“Sheriff Blackwell!”
“Finally,” Piper said. “In here, Dr. Neufeld.”
“Shit,” the coroner said when she saw the body. “I knew him.”
“I think a lot of people did.”
“Did you call the shelter?”
Piper shook her head and reached for her cell phone, punched her dad’s number. He picked up on the first ring. “Back from Owensboro?” She listened as he rattled off what he’d bought and about his quick visit with Chief Hugh of the Rockport police.
“Dad, can you come out to Mr. Thresher’s? In Hatfield? I’ll help you paint the garage later. I need you to take his dog and cat. They’re going to be staying with us. At least for a while. Mark Thresher died, Dad.”
Maybe Mark the Shark had a will that specified who should take the pets. She wasn’t going to let them go to the animal shelter. To Dr. Neufeld, “He’ll probably speed to get here. He’s bored in retirement. And he’s pissed off because we had a little vandalism.”
The coroner stood in front of the dead man. “I suspect your father won’t be retired long. Santa Claus’ police chief announced his retirement, and they posted an advertisement yesterday afternoon. It was on the radio. They might promote from within, but—”
“Shit,” Piper said. If her dad applied, they’d hand him the job. No one in the county—except Oren and maybe the Rockport police chief—had more law enforcement experience than Paul Blackwell. “Shit and two is four and four is eight.”
“Yep, he won’t be retired long,” Dr. Neufeld repeated.
Piper figured she should be happy that he’d have something to do. But if he went after the Santa Claus post and got it, he wouldn’t be interested in the Spencer County Sheriff’s office when her term ended. He’d stay in Santa Claus until he retired, and he’d be near his beloved Christmas store. Paul Blackwell had been a great sheriff; it fit him. Maybe the police chief job would fit him just as well. Fifty-five? Healthy again? He needed to do something, she realized.
She picked up the cat with her good arm and carried it to the spare bedroom. The dog followed unbidden. She shut them inside and returned to the den. Piper called JJ and told her to go to court, find a judge, and get a search warrant for Thresher’s home so they could look for a will and a list of relatives.
“Get one for the safety deposit box, too,” the coroner cut in. “Get ‘em both at the same time.”
“Good idea.” She amended her request. “And do it quick, JJ. I don’t want to sit here all day. Call me when you have it.” To the coroner, “Sorry to bring you out for this, ninety-four years old, natural causes. But I didn’t have an option. It’s required.”
Thresher’s police scanner crackled behind her, something about a three-car accident near Lake Rudolf Campground.
“Car keys in his hand like that, he’d been getting ready to go meet me in the park this morning.”
“Hand clenched and fingers snagged in the neckline of his shirt, probably a heart attack. See, his index fingers caught here behind the fabric. That’s why his hand held, it’s not rigor. Sudden cardiac death, but I won’t know until I autopsy him. A good run, he had,” Dr. Neufeld said. “He had a damn good run.”
“I wish he could have run a little while longer,” Piper said. “Someone had been draining his bank accounts, and I’d promised to fix it, to catch the thief. If he’d only run just a little while longer—” Long enough to see her arrest his villain. “Autopsy? Aren’t you going to take him straight to a funeral home? I had to call you, but do you really have to cut him up?”
“Wish I didn’t have to, Sheriff.” She took out her phone and took some pictures, touched his forehead, bent over, and looked into his eyes. “Like I said, no signs of rigor yet, still feels warm. He’s been dead less than three hours. He’s an unattended death, not in a hospital or nursing home, so an autopsy is required. Hate to cut him open, but that’s the way of Indiana law.”
“I understand.” Piper did understand, having studied way the hell too much of the state’s laws for the Plainfield Sheriff’s Exam. Still, she thought that because of his age it might not apply. “I’m going outside to wait for my dad.”
“I’ll go with you and get the gurney. You can help me take him out of here. I’ll do the lifting.” Dr. Neufeld paused. “Heard you got shot. Oren said it was the Mailbox Mauler.”
“Yeah.”
“Good thing she didn’t kill you. I’d be cutting you open, too.”
When they were finished with the old man, Piper and Dr. Neufeld returned to the den, the latter with a clipboard. She talked to herself as she filled out an initial report.
“Scene of death: Mark Thresher’s residence in Hatfield, Spencer County.” Her voice was flat. Piper looked over the coroner’s shoulder and read:
—Deceased: Mark Thresher, 94
—Found: sitting in an easy chair in his study, car keys in hand, wearing jacket, likely ready to leave the house
—COD: to be determined, presents as sudden cardiac incident
—No obvious signs of a crime, front door was locked, Sheriff had to break in
—No sign of a struggle, no sign of foul play
—Alerted by: Spencer County Sheriff Piper Blackwell
—Taken to: Morgue, Evansville, Vanderburgh County, IN
—NOK: to be determined
NOK? Piper wondered. Ah, Next of kin.
“I should probably call Oren,” Piper mused, more to herself than to the coroner. “He’d know the protocol here and—”
“I wouldn’t,” Dr. Neufeld said. “Oren’s a good man, and I love him dearly, my best friend. And he’d be happy as a clam at high water if you called and asked him what to do. You don’t need him. And you don’t need to let him know you want advice. I can give you that advice. Listen, my wife—”
“Bebe,” Piper had met her once at a county board meeting.
“Bebe’s an attorney, and she’s come on a couple of calls with me. Here’s the deal. You’ll want to send a deputy around to the neighbors, see if they know any next of kin. If they do, great, call those relatives and get one to come mind this house. If you don’t find one, once you get that search warrant, you can hunt for bills and bank statements. The bank might know next of kin. Because until you get a relative shepherding the house you’ll want to send a deputy past here several times a day. A house? Once people know it’s vacant, well, there are a handful of ne’er-do-wells in the county who’d come poking around, ADT or no.”
“A will might name any relatives. He told me he didn’t have any relatives left, but he might have meant he had none around here. The warrant will let me look for a will.” Piper figured the genealogy file would be better on tracking down any relatives.
“Yep, either here or in his safety deposit box. You should be able to get the name of an attorney who prepared it. Then you call that attorney. If you don’t find a will, you might find an attorney’s business card in his desk or something.”
“I know he had an attorney. He talked about going to meet with one.”
“Good, so you’ll find a name on a business card, in his address book, circled in the Yellow Pages. Something.”
“Something,” Piper said. She was still numb.
Dr. Neufeld continued, “If there’s a will, the attorney needs to know that his client has passed away. Hell, word spreads in this county. The attorney will likely hear about it anyway. Any creditors will have to be dealt with, confirm any debts from the estate, resolve any balance. I’ll post a public notice of death. That usually brings the creditors in. But you won’t need to worry about any of that. Me? I’ll worry about Mr. Thresher. I’ll conduct an autopsy, keep him in storage until someone claims him or his attorney tells us what to do. A will might specify Mr. Thresher’s burial or cremation plan.”
“He was a nice man,” Piper said. “And I don’t think he was as crazy as people thought.”
“Weekend on us like this,” Dr. Neufeld said, “and this not a suspicious death, I know I won’t get a slot for the autopsy until Monday sometime.”
Piper rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet. “Oren and I have a couple of interviews Monday for the detective position.”
“Neither one of you need to attend this autopsy,” the coroner said.
“I don’t want to see Mark the Shark sliced open,” Piper admitted.
“You’ll get my report.”
Dr. Neufeld tossed Piper the keys that had dangled from Mark’s fingers. She caught them with her good hand.
“In case you need to get in and out of here once that door’s fixed.”
“Thanks.”
“You good here until your dad comes for the animals?”
“Yeah, and until I get that search warrant. I’m good.” Piper was doubting she’d wait for that warrant.
After the coroner pulled away, Piper went back to the den and starting going through Mark’s desk, the crackle of the scanner keeping her company. Yes, she should have a search warrant in hand, but it would be coming and she needed to do something. She couldn’t just sit.
She should wait, but…
The attorney’s card was the first one in the rolodex. Harlan Cook. She cringed. He had a bad reputation in the department, barely adequate in the courtroom, an ambulance chaser who represented a lot of drunks. Harlan Crook, some called him.
Piper called and got his secretary.
Yes, Harlan was Mark Thresher’s attorney.
Yes, there was a will, recently updated and filed.
But Harlan was out of town today and would not be back until Monday. The secretary assured Piper that Harlan would produce the will and “set things in motion.”
“Harlan Crook,” Piper grumbled.
Thresher’s address book was filled with the names of businesses, organizations, and their phone numbers, no names of people. It also listed website addresses and his passwords to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, BookBub, Facebook, Edward Jones, eBay, his online bank account—that set her stomach to churning—Outlook, LOTRO, whatever that was, Scott’s Fantasy Football Pick’em League, and some she couldn’t make out because the ink had run. Most of the passwords were similar—Clementine47, Marmalade47, Camaro47, 47Clementine, 47Camaro, 47Marmalade, and for the sites that apparently required a symbol, Clementine#47, Camaro#47. Forty-seven. He’d been that old when he left the Navy. Anyone who knew about him—the names of his pets, the name of the stuffed monkey his wife had treasured—with a dose of patience and persistence could have been able to figure out the passwords.
Tucked inside the back cover was a list of members of the genealogy club, lines through three names—maybe old farts who had died or quit and went on to another hobby. A second sheet was the latest bill from his veterinarian. Camaro had his shots and nails trimmed four days ago. According to the paper, the golden retriever was ten. Same age as her dad’s pug Wrinkles, she noted.
He had a laptop in the side drawer, probably the one he had at the library. Piper decided she’d take it back to her apartment. The search warrant would cover computers. A deep drawer was full of hanging files—bills, tax returns, more veterinarian records, some military records, his wife’s death certificate, information on this house, photocopies from the sale of his farm parcels.
“I can fix this door, Punkin. Hey, you here?”
Piper met him in the entryway.
“Beautiful house, Mr. Conspiracy had.”
He was dressed in a suit and was wearing a navy pinstripe tie she’d given him several Christmases ago. She raised her eyebrows.
“I have an interview at two.”
“For the Santa Claus job.”
“Chief announced his retirement yesterday, and I called in this morning, just curious. They want to talk to me right away.” He grinned. “I’ll ditch this jacket and fix this door. Easy fix. You don’t want people breaking in. Sad about Mr. Thresher.”
“Yes, sad.”
“He had a good run.”
That’s what Dr. Neufeld had said. Again, she wished he would have run a tad longer.
“Thanks, Dad. Okay you take the dog, at least for a while?”
His shoulders dropped a little in resignation. “Sure. There’s a cat, too, right? Maybe Oren—”
“I’m taking the cat. At least for a little while.”
“Let me get to work here. When I’m done I’ll take the critters home and get over to my interview. I don’t want to be late.”
“Santa Claus would be fortunate to have you.”
“It would, wouldn’t it? A short drive from Rockport, and there’s that Christmas store I love. A dozen different varieties of fudge in the candy counter.” Paul Blackwell retreated to his car for his tools. “Too bad about Mark.”
“Mark the Shark,” Piper quietly corrected.