The Busybody Needed Killing, page 26
“Well we know who—Theodore is who got killed. Oh!” Bex caught herself. “No, we don’t know who killed him. We know what—what happened—he got killed.”
“And we know when and where.” Jack chimed in. “Early Saturday morning—after the rain had stopped—and right smack dab at the entrance to Camp Serenity.”
“So we don’t know, who,” she held up her left thumb, “why” her pinky, “and how,” her right-hand thumb.
“Well, we know why,” said Jack, “he needed killing. And we know how—he got stabbed.”
“With a swordlike weapon,” added Bobby drily.
I took the opportunity to swap Bobby’s basket of wings and fries with mine. I started working on her collection of non-drumstick wings putting the deboned wings in my old basket. I was getting the hang of how to do it so the deboning process was picking up speed.
Bobby looked at me. “Right so far?”
“Is that question twelve?”
She stuck out her lower lip. “No hints?”
“If I tell you that you’re hot—or cold—are you going to misunderstand?” I winked at her and she stuck out her tongue at me.
“So let’s go back to who.” Bobby stuck up her thumb. “So far we’ve got,” she started counting them off on her right hand. “Deputy Howard, Eric, Urban, and—and whoever else Deputy Howard identified as people who’d been in Special Ops.” She stopped. “Crawford never said who the other people were did he?” Her fellow questioners looked thoughtful and then nodded in agreement.
“Okay, Crawford, who else did Deputy Howard say had Special Ops training?”
“Is that question number twelve?”
All three nodded.
“He said Owen Cranston and Joseph Godwin could have backed him up on identifying the wound and he didn’t know about Urban or the hermit—Eric.”
“Joseph and Owen?” Bex blinked in surprise. “I guess I don’t know either of them that well. Never suspected they’d served in the military much less in Special Ops.”
Jack scratched his neck. “Joseph must have served in ’Nam. Owen had to have been somewhere in the Middle East—or maybe Afghanistan? Now that you mention it I can believe it of both of them.”
Bobby and Bex looked at each other across the table. I wondered how many games of their version of Twenty Questions they’d played together growing up.
“The deputy, Owen, and Joseph are definite,” said Bex.
Bobby gave a nod. “But we need to know if the other two knew how.”
Bex turned to me. “What about the other two—Eric and Urban?”
“What about them? Want to put that in the form of a question? Two people—two questions.”
“Okay, always suspect family first. Did Urban Drake have Special Ops training?”
“Thirteen. I don’t know about that but I do know he couldn’t be our murderer.” I held up my hand. “Any of you shake his hand lately? Ever since he competed in his first triathlon? It was a week or so before the wedding.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Handlebar palsy—happens to cyclists who put too much pressure for too long on their hands while cycling. Urban’s got it. Can’t even shake hands with his right. Yes, he is right-handed and no, Special Ops training does not include using both hands. Maybe you should suggest it.”
I stopped for a second. “He had a pretty good motive. Now he owns half of the Drake farm instead of a third.”
“Okay, then. What about Eric? Does the hermit have Special Ops training?” Bobby was looking thoughtful. Bex soldiered on.
“Fourteen. I don’t know. He carries a machete and a combat knife. He was the trespasser that Theodore complained about. According to him he cut across the Drake property to get into Camp Serenity—avoiding the roads—saw a man with a cat walking on the road toward the entrance—then Eric saw people at the camp and headed on to someplace less populated. He doesn’t like crowds—but he likes good fried chicken. He’d probably like these wings.” I threw the last observations in just to prove that I was good at deducing things.
“You told me you thought you heard something in the woods when you were walking out to the entrance.” Bobby glanced at Bex who nodded. “Did Eric see you and Friar Cat on the road?”
“No. Fifteen. I thought that at first, but the timing wasn’t right. Eric said there were too many people wandering around. He must have been crossing Camp Serenity just after the sunrise service. That’s the only time there were people moving around early in the morning.”
“So Eric saw somebody else on the road.” Bobby and Bex exchanged looks. “Eric saw the killer,” said Bobby.
“Yes. Sixteen.” I thought somebody would complain about whether that had been a question but no one did.
Bex picked up the thought. “Eric saw somebody on their way to kill the deacon?”
“No. Seventeen.” I smiled. “You’re getting close.”
Bex sat up. “Wait a minute. Did he or didn’t he see the murderer?”
“Oh, he saw the murderer all right. Eighteen.”
Jack chuckled and sat back in his chair shaking his head.
“What are you laughing about?” Bex was a little sharp. “Do you know who the murderer is?”
“Nope.” Jack smiled. “I just realized what Crawford said. The man wasn’t out there to kill the deacon. That must be what had him so baffled.”
“Well if he wasn’t out there in the middle of nowhere to kill the deacon what was he there for?” Bobby and Bex turned toward me.
“For a smoke. Nineteen.”
“So he could smoke a cigarette?” Bex’s eyes almost bulged.
“No. A joint—marijuana. Twenty—and game?” I smiled innocently. “Does that mean I won?”
Jack picked up his stein. “If I were you, I’d just explain how you figured it out and hope they don’t string you up on general principles.”
One look at the glares that were being aimed in my direction convinced me to follow his advice.
“Why was the killer out there? That’s what gave me all sorts of problems when I was trying to figure things out. I started off with the idea that the killer had gone out there in order to kill Theodore Drake. I had it in my mind that the killer appeared out of nowhere and struck the deacon down. With that as my premise, nothing seemed to fit together.”
I shrugged my shoulders. “I must have been watching too many action movies or something. But flip the scene on its head. Imagine Theodore appearing from out of nowhere—being his usual congenial self—and getting killed for it.”
Bobby, Bex, and Jack all looked thoughtful. Bobby started nodding her head. “Somebody walked out to the camp gate to smoke a joint—the one you found on the road,” she smiled at me, “and the deacon caught him.”
Bex snorted. “Oh I can hear Theodore now—cackling—not being able to wait to tell everybody about it.”
“Not even aware of how furious he was making Owen, until he snapped, lost his temper, and killed him.” Jack frowned. “Poor guy. First Theodore Drake gets him fired and ruins his career and now he’s ruined his life—by committing murder.”
I leaned back in my chair and licked some sauce off my fingers.
There was a crease between Bobby’s eyebrows—it only appeared when she was deep in thought—concentrating intently. “Why do you say it was Owen?”
Jack looked surprised. “Who else would be going out to smoke dope?” He looked over at me. “He had Special Ops training, a grudge against the deacon, what more do you need?”
“The grudge wasn’t really necessary, Jack.” I reached over and got another wing out of Bobby’s basket. At this point I’d deboned enough wings that my fingers took over and I didn’t have to think about it—muscle memory—again.
“I’m thinking that Theodore’s appearance out of nowhere was the straw that broke the killer’s back—made him lose control—to act without even thinking—to use the Special Ops training instinctively.
“Like Friar Cat catching that bird. He didn’t think it out—he just did it.
“It wasn’t Owen. He’s the picture of good health—jogging—exercising. The owner of the restaurant told Rick that Owen was doing a great job and they were all going to miss him when he went back to teaching.”
“Huh?”
“What?”
Evidently, Bex and Jack hadn’t heard the news.
“The new principal at the parochial school that fired him wants to hire him back. Seems that some—a bunch actually—of parents, teachers, and others think Owen shouldn’t have been fired in the first place and want to correct the mistake. They believe that if they hire him back that will negate his being fired. He’ll be able to stay or go and teach wherever he wants.”
I grinned. “Personally I can’t think of a better way to get even with Theodore than for the school to rehire him—over the deacon’s objections.”
“Well, if it wasn’t Owen, then who?”
“Who?” I leaned my head back and closed my eyes.
“Joseph Godwin killed Theodore Drake.”
There was shocked silence at the table.
“That’s what I told the DA and that’s what we spent the morning proving.
“Godwin’s in a hospital in Nashville—has been since Saturday afternoon. Dr. Summers gave him a ride home from the wedding and on the drive back decided the way Joseph was acting he needed to be hospitalized—in a hospital with more sophisticated psychiatric diagnostic tools than Cranbury’s.”
Bex whispered, “I never would have suspected him.”
“Of course not. We were all thinking it was a premeditated murder—that the murderer had planned on killing Theodore out there in the middle of nowhere. Goodness knows the deacon had demonstrated time and time again that he needed killing. The logical premise was that somebody had finally gotten fed up and decided to do something about it. It didn’t occur to me that Theodore lit the fuse by chance. It should have. He certainly made me angry the first time I met him.”
Jack frowned. “Joseph wouldn’t have killed him if he’d been in his right mind. Hell, he’d have confessed before letting anybody else be suspected of being the murderer. Is that why Eli hospitalized him?”
“The way I imagine it happened, Joseph killed Theo in a fit—a spasm—an explosion of anger made worse by personal stress, pain, and anguish. He had a weapon, he seized it, and then muscle memory took over and he killed Theodore Drake without ever consciously deciding to do so. Having killed the deacon, Joseph couldn’t cope with it mentally—he wasn’t in good health to begin with—cancer treatments, pain, failing health, dying. That’s why he needed help getting back to Cranbury. He was starting to fall apart. On the way, Joseph started muttering the same series of words to every question Eli asked him.”
“What was he saying?” Bobby looked concerned.
“Name, rank, serial number, and date of birth—the only information a prisoner of war is required to give his captors—according to the Geneva Convention. People generally forget about the birthdate. Dr. Summers didn’t make the connection until we talked. Having killed using the technique he learned so long ago—and so well—we think Joseph mentally retreated or regressed—to a time when he was a soldier and killed people for his country—as he was supposed to do.”
“Oh, my.” Bex pressed her fingers to her mouth and her eyes glinted with tears.
“Are they going to arrest him?” Jack cut to the essentials. “Is there going to be a trial?”
I shook my head. “Beats me. That’s up to Charity Sterling—your new district attorney. My guess is that she’s torn between not harassing a dying man and making sure everybody else is cleared of suspicion.”
Bobby was counting things off on her fingers.
“How?” She looked at me. “How did he kill the deacon? What was the weapon?”
“That’s what got the DA to listen to me—to Rick and me—in the first place. It was in the backseat of Joseph Godwin’s car sitting in plain sight. I should have figured that out earlier.”
I smiled at Bobby. “I’d been talking to Jim Ward the week before Thanksgiving about defensive weapons—of course he argued there were no such things—you know Jim.”
“Defensive weapons?” Jack interrupted.
“You know, mace, pepper spray, stun guns, stuff like that. I’d meant to ask him about canes but I never got around to it.”
“Canes?” Bex leaned forward. “What about them?”
“Sword canes, actually. The blades are swordlike but not as long as real swords. I’d done a little research about them and then completely forgot about what I’d learned. Rick showed me the one he had for sale—the twin to Joseph’s cane—but I was distracted by the switchblades—they seemed deadlier.
“Anyway, I didn’t remember sword canes again until the funeral. The altar boy was having trouble lighting the candles, kept sliding the wick in and out of the tube—that reminded me of something—cat’s claws and Rick sliding the blade in and out of the cane. Then Father Morris fired up the censer and incense. That’s when it started to fall in place.” I looked over at Bobby. “The ‘click’ as Jim calls it.”
“The incense?” Bex looked confused.
“Yeah. Smoke in the church. Nobody smokes inside anymore. You smell it outside. That’s what people do, they go outside to smoke. Like the killer.
“Dr. Summers had encouraged Godwin to smoke some marijuana to help with the pain, appetite loss, nausea—and facing death. My guess is that he actually supplied Joseph with the joint I found but there’s no reason to go there. And I did not feel compelled to mention it to Charity.
“After all of Godwin’s good work with addicts and troubled youth, I imagine he had a hard time agreeing to try marijuana. Sad, really. If he’d been stoned when Theodore appeared instead of being caught in the act of lighting his first joint—well, we’ll never know.”
I pulled Bobby’s basket closer and fumbled for one of the wings I’d deboned. With a start I realized they were all gone and Bobby was wiping her fingers. I looked at her.
She swallowed, smiled, and winked at me.
“Thanks. They’re better without the bones.”
Keep reading for a preview of
the next book in the
Needed Killing Series
Who Needed Killing?
Monday
AS A RULE of thumb, I try not to do business on Mondays—Monday mornings in particular.
When I was growing up, people used to refer to some cars as lemons—cars that just didn't work right. There was nothing you could do but give up on them and try to get the manufacturer to take them back. It wasn't until I was older that I heard them referred to as Friday or Monday cars. The idea being the assembly line workers were either too eager to quit work or too hung over from the weekend to pay much attention to what they were doing when they built the car you later bought.
Once I was in the workforce, it seemed to me that Mondays were always filled with issues that had accumulated since Friday afternoon and then were dumped on you first thing Monday morning. So you had to work yourself out from under two and a half days of troubles in addition to what hadn’t gotten fixed on Friday. Like I said, I try to avoid calling businesses on Monday but it doesn't seem to work the other way.
Victoria Moore had called me a little after eight in the morning to see if I could meet her boss, Rufus George, at the University Club for an early lunch. The provost had a funeral to attend that afternoon so it needed to be a rather quick lunch, but he hoped I would join him and accept his apology for the late invitation. All of this was according to Victoria, of course. But it sounded just like something Rufus would have said and I had no problem believing it.
So at eleven-thirty, I was sitting at a linen-topped table across from the university's provost. The bud vase, linen napkin, and heavy silverware seemed a little excessive for my cup of soup and half a sandwich special, but it went well with his roast beef, asparagus, squash casserole, rice and gravy, and—his favorite—good old-fashioned southern spoonbread.
I watched him as he carefully cut a piece of roast, put it in his mouth, and started to chew. So far our conversation had covered—on his part—how his wife was doing and how they'd enjoyed Christmas. On my part, I had confessed that Bobby Slater and I had gone to the Florida Keys to celebrate and—as far as I was concerned—that she, Bobby, was doing very well indeed and I was doing tolerably.
"Celebrate?" Rufus had said raising his eyebrows quizzically.
"Just the start of a new year," I was quick to reply. "Nothing more than that." At least I didn't think there was more to it than that. I'd have to ask.
In the South, a certain amount of social conversation has to take place before business can commence. Even between men who'd known each other as long as Rufus and I had—maybe especially so. We'd met years ago, through his son. Jon and I had been in the same Boy Scout troop. We hadn't kept up our friendship but Rufus—well, we weren't really friends. I wasn't sure exactly what our relationship had become—just that there was a lot of mutual respect involved.
My respect for him was based on history. His for me was based more on my potential.
Oh, not all of it was on potential. I'd accomplished what he thought I was capable of two times now—three if you count the murder I'd investigated for his wife on behalf of The Festival's board members. The fourth murder I'd solved hadn't involved the university or the extended George family, except I'd had to call on him for an introduction to the district attorney of Lee County Tennessee.
"Thanks again for your help with Charity Sterling, sir. She's quite an impressive woman. Of course she'd have to be to be appointed district attorney."
We both knew the truth. For a woman to have been appointed district attorney in rural Tennessee—much like in rural Alabama—she would have to be head and shoulders more qualified than any male candidate.
Rufus put his fork down, patted his lips with his napkin, and then put the napkin back in his lap.
