by Nan Sampson
“You think I killed her?”
His voice was very calm, his words very deliberate. “No. I don’t. But I’d be neglectful if I didn’t follow procedure and search here. No matter what I think, you’re still an official suspect. I’d like to rule you out, so we can focus on other avenues.”
Anger stirred her, thawing some of her numbness. “So you admit I’m a suspect.”
“Ellie, everyone is a suspect right now but that’s jumping the gun. Right now we don’t even know if this was foul play. I’m just covering my bases, until we get the results of the post mortem back.” She noticed that as her emotions rose, so did his. Most of the gentleness was gone from his voice now.
The screen door opened and Sam Klein poked his head out. “Chief? Can I see you for a minute?”
Gruetzmacher stood, knees creaking a bit. “You folks wait here, okay?”
Something about the way Sam acted ratcheted up Ellie’s anxiety level. Maybe it was the way he had looked at her. Maybe it was the officiousness in his voice.
Gruetzmacher was only a moment inside. But when he came out, his expression was grim. Sam was right behind him and to Ellie’s horror, was pulling a pair of handcuffs from his belt. The Chief, now wearing plastic gloves, held a small spice jar from Ellie’s spice rack gingerly between finger and thumb. The bottle was covered with fingerprint powder residue. He held it up to her and she could see that although the label read “Cinnamon”, all the bottle contained were a dozen or so dark purple berries. “Can you tell me what these are?”
Ellie shook her head. “No. I have no idea. They’re not mine.”
“These berries, which were found in your cabin, in your spice rack, are not yours.”
“No.”
“Your fingerprints are all over the bottle, Ellie.”
Fear blossomed into full blown panic. “They’re not mine. I mean, the fingerprints likely are, but the berries are not. That bottle contained cinnamon the last time I used it.”
“I thought you didn’t bake.”
“I don’t. I use the cinnamon in my coffee. Someone put that there.”
Gruetzmacher’s eyes had gone cold. “I’d like you to come with us now, Ms. Gooden. Down to the station for questioning.”
Per jumped to his feet. “Now just hang on, Bill.”
Ellie was stunned. “What?” This couldn’t be happening. “You’re arresting me?”
“No. We’d just like to have you answer a few questions. On the record.”
Sam moved forward a step and Per moved to stand between Ellie and the young man. Gruetzmacher glared at Klein. “Put the cuffs away, Sam. Then go open the car door for the lady.”
Frowning at having his fun spoiled, Klein opened up the back door of the Chief’s 4x4. “Ms. Gooden?”
Ellie looked from Gruetzmacher to Per frantically. “I didn’t kill her. I swear. I don’t even know what those berries are.”
Per radiated anger, his posture stiff and intimidating, especially given his age. “I know a good lawyer, Ellie. He’ll meet you at the station. Don’t say a word until he gets there.”
“Oh, for pity’s sake, Gustafson,” Gruetzmacher snapped. “She’s not under arrest.”
“Which means you can hold her indefinitely until you manufacture additional evidence against her. Ellie, don’t answer any questions.”
Gruetzmacher took her elbow and still glaring at Per, urged her into the back of his 4x4 for the drive back to the Police Station.
Chapter 36
It was long past lunch time when Per picked her up outside at the Station. The lawyer never showed – he’d been in court in Madison, Per told her. After waiting for him for the better part of two hours, she decided he wasn’t coming and agreed to answer Gruetzmacher’s questions – on video.
For the next three hours, they went over and over every moment since Ellie had arrived in town. Every item she remembered unpacking and storing in her kitchen. Every conversation she’d had, every waking event. She even told him about following Louisa and seeing her and Todd together.
She was drained and frightened, and the way Gruetzmacher was acting, she figured that any moment Sam Klein would be coming in through the door of the little interrogation room with his handcuffs to haul her off to a cell.
When after what felt like days Gruetzmacher finally told her she was free to go, with the caveat that she was under no circumstances to either leave town or return to her cabin, she almost ran out the door, only to find Per waiting for her in his ancient Ford pick-up truck.
She climbed in and nearly told him to ‘hit it’.
“Are you okay?”
She nodded, not sure she could speak without breaking down.
The old Norwegian patted her knee then cranked the old truck into motion. “I thought I’d pick up some lunch for us at the Crock Pot then take you back to my place.” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively, making her smile. “Unless you don’t think you can trust yourself to behave like a lady.”
That made her laugh. “I don’t know – you’re pretty hot.”
Now he laughed. “Okay, don’t lay it on too thick.”
Just that little banter helped settle her nerves, and she sent a prayer of thanks up to the Lady for decent folk like Per Gustafson.
The cheesy potato soup and tomato and mozzarella panini he got her for lunch also did a great deal to restore her. The best part, however, was the homey, rustic surroundings of Per’s home. The furniture was spare, with a Mission flair to it. A huge braided rug covered the pine plank floor of the main living area, which was dominated by a field stone fireplace that absolutely dwarfed the one in her own cabin.
The puppy that jumped up on her and promptly crawled into her lap the moment she sat down didn’t hurt either. “Has he grown? He looks bigger.”
Per chuckled. “They do that, you know. And from the size of those paws, he’s got quite a bit of growing still to do.”
Great. That was all she needed.
Per sat down at the table as well. For a moment there was a comfortable silence as they ate. “He doesn’t really believe you did this. He can’t.”
Ellie didn’t know anymore. She just shrugged.
“Well, he’s acting like an idiot, like the god damn fuzz.”
The dated expression, and Per’s almost comical distrust of authority almost made her laugh. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Per, but he is. The fuzz, I mean.”
“Yes. Well. I thought he had more sense.”
The puppy stood and placed his front paws on the table top, sniffing at the remains of her lunch. She pulled him back. “Oh, no. None of that, young man.”
“Have you decided on a name?”
She held the puppy so she could look at his face. The furry little thing gazed back at her seriously, wagged his tail furiously and licked her nose. She laughed then put the dog on the floor. “No. Per, I can’t keep him. No matter how cute he is. I have a new business to get off the ground. I won’t have time to take care of me, much less a pet.”
Per regarded her quietly for a moment. “Life is sometimes about balance, Ellie.”
Her gaze flicked from the puppy, who was wrestling with a braided rag Per had given him, and back to Per. “Balance, huh?” She let herself smile. It was not the first time in her life she’d been made aware of that bit of wisdom. “You’re not just another pretty face, are you?”
Those blue eyes twinkled again but he wisely kept his mouth shut.
“Well, either way, whether I keep him or not, he’s going to have to stay here for the time being. Is that okay?”
“Consider this his home away from home.” He leaned back in his chair. “And yours as well.”
She squeezed his hand in thanks. “Bill said something about you having a wooden stang. Mind showing it to me?”
He stood, beaming. “I would be delighted. I imagine he also mentioned my drumming circle – he finds that an almost anarchic oddity. Sets his teeth on edge. You know you’re welcome to join us
. We meet most new and full moons.”
“I just might take you up on that. Once the shop is up and running.”
He opened the screen door to the back and ushered her and the dog out into the yard. “Balance, Ellie. Balance.”
She laughed. She couldn’t get over how much she really liked this man. Even if he was annoyingly right all the time. “Okay, okay. Balance.”
Chapter 37
The Inn was quiet when she arrived there yet again, late in the afternoon. Arabella was nowhere to be found, but her niece Chloe was sitting in the hall by the little desk Arabella used to check people in and out. She was lounging, with one long leg hanging over the arm of the chair, and the other propped up on the corner of the secretary.
Ellie wanted nothing more than to sneak past her and get to her room without another conversation but the girl looked up as Ellie came in and smiled brightly.
“Hi, Ellie. Chief G finally let you go? Aunt Bella said to tell you there was hot water on the sideboard in case you wanted tea and that she’d saved the last two of today’s cream puffs for you.”
Ellie smiled a response. “Thanks. Maybe later, I’m not really hungry at the moment.”
Chloe shrugged. “Okay… but if Uncle Seth sees them first, I can’t be held responsible. He—” The phone rang, interrupting her, and she held up a finger while she grabbed up the receiver. “The Birches, may I help you?”
There was a moment of silence as Chloe listened to the caller. “Oh hi, Ms. Mough. I didn’t recognize your voice for a moment. Sure, that would be just fine – Aunt B’s holed up in the kitchen with the do not disturb vibe going. Just bring the herbs from Mrs. Hertz into the mud room when you get here.”
Ellie tried to slip past Chloe, but the girl stopped her by holding up her finger again then made talking movements with her hand and pointed to the phone. “Sure, sure. No problem.” Another pause. Ellie calculated how rude she’d be considered if she ignored the finger held in the air, and figured the town might tar and feather her for rudeness. So she stayed put.
Chloe rolled her eyes again. “Okay. See you then. Thanks for calling.”
The girl hung up the receiver and shook her head. “That woman. She’ll talk your ear off as long as you’re willing to listen.”
Ellie thought the assessment was valid, but refused to be pulled into town gossip this soon. She just smiled.
“You know, it was so odd, when I first picked up the phone I thought she was someone else.”
“Who did you think it was?” Ellie asked out of politeness, hoping against hope that the phone would ring again allowing Ellie to escape.
“Well, that’s just it. I don’t know. But it sounded kind of like Patti Mough.” She looked at the phone, then laughed. “But of course, that can’t be so, can it? Hey, did you ever figured out who did cancel your reservation?”
Ellie’s heart skipped a beat. “Hang on. So you were the one who took that call?”
“Yeah. It was really late, and Aunt B had already gone to bed. I was up studying for my Macro Economics test. Some woman that said she was you called and said that you’d decided to stay somewhere else and that you wouldn’t be needing the reservation. So I took it off the books and left Aunt Bella a note about it.
Ellie stood staring at Chloe, trying to process what she was hearing. Could it really have been Patti Mough who’d cancelled her reservation? But why? It didn’t make sense. And if not Patti, then who?
“Well, I’m glad Chief G let you go. Can I get you anything?”
Ellie shook her head. “No. I’m just going to go to my room, maybe take a long hot shower.”
Chloe nodded, picking up her text book. “Okay. Sounds like a plan. Just give a holler if you change your mind. Aunt B said the kitchen is always open for you, so if me or Millie isn’t around, go on in and help yourself. Just don’t make a mess. You know how Aunt Bella gets.”
Ellie gave the girl a distracted smile and slipped past her down the hallway towards her room. By the time she’d gotten inside, taken off her coat and sat down in the Queen Anne chair, she felt as though her arms and legs were made of lead. Gods and Goddesses it had been a helluva week. Every time she thought things were finally going to settle down and fall into a routine, something else horrible happened.
She felt tears burgeon and a knot formed in her stomach. Maybe her friends had been right. Maybe this had been a stupid mistake. A really stupid and expensive mistake. Her whole life savings and her inheritance were tied up in this fool’s venture. Now she wasn’t even sure she was going to be able to open on time – and the loans she took out to pay for supplies and to pay staff was linked to a revenue stream that couldn’t wait weeks and weeks for her grand opening.
Tears started to slide down her cheeks, and the urge to just let go and dissolve into a puddle of self-pity was almost overwhelming.
That, ultimately, made her angry. “No!” She said it out loud, more forcefully than she’d intended. All this was just fear. And fatigue. She would not let circumstances – or whatever this was – force her to abandon her dreams or her plans. A Christian might have said that the devil was against her, but Ellie knew it was just herself, getting in her own way. That part of herself that was fearful of change and uncertainty and failure. And she wasn’t going to let that particular bugaboo win.
She knew too that she was overtired. What she needed was a long, hot shower and a twenty-minute nap. And after that, Goddess willing, a little time outdoors in the Inn’s garden, where she could reconnect with the Goddess through nature.
A tissue from the nightstand took care of the drippy tears, and the brush from the bathroom gave her unruly curls a quick freshening. She’d just straightened her shirt and squared her shoulders and was heading for the bathroom when an icy breeze blew over her, raising the hairs on her scalp and giving her goose bumps. She had a sudden urge to run, a compulsion to go somewhere, although she couldn’t have said where. “Artie? Is that you?”
The cold spot grew even colder, as if in answer then moved away from the door and into the center of the room, almost as though urging her to follow it.
She felt sure now it was Artie. She could sense his acerbic personality, the grouchy energy he emanated every time she’d met with him. “Artie, what do you want?”
The cold spot moved again, towards the head of the bed. There was a nightstand there and a pad of paper with the Inn’s logo on it and a little pen. Auto writing? She’d never put much stock in it, figuring people just wrote what their subconscious minds fed them and not what some spirit moved them to write. But surely it couldn’t hurt to try.
She moved through the cold spot, which now felt like February along the lake shore, and sat down on the edge of the bed. Holding the pen over the paper, she went through a quick grounding and centering, surrounding herself with a protective white light, sinking her metaphorical roots into the earth and stilling her mind of extraneous thoughts. She was a practiced meditator and slipped easily into a conscious but trance-like state, following her breathing with her conscious mind while releasing all other thoughts.
She floated there, letting the energies of the earth fill her, sensing the warm embrace of the Goddess enfold her, and the cold spot that surrounded her slowly abated. Artie’s presence waned and Ellie opened her eyes, a little disappointed. She’d received no message from beyond. Artie’s voice hadn’t resounded in her head, telling her who had killed him. No ghostly influence had moved the pen in her hand.
She looked down at the pad of paper and was startled to see that there were marks on it. The pen, which had started out in her right hand, was now in her left.
It was a picture of something, although she couldn’t for the life of her figure out what it was. There was a big blobby oval with a smaller circle on one end of it and a straight line sticking out of the other. Sort of. All the objects sort of overlapped each other. It was something one of Kate’s kids might have drawn when they were three - and it didn’t help her one little bit.
Disgusted, she tossed the note pad onto the nightstand. Enough of this. If that had been Artie, he had a sick sense of humor. That made her smile. He had had a sick sense of humor.
“Very funny, Artie. If this is your big communication from beyond the grave, then go haunt someone else, because I have a shop to open and a life to get back to.” And a shower and a nap to take. She went into the bathroom and followed through on it all.
Chapter 38
Soothed by a hot shower and energized by a short nap, she was almost not annoyed when, answering her cell phone on the way to her car, she discovered it was not her friend Kate on the other end but Charlie McCallum.
Because of her relatively good mood, the “What the hell do you want?” came out less surly than it might have otherwise.
“Geez, Gooden, way to greet a fellow.”
“Uh huh. What do you want?”
“First, I wanted to wish you good luck. You’ve got your Grand Opening on Saturday, right?”
She groaned. She couldn’t help it. The thought of how much there was to do, and how little time left there was curdled her stomach. “Um… thanks.”
“Second, I have a piece of information that I thought you might want.”
She waited, but there was only silence. Finally, she said, “And that is?”
“The results of both Artie and Louisa Cullen’s’ autopsies.”
She’d been walking towards her car but stopped abruptly. “Excuse me?”
She could hear the idiot grin on Charlie’s face. “I said I have the –”
“Yeah, I heard what you said. How did you get them? And how did you even know about Louisa?”
“You forget what I do, Gooden. I’m a cop. Cops talk.”
“I can’t believe it’s even legal for you to have access to those autopsy reports.”
He gave a frustrated snort. “Do you want to know what killed them or not?”
She took a breath, for a moment not sure. “Yes. Tell me.”