Death by Deceit

by Abigail Keam

  My heart dropped.

  A note was hanging on Glory’s tack by the stall door.

  Josiah,

  I have Morning Glory. Don’t worry about her. See you at Thanksgiving. Miss you. Hunter.

  Hunter took back my horse! Calm down. Calm down. He said he was going to have Morning Glory retrained after I fell off, so maybe that’s what he was doing with her. Jumping Jehoshaphat! He could have given me a heads up. Guess Hunter was still angry. Hope he gets over it by Thanksgiving, so we could share a pleasant meal. I was ready to kill, oops, I mean kiss and makeup. Freudian slip there.

  He did say he missed me in the note.

  I missed him, too. There. I said it. Here’s another thing—I hoped we could repair the rift between us. Hunter was a lovely man, and I did understand his point of view.

  I was just going to have to lie better in the future, so Hunter wouldn’t worry because he would bust a gut if he knew what I was up to.

  Yeah, lying. That’s the ticket.

  30

  Frost hung in the air as Franklin and I stepped out of my car, grabbing some shovels. Hazel greeted us with her German Shepherd which was a cadaver search dog. “I can’t thank you enough, Hazel.”

  “This makes it square between us,” Hazel stated. Hazel was an old friend of mine who trained cadaver and rescue canines. She had worked with me recently to find a woman who my neighbor, Sandy Sloan, had murdered. Sandy no longer receives a Christmas card from me, but Hazel does.

  “It does.”

  “Where do you want me to start?” Hazel asked, looking at the late nineteenth century home whose day had come and gone. Most of the windows were broken or missing, and the front porch sagged into the front yard. Even if the porch had been attached, we couldn’t push through the weeds to get inside.

  Hazel looked about and took note of the No Trespassing and No Hunting signs. “I take it we are on this land illegally.”

  Franklin answered, glancing around like a frightened doe. “Kind of.”

  “Then let’s get our story straight. We were hiking and didn’t know we were trespassing,” Hazel suggested.

  “Got it,” I said.

  Franklin nodded. He held a shovel, identical to mine, in a white-knuckled grip.

  “Franklin, are you up for this?” I asked. “You can wait in the car.”

  “If we are confronted by Bigfoot or a panther, you are on your own. I’ll leave you in the dust. Just so you’ll know.”

  “Noted,” I replied, grinning, but I think Franklin was serious.

  “Where do you want to start?” Hazel asked.

  “Where do you suggest?”

  Hazel gave her dog a treat. “Let’s start with the outbuildings first and then the outlying land. I don’t want to go into the house unless I need to.”

  “Okay,” I said, turning toward Franklin. “You ready?”

  “Let ’er rip,” he said.

  Hazel gave a command to the German Shepherd, and he took off pulling Hazel with him.

  Franklin and I pushed through the briars and weeds as best we could. I was glad I was wearing my heavy duty coveralls, gloves, boots, and a wool hat that came over my ears. My get-up protected me from ticks and snakes, but it was heavy, making me lurch and stumble as I tried to follow. After a half-hour, I couldn’t pursue Hazel any longer. I had to rest.

  “Jo, I think it’s best you go back to the car and wait,” Franklin said as I leaned into a huge pin oak tree, trying to catch my breath.

  “I’m sorry, Franklin, but I think you’re right. I’m in the way.”

  “Do you know the way back?”

  “Sure. I’ll be fine. Here—take my water. There’s more in the car.”

  Franklin took the bottle and tucked it into his small knapsack. “Blow your whistle if you need help,” he said, referring to a bright red whistle around my neck. “Is your phone on, though I don’t know if we can get any reception out here.”

  “Go on. I’ll be fine. Just need to catch my breath.”

  Giving me one last concerned look, Franklin said, “Blow that whistle if you need us to start back.”

  “Stop nagging, Franklin. You’re losing the trail.”

  Franklin ran off in search of Hazel, leaving me panting by the majestic oak tree whose maroon and orange leaves were drifting to the ground in a gentle wind. I slid down the tree and looked up at its massive branches. “Hello, tree. May I rest here a bit?” I paused for a minute, listening to the forest sounds. “Yes, you say. Thank you very much.” I needed to shut my eyes before I made my way back to the car.

  Just for a moment, I thought.

  31

  I jerked awake. What had hit me? Reaching up, I knocked an acorn off my head only to look up and spy a chattering squirrel scolding me for disturbing her home. She dropped another acorn on me. I must have been snoring. Quickly looking at my watch, I saw that an hour had passed. Straining, I listened quietly but didn’t hear Franklin, Hazel, or the occasional barking of the dog. I wondered if they had headed back to the vehicles and were now looking for me or perhaps they had found something, and Franklin was digging it up.

  Either way, I needed to vamoose. I flipped over on my knees and tried to pull myself up using the tree as support. My knees were not having it. Okay. That was not working. Another acorn hit my head. “Hey, stop that,” I yelled at the squirrel, who scampered further up the tree trunk. I could still hear her chattering angrily. “I’m trying to leave. Give me a moment.”

  I reached over and grabbed the shovel, thrust it into the ground, and used it as leverage to pull myself up. Did it. Now I needed to find my car. A breeze blew through permitting the oak’s branches to shift. The sun peeped through the moving leaves for just a second or two when something shiny in the earth caught my attention. “What is that?” I murmured. I carefully dug it up and reached down to retrieve it from the loamy soil, bringing it close to examine. It was a very old metallic button in the shape of a heart. “Can’t be Civil War. A woman’s button I would say.”

  Stepping back, I surveyed the area where I had been lying. There was a slight depression in the ground. I put the button in my pocket before making another swipe in the dirt and then another. Two more buttons and a scrap of cloth with a pattern of flowers emerged. Then I found a hammer. I kept on digging. Uncovered a bone. Looked like a finger bone, but could be a chicken bone for all I knew. I dug near the base of the oak tree searching until my shovel skimmed something hard.

  Lowering myself gently to the ground, I scraped the dirt away with my hands until I found the top of a yellowish dome. It was cracked and a small piece of it was missing, leaving a tiny hole. I was quiet for a long time listening to the breeze and the call of the birds before I reburied the buttons, the cloth of a woman’s dress, and most importantly, the hammer.

  The squirrel chattered again.

  “I know. I know. You were trying to tell me. I misunderstood at first, but I found her—thanks to you, sister.”

  The squirrel ran up to its nest and disappeared.

  Dragging the shovel, I made my way back to the cars where Franklin and Hazel soon joined me, bedraggled and exhausted. We drank water and ate some peanut butter crackers before getting into our vehicles and making tracks out of there.

  On the way home, I told Franklin what I had found. He stopped at a big-box store where I purchased a prepaid phone and called the state police. Afterward, I threw the SIM card out on the highway.

  Then Franklin and I waited to see something in the newspaper.

  We didn’t have to wait long.

  32

  I was at the farmers’ market selling honey. It was a slow Saturday as it was cold and gloomy. I was hopping around trying to keep warm when Detective Kelly stopped by.

  “How’s my favorite honey lady?” he asked.

  “Long time no see.”

  “Been busy, Josiah.”

  “How’s everything at home?”

  “Good. Real good. Back on track.” Kelly was refer
ring to his relationship with his wife after his affair with my daughter. I didn’t condone it. I’m just telling you.

  “Glad to hear it, Kelly.”

  “Almost forgot. Brought you some hot chocolate.” He handed me a Styrofoam cup.

  “You are a dear.” I took a sip. “Nice and hot. For that you may take some honey home. This is goldenrod honey. It’s dark and thick, but not overly sweet.”

  “No thanks. I had some last year. I thought it tasted bitter.”

  “It can. I’m not too fond of it myself, but people clamor for it. They say this honey helps with their allergies.”

  When a customer came to the table to purchase honey, Kelly stepped back. “See what I mean?” I said, handing the customer her change. “I thank you and the bees thank you.”

  When the customer left, Kelly asked, “Can I come behind the table? I need to speak with you.”

  “Sure. Come on. I have a heater under the table. It will keep our toes warm while the rest of us freeze.”

  Kelly stood next to me while I sold another bottle of honey.

  I said, “You’re my good luck charm. Can you stay until I sell out?”

  “Did you read the paper yesterday?” Kelly asked.

  “I did.”

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  “A woman’s body was found on King Landau’s old family farm buried under an oak tree. Her skull showed shows of blunt force trauma and a hammer was found buried with her.”

  “The paper said the woman was identified as Dixie Landau, King’s first wife.”

  “That’s right, Jo.”

  “How did they identify her?”

  “Her purse was thrown into the grave along with other personal items.”

  “No DNA?”

  “No one to compare her with. All her close kinfolk are dead. She’s been in the ground for decades.”

  “What does King Landau say?”

  “Said he doesn’t know who the woman is. Anybody could have buried her on his property. Said he hadn’t lived there for over sixty years.”

  “And yet he kept the farm.”

  “Does he say what happened to Dixie?”

  “Says she ran away with a man.”

  “Did King divorce Dixie?”

  “He says he has a copy of the decree but can’t remember where, so we are looking into it.”

  “He went to Mexico for a quickie divorce with his second wife.”

  “We might not be able to prove or disprove his claim about this divorce if he got his divorce out of the US sixty years ago. A good defense lawyer could plant reasonable doubt about the ID of the remains because we don’t have dental records or DNA.”

  “Any fingerprints on the hammer?”

  “Too degraded.”

  “Then Detective, you don’t have a case. Even if you proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that the woman was Dixie Landau, you can’t prove King killed her.”

  “Any suggestions?” Kelly asked.

  “If I were a detective, I would call his second wife, Rockie Landau, and see if she has something to tell you.”

  “Does she?”

  “She might mention a photograph of a woman in a shoebox. If that picture still exists, it might have a name on the back. If it doesn’t, you can still have a forensic artist do a facial reconstruction of the features from the skull and compare it to the picture.”

  “Nothing will come of it. King Landau is dying and in a hospice.”

  “Yeah, but you might tie King to the murder of Shelby Carpenter. I think Carpenter was doing a piece on King and asking too many questions. He might have stumbled onto Dixie and King’s marriage certificate and wanted to know what happened to the first Mrs. Landau, not knowing he was stirring up a hornets’ nest.”

  “You think King hired a professional hit on him?”

  “I think someone in that family either killed Carpenter himself or knows who did. Do you really think Ferrina cares about anyone knowing she was a call girl?”

  Kelly’s eyes narrowed. “How do you know that?”

  Ignoring his last question, I said, “But she would care if Carpenter was getting close to finding out there was a body buried on the old homestead.”

  “She’s down at headquarters right now being grilled by Drake.”

  “Great minds think alike.”

  Another customer came up and purchased several bottles of honey. “Gonna be here next week, Josiah?”

  “This is my last Saturday until next year. It’s getting too cold.”

  “Then give me four more bottles. The honey’s got to last me through winter.”

  “Here you go. See you next year. Remember—you can freeze honey, but you shouldn’t put it in the fridge.”

  “Thanks, Josiah. Have a great winter.”

  “You bet.”

  I put the cash in my pocket. “My money is on King. I doubt Ferrina or Chase even knew King had been married to a Dixie Orr.”

  “How do you know her maiden name?”

  “Don’t ask. Don’t tell.”

  “I think Chase did it. He felt his father was being threatened by Shelby Carpenter or perhaps overheard Carpenter attempting to blackmail King, so he follows Carpenter and seeing an opportunity, shoots him.”

  “It takes someone very cold blooded to shoot someone on a street in the middle of a city. That person has to be cool headed and collected. I don’t see Chase being such a person. He’s too emotional.”

  “There’s no hard evidence connecting King to either case. It’s all circumstantial.”

  “Looks like you are going to have two unsolved cases on your hands.”

  “Darn it. I hate that. I would really like to crack this case wide open.”

  “Unless you get a deathbed confession, I think it’s unlikely.” I took another sip of my hot chocolate.

  Kelly looked at his watch. “I’ve got to go. My shift starts soon. One more thing before I go.”

  “Yes?”

  “A woman called in the tip about the body to the State Police. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

  “I’ve learned my lesson about getting involved in police matters. Glad you stopped by and thanks again for the hot chocolate.”

  “Always, Jo.” Kelly walked away with a little jaunt in his step. I couldn’t help but think of what might have been if Asa hadn’t left him after high school. He would have been a wonderful son-in-law.

  A customer stepped up to my table, which shook me out of my reverie.

  Life was what it was, and there was nothing I could do to change it.

  Or could I?

  33

  I told the nurse I was an old friend and wanted to say goodbye. She told me to be brief, saying it was doubtful King Landau could hear me.

  I promised her I would only take a moment.

  I walked into the room.

  King was attached to a tangle of tubes and wires, but he was breathing on his own. There was the ever-present catheter bag tied to the side of the bed, and the TV was showing a game show with the sound off. Everywhere there were flowers and get-well cards, but there was no getting well for this man. This was the end of the line for King Landau.

  I pulled a chair close to the bed and pressed into King’s thin, gnarled hand the dirty heart-shaped metal button off Dixie’s dress she had worn on the day she was murdered. I closed his fingers over it. “King,” I whispered. “I know you can hear me. Feel that button. It’s Dixie’s button, King—from the dress she was wearing on the day you murdered her with a hammer. What did Dixie do wrong that day, King? Burn the meatloaf? Not starch your shirts stiff enough? Tell you she was leaving? Everybody knows, King—the secret you kept hidden for over sixty years is out in the open. Everybody knows you are a wife killer and that you had Shelby Carpenter killed as well. Tell the truth. Don’t take it to the grave with you.”

  King stirred and struggled to open his eyelids, which fluttered like a butterfly’s wings in flight.

 
“I knew you could hear me.”

  “She had it coming,” he rasped. “She had it coming.”

  “And Shelby Carpenter?”

  “No.”

  “You’re dying. What does it matter now? Get it off your chest, man.”

  “No.”

  The nurse stuck her head in the door. “You’d better go, ma’am. His blood pressure is going through the roof.”

  I glanced at the monitor and saw King’s heart was racing. “He’s all yours,” I said before walking out the door and never looking back, though I wondered if King was still clutching the little heart-shaped button that a woman had lovingly sewn on a feed sack dress over six decades ago. I wish I had kept it.

  34

  “June, get in the car,” I barked, exasperated. “We’re going to be late.”

  “Give me a minute, Miss Priss,” June groused. “It takes a moment to get these old legs working.”

  Amelia handed me a bag. “This has all her medications and personal items that she’ll need.”

  “Check,” I said, tossing the bag in the back alongside the black walnut cake, double chocolate brownies, blackberry cobbler, lemon tarts, and a tomato pie Bess had made for June to take to Wickliffe Manor.

  “Let me help, Lady Elsmere,” Matt said, handing Emmeline to me. He provided a strong arm for June to balance herself while she struggled to get from the wheelchair inside the car.

  “I can walk,” June insisted. “I just can’t walk far.”

  “I can pick you up,” Matt offered.

  “Oh, would you?” June said, batting her eyelashes.

  I shook my head. “Come on, June. Quit flirting and get in the car. Charles is waiting for Amelia. The Dupuys have their own Thanksgiving to get to.”

  Matt settled June in the car, strapping her in the front passenger seat.

  Amelia poked her head inside and gave June a quick peck on the cheek. “Call me if you need me.”