Anna Denning Mystery Series Box Set: Books 1–3

by Karin Kaufman

  “A daughter,” Maddy answered.

  “Well then,” Anna said, forcing a smile.

  “You’re quite persistent, aren’t you?” Paul said, letting go of the box and shifting in his chair to face Anna. His eyes bore into hers. “If I write you a check, will you go away?”

  “Paul, for crying out loud!”

  “I didn’t mean to—” Anna began.

  “I’m so sorry,” Maddy said. Again she stuck out a hand, her pink nails fluttering then falling to the table. “He’s become such a pill lately.” She addressed her last words to Paul, but he refused to acknowledge her.

  “Well,” Anna said, taking an awkward step back from the table, “it was nice to see you again.”

  “You give up easily,” Paul said, his mouth curving into a satisfied smile.

  “You made it very clear—”

  “I thought you wanted money.”

  “I said it was free, no obligation.”

  “In trade, then.”

  “I don’t want a trade. I said I’d do the first two generations for free.”

  “I won’t hear of it,” he said, shaking his head emphatically, settling the matter. “We get the family trees and you go to Maddy’s seminar.”

  Maddy’s face lit up and she bent expectantly toward Anna.

  Paul had her. That’s what the smirk was for. He knew the very idea of Maddy’s seminar gave her the creeps—he’d seen it on her face when she looked at Maddy’s handout. “I can’t Paul, I’m a Christian.”

  “Ah.”

  Maddy bounced excitedly in her seat. “But there are demons in Christianity.”

  “I know that, Maddy.”

  Paul laid a hand on Maddy’s arm. “She has no intention of going to your seminar.”

  Maddy looked crestfallen, like a child watching a prized balloon escape into the sky. “You don’t believe in demons, Anna?”

  “Did I hear the word ‘demons’?” Grinning broadly, Liz slid up to the table, Zoey Eberhardt at her side. Taken aback at the sight of Zoey, Anna struggled to appear nonchalant. Here they were right in front of her, one to her right, one at the table—the two subjects of her covert research.

  “It’s either demons or hives with this crew,” Zoey said. She took a long, noisy gulp of apple cider from a clear plastic cup.

  “That’s why you love us so,” Maddy said. She brandished one of her colored handouts, waving it like a flag.

  “Anna,” Liz said, “you’ve met Zoey before, haven’t you?”

  “Yes, at the Elk Valley Historical Society meeting. Hello again.”

  Zoey greeted her with an upward nod, lifting her chin above the gray scarf bunched at her neck. “Nice to see you.”

  “So,” Liz said, giving Anna a poke on the arm, “you know how you love butternut squash?”

  “Uh-huh.” Liz was up to something. It wasn’t like her to take an abrupt conversational detour.

  “Well, they’re selling it by the maze.”

  “They’ve got a farmer’s market table over there,” Zoey chimed in.

  Whatever Liz was up to, Zoey was in on it and it had to do with Anna’s research.

  “I’d better get going before everything’s gone,” Anna said to Maddy, folding the handout and stuffing it into her jacket pocket.

  Maddy’s face hardened. “You didn’t answer my question.” Gone in an instant was the amiable little girl.

  “That depends—”

  “On the demon?” Maddy interrupted.

  “On what you mean by demon.”

  Maddy got to her feet, ceremoniously pulled the right sleeve of her sweater to her elbow, and showed Anna an intricate red design, like a French horn with half of its insides removed, tattooed to the inside of her forearm. “This is what I mean. Asmodeus.”

  “King of the demons,” Paul said, flopping back in his chair and wearily crossing his legs. The discussion was beginning to bore him.

  “Is that a new tattoo?” Anna said.

  “Brand new,” Maddy said with pride. “Isn’t it lovely?”

  “Isn’t Asmodeus a comic book character?” Zoey said.

  Maddy held up a hand, an angry glint flickering in her eyes. “I can speak his name. You can’t.”

  “I’m only saying.”

  Maddy’s eyes became slits as she glared at Zoey.

  “Anyway . . .” Anna began. She waited until Maddy looked back at her. “I came here for the harvest festival, so I’d better be going.” She gestured with her head at the tent’s opening. “Butternut squash awaits.”

  “I’ll tell you about harvests,” Maddy answered, tugging her sleeve until it once again covered the tattoo. “Asmodeus harvests.”

  “Quiet now,” Paul said.

  Maddy sat.

  “Thanks for the offer, Anna,” Paul said, flashing a tiny smile. “If I need to contact you, trust me, I’ll do just that.”

  Heading out of the tent into the clean, cold air, Anna couldn’t shake the feeling that Paul had just threatened her. He couldn’t know she had discovered Raymond Toller—not even Clovis knew that. She’d pestered him over the family tree, but surely that wasn’t enough to draw threats.

  At the produce table, Zoey chucked her cider cup into a trash can and turned to Anna. “I hear you’ve been asking about me.”

  Anna froze.

  “It’s OK,” Liz said, leaning sideways. “We share the same Municipal Building contacts.”

  Liz and Zoey exchanged knowing grins.

  “What’s going on?” Anna asked. “Are you a reporter, Zoey?”

  “Not exactly, though I am working on a story.”

  “I told Zoey—or Emma,” Liz added, glancing Zoey’s way, “that you were working on her family history and found out about her father and the wind farm.”

  Anna sighed. “Liz . . .”

  “I found out first,” Zoey interjected. “Liz only confirmed it. Our contacts figured it was about time we got on the same page.”

  Suspecting that the Gilmartins were watching her, Anna pretended culinary interest in the butternut squash. “What do you mean you’re not a reporter but you’re working on a story?”

  Zoey shot a look back at the main tent. “I’m going to bring them down.” Her demeanor was hard as steel, her voice resolute. “My dad spent the last three years of his life going after those crooks.”

  “He died last year,” Liz said.

  “He lived longer than he was supposed to,” Zoey said. “Fighting the wind turbines gave him purpose in a way, but they stole his peace. The wind company started building roads a week after they got the final OK. Then three weeks after that the first turbine went up. Then the other turbines, then the transmission lines and the outbuildings. A lifetime of peace and beauty gone in six months.”

  “Six months?” Anna asked.

  “They moved fast, didn’t they?” Zoey replied. “My dad used to sit in the kitchen in the morning with a cup of coffee, looking at the mountains in the distance, but he had to stop doing that. The turbines were there, every time he looked west. At the end of his life he had to stop doing the thing that gave him peace and joy.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Anna said.

  “If I could, I’d blow up every single one of those turbines—or maybe just the ones closest to Dad’s house. Set dynamite here and there, all around them.” Zoey chuckled at the thought. “Trouble is, you’d still be left with the massive foundations and the company would just truck in more turbines. So a few months ago I decided it was time to create some justice.”

  “You entered the master’s program at Colorado State as part of that justice?” Anna said.

  “It was cover for joining the Elk Valley Historical Society.”

  “How did you get Alex Root to nominate you?”

  “Easy. All I had to do was tell him I knew the time period and I could get undergraduates to work on the Morgan-Sadler House, maybe get some free restoration materials too. For a guy with money, he’s awful stingy.”

  T
hunder rumbled in the distance, and a stray drop of rain hit Anna’s glasses. She didn’t like the idea of trudging back through an already-wet pumpkin field in a storm, and besides, it was better for everyone, especially Zoey, if the Gilmartins didn’t see them standing together in their tight, chummy circle. “Let’s talk in my car,” she said, motioning for Liz and Zoey to follow.

  The three climbed into her Jimmy, Liz in the passenger seat and Zoey in back, just as the wind picked up, signaling the arrival of a mountain cold front.

  Anna shifted to face Zoey, throwing her right arm over the seat back. “So how do you intend to bring down the Gilmartins?” she asked. “And for what, exactly?”

  Zoey, who had been engaged in a losing battle with the zipper on her rain jacket, let her hands drop. “What do you mean ‘for what’?”

  “I don’t like what they did, but was it illegal?”

  “The deal was shady. One year for all those studies and the final approval? Do you have any idea how fast that is? Four years is more like it.”

  “That’s true,” Liz said. “Companies usually take a year just to do a wind-speed study.”

  “Maybe they already had the data they needed from nearby wind farms,” Anna said.

  “There aren’t any,” Zoey said. “The Gilmartins are dirty.”

  For the first time Anna noticed the dark circles under Zoey’s eyes. The kind of green-black that came from lack of sleep. “They may be dirty, but how are you going to prove that?”

  “One of my contacts told me you’re looking into Paul Gilmartin’s past. Is that true?”

  “I didn’t say anything,” Liz said, pleading innocence.

  Zoey spoke with such an air of desperation that Anna considered telling her about Raymond Toller. Zoey’s question about Paul was the reason she had disclosed her real identity and was now talking to Anna. She needed information—and retribution. But the Raymond that was, the boy whose mother had been murdered, had nothing to do with the adult Paul Gilmartin and his wind farm.

  “I started to research his family history,” Anna admitted, “but I’m not getting anywhere.” That much she could fairly say since Zoey, should she choose to do so, could discover it on her own.

  Zoey’s shoulders drooped.

  “Have you talked to the county commissioners?” Anna said. “They could tell you why they gave the project such quick approval.”

  Zoey laughed, rubbing her temples with her hands. “Guess who one of the three commissioners was at the time of the vote. Raena Starke, Ruby Padilla’s sister.”

  “You’re joking!” Liz’s jaw dropped.

  “And now Raena is running for Congress in the Fourth District. Alex Root’s running for her commissioner seat.” Overwhelmed by the political muck and mire, Zoey gave a hollow chuckle.

  Anna’s thoughts tumbled. If Raena had rushed approval of the wind farm for political or financial gain, whether or not she broke the law in the process, that was sufficient to coerce Ruby into voting for the involuntary historical designation. Especially now that Raena was running for Congress. But who had blackmailed Ruby? The Gilmartins hadn’t benefitted from the new IHD law. Not directly anyway. In fact, only Zoey had—or would, if she purchased Esther Vance’s house.

  “I’ve got to get out of the car,” Zoey said, her hand grabbing for the door handle. “Alex is heading this way and I don’t want him to see me with you two. The man’s a freak.” She slid from the seat, pushed the door shut, and darted to her left, away from the Jimmy, before slowing to a normal pace.

  Ahead, cutting through the pumpkin field and waddling as he lost his footing in the mud, Alex Root clutched a pumpkin the size of a laundry basket to his chest. Where the pumpkin field met the parking field, he stopped, shifted the weight of the pumpkin to his right arm, and reached for his rain-streaked candidate-photo glasses with his left hand, dragging them halfway down his nose. Peering over the top of his glasses, he resumed his journey.

  “Look at the size of that pumpkin,” Liz murmured. “Almost big enough to slip over someone’s shoulders, too, let alone their head.”

  Watching Alex negotiate the mud puddles to plant his feet on firmer, grassier ground, it occurred to Anna that he benefitted from the IHD. His twenty-plus acres abutted Esther’s land. If Esther’s house became a landmark, the adjacent land would rise in value, and if Esther lost her house and he bought it, he also stood to make a lot of money.

  But Alex hadn’t offered to buy Esther’s house, Zoey had. “If you see Zoey again,” Anna said, her eyes riveted on Alex, “ask her why she wants to buy Esther’s house. And if you can, ask her where she’s going to get the money.”

  “That’ll take some finessing, which as you know I’m good at. Oh, shoot.” Liz groaned as Alex’s detour around a rain-drenched furrow led him straight for the Jimmy. “I guess it’s too late to duck.”

  Alex stared blankly through the windshield as he neared the SUV. It took a moment for Anna’s face to register, but when it did, he waddled to the driver’s side and bent low, straining to keep hold of his pumpkin. “Hello there!” he shouted through the window. A Maddy-type greeting. Were they parroting each other now?

  Anna forced a smile and rolled down the window. “That’s one big pumpkin, Alex.”

  He admitted its enormity with a sheepish grin. “I like to go all out for my favorite holiday.”

  When he directed his gaze at Liz, Anna introduced them—and hoped the thunderclap that sounded as Liz said hello would encourage Alex on his way. Instead, he lowered his pumpkin to the ground, wiped his muddy hands on his bright blue jacket, and with a pivot to the open window, propped his forearms on the frame. His face filled the window and Anna jerked back her head.

  “I won’t bite,” he said, pushing his glasses back up on his nose.

  The rain had darkened his brown hair—the wet hide atop his head—but not his sideburns, accentuating the toupee look.

  “Can’t be too careful around Halloween,” Anna said, knowing her playful reply couldn’t hide her distaste for the man. “What can I do for you?”

  “Monosyllabic gibberings out of the way and straight to the point, eh?”

  “I suppose.”

  “I wondered how you knew Zoey. Apart from our brave little historical society, that is.”

  Rain dripped off his head and onto his face and glasses.

  “You see, I saw her a biscuit ago.” He inclined his head toward the Jimmy’s back seat. “I concede it’s not my personal issue, but I thought, why squirm in wretched curiosity when I can simply ask?”

  “I can’t imagine why it would interest you.” It was the way he asked, Anna thought. Not “Hello, I saw you talking to Zoey, I didn’t realize you knew her”—but this. This gaseous nonsense. That and his smile. She’d never met anyone whose smile was so deliberately alarming.

  “I’ll take that as a yes, you know her, but no, you prefer to be obstinate.”

  Anna began to roll up the window, causing Alex to lurch backward. “Take it as you will.”

  He grabbed hold of his pumpkin, brought it to his chest, and continued on his way, Anna watching him in the rearview mirror.

  “What was that about?” Liz asked.

  He knows, Anna thought. He saw her in the hallway at the Morgan-Sadler House—she’d felt his eyes on her—and he knows she saw the dance and heard Maddy talk about something that would happen on Halloween night.

  She took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. “Liz, I think I’ve gotten involved in something very bad with some very bad people.” She pulled her purse from the passenger-side floor and retrieved her cell phone.

  “Who are you calling?” Liz asked.

  “Clovis. I want her to warn Esther.”

  “Warn her about what?”

  “Not what, who. All of them.”

  8

  It was all a ruse. That was the word Clovis had used when they first met. The Gang of Four’s dislike for one another, Alex spying on Zoey, Maddy cheating on Paul, Zoey helping
Esther by getting her to sign away her house. All a ruse.

  Anna warned Clovis again. Under no circumstances could Esther sell her house to Zoey. Doing so would put her life in danger. Clovis understood, but Esther was eager to free herself of her financial burden. Even before the involuntary historical designation, she had struggled to keep up with the bills. Now she saw a way out.

  “You talk to her, please,” Clovis had said on the phone. “She thinks I’m an old worrywart.”

  Anna watched for house numbers on the mailboxes as she drove down Bonner Street, pulling to the curb at number 826, Esther’s home. Clovis had said she’d be there, but there wasn’t a car in Esther’s driveway, and the closest car on the street was two houses down.

  Esther’s Craftsman looked like the other Craftsman-style homes on her street, though less cared for, darker somehow. Built of stone and wood, it had a wide, ochre-colored front porch that was flanked on both sides by overgrown evergreen shrubs. Two plastic pumpkins on the porch sat sentinel by the front door, giving the house its only dash of color.

  Before Anna could strike the knocker, Esther opened the door. She was small and gray like Clovis, but stouter, and her dark gray hair was a web of short, tight curls.

  “You’re Anna, Clovis’s friend,” she said, holding the door wide.

  The house—or at least the living room—looked like it had never been remodeled, except perhaps to update the electric wiring, and felt smaller inside than it had looked on the front steps. The fireplace surrounded by dark green tiles and topped with a stained oak mantel, the wood trim, a ceiling crossed with wooden beams—all gave it a closed-in look.

  “Clovis had an emergency at the Morgan-Sadler House,” Esther said, inviting Anna to take a seat by the fireplace. “She’ll be back soon.”

  “I hope it’s not serious,” Anna said as she settled into an armchair. Esther’s furnishings were decidedly more modern than the house itself, but even so, the four chairs in the living room and the small coffee table they surrounded must have been several decades old. Esther and her husband had been thrifty. Or stuck in their ways. There were only two photos on the mantel, one of a man—Esther’s husband, Anna assumed—and one of a large, mixed-breed dog. A dog photo was always a good sign. In Anna’s experience, only good-hearted people framed photos of their dogs.