“Royce Putnam, Julia Foster’s friend,” he answered politely. “And we’re getting a little wet.”
“It’s raining?” Mariette took a sip of wine as she gazed out the front door. She was wearing the same dress I’d seen her in earlier, but this time she was in a pair of high heels. Not the best choice, given the amount of wine she must have consumed.
“Julia!” Sophie called out as she strode for the door. She elbowed Mariette out of the way and ushered us inside. “I’m so glad you could come. I haven’t seen you in a while. And Rachel, thank you so much for coming.” She leaned in and whispered, “We have to talk when you have a minute.”
“Look,” Mariette said, holding out the bouquet. “Flowers. They’re pretty.”
“How many glasses have you had?” Sophie asked.
“Not enough.” Mariette spun on her heels, nearly tripped over her own feet, and headed into the living room.
“Sorry about that,” Sophie said as she shut the door. “And thank you for the flowers.”
Royce introduced himself again, and I explained Holly’s absence, minus the thumb-like-a-lemon part of the story.
“It’s nice to meet you, Royce,” Sophie said. “We’re all in the kitchen, having a glass before dinner. I’ll offer you some if Mariette left a bottle unscathed.”
Julia gave me a pained expression as we followed Sophie to the kitchen. It was going to be a wild night.
The other women were seated at the farmhouse table when we entered, drinking wine and snacking on large stuffed olives. I smelled chicken or turkey baking in the oven and saw an unopened can of crescent-roll dough on the kitchen counter.
“They brought the flowers,” Mariette said, pointing at the bouquet, which was still wrapped in its cellophane funnel.
Tyra sighed. “We figured that out.”
“Giving credit where credit is due,” Mariette said, playing with a short strand of her dark hair.
“And will you stop that!” Tyra cried.
Sophie, wisely ignoring their chatter, filled a vase with water, unwrapped the flowers, and set them inside. “They’re perfect for dinner,” she said, sliding the vase to the center of the table.
Alison leaned sideways, peered up at Sophie, and sniffed, her tiny nostrils pinching together. “Do you ever take flowers from the church cemetery?”
“Of course not,” Sophie answered.
“I don’t mean from graves, woman, I mean from all the plants and shrubs around.” She waved an arm, as if to indicate the graveyard’s immensity. “All those peonies, irises, and azaleas. I would. I’d need a change from roses every now and then. The cemetery flowers just go to waste otherwise, for heaven’s sake. They rot on the plant. Seriously, though? You’ve never crept into the cemetery at night and snipped a few flowers?”
“No, Alison, I haven’t.”
“But it’s practically your backyard,” Alison went on. “St. John’s wouldn’t begrudge you. We could go there now and get a few. I’m telling you, no one would object. The church is buying your land, and without it, they haven’t got a parking lot to park in.” She seized an olive and plopped it in her mouth, continuing to talk as she chewed. “What would they do without you? It’s not like they can move the church. And yours is prime land, Sophie. Have you heard yet if they’re keeping the cottage?”
“Are we really going to talk real estate again?” Tyra whined.
“No, we’re not.” Sophie leaned in and gathered up the empty wine bottles. I counted three altogether. The Cottage Women had started early.
Mariette swayed to her feet, her cheeks flushed, her eyes alight with excitement. “Let’s get more flowers!” She raised a finger to her lips. “Shhh. It’s after six, and everyone’s gone.”
“Brilliant idea,” Tyra said in a deadpan voice.
“I was joking,” Alison said.
Mariette giggled. “Who’s going with me?”
“I don’t think you should go anywhere,” Sophie said. She went to the kitchen, opened a lower cabinet, and dumped the bottles into a trash bin.
“Think of it as my commission,” Mariette said, wobbling toward the patio. “I’ll take them home with me.” She pulled back the drapes, revealing a sliding glass door. “Ooh, it’s still raining. Anyone coming?” Seeing no takers, she stumbled merrily into the rain, heading for the graveyard.
“Is anyone going to follow her?” Royce said. “She shouldn’t wander alone out there in her condition.”
Alison guffawed. “You make it sound like she’s pregnant.”
“By ‘condition,’ I mean falling-down drunk,” Royce said.
I pressed my lips together, trying not to smile.
“Well, don’t look at me, I’m not going to follow her,” Alison said, glancing around the table. “She’s an adult, and it’s still plenty light out, for heaven’s sake. Let her find her silly flowers. In the meantime, let’s eat.”
“She didn’t take scissors with her,” Tyra said. “What’s she going to do, yank them out of the ground?”
“Knowing Mariette, yes,” Alison said. “Or bite them off.”
“It’s a very good thing she didn’t take scissors,” Julia said, shaking her head.
As Sophie began to pull the glass door shut, the sound of a scream froze her in place.
“What was that?” Tyra said.
“It’s a cat or a fox,” Alison replied nonchalantly.
“It’s neither,” Royce said, pushing to his feet and heading for the patio door.
I followed Royce and stood with him at the open door, and a moment later we heard a shriek of terror—unmistakably human.
“Stay there, Julia,” he called. He dashed out the door and broke into a jog, heading toward the graveyard. I followed, soon overtaking him. Just inside the graveyard I spotted Mariette on the ground, her eyes wide with fear, her hands clamped over her mouth.
At her feet was Pastor Kenneth Ackley.
CHAPTER 10
Pastor Ackley way lying face up, his vacant eyes gazing at the sky. His shirt was drenched in blood, from his belt to his collar. No one checked his pulse. There was no doubt he was dead.
“I tripped,” Mariette said in a small voice. “I tripped over him.”
“How can this be happening?” Sophie said. She had dashed out the patio door behind me, and now she turned to me, her eyes pleading for an answer.
“Royce, can you call the police?” I said. “And stay with Julia?”
He nodded solemnly and began to make his way back to the cottage.
Tyra and Alison crept hesitantly forward and stood behind Sophie, both of them looking like they might bolt from the scene at any second. I willed myself to take deep breaths and commit to memory everything before me. The pastor’s bloody hands, the rain beginning to wash away the blood. His clothes—khakis and a pale green shirt, different from what he’d worn in his office. No blood on any nearby headstones. Mariette, her right high-heeled shoe off and next to Ackley’s left leg. Shredded lilac blossoms on the ground to my right. The grass—undisturbed except for a shoe-sized patch at Mariette’s feet. And strangely, a large and very wet paperback book in the grass near Ackley’s legs.
“Someone help me up,” Mariette said, holding out a quivering hand. It was stained a lilac purple.
Sophie went to her, cutting a wide circle around the pastor, but when Tyra moved to help, I told her to stay where she was.
I trained my eyes on the ground, searching for a weapon of some kind, but saw nothing. “We need to step away and go back to the cottage. Don’t touch anything.”
“For heaven’s sake, what would we touch?” Alison said, blinking as rain dripped from her bangs to her face.
Sophie shepherded a hobbling, one-shoed Mariette toward the house, and Alison and Tyra trailed behind, none of them casting a backward glance at me or the pastor. I watched them walk to the patio door, maybe fifty feet away, and then I looked back at the church, which was at least twice that distance from me. Ackley had practically
died in Sophie’s backyard.
Back at the patio door, I turned toward Ackley’s body, trying to spot it among the shrubs and headstones. Feeling a hand on my shoulder, I flinched and turned.
“It’s only me,” Julia said. “Come in out of the rain. What are you looking at?”
“I wondered if you could see Ackley’s body from the patio, but you can’t.”
“Especially if you’re three sheets to the wind,” Julia said under her breath, tugging at my sweater so I’d follow her inside.
I backed up to the open door and stood under the eaves. “He could’ve been there for an hour, maybe more. With the rain, it’s hard to tell if the blood dried at all. No one would’ve known he was there unless they went looking for him in the graveyard.”
“But what was he doing there? Was he walking from the church to the house?”
“Maybe. Or the other way around.” I turned and looked past her to the others—the women sitting at the table, talking quietly among themselves, and Royce standing to the side, his eyes on Julia. “I know it was one of them. I think Ackley discovered something. Or he may have suspected the killer from the start but didn’t want to say anything until he had proof. He was investigating who tampered with the bell controller, and I don’t think he had any intention of letting the matter go.”
Had Ackley walked from the church to confront one of the women? Out of charity, he might have wanted her to turn herself in. Or maybe he only wanted to question her and she believed he was getting too close to the truth. And what about Penelope Falls? Perhaps the similarity between Penelope’s murder in the book and Lauren’s murder in real life really was a coincidence.
My thoughts were interrupted by the wail of a police siren. I stepped inside and slid the patio door shut.
“Thank goodness they’re here,” Julia whispered. “One of those women is a cold-blooded killer.” She went to Royce, and he gathered her in a hug.
I studied the women at the table. Sophie’s shoulders were sagging, and she was slumped forward in her seat, elbows on the table, chin in her hands. Ackley had been her pastor. He’d been Alison’s too, but Alison looked more agitated than mournful. Tyra was staring off toward the patio door, her eyes unfocused, and Mariette, who was resting her head on the chair back, obviously needed a towel and a hot cup of coffee.
“I suppose we’re in for another round of interrogations,” Alison griped.
Hearing the doorbell ring, I told Sophie I’d get it, and she gave me a weary nod.
I led Gilroy and Underhill, the latter with a camera strap slung on his shoulder and two umbrellas in his hands, to the patio door and gestured to where the pastor’s body lay.
“Everyone stay where you are,” Gilroy said. “Rachel, will you show the coroner where we’ve gone when he arrives?”
Gilroy and Underhill started for the cemetery. I shut the patio door behind them and told Sophie I was going to brew some coffee. “Mariette, coffee?” I said.
“Black,” she mumbled. “I lost my shoe out there.”
“I’d like a cup too,” Tyra said.
“Can I have paper towels? I’m wet,” Mariette said.
“In case you haven’t noticed, we’re all wet,” Tyra said.
I peeked out the sliding glass door, but Gilroy and Underhill had already disappeared from view. After I got the coffee going, I set a roll of paper towels on the table and wandered into the living room to watch for the coroner’s van. Julia joined me at the window a minute later.
“Where’s Royce?” I said.
“He wants to keep an eye on the women. Or the ‘suspects,’ as he’s calling them.”
“I’ve been thinking, Julia. Sophie and Alison attend St. John’s, and Tyra’s parents attend St. John’s, but what connection to the church does Mariette have?”
“She’s brokering their real estate deal,” Julia said.
“Good point.” I saw the coroner’s van pull up the gravel drive and park close to the cottage. “Do you think it’s possible we’re looking at this all wrong? What if what links the murders isn’t the church? What if it’s the pastor?”
Before the coroner could knock, I let him in. He gave me a tight-lipped smile, and I led him to the patio door, instructing him to head to his right. “You’ll see Gilroy and Underhill as soon as you get to the graveyard.”
Sophie got up slowly, announcing that she didn’t want all of her dinner to go to waste, even if her pecan-crusted chicken had probably shriveled up by now. She tossed the can of dough into the refrigerator, turned off the oven, and pulled out a cookie sheet full of chicken. It did look dry. And a little burnt.
“It’s ruined, but I’m serving it anyway,” Sophie declared as she drew a stack of plates from a cabinet next to the stove. “I need to keep my hands busy.”
“I should have eaten something downtown,” Tyra grumbled.
Sophie let the stack drop to the counter with a clatter.
“All I mean is, I haven’t eaten all day,” Tyra said, brushing back her light brown locks.
“It smells delicious,” Julia said, entering the kitchen and joining Royce near the table.
Sophie turned on Tyra. “I’m sorry my cooking and your dinner were interrupted by the murder of my pastor.”
“I’m sorry about your pastor, but that’s not what I’m saying,” Tyra said with a slight pout. “You know what I mean. I’m hungry, that’s all. All I’ve had all day is coffee.”
Mariette became alert. “Coffee?”
“I’ll get it,” I said. I poured her a cup and handed it to her at the table, figuring the others could get their own cups if they were interested. Clearly Tyra wasn’t, though she’d asked me to fix her some only minutes earlier.
Placing myself between Sophie and the table, I quietly asked Sophie if I could use her restroom. “Do you have one upstairs?” I said.
She nodded knowingly. “Yes, through the living room and then all the way down the hall, last room.”
I headed upstairs and passed two bedrooms and a restroom before coming to the last bedroom on the floor. Sophie had understood exactly what I was asking to see: Lauren’s room.
The scene had already been processed—there was no crime tape blocking my way—so I went inside, scanning first the floor and then the unmade bed and other furniture. There was an open suitcase atop a dresser and an oatmeal-colored cardigan sweater on the bed, and atop a nightstand by the bed were a hairbrush, bottle of astringent, and cotton balls. I went to the window, now closed, dreading what I would see.
Underhill was right about the blood. Though there were a few drops on the sill, there was more blood on the asphalt shingles just outside the window, shielded from the rain by the roof overhang.
It was a tall window, the sill set low in the wall—just above my knees—and I could see how it would be relatively easy to push an adult out of it. Particularly if she were still half asleep or a little groggy from wine. There were a few drops of blood on the floor by the window, but by far there was more blood on the sill and shingles, leading credence to Gilroy’s idea that Lauren was stabbed while dangling outside the window and gripping the sill.
That explained why the women’s clothing showed no blood evidence. Lauren had bled away from the room, outside the window, and the killer, using a fireplace poker, had been able to keep her distance from Lauren. Even the poker itself had helped, I thought, by sealing the injury until Lauren fell.
The rain continued, pattering on the roof’s metal flashing and dripping into the gutters. It would soon make the crime scene a mess, unless the coroner’s team was bringing a tent with them. I bent low and pressed my forehead to the glass, noting the blood pattern outside. It seemed to me that Lauren had been pushed, stabbed with the fireplace poker while clinging to the window, and then pushed again, this time with the poker.
“Rachel?”
I jerked upright and spun toward the door.
“Sorry!” Sophie said. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
&nbs
p; “I keep jumping,” I said, raising a hand to my neck as if to protect it. “I didn’t hear you in the hall.”
“It’s the silent floors,” she said. She went to the bed and sat slowly, almost reverently, and I dropped my hand, willing myself to calm down. “Everyone thinks this is an ancient cottage with squeaky floors and creaking doors,” she added.
“Your stairs are quiet too,” I pointed out. “No one would have heard someone walk up or down them, or walk down the hall for Lauren’s room. Do you think Lauren kept the window open at night?”
Sophie became thoughtful. “Maybe. The weather was nice last night. But I don’t think she would have opened it almost all the way, and that’s what I saw when I ran in here.”
“Had she ever stayed in this room before?”
“At our meeting last month, but that was a cold weekend.”
“I noticed you can see St. John’s bell tower from the window.” I pointed to my left and looked again. The tower sat above the canopy of trees. “Did she choose this room both times?”
“This weekend she did. Last month Alison stayed here. You can also see the bell tower from Tyra’s and my room.”
“You can see the church graveyard, too.”
“Parts of it are visible from every window on this side of the house.”
“Where all the bedrooms are?”
“Yes, it’s a strange configuration. All the bedrooms on this side, the kitchen, living room, a bathroom, a library, and a den on the other. Not your usual house. You can see the graveyard from the kitchen too, if you arch your neck enough.”
I heard Gilroy and Underhill, their voices rising from the first floor, and knew we should join the others downstairs.
“I wanted to tell you something,” Sophie said, stopping me at the door. “I’ll tell Gilroy too. We all separated this afternoon. I can’t vouch for where Mariette, Tyra, or Alison were, but they all took their own cars.”
“They left right after Holly and I did?”
Death Knell Page 7