Toni Donovan Mysteries- Books 1-3

by Helen Gray

  “What should we ask them?” Jeremy asked.

  “We want to know who collected fees and festival profits from them,” Toni explained.

  “Got it!” Dack gave her a high five.

  Jeremy and Q nodded and grinned.

  “Thanks.” Toni turned to leave.

  “Tonight I’m going to ask my mom if she knows where Charity Haven is,” Dack said.

  Toni paused and turned back to face him.

  “She sells real estate and knows a lot about property in the area,” the boy explained.

  “I’ll talk to my dad about the car,” Q offered. “Have him look up part numbers and anything else he can think of that might help us.”

  “I just thought of one more thing you might check,” Toni said, indicating all three of them. “If any of you could find out who Reverend Goldman’s girlfriend was before he started seeing nurse Vickers, I’d be interested in knowing.”

  Dack formed a circle with an index finger and thumb. “Gotcha!”

  *

  Sunday morning Toni woke with a dull pounding in the back of her head. She reached back and massaged the area with her fingers. It didn’t help, so she struggled out of bed and groped her way to the bathroom. She was just swallowing two capsules when Kyle’s arms came around her from behind.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Looking up, Toni could see their blurry images in the mirror of the medicine cabinet. “Headache,” she moaned, leaning back against his chest.

  “Too much work and hot sun yesterday. Where’s the pain?”

  “Back of my skull.” She reached up with one hand and pinpointed the spot.

  He rubbed a thumb and finger up and down her neck in a soothing massage. “I’d say why don’t you go back to bed and skip church this morning, but it’s Mother’s Day, and I happen to know a couple of young fellows who have something they want to present to their mother. So why don’t you go back to bed and let those pills kick in? I’ll have cereal with those fellows, and then we’ll come wake you.”

  Toni turned and gave him a soft hug. “I accept.”

  Thirty minutes later Toni opened her eyes, awakened by the sound of whispers. The boys stood a few feet from her bed, holding a box between them. Kyle leaned against the door frame behind them.

  “We made you something for Mother’s Day,” Gabe said. He and Garrett edged closer, both of them staring at her in grave concern.

  “Are you sick, Mom?” Garrett asked quietly.

  “No, I’m fine,” Toni said, moving her head around experimentally and discovering that she really was. She smiled in relief.

  “Here.” The boys shoved the box at her.

  Toni looked inside. It was a bug box. They had cut a rectangular block of wood—she suspected with help—for the bottom. The two narrow ends were wooden, with a hole and small sliding door in one of them. The top was a dome of mesh over the rounded tops of the wooden ends. They had painted the wood bright orange.

  “Now you can store bugs for Lizzie and Snappy when you bring them home for the summer.” Gabe referred to the lizard and turtle that lived in her classroom during the school term.

  “I thought a caffeine fix might clear your head.” Kyle set a Coke on the bedside table next to her. Then he handed her a clear plastic box that contained a red corsage.

  “You have plenty of shoes to match it,” Garrett said seriously.

  “Yes, I do.” Toni reached out and pulled both boys to her. She gave them each a quick hug and released them, since they were getting old enough to resist anything resembling babying.

  She got up and gave Kyle his hug. When he and the boys left the room, she dressed in a white suit with a red shell blouse and strappy red heels. Then she pinned the corsage to her lapel and felt extremely coordinated—and blessed—as she went to church with her family.

  After the service they stopped at the Zinger and ate, and were home by one-thirty. Fifteen minutes later Buck’s patrol car pulled into their driveway.

  “I should be back by three-thirty or four,” she called to her family as she hurried out the door.

  Buck had started up the walk to the door, but stopped as she emerged. “Glad you’re ready,” he said, turning back to the patrol car. He opened the passenger door, and Toni slid into the seat.

  He backed out of the drive, drove the short distance to the highway, and turned right. At the edge of town he turned north, drove a few miles into the country, and turned onto a long paved driveway that ended in a clearing with a small white-framed church nestled in the center of it.

  One outbuilding stood next to the church, and the paved parking lot extended across the front of both buildings. Facing the church at the edge of the parking lot was a small cemetery with a low stone wall across the front of it, and a gate at its center.

  There were several cars parked in the lot, and more arriving. Toni and Buck ascended the three concrete steps of the church into a small foyer and turned left into the sanctuary. The church was small, and filling rapidly. An aisle separated two rows of about a dozen pews each. Red carpet covered the floor. There was no casket or urn.

  A pulpit stood in the center of a wide, low stage, with a communion table on the floor in front of it that held a large basket with an arrangement of yellow artificial flowers. Smaller matching arrangements sat on the organ at the left of the stage and the piano at the right. The organ played softly.

  Toni and Buck slid into a pew two rows behind the front family pew where a woman who had to be Mrs. Goldman sat rigidly in the center. She wore a navy dress, and her salt and pepper hair was done up in an elaborate, old fashioned beehive style. Two ladies flanked her, whether family members or simply church members there to provide support, Toni could only guess.

  A ladies ensemble stood behind the piano and sang an appropriate selection to begin the service. It was followed by several eulogies, delivered by members who shared personal experiences with the departed, speaking of his contributions to their church and community and how much he had meant to them personally.

  The pastor who had only been with the church a few months delivered a message of comforting words and promises of a heavenly future. When the address ended, the organ began to play again, and there were sounds of weeping. Ahead of them, Mrs. Goldman’s shoulders shook, and the ladies with her spoke to her softly. One wrapped her arms around the weeping woman.

  Toni and Buck stood as the pastor walked down the aisle to the exit, and then people began to file out, shaking hands with the pastor as they passed him at the doorway. Toni and Buck made their way out to the foyer and paused by the wall, looking back as Mrs. Goldman was escorted slowly down the aisle, tears streaming down her face. The woman and her companions were the last ones to exit.

  Toni swallowed to prevent tears of her own. She thought about her own sons and how she would feel if something happened to one or both of them. The thought was beyond bearing. This poor woman had lost her only child, leaving her alone. What would she do? How would she deal with it?

  When the ladies reached the doorway, Toni stepped toward them, extending a hand. “Mrs. Goldman, I am so sorry for your loss.”

  The woman looked up, brushing awkwardly at her eyes and cheeks. One of her companions slipped a fresh tissue into her hand. She wiped her eyes and tucked the tissue in a side pocket of her purse.

  Buck stepped up beside her. “I’m sorry also,” he said gruffly, holding out a big hand.

  Mrs. Goldman held onto Toni’s hand and placed her other one in Buck’s big paw, studying his uniform.

  “I’m Buck Freeman, the Chief of Police,” he said, and then nodded at Toni. “This is Toni Donovan, the lady whose students found him.”

  The woman’s eyes went shut, squeezing out more tears. “I’m sorry,” she said, reopening them in a misty stare. “I just don’t understand what happened, or how it could have happened.”

  “Nor do we,” Buck said. “But we’re going to do everything we can to find out.”

  The ber
eaved woman eyed Buck with sharper interest. “I don’t remember meeting you when I was at the police station after Brock disappeared.”

  “I was on vacation,” he explained briefly. “I wish things had been different.” He glanced at the small love seat behind them in the foyer. “Do you feel up to talking to us for just a couple of minutes?”

  “I suppose so,” she said woodenly, letting him lead her to the seat and ease her down onto it. He sat beside her.

  Toni and the other ladies stood discreetly by the door, about six feet from them.

  “Mrs. Goldman, when was the last time you saw your son?” he asked.

  “My name is Margaret,” she said in a weak croak. “Brock came to see me the week before that big festival thing he was involved in that year. It was my fifty-eighth birthday, and he brought me a new car. One that I didn’t really need,” she added as fresh tears tracked down her cheeks. “The one I had was good enough, but he was always doing things for me.”

  “He sounds like a wonderful son,” Buck said, patting her hand.

  “He was,” she said proudly, pulling her purse onto her lap and reaching inside it. She pulled out an envelope, removed two photographs from it, and handed them to him. “That second one was taken right after he bought the house for me.”

  Buck looked at the pictures, motioned for Toni to step closer, and passed them to her. The first one looked to be a picture of Brock taken for his high school yearbook. He was a handsome boy, thick dark hair and large dark eyes. A face full of life. The second was of an adult Brock standing beside his mother in front of a large, expensive looking house.

  Toni wondered how a lowly preacher could have afforded the things he had done for his mother. What kind of son could treat his mother so lavishly and end up the way he had?

  “My husband died when Brock was only nine,” Mrs. Goldman was saying. “Dave was a hard worker and good provider, but he got cancer and died within a year. Brock and I became extra close after that. He was a good boy, but I was so afraid of something happening to him that I spoiled him. He was all I had,” she explained, glancing up and making eye contact with Toni.

  Toni considered her own boys and her parenting skills. Was she doing a good job? Or was she spoiling them? Was she too strict? Was she too lenient? Every child was so different and faced such different circumstances. It was hard to find the right balance.

  “I had a job,” Mrs. Goldman continued. “I still do. I work in the bakery of a supermarket. I don’t think Brock was comfortable with it. He liked nice things, and when he got old enough to provide them for us, he did. I taught him to pray for things, and he did. But he also worked hard and preached the gospel to people. How could someone kill him?” Her body shaking with grief, she tugged the tissue back out of her purse.

  Buck waited while she wept. “Do you know what kind of things he was involved in other than the church, anything that would have paid him enough to afford the kind of things he did for you?” he asked when she regained some composure.

  She shook her head slowly. “I’m not sure. I know he had a lot of speaking engagements in some large churches around the state. Not long after he came down here, he seemed excited about being asked to do counseling for some organization where he could do a lot of good. But that last time I saw him, when I asked him how that was going, he didn’t seem as excited. He just said it was okay and didn’t seem to want to talk about it. So I dropped the subject.”

  Buck exchanged a quick glance with Toni before his next question. “Did he ever mention any names of the people he was working with at this organization?”

  She shook her head again. “I don’t remember any.”

  “How long was he missing before you felt that something was wrong?”

  Mrs. Goldman shuddered, and had to compose herself again. “He always called me at least once a week. When he didn’t call that first week after I last saw him, I didn’t think too much about it, since I knew he was so involved in your festival. When I didn’t hear from him the next week, I knew something was wrong. I called everyone I could think of, but I couldn’t find out anything. That’s when I came down here. It would have been the last of October, just before Halloween. It had turned real cold.”

  “What did you do when you arrived here?”

  “I didn’t know many people here, just the ones I had met here at the church,” she explained, twisting the tissue in her hands. “I talked to some of them, and they were upset because he had taken off without a trace. They said he had moved all his things out of the parsonage and disappeared without a word to anyone. I told them it wasn’t right, and they got real worried, but they didn’t know what to do. That’s when I went to your police station and reported him missing. Your people were nice enough and said they would do whatever investigating they could, but they didn’t give me any assurance of anything.”

  “I wish I could offer you more encouragement now,” Buck said. “But we’re going to do everything we can to apprehend whoever killed him.”

  She studied him bleakly. “I’m sure you will, but it won’t bring him back.” She got to her feet. “I need to go somewhere I can lie down. I’m not feeling well, and I have to drive home tomorrow.”

  The ladies beside Toni went to her immediately and led her outside to a waiting car.

  “My heart aches with sympathy for her,” Toni said as she and Buck settled inside the patrol car.

  “We’ll catch the sick soul who did it,” he growled, starting the engine and backing up to turn around.

  “Oh, shucks!” Toni said as a thought occurred to her. “I got so caught up in the emotions of everything that I forgot to ask Mrs. Goldman who Brock was dating when he first came here.”

  “I’ll give you her phone number.”

  “What’s next?” she asked.

  He sighed. “When you know there’s murder, and you know there’s the smell of money, what do you do?”

  “Follow the money?” She gave him a wry grin as she quoted the familiar phrase.

  “Right.” He nodded and turned onto the highway. “I need to talk to Evan Hicks again, see if he’ll examine Brock’s accounts more closely. I’d like to know what kind of deposits he made over time and whether there’s any indication of the sources of his money.”

  “What about Charity Haven? Wouldn’t it be helpful to know about their finances?”

  “I’ll see what I can find out.”

  That evening Toni was getting ready to go to bed when the phone rang. Kyle was standing by it, so he answered. “Just a moment.” He carried it over and handed it to her. “One of your students,” he whispered.

  She took it. “Hello.”

  “Hello, Mrs. Donovan. Dack here. I got a name for you this afternoon. A girl I’ve dated before, Debbie Conine, is a member of the Temple of Light Church. Today I took her out to the club to hit a few golf balls and splash in the pool. When I asked her about her former preacher, she said some really nice things about him. She said the members really loved him, except for one guy who gave him a hard time and finally left the church.”

  “Did she say why he left?”

  “She said he—the preacher, that is—dated the guy’s daughter. Her name is Hillary Dayton. Anyhow, not too long after he and Hillary moved down here, he dropped her and started going with Nurse Vickers, and Hillary went back to St. Louis. After that Mr. Dayton turned sour. He blamed Reverend Goldman for mistreating his daughter, and he quit attending church.”

  “Thanks for telling me,” Toni said, starting to disconnect, but pausing when he continued talking.

  “I asked my mom if she knows anything about a place around here for pregnant girls. She’s not sure exactly where it is, but she said she remembers hearing talk about some kind of home like that out in the country toward Brownville. Now Mom’s wondering what’s going on. I may see if the guys want to help me find it.”

  Toni grinned at his running speech. “Don’t do anything that’ll get us in trouble,” she cautioned.


  “We won’t,” he promised blithely. “See you at the game tomorrow afternoon.”

  *

  Monday morning Kyle left early, saying he expected to be home Friday night. Toni felt lethargic as she and the boys headed for school. When she entered the building a few minutes later, it felt odd. Having the seniors gone left the halls eerily empty. Also, she didn’t have to hurry to class, because she no longer had one first hour. The day would also end early for her, since her seventh hour class had been all seniors.

  Restless, and unaccustomed to having so much free time, Toni wasn’t quite sure what she should be doing. Her mind skipped from one matter to another—and one person to another. There were just too many suspects—and two more people she hadn’t even talked to yet. Keith Ryker and Hillary Dayton’s dad might not be suspects, but she needed to talk to them anyhow.

  She reached for her purse and dug out her cell phone, along with the phone number Buck had given her yesterday. Then she left her room, went out to the parking lot where she could get a signal, and dialed Mrs. Goldman. After ten rings she sighed and gave up. Obviously the woman had not returned home yet.

  Chapter 13

  “See you in a jiff.” Dack disconnected and tossed his cell phone onto the passenger seat beside him. With a deft motion he steered the red Mustang into the parking lot and pulled up in front of the police station. He turned off the engine and waited.

  A minute and a half later a small white Ranger pickup, driven by Jeremy Barnes, pulled up beside him. Seconds after that a blue extended cab pickup arrived from the opposite direction and pulled into the next spot in the row. Q Lakowski was behind the wheel.

  All three boys hopped out of their vehicles and met at the door of the station. Each wore their usual baggy shorts, tee shirts, and leather sandals.

  “Let’s rock!” Dack raised a fist in the air and tapped it against Q’s and Jeremy’s upraised palms. Then he turned, opened the door, and led them inside the building.

  “Good morning,” he greeted the officer at the desk inside the door, strutting his role as the trio’s self-declared spokesman. “We’re supposed to pick up something from the chief. Is he in?”