The Club (Anna Denning Mystery Book 4)

by Karin Kaufman

  “I’ve got to go,” Liz said. She drained her cup, took it to the counter, then unhooked her purse from the back of her chair, hitching the strap on her shoulder. “I’ve got a meeting to go to. Anna, I’ll talk to you tonight. See you, Melinda.”

  “Thanks for your help, Liz,” Melinda said. She waited, watching as Liz exited the café, then turned back to Anna. “I wanted to ask you something important.”

  “Sure.” Clearly this something important was something Melinda didn’t want Liz to hear about.

  “I need you to go with me tonight to a meeting at the January Club.” She fumbled through her purse, pulled out a rectangle of cream-colored stock, and laid it on the table in front of Anna. “This came in the mail, addressed to my dad. I found it in his desk this morning.”

  It looked like an expensive invitation—professionally printed in black ink, a grapevine logo across the top. Anna picked it up. “‘Our Messenger has experienced contact with your loved one,’ she read aloud. ‘As the member in question, you are cordially invited to a séance to continue contact at 7:00 p.m. at the January Club, 2018 Deer Ridge Avenue. Family members allowed, one non-family guest per invitation. Arrive up to an hour early.’”

  “Your loved one,” Melinda said. “That has to mean my mom.”

  “A séance? What is this club? I’ve never heard of it.”

  “I heard the name once.” Melinda took the invitation from Anna’s hands. “When I was eleven or twelve, not long after we moved here, I heard my dad talking with someone about the club. He thought I was sleeping. I asked him about it the next day and he got furious. Obviously he was a member of this club, so this”—she brandished the card—“is a clue to his background. The other members probably don’t know he’s dead yet.”

  “Honestly, Melinda, that invitation is a little creepy.”

  “It’s not creepy, it’s a scam.” She slid the invitation into her purse.

  Anna grinned. So Melinda had a head on her shoulders. She hadn’t been taken in by promises of contacting her mother. “Sure sounds like one to me.”

  “I still want to go, and I really need you to go with me.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s a connection to an important memory. He went ballistic when I asked him about the January Club. Besides, people at this club knew my dad. Better than I did, I’m sure.”

  “No, I mean why do you need me? I don’t do séances, Melinda. I avoid stuff like that.”

  “You don’t have to participate, just come with me. Talk to people who knew him. Be my second pair of eyes and ears. And please, add the time to your invoice.”

  A séance, a finger—rubber or not—a father gone mad, a child torn from her grandparents. Not strictly genealogy, but behind it all lay the intricacies of family relationships. And what if, just what if, the deaths of Jordan Hetrick and Henry Maxwell were related? She could score twice in one investigation—and her consulting job with the Elk Park PD would blossom.

  “What do you think, Anna?”

  Decisions almost always came down to money, Anna thought ruefully. The Christmas season, which ran from October to December in Gene’s tourist shop, Buckhorn’s Trading Post, had been a bust. The worst season Gene Westfall—or his father, who had owned Buckhorn’s before him—could remember. Gene, normally cheerful and optimistic, was worried. He had talked about laying off employees and taking on even longer hours himself to fill the void.

  “I won’t participate in the séance, Melinda. I won’t even sit in the same room.”

  Relief written on her face, Melinda smiled. “I only need you to talk to people, listen to people. Ask questions if you see an opportunity. I just can’t do it by myself. Especially now that my father . . .”

  “I understand. How about I pick you up at six? The invite said to come early.” Anna couldn’t help but consider that Gene would still be working at Buckhorn’s at that hour, meaning she wouldn’t have to tell him that his fiancée was being taken by a client to some den of weirdness called the January Club.

  “My address is with the papers I gave you.” Melinda rose from her chair, slinging her purse strap over her shoulder. “Thank you so much. I can’t tell you what this means to me.”

  Anna took a last gulp of coffee—how many partial cups had she had today?—pushed herself out of her seat, and said, “That finger you found in your father’s attaché. Which finger was it? Little, middle?”

  “Index. Why?”

  “Just wondering.”

  “But it’s fake, Anna.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Pretty sure.”

  “There’s a way to check. Look at the end and see if there’s a bone.”

  An expression of horror crossed Melinda’s face. “What if there is?”

  “Then leave it in the attaché. Let me know, and whatever you do, don’t throw it away.” Anna gave Melinda her best imitation of a reassuring smile. “You’re probably right about it being a fake.”

  Melinda thanked Anna once again, exited the Buffalo, and sprinted across the street to her SUV. After telling Grace she was taking Jackson home, Anna headed to the café’s backyard. As soon as she pushed through the back door, a gust of bitter wind stung her face and tiny snowflakes peppered her glasses. If Henry Maxwell was half the monster Melinda said he was, then that finger . . .

  Anna refused to complete the thought. First things first. She needed to find out who Jordan Hetrick was and why no one was looking for him.

  Driving home, she eased the Jimmy into a left-hand turn onto Russell Street, her tires temporarily losing traction. Why had she promised to pick up Melinda? It should have been the other way around. Would she never feel safe on winter streets? It didn’t help that some yahoo had pulled in behind her on Summit and was now tailgating her like it was June, not January.

  Anna made a right onto Bighorn, a side street all of one block long, in an effort to shake the tailgater, but with a glance into her rearview mirror, she saw the same car, a beat-up blue sedan, close behind. A woman was at the wheel, a gray knit cap over her dark hair, her gloved hands side by side, gripping the top of the steering wheel.

  Anna slowed and pulled slightly to the right to give the sedan’s driver room to pass, but the knit-capped woman sat on her bumper. “Go around!” she shouted. She braked gently and came to a stop. The sedan edged closer. “This is ridiculous.” Anna shut off the ignition and sat, wondering how long it would be before another car came along, forcing both her and the sedan to move.

  Watching from her rearview mirror, Anna lifted herself from her seat in an effort to read the woman’s license plate. Seeming to sense what Anna was doing, the driver pulled closer. Anna reached for her purse. Grabbing a pen and the first piece of paper her fingers touched, she flew out of her car, ready to confront the woman, but the sedan backed up suddenly, fishtailing in the snow and nearly hitting a parked car. Before knit-cap could back her way out of Bighorn and onto Russell, Anna had her plate number.

  4

  Melinda was greeted warmly in the living room of the January Club, which was housed either temporarily or permanently—Anna didn’t know which—in a private residence in Elk Park’s wealthy Deer Ridge neighborhood. At first Anna was eyed with suspicion, but when Melinda explained that Anna was a friend, a woman extended her hand. “Any friend of a daughter of Henry Maxwell’s is welcome here,” she said, the byzantine connection enabling her to receive Anna with a measure of graciousness. “I’m Rose Price, the club’s Vice President.”

  They had just touched hands when a man in a black suit and crumpled blue tie barreled toward Anna, his hand shooting forward like a spear. “And I’m Curt MacKenzie, the Treasurer. Welcome to my home.”

  “Oh I see, this is your house,” Anna said, glancing about her and masking with great effort her distaste for the heavy drapes, the shelves stuffed with trinkets and curios, the strong odor of dust and mildew.

  “You imagined a separate club building of some kind.” Curt held tightly to Ann
a’s hand, sandwiching it and turning it palm side up.

  “I did.”

  “The January Club changes location every three years, moving from one member’s house to another.”

  “Dusty, let go of her,” a young, dark-haired man said.

  Curt cocked his head but didn’t look at the man. “Don’t call me that.” He released Anna’s hand and took a step backward, his thin lips stretching into a smile. “My house”—he continued speaking to Anna—“is headquarters of the January Club for the next three years. Then it will move to another member’s house. As long as they have a house.” He turned at last to the young man.

  “That’s funny, Dusty.” The man, who was in his early thirties, Anna guessed, and by far the youngest club member in the house, stuffed his hands in his pockets before introducing himself. “Tanner Ostberg,” he said with a small nod of his head. “No title, no office, and I live in an apartment.”

  “This is only your second January, give it time,” Rose said. “Now, Melinda and Anna.” She spread out her arm. “Have a seat, please.”

  “Shouldn’t I be saying that?” Curt complained.

  “Dusty . . .” Tanner began.

  Curt spun on him. “One more time.” He threw a finger into the air. “Just one more time.”

  Biting back a grin, Tanner shuffled across the room and dropped into an armchair. “Sorry about that, Curt.” He crossed his legs and with one hand brushed a swath of hair from his forehead. His wedding band flashed in the lamplight. “I’m in a weird mood tonight.” He wore his brown locks in that swept-forward, I’ve-been-pulled-backward-through-a-hedge cut that had lost favor with even younger men a decade ago. In fact, Anna noticed with amusement, Curt’s hairstyle was much the same as Tanner’s, though the older man sported a mass of brittle gray hair pulled forward across his balding head.

  Anna sat next to Melinda on what Curt called a “settee” while he and the other members of the January Club found their places on chairs and couches. So Henry Maxwell had been a member of this club, Anna thought. She sensed already that his membership didn’t speak well for him, and already she wanted to leave. She had good news for Schaeffer regarding the Jordan Hetrick matter. In the few hours she’d worked between coffee at the Buffalo and picking Melinda up at her father’s house, she had cracked the case—or was all but certain she had. She’d found Hetrick’s ex-wife at an Elk Park address.

  Before leaving for the club, Anna had broken down and phoned Gene at Buckhorn’s, telling him where she would be and what she would be doing, and to her surprise he hadn’t tried to talk her out of her visit. He had even joked about her getting a private investigator’s license. “You’ve got common sense, Anna,” he’d said. “I trust you.” She did love that man.

  “Drinks for our guests?” Rose said, tugging at the ends of her short, brass-colored hair. She willingly squeezed herself into a narrow loveseat next to a tall, thin man, their bodies pressed close in the intimacy of either marriage or a long relationship.

  “Nothing for me,” Anna said.

  “I don’t need anything,” Melinda added.

  There was a brief silence. Anna filled it. “So this is the January Club.”

  “You’ve heard of us?” Rose asked, smiling enthusiastically.

  “No, but my friend Melinda has.”

  “By the way”—Rose tipped her head at the man next to her—“this is my husband, Dean. I missed introducing him to you.”

  “Nice to meet you, Dean,” Anna replied.

  “Same here.” Dean smiled and grabbed a floral-patterned teacup from a small, round table next to his seat.

  “We’re not a secret club, but we’re not well known either,” Curt said. “January is our open-house month, seven to ten every night, and everyone is welcome to pay us a visit.” At the sound of the doorbell, a three-tone melodic chime, he bounded from his armchair. “The Messenger is here! We need a Doorkeeper.”

  “It’s not going to be me,” Tanner said.

  Rose grinned at Melinda, her shoulders rising and bunching around her neck in overstated excitement, as though she were signaling a child that now the fun would begin.

  “Do you really believe Beverly can contact the other side?” Tanner asked Rose.

  Their sensibilities offended by the question, Rose and Dean stared hard at Tanner. Before they could answer his impertinence, Curt returned to the room, arm in arm with what Anna supposed was the Messenger, a rotund woman in her sixties who by the looks of it strove to make a startling first impression. Her white hair, shiny and long, fanned across her back and shoulders and down her green velvet top, and her chest was festooned with necklaces—gold and silver, Mardi Gras–looking beads of purple and green, and a citrine pendant on a leather string.

  Curt paused in the center of the room and turned the woman about, parading her like a prize animal at the fair. “Beverly Goff,” he said to Anna and Melinda. “Our Messenger.”

  “Two new guests tonight, how nice.” Beverly grinned. Her teeth, large and a little too numerous, were as unnaturally white as her hair.

  Melinda stood and stuck out her hand. “I’m Melinda Maxwell. The club sent my father an invitation.”

  “Henry?” Beverly appeared to be surprised by this speck of information, and for a moment, before she managed to regain her smile, she was thrown off balance. “Henry Maxwell. I didn’t know he had a daughter.”

  Melinda gave a hollow chuckle. “That doesn’t surprise me.”

  “But where is he?” Beverly looked about, twisting this way and that and peering into the dark corners of Curt MacKenzie’s poorly lit living room.

  “He’s dead,” Melinda said.

  Beverly clutched at her neck and made a choking sound, and Curt pivoted and dropped into his chair, his hand striking the shade of the floor lamp next to it on his way down.

  It seemed to Anna that Melinda had purposely delivered her announcement without a preamble in order to heighten the shock of it, but on seeing Beverly’s and Curt’s reaction, she regretted her rashness. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think before speaking. Did you know him well?”

  “We all did,” Dean said. “He’s been a member of this club for years.”

  “What happened?” Rose asked.

  Melinda sat and said simply, “He was murdered.”

  Again Beverly made a choking sound, low and deep in her throat.

  “When?” Tanner said. “I saw him two days ago.”

  “He never came home last night,” Melinda replied. “That’s all I know right now. The police are handling it.”

  “The police,” Rose repeated.

  “You’ve come in his place, Melinda?” Beverly asked. Her piercing blue eyes, evident even in Curt MacKenzie’s living room, began to fill with tears.

  “Yes, I guess I have.”

  “Henry,” Beverly said again.

  Dean sprang to his feet and in three strides was at Beverly’s side. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and led her to an empty chair next to Curt. “Water? Tea?” he asked.

  Beverly shook her head no.

  “Well, I need something. Curt?” Dean said, pointing toward a wine rack on the wall near the dining table.

  “Yes, yes,” Curt said, waving him off.

  Rose called after him. “Wine for me, dear.”

  It hadn’t escaped Anna’s notice that Beverly’s reaction to Henry Maxwell’s death outstripped Melinda’s. And everyone else’s, for that matter. Had the two been more than friends?

  “And I had a message for him,” Beverly said softly, brushing the tears from her eyes.

  “You can tell me,” Melinda said.

  “The message was that there was a message. He was supposed to receive the full communication tonight, when I made contact.”

  “I’ll receive it. I’m his daughter.”

  Beverly smiled faintly. “You are, aren’t you? That’s good.”

  “We’re not going to go ahead with the séance, are we?” Tanner said.

&nbs
p; “That’s what we’re here for,” Rose said.

  Tanner wearily rubbed his jaw. “Things have changed, don’t you think?”

  “The Messenger only comes in January,” Dean said, reentering the room with a wine glass in each hand. “We can’t squander the opportunity, and I think Beverly is game. Right, Beverly?” He presented Rose with her glass and sat beside her, his eyes on Beverly as he waited for her reply.

  Beverly was silent, chewing on her lower lip, running a hand over her necklaces. “I have a duty to continue,” she said after a moment.

  “Good,” Dean said. “But you take your time. We’ve got twenty minutes.”

  “I do like to begin exactly at eight o’clock,” Beverly said. “The spirits expect it.”

  “We know, dear,” Rose said. “You should have some wine first.”

  “It dulls the senses,” Beverly said.

  “That’s what makes it popular,” Tanner said, rising and heading for the dining room.

  “Don’t open a new bottle. It’s not plonk, you know,” Curt said, his eyes tracking Tanner until the younger man passed behind his chair.

  Staring straight ahead, Dean and Rose raised their wine glasses to their lips and lowered them to their laps in a synchronous, almost mechanical gesture. Beverly dabbed what remained of tears from her eyes, and Curt, his head tilted to one side, appeared to be listening for Tanner’s movements behind him. The floor lamp illuminated the deep lines in the skin of Curt’s neck. Anna had guessed he was in his fifties, but now she wondered if he was older. And that jaundiced pallor—was it the lighting or was he ill?

  She cleared her throat. “I’m curious. How did the January Club get started? Can anyone join?”

  “I can tell you that,” Curt said.

  “Curt is our historian,” Rose explained.

  “We’ve been a club for about sixteen years,” Curt said.

  “Seventeen,” Tanner said, heading back to his chair.

  “That is about sixteen, isn’t it? And what would you know?”