Holly puffed out her cheeks. “So maybe our mayor didn’t lie about everything. He’s still an awful man, and I hope he doesn’t run for reelection.”
“Think of how the Hunters must have planned this thing,” I said. “Sitting in their great room, plotting how they were going to destroy a friend.”
“And hurt the other guests while they were at it,” Holly said.
“I still don’t understand,” I said. “And I know Gilroy is having trouble making sense of it. He talked to me about the case, but he won’t talk about Lesley. I mean, the Lesley who was his friend, not the murder victim.”
Holly checked her watch.
“I’ll get him,” I announced. “I’ll make up some excuse to bring him back.”
I told Julia where I was going and asked her to keep her sentinel at the door just in case, then I headed down the sidewalk for the station.
Maybe our illustrious mayor hadn’t known about the Hunters’ plan, I thought, but he knew and liked the Hunters—well enough to turn a blind eye to what he might have suspected they were up to. And did he really not know that it was Lesley’s voice on that recording, telling him about Gilroy’s pin at the scene? I couldn’t bring myself to believe it.
What McDermott did know was that Gilroy had played no part in Lesley’s death, and yet he’d suspended him. Tried to ruin his reputation. The suspension was politically driven, of that I was sure, but what had been McDermott’s end game? And had others, like Frederick Farkas, been involved?
Gilroy was the forgiving type. I tried to be. I knew the importance of forgiveness. But I also knew that, forgiven or not, McDermott needed to be watched. This wouldn’t be his last attempt to oust Gilroy. For now, he was too embarrassed to do anything but apologize, make excuses to reporters at the Juniper Grove Post, and lay low. But in the future?
Gilroy looked up from behind the front desk when I entered the station. “Hey, I didn’t expect to see you until lunchtime.”
“I was at the bakery.”
“Sounds good to me.”
“I’ve been eating way too many cream puffs. I should make myself walk five miles for every puff I have.”
He gave me one of those smiles of his. The slightly crooked kind that made me go a little weak in the knees. “I like you the way you are.”
“I know you do.” I leaned my arms on the desk. “I think I finally get that. But, you know, health reasons and all that. I need to walk more. I think I’d sleep better if I did.”
He rested his arms next to mine. “The weather’s getting warmer. We’ll walk together on that trail behind your house. I could use the exercise too.”
We were avoiding the great big elephant floating about the station. The Hunters. Part of me wanted him to talk about them, but that wasn’t his way. That wasn’t how he healed, and he needed healing. His friends had betrayed him cruelly. And for what? For a foolish comment one of his officers made in a moment of anger? I almost pitied the couple.
In the end, it was as simple and terrible as this: Lesley had wanted to die, and Stuart had wanted to help her. Gilroy’s refusal to fire Turner was of no real consequence in the couple’s decision. Gilroy was a bystander. He had simply come to mind as another person on the Hunters’ revenge list. Framing him was Lesley’s spiteful goodbye to a world she hated because she could no longer live in it.
Stuart would spend time in prison, though probably not as much as he deserved, and Kip Dempster would wear prison orange for years or even decades. It made zero difference that Lesley had wanted to die at his hands, her heart pierced by Stuart’s misericorde, or that Stuart had hired Kip to do the deed, as Stuart had admitted after his arrest. Why Kip had agreed to kill Lesley was a mystery I didn’t have the energy or desire to explore. He’d told Gilroy he needed the money and believed he was helping Lesley, not murdering her, but such logic made sense only to killers.
Chances were, I’d be called as a witness at their trials, but after that, I would banish them from my thoughts. They didn’t deserve to take up real estate in my mind.
I knew that McDermott, too, was on Gilroy’s mind. The mayor he’d once trusted had tried to ruin his reputation and end his career. The second time a mayor had done so. And where had the good people of Juniper Grove been after McDermott took Gilroy’s badge? Pounding on the mayor’s door? Sadly, no. I could only hope they hadn’t known the full extent of McDermott’s machinations, though the Holly’s Sweets rumor mill had spread news of Gilroy’s removal from the case.
Still, only a little over twenty-four hours had elapsed between Gilroy being tossed from the case and Gilroy arresting Stuart and Kip. Not a lot of time for people to gather and digest the facts.
But now the people knew. Word had gotten out via the morning’s Juniper Grove Post and the town’s grapevine. The people knew—though not in so many words—that Gilroy was a good man and the mayor was a political creature who put ambition above everything.
“Holly wants to give you a box of donuts to say welcome back,” I said. “I told her I’d get you.”
“Later in the day. I have some things to catch up on.”
It seemed to me he preferred to hunker down in the station on his first full day back at work. Unsure of how the townspeople would react to his being back on the job, he didn’t want to face them. “You have to pick it up now. She made them special and put a few in there for Turner and Underhill.”
He straightened. “Where are they? I leave to get coffee and they disappear.”
“Maybe they’re busy arresting McDermott.”
He laughed. For the first time in a long time.
“All right, if Holly’s gone to the trouble. Coming with me?”
“You bet. Gotta stock up on the cream puffs.”
As we neared the bakery, I caught sight of Julia—and she us. She spun back from the door, gesticulating wildly with her arms. I felt a giggle rise in my throat but managed to stifle it.
At the door, Gilroy reached around me for the handle. I entered quickly and stepped to the side. The moment his cowboy boots hit the bakery floor, the crowd inside turned.
“Welcome back!” they shouted in surprising unison. Gilroy froze.
Royce Putnam came forward first, shaking Gilroy’s hand. “Thank goodness you’re back, Chief,” he said. Then the dam broke and the crowd moved in. Not just from the front of the bakery, I saw, but from the back too. Holly and Peter had opened every inch of Holly’s Sweets to the well-wishers. “Chief!” they called, “it’s about time!” Hands reached out, over and over again—taking Gilroy’s hand, slapping him on the back—and the cries of “Welcome back!” continued, along with a few snide but entirely appropriate remarks about McDermott.
Gilroy wore a rather stunned smile as he shook hands. He turned my way and mouthed, “Box of donuts?” and I laughed.
As more people entered the bakery from the sidewalk, Holly squeezed and weaved her way to Gilroy, grabbed hold of his arm, and pulled him to the counter, where her gigantic cake loomed over all.
I hung back, watching and, I’m pretty sure, wearing a grin a big as Holly’s cake.
At one time in my life, I’d wondered if decency and honesty should be tempered by a touch of calculation. Even devious calculation. In this world, decency and honesty made you vulnerable. They were punished as often as they were rewarded.
But once you throw your lot in with goodness, you can’t go back. You don’t want to go back. As police chief, Gilroy had seen the worst of human behavior. Still, he met the world head on, without flinching. And without losing his goodness. The McDermotts and Wicks and Hunters of the world would carry on, but so would Gilroy. So would the good people of Juniper Grove—and there were far more of them than I had imagined.
I said a silent prayer of thanks and began to make my way to the counter. It was time for cake.
DEATH KNELL
JUNIPER GROVE MYSTERY SERIES BOOK 8
FROM THE AUTHOR
We all need a place to escape to from ti
me to time. A place where neighbors drink cups of coffee around a kitchen table (and some indulge in cream puffs), where friends feel safe sharing their hearts’ deepest yearnings, where neighbors stop to chat with neighbors outside flower shops. True, the occasional murder mars the Juniper Grove landscape, but what would a mystery series be without dead bodies? Juniper Grove is still that place of escape, and I hope you’ll join me there for all the books in the series. I look forward to sharing more of Rachel Stowe and her friends with you.
If you enjoyed Death Trap, please consider leaving a review on Amazon. Nothing fancy, just a couple sentences. Your help is appreciated more than I can say. Reviews make a huge difference in helping readers find the Juniper Grove Mystery Series and in allowing me to continue to write the series. Thank you!
MORE BOOKS BY KARIN KAUFMAN
ANNA DENNING MYSTERY SERIES
The Witch Tree
Sparrow House
The Sacrifice
The Club
Bitter Roots
Anna Denning Mystery Series Box Set: Books 1-3
CHILDREN’S BOOKS (FOR CHILDREN AND ADULTS)
The Adventures of Geraldine Woolkins
Death Trap Page 14