The Sense of Death: An Ann Kinnear Suspense Novel (The Ann Kinnear Suspense Novels Book 1)

by Matty Dalrymple

  “Miss, I can take you to your car,” squawked the aide, fluttering around Ann.

  “They’re not going to get a picture of me in a wheelchair,” said Ann, shrugging the aide’s hand off her arm. “I’m OK, really, you can tell your supervisor that I was uncooperative.”

  “You think?” muttered the aide, giving up and stepping back.

  The door slid open and Abbot snapped a couple of photos then, in a practiced motion, let the camera fall back on its strap and pulled a voice recorder out of his shirt pocket.

  “Fantastic,” muttered Mike, following Ann out the door.

  Abbott might have been young but he had perfected the art of the subtle body block. “Miss Kinnear, how are you feeling?” said Abbott, holding the recorder out toward Ann.

  “Looking forward to getting home,” said Ann.

  “You’ve been through a lot, but you managed to bring a murderer to justice—can you tell us what happened there at your cabin?”

  “I really don’t remember much,” said Ann, trying to slip past Abbott but he slid over to block her path.

  “We know there was an altercation—a gun fight. How did you get Firth’s gun away from him?”

  “I told you, I don’t remember. Amnesia.”

  Mike had tossed the bags in the trunk and was coming back for Ann.

  “And your dog—I believe his name was Beau—I understand he died trying to defend you from Firth’s attack.”

  Ann stopped in her tracks. Mike saw a look of such desolation cross her face that he knew what the worst part of this whole fuck-up was for her. If only he hadn’t stolen the jewelry ... He wanted to punch that little shit Abbot in the face for mentioning Beau to his sister.

  Mike stepped between Ann and the whirring recorder. “That’s enough,” he said more calmly than he felt.

  “Mr. Kinnear, our readers are concerned about your sister, they want to hear from her what happened—”

  “If they’re concerned about her, then they’d want you to let her go home.”

  Mike opened the passenger door and helped Ann in, then, ignoring Abbott’s continuing stream of questions, got to the driver’s side, slammed the door behind him, and hit the locks. He pulled carefully out of the hospital driveway, making sure not to make his departure dramatic. When he glanced back Abbott was snapping a few more photos.

  As he drove, Mike glanced over periodically but Ann had her face turned toward the window. Finally he said, “You OK, kiddo?”

  Ann rifled through the backpack she was using as a purse, located a tissue, and blew her nose. Her eyes were rimmed with red. “Yeah. Thanks for the rescue.”

  Mike snorted. “Some rescue. If I hadn’t left the car out there ... like bait, for God’s sake—”

  “No, Mike, I mean it,” Ann interrupted. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. I really appreciate what you’re doing for me.”

  Which left Mike feeling even worse than he had before.

  Chapter 51

  Joe unlocked the front door of the Firth house and stepped aside to let Ann enter. They stood for a minute in the entrance hall.

  “Do you still sense it?” asked Joe.

  “Yes. It’s less and less each time,” replied Ann, “but this is definitely where he killed her.” She walked slowly along the hall. “By the sideboard, I would guess, the sense is strongest here.”

  “What sense is it?”

  “Fear. Terror. Helplessness, which was something she wasn’t used to feeling.”

  “What are you looking for?”

  Ann shrugged. “I’m not sure. Seems like unfinished business, somehow.”

  “Sense of closure?”

  Ann grimaced. “I hate that phrase.”

  Joe gave a lopsided smile. “Me too.”

  With Joe following, Ann walked through the rooms, less like a person looking at a house, Joe thought, than like a person looking for someone within the house. After she had wandered through the front rooms of the first floor, she climbed the stairs to the second floor.

  “You said her mother sensed her in the nursery?”

  “Yes, I think so. She said she sensed her daughter when she was here visiting Sophia.”

  Ann went into Sophia’s bedroom and standing in the center of it turned slowly around.

  “Anything?”

  Ann shook her head.

  They walked through the rest of the second floor and the third floor, Ann moving quickly, increasingly impatient. “Let’s go downstairs.”

  Ann led the way and, when they reached the first floor, turned toward the back of the house. She spent just a moment in the kitchen and then opened the door to the garage, flipped on the light, and descended the stairs.

  Joe waited at the top of the steps, his arms folded in seeming nonchalance but his heart thumping as he waited to see where Ann would go. Ann stood in the center of the garage, now devoid of cars, and then headed straight for the metal cabinet. She knelt in front of it and tugged on the lock that Joe had fastened to the handle.

  “Damn,” she muttered and, letting the lock fall with a clank, turned back to the room.

  But rather than returning to the stairs she froze, staring at the middle of the room, her mouth hanging open and her face draining of blood.

  Joe took a step down the stairs toward her and then stopped. She looked shocked but not frightened and Joe decided it was probably best that he not interfere with whatever was happening.

  In the middle of the garage stood a woman—the whole version of the woman Ann had seen at her earlier visit only in part. Every strand of the dark sweep of hair and every soft fold of her silk blouse was visible—at once clear but somehow distant, as if viewed through many intervening layers of glass. The woman stood with her arms crossed and her weight shifted to one leg, a small, satisfied smile on her face. She reached her hand out toward Ann, almost as if for a handshake, and then instead raised it in a sort of salute and then the glass started to become cloudy.

  Ann reached out her own hand not knowing what to expect and she gasped when warm fingers closed over hers. Then the vision faded and she saw that the hand that held hers was Joe’s.

  “What was it?”

  “It was her. Like she was right here with us.”

  Joe glanced surreptitiously around the garage and then turned back to Ann. “Are you OK?”

  Ann took inventory of herself and was surprised to find that she was OK. “Yes, just a little dizzy.” And no nausea, she added to herself. She too glanced around the garage but the woman was gone. “Let’s go upstairs.”

  They slowly climbed the stairs to the kitchen where Ann dropped into one of the chairs at the table. “Just give me a minute,” she said sheepishly.

  “Sure.” Joe sat down across from her. After a minute he asked, “Do you want a cup of tea?”

  Ann made a face. “Not really. I could use some coffee, though.”

  “My treat,” said Joe, starting to get up, but Ann put her hand on his arm.

  “Do you have the picture I asked you to bring?”

  Joe sat back down, reached into his jacket pocket, and pulled out a photograph that he passed to Ann.

  It showed a couple dressed in evening clothes, posing in front of an enormous arrangement of flowers. The man was Biden Firth—she still thought of him as Bob Dormand, the man from Harvey Cedars—and the woman was the one she had just seen in the garage, wearing the same satisfied smile.

  “Is that who you saw?” Joe asked.

  “Yes, that’s her. So who’s the woman in the photos upstairs—the ones in the office and in the little girl’s room?”

  “It’s her mother, Amelia Dormand. Joan, the housekeeper, says Firth removed all the photos of him and Elizabeth sometime after the body was found. Joan thought it was the act of a grieving husband and didn’t think to mention it but I think that once he put the house on the market he didn’t want anyone coming through the house seeing the photos of him or Elizabeth, maybe especially when he knew a ‘psychic’ was comi
ng. His father and father-in-law helped keep photos out of the paper, Biden kept photos out of the house. It was a long shot but you never know when someone might see a picture and make a connection that would tie him to the murder. He was lucky, all right.” Ann looked at the photo of the seemingly happy couple a moment longer and then handed it back to Joe who tucked it back in his pocket. “Just what Morgan Firth needs, not only a notorious house to unload but a haunted one,” Joe said, then regretted it as sounding flippant but Ann didn’t seem to notice.

  “No, she’s gone now, she won’t be back.”

  Elizabeth Firth had accomplished what she needed to, Ann thought, she had avenged her murder. She had won.

  Chapter 52

  The evening of her trip back to Rittenhouse Square, her last night staying with Mike and Scott, Ann excused herself from movie night (The Seven Samurai) and, armed with a glass of wine and a bowl of popcorn, went to the guest room that was reserved exclusively for her visits. The first floor of Mike and Scott’s townhouse was decorated mainly in the sleek, sophisticated style favored by Mike but the second floor bore Scott’s more homey sensibility. The bed was covered with an antique quilt Scott had bought at an auction in Lancaster County, a mohair throw draped over the walnut footboard. The bedside tables were stocked with a rotating offering of books with local tie-ins—a paperback describing Amish customs, a children’s book featuring N. C. Wyeth illustrations—and the walls were decorated with antique maps of West Chester. Ann lowered herself into an overstuffed armchair, put her wine and popcorn on the table next to the chair, and got out her cell phone. She dialed a number she used only infrequently but knew by heart.

  After a few rings the call was answered with a deep, sepulchral, “Yes.”

  “Garrick, it’s Ann.”

  “Ann, my dear,” said Garrick with a slight increase in warmth that would have been unnoticeable to anyone else. “How are you doing? I would have called but didn’t want to intrude.”

  Ann assumed he meant he hadn’t wanted to call her official business number and risk having to talk with Mike—she was pretty sure he didn’t have her cell phone number since it was always she who called Garrick, not the other way around.

  “I’m OK. Do you know what happened?”

  “Of course, I’m not completely disconnected from events in ‘the real world’ as they call it,” he said, sounding more like the Garrick Masser Mike would have recognized.

  “What did you hear?” she asked, fiddling with a frayed piece of piping on the arm of the chair.

  “That you had warned potential buyers from purchasing the house where a murder had occurred.”

  “Yes. It was bad.” She tried to think of a better word. “Saturated.”

  “And the murderer came for you.”

  “The husband, yes.” There was a pause. “I went back to his house today,” said Ann. “I saw her.”

  “Saw her essence?”

  “No, I saw her clearly, the way she looked when she was alive.”

  “Really?” said Garrick with obvious interest. “That would be the first time for you, would it not?”

  “Yes, the first time.”

  “But you had sensed her before, in a more amorphous form, yes?”

  “Yes, mainly just the usual manifestations—mainly the sense of the emotions of the spirit—but even on my first visit to the house there were flickers of something else, like I was catching a glimpse out of the corner of my eye but when I would turn to look it was gone. And there was also a sense that she was trying to communicate with me, was trying to direct me to something.”

  “And did you find this thing to which she was directing you?”

  “I think I would have but by the time I went through the house the first time the police didn’t have an excuse to search it anymore and when I went through it the second time, today, it ... didn’t seem so important anymore.” She made herself stop playing with the chair piping which she was causing to fray more. “Why do you think I saw her clearly today?”

  “Was she still trying to direct you?”

  “Maybe. No. I don’t know. It seemed like she had gotten what she needed. But if she had gotten what she needed—which I assume was making sure her husband was punished for murdering her—why would she bother to show herself to me now?”

  “What makes you think it was a change she effected?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, my dear, that it seems more likely that the difference was due not to this poor woman’s eventual success in making herself visible to you but rather to your eventual ability to see what had been there all along.”

  “But why now?” Ann pursued doggedly.

  “Was there nothing that happened the night he attacked you that might explain it?”

  Ann thought of the whistle that had launched Beau at Biden Firth and had provided the momentary distraction that had very likely saved her life. She thought about the fire that, much to investigators’ perplexity, had put itself out. She had to get home as soon as she could. “I’m not sure,” she said, a waver in her voice. She cleared her throat. “I have a favor to ask you, Garrick.”

  “Yes, my dear?”

  “Could you go to my cabin and see if he’s there?”

  “The murderer?”

  “Yes. I don’t think I can go back if he’s there.”

  Ann heard a sound that she realized after a moment was Garrick chuckling. “He’s not there.”

  “But how can you be sure—” she began.

  “Because, my dear, I have been to your cabin and done quite a thorough examination and Mr. Firth is not there.”

  Ann bristled. “You went to my house without my permission?”

  “Perhaps not with your permission but not with no permission. Your brother hired me.”

  Of all the things Ann had heard during this episode with Biden Firth, this was perhaps the most surprising—her brother had hired Garrick Masser to make sure her home was still free of spirits. She knew what it must have cost Mike to do that.

  “Oh,” she said eventually. “Well, thank you.”

  “Don’t mention it,” said Garrick sourly.

  They were both silent for some moments. Finally Ann said, “It’s going to be a lot easier for me to go home knowing there’s nothing waiting for me. I do appreciate it, Garrick.”

  “Hmph,” he said, then, “If you decide to continue in what your brother so quaintly refers to as your ‘consulting business,’ then this new skill will serve you well. Mrs. Firth’s death was recent and dramatic, and she needed you to perform a task for her, all of which doubtless facilitated your ability to see her, but it’s a skill you can develop. You must neither push them away nor pursue them. You must let them come to you on their own terms.” He gave another short chuckle. “Although perhaps I should not be coaching you, one might say you are the competition now.”

  “I don’t think I’m your competition,” said Ann modestly, pleased to be acknowledged as an equal by Garrick, a sensation that was quickly deflated when Garrick responded thoughtfully, “No, I suppose not.”

  They both pondered this new state of affairs for a moment, then Garrick said, before breaking the connection, “Be open to what is there to be experienced. Remember, I never said there was nothing waiting for you at your home.”

  Chapter 53

  On Monday, Mike got a call from Morgan Firth’s lawyer asking if Ann and Mike had ever received payment for their engagement with Biden—a. k. a. Bob Dormand—and, when Mike told him they had not, asked what the amount due was. A few days later Mike received a check from Firth Investments.

  On Tuesday, Mavis called to let Ann and Mike know that she and Lawrence were buying Flora Soderlund’s house—Mavis thought Harold seemed like a spirit she would like to share a home with. They were planning a housewarming party once they updated the kitchen.

  On Wednesday, Walt flew down to West Chester to pick up Ann and bring her home. On the way from the Adirondack Regional Airport to
her house, he drove extra carefully, evidently feeling she was still convalescent. Ann’s heart ached a little when they drove past Walt and Helen’s house without making the regular stop to pick up Beau. Walt must have felt it too because he said, “He was a good boy.”

  When they got to the house, Walt parked with the passenger door as close to the path to the house as possible and, retrieving her bags from the trunk, took Ann’s elbow as they made their way down the log steps.

  “Walt, I’m OK, really,” said Ann. “I’ve done nothing but lie around Mike’s place recuperating for the last week.”

  “You sure?” said Walt. “You still look a little peaky.”

  “Yes, very sure,” said Ann. “This is just my normal peakiness.”

  “Well, OK,” said Walt, letting go of her elbow. He followed Ann down the path with her bags. At the door he held the screen door open for her while she unlocked the inner door.

  The wooden floor in the kitchen was new and raw-looking.

  “Helen couldn’t get it clean,” he said, “so I had Bruce,” Walt’s carpenter cousin, “put in a new one.” Bruce had burned the old boards to keep them out of the hands of morbid souvenir-seekers.

  “Thanks, Walt,” said Ann. “Let me know what I owe him for that.”

  “Mike took care of it,” said Walt. “Want these upstairs?”

  “Yes, thanks,” said Ann, feeling almost like a visitor in her cabin. The pan she had been cooking the boeuf bourguignon in was sitting on the stove, the inside mirror-like from scrubbing—a sign of Helen’s ministrations, she knew. Helen had also hung cheerful striped curtains at the window, although some charring was still visible on the ceiling.

  Walt came back downstairs and noticed Ann looking at the ceiling. “Lucky that put itself out,” he said.

  Ann nodded. “Yes. Lucky.”

  Walt stuck his hands in his pockets. “You sure you’re OK here? Won’t be scared?”

  “Maybe at first but I’ve got to get used to it, right?”

  “You want me to bring Helen by to stay with you a night or two?” asked Walt. “She wouldn’t mind. Would be a little vacation for her.”