1 A Small Case of Murder

by Lauren Carr

  “Sheriff Sawyer has been coming around,” she announced another source of annoyance.

  “That’s natural. According to your inventory, Beth had been dealing drugs out of your store. He’s going to want to know if you knew about it. For all we know, you were in charge of the whole thing.”

  “That’s why I need a lawyer.”

  Joshua frowned teasingly. “Were you involved?”

  “No, I didn’t know about any of it,” Jan said. “Beth was in charge of the pharmacy’s inventory. That’s a mistake I will not make again. I need you to make sure I don’t get railroaded.”

  Understanding her concern, he told her, “Don’t talk to the police again unless I’m with you. If Sawyer calls you, tell him to call me.”

  “I don’t trust Curt Sawyer. He’s too tight with the Rawlings.”

  “Well, they are politically powerful,” Joshua pointed out. “He has to stay on their good side or risk being upset in the next election by someone they hand select.”

  “How do you think he got to be sheriff?”

  “Don’t worry,” he assured her. “I can take care of him.”

  “I’m sure you can. Anyone who can bypass Wally to get Vicki Rawlings arraigned for anything in this town has to have something on the ball.” Jan cocked her head towards the street outside. “I saw Tad go by on his bike earlier. Have you talked to him? Has he been—” The rest of her question was unspoken.

  “He was sober. He went to visit Maggie.” When he saw a flicker of concern cross her face, he asked, “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” she said. “I was thinking about Beth. We had our differences, but she was my friend.”

  “That’s right. You went to the hospital when she collapsed in the courtroom?” he muttered in a questioning tone.

  She said slowly, “Yeah, she took off while Tad was on the phone with Glenbeigh.”

  “Did you drive her car to the hospital?”

  “No,” she answered, “I drove my own car.”

  “Where was Beth’s car?”

  She shrugged.

  With a shake of his head, Joshua started up the aisle.

  “Josh, what’s wrong?” She turned him around by the arm. “What are you thinking?”

  His eyes met hers. “Tad said Beth couldn’t have driven in her condition when he had left her.”

  “I thought the hospital video tape showed someone helping her out of the hospital. They drove her. That’s how her car got to Vicki’s place.”

  Joshua said, “Vicki had a new truck. A sweet new Ford. It was in front of her trailer. Sawyer found the dealer she bought it from a week ago. She gave him a check for forty thousand dollars, and it cleared the bank. The killer drove Beth’s car to Vicki’s to kill her, then went to the hospital to get Beth and take her back to Vicki’s to make it look like a murder-suicide.

  But then, how did he or she get away. There has to be another vehicle.”

  He seemed to be talking to himself while pacing up and down the aisle. “Or someone went to kill Vicki while their accomplice drove Beth’s car to the hospital and brought her back to Vicki’s. That would explain the two different methods of murder and the time difference. The first killer waited for the second, and the two left together.” He grinned with pride.

  Jan asked him. “But who are the two killers?”

  His grin turned to a frown. “I’m still working on that.”

  “Is Tad on your list of suspects?”

  “Why would he be? You’re thinking something,” Joshua asked, “What is it, Jan?”

  “Something I saw. But Tad would never ...”

  “Never what?”

  “At the emergency room,” she said, “Beth was crazy. She told Tad that she hated him.”

  “Don’t you remember when Tad got high? He’d say things—”

  “She told him that she was going to tell Maggie everything, and she was going to hate him. Then, Tad got this look in his eyes; I swear he was going—” She covered her mouth with her hand to stop short of saying “kill her”. “He grabbed her by the throat and shoved her down onto the table. That was the last time I saw Beth.”

  Joshua laughed. “Tad didn’t kill Beth.”

  “I can’t believe he would do it either, but the last one to see her alive was Tad, who had his hands around her throat.”

  “The last one to see her alive was Trench Coat. The security tape proves it.”

  “Tad could have been Trench Coat,” she said. “Anyone can get a trench coat.” Her conviction softened. “I’m sorry. I didn’t say anything to Sheriff Sawyer, but I think you should know.”

  “Even if Tad had a trench coat, which he doesn’t,” he said, “There’s a logistical problem with your theory.”

  “What? You said that there had to be two killers and they left together,” she said. “Tad knows everyone. All he had to do was call up one of his old drinking buddies and set it up for him to kill Vicki who was clearly going to get off for making his life hell. Then he met this guy outside the hospital in Beth’s car, and they took her over to Vicki’s to get rid of her because of this secret that would make Maggie hate him. He killed two birds with one stone.”

  “Come on, Jan. Do you really believe Tad is capable of murder, let alone a double murder?” Joshua laughed out loud.

  “Anyone is capable of murder in the right circumstances.” Jan stomped a foot and slapped his arm with a newspaper left on the checkout counter. “Stop laughing. If he wasn’t your cousin you’d be taking me seriously.”

  “Okay.” Joshua threw up his hands and leaned against the pharmacy counter with his arms crossed. “Say Tad got a couple of his old party buddies to kill both Vicki and Beth, while he was setting up an alibi by looking for Beth in all the bars within walking distance of the hospital.”

  Jan said, “He got two of them to do it for him. One drove Beth’s car. The other drove the getaway car.”

  Joshua frowned. A jury could buy Jan’s theory, but he re-fused to believe it.

  “What do you think?” she asked him.

  “I’ll look into it.”

  “No, you won’t,” she said, “because it’s Tad.”

  “I said I would question all suspects, and that includes Tad.”

  Books were everywhere when Joshua returned to his office with a boxed dinner from the diner next door. They had searched every book and found no autopsy report.

  Grateful for the break, his children pounced on the burgers, fries and milkshakes like a pack of wolves dividing a kill and picnic style, circling the box of food on the floor.

  Defeated in his quest, Tad wouldn’t touch any of it. At the back of the office, he continued searching through a hip high stack of Smithsonian magazines.

  After snatching a burger, Joshua opened the textbook in which Tad had found the death certificate. Joining his children on the floor, he studied the page that had been marked. “I’ve been thinking about this theory of yours that Doc Wilson hid the actual autopsy report in a book. Why’d he do that?”

  “It makes sense when you think about it,” Tad said. “If Wilson was blackmailing Wally, knowing that the man was cap-able of murder, he would have hidden the report. Look at all these books! It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack.

  “That’s for sure,” Donny said.

  “All the better to keep Wally from breaking in here and getting it,” Tad said.

  “Or anyone else.” Sarah laid down flat on her back on the floor while she ate her burger.

  “Do you really think Doc was capable of blackmail?” Joshua asked.

  Tad said, “Why else would he not make the official cause of death murder and have Wally arrested? Because he thought Wally was such a great guy?”

  “From the looks of this building,” Murphy
said, “Dr. Wilson wasn’t a rich guy.”

  “I agree he would blackmail Wally Rawlings,” Joshua said, “but not for money.”

  “For what then?” Sarah wanted to know.

  “For something more important.”

  “What’s more important than money?” Donny asked.

  “The greater good,” Joshua answered. “Doc Wilson was a man of principle. Reverend Rawlings groomed Wally since he was a baby to be president. Yet, here he is, almost forty, and Wally is a county prosecutor in West Virginia. His office is in a school basement.”

  Tad said, “He could have run for county prosecutor right after he graduated from law school, but he didn’t until three years ago.”

  Joshua pointed out, “Doc died four years ago. Wally didn’t get into politics until after Doc Wilson was dead.”

  Tracy asked, “Are you saying that you think the doctor used the real autopsy report to keep Wally out of politics?”

  “Doc Wilson delivered me.” Joshua gestured towards his cousin. “He delivered Tad. He also delivered our parents.”

  “He was the only doctor in the area.” His hands on his hips, Tad surveyed the top shelf of the bookcase to see if he had missed anything.

  “If Doc had evidence that Wally was a killer, he’d know how dangerous he would be in a position of power. In that case, Doc would make damn sure that something was done about it,” Joshua told the group gathered on the floor.

  Sarah didn’t understand. “Why not take it to the police and have him arrested?”

  Murphy answered, “Because the sheriff worked for the killer’s father.”

  Joshua explained, “An autopsy report only proves someone was murdered. It doesn’t say who did it.”

  “Cindy told me Wally was doing it,” Tad told them.

  Joshua turned around to him. “That’s hearsay. She lived in that house with Wally, as well as his father, and his sister and her husband, plus a maid who cooked their meals. Any of them could have been poisoning her.”

  “But,” Donny objected, “if the report doesn’t prove anything, then why are we looking for it?”

  “Oh, but it can be very harmful, son,” Joshua corrected him. “A report of Wally’s dear sweet wife being poisoned in their home would be scandalous. It’d kill his political career forever.”

  “Plus, it would shake up the reverend’s church,” Tad said.

  Finished with her burger, Tracy wiped her hands on a pa-per napkin. “If you’re saying that Doc Wilson put the report away to keep Rawlings out of office, then why didn’t he make sure it got into the right hands after he died?”

  “I can answer that,” Tad responded. “Doc was one of those people who never thought he’d die. He never retired. He never wrote a will.” He tossed down the magazine he held and sat next to Joshua with a sigh of disgust. “That’s it. I don’t know where else to look.”

  Joshua was studying the binding of the textbook on deadly poisons. He spoke in a steady tone while he eyed the volume. “Nah, Tad, I disagree. Doc knew that even though he could prove Cindy was murdered, he couldn’t prove who did it. But he did have enough to keep Wally in line. He also knew that if he made that report easy to find, then he might as well write his will and kiss his butt good-bye.”

  While he continued, Joshua turned the book around so that the spine faced him and, starting at the bottom, he rubbed the spine with fingertip over fingertip from the bottom and worked his way up along the binding.

  “That’s why he made it so hard to find the autopsy report. So an idiot like Wally would never find it. Doc didn’t want the autopsy report to be impossible to find for a smart man—”

  Everyone gasped when a small silver key popped out from the top of the spine of the book.

  “—like yours truly.”

  Chapter Ten

  “Somebody get that!” Joshua covered the phone’s mouthpiece to call out to anybody in the house who happened to be within the sound of his voice.

  After apologizing for the interruption to the moving company clerk on the other end of the line, Joshua resumed chastising her. “Listen, it’s been weeks. All of our family’s legal documents and memories are in those boxes.”

  The doorbell rang again.

  “I don’t want any more apologies. I want my wife’s wed-ding picture back.”

  The doorbell rang once more while the clerk responded in an indifferent tone.

  Cursing under his breath, he pressed the hold button and hurried to the front foyer. “Five kids and not one to answer the door.” He threw open the door to find a young man he recognized from the neighborhood standing before him.

  Startled by Joshua’s angry expression, the teenager stood frozen with fear in the doorway.

  Unaware of his threatening appearance, Joshua asked, “What?”

  “Uh-Hello, Mr. Thornton, sir,” he stammered. “I’m Ken Howard. I live across the street. Is Tracy home?”

  As if Ken was an enlisted man needing an inspection from a superior officer, Joshua looked him up and down. His clothes were clean, his appearance was neat, and he saw no sign of body piercings or offensive tattoos.

  “I’ll see.” Leaving him on the doorstep, Joshua closed the door to yell for Tracy.

  Carrying a basket filled with washed clothes in need of folding, Tracy ran up the stairs from the laundry room in the basement. “Oh, Dad, good. You’re off the phone.”

  She lugged the clothes basket into the living room where an old Humphrey Bogart movie was playing on the television set kept in an entertainment center. A pile of laundry waiting to be folded was piled up on the sofa.

  Laughing and talking amongst themselves, Murphy and J.J. came through the front door with Ken between them. Upon seeing the senior Thornton, Ken lowered his eyes to the floor.

  “Hey, Tracy, look who we found,” J.J. said.

  “And guess what he’s got.” In his next breath, Murphy told her, “Tickets to see the Pittsburgh Pirates. They’re playing today.”

  J.J. told Ken, “Tracy used to play second base on the soft-ball team back home.”

  “Really?” Ken grinned at her. “I play second base on our team. Are you ready to go?”

  Joshua interjected, “Go where?”

  Tracy told him, “To see the Pirates. I told you yesterday.”

  Murphy confirmed her claim. “I was there.”

  “I’ll be ready in a minute, Ken. I need to go comb my hair.” She turned to Joshua. “There’s a load in the dryer and the washer. Take the clothes out of the dryer as soon as they’re done. They’re your shirts, and if they aren’t folded they’ll wrinkle. Put the clothes that are in the washer in the dryer, and dry them for one hour. Don’t forget to clean the lint trap first.”

  Turning to Murphy and J.J., who were watching Key Largo, Joshua pointed to the pile of clothes. “Take care of that.”

  Back in the study, he discovered that the moving company had hung up. Disgusted, he sat down behind his desk to reread the police and Tad’s autopsy reports for Vicki Rawlings and Beth Davis.

  A girl doesn’t let just anyone give her a shot in the crotch unless she trusts him. Judging from what he had observed, Joshua felt it was safe to assume Vicki would have intercourse with anyone, in which case it could have been a stranger with no motive, except the thrill of killing.

  “Dad, come here. Quick,” Murphy called.

  Donny intercepted him in the hallway to lead the way back to the living room where they had been folding the laundry.

  On the television, Key Largo had been replaced with a news program.

  “Hello, this is Morgan Lucas,” the perky young news reporter on the screen was saying, “with a Channel 6 News Special Report. With me now is Amber, who recently consented to be interviewed by reporter Tess Bauer about the drug trafficking in the
Ohio Valley. Today, Amber is in our studios live to tell our audience what she had witnessed the night Victoria Rawlings and Elizabeth Davis were murdered.”

  Amber looked the same as when Joshua had seen her interviewed by Tess Bauer, except this time the studio backdrop was behind her. She had the same blood red crew cut, gothic make-up, and assorted black necklaces and bracelets and rings. Her dark clothes revealed her pale coloring.

  A beauty with chestnut hair and blue eyes, Morgan Lucas contrasted the subject of her interview. Her royal blue blouse matched her eyes. Diamond and gold jewelry completed her ensemble.

  “Ms. Amber, you came into our studio to tell us about what had happened in the home of Victoria Rawlings the day of the murders.”

  “I was there,” Amber said with a deep sigh. “Vicki and I are—were—best friends. I was hanging with her and I saw everything.”

  “Did you see her killer?” Morgan asked.

  “Yeah, I saw the whole thing, beginning to end.”

  “Tell us what happened, Amber.”

  “We were partying. She had just gotten a shipment of cocaine and she was splitting it up when there was this knock on the door. I looked out the window and I saw him. Well, I didn’t want no hassle. So Vicki told me to hide. I knew it was going to be a messy scene, man.”

  The interviewer inquired, “Where did you hide?”

  “In the closet in the bedroom in the back.” Amber paused to take in a shuddering breath. “I heard this fight, and then he took her back there. He had her by the wrist, and they were arguing.”

  “What about?”

  “About her keeping her mouth shut. She said she would, but then he said she had already said too much. I heard Vicki screaming at her old man! They were fighting. Then suddenly, it was quiet, and that was worse than the screaming because I couldn’t tell what was happening. Then—Oh,God!” Amber covered her face with her hands.

  There was silence in the studio.

  Morgan regained her composure to ask about Beth’s murder.