Death in a Turkey Town: A Chloe Boston Mystery (5 page)

Now so angry that he had a tic in his eye, our pastor put up another sign:
Saying pets can go to Heaven is as dumb as saying trees and flowers go to Heaven! And sinners who fall from the path will burn in Hell!

To which Father O’Brien replied:
All trees and flowers go to OUR Heaven—so give it up you heartless Puritan and lose with some dignity
.

And then the respective church councils got involved and the signs went back to blessing people and urging them to drive safely and to think of the homeless during the holidays.

I am not sure that I could join Father O’Brien’s church, though he does a lovely service. The scandal in the family would be horrible if I converted and I have some reservations about the rest of the church’s doctrine. But I think that our pastor is wrong in saying animals have no souls. I think Blue and my cats will go to Heaven—a Heaven full of trees and flowers too. And if they don’t then I don’t want to go there either.

Hmph!

Knowing it was bad, I still stopped at Mother’s and ordered the quadruple bypass and a Coke to go. On the menu it’s called The Golden Burger, but everyone knows that a half pound burger with double cheese, bacon, pastrami and a fried egg is nothing so benign. I wasn’t planning to eat it on my own. At least half of it would go to Blue and the cats. We would all need to build up our strength so we could withstand the company and the coming holiday.

Once back in the car, I got out my phone and called the Chief. I didn’t go through the switchboard where Gordon might still be working. When I was sleuthing, it was unofficial and I report only to Randy Wallace. Especially when my sleuthing concerned Dale Gordon.

“Boston, shoot,” the Chief answered absently and I knew he was in work mode.

“I just thought you should know that the dead woman had an appointment at nine this morning with David Cooper. She wanted to change her will.” I felt a slight stab as I added the last bit. For the sake of peace in the family, I really hoped that Dale Gordon was not her current beneficiary. I didn’t want anyone connected with my family to have any motive for killing the ex-wife. “He won’t tell you anything voluntarily. Attorney-client privilege, he’ll say. But there may be a way to find out if he knows anything more.”

“You’re better than Google, Boston. Keep me posted,” the Chief said and then hung up.

Really, he likes me. The Chief just doesn’t care for cell phones.

Back home, I carried the groceries and my burger inside. From the window over the sink, I noticed Miss Tate sitting out in her yard and decided I had better check on her since it was unusual for her to be out after dark. Her nephew looked in almost every evening, but he often worked late. My elderly neighbor was still melancholy about the death of her twin sister. In addition to being sad, she has some rather obsolete reasoning apparatus and a lot of rust had built up inside her skull causing the brain to short-circuit from time to time. I feared that some day the equipment would cease working all together and she would have to go into a home. And that really would be the end of her.

I approached Miss Tate slowly, staying to the walk that was marked by the dim glow of solar lights. She is sometimes fearful when she doesn’t recognize a person. Fortunately, though she often forgets me, she usually remembers Blue. That evening she was staring blankly at the naked elm tree, her brow furrowed with worry or what passes for thought these days.

“Hi, Miss Tate. Kind of cold out, isn’t it?” I knelt down beside her and noticed that she had been out there long enough for a spider to start webbing in her forgotten cane. Blue came and sat on her other side. Miss Tate began to pet her. Her hands were unsteady.

“Did you see the gnome?” she finally asked me, her gaze focusing on my face.

“The gnome?” This was a new one.

“I saw it first from my deck,” she said earnestly. “Ugly things, gnomes. Can’t abide them.”

“And one was on your deck?” The temptation was to dismiss this, but what if there had been a prowler? “Did it try to get inside?”

“No. It went to the dentist’s. Didn’t think gnomes needed dentists.”

I thought about this and then realized that from her back deck she would be able to see Doc Marley’s office on the other side of the canyon. Doc Marley’s closed office.

“Did the gnome actually go into the dentist’s office?” I didn’t ask when this happened because her short term memory was sketchy and her concepts of time were fluid to the say the least.

“No. The gnome was painting the stairs. I didn’t know they did that either.”

“Could it have been me you saw? Or my father?” We had both been at Doc Marley’s cleaning up the WD-40 after Althea’s accident. “Did you maybe see my cousin fall down?”

Her brow furrowed again.

“I just saw the gnome.”

“Was it a girl gnome?” I asked.

“Are there girl gnomes?” she asked back.

She had me there. I tried again.

“What was the gnome wearing?”

“Red sweater, green pants, blue hat.” This sounded unlikely for the fashionable Silly Gordon I had met, but perhaps that was her idea of the proper prank-playing outfit. Of course, I was only guessing that it had been Gordon’s ex who tried to hurt Althea. I liked her for it because it was easy and made sense, but it could have been any number of people. Even an angry kid who blamed her for their dental torture or for being stingy with the packs of sugarless gum they offered as bribes at the office. Though the kids tended to dress better than the adults, not everyone in town was too much of a fashion plate to avoid this hideous color combination. For instance, Jacky MacKay tended to wear bright clothes. Not that he would ever do anything as malicious as spreading WD-40 on the stairs.

Unless someone told him too.

I noticed that Miss Tate was shivering. She was dressed fairly warmly, but she had obviously been outside for a while.

“How about if we go in and have some tea?” I suggested. My dinner would have to wait. “And I will have a look for your gnome and make sure he isn’t still hanging around.”

“That sounds lovely, dear.” It was a struggle for her to rise but I didn’t try to help. Miss Tate preferred to manage on her own. “Do you know how to make tea, dear?”

“I’m a champion tea maker,” I assured her.

“Oh good. I can’t seem to recall how to light the stove.”

“Don’t worry,” I said gently. “I remember how.”

Chapter 5

Alex arrived in town around noon and found me on my route. In a moment of optimism I had had a house key made for him and he seemed happy about being gifted with it.

Blue wanted her share of the hugs from my boyfriend and seemed torn about staying with me or going with Alex when lunch was done. In the end, she chose to stay, but it made me happy that my dog liked Alex that much. We had had a couple rough patches in the past and I sometimes questioned my judgment about men. You’ve maybe heard of putting canaries down a coal mine to look for poisoned air? Well, dogs are as effective in their own way. Since my last great romantic mistake, I’ve begun to watch how people react to Blue and she to them and I am highly suspicious of anyone who dislikes or fears her. Indifference is fine, but a more active negative emotion isn’t good. Some breeds of dogs have fearsome reputations—like Rottweilers—but anyone who goes in hate or terror of my loving dog has some bad kinks in their mental plumbing.

I filled Alex in on the latest news in the investigation and also mentioned my suspicion that the mysterious ‘gnome’ was the one responsible for Althea’s fall. He promised to get started on the online part of the investigation that afternoon. I promised to do some baking when I got home. Alex thinks better when fueled with cookies or monkey bread.

As I drove by the Courthouse Park I noticed that the crime scene tape was down and lights and stage were going up. The show must go on, even if the production sounded dreadful to me—The First Thanksgiving in Hope Falls. There might be some token Indians they could use in the play, but we were short on pilgrims. In fact, Hope Falls had been founded by a con man. Our founder, Oliver J. Hope, fabricated the entire gold rush story that brought settlers to the area. He did this so that he could sell off parcels of useless land at ridiculous profits.  All he needed to do was produce a sizable amount of gold that he claimed to have mined out of the surrounding hills and he was set for life. Parcels of land on Big Quincy Mountain were sold by the square yard in some of the most popular areas. Of course, Mr. Hope retained ownership of the town after selling off chunks of the mountain.  He used it as a base of operations to sell provisions to the miners and as a result became even wealthier. But I bet that they weren’t going to be telling that story. Nor were they likely to mention that Oliver’s sons, Edison and Theodore Hope, did not die of old age in their beds, as commonly reported. One died of syphilis in an asylum and the other was shot to death during a crooked poker game. Now that’s heritage you can sink your teeth into. It wasn’t the stuff of holiday pageants though. Someone was going to have to do a lot of lying in this play and I was glad it wasn’t me. I write fiction, but my fingers would fall off if I had to type anything that untruthful.

I glanced up the mountain, looking for the sky and wondering about the weather and if rain or snow would wreck the pageant or make the roads impassable for tourists. Get out of town a little ways and excepting the few paved roads and an old quarry, the forest is still pretty thick. Alder, fir, madronas all stitched up with wicked berry vines. There are some deer paths, but mostly it is solid green that even the wind has trouble passing through. Usually this does not strike me as sinister, but thinking about the murder and some malicious ‘gnome’ playing tricks in town had put me in an unpleasant state of mind.

I made myself shake it off. Alex and I were going to have a wonderful Thanksgiving. Everything else could wait.

The day passed slowly. Gordon hadn’t been at the desk when I came into work that morning and he wasn’t there when I signed out for the day.  He was at work though. Someone (and I was pretty sure I knew who since no one else—especially Althea— would have had anything to do with those hideous silk flowers ) had brought in a vase of Mitzi’s gold roses that were now not just sprayed gold but covered in glitter that left a trail of tawdry pixie dust by the telephone and reception desk. That would explain the funny sparkles I had seen all over Dale’s uniform the other day. I leaned over the counter, on the off chance he was hiding on the other side. No Gordon, but he’d left behind sprinkles of glitter that sparkled in ways his personality never would. I followed the trails around the station and they told me that he was visiting his favorite haunts, like the break room and bathroom.

I waited for a few minutes but Gordon didn’t appear at the desk, and I began to wonder if he was deliberately avoiding me. But why would he? Unless…. Was it possible lardhead was getting cold feet about marrying my cousin and afraid I would notice and rat him out before he could join the Foreign Legion or fake his own death? Or was he worried that what happened to Silly could happen to Althea and afraid that I would laugh at him if he voiced this concern to me? Worse, was he somehow involved in his ex-wife’s death and afraid I would see through his alibi (he and Mitzi were playing Scrabble)? Or might he actually be mourning his ex-wife and maybe making funeral arrangements? Nah—not Gordon. Silly probably had family anyway and they would be taking care of things.

And Alex would probably have all these answers by now. He worked fast. All I had to do was go home.

As for Gordon, I decided that maybe he just had an upset stomach and was stuck in the bathroom. I chose not to worry about it. Saying goodnight to Jeffrey, Blue and I left work.

I stopped for a take-out pizza and briefly considered renting a movie from next door. They had been running the holiday sucker trailers on TV for two weeks. But I suspected that the two minute trailers were actually more interesting than the two hour Thanksgiving movies they advertised. Besides, Alex and I had better things to do than watch TV.

We ate dinner and then I started my pies while Alex made up a fire; pumpkin first since that made the holiday official. As I stirred All-Spice into my thawed pumpkin, I took stock and realized that there was still a lot to get done before Thursday (like pick up my turkey) but I was feeling unusually domestic and hopeful that I could pull off the meal without accidents or panic attacks.

The smell of pies cooking was very soothing and I listened to Alex as I chopped apples, but did not dwell on the facts that he was relaying as he researched Silly Gordon.

The second pie, covered in cinnamon-pecan-praline crumbs, was done. I set the timer and then went into the living room, taking a seat on the sofa. Firelight edged Alex’s hair and made him glow warmly. I was suddenly without any desire to polish silver or iron linens. There would be time enough for those things tomorrow.

Though I was feeling mellow, Alex was concentrating so hard on what was on his laptop that he was almost doubled-up nose to screen. No hunting dog on point could be more attentive.

“Okay, that’s enough work for tonight. The holidays started when the pies went into the oven,” I said.

“You’re not eaten up with curiosity about this murder?” Alex asked, surprise in his voice.

“Nope.” And I meant it. A woman had been killed, but I hadn’t really known or liked her. And the suspects in the case weren’t people I especially liked either and felt no need to rush out and clear their names when no arrest was imminent. Of course, I wanted to solve the murder eventually. But Friday was soon enough. Tuesday and Wednesday were for pies and pageants. And Thursday was for family, friends and feasting. With Alex. Our last case had turned dangerous and our relationship had all but flat-lined because of it. This was our first time together since San Francisco and Lardhead’s ex-wife wasn’t going to ruin it for us.

I reached for his hand and then stood up.

“We have fifty minutes before the pies come out,” I said. “I want to show you how much I’ve missed you.”