Book excerpt from Rosey Dow's "Reaping the Whirlwind"

Prologue

I like to think of myself as a gardener. A gardener loves flowers. If he must root out a misshapen plant or snip off a dead head, that doesn't mean he loves his beautiful blossoms less. It means he's a tidy gardener. He's doing the landscape a favor. No one can blame him.

Chapter 1

Dr. Adam St.Clair moved his queen across the chessboard and said, "Check."
Hunched over the small table, Deputy Sheriff Trent Tyson twisted his wedding band and studied the position of his king. "C'mon, Doc," he complained. "We've only been at it for twenty minutes. Did you have to go for the jugular already?"
St.Clair chuckled. A heavy chin anchored his face to a wide body that had softened during middle age and sagged after that. "You can always forfeit."
"Not on your life! Just sit quiet a minute while I think." Tyson stroked his heavy black mustache and didn't speak again for three minutes.
It was a rainy Monday evening in the spring of '25. The men sat in a room full of lace and fragile fixtures -- a spinster's parlor. Usually the men played chess at Tyson's house, but today St.Clair's office hours had run late, and he'd asked Tyson to come to the house he shared with his sister, Sadie, instead.
The phone jangled.
Dr. St.Clair grimaced. "I hope that's someone for Sadie," he said. "Today, I had to talk Essie Caldwell out of an appendectomy. I put twenty stitches in a kid's split head and treated a burned face besides my regular appointments. I'm beat."
"Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward."
St.Clair let out an irritated grunt.
"Sorry, Doc. I know you don't believe that rot. Neither do I. Don't know why I brought it up."
"What I need is a two-week fishing trip."
On the third ring, the doctor let out a frustrated sigh and slowly stood. The phone sat on a table three steps away. He picked up the base and pulled the cup receiver to his ear. "Dr. St.Clair." He listened a moment and turned to Tyson. "It's for you."
Tyson lurched up. The edge of his cuff hit a shepherdess figurine, and it toppled into the chess board. He grabbed for it and missed. The board landed on the floor, and chess pieces scattered across the tile like an avalanche.
Thoroughly disgusted with himself, he picked the phone's base and spoke into the mouthpiece. "Tyson here."
"Mr. Tyson, this is Nessa McGinty," a soprano voice said. "Mama told me you were there. I'm sorry to bother you."
His grip on the receiver tightened. "Is Lori okay?"
"Your daughter's fine. I'm in south Dayton. I can't get Mrs. Ida Johnson to answer her door. I'm afraid something may be wrong."
"Give me the address." He pulled a notebook from his shirt pocket and jotted it down. "I'll be there in five minutes. Wait for me on the porch." He let the cup drop into the cradle and said to the doctor who was on his knees retrieving his chess men. "Ida Johnson won't answer her door. Do you want to come with me?"
Gripping the edge of the table for support, he got to his feet. "I'd better come, yes. Miss Ida's had a bad heart for years."
Tyson reached into the front pocket of his jeans for his keys.
St.Clair said, "We'd better take both roadsters in case I have to stay late." He paced to a side door. "I'll fetch my bag from the office, and we'll be off."
Tyson finished replacing the chess pieces as Sadie stepped into the front room. A tiny woman with the bearing of a general, she had been her brother's right hand for forty years. She was also the local midwife with training as a druggist. St.Clair left most female complaints to her capable hands.
She held a thick volume with one finger marking a page.
"Good evening, Miss Sadie," Tyson said, giving her his rakish smile. "Studying for your doctor's degree?"
"You should do some reading yourself, Mr. Tyson," Sadie said, smile wrinkles appearing around her eyes. She always talked to Tyson as though she were a school teacher advising a naughty boy. "It would expand your mind."
Tyson chuckled. "My head's already big enough."
The doctor reappeared and Sadie looked at his black case. "What's happened, Adam?"
"We've got to check on Miz Ida," he told her, locking the door. "Nessa just called to say she won't answer her door." He fetched Tyson's trench coat and fedora from the closet.
"Should I come along?" Sadie asked.
"Maybe you should. Miz Ida likes you better than me."
Each man hustled through the dark and drizzle toward his own Model T with Sadie trailing her brother. Dr. St.Clair's vehicle was practically new with an automatic starter. It burst into a pleasing chug-chug at the touch of a knob.
Tyson's eight-year-old Lizzy always balked and squawked when it rained. On a night like this she could have made a preacher cuss, and Trent Tyson was no preacher.
He opened the right hand door -- the only front door that worked -- and reached across the passenger's seat to set the spark and throttle levers. While Tyson pulled the choke wire with his left hand and worked the crank with his right, Dr. St.Clair left his flivver idling with Sadie inside. He hunched his neck down into his turned-up collar and joined the deputy.
"Miz Ida's an elderly widow," the doctor said, standing near Lizzy's fender.
"For the past twenty years she's had a heart condition that gives us a scare every few months. She has Nessa McGinty come in once a day to cook and wash up. As far as I know, Miz Ida hasn't been outside her house in ten years."
St.Clair shoved cold hands into deep coat pockets. "Lately she'd been restless and depressed. I'm afraid she may have hurt herself or had a heart episode." Tiny droplets made a pattern on his derby.
Finally Lizzy roared to life and settled into her normal pop-rattle-bang with the motions to match. Tyson scuttled through the door to reset the spark and throttle. St.Clair hurried to his vehicle and turned on the lights.
Tyson waited for him to back out the drive, then pulled Lizzy away from the curb behind the doctor's smart flivver. Before they'd reached the turn, he'd soaked his handkerchief and sleeve trying to keep the mist off the inside and the rain off the outside of his windshield so he could see.
The two automobiles moved a block west on Main Street. Just after the Hicks Brothers Law Office they swung left onto Market Street, the central thoroughfare crossing Dayton from north to south. A few minutes later, Lizzy's head lamps shone on slim Nessa McGinty huddled under the wide porch roof out of the rain. She wore a knit cloche hat and a thin black coat. Her face looked chalky in the glaring light.
Ida Johnson's house was the old frame type with a wrap-around porch and peeling white paint. Shrubs hugged the front steps, and a hundred-year-old oak spread its branches across the yard. A street lamp shown through the tree to make weird swaying shadows on the house and lawn. The front steps to the porch had a loose gate that screeched back and forth in the whipping wind.
Both roadsters stopped on the street. Tyson angled his car toward the porch so the head lamps could light their way. Leaving Lizzy chugging, the trio walked in together.
"Do you know how we can get inside?" Tyson asked Nessa when they reached the shelter of the porch roof. "Does she have a key hidden somewhere?"
"The only key is inside the house," she said, her eyes glistening in the harsh light.
Tyson tried the door. It was solid. The only way to get in would be to splinter the door jamb. He moved down the porch, trying windows.
"That's Miss Ida's window," Nessa called. "I tapped on it, but she didn't answer."
Tyson continued around the front and latched the banging gate. When he turned the far corner, a gust drenched him. Light glowed around the edges of a drawn curtain, but he couldn't see anything inside. He banged on the sash and shouted loud and long.
No answer.
He hustled back to the others, and Nessa told him, "You may be able to get in by the inside cellar stairs. They enter into the kitchen. The door's kept locked, but the latch is old and rusty."
Without bothering to answer, he quickstepped off the porch and hurried around the house. The cellar had a ground-level entrance covered by double doors.
Blackness rose around him like murky water as he eased into the opening. Mold and dust and furnace smoke made the air smell thick. He struck a match and held it high. The heat touched his fingers. He blew at the flame and dropped it in one jerky motion. A scuffling noise behind him made his skin crawl.
The match had given him a glimpse of a set of rough stairs across the room. Moving blindly, he barked his shin, found the railing and climbed the steps. At the top he shoved a shoulder against the paneled door. It screeched and gave way.
He felt a switch beside the door and flooded the kitchen with light. A brass key hung on a hook beside the back door. He grabbed it and reached for the latch.
The doctor was first through the door. Calling Miss Ida's name, he hurried toward the front of the house. Nessa and Sadie followed him with Tyson on their heels.
Tyson glanced around. How did the old lady stand it? Less than a minute, and he already craved fresh air.
A frail body lay over a writing table by the window. Half a second behind the doctor, Nessa ran toward the old woman's limp body calling "Miss Ida!" then drew back, horrified. She let out a shrill gasp and both hands flew up to cover her cheeks.
Miss Ida lay with her arms at odd angles as though she'd been boxing with someone. A web of dried foam covered blue lips that drew back against her teeth in a ghastly smile.
Sadie turned Nessa around and urged her toward the door. "Let's wait in the kitchen, dear. The doctor will look at her and tell us what happened." She took the girl's hands. "You need a strong cup of hot tea. Your fingers are like ice." They left the room, the murmur of Sadie's words slowly disappearing.
St.Clair straightened and shook his head.
"How long's she been gone, Doc?"
"I'd say two hours. Not more than three."
"Any guess about what killed her?"
"Look at her blue lips. I'd say it was her heart." He glanced at Tyson. "I'll call the undertaker." He picked up the phone standing on the writing table.
Tyson shed his hat and coat and hung them from the back of a chair. His keen eyes started cataloguing the room before St.Clair finished putting through the call.
Tyson hated loose ends. They ranked right up there with liars and loudmouthed women. At times like this, a skeptic inside his head woke up and whispered a series of what if's in his ear. He had to fit all the pieces into the puzzle or the skeptic wouldn't go back to sleep. And Tyson wouldn't sleep himself.
That pesky skeptic had banished him to Dayton six weeks ago because of a bootlegging case he couldn't turn loose of.
He knelt to look under the sofa and let out a soundless chuckle. Here he was digging again. He hadn't learned his lesson.
Nothing hid under Miss Ida's sofa or the chairs. Not even dust. The outer perimeter of the sitting room had nothing to offer Tyson's probing eyes except bare tabletops and crocheted antimacassars.
St.Clair hung up the phone and turned away to pick up his bag.
Tyson moved to the writing table for a closer look at the dead woman. A moment later, he strode to the kitchen. Nessa sat at the table with Sadie and woman whose matronly build and lined face that showed she'd lived half a century.
"Do you know Essie Caldwell, deputy?" Sadie asked. "She lives next door."
"I'm Ida's closest friend," Essie said, looking distressed. She had a shrill, warbling voice and small, darting eyes.
Tyson acknowledged her presence with a curt nod and turned to Nessa. "Can you get me a damp piece of cotton wool? And a small glass bottle with a cork?"
Holding a steaming cup of tea in both hands, Nessa looked at him as if he'd lost his senses. He repeated the question.
Sadie said, "She's upset, Deputy. And no wonder. I'll get it for you."
She reached into a cabinet and found a flat liniment bottle, clean and clear.
St.Clair strode in. "Ketcher's on his way, Tyson. There's nothing more for me to do here." He stood beside Sadie and looked at Tyson. "Would you mind waiting for him? I need to make some notes in my office records about what happened tonight."
"Sure thing, Doc," Tyson said.
Essie turned in her chair to watch the doctor leave.
Sadie followed St.Clair to the door. "Oh, tell your mother I'll be over to see her tomorrow, Nessa."
"Of course, Miss Sadie." She sent Sadie a weak smile and a limp-handed wave good-bye.
"Would you turn off my flivver, Doc?" Tyson asked. "She's still running."
"Will do." Dr. St.Clair stepped into the night.
"When the undertaker leaves," Tyson told the young woman, "I'll drive you home."
She nodded and sipped tea.
Essie sniffed into a handkerchief. "Poor Ida. I can't believe she's really gone."
Returning to the living room, Tyson swabbed Miss Ida's lips until the last traces of foam disappeared. Forcing the soggy cotton wad into the bottle's narrow neck, he tried to cork it but the cork slipped and fell to the floor. He bent to retrieve it and stopped. Beside the dead woman's shoe lay a china tea cup in four pieces.
He finished corking the bottle and set it on the table. On hands and knees, he gathered up the china fragments and wrapped them in his handkerchief. He shoved both bottle and handkerchief into his overcoat pocket where it hung over the chair.
A moment later, Nessa watched him walk into the kitchen. Her cheeks had more color, but her eyes had lost their usual sparkle. She'd taken off her hat and her dark braid glinted red in the light.
"I'm sorry to bother you with questions now," he told her, "but it's part of police routine in a case like this."
"What happened to her?" she asked, looking directly at him.
"Doc said it was her heart." Tyson pulled out a chair and sat across from her.
He reached for his notebook and asked, "Does Miss Ida have any relatives that need to be notified?"
"She has a daughter in Chattanooga. Miss Ida and Bella never got along."
Essie said, "Bella ran off and got married against her mother's wishes. Ida never got over it."
"Do you know where to reach Bella?"
"Miss Ida has a letter box on her writing table," Nessa told him. "Bella's address is sure to be in it. Her name's Smith, Bella Smith."
"Who had a key to the house?"
Nessa turned to look at the hook beside the door. "That's the only key there is."
"She have a fat bank account? How could she afford a maid?"
Nessa shrugged and touched her full mouth. "I don't know. We never talked about money."
"She had some investments," Essie said, "from her husband's retirement or something."
"He work in Dayton?"
The neighbor woman answered again. "Cumberland Coal. He was a manager for thirty years. Right steady James was, according to Ida. He was real careful with his money."
She would have gone on, but Tyson cut her off. "How long have you worked here, Nessa?"
"Five years, but I don't consider this a job. Miss Ida was more like family to me. She was a lonely old soul that no one cared about." Tears filled her eyes. She blinked and looked away.
"I cared about her," Essie said touching Nessa's hand. "I used to come over for tea three or four times a week. Sometimes we cut out quilt blocks, and sometimes we just talked."
She rambled on, "We both have rheumatism. But Ida didn't have my pleurisy or fainting spells. Lumbago's what gave her the most trouble, if you ask me."
He made a note. "If that's the only key, what if Miss Ida was sick and couldn't get to the door?"
Nessa said, "She'd take the key to her room. I'd tap on the window, and she'd hand it to me." Her blue eyes moved to Tyson. "You have to understand. She was old and ... a little odd. She even kept her doors locked against Elmer ever since he accidentally killed her rose bush with too much fertilizer."
"Elmer?" he interrupted, jotting something down.
Essie answered, "Elmer Buntley. He lives in a shack behind the Post Office. He does gardening in summer and odd jobs in winter for a dozen people. You must have seen him around. He wears a brown leather cap with flaps over the ears and a green plaid coat."
"Elmer never came into the house, then?"
Nessa studied the table, her lips pulled in.
Tyson waited.
"I felt sorry for him," the girl said. "If Miss Ida was taking a nap I'd sometimes let Elmer in for a hot cup of coffee. I didn't have the heart to see him working in the cold and damp without giving him something."
"Did Elmer come inside today?"
She nodded. "He cut some spearmint for us."
"And you made tea with it."
"Yes, I had a cup and left the rest for Miss Ida. Today was Miss Ida's first cup of spearmint this year. She was enjoying it when I left her."
Essie nodded. "She loved fresh spearmint."
Tyson's eye caught a bit of green on the counter. "Is that some of it?"
Nessa stood and peered at it. "That's not spearmint. I don't know what it is. It wasn't here when I left at four-thirty."
Tyson joined her for a better look. Five four-inch sprigs lay in a matted lump beside a china cup on the counter. "Do you know where there's an envelope?"
"In the desk. I'll get it." A minute later, she handed him one.
Tyson scooped the plant inside and folded it closed. "It's probably not important," he said, "but it won't hurt to save it just in case." He returned to the table, and Nessa sank into her seat.
She rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands.
"How did Miss Ida feel today? Was she depressed? Anxious?"
"She hasn't been steady on her feet since last winter," Nessa told Tyson. "She managed to get around the house, but she couldn't stand up to cook or anything. Today, she was a little cranky, but that's nothing new."
"You left when?"
"I came at three to make Miss Ida a soft-boiled egg and a piece of toast like I always do. I washed up and left at four-thirty."
"Why did you come back?"
"I forgot my purse." She glanced around the tidy kitchen. "There it is beside the bread box."
A loud knock shook the door. Tyson let in the undertaker and his son. They looked as tall and wide and flat as a rugged barn door. The younger man carried a collapsing stretcher and a white sheet.
They laid Miss Ida out, wrapped her up, and had her in their horse-drawn hearse in minutes.
Tyson shrugged into his coat, ready to leave, when a lacy paper on the writing table caught his eye. Looking closer, he saw that Miss Ida's head had been lying on an unfinished letter dated that day:
Dear Alice,
I can't wait to see you when you come in June. I've been saving something special...
He folded the page and stuck it into his shirt pocket. Near the lamp was the wooden letter box Nessa had mentioned. Lifting the hinged lid, he looked through the stack of mail inside and chose an envelope to take along.
"Who's Alice?" he asked, wedging a chair against the cellar door.
Smelling of liniment, Essie stood near him. "Alice is Ida's favorite niece in Chicago."
He turned out the lights and locked the door. Essie trudged across the yard to her house, a two-story building with yellow light streaming from an upstairs window facing the driveway.
Nessa walked with Tyson to the car, her arms tight against her middle in the damp chill. He opened the passenger door, set the spark and throttle, and reached for the crank. Nessa climbed inside as he stepped to the front of the car.
"You're way off the beam this time." He scolded the skeptic and gave the handle a twirl. The old lady was locked in with the only key hanging inside the house. And suicide is out.
Besides, only an inhuman fiend would knock off a harmless old lady. In Chicago or New York he'd consider it. But in Dayton?
The skeptic wasn't buying it. Two or three pieces still didn't fit.

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