Juniper Grove Cozy Mystery Box Set 2

by Karin Kaufman

  Sonya stepped to the doors and knocked on one of the glass panes. “What’s he doing, Rachel?”

  Hearing the knock, Micah halted and turned back to the doors, smiling. An instant later he clutched his chest and dropped to his knees.

  Sonya screamed and grabbed at the door, her hand slipping on the knob. “Uncle Micah!”

  Still holding his chest, Micah fell backward in the snow just as Sonya reached him.

  CHAPTER 2

  After the ambulance left, leaving Micah’s body behind, Chief James Gilroy, Officer Derek Underhill, and the county coroner took over the scene, roping it off with yellow crime tape despite Ellen’s protestations that Micah had clearly died of a heart attack. And despite her protests, Underhill began to bag an assortment of her cookies for later examination.

  “Can you close the drapes, please?” Bonnie said, nodding at the French doors. She and Amber had their arms around Sonya and were trying to keep her from watching the police and coroner carry out their unpleasant tasks.

  Ellen pulled the drapes shut and set about making even more coffee. Something to busy her hands, I thought. I didn’t know Sonya well enough to join Bonnie and Amber, so I helped in the only way I knew how, by clearing the used mugs from the island.

  When I picked up the first two mugs, Underhill stopped me. “Don’t touch them, Rachel. I need samples of coffee from each mug and the coffeepot.

  “Of course. Sorry.” Poison, I thought. They think it might be poison.

  “Mrs. Lambert, no one touches these mugs or the coffeepot,” Underhill said. “I’ll be right back.” He pulled one of the drapes aside, knocked on the glass, and then strode into the living room. A moment later I heard the front door open and shut.

  “Can I help with anything?” I asked Ellen.

  Ellen gave up trying to separate the coffee filters in her hands and leaned close, her voice low. “I need to talk to you.”

  “Sure.”

  “Not now. After everyone leaves. Can you stay behind?” Her face was drawn with worry, and she tugged nervously at a lock of her hair.

  “All right.”

  “Thanks.” She resumed her battle with the filters. After a few seconds, I took them from her shaking hands, pried one loose, and handed it to her. “Can I ask you how Micah knew I was going to be here? I was the one face he didn’t recognize, but he knew my name.”

  “That was my doing. After we met downtown and you agreed to come, I told him you’d be here, and that’s when he told me he had to talk to you.”

  The French doors popped open and Gilroy, after doing his best to scrape snow from his cowboy boots, stepped into the kitchen.

  “Don’t worry about the snow, Chief,” Ellen said. “It’s all tile in here. Coffee?”

  “No, thank you, Mrs. Lambert. I think it’s best if no one drinks the coffee for now.”

  Ellen stared down at the filter in her hand as though it were now quite useless. “And I was going to make a fresh pot.”

  “Do you have tea bags? I’m sure Officer Underhill would like a cup of tea.”

  “Coming right up,” Ellen said. She seemed relieved to have a job to do. Perhaps her passion for crafts, especially making Christmas ornaments for two downtown shops—a year-round undertaking—had made busywork a necessity for her. She couldn’t possibly do nothing.

  “Is Mr. Lambert at home?” Gilroy asked.

  “I don’t expect him until five thirty,” Ellen said.

  “You haven’t called him?”

  “I will when you’re finished.”

  One of the Santas propped his elbows on the island and sighed petulantly. “Can we leave now, Chief? I think I can speak for everybody when I say we’re exhausted and want to go home.”

  “I need to take a brief statement from everyone first.”

  “Then start with me.”

  “Oh, Farley,” Amber said, her cherry lips pursed in a thin, angry line.

  “When you’re my age, you can go first,” Farley replied.

  “Ladies first, old man,” another Santa said. “Particularly Sonya.”

  “Names?” Gilroy said, looking from Santa to Santa.

  “I’m Farley Brewer, and the chivalrous Santa Claus to my right is Oliver Morris. You don’t know the Four Santas? How long have you been police chief in Juniper Grove?”

  “I’ve heard of your caroling group, Mr. Brewer, but I don’t know your names.”

  Farley scratched his substantial beard. “Fair point.”

  He and the other Santas had taken off their hats and mittens, but they all still wore their snow-white Santa beards and wigs. I was beginning to wonder if the beards had been glued to their faces and the wigs taped on, making their removal tricky or time-consuming.

  “Do you mind if we move to the living room?” Gilroy asked Ellen. He’d been watching Sonya, who was perched uncomfortably on the edge of a buffet and looking a little pale.

  “By all means,” she answered as she poured hot water into a mug.

  Ellen shot me a look and mouthed “Stay here” while Gilroy shepherded Sonya into the living room. The others followed him, Farley muttering something about at last being able to sit down.

  “I just realized my husband may hear what happened and come home early,” Ellen said, setting the mug on the island. “Not that I keep secrets from him, but I promised Micah.”

  “What’s this about?” I asked. “All Micah said was Sonya was receiving threatening phone calls and someone had stuck a knife in her front door.” I decided to omit his warning that I shouldn’t trust any of the people who had been standing in the kitchen. After all, that included Ellen.

  “I figured he didn’t have enough time to talk to you. The thing is, he didn’t tell me very much. He didn’t want me to worry.”

  When a noise from the backyard drew our attention, Ellen parted the drapes. We watched as two men struggled to wheel Micah body on a gurney through the snow, supervised by a frowning Underhill holding what looked like a small black suitcase. I was certain he was supposed to be watching the coffee samples, not the gurney. “I’m glad Sonya is in the living room,” I whispered.

  “Oh, Micah.” Ellen let the drapes fall. “I can’t believe he’s gone.”

  “Before Underhill comes in, tell me what you know about the knife in Sonya’s apartment door.”

  “She came home and found a knife—just an ordinary kitchen knife—in her door, right under her apartment number. Micah says she’s scared to sleep there now. Last night she stayed at his house, but now she’ll be afraid to do that, too.”

  The French doors opened, the drapes billowed in the wind, and a grim-faced Officer Underhill stepped inside, though unlike Gilroy he made no attempt to scrape the snow from his shoes.

  “Tea, Officer?” Ellen said, handing him the mug.

  “Just what I need,” he answered, setting his black case on the island and snapping it open. “Where is everyone?”

  “Your chief is conducting interviews in the living room,” she said, nodding in that direction.

  Underhill paused to take a long sip of tea and then began to take coffee samples from each mug and the pot, transferring them to glass bottles in the case. To justify our continued presence in the kitchen while the others were in the living room, Ellen asked me to help her make more tea. Underhill didn’t seem to notice. A couple minutes later he trudged off, leaving wet boot prints in his wake.

  Ellen’s eyes followed him until he disappeared into the living room. “One more thing,” she said softly. “Micah seemed to think it was someone Sonya knew well. He was convinced of that.”

  “A man or woman?”

  “That he didn’t know.”

  “Sonya must have been able to tell if it was a man’s or woman’s voice on the phone.”

  “Micah said the phone calls were made with an electronic voice. Sonya described it as sounding like a robot.”

  That sent a shiver up my spine. No mere prankster went to the trouble of disguising his voice. T
his was serious. “Why didn’t Sonya go to the police?”

  “The police can’t do anything about phone calls.”

  “They can do something about a knife in her door. So can her apartment manager. Did she take a photo or keep the knife?”

  “I don’t know, Rachel. Micah didn’t go into a lot of detail, even when I asked.” The tension in her face exaggerated every fifty-something line in her face: the crow’s feet around her hazel eyes, the furrows bracketing her small mouth. “To be honest, I don’t think he trusted me. I wish he had.”

  “The first thing Sonya has to do is report the knife incident. Get it on record.”

  “You’re going to tell Chief Gilroy, aren’t you?”

  “Of course I am.”

  “What about helping Sonya?”

  “I will if I can. If she wants me to.”

  A voice calling Ellen’s name sounded from the living room.

  “That’s my husband,” she said, laying a hand on my arm. “Keep this between us, and the police.” Ellen called back to her husband as she headed for the living room, leaving me alone in the kitchen.

  I sat for a minute or two, absorbed in my own thoughts, going over my brief conversation with Micah. I could still see his face—his concern for his niece, his trust that I could help her. It wrenched my heart. But my brain buzzed with unanswered questions. A long talk with Sonya was in order—if she was up to it. And I would demand that she report the phone and knife incidents to the police. If she refused, I’d tell her I couldn’t help.

  “Rachel, can you drive Sonya Quinn home?”

  Chief Gilroy’s voice broke into my thoughts. “No problem,” I said, turning to see him behind me in the kitchen.

  “She came with Mrs. Eskew, but she insists on going home with you.”

  “Does she feel safe going back to her apartment?”

  Gilroy’s puzzled frown told me that Sonya hadn’t mentioned the knife someone had plunged into her apartment door. I filled him in on everything I knew, which took all of thirty seconds. “I’d say she should stay at her uncle’s home, wherever that is, but I’m not sure that’s any safer,” I added.

  “What about the Lilac Lane B&B?” Gilroy asked. “Or a hotel?”

  I heard a door slam somewhere in the house, and an instant later, Sonya strode into the kitchen wearing a cobalt-colored quilted ski coat. “No hotel. I want to stay at my apartment.” Her expression was stony, her voice resolute.

  “Micah said you were afraid to stay there,” I said.

  “But now I feel angry, not afraid.”

  “Miss Quinn, did you report the incident with the knife to your apartment manager?”

  “Did my uncle tell you about that?”

  “Did you report it to your apartment manager?” Gilroy repeated.

  “No.”

  “Do you still have the knife?”

  “I threw it away.”

  “I’d like to talk to you about it tomorrow.”

  Sonya slid her hands into her jeans pockets and shrugged her shoulders in resignation. “I guess. But I’m telling you everything I know now. I found it after work, I pulled it out of my door, and I threw it away.”

  “Were the phone threats you received on a land line or cell? Gilroy asked.

  “You know about those too? I only have a cell, and now I turn if off at night.”

  “What did the caller or callers say?”

  “One caller with a robot voice. Stuff like ‘You’re going to pay’ and ‘Keep your nose out of my business.’”

  “Do you know what the caller meant?”

  “No.”

  “Were any of the calls on voicemail?”

  “One. But I figured out how to erase it.”

  Gilroy seemed bewildered by Sonya’s lack of enthusiasm. She wasn’t simply numb and listless after witnessing the death of her uncle. There was more to it than that. She hadn’t wanted to report the threats before Micah’s death, and now, even knowing that his death might be connected to them, she was downright reluctant to talk to Gilroy.

  “Miss Quinn, why didn’t you report any of this?” Gilroy asked.

  Sonya exhaled loudly and leaned wearily against the refrigerator. “I don’t know. Can I just go home, please?”

  Gilroy persisted. “Rachel will drive you home, but I still need to talk to you. Will you be home tomorrow?”

  “I’m not going to work, so don’t go there.”

  Sonya turned and started for the front door, barreling her way through just as Underhill was entering the kitchen. Holding his mug high, he stepped aside to make room for her. “So Chief, everyone has left, except for the Lamberts,” he said to Gilroy. “They’re upstairs. Mr. Lambert says this is insane because everyone knew Mr. Schultz was a heart attack waiting to happen.”

  I heard Sonya call me from the living room, imploring me to hurry up. I started for the dining room, where I’d left my coat, but swung back to Gilroy. “I haven’t given you my statement.”

  “Can you stop by the station?”

  “Right after I take Sonya to her apartment.”

  Underhill smiled. “It’s good to work a scene and know the station’s being manned.”

  “That’s right,” I said, heading for the dining room, “you’ve got a new officer.”

  “Travis Turner,” Underhill said, trailing after me. “A total rookie from Windsor, but he can handle the phones.”

  I grabbed my coat from the back of a dining-room chair, slipped it on, and made my way to the living room, expecting to see Sonya waiting for me. “Sonya, where are you?” I wheeled back, casting my eyes about the living room and glancing up the stairs that led to the second floor. “Ellen?”

  “Where did she go?” Gilroy said, walking in from the kitchen.

  Underhill stood, hands on his hips, in the entryway between the dining room and living room. “She said she wanted you to drive her home.”

  I felt a ribbon of cold air flow through the living room and swung back to the front door. It was open a sliver.

  Gilroy had noticed too, and before I could reach the door, he was there, pulling it wide.

  “Sonya?” I called. She wasn’t on the porch or the sidewalk, she wasn’t in the street or standing at someone else’s front gate. She had vanished.

  But on the porch, laying a foot from the door, was a Santa hat.

  CHAPTER 3

  “I don’t understand,” Julia said, taking her plate and what was left of a raspberry scone to my kitchen sink. “Where did she go?”

  “That’s just it, Julia. I don’t know. I also don’t know if she left on her own or”—I hesitated to say it aloud—“someone took her.”

  Julia plopped the last bite of scone in her mouth, rinsed off her plate, and dropped it into the sink with a clang. “Who on earth would take Sonya Quinn?”

  “Maybe the same person who’s been threatening her?”

  “That’s kidnapping, Rachel.”

  “I know.”

  We left the rest unsaid as we continued to clear the table. We both knew that kidnapping was a serious crime, in many cases carrying the same penalty as murder. Which meant that a kidnapper wouldn’t hesitate to murder Sonya to shield his identity. He would have nothing to lose.

  “I’m sure this is the wrong time to ask,” Julia said, “but can we still get our Christmas trees today?”

  “It’s not the wrong time,” I said. “I want a tree too. But do you mind if I make a stop at the police station first? I need to talk to James.”

  Julia grinned.

  “Yes, in private I sometimes call him James. What of it?” I shot her a grin over my shoulder and headed for my back door. “And we have to make a stop at Holly’s Sweets on the way home.”

  Julia Foster, my sixty-something next-door neighbor, took a childlike delight in my blossoming romance with the town’s police chief. At least twice a week she told me that Gilroy and I were meant to be together—and that she’d known it from the start. The start being the day we me
t in my kitchen after I’d found a body in my backyard.

  I hadn’t been so sure. I had thought him arrogant and cold—as cold as his pale blue eyes—and far too handsome and, especially, slim for the likes of me. I wasn’t in his ballpark. I wasn’t even in the ballpark two states away. But he cared for me. Me and the extra pounds I carried, me and my limp dark hair and weird cowlick, me and my pointy chin. The thought could still startle me, like the emergence of a beautiful and unexpected vista at a turn in a mountain road. This good, kind man cared for me.

  Julia and I climbed into my Forester and drove for downtown Juniper Grove. In size, downtown was only four blocks east to west by three blocks north to south, but it was a hive of activity, our small town’s heart and soul. Twelve hundred people lived in Juniper Grove, and I was sure half of them walked the sidewalks of downtown on any given day.

  And the heart of that heart? Some would say it was the police station or Town Hall. I thought it was Holly’s Sweets, my friend Holly Kavanagh’s bakery. Her cream puffs were the best I’d ever tasted, but today, my thoughts were on Christmas cookies. The holiday was a perfect excuse to indulge my sweet tooth.

  I pulled to the curb outside the police station but left the ignition running. “Do you mind waiting here?”

  “I guess so,” Julia grumbled.

  Sixty-something or not, Julia could still appreciate a handsome man—as she often told me. But I had serious business with Gilroy, and I didn’t need the distraction of seeing her flirt with him in her rather sweet and restrained way.

  “You’ll see him at my Christmas party, have no fear. Turn the heat up if you need to.” I exited my car, entered the police station, and was greeted by a uniformed officer behind the front desk, the newly hired Travis Turner. Gilroy and Underhill had operated for far too long as a two-man force, exhausting them both, so rookie or not, I was happy to see the new man. A large red mug holding individually wrapped candy canes sat on the desk, and behind him, evergreen garlands strung with white lights graced the tops of the file cabinets and bookcases, making the somewhat bland police station sparkle a little.

  “Officer Turner?” I asked.