Chapter 13
Dot backed out of the drive and pulled onto the road. When she reached the corner, she stopped, looked both ways and pressed on the gas. “When I stop the van, you need to hurry and jump out so no one sees you,” she said nervously as she gripped the steering wheel.
Lucy laughed. “Gloria is on crutches and Eleanor has a walker. I’m not sure how fast we’re gonna be.”
“If we try to move too fast, it will look suspicious,” Margaret pointed out.
“You don’t think five women climbing out of a van and descending on a dead man’s cottage will look suspicious?” Andrea asked.
The van had reached the bottom of the hill and slowed to a stop in front of the Mueller’s gravel drive.
Gloria reached for the van’s door handle. “It’s the middle of the afternoon. Most of these cottages are vacant so I doubt anyone will spot us.”
Dot hit the brakes. “Go! Go! Go!”
Ruth was the last to exit the van. “We’ll call when we’re ready.” She pulled the door shut and followed the other girls, who were hustling past the side door of the house. She caught up with them near the back deck slider.
Andrea studied the exterior of the cottage. “How are we going to get in?”
Gloria hobbled over to the bedroom window she had unlocked the other day…before Officer Nelson caught Eleanor, Andrea and her inside the house and told them they had to leave. She hoped no one had noticed and that the window was still unlocked.
She slid her finger in the crook and pulled up. The window silently slid open and Gloria let out the breath she’d been holding.
Her relief was short-lived. On closer inspection, the window was much smaller than she remembered.
Gloria turned her head and studied the group of women hovering nearby. Margaret? Nope. She remembered their trip to the Smoky Mountains. There was no way Margaret would crawl through the small window.
Eleanor was automatically disqualified, although she appeared eager and willing.
Next was Ruth. Ruth was a real team player but somehow she couldn’t visualize her friend’s ample frame fitting through the narrow opening. Visions of Ruth getting stuck in the window and them having to call the fire department to rescue her filled Gloria’s mind.
“Lucy or Andrea. Which one of you wants to crawl through the window and unlock the back door?” Gloria asked.
“Me,” they both answered in unison.
Andrea turned to Lucy. “We can go together.”
The girls slipped their rubber gloves on and Andrea stepped over to the open window.
“Here. I’ll give you a leg up.” Lucy cupped her hands together and bent down.
Andrea placed the heel of her sneaker in the palm of Lucy’s hands.
“Heave-ho,” Lucy said as Andrea pulled and Lucy pushed her through the open window.
After Andrea was safely inside, Ruth stepped forward to help Lucy but Lucy waved her off. “Nah! I got this one.” She easily lifted herself onto the frame and quickly disappeared inside. Her head reappeared moments later. “Meet us at the side door. Lucy pulled the window shut.
Eleanor, Ruth, Margaret and Gloria made their way over to the back porch door.
The door swung open. “This place smells funny,” Andrea said as they stepped inside.
Gloria sniffed the air. She was right. The interior of the cottage had a unique odor. The other day it had smelled musty but today there was a different smell…a smell she couldn’t quite put her finger on. “I agree. It smells…”
“Gross.” Margaret wrinkled her nose.
Gloria pulled the small pile of latex gloves from her front coat pocket and handed a pair to the girls, who quickly slipped them on.
“What are we looking for?” Ruth asked as she wiggled her fingers and tugged the snug gloves on.
“Anything odd or unusual. Notes, blood stains, weapons, the standard stuff,” Gloria said as she hopped to the bathroom.
“Drugs,” Eleanor quipped.
“Drugs,” Gloria agreed. “Just put your detective cap on.”
Ruth and Andrea headed to the bedroom. Eleanor started in the kitchen while Margaret started poking around in the living room. Lucy helped Margaret search the living room.
Gloria hobbled to the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet above the sink. Inside the cabinet was a disposable razor, a box of Band-Aids, some sunscreen and dental floss.
She scooted back and opened the cabinet under the sink, which was full of towels, washcloths, some toilet bowl cleaner and a half-empty bottle of shampoo.
The only thing left was the shower. She swiped the shower curtain to the side and stuck her head inside the shower. It was empty, except for a bar of soap on the shelf and a back scrubber hanging from the showerhead.
She hobbled into the living room where Margaret had just replaced the living room sofa cushion. “Clean as a whistle,” she said.
“Same here,” Andrea agreed.
“Phew!” Eleanor gasped as she leaned over the kitchen trashcan. “I think I found the putrid odor!”
“What is it?” Gloria made her way over to the garbage and inched close to Eleanor. Inside the can were several dead fish, still intact. “Why would someone toss perfectly good fish into the garbage can?”
Most of the area fishermen would toss smaller fish back into the water. Catch and release. These were smallmouth bass and not small at all.
Ruth moved forward and peeked inside. She clamped her hand across her mouth and began to gag.
Andrea waved her hand across her face and took a step back. The rotting smell quickly filled the cottage.
“Close the lid!” Margaret gasped.
Eleanor started to shut the lid when something caught Gloria’s eye. She held her hand out. “Wait! I see something!”
Gloria reached inside with her gloved hand and pulled out a tag, a nametag to be exact. She read the name on the tag aloud. “Sally Keane.”
Chapter 14
Gloria’s cell phone, which was tucked in her front jacket pocket, began ringing. She pulled it out, turned it over and stared at the screen. It was Dot.
She turned it to speaker and hit answer. “Hello?”
“You gotta get out of there!” Dot shrieked. “I just saw Officer Joe Nelson’s patrol car pass by Eleanor’s house!”
Eleanor dropped the lid on the trashcan.
Andrea raced to the door and threw it open.
Ruth bolted out, followed by Margaret, then Lucy. Gloria, unwilling to leave any man…err…woman behind, waited for Eleanor to shuffle out of the cottage.
She closed the door behind Eleanor, making sure she had locked it before picking up the pace or in her case, the hobble, as she hurried to Dot’s waiting van, which was parked at the end of the drive.
By the time she made it to the van, the others were already inside. Andrea was near the door waving frantically. “Hurry! Dot said she spotted his patrol car coming down the hill!”
Lucy reached out and grabbed the top of Gloria’s jacket, yanking her inside the van just as Dot stomped on the gas, spraying loose gravel in the air as she sped off down the road.
“Agh!” Andrea, seeing Gloria’s legs still hanging out the side of the open van door, gave Lucy a helping hand as they both tugged on their friend’s arm, pulling Gloria the rest of the way in.
Lucy rolled the door shut. “We’re in!”
Gloria flipped from her stomach to her back and sat upright. “Barely!”
When Dot reached the end of the cul-de-sac, she circled around and headed back down the road.
The police patrol car was coming from the opposite direction now, and he slowed when Dot’s van got close.
Dot glanced in the rearview mirror at her accomplices. “Hit the floor so he doesn’t see you!”
The girls flattened themselves against the floor of the van.
The officer rolled down his driver’s side window and motioned for Dot to stop.
“He wants me to stop,” Dot groa
ned.
Gloria closed her eyes. “Please God. Help Dot say the right thing and not blow our cover.”
“H-hello Officer Joe,” Dot stuttered after she hit the brakes and lowered the van window.
The sound of Officer Joe Nelson’s voice drifted in through the open window. Gloria was only able to catch a few words. “…place…lunch…warning.”
“Yes, I know.” Dot laughed nervously. “I promise I won’t let Gloria suck me into anything, either.”
Gloria frowned and lifted her head. What was the officer telling her?
Lucy pointed at Gloria and silently laughed to which Gloria gave her a death look.
“Okay. Good-bye.” Dot rolled up the window and the van began to move. “He said he suspects Gloria is sticking her nose in where it doesn’t belong,” she said.
“Well, maybe if he did his job, I wouldn’t have to do it for him,” Gloria said as she shifted to a sitting position.
Ruth patted her arm. “Don’t worry. There’s only a handful of people in Belhaven who think you stick your nose in where it doesn’t belong.”
If Ruth was trying to make Gloria feel better, it wasn’t working.
“I-I…” Gloria paused. Did her friends and neighbors think she was a busybody? She always thought she was helping others.
Eleanor squeezed her hand. “I pulled you into this investigation,” she reminded her. “Remember? I called you.”
“And I’m the one who wanted to try hypnotizing Eleanor,” Margaret added.
Lucy swiped a stray strand of hair from her eyes. “We’re all in this together. You haven’t twisted anyone’s arm.”
“That’s right,” Andrea agreed. “I think Officer Joe Nelson is involved somehow. I mean, he has been lurking around the Mueller’s cottage ever since Ed Mueller’s body was found.”
Gloria reached into her front coat pocket and pulled Sally Keane’s nametag out. Could it be Sally Keane was somehow involved in Ed Mueller’s death and the cop was trying to cover something up to save Sally’s hide?
What did Sally mean when she said Ed Mueller was a “player?” Had he been messing around with another woman, his wife had somehow found out and then she killed him?
She told the girls about her conversation with Sally.
“Maybe his wife did him in,” Lucy theorized.
“What about Officer Joe Nelson?” Gloria asked. “Motive and opportunity. He may have found out about a clandestine affair between Ed and Sally. The two were spotted arguing the night before his death. Maybe he killed him and put his body in the shanty.”
Margaret added her own theory. “Or Sally was a scorned woman and she poisoned him and then dumped him in the lake.”
Dot parked her van behind Gloria’s car and the women hopped out of the back.
Gloria glanced at her watch. “I better head home. First, I’ll have to take the nametag to Montbay County Sheriff’s station to turn it in as evidence.” She briefly wondered what she would tell the police when she got there.
The women all climbed into their cars but first agreed to meet up for breakfast at Dot’s Restaurant the next morning to mull over the day’s events.
Gloria wiggled into the driver’s seat, slid her crutches onto the passenger seat and pulled the door shut.
It was less than half an hour drive to Montbay County Sheriff’s station in nearby Langstone.
When she got to the police station, Gloria steered Annabelle into an empty spot on the street and shuffled across the road to the front entrance.
She hobbled up the steps and entered the lobby, which was all too familiar. The girl behind the counter was the same one Gloria had met on her first visit to Montbay County sheriff’s police station. It seemed like an eternity ago.
The girl smiled as Gloria approached the counter. “Hello Mrs. Kennedy. Congratulations on your recent marriage to Officer Kennedy.”
Gloria smiled. “Thank you.”
“I heard you had quite an exciting honeymoon.”
Gloria frowned. Had Paul been going around telling his buddies about his new wife’s mishaps?
“Officer Joe Nelson said you broke your leg chasing after a peeping tom.”
Her frown deepened. Was the man a blabbermouth like his girlfriend, Sally Keane? Gloria vowed to watch what she said around Officer Joe Nelson. “Yes, and thank goodness the cast is coming off soon.”
She went on. “I was hoping to talk with the person in charge of the Ed Mueller investigation. He was the man whose body was found on Lake Terrace.”
“That would be Stan Woszinski, Officer Kennedy’s former partner. Let me see if he’s still here.” The young woman popped out of her chair and disappeared down the hall.
Gloria propped her crutches against the counter and balanced on her uninjured leg. She was getting good at balancing and was sometimes able to get around with only one crutch.
“Follow me.”
The clerk stood in the doorway and motioned Gloria to follow.
Gloria grabbed both crutches and trailed behind the quick moving girl, who stopped abruptly in front of a familiar door. It was the door to Paul’s office…old office.
She shifted to the side and peered around the corner.
“Gloria Kennedy.” A grinning Officer Stan Woszinski scooched to the front of his chair and stood. “Jen said you had something on the Mueller case. Have a seat, have a seat.”
Gloria nodded and settled into the chair closest to the door. “I…my friends and I were inside the Mueller cottage earlier today and kind of…”
Officer Woszinski eased into his chair and crossed his arms. “Did the owner let you in?” he interrupted.
“Technically – no. We kind of let ourselves in.”
“So you broke into a dead man’s cottage searching for clues.”
Woszinski rubbed the stubble on his chin. “I could arrest you and your friends if the owner wanted to press charges,” he told her.
Stan Woszinski was one tough cookie. He wasn’t cutting Gloria any slack and the way he stared at her warned he might do exactly that!
“I…we didn’t mean any harm. We were just trying to help,” she said. Looking back, perhaps she should’ve gone to Officer Joe Nelson with the nametag, although she still considered him a prime suspect.
Gloria quickly changed the subject as she pulled the plastic tag from her coat pocket and placed it on the desk. “We found this in Ed Mueller’s trashcan near the door. It was under some rotting fish.”
Stan leaned forward, reached across the desk and picked up the nametag. He turned it over and his eyes narrowed.
Gloria was one hundred percent certain Officer Woszinski recognized the name. Sally and Officer Joe Nelson had been an item for several months and had even attended Paul and Gloria’s wedding as a couple. Officer Woszinski and his wife had been there too.
Woszinski lifted his gaze. “Did you find anything else?”
Gloria shook her head. “No, we didn’t. I know your officers thoroughly investigated the crime scene, but wondered if they, too, noticed the wood stove inside the Mueller cottage was cold the morning his body was found, which meant either Ed Mueller hadn’t had time to light the stove or hadn’t planned to stay at the cottage.”
The officer nodded noncommittally as he grabbed a pen and began jotting notes on a yellow pad in front of him. “So you were in the Mueller cottage more than once.”
Was he building a case to have her arrested? Gloria’s heart began to pound. She rubbed her damp palms on top of her pants. “The door was open and we left as soon as the police told us to go.”
“We? How many people are we talking about?”
“Only a couple. Three or four. Maybe five. Somewhere in there.” She waved a dismissive hand.
Officer Woszinski stopped writing and set the pen on top of the pad. “Just between you and me, you could have gotten into a lot of trouble, but Paul is my friend and I’m gonna cut you some slack and let you off with a verbal warning.”
Gloria k
new what was coming next. She shrank back in the chair.
“Stay out of this investigation. Montbay County Sheriff’s investigative team is on this case. Leave it to the professionals Gloria. There’s a killer still out there on the loose.”
Officer Woszinski tapped his fingertips on the desk. “Have you ever thought what might happen if the killer finds out you’re snooping around? You’re putting your life and the lives of your friends in danger.”
He abruptly stood.
Gloria, taking this as her cue to leave, stood.
“I’ll walk you out.”
She followed him down the hall, into the lobby and then out the front door. “No wonder Paul retired. Keeping you out of trouble must be a full time job.”
Gloria opened her mouth to reply and then promptly shut it. She wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. At least he wasn’t going to arrest her for tampering with evidence, although, in her opinion, she wasn’t tampering. She was the one who had found the nametag!
Gloria stepped onto the sidewalk. She balanced her purse on her arm and adjusted her crutches. “Here goes nothing!” She quickly hobbled across the busy street.
When she safely reached the other side, she leaned against the car and waited for a line of traffic to pass by before quickly unlocking her door and slipping inside. “Well, that was fun,” she mumbled as she started the car and pulled onto the road.
She had made it into the town of Belhaven and turned onto the road leading toward the farm when her cell phone began ringing.
She pulled off to the side of the road and reached inside her purse, pulling it out. It was Margaret. “Hello?”
“Listen, I know you’re probably on your way home from the police station but wondered if you could stop by my place first. I have an idea.”
Chapter 15
Gloria wanted to go home. A dull ache had begun to radiate from the bottom of her kneecap all the way down to the tips of her toes.
When the girls jerked her into the van earlier, it had jarred her broken bone, although she couldn’t blame them for pulling her in. It was either that or be caught red-handed by the officer.
Her curiosity to find out exactly what “idea” Margaret had in mind outweighed the dull ache. “I’m on my way. I need an aspirin.”
Look Into My Ice (Garden Girls Christian Cozy Mystery Series Book 12) Page 8