Reed Ferguson Mystery Box Set 5

by Renee Pawlish

  I shook my head in disgust, and my thoughts turned back to Mayor Holder. He was smooth, but underneath that veneer was a coldness like I’d rarely felt before. I couldn’t imagine growing up with that kind of father. It made me grateful for what I had. I thought of my own father, a man who was quiet and could be gruff, but who undoubtedly loved me. I suddenly pulled my phone out, found a number, and called it.

  “Reed, dear?” my mother said. “What a pleasant surprise. How are you?”

  “I’m fine, Mother. I just wanted to say hello.”

  “Is everything okay?”

  “Yes. I … wanted to tell you that I love you, and thank you for all you’ve done for me.”

  “Now I know something’s wrong. Did someone hit you on the head?”

  And there she went in her high-pitched voice! She was a classic worrier. She used to worry that I was doing drugs, and that I’d never marry. I’d finally put those two concerns to bed, and now she was always nudging about when Willie and I would give her grandchildren.

  “Mother, I’m fine.”

  “Are you sure? You don’t sound good.”

  “I’m fine,” I repeated.

  “How’s Willie? Are you two thinking about grandchildren?”

  “Mother, we’ve only been married a few months.”

  “I know, but I can dream. Dear, why are you calling?”

  “I realized I don’t tell you how much you mean to me. And Dad, too.”

  “Well.” She sniffed, and not in a miffed kind of way. “That’s very sweet of you, dear.”

  “Is Dad there? I’d like to tell him the same thing.”

  “He’s golfing, but I’ll tell him what you said.”

  “That would be great, but I’ll call later, too.”

  We chatted for a few minutes longer. Then I told her I loved her and ended the call. I could picture her on the deck of their Florida condo. She had probably set the phone down and fainted. Or called the police, or Willie, thinking something was definitely wrong with me.

  My stomach grumbled, and I decided that before I did anything else, I’d get some lunch. I pushed myself off the bench and walked to Main Street, then down the block to the Main Street Café.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The lunch crowd at the café was in full swing, but I was able to get a booth near the back, where I could watch the entrance. I had a sneaky feeling that Mayor Holder had someone spying on me, and I took comfort in the shadows near the kitchen. I ordered a meatball sub, and while I waited for it, I pulled out my phone and called Ace.

  “Anything to report?” I asked.

  “No one has come or gone from Marcia Holder’s house,” he said.

  I heard a feminine voice in the background. “Who’re you talking to?”

  “Mrs. Pratt.”

  “Who?”

  “Marcia’s next-door-neighbor.”

  “Oh, Doris.” I slapped my palm on my forehead. “Is she giving you a hard time about being there?”

  “No, she saw me sitting in my car and she asked me if I wanted some lemonade, and then she said I could wait on her front porch. So I sat with her and we talked. She’s real nice and said she enjoys the company. When Deuce came over last night, she gave us dessert and taught us how to play gin rummy.” He lowered his voice. “It’s not as fun as pool, but it’s okay.”

  I smiled. Leave it to the Goofballs to turn a stakeout into card-playing fun. And it sounded like Doris was delighted with them. They had that effect on people.

  “But you’re still watching the house?”

  “Yes. I’ll call if I see anyone. You don’t need to check on me, Reed. I know what I’m doing.”

  Did he sound a little short with me, like Doris had been with me? Was she already rubbing off on him?

  “Okay, you’re doing a great job,” I said.

  “When are you coming home?”

  “I’m not sure yet. Keep an eye on Willie and the condo, too, okay?”

  “Are you expecting trouble?”

  “No, but it pays to be careful.”

  “Will do. I need to go. Mrs. Pratt brought me some cookies.”

  I laughed, thanked him, and ended the call. After a while, the waitress brought me a Coke and my meatball sub. I had just started on it when a man in gray slacks and a green polo shirt entered the café. A hush fell over the room. He took off sunglasses, surveyed the room, then strode over to my table.

  “May I help you?” I said through a mouthful of meatball sub.

  “Pastor Sheehan,” he introduced himself.

  I swallowed hard, the bite stuck in my throat. I set down my sandwich and gulped some Coke. “What can I do for you?”

  He gestured at the seat across from me. “May I?”

  Ah, we were both so polite. I broke that with, “Knock yourself out.” That’s how Bogie would’ve handled it.

  He slid into the booth and laid his soft hands, which obviously had never seen hard labor, on the table. He was older, maybe in his seventies like Mayor Holder, with lightly tanned skin, a square face, wavy brown hair with a little too much gel in it, and eyes set a little too closely together. He was fit, in a gym kind of way, not from working the land. My first impression was that he was trying too hard for a GQ-casual look. He contemplated me for a long time, so I took another bite of sandwich.

  “They make great food,” I said. “Have you eaten here?”

  He nodded, and as if by magic, the waitress came over with a sandwich and a cup of coffee for him.

  “Thank you, Betty,” he said to her.

  “You’re welcome, Pastor Sheehan.” She moved off quickly, as if she was almost afraid of him.

  “Do you always get that kind of service?” I asked.

  Sheehan tapped his fingertips together and waited dramatically. “Let’s cut to the chase. We have a nice community here, good people who work hard. They don’t want trouble, but you’ve come into town, stirring things up.”

  “You’re the second person who’s said that to me today.” Just a little bit ago, I thought.

  “It’s time you leave town.”

  “I want to know that Marcia Holder is safe, and then I’ll gladly go home.”

  “I’m sure she’s fine.”

  “Have you seen her recently?”

  “Not for years.”

  “She showed up at Mayor Holder’s house last night.”

  “I heard.”

  “But he has no idea where she went,” I said. “Or he may have done something to her.”

  He frowned. “Mayor Holder wouldn’t hurt his daughter.”

  “He did, years ago, by the way he treated her. He forced her to come back home when she didn’t want to.”

  “She’s fine,” he repeated.

  “You don’t know that.”

  He ignored that. “Why are you asking about something that happened thirty years ago?”

  “Are we talking about Marcia’s pregnancy, her running away and being forced back here by her father, or her baby’s kidnapping?”

  He stared hard at me, but didn’t respond.

  “I’ll take that as a yes to all,” I said. I don’t know why I was being such a smartass. I guess I was getting tired of the weirdness from everyone in town.

  “None of it has any relevance today.”

  “How do you know? Even Marcia’s been asking questions about those events.”

  “I just know.”

  I shook my head. “Sorry, that’s not good enough for me.”

  The fingertips kept tapping together. Around us, people talked quietly, but those I could see were trying to listen in. Our waitress avoided our table, but she was watching from afar.

  “That was a difficult time for the family,” he said quietly. “I spent a lot of time with Mrs. Holder, counseling her through her grief.”

  “What about Marcia? I’m sure she was grieving.”

  He sighed. “She refused to talk to me.”

  “What did Mayor Holder think of her situation?”<
br />
  He chose his words carefully. “He was not pleased. But I doubt many fathers would have been happy that their high-school-aged daughter got pregnant. Certainly not at that time. And he’s the mayor in a small town. A lot of people look up to him as an example.”

  “And he should have the perfect family.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Did you know that when he brought Marcia home, he beat her, and then kept her as a prisoner in his home?”

  His cool demeanor threatened to crack. “I wasn’t aware of that.”

  I leaned back and crossed my arms. “I hear you were none too happy about Marcia’s predicament as well. What would the community say about one of your members getting herself into that kind of situation? You were worried about how it reflected on you.”

  “I only want the best for the people here.”

  “What about Jennifer and Toby? Were you there to help them?”

  “Jennifer was married, and didn’t need my counseling. Toby, on the other hand … he was naturally upset when the baby was kidnapped, and then to have his friend die so soon after that.”

  “Tell me about Jay. What was his last name?”

  “That was a very unfortunate business,” he said, without telling me Jay’s last name. “I don’t want to speak ill of the dead, but he was trouble. He led a lot of boys in this town down a wrong path.”

  “Including Toby.”

  Sheehan nodded. “He was devastated by Jay’s death, but in the end, it was best for Toby. It scared him straight. He cleaned himself up, got involved with farm equipment, and opened his store. He’s done very well for himself.” He grimaced. “You know that Jay was involved with drugs.”

  “So I heard.”

  “It’s true. He was a mess. Couldn’t keep a job, got some DUIs, who knows what else. I don’t know how his wife put up with him.”

  “What was her name?”

  “Paula. I think she was embarrassed by him, but she didn’t have a job and was dependent on him. After his murder, she left town without saying a word to anyone. Just took off without her belongings and disappeared.”

  I uncrossed my arms and leaned forward. “When was this?”

  “A few weeks after Jay was killed.”

  “How do you know something bad didn’t happen to her, if she vanished without a trace?”

  “The sheriff’s department checked into it, and found nothing that suggested foul play.”

  I looked him in the eye, and he firmly met my gaze. “Who are you covering for?”

  “No one.”

  “I’m not sure I believe you.”

  He was taken aback. “I’m a man of God.”

  “That doesn’t mean you can’t be lying.”

  His face twitched as he tried to control himself. I wondered if anyone had ever challenged him before.

  “What did Paula look like?” I asked.

  “Oh.” He let out a breath and thought about it. “She was a small woman, petite, with curly brown hair. She was friendly, and cute. Even though she was married, Toby had a crush on her. He had a hard time when she left, especially with it coming right after that business with Jay. Why do you ask?”

  “Some skeletal remains were found not too long ago in a field near Woodrow. Based on the small size of the bones, they think it was a petite woman, and they guess she may have been buried in that field about thirty years ago.” I was fudging on the time frame, but I wanted to see his reaction.

  He paled. “What a coincidence.”

  “You think?” I let sarcasm drip from my voice.

  “Paula left town after Jay’s death,” he said.

  I remembered what the mayor had said to me about Jay getting what he deserved. “What if Mayor Holder didn’t like Jay’s influence on his son and the rest of the kids in this town?”

  “Meaning what?”

  “You know the rumors about Mayor Holder?”

  “Like?” he asked evasively.

  I cocked an eyebrow. “He’s not the nice man everyone thinks he is.”

  He didn’t answer at first. “He can get angry,” he finally said. “Over the years, I’ve tried to get him to look inward, but he’s a stubborn man.”

  “Could he get angry enough to kill?”

  “Kill who?”

  “Jay and his wife.”

  “What for?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  My conclusion was a bit of a stretch, but Sheehan’s reaction was intriguing. His face contorted into a mixture of confusion and doubt.

  “I don’t like what you’re suggesting. I’m sure Marcia is fine, and you’re doing nothing good here with your questions. Leave the past in the past.” He sounded eerily like John Smith.

  “Did Marcia know something about the deaths of Jay and his wife?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “How do you know?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t. It was a guess.”

  “What are you hiding?”

  “Nothing.” He laid his palms back down on the table. “I’ve worked very hard to get where I am. I love this town, and the people here need me, and I won’t have you jeopardize that.” He slid out of the booth and stood up. “You shouldn’t accuse me of anything. Take my advice and leave town.”

  “When I find Marcia, I’ll go,” I said.

  He turned and greeted a few people as he walked out of the café. A few didn’t look as if they were particularly fond of him, let alone as if they needed him, but they were striving for friendliness. Did they need to appear as if they liked him, to avoid consequences from Mayor Holder? Or something else? I glanced across the table. The pastor had left his sandwich and coffee untouched. I wondered if I would have to pay for them.

  I started to take another bite of my sandwich, but I’d lost my appetite. I didn’t know what to make of Pastor Sheehan. I couldn’t tell whether or not he was lying to me, and he had seemed anything but surprised by my suggestion that Mayor Holder might’ve killed Jay and his wife, Paula. I wondered if I’d just discovered the identity of the skeletal remains in the field in Woodrow. Did Sheehan suspect Holder of Paula’s murder, and did her death, and Jay’s, have something to do with Mayor Holder, or someone else in town? Maybe Pastor Sheehan? That could explain his insistence that I stop poking around for answers.

  I pushed my plate away, thinking that the more they tried to scare me off, the more determined I was to stay until I found Marcia, preferably safe and sound.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  I paid for my meal – they didn’t charge me for Sheehan’s uneaten sandwich – and I drove back to the Sagebrush Inn. I wanted to see if Mayor Holder was telling the truth about being in Cleveland the night his daughter was brought home from Kansas, and I wanted to learn more about Jay, who had been murdered around that same time. When I walked into the lobby, my favorite clerk was at the counter, but this time he was typing away on his cellphone.

  “No video games today?” I asked as I leaned my arms on the counter.

  He finished typing and put the phone down. “Huh?”

  “Never mind. Do you have a second?” Of course he did. I doubted he ever experienced a real work rush during the afternoon.

  “Uh, sure.”

  “There was a guy named Jay who was murdered here in 1985.”

  “Yeah, I remember hearing something about that.”

  “Do you know his last name?”

  He shook his head. “That was before my time. All I know was they thought it was drug dealers put a hit on him, or something like that.”

  “Who’s they?”

  “Huh?”

  Man, he’d fit right in with the Goofballs. “Who said it was drug dealers?”

  “I don’t know, I’m just telling you what I heard.”

  I smiled. “Okay, thanks.”

  “You staying another night?”

  I nodded and paid. “Any other guests right now?”

  “No. We mostly get truckers, and it picks up during the f
air.”

  “When is that?”

  “July.”

  I thanked him again, went to my room, and looked around. Everything appeared exactly as I’d left it. If anyone had been in this morning, I couldn’t tell. I got out my laptop, sat down on the bed, and began an internet search on Mayor Alvin Holder. I found the same articles I had before, so this time, I narrowed my search by adding “Cleveland.” I checked a few pages of results, and found that there was a conference of mayors that met annually in cities across the United States. But I couldn’t find if they’d met in Cleveland. I continued with other search criteria, and finally found a brochure that someone had posted on a Pinterest page. It was for the 1985 Conference of Mayors, hosted by the city of Cleveland. It also listed conference speakers for the event, and surprisingly enough, one of them was Mayor Alvin Holder of Sagebrush, Colorado, speaking on the economy of small town agriculture. I found an online calendar for 1985 and checked the dates of the conference, then compared those to the date I remembered being on Gina’s birth certificate. The conference was the same week that she’d been born.

  “Bingo,” I said out loud.

  That confirmed Mayor Holder hadn’t been in Russell, Kansas, the night Marcia had been brought back to Sagebrush. But why did she seem so sure her father had been there? I sat back and stared at the ceiling, then suddenly snapped my fingers. Marcia had said that her father and Toby were the spitting image of each other. I’d seen them both, and I’d agree. But not only did they look alike, they sounded alike. What if Toby had been sent to Kansas to bring his sister back? If that was the case, why hadn’t Mayor Holder, John Smith, or Toby told me that? I sat for a minute, mulling that over, then decided that I’d pay Toby Holder another visit and ask him.

  I spent a few more minutes on the internet, looking for anything about Toby Holder. I found his bio on the site for Holder Farm Equipment, and a mention in a directory for the local Lodge, but nothing else. I did a quick White Pages search on him, and it appeared that he had never married and didn’t have children. A map showed that he lived west of town, in what appeared to be a secluded area. Was Marcia holed up out there? I should check out his house as well. I shelved that idea for the moment and turned my search to the mysterious Jay whatever-his-last-name-was.