1 A Small Case of Murder (12 page)

Tad rested his head on his folded arms on the tabletop in the corner booth at Allison’s Restaurant. Inches away, the silver key taunted him from the center of the table.

In her seat across from him, Jan buttered the roll that came with her dinner of meat loaf, mashed potatoes and gravy, and sweet peas. “Do you think that if you stare at it hard enough it might speak to you?” She dipped her roll into the gravy pooled in the center of her mashed potatoes before taking a bite of it.

On the corner, one block up from Joshua Thornton’s legal office, Allison’s Restaurant, like the other businesses in Chester, was short on sophistication, but long on quality. The food was good and inexpensive.

When they spotted the two diners through the restaurant’s front window, Joshua and his twin sons waved before joining them inside.

“Just the guy I was looking for.” Joshua slapped Tad on the back before sitting next to him. J.J. sat next to Jan, and Murphy pulled up a chair to the end of the booth.

Disgusted, Tad continued to slump. “I don’t want to talk to you unless you can tell me where this key goes.”

Joshua greeted Jan with a smile, followed by a quizzical frown. “You look different.”

“Do I?” Before taking her dinner break, Jan had put on the wildest earrings she could find at the pharmacy and tied her hair back with the most colorful scarf in stock.

“She’s wearing make-up,” Tad told him.

“Nah, that’s not it. She was wearing make-up last week.” Giving up, Joshua turned his attention back to Tad. “You still owe me a hundred dollars for finding that key.”

“Sue me.”

Jan said, “He’s been to every bank in the valley, and that key doesn’t belong to any of their safety deposit boxes.”

“I could have told you that,” Joshua said. “It’s too small.”

“Why didn’t you?” Tad sat up.

“You didn’t ask me.”

“Could it be a post office box?” Murphy asked.

Joshua said, “Post office keys have USPS stamped on them.”

“Bus station locker,” J.J. suggested.

“Not the right shape and too big,” Tad responded.

“Looks like a padlock key to me,” Jan told them before eating the last bite of her meatloaf.

The server, Madge, a plump woman with a bleached blond beehive and long red acrylic fingernails, handed Joshua a typewritten menu stuffed inside a scuffed up plastic cover. “Coffee anyone?”

Joshua didn’t have to read the menu. He handed it back to her and ordered three apple pies a la mode.

“Make that four,” Jan chimed in.

Madge smiled at Joshua while she retrieved the menu and went to get the pies. The twins chuckled to each other about the waitress’s attraction to their father.

“Did you see the news?” Jan asked Joshua.

“Yes, I did.” Curious for his cousin’s reaction, Joshua turned and laid his arm across the back of the booth behind Tad’s shoulders. “Did you see Amber’s interview?”

Resting his head in a hand he had propped up against the windowsill, Tad continued fingering the key. “She’s lying through her rotten little teeth.”

“Why are you protecting Reverend Rawlings?” Jan accused him.

“I’m going by the evidence and what I know about the man. He doesn’t kill people. He orders people to do it for him. Besides, Amber’s story contradicts the evidence. She said Vicki was fighting him when he gave her the shot.” Tad shook his head. “She didn’t put up a fight. The only evidence of any fight was a days old bruise right below the left temple where a certain someone—” he pointed a thumb in Joshua’s direction, “slugged her alongside the head.”

Joshua agreed. “She also said Rawlings carried Beth into the bedroom, and then shot her. Beth was dragged in.”

They stopped talking while Madge served their pies.

After the server left with Jan’s dinner plate, Tad sighed with disgust once more and laid the key flat in the middle of the table. “What else do you want to know?”

“J.J. and Murphy said some of their friends had told them that Reverend Rawlings killed his wife.”

“Oh, yeah,” Jan responded, “I’d forgotten all about that.”

“That’s old news,” Tad said.

“I don’t believe it.” Joshua uttered a whispered gasp.

“How did the reverend kill her?” J.J. asked.

Jan shot a question at Tad. “Her death was ruled accidental, wasn’t it?”

“She drowned in the bathtub. They said she fell, hit her head, knocked herself out, and then drowned.” The doctor chuckled. “Let’s not forget Doc Wilson was the medical exam-iner. He’s the same one who said Cindy’s death was natural causes.” He sorted out the long unused data in his mind. “Vicki Rawlings was a little kid when her grandmother died. Maybe five years old. It was before she started school.”

Joshua asked, “Why would Reverend Rawlings kill her?”

“Why else? He was sick of her. You remember who the reverend was married to, don’t you, Josh?”

Unable to remember anything significant, Joshua shrugged, and then shook his head. “Her name was Eleanor. She never did strike me as quite right. Once, at the Hookstown Fair, we ended up sitting at the same picnic table as the Rawlings. That was the only time I remember ever seeing her up close. She had this weird look like—”

“I know exactly what you’re talking about,” Jan interjected. “She had bad vibes. She always seemed scared or spaced out or something.”

“She never said anything,” Joshua agreed. “I don’t recall her ever saying a word.”

Engrossed by the exchange, J.J. and Murphy ate their desserts in silence.

“Do you know who her father was?” Tad asked.

With the excuse that Eleanor Rawlings’ father died before he was born, Joshua confessed that he didn’t know.

“Sam Fletcher,” Tad said. “He owned the land that Rawlings’ church is built on. He also owned all the land that Rawlings Meadows, that big subdivision out by the high school, was built on. And that big shopping center out in Calcutta. Rawlings sold them that property. All inherited from Sam Fletcher.”

“I guess he was rich,” Murphy said.

“Sam Fletcher didn’t look like he had a dime,” Tad recalled. “Always wore old blue jean overalls with patches all over them and a beat-up straw hat. He drove the same old pickup truck as long as I knew him. Every single day, he’d get up at the crack of dawn to milk the cows. He had a big dairy farm out towards the state line, and was as tight with a dime as they come.”

“Doesn’t sound like he would be friends with the Reverend Orville Rawlings,” Joshua said.

“Most likely not,” Tad agreed. “Eleanor was a WAC. She joined the women’s army corps right out of high school. Her folks never even saw Pittsburgh. She went off to see the world and brought back the reverend. They lived with Sam at the farm, until after he died. By that time, Reverend Rawlings had a small following. He preached in an abandoned theater in East Liverpool. Rawlings sold the farm before Sam’s body was cold and built that church of his. The rest is history.”

“It sounds like Reverend Rawlings would never have been who he is today if it hadn’t been for his father-in-law’s money,” Murphy pointed out.

Also suspicious, J.J. asked, “How did Sam Fletcher die?”

“Now, there’s a story,” Tad said. “He went nuts. One day, my dad went out to see him about buying a milk cow Sam had for sale and found him up on the roof of his barn. He was ranting and raving about snakes, tearing at his clothes, and screaming for Dad to get the snakes off of him. Scared Dad to death. He never saw anything like it.” He shook his head. “Sam was the sanest man you ever would have met. Out of the blue, he lost it.”

He said with a note of sadness, “Eleanor tried to control him. They locked him up in the house. One night, he escaped. A couple of days later, they fished him out of the Ohio River. He had left everything to Eleanor, and Rawlings did very well with it.”

Joshua asked, “When did Cindy die?”

“Nine years ago,” Tad answered.

“When did Wally’s mother die?”

Jan answered, “If Vicki was five, then that was twelve years ago.”

“Why didn’t Wally run for prosecutor as soon as he was eligible, which would have been as soon as he graduated from law school…about twelve or thirteen years ago?”

“Well, he started to,” Jan responded while looking at Tad to confirm her answer. “He did announce his candidacy.”

“That’s right,” Tad breathed. “I forgot all about that. Wally held a big press conference in the church to announce it.”

“Then what happened?” Joshua asked.

Jan told him, “His mother died, and he said that he felt it was best to withdraw from the election for personal reasons. Everyone figured he was distraught over her death.”

Joshua raised his eyebrows. “Or Dr. Wilson told him he had better withdraw or go to jail for murder.”

“Kill his mother?” Tad chuckled. “I’d rather believe the reverend did it.”

“Either way,” Joshua picked up the key and examined it, “we need to find out what this key goes to if we want to stop speculating and end this killing spree.”

Chapter Eleven

As soon as Amber’s latest news hit the air, Reverend Rawlings called his lawyer to return to Chester to act as his intermediary with the authorities. Even though no formal charges had been filed against the pastor, he wasn’t ashamed to “lawyer up” early.

As if to add insult to the injury of Amber’s public statement, Joshua Thornton requested that the Rawlings come down to his office in Chester to answer questions.

The power struggle lasted for a full week. It was a matter of home field advantage. The Rawlings insisted that Joshua Thornton come to see them at their estate. Refusing to show any fear of the Rawlings, the special prosecutor countered with an invitation to come to his office voluntarily, or be served subpoenas and brought in the sheriff’s patrol car, which wouldn’t look good for the reverend on the news.

In the end, Joshua won when he suggested that they meet in neutral territory across the street from his office at the Chester police chief’s office on the second floor above the volunteer fire department.

As expected, Clarence Mannings did the talking while the Rawlings family leader, looking cocky and bored, sat at the head of the table in the tiny conference room.

Joshua displayed no intimidation when he looked Reverend Rawlings straight in the eye and asked where he had been between four and six o’clock on the day his grand-daughter was killed.

“My client was in meditation,” the lawyer answered while Reverend Rawlings chuckled.

“From four o’clock to six?” Joshua looked at the reverend with a raised eyebrow to show his doubt.

The reverend snickered.

“He has been quite distressed about the soul of his grand-daughter. He has been praying unceasingly ever since this whole thing started.”

“I see.” Joshua sat back in his chair.

The pastor laughed with a broad grin at the special prosecutor, who responded with “Thank you for coming down.”

After a week of negotiations, Clarence Mannings was startled by the short duration of the meeting. “What?”

“I said thank you. That will be all for now.” Dismissing the lawyer and his client, Joshua made cryptic notations on his notepad.

“You mean you called us all the way down here for that one question?” the lawyer said with annoyance.

“Yes. Good day.”

“Aren’t you going to ask us about this Amber’s statement on the news?”

Touché!

“I thought you wouldn’t want her statements dignified by being asked to comment on them,” Joshua told them.

Clarence Mannings snorted through his mustache. He had been had.

If Amber had lied, then the Rawlings wouldn’t be so concerned about the authorities looking into her statement. The prosecutor would surely discover that she had been lying. Therefore, why would they wish to discuss them?

“Since you opened the door—” Joshua drawled.

“All we have to say about Amber is that as soon as our people find her, she will be slapped with a gigantic lawsuit,” Mannings said.

“If not something more lethal,” Joshua said. “I’ll be in touch with you and your client.”

The rest of the Rawlings family was no further help.

Bridgette had been in a tanning booth in East Liverpool from four o’clock to four-thirty. Joshua noted that there was no checkout time on the salon’s sign-in sheet. He also noted the salon was a few blocks from the hospital and Bridgette had been alone in the tanning booth the whole time.

Hal Poole had been in a meeting at the church in New Cumberland, but no one saw him between two and five o’clock.

Cockiness prevented Wallace Rawlings, the last to be inter-viewed, from having a lawyer present. After refusing to shake Joshua’s offered hand, he plopped down into the chair at the head of the conference table.

“Let’s get on with this. I have a very busy schedule. From here, I have a meeting with New Cumberland’s mayor, and after that the county commissioner. Then tonight, I have a dinner engagement at Senator Brunswick’s home.”

“I’m impressed.” Joshua slid into the chair across from Wallace. “Not terribly, but I am impressed. I’m glad to see that you can keep up such a busy social schedule with your only daughter being murdered and all. I couldn’t possibly do it if I were in your shoes. I guess you aren’t into this mourning thing.”

“Victoria and I weren’t that close.”

“That’s right,” Joshua breathed. “She wasn’t your daughter. At least, that’s one of the rumors I heard.”

“That’s correct,” Wallace said. “Tad MacMillan was her father. I assume, since you’re investigating this case, he’s not a suspect.”

Joshua was too busy digesting his blunt confession about Vicki’s paternity to hear the accusation of bias. “Did you tell her that Tad was her biological father?”

Wallace's round face reddened with rage. “No, I wanted to. Victoria must have figured it out on her own.” His tone was void of emotion. “The only reason we let that product of sin stay under our roof as long as we did was because my father ordered it and forbade us from telling anyone what she really was. Fortunately, God drove her out.”

Joshua said, “Even if Tad had slept with Cindy, which he says he didn’t, what makes you so certain Vicki wasn’t your daughter? Cindy was your wife, after all.”

“I would never take to bed a woman who smells of another man,” Wallace said. “I knew before she confessed her sins on our wedding night that she had been with Tad MacMillan. She reeked of him right up to the day she died.”

“Why did you marry her?”

“Because my father ordered it. ‘Obey thy father and thy mother.’”

“Actually, it’s ‘respect your father and your mother,’” Joshua corrected him. “You can disobey someone and still respect them.”

Insulted by the correction, Wallace glared. “What other questions do you have?”

“You married this woman and she had this baby you swear wasn’t yours? You must have hated Cindy.”

“I despised her.”

“Enough to kill her?”

“I resent that question.”

Joshua was as unfazed as Wallace was infuriated. “Vicki was a constant reminder of your wife’s infidelity. How you must have hated her, especially with all the dirty laundry she was airing. And then, with her arrest and pending trial—”

“There would have been no trial. You do know Clarence Mannings, don’t you?”

“Yes, I beat him before.”

“But you weren’t the prosecutor on Vicki’s case. He was enough to scare Marjorie Greene.” Wallace’s cocky attitude returned. “She was talking deal.”

“What kind of deal?”

“It doesn’t matter now. That troublemaker is dead, and I was in a meeting with Greene and Mannings in New Cumberland from four to five.” Wallace smiled. “Victoria was killed at about four o’clock. I have an alibi.”

“Yes, you do…for Vicki’s murder, but not for Beth Davis’s murder at six o’clock.” Joshua asked, “Are you missing a trench coat by any chance?”

Wallace’s grin disappeared. His glare returned.