The Fred Vickery Mystery Series: Books 1-3 (Fred Vickery Mysteries) Read online

  Pulling his coat tighter around his neck, Fred jerked his head toward the street. “I’m going right by your house. I’ll walk up that way with you.”

  The little girl brightened considerably, and Fred thought even the boy looked relieved in spite of himself. Giving the boy’s shoulder a pat, Fred whistled as they walked. The Kirkhams lived just a few blocks away, and the detour wouldn’t take him far out of his way. In fact, it would put him right around the corner from the sheriff’s office.

  Twice lately, Fred had noticed the lights on and Enos’s beat-up Ford pick-up parked outside late at night—much later than Enos usually worked. Usually, Enos had eaten dinner and parked himself in his easy chair by this time of night. Obviously, Joan Cavanaugh’s death was bothering him too. Maybe he ought to look in on Enos after he got the kids safely home.

  Fred walked slowly, giving the little girl a chance to keep up, but when even the easy pace seemed too much for her, Fred took her other hand in his. The extra hand to hold seemed to make the walk easier for the child, and after a few minutes they reached the Kirkhams’ big ugly cabin. Fred watched the kids scamper up the drive and barge into the house. Loralee waved at him from the window and he resumed his walk to Main Street.

  When he got there, he hesitated on the corner and studied the sheriff’s office. Just as they had the past few nights, lights shone from the windows and Enos’s truck sat in its usual spot on the gravel. But maybe Enos didn’t want company. Maybe he wanted to be left alone. If Fred disturbed him, he might get angry.

  Fred took a few steps away and then paused. On the other hand, maybe Enos needed someone to talk things over with. Maybe he needed somebody to help him clear his mind. Somebody to run ideas past. Someone already familiar with the crime. The least Fred could do was check.

  As a matter of fact, while he’d tossed and turned last night, an idea had come to him. Maybe he should run it past Enos. It seemed like the perfect plan to Fred. If he could convince Enos to deputize him and clear the way for him to work on the case, he just knew he’d find the proof they needed to investigate Joan’s death as a homicide. Fred knew everyone in town. He had plenty of time on his hands and he’d already landed right in the middle of the case through no fault of his own.

  Enos might object at first, but the pluses far outweighed the minuses. Given a few uninterrupted minutes, Fred knew he could bring Enos around. Since Enos was alone, this seemed like the perfect time to bring it up.

  Filled with determination, Fred crossed the street and climbed the two short steps to the boardwalk. Through the window, he saw Enos hunched over his desk, his face wrinkled with concentration. He must have heard Fred’s boots on the wooden walk because he glanced up, smiled, and beckoned Fred inside where the coffeemaker gurgled as it finished brewing, spilling the earthy aroma of coffee into the air.

  “What the devil are you doing out tonight?” Enos asked as Fred closed the door on the wind.

  “Just on my way to Lacey’s. I saw the light and thought I’d see what you’re doing here so late.”

  Enos leaned back in his chair. “Nothing. Thinking. Seems like that’s all I’ve been doing the last couple of days.”

  “Me too.”

  “You feeling any better today?”

  “I’m feeling fine,” Fred said with enthusiasm. “Just fine. Finding Joan like that was more of a shock than anything.” He pulled out one of the scarred wooden chairs in front of Enos’s desk and lowered himself into it, careful not to groan or do anything else that might make Enos question how robust he really felt. “I don’t know about you, but I’m having trouble figuring out why somebody would want to kill her.”

  Enos closed the open file and placed a stack of papers on top of it. “You don’t know that anybody did.”

  “I can’t prove it yet, but I know.” Enos’s expression darkened but Fred waved away the protests he could feel coming. “Don’t worry, I haven’t said a word to anyone else. But I can’t help thinking—”

  “Don’t,” Enos cut him off. He pushed to his feet and turned his back on the desk.

  Fred crossed one ankle over his knee and craned his neck for a better view of the file sitting in the middle of it. “What are you working on anyway?”

  In two strides Enos came back to the desk and picked up the file folder. “Official business. Confidential.” He shoved the folder into a desk drawer. “Let’s talk about something else, can we?”

  “I’m the wrong person for that,” Fred said. “I can’t think about anything else.”

  Enos sighed and massaged his face with an open hand, then nodded toward the coffeepot. “Want some?”

  “Coffee?” What was this? Some kind of test?

  “Don’t act so surprised with me,” Enos said. “I know you sneak over to the Bluebird and have a cup whenever you think Doc or Maggie won’t notice. Besides, it’s decaf.”

  Fred’s pleasure evaporated. “I guess so,” he said, although he’d rather not have anything than drink decaf. Coffee without caffeine didn’t seem natural somehow.

  Enos filled his own mug and another for Fred, then dug out two chocolate snack cakes in cellophane wrappers from a box and tossed one to Fred. “I just had an interesting phone call. From Joan Cavanaugh’s sister.”

  That got Fred’s attention. “Really? They found her then?”

  Enos tore at the wrapper with his teeth and grunted. “Apparently. She said Tony called her this morning. She’s in San Francisco. Arranging to get away from work for a few days.”

  Fred couldn’t get a grip on the snack cake packaging, so he took out his pocketknife and cut a slit in the wrapper. He took a bite and grimaced. The thing tasted like cardboard. After washing it down with coffee, he put the uneaten remains on Enos’s desk. “Taking time off work? Does that mean she’s coming here?”

  Enos nodded. “She wanted to know if there’s a place in town where she can get a room, so I guess she is. She doesn’t want to stay with Brandon for some reason. I told her I’d find her a place, but I don’t know where. I can’t have her at our place and Emma Brumbaugh’s had the flu all week. There are a few places I won’t let her stay.” He paused, shook his head, and tried to smile. “Hell, I don’t have the energy to figure it out tonight. I’ll do it tomorrow.”

  “What did you think of her?”

  Enos shrugged. “I don’t know. She didn’t sound particularly upset, you know?”

  “Well, grief’s a strange thing,” Fred said. “Individual. Everyone handles it in different ways. I found that out when Phoebe died. All five of us reacted differently. Margaret cried every day for six months. Joseph never shed a tear that I saw, but Gail said he was a wreck at work. Nearly lost his job. Jeffrey and Douglas reacted in ways I guess you’d call typical.”

  “Yeah. Well . . .” Enos crammed the rest of his snack cake into his mouth and worked on it thoughtfully. “Seems pretty strange we’ve never seen her around here, doesn’t it?”

  It did seem strange. Especially in a town like Cutler, where everyone knew his neighbors and even the neighbors’ friends and families. Fred sipped at the coffee and wrapped his hands gratefully around the mug. The warmth soothed his stiff fingers. “I wonder why she hasn’t been here to visit.”

  Relaxing slightly, Enos leaned back in his chair and planted his feet on his desk. “Different lifestyle, maybe.”

  Fred’s own children were spread across the country now, from California to the East Coast. They saw each other at least every other year, but it wasn’t enough for him. He wondered what would make sisters go years without making contact. “Maybe there was trouble of some kind between them.”

  Enos drained his cup and placed it on his desk with a thud. “Don’t read something into nothing, Fred.”

  “An estrangement like that isn’t ‘nothing’,” Fred pointed out. He put his own mug on the desk and wiped his palms on his knees. Might as well tackle the subject he’d come to talk about. “You know what you need, son? Someone to help you out with this case.
Full time. Someone whose interests aren’t divided . . .”

  Enos’s face turned to stone. “No.”

  Fred didn’t let that stop him. “You’re too busy. You got a whole town to run. And Ivan and Grady, well, they can only do so much . . .”

  “No, Fred.”

  “ . . . But if you had somebody who’d been in on the case from the beginning, who’d already seen the scene of the crime and who knew his way around town . . .”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “. . . and who had contacts all over the county. . .”

  Enos’s face grew red and his shoulders tensed. “Forget it. There’s nothing going on around here that me and two deputies can’t handle.”

  “. . . and you’re going to need help shaking Cavanaugh’s suicide story. Remember, I’m your only witness so far.”

  “What I need,” Enos groused, “is somebody to shake you off your crazy murder idea.”

  Humph. Fred couldn’t remember Enos ever being this stubborn before. “You saw her face.”

  “Yeah, I did,” Enos conceded, “but that doesn’t give me anything to go on, and you know it.”

  “What about the bruise on her neck?”

  “Could ‘a come from anywhere. Look, Fred, if I had an autopsy report it might be a different story. But I don’t. Lydel’s a good coroner. He’s going to run every test in the book because Doc can’t determine cause of death. I wish he’d do it yesterday, but he’s taking his time and there isn’t a blamed thing I can do to hurry him up. I’m looking at ten days—minimum.”

  “So you’re not going to do anything until somebody else gives you permission?”

  “Dammit Fred! What do you want me to do?”

  “Conduct a preliminary investigation! Ask around. Find out if anybody saw or heard anything unusual. Find out if anybody knows why Joan was upset, or if anybody else in town thinks she was suicidal—which they won’t. I guarantee it.”

  Enos got to his feet again and paced heavily. “I can’t just run around town doing whatever I feel like. There are procedures. Regulations.”

  “And in the meantime you’re letting all your evidence be destroyed.” Fred tried to remember when he’d first noticed these signs of irrational behavior in Enos. Maybe he needed some time off. “You should be out there gathering evidence and jogging people’s memories.”

  “I’m doing everything I can right now.”

  “Fine. Then let me do it.”

  “No.”

  “I could help you.”

  “No.”

  “You could swear me in as a deputy.”

  Enos pushed his fingers through his sparse hair and turned away. “Absolutely not,” he said again. “Didn’t we just go through this? My answer hasn’t changed.”

  “But I could save you a lot of time,” Fred pointed out. “I could concentrate on this one case. You and the boys could just—”

  “No!” Enos thundered, and the look on his face convinced Fred further argument would be futile. It must be the nicotine withdrawal that made him this way.

  Fred watched Enos refill his mug and nodded when Enos held up the pot with a questioning look. It might not be real coffee, but it felt wonderful going down, and the warmth made his hands feel better. Besides, it would give him an excuse to stay.

  They sat in silence, uneasy with each other for the first time in years. Fred felt cheated, empty, as if something had been taken away from him. Enos had turned a blind eye to the glaring truth, refused to see what seemed so obvious to Fred. Now Fred had to find a way to make Enos change his mind or someone would get away with murder. But how to convince Enos?

  If Fred could find proof that Joan’s death wasn’t an accident—wasn’t suicide—Enos would have to listen to him. He’d have to admit that Fred was right. If only Fred had known Joan better, he’d have an excuse for poking around. If he’d been related to her, Enos wouldn’t be able to say a thing.

  With that thought, Fred felt a smile tug at his lips. A member of the family, that’s what he needed. “Say, Enos, I just had a thought.”

  Enos looked suspicious. “What’s that?”

  “I think I know where you can have the sister stay when she comes to town. Let me make a few phone calls. You don’t mind if I do that, do you?”

  “I don’t know. What do you have in mind?”

  “I don’t want to say anything definite until I’ve talked with everybody I need to, but I’m pretty sure it’ll work out. I’ll let you know.”

  “You’re not trying to pull something are you?”

  “For Pete’s sake! I’m just trying to help out. You worry about important things like catching Joan’s murderer. Let me take care of the small stuff like finding her sister a nice, safe place to stay.” Fred felt a twinge of guilt, but he pushed it away. He shouldn’t have to tell half-truths, and if Enos weren’t so dad-blasted stubborn, he wouldn’t. Besides, it didn’t really count as a lie. He’d been up-front from the beginning. If Enos couldn’t see the truth, Fred had an obligation as a member of the community to force him to see it. He’d be shirking his responsibility if he did anything less.

  And Enos left him with no other choice.

  five

  At twenty after six two nights later, just as Fred put his baked chicken breast in the oven to reheat, the telephone rang. He wiped the telltale evidence of garlic salt from the container labeled “salt substitute” and stuffed it back into the spice cabinet as if he thought Margaret would somehow be able to spot his subterfuge over the telephone.

  Instead of Margaret’s voice, Enos’s boomed into his ear when he answered. “Joan Cavanaugh’s sister got in a few minutes ago but I can’t reach Maggie. Do you know where she is?”

  She was here already? Caught off-guard, Fred could only stammer, “Well I—”

  “I thought one of the boys could run her things over to Maggie’s while I talk with her,” Enos thundered. “But if nobody’s home, I can’t do that.”

  “That’s because I didn’t exactly—”

  “Or maybe I ought to see if Webb’s at the Copper Penny. Maybe he could stop by for her bags on his way home.”

  Fred hadn’t made arrangements for Joan’s sister to stay with Margaret and Webb. And even if he had, Webb wouldn’t be going home this early in the evening. And even if he did, he shouldn’t be driving. But he didn’t say that aloud. Fred hated anybody to mention Webb’s habit of spending his evenings at the bar, especially Enos.

  But that wasn’t the issue at the moment. Fred had never actually said he was going to ask Margaret. He’d only said that he’d make arrangements for the sister—and he had. Enos had jumped to conclusions, but Fred wasn’t entirely responsible for the misunderstanding. And even if he was, he wasn’t going to set the record straight over the phone.

  “I’ll be right there,” he said.

  “No need for you to come out in weather like this. There’s another storm moving in.”

  “I’ve lived in Colorado all my life,” Fred snapped. “It’s not the first storm I’ve been in.” He hung up before Enos could say another word, turned off the oven, and zipped himself into his heavy coat.

  Outside, the trees swayed in the wind and the cold air nipped at Fred’s face and hands. Enos was right. A storm was going to hit soon. Fred’s legs never lied. When the barometer dropped, they stiffened and became conductors of the bone-deep pain that plagued him even in the best of times. He pushed his hands into his pockets, trying to cull some warmth from their depths.

  Head bent against the wind, he walked the two blocks to Main Street in less than five minutes and hurried up the rough wooden steps. He pushed open the door and found Enos with a woman. She was no older than thirty and she perched uncomfortably on one of the chairs. She was thin, the way all women wanted to be these days, which was too thin to Fred’s eye.

  She glanced up without any real interest as he entered and he felt a jolt of recognition. He’d have known her as Joan Cavanaugh’s sister anywhere. Even with the dif
ference in coloring—as dark as Joan had been fair—and her style—her hair was chopped off in a boyish cut—the resemblance was startling.

  Enos lounged behind his desk, his chair tipped against the wall, hands on his thighs. He nodded toward the only other chair in the room and Fred took it, grateful for the chance to get off his legs.

  “This is Kate Talbot,” Enos said. “Joan’s sister.” Turning to the young woman, he said, “And this here’s Fred Vickery. He’s found you a place to stay while you’re in town.”

  She gave a little shrug but didn’t bother to meet Fred’s gaze.

  “I’m sorry about your loss,” Fred said. “Joan was a good woman.”

  Slowly, she turned her eyes toward him. They were hard eyes and silence hung in the air, broken only by the rustling of dead leaves being driven by the wind along the boardwalk. Fred would have offered the woman comfort, maybe even put an arm around her shoulder, but she had an edge to her and it made him hold back. Whatever it was, it had been missing in Joan, but Fred thought that Joan had been the better for it.

  Enos’s face scrunched into concerned creases. “Did Brandon fill you in on . . . everything?”

  “That Joan killed herself?” she asked without emotion. “Yes. Only Brandon didn’t call me. His partner did. Tony something, I think.”

  “Striker,” Enos said. “He’s Brandon’s cousin.”

  Kate’s eyes flashed. “Yes.”

  The family tree could wait. Right now, right up front, Fred wanted to know where she stood. “You don’t believe Joan killed herself, do you?”

  “Fred!” Enos shouted.

  She faced Fred almost insolently. “Excuse me?”

  Ignoring Enos’s angry scowl, Fred asked again. “You don’t really think Joan killed herself, do you?”

  “Shouldn’t I?”

  “Should you?”

  Enos lowered his chair to the floor with a bang and stood. “I apologize, Miss Talbot. Fred has an overactive imagination.”

  “Horse feathers,” Fred said and kept his attention on Kate. “What do you think?” he asked for the third time. “Do you think Joan committed suicide?”