“Maybe we’ll soon find out. There’s a disk at the library. A contact’s going to copy the freshman class, which is only about seventy-five kids, half of them female. She’ll email me as soon as she can.”
“You have a contact at the library?” Anna said with a chuckle. “We make a good team.”
“Sherlock and Watson,” Liz replied.
“Two Sherlocks,” Anna said, giving the dogs pats on their heads and heading back to her seat.
“That would make a great name for a PI agency.”
Anna laughed.
“I’m partly serious, you know.”
“I always thought you could give Schaeffer a run for his money, but let’s clear up this mess first. The killer’s not going to stop at Dean Price.”
“I don’t know why the killer started.”
“Hetrick was the first victim. Remember what he wrote in his journal? He was going to try to make things right. The first step is confessing to what you did wrong.”
“But again, what did he do wrong?”
“He molested two fourteen-year-old girls. At eighteen, he was an adult. That’s a criminal offense.”
Liz balked. “The girls accused Adrian Armstrong.”
“They lied. They were told to accuse him. And I think Hetrick played along.”
Liz fingered the jade necklace at her collarbone. “How stupid are two fourteen-year-old girls.”
“Is that a rhetorical statement?”
“Then Beverly Goff . . .” Liz fell silent.
Anna thought again about Beverly Goff, her love for Henry Maxwell, her claim that she spoke to the dead—like nectar to a man who thought it was possible to wake them. Billings, where Goff had lived before moving to Elk Park, wasn’t at all far from Sheridan, where Maxwell had been living. They had met in one place or the other, she was sure. And then Maxwell’s wife died. Serendipity. Maxwell was free.
Was Goff the January Club member who started the ball rolling? As Messenger, she must have had a great deal of influence over the other members. “Beverly Goff was perfectly placed,” Anna said. “What if you were looking for ways to help a friend get hired doing the sort of job he wanted? You’d be looking for opportunities to do just that. Think about the things Goff knew about her high school kids.”
“And a fourteen-year-old girl can be very attracted to an eighteen-year-old high school graduate.” Liz checked her email, said “Nothing yet,” then drained her coffee mug. When her phone buzzed, she lifted it and tapped the screen. “It’s Melinda. She wants us to know that human and animal bone necklaces are used in necromancy rites.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“You didn’t want to tell her.”
“It’s the same with the soil, scented oils, and photos I found. That box was Maxwell’s necromancy kit.”
They had reached the end of the road. They were right about Armstrong and Hetrick, Anna thought, but they could go no further. She would have to let Schaeffer know what they’d discovered, and he could take it from there, hopefully putting a stop to the killings.
“So to save his own skin,” Liz said, still working on the puzzle, “Hetrick agreed that Armstrong would be blamed. Goff knew what Hetrick had done, and she contacted Maxwell, right?”
“I think so.”
“The girls were encouraged to accuse Armstrong.”
“Goff could have threatened to spread the word about what they’d done. That’s a powerful incentive at that age. At least it used to be.”
“But what about the other club members?”
Dean and Rose Price, Curt MacKenzie. They were all in it together, but how? Anna jerked to attention. “Curt worked at the paper. He could have set Armstrong up, planted evidence. And Dean was a—”
“Criminal investigator for the state,” Liz said triumphantly, pumping her fist in the air. “If Armstrong had tried to fight them—”
“He couldn’t. They were too powerful, and he knew it. He had to resign. And even after he did, someone leaked the story to make sure he’d leave the state and never cause them trouble.” Feeling a burst of energy, Anna stood and paced the floor again. This was something concrete and reasonable, she thought. It made sense. It was a theory without proof, but it was logical in the way Schaeffer liked his theories to be logical.
“So later in life,” Liz continued, “Hetrick regretted what he did, moved back to Elk Park, and decided he was going to confess, implicating Goff and the others in the crime.”
Hetrick. He was the first victim. Only the first. Anna stopped and wheeled back. “Liz, we’re missing the obvious. If Hetrick was killed because he was going to confess, why were Maxwell, Goff, and Price killed?”
18
“I don’t think this was a good idea,” Anna said, her hands making fists as she gripped the Jimmy’s steering wheel. She had agreed to drive to Lily’s at the Columbine Galleria, thus freeing Liz’s hands to call her contacts, but she was now questioning the wisdom of that decision. “Seriously, don’t you feel that? My tires are barely touching the road. If I had to brake right now . . .”
“It’s not that bad,” Liz said, hitting another quick-dial number on her phone.
“All you have to do is slide on ice once, just lose control once, and you realize how precarious—”
“Hang on.” Liz held up her hand, calling for silence.
“If there weren’t so many cars on the road,” Anna mumbled. “That’s the problem.” She searched the curb for a parking spot across the street from Columbine. Less than a block ahead she found one, pulled front end first into it, and nudged the Jimmy backward and forward until it was parked sufficiently close to the curb to avoid getting a ticket.
“That’s brilliant,” Liz said into her phone. “You’re not going to get into trouble, are you?”
Anna turned off the engine. “I take it you found something.”
Eager to share her news, Liz undid her seatbelt and turned to Anna. “First, the handwriting on that piece of paper looks like Hetrick’s. They’ll find out for sure when it’s analyzed.”
“I thought so. Second?”
“Tanner made a deal with the prosecutor’s office and pleaded guilty to theft. But that’s not the important part. He claimed that Dean Price paid him to steal from Henry Maxwell’s house before Maxwell died. For pennies on the dollar, of course. Everything in his canvas bag was going to end up in the Prices’ galleries.”
“Rose didn’t pay him too? Just Dean?”
“That’s what Tanner said.”
“Seems a little convenient, now that Dean is dead.”
“I think Dean felt guilty about the arrangement, which is why he told Melinda where to find Elise so she could hide her father’s things at her house.” Liz pushed her purse as far as it would go under the passenger seat and put her hand on the door handle. “Why are you frowning?”
“Rose knew what was going on. I saw a gleam in her eye when she realized that the galleries were all hers. She let this fall on Dean’s shoulders so she wouldn’t have to dirty her hands or implicate her galleries, and I’m sure she promised Tanner a substantial reward for confessing and naming Dean as his partner in crime.”
“That’s for the prosecutor to decide. Why are you still frowning?”
“Tanner was stealing from Curt’s house too. And remember, when Tanner arrived at Curt’s house, Curt was in the back bedroom with us, and Dean and Rose were in the living room. They all timed it so Tanner could steal without Curt knowing.”
“I don’t know how the police could tell what stuff came from Maxwell’s house and what stuff came from Curt’s house.”
“And I don’t see Curt making a complaint against Tanner and thwarting Rose’s plans.”
“Rose would thump him. Come on.”
Anna and Liz waited for a break in the traffic then made their way across the street. Heading into the Galleria, their senses were immediately assaulted by Curt MacKenzie’s scowling face and the odor of rubbing alcohol. “What on earth now
?” he said, a petulant tone to his voice.
“I said I can’t breathe, Dusty. You don’t have rubbing alcohol up your nose, I do. Besides, it’s not working.” Tanner Ostberg, six feet up a metal ladder and oblivious to Curt’s eye-level view, was scrubbing the Lily’s sign above the gallery’s door with a soiled cloth.
Curt reached up and slapped Tanner’s left leg. “I’m not talking to you, goober.”
Tanner looked down. “Oh.” He began his descent.
“What are you doing?” Curt cried. “Finish the job!”
“I said it’s not working. Look.” He drew Curt’s attention to a ribbon of red paint on the sign and then showed him the pale pink stain on the cloth. “I’d have to scrub that for hours. She has to hire someone who can use acetone. God knows she has the money.”
“That’s enough out of you.”
Tanner jumped from the second rung to the floor and shot a withering look at Curt. “I’ll say when it’s enough.”
Curt made sure that Tanner saw the long, slow roll of his eyes as he transferred his attention to Anna and Liz. “What do the two of you want?”
“Good afternoon to you too, Curt,” Anna replied. “What happened to the sign?”
“Vandalism, obviously.”
“Has that ever happened before?”
“No,” Tanner said, tucking his cloth into a plastic bag and then rolling the ends of the bag to seal the odor. “Someone forgot to lock the Galleria’s doors. Rose is lucky this is all that happened.”
Liz squinted at the sign. “This is the only thing that was touched?”
Tanner started to smile. “Yeah. Named after little Lily and there’s red paint all over it. It’s ironic. Or maybe it’s fitting.”
“How so?” Liz asked.
“Shut up, Tanner,” Curt said. “If you can’t help, go home.”
“I’m trying to help. You think I want to freeze my rear off for this stupid sign?”
“She’s had a terrible time of it. She’s in distress.”
Tanner guffawed. “Distressed about the sign, Dusty. Pay attention.”
“You are insufferable!” Curt shouted.
“You know I’m right. All that sadness and attention for little Lily and no one else.” Tanner took a step forward, his face now inches from Curt’s. “Like I said, it’s fitting, considering what she’s done with her talents.”
When Tanner reached out to open the gallery’s front door, Curt dug his fingers into Tanner’s arm. “You go home, and take your rubbish with you.”
Anna backed up and pulled Liz with her. At any moment the punches would fly, and though neither Curt nor Tanner were what she would call a man’s man, and thus not especially fearsome, she sensed that the two could be wild and indiscriminate in their fighting.
Instead, Tanner became very still. He gripped Curt’s arm and pried his fingers from his arm. Then he dropped the cloth and plastic bag to the ground. “If you ever touch me again, Dusty . . .” His ferocity sent Curt staggering backward, stumbling over his own feet until he righted himself against the gallery’s window.
“You vicious, square-thumbed punk.”
Anna turned in time to see Rose flying for the door, her hands like claws before her. “Stop it!” she screeched as she flung it wide. “I see you inside the store! I can hear you! What good are you? Tell me!” She clamped her hands on their shoulders, they fell limp, and she dragged them both inward.
“What was that about?” Liz said.
Anna thought her friend might crack an entirely inappropriate joke, so bizarre had the scene been, but although Liz opened her mouth to add a postscript to her question, she said nothing, and they stood quietly for a minute before Anna spoke.
“They’re all afraid,” she said, watching Rose as she continued to berate Curt and Tanner. “Or two of them are.”
“What was all that about Lily and Rose’s talents?”
“Tanner and Curt know something they’re not supposed to talk about.”
Liz took her phone from her pocket, tapped a number, and stepped just outside the Galleria’s front doors. She winced as the wind clutched at the unclipped strands of her hair, whipping them about, and she covered her bare ear with her hand.
Anna was filled with a sudden and powerful urge to go home. It was cold and growing dark. Was this what police work was like? Pick a theory and see if it plays out? See if the facts fit? Maybe she was better off in front of her computer. In genealogy any theory she had could be decisively proved wrong or right—and without having to handle bone necklaces or watch the sad, inexorable decay of people whose idea of morality was the duty to hold a séance despite a friend’s murder.
The rise of the occult. Liz had been right when she’d told Schaeffer it was happening everywhere. Haven’t you noticed? It was growing darker in more ways than one. Who was she to presume to fight the darkness? The darkness was Goliath, and she was no David. Anyway, what little she had done through her own small battles had brought her nothing but grief and fear. This battle was not hers, and no one had the right to call her to it. She was going to be a wife again, and wives did not brandish battle swords.
Liz knocked on the window and waved Anna outside. Her back to the building, as far out of the cold wind as possible, Anna listened as Liz told her what she’d discovered from another of her contacts: the Prices had another daughter. “Carolyn is her name, and she’s now thirty years old.”
“I’m not following,” Anna said, brushing hair from her eyes.
“Think about it a second.” Liz waited, nodding expectantly.
“One of the molested girls?”
“Yes!”
“She’d be thirty-one now, not thirty.”
“One year doesn’t matter. She could have been one day past her fourteenth birthday when she was molested.”
“Does she live in Colorado?”
“No, Texas.”
“Then . . .”
“Then what?”
“Liz, she’s living in Texas, she’s an adult. Does it make sense that Dean would murder Jordan Hetrick seventeen years after his daughter was abused? Back then he had the means to put him in jail, maybe prison. Besides, it doesn’t explain why Dean was murdered.”
“He could have been murdered by someone else. There could be more than one murderer.”
Anna considered. “No. That’s what I used to think, but not now. There’s one murderer and one motive for the murders, and everything traces back to Jordan Hetrick.” She knew her certainty came from her gut, not her head, but the hard facts she had thus far managed to gather supported her gut.
“What about someone else’s daughter? What about Soda Ashbrook? How old is she?”
“Mid-thirties, I think. But Liz, we have to ask ourselves why now. Soda and Dean have probably known each other for years. Curt has known him for at least seventeen, and Tanner has known him for at least a year. The only person new to the mix is Hetrick.”
“Don’t forget Elise.” Liz drew close to the front doors, where Anna was watching a new argument erupt inside Lily’s. Curt flailed his arms, looking rather like a mad windmill, and Tanner responded with an icy stare meant to still him. It worked.
“And Melinda,” Anna said. “But I don’t think they had anything to do with this.”
“Neither do I. Here comes Tanner.”
Tanner stormed to the Galleria’s front doors, his right arm straight in front of him, ready to push through. Anna and Liz retreated, but Anna called to him as soon as he hit the sidewalk. He did an about-face and circled back to her.
“What is it now, Anna? Can’t it wait?”
“Someone else in the January Club is going to die, so no, I don’t think it can wait.”
Tanner shoved his hands into his pockets and shrugged. “There’s nothing I can do about it.”
“Did you have a key to Melinda Maxwell’s house?”
He answered instantly. “Still do.” Cool and unwavering, he glared at her. “You look stunned.”
Anna ignored the comment on her state of mind. “What about Curt? Does he have a key? Did he ever enter Melinda’s house at night, while she was sleeping?”
A small but satisfied grin settled onto his face. “I understand what you’re asking.”
“Good, because it’s important for her peace of mind. I know you’re in the same club, but—”
“I don’t care about Dusty. He ratted on me.”
Curt had genuinely been shocked at Anna’s assertion that Tanner was stealing from him, and she had told him that only minutes before they all learned that Tanner had been arrested, so Curt wasn’t the culprit. Anna guessed it was Rose or Dean who had turned him in, but the guilt she felt at letting Tanner believe Curt had told the police about his activities wasn’t potent enough to interrupt him while he was spilling the beans on a fellow club member.
“I have a record now,” Tanner went on, “and Soda has a worse one. You think I care about Dusty? He’s in it as heavy as I am and he skates. How fair is that? I’ll tell you what.” He paused in an attempt to give greater emphasis to the words that followed. “Next time you’re at his house, check out the closet in the museum room. I think he keeps them on a shelf.”
“You know I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“A wig and a topcoat, Anna. Eighteenth-century style and very Norwegian looking. If you scare the prospects, they’re more likely to come running to you for help. And give you money and a key to your house.” He leaned in. She could feel the warmth of his breath. “I told him he didn’t need the wig. That hair of his is enough—and it’s already powdered.”
Anna saw it then. Beneath the little-boy haircut, in the brown eyes dancing for joy, she saw evil. She backed away. “How did you scare Henry Maxwell?”
Tanner pressed a palm to his chest. “Me scare Maxwell? I’ve only been in the club a year. Anyway, old Henry wasn’t scared of anything. He’s the one who did the scaring. He was one creepy dude.”
The Club (Anna Denning Mystery Book 4) Page 18
