Chapter 20 The Tea Cart and the Flying Retriever #2
Sly lay pinned beneath eighty pounds of snarling dog and two hundred pounds of furious carpenter, his chest heaving under the iron kettles, his face white as chalk. His eyes were wide with sheer, unadulterated terror as Buster's hot breath ruffled his remaining hair.
"Call him off! Call him off!" Sly wheezed, tears of pain leaking from his eyes as he clutched his battered legs. "He’s going to tear my throat out! Maggie, call off your beast!"
"Buster isn't a beast, Sly," I said, catching my breath as I walked slowly across the room, picking up the fallen .38 revolver by its trigger guard with a clean linen handkerchief from my apron pocket. "He's an appraiser of character. And he just valued you at zero."
Birdie limped over, hopping on one shoe, her cashmere wrap trailing behind her like a battle standard. She peered down at Sly with supreme disgust. "Frankly, I think Buster has remarkably high standards. If it were up to me, I’d let him chew on your tweed."
At that exact moment, a sharp flash of blue cut through the darkness of the library.
Then red. Then blue again.
Brilliant, strobing emergency lights erupted through the rain-streaked French doors and the towering sash windows, reflecting across the ancient leather book spines and mahogany wainscoting like an electric carnival.
The sound of howling sirens, previously muffled by the mountain storm, wound down into low, echoing growls out in the circular gravel driveway.
Car doors slammed in rapid succession through the downpour. Heavy boots pounded up the stone steps of the front veranda.
*BAM! BAM! BAM!*
"Sheriff's Department! Open up!"
Before any of us could move toward the foyer, the heavy, double oak front doors of Blackwood Manor groaned on their hinges and burst open with a resounding bang that echoed through the cavernous entrance hall.
"Lawson! In the library!" Luke shouted at the top of his lungs. "We've got him!"
Rapid footsteps clattered across the marble checkerboard tiles of the foyer.
A second later, Sheriff Frank Lawson filled the library doorway, service weapon drawn, water dripping from the brim of his campaign hat, his weathered face tight with grim authority.
Right behind him was young Deputy Tyler, looking wide-eyed and holding a high-powered tactical flashlight that cut through the gloom like a theatrical spotlight.
Behind them hovered two state highway patrolmen in dripping yellow slickers.
"Nobody move!" Lawson commanded, sweeping the room.
Then he stopped.
The beam of Tyler’s flashlight illuminated the scene in all its chaotic, Victorian glory: an overturned oak tea cart surrounded by spilled cast-iron kettles; a rolling library ladder wedged awkwardly at a forty-five-degree angle; Birdie Jenkins standing proudly in one shoe holding a leather pump like a weapon; Maggie Callahan clutching a snub-nosed revolver by a handkerchief; and Luke Sterling holding a fireplace poker across the chest of Black Walnut Cove’s most prominent antique dealer, who was currently pinned beneath an enormous, panting golden retriever.
Lawson slowly lowered his weapon, his eyebrows climbing toward his receding hairline.
"Well, now," Lawson muttered, his slow mountain drawl cutting through the adrenaline in the room. "And here I was worried you folks might be in some kind of trouble."
"We had the situation entirely under control, Frank," Birdie said smoothly, though she discreetly slid her shoe back onto her foot. "Though your response time leaves something to be desired. Did you stop for doughnuts on the ridge?"
"A pine tree took down the power lines across Old Mill Road, Birdie," Lawson replied dryly, stepping into the room and holstering his sidearm. He motioned to Tyler. "Tyler, get the cuffs on him. Let’s get this garbage off Mrs. Vance’s floor."
"Easy, Buster. Off, boy," Luke said softly, tapping the dog's flank.
Buster gave one final, dismissive snort directly into Sly Gable’s face, stepped off the man's chest with deliberate, heavy paws, and trotted over to me.
He sat down squarely on my clogs, leaned his entire eighty-pound body against my shins, and looked up at me with bright, soulful eyes, his tail executing a steady, rhythmic *thump-thump-thump* against the leg of the reading table.
"Good boy," I whispered, my trembling fingers sinking into the thick, wet fur behind his ears. "You magnificent, brave boy."
Deputy Tyler moved in quickly, kicking the cast-iron kettles aside and hauling Sly Gable up by his tweed lapels.
Sly let out a ragged shriek as his bruised shins took weight, his face twisting in agony as Tyler wrenched his arms behind his back and snapped the steel cuffs around his wrists with two decisive, metallic clicks.
"Watch the suit, you hillbilly!" Sly snarled, spitting a fleck of blood from his split lip. "Do you know who my lawyer is? I’ll have your badge for this! I was assaulted! I was ambushed by these lunatics and their rabid hound!"
"Save it for the magistrate, Sly," Sheriff Lawson said coldly, stepping right into Gable's personal space.
Lawson reached into his uniform pocket, pulled out a small, laminated card, and held it up to Sly's nose.
"Sterling Gable, you are under arrest for the murder of Julian Croft.
You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law... "
"He has the ledger, Frank!" Birdie interrupted, pointing an accusing finger at Sly’s soaked jacket. "Check his inside breast pocket! Before he tried to execute us, he was gloating about stealing the 1845 Moravian deed to overturn the land trust!"
Lawson paused his recitation, reached inside Sly’s tweed jacket, and pulled out a heavy, leather-bound volume wrapped in waterproof oilcloth. He turned it over in his large hands, noting the faded gilt lettering along the spine: *Vance Holdings – Wachovia Trust, 1845*.
Lawson glanced at me, his sharp gray eyes softening with profound respect. "Is this what started all this blood, Maggie?"
"That's it, Frank," I said, exhaling a breath I felt like I’d been holding since Tuesday morning.
"Julian Croft found it hidden in the secret compartment of Eleanor’s Moravian secretary desk.
He figured out that Eleanor never owned Blackwood Manor—the land belongs to the Blue Ridge Mountain Conservation Trust. The heirs had no right to sell it.
Julian tried to blackmail Sly into buying him out, and Sly hit him over the head with the brass beam scale in the carriage house to keep the land for himself. "