Anna Denning Mystery Series Box Set: Books 1–3

by Karin Kaufman

  “Unless . . .” Liz began.

  “Unless?” Anna said over her shoulder.

  “Unless he suspected the wrong person.”

  Anna set her mug in the sink. Of course. She had nearly persuaded herself that Russell’s killer couldn’t have been a member of the EVHS. The man thought he was being watched, after all, so why, possessing that degree of suspicion, would he turn his back on someone he thought capable of murder? He wouldn’t. And if Russell really was being watched? Then it was all the more unlikely he’d visit the grounds of the Morgan-Sadler House after midnight and place himself in such danger. Somehow someone had lured him—and somehow Russell had gotten it wrong. His research had led him to suspect the wrong person.

  Anna turned. “Any way you look at this, Russell found out something about one or more of his fellow historical society members. At the very least it was enough to help Esther Vance keep her house.”

  “At the most?”

  “He found out who murdered Jennifer Toller.”

  Liz gave the tabletop a slap and pushed to her feet. “That’s it. More coffee.” She headed for the coffee maker, her mug held out before her like a begging cup. “I’m up for an all-nighter if you are.”

  Anna tipped her head at the carafe. “Go for it. But I promised Gene we’d have Sunday night together. He’ll be back in a few hours.”

  “Sounds like a much better idea.” Liz emptied the last of the carafe into her cup. “Will you be able to stop thinking about this?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Oh, yes.” Waving a hand in the air, Liz hurried back to the table. “I almost forgot about Alex Root,” she said, flipping through the pages of her notebook. “Here it is. Guess who owns the land right behind Esther Vance’s house?”

  “Are you serious?” Anna marched back to the table, grabbed her chair, and dragged it alongside Liz’s, her eyes riveted to the laptop’s screen.

  “Root owns twenty acres just outside the town limits. A contact at the Municipal Building sent me a PDF of the neighborhood plat. See this panhandle?” Liz laid a finger on a Utah-shaped plot of land. “That’s two acres wide, and it’s this panhandle part of his land that touches most of Esther’s back yard.”

  Anna spotted a dotted line that ran in back of Esther’s and her neighbors’ back yards—the town limits. “Esther is almost outside Elk Park.”

  “If her house was a hundred feet to the west, it would be in an unincorporated part of the county and wouldn’t fall under Elk Park’s involuntary historical designation. Call it the county and she’s safe, call it Elk Park and they can take her house. Crazy, huh? It all comes down to names.” Liz’s eyes traveled to the ceiling. “Listen. It’s raining.”

  Anna heard rain tapping on the roof’s metal flashing and looked across the living room to the sliding glass door. Rain began spitting against the glass, and small drops struck the concrete patio. In the Colorado high country, rain was always cause for celebration, especially in late October when it usually either snowed or stayed as dry as kindling.

  “Wait just a minute,” Anna said.

  “What now?”

  “It’s what you just said about names.” Anna dashed to her office, gathered the papers Russell had given her, and brought them out to Liz. “Look,” she said, taking her seat and spreading the newspaper articles on the table in front of her. “I’ve seen Paul Gilmartin twice now, and I’m pretty good at guessing ages. I’d say he’s in his early forties.”

  “Right . . .” Liz dragged the articles across the table and began to scan them.

  “So I’ve assumed he was too young to commit murder in 1983—which he may well have been.”

  “Okay . . .”

  “Look at this one.” She pointed at the middle article, steering Liz’s eyes to its second paragraph. “Jennifer Toller had a thirteen-year-old son named Raymond. That would make him in his early forties today.”

  Liz squinted in disbelief. “It’s hard to believe a thirteen-year-old kid would murder his mother.”

  “I’m not saying he murdered her. I’m saying he changed his name.” Anna tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Liz, that’s why Russell gave me these articles. I’d bet on it. Paul Gilmartin is Raymond Toller.”

  5

  After dropping Jackson off at the Buffalo for a play day with Suka, Anna drove east on Summit for several blocks then made a right onto Elk River Road, heading south for the Morgan-Sadler House. Last night’s storm had left behind it a deep blue sky, rich as cobalt but clear as crystal. Cottonwood and aspen leaves shimmered in the morning sunlight, and where they had at last surrendered to the season, falling in their first and final October, they speckled the streets with gold. It was all Anna could do to keep driving, so great was the temptation to pull to the curb and savor the dying month.

  Clovis had phoned last night, and Anna had heard the fear in her voice. Ruby was dead, murdered like Russell. When Anna asked Clovis if she had talked to Ruby on Saturday and taken Esther with her, Clovis said yes. “And she refused to help Esther. I can’t believe it. What’s happening?”

  When Anna suggested they meet, Clovis proposed the Morgan-Sadler House. Anna should see it anyway, Clovis said. It was where Russell and the others spent much of their time and where the Toller murder—the killing that for some strange reason had captured Russell’s attention—had taken place.

  Five minutes after turning south onto Elk River Road, Anna pulled into the driveway of the Morgan-Sadler House. It sat back from the road, a rectangular, two-story house of peach-colored sandstone bordered on its north and south sides by tall evergreen hedges. The hedges were hardly necessary for privacy. The nearest neighbors were five or more acres away. Little wonder Russell Thurman’s body had remained undiscovered until a groundskeeper nearly stumbled over it. On the second floor of the house, above the main entry, several of the windows had been boarded up, but the rest of the house seemed to be in remarkably good shape. At least on the outside.

  Clovis waved Anna down, motioning for her to park her Jimmy behind three other cars near the west corner of the house. Anna shut off the ignition, dug through her purse for her phone, and slid it inside her jacket pocket before setting her purse on the car floor.

  “I’m afraid we’re not alone,” Clovis said as Anna slid from the driver’s seat. “Everyone but Zoey is here.”

  “We’ll find time to talk,” Anna replied. Truth was, she was glad she wouldn’t be alone with Clovis. She didn’t know who to trust, and until she did, she was going to play it safe. “In the meantime, you can give me a tour of the house.”

  Anna started to walk toward the entrance, Clovis fading from view. She halted and looked back. Clovis was rooted in place next to the Jimmy, arms crossed, slender fingers plucking at one sleeve of her cardigan.

  A tour of the house? Anna thought ruefully. She hadn’t even acknowledged Ruby Padilla’s death, and Clovis had probably known her. “I’m sorry,” Anna said, walking back. “Did you know Ruby?”

  “Not nearly as well as Esther did.”

  “How is Esther doing?”

  “She’s heartbroken. Because Ruby died, of course, but also because she refused to help Esther keep her house.”

  “What did Ruby say exactly?”

  “She couldn’t use her position as a councilwoman to help a relative.” Clovis laughed bitterly. “But she had no qualms about using her position to take Esther’s house, did she?”

  “I don’t think she knew the law would hurt Esther specifically,” Anna said. But that was a pitiful defense. Ruby knew the law would hurt someone. Did it matter who?

  “Anyway . . .” Clovis picked at her sleeve again and shot a glance to her right before looking back at Anna. “I thought they’d leave when they saw me, but they’re still here. We may as well go in.”

  Anna resisted the desire to take a conspiratorial peek over her shoulder, thereby joining forces with Clovis and making enemies of the others. “You mean Paul, Alex, and Maddy?”

/>   “Yes. I’m the last one standing in their way.”

  “Of what?”

  “I wish I knew.”

  Anna wondered briefly if Clovis was being enigmatic again, but the expression on her face was equal parts bewilderment and fear. The fear was new. When Clovis had heard the news of Russell’s death, she had looked grief-stricken, even angry and unyielding, but not fearful.

  “Come on,” Anna said, urging Clovis onward. “Houses can speak volumes about a family’s history.” Clovis at last budged, falling in alongside Anna as they started up the cracked concrete path to the front door. “You said Russell spent a lot of time here. What was he working on?”

  Clovis again took a sideward glance, and this time Anna looked too. Paul and Alex smiled, and Maddy, swinging around to face Anna and Clovis, waved her hello. When Anna waved back, Clovis doubled her steps in rebuke, mounting the concrete stairs and reaching the front entrance before Anna.

  “He was working on Alex,” Clovis said as she pressed a key into the lock and pulled open the double front doors. “And Alex’s grandfather.”

  “I remember,” Anna said, crossing the threshold and surveying the narrow, modest entryway. “The head honey maker under Emerson Sadler.” When she looked back at Clovis, she had already shut the doors, as if to discourage the others from pursuing them.

  “I was wondering,” Anna said, “do any of your group have a day job?”

  Clovis arched her brows, puzzled by what Anna knew was an odd question, verging on rude. But it struck her as more than coincidence that the three people chatting outside the house, all healthy adults, would have the same free day. “They’re here on a Monday morning,” she explained. “I was just wondering.”

  Clovis scratched the back of her neck as she pondered the question. “Paul, Maddy, and Alex don’t work—or don’t have a job, I should say. Zoey was working a seasonal job at one of the stores on Summit, but that probably ended last month. And I’m retired.”

  “Shouldn’t Zoey be back at Colorado State?”

  “I think she commutes to Fort Collins two or three days a week.” Clovis tilted her head, the purpose of Anna’s questions eluding her.

  “Knowing what Zoey and Paul do with their days might help me fill in their family trees.”

  Clovis threw out her hand, lightly brushing Anna’s arm. “Have you made any progress?”

  “Not yet, but I’m working on it.” Anna resolved to keep her theory of Paul Gilmartin’s real identity to herself for now. But if Paul was in fact Raymond Toller, she couldn’t complete his family tree—the job Clovis was paying her to do—without disclosing that. Poking into people’s lives, revealing their secrets—it was what had made her uneasy about accepting Clovis’s money in the first place.

  “Now.” Clovis began her tour with a sweep of her arm. “This is the original entryway. A major addition was made to the house when Emerson Sadler purchased it, but that’s at the other end. Most of what we’ll see at this end is original to Jacob Morgan, the first owner. Follow me.”

  Clovis veered left at the end of the entryway. “When the house was built by Morgan in 1918—curiously, the year Emerson Sadler was born—it was outside the town limits, but Elk Park annexed the house and surrounding land in the early 1960s. The second owner, Sadler, was starting to make a real profit from his honey, and the town decided it needed the sales tax revenue.”

  “Wow.” Anna stopped abruptly at the sight of a vibrantly colored stained-glass window in one of the rooms at the back of the house. Rectangular in shape, it had to have been six or seven feet high and at least four feet wide.

  “It’s stunning, isn’t it?” Clovis said, circling back to the door to admire the window. “Some damaged parts have been replaced, but it’s mostly original.” Clovis headed into the room, Anna a step behind her. “Original to Sadler, that is. In 1984 he knocked out part of the wall to put it in. After he sold the house, it was boarded up for years. A shame, but it saved the window from severe damage or even total destruction.”

  The glass was a storybook image of bees, beekeepers, hives, fields, and flowers, with a likeness of the Morgan-Sadler House wedged into the upper-left corner, seemingly as an afterthought—a non-integral part of the narrative to the glassmaker.

  “Sadler sure liked his honey,” Anna said with a smile.

  “And well he might,” Clovis replied. “He made good money to begin with, but honey was his fortune. It’s tricky keeping bees above seven thousand feet, but mountain honey sells for a premium price.” She stretched out a hand and slowly ran her finger down a strip of lead in the glass. “See these little cracks along the face of the came? And here,” she said, touching a joint where two strips met, “at the soldering joint? That will all need to be repaired eventually. I hate to think of the cost.”

  “Is the town paying for any of the restoration?” Anna asked.

  “They’ve given us a ridiculously small amount.” Clovis coughed nervously and took a backward step. “Alex and the Gilmartins are funding half the restoration.”

  “Really?” Anna tried to keep her surprise from showing. Having to take money from those who were in her eyes destroying her historical society must have pained Clovis.

  Clovis shook her head sadly. “Their money and their interest in this house blinded us. Russell especially, I’m afraid to say. He nominated Paul Gilmartin for membership in the EVHS, then Paul immediately nominated Maddy, Maddy nominated Alex, and Alex, bless his heart, nominated Zoey.”

  “So they all knew each other prior to joining?”

  “I can’t think of another reason for their nominations. According to the bylaws, Zoey has the next nomination, and she can make it at any time.”

  Anna stepped closer to the window for a better look. An emerald green vine running down the left side of the glass, from the middle to the bottom of the window, sported brightly colored and perfectly round pumpkins. “Did they grow pumpkins on the grounds?”

  “Sadler didn’t sell them, though he may have had a small vegetable garden somewhere.”

  The sound of the front door slamming shut caused Clovis to spin around on her heels. As if to play down her reaction, to demonstrate that Alex’s or the Gilmartins’ entry into the house produced irritation rather than anxiety, she shot a backward glance at Anna and rolled her eyes. But when she stiffened at the sound of footsteps in the entryway and lingered in the room rather than chance a meeting with one of the three, Anna realized that Clovis wasn’t anxious about her fellow society members, she was afraid of them.

  “Let’s hope we’re not interrupted,” Clovis said after a moment, flashing a tight-lipped smile. She moved slowly for the door, stopping just inside the room to check the hallway before continuing her tour. “There are seven layers of wallpaper on these plaster walls,” she said. “Now let’s go to the library.”

  Anna looked to her left before following Clovis. If Alex or the Gilmartins had entered the house, they had either headed right at the entryway, down the opposite corridor, or moved swiftly for the stairs and the second floor.

  Clovis paused at a closed door at the end of the hallway, making certain Anna was in the proper place to appreciate the reveal, then swung the door open. Smiling, she spread out her arm, presenting the large wood-paneled library. “Jacob Morgan’s library,” she said as she entered the room. She negotiated a tight left around a long table in the center of the library and gestured at the bookcases along the far wall. “Solid oak, both the bookcases and the table. The chairs at the table are reproductions. And you’ll notice,” she said as she directed Anna to three long, evenly spaced windows separating the bookcases, “smaller stained-glass designs are centered in each of the windows. These are original to the Morgan house.”

  It was immediately apparent that a different glassmaker had crafted these beauties. They were subtler, more exquisitely colored, lacking the brash emeralds, oranges, and banana yellows of the Sadler window. There were fields of flowers drifting to the horizon—irises,
tulips, columbines—on the two end windows, and an autumn scene of aspens and peach-colored mountain mahogany on the center one.

  “Size-wise these aren’t as impressive as that other window,” Anna said, “but I think I like them better.”

  “I do too,” Clovis said. “We just had them professionally cleaned.”

  Anna wandered slowly about the library. The oak bookcases had been refinished, she noticed, as had the wide-planked floors, and a chandelier in the ceiling had recently been gently cleaned, though the metal’s patina had wisely been left intact.

  “Russell spent a lot of time in this room,” Clovis said wistfully.

  “Is this where he did his research?”

  “At this table, yes. And with those books.” Clovis called Anna’s attention to two open wooden crates at the other end of the room.

  Anna crossed the room and examined the crates, both half full with books, some new and some dating back to the early twentieth century, judging by their bindings. “Sadler’s books?” she pivoted and said over her shoulder. “Or Morgan’s maybe?”

  “Sadler’s. Morgan emptied the library when he sold the house to Sadler.”

  Anna was reaching for one of the books when she heard her phone ring. Straightening and turning to Clovis, she made an apologetic face before answering it. “Hang on a minute, Liz,” she said.

  “No, you stay here,” Clovis insisted as Anna moved for the door. “I want to show you the second floor. We can talk up there. When you’re done with your call, go back to the entryway, take a few steps down the other end of the hall, and after passing one door, go to your left.” Clovis made a series of hand movements as she talked, all of them meaningless from Anna’s perspective inside the library, but Anna nodded and planted on her face the same look of comprehension she showed people who gave her confusing driving directions. She assured Clovis she could find her way to the stairs and returned to her phone as soon as Clovis exited the library.