Anna Denning Mystery Series Box Set: Books 1–3

by Karin Kaufman

  Anna rounded the kitchen island, trudged to the machine, and took hold of it, trying her best to look like she instinctively knew what to do and wasn’t about to break anything. Her hands on the steamer wand, she turned to face Bee. “And I wondered if you had a high-beam flashlight I could borrow.”

  “What?” Bee said, a look of utter bewilderment on her face. She sniffed, grabbed a paper towel from the island, and rubbed her nose with it.

  Anna could no longer ignore Bee’s distress, regardless of the flack she might take for acknowledging it. “Bee, what’s wrong? Can I help?”

  For a moment Bee said nothing. Then her shoulders sagged. She shut her eyes and pressed the paper towel to her face. “You can’t, but thank you. I’m fine.” She sniffed again, loudly, and crunched the towel into a ball. “I heard from Nilla at the hospital. Devin is dead.” She threw the towel to the counter and gestured in the direction of the kitchen phone. “I just phoned Mitch at the carriage house.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “I only met him in March—that’s when he first started working here—but I liked him.”

  “Did they say how he died?”

  “The police are looking at a drug overdose.” Bee shook her head furiously. “I never saw Devin high. Never.”

  “What drug do they think he took?”

  “Nilla didn’t say. Honestly.” She shook her head again, unable to process what to her was an absurd notion. “Devin had a degree in horticulture. He graduated last December from Colorado State. He told me this was his dream job. He even wanted to restore the greenhouse. Does that sound like someone who took drugs?”

  Anna had to admit that it didn’t. “Then why would the police suspect a drug overdose?”

  Bee looked in the direction of the kitchen door, her eyes unfocused. “I’ve been thinking about that.”

  Footsteps sounded in the hall outside the kitchen, and a man called Bee’s name. Bee opened her mouth to speak, but before she could call back, the kitchen door swung open. “Don’t you believe it, Bee,” the man said. About forty, he was dressed in mud-streaked jeans and garden boots, and leather gloves protruded from the right pocket of his rain jacket. He stomped toward Bee, his arms outstretched, but when he caught sight of Anna he came to a halt.

  “Mitch,” Bee said. She went rigid and forced a cough, reining in her emotions. “This is Anna Denning, the genealogist Paxton hired.”

  “Yes, I heard,” Mitch said. He took one awkward step her way, then simply raised his large, calloused hand in greeting. “You caught us on a very bad day.”

  “Bee told me. I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s bull,” he said, wheeling back to Bee. He was bristling with indignation and Anna’s presence would not hinder him. “I had my problems with Devin’s attitude—you know that—but he didn’t do drugs.” He thumped his chest. “I’d have known. You can’t prune rose bushes with someone for three hours and not know if he’s stoned, for God’s sake. Did someone want a modern murder for the buyers? Is that it?”

  Mitch broke off as he realized to his chagrin that his words to Bee weren’t for public consumption. It was Sparrow House news, strangers weren’t entitled to it, and Anna was a stranger.

  Bee acted quickly, fixing her eyes on Anna and speaking once again with cool-headed authority. “I’m keeping you from your work.”

  “I’ll get back to it,” Anna said. She looked from Bee to Mitch. “I’m sorry about Devin.”

  Mitch nodded, his lips squeezed tight as if trying to keep other private matters from spilling out of them.

  “I’ll bring you a pot of coffee,” Bee said as Anna headed for the kitchen door. “And I’m sure we have a flashlight somewhere.”

  As Anna made her way back to the library, Mitch DeBoer’s words rang in her ears. A modern murder for the buyers. But Mitch was upset and he’d lashed out. If the police thought Devin’s death was a drug overdose, and were convinced of it enough to say that that’s what they were looking at, then they had good reason. Addicts, even recreational drug users, were expert at hiding their habit.

  Still, if Bee was right about Devin, he didn’t fit the profile of a drug user. Did he take drugs at home, before he arrived at Sparrow House, then drive impaired on the mountain roads? Or did he take drugs here, in one of the gardens, working on his dream job? Neither scenario, Anna had to admit, made much sense.

  7

  “Did you know,” Liz said, holding up a photocopy of a handwritten document as Anna returned to the library, “that Paxton’s father asked a priest to perform an exorcism on this house in 1977? He copied the letter before he sent it.”

  Anna sighed loudly, gave Jackson a scratch on the head, and plunked down in her chair. “Yes, Paxton told me.” She took the letter from Liz.

  “So did the priest do it? Perform the exorcism, I mean?” Liz’s eyes were wide.

  “That’s what Paxton said.”

  Anna began to read the letter—a desperate petition more than a letter, she thought. In it Matthew Birch pleaded with the Archdiocese of Denver for help. Could they send a priest trained in the rite of exorcism? His wife, Charlene, a Catholic, was convinced of an evil presence in their house—one affecting everyone in it. Their child, Paxton Banner, just under three years old, cried at night and told his parents that “bad” was in the house, and Charlene was losing weight. Matthew doubted that evil roamed the halls of Sparrow House, but he was at his wit’s end.

  “Did you read this?” Anna asked.

  “I did. Gave me the shivers.”

  Anna let the letter drop to the table. “Remember Bee talking about Devin? He died. Bee had just found out when I walked into the kitchen.”

  “Is that what the shouting was about?”

  “That was Mitch, the groundskeeper. The police think Devin may have died of a drug overdose and Mitch doesn’t believe it.”

  “Yeah, but it happens, especially with young people.”

  “I don’t know. Mitch made some good points.”

  “Like what?”

  Anna sat forward. “He worked with Devin outside all day long, and he’d probably know if Devin took drugs. You can’t be high as a kite and properly prune rose bushes.”

  “Some people can function well when they’re on drugs.”

  “Maybe.” Anna waved a hand, shooing away thoughts of Devin, clearing her mind. “We’ve got to get started or we’re never going to make the deadline. Bee’s bringing coffee, by the way.”

  “What about that letter?”

  Anna scoured the library table for the file folders she’d brought from home and found them under a stack of ledger books Liz had taken from a shelf. “Here we go,” she said, scribbling “Haunted” on the tab of a purple folder. “Anything that even hints at ghosts, murder, or general evilness goes in here.” She slipped the letter inside and pushed the folder across the table, away from the stacks of ledgers, books, and records that seemed to be breeding and multiplying between her and Liz’s laptops.

  Liz raised her chin. “I smell coffee brewing.”

  A loud burst of thunder rattled the windowpanes. The lamps in the library flickered momentarily, leading Anna to thoughts of ancient electrical wires and blown fuses—then to estimates of how much it would cost to rewire a building like Sparrow House. She heard the sound of boots on marble, then a thud and click as the front door closed.

  Anna stood and looked out the window. “All the humidity must swell the front door,” she said. “Everyone has to yank on it.” Mitch was trotting, head down in the rain, across the drive and the lawn in the direction of the carriage house.

  “Same thing happens to my front door,” Liz said. She lifted a stack of folders from the shelf nearest her, placed the folders on the table, and began flipping through the documents in the topmost folder.

  Hand on her hips, Anna surveyed the library and the table. She reached for the paper Paxton had left for her, settled into her chair, and drew her laptop forward. “I’m inserting the names and date
s Paxton gave us.”

  “Do you think we’ll make the deadline?”

  “I think so. With the family tree, anyway. With the murder thing?” Anna rolled her eyes. “I don’t even know what we’re looking for.” They were two separate jobs, family tree and murder. Did they overlap? Would researching the Birch family tree bear fruit in the case of Kurt Ellison’s death? For now she had no way of knowing.

  And what about the yellow letters? Anna was sure they’d been typed by the same person, and whoever had typed them knew that she was a genealogist. Were the letters connected to her work on the Birch family tree? She hadn’t had a real, from-scratch family tree job in weeks. Now she had one. The timing couldn’t be a coincidence.

  Anna inserted the last of the names and dates Paxton had given her in her software, titled the file “Birch,” and saved it to her laptop. Anyway, she had no clue what the letters meant. The first one sounded vaguely like a warning. The second one—“And she worked like a genealogist works”—meant nothing. It was a meaningless statement. How else would a genealogist work? The real puzzle was why it was sent to her through Liz. Why not send it, like the first letter, to her post-office box?

  “Liz, do you have that yellow letter with you?”

  Liz produced a yellow envelope from her purse and whisked it across the table. “You have no idea who sent this?”

  “No, but I got another yellow letter this morning.”

  “Like this one?”

  “Only it was sent to my post-office box instead of yours. It’s in my purse. I’ll show you tonight.” For now she’d have to forget about the letters, tempting as it was to try to find out who sent them and why. She’d think about them tonight. The family tree and any evidence of a murder came first.

  “Ladies,” said Bee, appearing in the doorway with a tray. “Hazelnut coffee.” She positioned the tray on the table, and immediately Anna saw what appeared to be a black high-beam flashlight next to the coffeepot and cups. Jackson scooted up to Bee, his tail wagging and brushing along the floor. It was his pay-attention-to-me move, Anna knew, and it never failed to work with her. But Bee would have none of it. She gave Jackson a look of weary indifference then refocused her attention on the tray.

  “Nilla asked me to give this to you,” she said to Anna, holding up a loop of tattered orange ribbon from which dangled a silver-colored key. “In case either of you have to go into town and the front door is locked when you return.” She put it back on the tray then pointed at the flashlight. “And this. I didn’t know we had an industrial flashlight. Mitch told me.”

  Bee’s eyes were red rimmed. Devin’s death had hit her hard, though she was making a valiant effort to carry on with her house duties—and making it clear she didn’t want to discuss Devin.

  “Thank you.” Anna pointed the flashlight at the ceiling and pushed the switch. Light, bouncing off the white plaster ceiling, lit up the library. “That’s powerful.”

  Bee’s brow furrowed. “Did you want another lamp in here?”

  “Maybe tomorrow.” Anna turned off the flashlight. “We’re fine for now, thanks.”

  Bee’s eyes shot to the yellow envelope then quickly back to the flashlight, contemplating it with excessive interest, it appeared to Anna, as a way of making sure her eyes did not roam back to the envelope.

  “And thank you for the coffee,” Anna said. “I’m sorry about Devin.”

  “Always happy to help,” Bee said.

  Liz reached for the coffeepot the second Bee exited the room. “I see cookies,” she said, pouring Anna a cup of coffee and handing it to her. She pointed at a plate of sugar cookies on the tray, poured herself a cup, and sat.

  Anna polished off a cookie then wiped her hands on her jeans. “Was it my imagination or was Bee interested in that yellow envelope?”

  “Your imagination,” Liz said. “It usually is.” Liz held her cup to her nose and closed her eyes, savoring the scent of the coffee as it rose with the steam.

  “Thank you very much. Enjoying that?”

  “It’s just the ticket.”

  Studying the Birch file she’d just created, Anna began to devise a plan of attack. “Down to business. We need to find primary documents. Birth certificates, marriage licenses, that sort of thing.”

  “Do we just dive in?” Liz asked. She sighed and cast her eyes about the library. “Where do we start?”

  “We have to do this in an organized fashion.” Anna stood and pointed to her right. “Paxton said the older records are there, and the newer records are on the other side.” She directed her hand to the left.

  “Except for Lawrence Karlson’s stuff at the end,” Liz said. “Those bound journals, or whatever they are, look like the oldest records in the library.”

  “Well, he is a history professor.”

  “He thought he could squirrel away the most interesting documents for himself.”

  Anna gazed at Karlson’s stacks of books, her own words tumbling in her thoughts. Karlson, a history professor, had taken the oldest records for himself. “He’s a history professor,” she repeated.

  “We established that,” Liz said. She munched on a cookie as Anna continued to stare at Karlson’s books.

  “And he’s doing exactly what you’d expect a history professor to do.” Anna turned to Liz. “He’s going for the oldest records first. That’s how a history professor works.”

  “Riiight,” Liz said. She dropped her chin into her hand. “I guess.”

  Anna touched a hand to her collarbone. “I don’t do that. A genealogist starts with the newest records. You start with the known, the current family, then move to the previous generation, then the next previous. You don’t start with the ancestors, you find the ancestors.” She snapped up the yellow envelope and gave it a shake. “That’s how a genealogist works.”

  “I see!” Liz dropped her hand.

  “Though why . . .”

  “Why what? I think you’re right about the letter.”

  “But why would some stranger tell me to work like I always work?” She paused to take a gulp of coffee. If the letters meant anything, maybe this was the way to find out what—by doing what she always did. By working like a genealogist.

  But is that what the letters meant? Neither letter referred to her by name and both used the word she. In fact, the first letter was about a he and she, and it read like a story.

  “Maybe this stranger knew you’d be working on the Birch family tree,” Liz said.

  “No one knew that at the time the letter was mailed.” She jammed the envelope into her purse. Out of sight, out of mind. They needed to make progress on the family tree before bedtime tonight or they might fall irretrievably behind. “Let’s start with the newest records.”

  They each carried an armload of folders, ledgers, and books back to the table. Anna thumbed through the pages of a ledger—nearly every page of it stained with something like blueberry jam—and Liz delved into the contents of a thick folder. Jackson, sensing that they were settling in, padded to a corner of the library and curled up for a nap.

  A minute later, Liz gave a whoop of victory. “I do believe I have a primary document. Paxton’s birth certificate.”

  “That was fast.”

  “I think this whole folder is loaded with goodies.” She spread the documents from a thick folder across the table in front of her, fanning them like playing cards.

  “Paxton Banner Birch, born April 5, 1974, in Boulder Community Hospital,” Anna read. “Father, Matthew Warren Birch, mother, Charlene Laura Merwin Birch. Excellent.” She placed the certificate next to her laptop and tapped it with her forefinger. “Let’s put all primary documents here.”

  From the corner of her eye Anna saw Jackson’s head jerk upward. His neck went stiff, and she followed his eyes to the library ceiling. “Jackson?” His ears twitched. “What is it, boy?” He cocked his head to one side, his eyes still fixed on the ceiling.

  “What’s he looking at?” asked Liz, twisting back in he
r seat to gaze at the same spot.

  “I don’t know. Do you hear something?”

  “Rain maybe.”

  “In the corner?”

  Liz reconsidered. “Our bedrooms and my sitting room are up there.”

  The fur on Jackson’s back ruffled. Anna stood and listened.

  “Maybe it’s a leak,” Liz said. “Or mice.”

  “I prefer ghosts.” Anna loathed mice. Where you heard one, there were a dozen. They burrowed into attics and walls, bred like mad, and never left the homes they chewed and scratched out for themselves.

  Jackson suddenly relaxed and lowered his head into his paws.

  “Why do dogs do that?” Liz said. “Jackson, I love you, but don’t you know how creepy that is?”

  Anna gave Jackson a pat on the head and promised him dinner soon. She couldn’t let the house and its history get to her. Dogs stared at ceilings—and closets and garage doors and floors—all the time. Though the author of an article she’d read claimed that dogs were unusually sensitive to the paranormal. Ghosts in particular. When dogs stared at the ceiling, he wrote, they were seeing something human eyes couldn’t see.

  She heard the crunch of car wheels on the gravel drive and a moment later the sound of the front door opening. She stepped quickly to the library door and shut it.

  “Good idea,” Liz said. “Too many interruptions.”

  “That must be Nilla and Paxton,” Anna said, taking her seat. “I wonder if Devin’s family was at the hospital.”

  “I wouldn’t think so if the Birches were there when he died.”

  “Maybe they live out of state.” It was such a sad ending for a young man. Dying in a hospital bed with only his employers at his side.

  Liz lifted another document from the records spread out before her. “Here we go. Pernilla Gretchen Littlefield, born March 29, 1975, in Colorado Springs.” She handed the certificate to Anna. “Or should we even be looking at Nilla’s side of the family?”

  “We need her birth certificate, but nothing else on her side.” Anna checked the middle name and birth date against the data she’d entered into her software and laid Nilla’s birth certificate atop Paxton’s.