Murder by Gravity

by Barbara Graham

  The pilot rattled off a North Carolina address and gave Tony a warning. “It’s a really, really swank area. If you call, you’ll probably have to deal with a butler or secretary.”

  “Thanks for the heads up.” Tony made a few more notes before glancing up at the computer screen. The promised photograph had arrived. Tony clicked on the file and up popped an aerial view of about the most treacherous, remote, rugged spot in the county. On his back, spread-eagle on the snow, lay a man in a dark jacket and pants. He was wearing what looked like an antique flight helmet, the soft kind with attached round-lensed goggles. Tony zoomed in and could see more details. One gloved hand still clutched a fishing pole. “I’m looking at the photograph now. Any chance he survived?”

  “Oh, man, I don’t think so.” Frazier cleared his throat. “I flew as low as I could, looking for him, and although I circled around after I found him and was able to take the picture, I never saw anything move. Not so much as a twitch. If he didn’t die on impact, he’s probably gone now.”

  Tony wrote down all of Gentry Frazier’s contact information, including the registration number on the airplane’s wing.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Tony lifted the binoculars to his eyes. It was amazing that so many huge trees managed to grow in such a desolate place and then mysteriously stop, leaving an open area. On the other hand, no one would ever come up here to cut a tree when so many grew in friendlier areas. This terrain was rock, crevices, and fallen logs. Only the smallest bit of open sky was directly over the body.

  It didn’t require an expert or a genius to deduce that the body had arrived in the clearing after the snow. It lay flat on its back, arms extended and legs spread, like someone making a snow angel. It did not have the spreading and closings of the arms and legs to complete the angel picture, but the impact of the body landing had formed a crater in the snow. The snow surrounding the body was undisturbed, as was the corpse. Mostly. From this distance it appeared to be a man, dressed in ordinary, outdoor clothing, boots, and a jacket. An old-fashioned flying helmet covered the hair and ears. Dead. Eyes open, staring up into the sunlight.

  Tony knew it wouldn’t be long before the major carrion crew would be swooping in to investigate and clean up—birds and beasts looking for a meal.

  “I can only think of one way to achieve this.” Tony hoped someone would have a better suggestion. “He fell from the sky. It has to be Franklin. Surely there can’t be more than one lost skydiver.”

  When his deputy turned to answer, Wade’s eyes were invisible behind the dark lenses of his sunglasses. “What’s he holding?”

  “That has to be a fishing pole. The pilot said he carried his fishing gear when he left the plane.” Tony was intrigued as well. “Start taking your pictures. I want to see if we can get closer.” There was no reason to believe this was foul play, but Tony couldn’t come up with a way to explain this situation any other way. People didn’t just fall out of the sky. He called Rex in dispatch. “Call out Doc Nash.”

  They had left the Blazer at the end of the road and started walking, picking their way closer, trying to avoid falling on ice or loose rocks. They managed to travel maybe half a mile in slow motion. During that time, they watched three different small planes pass overhead.

  Tony was surprised. “I didn’t realize how many of those fly over in a day but I guess it’s almost every time you look up during tourist season.”

  Behind him, Wade’s voice caught his attention. “You know the doctor is not going to find this amusing. The man hates snow.”

  Tony did know, but he had no choice. Mother Nature prevented his walking much closer to the body. “We’ll have to borrow the mules.”

  Wade frowned. “Can’t we use ATVs?”

  “Nope.” Tony handed Wade the binoculars. “Unless you can see a way. All I see is a possible deer track we can follow. That’s some hostile landscape.”

  Wade studied the terrain for a few moments but didn’t disagree.

  Tony sighed. He hated everything about this situation. “I’ll get Sheila to come up here and keep the predators at bay. She can use her rifle to frighten away as many critters as she likes. I sure don’t want any of them messing with the body.”

  “Too late.” Wade frowned. “It looks like something has been here; something small snacked on the face.” He adjusted the focus. “And you’re right; he’s definitely holding a fishing pole.”

  “Seriously?” Tony reclaimed the binoculars. Sure enough, the dead man clutched a fishing pole in one hand. If Tony was any judge, the man had hoped to protect it during the fall. It made Tony think their corpse had been alive during the descent. “I thought it was a joke.”

  Wade tried to walk closer to the clearing but stopped almost immediately and shook his head. “The rocks around here are super slick. Nothing like a little ice. I guess the mules win.”

  In his mind, Tony kept hearing Orvan’s description of a scream. Tony imagined that if it was he, himself, who was falling far and fast, off a cliff or out of an airplane, he would be screaming like Theo on a roller coaster. But Orvan and Walter heard their screamer in the morning. Had there been two?

  Tony stared at the mule with little enthusiasm for the upcoming ride. He and the oversized animal had a history. It wasn’t confrontational, and neither one of them was likely to resort to violence. They simply agreed to disagree. Tony had limited experience riding horses or mules, and this one was not interested in being training material.

  Man and mule both sighed, recognizing the inevitability of their awkward partnership. Tony placed his left foot in the stirrup and heaved his body upward, landing heavily on the saddle. The mule shifted his weight, taking several tiny steps backwards and stopped.

  Wade’s mule was about the same size as Tony’s but Doc Nash straddled a much smaller animal, his medical bag attached to the saddle horn with a length of orange plastic cord. Their guide rode ahead, leading a riderless mule with a metal basket strapped to its back. Tony was almost positive there would be no living person to carry back.

  “How far are we going?” Doc Nash pulled his jacket close around his neck. An orange stocking cap decorated with a big white T was pulled down to the upper edge of his glasses and over his ears. He still looked cold.

  Wade pulled his sunglasses forward, almost to the end of his nose, and met the doctor’s inquiring gaze. “If we had wings, it’s only a few miles. On land, this is going to take a while.”

  The doctor’s voice was almost a whine. “Can’t we borrow a helicopter?”

  Wade’s grin exposed beautiful even teeth. Tony thought his brother Tiberius, the dentist, would approve of the obvious care Wade took of them.

  “The clearing is not large enough for one to land, so no, unless you want to jump out or slide down a rope ladder.” Wade continued, “I haven’t done it for a while, but I bet it’s not a skill we’re apt to forget.”

  Tony nodded. He’d done it too, but more than ten years ago at the most recent. This was not something he thought of as a “do or die trying” situation. One of them would have to carry the doctor down on their back. “No way.” His words were in agreement with Wade and his decision. “The sooner we go, the sooner we’ll be back.”

  Heading away from the trailhead where their guide had parked the oversized stock trailer, they were soon traveling single file, taking care not to get too close to the rear of the mule in front of them. It was an effective way to eliminate conversation and have the peace and quiet to think.

  Tony’s thoughts, though, were anything but peaceful. The early snow covered the ground, making it extra treacherous. A stumble over a branch could send mule and man crashing off the trail. He was so busy watching for hidden dangers on the ground, he didn’t see the low-hanging branch. Whap! It slapped him in the face. The scratches didn’t feel deep but the cold air made them sting.

  He did not relish the idea of breaking bad news, but it would be worse to report inaccurate bad news. What if this was not the mayor’s
brother? Or, if by some miracle the man was still alive, a premature report of his death would be pointless and cruel.

  They had moved out of cellular phone service, but carried a pair of working satellite phones. Darkness would be their worst enemy. They had food and a tent and sleeping bags but hoped they wouldn’t need them. Just ride in, collect the body, and leave. But life was rarely simple, and Mother Nature had spoiled any number of well-made plans in the past.

  In the end, they made it to the body with daylight to spare. The body lay face-up on the snowy ground, gloveless hands clasping the fishing pole. The heavy jacket was at odds with the bare, pale bluish fingers. The old-fashioned flight helmet with its attached goggles gave him an eerie alien appearance. There were animal footprints in the snow near him but no human prints. Tony saw no sign the man had moved at all after landing, and found himself releasing the breath he’d held. At least the man had not suffered long after landing, assuming he was not dead in the air.

  Wade’s camera clicked incessantly, making a record of the scene, the body, and the doctor’s actions.

  It was definitely Franklin Cashdollar, unless he had a secret twin. Tony knew the man well enough to identify the body, and all of the identification in the man’s wallet confirmed it. Franklin’s brother, Silersville mayor Calvin Cashdollar, was the local undertaker. They’d get Calvin’s opinion later, but there was no reason to hurry.

  Doc Nash grumbled and groused, checking the liver temperature, and examining the general condition of the body. “Let’s load him up.” He offered no other information, but Tony would describe his expression as guarded. Doc Nash was good at secrets and also a world-class poker player.

  And so they prepared for the return trip. Working together, they strapped the body onto the litter and adjusted the weight, balancing it for the mule. After Wade took another hundred photographs, their grisly parade returned to the road. It wasn’t quite seven in the evening when they got back to town. Tony was grateful they had not gone off daylight savings time yet.

  Minutes after dismounting from the mule and climbing into the Blazer Tony had left at the trailhead, he and Wade received another call. No rest for the weary, but some days were like that. No one else was available to follow up.

  Still dressed in their heavy clothes, Tony and Wade stared at the man sitting on the front steps of a house about a mile from town.

  Blood oozed from a gash on the man’s left cheek and dripped unheeded onto the front of what Tony thought of as a “not clean this century” T-shirt.

  On the ground nearby, surrounded by several unhappy-looking paramedics, lay a woman in old, dirty, ragged clothes. The paramedics blocked his view of the woman’s face, but he could see a lot of blood covering her chest and arms. “What happened?”

  The man pressed a shaking, and filthy, hand to his bleeding facial wound. He finally released a long breath and looked into Tony’s eyes. The bloodshot eyes looked confused. “She told me to shoot her.”

  “So you did?”

  “Yessir.” He sniffled. “She does not like it when I don’t do as she says.”

  Tony felt a combination of concern for his grievously injured citizen and irritation at humans in general. “Start from the beginning.”

  “Is she gonna be okay?” The man tried to look past Tony to the body on the ground. “She said to shoot her, I did, I went inside, and she stayed outside.” He wiped his blood-covered hand on the side of his pants. “I came out to see if she was hungry an’ if she wanted a sandwich and thought she was lookin’ mighty poorly so I called nine-one-one.”

  “You didn’t call for help right away? Right after you shot her?” Tony glanced up from his notepad. “Why not?”

  “I asked her did she need a doctor and she didn’t say yes. Just plain mule stubborn as ever.”

  Tony wondered who was responsible for these people. They seemed to have no clue about life and death.

  “She still ain’t said a word.” His face wore an expression of confusion mixed with surprise.

  “No,” Tony agreed. “What about you? What happened to your face?” When there was no reply, Tony tried again. “The bleeding.”

  Their genius wiped some of the blood from his face with one dirty hand, studied it briefly, and then wiped it on his pants. “She broke a beer bottle on my head.”

  Tony thought the man might have deserved it, but there were always two sides to these events. It was not as easy to break a bottle as it appeared in the movies. “You carry a gun?”

  “Damn right. It’s always with me.” The moment the words passed his lips it seemed to shake something in his brain. “I mean, yeah, ’course. How else was I supposed to shoot her? I have a gun, not that I carry it all the time.” He patted his hip.

  Tony agreed that his question was stupid. After the day he’d had, stupid was the best he could do. “I’ll need to take it for a while.”

  The man quietly handed Tony a well-aged revolver. It wasn’t any cleaner than the owner. Tony slowly shook his head as he wrote down the information on the evidence bag.

  Tony drove away, following the ambulance down the driveway. He glanced at Wade. “Get cleaned up and eat something. We’ll make some local calls, and then I’ll let you drive us to North Carolina.” Tony hoped a shower and some food would rejuvenate his brain. The unhappy task of notifying Franklin Cashdollar’s relatives of his death was not going to be quick or easy.

  Wade opened his mouth, as if to ask a question, then closed it.

  “You want to know why I don’t just have the North Carolina cops break the news?” At Wade’s answering nod, Tony said, “Not only is he the father of a friend but that man’s body landed in our county. If there is something wonky, I want to be part of the investigation.”

  “Shouldn’t we check his fingerprints, you know, just to be sure?”

  Although he was sure about the man’s identity, Tony agreed. “Yes. Let’s have every dot in place and every ‘T’ crossed.”

  It took them only minutes to stop by the clinic where Doc Nash had stashed the body. A quick fingerprint and they were gone. Wade’s comparison took very little time also. Hanging on Tony’s office wall was a project he’d done a few years earlier. Carefully framed behind glass were the fingerprints of four Cashdollar men. Although there were some differences, of course, Calvin, Franklin, Carl Lee and the patriarch, Roosevelt Cashdollar, shared a distinctive family swirl.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Theo leaned against the door frame and took a deep breath. The unexpected snow had created turmoil all day. It had also created a busier than usual day in her shop. Even though it was not quite Halloween, suddenly every quilter she knew seemed ready to make Christmas quilts, placemats, or insulated things to keep baked potatoes warm. Theo needed the business. She was exhausted. A glance around her office/workroom did nothing to relieve her fatigue. Guilt, yes; it added to her mother’s guilt.

  She had sent the boys upstairs to her office when they arrived after school. They had promised to come get her when the twins awakened from their naps. Looking around, she was surprised to see them all awake.

  Chris and Jamie had created a nest for the twins. Chairs were turned on their sides, cushions protected them from sharp edges, and a couple of bolts of brand-new fabrics were partially undone. Even from her spot near the door, she could identify pizza sauce on the now-unsellable fabric. She didn’t know whether to scream, cry, or laugh. Four small, happy, dirty faces watched her.

  Exhausted, Theo realized there was no place for her to sit. “Where’s my chair?”

  Chris pointed to a portion of their barricade. “We couldn’t just let them loose in here. They move fast.”

  “Mom okay?” Jamie coached the baby in his arms. “Say, Lizzie sorry.”

  To Lizzie’s credit, she babbled something. Theo was just as happy the girl’s early words would not be a lie. Lizzie’s fingers spread wide and a large spool of thread tumbled to the floor. The ensuing unhappy cry exposed all of her tiny pearl teeth.


  Clutched in Chris’s arms, Kara giggled and poked her finger into her older brother’s nose. Chris gently pulled her hand away. “You were gone for a long time.” Chris looked way too serious for his age. He was tall for a ten-year-old and Theo was small for a woman. It put their faces at almost the same height. Theo thought she detected disapproval in his expression. “There was some pizza in the fridge and we reheated it. They were hungry.”

  Theo glanced at her watch and gasped. She had been downstairs for two hours without checking on her children. No wonder Chris was giving her a sad look. “I’m sorry. I had no idea. You know the monitor was turned on. You could have called me up at any time.”

  Jamie laughed. “We had fun.”

  Chris joined in. “Yeah, we did.”

  Theo was so relieved that all of the kids were fine and happy and forgiving, she offered them hot dogs and potato chips for dinner. As long as she wasn’t being a good mom, she might as well add another junk-food meal into the equation. “Your dad is super busy, so we’ll eat early and not wait for him.”

  It was almost seven thirty in the evening when Tony parked the Blazer in front of the mansion, just out of town, belonging to Mayor Calvin Cashdollar and his wife, known locally as Queen Doreen. Wade pulled in right behind him and cut the lights and engine on his vehicle.

  They had discussed the order of announcements—should they tell the brother or the son first? They decided on the brother. Tony guessed the mayor/undertaker might have already heard rumors from his sources.

  The expansive front porch seemed a bit less welcoming than usual now that it was covered with snow. No one appeared to have climbed these steps since the storm began. Why would they bother to shovel them, if no one was expected? The family cars would be in the garage, attached to the back of the house. Even Blossom’s sister, Pansy Flowers Millsaps, who worked for the couple, would most likely come into the house through a different door and leave the same way.