A Lonely Way to Die: A Utah O'Brien Mystery Novel (Minnesota Mysteries Series Book 2)

by Jonni Good

  I clicked on the 3D Warehouse link and found a model of a lean-to greenhouse. I stuck it on the south wall of the building where it would connect with my studio, replacing the big southern window. I messed around a little with a crude design for the new wood heater, first making a long bench, like the one in the kitchen. Then I changed it so the heated cob was a raised floor in the greenhouse. Josie has wanted a greenhouse for years.

  The music turned off. Gabe watched as I added a door to the new living room and put in some transom windows above the six-foot wall that separated the studio from the public area of the museum. Magically, in digital form at least, the little apartment suddenly had a real living room.

  “Huh,” I said. “This wouldn’t cost much at all. We could scrounge most of the materials. Pete Hansen would have enough salvaged windows and doors, and his old lumber could be used for the greenhouse.”

  I handed the laptop to Gabe. “I’m out of ideas. You want to mess with it for a while?”

  “Sure.”

  I was about to show him which icons to hit for various functions, but he beat me to it. “Do you use SketchUp in school?” I asked.

  “No. But it’s kind of like Minecraft, only this program is really elementary. It’s sort of obvious.”

  I stuck my tongue out at him. He pretended to not notice, but after a second or two, he grinned. If he was going to keep playing cards with Mort, he’d need to work on his poker face.

  He found the link to files that were uploaded to the program by other users and added some furniture, mostly in a modern style. One couch was bright orange. He put a huge flat-screen TV on the wall separating the studio from the kitchen.

  While Sam and Gabe discussed the technical aspects of enclosing the new living room and the best way to arrange the furniture around Sam’s flat-screen TV, I wiggled around until I was sitting more comfortably. Then I turned on the reading light and flipped through the pages of Sonje McCrae’s book, trying to find the scene where she described the General Baptist church.

  Mark and Gabe both mentioned that Sonje McCrae occasionally used her stories to get even with people who wronged her, or who did something mean to a person she cared about. It was her light-hearted form of justice.

  The church scene in her latest book was the only one I could remember that described a location here in West Elmer. Maybe that was one of her ‘getting even’ stories.

  Nightfall in Babylon had lots of ancient gods, at least fifteen main characters with strange names, and a dwarf or two. There were battles between various armies, and several situations where the female protagonist wanted to date a particular boy, but didn’t get to. None of that really mattered to me at the moment.

  The book was controversial when it first came out because people thought it had an anti-Christian message. I thought it was pro-Christian and anti-hypocrisy, but I’m not an expert on religion. Naturally, the controversy helped Sonje McCrae sell a boatload of books.

  I found the scene I was looking for near the middle of the book. I was right—the scene took place in a church that looked exactly like the General Baptist church here in West Elmer. The stained glass window was the same and the ceiling was too low. No light came through the stained glass window.

  A life-sized Jesus was painted on rough plywood, and the painting was propped up at the front of the church, completely hiding the finely polished pulpit behind it.

  The minister was standing behind the pulpit. Sonje described him as a tall, thin man with black hair turning white at the temples. His hair stood out from his head, charged with static electricity. He had a long face, with sad, hound-dog eyes and a nose that curved sideways, as if he’d been in a bar fight and somebody punched him in the nose. He delivered his sermon at a high decibel level to match the anger in his words.

  The congregation was getting worked up and some of them were standing and waving their fists. That’s when we see a wicked-looking, misshapen beast hiding behind the painted Jesus. Now we know the preacher is a minion of one of the Ancient Ones, and not a Christian at all.

  “Gotcha.”

  Sam and Gabe looked at me. “What?” they said, in unison.

  “Gabe, I know who killed your mother,” I said.

  “She—you mean, it’s really true? Somebody killed her?”

  Sam leaned his head so he could look directly at Gabe. “I thought you knew that,” he said.

  “Well, I didn’t want her to die at all, but I really didn’t want her to die like they said—” He bit his lip, brushed his sleeve across his face, and closed the laptop. Sam put the laptop on the table on his side of the bed, and put his arm around Gabe’s shoulder.

  “She loved you. You know that, don’t you?”

  Gabe nodded. “Yeah, I always knew that.”

  “Well, then. Even if she had done it herself, it wouldn’t mean she didn’t love you. It would mean her mind was sick and she couldn’t help it.” He gave the boy’s shoulder another squeeze. “But that’s not what happened. We always knew that.”

  I read Sonje’s description of the preacher out loud.

  Sam said, “He sounds a lot older than he was when Sonje lived here. How do you think she got the face right?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. Maybe she found him online. Does the church have a website?”

  “Sure.”

  I said, “I’m sure she wrote this to get even for something John Owen did to her when she still lived here. If he read this book, he’d recognize himself right away. In fact, I can’t believe I didn’t recognize him myself the first time I read it—I guess I was too caught up in the story.”

  I put the book on my lap while I let my mind replay our trip to the church. “I thought he was staring at his bookcase because he was upset for Mildred and he needed a place to rest his eyes. But he was afraid we would see this book. The shelves are kind of a mess, with piles of books and papers all thrown in haphazardly. I’ll bet this book was there, but we didn’t see it. And he claimed he didn’t know Gwyneth had changed her name or that he’d ever read any of Sonje’s books—but of course Mildred would have told him Gwyneth was a writer. You’re supposed to tell your pastor everything, aren’t you?”

  “I think that’s just priests,” Sam said. “But sure, she would trust him to keep her secret.”

  I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and called Angie. She answered. “What?”

  “Angie, yesterday at the diner, the pastor was at the counter when Carol Kramer was talking to Sonje. Was he still there when Sonje left?”

  “No. He wandered over and helped Conrad with his crossword while the women were talking, and then he left. It was a few minutes after you were here. Why?”

  “Did you see him drive or walk away?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Tell you later.”

  After I hung up, I jumped off the bed. “That’s how he did it. He walked to the diner, had his coffee, and left. But he didn’t really go anywhere—he waited in the parking lot until she came out. Then he asked her for a ride back to the church. It wasn’t snowing yet, but it was cold. How could she say no? Come on. Let’s go talk to Mort.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  Mort looked up from his card game when we came thundering down the stairs. Josie gave us a dirty look for making so much noise.

  Emma was sitting next to Josie, holding the baby like she never intended to let go.

  Mort got up from the table and went to sit on the other side of my mother. He leaned over Josie so he could wiggle Grace’s foot. The baby giggled.

  I decided to jump right into my spiel. “Emma, that tea you made us drink this afternoon. With the echinacea. Do you know anyone else who drinks that stuff?”

  “Not Mother, that’s for sure. She doesn’t even like to be in the same room with it. She says it smells bad. I don’t think it’s that bad, really—”

  I said to Mort, “That’s why Mildred only got a small dose. The painkillers were in a cup of that tea, but she dumped it out when he wa
sn’t looking. He’s probably waiting for someone to call him and tell him she’s dead. It would look like another suicide, a mother distraught because of her daughter’s death.”

  Emma was looking at me intensely. “What do you mean? My mother’s just fine. I called her before I came over, and she said Pete and Rita Hansen were still visiting. They were playing Monopoly.”

  “Yes, she’s fine. Who else drinks that tea, besides you?”

  She looked somewhat startled at the urgency in my voice. It was just tea, after all. “I gave some to Mark, but he won’t drink it either. And to Pastor Owen. He says he hates the taste but he drinks it anyway. People think God will send them to detention or something if they miss church, even if they’re coughing and sneezing. He says it really helps his immune system.”

  I turned and smiled at Sam. He grinned back. We had our bad guy, and, best of all, it wasn’t Emma. Now we had to figure out how to prove it.

  I turned a kitchen chair around, away from the table, so it faced the couch. Sam and Gabe did the same, and we sat there in a line with the table behind us. I was on one end of the line, Gabe was on the other, and Sam was in the middle. Our knees almost touched those of the people sitting on the couch. Jocko sat next to Gabe and watched the strange proceedings.

  I started to giggle.

  Josie was concerned. “Utah, are you all right?”

  I nodded, and forced myself to stop. “It’s the chairs,” I said. “Sam’s right. We really need a normal living room.”

  Josie looked at Mort and shook her head. He winked back at her, and gave her a wet kiss on the cheek. She leaned away from him, but she couldn’t help but smile.

  Gavril came in the back door and hung my old jacket up on a peg. He was wearing Mort’s crocheted cardigan, the one with various colors of blue triangles separated by thin black lines. The sweater was way too big for him.

  I suspected that Mort offered the use of his sweater so Josie wouldn’t have to see the man’s tight t-shirt and that beautiful Celtic artwork on his arm. Sam turned and smiled at me. Maybe he didn’t like the man’s tattoo, either. I smiled back at him and fingered the elbow of his green plaid wool shirt. He grinned.

  Mort spoke up. “We didn’t expect you back so soon, Constantin. Grab a chair and join us. This involves you, too.”

  Gavril was a good sport about it, even pretending he didn’t notice how odd the seating arrangement was. After he thanked Mort for loaning him the sweater, he took a chair from the head of the table and moved it so it was between the table and the couch, with his right knee touching Gabe’s left knee. Our seating arrangement was now a tight rectangle, with one end missing.

  The bell over the front door of the museum tinkled, and soon after that, Angie walked into the room. She saw us all lined up, grinned, walked around the table and set a chair on the other end of the group, facing Gavril. “What’s up?” she said.

  I wondered why she was there, but only for a second. I turned to Sam, guiltily, and gave him a toothy grin that rivaled the one the spaniel gave to Ernest Rupertsson. “I sort of told Angie you would cook supper.”

  “Skip it,” Angie said. “You’re onto something. Spill it.”

  I quickly introduced Gavril to Angie. Then I took a deep breath and tried to remain calm.

  “Mort,” I said, “what did you learn from John Meecham?”

  “Nothing. He sat there on the couch with his wife and lied to me, like I expected.” He stopped and glanced off to the side, as if he was looking for the exit. Then he sighed.

  “One of his lies was that he didn’t have anything to do with Gwyneth Price when she was still in high school. He probably tried, and she turned him down. But he said that he knew for a fact that John Owen had the hots for the girl. The preacher was in his mid-twenties when he first came here, so he wasn’t all that much older than Gwyneth. Of course, I didn’t believe it.”

  I said, “I wouldn’t have believed it, either. But maybe it takes one to know one. Womanizers, I mean. If John Owen did make a pass at Gwyneth, or worse, he must have changed his ways or there would have been rumors about other women since then.”

  I read the the passage in the book out loud, and told them about my conversation with Mark.

  Mort wanted to know how the preacher would even recognize the woman after all these years. “I didn’t recognize her myself. In fact, everyone says how much she changed, with the hair and all—”

  I held up Sonje’s book so he could see the photo on the back.

  Emma spoke up. “You can’t believe that our pastor killed—” She looked quickly at Gabe, uncomfortable about the conversation he was hearing. She evidently decided it was too late to shield him from it, and continued. “He’s always been the kindest man in the world. You know him, Josie. You know he couldn’t do something like this. Why would he?”

  I answered, “Because something happened when Sonje, I mean Gwyneth, was still living here. She was only sixteen, and he did something that he’s not proud of. If he read this passage in her book and then he finds out she’s moving back to town, he would think she was about to expose him. He was worried about his standing in the community—”

  Mort interrupted. “There’s other people who could have done it who might have more of a motive.” His eyes flitted momentarily to Emma, who was still holding the baby.

  “There’s the flask, too,” I said. “We thought it was a blind alley, but it’s not.”

  I turned to Angie to explain. “Gabe told us that Sonje drank whiskey from that flask every day at exactly four in the afternoon. The flask was in her coat pocket when Molly found it this morning, and it was full. The coroner said there was no drug in the whiskey. If there had been an opiate in the whiskey, and if she drank it, our bad guy would be Gavril, because he’s the only one who had access to the flask before Sonje drove out here from the city. Of course, that would only work if he happened to be in the city yesterday before she drove out here, which he wasn’t.” I leaned over so I could reach across Sam and put my hand on Gabe’s knee. “Sorry, Gabe. And Gavril. Just thinking out loud.”

  Gabe said, “That’s OK. Since it wasn’t him.”

  Gavril said, “I didn’t know your mother drank. She always said—well, never mind.”

  I was starting to feel like I was giving a presentation in front of a crowd. I guess I was, in a way. “So, it couldn’t have been Gavril because he wasn’t here. The coroner can’t say exactly when she died because it was so cold out, but we do know it was before four o’clock. Or at least she had to be incapacitated before four o’clock. If it had been later, the flask wouldn’t be full.

  “She drank coffee at the diner with Carol Kramer. Coffee wouldn’t mask the taste, and she wouldn’t drink bad coffee in a restaurant to be polite.

  “But Emma’s echinacea tea tastes pretty awful—sorry Emma, but it does—and how would Sonje know why it tasted bad? Someone would give her a cup, tell her it tastes bad because of the herbs, and Sonje would drink it to be polite, like Sam and I did this afternoon—sorry again, Emma. Then our bad guy lets Sonje get back in her car and she drives away. He assumes she’ll drive off the road and it will look like a car accident, but she started feeling strange and stopped at the diner, after the diner was already closed. The drug acted fast, she lost her way, and—”

  “And she wouldn’t have felt a thing,” Josie said, looking pointedly at me.

  Sam put his arm tight around Gabe’s shoulder. “That’s true. It would be like going to sleep. She wouldn’t have felt a thing.”

  I wasn’t so sure that was true, but I was already feeling a twinge of guilt. The kid was a few months away from thirteen and he’d seen plenty of crime shows on TV—but when it’s your own mother, it’s different. The twinge went away when Gabe leaned around Sam and thanked me for figuring out what happened to his mom. He got up from his chair and went between Sam and Josie, careful to not step on anyone’s feet, and gave me a hug. I hugged him back and kissed him on the cheek.

 
“I’m so sorry you’ve had to go through all this,” I said, before he went back in his seat. “It isn’t fair.”

  When he sat back down, his step-father ran his hand through the boy’s hair. I leaned back so I could watch Jocko, to make sure he was OK with this strange man touching Gabe. My dog was on alert, but he relaxed when Gabe’s hand came down and stroked Jocko’s ear.

  Emma had been sitting quietly, pensively, for most of our conversation. Now she spoke. “What you said before, about my mother. Are you saying that Pastor Owen gave my mother a cup of tea with those painkillers in it? Why would he do that?”

  I wasn’t sure, but I answered, anyway. “Maybe he thought Gwyneth told you mother what the pastor did, back when it happened. Maybe he figured Mildred didn’t believe Gwyneth at the time, because nobody expects a man of God to act like that.”

  I glanced at my mother. She was nodding, with her mouth held firmly in a grim line. I continued, “But now that Gwyneth was dead, he assumed that Mildred would start thinking about what her daughter told her all those years ago. He couldn’t allow that to happen.”

  Josie said, “I doubt that Gwyneth told Mildred, anyway. Even if she didn’t believe it, she wouldn’t keep it to herself. We would have heard about it.”

  “It’s a good theory,” Mort said, “but you’ve still got a problem. If you think we can get a warrant just because somebody might have read a book, you’re nuts. We need something else.”

  “Medical records?” I said. “If he has a prescription for painkillers?”

  “Too hard to get without a fight. Privacy, you know.” Mort ran his big hands over his bald head, and frowned. “This might be one of those times—”

  “He hurt his back last year,” Emma said, no longer protesting the man’s innocence. “He slipped on the ice right outside his office door. He made us all pray for him.”

  “Not enough for a warrant,” Mort said. “They give those pills out like candy. Half the medicine cabinets in town probably—”