DIGGIN' UP THE DIRT Read online

  “Be there in a minute.” I tried to tell her.

  “You know, I bet that Rich did it. He was in jail. And I bet he’d steal a wreath off his Meemaw’s grave.” Mama had decided to throw her two cents in.

  “Mama, I’m on my way.” I clicked off the phone instead of listening to her theories, though they probably weren’t too far-fetched. But there was no way I was going to tell her that.

  I jerked the wheel to turn the Wagoneer around, all while grabbing the old-time beacon siren from under my seat and licking the suction cup before smacking it on the roof.

  Rowl, rowl, Duke howled along with the siren. One of his all-time favorite things to do.

  “Hold on, buddy,” I warned and pushed the pedal to ground. “Who on earth would target the house of a dead man?” I’d heard of criminals perusing the newspaper to see who was dead and break into their house, but not on the day of the funeral.

  “Rich Moss.”

  I was certain.

  Chapter Two

  Finn had everyone out of the house, including Mama, who I could tell was already giving him fits. Her head was bobbing and weaving, trying to look around Lenora Moss’s clothesline which Finn had used to make a makeshift police line, while he talked to Lenora herself.

  I reached out the window and took the siren off the top of the roof and flipped the side switch off before I stuck it back under my seat. Duke jumped across the seat, ready to bolt out my door.

  “Not now, buddy.” I put my forearm up, reaching over to the seat to grab my bag off the floorboard. “I’m sorry,” I said in a sad voice and gave him a good scratch behind his floppy ears. “I’ll just be a few minutes and then we can get you to the station.”

  No matter how much I tried not to make eye contact with Mama, it didn’t prevent her from high-tailing it over to me along with the Henny Hens following closely behind her—the endearing name I’d given Lulu McClain, Viola White, Ruby Smith and Camille Shively. All of Mama’s closest friends and all of different ages and stages in life, bonded by the gift of gab and gossip.

  “Kenni, now we’ve got food in the oven that’s got to feed all these people who have come to pay their respects to Woody Moss.” Mama nodded while the Henny Hens did the sign of the cross, which made no sense because none of them are Catholic. “Now, look at Lenora over there. Do you think she’s in any shape or form to be dealing with this right now?”

  Without a word, because I had to choose them carefully when I talked to her, I glanced over her shoulder to look at Lenora. It was a combination of worry and sadness that I saw on her face. She probably didn’t care two-bits about people coming to the repass. From what I’d heard at my weekly girl’s night out Euchre game, Lenora had spent many sleepless nights watching over Woody and the infection in his knee after his knee replacement. I’d also heard it got into his blood stream, which ultimately lead to where we were today. His funeral.

  “Where are you going?” Mama asked when I took a few steps past her.

  “Mama,” I jerked around. “I’m going to talk to Lenora, that’s what I’m going to do.”

  “Well,” Mama gasped. “I’ll never understand that girl,” she told her friends. “I gave her life and everything she ever wanted. And that’s the respect I get.”

  The Henny Hens all nodded in agreement, which only gave fuel to her fire.

  “I hope you have ten youngin’s like you one day,” she hollered after me.

  She exhausted me. But wait. . .I knew there was more.

  “You’re gonna wish you were nicer to me when I’m dead and gone.”

  There it was.

  I swear Mama took a class in how to make your daughter feel guilty and she was driving the train to Guiltville, if there were such a place.

  “Hi, Lenora.” I looked between her and Finn. “I’m sorry you’re having to deal with this.”

  “Thank you, Kenni.” She nodded, her eyes red around the edges. “Can you just please tell everyone they can leave? Finn said this could take a few hours to fingerprint.” The corners of her mouth dipped into a deep frown. “Why would someone do this?”

  “I’m not sure” were the only words of reassurance I could offer. “I’m going to go inside and turn off the oven. Mama said they’d had stuff in the oven.”

  “Yes. She and the girls have been so kind. They left the funeral right before they put his casket in the hearse to go to the cemetery to get things started.” She sighed. “I told your mama and them to go in through the back door since it leads right inside the kitchen. It wasn’t until Lulu’s water dropped that she noticed the rest of the house and told your mama.”

  I tried not to laugh at the look on Finn’s face when Lenora said Lulu’s water dropped.

  “Bathroom,” I said to him. “Lulu had to go to the bathroom.”

  “Huh.” He looked like he was still confused but continued to write. He looked up at me. “Can I speak to you for a second?” He nodded to take a few steps to the side, out of Lenora’s earshot.

  “Sure. Lenora, are any of your family members here?” I took a quick look around and noticed Rich wasn’t here, but the girl he’d talked to was.

  “Not unless we have more kin than I know. Rich is the only kin and he’ll be back shortly.” She looked over the crowd and I did too.

  Ben Harrison, owner of Ben’s Diner, had been stopped by Mama and appeared to be taking in everything she was saying. When he caught my attention, I could see the amusement on his face. He gave me the finger gesture to come over there.

  “Finn and I are going to go in and clear the scene. I’ll make the announcement that we aren’t going to have the repass and you appreciate all of their support.” I patted her on the back.

  I stepped up on the porch and clapped my hands several times before the murmurs stopped.

  “I’m sorry to inform you, but in light of what’s taken place here today, Lenora is honored and blessed to have you all as friends and neighbors, but will be cancelling the repass,” I spoke loud enough for everyone to hear.

  “Sheriff?” Ben Harrison yelled even louder. Ben actually looked nice in his suit, making him barely recognizable without his usual flannel shirt, jeans, and baseball cap on backwards. “If Lenora doesn’t mind, I’d like to offer to have the repass moved to the diner where all the food will be on the house.”

  Ben Harrison was such a stand-up guy and if he weren’t my best friend since grade school, I might’ve had a big crush on him, but he was dating my girl-best friend, Jolee Fischer, and I couldn’t be happier for them.

  I glanced over at Lenora and she nodded with a grateful grin on her face.

  “Okay,” I nodded, “Y’all heard Ben.”

  The mourners clapped and all shook Ben’s hand before they got into their cars or started walking down to the diner, which was only a street over on Main Street.

  Mama still wasn’t satisfied and by the determined looks on the Henny Hens, they felt the same. Only this time, Betty Murphy, my eighty something year old dispatch operator, had joined them.

  “I’ll head into the house to turn off the oven while you deal with that angry mob.” Finn was talking about Mama. He kissed my forehead.

  “Mama, who is that girl and boy over there?” Not that I truly needed to know, but it was the blonde I’d overheard Rich Moss giving all sorts of grief to at the funeral home.

  “That boy is Sebastian Hughes.” Ruby Smith took the liberty to answer the question, which wasn’t unusual since her nose was literally stuck in everyone’s business.

  She owned Ruby’s Antiques on Main Street, across the street from Ben’s Diner. There wasn’t a day that went by where Ruby wasn’t showing up at someone’s house, garage sale, or estate sale for a good piece to put in her shop. Ruby knew everyone in Cottonwood and who all was kin to who. Cottonwood had been growing and even as sheriff, I still didn’t know everyone.
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br />   “He is one of them ambulance workers. His mama hails from Versailles. I don’t know where the rest of his kin are. My grandmother grew up there with his grandmother and grandfather. From what I’d heard, his mama was married twice,” Betty Murphy had taken over the conversation.

  It wasn’t enough just to tell what Sebastian did in Cottonwood, we had to learn the man’s linage.

  “But I think his daddy was murdered across the river after a man shot him. Now don’t quote me on that, but I was down at Tiny Tina’s and I swear I heard Tina mention it. Then again, Tina had put that big blower over my curls and that thing blows right up in my ear.” Betty pushed her glasses up on her nose.

  “I recall that there was a sister too.” Mama tapped her finger on her temples. “Billie…” she hesitated and snapped her fingers.

  “Mmmhmmm,” Ruby’s lips snapped together while she ho-hummed. “Billie Belle Short. She was married to Kenneth Asher before he died in that car wreck on the way to Clay’s Ferry.”

  “Poor girl,” Mama gasped.

  “Don’t you ‘poor girl’ Billie Belle. She blossomed like a Morning Glory soon after and married up again. If I remember correctly.” Ruby added that last sentence to cover her tracks in case the big tale about this poor Sebastian was wrong. “That Billie Belle was so cheap the Dollar Tree wouldn’t sell her.”

  The tale probably was wrong at some point in all of that and none of it I would remember.

  “Here y’all are gossiping at a funeral,” I couldn’t help but to remind them.

  “Honey, we ain’t gossiping, we are discussing prayer concerns and right now, there’s a lot of people right here that need that.” Mama lifted her chin and looked around.

  “To answer my original question, he’s an EMT worker?” I asked, looking at Betty.

  “Yes.” Betty nodded. “And the girl, Avon Myers. She is a physical therapist at Cottonwood Acres Rehabilitation Center where Woody died.”

  “Isn’t it strange to die in a rehab?” Mama asked. “Since Woody was there undergoing physical therapy for his hip replacement.”

  “Heart attack.” Ruby nodded her head. All of them bowed their heads as if they were honoring a moment of silence. “Or infection or something. Either way. Sad.”

  That was how rumors got started. They had no clue how Woody had died, though I knew it was the infection from the knee replacement, but I didn’t bother telling them. They’d get my words mixed up in there somewhere and end up having poor Woody die of cramps or something off the charts like that.

  “Avon Myers?” I wanted to confirm in case I decided I wanted to ask her about Rick Moss’s words to her at the funeral home.

  “Yep. Her Meemaw and Peepaw live over on Sulphur Well...” Ruby started in on who Avon was kin to. “Not sure where her parents live.”

  I didn’t bother to stick around to listen when I noticed Finn was standing at the Moss’s front door. There were a pair of purple gloves on his hands and shoe covers on his feet with black dust powder around the edges.

  “Did you find some fingerprints?” I asked and opened my bag where I had booties for my shoes and gloves.

  “Lenora gave me a list of things that could be missing, but she’s not sure. The only thing she said that was for sure was missing are the special cuff links from the jewelry box on her bedroom dresser.” Finn waited until I got my shoes covered before he had me follow him into the house. “It’s like they threw the cushions off the couch and a few things on the floor, but only really got the bedroom.”

  “Mama said things were ransacked.” I glanced around the family room that was right inside the door.

  “I’d say untidy is more like it. The kitchen wasn’t touch.” Finn said over his shoulder as we walked down the hall to the bedroom to see the most damage. “She and Wood slept in different bedrooms.”

  I walked in and all the contents of her dresser and the drawers were thrown all over the bed, which had the covers messed up and the mattresses all side-goggled. The jewelry box Finn had mentioned was tall with two doors. There were a couple of hooks to hang necklaces and two pullout drawers underneath for ring and earring storage. Most of the jewelry looked to be cosmetic. The Mosses didn’t have a lot of money. They were simple folks that kept to themselves.

  I unzipped my bag and took out my camera.

  “Here, I’ll take the photos while you go talk to Lenora.” Finn took the camera.

  It was so great having a deputy that understood exactly what was needed without me having to tell him or needing to do all the work myself. He’d been like that since the first time I laid eyes on him.

  When poor Doc Walton, Cottonwood’s local doctor, had been murdered in his own home, my only deputy was retired and off on a vacation with his wife, leaving me a one woman show. I didn’t mind, only the fact of the matter was that Doc Walton wasn’t the only crime happening in Cottonwood. I had to call in a Kentucky State Reserve Officer from Frankfort.

  Kentucky was made up of mostly counties, which meant we had more sheriff departments than police stations. Cottonwood is a county, and since we’re a small community, it wasn’t uncommon to have one deputy and one sheriff. In a time of need, as sheriff I was able to get help from the state reserve where they’d send me an officer to use on a case. That’s when Finn Vincent walked into my life, did an amazing job, and filled not only the available deputy position but also my heart.

  Like most women who guard their heart, I wasn’t receptive to his Northern ways or all-business attitude since he was from Chicago, but I warmed up to him after a while and saw he was a good officer.

  Here, he was clicking away and placing crime scene tags all over Lenora’s room while I went down to ask her my own questions.

  She was sitting at the old wooden kitchen table with a cup of coffee in front of her. There was a blank look on her face like she’d been kicked down a few times. I didn’t blame her.

  “Lenora, Finn said there’s some cuff links missing.” I sat down next to her and put a hand on her back. “Can you tell me about them and why someone might want them?”

  “Not that Woody was flashy, but his grandparents had gone to New York City when he was a kid. They’d spent almost every penny they had taken with them and bought him back a pair of simple gold knotted cuff links.” She laughed with a soft look in her eyes. “Woody said that a young boy never wanted cuff links.”

  “I don’t blame him,” I agreed.

  “He said that his grandparents were so proud of them when he put on his Sunday’s finest that next weekend,” she was referring to his church clothes. “He loved how happy he made his grandparents and took really good care of those links. He only wore them on special occasions. He loved telling that story to our boy and Rich.” She grinned at the fond memory. “As we got up in age, we figured we’d better make a will and since we only have one boy, we knew he’d get them. Wally Lamb said we needed to get the value.” She shook her head as she talked about the local lawyer. “He insisted we take them over to Hart’s Insurance. Woody did. Come to find out,” she drew back, her eyes grew big, “them little knotted cuff links were worth a pretty penny.”

  “Really? How much?” I listened really carefully because obviously someone knew they were worth something.

  “One thousand and seven hundred dollars. Now, his grandparents didn’t pay that much, but they knew they were worth something. That’s why they told him not to get rid of them.” She looked over her shoulder when Rich and another man walked into the back door of the kitchen from the outside. “Have you met our grandson, Rich?”

  “Not in a formal way.” Our eyes met, and we stared at each other for a second.

  “He’s a good boy.” Her face lit up with pride, something only a grandmother would say. It was the first time I’d truly seen her smile since I’d gotten here. It was my cue not to continue to question her in front of him, given his histo
ry and all.

  “Finn and I will finish up here and let you have your house back.” I stood up and patted her on the back. “Are you going to go over to Ben’s Diner?” I asked about the repass that’d moved there.

  “Yes. Rich is going to drive me over. I’m not sure I can walk that far right now.” She glanced over at her shoulder at her grandson.

  “Yep. We sure are.” Rich smiled.

  Something behind his grin told me not to trust him.

  Chapter Three

  “What are you thinking?” Finn asked me once we got back to the sheriff’s department, where I’d changed my clothes back into my brown, unflattering, sheriff’s uniform.

  It’d taken us a couple of hours to finish scouring the crime scene which was limited to Lenora’s bedroom.

  “I’m thinking Rich Moss is the burglar and I’ve got Scott Lee following him around town.” I looked at the big white board where I had started putting the clues with cuff links as the header along with a photo of them that Lenora had given me that was in with the insurance estimate and another estimate from Ruby Smith.

  “Lee’s almost better than Duke,” Finn joked and unscrewed the lid off the dog treat jar on his desk, flipping one in the air at Duke who was lying in his bed next to my desk.

  Without missing a beat, Duke’s snout flung up in the air, catching the treat.

  Scott was sent to our department over Christmas break when Finn and I were supposed to take a much-needed vacation to his hometown in Chicago. That’s when the snowstorm hit and we didn’t get to go. Scott Lee stuck around and really helped us out. I’d been in front of the city council meeting a few times asking for more funding to add him to our department. Since Cottonwood was growing, so was the crime and it was almost too much for me and Finn to get to all of it.

  There was a meeting in a couple of days to announce the final decision and I hoped they’d do the right thing by letting us keep him on as a deputy.