The Corpse at the End of the Chapter

by Karen Hayes

  * * *

  Trevor was off to Portland to pick up the new fuel pump for Fran’s car, so Monica was up in Copper’s apartment, scrounging in the refrigerator for something she could make for lunch for the three of them when the sheriff returned from his chat with Carol Roberts. He poured himself a cup of coffee while Copper attended to a customer. As soon as the customer had gone, Copper joined him in the Relax and Read area.

  “Did you get hold of Louise?” the sheriff asked.

  “Yes, she’s upstairs now, working her magic on her computer. But, Harve, I have the most amazing news to tell you.”

  “Me first,” Harve said. “Carol Roberts was not blackmailing Agatha Lafferty—or anyone else for that matter.”

  “She wasn’t? Then why was Agatha paying her a thousand dollars a month?”

  “She was investing it for her.”

  “Investing it?”

  “Yes. It seems Ms. Roberts is a whiz at the stock market.” He proceeded to tell Copper the gist of what Carol Roberts had said about making investments for a number of Misty Valley’s resi-dents. “She even offered to invest some money for me. So I seriously doubt that she is our killer.”

  “Fine. But I don’t understand why Agatha would have Carol invest a paltry thousand dollars a month for her. Agatha was a very wealthy woman. Did you know she was Mike Fair’s daughter?”

  “I didn’t until Miss Roberts told me. Have you always known that?”

  “No. Louise just told me. Brandon didn’t even know until this morning. That was the amazing news I had for you. Come upstairs and I’ll let Louise fill you in. And we can see what she’s come up with on Abby. Monica should be back down in a minute.”

  Monica in fact appeared at that very moment with a tuna salad sandwich in hand. “Louise said to tell you she has found some very interesting stuff on Abby that you will definitely be anxious to hear. And I fixed you a sandwich. Sorry, Sheriff, I didn’t know you’d be here or I’d have fixed one for you, too.”

  “Oh, I’m sure I can find something up there for him,” Copper said. “So don’t worry. Come on, Harve, let’s go see what Louise found.”

  She started towards the stairs, the sheriff following dutifully behind.

  “Oh, by the way, Copper, have you seen my knife?” Monica asked. “I keep forgetting to ask you about it. I thought maybe you had it upstairs, but I just looked and didn’t see it.”

  “What knife are you taking about?”

  “The one I was using to cut the sandwiches with for the Grand Opening. It was just one of those, you know, long pointy ones with a serrated edge.”

  Copper just looked at Monica for a long moment before turning to the sheriff for another long moment. The sheriff just stared back, a look of incomprehension on his face, until finally he got it.

  “Uh, I think I may have your knife, Monica,” he said. “I’ll be right back.” He ran out the door and across the street, where he unlocked his office (Toby still being out with the flu) and went inside. Moments later he was back with a large plastic evidence bag containing the still blood-stained knife that had killed Agatha Lafferty. “This your knife?” he asked.

  “Yes, it is. Thanks, Sheriff, but how did you happen…” The realization hit her and she screamed. “No! No! It can’t be! I didn’t kill her. I promise. I didn’t do it!” The girl began to cry.

  Copper pulled a Kleenex from a box on the counter and handed it to her. “There now, Monica, no one’s accusing you of killing anyone. Was the knife here on the counter that day?”

  Monica nodded vigorously.

  “Then anyone could have picked it up and used it, right?”

  More vigorous nodding.

  “Well, Harve,” Copper said. “At least now we don’t have to consider that it was premeditated murder. We had been thinking that the knife belonged to the killer, that he or she brought it with them. But now we know. No one came to the Book Nook that morning expressly to murder Agatha Lafferty. It was only after they got here, saw Agatha, and saw the knife, that they decided to kill her. That makes so much more sense.”

  “It does?” Harve asked.

  “Of course. Now, let’s get upstairs before Louise thinks we got lost. Will you be okay by yourself now, dear?” She handed Monica another Kleenex.

  Monica nodded, wiped her eyes and blew her nose. “I’ll be fine. It was just, you know, kind of a scare.”

  “You can’t have your knife back just yet,” the sheriff said. “Only after we catch the killer. It’s still evidence.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  “YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHAT I FOUND OUT ABOUT Abby,” Louise said as Copper and the sheriff entered the apartment. “Did you know Abby was in prison for a time?”

  “Really?” Copper didn’t know whether to be surprised or not. Abby had been addicted to drugs. A lot of people addicted to drugs spent some time in prison if they got caught. She rummaged in the fridge for something to feed Harve while Louise talked.

  “It was about ten years ago,” Louise continued. “She was given three years for possession, but didn’t serve that long. She was hospitalized while she was in prison for emergency surgery to stop some internal bleeding brought about by—get this—a self-induced abortion.”

  “Oh, my,” Copper said. “So Bob Fisher got her pregnant, then dumped her, so she came back to Oregon and got picked up for drugs, then tried to get rid of the baby.”

  “Not so,” Louise said. “It wasn’t Bob’s baby.”

  “How do you know that?” the sheriff asked.

  “Because she had been in prison nearly two years before her attempted abortion.”

  “So she got pregnant in prison? Was it another prisoner, or a guard, maybe?” Copper wondered. She found some leftover chicken with dumplings soup and asked Harve if that would be okay and he nodded his approval.

  “She refused to say.”

  “Nowadays,” Harve said, “they put women in separate prisons. Abby would have been in the Coffee Creek facility in Wilsonville. So it couldn’t have been another prisoner. It was more likely a guard, or maybe a civilian worker, groundskeeper or something. There have been quite a number of incidents of sexual misconduct at Coffee Creek. Too many, I think.”

  “We should ask Celine’s boyfriend if he remembers anything about it,” Copper said, as she poured the soup into a bowl and slipped it into the microwave. “What was his name, Harve?”

  “Don Sargent. Yeah, but he was at Oregon State, not Coffee Creek.”

  “You’re wrong, Sheriff,” Louise said. “He started out at Oregon State and ended up at Columbia River, but in between, he spent several years at Coffee Creek. I checked him out.”

  “Okay,” Harve said, “then he might well know something about it. Unless workers impregnating female prisoners is common, I’m sure he’ll know the case. Even though abuse happens much too much there, I doubt the pregnancy part does. But if Abby wouldn’t name the culprit, Don might not know, either.” He accepted the heated soup from Copper and took a sip. It was good, and he could tell it was homemade, not from a can. “You make this, Copper?” he asked.

  “No, it came from the Lodge.”

  Harve nodded. Marcia made good soup.

  “I was thinking,” Louise said, “that Don Sargent just might be the culprit—and our killer. Maybe for all three murders.”

  “Oh, Louise, I think not,” Copper said. “It’s been years since Abby was incarcerated. Even if he was responsible for her pregnancy—and I don’t think we can be sure about that— why kill her now?”

  “Well, you remember I told you that Agatha and I had run into Abby in Portland a few weeks ago? We invited her to have lunch with us. We noticed that she seemed high on something, so Agatha tried to talk her into going into rehab. She kept saying she couldn’t do that, that she needed the drugs. At one point, I excused myself to use the restroom. When I came back, Abby was crying and Agatha was telling her not to worry, that she would be safe. On the way home, Agatha told me it was a shame what that
girl had been through, that some people were real bastards, and she was going to see to it that Abby got into rehab.”

  “So?”

  “So, Agatha never went into any details about what Abby had been through. But I’m assuming it had something to do with her prison pregnancy—and who was responsible. When the warden came into the Book Nook that fatal morning, Agatha saw him and decided to give him a piece of her mind. He saw her as a threat and killed her.”

  “I suppose that sounds reasonable,” Copper admitted, “but they only knew each other from when Ruby was in prison. Would they have recognized each other after twenty-six years?”

  “I think Agatha would have recognized him. He’d just gotten grayer. Agatha, on the other hand, had put on a substantial amount of weight. So she might have had to remind him of who she was.”

  “Then he noticed Monica’s knife on the counter and saw his opportunity,” Copper said.

  “Monica’s knife?”

  Copper filled Louise in on the identification of the knife used to kill Agatha. “The knife was just sitting there,” Copper said. “It would not have been difficult for him to pick it up and slip down the aisle and stab Agatha. But why kill Ruby?”

  “Maybe he’d abused her, too,” Louise suggested.

  “Harve, maybe you should call the police in Portland and have him picked up,” Copper suggested.

  The sheriff finished off his last spoonful of soup and reached for a napkin from the holder in the middle of the table. “Ladies, these are interesting theories, but that’s all they are—theories. There is no evidence at all. And I confess, I rather liked Don Sargent when I talked to him. Nice guy. Celine Webb seems to like him, too.”

  “A lot of killers seem like nice guys,” Louise said. “I say he’s guilty as hell. He fits better than anyone else—and we don’t have to look for a second murderer. He did all three.”

  “You read too many mystery novels. And even if I thought he was guilty, which I don’t, I’m not doing anything until I hear back from Fran regarding her visit to the rehab center. She might learn something very important there.”

  “When’s she supposed to call you?” Copper asked.

  “She’s not even there yet,” Harve said. “Her appointment isn’t until two.”

  Copper glanced at the clock on her wall. It was barely one-thirty. They had at least an hour or more to wait until Fran called in.”

  “Well, at least you can tell us what the medical examiner said,” Copper told him. “I’m assuming you’ve heard from her by now.”

  “Abby was suffocated,” Harve said. “She was probably killed somewhere else, maybe even at the rehab center, then transported to The Pond, where the perpetrator hit her on the head in with the rock Fran found. Also, she was pretty badly messed up inside—just like the info you found online said. Dr. Frost said it was likely from a self-induced abortion. Time of death was between eight and ten Friday night—which lets the boyfriend off the hook, as he would have been performing then.”

  “Correction,” said Louise. “He was performing at eight and at ten. And there was an hour between sets he could have gone to the rehab center, killed her, gone back for the second show, then taken her body up to The Pond.”

  “You weren’t there when he heard Abby was dead,” Harve said with a shake of his head. “No way the kid did it. And I don’t think he’d ever been to The Pond. Hard to find in the dark if you don’t know where you’re going. Come to think of it, I doubt Don Sargent’s been to The Pond, either. Celine Webb doesn’t strike me as the hiking type.”

  “So what do we do now?” Copper asked.

  “We wait.”

  “Okay,” Louise said. “While we wait, why don’t you two help me plan the trip to Europe Brandon told me he’d take me on?”

  “I think,” said the sheriff, “that you’ll need to go to Australia first.”

  “Australia? Why Australia?”

  “Because your mother-in-law and her friend Carol Roberts had already planned that trip for January and have their tickets and hotel reservations and everything. Miss Roberts said she was going to invite you to go in place of Agatha.”

  “Oh, well, that was nice of Carol.” Louise beamed. “Yes, that was very nice of Carol to think of me. I’ve always wanted to go to Australia. All those cute koala bears. And when it’s winter here, it’s summer there, so Brandon can just wait until late spring to take me to Europe. I’ll get two trips in a row. I think I can handle that. And I will treat Carol to all our meals while we’re there. Why don’t you come, too, Copper?”

  “Maybe another time, Louise.”

  “Miss Roberts said maybe you can set one of your books in Australia,” the sheriff told her, “but she wouldn’t elaborate. What books was she talking about, Louise?”

  “Uh…books she shouldn’t have known about herself,” Louise answered. “It looks like Agatha was telling tales out of school. We don’t need to talk about that.”

  The sheriff shrugged. “Okay. Anyway, Louise, other than the fact that Don Sargent was the prison warden when both Ruby and Abby were in prison, why put him so high on your suspect list?”

  “He killed his wife,” Copper blurted out, adding “maybe” after Harve raised his eyebrows in her direction.

  “What are you taking about?” he asked.

  Louise told him what they had found out during a previous online search they had done on the former warden. “Although the police never charged him with the murder, that doesn’t mean he didn’t do it.”

  “And when did this happen?” Harve asked.

  “His wife left him twenty-five years ago,” Louise explained. “She moved to California with their mentally disabled daughter. The wife was murdered about three years later, at which time the daughter disappeared and has never been seen since. She was too young at the time to have just run off.So he probably killed her, too.”

  “And to what do you owe that bit of insight?” the sheriff asked.

  “Well,” Louise said, “he could have killed his ex-wife, then taken the daughter with him, but maybe she got out of hand or something so he killed her too. Maybe he expected the police would think the daughter was the killer if he took her.”

  “How old was the daughter at the time?”

  “About ten or eleven, something like that, I think,” Louise told him. “I can look it up if you like.”

  “No, that won’t be necessary,” Harve said, shaking his head. “Twenty-five years ago, Ruby was already out of prison and up in Idaho bartending. Don Sargent’s wife’s death doesn’t have any-thing to do with our case. I just think you ladies are grasping at straws. I’m surprised you haven’t suspected Toby.”

  “Why on earth would we suspect Toby?” Copper asked.

  “Exactly,” Harve said. “There is about as much logic as there is with your suspicion of Don Sargent.” He turned to Copper. “And you thought I was crazy for suspecting Wendy Barnes. Well, Wendy is still on my suspect list, but Don Sargent is not. Anyway, I think I’m still going with the two separate killers theory—maybe even three separate killers. We’ll just wait until we hear from Fran.”

  * * *

  Fran actually made it there by one-thirty, so stopped at the nearby Burger King and had a Whopper before pulling into the parking lot at the Greenwood Clinic just a little before two. She had expected an expensive-looking facility, but the clinic was actually very low-key, an almost Spartan exterior with a simple but pleasant interior. Fran nodded to herself as she looked around the cozy reception area. No big budgets wasted on fancy trimmings here. It looked like all of their funds went into care for their patients, which was, Fran thought, as it should be.

  She gave her name to the receptionist and said she was there for her appointment with Dr. Greenwood.

  “Which one?” the girl asked. At Fran’s questioning look, she responded that there were two Dr. Greenwoods. Dr. Joel Greenwood was over the male patients, Dr. Lenore Greenwood over the female patients.

  “Are t
hey husband and wife?” Fran asked, after letting the girl know she was there to see Lenore Greenwood.

  “Brother and sister, actually,” the receptionist said with a smile, and directed Fran down the hall to the first office on the left.

  Dr. Lenore Greenwood’s office was simply furnished with a desk, a couple of utilitarian but not uncomfortable chairs and some filing cabinets, which were piled with folders waiting to be refiled and some stray papers that had not yet found their way into folders. On the walls, along with the requisite medical diploma and a few other certificates, were a few framed pieces of original artwork that did not look like they came from any gallery. Likely the work of some of Dr. Greenwood’s patients, Fran decided.

  Dr. Greenwood was not there when Fran walked into the open office, so she selected a chair and sat down. The doctor arrived moments later, rushed and apologetic. “I’m sorry to keep you waiting, Deputy Nielsen,” she said. “We just had a new patient admitted, and I wanted to get her situated properly before meeting with you. This way we won’t be interrupted.”

  “No problem,” Fran said. “I should apologize to you for not keeping our original appointment. My car broke down on the way and it takes a while to get towing when you’re in the middle of nowhere.”

  Dr. Greenwood laughed. “I know what you mean. I’ve been out your way a few times, hiking in the mountains there. It’s beautiful country. But, about Abby. You said her body had been found in the mountains?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Up by a little lake we call The Pond. It’s right by a popular hiking trail.”

  “I think I know where that is,” the doctor said, shaking her head. “Her death disturbs me greatly. We had been making such progress with her in the short time she had been here. She was almost totally detoxed and had started on a nutritional program to get her healthy. I don’t know how much you know about the Greenwood Clinic. We are a long-term care facility. You see, here we believe that we need to treat a patient holistically before she can truly rid herself of her addiction. We address the underlying physical, emotional and psychological aspects of the addiction. Just getting the person off the drugs is not enough. That’s just the beginning. The cravings will still be there unless we work with the whole body to get it healthy. With Abby, we had her off her drugs—and she was addicted to more than one, believe me. For her to run off just when we were about to start getting her better was very unfortunate.”