The Hidden Corpse

by Debra Sennefelder

  Felicity leaned forward to the mic. “Three times. If it’s not successful, I move on. I don’t waste my time and I certainly don’t want any of my readers to cook a recipe that won’t work.”

  “Thank you,” the woman said. “One more question. What’s your favorite recipe?”

  Felicity flashed a smile as she tilted her head and flipped her hair. “It’s so hard to say. I love all my recipes. But my favorite food to eat is mac ’n’ cheese. There’s so much you can do with mac ’n’ cheese. You can add in all types of vegetables and even lobster. Oh, my goodness. Talk about heaven.”

  The audience nodded in agreement. It seemed Felicity’s love of mac ’n’ cheese was a shared one. A dozen hands went up to ask a question. Beth, who stood off to the side of the panel, moderated the questions and called upon a library regular, Connie Rydel.

  “This is a question for Louis.” Connie stood. “Can you expand on the media kit you mentioned earlier? What is it exactly?”

  “Great question.” Louis pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. For the event, he’d managed to look less rumpled. His wrinkle-free navy shirt was tucked into his pressed khakis, and he’d even added a tie.

  Hope thought he looked very professional.

  “We give them to advertisers or brands we want to work with. What we include is our bio, graphics, which could be some of our best photographs, and some statistics, like page views and unique visitors. You’ll also find collaboration options like sponsored posts, giveaways, social media promotion. And then some examples of previous work. It’s quite comprehensive.”

  Beth called on another audience member. “Hope, you mentioned keywords. How exactly do you use them?”

  “Not to get too technical—” Hope began.

  “We don’t want to put anyone to sleep.” Felicity giggled and the audience joined in.

  Hope silently counted to ten as the audience’s amusement died down before she spoke so she wouldn’t say something she’d regret later. “Keywords are used throughout a post. In the text, in the title, in the URL, and in the photo titles—something bloggers often overlook. A simple example is the choice between two words that pretty much mean the same thing. An example would be ‘frosting’ or ‘icing.’ You do a search to find out which word is searched the most and that would be the keyword you use. Does that make sense?”

  The woman nodded. “Yes. Thanks.”

  Beth called on the man seated next to Drew, who jotted notes and refused to make eye contact with Hope. They’d been friends long enough for her to know Drew was angry with her because of the conversation she had with Ethan the night before. She’d have to find a way to make it up to him.

  “Elena, did having your blog help you with your freelance writing or was it the other way around?” the man asked.

  “The blog has definitely helped my freelance writing. It’s a part of my résumé and gives editors samples of my writing. The blog has definitely opened doors for me.” Elena’s voice was soft, and she seemed distracted through the presentation.

  “So, Hope, it takes you all day to cook a recipe and take photos of it? That’s all you do? Sounds like a sweet gig.” Jerry Griffin stood.

  Hope shifted in her seat. Meg’s husband wasn’t asking a question. He was making a statement. If he thought he was being original, he was sadly mistaken. Since she went full-time with her blog, she’d been dealing with the same question. What do you do all day long? Even though she and her fellow bloggers had just laid out the major components of blogging and shared that each task took a significant amount of time, Jerry was still under the impression all they did was cook and snap photographs. Answering on the defensive would be handing Jerry exactly what he wanted, a rise out of her so she’d embarrass herself. Since she’d met her quota of embarrassment the day before, she was going to play it cool with Jerry.

  “I do have a sweet gig. I earn a living doing what I love and a lot of my day is spent cooking or photographing. I’m blessed.” Hope relaxed, satisfied with her response to the rude question.

  The audience also seemed to like her response. They smiled and nodded while Jerry slinked back down to his chair. The portly middle-aged man scowled at her and she almost felt sorry for him. After all, he’d been sent by his wife to attempt to publicly humiliate Hope and failed.

  “Well, it seems you’ve found time in your day for some other activities.” Norrie stood up in the back of the room. Like Jerry, she didn’t wait for Beth to call on her. All heads swung around to look at Norrie. “Can you comment on your involvement with a person of interest in two murders here in Jefferson?” All heads swung back to look in Hope’s direction.

  Good grief.

  Drew crossed his legs and gave Hope a “you’re on your own, girlfriend” look while Felicity gave an angry stare at Hope because it appeared the discussion was taking a negative turn. Beth must have thought the same thing because she sprang in front of the table and clapped her hands together to get everyone’s attention.

  “Hope doesn’t have any comments regarding those tragic events. And I think our time is up. There are refreshments in the back. Please help yourselves and our bloggers will be available to answer any more questions on blogging. Let’s give our presenters a big round of applause for a thoroughly enjoyable and informative talk.”

  The room broke out in applause, and then the attendees began drifting to the refreshment table. Felicity popped up from her chair and dashed off in the direction of Norrie. Hope tamped down her slow burn and resisted the urge to chase after her. No, she wouldn’t engage with Felicity and give Norrie more fodder for a story. Louis was cornered by two women asking how they could earn money from blogging, while Elena quietly slipped away. Hope lost sight of her. Darn.

  “So, how did your date go last night?” Claire came up behind Hope.

  “Date?” Hope turned around to face her sister. “It wasn’t a date.”

  Claire rolled her eyes. “I know it was a date. So, spill all the details.”

  “You want details? Here’s a little detail.” She leaned forward. “Matt’s gay.”

  Claire gasped. “No!”

  Heads turned at Claire’s outburst.

  “Sorry,” she murmured.

  When the heads turned away, Hope continued, “He’s recently broken up with Rodney. They were together for years.”

  “I had no idea. He never talked about the relationship.”

  “Well, he did last night after I told him I wasn’t sure if I was ready for a relationship with him. And I told him he was sexy for a lawyer.” Hope’s head hung low with embarrassment.

  “No? Oh, how awkward for you.” Claire’s smirk grew into a full smile and she burst out laughing. “You must have been so humiliated.” She laughed harder, so much so she snorted.

  “I’m glad you think this is funny.” Hope stomped away.

  “Hope, come back, I’m sorry.” Claire went back to laughing and didn’t follow Hope.

  “Drew, we need to talk,” Hope said, approaching him.

  He ignored her as he turned his body to take a photograph.

  “Come on. I’m sorry but I had to tell Ethan.”

  Drew looked over his shoulder and stared daggers at Hope. He wasn’t going to make it easy for her.

  “You can’t really be angry with me. The police needed to know.”

  “Shush. We can’t talk about it with her here.” Drew jerked his head in Norrie’s direction. “So far nothing’s come of your late-night meeting with Ethan. So we need to keep it on the down low.”

  “Not a problem.” Hope let out a big sigh of relief. Her best friend wasn’t angry with her anymore. “Something else happened last night after I left the police department.”

  Drew arched an eyebrow. “I’m listening.”

  “Milo approached me and told me I should mind my own business.”

  “He did? Milo usually isn’t confrontational. What happened next?”

  Hope caught a glimpse of Elena in the hall. “I
need to talk to Elena. I’ll fill you in on the rest later.” She wove through the crowd, promising a few people she’d be right back to talk with them. In the hallway, she spotted Elena about to reach the front exit. “Elena! Wait up.”

  “I was just going outside to get some air.” Then why did she look like she’d been caught with her hand in the cookie jar?

  “I won’t keep you. And we’re expected to mingle with the guests, so I’m going to be direct.”

  “I have to go.”

  “This won’t take long. You’ve disappeared several times and you seem distracted. Is everything okay?”

  Elena dipped her head. “It’s personal.”

  “If you need help—”

  “No, I don’t need help.” She chewed on her lower lip. “I just don’t want what I tell you to become public.”

  Hope’s patience was wearing thin, but when she saw tears in Elena’s eyes, her frustration waned. “What’s going on?”

  “The times I’ve disappeared I was with Cal.”

  “Cal? I didn’t realize you two were friends.”

  “We’ve been more than friends. We had a brief fling after we met at a photo shoot.”

  “As in an affair?” Hope tried to wrap her brain around Elena’s statement. She was the woman Calista referred to the other day when she was talking about Cal’s infidelities? Hope’s stomach sank. If true, then Cal could’ve had a motive for murder.

  “It ended months ago. We both agreed we didn’t have a future. He wasn’t going to leave Lily. And I didn’t want him to. Please, no one can know.” She grasped Hope’s arm and squeezed. Her pale green eyes pleaded with Hope. “It’ll make him look guilty.”

  “Hiding the truth will make him look guilty.”

  “The truth is he wouldn’t kill for us because there isn’t an us. We’re just friends now. Please, please, I beg you not to tell anyone.” Elena’s hold on Hope tightened. Her fear was palpable.

  “Hope. Thank goodness you haven’t left.” Beth rushed across the hall, holding her phone in her hand. “I just heard that Cal Barnhart has been arrested for the murders.”

  Shock slammed into Hope so hard she wavered. “Arrested? How’s that possible?”

  “Oh, my God. Someone found out about us.” Elena let go of Hope’s arm.

  Beth looked at Elena with surprise and then back to Hope. “It just happened.”

  “Gotta go.” Drew hustled through the hallway. “Breaking news!”

  “Cal was arrested.” Hope stopped Drew in his tracks.

  “Turns out the police have surveillance footage showing Cal and Lily together later in the morning, the day she disappeared,” Drew shared.

  Hope remembered the articles she’d read about Lily’s disappearance and recalled Cal’s original statement that he last saw Lily when she left their house to go to work. He lied?

  “And here we thought we’d uncovered a great conspiracy in town and all along it was the husband who did it.” Drew turned and rushed out of the library.

  “Cal didn’t kill Lily. He couldn’t.” Tears streamed down Elena’s face. “Hope, you have to help him.”

  “I know his attorney. Trust me, he’s in good hands.” Because he’d been arrested, Hope wasn’t in a position to help Cal. “Beth, could you show Elena where the restroom is?”

  “Of course.” Beth wrapped an arm around Elena and led her away.

  Snippets of conversation flowed out into the hall, and as Hope expected, the topic was the breaking news of Cal’s arrest. She ducked into the community room and grabbed her purse. No one seemed interested in blogs any longer. No, they had something meatier, juicier to gossip about. Claire was also ready to leave. She wanted to get a briefing from Ethan because she was a mayoral candidate and needed to stay informed on all major events in town. Hope wished her sister luck. She doubted Ethan would share any pertinent information with Claire.

  Outside of the library, Hope slogged to her vehicle. She was zapped of every ounce of energy. The news of Cal’s arrest hit her hard, and she felt like roadkill. She pointed her key fob at the SUV and the sound of the driver’s-side door unlocking was heaven. She’d be home in just a few minutes.

  “Hope! The police arrested Cal!” Brenda jogged from the sidewalk to catch up with Hope. When she reached Hope, she was winded from her sprint. “They took him away in handcuffs.”

  “Did you call his lawyer?”

  “Of course. Right away.” Brenda closed the small gap between her and Hope. “We have to help him. We’re the only people who believe in him.”

  Hope stepped back, butting up against her vehicle. Brenda required a conversation regarding personal space because she was too much in Hope’s face. “He lied to the police about the last time he saw Lily.”

  “I don’t think he lied. I think he was just confused. Neither one of us can imagine what it felt like for him to have his wife missing.”

  Hope couldn’t argue Brenda’s point. Though, she did know what it felt like to be lied to. Whether on purpose or by mistake, it didn’t matter. A lie was a lie. The thought that a man she trusted and respected was responsible for not only Lily’s death but also Peggy’s death made her sick to her stomach. Was he the one who nailed the threatening note to her door and sent her the scary text message? Chills skittered up her spine, and she shivered. She’d once again gotten too close to a murderer and didn’t see it.

  “There’s nothing either one of us can do for him now. Let Matt do his job. Good-bye, Brenda.” She pulled open the car door and slid in behind the wheel. She drove her SUV out of the parking space, leaving Brenda standing there alone. She hated not being able to comfort the woman, but she had to take care of herself. She was going home to do what she did best and what calmed her mind—cook.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  When Hope pushed open the mudroom door, she was welcomed home by the intoxicating aroma of apple crumble. Looking back at the past few hours, she was thankful she took time to prepare the dessert and leave it to cook in the slow cooker because the apple-cinnamon fragrance enveloped her like the hug she desperately needed. She missed having Bigelow there with his silly greeting, but he was at another playdate with Buddy. She trudged through the mudroom and into the kitchen, where she dropped her purse on the island. She checked on the apple crumble. Bubbly and lightly browned. Perfection. As much as it pained her, she left the dessert on the warm setting while she changed her clothes.

  Back downstairs, in a pair of torn jeans and a cotton sweater, Hope checked her social media. There were comments to reply to and some links from other bloggers to share with her followers. She did a quick check of her stats. Traffic was up, the number of comments were about the same, and the shares of her posts were pretty good. All in all, business was going great. She should have been smiling, but all she could manage was a frown.

  With her social media checked off her to-do list, next up was a video shoot for corn chowder. Come August, there would be an abundance of corn from local farms and she wanted to be prepared to share her favorite corn recipes.

  A one-woman operation for her blog, she had to find ways to make video shooting work for her. Eventually she figured out how to shoot videos by herself, but it took several hours from setup to editing. It was a painful process, even though she managed to streamline it. Maybe she should consider hiring an assistant.

  As she set up the shoot, the events of the past few days kept playing in her mind, with most of her thoughts concentrated on Cal. Adjusting one of the three box lights around the island, she recalled her conversations with him.

  He’d told her how much he loved Lily. He feared she was dead and swore he didn’t hurt her. Were those lies too? After she got the lights set up, she positioned the camera and tripod across from the island for the first of the two shoots. The first shoot was a full view angle, so she along with all the ingredients would be filmed. The next shoot would be close-ups, so she’d be doing several actions twice or at least not fully complete the first time.
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  Yes, hiring an assistant would be a smart thing to do; if nothing else, the help with the videos would be a big time-saver.

  She positioned herself at the island, with her shoot list off to the side for reference. To prepare, she had created a list of shots she wanted to make sure were in the final video, including B-roll, which were independent video segments she could edit into the video to break up her sometimes lengthy narrative. Rather than have her viewers just look at her when she described how to shuck corn, she could edit in B-roll footage of an ear of corn for visual appeal while she chatted about the process.

  She hooked her mic to her sweater, hiding it underneath, and then she tapped on her phone to begin the recording app her mic was tethered to. She then pressed the remote for her camera and waited a minute before saying her introduction.

  She lifted her head and smiled into the camera. Her viewers wanted to see a happy blogger and, as much as the expression felt forced, she didn’t falter.

  “Today we’re making corn chowder. This recipe can feed an army or you can freeze batches for some good eating later. You can use fresh corn or frozen. You can even add chicken or crabmeat to this recipe to make it a little heartier. Also consider serving up some buttermilk biscuits. I’ve added a link for that recipe on my website.

  “This is a perfect meal to serve as we transition from summer to fall. Let’s get cooking.”

  Hope continued with identifying each ingredient and demonstrated the steps of making the chowder. She then paused before readjusting her camera for close-ups. The cycle was repeated until the pot of chowder was cooked and she ladled the thick, creamy soup into a deep bowl and sprinkled chopped chives on top. It looked so yummy she couldn’t wait to dive in for a taste. She closed her video with a reminder to sign up for her newsletter.

  She pressed off the remote to her camera, removed her mic, and ended the recording app on her phone before she grabbed a spoon to taste the soup. Her eyes fluttered shut as she swallowed her spoonful. It tasted as delicious as it looked. She set the spoon down and quickly turned off the three box lights. She scooped up the bowl and spoon and padded over to the table to finish her lunch. The best part of her job was the food. As the soup disappeared down to her tummy, she frowned. A buttermilk biscuit would have been perfect. Then again, it would have meant adding time to her run. So maybe she didn’t miss the biscuit too much.