A Murder in Hope's Crossing

by Brooke Shelby

  The service was not something elaborate, as Clara would not have wanted something overly religious and counterfeit to lay her to rest. Maggie was not sure of her aunt’s religious affiliations or preferences, but she did know that Clara had never been a church person. In fact, the church funeral was simply a formality, according to Maggie, to give her aunt a proper burial with proper ceremony.

  After the service, the hearse ferried Clara’s coffin to Hallows Cemetery with four cars in tail. Maggie’s was first in line with three behind her. It was a little peculiar to Maggie, because only Sharon and the Waldens had attended the service as far as she knew.

  “Who is the extra car?” she wondered aloud, peeking in her rearview mirror. “Oh well, a lot of people don’t like to attend the church service, so they probably just came out for the burial. Poor Auntie Clara. If you only knew who your true friends were,” Maggie sighed as the procession crawled along the meandering path through Salem’s beautiful cemetery with no shortage of trees and shade. Most of the tombstones near the middle were very old, probably reminiscent of the early Salem and its inhabitants. Bramble perked up again, looking out the window just like that night when the car was tailgating them.

  “Are you enjoying the peace, Bramble?” Maggie smiled as the cat surveyed the antique headstones they drove past. “Or are you a bit of a historian?”

  Some crooked and some crumbling, some without etching and others discolored by time and damaged by the elements, the old gravestones gave Maggie an ominous chill. She could not help but wonder who lay there and why they died. This was not out of morbidity, but some macabre curiosity that spurred her imagination.

  “Hey, Bramble, imagine how creepy it is here at night,” she jested, secretly reprimanding herself for such whimsical utterings during her aunt Clara’s funeral. Bramble meowed in agreement as his head turned ever so slightly to look back at the part of the cemetery they had passed. Maggie shook her head, thinking about Salem in general.

  “So many innocent women killed,” she clicked her tongue. “So many people persecuted by a small group of superstitious and callous individuals who throw around the name of God as if they are His personal assistants.” Her disapproval simmered dangerously into a gumbo of hatred, intolerance, and contempt for the so-called authorities who were in charge of people’s souls, those wicked men who dared claim that they represented their god.

  A sudden meow from Bramble snapped Maggie out of her prejudice and brewing anger to remind her that she was at Aunt Clara’s funeral and not some witch hunt from ages gone by.

  “Wow, almost lost my concentration there,” she gasped as she brought her car to a halt under the shade of a spruce, but she knew it was more than her concentration that was at play here. Was she developing a good old-fashioned intolerance for the intolerant, or was it just the air of Salem?

  “Thank you so much for coming, sheriff,” Maggie told Carl after dear Clara’s coffin had been lowered into the ground and the minister completed his sermon.

  “We are really very sorry for your loss, Miss Cor—Maggie,” he said awkwardly. Tugging his hand was a skinny little thing, ten years in age, with striking brown eyes, just like her daddy. “Nellie, not now. Have some respect.”

  “Hi, Nellie,” Maggie smiled at the girl. “Thank you for coming too.”

  “Sorry to hear about Miss Clara, Miss Maggie.” The girl’s well-mannered eloquence impressed Clara’s niece. “Daddy,” she said, looking up pleadingly.

  Carl rolled his eyes and sighed in vexation. “Maggie, I am so sorry about this, but Nellie wants me to ask if she can play with your cat until we leave.”

  “Oh!” Maggie chuckled. “You saw Bramble?”

  “Yes, Miss Maggie. I saw him peeking over the window frame of your car. I love that cat, just ask Miss Cla—” she stopped short with a guilty gulp. Nellie realized what she was suggesting. “Um, I mean, Miss Clara used to let me pet him.”

  Maggie ran her index finger along Nellie’s jaw and smiled, “Of course. I am sure he saw you too. Go say hello.”

  “Thank you, thank you!” Nellie cheered as she walked briskly to Maggie’s car.

  “She just loves that cat,” he scoffed in his usual clumsy manner. “Please excuse her.”

  “No worries, sheriff,” she said, watching Sharon still peering over the edge of Clara’s grave.

  “Carl,” he corrected with a boyish smile.

  “Carl,” she repeated. “We are going to have to get used to each other’s first names, I suppose, now that I have decided to stay in this town.”

  Carl liked the boldness in her statement. Not only was she beautiful to look at, but she was also feisty enough to shake up the Hope’s Crossing boredom. At least for him.

  “I see you have met Sharon,” he said. “Poor woman. She was Clara’s best friend, you know.”

  “I figured, because she is absolutely gutted about all this, even though she admitted to inadvertently blurting some things out about my aunt,” Maggie reported. “I guess I must go and say hello to her.”

  “By all means,” he nodded respectfully. “I will keep Nellie from stealing your cat.”

  “Thank you! I am growing quite fond of him,” Maggie said as she headed toward the shaded hole in the ground where her dear Aunt Clara had been interred. Sharon looked apologetic, and a little pathetic as Maggie approached her.

  “Maggie,” she sniffled, “I am so sorry.”

  “I am sorry too, Sharon,” Maggie said as Clara’s friend took her hands in hers. “Thank you so much for coming.”

  “I would never have stayed away. Had to pay my respects. My God, she was my only friend. My only, good, good friend!” Sharon said in a quivering voice. “If I just hadn’t gotten drunk that night!”

  “Listen, you are going to have to take it easy on yourself, Sharon. Everyone makes …”

  Nearby, darkening the ambience and dampening the natural beauty of the greens and foliage, a towering figure lurked. He was staring at the hole in which Clara’s coffin had been lowered.

  “… mistakes,” Maggie finished her sentence upon noticing him. “Excuse me a moment.”

  Maggie recognized him from the day she’d tried to fill up her car at the fuel station. He was the tall old man in black that had stood watching as the clerk belittled her and she did not have to guess who he was.

  “Reverend Mason, I presume,” she said evenly as she approached him. “Enjoying the view?”

  He was a sharp man. It was not hard to pick up on Maggie’s sarcastic hostility. He yielded her a slight smile and nodded. She was surprised at his soft-spoken manner, but his face that day at the garage was burned into page one of her crap codex.

  “I am quite enjoying the view, thank you, dear Margaret,” he replied snidely, hands locked in front of his lower abdomen. “You are too kind.”

  “Kind?” she inquired abruptly.

  He raised his eyebrows and looked rather serene as he explained, “Yes, you were kind to inter your aunt here. I am elated that you did not opt for my cemetery. I like to keep my dead as decent as possible. In fact, I think she quite belongs in a hole in Salem. Poetic.”

  Maggie seethed, shamelessly hating him for such sickening words. She had to mind her right hand. It was itching to deal him a wallop he would not soon forget, but Nellie and Carl were nearby, playing with Bramble, and it would be improper conduct on her behalf. Not to mention how disrespectful it would be to Auntie Clara, she reckoned.

  Instead, the last Corey stepped up to him and sneered, “I never realized that sociopaths can tell the difference between decency and deviancy, Reverend. Believe me, my aunt Clara is better off not resting in the rotten soil of your putrid parish.”

  Her retort appeared to sting just a little. His gray eyes twitched at her insult, but the rest of him remained static. With consummate tranquility he simply replied, “Exodus 22:18, Margaret. ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.’”

  “Don’t spew your impotent verses at me, Reverend Mason, n
ot while you are dressed like the devil,” she sneered at him, her blue eyes like ice on fire. Carl pretended not to hear any of it, but he listened intently as Maggie launched her attack without fear or respect. “Tell me, do you take that commandment literally? I bet you do. That explains a lot. Did you act out your feeble biblical orders on my aunt, perhaps?”

  Carl glanced at them from his secret vantage point behind the car where Nellie was playing with Bramble. He saw the tall minister grow almost instantly pallid at Maggie’s accusation. She had finally managed to crack his façade and activate his defenses.

  Reverend Mason raised his voice for the first time. “How dare you? You come to this town, thinking you can just take over and call people sociopaths and accuse them of unspeakable things! I cannot believe you would treat a man of God with such impudence. I am deeply disappointed that people like you are allowed to call other people names, Margaret.” His calm demeanor had dwindled under the surprise of her fearlessness, but he recovered somewhat. “Do you even know anything about running a business? I wonder if you had to bribe your way through the town council to get your trading license, but unlike you, I do not force myself into other people’s business!”

  With that, he stormed off towards his car. His cassock whipped in the breeze and the speed of his departure likened him to a giant fleeing bat, or perhaps a vampire. It would be closer to his nature.

  12

  Carl Walden had heard enough. Now he was clear on what Maggie Corey had been concealing in her heart, though he knew the fabric of Reverend Mason. As a matter of fact, he completely fathomed why Maggie would have this view of the gaunt and rigorous preacher. Still, he thought it would be better to educate the new Corey woman in the town’s politics, just as a matter of background and preemptive caution.

  Using Nellie’s adoration of Bramble as an excuse, he sauntered over to the seething Maggie as she said goodbye to Sharon. Maggie was still visibly shaken by her fight with the reverend, but she tried to hide it.

  “Listen, Maggie, it looks like Nellie is reluctant to let go of Bramble,” he mentioned in the most casual way he could muster.

  Maggie looked over to her car and watched Nellie embracing the big black cat with a bear hug, rubbing her face in his coat and chatting incessantly to him. Such an innocent scene quickly made her feel ashamed for allowing the preacher to get under her skin.

  “Why can’t we all just be like that?” she asked.

  “Like what?” he shrugged.

  “Like children. They just see pleasure and their lives are so uncomplicated,” she shook her head.

  Carl understood. He sighed, putting his hands at his sides as he did when he had an opinion. “Well, even children have to deal with bullies.”

  His statement could not have rung truer to her. In fact, his reply was dead on track. Reverend Mason was a bully, a schoolyard tyrant who got away with his torments because he was class president.

  “True,” she sighed. “Would you two like to come over to my porch for some lemonade? I got the recipe from one of Clara’s books. Then Nellie can enjoy Bramble a bit longer.”

  “Invitation accepted,” he smiled.

  While Maggie and Carl were sitting on Clara’s old rattan porch furniture, Bramble entertained young Nellie on the lawn. Carl used the opportunity to fill Maggie in on the reverend before she did something else that could compromise her peace in Hope’s Crossing.

  “Your blood pressure back to normal now?” he jested.

  “Geez, Carl, do not even go there,” she gasped, her mouth agape and her hand on her chest. “For a moment, I thought I was going to punch that man.”

  “I could see,” he mentioned. “However, that would have been detrimental to you.”

  “Why? Would you have locked me up?” she played.

  He shrugged. “Actually, yes.”

  “What?” she cried in amusement.

  “I would have to. It would be assault in a public place, right? By law, I would have had to arrest you,” he explained lightheartedly, but these were facts nonetheless.

  “Yeah, I get it,” she nodded, taking a sip of her drink, “but can you believe the audacity of him?”

  Carl took a deep breath. As a career lawman, he was versed in hostage negotiation, and yet he did not really know how to convey the dogma of Hope’s Crossing to her without paying some hefty price. Maggie Corey was stunning and intelligent, but she was also a bit of a hothead in his opinion. People like that had set opinions and they were difficult to sway, but he thought it well to at least inform her of the reverend’s nature and principals.

  “It comes with the territory,” he started. “Reverend Mason is practically the most powerful man in Hope’s Crossing. Most people here have unshakable faith in him.”

  “Thousands had faith in Hitler too,” came her answer without a moment’s hesitation. It was that exact sharpness that intimidated poor Carl about her and he had to laugh at the accuracy of her presumption of the reverend.

  “Look, all I am saying it that it is not wise to confront Reverend Mason, especially with so much aggression,” he elucidated.

  “He intimidates you, then?” she asked.

  “He is an intimidating man with a long reach, if you know what I mean,” he answered vaguely. “It would not be wise to call him out.”

  Maggie turned her whole body to face him, tucking her leg in under her as she locked eyes with the sheriff. “So tell me, Carl, does that go for if he is behind my harassment? Wait, wait,” she added excitedly, “does it count for if he is guilty of murder? Would you be too intimidated by him to do something then?”

  “Hey, now don’t jump to conclusions,” he finally bit back. “Look, if he is guilty, if I have the evidence to prove such, I will arrest his holy ass in a jiffy. Don’t think I won’t.”

  “You’re in his church. What would the congregation say?” she teased with a straight face.

  “I am telling you, Maggie. Regardless of the fact that Nellie and I go to his church, a sacred trust is a sacred trust …” he settled somewhat and added in a softer tone, “and murder is murder.”

  They sat overlooking the yard for a while, neither saying a word as they both contemplated their role in this town. The sun was warm, but the wind had gained significant power by now. Maggie imagined that even nature grew restless at the mention of the bigoted preacher’s name. She thought it was time to confront him with the obvious question.

  “What do you really think? As Carl, not as the sheriff. Do you think he is behind the town’s persecution of Aunt Clara … and myself?”

  Carl wasted no time in responding. “There is no love lost between your family and Reverend Mason, Maggie, and it has been like that for years, decades even. He hates the Coreys and he makes no secret of it. And since people respect him so much, naturally they will follow suit and treat anyone maligned by the reverend as an enemy. It is just, unfortunately, how society works.”

  “Sounds like a sore loser to me,” she scoffed. “What is his problem with me and Clara? He is such a frigid old bat. He probably hates all women.”

  Carl had no opinion on the latter, so he just drank his lemonade while watching the cat and Nellie frolicking.

  Maggie shared her honest opinion. “You know what I think? I think he is absolutely guilty and totally capable of it all. I can definitely see him igniting fires under the less mindful, if I may be very, very polite about the townies.”

  “You have made up your mind just because he doesn’t like you?” he asked her.

  “I don’t know, Carl. He looks physically incapable of committing such a brutal murder, but I swear, I would not put it beneath him to instigate such a heinous act. Not at all.”

  13

  After Clara’s funeral, Maggie felt more at ease about dealing with matters around Corey’s Herbs and Simples and the town in general. Besides, the funeral attendance had proved who her allies were and few as they might be, they were good people. With all the arrangements for the funeral and renova
tion of the shop behind her, Maggie finally had some time to relax and delve deeper into the mysterious world of her heritage.

  Bramble insisted on leading her to the couch where the volumes of Corey history lay in wait for her to consume. She never ceased to be amazed by the cat’s intuitive and almost human mannerisms—the herbal teas he loved and how he shunned water, as well as the palate he possessed in what he preferred to eat. Above that, he did things out of the ordinary for most cats, most of all like the thing he had done today.

  As Maggie settled into the corner of the couch and pulled her legs up on it, she heard Bramble let out a long and lazy meow to get her attention.

  “What is it? I already fed you,” she said.

  He jumped up on the coffee table, where two of the Corey family history volumes were stacked and with his paw, he flipped the cover of the top one.

  “Wow!” she gasped.

  He proceeded to stand on the side of the book, using his paw to rummage through the pages, but Maggie just shook her head and gawked at the tricks he had been taught. Bramble’s front paw held the book open near the middle as he looked at Maggie, but she only chuckled and complimented him.

  “You know, love, we can make a lot of money if you can make a martini,” she winked at him and lay back to read the book in her hand. “It looks like everyone in this house has talent. I mean, the way in which Aunt Clara wrote, she could have been some famous author. The stuff in her journal is downright poetic in places and she even turned this family’s history into a great fictional account. I might try to publish this. Who knows?”