Whispering Pines Mysteries Box Set 3

by Shawn McGuire

  “That’s a lie.” Flavia crossed her arms and turned away.

  Maeve fielded this one. “Not according to the bar tab he ran up last night.”

  Before a discussion about a pub owner’s responsibility to monitor people’s alcohol consumption started, I turned us back to the reason for the meeting. “As I said, I’m looking for some assistance for a day or two. I’d also like to compensate these folks for their time.”

  “You mean with village funds?” Morgan clarified. “I find that perfectly acceptable.”

  “I can send over some of my crew,” Mr. Powell volunteered, missing his cup and pouring coffee all over the conference table. Maeve, used to this type of behavior from her clientele, started tossing napkins at him a heartbeat later. He nodded his thanks at her and continued, “There’s not much for them to do this time of year. Haven’t had any storms except for that one last month. Soon as the snow comes, they’ll have plenty to do shoveling the walks.”

  Literally shoveling. No motorized vehicles in the village applied to snow throwers as well. I told him about Drake messing up some of the landscaping with Unity’s van.

  He watched while Maeve filled his coffee cup for him. “I’ll get a crew on that too.”

  Flavia called for a vote and thirteen hands went into the air. A rare unanimous vote. With nothing else on the agenda, we separated.

  “Mr. Powell,” I caught up with the klutzy village services owner. “Would you ask your people to meet me at the station in an hour? I’ve got something to take care of first.”

  “Will do.” He raised a hand in a salute, caught the brim of his ball cap, and sent it flying.

  Shaking my head and biting back a giggle, I bolted out of The Inn and made a beeline for the station. I needed to get the Cherokee and head over to Reed’s cottage before Flavia got to him first.

  Chapter 13

  Less than five minutes after picking up the SUV, I pulled onto the parallel dirt trails slowly being carved out by vehicle tires. The trails started just before Reeva’s cottage, ran northeast toward the tree line she’d mentioned, and ended behind the trees at a charming little stone cottage in progress.

  Reed’s new home was V-shaped with the entrance tucked into the deepest part of the V. A fireplace chimney made of coordinating brownish-red stones stood to the left of the door. A one-foot-tall deck stained the same rich brown as the rounded-off front door was tucked into the V. Cute, cozy, and very Whispering Pines.

  I got out of the vehicle, let Meeka out of the back, and headed for the door. Through the trees, far in the distance, I saw another cottage. There was no rhyme or reason to where homes were placed in this area of the village. Wherever the occupant felt was a good spot, that’s where their home was planted. For a second, I thought this one in question was Reeva’s, but her cottage was the opposite direction and barn red while this one looked to be tree trunk brown. It also gave off a bad vibe. I shivered. It felt like someone was watching me. I quickly shrugged off the feeling. If I freaked out every time I got a weird vibe around this place, I’d have a constant eye twitch by now.

  Reed opened his door and sighed, not exactly happy to see me. He left the door open, indicating I could come in, but walked away before I entered, muttering, “I knew you’d show up here eventually.”

  Meeka was more interested in exploring the woods than seeing her coworker, so I let her do her thing while I stepped inside and took in the wide-open space. Plenty of windows let in lots of natural light. “I’m impressed, Reed. Give me the tour?”

  He sighed again but moved to the center of the space. Facing the front door, he pointed left. “The bedroom will be on that side. I’ll use the loft area above for an office.”

  “No stairway?”

  “Ladder. Stairs get in the way.” He pointed to the right branch of the V. “That will be the living room. The kitchen and bathroom will be in the center here where we’re standing.”

  Practical layout. It kept all the water lines in the same section. I learned that little tip from Tripp.

  I wandered into his living room and placed a hand on the large stone fireplace with a fire crackling cozily in the box. “This will be nice.”

  “I think so.” He returned to the task he must’ve been working on when I knocked. He drilled an approximate one-inch hole into a wall stud, fed electrical wire through it, then moved on to the next stud.

  “You know how to do electrical work?”

  “Used to work part-time for Mr. Powell. He’ll inspect my work after I’m done.”

  “Mr. Powell? You trust him to not knock the place down?”

  Reed laughed a little at that. “He does all right with inspections. All he’s got to do is look at stuff. He’ll check my plumbing too.”

  “I had no idea you could do all this. I’m impressed.”

  “I also do drywalling.”

  I thought of the work Tripp and River were doing on our attic. “If you need help with anything, I know some guys.”

  Reed nodded but didn’t respond verbally.

  I watched him drill two more holes. “You left before the fireworks last night. How are you feeling?”

  “I’ve got one wicked hangover. Seems I abused myself good.” He glanced over his shoulder. “I assume you don’t mean literal fireworks.”

  He let me explain the incident, and when I started to ask for his help, he stopped me.

  “I’m sorry this happened, I really am, but you know I requested a leave of absence. I need to focus on getting past this Lupe thing.”

  He winced as though it hurt him to say her name out loud.

  “It’s been three weeks, Reed.”

  “And I’m three weeks better, but I’m still not ready to care about anyone but myself. I know how selfish that sounds, but there it is.”

  “You won’t even come to the station and just sit in your chair? You don’t even have to put on your uniform. I just need someone in the building with the detainees while I’m not there.”

  He returned to drilling holes. “Sorry.”

  This wouldn’t last much longer, at least I hoped it wouldn’t. Reed and I had developed a good partnership over the past four months. I liked working with him, but Jagger was in the picture now too. He appeared to have tons of potential. And there was Emery with his secret ninja skills.

  “Deputy?” At the tone in my voice, he stood to face me. Sometimes attitude held more power than a whole dictionary of words. “I understand what you’re going through. I had a similar experience not too long ago. I’ll be patient for a little while longer, but you need to move past this and keep living.” I didn’t mention that my breakup had come after a seven-year relationship and a proposal of marriage, as opposed to his two months of dating.

  I didn’t say anything more, just held his gaze until he looked away, and then turned and left his house. I was waiting by the SUV for Meeka when Reed came out and stood on his small square front deck.

  “I heard what you said, Sheriff.”

  I nodded but said nothing more on the subject. Instead, I pointed at the house I’d seen through the trees earlier. “Do you know who lives over there?”

  “Feels like someone’s watching you, doesn’t it?” Reed asked. “That’s Sister Agnes’ un-church.”

  This is where she lived? She had invited me to stop by earlier this summer but never told me where the place was. I needed to get back to the station to meet Mr. Powell’s men, but an overwhelming need to go to church, or un-church in this case, overtook me. I whistled for Meeka again, and she finally emerged from the woods . . . covered in burrs. Great.

  Assuming I was headed for Agnes’, Reed said, “Go back past the Barlow place and take a right on the main gravel road. After about a quarter mile, take a right, and it’ll lead you right to her.”

  “Thanks. See you around, Reed.” I stuck Meeka in her crate, giving her a frown over the burrs. “Really nice job on the cottage, by the way.” I opened the driver’s side door and added, “Oh, your moth
er and aunt know you’re here. Be prepared.”

  His shoulders dropped, and he gave a half wave as we left. I slowed as we passed by Morgan and Briar’s cottage. It was dark. At first, I thought Briar must still be sleeping, which would be unheard of for the early riser, then remembered that she had planned to help with the Yule crowd at Shoppe Mystique this weekend.

  One more right sent us down a path just wide enough for the Cherokee. Tree branches scraped against the sides as we bounced slowly over ruts and bumps. When we finally got to the end, I found myself sitting in front of the weirdest house I’d ever seen. And I lived in Whispering Pines.

  I got out of the vehicle and let Meeka out. At this stop, she had no interest in roaming the woods. In fact, she stayed close, staring up at the structure with me.

  The chestnut-brown un-church looked like a cluster of small boxes all stuck together, rather than one large building. It must’ve been built in phases. The outside of the entire structure was sided with rough-cut pine planks. Some of the planks were shorter in height and narrower in width than the others and were placed randomly about so the siding looked wavy. The crooked siding gave the illusion that the whole thing was leaning when really everything was square and plumb. Windows were scattered haphazardly. On the front corner to my left stood a three-story tall tower covered in shake-style shingles.

  I was staring up at a narrow window at the very top of the tower, sure I’d just seen a figure with white hair peering out at me, when someone came up behind me.

  “Sheriff O’Shea. Blessed be.”

  I jumped and turned to find Sister Agnes Plunkett dressed in full nun’s habit with a basket of pine cones clutched in her hands.

  “You’ve finally come to un-church.” Agnes looked thrilled at this prospect.

  “I didn’t know where it was until now. It’s quite a unique building.”

  “Isn’t it?” She stood smiling at her un-church as though it was the most beautiful thing ever created. Then she clapped her hands once. “You must be ready to receive the answer to that question.”

  “Which question?”

  She tilted her head. “The question for which you’ve been seeking an answer, of course.”

  Speaking with Agnes was a lot like a game of telephone. You were sure you’d heard what she said, but then she repeated something entirely different.

  “I was visiting Martin Reed.” I pointed through the trees in the general direction of Reed’s cottage. That creepy feeling of being watched hit me again. I glanced back up at the tower window, which was empty this time, and was suddenly very glad Reed knew I’d come here. “I saw your, um, un-church from over there. Thought I’d just stop by and say hi. Did you have a good time at Grapes, Grains, and Grub last night?”

  “Oh, yes.” She clasped her hands in front of her heart, the basket sliding to her elbow. “Mallory and I were having the most delightful conversation.”

  A delightful conversation with Mallory? If she said so, but my guess was they were both talking about different things.

  “We didn’t get much of a chance to talk last night. What have you been up to?”

  “Oh, I’ve been quite busy with a special project here.”

  Meeka started growling then, a sound I rarely heard. I followed her gaze to a different window and saw a shock of white again.

  “Agnes, is someone in your home?”

  “Yes.” She nodded.

  “A parishioner?” She wasn’t technically a nun, she said she’d been kicked out of the church. Maybe un-parishioner would be the right term.

  “A parishioner,” she repeated and considered the label. “You could say that. They’re my project.” Then, as she’d done when I’d spoken with her in the past, she changed, as though slipping on a different, darker personality. “Why don’t you come inside? I’ll introduce you.”

  I glanced up again. Whoever was up there, they were watching us. I couldn’t see a face, I couldn’t even see the white hair anymore, but I could just make out the person’s outline standing a few feet away from the window.

  “No, thanks.” I’d rather hang out with Flavia and do mani-pedis than go inside that building without backup. “I’m supposed to meet someone at the station.”

  “But you won’t have the answer to your question.”

  “Guess I’ll have to come back.”

  As Agnes contemplated that, I scooped up Meeka and got in the SUV. She didn’t object to me not putting her in her cage this time. She wanted away from Agnes, the un-church, and the mysterious tower person as badly as I did.

  Chapter 14

  We got to the station to find out Mr. Powell had sent his crew to The Inn. Naturally. It seemed that’s just how this day was going to go.

  “Laurel?” I said into my walkie-talkie. “This is Sheriff O’Shea.”

  “Let me guess,” she said a few seconds later, “you want me to send two people to the station?”

  “Please. I’ll wait for them.”

  Gino had left the second I walked in.

  “His wife called with a 9-1-1 about forty-five minutes ago,” Tripp explained. “The toddler won’t go down for a nap and is into that hyper-tired state where he’s tearing around the house and knocking things off every surface he can reach.”

  “Why don’t they put things where he can’t reach them?” I asked.

  This earned me a blank stare. “I don’t know. But the baby is teething and had a diaper blowout. She managed to deal with the baby, but the toddler is still on the loose.”

  “On the loose?”

  “Inside the house. She can’t catch him.”

  My turn to issue the blank stare. “You still want kids after horror stories like that?”

  He nodded enthusiastically.

  “Your eyes are glazing over with exhaustion,” I told him and thought the lack of mental acuity was why he was still open to children. “You should go home and get some sleep. Are you safe to drive?”

  “It takes five minutes to get home. I’m fine.”

  He followed me into my office to give me the rundown on what had happened overnight, but when I got to my desk, I froze.

  “Where did that come from?”

  Another envelope sat front and center on my desk, waiting for me to sit down and open it.

  “Some guy dropped it off. Gino took it from him and set it in here.”

  “A guy? What did he look like? Describe him.”

  “Whoa, slow down.” He narrowed his eyes. “What’s going on? You had one of these at the pub last night. You said it was nothing, but clearly, you were lying.”

  “I wasn’t lying,” I snapped and then forced myself to relax. “That wasn’t my intent. I just didn’t want to get into anything right there in the middle of the pub.”

  His mind was spinning as he analyzed the situation. “You got other cards before last night, didn’t you? Otherwise you would’ve shown me the one at the pub last night. What’s going on? Why didn’t you tell me about this?”

  “You’d make a good detective.” He wasn’t amused. “One. I got one other before last night.”

  “What do they say?”

  He was getting angry, as would I. I had to tell him. I went to the evidence locker and pulled out the card I’d put in a plastic bag.

  “‘I know what you did’?” Tripp read.

  I put on latex gloves before pulling the one from last night out of my jacket pocket, slid it into an evidence bag, and then handed it to him.

  “‘You know what you did’?” His eyes darted to mine. “What does this mean?”

  “I honestly have no clue.” I retrieved my letter opener from the top middle drawer and sliced the new envelope open, taking care again to only touch it by its corners and not smudge any prints that might be on it.

  You ruined my life.

  “Babe, this sounds like a threat.” Tripp’s anger turned into worry.

  “Could be,” I half-heartedly agreed. “Or maybe it was village kids playing around. I yelled a
t a group of them messing around by the negativity well one day a week or ten days ago. They were threatening to toss this little kid down the well, so I threatened to fine them with community service.”

  Tripp shook his head. “It wasn’t a kid who dropped this off.”

  “What did he look like?” I repeated my earlier question. “Help me out.”

  He sat in one of my two guest chairs, rested his head against the back so he was staring up at the ceiling, and draped his arm over his eyes.

  “A few inches taller than me,” he began.

  “So, six feet?”

  “Little taller. Gino is taller than me and this guy was taller than Gino. I’d say six two or three.”

  “Okay. What else? Hair color?”

  He shook his head. “He had on a stocking cap that covered his hair.”

  “What color was the hat?”

  He paused before saying, “White. It was a team hat. Not Packers, not Brewers. Might’ve been Vikings. No pompom, just a logo on the forehead.”

  A white stocking cap. Why was that familiar? “So short hair or long hair pulled up into the hat. What about his eyebrows? What color were they?”

  Tripp shook his head again. “I wasn’t close enough to see them. Wait. He was wearing aviator sunglasses.”

  “What about a jacket?”

  “It was like a suit coat. Brown, I think. Maybe black.”

  “A brown or black suitcoat, aviator glasses, and a stocking cap?”

  Tripp opened his eyes and looked at me, blinking at the sudden light. “Sounds like a disguise.”

  “Not sure about that, but it does sound like he was covering himself up.”

  Tripp jumped to his feet and stood directly in front of me. “I don’t want you wandering around alone.”

  “I’m not alone. I’ve got a K-9.” I glanced across my office at Meeka. She had jumped up onto the cot Tripp and Gino used last night and had worked her way down to the bottom of the sleeping bag. Now, the dog-shaped lump was rotating one way then the other. “Are you stuck, girl?”

  A muffled semi-urgent bark came from beneath the quilted fabric.