No Wedding For Old Men
NO WEDDING
FOR OLD MEN
A Working Stiffs Mystery
Book 6
Wendy Delaney
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Dedication
About the Author
Acknowledgments
More by this Author
Copyright
Chapter One
I HAD THE same problem this Saturday morning that I’d had every weekend since a big black furry dog named Fozzie became my roommate.
A rude awakening from an oversized fur ball who didn’t give a rip about his designated human’s desire to catch a few extra winks.
“I’m up. I’m up,” I told the whimpering alarm clock pawing at my bedroom door.
Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I reached for my cell phone. I’d hoped to see a text message from my boyfriend, Steve Sixkiller, one of the Chimacam County Search and Rescue team members who had been called out last night.
Nothing. Dang it.
I shivered. Not because I was leaving a nice, warm bed, but because I had the very bad feeling that no news about the man who had gone missing wasn’t good news.
After a quick trip to the bathroom, I called Steve’s cell, but it went to voice mail after four rings. “Any news? Call me.”
When he hadn’t responded to my message by the time I returned to my apartment from walking Fozzie around the block, I grabbed my car keys and headed to the one place in town that I could reliably count on for the latest news: my great-uncle Duke’s diner.
Since it was Saturday, Duke’s Cafe wouldn’t be humming with the typical workday crowd, but that was okay. I didn’t need them. I needed Lucille Kressey, Duke’s longest-tenured waitress, to be working her usual morning shift.
It also wouldn’t hurt if the driver of the black and white patrol car I parked next to had stopped by for a breakfast break.
Hector Avocato, Duke’s weekend line cook, smiled through the window over the grill and offered me a chin salute as I shut the front door behind me. “Querida, what brings you here so early this fine June morning? My irresistible charm, or did you develop a sudden craving for the best apple fritters in town?”
After months of cutting calories to fit into the bridesmaid dress I had to wear in two weeks, the last item on my list of things to do today was to start indulging my sugar cravings. “I’m on the fritter-free menu plan until after my mother’s wedding, so it must have been your undeniable charm.”
Lucille scowled as she filled the coffee mug in front of the uniformed patrolman sitting alone at the counter. “Charm, right. I bet I know what brings you here.”
I didn’t want to play my hand too quickly and scare off a potential source, especially since Lucille had set a mug at the seat next to Howie Fontaine like an invitation to join the rookie cop for breakfast.
While she poured me a cup of inky brew, I slid my butt onto the barstool. “Yep, but it doesn’t look like Steve remembered that he and I had a breakfast date this morning.” Nor did it look as if I had remembered it prior to this very minute, seeing that I didn’t have an ounce of makeup on.
Chewing on a slice of toast, Howie turned to me. “Sorry to be the one to tell you, Charmaine, but he’s not gonna make it.”
“Would be nice if he’d tell me that.” I pulled out my cell phone from my tote and made a show of checking for messages. “I haven’t heard a peep out of him since last night.”
Howie reached for his coffee. “That’s because he’s out of range.”
That didn’t come as any great surprise. Rural Chimacam County wasn’t renowned for its cellular coverage. “You talked to him?”
“Left him about an hour ago.”
“So you were part of the search team.” Also no big surprise. Like Steve, most of the more athletic members of Port Merritt’s fourteen-person police department were search and rescue volunteers.
Howie nodded and took a slurp of coffee. “Until it turned into a recovery effort.”
Lucille set down the carafe on the scarred lemon-yellow Formica counter separating us and leaned in. “Steve told you who went missing, right?”
“Heck, no.” Steve had a long-standing tradition of keeping me out of all the loops not available to the general public. “Who?”
“Ted Skerrett,” she said, lowering her voice to a stage whisper.
I mainly knew Ted from waitressing here at Duke’s after moving back to Port Merritt last summer. Nice guy. Good tipper. Also a bit of a flirt, which made the charismatic septuagenarian popular with the ladies.
“Ted Skerrett!” I looked to Howie. “What happened?”
He drained the last of his coffee. “No further comment until the sheriff releases a statement.”
“Do you know if anyone reported it to my office?” Because if Ted’s body had been recovered, the deputy coroner on call this weekend needed to be notified.
“Yeah. They’re probably on their way now.”
“To where?”
Howie gave his head a shake. “I don’t think the sheriff wants that to become public knowledge just yet.”
If I had learned anything during my ten months working as an assistant to the Chimacam County Prosecutor/Coroner, it was that death investigations required coffee. Seeing how I’d probably end up doing a good portion of the legwork on this case come Monday, I thought that I might as well start by supplying the coffee this morning.
That required a where, and with Howie reaching for his wallet I needed to present a convincing argument and fast.
I pointed at the carafe steaming at the coffee station behind Lucille. “Could I take all that?”
Lucille stepped aside to let me pull out a stack of to-go cups from under the counter. “Sure, but—”
“Order up,” Hector called out with enough volume to send the clear message that he’d like his waitress to get back to work.
She heaved a sigh. “Don’t say anything important until I get back.”
I waited for Lucille and her squeaky orthopedic shoes to depart with her order and then turned back to Howie. “Did anyone bring you something to eat while you were there?”
“Someone brought us some sandwiches around midnight, but …”
“I’ll take some doughnuts to go with the coffee.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
Maybe not, but it was the idea I was running with.
“And as a death investigator for the county, I’d better get there as quickly as I can. What’s the location?”
Blowing out a breath of resignation, Howie motioned for me to follow him to the cash register, where we could speak without prying ears.
To avoid raising Lucille’s suspicion, I took his order ticket and rang it up.
“You know the Gibson Lake area?” he asked, handing me a twenty. r />
“Yep.” It bordered acres of rich timberland that marked the western boundary of the county. The Gibson Lake community was also where, as a body language expert, I’d worked a coroner case last fall.
“North of there on State Route 15 is the Spirit Rim Trail. You should see a couple of sheriffs’ vehicles parked near the trailhead.”
I dropped his change into his palm. “Got it.”
Pocketing his wallet, Howie drilled me with the wary cop glare I’d received from Steve more times than I could count. “You didn’t hear that from me.”
“I got that too,” I said, watching him walk away.
* * *
Standing at the trailhead less than an hour later, I was on the receiving end of the same cop glare when I greeted Steve with my box of doughnuts.
He shook me off. “What are you doing here?”
“Duke sent me with doughnuts and coffee when he heard what happened.”
“Since Hector is the one behind the grill most Saturdays, I seriously doubt that.”
Busted. “Okay, so I took the initiative on behalf of the family business.”
“Right.” Steve scowled at the row of cars behind me. “How far do I have to walk to get a cup of this allegedly donated coffee?”
I pointed at the coffee station I’d set up on the hood of his pickup, parked next to a white and green sheriff’s SUV. “Since you were parked a lot closer than me, I didn’t think you’d mind.”
“Give me one of those,” he said, reaching into the pink bakery box in my hands.
While Steve made his way to my makeshift coffee station, I glanced over at the sheriff’s deputy standing guard next to the carved wooden sign marking the trail. “Where’s everyone else?”
Chewing, Steve dumped a couple of creamers into one of the paper cups of industrial-strength coffee. “It’s just the sheriff’s guys now, and they’re finishing up with Shondra.”
Steve didn’t have to elaborate. Having assisted Criminal Prosecutor Shondra Alexander on some of her cases, I knew the former cop to be painstakingly thorough both as an attorney and on the rare occasion when she filled in for the coroner. No doubt she was making everyone with jurisdictional responsibility wait so that she could document the scene before they moved the body.
I also knew how Shondra liked her coffee, so after Steve took off and I spotted the tall black woman in the rain slicker dodging mud puddles on her way down the trail, I sugared a cup and waited for her a few feet from the deputy.
“Are you supposed to be here, Charmaine?” she asked, her gaze piercing me with laser focus. “Because I’m pretty sure that Dispatch didn’t also rouse you out of bed to hightail it over here.”
“I happened to be at Duke’s when the news hit about Mr. Skerrett.”
“I swear, people in these parts can’t keep their dang mouths shut. At least tell me there’s an apple fritter in that box.”
“There should be a couple.” Only because I had put the bakery box in the back seat of my car so that I couldn’t reach them while I was driving.
“Good, I’m starved,” Shondra said, charging past me at a steady clip despite the weight of the black duffle bag she was carrying.
I took that as my cue to follow Shondra to her Mercedes SUV, where I watched her pop the rear hatch and stow the duffle bag—not so affectionately referred to as the “bag of death” by most of the staff.
“I assume you’re done here?” I asked when she started dousing her hands with liquid sanitizer.
“Considering I should be sleeping in right now, I’m so done.”
“Any conclusion as to the cause of death?”
Raising her hands in front of her like a doctor scrubbed for surgery, Shondra slanted me a glance. “Yeah. The sudden stop after he fell down a ravine had a lot to do with it.”
“Ugh, that’s a horrible way to go.”
“Wouldn’t be my preference. Of course, I would have kept my ass to the trail.” She pointed at the cup in my hand. “Is that for me?”
“All yours,” I said, passing it to her. “So where do we go from here?”
“We?” Shondra straightened to her imposing six-foot height. “Don’t know about you, but I’m going home. Now that it’s stopped raining, I might even be able to get my husband to mow the lawn.”
“Yeah, the drizzle’s been pretty steady since yesterday afternoon.” I looked down at the puddle near my feet. “Seems like that could have made for a pretty wet trek for Mr. Skerrett.”
“And undoubtedly had something to do with him losing his footing,” Shondra said, plucking a fritter from the bakery box. “So I bet if he were still breathing, he’d be the first to admit that hike wasn’t a wise decision ‘cause it was a little muddy up at that scenic overlook marker. At least it gave us a pretty good shoe impression where it appears that he lost his footing.”
“He didn’t impress me as someone who’s a fitness fanatic, so it seems kinda strange that he’d hike the trail if it was slippery.”
“Charmaine, stay in this job long enough and there’s no telling the amount of wacky ways you’re gonna see people get themselves killed.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” I said, thinking out loud while Shondra climbed into her car. “But it still seems strange.” And beyond wacky, especially after accompanying my grandmother to Mrs. Skerrett’s funeral last Saturday.
Chapter Two
“I DON’T UNDERSTAND what you’re telling me,” Gram said, filling her tea kettle at the sink. “Ted fell to his death because of some freak accident, or was it a suicide?”
I dropped into a chair at her kitchen table. “I don’t know.” Shondra had said something about Ted losing his footing, but her opinion about what happened up on that trail overlook would have to change if he had left a suicide note behind.
She heaved a sigh. “Well, what does Steve have to say about it?”
“Nothing.” Plus, he had fallen asleep shortly after I arrived to make him dinner, so even if he were to get into a sharing mood, that wasn’t going to happen tonight.
That’s when I decided to cross the street to my grandmother’s house and pick the brain of the woman who had raised me. Because after six long hours of my own company, my brain had been picked clean of everything I thought I knew about Ted Skerrett.
Gram clucked her tongue as she turned on the flame under the kettle. “That’s not very helpful.”
Welcome to my world.
“The sheriff’s detective was still up there, working the scene, when I left, but I imagine his report will hit Shondra’s inbox sometime Monday morning. Until then, I don’t think anyone’s going to have a lot to say about this.” Not anyone with a badge, anyway.
Gram pulled two cups from the cupboard. “That won’t keep people around here from talking.”
I guessed that she had come to the same conclusion as I had. “Because they’ll think his death has something to do with Ruth’s.”
Gram met my gaze, her wide eyes magnified behind her trifocals. “Char, it hasn’t even been two weeks since Ruthie passed.”
“I know, and I get that she’d been sick for a while, but Ted suddenly ending up at the bottom of a ravine smacks of something too weird to just be bad timing.”
“Are you saying that you suspect foul play?”
“I don’t know what I suspect. Has there been any gossip about him making the rounds?”
Gram shrugged. “I heard a couple of the gals at the senior center going on about Carmen having her sights set on Ted now that he was single, but I blew it off as idle speculation.”
I’d witnessed my grandmother’s friend, Carmen, titter like a starry-eyed teen in Ted Skerrett’s presence, so this bit of news didn’t surprise me in the slightest. “That’s it?”
“That’s all I’ve got,” Gram said, turning her attention to the whistling kettle. “If you want real dirt, you’ll have to go to Gossip Central.”
In other words, back to Duke’s.
Seconds later, she set tw
o steaming cups of tea on the table and took the seat across from me.
She took a sip and stared at me over the rim of her cup. “I found myself thinking about poor Ruthie this morning, and now I can’t stop thinking about Ted. The way he died really is strange, isn’t it?”
I nodded.
“What are you going to do about it? Launch an investigation?”
“Me?” If we hadn’t been talking about a dead guy, I would have laughed at her notion that my deputy coroner badge gave me that kind of pull. “No, but I plan on talking to someone who can.”
* * *
Upon my arrival at the courthouse Monday, I made a beeline to my boss’s office but stopped in my tracks when I saw County Prosecutor Frankie Rickard’s door closed. Through the side window, I could see that she was on the phone.
Spotting me when she looked up, she shook her head.
Dang. I hadn’t just failed to launch the death investigation I’d hoped to discuss with her; the launch pad was clearly off-limits for the time being.
“Do you need something, Charmaine?” asked Patsy Faraday, the eagle-eyed legal assistant guarding Frankie’s office.
Patsy and I had shared a boss for almost a year, had eaten our way through recent divorces, and based on the highlander romance novels I’d caught her reading in the breakroom, we even shared the same favorite authors.
I guessed her to be fifteen years older than me—close to fifty, but not so much older that some sense of sisterhood through common experience couldn’t be forged.
As Patsy jutted out her chin as if it were a shield, I got the message: Move along ‘cause it’s never gonna happen.
“I’ll catch her later.” Preferably when you’re at lunch.
“As long as you’re here …” Patsy reached behind her and handed me a short stack of manila folders. “You can file these after you make coffee.”
I didn’t need to witness the little curl at her lips to know that Patsy enjoyed being a senior staffer who could tell me what to do.
It didn’t matter, especially when an even more senior staffer could be in receipt of a certain detective’s report.