Panic in Paxton Park (A Paxton Park Mystery Book 2)

by J A Whiting

  A sense of dread came over Juliet and she strode out of the house and over to Shelly’s where she knocked on the back door. When there was no answer, she hurried to the front of the house and pounded on the door. She could hear Justice howling crazily inside.

  Juliet raced back home, got the key Shelly had given her, and ran back to her friend’s house. Flinging open the door, she shouted Shelly’s name as she hurried from room to room with the cat at her heels.

  “Where is she, Justice?” Juliet bolted to the back of the house to see if Shelly’s bike was there. “Where did she go?” Running back to her own cottage, she grabbed her phone and sighed. A text had come in from Shelly before Juliet had crawled out of bed telling her to hold off breakfast until tomorrow. She and Jack were going to check something out at the farm.

  “That’s a relief.” Juliet sent her friend a text to report that she’d already made the breakfast because she foolishly didn’t look at her phone until just now. We’ll eat it tomorrow, she texted and went to put everything in the refrigerator.

  Removing the cinnamon buns from the oven and getting a container to put them in once they’d cooled, Juliet paused as the feeling of dread returned. She looked down at Justice who had followed her home. The cat hissed.

  “Exactly.” Juliet picked up her phone and called Shelly’s boyfriend, Jack.

  When Paul glanced down at Dwayne unconscious on the floor, Shelly backed around to the other side of the kitchen island slowly moving her hand to her back pocket. Her heart sank when she touched her jeans and couldn’t feel her pepper spray.

  Paul lifted his eyes and glared at her.

  Shelly’s breath was so tight in her throat that she could barely get the words out to lie to Paul. “I think Dwayne killed Abby.”

  “Well, you’re a clever one, aren’t you?” A gruesome smile formed over Paul’s mouth like a big, red slash. “Dwayne is the killer. He confessed late last night. He was distraught.” He gestured to the old man prone on the floor. “I think he tried to overdose.”

  Shelly didn’t believe a word of what Paul said, but she tried playing along. “I think he’s become despondent over the murder. That explains his sudden mental decline.” Shelly took a step towards her phone. “We need to call 911.”

  “No,” Paul shouted. “Why do you think I knocked the phone out of your hand?”

  Shelly froze and shook her head.

  “We’re not going to call for an ambulance.” Paul gave Dwayne a little kick in his side. “Let the monster die. We’ll call once he takes his last breath. I’ll tell the cops Dwayne confessed to the murder just before he died here on the floor. And you’ll corroborate my story.”

  Shelly’s eyes were wide and she began to shake. “You can’t. You can’t let him die. We need to call for help.” When she moved again towards her phone, Paul sprang at her and grabbed her arms with such force that Shelly cried out.

  “You aren’t calling for help for this old fool.” Paul sneered and his dark eyes flashed. “You won’t lie to the police for me, will you? Maybe you need to follow in Dwayne’s footsteps.” Holding one of her arms, he dragged Shelly across the room and reached for the dish with the pills she’d gathered up from the floor. “What a shame it will be when you’re both discovered dead… two overdoses in one day.”

  Understanding what Paul’s plan was, Shelly twisted and pulled trying to break the man’s grip on her, but Paul held tight and tried to yank her closer to get his hands around her throat. Shelly lifted a leg and attempted to hit Paul in the knee. Side-stepping the kick, he pressed his thick fingers against her throat and choked the air from her lungs.

  When Jack answered, Juliet sighed with relief. “I texted Shelly, but she didn’t answer. I wanted to make sure the two of you were okay.”

  There were a few moments of silence on the other end of the call. “We postponed going to the farm,” Jack said. “My boss called an unexpected early meeting at the resort.”

  Panic trickled over Juliet’s skin. “Well, why doesn’t Shelly answer my text then?”

  Jack said, “I called Shelly as soon as I saw the message this morning. She was already at the farm. She told me she’d bake the pies since she was there anyway. That way she wouldn’t have to go back in the afternoon. Maybe there’s noise in the kitchen. Maybe she doesn’t hear her phone.”

  “Maybe that’s it.” Juliet ended the call and stood staring across her kitchen looking at nothing.

  Justice let out a growl.

  Juliet called Shelly’s phone and listened to it ring and ring and ring. She clicked off, grabbed her keys, told the cat to stay put, and running to her car, she pressed the screen on her phone to place one more call.

  Despite Shelly’s wild scratching and clawing at Paul’s face, the man didn’t release his grip on her throat and he’d bent her backwards close to the counter. Desperate, she swept her hand over the top of the counter, her fingers finding the cereal bowl full of pills.

  Shelly snatched up the bowl and smashed it against Paul’s temple. He let out a gasp of air and his grip loosened on the young woman’s throat. She took her opportunity and kneed Paul in the groin with a powerful thrust of her leg and the man crumpled from the two sudden blows.

  With no time to grab her phone from the floor, Shelly took off running from the kitchen knowing that Paul would be after her in seconds. Making a quick decision, when she reached the front door she smashed her hand into it to make it fly open, then ducked into the office off the entryway just as the screen door slapped shut. Hoping the sound of the door opening and closing made Paul think she’d rushed out of the house, Shelly leaned against the wall of the office trying to catch her breath.

  Listening for the man’s footsteps, she scanned the room for a weapon and her eyes locked on to two things she needed.

  Cursing, Paul bolted down the hall with blood trickling down the side of his head, pushed open the door, and ran down from the porch into the yard, his head whipping from side to side searching for Shelly.

  Tiptoeing out of the office, Shelly dashed back to the kitchen, picked up her phone from the floor, and punched in the emergency number just as Paul burst into the room from the back door. The voice on the phone asked what her emergency was and she shouted, “Glad Hill Farm. Dwayne’s house. Ambulance.”

  Leaning slightly forward, his eyes wild and crazed, Paul muttered, “I’ll kill you.”

  Shelly planted her feet, flung the phone down, took something from her other hand, and bent her knees ready to fight. Not unless I kill you first, she thought.

  Paul lunged.

  Shelly raised her arm and smashed him across the nose with the paperweight from the desk. Blood spurted from the man’s nostrils, he hesitated, but came at her again.

  This time Shelly slashed at Paul with the letter opener she took from the office and before he could grab the object from her hand, she plunged it into his shoulder.

  Paul screamed … and then the cavalry kicked the back door open.

  Jay, in her police uniform, along with two officers, advanced with their guns drawn shouting at Paul to freeze.

  Shelly sank to her knees, trembling, as the officers took Paul into custody. Jay knelt in front of the young woman.

  With her hair tangled, her neck bruising from Paul’s strangle hold on her, and sweat dripping down her face, Shelly handed her two unconventional weapons to Jay. “I guess I don’t need these anymore.” Her voice came out hoarse and raspy, and then tears gathered in her eyes and one glistening drop dribbled down her cheek.

  Jay wrapped her arms around Shelly and held her.

  25

  EMTs had burst into the kitchen a few minutes after Paul was handcuffed and the police officer who was administering to Dwayne moved aside for them. Shelly was taken to the hospital for examination, was treated for superficial injuries and released into the waiting arms and caring heart of Jack Graham.

  With early morning sunlight and fresh air streaming in through the window, Shelly and Jay s
at in the kitchen at Juliet’s antique farmer’s table while the young woman carried over platters with pancakes, cinnamon buns, fruit salad, and a vegetable quiche. Juliet placed a saucer with a chopped up egg on the floor for Justice.

  “Finally, we get to enjoy the breakfast I planned for the other day.” Juliet raised an eyebrow at her friend and gave her a mock scolding look.

  Paul Blake was taken into custody and would be charged with the murder of Abby Jackson. Paul attacked the young woman when she arrived home from her date with her boyfriend. He had been stalking Abby since he’d returned to Paxton Park to work at the farm. Paul had fallen for her when she worked at Glad Hill and when he approached her for a date and was soundly refused, he became obsessed with the eighteen-year-old.

  The night she disappeared, Paul waited in the shadows for Abby to come home, approached her car when she was about to get out, and then jumped in and forced her to drive away.

  After killing her, he buried Abby in her SUV in the acreage of the Christmas tree farm he was developing and his plan was to make his uncle look unstable, eventually uncover the hidden vehicle, and tell the police he’d found it while working on the new farm project, thereby pinning the murder on Dwayne.

  Paul had been tampering with Dwayne’s medication and causing him to take too many pills. He even lied to the pharmacist and said that his uncle had flushed his prescriptions down the toilet and needed all new refills, thereby getting the extra medication needed to over-medicate the older man. He also dropped clues to the farm staff about Dwayne’s mental decline and made up stories about mistakes and mismanagement he attributed to his uncle for additional evidence that the man was losing it. Paul hoped that by pinning the murder on Dwayne, not only would Paul be free of suspicion, but he would then be able to take over the farm.

  Jay shook her head. “We had eyes on Paul Blake, but there wasn’t enough evidence to take him in,” she looked at Shelly, “until you figured it out.”

  “I didn’t figure it out until it was almost too late,” Shelly said. “I was pretty sure Dwayne killed Abby.”

  “Adam Wall snuck out of his house that night to go meet a girl.” Jay shook her head. “Adam didn’t want Abby to break up with him, but he was seeing someone else on the side.” She let out a sigh of disgust. “In good news, Dwayne is already doing so much better. He’s still in the hospital, but he’ll be released soon now that the drugs have left his system and there are no lingering effects. He was close to death when you found him. Good thing Juliet called me with concerns about your whereabouts … or who knows how things would have ended.”

  “Between Justice’s fussing and my worry, I knew I had to report my suspicions that something was wrong.” Juliet poured juice for her two guests. “Anyway, everything has been set right. Shelly is safe, Dwayne will be back to normal soon, and the murderer is in custody.”

  There was one thing that would never be right again … Abby was gone and there was no way to fix it. That reality plagued the three women, but none of them voiced the heart-breaking truth.

  “What about Paul’s mother, Nora?” Juliet asked. “Was she in on the mess in any way?”

  “It doesn’t seem so,” Jay reported. “Who knows if Paul had plans to get rid of Nora so he would become the sole owner of the farm. I’m sure he won’t be sharing that information with law enforcement.”

  After enjoying the breakfast food, Jay put down her fork. Making eye contact with Shelly, she said, “I need to thank you for figuring out what was going on and where Abby had been buried.”

  Shelly tried to brush off her contribution to the crime’s solution. “It was a coincidence, really.”

  Jay lifted her hand. “You may call it what you will, however, my take on your help is that it is a purely natural phenomenon.”

  With narrowed eyes, Juliet lifted her glass about to sip. “You mean a paranormal phenomenon?”

  “I don’t care what name people give it,” Jay said. “Shelly has a heightened ability to pick up on people’s subtle clues … their nervousness, false information, worry, fear. All the intangibles that most of us miss. It’s only out of the ordinary because the rest of us don’t pay attention to our intuition or to the non-verbal communication that people give off.”

  “What about her dreams though? And Lauren’s appearance in those dreams?” Juliet asked.

  Shelly sat listening to the conversation with her hands clasped tightly together in her lap. Sensing the young woman’s discomfort, Justice padded over to Shelly and jumped onto her lap, purring.

  Jay said, “I think the dreams are Shelly’s brain working on a problem when she’s at rest, putting all the little details together and making connections between them. Lauren shows up in those dreams because Shelly’s mind uses her sister as a signal to alert her that the information in the dream is important.”

  Running her hand over the cat’s soft fur, Shelly let out a sigh. “That makes sense. I don’t have any strange skills. I’m just sensitive to other people’s feelings.”

  Adding more fruit to her plate, Juliet kidded, “Too bad. I hoped you could tell my future … or at least, give me the correct numbers to the next lottery drawing.”

  “Sorry,” Shelly told her friend with a grin. “I’m unable to help you with that.”

  “Well, I guess I’ll keep you around anyway.” Juliet chuckled.

  When breakfast was over, the three women headed outside to walk Jay to her car.

  Jay’s face clouded. “Early tomorrow morning, the team will be unearthing Abby’s SUV and recovering her remains. The location has been confirmed via ground penetrating radar.”

  Shelly’s breath hitched in her throat.

  “I’m glad she will be returned to her family and they’ll be able to give her a loving burial,” Juliet said.

  The women hugged, Jay drove away towards the police station, and Shelly brought Justice inside and then rode her bike to work.

  The sun rose just over the horizon when the forensics team, Jay, a few other officers, the coroner, and several others assembled on the property of the Christmas tree farm. The heavy equipment began its task with its engine roaring.

  Shelly stood under some trees at the edge of the bluff looking down at the activity, wishing the machines could be quieter and more solemn as they moved the earth to find the buried vehicle and its passenger.

  The terrible crushing sadness she felt made it hard for her to breathe and her heart pounded hard against her chest.

  She hadn’t wanted to come to the place, but she felt she had to be there to pay respects to the young woman who had lost her life.

  Feeling overcome and with legs shaking, Shelly was so weak she was about to slip to the ground when she heard a rustling sound behind her that made her whirl around.

  Juliet walked off the trail into the high grass and headed towards her friend. “I knew you’d be here.” She stood next to Shelly and took her hand. “I didn’t want you to be alone.”

  Gratitude filled Shelly’s chest and caused tears to well in her eyes. She squeezed the words, thank you, from her constricted throat.

  As they were about to turn to face the field below, more sounds could be heard on the path behind them and the young women looked around to see Jack approaching from the opposite direction Juliet had arrived from.

  He smiled when he saw them at the bluff, walked over, and hugged them both. “I thought you’d be here. I wanted to be with you. I didn’t want you to be alone.” He held Shelly’s other hand and the three stood together, side-by-side and shoulder-to-shoulder, as Abby Jackson was brought back into the light.

  Thank you for reading!

  Books By J.A. Whiting

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  BOOK SERIES BY J. A. WHITING

  PAXTON PARK COZY MYSTERIES

  CLAIRE ROLLINS COZY MYSTERIES

  LIN COFFIN COZY MYSTERIES

  SWEET COVE COZY MYSTERIES

  OLIVIA MILLER MYSTERIES (not cozy)

  About the Author

  J.A. Whiting lives with her family in New England. Whiting loves reading and writing mystery stories.

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