Grave Doubts (A Paranormal Mystery Novel)

by Lynn Bohart

  “Not really. Like I said, we just…”

  “No. It’s okay,” she dismissed Lee’s attempts at apology with a wave of her hand. “I can see why you would have thought that.”

  “We were really just speculating, Carey. Looking at any possibility.”

  Carey smiled, diffusing the tension in the air. “Don’t worry, Lee. I probably would have suspected Vern myself, if I didn’t know better.” She looked back at the board. “I’m impressed at how far you’d gotten. I had no idea. But why is Pauline Bates name up there?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Lee spent the rest of the day napping and watching TV. But she was restless. Carey’s last words kept popping into her head. How was Pauline Bates involved in all of this?

  By 7:15 p.m., she was just finishing a slice of pizza when the phone rang. She grabbed the phone in the kitchen, but was met with silence on the other end.

  “Hello!” she nearly shouted when there was no answer. “Hello! Shit! Now, I’m getting crank calls,” she said to Soldier, slamming the receiver down.

  But she couldn’t stop the chill that ran the length of her spine. Soldier merely cocked her head and sat on Lee’s foot.

  Lee looked down at the dog and shook her shoulders to get rid of the tension the phone call had instilled. Even though intellectually she knew she was out of danger, her ordeal the night before had left her raw. She wondered if she’d ever not flinch at the thought of danger. She needed to get things back to normal, and so took a couple of deep breaths and vowed to relax.

  “Okay, big girl,” she said, ruffling Soldier’s fur. “It’s time for you to go out again.”

  Soldier pushed ahead of her down the hallway toward the back door. Lee moved more fluidly than she had that morning, but her muscles still fought back although with less success. Soldier bounded out onto the back porch and then used her nose to open the screen door.

  “So, that’s how you do it,” Lee said, eying the broken latch on the screen door. “Wait a minute,” she said, returning the kitchen.

  She went to a cupboard where Amy had stashed a bag of large rawhide chew sticks. She grabbed one and went back to the porch and called the dog. It had begun to rain, and a blustery wind had kicked up outside. Soldier came back onto the porch and shook the water off. When she saw what Lee held, she came to attention immediately, her gaze glued on the rawhide.

  “Want this?” she asked, teasing the dog.

  Soldier scooted forward a couple of inches, her ears standing straight up.

  “Okay,” Lee said, holding it out.

  Soldier grabbed it in her powerful jaws and climbed up on a bench that sat under the study window. She quickly settled down to focus on her treasure.

  “I guess that will keep you busy for awhile. I’m closing the back door tight this time. I have some serious relaxing to do.”

  Lee returned to the kitchen and downed a couple of Advil. She grabbed a last bite of pizza, before wrapping up the remaining slices and tossing them into the refrigerator. Then she made some hot tea and returned to the living room.

  Lee closed the drapes, kindled a fire and settled back with the afghan spread across her lap. As she watched flames engulf the instant log, thoughts of Diane surfaced. So much had happened in just a few days, and so many people had died. Why? She still didn’t know the answer to that question. Perhaps, she never would.

  Her head felt heavy, and she closed her eyes hoping to relieve the burning sensation behind her eyelids. The wind outside lulled her into a doze, and the muscles in her shoulders began to relax. Before long, she was sound asleep. One by one, haunting images began to parade their way through her mind. Andrew with the ball peen hammer. Bud Maddox with his leering grin. The gruesome chain. Diane’s living room, right down to the pictures on the fireplace mantle.

  Lee came suddenly awake. Her heart raced, and her skin tingled. What was it about Diane’s living room that had spooked her?

  When she couldn’t get her brain to focus, she allowed her head to flop back onto the sofa. God, she thought. She was so tired. Her body was a wreck, and she needed to stop thinking about the events of the past few days. She just wished the dull ache behind her eyes would subside.

  Her head rolled to the side, and she allowed her gaze to come to rest on a silver-framed photo on the side table. Amy’s shining face smiled back in a picture taken at the beach the summer she turned fourteen. Lee stared at the picture, thinking of Amy. The pendulum clock on the wall ticked softly behind her. Somewhere in the distance, a car door closed.

  Lee continued to stare at the photo until the ornate silver frame began to float. Fatigue blurred her consciousness, and her eyelids began to close again. Her thoughts began to run together. Amy and the beach. Amy and the dog. Amy at school. Amy coming home this weekend to celebrate Lee’s birthday.

  Birthday!

  Lee’s eyes popped open again, bringing the silver frame back into focus.

  “Shit! That was it!”

  She sat up, threw off the blanket and hurried as fast as she could to the hall closet to search for her large photo album. When she found it, she returned to the sofa and opened it to a series of pictures taken at a surprise birthday party she’d thrown for Diane only a few weeks before her death. She flipped through pictures of the party until she found the one she was looking for. In it, Diane held a present up for the camera that Carey had given her.

  Lee pulled the picture out of its protective sleeve and reached for the drawer in the end table. She extracted her mother’s old magnifying glass. Then, she wedged herself into the corner under the direct glare of the lamp and forced her eyes to focus through the magnifying glass at the photo in her hand. Suddenly, her heart felt too big for her chest.

  Lee was staring at a photo of Diane holding a small, but now familiar, pewter picture frame.

  Lee dropped the photo and bolted to the hallway to grab her purse. Her fingers delved into the main pocket, pushing aside her wallet and makeup bag until she felt the cold metal of the pewter frame she’d stolen from Emily Maddox. She pulled it out and studied it.

  It was definitely the one in the picture – the one Carey had given Diane. So how had Emily Maddox gotten it?

  As Lee contemplated this, she took notice of the picture itself. It was of Bud and Diane standing before a western storefront in Sisters, a small town up in the mountains. Diane and Bud had made the trip with another couple from the hospital just the weekend before she died. A second chill flushed Lee’s body.

  This had to be a picture from the missing roll of film in Diane’s camera!

  Lee thought back. Hadn’t Diane said she was taking the last picture on the roll when she’d taken the picture of Lee that night? So, if this picture was from the missing roll of film, how the hell did it get on a shelf in Emily Maddox’s home?

  “My God!” she whispered to herself. “I’m so stupid. Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! Andrew said last night that he didn’t kill Diane.”

  Lee stumbled to the phone to call the police station. She remembered it all now, including what Diane had said that night.

  “I’ll put this picture of you in that teeny frame Carey gave me…or better yet, in my scrapbook with all of my other single friends.

  Damn! Why hadn’t she remembered the part about the frame? Why had she focused only on the part about single friends?

  “I’m sorry, Sergeant Davis has already left,” a brusque voice said. “Do you want to leave a message?”

  “No, thanks,” Lee snapped to attention.

  Lee’s hands trembled as she cut the phone connection. In the background, a roll of thunder punctuated her racing heartbeat. Sergeant Davis wasn’t available. And Alan had gone to a scouting event. He and Robin wouldn’t be home until 8:30 p.m. Lee glanced at her watch. It was just after eight o’clock. Patrick was at the theater and wouldn’t be home for another hour or so. If she left now, she’d get to Alan’s house just about the time he and Robin returned. And she could tell Alan what she now knew –
that it hadn’t been Bud or Andrew who had killed Diane. And she could tell Robin that it hadn’t been Pauline Bates at the graveyard, either. In fact, Pauline Bates had had nothing to do with Diane’s death.

  Lee took the photos and hurried back to the closet to grab her coat. A crack of lightning lit up the front yard, making her jump. Her nerves were frayed, and she was shaking. She took a deep breath and then stuffed the frame and the photo from Diane’s birthday party into the side pocket of her purse. There was an incessant drumming on the roof, which meant it was raining hard.

  “Just my luck,” she mumbled.

  As she grabbed an umbrella from the umbrella stand by the door, a shadow flashed past the front sidelight. In her mindless rush to get to the car, Lee swung the door open, only to come face to face with Emily Maddox.

  “Going out?” the other woman smiled.

  Lee’s knees nearly buckled.

  “I’ve caught you at a bad time,” Maddox purred.

  Lee’s mind filled with a cacophony of sound that blocked out any logical response. Diane’s murderer stood in front of her, while the night disappeared behind her like a black hole in space.

  “I was just leaving,” Lee said in a faint voice.

  “I’ve remembered something that might be of help,” Maddox said.

  Lee opened her mouth to respond, when Emily Maddox suddenly swept past her into the entryway.

  “It won’t take long,” the woman whispered, gliding into the living room. “I’m sure you’ll want to hear this.”

  Lee swallowed her response, cursing herself for not closing the door in the woman’s face. But all of Lee’s circuits seemed to have shut down. She felt like an electrical appliance someone had forgotten to plug in, and now it was too late. Lee glanced at the open door. It was her only means of escape. She could just step outside and be free of this woman. Maddox seemed to read her thoughts and turned to her.

  “I have something for you,” she said.

  From the inside of her coat, Maddox brought something out and rolled it back and forth between her fingers like a blackjack dealer. The melodic tingling riveted Lee to the spot. It was Amy’s charm bracelet.

  “Where did you get that?” she gasped.

  Lee couldn’t help herself. She dropped the umbrella and stumbled forward, staring at the bracelet as it glinted in the low light. Tears flooded her eyes so that she could barely see.

  “What have you done with my daughter?” Her whole body trembled now, and she feared she might actually collapse. “What do you want from me?”

  “You have something I need. Please, close the door.”

  Lee leaned helplessly against the archway to the living room, her body a limp collection of bones and muscles. Everything she’d fought for in the last few days, her idea of friendship, her own pride and sanity, even justice, had evaporated. None of it mattered anymore. Only Amy. She turned and closed the door, feeling like she was shutting the door on her own life.

  “I don’t have anything,” Lee mumbled, turning back. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “It wasn’t at Diane’s, so you must have taken it. Bud didn’t have time to find it here, but I know you have it.”

  A flash of recognition blazed through Lee’s mind. The photo. Emily Maddox wanted the only thing that would link her to Diane. Lee’s elbow clamped down on her purse as she took a few faltering steps backwards.

  “Your daughter!” Maddox stopped her. “She needs you.”

  Lee stopped, feeling unsteady on her feet. The colors in the room had become a psychedelic collection of shimmering crystals. Emily Maddox reached into her pocket and produced a key, like a magician pulls a rabbit out of a hat.

  “This will get you what you want. Now give it to me.”

  Lee moved to the back of the sofa, staring at the key dangling from the woman’s gloved fingers. Attached to it was a tag, like the key to a storage locker. Lee felt her stomach rise into her gullet at the thought of Amy stuffed inside a locker somewhere.

  “It’s clearly marked. You shouldn’t have any trouble finding the location, but you don’t really have time to waste.”

  Lee hesitated, her mind turning over her few options. If she ran for the police, this woman would disappear into the night, and she might never find Amy. If she gave her the photo, there would be no proof that she was involved with Diane’s murder. But did that matter if Lee lost Amy? If she was successful in finding her daughter, Amy could identify Bud’s sister as her abductor. Perhaps Emily hadn’t thought of that. The possibility motivated Lee to step in front of the sofa.

  “How do I know you won’t try to kill me once you have what you want?”

  Emily patted down her pockets with her free hand.

  “I have no weapon. You see? Nothing hidden inside.” She opened her coat like a street vendor shows off his collection of watches. “Give me what I want, and I’ll leave you alone. You can cry all you want to the police. They won’t believe you. All the evidence they have points to Andrew and my brother. And they’re both dead.”

  “Your wha…”

  Then the last piece of the puzzle dropped into place. The eyes. The brows. Even the cocky way she held her head. This was Bud Maddox’s sister. Not his wife. The implication twisted Lee’s intestines into a knot. No wonder she’d looked so familiar.

  “You didn’t know, did you?” the other woman said. “I wonder if Diane knew. It was a good charade.”

  “But why?” Lee asked again.

  “Because it was convenient. Because women are silly. They always want to think they’re saving someone. Especially from a hopeless marriage. And Bud was very good at playing the beleaguered husband.”

  “But, why Diane?”

  “She was a means to an end. Information is power, they say. The right information, anyway.” Emily Maddox’s lips stretched into a thin, knowing smile.

  “The lab reports,” Lee gasped. “You were blackmailing people. And Bud got the names of wealthy people from Diane.”

  Diane’s killer began to stroll around the living room, making cursory examinations of some of Lee’s collectibles.

  “Oh, don’t worry,” she said. “Your dear friend didn’t actually betray the secrets. She didn’t have to. Bud was good at lifting the things he needed. Like keys. Or combinations. Or passwords. He could be very persuasive,” she finished with a sly grin.

  “And Andrew?” Lee asked.

  “Andrew was a buffoon, a pathetic little man,” she continued. “With someone like that, all you have to do is make him believe it was his idea. And he served his purpose,” she said with a shrug. “He identified certain important clients, distracted certain prying eyes. And he led me to you.”

  “Me?” Lee nearly laughed. “So Abbot and Costello botched the job, and you’re the cleanup crew?”

  “No, no, no,” Emily Maddox smiled with patronizing patience. “Andrew just talked my brother into taking things into his own hands a bit too soon last night. Obviously, that was a mistake. I don’t make mistakes. You just give me what I want, and I’ll be gone.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Seriously,” she said, twirling the key around her finger. “The police have never caught me before, why should now be any different?”

  Lee’s mind whirred as she watched this horrible creature practically swagger around the end of the sofa. Then she remembered the photos on the shelf at her home. The photos of Bud with other women.

  “You’ve killed other women,” she stammered. “The other women in those photos.”

  Maddox drifted around the other end of the sofa, coming up on the backside.

  “Oh, well, now. Nothing actually points to me. Just Bud. And as I said, he’s not here anymore to contradict me.” She stopped, leveling her gaze on Lee. “Now, it’s getting late.”

  The conflict inside Lee was almost unbearable. The woman standing before her was a serial killer. Lee needed the photo to turn her in. But the threat against Amy was too real.
Lee had to take a chance. She reached into the inside pocket of her handbag and pulled out the pewter frame and handed it over.

  The woman exploded, throwing the photo to the ground. “Stop playing games! I swear I’ll throw this key into the river on my way out of town!”

  Lee let out a strangled cry. “No! My daughter is an asthmatic. Please, I don’t understand.” Lee was breathing hard as panic tore at her chest. “I thought that’s what you wanted. You said Bud couldn’t find it. I took the photo from your house…”

  Lee stopped.

  Her house had been ransacked, but so had Diane’s. Bud couldn’t have been looking for the photo at Diane’s, because Emily had taken the entire roll of film. When Lee realized the truth, she thought she actually felt the light bulb go off in her head.

  “You’re looking for the camera.”

  Emily Maddox didn’t smile this time. She just stood watching Lee, her features set in a grim mask. Lee finished the puzzle.

  “You’ve done this so many times before, you got cocky. After you killed Diane, you took off your gloves thinking the job was done. But then you couldn’t resist, could you? You have photos of all the women you’ve killed. Your trophies. And there was Diane’s camera. Just sitting there on the mantle. You knew she’d gone to Sisters with Bud the weekend before, so you took out the film. That’s how you got the picture in this frame. But in doing so, you left fingerprints all over the camera.”

  Lee paused, allowing the truth to float in the air like mist on a foggy morning. When Emily Maddox spoke this time, her voice wasn’t much above a growl.

  “I want the camera, Miss Vanderhaven. And I want it now.”

  Lee’s brain was alarmingly clear all of a sudden. She knew that if she told Emily Maddox the truth, namely that the camera was in her car, she would never find Amy. She also realized that Maddox had moved in between her and the front door. She was trapped in her own living room. Her heart fluttered.

  “It’s not here,” she bluffed.

  Her intruder didn’t move.

  “It’s in my office,” Lee tried to control her voice.

  “You’re lying.”