A Very Merry Murder

by Cindy Kline

  The doctor looked up at the large clock on the wall. “Time of death, eleven-fifty-eight.”

  Chapter Ten

  Molly stood outside the hospital door in shock. She leaned into Liam, who put his muscular arms around her and squeezed, and she felt a kiss land on the top of her head.

  “Doctor, wait!”

  Molly watched as a nurse quickly put an oxygen mask on Henry, and another one turned the heart monitor back on. She smiled when she heard the intermittent beep of a heart beating. What a wonderful sound.

  The doctor returned to Henry’s side, and after a few minutes, there was a general sigh of relief. The doctor walked out of the room, and Liam stopped him.

  “Is the emergency over?”

  The doctor smiled. “For now.”

  Molly wiped away the tears falling down her face, relieved that he’d made it through. She stuck her hand in her coat and felt a set of keys in her pocket. She pulled them out and looked at them, wondering where they came from. It was then she noticed the initials, “HBP,” and her heart sunk. She’d forgotten all about them. What was it Henry said? Something about a safe, his office, and destroying a file. No problem. I’m sure they’ll let a total stranger enter the president’s office of a company she didn’t work for and destroy a file. She looked over at Liam, and he was texting, so she quickly put the keys back in her pocket. She needed to figure something out because she needed to get to his office before the police did, which meant first thing in the morning.

  “So, what now?” Molly asked Liam.

  “Let’s go home.”

  # # #

  Wednesday morning arrived with pouring rain. Molly woke up early and alone. She’d tossed and turned all night and wanted to get back to Dooley as soon as possible, not only to get to Henry’s office but to let Mrs. West know about Henry before she heard it on the news. She pulled Henry’s keys out of her coat pocket and looked at them. One was his house key she’d seen him use before. That left three other keys. One was probably to the front door to the building, one to his office, which left one. Was this for the safe? Who uses a key to open a safe? It was small, reminding her of a key to a file cabinet or desk drawer.

  Molly let Sandy into the fenced-in backyard while she packed her bag. Liam left around five after having been told there was a break in his drug case but left her a note. “Sorry our time got cut short. I fed Sandy, but can you let her out one more time? I’ll call when I can.”

  She made tea and left a note for Liam. “Good luck on your case. Hope to see you soon.” She was on her way to Dooley by six o’clock. It was still pitch black, but there was little traffic as she drove the Land Rover southwest toward Dooley, her window washers going at full speed. She pulled into the parking lot of Moore Plastics a few minutes after seven.

  Molly could see a blue tinge on the horizon as dawn broke. The large brick building that housed Moore Plastics had been built on a patch of land on the northern edge of Dooley. There was only one light on this early, and that was in the lobby. She could see a guard sitting behind a long counter, his feet perched on top of it. Molly hadn’t expected a guard. Now, what should she do? She sat there and watched for a few minutes, trying to come up with a believable story. While she waited, she texted Callum asking for an update on Henry.

  Molly’s head turned when she heard the splashing of tires entering the lot. She watched as the car parked in an assigned parking spot in front of the building. It was a spot marked “President Admin,” and Molly smiled at her good fortune. That had to be Megan. A young woman got out of the small sports car. She was wearing a long wool coat and heels. Molly watched as she unfurled an enormous umbrella and walked toward the front door.

  Molly opened her car door and ran across the parking lot in direct line with the woman.

  “Megan?”

  The woman turned around and looked at Molly. Her eyes were red, and her makeup smeared.

  “May I speak to you for a few minutes?” Molly turned the collar up on her coat, “Preferably out of the rain?”

  “Who are you?” She looked Molly up and down, seemingly not impressed with her jeans, boots and long coat.

  “I’m the one who found Henry.”

  Molly heard an agonizing sound come from Megan’s throat. She tried to wipe away the tears but finally gave up.

  “Follow me.”

  Megan stopped at the set of metal doors, pulled a badge out of her purse and waved it over a black panel set into the brick. The door clicked. Megan grabbed the handle on the left and opened it, then held it for Molly to step through.

  The guard immediately rolled his seat back and put his feet on the floor.

  “Miss Hill, what are you doing here so early?”

  “Just trying to get ahead of Mr. Pierce, Charlie.” She smiled at the tall, balding man.

  “Are you all right, Miss Hill?”

  Megan couldn’t stop the tears from falling, so Molly answered for her. “Mr. Pierce has had an accident. Charlie, was it?”

  He gasped and nodded.

  “Miss Hill is obviously upset, so I offered to come in and help her with a few things.”

  “Is he going to be okay?” Charlie asked as he sat down in his chair.

  Megan walked toward the elevator, and as Molly left to catch up with her, “We hope so.”

  The door closed, and Megan turned to Molly. “Just who are you, and what do you want?”

  Molly looked at the woman. She was very beautiful, with large green eyes and red hair that curled around her face. “I’m Molly McGuire. I own the local bookstore. I met Henry on Monday night when he showed up at my store extremely ill. I take it you’ve heard the news?”

  She nodded. The tears continued to fall down her face, her mascara nonexistent, her large, green eyes bloodshot from the crying.

  “You said you were the one who found him?”

  “Yes, he wasn’t feeling well. He thought it was his ulcers. Have you heard anything else since last night? I know the two of you were…close.”

  The elevator doors opened, and she walked out. Molly followed her down a long, carpeted hallway, the overhead lights automatically coming on as they walked. She came to a wooden door at the end of the hall, took out a set of keys and unlocked the door.

  She took off her coat and hung it on a coat tree. Molly had to stop herself from staring. Never had she seen a woman with an actual hourglass figure. The skin-tight dress was long-sleeved and black, and she wore a black and red, flowered scarf tied around her neck. Megan motioned for her to sit down. Molly stood but unzipped her coat. She stuck her hand in the pocket, fingering the keys.

  “Henry asked me to do something when I found him. He gave me these,” she pulled out the keys from her pocket and held them up.

  She tried to smile. “I gave him that keyring on his last birthday.” She pulled out a few tissues from the box on her desk and wiped a new set of tears. “Why did he give them to you?”

  “I’m not sure, actually. He mumbled something about a safe and a file and how I should destroy it. Do you have any idea what he was talking about?”

  Megan nodded as she grabbed a set of keys from her desk drawer. She stood up and walked to a wooden door with “Henry Pierce, President” engraved on a gold plaque. She used her key to unlock the door and walked in. Molly followed her.

  The room was quite large, with a huge wooden desk in the middle and a black executive chair sitting empty behind it. There were numerous pictures on the walls, one large Irish landscape that Molly particularly enjoyed sitting prominently on the wall to her right. Her gaze took in the rest of the room. There was a door on the other side of the room that Molly assumed was maybe a private toilet. She spotted a double-sided picture frame on Henry’s desk, a photo of Imogen on one side, and his son on the other.

  Megan walked around the desk, and lovingly ran her hand along the top of Henry’s chair as she did so, stopping on the other side of it.

  “May I see those keys, please?” Megan set hers
down on the desk.

  Molly reluctantly handed them over, glancing at the keys Megan set down. There were quite a few on her keyring, including a few similar to the desk drawer key on Henry’s keyring. However, without comparing them side-by-side, she couldn’t know for sure.

  Megan sat down in the large chair and unlocked the top drawer of Henry’s desk. She opened it, took out an envelope and handed it to Molly.

  It was unsealed, so she took out the lone page, looked at it and then at Megan, who walked toward the large landscape picture, and hit something on the side of it. A few seconds later, the picture popped open, showing a safe.

  Molly took the piece of paper, opened the safe and looked inside. “It’s empty.”

  Megan’s eyes widened. “What?” She leaned in. “It was there! Well, I assume he put it back. Henry took it out yesterday and started to read it, then asked me to leave.” She felt inside the safe with her hand. “I just assumed he put it back in here.”

  “What makes you assume he put it back? Could it be someplace else?” Molly looked around the immaculate office.

  “I don’t know. The only one with a key is Henry.” Megan looked up at her, her eyes, once again, filled with tears. She walked over to his immaculate desk and started opening drawers and rifling through them. She stopped and put both of her elbows on the desk, running her fingers through both sides of her hair. “I’m pretty sure he didn’t leave with it. He left me some dictation on his desk, and other than the tape, his desk was clear like it is now.”

  Molly looked at his desk. Other than an inbox and outbox, both empty, a phone and the picture frame of his wife and son, the desk was bare. “And no one has been in here since he left yesterday?”

  She shook her head. “Henry is very adamant that I lock his door whenever he’s not here.”

  “And you have no idea what was in the file?” Molly closed the safe and looked around the office. There was a credenza in the corner with a pile of papers stacked on it. She walked over and flipped through it, not finding any file folders. There was a bookcase in the corner, but nothing sticking out of it that could be a folder.

  “When was the last time you saw him?” Molly asked as they walked out of the office, and Megan locked the door behind them.

  Megan sat behind her desk, “He left around four-thirty on Monday, and then we spoke on the phone a few times yesterday,” She grabbed a tissue from a box on her desk, wiped her eyes and blew her nose, then threw it in the trash. Molly spotted a picture on Megan’s desk of a young man with red hair and freckles.

  “Is that your son?” Molly asked, nodding at the picture.

  Megan picked it up and then set it back down. “I don’t know what he’s going to do if anything happens to Henry. Noah’s father died when he was three. Henry’s been a stable presence in his life for the past five years. It won’t be just me who misses him.” Megan glanced at the door to Henry’s office. “Do you think I could go see him at the hospital?”

  There was a plastic chair set against the wall. Molly pulled it up, set it in front of Megan’s desk and sat down. “The last I knew, he was still in a coma. Maybe you should wait and see how it goes.” Molly tilted her head to one side, “Does his wife know about your affair?”

  “What? We aren’t… How could you think that?” She looked down toward the floor.

  “No need to deny it. Henry told me.” She lifted her eyes to me, and her face turned red.

  “Oh, so you’re my replacement?” She slammed her hand down on her desk. “I knew there was someone else.”

  “No, oh, God, no. I am not, nor would I ever by your…replacement. I didn’t even meet him until Monday night. Plus, he’s a little old for me.” She shuddered at the thought.

  “I’m sorry. He blew me off that night, so I just assumed I’d been replaced. His wife and mother-in-law were out of town, and since we get so little private time, I’d hoped…well, I’d hoped we would have some quality time together. Instead, he said he wanted to be ‘alone’.”

  “How did he look?” Molly pulled out a pen and notebook from her purse and took notes.

  “Now that you mention it, he looked a little pale. I thought maybe he was coming down with a cold.”

  Molly looked around Megan’s office, not a plant in sight. “Do you know anything about aconite?”

  “Aca what?”

  Molly smiled, “Aconite. It’s a poison that comes from the monkshood plant.”

  “What are you talking about?” She rubbed her temples with her fingers.

  “Megan, he was poisoned.”

  “Poisoned? By whom?”

  “I am hoping you can help me with that.”

  Molly looked closely at her. She seemed genuinely surprised. “How long have you worked for him?”

  She smiled. “Five years. I was the assistant to Patrick Moore. Then when he died, Patrick’s father made Henry the vice-president, and I became his assistant.”

  “Patrick was the son, right?”

  She nodded.

  “How did he die?”

  Her smile evaporated. “A car hit him, and the driver never stopped. The police never found out who did it. It devastated Patrick’s father, Ronan. He hounded the police constantly, but the case went cold.”

  Molly wrote down the details, then looked up and asked, “Is there anyone here who Henry didn’t get along with?”

  She tilted her head to the left and sighed. “Henry was very ambitious. Everyone thought that Craig Wilson would get the president’s position, so we were all surprised when it was Henry.

  “Henry mentioned him. He’s the vice-president, right?”

  She nodded.

  “And this Craig and Henry didn’t get along?”

  She sighed again. “Craig, Henry and Patrick were all grand friends. When Patrick died, Ronan liked to play them against each other. Henry had the advantage because of his marriage to Imogen. However, Craig’s family were longtime friends of the Moore’s, and Henry thought Craig’s father would pressure Ronan to name Craig as president.”

  “And they fought about it?”

  “Not so much fought as there was a distinct frost in the air when the two were together. They went from being best friends to barely speaking to each other.”

  Megan’s office phone interrupted their conversation.

  “Excuse me.”

  “Henry Pierce’s office, this is Megan speaking.”

  Molly could see her eyes tear again. Then her eyes narrowed, and she looked at Molly.

  “Oh, of course. Give me a few minutes and then send him up.”

  She hung up the phone. “A Detective Elliott is here and wants to talk to me.”

  Molly stood up. “I don’t suppose there is another way out of here? Detective Elliott is not one of my biggest fans.”

  Megan laughed as she got up from her desk. “Let me show you where the stairs are.”

  “Megan, thank you so much for talking to me. I feel I owe Henry to find out who did this to him. Is it okay if I call on you again?”

  “Anytime.” She reached into her drawer, took out a card, wrote something on the back and then handed it to Molly. “Here’s my business card with my mobile number on the back.”

  They walked out the door and turned to the left. “I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t mention my being here or that I have Henry’s keys. I will turn them into the police soon.”

  “No problem. I’m not a fan of the police either.” She pointed to a door with the word “Stairs” in block letters.

  They heard a ding, and both looked toward the elevator. Molly quickly opened the door to the stairs and, a few minutes later, was outside. The rain had let up, but it was still sprinkling as Molly made the short drive to Rose Cottage.

  Chapter Eleven

  Gran was dusting when Molly walked in, chilled to the bone. She kissed her on the cheek. “You don’t need to do that, you know.”

  Gran laughed. “I do if we want it done. You don’t have time to clean. Besid
es, these old bones have some action left in them.”

  “Gran, I didn’t mean you were too old…”

  “Then what did you mean, darlin’?”

  Molly opened her mouth to speak and then closed it, realizing that was what she meant.

  “I think I’ll go take a shower.” She heard Gran’s laughter as she went into her room.

  Thirty minutes later, she was back, this time dressed in a pair of black, wool pants and a thick, cream-colored Aran turtleneck sweater.

  “There’s a fresh pot of tea in the kitchen, darlin’.”

  Molly made her way there and filled a large cup. She’d warmed up the outside of her body, now she needed to warm up on the inside. She checked her phone. Callum texted back, saying there was no change in Henry’s condition.

  “How is Henry?” Gran asked.

  “He’s still in a coma. They actually pronounced him dead at one point. Thankfully, a nurse noticed he was still breathing.” She took her tea into the dining room where Gran was folding laundry. Molly pulled out a chair and sat down, grabbed a towel from the basket and folded it.

  “They mentioned it on the morning news but didn’t give many details.”

  “Dr. West found aconite in his system, which what was making him so ill. But when I found him, he had a huge gash on the back of his head. I’m sure that has something to do with it. The DI in charge thinks it was me.”

  “Thinks it was you? Is the man daft in the head?” She laid a bedsheet on the table to fold. “What possible reason could you have to want to hurt a man you met two days ago?”

  Molly took a sip of her tea, as the basket was now empty. “I have no idea, Gran. Like you said, I think he’s daft in the head,” Molly put her hands around her mug for warmth. “I need to go tell Mrs. West. I hope she hasn’t heard it on the news yet.”

  “Samantha West? Whatever for?” Gran asked as she set the folded clothes in the basket and the basket on the floor. Luna came over to investigate, sticking her nose in and sniffing.

  “She and Henry were old friends, and I don’t want her to hear it from anyone else.” Molly moved Luna’s nose out of the basket, “Nothing for you in there, little girl.” Molly moved it out of the way so she could get closer to me, and Molly picked her up. Luna gave her face a lick and then settled down in Molly’s lap.