by Lee Pulaski
“Well, the last time I saw her, she was at your grandparents’ homestead, and it didn’t look like she’d left the place since Muriel and Osgood died.”
Perry rubbed his chin. “Strange. I went out there earlier today, and the servants said she hadn’t been there for a couple of days.”
That didn’t sit well with Zachary, who had seen Rose at the farmhouse yesterday. Alarms and whistles were going off in his head, and he had the feeling he shouldn’t tell Perry any more than absolutely necessary.
“I haven’t seen her today, Perry. It’s been quiet here, so I’d remember if she’d popped in.”
“Well, we need to find her soon. The other members of the family are antsy about putting this all behind them.”
More questions were forming in Zachary’s head the more Perry spoke. Why was there a big rush to determine who would run the farm? Why was it essential for Rose to take the reins as opposed to anyone else? The biggest question was, where was Rose now? Too many people were disappearing lately, and Zachary was determined to find answers before anyone else was killed.
“If I see her, I can definitely let her know that you’re in town and looking for her. After all, you’re family, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned in life, it’s that you need your family when you’ve suffered a big loss.”
Perry took a business card from his coat pocket. “If you do get a lead on little Rose, you can reach me at that number. Now, I think I’m going to find someplace to grab a bite to eat. What do you recommend for a starving accountant?”
“Well, in about five minutes, Sigrid’s will be opening for dinner. She serves incredible food, and the atmosphere is great.”
“Excellent. I’ve heard that place is a Gresham institution. I’ll go check it out. Thank you for your time, Mr. Gagewood. I appreciate it.”
“You’re quite welcome, and please call me Zach.”
Perry walked out with what seemed to Zachary like a spring in his step. Alexander returned to the counter with the books needed for the one online order.
“Is it my imagination, or did that guy seem just a tad creepy?”
Zachary nodded in agreement. “The way he called his cousin ‘little Rose.’ There’s definitely something odd about him. He was one part used car salesman, one part hired assassin. I don’t think I’m going to sleep too well until that guy leaves town.”
“I find it rather disturbing that the funeral hasn’t even occurred, but everyone is so concerned about keeping the farm and the business going. It makes me wonder if Rose got wind of this guy coming to town and went into hiding to avoid dealing with him.”
“You’re very astute.” Zachary saw Rose on the upper level, kneeling by the railing. “I see you met my cousin, Perry. I hope you don’t have the misfortune of dealing with him again.”
Zachary walked to the bottom of the stairs. “Have you been there the whole time?”
“Just for a few minutes. I slipped in through your back door.”
Zachary shot Alexander a dirty look. “You forgot to lock the door when you took out the trash, didn’t you?”
Alexander looked sheepish. “Sorry.”
“So, Rose, would you care to explain why you’re hiding from your family?”
“I’ll explain that in due time, but I just wanted to let you know that I’ve found Sajen. He’s safe, and he wants to talk to you.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Father Clarence Morgenthaler stood in the middle of the worship hall of the Lady of Good Hope Catholic Church, looking solemn as Rose and Zachary entered from the foyer. He tried to look like he was welcoming to visitors, but Zachary could tell the pastor was jittery, like he would prefer they turn around and leave the way they came.
“Rose, I see you’ve brought a visitor to the church. As much as I enjoy it when a nice person like Zach comes by the church, I’m not sure this is the best time.”
“He’s here to help, pastor. He’s trying to figure out who killed my grandparents.”
“If you trust him, child, then I guess I can, too. You’d better check with our other guest, though, before we let Zach peek behind the curtain.”
“I understand. I’ll be right back.”
As Rose disappeared behind the pulpit, Zachary turned to Father Morgenthaler. “I guess with all the people looking for Sajen, it makes sense that he’d turn to God, or at least the sanctuary that a church provides. I’m kind of surprised that I didn’t think of the possibility sooner.”
“Well, if it makes you feel any better, he’s only been here for a day. Before that, he tried hiding out on the reservation, but some of the locals have been combing the woods tracking him.”
“Allen Bidwell and his posse. I’m just glad Sajen made it to safety without getting hurt.”
“That’s not quite true. When he came here, he’d been shot in the arm. I think one of the posse members was able to take a chunk out of him. Somehow he made it here.”
“He’s been shot? Did he go to the hospital?”
“Sajen’s on the run. The last thing he would do would go to a place where he could be easily apprehended. I asked Dr. Sasha McKenna come and administer aid. In fact, she’s here now, doing a follow-up check on the wound.”
Zachary looked toward the pulpit in time to see Rose return with Sajen and Sasha. Sajen’s right sleeve was rolled up to his shoulder, and a bandage was taped to the forearm.
“Hi there, Zach.” Sasha took off her glasses and put them in the pocket of her shirt.
“Hello yourself, Florence Nightingale. You’ve been keeping secrets.”
“I promised Sajen that I wouldn’t let anyone know where he is.”
“You’d better not let Josh find out what you’ve been up to. He might have you arrested of aiding and abetting a fugitive.”
“I’m a doctor first, and I wasn’t about to let someone suffer if there was a way to help. If Josh can’t handle that, then he can go fuck himself.” Sasha bit her lip and turned to Father Morgenthaler. “Sorry for my language.”
Zachary had to keep himself from laughing. “Please let me be there when you tell Josh that. I’ll make sure to bring popcorn.”
Father Morgenthaler smiled and walked toward his office. “I will let you all talk in private. I’ll be nearby if you need anything.”
Zachary turned to Sajen. “Why don’t we start with what’s going on with you? You’ve been like a ghost in the night, and there’s very little evidence at the moment that you’re innocent of these murders.”
“You don’t expect me to put my faith in the county cops, do you? I’m Indian, which basically means I have two strikes against me.”
“Well, if that were true, your reenactment of ‘The Fugitive’ is strike three. Do you have any kind of alibi that would result in you not being anywhere near the Reimer homestead when Muriel and Osgood were killed?”
Sajen and Rose looked at each other, and Zachary could tell from their facial expressions that they were mentally trying to come up with a lie that he would believe. Zachary rolled his eyes and let out a big sigh. He was about to put an end to the mental torture, but Sasha beat him to it.
“Okay, look, you little twerps! Someone better start gushing truth, or I’m going to hogtie you both and stuff you in my car trunk so I can drive you to see Detective Callahan. I certainly don’t need to spend my time sewing up bullet wounds and watching as Bonnie and Clyde play fast and loose with my friend’s benevolence.”
Zachary stood in stunned silence for a moment before adding, “What she said.”
Rose was the first to speak. “Sajen was at the house. I had called him early in the morning because I’d taken a pregnancy test, and it came back positive.”
Zachary turned to Sajen. “So when you told me before that you’d gone to the house after she called and said she’d found her grandparents’ bodies, that wasn’t exactly true, was it?” After Sajen shook his head, Zachary narrowed his eyes. “That’s going to be the last lie you get away with. I can certainly und
erstand protecting your sweetheart’s virtue here, but I’m trying to figure out who had the motive and means to murder a very prominent pair of farmers and entrepreneurs, and right now, I’m having difficulty finding anyone besides you.”
Rose gripped Sajen’s arm. “Sajen was with me, right up until I went to find my grandparents. I felt it was best to get the family drama over with as soon as possible, but when I went into the living room, no one was there, which was odd, because my grandmother has always gotten up before the chickens. She would usually be working on some sewing project or reading a book or something productive. I went up to their bedroom and knocked on the door. It was already open a crack, and my knocking opened it further. They were both right there on the bed, covered in blood.” A tear rolled down Rose’s cheek.
“Around what time did you wake up that morning?”
“I didn’t sleep at all. I knew something was wrong because I was late with—you know.”
“So you were awake between the time you came home from the reception and when you called Sajen about the pregnancy test. Did you hear any noises at all during the night?”
Rose pondered for a moment. “The only peeps I heard were my grandparents going on and on about how they had to figure out a way to get Sajen out of my life forever. They finally went to bed around eleven, and I discovered their bodies around seven in the morning.”
Zachary chewed on a couple of things. First of all, the eight-hour period when someone could have come into the house, made it to the bedroom and shot Osgood and Muriel. Second, the fact that they were shot without Rose or anyone else in the house hearing it. If Rose was being truthful, then who had the skills to slip into a large house to commit a murder, and who possessed a silencer so that the shots didn’t ring out?
Turning to Sajen again, Zachary asked, “So where were you before Rose called you about the pregnancy test?”
“I worked in my studio on the edge of the reservation for most of the night. I was working on a painting of Rose bathed in angelic light, and I must have dozed off, because my cell phone started ringing around five-thirty, and I jumped in the shower to clean up and rushed to be at Rose’s side.”
“How did you get in the house?”
“I climbed the trellis next to Rose’s bedroom. It’s how I usually visited her because her grandparents were so against me coming around.”
“So basically, in order for you to be the killer, you would have had to slip up the trellis quietly, tiptoe past your fully-awake girlfriend, and get down the hallway to the master bedroom to shoot the grandparents without making a noise. If you’re telling me the whole truth, I think you can probably be ruled out as a suspect.”
Sajen groaned and looked shaky on his feet. “I think I felt a little dizzy for a moment.”
Sasha put a hand on Sajen’s shoulder. “It’s probably the blood loss or the pain meds I gave you. Why don’t you go lie down and build your strength back up? Rose, you go along with him and make sure he doesn’t fall or anything. I’ll be back there in a few minutes after I chat with Zach.”
Rose gently helped Sajen walk behind the pulpit, softly cooing in a possible attempt to help him relax. Once the lovebirds were gone, Zachary turned to Sasha.
“I seriously did not see my day ending like this.”
Sasha giggled. “Neither did I. So what do you think? Do you believe them?”
“What they’ve said seems plausible, so I don’t see any reason not to believe them. However, I’m going to have to disagree with your assertion that we have zero suspects at the moment.”
“Really? If it’s not Miles, and it’s not Sajen, then who could it be?”
“The one person we know was in the house the whole time between the gallery reception ending and the discovery of the bodies—Rose.”
Sasha raised an eyebrow. “I’m going to love hearing your logic on this one.”
“She herself told us she found out that night she was pregnant. If you had her grandparents, would you have the courage to tell them you’re carrying a child out of wedlock? Hell, no! What if she got it in her head that Osgood and Muriel might never have to experience the shame of having a whore for a granddaughter if she blew them away?”
“Okay, being a doctor, I know all too well that pregnancy can make you go through some hormonal hurricanes, but do you think Rose really went from simply hating her grandparents to wanting them dead?”
“Of course, we’re just taking Rose’s word that she is actually pregnant.”
“You don’t believe her? Granted, women don’t always show in the early stages, but…”
“There’s got to be a way to prove or disprove it.”
Sasha sat in one of the pews with trepidation. “Oh no. You’ve got that look. You’re wanting to do something nuts, aren’t you? What do you plan to do, drive out to the Reimer homestead, pick the lock, go to Rose’s bathroom and find the used pregnancy test?”
Zachary made a face and shuddered. “Ew! Not even if you came along as my wingman! I do have standards, you know. No, I was thinking it should be simple enough for you to do your medical hocus pocus and see if Rose really is pregnant.”
Sasha rolled her eyes. “Medical hocus pocus? Sure, I’ll just shake her like a magic eight-ball and see if the answer ‘Preggers’ floats to the surface of one of her eyes.”
“Well, is the time of death for her grandparents in that eight-hour window between eleven and seven? If so, we have to at least consider the possibility she might have decided to kill them.”
“If that’s the case, why would she set the scene to make it look like Osgood committed a murder-suicide? Do you think she hated her grandparents that much? After all, they were taking care of her.”
“They were also stifling her. From all accounts before tragedy struck, Sajen was a nice boy and aspiring artist.”
“Also a real sharpshooter in the sack, apparently.”
Zachary looked around. “I can’t believe we’re having this discussion in the Lord’s House. I feel like we’re punching our one-way tickets to Hell as we speak.”
Sasha pondered. “Time of death was between two and four in the morning. If she called Sajen at five-thirty and he took time to shower before driving to the house, she still would have had at least two hours to clean up the scene before her sympathetic man climbed up the trellis.”
“The question is whether she could do it well enough to fool Josh and the forensics team that investigated the crime scene.”
“Well, whoever killed the Reimers did it with Osgood’s own gun. The bullets I pulled out of him and Muriel were from a Colt forty-five.”
“The police have the gun, right?”
“Yep. That’s why, at first glance, it was thought to be a murder-suicide.”
“So how was Miles killed? Was he shot?”
Sasha shook her head. “Blunt force trauma to the head. It doesn’t look like he struggled, so whoever did it must have hit him hard enough to kill him with one strike.”
“Rose doesn’t strike me as a one-blow killer, pregnant or not. Is it possible that we’re dealing with two separate killers?”
“I doubt it. Unless Miles killed the Reimers and someone else killed him, I think it’s likely one person committed all three murders.”
Zachary sat in the pew in front of Sasha. “That makes me feel a little better, strangely enough.”
“Understandable. One boogeyman’s less scary than two.”
“So we need someone who is either incredibly strong or incredibly lucky with a blunt object. I could name about a dozen guys who are in full posse mode who could fit that description, but I’m not sure what their motives would be.”
“And whether they knew about Miles’ unrequited love for Muriel.”
“I’m also not convinced that this cousin of Rose’s is genuine, either.”
Sasha looked confused. “Cousin?”
“Someone came in today looking for Rose, said he was her cousin and wanted to talk with her about the tra
nsition of the family business. His name was Perry. In fact, I had to slip Rose out the back of The Literary Barn to avoid him seeing us. She seemed to think he was dangerous.”
“Any way to prove it?” Sasha raised a finger. “Hold it! I see the look again. You were planning on yanking a hair out of that guy’s head and bringing it to me for analysis, weren’t you?”
“I wasn’t, but now that the idea’s in my head…”
“Zach!” Sasha’s tone indicated she’d embalm Zachary alive if he tried what was suggested.
“Once I get back to the shop, I can check out the old albums Rose let me borrow and see if this guy’s face shows up at any family picnics.”
“I’m surprised you haven’t started already, considering your sense of curiosity is on steroids.”
“Now that’s a scurrilous lie. My curiosity is addicted to all-natural supplements.”
Sasha stood up. “I’m going to go check on Tristan and Isolde. Are you going to head back to your magical storyland?”
“Part of me wants to, but there is this one piece of me that thinks, if I step outside this church, Sajen is just going to take off again, and he’s running out of places to hide.”
“I don’t think he’s going to run. A church is a sanctuary. No one’s going to try and take him from here.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure about that.” Alexander was standing at the entryway between the worship hall and the foyer. “I just found out that Allen Bidwell and his merry band of hangmen know that Sajen is here, and they’re getting ready to take him out by force.”
Zachary sighed. No one seemed to want to do things the easy way in the village. “Okay, Alexander. You and I will meet Allen at the entrance and hopefully keep him from barging in. Sasha, you should call the sheriff’s department and tell them what’s going on—at least to a point. Then, if you can, figure out a way to slip Sajen and Rose out of here. Take them to The Literary Barn for now, and we’ll relocate them back here once Allen and his cadre realize no one’s here.”
“Do you think this is going to work?” Alexander asked as Sasha hurried behind the pulpit.