Toni Donovan Mysteries- Books 1-3

by Helen Gray

  “What are we going to do with them?” Charity asked. “We can’t kill them. Things are already too hot.”

  “Go inside and start packing. I’ll take care of them.”

  The women left.

  Hudson glared at the boys. Then he turned and went out the door, leaving it ajar, a fact that, added to his manner, indicated he would be right back.

  The boys began struggling to free themselves.

  Through the haze of panic, Dack stopped struggling and studied their surroundings the best he could in the near dark. Peering closely, he spied some kind of tool hanging on the wall. Inspiration struck.

  Driven by desperation, he rolled to the wall, managed to get into a sitting position, and then backed up against the wall. He worked his way to his feet and turned. He peered closer at what he could now see was a pair of hedge clippers hanging from a big nail.

  As soon as he had steadied himself, he raised his arms, pushed up onto his tiptoes, and worked his hands over it. Then he pulled with all his weight, praying the nail was strong and embedded deep enough to hold. As the bungee cord stretched, he slowly worked his hands through the loop. Once free, he yanked the towel from his face and grappled in haste to untie his ankles.

  By the time he turned to free Q, Jeremy had scooted to the wall and worked his way to his feet to duplicate the process. Within another minute they were free and sidling out the door.

  *

  Kyle opened the patio door and stuck his head inside the kitchen. “I’m going to run down to the store and get another bottle of barbecue sauce. I’ll be back in about five minutes.”

  When he disappeared, John entered. “What can I can do to make myself useful?”

  “You can put these around the table.” Toni handed him a stack of brightly patterned cloth napkins, not the paper things they normally used.

  The land line rang as she went to the dining room. A thread of apprehension made her afraid to answer it. “Hello.”

  “Toni, this is Gerald Murphy. I hate to bother you, but I’m feeling real uneasy about the boys. What’s going on? Do you know? They were in Dack’s room this afternoon. I got the impression they’d been there a long time. A little while ago they came outside, seeming excited and in a hurry. I heard them talking about having it figured out, whatever it is, and needing proof. They piled into Q’s truck and took off. The more I think about it, the more it bothers me. I’m afraid they’re still messing around with that murder case.”

  Toni hesitated a moment, not wanting to tell the man that she was worried about the same possibility. “I think I’ll call Chief Freeman and see if he’s aware of anything. If they’re up to something, maybe they’ve called him.”

  She could hear Gerald’s sigh, not necessarily of relief, but at having her respond to his concern.

  When Toni hung up the house phone, she switched to her cell that had Buck’s cell number programmed into it and dialed him. She repeated what Gerald had told her. “Jeremy called me earlier and said the boys think Charity, Vickers, and Hudson have Goldman’s belongings stored somewhere and are getting ready to dispose of them.”

  “How do they know that?”

  “I don’t know. Jeremy was evasive. I warned him that those people are dangerous, but I’m afraid they’re snooping around again.”

  “You’re probably right,” Buck said in heavy resignation. “I’m in the middle of an important interview right now, but I’ll make a run out to Charity Haven as soon as I finish it.”

  When Toni disconnected this time, she turned to face John, who stood in the dining room door, still holding the napkins and listening. “Did you get the drift of that?”

  He nodded. “Loud and clear. Do you think it’s urgent enough that we should go look for the boys?”

  Toni hesitated only a moment. “My gut says it is.”

  He dropped the napkins on the cabinet. “Let’s go.”

  Toni glanced over at Jenny.

  She motioned for them to leave. “I’ll keep an eye on supper and the boys. When Kyle gets back, I’ll tell him where you’ve gone and that he should call the police and ask them to send help to the maternity home.”

  “My van,” Toni called over her shoulder as she ran to get her purse and keys. Within moments they were on the road.

  When Toni pulled up and parked in front of Charity Haven, it was dusky outside and darkening fast. Lights were already on inside the house, as was the porch light. As she and John stepped from the van and started toward the house, she quoted under her breath, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of death, I will fear no evil.”

  As they marched up the sidewalk, Damien Hudson came around the corner of the house, moving fast.

  Startled, Toni made a sharp intake of breath and stopped abruptly.

  Hudson did the same, a look of startled dismay crossing his face. But he recovered quickly. “You certainly do get around,” he snapped frigidly.

  “We’re looking for three boys who may have come out here,” Toni said without preamble. “Have you seen them?”

  “I’m too busy to help you keep track of your errant students,” he snapped in haughty irritation.

  “I think you know where they are,” Toni said, refusing to back off, even though she sensed an air of desperation in the man. “You may as well tell us, because the police are on the way.”

  His eyes blinked rapidly, and his mouth turned up in a big-toothed snarl. “Go back where you came from. There’s nothing here that’s any of your business.”

  “Murder is all our business,” she shot back. “We know that you and your two women cronies killed Reverend Goldman.”

  “You don’t have any proof of such a wild accusation,” he hissed in barely suppressed fury.

  At that moment Toni glimpsed a shadow at the corner of the house behind the man. Then she saw a flash of red hair. She experienced a rush of relief at evidence that the boys must be there and all right. But she also knew a jolt of fear, praying they would stay concealed.

  “We have lots of proof,” she said, being careful to keep her eyes from straying any more to the spot where she thought the boys were hiding. “You’ve been running a baby brokering business out here. Doctor and birth records have already been checked and DNA tests ordered on adopted babies. You paid for the moving of Goldman’s household goods, and you had access to his accounts. Your name is on a fraudulent bank account the police are examining. Donnie Fisher and Austin Gorman are going to give you up for having them dispose of your victim’s car and sabotaging the vehicle of one of those boys.” She was running a bluff there, but it was worth adding to her list.

  He listened, as if thunderstruck, as she rattled off her proofs.

  “Your mistress lost her pin off her uniform when she helped you dump the body,” she concluded.

  “That’s not how it was,” he snapped in angry defeat, giving up on denying knowledge of what she was talking about. “She killed him, and I helped her cover up her crime. You can’t condemn a man for trying to protect his lover.”

  “As an attorney you know that’s hogwash,” Toni declared fiercely. “When the police search your possessions I wouldn’t be surprised if they find the gun that was used to shoot him.”

  “No, they won’t,” came a harsh feminine voice. Nurse Vickers stepped through the doorway, where she had to have heard him lay the blame on her. From the porch she held a gun out in front of her, gripped tightly in both hands. She inched forward, and then worked her way down the steps onto the walk, stopping a few yards from them.

  “What really happened,” she cried in a voice taut with anger and betrayal, “is that you and Goldman got into a big argument. The crux of it was that the preacher was pulling out and going back to St. Louis to take care of poor Hillary, and he threatened to tell the police everything he knew if you tried to stop him.”

  “Shut up!” he screamed.

  “No!” she shouted back, Toni and John momentarily forgotten in their revealing tirade. “We had a good thing
going here, but we needed a clergy person to help convince girls to give up their babies so they could be taken care of, placed in homes with people who had plenty of money to educate them and care for them, keep them from growing up in slums and without a set of parents. You already had several schemes going, but you wanted in on ours as well. I had asked you to represent us in some paperwork. You came on to me, and I fell for your line. So you stepped in and picked out the dandy, and then introduced me to him so I could get him involved.”

  Quite a little intimate triangle.

  “But you got in a fight with him and killed him, then came running to me to help you get him off the premises.” With that statement Vickers seemed to deflate.

  The next act came without warning. The nurse suddenly swung the gun around and fired it directly at Hudson. As he was propelled backward by the force of the bullet, she swung the gun back around toward her own head.

  Before she could pull the trigger, John sprang at her in a flying tackle, catching her in the thighs and sending her sprawling sideways to the ground. One leg flew up in an arc, and the force of her landing sent the gun sailing across the concrete walk.

  Toni scooped it up and pointed it at the pair on the ground. She wasn’t all that sure how to use it, but she figured holding it there would keep Vickers from trying anything.

  John untangled himself from the woman and scrambled to his feet.

  “I think the boys are around the side of the house,” Toni told him. Now that John was on his feet, she took one hand from the gun, pulled her cell phone from her pocket, and dialed nine-one-one.

  “We’re here, and we heard and saw it all,” Dack called, coming into view from around the corner of the house, his two friends behind him.

  “Hey!” Jeremy shouted, pointing. “Look!”

  A figure ran from the back of the house, crossing the yard toward the white station wagon Toni had seen Charity drive.

  “She’s getting away,” one of the boys yelled. All three ran toward the vehicle.

  Charity yanked the door open and jumped inside the station wagon, started it, and backed it up. She was just rolling forward when the boys raced alongside her.

  Jeremy grabbed and yanked at the driver door that Charity, in her rush, had not yet locked.

  As soon as it came open, Dack reached in, grabbed the woman’s arm, and jerked her out of the car. She screamed as she hit the ground in a heap.

  Q vaulted inside the rolling vehicle. He braked it to a stop, and then crawled back out.

  At that moment Toni heard police sirens and looked around to see flashing lights coming up the road from below the turnoff.

  Suddenly Q broke away from the scene by the station wagon and went bounding up the steps of the house. He made his way through the huddle of frightened girls who had gathered on the porch, opened the door, and dashed inside. A few moments later he emerged and returned to his friends, tucking a cell phone into the holder on his belt.

  When two police cars came flying up the lane, Toni finally breathed a sigh of relief.

  Epilogue

  “I understand you had some excitement before I got home. Why don’t you bring me up to date?”

  Russell Nash strode across the living room, carrying a cup of coffee in his left hand and supporting it with his right. He still had some weakness in his right arm and leg, but they were getting stronger every day.

  It was Sunday afternoon, and Toni’s family and Buck Freeman had gathered in the Nash home for lunch and a visit with Russell after his return from the hospital the day before. Toni had brought the picnic lunch of fried chicken and potato salad. The boys had already gone outside to play.

  Buck, sitting in one of the recliners, shrugged. “Toni and her boys had everything under control when we got there.”

  “Is Hudson going to make it?” Russell asked his old friend.

  “He’s in bad shape. The bullet nicked his lung. Thanks to the EMT’s, he should survive. But his troubles are just beginning. His wife has already started moving out. He’ll hire a top gun to defend him, unless his pals all abandon him in light of the myriad of charges and evidence against him.”

  “Have you had a chance to check that gun yet?” Toni asked.

  Buck nodded. “It matches the bullet from the crime scene, and it’s registered to Hudson. Our search of the house also turned up some interesting documents and records we’ll be examining in detail. Our computer guy says Charity’s computer history shows hundreds of visits to adoption related discussion boards and chat rooms.”

  “It’s hard to believe such things were going on right under our noses,” Faye commented sadly, her head moving back and forth.

  “The women, Charity and Vickers, are singing like divas,” Buck continued. “Of course, they’re spouting their philosophy of how they were rendering such a service by taking care of those babies.”

  “Sounds to me like outright baby trafficking and taking care of their own greed,” Faye snorted.

  “What about those other two guys, Donnie Fisher and Austin Gorman?” Kyle asked.

  “They’ve both been arrested for their roles,” Buck said. “Their guilt may be tough to prove, but we’ll sure try. On the other hand, they might be persuaded to work some kind of deal for their testimony. My gut says they knew the voice on the phone.”

  “What about Cindy and Melanie’s babies?” Toni asked.

  Buck frowned. “The DNA tests match, but the girls, however unknowingly, signed release forms. It’s all a big mess and we’re not sure where all the threads will lead, or what amount of justice can be achieved. The courts are going to be jammed with cases. We’ll just have to wait for the wheels of justice to grind. Some of it will be battled in the courts for years.”

  “You know,” Russell said in slow contemplation. “It’s horrible and sad that a man of prayer was preyed upon. Do you think he was really a bad guy?”

  Buck shook his head. “Based on my memories of the man, and what I’ve learned in the course of the investigation, I think he was initially blinded by money, and then by an enticing woman. He didn’t realize what he was getting into and bought into their self-serving philosophies about helping children. When he finally figured things out and tried to quit, he ended up dead.”

  In a sudden move Kyle reached back to his hip pocket and pulled out an envelope. “Here,” he said, handing it to Toni. “After you left the house with your load of food this morning, Dack Murphy came by and gave me this. I stuck it in my pocket and forgot about it.”

  Curious, Toni took it and opened it. What she removed was a paid receipt for a year’s family membership at the country club. It was made out to her and Kyle, and there was a sticky note on it that said simply Thanks. It was signed by Gerald Murphy.

  THE END

  Coached

  in

  Murder

  by

  Helen Gray

  COACHED IN MURDER

  Copyright @ 2017 by Helen Gray

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any reviews, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. Any references to historical figures, places, or events, whether fictional or actual, is a fictional representation.

  Cover by Cynthia Hickey

  “In your anger do not sin”: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry,

  Ephesians 4:26 (NIV)

  Chapter 1

  “I dreamed about the fire chief last night.”

  Nine-year-old Garrett’s words from the back seat made Toni Donovan swive
l her head toward Kyle, who was driving the van down Springfield, Missouri’s Lone Pine Avenue. Their eyes locked.

  The eeriest feeling, a tiny chill of premonition, wormed its way up her spine. She read a similar reaction in her husband’s quick glance. Green eyed, with sandy hair that he kept cut in a short, almost military, style, he still made her heart beat faster after thirteen years of marriage.

  “What fire chief?” eleven-year-old Gabe asked.

  “I don’t know, just a chief.”

  Kyle steered into the parking lot of Sequiota Park, but his somber expression told Toni that they were sharing memories of two stressful incidents of the past year and a half.

  When their school superintendent back home in Clearmount disappeared, Garrett had dreamed about something big and black near Harry Rabbit, an injured rabbit he and Gabe had found, nursed, and then buried in Toni’s body farm, a plot back of the high school where her forensics class put bodies of animals and observed the rates at which they skeletonized. The missing superintendent’s body had been found in a shallow grave near Harry Rabbit.

  The second incident had occurred after a trio of Toni’s students found some human bones during a field trip the following spring. Later, after Garrett had mentioned dreaming about finding gold by the water, it turned out that the victim’s name was Brock Goldman, and his remains had been found near the creek.

  Recalling the uncanny connections didn’t exactly frighten Toni, but they made the muscles inside her vibrate with a sensation of impending---what? She had ended up getting personally involved in both of those incidents. Well, nothing was going to happen here. Those cases had been there in her hometown where she knew the people involved. Here she knew no one beyond her husband’s family and the students in the summer class she was teaching at the community college. Nothing like that could possibly affect them here. She shook off the thoughts and breathed easier.