Murder on the Ol' Bunions (A LaTisha Barnhart Mystery) (2 page)

“I’ll bring Hardy out here, too. I daresay he’s had enough excitement in that store.”

Within minutes, Doc Gordon returned with a wan, shuffling Hardy.

“You don’t look so good,” I said as Hardy slumped down next to me and buried his face in his hands.

“Neither did
she
.”

I
scootched
my chair closer to him and squeezed his shoulders, drawing his head down to my chest. “You listen next time I tell you something. Thought you’d done gone and had a heart attack.”

I spread my hand on his slender back and wondered how, after thirty-eight years of my cooking, the man had yet to put on more than five pounds. He was too skinny. Of course, he always told me I’d gained enough for both of us.

Hardy’s voice came out muffled. “I wouldn’t leave you to have all the fun.”

The doctor reappeared. “Officer Simpson wants to talk to you,
LaTisha
. I told him you weren’t feeling well and to wait awhile. He’s pretty anxious to ask you some questions. Do you feel up to it?”

I twisted around in the chair and saw the young police officer standing in the doorway. I nodded at him, anxious to have the whole incident behind me. “Come on over here and get to your asking.”

Doc gave Hardy a pat on the shoulder. “I’ll be inside if you need me.”

Hardy straightened in his chair as the officer approached. I gave his complexion a good once over before frowning at the policeman and jabbing a finger toward Hardy. “You can ask me what you need to until he’s feeling perky.”

“I just have a few questions, ma’am.”

“You new to town?”

The young officer swelled up a bit. “Yes, Mrs. Barnhart. I moved into town last week.”

I gave the newcomer a good scrub down with my eyes and wondered why I hadn’t heard of his arrival. No way was I anxious to have to go through the whole trauma of explaining how I found Marion’s body with this young fellow.

“Job doesn’t pay well,” I started out, making good and sure he knew I had the upper hand. “We just lost two men a month ago because the city council didn’t approve raises. One of them moved his family to
Seattle,
the other became an insurance salesman.”

“Uh, yes, ma’am.”

“I’m
LaTisha
Barnhart. And you?”

“I’m Officer Mac Simpson.”

“Not a bad looking boy. How old are you?”

“Thirty-two.”

“
Tisha
.”

Hardy’s voice held an edge that I recognized right away. I rolled my eyes his way. “I’m just trying to be neighborly.”

“Let the boy do his job.”

I huffed back into my chair and crossed my arms, considering. Doesn’t hurt to give the new guy a few warnings about small town living. Who knew? A murder right after a new person arrives in town . . . Suspicious if you ask me.

With Hardy getting uptight with me, I’d have to summarize my welcome speech. “You must have bought the Hartford’s place.
Only house for sale that I know of.
I’ll bring you some of my fried chicken. Don’t want newcomers to feel unwelcome here. I consider it my duty to make sure new people have at least one good square meal. Moving is hard work, and organizing a kitchen takes a woman’s touch. You got yourself a woman?
Preferably a missus.”
My eyes slid to his left hand. No ring. “We can take care of that for you, too, just give us a chance.”

Satisfied that I’d had my say, I waited for the man to begin with the questions. He blinked like a barn owl in the sunlight for a full thirty seconds.

“Hurry up and ask what you need to ask. I haven’t got all day.”

His Adam’s apple bobbed and he cleared his throat. “I—” He glanced at the small notebook in his hand as if it contained the script he should follow. I knew the pages were blank.
Noticed it right off.
Not much escapes me. Ask any one of my seven children. They’ll tell you their momma not only has eyes in the back of her head, but she’s got ‘
em
on the sides, too, and the high-beams are always on.

Being that I had more education about these police things than he probably did, I decided to help him out. “You want to know what I was doing in the store and how I found Marion.”

His lips cracked a small smile. “That would be a good start. Yes.”

“The chief asked me all this already.”

“Yes, ma’am.
He wanted me to ask again.”

Now if there’s one thing I don’t like to have to do is
repeat
myself. I tell you once. That’s it. You ask for a repeat and you might get it—slowly and with every vowel enunciated—but you ask again and I’ll call the ear doctor and set up a fitting for you to get yourself a hearing aide.

I leaned forward, deciding I’d give this boy a second chance.
This time.
Since he was new and all. “I went into the store to pick up some things I bought earlier. Hardy came in after me. Something seemed funny when Marion didn’t start talking right off. That’s Marion for you. She never had any need for quiet. Anyways, I went around the counter and there she was.” I had to push hard at the sight of her that flashed in my brain. Forcing back my emotions, I went on. “Payton heard me—
that’s
the owner of the music store next door, don’t suppose you’ve met him yet—and he came over right after Hardy fainted. He’s the one who called you boys. That’s it.”

Officer Simpson scribbled in his book. “Did you see anything suspicious? Hear anything out of the ordinary?”

“I smelled blood.” And still did. I swallowed hard. “Took me awhile to figure out what that smell was, but I did. That’s when I thought to look behind the counter.”

Voices carried over from the doorway of the shop. The chief of police and a man I didn’t recognize talked for a minute before the stranger went back inside. Chief Chad Conrad caught my gaze and headed our way.

Simpson saw his boss coming. His expression became severe. “I must say you’re pretty calm for someone who just saw a dead body.”

I latched onto his eyeballs with mine. “Look here, I’ve had seven children, five of those are boys. Between bumps, scrapes and breaks, there isn’t much more that’ll shock this momma. If one of them boys didn’t drop blood every day they’d thought they
was
girls.
You
feelin
’
me?”

“Uh, I—” Officer Simpson’s face became a fiery red and he gave his boss a mortified look. “Why, no, Mrs. Barnhart, I’d never—”

“That’s not to say I’m not sorry for Marion. She was a pillar in this community, but she’s also a woman who is well known for her high-handed ways and churlishness. I figure most folk wanted to give her a good push at some point or other, but that doesn’t mean I did it!”

Chief Conrad presented a slick authority figure beside his younger counterpart. He also maintained the honor of Maple Gap’s most eligible bachelor, though Officer Simpson’s hand, sans ring, might mean the chief’s days retaining that honor were numbered.

The chief leaned to whisper in Officer Simpson’s ear. Relief flooded the younger man’s face. He sent me one last, almost terrified glance and went back inside.

Conrad hooked his thumbs over the edge of his thick black belt. Squint creases on either side of his eyes, coupled with his thin lips and dark widow’s peak, gave him the look of a tough guy. “I should appoint you to the force,
LaTisha
. The way you intimidate people is amazing. You and I could do the good cop/bad cop routine quite well.”

Hardy snorted to life. “Yeah, but you’re a little too mean looking to be the nice guy, Chief.”

The two laughed themselves stupid at that. I crossed my arms and glared.
But the idea of being a cop, an investigator, or an officer on the force. . .

“I’ve only got one more semester before I’ll have my degree in police science,” I offered, pointing a finger after the departing Officer Simpson. “Bet that boy doesn’t have one of those.”

“I can’t be too choosey at this point,
LaTisha
. The budget restraints are stretching us as it is.” His gaze shifted to the store and I could almost hear his brain churning. He doesn’t know how he’s going to manage a murder investigation as short staffed as he is.

Conrad pulled his gaze from the store. “How are you two feeling?”

I glanced at Hardy, relieved to see the familiar sparkle in his eyes. “We’ll survive.”

Couldn’t help but wince at Hardy’s choice of words. Chief just grinned.

My curiosity got the best of me. “How do you think it happened?”

“We won’t be sure for a while. State police are on their way with a mobile crime lab vehicle. Could be she just had a bad fall and slammed her head against that radiator.”

“She’d have to have fallen awful hard. It’s not like she weighs a lot.”

Conrad pursed his lips. “True. We’ll let the state men do their thing to find out. In the meantime, there are a few more things I need to ask you. Payton has offered us the use of his store while Nelson finishes taking pictures of the
bo
—”

I shook my head and ran a finger across my neck so he wouldn’t shake-up Hardy again with reminders of Marion’s body.

“—uh, the details.”

“Does Hardy need to stay?” If Conrad insisted on talking bodies and blood, my man needed to leave or we’d be sweeping him up in a dustpan after he shattered.

“How about I talk to you first.
While we’re talking, if Hardy could play us a tune . . . ?”

Hardy pushed to his feet. “Sure thing, as long as Payton doesn’t try to sell me anymore banjo books.” He laced his fingers together and stretched them palm out in front of him until his knuckles cracked. “I’m a piano man.”

Chapter Two

Payton
O’Mahney
needed no introduction. His store décor said it all. Walls swirled red and green with vertical stripes of blue.
Purple carpet.
It all screamed at you as soon as you opened the door and set a foot across the threshold of the music store, Offbeat. Never did understand what the boy hoped to express with such bold patterns. Oh, right, his sense of style. Uh-huh. That was it.

Two grand pianos sprawled along the sides and a row of four uprights lined the wall adjacent to the antique store.

Payton strutted into view from the back of the store with a wide smile stretched across his face and sporting a new look. Last week he matched his walls. This week he had apparently gone to the other extreme with monochromatic white. Even his hair was a dull pearl. He wore sharp-pleated white pants with rolled up cuffs and a linen vest over a stark white shirt. He looked like he’d stepped off the page of a coloring book. If I’d had some crayons, I would have gladly done the honors of coloring inside the lines.

Hardy cocked his head one way then the other, a puzzled expression drawing his brows together as he followed Chief Conrad into the store. “Am I senile or did you move things around since I was in here this
mornin
’?”

I didn’t miss the way the chief perked up at this observation, and narrowed his eyes to study Payton’s reaction.

Payton’s smile didn’t waver. He tugged a handkerchief from his back pocket and dabbed at his upper lip.
“Swapped those uprights with my sheet music and CD display.
Looks better this way.
Quite a job though.” He motioned toward the grand. “The grand hasn’t moved. Go to it, man.”

Hardy needed no further invitation. He gravitated to the nine-foot concert
Grotrian
like my knit skirt clings to my pantyhose. Speaking of which—I frowned down at the unflattering outline of my legs.
Static cling.
I peeled the material away, disgusted when it returned to mold around my thighs all over again. I’d have to get some lotion and rub it on my legs. If I didn’t have all these males looking, I’d spit on my hands and rub them over my hose. That’d take care of the problem.
For a while anyhow.

Payton hopped closer and extended his hand to me as if he’d never met me before in my life. I smacked his hand away. “You
knows
me, boy. What’s wrong with you?”

Without missing a beat, Payton spun away and grabbed Chief Conrad’s hand, cranking it up and down. “You can use my store for as long as you need, Chief. I’ll walk down to the corner and get some donuts and coffee if you’d like.”

Chief’s look of disdain as he disengaged his hand was quickly replaced with what could only be his stern, I’m-on-duty expression. “That won’t be necessary, Payton, thank you though. I just wanted to talk to
LaTisha
and Hardy somewhere out of the way of the coroner.”

I kept a close eye on Payton. He seemed more jumpy than normal.

A loud bass chord shattered the peaceful silence as Hardy began his attack on the keyboard. I recognized Chopin as he began to weave a spell of sound around us all. Even Chief Conrad stopped to admire my man’s skill. Hardy’s hands ran up and down the keyboard with a nimbleness that belied his gray hair.

When Hardy got nervous or upset, the piano was where you would find him. If the rather fragile upright at our house didn’t fit his emotional liking, he would traipse down to this place and play either the
Grotrian
or the Mason & Hamlin. One of these days I planned on buying him a baby grand, but it would have to wait until our two youngest finished
college
. Not to mention me finishing my own degree.