Die Like an Eagle (16 page)

“Mrs. Brown!” I said, when she had to take a breath and I could get a word in edgewise. “I'm not one of your husband's friends, and I'm not here to harass you.”

She frowned, suspicion replacing fury in her expression.

“In fact, I was actually dropping by in the hope that I could harass him,” I said. “So since he's not here and not likely to be, allow me to compliment you on making such a positive change in your life, and remind you that if you ever need it, the Caerphilly Women's Shelter is available. Just call Reverend Robyn any time, day or night. And unless you have any idea where I could find Biff so I can make his life a little more miserable, I'll be on my way.”

She just looked at me for a few seconds. Then her suspicious look gave way to a tremulous smile.

“You must be the witch from the county he's been complaining about,” she said. “The one who's actually trying to make him live up to the terms of that contract for the town square.”

“I bet he didn't say witch,” I said, with a chuckle.

“No, but I don't stoop to his level.” She held the door wider. “Come in for a minute. I can give you a few places to check if you really want to find him.”

“Thank you, Mrs.—” I began.

“Gina,” she said. “Just Gina. Or Ms. Crocker if you want to be formal. I'll be legally getting rid of the Brown part as soon as I can, and I'd rather not hear it in the meantime.”

Inside, everything was shabby, with more than a few things in need of repair or replacement, but neat and clean—remarkably so for a house with kids. Try as I might to keep things tidy, the boys' toys and sports equipment and clothes tended to end up in the living room, dining room, and kitchen. And yet the Browns had kids—four of them, to judge by the multiple pictures on the walls and the mantel.

Multiple pictures of the kids, but hardly any with Gina, and Biff was conspicuous by his absence—though a few unfaded spots on the light blue walls suggested that parts of the photo gallery had been removed. And there were other absences in the room. A small old-fashioned tube TV stood on a stand clearly designed to support one of its big, modern, flat-screen cousins, and nearby, in the corner that offered the best view of the tiny television, a worn-looking side chair occupied a space that could easily hold a huge armchair or recliner. I suspected a few of Biff's favorite toys had gone with him.

“Have a seat.” She gestured to the sofa. I sat, and had to smile when I saw that a glass bowl on the coffee table held not only pens and pencils but also a scattering of Legos.

“He might be over at his brother's place.” Gina had picked up a small address book covered in floral fabric and was leafing through it. “I'll write down the address. He's been staying in the caretaker's room out at his construction company, but now that poor Shep's out of the way he'll probably just move on into his house.”

Out of the way? Was she suggesting Biff had knocked Shep off for his house? Her head was bent over the notepad on which she was writing, so she didn't see my look of surprise, but maybe she realized how it sounded.

“It was actually their mother's old house,” she went on. “Shep moved in when she died, which seemed pretty fair to me, since he was the only one of them who actually lifted a finger to help her the last few years of her life when she was so sick. And it's a tiny little one-bedroom bungalow on the outskirts of Clayville, so it's not as if they could easily share. When I filed for divorce and kicked him out, Biff had trouble finding a place to live—you know how scarce housing has always been in Caerphilly, and these days Clayville's just as bad. Biff tried to convince Shep to move into the caretaker's room so he could have the house—can you imagine? For once Shep stood up for himself. And now Biff gets it after all.”

For a few moments, I found myself remembering the days when Michael and I had been househunting in Caerphilly—particularly the day when we found out that one of his colleagues had snatched a promising house out from under our noses by offering a price significantly more than the house was worth—or than we could afford. I'd experienced a few minutes of white-hot anger at the colleague, and I might have even exclaimed “I could kill him!” But actually murdering someone for a house?

Stranger things had happened.

“He has two cousins over in Clay County,” she was saying. “He might be speaking to one or the other of them at the moment. One's a minister, so I guess Biff will probably ask him to do the funeral.”

“Which church?” I asked. Thanks to helping out at various interfaith volunteer service projects, I knew a lot of the local clergy from Caerphilly and adjacent counties.

“Not sure what they're calling themselves these days,” she said. “Holy Vessels of Clay, or something like that. It's that group who decided all of the local Baptist churches were too liberal and permissive and went off on their own.”

“It's not that church that does the snake handling at their services, is it?” I asked. Dad had recently developed an alarming fascination with the subject. Only from a medical point of view, but I took a dim view of any fascination that brought him into close contact with rattlesnakes.

“Not that I've heard of,” she said. “But they're Biff's cousins, so who knows?”

If Biff was hoping for a reconciliation, he was doomed to disappointment. She had paused, hands still holding the pencil and the address book, eyes staring into space.

“Do you know if they're going to arrest him?” she blurted out. “For the murder, I mean.”

“Biff?” I asked.

“If it was just me and him, I wouldn't care,” she said. “In fact, the way I feel about him right now, I might even gloat if he got arrested. But there's the kids to think about. He's a rotten father, but he is their father. How am I supposed to break the news to them if their father is arrested? For murder? Of their uncle Shep?”

She looked so distraught that I wanted to reassure her. But what if the chief hadn't interviewed her yet?

“I don't know anything definite,” I finally said. “But I did hear a rumor that he has an alibi.”

“That's good.” She let out a heavy sigh. Was that relief or disappointment on her face. Probably a mixture of both. “Good for my kids, anyway. But if Biff didn't do it, who in the world did?”

“The rumor mill seems to think there's a good possibility someone mistook Shep for Biff in the dark,” I said. “And if that's so, then the police will be a lot less interested in Shep's enemies than Biff's.”

Her face puckered briefly in a slight, puzzled frown, then smoothed into an expression of startled, anxious comprehension.

“Yes,” she said, nodding slightly. “I never thought of that but—yes, of course. The notion of someone killing Shep just didn't make sense—I mean, who kills someone just because they're clumsy and annoying? But Biff? Lord. The chief's going to have his hands full, chasing down all the people who had it in for him. Starting with me, of course. Guess I better get my alibi in order.”

She grimaced. And then her face fell.

“What if whoever did it tries again?” she asked. “Are my kids in danger?”

“I don't know,” I said. “Talk to the chief. And tell him everything you know. The sooner he figures out who killed Shep and why, the sooner we can all feel safe.”

“Yes.” She was doing the mile-long stare again. Then she snapped out of it. “Thank you,” she said. “You've been helpful. I wish I could do the same for you.”

“If you have any helpful hints on how to get him to do the work we've hired him to do down at the town square, that would be nice,” I said.

She chuckled mirthlessly and shook her head.

“If you'd asked me that yesterday, I'd have said ‘Put a gun to his head.' Probably not something I should say today.” She studied my face for a few moments, than appeared to make a decision. “He's probably having cash flow problems. He never did tell me much about his business, but I overheard things. I'm pretty sure he's got a client who's taking his own sweet time paying for a big job. Not sure who. But I know he's worried about whether he's ever going to get paid. So it's possible he hasn't started the town square job because he doesn't have the cash to buy the materials. No way he'd want to admit that. He's probably ransacking his supply yard, trying to see if he can come up anything he can use to get the job done with.”

“Good grief,” I exclaimed. “We certainly don't want that.”

“Oh, so you've seen his supply yard?”

“Only from the outside,” I said. “That was enough. So what if we happened to find all the materials he needed in one of the county supply warehouses?” I reached into my tote and pulled out my copy of the contract. “And asked if he'd renegotiate the contract into one where the county supplies the materials and he provides the labor? Of course, that's assuming he can get the labor. If he's that broke—”

“The labor wouldn't be a problem,” Gina said. “All his usual workers know he's good for it eventually. At least they'd assume that because he always has been up till now. But a lumberyard wants cash on delivery—especially from someone who's bounced a few checks lately.”

“This doesn't have a materials list.” I indicated the contract I'd been flipping through. “But I'm sure Randall Shiffley could figure out what supplies are needed.”

“And get them at a better discount than Biff can,” Gina said. “Just don't let on to Biff that a Shiffley had anything to do with it. He'd pitch a fit.”

“Duly noted,” I said. “And it is one of my main missions in life to avoid provoking people into fits.”

“He has such a temper.” Was it just by chance that she was rubbing her jaw as she said that, or was she recalling some bit of damage Biff's temper had inflicted? “He's going to have a hard time getting along without Shep. He always says—said—Shep was the carrot and he was the stick. If he needed to sweet talk anyone into something—lending him something, hurrying up a supply delivery, paying an overdue bill—he'd send Shep. And people would usually do what Shep asked them to do, partly because he was pretty likable most of the time, and partly because they knew if they didn't, they'd have to deal with Biff.”

I mulled that over for a few moments while she did the long blank stare again. Probably something I should just tell the chief about. But since I was here …

“What if Biff sent Shep out to talk to someone who was really mad at Biff?” I asked.

“It happened,” she said. “More than once. You think maybe this time someone shot the messenger?”

I shrugged. She shook her head slightly, but it didn't look as if she was saying no to the idea. More like thinking it was all too sad and plausible.

“How did he get along with the parents of the kids on his teams?” I asked.

“Just fine,” she said. “That's why I thought at first you must be one of the mothers. The harpies keep badgering me to take him back. No, he gets along fine with the team families. Well, except for some of the Pruitts.”

Aha!

“Nobody much gets along with the Pruitts,” I said aloud.

“Biff used to,” she said. “Things got a little strained about the time the Pruitt's bank went under. Some of the Pruitts seemed to think the loans they'd made to Biff had helped bring it down, and to hear Biff talk, they went out of business just to spite him. But I think they'd mostly made peace with each other.”

“I heard he had quite an argument with one of the Pruitts at a practice,” I said.

“That would be Adolph Pruitt,” she said. “He was one of the ones who ended up doing time for something or other he did while the Pruitts still had the bank. He seems to think Biff was the one who turned him in to the FBI.”

“And he wasn't?”

“I doubt it.” She shook her head firmly. “If Biff had something on Adolph, he wouldn't have taken it to the Feds. He'd have tried to use it himself.”

“You mean he'd have blackmailed Adolph?”

She thought about that for a few moments.

“Maybe,” she said finally. “But more likely he'd have just held it over Adolph's head. Expect a lot of favors in return.”

And that didn't count as blackmail?

“But Adolph ended up in prison anyway,” I said aloud. “I guess he's not in a position to do his buddies any favors now.”

“He's a Pruitt.” She shrugged. “They usually land on their feet.”

I couldn't argue with that.

We sat there for a few moments, each lost in her thoughts. I wasn't sure what Gina was thinking, but I was contemplating the news that Biff was at odds with someone who'd spent time in prison. Someone who might not share Gina's belief that Biff wouldn't talk to the FBI.

“They'll probably have an open casket,” she said suddenly. “And if they do, I'm not taking the kids. They'd freak, not just because he's their uncle, but he's going to look so much like their father.”

“The resemblance is that strong?” I asked.

Gina got up, walked over to the coat closet, and pulled something down from the shelf over the coat rod. A couple of framed pictures. She walked back to the sofa and handed them to me.

“You wouldn't think they were only half brothers, would you?” she said.

No, I wouldn't. Biff was maybe an inch taller, Shep maybe a few pounds lighter, but the resemblance was uncanny.

“I don't feel so stupid now about mistaking Shep for Biff,” I said, handing the pictures back.

Gina nodded. She looked at the pictures. Her jaw tensed and her hand tightened on the frames as if she was fighting an urge to destroy them. Then she took a deliberate breath and walked back to the closet to put the pictures away again and her face returned to its former melancholy, almost vacant, expression. I decided it was time to hit the road.