Murder Is No Accident

by A. H. Gabhart

  “Don’t call Axel,” Reece told Michael after they finally convinced him to get on the stretcher. “I’ll be normal. I will.”

  They followed the ambulance in Michael’s patrol car. Not Malinda’s favorite ride. She’d never been that pleased about Michael being a policeman. She was almost positive that wasn’t the Lord’s plan for him. Oh, it was good to protect the public, keep the peace. Somebody needed to enforce the law or things would go haywire. But that didn’t mean Michael had to be out there risking his life.

  Selfish thinking on her part, but it did little good to pretend something that wasn’t true. Especially in front of the Lord. Better to simply admit it and ask forgiveness. The problem was that while she might ask forgiveness for selfishness, she couldn’t repent of the desire to see Michael in a job that didn’t require carrying a gun.

  One wouldn’t think there’d be much danger to a deputy sheriff in a little town like Hidden Springs. That was what she’d thought when Michael came home from Columbus to work here, but bad things happened everywhere. When those kinds of things happened, an officer of the law couldn’t step back out of danger. He, or she in these liberated days, had to be on the front line.

  They didn’t talk much on their way to Eagleton. It didn’t seem right to chat about this or that while speeding along behind an ambulance with lights and sirens going full blast. Michael didn’t use his siren, but he kept his lights flashing and stayed right with the ambulance. Malinda grabbed the armrest and hung on. She was thankful most of the way was on the interstate, with no intersections to fly through until they got off at the Eagleton exit.

  There were all kinds of ways of dying. Stroke. Heart attack. Getting shot. But being T-boned while in a police car was a way too. She jerked her seatbelt tighter and tried to remember to breathe.

  Michael didn’t appear bothered at all. Routine for him, she supposed. She definitely needed to increase her prayers for him.

  At the emergency room, Reece looked the worse for the ambulance ride, but he seemed resigned to his fate. Not dying, but enduring whatever the doctors said must be done. He tried again to get Michael to promise not to call Alexandria, but that wasn’t a promise he could make. Michael did agree to wait to see what the doctors said. They wheeled Reece away to do some sort of test on his head. The whole thing made Malinda tremble. Not just for Reece, but for what might lie ahead in her future.

  Maybe Geraldine Harper falling down the steps and meeting a quick end wasn’t all bad for her. That wasn’t so. Geraldine, poor woman, would no doubt have wished for that ambulance ride and a chance to keep breathing.

  She didn’t know about Geraldine until Michael gave her the news while they waited in the ER room for Reece to come back from getting his head scanned or whatever.

  “Such a shame,” Malinda said. “Hard to take in. You don’t think about people falling down steps and dying.”

  “Statistics show falls as a leading cause of accidental deaths.”

  Michael looked tired. A stressful day and ending up here in the ER made everything worse. She thought about getting up to go kiss the top of his head the way she used to when he was a boy and things were hard for him. But he wasn’t a boy anymore.

  “Maybe so, but it’s still not something you think about happening,” she said. “Unless the person is old and infirm. Certainly not the way you expect a robust person like Geraldine to meet her end. What do you think happened?”

  “Hard to say without an eyewitness.” Michael shifted in the plastic chair and made it pop. He ran his hands up and down his thighs and kept his eyes focused on the far wall. A clear sign something was making him uneasy.

  “And you don’t have one of those?” Malinda studied his face. “Or do you?”

  “None that I know of.”

  “Wouldn’t you know?”

  “Maybe. Miss Fonda was there at the house.” He sighed and quit avoiding her eyes. “She made another escape from Mrs. Gibson’s.”

  “Oh dear. Poor old thing.” Malinda shook her head. “The last time I stopped in to see her, she didn’t know who I was. A terrible thing to lose your memory.”

  Malinda felt the sadness of it all through her. Seemed to be even worse than usual in this sterile room. Her darkest fears were being shoved right in her face. First, Reece rushed to the hospital with a stroke and then the worry of someday being like Fonda Elwood.

  The thought of getting old had been stalking her recently. She kept pushing it away. She wasn’t that old. She was hale and hearty. She didn’t even take a blood pressure pill, and that could be considered amazing since she spent a good portion of her days cracking open teenagers’ reluctant minds to pour in some algebra. But then Geraldine Harper had been hale and hearty yesterday too.

  “Yes. Miss Fonda seems to forget everything but the way back to her house,” Michael said.

  “Do you think she saw Geraldine fall?”

  “Hard to say. When I got there, Geraldine was dead and Miss Fonda was crouched over her. Very distraught.”

  “I suppose finding someone dead in your house would be distressing whether you knew the person or not, but I’m surprised Fonda would remember Geraldine.”

  “She didn’t. She thought Geraldine was her sister, Audrey.”

  “Ah yes. Audrey.” Malinda rubbed her hand across her forehead. Her head was beginning to ache. That happened when she forgot to drink enough water. “Then no wonder Fonda was so upset.”

  “Justin said Audrey died from a fall too. Maybe down those same stairs. Do you remember when it happened?”

  “Of course. It was a long time ago, but those kinds of tragedies have a way of knitting themselves into the fabric of your memories.” While that was true, Malinda didn’t particularly want to unravel those threads to recall something that happened so long ago. Besides, she wasn’t sure anybody knew the whole story.

  “Tragedy?” Michael looked puzzled. “It was an accident, wasn’t it?”

  “That didn’t keep it from being a tragedy. It certainly seemed so to me at the time. Audrey was so young. Older than me, but still only in her thirties. And there was little Brad to consider. Perhaps my heart went out to him because I knew how it was to lose a mother at such a young age.” She looked over at Michael and felt a tug at her heart. “As do you.”

  “But this happened a long time before the wreck, didn’t it?”

  “Oh yes. And little Brad was even younger than you when you lost your parents. Only nine, I think. Losing his mother at such a young age had to be difficult no matter what sort of mother she was.”

  “What do you mean? Wasn’t she a good mother?” Michael looked surprised by her words, as though he thought all mothers were good.

  If only that were true, many of her students would be better for it. Malinda pulled in a breath and tried not to think about her headache. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sure she did her best, although Fonda never thought Audrey paid proper attention to the boy. Audrey was something of a socialite. Always off to this or that event in Eagleton. She and her husband wanted to be jet-setters. Not enough action in Hidden Springs to suit them.”

  “Then why did they live here?” Michael asked.

  “A good question. Could be Audrey felt duty bound. Her parents moved to Florida after signing the Chandler house over to her when little Brad was born, with the condition that she couldn’t sell it. If she moved, she had to give it to Fonda. There were only the two girls. And them ten years apart. Fonda was oldest, but she didn’t marry until after little Brad was born. That’s why Audrey got the house. Some said Audrey stayed just to spite Fonda. There was always friction between those two. But Fonda did love that place.”

  “Still does.”

  “Indeed. And she loved little Brad even more. You’d have thought she was the child’s grandmother the way she spoiled him.” Malinda’s head began to thump. She certainly hoped strokes weren’t catching. Of course, they weren’t. She was being silly. All she needed was something to drink. With
the worry about Reece, she had foregone her cup of tea after school.

  “Are you all right, Aunt Lindy?”

  Michael was watching her, ready to leap to her aid.

  “I’m fine.” Now she was sounding like Reece, saying she was fine when she wasn’t. “I just need a drink.”

  A stainless steel sink was in the corner behind her. Stainless steel. The whole room was white and steel except for the black television screen suspended on an arm from high on the wall. Thank goodness, it wasn’t turned on. She got up and went to the sink. She could sip water from her hand if necessary, but she opened the cabinet over the sink. If they didn’t want the cabinets opened, they should lock them. A stack of Styrofoam cups was a welcome sight. She ran the water a minute before she filled the cup and drank every drop. Next thing she’d have to find a restroom, but she’d worry about that later. She filled the cup again and sat back down.

  “Are you sure you’re okay? I can get a nurse.”

  “No need in that. I’m fine,” she repeated. She sipped more of the water and did feel better. “Shouldn’t they be back with Reece by now?”

  Michael glanced at the clock on the wall. “It’s not been that long.”

  She looked at the clock too, with no idea of how long they’d been there. She generally had an internal clock that ticked off the minutes from long practice of knowing how much time was left in her classes at school. But this with Reece and then talking about Audrey and thinking about Geraldine had thrown her off-kilter.

  “Why do you want to know about Audrey?” she asked.

  “When Miss Fonda thought Geraldine was Audrey and then Justin said Audrey died in a fall too, it made me curious.”

  “I don’t see how the two deaths could be connected.”

  “Only by place.”

  “Yes, well.” Malinda took another drink. “It’s just so odd.”

  “What is?”

  “I hadn’t thought about any of this for so long. And now you’re the second person to ask me about Audrey in the last week.”

  8

  Michael looked at Aunt Lindy. “Why would anybody be asking you about Audrey?”

  “Why indeed?” Aunt Lindy massaged her forehead with the tips of her fingers, as though trying to erase a headache. Or maybe her memories of whatever had happened to Audrey.

  He wasn’t surprised by her reluctance to talk about Audrey. Aunt Lindy was a one-woman booster club for Hidden Springs. Bad things that happened in the town weren’t exactly forgotten, just swept back out of sight. A lesson to learn from but nothing to dwell upon. He tried an easier question. “Then who?”

  “Lana Waverly.” She pulled in a deep breath and let it out. “Have you met her yet? She opened that tearoom venture on Main. An attractive woman. Ambitious. Obviously capable.”

  “I’ve met her.” Could the day get any weirder? “How would she even know about Audrey? Isn’t she from New York?”

  “She grew up in Indiana. South Bend, she said. Moved to New York and got a job with a publishing company. Worked her way up to content editor at one of the big-name companies. She resigned to have time to write. She wants to write mysteries and she thinks living in a quaint little town like Hidden Springs will be good for her muse. At least that’s what she claims.” Aunt Lindy looked as if she wasn’t sure she believed the woman.

  “That doesn’t explain her asking about Audrey. Or even knowing about Audrey. I didn’t know anything about her until today.”

  “That might be because you didn’t pay attention. I’m sure I have mentioned in the past that Fonda had a sister who died young.” Aunt Lindy took another sip of water. “As for the Waverly woman, she didn’t mention Audrey or the Chandler house when she called. Not that newcomers aren’t often curious about that old house. It is quite grand. But no, she claimed to want to see our collection of antique books.”

  “Those dusty old books on the shelves in the front room?”

  “I’m sure some of them are rare books of historical value.” Aunt Lindy gave Michael a look. “Anyway, since I’d heard she has plans for a bookstore along with her tea shop, I thought perhaps she had an actual interest in literature.”

  “She doesn’t?”

  Aunt Lindy shrugged a little. “I can’t say for certain, but she barely glanced at any of the books except the history of Keane County that Willard Jefferson wrote back in the fifties. Someone told her I had a copy. Probably that Vernon Trent.” Aunt Lindy’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not one to discourage new businesses on Main, but that man needs to learn boundaries. I’ve told him I’m not selling anything to him. I don’t care what he says Grandmother’s china cabinet is worth.”

  “You don’t have to sell him anything.”

  “I certainly do not. The man’s a leech. Stealing the heritage of people here in town.”

  “Stealing?” Michael raised his eyebrows at her.

  “Same as. Most people have no idea what their antiques are worth.” Aunt Lindy sounded disgusted. “But I don’t suppose you can arrest a man for taking advantage of people. Anyway, back to Lana Waverly. She latched onto Willard’s book. Pretended she wanted to read it to find out more about her new hometown.”

  “Pretended?”

  “It’s dull as dishwater. I doubt if any but the most diehard Hidden Springs citizens read past page ten. Besides, if she wanted to read it, she could get a copy at the library. No need acting like my copy is a town treasure.” Aunt Lindy made a face. “A person should simply be straightforward about what she wants.”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t kick her out.” Michael twisted his mouth to hide his smile.

  “Her apparent deviousness would have been no excuse for rudeness on my part. Besides, when she didn’t give any of the old books much notice, I did begin to wonder why she had come. She beat around the bush awhile. Asking about things in town. Clubs and such and whether there were any writers in Keane County. But eventually she got around to the real reason she was there.”

  “Which was?” Michael prodded when Aunt Lindy fell silent.

  “Bradley Carlson. Audrey’s husband. You may have heard of him. He moved from here to Indiana and was eventually elected to the House of Representatives. Lana Waverly says he’s still serving in spite of being well into his seventies now. Lana claims to have known him when she lived in Indiana. Not sure that explains why she showed up on my doorstep asking about him.” Aunt Lindy rubbed her fingers and thumb together, something she did when she was working out a difficult problem.

  “Could be somebody told her you were the town historian. The one person in Hidden Springs who knows everything.”

  Aunt Lindy waved away his words. “I hardly know everything, and even if I did, that doesn’t mean I’d tell it. But as for Lana Waverly, it may have been nothing more than idle curiosity. Somebody told her Bradley Carlson once lived here. Add onto that the story about his wife dying in a tragic accident. A potential mystery writer might be looking for plot ideas.”

  “Was Audrey’s death a mystery?” Michael remembered Miss Fonda’s accusing words. She’s dead because of him.

  Aunt Lindy fiddled with the crease in her slacks. “No.”

  “You don’t sound totally sure.”

  She sighed and looked up at him. “There was talk, but there is always talk in Hidden Springs. You know that. And Fonda was so distraught about it all. While she and Audrey had their issues, they were family. But Fonda never considered Bradley family. He was the outsider who appeared to want to entice Audrey away from Hidden Springs. Then that didn’t happen, but he took her nephew away instead. Fonda was heartbroken over both the loss of her sister and young Brad. In her mind, Bradley Carlson became the villain of the piece.” She started to say something else, but then pressed her lips together and kept quiet.

  “Justin said they never came back for a visit. That seems sort of harsh.”

  “Yes, perhaps Bradley thought a clean break from such tragic memories was best for the boy. A new life for both of them. He
didn’t really have any reason to come back, since the house went to Fonda per her parents’ will. Not sure if the will continues through the next generation, but if it does, once Fonda passes, the house would be little Brad’s. I suppose he’s not so little now. He’d be in his forties.”

  “If that’s true, Sonny Elwood must not know it. He plans to sell the house.”

  “I’d be surprised if he can legally do that. Even if his mother is Fonda’s power of attorney. I doubt Fonda can sell it. The Chandlers didn’t intend the property to be owned by anybody out of the family. Of course, they thought Audrey and Fonda would have more children. If not Chandlers in surname, a branch of the Chandler family.”

  “Can wills be drawn up like that? That prohibit the sale of property?”

  “I’m not sure. That would be a question for Reece.” Aunt Lindy looked at the door out into the hallway. “What in the world are they doing to the poor man?”

  Michael stood up. He put his hand on Aunt Lindy’s shoulder as he passed by her. “Thanks for telling me about Audrey.”

  “You know I’m ready to answer whatever questions you have about the past here in Hidden Springs. But some memories are more distressing than others.” She pressed her cheek against his hand. A rare affectionate gesture from her. She was not one for hugs.

  “Do you think there was anything to what Miss Fonda said? That he caused her to fall.”

  “I’ve been up and down those stairs a time or two. Easy to imagine someone falling, but you would hope it wouldn’t be fatal. Entirely possible however. I guess that was proven today with Geraldine.” Aunt Lindy sat up straight and shook her head. “So hard to believe. That’s how it felt with Audrey too. Hard to believe. But Bradley gave every appearance of a man deeply mourning his wife. Didn’t take him long to remarry however. Barely six months after Audrey died.”