by Lauren Carr
“An argument could be made that she killed him to save them,” Archie said.
“Proof of any of this?” Stafford asked.
“The killer could not have been hiding in the garden like we first thought,” Mac said, “because both Scarlett and her daughter stated that Tuyon Weber came running up the driveway when she heard the shots.”
“Yet, she told the police she saw and heard nothing,” Archie pointed out.
“She lied to protect Fairbanks’ wife,” Stafford said.
“The killer couldn’t have been hiding in or come from the garden without Mrs. Weber seeing him because she was gardening,” Mac repeated. “However, physical evidence proves that the killer had been in the garden.” He flipped a page in the Fairbanks case file. “The proof is in the chicken poop.”
“Chicken poop?” Stafford almost brought the page up to his nose to read it.
“Tuyon Weber made her own custom plant fertilizer,” Mac said. “One of the ingredients is chicken poop. Forensics found traces of it in footprints found at the scene. They also found traces of it in dirt left on the grip of the gun. Holly Fairbanks remembers seeing Tuyon Weber putting on her gardening gloves when they were leaving. She wore them when she pulled the trigger.”
“And the chicken poop proves this?”
“If the killer had simply walked through her garden or hidden there, then the chicken poop would have ended up on his shoes to leave footprints.” Mac pointed at the forensics report in the case file. “But, it wasn’t found only on the floor. It was also on the grip of the gun, which proves the killer handled the fertilizer, as well—which is what Mrs. Weber was doing at the time she heard the gun shots.”
Stafford closed the two folders. “I guess we need to issue a warrant to bring this Weber woman in for questioning.”
“Won’t do you any good,” Mac said. “She’s already dead.”
Stafford looked from Mac to Archie and then back again.
“Stafford, the attorney general is on the phone for you,” a young woman called to him from the doorway. “Defense attorneys are flooding the circuit court with appeals.”
Seeing beads of sweat on Stafford’s forehead, Mac pressed. “If I were you, I’d drop the charges against Scarlett Fairbanks, file the Fairbanks murder under suspect dead and unavailable for prosecution, and throw the book at Reese Fairbanks for causing this mess in the first place.”
“Sounds good to me.” Stafford slapped the case file closed. “We’ll have an arrest warrant first thing in the morning. Tell those detectives to not leave Spencer without Fairbanks in custody.”
Within an hour, Spencer Church erupted with a joyous cheer that could be heard out on the lake. Natalie hugged her grandmother while Ruth hugged Carmine.
Everyone was so busy hugging and crying tears of joy that no one noticed when Gnarly jumped up onto the buffet table to steal a chicken breast and escape to the children’s chapel with it.
In her office, when she heard the news, Edna threw her arms around Officer Nathan Brewster to kiss him on the lips. Realizing the unexpected display of affection, she just as quickly pulled away. “I didn’t mean to do that.” Flustered, she explained, “I’m just so thankful to you and everyone for being so patient and not pushing …”
“No problem, ma’am.”
“Edna,” she corrected him.
“Truthfully, I’m kind of sorry that this assignment has ended,” Brewster explained. “The view here is really pretty, and I kind of liked it.”
“Even pulling out my file cabinet?”
“Hey, if you ever need anything pulled out, day or night,” Brewster jerked his thumb toward his chest, “I’m your man.”
“I wouldn’t promise things like that, if I were you.” Blushing, Edna looked down at her feet. “Need I remind you that I’m a single mom with two little girls? My honey-do list is quite extensive.”
Brewster grinned back at her. “I’ll be glad to look at your list anytime. I’m off work tomorrow.”
“So am I,” she said. “I have Fridays and Saturdays off since I work on Sundays.”
“How about if I come over to your place and take a look at your honey-do list?”
Expectantly, Sirrus Thorpe rushed into the office with a plate filled with chicken and potato salad and beans. “I saw that you hadn’t gotten any dinner yet, Miss Edna, so I took the liberty of fixing a plate for you. If you waited any longer, then you were going to miss out on my potato salad.”
Edna’s cheeks turned pink. “Thank you, Sirrus, but I already ate.”
Sirrus’ face fell when he saw the dirty plate already resting in the center of Edna’s desk. He looked up at Officer Brewster.
“I’m sorry, Sirrus,” Edna said.
With a wide grin on her face, Deborah came into the office. “Oh, great, Sirrus, I see you made a plate for me. I was so busy talking to everyone that I didn’t get a chance to get any. Is this your potato salad? I was afraid I was going to miss out.” Taking the plate in one hand, and Sirrus by the arm with the other, Deborah turned him around and they headed out the door. As they turned the corner to go into the fellowship hall, the pastor winked at them.
“I like Pastor Deborah,” Brewster said.
“So do I.”
Leaning against her desk, he asked, “Now, where were we?”
“My honey-do list.”
“Am I being too forward by offering?” Brewster asked.
“No,” she replied. “There’s a ton of small things that need fixed. Starting with a hole in our privacy fence so that Rack, Shack, and Benny can play outside.”
“Rack, Shack—”
“And Benny,” Edna said. “Our dogs. They’re Chihuahuas. Two sisters and a brother. My daughters named them after characters in a Veggie Tales movie. Benny dug a hole under the fence and as soon as he gets out, he takes off. Plus, the railing is loose on our deck and I worry that the girls are going to fall—” Stopping, she shook her head. “Oh, I’m terrible. You must think that I’m taking terrible advantage of you.”
“Hey, I’m begging you to take advantage of me.” He stuck out his chest. “I’ll bring my tool chest and we’ll get Benny penned in tight before you can say ‘Gringo.’”
“And I’ll make you lunch,” she said.
“Don’t make it a big one,” Brewster said. “We have reservations for the Spencer Inn at eight o’clock.”
She kissed him again. “I can’t wait, Nate.”
He kissed her back. “Neither can I.”
“Hey, Brewster!” Bogie slammed his palm against the wall when he came in, causing both Brewster and Edna to jump at the abrupt noise.
Even Gnarly, sitting at Bogie’s side, was cocking his head at the two of them with a suspicious glint in his brown eyes that made them feel guilty enough to back up a full step from each other.
“I know you’re going to be sorry to hear this, but the state prosecutor in New York has dropped the charges against Ruth. That means you and Fletcher can go back to the station and check in with Tonya before signing out. Have a great weekend and see you when you’re back on duty Monday morning.” He winked at the office manager. “You, too, Edna.”
“Thank you, Bogie,” she replied, “for everything.” She gazed up at Brewster. “You guys are the best.”
Brewster’s face felt warm. To hide his blush, he turned his attention to Bogie. “What about the detectives from New York who came down to pick up Ruth? How are they taking the news about going back to New York empty handed?”
“That’s right,” Edna said. “I forgot all about them. Aren’t they going to be angry that they came all the way down here for nothing?”
“They’re not going back empty handed,” Bogie said with a laugh. “The FBI and New York Attorney General both want Reese Fairbanks. David called the detectives. They both have appointments with the
masseuse at the Inn’s spa for tomorrow morning and asked that everyone take their time.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“What’s wrong with this case?” David asked Gnarly, who was riding in the front passenger seat of his cruiser.
As if he expected to hear the dog answer, David glanced over at where Gnarly was staring straight ahead through the windshield. He seemed to be scanning the dark road ahead of them in search of his home, Spencer Manor.
David O’Callaghan lived in the same guest cottage at Spencer Manor that Archie Monday had lived in for years. Robin Spencer had stipulated in her will that Archie was permitted to live in the guest cottage for as long as she wanted, even though Mac Faraday inherited the estate. As their relationship grew, Archie had no desire to leave and Mac didn’t want her to move anywhere—except into the main house.
The timing worked out well. At the same time that Archie moved into Spencer Manor, David O’Callaghan’s mother was committed to a nursing home. Unable to live any longer in his run-down childhood home, he accepted Mac’s invitation to move into the stone cottage.
Lately though, he had been spending most of his nights at Chelsea’s lakeside condo.
The news of the charges against Ruth being dropped should have been reason for a night of celebration with Chelsea.
Yet, David’s mind was elsewhere.
The pressure was on. Mac Faraday had solved the murder of Jason Fairbanks. Ruth Buchanan was in the clear. Now the police chief was determined to solve his case sooner rather than later.
Part of the stress was due to a touch of sibling rivalry. He and Mac Faraday may not have grown up together, but there was a familial connection that clicked the instant they met that day when Mac had driven his new, red sports car up to Spencer Manor.
David O’Callaghan didn’t expect to have the instinct and expertise that Mac had developed over twenty years of working as a homicide detective in Washington, D.C. Man, Mac was working murder cases before I had even learned to drive.
This sudden realization did little to ease David’s resolve to solve Eugene’s murder on his own. This is my case and I want to solve it—without my big brother’s help. Sarcastically, he thought, How mature is that?
After a celebratory dinner with Chelsea, David begged off with the excuse that he was tired, which he was. Dragging Gnarly away from his “date” with Molly, David climbed into his cruiser to head back to Spencer Manor.
“I know what’s wrong,” David answered. “Helga Thorpe is not that bright. She’s not smart enough to give us the slip the way she has. Nothing’s on her laptop to indicate that she was planning to do this. Zero activity on her bank accounts and cell phone since she left Wednesday morning. Leaving her purse in Breezewood with all that cash and credit cards? That contradicts her motive.” He shook his finger in Gnarly’s direction. “If Helga’s motive was to take over as chief of the trustees, then why run off?”
David slammed the brake pedal to bring his cruiser to a screeching halt. Gnarly was propelled to the floor. Casting a dark glare at the driver, the dog climbed back up into his seat.
“That’s it! It makes no sense! Either she killed Eugene for another reason or she didn’t do it! I need to take another look at Eugene Newton’s murder.”
David put the cruiser into reverse and backed up into a driveway along the lake shore road to head back to Spencer Church.
Using the key that Reverend Deborah Hess had given him, David let himself in the front door of the darkened church. After switching on the lights, he made his way past Edna’s office and down the business wing.
Gnarly led the way.
“Someone could have killed Eugene so that the church could inherit his fortune,” David murmured while making his way to the business office. “But then, where was Helga during the time of the murder? Maybe she did kill him, planning to frame Chip Van Dorn, who had threatened him, then, after the murder-suicide, realized that we would be looking at her again.” He stopped outside the office.
Gnarly sat down in front of the locked door with the yellow crime scene tape stretched across it.
Using his key, David unlocked the door and swung it open. He turned on the lights and peered inside. Ducking under the tape, he stepped into the office and went over to the desk. Mentally, he re-enacted what had to have been Eugene Newton’s final hour.
“It can’t be that complicated,” David heard a voice come to him from the end of the hallway.
Grabbing his weapon in his holster, David whirled around to find Mac’s silhouette standing in the doorway.
“I thought you weren’t coming back until morning,” David said.
“I chartered a jet to bring me into McHenry. Archie isn’t happy that I dropped her off at the manor and came straight here.” Mac ducked under the tape to enter the office and went behind the desk, being careful to step over the taped outline and blood stains behind the desk.
Sitting at attention, Gnarly sat in the hallway like a guard on duty.
“Where did you park?” David asked.
“Over on the other side of the parking lot.” Mac indicated with a jerk of his thumb. “I beat you here by only a couple of minutes. You came in while I was turning the corner of the building.”
David said, “This building is big enough and has so many rooms and dark corners that someone could have slipped in the back door without Ruth seeing him, sneaked up here to shoot Eugene, and then left without anyone knowing.”
“She swears she didn’t hear the shots.”
David was shaking his head. “Possible if the office door was shut and she was vacuuming on the other end of the building.”
“She didn’t see Eugene’s car until she came to this wing after hearing Gnarly barking when she turned off the vacuum.” Chuckling, Mac folded his arms across his chest. “You aren’t buying that Helga Thorpe killed Eugene Newton.”
David countered. “Why aren’t you buying it?”
“Because her taking off doesn’t fit with her motive for killing him.”
“Eugene left everything to the church,” David said. “Before his murder, they were existing on borrowed time. Now, since his death, all of their money problems are taken care of. Edna Parker is on her way to being a full time church administrator of a million-dollar church.”
“You mean the church lady with the bedroom eyes that Brewster is chasing after?” Mac asked.
“Exactly.”
“But she has an alibi,” Mac argued.
“She has a key to the building,” David said. “She knew Eugene was going to be here alone counting on Tuesday morning. A looker like that, she could have given a gullible man a key to come in to kill Eugene while she established an alibi with her mother and sister.”
“A femme fatale masquerading as a church lady,” Mac said with a grin.
“Edna Parker isn’t certain that she wants the job of full time church administrator,” Reverend Deborah’s voice came out of the darkened corridor. She stepped into the doorway. “I saw the lights on and decided to investigate.”
“Why would she refuse?” David asked. “She’s a single mother with two kids.”
“And her dead-beat husband is years behind in child support,” Deborah said. “But when the board offered her the job, she said she had to think about it. Edna puts her girls first. She likes the flexible hours and being able to come and go as they need her. She’s afraid that she’ll loose that flexibility if she accepts a full time position with so much responsibility. So, as for that being a motive for her killing Eugene—you’re completely off the mark.”
David and Mac exchanged glances before the police chief asked, “How about you, Reverend? Did you know that Eugene was leaving millions of dollars to the church?”
“Yes,” she said, “and I guess I have no alibi since I was just coming in from running at the time he was killed.”
&n
bsp; “How did things change for you since Eugene’s murder?” Mac asked.
“Overall, not good,” Deborah said. “Yes, the money takes away the stress of worrying from one month to the next about if we are going to be forced to closed, but if I wanted a life free of financial stress I would have become a mathematician like my father wanted and I would have married the lawyer my mother tried to fix me up with. Then I wouldn’t have been widowed to raise a child alone before I was thirty because my husband felt called to go build a church in the jungles of South America where he got tortured and executed by guerillas.”
She shrugged her shoulders. “To answer your question, financially, God has always blessed me with all I need.” Her eyes teared up. “I needed Eugene’s friendship and emotional support more than I needed his money.”
Feeling like a jerk, David hung his head.
Gnarly licked the pastor’s hand. She knelt down to pet the German shepherd who licked her face. “I thought you had decided on Helga Thorpe as a prime suspect.”
“We’re trying to piece everything together,” Mac said.
Feeling his phone vibrate on his hip, David ducked under the crime scene tape to slip out into the hallway and down the hall to take the call.
“I’m sorry I didn’t finish marrying you and Archie the other day,” she said while stroking Gnarly. “I completely forgot about that until this evening when Carmine and Ruth announced that they were getting married.”
“Are they?” Mac smiled. “That’s good news.”
“God does have a way of turning things around,” Deborah said. “Ruth could never accept his proposal before because she was afraid that applying for the marriage license would flag her in some way that the police would find her. But now that you’ve cleared her name—none of that would have happened if Eugene hadn’t been murdered.”
David hurried back into the doorway. “They found Helga.”
“Now maybe we’ll get some answers,” Mac said.
“Actually, I think we’re going to get more questions before we get more answers,” David said.