A Murder in Hope's Crossing

by Brooke Shelby

  “Bramble!” Maggie screamed as her familiar went sprawling on the wooden panels of the porch.

  “Forget the runt!” Oroville sneered. “He is useless. He was just as useless when I killed Clara!”

  That was too much for Maggie. She pulled up her free leg and kicked Oroville full in the face. She heard something crack, but her blow only seemed to tighten his grasp on her leg. Before she could land another kick, he grabbed her other ankle as well. Maggie screamed like a stuck pig in order to alert her neighbors, but the wind was howling now and the occasional rumble of the angry skies concealed her cries.

  Kicking wildly, Maggie made sure that she kept her feet on the porch’s splintered surface, grating Oroville’s hands and knuckles between her foot and the jagged wood. He wailed in pain and let go of her. Jumping up and out of his grip, Maggie scampered to get into the house, but Oroville was spry. Before she could slam the door shut, he was up and already crossing the threshold.

  Brandishing his long hunting knife, he hissed angrily through his bloody teeth. His nose was broken and bleeding over his dirty teeth while he cussed and raged. Around the hilt of the knife, Maggie noted the skinless knuckles of her assailant and it gave her great pleasure that she was at least putting up a fight. But her pleasure was short-lived.

  “Look out, Maggie!” she heard Bramble cry, but it was too late.

  Oroville’s freakish long arm lashed out and walloped her across the face. Maggie cried out as her ears rang from the blow. She hit the floor with her eyes pinched shut from the impact.

  “I will show you! Just like them others!” Oroville persisted in his tired threat. When Maggie opened her eyes, she saw a blurry version of the towering maniac standing over her, his knife blade glimmering in the porch light.

  He is going to kill you! You couldn’t just stay in the bloody house, could you? Now look at you! Dead as a doornail because you had to get proof! her thoughts badgered her. Maggie’s head was burning and pulsing from the blow and she found it hard to find her bearings, but she knew she had to get up before that blade came to say hello.

  From the right of Oroville, Maggie’s blurry vision introduced a shadow, moving rapidly. She could not focus enough to see, but what she heard was familiar.

  “Drop the knife, Oroville, or I swear to all things holy I will put a bullet in your skull.”

  Maggie frowned. “Carl? Carl is that you?”

  “Move!” Carl told Oroville, pulling back the hammer on his weapon.

  Maggie heard the knife clatter to the floor and it startled her, but she was beyond relief that Carl showed up just when he did. She heard some muttering and felt the heavy footsteps of the two large men walk to the kitchen. Carl was not risking another flight from Oroville, so he kept him away from the open front door while he cuffed him and read him his rights.

  “Maggie, are you all right?” he finally asked her as she sat up, holding her face.

  “I’m fine, thanks, Carl,” she said, while Oroville chuckled at her injury. “He hits like a girl.”

  Oroville was not amused, but Carl held back a smile at the mocking she gave Oroville’s ego. While Oroville cussed and threatened Maggie on his way out, Carl just looked at her with an endearing nod and a sympathetic smile.

  “Thank you for coming, Carl,” she smiled weakly at the rugged sheriff.

  He winked and shrugged modestly as he left the house. “It’s my job.”

  29

  At Hope’s Crossing Medical Center, Maggie was surprised to receive treatment without the batting of an eye from its staff. An overweight, jovial nursing sister treated Maggie’s scratches and stitched up her elbow, where she had fallen on a wood nail during the struggle earlier that night.

  “We are not all judgmental asses, Miss Corey, if you would excuse my bluntness,” the nurse smiled as she worked. “Some of us know that God doesn’t speak through vindictive tyrants, if you know what I mean.”

  “Oh, do I ever,” Maggie sighed.

  “Don’t you worry, Miss Corey,” the nurse continued, “Carl Walden is on your side. Has been all this time, methinks. And we all know how unsavory that Oroville Chance was, long before his mother-in-law bit the dust.”

  “Still, people look at me as if I am a leper or something, even now that Oroville is in custody,” Maggie complained, shaking her head. “This time I knew I had to film him in the act, especially after they dismissed an open confession from him at the funeral. That is why I got this to show for it.” She pointed to the bruised welt on her cheek.

  “I heard about that, yes,” the nurse affirmed, gently covering Maggie’s cheek with some gauze and a plaster to stick it down. She scoffed at her own dressing and smiled at Maggie. “As if you Coreys ever need medical assistance.”

  Maggie was a tad perplexed at the statement, although it did not feel antagonistic.

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  The nurse shrugged and winked. “You know, Corey women have their own, um, brand of medicine. Works a damn lot better than some of the remedies we have here, I tell you.”

  A sneaky smile formed on the lady’s face, but her eyes stayed fixed on the dressing she had just completed. Maggie stared at her in mild amusement, wondering if Nurse Hayworth was telling her something.

  “Medicine? Whatever are you referring to?” Maggie played along.

  Both women kept their voices low, but Maggie felt happy to speak to someone like Nurse Hayworth. It reminded her of her new friend at the veterinarian.

  “Aw, you know, old concoctions that actually work, unlike these pointless things,” the nurse scoffed, tossing a small box of painkillers on Maggie’s lap. “You can use those as candy on Halloween. Sure would calm the little rug rats down,” she chuckled heartily, waving her hands in delight. “Can you tell I don’t like kids?”

  The two giggled and laughed for a good minute before Maggie got up to gather her things and say goodbye to the nurse who had slightly restored her hope in this town. When she walked along the empty corridor, Maggie saw the large, robust frame of Sheriff Walden waiting near the exit. He had his hat in his big hands and though he looked exhausted, he smiled contentedly.

  Maggie, on the other hand, was not sure what to make of his presence there. She rolled her eyes. “Oh my God, am I going to be arrested again?”

  “Only for not returning my calls,” he replied casually.

  She threw a thumb over her shoulder toward the examination room she had just left.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, sheriff, I had some business to attend to, but I would have called you back in a few,” she explained.

  “Looks like you were in some kind of fight,” he joked.

  She nudged him and replied, “You should see the other guy.”

  For the first time, she heard Carl Walden laughing. No chuckle or snicker; no, she heard him laughing properly and it was lovely. He had a charming chortle coupled with that raspy, rough voice of his that disarmed her. She could not help but laugh with him.

  “Listen, Maggie, I thought to tell you some interesting things I dug up while trying to find some probable cause for questioning Oroville,” he revealed.

  “I knew it! Was I right? Is he a psycho? Do I need to even ask?” she playfully badgered him. “What did you find?”

  “I tell you what, if you aren’t doing anything right now, we could go for a coffee and chat? I still have another forty-five minutes left of break,” Carl offered. Maggie read his discomfort at using case information as a strategy to take her out, but she played dumb, just in case she was being presumptuous.

  “Totally,” she said quickly, bouncing a little too much. Suave, Maggie.

  “Good,” he smiled.

  “You’re paying,” she reminded him why he liked her better than the usual fare and Carl laughed again.

  They went to a coffee shop on the edge of town, owned by one of Carl’s old biker friends.

  “Nobody knows me here, it seems,” she whispered across the table for two after the waiter too
k her order.

  “Why do you say that?” Carl inquired.

  “They haven’t thrown me out yet,” she replied, rather seriously.

  “Not here,” he said, shaking his head. “Bill and I have been friends since we were young and he is real, you know? He and his staff are more about the food than the fodder.”

  “I like that phrase,” she smiled. “Now tell me what you found. Will my footage alone not be enough?”

  “I’m sure it will be, Maggie. This time,” he added, his voice weakening at the two words that induced his shame again. He did not want Maggie to see that he felt bad for arresting her practically without cause last time, but she was very astute nonetheless. “But you know what I uncovered?”

  “I am dying to know,” she urged.

  “Turns out that Bettina Reece was not just a callous and dominant mother-in-law. She was also quite mentally unstable during her daughter’s earlier years,” he said.

  “That is no surprise to me. If how she behaved at my shop is how she speaks to strangers, I don’t even want to know what she was like to live with,” Maggie admitted. She inadvertently put her hand on Carl’s as she added urgently, “But hey, you are not going to use that to garner pity and sympathy for Oroville, are you?”

  “No, God no!” he replied quickly. “This time he is snared, Maggie. After all, even if Bettina did not provoke him enough to kill her, he still killed your aunt Clara long before that, remember? She did nothing to him, so he can throw all the pity parties he likes for psychologists; the fact is that he killed before he snapped, you see?”

  “That is true. I wish I did not feel so hateful, you know. I am trying to understand Oroville’s position in turning into a murderer, but even Bettina’s behavior can’t make me condone what he did,” she explained.

  “And it shouldn’t,” Carl chipped in. “These are two different modus operandi for two different reasons.”

  He was hoping that Maggie grasped what he was trying to clarify, but by her answer, he knew that she was as sharp as he thought.

  “Yeah, I guess. He killed Bettina because of some deep-seated mental instability she had imposed on him over a matter of years, while my aunt was a simple hit to him,” she acknowledged.

  She looked so dreadfully unhappy at the admittance that Carl wished he could hug her. All he could do, though, was affirm her speculation.

  “That is right, Maggie. From what I dug up on Bettina Reece,” he lowered his voice a tad, “was that her constant badgering and dominating assertiveness caused her daughter Audrina’s suicide.”

  “How so?” Maggie whispered.

  “The medical records I researched indicated that Bettina suffered from postpartum depression back in the early ’90s,” he started. Maggie knew there was something more sinister included when Carl leaned in to continue his exposition. “There is also no record of who Audrina’s father was and Bettina refused to disclose that information to anyone.”

  “Could it that be why she was depressed?” Maggie wondered aloud.

  “Could be,” he shrugged, “especially if her daughter was conceived in some nefarious situation.”

  Maggie got the hint, but she was still curious about all the factors that had driven Oroville to this point. Not only was his mother-in-law impossible to live with, but surely his wife’s suicide had to have had some impact on him.

  “And what about Audrina?” she asked Carl. “Did she inherit her mother’s mental condition, perhaps?”

  “That is the other interesting thing,” he added zealously, but the waiter interrupted them.

  “Excuse me, sheriff, but cold or hot milk?” the lad asked nervously.

  “Um, cold, thanks,” Carl answered abruptly, practically pushing the boy away with his body language. Maggie was bursting to know what he was going to say next, so she regrettably declined the offer of cheesecake just to get back to Carl’s information.

  “Go on,” she egged him on, “we are running out of lunch break for you here.”

  He checked his watch and gasped, “Damn, I am on standby for another missing persons case over in Salem tonight, so I can’t drop by later.”

  “Oh, my giddy aunt, Carl, just tell me already,” she pressed as quietly as she could.

  “Turns out that Audrina was never diagnosed with depression or any other mental illness and according to most reports we collected after her suicide, she was not clinically suicidal,” he revealed.

  “So what does that mean? Her marriage was not too good, maybe?” she asked, but Carl shook his head.

  “From what Audrina’s best friend told a psychologist friend of mine, she and Oroville got along as well as most married couples. It was when they had to move back in with Bettina—they lost their apartment after Audrina lost her job—that things got really bad,” he recounted.

  “She lost her job? And what about Oroville? Did he work?” Maggie persisted now that she was finally getting the juice from the apple.

  “No. Are you kidding?” Carl replied, looking surprised that Maggie even asked such a silly question. “Oroville Chance had never shown any initiative to better himself or even foster some ambition, let alone get a goddamn job. All the pressure was on Audrina for an income and at home, Bettina apparently treated her like crap.”

  “The few minutes I spent in her dismal presence was enough for me to totally grasp that. She treated everyone like crap, including me,” Maggie confessed. “Bitchy and abrasive.”

  “That’s right,” he agreed. “Between the fact that she was a baleful woman and an emotionally abusive mother, Bettina harbored an unhealthy penchant for religious fanaticism. Fancied herself a witch hunter.”

  Maggie scoffed. “Typical church poison.” She forgot that Carl was a churchman too, but he understood her antagonism.

  “Anyway,” he carried on, checking his watch, “not only did Bettina constantly badger Audrina about everything, calling her a whore and a waste of skin, but after Audrina killed herself, Bettina started that rubbish on Oroville.”

  “Looks like she picked on a less resilient victim … and paid for it too,” Maggie announced, sipping her espresso. “How is this going to influence any sentencing though? You know these days any illumination of previous emotional abuse is considered an excuse. I mean, I have seen rapists and killers get minimum security penalties, practically Club Med, for their crimes because some shrink told the jury that they had a bad childhood.”

  “Don’t worry,” Carl replied as he opened his wallet and thumbed for some notes. “I will make sure that the district attorney hammers on the fact that Oroville killed Clara first and did it without reason. As long as they play the harmless old lady routine, we can get a solid conviction.”

  “She was a harmless old lady, you know,” Maggie remarked as she finished her coffee.

  “Maggie, Clara was a wonderful, kind soul, but she was not someone who I would mess with, even just for that … that … temper she had. Just like you do,” Carl reminisced with a slight smile. “I have to go.”

  “All right,” Maggie said, getting up. “Could you take me home, please?”

  “Of course,” he said, “I don’t want you skipping town or anything.”

  “Ha. Ha,” Maggie said, pulling up her nose at him. It was cute, but deep inside she hoped that it was not some kind of warning after all. Besides, last time she’d believed that he was on her side, he’d arrested her.

  Outside the establishment, Maggie was confronted by a sight she just could not get used to. A crowd of townspeople had gathered on the small lawn of the coffee shop. She stopped in her tracks, shaking her head.

  “No way in hell am I going through there. Not again,” she protested.

  “Miss Corey! Miss Corey!” she heard, and suddenly the attention was on her.

  “Carl, what is this?” she asked hesitantly, fearing for the worst, but Carl simply shrugged.

  From news reporters to police officers, locals, and schoolchildren, they all stood waiting for the mayor to st
ep up on the makeshift podium under the tree. It was across the road from the town hall, so Maggie was not sure what he was doing under a tree.

  “Ladies and gentlemen of the press, colleagues, and fine people of Hope’s Crossing,” the mayor began his speech. “Thank you all for coming and I promise we will not keep you long.”

  The usually cowardly mayor cleared his throat more than he had to as he shifted his feet and loosened his collar to facilitate his obligatory duty. He looked back at the tall preacher with the stone face, looking decidedly furious. Reverend Mason appeared to have swallowed a bowl of vomit, by the look on his face. Pursed lips and eyes like daggers, his expression conveyed the fact that he was only there to represent the church’s good standing in front of the outside press.

  “We, the mayor’s office and town council, along with the Hope’s Crossing Police Department and its affiliates, hereby wish to make a public apology to Miss Maggie Corey,” he babbled as quickly as he could.

  “He probably thought it would hurt less if he rushed through it,” Carl chuckled under his breath, and Maggie instantly felt relieved that there was no unexpected ugliness this time (apart from the old stuck-up reverend).

  “Like a Band-Aid,” she whispered back, not moving her lips.

  Everyone turned to look at Maggie and the journalists held up their lenses to capture her.

  The mayor cleared his throat again. “With the incriminatory evidence our law enforcement officers obtained from the attack and attempted murder of Miss Corey last night, we have apprehended the perpetrator. He was arrested last night and we have irrefutable proof that he was responsible for the murder of Clara Corey and Bettina Reece. As most of you know, these crimes were previously … erroneously …” the mayor stuttered and tried not to glance back at the minister in the black robe. “Miss Maggie Corey is hereby publicly exonerated of all charges and the local justice department would like to apologize for any difficulty she may have suffered because of this.”

  Maggie said nothing. In fact, she did not even smile. It was her time to gloat and she deserved it too. After all, it had almost gotten her killed. Most of all, she loved staring right into the defeated leer of Reverend Mason, sending him a subliminal challenge. Among the people cheering and the murmur of discussion, the two pinned each other in a confrontational standoff only they knew of.