by Lauren Carr
Police Chief David O’Callaghan was heading back to Pennsylvania. This time, Mac was riding in the passenger seat while Gnarly rode in the back. Bogie tagged along in his cruiser behind them.
The stark night of the Pennsylvania forest was illuminated by the lamps set up by the emergency vehicles surrounding the tan four-door sedan parked in the turn-off of what appeared to be a long-forgotten boat launch of a tiny lake. The sounds of heavy traffic and the semi-truck horn blasts from the turnpike road less than a mile away pierced the wilderness.
“She’s at the end of the road,” a Pennsylvania state trooper directed David when he climbed out of his cruiser after parking it off the dirt road in hip high brush. “The sergeant will fill you in. He’s up there with the crime scene folks.”
Leaving a window down for Gnarly, Mac, David, and Bogie made their way along the road overgrown with brush and untrimmed branches from trees that threatened to overtake the road completely.
Using his flashlight to lead the way along the path, David warned Mac, who was behind him. “Watch out for snakes.”
“Snakes?” Mac halted.
Bogie bumped into him from behind. “Woods like these are filled with them.” He gently pushed Mac to go ahead. “If one bites you, be sure to not to let him get away. We’ll need to take him to the ER with you so they’ll know what antivenom to give you.”
“Do I look stupid to you?” Mac asked Bogie.
“Only when you’re trying to train Gnarly.”
Up ahead, David laughed. “Come on, you two. We have a murder to solve.”
The dirt-covered, tan sedan came into view where it rested in the spotlights set up by Pennsylvania’s crime scene investigators.
The fate of Helga Thorpe seemed to cry out to them when they spied a thick hose taped to the rear tailpipe of the car with the other end threaded through the front driver’s side window where it was held in place with duct tape. The window had been rolled up as far as the hose permitted.
“One of our people found her when he pulled off the main road to take a leak,” the sergeant came around the car to explain to them when he noticed David’s and Bogie’s uniforms. “Of course, she was parked way down here off the road, but his cruiser’s headlights caught off her rearview mirror. He decided to drive up to investigate. The ignition is on. She had to have been dead long before her car ran out of gas.”
Using his flashlight, Mac peered in through the windows at the woman slumped over in the driver’s seat of the car. “I don’t see a suicide note, but I do see her cell phone in the center console. She may have left a note there … if she killed herself.”
“I’ll ask our forensics people if it’s okay to open up the car yet,” the sergeant said.
“Bogie,” David asked, “did you check out Helga’s calendar on her laptop?”
“She had nothing on it,” Bogie said. “Looked to me like she didn’t use it.”
“Chelsea uses the calendar on her cell phone,” David said, “because she has that with her all the time. She isn’t as attached to her laptop as Archie.”
“Why do you want to see her calendar?” Bogie asked.
“Because Helga disappeared before we had a chance to ask her about an alibi for the time of Eugene’s murder,” David said. “Her assistant said she came back from lunch that day flustered—”
“Which a person would be if they had just committed murder,” Mac said. “But there could be other reasons for her being flustered besides murder. She had an argument with a friend, she got a speeding ticket on the way back to the office, she was using her lunch hour to have a rousing roll in the hay with her lover only to have the hundred-pound dog break down the door and jump on the bed in the middle of it—”
“Yeah,” Bogie said, “that happens to me all the time. Have you ever thought of putting a lock on your bedroom door?”
The sergeant called to them from the other side of the car. “We’re opening it up now.”
“Helga wouldn’t have committed suicide,” Bogie whispered to David and Mac as they made their way around to where the troopers were prying open the passenger side door while being careful to not disturb any evidence. “She was too arrogant. She would have been confident that she could have beaten any murder wrap.”
“If she was going to kill herself, why plant her purse in Breezewood to lead the police away?” Mac asked.
“You’re both right.” David slipped on a pair of evidence gloves. “She was murdered. But who did it?” With a nod of gratitude, he took the cell phone from the trooper who had reached inside to retrieve it. He pressed the button to turn it on.
“We’ve had no credit card or cell phone activity for the last two and a half days?” David glanced over at Bogie while waiting for the phone to turn on.
The deputy chief answered with a nod of his head. “We’ve been watching. Nothing.”
Mac peered into the darkness surrounding them. “This place is really out of the way.” He pointed to the small lake where the car was parked. “What lake is that?” he asked the sergeant.
“It’s called Miller’s Pond. It used to be a pretty nice lake. My grandfather used to bring me fishing, but then it got all overgrown and mucky. Now, mostly kids come out here to smoke and drink and have sex in the back of cars. We’re running them out of here all the time.”
“It’s up.” David thumbed through the applications on the phone to take him to the calendar. “Yep, she uses this to keep her calendar.” He thumbed through the pages to go back three days to the day of the murder. When he read the screen he let out a breath. “According to this, she had a twelve-thirty appointment with a doctor in Oakland on Tuesday.”
“If she kept that appointment,” Mac said, “then she would have an alibi, which means she would have had no reason to run off or commit suicide.”
“But Eugene spoke to someone when he called her at the store right before he was killed,” Bogie said. “He talked to someone for more than a minute and a half.”
“Maybe he talked to her right before she left for the doctor’s office,” David said. “And that call has nothing to do with Eugene’s murder. Fact is, she may have an alibi.”
“Or maybe not,” Bogie said. “Does she have the phone number for the doctor in that thing? I’ll call their office first thing in the morning to confirm that she made it there.”
“Did Eugene call her office number or her cell?” Mac asked.
“Her office number,” Bogie said.
“And Helga’s assistant was out to lunch,” David said. “Eugene talked to someone and no one else knew he was at the church.” He handed the cell phone to the forensics officer to be bagged while asking the officer searching the inside of the car. “Is there a gun in there?”
The officer reached under the seats. “I don’t see any.”
“Helga Thorpe was our last suspect,” David said. “Every suspect we’ve had—the very few that we’ve had—have come up clean—from Chip Van Dorn to Marilyn to Ruth to Edna—”
“Edna!” Bogie let out a loud objection. “Edna would never—”
“I’m reaching, Bogie,” David said. “I admit it, I’m reaching. I’ve never had a murder victim like this—the guy is completely clean and yet someone shot him three times for what looks like no good reason.”
“Can I make a suggestion?” Mac asked.
“Please,” David replied.
“I have gotten to points like this before on cases more times than I like to admit,” Mac said. “When that happens, I go all the way back to the beginning and start all over.” He turned on his heels and went back to the cruiser.
“Start all over,” David repeated in a dejected tone.
As he disappeared into the darkness, Mac waved to David and Bogie to follow. “Back to the beginning, gentlemen.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Murder.” David
slammed his cell phone down on the kitchen counter in Spencer Manor before picking up his coffee mug. “The ME in Pennsylvania has already determined by the blood tests on Helga Thorpe that she had enough sleeping pills in her that she was completely unconscious before the carbon monoxide killed her.” He went to the coffee maker and filled his mug.
“Could she have taken them herself so that she’d be asleep when the carbon monoxide killed her?” Archie clutched her hot coffee mug in both hands.
“Wouldn’t that be double dipping?” Mac replied. “If she intended to kill herself, why not just let the overdose of sleeping pills kill her. Stringing that hose from the exhaust pipe and through the window—that had to be a lot of work.”
Thinking about her husband’s obvious hatred toward her, David said, “It isn’t like Sirrus was going to try to save her if she had simply taken a bottle of pills and laid down in bed.”
Each of them donning bathrobes and slippers, they stared straight ahead in deep thought. After getting back to Spencer Manor in the middle of the night, David and Mac had only slept a few hours before questions about Eugene Newton’s murder woke them up.
The only sound in the kitchen was Gnarly gulping his breakfast.
“Who would want to kill Helga Thorpe?” Archie asked.
“A lot of people,” David said. “Bogie found a ton of venomous emails on her laptop. How she ever found time to work for the sporting goods store, I don’t know. It’s like she managed the church’s rumor mill. She antagonized the children’s ministry director. She offended Carmine. She would send out and receive hundreds of emails a day—all griping and gossiping about the church and how it was run.”
“That’s what my mother hated about church,” Archie said. “Every one we ever went to, there was always one flock of gossipy old hens—”
“Isn’t that true of any place where you get a bunch of people together?” Mac took his and her mugs to the coffee maker for refills. “In the police department, there were some officers who were just as catty as a bunch of old church ladies. If you ask me, it’s the human condition—not confined to churches.”
“You’re right there,” she said.
Mac turned to David who was leaning against the kitchen counter. “What’s the estimated time of death?”
“Sometime Wednesday morning.”
Handing Archie her coffee mug, Mac slid into the chair next to her. “Okay, let’s think about this.”
“Sirrus claimed Helga had packed her bag and left early Wednesday morning when he was on his way out fishing,” David said.
“Fishing?” Mac repeated.
“Sirrus is a die-hard fisherman,” David said. “When I questioned him on Wednesday, he was very pleased because he had caught a twelve-pound largemouth bass that morning.”
“Did you see this fish?” Mac asked.
“No, but I guess I will,” David said. “He took it to the taxidermist. He wouldn’t have told me that if there wasn’t any. It’d be easy enough to check out.”
“Why don’t we call that taxidermist to see when Sirrus brought that fish in?” Mac asked.
“You always look to the spouse first,” Archie joked.
“I do that for a reason.”
“Sirrus has no motive to kill Eugene,” David said. “They did find Helga’s suitcase in the trunk of the car.”
“Why pack your bag to kill yourself?” Archie asked.
“What did she pack?” Mac asked.
“Huh?” David replied.
“Did the police send you an inventory of what they found in her suitcase?” Mac asked him.
“I’m sure they will.” Pondering Mac’s questions, David took a sip of his coffee.
“There are certain things that people will never leave on a trip without,” Mac said. “If we take a look at that list, we could determine if Helga had packed that suitcase or someone else—”
“Like her husband,” Archie said.
“Sirrus has good reason to kill Helga,” David said. “Just plain hatred. But he has no motive for killing Eugene Newton. As far as I can see, they had no connection. Sirrus does volunteer small jobs at the church, and seems to be very fond of the women there, but he doesn’t benefit from Eugene Newton’s death.”
As a thought came to his mind, he stood up straight from where he had been leaning against the counter. “Unless maybe he killed Eugene to frame Helga, with the intention of killing her and making it look like a suicide because she didn’t get away with Eugene’s murder … but I don’t think Sirrus is that diabolical.”
“I’m thinking about where the police found Helga’s car,” Mac said.
“On a rural country road two miles from Breezewood,” David said.
“An abandoned fishing pond,” Mac said.
“How did I miss that?” David muttered.
Smiling into his coffee, Mac asked, “What did you say?”
“Nothing,” David replied. “I grew up around here and I never knew about that pond.”
“You’re not a die-hard fisherman,” Mac said.
“But then there’s the logistics of getting back to Deep Creek Lake,” David said. “Breezewood is almost two hours away. The killer—”
“Probably Sirrus,” Archie said.
“—could have hitchhiked to Breezewood from the fishing pond, and then got a bus ticket to get back into our area.”
“Which tells me that this murder took a lot of planning,” Mac said. “More planning than Eugene’s murder.”
“Maybe Helga was the intended target all along,” Archie said.
“Which points to Sirrus Thorpe,” David said. “That man makes no secret about hating his wife.” He muttered, “I’d hate to be in that marriage.”
“But if Sirrus hated Helga enough to want her dead,” Archie asked, “why kill Eugene Newton?”
Mac suggested, “Why don’t we ask the reverend?”
Bogie met Mac, David, and Archie at Reverend Deborah Hess’s house, in the pastoral residence next to the church building. Archie had to keep a tight hold on Gnarly’s leash when he spotted a calico cat curled up on the bench on the rustic porch.
Completely uninterested in the dog, the cat remained curled up and ignored Gnarly, which perturbed him more than if the feline had hissed at him.
Clad in shorts and sandals, Deborah’s son Chase invited them inside the comfortable log home. Sliding glass doors opened up to a deck, off which was a dock. A group of young people were enjoying the sunny, summer day on the lake. Clad in a one-piece swimsuit, Natalie was one of the young ladies.
“Mom’s working on her sermon for Sunday.” Padding through the great room to the dining area, Chase yelled up into the loft. “Mom, the police are here to see you.” He turned back to them. “Do you know who killed Eugene yet?”
“That’s what we wanted to talk to your mother about,” David said.
“Man, the world sure has gone nuts,” Chase said. “Who would do that? Who would kill a nice guy like Eugene?”
“We’re trying to find that out,” David said.
“I promised your mother that we would find out who did this,” Bogie said, “and we intend to keep that promise.”
“I know, Bogie,” Chase said. “We’re all worried about what people are going to think about our church—two of our trustees dead. Natalie’s mom ended up being wanted for murder. Of course, people are going to find out about that.”
“But her name is cleared now,” Archie said.
“And now she’s getting married.” Natalie trotted in from outside. Her wide grin told everyone that she approved of her mother’s new husband-to-be. “I’m getting a new daddy.” Squealing when she said “daddy,” she hugged Chase.
“Only now I can’t just jog down the path to see Natalie,” Chase said. “They’re moving in with Carmine over in McHenry. I’m going to
have to ride my bike all the way over to the other side of the lake.”
“A lot of lives are changing,” Deborah said as she came down the stairs from the loft. “It’s good to see some blessings coming from this tragedy.” The dark circles under her eyes betrayed the stress the murders had on the pastor.
After Chase and Natalie had gone outside to rejoin their friends, Deborah revealed that the phone had been ringing ever since the news hit about Helga Thorpe’s body being found in Pennsylvania. “But they aren’t saying if it was suicide or murder—only that her death is being investigated.”
With a sigh of exhaustion, she invited her guests to sit down in the living room. She took a seat next to the stone fireplace.
“It was murder,” David said. “Helga Thorpe had an alibi for the time of Eugene’s murder.”
“She was at a chiropractor’s office in Oakland,” Bogie said. “Her appointment was at twelve-thirty. No way she could have killed Eugene here and made it there in time for her appointment.”
“We’re thinking someone killed Eugene and then killed Helga to make it look like she committed suicide because she was afraid of being caught,” Mac said.
“Why?” Deborah asked. “I thought Helga killed Eugene because she had some crazy idea that she would become chief trustee.”
“Who’s chief trustee now?” Mac asked.
“We are seriously looking at Carmine Romano,” Deborah said. “But Carmine wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
Recalling the humane mouse traps that Carmine was buying for the church, Bogie slowly nodded his head. “Or a mouse.”
“Okay.” Mac clapped both hands down on his knees. “Who else?”
Even though they were looking seriously at Sirrus Thorpe, they wanted the pastor to point the finger at him. No one wanted to be accused of steering suspicion in anyone’s direction.
“Who else?” Deborah replied.
“No matter how crazy it may sound to you,” Mac said, “throw out any names that come to mind when you think about who would want to kill Eugene Newton for any reason. I don’t care how nuts it sounds to you.”
