Chapter Fourteen

By the time Mama and the rest of the women had settled down and started talking like they’d all had some sense, I was happy to say that they hadn’t run Shelby off. She ended up staying and playing a few hands of Euchre after she’d caught on.

I had to say that she was even good at it.

Though at times, I could see there was a helpless look in her eyes. I wondered if behind them, she was wondering how on Earth Finn could love a small town like Cottonwood.

With every hand of euchre dealt, my heart raced and I was so pumped up from all the stories, I’d gotten a burst of energy, that when I left Tibbie’s, I knew it needed to be put to good use. . .investigating.

“It’s ‘bout time you left.” Poppa had ghosted into the front seat of the Wagoneer, forcing Duke to jump to the back.

He was happy about it with a wagging tale and his head hung over the front seat. The behind the ear rubs from Poppa didn’t hurt either.

“I wondered where you were.” I gave a side look to him and didn’t bother hiding myself talking. It was dark outside, and I was sure no one could see me. “Tonight I got some tips on the cuff links stolen from the Moss burglary.”

I’d be curious to hear Poppa’s thoughts on it, so I quickly told him what Viola and Ruby had disclosed about him approaching both of them with similar, if not the same cuff links.

“Do you think he never told Lenora the truth?” I asked Poppa.

“I’ve known Woody all my life.” Poor Poppa went to the afterlife way too fast. He should be enjoying himself, riding around in this Wagoneer meeting up with his buds for some early morning coffee or even taking the old Jeep to the lake filled with chest of ice-cold brew and his fishing poles.

Sadly, that wasn’t the case. A heart attack took him away from me and death of others brought him back to me. As much as I wanted to solve Avon’s murder, in the back of my head was the little tickle that the longer I took, the more time I had with Poppa. These were the things that I should be discussing with Finn, not whether we are going to be Baptist or Catholic.

“Did you hear me?” Poppa’s ghost hand waved in front of my face, leaving some lingering fog.

“I’m sorry. What did you say?” I pulled the Wagoneer right on Main Street from Oak Street heading south.

“I was saying that Woody was a good storyteller. He might’ve lied about the value of the cuff links. But you said Katy Lee was going to check to see if there was a policy, so we just wait for that piece of the puzzle.” He let out a long sigh. “When are you going to learn patience is a key. Just breathe. Both of these crimes will be solved in no time.”

“I’ve done what you said about keeping my ears open and trying to pick out the pieces of gossip that might have some truth, but all I’m getting about the cuff links are that they are fake. Which makes me wonder if the burglar knew that.” My thoughts shifted back to Rich, which then shifted to Avon. “I still can’t unlink Rich from both crimes.”

“It might be two crimes with one person. The killer and the burglar are the same.” Poppa made a good point. “Maybe Avon knew he was bad and somehow knew he was going to steal. I don’t know, I’m grasping here.”

Our little game had begun.

“What if she overheard him arguing with Woody at the rehab center about him being cut from the will.” I threw that out there, though I wasn’t sure how or why Woody would tell him.

“Was Rich at the rehab center when Woody was alive? I thought he was released on good behavior for the funeral.” I jerked the wheel right, making a hard turn onto Maple Street before taking another quick right and pulling down the alley behind the department.

“I guess we are going to the office.” Poppa’s face lit up. He rubbed his hands together. “Wee-doggy, Duke!” Duke jumped up and hung his head back over the front seat. “We’ve got our Kenni-bug back to ourselves.”

“Don’t be going silly.” I smiled and winked after I put the Jeep into park. “We’ve got to go in here and look through Avon’s purse. Get a good timeline to where she was before she was in the park.”

“Sounds perfect to me.” Poppa didn’t wait for me to gather my bag and get Duke out before he floated into the building. Duke shot out of the back door when I opened it.

“Here, Duke,” I called for Duke, juggling my bag and trying to look for him while fumbling getting the key into the lock of the door to the department.

Duke’s nails got louder and louder, signaling he was coming like I’d called.

“Good, boy.” He ran to my side just as the key slid into the door handle. “Let’s get in here and get a treat.” I turned the knob and pushed the door with my foot.

Duke headed on inside, I dropped my bag inside of the door and ran my hand up along the wall to flip the light switch. I shut the door behind me and let my shoulders fall as I took a deep breath and let it out in one long, enjoyable sigh.

“This place is a close second to home.” I smiled at Poppa. He’d already taken his seat in my chair, which used to be his chair, with his feet propped up on the desk.

“It should be.” He clasped his hand behind his head and lounged back. “You spent many days and nights here with me while your daddy worked and your mama did all those fancy clubs.”

“I couldn’t imagine where I’d be or who I’d be in life if it weren’t for you.” Without looking at him and at risk of crying, I took the lid off the dog treats on Finn’s desk and flipped Duke a treat. “Especially on this case.”

I walked over to the vault and bent down, rolling the combination between my fingers as I plugged in the code to open it.

“What do you have in mind tonight?” Poppa asked, still taking the moment to enjoy his old seat.

“I want to look into Avon’s purse and wallet to see if anything is missing before I take it to Tom Geary’s lab in the morning on my way to Clay’s Ferry.” It was perfect timing to drop it off and that’s the way I liked to do things.

Orderly.

Most days, I’d planned my day out to make sure the stops I needed to make during the week were in the same area. It was probably the penny pincher in me since the Wagoneer was a gas hog and I used my own money to fill it up instead of the department money.

I tried to skimp on silly things like gas when we could use that money towards something like paying a new deputy. Which reminded me of the upcoming town council meeting.

“I’ve got to get my speech ready about hiring Scott to give to the town council tomorrow night. It sure would be good if I could get a solid lead and not just something as silly as fake cuff links.” I pulled the evidence bag out of the vault and walked over to my desk where I plucked a pair of gloves from the box.

“He’s doing a fine job at taking orders and following protocol.” Poppa didn’t need to point that out, but it would be good to put in my speech about how thorough and reliable he was.

“Let’s see what we got here.” I carefully removed the purse from its evidence bag and opened it. There was a bag from the Sweet Shop waded up in it. It was pink with black lines and bright yellow writing with a donut logo. “Max told me on the phone that there were still some remnants of something sweet like a donut in her esophagus and the stomach. She’d been eating or was eating at the time of the death. Chocolate too.”

There was some icing on the inside of the bag that was left behind from where she’d taken it out.

“I’m going to have to go to the Sweet Shop to see if she had stopped there that morning and if she was alone.”

Poppa blurted out in laughter.

“Tough job, Kiddo.” He licked his lips. “I sure do wish there was something like that when I was alive.” He patted his belly.

“If it’s any consolation, we can go together in the morning. I’ve yet to go, but Daddy loves it.” I put the Sweet Shop bag aside and started to take out the rest of the contents, which didn’t make me think anything was off. But I also didn’t find anything else that most women might carry in a purse.

Me? I rarely carried anything but my sheriff’s bag.

I walked over to the dry-erase board and turned it around from where we’d moved it earlier. Underneath Avon’s name, I wrote the contents of her purse and noted how I was going to the Sweet Shop to check out Avon’s visit. I also documented the contents on the evidence sheet before I put the purse back into the bag.

“Now to the wallet.” It was a brown wallet with a zipper around the entire thing.

After unzipping it, I laid it flat open on the evidence bag. On the right side, there were pockets for credit cards. Only two contained cards. One was from Cottonwood First National, a debit card. The second was her driver’s license. The middle of the wallet was a zipper area for change. When I flipped that to the right side, the left side had two long pockets one behind the other. One was empty, but the other had one hundred dollars in twenties.

“If this was a robbery, she got robbed and killed by a stupid one.” I noted the cash wasn’t taken on the evidence sheet and then proceeded to fill out the white board with the contents of the wallet.

“This is looking less and less like a robbery.” Poppa had ghosted himself next to me at the white board. “Did she exercise in the park in the morning before work while eating a donut? I doubt it. She seemed to be in good physical health from the look of her, the stats Finn had found and the looks of her photo on her license.”

“She was in good health from what her parents had said. But they couldn’t discount she had two known women who didn’t like her. Lita Brumfied.” I circled Lita’s name a few times. “And Reagan Quinlan.” I circled her name a few times.

“You’ve talked to Lita.” Poppa pointed to her.

“She’s got Parkinson’s.” I’d just remembered what Jolee had told me about that. “I need to write that down.”

I went back and forth from the white board to the written file we kept and noted everything.

“It was one bullet.” Poppa’s fat finger lifted in the air. “By the look of Lita’s shaking, she’s in the later stages of the disease, which makes me think she’s a less likely suspect. Besides, is she even driving anymore? How did she get to the park? How did she steady her hand enough to shoot one shot, kill the girl and walk out of there without someone seeing her?”

“Gosh, I missed you.” I wanted so desperately to put my arms around him, but I knew it wasn’t possible.