by Tonya Kappes
“Max is here,” Finn called from the back of the shop. I was still measuring the circumference of the area where I’d found Paige.
I left my bag there and headed outside to talk to Max.
“Two victims?” he asked when I came out. He was already standing over Cecily’s body, placing a sheet over it.
“I know.” The more I thought of it, the heavier my heart got. “I just hope Paige makes it to tell us what went on out here tonight.”
“Finn said something about someone running away from the scene?” Max asked.
“I’m hoping Mrs. Kim has her security cameras up and working.” I pointed to the outline of the cameras that were barely visible from the working streetlight down the alley. “This light has been broken. Which makes me believe the killer broke it so no one would see. I’m worried that Paige just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Her car is parked over there.”
“My gut feeling is that Cecily was here to meet up with someone who wanted something from the Stone estate and something went wrong.” Finn shined his flashlight next to Cecily’s body. “I’m pretty sure the ax is the weapon used on both women.”
“I’m thinking the beginning of the attacks took place in the shop.” I walked toward the shop and inside, both of them following me. “Here is where I found Paige.”
Technically, Poppa found her, but they didn’t know that.
“Or the killer murdered Cecily out here and went inside to look through the items the Stone estate had put in Ruby’s shop for safekeeping,” Max threw in his two cents.
“No, the footprints match Cecily’s shoes,” Finn noted.
There seemed to be a lot of what ifs thrown around, but this was how theories were worked out and crimes were solved. Finn and I were really starting to gel and get to know each other on a professional level. Much different than it was during the last murder we solved, where he waited to see where my head was on the crime. Now he was throwing out the possible details that we needed to catch the killer.
“Maybe Paige walked up on the scene on the way to her car and saw the broken glass in the door and looked in. Out of curiosity, she walked in and found the killer in there going through the items, then the killer knocked her out. Duke started barking and took off, and that’s when we followed him. That’s when we found the crime scene. We heard footsteps running away from the scene going that way.” Finn pointed out the bloody footprints and walked beside them outside to Cecily’s body.
“The bloody prints match Cecily’s shoes, and there are no other prints going in or out of the shop. That tells me that Cecily was attacked inside, like Finn said, maybe stumbled out because the last few steps closest to her body are smudged like a drag. She lost so much blood that she passed out here, and this is where she died.”
Still a little stunned, all three of us stood there looking down at poor Cecily.
“It’s almost too dark to do anything now. Why don’t you go on home? I’ll stay here all night to make sure no one disrupts the scene before we can get a look at it in the sunlight,” I suggested to Finn.
It was hard to see the full picture with just the beam of the flashlight. The sun would definitely help us look under the shadows of the night, which could hold evidence we needed to solve the murder and the crime. Not to mention Mrs. Kim’s security footage.
“I’m wide awake now. Why don’t you go get some rest and bring me a coffee in the morning? You’re going to have a busy day answering a lot of questions when this story breaks.” Finn was right. Cottonwood would be buzzing with half-truth, half-gossip.
We agreed and Max put Cecily’s body up on the church cart before he loaded her into the hearse to take her to the morgue, where he said he’d get started on her autopsy first thing in the morning.
I chewed on the corner of my bottom lip as I watched the taillights of the hearse disappear into the distance. The thoughts that twirled in my head made my gut hurt.
Cecily Hoover knew something. Something that not only someone else wanted, but that got her killed.
Chapter Ten
“Get yourself up out of that bed this instant.”
It was way too early to be hearing Mama’s voice.
“You are the sheriff.” She jerked the covers off me. The cold air was as cold as a tomb and sent chills up along my legs, making me reach down to grab the sheet that had somehow bundled at my feet through the past few hours of shut eye. “If you aren’t there to work this case day and night, Lonnie Lemar will win this election hands down. Not that I’m keen on you being elected sheriff again, but I don’t like to lose.” She tried to jerk the sheet, but I’d curled my fists around it and tucked them under my chin. “So that means we win. Now get up.”
“Duke, sic her,” I groaned and rolled over to see what time my digital clock on the nightstand read.
Duke lugged his body up to standing, his tail wagging as he gave Mama kisses.
“Bad dog.” I blinked. “Does that clock say five thirty?”
“Yes. Now time’s a’wasting.” Mama patted her leg. “Come on, Duke. I’ll let you out. Get up, Kendrick Lowry. Don’t make me come back in here.”
“Leave your spare key on the counter on your way out!” I yelled, hoping she’d do something I asked for once. “Besides, Finn took the shift to watch so I could get some sleep and take over at seven. And I called in a few of the Kentucky reserve officers to stay at the Stone estate and in the alley behind Ruby’s.”
“Right now!” Mama screamed back, giving me that tone of voice that had scared the bejesus out of me when I was a kid.
I grabbed my phone to see if there were any texts from Finn. After we’d found Paige Lemar nearly dead and gotten her off to the hospital, it’d gotten up into the wee hours of the morning and Finn and I were so tired, we stumbled over each other. And it was so dark that it was really hard to collect any evidence with the low lighting Ruby had in the shop and the dark night that’d seemed darker than normal.
“You better move your hiney. She’s on a roll,” Poppa appeared and warned me.
“Fine.” I shoved the covers off my body.
There was no sense in trying to please either of them. They were cut from the same cloth. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to get up, though really, I didn’t, but Finn and I’d had a plan. Or it might’ve been the fact that we almost kissed and in the daylight it seemed much more serious than at night. I was a little nervous to see him.
“I don’t hear the shower!” Mama yelled down the hall at the top of her lungs.
“Mama.” I grabbed my robe off the chair and put it on. “You’re going to have to stop yelling or you’ll wake up all of Free Row.”
Free Row was what I lovingly called the neighborhood I lived in on the south end of town right off Main Street. The house was actually Poppa’s, and he left it to me in his will. It was natural for me to live here. It probably wouldn’t sell if I tried. Free Row was where most of the people who lived off food stamps and commodity cheese lived sprinkled in with a few drug dealers and petty criminals. Of course, Mama hated it and said that after Poppa died all the bad people moved in since there was no longer the law watching over them. I’d never had a problem and enjoyed every minute living here.
Mama groaned and complained under her breath as I made my way down the hall to the bathroom. The smell of the freshly brewed coffee she’d made did perk me up a little. I started the shower and got in.
“Now, I was thinking.” Mama had no boundaries. She came right on into the bathroom while I was in the shower and sat on the closed toilet seat. She curled the shower curtain back with her finger, her legs crossed and her top leg bouncing up and down. “If you play your cards right, this will seal your election.”
“Mama!” I jerked the shower curtain closed and quickly washed my hair, skipping shaving my legs. “You stay out of this. There is a woman dead and anot
her woman barely hanging on. This is a real crime and I don’t have time to talk about elections.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. Paige Lemar is too damn mean to pass on.” Mama’s words actually shocked me.
I turned the water off and reached out to grab my towel off the rack, wrapping it around me and tucking the edges underneath my armpits.
“What do you mean?” I was so stunned by what Mama had just said that I was almost speechless.
I stepped out of the shower. Mama’s leg continued to swing up and down and she picked at her nails.
“Paige Lemar used to be Beryle Stone’s housekeeper and she just thought her you-know-what didn’t stink. I remember my daddy talking about it,” she said. “Paige was always so la-dee-da.”
I took a deep inhale through my nose. This was a bit of information Poppa had completely left out, and that was concerning to me.
“What did Poppa say?” I asked Mama.
She jumped up and stood facing me. “Now what I’ve got to say is important?”
“Mama.” She was good at playing the guilt card with me. Issues I chalked up to being an only child. “Tell me what you know.”
“All I know is that...” Mama was talking with her back to me as we walked down the hall into the kitchen, but I couldn’t hear her due to Poppa talking behind me.
“Paige Lemar had been Beryle’s housekeeper for years. Lonnie always complained about how much time Paige spent over there and that she was more of Beryle’s best friend than employee. Beryle took Paige all over this country when she first hit it big. When Beryle moved to New York, she didn’t need a housekeeper anymore. Luckily for Paige, the Inn opened up and she went to work there. Lonnie told her she could stay home, but she refused and started working for Darby.” Poppa and Mama’s words were practically in stereo as they told the same tale.
“And if Paige knew something...” I curled my bottom lip in once I realized I’d said those words out loud. “And Cecily knew something, then the killer might’ve tried to get them both in one place.”
“You don’t say?” Mama gasped and poured a big cup of coffee, setting it down in front of me.
“Have you happened to check on Paige this morning?” I asked Mama, knowing that the henny-hens were on top of things concerning gossip.
“I did.” Mama eased down in the kitchen chair next to me. Her hands were curled around the mug. “All I know is that Lulu said that Stella said that Lonnie called the pastor to come and pray over her for a full recovery because she hasn’t woken up yet, but her vitals are good. She took a nice blow to the head.”
I needed to get ready and get going so I could find out exactly what Paige did know when she did wake up.
“They said she might not wake up for days.” Mama nodded her head. “I’d like to sleep for days, but not like that.”
“I was trying to sleep before you broke into my house.” I took another drink of the coffee hoping it would kick in.
Mama took my mug. “You can sleep after the election. I can tell you another thing. Lonnie also told the pastor who told Stella who told Lulu that he wanted the Sweet Adelines to keep a vigil over Paige because he was going to hunt down whoever tried to kill his wife.”
“That wouldn’t be good.” I was going to have to make my first stop be Lonnie’s house to make sure he remembered just how investigations went and that he didn’t cross the line and interfere. “Did you happen to go to church group last night?”
“I did.” Mama refilled my mug and handed it back to me. “It was a doozy. Preacher Bing was up in arms about the finances and Stella was tight lipped. It was what I’d call tense.”
“Did you see Paige and Ruby there?” I asked.
“I did.” Mama’s eyes popped open, her mouth forming a big O. “They didn’t talk, but you know,” she wagged her finger, “Paige left early.”
“Did she say why? And what time was that?” I asked, now thankful that Mama had used her extra key to wake me up.
“I don’t know what time it was. And no,” she said, as though it was completely out of line that I even asked if she knew why Paige left. “I don’t know.” She tilted her chin up to the left and shifted her eyes to the right and looked at me. “But I do know she got a phone call that she left the room to take.” She wagged her finger at me. “Which is good manners. Anyways, it was shortly thereafter that she left. And she didn’t tell anyone she was leaving. She slipped out.” Mama tapped her nose. “But I noticed.” She swung her finger from her nose to pointing at me. “You know you get your keen sense of intuition from my side of the family. Just like my daddy.”
“She’s right, ya know.” Poppa appeared. I glared at him. He should’ve told me long before Mama had that he knew Paige had a connection to Beryle Stone.
Mama shooed me. “Go on and get ready,” she instructed me. “And put on some lipstick. It’ll make the dark circles under your eyes not stand out so much.”
I could’ve said a few choice words to Mama, but that was another fire that I’d have to put out, and I had bigger issues. There was a killer among us, and it seemed that Beryle Stone’s estate lay at the center of the crimes.
Chapter Eleven
“You could’ve told me about Paige’s history with Beryle.” I was a tad bit irritated with Poppa.
He sat in the passenger side of the Wagoneer and Duke was in the backseat with his head hung out of the window and ears flopping in the cold air. Overnight the temperature had plunged and the first frost of the season had practically covered the entire town.
The defrost in the Wagoneer was on full blast, and it was taking forever to clear the windshield, even with the wipers on full speed.
“Shoot the juice to it,” Poppa pointed to the washer fluid, “and keep doing it.”
“Poppa.” I rolled down my window so I could see to make a left onto Main Street from Free Row, heading downtown to Ruby’s Antiques. I’d wait a couple of hours and let the sun come up before I went to see Lonnie.
“The windshield wiper fluid will just harden as soon as I use it because it’s so cold.” I took a left out of Chestnut and headed north on Main Street.
“I’d forgotten about Paige working for Beryle,” Poppa said. “That was a long time ago, and I’d thought Beryle lived out of town until we showed up yesterday.” Poppa’s arm was resting across the front seat, and his fingers drummed on the edge of it.
“Don’t you have some connections up there?” I pointed to the sky.
“It doesn’t work that way. Just like my memory.” He took his arm off the seat and pointed to his temple. “Every memory is kinda foggy, but as soon as something triggers it, it becomes clear. Just like the fact that Paige worked for Beryle.”
“I can’t wait for Paige to wake up so I can question her, but it has to be before Lonnie gets to her.” There was some urgency in my gut about this whole situation. One problem—there were only two of us. Finn and me.
I turned right on Walnut Street and took a right behind the alley behind Cowboy’s Catfish, parking the Wagoneer behind the department. It was easier to park there instead of behind Ruby’s. I hooked my bag in the crook of my arm and grabbed the two to-go cups of coffee Mama had made for Finn and me before I’d left the house.
“Too bad you can’t help me carry something,” I joked with Poppa who had ghosted himself next to my open door.
He smiled. “I can help with Duke.” He patted his leg. “Come on, boy.”
Duke wagged his tail and happily jumped out of the Jeep.
“This way,” Poppa called after Duke, who had trotted to the back door of the department.
On our walk across the street and down the alley behind Ruby’s, I called Max Bogus. Poppa and Duke walked ahead of me.
“Good morning, Max,” I said when he answered.
“Hey, Kenni. I’ve been waiting for your call,” Max replied. �
��Our victim was definitely killed by blunt force trauma to the head. I’m confident to say that it was the ax that was found at the crime scene. I’d taken a picture of the weapon, and when I looked at the blow to her skull and the hair follicles that are gone from her skull, it completely matches up.”
“I just wanted to double check what we really knew,” I said with a pang to my gut.
What a terrible way to die.
“I’m just now getting to the fingernails and swabbing them for any sort of material underneath the nails. I’ll let you know as I progress,” Max said.
We said our goodbyes just as I turned the corner of the alley where Finn’s Charger was still parked behind Paige’s car. Finn got out of his car once he saw Duke.
Our eyes met and we smiled at each other. It’d been a long time since we’d spent some real alone time together. We were due.
“Be sure to tell Finn I made that” were Mama’s parting words when I left. Mama would’ve gone down to the Bridal Carriage on the south side of town and picked out a mother-of-the-bride dress if I’d even mentioned to her that Finn and I almost kissed.
“Aww, Kenni-bug. You’ve got a thing for him. I can see it.” Poppa shook his head and shuffled his feet, walking away until he faded into the cool early morning air. “I’m going to check on Paige.” His voice lingered in the brisk air.
“You’re early.” Finn’s deep voice sounded tired and brought me out of my stare at where Poppa had just been. He bent down and gave Duke a brisk rub behind the ears. “Hey, buddy.”
I held out a coffee for him. “Compliments of Mama.” I wiggled my eyebrows. “She literally dragged me out of bed because she said this was a make-or-break moment in the election.”
“Lonnie versus you?” he asked.
“I guess. I don’t care about all that. I just want to bring the killer to justice.” I took a sip. “Anything happen around here after I left?”