Forest Outings (A Coffee and Crime Mystery Book 3)

by Nan Sampson

  Pace just shook his head, staring resolutely out the front window.

  Sierra cast a disapproving glance at Matt and smiled apologetically. “What is that wonderful smell?”

  “Freshly baked cinnamon raisin scones. And there’s some pistachio cake too – hard to say which one smells better.”

  “Oh, I love pistachios. I suppose there’s eggs in them?”

  Ellie nodded. “Sorry. If it helps they’re from one hundred percent guaranteed free range chickens. No antibiotics or hormones.”

  Sierra shook her head. “Thanks, though.”

  Ellie went about making the latte, then brought it over to Sierra. “This one’s on the house. I can’t tell you how sorry I am about Mr. Fairweather. It must have been a great shock.”

  Sierra didn’t seem to be able to muster up much feeling. “Yes. Yes, of course, although I guess I feel worse about Josh. He’s so dedicated. I can’t imagine what caused him to snap like that…”

  Bullshit, Ellie thought. You know exactly what might have caused him to snap.

  Sierra was still talking. “… just hope he can find a good lawyer.”

  “I don’t suppose the Whole Earth Society would consider helping there?”

  Sierra shook her head. “I’ve already spoken to management, and while they’d love to help, they don’t feel as though this is something they can afford to do, from a risk perspective.”

  Ellie tried to keep her own emotions from her face. “Well, then maybe you could represent Josh. You are an attorney, aren’t you?”

  Sierra gave Ellie the smile people give to idiots and children. “I’m not that kind of an attorney, Ms. Gooden. I’m not a trial lawyer.”

  “But you know Josh. Surely—”

  Sierra Thorsen, clearly, had already written Josh off. So much for her acting as though she’d had the hots for him. It must all have been for show. “It just doesn’t work that way.” She took a sip of the latte and smiled. “Excellent. Thank you so much.” She stood, and tugged on Matt Pace’s sleeve. “Well, we just wanted to say good bye, wish you well.” Sierra stuck out her hand. “If you see Josh, please be sure to give him our best.”

  Ellie shook the woman’s hand then watched them go, feeling as though Josh’s last chance for freedom was leaving town packed in the back of The Whole Earth’s Land Rover, along with Sierra Thorsen’s luggage.

  Ellie showed up at Alphie Mueller’s small box of a house at the appointed hour, but although she rang the bell several times, no one came to the door. Glancing around, sure that Alphie’s neighbors, who were probably all elderly and just as nosy as anyone else who lived in small town America, were watching her through their windows, Ellie stepped off the small cement stoop and into the snow, trying to peer in through the woman’s front window.

  It was dark inside, not a single lamp burned anywhere that she could see. Clearly the woman wasn’t home.

  Ellie stepped back up onto the stoop and knocked again, mostly just for show. She waited a few more seconds, then got back in her van. Maybe the woman had gotten held up somewhere and was running late.

  She let the engine idle, while the heat blasted, and bided her time. She tried briefly to meditate, but found she couldn’t keep her mind still and quiet, so gave up and tumrned on the radio. Five minutes later, there was still no Alphie.

  Frustrated, and a little bit pissed off, Ellie put the van in reverse and headed back out towards the highway. She felt a little bit abused, having driven out here at Alphie’s request – she’d even left Marg in charge of the shop again, something she was feeling guilty for as it was. To have the crazy old woman not even show up to a meeting she herself had set made Ellie’s teeth clench.

  Not to mention, she had built her hopes up that Alphie might actually have known something important, something that could have helped Josh’s case. Now, she wondered if she’d been building castles in the clouds. It was more likely that the lonely old woman had said that just to get Ellie to come out and keep her company. It was clear Miss Mueller had no one else.

  Unless… unless Alphie really was the killer and she had manufactured this story to get Ellie to come over so she could see where the cops were in terms of tracking down the murderer? Wasn’t that what killers did? Insinuate themselves into the investigation, so they could gloat at their own cleverness and stay one step ahead of the police by laying false clues to lead the cops away from the truth?

  Bah. She’d watched way too many episodes of Murder She Wrote as a child. That was only on TV. Wasn’t it?

  She drove back to the shop at a break neck speed, pissed off that she’d wasted her time, regardless of what excuse Alphie might have had for being a no-show. Barging in through the back door, she flung her coat onto the hooks in the hall, tossed her purse into her closet of an office and burst through the swinging doors into the kitchen to give Marg chapter and verse. Marg would totally commiserate with her when she – Oh shit.

  She was interrupting once again. Mentally she cringed as Marg and Bill Gruetzmacher broke apart. Had Gruetzmacher actually had his hand underneath Marg’s sweater?

  “Oh jeez. Sorry.” She shook her head, lips quirking up in a smile as she turned around and headed out of the kitchen.

  Marg and Bill emerged from the kitchen a few moments later, and Ellie noticed Marg had thoughtfully wiped most of the lipstick from Gruetzmacher’s face.

  She grinned at them. “Nice color on you, Bill.”

  He wiped furiously at his face. “Well. I should probably get back to work. I, uh, just stopped in for a cup of coffee.” Then he added, “Honestly.”

  Ellie grinned, gave Marg a wink. “That’s what we offer, here. Coffee with a… smile.”

  Marg turned bright red, then laughed nervously. “I should get back to my kitchen. Got a lot to clean up.” To Gruetzmacher, she said, “I’ll see you tonight.”

  He nodded, waved, then exited the shop as fast as he could.

  Ellie broke into a laugh as soon as he passed out of ear shot. “Oh my.” She passed through the swinging doors into the kitchen. “So what was it you two were cooking up in here? Looked pretty hot and heavy to me.”

  Marg looked three kinds of guilty. “I’m so sorry. Are you mad? We didn’t plan it, it just sort of happened.”

  Ellie smiled. “No, I’m not mad. So stop worrying. I’m just tickled that you’re seeing someone.”

  Marg relaxed a little. “Phew. I was afraid you were going to fire me.” She glanced at the clock. “You’re back early. How did it go with Alphie? What did she have to tell you?”

  Ellie’s mood soured. “She wasn’t there. It was a fool’s errand.”

  “So you drove all that way for nothing?” Marg was incensed for her, which made Ellie feel a little guilty. The poor old woman was probably just desperate for company.

  “Well, all that way isn’t really very far. I’m wondering now if I should be worried instead of mad. Do you think she might have gotten into an accident?”

  Marg shrugged, clearly not concerned. “She probably got involved in something at the Church. The woman spends hours obsessively cleaning the place, and rearranging the flowers on the altar that the Garden Committee installs. I think she thinks she’s the only one who’s qualified to take care of the place.”

  Maybe she’d underestimated Alphie Mueller. “Sounds like a bit of a martinette, the way you say it.”

  “Oh, don’t let that sweet old lady act fool you. Alphie Mueller may pretend to be a church mouse, but she’s got cujones the size of a bull’s. As far as I know, she’s the only one who’s ever stood her ground with Karl Howard and won. Karl sees her now and runs for cover.”

  Ellie raised her eyebrows. “Really? I’d never have thought. How did she get Karl to back down?”

  “Probably the threat of eternal damnation. At the time, he was still married and carrying on with one of the local widows.”

  “And Alphie found out?”

  “Oh, trust me, there’s not a thing that goes on in this
town Alphie Mueller doesn’t know about.”

  “Jeez, you’d think she still lived here.”

  Marg leaned closer, conspiratorially, although they were the only two in the shop. “Don’t you know? She spends an awful lot of time out at the old family home. I think she even sleeps there sometimes, leaky roof and all.”

  Marg made it sounds scandalous, but it struck Ellie as sad. Sad that a woman who never really had a life of her own clung so tenaciously to a past filled with abuse. Sad and a little creepy.

  “That’s awful.”

  Marg, unaware of what Ellie knew about the Reverend Mueller and his daughters, shrugged. “I guess.” She pushed away from the counter. “Anyway, I need to get this mess cleaned up. I’m meeting Bill for dinner.” She paused for effect. “At his place.”

  Ellie put her hands to her ears. “La la la, I can’t hear you!”

  Marg laughed and Ellie left her to her clean up, while she went out front to do the same. She didn’t want to know too much about her friend’s love life and she really didn’t want the image of Marg and the local police chief in bed stuck in her head.

  Far more palatable was the memory of her and Charlie, in the back of her van the other day at lunch time. With that occupying her mind’s eyes, she set about getting ready to close up shop for the night.

  It wasn’t more than a half an hour later, just as Ellie had finished taking care of the day’s receipts, that the bell jingled over the door.

  She came out front to find both Charlie and Bill Gruetzmacher standing there. Charlie was frowning uncharacteristically, his eyes shadowed, his jaw clenched. Gruetzmacher’s lips were turned down beneath his walrus mustache.

  Bill looked behind her, towards the kitchen. “Is Marg still here, Ellie?”

  Ellie shook her head. “No, she left a few minutes ago.” She looked from Bill to Charlie. “Is there a problem?” It was stupid question, she could see from their faces there was.

  Charlie glanced at Gruetzmacher, who gave a little nod. “I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news, Ellie.”

  Her heart plummeted into her stomach. “Is it Josh?”

  Charlie shook his head. “No. Josh is fine.” He took a step forward. “There’s been another death, Ellie.”

  She knew, before he uttered another word, who it was. Still she had to ask. “Who?”

  “I’m sorry to say, it’s Alphie Mueller.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  It was shocking, but for some reason not unexpected. Since not finding her home, or at least not answering the door that afternoon, she’d been worried that some accident might have befallen the woman. “What happened? Did she fall? Have a car accident?”

  “No. This was no accident.”

  “Then what?”

  “The responding officer seems to think it might be suicide, Ellie.”

  Ellie shook her head. Knowing what she knew about the woman, it didn’t make sense. Especially in light of how Marg had described her. For a ‘good Christian woman’ suicide was considered a sin. “No. No, I don’t believe that.”

  Bill glanced at Charlie again. “Well, frankly, Ellie, neither do I. Which is why I want Charlie to come with me to the crime scene. Most of my boys, while well-intentioned, just don’t have the experience or the training to handle a case like this.” He turned his hat around and around in his hands. “You know, I came to this place to avoid this kind of crap.”

  Charlie’s eyes grew dark. “I can relate, Bill. I can totally relate.” He met Ellie’s eyes. “Don’t wait dinner on me. Or anything else for that matter.”

  “Ellie, could you do me a favor and call Marg for me?” Bill asked. “We had plans for this evening…”

  Ellie agreed. “I know, she told me.” She looked at Charlie. His aura was dark and muddy, and she could feel spikes of jangled energy shooting out from him. All of that was belied by his now carefully neutral expression. When she sought his gaze, he looked away, wouldn’t meet her eyes. It bothered her more than she cared to admit, that he would choose now to hide his feelings behind pride or machismo or whatever it was, but now was not the time to discuss it. Something about this death had struck a chord in him. “Call me. Keep me posted.”

  His tone was flat, almost terse. “I will.”

  The two of them left abruptly and suddenly the shop felt empty and cold. Was suicide really a possibility? And if it wasn’t, then what had happened to the woman?

  As she locked up and slipped out the back door into the darkened alley behind the shop, she felt a chill that had nothing to do with the frigid temperature. Someone was watching her, she was almost positive. Could be a racoon, waiting to raid the garbage can. But it could just as well be a person. The realization that there really was a killer stalking the streets of her quiet community chilled her like no spirit presence ever had and as she climbed into her van, she locked the doors from the inside, something she hadn’t done since leaving Chicago.

  Scanning the shadows for a furtive figure wielding a shovel, she drove the length of the alley, then exited onto Main Street, heading east, away from home and towards the county highway that would take her to Marg’s apartment complex on the outskirts of town. It was five minutes before the hairs on the back of her neck stopped prickling.

  The night was dark, the stars glittering with a crystalline quality. Ellie drove down the lonely stretch of road that fronted the now frozen Lake Hodek, where the locals and the tourists both swam and boated in the summer and skated in the winter. A few miles up the road, in a section of town recently annexed and developed was Marg’s townhouse complex, the first big commercial real estate deal that Karl Howard and the odious Margaret had forged together. As Ellie drove, she kept dialing Marg’s cell phone, alternately cursing and praying for her friend to pick up the phone.

  Marg, however, wasn’t answering. Despite knowing that the logical answer was that she was in the shower, or taking out the trash, no amount of rational thought could banish the little knot of fear growing in Ellie’s stomach.

  By the time she reached Marg’s cul de sac, she was in full panic mode. She raced up the outside steps and virtually pounded on the woman’s front door.

  Marg opened the door dressed in a bathrobe, her hair up in a towel. Ellie nearly pulled her into a hug but instead settled for a hand on her friend’s shoulder. “Oh, thank Goddess! I thought… well, never mind what I thought. I’m just glad to see you.”

  Marg looked confused. “Ellie, far be it for me to be rude to you, as both my friend and my boss, but you do remember I have a date tonight.”

  “I know. That’s why I’m here.” She explained what had happened, making sure Marg understood how disappointed Bill had been. Marg pulled Ellie inside then bolted the door behind them.

  “You thought I was next? That would almost be funny, if it weren’t so scary. Good Lord, do you realize there could be a lunatic loose in town? In little old Horizon?”

  Ellie didn’t find it nearly so entertaining. “Could? Try, is. Maybe Bill will be wrong, maybe it will just be suicide, but I don’t think so. I think Alphie was killed because of what she wanted to tell me.”

  “You think she saw the real killer of Margaret Roesch?”

  “Maybe not saw the killer, but saw something, yes. Which means she also knows something about the killer of Link Fairweather.” She began to get angry, which helped drive the fear away. “Damn it, now we may never know. And Josh is still stuck in jail.” She struck her fist against the arm of Marg’s hand-me-down chintz couch. It made her whole arm buzz. “Damn!”

  “Hang on, though. If we can prove that the killer is responsible for all the deaths, then that pretty well clears Josh, doesn’t it? I mean, he’s been in jail since Link died, so he couldn’t have killed Alphie.”

  “That’s only if we can prove that Alphie was murdered, and right now, from what Bill and Charlie said, her death has the appearance of being suicide.”

  “But Bill doesn’t believe that.”

  “Believing’s one
thing. Proving is another.”

  Marg chewed on her lip for a moment. “I could whisper in his ear.”

  Ellie smiled at her friend. “You’d do that anyway. You just might have whispered something different.” She sighed. “Anyway. I’m sorry about having to bring you the bad news about your dinner plans.” She rose. “Looks like a quiet night in front of the TV.”

  Marg glanced at her ancient set. “Again.” Then she brightened. “You could stay. We could order in pizza, find some old drek to watch together.”

  It sounded nice, but she didn’t think she could keep up her end of the conversation. “That sounds great – but not tonight. Can I get a rain check?”

  Marg seemed to understand. “Of course. Just drive careful going home. And call me when you get there, so I know our local axe… no, shovel murderer didn’t get you, okay?”

  Ellie promised, then took her leave and headed for home.

  The night had turned bitter cold again, the slush from the past couple of days turning into nasty ice. She slid a bit in the parking lot of Marg’s complex, prompting her to slow way down as she pulled onto the road.

  Few other cars were out and about. It was well into the dinner hour and most of the town’s residents were safe and snug in their own living rooms, watching TV or eating their evening meal.

  She left the radio off, wanting to keep her attention on the road. But she did reach for her cell phone, as it rang.

  “Hey there.” Charlie’s voice sounded tired. “The coroner’s wagon just got here, so it may not be such a long night after all. The responding officer actually cut her down before Bill and I got here. Bill’s practically apoplectic, but there’s nothing to be done about it now, except salvage what we can from the rest of the scene.”

  “Shit. So much for clearing Josh.”

  Charlie sighed. “All I can say is that if you had to find a body, I’m glad it wasn’t this one. Hanging is an ugly thing.”

  Ellie could only agree. “Let Bill know I just came from Marg’s. She’s disappointed, but completely understands.”