Death by Committee

by Alexis Morgan

It wouldn’t help the situation to point out that Troy was the only person that Zeke had ever threatened that way. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know what’s gotten into him today. I’ll put him in the house after you leave.”

  And not a second before. She’d also give him several treats for forcing Troy to keep his distance, but she kept that part to herself.

  Troy didn’t respond to her apology. Instead, he stalked off down the sidewalk in the direction of his own neighborhood. She had to wonder how he’d happened to pass by her house. It was a little out off the beaten path from his place. Not that that meant anything. After all, she’d also sort of happened to pass by his house when she’d wanted to talk to him about the quilts.

  “Zeke, my boy, I think I’m chasing shadows when it comes to the quilts, not to mention the matter of Dolly’s death.”

  Patting him on the head, she turned her attention back to the roses. “Funny, though, that both mysteries involve a quilt. How odd is that?”

  She poked and prodded that idea while she cut a bouquet of roses for the kitchen table. By the time she’d put away her gardening tools and dumped the dead flowers in the yard waste bin, she finally decided that, all things considered, the quilt connection was pretty darn odd. But try as she might, she couldn’t figure out what it meant. Standing in the backyard staring at nothing wasn’t going to accomplish anything, either.

  For now, she’d give Zeke his promised treats and then fix herself a cup of tea and read out on the porch for a while. With luck, her subconscious would continue to tug on the loose thread and eventually unravel the mystery. She could only hope. But if all else failed, she’d mention it to Gage and see what he thought.

  * * *

  Sleep didn’t come easily as Abby’s thoughts waltzed in circles, chasing an elusive idea that remained just out of her grasp. Normally the soft patter of rain on the roof would have lulled her to sleep, but not this time. She had tried hard to relax, but her mind kept spinning and spinning and getting nowhere. Any other time she would’ve put it off to too much caffeine, but the tea she’d had after dinner had been an herbal that was supposed to help people sleep.

  Right before midnight, she finally gave up the fight and went back downstairs to read a little more, hoping that going through her bedtime routine one more time would hit her reset button and let her catch some shut-eye. It was a little after one before she went back to bed. After settling in, she stroked the soft cotton of the patchwork quilt and took comfort from the connection to the past and the special times she’d shared with her aunt in this house.

  Evidently, her plan worked, because that was the last coherent thought she had until Zeke suddenly jumped on the bed and started barking like crazy and jarring her out of a sound sleep. The hot blast of doggy breath as he gave her face a quick lick chased the last filaments of sleep from her mind. Sitting up on the side of the bed, she shoved her hair back behind her ears.

  “What’s got you all upset, Zeke?”

  Then she heard it for herself. Someone was pounding on her back door. Grabbing her cell phone, she considered calling the police before venturing down to the kitchen, but all she’d able to tell them was someone wanted her attention. Fearing she might be starring in a scream-queen movie as the ingénue who runs back into the house, she grabbed her robe and crept down the steps in the darkness.

  Her tension eased up a little when she reached the hallway downstairs that led to the kitchen. It was clearly Tripp bellowing out there on her back porch, in between bouts of pounding on the door. She ran down the hall, stubbing her toe on the leg of a chair as she rounded the table on her way to let him in. Hopping on one foot and muttering words that would’ve horrified her aunt, she unlocked the door and jerked it open. He stood there, fist raised and blood dripping down the side of his face.

  Her own pain forgotten, she stood back to let him stumble inside. Pushing him into a chair, she grabbed a clean towel out of the drawer and pressed it to his forehead.

  “What happened to you?”

  Tripp shook his head and winced with the motion. “Call the cops first before he gets away.”

  “Who?”

  But she didn’t wait for him to answer before dialing the three numbers that would once again bring the cavalry rushing to their rescue. While she waited for the emergency operator to answer, she went from window to window on the lower floor, looking out into the darkness for any sign of the intruder. She didn’t see anyone, but that didn’t mean much. He could be long gone, or he could be crouching in any number of places, hidden by the deep shadows under the trees.

  After telling the emergency operator the bare bone facts that there’d been an intruder and her neighbor was hurt, the woman promised the police would be on their way. Tripp glared at Abby when she also requested the EMTs come as well, but she didn’t care. Rather than argue with him, she went through the house to turn on the porch light. The flash of red and blue lights in the distance meant help was already heading their way. She scurried back to tell Tripp the good news.

  Besides, if it turned out that he didn’t need medical treatment, she’d apologize to all concerned. She was no expert in trauma care and had no idea how badly he was hurt. She wasn’t going to assume this was a minor head wound, which she knew could still bleed like crazy. Case in point, she grabbed another towel and tossed the blood-soaked one into the sink.

  “You promised answers.”

  His cheeks flushed hot as he adjusted the towel to peer up at her from behind the crimson terrycloth. She might have thought it was due to his injury, but he looked more embarrassed than anything.

  “I have trouble sleeping some nights, and the walls close in on me. When that happens, I walk the perimeter of the yard. I spotted someone sneaking up on your back porch.”

  For the first time, she noticed he was wearing flannel pajama bottoms and a white T-shirt, both of which were soaking wet from the rain. Not only that, he was barefoot. The meaning of what he was telling her finally sank in and sent waves of fear burning along her nerves. Regardless, she would not—could not—give into the terror, not with Tripp cold and hurt. There’d be time for that later. For now, she hustled back down the hall and grabbed an afghan out of the hall closet and wrapped it around his shoulders.

  “Thanks.”

  His complexion now looked ashen. Rather than press him any further for answers, she decided to wait until the police were with them so he’d only have to go through it once. The sound of the doorbell chiming came as a relief.

  She patted Tripp on the shoulder. “I’ll be right back.”

  Before opening the door, she peeked out through the curtains at the two men on her porch. Only one was in uniform, but the other was all too familiar. The emergency operator had obviously also called Gage, dragging him from bed in the process. She sighed and unlocked the door. “Sorry to drag you out in the wee hours of the morning.”

  He ignored her apology. “What’s happened now?”

  She tightened the belt on her robe. “I’ll have to let Tripp do the honors, Gage. I was upstairs asleep when he came pounding on the back door to say there was an intruder. That’s as much as I know at this point. Right now he’s in the kitchen nursing a head wound.”

  Gage looked around the front yard before responding. When he did, it was to give his deputy orders. “Wait until the second officer arrives and then do a full yard sweep. If some guy managed to take down Tripp, I don’t want either of you out there on your own.”

  By that point in the discussion, the aid car from the fire department was pulling up out front. “Send them on in. Tell them the kitchen is straight down the hall.”

  “Will do, sir.”

  Abby let Gage go first, needing that half second of extra time to bring her badly jangled nerves under better control. When she finally reached the kitchen, she noticed Tripp was on his third towel and would likely be needing a fourth pretty soon. Stubborn man might not think he needed the EMTs, but she was glad they were there to make sure he was
going to be all right.

  Gage looked at his friend with rough concern. “You okay?”

  “I’ve had worse headaches after a bar fight.” Tripp pulled the towel away from his forehead to look at it and then pressed it back in place. “But not many. The bleeding is slowing down, though.”

  Abby wasn’t so sure about that, but the front door had just opened again.

  A woman’s voice called out, “Fire department!”

  Gage answered for them. “Back here, Angie!”

  He and Abby stepped back out of the way and let the EMTs do their thing. They managed to stop the bleeding, but both of them thought Tripp should be transported to the local hospital to be checked out at the emergency room. Although the bleeding was scary enough, Abby’s fear about the severity of Tripp’s injuries skyrocketed as soon as they started throwing around words like concussion.

  He wasn’t having it, though. “Just put a few butterfly bandages on the cut, and I’ll be fine.”

  She wanted to hit the stubborn man. Stepping between her hardheaded tenant and the EMT, she put her hands on her hips and got right in his face. “Tripp Blackston, knock off the macho crap and get your stubborn backside to the hospital. I’ll pay the bill, whatever it takes. Right now, you’re covered in blood, you’re half frozen from getting soaked out in the rain, and your hands are shaking. Don’t tell me you’re okay. I don’t want to hear it.”

  Someone in the room muffled a laugh, most likely Gage. Tripp ignored their audience, his dark eyes more worried than mad. “Fine, but I want you to drive me. No ambulances.”

  Clearly, there was no winning this argument. “It’s a deal.”

  Abby smiled at the woman Gage had called Angie. “I’ll go throw on some clothes, and then the two of us will head straight to the hospital.”

  “We’ll bandage his wound while you do that.” Then Angie stepped closer. “Are you sure you’re up to driving him? You’re looking a little shaky, too.”

  No surprise there. “I’ll be fine.”

  Maybe she was fooling herself, but she evidently didn’t fool anyone else. Gage intervened. “I’ll drive him there as soon as you’ve got him patched up a bit. I need to take his statement, anyway.” Then he looked at Abby. “You’re coming with us, too.”

  Both she and Tripp started to protest at the same time, but Gage cut them off with one look. “Until I know what is going on around here, I don’t want her here alone.”

  What could she say to that? “I’ll . . . go get dressed.”

  As she headed up the stairs, holding on to the railing for support, she realized one thing. If she hadn’t been scared enough already, she sure as heck was now.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Abby had been prepared to wait hours in the emergency room for Tripp to be seen, but evidently there was nothing like having the local chief of police as a personal escort to speed things up. She was still on her first cup of coffee when they called her back to the examination room where Tripp sat perched on the side of a hospital bed.

  He looked only marginally better now than he had when they’d brought him in. The bandage on his forehead was different, and someone had given him a surgical scrub shirt to wear in place of the bloodstained T-shirt he’d had on when they’d arrived.

  “Are you doing all right?”

  He winced as he nodded. “Pretty much, other than my head feels like it’s an anvil and someone is banging on it with a ten-pound hammer. They decided I needed a few stitches, so I’ll have an interesting scar as a permanent reminder of why I shouldn’t go prowling without being fully armed. Wearing shoes would have been a smart idea, too.”

  While she wasn’t particularly comfortable around weapons of any kind, under the circumstances she could certainly understand why he felt that way. “I’m so sorry this happened, Tripp.”

  If anything, her comment only made him crabbier. “Unless you were the one sneaking up on your own back porch with a club in your hand, what do you have to be sorry for?”

  She bit back the urge to snap back at him. He was tired. Well, they both were, but he was hurting. There was also a distinct possibility that he was beating himself up over letting the intruder get away. Then the meaning of what he’d just said cut through the fog in her mind.

  “Dear God, he hit you with a club?”

  By this point Tripp looked even more disgusted. “No, he didn’t. When he saw me coming, he took off running toward the trees along the back of the yard. I’d almost caught up with him when I stubbed my stupid toe on a root and took a header into one of the Douglas firs. First thing tomorrow, I’m cutting that stupid tree down and turning it into firewood.”

  It was tempting to laugh at the image of Tripp taking revenge on an innocent tree, but she couldn’t really blame him for wanting a little payback.

  “Where’s Gage?”

  “He’s checking in with his deputies to see if they learned anything useful at the house. He said he would be back to update us in a few minutes.”

  “When can we go home?”

  “Soon. The doctor is still waiting for the results on the scan they did to make sure I didn’t crack my skull on that tree. I tried telling them I was too hardheaded for that to happen, but they said they’d heard that story before.”

  She smiled only because he expected her to. She was too angry at the sneaky creep who had caused Tripp to get hurt to think anything was funny about the night’s events. “Did you get a good look at the guy?”

  “Gage asked me that, too. On top of it being the middle of the night, the porch light wasn’t on, and it was raining. I’m ninety-nine percent sure it was a guy, but I couldn’t pick out any details. He was wearing dark clothes and could haul ass when he wanted to, which makes me think he’s in pretty good shape and probably not all that old. Best guess, he could be anywhere from fifteen to fifty.”

  Gage walked back into the room. “The doctor says he’ll be right in to go over your results with you. After that, I’ll drive you both back home.”

  Abby tossed her empty coffee cup in the trash. “Any news from the deputy?”

  Like maybe the guy had come back and surrendered peacefully. Yeah, like that was ever going to happen.

  “They found some footprints in one of the flowerbeds in the backyard. They covered the area with plastic to protect them from the rain.”

  Tripp shifted a bit as if trying to find the one position that didn’t hurt. “Could be mine. I worked in that part of the yard this week.”

  Gage pointed at Tripp’s shoes. “Not unless those clodhoppers of yours have recently shrunk a few sizes. The one complete print they found measures between a ten and an eleven.”

  Tripp held out one of his feet for her inspection. “In case you’re curious, I wear a thirteen. But half the men in town probably wear a ten to an eleven, so that’s not particularly helpful.”

  Gage didn’t argue the point. “No, it isn’t, but every bit of information helps.”

  Then he picked up two of the molded plastic chairs from the far corner and set them down right in front of Tripp. “Have a seat, Abby. I’ve already taken Tripp’s statement, but I need yours as well.”

  God, this was getting old. She felt like she should be earning frequent flier miles with the Snowberry Creek Police Department. She plunked down in the seat. “I didn’t see the guy, so I don’t know how much help I can be.”

  Tripp snickered, wincing as he did so.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “I’m guessing Gage wants to update the list of people you’ve talked to or aggravated lately. He needs to make sure it’s current.”

  “Not funny, Tripp.”

  “Yeah, it is. You just have no sense of humor.”

  All right, that was insulting. “I’ll have you know, I have a great sense of humor. I just don’t find any of this amusing.”

  His expression immediately sobered. “Sorry, Abby. I understand why you’re upset and scared. Blame it on the pain meds, which are at long last kicking
in. Not sure what they gave me, but the buzz is really kind of nice.”

  She managed a small smile. “If they’re that good, share some with me, and we’ll call it even. In fact, I’ll even throw in a dozen cookies as payment.”

  Gage made a pretense of covering his ears. “Would at least one of you remember that I’ve sworn to uphold the law? I can’t hear that kind of stuff.”

  It was her turn to apologize even though she knew he was mostly kidding. “Sorry, Gage. If I act a bit punchy, I promise it’s lack of sleep and not chemically induced.”

  “Good to hear it.” He got out his little notebook and opened it to a new page. Boy, she was really learning to hate that thing.

  “Start at the beginning and tell me what happened.”

  She gave him a brief replay of the events from the minute Zeke had started throwing a hissy fit and ending when Gage and his deputies arrived. He asked a few questions, but the events were pretty cut and dried.

  “Now, like the man said, help me update the list of anyone you’ve talked to over the past few days.”

  It didn’t seem fair to point the police in the direction of people who were obviously innocent. Maybe he’d let her be a little more selective. “How about just the men? We know it wasn’t a woman on the porch tonight, and it’s doubtful many women could throw a brick through my window like that.”

  He considered her question briefly before finally shaking his head. “No, I’d rather have everyone’s name just to make sure we’ve got all the bases covered. Just because it was a man on your porch tonight doesn’t mean there isn’t a woman involved, too.”

  Sending a silent apology into the cosmos to the ladies on the list who she knew had to be innocent, Abby rattled off all the names she could think of. First, she named the women from the quilting guild she’d talked to recently. “Then there’s Ruth, the friend of Glenda’s who bought her quilt at the swap meet, and Rowena who owns the shop where it was sold. I don’t remember her last name, but I have her business card at home. I talked to a bunch of people at the town cleanup event the other day, but that was mostly to do with serving food or potting a bunch of plants. I had lunch with Bridey that day.”