Homeward Hound

CHAPTER 29

“When was the last time you were in the Carriage House?” Ben Sidell asked Crawford Howard, who had freely agreed to come down alone to the sheriff’s office.

“Wednesday, January thirty-first, yesterday.”

“Was anyone with you?”

“No. I try to check on work progress at least every other day at Old Paradise. I’d been up at the house so I checked on the Carriage House to see if they’d gotten started.”

“What is it you intend to do in that building?”

“Repair and refurbish all the stalls, if you will, for carriages. Like garage bays, roof’s good. Flooring is good because the roof held. Anyway, the bays had been scrubbed out. The lumber was still stacked in the center of the aisle. A start.”

“Did you go into the tack room?”

“No.”

“Nothing seemed out of place?”

“Well, there’s nothing in there to be out of place.” Crawford controlled himself, although he thought the questions irritating.

“No odor. Decay odor?”

“No.”

“You were alone in the Carriage House?”

“I was. The foreman stayed at the big house. Charlotte was outside measuring grave sites. As you know, we found one containing, so far, two hundred graves. No markers. But no one came with me.”

“And were you also in the Carriage House during Christmas Hunt?”

“I’d driven down with Rory to check the lumber that had been delivered the day before. Wasn’t there long.”

“When you drove out, you saw the field?”

“You’ve asked me this before. After Gregory Luckham disappeared. After Rory was found.”

Ben calmly agreed. “Yes, but I am asking you again.”

“Couldn’t see a thing. The storm obliterated everything but both Rory and I heard the horn.”

“You saw nothing?”

“No.”

“How did you hear the horn?”

“As I told you, I put the window down slightly. Could hear the horn.”

“I thank you for coming down here so promptly. I expected you would have your lawyer with you.”

Crawford shrugged. “If I’m charged with anything or I’m a so-called person of interest, I will. But I came alone. I have nothing to hide. I find this shocking. You said the hand had been torn apart. Bones more than anything but remnants of a cotton glove were on those bones, in tatters. That’s why I came down. At Farmington Country Club, at Ronnie’s dinner, I noticed Gregory’s left hand was in a thin white cotton glove. It wasn’t a subject of discussion and I didn’t ask. My assumption was he had injured it, wanted to cover the injury.” Crawford shrugged again. “You’ll test those remains, if you can call a hand remains. That will be Gregory Luckham’s hand.”

“We found the other hand. Actually a hound did. Both these hands are on the west side of the Chapel Crossroads road. We’ve gone over the quadrants from where the first hand was found. Nothing. So this is important. He’s out there somewhere.”

“I expect.” Crawford agreed.

“I’ll be back with the cadaver dogs tomorrow.”

“Good,” Crawford tersely replied.

“You had good reason to kill Gregory Luckham.”

Crawford leaned forward. “Sheriff, a lot of people wanted him dead. Do you think I would be stupid enough to kill him when I can fight by other means and I have? Thank God for ground-penetrating radar.”

“Yes,” Ben simply said.

“Look, I don’t care about Gregory Luckham. He’s dead. I had nothing to do with it. I do care about Rory. He was a good hand. Why he was killed makes no sense. Luckham. Makes a lot of sense. People are outraged about the pipeline.”

After Crawford left, Ben knew he would be on the phone with his lawyer. Ben didn’t have enough to arrest him but he knew that Crawford could make his life miserable, just as he could impact Crawford’s. Not that he was in the business of revenge. He was in the business of solving crimes, upholding the law.

—

Bourbon in hand, Aunt Daniella glumly sat surrounded by Gray, Sister, Sam, and Yvonne. Both women described how they had found the hand.

“That’s what I get for being nosy.” Aunt Daniella sighed.

“Something like your experience is beyond the norm. Who would have thought of dismembered hands? The other hand was found miles down the road, as you know, but in the general vicinity. You would think the body would be down there somewhere but nothing else, nothing.” Sam consoled his aunt.

“Aren’t there political careers at stake over this pipeline?” Yvonne asked a sensible question. “If it were Illinois, it would be on the news every night. The public would know what state elected officials were for it, those against.”

Gray had a scotch in hand, for he, too, wished for something soothing. “We do know, Yvonne, but apart from this being the most contentious issue in the state, people are riveted by Washington, right now. They might stay on the pipeline for a week or two. People were aroused when a federal judge threatened to sue Red Terry and her daughter a thousand dollars a day if they didn’t come down from their tree stand protesting the pipeline. Two non-rich women, a mother and daughter, a thousand dollars a day by a federal judge. Officials hide behind the law obviously, which is what Soliden is counting on. People were outraged.”

“But they are more outraged by the president is what you’re saying?” Aunt Daniella understood politics as only an old person can. “Let’s assume the big company rolls over property rights. What’s left of that cuts down trees, imperils public lands, endangered species. Soliden has filled politicians’ pockets for decades. I remember those decades. What happens when a major disaster occurs, and it will? I promise you, it will. It might not be a blown pipe. What about mud slides from disturbed earth? Soliden has to go over the Blue Ridge. Everyone will pretend to be shocked by the disaster.”

“All those who supported it will turn tail.” Sister stated the obvious.

“So my question is: Where is the Democratic Party? Aren’t they the ones who care about the environment? Amend that, aren’t they the ones who say they care about the environment?” Sam hit the nail on the head.

“Hell, Sam, the Democratic candidates and the Democratic Party in this state had been sucking up money from Soliden for decades, as Aunt Dan said.”

“To be fair, Soliden also gives money to the Republican Party,” Sister added.

“My point is,” Gray continued, “what if someone who believed in the party, who is passionate about environmental issues, killed Luckham?”

“Well, who? Someone in the hunt club?” Sam fired back.

“It’s possible that someone planned to kill the president of Soliden. Maybe not at Christmas Hunt but who was there trying to take his measure. Literally, I guess. Well, the storm comes up. A perfect opportunity.”

“Gray,” Sister responded. “Could happen, but whoever killed him had to know the territory. Otherwise he’d have been left in the open, granted covered by snow for a time. But there was no trace later and whoever killed him had to get him out. I now truly believe the killer is in our hunt club. I don’t want to believe it, but who else would know the land?”

A long silence followed this, then Yvonne spoke. “It makes sense that foxhunters would be passionate environmentalists. Just knowing people as I do as a newcomer, I can see that. My daughter is a passionate environmentalist. Kasmir, Alida, Freddie, you, Ronnie, just about everyone.”

“Crawford is the best candidate. Not a Jefferson Hunt Club member but”—Sister was fighting a headache, this was all getting to her—“there’s no way.”

“I keep coming back to what if there’s another reason?” Gray rattled the huge ice cubes in his glass.

Aunt Daniella had one of those special ice machines that produced big cubes, maybe not as big as Rubik’s cube but big.

“And why his hands? Where’s the rest of him?” Yvonne, having seen a hand, thought this more than odd.

“Animals got at him,” Gray said.

“Then he has to be out there, right?” Sister asked.

“You’d think the cadaver dogs would have found him if wild animals found his hands,” Yvonne replied.

“Maybe that’s what we’re supposed to think.” Sister surprised them. “We’re outdoor people, right? We foxhunt. Knowing how some animals feed on carrion, our conclusion is an obvious one. What is obvious to me, again, is this is a foxhunter. And this is someone leading us away from him or her. Like a fox fouling his scent.”