Charity Begins at Home - Ch. 20-21

Excerpt from Charity Begins at Home by Pat Otterness

CHAPTER TWENTY

? “Bromide,” said Deputy Alan Cook. “Buddy Tucker’s blood had toxic levels of bromide.”

“But what does that mean, exactly?” I asked. My mind was full of unanswered questions.

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out,” said Cook. “There are lots of bromide compounds out there. We need to figure out which one he came in contact with, and why.”

“Whatever it was, it must have happened after he got off the bus,” said Hiram thoughtfully. “He was totally fine on the bus. Upbeat, chatty … no sign at all that he was sick.”

“It helps to know that,” said the deputy. “It gives us a time frame. Can you think of anything he said that might tell us where he was planning to go?”

Hiram ran a hand over his balding head, smoothing remaining strands of light brown hair. “He mentioned planning to visit his sister,” Hiram said, “but he didn’t say where she lived.”

“I can answer that one,” I interrupted. “His sister Tammy … she calls herself Hermione … is married to my ex-husband. They live in Amherst.” I named a town about twenty miles South. “Hunt already knows about her, though. Did Buddy mention any other plans, Harm?”

“There was one thing,” said Hiram. “He mentioned some job he’d been offered that he thought he could finish quickly, maybe make a lot of fast money. I asked him what it was, but he wouldn’t say – just changed the subject. He didn’t say where the job was, or who he’d be working for. To tell the truth, I wasn’t all that interested.” Hiram shrugged apologetically.

“Maybe the bus driver might remember where he got off,” I said. “I know it’s a long shot, but now that you have good pictures of Buddy … you did get Tammy to give you some, right?” I asked Cook.

Cook nodded.

“So now that you have good pictures of Buddy, you can show them to the driver and see if he remembers.” I looked at Cook hopefully.

“Let me run that by the boss,” said Cook, punching in a number on his cell phone.

Before I could stop him, he had reached Investigator Hunt and begun to outline my plan. After a moment, he grimaced and held the phone out to me.

“Hello?” I said.

“Miz Chance,” said a familiar voice, in an increasingly familiar tone. “I see that you continue to press your luck. Why is it, Miz Chance, that you believe you are more capable of solving this crime than your local law enforcement officers?”

I was silent. What do you say to something like that, anyway?

“Miz Chance,” he continued, dragging the Miz out to about three syllables, “what am I going to?do?with you?”

Patronizing asshole!?“I could use a?hug,” I said, then added “Jordan.” I held the phone away from my ear. There were expletives issuing from the receiver that I didn’t want to hear. “Maybe?you?should take this,” I said to Deputy Cook, holding the phone out to him.

Cook backed away, refusing to intervene on my behalf. Hiram, flushed and angry, reached out and took the phone from my hand.

“She’s trying to?help,” said Hiram indignantly. “Seems to me you need all the help you can get.”

Oops! There go all his brownie points, I thought.

Hiram handed the phone to Cook, and there was a tense exchange as Cook apparently received a dressing-down from his superior. Cook’s face glowed pink as he listened to the tirade issuing from his earpiece.

“Yes, sir,” said Cook at last, clicking off the phone. He turned to me. “Why do you bait him like that?” he asked.

I pondered a moment. “Because I?can?” I suggested. “I don’t know. He comes over as such a patronizing bully sometimes, it just jerks my chain.”

“Jordan Hunt deserves your respect,” said the deputy. “He isn’t very socialized, but he’s a decent guy, and a very conscientious investigator. He always goes the second mile for the people he serves – and that includes both of you,” Cook said sternly. “Try to look past his rough exterior, okay?”

And of course, he was right, I thought.?Bad Chat!?I just couldn’t seem to control my knee-jerk reaction to Hunt.

“If he’d just?listen?to me,” I complained. “Just hear me out and take me seriously … I wouldn’t react like that.”

“He listens,” said Cook. “He’ll follow up on your suggestion about the bus driver. He may not like your interference in his case, but he’s not stupid. He knew?you?were right, too, Harm, when you said he needed all the help he could get,” Cook continued. “But he has feelings. What do you gain by hurting him?”

Hiram’s eyes met mine. We were both ashamed of ourselves. Not ashamed enough to back away from investigating, of course, but sorry that we had insulted Jordan Hunt.

Alan Cook had just brought Hiram back from the Frees’ place. Now he explained that Hunt wanted him to assist in our search for signs of Gladys. Hiram must have mentioned our plan to search my iris rows when he talked to Hunt earlier in the day. Hmm? Maybe Hunt?did?listen.

Hiram and I were comfortable with Cook, but things were still a little tense between the two of us.?I was livid that Hiram had been included in the investigation and I had not. Having the deputy serve as a buffer between us was just the ticket right now.

We had not yet reached the edge of the first large field when two perspiring middle-aged women with haggard faces struggled up the road towards us, waving to get our attention. They could have been sisters. They were tall, wiry women, the kind men chose to marry a century ago. They had wide hips for childbearing and strong shoulders for pushing a plow. Like many of their kind, these two were spinsters, neither shapely enough nor soft enough for modern tastes.

“Have you found her?” the pair cried in unison, panting from the exertion of the climb. They addressed this question to Deputy Cook, who apparently knew them.

“Not yet, but the search continues,” Cook replied. “Pansy, Lizzie Beth, this is Charity Chance,” he said, indicating me, “and Hiram Jones.” He inclined his head in Hiram’s direction. “Chat, Harm, meet Pansy Payne and Lizzie Beth Diggs.”

“We’re friends of Gladys Handy,” said Pansy, offering first me and then Hiram her hand. “We are just devastated. Glad would never go off without telling anyone.”

“Never!” chirped Lizzie Beth. “We’re her best friends.?The three musketeers!?We do everything together.” Her voice trembled. “Pansy and I are just?praying?that Glad is still alive.”

“If it’s all right with Chat,” Cook told them, “maybe you could help us search. We need to check these iris rows for any sign that Glad might have been in Chat’s garden yesterday. You’d have to be very careful not to disturb the plants,” he added.?

“Oh, we’d love to help!” said Pansy. “Wouldn’t we, Lizzie Beth?”

“Of course we would,” said Lizzie Beth, “if it’s all right with Ms. Chance. I know you don’t encourage visitors in your garden,” she admitted, looking me in the eye.

“Call me Chat,” I said. “No, I?don’t?like visitors in my garden, not even my closest friends,” I confessed. “But we’re all worried about Glad. As long as you’re careful, it would be a big help to have your assistance looking for some sign of Gladys. Since you’re her friends, you might spot something the rest of us would miss.”

Cook lined us up at the beginnings of the first five rows, with Lizzie Beth first, then me, then himself, followed by Pansy and Hiram. Since the iris stalks were only 36 inches tall on average, we could all see each other easily. The temptation, especially for Lizzie Beth and Pansy, was to look at blooms instead of looking at the ground. The garden was overflowing with them, and the air was heavy with their sweet fragrance.

“Look at the ground,” Cook insisted when he caught the ladies gazing high instead of low. “Look for signs of digging, or footprints, cloth … anything that makes you think someone has been here recently. Blood or hair, too, though blood might be hard to spot against this red clay soil. Anything at all that looks out of place, I want to know about it.”

We all set off, eyes to the ground, hoping to spot some clue that would lead us to Glad. After a few minutes of silent searching, the quiet crunch of feet on soil was apparently uncomfortable for Lizzie Beth.

“Your family has lived around here for a long time, hasn’t it?” she asked me.

“Yes,” I said. “This land has been handed down from generation to generation. Not much of it left in the family now, of course.”

“Did your family own Chance Cassidy’s place back then?” Lizzie Beth asked.

“The Chance family owned all of Dancing Creek, and more besides,” I said. “All well before my time, of course.”

“Goodness!” said Lizzie Beth. “Your family must have owned our place, too. Did you? I’ll have to tell Dusty.”

“Is Dusty your husband?” I asked to be polite, wishing for a way out of this boring conversation.

“Oh, no!” she trilled. “I’m not married. Dusty is my?brother. Well, really his name is Dustin, but we’ve always called him Dusty. Maybe you know him?”

“I think I’ve heard the name somewhere. Where does he work?” I asked.?Like I give a rat’s ass.?“Do you and Dusty live together?”

“Oh yes, we do. For now, anyway. We live up behind the Frees brothers. Our road starts right at the mailboxes and goes way on up the hill.” Lizzie Beth stopped for breath, then continued. “Dusty does odd jobs for some of the local growers. He’s helping Claude and Nils Frees right now. Getting their land ready for planting, you know.”

“Ah!” I said with an internal yawn. “That’s?where I heard his name,” I continued. “Someone mentioned that his mailbox was grouped with the Handy’s and the Frees’. And yes, my family did own that land at one time.”

Desperate to change the subject, I turned to Cook. “Found anything,” I asked. “Any sign we’re on the right track?”

“Not yet,” he said. “If there’s any clue out here, it may be very subtle. I think Gladys Handy was looking for something. She looked in the gardens down the road, but maybe she didn’t find what she was looking for. Maybe she decided to sneak up here and look in your garden and Chance’s.”

“I know she was happy when she heard that Chance’s guard dog was gone,” offered Pansy. “We all were. Glad didn’t like to be kept out of places.” Pansy cast an apologetic glance my way. “We all wanted to see your garden,” she admitted.

“Well,?here you are,” I said stiffly. No way were they going to throw a guilt trip on me for wanting my privacy. Especially after what Frank had told me about their behavior in the other gardens.

By now we were nearing the bank where I had seen those footprints early on. With five searchers, we had made short work of the large field. Hiram was oddly silent, intent on examining the ground before him. When he suddenly crouched down, all of us stopped and looked up to see if he’d found anything.

“What is it, Harm?” I said. “Did you find something?” He was out of sight below the iris stalks.

Ignoring my question, Hiram spoke quietly to Cook. “Deputy,” he said, “I think you need to see this.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

? “It’s a silver medallion or coin of some sort,” said Hiram. The kind of thing a person might carry in their pocket as a good luck piece.

“Don’t touch it,” said Cook. “There may be fingerprints.”

“I have a camera,” I said, “if you want to get some photos.” I held out the small flat Sony Cybershot that I always carried, aware that I would not have handed over the Leica I used for my plant photos as casually.

“Thanks,” said Cook. “Good idea. Can you make some kind of notation describing exactly where we are?” He reached for the camera, and after checking it out, took several photos.

“I can do better than that,” I said. From my pocket I took a small red plastic flag attached to a wire stake. Breeders sometimes use them to mark, or “red flag” special plants in the field. I handed the flag to the deputy, who used it to mark the exact spot where the find had been made. Meanwhile, I jotted down the number of the iris row, and the names of the iris varieties nearest to where the medallion had been found.

My pockets were full of oddments. Unasked, I extracted a clean Zip-loc bag and passed it over to Cook to use as an evidence bag. Once the medallion was bagged, he held it up where Pansy, Lizzie Beth and I could see it.

“Does this belong to Glad?” he asked her two friends.

Pansy and Lizzie Beth looked at the medallion, then at one another for a long moment. “No,” they said in unison. “It’s not hers.”

“Have you ever seen it before, any of you?” Cook showed the medallion more closely to each of us in turn. “Could it belong to someone you know?”

After exchanging another long glance, Pansy and Lizzie Beth shook their heads, denying any knowledge of the medallion. Hiram and I took a closer look. On one side there was a slightly raised treasure chest, with a skull peering over its edge, and coins scattered beneath it. On the other side, a pair of elegantly inscribed “T”s sat above two crossed shovels and again, coins were scattered around them.

“I’ve never seen it before,” I said. “I suppose it?could?belong to someone I know, but if it does, they’ve never shown it to me.”

“I never saw Chance with anything like that,” said Hiram, “but I know he’d like it. He’s really into old coins and stuff. Treasure, he calls it.”

“Is that what he does with the metal detector?” I asked. “Looks for old coins?”

“I don’t know,” said Hiram. “He didn’t have a metal detector in Texas. No telling what he’s up to these days.”

“Are we going to finish searching the garden,” I asked Cook.

“No,” he said, “I’m going to get a forensic team out here to examine the area. We’ll check the remaining rows. The person who dropped this medallion may be connected to the body found in the creek.”

“Oh, no!” Lizzie Beth cried. She and Pansy looked disturbed.

“Nothing to be alarmed about,” said the deputy. “You ladies head on home. Thank you for helping with the search.” He walked them out to the road and sent them on their way.

Hiram and I trudged out the way we had come. At the mailboxes, Hiram scooped up the mail from Chance’s box and without a word, started down the road home. I watched in dismay. I had hoped he would tell me what he and Investigator Hunt had done at the Frees’ place. Although too proud to ask, I’d thought sure he’d tell me voluntarily.?Well, so much for that.

I went inside and fixed myself a hamburger with fat slices of tomato for lunch, along with some leftover green beans. I was ravenous. It had been a long time since the early breakfast with Hiram. A nice cold glass of iced tea and several oatmeal cookies completed my meal.

I felt too tired to begin doing pollinations. Anyway, it wasn’t a good idea while the forensic team was searching my iris rows. Instead, I decided to pot more of my newly germinated iris seedlings, which could be done sitting down. This time of year, seeds germinated daily. I dragged my paraphernalia to the outdoor table and set to work. It was easy to immerse myself in this task. As with all chores this time of year, record-keeping was the most time-consuming aspect of the job.

New seedlings looked so cute, like tiny blades of grass. As I teased the roots of tiny seedlings from the seed-boxes, I took care to avoid snapping their taproots. It was delicate work separating such tiny roots from the packed soil without breaking the fragile umbilical connection to the seed where essential nourishment was stored. The tiny plants almost always died if their seeds were broken off too soon. I could avoid this problem, of course, by waiting until the seedlings were older before transplanting them. Impatient people make more work for themselves, I thought, continuing the delicate task anyway.

It was only after I was indoors again and working on my Tall Tales article that I noticed my camera had not been returned.?Drat!?I thought. I’ll have to call Alan Cook. I reached for the phone and dialed a number I thought was his.

“Sheriff’s Department,” chimed a too-familiar voice.

“I’m trying to reach Deputy Cook,” I said in a silky voice, hoping to remain anonymous.?Fat Chance!

“Well if it isn’t Miz Chance again,” said Investigator Jordan Hunt.?“To what, Miz Chance, does the Department owe this pleasure?”

“Deputy Cook borrowed my camera today,” I said stiffly. “He used it to get photos of a medallion we found in my garden. The deputy doesn’t know that I have important photos on that memory card,” I explained, “photos I need for an iris article I’m writing. And I need to get my camera back, too.”

“I see,” said Hunt.

“Is Deputy Cook there now? May I speak to him??Please,” I added.

“I’m sorry, Miz Chance, but Deputy Cook is not available at this time.” Hunt didn’t sound sorry. “I’ll convey your message to him when he returns,” he said.

I persisted. “Those photos aren’t just snapshots, they’re for publication. Don’t let anything happen to them.”

“Or what?” said Hunt. “What threat awaits us if the photographs are lost?”

Hanging up on an officer of the law would be a poor idea, I decided. Especially this officer.?Oops! Our connection seems to have been lost. What a shame!

My phone rang almost immediately, and went unanswered.?Oh, too, bad!?I thought.?The party you’re trying to reach is unavailable. Eventually the ringing stopped. “Leave a message at the sound of the beep and I’ll get back to you … right after Hell freezes over,” I murmured, kissing any hope of Hunt’s forgiveness goodbye. Too bad?that?message hadn’t been pre-recorded.

I was having a hard time concentrating on my article. I’m not what you’d call a focused person, even at the best of times. Now, with the barrage of distractions facing me, I was reduced to writing in five-minute increments. That was about how long I could keep my mind on the task at hand.?

Dancing Creek Road, the new center of iris activity in Central Virginia, was picturesque long before the recent introduction of iris culture. For generations, land on both sides of Dancing Creek belonged to descendants of Ezra and Chalice Chance, whose peach and apple orchards once covered many of the rolling acres in Nelson County’s foothills. What a pretty sight that must have been on long-ago April afternoons: hillsides covered in apple and peach blossoms and the air full of their sweet fragrance.

That didn’t sound quite right. I’d just have to come back to it. It was more important to interview the remaining hard-to-approach growers like the Frees brothers. Frank Ortiz had been easy to talk to, as had a few of the others. Chance Cassidy never told me much about himself, of course, but Hiram had filled me in on Chance’s past to some extent, and I knew first-hand about his arrival on the creek. I hadn’t yet begun interviewing growers farther down the road. I was shy about introducing myself to so many new people.

I could just imagine Investigator Hunt’s reaction if he found me on the Frees’ property again. Uninvited, that is.?Hmm??What if I made an appointment? Feeling deliciously wicked, I flipped through my Rolodex ‘til I found the number I was seeking.

An hour later I was sitting comfortably in the Frees’ trailer office, facing two sinewy, deeply-tanned men in perhaps their mid to late fifties. Nils, the elder, had dark brown hair, graying at the temples, and eyes so dark they were almost black. His brother Claude could hardly have been more different. His hair was that odd shade of pink that red hair turns as it grays, and his eyes were a bright sky-blue, with crows-feet at their corners.

I had been greeted by these unlikely siblings with solemn civility rather than warmth. Utterly polite, they answered each of my questions with candor, yet offered nothing that had not been specifically asked. While not monosyllables, their answers were short and to the point.?I’ll bet they were a challenge for Glad, I thought, imagining scenarios where she used her wiles to probe for information.

“The two of you look very different,” I said. “Unusual for brothers.” I looked from one to the other, noticing different eye and ear shapes, different bone structure, and more. Claude had a large mouth and big, very white teeth, while Nils was thinner-lipped with small, grayish teeth that he seldom showed.

“Adopted,” said Nils pleasantly, with a hint of a smile.

“Both adopted, by the same family,” added Claude. “We had different birth parents.” His tone suggested further questions on this topic were not welcome.

“Well, that explains it,” I said, smiling at first one and then the other. “Tell me your plans for the fields you’ve been preparing. I see you’ve already done some plowing.”

This kind of question worked better with the garrulous than with the reticent. It was as if they didn’t know how to respond.

“Mr. Diggs plowed it?for us,” said Nils.

“We‘ll plant our irises there,” offered Claude.

“Will you grow tall bearded iris, or some other type,” I asked, starting to wonder if these men were native English speakers. Something about the cadence of their speech reminded me of visitors whose first language was something other than English.

“Tall beardeds first,” said Nils.

“Later, border beardeds as well,” added Claude. “Maybe someday Louisianas,” he continued in a burst of unexpected enthusiasm.

“Do you plan to breed as well as grow?” I asked.

“Growing only,” said Claude.

“Maybe?I?will try breeding,” said Nils with a challenging look at his brother. Clearly this was a point of disagreement between the two of them.

Question by painful question, I inched the conversation towards the plastic sheeting I had seen covering their fields, plastic which was now balled up in the large gray bins outside.

“We were told that in Texas a clear plastic covering will trap the heat and kill everything underneath,” said Claude, the more loquacious of the two.

“But here in Virginia, it doesn’t get hot enough,” added Nils, “so we hired someone to fumigate our fields for us.”

“What product did you use?” I asked, wishing I could afford to kill all the voles and weed seed in my garden as they had done.

The brothers looked at each other and shrugged.

“I don’t know,” said Nils. “I didn’t ask.”

“No idea,” Claude echoed. “We left the details to Dusty.”

“Dusty?” I said.

“Dusty Diggs,” Claude replied. “Our neighbor. A kind of odd-jobs man, I guess you’d call him. We give him work if we can, since he lives nearby. He seems dependable. He can tell you more about the fumigation process.”

I thanked the brothers and rose to leave. Out the open trailer door, I could see a familiar, tall woman shaking her finger in the face of a stocky man in grimy clothes, his underarms ringed with perspiration.

“There he is now!” said Claude. “Dusty! Can you come here a moment? There’s someone who wants to meet you.”