Three Degrees of Death

by Allen Kent

  “They shouted?” I prompted. “What did they shout?”

  “One yelled ‘You are an abomination before the Lord,’” Edith said with a shiver.

  Ethel blinked back tears. “Yes. And something about ‘observers of times’ and ‘diviners of spirits.’ Another shouted ‘You told my Aunt Lucy what was going to happen before it did. You’re witches. Both of you!’”

  Edith drew her hand from beneath Marti’s and waved a frail finger in the air. “And one of them—there were three, we believe—asked another about the numbers.”

  My ears perked up. “The numbers?”

  “Yes,” Ethel remembered. “He asked where they should put the numbers. And the other one said, ‘Don’t worry about it. It’s all going to burn up anyway.’”

  The pair fell silent, huddling into each other beside Marti.

  “That was it?” I asked. “All you were able to hear?”

  They exchanged a look, screwed their faces into wrinkled frowns, then said in unison, “That’s all they said.”

  “Then they ran,” Ethel added.

  I looked at the notes I’d hurriedly scribbled as they spoke. “You’re sure one asked where he should put the numbers?”

  They both nodded.

  “And you’re certain one mentioned Aunt Lucy?”

  “Yes,” Ethel said eagerly. “That’s why we thought we may be able to help. Only one Lucy comes to see us. Lucy Studdard.”

  I jotted the name on my pad. “Is there anything else you remember that might help?”

  “When Mr. Backman came up—and the firemen—we were too frightened to come out. He called to us, saying it was him, but we knew the house was burning. We were afraid to move until you came to the spring and we could see it was truly you.”

  I nodded and Marti stood with the twins while I walked around the desk and wrapped the three in a reassuring hug.

  “Let’s have Marti help you get into some of these clothes,” I suggested. “Then she can take you to her place and get you settled in for the rest of the day.”

  “Thank you,” they murmured in unison.

  “No. Thank you. You’ve given me some very helpful information.”

  Before ushering the twins out of the office, Marti turned back to me and spoke quietly. “I guess you’ll be going out to talk to Lucy.”

  “Grace should call any minute now. As soon as I talk to her, I’ll head out there.”

  Marti’s forehead creased. “These numbers, Tate. And the shouting about the sisters being an abomination and diviners of spirits.” She paused, then asked, “Have you read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo?”

  “Yup. Read the book and saw the movie.”

  “Do you remember the code? The one the killer was using?”

  I did, but only vaguely.

  “Bible verses,” Marti reminded me. “Before you go see Lucy, check them out.”

  “I don’t think we have a Bible in the office.”

  “We should.”

  “Yes. Probably. But we don’t.”

  She sniffed. “Find one. There will be one over in the courthouse. I don’t think they still use them to swear people in, but they’ll have one. Or stop by a church. You need to have a Bible, Tate.”

  “I have one at home,” I assured her and helped her guide the Webbers into the outer office and over to the bags of clothing. I wanted some privacy when I heard from Grace.

  “I can’t talk long,” Grace said when I answered. “I’m meeting Conall for dinner in about thirty minutes to go over what we’ve learned today.”

  Conall? I felt the blood rise in my face but sucked in a deep breath and tried to ignore the irritation. ‘Dinner’ didn’t mean anything romantic and was probably part of doing what we had sent her there to do: find our missing teens.

  “Anything new?” I asked as calmly as I could manage.

  “The Syrian angle doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. They’ve checked on calls into the country from Syrian sources and can’t find anything that hints at an attempt to arrange a kidnapping.”

  “And the two tourists?”

  “We’ve talked to dozens of people, and no one has seen the kids at all or can identify the couple.”

  “There can’t be that many tourists in Inverness.”

  “You’d be amazed, Tate. This gathering for Outlander is huge. Someone saw a real opportunity to make a buck off the series and organized all kinds of tours around it. Groups are here from everywhere. It’s been hard to identify all the groups, let alone talk to them.”

  “Have you checked on the passports? ”

  “The chaperones are keeping all the passports. They checked, and they still have Danny’s and Miriam’s.”

  “Well, we can eliminate that, then. But you and I are pretty sure the kids didn’t just take off with someone. There have got to be a lot of visitors in the city other than these Outlander groupies. Are the police hunting them down? Seeing who flew in or came by train?” My voice must have sounded sharper than I intended.

  “Tate, don’t argue with me.”

  “I’m not, but—”

  “But nothing. The police here know all this and are trying to get to as many people as they can as fast as they can. The kids’ pictures were in the paper this morning and on TV—here and in England. We’re following up on every lead.”

  “I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to argue. I’m just feeling kind of helpless about all this myself.” I clenched my jaw and stared through the glass wall of the fishbowl at the Webber sisters, now decked out in the most fashionable women’s wear the two had ever worn. Marti was escorting them to the outer door, each carrying a bag with the remainder of the donated clothes. For a brief moment I thought I shouldn’t tell her, but decided she needed to know she wasn’t bearing all of our burdens.

  “And we’ve got our hands full here as well,” I found myself saying. “Someone burned the Webber cabin to the ground last night.”

  Grace gasped audibly at the other end. “Were they hurt? The twins?”

  “No. They seemed to know trouble was coming and hid out by their spring. Marti’s taking them to her place.”

  Grace was silent for a moment. “I wish I could be there to help. So far, I haven’t made much difference here.”

  “You’re doing as much as any of us could do, Grace. And I’m wishing I could be there. So we’re both feeling frustrated.”

  Again, silence. Then, “I’d better go, Tate.”

  I hated the silence, but added another moment to it.

  “Good to hear your voice, Grace,” I said finally.

  “I’ll call you tomorrow morning—about two in the afternoon your time, after we’ve finished our day. Maybe I’ll have more for you then. And I want to know what you’ve learned about the Webber fire.”

  “Thanks for being there for our families, Grace,” I said more gratefully. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  17

  Any of the insurance salespeople in town would tell you that, on the average, women in the county outlive men by about fifteen years. On any given Sunday, in any of Crayton’s churches, there is a whole section populated by widows who have formed an unofficial society of their own that serves as one of the main sources of information at Jerry Covell’s meat counter.

  Some credit this disparity in longevity to the fact that so many of the men are dawn-to-dusk farmers who work all day around dangerous equipment, eat bacon, biscuits, and gravy for breakfast, and meat and potatoes for every other meal. Others believe the women are just basically of a tougher stock—that they have evolved over time through natural selection as the most hardy survive giving birth in drafty back rooms and nursing their offspring through every infectious disease that’s swept through the Ozarks. Lucy Studdard was one of the latter.

  She is a widow, but not to a farm accident or cholesterol-induced heart attack. Her husband had been one of my high school teachers and disappeared at the end of my junior year with a young student teacher. He passed away two y
ears later, either from exhaustion, as the men at LeeAnn’s Café’s morning coffee klatch liked to say, or from the evil vibes sent his way by his abandoned wife and the rest of the Crayton widows’ society. One way or another, bitterness has become a permanent part of Lucy Studdard’s disposition. My guess is that her visits to the Webber twins were efforts to determine what circle of hell her cursed ex had been consigned to.

  Lucy still lives in the same two-story brown brick home on West Adams she shared with the accursed husband. She rents the upper floor to nursing students who are completing their clinicals with Doc Waterman at the Crayton clinic.

  Lucy answered the door in a plain, belted dress, looking so wasp-thin that she gave the impression that if you pulled too tightly on the tongue of the belt, you might inadvertently cut the woman in two. I make it a practice not to meet with single women on my own and asked Rocky to ride along on this visit. Lucy looked us both up and down with an upraised chin.

  “Well, this is a surprise,” she said, showing no sign of asking us in. “What can I do for you gentlemen?”

  “We thought you might be able to help us with a case we’re working on,” I said. “Can I have a few minutes of your time?”

  She studied us for a few more seconds, then stepped aside and let us into an entryway adorned only with an umbrella stand and antique hall tree holding a plastic rain poncho.

  “This way,” she said, and opened a door into a tidy living room, indicating the sofa with a wave of her hand.

  I had promised Rocky, who says Lucy gives him the heebie-jeebies, that he wouldn’t have to say a word. He perched stiffly at one end of the couch with hat in his lap and looked uneasily around the room at Lucy’s collection of Belsnickle Santas as I got right to the point of our visit.

  “I’d like to ask you about your nephew,” I began.

  Her eyes shifted quickly from one of us to the other, then settled on me, apparently deciding I was the only person who was going to matter in this conversation. “Well, that could be any of five, if you count Arthur’s sister’s boys.” She paused, then added, “If one is in trouble, it will be one of them.”

  “I don’t know that anyone is in trouble,” I assured her. “But whatever nephew this is would know that you occasionally visit the Webber sisters.”

  Her pinched frown showed that this wasn’t information she wished anyone to know. But she conceded, “Then that wouldn’t be one of the Studdard boys. I don’t keep in touch with them at all. It must be one of my sister April’s sons. And the only one still in the area is Roy.”

  “And what is Roy’s last name?”

  “Vineyard.”

  “I don’t believe I know an April Vineyard. Do they live in the county?”

  “They’re up in Greene County. They have a farm outside of Republic.”

  “And Roy’s the only one still at home?”

  “Not really at home. He and his wife have a separate house on the farm.”

  “So, he farms with his father?”

  Lucy cocked her head slightly. “Why do you want to know all this, Sheriff?”

  “We had an incident at which one of the people present—a man who wasn’t seen clearly—mentioned that on occasion his Aunt Lucy goes to see the Webber sisters. When I spoke to Ethel and Edith this morning, they told me you are the only Lucy who visits them.”

  “An incident? What kind of incident?”

  “A fire at the Webber cabin. One of the men who was in the area at the time mentioned you. We’re hoping he may be able to give us some details about what happened.”

  “Are the twins alright?” She asked with genuine alarm.

  “Yes. Both fine.”

  Lucy lowered her chin, shaking her head slowly. “I can’t imagine Roy being involved in anything that would cause a fire. He’s a good, hard-working, Christian boy.”

  “He’s a regular churchgoer, then?”

  “Oh, yes. His wife has him meeting with some little group over at Whipple Crossing.”

  Rocky had slowly been relaxing back into the sofa but saw an opportunity here to say something benign that wouldn’t lead to a rebuke. “There can’t be more than five houses at Whipple Crossing,” he muttered. “And I know there’s no church.”

  Lucy was quick to correct him. “There used to be a feedstore there. The back of that building is a big open room. This group meets there every Saturday and Wednesday evening.”

  “What kind of church is it?” I asked.

  Lucy shrugged her bony shoulders. “Christian. Other than that, I really don’t know. They call themselves the People of the Covenant, or something like that.”

  “And you say they meet Saturdays?”

  “Yes. They claim Saturday is the true sabbath. April was concerned when Roy and his wife first started to attend that he was becoming too obsessed with the whole thing. The group is very strict about its observances.”

  “Has Roy encouraged April to join them?”

  “No, but she thinks it has been a good influence in Roy’s life.”

  “Oh? In what way?”

  “Well, there was a time after he got out of school, mind you, when he was having a hard time finding his way. Now he seems very committed to this minister and to his teachings.”

  I stood and Rocky scrambled to his feet after me. “This has been very helpful, Lucy. We’re most grateful for your time.”

  “I haven’t helped much,” she said, rising from her chair. “Should I not tell April you were here asking about Roy?”

  I shrugged. “That’s entirely up to you. We’re just trying to identify people who might be able to help with our fire investigation.”

  I led Rocky back through the hallway and out onto the porch with Lucy close in tow. “Greene County’s not in our jurisdiction, so we may just leave that to someone else,” I told her—with every confidence that she would be on the phone before we left her yard.

  18

  I dropped Rocky at the office just after 4:15 p.m. and decided to spend the rest of my duty time sitting on my deck with feet propped on the rail, a cold beer on the side table, mother’s old Bible on my lap, and Marti leading a little Bible study over the phone. Normally, the first three of those activities would have been a recipe for a late afternoon nap.

  The house sits on a ridge above Mill Creek with the deck overhanging a steep wooded slope that drops to the stream below, leaving an open view of fifty acres of pasture that fill the valley beyond the creek. At that time in the afternoon, white-tailed deer are testing the edges of the field and a tom turkey and his harem are usually stripping summer grass of unlucky grasshoppers. With feet on the rail, a beer in hand, and a low western sun, I can usually wipe away the worries of even the most troubling days. But not today. The Bible and Marti’s accusing tone kept me focused on the present.

  “For someone who rarely shows up at services, I know you know your scripture, Tate,” she chided. “I watched you grow up and remember how you shined in those Sunday School bees.”

  “It was my knack for language and memorization,” I confessed. “Not any interest in the subject matter.”

  She sniffed into the phone. “That’s why I was surprised you could find a Bible.”

  “Believe it or not, I keep it on my bedside table.”

  “Well, I’m surprised!”

  “It’s a promise I made to my mother. And I’m a bit superstitious in that way.”

  “Does it ever get opened?”

  “It’s open right now. Remind me about The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.”

  “Well, you remember the cousin or whatever he was? The one murdering women around the area he thought were guilty of some sin? He kept a record of them by the scriptural reference.”

  “I vaguely remember that. To be honest, when I read that book, I was a lot more intrigued by what a great job whoever translated it from Swedish had done.”

  “I swan, Tate,” she muttered. “Sometimes I can’t figure out for the world of me how you ended up back here as o
ur sheriff.”

  “To work with you, Marti. So—tell me what you’re thinking.”

  “Well, I’m sure it hasn’t escaped you that we’ve had two fires in the last two days—one fatal and one that could have been fatal. Which reminds me, the Parker funeral is tomorrow. Ten o’clock. It’s on your calendar.”

  “I saw it and plan to go. Go on.”

  “Okay. When you mentioned that the Webber twins had overheard the men at their cabin saying something about them being ‘observers of times’ and ‘diviners of spirits,’ that sounded like some of the same craziness you suspected about the Fits Loony vandalism and the Parker fire.”

  “The craziness? I’m not following you.”

  “Well, in your report on the visit to Fits’ place, you said you’d seen the same kind of numbers painted on the back of his house and on the gate at the Parkers. And Fits heard shouting about being a son of Bile.”

  “Right. Which made no sense to me—or him.”

  “Could it have been ‘son of Belial?’ It’s a name sometimes given to the devil. These numbers could very well be scripture references, Tate. To chapters and verses.”

  “You’re thinking the ‘three’ might be Leviticus?” I thumbed toward the front of the Bible and found the third book of the Old Testament.

  “Yes. It’s the book that outlines a lot of the restrictions of the law—and the punishments.”

  “The numbers at Fits’ were three, eighteen, and twenty. Do you think that’s Leviticus chapter eighteen, verse twenty?”

  “Look it up. You say you have it right there in front of you.”

  I turned to the reference. “Can’t be this one,” I said. “This verse has to do with sleeping with your neighbor’s wife.”

  Marti was quiet for a moment, then asked, “Weren’t three, eighteen, and twenty on the Parker gate?”

  “Yeah. Eighteen, nineteen, and twenty.”

  “What does verse nineteen say?”

  “It’s about having sex during your period.”

  Marti thought for another moment. “Read all three of those chapters,” she suggested finally. “Eighteen, nineteen, and twenty. See if you find the verses about diviners and familiar spirits. The one you just looked at—before the sex during your period—could have applied to Cleo and Terri. They never married. I can’t imagine why they would have gone after Fits. Is he gay?”