Never Preach Past Noon

by Edie Claire

  "Well, it seems like I remember him saying, 'He was fine when I left last night.' Do you remember that?"

  Warren considered. "I can't swear he said that verbatim, but I do remember him talking about how he had a meeting with Humphrey after the rehearsal. He implied that they had gotten some things straightened out, which made everyone doubly surprised that Humphrey hadn't shown up for the wedding."

  Leigh sighed. Was she remembering things right? "Maybe it's nothing then," she said hopefully. "But I could swear he said those exact words, 'He was fine when I left.'"

  She took a moment to explain about the Ivey sisters and their picture window, then repeated their version of events for the night of the wedding rehearsal. "According to Betty and Louise, your uncle stayed at the church a good half hour after Humphrey left. Now why would he do that?"

  Warren's brow creased. "I can’t imagine."

  "Whatever he was doing," Leigh said hesitantly, "I'm wondering if he didn't want anyone to know about it. If he intentionally turned things around a little to cover it up. It might not have mattered, but if something really did happen to Humphrey, he's likely to be questioned, and I'm sure the Ivey sisters have already given their statement. I was just worried that—well, do you think he might—"

  "Lie to the police?" Warren finished, following her train of thought easily. He leaned over and picked up the phone. "Hell, yes, he would."

  Chapter 10

  Warren returned the phone to its cradle without dialing. "No," he said thoughtfully, "this demands a personal visit. Shannon's always telling me I should drop by more often." He turned to Leigh. "Do you want to come along?"

  She nodded quickly. Hanging with Ted Hugh was not exactly her idea of fun, but if it meant more quality time with Warren, she could manage. She had gotten the distinct impression that he and Katharine had reached some critical juncture, and that he was close to telling her about it. If the mood struck, she wasn't going to miss it.

  A half hour later, she and Warren were settled comfortably on a billowy brown couch in Ted and Shannon Hugh's dark family room. She had expected Warren to bring up the subject at hand immediately, but instead he opened with family chitchat. He was probably trying to get his uncle warmed up, but Leigh had no patience for that. She wanted to know what the Franklin Park police had reported about Humphrey's car. Particularly about that trunk.

  "So, Shannon," she said quietly, as soon as she could get the other woman's attention away from her husband, "what did the police say about the car?"

  Shannon paled a little, and Leigh's stomach flip-flopped. She knew in the back of her mind that if a less-than-breathing Reginald Humphrey had been discovered in the trunk, she would have heard something hours ago. But the possibility still made her nervous.

  "They just confirmed what you said you saw," Shannon answered.

  Leigh let out the breath she'd been holding. She could chalk up another failure for her instincts, but in this case, that was a good thing.

  "They did say," Shannon added in a somewhat shaky voice, "that the key to his new apartment was on the chain with his car keys."

  As Leigh digested this information, she noticed that Warren and Ted had at some point started listening to the conversation.

  "It doesn't look good for Humphrey," Ted announced, his voice once again a little louder than appropriate. "Guess he had some real enemies after all."

  His tone held a distinct lack of empathy, and Leigh threw a sideways glance at Warren to see if he had noticed.

  It appeared that he had. "So I hear you were the last one to see him before he disappeared," he asked his uncle smoothly. "Did the police ask you anything about how he seemed when you left him?"

  Ted's eyes flickered over to his wife, who studied her shoes. He answered with a calmer voice. "They came and talked to me at work this afternoon, actually. Shannon had told them I had a meeting with Humphrey after the rehearsal."

  "I was so embarrassed that they bothered Ted at his office," Shannon broke in, distressed. "But after the car was found, the police seemed to get a lot more serious about the whole thing. I really think they suspect foul play now." She stumbled over the last words, her chin quivering.

  "It's all right, honey," Ted said tenderly. Leigh looked at him in surprise. She would have classified him as a lout across the board, but judging from the expression in his eyes, his concern for his wife was genuine.

  "They wanted to know just when Shannon and Joy left, and just when I left," he continued. "I didn't pay much attention, but Shannon says I got home at quarter after eleven, so I figure I must have left the church around 11:00." He sighed and shook his head. "And nobody's seen him since."

  There was a brief silence before Leigh jumped in to ask the fated question. "He was still at the church when you left?"

  Ted didn't bat an eye. "Oh, yeah. He's a night owl—stayed late a lot, working on the computer. He didn't have an office in the parsonage, and—well, I guess he didn't have one at that boarding house either."

  A silence hung thickly over the cozy family room as Leigh shot a glance at Warren. He looked stricken, an appearance she no doubt wore herself on the many occasions when her own relatives self-destructed. She looked to see if Shannon and Ted had noticed, but they seemed comfortably oblivious to the problem.

  Leigh started to speak, but Warren stopped her with a hand on her knee. "I have to tell, you, Ted," he said seriously, "you may have some trouble with the Ivey sisters."

  At the name of the First Church of the New Millenium's celebrated "caretakers," both Ted and Shannon sat up. "They were still awake?" Ted asked with surprise. "I thought they went to bed at nine!"

  "They told Bess and me that they'd been taking turns staying up late ever since the parsonage fire," Leigh explained, noting that the sisters' bedtime seemed to be common congregational knowledge. "I think they felt guilty about not being more help."

  Ted did not appear interested in the Ivey sisters' guilty consciences. "What did they say they saw?" he asked, growing agitated. "Did they tell the police?" He had risen from his chair and was advancing on Leigh when Warren stood up in between them.

  "We don't know that they've told the police anything," Warren said calmly. "But they told Bess and Leigh that Humphrey left the church a half hour before you did."

  Ted face registered an odd jumble of emotions. At first he seemed frightened. Then relieved. Then confused. "They said—" he faltered. "Okay. I guess. I mean—" He paused a moment and swallowed, then spoke in a steadier tone. "They don't know what they saw."

  Warren looked at his uncle worriedly, and Leigh didn't blame him. He motioned for Ted to sit down again, which the man did—heavily enough to make his recliner walk a step backward. Shannon's face had gone stark white, with beads of sweat forming on the bridge of her nose as she sat motionless in her rocker.

  "It will be all right, Ted." Warren said firmly, slipping into politician mode. "But I do think you should consult a lawyer. It never hurts to have a professional's opinion about how to protect yourself. You must realize—there could be a criminal investigation coming out of this. You don't want a minor misunderstanding about your comings and goings to muddy the waters."

  "Of course not," Ted said quickly. "That's all it is. A misunderstanding. He was fine when I left him. Just fine."

  ***

  Leigh stewed in silence for a few minutes as Warren drove them home, then decided she couldn't take it anymore. "He was lying through his teeth, you know," she said with frustration. "Why didn't you just ask him what really happened?"

  "You'd have to know my uncle," Warren answered patiently. "He doesn't deal well with accusations, and getting him angry wouldn't help anything. What he needs to do is talk to Katharine. She can get the real story, and she'll know how to coach him." He sighed. "I'm not sure I even want to know the real story."

  Leigh did. "And did you see how upset Shannon got? I think she's afraid that there's a lot more going on than just a misunderstanding."

 
"Shannon," Warren responded, "lives in daily fear of what incredibly stupid thing her husband is likely to do next. I don't know how she stands it." He looked over at Leigh and chuckled. "Or maybe I do."

  She looked back at him, puzzled. Was he talking about her or Katharine? The lawyer certainly wasn't in the habit of doing stupid things. Whereas she—.

  Well, anyway.

  ***

  Leigh knocked on Bess's door the next morning at 7:42 AM. It was the best she could do, since she'd gotten next to no sleep the night before. She had failed once again in her attempts to make Warren spill his guts about Katharine—in fact, he had retreated to his apartment immediately after their return—to call her, of course. She had then tossed and turned all night with a wide assortment of bad dreams—ranging from red-haired, green-eyed pastors packing semi-automatic weapons to Katharine Bower in a wedding dress. She still wasn't sure which one was worse.

  "Good morning, honey," Leigh's Aunt Lydie said pleasantly, opening the door and stepping outside. "I wish I could stay and chat with you a while, but I've got a class, you know."

  That sort of statement was as close to a reproach as Lydie ever got—one of the more obvious contrasts between her and her identical twin. "Just two things you should know. One, I talked to Cara last night, and she told me to ask you if you'd—and I quote—'made your move' yet."

  Leigh rolled her eyes. Even while in the middle of a two-week family vacation to Sanibel Island, her cousin found time to hassle her. "Tell her the timing's still not right," she answered. "And to give baby Matt a kiss for me. Next?"

  "Number two," Lydie continued. "I put in a new shower head with a hose sprayer, and a tub bench. Bess can handle it all by herself. She just needs to conquer those stairs, and then she can get rid of us all." She waved goodbye with a wink and headed out to her car, whistling.

  Leigh smiled. Her father was handy too, but family appliance emergencies had always been Lydie's domain. Leigh watched her aunt sauntered off student style—in jeans and a long denim coat, with a backpack dangling over one shoulder. Lydie had not had an easy life—her husband had deserted her when she was pregnant with Cara—and she had had to work at least two jobs for years to make sure that her daughter got through college. Now Cara was returning the favor, and Lydie was on cloud nine.

  "A sitting-down shower!" Leigh remarked to Bess as she walked inside. "You think Lydie'd make me one too?"

  But Bess couldn't respond, as she was in the middle of a phone call. "Calm down, Tara," she said soothingly. "I'll come down and we'll pick it up, all right? Dr. Koslow will take care of it. You just sit tight till we get there, okay?"

  Leigh didn't bother to take off her coat, but went to fetch her aunt's instead. Bess hung up the phone and reached for it gratefully. "Thanks, kiddo. We've got to make a quick run to your father's place—there's a groundhog at the shelter that was hit by a car. Somebody left it in the drop-off run last night, and Tara says it's cold as ice and barely breathing. I'm not sure what your dad can do, but we can't let the poor thing suffer."

  Bess waited in the car while Leigh ran into the shelter, but it was clear when she arrived at the treatment room that a trip to the Koslow Animal Clinic wouldn't be necessary.

  "It's dead, isn't it?" asked the near-hysterical teenager who was manning the shelter by herself that morning. "I hated to bother your aunt, but the kennel guy called in sick, and I couldn't get the manager on the phone—"

  "It's okay," Leigh said calmly. "I'm sort of a vet tech. I'll take care of it." She took off her coat and looked at the deceased creature with curiosity, having not seen a wild groundhog up close and personal before. To the shelter worker's credit, she had done a good job of rescuing it from the drop-off pen, bundling it in a large blanket and getting it inside without further injury to it, or—as the case might have been if the animal were feeling better—to herself. "Why don't you go and break the news to my aunt?" Leigh suggested. "Tell her I'll be out in a minute."

  The girl smiled gratefully and made a quick exit, obviously glad to be spared the rest of the process. Leigh placed the groundhog's body carefully into a doubled plastic bag and tied it up tight. Looking around the treatment room, she wondered briefly if the break-in earlier in the week might have been drug-related. Her father did come out to the shelter to do treatments and the occasional euthanasia, but she knew he would never keep controlled drugs on site. Those, he kept locked up at the clinic, which had a suitably elaborate security system. Still, not every ketamine-seeking junkie would know that.

  She opened the door to the basement and went back for the bundle, which was heavier than she'd thought. Like the giant deer who were more numerous than squirrels in the well-groomed Pittsburgh suburbs—the local groundhogs lived well. And this one, she surmised, had also lived long, which made her feel at least a little better about the task at hand.

  She descended the stairs into the basement, where she noted that the broken door had been replaced by a considerably more hardy metal one. Complete with lock, deadbolt, and chain.

  Using a spare elbow to pop open the chest-style deep freeze, she lifted up the awkward bundle and leaned over to lay it inside. Something wrapped in a ragged orange blanket took up most of the available floor space, but she managed to find an unoccupied corner just as the bag began to slip from her grasp. She was in the process of straightening up when her eyes rested on a round edge of black poking out from under the orange wrap. She'd seen big paw pads before, but this one had to come from a Wolfhound.

  Curious, she lifted back the blanket, and her blood chilled. The black object wasn't a paw pad. It was the heel of a man's dress shoe. And judging from the wrinkled black sock and hairy, snow-white flesh above it, the shoe was connected to a man.

  Chapter 11

  Leigh stood a few feet back from the freezer, staring at the open lid. It would be better if what she had just seen—and recoiled from so hastily—had been only her imagination. But she'd never had that kind of luck.

  She stood another moment, knees knocking, then took a deep breath and stepped up to the freezer again. Forcing herself to look down, she surveyed the shape under the orange blanket, then let her eyes rest on the part she'd uncovered.

  Damn.

  She closed the freezer lid quickly, having seen all she needed—and certainly all she wanted—to see. Rubbery legs carried her quickly up the stairs, through the treatment room that the oblivious teenager was cleaning, and safely into the lobby. She sank into the chair behind the reception desk, picked up the phone, and dialed 911. Somebody explained the situation to the dispatcher—she supposed it was her. Then she hung up the phone and moved mechanically out the door and over to the Cavalier, where her aunt sat waiting with the engine running.

  "What's wrong?" Bess said anxiously, rolling down the car window. "Why are you standing there without your coat?"

  Leigh looked down at the thin turtleneck she was wearing, and it occurred to her that she was freezing. Trembling all over, she moved around the car and slipped in the driver's side. As she rubbed her hands in front of the heating vent, she thought about saying something. But nothing happened.

  "You're scaring me, kiddo," Bess said seriously. "What's up?"

  Leigh sat for another second before answering. "I put the groundhog in the freezer."

  "Thank you," Bess said impatiently. "I'll tell your dad we need another crematory run. Now what the devil's wrong with you?"

  Leigh exhaled and shook her head, trying to clear the fogginess. She then turned reluctantly to face her aunt. "The freezer wasn't empty," she said with a struggle. "There was a person in it."

  Bess's pale blue eyes bore into hers, the pupils widening. "A dead person?" Leigh nodded, and they both sat dumbly for a moment.

  "Was it—," Bess broke off her statement, then swallowed. "Was it him?"

  Leigh hesitated, then shrugged. She hadn't seen past the man's calf, and she didn't want to presume—no matter what her gut was telling her.

  But Bess studie
d her niece's face, and an exchange of words wasn't necessary. They both knew what the other was thinking. Reginald Humphrey was no longer missing.

  He was dead.

  ***

  It seemed like a lifetime later when Detective Maura Polanski weaved her way through the crowded reception area of the animal shelter and plopped down on the plastic chair next to Leigh.

  Leigh braced herself.

  "Are you okay?" Maura asked with a sigh.

  Leigh looked up at her friend and smiled. The words were sincerely spoken, albeit a bit strained. "I'm all right," she answered sheepishly. "Thanks for asking."

  Maura said nothing more for a while, and neither did Leigh. Her sixth sense was well aware that although Maura was trying her best to be supportive, a part of her wished she had never heard the name Leigh Koslow. And no wonder. There seemed to be no jurisdiction where the policewoman was safe from Leigh's particularly onerous brand of bad luck.

  "Are you working on this one?" Leigh asked finally, unable to stand the silence. "The homicide detectives have already questioned everybody. I thought you just did burglaries and stuff."

  Maura glared at her out of the corner of one eye. "This started out as a burglary, remember?" she said grimly.

  Leigh nodded. It didn't take a brain surgeon to make the connection, though it was considerably more obvious in retrospect. Reginald Humphrey's body had probably lain in that freezer for three days—since sometime after the wedding rehearsal Monday night. She shivered. It must have been there the whole time she had been down in the basement the next morning, messing with the broken door. And the whole time Maura was investigating…

  Ouch. Was that a problem? Surely not. The shelter staff had all insisted that nothing had been stolen. They'd never even thought to look in the freezer—and why should they? There was nothing in it to steal, after all.