Cash & Carry (Mayfield Cozy Mystery Book 4) (4 page)

Tarq and Loretta joined our huddle.

“You sure pick the spots.” Violet aimed her comment at me.

I wanted to point out that I’d had nothing to do with any of the events of the day—well, since the near collision anyway, even though that episode was none of her business. But Tarq’s meaningful glare made me shut my mouth. Maybe Violet was just complaining about my choice to live in a remote, rural environment. Would it have been easier to process a homicide scene in the middle of a city? Probably.

But the neighbors in an urban setting would have been far less concerned about our missing boys, wouldn’t have dropped everything to help search for them on a freezing February night. I’d take May County any day. At least Violet hadn’t complained about my neighbors and new friends tramping all over the crime scene before somebody realized exactly what it was.

“I want you to look at these,” Violet said, her voice trailing over her shoulder as she walked toward a stretch of clear plastic which formed a non-contaminating backdrop for a series of items laid out in neat rows, evenly spaced.

I squatted next to the plastic.

“Don’t touch,” Violet barked, and I held my hands up where she could see them.

Des, Tarq and Loretta gathered opposite me, also studying the display on the plastic sheet. They were silent in a strange way, as though they were holding their collective breath, as though the proffered items were dust and a whiff of misplaced breeze might cast them into oblivion.

The exhibits weren’t body parts, at least not yet, and for that I was grateful. They appeared to be clothing items—mud-caked, crumpled, slimy, and greenish despite what their original colors might have been.

“Most of his soft tissue is gone, even in this cold weather, so the body had been exposed to the air, and therefore insects, for a while. The lab will confirm, but I’m guessing six to eight weeks.” Violet was bent, hands on knees, talking over the top of my head. She had none of Trudy’s modesty even though she was reiterating much of what the older woman had already informally deduced. “But there’s enough tissue left inside his shoe to get an easy DNA sample.”

I fought the urge to gag and pressed my fingers into the ground to keep from tipping over.

“Recognize anything?” Violet asked.

“Can they be laid out flat?” I asked.

Violet pulled on a new set of disposable gloves and started spreading the garments out. One arm of the button-down dress shirt had been torn off, leaving a frayed edge just beyond the armscye. She hailed another agent and had him aim a penlight at the label. “Lorenzini. Never heard of it. Must be Italian,” she muttered.

I was familiar with the brand. It was a $400 shirt.

“Only have the left one so far.” Violet nudged a wingtip my direction.

Knowing what was inside, there was no way I was going to poke around for a label on the shoe, but I could already tell that it was also expensive. A faintly sweet, cloying odor rose from the wet leather, and I tried not to think about the reason for that.

The man who’d been wearing these clothes had not been traipsing about in the woods for the fresh air and exercise.

“How about this? From section C-4.” Another agent dropped a little gold bauble on the plastic, and it bounced before settling into a hollow created by the rough ground underneath.

My breath caught in my throat. I forced myself to swallow. “May I?” I held my hand out, palm up.

The agent pressed a pair of clean gloves into my outstretched hand, and I pulled them on.

It was a ring. Small for a man—a pinkie ring. No initials or engraving, but the round, flat face was crusted with a bed of tiny diamonds. It was flashy, but still the type of jewelry to have personal significance to the owner.

I was also deeply certain I knew who the owner was.

“Did you find glasses? A pair of rimless eyeglasses?” I asked.

Violet grimaced. “He was shot with a large caliber bullet in the back of his head, which means most of his face disintegrated with the exit wound. If he was wearing glasses, they’re gone now. Besides, I’m not sure he was killed here. This could just be the dump site.”

She stopped arranging the clothing and stood, her knees popping with the effort. She looked down at me with an odd sort of compassion on her face. “So it is him.”

I stood too and pinched the ring between my thumb and forefinger, holding it out so she could see the diamonds. “Joe.”

“Numero Tres,” Tarq said, and I jumped. I’d been so focused I’d forgotten that he and Loretta and Des were standing vigil with me.

Violet shot him a wry sidelong glance. “Officially known as Giuseppe Ricardo Solano. No wonder he hasn’t been frequenting his usual haunts, why we haven’t been able to pick him up on surveillance for the past couple months.”

Nope. Because he’d been haunting Mayfield instead. What had he done to get himself executed, besides briefly kidnap me? It didn’t make sense.

But what better place to hide a body than in a cemetery?

CHAPTER 5

Violet finally released me from the scene. Tarq had stuck with me the whole time, although we had very little to say to each other—certainly very little we could say within listening distance of law enforcement officers. The ideas rattling around in my brain fell into the category of useless speculation anyway.

Des had hung around too, whether out of professional curiosity or personal concern, I didn’t know, but I appreciated it.

It hadn’t crossed my mind that I’d be a suspect in Joe’s killing until Violet informed me that she’d swing by the mansion later for an official statement. But I guessed it was logical. I might have been one of the last people to see Joe alive, other than the entourage he’d brought with him to kidnap me. I wished I’d paid more attention to those guys in the brief moments when I’d seen their faces, wished I’d caught their names in the quiet snips of conversation I’d overheard.

Des and Loretta flanked Tarq, helping him cross the clearing in the direction of the main track where they’d left their pickup. I angled toward the bunkhouse with a flashlight to cut through the deep forest gloom.

After a couple months of almost daily hikes, I was finally getting my bearings on the property, at least the more populated areas with dirt tracks. It helped that dawn was lightening the east, giving me a reference point. I could barely keep my eyelids open, but I didn’t want to postpone a difficult conversation any longer.

But once I caught sight of the mechanics’ garage near the bunkhouse, I knew there was one other thing I needed to do first.

I found Dwayne in the garage’s beautiful new kitchen, shirtless, leaning over the gleaming stainless steel, triple-wide sink, water dripping from his scraggly beard as he groped for a towel.

“Knock, knock,” I called loudly.

“I heard you.” Dwayne’s back was still toward me, his voice muffled as he swiped the towel over his face. “Guess you don’t mind that I’m indecent.”

“I’ve seen you in worse condition,” I replied. The garage’s bathrooms weren’t quite finished yet, which explained why he was using the kitchen for his morning ablutions.

Dwayne’s grin revealed crooked, worn teeth that had needed a dentist’s attention decades ago. He pulled a holey T-shirt down over the gray hair on his chest and then buttoned a plaid flannel shirt over the top. “Not too many women have had the pleasure of seeing this hot bod.”

I chuckled. “Especially not Special Agent Violet Burns. I think she’d be very interested to meet you.”

My comment earned a tilted brow and a grunt from Dwayne. “What’s your preference?” He pulled open one of the doors of the massive, also gleaming stainless steel-clad refrigerator and studied the nearly bare wire racks inside. “Apple juice or apple juice? I’ll get coffee started in a minute.”

“Nothing, thanks. I just wanted to make sure you’re okay. Kind of a close call for you last night. Thanks for looking for the boys. You know this property better than anyone.”

He let the fridge door swing closed with a vacuum-sealed smack and turned to face me. “I could never live with myself if something happened to those young’uns.” Then he grinned again. “Never thought I’d say that in my lifetime, either.”

“Family responsibility looks good on you,” I replied.

But Dwayne grew serious and stabbed at buttons on the coffee maker. “No it doesn’t, Nora. I’m not cut out for taking care of anybody but myself. And you see how good of a job I’ve done of that.” He raised his arms like a scarecrow.

I had no idea how old he was. Eighties? Nineties? He was still spry and mentally sharp, suffering only—at least upon visual inspection—from a lack of preventive health care during his long hermit life.

“Wait right here,” Dwayne added. “I’ve been thinking.” And he took the stairs up to the second story full of new bedrooms two at a time.

I used the opportunity to peek in the cupboards. Dwayne had the basics, and I suspected Walt had provided them. Dwayne had been acting as construction foreman and night watchman throughout this remodeling project, living on site, and I’d noticed a change in his bearing as a result of it—confidence and increased sociability, but it seemed that he’d been engaged in some introspection as well.

I set a couple clean mugs beside the coffee maker and found the sugar.

Dwayne clattered back down the stairs. He dumped a grungy rucksack on the counter beside the mugs. “This is for you. It has limited usefulness—you’ll need to ask Tarq about that—but it might come in handy. For you, for the boys. I want you to have it, Nora. You can store it with your pile of cash in the meantime.”

I blinked at Dwayne. His words surprised me so much that at first I didn’t have any thoughts. My mind was a gaping hole. Then questions rammed into each other at the rate of nuclear fusion, and I still stood there with my mouth open.

“No offense,” Dwayne said, “but you sure do attract attention of the federal variety. I’m not holding it against you. But I gotta disappear again. I’ll be close, though—don’t worry. Morel season will really ramp up in a month or so.” He pulled the carafe out of the coffee maker and filled our mugs.

I was still having the question collision problem.

“Maybe that Laotian family in your basement would like to learn how to harvest mushrooms. Immigrants make the best pickers. They don’t mind the conditions. Hard workers. I’ll put them in contact with the buyers around here.” Dwayne tinkled a spoon against the sides of his mug as he dissolved about a quarter cup of sugar in the hot liquid.

I fingered the frayed cord that looped around the opening to his rucksack.

“That’s right,” Dwayne said. “It’s yours. You want sugar too?”

I shook my head, loosening my tongue in the process. “Let’s start with the mushrooms.”

“Close to thirty species grow in these woods throughout the year. Prized by those hoity-toity city restaurants. Charge an arm and a leg for them. I have the patches all mapped out.” He tapped his temple. “Not above sharing the information with those in need.”

“You can earn a living doing that?” My voice cracked, and I gulped coffee to steady it.

Dwayne shrugged. “It’s what I’ve been doing, besides the other—”

He meant producing bootleg whiskey.

“Is it illegal?” I asked. Although I was certainly not in a position to cast the first stone.

Another shrug. “Depends. Not if you’re smart. They’re not going to get jobs in Woodland. You know that.”

I hated it, but he was right. Chet and his family were obvious foreigners and unemployment was already high in the area. And only Chet could speak passable English. They would not be received with open arms at the union halls and would be viewed with suspicion by smaller employers.

“I already spoke to the old lady—Auntie—about it. She’s got the eye. Can spot a mushroom growing under leaves almost before I can.” Dwayne nodded proudly.

Obviously, he’d done more than spoken to her about it. He’d probably had to demonstrate since she was full of gap-toothed smiles but was a woman of very few words.

“This—” I poked the lumpy rucksack, “is yours. Apparently you know that I’m not short of cash at the moment.”

Dwayne grinned at me again. “I’m watchful.” He undid the cord and pulled out a packet of bills. “These are no good to me. Not marked, but recorded.” He fanned the twenties, pointing at the serial numbers blurring by with a rough finger that had dirt permanently embedded into the cuticle. “$193,600. I lost the rest. That’s all I’m saying, but Tarq will fill you in if it comes to using this for something—something for your situation.”

I frowned. “Is it stolen?”

Dwayne clucked his tongue. “You want me to ask questions about that stash in your icebox? Consider it a favor, safekeeping for a friend.” He replaced the money, wound the cord again and shoved the rucksack along the counter toward me.

I’d run out of arguments and nodded.

“They think you did it?” Dwayne asked.

It took me a minute to realize he was referring to the fresh bones in the cemetery. “There have been some hints that direction. Did you know about it?”

“Nope. That one slipped by me,” Dwayne said. “But I know how they did it.”

I grabbed a five-gallon bucket full of dirty rags from under the sink and flipped it over. I had to sit down for this.

Dwayne propped a narrow hip against the counter and held his mug against his chest. As he talked, the tip of his beard came perilously close to dipping into the coffee in his mug.

“When you were kidnapped, your assailants were on ATVs, right?”

I nodded.

“They’d clearly been scouting prior to taking you, right? Because they knew exactly where they were going afterward?” Dwayne must have studied philosophers in college, because he was very good at the Socratic method.

I nodded again, following his train of thought. Even at the time, I’d been struck by how assured the men holding me had been. They’d done their homework, certain they wouldn’t be discovered, that my interrogation by Numero Tres, Giuseppe Ricardo Solano, wouldn’t be disrupted.

“You know that peppermint field where you were held?” Dwayne lifted his mug to shoulder height, sloshing a little brown liquid which dripped down the side. He spread his other hand wide and positioned it below and slightly to the side of the mug. “Here’s the cemetery. Where’s the mansion?”

I jabbed a finger at a level with his belt buckle.

“Yep. Not a perfectly straight line, but close, and this path—” he snaked his hand along the trail between the locations he’d marked in the air, “is the easiest route to take with ATVs. No major gullies or obstacles, not too much in the way of grade changes. They knew what they were doing.”

“And they took me right through the cemetery.” I’d been blindfolded and it had been dark, so I hadn’t realized that I actually had been in the cemetery previously, if only for a few bumpy minutes while held in the tight arms of the man driving the ATV.

“No reason not to come back to finish the job,” Dwayne added. “Someplace quiet, extremely secluded, and where there were already lots and lots of human bones.”

“I just don’t understand why Joe was the job and not me. Did his lackeys turn on him?” I asked.

“I can’t help you with that one.” Dwayne drained his mug and turned back to the coffee pot for more.