TheCart Before the Corpse (24 page)

Walking down that hill to my truck I felt as alone as though I were the only being on Mars. I knew tons of people from Colorado to Maine, had a mother, a step-father, a daughter, even an ex-husband, yet the only person beside me was a woman I’d met less than a week earlier. Whose fault was that? I’d always assumed it was theirs, but now I wondered if I’d been the one doing the pushing away.

Had I refused to take the chance of caring for anybody for fear they could hurt me as Hiram had hurt me? If so, then I’d shortchanged both them and me.

When we reached the funeral home, I told Peggy to go ahead. I sat behind the wheel and called my mother. Naturally, I got her email. “I love you.” I said.

I left the same message for Allie.

I only had two people who mattered enough to me to call. I vowed that in a year on the anniversary of Hiram’s funeral I would have more calls to make, more people I cared about and who cared about me.

The funeral ladies had done themselves and Hiram proud. The spread was more like a luncheon than snacks, with people filling their plates. I was beginning to recognize people and even know their names, but I’d not met the funeral ladies before. They fluttered around pouring punch (neither hot pink nor pale yellow and not alcoholic) and coffee, offering ham biscuits and finger sandwiches, hot meatballs, deviled eggs, half a dozen different types of cakes, and tarts and I don’t know what all. I didn’t pay that much attention. I’m lucky I remember as much as I do.

Everyone seemed to be having a good time. I suddenly felt starved, but I couldn’t chow down with everyone watching. Since Peggy and I had to stay to the bitter end anyway, I planned to take leftovers home with us.

A tall, lanky young man with a mop of hair the color of the carrots on the veggie tray walked in and stood in the doorway staring as though he’d wandered into the wrong funeral.

He spotted me and headed straight for me. I didn’t recognize him either from the viewing or the service. Who could miss that hair?

“You Miz Abbott?” he asked. He did not offer his hand. I wondered for a moment if he was a process server, and somebody was suing me.

He said, “I need to come pick up Momma’s carriage out to your place.”

A thin woman nearly as tall as the man materialized at his elbow. Her hair must have been the same color as his when she was younger, but had faded to a pale shrimp pink. It was drawn into a tight bun at the nape of her neck. One of the funeral ladies I hadn’t met. “Tom,” she whispered. “This is not the time.”

He removed her hand from his arm, none too gently. “That’s your carriage, Momma. I’m gettin’ it back.”

“Which carriage would that be?” I directed my question to the lady. The man was obviously her son.

“You know danged well which carriage,” he said. His veneer of politeness apparently covered a red-headed temper. “That buggy belongs to my momma. Since Lackland’s dead, I want it back. Promised he’d have it done by now so’s we could sell it.”

“I’m apologize for my bad-mannered son, Mrs. Abbott,” the woman said and stuck out her hand. “I’m Imogene Darnell and this is Tom.” She turned so that I couldn’t see what she whispered to him, but it must have been effective because he took a step back and subsided.

When she turned back to me, she said with a tight smile, “A funeral’s no place to talk business. I raised Tom better than that.”

“You’re the one let him take it,” Tom said. “He’s had it a month.” He turned to me. “Well, is it finished?
Supposed
to be finished.”

The only buggy at Hiram’s barn was a long way from finished. “I’m sorry, Mr. Darnell, but I can’t let you have it until my father’s will is probated. Then you make a claim against the estate and . . . ”

“Jesus H. Christ, no way I’m waiting for some damn will. I’m coming out to get it this weekend.”

“You’ll waste a trip,” said a voice at my shoulder. Geoff Wheeler moved in beside me. “That entire barn is a crime scene. Nothing can be removed until I say it can, and I say it
can’t
for the foreseeable future.”

“Who the hell are you?”

“Geoffrey Wheeler, Georgia Bureau of Investigation.”

“And I am Amos Royden,” said Amos from my other side.

“Sheriff Campbell can tell y’all what you can do with y’all’s crime scene.”

“No, he won’t,” Geoff said mildly. “Why are you so anxious to remove that carriage from Mr. Lackland’s
locked
barn?”

“It’s mine. I can’t be waitin’ forever for it to be fixed up.”

“No, Thomas Darnell, it is
mine
,” Mrs. Darnell said. “I choose to leave it with Mrs. Abbott. I’m sure she can find someone to restore it properly now that Mr. Lackland is gone. Why don’t you go wait in the car while we straighten up?”

He made an unpleasant sound and shook off her hand. “I got to get back to work.” He glared at his mother. “Come on. I don’t have time to wait on you.” He turned on his heel and stalked out.

Mrs. Darnell shook her head. “I am so sorry. He’s under a great deal of strain at the moment with a new job and a new baby, and you know what the economy’s like with layoffs and such. Don’t you worry about that carriage, Mrs. Abbott. I’ll call you sometime next week, so we can discuss it.” She looked around. “Now, where did I put my purse? I swear I’d lose my head if it wasn’t glued on. Old age is dreadful. I can’t even drive these days because of my cataracts. Tom gets annoyed having to tote me anywhere I need to go. Oh, there it is in the corner.” She threw me a smile over her shoulder, swooped down on her handbag and bolted out the door.

“What was all that about?” I asked.

“He wants his carriage big time,” Geoff said. “Assuming it
is
his.”

“Huh?”

“He furnish proof of ownership? For all you know, it might belong to somebody in North Carolina.”

“Or to Hiram,” Amos added as he stepped closer. “He could have bought outright it to refurbish and sell, and Darnell sees his chance to get it back and keep the purchase price.”

“You familiar with him?” Geoff asked.

Amos shook his head. “Not yet, but I intend to check him out. I don’t like the way he treats his mother. A man who’ll fuss at his mother in public is capable of anything. Even murder.”

*

In the end I packed up enough food to keep Peggy and me out of Ingles for a couple of days, as well as a big package to take to Jacob Yoder. An anemic sun peeped through the remaining clouds as we stopped by Peggy’s to change clothes. I drove on to Hiram’s—I suppose I should say
my—
place.

Peggy stayed home to take a nap. Shoot, I wanted a nap too, but couldn’t spare the time. She said the cats weren’t speaking to her because she’d been gone so much.

“And when Dashiell is angry, all the cat treats in the universe won’t get me back into his good graces,” she said. “Sherlock ought to carry a sign that says, ‘will forgive for food,’ but Marple and Watson tend to follow Dashiell’s lead. I need to cosset them for a while, especially Sherlock. He still doesn’t understand what happened to him at Dr. Blackshear’s. I’ll be out to the farm late this afternoon if you want to hitch up Heinzie and see if I can drive him to the vis-à-vis.”

“You’ll do fine. Jacob will share the driving and keep you out of trouble.”

“What about Don Qui?”

“We’ll put Heinzie to the Meadowbrook and drive him down to the road and back starting tomorrow morning,” I said. “We’ll try leaving Don Qui in the pasture with the others. He can watch until Heinzie’s out of sight. He can’t jump a fence that high or open that gate.”

“He’ll bray.”

“Let him. Bring ear plugs.”

At the farm Jacob had changed to his grubby overalls. I found him lifting the vis-à-vis wheel, the one that killed Hiram, onto its hub. I would love to have burned it, but the wheel hadn’t committed any crime. Besides, it was the only wheel big enough to fit.

“There’s a care package of food from the funeral on the front seat of my truck for you,” I said. “You’ve already re-packed the axle? Fast work.”

“Thirty minutes.”

“Can I give you a hand lifting the wheel?”

“Let me be.” He sounded grumpy. If he had been the one who forced that wheel onto Hiram’s throat, he might well hate mounting it. Once it was on the hub, he fastened the bolts, came to his feet, pulled a dirty rag out of his pocket and wiped the oil off his hands. “Let down the jack and pull out the chocks.”

I did as I was told, tossed the chocks on the floor of the carriage and held up the shafts while he moved the sawhorse holding them up out to the parking lot, then came back to help me pull the carriage outside. It wasn’t nearly as heavy as it looked, and so beautifully balanced on its four wheels that I could have rolled it outside alone. We set the shafts back on the sawhorse and stood back to assess what we needed to do to get it ready for Easter.

“Needs a scrub and paint what’s left,” Jacob said. “Hiram and me already did the sanding.”

“I thought I saw a paint sprayer under his workbench.”

He nodded. “Plenty of black lacquer. Two coats, she will be as good as new.”

“Upholstery’s dirty and ripped in a couple of places,” I said. “I wonder if Peggy has a steam cleaner.”

“Staple some new vinyl over the old seats,” Jacob said. “Add trim next week when we have time.”

“Sounds good.”

“I have replaced the broken spokes in the Meadowbrook wheel as well,” he said. ”They must be varnished, but otherwise, no one can tell they were broken.”

Would wonders never cease? The man must actually want to keep his job. “When did you have time to do all that?”

“Last night. Didn’t go into town. Used Hiram’s lathe.” He pointed to the front corner beside the workbench. “Not that hard. I learned turning on a gas-powered lathe when I was a boy. Took out the broken ones and glued in the new ones. Should be dry by now. Good as new.”

That was the longest speech I’d ever heard Jacob make. Maybe cleaning up for Hiram’s funeral had uncovered some long-buried work ethic in him.

“Hose connection is over there,” Jacob pointed. “I will bring the barn hose so we can wash the vis-à-vis.” He strode toward the stable, then stopped and looked at me from over his shoulder. “You selling the place or staying?”

“When I know, you’ll know. For the foreseeable future, I’m staying. I hope you are too.” I did. He might be a curmudgeon, and he might be crooked, but so far he’d been a competent worker. If he wanted to get blotto on the weekends, I couldn’t say anything unless his drinking interfered with his work on the weekdays. “Jacob?” I called. “How’d you get into the workshop? I thought I locked it.”

He smirked. “Days are long in prison. One must do something to occupy one’s time, and there are always those who would teach.”

“In other words, you learned to pick locks in prison.”

He shrugged. “If you say so.” He shut the door behind him and I sat down on the step of the vis-à-vis. The first day I came out to the farm, Jacob had made a big fuss about the workshop’s being padlocked, when obviously he could have unlocked the padlock and gone in any time he liked.

Had he? If so, what had he found? What had he removed? Why had he let me in on his little secret today? Did he finally trust me? Or did he simply not think I’d pick up on his talent? Hiram said he was a good worker. I hadn’t asked him to fix either the vis-à-vis or the Meadowbrook. Maybe he was responsible for the kerfed spokes in the first place, and fixed them to allay suspicion. What had changed his attitude? Did he actually want to stay here?

If he had killed Hiram, then I wanted him working for me and not off in the wind somewhere where we’d never find him. In the meantime, I wouldn’t let down my guard. Or even let him know I had him on the suspect list.

After I called her, Peggy brought her steam cleaner when she showed up in the middle of the afternoon. The newly washed vis-à-vis had dried in the sun, and already looked pretty good. A couple of coats of lacquer, and she’d be really handsome again.

“I brought my electric stapler, a tack hammer and upholstery tacks,” Peggy said, “and dug out some old red vinyl I planned to use to make cushions for my patio chairs but never got around to. You’re welcome to it if it’s enough.”

We spread it out over the facing seats. We had more than enough. “Let me pay you for it at least,” I said.

“It’s been so long since I bought it, I don’t even know what it cost. Fold it back up and put it in the barn where it won’t get rained on and let’s steam clean those seats.”

By the time we had finished, the sun was setting. Too late to put Heinzie to.

The horses knew dinner was late. Equines have an unerring sense of time and total devotion to routine. Don Qui had so far refrained from braying, probably because he could see us working on the carriage and was interested in what we were doing. The moment we rolled it back inside, however, and padlocked the barn doors, he tuned up and ran back to where Jacob was crossing the pasture.

“This time you bring Heinzie in,” I said to Jacob. “Leave him and Don Qui for last. Can you put a halter on Don Qui?”

“Why?”

“Can you?”

“Maybe.”

“Please do. And attach a lead line. Then halter Heinzie and wait by the gate.”

“Heinzie won’t like it.”

“He won’t care,” I said.

“The jackass will care.” He gave me a sardonic smile, but I hardened my heart and my resolve.

Ten minutes later only Heinzie and Don Qui remained in the pasture, while the others were already chowing down in their stalls. Jacob passed me Don Qui’s lead line and took Heinzie’s.

“Lead Heinzie to his stall. We’ll follow,” I said.

I am
very
strong. I assumed I’d be able to handle the donkey easily. I held his lead line close to his chin and waited until Heinzie disappeared. At that point Don Qui dragged me into the stable after him as though I were a water skier and he was a powerboat. I left two distinct boot tracks where I’d leaned back with all my weight against him while he dragged me forward like an elephant pulling a teak tree out of a Malayan rainforest.

Once inside, where he could see his buddy eating, he relaxed and walked into his own stall. I unclipped the lead line so that he could eat and stepped back.