by Sam Cheever
“Hello, Mr. Johnston. How are you?”
“I’m just swell, little lady.” He stepped back and eyed me from head to toe. “My goodness, you’ve certainly grown into a pretty little thing. The spitting image of your mom.” His smile wavered slightly, and he clasped one of my hands between his. The skin of his hands was warm and slightly calloused. Edward Johnston was obviously a man who liked to use his hands. “I don’t think we’ve seen you since your parents were killed. I’m so sorry for your loss.”
I fought to control my expression, not wanting him to see my happiness and misunderstand it. It would be a relief when I could tell everyone my mom was alive. “Thank you. That’s very kind.”
He glanced at Hal. I hurried to introduce them. “Mr. Johnston, this is my friend, Hal. He’s helping Deputy Willager find out who killed Penney Sellers.”
The elderly man shook Hal’s hand. “I don’t envy you that task, son. I’m certain the list of suspects is very long.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir.”
“Oh my goodness. Belle’s going to string me up. Where are my manners? Come in. Come in.” He stepped back and we entered the house. I glanced toward the stilted-sounding music and Belle waved at me. A small girl with stringy brown hair sat on the bench next to her, plucking away at the keys with the tip of her tongue sticking out. The child’s mother sat in a chair nearby. As I looked her way, the woman’s head came up. She smiled when she recognized me, waving.
It was my friend Sally Winthrop, the nurse from the hospital. She waved me over, and I excused myself, leaving Hal to follow Edward into another room. From where I stood, it looked like a library of some kind, with dark green walls and built-in bookshelves painted bright white.
I slipped into a chair next to Sally. “I didn’t know you had a daughter?” I really needed to keep up with my old school friends better.
Her eyes went wide. “Oh, no, she’s not mine. My cousin got called in for an extra shift. I’m off until this evening, so I offered to bring her for her lesson.”
I vaguely remembered Sally’s cousin, Pam. She’d been a couple of years ahead of us in school. “How is Pam? I haven’t seen her in ages.”
“She’s good. Busy. You know, three kids in four years and a pretty intense job.”
“Is she a nurse too?”
“Forensic Pathologist. She works in Nashville.”
“In the Medical Examiner’s office?” Sally nodded, wincing at a particularly unfortunate key choice across the room. She leaned across the small, round table between our chairs. “I hate to break it to her, but this one’s not going to be touring the world with the New York Philharmonic any time soon.”
We shared a grin.
“I remember when I insisted on taking ballet lessons at age five. My mom kept trying to talk me out of it, but I wouldn’t bend.” I shuddered. “I’ve seen the video. It was horrific. Like watching an elephant dance the waltz.”
Sally laughed loudly, slapping her hand over her mouth when Belle glared her way. She mouthed “Sorry.”
“It was the violin for me. I hit notes nobody’s even invented yet with that thing. I’m pretty sure I scared all the feral cats away from our house that summer.”
I gave her a sympathetic wince. “So, did Pam get the leash for my realtor’s murder?”
Sally shrugged. “No idea. She won’t talk to me about her job. She works with the police in small towns all around Nashville, Indiana. Crocker, New Fredrickstown, Deer Hollow. But she’s the most likely person.”
We fell silent. I was wondering how I could ask her to try to find out the DNA result on Caphy’s leash for me.
Sally winced again at the “music” staining the air around us, suddenly turning to me. “Oh, did you hear about Junior Milliard?”
I nodded. “I’m sure he’s devastated about losing the store.”
“I’d say he’s devastated. That’s usually what suicide means.”
I blinked. “Wait? What?”
“Oh, sorry. I thought you’d heard, or I wouldn’t have been so abrupt. Yeah, he was rushed into the hospital this afternoon. He took an overdose of pills. Poor guy.”
“Will he be all right?”
“Physically, yeah. Fortunately, a customer found him in time. But mentally…” She sighed. “What kind of monster would steal someone’s livelihood? It’s evil.”
I couldn’t agree more. Then her words sank in. “Wait, you said a customer found him?”
“Yeah.” Sally shook her head. “He tried to kill himself right in the pharmacy aisle of Junior’s Market. He’s just lucky he forgot to lock the front door. Otherwise, that real estate lady might not have found him in time.”
My pulse shot into the stratosphere. “Real estate lady?”
“Yeah, Madge somebody.” Her eyes went wide. “Wait, isn’t she the dead lady’s partner? What are the chances of that?” Sally shook her head at the irony of it all.
“Yeah, that’s quite a coincidence,” I muttered. Trouble was, I didn’t believe in coincidences that big.
I was dying to tell Hal what I’d learned. But I let him give me the low-down on Edward first. “Mr. Johnston does financial planning consultations on the side,” Hal told me as soon as we were back in his car. “He says they don’t really need the money. They’ve got a good retirement saved, but he likes the work. It makes him feel useful.”
“I’m guessing that’s the same reason Belle still teaches piano.”
“Probably. Judging by the quality of her student’s output, it isn’t for the joy of the music.”
I chuckled. “You should have been in the same room with it.”
“I’ll bet.”
“Did he tell you why he was getting paid through Handy Loans?”
“Apparently, the firm that’s hiring him out owns the place. It’s just an easy way to move the money around.”
I thought about that. It seemed strange. “A good way to hide the transactions from the IRS maybe?”
“I’m going to dig a little deeper into that. I’ll call Pru and have her look into Mr. Johnston and Handy Loans.”
To my credit, I didn’t wince or roll my eyes. Prudence Frect was Hal’s friend at the FBI. She was just as her name implied—perfect. She was tall, agile, beautiful and smart.
I hated her guts.
“Who was that woman you were speaking to?” Hal asked, interrupting my jealous thoughts. “She looked familiar.”
“Sally Winthrop. And I’m sure you saw her in the hospital when you were attacked by the killer cat.”
“Ah, you’re right. I remember now. She wasn’t one of my nurses, but I couldn’t have missed the argument.”
I lifted my brows. “Argument?”
“Yeah, she was having a fight with a dark-haired woman in a lab coat about something. I couldn’t hear what the argument was about, but the other woman was really mad.”
“She seemed fine when I saw her in the waiting room. It was probably just a disagreement about patient care.”
“Probably. They were hugging by the time I left so they must have worked it out.”
I nodded. “I learned something interesting from Sally.”
“What’s that?”
“Junior Milliard’s in the hospital.”
Hal’s shocked gaze swung to mine. “How? Why?”
“Attempted suicide. Pills, apparently.”
Hal paled. “I should have seen that coming.” He hit the steering wheel with his hand. “He was so upset.”
“It’s not your fault, Hal. Junior was mad when we saw him. Not depressed. Besides, I’m not so sure it was a suicide attempt.” He pulled into my driveway and stopped the car, turning to me expectantly.
I didn’t make him wait. “You’ll never guess who found him and called 9-1-1?”
“Our favorite real estate agent?”
I frowned, kind of disappointed that he’d guessed. “Well, dang.”
Hal put the car into reverse and headed back out onto Goat’s Ho
llow Road. I didn’t ask him where we were headed. I had a pretty good idea I already knew.
Unfortunately, best-laid plans and all… Madge wasn’t in the office and the building was dark and locked up for the night. Hal put a call in to Arno asking for Madge’s address, but the deputy didn’t answer. He left a message and pulled out of the Deer Hollow Realtors lot.
“Where to now?” I asked.
“To speak to J…”
He never got to finish the sentence.
I saw a blur of movement to my right and, before I could turn my head to look at it, the world exploded into a chaos of grinding metal, sparks, flying glass, and pain. The last thing I remembered before everything went dark, was getting punched hard in the face, and the sound of squealing tires as the freight train that hit us made its getaway.
Chapter Twenty
Beeping.
Constant, annoying beeping. And disembodied voices filled with concern.
Those were the two things that greeted me as I slowly climbed back to consciousness. By the antiseptic stench and the constant movement that made real rest impossible, I knew I was in the hospital.
One voice, in particular, caught my attention and held, the deep, worried tones yanking me from unconsciousness like a slap to the face.
I tried to open my eyes, but they felt like they were weighted down.
A warm hand fell to my shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “Hey,” Hal said. “How do you feel?”
I swallowed the lump of cotton clogging my throat and managed to drag one eye open, then the other. The room spun a little and my stomach quaked. For a beat, I thought I was going to hurl. “Like I’ve been hit by a truck.”
“Well, you have. Or, at the very least, a big car. It’s all kind of a blur.”
I slowly turned my head. Even my neck hurt. Hal was sitting in a chair beside my bed, his dark gaze filled with worry. His face was swollen on one side, dried blood cutting across the scar on his temple and creating tracks leading to his chin. “You’re okay?” I asked him. “You look like you should be in a hospital bed.”
“I’m just a little dinged up. Your side took the worst of it.”
A throbbing soreness had me touching my nose, and I flinched. “Ouch. Who punched me?”
“That would be the airbag, I’m afraid. You got a one-two punch because of the angle of the attack.”
I thought about that for a minute, my mind still muzzy. Then his words clicked. “Attack?”
“Yeah, this wasn’t an accident. If my car hadn’t been so big and sturdy, we’d have probably both been killed.”
“But who…?” I let the question trail away, my mind not up to the task of completing it.
“I don’t know. Somebody appears to be cleaning house. I promise I’m going to find out.”
I closed my eyes, lying back on the pillow, and felt drowsiness pulling at me. “So tired…”
“They gave you pain meds. Rest. I’ll be right here.”
I nodded and, licking painfully dry lips, let myself fall into the dark, velvet-lined tunnel that beckoned me.
When I woke up again, it was pitch black beyond the glass of the room’s only window. I was lying on my side, my back to the door. A large man sat in the chair where I’d last seen Hal. But it wasn’t him.
“Hey,” the large man said.
I pushed against the unforgiving mattress and groaned as my bones and muscles objected to the movement.
Arno jumped up and reached out, gently helping me shift on the bed. When I was flat again, I glanced toward the door. “Hal?”
“He’s just grabbing some coffee. Can I get you anything?”
I shook my head. “No. But thanks. Have you caught the guy who hit us?”
“Not yet. Hal’s description of the vehicle is…unexceptional. I was hoping you’d gotten a better look.”
“No. All I can tell you is that it was dark and boxy.”
“Boxy like a van?”
“Maybe.”
He nodded. “That might help.” He sat staring at me for a long moment, his brown gaze filled with speculation.
“What?”
Arno glanced away. His big hands fidgeted on his legs. I noticed he was dressed in jeans and a tee-shirt instead of the brown and tan deputy’s uniform I was used to.
“Tell me, Arno.”
“It’s Madge Watson.”
The way he said it told me all I needed to know. I swallowed another ball of cotton before managing to ask, “Is she dead?”
“Too close for comfort. She’s in a coma. The doc thinks she’s likely.”
“Likely?”
“To die.”
“Oh. That’s bad, Arno. Her partner, Junior, now Madge.”
“Yeah, I agree with Hal that somebody’s cleaning house. Madge was found in her garden, her hand wrapped around the root of an aconitum plant. Highly toxic. Her gardening gloves were lying on the floor of her greenhouse. If she’d been wearing them, she’d have been fine.”
I frowned. “I’ve never heard of a flower called Aco…whatever.”
“Aconitum. You’d know it better as Monkshood. Beautiful but deadly. The root is the deadliest part of the plant. All she had to do was handle it and then rub her eyes or touch her lips.”
“It sounds like she was a serious gardener,” I pointed out. “She should have known better.”
“Exactly. This has a professional stink all over it, Joey.” He stared at me so intensely I knew he was telling me something important. But my brain couldn’t quite grasp what it was.
Then it clicked.
“Garland Medford.”
He nodded. “That would be my guess, yes.”
“And if he thinks he’s getting close to finding her?”
“He’ll keep killing until he does.”
My stomach roiled again, but it had nothing to do with the pain clenching my muscles. “You need to protect her, Arno.”
“I would, Joey, if I knew where she was.”
He held my gaze for a long moment. I had a decision to make, and it was the hardest one I’d probably ever make. If I sent Arno to my mother, I risked leading someone else to her too. I risked her life.
But if I didn’t send him, I was also risking her life.
What would my father want me to do? That was an easy one. My father never trusted others to do what we could do ourselves. He’d have sent Dev…
My gaze shot to Arno’s. “Devon.”
“No sign of him.”
“He’s protecting my mom. I need to trust that he can keep her safe. He’s done it for two years.”
Arno sighed. He looked hurt.
“It’s not that I don’t trust you, Arno.”
He stood up. “Except that you don’t trust me, Joey. You’ve made that abundantly clear.”
“No.” I tried to sit up and fell back with a gasp as agony swept through me. I reached a hand in his direction, willing him to stay and listen to what I had to say. “I do trust you. But every person who knows is a potential weak spot. Devon’s been able to keep her safe doing it his way for all these months. I want to trust him to keep doing just that. I trust you to find this jerk and take him down.”
The door behind Arno opened, and a nurse came in. She held a clipboard in her hands and wore a surgical mask. She nodded at Arno.
He turned away. “I’ll see you later.”
I watched him go and sighed. He didn’t understand my reluctance to let him in. I didn’t blame him. But I felt like I was doing the right thing.
“How are you feeling?” The nurse asked, her voice muffled behind the mask. She stood a few feet away, checking the information on the clipboard.
“Sore,” I told her.
“We can take care of that,” she responded. Her eyes smiled at me over the mask. “You’re due for pain meds anyway.”
I glanced at the IV line running into the back of my hand. “Is this really necessary?”
“It was. I’m sure we’ll be removing it later today.”
<
br /> There was a knock on the door and it opened. A man’s head poked through. I wasn’t sure if I knew him since he was wearing a mask like the nurse. The nurse slipped out of the room after murmuring something about coming back later.
The man I assumed was my doctor walked over and smiled down at me, his deep-set brown eyes crinkling at the corners. “I’m Doctor Lee. I’ve been assigned your case. How are you feeling, Ms. Fulle?”
“Fine.” I was getting tired of answering that question. “Can I go home?”
“We’ll see how you’re doing in a few hours. You have a mild concussion. We want to keep an eye on that for a while.”
I pointed to the mask. “Am I contagious? Everyone seems to be wearing those.”
He chuckled. “No. Sorry. But we do have a rather virulent flu going through Deer Hollow right now. It’s just a precaution.”
I nodded.
He patted my hand. “Well, I’ll be back to check on you in a few hours. You get some rest, okay?”
I nodded again, suddenly too drained to talk.
Doctor Lee nodded at someone in the hall as he stepped out of the room. A beat later, Hal came through the door carrying two Styrofoam cups. By the steam rising from the cups’ contents and the smell wafting ahead of him, I figured it was coffee. The smell made my stomach protest.
He offered me one of the cups. I shook my head. “Thanks, but I don’t think I could keep it down right now.”
“Nauseous?”
“A little.
He sat down on the chair next to the bed. “Doc told me you have a concussion and some bruised ribs.”
I gave him a tired grin. “So much for HIPPA.”
“Don’t blame him. I told him I was your fiancé.”
My stomach leaped at his words. It was all I could do to keep my expression neutral. I looked everywhere but at Hal.
“Arno’s got men out trying to find the driver who hit us.”
