He’d pursued Abbie long and hard and finally convinced her to try again with him. A new chance for love.
Just as I stepped from my SUV and shut the door, my mother roared up in her catering van. I waited for her.
When she jerked her body from the vehicle, I knew something was wrong. “Hey, Ma. You—”
“I am just so mad I could spit nails.” She slammed the door shut.
“I’m sorry. What’s—”
“After all, it is my business, you know.” She strode toward the building.
I followed in the wake of her hostility. “Yes, I—”
“And my name is on that sign. Big as day, it says ‘Doris’s Doughnuts.’ ” She stomped up the step to the cement walkway.
Breathlessly I joined her. “Yes, it—”
“That means I’m the boss.” She glared at me, stuck the key in the lock, turned it, and flung open the door to the church hall, banging it on the side of the building. Then she stalked through the opening with me trailing behind her. “Where is Linda?”
“She can’t make it,” I gasped.
Ma paused. “What?”
“I saw her at the Gas ’n’ Go. She asked me to tell you she had an emergency and can’t make it. Something to do with a client.”
“Well, that just makes my day complete.” Ma strode to the kitchen area and began flinging open cupboards. “I hope the women in charge of the morning Bible study put everything back the way it’s all supposed to be. They usually don’t, you know. And they just had a luncheon.”
She sniffed the air. “What is that smell?”
I shrugged and grunted. Saying anything was taking the risk of having my head bitten off. As Ma scurried around trying to find the source of the odor, I examined the kitchen. It was a cook’s dream and a good indication of how important socializing was to the church members. There was plenty of counter space and cupboards. A large center island held an additional sink, which I couldn’t fully see at the moment because of the bags that covered the surface.
On the edge of the island lay a copy of Abbie’s new book. She had said she would be here earlier in the day to drop some things off and look at the supplies in the kitchen cupboards to make sure she didn’t need to buy anything else.
I sneaked a look inside the bags and found packages of plain blue napkins, matching paper plates, and plastic cups, along with plastic flatware.
“It’s the trash,” Ma said.
I glanced up at her. “What?”
“The smell is coming from the trash.” She snatched the plastic bag from the metal can, grumbling under her breath that she couldn’t depend on anybody to help her.
“Do you want me to take that out?” I dropped the napkins back into the bag.
“No.” Ma stomped across the tiled floor to the back door. “You try to find the punch bowl. Who knows where that is.”
I heard the squeaky front door swing open. Both of us turned, and Abbie walked in carrying a drink from McDonald’s.
“Well, at least the bride-to-be is faithful,” Ma grumbled.
Abbie met my gaze with raised brows. Ma disappeared outside, and I heard her footsteps clomping down the stairs that led to the parking lot and yard behind the church. “Hey,” I said.
“Hi.” Abbie crossed the room and kissed my cheek.
“Where were you? I thought you’d be here before me.”
“I was.” She dropped her coat on the counter, followed by a wool blazer with dull brass buttons.
I looked more closely at her. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” She brought the straw in her drink to her mouth and didn’t meet my eyes. I didn’t believe her reply. Her eyelids were red rimmed.
“Abbie, have you been crying?” An awful thought occurred to me. “Have you and Eric been fighting?”
She shook her head. “No. He’s out of town, remember? At that training school.” She took a deep breath and seemed to pull herself together. “Did you see the napkins?”
“Yep. Sort of. . .plain, aren’t they?”
She smiled. “Nothing formal. This wedding is going to be different from my first. I don’t want to take any chance of. . .flashbacks.”
I looked up at Abbie in time to see a quick frown crease her forehead, then it was gone. If I hadn’t known her so well, I wouldn’t have noticed it.
“That’s probably a good idea. When you married Philip, it was a formal affair, all gold and white and perfect, and look how that turned out. But this is the real thing.” She thunked her half-finished drink on the counter and rubbed the middle of her forehead with her index finger.
“Are you okay, Abs? Do you have a headache?”
“No, not a headache.” She met my gaze with a shaky smile. “Everything is just fine.”
Her attention fell to the book on the counter. “Is this yours?”
I shook my head. “No. I thought it was yours.”
The back door swung open, clattered against the wall, and Ma stumbled in, coughing, her hand over her mouth.
I dropped the napkins on the counter and rushed to her side. “Ma? Are you okay?”
She shook her head and dropped her hand to point toward the back door. Her face was as white as the boxes she packed doughnuts in.
“Ma? Are you sick?”
She swallowed hard as she shook her head again. “No. Yes. Not yet.” She took a deep, trembly breath. “Don’t go out there!”
I couldn’t imagine what was so bad in the trash outside that she’d had this reaction.
She shocked both of us by grasping Abbie’s arm then dragging her across the room to the counter where Ma had set her purse. “It’s Philip. He’s outside on the ground.”
She yanked her cell phone from her handbag. The color returned to her face in two tiny red patches on her cheeks. Somehow that was worse than her dead white face. She punched in some numbers.
“Philip? As in Philip Grenville?” A tremor of apprehension wormed up my back.
Ma nodded. “Don’t go out there.
Abbie wasn’t moving, and Ma released her arm and took a deep breath. “Hello? 9-1-1? I need to report a shooting.”
Mute and motionless, I listened to Ma bark orders at the dispatcher.
“Yes, he’s dead,” Ma said into the phone. “Yes, I know who it is.” She reached over and clasped Abbie’s arm again. “His name is Philip Grenville.”
I had the proverbial breath-caught-in-my-throat reaction to that. Abbie’s face blanched so white she could have played the part of a vampire in an old horror flick.
I didn’t hear the rest of what my mother said because Abbie burst into motion, escaping Ma’s grip—not a small feat—and headed for the back door.
“Trish.” Ma frantically caught my eye and put her hand over the receiver. “Don’t let her see him. I. . .think a hunter shot him. It’s. . .bad.”
She didn’t have to say more. I was already running after Abbie. As she snatched the door open, I grabbed at her arm, but she jerked away from me, almost stumbling down the wooden stairs.
“Abbie. Stop!”
She didn’t listen. By the time I caught up with her, she was kneeling in the sparse grass beside Philip’s body.
I’d seen dead bodies before. Two to be exact. The first was Jim Bob Jenkins. The second was Georgia Winters, a teacher at the high school. But this was different. Philip was someone I had known well at one time.
Abbie was murmuring Philip’s name, pushing at his body. I guess shock shielded her from seeing harsh reality.
I glanced at him. What looked like bruises marred one side of his face. I averted my gaze so I wouldn’t see the rest. “Abbie, you shouldn’t—”
“Shut up,” she snapped. She finally tugged one of his hands from under his body and put her finger on his wrist.
I couldn’t stop her, but I knew checking for vital signs was a waste of time. He was dead.
My stomach roiled, and I was trying desperately to keep my gaze off his inert form. I swallowed har
d and put my hand on Abbie’s shoulder. “Come on. You can’t do anything for him. We need to wait for help to arrive.” And I had to get back inside before I lost control of my stomach.
This time she listened to me. She stood and swayed. I gripped her arm to steady her.
“I just talked to him,” she said softly. “Just this afternoon.”
My heart skipped. I stared up into her tear-filled eyes. “What?”
She wiped tears from her cheeks and left a streak of Philip’s blood on her parchment-white skin. My stomach turned.
“And he came to my book signing at the festival.”
“I didn’t see him there,” I said.
“He came after you left. I wouldn’t talk to him.” Her voice was getting higher. “He called me this morning. Then he showed up here.”
“You never said anything about it. You didn’t tell me he was in town.”
“I—I told him to get lost.” Her nose was running, and I searched my pockets for a tissue but came up empty-handed. “It was like he was stalking me,” she said. “I didn’t tell anybody. Not even Eric. I just couldn’t tell him. Not yet.”
“Oh, Abs. . .” My voice trailed off. She was wrong if she thought nobody knew. Someone always knows. Especially in this town. Unfortunately, the ones who didn’t know were the people she should have told to begin with.
“What am I going to do?” She hiccupped.
“I don’t know.” I wouldn’t say what I was really thinking—like this wasn’t a good way for the detective to find out his fiancée had been in touch with her estranged ex-husband and kept it a secret. Especially so close to their wedding day.
I tugged at Abbie’s arm. “Come on. We need to go inside. We’ve already messed up the crime scene.”
“Crime scene?” Her eyes grew wide. “You don’t think this was a hunting accident?”
I glanced around. The church was in an isolated location, a no-hunting zone, next to the woods. It was hunting season. “Maybe. I guess it could have been.” But even as I said the words, I didn’t believe them. Something inside me was tingling. I wasn’t sure why, but my gut told me this wasn’t an accident.
Chapter Four
Forty minutes later, the building was crawling with deputies, emergency workers, and then the medical examiner guy. I knew the drill. We had all been separated and given an initial interview. I sat in a front room of the church hall with a bored deputy watching over me.
I kept glancing out the window. Unfortunately, the view was of the front parking lot, not the back. I watched vehicles arriving, including several state police cars. I wondered why they were here.
My thoughts were muddled. Questions tumbled one over the other in my head. Like how did Philip get here? There hadn’t been any cars in the parking lot when I came.
From the corner of my eye, I saw another sheriff ’s office car pull up. A familiar Santa Claus–like figure got out. Corporal Nick Fletcher. I had been wishing Eric was here, but the corporal was just as good. He was one of Eric’s best friends, as well as a close working companion.
He entered the building, and I hoped he’d come find me. I wasn’t disappointed. I heard footsteps outside the room, then the door swung open. He walked in, and I shot to my feet.
He nodded at the deputy, eyes dark under drawn brows and deep furrows in his forehead. “Hey, Mrs. C.”
“Corporal Fletcher. I’m so glad you’re here.”
A brief, warm smile passed over his lips. “Always good to see you, but I have to say, I don’t like the circumstances. Better if it was social. Like Abbie and Eric’s wedding.”
“Isn’t that the truth,” I said.
He shook his head. “This is bad.”
His tight inflection said it all. Anxiety clawed at my brain. “Was Philip shot by accident?”
He and the younger deputy exchanged brief glances before Fletcher answered me. “Any kind of death like this is treated as suspicious until proven otherwise.”
“Are you helping with the investigation, then?”
He shook his head. “I’m not here officially. Eric called and asked me to stop by to make sure Abbie was okay.”
“I don’t understand,” I said. “Why aren’t you official?”
The deputy behind me stared at the wall.
“You gotta understand, Mrs. C. It’s a conflict of interest. The victim is the ex-husband of my superior officer’s fiancée. I can’t be involved.”
“Does that mean Eric can’t be involved in the investigation, either?”
“Absolutely not. In fact, they’ve already brought in the state police.”
“The state police? That’s why they’re here?”
He nodded. “That way, our agency can’t be accused of conflict of interest.”
“Well, at least Abbie couldn’t have done it.” I took a deep breath. “Neither could I. We weren’t anywhere near here.”
I thought he’d look relieved, but he didn’t. “What’s wrong?” I asked.
He shifted on his feet, and his belt creaked. “Things aren’t always that easily dismissed. They’re going to be extra careful not to show favoritism since Abbie is involved and she’s Eric’s fiancée.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“She’ll be treated fine if things are as they seem, but they can’t afford to lose a case due to poor investigation. And the investigation will include looking into the lives of everyone involved. Now I’d better go see what’s going on.” His lips were set in a grim line. “You gotta stay out of this, Mrs. C. I’ve had about enough of rescuing you from the hands of murderers.”
The deputy opened the door for Corporal Fletcher, who disappeared.
“Do you know how long I’m going to be here?” I asked the deputy.
“No, ma’am,” he said.
“I need to make a phone call.”
He inhaled and frowned.
The tense atmosphere made me cranky. “I just need to tell my husband where I am so he doesn’t worry. Is that okay?”
He sighed. “Yes ma’am. I need to listen, though.”
“That’s fine. I don’t care who hears.” He’d be bored to tears by my conversation, I was sure.
When Max picked up the phone, I heard Chris crying in the background.
“Hi, honey,” I said. “Things okay there?” I wasn’t sure how to tell him I was once again involved in a crime.
“Yes.” He sighed. “I’ll be glad when teething is over. Chris is so much louder than Sammie ever was. Although I’m beginning to wonder if this is just his personality. And Charlie’s snake escaped. We’re still looking for it.”
Neither fact surprised me. “I’m sorry, honey. Chris isn’t an easy baby. And Charlie has taken to walking around the house with his snake. Then he puts it down to do something and forgets about it.” I felt the deputy’s gaze on me.
“Hang on, Trish,” Max said. I heard the muffled voices of my kids through the receiver. “Honey, I have to go. Will you be home soon?”
“I’m not sure. I have something to tell you.” I took a deep breath, worried about Max’s reaction to Philip’s murder.
“Hang on again,” he said. I heard his hand cover the receiver and then his muffled voice. “Charlie! Tell me you did not put your snake in Karen’s room.” He paused. “Go get it now.” His hand rustled on the receiver. “Okay, I’m back. Now, what?”
“Um, Max, something bad has happened.”
There was a slight pause on his end. “Worse than a missing snake, a teething baby, and an angry teenager?”
“Yes. Much worse.”
He inhaled. “What?”
“Philip is dead.”
Max didn’t say anything for a second. I could almost hear his brain clicking.
“That’s Abbie’s ex-husband,” I said.
“Oh, wow.” Max paused. “That’s too bad. Was he in an accident?”
“No.” I glanced up at the deputy and decided not to say anything more about Abbie.
“What happened?”
I swallowed. “He was, ah, shot. Killed.”
“You mean, on the job? He was still a police officer, right?”
“I think he was, but no, it wasn’t job related—that I know of.”
Max’s breath hissed in the receiver. “He was murdered?”
“I don’t know.”
“You mean, he was in town?” Max asked. “Here?”
The deputy cleared his throat.
“Max, I have to go.”
“Wait. Tell me you didn’t find the body. Please?”
I picked my nails. “Well, not exactly.”
“Not exactly?”
“No.” Movement in the parking lot caught my attention. Another police car had arrived. This one unmarked. A woman built like a bulldog stepped from the vehicle. I watched her stride toward the building.
“Where are you?” Max’s tone was a mixture of concern and irritation.
“I’m at Ma’s church fellowship hall. And no, I didn’t find Philip. My mother found him.”
“Your mother. . .what? She found him at church?” Chris’s wails in the background grew louder.
“Yeah. He was in the back on the pavement behind the church hall.”
“Shot?” I heard Charlie’s voice in the background and Karen yelling at him. “There’s no way you could have been involved, right?” Max asked breathlessly.
My poor husband. He’s always having to pick up the pieces when I do something outrageous.
Somebody walked into the room behind me, but I didn’t pay attention. “No. No way.” “Good,” Max said.
“Mrs. Cunningham, you need to get off the phone,” the deputy said. “We need to take you to the sheriff ’s office for questioning.”
My stomach clenched, and I nodded. “Max, I’ve got to go. They want to question me at the sheriff ’s office.”
“Do you want me to come down there and meet you?”
“No. I’m fine.” I stood to follow the deputy. I could just imagine Max in the foyer of the sheriff ’s office with a screaming baby, Sammie, Charlie, and a snake.
“All right, baby. Call me as soon as you can. I love you.”
Kitty Litter Killer Page 5
