Death of an Ordinary Guy Read online

  “Taylor!” Graham’s astonishment could no longer be contained. In spite of my resolve, I involuntarily looked at him and discovered a bemused expression on his face.

  I mumbled, “But put to Evan, not Tiverton.”

  Graham nearly choked. I smiled broadly, then said to Lyle, “I think Wesley’s text fits the Evan tune better. I like the rhythm. It’s comforting. Like a lullaby or cradle rocking. And in times of grief...”

  “You are so astute, Sergeant, if I may say so. But I didn’t know the Methodist hymnal carried the Evan tune.”

  I replied that I didn’t believe it did, but that I had an American Methodist hymnal at home.

  “Yes, yes,” Lyle said. “They are different, aren’t they?” He shook his head, as though versions of the same religion were regrettable. He had no such problem with his religion.

  Graham’s cough seemed to shake Lyle free of doctrine contemplation, though I took it as a comment on my religious knowledge and his surprise.

  Lyle said, “But you are here, aren’t you? You kindly asked about the Halfords, Sergeant, and I’m glad. So many people are in such a hurry these days, and forget the basics of good manners. Not that they don’t care. But with jobs, after-work meetings, children’s activities...” He shrugged as if to say it was providential people even had time for all that. “But that’s not your case, is it? You’re here because of Steve Pedersen, and you want to ask me something about it. That’s right, isn’t it?” He cocked his head, blinking as the sunlight fell across his face.

  Reminds me of a pigeon. With those eyes, that wisp of hair looking like a ruffled, misplaced feather, and those pudgy cheeks undulating as he breathes.

  “Unfortunately, yes,” said Graham. “Wish we didn’t have to, but we’ve got a few things we need to ask if you have several minutes.”

  “Can’t say no, can I? Have to help the police whenever I can.”

  At least he’s not militant about it, I thought.

  “Is it secret? I mean, do we need to go inside, or would it be all right over here? So few nice autumn days left to us. I like to grab them as they come.” Lyle indicated a secluded section of the churchyard and led the way when Graham agreed that area would do nicely.

  Autumn had splashed its colors on the deciduous vegetation, giving the somber, solid graveyard a spark of life. Across the tombs, gold, yellow and bronze leaves, like offered coins, shone with the morning’s dew. Like Derek’s bag of gold, I found myself fantasizing. My shoe crushed a fallen twig of pine. I drew in a lungful of the sharp scent, wanting this time in the sun to last.

  “I suppose,” the vicar continued once we stopped at an ancient grave and Graham had asked his first question, “I shan’t be able to forget this particular Bonfire Night, no matter how I try.”

  “That’s the bane of any tragedy. It stays in our minds and picks at our souls for more years than we can imagine.”

  “One of the thousands of things that form us. Well, where do I begin? Talbot was there, as you know, Sergeant, guarding his stack of wood as much as he was adding to it.”

  I asked if there was trouble with pilfering.

  “Hardly any trouble to speak of, Sergeant,” the vicar said. “Though that was why you were here, no doubt. Keeping an eye out. Some villages have more than their share of idiots, if you’ll excuse me for saying so. But honestly, if these people would only stop to think about what could so easily happen by their disregard for safety. So many small children about. Why there aren’t more accidents from fireworks and such is beyond me. I pray each November fourth for a safe Bonfire Night, and so far God’s blessed us. Perhaps our quota of idiots have taken residence in other villages.”

  I wanted to say that Upper Kingsleigh had two candidates for the role right now, but satisfied myself instead with a noncommittal safety statistic. At least it showed Graham I read the truck dished out by the Super.

  “I don’t know. I’ve given up trying to sort it out. Talbot, I’m sorry to say, was as upset this year over the graveside dole as he usually is. I’m afraid he latched on to poor Kris when she came up. Then he poured his anger onto Derek. Uncle Gilbert—he’s Arthur’s uncle, do you know?—maneuvered Talbot out of the way, and I did the same with the American couple who are staying up at the Manor. You know the Oldendorfs?”

  Graham said he hadn’t met them yet, but he’d probably get to them before the day was finished.

  “Well,” Lyle continued, leaning against a weathered tombstone, “I was thoroughly embarrassed by the entire scene. And it was a scene. Talbot carrying on like a right berk, confronting Kris and Derek as if they had anything to do with a ceremony instigated one century ago! And then the Oldendorfs had to witness Talbot’s antics. I can not believe Talbot did that. If I’ve told him once, I’ve told him a thousand times that there’s nothing the Halfords or Arthur can do without any proof from Talbot.”

  “If Talbot is so persistent about his claim, why hasn’t he brought forward proof?”

  “There’s a small problem, Mr. Graham. You see, Talbot was born in 1934. He lived in Coventry.”

  TEN

  The vicar paused to let the significance of the date settle into our brains. World War II—Coventry—bombing—city, pesky legal documents et al destroyed.

  “Poor Talbot,” Graham finally said. ”His proof goes up in smoke.”

  “You may well say that,” Lyle agreed. “I feel sorry for him—if he really is the lawful claimant, as he says… Well, he could use the money, there’s no question.”

  “So just why does Talbot think he’s entitled?” I asked. “I understood the dole went to Derek because he’s grandson to the original dole recipient. Hurt in the carriage accident. Crippled him for life.”

  “Men get crippled in all sorts of ways. If they’re not crippled in the flesh, they’re crippled in the spirit or mind. Or in the purse.”

  “Some,” Graham added, “have the misfortune to be crippled all ways.”

  I nodded, knowing what Graham meant. I was still struggling from the effects of my tyrannical father. “He and Talbot aren’t brothers, are they?”

  Graham made a face at the thought of kinship among so unlikely a pair.

  “That is doubtful, but…” Lyle looked at us, as if wondering how many village secrets to divulge. “This time of year Talbot yammers on constantly about how he would be able to prove his claim if only Derek’s dad were alive. He swears he was adopted. Yes, you may well look incredulous, Mr. Graham. Without the legal papers, presumably filed away in Coventry, anyone can venture a guess as to its validity. But he asserts the dole through rightful inheritance.”

  I let out a low, slow whistle, all sorts of scenarios filling my mind.

  Lyle nodded. “Now you can understand the intensity and duration of his row with Arthur and Derek.”

  “Do you think,” I asked, “this row was serious enough for Pedersen to get involved in? Since he was a close friend of the Halfords…”

  After several moments of careful consideration, Lyle denied the suggestion. His eyelids pulled back slightly at Graham’s soft expletive, but he quickly explained his answer. “Talbot flares up like this for two or three days each year, then forgets all this foolishness about being included in the dole, and goes on with his routine as though he had never heard of the ceremony.”

  “But Pedersen, being a stranger,” Graham persisted, his voice rather hard and sharp, “wouldn’t know that it was normal for these brief temper displays. He’d assume it was serious, and he might interfere, thinking he was doing a noble thing by defending his friends against Talbot.”

  I can see it, strangely enough, the confrontation focusing in my mind, the heated exchange of words ringing in my ears. Just the sort of thing a former soldier would do, especially one who was still in the throes of bliss with rediscovering a cherished friendship.

  “Perhaps,” admitted the vicar reluctantly, as though not wanting to give any false hope or steer us to the wrong conclusion. “But unless Talbot can tell
you, we won’t know. Besides, I don’t recall if Steve actually saw any confrontation. Dear me, my mind is becoming so hopeless lately. Advent, you know. There’s so much to do in the next few weeks before it starts. But I do know that the Oldendorfs were spared one distasteful scene last night. Gilbert,” Lyle nearly whispered, looking around the churchyard. “Disgraceful! The man was drunk. I won’t mince words, Mr. Graham. He was drunk. Why Arthur can’t keep him in tow…”

  Graham muttered that it was difficult to keep one’s relatives or loved ones in line at times. I only knew from the gossip circulating in Buxton’s police station that he was the victim of a broken engagement. Some say he had never gotten over it.

  From my vantagepoint slightly behind him, I gazed at Graham, envisioning his fiancée, the dates they had gone on. Had it been after a concert that she had ended their relationship? Or perhaps over an intimate dinner Graham had prepared, his flat warm and glowing from candlelight, when he had suggested they part. Had it been problems with their careers, religion or personalities that couldn’t be rectified? Graham could be stubborn, I knew, but would that have prodded her into calling it all off? Had he tried to keep her in line for some reason? If so, why? Had she been a druggie that he was trying to reform and failed? Was it tough love that had ended it all? I stared at him, looking past his handsome features to the man within. Granted, I had only worked with him for a month, but police investigations—especially murder—showed personalities more quickly than in ordinary 9-to-5 settings. And I couldn’t accept an obstinate Graham. He would have needed some flexibility as a minister. Or would he? I wondered, suddenly remembering that he had left the clergy under some cloud. I looked at him again, trying to paint his character in this revelation, then gave it up. I needed more information before I conjectured about his past. I shook off the mental fiancée, shoved her whining voice into the background, and concentrated on my note taking.

  “I understand,” Graham said, “Pedersen checked the bonfire earlier for firecrackers, and that Talbot helped him.”

  “Must have been before I arrived on duty,” I said. “I never saw him.”

  Lyle said, “I can only repeat that Talbot is the person you need to interrogate on that subject. I don’t know what went on between the two men—if anything went on at all. I wasn’t there. I hadn’t any idea until you said something. But personally, I find it rather far-fetched that Talbot would kill this American—temper tantrum or no. He didn’t know the man. What motive did he have?”

  That, I silently agreed, is what we’re trying to ascertain.

  “No,” Lyle said. “Talbot may be a bit funny about this dole business, but he’s not violent. I bet he’s just as saddened over this man’s death as are the Halfords. As are we all,” he quickly amended. “Derek loved Steve Pedersen as a brother.”

  Good God! I thought, my mind pulling up the recent photograph Derek had shown me. Loved as a brother, no doubt, but the two men certainly looked like brothers, too.

  ELEVEN

  As is usual on the ‘day after,’ the village’s bonfire circle lay in disorder and inelegance. Graham stood at the edge of the brutal scene, visually taking in dozens of burnt, untasted potatoes among the cold, charred wood and ashes. Merry-making and death, laughter and fear shoved together, the lightness of one relinquishing its segment of the evening for the petrifying horror of the latter. His eyes turned to the table on which the glasses sat glazed in lingering frost until thawed by the emaciated sun, everything neatly corralled within the confining circle of plastic police tape.

  “There’s something offensive about it, Taylor,” Graham said, shaking his head over the waste—time, effort, money, and human life. “The innocence of a homely scene like this dragged into a murder investigation. The scarring Lyle mentioned will break open for many of Upper Kingleigh’s folk next Bonfire Night. Perhaps for me, too.”

  “Sir?” His declaration caught me off guard.

  Before he could explain, a decidedly American couple wandered up to the fire area, their steps slowing as they approached us. Her white hair was carefully combed and she had added a touch of lipstick to her pale, wrinkled face. Her eyes were red and swollen. A night of crying?

  “Morning,” uttered the man, pushing his low-slung camera out of his way and blowing on his hand before offering it. He spoke with a slight southern accent. Like his wife, he was in his sixties, yet he wore a look of harder living than she did. The wool jacket he wore reeked of newness and nearly matched the cotton baseball cap angled back on his head. A tuft of hair poked out of the area above the cap’s adjustable strap. The Oldendorfs. I recalled seeing them at the bonfire Sunday with Byron and Steve. ”Saw you talking with the priest a few minutes ago. Didn’t want to intrude, but we guessed you’re from the police. I’m Tom Oldendorf, by the way. This is my wife, Carla.”

  Graham shook hands, introduced us, and added that we appreciated Tom’s thoughtfulness.

  “Thought we might as well save you a trip. You’ll want to question us, I expect.”

  “You knew him, then?”

  I unobtrusively opened my notebook and sat on a bale of straw.

  Tom managed to look embarrassed and inquisitive at the same time. “‘Course we knew him. Used to be related to him. He was married to my sister.”

  Graham tried to recover his astonishment as gracefully as possible. “Divorce, might I ask?”

  “She died.” Tom’s response rang through the still morning air with the sharpness of a rifle shot. After Graham’s offering of sympathy, Tom said, “You can very easily say you’re sorry, but it doesn’t bring her back. No,” he shrugged away Carla’s restraining hands and phrases. “This officer might as well know. He’ll find out anyway, and then how will we look if we didn’t tell him?” He turned again to Graham, letting his voice match his anger. “Gail died four years ago, and it was Steve’s fault. It was! I don’t care what the doctor’s report says. Steve’s to blame.”

  “Accident?”

  “Only accident was that damned idiot of a doctor. Gail had been sick for years, only Steve wouldn’t believe her. She went to doctor after doctor, saw specialists, but Steve wouldn’t believe anyone. He did, though, when she died.” Tom seemed almost triumphant to prove everyone wrong.

  “Tom, dear,” Carla murmured, squeezing his hand. “You’re getting all worked up again. Why don’t you sit down over there? The officer can talk to you later if he needs to.” Her smile held both sympathy and authority. Nodding, Tom stumbled off to the nearest bale of straw and sagged onto it. Carla watched him pull out a straw before she addressed Graham.

  “Please excuse him, Inspector. He’s still angry over his sister’s death. They were very close.”

  “He was distrustful of the attending physician, I take it.”

  “Yes. Gail had been a hypochondriac practically from childhood. She had been plied with placebos to calm her fears and the family’s nerves.”

  “Does take its toll,” I agreed.

  “Yes. When she disclosed that the doctors had found stomach cancer… Well, Steve said he felt worse than she ever did. Of course, if any of us had expected anything was really wrong with her…”

  “Who’s to know when the cry of ‘wolf’ is real?” Graham supplied.

  Carla smiled weakly. “Anyway, it’s the same story, unfortunately, as many others. Tom tries to forgive, but it’s hard. Aside from blaming Steve, I think he secretly blames himself. He thinks he should have known something was really wrong with Gail. But of course that’s not a rational man speaking. How can anyone divine another person’s problems?”

  “I’m amazed your husband consented to holiday with Pedersen, feeling as he does about the man.”

  “He didn’t want to come at first. He was afraid he’d start some argument with Steve. Tom hates squabbles—only blows up when he’s been provoked for a while. Usually he can swallow his anger, but he does have a temper. I won’t say he doesn’t. Aside from being connected by marriage, they really did like each othe
r once. That’s why I— We both thought this trip would be good for both of them. See if they could patch up the contention.”

  Contentions, I thought, are unfortunately part of relationships.

  “And did they?”

  Carla’s cheeks flooded in her embarrassment. “I think they would have. We only just got here a few days ago. We— They didn’t have much time to sort things out. Steve was intent on contacting his college friends and delivering a family heirloom to Kris. He got kind of wrapped up in that. Stayed with them until—” She broke off, her face reddening deeper. It took several moments before she could continue. “Tom was content to prowl about the village. He loves photography, so he didn’t mind waiting for the real start of our vacation until Steve had finished with the Halfords. We were all pretty excited about seeing the Lake District.”

  In the silence, Tom got up, threw the chewed piece of straw to the ground, and rejoined us. “Can’t believe it,” he muttered as though we had been privy to his thoughts. “I mean, things don’t happen like this to people you know. It’s always strangers.”

  “Steve was so nice,” Carla said before hurrying on to Steve’s stellar qualities. “Just an ordinary guy. No one harms ordinary guys.”

  I wanted to tell her we investigate ordinary guys’ deaths all the time.

  “Just a shame. We talked about it last night. I mean, we couldn’t sleep anyway with that terrible thing so recent. It was like a nightmare.”

  “I’m sorry you had the experience,” Graham said. “I don’t expect many people got much sleep last night.”

  “Police included?” Tom stated, his eyes on the taped-off fire area.

  “Police included,” Graham echoed. “Unfortunately that comes with the job many times.”

  “How did Steve seem?” I asked. “Nervous, agitated?”

  “No different from usual,” Tom returned. “What should he seem like? Just glad to be here and happy he found his friends.”

  “He was kind of worried, though,” Carla said. “You know he was, Tom. Don’t gloss over it.”