Barbara Graham - Quilted 05 - Murder by Sunlight (21 page)

Although they discussed it briefly, Tony and Wade couldn’t shove everything back inside the mailbox and lock it again and pretend they’d never seen it.

“You’re going to have to fingerprint the envelopes before we open them. Front and back.”

Wade nodded. “It will take me a while to dust, photograph, lift the prints, and label each of them.”

“It takes as long as it takes.” Tony knew the job would be tedious but the county had paid for Wade to take the course of specialized training so he would be able to do it, and do it correctly. “If you don’t have enough of some supplies, I’ll bet we can borrow from our friends.”

At least they were saved from having to dig through all of Candy’s belongings looking for her records. She had left a cheap spiral notebook under the stack of envelopes inside the mailbox, along with a pen with a bright green feather on its cap.

They made a quick check through the house to make sure it was undisturbed, and Tony placed fresh seals on the door when they left. “I’ll bet you’re as anxious as I am to spend the day in there.” Hot and rancid were the words he’d use to describe it.

Wade wiped a line of perspiration from his cheek. “I’m thinking we’re lucky the TBI got rid of the rotten meat for us.”

“That’s right.” Tony felt a rush of relief. The house still reeked, but at least the worst offender had been removed from the kitchen. The air did smell better. “Okay, tell me, Wade,” Tony popped a handful of antacids into his mouth and chewed slowly, meditatively. He felt a bit like a cow chewing its cud. “If the killer took the key from Candy’s neck, why not use it? Collect some free money and destroy some of the evidence?”

“Maybe she wasn’t wearing it. Or,” Wade mulled the problem for a moment. “Maybe whoever killed her knew nothing about her blackmailing business.”

“Oh, good. Now we can add everyone else in the county to our list of suspects.”

Tony needed to talk to the neighbors again. But how could he bring up the people making deliveries to Candy’s mailbox without suggesting the idea? “I’m going to check Alvin’s garden before we go next door. Might as well be watering while we work.”

Tony stood on one of the tidy paths through Alvin’s garden and slowly turned, looking up and down, searching. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for—inspiration maybe—before they turned the water on and talked to the neighbors. He focused on the house next door. The house where the Pingel baby had reportedly died.

It reminded Tony of how little he had liked the baby’s grandfather. If hunches were admissible in court, he’d have arrested the man on two charges, murder and false testimony. Tony had no evidence, no facts, but deep in his gut, he knew the lies told about Candy had scarred her and made people either shy away from her or condemn her.

The house wasn’t close, not really, and it was separated from the Tibbles property by some mature trees. What caught his eye was movement behind a second-floor window. “If I can see you, you can see me.” He spoke out loud.

“What’s that, Sheriff?” Wade’s head popped through an opening in the vegetation.

“I was just thinking. We might want to have another chat with the family next door.”

“You think they lied?”

“I think they have a ringside seat to the most popular of all spectator sports,” Tony said.

Wade grinned. “Watching the neighbors?”

“Exactly.” Tony continued his survey. “Let’s go over now. I can see someone’s at home.” As he walked past, he turned on the faucet, sending a spray of hot water into the air. The plants, drooping in the afternoon heat, would be happier soon. “Don’t let me forget to turn this off when we leave.”

“Should I go with you or go work on my fingerprints?”

“Come with me. This shouldn’t take long.”

“I know what it’s like,” Tony used his most soothing and sympathetic voice. “You’re up all hours. Day and night get confused. The baby is only calm if you keep moving, so you stand in front of a window and sway back and forth.” Tony watched Etta Vanderbilt’s expression.

The young mother looked surprised. Tears rose in her eyes. “Yes, that’s it exactly. I guess I thought ours was the only baby keeping a parent on the move.”

“Not even close.” Tony gave her a reassuring smile. “Just tell us. What did you see as you wandered from window to window? Don’t try to sort it out or make sense of it.”

Etta sighed and met his gaze. “One night is like all the others. I don’t know what day of the week it is, or was.”

“That’s fine.” Tony waited.

“We didn’t lie.” The tears—Tony guessed most likely from fatigue rather than sorrow—slid silently down her face. “We did
not
like Candy. She played loud music, sometimes all night long. There were men coming and going. The cul-de-sac should be quiet, but cars came past at all hours, pulling into her driveway, stopping by her mailbox.”

“She was interesting to watch.” Wade suggested.

“Better than the soaps.” With a gasp, Etta’s tears turned to laughter. “Paul, my husband, and I are quiet people. We work, have a meal, play with the baby, watch a little television, off to bed. We grew up in homes like ours, and I guess we thought that was the way everyone lived. Being next door to Candy was amazing because of the contrasts between our worlds.”

Tony nodded, listening carefully for what she did not say as much as for what she did say.

“One night, the baby and I were doing exactly what you described. I was walking around in the dark, trying to get her to fall asleep. I saw headlights up on the old road on the ridge that runs behind our house and Candy’s. The vehicle was stopped. That’s normal.” She suddenly laughed, humor dissolving some of her fatigue. “I see a lot of cars up there on the ridge from early morning to late night, but they usually have the headlights turned off.”

Tony smiled. He thought he might have parked up there a couple of times himself, when he was in high school. “Which direction were these lights facing?”

“That was the weird part. The driver must have parked at a right angle, you know, facing Candy’s backyard directly, so the lights shone right at her house.” She paused. “And then I thought I saw a shadow moving down the hill, like someone was using the headlights to see where they were going.”

“You didn’t call to report it?” Tony knew the answer before she opened her mouth.

“Sheriff, if I called your office to file a report every time some person was parking on the ridge or visiting Candy in the middle of the night, you’d need a much bigger department.”

“You’re right, of course.” Tony found himself reminded, though, of the recent seemingly random attacks on the citizens of the county. Was someone ignoring what they saw because they didn’t want to bother him or his staff? He hoped not.

As soon as Tony and Wade returned to the Law Enforcement Center, Wade carried the mail to his fingerprinting cubicle and began the process of checking the exterior of each envelope. Front and back.

Tony called out, “Ruth Ann, I need you to make notes as we go along.”

Arriving in the room, she whistled at the stack of envelopes. “Candy was a real cottage industry.”

Tony placed Candy’s notebook on the top of the stack. “First thing. Let’s see if anyone besides Candy has been reading this.”

Wade removed his fiberglass latent-print brush from its protective tube and poured a small amount of black print powder onto a clean sheet of paper. He picked a little powder up with a brush and swept it across the front of the notebook, side to side and top to bottom. A couple of smudges appeared. He photographed them. Then he made a note on the lifter he was preparing. “Because it’s paper, I have to use special lifters.”

Ruth Ann looked over his shoulder, studying the small hinged item designed to lift and protect a fingerprint permanently between thin plastic pages. The hinge on the lifter was like a paper tape, where the date and case number could be written on it. “Look at all the different sizes you have.”

Tony heard the sound of the cash register ringing in his head. “Use what you feel you have to, but . . .” His words ground to a halt.

Wade grinned. “Money still not growing on trees in Park County, is it? We could use the TBI resources.”

“That’s true, but I’m not prepared to wait in line for this information. Carry on.”

Quickly but carefully, Wade finished processing the front of the notebook, the back, the inside covers, and the most recent page used. Then he lined up his lifters, and using a magnifier, studied each in turn. “I’m only looking for something not consistent with the others.” Wade looked up. “Whether it’s Candy’s or not, I’m not prepared to say, but whoever handled this was the only person leaving fingerprints on it.”

“Okay, that’s a start.” Tony pointed to the stack of envelopes.

Wade finished both sides of the first envelope, made his notes, and passed it to Tony.

Tony took the envelope in his gloved hands and slit the top open. Pushing the slit wider with tweezers he saw cash. Not unexpected. “Do you want to fingerprint the money too?”

Wade hesitated. “We’re possibly going to get lots of matches to the mail carrier on the ones with stamps. But, so many people touch money and . . .”

“Just do the envelopes, front and back,” Tony said. “We’ll just hope it’s not the wrong decision.”

“You know, if the mailman killed her, his fingerprints will be on the envelope.” Wade’s perfect teeth flashed in his handsome face. “I’m just saying.”

“I think I saw that movie too.” Ruth Ann shifted on her chair.

Wade pointed to the stack of envelopes. “Ah, but most of these were hand delivered. No stamps.”

“Open a few, and let’s see if something inspires us.” Tony absently wondered if Candy had moved on to committing a federal crime. If she had, he could hand the case and all the evidence over to someone else. A man could dream.

“These have different amounts of cash. Fifty, a hundred, two hundred, and three hundred.” Wade carefully dusted each envelope, and Tony divided them into categories according to the amount of money inside.

“Red Dog, Blue Cow,” Tony studied the envelopes. “It’s like some weird spy game.”

“Some envelopes don’t have names on them.” Wade continued his work.

Ruth Ann said, “Do one of those next. I’m dying to know what’s inside. Not even a really stupid person would pay blackmail and not make sure they got credit for it, would they?”

Tony felt his eyebrows lift. “Never overestimate the lack of brains or sense in this world. After recently having someone die ‘surfing’ on a pickup, I’m thinking the sky’s the limit on idiocy.”

Wade handed Tony another envelope to open. Nothing was written on the outside of it.

“This one has the donor’s code name paper clipped to the cash.” Tony handed it back. “You’ll want to do the note.”

One envelope held the expected cash and a note. This one was pretty straightforward and echoed Tony’s opinion. “I’m paying you, but I’m not playing your dumb spy game.” It was signed, “Claude Marmot.”

Claude Marmot was the closest thing to an expert on Candy’s blackmail that they knew about. Tony and Wade decided to talk to him away from the crime scene and prying neighbors. Out at the dump, Claude was busy welding a roundish car shell onto motorcycle bits.

Tony saw no way it would work, but Claude had transformed an old Crown Victoria into a serviceable pickup; why not attach a cover to a two wheeler?

“Sheriff? Wade? I’ll be with you in a minute. Why don’t you two take a load off?” Claude smiled and waved them to the former rear seat of some vehicle now arranged in the shade near his project. He waited until they were settled before continuing his welding.

Tony watched Marmot-the-Varmint work. His hands were small for the size of his arms and obviously possessed great tensile strength. He squeezed the parts together with one hand while manipulating a drill with the other. Before releasing it, he slipped a bolt through the holes and finished with a flourish. Then he stepped back with a wide grin lighting his face. “Awesome.”

Tony cleared his throat. “We’d like your help.”

“No kidding.” Claude wiped his hand on his jeans. “It’s about Candy, I’ll bet.”

“It is.” Tony glanced at the ground and up again, considering his next question. “When you dropped off your payment for Candy, did you always place it in the box?”

“Yep.”

“Did you ever see anyone else placing money in the box?” Tony leaned back on the seat. “Or did you have any knowledge of others who were making payments?”

Claude looked uncomfortable. “I might have some ideas but nothing you’d call proof.”

“People you saw there?”

“No. I never saw nobody.” Claude crossed his arms over his chest. “I wasn’t the only man in Candy’s life back then. I’ll reckon she never lacked for dates, even with married men.”

“She was just a girl.” Wade frowned. “Sixteen.”

“That’s so. She didn’t act like a girl. Don’t forget, I was a lot younger in them days too.” Claude frowned and rubbed the stubble on his face. “I’m not sure I was shaving yet and I’m not sayin’ it was right. I’m just sayin’ that’s the way I recall it.”

“I’ve got a complaint from a Mr. O’Hara about the aroma of the pig farm next to them.” Rex’s voice carried through the telephone, speaking loud enough so everyone in the office could hear him.

Tony thought Rex sounded like he was ready to laugh out loud. “And what do
you
know about this situation that is so amusing?”

“The pig farm in question has been in its current location for at least twenty-five years. The new property developers planted a living fence of poplar trees to disguise the situation.” Rex continued, “I live a couple of miles away and am usually upwind of the pigs unless the weather is changing. Believe me, a few trees do not create a good disguise.”

Ruth Ann giggled. “Why would anyone think a few trees are going to eliminate the aroma of pig poop during the heat of the season?”

Tony would have been amused himself if he thought that the argument between the pig farmer and the property owners would be settled in a peaceable manner. “Is this a new situation?”