She supposed it had to be mostly gifts for the children and grandchildren. Carla’s love language was most certainly in giving gifts, and it was clear to Bert that she hadn’t skimped out on it this year. Nope, based on the bulge of the bags alone, it seemed that everyone in her friend’s family was getting at least two or three Christmas presents under the tree from Grandma Carla.
Packing it all into the back of Bert’s hatchback, they zoomed off for the airport which happened to be only a five to ten-minute drive from the Old Market portion of downtown Culver’s Hood. Getting there, however, always confused Bert a little bit because the road crossed the river into Iowa for a minute or two before coming back into Nebraska and ultimately to the airport.
She could just not ever wrap her brain around why it did that. The first time she’d ever driven to the airport, she had a minor panic attack thinking she’d gone the wrong way and ended up in a different state.
However, that was the nature of living on the Missouri River that separated two states.
Once at the airport it was a miracle Carla was able to cart her barrage of bags into the baggage check area without needing help or falling flat on her face. Thankfully, another blessing for them was the fact that the airport staff was very adept at keeping the roads and sidewalks at the terminal drop off and pick up completely clear of ice and snow.
There was no chance Carla could slip as a result of the winter conditions.
Saying goodbye turned out to be a tad more painful than Bert had anticipated. It began to sink in that she would be spending much of the holiday alone with her friend gone.
Driving back toward the church, she cranked up the radio as Nat King Cole soothed her with the familiar words of The Christmas Song. Her eyes misted up just a touch as she headed into the Old Market.
The sight of a street vendor selling freshly roasted chestnuts off the back of a cart caused her stomach to grumble and remember she hadn’t had much of anything to eat that day but coffee. Pulling to the side of the road, she rolled down the window, allowing the sweet aroma of those tasty nuts to waft into the car. “One bag please,” she said to the vendor who stood out there in the chilly weather stamping his feet and slapping his arms to stay warm.
“Here you go,” he said, taking her money and handing the bag through the window.
“Thanks.” Driving back out onto the road, she cracked and popped the first one into her mouth. The subtle sweetness complimented the roasted nuttiness perfectly.
By the time she reached the church, the bag was completely empty, and her stomach felt somewhat more satisfied. Still, she’d have to have a real meal come dinner time.
She wondered if she should ask Harry to meet up. They hadn’t seen much of each other since Thanksgiving and Bert could feel guilt creeping up on her for it.
Harry was a good man. She should give him the benefit of the doubt. If she still felt things were going too fast at any point, she could always talk to him about it. She’d found the number one asset to any relationship, be it romantic or not, was proper communication.
Parking her car in the same spot as before, she couldn’t help but notice the place was mostly empty. It seemed the choir had finished for the day and headed home. Stepping out into the chilly air, she heard a cough. She glanced toward the neighboring homes that backed up to the church parking lot and spotted a man standing on his back porch on a step stool putting up Christmas lights, weaving them around his awning, across the gutter, and over his outdoor camera.
Everyone was decorating for the season, even those who may be a tad behind. He spotted her watching him and gave a friendly wave. “Merry Christmas,” he called.
“Merry Christmas.” Smiling, Bert headed for the front door and pushed on it.
When it didn’t move, Bert scowled. “What the heck,” she muttered, pushing and pulling handle. It was locked.
Looking at her watch, she saw that it was nearly eleven. That was still too early for lunch and the pastor said he’d be there all day besides that. Shrugging, Bert decided to try the basement door in the back. She doubted it would be open, but it was worth a try.
Also, the fact that the cold air seemed to leak through the door made her wonder if it would be easy to get open anyway. These old church buildings weren’t exactly bank vaults when it came to security. It was the main reason the pastor kept signs in the windows that said, “No money kept on premises.”
Turning the corner, she walked onto the concrete steps and let out a shriek of surprise as her feet almost went out from under her. Latching both hands onto the wrought iron stairway banister, she realized that the steps had a layer of ice an inch-thick running down them. It glistened in the dim mid-morning sunlight. It seemed that any snow that melted off the parking lot ran right down to the basement door and then froze like that. “Sheesh,” she complained, padding carefully the rest of the way down while keeping a firm grip on the banister.
Reaching the bottom, she was pleasantly surprised to see that the door was ajar. She wondered if perhaps the pastor had decided not to go out for lunch, or had just gotten hungry, and was, therefore, making an early snack in the kitchen.
Pushing the door open, she stepped inside and froze stiff in place. All the blood rushed from her extremities and a sense of wooziness came over her.
Laying there on the floor, a large red puddle pooling under her body, was Shay Hannaford. Without realizing what she was doing, Bert let out a short and frightened scream. The sound seemed to almost jostle the room at first as the large pantry cabinet opened.
However, when someone stumbled out and fell to the floor, Bert quickly realized it wasn’t her scream that had caused the movement . . . but it was the killer who was still hiding in the room. She quickly threw up her hands in front of her in surrender, hoping not to become collateral damage in the fiend's plans.
What happened next shocked Bert more than anything yet that morning.
Standing up ever so painfully and slowly from the tile floor, Gracie Jones looked Bert directly in the eyes.
“G-Gracie?” Bert gasped.
She had a gun in her hands with an extra-long round barrel. “I-It wasn’t me,” she stuttered. In the next instant, the old woman had thrown the gun to the floor next to Shay’s body and pushed past Bert and out the door.
Chapter Six
When Bert had hoped to see her boyfriend Harry that night, she had hardly wanted or expected it to be over another dead body. The church parking lot was filled with emergency vehicles and workers, their lights flashing red and blue to match the Christmas lights on the building. Cop cars, a firetruck, and an ambulance all made out the brigade.
Spectators from the local neighborhood were all out standing watch over the scene with wondering eyes, braving the cold for a glimpse into what could possibly be happening. Their collective breath created a steam around them as if they were all waiting for an old train to arrive, not news about a murder.
Officers were setting up plastic barricades and asking the onlookers to return to their homes.
None were listening.
When they’d first arrived, the police had quickly removed Bert from the murder scene in the kitchen, situating her in the back pew of the chapel near a window. That was how she was watching the scene outside as it unfolded. At the same moment, the decorations of the room twinkled delightfully as if nothing harrowing had just happened in the very place, the sacred place, where Bert and her fellow congregants worshiped each weekend.
If she didn’t know any better, Bert would have half expected people to start filling in and taking their seats in preparation of the Christmastime sermon.
However, that wasn’t the case. A young and talented woman was dead. Worse yet (and Bert could hardly bring herself to believe it in the least bit) it seemed one of their own church members had been the one to pull the trigger—putting that bullet into the young woman’s back.
Harry had arrived a little after his crew of officers and took a few moments in the b
asement kitchen to get the lowdown on the crime scene. Upon getting a feel for the case, he quickly mounted the stairs where he’d taken a careful seat next to Bert, first making sure she was okay and then launching into questions.
“You’re telling me a woman in her eighties killed your friend?” Harry asked after having listened to Bert’s explanation of everything that had happened leading up to her finding the body.
“Shay wasn’t my friend. I hardly knew her,” Bert informed him. “However, she did seem like a sweet woman. Hard working. Talented. It is still a horrific tragedy to see her life taken away so quickly like this.”
“But this woman, Gracie Jones, she was on the scene when you arrived?” he asked for clarification, his arm around her and pulling her closer.
Bert didn’t resist, even though it seemed a tad unprofessional for the homicide detective to be cozying up with the eyewitness. She knew Harry well and as soon as any other officer walked through that door it would be at least three feet apart and all seriousness and business.
However, with no one watching, he didn’t hesitate to show his softer side.
Bert swallowed hard, concerned about answering his question. “Yes, she was on the scene. Hiding in the pantry, in fact. She had the gun in her hand and when she saw me, she said, ‘It wasn’t me,’ and tossed the gun to the ground.”
“I see. It doesn’t look good for her then.”
Bert screwed up her face thinking hard about those few seconds when she and Gracie had looked at each other. “But Harry,” she protested, thinking about what she’d seen that day.
“What?”
“If Gracie Jones really was the killer, why would she throw the gun on the floor?”
Harry gave her shoulder a comforting squeeze. “You probably surprised her. She heard you coming, hid, but ended up falling out. When she realized she was caught, she threw down the gun and made a run for it.”
“I guess,” Bert responded doubtfully. While it was true that Gracie had been at the scene of the crime when Bert showed up, there was still something odd about it. She and Gracie had never gotten along, that was for sure, but Bert could hardly imagine that little old woman shooting anyone in cold blood—especially not in the back.
Was Gracie ruthless and rude and mean? No doubt about that.
It didn’t make her a murderer.
“You’re just lucky . . . again . . . that she didn’t shoot you,” Harry pointed out, referencing other cases in the past where Bert had unwittingly found herself in compromising situations with dangerous criminals.
Bert sat upright on the bench, squinted her eyes in confusion. What Harry had said sparked a thought in her brain. “Hey, of course.”
“What is it?” Harry pressed to know.
“Why didn’t she shoot me?”
“Criminals don’t think straight when they’re cornered.”
“Yes, but don’t people who are cornered like that lash out? They become dangerous like a wild animal?” Bert wondered out loud.
“Usually that’s the case, but maybe she didn’t want to commit a second murder on top of the first?”
Bert shook her head. “No. It just doesn’t make sense, Harry. If she’d really killed Shay, why not just kill me too? Get rid of the witness and then make a run for it?”
“We can’t always tell what someone is thinking,” Harry pointed out.
“I still think it doesn’t make any sense.” Balling her hand into a fist, she pounded it lightly into her palm. “Gracie can’t be the killer.”
Harry opened his mouth to argue, knowing where this was going. Bert had a habit of getting involved where she shouldn’t, and he wanted to put a stop to that before it got started.
However, he never got to say what was on his mind.
“Sir, we’ve got her,” an officer announced breathlessly as he poked his head into the chapel.
Tearing his arm quickly away from Bert, Harry bolted up to his feet. “I’m on my way.” He pointed a finger at Bert. “Why don’t you head on home? We can talk about this later tonight.”
“Okay,” Bert agreed, standing up and grabbing her purse.
“And go straight back to the shop. No other stops in between. No investigating on your own or asking questions.”
Bert clenched her teeth together, not liking being ordered around. Still, she didn’t argue. “Fine.”
“Good,” Harry said and then ran off.
“They have the wrong person,” Bert said to herself, wrapping her scarf around her neck so tightly it nearly made it difficult to breathe.
Chapter Seven
“Bert, oh thank goodness you’re here,” Pastor Chimney called after her as she had almost reached the front door of the church and stepped out into the chilling afternoon.
Turning to face him she put on her best smile, not in the mood to deal with much more that day. After facing all the church drama, her friend leaving for the holidays, and a dead body, Bert could hardly stand a single other thing to muddle up her day.
It was the week before Christmas, for heaven’s sake, not Halloween. It was supposed to be a time for cheer. A time for twinkling lights and Christmas carols. A time for delicious festive feasts and holiday parties.
It was not a time for dead bodies and homicide, and yet here they were facing down another murder case in their very own church, no less.
That thought jostled Bert a little bit. It wasn’t just her church that this atrocity had happened in, but even more so it was Pastor Chimney’s. This was his domain, his place where he offered up a helping hand and charity to those in need daily.
With that mind, Bert choked back her own frustrations and walked over to the pastor. “I’m so sorry all of this had to happen, Pastor Chimney.”
“It is a bit disheartening, for sure.” He clapped his hands and rubbed them together as if trying to stay warm. It was a bit chilly in the foyer. “But I was hoping to still speak with you. I know you’ve been through an ordeal this morning.”
“It’s fine,” Bert told him, putting up a hand to tell him he didn’t need to try and comfort her. She got plenty of that from Harry . . .
“Great. Step into my office for a sec?”
“Sure thing,” she said in agreement, following him through the large wooden door into the small room. It only seemed small because all the walls had dark wood bookshelves built in, all loaded up with various religious texts.
“Have a seat,” he said.
She slipped into the creaky wooden chair in front of the desk and waited for the pastor to sit down as well. “So, what were you hoping to ask me for?” Bert wondered.
“Well, that request has changed a bit since I last saw you.”
Bert’s eyebrow raised in curiosity.
“Originally, I was hoping you could bake some pies and cater the after party for the Christmas Eve at the Cathedral program. I would be there with my wife. The entire choir would be there, and a few extra special guests as well,” he informed her.
She swallowed a large lump that had gathered in her throat. If Bert kept on volunteering her services to the church like this, she would be out of a job. Making high-quality specialty pies wasn’t exactly cheap and she’d already volunteered to make breakfasts for the morning choir practices all week leading up to the concert.
It didn’t seem logical for her to accept.
“However, my favor has now changed,” he stated.
This intrigued Bert even more. She was used to getting asked to make pies. What else could he have on the table for her? “Yes?”
“With today’s tragedy, I’m in a bit of a spot.”
Bert could only imagine. Surely there was a whole slew of trouble waiting for the pastor in lieu of this unexpected crime.
“You see, this year’s Christmas donations to the church have been pretty slim. I thought we were bringing in money the same as every year, but it just hasn’t been enough. We don’t have as much as I thought.”
“Wow. I had no idea.”
“The fiasco with the choir director is just one more thing, you see? If I really needed someone to lead the choir and get them ready for the concert, I’d have to pay them. I simply can’t afford it, especially this year. I’m used to volunteers.”
Bert had a sense of where this was going but didn’t like it.
“Either I have to pull our church’s choir out of the concert altogether—”
“Oh, no,” Bert exclaimed, not having thought of it that way. Could Christmas possibly be ruined any more than it already was? It seemed this crime had a ripple effect on the whole church.
Killer Chocolate Pecan Pie Page 4