Murder by Serpents (Five Star First Edition Mystery) (19 page)

Ashen and shivering, Sheila gradually worked her way to her feet. “Thanks for coming. We had a bit of a scuffle when I tried to get the cuffs on him. He resisted arrest.”

Tony thought that she had a gift for masterful understatement. Her breathing seemed shallow. The glassy expression in her eyes warned him that she was hurt, but he didn't see more than superficial scratches.

“Criminy fire, Sheila,” said Wade. He knelt by the old woman's still body, checking her pulse. Blood seeped from a terrible gash on her left temple only to be washed away by the rain. “What's been going on here?”

Tony asked Rex to send the ambulance. He lifted an inquiring brow in Sheila's direction.

“I'm fine.” Sheila answered the unspoken question. “I'm not sure what happened to her. She's been unconscious since I arrived, but breathing on her own. That's been . . .” she scraped mud from the face of her watch. It took her three tries before she could see the numbers. “M-maybe fifteen minutes. How can that be?” Sheila looked at her trembling fingers like they belonged to someone else. “I woke up on the ground. Could I have been unconscious?”

She pushed her tangled hair away from her face, leaving a smudge of mud on her cheek. The movement made her wince. Looking down, she seemed to notice a frayed hole in her chocolate-brown uniform shirt just below her badge. She started to examine it with her index finger when her face lost the last vestiges of color and she swayed. She seemed unable to pull her gaze from the dark hole.

“That ought to have killed you, you bitch.” The enraged, but stupid, drug dealer watched her examine the hole as he struggled to his knees. He spat a mouthful of mud in her direction. He missed.

The realization that she had been shot hit Tony and Wade at the same time. Tony leaped to Sheila's side.

Wade apparently misjudged the distance and accidentally tripped over Sammy, knocking the man face down into the mud. He reached down and pulled Sammy up to his knees before accidentally tripping over him again. Several times.

“Let me see.” Tony pushed Sheila's hands out of the way and gently unbuttoned her shirt, checking for injuries. There was no blood, but the hole went almost all the way through the protective vest. The bullet rested on the plate over her heart. “Thank goodness you have this on.” He thumped the vest. “Can I loosen it?” At her nod, he worked the straps that held it close to her body.

Wade went back to Nellie Pearl's side and draped first his jacket and then Tony's over her. She didn't move. He ran down the hill and came back with a pair of blankets from the trunk of his patrol car.

“How is she?” Sheila craned her neck to see around Tony.

“The bleeding's about stopped, but she doesn't seem to be conscious at all.” Wade stood and looked toward town. “The ambulance is almost here. I can see the lights.” With his flashlight, he signaled the paramedics and ran back down the hill to help them with their equipment. He slipped and swore the whole way.

Watching Wade, Sheila started to laugh, but the sound turned into a strangled sob. “Are you sure the bullet didn't go through?” She wrapped her arms across her chest and dug her fingers into her upper arms. Tears seeped from under her closed eyelids, washing narrow tracks through the mud. “I never hurt so bad.”

Tony picked Sheila up and moved her away from Nellie Pearl. He propped her against a young oak tree and forced her to sit. The paramedics were going to need a lot more space to work on the old woman.

Tony worried about Sheila. A glance revealed that her pistol was in its holster. Sheila seemed to be having trouble breathing, and the color still had not returned to her face. Tony thought that the force of the bullet hitting her at close range had to have at least bruised her ribs, if not broken one.

The paramedics needed to check her out, but for the moment they were both concentrating on the old woman. Following their instructions, Wade stood behind them, providing temporary shelter with a blanket.

Tony could see no sign of a gun or drugs. “What did he shoot you with?”

“He dropped it.” Sheila gasped and tipped her head indicating uphill. “In that hole, along with whatever he had stashed there.”

Following her directions, Tony walked up and then down. “I don't see a hole. How far up?” The ground had been churned into a quagmire of mud, twigs and leaves. Any footprints or a trail had been obliterated.

Squinting through the rain, Sheila looked confused. “It shouldn't be that far. Maybe take a step to your right. There. You should be right in front of it.”

Tony looked down. A rivulet of liquid mud slipped past his feet and eddied in an indentation before sliding on down the hill, acquiring more leaves and twigs as it went along.

“Do you suppose this puddle was a hole a few minutes ago?” He didn't wait for an answer but poked a stick into the water, measuring its depth. “It's definitely a hole.” Rolling up his sleeves first, he pulled on a pair of gloves. The only way to reach the bottom of the hole was to kneel in the muck and stick his hand in. Within seconds, every part of him but his back was coated with mud. It was impossible to get any wetter. He turned his head and grinned at Sheila. “Theo's going to have a fit.”

Sheila started to laugh but pain stopped her and she gasped and pressed her hand to her chest. “Because of the muddy laundry or the shooting? I've always wondered if you have to wear your vest in the shower?”

Tony knew that it was not exactly a secret to anyone in the department that Theo was paranoid about officers being shot. His insistence that his officers wear their vests had nothing to do with his wife. It was just the smart thing to do.

“Oh, hell, I forgot about the shooting. I might as well not go home tonight. Theo is bound to be on a rampage.” His eyes met hers. Seeing her eyes twinkle and some color return to her cheeks, he relaxed. “You think your mama would let me sleep on her couch? Mine won't. She's even worse than Theo.”

“Oh, God, no! Don't tell my mother.” Sheila whispered as much to the paramedic who had left Nellie Pearl's side and begun examining her as to Tony. She tried to smile. “Maybe we could both stay with Wade.”

Tony thought that the expression on his deputy's face was not encouraging. Wade didn't appear to have any sense of humor left. In fact, he looked as if he would strangle both of them if he wasn't so busy. He kept checking the paramedics who were hard at work on Nellie Pearl and Sheila, but he concentrated his attention on Sammy. Every time Sammy lifted his sorry head, Wade shoved his face back down.

Kneeling in the mud, Tony's search paid off. He pulled a Smith and Wesson .38 Special from the hole. The next treasure he examined looked like a kid's lunch box. The old-fashioned kind. It was a red plastic rectangle with a simple latch. The picture was too faded to identify. The last thing he pulled out was the remainder of a thick brown envelope. Waterlogged, the flap dangled uselessly. He stacked all of the items together.

“Wade, take that piece of garbage down and put him in the Blazer. When you come back, bring me a cardboard box. I want to get this stuff out of the rain.” Tony pulled a soggy roll of antacids from his pocket and chewed on the driest ones. As soon as Wade was on his way, leading their prisoner down the hill, Tony kept Sammy's back squarely in the rifle sights. He watched until Wade locked Sammy in the Blazer without incident, before turning back to Sheila. “How are you feeling now?”

“I'm fine, Sheriff. I feel like a mule kicked me in the chest but I can still do my job.” She started smoothing her hair into a braid and stopped when she noticed that her hands were filled with mud and twigs. At least she had stopped shaking. “Before I go back to work, I would like a shower, though, a very long, very hot shower.”

“Not so fast.” He frowned. “After you see the doctor, you can have your shower. After your shower I need a fully detailed, written report on everything that happened up here. After that, you clean every speck of mud out of your handgun.” Taking her elbow, he led her down to the cars, almost carrying her. He doubted that she realized the extent of her injuries. “Have Rex get you a new radio.”

Sheila glanced back at the broken pieces of her radio, scattered on the ground. When she looked up at Tony again, she seemed resigned.

“But before you come in to work, you bring me a note from Doc Nash saying that you are fit, mentally and physically, or I'll put you behind a desk until you retire.”

Even with the women packed together like sardines, Theo's shop couldn't hold everyone.

The deluge prevented some of the women from going home. Others arrived, drawn to the shop any time the weather turned bad. Women fought for workspace around the charity quilt. The ones who weren't quilting sat around socializing. A few were even buying fabric.

Jane told Theo that she'd lost count of the number of times she started another pot of coffee.

The crowd became so overwhelming that Theo abandoned her design project to help behind the counter. A mountain of bolts needed to be returned to the shelves. Theo grabbed three off the top. As she prepared to put them away, Prudence Sligar arrived. Theo couldn't believe her eyes. The stately hair stylist who dabbled in fortune telling was not a quilter. Normally a confident woman, the champion arm wrestler, owner of a small business and soon-to-be the bride of Deputy Darren Holt, she looked exceptionally ill at ease.

“Are you taking up quilting, Prudence?” Theo stopped directly in front of her.

Prudence's gaze bounced away from Theo and traveled over the multitude of fabrics and colors in the room. Almost involuntarily, one hand reached to caress the fabrics. “I would like to. I went over to the quilt show in Pigeon Forge and thought they were all so lovely.” Her hand released the fabric and moved to her belly. The bulge of her latest pregnancy was noticeable. “Maybe I could make a quilt for the baby, but that's not why I wanted to talk to you.” Placing her hands on the cutting table, she leaned closer to Theo, giving them a semblance of privacy.

“What's wrong, Prudence? Did you ‘see’ something?” Theo knew that sometimes the fortuneteller hit the mark. Prudence's grandmother had been a “wise woman,” and she hoped to carry on the tradition.

“No. Darren called to tell me that Sheila got shot today. Luckily, she had on her vest. I guess it saved her life.” She didn't seem to notice Theo's expression. “I was wondering how you deal with that fear, because I'm here to tell you that it about made me pass out cold when he told me about it.”

The bubble of air that Theo sucked into her lungs threatened to choke her. She could feel the blood leaving her head. “Sheila was shot? When?”

Prudence's shoulders lifted and lowered. “It must have been early, ’cause when Darren called to tell me that he couldn't meet me for lunch, it was already all over with. He spent the morning tied up with the flooding down at the crossroads and didn't have too many details. Didn't your husband tell you about it?”

“Not yet.” Clearly, Sheila was fine so Theo forced herself to breathe. “I'm sure that I'll get the details from him tonight.”

Prudence twisted her engagement ring around and around on her finger. “Maybe it would be better if we didn't get married. Is the fear just too much?” Tears filled Prudence's too-green-to-be-natural eyes.

“Sometimes, but not usually.” Theo placed the bolt of fabric back on the counter. “The memory of the day Tony got shot comes back to me sometimes and almost takes me down. You have to remember, though, that I would worry about him no matter what his job was. I'm a worrier and I'm really good at it. Carpenters get hurt too, you know.” Talking about this to Prudence seemed to be clarifying it in her own mind. “The other half of the truth is that Tony is a lawman. It truly is such a part of his nature that he would be a different man without it.” She patted the taller woman's shoulder. “If you don't marry Darren, will you stop worrying about him?”

“No.” Prudence answered immediately.

“Then, there's your answer.” A burst of laughter from the back room drew her attention. A couple of the women teased Jane about her new hair color and social life. “I think that new hair color you gave Jane is quite becoming.”

Prudence smiled. “Is she seeing very much of Red?”

“I think that they are just friends, nothing serious.” Theo didn't like the expression on Prudence's face. Jane was not only her mother-in-law, but Theo loved her like the mother she had never known. “Why? Is there a problem with that?”

Prudence lowered her voice so that only Theo could hear. “You know that I am not fond of gossip, but I think that you should know that he drinks, maybe a lot.” She examined the papers that Theo had been holding. “Mystery Quilt, Clue Three. What's that mean?”

After a quick glance in Jane's direction,Theo asked. “Why do you think he drinks? Is he intoxicated when he gets his hair cut?”

“No, although sometimes I'm not too sure. We were in Knoxville a few weeks back and stopped at the liquor store out near the mall.” Her voice lowered more. “It looked like he loaded at least a case of vodka into his car. He might have bought more than that. I don't think that he saw us.”

“Well, you were there and we stop there just about every time we go to Knoxville. Their selection of wine is good and the prices are fair.” Theo shrugged. “As long as the sale of alcohol in this county is limited to beer and wine, I think you'll continue to see everyone you know up there. As far as Red is concerned, Jane says that he is nice but that he has his own set of problems. Maybe she already knows about the drinking, but thank you for the warning.” Just then, seeing her mother-in-law's approach, she changed the subject.

“You asked how to make a mystery quilt. It's quite simple as long as you follow the instructions in order.” Theo handed Prudence a copy of clue one. “See, it tells you how much of what colors you need. The subsequent clues give you cutting and sewing information.”

“But what will it look like when it's all sewn together? There's no picture.” She turned the paper over to look at the back. Nothing.