Murder by Gravity

by Barbara Graham

  “Can he sell it?” The volume of Theo’s voice rose along with her indignation level.

  “Once the redemption time passes.” Tony tried to remember exactly how long that was. “If the owner doesn’t claim it, it’s the pawnshop’s to sell.”

  “Even if it’s stolen?”

  “Well, no.” Tony frowned. “If it is the right quilt, I doubt the pawnbroker knows it’s stolen. If I didn’t live with you, I’m sure I’d underestimate its value. By a lot.”

  “Okay, okay. I’ll go talk to the man,” Theo muttered. “But I’m not hanging up.”

  Tony heard the bell ring as she entered the store, and a man’s voice. “Ma’am?”

  Theo said, “Can I look at that quilt?”

  “Sure thing.”

  Tony was treated to a running commentary by his wife. He thought about just placing his phone on his desk and doing something constructive, like paperwork, but then remembered that she was investigating a crime that had happened within his jurisdiction. Patience was a virtue hard to achieve some days, and being too busy was no excuse for negligence.

  “Tony? You still there?”

  “Yes. What do you think, is it the right quilt?”

  “Yes. I’m positive,” Theo whispered. “Now what?”

  “Is it listed as for sale?”

  “No.”

  “Let me talk to the owner.”

  After a few minutes and lots of rattling and coughing that made Tony feel like he’d been dropped into some kind of machinery, the voice on Theo’s phone belonged to a man.

  “You’re a sheriff?” Followed by enough coughing to pull loose a lung, and then without allowing Tony to answer he continued, “This little lady claims I’ve got a stolen blanket.”

  “Blanket?” Tony could practically hear the sizzle of Theo’s thoughts. “I believe she’s found a stolen work of art.”

  “No kidding? It looks a mite faded to me.”

  “No kidding.” Tony wondered what the man knew about art. “What do you remember about the person who brought it in?”

  “Uh . . .” Then silence.

  Tony thought he’d better make the questions easier. “Okay, was it a man or a woman who pawned it?”

  “Oh, I see what you mean. It was a woman.”

  “When?” Tony looked at the calendar. It had only been stolen the day before. The thief was working fast. He thought he’d make it simple. “Yesterday or this morning?”

  “Dunno. I kin look that up I guess. Hold on.”

  There was a thud like Theo’s cell phone had been dropped and then more coughing. Tony wanted to learn more about the stolen quilt and was not quite believing the man couldn’t remember the morning. It wasn’t even noon yet. At the same time he was seriously hoping Theo wasn’t about to import the plague into Park County. Then he heard Theo mumbling about germs as she must have pulled a baby wipe from her purse and started cleaning her cell phone. Finally it sounded clear.

  “Theo?”

  “Yes.”

  Tony was relieved not to be talking to the less than brilliant pawnbroker. “Stay there. I’m going to get you some local assistance. What’s the address?”

  Theo read it off to him. “I’m not taking my eyes off that quilt until your cop friends get here.”

  “Sounds like a good plan.”

  It took only seconds for his call to be answered by the Knoxville chief of police. Tony and he had met several times and enjoyed a good working relationship. After they went through minor telephone greetings, Tony went right to the reason he called.

  “My wife is in your fair city and believes she has found a very valuable stolen item in a pawnshop. A priceless quilt.”

  “You don’t say.” There was a clicking sound in the background, like someone typing. “She’s sure about the value?”

  “Absolutely.” Tony had to smile at the understatement. “My wife is an expert.”

  “What’s the address?”

  Tony relayed it to the chief.

  “Is she still at that location?”

  “Oh, yeah. Dynamite wouldn’t budge her,” Tony said. “She’ll be there even if the owner asks her to leave.”

  “I know how that works. She sounds a bit like my wife.” There was a slight chuckle from the chief. Then silence. “Okay, we have a car headed there now, and the detectives won’t be far behind.”

  “Thanks. I can’t wait to hear what happens. The quilt was stolen from my wife’s shop and she’s been devastated by this whole thing.”

  “Tell her to hang in there.”

  Theo only had a few minutes’ wait before the first wave of Knoxville police descended on the pawn shop. They listened attentively to her description of the theft of the quilt, its general value, and her finding it by accident. “I can’t leave it here like this. The pawnbroker doesn’t believe its value, and I haven’t had a moment of peace since the theft.”

  The older of the two cops was about Tony’s age, around forty. He had the look of a man who thought he had seen it all, until now. He positioned himself to keep the pawnbroker and the quilt in his line of sight. Theo, he obviously wasn’t interested in.

  The younger of the two cops stared at the quilt and leaned closer to examine it but was careful not to touch it. “That’s amazing!” His eyes flickered in Theo’s direction. “I’ve never seen one that beautiful. Look at the detail, the tiny stitches. The itty-bitty embroidered flowers.”

  Theo felt better. Now there were two people in the room who truly appreciated the quilt’s value and workmanship. The chances of the quilt being treated with white gloves and care had multiplied. “You like quilts?”

  “Yeah.” He moved away from the quilt. “My mom used to make beautiful quilts, not quite like this, but very good.” An unguarded expression of sadness filled his face. “She died last year.”

  “What was her name?” Theo guessed she would know the woman.

  “Dorothy. Dorothy Mansfield.”

  “I knew Dorothy.” Theo felt a clog of emotion fill her own throat. The woman had been a very active quilter in the area and knew every quilt shop and possibly every other quilter in East Tennessee. She had been Theo’s customer and if not a friend, a friendly acquaintance. “She is missed by many of us.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  A second car arrived. Unmarked. The detectives climbed out and entered the pawnshop, coming immediately to her side. “Mrs. Abernathy?”

  Theo went through the whole story again, patiently and with as much detail as possible. If she had to do it fifty more times in order to retrieve Miyoko’s priceless quilt, she would do it with a smile.

  “Not many old blankets come through here.” Cheerful and obviously unwilling to believe what he’d been told about the value of the quilt, the shop owner stood behind his counter, with rows of neatly arranged coins, medals, and jewelry inside the locked glass case. “I thought if the owner didn’t come back for it, I might give it to my bird dogs.”

  Theo stared at the idiot and thought she might be having a heart attack. She didn’t mind Daisy sleeping on their bed quilt, but as much as she loved the Golden Retriever, she was not allowed to breathe, much less shed, on the show quilts. For that matter, Theo didn’t like it when Tony touched them without washing his hands. Boys with peanut butter or mud on them had to stay twenty feet away. In their small house, twenty feet put them into the next room, which was her intention.

  Simple rules are easier to enforce than ones left open to interpretation.

  Theo considered herself generally easy to deal with, but she never wavered in this rule—don’t touch the show quilts. Even she guessed that maybe if there were a person freezing to death near her and if she had no other option handy, like a towel or dry shirt, she might be forced to break her own rule. She wouldn’t bet on it. Certainly not a show quilt that did not belong to her.

  Theo watched the detectives asking the owner a few questions.

  “So, what’s the story with this quilt?” The detectiv
e sounded casual but his eyes were alert and curious.

  The shop owner peered at their badges. “Say, is there something I should know?”

  The lead detective shrugged. “Not necessarily.” He stared at the shop owner. “The quilt?”

  “All I remember is this woman came in, pulled the blanket out of a plastic garbage bag, and said she needed money.” The shop owner closed his eyes partway. “She did seem disappointed I didn’t offer her more.”

  “How much did you give her?”

  “Twenty-five.” The owner checked the back of the tag.

  “Dollars?” Theo gasped out loud and almost swallowed her tongue. The quilt had been stolen twice in one day, from the owner and from the thief.

  “What else?” The aggravated owner looked like he thought he’d been robbed too. “She has six days left to redeem it.”

  Theo considered it unlikely the thief would return for the priceless quilt, now known officially as “an old blanket.”

  “Has your security system got a working camera?” The younger detective glanced up at the ceiling where a camera pointed at the cash register.

  “Naw, that’s just for looks.” The pawnbroker walked to the window and pointed up at an inconspicuous device on a building across the street. The building where Theo’s eye doctor had his office. “That traffic cam belongs to the city. You might check with them.”

  Driving past the newly paved walking path on the edge of town, Tony glanced out the side window of the Blazer, just in time to see Sheila lift her rifle. In a single fluid movement, she rested the butt against her shoulder and her finger tightened on the trigger. She stood sideways to him. He saw a slight lift of her lips into a smile.

  Not for the first time, Tony thought of Annie Oakley. Although Sheila was physically taller than Annie Oakley, which Tony knew because he had been doing research on the diminutive sharpshooter for a book he wanted to write. To him, the parallel between the two blond women was obvious. Both had spent their younger years honing their shooting skills and feeding their siblings and parents with game they’d shot. Sheila fired. She held the rifle in position for a moment before lowering it. Waiting.

  Curious, Tony left the Blazer and joined Sheila on the path. Hidden by the shrubbery, he hadn’t seen the woman with a stroller standing in the shadows behind Sheila until he made the short climb. The woman’s eyes were wide with terror, and an infant strapped to her chest was squalling. He turned to see what Sheila had shot. A feral hog, shot in the head, squarely between the eyes, lay motionless just off the pavement. A toddler stood about six feet away. The toddler wore a warm jacket, little blue overalls, and a matching hat with a brim. He was laughing as he entertained himself by walking in circles in and out of a puddle.

  “Sheila?” Seeing the mom, the boy, and the dead hog so close together sent a shock through him. He hadn’t heard any report about this situation. Of course, there hadn’t been time. Not even Sheila could shoot a hog and operate a radio at the same time.

  “I’ve been tracking this not so little piggy, or at least another one this size, for a while.” Her face tightened with anger. “In the past few days, I’ve seen a lot of tracks on this end of town. It’s not like these are domestic pigs run wild. They are relatives of the wild boars imported years ago for hunting parties and they’ll eat anything. Literally.”

  “Or anyone.” Tony glanced up and down the newly paved walking path that curved into a loop here on the edge of town. Other than a small space with swings and brightly colored horses on bouncy springs, there was nothing but woods and brush. “They’re attracted to the picnic areas, and people keep coming up here in spite of the warning signs.”

  “Yes, and Hairy Rags always claimed they weren’t his problem.” Sheila wasn’t really looking at Tony. She was still on alert, listening.

  Tony thought invoking the name of their late and unlamented game warden explained it all. “He was never in favor of protecting people and property from these boars.”

  Sheila pitched her voice so he could hear and she wouldn’t frighten the young mother who was busily reassuring herself that the small boy was, indeed, fine. “This guy probably weighs close to four hundred pounds.”

  “There ought to be something we can do.” Tony couldn’t very well have people running through town, shooting pigs. Even a sharpshooter couldn’t be certain of getting a clean shot.

  “I’ve heard of plans to poison them. The most fun idea is packing the corpses with something like strychnine, and then let their voracious relatives eat them and have them get the poison in them as well.” Sheila smiled. “It won’t work here, but the idea has a certain lovely quality.”

  Tony shook his head. “I hope it doesn’t come to that. No one could safely eat the tainted meat, and how would we get rid of poisoned pigs?” The nightmare scenario of the scavenger population having poisoned pork loomed, birds falling from the sky, bodies everywhere.

  “Look at her.” Sheila nodded to the toddler’s mother, now sitting in a mud puddle created by the melting snow, sobbing as she clutched her unharmed child. “Pigs are omnivores.”

  Tony thought the calm Sheila used when handling a rifle did not continue to her eyes as they flickered over the distraught mother and children. “Let’s get this guy out to the dump and let the relatives come for a visit and you can shoot them having a picnic.” Tony paused. “At least what’s left of him after Claude does his butchering.”

  “Sounds good to me. In the meanwhile, I think you might want to see about closing off this section of the walkway.” Sheila frowned. “I’m going to stay here awhile and see if I can get some of his relatives. But I can’t get them all, and sometimes it’s really hard to get a good clear shot this close to town.”

  “I agree.” Tony called Claude Marmot, trash hauler and recycler extraordinaire. “Dead nuisance wildlife ready for pickup.” He knew Claude would butcher the piggy and turn him into sausage that would end up going to feed those in need. At least the food bank would be happy. Claude, the recycling king, would not want poisoned pigs in his dump. The father-to-be would be more likely to lead the villagers on a pig hunt equipped with torches and pitchforks than to agree with poison.

  Fear for others was a powerful motivation. As a father, he knew it was true.

  Tony offered to take the young mother back to town. Still sobbing, she followed him to the Blazer. By the time he got the car seats from the storage area in the vehicle’s rear hatch, buckled them onto the seat, and had the children strapped in, Claude arrived in his car/truck.

  While Tony was wondering how they’d get the hog into the back of the Crown Victoria cut apart and reassembled into a pickup, groom-to-be Kenny Baines came from a different direction with his heavy-duty pickup. The bricklayer’s truck had a hydraulic lift on the tailgate and he was ready to help Claude with the piggy.

  Before Tony left with his passengers, he heard the crack of Sheila’s rifle again. Two down, countless wild hogs to go.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Tony thought it was amusing that the bystanders waiting for the Halloween parade to begin seemed possessed by the need to shove their neighbors. Maybe their feisty behavior had something to do with the unusual weather pattern. The storm had circled around again, pulling more moisture across North Carolina and into Tennessee, dropping a new layer of snow. A couple of older ladies were using their walkers as weapons, poking people in the backs of their legs before fighting their way to the front. He watched one old guy jab several people with his cane. As long as it looked like friendly combat, he was not getting involved.

  Relieved to see his wife standing quietly outside her quilt shop, Tony sidled near her, dodging a vicious blow from one of the feisty parade watchers. “What is going on?”

  Theo’s big hazel eyes were hidden by a coating of snow on her glasses. She wiped them with a tissue, smearing water over the lenses. “I have no idea. Gretchen just told me the parade was about to start and so I came out onto the sidewalk and I got knocked down a
lmost at once.” She pointed to a streak of red mud on her sweater sleeve. “I thought I’d be safer if I stood against the building.”

  Tony glanced down at his wife. She was much too short to see anything. “Why not watch from upstairs? You’d be able to see everything.”

  “I’m supposed to wait here and hold the boys’ candy as they collect it.” Theo held an orange cloth bag in each hand. Hand-drawn jack-o’-lanterns decorated the bags.

  Right on cue, Jamie dashed to his mother and dumped a handful of candy into the bag hanging from her right hand. Moments later Chris was adding to the other one.

  Tony received only a cursory greeting from either of the boys. He grinned at his wife. “What will you do when the girls are big enough to join in the fray?”

  Theo shook her head and rolled her eyes. It was obviously a question without an answer.

  “Want me to tell you what you’re missing?” Tony looked over the heads of the people in front of them, the ones blocking Theo’s view.

  “Show-off.” Theo lifted her face and stuck her tongue out at him. Two seconds later she said, “Okay, what am I missing? I can hear the band.”

  “What you can’t see is the band members are wearing their usual uniforms, but they all have either clown makeup or monster faces painted on. I’m sure to have nightmares tonight.” Tony faked a shiver of dread.

  “Well, at least there isn’t a pack of zombies.” Theo looked resigned to missing the face paint.

  “Not so fast, I think the cheerleaders are zombies.”

  “Okay, okay, I have to see this.” Theo squeezed between some observers to get close to the front. The throng was good-natured, and a couple of older viewers moved to make room for her. Sure enough, the high school girls had enough makeup on to transform them from teenagers into the undead. “Ick.”

  Tony snagged a piece of candy badly overthrown just before it hit his wife in the face. He handed it to a tiny pumpkin with green legs clinging to the hand of a scarecrow.