TheCart Before the Corpse (33 page)

“Who’s that?” I asked.

Peggy shrugged. “No idea.”

The door opened and Imogene Darnell stepped out looking frazzled. She wore an unflattering flowered housedress several sizes too big, as though she’d dropped weight since she bought it. Her pink hair had escaped from her bun, and she wore flip-flops on her bare feet.

“She said she couldn’t drive,” I said.

“Her son said she can’t see. He took her car keys.”

“Obviously she has a second set.” I stepped forward with a smile. “Morning, Ms Darnell. Can I help you?”

“You can give me my twenty-thousand dollars right this minute.”

I blinked. “I beg your pardon.”

“I want the twenty thousand dollars you’re going to get for my carriage, and I want it now.”

“Hiram already paid you two thousand dollars . . . ”

“When we did his uncle’s funeral a while back, one of those Confederate reenactment folks told me Hiram was selling it for twenty thousand dollars. You’ll get your money back and come out even when you sell it, but I need that money right this minute.”

I’ve never actually seen anyone wring his hands, but she did. One definitely held an ignition key.

“Why on earth would you need twenty thousand dollars in such a hurry?” Peggy asked.

“County sent me a notice they’re gonna take my house for back taxes if I don’t pay up right now. They’ve given me all the extensions they’re going to. I’ll wind up in one of those retirement homes with no room to swing a cat just like Tom wants.”

“Surely your son can help,” Peggy said. “The County won’t ask for it all at once.”

“Help? He’s been trying to get me out for years. He’ll buy the place for a nickel on the courthouse steps and throw me out on the road, you see if he doesn’t.”

“But you signed the bill of sale for the carriage and the journal,” I said reasonably.

“No!” She screamed. “Hiram tricked me! Then he stood right here and said he’d give me ten per cent finder’s fee out of the goodness of his heart after he sold it, but not before. Ten per cent! Another piddly two thousand dollars. I’m not a fool to settle for that when that carriage was mine and he stole it.”

“When did he offer you ten per cent?” I asked softly. I glanced at Peggy. She sat in the cart holding the reins. I could see the dawn of the same idea I had in her eyes.

Imogene looked confused. “Why . . . I ran into him in town one day.”

“So you’ve never been out here before,” I said. “Why did you say he stood right
here?”

“I have never been near this place.” She drew herself up. She was as tall as I am, and her short-sleeved dress revealed not flabby old lady arms, but the biceps of a woman who has worked the land all her life. A woman who knew how to wield a hammer or a shovel or a hacksaw. Who knew how to knock a jack loose or tip a heavy wheel onto an unconscious man.

She backed away from me. One of her flip flops caught for a second against the rough gravel, and she stumbled before she caught herself. Nobody has any business wearing those things around a barn.

But I could see why she didn’t have on regular shoes. The instep of her right foot was badly bruised and swollen. Around the edge of the swollen area ran a neat semi-circular dark line.

Just like mine.

“You’ve been here before all right,” I said and pointed to her foot. “I’d know Don Qui’s hoof print anywhere. When did he stomp you? It’s too fresh to be from when you came out here to see my father. Just about right for last Sunday evening when you came to see Jacob Yoder. Did he know you killed my father? Was he blackmailing you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. How could I get out here?”

“Duh. You drove yourself.”

She smirked. “Tom will swear I never drive. My car’s been in my barn for weeks. This is an emergency.”

I thought of the tire track where someone with old tires had run off onto the grass beside the parking lot. From what I could tell, nothing about Imogene’s car was new. “So how often do these so-called emergencies occur?”

“Don’t you make fun of me. Mr. Straley at the funeral home said you got your death certificates. You go right on down to the bank and bring me my money.”

“Why on earth would I do that?”

“Because if you don’t, I’ll shoot that woman and burn this place to the ground.”

The gun must have been on the driver’s seat. One second she leaned into her car, the next she held the biggest pistol I’ve ever seen pointed straight at us.

“This is my husband’s army forty-five,” she said. “It’s old, but it shoots straight and makes big holes. I don’t miss, not at this distance. I brought down a bear in the front yard a while back with one shot.”

Peggy must have jerked the reins because Heinzie woke up, snorted and took a step forward.

“Don’t you move!”

Peggy froze. So did I. I held up my hands in a gesture of surrender. “You don’t have to shoot anybody.”

“I will if I have to. I’m not losing my house at my age.”

“Hiram didn’t have to offer you a red cent more than he paid for your carriage, but he did and you killed him anyway?” I never expected her to admit anything. What evidence did I have except a bruise, a car key, and a gut feeling?

“I never meant to hurt a living soul, but when he wouldn’t give me my money and turned his back on me like I couldn’t do a thing about it, I got so mad I hit him. I couldn’t leave him like that, could I? He’d have told.”

She sounded completely rational, as though arranging his body and crushing his throat was the most natural thing in the world.

“And Jacob? What could he have told?” Peggy asked.

Her mouth snapped shut for a second and her eyes hardened, then she said, “He swore he knew where Hiram kept my family’s journal and the bill of sale. If I’d give him five hundred dollars he’d hand them to me.” Her voice had risen.

“Without the bill of sale you could have taken the carriage back,” I said. “With the journal, you could have sold the carriage directly.”

She nodded. “Hiram called on that Friday before the storm to see if he could come help me clear out the barn some more on Saturday with
her
.” She waved the gun at Peggy. “Looking to steal something
else
. Told me his daughter was coming down to join him and he wouldn’t have much time for a while. He’d have told you about the carriage the minute you showed up. I had to have the money or the journal and bill of sale before he got the chance to brag how he’d put one over on the little old lady.”

So I
had
been the trigger that killed my father.

“But why would you drive out here in the storm?” Peggy asked. “He should have been home.”

“He wasn’t, though, was he?” Imogene tossed her head. “Drove by your house real early Saturday. No truck. I like to have run off the road getting up here in all that mud. He was here, all right. Spent the night here. Glad to see me until I told him what I wanted.”

I’ve never believed that old saw about killers needing to confess, but she was running her mouth pretty good. She was also making me sick to my stomach.

She was
proud
of herself. Must have been hard not to tell someone how clever she was.

She’d already said she didn’t leave witnesses. That meant Peggy and me. There had to be some way to get out of this without getting either of us shot. At the moment, the best plan was to keep her talking.

“Do you have any idea how hard it is for a woman in my distressed circumstances to come up with five hundred dollars?” She whined. “I had to pawn my daddy’s guns. I got to get ’em back before they sell ’em.”

So there
was
evidence she could drive. The pawnbroker would remember her and the date he gave her the money. Couldn’t be that many pawnbrokers in Bigelow. Probably none in Mossy Creek.

She must have taken the money back after she killed Yoder.

“Couldn’t you use that five hundred dollars to pay the taxes?” Peggy said in a small voice. Good thing she could think straight. I sure couldn’t.

“And let go of my daddy’s guns?” Her voice rose. Obviously she had no more intention of letting go of those guns than she did of her house. “That Yoder knew I could drive. He saw me on the road coming back from here and recognized me at the funeral.”

“Was that the night you cut my spokes?” I asked.

She waved the hand not holding the gun. “Brought my pruning saw. Didn’t take five minutes. Nobody saw or heard me.”

“You could have killed somebody!” Peggy snapped. She must have yanked on the reins, because Heinzie gave out an exasperated whinny.

“Just wanted her gone from here so I could look better. Didn’t hurt anybody, did I?”

”Seems like you do a fair amount of driving for a woman who can’t see,” Peggy said.

She drew herself up. “That’s what Tom thinks. I see fine as long as I don’t get a bunch of cars driving at me with their headlights on.”

That was a scary thought, but not as scary as that gun in her hand.

“Yoder told me to get my tail out here and pay him if I wanted the journal. Fine way to talk to a lady.”

“Very rude,” Peggy said. I didn’t dare look at her. The whole thing had taken on a nightmare quality, but the gun was real enough.

Maybe she was a crack shot, maybe not, but I didn’t want to test her marksmanship, and I didn’t think Peggy did either.

“Did Jacob tell you where to find the journal?” I asked.

“He laughed at me! He thought Tom killed Hiram. That boy couldn’t kill a spider in the bathtub. He swore they were in a lockbox in Mossy Creek where nobody could get to them except you once you got the death certificates. I didn’t believe him. Not then.”

“So you waited until you knew I had them.”

“Saw Mr. Straley send ’em. I didn’t dare come out while those reporters were hanging around this place and your house.” The hand holding the gun steadied. “Then yesterday I got that notice. We’ve wasted enough time. Bank’s open by now.”

“Must have been hard work burying a grown man.”

“I had all night to do it and the manure was soft. My car was back in the garage before morning.” She laughed. “Y’all think I’m fit for nothing but making deviled eggs for the funeral ladies.” She giggled. “How’d y’all like my tuna casserole?”

I stuck my arm out in back of me to keep Peggy from flying out of that carriage straight at her and getting a bullet instead. “You nearly killed my cat!” she shouted.

“Expected y’all to eat it and wind up in the emergency room so I could hunt in your house. This worked out even better.” She made an exasperated sound. “Couldn’t start those computers and didn’t find the journal.”

“So you smashed them?” Peggy was losing it. I turned and shook my head at her.

“Cool it,” I mouthed. She glared at me, but she subsided.

“Why on earth did you try to burn down the stable?” I was genuinely curious. It hadn’t made much sense at the time and less now.

She looked downright smug. “Didn’t think there’d be a soul since Yoder was gone, and I could search all I wanted.”

Gone was right.

“I didn’t believe Yoder. Wanted to search the stable, then I saw your car. At first I was real mad, but I thought if I started a fire, you’d run rescue the journal . . . ”

“I didn’t know it existed.”

“I didn’t know that, did I?” She snapped. “I parked down the road where you couldn’t see my car and walked back. I watched you drag that bale of hay out . . . ”

I had wondered if I were being watched. I shivered. This woman was crazier than Cooter Brown.

“All you did was go get that dumb horse. Figured I might as well go home. I
thought
I had plenty of time. I could wait.” She actually stomped her foot the one without the bruise. “I deserve that money.” This came out as a whine, but the change in her voice was only momentary. A second later she was back to angry. “I worked hard all my life. Who does Tom think digs the garden and keeps the house neat?”

“I’m sure it’s not easy,” I said.

“Don’t think you can get ‘round me. You.” She pointed the gun in my direction. “Go get me my twenty thousand dollars. I’m not asking for more than what I’m due. We’ll be waiting when you get back.”

“Ms Darnell, I truly can’t take any money out of Hiram’s accounts, and I definitely don’t have that kind of cash. Mr. Robertson says they won’t let me transfer the money in his account to my name until the will is admitted to probate.” Sounded reasonable. Not true, but reasonable.

“You’re lying.” She pressed both hands around the gun. “I’ve seem those TV shows where they hold the bank manager’s family hostage while he goes and gets a bunch of money.”

It never worked on TV and wouldn’t work now, but it might get Peggy killed.
“I’m not lying. Do you think I’d risk Peggy’s life or mine if I could give you what you want? Maybe I could arrange a loan, but that’ll take a few days.”

“I can’t
wait
a few days.”

“Why don’t you take the journal instead?” Peggy said in a very small voice. Both of us stared at her. She still sat in the carriage like Queen Victoria, while Heinzie wriggled. He could definitely feel the tension in Peggy’s hands and sense something wrong. He whinnied in obvious distress.

“You said if you had the bill of sale and the journal you could make the deal yourself,” Peggy said. “Merry can open his lockbox with his death certificate so long as there’s a bank officer there to inventory the money and stocks. She can bring the journal and the original bill of sale back here. Those Confederate people may not give you quite so much since the carriage isn’t restored . . . ”

“On the other hand,” I jumped in eagerly, “They may actually prefer it in the original condition and give you more.”

She thought about it. “The minute I let you go, you’ll call Amos Royden.”

Damn straight I would.

“And leave Peggy as a hostage? I don’t
think
so. Once you have the journal and bill of sale, you don’t have any reason to hurt us.”

As if. Surely she wouldn’t believe we were that dumb. On the other hand, she’d backed herself into a corner by coming here. Either she let me go, or she forfeited any chance of getting the money to pay her taxes.

We were trapped in a corner with her. I would not leave Peggy. There was nothing to prevent Imogene from blowing her away the minute I drove out, then waiting for me to come back so she could blow me away as well. In her view, nobody would suspect her. Everyone thought she was sitting peacefully at home with no car keys.