The Fred Vickery Mystery Series: Books 1-3 (Fred Vickery Mysteries)

by Sherry Lewis

  But where had the blood come from? And why had someone hidden the blanket behind the ladder in the garage? Contusions on her skull, a small cut on one arm. Skin under her fingernails. Death hadn’t come easily. She’d put up a struggle and her assailant probably had scratches to prove it.

  Fred shuddered to rid himself of the image of Joan fighting for her life, but he couldn’t help wondering how long it took to suffocate a person. Her death must have been horrible. Had she seen her killer’s face? Was it someone she knew? Her husband? A friend? One of Brandon’s guests at the dinner party that night? Fred couldn’t even begin to imagine the terror she’d felt.

  His stomach churned. He wanted to retch. He knew it was irrational, but he didn’t want to be right any longer. He wanted more than anything for the autopsy to say that Joan had drowned, that she actually had committed suicide or that she’d had an accident on the steep lake shore that morning.

  Enos rocked back on his chair, reached for a pencil and held it between his fingers like a cigarette. Doc fell silent.

  Fred breathed steadily, pulling deep draughts of air through his nose. “Who do you think did it?” he asked.

  Enos shook his head. “I don’t have enough evidence yet to implicate anybody, but I’ll get Ivan and Grady on it first thing tomorrow.”

  “You know who it was,” Fred mused.

  Doc looked up, surprised. “Who?”

  “Brandon. It must have been him. He told me that Joan ruined him that night at the dinner party. A thing like that would be enough to drive a man to murder.”

  Enos sighed. “I don’t think so. He has an alibi, substantiated by a number of people for the time of death. Every one of his guests says that he didn’t leave the party at any time.”

  That surprised Fred. “You mean you’ve talked to them?”

  “A day or two ago.”

  Fred was confused. “When did you say you got the autopsy report?”

  “Just this morning. The coroner called about a half an hour ago.”

  “But you’ve been questioning witnesses? Why? I thought you believed the suicide story.”

  Enos’s gaze flickered away. “I don’t think I actually said I believed it, did I?”

  “Well of course you did—didn’t he say so, Doc?”

  Doc held up his hands to ward off the question. “Don’t get me in the middle of one of your arguments.”

  “Even with a suicide, there’s a certain amount of investigation that goes on,” Enos said, scratching behind his ear with the pencil. “I talked with people. Everyone agrees that Joan was distracted and distant the night she died, but I also learned that Brandon never left his guests from the moment they arrived—when Joan was still very much alive—until they left, somewhere between one or two hours after she died.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me? If I’d known . . .” If he’d known, then what? Would he have been content to do nothing until the autopsy report came back? Would it really have made a difference?

  “What was I supposed to do, run around town accusing people of committing a murder that hadn’t officially happened? You can’t do things like that these days. Everybody’s protected under the law. You step out of bounds once, accuse somebody, say the wrong thing at the wrong time and the whole case gets thrown out because the law enforcement officer jumped the gun or got carried away. I did everything I could, when you consider what I had to go on.”

  Fred leaned back in the chair, suddenly swamped by exhaustion. “You could have told me.”

  “I didn’t have to tell you a blasted thing. You were supposed to stay out of it, remember? As it was, I told you more than I should have.”

  Fred wanted to argue with Enos, but he knew he wouldn’t get anywhere pushing this particular issue. He couldn’t even be certain why it bothered him so much that Enos hadn’t kept him informed about the investigation.

  Gradually he relaxed and the sleep he’d been missing the last few nights weighed down his bones and dragged at his eyes. At least his part was over now and life could get back to normal. No more questioning friends and neighbors. No more lying awake nights trying to figure out a way to convince Enos of the truth.

  So why didn’t he feel happy?

  Sometime later, Fred awoke, aware on some inner level that he’d been snoring. Doc had gone and Enos had his nose buried in Vengeance Trail, Deloy Barnes’ latest western. Fred had noticed one or two copies left on the shelf at Lacey’s the other day and had meant to pick one up for himself. Well, he’d have plenty of time to read it now.

  Groaning, he pushed himself up in the chair. His arms ached and the muscles in his neck burned. His back had cramped while he slept. How long had he been sitting here? He glanced at his watch. Eleven o’clock? He’d been asleep the better part of an hour!

  Enos looked up from the book, folded down the corner of the page and placed it aside with a show of reluctance. “How do you feel?”

  “I’m not sure,” Fred admitted. “Stiff. Relieved.” His disappointment at the recent turn of events would have to remain his secret or he’d never hear the end of it.

  Enos got up from his desk and strolled to the window. He stood there a moment, looking out. “It’s too bad this storm’s come up. It’s going to make going back over the crime scene almost impossible.”

  “Yep,” Fred agreed.

  “As soon as it lets up, we’ll have to get back out there. That’s the worst thing about this job, you know? Nothing at all to do for weeks on end and then, all of a sudden, wham!”

  “Well, if you’re short-handed. . .”

  Enos barked a laugh. “No.”

  “I’ve been all over the scene of the crime and then some. Remember how I told you that I’d been all along the west shore?”

  “I remember, but there’s an official homicide investigation now and you absolutely can’t interfere with it. If you do, I’ll lock you up just to keep you out of my way.”

  Fred straightened his coat and readjusted the collar. “It was just a thought. I wasn’t the one who said you had too much to do. By the way, have you told Kate yet?”

  “No. I suppose there’s no reason I can’t tell her before I tell Brandon. I’ll come along with you and do it now.”

  Struggling to his feet, Fred tentatively moved his knees, unsure how they’d react when he got them moving again. “Want a ride?”

  Enos grabbed his coat off the back of his chair. “I’ll give you one in the truck. No sense trying to drive your car home in this storm if I have to go out anyway.” He turned on the answering machine and locked his desk drawer.

  Fred pulled open the door and recoiled when the wind whipped inside. Cold burned through his clothing and settled into his bones. Enos grabbed his old, black cowboy hat and settled it on his head. He drew on his gloves and clapped one hand on Fred’s shoulder. “Ready?”

  Fred nodded and lowered his head, and with Enos at his side, he moved into the storm.

  fifteen

  Fred pushed the mute button on his remote control. It had been forty-eight hours since Enos gave him the news about the autopsy, but the strange sense of lethargy that had overwhelmed in that day still hadn’t gone away. He changed the television channel, but an old episode of “Perry Mason” popped onto the screen, he pressed the off button. He didn’t want to watch Perry solve a murder this morning.

  As he had a dozen times in the past two days, he considered walking over to the sheriff’s office—just to see what was going on. But Enos would be angry if he did so he changed his mind, just as he always had.

  Enos had warned him away from the murder investigation and he had no good reason to stay involved. When he’d been trying to prove that Joan was murdered, he had an excuse. Now he had none. Kate had her answers. Enos had found the right track. And Fred had never felt so miserable.

  Thinking of Kate made his frown deepen. Her things were still in Margaret’s old room, which meant she was still in town. But Fred hadn’t seen much of her since Enos told her about t
he autopsy. She’d left the house early yesterday morning and had come back late. She’d left without a word this morning, and she hadn’t eaten a meal with him since Sunday night.

  Fred dug through a stack of magazines, looking for something interesting to read. He’d read every issue in the house.

  Maybe, he thought, he should walk to Lacey’s and pick up that Deloy Barnes novel. If Janice happened to say anything about the investigation—and if anyone in town would know what was happening it would be Janice—well, Enos couldn’t blame Fred, could he?

  He wondered if Enos had any suspects yet. Had he discovered all the information Fred already knew? Fred could have saved him a lot of time. He could have filled him in on the break-up of the Cavanaugh’s marriage, about the relationship between all three of Russell Talbot’s daughters. He could have told Enos about the so-called art work of Summer’s that had been stolen and the threatened lawsuit. He could have told him all about Ramsey’s involvement in Shadow Mountain. Well … maybe not all about.

  But Enos didn’t care what Fred knew. And if it took him a while to catch up, it served him right for not paying attention. You could lead a mule to water, but you couldn’t force him to drink.

  Frustrated, Fred walked aimlessly around the house for a few minutes. There must be a hundred things he needed to do around the house. Floors to sweep, toilets to clean, that creaky board on the back deck to nail down. None of those things were going to fix themselves. He might as well get started on some of them today.

  His slippers scuffed on the floor as he located paper and pencil to make a list. He settled into his rocking chair and chewed the eraser, thinking. After a few minutes, he pushed the list aside with a sigh.

  It was no use. He couldn’t pretend life was back to normal. No matter what he did, he couldn’t get his mind off the murder. He just couldn’t think of any way to get himself involved again.

  The creaking of his rocking chair broke the silence. Across the room his clock ticked off the seconds hollowly. On the street, he heard someone shouting, but it took a moment to realize that someone was shouting for him.

  “Grandpa . . . Hey, Grandpa!” Rapid footsteps thundered onto the front porch and Fred pushed out of his chair just as Ben threw the front door open with a crash! “Grandpa!”

  “I’m right here, boy. What on earth—?”

  “Grandpa, look!” Panting heavily, Ben thrust out his hand. In it he held a small, dark object. Fred moved a little closer, narrowed his eyes and adjusted his glasses. A heel broken from a woman’s shoe lay in Ben’s hand.

  Fred looked up sharply. That heel had to be Joan’s. “Where did you find that?”

  “Miss Dey’s old work shed down by the lake.” Ben’s narrow chest rose and fell rapidly as he worked to catch his breath.

  “We’d better call Enos. No, let’s take it to him. Hold on just a minute. Sit down while I get dressed and I’ll go with you.”

  Ben nodded and plopped into Fred’s rocking chair, his face alight with pride. Ben shouldn’t have moved the evidence, but Fred didn’t have the heart to tell the boy he’d made a mistake.

  Suddenly energetic, he dressed quickly and rejoined Ben within minutes. They set off on foot for Main Street, squinting in the bright winter sunlight reflecting off the new snow. It gave the world the look of an overexposed snapshot.

  Fred put a hand on the boy’s shoulder as they walked. “All right, boy, tell me what happened. How did you find it?”

  Ben shrugged, trying to look nonchalant, but the excited gleam in his eyes betrayed his excitement. “I was looking for her snow shovels, you know? She said they were probably in the work shed? So I went out there and I looked around for a while. You know, dug into piles of stuff and looked behind things? I didn’t really know where to look but there’s this sort of empty spot toward the back? You can’t really see it from the front. So I went back there and started looking around. I didn’t really expect to find ‘em, but I thought I ought to look. Well, anyway, I saw this thing lying there on the floor off to the side—kind of shiny?”

  He held up the black patent-leather heel. “I picked it up, you know? To see what it was? And then I remembered Mom talking about the Sheriff finding Mrs. Cavanaugh’s shoes over by the lake? But she said one of them didn’t have a heel and I thought—I don’t know.” He paused, then cocked one eye at Fred. “Do you think it’s hers?”

  Fred nodded and tried not to smile. He knew this was serious business, but he couldn’t help being proud of his grandson and grateful for the chance to get involved again—even remotely.

  Ben shuddered and stuffed the heel back into his pocket.

  Fred patted the boy’s shoulder. Murder might be a frightening business in reality, but it had to seem exciting in the abstract. “We’ll get it to the Sheriff and he’ll know what to do with it. Did you move anything else in the shed?”

  “Lots of stuff. I was digging around, like I said, looking for those stupid snow shovels. Was that wrong?”

  “Of course not,” Fred assured him. “You were doing your job. Did you see anything else that looked odd?”

  “Plenty,” Benjamin said with a twitch of his lips. “That lady’s weird.”

  That she was. They trudged the rest of the way to town in silence, but when they reached the Sheriff’s office, the door was locked. Dismayed but not discouraged, Fred led Benjamin into town. They looked at the bank and then at Lacey’s, but Enos wasn’t in either location. Fred used the pay phone at the back of Lacey’s to phone Enos’s house, but there was no answer. They peered up and down every street from Lake Front to Estes and finally ducked into the Bluebird to warm up.

  At a booth in the corner under the movie poster from Kissin’ Cousins of Elvis in a blonde wig, they found Enos. Across from him, speaking rapidly, was Kate.

  Fred took Ben’s elbow and propelled him across the room. As they approached, Kate faltered then stopped speaking.

  Without the slightest hesitation at interrupting their conversation Fred said, “Ben needs to talk with you, Enos.”

  Enos jerked his head toward the other side of the room. “Go sit at one of those tables and I’ll be right with you.”

  Fred didn’t move. “This is important.”

  Enos sighed heavily and looked at Fred with barely concealed impatience. Kate straightened her spine and put on her haughty face. “So is this.”

  Fred ignored her. “Ben’s found some evidence I think you’ll be interested in.”

  That caught Enos’s attention—finally. “What you got, Ben?”

  Ben started to reach into his pocket, but Fred stopped him with a shake of his head. “Scoot over and let us sit down. I don’t want the boy bringing it out right here where everybody can see it.”

  Enos slid toward the window and Kate, reluctantly, did the same. Fred sat beside her and nodded for Ben to take the seat beside Enos. Almost reverently, the boy withdrew the broken heel from his pocket. Kate’s quick intake of breath did Fred’s poor old heart good.

  Stumbling a little over his words in his excitement, Ben told them his story. Enos met Fred’s eyes, mirroring the concern Fred felt. It appeared that Ben had inadvertently stumbled upon the place where Joan had been killed. Lab tests would prove it conclusively, but in his heart, Fred knew it. And he could tell that Enos did, too.

  Liz wandered over with a coffee pot and a steaming mug of cocoa for Ben. She filled Fred’s cup, ruffled Ben’s hair and left without a word.

  Enos turned the heel over and over in his hand, looking at it from every angle, as if it held the answers to all the questions. “Will you show me right where you found this?”

  Ben nodded. His eyes had lost their sparkle and his skin looked pale. When he raised his mug to his lips, his hands shook. Reality had hit him.

  “Do you want to finish your cocoa first?” Enos asked.

  Ben took a sip, pushed the cup away and said, “No. Let’s go.”

  “Don’t worry,” Enos said to Fred. “I’ll take him home. It
looks like you’re out of a job, Ben. No more cleaning things up at Summer’s—for a few days anyway.”

  Ben stood but he looked shaky. He glanced at Fred for reassurance, which Fred supplied with a nod and a wink. The boy still looked uncertain, but Enos slid out from behind the table and placed his big arm around the boy’s shoulder, guiding him gently toward the door.

  Fred watched them go, but even when the door closed behind them he didn’t move to the opposite side of the booth right away. He didn’t want Kate to leave just because Enos had gone.

  When they’d left Summer Dey’s house a few days earlier, he’d almost believed they could team up. But the minute she learned about the autopsy results, she’d frozen him out. Some thanks that was.

  Kate shifted toward the edge of the booth but stopped when she saw he had no intention of moving.

  Fred sipped coffee and gave her a smile. “What were you two talking about when we came in?”

  He expected resistance, surliness, even antagonism, but she turned to him almost eagerly. “I spent all day yesterday at the County Recorder’s office. You remember the file we found at the bank—the Shadow Mountain one with Joan’s name on it?”

  “I do.”

  “Well, I wanted to find out more about what she was doing with her money, what she had invested in, that sort of thing. It turns out that Joan did own Shadow Mountain, and she bought another piece of land adjoining it a couple of months ago.”

  That surprised Fred. “Are you sure?”

  “Positive.”

  But that made no sense at all. If that were true, Fred would have heard about it. Cutler was no place for secrets.

  “Not only that,” Kate went on, “but somebody else recently bought several other large tracts surrounding Shadow Mountain—another Cutler resident. Any guesses?”

  “Brandon?”

  Kate shook her head eagerly. “Logan Ramsey!”