Manor of Death

by Holly Dey

  Hopefully, the killer’s blood was absorbed by the porous bamboo knitting needle, and the crime lab could get enough of it out to test. The drop of blood found on the floor wasn’t Heather’s, and it didn’t match anyone in CODIS. PC was fairly certain of who it belonged to, though there would need to be probable cause for a warrant to collect a cheek swab. DNA results didn’t take the year or more to come back like they used to, but it still wasn’t an over-night proposition. She needed to get the killer to confess, both so the DNA could be collected, and Rocky could be released. And the sooner, the better. All she needed was a plan.

  It was Thursday evening and PC dropped her mother at the door of Azalea Manor, so she didn’t have to navigate the shifting gravel. “Save me a chair, Mama.”

  “You know I will, honey.”

  PC parked and hesitated before she went in. She was either going inside to get a killer to confess or to make a complete fool of herself. And it would be streamed live on Reverend Deen’s Justice Avenue Baptist Church’s website for God and everybody to see. No pressure.

  She took her seat next to Rose and looked around the room. So many people were there, hoping for a miracle. So was she. Just a different kind.

  The piano music started up, and the audience clapped in time to it as Joshua Deen swept into the room. PC noted that Victoria stood sullenly near the cameraman.

  “Is everybody ready,” Joshua’s voice boomed, “to make a joyful noise?”

  The crowd clapped, and a few people whistled loudly.

  “Let’s bring down those healing vibrations!”

  Those in the audience who could stand, did. Except for PC.

  She scanned the room through two hymns and a short pep talk/sermon. Finally, Deen asked, “Is there anyone who would like to come forward for a hands-on healing?”

  PC stood. The reverend’s eyes narrowed as she walked up to the small, portable stage.

  “How can the power of the Lord help you today, Primrose?”

  “My brother has been arrested for a crime he did not commit. I want justice for Heather Micah, and I want to free Rocky.”

  “Sometimes people let us down and we don’t want to believe the truth.”

  PC cleared her throat, ignoring Deen’s words. “Heather came here to meet somebody. Your wife was worried about Heather texting you, wasn’t she?”

  “I would never be unfaithful to Victoria.” The boom had gone out of his voice, replaced by venom.

  “I never said you were. This is what I think happened. Heather came to Possumwood to collect a blackmail payment. But her intended victim had either had enough of her demands or never planned to pay. I don’t think they intended to kill Heather, though.” PC looked at Victoria, whose eyes widened. “There was a struggle, and she grabbed a knitting needle from a patient’s yarn basket and stabbed her would-be mark. They shoved her, hard, and she fell and hit her head against the bed rail. Her neck snapped, and she was dead before she hit the ground. The killer then placed her body in one of the beds and covered her up before rejoining the Thursday service in the main lobby.”

  “If that’s what happened, it sounds like an accident. But you don’t know who this killer was, do you?” The smirk was more in his tone than on his lips.

  “If it were truly an accident, most people would have called for help. People with nothing to hide, anyway. But this killer,” PC looked pointedly at Victoria, “had no intention of letting Heather leave that room alive. Lot of folks in this town had good reason to hate her–she did some terrible things. But all of those were out in the open. Her killer had a secret so terrible that it could never be told. No one knew. Well, almost no one.” She again looked at Victoria, who was now almost in tears.

  Deen blotted his forehead and took a swig of water from the bottle on his podium. He manufactured a smile, “If it’s so secret, how did you find out about it?” His chuckle rang hollow, and PC could feel every eye in the place on her.

  “Heather was flat broke. She came here to raise some funds, and based on her luggage, she hadn’t planned to stay long. Clearly, she believed her target would pay up quickly and without a fuss. Perhaps she’d extorted them before, and she understood how valuable her continued silence was.”

  Deen’s eyes flicked to the cameraman, then back to PC.

  “One of the items Heather had was an old newspaper clipping. The main story was about that time the band trip money was stolen. But that was just a coincidence. The story that mattered was the continuation of a front-page article. I believe she sent that part to her killer to persuade them to meet her. This article was about the night the Possumwood Panthers won the state championships.”

  Deen smiled, but it was pained, as if the light from his former glory hurt his eyes.

  “I had to ask myself who could Heather have possibly been with that night. She was the head cheerleader, going steady with the football team captain, on the night of the biggest game in the history of Possumwood. She had to have been with you.”

  A broken sob escaped from Victoria, and PC watched her crumple into a chair. She wished it didn’t have to be this way.

  “Then I wondered what was it that she saw that the Reverend Deen would pay her lots of money to keep quiet. On the same night that the winningest coach ever swerved off the road and into a tree. I also wondered why your wife would lie to try to pin Heather’s murder on my brother.”

  PC kept her eyes on the reverend, but he stared at his wife. Victoria was in a full-on ugly cry. PC felt bad for her. Her life was about to change dramatically, and not in a good way.

  Deen looked down at his microphone, then gave a silent laugh as his mouth twisted into a bitter smile. “I guess I should have known it would catch up with me, sooner or later. With us.” He glanced at his wife. “There was an after party when we got back to the school. Somebody managed to get champagne–don’t know who, it was just there, and lots of it. I was wasted. All three of us were. Heather and I were going to drop Vicki off at her house before…” he shrugged. “My head was spinning, and I could hardly keep my eyes open. Then there was a bright light and a loud noise. I pulled over.”

  He took another gulp of water.

  “I never sobered up so fast in my life as when I saw Coach Able’s car wrapped around that tree. I did try to help. Couldn’t get the door open, and the windshield was shattered. He was—” Deen closed his eyes and exhaled loudly. “It was obvious he was dead. I had my entire future ahead of me. What was going to happen if I got caught drunk, at the scene of a fatal accident, with two drunk, underage girls? I would lose everything. So we made a pact to never tell anyone. When Heather split, I married Vicki. What choice did I have, really?”

  Not an ounce of regret for killing his coach or Heather. It was only ever about him. “You could have come clean at any time.”

  “Could I? And what would have happened to sweet Victoria? Should she have had our baby in jail? She was pregnant before we got married.”

  PC’s head snapped to her left, to the sound of a scuffle. The cameraman was trying to wrestle a gun away from Victoria Deen. Hiro Tran and another officer appeared from Durelle Fennec’s office, and the two of them disarmed her. As her hands were being cuffed behind her back, spittle flying out of her mouth, she screamed, “I hate you! I hate you! It was our secret! You ran Coach Able off the road! You killed him! And like a fool, I protected you all this time.”

  Hiro whispered in PC’s ear as the second officer led Victoria away. “How’d you figure out it was her?”

  “It wasn’t.”

  Deen shook his head sadly. “Oh, Victoria. What have you done?”

  “She hasn’t done anything, other than help you cover up an intoxication manslaughter.” PC snapped, suddenly tired of his faux concern.

  “Are you making an accusation?” He batted his eyelashes, as if stunned.

  “Confession is good for the soul.”

  “But I did confess. To some terrible decisions I made in my youth.” He hung his head, mimi
cking shame, for a moment before he looked up with a sly smile. “Of course, the statute of limitations expired on that years ago.”

  “There is no statute of limitations on homicide. And even if there was, that wouldn’t apply to Heather’s murder. When the lab gets that knitting needle, they’re going to find Heather’s prints on the blunt end and your blood on the pointy end. How is that chest wound, by the way?”

  Deen laughed out loud. “You can’t prove it wasn’t an accident. And the Mirabella DA couldn’t figure out how to pour water out of a boot if the instructions were written on the heel.” He held his hands out in front as Tran snapped on the cuffs.

  Rocky rested on the couch, Cordite sprawled across his lap. The plate of crumbs from her brother’s slice of ‘Welcome Home!’ cake on the coffee table. Several abandoned cups of ginger ale-sherbet punch surrounded it.

  PC stood in the kitchen doorway, watching as Daisy, Rose, and Durelle Fennec chatted together, mostly about the brightened outlook for Rocky’s future while he tried to pretend he wasn’t listening. But she saw him steal a glance from time to time at the women, and a hint of a smile curl his lips.

  Rose sat a little straighter. “You know what Lin Youn told me? She said that Travis Bailey took such an exception to the reverend’s crack about how stupid he was that after he got done filing murder charges, he called up the IRS and pointed them in the direction of the church’s accounts. Seems like there’s something funny going on there.”

  Daisy perked up. “The Deens are cookin’ the church’s books?”

  “They haven’t had time to do their investigation, have they?” Rose gave Daisy a sharp look.

  PC shook her head. Always something.

  Cordite briefly raised his head when she turned and headed out to the back porch. Guinevere rested her jaw on the top of the wooden fence and looked expectantly at PC.

  “Fine. But if you’re going to keep up this level of cookie jackpot, you’re going to have to keep solving cases.” PC made her way to the feed room. Good thing there aren’t many. Surely Possumwood was good for another twenty or thirty years without a homicide–that seemed to be the interval.

  As she came out with a handful of cookies, she found that Arthur and Hazel had appeared next to Gwen. She passed out the treats and found herself scratching Guinevere’s neck while the donkey chewed.

  PC had deep roots in Possumwood. But it hadn’t been home for a long time, even before she’d graduated high school and left town. Some hothead with a gun had ruined that for her. She thought of her house in Houston that suited her exactly. It would be some time before she was able to get back. While she was forced to be in Possumwood, she should make the most of her stay.

  “Is it too late for a New Year’s resolution, Gwenny?” She scratched the donkey’s neck. “Maybe I’ll make one after all. I resolve to find out who killed my father.”

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  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Manor of Death

  By Holly Dey

  KINDLE EDITION

  PUBLISHED BY:

  Black Mare Books

  Houston, Texas

  Blackmarebooks.com

  ISBN: 978-1-941502-04-4

  Manor of Death

  Copyright © 2021 by Holly Dey

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  Acknowledgements

  I couldn’t do this without the love and support of my wonderful family. I love you so much!