In all the years she’d lived in this town, she’d never had anything stolen, nothing but a few flowers picked by a passerby.
She sunk down on her porch steps, feeling strangely sad, far more distressed at losing the old tool than she was at what happened to Milton.
Chapter 17
AMOS MELVILLE HAD only just gotten his office back to himself and settled down behind his desk when the telephone rang. He picked it up. “Yes?”
“I didn’t sleep a wink last night, my friend, but I got you the answers you wanted. I’m not sure, though, that you’ll be so anxious to hear them.”
Amos sighed, sure then that he’d made a big mistake.
“Give it to me straight, Ed.” Amos eyed the patient files stacked on his desk as he listened to the medical examiner lay out his findings from Milton Grone’s autopsy.
Amos didn’t interrupt, not once, merely punctuated the information dealt him with a murmur of “Ah-ha” or “I see.”
When Dr. Drake had finished, Amos took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “So you’ll get a copy of your report to me as soon as possible?”
“I’ll drop it by myself this afternoon, if you’d like.”
“Great,” Doc mumbled, to himself as much as Drake, “I’ll have to amend the death certificate. The body’s set to be cremated tomorrow.”
“I’m sure his friends at least will be glad to know the truth.”
Doc let out a dry laugh. “The man didn’t have any friends.”
And, he mused, those who knew Milton best likely wouldn’t care about the truth, just the fact that he was dead and out of their hair forever.
“So he was a mean bugger, eh? Well, that makes sense enough,” Drake replied. “From the looks of his crushed temporal lobe, your Mr. Grone pissed someone off pretty bad.”
“Oh, he pissed off a lot of someones,” Doc said.
“Wish I had better news.”
“Thanks for your help, Ed,” Amos said, parting after a mention of a golf date the next weekend.
When he hung up, Doc couldn’t focus on the mountain of files on his desk that needed dictation. He could think only of what Drake had confirmed in the last five minutes.
“It’s my professional opinion that Milton Grone’s death wasn’t caused by his heart,” Ed Drake had said, “but by a blow to his skull . . .”
Something Amos had suspected when he examined the body.
“The tissue from his heart showed damage, all right, but it wasn’t recent. You mentioned a severe myocardial infarction that kept him in the hospital years ago. I’ll bet it’s related to that. I’d put my money on the skull fracture killing him. I found particles of iron oxides mixed with brain matter, so it looks like a hard metal object . . .”
Drake’s words ran through his head, and Amos shifted in his chair.
“Chemical analysis also identified dirt, rust, and traces of a nitrogen, calcium, phosphorus, and potassium compound . . .”
What the hell?
“Fertilizer,” Drake had told him. “What the green-thumbs stir in with their topsoil to make their plants grow.”
Fertilizer?
Amos stared ahead at the wall, so deep in his own thoughts he didn’t realize he wasn’t alone until he heard a voice.
“You okay?” It was Fanny.
He started to lie, telling her, “I’m fine.” Then he shook his head. “No. No,” he said. “I’m not okay, not by a long shot.”
She crossed her arms and waited for him to go on.
“Got a call from Ed Drake,” he said, knowing how Fanny liked things straight-up, no pussy-footing around. “It appears that Milt was killed by a blow to the head. He didn’t die of a heart attack, Fanny. He was murdered.”
“What?”
He nodded.
Before he could say another word, his wife picked up the phone and dialed. “Hello,” he heard her say. “Sheriff? I think you’d better get over here fast.”
Chapter 18
HELEN PARKED HER Chevy on the graveled road in front of the gingerbread Victorian, the car knocking back several times as she turned off the ignition.
Felicity had called her earlier in the afternoon, asking if she’d mind taking a trip into Wal-Mart. She needed to replace some of her gardening tools, she’d said. As Helen hadn’t been engaged in anything more pressing than the Sunday morning crossword, she agreed to drive and immediately grabbed her purse.
They’d stayed in Jerseyville but an hour or so, leisurely rolling a cart up and down Wal-Mart’s aisles, which Helen found caused her to end up buying half a dozen things she didn’t know she needed until she saw them.
All the ever-practical Felicity had purchased was what she’d gone there to get in the first place: a new shovel. It was nestled in the trunk of the car alongside Helen’s three bags full of various gadgets, cleaners, shampoos, and curtain rods.
“Let me carry this for you,” Helen offered as she popped the trunk and removed the heavy spade.
But Felicity merely threw back her thin shoulders and told her, “Nonsense! I’m strong as an ox, which you well know. I’ve only a year on you besides, so, if you’d hand it over . . .”
“Here you go,” Helen said, though she was tempted to utter Yes, sir! and salute. Felicity seemed full of vim and vigor again, as though losing her ornery next door neighbor had given her a second wind.
“Come along,” Felicity trilled, and slung the shovel over her shoulder. “I’ll fix us each a cuppa if you’d like to join me.”
“Love to.”
From beneath her hat brim, Felicity smiled. Her finely lined skin crinkled merrily. “After all,” she remarked, “we’ve something to celebrate.”
“Celebrate?” Helen pushed down the trunk and leaned on it as she looked up at Felicity. She saw her friend glance across the way toward the Grone house, the grin tightening on her mouth, and then she understood.
“Maybe now I’ll have some peace,” Felicity said, her voice hushed, contemplative. “Shotsie’s loss is my blessing.”
Helen sighed, “Felicity—”
“No, Helen, don’t look at me so. The man was a bloody ogre, and you know it. If only Gerald had done as he promised and left all his land to the town, then his son might never have come back. Then he’d never have bothered any of us.”
“Wishing doesn’t change anything,” Helen reminded her.
Her eyes still on the house beyond the fence, Felicity frowned. “To think Milton sold that gorgeous patch of valley and bluff to a water park. Pah,” she spat. “They might as well build a shopping mall as well.”
Helen couldn’t help smiling. “You’d better not say that too loud or Shotsie might hold out for a shopping mall, too.”
“Good heavens!” Felicity grabbed the handle of the shovel, the price tag dangling from it as she ambled up the cobbled path to her front porch.
Helen followed, watching as her friend leaned the shovel against the porch wall. Then she went up the steps and pulled open the screened door.
At the crunch of approaching tires on the gravel, Helen turned to see the dusty black-and-white that belonged to Sheriff Biddle rolling up the road toward Felicity’s house.
Felicity let the door drop and stood on the steps, watching the car’s progress.
Helen heard her friend sigh as the sheriff’s car passed Felicity’s Victorian, coming to a stop in front of the Grones’ dented mailbox. Biddle emerged from the driver’s side, hiking up his pants after he got out. Doc emerged from the passenger’s side and lent a hand to Fanny, who scrambled out of the back.
“Sheriff!” Helen called, waving as she scurried toward Felicity’s gate. “What’s going on?” she asked, approaching the trio standing on the edge of the Grones’ weed-infested yard.
Amos and Fanny looked at the sheriff then back at each other, seeming
ly unwilling to spill the beans. Frank Biddle hooked his thumbs in his holster and stepped forward. “Well, it’s like this, ma’am,” he said, clearing his throat. “Doc just got a call from his friend at the county M.E.. Dr. Drake ran some additional tests on Mr. Grone.”
“And?” Helen prodded. Her eyes went to Amos. “It wasn’t a heart attack, was it?”
Amos pursed his lips, giving her a funny look.
“Looks that way, ma’am,” was all Biddle would tell her.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” Fanny said with a sniff. “It was his head, not his heart. He didn’t strike that rock when he fell, like Amos initially thought. Somebody hit him hard with a blunt object. Whoever did it must’ve moved the body and put Milton there with his skull on the stone.”
“What?” A cold wave washed over Helen. She hugged her arms, shaking her head. “I don’t believe it,” she said. “It simply can’t be true. No one in this town is capable of”—she swallowed, unable to say it—“that.”
Biddle pushed at his sheriff’s hat. “We don’t know that it’s someone from River Bend,” he told her. “It could well have been a stranger.”
“Oh, please!” Fanny snorted. “Name one person in this town who didn’t want to kill Milton Grone. I’ll wager you can’t think of one.”
“Fanny,” Amos said disapprovingly.
“Well, it’s true,” his wife countered.
“Let’s take things down a notch, shall we?” Doc’s tangled eyebrows knitted as he fixed her with a warning glare. “We don’t need to stir the pot any further.”
His wife rolled her eyes. “I’d say Milton Grone stirred the pot plenty all by himself.”
“Has Shotsie heard?” Helen asked.
“We’re on our way to see her,” the sheriff said. “I’ve asked Doc to help me break the news in case she takes it hard.” He tugged at his holster, looking decidedly uncomfortable. “I’m afraid she’ll get hysterical like she did the other night.”
“Of course, Doc should be there,” Helen agreed, remembering the distraught woman she’d found crying alone in the kitchen only two days ago. “I can only imagine how upset the whole town’s going to be when they get wind of this.”
“Murder isn’t something we get a lot of in River Bend,” the sheriff agreed, turning to face the Grone house.
Fanny harrumphed, adding, “I wonder if the good citizens of this town won’t care much about finding the guilty party—”
Abruptly, Doc’s wife stopped gabbing.
Helen glanced up at the Grones’ front porch and saw exactly what had shut her up, or rather, who.
Shotsie stood with hands on hips, eyeing the group that had gathered on her lawn. Her hair was a tangled mess and she wore faded jeans, her feet stuffed inside pink slippers. She tugged her oversized cardigan closed, the sleeves hanging down so they nearly obscured her small hands altogether.
“You havin’ some kind of meeting in my front yard?” she called out at their sudden silence, and descended the paint-peeled front steps toward them. “Anyone want to tell me why you’re here?”
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Grone,” Amos Melville said solemnly.
“Ma’am,” the sheriff mumbled, and tugged the beak of his hat.
Squinting as she came closer, Shotsie fixed her arms over her breasts and tipped her frazzled head. “I don’t suppose you’re hangin’ around here for kicks. So spit it out,” she said, giving each of them a suspicious glance. “Sheriff?” She singled out Frank Biddle, who shifted on his feet and cleared his throat as if buying time. “This has to do with Miltie, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, ma’am, it does.” Biddle took off his hat and began turning it round and round in his hands. “I’m not sure how to put this. Maybe we should go inside,” he suggested, but Shotsie would have none of it.
She vigorously shook her head and screeched, “I don’t want to go inside! Just say what you have to say then bug off! I’m on my last nerve, and you’re steppin’ on it!”
“Um, Doc, you want to take this?” Biddle asked, swallowing so hard the lump of his Adam’s apple jerked.
Amos didn’t look any more eager to share the news than the sheriff.
“Geez, would somebody spill?” Shotsie howled, and waved her arms, looking ready to come apart at the seams.
“It’s just that I, um, made a mistake. I, uh, jumped the gun, so to speak,” Amos muttered, though the words seemed to trigger a sudden coughing fit. He turned away, wheezing into his hand while Fanny patted his back.
Shotsie’s face turned purple. “What’s wrong with you people? What’s so terrible that you can’t even say it? Milton’s already dead. What’s more awful than that? C’mon, Mrs. Evans, give it to me straight. You’re one of the few in this town who doesn’t treat me like a leper.”
“Oh, dear.” Helen didn’t know what to say. She’d only just learned the truth herself. Gazing into Shotsie’s weary face, she felt oddly helpless. “It’s just that Milton wasn’t—well, he didn’t—” She couldn’t help stammering. “Ah, it seems that how he died isn’t what we first believed.”
Doc’s coughing fit subsided, and he touched Helen’s arm, letting her off the hook. “I made a mistake,” he said, and the sheriff nodded, tucking his hat back on his head. “I jumped to a conclusion that was erroneous. I’m so very sorry.”
“What exactly does that mean?” Shotsie asked, grabbing Doc’s arm. “Miltie had a heart attack. You said so yourself.”
The doctor put his hand over hers. “More tests were done to make sure nothing was missed,” he explained. “That evidence doesn’t support a natural death. It appears that Milton was hit in the head. It’s the blow that killed him, not his heart as I’d suspected.”
“No, you’re wrong!” Shotsie backed up and tugged her hand away. “That can’t be true. You’re telling me Milt was murdered?”
“Take it easy, Mrs. Grone,” the sheriff said in a firm but soft tone, as one would use with a tantrum-prone child. “I understand how hard this must be for you to digest.”
Shotsie’s chest heaved. “Hard to digest?” she shrieked. “Are you kidding me? This is crazy! It can’t be true, none of it! Murder doesn’t happen in a one-horse town like this!”
“It doesn’t,” Biddle agreed. “Not in the usual scheme of things, but anywhere you have people who butt heads there’s the potential for—”
“Who did it?” Shotsie asked, cutting him off. “Who clobbered my Miltie?”
“I don’t know that yet,” Biddle told her, rubbing his hands on his thighs. “We haven’t got much to go on. Only that whatever was used to hit him had some rust and dirt on it. Oh, and fertilizer. The kind used by gardeners.”
“Fertilizer?” Shotsie repeated, her round face turning such a mottled shade of purple that Helen thought the woman might pass out. But then Shotsie reared her head, and Helen saw the wild look to her eyes.
Without another word, Shotsie stomped through the high grass toward the split-rail fence, pausing there to stare at something on the other side.
Helen stuck her hands in her jacket pockets. She felt totally unsettled by the turn of events. This latest revelation had hit Shotsie hard, and she’d already had more than enough to endure.
“Fertilizer . . . dirt . . . rust,” Helen heard Shotsie muttering as she went closer.
“Please, my dear, let’s go inside the house, and I’ll make a fresh pot of—”
Helen hadn’t even finished the sentence when Shotsie ducked down, slipping between the fence rails and crashing through the raspberry bushes on the other side.
“Mrs. Grone!” Helen called after her, because all she could see beyond the fence was Felicity, standing still on her porch, her wide-brimmed hat seeming enormous atop her small but sturdy frame.
“What’s she doing?” Biddle asked, coming up behind Helen.
But Helen had alrea
dy sprung into action.
She bent down as Shotsie had, forcing her less agile body through the split rails, and skirted the shrubs that Shotsie had trampled. Calling out, “Mrs. Grone, don’t!” she rushed across the manicured lawn.
The sheriff shouted after her, but Helen kept going. She didn’t stop until she reached the steps and paused with her hand on her racing heart, trying hard to catch her breath.
“Mrs. Grone,” she called again as she neared the porch, but Shotsie didn’t turn around.
With her pink-slippered feet set apart, Shotsie cornered Felicity, who’d backed against a porch post. Her hands curled to fists, Shotsie let out a string of curses, her voice raised to megaphone loudness, clear enough for every neighbor to hear within a block.
“I saw you arguing with him that morning,” she ranted, “I watched it all from the bedroom window. You shook your watering can at him and looked fit to kill! You hated my Miltie, maybe more than anyone in this podunk town! I’ll bet you did it, you old biddy! Well, didn’t you?”
“Mrs. Grone, stop it!” Helen shouted, having heard quite enough.
The interruption seemed to throw Shotsie off for a moment.
Enough so that, with a yelp, Felicity scrambled for the door.
But Shotsie sprung back to life and lunged at her, knocking the hat from her head, baring the cropped gray hair, the ashen face and fear-filled eyes. Felicity grabbed for the shovel tipped up against the wall and raised it above her shoulder as she faced her attacker.
“Don’t come near me,” she warned in a tremulous warble. “Stay away, I said!”
Shotsie rambled on, “You did it, just like that, didn’t you? Took your shovel and smack!”
The sheriff ran up to the steps, Amos and Fanny right behind him. He brushed past Helen and grabbed Shotsie by the shoulders. “Mrs. Grone, come with me, please, and you, Miss Timmons, put the shovel down.”
Felicity glanced over at Helen but didn’t lower the shovel. It shook in her hands so that the price tag shivered like a flag in the wind.
To Helen Back: A River Road Mystery Page 9
