Anna Denning Mystery Series Box Set: Books 1–3

by Karin Kaufman

  “Aw, I’m sorry.” She pushed the door shut and wrapped her arms around him, feeling the cold of his shirt against her. “You’re freezing.”

  “You don’t have to tell me. Where’s Jazmin?”

  “In the Jimmy. I’m driving her home.”

  “Good. I’d go with you, but—”

  “You can’t, you’re her boss.” Reluctantly, she pulled back. “Go warm yourself by the stove, and remind me to tell you what a creep Alex Root is when I get back.”

  Ten minutes later Anna pulled her car into the drive at the side of Jazmin’s one-story apartment building on Larkspur Street. It was solidly built, and like most places in Elk Park, safe for a young woman living alone, but each of the handful of times Anna had visited the building it had struck her as a dismal place. She rarely saw other tenants around, never saw any decorations in the windows. Even now, with Halloween tomorrow, there were no cutout bats or orange lights or any of the inexpensive things young people in apartments used for decorations.

  She was about to ask Jazmin why she didn’t move and find a nicer place to live—she didn’t know what Gene was paying her, but she knew he was a generous man—but she bit her tongue. This constant nitpicking had to end. Jazmin was not her daughter. She’d never had one, right? She and Sean had planned to have children, but that hadn’t worked out, had it? She threw the Jimmy into park.

  “You’re heavy in thought,” Jazmin said.

  “I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

  Jazmin made no move for the door handle. She sat still, seeming to gather her courage. “My sister’s going to visit me for Thanksgiving,” she said at last. “She’s driving from Montana.”

  “Chloe?”

  “Yeah.” Jazmin smiled, pleased Anna had remembered her elder sister’s name.

  “That’s great.”

  “I was thinking we could have some people over for Thanksgiving dinner. So . . .”

  Anna raised a hand to her chest. “Are you inviting me?”

  “Yeah, and Gene.”

  “We’d love to.” Anna felt like whooping for joy. A Thanksgiving invitation. Ten months ago she’d have thought it was an impossibility. “Can I bring something?”

  “Wine?”

  “I’ll bring red and white.”

  “And the dogs.”

  “Now you’re talking. It wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without Jackson and Riley.”

  “They’re pretty cool dogs.” Jazmin popped open the door and slid down from the seat. “Thanks for the ride.” She shut the door and waved—to Anna’s amazement, actually waved—before heading into her building.

  18

  Halloween morning broke bright and sunny. Light spilled through trees and swept around houses on Anna’s street, laying bright patches and turning autumn frost to steam. No snow on the streets, as there often was in the high country in late October, and Anna was thankful for that. Before falling asleep last night she’d decided to drive to Esther’s house and convince her to leave before the trick-or-treaters arrived at sundown. She could go to Clovis’s house earlier than planned or even come to hers. In fact, both Clovis and Esther could stay the night with her—the three widows could have a popcorn and movie night.

  But the brilliant plan, hatched at midnight, had dulled in the reasoned light of morning. Invite the two to stay overnight and watch movies? Clovis and Esther would think she was mad.

  Anna fed Jackson, got the coffee maker going, and pulled a carton of eggs from the refrigerator. But maybe, she thought as she cracked eggs into a pan, she could convince Esther to forget about Halloween at her house. Esther was heading to Clovis’s house on Halloween night anyway, so she could just leave early, before the trick-or-treaters came. That made sense. Leave while it was still light outside. If she had to tell Esther the details of Jennifer Toller’s death or divulge Paul Gilmartin’s secret identity in order to convince her, she would. She couldn’t bear the thought of Esther opening the door tonight to God-knows-what.

  Had word of Zoey’s purchase of Esther’s house made the rounds? Anna didn’t know—and she wasn’t certain it would make any difference to the lunatic or lunatics who were copying a ritual sacrifice from decades ago.

  She felt Jackson press the top of his head to the back of her leg. Where he’d picked up such a move she couldn’t imagine, but it never failed to gain her attention. “Hi, boy,” she said, turning to give him a quick kiss and a scratch behind the ears. “I’ve been ignoring you lately, haven’t I? But you’re coming with me this morning. Want to go for a ride?”

  Jackson’s ears lifted when he heard the word “ride.” He barked once and spun around at her feet, ending up facing her, his chest low to the ground, his rear in the air. “Hang on,” Anna said with a laugh. “Let me eat breakfast first.”

  By the time Anna was in the Jimmy on her way to 826 Bonner Street, the sun had melted the frost from the streets, though a membrane of frost still clung to trees and grasses in shady areas. She heard a faint piping whine from Jackson and checked her rearview mirror. He quivered with excitement in the car’s back seat—his face to the window, leaving new nose streaks over the old—and she realized he thought they were heading to Gene’s to see Riley. “You don’t get married because your dog gets along with your boyfriend’s dog,” she said aloud. “Right, Jackson?”

  Anna checked her watch as she pulled to the curb at number 826. Almost nine o’clock, a sensible time. She bent down and peered at Esther’s house through the driver’s side window, looking for signs of morning activity, but half-closed blinds and the porch’s deep overhang shadowed her view of anything that might be going on beyond the windows.

  “Let’s introduce you to Esther,” Anna said as she hooked a leash to Jackson’s collar. “She likes big dogs.” Though maybe not an unannounced arrival, Anna thought. As the morning wore on, her plan to nudge Esther from her house seemed more and more ill considered, even inappropriate. After all, what made it her concern? But she knew she’d never forgive herself if she didn’t try and something happened tonight to Esther.

  Jackson hopped out of the Jimmy and immediately began to pull Anna toward Esther’s front porch. She shut the car door with her foot and made her way up the walk and front steps. The two plastic pumpkins still sat on either side of the front door, though one was now on its side, its jack-o’-lantern face leering idiotically at the porch floor. Before Anna could reach the knocker, Esther opened the door. To Anna’s relief, she smiled, and her smile broadened as she looked down at Jackson.

  “Who have we got here?” she said. “Can I pet him?”

  “He’s very friendly. His name’s Jackson.”

  “Jackson,” Esther repeated, slowly bending down and giving the dog’s head a gentle pat.

  “I hope I’m not interrupting anything,” Anna said.

  “With me?” She straightened. “No, you two come in. I was making some coffee.”

  Anna followed Esther and the aroma of freshly brewed coffee through the dining room and into the kitchen, Esther moving cautiously, as though she’d just gotten out of bed and her body wasn’t ready for tricky maneuvers like left-hand turns.

  “What brings you out on such a nice morning?” Esther said, waving her hand at a chair, commanding Anna to sit. “Would you like some coffee?”

  “No, thank you.” The old vinyl and chrome chair wobbled as Anna sat, giving her a precarious feeling. “I wanted to talk to you about something. Two things, actually,” she said, eyeing the old Sadler Mountain Gold honey jar on the shelf above the coffee maker.

  Jackson laid at Anna’s feet, and Esther poured herself a cup of coffee, sweetening it with two sugar cubes before easing into a chair across from Anna.

  “Do they still sell sugar cubes?” Anna asked.

  “Of course they do.” Esther chuckled. “My house is old, but it’s not a museum piece, and neither am I.”

  “No, and I didn’t mean—”

  “Oh, hon, I’m joking with you. Only one grocery in Elk Park still
sells them, but they’re easy, I like them. Now what can I do for you?” She blew over the rim of her cup and gingerly took a sip.

  “First, I was wondering if you could tell me more about Emerson Sadler’s interest in Jennifer Toller. Last time I was here you said Sadler had his eye on her.”

  “That was the word.”

  “Was it common knowledge or a vague rumor.”

  Esther’s eyes drifted over the kitchen as she recalled events from long ago. “Common knowledge,” she said decisively.

  “So her husband, Peter, would have known.”

  “I’m pretty sure of it. Walter Root knew. Even my husband, Henry, knew. Elk Park was even smaller back then, and you couldn’t keep a secret to save your life.”

  An appropriate choice of words, Anna thought. “So Sadler was very open about loving Jennifer Toller, but Peter still married her and Sadler still gave Peter the job of head honey maker. Why?”

  “No, you’ve got the cart before the horse. Sadler had a thing for Jennifer after she married Peter.”

  “I found out it’s the other way around.” Anna wondered what and how much she should tell Esther about Paul. She had made Liz promise not to reveal his identity, and here she was, about to break her own promise. There was no doubt about who he was and who his father was. Raymond Toller. The man who had shafted his ranch neighbors and tried to steal an elderly widow’s house. “I’m done covering up for all of them,” she said. “Why am I protecting them? You need to know.”

  A look of amused confusion on her face, Esther said, “I’m always for knowing more, not less. Aren’t you?”

  “You bet. All right, here it is.”

  Esther sat in rapt attention.

  “Jennifer had her baby boy seven and a half months after she married Peter.”

  “I seem to remember whispers,” Esther said solemnly.

  “That baby boy, Raymond, was Sadler’s son, not Peter’s.”

  “Oh.” Esther nodded. “That explains a few things.”

  “And when Raymond was eighteen, he changed his name to Paul Gilmartin.”

  Her cup halfway to her mouth, Esther froze. She lowered the cup to the table, disbelief then anger playing over her face. “The historical society’s Paul Gilmartin?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Does Clovis know this?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Tell her when she comes—she has to know. She insisted on coming before trick-or-treating, and she’ll be here any minute.”

  Anna checked her watch.

  “Oh, that man,” Esther said through her teeth. “That nasty, devious . . .” As if to prevent herself from saying something unbecoming a senior citizen, she rose and took her cup to the sink, pouring the rest of her coffee down the drain. The cup clattered on the sink’s enamel. She spun back. “Have you told Zoey?”

  “I told her Paul was really Raymond. I didn’t know he was Sadler’s son last time I talked to her.”

  “Zoey needs to hear this too.” Esther pointed a short, wrinkled finger at Anna.

  “You mean Emma Hollister,” Anna said, watching for Esther’s reaction. Had Zoey really disclosed her real name?

  “Yes, she told me her name.” Still bristling with anger, Esther returned to her seat. “And I approve wholeheartedly. She’s a good girl, and she’s done me a great favor.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “Just last night she was over here, helping me out. We were talking on the phone about some repairs she was going to pay for when I heard a noise. She told me to sit tight, don’t move.” Esther punctuated her last words by making her hands into fists. “She drove straight over and investigated for me.”

  Anna’s radar was pinging like mad. She didn’t like the sound of this. “Investigated where?”

  “Behind the house. I couldn’t tell exactly where the noise was coming from, but it sounded close.”

  “What kind of noise was it?”

  “Like a banging, like something metal. But I can’t be sure. This house is full of noises, and would you believe it, after all these years I sometimes hear new ones.”

  “Did Zoey find out what the noise was?”

  “She didn’t see anything, but she came back in and kept me company for a while, and she checked once more before she left.”

  Anna leaned toward Esther, making certain she had her full attention. “Zoey checked in your back yard?”

  “It sounded like that’s where the noise was coming from. We thought someone might be carving one of those things again. She took a flashlight so she could look at the foundation.” Esther waved away Anna’s concern. “But it’s all right. She never found anything.”

  “She went out there twice?”

  “Yes.”

  “She took a flashlight both times?”

  “Honey, it was dark.”

  “Did she bring the flashlight back?”

  Esther thought for a moment. “Well, no, I guess she didn’t. Not the second time she went out. She drove home. She said she’d come back in the house if she found something, otherwise she’d drive home.”

  “And did she? Drive home?”

  “I heard her car drive away.”

  “Did you hear more noises?”

  “I heard the same banging sound, but then Zoey left soon after so I turned on the TV and tried to forget about it. I fell asleep.”

  “Have you looked in your back yard this morning?”

  “Only out the window, just before you knocked. I haven’t gone out there. I’m not as steady on my feet as I used to be.” Esther lifted her chin and squared her shoulders. She was about to lay down the law. “Something’s bothering you about my house. I’d like to hear what it is.”

  It was odd that Esther had heard these noises while she was talking to Zoey on the phone. Wasn’t that too convenient—on someone’s part? Would Alex, or whoever had carved the sigil in Esther’s foundation, be foolish enough to return? “I don’t know, Esther,” Anna finally said. She recalled what Liz had said—that she didn’t have the mind of a murderer so she couldn’t imagine a woman killing her sister. Neither did she have the mind of someone who conjured demons. But she did have her instincts, and they were telling her that the noise Esther had heard and Zoey had searched for must not be ignored.

  “Now that it’s daylight, why don’t I take a look? Maybe I can see something Zoey didn’t.”

  “I’d like that. I’d feel at ease.”

  Esther put her palms on the table, ready to rise, but Anna gestured for her to sit. “Relax and have a real cup of coffee. Jackson and I will find our way out the door, and I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  Anna called Jackson and made her way to the back of the house, once more stepping over broken glass at the side, searching the ground for depressions or any indication that someone had been in the yard last night. If someone had crouched or lain down near the foundation to carve another sigil, maybe the early morning frost had preserved the crushed grass.

  But there was nothing out of place. Not a blade of grass. Everything looked exactly as it had two days ago, including the garden gnome. Neither was there anything leaning on the house, something that might scrape along it, like a garden tool or a loose electric wire or cable. Anna pivoted, scanning the back yard from where she stood, then began to pace it, hunting for clues on the ground. Again, nothing. Just dying grass, lots of it. The yard hadn’t been mown in weeks.

  Jackson trotted around the yard’s perimeter, sensing that where the long grass met the tall weeds was where the yard ended and Alex Root’s land began. He sniffed and pawed, and Anna watched for signs of increased alertness. She was about to abandon her search when he bounded for the dirt path that cut through Alex’s land.

  Anna strode for the path, calling Jackson to her side. “Stay with me,” she said. Jackson ignored her command and dashed ahead, straight down the path. Anna broke into a run and caught up with him fifty feet ahead, where he’d stopped to sniff the remains of a pumpki
n someone had splattered across the path.

  “Oh, you have got to be kidding me,” Anna said aloud. She shooed Jackson away and examined the scene. This pumpkin had never made it to the jack-o’-lantern stage. It had never been carved, only smashed. Seeds and pulp were everywhere. She knelt down for a closer look at some of the larger pieces. There, at the edges of those pieces, were semicircular indentations. She brought together two pieces whose edges appeared to match, like cardboard pieces in a puzzle, and the indentations formed perfect circles. About the size of a hammer’s head.

  Like the smashed pumpkins at the Morgan-Sadler House, this wasn’t typical Halloween mischief. Someone had taken the trouble to drag a pumpkin onto vacant land and break it to bits with a hammer. The irrationality of it, of so much of what she had seen and heard since last Saturday, was maddening. She wanted clues. Concrete clues, like names and dates. That’s what she was used to, that’s what worked for her.

  She looked ahead on the dirt path—there were no more pumpkins as far as she could tell—and took in the land on either side of it, her gaze stretching back to the stand of trees, where she spotted a long, thin object. Autumn red, like the last leaf of the season, dangling from a branch. But it was too long to be a leaf.

  “Stay with me, boy.” Anna patted her leg and set out for the trees. Thirty feet on, she stopped and looked back at the house, hoping to see Esther at the kitchen window. If she was there, reflections on the windowpane hid her.

  Her eyes on the red object and the clearing in front of the trees, Anna didn’t see Jackson at first. He’d run ahead of her, exploring the weeds on either side of the path, and now he lay across the path, his body slanted leftward, his eyes riveted to hers.

  Anna heard them before she saw them, mistaking them at first for bees. But it was October thirty-first, and bees were either snug in their hives or dead. She pressed ahead, willing her legs to move. It’s an animal, that’s all. A raccoon or skunk. It happens.

  Fifteen feet from Jackson, she raised her chin in an effort to see over the top of the weeds. “What is it, boy?” She wanted to close her eyes. She did not want to be witness to what she knew was feet ahead. But she couldn’t turn and run. She couldn’t leave her alone in the weeds. She stepped forward.