The Passed Prop--The Morelville Cozies--Book 1 Read online

  We entered a room of indeterminate size that I thought might be a bedroom since the layout of Purcell’s house was similar to that of my own. There actually was a bed there, if you could call it that. There was barely enough free space on the bed for an adult male to lie on his side. I didn’t see a phone but I was pretty sure the odd heap of books and papers beside the bed was hiding a nightstand beneath it. Maybe he had a phone under all of that. I began to paw through the stacks.

  After a minute or so, I actually unearthed a phone. No address book made itself known, however.

  While I continued to dig, Chloe squeezed around me and worked her way over to a window that faced toward the front of the house. Stuff was stacked almost to her neck but she could see outside. “Uh oh,” she called out.

  “What?” I stopped what I was doing.

  “We have company...Sheriff’s Deputies!”

  “They’re probably here to search! I told Mary Sue that! We can’t be found inside here Chloe.”

  “So what do we do?” She was already scooting back across the room.”

  “We go out the back, facing Kris’s house.”

  I led the way and we hooked a left in the dining room to go toward the kitchen instead of toward the front door. The kitchen was beyond disgusting and it smelled beyond awful but I tried to focus on the back door that led to a screened in porch rather than on the flips my stomach was doing.

  I got it open enough for us to squeeze through just as I heard Mel’s men try and get the front door open. Good luck with that!

  We made it onto the little service porch and got the interior door closed behind us but then we were stymied. The door to the backyard was completely blocked. The porch was so filled with junk that we were trapped. We literally had nowhere to go and we could only crouch to try and keep out of the line of vision of anyone coming into the kitchen.

  We could make out some of the conversation between the two deputies that had finally managed to squeeze through the front door. Even in my fear of being caught, I thought to myself, I’ll just bet that wasn’t an easy trick wearing full gear including a gun belt.

  It was clear Mel’s men were disgusted with what they were seeing. As Chloe and I waited, we overheard them radio Mel herself and ask for her to come to the scene. I peeked up through the back door and saw them turning, hand’s over their mouths, heading back the way they came.

  When their voices were gone, I looked at Chloe, “We have to get out that door now. We’ve got to get it unblocked without breaking through it.

  I pushed my way forward and handed stuff behind me to her as I went. She dropped it behind herself, filling up the way we had come as we made a new path out.

  Chapter 7 – Aftermath

  We left my car parked where it was and skipped across Kris’s backyard next door to Mel and Dana’s house. I worried that Mel would be suspicious about where my car was parked when she arrived on the scene at Purcell’s but there was nothing I could do about it at the moment.

  Dana still hadn’t returned from wherever she was off to. Chloe let us in with her key and closed the door firmly behind us. Dana’s puppy didn’t come rushing out to meet us.

  I looked at Chloe, “I hope wherever Dana is, she’s taken that dog to training like you’ve talked with her about.”

  “Faye, Boo’s doing really well in the house.”

  “Yes, but a bloodhound she ain’t. She got us into all of this, right?”

  “Point taken.”

  I sank down into a kitchen chair and blew out a long breath. “What are we going to do,” I asked, “If they dust around there for prints and find out I was in there?”

  “Have you ever been fingerprinted Faye?”

  “Well, no.”

  “So, even if they do ‘dust’ as you put it, although over there in particular it isn’t likely, they can’t pin any print that they do find on either of us. I’ve never been fingerprinted either.”

  We were quiet for a minute. I was wondering what was happening at the house back behind us. Chloe had other ideas.

  “Faye,” she said, “they’re fighting a losing battle and grasping for straws already, if you think about it. They’re trying to establish a motive for killing Purcell from his own house. There’s just no way in that landfill of a place that they’re going to find any sort of evidence linked to his murder. No way.”

  “You know what, you’re right.” I got up and went to the phone on the kitchen counter.

  “What are you doing now?”

  “I’m calling Mary Sue Brietland.”

  When I got her on the phone, I told her I’d picked up the keys but the police were at Purcell’s searching the place. I conveniently left out the fact that Chloe and I had been in there. I figured the less people that knew about that little adventure, the better.

  “Your best bet,” I told her, “is probably to just contact the police. They’ll be trying to ferret out his next of kin info from government systems. Maybe they’ll help you out. I mean, I don’t know if he had any sort of life insurance but he has a house, a car and other property. They’ll be trying to get ahold of his kids or other family members about that stuff.”

  “Very well then Faye; thanks all the same. Would you please drop his keys off to me at your earliest convenience?”

  “Sure, sure.” I knew Mary Sue’s ‘earliest convenience’ request was a euphemism for ‘please bring them by now’.

  We rang off and I turned to Chloe. “It looks like you’re on for Barb’s this morning.”

  “I came into town with you. All my stuff’s in my car back at the farm.”

  “What sort of stuff?”

  “My notes, my tape measure, some other supplies...you know, stuff.”

  “You’re really taking this interior decorating stuff seriously, aren’t you?”

  “She is paying me Faye and I am rather enjoying it.”

  “Thinking of a career change?”

  “No, not at all. I still love doing nails and all of the things that go along with that. Really though, if the opportunities to decorate homes keep presenting themselves, why not do both?

  I raised my eyebrows but didn’t say anything other than, “Let’s go get your stuff.”

  Chapter 8 – Barb’s House

  10:15 AM, Saturday, November 1st, 2014

  Barbara Wysocki – Barb to her friends – met us at the door to her new to her home. She was dressed for the day but she looked beyond tired.

  “Hi sweetie,” I said to her, giving her a quick hug. “You look like you could use some coffee.”

  “I could really use a few days off, but the coffee’s brewing. Join me?”

  We both nodded and followed her to the kitchen. Since Barb was in the restaurant and bar business, it was already well appointed. She’d done most of the work herself.

  “To what do I owe the pleasure of the double team today?” Barb smiled at me indicating she didn’t mind me tagging along.

  “We’ve both been involved in the Fall Festival but, now that that’s been cancelled, Faye here was at loose ends,” Chloe answered.

  “I heard about that. It was all the talk among the locals at the bar last night. Scary stuff.”

  “That’s an understatement.” We all nodded. Chloe and I took seats while Barb poured coffee.

  “Chloe told me she was thinking about doing a Sugar Creek trip today to look at family room furniture for you and I thought I’d tag along, if that’s okay.”

  “Oh, I want to go,” Barb half whined.

  “You know you can’t,” I said. “Saturday’s your busy day.”

  She grimaced and scrubbed her hands together. “I’ve been trying to hire a new manager but the search just isn’t going well. I’m not finding any local candidates that meet my requirements, at all.”

  “What are your requirements?” Chloe asked her.

  “Really, they’re very minimal. I want someone with some experience running a restaurant or retail operation, a willingness to work night
s and weekends and a clean criminal record. The Boar’s Head is close enough to Zanesville to give me a decent sized pool of applicants but, unfortunately, the combination of the three requirements seems to be pretty tough to find in one candidate.”

  “I own,” she continued, “other places in various parts of the country. There are some things that need my attention with some of those but I can’t spend any time trying to take care of that stuff until I can find someone to help me run this place.”

  “I’ll keep my ears open for you Barb but I can’t think of anyone in Morelville that would fit the bill. I don’t get into Zanesville much anymore.”

  “I appreciate that Faye. Just between you two and me, I’ve been trying to woo Helen from the store. She’s at loose ends and collecting unemployment since the place is closed after Terry’s drowning and while Sheila is in Tennessee pending her trial for that woman’s murder but, so far, no luck. Even after I offered to split weekends with her, she just didn’t want to commit to a night schedule after working mornings and early afternoons for so long.”

  “The bar business is a young person’s game,” Chloe told her. “I’ve met the woman you’re talking about. She’s 60 if she’s a day; doesn’t surprise me she’s not interested.”

  “She’s right about that,” I put in. “Helen’s old enough that she ought to be getting close to collecting Social Security.”

  “Why,” Chloe questioned, “don’t the families of Terry and Sheila Ford just have her run it?”

  “Wow, would that be nice,” Barb said. “I’ve been frustrated because I worked out bulk buying deals between me and them for certain supplies. I lost some good discounts on a few things when it closed down. None of the extended Ford family members that I’ve been in touch with have any interest in re-opening the store or operating it. They don’t own the building or the name, just the business itself. My impression is, it just put a roof over the heads of Sheila and Terry. They weren’t getting rich off of it so, apparently, no one wants to hassle with it.”

  Chloe and I set about taking measurements in the family room and discussing options while Barb got ready to leave for the Bar.

  As we worked, we got to talking more about the store. “I’m with Barb,” I said. “It’s frustrating to know you’ve got to drive all the way to Zanesville for quick needs so I find we’re just doing without more and more things. That’s not going to work forever.”

  “You know, the first time I came to Morelville and I stepped into that store, it was like stepping back in time. I practically grew up in a small grocery like that. My grandparents owned one that my father ran for them for years. I helped in the store all of the time up until the day I got married and then I still helped as needed for years after that.”

  “Really? Does your family still own it?”

  “No. I stopped working there when my dad passed on and my brother and I decided to sell it. For that matter, Dana even helped out when she was younger, before she went off to college and a career in security and law enforcement.”

  “Here’s a thought; why don’t you take it over Chloe?”

  “What? No.”

  “Now hear me out; you want to spend more time up here don’t you, maybe have a weekend home to get away from the city to?”

  “Yes, but I don’t want to pick up a full time job in the bargain. I want Marco and me to scale back, not scale up. He’s gearing up to retire.”

  “You wouldn’t have to run the store full time. Helen would open and close five days a week and you could get someone else to help her, maybe even Dana. Truth be told, I’m not at all convinced that there’s any money in this writing idea of Dana’s You could just do the ordering and the books and stuff.”

  “Faye, I have a whole different life back in Pittsburgh right now my husband and most of the rest of my family, including my only grandchild so far. I can’t just pick up and leave and I wouldn’t feel comfortable buying a second home here and a business then leave it all for someone else to run, especially someone you just told Barb is very close to retiring anyway.

  “Admit it, you hate living in the city.”

  “I don’t hate it...I just like to get away from there sometimes, is all.”

  “You like to get away from there a lot and you love it up here.”

  “Okay, I’m not going to lie; I do. I really do. But Marco has his job and, like I said, my boys are back there and...it’s just not feasible.”

  “The Amish have their own feed mills and sales operations for feed, you know.”

  Chloe’s face clouded with confusion, “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “Larry kept the very back part of the store building for feed but he sold less and less of the commercial stuff because people around here started buying locally produced stuff from the Amish. If we clean it out, I just bet that back part of the building would make a nice little nail salon. You know full well you could do an amazing little business with that here...once you were up here more, that is.”

  Not letting her get a word in edgewise, I continued, “Or, it could be your little design studio where you pick up side jobs decorating. Heavens, you could do nails and design. Why limit yourself?

  I watched Chloe carefully. Her eyes began to glow. The belied her words as she said, “It just isn’t possible right now.”

  Chapter 9 – Road Trip

  Saturday afternoon November 1st, 2014

  Sugarcreek, Ohio

  Since we got a late start and the drive was nearly an hour and a half, we didn’t get into Sugar Creek until after 1:00. Chloe and I decided to skip the circuit of my favorite stores there and opt to start at the Amish owned Troyer Furniture first. Since Barb had absolutely nothing in her family room, much as Mel and Dana had started out in their home, it didn’t really matter if we started with sitting furniture pieces or solid wood cabinetry and display pieces.

  Something caught Chloe’s eye right away and she was off and running to check pricing and measurements. I meandered more slowly around the showroom, looking this way and that. Not having the feel for Barb’s tastes as well as Chloe did, I tried to look at things from the perspective of what would fit well within the room as it currently was, four neutral painted walls, a beautifully refinished oak hardwood floor and nothing more.

  Eventually, I made my way back around to Chloe who was still in the same general area she’d originally gravitated to. She seemed to be inspecting a sofa table with a pretty critical eye.

  “What do you think of this?” she asked me.

  “It’s very nice but aren’t you putting the cart before the horse?” The Amish employee standing nearby to assist her laughed heartily at the figure of speech. Chloe wasn’t swayed.

  “I’ve already got her sofa in mind. I saw something at Andre’s, just up the road, that I think would be a perfect fit in that room when I was working on Mel and Dana’s place.”

  “Alrighty then,” I said. Privately I marveled at how fast Chloe could pull rooms together especially considering that, prior to Barb hiring her, she’d never decorated professionally and only a month ago she’d never even known the handcrafted furniture stores at Sugarcreek existed. I was in awe of her talent.

  As I stood there admiring her prowess, out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of a tall blond coming in the front door. Instantly I recognized her as Jennifer Coventry, one of Sheila Ford’s children by her previous marriage. What are the odds of her coming in here today?

  She actually headed in our direction. I resolved to talk to her and get some sort of information out of her about the disposition of the store.

  I affected my sweetest voice, “Jennifer Coventry? Well, hello there! It’s so good to see you.” I moved toward her and pulled her into a quick hug.

  Caught off guard, Jennifer – who never wanted to be called Jenn or Jenny – seemed a bit wary of my familiar greeting.

  “How are you dear?” I wasn’t about to let her aloofness sway me.

  “I’m fine Faye and h
ow are you?” she asked, remembering her manners.

  “Doing well, thank you.” Beckoning to Chloe and waiting a beat while she moved toward us, I introduced her, “Jennifer, this is my friend Chloe. She’s an interior decorator. She’s working on the old Quinn Colonial in town.”

  “Is that right?” Jennifer was all ears now, “That’s a beautiful home.”

  “That it is,” I remarked. When Chloe drew closer, I told her, “Chloe, Jennifer is Sheila Ford’s eldest daughter by a previous marriage. She lives in Akron and is married to a man that’s high up the chain at Goodyear.”

  “Nice to meet you Jennifer,” Chloe offered her hand.

  Jennifer took it briefly but didn’t shake it. Instead she told me, “Actually, we live in Bath Faye, but Charles is a junior V.P. at Goodyear. He’s working his way up the corporate ladder fairly quickly.”

  Her tone was borderline haughty but I pressed on. “So how’s your mom doing?” I did my best to sound deeply concerned. “Such an unbelievable mess, all of that. How’s she holding up?”

  “She’s doing about as well as can be expected given all of this business. She’s a fighter.”

  “I don’t doubt it for a minute. I think about her often and I’ve sent up a few prayers too.” I was sincere in that, even though I knew full well Sheila Ford had intended to murder or at least severely wound her philandering second husband Terry and had accidentally killed his mistress in the process. My prayers were for a short prison sentence and a pain free transition back to a normally quiet place, like Morelville, after that but that was more than Jennifer really needed to know.

  “I appreciate all of it Faye. My brothers do too.”

  “How are things going for her?”

  “What you really mean to ask is, when is the trial, don’t you?”

  “Not exactly; the rumor mill in Morelville being what it is, we’ve heard she’s probably going to plead out.”

  Jennifer nodded halfheartedly, “I really wish she’d fight that a bit harder but she’s admitted to firing the shot and, honestly, money is an issue in this case. Her legal expenses are mounting. A trial would drain all of us.”