***
They drove quickly. Ashley directed Thompson down the streets to the pleasant house where she had walked by with Charlie a while ago. Thompson got out and knocked on the door. No answer. He knocked again. Then he noticed some newspapers piled up on the porch, and some mail sticking out of the box. He grabbed one of the letters addressed to the homeowner and put it in his pocket. He then walked back to the car.
“She’s not there. And I think she’s been gone for a while, judging by the post and mail piled up there. I’ll identify her from this letter and get all her info. We’ll track her down.”
“Good,” Ashley said. “She’s involved, I know it.”
“Hope you’re right. Now we just have to find her, question her, track down Margaret, and we should get all our answers.”
Thompson looked at Ashley. She was tired and had that distraught look on her face again. He tried to cheer her up.
“Want to stop for a burger?”
“No, thanks. Just drop me off at the station, Nate so I can get my car. I have to go home. Don’t feel so well again.”
“Okie dokie,” he said.
***
As soon as they got to the station, Ashley waved good-bye and drove off. She thought she might stop at the bakery again and sit with Sean even if she didn’t feel so well, but she was so tired that she might fall asleep at his counter. Plus, she was depressed. The case was wrapping up, but she felt unsettled about something that hadn’t come to light.
Margaret, she thought. Where is she?
She went home and lay down in bed for a nap, exhausted to the core. Whatever it was about Margaret would come to light. And involved the New York police. Unless she wasn’t there anymore. Nothing she or Thompson could do about it now.
***
Meanwhile, in New York, the mystery woman had left the airport, rented a car and headed north, turning a few hours out to follow the ocean on her way. She drove at a steady pace, occasionally pulling over to eat at a sea side cafe, and gaze at the water. Sometimes she laughed to herself, other times she laughed out loud wildly, causing people around her to stare. But she didn’t care. Not anymore. She left because the police were closing in. It would’ve been only a matter of time before they figured out she was involved and locked her up like Bergman and Small. She was not going to go that way. She had invested too much over the years to stare at a prison cell.
At one point, she looked at her watch and chastised herself.
“Got to go! No time to lose!” she shouted.
A little boy and his mother stared at her, and she cheerily waved at them and got back in her car and headed out on the road again.
At last, she reached her destination. It was dark as she pulled into the long sandy driveway of a small cottage near the ocean. She got out and quietly shut her car door and walked up on the porch. She reached under a flowerpot and pulled out the front door key and let herself in, then tiptoed to the kitchen and put the kettle on. She heard a murmur come from the bedroom.
“Miriam, is that you? You’re so late.”
“Yes, Margaret, it’s me. Who else would it be?” Miriam said.
“I was fast asleep. You should have called me first. Not scare me by coming in late.”
Miriam walked down the hallway and stood at the bedroom door. “I’m sorry. Yes, I should have thought of that, dear. I’m making tea for us. We can sit and talk before I go to bed.”
Margaret yawned. “Okay, dear. But just for a little while. We can talk more tomorrow.”
“Of course,” Miriam said. “Be right back.”
Miriam gave her friend a big smile and walked to the kitchen. Margaret was the only one she had somewhat cared about all these years. The others were dead now or were going to rot in jail, but she couldn’t have cared less about them. She had only trusted Margaret to an extent. After all, everyone needed someone to talk to. She felt angry and resentful that she and her friend wouldn’t get to take that big cruise they had planned. They still had so much money to spend! The fact that the money had been stolen, and so many people had died at their hands, didn’t enter into her consciousness at all. Her eyes were lit with a crazy fire as she looked out the window at the ocean.
I’ll miss that view, she thought. And the birds.
She turned from the window with a high pitched laugh. She reached for two tea cups and set them on a tray with the teapot and milk and sugar. She poured one teaspoon of sugar in each cup, then reached up and pulled her earring off. Miriam then opened the back clasp on the drop and shook some of the powder in the cups with the sugar and stirred it around. She called out to her friend as she walked down the hallway.
“Looks like we’ll have good weather for the beach tomorrow. I can’t wait!” Miriam sat down on the edge of the bed and handed Margaret a cup. “One spoon of sugar just the way you like it.” Just before she poured the tea, she looked at her friend casually.
“Tell me, dear,” Miriam asked. “You got rid of all the papers, right? Those were our contracts with each other and very incriminating as you know.”
“Yes, of course. Threw them in the waves, they should be dissolved and long gone by now,” Margaret said.
“That’s a good girl. How efficient you are! I knew you were the perfect person to do it.” Miriam smiled at her friend again. “Carlson’s dead, Bergman’s in jail, so is that horrible little Beatrice, and all the other witnesses are gone too!”
“What about Arabella? She’s still alive! And Bergman never found a copy of her son’s journal when he searched her house the night she was in the hospital,” Margaret said. “You know she must’ve made a copy.”
Miriam grimaced. “He was always an idiot. Couldn’t find the earring I dropped when I visited her a few days before either. And after he killed that handyman and dumped his body in her back yard, he was supposed to finish Arabella off. Said he hit her hard over the head, but she checked herself out of the hospital the next day! What a clown he is. But we don’t need to worry about Arabella. She only knows so much from that journal. And when her son was caught that day in the field near the tunnel, he didn’t see you and me, just the men. So that’s all he could’ve written about in that stupid journal. And her son is dead now too. Besides, no one would believe that crazy old woman. Bergman and I spread enough rumors about her and Frank all around town over the years, you know that. The local kids all thought her son knew something about the murder and that she was a witch living up there all alone.”
She reached for the teapot and poured some in each cup. Then she took her friends hand.
“Drink up, then we’ll have a nice long sleep,” Miriam continued. “We don’t have to worry anymore. Everything’s over.”
Margaret smiled at her friend. They would go to the beach tomorrow, then have a dinner of fresh seafood. Then they could talk about the big worldwide cruise they had planned for years. They had to do something fun with all the money they had acquired. She lifted up her cup.
“Cheers,” Margaret said. “Here’s to us and the future.”
Miriam smiled at her. “To us.”
***
A few days later at dusk, two teenagers walking on the beach decided to cut through the backyard of the little cottage by the shore. They giggled as they ran up the lawn, jostling each other as they ran. One of them got close to the house and casually peeked in the bedroom window. He stopped cold and motioned to his friend to come over. They both stared at the two bodies on the bed before taking off. Within an hour, the place was swarming with police. Seagulls flew in circles over the cottage, squawking at all the commotion, not accustomed to all these people in one place. Usually it was just the kindly old woman, and sometimes her friend, standing outside and throwing them bread.
Soon it was dark, and the little community folded back into tranquility. The Atlantic Ocean held all the secrets of their little cult, and they were dissolving at the bottom of the sea.
***
Back in Comfortville, Thompson stared at
the reports that he had been handed. An old woman poisoning both herself and her friend was not big news. They obviously wanted to die together, and at their age, it was completely believable that it was because they were sick or tired of life. At least that’s what the residents of the eastern shore community had surmised.
But Thompson knew the last two missing pieces of the decades-old murder puzzle were gone. And good riddance. He might get Bergman and Small to confess more, or he might not. It made no difference now. They were both old too, and wouldn’t last long. The long process of identifying the remains in the field had begun, and if there were any surviving family members, they would be notified.
Thompson called Ashley to fill her in on the details.
After hearing the news, Ashley replied, “Human nature has run its course, Nate. Think you need to take the rest of the day off and get some rest.”
Thompson got up from his desk. Ashley was right. He was going to go home, then go out to dinner with his fiancé and listen to her breathless excitement as she talked about their wedding. And try to get back to that feeling of how wonderful a normal, boring day could be.
Epilogue
Ashley woke up in the morning feeling nauseous again. She groaned when she heard the cats meowing for food. She was bone tired and didn’t want to get out of bed. But Charlie jumped up, yowled in her face, and jumped down again. Susie Q came to the bedroom door and looked at her pleadingly.
“Okay, okay, I’m coming,” Ashley said. She slowly swung her legs out to the side of the bed, but her upper body did not want to follow.
I’m exhausted, she thought. That case took a lot out of me.
She thought about the two upcoming catering jobs she had and that she was behind on getting off the menus to her clients.
After I feed the cats, I’ll have breakfast and get those done and sent off, she thought.
She slowly padded down the hallway and fed her pets, then turned to put the coffee on. As soon as her machine began streaming the coffee in her cup, she felt like throwing up. She ran down the hallway and made it to the bathroom just in time. Afterwards, she raised her head up and lay back against the bathtub. The cool porcelain felt good against her.
What is wrong? she wondered. This has been going on for weeks. My stomach should be okay now that the case is over. It’s all the fast food I’ve been stuffing myself with, she thought.
A headache was coming on again, and she leaned over to rub her temples and the back of her neck. She looked down at her body for a moment, then snapped her head up.
OMG! she thought. Really?
She quickly got dressed and drove to the pharmacy. She just as quickly drove back home with the pregnancy kit and followed the directions. While she was waiting, she walked back into the kitchen, but the lingering smell of coffee made her nauseous again, so she grabbed a glass of water and headed back to the bathroom. She stood there for a moment, looking at her test results. Everything slowed down. Her eyes filled with tears. She stared at herself in the mirror, a smile spreading across her face. She stroked her stomach. Her body felt perfect. Even with the nausea, even with the extra pounds. She spoke softly, gently, as if to another person in the little bathroom.
“Welcome little one. I’m so happy you’re here. We will love you so much.”
She called the bakery. One of the employees at the counter answered the phone. “Babycakes. May I help you?”
“Sean please,” Ashley said. “Very important.”
“Hi, Ashley, yeah hang on,” the employee said.
It seemed forever before Sean got to the phone, but it didn’t matter. It was just fine to sit there and stroke her stomach, dreaming of what was to come. She couldn’t stop smiling.
“Hey, Ash, what’s up?” Sean asked.
“Can you come home?”
“Why? Something wrong?”
“No, but I need you here. Really important. You can go back soon. Just please come.”
“Well, okay, I just need to tell the crew what to do while I’m gone, and then I can only stay a little—”
“Sean, I know. Just please come as soon as you can. See you soon.”
Ashley hung up and sat there for a moment, then wandered around their apartment, looking out the windows and then at their place again.
We’ll have to get a bigger place, she thought. Start fresh in a new home.
She called her mom next. After listening to April cry happy tears on the phone, Sean walked through the door.
“Gotta go, Mom, Sean’s here. I’ll call you back later. Love you,” Ashley said.
Sean looked apprehendingly at her. “Hi, there. Well, tell me what’s up—” he started to say.
Ashley went up and embraced him as hard as she could, then pulled back and looked him in the eyes.
“You’re going to be a father,” she said. “And I know you’ll be a wonderful one.”
Sean didn’t move. He didn’t blink. He stared at his wife for a moment, then he whispered, “You’re pregnant?”
Ashley nodded and placed his hand on her stomach.
“Yes,” she said softly. “I thought my stomach sickness was the stress of the case and all the fast food I’ve been eating, but all this time it’s been a baby.”
“Ash, I can’t believe it,” he stuttered. “I mean, I can believe it. I just don’t know what to say.” His face flushed with excitement. He grabbed her and pulled her into him again. “Except to say I love you, more than anything. Thank you so much for giving me this gift.”
His response was perfect. All she could ask for. She felt happier than she’d ever been.
“And to say that you can never work on another crime case again—”
Ashley put her finger up and shushed him. “Never. It’s all about us now. I love you so much Sean. And here we are, starting our family. That’s my priority.” She leaned up and kissed him. “I am going to cater Nate’s wedding, though! That’s the best thing to come out of all this. We’ll always have him as a good friend in life.”
“What did your mom say?” Sean asked.
Ashley laughed. “You know what she said. I’m sure she’ll be out first thing tomorrow shopping for the baby already.”
“I should be getting back,” he said. “But I don’t want to leave you.”
“Go ahead,” she answered. “I’m going to my parents’ house. See you there for dinner when you’re finished.”
He gave her another big kiss and bounded for the door. “Can I tell people?” he asked.
“Tell everyone. Time to celebrate,” she said.
He started to walk out.
“Wait!” she shouted. “Let’s go together.”
She bent down and petted Charlie and Susie Q. The cats purred at the surge of happy energy in the room. Ashley looked into Charlie’s green eyes.
“Okay boss, you’ve kept Susie Q, me, and Sean in line. Now you’re going to have another human to train.”
Charlie gazed back at her, then strutted to the couch before turning back and looking at them both as if to say, “Got you covered folks. Piece of cake. Or filet if you will.”
Ashley and Sean both laughed as they headed to their cars. He drove off, waving with an impossibly goofy grin on her face. She turned down the street and headed over to her parents.
Life, she thought. You suffer, then you’re happy. Nothing goes right for a while, then you get lucky. It’s always unpredictable. And for some, it’s never fair.
Ashley drove slowly, mindful of her new charge. She pulled into her parents’ driveway and could see her mom at the window, smiling. She was filled with gratitude.
No matter what had happened, life was a bounty for her right then, at that time in the universe. And for that, she felt all the blessings that had been bestowed on her.
Thank you God, she whispered as she walked up to the door. Thank you for everything.
The End.
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Ashley Crane Cozy Mystery Boxed Set Page 86