A Mother's Day Murder (Mt. Abrams Mysteries Book 1) (8 page)

We walked the rest of the way around the lake in silence. Although I didn’t like to think that Marc would really be the kind of man to mess with my head like that, Carol was right. The timing was, at the very least, suspect.

We were nearing the Mitchell house, and my brain suddenly went off in a completely different direction. “He’s still there,” I said. “Let’s hurry.”

We picked up the pace as we walked past the house. I had visions of him bursting out of the front door, screaming. Or maybe he was hiding on the porch and would come up behind me.

“Listen,” Maggie said.

We stopped. The house was silent. But there was a quiet rumble coming from the garage.

“What is that?” Carol whispered. “A generator?”

Shelly tightened her grip on Buster’s leash and as we walked slowly up the drive. “Does that sound like a car engine to you?” she asked.

“Oh, God,” Carol breathed. She ran up to the garage, bent, and pulled the door up and open. Maggie was right behind her.

The smell of exhaust almost knocked us over.

Carol turned, her face white. “Call 911. He’s in there.”

And then Maggie began to scream.

W
e were sitting
on the front porch of the Mitchell house. We might have been four women, just sitting and enjoying a beautiful spring morning, but we weren’t. We were watching as police cars and emergency vehicles blocked the road. There was yellow tape everywhere. We had been asked by the first officer to arrive to please stay close for questioning.

The whole thing was surreal.

Maggie was still white as a sheet and shaking. Buster growled at every person who walked by. Carol had spent twenty minutes on her cell phone finding someone else to open the library. Shelly left a brief message with her office, then called her husband Mike and started crying on the phone.

I felt numb. I was sitting on the porch step, my arm around Boot’s neck, trying not to imagine what was happening in the garage.

A dark unmarked car pulled up, a flashing light in the front window, and a very young-looking man in a dark suit got out of the driver’s side.

Sam Kinali got out of the passenger side. He was wearing sunglasses, so I could only watch as his head turned to take in the entire scene. Then, his head stopped turning. He was looking at me.

My arm tightened around Boot, and she whined softly. Carol came down the stairs and walked over to him.

“Oh, thank God, a familiar face,” she said. “I’m so glad you’re here, Detective Kinali. This is just awful.”

He nodded, put his hand on her elbow, and led her back to the porch steps. He took off his glasses and smiled at me. “Are you all right?” he asked.

I nodded several times, but I felt sick to my stomach, guilty and nervous about what he was going to ask, and damn, did he look good in sunglasses.

He reached down, took my hand, and helped me up. Boot growled softly and followed me up the steps and onto the porch.

Carol and I sat down and Sam leaned against the railing. “Ladies, I am Detective Kinali, and this is Detective Monroe. We just need to ask you some questions, and then you’ll be free to go.”

Detective Monroe took out a pad and pen, looking very serious. Sam smiled.

“Now. Tell me about the morning.”

I did not want to be the one to start, so I just huddled further down into the wicker chair, staring at the gray painted floorboards.

Like everything else about the Mitchell house, the porch was picture perfect. A few scattered wicker chairs and Adirondack chairs, painted white, with low scattered tables with potted pansies on them. The perfect place for afternoon lemonade.

“We always walk the same path,” Shelly began.

“And you are?” Detective Monroe asked.

Shelly gave her name and phone number, which Detective Monroe copied dutifully. She then turned back to Sam.

“We start at the bottom of the hill after the kids get dropped off from school. We walk across Sommerfield to Morris, take Morris to Davis, and basically crisscross every hill we can until we get up here. We come in from the other side.” She pointed to the clubhouse. “Then we walk around the lake and end up back where we started by the clubhouse. Then we all go our own way home.”

Sam looked at the clubhouse, then to the other side of the lake. “How long does it take you?”

“It depends,” Carol said. “Usually forty-five minutes to an hour. The hills are steep, and we don’t rush. Sometimes the dogs slow us down. If it’s cold or looks like rain, we go faster.”

Sam nodded. “Fine. So today, was anything different?”

We all glanced quickly at each other.

“Well, we knew that Doug had pulled the kids out of school and had told the secretary he was staying at his sisters,” Maggie said.

“And how did you know this?” Sam asked, not looking at me.

“Excuse me,” Detective Monroe said. “Your name?”

Sam waited patiently, then smiled at Maggie. “Go on.”

Maggie looked embarrassed. “Mt. Abrams is a very small community,” she said. “Everyone knows pretty much everything that’s going on. The secretary at the school is a friend of Carol’s, and Carol told me, and well, once I get hold of information…” She blushed. “I have a big mouth.”

“Perhaps,” Sam said graciously. “Go on.”

“Yeah, well, we knew he had taken the boys, so we were kinda surprised that he was home.”

“And how did you know he was home?” Sam asked. “Did you knock on the door to speak with him?”

“No,” I said. I cleared my throat. “See, the garage doesn’t open by itself. You have to get out and pull up the doors. I know, because my garage is the same. When Doug and Lacey went anywhere, they’d leave the doors open so they could just pull in when they returned. So, if the garage doors were closed, they were home.”

“And this morning” Sam said, “they were closed.”

We nodded.

“So you were walking past, and what, you heard the engine?” His eyes were on me now, and I nodded.

“It gets real quiet up here if there’s no one around,” I told him. “We weren’t talking, so we heard it. At first, Carol thought it was a generator. Then we went up the driveway and realized it was the car, and Carol lifted the door…”

He lifted an eyebrow. “You weren’t talking?” he said with a faint smile.

I smiled back. “It can happen.”

He nodded. “Did you try to resuscitate the body?”

The body. I swallowed hard.

“No,” Carol said. “I looked in the window. He was gone. I could…tell.” Her voice cracked just a little.

Sam looked back to the clubhouse, straightened, and turned around. “Stay here,” he said as he walked away.

Detective Monroe followed him around the house to the garage.

I took a deep breath. “I have to tell him about Doug and the car and how he grabbed me, and what he said. It might be important.”

“You’re absolutely right,” Maggie said. “Even if we get arrested for breaking into the house.”

“We did not,” Shelly said, “break in anywhere. The door was wide open. And I agree. Hottie needs to know.”

“Can we not,” I whispered, “refer to him as
hottie
right now?”

We sat a few minutes more. Buster had fallen asleep, but Boot was restless and kept tugging at the leash and occasionally barking at passersby. And there were a lot of those. In fact, a tiny audience stood front of the Mitchell house, pointing at the four of us and whispering. Kate Fisher was there, and Mary Rose Reed was whispering furiously in her ear, probably giving Kate the entire Mitchell history. Kate kept her eyes on the garage.

“Boy,” Maggie muttered, “the jungle drums are going to have a field day with this one.”

“I wonder why he did it,” Shelly said suddenly. “It doesn’t make sense for Doug to kill himself. I always thought he was crazy about those boys. Unless he did kill Lacey and was scared he’d get caught.”

“He was scared all right,” I said. “But I don’t think of getting caught.”

Boot growled again, and Sam and Detective Monroe came around the corner and up on the porch. My yellow slicker was in Detective Monroe’s hand. Sam looked at me.

“This was found,” he said softly, “in the backseat of the car. There’s a credit card receipt in the pocket, a few weeks old, for a place called Ezekiel’s Tavern. A receipt with your name on it, Ellie. Is there someplace we can go and have a little talk?”

I stood up and nodded. “I live right over there. I’ll make us all some coffee.” I walked off the porch and past Sam, tugging at Boot’s leash.

W
e sat in the kitchen
, of course. Detective Monroe took his coffee black, Sam with milk but no sugar. I sat across from Sam at the table. Carol asked to go down to the library, and Sam gave his permission. Shelly and Maggie were with me, hovering by the refrigerator.

“So, Ellie, what is it you want to tell me?”

Everything. I told him everything, about going into the house and finding her clothes gone, about the video camera, about Doug giving me a lift the morning before. Sam sat quietly, his hands folded, listening intently. Detective Monroe took notes. Sam just watched me with fierce concentration.

When I finally stopped talking, I took a long, uneven breath. “I would have told you this all last night,” I said, “but I didn’t want to get anyone in trouble. And I didn’t think Doug would kill himself.”

Detective Monroe looked up from his notebook. “What? What happened last night?”

Sam didn’t take his eyes off my face. “Ms. Rocca and I had a drink last night. Purely social, John. Nothing at all to do with this case.” He finally looked away and turned to John. “Have them look for that video camera. And check to see if any other cameras were hidden in the house. As soon as the sister has been notified, let me know. We need to speak to her ASAP. Have Mike treat this as a suspicious death. Don’t just assume suicide.”

Detective Monroe stood, fished his cell phone out of his pocket, and walked out onto the back porch.

I leaned forward across the table. “Suspicious death?”

Sam met my eye. He paused for a minute, thinking, then spoke. “Douglas Mitchell was a man afraid of something. So much so that he moved his children to what I imagine he felt was a safer place. And then he killed himself? Does that make sense to you?”

I shook my head. “No, I guess not. But what if he thought he was going to get caught for killing Lacey?”

He shook his head. “You’re back to that? Why would he kill her?”

“For five million dollars?” I said.

Shelly spoke up. “It’s the only motive for him killing himself that makes sense. If she just left with the money, why would he do it?”

He nodded. “That’s true. I made a call after you came to see me, Ellie. Lacey and Doug both inherited. The boys received a million each in trust. The rest was evenly divided between husband and wife.” He shrugged. “It was still a sizable amount for both of them. And here’s the thing. Their joint account was emptied yesterday. All the money, and there was quite a bit, believe me, was transferred to an off-shore account.”

We sat, letting that sink in.

“So, one of them wanted it all,” I said.

Sam nodded. “Apparently.”

“It couldn’t have been Doug,” I said.

“Why not?” Sam asked.

“Because the only explanation for Doug saying what he said yesterday is that he gave Lacey his share of the money, but she wanted something more,” I said.

Sam nodded. “True.”

“How did Lacey's father die?” Shelly asked.

Sam glanced at her. “He was a diabetic. The apparent cause of death was an insulin overdose. By the time 911 was called and he was taken to the hospital, nothing could be done.”

Maggie and Shelly both came forward, grabbed chairs, and sat.

“Very Sunny Von Bulow,” Shelly said.

Sam, clearly amused, nodded. “Yes.”

“Was he alone? When he overdosed, I mean?” Maggie asked.

“No,” Sam answered. “His wife, Millicent, was with him.”

“Wait,” I said excitedly. “I thought we decided she was no longer in the picture.”

He threw back his head and laughed. “We? Who’s this we?”

Detective Monroe returned. “Detective Kinali?”

Sam pushed away from the table and stood. “Ladies, thank you for all your assistance. We’ll put a call out for Lacey's car. She is a person of interest. If nothing else, we need to inform her of her husband’s death. We’ll find her. We usually do.” He smiled down at me and left.

Shelly exhaled loudly. “Lacey is the bad guy. Who knew? I feel so bad now, for thinking all those terrible things about Doug.” She shook her head sadly. “Those poor little boys.”

“I know,” I said. “That’s really creepy to think that Lacey came back here and did this.”

Maggie shuddered. “Don’t say that. I won’t be able to sleep as it is. But I gotta say, that is one sexy man.”

I grinned. “I know. He’s nice too, and interesting to talk to.” Something hit me, and I stopped grinning. “Did Millicent kill him?”

“Who? Lacey's father?” Shelly waved a hand. “Why would she?
She
wasn’t getting any money.”

“Maybe she didn’t know that,” I said. “Maybe she
thought
she was getting all the money.”

“Did she kill Lacey?” Maggie asked.

Shelly looked disgusted. “If Lacey had been killed, don’t you think Doug would have gone to the police? Instead of lying to us? No, I think Lacey lit out of here on her own, then came back and killed Doug.”

“But why?” I asked. “She already got everything.”

We sat there in silence until we heard the sound of a siren. We got up and went to the front door in time to see an ambulance pull out of the Mitchells’ driveway.

Good-bye, Doug.

W
hen Mt
. Abrams was still a baby, rather than a full-grown community, a small town center had gone up, consisting of a post office, a firehouse, and a large public park called, in a complete stroke of originality, Main Park. It was right below Elliot Street, where Josiah had built the second wave of homes. I lived on Abrams Lane at the very top of the hill, and farther from the lake than the Mitchells lived. While the clubhouse was the social hub of the community during the summer, this little bit of quaintness was the year-round center for gathering information, real or imagined.

Over the years, they built a library in Main Park, right where Sommerfield Drive split Main Park in two. The post office was modernized, but the firehouse was deemed too small and inadequate. So a modern firehouse was built along State Road 51, and the original firehouse became the community hall. The Mount Abrams Homeowners Association met there, as well as the Garden Club, Historical Society, a few Girl Scout troops, one church group, Weight Watchers, and a local crafting club. Two book clubs also met there, so as not to crowd out the library. For a 120-year-old building with undependable heat, no air conditioner, and antiquated toilets, it was a pretty happening spot.

I could actually see the roof of the old firehouse from my back kitchen window and probably looked at it a dozen times every day, but I had forgotten all about the Garden Club until I got a text from Lynn Fahey around five o’clock.

C U at Garden Club 7:30

I texted back.

Maybe not. Doug Mitchell killed self. I found him.

Lynn was quick to respond.

OMG! Terrible. R u guarding the body or something?

I stared at her text.

NO. Happened this am.

Then you can still come

Ah Lynn, the soul of compassion and empathy. I texted her back that I’d be there, then texted Shelly and Maggie, and guilted them into meeting me. Cait was working, so Tessa grudgingly agreed to come with me, promising to sit quietly in a corner and read.

The meeting was not what I needed. I felt physically exhausted and emotionally drained. Doug had killed himself. Or Lacey killed him. Either way, I felt right in the middle of it all, and it was not a pleasant place to be.

Shelly and her husband Mike were already seated when Tessa and I got there. The place was packed. I handed over my fivedollar membership fee and got my official Garden Club card. I spotted Maggie and Viv in the back row. I pushed Tessa toward the small alcove where she could sit and read her book, and then started back toward Maggie, but Kate Fisher suddenly popped up.

“I saw you this morning,” she said breathlessly. “You all found him?”

I did not want to talk about Doug and this morning, least of all to Kate. I looked at her.

She was at least sixty, I guessed, with pale hair fading to gray. She was fairly tall and slender, attractive, with blue eyes and an open, easy smile. I could have liked her, if only she’d have kept her mouth shut every once in a while.

“I was there, of course,” she went on. “Watching with everyone else. How horrible. They’re all saying that you heard the car engine running? It’s almost like God sent you to find him. I didn’t know them at all, of course, but how tragic. Two little boys, right? And Mrs. Mitchell? Just gone? You talked to the police afterward, didn’t you? Did they say anything about finding the poor wife?”

She paused for breath, so I jumped in. “No, Kate, the police didn’t say anything about Lacey.” Not that I would have told
her
anything if they had.

“That beautiful house, that beautiful family, destroyed by one selfish act. Oh, my heart bleeds, it really does. And to think it happened right here, in quiet Mt. Abrams. You know, when I found this house up here, Paul, you know Paul Malone, my landlord? Well Paul told me that this was the perfect place to live, safe and peaceful. Who knew that something like this could happen? I guess it was lucky the little boys weren’t there. Could you imagine? What will become of them now? All that money can’t bring their parents back. Poor little lambs.”

She had wound down again, so I nodded, murmured something appropriate, and backed away. I hurried to sit with Maggie and Viv.

Maggie was grinning. “Get an earful?”

“Lord, that woman can run her mouth,” I whispered. I looked around. “Who are all these people? I don’t recognize half of them.”

Viv started pointing fingers and naming names. At least a dozen new faces had moved into Mt. Abrams in the past two years, and Viv had handled their transactions. They were mostly younger couples with no children, drawn to Mt. Abrams by its proximity to the train and lower tax rates.

“How did Lynn track them all down?” I asked.

Maggie made a face. “Maybe these are Mary Rose’s people.”

“No, this is all Lynn’s doing,” Viv said. “That woman could lead a priest into a whorehouse.”

I stared at Viv. “Is that a real saying?”

She made a face. “It is for me.”

The meeting started out in a rather orderly fashion, welcoming all the new members (we had to stand up and introduce ourselves) going over the minutes, and handing out the agenda. The library paver question was the fifth item down under Old Business.

“You mean we gotta sit through all this?” Viv groused. “I wanted to just vote and go.”

Maggie shushed her. She had lived in Brooklyn her whole life, and found small-town machinations fascinating.

“I mean seriously, what four other things could these people be talking about?” Viv continued. “Mt. Abrams isn’t that big.”

“Viv,” I said, “did you happen to notice when that power of attorney was dated?”

She frowned for a moment. “You’re talking about Doug Mitchell? I think it was just the day or two before.”

“And it had to be notarized, right?”

She nodded.

There was something stuck in my brain, something that wasn’t making sense. “When did he call about putting the house on the market?”

“That Friday. Right after lunch. Why?”

Maggie turned away from Mary Rose, who was standing at the podium arguing about peat moss, and nudged me with her foot.

“What are you thinking?” she asked.

“Okay,” I said slowly, thinking aloud. “That power of attorney, he could not have gotten it without her signing as well, right?”

Viv nodded. “That’s right. It has to be signed by both parties in the presence of the notary.”

“So they were in it together. They had to be. So something must have happened, and they
both
decided to sell the house.” I suddenly realized something. “And the bank account. Sam said it had been emptied. They both needed to do that, too.” I looked at Maggie. “Do you remember if she seemed different Friday when she got the boys? Think, Maggie. Like she knew she was going to have to leave them?”

Maggie frowned. “I don’t know, Ellie. She never seemed excited or upset or very emotional about anything. But nothing struck me funny about Friday afternoon.”

The gavel banged, and we all looked to the front of the hall. Mary Rose had raised her voice. Next item—the pavers for the library park.

Mary Rose was a throwback. Her hair was bluish silver and permed, and she dressed in a pantsuit with matching accessories to walk around the block. She had been running the Garden Club for years and grew peonies in her tiny back yard. Until Lynn Fahey had started disagreeing with her, she had pretty much been responsible for every tree, bush, and flower planted in Mt. Abrams. Seven years ago, Lynn suggested that the Garden Club had no right to tell people what they could and could not grow in their own yards, and if Beverly Sutter wanted to plant bamboo, she should plant bamboo, even if it wasn’t in keeping with the general look of the community. Lynn and Mary Rose had been at war ever since.

Mary Rose presented a very compelling case. According to her, even a rise in humidity caused the area around the picnic table to become a muddy disaster. Not only would pavers keep the area cleaner, it would visually broaden the walkway and mean less maintenance for Craig, our grounds manager, in that he would not have to move the tables when he mowed the grass. Mary Rose was an excellent speaker, and I found myself nodding in agreement with everything she said.

Then Lynn got up, pointing out that the walkway was already five feet wide, how could there be grass under the picnic tables if Mary Rose kept insisting the area was a dust bowl, and that Craig was
paid
to move the picnic tables when he mowed, so what was the big frigging deal? She then launched into her Death By Rock Salt argument.

Mary Rose did not take it well. New members asked to be recognized, and the discussion seemed pretty fairly divided.

My mind was on other things. “Viv, who notarized Doug’s POA? Do you remember?”

Viv nodded. “Sure. It was Mary Rose. She’s the only notary in town. You gonna talk to her?”

I nodded. “Yes. Maybe they said something to her. I don’t know.”

Maggie frowned. “Why is this bothering you so much?” she asked.

“Because I feel like if I had talked to Doug, tried to make sense of what he was saying, I could have helped in some way,” I said.

Viv shook her head. “Don’t even start thinkin’ like that. If Doug chose to kill himself, it had nothing to do with you. If Lacey killed him, it also had nothing to do with you. If anything, Doug took those boys and put them in a safe place because of you. Think about that.”

Voices were starting to get louder, so I tried to pay attention. As with all small groups run by people with either big egos or plagued by self-esteem issues,
Roberts Rules of Order
were quickly replaced with name calling and general mayhem. Emma McLaren, self-appointed witch of Mt. Abrams, started telling everyone that the very earth beneath the library had a life of its own and needed to breathe. That was apparently the last straw, because someone finally stood up, and yelling over the raised voices, made a motion that pavers be put down in the library park. I jumped up and seconded the motion.

Mary Rose and Lynn were clearly not through tearing each other’s eyes out, but there was a motion on the floor, and they had to shut up. By a show of hands, the motion was clearly defeated. The hydrangeas were safe for another year.

We did not stay for the aftermath. I stood up, motioned to Tessa, and we scurried out of there, followed by Maggie and Viv.

We stood on the street, Tessa and I headed in one direction, Viv and Maggie going down the hill.

“Are you going to talk to Mary Rose?” Maggie asked.

I nodded. “Tomorrow. Come with?”

“You bet,” Maggie said, and started walking.

“Can I come too?” Viv called.

“Sure,” I answered back.

“That was boring,” Tessa said. “This is a boring place to live.”

I grabbed her little hand and squeezed it. “Not anymore, baby. Not anymore.”

M
ary Rose lived
in one of the ranch houses that had been built in the fifties, down the hill and closer to Route 51. It was below Sommerfield Drive which was the dividing line between old and new Mt. Abrams. Among the old guard of Mt. Abrams, living in the new section meant you lacked a certain status, but it also meant you had a real yard, a garage, and an electrical system that could be counted on in all weather conditions.

Mary Rose’s yard looked like a cover for
Better Homes and Gardens
. There were daffodils and all sorts of bulbs popping up everywhere, bushes were budding, the Japanese maple was leafing out, and there were no stray leaves or bits of branch to spoil the green sweep of her lawn.

“How does she keep this so clean?” Maggie muttered.

“I don’t think she has much else to do,” I answered.

Mary Rose opened the door at our knock but did not look particularly pleased to see us. I didn’t think she would have been able to see us last night, all the way in the back row, but she did not greet us as fellow paver-lovers.

“Yes? Can I help you with something?” She was dressed in a skirt, blouse, hose, and heels. Her clip-on earrings matched her pin. At nine in the morning. Maggie and I had come straight from our walk, dropped off Boot and picked up Viv, and were still slightly sweaty and disheveled.

“Hi, Mary Rose,” I said, smiling. “I know this is going to sound odd, but can I talk to you about Lacey and Doug Mitchell?”

Immediately, her entire demeanor changed. She opened the door, her eyes bright. “Come in, please. I have coffee on.”

Her house was immaculate, frozen in the eighties, and there were plastic runners covering the beige wall-to-wall carpet. We followed her into her kitchen, and sat at her round maple table, in matching captain’s chairs.

“I must say,” she said as she took coffee cups and saucers from the cabinet, “I was quite surprised to see you at the Garden Club meeting last night, Ellie.” Having walked past my yard, she was perfectly justified in saying that.

“Yes. Well, Cait may be going to France, and since she’s the one who usually looks after the garden, I thought I should maybe get some help.” I stumbled over the lie, of course, but Mary Rose didn’t seem to notice.

“You have a garden?” she asked. I was so used to drinking coffee from either a mug or a Starbucks take-away cup that the shallow cup and matching saucer looked antique.

“Sort of. Like I said, I’m going to try to work a little harder at it.”

“And you, Maggie?” Mary Rose poured coffee from a Corning Ware coffee pot, pristine white and embellished with a single blue flower. I had never seen one in real life, except at garage sales and thrift stores.

Another legitimate question. Maggie lived in one of the converted summer cottages, long and narrow with roughly twelve inches of yard between her front porch and the curb. Those twelve inches were planted with hostas. The space between her house and the houses on the other side was so narrow that simple pavers had been laid down, creating a dark path barely wide enough to get through. Her back yard consisted of a small deck and two parking spaces. Another legitimate question.

But Maggie had no qualms about her motives. “I just came to support Lynn. I’m a hydrangea lover.”