Two Bits Four Bits (9 page)

At the cemetery, the
family and those closest to the departed will take their places in
the half-dozen rows of metal folding chairs that the funeral home
will have set up under a tent without walls immediately adjacent to
the open grave. The preacher will circulate among the crowd while
the funeral home staff and pallbearers place the casket on a device
that will ultimately lower it into the earth. The funeral home
staff will also bring the flower arrangements that traveled first
from the funeral home to the church, and surround the gravesite
with them. When everything is in place, and the summertime heat or
wintertime cold has become almost unbearable for those in
attendance, the preacher will say a few more words and talk about
what a glorious day it is for the departed.

With the graveside
services concluded, the family members will mingle around the
cemetery for awhile, locating other family member’s gravesites and
complaining about the lack of upkeep and shaking their heads at
evidence of vandalism on the headstones. Once the family members
resign themselves to let the funeral directors finish their job,
they will make their way back into town and eventually to the home
of the departed, where they’ll spend the afternoon visiting with
people they haven’t spoken to in decades and sampling the covered
dishes delivered by neighbors and distant relatives.

Russell Chilton’s funeral
didn’t follow the typical pattern of a small-town Texas ceremony in
all respects, but for those who made every stop in the ceremony it
did take up the better part of the Wednesday following his death.
The crowd that gathered at the church included most of the business
and civic leaders of Elmore, as well as most of the staff of the
Elmore Bank & Trust. By the time I got there, it was standing
room only, so I lingered in the vestibule and chatted with people
whose original purpose in coming to Elmore was to attend the
reunion. When the vestibule got too crowded, I stepped back outside
and spotted Detectives Clemmer and Puckett talking to a uniformed
officer next to a police cruiser parked in front of the funeral
hearse. They may have been on hand to help out with the funeral
detail, but more than likely they were following standard homicide
procedure by taking inventory of those who attended the funeral
services for the victim. Clemmer, the older of the two looked up
and studied me for a few seconds before ambling over to where I was
standing.

“Bob Clemmer,” he said,
offering his hand.

“Buddy Griffin,” I said.
We shook hands and watched the steady procession of people into the
church.

“Weren’t you at the
Chilton residence on Saturday morning?” he asked, digging a pack of
Camel cigarettes out of the pocket of his blazer and lighting one
with a battered Zippo.

“Yeah, I’m a friend of
Kandy’s from high school. Down here for the reunion.”

“Oh, yeah. Didn’t I hear
that you were on the job in Austin for a while?”

“Twenty-three years,” I
nodded. “Worked homicide for the last twelve. Retired a few months
back.”

“Really? That’s a long
time to work murders. Especially in Austin where you have one what,
every couple of weeks?”

“Yeah, they keep coming
pretty regular. I can’t say I wasn’t ready to turn in my papers
when I did. But, it’s taking some adjustment.”

He laughed. “I hear you.
I’ve been doing this for twenty-six years now and I don’t know what
I’d do if I gave it up. Of course we spend most of our time
tracking down stolen oilfield tools and talking to local sex
offenders about the benefits of moving to a larger city. Before
this one, we hadn’t had a murder here in almost two
years.”

“I understand if you can’t
talk about it,” I said. “But do you have much to go on?”

“Well, I don’t mind
talking, but this probably isn’t the time or place. Is there some
place we could talk to you later, after the funeral
maybe?”

I gave him the location of
my parents’ house and told him that I would probably be there for
most of the afternoon after I put in appearance at Kandy’s house
following the funeral. With that, he rejoined his partner and the
uniformed officers who were waiting to perform their role in the
procession to the cemetery.

* * * *

CHAPTER
SEVENTEEN

Kandy’s house was crowded
with relatives, friends and business associates of Russell
following the funeral, and felt more like a cocktail party without
drinks than a post-funeral gathering of the bereaved. There were a
lot of people I didn’t know, so I ended up spending most of my time
in the kitchen, where some of Kandy’s female friends joked about
finally putting a man in his place as I washed and dried dishes at
the sink. I knew I was probably missing an opportunity to gather
information that might help solve Russell Chilton’s murder, but
since I had a personal connection to the family those in attendance
might view any attempt to gain information at such a gathering as
disrespectful. I doubt that I would have thought twice about such
perceptions were I on the job investigating the murder, but a few
months away from the constant questioning of witnesses and
gathering of facts had given me some perspective that I didn’t have
before.

Despite my neutral
investigative approach, I did pick up a few things just from
listening in on the conversations of the women working around me.
For one thing, it didn’t really feel like any of Kandy’s friends
were particularly close to her. Almost as if they were friends on a
social level, but didn’t spend time with her outside of public
fundraisers or Pilates class. None of the women seemed to be
familiar with Kandy’s kitchen, and I knew from my own twelve-year
marriage that when women were very close they usually spent so much
time in each other’s kitchens that they could find the silverware
drawer or the cabinet door concealing the trash can with their eyes
closed. And, there was more than one episode of quiet whispering
between the women that had appeared to be outright exchanges of
gossip, most likely about Kandy or Russell. I wondered if Russell’s
reputation as a skirt-chaser might not be the reason for some of
the discreet discussions.

The other interesting
thing I discovered during my dishwashing stint was something I
noticed while putting away some dessert plates I had just finished
drying. I was opening cabinets, trying to figure out where to put
things when I noticed a high shelf containing a variety of
unmatched coffee mugs. A couple of them featured the logo and name
of Elmore Bank & Trust in gold lettering. Another, this one
pink, was from the Elmore Breast Cancer Awareness Run for the Cure.
But, the one that caught my attention was a simple, black mug
decorated by a large decorative “E” surrounded by scrolling lines
and outlines of roses.

Since the design was
clearly feminine, I mentally ticked off the names of women I knew
might have occasion to keep a coffee mug in the Chilton kitchen,
finding none that began with an “E”. Kandy’s daughters were Megan
and Heather, and her mother Beverly. The only “E” name that came to
mind immediately was Eva Trout, although I wasn’t acquainted with
the Chilton’s entire circle of friends and relatives. If the mug
did belong to Eva Trout, and if she and Kandy were talking
frequently on their phones, maybe she was close to Kandy and
Russell as a couple, and not simply a romantic interest of
Russell’s, as Jay Bradley seemed to suspect.

* * * *

CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN

When the crowd thinned out
at the Chilton residence, I spoke with Kandy briefly, extending the
same offer of assistance that she had undoubtedly heard hundreds of
times over the past few days, and then drove out to my parents’
place through the scorching afternoon heat. I changed into blue
jeans and a T-shirt and had resumed the task of bagging some of my
father’s old clothes to deliver to the Salvation Army when I heard
a vehicle pull up outside.

I watched through the
front window as Detectives Reese and Puckett sat in their police
vehicle with the engine running for several minutes before stepping
out and approaching the front door. I met them before they knocked
and invited them inside. After explaining the reason for the
scattered piles of clutter in the living room, we moved to the
kitchen and sat down around the battered metal table at which I had
eaten my first meals forty-three years earlier. After the social
niceties were out of the way, Bob Clemmer steered the conversation
to the reason for their visit.

“As you know from your
time on the job, part of what we do is talk to anybody who might
know something about the victim that might help solve the crime, no
matter how unimportant that something might seem.”

I nodded, and let him
continue, having spoken much the same words to potential witnesses
countless times in the prior two decades. He pulled out a small
spiral binder and consulted his notes. Reese Puckett, easily
fifteen years younger than Clemmer, with the build of a
professional athlete and a crew-cut that added a military air to
his appearance, drummed his fingers on the table and fixed me with
an impatient look. Before he even spoke a word his body language
told me that his intention was to intimidate me before he left the
room.

“At the funeral this
morning you mentioned that you’ve been friends with Kandy since
high school,” Clemmer said. “Have you stayed close through the
years?”

I explained that Kandy and
I had dated in high school, but had broken up during our senior
year and that we hadn’t been in contact since graduation. As I
talked, Puckett’s mouth twisted into a smirk as he leaned back and
crossed his arms.

“No contact at all,” he
said, shaking his head, as if convinced that Kandy and I had been
carrying on a twenty-six year relationship.

“Now Reese, show a little
respect here,” Clemmer said without looking at his partner. “Mr.
Griffin put in his twenty plus years with the Austin PD and was
probably clearing cases when you were still wetting your
pants.”

He had taken the words
right out of my mouth.

“Sorry, Buddy,” Clemmer
continued. “Can I call you Buddy?”

He glanced at another page
of his notes.

“A couple of people
mentioned they saw you and Kandy alone together outside the Country
Club on Friday night, the night before Russell Chilton was
murdered.”

“That’s right,” I said. “I
stepped outside for some air and Kandy saw me and we talked for a
few minutes. We were just catching up.”

“How did you come to be at
Kandy’s on Saturday morning?”

“Ray Garcia, another of
our classmates, called me and told me what had happened. I think he
heard about it from his sister-in-law. She’s one of your
dispatchers. Ramona. Sorry, I don’t know her last name.”

“Sanchez,” Puckett said,
taking control of the questioning. “Have you talked to Kandy since
Saturday morning?”

I shrugged. “Sure. Several
times.”

“At her
residence?”

“Yes, and at the funeral
home, and the church, and here.”

“Here? When was
that?”

“Sunday afternoon,” I
said. “She said you wanted to interview her again on Monday and she
just wanted to know if that was routine, which I explained it
was.”

“Did she tell you anything
about what happened the night Russell Chilton was
killed?”

“No,” I answered. “I
didn’t question her about the details of what happened and she
didn’t volunteer anything. She did ask me to look into it,
though.”

“What, you mean like
conduct your own investigation?” Reese asked, his face blooming
red.

“I don’t know if Kandy
even knows what she wants me to do,” I said. “I think she’s spent
her whole life dealing with any problem that’s ever come up by
hiring somebody to fix it, and she thinks she needs to hire
somebody for Russell’s murder to be solved.”

“What’d you tell her?”
Reese asked.

“I told her I wouldn’t let
her hire me, but agreed to try to find out what I can. But, I told
her that anything I learned would be shared with you two if it
seemed relevant.”

“Listen,” Reese said. “We
won’t tolerate any interference in our investigation, and you need
to remember you’re not a homicide investigator anymore.”

“I don’t see what harm can
come of Buddy talking to a few people,” Clemmer said. “And, if he
shares his information, it might actually help us solve the
case.”

“Well, you just
remember—“

Clemmer raised a hand and
cut him off. “Let’s talk about this later.”

Reese leaned back and
crossed his arms, pouting like a boy reprimanded at the dinner
table in front of company.

“Now Buddy,” Clemmer said.
“We didn’t come here to question you, and I apologize if it seems
that way. You asked if we had developed any information and I can
tell you that at this point we’ve still got more questions than
answers. The forensics team hasn’t finished all of their tests yet,
but the evidence really isn’t adding up with the way Mrs. Chilton
said things happened.”