Skye tried to speak but felt tears clogging her throat. I will not cry. Instead, she held out her right hand, still covered in blood.
“Did you cut yourself?” Charlie looked confused.
“I think Mrs. Gumtree has been murdered.” Skye leaned against the closed door.
When Charlie didn’t speak, Skye asked, “Did you find Chief Boyd?”
Charlie got up from the asphalt and dusted off the seat of his pants while still staring at the blood on Skye’s hand. “Yeah, he’s over by the Vintage Cars.”
Taking a deep breath, Skye descended the stairs and sat down on the bottom step. She found a tissue in her pocket and tried to clean up her hand. “Why don’t you go get him? I’ll sit here and make sure no one goes inside.” Skye saw that her knees were shaking, and she thought she might vomit.
Charlie started to walk away, but turned back before he had taken more than a few steps. “What if the murderer is still in there?”
Looking around, she spotted one of her many cousins heading their way. “Kenny, Kenny Denison. I need some help over here.”
He waved, trotted over, and sat next to her. “What’s up?”
When Charlie still didn’t move, Skye touched Kenny’s bulging forearm and asked her uncle, “Do you think anyone will mess with me while Kenny is here?”
Charlie took a good look at the nineteen-year-old and turned away. “Fine. I’ll get Wally.”
A camouflage-green T-shirt with the message IF YOU ABSOLUTELY NEED IT DESTROYED WITHOUT QUESTION BY TOMORROW, YOU NEED THE UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS was stretched taut across Kenny’s muscular chest.
“Who’s messing with you? Why’s Charlie got blood on his sleeve? Why’s he getting Chief Boyd? You don’t need the police. I’ll take care of whoever’s bothering you.” Kenny stood and balled his hands into fists.
Skye reached out to Kenny with her left hand, pulling him back down onto the step, careful to keep her right hand concealed behind her back. “Thanks, Kenny. I know you’d help me, but I’m okay. Someone else is in trouble.”
“Who? What’s going on?”
“Mrs. Gumtree, the TV star who was going to be in the parade, seems to be dead.”
“That tiny little old lady on the kids’ program? What happened? Did she have a heart attack?”
Skye considered saying yes, but could think of no reason to answer dishonestly. “No. It looks like she was murdered.”
“What?” Kenny bellowed.
“Charlie asked me to get her. She wasn’t answering her door. When I tried, the door was unlocked, the place was ransacked, and she was on the floor. Charlie is afraid the murderer might still be in the trailer, so he didn’t want me to wait here alone. Please, let’s just wait for the chief. I’m going to start crying if I talk any more.”
Kenny leaped to his feet once again and faced the door. He asked over his shoulder, “Is there another way out? What makes you think the perp is still in there?”
She shuddered. “I don’t know that he is. When I was inside I didn’t see or hear anyone. Of course, I wasn’t paying much attention at the time. He could have been hiding in the bathroom, I suppose. There probably isn’t another door, but there are plenty of windows.”
“We’d better get some people over here to secure the perimeter.” Kenny trotted off, calling over his shoulder, “I’ll go find your brother and the cousins.”
Skye sat still for a moment, catching her breath. It was quiet. The trailer was fairly isolated, and the crowds had moved to the parking lot in anticipation of the parade’s start. Closing her eyes, she said a prayer for Mrs. Gumtree’s soul. Suddenly a loud bang reverberated through the air. Skye jumped off the step and turned to look at the door. It was open and swinging back and forth on its hinges.
I’m sure I closed that door. Didn’t I feel it catch? Skye tried to make sense of what she was seeing. Oh, my God, the murderer must have still been in there.
Before she could react, a heavy hand descended on her shoulder, and she screamed.
CHAPTER 3
Send in the Clowns
Skye sat alone in the squad car watching police officers go in and out of the trailer. She was still a little embarrassed about having screamed at the chief when he first arrived at the scene and put his hand on her shoulder. Especially since he convinced her that the door had been blown open by the wind.
Charlie and Kenny, along with everyone else in the area, were banished behind the yellow crime scene tape draped around the parking lot’s border. Two harried officers tried to get people’s names and addresses before the crowd dispersed. Three more were busy keeping folks behind the tape.
The townspeople had been drinking steadily from their coolers since they began to gather for the parade at eleven o’clock. They were angry when its cancellation was announced, and seeing the police made them curious. Fights were already breaking out among the more well lubricated of the group.
When Chief Boyd first arrived and saw the body, he questioned Skye about her movements inside the trailer. Upon learning that she hadn’t touched anything except the outer doorknob, the vanity stool, and the corpse, he ordered her to sit in his squad car and talk to no one.
Since that time it seemed to Skye as if every Scumble River police officer and Stanley County deputy there was had arrived. She was up to thirty when she lost count. People, mostly men, in blue or khaki uniforms swarmed over the crime scene like ants over a piece of candy. One was taking photographs, another was videotaping, and yet another appeared to be drawing a picture of the site.
Around one o’clock a hearse arrived. The man driving it walked straight into the trailer without looking at either the throngs of onlookers or the police. Skye couldn’t see who it was from where she was seated, but he carried a doctor’s bag.
She was staring out the window without seeing anything when the opposite door was abruptly yanked open. Startled, she let out a yelp. She didn’t recognize the man sliding in next to her, and he wasn’t wearing a uniform. Acting on instinct, Skye flung open her door and stumbled out of the car.
As she ran toward the trailer, Skye hoped to find Chief Boyd, but instead a Stanley County deputy she didn’t know grabbed her by the upper arms and spun her around. “Whoa there, Missy, where you goin’ in such a hurry?”
Looking over her shoulder, Skye struggled to free herself from his grip. The stranger had emerged from the squad car and was now leaning against the trunk. When he saw her looking at him, he waved.
The officer holding her had a name tag on his tan shirt that read “Deputy McCabe.” He was not the type of person Skye would have picked for protection. Not only did Deputy McCabe strike her as missing a few buttons on his remote control, but physically he reminded her of Barney Fife on The Andy Griffith Show. She would have preferred Marshal Dillon from Gunsmoke. All those years of watching reruns as a child had left an indelible impression on her.
Skye pointed to the man by the squad car. “See that guy over there?”
Barney Fife didn’t answer.
“Is he a suspect? He got into the police car with me.”
Still no response from the deputy.
“Did you guys forget you told me to wait there in the squad car?”
Deputy McCabe took his time before speaking, examining the man by the car who was now engrossed in writing something in a pocket-size notebook. “Why, that there is the coroner, Mr. Simon Reid.”
She frowned. “Doesn’t the coroner have to be a doctor?”
“Well, Miss, I don’t know about places like Chicago or New York, but around here the coroner has always been the owner of the funeral parlor.”
Shaking her head in disbelief, Skye thought, Being back in Scumble River is worse than I imagined. Things here truly are fifty years behind the times. Before she could pursue that line of thought, Chief Boyd emerged from the trailer and joined them.
“Why, Skye, honey, what are you doing standing here in the hot sun? We don’t want you passing out on us. You were
white as your mama’s sheets when I first got here. I told you to wait in the squad. That’s why I left the air-condition running.”
Skye blushed. When Chief Boyd had first come to town as a twenty-three-year-old patrolman, she’d been convinced she was in love with him. Back then Walter Boyd was a handsome young man who filled out his crisply starched police uniform superbly. He had warm brown eyes, curly black hair, and a gorgeous year-round tan. But his most attractive feature was his kind and generous nature.
The summer she was fifteen, Skye discovered his work schedule and managed to turn up wherever he took a break or stopped for a meal. He was always a perfect gentleman, never mocking her or taking advantage of the situation. Nevertheless, she was embarrassed to remember how lovesick she had acted, and she now found it difficult to look him in the eye. She also had a hard time calling him anything but Chief Boyd.
Time had been kind to him. His uniform still fit exceptionally well, revealing only a hint of thickening at his waist. The silver in his hair made him look, if anything, more distinguished.
“Sorry, I didn’t know Mr. Reid was the coroner, and he frightened me when he got into the car without any warning.”
Deputy McCabe gestured toward her with his thumb. “Yeah, she thought he was the murderer. She shot outta that squad like a bat outta hell.”
“What do you find so amusing, Deputy?” Chief Boyd asked. “That seems a sensible precaution, considering we don’t have any idea who the killer is and he might think Miss Denison saw more than she did.”
Skye shivered. She hadn’t considered that the murderer might think she was a witness.
Chief Boyd turned to her. “Why don’t you go back and introduce yourself to Simon? He has some questions he wants to ask you. I think he moved to town after you left. His uncle, Quentin Reid, up and died about eight years ago. Quent never married, and he didn’t have any kids, so Simon inherited the funeral home. Simon is Quent’s brother’s boy.”
She nodded to the chief, understanding his reasons for the genealogy lesson. In Scumble River you were an outsider, and not to be trusted, unless you could prove your connection to someone from town.
Gritting her teeth, she walked over to Simon and held out her hand. “I’m Skye Denison. Chief Boyd said you wanted to speak to me?” It was hard having to face a person you had just run away from.
Simon straightened and took her hand in a firm but not crushing grip. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m Simon Reid, the coroner.”
Raising her eyes to his, Skye discovered that he was well over six feet tall and very attractive in a Gary Cooper sort of way. The silence lengthened, and she realized that she had been staring at him for several minutes. Blushing, she looked away.
He did not seem the least bit uncomfortable with her inspection. Instead, he leaned back against the fender and crossed one long leg over the other. His next statement surprised her. “Miss Denison, tell me about the blood you had on your hand.”
For some reason his self-confident attitude irritated her. “I prefer Ms. Denison. Why do you need to know about the blood, Mr. Reid?”
“Do you know what a coroner does, Ms. Denison?”
“No, Mr. Reid, I do not know what a coroner does. Something with dead bodies, I presume.”
His slight smile did not reach his eyes. “To save a lot of time explaining why I’m asking the questions I’m asking, I’m going to explain the duties of a coroner to you, Ms. Denison.”
Nodding, she waited for him to continue.
“The number one duty of the coroner is to conduct the inquest, but at the crime scene we take vital signs, draw blood—directly from the heart if possible—and take urine samples from the bladder.”
“You don’t perform the autopsy?” Skye shifted from one foot to the other. This was getting a little more graphic than she liked.
“No, we need a licensed medical examiner for that. We hire a guy from the county hospital to do the actual cutting. He uses the specimens I’ve collected at the scene to run toxicology screens and lab tests.”
“So, what do you want to know? I was in the trailer all of five minutes, so I didn’t see much. I can’t even tell you what the victim looked like.”
“I’m most interested in your description of the blood. Wally mentioned that you had quite a bit on your hand when he arrived.” Simon moved closer.
“Yes, I must have stuck my fingers right next to the wound while I was trying to find a pulse, but I couldn’t see what I was doing because the body was under the vanity. I know you’re not supposed to move injured people, so I didn’t want to drag her out from the knee-well.” Skye explained all this in one breath, still feeling as if she should have done more.
“All I want you to do is to picture the blood on your hand right after you first saw it.”
Skye closed her eyes and tried to think about the earliest instant she looked at the blood on her hand. After a long pause she said, “It was bright red. At first I thought I’d cut myself.”
“Good. It looked like new blood. What was its consistency?”
She tried to reconstruct the scene in her head. “It was runny, more like chocolate syrup than molasses but not as thin as oil.”
“Great. That’s exactly what I needed to know.”
“Why?”
“It will help pinpoint the time of death,” Simon said, then added, “I hope.”
“I don’t understand why it took you so long to get here. It was over an hour and a half since I found the body and reported it to Chief Boyd.”
“The police have to take all their pictures and gather their evidence before they call me to take the body. I’ve tried to convince them that they should notify me immediately and let me examine the scene, but we have so few homicides I haven’t been successful.”
“How many murders have you handled as coroner?”
For the first time Simon looked uncomfortable. He cleared his throat before answering. “This is the first murder, but I’ve done suicides and accidental deaths.”
Skye raised one eyebrow. “That’s not quite the same thing. You must be feeling somewhat anxious. There have been so many cases lost in court due to the evidence being spoiled at the scene. I read an article in Time magazine a few years back that said something like sixty-five hundred murderers each year go free, most because of coroners who were not well trained. I didn’t realize at the time that many were not physicians.”
“The only thing I’m nervous about is you. We didn’t get off to a very good start.” His golden-hazel eyes sparkled. “The reason the funeral director in small towns is usually also the coroner is simple. We own the hearse and we have a place to store the body.”
He was attractive, and as everyone kept pointing out, there were not many appropriate men Skye’s age in Scumble River. She surreptitiously glanced at his left hand. He wore no wedding band. Of course, that didn’t prove anything. One strike against Simon was that he reminded Skye of her ex-fiancé. It had been only a few months since they broke up, and the pain was as sharp as ever.
She smiled. “I’m sure you didn’t mean to scare me earlier, and I am sorry for screaming and running away when you got into the car.”
He waved away her apology with a gesture of his hand. “No problem. After what you’ve been through, I’m sure most girls would have been frightened.”
Girls! Biting her tongue, Skye managed a thin smile in response to his chauvinism and decided to change the subject before she was forced to tell him what she thought about that remark.
The shock of finding a body had worn off, and her natural curiosity was beginning to take over. Tilting her head to the side, Skye looked up at Simon through her eyelashes. “Why, how gallant of you to be concerned for my feelings.”
She wondered what he was honestly thinking as they smiled at each other. She would bet money he couldn’t figure out her real thoughts.
After a few minutes of silence, Skye opened the door of the cruiser. She sat sideways, with her feet still o
utside the car. “How did Mrs. Gumtree die? Is there any way it could have been an accident? I realize the trailer was trashed, but could she have done it herself, then fallen somehow?”
“I don’t see how it could be anything but murder. She was stabbed in the jugular vein. That’s why there was so much blood.”
Skye paled slightly, but her inquisitiveness won out. “Was she robbed?”
“They don’t think so. It looks more like a search than a burglary.”
“Isn’t that odd? What would anyone be looking for? Who around here would even know what she had with her?” Skye leaned forward, intent on the puzzle.
“That’s not all that’s odd. When we finally got her out from under that dressing table, she turned out to be in her thirties, not her sixties.”
“Are you sure it’s Mrs. Gumtree? When I saw her performing yesterday, she looked like Granny from The Beverly Hillbillies, only shorter.”
“It’s her, all right. We found the wig and makeup she used to make herself look old. Also, she was wearing the costume.” Simon took a small notebook from his pocket.
“Do you know her real name?” Skye stretched her neck, trying to get a look at the pad from which he was reading.
“No. We asked Charlie, and he said there was no formal contract for her appearance today since she wasn’t getting paid. So, they have no idea who she really is. The only thing we know for sure is she isn’t in her sixties.”
“I guess they’ll have to get in touch with her agent.”
Simon continued almost to himself. “She was really a very tiny person. I haven’t measured her yet, but I’d guess she wasn’t even five feet tall and couldn’t have weighed ninety pounds.”
“Then almost anyone could have killed her,” Skye said.
CHAPTER 4
Call Me Up
Around five, the police finally allowed Skye to leave. Even though she was hungry, she did not want to see anyone she knew or answer any more questions. This narrowed her options to driving to Kankakee, which would take almost an hour, or returning home and hoping she could find something in her fridge.
Murder of a Small-Town Honey Page 3
