Die Like an Eagle (20 page)

I held up my phone.

“Yes, the red Ford Lariat,” the chief said. He rattled off the license plate number. “That's right. Yes, the one in the handicapped zone. Yes, but the DUI is more important. Roger. Vern's here,” he added to me as he hung up.

“I'm wondering if maybe I should wait a little while before I drive,” I said. “Any chance I have a contact drunk from breathing too close to her?”

“Perhaps she's been drowning her sorrow over Mr. Henson's death,” he said.

“More likely her sorrow over the tragic disappearance of the insurance papers.”

Just then we heard a siren go off nearby. The chief nodded with satisfaction.

“Good,” the chief said. “Vern will handle her. No way I want her driving the streets of my county in that condition.”

“I bet she came straight from the Clay Pigeon,” I said.

“The Clay Pigeon,” he muttered. “It would be the Clay Pigeon.”

“‘You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy,'” I quoted.

“Which Holmes story is that from?” the chief asked. “I don't recognize the reference.”

“It's from
Star Wars,
” I said. “So does this mean some poor Caerphilly deputy has to brave the squalor of the Clay Pigeon to check her alibi?”

“I suppose.” The chief sighed and shook his head. “Just to be thorough. Although frankly, I don't see the use. If she really is a regular at the Clay Pigeon, I'm sure the denizens of the place will back up any story she tells. ‘Wretched hive of scum and villainy'—you have no idea how apt that quotation is.”

“Still, she's a suspect, right?”

“And all the more suspicious thanks to her keen interest in Mr. Henson's insurance policy,” the chief said. “Which would be ironic.”

“Why?” I asked. “Does he not have life insurance?”

“He does,” the chief said. “Through Brown Construction Company. And it appears that upon divorcing the former Mrs. Henson, he changed his beneficiary to his brother.”

“Biff?” I asked.

“Yes, Biff,” the chief said. “He only has the one brother.”

“A large policy?” I asked.

“Depends on what you call large,” the chief said. “A hundred thousand dollars.”

“Large enough,” I said. “Way more than pocket change. And as I already mentioned, I've begun to suspect that Mr. Brown is suffering from cash flow difficulties. A hundred thousand dollars would definitely be tempting to a man in that situation.”

“No argument. But Ms. Peebles doesn't look particularly affluent, either, and if she thought she was still his beneficiary—ah, well.” He straightened up, as if he'd suddenly remembered that he was talking to me, not Vern or Aida or another of his deputies. “We'll sort it out before too long.”

“And I'll leave you to it.” I'd noticed that his eyes had been straying toward a monitor in his credenza with increasing frequency. I wasn't sure whether this was unconscious or whether he was giving me a deliberate hint that I was overstaying my welcome. Either way, I figured it was time to go.

“Before you go,” he said. “You've been studying Mr. Throckmorton's list of Brown Construction clients in Caerphilly County. Notice anything interesting about it?”

I thought about it for a few moments.

“I had a hard time finding someone I thought would talk to me,” I said. “I think at least half the people on it were Pruitts, and you can imagine how likely they'd be to confide in me.

“Or me,” he said, grimacing. “Though I interviewed them anyway, for all the good it will do. And your report of the quarrel between Mr. Brown and one of the Pruitts only confirms something I had already observed—that the relationship between Mr. Brown and the Pruitts is not as warm as it once was.”

“Any idea why?”

“None whatsoever,” he said.

I thought about it for a few moments.

“I wonder if Biff's financial problems helped cause the demise of the Pruitts' bank,” I said. “Or it could be the other way around and the bank failure caused his problems. Either way, I can imagine there would be ill-feeling on both sides.”

“Very possible,” the chief said. “Look, you're apt to have more chances to observe them than I will, and they're less apt to be wary in front of you. So if you see or hear anything that might have some bearing on the issue, please let me know.”

“Will do,” I said.

“And please note that this is a request to share information you might come across in the normal course of your work for the county and your participation in the Summerball League, not an encouragement to involve yourself in my investigation.”

“I will strive to be the proverbial fly on the wall in their company,” I said. “So you suspect the Pruitts?”

“Perhaps.” He scowled slightly and stared into space for a few moments. Then he shook his head and sat up straighter. “Although perhaps we're a deal too ready to suspect the Pruitts here in town.”

“We wouldn't suspect them so readily if they didn't have such a history of getting up to suspicious things,” I pointed out.

“True.” He was glancing at the monitor on his credenza again. “You might want to take the side door out,” he said, pointing to it. “Ms. Peebles is not proving to be a model prisoner.” I took a few steps closer and saw that the screen was filled with the pictures from half a dozen security cameras. All were serene and motionless except for one showing Kayla, apparently hiding behind the front desk, and one with a view of the parking lot, where we could see Callie's truck standing in the middle of the entrance. As we watched she began flailing at Deputy Vern with the giant leopard-print purse.

“I'm not sure she's actually aware that she's a prisoner,” I said.

“Officer in need of assistance.” Shaking his head, the chief stood, pulled his gun out of the drawer again, and began buckling it onto his belt.

“I can see another patrol car arriving,” I said.

He paused on his way to the door and glanced back at the monitor. The second patrol car had effectively blocked the exit from the parking lot. Deputy Sammy Wendell got out of the newly arrived car and stood behind it. Callie had stopped trying to whack Vern with the purse and was digging inside it.

“She's got a gun!” The chief and I said it in unison as Callie pulled her hand out of the purse. He took off running.

“Stay here,” he called over his shoulder. “Kayla, run back there to my office and keep your head down!”

In the cameras, I could see Kayla rise from behind the front desk and disappear. A few seconds later she appeared at my side. Vern and Sammy had taken refuge behind their cars. I couldn't see Sammy, but I had a good view of Vern on one of the monitors. He had his gun out and trained on Callie. Was he really going to shoot her?

Callie, looked around triumphantly, evidently thinking she'd vanquished the officers, then gave a rebel yell and fired a couple of shots in the air.

“Ms. Peebles.” The chief's voice, amplified by a megaphone, carried easily all the way from the parking lot. “Drop the gun and put your hands in the air. I repeat—”

Callie turned and sprinted for her truck, but she tripped again and went sprawling. The gun went off and the front left tire of her truck began rapidly deflating. Vern ran out and grabbed something lying on the asphalt—Callie's gun. Then Sammy and the chief appeared. Sammy pulled out an evidence bag for the gun. Vern handcuffed Callie. Then he and the chief helped her to her feet and began escorting her to the station entrance. Or maybe dragging would have been a more apt term. Callie's ability to walk or even stand unsupported appeared to be disappearing.

“Wow,” Kayla said. “I wonder if my mom will still let me stay at the front desk after this.”

“Probably not,” I said. “Do you really want to be at the front desk?”

“Not really,” she said. “Never thought I'd say this, but I can't wait to be back in the file room.”

“Why doesn't the chief call in a few volunteers, the way he usually does when they get swamped?” I asked.

“He did, but they all went out to round up Merle Shiffley's pigs.”

I pulled out my phone and speed-dialed Mother.

“Mother,” I said, when we'd finished with the usual amenities. “We just had a shooting incident down at the police station. No one's hurt, and I wasn't even close to it, but I wanted you to be the first to hear that I'm fine.”

“Oh, dear! What happened?”

I told her, as succinctly as possible, but with enough detail that she could make it a truly spellbinding story when she hit the grapevine with it—as I knew she would about two seconds after we hung up.

“So with all this gunplay going on, I'm not sure the chief is going to want Kayla Butler minding the desk,” I said in wrapping up. “Which she's been doing to help out, because the murder investigation has them short staffed. Any chance you could call around and recruit a couple of people to help out here? Preferably people not qualified to take part in the pig roundup.”

“Of course, dear.”

“The shooting incident won't be a deterrent?”

“Hmm, yes. They might be miffed to be invited after everything's all over. I'll find a way to suggest that there could be more excitement in the offing.”

With that she signed off.

Kayla was watching the monitors, one of which showed the reception area where Sammy, Vern, and the chief were standing in a circle around Callie. She was handcuffed to an orange plastic chair and had fallen asleep—or passed out.

“Thanks,” Kayla said. “Should I tell the chief about the volunteers?”

“Yes,” I said. “Why don't they take her back to a cell and let her sleep it off?”

“They have to search her first,” Kayla said. “And for that they need a female officer, which means either Mom or Deputy Riddle, because Deputy Crowder is off on maternity leave.”

I made a mental note that Kayla might be an excellent source to cultivate if I was curious about what was going on down at the police station.

“So I guess they'll keep her there, clearly visible in the security cameras, until one of the female deputies arrives,” I said.

“Yeah.” Kayla nodded. “Oh, here comes your cousin Horace. He seems in a hurry.”

“They're probably going to have him test the gun,” I said. “Fire some bullets and do a comparison with the ones that killed Shep Henson.”

“Uh-huh.” Kayla looked thoughtful. “Do you think she killed Mr. Henson?”

“No idea,” I said, shaking my head.

“Mr. Henson wasn't such a bad guy,” she said. “He was a rotten umpire, but I think that was Mr. Brown's fault. I remember sometime a year or two ago we were going home from one of my cousin Melvin's games, and he couldn't find his bat, and I said I'd go back to the dugout to look for it, and when I got close I could hear Mr. Brown really yelling at someone.”

“Mr. Henson?”

“Yeah.” She shook her head. “He was just laying into him—you wouldn't treat a dog like that. I figured out pretty fast what the problem was—Melvin's team had won the game six to five—should have been more like twenty or thirty to five, but even with Mr. Henson making a whole lot of really bogus calls in the Yankees' favor, we beat them. Mr. Brown was really put out. And then she came along and stuck up for Mr. Henson.” She nodded at the monitor. “She was really mad at him. Mr. Brown, I mean. If it was Mr. Brown who got murdered instead of Mr. Henson, she'd be my prime suspect. But I don't think she'd kill her husband. She's kind of loud, but she seems nice enough.”

Only he was her ex-husband now, I thought, as I went out the side door to avoid encountering Callie again. And Kayla probably had no idea what the breakup of a marriage could sometimes do to even the nicest of people.

At least a bad breakup could. But had Callie and Shep had a bad breakup? Surely if they had, she wouldn't be expecting to collect his insurance money?

And even if Biff was the intended victim, that didn't eliminate Callie as a suspect. Shep was at the ball field, where anyone who knew Biff would have predicted he'd be on the night before Opening Day. And while Callie, of all people, should be able to tell them apart if anyone could, the resemblance was uncanny, and who knew what a congenial night down at the Clay Pigeon might have done to her powers of perception?

Well, she was in custody now, and after her performance in the parking lot, the chief would be looking pretty closely at her.

When I got back to the Behemoth I decided to make one more call before heading home to enjoy whatever festivities Mother and Michael had arranged. Randall answered on the first ring.

“Meg! Just the person I need to talk to,” Randall said. “I have a bit of good news.”

“That's nice.” I braced myself, because all too often Randall's bits of good news involved massive amounts of work for me.

 

Chapter 16

“I just talked to the chief a few minutes ago,” Randall said. “He's releasing the field, and Jim's authorizing us to do a bit of maintenance on it tonight.”

“Jim?”

“Jim Witherington.” Evidently Randall had made progress ingratiating himself with the Summerball bigwig.

“That's great,” I said. “Listen, I have a new theory—what if Biff is having cash flow problems?”

“He very well could be,” Randall said. “But I'm not sure how that fits into the case. Killing Shep wouldn't help his cash flow problems—unless Shep had some insurance and Biff is the beneficiary.”

“Shep did, and Biff is,” I said. “Facts I'm sure the chief will take into account in his investigation of the murder. But forget the murder for a minute—I've been working on how to get the town square renovation project moving. What if Biff hasn't started because he has no cash and his credit's in the toilet and he can't get the materials?”