Somebody had been in the room. Now Maggie was glad for the silence. That had to mean whoever had been there was gone. But then she was standing there silent. Perhaps someone else was standing just as silent waiting to see what she would do.
Her heart pounded up in her ears until she couldn’t hear anything. She moistened her lips and tried to look everywhere at once as she stepped away from the mantel. Nobody was there. The room was empty.
She breathed a little easier as she looked toward the open door into the library room her mother sometimes called a book closet, because in spite of its size, the only way into the room was through the sitting room. Books were every which way on the floor.
Miss Fonda loved her books. She’d be upset if the pages got torn or rumpled. Maggie picked up a book in the doorway to smooth out the pages. It would take hours to clean up this mess. Never mind the dust. And what was that peculiar odor?
New chills crawled up her back as she suddenly felt another presence in the room. She jerked around to stare toward the old rolltop desk in the corner. She blinked her eyes.
This had to be a nightmare. But no, she was awake and Miss Fonda’s nephew really was in the desk chair staring at her without seeing a thing. The same as Mrs. Harper. Or not the same. Blood was caked in the corner of the man’s mouth and red stained his shirt.
A scream gathered in Maggie’s throat. She clamped her hand over her mouth to stop it, but it was either scream or faint. She couldn’t faint. She had to get Jesse away from here. The scream burst out of her mouth as she ran back through the house.
At the kitchen door, arms grabbed her. Not Jesse’s little-boy arms. A man’s arms.
22
She jerked away from the man and fell against the wall.
“What’s wrong, Maggie?” Anthony’s voice pushed through her panic.
Maggie stared at Anthony and tried to catch her breath. He had grabbed her. No one else was there except Jesse standing in the back door, his eyes wide.
Miss Marble scooted between Jesse’s legs into the kitchen. The cat leaped on the counter and up on the refrigerator to crouch under the cabinet above it. Maggie wanted to crawl up there with her.
She clamped her lips together to keep from screaming again. She was scaring Jesse. She was scaring everybody. Even Miss Marble.
“Anthony?” She gave her head a shake, not sure she could trust her eyes. But hadn’t she just seen Mr. Elwood dead and bloody? A shudder made her teeth chatter. She hadn’t dreamed that up. She wasn’t dreaming Anthony either. He was right in front of her, those gorgeous blue eyes staring at her as if she might have lost her mind.
“Yeah. Sorry I scared you.” He shifted back and forth on his feet. “But your little brother said it was okay for me to come inside.”
“Oh.” Maggie swallowed and pushed away from the wall. She took a quick look over her shoulder toward the front rooms. The hallway was empty, but the house was big. Lots of places for someone to hide.
“What’s wrong?” Anthony asked again. He reached toward her, but then dropped his hand back down, as if unsure whether to touch her or not. “You’re shaking all over. Did you see a mouse or something in there?”
She stepped closer to him. If only he’d put his arms around her again. That might make her feel safer. “I’m not afraid of mice.”
“Maggie.” Jesse sounded as shaky as she felt.
Jesse’s voice brought it all back to her. The dead man. The man’s voice on the phone. The man who could be watching her. Watching Jesse. Right now.
She turned away from Anthony. “We’ve got to get out of here!”
Anthony grabbed her arm to keep her from running toward the door. “Why?”
“He didn’t fall down the stairs.” Panic surged up in her voice again. “Somebody killed him.”
“Slow down.” Anthony frowned and pulled her around to face him. “You’re not making sense.”
“You don’t understand.” Maggie stared at Anthony. “Whoever did it could still be here. In the house.”
Jesse raced across the kitchen to grab Maggie and hide his face against her shirt. He didn’t have to be convinced to be afraid.
“Okay. Show me what scared you.”
Anthony sounded like he was trying to humor her the way she sometimes did with Jesse. Maggie could tell he hadn’t really heard what she said about Miss Fonda’s nephew being dead. Either that or he didn’t believe her.
She might not believe it either if she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes. The sight of the dead man flashed through her head again. A lot worse than Mrs. Harper. Because of the blood. Maggie felt sick as she pulled Jesse close against her. She pointed toward the front of the house.
“He’s in there, but please don’t go look.” Tears popped into her eyes. “Please.”
“Don’t worry.” He let go of her arm and stared toward the hallway. “Nobody’s here.”
“How do you know?” She wanted to grab him and make him stay with them. He didn’t understand.
“Well then, I’ll make sure nobody’s here.” His face was set. “You two stay put.”
He started up the hall toward the front of the house. She wanted to trail after him, but she was too scared to move. She started shaking again and Jesse hugged her tighter.
She took a shuddering breath and unwrapped one of his arms from around her waist. “Come on. We’re going outside.”
“Shouldn’t we wait for your boyfriend?” Jesse peered past her toward the hall.
That froze her in place again. Jesse was right. She couldn’t leave with Anthony in there. She gripped Jesse’s hand so tightly he winced, but he didn’t pull away. She dropped down in the chair beside the table before her shaky legs gave out on her. Jesse leaned against her. She had the feeling he might climb into her lap, big as he was, if she gave him the least encouragement.
“Who was dead?” he asked.
“Miss Fonda’s nephew.”
“Did somebody shoot him?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe he shot himself. Sometimes that happens, doesn’t it?”
“Sometimes.” She put an arm around Jesse. Maybe that was what had happened. Mr. Elwood shot himself. That would be bad but not nearly as bad as thinking the man on the phone had killed him and was now watching them. She hadn’t seen a gun, but she hadn’t looked for one. She was too busy screaming.
A scream still lingered in her throat as the seconds crept by. She listened, but she couldn’t hear anything but Jesse breathing beside her. Not Anthony moving around in the front of the house. Not the cat hiding up under the cabinets. The refrigerator tried to start running, then wheezed back into silence.
The back door stood open. A way to escape, but what if the man was out there? Waiting. A blue jay shrieked outside and Maggie jumped.
Jesse patted her shoulder. She took a breath to calm down. She was supposed to be the one taking care of Jesse. Keeping him safe. If only Anthony would come back to the kitchen so they could get away from here.
She stood up and went to the hall. Jesse scooted along with her, not turning loose of her shirt.
“Anthony?” The awful silence swallowed up the sound of his name.
But then he was coming toward them. His face pale but he was safe.
“You’re right,” he said. “I need to call Michael.”
“Michael?” Her heart started pounding too hard again. “You can’t call Michael.”
Anthony already had his phone in his hand. He frowned at Maggie. “Why not?”
“He told me not to call the police.” Maggie could barely push out the words. “He said if I did, he’d know and that he’d . . .” She let her voice die away. She couldn’t tell how the man had threatened Jesse. That would just scare Jesse more.
“You saw the murderer?” Anthony stared at her. “Now?”
“No. He called the house.”
“He told you that guy was dead in there?”
“No. He called Saturday. After Mrs. Harper di
ed.”
Anthony frowned. “You’re not making sense, Maggie. But I have to call Michael.” He punched in some numbers.
Maggie heard the phone ringing before Anthony put it up to his ear, and for the second time that afternoon, she burst into tears.
The things a man had to do as deputy sheriff of Keane County. Michael cleaned his shoes on a big tuft of grass before he climbed back into his patrol car. But he couldn’t just stand there and watch while Ezra McMurtry tried to herd his cows back in the field. Ezra was getting up in years and had to stop every few minutes to lean with his hands on his knees to catch his breath. The man looked that close to a heart attack.
It didn’t help that Ezra was mad as a wet hen. As soon as Michael got there, Ezra lit in on him. “Dad-blamed speeders. Run clear through my fence. Knocked that middle post to tomorrow. Then just backed themselves up on the road and went on off for an RC Cola like nothing happened.”
Ezra waved his hand at the field and then at the two heifers behind him that refused to go back through the hole in the fence. He shook his finger at Michael. “Let me tell you. If they’d a come to the house asking me to pull them out of the ditch, I’d have brought my shotgun and stood there till they fixed the fence, and don’t you tell me anything would be wrong with that.”
Michael held up his hands in surrender. “I don’t blame you a bit, Ezra.” And he didn’t blame the old farmer, but he was glad that hadn’t happened. He didn’t want anybody shot because of a wrecked fence. But he didn’t want the old farmer to have a heart attack either. So Michael parked his car sideways in the road and stationed Ezra beside it while he eased around behind the heifers. The cows eyed him with ears at attention and hooves dancing on the road, ready to run.
It took a couple of tries, but finally Ezra smacked the lead heifer’s nose with a stick when she tried to run past him. That must have convinced her the fun was over and she sedately stepped back through the hole in the fence to join the rest of the herd in the pasture. The other cow followed without a backward glance.
Michael left the old farmer stringing barbed wire to fix his fence while muttering about people having no respect for a man’s property these days. After Michael turned his cruiser around, he checked his phone. Sure enough, Alex had finally called him. Well, not called him. Texted him. Not the way Michael liked to communicate. What could a man tell about letters typed on a screen?
We need to talk. Can u come by later?
Maybe too much. He punched in Alex’s cell number and got her polite “so sorry, busy” message. He pulled over in a driveway. Nothing for it but to send a text back.
Sure. I’ll bring Cindy’s finest for dinner.
He hadn’t even pulled back out on the road when an answer pinged back to prove she could have picked up his call.
Remember Uncle Reece needs to eat hlthy. But if Cindy has choc pie…
The pie request brought a smile. Alex had a sweet tooth. Maybe he was simply imagining her hesitancy to talk to him. But Alex was always a step or two ahead of him. She may have sensed his determination to finally make her give him a yes or a no. But what if it was no?
He blew out his breath and pulled back onto the road. He couldn’t think about that. Not yet. He stopped at the Grill and gave Cindy his order and asked her to put aside a whole chocolate pie. His phone buzzed awake again as he parked in the sheriff’s spot beside the courthouse. He fished the phone out of his pocket as he got out of the car and didn’t bother looking at the caller ID. Betty Jean would be calling to tell him she was closing down the office for the day.
But it wasn’t Betty Jean.
“Michael.” Anthony didn’t sound like himself.
“What’s wrong?” Michael gripped the phone tighter, as though to squeeze the news out of it. He could hear somebody crying in the background.
“We’re okay, but something bad’s happened.” The kid’s voice sounded quivery.
Relief washed through Michael, even as every inch of him was on alert. At least Anthony wasn’t hurt. “All right. Take it slow and tell me what’s happened.”
Anthony pulled in a deep breath and let it out, the air swooshing through the phone line. “I’m at that big old house on the edge of town. Where that woman fell last week. Somebody’s dead in one of the front rooms.”
“Dead? Who?”
“I don’t know. But I can ask if Maggie knows.”
“Maggie?” Michael got back in his car.
“Yeah. Her and her little brother are here. Maggie’s real upset. Scared and everything.”
“Scared?”
“Yeah. She’s afraid whoever shot the guy might still be here.”
“Stay on the phone, Anthony. I’ll be there in three minutes.” The bad feeling he’d had about Geraldine Harper bounded back full force.
Michael rarely used both his lights and siren, but today he did.
Hidden Springs took notice. Betty Jean hung up on Vernon Trent in midsentence to key on her radio. Hank Leland ran for his old van behind the newspaper office. Storeowners and their customers rushed to the doors to see what was happening. Justin Thatcher looked up from writing Geraldine Harper’s obituary for the Eagleton News and fervently hoped his phone wouldn’t ring.
23
At the Chandler house, Michael screeched to a halt behind Sonny Elwood’s BMW and Anthony’s old Chevy. If anything happened to those kids, Michael wouldn’t be able to live with himself.
He knew something wasn’t right about Geraldine Harper’s death, but he’d brushed away his suspicions. He had wanted it to be nothing more than an accident. Plus, he let Alex being in Hidden Springs distract him. He couldn’t afford to do that now.
Michael drew his gun and moved as quietly as possible across the yard. The hedges and trees muffled the sound of cars passing by out on the street. He should have turned off his emergency lights. They would draw the curious. Hank Leland was probably already pulling into the driveway.
No time to worry about that now. The lights were flashing, signaling something wrong. It was his job to make sure nothing more went wrong. Anthony said they were in the kitchen, so Michael went around the house. No sign of anybody in the graveyard. Nothing out of the ordinary behind the house either. The garden shed door was closed with the wooden bar down in the locked position. Somebody could be hiding behind the shed or in the bushes, but the yard felt empty. A man got a feel for that kind of thing after a while.
He shoved his gun back in the holster and climbed the porch steps where the day before he’d caught Lana Waverly peering in the window. The back door was wide open.
He pulled his phone out of his pocket and spoke into it for the first time since he got out of his cruiser. “I’m on the porch, Anthony. Coming in.” He didn’t want the boy to bash him over the head with a soup kettle or something.
Inside, the three kids formed a little island of fear beside the kitchen table. Maggie sat in the chair Miss Fonda had collapsed into on Friday. The girl’s face was as white as the old kitchen cabinets behind her. She’d obviously been crying, but she wasn’t crying now. She had her arm around her little brother, clutching him close to her. The boy, maybe six or seven, looked more confused than frightened.
Anthony stood behind Maggie, one hand on her shoulder, the other hand gripping his phone. He was trying hard not to look scared, but everything about him was stiff. He looked afraid to blink. Anthony had come a long way from being the kid in town always in trouble. But here he was in trouble again. Not trouble of his own making, but trouble nevertheless.
A thump sounded behind Michael, and he spun around, his hand going to his gun. The cat stared at him from the counter, almost as wide-eyed as the kids. But then she sat down and began to lick her paws to wash her face. Her tail swished back and forth, brushing the canisters behind her.
Michael turned back to the kids. “Okay, guys. What’s going on here?”
Both Maggie and Anthony started talking.
Michael held up his hand. “Maggie
first.”
“It’s Mr. Elwood.” Maggie licked her lips and her chin quivered. “He’s in there.” She pointed toward the front of the house with a trembling hand.
“You found him?” It wasn’t really a question. The answer was obvious in her terrified eyes.
She nodded. “He’s dead. Not like Mrs. Harper. He’s got blood on his shirt. That man must have killed him.”
“What man?” Michael looked away from Maggie up through the hallway. He felt the itch to go check out the house, but he needed to take care of the kids first.
“The one that killed him. He . . .” She looked at her little brother and pulled him even closer to her. After a couple of seconds, she went on. “He must have.”
“Did you see someone?”
She shook her head. She blinked, obviously fighting back tears. “I’m not going to cry. I’m not.”
Anthony tightened his hand on her shoulder and dropped the phone in his pocket to free his other hand to stroke her hair. “Cry if you want to,” he told her.
“No. Not again.” She pressed her lips firmly together and swallowed hard. “I won’t.”
“Take your time, Maggie.” Michael stepped a little nearer to her, but stayed where he had a view of the hallway. “Start at the beginning and tell everything that happened.”
Maggie took a shaky breath. “He, Mr. Elwood, wanted my mother to clean the house today.” She let her gaze slide toward the front of the house and then brought it swiftly back to Michael. “Mom told me to come on over after school to get started on the dusting. Dad had to go somewhere, so Jesse came with me. Miss Marble started meowing when she saw us. We figured she was hungry since I hadn’t been over to feed her for a few days. I found a can of food in the cabinet here and told Jesse he could feed her on the back porch. I thought he’d be okay.”
Her arm tightened around the little boy again and he made a face. But he didn’t squirm away from her.
Her eyes got a little watery, but again she blinked the tears away. “I mean, I’ve been watching Jesse really close. Making sure he’s never by himself. And I could hear him if he yelled.”
Murder Is No Accident Page 16