Hotspur

CHAPTER 18

Technology makes a good servant but a bad master. When the Internet first got rolling, Sister Jane hopped on the bandwagon. Her phone bills soon reached stratospheric proportions. She continued using e-mail only to send out notes to the Hunt’s Board of Governors and dear friends. The research possibilities pleased her, but more often than not she found she’d much rather pull out her old Encyclopaedia Britannicas. The writing could be quite good, and pausing to peruse subjects other than the searched-for subject always provided unexpected delights.

Keeping expenses down was a struggle she shared with millions of Americans who were no longer driven by hunger or need but were victims of advertising and their own acquisitive natures. Wonderful as the Internet might be, it cost money. Before you knew it you were paying for services and technology you didn’t really need.

One of these nonnecessities Sister still indulged was Caller I.D. When her mysterious phone call came in, the number appeared on the small telephone screen: 555-7644. Naturally, she gave the number to Ben Sidell, but she already knew it was the outside pay phone at Roger’s Corner.

The sheriff called Roger, who dutifully looked out the window, but by then no one was standing at the pay phone. The last hour before Roger’s ten P.M. closing time often proved hectic as people came by for a last pack of cigarettes or muffins for breakfast.

Roger’s Corner stayed open on Sundays, but Roger himself took the day off. That Sunday morning, Sister drove down there and parked by the blue eggshell that housed the phone. Gone was the tall glass phone booth with the folding door. The replacement was a cheap small plastic egg offering no protection from the elements. She knew what it looked like, but still for some reason she wanted to check out the phone.

People waved to her as they strolled in and out of the store. Why she wanted to pick up the phone, she didn’t know.

Kyle Dawson, Ronnie Haslip, and Dr. Tandy Zachs came and went, all of them riding or social members of the hunt. Finally, she realized she couldn’t stand there all day, as no new thoughts were coming to her. She climbed back into the truck and drove to After All Farm.

The sheriff’s car and Walter’s truck, parked in the driveway, made her question if she should go in. She decided she would when Tedi, who had heard her drive up, opened the front door and waved her in. “Come on. Kitchen.”

Seated in the cavernous kitchen she found Edward, Sybil, Ken, Ben, and Walter. The men rose when Sister entered the room.

Edward pulled up a chair for her.

Ben smiled but gave her a look. She interpreted it to mean she should keep quiet. Walter sat beside her, draping his arm over the back of her chair. She liked that.

“I’m sorry to barge in.”

“You could never barge in,” Tedi replied.

“Mrs. Arnold, I was just informing the Bancrofts that I received a telephone tip, a voice that was unidentified, telling me to search off the Norwood Bridge.” Ben kicked himself. He’d slipped up in his haste to gather together a team to rendezvous at the bridge at sunrise, and neglected to order Sister to keep her mouth shut.

Ben assumed gossip wasn’t Sister’s lifeblood, but she could have told a few friends. He’d talk to her afterward, but he was worried. He’d made a mistake. He didn’t want Sister Jane to pay for it.

Sister understood Ben’s intention when he said that he’d received the phone call.

“Sheriff, I take it you found something or you wouldn’t be here,” Edward surmised.

“Yes. I asked the Doc to be with me this morning.” Again, Ben didn’t round out the fact that Sister had called Walter’s from Shaker’s cottage. “A fifty-five-gallon drum mired in the silt and muck was discovered at seven-thirty this morning. Once we raised it, we cut off the top, as it was soldered shut.” Everyone held their breath as Ben continued. “Upon opening it, we discovered it contained human remains. How long the body had been there I can’t ascertain, but I would guess for years. We might have a positive I.D. later today.”

“So soon?” Ken questioned.

“Larry Hund is meeting the coroner in about an hour.” Larry was one of the area’s best dentists, a man who had been practicing for twenty-five years.

Tedi folded her hands together on the table and it seemed to Sister that the sapphire burned brighter on her hand. “Ben, you think you know who that body is. That’s why you’re here. Who is it?”

“Like I said, Mrs. Bancroft, I think we’ll have a positive I.D. in an hour or so.”

“Was the body recognizable?” Sybil felt a rising panic.

“No flesh remained, a bit of clothing. We know it was a man,” Ben replied.

“Oh God,” Sybil whispered.

“Hotspur.” Tedi Bancroft suddenly felt a wave of sympathy for Alice Ramy. “Does Alice know?”

“I have a deputy with her now and I’ll be going over there after I leave here,” Ben quietly answered. “Again, the I.D. isn’t positive, but we are working from the standpoint that the body may be Guy Ramy because of circumstances.”

“And you know that whoever killed Guy didn’t dispose of the body alone. It would take a Hercules to stuff a man like Guy into a fifty-five-gallon drum, solder it, and then heave it over the bridge,” Edward said with a grimace.

“Yes, we are working from that angle as well,” Ben said. “Two or more people.”

Ken, ashen-faced, simply said, “Horrible. This is horrible.”

Ben had hurried to the Bancrofts’ because bad news travels fast. He did not want them to receive a phone call from Mr. Kinser or an onlooker. He wished the I.D. could be 100 percent certain, but the feelings of the Bancrofts were important to him. Ben was a sensitive man in a rough line of work. And he knew the discovery of two bodies would have the killer or killers rattled. What they had thought was long buried had arisen from the dead. Feeling in danger, they might endanger others.

“Is there anything we can do to help you?” Edward inquired, his silver eyebrows raised, his face drawn in concern.

“Be alert,” Ben replied simply. “And call me if anything occurs to you, no matter how trivial it might seem.”

“Yes, of course,” Tedi said.

“Let me be off to Mrs. Ramy’s. Oh, Sister, walk out with me to the squad car, will you? Walter, too. Perhaps you two can give me an idea of how to handle Mrs. Ramy.”

As Sister, Walter, and Ben walked outside, Sybil rubbed her eyes for a moment.

Tedi patted her daughter on the back. “It’s sordid, isn’t it?”

“You know, Mom, he was a beautiful thing, like some wild animal—just a beautiful thing.”

“Not anymore,” Ken said softly as he watched the three people outside.

Ben leaned against his brown squad car. “Sister, I apologize to you. I should have asked you last night not to tell anyone about the phone call. Did you talk to anyone else?”

“Walter”—she nodded at the handsome doctor—“and Shaker. Shaker won’t tell anyone. He’s not a talker unless it’s about hounds.”

“Nonetheless, remind him.”

“I will.”

“Walter?” Ben asked him.

Walter shrugged. “No one.”

“Mrs. Arnold, do you have any idea why you were called?”

“No, Ben, I told you, I really don’t and I wish I did.” She made a straight line in the brown pearock with the toe of her boot. “And please call me Sister or Jane, won’t you?”

“I’ll try.” Ben liked this woman. “Look, this is what I know. Whoever called knows you, trusts you, and lives here. Everyone stops at Roger’s Corner in these parts.”

“It’s one of us,” Sister said with no surprise.

“Yes.”

“I wish I could tell you more about the voice. A man’s voice. I sort of recognized it. He was disguising it, of course, muffling it and speaking in a higher tone, but—” She shrugged.

“You may get another call. Whoever called you knows you called me, and whoever called you may be the murderer.”

“After all these years?” Walter hooked his thumb in his belt loop.

“Guilt. Often they want to get caught.”

“And more often they don’t,” Sister sensibly said. “My hunch is whoever called me helped the killer toss that drum over the deep end of the bridge all those years ago.”

“I think your hunch is right,” Ben agreed.