Death Knell (Juniper Grove Cozy Mystery Book 8)

by Karin Kaufman

  “They left right after Holly and I did?”

  “No, we all took naps first, for an hour and a half, maybe two.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “I stayed here. That means they can’t vouch for where I was either.”

  “Did you see or hear anything strange?”

  “Not really. Well . . .” She took a moment to think. “Someone moved my phone while I was upstairs. I left it in the middle of the kitchen table. I’m always afraid I’ll knock it on the floor, so that’s where I leave it during the day. But when I came downstairs, it was at one end of the table. It’s a small thing, but it’s the only thing I can think of.”

  “Would you have heard it ring? Or heard a text tone?”

  “No, I keep it on vibrate.”

  “Would your friends pry into your phone?”

  “Twenty-four hours ago, I would have said no. But now?” She swallowed hard before going on. “I want them to leave the cottage, Rachel. They have to. Tonight.”

  CHAPTER 11

  Gilroy interviewed the women and then talked very briefly to Royce and Julia, leaving me for last. I went with him to the office on the cottage’s first floor and sat in a small cushioned chair on one side of a white writing desk. He walked around the desk and sank into an office chair on casters, his expression grim.

  “The coroner says Ackley’s cause of death is a large stab wound to his abdomen. He bled out, probably very quickly. Of course, that’s preliminary.”

  I nodded.

  Gilroy rubbed his hand across his chin, over the dark stubble he hadn’t taken time to shave, and leaned back. “You’re wet. Are you warm enough?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “What time did you get here?”

  “Two minutes before six o’clock. Mariette Shipley answered the door. She was drunk. Or pretending to be.”

  His eyebrows went up.

  “I’ve been thinking about her. Maybe she pretended to trip over the pastor. Let’s say she already knew he was dead and knew his body was going to be found eventually. Doesn’t she look more innocent that way? How could she have killed him when she tripped over him, right?”

  “I understand she went to get flowers.”

  “That’s what she told everyone. So I don’t know, James. Maybe she really was three sheets to the wind, as Julia said. Stealing flowers from a graveyard in the rain—it’s the sort of thing people do when they’ve had too much to drink.”

  “Did anyone follow her?”

  “No one else went outside until we heard a scream.” I told Gilroy everything I could remember about the scene, including the paperback book and the shredded lilac blossoms on the ground. “It looked like Mariette was trying to yank the blossoms off the shrubs. She didn’t take scissors or shears with her, and her hands were stained purple.”

  “We found her right shoe near Ackley’s body.”

  “That’s right. I saw it there, seconds after she screamed.”

  “So either she tripped over him and lost her shoe in the process or she faked tripping over him but was detail-minded enough to remove her shoe so the scene would look genuine.”

  “Okay, maybe,” I said with a smile, knowing full well he was almost certainly right in his assessment of the scene. “I see what you’re saying. And she was trying to tear lilacs from a shrub with her bare hands, like a three-sheeted woman would do, and she did drop the blossoms when she tripped.”

  “Not that we cross Mrs. Shipley off our list. She might have killed Ackley earlier and started drinking to cover herself.”

  “But that’s not likely, I think. What do you make of the paperback book?”

  “The pastor was taken by surprise—”

  “Because there was no sign of a struggle—no torn-up grass, no blood on any of the headstones.”

  “Right. So offhand I’d say the killer used the book to hide a weapon when she approached him.”

  Yes, of course. “Did Sophie tell you that everyone separated this afternoon?”

  “They took naps and then drove off in separate cars, yes.”

  “All of them have a connection to St. John’s,” I said, trying to redeem myself after missing the obvious when it came to Mariette and her lost shoe. “Alison and Sophie attend, Tyra’s parents attend, and Mariette is brokering the real estate deal.”

  “And then there are those bells,” he said.

  “Ackley was working on who hacked his system. He was very curious and determined. I think he may have discovered something and decided to talk to one of the women at the cottage.”

  “You think he was going to or from the cottage when he was attacked? Why come or leave by the patio door? Mrs. Crawford told me that the few times he came to the cottage, it was always by the front door. She’d seen him in the cemetery before, but never going to or from her cottage.”

  I pondered his question a minute, imagining the path Ackley might take leaving St. John’s and making his way to the cottage. “Then he was attacked after he left the cottage,” I said firmly. “He said something to one of the women, and she followed him.”

  “Via the patio door to the graveyard?”

  I sat forward. “When he came, he knocked on the front door, as usual. Then he talked to one of them. She knew he’d figured out what she’d done—or he was getting close to it. Maybe she asked forgiveness, promised to turn herself in. Then she showed him to the patio door. I think it’s a shorter walk to the church if you go the back way. So she pretended to be courteous and let him go out the back.”

  Gilroy wasn’t convinced—I knew that skeptical expression—yet he urged me to go on. These days, he valued my thoughts and wanted me to counter his theories with theories of my own. The days of him telling me to go home and stop meddling in his cases were long gone.

  “I know what.” I snapped my fingers and sprang to my feet. “She called him out to the patio to talk to him there because the other women were inside the house, taking naps. They could have heard Ackley talk if he’d stayed inside. What was the time of death?”

  “Between noon and three this afternoon.”

  “That would fit with their nap time.”

  Gilroy shook his head. “If he came to the cottage while everyone was sleeping and knocked on the door or rang the doorbell, why would only the killer have heard him?”

  I groaned, frustrated by the logistical stumbling blocks that were part and parcel of the case. There were only four suspects, but neither Gilroy nor I had whittled that number down. Four women, and as far as we knew, all of them had a motive to kill—because we had no idea what the motive for either murder was. No one suspect was rising like rotten cream to the top.

  With her prickly personality, Alison seemed the more likely killer to me, though “Your Honor, she’s an unpleasant pill” didn’t fly as evidence in a court of law. Sophie seemed the least likely suspect. Not only was she not the killing type, but murdering a friend in her own home and then killing the man who was to be instrumental in buying the home she needed to sell was at a minimum counterproductive. Downright crazy, in fact. The evidence as we knew it, and my instincts, were telling me to eliminate her as a suspect.

  Walking to the office window, I gazed out over Sophie’s land, over part of the graveyard and, beyond it, a slice of the church parking lot. It was a shame she had to give up her home, the enormous size of it and its propensity to flood aside. Such a peaceful view. Roses, lilacs, peonies, the church. Even the graveyard was lovely in its own way.

  “The murderer wasn’t sleeping,” I said, turning back to Gilroy. “She wasn’t sleeping, and she was looking out her bedroom window. She saw Ackley walking to the house through the graveyard and went out to meet him. You can see parts of the graveyard and church from every bedroom in the house.”

  He had wheeled his chair around and was watching me intently.

  “I know what you’re going to ask,” I continued. “Why was he walking through the graveyard?”

  “Did the killer kno
w he would be?” he said. “How? Did she know he was coming? I don’t think she happened to glance out her window just as he was walking toward the cottage, and I don’t think she gazed out her window for an hour, watching on the off chance that he might appear.”

  “Could he have phoned Sophie?”

  “Mrs. Crawford didn’t hear a phone ring.”

  Underhill knocked on the open door, leaned in, and said, “I found it, Chief. A knife in another part of the cemetery. The killer must have thrown it. There’s no doubt it’s the murder weapon. Turner just got here, and he’s bagging it.”

  Gilroy stood abruptly, told me to wait, and exited the office, leaving Underhill at the door. “We talked to Mrs. Ackley,” he told me. “She wants to know if we recovered the pastor’s cell phone. Did you happen to see it before we arrived? She says it has photos of a trip they took last month on it, and they never downloaded them.”

  “I didn’t see a phone,” I replied, “and I looked over the immediate area pretty thoroughly. It wasn’t in his pocket?”

  “All he had on him was a wallet with about fifty dollars in it.”

  “What about the church office? Could it be there?”

  “That’s the first place Turner went, but he says there’s no phone there or in Ackley’s car. His wife says he carried the phone with him all the time. As a pastor he had to, I suppose.”

  “That’s peculiar.” I twisted back to look out the window, then turned to Underhill again. “Could it be someplace else in the graveyard? Maybe it fell out of his pocket at some point.”

  He shrugged. “We’ll look, but so far no dice. I think the murderer took it.”

  “If that’s true, what did she do with it? She wouldn’t have hid it in the cottage, knowing you’d look for it.”

  “Let’s just say I have a feeling we’re going to search the cottage and grounds like nothing’s ever been searched.”

  “And their cars, Underhill. Each one of those ladies took her own car out this afternoon.”

  “They didn’t go together?” He shot a look into the living room and then whispered, “It seems like they can’t stand each other. I thought they were friends. They’re spending a long weekend together, and that’s not the sort of thing you do with people you don’t like.”

  “Rest assured, they’re miserable.”

  “I would be too. Especially”—he eyed the living room again—“with that Alison Francis around. She’s something else.”

  “She’s a pill.”

  “And she wants to go home. Badly. Every time I walk into the kitchen, I’m afraid to look at her.”

  “She won’t turn you to stone, Underhill.”

  “Don’t be too sure about that.”

  “Sophie wants Alison to leave. She wants all of them to leave before you, Gilroy, and Turner go. She’s scared of them.”

  “Yeah, I know she is, but no one’s leaving until we’ve finished our search.”

  “I know how to keep Alison happy. Open another bottle of wine.”

  Underhill let his hands fall to his sides. “You are joking.”

  “Of course I am. Sort of. Did you know they used to give wine to colicky babies? I’ve read it really did the trick.”

  Gilroy swung around the corner and into Sophie’s office, retrieved his notebook from the desk, and slipped it into his jacket pocket. “Underhill, Turner is searching the church, and you and I are starting with the cottage grounds and cemetery before it gets dark. Then we move to the cottage.”

  “Right, Chief. We’re looking for the pastor’s phone?”

  “For anything that could shed light on these murders, but yes, especially Pastor Ackley’s phone. It was taken for a reason. I want to know why.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Gilroy’s and Underhill’s thorough search of the graveyard and cottage property for Ackley’s phone ended as darkness fell. They moved their search inside, scouring every room in the cottage, but they didn’t find the phone. Gilroy agreed with me that if one of the women took the phone from Ackley—and that was almost certain—she had ditched it, tossing it from her car window or dropping it in a Dumpster downtown.

  Officer Turner had joined them as they began their search of the cottage, after carrying out his own hunt in Ackley’s office and other rooms in St. John’s. He had even searched the sanctuary, he told me. And an associate pastor, who unlocked locked doors for him, informed him that, yes, Ackley always carried his cell phone. He’d never known him to be without it.

  That left an obvious question. Why had the killer taken the phone? And if Ackley knew there was something incriminating on it, something that would help solve Lauren’s murder, why hadn’t he told Gilroy? Even if something on his phone only hinted at who had hacked his bell-ringing system, he would have said something to Gilroy, I was sure of it. He had impressed me as an open, honest man, and a man who wanted very much to solve Lauren’s murder.

  As Turner gathered his camera equipment and took it to his squad car, Sophie began to shoot me nervous looks. I knew she wanted the others to leave, but I couldn’t order them out, and neither could Gilroy or Underhill.

  “Are you ladies staying tonight?” I asked, looking across the table from Alison to Tyra and Mariette.

  “My husband’s still in Italy,” Mariette said, her voice strong and clear. She had sobered up considerably, thanks to the passage of time and at least two mugs of dark coffee. “I don’t feel comfortable going home, but I don’t feel comfortable staying either.”

  “I don’t know,” Tyra said. “It’s dark out, and I don’t feel like driving home. I just want to go to bed.”

  “Would you sleep?” Mariette asked.

  “I’d lock my bedroom door and be on guard,” Tyra said.

  “For heaven’s sake,” Alison said, her thin nostrils flaring.

  “Don’t start on us,” Tyra said, jabbing a finger in the air. “And don’t pretend to be calm and above it all. You’re a liar if you do.”

  Alison let out a belly laugh.

  “You’re sick,” Tyra said.

  “Guys, please don’t do this,” Sophie said. “We’re friends, aren’t we? Don’t let the stress of this weekend ruin that.”

  It was her role in the group, I thought. Peacemaker. The others could say any unkind they wanted to each other because Sophie would smooth things over. Then they could meet the following month and do it all over again.

  Alison wasn’t ready to make nice. “What happened to the Penelope Falls theory?” she asked Tyra. There was a glint in her eye. She enjoyed bullying, especially if she had an audience. “I don’t remember a pastor dying in the book. In fact, none of the victims were male, were they?” She glanced over at Gilroy, who was standing in the kitchen by the sink drinking a glass of water. “Chief Gilroy, did the book offer you any special insights?”

  It was a wonder to me that Alison had friends at all, even book-club acquaintance-type friends.

  Gilroy set the glass in the sink. “No, Miss Francis.”

  Alison waited for more. When she didn’t get it, her pinched lips and nose became distinctly more pinched. “Did you even read it?”

  “I skimmed it, ma’am,” Gilroy said.

  You couldn’t rile my man. You couldn’t goad him into an argument or get him to say something he wasn’t prepared to say. All excellent qualities in a police chief.

  “So did I, and I’m pretty sure no one murders a pastor in it,” Alison said.

  “We’re supposed to read these club books, not skim them,” Tyra mumbled.

  “Maybe if we picked more interesting books, I would,” Alison retorted.

  “Who chose Penelope Falls as the May book?” I asked.

  Mariette looked down at her hands, and Alison glared at me as if to say, Are you still here?

  “Lauren did,” Tyra said. “It was her first time to choose a book.”

  No wonder Tyra had thought the murderer was following the book like a blueprint for murder.

  Turner returned to
the room, Underhill at his side, and told Gilroy he was packed and ready to go.

  “Are you giving up looking for Pastor Ackley’s phone?” Sophie asked.

  She seemed desperate for them to stay and continue their search or even their interviews, while the others, it appeared to me, were anxious to have them leave.

  “We don’t think the phone is here,” Gilroy said.

  “Did you check all the rooms?” Sophie said, rising from her chair. “My office? What about the rose garden?”

  “We did, ma’am.”

  “It’s not . . .” She chewed anxiously on the inside of her lower lip. “Okay, well, it’s not that I haven’t enjoyed having you all here,” she said, glancing warily around the table, “but I think it’s time to end the weekend. I don’t think it’s right to go on with it.”

  “You’re throwing us out?” Mariette said. “I’m supposed to drive home? I can’t even walk to my bedroom.”

  “Whose fault is that?” Alison growled. “It’s the same thing every book club weekend. It’s become boring.”

  “I would advise you not to drive, Mrs. Shipley,” Gilroy said.

  “See, Alison?” Mariette said. “I’m not the only one. Are you listening? Did you hear what he said?” She was alternately massaging her temples and tugging at her short hair. “The chief says no, so that’s it.”

  “I shouldn’t drive either,” Tyra said. “I don’t feel so good.”

  “I’m just peachy with driving,” Alison said. “Shame we don’t have taxis in this little town.”

  “We’ll drive you home, Mrs. Shipley, Miss West,” Gilroy said. “Go on and pack. We’ll wait.”

  Her fears allayed, Sophie relaxed and sat again. “Thank you, Chief Gilroy. I appreciate that.”

  I could see the tension flow out of her. If she was the murderer, she was a darn good actress.

  “What if something or someone tries to . . . ,” Tyra began. “I mean, I live alone in an apartment and we don’t know who killed Lauren and Pastor Ackley.”

  “Officer Turner will go in ahead of you and make sure it’s safe,” Gilroy said. “Keep your door locked, don’t let anyone in tonight, and you’ll be fine.” Despite two murders in one day, Gilroy wasn’t concerned about the women’s safety. One of them was a killer, but if they all stayed in their own homes tonight, they would be safe.