Patrick Fitzpatrick had the unique ability to be bone-idle even though it appeared as if he worked all the time. All day at the gas station he chewed the fat with the old men who hung out there, gossiped with the customers who came in, and joked around with the mechanic who was working on the cars. He flirted with every female within sight, no matter what age, and if business was slow, he would hang out at the Dairy Chef, where he could keep an eye on the station while gossiping, flirting, and keeping their staff from working. All evening he leaned on the bar at the Rose and Thorn, polishing glasses and serving drinks while chatting and flirting with the crowd there.
Scott followed Patrick into the bar, which was full of ski tourists and students from the college as well as a few locals. Booths lined one wall of the long, narrow space, with the bar area opposite, and there were round pub tables in the middle and front. A few musicians or a small band sometimes performed on a small raised stage area at the back, usually Celtic or Bluegrass music, because anything Irish (or influenced by the Irish) was Patrick’s passion. If customers wanted food it was pizza delivered from PJ’s across the street, but Guinness and Harp were always on tap, and bottles of Bushmills, Jameson, and Locke’s Irish whiskey stood proudly on the top shelf behind the bar.
Mandy was waiting tables, and the owner’s wife, Delia, a tall, slender brunette of more mature years, was tending bar. The owner and former police chief, Ian Fitzpatrick, a stout, balding man in his late sixties, was entertaining some tourists at one end of the bar, using a thick Irish brogue he claimed gave the place “atmosphere.” It was so warm and humid in the bar that the front windows were fogged, and it smelled like damp winter coats, cigarettes, and beer.
Scott ordered a soft drink and sat at the opposite end of the bar from where Ian was, so he could speak privately to Patrick.
“I know what you’re going to ask me,” Patrick said before Scott could begin. “Theo was in here for a while on Saturday afternoon, before Ian kicked him out. He was outside with Willy around midnight, giving me grief, and then in here without him just before we closed, around 1:15. He was plastered, trying to buy a bottle of whiskey, which I refused to sell to him, and that’s the last I saw of him. Mandy was working, you can ask her.”
“You didn’t see him after you closed?” Scott asked him.
“No,” Patrick said pointedly, “and I didn’t kill him either, no matter how much he deserved to die. The last time I tried to kill Theo was twenty years ago, and you were there. It was after he bent your snout and almost drowned my little brother.”
“How do you walk home from here?”
“I walk Mandy home to the trailer park, and then I go down Marigold.”
“Did you notice anything odd that night, on your way home?”
Patrick shook his head and said, “The fog was so heavy you couldn’t see much of anything.”
“Anybody fight with Theo while he was here?”
“No more than usual.”
“Anyone leave right after him, follow him out?”
“Not that I noticed.”
“If you see Willy Neff will you let me know?”
“If I see little Willy Nilly, I’ll put a coffee cup down over top of him and call you to come get him.”
Patrick went down to the other end of the bar to wait on some customers. Mandy greeted Scott as she came up to the bar to put in an order.
“How’re you? How’s Tommy?” Scott asked her.
Mandy’s son Tommy was the paper carrier who worked for Ed.
“Oh, we’re just fine,” Mandy said, in her Chattanooga twang.
“You’re keeping busy, looks like.”
“It’s about to wear me out, but the money’s good. These city people know how to tip a waitress. They could teach these here losers a thing or two.”
She gestured to the local men sitting at the bar, but they ignored her. She confirmed Patrick’s version of events the night Theo was murdered.
“Did you see Ed in here Saturday night?”
“Ed’s in here most nights,” Mandy said. “He comes in about eight, and leaves about ten. It takes him two hours to drink two beers, and he gives me a two-dollar tip. He’s a nice guy, though, and never gives me any trouble, unlike some people.”
She looked pointedly at the men she had just accused of being stingy tippers.
“Did Theo ever give you any trouble outside of this place?”
“Naw. He knew Patrick would skin his hide if he did.”
Scott thanked Mandy and she went back to work.
Patrick came back to Scott’s end of the bar and said, “Ian wants a word.”
Scott took his soft drink and file folder down to the other end of the bar to sit next to Ian.
“You’ve only been chief for three weeks and you already have a murder on your hands,” Ian said. “Looks like I got out just in time.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“How’s the investigation going?”
“It’s early days yet,” Scott said.
“That county filly taken over?” Ian asked, scowling at Scott.
“Yes,” Scott admitted tiredly. “The sheriff’s office has taken charge of the case.”
“They may ‘officially’ be in charge,” Ian said to him, “but don’t you let those county clowns forget this is your turf. You find out who killed the bastard first, and show ‘em what they’re dealing with.”
“I’ll do my best,” Scott said. “Patrick said Theo was in here Saturday.”
“Aye, he graced us with his presence for a few hours, drinking Maker’s Mark and scrapping with anyone who’d have him. Delia was glad to take his money all afternoon, and I was happy to throw him out when I got here, around 4:30. Patrick said he threw him out as well, around closing time.”
“Anybody seem suspicious to you?”
“Everyone seems suspicious to me. It’s one of the lasting side effects of being a police officer; that and a craving for hot coffee and doughnuts.”
He patted his large, soft belly and winked at Scott.
“Tell me what you think about these.”
Scott handed Ian the copy of the threat card and photo, and the file on Br
ad’s death. Ian put on his half-moon reading glasses, and with a look on his face as if he had suddenly developed indigestion, he grunted at the card with the threatening message and the accompanying photo, and then flipped through the contents of Brad’s file.
“What do you want to know?” he asked.
“Everything,” said Scott.
Ian regarded Scott for a moment from underneath wild, bushy eyebrows.
“I thought Theo killed him,” he said, surprising Scott by agreeing so exactly with the opinion of Scott and his friends. “It may well have been horseplay that got out of hand, with a tragic result, but nothing that could be proved. There was not a mark on him, and his lungs were full of water. The county boys had jurisdiction, and they determined he’d swum across the lake and back, got a cramp and drowned.”
“In shorts, a t-shirt, and tennis shoes,” Scott said, and Ian shrugged.
“Ted Eldridge was a powerful, wealthy man,” Ian said. “Theo was the surviving male heir. How smart would it have been to try to deprive him of the first son on the heels of losing the second, when there was no evidence, and no witnesses?”
“So Theo got away with it.”
“That he did.”
“And this?” Scott gestured to the photocopy of the card with the threat.
“An awful coincidence, that. If the postmark was Rose Hill on Saturday, Margie would have put this in his box Saturday morning. Don’t these cards usually come in an envelope just a little bigger than the card? Where is that?”
“I thought that was weird too,” Scott said. “This came in a nine by twelve envelope with a computer printed label on the front, with just Theo’s address, no return address.”
“You talk to Margie yet?” Ian asked, and Scott shook his head no.
“You’re between a rock and a hard place there,” Ian said. “You need to know if she saw someone drop it off, but asking her means the whole town will know what you’re up to before you get back to your office.”
Sarah was already seated in one of the booths at the diner, drinking coffee and looking irritated. Scott sat and signaled to Pauline that he wanted coffee. When she brought it, Scott asked her where Phyllis was; Pauline’s daughter usually covered this section.
“Her Majesty called in sick,” Pauline said. “So I’m doing her work and mine
, too.”
Grandmother Gladys was running the register, and Pauline’s husband Phil was cooking while grandson Billy, a sulky teenage troublemaker, cleaned tables and washed dishes. Scott decided it would be kinder to wait until things calmed down a bit before questioning the diner staff about Theo’s altercation with Ed.
“What did you find out?” Sarah asked impatiently, and Scott realized he was supposed to have been asking people about the coin.
“Nothing yet,” he said. “Something came up.”
“This town has one stoplight and a hundred people in it. What could happen?” Sarah demanded. “Somebody steal an apple pie out of a kitchen window?”
“There are over five hundred year-round residents in this town, and there’s a college with over eight hundred students in it at the end of this street. Add to that the thousands of tourists we get coming through here who think the laws don’t apply to them because they’re on vacation, and the transient people who work in the resorts but can’t afford to live up there. The police force is me and two deputies, one who only works part-time. I know it doesn’t seem like much to you, but it’s sometimes more than we can handle.”
Sarah put up her hands, saying, “Alright, alright. Don’t get your boxers in a bunch.”
Scott was embarrassed at how easily she got to him, and worse
that he’d let her see it. Sarah was equally patronizing to Pauline, which irked him too. Because nothing that happened in his little town could possibly compare to her experience working in Washington, DC, she never let anyone forget it. Scott ate his patty melt in silence while she briefed him on her interview with Doc Machalvie.
“Evidently Theo had several compressed discs in his back,” she said. “The doctor says he refused to have surgery. The types of painkillers prescribed were strong narcotics, but the doctor can back everything up with medical records and x-rays. None of the drugs were illegal, and the records are consistent with increasing the dosage
s as he became more resistant to the effects of the drugs. The doctor said the multiple kinds of painkillers reflected attempts to try different approaches to pain management when one would fail. He said he was just waiting for the pain to become so great Theo would give in and have surgery. The toxicology report isn’t back yet from the post mortem, but it sounds to me like he was drinking on top of some seriously strong drugs. I wonder about this doctor of his. The pharmacy is owned by his brother.”
“Who is also the mayor,” Scott told her.
Scott had known Doc Machalvie all his life; the man had been his doctor since he was a boy. He didn’t doubt what he had told Sarah. When he told her as much, she rolled her eyes as she looked away, obviously not caring that he saw.
“Paragon of virtue he may be,” Sarah said, “but I still want you to look into it.”
“I’ll do it,” Scott said.
“You need to stop being so naïve,” Sarah said. “Just because you’ve known these people all your life doesn’t mean they aren’t capable of committing crimes.”
“I appreciate the advice,” he said, through clenched teeth.
“You can’t afford to be sentimental in law enforcement. You can’t worry about what anyone thinks of you,” Sarah said. “You’ve got to be willing to arrest your own mother if you have to.”
“I’ll be sure to keep an eye on her,” he said, suppressing a smile at the thought.
“I’d suffocate in a town this small,” she said. “I don’t know how you stand it.”
“Comes with being naïve and sentimental, I guess.”
She surprised him then by saying, “I have two tickets to a political fundraiser next Friday. It may be awfully boring but you could meet some people who might be in a position to help you someday.”
“Help me what?” Scott said.
“Move up, of course,” she said. “You don’t want to stay buried alive in this dump, do you?”
“Not everyone is as ambitious as you, Sarah,” he said. “I’m fine right where I am, thanks anyway.”
Sarah smiled at Scott in a flirtatious manner and said, “We’ll see. You help me solve this case and it will look good for both of us.”
Scott knew better than to count on Sarah sharing any credit. He’d seen her in action before when higher ups were around; it was all about her. Scott couldn’t wait for her to leave, which she soon did, but not before admonishing him to “get on” the coin thing.
Scott called Ian’s wife
, Delia, who collected antiques, and asked her if she knew any coin experts. She told him bank president Knox Rodefeffer dealt in coins, so Scott went to the bank to see him.
Scott asked to see Knox, and then was kept waiting for several minutes in his outer office. During this time Knox’s secretary
, Courtenay, made a point of adjusting her open-necked blouse to better reveal her lacy, push up bra, hiking up her short skirt by crossing and re-crossing her long legs, and suggestively sucking on the end of a pen. All this she coordinated with tosses of her big blonde hair, while pretending to work.