by Carolyn Hart
Walter Carey. He had motive and to spare. He certainly had broken into the Murdoch house to get the keys to Daryl’s office. He would be ruined if the truth ever came out.
Isaac Franklin. Was an insult to his pride—Daryl treating him with disrespect over the groceries—reason enough to kill?
It had to be one of them but—
A fire alarm shrilled. The undulating shriek blared, high, harsh, shocking.
The lights went out.
CHAPTER 17
Cries and shouts rose. “Jan, where are you?” “Wait for me.”
“Get out, everybody, get out.” “Paul, find Buddy, I’ve got Leila.” “Don’t push, please.”
“Quiet.” Father Bill’s shout was commanding. He was on the platform. “Evacuate in an orderly manner. Form lines.”
The black trash bags covering the farthest window were yanked down and light spilled inside. The next window was uncovered.
Father Bill called, “Good work, Jeff.”
“Travis and I will get the bags down.” Jeff was breathless.
“That’s enough light. You and Travis help the children get out.”
Father Bill pointed toward the doors. It was possible to see, if dimly.
Chief Cobb’s deep voice boomed from the south door. “Police Chief Cobb here. Remain calm. Everything’s under control. Take your time. We’re going to get everyone out. There’s no smoke. Take your time.”
The surge toward the two exits slowed, became more orderly.
Father Bill peered out at the moving throng. “Thanks, Chief. Good job, boys. Kathleen, lead through the north door and out to the parking lot. Go to the far side near the rectory. Assemble by Sunday school classes.”
Abruptly, the main lights came on. Glad cries came as mothers scooped up children. Long lines, now four abreast, moved swiftly through both exits.
Fire engines rumbled into the parking lot, the sirens ending abruptly. It seemed only an instant and firemen in white hats and bulky yellow coats were thundering inside. One shouted, “Where’s the fire?”
Father Bill jumped down from the platform, worked his way through the diminishing crowd. “It must be the roof. There’s no smoke inside.” He looked anxious, kept checking to see if the evacuation was continuing. “Are flames visible outside?”
“No flames. No smoke. We’ll check it out.” The fireman turned away, gestured to his men. Firemen left the parish hall in a heavy run, thudded out into the main hallway. Chief Cobb followed. Muffled shouts could be heard. “Anybody smell smoke? Check those closets.”
The tall golden lights of the parking lot dissipated the gloom of dusk. Car headlights added their bright gleam. Families searched for missing children, came together in thankfulness.
Father Bill was the last person out of the church. He stood on the steps, gazing out at the surging mass of evacuees. His voice was strong, reassuring. “Firemen are looking for a blaze and making certain no one remains inside. We’ll stay here until there’s an all clear sounded.”
Breathless and shaking, the sexton burst out the door, reached Father Bill. “The fuse box was messed with. Somebody threw the switches. That’s why the lights went off. The fire alarm by the nursery was yanked plumb out. Father Bill, I don’t think there’s a fire. There’s no smoke, nothing hot. I looked everywhere. The firemen are up in the attic and down in the furnace room, but they don’t see anything wrong. Somebody played a mean trick on us.”
“No fire.” Relief made Father Bill look years younger.
The door swung open and Chief Cobb and the fire chief stepped outside. Firemen filed down the steps, returning to their engines.
Chief Cobb held up a hand. “There is no fire. The alarm had been pulled, but there is no trace of fire anywhere in the church building. If anyone has any information regarding this incident, please contact me or one of my officers. It is against the law to trigger a fire alarm without cause.”
Voices rose and fell. “A false alarm.” “No fire after all.” “Thank God.” “If it was a Halloween prank . . .”
Kathleen pushed through the crowd bunched near the foot of the stairs. In the stark light at the entrance, her face was white and strained. “Bill, where’s Bayroo? I can’t find her anywhere.”
Father Bill was impatient. “She’s out there.” He gestured at the several hundred dark figures moving in no coherent pattern. “She was with the young people.” He called, “Bayroo?”
Kathleen ran to the top of the steps. She whirled to face the parking lot. She stretched out her hands. “Bayroo.” Her call rose above the sounds of the crowd, the shuffle of feet, the rumble as the fire engines pulled away. “Bayroo, where are you?”
Silence fell. No one moved. No one spoke.
“Bayroo?” Kathleen clutched Father Bill’s arm.
No answer.
Father Bill held Kathleen tight, stared out at the lot. He shouted.
“Bayroo! Bayroo!”
Marie Antoinette, one hand clamped to fake curls to keep her wig in place, dashed up the steps. “She was right with me. We were helping the little kids in the Mysterious Maze and we got outside and Jimmy Baker was sick at his stomach. He always throws up when he gets excited. Somebody turned on a flashlight. It was shining right at Bayroo and a voice called out, ‘Bayroo Abbott, this way please.’ I had to help Jimmy and then everybody was moving across the parking lot and I didn’t see her again.” Tears rolled down Lucinda’s face, smearing the dramatic makeup. “I even looked in the house.” She pointed toward the rectory. “She wasn’t there. Nobody’s there. Oh, Mrs. Abbott, where can Bayroo be?”
Kathleen clung to her husband. “She’s gone, Bill. She’s gone. Somebody’s taken my baby.”
Father Bill’s voice shook. “We’ll find her. We will, Kathleen. Please, God.” It was a father’s shaken prayer.
Chief Cobb cupped his hands to his mouth. “Bayroo Abbott. Bayroo Abbott.”
Murmurs of sound rose, but Bayroo was gone. In the melee, no one had noticed her departure.
Kathleen darted down the steps. “I’m going to get flashlights.”
Father Bill turned to Chief Cobb. “We have to have help. We need search teams. Can’t you get some dogs to help track?”
Chief Cobb looked stolid, but his brows pulled down in a worried frown. “Perhaps she was frightened by the false alarm. There’s no evidence she’s been abducted.”
Father Bill gripped the chief’s arm. “Bayroo would never run away and leave the children. Never.”
Chief Cobb held his cell phone. “No one saw her leave under duress.”
Father Bill’s voice was husky. “Our senior warden was murdered not far from here. Now Bayroo’s in danger. You’ve got to help us.”
Kathleen returned with flashlights. “I’m going to look.” Her eyes were hollow, her face desperate. “Maybe in the preserve, maybe . . .”
Father Bill gripped her arm. “They’re setting up teams. The Boy Scouts are coming. We’d better stay here.”
Kathleen pulled away. “I can’t stay.” She started out into the night, calling, calling.
Chief Cobb stared after her, then punched his cell phone. “All officers are to report to St. Mildred’s Church . . .”
St. Mildred’s happy Spook Bash was transformed into a crime scene. Chief Cobb knew it wasn’t regulation to assume so soon that a missing child had been abducted, but the memory of Daryl Murdoch’s body in the cemetery had to be dark in his thoughts.
The parish hall was the heart of a rescue effort. I was aware of the bustle and effort under way. Walter Carey stood in one corner, using his cell phone to contact the Boy Scouts, calling them to come and help. Dogs arrived, barking and snuffling. Names were taken, information sought.
I understood Kathleen’s need to search. I would have joined a team, but they didn’t need me. I forced myself to remain. I had to think. I knew well enough that Bayroo had never left of her own accord. She’d been taken. But why and by whom?
The first necessit
y was understanding why Bayroo was taken.
The alarm was pulled, the fuses thrown, firemen summoned, all to provide an opportunity to kidnap Bayroo. Only a sense of dire urgency would have prompted such an elaborate charade. The kidnapper could not afford to allow the passage of time. Bayroo had to be snatched immediately.
What peril could Bayroo pose to anyone?
There was only one possible answer. Bayroo knew something she must not tell. What secrets did Bayroo have? She had been upset when Lucinda described her sojourn in the nature preserve Thursday evening. The girls were forbidden to go into the preserve. Everyone knew danger lurked for unaccompanied young girls in remote and untrafficked areas.
Bayroo had ignored that rule and something—someone—frightened her. But she’d reassured everyone—was she speaking to her parents?—and said she’d been scared, but as soon as she saw the car, she knew everything was all right.
She saw a car late Thursday afternoon as dusk was falling, a car hidden in the preserve. Whose car? Did she recognize that car?
Within minutes of Bayroo’s arrival in the preserve, the murderer marched Daryl Murdoch at gunpoint to the rectory and shot him on the back porch. His murder was planned. The murderer would not park in the church lot and certainly not behind the rectory. Instead it would be so easy to drive into the nature preserve, leave the car hidden behind pine trees or willows. That meant the murderer knew Daryl was en route to the church, knew it beyond question.
Bayroo had been kidnapped by Daryl’s murderer. I almost dropped to the floor, determined to accost Chief Cobb. But he might brush me aside. After arresting me, of course, banishing me to jail.
That would not be a problem for me, but I had to know enough, be emphatic enough, that he would listen.
The solution was obvious now. Of all who had reason to wish Daryl ill, only Walter Carey, Irene Chatham, and Isaac Franklin had been in the parish hall to hear Lucinda’s artless revelations. Judith and Kirby Murdoch were not present. Nor was Lily Mendoza. Or Cynthia Brown. Walter was organizing the Scouts into a search team.
The somber sexton hovered near Father Bill.
Irene Chatham. She knew Daryl was coming to the church. Her rackety old car had squealed from her drive in time to arrive at the preserve, be hidden before Daryl reached the parking lot.
Irene—
I stared down.
I saw Irene Chatham shoving a serving cart with two coffee urns against the wall nearest the south exit. She lifted Styrofoam cups from a bottom shelf, arranged packets of sugar and creamers. It was a churchwoman’s immediate response to a gathering.
If I’d suddenly tumbled from a mountaintop and turned end over end through space, I could not have been more shocked. Irene Chatham was innocent. Her presence here was proof. She was innocent and she had not abducted Bayroo. Then who . . .
I gripped the wood rim of the chandelier, held on as if its concrete reality would anchor me to facts. These things I knew:
1. DARYL MURDOCH HAD TOLD IRENE CHATHAM HE WAS ON HIS WAY TO THE CHURCH.
2. IRENE’S CAR HAD SPED FROM HER DRIVE AT SHORTLY BEFORE 5 P.M.
The conclusion seemed inescapable: Irene came to the church. I pressed my fingers against my temples. She was at the church, but it wasn’t her whom Bayroo had seen or her car that Bayroo recognized.
However, Irene told me, “I didn’t meet him. I swear I didn’t. When I saw—” She’d broken off, claimed she hadn’t seen anyone. I thought she was lying. Irene had a talent for lies.
Irene had seen something. Or someone. I had to get the truth from her. I would do whatever I had to do. Time was racing ahead.
How long had Bayroo been gone. Twenty minutes? Half an hour?
How much time did Bayroo have left?
Irene bent into the freezer in the kitchen. When she spoke, as she reached for a large tray, her voice sounded hollow. “I’ll get some cookies out, heat them up. It would be nice if we had a snack for everyone.”
Another volunteer was bustling out of the kitchen with baskets of chips. She called over her shoulder, “Good idea, Irene. Be back in a minute.”
Irene moved to a big oven, turned it, set the temperature. She looked absorbed, almost cheerful. She liked being helpful. She might be a compulsive gambler, a thief, and a liar, but she enjoyed helping people and working with children and keeping the Lord’s house immaculate and holy.
I appeared. I spoke gently. “Irene, we need your help.”
She whirled, backed against the stove. “You.” It was a gasp. “I’ll call the police chief.”
“We’ll talk to him in a minute.” Please God, yes, with a name and the hope and prayer that Bayroo was still safe.
Irene glared. “He said you were a fake. I don’t have to talk to you. I don’t have to say a word.”
“Bayroo Abbott’s been kidnapped. You are the only person who can save her.”
Her sallow face flushed. “That’s crazy. If you’re accusing me of hurting Bayroo, I never, never would.”
“Irene, listen closely.” She was one of those women—Bobby Mac believed this to be true of all women—who never hear any statement without taking it personally. “Daryl Murdoch’s murderer kidnapped Bayroo. Bayroo was in the preserve Thursday evening and saw a car. We have to find out what car she saw.”
“I didn’t see any car except—” She clapped a hand to her mouth.
Panic flickered in her eyes.
“You were here at the church.” I felt a surge of triumph.
Her shoulders tightened in a defensive posture. She stared at me, fear mixing with stubbornness.
“What did you see? Was it Kirby Murdoch? Judith?” Even as I asked, I was unconvinced. Neither had been in the parish hall during the Spook Bash.
Irene’s eyes jerked toward the door into the parish hall. She tried to slide away.
I blocked her escape. “Bayroo’s been gone a long time now.” I heard the tremor in my voice.
Her face crumpled. “If I admit I was here, they can say I killed him and I swear I didn’t. I got here and I saw him, and when I saw the policewoman I thought he was going to have me arrested and so I left.”
My hand closed on her arm. “Policewoman?”
Her face drooped in remembered fear. “She was walking toward him.”
“Are you sure it was a police officer?” I struggled to understand.
“Of course I’m sure.” She sounded angry. “I may be in trouble, but I’ve got eyes that see. She had on that uniform, just like you do, but I know she’s a real police officer. She gave me a ticket once. Officer Leland.”
“Anita Leland.” Anita Leland, who had often followed Daryl Murdoch, knew his daily routine.
Irene’s eyes were empty. “There wasn’t any reason for him to have a policewoman come to the church.” Her lips quivered. “Except for me.”
Her voice was so low I could scarcely hear. She flung up her head and the words came fast as rocks thrown by an angry crowd. “If I’d had a gun, I would have been glad to shoot him. Father Bill was going to let me pay everything back. I would have. Somehow. But Daryl wanted everyone to know. He wanted me to go to jail. I hated him. I turned and ran to my car. I was afraid to go home. I drove around for hours and finally I was so tired, I drove up my street and the houses were dark and no one was waiting for me. And now . . .”
I heard Irene’s bitter tirade while the puzzle pieces slotted into a perfect pattern. I’d tried to jam the wrong shapes together, poking a weak-willed woman into the role of a quick-thinking, opportunistic, coolheaded adversary.
Anita Leland hated Daryl Murdoch. Anita blamed Daryl for her sister’s husband’s suicide and her sister’s disappearance. Anita had planned to shoot Daryl Wednesday evening at his cabin, but she looked through the window and saw Kathleen and the red silk nightgown. Anita changed her plan, decided his death on the rectory back porch would provide a ready-made suspect.
Anita had been warned to stop her ticketing campaign against Daryl. Thursday even
ing she stopped him as he left his office. She didn’t give him a ticket, so why . . . Maybe she told him there had been trouble at the church, a break-in, and he told her he was on his way there, would meet her in the parking lot.
Anita didn’t park in the church lot. She hid the police car in the nature preserve, walked the few hundred yards to the parking lot, met Daryl. Perhaps he had been told the problem was at the rectory and he walked willingly with her to the back door and onto the porch.
Anita shot him. Did she tell him who she was when she held the gun to his head? She shot him and slipped through the gathering gloom, seen by no one. She must have felt very safe when she reached the preserve. Bayroo heard the crunch of leaves. Was it at the time of Anita’s departure for the church or at the time of her return? Whichever, Bayroo had been frightened until she saw the car. A police car.
This afternoon, Bayroo turned away the story of her derring-do, saying she’d been scared until she saw the car.
Anita Leland could not let Bayroo describe that car.
I looked at the clock above the stainless-steel sinks. A quarter to seven. Now the shadows were falling, dusk turning to dark. And Bayroo . . . My throat ached.
“. . . you want me to tell that policeman I was there.” Irene was talking again. “He knows about the money. What if he won’t listen? He won’t think a police officer could be involved. Oh”—she choked back a sob—“I have to tell him. Do you think we can save Bayroo?”
I blinked back a tear. Irene Chatham was an unlikely heroine, downtrodden, frightened, querulous, selfish, yet kind at heart, wanting to do right but failing and falling as we all so often and easily do.
I gave her a swift hug. “You can do it. You’re strong, Irene. This will put a star in your crown.”
She looked startled. I resisted an urge to reassure her that Heaven was all and more than she could ever imagine and someday all despair would be gone for her, all sadness and tribulation.
I grasped her elbow and turned her toward the entrance to the parish hall. “I’ll be right there with you.” In a manner of speaking.