TheCart Before the Corpse (26 page)

“We would of course take into consideration the improvements to the property.” He looked into the distance and said with studied casualness, “By the way, you haven’t come across any reports from surveyors and suchlike, have you? No sense in paying twice for the same report, is there?”

“Haven’t found a thing, but then I haven’t had time to look.”

“I would appreciate a call when you do. Just paperwork, but extremely technical. Nothing a non-professional would understand. In the meantime, please consider our offer.”

He hadn’t actually used that old southern phrase, “Now, don’t bother your pretty little head . . . ” But he might as well have. “What offer?” I asked. Now I was mad. “You haven’t made one yet. Okay, here’s the deal. You make your offer in writing to Mr. Robertson, my attorney. When I get around to it, I’ll give you an answer.” I climbed down from the carriage.

“Can’t we just agree in principle right now? Shake hands on it? Then we can leave the lawyering to the lawyers.” He reached out to touch my shoulder, but I twisted away from him. No way was this guy touching me, and definitely not that close to my neck.

“Either Louis B. Mayer or Jack Warner said that an oral agreement isn’t worth the paper it’s written on,” I said. “Besides, my hands are dirty.”

He clambered awkwardly after me and patted his bottom as though he needed to restart the circulation.

“I’m afraid I’ve got work to do. Nice of you to drop by,” I said as I walked to the door. He was forced to follow me outside. I stopped beside his car. “Great car. I liked it when I saw it parked down on the road the other day.”

He jerked. “Couldn’t have been me. I was in Atlanta.”

“Uh-huh.” But he hadn’t asked me which day I’d seen it.

He opened his door, slid under the wheel and glared up at me, the first time his smile had slipped. “You’ll regret not coming to an agreement. You might not find having mansions and a golf course next door quite so pleasant. Wealthy neighbors can get extremely nasty about the flies and smells horses generate. An attractive nuisance, I think they call it. Zoning regulations, you know.”

“Not when we’re grandfathered in,” I said. “We came first.”

“I’ve heard driving horses can be real dangerous,” he said. “Lot of accidents. Things break. Hope you have good health and liability insurance. I’d hate to see a long stay in the hospital or a lawsuit for negligence toss that tight little rear of yours into bankruptcy.” The man actually wiggled his eyebrows.

I gritted my teeth and made no attempt to return his smile. “How kind. By the way, if you make your offer on this property to Mr. Robertson, it might be nice if you provided an actual figure in dollars and cents.” I shut his door for him and went back inside.

And shook. He stood too close, but many sales types invaded personal space to make a point. He didn’t openly threaten, but the implication was there. I could see him sabotaging my carriage. More likely he’d hire somebody else to do it, so he didn’t get the knees of those tailor-made trousers dirty.

Had he been expecting the place to be empty so he could have the run of it to search or do something else nasty? Had he been the one that had searched Hiram’s apartment and Peggy’s library? Used Poison? Busted computers? He must have seen my truck parked in front of the barn, and he’d come in anyway. Now,
that
was scary. Good thing I’d had my gun.

If I were dead, this place and everything else I owned would go to Allie. She was a city girl and would certainly sell at the first good offer, so she could invest the money and make her first or maybe her second million.

Had I been in actual physical danger from Whitehead? He had definitely backed up when he saw my pistol. And if I’d been unarmed? Men like Whitehead never expect a woman to fight them and win, and a right cross to the jaw will take out most women before they have a chance either to run or fight.

If he’d really come to make me an offer, he’d have been better prepared. He didn’t even have a figure in mind. He was also more interested in those reports than he let on. What were they? More important,
where
were they? And how did they threaten the Ken doll and his consortium?

*

True to her word, Peggy came out at two. We fitted Heinzie into his harness and put him to the vis-à-vis. She was hesitant about driving him alone, but in reality, a four-wheel carriage is easier to drive than a two wheel, and soon she, Heinzie, and his long-eared wart were trotting happily around the dressage arena.

“Piece of cake,” she said when at last she climbed down. “Now all we have to do is get Heinzie to Mossy Creek on Easter afternoon all by himself.”

“You game to drive Heinzie down to the road tomorrow morning without Jacob?” I asked.

“I’d really rather not unless you come along to rescue me if I get into trouble.”

“Sorry, not gonna happen, but I can follow you in my truck. Jacob should be over his hangover by noon on Monday. We’ll try then. I can watch Don Qui in the barn. I’d really like to see how he lets himself out of his stall.”

She laughed. “Hiram never did find out. He finally gave up and let him wander in the aisle after he finished eating.”

We stripped Heinzie of his tack, fed and let the horses out. Then we moved the vis-à-vis back into the workroom and started work on the seats. Either Hiram or Jacob had sprayed oil on the bolts that held them to the carriage, so they were relatively easy to remove.

We worked companionably. Peggy told me about her career as a professor of English, her husband, Ben, and how they moved to Mossy Creek. She told me tales of the Garden Club ladies and how Ida had wound up taking anger management courses. She told me about the history of Mossy Creek and its long-standing feud with Bigelow.

She described how Bob, the Chihuahua, had been shot out of the claws of a hawk by Sandy, the Mossy Creek police dispatcher, and the matches, unmatches, and rematches Creekites made. She told me about her boyfriend, Carlyle, who had retired and moved to Seattle to create a new city garden.

She told me about Hiram, and how he had showed up on her doorstep one rainy Sunday afternoon after seeing her
studio apartment for rent
ad in the
Mossy Creek Gazette
classified ads, and how they’d grown into the habit of going to estate sales, yard sales and antique stores looking for old carriages and their fittings.

I had lived in my townhouse in Lexington, Kentucky, nearly as long as she’d lived in Mossy Creek, but I knew practically nothing about my neighbors.

I was gone a good deal of the time, but I couldn’t have told her a single story about them or their families and friends. When had I become “
the cat who walks by himself, and all places are alike to him?
”

*

Geoff

“Merry Abbott called me,” Geoff told Amos. “Had a visit from Ken Whitehead while she was alone out at the farm. She thinks he came out to search the place, but when he found her alone instead, she thinks he made threats.”

“How can you
think
something’s a threat?” Mutt said. The three men were finishing lunch at Mama’s.

“If she thinks she was threatened, she was threatened,” Amos said. “Women have good radar about that kind of thing.” He handed out the checks. The men left tip money on the table and strolled to the cash register.

“Then how come they let their husbands beat up on them?” Mutt said.

“That’s a whole other issue,” Amos said. “Mostly they know it’s coming. They either don’t trust their instincts or are afraid to leave. You interested in a trip to Bigelow?” he asked Geoff.

“Not yet. I want to find out what kind of reports Whitehead was talking about first. Hiram may have found out he and his little consortium considered themselves owners of acreage actually in the parcel Hiram paid for. Somebody in Atlanta should have the original survey, the deeds, titles, all that stuff. If we’re lucky, Hiram’s lawyer will have copies. I’ll have someone in my office check in Atlanta.”

“Won’t get much info until Monday,” Amos said as they walked back to the police station. “Nobody mans those offices on the weekend.”

“Hey, ve haf our methods,” Geoff said in an exaggerated German accent. “May not be able to get anyone in the office, but those records are probably on computer. What’s on the state’s computers, the state’s agents can access, even on Saturday.”

“Robertson won’t be in his office either.”

“If I can reach him at home, I’ll drive over and talk to him. This is murder. He’s an officer of the court. I think he likes Merry anyway, so he’ll probably see me.”

*

Robertson lived in a big, foursquare house, probably built around the turn of the last century, in an affluent section of Bigelow referred to as the garden district. Big old trees met over the streets, and the houses all sported well-tended lawns and gardens. Old money spent wisely. Robertson himself opened his front door and ushered Geoff in.

“Janeen’s out shopping. We can go into my office. Want a beer?”

Geoff followed him toward the back of the house. He wore elderly chinos belted slightly below his bulging tummy and a faded maroon polo shirt that his wife probably wanted to throw away. The hair on his chest was white. Geoff hadn’t met him previously, and liked him on sight. His eyes were kindly, but shrewd. He’d be a formidable opponent in the courtroom and probably the board room as well.

Geoff accepted a Stella Artois from a small fridge in the room that obviously doubled as office and male retreat. The walls were lined with bookcases that held matched sets of law books, except for a fifty-inch flat screen TV mounted across from the desk. The oriental on the floor was fine but threadbare, and the big desk was a tad battered. This was a room that a man kept for himself and refused to allow even the most house-proud wife to change.

Geoff told him what he wanted. He expected to have to dance around his questions, but Robertson answered straight away.

“We did have a few bobbles in the title search on Hiram’s land,” Robertson said. “But we got it squared away.”

“Why was the land sold in two parcels?”

Robertson leaned back in the black leather chair that looked as though it had been made for a much bigger man. He rested his head against the back, steepled his fingers, and settled in.

Geoff recognized a raconteur when he saw one. He might be in for a long story, but he doubted it would be a pointless one.

“After the Josephsons died within six months of one another . . . ”

“Suspicious?” Geoff asked.

Robertson frowned at him. “Natural old age. They were in the same nursing home, had been for five years or so.”

He swung his chair gently from side to side as he talked. “That land was originally titled in two parcels and taxed that way for fifty years. Nobody bothered to change it. The kids all went their separate ways. None of them went to farming. They didn’t care about the place. Didn’t even care when the house burned down a year or so after the parents died.”

“Arson?”

“Lightning. It was empty. Nothing suspicious, Agent Wheeler. Merely stupid.”

“In what way?”

Robertson offered one hand, then the other. “Daddy’s will left everything to Momma.” Left hand up. “Momma’s will left everything to the kids equally.” Right hand up. “Her will said they all had to agree before any of the land could be sold, and if any one of them died, their
children
had to agree. Stupid! I guess she thought the land would bring them together. Instead, it made them hate each other worse.”

“They couldn’t agree?”

“Nosirree.” Robertson leaned farther back and crossed his ankles on the corner of the desk. He was wearing aged Topsiders with no socks. Like many tubby men, he had extremely small, neat feet. “Got offer after offer. This piece, that piece, half and half. Good offers, although not as good as lately when land prices skyrocketed out there. Then the eldest sister died childless. Apparently, she’d been the hold-up. The others had kids that needed college tuition and such like. They got together and agreed to sell the smaller piece, the forty acres Hiram bought. They didn’t tell a living soul except Julie Honeycutt from Mossy Creek Mountain Realty, the best Realtor in Mossy Creek. She’d been working long distance with Hiram Lackland for over a year. She called him, he drove over from Aiken, wrote up a contract for cash, and before nightfall the deal was signed, sealed, and the next day when the money was transferred, it was delivered and the deed filed.”

“I thought he had mortgage insurance,” Geoff said. “Merry Abbott says the land is free and clear now, but not that it’s been that way all along.”

“That’s where the title work came in. He quietly borrowed part of the original cash from his boss in Aiken to add to what he had to make a down payment. Then, he went through all the to-do with health check, mortgage insurance, folding in extra money for the improvements he planned to make, got the mortgage and returned the original cash to the man he borrowed it from. Left him with a manageable mortgage payment and nice equity. Very, very slick. Wish I had friends that rich and that trusting.”

“What kind of money are we talking?”

“For the land? A hundred and forty thousand. Thirty-five hundred an acre for forty acres with no improvements and no domicile. Real bargain. It’s a matter of record. So’s the mortgage.”

“Who was the rich friend?”

“Man by the name of Richard Fitzgibbons in Aiken, South Carolina. Hiram worked for him for years.”

“How did the other parcel get sold?”

Robertson laughed. He sounded as though he were gloating. Not a fan of Governor Bigelow, obviously. “When the governor’s bunch saw the notice of transfer in the
Mossy Creek Gazette
, they had a cat fit. Tried to keep Hiram from getting a mortgage, to screw up the zoning, which is agricultural and always has been. Offered Hiram a bunch of money and said they’d make his life hell if he didn’t sell.”

“Really. Would that be a man named Whitehead?”

“Ah, you’ve met him. When I was growing up and you got acne, you either got blackheads or whiteheads. Both were filled with pus.”

“Did they keep up the pressure?”