Anna Denning Mystery Series Box Set: Books 1–3

by Karin Kaufman

  Back home in her office, Anna switched on her computer and searched the web for articles on Aim Renewable Energy’s wind farm in North Cliff, Colorado. Revenge. Jazmin’s warning about enemies and waiting years for revenge had set her mind racing down a new track.

  Imagine pouring your life’s blood into a ranch, she thought. A family ranch. Then a neighbor—not even a ranching neighbor—leases his land to a wind-farm company. Roads for workers, repairmen, and heavy equipment now crisscross that ranchland, foundations the size of houses are built, a maintenance center and other buildings spring up, turbines are trucked in. And the sound. Anna had once heard—felt—the pulsing thump, thump of a turbine in full swing. She couldn’t imagine living anywhere near one, especially in the treeless, open country near the Wyoming border.

  It was a long shot, but it was all she had. She needed to find the names of the Gilmartins’ North Cliff neighbors. The more vocal ones might be mentioned in articles written around the time the county gave the go-ahead for the wind farm or when construction began.

  As she began her search, Jackson quietly padded into the office, sat at Anna’s feet, and threw a paw onto her lap.

  “Hi, boy,” she said, giving his neck a one-handed scratch. “I know I’m busy again, I’m sorry.” When he picked up his paw and again threw it onto her lap, she tore her eyes from the computer screen, cupped his face, and kissed the top of his head. “Gene and Riley will be here later.” Jackson’s ears lifted at the sound of their names. “I agree,” she said with a laugh. “Now go lie down and let me get back to work.”

  Anna paused for moment, her hands on the keyboard, imaging a house—hers, Gene’s, or another house altogether—with not only Gene but also Riley in it. Riley as Jackson’s companion. Two dog beds in the bedroom. She laughed again, wondering at the quirks of her own mind. Somehow she’d gone from slow walking her relationship with Gene to planning double dog beds—and Gene hadn’t even hinted at marriage.

  She searched for articles about the wind farm, from the time it was first proposed to the day the turbines began to turn. County approval had been swift, she discovered, further angering the nearby ranchers. Some talked about “the fix” being in, others decried the turbines’ impact on wildlife, especially raptors. Everyone complained that the turbines, more than three hundred feet tall, were an assault on the eye.

  An hour later Anna had printed out every article quoting ranchers angry enough to go on the record. The people of North Cliff had been steamrolled. If “the fix” was a too-easily-pleased board of county commissioners acting in collaboration with newspapers and their pretty pictures of lone turbines drifting on seas of prairie wildflowers, then yes, the fix had been in.

  Anna gathered the printouts, her laptop, and a pen and notebook and carried them to the kitchen table, Jackson on her heels. In an hour Gene would be knocking on her door, ready to whip up his bison stew and pumpkin pie, but before then she intended to give the articles a closer look.

  At the kitchen table, she opened her laptop and spread the printouts in front of her. It was likely there was nothing in them, she told herself, that speculation regarding a vengeful rancher was nonsense, but she didn’t have many options and she was going to methodically eliminate the few options she did have.

  A paragraph in the fourth article caught her eye. A landowner by the name of Glen Hollister had spoken out against the wind farm at a commissioners meeting. He had cancer, he’d said, and he’d be damned if he would spend his last year or two of life on earth watching those white monstrosities from his kitchen window.

  Neither did he want them for his daughter. He was a widower, and his ranch, handed down to him from his great-grandfather, was to be passed unsullied to her. His daughter Emma, twenty-five years old, also spoke at the meeting. Her testimony moved some in the audience to tears, but not the commissioners.

  Anna sat back in her chair. It was possible. It was just possible. She headed for the wall phone in the kitchen, called Liz, and asked her if she had that list of Colorado State design students. Anna heard a mumble in the affirmative and a rustle of papers. And were any of those students named Emma Hollister? Anna asked.

  “How did you know?” Liz said. “Hollister is one of seven women taking the master’s program.”

  Anna promised to explain tomorrow, at their scheduled coffee at the Buffalo.

  Liz had a better idea. The Elk Park Harvest Festival was in full swing. It boasted a pumpkin patch, cider press, straw maze—and the Gilmartins were hosting a table under the main tent. Maddy’s course on demonology was their contribution to the festivities. Liz and Anna could talk at the festival—and do a little investigating while they were at it. In the meantime, Liz said before she hung up, she would check her contacts for information on Emma Hollister.

  Anna stood at the kitchen counter, watching Jackson sleep near the wood stove, mulling over the implications of what she had discovered. Emma masquerading as Zoey presented numerous problems. It was a calculated risk for Zoey to use her real name at Colorado State, but if she really was going for her master’s—and she must have been in order to enlist other design students’ help at the Morgan-Sadler House—she had no choice but to use it. Maybe she thought no one would check for a Zoey Eberhardt in the department, or maybe she believed the free help she brought with her in the form of undergraduates would keep the other EVHS members happy and not overly interested in her school records.

  But the other students, undergraduate and graduate, knew her as Emma. They had to. What had Zoey told them to keep them from divulging her secret? She had infiltrated the Elk Valley Historical Society—there was no other word for it—but to what purpose? If she was planning revenge, why go to such extraordinary lengths when quick, simple remedies were at hand? She could have slashed Paul Gilmartin’s tires or poured sugar in his gas tank. Or worse. For Zoey, who watched as her father was consumed by a futile battle to stop a wind farm, Paul’s lease deal was a terrible crime.

  Anna made a mental note to check the Social Security death database for Glen Hollister’s name. If he’d died recently, his death might have been the trigger that set Zoey in motion.

  Jackson stirred and barked once as a car pulled into the driveway. He ran to the door and sat, tail sweeping the floor, waiting for Anna to open it. One bark and no growl meant Gene and Riley.

  “Hungry?” Gene said as Anna swung wide the door. A paper sack in the crook of each arm, he grinned broadly.

  “Starving.”

  Riley bounded up to Jackson and the two ran for the living room and back again to the door, nearly tripping Gene on his way to the kitchen. “This is why we need one house,” he said, a twinkle in his eye. “No greetings. The dogs would be much calmer.”

  Anna pulled a small stew pot from a cabinet and set it atop the stove. “I agree.”

  Gene turned to her, tilting his head almost imperceptibly and hesitating the tiniest fraction of a second before setting his bag on the counter.

  “Do you need a knife for the bison?” Anna asked as she rifled through the utensil drawer.

  “Uh . . .”

  Anna looked up to see Gene staring down at his grocery bag, seemingly torn between needing and not needing a knife.

  “No,” he finally said. “It’s already cut for a stew.” He emptied the bag’s contents on the counter. “I need a pie pan, though.”

  Forty minutes later the stew was cooking, the pie was baking in the oven, and Anna and Gene were sipping wine on the living room couch. They sat still for a long while, Gene staring into the back yard and Anna wondering if her sudden “I agree” had been too much after months of dodging and waffling. Or had it sounded flippant? Either way, it seemed to her that Gene had already forgotten it.

  “Jazmin wants to sell Halloween chalk drawings in Buckhorn’s,” he said, still gazing out the sliding glass door. “I told her no in September, but she asked me again today.”

  “I wonder why she’s so insistent.”

  “I think she
wants to show her friends she hasn’t become mundane.”

  Anna smiled at the word. Jazmin used it all the time. The world outside wicca was mundane, her job at Buckhorn’s was mundane, her real name was mundane. “I wonder what her plans are for Halloween.”

  “I hate to think.”

  Jazmin and Zoey were so alike, Anna thought, especially in their petulance and stubbornness. The difference was not one of quality but of degree. Jazmin niggled her boss about her drawings, and Zoey, an older, less vulnerable Jazmin, quite possibly held a death grip on a grudge.

  “Gene,” Anna said, setting her glass on the end table, “I found out who Zoey Eberhardt is.”

  “Great,” he said. “Tell me.”

  Encouraged by the eager interest in his eyes, Anna told Gene what she’d discovered through articles on the wind farm and what she’d learned at the Morgan-Sadler House, omitting Alex and Maddy’s candy dance. No need to ruin the evening, she thought, knowing full well that the real reason for her omission was that he might tell her to stay away from them—all of them.

  “So why would Zoey offer to buy Esther Vance’s house?” Anna said. “Esther has nothing to do with the wind farm. And how could someone Zoey’s age afford an Elk Park Craftsman?”

  “She’d have to buy it using her real name,” Gene said.

  “She would.” A possibility presented itself. “Maybe Esther would keep Zoey’s secret. She’s no fan of Alex and the Gilmartins. It could be Zoey really wants to help.”

  “Or she really wants that house.”

  “I wonder if Esther’s safe. She’s a widow.”

  “Has she signed any papers?”

  “I don’t think so, but I imagine she’s tempted.”

  “The time to worry is when she signs anything. What do you make of Ruby Padilla refusing to help her?”

  A timer sounded on the oven. “I’ve got it,” Anna said, waving Gene back into his seat. She opened the oven door, backed away from the initial blast of heat, then leaned in and tested the pie with a toothpick. Perfect. “I’ve thought about that,” she said as she scooped the pie pan into her oven mitts and carried it to a metal rack next to the stove. “Do you smell that? October in a pie.”

  “Fantastic. And what’s your conclusion?”

  Anna removed her mitts and looked to the living room. Gene was sitting forward in his seat, waiting for her answer, though by the look on his face, he had one of his own.

  “At first I thought Ruby was cold-hearted,” Anna said. “For passing such a law in the first place, then for not helping Esther when that law took her house. But now I wonder.” She rested her forearms on the kitchen counter. “It wasn’t like her to vote for a law like that. And now she’s dead, the day after Russell Thurman was murdered. I think someone was blackmailing her.”

  Gene slowly nodded. He had come to the same conclusion.

  7

  Liz led the way down a muddy trail leading from the open-field parking to the harvest festival grounds, her new camera swinging from the strap on her shoulder. “I have to do a festival story for ElkNews.com,” she called out. “It’s the perfect cover.”

  Anna sensed her friend’s excitement, and to a degree she shared it, but she didn’t relish running into, much less questioning, Paul or Maddy, even with Liz nearby.

  The weather had turned at last. The sky, heavy with rain clouds, threatened a downpour, and the chill morning air smelled of hay and wet grasses. Liz cut through a soggy pumpkin field, heading straight for the festival’s main tent, a white whale encircled by smaller tents. They halted at the field’s edge, surveying the festival grounds. Not a child in sight, thought Anna. Which was not surprising—it was a Tuesday, after all—but the grounds were crawling with adults. Surely a harvest festival was for children.

  “Look at the crowd around the main tent,” Anna said, stomping the mud from her hiking shoes. “Who’s in there besides the Gilmartins?”

  “I have no idea. Let’s go see.”

  As Liz started for the tent, Anna latched on to her arm and pulled her back. “What am I supposed to say? I can’t just walk up to Paul Gilmartin and ask if his real name is Raymond Toller.”

  “No, but I can.”

  Anna gave Liz a let’s-be-sensible look. “I take it you’re not going to lead off with that. ‘I’m Liz Halvorsen, are you Raymond Toller?’ We need to finesse this a bit.”

  “I can finesse with the best of them,” Liz said as she again set out for the tent.

  “Anyway, we’re not just here to dig up Paul’s past,” Anna said, falling alongside Liz. “There’s Zoey Eberhardt to consider.”

  “Yes, Emma Hollister,” Liz said. “I should know more about her later today. Good piece of detective work there, by the way.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Ever think of working for a news website?”

  “Not on your life.” Anna smiled and quickened her steps to keep up with Liz. “I’ve got enough trouble already.”

  A woman dressed in Renaissance fair attire and playing a harp greeted them at the entrance to the main tent, as did a banner reading “Goblins and Things that Go Bump in the Night.” Neither goblins nor things that go bump—nor harps, for that matter—had anything to do with the autumn harvest, but no doubt someone in authority had thought it a clever theme for Halloween. Something to lure more people to the festival.

  Once inside the tent, Anna scanned the tables for the Gilmartins. She had imagined them front and center, ruling the roost, but instead found them seated at a long table near a corner of the tent. “They’re over there,” Anna said, gesturing. “Maddy’s the woman with the reddish hair, and Paul’s sitting next to her.”

  “Got it.”

  The air was pungent, thick with scented oils—patchouli chief among them. Anna wanted to fling open one of the tent’s back flaps and get a good cross breeze going. Patchouli. If there was a more revolting oil or perfume, Anna wasn’t familiar with it.

  “Go ahead,” Liz said, giving Anna a nudge with her elbow. “Best if we’re not together inside the tent. I’m going to take some photos of people at their tables, including Maddy and Paul.”

  Anna hitched her purse up on her shoulder and marched for the Gilmartins’ table. Hesitation wouldn’t do. If she searched for the best approach and the right words, she’d lose her nerve. To her surprise, the Gilmartins beamed when they saw her, and in a show of gentlemanly courtesy, Paul lifted himself from his seat and momentarily hovered above it before dropping back down.

  “Hello there!” Maddy said. “How delicious! I didn’t know you were interested in alternative spirituality.”

  Anna said a silent I’m not and wondered if the Gilmartins had actually looked at the banner above the tent. If anything, it mocked their beliefs. “I haven’t been to the harvest festival in two years and I thought it was about time,” she said.

  “I see,” Paul said, scraping a finger along his beard from ear to chin. It hadn’t escaped his notice that she’d dodged Maddy’s comment.

  “Then you must try this,” Maddy said, handing Anna a single sheet of rose-colored paper. “My seminar. It started on Monday, but I can give you a discount and catch you up. You might be interested.”

  “Demonology,” Anna said flatly. Here was her opening. “What exactly does this seminar entail?”

  “You’re asking me what I can give you that you can’t get from a library book,” Maddy said with a wink.

  “I hadn’t thought about it that way, but I guess I am.”

  Maddy looked earnestly at Anna. Her mouth opened then quickly closed. Whatever she was about to say, saying it had brought her grief in the past and made her wary. She glanced at her husband, waiting for guidance, and he shrugged, giving his approval.

  Maddy looked back to Anna. “Experience.”

  They were deadly serious, the pair of them. This wasn’t a Halloween prank or even hyperbole. Anna planted a tranquil expression on her face and fought to keep it there. “What sort of experience?” />
  “I can’t tell you much more than that. Not in this environment,” Maddy said with another wink. She threw out a pink-nailed hand, imploring Anna. “But do come. I’ll let you take the seminar for free. You can do my genealogy in trade.”

  “I like the idea of a trade,” Anna said, looking from Maddy to Paul. “I could do both your family trees.” It was a clumsy but safe way to find out what she needed. “In fact, I could do four generations of both your trees for free as a sample, no obligation.”

  “Wouldn’t that be a lot of work?” Maddy asked.

  “Not four generations. All I’d need is your parents’ names, birth dates, and places of birth.”

  “That would be a hoot. What do you think, Paul?”

  Paul shook his head. “It’s not for me. But you go ahead, Maddy.”

  Maddy moaned with resentment. “He doesn’t care about ancestors,” she said to Anna. “Or family at all. I’ve never even met his parents.”

  “Seriously, there’s no obligation,” Anna said. She tried to read Paul’s face, but his eyes and mouth, even the muscles in his cheeks, were steady, betraying no hint of anxiety. It was a practiced reaction—not blank, exactly, but pleasantly uninterested—a necessary shield if he wanted to keep even his wife in the dark about his past.

  “We’ve got a free offer here, Paul,” said Maddy. But the more she pressed the issue, the more Paul resisted. Finally he ignored her altogether, fussily rearranging the contents of a cardboard box on the ground by his chair, and Anna became convinced that he was hiding his real identity. Dragging that out of him meant sticking her nose where it didn’t belong, but she had to give Clovis something for her money. More than that, she had to honor Russell Thurman’s conviction that she was capable of helping Esther Vance.

  “A family tree would be a nice keepsake,” Anna said. “Have you got children?”