“Oh, Jesus.” Anna felt the air leave her lungs. “Zoey, no.” She bent forward, hands on her knees. My God, that was the metal sound.
Zoey’s arms and legs were pulled wide, held fast to the ground by wire and tent spikes. Dark hair crusted with blood, right temple shattered, jacket sliced wide, torso stained in blood from neck to hips. Black flies, everywhere, buzzing incessantly. A red, red circle on her forehead.
“Oh, God.” Anna staggered backward, heaving for breath. What had the barbarians done, made noise at the back of the house knowing Esther would hear and call on Zoey for help? Or had they driven a stake or two into the field first, hoping the noise would carry in the night? Then what?
Lie in wait, kill, drive in the other stakes, sacrifice.
Why? For what? Anna’s eyes squeezed shut. “Bastards!” she screamed. She felt Jackson press his body against her leg.
She wheeled around and raced for the house. Esther had heard the last of the stakes as they were hammered into the hard clay soil. She’d heard the sound of Zoey’s death. She was watching television as Zoey was being sacrificed. To the bee god, to the demon Asmodeus, to the sick, sadistic . . .
“Esther, open up!” She yanked again at the door handle, but it had locked automatically when she left the house. Esther was hobbling her way from the kitchen, taking an eternity to get to the door. Anna darted back down the steps and out to the curb. Flinging open the Jimmy’s passenger door, she snatched her purse from the floor, dug wildly for her phone, and dialed 911. When she looked to the house, Esther was standing on the porch just outside the front door.
Her voice low, her eyes on Esther, Anna told the operator what she’d seen in the field behind number 826. Yes, she said, she’d wait at the house for the police. Esther moved for the porch steps and Anna waved her back, calling out that she’d be there in a minute. When the operator pressed her yet again for details, Anna told her the police could see for themselves and hung up.
Esther’s eyes grew large as Anna walked to the house. She knew Anna had found something more than another ludicrous sigil. “Let’s go inside,” she said, laying a hand on Esther’s shoulder. “We need to wait for the police.”
19
“One or all of them drove Zoey’s car away,” Anna told Detective Lonnie Schaeffer. “Esther heard her car, but she didn’t see who was in it.”
“Several times you’ve said ‘them.’ Why do you think more than one person was involved?” Schaeffer said, taking a chair at Esther’s kitchen table.
“Because they’re all sick. Demon worshippers, pumpkin worshippers . . .” Words failing her, she trailed off. She took a deep breath and reached out for Jackson, giving his head a pat. Ranting in an irrational manner wasn’t going to help the Elk Park Police find out who murdered Zoey, and by the look on Schaeffer’s face, he shared her assessment. She thought back to the last time she’d seen him. It was at Sparrow House. Another murder. Bodies did follow in her wake.
“And they’re all members of the Elk Valley Historical Society,” Schaeffer said, scribbling in his notebook.
“So was Russell Thurman,” Anna said. The little tuft of hair front and center on Schaeffer’s head had hit a plateau of sorts. It hadn’t shrunk noticeably since she’d last seen him, though finally, in his early fifties, gray had taken over. Even the hair on his hands had gone gray.
“I was a member until recently,” Esther said, wandering into the kitchen. She looked dazed, overwhelmed by it all—the police in her house, the ambulance at the curb, the crime-scene tent erected not far from her back yard.
Schaeffer offered her his chair and hovered near the coffee maker, jotting a few more words before sliding his pen and notebook into his suit jacket.
“You wrote down that Zoey’s real name was Emma Hollister and Paul Gilmartin is Raymond Toller?” Anna asked.
“Got it.” Schaeffer patted his jacket.
“Clovis is overdue,” Esther said, her voice laced with fear.
“She’ll be here,” Anna said. She wasn’t at all sure of that, but she felt the need to say something. Zoey’s death—the details of which Esther thus far had studiously avoided but understood to have been brutal—had shaken her. Anna said a prayer that Clovis would arrive, and soon.
She heard a ring and looked to see Liz’s photo on her phone’s screen. Pressing a button, she switched off the phone.
She glanced up. Schaeffer was looking at her oddly.
“Do you need to call someone?” he asked her.
“No,” she said matter-of-factly. Her hands began to quiver. She put her right elbow on the table and tried to lower her head into her hand, but her elbow slipped on the table’s slick surface.
“Head between your knees,” Schaeffer said. In two long strides he was at her chair, gently pushing the back of her head forward but away from the table’s edge. “Stay there and breathe deeply. Can you make some coffee, Mrs. Vance?”
“Of course,” Anna heard Esther say. She saw Jackson’s paws and Schaeffer’s feet near her own and closed her eyes, inhaling and exhaling with deliberation, wondering if she was about to slump forward and hit the floor face first.
A couple minutes later the quivering ceased and she opened her eyes. Drained of strength but steady, she raised her head. Schaeffer had moved back to the counter and Esther was at the table. A cup of steaming coffee was in front of her. The aroma alone began to settle her stomach.
“Sorry,” she said.
“It’s understandable,” Schaeffer said.
“Thank you, Esther.” Anna gripped the cup’s handle.
“Was it that bad?” Esther asked. Her eyes were glazed with tears.
“I don’t know for certain,” Schaeffer said, “and I won’t know until I’ve read the medical examiner’s report, but I think she received a blow to the head first. She was unconscious after that and probably died quickly.”
Not quickly, Anna thought. Zoey’s heart had pumped blood, lots of it, and blood can’t pump in a dead body. She kept her thoughts to herself and took a drink of coffee.
From somewhere in the living room a squabble erupted. The words of the argument were largely unintelligible, but plainly police authority was butting heads with authority of another kind.
Esther’s face lit up. “That’s Clovis. I’d know that fussbudget sound anywhere.”
“Wait here,” Schaeffer said.
Within seconds the clatter died down, and moments after that, Clovis entered the kitchen, her eyes seeking Esther’s face.
“Esther, you don’t know what I thought,” Clovis said, embracing her friend before she could rise from her chair. “When I saw the ambulance.”
“I’m fine. It’s poor Zoey.”
“They told me.” Clovis straightened, her hands on Esther’s shoulders, getting a good look at her.
“It was Anna who found her,” Esther said, wiping her eyes with her fingers.
Clovis pivoted, her hands dropping to her sides. “That must have been horrible.”
Anna simply nodded. She saw Schaeffer in the dining room heading once more for the living room and went after him, telling Clovis to take her seat at the table.
“Wait a minute,” she said, catching up to Schaeffer near the front door. She suddenly didn’t know what to call him. To her, he was Lonnie, but here he was Detective Schaeffer. He was always formal, even standoffish, on the job. He had to be. “Detective,” she began, “there might be royal jelly on Zoey’s lips. I wasn’t close enough—I couldn’t tell.”
“We’re taking care of it.”
“I told the first officer I spoke to that I saw something hanging from a branch in the trees, but I didn’t mention it to you. It may be important.”
“Thank you, but we have forensics back there,” he replied.
“So they checked it out?”
“They did, thank you.”
He turned to leave but Anna cut him off. “And?” she said. “At first I thought it was a leaf.”
“Anna, s
omeone from the department will talk to you later. Go home.”
“Don’t blow me off. Did anyone actually check it out? It wasn’t there a couple days ago, and it could be important.”
“Go home.” Schaeffer’s jaw was set, unyielding.
Anna started to protest, but the look on Schaeffer’s face stopped her cold. It wasn’t for her to know, and he wasn’t going to tell her. For her own good, he wasn’t going to tell her. “Right,” she mumbled, feeling sick again. Then she didn’t want to know. Ever. As rapidly as her shaky feet could take her, she walked back to the kitchen and up to the table, grabbed hold of her coffee cup, and took several long gulps before setting it down again.
“Would you like more?” Esther asked.
“No, thank you, I need to go,” Anna said. “You’re not staying here tonight.” It wasn’t a question, it was an uncompromising statement of fact.
“She most certainly is not,” Clovis said.
Esther offered no objection. “When do we leave?”
“As soon as you pack your things.”
“I need to get going,” Anna said, reaching past Clovis for her phone. “Clovis, I had to tell the police about Zoey’s and Paul’s real identities. Esther can fill you in.”
“Anna.” Clovis put a hand on Anna’s arm. “When I told you about Russell, when I hired you, I never imagined all that would happen.”
“No one could have. Even Russell.”
“I’m sorry for all of it.”
“What about Zoey’s family?” Esther said. “I mean the Hollister family.”
“She doesn’t have any family,” Anna said.
“Oh, dear,” Esther said. “How sad.”
Steady on her feet once more, Anna made her way to the front door, Jackson a foot ahead of her, as eager to leave as she was.
Her Jimmy was boxed in by police vehicles, she noted, but to her relief the ambulance had gone. Parked at the curb two houses down was Liz’s SUV, but Liz was nowhere in sight. She caught the attention of the nearest officer and pointed to her Jimmy, making hand movements she hoped were sufficient explanation of her dilemma. When she turned around, Liz was standing two feet away.
“I’m so, so sorry,” Liz said, giving Anna a hug.
Anna pulled away. “Don’t make me cry,” she said. “I need to get out of here.”
“I’ve got all they’re going to give me for now,” Liz said. “I’ll follow you home. Have you called Gene?”
“Absolutely not. He can’t leave Buckhorn’s in the middle of the day, and I’m fine.”
“Right. I’ll wait until you can move your car, then follow.”
Anna settled Jackson into the back seat. Blissfully unaware of the significance of what he had seen off the dirt path, he inspected the goings-on outside his window, his ears alert to the strange sounds of police radios and shoulder mics. Soon after, her Jimmy free of the police logjam, Anna was on the road, heading back to her house.
She drove on autopilot, the streets, stoplights, lefts, and rights a blur until she pulled her car into her garage and hit the remote to close the door. She threw her purse onto the kitchen counter, opened the front door for Liz, and let Jackson out the sliding glass door into the back yard.
Without saying a word, Anna took a pair of mugs from the kitchen cabinet and started the coffee maker. Liz was already seated at the table when she at last collapsed into a chair. They sat across from each other, silent as they listened to the machine gurgle.
Anna was the first to speak. “I thought a spot of blood—paint, really—on a hive was bad.”
“I can’t imagine.”
“You know I can’t tell you what I saw.”
“I’m not asking.” Liz marched into the kitchen and searched the refrigerator, bringing out a carton of half-and-half, butter, and what remained of a loaf of bread. While the bread toasted, she poured coffee for Anna and herself, took the mugs to the table, and let Jackson in.
The wind kicked up, knocking dead leaves and debris against the sliding glass door. Another cold front was moving in, bringing rain that would become November snow overnight.
“I’m not very hungry, Liz,” Anna said as Liz set a plate of buttered toast before her.
“Just nibble at it. It settles the stomach.”
Anna obediently took a bite of toast, washing it down with coffee. “I wish Gene wasn’t working,” she said. She wanted him home, wherever that home was. Her house, his house, a new house altogether—it didn’t matter anymore. Not much.
“Yeah, me too.”
Anna waited for Liz’s usual nudgings, first about Riley and Jackson, then about Gene, but she said nothing more on the subject, and it occurred to Anna that the only thing more disconcerting than Liz’s meddling in her love life was her sudden unwillingness to meddle. She had browbeaten her friend so much over the matter—was it really surprising she now refused to talk about Gene at all?
“I found something out if you’re up to hearing it,” Liz said.
Was she? Anna hesitated. She wished she had never taken on the job of hunting down Paul’s and Zoey’s ancestors. All she had done was cause Zoey more grief and worry, and she still didn’t know what Paul was guilty of, aside from making life miserable for his ranching neighbors. Too late now, she thought. His secret was out. She wondered what Maddy would think. Would she stand by him? Not that she was standing by him now. She had big plans tonight—with Alex.
And there was little doubt in her mind that all three of them were glad to be rid of Zoey, regardless of how she had died. They didn’t give a damn about her.
“Go ahead,” Anna said. “Tell me.”
“Zoey got the money to buy Esther’s house by selling the Hollister house and land.”
“She told me the money came from an inheritance.”
“I guess the land and house were her inheritance. She sold it all for cash. That’s how she could buy Esther’s house outright.”
“And have enough money left over that she didn’t need to care what an inspection might reveal.”
“Exactly.”
“Maddy said Paul got his money from an inheritance too. She doesn’t seem to realize that Peter Toller didn’t make that kind of money.”
“Even if Toller had made that kind of money, why would he disappear, leaving it all to Paul when he was only eighteen? You’d think Maddy would suspect the money came from somewhere or someone else.” Liz leaned back, cradling her mug in her hands. “Something stranger. Walter Root, who Esther says wasn’t paid much as head honey maker, died with a fortune in the bank. And he passed all of it on to Alex.”
“Wait just a minute.” This was nonsense, Anna thought. It didn’t square with reality. “We’re supposed to believe another simple honey maker for Emerson Sadler amassed a fortune? That’s ridiculous.”
The doorbell rang, startling them both. Before Anna could push out of her chair, someone pounded on the door and hit the bell again. Jackson barked once and ran to the door.
“You don’t get trick-or-treaters way out here,” Liz said.
“Never.” Anna opened the door and Maddy Gilmartin stepped inside, brushed past her, and whirled about, her black rain jacket churning through the air like a witch’s cape. “You started this, so it’s your duty to help me.”
That’s it. She’d had more than enough of this woman. “Maybe you should go outside, ring the bell politely, and we can try this again,” Anna said. “Ring it and wait a full ten seconds, like you were raised to do.” She swung an arm at the door, suggesting Maddy make her exit.
Maddy’s shoulders sagged. “That was a bad start,” she said, taking no notice of the invitation to leave. She strode for the kitchen table, her jacket rippling behind her. “Good, you’re here too,” she said on seeing Liz. “That’s even better.”
Anna gave Jackson a quick pat and shoved the door shut. “You realize Zoey’s dead, don’t you?” Her head down, her eyes glued to Maddy’s face as the woman, with utter gall, sat without being asked, Ann
a marched to the table until she stood a foot away and was staring angrily at the top of Maddy’s head.
“I just heard. It’s hardly my fault.” Maddy raised her chin and reared backward as far as the chair would let her. “What are you doing?”
“Haven’t you got a party to host in a couple hours?” Anna answered. “What are you here for?”
“Sit down, for crying out loud, and I’ll tell you.”
Anna hovered a few more seconds before relenting. “Hurry up, I haven’t got much time,” she said, dropping into a chair. She’d experienced this before. An explosion of anger following grief. She almost always chose to hold on to the anger, grabbing its mane, riding it. Who was this woman to glide into her house and ask for her help? It’s hardly my fault. That’s what you say about the death of someone you know?
“I’ll be very quick. Alex is about to confess to Russell Thurman’s murder.” She covered her lips with her pink-nailed fingers, as if perplexed by what had just come out of them.
Such a confession was not surprising, Anna thought, not after everything she had learned about Alex Root, but Maddy’s reason for announcing it at her kitchen table was. “Why did you drive out to my house to tell me this?”
Maddy laid her palms on the table directly in front of her, her thumbs touching, giving her the appearance of a small, begging animal. “He didn’t do it. He told me he didn’t.”
“And now he says he did?” Liz asked.
“But he didn’t. He’s only saying that to get locked up.”
“For kicks on Halloween?” Anna asked. “I’m serious, Maddy, I haven’t got the time.”
“The police will believe his confession. They’re not going to hold him tonight and willy-nilly let him go in the morning.”
“Generally speaking, they don’t do that.”
“I need you to convince him. Or you,” she said, directing a finger at Liz. “You talk to the police sometimes, you know how they work. You can make him understand what he’s getting himself into.”
Anna Denning Mystery Series Box Set: Books 1–3 Page 72
