HER SISTER'S KILLER an absolutely gripping killer thriller full of twists

by MICHELLE S. SMITH

  “Talking to myself,” she said, embarrassed. “A bad habit I’ve got into from living alone.”

  At this, Steve laughed, and the enigmatic light vanished from his eyes. “Maybe you need more company?” he suggested.

  “Perhaps,” she replied. “But not for my meeting with Joe. I’ll be fine on my own.”

  Steve looked at her dubiously, and she tried to laugh.

  “I’ll be fine,” she insisted.

  Chapter 16

  Janet dumped their dirty dinner plates in the sink. “Why would you want to see Joe Evans?”

  “Why don’t you have a dishwasher?” demanded Victoria. She rolled up her sleeves. “No, let me do it, Janet.”

  “I’m not going to argue with a woman determined to clean my house. Heaven knows it’s in permanent need of tidying,” Janet said, putting her feet up on the kitchen table. The room was as cozily cluttered as the rest of her rambling home, which had once been a farmhouse. Victoria searched the cluttered counters for something with which to dry the dishes and eventually discovered a towel draped over the door handle. The only things in the kitchen that didn’t need sorting or cleaning were the large framed photos on the kitchen table, one showing Janet’s wedding and another with her two children chasing their parents around the garden. Victoria had expected to feel on edge living with someone else after so long living on her own, but whether it was the friendliness of the run-down farmhouse or the warmth of her friend’s casual hospitality, she felt oddly at ease.

  “The soap is over there,” Janet advised. “And you haven’t answered my question. What’s with the Joe Evans story?”

  Victoria scrubbed her plate in the old, rusting sink, then held it up to the light after rinsing, frowning at the plate as if it were a suspect.

  “You’re washing the dishes, not interrogating them.” Janet yawned. “Why Joe?”

  Victoria sighed. “Just an off-chance he might be connected,” she said. “He was a bit of a stalker in high school.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Janet frowned. “Maybe we were unfair to him though.”

  “Unfair? What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know. Just a thought. I was thinking about Joe the other day after we talked about him at the cheese shop. Maybe he wasn’t as weird as we thought. On the other hand, what do I know? Maybe he was as creepy as we believed. Go speak to him, and you’ll find out.”

  “I wonder where he is living in Hancock?”

  “That’s why you needed to move in with your friend.” Janet smirked. “Try John Gardner.”

  “Why him?” Victoria recalled the elusive charm of John’s schoolboy smile. Somehow, he didn’t seem to be someone who would be spending time with a weirdo like Joe. Then again, what did she know about him really? That however charming he might be, he had got into two fights recently? That he hadn’t revealed the full extent of his relationship with her sister?

  “I’ve seen them often on a Wednesday afternoon together at the Harris Center when I go walking with Blake and the kids,” she said. “Maybe it’s time you went for a stroll?”

  After trying several times on Wednesday to get hold of John at his surgery, Victoria decided, more out of frustration than any real hope of seeing either John or Joe, to take out her pent-up energy on a trail.

  When she parked at the Harris Center, she considered the same East Side trail where her sister had been found, trying to steel herself to do it. She shut her eyes, hoping to block out the images she kept replaying. Sometimes, she saw Becky already dead when her killer arrived at the Harris Center, about to discard her body as unfeelingly as one would toss away a crumpled cigarette packet. At other times, Becky was still alive, walking through the forest, branches catching on her clothing, delaying her, trying to turn her back from the path she had chosen. Victoria watched her wandering through the woods with — who? She tried to see the face of the murderer, but in her mind’s eye, he was always hooded. Victoria’s fingers would reach out to rip off the hood, and the image would fade into nothingness. Had the first blow and the shattering of glass been the last sounds her sister had heard, or had she lain alone and dying in the forest? Had she lived to hear the crunching of leaves and jagged breath as her attacker staggered away?

  “Not today,” Victoria decided eventually, when she could not get her hands to stop shaking. “Steve has been there already.”

  The Harris Center was fairly busy before Victoria went on her two-mile walk along part of the Thumbs Down trail, but when she returned she found it quieter.

  As she neared the Harris Center building, she was greeted like a long-lost friend by a wet-nosed canine.

  “St. Patrick!” She smiled and bent down to pat him as she saw John not far behind. She glanced up. “I was hoping I’d see you here.”

  Victoria thought she saw a slight color touching John’s cheeks.

  “I mean,” she hastily explained, “I need information from you.”

  His flush faded away. “What information?”

  “I’m looking for someone I was at school with. Joe Evans?” Victoria couldn’t keep the scorn from her voice as she said his name. “My friend Janet said she’d often seen the two of you together here.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And?”

  “We’ve been working together helping the Center on a couple of research projects.”

  “Right. I’m keen to speak to him.”

  She saw John note her impatience, and a twinkle showed in his eye.

  “We’ve taken on a few projects together, ones that interest me as a vet. Like why Tolman Pond draws huge numbers of ring-necked ducks and other ponds don’t.”

  It was like getting blood out of a stone. Why did he always seem to hold back on her?

  “I’m not interested in why you’ve been hanging out with Joe,” Victoria snapped. “Or in your ring-tailed ducks. I want to know where he is.”

  John grinned. “Ring-necked. Not ring-tailed. And he’s in the pollinator garden, which used to be the old swimming pool. Go gently with him.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  John looked steadily at her, the amusement gone. “He’s not one to talk much, but one or two stories of high school have slipped out.”

  It was Victoria’s turn to blush. “What do you mean? He was a real creep when we were at school.”

  “At least he didn’t attack other people, like you egged on McCade to do. That much he told me. He could hardly avoid doing so when he has the scars to show for it.”

  “He was harassing my sister.”

  John looked at her skeptically, and Victoria felt a twinge of doubt. Had Joe really been that bad? Had she overreacted in a fit of adolescent self-absorption? Or was he the creep she had assumed?

  “Your ring-necked ducks are probably waiting for you,” she said. “Don’t let me keep you.”

  John grinned and tightened his grip on St. Patrick’s leash. “I only need to worry about the ducks in the fall, but yeah, I’d better get going.”

  Victoria had not expected him to leave, in spite of her coldness, and a stirring of something that was not pure chagrin but not quite disappointment (or at least, not that she acknowledged) made her say, “You’re going already?”

  “I’ll walk you to the pollinator garden,” he said, as though making a concession, but the twinkle in his eyes was back. “I guess the garden was created after you left Hancock so you don’t know about it?”

  Victoria was too annoyed to reply but looked in the direction he was gesturing. Where the old swimming pool had once been was now a blaze of blooms. The colors were drawing a fluttering and a buzzing of butterflies and bees among anemone-shaped flowers of gold and indigo, and masses of closely clustered orange butterfly flowers. Competing for attention were the purples and pinks of creeping thymes, blazing stars and coneflowers with petals turned downwards like umbrellas.

  “There’s been a major drop in pollinators,” John continued, as though he hadn’t noticed her silence, “so a bunch of
us got together as volunteers to create an environment where beetles and bees can thrive. And of course, it attracts visitors.”

  “It’s not just for researchers and obnoxious veterinary surgeons then?” asked Victoria, interested despite her irritation.

  John laughed. “It’s a teaching garden to raise awareness about pollinators and research has been done here too. But it’s for everyone. My mom and dad often walk through the garden or relax on one of the benches and watch the birds. Everyone is welcome. Families, elderly couples, hikers, overworked detectives . . .”

  She scanned the gardens ahead of them for any sign of Joe as she remembered him.

  “He’s over there.”

  Victoria didn’t recognize him at first, though the curly dark hair and thick black glasses were still the same. He was bending over a plant, a reed-thin, intense figure. Every now and then his head twitched as though he were speaking to the plants. The serenity of the garden flora was a fitting, maybe even necessary, setting to counteract his nervous energy. Somehow, Joe seemed to belong there. He didn’t notice Victoria initially.

  “John,” he called, pushing his glasses up his nose and jerking his head slightly as he saw that his friend was accompanied.

  “Qu-quite impressive display of color,” he said, getting the words out with a little difficulty. Victoria had forgotten his stammer. “Very different from when we first started planning the garden. And see h-how far it has come now. Look at the reds and yellows of this Aquilegia canadensis. The bees love it by day, and the hawk moths love it after sunset.” He stooped to touch the flowers briefly.

  “Joe’s talking about what most folks call the columbine,” said John, nodding at the brightly hued flowers. “Joe, you remember Victoria Wharton? She’d like to talk to you about her sister’s death. I must be on my way.”

  Joe straightened so fast he almost lost his balance. “V-Victoria?” He wiped his hands several times on his baggy jeans, staring at her nervously. “I was so s-sorry about your sister.”

  “Thank you.”

  He sat down on a bench nearby and gestured awkwardly to her to sit. Victoria lifted her hand in perfunctory farewell as John departed and sat beside Joe, feeling uncomfortable and out of place to be talking of murder among so much color and life.

  “Did you have much to do with my sister?” she asked bluntly.

  He shook his head. “Saw her occasionally,” he said. “Just to greet though. I never chatted much.”

  “Why was that?” Victoria was curious. “You always liked her.”

  The young man jerked his head and took a breath as though preparing himself to speak.

  “Th-this is difficult for me to say, you understand,” he said under his breath, his eyes dropping to his hands, which were twisting anxiously.

  Victoria leaned forward. “What is it?” she demanded, her heart beating faster. “Why didn’t you pursue your friendship? She was always kind to you.”

  Joe nodded and looked up, and she was startled at the tears in his eyes. He paused for a moment, and when he spoke, the words tumbled out, one after the other, in a torrent. “I always had a crush on your sister. Y-you know that. At school—” He interlocked his hands behind his head — “she was the only one wh-who treated me well.”

  “I’m sorry.” It came out as an apology, and Victoria realized it probably was.

  “I-I couldn’t talk easily, and I struggled with anxiety as a teenager. Although Rebecca was friendly, I was too shy to say much back. I-I used to follow her around.” He laughed humorlessly. “Trying to work up the courage to ask her out. Can you believe it? Imagining th-that someone like her would be seen with someone like me? I-I only freaked her out.”

  “Yeah,” conceded Victoria, “you did.”

  “I was seeing a therapist who encouraged me to s-stand up for myself, and so I tried.” He sighed and laughed self-deprecatingly. “It came out all wrong. I never meant to frighten her.”

  Victoria wanted to swallow but couldn’t. Joe’s fingers traveled subconsciously to a small place above the hairline where no hair grew, gingerly touching the old wound there.

  “Steve?” she asked, her throat dry.

  He nodded. “I promised myself to stop b-bothering Rebecca. For good. And I s-stuck to that. I realized then how — off — my behavior must have seemed. How everyone must have been laughing at me. That the things I did appeared weird.” His head jerked a little, and he smiled. “Like this. I — can’t help it.”

  “I know,” Victoria said. “I do know that now.”

  “When I graduated high school, I s-swore I would never come back. Went to Princeton and got my doctorate in zoology.”

  “What made you change your mind?”

  He shrugged and looked a little self-conscious. “Time brings perspective, I guess. Y-you see life differently in your twenties compared to your teens. And there is so much research to be done here.”

  “Ring-tailed ducks,” said Victoria. “I know.”

  “Ring-necked,” he corrected her with a flash of a smile that disappeared as quickly as it had come. “I— thought maybe if I could come back, make a contribution to Hancock, maybe I c-could make a difference and also prove to myself that I wasn’t such a loser as everyone thought I was.”

  “I think I was the loser,” Victoria muttered. “It’s going to take me a long time to forgive myself for what you’ve told me today.”

  She looked up as she spoke and, recognizing Claire and Karen Timms in the distance, waved to them. Joe followed her gaze and hastily looked down, but she saw his ears turning pink.

  “Hey, Joe!” called Claire, waving cheerfully. He muttered a greeting that even Victoria could barely hear and lifted his hand in an abrupt wave.

  She looked at him, raising her eyebrows. “Is research the only reason you decided to stay?”

  The color of his ears darkened to the rich pink-purple of the coneflower beside him.

  “What about you?” he asked, changing the subject. “Are you back to stay?”

  Victoria’s mind flitted to Steve and then to John, and she frowned. “No, that is, I don’t know. At least for now until I discover who killed my sister.”

  “Have you been on the trail where it happened?”

  “No.” Victoria shuddered. “Steve has been, obviously. We are working together.”

  He pursed his lips, and she interrupted the silence. “Were you here when Paula Gardner discovered my sister’s body? When the police arrived?”

  He nodded.

  “You didn’t notice anyone in particular?”

  “I saw quite a few people,” he said, his brow furrowed, “b-but no one stood out.”

  “You didn’t see a beggar?”

  “Not that day.”

  “You’ve seen him before though?”

  “There’s a g-guy who has been wandering about in this area for a while. A war vet. P-pretty harmless.”

  “Maybe not,” Victoria said, showing him a photo on her phone of the warning note she’d received. She explained briefly how she had got it. “I assume he was just delivering it for someone else, although I could be wrong.”

  Joe took the phone and peered closely at the letters. “D-definitely not the handiwork of Todd, the guy I’ve seen around. We g-got him to do some weeding here in the garden, and I-I chatted a bit with him.”

  “You sure?”

  Joe made a motion with his hand as though he were holding a bottle and tipped it toward his lips. “Delirium tremens,” he said. “N-no way he would manage all that cutting and pasting of letters with such shaky hands. H-he might know something though. I saw him once or twice in town. Talking t-to your sister.”

  “I’ll follow it up. And nothing else that caught your attention when my sister’s body was found?”

  He shook his head, and Victoria rose. “Here’s my number. Give me a call if you remember. Any time, day or night.”

  He smiled shyly. “I-I don’t sleep easily, so I might just do that.”

 
; “You don’t sleep well at night?” Victoria sighed, thinking of the nightmares that had started plaguing her again. “That makes two of us.”

  “Y-you think you will find the person who did it?” said Joe, verbalizing the question she’d been asking herself.

  Victoria thought of the warning note she’d received.

  She set her jaw. “Yes. Either that, or I’ll die trying.”

  Chapter 17

  Janet looked over from the driver’s seat. “You’re going to the concert, like it or not!”

  “You are essentially kidnapping me, you realize that?” Victoria replied. She buckled herself into her car seat. “The only reason I’m not resisting is that you have central locking and I can’t get out.”

  “Good. Let’s go.” Janet dumped a picnic basket on her friend’s lap and reversed out of her gravel driveway. “You need to relax,” she added. “I’ve always loved the bandstand concerts on the common.”

  When they arrived, there was already a small crowd gathering on the common where the bandstand stood, white against the sky. Some families were putting up chairs on the green and taking sandwiches out of picnic hampers, and desserts were being sold to the hungrier members of the audience. Scanning the faces to find Steve, Victoria was disappointed to see only their colleague and her daughter.

  “Victoria!” called Claire Timms, coming across to say hello. “We keep meeting! First the vet, then the Harris Center.”

  “I was interviewing Joe Evans.” Victoria smiled. “He knew Rebecca at school.”

  “Oh, right. Yes, he’s really into his plants and animals,” said Claire. She smiled shyly back. “The last time I tried to make conversation with him, he spent ten minutes telling me about the ducks on Tolman Pond. Did you come with your mother?”

  “What? Is she here?” The news wiped the smile off Victoria’s face. She looked around for her mother. Finally, she spotted her in the distance, being helped into her wheelchair from the passenger seat of a green Chevrolet. The woman helping Vera was someone Victoria recognized as a family acquaintance who sometimes gave lifts to her mother on her bad days when driving herself was difficult. Reluctantly, Victoria went over to where her mother was positioned, in the best spot for seeing the musicians getting ready on the bandstand.