who she was talking to, just tried to lie and talk her way out of it. I left and never saw her again. I tried to warn Grady as soon as he hooked up with her, but he believed— still believes—that I made it up to keep them apart.”

  “Isn’t it uncomfortable for you to have Cathy and Troy around like they were today?”

  Clark shrugged. “At first it was. But she’s Grady’s girlfriend, so I put up with it. I miss Troy. He’s a good kid.”

  “You hardly spoke to him today,” I pointed out.

  “It’s easier for everyone if I keep my distance.”

  We walked along in silence for several yards. The area where my mother lived was more built up than where the inn was located. The street was busier, with houses neatly arranged on both sides. While still not on top of each other, as in California, they were spaced closer together than on the road I’d walked just a few hours earlier. We passed a middle school with a spacious athletic field. A few steps more, we came across a small post office. That’s when I let loose with my largest bomb of information.

  “Clark, I know that Cathy Morgan and her family sell drugs out of their vegetable stand.” There, it was out.

  Clark stopped in his tracks, cemented to the ground like a statue. I stopped, too. We stood like that, frozen, our faces locked on to each other. It seemed like an hour, but in reality it was only about a minute. During that time, Clark’s face ran the gamut from anger to disbelief to resignation.

  I broke the silence with another question. I was getting deeper with every comment but couldn’t help myself. The local drug business was a delicate egg. Now that I’d cracked it open, the only question was how to cook it—soft-boiled or scrambled. Might as well go for broke and scramble the thing. “You knew about that, didn’t you? Are you involved?”

  Clark looked around, then headed back towards the field, gesturing for me to follow him. I wasn’t sure I should. Ninety percent of me trusted him, but it was that pesky ten percent I was worried about. Quickly, I did some calculations. Greg was back at the house. If Clark showed up without me, he’d have some big-time explaining to do. I took off after him, quickening my steps to catch up.

  Clark stopped when he reached a baseball diamond a short ways from the street. He climbed a few steps of the bleachers and entered a row, sitting down about midway. I did the same. Clark gazed out over the playing field before turning to me.

  “Odelia, you’re messing with things that could get you hurt and cause a lot of trouble for a lot of people.”

  “So you know about the drugs?”

  “I know about them.” He turned his face back out towards the field. “I can’t tell you the number of games I played here as a kid.”

  “So, are you involved with the drugs, or are you simply looking the other way, like you did with Marty?”

  He looked back at me, his face set like stone, his eyes dark pools. “Neither. I’m trying to shut it down, but there are complications—one of them being Mom found with a dead drug dealer.”

  “Are you talking about Frankie McKenna or Les Morgan?”

  “Both, but the body being Cathy’s ex kicked up the investigation.”

  “How about Grady living with Cathy?”

  Clark rubbed his face with both of his hands. “Another major fly in the ointment.”

  After a minute of weighing his thoughts, he turned and pulled a leg over the bench so that he was straddling it, facing me directly.

  “Odelia, between you and me, I’m working with the state on this drug thing. Have been for a while. Just me, off the record. None of the other officers are involved and certainly not Grady. But we’re not after the Browns, we’re after their suppliers—the guys Frankie McKenna worked for. Or maybe he still does, who knows? He’s disappeared. It’s our guess Les Morgan worked for them, too. If they fall, the Browns will too. We want the head of the snake first.”

  “And what about Grady and Cathy?”

  “If Grady’s involved, he’ll go down with them. There’s a slim chance he might not know.”

  “Are you kidding me? One afternoon of watching the comings and goings in that stand alerted me. Willie, too.”

  “Grady may have gotten the looks in the family, but we got the brains. Until I got him into the police department here, he couldn’t hold a decent job.”

  “So you gave him a badge and a gun?” An image of Barney Fife, bumbling deputy on the old Andy Griffith Show, came to mind.

  “He’s actually a pretty good cop, at least when it comes to traffic and minor scuffles. He handles himself well enough, and people like him. But as far as the drugs go, neither CPAC or I are clear on what he knows. And if we alert him, he’ll alert Cathy and her brothers.” Clark ran a hand through his hair. “Believe me, Odelia, it wasn’t easy going to the state boys with my brother possibly involved. And with my past relationship with Cathy, it looks like revenge. But I had to do my job, and bringing CPAC in made it easier for me to operate under the radar.”

  “Brenda Bixby also knew about the drugs. I’m not sure if she figured it out on her own, like we did, or if Joan Cummings alerted her.”

  “I never told Joan about it. All my calls to and from CPAC went through my cell, not through the main desk. Doesn’t mean she didn’t figure it out, like I’m sure some other folks in town have. But those would mostly be the ones buying the drugs, like Marty.”

  “And Mrs. Rielley.”

  “Mrs. Rielley ?” Clark looked at me like I’d lost my mind.

  “Those bags of corn and squash Cathy brought for her contained drugs. Willie checked them out when he unloaded them from her car.”

  “Jesus.” There was more rubbing of his face with his hands, like he was sanding it down smooth. “We were actually making a lot of progress until this murder. I can’t help but think the drugs and Morgan’s death are related, but I need to know why Mom was in the corn maze that day and what she knows about the killer.” He gave me a look of expectation. “Is there any chance you could worm that out of her?”

  “I tried, didn’t work. I’m hoping my husband can charm it out of her over dishes—or at least put her at ease enough for her to drop some unintentional hints.”

  After a short silence, Clark swung his leg back over the bench and stood up. He stretched, twisting his torso first one way, then the other. He did the same with his neck. His body gave off a short series of cracks and pops. Finished, he stepped down and offered me his hand in assistance. I took it and started down the bleachers to the ground. Once there, Clark
didn’t let go of my hand. He held it firmly, bordering on tight.

  “Except for trying to get Mom to talk, I want you and your posse to stay out of this investigation, Odelia. And I mean it. You already know too much.”

  I started to ease my hand away, but he tightened his grip.

  “And I need you to keep quiet about what I told you tonight. The drug investigation has intensified with the murder. If we close in on anyone, I can’t have you and Greg in the way. Willie either. The three of you need to sit back and enjoy your visit or get your asses on a plane back to California. Understand?”

  “You’re hurting my hand.”

  “Tell me you understand.”

  I said I did, noting to myself that understanding wasn’t the same as agreeing to stay out of it.

  After we left my mother’s, I drove Greg to the Tyler farm and showed him the layout of the maze. Along the way, I told him about my conversation with Clark but left out the part where Clark held my hand in a vise until I said I understood that I was to keep my nose out of the murder investigation. Considering it was a promise extracted under duress, I didn’t plan on taking it seriously, but I was worried Greg might. One way or another, I was going to find out who and why my mother was protecting someone at a great cost to herself. It had occurred to me that Mom knew about the drugs and was protecting Grady. Whether he knew about it or not, I doubted he had much of a future with the police after this came to light.

  Once at the Tyler farm, I pulled into the makeshift parking lot and down the short dirt road so Greg could see how it was set up from outside. We couldn’t get up close to the maze because barricades and police tape were still in place. A freshly painted sign announced that the corn maze would be back open for business the following weekend.

  “What’s on the far side of the field?” asked Greg. “It looks like a river.”

  “It is. Not a wide one, but wide enough that you’d need a boat to cross it. See, there are boats on it now.”

  Greg craned his neck out the window. “Follow this road as far as you can.”