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

  “No, not yet. I...he knows about how I grew up and all and I’m sure he knows I could do it...we could do it, but I’m not sure how to approach him about it. I guess I need a little guidance.”

  “I’ll be perfectly honest here, if you haven’t picked it up already, Jesse makes all the decisions around here. He’s very traditional and he sees right through me most of the time. I wouldn’t know where to start to help you with Marco.”

  “Oh, I guess I hadn’t notice that. That’s okay with you?”

  “What’s not okay about it? It’s the way it’s always been between us. He’s a good provider and a good man. I’ve got no complaints.” I changed tacks back to her situation, “Jennifer said Sheila is asking $30,000 for the store. Is that even in the realm of reason for the two of you if he’s not working?”

  “I have some money socked away from my nail business...the money we use for our little trips, plus Barb is paying me well and I’m only spending gas and a little pin money of that since you and the girls so graciously let me stay with you when I come up there to work on her place.”

  “But, is that enough?”

  “Well, no, not just what I’ve saved, but if we combine that with the lump sum small fortune he’ll be getting from the mill with the severance and the vacation and sick time, even after taxes, we’ll have plenty.”

  “Can I remind you that you said you weren’t prepared to move here, away from your boys, Chloe?”

  “Yes, I did say that but it was in the context of knowing Marco had two more years until he could retire. We’ve always talked about moving out of the city once he did finally leave the mill. The boys know that.”

  “Chloe, I’m going to tell you, the decision is between you and Marco but, honestly, I love the idea and I would love to have you living here in the village, store or no store, if that’s what you two decide you want.”

  “That’s the thing Faye, the store isn’t what’s going to sell it to him. It’s the income yes, but it’s the life I have to sell.”

  “Does he fish Chloe?”

  “Yes. He loves trout and bass fishing.”

  “Does he get to do it very often?”

  “No, not while he’s working and he really wants a fishing boat.”

  “He could have all of that here and fish whenever he wanted. Don’t bring this up but remember Terry Ford and that whole crew. All Terry did and all they still do is fish, Chloe.”

  “True. You’re right.”

  “Does he hunt?”

  “Not deer, although, he might if he had a place to do it. He goes out to a cousin’s farm and hunts game birds sometimes...pheasants, wild turkeys...you know.”

  “He can do that here too, maybe even on his own land depending on where you two settle in. You don’t have to live in town and you don’t have to farm either. There are lots of nice properties out here.”

  “You’ve certainly given me a few things to think about. I’ll mull it overnight and talk to Marco tomorrow. He has a couple of weeks to think about things before he has to make a decision.”

  Chapter 12 – Cat Lady

  Tuesday Morning, November 4th, 2014

  On An Amish Farm

  Silas Yoder made his way from the pump head to the dog kennels carefully carrying two buckets of water to refill the bowls. He set one bucket down and reached out to work the door latch. As he bent to retrieve the bucket, his eyes scanned the remains of the hay field. A ways out, a few small, hummock like stacks from the last cutting remained, dotting, perhaps, an acre or so of land. They would have to be retrieved soon and moved to the barn.

  Half way back up with the second pail, he stopped short and stared out at the hay stacks. He shook his head vigorously and leaned toward the field as if he were trying to look at the stacks even more closely. Calling out in German, he roused his eldest son, and when he came to him, they watered the dogs quickly and then headed into the field to investigate.

  “The victim is Virginia Brown. She went by ‘Ginny’.”

  Shane Harding made notes as Mel talked. He watched as she skirted wide around the stack to view the area around the body from another angle.

  “The M.O. is the same Sheriff...a stake through the heart. There’s nothing else out here but her and some trampled, mown hay.” He shuddered involuntarily.

  Mel rubbed her temples and looked hard at her young detective, “We’ve got to nail this guy Shane. This woman’s never hurt a soul. She’s a widow...lives alone and keeps mostly to herself. In fact, she only ever leaves her house for groceries and cat food. She sort of has a reputation around town as the cat lady. Since the death of her husband about ten years ago, she’s been taking in cats. She probably has more than I even want to think about.”

  “You knew both victims personally boss; is there any connection between her,” he pointed toward Ginny, “and to Purcell?”

  “No, I’m wracking my brain, but I just can’t think of anything. I personally only knew her in passing. She wasn’t from here originally. She and her husband moved here around 2000 or 2001 into a house a few streets away from what’s now my sisters house. He died a few years later. Even when he was alive, they kept pretty much to themselves. They didn’t socialize with anyone that I knew of and they didn’t come to many community events.”

  “Any sort of problem with them...animosity towards them?”

  Mel shook her head no but, even as she did so, she seemed to think better of it and began speaking, “The cats. The cats are sometimes a problem Shane, especially in the summer. Heaven knows, like I said, how many there are. It doesn’t seem like she gets them fixed...she never leaves the house. The cats though, she lets them roam outside. That irritates some people in town and not others.”

  He raised an eyebrow, “Why only some?”

  “We get a lot of moles that tear up yards around here. Cats help with that problem and with the mice too. Some people are fine with them roaming and keeping those infestations down. Others get tired of finding cats and kittens in their sheds and barns and smelling tomcat pee in all of their outbuildings. There’s good and bad in play here.”

  “Nothing else?”

  “No. Nothing I can think of. Whoever’s doing this is preying upon the weaker among us. And this,” she waved a hand around, “doing this on an Amish farm. It makes no sense at all. I just can’t get a handle on this guy!”

  ###

  The Crane Family Farm

  Morelville, Ohio

  Jesse trudged through the pasture and closed the gate locking the longhorns into the upper fields. Once he was sure it was secure, he worked his way back over to the fence, climbed over it with some effort and then mounted his quad.

  He paused for a couple of minutes to catch his breath and sip some cool spring water from his thermos. It wasn’t coffee, but given the unseasonal warmth of the day, it would do.

  Drawing a final long breath, he capped the drink and replaced it in the holder he’d rigged up for it down by his right leg. Cattle farming was a young man’s game and he wasn’t so young anymore. He needed his little creature comforts to get through the long work days.

  Jesse started the quad and began rolling it slowly down through the steeply graded pasture, being careful to avoid rocks and the inevitable chuck holes where his cows had dislodged some larger stones. Raising livestock on the hilly terrain wasn’t ideal but he didn’t have an interest in growing crops beyond the family garden that fed them from late summer through the winter and his grandchildren liked racing the non-utility quads Mel had bought up and down the pasture fields. They seemed to be innately able to avoid the rocks and holes as they played for hours after the chores were done.

  Through a dip and over another small hill, the barn came into view. He smiled when he saw it. It was older than the century farmhouse itself and twice as sturdy. His smile turned to a frown though as he contemplated the thought of having Amish carpenters scheduled to come to the farm in a couple of weeks to tear it down. It was small and, as his grandchildre
n got more involved in things like FFA and 4H, their projects got bigger and more elaborate. It just wasn’t working for the family as well as it once had. Lacking proper land for a larger, more modern structure anywhere but where the current barn stood, the old had to be razed to make room for the new to be built right after the spring thaw.

  As Jesse pulled close to the barn in the lower field, he glanced along its exterior. Even after 110 years, the wood was weathered, but unbowed. He’d be sorry to see it go.

  As his eye traveled upward toward the eave, his gaze caught and held on a siding piece that had always had something of a rough top end. Now, it appeared a chunk was missing. Puzzled, he dismounted the quad and checked the ground below. No missing chunk was evident.

  He entered the barn and, taking his time, climbed the narrow wood stairs to the hay loft. He hadn’t been up there in a couple of years. Everyone used shrink wrapped round bales now to feed their herds in the winter. There wasn’t any need to toss bales and stack them in two story barns.

  When he reached the loft, not completely sure of the floor, he carefully worked his way toward the back and the spot of the wall where he’d seen the unexpected hole.

  The slope of the trussed tin roof met the wall only a foot or so above his head on either side. Jesse moved toward the board he knew was bad on the top end and reached up to it. There was a fresh break where a piece more than two of his fingers wide and more than a foot long was missing.

  “What the hell? Those kids know this is going to come down but that doesn’t mean they can just tear it apart!

  Jesse was livid. The barn had value to the Amish if the wood was intact. There was still plenty that was good but that wasn’t the point. He thought they’d been taught more respect than this act of destruction showed.

  He scuffled around in the loft, looking for evidence of their folly among the stacked straw bedding they’d overstocked for the summer’s fair calves. Suddenly, he stopped short. Someone else was in the loft, a woman, he was sure of it.

  Behind a stack of several straw bales he could see a white clad leg ending in a black pump.

  “Who’s there?” he called.

  There was no response from the woman.

  “Miss? Miss? Are you okay? Miss, can you hear me?”

  When there was no response from the woman, Jesse ventured closer to her and called out again. She still didn’t respond.

  He rounded the pile of bales slowly and looked down on the lifeless mannequin propped against the base of the stack.

  ###

  Faye Crane

  “Right over there.” Jesse, breathing hard from the exertion of climbing the stairs to the loft, again, pointed out the stack to me.

  I crossed the loft and looked behind the stack he’d indicated. Leaning there was the haunted house prop that Mel’s entire department was looking for.

  Chapter 13 – Framed

  “You wanna tell me how that got there?” Jesse asked me.

  “How should I know Jesse Crane?” I was incensed at first, at what he was implying.

  “Didn’t you go nosing around at Mel’s office today? What was that all about?”

  “Jesse, I didn’t kill that man and I can’t believe you’d even think such a thing!”

  “Now don’t go puttin’ words in my mouth woman. I didn’t say that. I just think it’s an odd coincidence that you’re all worried about being a suspect...don’t you deny it; I know you are, and then I find this and you can’t explain it.”

  “Oh, I can explain it alright!”

  “Fire away; I’m listening.”

  “Clearly, I’ve been framed.”

  ###

  I did my best to swear Jesse to secrecy about the prop until I had a little time to figure out who’d have been able to come onto our property undetected by us or by the dogs and plant it there. He wanted to call Mel right away and, actually, he tried but she was out of the office on a case with no known timetable for her return. He elected not to pursue it immediately by calling her personal cell.

  Relieved that I had a little time to gather my wits about me and try to figure a few things out, I sprang into action. While Jesse went about his late afternoon chores, I spooned the chili I’d been simmering on the stove into a crockpot that he could help himself from whenever he was ready to eat, and then I headed into Morelville.

  My intent was to talk to Rich Johnson first, about his whole vampire actor shtick. It was odd to me that, though I didn’t really suspect him of any wrongdoing myself, Mel wasn’t looking at him a little closer. It was his room where the murder took place and his prop that was missing and now sitting in my barn, after all.

  The village was buzzing when I arrived. Little knots of people were standing and talking here and there. Rather than park at Mel and Dana’s, I pulled up in an empty spot right beside the store a little more toward the center of town.

  With four cars here, you’d think it was open!

  A block off the main drag, I could see blue lights flashing. I approached the group standing in front of the store and asked one of the men there, what was going on.

  “I don’t know for sure what to tell you Faye. Mel and a couple of her boys bulled up outside of Ginny Brown’s place about twenty minutes ago. They started to go in but then they backed out and now they’re just standing around over there doin’ nothin’ but keeping all of us away. Nobody’ll tell us anything.”

  His little speech seemed to be designed to prod me into some sort of action. I got the feeling he wanted me to go over there and quiz my daughter while she was in the middle of the performance of her official duties, whatever they may have been. I couldn’t do that but I certainly intended to get a little closer to see whatever I could see.

  I made my way across the state route that ran into town toward Ginny’s but I pulled up short before the corner of her street and Main when two animal control vehicles, one pulling a trailer, rolled through town and then turned the corner in front of me. This has got something to do with the cats...

  If they were coming to confiscate Ginny’s animals, I wasn’t about to get in their way. Her cats had been nuisances around town for the past few years. I’d heard multiple complaints. Kris had been battling them in both her garage and her barn. Mel herself was allergic. I knew my daughter above all others had no intention of going into that house unless it was absolutely necessary.

  I continued on to gain a better vantage point but I stopped just after I turned the corner, well short of the woman’s home. As I watched, Mel spoke to someone in the lead vehicle then waved them both into the driveway. Six people in total got out of the two SUVs, donned protective sleeves over their work shirts and started offloading cat carriers from inside the trucks, the trailer and from the roof racks to stack on the lawn.

  Once everything was unloaded, each person picked up two carriers and entered the home. Cats started coming back out seconds later, some angry but all caged. The workers who entered the home all donned breathing masks before they went back in. The smell in there must have been beyond putrid.

  I wondered where Ginny was but I didn’t see her. Spotting someone standing on the Ellis porch a couple of houses up on Ginny’s side of the road, I decided to see what they knew that I didn’t. They were only a couple of doors down from her. If anyone would have had the scoop on what was really going on, I knew Rhoda Ellis would.

  Crossing the street, I moved purposefully toward her. She must have caught my approach out of the corner of her eye. She turned to meet my gaze and then tipped her head for me to join her before turning back herself to watch the events playing out two doors down.

  “Hello Rhoda, how are you?”

  “Just as nosy and curious as you are Faye.” She didn’t even look at me when she said it but, instead, kept her eyes straight ahead.

  “Jesse tried to call Mel at the station about 15 minutes ago and found out she was down here on a case.” It was a bit of a stretch of the truth but Rhonda didn’t need to know that. “I was
concerned, thought I’d come see what had happened now.”

  “Rumor has it,” Rhonda said, “that Ginny may be dead. That’s all I know but you’d probably already heard that.”

  I just nodded. We stood and made small talk for another 20 minutes while Animal Control rounded up and carried a few dozen cats out of the house. Who knows how many more are roaming about town right now...

  Once the animal people were finished and off on their way, Mel and her men donned paper surgical masks and went into the home. We didn’t have long to wait for their return. None of them lasted more than a few minutes inside.

  We were close enough that I could hear Mel calling off instructions to get the place locked up and sealed off pending further investigation. I didn’t know if Rhoda knew what that meant but I sure did; Virginia Brown had been murdered.

  ###

  Afternoon turned into evening. Around 7:30, I tried to call Mel at home from the phone in the kitchen but Dana told me she was still at the station working another murder case. Dana didn’t know much more than that so I rang off no further ahead than I had been before calling there.

  Deciding to go right to the knowledge source, I called Mel’s office, Holly was still there, our lunch earlier in the day seemingly a distant memory. She put me through to Mel after telling me to try and talk some sense into her about going home and getting some rest and attacking it all again the next day.

  “Sheriff Crane.”

  “Holly obviously didn’t tell you it was your mother calling.”

  “No, she didn’t.”

  “She knows you’d have blown me off and passed the buck if she had.”

  “I’m sorry mom but I’m really busy here. Is there something I can help you with?”

  “First of all, you can drop the attitude. You may be the Sheriff but I’m still your mother. Second, you need to get some rest. You’ve been at it for hours. There’s nothing to this case that won’t wait until tomorrow when you can get a look at everything with fresh eyes.”

  Mel was quiet.

  “Are you there?”