Lia Farrell - Mae December 02 - Two Dogs Lie Sleeping Read online

  “Yes.”

  “You can take them. We searched those rooms already.”

  “Thank you, Deputy. You can let Mr. Powell know when you’re finished.”

  She went out to the garage and loaded her bags into the car. She opened the side door out to the backyard and called the dogs. “Soot, Ricky, come here.”

  The two porgi puppies came tearing around the corner. She led them into the garage and picked them up, putting both of them in the backseat. Going back into the kitchen, she grabbed their leashes, dog food, and beds. Deputy Phelps was holding her purse in one freckled hand.

  “Can I have my purse?” July asked, glaring at him.

  The chubby deputy blushed. “Yes, of course, Mrs. Powell. Do you need some help carrying all that?”

  “No. Just set my purse on top of this dog bed and hand me the keys from that hook over there. Wait, I need my cellphone, too. And my charger. Never mind, I’ll make another trip.”

  Deputy Phelps set her purse down on the counter beside her phone. “Sorry,” he mumbled, and walked into the dining room.

  After several more trips in and out of the house, July was ready to go. She pulled out of the driveway and turned in the direction of the lake house, then changed her mind and drove to Mae’s place. She intended to ask her sister to keep the puppies for a week or so. She would ask her mother to bring the kids to the lake house tomorrow.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Mae December

  Mae took the Tater outside, with Matthew close behind. She set the puppy down in the soft grass. The Tater sniffed around and then wagged over to Matthew. He started to pick her up.

  “Leave her on the ground, please,” Mae said. “She needs a potty break.”

  Matthew sat down, and the Tater claimed his lap. “I don’t think she needs to go potty, Miss Mae,” he pointed out. “She just wants to play.”

  Mae sighed. “Maybe if you stand up, I can persuade her. Then we can go check on your mommy, okay?”

  He nodded and stood back up.

  “Hurry up,” Mae commanded. The Tater looked at her alertly and took care of business. After lavish praise, Mae handed Matthew the dog treat. “Tell her how good she is and then give her the treat.”

  “Good Tatie.” The puppy took the treat from Matthew’s chubby little hand. He looked up at Mae, his blue eyes bright. “Can I see my room now?”

  “Sure thing, sweetheart. Let’s go get your mom. That way you and she can both see where you’ll be sleeping.”

  She picked up the Tater in one hand, held Matthew’s hand with the other, and went back inside. Seriously, what’s taking Ben so long?

  “Katie,” she called out. “Want to come see Matthew’s room?”

  “Yes, please,” Katie’s voice came from the kitchen. She joined them in the front hall. Matthew wiggled his hand out of Mae’s grasp and picked up his backpack from the bottom step. Then he went to stand beside his mother.

  “It’s up here,” Mae told them. Katie picked up Matthew’s suitcase, and she and her son started to follow Mae upstairs. Mae heard a car in the driveway and paused. It had to be Ben. Finally.

  “You two go ahead. It’s the second door on the right. I’ll join you in a minute.” When Mae opened the back door, Ben’s truck wasn’t in her driveway. Nor was there a squad car. Instead she was confronted by the sight of July’s Suburban. Her sister was coming up the steps with two porgi puppies, one black and one red. The pups were leashed, and July was carrying dog beds and a bag of kibble. Mae took a deep breath.

  “Hey, July. What’s up?”

  Her sister’s eyes were red and the skin of her neck was blotchy.

  “Can we come in?” She looked at the Tater, still in Mae’s hand. “Oh, I forgot about your new puppy.”

  Mae opened the door all the way and relieved her older sister of the two dog beds. “This is the Tater. Let me help you.”

  She pushed Matthew’s car seat out of the way. Carrying the dog beds under one arm and the Tater wriggling in the other, Mae walked into the kitchen. Popping the Tater into her crate, she asked her sister, “Should I put these two in the laundry room with the other dogs?”

  “Yes, please.” July was avoiding her eyes. “I was hoping you could keep them for me for a week or so.”

  Or so? Could this day get any better?

  July followed her into the laundry room with Soot and Ricky. The puppies jumped happily on Tallulah, their mother, who was napping in her bed beside the utility sink. Tallulah growled. Mae set the dog beds down on the other side of the room.

  “Listen, July, this might not be the best time. Matthew and Katie are upstairs right now and I’m expecting Ben any minute. I’ve got the Tater to potty train and Matthew’s here all weekend.”

  “I’m sorry, Mae,” July said. Her face was tight. “I’m going to the lake house. I need a break from Fred.” She was frowning. “If you can’t keep them, I understand. I just don’t have a fenced area for them at the lake. The man who was going to build it can’t get to it until September. He’s all covered up with work this summer.” July leaned against the wall and began to cry.

  “Its fine, July, don’t worry. I can keep them.” Mae looked at her sister with alarm. July hadn’t cried in front of her in years. Now, for the second time in three days, her normally self-contained big sister was dissolving in tears. July put the bag of kibble on top of Mae’s dryer, unhooked the leashes from her exuberant young porgis and turned to leave the room.

  Ben appeared in the doorway with a quizzical look on his face. “Hey, July. Thought we said ‘no backsies’ when you took these two in the spring.”

  “Funny,” July said. She did not sound amused. Two spots of color appeared on her cheeks. “You know what, Ben? I sure would have appreciated a heads-up on the fact that you were sending your people to trash my house today.”

  Mae stepped forward, hands on hips. She glared at her boyfriend, who was staring at her sister. “Hello, Ben. Your son and his mother are upstairs. And I would have appreciated some notice about you having July’s house torn up, too.”

  Ben looked at Mae. His face began to flush. “You can’t be serious—either of you. This is a murder investigation. I don’t let suspects know that we’re going to be showing up with a warrant. That gives them time to hide evidence! I’m not going to compromise an investigation that I’m already getting grief about for my involvement with your family.”

  Her sister stepped around Ben as if he wasn’t even there and walked out. In the silence, Mae heard the slam of the door.

  “Where’s she going?” Ben asked.

  “Is she really a suspect, Ben?”

  “No,” Ben admitted. “Her husband might be, though. July’s certainly a witness. She shouldn’t be leaving town.”

  “She’s not going very far. You’ll be able to get ahold of her if anything comes up. She’s just going up to their cabin on the lake.”

  Katie and Matthew appeared in the laundry room doorway. “Hi, Daddy! Did you bring us more puppies?”

  “Hi, sport. Miss Mae’s sister just dropped her two off.” Ben patted his son’s head and looked at Katie. “Everything all set for him?”

  Katie glanced from Mae to Ben. “Yes. Matty and I just put his things away upstairs. Would you mind putting his car seat into Mae’s car? I really should go.”

  “No problem,” Ben said.

  Katie quickly walked over to Mae and gave her an unexpected hug. “Thanks for keeping him. Ben can give you my cell number.” She bent to give her son a kiss and a lingering hug. “I love you, Matty. Be good. I’ll see you in two days.” Nodding at Ben and Mae, she left the room.

  Matthew looked up at Mae. “Can I take the puppies up to my room?”

  “Sure. The reddish one is Ricky, and Soot is the black one.”

  “C’mon, Wicky. C’mon, Soot!” He ran out, with the puppies close behind.

  Ben laughed. “He sure won’t be bored with three puppies to play with. Why did Katie hug you?”
/>   “I’m not sure.”

  Ben reached out for her. “I’m the one who should be hugging you.”

  “Not now, Ben.” She backed away. “I’m still upset over all of this with my sister. Could you put that car seat in for me before you go?”

  “Am I dismissed? Don’t be like that. My job’s on the line here, you know? I was told to limit my investigation—basically, I’ve turned everything over to Wayne—because of our relationship and being close to your family. If I’d warned Fred or July before their house was searched I’d be in a lot of trouble. Plus, I’ve barely seen Matty, and I have a couple hours free.”

  Mae could feel herself softening. “Let’s go check on him, then. I guess we can talk later.”

  Matthew, Soot, Ricky, and the Tater were all in a pile on the bed together by the time Ben and Mae got upstairs.

  “I guess Matthew figured out the latch on the Tater’s crate,” Mae said. She grinned at Ben and walked over to the bed.

  “Stop!” Ben cried. Something warm and wet squished between Mae’s bare toes. She looked down at the puppy poop she was standing in and the three puddles that surrounded her. “Would you grab some paper towels out of the hall bathroom for me, please?” Ben nodded, biting his lip.

  Matthew smiled up at her angelically from the pile of puppies. “They all know what hurry up means,” he informed her. “I said ‘Hurry up,’ then they went potty. I said they were good doggies, and then we played on the bed.”

  Mae raised her eyes to heaven, counted to ten in her head, and looked back at Matthew. “Just take them outside next time before you say hurry up, okay?”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Sheriff Ben Bradley

  “Will you please stop pacing, Sheriff?” Dory asked. “It’s like having a wild animal loose in my work area.”

  “I’m sorry,” Ben said. “It’s driving me crazy that I can’t interview anyone.” Ben’s jaw ached from clenching his teeth. Being tied to the office wasn’t the only thing that was driving him crazy. He was still upset that Mae was mad at him, although he’d been completely justified in having July’s house searched yesterday without telling her. He strode back to his office and got busy on the computer. Accessing the Southeastern Tennessee State Library site, he pulled up the newspapers from fifteen years ago in January.

  About a half hour later, with a headache from peering at scanned microfiche, he had it. A young man named Ryan Gentry, also a pre-law major, had fallen to his death from the Sigma Chi Fraternity House window on January 3, 1998.

  He buzzed Dory.

  “Hey, I just had an idea. Can you come back here?”

  “On my way.” She appeared in his doorway in seconds.

  “Nobody told me I couldn’t investigate the reason Tom Ferris disappeared.” Ben smiled with satisfaction. “I can work on that while Wayne focuses on the Ferris murder.”

  “Pretty proud of yourself, thinking of that idea,” Dory said, her lips twitching.

  “Wayne and I both think the Ferris killing is tied to something that happened right before he disappeared. I found an article in the student newspaper about a suicide; the kid’s name was Ryan Gentry. He jumped from the window of the Sigma Chi House to his death on January third, 1998. I want to talk with the detective who investigated that case. Can you use your contacts to find out who he was and get me a phone number?”

  “No problem, boss,” Dory said. Although Dory frustrated Ben periodically, she was a whiz at finding information he needed.

  About an hour later, Dory buzzed Ben. “I have the information you wanted about the original investigating Detective,” she said. “He’s retired now, but his name is Patrick Devlin Pascoe, known as PD. I’ve got the address and phone number.” She read off the information.

  Ben called but there was no answer. He left a message about his hunch that the recent murder of Tom Ferris was linked to Ryan Gentry’s death. The phone rang about twenty minutes later; it was Detective Pascoe. Ben asked if he remembered the case.

  “How could I forget?” he said. “It was a bad one.”

  Every cop or detective had the types of cases that they couldn’t get over. Often it was the young victims that haunted them. “Would you be willing to talk to me about the case?” Ben asked. When Detective Pascoe agreed, Ben made arrangements to drive out to his house later in the day.

  “Do you have pictures? Crime scene stuff?”

  “I’ve got the whole case file. Took it with me when I left. Against the rules, but the Department knows where it is if they need it. I’ll be waiting for you.”

  “I get the feeling you had doubts about it being suicide,” Ben said.

  “I sure did,” the detective said. “I still do.”

  Detective Pascoe lived alone in a small cabin off a long graveled two-track, two hours east of Sheriff Bradley’s office. Much of the mile-long driveway had eroded from rain. The sheriff’s police cruiser hit each and every pothole. He could feel the springs bouncing. When he drove up to the little place, Ben was reminded of the cabin that had been his grandfather’s and where he spent many happy days as a kid.

  Detective Pascoe opened the door to let the sheriff in before he knocked. The old man was in his early seventies and pale, but he still looked strong.

  “Wondered if you would show up,” the detective said gruffly, standing in the open doorway.

  “Took me a while to get here from Rosedale. I’m Sheriff Bradley. Call me Ben.”

  He held out his hand and the old man took it in a bone-crushing grip.

  “I’m PD. Come in, I have some coffee on. How do you take it?”

  “Black,” Ben said. He walked inside the large open kitchen and saw a small table covered in papers and photos. “Is that the file?” he asked.

  “Yes. I was taking another look. I made you a copy.” He handed Ben a neatly stacked pile of papers clipped together.

  “Treat this confidentially,” PD said.

  “Of course. Thanks for doing all this.”

  “Sit down.” He handed Ben a mug.

  “So you didn’t think Ryan Gentry committed suicide? Any evidence?” Ben asked.

  “Pretty thin, but I knew. Something hinky with the case from the get-go. The family was wealthy. The kid had some trouble with drugs that the father covered up. It happened four years before he died. When he got picked up for the drug offense, he was only sixteen. Dad sent the kid to military school until he was eighteen and could start college.”

  “Was he dealing dope?”

  “It was pills. Oxycodone had just come on the market. Sometimes kids shared them with their friends. I never heard about any money changing hands.”

  “Did the pathologist find any in his system?”

  “That’s just one of the things that was off in this case. The family refused an autopsy. The old pathologist, Doctor Lewis, wouldn’t push for it. I tried talking with Gentry’s mother and his older sister. They were willing, but the father was completely opposed. He said he had religious scruples.” The old man snorted. “That man hadn’t seen the inside of a church since he was christened.”

  “Was there a suicide note?”

  “No note. College kids were just getting computers in those days and we checked Ryan’s. There wasn’t a printer in the room and nothing was on the screen.” He took a deep breath and looked out toward the sun-dappled woods, clearly discouraged.

  “The pathologist saw the body and wrote a report, I assume?”

  “He did. Three lines. I can still quote the report. ‘Body of a young white male. Died from consequences of a fall from upstairs window. Bruises around his waist.’ ” Detective Pascoe made a disgusted sound.

  “What did you make of that?” Ben asked.

  “I thought Ryan Gentry was looking out the window and somebody came up from behind him and heaved him out. The screen was underneath his body.” PD shook his head. “I’ve never seen anyone kill themselves by jumping through a window screen.”

  “Who did you suspect?”
>
  “Well, I talked with his roommate, Tom Ferris, but I dismissed him as a suspect right away. He’d just gotten back from Christmas break, and he said he didn’t believe Ryan would kill himself. There was something odd about his demeanor, though. He seemed frightened of something or someone.”

  “Was there bad blood between Tom Ferris and Ryan Gentry?”

  “No, the opposite. Ferris was almost in tears, all shaken up. The Gentry kid’s father was friends with the police chief and I got a not-so-gentle warning to back off. I tried for another couple of weeks. I talked to the housekeeper—her name was Nellie Franz—and later the housemother, a Mrs. Trula Godfrey. She was the person who told Tom Ferris about Ryan’s death. She moved his room that day. Didn’t want him looking out the window at all the police activity, she said. Both women’s addresses are in the case file.”

  “What did the housemother say about the suicide?”

  “She was totally confused by it. She told me Ryan was a nice kid, good grades, plenty of friends. She never had a clue he was depressed.”

  “What about the housekeeper?”

  “She just kept going on about her bucket being moved. She said she’d been mopping the hall when it all went down. She ran downstairs to see what happened. When she came back upstairs, the bucket was in a different place.”

  “What’d you think about that?”

  “I assumed there’d been a struggle and somebody tried to clean up. We didn’t have Luminol with us. And by the time I got around to talking to the housekeeper, she had dumped her pail out. No chance to test it for blood.”

  The men sat quietly, sipping their coffees. It had clouded over and there was distant thunder. A few minutes later rain pelted against the windows, looking like tears as it ran down the panes.

  “Did you know Tom Ferris left town right around then and hadn’t been back for fifteen years?” Pascoe nodded. “When he returned he visited his parent’s old house, where he was killed—shot in the back.”

  PD looked into Ben’s eyes. “I read about his death in the paper. If you hadn’t called me, I was going to try to reach you. There has to be a connection.”