Bran New Death (A Merry Muffin Mystery)

by Hamilton, Victoria

  I heard a noise in the bushes. “Becket? Here, kitty, kitty, kitty! Come on, you darn cat. I have chicken!” I waited. Nada. “Fine! Be like that.”

  I sat down on a stump and opened the baggie, took a piece of chicken breast out and ate it. Weird breakfast. I hadn’t had my quota of coffee, just one cup gulped as I raced around getting Shilo out the door, and I was seriously grumpy. Somewhere, that dang engine sound, like a buzzing mosquito, echoed again through the woods, reminding me of my determination to post No Trespassing signs at the perimeter, by the highway past Wynter Castle. Just one more of a gazillion tasks to do.

  Something else came back to me, while I sat on that stump in the forest pondering all of the events of the last couple of weeks.

  A dirt bike parked on a side street.

  Someone on a dirt bike coming out of the woods onto the highway.

  The sound of a dirt bike in the woods when Lizzie and I were looking for the encampment.

  Why hadn’t I mentioned any of that to Virgil Grace? I hadn’t thought it important at the time, but it sure did seem like a lot of run-ins with what could be the same dirt bike. It was that cumulative effect of several sightings, not the dirt bike itself, that made me wonder. I couldn’t hear it anymore. Maybe the rider had gotten bored and left. I hoped so. I didn’t want to be run down on the trail.

  But none of this was helping me find Becket. I got up and looked around. Wait . . . was that a patch of orange? I hared off after it, and damned if it wasn’t Becket, just ahead of me! He paused, looked back, and then headed off again, loping with a staggering gait.

  “What is wrong with you, cat?” I muttered. I should have just let him come back on his own, but it felt like it was my duty to look after him now. Becket had been important to my uncle, and now he was my responsibility. I checked my watch. Another fifteen minutes and Pish would be landing at the airport in Rochester, some time in baggage claim, then another forty-five minutes or so for McGill, Shilo, and Pish to make the return trip. So I could look for the cat for another few minutes, but then I wanted to get back to the castle and make sure it was presentable for Pish’s first view.

  Reenergized, I stuffed the chicken baggie in my pocket and charged off in the direction Becket had disappeared. I caught sight of him again, on the path and followed. I was just opening my mouth to call out to him when I heard a shot. I ducked and huddled in the shadows, cowering as another shot rang out.

  What the hell was going on?

  And how did I get out of it?

  Was there some kind of hunting season I didn’t know about? Even so, it was my property and no one had permission to hunt. Again, I needed to post signs, copious signs: No Hunting! Private Property! No Trespassing! Lots of exclamation marks. The dirt-bike driver . . . were he and the hunter one and the same?

  And then, at long last, the penny dropped.

  Where had I seen the dirt bike? Outside of Dinah Hooper’s apartment.

  Who did I know who was an acknowledged hunter? Dinah Hooper.

  Who had access to all of the Turner Construction, and probably the Turner Wynter accounts? Dinah-freaking-Hooper.

  I remembered in that moment the letter I had found among my uncle’s stuff, the one that was addressed to Turner Wynter Global Enterprises. I had never heard their business called that before, and that struck me as odd. Something teased at the edge of my brain, but someone was coming, striding through the forest with a great deal of confidence. Hunkering down in a shallow depression, behind a bushy undergrowth, I watched through a leafy branch. A figure in camouflage loosely cradling a rifle, strode past me, then paused. Blonde hair piled high, glittery earrings, rounded form: when the figure turned I was not surprised to see Dinah Hooper. But her expression! I’d never seen her like this, furious and determined.

  Practically holding my breath, terrified that she would see me, I heard a noise in the distance, and then a streak of orange crossed the path. She raised the gun, and I was sure she’d aim for Becket, but no, that wasn’t her quarry. Who was, then? Me? But she had no cause to come after me, and couldn’t have even known I was there.

  I heard more noise, and staggering out of the brush came another figure. It was an old man with a long, tattered beard; ragged, filthy clothes; and a battered hat pulled down over his head. He was running—or rather, staggering—and stumbled and fell. I heard a grunt of surprise from Dinah, then a hiss of satisfaction. She raised the gun, sighted along the barrel, and pointed it at the old man, who finally saw her as he lumbered to his feet.

  “Dinah, please, don’t shoot!” he wailed, arms raised in surrender.

  I gasped in surprise, then clapped a hand over my mouth. It had to be Rusty Turner! Dinah whirled at my gasp, and the old man took his chance while she was distracted, diving into the bushes with a loud grunt and cry of pain. He was old, but quick and crafty.

  Dinah swiveled the gun back to the pathway. “You come out now!” she yelled, sighting along the barrel. “I see you moving around, Rusty. You want to die in the bushes? Like you left my boy to die alone?”

  “He tried to kill me, Dinah! I’m sorry, but what was I gonna do?” The poor old guy’s voice, barely heard from his hiding spot, quavered with fear. He sounded hoarse and weak. “He tried to kill me.”

  Her boy? Who the heck . . . oh! Dinty Hooper. My eyes widened as I figured it out; so that’s who the body in the woods was.

  “Dinty was a good boy,” she sobbed, the barrel of the rifle drooping. “He was only doing what was best for me. Now come on out and face—”

  She was cut off by Becket, the feline ninja, leaping at her from behind and knocking her off balance. She screamed, the rifle went off—a wild shot that clipped some leaves, which fell in a fluttering flurry of green and sent a crow cawing raucously out of the tree—and she staggered sideways. I broke from cover, darting down the path to where I could see Rusty Turner emerging. I grabbed hold of him. “Run, now, while you can!” I said.

  He gabbled and clucked as I dragged him back off the path, staggering and stumbling along over downed trees and through thick underbrush. I could hear her shouting behind us, and what I feared most: the sound of Dinah, much more athletic than me, crashing through the bush, following our far-too-obvious trail of leafy destruction.

  My mind was whirling through all the details, trying to make sense of the shifting tides of my uncle’s life, death and business affairs. Rusty’s disappearance. Tom Turner’s murder. A thousand questions to which I had no answers hopped though my mind like Magic on a wayward path. But one came to the forefront; had my uncle indeed been murdered, run off the road, as Gogi suspected? I feared the answer was yes.

  Rusty was a dead weight, dragging at me, and when I turned I was alarmed. His filthy face was ashen. He was an older man, and I needed to stop. Besides, I could no long hear Dinah crashing along behind us, so maybe we had evaded her. If that was the case, then we should be quiet so we wouldn’t alert her to our whereabouts through carelessness.

  He plunked down on the ground, and I watched him, worried. His breath was coming in heaving gasps, but that calmed quickly enough, and ruddy color came back to his cheeks, above the straggly beard.

  “Are you going to be okay?” I whispered, wishing I had thought to bring a bottle of water.

  He nodded. I let him catch his breath while I listened for Dinah coming after us. I couldn’t believe she would give up. If what I suspected was true, it was much to her advantage to kill us both, and leave our bodies in the woods while she made her getaway. It might be days before anyone found us.

  My mind raced with conjecture. I eyed Rusty, and felt my heart wobble. Poor old man! He must have been . . . my eyes widened in shock. Had he been living out on the land for ten months? Through a long, upstate New York winter? I set that aside to marvel at later; I couldn’t get distracted. We needed to both get out of this fix, and fast.

  I could hear the tentative sounds of something: bushes rustling, footsteps . . . Dinah, now cagey enough to be carefu
l in her search?

  “Merry Wynter, I know you’re here,” she said in a conversational tone, so close I almost jumped out of my skin. “I have nothing against you. We could be allies. I know for a fact that you’ve inherited that big, old castle and that you don’t have money to fix it up or live in it. I have a hundred ways for you to make money.”

  Her tone was honeyed, persuasive. I glanced down at Rusty, and his watery blue eyes had a pleading look in them. I shook my head. There was nothing she could say that would convince me to give him up.

  I couldn’t see her, I could only hear her, and it was terrifying. I was squatting in a muddy ditch, hidden (I hoped) by greenery, with a fast hold on the arm of an old man who was in very poor health, listening to a madwoman try to tempt me to give up the old guy to her not-so-tender mercies. She intended to kill Rusty. But she didn’t yet know that I was not on her side. I could either stay where I was and wait for her to find us—given that she was holding a high-powered rifle I figured I knew the outcome of that scenario—or I could do something about it.

  I let go of Rusty, fixed my gaze and pointed my finger at him then at the ground, hoping he’d get that I was telling him to stay put. I crept away from him as quietly as I could until I was behind where I thought Dinah was standing. I sighted Becket crouching nearby, his tail slashing back and forth, his gold eyes fixed on a spot. That had to be where Dinah was. Good cat.

  Doing my best to hide, I said, “We can talk, Dinah. But you have to let Rusty go.”

  There was a pause; as she tried to figure out where I was? Probably.

  Then she said, “I will. I don’t really mean to kill him, you know, just scare him some. I love the old coot.”

  And I was a dainty ballerina. “Did you say something about him killing your son?”

  She was silent, but after a minute, she said, “Yeah. But . . . but Dinty tackled him, I guess. Poor old Rusty couldn’t help it. Dinty never did like him, so I guess he . . . I don’t know.”

  Weak. I would have bet that Dinah sent her son into the bush to kill trusting Rusty, and it went sour somehow. I’d best leave it alone if I wanted her to think I was willing to make a deal. “I am interested in how to make money,” I said, moving slightly to try to see her. I caught sight of her; her back was to me, and she still had that damned rifle up, finger on the trigger, but as I watched, she was honing in on my voice, and turning, scanning the forest with her rifle sight.

  I crouched and moved out of range. She had no intention of making a deal with me; she still wanted to shoot me.

  “What about Tom Turner?” I asked.

  She whirled, her eyes scanning the woods near me. I was wearing a green sweater. Maybe I melted into the background.

  And then it came to me, two things at once: Dinah was likely the one Silvio had Tom following, and she had killed him because of it.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  WHAT HAD HE discovered about her that made him so dangerous? Was it about her enterprises, or Rusty still being alive, or something else?

  “What about Tom?” Dinah asked as she turned, looking for a target.

  I was not going to oblige by answering. I heard rustling in the bushes, and figured it was likely Becket, up to his stealthy panther moves—“Moves Like Jaguar”—I almost giggled. Old Maroon 5 song references rarely make me laugh, so this was hysteria; not good at that moment. Stifling my laughter, one hand over my mouth, I tried to figure out what to do. Where was Rusty now? Had he managed to gather his courage and get away? How could I handle a sharpshooter with a high-powered rifle using only the strength of my muffin-baking hands?

  So many questions, and not a single answer. There was only one chance, I figured, and that was to move back toward the castle, if I could figure how to do that. I knew I should have gone to Girl Scouts, like Grandma wanted me to. Mom opposed it; said they were just a breeding ground for conformist fembots. I squinted and looked up through the glowing-green canopy above. It seemed to me that when I was at the castle watching the sunrise, it was over the arboretum. Since it was still early and still rising, I needed to walk away from the direction of the sunlight to get back there, right?

  Made sense to me.

  But as I had been pondering, Dinah had not been quiescent. She was gone from her spot, and I didn’t know where. Damn! I could run right into her while trying to escape. How was I going to lead her away from poor old Rusty, and yet stay safe myself?

  I had to get moving. I took a deep breath, scanned the forest around me for any revealing blonde, piled-up hair, and began to steal through the forest like a jungle cat. Okay, maybe not like a jungle cat, but I sure hoped not like a charging rhino. It wasn’t going to be easy, because I couldn’t use the path, even if I could have found it. I spotted Becket. He looked tired and cranky, distinctly in a bad mood, and I didn’t blame him. For the first time, it occurred to me that all those times I had caught sight of him, he was trying to get me to follow him. Had he been trying to lead me to Rusty, to get him help? Stranger things had happened.

  I was hearing rustling from everywhere, now, and didn’t quite know what to make of the sounds. In the forest with me were Dinah, Rusty, and Becket. The cat I could see, but the two humans eluded me. I hoped that Rusty had either gotten away, or was hunkered down somewhere safe. This was exhausting. I stopped, trying to catch my breath, wishing I had worn yoga pants or anything more forgiving than form-fitting DKNY jeans.

  Needing to get the heck out of there so I could call Virgil and tell him about the nutbar in the woods, I put some speed on, and began to climb over fallen branches and crash through foliage at a faster pace. I looked over my shoulder, as I went, fearing the worst, that Dinah, rifle cocked, was following me or drawing a bead, or whatever expert markswomen did.

  And that’s probably why I almost ran right into her.

  “Stop!” she yelled.

  I whirled to find her on the path toward which I was headed, rifle up, aimed right at me. Damn. “Hi, Dinah.” I caught my breath and considered my options. Groveling while begging for my life seemed about the only one.

  “You should have taken my deal.”

  “I didn’t actually hear a deal,” I said evenly, trying not to let my eye flick behind her, where I saw a figure creeping up on her with all the stealth a seventy-or-so-year-old man can muster. Inside, I was screaming No, Rusty, don’t do it! But I tried not to show it. “Uh, so, I guess it’s silly to even think that you will just leave and let me go?”

  Regret in her pale eyes, she shook her head. “No. Can’t do it.”

  “The body in the tent is your son, Dinty?”

  She nodded, her eyes blurring. “Idiot. I told him to go take care of Rusty, but he must have underestimated the old coot. I’ve been looking for him for months; figured he’d taken off. He’s disappeared on me before.”

  She hadn’t known Dinty was dead—or at least hadn’t been sure—until Lizzie and I stumbled over the body. So . . . “Why try to kill Rusty in the first place?”

  “I wasn’t ready to leave town yet. I thought there was more I could squeeze out of this operation. It took so much to set it up!” She sighed. “I should have left town a month ago, I guess. Look, Merry, I don’t want to kill you, but you haven’t left me much choice.”

  “You have a choice; don’t kill me. Leave town.”

  “Not an option,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t want to do this,” she repeated. “I’m not a killer.”

  Rusty was getting closer, a rock in his hand. Damn. What were the chances this would come off okay? Not great. “You keep saying you’re not a killer, but you did kill Tom Turner, and on my property!”

  “I had to. He was trying to blackmail me. Once he figured out what I was doing—and that took a while, fortunately, because he was one dumb jerk—he wanted a cut just for keeping his mouth shut. That effing lawyer was figuring things out, and set Tom on my trail.”

  Stupid Tom! Why didn’t he just take what he’d learned back to his employer?
“So he wanted money?”

  She nodded. “Like I’d pay for him to keep his mouth shut. He said he needed cash for something important.”

  “What about my uncle? Did you kill him, too?”

  “Your uncle was an interfering old fool and deserved what he got,” she said, raising the gun and sighting. “This is not personal, I just—”

  Rusty leaped, stumbled, and the rock he had intended to bring down on her head instead bounced harmlessly to the ground and rolled away as the old guy fell to his knees. But she was momentarily distracted. I charged and using all my weight, bulldozed her, knocking her to the ground where she lay, stunned. Sometimes there are benefits to being bigger than your average ballerina. I snatched up the gun as Rusty, his hermit face twisted into a grimace of hatred, scrabbled over, picked up the rock, and brought it down on her head.

  “Stop!” I yelped, but he had knocked her out.

  “That’s for Tom,” he hollered, and dissolved into weeping into his filthy hands.

  Autumn Vale . . . the only spot in upstate, surely, where a Shakespearean drama, with lovers killing each other’s sons, played out in the woods surrounding a castle. Weirdness compounded weirdness. I leaned over Dinah; she was breathing but was unconscious. I had the rifle, so I didn’t think she’d be any more danger even if she managed to get up and follow us. I grabbed the old man by the arm, hauled him to his feet, and said, “Come on, Rusty, we need to get out of here. If I’m right, we’re only a little ways away from the castle grounds.”