Death by Lotto (7 page)

Danville, with its picture perfect main street, is home to Centre College, one of the top liberal arts colleges in the country. It is also called the “city of firsts,” for it housed the first courthouse in Kentucky, the first post office west of the Allegheny Mountains, first state-supported school for the deaf, and home to the first doctor, Ephraim McDowell, to successfully remove an ovarian tumor.

Ephraim McDowell was one of those doctors at the time that espoused cleanliness was next to godliness. In his outline for operations, he wrote that everything had to be “scrupulous clean.” That was quite a novel thought at a time when doctors didn’t even bother to wash their hands after seeing patients, let alone take a bath now and then.

Jane Todd Crawford, riding on horseback for sixty miles, came to see the good doctor. She had a serious medical problem. Her baby refused to be born and all seemed lost until she heard about this radical doctor in Danville.

Dr. McDowell confirmed that it was not a baby, but an ovarian tumor. He told the poor woman that she would die if not treated, but then again she would probably die when treated because he proposed to do something daring – cut into her body and remove the tumor. It was her decision.

Being a woman of grit, Mrs. Crawford agreed to the operation. On Christmas morning in 1809, without benefit of anesthetic or antisepsis, Ephraim McDowell cut into the pink flesh of Mrs. Crawford.

It is quite probable that she might have had a swig of whiskey before biting down on a leather strap to ease the pain. Nothing else was available.

The operation took an agonizing twenty-five minutes to remove a twenty-two pound tumor, but Mrs. Crawford survived to live another thirty years.

When Ephraim McDowell released his paper on the operation and his techniques, he was ridiculed by the medical profession.

It wasn’t until he had an impressive list of surviving patients that other doctors started thinking that they too might have more surviving patients if they embraced the notion of cleanliness.

What a novel breakthrough!

Neff spotted the college’s library and pulled the Avanti over. While Neff waited with the car, which was causing some excitement among students passing by, I ventured into the library. Seeing the front desk, I hurried over.

“Excuse me. Can you direct me to last week’s Sunday paper?” I asked a young clerk.

“You can look on the computer if you have a card, but we don’t keep the actual papers after a time. Are you a student here or live in the county?” she asked, smiling.

“No.”

“Then I’m sorry. I can’t give you a loaner’s card.”

“Are you sure you don’t have the actual paper lying around somewhere?”

“Hold on for just a moment, please.” She called someone on the phone and had a lengthy talk. “The building manager still has a copy in his office. He’s bringing it right up for you.”

“Thank you very much. That’s very kind.”

“My pleasure,” responded the young clerk. “You can wait over there if you like,” she suggested, pointing to a group of chairs.

The building manager soon found me and handed over a disarrayed paper. “Is this what you want, lady?”

“Yes, thank you very much. If you can direct me to some copy machines, I will give your paper back to you in a jiffy.”

The man pointed towards the copy machines. I found the lotto numbers and made three copies before handing the Sunday paper back

Quickly I compared the numbers to the scrap of paper Ethel had given Neff. The numbers were not the same.

Ethel’s numbers hadn’t won.

But since Suzy had told me that Jubal had not used Ethel’s regular numbers, there was a chance that her lotto ticket still held the same numbers as the winning lot.

We had to find that lottery ticket . . . and fast.

I called Merlene Crouch from my cell phone in the Avanti. Could we see her, as she was Miss Ethel’s housekeeper?

After a few seconds of hesitation, Merlene agreed and gave me directions. We had to double back and drive to a potholed lane in Perryville.

“What a dump,” belittled Neff.

“Shush. She might hear you.” Silently I had to agree that the white clapboard house had seen better days. The left side of the house was sagging and desperately in need of paint. The windows were dirty plus some of the panes were broken and fixed with cardboard. The yard could have used a good cleaning as well.

“What? She probably knows she lives in a dump too.”

Shaking my head, I knocked on the sagging front door.

A heavy woman in her late fifties answered the door. The left side of her face sagged a little like the house. I strongly suspected she had had a stroke and her face had never recovered fully.

“Hi. I’m Josiah Reynolds and this is Walter Neff. Mr. Neff is a private investigator working for Ethel Bradley. We understand that you work for her. May we talk to you? We won’t take up too much of your time.”

The woman stared at us with brown bloodshot eyes. There were dark circles under them.

“Are you Merlene Crouch?” I asked, not sure if we were talking to the right person.

“Aye. I am,” she said. She opened the door further. “Please come in.” She showed us into an old fashioned parlor with a collection of pink milk glass in several curio cabinets. All of the furniture was dark, heavy Victorian.

She extended her hand to a lumpy velvet couch and chair.

“Thank you,” I said. I took the chair, as it was a rocker.

“Would you like something to drink?”

“Whaddya have?” asked Neff.

“No thank you,” I interrupted, talking over Neff. “We’ll only be here a moment.”

“I see.” Merlene settled into another rocker. Hers even worked correctly. “What do you want to ask me?”

“Miss Ethel said that you have worked for her a long time.”

“That’s right. It’s been over fifteen years, I reckon.”

Neff started to speak but I beat him to it. “Since you two have been friends for so long I’m sure Ethel has confided to you that she thinks strange things have been happening to her lately.”

“We’re not friends. I work for the lady. That’s all. She hasn’t given me a raise in over five years. She don’t confide in me and I don’t tell her my woes neither.”

“Oh.” I wasn’t expecting hard feelings.

Neff gave a little snort.

Merlene snapped her head toward Neff.

Neff’s grin immediately disappeared. He leaned forward in his chair. “You know that Ethel plays the lottery every week.”

“Aye. Everyone knows that.”

“She seems to be missing her last ticket. Do you know anything about that?”

Merlene bristled. “I hope you’re not accusing me of anything. I’m a Christian woman. My people are Mennonites. I don’t steal.”

“He wasn’t accusing you of anything,” I claimed. “Mr. Neff just wanted to know if you knew anything about the ticket . . . like does Ethel often misplace things? Could she have put the ticket somewhere in the house?”

Merlene’s shoulders relaxed but her eyes blazed at Neff. “She’s got a good memory, that one. Mrs. Bradley always puts her tickets in her Bible. She doesn’t deviate from that.”

“Always?” I asked.

“She’s a woman with set habits.”

“Miss Ethel thinks her house might have been searched. Would you have any suspicion as to who might have searched her house?”

Merlene gave a little laugh. “Have you met her nephew, Jubal Bradley? He’s a rough one, that boy. She knows where to look when something goes awry.” She rocked a bit. “I have to speak the entire truth here.”

Neff and I leaned forward. I’m sure our eyes were wide with expectation.

“He’s a good one to cut the grass and keep the yard. He checks on that old woman every week and takes her to the doctor, grocery, what not. So I guess you can say his bad ways even out with the good Jubal does her.”

We both slumped back in our chairs like someone had let the air out of us. We didn’t want to hear about Jubal’s good points. We wanted the dirt on him. We wanted juicy.

“Miss Ethel said she got food poisoning from drinking apple cider.” Neff stated it as fact rather than a question.

“Aye.”

“She says you threw it out.”

“It was bad. Started fermenting.” Merlene stared back at Neff, who was eyeballing her. I don’t think she liked him . . . but then who did.

“How could you tell?”

“It smelled bad. You can just tell. No mystery there. She picked a bad batch. It happens.”

Disappointed, I asked, “Anything else you might want to tell us?”

“Can’t say that I do.”

Neff butted in. “Do you have a key to Ethel Bradley’s house?”

“Don’t be daft, little man.” Merlene rose, as did we.

The interview was over.

Neff unlocked the back door of Ethel’s house, then handed the keys back to me.

“Don’t let her cat out,” I reminded Neff as he opened the door.

“Here puddy cat. Here puddy cat. I think I see a puddy cat. I do. I do.” Neff pointed to a large lump on the kitchen table that finally moved. “It’s not a puddy cat. It’s a mountain lion,” Neff professed.

“Goodness, that’s one of the biggest cats I’ve ever seen,” I gushed. Going over to the table, I began scratching the behemoth behind the ears. His immediate response was a fit of purring as he flopped over, exposing his oversize white belly.

Neff poured some cat food in the cat’s bowl and changed his water. “Quit playing with the cat and let’s get searching,” he yammered.

“I think his litter box needs to be changed.”

“You change it.”

“You’re the employee. You change it.”

“If you are so concerned about this cat’s potty box, you fix it. I’m busy.”

“Surely you don’t want Miss Ethel coming home to a smelly house?”

“I’m not paid to handle cat turds.”

“You just are a turd.”

“What was that?”

“Nothing. I’ll go find the litter box.” I followed the smell to the mudroom off the kitchen. It didn’t take me long to find it. Next to the freezer was a very messy kitty bathroom. Not knowing Ethel’s kitty cleaning routine, I took the box outside and dumped the contents in some weeds. After hosing the box out, I reentered the house to find a very disturbed cat meowing as it followed me into the mudroom. Finding the litter, I poured some in generously as well as a layer of baking soda. “That should do it,” I murmured to myself.

The tabby cautiously sniffed at the box and then stepped in, giving it a try. “Well that seems to do the job,” I remarked, watching the cat use its bathroom. Happy that Petty was happy, I washed my hands and then went to find Neff.

“Any luck?” I asked.

Neff shook his head while thumbing through various magazines next to Ethel’s TV chair. “I've already gone through the bedroom.” He threw down the last magazine and pulled back the chair, checking underneath it. “Why don’t you do the kitchen? Go through the freezer too. Make sure you unwrap everything.”

“Okay. Don’t forget to look under the furniture cushions.”

Neff gave me an irritated look. “Does this look like my first rodeo? I know how to search a room.”

“You don’t have to get all huffy, Neff.”

“Get lost!”

“Going, going, gone.” I ventured into the kitchen.

The tabby had finished his business and was now lounging back on the kitchen table licking his paws. I could not fathom how he jumped up with his weight.

I started with cookie jars. Ethel had quite a collection. Nothing. Next I checked through all the kitchen’s drawers. That didn’t take very long. Nothing. Ethel was right when she asserted that she was a tidy person. I attacked the refrigerator and its freezer. Nothing again.

Getting tired, I pulled a chair over and then began going through the large freezer in the mudroom. I was halfway through when I felt something large looming over me.

I jerked my head around to see a huge man standing between the kitchen and me . . . and safety.

“Who the hell are you, lady?”

“Jumping Jehosaphat! You scared me.”

“I’m gonna ask you again before I call the police. Who are you?”

Standing up, I stretched out my hand. “I’m Mrs. Reynolds. You must be Jubal Bradley, Ethel’s nephew. She asked me to come and check on Petty. She was worried.”

Jubal shifted his weight as he peered out from his green John Deere cap. “Why you going through her freezer? Looks like stealing to me.” He didn’t move to shake my hand.

I gave up a little hiccup of a nervous laugh. “She’s staying with my neighbor, Lady Elsmere, and wanted to cook something special as a thank you for staying with her. You know Lady Elsmere? She lives on that big horse farm on Tates Creek.”

“I know where she’s staying. I talked to her this morning. She didn’t say nothing about someone coming out and getting some meat for her.”

“Maybe she thought of it after she talked to you. She wanted me to check on the cat too.”

“You said that. You seem awful fidgety.”

“Like I said, you frightened me.”

“Hmmmm,” Jubal said, still giving me the once-over. “Somebody else with you?”

“Yes, my brother. He’s checking the house for her.”

“Hello. Someone call my name?” asked Neff, peeking into the kitchen. “Hello there. Are you Jubal? My name is Walter,” announced Neff. “I see you’ve met my wife.”

“Wife? She said you were her brother. What’s going on here?”

“Did I say wife? I meant sister. My wife just left me and I keep thinking of her all the time. A Freudian slip. Come on, sis. Let’s not bother this man anymore. I’ve got the yellow dress Ethel wanted. Did you get the roast?”

“Getting it now. Very nice to meet you, Jubal. I’ll tell Ethel that you stopped by. You can lock up,” I said, pushing by him. “Let’s not keep Ethel waiting, brother.” As I opened the back door holding a very heavy roast I hesitated, “Oh, we fed the cat and cleaned his litter box.”

Walter gave Jubal a wide smile while pushing me out the door before I could say anything else. We both ran to the car. Before I could throw the roast in the back seat or close my door, Neff was ramming the Avanti down the driveway.

When we were far enough away, Neff stopped at a gas station, buying two soft drinks.

I opened my bottle with haste.

“I always say women look dainty when chugging a sixteen ounce drink in thirty seconds like a truck driver,” sneered Neff.

“Do I laugh now or wait ’til you get funny?”

“You don’t look very ladylike.”

“I’m thirsty,” I replied, wiping my chin with my hand.

“Obviously.”

“Jubal is a really big man. Kinda scary.”

“Yep, they don’t make ’em like that anymore. Must have thyroid problems,” Neff offered.

“Why was he there, you think?”

“To do the same that we were doing.”

“Maybe he saw the car and came to investigate?” I responded.

“Nope. I parked way in the back. No one could see the car from the front road. He didn’t know we were there until he came to the back of the house.” And Neff concluded with a mischievous smile, “We closed the back door which automatically locks, which means Jubal must have a had a key to unlock it.”

“That’s right,” I realized with glee.

We clicked our soda pop bottles together.

One little mystery had been solved.

Jubal had a key to his aunt’s house.