“Point. If the human is wanting to leave some clues behind …” Rosey said.
“As in baiting us or teasing us with these kills?” I said.
“Why not?”
“Sounds pretty sophisticated, if you ask me,” Starnes said.
“Let’s show him the crime scene inside the building,” I said and got out of the Jeep.
The door to Ponder’s store was locked.
“Are you kidding me?” Starnes said.
“Maybe the family wanted to preserve the inventory on hand,” I said.
“What family?” Starnes said.
“Oh,” I said.
“This is the work of his holiness Buster Mabry Murdock. He doesn’t want us snooping around without his say-so,” Starnes said.
Before I could find my penknife, Rosey had his small toolkit for entering locked doors out and was opening the door in short order.
“Who did you say you work for?” Starnes said to Rosey.
“I didn’t say.”
I flipped on the light switch despite the sunshine outside. The few windows and the tall, crowded shelves made the large room dark. I stood by the door pondering our discussion while Rosey and Starnes walked around the room.
Several minutes had passed. I was tired of waiting for my crime fighting partners to finish their search and decided to go outside and look around. I turned to leave. Mamie Shelton was standing next to the screen door staring at me. I nearly jumped out of my skin. I never heard her approach me.
“Mamie,” I said while trying to catch my breath. “You startled me.”
She had scared me out of my wits.
“I remembered somethin’,” she said.
“What did you remember?”
“I saw Hack Ponder a’playin’ checkers.”
29
Rosey and I were standing by the small cliff that looked down on the rapidly flowing Ivy River beneath. Starnes was over by the Jeep talking with Mamie Shelton. I was wondering about Mamie’s sanity as Rosey seemed to be mulling over something that had caught his attention.
“You find anything inside the building worth mentioning?” I said.
“Not much.”
“And this not much would be … what?”
“No checkerboard.”
“What?” I said.
“There was no checkerboard. I found an old box in the back storeroom that had once upon a time housed a checkerboard, but it was empty. In light of that Shelton lady’s remembrance, I think it’s something to explore, unless she is lying.”
“The checkerboard is missing,” I repeated.
“And the checkers, too,” he added.
“Why take one without the other,” I said. It wasn’t a question.
“Precisely.”
“You think it’s important?” I said.
“I think it’s worth mentioning, to answer your original question. The lady saw Hack Ponder playing checkers. There is no checkerboard or checkers inside that building. Begs the question,” he said.
I walked over to Starnes and Mamie. Rosey followed at his own pace.
“Thanks for sharing this information with us,” Starnes said. It seemed that Mamie was about to leave.
“How did you know we would be here?” I said to Mamie as she began to walk away.
“Oh, that,” she said as she turned around. “She told me that you would be coming this afternoon.”
“Who?” I said.
“The lady with me.”
“What lady is that?” I said.
“The one in my vision,” she answered.
“You had another vision?” Starnes seemed interested now.
Mamie smiled at us.
“I has visions nearly every day now. Since the awful.”
“You see anything that might help us?”
“Hard to say. I see plenty. But the lady told me to come here today and tell ya’ that I saw Old Man Ponder playin’ checkers with a stranger.”
“What did the stranger look like?” I said.
“Tall like you, but not as purdy. Strong lookin’ and with her hair all braided-like. Ya’ know, it was one of those fancy knots. I reckon that’s what they call it.”
“You hear a name?”
“Nothing that made any sense to me,” she said.
“What did you hear?” Starnes asked.
“Old Man Ponder kept sayin’ sumthin’ like Kutie Pie, at least that’s what it sounded like.”
“And this woman who told you that we would be here today and that you should come tell us … she have a name?” Starnes said.
“Miss Starling, Miss Josephine Starling,” Mamie said.
30
“We need her on speed dial,” I said to Starnes.
“Who is this Josephine Starling?” Rosey asked.
“You’ll meet her soon enough. Words would fail us in any attempt to describe Aunt Jo,” Starnes said.
“Try.”
“Eccentric, calm, enigmatic, secretive, powerful, quaint, controlled…” Starnes paused in her description.
“Don’t forget all-knowing,” I said.
“Sounds divine,” Rosey said.
“She makes a mean tea as well,” I said.
“I like tea. I hope more than one variety,” Rosey said.
“Several,” I added quickly.
“So she told Mamie Shelton that we would be at the store and that we needed to know about the stranger playing checkers with Hack Ponder,” Rosey said.
“You make it sound so innocent,” I said.
“Sounds innocent to me, except the part about us being at the store. How did she know that?”
“Ah, ha,” I said.
“Ah ha what?” Rosey said.
“That’s the rub, my strong friend. Aunt Jo has insights that we mortals can only dream about. She knows things that she has no right to know. And she sees things, too.”
“Curious, observant, diligent, careful, and has the sight,” Starnes continued her descriptive attempt.
“The sight,” Rosey said.
“A mountain term,” Starnes explained.
“I’ve read about it. Intriguing thing.”
“Downright baffling to experience,” I said.
“Wonder when and how Aunt Jo told Mamie to come tell us this remembrance?” I said.
“Yeah. Sort of begs a question, right?” Starnes said.
“You mean since Aunt Jo has no cell phone, no land line, no computer, and no tin can with a string stretched across the county to converse with Mamie Shelton?” I said.
“Yeah, that’s what I meant.”
Rosey seemed bewildered.
“You forgot walkie-talkie invention,” he said.
“Sure, like that woman would have any of that. There are no electronic communication devices inside of Josephine Starling’s home. The lady lives near the edge of the world in Ivy Gap. In fact, she lives at the very end of Ivy Gap. With no known ability for communication with anyone in the outside world. Except that she is able to communicate with whomever she desires.”
“Well, ladies, it seems you have yet another mystery.”
“Beyond science,” Starnes said. “Way beyond science.”
“Let’s not dwell on paradoxes or mysteries beyond our perceptions. When do I get to meet this wonder woman?” Rosey said.
“Tomorrow,” Starnes said. “In the meantime, I need to rustle us up some grub.”
“Rustle us up some grub?” I said.
“Vernacular,” Starnes said.
“From some old western movie perhaps,” I said.
“Rosey, come help me in the kitchen. Clancy is still a foreigner when it comes to cooking.”
Rosey and Starnes made for a good cooking team. After a scrumptious meal of stir-fry chicken and vegetables, I took the dogs for a walk in the evening cold while Rosey washed and dried the dishes. Starnes sat reading in her dad’s favorite chair.
The dogs and I followed the trail up the mountain behind Starnes’ house. I
decided not to go as far as the spot where we found the second set of bones. My intuition told me that it might not be a safe place to return. My fears also cautioned me as well.
We trudged along for about thirty minutes. I was ready to turn back and head for home when a rustling noise alerted the two canines and they were off in search of an adventure. Sam led the way with Dog ten paces back in his wake.
I called out to them a few times, but to no avail. They would not be dissuaded from their pursuit of whatever it was making noise about fifty yards to our right off the main trail. I waited a minute or two and then decided to follow just to be sure that they were okay.
I walked about twenty yards and stopped. I could hear nothing.
“Sam!”
Nothing.
“Dog! Where are you two?”
Silence.
“Sam! Answer me!”
A yelp in a large thicket ahead of me told me that Sam was close. I headed towards the yelp. I drew my gun just to be safe.
“I doubt if you’ll be needing that,” a voice from behind me spoke.
I turned quickly with my 9 mm aimed at hip level. A tall woman was standing there with two animals. I lowered the gun’s position immediately after determining that she was no threat. The animals appeared to be dogs, but I wasn’t sure of the breed.
“Hi, name’s Clancy,” I said as I walked towards her.
“K.C. Higgins,” she said and extended her right hand, a gesture I took to mean that she wanted to shake. We shook.
“Didn’t expect to find anybody on this trail,” I said.
“Popular trail. Lots of hikers going and coming. Access to the AT makes it handy.”
“Yeah. I’m looking for my two dogs. They left me from the main trail to explore some sound they heard,” I said.
“Could’ve been me and my companions,” she said as she gestured to the two dogs on either side of her. “Kew and Cornwall.”
The name Kew caught my attention since I had recently come across it with my reading on Welsh mythology. I decided against commenting.
I was much more taken by the two animals before me. Kew and Cornwall were two very large dogs that resembled a number of work dog families. They were obviously a mixture of breeds, but I wasn’t sure exactly which breeds.
“Please to meet you, Kew and Cornwall. Mixed breeds?” I said.
“Coyotes and Old English Sheep Dogs. There may be some German Shepherd blood in them. Had an incident when the bitch was already pregnant. Not sure, but I have some suspicions.”
“Kew is an unusual name,” I said. I could’ve said the same about naming a dog Cornwall. This was my first experience with either name used for dogs.
“Yeah. I get that a lot. Old family name.”
The two dogs appeared to weigh close to a hundred pounds, if not more. They appeared to be mirror images of each other, colored black, white, and some grey mixed in to connect the black and white. Each had a spot on their rump that from where I was standing appeared to be a very dark blue color. I couldn’t recall ever seeing a dog with a blue coloring. The blue was so dark that it could have easily been called black.
“Unusual colors too. Handsome dogs.”
She nodded without offering gratitude for my compliment.
“I think your dogs are over there behind you in that grove of thick pines. They probably smelled us and heard us. Sorry to distract them.”
“Dogs will be dogs,” I said and turned to search for Sam and Dog.
I took two steps and then decided that I should have better manners. I turned to say a parting word to my trail encounter. The tall woman and the two canines were gone. Disappeared.
I stood searching in the fading light for some movement, some sound, something that would tell me that I had actually run into the three of them. There was nothing.
It was then that I realized that Dog and Sam had come back to me. They were breathing heavy around my knees as if they had been chasing something. Sam sat down while Dog continued to circle around me sniffing all the while. Neither Sam nor Dog paid any attention to the spot where the tall woman and her mixed breeds had stood talking with me.
31
The next morning Rosey was up early and had nearly finished cooking breakfast when I entered the kitchen.
“Smells good,” I said.
“Should.”
“Why, because you fixed it?”
“Am I such a braggart that you would assume such a response from me?”
“Let’s just say that in some things you are more than self-assured.”
“True. And it does smell good.”
“Starnes up yet?”
“Heard some sounds coming from that direction earlier. She should be landing soon enough,” he said.
I poured a cup of coffee and sat down to wait. I didn’t have long. Halfway through my first cup, Starnes sauntered into the kitchen. She mumbled something that was akin to a greeting, poured herself some coffee, and sat down at the end of the table opposite me.
“You ladies ready for some vittles?”
Starnes nodded and I said, “Yes.”
The three of us dined on eggs, grits, bacon, and freshly made homemade biscuits from some ancient recipe that Rosey’s Uncle Joe had given him. Delicious.
Starnes sipped her coffee once she finished shoveling the food down. She had something on her mind. I had been with her long enough to read the signs. Rosey was still eating.
“You make much of that woman and her dogs?” Starnes said to me.
“Strange would be a good word to describe the encounter.”
“You say the dogs were big?” she said.
“Larger than Sam by twenty pounds, give or take.”
“Sam weighs close to a hundred,” Starnes said.
“Close enough. All of this running around with us, he may be down a few pounds from his Norfolk weight.”
“So they were really big,” Starnes said.
“And that unusual coloration as well.”
“Did you tell us ‘blue’ last night?” Rosey said.
“A dark blue that was almost black. Just one spot, on the rump.”
“And then they disappeared. Vanished from sight,” Starnes said to clarify as well as tease me.
“Well, it’s not like I saw them vanish. I turned, walked a little and then turned back to say something else and they were gone. It was only a few seconds between turns.”
“Probably just got behind some trees and you couldn’t see them leave,” Rosey said.
“It was a partially cleared field where we were talking,” I said.
“Oh. Have you been checked out by a doctor recently?” Rosey said.
“Funny. It was strange, that’s all I can say. Do you know anybody named K.C. Higgins?” I said to Starnes.
“Hasn’t come up on my radar since I’ve been back, but seems like the name has a note of familiarity to it. Can’t say for certain. Ida might know. We can run by there.”
“Who’s Ida?” Rosey said.
We told him enough to satisfy his curiosity.
“Okay, we need a road trip. First stop will be Ida’s place. Then on to the real character of the county,” Starnes said.
“I’ll wash since Rosey cooked. Rosey, you walk the dogs a little. You and Sam can get reacquainted.”
“It hasn’t been that long. Surely Sam hasn’t forgotten me completely.”
“Sam would never forget you. But Dog doesn’t know you from Adam’s Shetland pony,” I said.
“I thought that was Adam’s house cat?” he said.
“I’m not a cat person, so I wouldn’t know anything about Adam’s variety,” I said.
An hour and a half later we were headed towards Ida Carters’ to ask about K.C. Higgins. I was driving the Jeep and Starnes was riding shotgun. Rosey was in the backseat with Dog. Sam was all the way in the back, his choice. Evidently, Dog and Rosey had bonded on their morning walk.
Thirty minutes into our journey, Rosey made an obs
ervation.
“And why didn’t we call Ida Carter to find out about K.C. Higgins?” he said.
“No phone,” Starnes and I said in perfect unison.
“And running by her place, as you put it earlier, was at best an understatement if not some euphemism for passing the time in the morning,” he said.
“He’s pretty smart for a man,” Starnes said.
“Yeah, I keep him around for his wisdom and prowess with guns.”
We stopped at the gate and sat in the Jeep for a few minutes deciding upon strategy.
“It’s unlikely that she will recognize your Jeep, so you two stay put and I’ll go to the house to see Ida. If she’s a mind to have company, I’ll beckon and you all can come. Dogs, too,” Starnes said, then climbed out of the car, and headed towards Ida’s.
We watched her walk up the long lane to the homestead.
“Is everybody remote in this county?” Rosey said.
“No, just the ones who prefer to be remote. There are some tiny towns and even some housing developments, but mostly folks own some land and have small places in which to raise their kids and keep to themselves,” I said.
“It appears to be a harsh land,” Rosey said.
“Depends upon your fortitude.”
“You mean guts.”
“Yeah.”
“Makes for strong people.”
“It does. Independent, too.”
“Do they trust people?”
“Only the ones they know.”
“Makes for a precarious thing, investigating as an outsider, right?” he said.
“Indeed.”
“Ever been shot at?”
“Funny you should ask that,” I said.
32
Rosey spotted the waving gesture from Starnes before I did.
“Coast must be clear,” he said. “Starnes either is waving us to the house or wanting us to get shot.”
I laughed. Knowing Ida’s penchant and skill for small rifles, I decided not to tell Rosey how good she was.
“We’ll be safe. She’s becoming a friend.”
The dogs bounded ahead of us as if they knew they would be welcomed by Ida Carter. By the time Rosey and I arrived, Starnes and Ida were sitting at the dining table enjoying a drink. My guess was that it was a shot of White Magic.
Outcast In Gray: A Clancy Evans Mystery (Clancy Evans PI Book 7) Page 15
