Murder in the Heart of It All Read online

  Murder in the Heart of It All

  Murder in the Heart of It All

  Michael Prelee

  Copyright © 2017 Michael Prelee

  Cover art © Adobe Stock

  ISBN: 978-1-68201-063-1

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  First edition: May 2017

  Printed in the United States of America.

  Published by

  North Star Press of St. Cloud, Inc.

  19485 Estes Road

  Clearwater, MN 55320

  www.northstarpress.com

  For Tina, who loves a good mystery.

  Prologue

  Kathleen Brimley heard the little mail truck slow down at the end of the driveway, brakes squealing a bit as the letter carrier stopped beside her mailbox. She looked out the window and saw the young man flip down the door, quickly put the mail in and pull away. She set her knitting down and got up from the wingback chair near the picture window. Red and orange maple leaves danced across the front yard, gathering in small piles and then dispersing again in the wind. They were falling early this year, she thought, with it only being mid-September. She would have to call the Clarkson boy up the road soon to have him rake them down into the hollow beside the house.

  Robert’s old denim work jacket still hung on a hook near the front door, and she pulled it on. Two years after his death, she could still smell his pipe tobacco. The thought brought a smile to her face.

  The air was crisp and the sun was deceptively bright. It was one of those days where the outdoors looked inviting from inside but, once outside, the air had bite. The gravel driveway still had a few puddles from the rain of the last few days. She stepped around them and made her way to the mailbox.

  She looked through the stack of mail as she made her way back to the house. It was the usual junk: a furniture store going out of business, campaign ads for the upcoming election in November, and a notice from the heating oil company reminding her it was time to fill up for winter. At the bottom was a white envelope with no return address.

  Kathleen made her way back into the house and entered the small kitchen where she had made lunches and dinner for herself and Robert for thirty-seven years. She put a kettle on for tea and opened a tin of cat food for Mr. Smiley. The gray tabby raced down the hall at the sound of the can opener and skittered into the kitchen. She reached down and stroked him, bending from the waist because kneeling down was out of the question with the arthritis in her knees.

  “You’re a good kitty, aren’t you?” she said as she petted him. He purred in agreement.

  Drew Carey was helping a contestant on The Price Is Right negotiate a game of Plinko, and she watched from the kitchen doorway as a skinny woman dropped discs down through the peg board. The heating oil quote in the reminder was a bit high, she thought as she looked at it. She’d been a customer of Greely’s for the last few years but she should probably give Terry over at Cloverfield’s a call. Just check things out and make sure she wasn’t paying more than she should.

  The junk mail went into a shredder on the kitchen counter near the sink. Her daughter June had bought it for her last year, saying it wasn’t good to just throw stuff out in the garbage anymore. People could go through it and find information they could use to steal your identity. Mr. Smiley looked up as the motor growled and reduced the junk mail to cross-cut bits of paper little bigger than snowflakes. When the can was full, the bits would be added to the compost pile out back.

  The envelope with no return address was last. She looked at it, thinking it looked funny. Then she realized why. Her name and address were typed out, like with a typewriter, instead of printed out with a computer. The letters were indented in the paper.

  She got a mug from the cupboard and dropped in a tea bag. A letter opener lay near the shredder and she used it to open the envelope. The kettle whistled and she turned off the burner. She unfolded the letter and read it as she poured water into the mug. Her face went rigid and she slammed the kettle back down on the burner.

  “What is this?” Tears welled up in her eyes. “Who . . .?” She turned the letter over, looking at the back, and then picked up the envelope again. There was no marking on it except for her name and address. The letter was typed as well, just like the address on the envelope. She read it again.

  Your husband died fucking Nadine Harch because he hated humping your ugly ass.

  It was the only sentence on the paper. Kathleen was mad, as mad as she could remember being. Hot tears rolled down her cheeks. She felt a scream well up inside and she let it out. The cat looked up, shocked that his gentle owner could make such a sound. The mug of tea went into the sink, shattering against the stainless steel basin. She picked up the kettle from the stovetop and hurled it into the dining room. It banged off the large table and came to rest on the buffet, knocking papers to the floor. Mr. Smiley ran from the room, tearing back down the hall to the safety of the spare room, scooting under the guest bed instead of climbing up on the windowsill where he usually spent hours lying in the sunlight.

  She couldn’t think of anyone who would write such a thing. Robert had died of a heart attack in the backyard shed, which she could still see from the kitchen window. One moment he had been working on the lawn mower and the next he had rolled out of the open door into the grass, clutching his chest. Kathleen had seen it happen as she walked out carrying two glasses of lemonade. She had seen it! He was dead before the ambulance arrived.

  And he had never been unfaithful. She was sure of it. And especially not with a waitress from down at the Peppermill.

  She grabbed the envelope again, flipping it back and forth, looking for a mark, something that would tell her why someone had mailed this thing to her, but there was nothing, just her name and address. It was typed neatly in the center of the envelope, just as she had been taught to do in high school typing class. She made her way back to the living room and slumped down into the wingback chair. Drew Carey had moved on to the Showcase Showdown. Kathleen looked outside, still holding the letter, and watched as the leaves danced in the wind.

  One

  The first time Tim Abernathy saw Amy Sashman, he knew exactly how her face would look with a smile. She had been waiting on a customer at Degman’s Hardware, and after bagging his spackle and drywall sanding block, she told him to have a good day with a beaming grin. It had looked as good as Tim imagined. That had been eight months ago, on his first day at Degman’s. Saying hello to her and seeing her face light up when she said “hi” back was still the best part of his day.

  Tim drove the delivery truck for Tate Degman, delivering building supplies and furniture. It was one o’clock and he was coming back from his lunch break. The bell above the front door jingled when he entered, and he waved to Amy when she looked up.

  “Busy this morning?” he asked.

  “Not too bad,” she said from behind the checkout counter. “You’ll have a couple deliveries in the morning tomorrow.”

  “Oh, yeah? Furniture or building supplies?”

  “Furniture. Marjorie sold two living room sets.”

  Tim looked at the addresses on the sales slips and wrote them down in the notebook he kept in his back pocket. He’d need them to plan his deliveries for tomorrow. Furniture meant the box truck, not the flatbed with the hydraulic crane. It also meant he’d need help, so Mac, one of the stock boys, would be riding along.

  She leaned across the counter on her elbows and looked back at Tate’s office, flipping her blond
e ponytail as she did so. “Have you heard anything from those affiliates?”

  Tim ran a hand through his short, wavy hair. “No, nothing yet. It’s a long shot, you know.”

  “Come on, you did great at Channel 26.”

  “That was just an internship, and they didn’t hire me when it was over. If I couldn’t impress them with coverage of the county fair I may not have a future in TV news.”

  “Your butter cow story was cute,” she said.

  He flushed. “It wasn’t supposed to be cute. It was supposed to be journalism.”

  “Well, you’ll hear back.”

  “Tim, you out there?” The voice came from Tate Degman’s office.

  “Yes, sir.” Tim waved to Amy and made his way to the office door. He was unwilling to commit to going inside unless he had to. Tate had moods.

  “Sit down, and cut the ‘sir’ crap.”

  “Okay,” he said, and sat in one of the two chairs in front of Tate’s desk.

  “Deliveries go well this morning?”

  “Sure, no problems.”

  “Dieter called. You know why?”

  Tim sighed. “Probably because I left ruts in his yard.”

  “Yeah, because you left ruts in his yard.”

  “You have to understand, I didn’t want to park in his yard. He told me to pull around the side of the house, off the driveway. I told him the rain had made the ground soft but he insisted. He wanted that sectional sofa in the basement and didn’t want to go down the steps inside the house.”

  Tate held up a hand. “I know. I’ve been out to Dieter’s place before and I know he’s a pain in the ass.”

  “So how come I’m in here being chewed out? I just did what he wanted.”

  “That’s right, you did, and you almost got the truck stuck and that could have cost me a tow bill. I don’t give a damn about Dieter’s sectional sofa or his wife’s living room carpet. When you go out on a delivery, you’re in charge, not the customer. You decide the best way to do your job. You don’t let them push you around.”

  “Okay, I just don’t want someone calling in here telling you I’m giving them a hard time.”

  “There will always be unhappy people. Dealing with them is just something you have to do, especially if you are in business for yourself. What I need you to do is manage the customers when you get to their homes. I’m not saying you have to be difficult and argumentative, just size up the situation and do what you think is best. If guys like Dieter want to get pissy, it’s their problem. Can you handle that?”

  Tim nodded. “I can handle it.” He stood up. “What about the ruts?”

  “Dieter told you to drive around the side of his house?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Then Dieter can fill in his own damn ruts. Stage your deliveries for tomorrow and then knock off for the day.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  Tim finished up at Degman’s and by three was rolling across town to the Hogan Weekly Shopper in his wreck of a Chevy S-10 pickup. The faithful truck had gotten him through college but since his graduation last spring it had been acting up, sucking away more and more of his paycheck for repairs. He was going to have to do something soon to improve his transportation situation.

  He parked in the rear and walked around to the front of the newspaper. Charlie Ingram was at his desk tapping away at his laptop. He looked up and pointed to the phone headset he wore, indicating he was on a call. Charlie was the publisher of the paper, and Tim was his sole employee. It was a freebie handed out at supermarkets and local businesses.

  Tim worked part time helping with the advertising layout and collecting announcements from emails and the website. The paper served as advertising for local businesses and announced weddings, deaths, anniversaries, garage sales, and a couple local columns for which Charlie paid two cents a word. It wasn’t the kind of journalism Tim wanted to use his political science degree for, but at least it was in his field. He sat down at the desk opposite Charlie and logged into his laptop.

  It took ten seconds of overhearing Charlie’s side of the call for Tim to realize the boss was speaking with Gary Shellmack, the owner of Creekside Motors, a local used-car dealership. He took out his cell phone, slipped in his ear buds, and cued up a playlist. Listening to Charlie trying to sweet talk Gary into a bigger ad buy was nothing he wanted to hear.

  The submissions box was full with updated ad copy. When people submitted their ads online they filled out a form on the Shopper website and paid via credit card. Looking through the submissions, Tim could see that garage and yard sale ads had mostly died off after the end of August. Now there were more church bazaar ads, notices for potluck dinners, and a few engagement announcements. Part of Tim’s job was to review the submissions, check them for spelling or date errors, and make sure the content was family friendly.

  Tim spent a half hour scrolling through the web forms, double checking the submissions, and then got up to retrieve the stack of mail sitting in a basket on the counter. Charlie was still engaged in his phone call but Tim couldn’t tell whether he was being successful or not.

  He sat back down at his desk with the mail and started going through it. Utility bills went in one pile, invoice remittances in another, business invoices into yet another for Charlie’s review, and then another pile for general correspondence. Tim liked this pile the most. People sent all sorts of things to newspapers, even a free weekly like the Shopper. They ran a letters to the editor section but tried to keep the level of discourse fairly friendly. The tone of some of these letters could be downright mean, especially when the writer was discussing the Trump administration and its policies. It went both ways, though. Hogan was a Democrat stronghold, so anti-Republicanism was well represented. Tim knew people took their politics seriously, but the vitriol in some of these missives was still surprising. No, Tim reconsidered; it wasn’t so much the vitriol that was shocking but the ignorance behind the writing. People had either forgotten their civics classes from high school or they just didn’t care. What they did care about, he saw as he read through the letters, was that they were right and everyone else was wrong. He dug out three that were reasonably well written and put the rest in the reject pile. Charlie stood up from his desk, stretched and yawned loudly enough for Tim to hear through his music. He took off his ear buds and handed him the letters to the editor.

  “Good afternoon, boss,” Tim said. “I think these letters will be good for this week’s paper, and here are some invoices you need to look at. There’s also a letter marked to your attention. I didn’t open it.”

  “Thanks. That was Gary Shellmack.”

  “I figured.”

  “I got him to take out a full-page ad rather than the half he usually takes.”

  Tim nodded. “That’s good. Anything else going on?”

  Charlie got up and poured himself a cup of coffee. “I don’t know. The paper’s doing well, you know, but I’d like to do something different.”

  “Other than publishing?”

  Charlie shook his head. “No, I mean something with the paper. I bought this thing almost twenty-five years ago, and if you look at one of those old issues and the one we’re setting up for printing this week, they’re almost identical.”

  “So? The Shopper is the kind of thing that should be consistent. People like that about it. They expect that familiarity. They want to open it up and see a recipe column from Sandy and news from around town summarized by Betty. They want to look in the classifieds and see a lawn mower for sale. The ad revenue is solid, too, right?”

  “Yeah, I guess so,” Charlie said. “Maybe I just need to think about it some more.”

  “Okay, let me know if I can help.”

  • • •

  Gary Shellmack hung up the phone with Charlie at the Shopper and smiled. He’d gotten the full-page ad Charlie was selling but it only cost him twenty-five percent more than the half-page ad he normally bought. Gary liked getting a deal.

  Creeksid
e Motors was a large used-car lot. It covered two acres and he had a repair shop that could handle collision work. Built up from the corner lot his dad had started, Gary was now the largest used-car dealer between Cleveland and Pittsburgh.

  He hefted his three-hundred-pound frame from behind his desk in the corner office and wandered to the showroom. Unlike most used-car lots, he treated his stock like it was new. The showroom held the best of the current inventory. Classic muscle cars were fast movers, so he worked hard to find them. New dads trading up to minivans were a good source. Gary would also drive around looking for yard finds, such as muscle cars someone had bought with the intention of restoring but had finally quit on. With a good yard find, he spoke to the husband but negotiated with the wife. Make a good enough offer, usually about sixty percent of what they wanted, and while the guy was haggling or thinking about all the hours and money he had dumped into the car, Gary asked the wife how many other offers they had turned down or how many cars pulled in the driveway with cash in hand. Most of the time it worked; other times he left with an empty trailer on the back of his Hummer.

  He walked across the showroom to look at their latest acquisition, a 1974 fire-engine red Cadillac Eldorado with a white convertible top. He’d picked it up when one of his “finders” called in about it. He kept a few guys on the hook looking out for cars and paid a finder’s fee if they found something good. This time it was a guy named Julio who had bought a Honda Accord off him last year. Julio had a neighbor who passed away, and the widow was cleaning house before moving to Florida to live with her daughter.

  It was a one-owner car, and Gary could hardly believe it when the widow showed him the original bill of sale. A few stories and a couple cups of coffee later, he’d loaded it up on the car trailer behind the Hummer and pulled it back to the shop. He’d spent just over a thousand dollars getting the brakes, exhaust, shocks, and springs replaced and then detailed it inside and out. He had a sticker price of fifteen thousand bucks on the side window and was just waiting for the right buyer to come in. It was featured in the full-page ad he had just spoken with Charlie about. Charlotte at the reception desk motioned him over when she looked up and saw him on the sales floor.