A Dash of Murder (5 page)

The next day, after practically bribing Zach to get him to go to school after the Scout incident, I drove around trying to find a parking spot in front of the Dine-N-Dash. I was doing a book talk today for the ladies’ book club of the Baptist church. I had packed a suitcase full of paperback copies of my book and planned to wow them with, as Jackie Bryant put it, “Hints to Help Them in Their Daily Lives.” I just hoped I could
live up to their expectations.

Pecan Bayou was starting to resemble a cheesy horror movie with all of its Halloween finery stapled and taped on every doorway, lamppost and window. There was a ghoul with crazy hair hanging in the window of The Best Little Hair House (probably not the best marketing gimmick) and construction paper pumpkins taped up in the windows of Buzz Aldrin Elementary School. One of those pumpkins was most probably made by my own son, who was also probably sitting sullenly in his desk right now,
wishing the day would be over.

Some of the store owners had nailed up blinking lights of purple and green, and a few were channeling some ghostly sounds out of their front speakers. People in this town loved Halloween. I always wondered whether it was the chance to dress up and be somebody different or the consumpti
on of mass amounts of sugar.

Our town had its own distinct personality. Pecan Bayou was just north and west of Houston. Compared to the big city, it could feel like an island of peace. Snow was a once-a-year thing, and you haven’t lived until you’ve tasted German potato salad with a little hot sauce added. Our town was a strange mix of cultures. German and Czechoslovakian immigrants settled this area, and we were a part of Texas’ fight for independence. Sam Houston slept here, and Santa Anna’s troops killed here. Pecan Bayou was famous for its wildflowers in the spring. Tourists would drive along the highways and country roads to enjoy the bursts of purple petals, the oranges of Indian paintbrushes and the ever-true bluebonnets of Texas. All of this was thanks to Lady Bird Johnson, who beautified highways all over the state by planting wildflowers. Every spring the medians on the interstates and in the towns were left uncut to produce a bea
utiful array of floral wonders.

As I parked the station wagon in front of the Dine-N-Dash, I heard a distinct clunking sound in the motor. Maybe I had gotten some bad gas the last time I filled up the tank. I had driven this station wagon for eight years now and intended to drive it until the wheels fell off. I hoped this wasn’t the day for that. My cell phone started ringing “The Eyes of Texas Are Upon You” in my purse. A perfect song for my father, whose eyes were always on this town. I pulled it out of my bulging black bag as the familiar “Dad” flashed on the illuminated
panel.

“Betsy, I thought you’d like to know we got a preliminary report from the coroner’s office.” I shut off the air conditioning and immediately felt the car starting to heat up like a sauna. The weather today was stuffy, and even though we were close to the end of hurricane season, it sure felt like the unease that precedes a whopper of a storm. I opened the door to try to catch a cool draft and circulate some air. The heat rushed in instead, disgu
ised as my sought-after breeze.

“Oh good. Tell me that you hav
e nothing that connects Benny.”

“Darlin’, I’m still checking his alibi out. He says he was out in the woods next to the hospital finding the best s
ite to set up the Scout tents.”

“Was anybody with him?”

“Now that would be too easy.” His voice crackled on the other end. “No, he was alone, and that puts our favorite barbecue
king next to a murder scene.”

Having your dad working for the police department could be a blessing and curse all at the same time. He could be disagreeable and stubborn, which made him an outstanding police officer, but every once in a while his soft side would show, much to his dismay. He wouldn’t let me date until I was sixteen, and even then he followed along behind us in his squad car. It was a little intimidating for any young man. When he found out my husband had skipped town, he put a dragnet out on the guy. It was one of the few cases he hadn’t solved. He had worked as a lieutenant to our police chief, Arvin Wilson, for the last decade. Time spent on a small-town police force could make him cynical and not as trusting as the rest of us. I loved my dad and all the things he was for me and Zach, but still I wouldn’t want to be on the wrong side of the law with him. He had worked a few murder cases in the past that were mostly the result of domestic disturbances and some “good ol’ boys gone bad.” An all-out whodunit was probably a welcome challenge for him. His voice on the oth
er end interrupted my thoughts.

“Mr. Canfield was shot.”

“Shot?”

“Yes. Three times, to be exact. He was shot twice in the chest and once in the head. I’m figuring our killer shot him at point-blank range, and then when Canfield fell face down, he finished him off with a
shot to the back of the head.”

“It’s hard to believe somebody around here did
that.”

“I agree. We probably need to look at strangers in to
wn, that sort of thing, first.”

“Speaking of strangers, I met one at Zach’s scout meeting.” I explained to my father about the
fight over my missing husband.

“That’s my boy,” he chuckled. “Don’
t take guff off of anybody.”

“That’s our boy,” I echoed. “The bully kid had a new dad who was a little out of his league in the parenting department. That kid didn’t seem to care much about anything. Anyway, this boy’s father told me that he actually ran into Canfield out at the hospit
al on the day he was murdered.”

“Is that right?”

“Yes. He said he was scouting the property for an investment company, and it seems Canfield was doing the same kind of thing. He talked like Canfield might have creeped him o
ut a bit.”

“Why is that?”

“I don’t know. He just sort of caught a vibe.” I knew my dad loved the
“vibe” school of investigation.

“Uh huh.” He paused but then let himself agree with my theory. “Maybe Canfield
had something sneaky going on.”

“Or maybe the boy’s father did,” I answered, now thinking that sitting in a hot car even with the
door open was not a good idea.

“Well, it could be like father, like son. Any kid who goes after Zach starts out in the hole with me. Thanks for letting me know, Betsy. You think you can get a phone number for this guy? I’d like to talk with him. Oh, and one more thing, Canfield had oil lubricant on his hands. Did the boy’s father mention anything about him holding an oil can, or maybe oi
ling some hinges or something?”

“No, but we didn’t go into that much detail. He just said he had been looking around
the hospital and ran into him.”

“Well, he didn’t have a lot on his hands. Curiously it
was just on his little finger.”

I thought about that. “His little finger, like on the fingertip where he might b
e applying oil onto something?”

“No, up near where the finger connects to the hand. Like maybe it splashed on his hand. It was found on the palm an
d the back side of the finger.”

I didn’t think Canfield moonlighted as a mechanic, although from the sounds of him a few shady repair jobs wouldn’t be below him. I remembered Celia’s ring not
fitting on her finger anymore.

“Dad, could it be the murderer
pulled a ring off his finger?”

“Maybe, although, Canfield’s money was still in his wallet.” He paused for a moment as I could tell he was reading through the report. “One other thing, there was some sort of co
ncrete mixture on his clothes.”

“Like someone
broke a concrete block on him?”

“Like he ha
d just mixed up some concrete.”

“In a suit?” What had this guy been doing? First
the oil, and then the concrete?

“We checked his home, and there were no new patches of concrete. We found evidence of it
on his palm and jacket sleeve.”

I looked up into the window of the Dine-N-Dash, and some of the members of my ladies group inside the diner were now waving at me through the glass. I opened the back seat door and pulled out my ro
lling bag of extra book copies.

“Dad, I have to go.”

“OK, think about the concrete. What would he have been doi
ng?”

“I have no idea, but it seems like a strange thing to do
right before you’re murdered.”

I put my cell phone back in my purse, closed the car door and waved at the smiling ladies. There were purple lights blinking on the door around a laughing jack-o-lantern that al
so seeming to be smiling at me.

Feeling the heat press in, I took off the brown denim jacket that I had intended to wear for my presentation at the diner. I had tried to look businesslike but already felt as if I were wilting from the morning heat. Everywhere else in the country, people were getting out their sweaters and coats. South Texans were wondering if those flip-flops co
uld last just a few more weeks.

I carried along my laptop with my database of hints in it for the unusual “hint” questions I would get. After visiting the tuberculosis hospital and stepping in the blood, maybe I should look up how to g
et bloodstains out of clothing.

Jackie had been a high school classmate of mine. We had never been close friends, but after Barry left, she was the first person to tell me, as she put it, “Marriage is like a phone call at night – first the ring, and then you wake up.” She had “woken up” already with a divorce in her early twenties after she found out her husband was cheating on her with an old girlfriend from Longview. She knew what I was going through, and I was lucky to have her to talk to. She was running the diner while her mo
ther, Birdie, was out of state.

In the next half hour, I talked a little bit about the book and was just answering a question on washing tennis shoes when I saw Leo Fitzpatrick walk in. Today he wore a soft white polo shirt and jeans. I watched many of the female eyes in the restaurant shift from me to him. I suddenly felt silly standing up in front of the ladies discussing whether or not to put your athletic shoes
out to dry in direct sunlight.

Leo Fitzpatrick had a newspaper folded under his arm. He slid into a booth, and Jackie brought him a menu. He opened and glanced at it, but then he gazed across the table at me explaining the virtues of cotton canvas. The ladies clapped politely as I finished, and I started signing their copies of my book. As I put away my laptop, I was thinking of a way to get out of there. I grabbed my purse, slung it over my shoulder, turned abruptly and ran into Mr. Fitzpatrick, who was blocking my exit. I jumped back and let o
ut a short high-pitched squeal.

“Sorry, I didn’t
mean to scare you or anything.”

“That’s okay,” I gasped. I r
eturned to gathering my things.

“I was wondering
if you had your lunch yet.”

“My lunch?”

“Yes, your lunch. We are at a restaurant, and well, one of the drawbacks to being new in town is you don’t have
anyone to share a burger with.”

Was he asking me to have lunch with him? It had been so long since a man asked me anything, that I wasn’t sure if this was an invitation or just a statement of fact. Did I really want to do this? There was something about this guy I couldn’t quite put my finger on. I knew, for Zach’s sake, it wouldn’t hurt to get to know the dad of the kid who was picking on him. There was also the little issue of getting his phone number for my dad. I relented. “As a matter of fact, I haven’t eaten yet. I guess I could act as the welcome wagon
of Pecan Bayou for you today.”

“Of course if you’re too b
usy finding bodies …” he joked.

“No, I think I’m
at my limit for finding those.”

We walked over to his table facing the front window. I slid into the red vinyl booth, parking my bag at the end
. He slid in on the other side.

Jackie came over and smiled at me with the look of one fisherman to another reeling one in. She snapped her gum and straightened a s
trand of freshly dyed red hair.

“Well, who is this, B
etsy? You got a boyfriend now?”

“No, Mr. Fitzpatrick just moved here. His son and Zach
are in the same Scout troop.”

“Uh huh.” She wasn’t buying my explanation, or maybe she was sizing him up for herself. “Well let me welcome you to Pecan Bayou, Mr. Fitzpatrick. What’ll you have?” Jackie took our orders and flashed me a quick smile before h
eading off to the kitchen.

Now alone, I began to feel a little uncomfortable. I stru
ggled to find something to say.

“So what exactly is it that you do?” Fitzpatrick a
sked as he unfolded his napkin.

“I give helpful hints to people. I blog. I write the ‘Happy Hinter’ column for the newspaper, I have a book, and I even started d
oing some business consulting.”