Murder Wins the Game

by Maddie Cochere

  Glenn didn’t stay in the hall with the sergeant. He left with his fellow officer and the woman without saying anything to me.

  “Look, Sergeant,” I said. “You know full well I didn’t murder Richard Munson. I don’t want to go through this again. Tell me right now. Do you consider me a suspect?”

  He gave the idea some thought.

  “You’re not a suspect. It’s clear you had an appointment with him, and we expect to find your fingerprints where they don’t belong, but I’m telling you, Ravens, stay out of our way. If you do anything to hinder this case, I’ll bring you up on obstruction charges. Collins, take her down to the station and get her statement.”

  Officer Collins was no longer laughing, but a huge smile remained on his face. He swept his hand toward the front door.

  I walked outside and cut across the grass to head around back to my truck.

  “Hold on,” he said. “You’re supposed to come to the station with me.”

  “Are you going to run me back out here in a couple of hours to get my truck?”

  “No.”

  “Then I’ll meet you at the station. You know I’ll be there.”

  He only hesitated for a moment. “All right. I’m in a good mood. I’ll meet you there.”

  “What’s your deal today?” I asked. He was weirdly cheerful.

  “Nothing. It’s just turning out to be a good day. I won a hundred dollars on a lottery ticket this morning, and I won fifty on a bet with your boyfriend.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that. “What bet?”

  “I bet him the fifty your fingerprints would be on the murder weapon. He said no way. It was easy money.”

  I stomped off to my truck. His laughter rang in my ears. When I got to the station, I was going to resolve this spat with Glenn once and for all.

  As I pulled past the house, Jackie was standing at the Y-intersection of the drive. She held her hand up for me to stop. I put down the passenger window.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong,” she said. “I just want to know if you’re going to write in your statement that Kristy was here, because, Jo, I feel bound to note in my piece the granddaughter was seen fleeing the scene. I’ll quote an anonymous source, but if she saw you, it will come out it was you.”

  “Could you hold off for one day? Why don’t you come with me when I talk to her? Talking to her before the police question her could be a much bigger scoop than quoting an anonymous source.”

  “Are you sure she’ll see you?”

  “I think she will. Give me twenty-four hours before you print she was here, but I think we’ll be talking to her before then.”

  She nodded. “Ok. One day.”

  Officer Collins honked his horn behind her.

  “I’ll call you later,” I said.

  When I entered the police station, I didn’t see Glenn. Officer Collins walked behind the counter, grabbed a legal pad and pen, and handed them to me.

  “You know the drill. First room to your right and shut the door.”

  I snatched the items off the counter and marched into the room. I slammed the door for good measure.

  I hated writing statements. I usually wrote something that made Sergeant Rorski apoplectic, and I was always writing information I had already given to him anyway.

  It only took ten minutes to write short, to-the-point sentences. I didn’t volunteer any extra information. I left the pad on the table, shoved the pen into my bag, and walked out of the station. The only person in the front of the building was the desk officer, and he barely glanced my way as I walked by.

  Nancy would have already locked the office for the day. I was tempted to go there and sulk in my office, but I drove home, parked the truck in the driveway, and walked across the cul-de-sac to Pepper’s house.

  The garage door was up. I walked through to the kitchen door and opened it.

  “Hello?”

  “In here, Aunt Jo,” Keith yelled from the dining room.

  I walked in and found Pepper, Kelly, and Keith finishing their dinner. A salad and what was left of a pan of lasagna sat in the middle of the table.

  “Kelly, get your aunt a plate and some silverware,” Pepper said.

  “I’m not staying for dinner.”

  “Of course you are.” She shooed Kelly off to the kitchen. “What’s up? This is an odd time for you to stop in.”

  “It’s been a bad day from top to bottom. I didn’t want to go home yet, so I thought I’d crash over here for a while.”

  “What are you working on, Aunt Jo?” Keith asked. “Anything I can help with?”

  I smiled. He wanted to be a private investigator himself one day and jumped at any chance he could to be my assistant. Kelly set a plate and fork in front of me. I dished some of the salad onto the plate.

  “I don’t think so. I’ve been doing a lot of paperwork, delivering subpoenas, and-”

  “Oooh, I want to deliver subpoenas,” he said excitedly and stood from the table. He handed a crumpled napkin to his mom and said in as deep a voice as a nine-year-old could muster, “You’ve been served.” He looked at me. “How was that?”

  I laughed. “Pretty good, but I found it makes people mad when I do it like they do on television. I’ve just been letting everyone know the envelope has their subpoena in it for their deposition.”

  “That’s no fun,” he said. “What else have you got?”

  “I’m not sure. I might be working a murder case.”

  Pepper’s eyebrows shot up.

  “Another one?” Kelly asked. “Why are there so many murders in Buxley?”

  “I want to help!” Keith yelled. “Mom! Let me help Aunt Jo with her murder. I can work at her office after school.”

  Pepper frowned. “No. End of story. Don’t ask again. If you kids are done, go to your rooms, so I can talk with Aunt Jo for a while.”

  He stuck his lower lip out in a pout but gathered up his dishes to take to the kitchen. On his way back through the dining room, he asked, “If Mom changes her mind, or if there’s anything else I can do, you’ll call me, right?”

  He was fun to have at the office, but I knew Pepper would kill me if I involved him in a murder case. “I’ve got your card,” I said with a smile.

  Both kids ran upstairs, bickering about whose turn it was to do the dishes after I left. When two bedroom doors slammed, we knew they were out of hearing range.

  “Ok. Tell me what’s wrong,” Pepper said.

  I cut a small piece of lasagna and put it on my plate. I didn’t really want the carbs, but I couldn’t resist the comfort food staring me in the face. It was easy to turn down Glenn’s lasagna offer, because I wasn’t looking at its cheesy goodness at the time.

  “It’s just been one of those weeks where everything is fine on Monday, but by Wednesday, everything is wrong.”

  “Is it because Kristy Munson knew you were following her?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Mama needs to quit talking about us to everyone in town. Honestly, Pepper, I don’t know how you get along so well with her.”

  “She’s not hurting anyone. She’s funny, and everyone gets a kick out of her. So what if she likes to talk about us? I know you don’t think so, but she’s proud of you and the work you’re doing.”

  “She told me I should go back to the mortgage company. I told her if she didn’t stop playing the lottery, we were going to put her in a home.”

  Pepper laughed and went into the kitchen. When she returned, she had two mugs of coffee in one hand and a blueberry pie balanced on top of two plates in the other. There was no way I could turn down dessert – especially blueberry pie.

  I ate the last of my lasagna while she cut the pie. I’d definitely start eating fewer carbs tomorrow.

  “Did you make this, or is it one of Jackie’s?” I asked.

  “Neither. It’s from Crump and Crumpets. I haven’t had time to bake, and unless Jackie opens her own bakery, Walt will have to do my extra baking.”<
br />
  There wasn’t a pie in the world that could match Jackie’s, but I had to admit, Walt’s blueberry pie was at least as good as one of Pepper’s. I almost wished I hadn’t tasted it. Knowing I could stop and buy a good-tasting pie whenever I wanted would only further complicate my weight loss efforts.

  After a few bites, she asked, “Feeling better?”

  “Maybe a little. I wolfed down a salad at Chummy’s, but it didn’t stay with me. It feels like this is the first I’ve eaten all day.”

  “Tell me what’s going on. It’s Glenn isn’t it? You wouldn’t be so glum if this wasn’t about Glenn.”

  “Yes, Glenn, but it’s more than that. Mama yelled at Dave Jackson in the liquor store yesterday, and she hit Lou on the head twice. She’s lucky she’s not in jail. And then I went out to Richard Munson’s place, and I-”

  “You were in the Munson mansion?” she asked, her eyes wide. “Why didn’t you take me with you? I would have loved to see inside. What’s it like?”

  “It’s like the game Clue, but there’s no conservatory or billiard room. And there’s no ballroom or lounge.”

  She laughed. “Then it’s nothing like the game.”

  “It is when you consider Kristy Munson did it in Richard’s office with a candlestick.”

  Her eyes bugged out this time. “What? You’re kidding. Who did she kill?”

  “I honestly don’t know if she killed anyone, but I found Richard Munson dead on the floor of his office. He’d been hit on the head with a solid brass candlestick.”

  “Wow,” she said softly. “You found another body. This is getting too weird, Jo.”

  “No it’s not,” I said defensively. “With the line of work I’m in now, I don’t think it’s unusual at all.”

  “How many dead people do you think Arnie’s found in his lifetime?”

  I ignored her.

  “What makes you think Kristy did it?” she asked.

  “She pulled out of the driveway when I was coming down the road. I don’t think she saw me, but she was definitely in a hurry to get away from the place, and there wasn’t anyone else there.”

  “She’s young. Maybe she saw her dead grandfather and got scared.”

  “She’s going to be twenty-five. She’s old enough to know to go outside and call the police.”

  “Is that what you did?”

  I couldn’t help smiling. “No. I called Sergeant Rorski, but then I ran through the entire house and looked in every room before I searched Richard’s desk.”

  I gave her details of the house and my interaction with the police department and the maid. I finished my story with, “I’m going to get in touch with Kristy first thing in the morning and see if she’ll meet with me and Jackie tomorrow. I want to find out what she was doing there before Sergeant Rorski questions her.”

  Pepper’s eyes were working overtime today. They went super wide again, and she said dramatically, “You have to take me with you.”

  I laughed at her reaction. “No I don’t. Jackie’s a reporter, so it won’t be weird for her to be with me to get Kristy’s side of the story.”

  “But I’m the sister part of Two Sisters and a Journalist. We haven’t officially dissolved our investigative business, and if you haven’t been hired to work this case through your office, then I’m on it, too.”

  I could see where Keith got his begging and logic skills from, but she did have a point. The three of us together were a good team, and we’d been able to make headway in the past when the police couldn’t. It didn’t help that Buxley was a small town with a police force without detectives, forensics capabilities, or even extra manpower to devote to a big case. Considering Richard Munson’s high profile in Columbus, I couldn’t understand why the sergeant hadn’t yet called for assistance from Columbus authorities.

  “What about your crafts? I assume that’s why you’re eating so late today. Can you afford a couple of hours away from your craft table?”

  “We’re eating late today, because we went to watch a couple of softball games. Both kids can get into summer leagues at the park, so we went to meet the coaches and watch some of the high school players scrimmage. They want to play, and I can mark it as three months of phys ed.” Pepper was still homeschooling her children, and she took every opportunity to consider something a school credit. She nodded her head vigorously. “I can get away for a couple of hours.”

  I considered her coming for another minute. “You can come, but leave the talking to me. You can take notes.”

  She looked like a child who had been handed a present. She had no qualms about cutting another slice of pie and putting it on her plate. I refused another whole slice but let her cut a sliver for me.

  “Now, what’s the problem with Glenn?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. You know him well enough. Have you ever known him to be super sensitive or moody?”

  “Never.”

  “I know, right? He sent a text yesterday that he was going to bed but would stop over before work with lasagna.”

  She squirmed and her eyes bugged a little again.

  “You’re kidding. This is his lasagna, isn’t it? You already know what’s wrong. What did he tell you?”

  She looked guilty. “He didn’t really say anything. He stopped by last night and said you were having a bad day, so he was going in to work early. He said he made lasagna and thought we might like to have a pan.”

  I shook my head in disgust this time. “I was irritated with Mama, and I was on my way out to deliver subpoenas. I didn’t want to talk with him when he called. He got his feelings hurt and hasn’t talked to me since.”

  “Did he show up at the crime scene today?”

  “He was there. He never said a word to me.”

  “Well, it sounds like it’s nothing to fight about. I’m sure it will blow over.”

  “I know it will. There’s nothing wrong between us. I just don’t like playing high school games. If his feelings are hurt, he should say so and let me apologize.”

  “Why don’t you stop by his place and talk to him?”

  I nodded in agreement. “I’ll talk to him soon. Let’s clean up the kitchen, and I’ll help you make Christmas ornaments and snakes for a while.”

  She was right. Now that my cranky attitude had been extinguished by lasagna and pie, not facing Glenn’s hurt feelings head on was silly. When I went home, I was going to grab a change of clothes and slip over to his house for the night. He could find me apologetic and waiting for him in his bed in the morning.

  I smiled and grabbed the lasagna pan from the table to take to the kitchen. I’d return his pan while I was there, too.

  It was nearly midnight when I walked across the cul-de-sac with sore thumbs from stuffing fiberfill into men’s ties and felt Christmas ornaments. Pepper had more than a dozen large boxes of crafts ready for the farmer’s market on Saturday, and she was planning to make more. There was no way she was going to sell everything. I wasn’t looking forward to helping her, but I was looking forward to relaxing for a change. I’d take snacks and a cooler of beer and soda. We could sit and visit all day.

  I took a quick shower, grabbed clothes for work and before leaving the room, I stepped over to the window to close the blinds. Even though I wasn’t spending the night in my own bed, it was a habit to close the blinds at night.

  A flicker of light flashed at the back of the yard. It seemed to come from between two of the tall bushes. I switched the lamp off and watched as the light came and went again. I ran downstairs to get my phone from my bag. When I returned to the window, the small light continued to come and go.

  I dialed the police station.

  “Buxley Police. Officer Winnie.”

  “Hi, Bill, this is Jo Ravens. I think I might have a situation here at the house.”

  “Hold on a minute.”

  I was surprised he put me on hold, but my call was quickly answered again.

  “What’s the problem, Jo?” It
was Glenn. “Winnie said something was happening at your house.”

  It was all I could do to keep from apologizing right then and tell him I’d be waiting for him in the morning, but he sounded so cold and professional, I thought it best to just tell him what was going on.

  “There’s a light in the bushes at the back of my yard. It seems more like flashes of fire than flashes of light. I’m worried someone might be trying to set something on fire. The construction company is supposed to start work again in a day or two, and it seems suspicious someone would be back there so late at night.”

  “I’m on it,” he said and hung up the phone.

  My anger began to rise again. Why did he have to act like this?

  I continued to watch out the bedroom window. It didn’t take long before I saw Glenn walking along the edge of the back yard. It was too dark at the bushes to see what was happening, but a few minutes later, he walked away with two people. I couldn’t tell if they were cuffed or not.

  I ran downstairs and waited for him to knock at the door. He didn’t. I looked outside and saw he had already gone.

  I stomped upstairs, unpacked my bag, and went to bed mad. It wasn’t going to be a good night for sleeping. This wasn’t what I wanted from a relationship, and it was affecting all aspects of my life now. As much as I liked Glenn, I’d rather be alone than ride this emotional roller coaster.

  I punched my pillow a few times.

  Chapter Five

  “Pepper, stand still, and both of you, let me do the talking.”

  I waited for Pepper to quit hopping, wiggling, and sticking her butt out behind her. I couldn’t believe she had chosen today to wear thong underwear for the first time. She’d been complaining ever since we left my office that she had a wedgie.

  “How do you wear this stuff?” she asked Jackie as she jumped and pulled at her slacks yet again. “And isn’t it gross by the end of the day? It’s really jammed in there.”

  Jackie couldn’t help laughing. “Try using scented powder. It makes a difference.”

  Pepper made one last wiggle and said, “I thought if I started wearing a thong today, I’d be used to them by the time Buck came home Friday night, but I can see that’s never going to happen.”