Dead Ringer (22 page)

 

Chapter 23

B
Y THE TIME
I reached JT's house, my hair was soaked from the rain. Inside the front door, I kicked off my boots and peeled off my sodden jacket, hanging it up before setting off in search of my best friend. There was no sign of him on the main floor, but the door to the basement stood open in the kitchen. I peeked down the stairway. Finnegan stood at the bottom of the steps, looking up at me with a big doggie grin on his face, his fluffy tail wagging behind him.

“Hi, Finnie boy.” I padded my way down to greet him with a quick hug and a pat on the head.

JT stood across the room, lifting an acoustic guitar down from its hook on the wall. “Hey,” he said when he saw me. “What have you been up to?”

“I went to the church.”

The suspicion in his eyes was impossible to miss. “What for?”

“To look for more clues, obviously.” I flopped down in the nearest beanbag chair, dropping my purse on the floor beside me.

JT held his guitar by the neck and looked at me with more than a little exasperation. “Dori . . .”

I waved off his unspoken admonition. “I know, I know. You think I should leave it to the police. But forget about that for a second.”

His expression only grew more exasperated.

“Please, JT? I have such a jumble of thoughts in my head, and I can't make sense of any of them. I need a sounding board.”

He sighed, a little more dramatically than necessary, I thought, but he relented. “Fine. What dirty secrets have you uncovered now?”

I smiled, unable to quell a spark of excitement at the thought of sharing the account of my latest sleuthing excursion. As JT grabbed a new guitar string from a shelf and unwrapped it from its packaging, I told him about my discovery of the numerous gambling Web sites in the browsing history on the church computer.

JT crumpled the packaging in his fist and tossed it in a nearby wastepaper basket. “Seriously, Dori? You snooped on a computer? In a church?”

“That's not the point.”

“No, the point is that you're going to get yourself in serious trouble if you keep this up.”

“I thought we were going to skip the lecture.”

He heaved out another exasperated sigh and sat down in a ladder-­back chair, resting his guitar across his lap so he could add the new string. “All right, no lecture. But what do gambling Web sites have to do with the murder?”

“That's the thing. I don't know. Maybe nothing. Unless . . .”

A few thoughts clicked together in my head, forming a new theory. Before all the pieces could adhere in my mind to create a clear picture, my phone chimed from the depths of my purse.

“Unless what?” JT asked, but I only half heard him.

I scrounged around in my purse until I came up with my phone and checked the screen. I paused when I saw the new text message from Susannah.

Can you meet me at the church? Please. I really need to talk to you.

What was Susannah doing at the church? She should have been in school. Besides, I would have expected her to avoid the church whenever possible, considering her fear of Reverend McAllister.

What's wrong?
I texted back, my thumbs moving swiftly across the touch screen.
Why are you at the church?

“Dori?”

I opened my mouth to speak to JT, but shut it again when my phone chimed in my hands.

Long story. Will you come? Please?

I glanced at the time. I still had three hours before I had to teach.

Okay
, I wrote back.
I'll be there soon
.

I dropped my phone back in my purse and wiggled my way out of the beanbag chair. “I have to go back to the church.”

JT eyed me with a mixture of disbelief and suspicion. “I don't think that's such a good idea.”

Finnegan danced around my legs, probably hoping for a trip outside.

I scratched his head with one hand and hitched my purse up over my shoulder with the other. “I'm not going there to snoop. Susannah wants to talk to me.”

“Why is she at the church? Shouldn't she be in school?”

“I have the same questions,” I said as I did some fancy footwork to make my way around Finnegan and toward the staircase. “But I guess I'll find out when I see her.”

JT shook his head but went back to stringing his guitar. “Just don't do anything stupid.”

“
Moi?”
I said with as much innocence as I could muster.

Without giving him a chance to respond, I darted up the stairs with Finnegan at my heels. I let him out in the backyard for a moment, waiting without much patience while he sniffed at a bush by the fence before lifting his leg and relieving himself. Once he was back in the house, I pulled my boots back on and donned my damp jacket with a grimace before setting off into the rain once again.

A
LTHOUGH
I
WAS
happy to get out of the rain, I was less than thrilled to be back at the church. Sitting on the bus had given me a chance to firm up the connections that had tried to form in my mind back at JT's place. My new theory still had a few holes in it, but I figured it was as good as the one featuring McAllister as the murderer.

No matter which of my two theories was correct—­if either of them—­I knew JT was right. Even if I wasn't snooping, the church probably wasn't the best place for me to be. If the wrong person became suspicious of my repeated presence, I could be in danger.

I remembered the figure in the upstairs window and shivered. Maybe the wrong person already was suspicious.

I paused inside the church doors, my eyes scanning the narthex for any sign of Susannah. Thick silence settled around me. I didn't see Susannah or anyone else. A sense of unease seeped its way through my body.

I gave my wet hair a twist and tossed it over my shoulder before pulling out my cell phone. I sent Susannah another text message, asking for her exact location. Searching the whole building for her didn't appeal to me, especially with the new edginess that had taken hold of me.

As I waited for a response, I remained near the exit. I fidgeted, fingering the zipper on my purse and shifting my weight from foot to foot. When my phone rang in my hand, I nearly jumped sky high. I thought I recognized the number as the one I'd dialed to reach Salnikova, so I answered the call, hoping to hear the detective's voice on the other end of the line.

I did.

“Ms. Bishop, I got your message,” Salnikova said. “You said you had some information to share?”

Straight to the point. I didn't mind that.

“I did. I mean, I do.” I paused, trying to gather my thoughts so I could sound more coherent. As I did so, I slipped outside the church, huddling beneath the overhang to keep myself out of the pouring rain. Even though there was no one around to overhear me, I lowered my voice. “I discovered that Reverend McAllister has a hoodie sweatshirt like the one the intruder at Mrs. Landolfi's house wore,” I explained. “Well, I can't be sure that it's the exact same hoodie, but it looks very similar. I thought that was a good clue until I found out that half the congregation has the same sweatshirt.”

“I see.” Salnikova's voice provided me with no hint as to whether or not she was interested.

I continued on in a rush. “But if the intruder really was wearing one of those sweatshirts, that suggests that he or she was someone connected to the church, even if it wasn't Reverend McAllister.” I lowered my voice even further. “I was pretty confident that McAllister was guilty, but now I have reason to suspect that his wife might have a gambling problem. And if that's the case, she could be responsible for the missing church funds.”

I took a breath, intending to explain the rest of my new theory, but Salnikova cut me off.

“Hold on a second. Missing funds?”

So I did know something the police didn't. I couldn't help but feel a hint of glee at that. “Someone's been stealing from the church, and McAllister suspects it's someone close to him.”

“And how is it that you know this?”

I gulped. I doubted the detective would be impressed if she found out about my snooping. “Long story,” I said, hoping Salnikova wouldn't press the matter. “The point is, what if Cindy McAllister is the thief? Maybe she took the money to support her gambling habit. And what if Jeremy found out? He spent a lot of time at the church. It's possible that he got wind of the missing funds.” It was also possible that he'd snooped around like I had. But I didn't mention that part. “Do you know if Jeremy was blackmailing her too?”

“We have no evidence of that.”

“But that doesn't mean it wasn't happening.”

“No, it doesn't. But, Ms. Bishop, I'm concerned about how you came by all this information.”

Oh, darn. I really didn't want to explain that. “Like I said —­”

“Long story,” Salnikova finished for me. She didn't sound too impressed. “Where are you now?”

“At the church.”

“Why?” The detective's voice was sharp with suspicion.

“I came to meet Susannah.”

“Ms. Bishop, if you suspect one or more of the McAllisters of murder, as you say you do, the church is the very last place you should be.”

I jumped on what I thought was the implication behind her scolding. “So you think I could be right?”

A heavy sigh came down the line. “I'm not saying that. We will, of course, look into the information you've provided, but in the meantime, you should stick to music and let us detectives do the police work.”

JT would love Salnikova.

“I have no intention of doing any more detective work.” At least, I didn't right at the moment. “But I thought I should pass along what could be pertinent information.” My words came out sounding miffed. I couldn't help it. I was tired of being told to keep my nose out of other ­people's business. Partly because I knew it was good advice.

“And I appreciate that,” Salnikova said. “But please take your meeting with Susannah elsewhere. I think that would be best for both of you.”

I sniffed, still nettled. “I happen to agree. As soon as I find her, we'll leave.”

“Thank you.” Somehow she made those two simple words sound long-­suffering. “I'll be in touch.”

She hung up. I stood staring at my phone for a moment, wondering if her last words meant she would update me on the investigation or that she would check in on me to see if I was up to something she disapproved of. I didn't come up with a definite answer and I didn't much care because a new text from Susannah soon distracted me.

I'm downstairs. Backstage. Are you coming?

I'll be right there,
I wrote back.

When I returned to the narthex, I passed by the smoke-­damaged corridor, still cordoned off, and aimed myself in the direction of the parallel corridor on the far side of the building. Although silence in a church could often be comforting, this time it wasn't. Instead it felt eerie. The sooner I could find Susannah and get out of there, the better.

As I followed the hallway and the stairs down to the basement, floorboards creaked beneath my feet, the sound unnaturally loud to my ears. I paused outside the door to the backstage room where the orchestra kept our belongings during rehearsals. The door was ajar but I could hear no noises beyond it. I touched my fingers to it and pushed it open.

“Susannah?”

The room was empty. Perhaps I'd misinterpreted her message. Maybe she meant she was in the narrow area behind the back curtains on the stage. Why she would be there, I didn't know. But I didn't know why she would be anywhere in the church.

I took a step backward, intending to turn around and check the stage. I hit something solid, and a strong arm locked into place around my throat. I choked and grabbed at the arm.

Panic burned through me like a rapidly spreading wildfire. When the arm didn't loosen its grip, a gargling sound escaped my throat. I struggled both to free myself and to draw air into my lungs.

“Unless you want your windpipe crushed, I suggest you stop struggling,” a man's voice said in my ear.

It was a voice I recognized.

It belonged to Reverend McAllister.

 

Chapter 24

I
FROZE, STILL
gripping McAllister's arm. His hold across my throat loosened just enough to allow me to breathe. I welcomed the oxygen that flowed into my lungs, but it did nothing to ease my heart-­squeezing fear.

I'd walked into a trap. How dumb was that?

Was Susannah even here? Was she okay?

What was about to happen?

All of those questions ran through my head with the speed of a piece of music played prestissimo.

I voiced another thought aloud.

“So it was you.” My voice was strained but clear. “You killed Jeremy.”

His arm still across my throat, McAllister nudged me forward. “Move.”

I stumbled and let out a garbled gasp as the pressure against my throat increased again. I steadied myself and was rewarded with a less restricted airway. I walked forward as well as I could with McAllister still holding me in his grip. I didn't know why he wanted me to enter the backstage room, and I was quite sure I didn't want to know. My eyes darted around, searching for a way out of my predicament, but I came up empty.

Then I remembered my phone. It was in my purse, which was still hooked in the crook of my left elbow. I inched my right hand toward it.

“I didn't kill anyone,” McAllister said when we reached the middle of the room. “I'm a man of God.”

“That didn't stop you from threatening a teenage girl or trying to strangle me.”

Perhaps I shouldn't have provoked him, but I couldn't help it. I was ticked off, both at him and myself. Besides, I needed to keep him distracted so I could reach my phone.

“I'm not without sin,” McAllister said, prodding me forward again. “But I do have my limits. And I certainly draw the line at murder.”

“That's very noble of you.” My voice dripped with acidic sarcasm. “But excuse me for thinking you're acting rather guilty at the moment.”

We'd arrived at the far side of the room, and I stood facing a white paneled wall. I wondered why the heck he had forced me there until I saw the door cut into the paneling. I'd never noticed it before, but I never had a reason to look carefully at the wall.

As McAllister reached around me with his free hand, my fingers made contact with my purse. As quietly and discreetly as possible, I worked the zipper open. As he pressed his hand against the door and it popped open, I slid my hand into my purse and closed my fingers around my phone. Anxiety and hope swelled together in a crescendo inside of me. If I could only send out a text message or dial 911, maybe help would come.

I slipped the device out of my purse and almost dropped it when the reverend jerked me to one side so he could open the door wider. I tightened my hand around my phone and managed to keep it from falling. My pulse galloped along as I glanced down without moving my head. I pressed my thumb to the numbers 911. As I tried to hit the third number, McAllister released his grip on me and shoved me ahead of him through the open door. My thumb skittered to one side.

I looked down at my phone and made a hurried attempt to finish dialing. Before I could put the call through, however, a hand wrenched the device out of my grasp.

“I'll take that.”

My eyes followed my phone and then flicked up to the speaker's face.

Cindy McAllister.

Her gray-­blue eyes were cold and hard. She held my phone in one hand and a sharp, glinting blade in the other. I recognized it as the wickedly sharp letter opener from the reverend's desk. It had seemed like an innocent tool at the time, but now, with its point directed at my torso, it was a weapon.

A grin that I could only describe as maniacal curled Cindy's lips. She slid my phone into the pocket of her jeans. From the bulge in her other pocket, I gathered she had another phone on her as well.

A whimper caught my attention, and I jerked my head to the left. Susannah sat huddled on a chair, her wrists and ankles bound with rope, and a scarf tied around her face as a gag. Tears had smudged her mascara and left shiny tracks down her cheeks. Her wide, terrified eyes pleaded with me to help her.

“So you were in on this together,” I said to the McAllisters, hoping to distract them until I came up with a way to get myself and Susannah out of our predicament. There was a slight shakiness to my voice but I was surprised it wasn't even less steady.

Cindy snorted, still pointing the letter opener at me. “Being in on it together would suggest that my husband had enough brains to be my equal partner.”

“And I take it he doesn't?”

As I spoke, I took in the surroundings with my peripheral vision. The four of us stood in a long, narrow, windowless room that appeared to be a storage area for costumes and props. A lone bare bulb provided the only illumination, and a musty smell permeated the air.

“Of course he doesn't,” Cindy replied.

“Now, Cindy, I'm not sure that's fair—­” the reverend started.

“Oh, shut up, you fool!” Her nostrils flared and her grip tightened on the letter opener.

My eyes fixed on the point of the blade. It was about six inches away from me, and I didn't want it coming any closer.

It jerked in an unnerving fashion as Cindy continued to rant at her husband. “What have you ever done except jeopardize your position in the church?”

“Now hold on,” McAllister cut in, but his wife wasn't interested in hearing him out.

“Shut up!”

Maybe he finally heard the note of crazy in her voice or saw it in her eyes, because he did as he was told.

Even though their short argument had provided me with a few more seconds to assess the situation, I still had no bright ideas. The door was the only escape route, but McAllister stood in front of it, blocking my way out of the room. Even if he hadn't been in the way, Cindy would probably jab me with the letter opener before I made it two steps, and I couldn't leave Susannah behind.

I eyed the bulge in Cindy's pocket where she had my phone. Considering that she was armed and had her husband to back her up, I didn't think it would turn out well if I tried to wrestle her to the ground.

No, I needed to keep them talking until I came up with a better solution.

“So you killed Jeremy?” I directed the question at Cindy.

“Of course I killed him,” she snarled.

I decided to test out the rest of my theory. “Because he was blackmailing you? About your gambling addiction, or maybe the funds you stole from the church?”

Cindy's eyes narrowed. “I knew you'd been snooping. I saw you sneaking out of my office yesterday, you know. You weren't as stealthy as you thought.”

So she was the one watching me from the window as I left.

I jumped back as she jabbed the point of the letter opener toward my stomach. My back hit the wall and I plastered myself against it as Cindy advanced a step toward me, her weapon only an inch away from me now.

“You should have minded your own business. Now you have to pay for what you've done—­snooping into my private life, encouraging that little brat . . .” She waved the letter opener in Susannah's direction before pointing it back at me. “ . . . to rat on my good-­for-­nothing husband.”

Susannah whimpered, but I didn't dare spare her more than a glance. I wanted to keep a close eye on the blade pointed at the spot just above my navel. I sucked in my stomach to put a little more room between myself and the weapon.

“If he's good for nothing,” I said, “then why do you care about the truth coming out about what he said about the bishop and his congregation?”

“I am not good for nothing!” McAllister protested.

Cindy and I ignored him.

“Because if he goes down, I go down,” Cindy replied, the ferocity in her voice making me wish I could melt through the wall behind me to get away from her. “If the bishop found out about the video, Peter would be finished. He'd be replaced.”

“Ah.” I thought I'd caught on. “And if that happened, his replacement—­or somebody at least—­would be bound to uncover the fact that you'd been helping yourself to church money.”

Her nose twitched, and I knew I had it right.

“So Jeremy was or wasn't blackmailing you as well as your husband?” I wanted to know the answer as much as I wanted to buy myself some time. Even in my dire circumstances, I couldn't quell my curiosity.

“He wasn't. He only blackmailed Peter.”

“But you still killed him to protect yourself.”

“To protect us both,” McAllister put in.

Cindy shot him a derisive look out of the corner of her eye. “Don't kid yourself. You could rot in hell for all I care. If it didn't mean I'd do so right along with you.”

McAllister's mouth dropped open in shock, but I didn't give him a chance to say anything more to his wife.

“And you broke into Jeremy's suite?” I asked Cindy.

“I sent Peter to do that.” She sneered at her husband. “He was supposed to retrieve the check he'd given Ralston, but he couldn't even do that right. Almost got caught by the police. What was he even thinking in the first place? Who gives a check to a blackmailer? Who?”

She jabbed the letter opener at me again as if to emphasize her disbelief at her husband's stupidity. I squeaked and sucked in my stomach even farther as the point of the blade met the fabric of my shirt. Another muffled sob escaped from Susannah, but I was in no position to comfort her. What comfort could I offer anyway? I still couldn't see a way out of our quandary.

“And what about the break-­in at my apartment?” My voice sounded higher than usual, fear upping its pitch. “Did you send him to do that too?”

“So he could screw up again? Of course not. After the fire didn't do its job, I knew I had to be more direct.”

So I was right. The murderer and arsonist were one and the same.

I gulped as her last words registered in my brain. “You went to my apartment to kill me?”

“You had to be silenced. You were interfering. When I discovered you weren't home, I decided to leave you a message in the meantime. Until I had a chance to try again.”

I gulped again, not wanting to think about what would have happened if I hadn't gone to stay with JT.

“You overheard me talking to Susannah,” I guessed. “Right before the fire.”

“That's right. You think I don't know everything that goes on in his church?
Somebody
needs to be aware of things.”

McAllister frowned. He must have been as aware as I was that the verbal jab was aimed at him.

I directed my next question at him. “Why did your sister tell me that Jeremy thought his fiancée was having an affair? She said that was what your supposed spiritual guidance conversation was about.”

Mild surprise registered on the reverend's face. “She told you that?” He thought for a second. “I suppose she was trying to protect me. Perhaps she thought you'd let the matter drop if she gave you some sort of explanation for my, ah, association with Ralston.”

“So she knew about the video?”

“Of course. I told her all about it. She's my closest ally, after all.”

Cindy snorted and raised the letter opener. She pointed it at my throat, snapping my thoughts back to my present situation. My eyes remained glued to the blade, willing it not to come any closer.

The reverend's wife jerked her head to the right. “Go sit down.”

I forced my eyes away from the weapon and looked in the direction she'd indicated. A second wooden chair sat empty next to Susannah. I didn't want to sit down, because I knew that an escape would only be more difficult if I let myself be tied up. At the same time, I still wasn't in any position to take on Cindy or her husband. The proximity of the letter opener's blade to my throat was far too precarious.

“Move it!”

The menace in her eyes would have been enough to make me obey even without the letter opener. I shuffled to the side to avoid the sharp blade and lowered myself into the chair. I reached a hand out to Susannah and gave her arm a squeeze. Fresh tears trickled out of her eyes. I tried to give her a reassuring smile but my mouth didn't cooperate.

“Make yourself useful for once,” Cindy snapped at her husband. “Tie her up.”

I sent a pleading look in McAllister's direction, hoping he wasn't as crazy or cruel as his wife. If I could get him to turn on Cindy, Susannah and I might have a chance of surviving this fiasco. Unfortunately, he avoided my gaze.

He grabbed a length of rope from a nearby shelf and brought it over to me. He cast a quick, sidelong glance at his wife, and I knew then that I couldn't count on him for any help. He was too scared of his wife to stand up to her. That was clear on his face.

While Cindy kept the point of her weapon trained at my throat, McAllister bound my hands behind the back of my chair. I tried to keep my wrists as far apart as possible without being obvious about it, but I didn't know how much good that would do me.

Susannah choked out another sob, and Cindy's eyes strayed in her direction, the point of the letter opener drifting to one side. I didn't know if I'd have another opportunity to make a move, so I kicked out at Cindy's knee. Her legs gave way and she stumbled, doubling over. The blade of the letter opener slipped across my upper left arm. I gasped but didn't hesitate. Throwing myself forward, chair and all, I drove my shoulder into her.

She screamed, the shrill sound filled with intense fury and a hint of lunacy. I fell to my knees and struggled beneath the chair that came down on top of me. I wiggled my arms and wrists toward the top of the chair's arrow back. I needed to free myself before Cindy recovered enough to retake control of the situation.

I almost had myself free, with only a few more inches to go, when strong hands grabbed my upper arms from behind and wrenched me to my feet. While maintaining a grip on one of my arms, McAllister righted my chair and shoved me back into it.