From Newsprint to Footprints: A River's Edge Cozy Mystery (River's Edge Cozy Mysteries Book 1) (23 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

THE DAY AFTER Fred's funeral, Ambrose and Sharon left at five-thirty, so Sharon would be on time for work in Dubuque. I felt somewhat better, maybe because I went to bed determined to be less sad. More normal. Whatever the new normal was. Between that and Mister Tibbs' constant presence, I was working toward an emotional mend.

Memorial Day weekend was only a few days away, and it was eighty-five degrees in the shade. My father always added the shade part when he wanted to say he thought it was too hot.

Ambrose wanted me to come to Dubuque for the weekend. I didn't feel like going to a barbeque with their friends and seeing some newly released movie, but I was more grateful for my brother now than I had been even after our parents' deaths. He might be more than one-hundred-fifty miles away, but wherever he is, Ambrose is by my side.

Car tires scrunched on the gravel in Syl's driveway, and I looked up from where I was planting a bunch of begonia plants near the front steps. The dark green Ford Taurus shouted rental car and not just because it had a rental company sticker on the back window. It was way cleaner than most cars that have been driven on country roads.

The man who got out was the same one who had stopped by previously to see if Syl was home.
Stopped by before Fred was dead
.

He stayed by the car. "Thought Syl might be home when I saw the truck."

I studied him. "Syl's is much better looking."

"Okay, I'll catch him later."

Without so much as a goodbye, the man got back in his car and began backing down the driveway. I thought about calling out to get his name, but if he didn't care to give it, I didn't care to ask. That kind of 'so what' thinking has been my norm since Fred died. I've been trying to care more about everyday things, but I don't.

At least I had the work at Syl's. Sandi was mad at me. She had heard that Doc Shelton asked me to serve as interim editor for a while, but I turned him down. I told her if they needed freelance work to fill in gaps, I'd do it because of her and Ryan.

Before I left for Syl's, Sandi emailed me that Scott Holmes was already at the paper. His handsome thirty-something son drove down to help Holmes move in his personal office chair and a couple of boxes. In spite of her grief, Sandi's email made it sound as if she was less annoyed at me.

At the reception after Fred's funeral, Mrs. Keyser introduced me to a new family practice physician, who also gets her hair done at Marvie Marvel's Beauty Shop. The woman is in an apartment and about to buy a house in town. Mrs. Keyser appears to think she is my booking agent.

I was getting bags of topsoil from the barn when more tires crunched on the driveway. This time it sounded like something heavier than a pick-up. Thinking Syl might have ordered furniture or something, I dusted my hands on my cut-offs and walked to the front yard.

The back end of a white van faced me. It took a minute to realize it was from the TV station in Quincy.
Oh, crud
.

I pasted a smile on my face and walked toward the van. A carefully groomed, slender woman about thirty and an older man in jeans and canvas boat shoes got out.
Let it be a feature story about Californians moving to Iowa.

The woman saw me first, and she must have used the same kind of glue I did to widen a smile. She said something to the man, and he pulled a camera from the sliding door that gave access to the back seat area.

"You're Melanie, right? I'm Candi Spright."

Of course you are
.

"I am. Are you looking for Mr. Seaton?"

"Not really." She nodded her shoulder-length blonde hair, in direct contradiction to herself. "I wondered if we could have a word about the press release the South County Attorney's Office issued this morning?"

That's the last time I leave my mobile phone in the truck.
As a former reporter, I knew she had a job to do and a deadline. My goal was to be as uninteresting as possible. "Gee, I've been out here for several hours. What's up?"

Her face lit up. This was a television reporter's dream. Get the interviewee's first reaction to an event. Preferably one that made them cry if the camera stayed on long enough.

"County Attorney Smith stated that no charges would be filed against you in the death of your former editor, Hal Morris. How does that make you feel?"

Good thing I've played poker
. "Puzzled, I guess. I had no clue that Mr. Smith was considering filing any charges."

Candi looked taken aback, but recovered quickly. "I believe that since you found his body, there was speculation that you might have killed him."

I was beginning to enjoy this. "There was some macabre humor about how he was found, and he did fire me for taking a lot of pictures of flowers. But I never heard any official, what did you call it, speculation about my being a murderer."

Her face turned pink, and her tone sharpened. "Perhaps it didn't reach you."

I knew my face reddened slightly, and I was very aware of my grubby clothes and the whirring camera. "It would be odd that neither my family lawyer nor I heard anything, yet someone in the prosecutor's office was talking to you."

She was definitely irritated, but probably not sure whether to be mad at me or some vague source. "So you did have a lawyer?"

"Most people
have
one, it's a question of whether you use them. Someone other than a local property owner tried to get me accused of trespassing because I hunted for Hal's car." I smiled. "Maybe the fact that no charges about that were filed made your source angry."

Now she had something to latch onto. "Why were you looking for his car?"

"Because it was missing, and I don't like loose ends any more than you do. It simply occurred to me to look in a wooded area not too far from here." As she took a breath to ask another question, I said, "I don't mind showing you where his body was found, but I would really appreciate it if you wouldn't show Mr. Seaton's house on the news. I'm by myself on the property a lot."

The camera operator spoke for the first time. "Already been on."

I nodded. "But not for the last couple of weeks and not with me on camera. There's no home close enough for anyone to hear me, if someone sees your story and decides to visit a woman on a lonely road."

News media hate lawsuits, so I knew that even if she didn't want to agree to keep the house off camera, Candi would tell her producers what I said and let them decide.

The cameraman grunted, "Where's the mulch pile?"

I turned and gestured they should follow me. "Pile's gone. It was removed immediately to look for evidence. You can take some video of the area near it. Flowers make it look peaceful now."

I had wanted something to take the focus off me, and it worked. Candi chatted as we walked. "Did you plant a lot of these flowers?"

"Some. A few were perennials that resurfaced. The property had been vacant for, oh, a year maybe."

We had reached the spot at the end of the driveway, and I pointed. "Not much to see now, but it gives you an idea of how isolated it is." I backed up a few steps.

Another mutter from the cameraman. "You wanna be in the shot?"

"I'm really, really tired of the attention."

"That's Bob, by the way," Candi said. She spent a full minute telling him where to point the camera, which explained Bob's gruff attitude.

When they were done and he had lowered the camera, Bob walked ahead of us toward the van.

"I'd like to ask you a couple more questions," Candi said.

I knew I was getting a version of reporter courtesy, since I'd taken them to the area where I'd found Hal. "I mind, but I know it's your job. Please don't sensationalize my role. From my point of view, I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and I'm still hearing about it."

She nodded, and called to Bob. "Couple more questions."

He put the camera back on his shoulder and trudged toward us.

"Why don't you stand in front of the fence, near those, what are those flowers?"

"Irises. They're perennials, but they bloom later than daffodils and tulips."
Like she cares
.

As we walked, Candi asked, "Are you always here by yourself? Where does the owner, Seaton, isn't it, work?"

"He's working for a Des Moines firm. Sometimes he works at home."

She glanced toward the house. "He must do really well for himself. Do you know what he does?"

We had gotten to the fence, and I turned to face her. I didn't like talking about Syl's business. "Something to do with insurance, I think, but we've never talked about his job."

I stood where Candi directed. After more instructions on how he should aim the camera, Bob filmed as she spoke. "While there does not seem to be much evidence about who killed Mr. Morris, some have speculated that his successor Fred Simmons, who recently committed suicide, may have done so."

I had figured this was coming and had planned my answer with Fred's parents in mind. "You know, Fred would have to come back from the grave and give a positive answer to both of those things before I would believe them. I'm not sure who speculates to you, but I haven't heard anyone say that."

Candi interrupted before I could continue. "I understand that Hal Morris had not only fired Mr. Simmons but also worked to ensure he did not get unemployment compensation."

I spoke seriously. "If you've been talking to people around town, you know Hal fired a lot of people the last two or three years. Advertising revenue has gone down for most papers.

"I'm not suggesting you find out who else he fired besides Fred and me." I smiled. "It's just that Hal was not an easy person to get along with or to be around sometimes. I have to wonder if Hal was also in the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe someone was trying to break into the house here, and Hal saw them."

"But why would he have even been out here?" she asked.

"That's the thing. Who knows if he was killed here? The autopsy report is public information. I read it. It doesn't say where he was killed."

Her tone was one of incredulity. "Killed somewhere else and brought here?"

"Who knows?" Then I remembered Hal's boat. "He would have to go by here sometimes to get to where he kept his fishing boat docked at Fairhaven. It would be an odd time to go there, but who's to say he wasn't going to the marina?"

She stared at me for a couple of seconds, and I looked at Bob. "I can't tell you what to film, but I can give you two some advice."

Candi and Bob looked at each other. She shrugged, and he nodded and took the camera off his shoulder. I noted he didn't turn it off.
Just like Ryan
.

I started walking toward their van. "The thing is, no one knows for sure Hal was killed here, hardly anyone liked the guy, and it's hard to imagine a motive for killing him. What was different in his life right then? If being a one hundred percent jerk was enough of a motive, he'd have been killed years ago."

This time Bob's grunt was half laugh. I noted his finger turned off the camera, and he began loading it into the van.

Candi stopped near the van, and I did, too.

"None of it makes sense," she said.

"Bingo. Hal's murder was the first major crime the
South County News
covered in I'm not sure how long. We've had serious assaults, always among people who knew each other, a couple arsons, always outbuildings. Sheriff Gallagher is good. But none of us have really looked into something like this. You've got an outsider's perspective, maybe you can come up with something. Be a good story."

If I was lucky, Candi would decide to chase at least one of my ludicrous suggestions and leave me alone.

"What was the last big murder?" Bob asked.

"Gee, I don't even know, and I grew up here. I've been through a lot of the paper's archives. Nothing sensational comes to mind." I shrugged. "It's probably been more than thirty years."

Candi frowned and looked at Bob. "Should be something somewhere that says when the last major murder was."

I swallowed. Fred could probably have told them.

I WENT HOME TO get Mister Tibbs, so he didn't sit in the apartment all day. He was now on a lead attached to Syl's back porch, and he barked as Stooper dug a huge hole for the maple tree I had picked out for the back of the house. I'd convinced Syl a tree would cut down on his summer air conditioning bills.

I got tired of the barking and thought it would be safe to have Mister Tibbs off his lead for a while, but he kept trying to get into the hole. When he wouldn't be deterred, I again attached his lead to a tree. He was worn out by then, so he didn't seem to mind. I began to think in terms of doggie obedience school.

In between shovels-f of dirt, which Stooper was throwing onto a piece of the degraded canvas tarp from the barn, I told him about the reporters and their questions.

When I finished, he stopped and wiped his forehead with the back of his arm. "Don't you think Syl will be mad you let 'em on the property?"