The Devil's Bones

by Carolyn Haines

  “You’re the detectives helping Erik out, aren’t you?”

  “We are.” He was a good-looking man. His face was tanned a beautiful bronze that only added sparkle to his blue eyes. Close-cropped hair, a trim waist, and nice shoulders added to the all-American package. I could see where he and Erik might be in competition for the ladies in the area. Rory was the rugged outdoorsman and Erik was the devil-may-care bringer of fun.

  “You’re here to ask about MoBlast, right?” He didn’t beat around the bush, and his knowledge of Patrice Pepperdine’s death told me how quickly gossip spread around the small town.

  “We are,” I said. “I understand you use MoBlast in your lawn work.”

  “Sure, I use it.” He waved around the yard. “This climate is a license for weeds to grow, and grow aggressively. With the hot temperatures and high humidity, if you’re sitting still, you’re losing ground to the weeds.”

  The subtropical temperatures aided the undesirable plants as well as the foliage that people valued. He was right about that. “People are okay with all these chemicals?” I’d read too much lately on the dangers of herbicides, pesticides, and genetically engineered crops. Billy Watson leased the land around Dahlia House, and we’d come to an agreement about cutting way, way back on all those things. It was a gamble, but one Billy and I both were willing to take for the good of the planet. “Don’t your clients worry about their children and their pets?”

  “Basic economics, Ms. Delaney. Good lawn workers require a decent salary, and not a lot of people can or want to pay for someone to go around digging up weeds. A worker can spray an acre in the time it would take him to hand-weed a single flower bed. I don’t like using a herbicide like MoBlast, but my clients demand it. They want a perfect lawn.” He laughed and shook his head. “I don’t know why. They never set foot outside of their homes to enjoy the outdoors. I guess it’s for the annual Christmas card—the house and lawn look great.”

  I wasn’t going to get diverted by talking about the craziness of people and their pretentions. That was a well-worn rabbit trail. “Has any of that chemical gone missing from your business?”

  He shook his head. “I can’t answer that question. Not completely. What I can tell you is that none of the workers have reported any chemicals missing. Of course that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. You know how it is. Stuff disappears, and no one tells the boss because it looks like maybe the person reporting it is guilty of theft.” He shrugged. “I pay these guys a lot more than minimum wage. They don’t want to lose their jobs. Even if they didn’t steal it themselves, they’ll think I want to hold them responsible, even though I wouldn’t.” He gave Tinkie an I’m a nice guy grin.

  “You’re aware that MoBlast was used to kill Patrice Pepperdine?” I wanted to nip his charm in the bud. “The local feed-and-seed store doesn’t carry it. Where do you buy yours?”

  “Yep, I’m aware. I buy my supplies online. Like every other lawn service that works with a large number of clients.” He leaned on the fender of his truck so that he was just a little closer to Tinkie. “I also heard a container of the herbicide was found in Erik’s garden shed. I like Erik, but it’s true that he hated that old bat. She poisoned his heritage plants and he sued her. To be honest, I don’t blame him. Those old stock camellias are tough plants, and a lot of the newer varieties don’t hold up nearly as well. I’ve been getting cuttings from Erik’s plants since I started my lawn business. I could have gladly bopped Patrice on the head for killing those shrubs.” He shrugged. “Folks get emotional about their gardens.”

  “How emotional?” Tinkie was doing her wide-eyed routine and it was having an effect on Rory. He’d forgotten I was standing there.

  “Oh, very emotional. They nurture and care for them. It’s a huge blow if something untoward happens to them.”

  “I can see that,” Tinkie said. “My grandmother had a rosebush that she brought over from the old country. It was the most precious thing to her. When she passed, she bequeathed a cutting from the plant to all of her children, and I have the one she gave my mother. It’s my most prized possession. Smells like it should be growing at the gates of heaven.”

  I did my best not to look shocked. Tinkie didn’t have a family heritage rosebush—she wouldn’t know a rosebush from a prickly pear if it was growing in the wild. And she certainly didn’t have a grandmother from “the old country.” She’d kissed the Blarney Stone for sure to come up with that lie.

  “Then you know exactly how this goes,” he said. “When Patrice poisoned Erik’s heritage plants, I think it sent him around the bend a little bit.”

  “Did he publicly threaten Patrice?” Tinkie asked. I leaned against the hood of the Roadster and pretended not to be there. Rory only had eyes for Tinkie. I was completely extraneous, but not for long. Tinkie had softened the ground for me to sweep in for the kill.

  “Do you really think Erik killed Patrice?” I stepped into the conversation, and my reward was a glare from Rory.

  “It’s possible,” Rory said. “Honestly, I had some dealings with Patrice. Most everyone in the county has had a run-in with her. I promise you, I could have bashed her brains out with a shovel she was so aggravating, and I’m not the only one who felt that way.”

  I was shocked again at that revelation—and the violence behind it—but I didn’t say anything. Tinkie pressed on with her questions while flirting with Rory with her eyes.

  “Do you know anyone who hated Patrice who also hated Perry Slay?”

  Rory wasn’t shy with his answers. “You know, it could be anyone. The saying around town was that if Perry and Patrice ever got together it would be Lucedale’s Kim Kardashian and Kanye West couple. Neither one of them ever walked away from making a spectacle of himself or herself.”

  “Were they romantically involved?” I finally had to ask.

  Rory made the universal shrug for “I don’t know.”

  “There’s a difference between being a social pain in the batookus and being someone that people hate enough to kill.” I floated it past Rory to see how he’d react.

  “I deal with a lot of people who aren’t so nice,” he said. “Homeowners forget that I don’t control the weather or pest infestations. They get mad and arrogant about things I can’t help. You just have to learn to shake it off. I never cut Patrice’s yard, so I didn’t hate her as intensely as some. I think she’d been through every lawn service in this county and was finally hiring folks to come up from Pascagoula because no one local would work for her. Perry Slay was a con man, but he never filed suit against me. I believe in the old ‘live and let live’ motto.”

  “If you had to name three people who might want both of them dead, who would it be?” Tinkie asked.

  He thought a minute and then laughed. “Probably Erik Ward, top of the list. Snaith, the former doctor, would be second.” He looked around the yard, checking on the crew he had working. “I don’t know a third name.”

  “How about Rory Palente?” I asked.

  “Hardly. If I killed off every aggravating client, I’d be out of business. Besides, I’ve never worked for Patrice or Erik or Slay,” he said. “Now let’s conclude the business about the MoBlast. It’s possible someone stole it off one of my employees’ trucks. I don’t carry it on my truck.” He pointed at the lawn he was working on. “This is the Calhoun lawn. They’re chemical and herbicide free. The people I take care of are antiherbicides. Won’t even poison fire ants. They’re totally nematode users. I handle these clients because they’re so techy. Check with the other crews. And now I have to get back to work.”

  He was already walking away when I called out to him. “Where were you Saturday night and last night?” I asked.

  “Saturday night I was in bed with Marcus Jenning’s wife, and last night I was at a dart competition at Popeye’s Bar in Mobile. Ask the bartender. I won the competition.” He sauntered back to his mower, hopped on, and cranked it up wide open. He tore off with leaves and grass clippings flying
behind him.

  Tinkie and I had no choice but to leave. Rory hadn’t given us anything much, except that anyone could have gotten the MoBlast. Anyone. It didn’t help us narrow our suspect list.

  “Let’s head to the newspaper,” I said. “Maybe Leda Sellers can help us out.”

  The weekly newspaper office was going great guns to meet the Tuesday night deadline for printing the paper and getting it in the mail on Wednesday. When we got to the Lucedale Gazette, we found Leda in her office going over the page proofs for one section. She looked up expectantly.

  When we introduced ourselves, her eyes lit up. “How about an interview?” she asked. “I can get a reporter in here and have it done in fifteen minutes. You’re working for Erik Ward, and we’d love a statement.”

  I shook my head. “We’re private investigators, not spokespeople for Mr. Ward.”

  She shrugged. “Can’t blame a girl for trying.” She picked up the front page proof again, ignoring us.

  “Could we buy you a cup of coffee?” Tinkie asked. “We need to ask a few questions, but we’ll be quick.”

  Leda sighed. “I do need some coffee.” She motioned us to follow her into the back of the newspaper office, where a pretty redheaded woman was busy setting headlines on a machine.

  “Jojo, would you have time to read over these proofs?” Leda asked.

  “Sure thing.” The redhead took the proofs and Leda waved us out the back door for the short walk to the local diner. The day was sunny and warm and the short walk felt good. We found an empty booth in the diner and the waitress brought three steaming cups of coffee without even being asked.

  “Your friend Cece Dee Falcon came by earlier,” Leda said. “She was with that TV guy, Hans.”

  “Cece is helping us out and she’s helping Hans out, too,” Tinkie said.

  “She’s a good reporter and a smart cookie. A video presence will move her career along. Hans produces some really good stories and he maximizes his time. But you aren’t interested in my opinion of Hans. What do you want?”

  “We need some viable suspects who might have wanted Patrice Pepperdine and Perry Slay dead.” Tinkie ordered three slices of lemon meringue pie when the waitress stopped by to fill our cups. When I looked at her, she made a face. “If you don’t want yours, I’ll eat it. I’ll eat them all. If this is anything like the coconut custard, then this will be the best lemon meringue pie I’ve ever put in my mouth.”

  With the pie issue settled, Leda returned to possible suspects for the two murders. “Look, a lot of people disliked them both. I always suspected Slay was up to his ears bribing juries and intimidating witnesses, but I could never prove it. He was a smarmy attorney, but he won a lot of cases for his clients. While the opposition hated him because his tactics were … questionable, those who hired him loved him. He won for them. For some people, that’s all that matters, and those are the kind of people who hired Slay.” She chuckled. “I should probably be on the suspect list. I can’t count the number of times he threatened to sue the paper.”

  “Did he ever file suit?” Tinkie asked.

  “He didn’t. Not because he didn’t want to. We’re just extremely cautious about printing stories. We have the facts to back everything up. Like your friend, Cece.” Leda continued, her blond curls bobbing. “I did have an interesting visitor this morning. About an ad, not a news story.”

  Tinkie leaned forward. “Tell us,” I said to Leda.

  “A woman came into the paper today and bought a display ad.”

  I waited.

  “The ad contains copy that makes the claim that Erik Ward poisoned a man named Johnny Braun on a Caribbean cruise.”

  Tinkie put down her fork. “What?”

  “That’s what the ad says. It was a “payment for more information leading to the arrest of Erik Ward for poisoning Johnny Braun” ad. There’s a photo of Erik, like a wanted poster.”

  “You aren’t going to run that, are you?” I asked.

  “Not this week. But if I check with the Miami police and they confirm that Erik was suspected in a murder on a cruise ship, I’ll have to go with it. In a story if not an ad.”

  “How long ago was this alleged murder?”

  Leda thought for a minute. “I’m not certain. It was one of those cruise tours around the island hot spots. Shouldn’t be too hard to track down.”

  “Thanks!” This wasn’t the information I’d hoped to obtain, but it was another step in the development of our case. I liked Erik, but there certainly were a lot of dead bodies piling up around him.

  Leda dug into her pie as Tinkie finished my piece. “Good to see your appetite doesn’t suffer from bad news,” I said dryly.

  Tinkie pushed back from the table. “Do you remember the name of the woman who wanted to buy the ad?”

  “Sure do. Betsy Dell. Said she grew up here but moved to Mobile. I haven’t had a chance to run down the facts about her.”

  “We could stop at the local high school,” Tinkie suggested. “If she went to school here in the county, someone will remember.”

  She was right about that. In rural high schools, memories were long. Football heroes and popular cheerleaders were big deals and that sometimes lasted their entire lives.

  “Check at the local library, too. Those librarians are pretty good detectives themselves.” Leda stood up from the table. “Thanks for the pie and coffee. Now I’ve got deadlines to meet.”

  14

  George County High School, located about two miles from the city limits, served the entire county. We met with the high school principal, Hank Chisholm, who said he remembered Betsy Dell as a pretty high schooler who was “more timid than most.”

  Hank walked us down the main hallway to a display of photographs and pointed out a slender young woman with a sweet smile who was secretary of the Home Economics Club. “The Dell family moved away years back.” He thought a minute. “Betsy followed the rules. I can’t imagine her ever being in trouble.”

  “She isn’t in trouble, but one of her classmates, Erik Ward, is having some difficulties.”

  “Yeah, I heard about the murders. Erik likes to carry on a lot of foolishness, but I don’t see him harming anyone. Let me tell you what I know.” The principal, who’d gone to high school with all of the parties involved, painted Erik as a very bright student who could solve chemistry and math problems in his sleep. “He could have worked for NASA or any other big concern, but he loves being a pharmacist,” Hank said. “We play golf together about once a month. Erik is social, and he enjoys fun and having a good time. He has a wicked sense of humor and a little bit of the devil in him, which adds to his charm. But there is a secretive side to Erik. There’s a part of him he holds back. I just never thought it was a dark side.” Hank had a pretty accurate handle on our client. “How does Betsy figure into the situation?”

  “Betsy has made a pretty harsh accusation against Erik. Would you know why she might do that?”

  He shrugged. “Look, I’m a little older than Erik or Betsy. I knew who she was, but she disappeared right after high school graduation. Someone said she’d moved to the West Coast, or maybe Idaho. I can’t remember. She was never really part of our county clique, not that it’s like an exclusive thing. She just wasn’t around. Those of us who got an education and then returned to Lucedale, well, we enjoy socializing and doing things together. She wasn’t living here, so she’s kind of slipped from the collective memory. I don’t even remember who she hung out with. But she never struck me as someone who would levy accusations at anyone. For any reason. She’s a follower, not a leader.” He snapped his fingers. “The library has some yearbooks. You might check there. See what groups she belonged to. She’s likely got friends still living around here and if you can find them, you’ll get a lead on her. If you want to find her, that would be the best way.”

  “Thanks, Hank,” Tinkie said.

  “Not a problem, ladies.” He turned and started down the hallway to the front door. “If you need a
nything else, just give a call.”

  We were off to the next location. Over the past cases Tinkie and I had resolved, we’d both learned one valuable lesson—PI work included a lot of legging it around to different places and people. We had to turn over a lot of rocks to find a diamond.

  When we returned to town, we located the library with ease. Ten minutes after we arrived we were sitting at a table with a computer and three George County High School yearbooks. We found Betsy Dell’s senior year and began searching for her face in group and organization photos. She was a pretty girl with dark hair and a heart-shaped face. In the photos her shoulders were slumped. She always took a position on the end of the back row in any group, seeming to stand a few inches farther back from the photographer than anyone else, as if she might be trying to get away before the shutter snapped.

  “If she stood up straight and had a little confidence, she’d be a lovely girl,” Tinkie said.

  She was right. Betsy had belonged to a few different high school organizations, but she was never in the front row smiling. If she held an elected post, it was one that did all the work. After another twenty minutes, I identified several other women who were in photographs with her. I took the yearbook and the names up to the front desk.

  “Do you know any of these women?” I asked.

  The librarian looked them over. “Sure. And I know Betsy, too.”

  This was a stroke of luck. I noted the librarian’s name tag. “Thank you, Polly Jean. Do you know where we could find her?”

  The librarian shook her head. “We weren’t close friends in high school, but I liked her. Betsy left for Hollywood the day of graduation. She wanted to act. She said she was tired of being a nobody. She kept all of that to herself until the day we were supposed to show up for the graduation ceremony. She had a bus ticket to Los Angeles.”

  “She just hopped a bus and went on her own?” That was impressive.