The Eleventh Hour

by Anina Collins

  Nodding, I took one last look around and my gaze settled on her right hand, unusually bare. “Derek, where are her rings? Geneva was known for wearing her rings, and they were worth a fortune. I remember hearing the diamond itself was more than two carats, and that ruby one of hers could be seen on her from across the street.”

  He shrugged. “There were no rings on her fingers when I got here, and I was the first one on the scene. Maybe she took them off when she was at home.”

  I took one last look around and nodded. “Maybe. Well, thanks for letting me in, Derek. Time to go to work.”

  As I headed toward the front door, I heard him complain, “So I’m not going to get that danish after all? I might just have to start restricting you from my crime scenes, Poppy.”

  Knowing he likely wouldn’t do anything of the sort, I still dropped the bag with the cheese danish on the table in the foyer before I left. Friends willing to break the rules needed to be kept happy.

  The crowd whispering and gossiping in front of Geneva’s house was nothing compared to that of the Sunset Eagle employees that morning. By the time I got to my desk, I’d heard no fewer than eight people share their opinion of what had happened to poor Geneva. Hoping to block them out and get to work, I closed the door behind me and settled in to get started with my day.

  A knock less than five minutes later told me that might be easier said than done. Before I could tell whoever it was that I was busy, I saw Bethany Lewis peek her blond head in through the crack in the door.

  “Did you hear about what happened to Geneva Woodward? It’s all anyone can talk about this morning.”

  Bethany was the closest thing to a best friend for me, so I waved her in and told her to close the door behind her. She worked in advertising sales for the newspaper and since she was near my age, we’d become close in the years we’d worked together at The Eagle.

  She sat down in the chair beside my desk and said in a voice full of excitement, “A murder in Sunset Ridge! Can you believe it?”

  “I stopped by her house on my way here and saw her. Someone strangled her with one of her scarves. You know, the fancy ones she always wore.”

  Bethany’s blue eyes grew as big as saucers and her mouth dropped open in shock. “Strangled? I can’t believe it.”

  “And you know what was just as odd? She didn’t have any of her rings on,” I said, hoping to find out if I was the only one who thought that fact was strange.

  “She was at home, so maybe she didn’t wear them there. I don’t wear any rings at home. I always take them off when I get home from work.”

  Chuckling, I said, “Derek said the same thing. I guess I just have a fixation with her rings. She was always wearing such huge stones, and I never could understand why. They were so gaudy.”

  Bethany wiggled her right hand with rings on the middle three fingers in front of my face and smiled. “Because they’re pretty. Women love rings, Poppy. You’re the exception to that, of course.”

  I spread out my ringless fingers over my laptop and looked down at the bareness of them before I turned back toward Bethany. “I guess I am.”

  “So do they have any suspects? I can’t believe it. There’s likely a murderer right here in Sunset Ridge walking amongst us.”

  As we talked about how snobby Geneva had always been toward virtually everyone in town, I wondered if I knew her murderer. Strangulation was personal. Unlike killing with a gun, strangling someone required being right next to them as they took their last breath and left this world.

  Who in Sunset Ridge had gotten that close to Geneva Woodward that they’d be welcome in her house and hate her enough to want to kill her in such an intimate way?

  Three hours and very little work accomplished later, I walked to the Sunset Ridge police station to find Derek and see if he’d uncovered anything more about Geneva’s murder. I found him sitting in his tan upholstered office chair staring off into space like he was deep in thought.

  “Hey, you. How goes the case?”

  He turned to look at me and for a moment seemed like he couldn’t figure out why on earth I’d be leaning against the doorframe to his office. Then, as if a light was switched on in his brain, he smiled and shook his head.

  “It doesn’t. You wouldn’t be here to tell me you know who did it, would you?”

  I stepped into his beige office and took a seat in one of the two black plastic chairs he kept in front of his desk. For a moment, I studied the plain walls with not even a plaque or a picture on them and shook my head.

  “No. I was just curious to know if you had made any headway.”

  Derek sighed and tossed a file folder off to the side. “Nope. We found dozens of fingerprints in that room, but none of them are…” He stopped talking and blew the air out of his lungs slowly.

  “I’ve never seen you so frustrated, Derek. What’s going on here?”

  He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed again. “My fellow officers loped through my crime scene without even thinking of wearing gloves. I swear to God they live to make my life harder.”

  “You know they mean no harm. It’s just that they’re used to rescuing cats from trees and writing tickets for parking violations.”

  “I know. It’s just that I have no suspects and I’m not even sure where to begin. Geneva made plenty of enemies in Sunset Ridge, but none of them really appear capable of murder.”

  I couldn’t help but smile at Derek’s naiveté. “Of course they’re capable of murder. Anyone is. How is it you’re a policeman again?”

  “Asks the social events reporter for the local newspaper,” he teased back. “You seem to forget that Sunset Ridge hasn’t had a murder committed since before I came onto the force. Murders don’t happen here, Poppy.”

  “It looks like they do now, and this one is personal.”

  Derek narrowed his eyes skeptically. “Why would you think that?”

  “It’s simple. To kill someone like this, the murderer had to be close to her. Whoever killed Geneva was let into her house since you said there was no forcible entry, and she let them close enough to her that they could tighten that scarf around her neck and choke the life out of her. Look who we’re talking about here, Derek. Geneva was icy on her best days. Most of the time she looked at those of us who lived in the same town as her like we were underlings or peons. Like we were beneath her. That tells me this was personal.”

  “You’ve been watching too many Lifetime movies, Poppy. With all the stuff in Geneva’s house, I think it’s just as likely this was a robbery gone bad. Probably somebody passing through who cased out her house and saw a gold mine.”

  I wasn’t surprised to hear this come from him. Derek was never the sharpest tool in the shed, and I could understand him not wanting to deal with a murder if it could be a robbery that had gone wrong just as easily.

  But that didn’t mean I had to agree with him.

  “I’ll tell you what. Since we clearly aren’t going to agree, what do you say we both investigate Geneva’s murder? You guys only have a handful of full time cops to use on this case, and you know it. This isn’t exactly the DC police department, so you can use all the help you can get.”

  Sunset Ridge had gotten some special dispensation from someone important when the town was founded to have its own police department, unlike other towns in the state, but it had the ability to bring in the State Police, if it needed to. I knew Dominick wouldn’t want that kind of help taking over a case so important to the town, even if his brother would gladly welcome the support, which meant Derek was going to remain shorthanded.

  “I’ll poke around and see what I can find from the potential pool of local murderers while you guys check out your idea that it was someone from outside of town who only wanted to rob her.”

  “And I would let you do this why?” he asked with a mischievous smile.

  “Because I can help. I promise whatever I find out I’ll tell you so it won’t be like I’m conducting my own investigation.
I’ll just be asking some questions. That’s all. Think of me like someone you’ve deputized to help you since a police force this size isn’t exactly set up to deal with crimes like murder on top of the dozens of other calls you get every day, and you know those aren’t going to stop just because Geneva Woodward was found dead.”

  Threading his fingers behind his head, he asked, “And you think people are going to talk to you about this?”

  “Of course they will. I’m well-known in town and I work for the newspaper. People love talking to me, Derek. Even you do. I just got you to agree to let me help on this case.”

  He shook his head as his face grew serious. “Not so fast. Even if I wanted to agree to this crazy idea, and I’m not sure I do, the chief of police would lose his mind if he heard about it. You know how he gets when you stop in to just see crime scenes. He’d have my head if he found out I was letting you do this.”

  Leaning across his desk, I extended my hand to shake his. “Then we don’t let him find out. Agreed?”

  “I’m not sure, Poppy. This isn’t an ordinary case. Everything’s got to be done by the book, and I’m pretty sure that doesn’t involve letting you snoop around.”

  For one of the few times in all the years I’d known Derek, I sensed a real reluctance in him to give me what I wanted. I’d have to lay it on thick. “Come on. I can help and you know it. Just take a chance this one time. Who knows? I might find the one clue you need to crack this case wide open. Imagine how happy the chief would be if you were the one to solve the murder of one of Sunset Ridge’s most important citizens. Sounds like bragging rights in the Hampton family to me. Maybe even a commendation from the town council.”

  Derek looked down at my hand grasping his and took a deep breath in. Blowing the air out slowly, he shook his head. “Don’t make me regret this, Poppy.”

  “We just crossed the Rubicon, Derek. No regrets.”

  “I don’t know what that means, but just don’t make this come back to haunt me, okay?”

  I winked and flashed him a smile as inside I bubbled with excitement. “Not to worry. By the time this case is solved, you’re going to wonder what you ever did without me.”

  Turning to leave, I saw the police chief standing in the doorway. Nearly his brother’s twin, except for his hair that was a slightly lighter shade of brown, Dominick stared at me with a curious look in his eyes. “Good morning, Poppy. What are you doing here?”

  “Just came by to tell your brother about the streetlight outside my house. It burnt out the other night, so I figured I’d get him on the case,” I lied as I brushed past him before he could ask any more questions. “Thanks for getting that fixed, Derek!”

  And with that, I left to begin my investigation of who killed Geneva Woodward.

  Chapter Two

  I left the police station practically walking on air and my mind racing with where to begin. Derek had been right about Geneva. She had made a fair number of enemies in Sunset Ridge, and I believed any one of them could be a cold-blooded murderer. All I had to do was pick a starting point and go from there.

  As I walked down Main Street I remembered hearing somewhere that often murder begins close at home, so I pointed myself in the direction of Geneva’s house three blocks away. She may have been standoffish most of the time, but I was willing to bet Geneva’s neighbors might know something about who she may have let get close enough to her to kill her.

  Her nearest neighbor in the house next to hers was a woman named Michelle Steadman. In her forties, like Geneva, she could usually be seen around town with bags filled with her almost daily purchases. No one liked to shop like Michelle.

  I remembered my father telling me about Michelle divorcing yet another husband a few years ago. She’d been through three, at last count, and my father said this last one had left her a very wealthy woman.

  But Michelle was new money, and old money like Geneva rarely appreciated the insta-wealth of people like her neighbor one house to the left.

  Unlike the Woodward home, Michelle Steadman’s didn’t present itself as the perfect Victorian. The front stairs were a few years past the need for a fresh coat of paint, and as I knocked on the front door, I saw through the panes of glass flanking it that the inside had a less impressive look to it too. Michelle hobbled her way toward me on her heels with freshly manicured toenails and flashed me a big grin as she opened the door.

  “Hi! Can I help you?” she asked in a very chipper voice for someone who lived next to a house where a murder had just occurred less than twenty-four hours before.

  “Michelle, my name is Poppy McGuire. I was wondering if you’d be willing to talk to me about Geneva Woodward.”

  For a moment, it looked like she wanted to tell me to go away, but then she flashed me another toothy grin and opened the door wide for me to walk inside. “Sure. Come on in.”

  Small town trust ran deep, at least with her, it seemed. Her next door neighbor had just been murdered, and she was letting strangers in with little hesitation. I waited for her to close the door, and she joined me in the vast foyer.

  “Let’s go into the parlor. Would you like anything to drink? I can make a fresh pitcher of lemonade, if you like,” she said as she showed me to a room with high ceilings like in Geneva’s home, but noticeably less opulent. There were no finely crafted medallions or flocked velvet wallpaper in this home.

  Extending her arm toward a vivid blue upholstered sofa, she said, “Please, join me on the settee and we can talk about poor, poor Geneva.”

  I’d never heard Geneva described with that adjective, and as I took my seat next to Michelle, I sensed a tone of almost celebration in her voice.

  “I was wondering if you and Geneva were close. You were next door neighbors with so much in common, including you both having gorgeous homes in the finer section of town.”

  While the words flowed out of my mouth, I worried Michelle might see me as more sycophant than someone looking for real answers, but my concern was all for nothing. Michelle Steadman, like most women of means, adored hearing compliments on her possessions and began to explain her relationship to poor Geneva in detail without any more prodding from me.

  “Oh, it’s so terrible about what happened to poor Geneva. She was such a dear. We only just met three years ago when I bought this house, but we became instant best friends since we had so much in common.”

  “Michelle, do you know of any problems she might have been having?”

  She reached out and gave my forearm a gentle squeeze. “Oh, please call me Shelley. May I call you Poppy, Ms. McGuire? You know, I’ve read your society column in the paper many times. You always write such interesting stories.”

  “Shelley, thank you so much. I’m so flattered that you enjoy my work. And yes, please call me Poppy.”

  In truth, what I wrote for The Sunset Ridge Eagle was little more than fluff meant to make the most important people in town feel even more important. I’d tried to include some real pieces on local issues only to have my boss at the paper, the rarely friendly Mr. Howard Fleming, tell me that my job was to simply report on the most influential in Sunset Ridge society and nothing else. So I’d done nothing else ever since.

  That Shelley enjoyed my stories was because she’d appeared in them a good number of times since coming into her newfound money after divorcing husband number three. Her taste in writing was at the very least skewed by her vanity.

  “Poppy, I wish I knew what happened. Geneva and I were very close. You know, we had so much in common. Two wealthy single women in a town where virtually everyone was with someone and most married. You must know what I mean.”

  Shelley’s reference to my single status in a place where being married seemed to be the principal aim of most the residents made me want to roll my eyes. I’d accepted my choices in staying in Sunset Ridge to be near my father, even if it meant a distinct lack of potential husbands I had any interest in.

  “She and I both loved nice things.” Pointing toward
art that hung on the far wall of the parlor, she beamed her pride at her possession. “Do you see that painting there? I bought it six months ago for nearly ten thousand dollars. I had it appraised the other day and the delightful man told me he believed I could sell it for nearly five thousand more than I bought it for.”

  I glanced at the painting and didn’t recognize it as anything noteworthy from the few art history classes I’d taken in college. A woman with a vase standing in front of a giraffe didn’t seem like anything that would be considered stellar in the art world, but I was no art aficionado, so it could have been worth all the money Shelley had paid for it.

  Before I could fake my appreciation for her picture, she directed my attention to a table in the opposite corner of the room. Ornate and finely crafted in dark wood, its legs curled up on the bottoms into a scrolled form. Unlike the painting, I could see that piece of furniture being worth something.

  “I got that table right after moving in here. I saw one just like it in Geneva’s house and had to have one of my own,” Shelley said with a satisfied smile.

  “It’s lovely. You and Geneva certainly have wonderful taste.”

  Correcting me, Shelley nodded and frowned. “Had. Poor Geneva. I just can’t believe what happened. I’m going to miss her so much. We spent so much time together.”

  As she went on and on about how close they were, I thought about how often Geneva frequented Diamanti’s across the street from my father’s bar and how I’d never seen her with Shelley on any of the three or four nights a week she ate dinner at the restaurant. For people who were such good friends, it seemed odd that they’d never eaten together.

  “You spent a lot of time together? I have to admit I didn’t really know her,” I said, hoping to glean something from Shelley other than more cataloguing of her acquisitions.

  “Oh, yes! We saw each other every day. I remember the day I met her. The moving van had just pulled away and she was standing on her porch looking over at my house, probably wondering if someone like her had moved in. She gave me a smile, so I immediately went over to introduce myself.”