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

by Jonni Good

  “Sure. It happens all the time.”

  “It hurts, though.” He brushed the tears off his face with the sleeve of Sam’s big sweatshirt.

  Sam came back through the door. He stopped when he saw me and Gabe cuddled up together on the loveseat.

  Gabe said to me, quietly, “What should I do?”

  “Maybe you could give him a hug. He looks like he needs one.”

  He threw the comforter aside and stood up. Jocko started to jump down, too, but I made him stay with me. Gabe walked towards Sam in his bare feet, hesitantly. Then they both started to walk more quickly, and met near the dire wolf. Sam put his arms around his son and held on, as if he was never going to let go.

  I got up and went back into the kitchen, to give Sam and Gabe some time alone.

  I added some sticks to the fire to warm the place up a little more, and took off my jacket. When Sam and Gabe came back into the kitchen we all sat on the heated bench under Gabe’s comforter. The bench was hard, but it was warm. Chance crawled onto my lap, but changed his mind and moved over to sit on Gabe, instead.

  “So, what am I going to do now?” Gabe said. “I don’t want to hurt Dad’s feelings, but I want to live here with you.”

  Sam looked at me, sending me the same question with his raised eyebrows. It was all so new to him, he hadn’t had time to think it through. He reached behind Gabe’s head to touch my shoulder. His hand was trembling slightly. I turned my head and kissed his fingers.

  “I think we can work something out,” I said. “Practically half the kids in my after-school drama class have two moms or two dads, because their parents get divorced and remarried. Having two dads is almost normal.”

  I picked at a loose thread in the comforter. “If you spend a lot of time in West Elmer, I guess we need to move over to Sam’s house.” I hoped I would be included in this new family unit, but we hadn’t talked about it, and I was nervous.

  Sam said, “I thought we were going to fix up the studio for a living room? Gabe promised to help. We can’t start the new cob heater until the ground thaws so we can get the clay, but we can start working on the rest of it.”

  “How would we heat the living room during the winter?” I said.

  “We’ve got a furnace down in the cellar. We can shut off all the vents except the ones to the new living room and the new bedroom. It wouldn’t cost much. I’m spending at least that much to keep my place warm, and nobody lives there. We just shut off the water at my house and we turn off the heat. We’ll probably save money.”

  He grinned, noticing that I noticed all the times he said the word ‘we’ in those sentences. I was pretty sure he did it on purpose. I grinned back at him.

  “Gabe,” he said, “you won’t be able to move into the new bedroom until we get that new window in. It wouldn’t be safe.”

  “I can sleep on the couch,” Gabe said. “I don’t mind.”

  “We need to slow down a little,” I said. “We can’t make any plans until Gavril’s here. It wouldn’t be fair. Let’s go to bed and sleep on it, OK? I’m really tired, and we have a big crew coming over for breakfast in the morning.”

  Before we went upstairs, I moved Molly’s bath rug to the top of the heated bench. Her big old head moved as she watched the maneuver, and she used her nose to investigate this new placement of what was now, officially, her rug. She looked up at Sam.

  “Go ahead, Molly. You get up there as soon as we’re not looking, anyway.”

  Chance thought the rug was a good idea, too, and he almost beat Molly to it. I needed to find two new rugs.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Jocko got me up at 4:32 a.m., as usual. I let him and Molly outside. I tried to take my shower and do my other morning chores quietly so Gabe could sleep in, but Chance had other ideas. He twined around my ankles, yowling for breakfast. Gabe woke up and popped off the couch before five o’clock, ready for the day.

  The bell over the front door rang a few minutes after seven o’clock, and I went out to meet Gavril in the museum. Angie came with him, which surprised me. She usually opens the diner at six-thirty for breakfast, even on Sundays.

  When she saw my raised eyebrows, she said. “I’m taking the day off. Let ‘em sue me.”

  We were nearing the sculpted camel when Gavril stopped and looked around. “These sculptures. I couldn’t see them last night, it was so dark. They’re quite—primordial is perhaps the word.” He turned to me. “You made these?”

  I nodded, confessing to the deed. “A lot of people helped, though.”

  “Why put a camel next to a wolf?” he said. “And this thing with the mace on his tail, and the armor? This is what? An armadillo of some sort?”

  “You don’t want the Latin names, do you?”

  He shook his head. Then he turned around, slowly, to see more of the sculptures. He stopped when he was facing the front of the building. The mammoth standing outside was a dark silhouette against a brilliant pink sunrise. Gavril stood still, momentarily mesmerized by the sun’s gaudy show.

  Angie and I glanced at each other, and smiled. Then I led them into the kitchen. Mort and Josie were coming into the kitchen through the back door at the same time.

  Josie looked at me, raised one eyebrow, and then glanced surreptitiously at Sam. I nodded, and held up a thumb. She let out a long breath, smiled, and went directly to Gavril, who was starting to take off his coat. She herded him back out into the museum.

  Angie was about to ask why. “We’ll tell you later,” I said.

  While Josie talked to Gavril, I called Mildred’s house. Rita answered. I told her that it was safe for her and Pete to go home. Our plan was for Emma to stop by and pick up Mildred at the normal time, and take her to church.

  Sam had pancake batter ready and bacon on the grill. Gabe was wearing his own clothes, the jeans and sweater that went through the washer the day before. Sam put him to work slicing a loaf of Josie’s home-made bread they found downstairs in the freezer. It was still slightly frozen, but Gabe was able to saw through it with the bread knife. A trip through the toaster, and it would be perfect. Angie set the table while Mort and I stood around, not doing anything useful at all.

  Sam’s phone rang while he was turning the bacon on the grill. He listened for a few seconds, and then handed the bowl of pancake batter to Angie, and joined Josie and Gavril in the museum.

  Angie put the bowl on the counter and glared at me. “Later,” I said. “Be patient.”

  Before ten minutes had passed, Josie, Sam and Gavril came back into the kitchen. My mother went to Gabe and gave him a big hug. She said, “Does this make me your grandma? Sort of?”

  The boy grinned. “Sure!” he said.

  He looked at Mort, who smiled, looking altogether pleased with himself. “Why not?” he said. “You need somebody around who can teach you a few things.”

  Angie watched all this through narrowed eyes, then gave up and poured the pancake batter onto the grill.

  We hurried through breakfast. A few minutes before eight o’clock, Emma called. I put down my fork and answered the phone. When the call ended, everyone sitting at the table was looking at me. “Emma has the baby ready,” I said. “She’ll be at church a little early, as usual. She’ll stop and pick up Mildred, but she promised she won’t explain anything to her mother until after Molly’s finished with her job.”

  There was a collective sigh of relief. Emma’s part in the plan was always a gamble because she was so close to John Owen. He had been her pastor for years. Now we knew she was still willing to play her part.

  “Goes to show you,” Josie said. “Blood’s thicker than water.”

  I never understood that old saying before, but now it made sense. Emma didn’t speak to her sister for 20-odd years, but Gwyneth was still her sister. If the pastor was the one who killed her, Emma wanted him brought to justice as much as we did.

  Mort’s phone rang at 8:14 a.m. When Mort ended the call, he said, “It’s all set.”

  He pus
hed back his chair with a scraping noise against the floor, and said. “Let’s get a move on. Constantin, we’ll go in your rig, if you don’t mind.”

  We left the breakfast dishes sitting on the table. Sam, Molly and Gabe were the only ones who had any role in the morning’s events, but the rest of us wanted to watch.

  When we left the museum, Mort made a point of turning the lock on the front door. Jocko didn’t get to go, and his outraged barks could be heard until we crawled into Gavril’s Ford Explorer and shut the doors.

  Sam and Gabe didn’t join us in the car. They would walk the five blocks to the church with Molly.

  Gabe held Molly’s leash without pulling on the bloodhound’s harness. It was his job to follow, not direct. If anyone saw them and asked, Sam would say they were taking Molly for a walk. If they asked why the dog was wearing her working harness, Gabe could say he was learning how to work with a tracking hound, which was true. Or true enough, anyway.

  We arrived at the church right on time, at 8:35 a.m., five minutes after the service was scheduled to begin. Mort pointed at an unmarked car parked off Andersen Street and across from the door to the church office. Wally was in a good position to get a video of Molly as she worked.

  Mort asked Gavril to park a little way down on Andersen so we could see both the front door set into the bell tower and the office door on the side. With the intersection between us and the church, it was less likely that late-comers would notice us.

  We pulled up to the curb. Mort’s phone rang. He picked it up and listened for a few seconds. Then he said, “They’re a block away. I can see them now … What do you mean ‘is she any good?’ She won that big award a few years back. Of course she’s good—OK, they’re here. They’re giving the old girl another sniff of the woman’s shoe. You’ll see them in a second.”

  He broke off the call and rolled down his window. A ragged rendition of Amazing Grace could be heard, barely, as the service was getting started inside the church. The Blue Malachi version we heard in the kitchen the day before was much nicer. We all turned and looked over our shoulders to see Sam and Gabe walking casually up the street.

  To my untrained eye, Molly wandered almost aimlessly, the same way she did whenever she was taken out for a walk. It could be exasperating at times, because she stopped to analyze every molecule of every scent she finds along the way. She was moving no faster now. They turned the corner and started walking down the side street, getting closer to the office door.

  Mort said, excitedly. “Look—she’s found the trail.”

  “How can you tell?” Angie, Josie and Gavril asked, all at the same time. I couldn’t see any obvious difference in Molly’s behavior, either, except that she left the sidewalk and was now pushing her muzzle through the snow at the curb. Her tail was moving a little faster—maybe that was the sign. Sam looked up at the unmarked car across the street, and nodded. Mort was right. Molly was on the trail.

  The old bloodhound turned and walked, nose to the ground, across the snow-covered parking strip, then down the sidewalk, and, finally, up the concrete walkway that leads to the office door. Many footsteps had packed the snow on the sidewalk and up to that door, but Molly still found the scent she was looking for.

  When they reached the door, Molly put her nose to the crack below the door, and then, satisfied that she’d done her job, she sat down. Sam tried to get her interested in the door knob, but she paid no attention to him. That meant John Owen was a gentleman who opened the door for his intended victim.

  Wally opened his car door and walked across the street to talk to Sam. Gabe showered Molly with praise and gave her a good ear rub. The old hound looked rather pleased with herself, in a bloodhound sort of way.

  Angie moved to open the back door of the SUV, but Mort stopped her.

  “Not yet,” he said. “They don’t need a bunch of yahoos getting in the way.”

  A deputy opened the driver’s door of the unmarked and held up a cell phone. Wally nodded, spoke to Sam, shook hands with Gabe, and then headed across the intersection towards our vehicle.

  Wally came up to Mort’s open window. “Now we wait,” he said. He turned so he could watch as Sam and Gabe walked away from us down the side street, still pretending to be a couple of guys walking their dog.

  “Why?” Angie said from the middle seat. “What are we waiting for?”

  “Warrant,” Mort said. “They’ve got a deputy down at Paul Haase’s office, because the lawyer. As soon as the warrant’s printed out, the deputy brings it over and they go in. They can’t do a thing without the paperwork.”

  “Wally,” I said, loud enough to be heard from the back seat, “that note in Sonje’s purse was a page taken from a letter she wrote to her mother. The rest of it is probably still at Mildred’s house.”

  Wally gave me a mock salute to acknowledge that he heard me. Then he turned back around, his left shoulder twitching nervously, waiting for the deputy.

  There weren’t any pedestrians out walking through the snow, but a few cars drove by on Andersen Street and slowed when they saw Wally beside our car. The drivers waved as custom requires, and both Wally and Mort waved back. Then the cars kept moving down the street.

  Mort opened the passenger door and stepped out of the car when the deputy drove up in a patrol car and parked behind the unmarked. Wally handed Mort a pair of latex gloves so he could assist in the search, and the old retired lawman grinned like he’d just won the lottery.

  From that point on, all activity happened out of sight, inside the church office. Sam and Gabe walked back with Molly and joined us. Sam stayed outside with the bloodhound. Gabe climbed into the front of the vehicle and took Mort’s seat. We waited.

  Angie couldn’t sit still. She turned to Josie, who was sitting beside her. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on or not? What was that deal about you being a grandma? I’m pretty sure Gabe isn’t Utah’s secret love child.”

  Gabe giggled in the front seat.

  “Well?” Angie said. “Spill it.”

  Gavril explained the situation. After answering a few questions about the discovery of the relationship between Gabe and Sam, he said, “Gabriel will stay here with Sam and Utah. I am so relieved. A lady on the plane suggested a boarding school she knew about. I knew Gabriel would hate me if I even brought it up, but my life is so uncertain right now, I didn’t know what else to do.”

  “But you’re still going to be one of my dads, aren’t you, Dad?” Gabe said.

  Gavril reached across the center console and put his hand on his step-son’s arm. “Of course I am. I promised your mother, remember? Always.”

  The final hymns were sung and about sixteen people slowly left the church, shaking John Owen’s hand as they filed out. Most of the parishioners were elderly women. I couldn’t help but wonder how the church stayed open as long as it did.

  Pete Hansen came out with Rita, and even from all the way across the intersection he looked happier than I’d seen him in a long time. His night guarding Mildred did him a world of good.

  Emma stopped in front of the pastor and let him put out a finger for little Grace to hold. John Owen spoke to Mildred, too, without showing any surprise at all that she was still among the living. Of course, we didn’t see his reaction when she first arrived before the service.

  Emma and her mother walked away from the church, down the front walk, and across the intersection to join us. Mildred looked confused, which was natural, because she wasn’t part of the plan—but she was alert and walking straight, with no obvious lasting effects from her close encounter with a killer.

  Josie opened the side door. “Angie, you and Utah jump out for a minute so Emma and Mildred can join us. There’s a few things we need to talk about, and we might as well do it while we wait.”

  I was happy to comply. I was sitting in the fold-down seat at the back of the SUV, and it wasn’t made for someone with my long legs. Angie and I joined Sam and Molly near the front of the car.

&nb
sp; “So, what is Josie cooking up now?” Angie said.

  “A family,” I said.

  Angie and I both turned to look in the window of the SUV. Gavril was holding Grace awkwardly. Angie said, “He’ll be a good father, once he gets used to the idea.”

  I hoped she was right.

  We waited at least fifteen more minutes, and it was cold. I snuggled next to Sam, partly to stay a little warmer. Finally, Mort and Wally came out of the church office, holding clear plastic Ziploc bags containing a cell phone, a plastic pill bottle, and a paperback book. They held them up so we could see, and then handed the bags to the deputy and pulled off their latex gloves.

  When the sheriff was sure there were no worshipers still in the church he arrested John Owen, pastor of West Elmer’s General Baptist church, on the charge of first degree murder. He went peacefully to the patrol car, and they drove away. The show was over.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Mort talked to Sam for a few minutes. Sam nodded and motioned to Gabe to get out of the vehicle and join him. He and Gabe started walking Molly back home.

  Mort opened the back door of the SUV and laid out the plan.

  “Wally told that mob of reporters outside his office that Gavril is at the museum. He didn’t want them following him out here because they’d get in his way during the search. They’ll be camped out in front of the museum when we get back.”

  We all groaned.

  “So here’s what we’ll do. We’ll drive around to Josie’s trailer. Emma, you have the baby seat, so you and Mildred can follow us. Most of you will get out there, and walk to the museum through the garden. There’s no point in you having to fight your way through that crowd. Utah, you come with us and talk to the reporters. You’re good at that. Gavril, you want to hold little Grace during the inquisition? Might make the reporters a little more civilized with the baby there.”

  “No,” I said. “Leave the baby out of it. Molly should be the star of the show. She’s the hero of the moment. Angie, do you have your smart phone with you?”