House of Secrets

by Ramona Richards

  “You missed lunch, but I can order you a tray for later. What would you like for supper?” the nurse’s aide asked.

  June closed her eyes and pressed her head against the pillow, hoping it would stop. “A bucket.”

  In the silence that followed, she relented, opened her eyes and squinted at the aide, who waited next to her bed. “I’m too dizzy to eat. Don’t order anything.”

  “The meds will take care of the dizziness. You’ll be hungry later.”

  “I’ll order out for pizza.” She closed her eyes again and scratched idly at the heart-monitor patch peeking out of the top of her gown. Near the head of the bed, the monitor blinked, its bright green sinus-rhythm line showing steady and even. “Please go away.”

  “I’ll be back later.” The aide’s shoes squeaked lightly on the floor as she turned and left the room.

  Before the door could shut, however, someone caught it and entered the room. June started to repeat her command to go away when she realized that her new visitor had arrived with the scent of sweat, musk, dirt, gunfire residue and the faint odor of cologne that somehow still lingered after the day’s events.

  “Hi, Ray.”

  “You had to get hurt, didn’t you?”

  “I guess it does sort of put a damper on the possibility of me as suspect.” She opened her eyes and peered at him through the pain.

  “More or less.” He stepped closer to the bed. “How do you feel?”

  “Like a major-league baseball after the World Series.”

  “Mets or Yankees?”

  She grinned, which made her wince. “Red Sox. Don’t make me laugh.”

  Ray returned the smile, then reached for her hand. “I’m sorry.”

  “Oh? You put the sniper on that hill?”

  “I dropped my guard. Our cruisers don’t just suddenly have flats.”

  She glowered at him. “Sniper. Lying in wait. Nothing you could have done.”

  “I could have called—”

  June clutched his hand. “Stop it, Ray. You start getting all overprotective on me and we’ll never solve David’s murder.”

  Ray’s eyes narrowed. “We.”

  “I’ve been thinking about something—”

  “You’ve been smacked in the head.”

  “Doesn’t stop me from thinking.”

  He pointed at the badge on his chest, then at her. “Me, sheriff. You, witness. Solving this is my job, not yours.”

  “Don’t worry, Tarzan, I’ll let you be the hero.” June tugged on his hand to pull him closer. “But there are some things you don’t know.”

  Ray listened silently as June spoke. He knew that her mind never stopped, that she always had some project, some plan in the works, whether it was remodeling a Victorian parsonage or a craft session for the kindergarteners at the church. Apparently, her brain had been spinning about David’s murder from the moment she’d found the body. Her ideas were astute and in many ways mirrored his own thinking about the murder.

  She felt it wasn’t random, but local, intentional and related to David’s newfound political ambition. As far as she knew, nothing else had changed in his life. And she also felt that she had not interrupted the murder itself—but possibly the reason for it.

  “If you had interrupted the murder,” Ray said, “there would have been less blood and probably no footprints. Whoever bolted out that door did it without caring that he’d stepped in the blood.”

  “I barged in because I saw the footprints on the porch. And someone was still there.”

  “Ransacking the study.”

  She nodded, then pressed her palm to her forehead. Ray could see that pain still raged inside her. She took a deep breath, wiped her face with one hand and sat straighter in the bed. She won’t give up. Or give in.

  “I must have interrupted the search in David’s study.”

  Ray pulled a chair next to the bed and sat. “The way they left, as well as the evidence, definitely points to a division in the team. Whoever went out the back ran first or you would have run into him. Probably the mastermind was more afraid of getting caught. The person who left out the back may have been the killer since there was blood evidence in the tunnel. He left last, more determined to finish the job.”

  “He was just the muscle.”

  Ray’s mouth twitched at June’s use of the term, and he shifted in the chair. “And not as concerned about you catching him. He may have planned on killing you, then heard us in the driveway.”

  June’s eyes watered again, and she looked down, plucking at the blanket across her lap. “David once told me he could hear the Corvette turn into the driveway. Teased me that it gave him plenty of time to escape out the back.”

  Ray gave her a moment of memory. “Is that why you went to the back door?”

  Her gentle smile revealed her deep affection for David Gallagher. “Yes. After he said that, I always went to the back. It made him laugh.”

  “Didn’t most people go to the back?”

  June’s hands stilled and her brow furrowed. “No.” She looked up at Ray, a light of realization in her eyes. “No, they didn’t. When JR and I first remodeled, people got in the habit of coming to the back, but JR didn’t like it. He wanted to be accessible to everyone but not encourage folks to think they could just walk in any time. At that time, the driveway came around behind the house, so he solved the issue by putting in the patio there at the side of the house and improving the sidewalk in the front. Even though the driveway still went around it to our garage, people started coming up the front walk.”

  “So instead of building a physical barrier or offending people by asking them not to come to the back, he built a psychological barrier.”

  “And most people got the message.” June pushed herself up in the bed. “And David carried that tradition forward after JR died. The only people who came to the back were people he knew extremely well. He’d never have opened the back door to a stranger. And he was austere enough in the pulpit that casual acquaintances never even thought about it. Except for his political cronies, you’ll have to look at his friends.”

  “Our friends.”

  They both fell silent, well aware of how small the Bell County community was. The population of the three small towns of the county—White Hills, Caralinda and the county seat of Bell Springs—remained tiny enough that most people knew everyone in the area. That was one reason that June remained a respected voice in Bell County.

  Ray cleared his throat. “You were David’s psychological barrier.”

  June scowled. “What?”

  “The reason he wanted you on Hunter’s side. Like it or not, people still listen to you in Bell County. If you come out in a vocal way against Hunter, he’ll have a hard time advancing politically.”

  “Ray, I think you’re giving me too much credit.”

  Ray shook his head. “No, I’m not. Do you still blog every day?”

  June hesitated a moment, then nodded. June’s online diary had begun almost as self-therapy after JR’s death. Titled “June’s Bell County Wanderings,” she had started it in an effort to connect with other pastors’ widows. Granted, at thirty, she was younger than most of them. But sharing her grief, however, had soon turned into sharing her life in Bell County, and the popularity of the blog had soared. She entertained people with tales of life in a small Southern town, and she now had more than one thousand followers, most of them in the county.

  “I’m fairly sure David wouldn’t want you talking about Hunter’s exploits online.”

  “Ray Taylor, I do not gossip, thank you very much. I do not—”

  Ray took her hand. “I know that. But if you had supported Hunter openly…”

  She hesitated, looking down at their intertwined fingers. “People might listen. Might.”

  “Right.”

  “Which explains David’s actions toward me, but—” She paused and her eyes widened. “You think Hunter will ask me to support him?”

  Ray squeezed her
hand. “Hard to say. But if he does approach you, you may be able to expand on any information we get from him.”

  June took a deep breath. “How? Do you think Hunter would tell me if he knew what the killer was after?”

  Ray watched June’s face closely. “What do you think he was after?”

  “You’re asking what a pastor keeps in his study?” She shrugged. “Depends a lot on the pastor. And the church. Gospel Immanuel is small enough that JR did most of his work at home.”

  “So he kept anything valuable in his study?”

  “And anything private.”

  “What kind of private information did JR have?”

  “Counseling. He helped a lot of people, and he was a fanatic about people’s privacy. Any notes he kept from counseling sessions were locked away in a fireproof box and stored in one of the dozens of hiding places in the house. He didn’t even tell me where they were.”

  Ray shifted, then stood, reluctantly letting go of June’s hand. Counseling records could provide a motivation for murder. David, what in the world did you get into? What got you killed? “Did JR tell David?”

  She shrugged. “No way of knowing now.” She plucked at the sheet again. “I don’t know if David took on any of JR’s folks for counseling. That’s not the kind of information anyone shares.”

  Ray nodded. “There were a lot of hiding places in the house?”

  “It’s an old Victorian, and the original owner, Sieg fried Osborne, was a little nutty. Siegfried, as you know, was the grandfather of Rosalie Osborne. Poor thing just vanished into thin air. Her disappearance was never solved, right?”

  Ray shook his head. “And we’ve got enough to worry about without adding anyone else to the mix, June.”

  June gave Ray a small smile. “Anyway, we uncovered at least a hundred secret cubbyholes, rooms and sliding panels. Every time we moved a wall or redid paneling, we found something.”

  Ray stared. “You found stuff?”

  “Oh, yeah. That house is a time capsule. Letters, diaries, dried flowers. Jewelry, silver, candlesticks. JR once found a tin box full of papers that…” As her voice trailed off, June grew still and the color left her face.

  “What was in the box?”

  “I don’t really know. He wouldn’t let me see it. We’d discussed everything else, but he wouldn’t let me see that one box. He said he planned to destroy it, the box and all the contents.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know.” June clutched Ray’s hand again. “He just promised to get rid of it, said what was inside was far too dangerous to keep in the house.”

  Ray closed both hands around hers as they turned to ice in his grasp. “Looks like he may have been right.”

  FIVE

  “How did he know where we were headed?”

  Daniel grimaced and squirmed a bit in the visitor’s chair of Ray’s office. The late-afternoon sun always shone directly through the windows and Daniel shifted the chair so that the blinds shaded his face. “Maybe he has a scanner. We did notify dispatch that you were taking June to NorthCrest.”

  Ray stared at his deputy. “Maybe.”

  “You don’t buy it.”

  “You radioed after we pulled out of the driveway.”

  “Right, so I could give them a reasonable ETA.”

  “The attack happened about ten minutes later.”

  Daniel thought for a moment, then dipped one shoulder in acquiescence. “Not enough time for him to find a place and get set up. He had to know sooner.”

  “How?” Ray waited, still and outwardly calm. He knew his ability to remain motionless unnerved some people, even a couple of his own officers. Daniel wasn’t one of them. Also former military, Daniel shared the ability to watch and wait.

  In addition to knowing that, unlike the other officers, Ray would be headed for NorthCrest, the shooter would have had to know—or be told—the best route from the parsonage to the hospital. He’d have to know the area, know what would be the best location for a good shot. He would have to get there, get set up. And he’d have to know which cruiser Ray drove.

  Daniel leaned forward. “If he shot at you in the tunnel, maybe he just figured you might go to the hospital.”

  “But he wouldn’t know that I’d have June with me.”

  “You think this is about June.”

  “I think it’s about David Gallagher. June just got caught in the middle. But the shots in the tunnel weren’t about me.”

  “They were about the shirt. But he did see you.”

  “I didn’t see him.”

  “Would he know that for sure?”

  “With that spot in my eyes, yes.”

  “But they had to know June didn’t see them, either.”

  Ray leaned back in his chair, his arms resting on the edge of his desk. “I don’t think they’re worried about June seeing them. I suspect they think she knows why David was killed.”

  “Does she?”

  Ray hesitated. His conversation with June at the hospital had raised more questions than it had answered, including what she might know about the contents of David’s study. “I don’t know. The problem is, I don’t think she knows, either.” Ray took a deep breath. “Okay, I want you to alert the local body shops about SUV repairs, and check the usual illegal dump sites for fresh tracks or signs of recent activity.”

  “Right. The lake cliffs, the quarry, Sanderson’s ravine.”

  Ray nodded. “Who’s at the parsonage?”

  “Brent Carter. Gage took the evidence to the lab.”

  “Good. June interrupted the search,” Ray said, “so whatever they were after is still there. I want two officers on the house today, and I want you and Carter there tonight. Search it again from top to bottom. And make sure no one gets in that house, or even near it. I’ll get June over there tomorrow. I hate to ask for the double shift, but—”

  “It’s needed. I’ll be there.”

  “If you find that SUV, call me.”

  Daniel’s eyebrows bunched together. “You’re involving June in the search?”

  Ray let out a long sigh. “Not my preferred choice, but she told me that the house is riddled with secret hiding places. She and JR found a lot of them, but she thinks there are more. My guess is that if David concealed something that got him killed, it’s in one of those hiding places.”

  “You think they’ll try to search the house again?”

  “I know they will. I want the officers at the house in vests. I don’t think these people care who they have to kill. I want a cruiser in front of the house and a cruiser in the rear, and I want that tunnel sealed. I want reports every thirty minutes. And I want a man on June’s home.”

  Daniel’s scowl deepened. “You don’t think they’ll stop with another attempt on the parsonage?”

  Ray shook his head. “Someone hired a killer with combat training to set this in motion. It’s a long way from over.”

  Lord, I had forgotten how much I hate hospitals. Help me be nice to these— “Ouch!”

  “Sorry.”

  June inhaled deeply and swallowed a growl. “Does this mean I’m going home?”

  The young nurse continued her efforts to remove the tape securing June’s IV to her arm. “I suspect so. The doctor ordered this removed. Okay, I’m going to pull it out. It might sting just a bit.” Pressing two fingers over the insertion point, she slid the IV out with the other hand. “Press here.”

  June used her own fingers to replace the nurse’s and pressed on the vein until the nurse could apply the bandage. “How long do I leave this on?”

  “You can take it off this afternoon. But no heavy lifting for a couple of days.”

  June swung her legs over the edge of the bed and stood up. “Honey, I avoid heavy lifting most days.”

  The nurse grinned. “Well, if I had Sheriff Taylor waiting on me hand and foot, I would, too.”

  June froze, staring at the young girl. “Ray’s not—”

  “He’s in the ha
llway, to take you home.”

  “I called someone—”

  “You might want to call them back. The sheriff doesn’t look much in the mood to take no for an answer.”

  June remained still a moment longer, then stiffened her spine and took a deep breath. Right. If this is what he thinks needs to be done… “Could you please ask Sheriff Taylor to give me a few moments? I need to get dressed and make that call.”

  “Of course. I’ll ask him to wait until the charge nurse brings your paperwork.”

  “Thank you.”

  June watched the girl leave, then sank back down on the bed, her heart in her throat. Of course he’d want to talk to her again. Yesterday, she’d virtually shoved her way into his investigation. And then she’d remembered that box.

  June looked down at her hands, opening and closing them as if they suddenly felt empty. She had a sudden urge to clasp Ray’s hands again, feel the strength of them closing around hers….

  June shook her hands furiously, then scrubbed her face with her palms, trying to brush away the feelings that flooded over her. Friend. Repeat. He’s a friend. She took two deep breaths this time, letting each out slowly. Focus on David. On how you can help. On what you know about the house.

  June looked down at her hands again, where her wedding rings still glistened. Three years later, she still wore them, a symbol of the many ways she’d never let go of Jackie Rhea Eaton.

  “I still go to your church.” Her whispered words sounded flat. “Still embrace your friends. And all the things you’d taught me.”

  Jackie Rhea’s wife. It had been her identity for most of her adult life. He’d taken her off the streets. Turned her from a street kid into the preacher’s wife. If she let go of him, then she let go of the very identity that kept her from going back, from being…

  Nothing.

  June shivered, an old, familiar rush of fear chilling her spine. A fear she’d fought since the day JR died. She’d been forced from the house they’d renovated and made their own, but she’d held on to everything else. She liked Ray, admired him. But she couldn’t…