Pumpkin Ridge (Rose Hill Mystery Series Book 10)

by Pamela Grandstaff

  “She’s already back in Ireland,” he said. “She wants nothing more to do with them. She’s scared, and I don’t blame her.”

  “And our Oxford student?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “She left school a week ago, and no one has heard from her.”

  “Is her mother worried?”

  “Not very,” he said. “She’s got her own problems right now.”

  “Hello, my name is Atticus, and I’ll be serving you today,” the bearded man said to Hannah. “Our hot drink special is a spiced pumpkin latte served with ginger-infused organic whipped cream. Our iced drink special is an East African cold brew slow-steeped in cool water for 24 hours, served with goat milk froth sweetened with clover honey.”

  “Just coffee,” Hannah said.

  “Light roast, medium roast, dark roast or Americano?”

  “Medium.”

  “Skim milk, whole milk, half-and-half, cream, almond milk, or soy?”

  “Whole milk.”

  “Organic cane sugar, honey, Agave, Rice Syrup, Tevia, or black?”

  “Cane sugar.”

  “Our lunch special is a roasted portabella vegan patty melt served with spicy beet frittes.”

  “No thanks.”

  “Today’s dessert special is a kiwi and mixed berry torte topped with dragon fruit salsa spiked with lime and honey.”

  “Just the coffee, buddy, thanks.”

  It was all Hannah could do not to kick the guy. She was missing what they were saying. He walked away while giving her the side eye, no doubt assuming the amount of her tip would correspond to the dollar value of her outfit.

  “Let me know,” Terese was saying. “I won’t pull the trigger until she’s in range.”

  Hannah’s eyes almost bugged out of her head. Her heart pound in her chest and her hands shook. Was the woman using a metaphor or was she seriously talking about shooting Ava?

  Terese and Karl stood up to leave, so Hannah kept her head down and pretended to be furiously texting on her phone. She waited until they had exited the diner to look up, and then watched them go in opposite directions.

  She stood up just as the waiter returned.

  “Your coffee,” he said.

  “Make it to go, please,” Hannah said.

  He sighed.

  Hannah fished in her pocket and came back out with a crumpled five dollar bill.

  “Here,” she said. “You drink it and keep the change.”

  Her next stop was Anthony Delvecchio’s insurance agency on the corner of Iris Avenue, the street where Delia’s house was, and Pine Mountain Road, which ended at the river.

  Anthony was glad to help. He had one camera that pointed north up Iris Avenue, and Delia’s driveway was in the shot. They backed the video to the night Melissa thought Ava tried to run over her. They watched Melissa creep down Iris Avenue and hide in the vestibule of the apartment building behind Anthony’s building. They then saw Patrick, covered in only a tablecloth wrapped around him, walking home. After that, it clearly showed Melissa walking down the street, the headlights of white SUV, and Melissa jumping out of the way.

  He switched to the video from his other camera, which highlighted the sidewalk and street in front of his office. They were able to watch a clearly identifiable Ava, dressed in Patrick’s clothes, as she walked past the insurance office and went down the street to where Melissa said she had parked her SUV. A few moments later the SUV passed the camera going east on Pine Mountain Road.

  Anthony zoomed in on the license plate, and Hannah checked it against the number she had written down. It was different than the one on the night of the murder.

  He fast-forwarded to the same SUV flying past the office after it had almost hit Melissa and paused it long enough for Hannah to verify the same license plate number.

  “We’ve got her,” Hannah said. ‘Two video confirmations should be good enough for any jury.”

  “I had no idea,” Anthony said. “This opens up a big can of worms for me.”

  “Why’s that?” Hannah asked.

  “Ava came in a few weeks ago and took out a substantial insurance policy on her husband,” he said. “You didn’t hear that from me.”

  “Who’s the beneficiary?”

  “Ava is the primary and Olivia is the contingent.”

  “Just the one kid?”

  He nodded.

  Hannah wrote that down in her notebook.

  “She’s a piece of work, that one,” Hannah said. “Let’s look at the night of the accident.”

  Hannah surmised that if Ava drove to Rose Hill that evening, she would probably have parked in the same place.

  At about the time Patrick would be leaving work, they could see a hooded figure walk up the hill, past the office, and turn into the alley. Hannah fast-forwarded until they saw Ava again, only this time she was running down the sidewalk from Rose Hill Avenue. When she reached the alley, she took something out of her pocket and threw it in the dumpster next to the antique store. She then rushed passed the office, headed down the hill toward the river.

  “When does the trash get picked up?” Hannah asked.

  “Today,” Anthony said, and they both jumped up and ran for the door.

  When they reached the dumpster, they could hear the garbage truck making its way down the alley toward them. Anthony boosted Hannah up over the edge and shown the flashlight from his phone down at what she was doing.

  “What are we looking for?” he asked her.

  “I don’t know,” Hannah said.

  She tossed out all the closed bags of garbage and directed him where to shine the light.

  “Score!” she called out. “Get me a large envelope.”

  Anthony ran back inside the office, and when he returned, Hannah was standing in the dumpster, talking to the men walking alongside the garbage truck, making them laugh. They collected the bagged trash she had thrown out and then rolled on across Pine Mountain Road into the next alley.

  Anthony handed Hannah a large envelope and some rubber gloves his cleaning lady kept in the office kitchenette.

  “Good thinking,” she said as she put them on.

  “The only things that were not in bags were these,” she said.

  She put the man’s winter gloves and a rag she had found in the envelope, and then Anthony helped her out of the dumpster.

  “I’m relieved this isn’t a restaurant dumpster,” Hannah said. “No food, no critters.”

  Back in Anthony’s office, they forwarded the video to the night Melissa’s car was sabotaged. The assailant passed Anthony’s building, went down Iris Avenue, crawled under Melissa’s car, and then eventually crawled back out and walked up the street toward Anthony’s camera. Under the streetlight at the corner of Iris Avenue and Pine Mountain Road, they could clearly see that person’s face.

  “I thought she was in England,” Anthony said.

  The nearest video camera to the trailer park was owned by Spurlock’s Feed and Seed. Landis Spurlock left Hannah to look at the footage while he waited on customers.

  “I keep that to deter the mulch thieves,” he said. “Beats hauling them heavy bags back in every night.”

  Hannah was disappointed not to have a clear shot of the trailer park.

  “Anybody else around here have a security camera?” she asked.

  He thought about it.

  “The bicycle factory,” he said.

  Hannah walked down to the bicycle factory, racking her brain trying to think of some plausible reason she could ask to see their video footage. It didn’t end up mattering, however, because the assembly foreman told her that Will’s security man had removed the whole security system days ago.

  “Why,” Hannah asked.

  The man shrugged as he replied, “He didn’t say.”

  “Have you had a break in?”

  “Not that I know of, and I would know.”

  Hannah retrieved her car from in front of the bank. She drove slowly down Rose Hill Avenue, lo
oking for video cameras. Machalvie Funeral Home, diagonally across the street from the Rose and Thorn, had the best view of the crime scene and a video camera pointed right at it.

  Unfortunately, owner Peg Machalvie hated Hannah.

  She drove up Peony Street and parked outside the community center. In the basement of what used to be Rose Hill High School, Sam was spotting a young man who was bench pressing a barbell loaded down with weights. He signaled for Hannah to wait, and then called someone else over to take his place.

  Behind the community center, on the concrete porch that faced the old bus barn, Hannah laid out what she had learned. Sam listened with an impassive face, one she was used to seeing when his business was network security for the government.

  “So,” she finished, “I didn’t think Peg would let me in the door of the funeral home, never mind look at their security video footage. They probably have a video of the whole thing, though. It’s a straight shot to the PJ’s Pizza parking lot.”

  “Who’s friends with Peg?” Sam asked.

  “Marigold, I guess,” Hannah said. “She hates me too, though. Actually, anyone awful enough to be friends with Peg is bound to hate me for some reason.”

  “Some reason?”

  “I’ve got a big mouth,” Hannah said. “I say what I think. So sue me.”

  “Not my wife,” Sam said. “My wife is on the city council; she’s beloved by all two and four-legged creatures in this county.”

  “She sounds nice,” Hannah said. “Too bad for you this wife got caught nailing a garlic braid and a crucifix over the back door of the funeral home.”

  “Why did you do that?”

  “Well, first of all, Peg’s obviously a creature of the night, I mean, just look at her,” Hannah said. “Plus I’d had a few beers and Maggie double-dog-dared me.”

  “Patrick said all the electric was out on that side of the street due to the wreck,” Sam said. “You think the funeral home’s video camera would still have been on?”

  “They would have to have a backup generator,” Hannah said. “Can’t have any bodies thawing out, now can we?”

  “Anybody have a funeral scheduled today?”

  Hannah’s mouth dropped open.

  “Samuel Harold Campbell, are you asking me to infiltrate the funeral home under the guise of being a mourner, brazenly enter an office marked ‘staff only,’ illegally access the videotape from their security camera, and then surreptitiously make a copy of said tape?”

  Sam narrowed his eyes at her but then smiled.

  “Piece of cake,” Hannah said.

  The deceased was the scion of a large Mennonite family from Fleurmania, so every room of the funeral home was packed with all the many members of their immediate family, extended family, church family, and neighbors. Luckily for Hannah, one of the sons of the departed had, along with all his sons, built the barn at Hannah’s family’s farm out on Hollyhock Ridge, and he was touched that Hannah had thought to come and pay her respects.

  Hannah’s confederate in this scheme, Bonnie Fitzpatrick, the idea for whose participation Hannah considered a brilliant stroke of genius on her own part, had trapped Peg Machalvie in the entrance alcove and was inquiring about prepaying for deluxe funeral plans. Bonnie Fitzpatrick was one of the few people Peg feared, and besides, Peg would never ignore an inquiry about deluxe prepayments.

  Hannah had already noted the emergency generator behind the funeral home, so she knew they had power after the electric pole fell over on the night of the murder. Hannah’s stealthy reconnaissance inside revealed Peg’s sons, Hugh and Louis, were stationed in the viewing room on either end of the casket. She peeked into a prep room and saw a woman busy applying makeup to a corpse. Seeing the coast was clear, Hannah entered Peg’s office and helped herself to her PC.

  “No password,” she said as she easily gained access to her desktop. “Amateurs.”

  Instead of taking the time to look at the video files, she copied all the files from the “South View” camera for October onto her flash drive. She had 95% of the last one downloaded when she heard voices in the hallway.

  It was Stuart Machalvie, Peg’s husband.

  “This way, milady,” he said, as opened the door to the office. “We won’t be disturbed in here for a little while.”

  He looked pleased with himself as he ushered a pretty woman into the office. Hannah recognized her as the young lady who had been down the hall applying makeup to a corpse.

  Stuart had his hand on the woman’s backside when he saw Hannah. He froze, and out of the corner of her eye, Hannah watched the download reach 97%.

  “Mrs. Campbell,” Stuart yelped and then drew his hand back as if the woman’s rear was hotter than a lit stove. “What are you doing in here?”

  “Hold on a minute,” Hannah said.

  She held up a finger while she watched the screen.

  98%

  99%

  100%

  Hannah removed the flash drive attached to her key ring and put it in her pocket. She saluted the startled woman.

  “Greetings, corpse painter,” she said. “As you were. Carry on.”

  “Hannah, I can explain,” Stuart began.

  Hannah put a finger to her lips and said, “Shush Stuart. I didn’t see you, and you didn’t see me. Are we good?”

  Stuart chuckled.

  “It was nice not seeing you, Hannah.”

  After making her way through the crush of the black-garbed mourners, Hannah grabbed Bonnie by the arm as Peg shot her a hateful look.

  “We gotta go,” Hannah said.

  “Well, I’ll be in touch,” Bonnie said to Peg as she backed away. “Thank you for your time.”

  “I’ll drop off some brochures at the bakery,” Peg said.

  “You do that,” Bonnie said. “Bye now.”

  Peg narrowed her eyes at Hannah, who crossed herself and hissed before being pulled away by her aunt. They crossed Rose Hill Avenue and walked down the sidewalk together.

  “Did you get it? Did you get it?” Bonnie wanted to know.

  “Oh, I got it,” Hannah said. “Thanks to you.”

  “I love doing this spy stuff,” Bonnie said. “You’ve got to let me help you more.”

  “You’re like a secret weapon,” Hannah said. “I can only deploy you when nothing else will work.”

  Back at home, in Sam’s office, she and her husband viewed the purloined video footage together. It featured a hooded figure, obviously the same one she had watched on the bank’s video, the one who crossed Rose Hill Avenue, the one she watched on Anthony’s video, who tossed the gloves and rag in the dumpster next to the antique store.

  This person walked directly to the man on the ground and shone a flashlight on his face. He or she knelt next to him, searched his clothing, took out his wallet, and looked at his IDs. He or she walked around the crime scene and picked up objects. He or she knelt once more beside the prone man, placed the thumbs of both hands on the throat of the victim, left them there long enough to strangle him to death, and then calmly checked the victim’s pulse before standing and sprinting toward the alley.

  The EMTs arrived in the ambulance moments later.

  Afterward, Hannah didn’t feel the satisfaction she thought she would. She felt sick at her stomach.

  “You can’t see her face,” Sam said.

  “But Patrick was there,” Hannah said. “He knows who it was. Between his eyewitness testimony and all the video evidence, we’ve got her.”

  “Not necessarily,” Sam said. “She will claim Patrick’s lying. It’s her word against his, and she can afford the best attorneys.”

  “What now?” she asked Sam.

  “I’ll take it from here,” he said. “You keep an eye on Melissa and stay away from Ava. I’m not kidding around about that.”

  “Shouldn’t I be looking for our car vandal?”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea, either,” he said. “Where’s Timmy?”

  “He’s with D
elia.”

  “Try to keep everybody together,” he said. “There’s safety in numbers.”

  Arriving at Delia’s house after the city council meeting, Hannah found several members of her extended family. The atmosphere was jubilant.

  She pulled Delia aside.

  “What’s going on?” she asked. “Why are you having a party and didn’t invite me?”

  “Jess’s parents signed the custody agreement,” Delia told her. “They will still have visitation, but Claire and Ed can start the adoption process with their blessing.”

  “Do the girls know?”

  Delia shook her head.

  “Claire and Ed have been shielding them from all that,” she said. “We’re just calling this a Halloween candy swap party.”

  “I need to talk to you in private,” Hannah said. “Let’s go outside.”

  Delia grabbed a jacket, and they went out back to sit at the picnic table.

  “I saw Ava’s security guy having lunch with your friend, Terese,” Hannah said. “I overheard some things that worry me. What’s that about?”

  Delia shrugged.

  “C’mon,” Hannah said. “Today I watched a video of Ava killing a guy.”

  “Bonnie told me about your adventure at the funeral home,” Delia said. “Is there any doubt about what you saw?”

  “None,” Hannah said. “It was cold-blooded murder.”

  “Those poor children,” Delia said. “What will happen to them?”

  “Have you heard from Charlotte?” Hannah asked.

  “No, why?”

  “I think she’s around here somewhere,” Hannah said, and then told her about the video of her sabotaging Melissa’s car.

  “Why would Charlotte want to hurt Melissa?” Delia asked.

  “Think about it,” Hannah said. “Patrick was the only father she knew from the time her own father bugged out until she got shipped off to Europe as a teenager. She wouldn’t want anyone to get in the way if she thought Patrick and Ava were going to finally be together. She probably thinks Will is in the way, too, poor guy.”

  “I know what Claire thinks,” Delia said. “I don’t want to believe Charlotte could have murdered Professor Richmond, although I could easily believe Ava would.”