Whispering Pines Mysteries Box Set 3

by Shawn McGuire

  “Just like little kids,” I mused. “Run around like crazy people, pitch a fit, then sob until they pass out. Or so I’ve been told. All right, I might as well end some of her suffering.”

  I’d barely tapped on the door when she screamed, “Let me out. Let me out of here right now, I need to see Lars.”

  “Didi?” She didn’t respond right away. “Didi, are you listening?”

  “Yes, let me go.” Then in a long, plaintive wail, “Please.”

  I tried the knob, it was locked. Probably to keep Emery from coming in and pinching her. “It’s Sheriff O’Shea. Let me in.”

  A soft click sounded as she turned the lock and then opened the door a few inches. An instant later, she flung the door open wide and darted past me . . . and straight into Jagger’s arms.

  “Warned you, didn’t I?” He cinched an arm around her waist. With her arms and legs flailing, he carried her back into the room and set her on the bed. “Stay.”

  I gave him a nod of thanks and stood in front of her. “Are you going to try and run again? Because I can cuff you if necessary.” I pulled a pair of zip cuffs from my pocket as proof.

  “What did you do with Lars?”

  “Lars and Gavin are safe and sound at my station. I’ve got them locked in my jail cells with two very competent people watching them. Lars is fine.”

  I’d never seen anyone as fidgety as Didi. She played with her fingers. Her legs bounced up and down. She adjusted positions on the bed every few seconds. She looked out the window and then at me. If her head wasn’t swiveling, her eyes were darting about. No wonder she was so tiny. She burned calories at a constant, high rate.

  Meeka was uncomfortable around all this motion. She positioned herself near the door rather than exploring the room as she had the others.

  “The sooner you settle down and talk to me, the sooner you’ll be able to see Lars.”

  “I need to see him.” She stood, then sat when I held out the cuffs. “You took my phone away; I can’t even text him.”

  “I took his phone away, too, so even if you could text him, he couldn’t respond. Here’s the thing, I don’t know who stabbed Silence yet. I can’t let any of you go until I’ve figured that out. Is there anything you can tell me about that event?”

  Her expression of desperation turned to one of fury. “Silence is that woman? That skanky one who was all over my Lars?”

  She’d gone from antsy to practically seething with anger, going on and on about how Silence was flirting with all the men and especially with Lars. She was getting herself more and more worked up, and nothing I could have said would have convinced her Silence wasn’t trying to steal Lars from her. If I was going to get anything useful out of her, I needed to change tactics and stay away from the topic of Silence.

  “I was talking with Kendra and Cheryl earlier,” I began.

  “Where are they?” She perched on the edge of her bed as though ready to take off again. “What did you do with them?”

  “I didn’t do anything with them. They’re across the hall in their own rooms. Didi, you’ve really got to calm down.” Jagger had made the comment earlier that Didi was like an addict when it came to Lars. She did seem addicted but not just to Lars. It was like she was coming down off something. “Tell me why you came here this weekend.”

  “I’m here with Lars.”

  Oh geez. “Yes, I know that. You came here with three other couples, though. Whose idea was that?”

  “Gavin’s. Gavin is Lars’ best friend. They wanted to go hunting.”

  Good. She’d settled by a degree or two.

  “Did they go hunting?” I asked.

  “No. Gavin said your village needs help. So we’re doing that instead.”

  I asked a few more questions but didn’t learn anything more than what Kendra and Cheryl had already told me. I couldn’t tell if it was that she didn’t know anything else, or if she was simply too distracted about her boyfriend. She reminded me of girls I’d seen, mostly those at college parties, who’d had too much to drink and were obsessing over a guy they liked. They’d go on for hours, sucking other girls into their drama vortex to commiserate with them. I’d never seen anyone as desperate to be with a person as Didi was to be with Lars. Honestly, that level of dependency was a little scary.

  “Thank you for talking with me, Didi.”

  She sprang to her feet. “Do I get to see Lars now?”

  Maybe she was suffering from a disorder of some kind. I thought briefly of Helen and David Zaleski, an oddly amusing couple who had spent a few days with us last month. Helen had told me that David suffered from a disorder and became agitated when he wasn’t with her because she was his normal, his happy place. It was possible Didi suffered from something similar. She could be on medication of some kind and had missed a dose because I locked her up. And here I was judging her. If it was meds, we’d take care of that as quickly as possible.

  “I told you that I needed to figure out what happened to Silence before you could see Lars again. Remember?”

  She nodded and frowned a little. “I didn’t tell you?”

  “No, you didn’t, but I still need to talk with Darryl. Maybe he can tell me what happened. Why don’t you take a little nap? Hopefully by the time you wake up, I’ll have my answer.”

  “I’m not sleepy.”

  “Okay, but I’m a little worried about you. You seem really upset. Is there something I can get for you that would help you calm down?” I held up a hand to stop the request I knew was coming. “I can’t get Lars for you. Not yet.”

  I hoped she’d say, “my medication over at the hotel,” but instead she sat and looked around the room. “It would be nice to watch TV.”

  “Sounds good. I’ll have Jagger bring one in for you. Okay?”

  She made a little nest of pillows near the head of the bed to settle into and watch television. Watching her place the pillows was almost like watching an artist create. She’d arrange them, stand back, fix the corner of one, smooth the case on another. While she did that, I looked around her room. It was spotless. If I didn’t know she’d spent the night in here, I’d swear housekeeping had just finished with it. Everything was perfectly in its place. I hadn’t taken the time to watch Didi and Lars together, but he very well could be her rock, her Helen, the person who centered her and kept her together. Or he was her obsession.

  “That was quick,” Jagger said when I stepped out of the door.

  “We may have misjudged Didi. Would you bring a television back in there for her? She needs something to occupy her while we’re working through this.”

  An expression of understanding crossed his face and he pushed himself up from his comfy chair. “Right away. Is there anything else she needs?”

  “You can ask her. No, she can’t see Lars.”

  Jagger smiled. “I figured that.”

  Once he had everything set up for her, I approached the last occupied room on the third floor and knocked. “Darryl? This is Sheriff O’Shea, I’d like to come in.”

  The door flung open before I’d finished speaking. “Thank God. I’ve been waiting to talk with you. Please, come in.”

  He stood back and held out an arm welcoming me into his room as though I’d come for dinner.

  “How is she?” he asked.

  I wasn’t sure if he was referring to Silence or Cheryl, so I chose Silence. “The blade nicked her intestine, and now they’re monitoring her for infection. It’s not good. She could die.”

  “The poor woman. Okay, ask me anything you want,” he said, and before I could do so, he started right in. “Marcel is my brother, you knew that, right? He asked me to come up with him this weekend. He wanted me to bring Cheryl, too, so we could meet his new boyfriend.”

  I held out both hands to get him to stop speaking. “Darryl, we’re going to get to all of that. I need you to slow down and go through this in a more organized fashion.” I pulled my voice recorder out of its pocket, as I had with the other three, and
pressed the red button. “I’m recording this conversation.”

  “Okay.” He inhaled deeply and blew it out in a hiss. “What can I tell you?”

  “Tell me how you decided to come here this weekend.”

  As Kendra, Cheryl, and Didi had, he explained about the plans to come camping and hunting but that, somewhere along the line, those plans changed.

  “Why did they change?” I asked.

  “I don’t know all of the details. I wasn’t in on any of this but was able to pick up on some of the plans. It’s kind of amazing what you can learn by sitting quietly and listening.”

  Silence’s face flashed in front of my eyes, and a surge of emotion for her came over me.

  I cleared my throat and blinked. “What did you hear? Whose conversation were you listening to?”

  He sprang to his feet and started pacing. “I hope this is okay, I can’t sit still and talk.”

  I positioned myself closer to the door, just in case. Meeka sat between me and Darryl, eyes fixed on Darryl, ready to attack his ankles. My little protector.

  “It’s fine,” I agreed. “Keep your pacing to that half of the room, though, all right?”

  He nodded. “Okay, so it was that first night after you told us we couldn’t stay at the campground. We rented four rooms at that hotel, and Cheryl, Kendra, and Didi stayed up in one of the rooms while Gavin summoned the rest of us to the bar downstairs.”

  “The rest of you being yourself, Lars, Marcel, and Chaz?”

  “Right. All the men. I’m sure you can imagine why Gavin didn’t want the women with us.”

  “I have a good idea.” The sexist jerk.

  “Anyway, Marcel and I were feeling really uncomfortable because we didn’t know any of them. I think Marcel might have met Gavin before, since he’s Chaz’s brother, but he didn’t hang out with him or anything. Gavin ordered a couple pitchers of beer and then he and Lars started going over their plan.”

  “I’ve heard a lot about this plan,” I said, “but no one has been able to give me specifics.”

  “It wasn’t anything complicated. Gavin wanted to prove he had the skills to take care of a town in turmoil.”

  “Is that what he called Whispering Pines? A town in turmoil?”

  “His words exactly. Chaz told Marcel that it’s been Gavin’s dream for years to be a police officer.”

  I nodded in agreement. “Kendra told me they wouldn’t accept him at the academy.”

  “Right, that’s what Chaz said too. I guess Gavin has been scanning the news in papers and online.”

  “What was he looking for?”

  “Towns in turmoil. He read something online about a boy who went missing last month. After that, Gavin started reading everything he could find about Whispering Pines. He learned that not only was there the trouble with the boy but that there’s also been a bunch of deaths over the last six months. Then he found out that you’re the sheriff. We already know what he thinks about women, so learning about you was like the match that lit his fuse. The plan was to come up here, cause a commotion, and then he would be the hero who fixed problems in seconds whereas you haven’t been able to handle things for months.” He paused, then added, “His words, not mine.”

  “Are you telling me that he purposely set up the fight just so he could stop it?”

  “That’s what Chaz said, and that’s what I was hearing in the bar that night.”

  “He recruited you all, without your knowledge, so he’d have a gang, so to speak, who would be involved in a fight? And then, what, he’d give the signal and you all would stop fighting?”

  “Basically, yes. You ever hear about how someone will start a wildfire and then get hired to be on the firefighting squad? And then they find out the person was an unemployed firefighter looking for a job?”

  I took a second to work through that one. “Can’t say as I’ve ever heard of that exact scenario, but I understand what you’re saying. This was Gavin’s way to try and get into the police academy. He’d be praised as the hero here, and the academy would realize their error and let him in.”

  He nodded and, in a voice apparently meant to be Gavin’s, said, “See what a hero I am? You should let me be a cop.”

  “Kendra told me the reason he couldn’t get into the academy was because he couldn’t pass the physical.”

  Darryl pressed his knuckles to his mouth to hold in a laugh and looked at me as though I’d just said the funniest thing ever. “What a moron. He still wouldn’t be able to pass the physical. The guy slams back whiskey like it’s water and smokes at least a pack a day.”

  My turn to laugh. “He’s got to really be enjoying his time in my jail cell, then. No booze, no smokes.”

  “Won’t he accuse you of denying him his legal rights?”

  “Maybe. Don’t care. So how did we get from staging a fight to a young woman being stabbed?”

  Darryl shook his head. “That, I can’t answer.”

  Of course he couldn’t. That was the one answer no one could give me. However, Cheryl’s cell phone had to be charged by now.

  “Where were you when the fight broke out?”

  “In another dining room talking to Cheryl. She wasn’t happy and wanted to leave. Then we found out that Marcel and Chaz split on us.”

  “They only went to the hotel. I talked to them before they left the pub.”

  “Are you serious? We thought they left town. We would’ve gone with them.” He propped his hands on his hips and shook his head. “I mean, the only reason we came here was because Marcel asked us to, and then he leaves without even telling us? Dude’s going to have a lot of explaining to do when I get home.” Then he paused, like he’d said something wrong. “You believe me, don’t you? You are going to let me go, aren’t you? I didn’t do anything. I for sure didn’t stab that woman.”

  “Tell me first, during the fight, when the stabbing occurred, where were you?”

  “At the back of the crowd. Like I said, we were in that little dining room, and by the time we got out to the big room, things were already heated. I figured his signal was coming at any second ’cause it was intense. People were getting hot.”

  “What was the signal?”

  “He was going to take off his baseball cap and scratch his head. After a minute, he still didn’t do it, and I was going to break things up on my own. I figured someone was going to get hurt.” He shook his head. “I thought some punches would fly, stuff like that. Sure didn’t think someone would get stabbed. Cheryl wouldn’t let me do anything. She held me back, told me not to get any more involved than we already were.”

  “Smart woman. She tells me she was taking pictures during the altercation.”

  Darryl laughed. “I’d only be surprised if she wasn’t taking pictures. Honest to God, how many selfies of us does that woman need to post? I mean, you name it, she takes a picture of us doing it.” He paused, realizing what he might have implied. “Not that. I wouldn’t let her take a picture of us doing that.”

  I held in my laughter. “I believe you, Darryl. Cheryl’s cell phone has been charging down at the front desk. I’m going to go get it and then you two can go through the pictures with me. If it shows what you claim, that the two of you were at the back of the group, I’ll let you go.”

  He slumped with relief. “Never thought I’d hear myself say this, but if that’s what gets us out of this, she can take all the selfies she wants. I might start taking some too.”

  Chapter 18

  Cheryl’s phone had reached eighty-seven percent charged, enough to send pictures to my station email. I thanked Gardenia for tending to it, turned to go back upstairs, and found myself face to face with Flavia. Sugar gave me a long look over her shoulder as she left through the front door.

  “I have to thank you,” Flavia said with a sniff.

  “There’s a reason for concern,” I replied, knowing this would be backhanded. “You never thank anyone for anything. What did I do?”

  “At the council
meeting this morning, you confirmed my suspicion that you are not the right person for this job.”

  I wasn’t even a little surprised by this. “I respect your right to have an opinion, Flavia.” I turned to angle past her, but she wanted to chat.

  “There are plenty of others who feel the same way.”

  Memories of the day the council voted me in as sheriff played in my mind. Flavia, Donovan, Maeve, Mr. Powell, and Sugar had all voted against me. Maeve had since apologized, we hadn’t known each other very well at that point, and told me she wished she could go back and change her vote to a yes. But Flavia wasn’t talking about only council members.

  “Villagers aren’t happy with what you’ve done to Whispering Pines.”

  She was poking at the sore spot inside me, the one that also wasn’t happy with my performance and kept scabbing over only to split open again. Fortunately, the lobby was empty except for Gardenia, who purposely avoided looking at us as she popped on a pair of headphones and began bopping to whatever music she was listening to.

  Meeka, ever my protector, sat like a little furry gargoyle in front of me.

  “What exactly did I do to the village?” I pushed insecure Regular Jayne to the side before she could make things worse and let confident Sheriff Jayne take the lead. “It’s not like I sent out invitations to murderers to come visit us.” I waited for her to respond. When she didn’t, I continued with my defense. “The only thing I’m guilty of is stumbling upon and uncovering one secret after another. Honestly, I don’t think there’s anyone in this village who doesn’t have one.” I was about to walk away but turned back. “And for the record, I did not bring Martin and Lupe together. You need to quit acting like it’s my fault or anyone else’s that your son is pulling away from you. That’s one hundred percent your doing.”

  She hissed at me, not with surprise but as though casting a spell. The look on her face sent a chill through me. It was the same one I’d seen a few days after I arrived here. Morgan had invited me to observe her coven’s gathering at the Meditation Circle so I could better understand Wicca. During their ceremony, each member read from their list of intents for the upcoming tourist season. Basically, it was a prayer session for the village. After reading their list, the person either buried the paper in the ground or tore it into pieces and let the wind take it. A few saved their list to toss into the lake or creek where it would dissolve. Flavia threw hers into the fire pit. Some of the pieces drifted up with the hot air currents from the flames. Other burning pieces flew sideways toward me. I still didn’t know how she did it, but somehow, she directed those bits at me. That’s how she looked now, like she wanted to light me on fire.