Healing Grace (37 page)

Ardyth started to answer. “My husband had nothing to do—”

Bryce cleared his throat. “We kept an old one out there since I was a kid,” he said. “As far as I know, it was never used and we haven’t had any fuel for it in years. I doubt the filaments were even any good.”

Rogers didn’t reply. He consulted the notebook. “Kerosene was considered the inflammatory agent.” He raised his face. “Does the name ‘Hugo International’ mean anything to anyone here?”

“That’s our—” Maura’s declaration stopped at a touch from Crawford. Crawford carried on without hesitation. “Ms. Fergusson was about to tell you that out of many companies by that name, one also markets farm implements and components. What’s that got to do with your investigation, Officer?”

“One of the fire marshals bagged a partially melted lighter casing with a corporate logo like a wheel and chain with that name on it,” Rogers said. He didn’t give anyone a chance to respond. “We also discovered debris that, according to your…” He flipped the notebook back a few pages, “inventory, perhaps would match a drafting table?”

Hart folded his arms. “I had a drafting table out there, yes.”

“And some larger pieces of milling tools, power equipment, welding supplies, and oxygen tanks?”

“Correct.”

Rogers said. “And then there are the human remains to consider.”

“How did Harding get back inside last night?” Hart asked. “We locked up tight.”

Rogers and Hansen traded looks. “There was a twenty dollar bill wedged in the lock,” Hansen said. “We found remains of it in the small door in the lower level.”

“A twenty!” Ardyth muttered. “Why, no one around here would be so reckless. A dollar, maybe—”

“Ardyth, how about you bring us some more cookies?” Bryce said.

After she left, Fergusson asked, “Are Harding’s death and the fire considered separate incidents?”

Rogers snapped his book shut. “We’re looking into it, ma’am. Right now we can’t say. We’d like to see the basement, please. Mr. Wingate?”

“Of course. This way.” Hart led the group to the kitchen where he unlocked the cellar door and turned on the lights before taking them downstairs. He and Bryce had made the area into a supplementary workshop. “Here we have our safe where we keep designs, back up discs, and the more valuable equipment.” He continued to point out improvements while the others clumped down the wooden steps. “We barred the windows, as you can see. The exit ramp to the yard is enclosed.” He knocked on the doors. “Heavy steel. Combination lock.” He walked to his workbench. “And yesterday afternoon after we were finished in the yard, here’s where I brought the…I set it right here…under this…”

Hart held up the canvas that had covered the battery. “Bryce?”

“I see it. Or, rather, I don’t see it.”

“But, how could…?” Hart looked at Crawford’s impassive face and wished he hadn’t.

“Okay, everybody!” Ardyth said. “Start looking around. Maybe it fell…”

Hart covered his face with his hands and groaned.

“Please, no one touch anything,” Hansen said. “Everyone, outside, now. To the yard.” Rogers was already on his portable radio, calling headquarters.

Once outside, standing in a herd on the front lawn, Ardyth sniffed. “Well, you never know.” The color of her face matched the pink crabapple blossoms of the tree under which she stood.

“Excuse me, Deputy Hansen? While we’re waiting, could you please tell me if you know how Harding died?” Hart asked.

“Initial review by the coroner says wood splinters were found in the wound on the back of the head. Possibly blunt-force trauma, but we’re still waiting for the final report.”

Judy would kill him when she found out Ardyth heard it first.

Ardyth gasped. “Murder?”

The Last Bequest

An Inspirational Cozy Mystery

School teacher Judy Winters sets out to solve the mystery surrounding her only living relative’s murder. Back on the farm where Aunt Louise grew up, Judy encounters Hart Wingate, a young man renting the adjoining farm who helps with farm chores. When Judy learns that her boyfriend, Graham, had been secretly visiting Louise, Judy takes the opportunity to move away from him for the summer and think over the situation.

Judy loves her teaching job, but is intrigued by her heritage in the farmstead and particularly the old house, but whether to sell or stay, she has yet to decide.

Midnight visitors, a job offer, new friends, along with one special old one—Carranza, the opinionated cat—all figure into Judy’s dilemma.

Meanwhile, Judy learns that a former friend of Louise’s father, Bryce, lost a treasure of gold somewhere on the farm. As Judy and Hart look for clues to the cause of Louise’s death and Bryce’s missing treasure they develop a close friendship. Judy breaks off her relationship with Graham, who doesn’t take the news very well.

As Judy explores the farmhouse, she finds and follows clues in Louise’s mother’s diary to unearth the buried treasure. But was it the treasure that might have been behind Louise’s murder?

Chapter One

Judy Winters made divots in the lawn with her church shoes, the ones with the high heels she saved to wear once a week. She stopped her frenetic crisscross pacing under the clothesline to look at her trail. Hah! She could dethatch the entire yard if she kept walking. She needed a few minutes away from everyone in the house. Just a few minutes to grieve alone. And to think about poison.

Hand at her brow to shield the sun’s harsh light, Judy surveyed her late aunt’s farm. The half-acre surrounding the house sure could use work. What had Aunt Louise Jamison done these past two years to allow her once lovely yard to decline into crabgrass and thistles? Birds might enjoy the seeds. But only a recent lawn-mowing kept the dandelions from taking over. Judy brushed a tear off her cheek, wondering inanely who had mowed since Louise’s death. Certainly not one of her new “earth hugger” friends who’d probably convinced her that mowing was bad.

Judy had offered to visit last week when Louise acted suspiciously lethargic during their Thursday night phone call.

“Nothing to worry about,” her aunt assured her. “I don’t want you catching whatever bug I’ve come down with, Judy dear.”

Louise hadn’t answered the phone the next night. While Judy dithered whether to drive over anyway, she’d received the shocking phone call from her aunt’s solicitor, Gene Reynolds. “Sorry to inform you, Miss Winters, but your aunt, Louise Jamison, has died.”

Before Judy could catch a breath, Reynolds continued in his monotone, “The initial report indicates some kind of poisoning—not sure what kind.”

What was the saying? That Louise bought the farm? Judy shook her head. What a horrible way to occupy her thoughts with her closest living relative freshly buried.

“Your aunt had gotten into some of those odd nature food hippy granola crazes, you know,” Mr. Reynolds had said. No, Judy hadn’t known that. “She even tried to have me invest in some wheat juice thing for her. I told her I’d research it.”

Wheat juice wouldn’t have killed Aunt Louise. But—poison? Louise’s condition at the time of death led the emergency room doctor and the sheriff to suspect a toxic substance of some kind. She’d obviously been sick and her skin was mottled, according to the doctor. But Louise was the smartest person Judy knew. Her demise couldn’t have been accidental, no matter what the doctor thought. Barry Hutchinson, the chief of police in Robertsville, agreed with Judy. But how to prove it? The autopsy report with toxicology screen would not be available for weeks.

Judy continued to meander through the yard. Walking might keep her from wailing in grief in front of all these people. Louise had been all the family she had ever known.

As she wandered to the back door, Gene Reynolds propelled himself toward her on feet that were much too dainty to hold up his great bulk. “Miss Winters, again our condolences.” He took her hand into his pudgy moist one. Judy steeled herself not to shudder. “I have the legal paperwork regarding Louise’s estate to go over with you, at your convenience.”

Reynolds’s pupils flickered just enough for her notice.
He has something to gain.
Sometimes Judy’s ability to decode body language came in handy. She’d picked up the trait in one of her continuing education courses and never seemed to be able to stop “ reading” people afterward.

Judy removed her hand from his. “Thank you.” Other friends followed Reynolds to seek her out before taking their leave. She accepted a shoulder squeeze from a neighbor, an offering of sympathy, and an invitation to church while Reynolds stood guard on her right.

She’d wanted to meet some of those people Louise gushed about, and wondered now if, in that last phone call, Louise had been making an excuse to keep her away.

When they were alone, Judy asked, “Would this afternoon work out for you, Mr. Reynolds? I don’t want to rush or seem greedy, but I have two weeks left of the school year in Lewiston, and need to get back to work.”

“Miss Winters, this afternoon would be fine. How about I go to the office, pick up the files and return, say in an hour or so? We can go over everything here.”

“Yes. I appreciate your time.” Judy watched him clasp his hands together before joining his stately blonde wife in the driveway.
He wants something, I can tell.

She said goodbye to the last lingering guest, a woman dressed wildly in clashing plaids whose name Judy couldn’t conjure. She could hardly remember the names and faces of Louise’s many friends. If not for Graham Montgomery standing at her side all day until he had to leave for his own job, she didn’t know how she would have dealt with her aunt’s untimely and wholly unexpected death. Graham had not complained once about making small talk with strangers.

While she waited for Reynolds to come back, Judy continued to poke holes in the creeping charley under the clothesline. This was where they’d found Louise.

 Mr. Reynolds said she’d been into natural foods. The news reported people always getting some sort of disease from sprouts and what not. But surely the doctor would have known that.

No one had removed the laundry Louise carried to the yard after apparently ingesting some lethal concoction. The basket still sat near the lilac bush, clothing dried and no doubt hopelessly wrinkled. A yellow twin sheet that Louise managed to pin up before her collapse snapped in the stiff breeze. At the resounding echo Judy heard a flutter of cackles from the chicken coop, built against the barn a few hundred yards behind her. Louise kept animals on her working farm. Not just the noisy colorful chickens, but cows, too. Judy visited occasional weekends, and even helped with chores under Louise’s watchful eyes, but she didn’t have the foggiest idea how to tend to their general day-to-day care.

She had given little thought to the farm since rushing to tiny Robertsville from her home across Wisconsin in Lewiston on learning of her former guardian’s death, Someone must be caring for the animals, she hoped.

Judy resumed her agitated pacing, shoving a bothersome brown wisp of hair behind her ear.

What was that in the laundry basket? Something moved. Judy narrowed her eyes. There it was again. A black tipped tail twitched from the depths of the willow carrier.

“Carranza! What are you doing in there?” Drat. Judy had forgotten about the ferocious cat Louise brought when she moved back here. Carranza obeyed only Louise, and then only when he felt like it. He lifted his head lazily in her direction and offered the malevolent stare she remembered well. She shivered.

“Carranza, please go away,” Judy said weakly, hoping the animal wouldn’t come her way. He flicked the ear with a bra strap draped around it. Then he shook his head and blinked before insolently licking an outstretched paw, claws extended.

Enough of that. No way was she going to get into a power struggle with a pet cat. Her class of eighth graders, maybe; felines, no. Judy turned her back. The air was redolent of fresh-cut alfalfa. Her aunt rented acreage to a neighbor, Red Hobart who grew it. Judy inhaled enough to feel dizzy with the fragrance she normally loved. Today the scent nauseated her, worried as she was about what Mr. Reynolds would tell her.

Walk!
Heading toward the orchard, she almost tripped on an overturned bucket at the edge of the mown area. Sinking to her knees to better see what was buried there, Judy pushed aside the foxtails to discover a tiny rose plant with buds so large they would have tipped the slender stalks had they not been held up by the sturdier weeds.

“Poor thing!” She yanked out some of the taller field daisies that blocked the sunlight from the roses. “That should help a little.” She should really try to tidy all this up and get the yard in shape in case Mr. Reynolds had buyers lined up. If only she’d known, really taken a good look at how much Louise had needed help, she would have…would have what? Left her new job and come home like some little girl who couldn’t make it on her own? She was doing well, handling her independence. In fact, her principal had recently called her work exemplary. Her students needed her.

Judy leaned back on her haunches, face to the sun, and listened. Catbirds in stereo with the tinny, peaceful hum of distant cicadas took her mind off Lewiston and her job. She pushed herself to her feet to continue her inspection of the overgrown orchard. A flood of childhood memories of apple blossom petals falling like snow and picking fruit in the fall assailed her.

A cloud scuttered overhead. Judy shivered. She rubbed her arms and checked her watch. Four-thirty. Back in the main yard, she stopped in front of a gnarled stump. A single mossy branch dangled like a broken arm but bore a number of determined green leaves. Judy smiled and touched the deeply grooved brown bark. A bee bumbled nearby. She walked around to the other side where a weathered emblem appeared carved into the trunk and bent low to trace a misshapen heart.