Claws For Concern

THIRTY-TWO

We got back in the car, and I headed for Tullahoma. There was no point in trying to get Mrs. Finch to come to the door again. Jack pulled the folder with the autopsy reports from beneath his seat and opened it. He started looking through the papers. I had decided that if there were any pictures included, I wasn’t going to look at them. I felt haunted enough already by the thought of those two innocent boys, their lives taken away.

I forced my thoughts away from autopsies. “We’ve learned a lot,” I said, “though it would have been helpful to talk to Mrs. Finch about that night.”

“Yes, it would have. We need to find out more about what went on with Elizabeth Barber and Leann Finch that night. I wonder if the Finches can really swear to the fact that neither of the girls left the house that night,” Jack replied. “We’ll have to try Dr. Finch again. After we, or maybe you, talk to Bill Delaney again, if that’s possible. We’re getting close to the truth, I can feel it.”

“Closer, anyway,” I said. “I wish we could find out where Hiram Barber was during those two hours.”

“That seems impossible at this point,” Jack said as he turned a page. “What do you think about Elizabeth Barber as the killer?”

“I’ve considered her, certainly,” I said. “What do you think her motive was?”

“Freedom from that family,” Jack said. “And probably money. According to Mrs. Gillon, Elizabeth wanted to be a veterinarian, and that means four years of college and four years of vet school. That’s a big investment in both time and money. Without her family’s support, she’d have had a tough time accomplishing any of it.”

“I can see her maybe killing her father,” I said. “He was the one who intended to hold her back. Again, according to Mrs. Gillon. I wish we could verify that with someone else. But her mother and her brothers? That’s much harder for me to grasp.”

“With her father dead, would her mother have been able to run the farm? Elizabeth might have been stuck there,” Jack asked. “Killing them all was a completely ruthless thing to do, but she might have seen that as her only choice to get totally free.”

“Say she did do it, and for the reasons you’ve stated,” I said. “Did she do it alone?”

“Maybe,” Jack said. “But why did Bill Delaney leave home for two hours? What was he doing? Maybe it was something completely unrelated to the murders.”

“Could have been,” I said, “though I’m having a hard time imagining what else it could be. Especially since Mrs. Gillon told us about Betty and Bill. I think he must have gone to the Barber farm that night.”

“Maybe.”

I glanced at Jack for a second then focused again on driving. He seemed intent on a particular page.

“Have you found something?” I asked.

“Possibly,” he replied. “Mrs. Barber, Matthew, and Mark were killed execution style, but Hiram was shot in the back.”

“Perhaps Hiram tried to flee from the killer, whereas the others were too afraid to try,” I said.

“Could be.” Jack suddenly closed the folder and stuck it back under his seat. “I hope whoever killed them rots in hell for eternity.” He seemed overcome with emotion. He turned his head away and looked out his window.

I gave him time to collect himself. I knew how he felt. As we approached the city limits of Tullahoma, I spoke. “Where do you think we should go next?”

Jack turned his head and faced forward again. He cleared his throat before he responded. “Let’s try the vet clinic. Stay on the highway. It’s on the edge of town to the west. Just about five miles from here. It’ll be on the right. You can’t miss it.”

“What’s the plan when we get there?” I asked.

“One thought I had was that we take Diesel in and tell them he needs to see the vet. You’ll have to think up why. I don’t know that much about cats and their habits.”

Diesel heard his name mentioned, and he meowed and chirped as if to ask what we were talking about.

“It’s okay, boy,” I said. “Jack, I’m sorry, but I don’t feel comfortable with that. We’ll have to come up with something else. Why not just go in, ask if Elizabeth is there, and ask to speak to her?”

“Let me think about it,” Jack said. “I imagine Leann Finch has already warned her about us, though, so that approach might not get us anywhere.”

He fell silent, and I didn’t interrupt his ruminations.

A few minutes later we reached the western side of Tullahoma, and I easily spotted the vet clinic, thanks to its large sign. I turned off the highway into the parking lot. As I looked for a parking space, I noticed a large, dark SUV. With rising excitement I realized it matched the description of the SUV that had struck Bill Delaney.

I drove closer to it so I could see the make and model. Once I did, I saw that it was a match. I stopped the car and nudged Jack. “Look at that SUV,” I said. “It matches the one that hit Delaney. What do you want to bet that it belongs to Elizabeth Barber?”

“I think I’d lose that bet,” Jack replied. “I’ve got an idea. Park next to it. It’s parked away from other cars, so the owner has to be one of those people who can’t stand the thought of their car getting scratched.”

I did as Jack asked. “What’s your idea?”

Jack unbuckled his seat belt. “I’m going in there and tell the receptionist that I accidentally scraped the side of that SUV. I’ll ask to talk to the owner. I doubt Elizabeth Barber knows what I look like, so I won’t give my name. I’ll ask her to come out and look at the damage, and I’ll say my insurance information is in the car.”

“Then once you get her out here, I can tell her that her SUV matches the description of the one that hit Bill Delaney,” I said. “That ought to shake her up a little. I can hint that my daughter and son-in-law actually got a picture of it with part of the license plate.”

“Are you sure you feel comfortable with telling a lie like that?” Jack asked. “A few minutes ago you didn’t seem okay with it.”

“It does bother me, but if Elizabeth Barber tried to run Bill down, my scruples can take a brief vacation.”

“Good man,” Jack said. “Okay, I’m going in.”

I watched as he crossed the parking lot and entered the front door of the clinic. Then I turned to Diesel. “I want you to lie down and be a good boy, Diesel. I don’t want this woman to see you and be alerted too soon. We’re going to act like we’re taking a nap. Okay?”

Diesel meowed and stared at me for a moment.

“I’m going to lie down, too,” I said. “Nap.”

Diesel meowed again and stretched out on the seat. He knew what the word nap meant. I twisted so that I could lie across the front seats and got myself into position. I didn’t turn the car off because it would get too hot. I hoped the SUV’s owner would be too upset to notice until it was too late.

I don’t think we had to wait more than six or seven minutes before Jack appeared with a striking woman in scrubs that did little to disguise a shapely figure. She was shorter than Jack and had bright red hair pulled back and twisted into a bun on the back of her head. She was gesticulating in an angry manner.

Jack maneuvered her into the area between my car and hers. He got on the other side of her and drew her toward the front of the SUV. That allowed me to sit up, open the door, and effectively trap her between the two of us.

She was in such a state, continuing to flap her arms about, that she evidently didn’t hear me open the car door. She was still facing Jack.

“. . . some sort of prank. You look way too old to be pulling this kind of crap. I’ve got work to do.”

“I’m sure you do.” Jack looked over her head toward me. “Charlie, I’d like you to meet Elizabeth Campbell. Elizabeth Barber Campbell.”

She whirled to face me, her expression furious. “What the hell is going on here? Who are you people?” She pulled a cell phone out of a pocket of her scrubs. She started to tap in a number.

“I’m a friend of Bill Delaney’s,” I said. “The man you tried to run down on the square in Athena recently.”

That hit home, I could see. She almost dropped the phone. Then she recovered. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. I’m going to call the police.” She started to tap on the phone again.

“Go ahead, by all means,” I said. “I’ll be happy to report to them that we’ve found the hit-and-run driver that the Athena police have been looking for.”

She stopped tapping and stared at me. I could see the fear creeping into her expression. I didn’t need anything more to tell me that she was guilty.

“This is ridiculous,” she said. “I was nowhere near Athena that day. You can’t prove any of this.”

“And what day would that be?” Jack asked.

She realized her slip but tried to bluster. “Whatever day you’re talking about, I wasn’t in Athena. I haven’t been in Athena in a long time.”

“Not even to visit your best friend, Leann Finch?” Jack asked.

Elizabeth Barber—I couldn’t think of her by any other name—backed up against her SUV and glanced wildly back and forth between Jack and me.

“You might be disappointed to hear that you didn’t kill Bill Delaney, though you did put him in the hospital,” I said. “That was a pretty dirty trick, you know. Going to see him that day, getting him drunk, and then trying to run him down.”

Her eyes widened again, and I took grim satisfaction in the fact that my hunch had proved true. She had been in Bill’s apartment that morning. The lipstick Diesel had found on the floor belonged to her, I was sure of it.

“Too bad you lost your lipstick while you were there,” I said. “My cat found it, but I left it there. I’m sure the police in Athena will be happy to test it for fingerprints. What do you want to bet they’ll match yours?”

All at once her legs seemed to give way, and she slid down the side of the SUV until she was sitting on the pavement. Tears started streaming down her face.

Jack and I exchanged startled glances. I hadn’t expected this. I thought she would continue to brazen it out. A cynical thought flashed through my mind, however. She might be trying this tactic in order to garner sympathy. Best not to be taken in by it. I glanced at Jack again, and I could see by his expression of disbelief that he’d had the same thought.

“Why did you do it, Elizabeth?” I asked, my tone gentler than she probably deserved. “Did you really want to kill him?”