Invitation to Murder (Book 1 in the Candlemaking Mysteries)

by Tim Myers

  That’s when I heard giggling coming from the master bedroom. Oh, no. I had forgotten all about my aunt’s rendezvous with her latest suitor. There was no way I wanted to catch them canoodling, so I tiptoed to the back door so I could make my escape unnoticed.

  My hand was on the door when I heard my aunt’s stern voice behind me. “Stop right where you are. I’ve got a gun.”

  I started to turn around when she said, “I mean it. I’d rather face a jury for shooting you than wait for you to come back here some night and try to kill me.”

  “Lillian, it’s me.” I turned around slowly until she could see my face.

  “Jennifer? What in the world are you doing? You look positively ghastly.”

  “In my defense, I’m wearing your things.” Lillian did indeed have a gun trained on me, a rather large one at that. “Would you mind pointing that thing somewhere else? Where did you get it, anyway?”

  As she lowered the barrel, she said, “You know how Percy loved to hunt. He left this behind so I could protect myself. Girl, I’d like an explanation for it that outfit. I haven’t seen that duster since the sixties.” She frowned, then said, “It had to have looked better on me than it does on you now.”

  “It’s a long story, but I didn’t think you’d mind if I borrowed a few of your things.”

  Lillian scowled. “Jennifer Shane, you know that whatever I have is yours. Not without an explanation, though.”

  I wasn’t about to tell her what I was up to, at least not until I had something more concrete to reveal than I had so far. “How about your beau? Should you really keep him waiting?” “You heard him?” There was no humor in her voice when she asked me the question.

  “All I heard was a giggle. Good for you.”

  That appeased her. In a low voice, Lillian said, “He’s got potential, but I’m not at all certain he’ll make the final cut.”

  “I would think not. After all, he let you come out here by yourself to confront an intruder.”

  Lillian shook her head. “Jennifer, my dear sweet child, not every man is built for battle. It’s my shotgun, and I know how to use it. If he tried to scare somebody off with it, most likely he’d end up shooting himself in the foot. No, I’m using a different litmus test to see if he’ll do. I sincerely doubt he’ll pass, but in the meantime, he’s an interesting diversion.” She paused, then called out over her shoulder. “It’s fine; it’s just my niece. I’ll be in shortly.” Lillian turned back to me, then said, “Now I must know what you’re up to, young lady. Does your brother know you’re planning to parade around Rebel Forge dressed like that?”

  I knew then there was no use trying to stonewall Lillian anymore. “Bradford’s taking me to the crime scene.”

  “What are you talking about, Jennifer? Has something else happened?”

  That’s when I remembered that Lillian had already left for the day when Bradford had come by to update me on what had happened to Tina Mast. After I explained how I’d coaxed my brother into letting me help him investigate, Lillian said, “Give me five minutes and I’ll go with you.”

  “It was all I could do to convince him to let me go. If I show up with you, I won’t get to step inside the front door. I know how far I can push him, Lillian, and bringing you with me is about four steps farther than he’d be willing to go.” What I didn’t say was that she had to know how my brother felt about her. Some people in this world, whether they’re related by blood or not, were never meant to get along, and my brother and my aunt were two of them. Throwing them together for anything short of a wedding or a funeral was asking for trouble, and I had enough of that to deal with already without worrying about them. To appease her, I said, “As soon as I finish, I’ll come back over here and return your things. That way I can bring you up-to-date on what happened without anyone being the wiser.” I gestured to the bedroom, then added, “That is if you think you’ll be finished up here by then.”

  “Jennifer, I believe you’ve entirely killed the mood for any romance this evening.”

  “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

  She hugged me, then said, “To be honest with you, it’s time I moved on, but I’ve been reluctant to do so. This gives me the perfect opportunity to let him down easy and see what else is out there waiting for me.”

  “Now I feel really terrible,” I said. “Are you sure you want to do that?”

  “There’s no doubt in my mind. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a heart to break.” She must have seen the sadness in my eyes, because she quickly added, “I’ll be gentle with him, I promise. You always were a sensitive child.”

  I surely didn’t want to stand there discussing that with her. Bradford was probably beginning to think that I’d been abducted. I’d taken so long to put my disguise together. We were meeting at the fire station—neutral ground—and when I glanced at my watch I saw that I was going to be late. “I’ve got to run,” I said as I hurried out the back door. I’d thought I about adding high heels to make me taller, but I didn’t have the time, and in all honesty, I doubted I’d need to hide my appearance any more than I already had. After parking a block from the station, I walked the rest of the way so no one would associate my outfit with the Gremlin. Only part of that had to do with my safety. I honestly didn’t want anyone in Rebel Forge to think that I’d chosen that particular outfit myself.

  I pulled the duster tight, cinched the belt and patted my wig before I went inside. The sunglasses were a little dark for my taste, but at least they managed to cover more of my face than one of the masks Bradford had mentioned. He was standing near the town’s only fire truck as two of our volunteers polished a bumper. I thought I’d fooled him when he said, “Are you ready?”

  I just nodded, disappointed that he’d seen right through my disguise. Once we were in his patrol car, I said, “I can’t believe you knew it was me.”

  “Jennifer, I’m a trained police officer. I’m paid to be observant.” He added with a grin, “Besides, I remember when Lillian wore that jacket to a Halloween party one year. It triggered a migraine headache that I’ll never forget. There’s one more thing, too. You still have on the same shoes you did when I saw you earlier.”

  “Should I change?” The last thing in the world I wanted was to be recognized, especially in that outfit

  “You did a good job, Sis. Nobody’s going to know that’s you dressed like that. You fooled Darrel and Lee, didn’t you? Can you honestly believe one of them wouldn’t have said something to you if they’d recognized you? Oh, man, I’d better call Cindy and tell her what I’m up to before the town gossips call her and tell her I’m stepping out on her.” He dialed his cell, and had a brief conversation with his wife. Small towns are big on talk, and I was certain he was right in calling Cindy before somebody else did, just trying to be helpful. After he hung up, Bradford looked a little miffed.

  “What’s wrong? Didn’t she believe you?”

  He said, “No, she didn’t have any trouble accepting it. That’s what’s bugging me. I’m still a good-looking guy, right?”

  I had to laugh, which was exactly the wrong thing to do at that particular moment.

  “You mind telling me what’s so funny? I’m going out on a limb here, Jennifer. Is it too much to ask that you show me a little respect?”

  “I wasn’t laughing at you, Bradford. It just struck me as funny that you’re concerned your wife doesn’t think you’re capable of having an affair. Come on, Cindy trusts you, and I’ve never known anybody more in love than your wife is with you—though only the Good Lord knows why. You’ve got something half the world is searching for. Be happy for that.”

  He took my appeasement as more than it really was. “Don’t worry, Jen. You’ll find someone.”

  “I might if I were looking, but the last thing in the world I need right now is a man getting in my way. I honestly don’t know when I’d have the time for him. Trust me, I’m happy with things just the way they are right now.” It was true. I was long past
waiting for the man of my dreams to come along. It wasn’t that I was closing myself off to the possibility of love sometime in the future, but I had a business to build, and now a murder to solve before the killer decided to come after me. That didn’t leave much time for moonlit strolls or breakfast picnics by the lake.

  I was saved from further comment when Bradford pulled the patrol car up in front of a small house down by the railroad tracks. It had one story, sided in vinyl, and a roof that needed replacing, if the missing shingles meant anything. There was a for sale sign in the front yard peeking through the high grass growing there. The state police had come and gone, but there were ribbons of that bright yellow crime scene tape wrapped around the steps of the front stoop.

  Bradford cut off the engine, but before he made a move to get out, he asked, “Jennifer, are you sure you want to do this?”

  I thought about the violence that had happened inside there a little over twenty-four hours before, about how a young woman had lost her life in a violent, horrific way. But I never hesitated. “Bradford, I don’t have a choice. Let’s go in before I lose my nerve.”

  He shrugged. “I’m ready if you are.”

  As we walked up the sidewalk, I asked, “Is this where she lived?”

  “No, Tina and her family lived all the way over on Hughes Drive. We haven’t figured out how she ended up here. The state police think it had something to do with drugs, but we both know better, don’t we?”

  “Do you have any idea who owns this house?”

  “I was able to backtrack and find out that it used to belong to the family of a boy she went to school with, but nobody’s lived here for months.”

  Another thought suddenly occurred to me. “Bradford, did you tell the state cops about the telephone call?”

  “I tried to, but they blew me off before I could go into much detail. They were both kind of skeptical that the phone call and the murder were related.”

  “But you think they are, don’t you?”

  He hesitated as he removed some of the tape. “We’re here, aren’t we? I’ve got to warn you, the body may be gone, but there’s no doubt what happened inside.”

  “I’ll be okay,” I said as I followed him to the door. Before he’d let me in Bradford handed me a pair of latex gloves. “Here, put these on.”

  “I thought you all were through here.”

  “Jennifer, this is still an active crime scene. I don’t want the state cops to come back and find my little sister’s fingerprints all over the house.”

  The gloves were clammy, but I put them on anyway. It was time to face something that scared the daylights out of me. Hopefully, it would help answer some of my questions.

  Chapter 5

  The smell was the first thing that hit me when I stepped across the threshold directly into the living room. There’s something about a house where no one is living; it takes on smells and odors of its own accord, but there was more than that there. I didn’t know if it was just my imagination kicking into high gear, but I could swear I smelled death inside.

  Bradford must have noticed the expression on my face. “You picked up on that, too, huh? We found a couple of sprung mousetraps in the kitchen. This place would have been tough to sell before the murder. It’s like I told you: there’s not much to see here, is there?”

  “Give me a minute, will you?” I pulled off my disguise and laid the coat, the wig and the sunglasses on a table near the door. As I walked around the room, I saw a couple of shattered pieces of plastic on the floor that must have been from the battered phone. That’s when I noticed dark brown stains on the worn shag carpet. A patch had been cut out of the rug, exposing the concrete underneath, and I wondered what the evidence would yield. I didn’t spend too much time worrying about that, though. It was up to the state police labs to find any clues hiding there.

  As I walked through the small house, I kept wondering what had brought Tina there in her last hours. Had she been running, looking for refuge at an old boyfriend’s house, or had she been lured there to her death? The first scenario would mean she was being chased, while the second was much darker. If the woman who had killed her had tricked Tina into coming to such a far-off place, then that meant the murderer had known her, and fairly well, to know of her connection to the empty house. I gave the bathroom a perfunctory look, but something caught my eye as I turned to tell my brother that I wasn’t going to be much help. Kicked behind the toilet, I found a teardrop earring with its back missing. It was small enough for a man or a woman to wear, though I’d never been all that comfortable with men wearing earrings of any size or shape. When I started to retrieve it, Bradford said behind me, “Hold on; what did you find?”

  “There’s an earring back there. Any chance Tina lost one in the struggle?”

  “I’m not sure.” He carefully picked it up, sealed it in a tiny evidence bag, then said, “Let me check the report.” Bradford scanned a sheaf of documents. “Sorry, she didn’t have pierced ears. It’s probably been here awhile.”

  He started to hand me the earring when I asked, “If it wasn’t Tina’s, could it belong to the killer?”

  “Come on, Jennifer, that thing’s probably been here since the Claytons moved. Do you honestly think the killer left it behind?”

  “Bradford, the back’s missing. I’m betting she didn’t even realize she lost it until she got home.”

  “So what was she doing in the bathroom?” my brother asked.

  “Maybe she was cleaning up. You said yourself it was pretty bloody.” I leaned over and tried the faucet, but no water came out.

  He shrugged. “Sorry, Sis. It was a nice theory, but it doesn’t hold water.” If Bradford knew he’d just made a pun, he didn’t show any awareness of it.

  I had a sudden thought. “There’s more than one way to get water in a bathroom.” I grabbed the toilet reservoir lid, thankful that I had gloves on for a reason that had nothing to do with fingerprints. As I pulled if the lid off, I saw that there was still water inside and worst of all, there were splatters of blood on the sides of the tank. “I was right. She washed up in here after all.”

  Bradford leaned over and looked down at the reddish pink water. “Well I’ll be dipped in Tabasco. I don’t know how we missed this.”

  “It proves my point, doesn’t it? There’s more reason than ever to believe that the earring belongs to the killer.”

  My brother looked at me with new respect in his eyes. “I’m impressed, Jennifer.” He looked sheepish, and I asked him what was wrong. “I’m not sure how I’m going to tell the state police that my sister found this.”

  “That’s easy; you don’t. Tell them you came back to have another look around, which is true, and you found this, which might be stretching the truth just a little, but who cares?” He rubbed his chin. “Jennifer, that last part’s not even close to what happened. I don’t know if I can do it.”

  “I swear, men can be so anal sometimes. My brother was more concerned with propriety and society’s rules than I’d ever been. I was more of a results-oriented kind of gal myself. “Tell them what you want to, but if you mention my name, you’re crazy. Just imagine what kind of paperwork you’d have to fill out for letting a civilian into a crime scene. Isn’t it just easier my way?”

  “You don’t get it, do you? It might be less of a hassle in the short run, but what happens when I have to testify in court that I’m the one who found this I earring? There’s something called the chain of evidence, and I’m not about to lie under oath just to keep from getting a little heat. No, we’re doing this by the book.” He thought about it thirty seconds, then reached into his wallet, pulled out a one-dollar bill and handed it to me.

  “What’s this, a finder’s fee?” I asked as I took the buck.

  “No, that’s your retainer. I just hired you as a consultant to help me investigate the crime scene. I’m doing it because I’m after a woman’s perspective. Do you get what I mean?”

  “Hey, I’ve never been a
cop before. Do I get a badge and a gun and everything?”

  My brother was not amused by my grin. “Jennifer, this is serious. It’s one thing to let a civilian in here, but if you’re on my payroll, I’ve got a way out of this without taking a real hit.”

  I folded the dollar bill and slid it into my pocket. “Sorry, I know this is important. So what do we do now?”

  “I want you to finish looking around, and then I’m going to call the cops who missed this.”

  I finished exploring the place, but if there was anything else there, I couldn’t see it. “Bradford, I just had a thought. Is there any way we could go look around Tina’s room in her parents’ house? There might be something there that could help us.”

  He seemed reluctant to agree, so I added, “Hey, I’m on the payroll now, remember? If I’m going to be a consultant, I need to see everything.”

  “Maybe hiring you wasn’t such a great idea after all.”

  I smiled. “Maybe not, but you’re stuck with me now. So what do you say?”

  “Why not? I’m already in it this deep. What’s a few more feet over my head?”

  “That’s the spirit,” I said as I opened the front door, ready to step outside.

  He pulled me back in abruptly. I said, “Hey, what are you doing, Bradford?”