Murder at Peacock Mansion Read online

“Ninety percent sure. I may have to hire you.”

  “Thanks. I already have more than a full-time job.” I wondered what was going on at the café.

  My head was throbbing, and when I checked the time on my phone, it was nearing five o’clock. I hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and I couldn’t remember what I’d eaten then. “I’m going to the café to check on things and then I’ll be in to see you.”

  “No,” David said deliberately. “You go home and get some sleep. I think they’re going to release me tomorrow, and I’ll have to have a game plan. I’d much rather you be rested. And I know those goons are in jail, at least for tonight, but now I’m nervous about you on the highway at night. Go home, promise?”

  I promised, with a bit of relief. Then I circled my car around in the road and headed to Wheeler.

  ****

  Even tuna salad, my perennial favorite, tasted like sawdust, and I wished for a glass of wine to wash it down.

  Marj reported that the café was running smoothly. “You need to go home. I’ll close. ’Course I been here since nine this morning, but I don’t mind.”

  She knew I paid overtime. “Just log it in on your time sheet.” I had honor system time sheets for the employees—Gram always said a time clock looked like you didn’t trust them, and if you couldn’t trust the people who worked for you, who could you trust? With one exception I could remember in my three years there, it worked pretty well.

  “Oh, Kate! How could I forget? Mrs. Aldridge called four times. She sounded agitated, real anxious to talk to you. Here’s her number.” She handed me a slip of paper torn off an order pad and I pocketed it, just in case I couldn’t find the card she’d given me before.

  “I’ll call tomorrow. Haven’t got the heart for it tonight.” And with that I went home, fed a starving Huggles, showered, and fell into bed. My dreams were of men beating bushes with baseball bats while I cowered under a rotting tree limb. Huggles apparently had bad dreams too, because he jumped, started, and barked several times during the night.

  One glance in the mirror next morning told me that I looked as bad as I felt. I did my best with makeup, fed and watered Huggles, and left him outside, praying for a calmer day as I walked across the field to the café to make sticky buns.

  By eight o’clock, the buns were made and in the warming oven, and I was eating a bowl of oatmeal, because I figured it would give me stamina for whatever the day held. Of course, my main agenda was to head to Canton and see about David’s release. But before I could get out the door, the phone rang. Marj wasn’t there, so I answered with as cheery a voice as I could muster. “Good morning. Blue Plate Café. How may I help you?”

  “Kate, this is Edith Aldridge. It’s even more desperate than ever that I speak to you immediately. Can you come to my home right away?”

  Oops. What happened to yesterday’s lack of presumption? “No, Mrs. Aldridge, I can’t. I have to go right away to visit a friend in the hospital.”

  “Hospital! That’s just it. I have found out, in a roundabout way that my lawyer has been badly beaten. I’m afraid he’s dead.”

  I held the phone away from my ear and stared at it, as though I’d imagined that last statement. Distantly, I could hear her calling, “Miss Chambers? Kate?”

  Finally, I put the phone back to my ear. “I’m here. You just startled me. What is your lawyer’s name?”

  “I’m not sure if I ought to divulge it.”

  Exasperation nearly got the better of me. “Mrs. Aldridge, how can I help you if you can’t tell me things?”

  A long pause. “I guess you’re right. It’s David Clinkscales, a Dallas lawyer who spends most of his time in this area now.”

  I drew in a deep breath. It was what I had been expecting. “Mrs. Aldridge, I do know him. He’s a very good friend of mine. And he’s not dead. He’s recovering nicely. I expect the hospital to release him today.”

  “Oh, thank God. Can he come here as soon as he’s released?”

  This lady was really scared about something. “No, ma’am. He can’t. He’ll be frail and weak, and he’ll need to rest. But I can give you his cell phone number. This might be a particularly good time to call.”

  “Bother,” she said sharply. “I have that number. But if I don’t get him, young lady, you tell him to call me as soon as he can.” Gone was the obsequious polite lady, replaced by a demanding woman who apparently felt the privileges of the rich…or of being David’s client.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said and hung up quickly.

  Chapter Six

  I intended to be cheerful and caring when I went into David’s hospital room. Instead, I barged in like a demanding harridan. My temper was blazing, and I imagine it was reflected in my eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me Edith Aldridge is your client?”

  David looked at me in a mild, slightly surprised way typical of him. After staring a minute, he said, “You had no need to know. You of all people know about client privilege.”

  “How long has she been your client?” I wasn’t about to let go of my head of steam that quickly, although from afar I heard Gram say, “Now, child, you catch more flies with a teaspoon of sugar than a cup of vinegar.” Gram, I don’t need platitudes right now!

  David said, “Long time. Her husband’s unfortunate death was—what? Thirty years ago?”

  “She was your client even when I worked for you, and you never told me?”

  “She never visited the office, and we had little business to transact. Besides, she asked that I be extra careful about confidentiality, and I honored that. You can see why she was nervous.” After a minute, he added lamely, “She’s really a sweet lady.”

  “She was until about an hour ago. Then she nearly bit my head off.”

  “I know. She called me. She’s upset about the beating and the cabin. Well, mostly she’s upset that records are missing. Her file, which is relatively slim, is with those the sheriff confiscated, and no doubt he’s reading it right now. He probably was ten years old at best when Walter Aldridge died. May look like fresh meat to a hungry dog.”

  I stopped short, baffled by his metaphor. “Fresh meat?”

  “A cold case he can investigate.” David rang for the nurse. “Edith was acquitted, but no one ever figured out who did kill Walter Aldridge. Shot him sitting at his desk.”

  “I know. I looked it up on Google.”

  He stared at me. “You could have just asked me.” Then he began issuing orders. “Get my clothes out of that closet or wherever they put them. I’ve got to get out of here now.”

  “Why?” I wasn’t letting him leave against medical advice if I could help it, and I was pretty sure at this point I was stronger than he was, if it came to that.

  The nurse who responded to David’s call—her badge read Alpha Jones—was crisp, efficient, and far too agreeable. “Mr. Clinkscales, you are scheduled to be dismissed today but you must wait for the doctor.”

  “That could be suppertime. I’ve got to go now, got business to take care of.”

  “Now, now”—she pushed him back into the pillows—“getting upset will only raise your blood pressure and alarm the doctor. I’ll do what I can to hurry him, though heaven knows it’s not much.”

  I truly thought about saying I had to go to the café, and I’d come get him that afternoon, but in spite of my bravado, I chickened out and sat back to watch.

  David grabbed his cell phone and dialed. From the conversation, he obviously called Sheriff Halstead. “Sam, about those files you took for safekeeping yesterday. Would you bring them around to me?” Pause. “Yes, I’m still in the hospital but getting out today. Not sure where I’ll be staying.” He stole a look at me. “I’ll let you know, but the files will be safe with me, and I need them for a client.” Another pause. “You can’t? Surely they don’t have anything to do with what happened at my cabin. I’m sure they’re not evidence.” Pause. “Yes, yes, I imagine some of them are interesting reading.” A pause during which David grew increasingly agitated.
“Well, man, what do I do to get them back? Court order? They can’t just sit in your file. I need them.”

  At length he hung up, looking totally discouraged. “He won’t give them up. Seemed gleeful about reading the files, which makes me very nervous. I’m afraid he’s got the law on his side, and he’s smart enough to know it.”

  “Could the files on Mrs. Aldridge have anything to do with this mess?”

  “They just might, Kate. You never know what greed or fear will lead people to do. Including the good sheriff.”

  Only then did I remember my resolve to be cheerful. I went to the bed, kissed him lightly, and held his hand. We both sat lost in thought for a long while.

  ****

  The doctor came in about three in the afternoon, semi-apologizing by saying, “My patients are always in a hurry to get out of here. Did the best I could.” He leafed through the chart he held. “Hmmm. Blood pressure a little high at noon today.”

  “I was upset,” David protested.

  “Because I was late?”

  “No, a professional matter. I’m a lawyer.”

  The doctor looked at me. “You his wife?”

  I shook my head, refusing to remind him he’d asked me that question before.

  “Can you make him take care of himself? His body’s had a shock and, at his age, it won’t respond as quickly as it once did.”

  David was probably forty-five, and out of the corner of my eye I saw the jolt the doctor’s words gave him.

  “I’ll try. Can he drive?”

  “No driving for at least awhile, and even then only as long as it’s an automatic shift. We’ll reassess from time to time. The burns on your hands and feet have to heal, and we need to be sure you’re not light-headed anymore. And there’s the matter of the broken ankle.”

  David protested immediately. “I’m not light-headed. I’m in full possession of my faculties, and I drive an automatic. It’s my left ankle.”

  “Sorry, buddy, but it’s for your own good. I’ll see you in my office in one week. Call and make an appointment. Nurse will be in shortly to wheel you out.”

  “Wheel me out?” David said indignantly after the doctor left. “I can damn well walk out of this joint.”

  “Probably hospital rules,” I said. I’d been out to a local fast-food place and gotten us BLT sandwiches—neither of us wanted a fast-food hamburger—so we weren’t starving, and I couldn’t blame crankiness on hunger. But David was the least cranky person I knew, and his out-of-character mood was beginning to affect me. I kept silent, even when his cell phone rang and his end of the conversation told me it was Edith Aldridge on the other end of the phone.

  “No, Edith, I don’t think it’s as serious as you believe.” Pause. “Really? You found what?”

  Clear across the room I could hear her determined voice say, “A trip wire on the stair.”

  David paled. “Anything else?”

  She must have told him about the papers in the office, because he put his head in his hands in an expression of defeat. “I think the cat is out of the bag,” he said, “and on the prowl.”

  More conversation from Edith. Then, “The sheriff has already been to see you? Just tell him you won’t talk without your lawyer present. I can be there for you tomorrow.”

  My heart sank. I couldn’t spend my days driving David hither and yon—I had a café to run. I wasn’t sure at all what to do, but first things first. David would have to stay at my house—in Gram’s room. And I could already hear Gram pitching fits. And probably David too. Not that David and I were either naïve nor as pure as driven snow, but now did not seem like the time for romance or intimacy. Besides, what if I rolled over and hit his ankle? It was in what they called a soft cast, rather than being encased in rigid plaster. Much more comfortable, I’m sure, but just as limiting.

  When he hung up, I asked a really dumb question. “David, how did the sheriff know to see Mrs. Aldridge?”

  “The papers you handed him.” His voice was almost accusatory, but he knew and so did I that I had no choice.

  My questions were interrupted by a nurses’ aide who was far too cheery. “So, we’re ready to go home, are we? Let me just help you into this wheelchair, and if your wife will go bring the car to the ER doors, I’ll wheel you down there. We’ll have you out of here in no time at all.” She was almost singing her words, all with this huge smile and too much use of “we.”

  David growled, “She’s not my wife,” and tried to stand to go to the wheelchair. But his ankle in a cast collapsed under him, and he fell, ungracefully, to the floor.

  “See?” the nurse gloated. “We’re not quite as strong as we think.”

  I grabbed my purse and ran for the car.

  ****

  The drive home was silent, with David staring out the window. I had decided not to talk unless he brought something up. Silence is sometimes hard for me, but I drove determinedly, watching the familiar landscape slip by. I studied farmhouses and antique stands that I’d seen a thousand times as though I’d never seen them, wondering when that house had been fenced and why that house had a cow in the front yard.

  David got out his cell phone, stared at it, and then put it away. He too seemed absorbed in the landscape. Maybe he saw, as I did, the beginning of spring, the new green that covered trees and bushes.

  At last I pulled in next to my house and grabbed the paper sack that contained the few things that were found on him—burned shoes (he was wearing slippers I bought in the hospital gift shop), and the clothes they’d torn off him to treat him. I’d had to go to Target to get the jeans and shirt he wore, and I admit the fit was all wrong and they were cheap and too stiffly starched—he looked like a marionette when he tried to walk. The pants were several sizes too big so they would fit over his cast. I suspected everything in the bag would go in the trash. I also picked up the sack of necessities I’d bought—toothbrush and paste, underwear, a couple of T-shirts.

  Once in the house, David looked around helplessly, as though to ask, “What am I supposed to do now?”

  Huggles couldn’t get enough of being close to David, nearly jumping in his lap, but Wynona, never a sociable cat with strangers, looked at him with disdain and stalked back to her hiding place in the living room.

  “Why don’t you lie down and nap? Just getting out of the hospital is stressful.”

  He looked resentful for about half a minute and then said, “You know, you’re right.”

  I pulled back the covers on Gram’s bed and all but tucked him in. Then I left for the café, promising to be back with supper. Tired of hospital food, he requested chicken-fried steak and mashed potatoes.

  I had to check on Marj and let her go home since she’d been doing double duty, but I also had to come up with a game plan for keeping David busy. After checking everything at the café and finding it was running smoothly without me, I called Roger Smith. He and his son, Cary, had lost their wife and mother in tragic circumstances that were of her own making…and almost led to my death. But when the dust settled, I counted Roger and Cary as friends.

  “Roger? Kate Chambers. Does Cary have an after-school job these days or is he playing baseball all the time?”

  Roger reported that Cary had given up sports, uncomfortable with other kids after what happened with his mother, and Roger was worried, wanted to get him out of the house and away from his books. I explained what I needed, and without consulting either David or Cary, we agreed on a plan whereby Cary could earn a little money driving David around after school. Some days Cary had school until three; twice a week, he was free at two.

  I was back from the café by seven, knowing I’d have to go back one more time to collect charges and tally up. But I began to set the kitchen table, only to find I had to move David and his computer.

  “I’ve been looking at house plans,” he said enthusiastically, all his helplessness and anger of the day gone.

  “Fine, but move the computer so I can serve dinner.” I served up pla
tes of chicken-fried steak, mashed potatoes, and fried green beans, a new dish for the café. It was good and went against everything I’d vowed to eat—or not eat.

  I stacked the dishes in the sink without washing them, because David was insistent that I come look at the house plans he’d found.

  “You know, tiny houses are all the thing these days. And some of them are remarkably efficient and streamlined. That’s all I need out there at the lake—a tiny house with a sleeping porch.” He actually leered at me.

  And so I found myself looking at house plans. Some were, indeed, neat, but I vetoed the ones where you had to climb a ladder to get to the sleeping loft.

  I didn’t mention Cary during our cheerful supper, but later as I did dishes, David said, “Kate, I need to go get some clothes—I literally have nothing but what’s on my back—and I need to see Edith Aldridge tomorrow. I hate to ask, but can you…”

  I took a deep breath and sat at the table, abandoning the half-washed dishes. “I’ve arranged for Cary Smith—you remember?”

  He nodded.

  “He’ll drive you anywhere you want to go after school. I can usually slip away in the morning for a short while but as a routine thing, trips to Canton to buy clothes are out for me. Will that work for you?”

  “Yeah, the Smith boy is a nice kid. How’s he doing?”

  I repeated what Roger told me and then added out of the blue that David might want to see about carrying a handgun. I knew he had a concealed carry license. “You never know,” I said, trying to be flippant.

  “Right.”

  “Besides, Big One and John are safely in jail. But obviously someone with more brains was behind their attack on you.”

  “Big One and John?” He was about to laugh.

  “Big One is that one you called Dan’l. At the cabin he called John by name, but it didn’t work the other way. So I called him Big One. And I can tell you he appears to give the orders, but John is the one with half an ounce of brains.”

  “Halstead said neither of them are right bright. Doesn’t matter. They’re facing two counts of attempted murder, arson, and resisting arrest. I bet Halstead can come up with more charges if he tries. But those two thugs are replaceable by someone who has the right—or wrong—connections.”