Murder by Serpents (Five Star First Edition Mystery) (11 page)

“Can't you just see Jennifer Lopez shacked up with Quentin Mize?” Martha started laughing. Soon the giggles overtook her and she slid from the chair to the floor. “Not even if she was blind drunk.” She howled with merriment. “How could she stand to get that close to him? Have you smelled him?”

“I won't let him in the café.” Ruby wrinkled her nose. “He didn't use to smell that bad, but the last time he came in, I thought a skunk had gotten in somehow. My customers started complaining about the stench, and I had to close the place and scrub everything with bleach.”

“My husband says that Quentin's skin problems are due to whatever drug he is currently using.” Amy reached down to help Martha off the floor but almost immediately the giggles attacked her and she unable to do anything but laugh.

“How would he know that?” Edith's eyes widened. “I mean, well, you know, without taking drugs himself?”

“He's a chemist.” Susan answered for her best friend, who sat gasping for breath between bouts of hysteria. “He's probably studied it all in school.”

“Actually, that's not true.” Amy managed a whisper. “Well, it is true that he is a chemist and that he thinks he knows it all.” The women all laughed at that. “In this case, though, he has a friend who works with addicts of various substances who told him that. I have no idea if it is true or not.”

“Tell me more about this girl shooting Quentin's cousin.” Theo pushed her hair behind her ears to keep it out of her face and gave her attention to threading a stubby little quilting needle. “Tony never tells me anything.” After a lie like that, her nose should have grown like Pinocchio's. “How did you hear about it?”

“Let's see.” A thoughtful look crossed Caro's face as she slipped her thimble on her third finger and put a few stitches in the quilt. “Oh yes, of course, Nellie Pearl told me.” The collective groan coming from her audience made her pause. “I know, I know. I wouldn't usually believe anything she says either, but she seemed so positive when she told me that I believed her. She said she saw Quentin and the girl burying a gun up in those woods between their places very early this morning. There's a patch of rhododendron there and they were hunkered down next to it.”

“What?” Ruth Ann and Theo spoke in unison. “Did she call and report it?”

“Are you kidding?” Caro flapped her arms, forgetting that she held a needle. Around her, the women dodged her wayward hands. “After the last time she called 911, she swore to me that she wouldn't call the cops again even if she saw an axe murderer hacking up a body on her front lawn.”

“Why not?” Amy asked. She looked from Caro to Theo to Ruth Ann.

“It happened before you moved here. She even wrote a letter to the editor complaining about the sheriff's department.” Ruth Ann grinned and answered. “The way I heard it, she called in the middle of the night to report someone peeking in her windows, looking at her. She wanted the sheriff to come over right away and arrest the pervert before he had his way with her.”

“Now that is a desperate man.” Martha's eyes were twinkling.

“And dedicated.” Ruby laughed. “Last time I saw Nellie Pearl, she had on about six layers of oversized men's clothes. The outer layer was the rattiest flannel shirt I ever did see. Not only that, I don't know how she could see anything, even with her binoculars, with that rat's nest of stringy gray hair hanging in her face.” She wrinkled her nose. “So what happened?”

“I don't think it is any secret because she told everyone who would listen about it.” Ruth Ann hesitated before continuing, looking at Theo.

Theo didn't see any reason why Ruth Ann shouldn't tell the story and nodded her head.

“The sheriff sent Joe Kyle George out to investigate,” said Ruth Ann. “He checked all the doors and windows. Then he went on to tell her that with the way the house was situated and the thickness of the curtains she had hanging on every window in every room the only way anyone could peep was to drive uphill and then if they used a powerful telescope, they might be able to look into her kitchen.” She paused to take a few stitches. When she looked up again, her dark eyes twinkled at her audience. “He suggested, and none too tactfully, I'm sure, that she quit spying on her neighbors. He also suggested that only a guilty conscience would make her think anyone would be interested in looking her windows.”

Caro jumped into the story. “She told me that she called the sheriff at home after Joe Kyle left and threatened to sue him, the department and the whole county. She wanted him to fire Deputy George but instead, he hung up on her.” She fanned her face with her hand. “The language she used, my goodness, I never even heard of half of those words, but no lawyer would take the case, not even Jasper Snodgrass, and you know he'd sue his own mother for her last dime. Then and there, she swore that she would never call them again, no matter what.”

“So how could she see Quentin burying a gun?” said Susan. She was the quieter of the two friends. “I mean, why would he bury it where she could watch him?”

“That's a good question.” Caro looked shaken. “I guess she's done it again. Told me a whole big story and I believed it.”

“I wouldn't be sure that she didn't see something, you know, the way she spies on everyone. I just wouldn't swear that she knew what she saw.” Martha handed her the spool of thread. “I'll tell you what she reminds me of. I watched a television show once where the nosy neighbor kept a journal of the comings and goings and did a bit of blackmail. I wouldn't be surprised if she didn't have a list somewhere herself.”

Mollified, Caro went back to her stitches. She hadn't taken more than five when she focused on Ruby. “Sweet girl, when are you going to marry that nice deputy?”

Ruby simply smiled and shook her head.

Martha jumped into the conversation. “Speaking of getting married, though, I heard that Prudence Sligar and Deputy Darren Holt are engaged.”

“We should make them a quilt.”

At ten o'clock on Friday morning, Wade arrived at the station to report to Tony. “Doc Nash got the results from the toxicology tests and finished the autopsy.” The wide smile on his face proved his resilience, but he still looked a bit green around the edges. “You want to read it or do you want me to give the you highlights?”

Tony, who hadn't gotten much sleep the night before, thought that he really wanted a long nap followed by a large cup of coffee. Instead, he sat at his desk reading the log of calls taken by the night shift. Thankfully, the night had been a fairly quiet one. When the influx of tourists visiting the national park began, the number of calls would increase. For now, the local crimes consisted of a report that vandals had either stolen or maimed some yard ornaments, a domestic violence call and a complaint filed against a driver who left a station without paying for his gas. Tony shook his head. The fool would probably lose his license for that.

Since he'd heard about it from Theo, Tony's mind kept returning to Caro's account of how Nellie Pearl claimed to have seen Quentin burying a gun. Someone needed to pump Nellie Pearl for information, but he knew that she would never talk to him. Maybe he could get Theo to do a little more unpaid police work.

He finally answered Wade's question. “Just give me the bottom line.”

“The guy did die from snakebite, just like Doc thought.” Wade waggled his left thumb and pointed to the soft tissue between his thumb and forefinger. “One bite was right there in that boneless area. Don't you know that had to hurt?” He shook his hand as if the very thought caused him pain. Then he touched his right forearm. “There was another bite about here and based on the distance between puncture wounds, Doc thinks it was the copperhead that bit him there. He is sending tissue samples off to the lab just to be certain.”

“Can he guess at the timeline? Did the bites occur before or after the handcuffs were closed?”

“From the way the hand and arm swelled, Doc says that the handcuffs were probably on when the snake bit his hand or were fastened immediately after.” Reaching into his shirt pocket, he produced a small plastic bag containing a gold wedding ring. “He had this on but we couldn't see it yesterday because the hand was so badly swollen and messed up.”

“Pops Ogle thinks that the wife is in a nursing home but didn't know more than that. He couldn't even guess what state she is in.” Tony took the bag and held it up to the light. Nothing unique. Just an ordinary gold band with only the manufacturer's name engraved inside. He put it with the rest of the man's belongings.

Lacing his fingers together, he rested them on the file and faced Wade directly. “So what do you think? Accident or homicide?” Tony knew what he would call it but waited for Wade to make his conclusion.

“I think that we can rule out suicide and accident, don't you?” Wade examined a pair of his own handcuffs. “After all, you are not going to accidentally attach yourself to a steering wheel in a dark parking lot and then slap a snake in the nose or whatever it takes to make a tired snake bite you. Not even if you are an idiot, and by all accounts, this guy knew his snakes.”

“If someone wanted to make it look like an accident, it sure wouldn't make any sense to leave the handcuffs behind. I'd say that it is pretty obviously homicide, but why do it like that?” Tony said. “The guy handles snakes all the time, so how could you be sure the snakes would bite him or that the bite would be fatal? Wouldn't you assume that he would have some immunity to bites? I would, but maybe it doesn't happen.” He leafed through some papers that he had printed off the Internet. “It says here that most snakebites are not fatal.”

“Maybe it wasn't intended to kill the guy. Maybe it was just supposed to scare him or keep him there until someone else came along and found him. The bites could be incidental.”

“Or maybe keep him there until the person came back to let him go.” Tony rubbed his stomach with the side of his hand. “Maybe they played a game of sorts.” He cocked one eyebrow at his deputy. “Not a game that I would play, but maybe it's a form of Russian roulette or just plain old ‘chicken.’ You know, like who can stay in there the longest? If so, his playmate probably ran away when he realized the guy died.”

Ruth Ann knocked on the doorframe. “John Mize is dead.” A wide smile decorated her face as she waved a paper at the men. Waiting for their reaction, she gently blew on the new coating of baby blue polish on her fingernails. Her eyes twinkled with amusement.

Now that they had worked together for several years, Tony had enough experience to recognize her expression. He forced himself not to flinch.

Wade straightened and said, “We already know that, Ruth Ann.”

She flashed him a saucy grin. Baiting the younger man always seemed to entertain her. “Yes, but do you know when he died? Exactly?”

Wade scooted forward on his seat and started to explain. “Even Doc doesn't know exactly when, but it was definitely the night before last, between ten and four in the morning.”

Even as he spoke, Ruth Ann's head started shaking. “Unfortunately, that's not quite true.” She looked past the deputy and her eyes met Tony's. “You were right, Sheriff, there was something ‘off’ about the driver's license. It is a genuine Tennessee license and it did belong to Quentin's cousin, John. This same John lived in Maryville until he died in an accident about a year ago.”

Handing Tony the paper, she grinned at the deputy. “Oh, Wade, I almost forgot to tell you that Stan's here with those snake boxes you wanted. I had him put them on your desk. Is that okay? Should I ask him if he removed the contents?”

She blew Wade a kiss and went back to her desk.

Tony didn't bother to look at the paper she'd handed him. He knew that Ruth Ann had given them the heart of the story. Instead, he focused on his deputy. “You see what you can do about identifying him by his fingerprints, and I guess I'll have another little chat with Quentin. I'm not sure how, but I think he is in this up to his spotted nose, but first, I want to talk to the Maryville Police.” He reached for the telephone.

“There is one more thing.” Wade didn't stand. “Doc found something else when he cleaned up the dead guy. It seems that our dead preacher had prison tattoos on both hands and on his arms and chest. He had to have been inside for quite a while to get that many. Doc cleaned him up pretty well and then I took some photos of them. We might be able to use them for identification.”

“Prison tattoos and a false ID? We knew he'd served time but not where or why.” Tony smiled his encouragement and started dialing. “That's good work. Tell Sheila to pick up Quentin's girlfriend and bring her in here. Maybe she can tell us something about the man. After all, he did stay there for a couple of months. She must have learned something.”

He wondered how he would explore the tidbit that Theo had brought home about Nellie Pearl and a buried gun.

“Stan,” said Tony. Thinking about Ruth Ann's message, he was speaking to himself. “Is he still here?” His hand stopped dialing and reached for the disconnect button on the phone. Something teased his brain. What had Theo told him? Something about Stan disliking Winifred. No. That wasn't it. He remembered Pops complaining about Stan. “Bring him in here. I want to talk to him.”

“I'll get him.” Wade covered the space between the desk and the door in two long strides.

Stan trotted into the office, his belly bouncing under a blue and yellow striped golf shirt. “I'm taking real good care of those snakes, Sheriff.”

“That's good.” Tony motioned to Wade and the deputy pulled a chair closer to the desk for the chubby man. “That's not why I wanted to talk to you.”

“It's not?” Stan's genial smile widened. His expression was open, pleasant. He looked as if Wade had just offered him a plate of Christmas cookies instead of an uncomfortable chair.

“Nope.” Tony leaned back in his chair and fiddled with his pen. “I want you to tell me about the altercation that you had with our snakebite victim.”

“I don't believe I know what you mean.” Stan's eyes narrowed. His rear end stopped just short of the vinyl seat.