Blood Relations (20 page)

Twenty-four

Later that evening, I was sitting at the kitchen table, peeling an orange and mulling over the things that Danny Jones had told me, when Rudy walked into the kitchen from the garage.

“Honey, do you think I'm anal-retentive?” I asked as Rudy got himself a glass of milk out of the refrigerator.

“You're entirely too much of a slob to be anal,” he said without even thinking. He turned around and smiled at me.

“Jerk,” I said, tossing an orange peel at him. “I'm being serious.”

“So was I. Hey, don't hit me. Okay, maybe you are. I'm not sure how you want me to answer this question.”

“Just tell me what you think,” I said.

“Oh, so you want my opinion. I thought you wanted one of those ‘Tell me what I want to hear or you're dead' type of answers. I didn't know you wanted a real answer.” While he thought a moment, I was entertaining ways to mutilate his body without getting caught. Finally, he gave a big sigh. “All right. Do you realize that you buy a bag of ChexMix and eat only the corn Chex? And you buy a bag of Gardetto's and eat only the pretzels. You leave the rest of the stuff for us to eat. There's something wrong with that.”

“Yeah, but that's not anal. That's neurotic.”

“Can I quote you on that?” he asked.

I whizzed another orange peel at him. “Hey, hey, watch the milk,” Rudy said.

He came over and sat down at the table with me, brave man that he was. His brown eyes were warm and caring, even if they were twinkling with mischief. It was amazing how a decade and a half of marriage had not diminished his cuteness. Okay, there were times I could throw more than an orange peel at him, and this might end up being one of them, but it was as if the cute things got cuter and the irritating things got more irritating. Which was good, because if there wasn't that balance, I'd probably have tossed him out the window by now.

“Why?” he asked.

“Why what?”

“Why do you ask if you're anal?”

I said nothing.

“What—did somebody say you were anal?” he asked.

“No,” I said.

A smile broke across his face, causing those appealing little crinkles to form at the corners of his eyes. Of course, on women, those are considered crow's-feet, and not desired in the least. On men, they are quite attractive. Why does it seem as though Mother Nature has it in for women?

“You're lying,” he said. “I can tell by the way the corner of your mouth twitched.”

That's the other thing about being married for years—your spouse learns all of your secrets.

“Well, it doesn't matter what anybody else thinks,” I said, although not really believing it. “Unless more than one person thinks it, and then there's power in numbers to consider.”

“Well, let's see,” Rudy said. He stole a slice of my orange and made an exaggerated expression of concentration. “No, I'd go more with OCD than with anal.”

“Are you saying I'm obsessive-compulsive?”

“You check the stove three times before we leave the house.”

“So? It might be on.”

“But after you've checked it once, you know it's not on.”

“But somebody could have accidentally bumped it,” I said.

“Okay, you double-check all the seals on the food you get from the store.”

“That's just common sense.”

He gave me that “Get real” look. But I was holding my ground on this one.

“If I'm an hour late from anywhere, you're convinced I'm dead.”

“Again that's neurotic, not obsessive-compulsive.”

“All right, you check your food at the restaurant for spit from the cooks. You won't sit on a public toilet without putting down a paper cover; nor will you open the rest room door without a paper towel, because somebody else may have opened it without washing her hands!”

“That's just germ-conscious. With germs, you have to be on the offensive,” I said.

He threw his head back and laughed. “Honey, you may not be anal, but you're not normal, either.”

I pouted a little, my lower lip protruding.

“It's all right,” Rudy said, smiling brilliantly. “You're my little neurotic, obsessive-compulsive, slightly anal-retentive angel.”

I banged my head on the table. The phone rang, interrupting my thoroughly depressing conversation with Rudy. He answered it.

“Torie, it's Colin,” he said.

I held my hand out for him to place the phone in it, not taking my head off the table. “What?” I asked.

“Well, hello to you, too,” Colin said.

“Just get to the point,” I said.

“Justin McKinney did see something that Sunday night,” he said.

I sat up, noticing that I now had orange pulp in the bangs of my hair. “What did he see?”

“Well, actually, he heard something. He heard two guys fighting and then one of them calling out in pain. Then he turned on his bike and got out of there,” he said.

“Did he hear what they were arguing about? Could he recognize the voices?” I asked.

“He heard one say something like ‘You're not going to get all the credit.' And then the other said ‘I worked my ass off on this project,' yada yada yada. Justin was pretty sure both were men's voices. So I think we can probably safely say that whoever killed Professor Lahrs was a male.”

“Jeremiah Ketchum?” I asked.

“I'm going to check into who else was helping with the project, someone who maybe never made an appearance in New Kassel,” the sheriff said.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I immediately assumed that the argument was with Jeremiah Ketchum or Danny Jones, but thinking about it, I'm not sure,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because their cars were at the Murdoch Inn through the whole ordeal. That still leaves the question of how they could have left the crime scene and gotten back into the Murdoch Inn by the time you found the body and I came around asking questions. Plus, they had fairly tight alibis,” he said. “I'm not saying it's not either one of them, but I'm going to look into some other people who may have had a motive.”

“Speaking of cars,” I said.

“Yes? You going to tell me how your visit with Danny Jones went?” he asked.

“How did you know I went to see Danny Jones?” I asked.

“I'm not the sheriff for nothing, you know.”

I thought about that a minute and had a vision of the sheriff following me around, snooping on me. Disturbing, to say the least.

“Uh … it went fine, but I learned something interesting.”

“What?” he asked.

“Danny Jones's car is dirtier than mine,” I said. Rudy gave me an exasperated look.

“Really?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“What else?”

“Well, he really played down Jacob Lahrs's chemical dependency, and he claimed Jeremiah was just jealous. Oh, jeez, I almost forgot—the three of them found the diamond case in the wreckage, with the lid shut and the diamonds gone,” I said.

“Which means what, exactly?”

“Well, at first I thought that William and Maria Wade had made off with the diamonds and lived happily ever after with them. But now I don't think so. I don't think William ever got a chance to get the diamonds, for whatever reason. Danny seemed to think that finding the case empty meant the diamonds made it off the boat and that Jacob knew where they were hidden, but because it was a fairly public place, he couldn't just go and get them.”

“What do you think?” he asked.

I looked over at Rudy and shrugged. “It's possible,” I said. “Was there anything in any of the documents that Jeremiah had that gave away the secret location?”

“Not that I could determine,” he said.

“By the way, how's the ex-wife thing coming? You know, you mentioned that Jacob had an ex-wife.”

“Haven't had time to talk with her.”

“It might be important.”

“Torie, I'll get to her,” he said. “I've been doing other things, like checking up on forensics and fighting the rest of the crime in Granite County.”

“Okay, okay,” I said. “Don't be so crabby.”

“We'll see you guys tomorrow night.”

“Huh? Oh yeah, dinner. Okay, see you then.”

THE NEW KASSEL GAZETTE

The News You Might Miss

By

Eleanore Murdoch

 

The Meyersville Lions clobbered the New Kassel Kings in Tuesday night's varsity basketball game. Father Bingham would like for me to express how it's not very sportsmanlike for the parents to throw chairs at the referee.

Still no fairies have been returned to Tobias's garden. He warns that whoever the culprit is, warts will begin to grow on your face, and your hair will fall out. I'd return them if I were you.

Arthur Burgermeister has reported that he and his wife, Carol, had a baby boy last night. Nine pounds, four ounces. The bouncing, bawling boy is bald and carries the name of Junior. This is the couple's second baby, first boy.

And I want to thank all of you upstanding New Kassel citizens who have been calling our reporter friends to task on their manners. Fraulein reports the incidence of flatulence has greatly diminished.

Until Next Time,

Eleanore

Twenty-five

The next day, I was on my way to work at the Gaheimer House when I saw Kyle, the Channel 6 cameraman, sitting on the curb of Jefferson Street. Why he'd chosen to sit in the snow, I'll never know, but then, why he never wore socks would probably remain a mystery to me, as well. I thought about asking him, although it really wasn't any of my business. But then, when has that ever stopped me?

“Don't you own any socks?” I asked.

Kyle turned around and saw me standing above him.

“I hate socks,” he said. “My mother said she could never keep them on me, either.”

He stood up and glanced around, looking sort of embarrassed. His shoulder-length hair was scraggly. I like long hair on guys, as long as it is clean and pretty. Kyle's was not pretty. It looked as though he hadn't shaved in a few days, either. He wore his Kurt Warner jersey with great pride, though. Not so much as a smudge anywhere on it.

“Your butt's wet,” I said.

He gave me a blank expression.

“From sitting in the snow,” I added.

“Oh,” he said, and wiped at his derriere.

“You want to come in for a minute? It's warmer than sitting on the sidewalk.” I gestured to the Gaheimer House, which he looked at in a curious manner. “I work here.”

“Oh,” he said. “No, I'm just waiting for Bradley.”

“For what?”

“There's some footage he wants me to shoot.”

“Oh yeah? Where?”

“Out at some cemetery.”

The hair pricked on my neck. “What cemetery?”

He shrugged. “Out in the country somewhere.”

“Do you have to cross a covered bridge to get there?” I asked.

“Don't know, haven't been there before.”

“Is it Lutheran?”

“Yeah,” he said, snapping his fingers. “That's it.”

I nodded my head knowingly. “You sure you don't want to come in and wait? I can get you some coffee. Tea?”

“No,” he said. “Thanks anyway.”

Sheriff Brooke pulled up to the curb at that moment, and Kyle looked around nervously. A flight-or-fight expression played across his face, and for some reason, I found that funny. I waved to Colin as he got out of the car. He glowered at Kyle, who shrank back, as the sheriff had intended for him to do. I remembered that glower. And I remembered how it used to work on me.

“What's up?” I asked as he headed toward me.

“You got a VCR in there?” he asked, pointing to the Gaheimer House.

“Mmm, maybe. Come on in,” I said.

We left Kyle standing on the side of the curb with a wet butt and no socks, waiting for Bradley Chapel to arrive. Colin and I walked through the parlor and then down the hallway to my office. After taking my coat off, I set my purse on my desk and booted up my computer. “Want something to drink?”

“Coffee,” he said. He sat down and I went out to get it.

Sylvia was standing in the kitchen, taking a pie of some sort out of the oven. “Good morning, Victory,” she said in the most noncheery fashion she could muster. Her salutations are always gruff and sound like required statements.

I poured Colin his coffee and set the pot back on the stove. “Do we have a VCR here?”

She gave me a rueful expression, and I almost wished I hadn't asked. “What would I need a VCR for?”

“I just asked, Sylvia.”

“I think there is one out in the shed,” she said.

I stopped by the soda machine and got a Dr Pepper. Entering my office, I said, “Sylvia says there is a VCR out in the shed. You can go get it if you want. But beware that the only television in the house is some thirty-year-old thing in the kitchen. I'm not sure if it will have the right hookups.”

Taking a drink of the coffee I gave him, he handed me a videocassette and smiled. “I guess I'll go out to the shed.”

While he was gone, I checked through the papers on my desk and then logged on to see if I had any e-mail. I had the usual requests from people looking for info on their ancestors, grandparents or great-grandparents who had lived here at one time. I saved them all to answer later, then went about reading the others.

There was an answer to an e-mail I had sent out earlier to the historical society in Arkansas. It read:

Dear Mrs. O'Shea,

In reply to your question about the diamonds and the Hills diamond mine: The mine has been defunct for close to twenty years or more. We checked the list of names that you gave us and found that Samuel Higgins mined close to forty pounds of uncut diamonds. The case he would have carried them in would indeed have been marked clearly “Hills Mine. Hills, Arkansas.” And most likely, it would have been made of some sort of metal. So it looks as though Samuel Higgins was the one carrying the diamonds on board
The Phantom.
As to your other request, I am attaching a jpeg file, which is a photograph of
The Phantom
when she was in port. However, I can't be sure that the photograph was taken on the same run when she sank. If I can be of further assistance, please let me know.