Rear-View Murder: A Gemma Stone Cozy Mystery

by Willow Monroe

  “Thank you, sir,” Nick said and the men shook hands again.

  “Please tell them to take good care of her,” Gemma said as the coroner’s van drove away.

  “They won’t hurt the car, honey,” Nick explained.

  “We’ll have to impound it for a while until...” Detective Temple began.

  Gemma shook her head vigorously, cutting both men short. “The girl. The girl that was in the trunk. Please take care of her.”

  “We will,” Detective Temple promised. “We will.”

  Gemma sat in Nick’s vehicle, arms crossed in front of her, shivering uncontrollably. She watched him gather her groceries, watched law enforcement and other personnel working on the scene, feeling as if she were in a dream.

  “I’m so cold,” she said to Nick when he climbed back in the car.

  Reaching into the back seat, he grabbed a jacket and placed it around her shoulders. It carried Nick’s familiar clean crisp scent, calming Gemma somewhat.

  “Let’s get you home,” he said, put the SUV in gear and headed for Gemma’s house. As he drove, he called Holly to let her know what had happened.

  “Tell her to please come,” Gemma whispered.

  Nick did as Gemma requested, ended the call and nodded. “She’ll meet us there.”

  Gemma shivered again and pulled the jacket closer around her. The young woman in her trunk - and Gemma was sure she had been a young woman - had been a daughter, a sister, maybe a wife. Death had destroyed yet another family and it made her angry.

  Holly was waiting on the front porch when they arrived.

  “I’ll get your things out of the car. You go inside,” Nick said to her, speaking as gently as the detective had earlier.

  Gemma nodded and climbed out of the car on shaking legs. She felt as if she’d aged a hundred years since she left the house that morning, full of high hopes for the future and excited about her new car. She made it all the way to where Holly waited before she burst into tears.

  “Come on inside, honey,” Holly said, taking the keys and unlocking the door.

  “I’m so cold,” Gemma whispered between sobs.

  Holly grabbed a quilt folded on the end of the sofa and wrapped it tightly around Gemma. Then she sat down and held her, rocking back and forth slightly. How many nights had they sat like this after the death of her parents? Gemma had no idea, she just knew that Holly had been there for her as long as she needed her best friend.

  Nick joined them, kneeling on the floor at Gemma’s feet. “I put the groceries away and put water on for some tea. Thought it might warm her up.”

  “Good idea,” Holly said. “What happened?”

  “Gemma took the car for a drive up to Harrisonburg, came back to town and went to the grocery store. Evidently the trunk wouldn’t open...”

  “It looked like someone had tried to pry it open,” Gemma told them. “There were scratches on the lock and dents.”

  “So she kicked it. I guess that got it open, but it was full of stuff,” Nick continued.

  “Stinky stuff,” Holly said. “That car smelled really bad.”

  Nick nodded. “Buddy said it had been sitting for a while. It was a repo. Anyway, she drove around to the back of the store to throw the things into a dumpster and that’s when she uncovered a...the...” His voice faltered.

  “Hand,” Gemma said, struggling to focus on their conversation. “There was a human hand sticking up out of the old coats and blankets.”

  Holly suddenly looked ill.

  “She called me and I looked at it closer. That’s when I realized there was a body in the trunk and called 911,” Nick finished.

  A high pitched whistling sound came from the kitchen, startling all of them and Nick dashed off to silence it.

  “She’d been in there a long time,” Gemma told Holly. “Her family is probably looking for her.”

  “I’m sure they’ll be able to find out who she is through DNA or dental records or something,” Holly assured her, a worried look on her face.

  Nick returned with a steaming mug of tea and offered it to her. “Honey and lemon - just the way you like it,” he said.

  “Thank you,” Gemma said, taking it in both hands. After a few careful sips, warmth began to spread through her body, making her feel better. By the time the cup was empty, she had stopped shivering and began to relax. Her stomach rumbled, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten a thing all day.

  Holly and Nick exchanged glances.

  “Listen, why don’t I whip up some of my special Nick Leonard spaghetti,” Nick suggested. “Holly, call Mitch and tell him to come over for dinner and bring a bottle of wine.”

  “You got it,” Holly said.

  Gemma forced a smile. Yes, a small dinner party with her best friends was exactly what she needed to take her mind off of the day’s unhappy events. Her tummy growled again and Nick kissed her cheek.

  “Hope you bought stuff for salad,” Nick said.

  Gemma nodded. “I did. Let me help with dinner.”

  “You don’t have to...”

  “No, I need to be busy. I can at least chop veggies,” Gemma said, rising to her feet.

  As she predicted, doing something with her hands really did make her feel better. Mitch arrived with wine and when they were all seated at the table, Nick made a small toast.

  “To best friends,” he said.

  “To best friends,” they all echoed. Gemma took a moment to just be thankful for her little makeshift family.

  All through the evening, despite the good conversation, the laughter, great food and the wine, the memory of the girl in the trunk of her car did not stray far from Gemma’s thoughts.

  It was nearly midnight when Holly and Mitch left. Gemma stood on the porch and watched them holding hands, not letting go until the last minute when they had to get into separate vehicles. They kissed briefly, Holly giggled and then they were gone.

  “Mitch will follow Holly home and make sure she’s safe,” Nick said, coming up behind her on the porch.

  Gemma jumped at the sound of his voice and then leaned back into his arms. “Sorry, I guess I’m a little bit nervous.”

  “You’re probably exhausted as well,” Nick said, hugging her and kissing the top of her head. “Come on inside.”

  “I really appreciate you coming down there today when I called,” Gemma said as Nick led her through the house.

  “I’m just happy you called me and not Buddy,” Nick said as he switched off one light after another.

  “Do you think they’ll be able to find out who she is?” Gemma asked.

  “I don’t know. There wasn’t much left of the...of her,” Nick replied, pulling her into his arms. “Seeing you nervous makes me nervous, even though I hide it well behind my brave, manly appearance. So, if you’ll allow me, I want to stay here tonight.”

  “Nick, we’ve been through this...” Gemma began. Her emotions were a jumbled mess before. Finding a body in the trunk of her car had only added more stress to the situation.

  “On the sofa,” he said, kissing her forehead. “I’ll be sleeping on the sofa.”

  Chapter Five

  Gemma was running as fast as she could through cold, dark woods, stumbling on rocks and roots, her feet slipping and sliding on wet leaves. The low hanging limbs slapped her face, stinging her skin and bringing tears to her eyes. Her lungs were on fire. An intense, dank, rotting smell filled her nose. When she looked back over her shoulder, she could see nothing but trees and fog. Somehow she knew that something was back there, coming. Something was after her and she had no idea who or what it was.

  In some part of her mind, Gemma knew she was having a nightmare, and she kept telling herself that as she continued to run. But that didn’t keep her from stumbling on or being terrified of what might catch her.

  Suddenly, a car appeared in front of her and she skidded to a stop. The car was blue and the trunk was open. Gemma crept forward slowly, as silently as she could, reached out and lifted t
he trunk lid. It was slippery wet and her finger slipped on the cold metal. She eventually had to use both hands to get it open. Even in her dream, Gemma braced herself for what she knew was in there.

  It was empty.

  She let out her breath, closed the trunk, and rested her head against the trunk lid. And then a piercing scream filled the dark woods and Gemma looked up to see a skeleton’s face, the mouth open in a scream, pressed up against the back window of the car. Fingers that looked like twigs, spread against the glass, appearing to reach for her. Gasping and biting back her own scream, Gemma backed up from the car, tripped over a log and sat down hard.

  Then she woke in her familiar bedroom with sunlight streaming through the big windows. Shaking and drenched in sweat, she sat up and looked around, blinking her eyes to make sure she really was safe at home. The heavenly scent of brewing coffee wafted up the stairs to her room. Just for a split second, she thought the heartbreak and horror of the last six months was a dream. She would run downstairs to find her father in the sunny kitchen fixing breakfast and her mother at the big wooden table, reading the paper.

  “Wake up, sleepy head,” Nick said from her bedroom door.

  Gemma was back to reality.

  “You okay?” he asked, coming into the room to stand at the foot of her bed.

  “Yeah,” Gemma said, running her hands through her red-gold curls. “Just had a bad dream and for a minute I thought...” She stopped and shook her head. “Never mind.”

  “I’m not surprised you had a bad dream,” Nick said, grinning down at her. “I’ve got coffee made and I thought I’d make us some toast. Maybe eggs if you want.”

  “Thanks. Toast would be great,” Gemma said forcing a smile.

  Nick patted her foot, his hand lingering on the quilt a little longer than necessary before he left.

  She listened to him humming softly as he trotted back down the stairs and smiled to herself. Good friends are hard to find, Gemma thought as she hopped out of bed and stretched, trying to shake off the remnants of the dream. Then she hurried barefoot to the bathroom, washed her face and tried again to tame her wild hair, this time with a brush. That wasn’t as successful as she liked so she gathered her thick hair up into a loose pony tail, pulled on a robe and padded down the stairs.

  Nick was in the kitchen buttering two slices of bread.

  “Toast?” he asked, offering one to Gemma.

  “Thanks,” she said, pouring herself a cup of coffee and joining him at the big, wooden kitchen table where she’d eaten too many meals to count.

  “You ready for today?” he asked.

  Gemma nodded. “A little nervous. I don’t know what else Detective Temple might ask me.”

  “You don’t know much more than what you’ve already told him, and I doubt Buddy knows much more than that,” Nick said, munching on his toast.

  A sudden thought struck Gemma. “You don’t think Buddy...?”

  Nick laughed aloud before she could finish. “No way. First of all, they’ll be able to prove when the car was purchased at the auction and I’m betting it wasn’t much more than a week or so ago.”

  “And she was in there a long time,” Gemma said, remembering the skeletal hand that seemed to be reaching out to her from the darkness of that trunk.

  “Yes, she was,” Nick said quietly.

  “But Buddy really didn’t want me to buy that car,” Gemma reminded him.

  “He just hadn’t checked it out yet. He knew you needed something you could depend on,” Nick said.

  “You’re probably right.”

  “Now, I’m going to go home, shower and change clothes and I’ll be back here to pick you up about nine-thirty,” Nick said, standing up. He kissed her forehead before snatching up his keys from the corner of the table.

  “Shave,” Gemma said, rubbing the skin where his bristly beard had scratched her.

  “Yes, ma’am.” Nick was laughing when he went out the door.

  Her cell chimed and Gemma reached for it.

  “How are you this morning?” Holly asked.

  Gemma smiled. Her no-nonsense friend always got straight to the point. “Exhausted. I dreamed all night.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Holly said. “Nick is going with you to the police station, right?”

  “Yes. He just went home to change and...”

  “He spent the night?” Holly asked quickly, cutting her off.

  “Yes, he did,” Gemma said.

  “Well, that’s a good sign.”

  “On the sofa,” Gemma added.

  Holly sighed heavily. “Gemma, honey, he’s not going to wait forever.”

  “I know that,” Gemma said. Nervous energy had her on her feet, pacing around the kitchen. The last thing she wanted to talk about with Holly was her relationship with Nick. “Let’s not talk about it right now, please.”

  “Okay, okay,” Holly said and Gemma could practically see her holding up both hands in surrender.

  Gemma glanced down at her wrist, at the beautiful watch Holly had designed just for her as a prototype for HealthGems. It counted her daily steps, her calorie intake and her heartrate. She guessed if she checked the heartrate function at that moment, it would be through the roof.

  “I’ve got to get ready,” she said to Holly, her tone sharper than she meant.

  “Call me when it’s over,” Holly said before they ended the call.

  Still anxious, Gemma raced upstairs to the shower. What did one wear to a give a statement to the police? She tried to remember what she’d seen on TV. Most of those people looked like they just rolled out of bed and came down to the police station. Yet, she wouldn’t wear something formal either. Opting for middle of the road, she dressed in a pair of light blue slacks and a white blouse. Make-up consisted of a dusting of rose blush on her cheeks, mascara and some lip gloss. She was still struggling with her hair when Nick called to her from the bottom of the stairs.

  “Give me just a minute,” Gemma yelled back as she stood looking in her closet trying to decide which shoes to wear.

  “I talked to Buddy,” Nick said, after they were in his car and headed downtown.

  “Yeah?”

  Nick nodded. “Detective Temple talked to him yesterday right after...”

  “What did Buddy tell them?”

  “They bought the car at an auction in Richmond about a week ago. It was a repo picked up out of the long term parking lot at Richmond International Airport. Hard to tell how long it had been there, and then it sat in the parking lot at the bank for a while,” Nick said as he drove. “You found it on the lot and bought it before they’d had a chance to go over it carefully.”

  “Obviously. No one looked in the trunk,” Gemma said.

  “Buddy has a kid who details the cars to get them ready to sell. He talked to him and the kid confessed that he tried but hadn’t been able to get the trunk open.”

  “So he just left it alone?” Gemma asked.

  Nick nodded.

  “Maybe that’s where the scratches and dents came from around the lock,” Gemma said to herself.

  “Probably.”

  The police station in the small town of Gypsy Hill, Virginia was housed in one of the old, hand cut stone historic buildings right behind the courthouse. Gemma had only been there once before, when her sixth grade class toured the building. She was curious to see if it had changed since then.

  Nick seemed right at home there. Several of the officers both in uniform and out spoke to him.

  “They seem to know you pretty well around here,” Gemma teased.

  “Reporters always need to make friends with the cops,” Nick told her. “Besides, I like it here. There’s kind of an energy.”

  “Let’s just find Detective Temple and get this over with,” she said, feeling an energy but it wasn’t one she liked.

  Nick led them to the front desk where a pretty young woman sat. He spoke with her and Gemma heard Detective Temple’s name. The woman picked up the phone and Nick
turned back to Gemma, catching her hand in his.

  “He’ll be right down,” the receptionist told them.

  Nick led Gemma to some wooden chairs lined up by the wall, but she was too nervous to sit. Instead, she stood, shifting from one foot to the other, clinging to her purse for dear life.

  “Right on time,” Detective Temple said as he entered the small space.

  “Yes, sir,” Nick said as the two men shook hands.

  Gemma noted that the detective looked like he had slept very little. His clothes were a bit wrinkled, as if maybe he had slept in them, and he carried a folder in his left hand that looked awfully thin.

  He led them down a narrow hall to a small room on the right which contained a metal table and four chairs, all bolted to the floor. “Please have a seat.”

  Nick and Gemma sat and Detective Temple took a seat across from them. Gemma noted that there was a huge mirror behind his head and she wondered if anyone else was watching them. The detective opened the file in front of him. It held maybe three sheets of paper.

  “Miss Stone, could you tell me again what happened?” he asked quietly.

  Gemma went through her story again, hardly taking her eyes off of the papers in the folder. She picked up the car yesterday morning. She drove around, visited Holly and then went to Harrisonburg. She went to the grocery store and when she came out, discovered that she couldn’t get the trunk open.

  “So you kicked it?” the detective asked.

  Gemma nodded. “Yes, sir. I just kicked it right over the lock and it popped open.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “It was fully of nasty smelling coats and blankets, so I drove around behind the store to put them in the dumpster,” Gemma told him.

  “Why didn’t you go back to Buddy’s and make him do it?” he asked, sounding more curious than anything else.

  Gemma shrugged. “I guess I just never thought of it.”

  Detective Temple seemed satisfied with that answer and motioned for her to continue.