by Sonia Parin
“You should know we’ve taken Jon Reeds into custody.”
Surprised by the information, she nodded. “I’ll talk to you… whenever.” Joshua had never been short tempered with her. She wouldn’t make a big deal out of it because she understood he was under pressure.
She checked the time. “Too early for Joyce to be opened. Let’s go for a walk.” She refused to read too much into Joshua’s attitude. He had a job to do, Abby insisted. She looked down at Doyle. “Actually, I’m not sure what that was all about.”
She shielded her eyes against the rising sun and, thinking she saw someone walking ahead, she looked into the distance.
“That looks like Joyce.” Abby hurried her pace and caught up with her. “Top of the morning to you.” Abby looked down at the large box on wheels she was pulling. “Are you leaving town?”
“No, these are the Christmas decorations. I thought I might get an early start. And, since you’re here, you might as well help me. Unless, of course, you have something better to do.”
No, she didn’t. “Happy to help.”
“Really?”
“I think I’ve been made redundant, so I’m footloose and fancy free.”
“I’m almost afraid to ask, but then my name wouldn’t be Joyce Breeland. What’s up?”
“I think I’ve overstepped.”
“Oh, I do that all the time. Don’t worry about it. I’m guessing Joshua is responsible. Well, his loss is my gain.”
They reached the park and Abby helped Joyce haul the box up the couple of steps to the stage area where a ladder stood waiting for her.
“I see you’re organized.”
“Yes, Bradford used it last night to set up the lights.”
“Um. I’m good at holding the ladder.”
Joyce laughed. “I guess that means you’re not good with heights.”
“I prefer to focus on my strengths. Tinsel or decorations first?”
“Tinsel.”
Abby opened the box. “Wow. These look great.” She picked up a snowflake made out of paper.
“The local school kids made it their project this year. They thought paper decorations would be kinder on the tree. Come on, the sooner we do this, the sooner we can have a proper breakfast.”
“That sounds good to me.” To her surprise, she managed to go an hour without thinking about the case or worrying about Joshua. Stepping back, Abby tilted her head from side to side. “Is there something missing?”
“Yes, the star, but that goes up tonight.” Joyce closed the lid on the box and straightened. “It’s already too warm to be out and about. Time for breakfast.”
Doyle, who’d been stretched out under the shade of a tree, got to his feet and walked on ahead of them.
Crossing the street was all it took for everything Abby had been trying to ignore to resurface. “Stevie Garth.”
“What about him?”
“Bradford said there’s a story about him and Harold and you’d know all about it.”
“Story? He must have been thinking about Harold taking him under his wings when Stevie’s parents died in a car accident. Poor Stevie. They were his adoptive parents. Imagine losing his parents twice. Anyhow, Harold took him in as an apprentice. Everyone actually thought he might have been his lovechild. Well, by everyone I actually meant me.”
“Really?”
“Oh, yeah. The resemblance is there.”
“How old is he?”
“Let me think… Thirty.”
Thirty.
Why did that ring a bell?
Chapter 19
“Gloria said she stood on solid ground,” Abby mused and remembered they’d been standing in the room with all the Christmas photos when she’d made that claim. Sitting back, she scrolled through the photos for the umpteenth time. “Oh.”
“Oh, what?” Joyce asked.
Leaning forward, she showed them to Joyce. “What do you see?”
She watched Joyce studying the images. Her face changed from relaxed to focused with various expressions in-between.
“Oh,” Joyce exclaimed.
“Oh?”
“Look,” Joyce pointed at a picture with Gloria holding a baby. “Her face looks slightly plump. Almost as if she’s put on weight.” She scrolled through the photos and stopped to point to another one. “And here. She’s holding her second baby and again she looks plump.”
That’s what Abby had seen but she’d wanted someone else’s opinion.
In the photos taken after the birth of her babies, Gloria had looked slightly plump. While in all the other photos, Gloria had looked slim. All expect one other…
Joyce had scrolled back to the beginning. She set the phone down and they both looked at the first photo taken, presumably soon after her marriage to George Mercer.
She looked to be about twenty years old.
Tapping the phone, Joyce said, “Then, there’s this photo.”
Just to be sure, Abby asked, “Are you suggesting she had three pregnancies?”
“Maybe. Then again, I remember being rosy cheeked with a plump face in my twenties. Then I developed my cheekbones.”
Abby’s eyebrows curved up. “How do you actually develop them?”
“I stopped eating sugar, meaning, I cut out all sweets. My excess puppy fat fell away and my cheekbones emerged.”
“I guess I’m still holding on to my baby fat.”
“Nonsense. You have wonderful cheekbones, just not as chiseled as mine.”
“Is this how rumors start?”
“What do you mean?” Joyce asked.
“You’re saying she had a baby before her marriage to George Mercer…”
“I’m saying it. You’re saying it. Soon enough, everyone will be saying it.”
Abby gasped. Then she shot to her feet. “Oh. Oh. Oh.”
“Where are you going?”
“If you don’t hear back from me in thirty minutes, call Joshua.”
“Do you realize what this means, Doyle?” Abby checked for traffic and then made a turn into the main street. She had been so excited by the idea, she hadn’t stopped to complain about the heat in her car.
“Gloria had a secret love child. What do you think she did with it?” She glanced down but Doyle didn’t show the slightest interest in her newsflash. “She put him up for adoption. That’s my guess.”
It would now be up to Gloria Mercer to deny it.
She checked the time. She had fifteen minutes to get to the Mercer house and then fifteen minutes to get a confession out of Gloria Mercer.
She couldn’t miss the opportunity and she didn’t see how it would affect Joshua’s investigation. In fact, if she convinced Gloria to tell the truth, it might even help him with the case.
With only a few minutes to go before she arrived, she remembered Joshua had a police officer stationed outside Harold’s house which happened to be on a property next to the Mercer farm.
“If we’re lucky, he might be looking the other way when we drive by. It’s a fifty-fifty risk and I’m willing to take it. Just don’t roll your eyes at me, I’m going to duck.”
As she turned into the Mercer’s driveway, she checked her rearview mirror but didn’t see a police car trying to prevent her from entering the Mercer property.
She checked her phone. “Fifteen minutes, Abby, and counting.” Winding down her window, she reached for the buzzer and pressed it. No one answered but she now noticed the gate stood open.
“An open invitation? Enter at your own risk?” She tapped her fingers on the steering wheel. “Call me a fool, but I have to go in.”
Doyle sat up, his ears pricked up.
Halfway along the drive, her phone rang. She glanced at it and saw the caller ID. “Joshua.”
“We’ve got a confession out of Jon Reed. I thought you might like to know.”
“A confession to ambushing me?” Abby asked, not quite believing what he’d told her.
“Yes.”
“Did he say wh
y he broke into Harold’s house?”
“He was looking for Harold’s other phone. Anyhow, he also confessed to killing Harold.”
Her instinct kicked in and she asked, “Who’s he covering for?”
“That’s what I’d like to know.”
Hearing Joshua’s skepticism, Abby’s shoulders relaxed. That’s when it hit her.
She and Joyce had uncovered a truth worth killing for. Abby slowed down and brought the car to a stop under the shade of a tall pine tree.
She had been so excited by their findings, she hadn’t really stopped to think what it might all mean.
“What is a confession worth to him?” she asked. “What would make a man give up his freedom?”
“I have no idea. I’m hoping a night spent in prison will knock some sense into him.” He cleared his throat.
To Abby, it sounded as if he wanted to say something else. After their last conversation, she hadn’t expected to hear back from him until he had the killer behind bars. “By the way, did you find Harold’s Range Rover?”
“Yes, it had been broken into. Since we weren’t able to find anything in the phone records to lead us to his killer, we expected to find another phone. Jon Reeds beat us to it. He says he destroyed it.”
Along with whatever evidence it had contained, she thought, including proof that Jon Reeds was covering up for someone else.
Abby couldn’t delay this any longer. “I have to go. Talk later?”
“Yeah. I’ll meet you at the pub.”
“Wait.” She put the AC up and pressed her hand to her forehead. She had acted on impulse. Now… she had come to her senses. “I’m at the Mercer farm.” She thought she heard him growl under his breath. “Yes, I know… After you explicitly told me to back down. I… I got carried away.” She told him about the photos and what she and Joyce had seen. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought he might be on the move, as in, hurrying to his car.
“Where are you exactly?” he asked.
“Halfway along the drive. The house is within sight.”
“If I tell you to stay where you are, will you stay?”
Abby couldn’t help it. She slipped on her reporter’s hat and thought of the scoop she would get.
“Abby?”
“Hang on. I’m thinking about it.”
“I’m on my way,” Joshua said. “Stay on the line.”
“Detective, are you going to drive and talk?”
“No, I’m going to drive and listen. What do you think happened?”
She raked her fingers through her hair. “I think this might have all started with Harold wanting to change his will. That makes me wonder why he made that decision.”
“News about his son?” Joshua asked.
“Gloria placed the baby with a family living nearby. That’s my guess. I don’t think Harold knew. She might have gone away to have the baby. Let me see… what else… I haven’t met Stevie Garth, but Joyce tells me she saw the resemblance a while back. Maybe Harold finally saw it too.” Abby frowned. “Hang on. What did you just say? News about his son? What son? How did you figure it out?”
Joshua pushed out a breath. “That’s how Stevie knew about him wanting to leave him the business.”
“I knew you were keeping something from me,” Abby grumbled. “I just knew it.”
Joshua continued, “Before he went away on his honeymoon, Harold approached him and told him he’d just found out he was his dad, but he refused to mention his mother.”
So it hadn’t been guesswork on Harold’s part. Gloria had told him.
What had happened then?
Surely, Gloria couldn’t be the killer.
From the start, they’d both said it couldn’t be a woman. The wounds had been too severe. Although, Abby remembered thinking the killer might have harbored a great deal of rage.
“Do you think Harold wanted to go public?” Abby asked.
“That would have ruined Gloria’s life,” Joshua said. “Even if he didn’t mention her name, someone would have joined the dots.”
She tried to picture the scene. Somehow, Harold had found out about Stevie Garth being his son. Maybe Gloria told him. Or maybe Joyce hadn’t been the only one to notice the resemblance. Harold confronted Gloria about it and she threatened him.
Yes, that made more sense.
Had he taken the threat seriously or had he merely suspected she would try to do something to stop him from changing his will and acknowledging Stevie Garth as his son?
“Harold expected trouble,” Abby mused. “That’s why he put the police car on the main street.” Abby looked at the house with its manicured lawn and perfectly designed garden. “How far away are you?”
“Ten minutes,” he said.
She could hear the tension in his voice. Clearly, he worried Abby would do something foolish. “What if we were right all along and George Mercer found out about the affair?”
“My money’s on Gloria Mercer. She’s an entitled snob,” Joshua muttered. “I think she’s capable of anything just to get her way. She has a lot to lose.”
Abby put the car into gear and began moving toward the house. She at least wanted to be nearby when Joshua questioned Gloria.
Yes, she’d settle for front row seats to her arrest. Although, she had no idea how she would report it. The small community didn’t really care to be put on the map because one of its members killed someone else. People still talked about missing the original owner of the newspaper, Dermot Cavendish. But they never mentioned anything about the circumstances of his death. Certainly not outright.
She parked right outside the front entrance. Cutting the engine, she looked up and saw the door standing ajar.
“Abby,” Joshua called out.
“Still here.”
“Where, exactly.”
“Outside the front door.”
“That’s too close. You don’t know what she’s capable of,” he warned.
“Are you speeding, detective? I don’t see any harm in peering in.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The front door. It’s open.”
“Abby, do not cross the threshold.”
She walked up to the front door with Doyle by her side. Looking down at Doyle, she gave him a tight smile. “Picture this,” she whispered. “We’re in a movie and the audience is screaming to not go into the house. What do we do?”
Doyle looked over his shoulder.
“I see. You vote for making a quick getaway and leaving this to the police? Let’s, for a moment, assume Gloria Mercer didn’t kill Harold. Having a baby and putting it up for adoption is not a crime.” Why had she done it? Abby supposed Gloria Mercer had been thinking of the future she’d spent her entire childhood dreaming about.
Harold Moorhead had done well for himself. He could have given Gloria a very comfortable life. Clearly, it hadn’t been enough for her.
Abby nudged the door with her finger. “Joshua will be here in under five minutes, if not sooner. The clock is ticking,” she murmured and then called out, “Mrs. Mercer. It’s Abby Maguire. I have some questions for you.” She heard Joshua growling. Before she could talk herself out if it, she walked on through and poked her head inside the first room she came across.
Walking down the hallway, she went into a family room. French doors divided it from the kitchen. Crossing the hallway, she entered another room. A formal living room. The windows faced the back patio and the swimming pool.
She saw Gloria at the far end of the pool just finishing a lap. When she reached the edge, she turned and looked straight at Abby.
“I think that counts as an invitation.” She opened the French door only to realize she’d be stepping right back outside again. “I’ll leave the door open. You can stay inside, Doyle.”
As she walked alongside the pool, Abby wondered if Gloria had set the scene. She’d opened the gate. The front door had been left open too.
Did she know Jon Reeds had confessed?
&n
bsp; A bead of perspiration ran down her back, followed by another and another. Gloria had her arms stretched out along the edge of the pool. She looked relaxed. Calm and confident.
“I hope I haven’t caught you at a bad time, but this couldn’t wait. I know about the pregnancy, Gloria.”
The woman didn’t even flinch and she made no attempt to deny it.
“This is the way I think it all unfolded. You had plans. You wanted a luxurious and prestigious life and George Mercer could provide that but he was dragging his feet or maybe you hadn’t quite figured out how to catch him. So you fooled around with Harold. You were both young and careless. You fell pregnant but, I’m guessing, you didn’t tell Harold. You went through with the pregnancy and put the baby up for adoption. He ended up with a family nearby. I’m not sure that was such a good idea, but there you go.”
When Gloria finally spoke, she said, “You’re raving mad.”
“DNA tests will prove it.”
This time, she did flinch and it told Abby everything she needed to know. Gloria Mercer wasn’t the smartest cookie around. In fact, she was a bit of a cliché.
“Have you heard about DNA testing?”
Gloria now looked grim.
“What happened? Did Harold find out? I’m guessing he did and he confronted you about it. If he knew, soon enough, everyone would know. You couldn’t let that happen. You’d lose everything.”
Gloria hauled herself off the pool and stood on the edge dripping. Her face contorted into a fierce scowl. She bent down, grabbed her towel, and something else…
“Okay. This sort of changes everything. I don’t like having guns pointed at me.” Abby hoped Joshua had heard her. She still held her phone in her hand. She wanted to believe his silence meant he’d taken position somewhere inside the house.
“You think you’re so smart. Miss busybody, snoopy reporter,” Gloria spoke in a mocking tone. “How dare you come to my house and accuse me. Me. I’m George Mercer’s wife. Do you think anyone will believe you?”
