Murder Under the Covered Bridge (5 page)

five

Once they got closer
to Rockville and had cell reception again, Francine made a phone call to William's wife, Dolly, and learned that he was at Union Hospital in Clinton. Dolly was distraught and couldn't seem to say anything about William's condition, other than he was in a coma. Francine promised that she would be over soon to visit them.

On the outskirts of Rockville, the women drove past a large, gaudy billboard that read,
Visit Mary Ruth's in Rockville! As seen on Food Network!
The accompanying photo was of the front of Mary Ruth's Fabulous Sweet Shoppe at the festival.

“That's odd,” Francine remarked. “I don't remember seeing that yesterday when we came in.”

“You were driving.”

Two hundred yards later they drove by another sign, this one a temporary wooden placard painted in Mary Ruth Catering pink, set by the side of the road on private property.
Try the corn fritter donuts, as seen on Food Network! Mary Ruth's Fabulous Sweet Shoppe!

That just doesn't sound like Mary Ruth
, Francine thought. She turned her head, continuing to stare in disbelief at the sign as the SUV sped by. On the other hand, she knew the festival was anxious to capitalize on Mary Ruth's notoriety. This would be just the kind of homespun advertising that would appeal to
fair-goers
. Perhaps Mary Ruth had nothing to do with it.

When the Covered Bridge Festival Committee approached Mary Ruth about operating a food booth at the Festival, what sealed the deal was the large home in downtown Rockville that a rich patron offered her as a place to stay and prep food. The patron hated the crowds and went on vacation during the event. Once Mary Ruth saw the mansion and its complete commercial kitchen, she'd agreed to do it. The rest of the Bridge Club had been willing to stay for ten days and pitch in to help get the food ready each day. Jonathan had stayed the night last night just to do the photo shoot in the morning.

The traffic backup got bad the instant they made it into Rockville. “It was a big mistake to come this way,” Joy said. “Francine, can you guide us around the back roads?”

Though she hadn't grow up in the area because they'd moved to Evansville when she was a little girl, Francine had been there often over the years and knew her way around. Joy followed her directions until they hit another backlog. This one wasn't moving.

Joy drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. “At least we're closer than we were.”

“If we're going to help Mary Ruth anytime soon,” Francine observed, “we'll need to hoof it from here. Are you ready, ladies? Charlotte, do you feel up to it?”

“I guess I'll have to be.” Charlotte grabbed her cane and, without hesitation, opened the back seat door.

Francine was glad Jonathan wasn't with them. Charlotte was grumbly but Jonathan would have been worse. He hated lines of any sort, especially traffic. Plus, he'd said to her more than once that the whole concept of the Covered Bridge Festival had been corrupted in favor of the American public's worst indulgences—purchasing junk and eating junk food.

It was hard for her to argue against that as Joy quickly parked and they got out in front of a pork rinds shack, which was next to a
three-booth
display of handmade clothing made exclusively for dressing wooden goose statues parked on geese fanciers' front porches. The three booths were divided into themes like Halloween, Christmas, and sportswear. A sign hanging at the entrance to the shop read,
If your goose is nude, I'm your dude.

The women had to walk two blocks to the Rockville courthouse grounds. Marcy made her apologies but said she needed to go work with another client. This surprised Francine, but when she thought about it, Marcy had never promised to help Mary Ruth. She was only there that morning because of Joy.

Francine had to keep Charlotte on task and prevent her from wandering into shops like the Beef Jerky Emporium, but they made it to the corner of Ohio and Jefferson. Mary Ruth's Fabulous Sweet Shoppe was at the far corner from them. There was a huge line that went all the way up Jefferson Street past a tent full of vendors, but the crowd didn't appear to be purchasing from the vendors. They were in line for something else. Francine and Charlotte went up Ohio and turned on Market Street.

The courthouse square was packed with people. A female duo near the stairs of the courthouse played guitar and sang country-
western songs with a Carrie Underwood feel. Groups with political ties sought to influence voters for the upcoming November election. Tour bus promoters hawked trolley tours of varying lengths covering the most popular of the bridges of Parke County, several “leaving from the square in just ten minutes!”

Despite Jonathan's raw assessment of the festival, Francine loved the sights and smells of the Covered Bridge Festival vendor areas. It was eleven o'clock and she could smell the sweet smoke of the pulled pork vendor tending to his meats, see the steam rising from the huge pots of ham and beans cooked over outdoor wood fires by the local Presbyterian church, and hear the chugging of the popcorn vendor's vat as it turned freshly popped popcorn into kettle corn. But the
pi
è
ce de r
é
sistance
was the heavenly scent of Mary Ruth's latest creation: fried corn fritter donuts with
honey-cinnamon
glaze. Francine discovered her booth was the source of the line that wrapped itself down High Street and along Jefferson.

The pink food truck gleamed in the sunshine. Mary Ruth had “tricked out” her catering truck and made it more functional by replacing the warming equipment with a stove, fryer, and refrigerator. She'd had to lose some of the shelf space, but it needed to become a small, fully functional kitchen. The “booth” part was something the Festival had built for her in front of the door of the truck. It was a small shack that had a large window for handling money and selling the baked goods. The window also had room for a
bakery-style
display case of Mary Ruth's offerings: the corn fritter donuts, gooey iced cinnamon rolls, five kinds of cookies, three types of scones, and her signature flourless chocolate cake.

Alice was heating up cinnamon rolls and icing them, Mary Ruth was frying the corn fritters to order and glazing them before handing them up to Toby, who was their front man, collecting the cash and distributing the product.

“It's funny to see people's reactions when Toby hands them their food,” Charlotte said. “There's this hesitation, like, ‘Do I want to eat something from this big,
rough-looking
tattooed guy?' but then they can't resist and gobble it right up.”

“It helped that Mary Ruth made him clean up that neck beard. He's starting to look handsome, especially when he's not wearing all the piercings.”

Toby spotted the women and hailed them with a desperate look in his eyes. “I think you'd better help Grandma. We're so backed up, the crowd is starting to get unruly and it's not even lunchtime yet.”

“I thought we'd decided we weren't going to offer lunchtime food,” Francine said.

“We're not, but that doesn't seem to have had an effect. We may want to start sedating them with samples.”

Charlotte looked doubtful. “That might only create more customers.”

Francine yanked her away. “I don't think he needs to hear that right now,” she said
sotto voce.

Joy snatched a corn fritter donut out of the display case. “We'll get right on it,” she assured him. “I love these things,” she told Francine and Charlotte as she took a bite into it.

They had to go around the long line to enter the truck, but before they got there they heard Marcy. She was standing in front of a tent parked behind Mary Ruth's place. She had changed into the red and
navy-blue
uniform of an
old-fashioned
carnival barker and was calling out in a shrill, high pitched voice, “Get your fortune told by the Great Merlina! Want to know your future? The Great Merlina sees all!”

Joy acted like she was not surprised by this and went in to help Mary Ruth, but Charlotte tugged on Francine's arm and pulled her over. “This is your other client?” Charlotte asked Marcy.

Marcy rolled her eyes. “I agreed to help my niece publicize her
fortune-telling
business.” Then, as if she realized how rolling her eyes had come off, she added, “Not that she's not good. She's really good! She has THE GIFT.”

That sounded ominous
, Francine thought. “How nice,” she said. “It looks like she's got a line so she certainly doesn't need us.”

“Speak for yourself,” Charlotte said. “I want to get my fortune told.” She winked at Marcy. “Can you get me a discounted price?”

“Uh, sure.”

Francine cleared her throat. “Charlotte, I think Mary Ruth might need you more. We need to get going.”

Charlotte jerked her hand back. “Not until after I get my fortune told. What price was that again, Marcy?”

“For you, ten dollars. The Great Merlina usually charges thirty for a
fifteen-minute
reading. Better get in line now or it'll be noon before she can see you.” She gave Charlotte a nudge toward the line, now about five persons deep. “I'll be there in a minute to see you get the discount rate. I need to talk to Francine.”

Charlotte made her way to the end of the line. The shadow of the Great Merlina's tent absorbed her.

“Now that I've got you alone,” Marcy said, “are you looking for any more television appearances? You did a great job back there at the Roseville Bridge, and I think I could get you on a couple of—”

Francine was mad. Last night they'd worked together in the big mansion's kitchen getting food ready for today and she thought she'd been pretty clear about this. “No. I don't want to be on television.”

“Okay, radio, then. I could get you some radio spots.”

“No!”

Marcy exaggerated a sigh, though Francine could tell she had anticipated her response. “Look what happened when I finally succeeded in getting Mary Ruth on
Chopped.
If she hadn't gotten to the dessert round, she would never have created the corn fritter donut.”

“She still didn't win.”

“Winning is relative. Would you look at her line? Mark my words, when the folks at Food Network hear about this, they'll come around to putting her back on the air.”

“I wasn't aware you were still her publicist. I thought you only stayed the night last night because Joy needed you this morning.”

“Okay, I'm not her publicist, at least not in the way you're thinking. But she'll come around too.”

Francine wasn't sure how to answer that. Was Marcy working for Mary Ruth on her own? That was a scary thought.

“You sure you don't want a reading? I promise you she's pretty good. And I'm not just saying that as a publicist or a relative.”

“I don't believe in that stuff.”

“Let me take a look at your palm,” Marcy said, snatching up Francine's hand and flipping it over. “She's taught me a couple of things.”

Francine gave her a skeptical look but let her continue. “Let me guess, I have a short life line.”

Marcy's eyebrows went up, far enough above the dark sunglasses that Francine could see them. “Quite the contrary. It's a very
long
life line. Look at this.” Marcy traced it across Francine's palm.

“Is that long?”

“Compared to most people's, yes. In fact, it's the longest I've seen. Not that I've seen that many. Only since I've been helping out Merlina. I think you should let her read your palm. Or your fortune with Tarot cards.”

“Or maybe we should invite her over for a slumber party and have a séance,” Francine said, and then regretted it immediately.

Marcy brightened. “Great idea! Does someone have that on their bucket list? Because the Great Merlina does séances too.”

“Nope. Bad idea. I was just kidding.” Francine averted her eyes. Alice, in fact, had this on her Sixty List. It was on the low end, somewhere in the forties, but it was there.

“Hmmm. Maybe I'll just have to check that out with Charlotte.”

Francine spotted Toby hustling toward her. “Gotta go, Marcy. Good luck with the Great Merlina.” She scurried off. As she left, Marcy had a big smile on her face.
Nothing good will come of this,
Francine thought. She'd thought that before, too, and had been right. “What is it, Toby?”

“Grandma needs you right away.”

“What's going on?”

“She's nearly out of corn meal, she has zero time to go get some, and everyone's starting to notice we're running out of food.”

“Does she need me to run to the store?”

“Yes, but it may already be too late.”

A great murmuring swept the crowd at that moment, a wave of growing dissatisfaction like the stir of the ocean before it gathered strength and overwhelmed the shore. People began to push and crowd the booth. Fists struck the display case trying to seize whatever Fabulous Sweets were left. Joy gasped and took a step back from the register. Mary Ruth's hands went up in the air in alarm. Alice gripped the cross medallion at her breast.

Francine swallowed hard.

And then a reedy voice from two booths over cried, “Free pork rind samples! Get your free pork rind samples here.” Another nearby vendor yelled, “I've got beef jerky, elk jerky, any kind of jerky you need!”

The crowd's ear perked up.

And then they dispersed to other booths.

Francine exhaled.

And knew she would never look down on pork rind or beef jerky vendors again.

six

Mary Ruth squirreled away
the remaining few cookies, scones, and slices of flourless chocolate cake and closed the booth.

“Whew!” She wiped her forehead, sweeping the damp auburn hair to the side where it tucked naturally behind her ear. “I've never felt so threatened in my life.”

“Second time today for me,” Joy said.

“Oh my gosh, that's right! You said you'd been shot at while you were at the bridge. What happened?”

Joy and Francine filled in Mary Ruth and Alice in while they cleaned up the booth and got it ready for the next day.

“Do you know how your cousin is doing?” Alice asked. She stooped over and picked up loose change that had been dislodged from the cash register tray, holding back a lock of her graying hair so she could see where it had landed.

“I made a call to his wife once we got in cell phone range. I didn't learn much other than he was in a coma.”

“Oh. You'll be wanting to go visit him this afternoon, won't you?” There was a hint of disappointment in Mary Ruth's voice. She
double-checked
that the stove and the fryer were turned off and didn't make eye contact with Francine.

“I'm sorry, but yes, I do need to go as soon as we finish up here. Jonathan should have turned in the horse and buggy and driven here by then.” It was clear Mary Ruth needed her, but William was family and besides, it was the right thing to do.

“I understand, of course,” Mary Ruth said.

Francine knew it was the truth. She wiped down the stainless countertop. “I'll come back as soon as I feel I can leave the hospital. I'll see if I can persuade Jonathan to stay an extra night. That way you'll have both of us to help once we get back. If today is anything like tomorrow, you'll need an extra hand.”

“That would be nice.”

“So what do we do now?” Joy asked. She leaned against the countertop.

“First, we head back to the house, make out a deposit slip, and get that cash in the bank,” Mary Ruth said. “Rule number one of catering: deposit the money. Then we plan for tomorrow and head off for the store. We're going to need to do a lot more cooking and prep work. But I guess we have all afternoon now as well as the evening.”

“We can't leave until Charlotte gets back,” Francine said.

Mary Ruth put a hand to her hip. “And where is she?”

Francine pointed to the tent behind her. “Getting her fortune told by the Great Merlina.”

“Great.”

“How did Merlina end up getting booth space right next to you?”

“I have no idea. They didn't tell me who'd be around me when they offered me the space. All I knew was it was free, so I didn't ask many questions. I think they're trying to build up a food tradition here in Rockville since they don't actually have a covered bridge. They don't like the idea that Bridgeton and Mansfield get most of the action.”

Since Mary Ruth didn't want to wait for Charlotte, Toby agreed to stay behind with the truck. The house was in walking distance of the booth for most of them, but not Charlotte, not with her bad knee. “I'll find something to keep me happy,” he assured them. When they left, he was plugged into his phone and seemed content to wait however long it might take.

Francine made a call to Jonathan and found he was stuck in traffic not too far from them. “I'll come to you,” Francine said, “and then we'll head for Clinton.” She told him that's where William had been taken.

“That's fine. I don't expect to move from this spot. Not anytime soon.” Francine walked up two blocks, found him, and got in his truck. She directed him around on side streets.

“I found out a few things,” he said. “The person who owns the cornfield by the Roseville Bridge is named Zedediah Matthew. It's a large property, over three hundred acres. Apparently Mr. Matthew is very protective of his land and has a history of running people off his property. He probably pursued William, but we have no proof of that.”

“Why would William chance an encounter with someone like him?”

“Probably for the fortune that's supposedly buried somewhere on the property. Zedediah bought the land from Doc Wheat, who acquired it in the 1920s. During the Depression he developed an interest in herbalism. At one time his home remedies were popular and shipped all over the world.”

“You know how I feel about herbalism. It's unscientific.”

“I'm not arguing with you. The advent of the modern pharmacy killed his business. But supposedly he acquired a lot of money before that. He had a deep suspicion of banks, bred from the Depression. Rumors were he buried all the money on his property. For decades since, people have been trying to find it.”

“How did you find all this out?”

“I asked the owner of the horse barn.”

She finally got them to US 41 south, and the traffic eased up. They drove toward Clinton.

She wondered why William would have been after a fortune. As far as she knew, his nursing home businesses were doing well. “William must have had a powerful reason to believe in the hidden fortune. Otherwise he wouldn't risk his life for it.”

“I hope it doesn't cost him that.”

“Me too.”

Francine connected her phone to the truck's radio and scanned the playlists for something soothing. “Do you think it's just anger that's got Mr. Matthew shooing people off his property with guns?” Francine thought of
The Beverly Hillbillies
when Jed ran “revenuers” off his land. “If there's no treasure, what's he got to hide?”

“That sounds like a Charlotte question, so I'll give you a Charlotte answer. Maybe he's one of those survivalists. Maybe he's got a whole arsenal stored on his land and he's doesn't want anyone to find it.”

Francine laughed. “I can't imagine why William would be looking for a bunch of guns,
Charlotte
.”

“Maybe William is a federal agent. Maybe being a nursing home owner is just his cover.”

“William does not look like he's even remotely capable of being a federal agent.”

Jonathan leaned over and raised an eyebrow a couple of times. “Then he's perfectly unassuming. No one would suspect.”

Francine smirked. “That is exactly what Charlotte would say.”

“I've been around her a lot lately.”

“I have to say, though, Zedediah does sound like the name of someone who would be a survivalist.”

“I'm not sure I know enough survivalists to make that call,” Jonathan replied.

They finished joking and settled into their own thoughts. Francine fretted over the situation with William.

Neither she nor William had had siblings, and neither had their parents. However one defined cousins, she and William were about it when it came to blood relatives. She found the lack of family lonesome, and it played into the decision she and Jonathan made to have three children, all of whom turned out to be boys. In contrast, William and Dolly had no children. Of course, they'd gotten a late start in life, and Francine presumed that was the reason.

Dolly was an odd duck. She and William were clearly devoted to each other, but Dolly wasn't the woman Francine would have guessed he'd marry. They found each other when Dolly was in her
mid-forties
, divorced from a man she'd let on had an unsavory past, though nothing more specific than that. If it hadn't been for Dolly's looks and her pursuit of William, who was then in his fifties, the two would not have gotten together. At least that was Francine's opinion.

Dolly came from a
blue-collar
background. She had been working as a bartender before they married. While Francine respected Dolly as a hard worker and knew that without her help William would never have built up the successful chain of retirement homes, she was more shrewd than smart. In fact, Dolly could be ruthless when called for, which had served the business well in taking over existing retirement homes. There was no question who was in charge. William was probably good with it, though. Dolly was as social as William was introverted.

The last time Francine had seen William and Dolly had been at the wedding of her middle son, Adam. In some sense, the encounter had been a microcosm of their relationship. As family, Francine made certain her cousin was seated at her table. Yet, William had seemed uncomfortable and hardly talked, even when he was asked a question directly. He mostly drank. Dolly, on the other hand, talked nonstop, none of it worth hearing. The only time she stopped was to seethe at William's drinking, which led Jonathan to compare her to a volcano with an active lava flow: “You know any minute it could just explode.”

Had it been some kind of remorse on William's part, that Francine had a son to be married and two other sons seated at the table of bridesmaids and groomsmen? Had Dolly's verbosity simply shut off William's need to speak? Or had William never conquered whatever demons had made him a socially backward teenager? Francine could easily see William running an efficient set of nursing homes, filled with elderly or infirm people whose basic needs were supplied by people he hired to do that. As the owner, with whom did he really need to communicate besides the few managers who worked under him?

Francine remembered when they were very young, when they shared secrets and played together in the attic of her grandmother's house. How differently they had grown up. But because of the good times, she still felt an attachment to William.

When they came to State Road 163, they turned onto it and crossed the Wabash River into Clinton. They followed the blue
H
signs until they found Union Hospital. Even given the traffic, it hadn't taken more than a half hour to get there.

Dolly was in the ICU when Francine and Jonathan finally succeeded in getting admitted as visitors. Dolly looked like she'd just spent an hour in front of the mirror despite having a husband in the ICU. Her makeup was perfectly applied, down to the faint blue eye shadow and red lipstick. She wore a casual white blouse and black jeans.

“I'm so glad you came.” Dolly gave Francine a quick awkward hug. She shook hands with Jonathan. “It's been so difficult to just sit here, watching him sleep.”

Dolly walked to the hospital bed and they followed. William looked like himself, his bald head sporting scraggly stands of gray hair that popped up indiscriminately over the shiny dome. It was scratched and marred with angry red wounds, though. A thick fringe of
salt-and
-pepper hair curled around the back and sides of his scalp. His color was good, but he was hooked up to a ventilator to help him breathe and his neck was in a brace. As a former nurse, Francine knew the odds William faced. “What did the doctors say about the coma?”

“They say he has a head injury, probably from the fall, that's caused swelling in his brain. The swelling is minor, and they're hopeful he'll regain full consciousness. But they don't know how long. A few days, a few weeks. Weeks, Francine! Weeks!”

Since their initial hug had been fast and uncomfortable, Francine didn't go there again. Instead, she put her arm around Dolly's shoulder.

“They say the prognosis is good,” Dolly continued, “but it's too difficult to predict how he might respond when he wakes up. I'm thankful you were there, Jonathan, to pull him out of the creek. Even though it might have injured him further.”

Francine released her hold on Dolly's shoulder momentarily as the thought ran through her mind that Dolly might try to file some kind of lawsuit against them because of Jonathan's action. She hoped she was being paranoid.

Jonathan seemed to be of similar mind. “It was a difficult decision to make. But I couldn't let him slip into the creek.”

Francine gently finished his thought. “If he'd been pulled any farther into the water, he would have drowned since he was unconscious.”

“Oh, I know. I understand. Jonathan saved his life.”

Francine wished that last sentence was on tape, just in case. “None of the shots that were fired at him touched him, did they?”

Dolly tenderly traced the red scratches on the top of his head. “No. He had some bleeding, but that was likely caused by hitting tree branches when he fell down the bank.”

Francine wasn't sure how to ask the next question because she didn't want to look like she was prying, when in fact she was. “What was William doing out at the Roseville Bridge anyway? Who was shooting at him?”

Dolly turned away. “I don't know why he was out there.”

“I found out the property he was running across belonged to a man named Zedediah Matthew,” Jonathan asked. “Did William know him?”

“Everyone around here knows who Zedediah Matthew is. He's a mean man, cranky and threatening.”

Francine rubbed Dolly's upper arm supportively, though she worried the gesture came across as a means to coax more information. “Did you know he was carrying two items? One of them was a diary that belonged to my grandmother. The second was a vial of some kind of liquid. Do either of those make sense to you?”

Dolly stiffened at the question. Francine wasn't sure if that was because she didn't know, or if she knew and was alarmed to discover that Francine also knew.

“I didn't know,” she said. “Do you know who has them now?”

“The sheriff's department.” It was only a half lie. The police did have the vial. She didn't qualify her answer further. She made eye contact with Jonathan to make sure he didn't give her away, but he sat there with a smug look on his face.

“He fancied himself a historian,” Dolly said. “I knew he'd found a copy of your grandmother's diary at some flea market. Why he had it there, I don't know. As for the vial, I have no idea what might have been in it.”

“So William just left your house this morning and went out there carrying those two items? He didn't say why or what he was looking for?”