“Leave that aside for now,” May Almand said. “What’s the third thing puzzling you?”
Nora sighed. “It’s silly but… it’s the murder weapon.”
“The knife?” May Almand asked.
Nora nodded. “Yes. Anna Hanes was stabbed in the back, is that correct?”
Lucy Dobbs nodded. “Horrible.”
“Well, the knife was a simple kitchen knife, was it not?”
Lucy nodded again. “Yes. A chef’s knife, with a black pommel.”
“Well, think about it,” Nora said. “Was there anything distinctive about it? The knife, that is?”
Lucy rubbed a finger against her chin. “Well, no. Nothing distinctive about it. It was a good quality knife. You could tell because it was heavy, not that I was thinking about the quality of the knife when I pulled it out of her back but, I mean…” She stuttered a bit, and paused. Nora reassured her.
“It’s okay, Mrs. Dobbs, we won’t judge you.”
“Thank you,” she said. “It was the type of knife you’d see in any good kitchen, really. Unremarkable.”
“That’s what’s remarkable about it,” Nora said. “If the murderer was a man, how did he conceal the knife in the first place? It’s not like Anna Hanes would have cheerfully turned her back on him if he’d been waving it around. A chef’s knife is large, and not so easy to keep concealed. Unless you carry a purse, that is.”
May Almand’s eyes widened. “So it had to be a woman who killed Anna Hanes?”
“If we consider that point, it makes the most sense,” Nora said. “But it was most likely a man who scaled this cemetery wall. There’s also the question of why. Why was the murderer carrying a chef’s knife around? It’s a smart murder weapon if you’re inside a house. But in the middle of a huge square? A gun or a rock or a club would have been far easier to tote around. Why carry an unwieldy knife, fish it out of your purse and stab Anna Hanes? And why did Anna have her back turned in the first place?”
Mrs. Dobbs and May Almand both stared at Nora, as if expecting her to answer the question. Nora, however, was defeated. She slumped against the wall, sighing. “There’s something I’m missing here,” she said.
“Claudia is younger than us, and quite fit,” Lucy Dobbs pointed out. “Couldn’t she have scaled the wall? Perhaps that’s her footprint.”
“No. Claudia wouldn’t be able to run at all,” May Almand said. “She has terrible arthritis in her knees, remember? Anna and Claudia would both complain about it every chance they got.”
“Anna Hanes had arthritis too?” Nora asked.
May nodded. “She loved to complain of it. She had weird theories, too. When she went to Colorado, she said that the sidewalks there had ruined her legs, because she had a much harder time getting out of Mrs. Strathclyde’s car afterwards.”
Nora’s eyes widened. “What? What do you mean?”
“She said that she’d hopped out of the car like a sprightly young thing on Friday but, by the time she returned on Sunday, she had to painfully pull herself upright,” May said. “I mean, it’s irrelevant, really-”
“No. It’s not irrelevant!” Nora exclaimed. “It’s not irrelevant at all, May! I believe you’ve done it! Come on, we have to go immediately! Sean needs to know something.”
*****
Chapter 10
Burning Bright
The clock upon the tower struck midnight with a loud clang. Milburn was asleep. A dark figure crept through backstreets until it stopped at a large wire fence. Effortlessly, the figure cut a hole through the fence and wiggled inside forbidden territory. The figure put a hand inside the ski mask over their head, and briefly adjusted it. Then, moving quickly, the figure stole towards a bright red car parked all by itself in one corner of the parking lot. Taking a can of gasoline out of the knapsack, the figure moved quickly, drenching the car.
Lights came on, and a voice in a loudspeaker cried out, “Freeze!”
Instinctively, the figure whirled around and tried to run, only to be tackled by Sean. There was a brief struggle before Sean had the man handcuffed. He pulled off his hood.
“Well, well, well,” Sean said with a satisfied smile. “Norman Carter. Who would have thought?”
“Let me go!” Norman exclaimed, wriggling this way and that.
“Not a chance, buddy. You have the right to remain silent...” Sean recited the Miranda as he roughly bought Norman to his feet, then pushed him inside the Sheriff’s office, adjacent to the lot Norman had just broken into.
“I want a lawyer!” Norman demanded. “I need a lawyer!”
“Oh, you really do need a lawyer,” Sean agreed. “But even he’ll tell you the same thing I will - life will be much easier for you, Norm, if you cooperate and confess everything.”
“I didn’t do anything!” Norman exclaimed. “I’m innocent! I swear it!”
“Sure.” Sean shoved him into a seat. The interrogation room was sparsely furnished with just a metal folding table, two chairs and a giant mirror on one wall.
Norman looked up and said, “How did you know? I mean, how did you know I’d try and break in today? Did someone set me up?”
Sean shrugged.
From behind the mirrored wall, Nora watched with satisfaction as the sheriff interrogated Norman. Earlier that day, Nora had warned Sean that someone might try and set fire to the Chevy. He had immediately taken the necessary precautions. He had been very reluctant to let the three women stay and watch what happened, but he’d finally been broken down by their chorus of pleas.
“Besides,” May had told Sean, “Nora might be wrong and nothing might happen. Then we’d all three feel like fools and you could have a good laugh at us. Right?”
Sean had nodded but, even then, he’d known that Nora was rarely wrong about these kind of things.
“How did you know?” Lucy asked Nora. “When did you know?”
Nora gave an enigmatic smile. “I pieced it together slowly but, once I had, I couldn’t believe what a fool I’d been.”
“Meaning?”
“It all starts and ends with Anna Hanes and her behavior on Bingo Night,” Nora said. “First, she refused to give you the car. Then, later that night, she refused to give Norman the car, either.”
Lucy nodded, “Why?”
“Well, here’s the thing,” Nora said, “I thought it was mean of Anna Hanes to refuse to give you your winnings for such a silly technical reason. I was the fool, however. It was never Anna Hanes’ idea to refuse you. I’d seen it with my own eyes, but never bothered to think about it. Mrs. Strathclyde was the one who whispered to Anna that you technically shouldn’t have the car. She counted on Anna’s spite towards you and. sure enough, Anna refused you.”
“Mrs. Strathclyde?” Lucy’s eyes grew big. “Do you mean she’s involved?”
“Involved? Mrs. Strathclyde is the one who murdered Anna Hanes,” Nora said.
“It can’t be!” Lucy cried. “Not her!”
“Yes, her,” Nora said. “She planned it all right from the beginning. But bad luck kept waylaying the best of her plans.”
“How so?”
“Bingo night was a farce right from the beginning,” Nora explained. “I suspect that Norman was given a pre-made ticket and that Mrs. Strathclyde had rigged the setup somehow. Norman was to be the winner. Except, lady luck intervened and you, Mrs. Dobbs, ended up having an even better ticket than that cheater, Norman!”
Lucy’s eyes widened.
“Mrs. Strathclyde must have been horrified when you won. But she thought fast. She whispered to Anna that, as you had previously been on the organizing committee, surely you should not be allowed to participate in Bingo Night. Anna happily agreed. She took your rightful prize away from you and a painful scene followed.”
“I hate to even think of it,” Lucy sighed.
“Well, soon after, Norman won the prize and Mrs. Strathclyde was relieved. But then something unusual happened. Anna Hanes had a change of heart. She refused to le
t Norman walk away with the prize.”
“Why?” Lucy asked.
“I suspect she pieced it together,” Nora said. “Perhaps she’d seen Mrs. Strathclyde speaking to Norman earlier or she somehow figured out that the whole Bingo Night had been rigged. More likely, though, is that Claudia told her something.”
“Claudia?”
“Yes, Claudia. I think Claudia uses marijuana as a painkiller for her arthritis, like many people do these days. Claudia probably told Anna Hanes, who also had arthritis, that Norman was her dealer.”
“Why would that make Anna change her mind?” May Almand asked.
“I think Anna connected the dots,” Nora said. “When she went to Colorado with Mrs. Strathclyde, the car’s suspension wasn’t weighted down. The car was easier to get into and out of because it stood taller. However, when she came back from Colorado with Mrs. Strathclyde, the car was weighted down with the amount of marijuana hidden in it. That’s why Anna Hanes found it harder to climb out.”
“Mrs. Strathclyde was smuggling marijuana?!” Lucy’s eyes were wide.
Nora nodded. “I think she’s been in the business for a while. Fits, doesn’t it? Poor Jane Seymour leaves Wyoming and rich Mrs. Strathclyde returns. Only nobody knows how she made all of her money. Nobody would suspect a sweet old lady of smuggling drugs across state lines, either. Well, nobody until Anna Hanes.”
“What then?”
“I think Anna Hanes couldn’t sleep that night,” Nora said. “She’d put Norman off, but she was dying with curiousity. So she got up in the middle of the night and her conscience made her come first to your door, Mrs. Dobbs. I think she meant to apologize for how she’d treated you. Only she lost her nerve when Sparky barked and, so, she headed off to the square instead.”
“And when she reached it?”
“When she reached it, she found Mrs. Strathclyde standing with a knife in hand, about to tear apart the interior in order to give Norman the hidden drugs,” Nora said. “That explains the knife. Mrs. Strathclyde didn’t mean it as a murder weapon, she just happened to have it handy when the need arose.”
Lucy put a hand over her mouth. Horror was written on her face.
“Well, Anna Hanes confronted them. At some point, she must have turned to face Norman. That was when Mrs. Strathclyde plunged the blade into her back, killing her,” Nora sighed. “Poor Mrs. Hanes. She was a good woman, really. Just not a very nice woman.”
“Poor Anna,” May agreed solemnly.
“Then, as soon as Strathclyde killed Anna, she ran away, back to her own home,” Nora said. “It’s really close to the square and, as you can remember, it’s next to Claudia’s house.”
Lucy Dobbs nodded. “And Norman panicked?”
“That’s right,” Nora said. “He panicked and probably froze before coming to his senses and running. He was the yellow raincoat you saw escaping down the alley. We’ll have a confession out of him in no time, I’m sure.”
The door opened and Sean walked in. His eyes lit up with triumph as he looked at the three women. “He’s confessed,” Sean said. “Norman is just a stooge, though. He’s working for Jerry Antony and Mrs. Strathclyde. They knew I was keeping a very close eye on Jerry, which is why Mrs. Strathclyde created this convoluted method of passing on the drugs to Norman, who’d then hand it to Jerome. Of course, she could have just sold Norman the car for a cheap price, but then there would be a direct connection between the two of them if the drugs were ever found. She was too smart to allow that chance. So she figured out a way to get someone else to hand the car over to him. Goodness, she was the last person I’d have expected to be involved in this sort of thing.”
“Evil comes in all forms,” Lucy said, with a sigh. “Will you arrest her tonight, Sheriff?”
“I’ve already sent my deputies to her house,” Sean said. “She’ll spend the rest of her life in jail, no doubt.”
*****
Epilogue
Sadly, Mrs. Strathclyde did not spend the rest of her life in jail. By the time the deputies found her, she’d already consumed most of a bottle of pills that let her drift into a deep and painless death. The town of Milburn was shocked enough to lose such a prominent citizen. But a bigger shock awaited them when Sean arrested Jerry Antony on charges of drug-smuggling.
“The sheriff is quite the hero, now,” Tina said with a smile, as she dished up a plate of pumpkin pie to Harvey. Harvey folded his sleeves and dug in, occasionally giving out little “mmm”s of satisfaction. “I heard he’s going to get a medal at the next State Police conference.”
“He deserves it, too,” Nora said. “He managed to make the bust without injuring a single person and he managed to get some names that will help the State Police.”
“Well, I still think he should break that medal in half and give you a piece,” Harvey smiled. “But I suppose you don’t want medals, do you?”
“I’ve got something better,” Nora smiled. “Mrs. Dobbs offered to share her family’s ancient recipe for the perfect Thanksgiving turkey with me.”
“Now that’s worth more than some old medal,” Harvey smiled. “I can’t wait to dig into it.”
“I’m so glad you cleared Mrs. Dobbs’ name,” Tina said. “And I’m glad she’s back as president of the ladies’ club, too.”
“So, wait, I forgot if you told me this - Mrs. Dobbs didn’t steal that money from the collection box, right?” Harvey asked.
Nora shook her head. “Claudia James admitted to stealing that money. She found the key in Anna’s house when she went to water her plants.”
“The richest woman in town, stealing money from a collection box,” Harvey shook his head. “People will never cease to surprise me.”
“Well, despite being well-off, her husband is apparently quite stingy and kept track of every penny. Plus, when she’d first mentioned the benefits of medical marijuana to him after learning about it, he’d read her the riot act, telling her that no wife of his would ever be a ‘pothead’. But she was desperate for some relief. So, she stole the money and found a way to obtain some of the drug without him ever knowing. She baked the marijuana into peanut butter cookies, which her husband hates! All in all, I can’t blame her. Chronic pain can become an all-consuming demon,” Nora said. “She feels terrible about the whole ordeal.
“I hope she can find something to help her, now that everything has come to a head. It’s just too bad your peanut butter cookies don’t offer any benefits to arthritis. They’re the best in the world!” Tina said.
Nora smiled.
Harvey raised his cup of coffee as though he were toasting her. “Can I just say that I’m really glad you went to the police this time? I almost expected you to barge into Mrs. Strathclyde’s house and confront her yourself.”
Nora blushed. “I never do that!”
“You’ve had more showdowns with killers than a sheriff in an old west town,” Harvey teased.
“Oh, you!” Nora swatted him on the forearm and turned back to the kitchen, bringing out a pot of coffee to refill his cup.
The diner’s door opened, and May Almand walked in with a casserole dish in her hands. Tina and Nora both looked startled.
“You dropped this off at Lucy’s the other day,” May said. “I thought it only fair I return it to you full.”
“Thanks, May,” Nora smiled. “What’s in it?”
May slid back the cover a little, revealing a ground beef and mushroom casserole with a crust of breadcrumbs on top.
“Well! That’s dinner for the week!” Nora said happily.
“Speak for yourself, I’m going to finish that in a day,” Harvey laughed. “Thanks, May.”
“You can’t leave just yet,” Nora said as May tried to leave. “I’ve got this new burger recipe I thought you might enjoy!”
Outside, a bitter wind blew, announcing the arrival of winter. Inside, however, there was warmth and joy. And for Nora, that was all she needed.
For now…
The End
>
Thank you so much for reading my story! I hope you liked it! If so, and if you’d like even more Nora, please read her BRAND NEW series called “Return To Milburn”! The first book, Berry The Dead, picks up 25 years from where this story left off. And, in this new series, Nora is older, wiser and in more danger than ever! CLICK HERE TO CHECK IT OUT ON AMAZON!
*****
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Continue For Your Delicious Recipe…
One More Thing…
If you would RETURN TO AMAZON to give this book a positive review, I would really appreciate it! And, if you do, please let me know so I can thank you appropriately!
*****
Please continue for Nora’s delicious recipe…
A RECIPE FOR YOU!
Nora’s Super-Soft Super-Simple Peanut Butter Cookies
Serves:
8-12 cookies, depending on desired cookie size
Ingredients:
1 cup of peanut butter, smooth or chunky
1 cup of white sugar
1 egg
Directions:
1) Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.
2) Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
3) Mix all 3 ingredients until smooth.
Death On Bingo Night Page 5
