The Dead of Winter (A Piper Blackwell Mystery Book 1)

by Jean Rabe

A path had been shoveled from the street to the front door of the Wallem house, which smelled only slightly better this morning. In the laundry room she found a box of well-chewed stuffed dog toys. She took it with her, intending to send them through the washing machine to get the stench out. Piper figured the toys belonged to the dog, nothing wrong with giving them back to her. A walkthrough yielded nothing else, another look at all the decorations—finding a couple of beagle ornaments on the tree that likely came from the store in Santa Claus—and a small address book in the desk; she put that in an evidence bag, grumbling that Randy should have done that.

  Piper locked up and left.

  Minutes later she made a quick call to the hospital and was put through to her father’s new room. He said he was fine and once more encouraged her to catch the bastard. Then Piper turned her cell phone to vibrate, put it in her front shirt pocket, and went inside the funeral home. Maybe Randy would show up anyway, and she’d rip him up one side and down the other for dropping out of contact. She hoped Oren was wrong and that her detective had not been holding anything back, though not bagging the address book was sloppy, especially when Christmas cards apparently linked everything.

  In a way, she could understand Randy’s actions. Randy had been with the department fifteen years, and she’d been here five days. Understand, yes. Accept, no. The Army had taught her the importance of chain of command. Maybe she ought to fire his ass and get a new detective. Piper wanted more diversity in the department; this could be a good opportunity.

  The music in the main chapel was somber, typically the case for funerals, she knew from experience. She’d been to a few military services, however, where they’d played upbeat stuff that the fallen soldier had favored, 25 or 6 to 4 to name one instance.

  The room was fairly crowded. According to interviews, Conrad Delaney had kept to himself and was a lonely man. But obviously he had touched a lot of local souls. She saw Dr. Annie Neufeld in the front row, head turned and talking to someone behind her. Chris and Joan Hagee sat midway back, Chris on an aisle, fingers drumming on his knee. Nang was in the back row, dressed in a dark gray suit, pale blue shirt, and a tie that had tiny spaceships on it. A few seats were empty on either side of him. Piper moved forward and inched into his aisle.

  “May I?” she asked, indicating a chair.

  He nodded. “Please.”

  She sat and hooked her coat over the back. There were flowers, but not all that many, a spray across the casket, which was closed, though Piper thought it hadn’t needed to be. Conrad Delaney’s body had been in fine, frozen condition. She’d move up after the service and look at the tags on the flowers, see who sprung for them. A large arrangement at the head of the casket was all big white blooms with sprigs of greenery, and a smaller one at the foot was full of red and yellow carnations and mums. There were two plants on pedestals off to the side, and the requisite peace lily on the floor near them. She couldn’t smell the flowers this far back, but she picked up Nang’s aftershave and the competing fragrances of two middle-aged women in front of them.

  Piper had been so very busy the past handful of days that she’d not been able to personally meet with all the people at Chris Hagee’s party; she wondered how many of them were here. She recognized a few faces in attendance, when they turned this way and that to see who else was in the chapel. But she couldn’t put names to them. Was one of them the killer?

  She spotted Anthony Delaney walk in from a side door and sit in the front row next to Dr. Neufeld; his was the only bald head in the room. Another young man followed him and sat at his shoulder, probably Zachary, though he didn’t fit the description Oren had painted.

  “About dinner,” she whispered to Nang. “I can’t—”

  “I understand.” Piper had to strain to hear his voice over the murmurs of the crowd and the organ. “You are busy with all of this death.”

  “Yeah.”

  “It is unfortunate to be so busy because of death.”

  Death. Four bodies in Spencer County. One in Henderson, Ky. She needed to go there and talk to the detective in person. Let them know their homeless man in the park was likely the first victim in the serial killer’s string. How did Henderson connect to Spencer County?

  She thought about that. The first victim. Why was the homeless man first? Or were there more before him? Eleven mugs purchased the first week of December.

  The homeless man had mailed a few Christmas cards, at least according to the one he’d sent Jacob Wallem, funny cartoon cards, so he had a morose or humorous take on the holidays. And how did a homeless man connect to Jacob Wallem and Samuel Reynolds and Conrad and Abigail?

  “You’re young to be faced with all of these troubles,” Nang whispered.

  She’d been faced with troubles in her tours in Iraq.

  Young? She hadn’t been too young for Iraq. But was she too young to be sheriff of Spencer County? Oren and Randy would say yes, as would probably everyone in the department except for JJ.

  Age wasn’t a factor between the victims. The homeless man, hugs and fist bumps Thomas Olbert had been twenty-six; Samuel, twenty-seven; Jacob twenty-eight; then it jumped thirty-seven years to Conrad, aged sixty-five; and jumped another seventeen years to Abigail, eighty-two.

  “The day I met you,” Piper said, keeping her voice low, “in your quick stop, a man came in wearing an Indianapolis Colts jacket. Any chance you remember that?”

  Nang nodded.

  “Do you know who he was?”

  Nang pointed toward the front. “Zachary Delaney, Conrad’s son.”

  The music stopped.

  The Pastor stood. “If we have been pleased with life, we should not be displeased with death, Michelangelo wrote, since it comes from the hand of the same master.”

  Oren slipped into the row across from her, taking off his hat.

  The pastor was from Sweet Abby T’s church, Oren had told her when the funeral notice ran. Conrad hadn’t attended church in many years, but his wife had gone to that church. The pastor was officiating at Abby T’s funeral tomorrow. Business booming because of the killer. She wondered if Oren had found anything in the cards while she was at Wallem’s place. She’d ask him after the service.

  It’s in the cards, Piper thought again. It has to be. CCK CCK CCK. What am I missing?

  The cards tied it all together; she just couldn’t find the thread. Randy had found the thread and kept it secret. But he was a trained detective. She’d trained as an MP. He had fifteen years of experience. She had five days.

  “Do you know what Zach drives?” she hushed.

  “Silver pickup. Why?”

  “Not maroon?”

  “It has a red door, replaced from an accident. Why?”

  Her phone vibrated as the pastor motioned everyone to stand. She pulled it out and looked at the screen: Drew. She’d call him back. Maybe he’d found Randy.

  A woman perched next to the organ started singing Amazing Grace.

  Piper’s mind spun like a kaleidoscope, pictures of cards forming and shattering, reforming and replaced by faces of the victims. Anthony Delaney had known all of the victims save for Thomas Olbert from Henderson. Or had he also known Thomas? They were only two years apart. Maybe Thomas hadn’t always been from Henderson.

  Maybe Anthony Delaney was the one thing they all had in common.

  And thereby maybe Zachary Delaney, too.

  Zachary Delaney was the man in the Colts jacket, drove a silver pickup, which could have looked gray in the snow storm. A red door that could have looked like a flash of maroon.

  The man standing to Anthony’s left was dressed in a dark suit, with short hair. She’d heard from Oren and Randy that Zachary Delaney looked like a hippie. But anybody can clean up, especially for a funeral. The guy in the Colts jacket had looked a little scruffy, but familiar. Had he been familiar because she’d seen pictures of him in Conrad’s house?

  “That’s Zachary? Next to the bald man?”

  Nang nodded.


  The song ended. Zachary looked behind him to take in the attendees. Piper shivered. It was the same face from Nang’s store. Cleaned up nice and proper. Their eyes locked for a moment, then he turned back to face the front.

  The pastor quoted Revelation. “God shall wipe all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.”

  Her phone vibrated. Drew again.

  She smiled at Nang, and slipped out of the chapel room.

  Two men in black suits stood in the funeral home entrance, looking out the glass doors to the parking lot, ready to welcome any latecomers. Beyond them a white hearse waited to take Conrad’s body to the cemetery. Directly behind it was a metallic blue Ford with a ‘funeral’ flag on the hood, just like the car she almost hit coming out of her driveway early this morning. Another suited man in the parking lot was attaching more of the flags to cars. Piper hadn’t planned on attending the burial.

  “Whose car is that?” she asked the men. She pointed to the metallic blue Ford.

  One shrugged. The other said, “Son of the deceased.”

  That would be Zachary Delaney.

  What happened to his silver pickup? Damaged in the crash, probably replaced it, she thought, knew deputies would be looking for it.

  She found a niche near the restrooms, a blank spot of wall between two large urns of mums, and called Drew.

  “Found Randy?” she asked, keeping her voice low. Piper had a hard time hearing him, organ music from the chapel was also piped out here. The woman started singing Bridge Over Troubled Waters.

  “His Crown Vic anyway,” Drew said. “Took longer than it should have. We really should get this software, Sheriff, less than a hundred bucks. Gotta be in the budget, right? I could order it today. Track everything ourselves.”

  “Where is he?”

  “What?”

  “Randy. Where is Randy, the Crown Vic?”

  “Its coordinates, actually. I’ll text over a couple of addresses you can find with your GPS, the Vic pings smack in between them, not at any address. It’s right across the bridge, in Owensboro.”

  Piper waited for the text, hearing the organ crescendo beyond the closed doors. The singer kept it to one verse; the music stopped. She looked at the screen and called Drew back. “Are these residences? These two addresses? Do you have names to go with the addresses?”

  “Just a minute.”

  Since her car accident, Piper hadn’t been able to search the Internet on her phone; she’d probably have to break down and get a new phone with all those advertised bells and whistles.

  “Still checking. Did I interrupt the funeral?”

  “Nope, funeral’s still going, you just—thankfully—interrupted my listening to it.”

  “Sorry. I don’t like funerals either. Sorry, but you said to call if—”

  “It’s okay, I don’t mind. Oren’s in there, representing the department.” She heard computer keys clicking, figured he’d set down the phone right next to his keyboard. The clicking stopped.

  “Got it. One address is a furniture store, but it doesn’t look like it’s in business anymore. The other address is an apartment complex, well, maybe a motel. Something like that. Found a pic on the Internet, looks kinda dumpy, a rent-by-the-week thing. Doesn’t have a website, I got the pic from the yellow page listing. I’m sending it over.”

  Something niggled at the back of Piper’s mind, something she’d read in one of the reports that Randy or Oren had presented, probably Oren if Randy had been holding back. Rent-by-the-week. Rent-by-the-week. Rent-by-the—

  “Shit,” she said, not able to make the connection.

  “What?”

  “Nothing, Drew, thanks.”

  “I’m working a double today by the way.”

  “Fine.”

  “Sheriff, Randy still doesn’t answer on the radio. But according to the OnStar, his car’s been in the same location—that spot I sent you—for more than twelve hours. Maybe he’s got a girlfriend or—”

  “I’ll talk to you later, thanks for your help.”

  “Sheriff. Buck Hannoh came in half an hour ago, dropped his resignation letter on the desk.”

  “Shit.”

  Piper crept back into the chapel. The row behind Oren was empty. She edged into it, sat, tapped him on the shoulder, and whispered.

  “Rent-by-the-week. Owensboro?” she asked a little too loud. A woman in front of Oren shushed her.

  “That’d be Zach Delaney.”

  “I think he’s our killer,” she whispered. “In fact, I’m sure of it.” Then Piper stood and looked to the front row, instantly locking onto Anthony Delaney’s baldhead. The seat next to him was empty. “And two is four and four is eight.”

  “You really think he’s our doer?” Oren asked softly, as he stood, too. “Zach? Randy said Zach didn’t have the wherewithal.”

  “Shhhhhh!” from the woman directly in front of Oren.

  “Yeah. He’s our thread, Oren. Somehow.”

  “Zach slipped out the side door a few minutes ago, about the same time you left. Guess it wasn’t for a bathroom break.” Oren eased out of the row.

  Piper slid to the other row, grabbed her coat, and whispered, “Later,” to Nang.

  Thirty-One

  In the parking lot, the metallic blue car that had been behind the hearse was gone.

  “Peeled out of here,” one of the suited men said. “Didn’t even take our flag off. Surprised you didn’t hear him. Some people can’t handle funerals.”

  “He was alone?” Piper demanded.

  “Yeah, clipped our hearse on his way out.”

  “Did you get the license plate number?”

  “Damn straight, Sheriff. Or close to it. I don’t know if this is a 5 or an S, had some ice hanging down.” The man showed his hand. He’d written it in ink.

  Piper pulled out her cell phone, not wasting the heartbeats it would take her to reach the radio in her car. “Drew. Drew. Drew!” He answered. “Broadcast this license number to our deputies and all police in the area. A BOLO on a metallic blue Ford Focus, older model, license number 5490-5B99, it might be SB99.”

  Piper almost sent Oren back to the office, but backup was a more prudent idea, as was taking his four-wheel drive car.

  “Want me to drive, Sheriff Blackwell?” Apparently he anticipated her plan.

  She pointed to his Explorer, and once in the passenger seat she was on the radio to Drew again. “State police, too, Indiana and Kentucky. Say the driver—Zachary Delaney—is wanted for questioning, and that he’s probably dangerous. The car might have a funeral flag on its hood. Was last seen on Main in Rockport. Send someone—Marsh if he hasn’t quit—to pick up Anthony Delaney at the cemetery. He’ll be there shortly. Let him see his dad put in the ground, then take him to the office and have him wait for me.”

  Next, she radioed JJ. “High school yearbooks, JJ. Zachary Delaney didn’t graduate from high school, but go to the library and pull the books from eight years ago, that would have been Zachary’s senior class. You’re looking for Thomas Olbert. Call me back.”

  The radio crackled with a report about a traffic stop on the highway near the monastery, a van in a ditch. Minutes later, with reports of two big dogs running loose near Fulda, and repeated BOLOs about Zachary Delaney’s car.

  Piper would indeed fire Randy’s ass. Randy had connected the dots to Zachary Delaney and hadn’t bothered to tell anyone about it. That didn’t make him a good detective; that made him a stupid one. And she was liable for his stupidity.

  “I thought he had an alibi that was verified,” Piper said. “Zachary Delaney. The report said he had a verified—”

  “Verified by Buck Hannoh,” Oren said. He turned the flashers on to help them cut through the scant traffic, but kept the siren off. No use alerting Zachary, Piper realized.

  “Buck. Great.” Who had turned in his resignation this morning, and was probably looking
at the Vanderburgh County opening. “Shit.”

  Oren added, “But Randy thought Buck was maybe skimping on work, just going through the motions. He mentioned that last night.”

  And Randy hadn’t bothered to mention that to her. No respect for chain of command. No respect for her. Could she blame him? Most certainly. Randy Gerald had better hope the Vanderburgh Sheriff will pick him up for that coming vacancy, because he’s history in Spencer County.

  “That car’s not going to be easy to find,” Oren said after the dispatcher put out another BOLO on the Ford Focus. “A county boy, he knows the back roads from here into Kentucky.”

  “Yeah, he’s heading to Kentucky,” Piper agreed. What was likely the first victim—a homeless man speared on a Christmas decoration—had been killed there.

  I should have figured this out. Should have interviewed Zachary, skipped the autopsy…which I ended up missing.

  “Should’ve figured this out,” Oren grumbled. “The pieces were there.”

  Neither said anything else for the hour drive until the radio crackled with Drew’s voice still issuing alerts and picking up reports of no sightings.

  Then JJ called Piper on her cell. “Got it, Sheriff. Rockport High School yearbook. Thomas Olbert, eight years ago. I checked ten years back, too. Anthony Delaney, Samuel Reynolds, and Jacob Wallem were all in that same graduating year, and apparently in the same shop class and on the varsity track team together.”

  “Money?” Piper mused, not meaning the question for Oren. “It can’t be about money, killing all of them. A homeless man has no money.”

  He answered anyway. “It’s always about money, isn’t it? Why I’m still in the department, wanting to draw a paycheck. Money. Why Zach Delaney would kill his dad, so he’d inherit everything.”

  “But if it’s about money, why the hell kill all those people? And why pose them to look like Christmas cards? It can’t just be money.”

  Oren shrugged. “Okay, we’re still missing a piece or two.”

  They found Randy’s Crown Vic a block from the address Drew had texted, in an alley behind a boarded over furniture store in a section of Owensboro’s old downtown, where traffic was light and open businesses were few. The spot had no address, which is why Drew had provided two to place it between. It hadn’t been hard to find.