Silver Six Crafting Mystery 01 - Basket Case (8 page)

“Why are there only twenty graves? It seems like there should be more.”

“Samuel laid out the cemetery for thirty plots, but some of the Stanton clan moved away, as people do. Then, too, burials had to stop along about 1925 after Lilyvale annexed part of Stanton land.”

“The same time your granddad sold off land?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said on a sigh. “After that, family started being buried in the city cemetery. Sissy was the only original Stanton child who lived here most of her eighty-nine years but had to be buried in the city cemetery because of the annexing. She ordered markers for herself and her husband, Josiah, to be put in here so she’d be with family.”

“Is that why the stones read ‘in memory of’?”

“It is. Sissy had memory markers made and installed for my great-grandparents, too. She even left a trust for things like upkeep of the markers. I paid to add the stones for my mother and dad, your grandparents. I think it’s nice to see their names with the rest of the family.”

“It’s lovely, Sherry, but did you say Sissy lived to almost ninety? When was she born?”

“Long about 1860, if I remember right. Sissy was some kind of character. A feisty go-getter, rather like you.”

I sidestepped that comment and pointed at the three-foot-high angel on a short pedestal spreading its wings over the small markers in the children’s section. Four graves were grouped slightly apart from the rest.

“What about these graves in the children’s area, Sherry? You didn’t mention any McAdoos on the family tree.”

“The family legend is that the McAdoos were passing through when their children died from influenza. Samuel and Yvonne had just lost their little Vera, so they offered plots and gravestones to the McAdoo parents. The parents accepted, and they stayed for a few months to work for Samuel, but they moved on to Texas. I guess they couldn’t bear being reminded of their loss.”

When Sherry’s family stories wound down, I wanted to stroll in the wooded area behind the house. The tree house my mother had fondly recalled was long gone, but I enjoyed the soft wind singing through the trees.

We didn’t go far, though. The path was somewhat overgrown with low bushes and young trees. I stopped and looked harder at the path. Hadn’t Trudy galloped through here just yesterday? How had she known there was a path at all, much less known where it was located? Because she’d helped Hellspawn burglarize the barn?

I mentally shrugged. I supposed it didn’t matter now. I let those thoughts go. As I did, neighborhood sounds receded, too, and I felt the peace I saw reflected in Sherry’s expression.

“Sherry,” I began as we turned back to the house. “Did the married Stanton children live with their parents? I know the house is large, but it seems that would get awfully crowded.”

“No, child. Back when we owned more property, they were offered tracts of land as wedding gifts to build their own houses. Some did that, and some moved to town. Why do you ask?”

“Just curious. Have you ever considered applying for a historical landmark designation for your house?”

Sherry linked her arm in mine. “The county historical society suggested we do that back in the eighties. I found trunks filled with family papers and mementos that Sissy had gathered. I even had most of the research together, but I always got sidetracked. Besides, I don’t know that the house is any finer example of architecture than a dozen others in the county. Other than being used as a courthouse for a spell, nothing particularly historical happened here. It’s simply where the Stantons raised their families.”

“It can’t hurt to apply. If the application goes through, I think it will protect your house from being torn down. At least make it harder to do. Do you still have your research?”

“I imagine I packed it all and left the trunks in the parlor.”

“The one that needs cleaning?”

She waved a hand. “It’s not really dirty. We do some of our crafting in there and in the dining room, and just haven’t tidied it yet.”

“Then are you up for a little digging with me?”

“I would love that!”

Sherry gave me a smile of near rapture and a hard hug before she bustled inside. I admit I walked on air a bit as I trailed her, happy that I’d suggested a project that excited her. If we didn’t finish it on this trip, I’d make another one to work on it later. Or I’d ask Sherry to let me take the information home.

Or so I thought until I saw the sheer volume of treasures packed in a trunk and two cedar hope chests.

I dragged the trunk and chests out of a storage cupboard in the lower part of the floor-to-ceiling bookcases built into either side of the fireplace. Magnificently crafted bookcases that made the parlor look more like a library. Then, at Sherry’s direction, I arranged them in a semicircle around two wingback chairs. She moved basket-making supplies and labels for Aster’s herb concoctions out of the way, retrieved a large magnifying glass from the desk near the front porch windows, and we were soon elbow deep in Stanton family detritus.

I latched on to copies of deeds, Samuel Stanton’s Civil War records, a delicate journal that had belonged to Samuel’s wife, Yvonne, and other papers. Age had faded the ink, so the magnifying glass came in handy. Sherry held up daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, and tintypes from the 1800s, and photographs going back to the early 1900s. I
ooh
ed and
aah
ed over each one, partly because that’s what Sherry expected, but mostly because I got caught up in a feeling of family history I’d never experienced before. We reverently examined each memento, from leather shoes and kidskin gloves to watches and rings, brooches and bracelets. Nothing escaped our attention as I peppered Sherry with questions. I even went to the kitchen to grab my tablet so I could take photos and type notes.

The exercise reminded me a little of going through my mother’s things with Sherry, but without the aching sadness. I was so deep into the discoveries, I startled when Maise poked her head in through the pocket doors we’d left partially open.

“Time for the drive-by.”

Sherry folded a lacy christening cap her grandmother had tatted. “Do you think she’s coming? She skipped yesterday.”

“She set Shoar on you this morning. She’ll show.”

“Maise’s right.” I put aside an open photo album. “Let’s go.”

Sherry offered me a place on the porch swing with her and Eleanor, but I opted to sit on the porch step for a front-row seat.

“Attention, troops. Here she comes. Prepare to wave and smile. No, wait. Belay that. The woman isn’t slowing down. What in the world?”

I shot to my feet as the dark blue Hummer wheeled into the driveway, spewing gravel. The vehicle veered across the yard, plowed over the crepe myrtle sapling, and rocked to a stop spitting distance from me.

THE SIX WERE ON THEIR FEET, TOO. I COULD TELL
by their voices closing in behind me.

“My poor tree!” Sherry.

“That woman’s a menace.” Dab.

“Her bumper’s a goner.” Fred.

“She’s gettin’ a thousandfold backlash now. I need my lavender.” Aster.

“I’ll give her a backlash. Where’s your Colt, Fred?” Maise.

“I do believe I’ll call Detective Shoar.” Eleanor.

Good thing someone thought of placing a call, because I seemed to be frozen. I gaped at the women through the Hummer windshield. Trudy, hands still braced on the dashboard, sat in the passenger seat visibly shuddering. And Hellspawn?

The witch climbed out of her car and stomped toward the porch. In spiked heels and on grass, the stomping lost a lot in translation, but her face, contorted in rage, made up for the lack.

Trudy, I noticed, more or less tumbled out of the passenger seat, grabbing the open door with both hands. I guessed to keep from falling on her face. She let out a moaning “Now, Jill, don’t say something you’ll—”

“Shut up, you cow,” Hellspawn barked.

For a second, Trudy’s eyes blazed with hatred. Then, lips tight, her expression became resigned. I’d have punched Hellspawn’s lights out. Heck, I was tempted to do just that on Trudy’s behalf. Never mind Sherry’s.

Instead, when Hellspawn turned back to me and took a step closer, I descended a stair tread to confront her. She had to stop or plow into me. She stopped, and in spite of our height difference, I held the high ground.

“What the devil are you trying to pull?” she demanded, hands planted on her hips. “You vandalize my Hummer, then sweet-talk that detective into believing I did something to your car? That’s bull!”

“First, I didn’t sweet-talk Detective Shoar. Second, none of us touched your car. Until now, I didn’t even know what it looked like.”

“Liar,” she spat. “You saw me leave yesterday.”

“No, I didn’t. I was busy putting my aunt’s baskets back on display. The display you ruined.”

Hellspawn didn’t have the grace to look even a smidgen ashamed. She went right back on the attack. “You can’t deny that you’re conspiring with other landowners to shut me out. Three of them slammed doors in my face in the last hour, and one held a shotgun on me.”

“With your winning personality? Imagine that.”

Hellspawn reddened and oozed closer. “I’m offering a good deal to these people. More than they’d ever see in a conventional sale.”

“Why?”

She opened her mouth again, closed it, and blinked. “Why what?”

“Why do you want the land? What are you building? A big-box store? A mall? A factory?”

Her nose went higher in the air. “What do you care?”

“I don’t, but you’d get more cooperation from people if you let them in on your plans.”

“They don’t need to know my plans. I promise you, they’ll take the money and thank me, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

“I have no interest in stopping you. My aunt and her neighbors make their own decisions, and they’ve decided you’re a manipulative liar.”

Hellspawn’s sudden smile would make a rattlesnake wary. “I will have this land, and I’ll do whatever it takes to get it.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “Is that a threat?”

“Let me put it this way. Mowing down that little tree is nothing compared to what I’ll do to get my way.” She gave me a long, cold glare, then snapped her fingers. “Come, Trudy.”

Hellspawn slammed the car door, ran back over the sapling, and swung out of Sherry’s drive in another spray of gravel right into the path of an oncoming car. Brakes screamed, wheels screeched, and time suspended as the brown sedan rocked to a stop in the middle of the road.

I turned to the Six, who stood huddled around Sherry, staring in silence.

“Are y’all okay?” I got murmurs and nods, so figured heart attacks weren’t imminent. Aster looked ready to bolt inside for her lavender, but she stood fast.

“I’ll go check on the people in the car,” I said.

I started down the steps, but the driver backed up the sedan, angled into Sherry’s driveway, and parked. Before I reached the yard, two men got out. I recognized the driver. Bryan Hardy.

“Was that the crazy Elsman woman?” the older man with the full beard asked as he crossed the lawn, his gaze more on the Six than on me. I pegged him being in his early fifties. Tall and physically fit, he wore brown pants and a yellow cotton shirt with a scorecard and several golf tees sticking out the top of his breast pocket. He also sported one of the bushiest full beards I’d ever seen.

“It was,” Sherry said shakily as she descended two steps. “Clark Tyler, this is my niece. Nixy, this is Lorna’s husband. We spoke with her at church today.”

“I remember. Nice to meet you, Mr. Tyler. How was your golf game?”

When he looked blank, I added, “Lorna mentioned you were playing golf today.”

“We were,” he said, and turned back to Sherry. I was dismissed. “Did Elsman hurt anyone?” he demanded.

“Just my crepe myrtle.”

“But she made more threats,” Maise said as she joined Sherry. “It’s an outright declaration of war.”

“Now, Ms. Holcomb, let’s be calm.” That was Bryan. He’d joined the group so unobtrusively, I hadn’t noticed him. He wore navy pants, a white polo shirt, sneakers, and those nerdy black-framed glasses. “You don’t want to do anything to escalate the problem.”

Maise shook a finger at him. “Then the law in this city and county better do something about that harridan.”

“We will.” He spoke firmly enough, but for a prosecutor, he still struck me as atypical. “You file a complaint and I’ll personally call the city PA.”

Clark gave Bryan a sideways glance I couldn’t interpret, then focused on Sherry. “We’ll get rid of the harpy, don’t you worry. She has to leave sooner or later.”

“I’m counting on sooner,” Maise said. “We’re organizing a meeting of all the neighbors she’s harassing. If we stand firm, she’ll run out of steam.”

“That’s a good plan, Ms. Holcomb,” Bryan said with a nod. “We’ll let you get to it. Clark?”

Clark opened his mouth as if to say something else, but just waved and walked back to the car. As he stepped around the sapling, I noticed that the treetop canted off to one side like a broken neck. Which reminded me of the dead bird left on Sherry’s steps, its neck broken.

I shuddered and pivoted back to the porch.

Maise clapped her hands for attention. “All right, troops, let’s move. Fred, Dab, see if you can save the crepe myrtle. Ladies, we’ll make those calls to set up the Stop Hellspawn meeting. Nixy, you wait for Shoar to show up.” She cocked a brow at Eleanor. “Or is he coming?”

“Should be here any minute,” Eleanor said. “But I do believe he’ll want to talk with all of us, won’t he?”

Maise waved a hand. “Nixy can take point filling him in.”

And I did, more or less. Shoar wheeled into Sherry’s drive eight minutes later. I timed him. He drove a late-model extended-cab truck, dark gray and dusty, but with nary a scratch or dent that I could spot. He looked a little dusty, too, in wash-worn jeans, a faded short-sleeved shirt, and boots. I wondered what he’d been doing in what was apparently his off time.

We met at the sapling where Fred solemnly gazed at the cracked top of the tree. Dab joined us with a shovel.

“I take it this is the hit-and-run victim,” Shoar said.

“Not funny, Detective,” I snipped.

He held up his hands. “You’re right. Eleanor was whispering when she called, so I’m not sure I heard everything right. Did Elsman really run over the tree with the Hummer?”

“Twice,” Fred told him. “Mowed it down roarin’ in here, snapped the top when she roared off.”

“She also,” Dab added, “nearly T-boned Bryan Hardy’s car as she left.”

“What was he doing here?”

I waved a hand. “He and Clark Tyler were driving home after a golf game. They only stopped after Hellspawn nearly creamed them. The point is, if Hellspawn spins you a story about us damaging her bumper—”

“She’s lying,” he interrupted. “Got it. Here, Dab, let me do the digging while you and Nixy push the tree upright.”

“We didn’t call you out here to garden,” Dab protested. “You take Nixy’s statement so we can get on with filing the complaint.”

Shoar hesitated and I could see his wheels spinning. Insist on helping the seniors, one of them using a walker, or give them their dignity? The latter won.

He turned to me and motioned toward the porch. “Mind if we sit?”

I shrugged and led the way. I plopped down in a bent willow rocker, and he, small spiral notebook in hand, took the wicker chair next to me.

“Tell me what happened.”

I turned to watch his expressions as I recounted Hellspawn’s hissy fit in detail, including the semiveiled threat.

“And why were you all sitting on the porch when she drove up?”

“Hellspawn apparently drives by every evening, Maise thinks to intimidate them. So Sherry and her friends smile and wave at her.”

“Why?”

“Maise calls it psychological warfare.”

“Maise would.” The corners of his mouth quirked as he scribbled in his spiral again. “Did Elsman drive by last night?”

“No, and that seemed to be the first evening she’s missed.” I exhaled hard enough to flutter the pages of Eric’s notebook. “This woman is a danger, and I’m worried about leaving Sherry to deal with her.”

He frowned. “You’re going home already?”

“Tuesday morning. I have to get back to my job. Can’t you do something about Hellspawn before then?”

“City’s fresh out of tar and feathers, I’m afraid,” he deadpanned.

“Again, not funny. You want to talk to everyone else?”

“Will they have anything different to report?”

“Overall, I doubt it, but Sherry will be the one filing the complaint. I’ll go get her.”

I sat in on Sherry’s interview, and I managed to keep quiet. In fact, I tuned them in and out, but kept my eyes on Sherry. Her hands trembled a little. Probably still stunned as well as upset about her tree. She’d let her hair fall over an eye again. I thought the style made her look younger, but she kept brushing it back. Did she need a trim? Is that why she wore barrettes off and on? I’d see about taking her to a beauty shop tomorrow.

It wasn’t long before Shoar closed his spiral and stood.

“Thank you, Miz Sherry Mae. I’ll write this up and the car-tampering report, too. Will you be home tomorrow? I’ll need you to sign the complaint.”

Sherry put her hand on his sleeve. “I’ll come to the station. I want to show Nixy around downtown, and I have some business there anyway.”

“Wait,” I said. “Is that all? Aren’t you going to go talk to Hellspawn? Follow up right now? I mean, that’s how one investigates, isn’t it?”

“You learn your police procedure from TV?”

“No, another guy I dated.”

“Let me guess. Carl the Cop.”

I flushed. “Pete the PI’s assistant.”

He shook his head but I caught the small smile. “Miz Sherry Mae, if I’m not in when you come by tomorrow, I’ll leave the paperwork at the front desk. Tell Dab I’ll have his car vandalism complaint ready to sign, too.”

“That’s fine, Eric. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome and get some rest.”

He stopped to speak to Fred and Dab, who had the mulch scraped away from the hole and the sapling more or less upright. Again I saw him hesitate, but Dab waved him off. I understood the seniors wanting to keep their dignity.

However, while the detective resisted his urge to help out, I didn’t resist mine. I pitched in to assist, and after another half an hour, the crepe myrtle was properly replanted. The men hadn’t objected to my aid, but then dignity didn’t do much to ease sore muscles. At any rate, I felt that I made a few points with Fred.

The Sunday evening meal consisted of leftovers from both Saturday’s and Sunday’s lunch. Maise encouraged me to hog the fried okra, saying, “We can have my okra anytime, but you’re leaving. Eat up.”

The dinner table mood was more subdued than I expected, and I didn’t think it was due to the lavender oil Aster had sprayed in every corner of the dining room. The Six didn’t chatter about Hellspawn’s visit, though Aster and Eleanor did confirm that the neighborhood confab was scheduled on Tuesday at five in the afternoon. That way, they said, those who still worked would be able to attend.

I had hoped for an earlier meeting time so I could be there. How late could I leave Lilyvale and still be awake enough to work on Wednesday? By seven or eight at the latest. Make a motel stop, sleep a few hours, then go straight to the gallery. Not ideal but doable.

Except I didn’t feel good about leaving as long as Hellspawn was at large.

“That gives us two days to clean the parlor,” Eleanor said.

“And for me to prepare refreshments,” Maise added.

“I’ll cut fresh flowers and put out my lavender and other calming oils,” Aster offered.

“What a wonderful idea, Aster.” Sherry smiled. “Angry as I am with Ms. Elsman, we’ll need cool heads to plan.”

“I’ll type up a short agenda and print copies at the vo-tech tomorrow.”

I turned to Eleanor. “Are you teaching classes?”

“I volunteer teach,” she said. “Three days a week at the technical college.”