Stranded

by Lorena McCourtney

  “So, what do you think?” I said to Abilene, thinking we’d hurry this along so she could be on her way. She still needed to see a dentist too, but I knew that for her that came second in importance to the job with Dr. Sugarman. “Look okay to you?”

  Although it was an unnecessary question, of course. We didn’t have a smorgasbord of free living quarters from which to choose while we were stranded here in Hello. Abilene nodded approval. I knew Koop would love the place too, with its various nooks and crannies and, undoubtedly, plentiful supply of mice.

  I turned to Kelli. “The house looks wonderful, and we really appreciate your generosity, so—”

  “Let me show you the bedrooms first. I don’t want there to be any unpleasant surprises.”

  Actually I was more curious about the murder than the bedrooms. I hadn’t noticed any blood stains or other signs of violence so far. How had Hiram been murdered? And where? Who’d found the body?

  Yet I thought tact and sensitivity required waiting until Kelli offered the information rather than my demanding it, so I merely followed when she opened a door from the kitchen to a hallway.

  “This part from here on back is an addition that was put on in the ’50s, I think it was. Hiram’s mother, or maybe it was his grandmother, was bedridden, and they needed rooms for more nursing and household help.”

  The long hallway led to a windowless back door. The first two rooms Kelli opened in the addition were empty, but the next one held an impressive array of workout equipment, a treadmill, a stepper, barbells in graduated sizes, and various weight machines.

  “Hiram worked out?” I asked, surprised.

  “No, some wife had all this stuff moved in. I’ve heard she had a trampoline out in the yard too, and she liked to work out on it in her bikini. I heard there was a big jump in the sale of binoculars locally about that time.”

  Yes, I decided, Hiram definitely needed an older woman such as Lucinda O’Mallory.

  The next room looked as if it had been Hiram’s discard room. Or maybe it was his save-it, I-may-need-this-someday room. Piles of newspapers and magazines, a mountain of wadded-up plastic bags, plastic jugs, bits of old, broken furniture, cardboard boxes of all sizes, various-sized chunks of Styrofoam, sacks of old rags, even a couple of old bicycle tires.

  “I’ve been putting it off, but one of these days I’ll have to rent a truck and haul all this stuff to the dump.”

  “Some of it could be recycled.”

  “Just don’t drop a match in here, or the whole town might go up in flames.”

  “We’ll be careful.”

  “There are two furnished bedrooms on this floor,” Kelli went on as she turned and led us in the opposite direction down the wide but dim hallway. “There are also various rooms on the second floor that I suppose were bedrooms. The second floor hasn’t actually been closed off like the third floor has been for years, but I haven’t had the house checked for structural reliability yet, so it would probably be best to use these.”

  She opened a door off the hallway and stood back to let us see inside. “This is the smaller bedroom on this floor. I’ve wondered if it may have been a nursery at one time. There isn’t a private bath, just the bath down the hall.”

  The bedroom may have been a nursery at some time, but the furniture now was old and heavy, probably antique but mismatched and rather worse for wear. Two single-wide beds, a tall chest of drawers, and two nightstands. Two generic, English hunting scenes hung on walls papered with cabbage roses. The carpet, of entwined dark flowers on a blue background, had a faded elegance, and there was also an impressive armoire of more dark, carved wood, probably rather valuable.

  The room was clean, but the beds looked carelessly made up. A crooked sheet hung below the bedspread on one. A book, I Married an Alien, with a picture on the cover of a big-eyed, hairless being, lay on the nightstand. The open door of the armoire revealed a couple of plaid shirts, one with a hole in the elbow, and a pair of scruffy, sheepskin-lined slippers. A faint scent of old smoke clung to everything.

  “Did Hiram spend some of his nights here rather than in the kitchen?” I asked.

  “No. Norman, the caretaker out at the mine, came to town once in a while, and Hiram always let him stay here. Hiram and he liked to smoke and drink tequila and argue about everything from politics to UFOs. It was a rather unlikely friendship, but they were good buddies.”

  “Was this buddy around when Hiram was murdered?”

  “You’re seeing Norman as a murderer?” Kelli smiled and shook her head. “No, I’m sure he wasn’t, though the police did go out and question him. Not that anyone would suspect ol’ Norman anyway. He’s a bit odd, but harmless. He was terribly upset by the murder. He even showed up at the funeral in a blue suit. Although the tie with a palm tree on it detracted a bit from the effect.”

  Harmless or not, I wouldn’t automatically dismiss someone who was apparently here at the house often. Could the authorities know for certain he wasn’t here at the time of the murder? Sometimes even friendly arguments exploded into violence when old buddies drank together. And sometimes murderers were, too late, upset by what they’d done.

  The next door opened on a much larger bedroom furnished with impressive antiques that had apparently escaped the wives’ toss-’em-out energies. A huge, canopied bed draped with red velvet curtains stood in regal splendor against the wall. Scattered around the room were several wingback chairs, a graceful, old-fashioned chaise longue, a mirrored dresser, several chests of drawers, and an antique trunk. More red velvet drapes framed an airy bay window.

  But all that paled in comparison to what stood in the far corner.

  Carousel horses. Three of them. Necks arched, hooves prancing, eyes gleaming, nostrils flaring, tails flowing. One was white, one ebony, one golden. Their saddles were blue and scarlet and purple, bridles and reins of gold-colored leather. Each was mounted on a brass pole, and they stood on a round wooden base, as if poised for the lighthearted tinkle of calliope music to bring them to life. Harley and I had ridden a merry-go-round once, oh so long ago …

  The carousel horses were so astonishing, so totally out of place here in this bedroom, that I didn’t know what to say.

  “Aren’t they amazing?” Kelli said.

  “They’re beautiful! Are they antique? Something that’s been in the family for years?”

  “They’re old, and they’re original carousel horses that have been restored, not modern copies. Lucinda knows enough about antiques to confirm that. Real carved wood, not plastic or fiberglass. But I have no idea where they came from or anything of their history. Hiram never mentioned them, and I never saw them until after he died.”

  “How strange.” But the carousel horses unexpectedly gave me a warmer feeling toward Hiram. I’d been put off by all those wives, but here I saw a hint of small boy deep inside the man. Maybe he’d wanted to ride a merry-go-round as a boy and never had the chance. Another thought occurred to me, a more romantic one.

  “Maybe he meant them as a surprise for Lucinda. Maybe they rode a carousel together when they were young, and it held nostalgic memories.”

  “If so, I’m afraid Lucinda doesn’t remember. She seemed as astonished as I was to find them here. She says they’re quite valuable.”

  Abilene had already crossed the room to run her hand over the sculptured lines of the wooden animals. “Look! The manes and tails are real horsehair.”

  I went over to join her, marveling at the level of workmanship carved into the wooden animals. Then I looked down and shrieked.

  6

  Abilene grabbed my arm protectively. “What is it? What’s the matter?”

  I pointed to the carpet under my feet. Abilene isn’t a shrieking person, but even she gave a small squeak. Blood stains, enough blood stains for an ax murder, were seeping out from under the base of the carousel horses. The stain hadn’t been noticeable earlier, mixed with the floral pattern of the carpet, but now …

  I clutched Abilen
e’s hand and looked at Kelli. “This is where … ?”

  “Oh no. I’m sorry!” She waved her hand and gave an embarrassed laugh. “I’d forgotten. I should’ve warned you.

  It isn’t a blood stain. At least I don’t think so.”

  “It isn’t?” I said doubtfully.

  “I thought it was blood too, when I first saw it,” Kelli admitted. She walked over and peered down at the stain with us. “I even wondered if I should check back to see if one of the wives had mysteriously disappeared sometime. But then I got to looking closer, and I think it’s just a wine stain. I’m guessing one of the wives threw something like a bottle of burgundy at Uncle Hiram sometime. He tended to marry the hot-tempered kind.”

  I knelt and examined the irregular stain and decided Kelli was right. Part of the stain was under the base holding the carousel horses, which meant they’d been moved into the room after the bottle-throwing incident, probably fairly recently. But why? Why would old Hiram bring something as unlikely as expensive and beautiful carousel horses into his bedroom? Especially when, with a wedding coming up in only a few months, he wouldn’t have been living here much longer?

  “I don’t know if the stain wouldn’t come out, or if he decided it wasn’t worth the bother,” Kelli added. “In any case, it hasn’t anything to do with the murder.”

  “And so,” I asked, figuring I’d earned the right to take a flying leap over sensitivity and tact, “where did the murder occur?”

  “I’ll show you. What do you want to see? The beginning or the end?”

  While I was wondering what that meant, she made the decision herself and motioned for us to follow. Abilene hesitated. I recognized her dilemma. Curiosity runs deep in Abilene, maybe almost as deep as it does in me. We’ve both read enough mystery novels to write our own Murder for Dummies manual, with footnotes. But now she was torn. Dr. Sugarman or murder mystery?

  Dr. Sugarman won. Which told me again how much the job meant to her. She glanced down the hallway toward the front door. “Would it be okay if … ?” she began tentatively.

  “You run along. We’ll see about moving our things from the motor home over here later.”

  Kelli looked at her watch. “I have to take the Bronco in to Nick’s for that two o’clock appointment. We can do it right after that.”

  Abilene wasted no time heading for the door. I followed Kelli at a slower pace down the hallway to the foyer and stairs. I was certain we were heading for that closed door. I was even anticipating a shivery Inner Sanctum–type squawk when it opened.

  But Kelli turned toward the stairs leading upward. She noticed my questioning look at the door. “Nothing happened in there. It’s just Uncle Hiram’s office and library. I’ve already moved his records and papers over to my office, so it’s just books in there now.”

  So much for my vibe-recognition abilities. “I thought Hiram had donated his books to the Ladies Historical Society.”

  “He did, but they’ve never picked them up. They spent every cent he gave them on getting the new wing for the library added onto their building. When they ran out of money, he said he’d donate another bundle for maintenance and to hire someone to organize and catalog the books, but he hadn’t yet gotten around to that before he was murdered.” She paused, frowning slightly.

  I jumped right in with a possibility. “Could there have been some connection? Someone didn’t want him to make that next donation?”

  She groaned but also laughed. “Don’t say that. If the town hasn’t already thought of it, they’ll be adding that on as another black mark against me: I had to murder him before he gave more assets away. Of course the ladies of the Hysterical Society would have had enough money without another donation from him if they hadn’t acted like kids turned loose in a video arcade when they built the new wing.”

  As a longtime librarian, I’m also a longtime book preservationist. “They had to have a good place to put the books,” I protested. “Books deteriorate in poor conditions, and temperature is important.”

  “But did they need 175 -dollars-a-yard carpet and imported teak shelving, and bringing in some artsy guy from New York to do a mural?” Kelli snorted in disapproval.

  “May I go in and look around later?”

  “Sure. Help yourself. The door isn’t locked. I keep thinking there must be more records concerning investments or accounts that I haven’t located yet, but I don’t know where else to look.”

  “I’ll keep an eye out for anything like that.”

  “Anyway, there are tons of old books about Colorado history and mining and various other subjects that interested Uncle Hiram.”

  The spindlework supporting the railing on either side of the stairway looked too delicate to hold up the thick, molded railing, but the rail felt solid under my hand. A green ribbon blocked access to the hallway at the second-floor landing, although it was mostly symbolic, because the ribbon wouldn’t actually keep anyone out. Beyond the ribbon, a haphazard collection of junk and/or antiques lined the hallway. On the third floor landing, a bare piece of plywood lay to one side. Holes and splinters in the wood showed where it had been yanked from a nailed position across the doorway.

  “Didn’t you say the third floor was closed off?”

  “It was, until Uncle Hiram decided to open it up for some unknown reason.”

  We stepped into an enormous, unfurnished space. Dusty light streamed through uncurtained windows. A maze of footprints decorated the dust on the floor, polished hardwood gleaming through them. “A ballroom?” I guessed.

  “Hiram said that when he was a small boy his parents held wonderful fancy-dress balls here, but it’s another part of the house that I was never in until after his death.”

  She led the way across the bare floor to a round tower room, the one with windows. A solid, although slightly warped, door closed off the balcony tower room, but only an archway separated this room and the ballroom. There had once been carpet in the circular room, but it had been ripped up, leaving only shreds on the floor. A smell of old wood and musty carpet hung in the stagnant air.

  “That’s where he went out.” Kelli pointed to the raw plywood covering one long, narrow window. “He landed on the brick walkway below. I had the window boarded up temporarily until I get new glass installed.”

  I went to a window to the left of the plywood. The bottom sill was no more than a few inches above floor level, not all that difficult to plunge through. Kelli stayed back, as if she’d rather not look out.

  Nothing showed that a body had once crashed to the bricks below. No chalk outlined where the body had landed, and the old bricks were too discolored by long exposure to the elements to reveal any blood stains now. Bare-branched trees hung over the yard like dark skeletons leering over a tragedy.

  I had a sudden, dizzying awareness of how it would feel to crash through the window and plunge headlong through open space to death below. I grabbed the framework around the window to steady myself, then jerked my hand away as I realized a grayish powder clung to the woodwork.

  “The police checked for fingerprints?” I asked, looking at the residue on my hand.

  Kelli nodded. “Yeah. They called in people from the county sheriff’s office and were quite thorough. They went through the house with the proverbial fine-toothed comb.”

  I dug a tissue from my pocket and wiped at the fingerprint powder, which resulted in more smearing than removal.

  “What made the authorities decide he was murdered?” I asked. “With the sill so low, couldn’t he simply have tripped or stumbled and fallen through the window accidentally?”

  “The police think that’s how the murderer wanted it to look. But Uncle Hiram had an injury that was, as they put it, ‘inconsistent’ with how he landed on the bricks. If he’d landed differently, maybe they’d never even have suspected it was murder.”

  “What kind of injury?”

  “He landed face down, but there was an injury to the back of his head. The medical examiner said h
e’d been hit with something, although they’ve never identified what. At least not publicly. The weapon has never been found.” Wryly she added, “Although they got a warrant and spent enough time searching my place for it.”

  “And the ripped-up carpet?”

  “There wasn’t any visible blood on the carpet, but they took it off for laboratory testing anyway. And the tests did show specks of blood. Uncle Hiram’s blood, according to the analysis.”

  “Which gives further weight to the conclusion that he didn’t stumble and fall through the window on his own. The blood came from the blow to the head.”

  “Right.”

  “So, the theory is that when he was hit on the head, he fell forward and plunged through the window, breaking it?”

  “I’m not sure if they think that’s how it happened, or if they think the killer hit him and then picked him up and shoved him through the window after he was unconscious.”

  “That would take a fair amount of strength.”

  I glanced back at Kelli. She smiled without humor. She struck a bodybuilder’s pose and flexed a bicep under the gray sweatshirt. “They seemed to think I could have done it easily enough. Uncle Hiram wasn’t a large or heavy man.”

  “Was it the blow on the head or the fall that killed him?”

  “The blow on the head was vicious, but it wasn’t fatal, according to the autopsy. Landing on the bricks was what killed him. The only good thing—” She broke off and swallowed. “If you could call anything good in all this, it’s that he was probably already unconscious from the blow and didn’t know he was falling or feel the impact on the bricks.”

  “What were he and the killer doing up here together, if the third floor was usually closed off?” I went back to the window, noticing what I hadn’t before. The view of the town from here was truly spectacular, the narrow main street lined with picturesque old brick buildings.

  “Good question. The police didn’t lay out details for me, but from their questioning I gathered they thought I removed the plywood blocking off the third floor, lured Uncle Hiram up here on some pretext, and whacked him with some heavy object. But, since I know it didn’t happen that way, I have no idea why he was up here.” Again that bitterness in her voice, along with an undercurrent of frustrated helplessness.