Mom Zone Mysteries 02 Staying Home Is a Killer (15 page)

In the summer, SUVs packed the roads to Cherry Bluff as families with young kids arrived to pick cherries. But now in the middle of winter the lanes were empty and deep with snow. On the drive to the meeting the security lights on the homes tucked up on the bluff flickered faintly as we passed, and then we’d been plunged back in the black night with only our headlights pressing against the white kaleidoscope of falling snow.

That same feeling of isolation, the deep quiet, permeated this little shack. I walked through the long tables in the back that held cardboard boxes. Rows of flowers and herbs hung from wooden rafters. A bank of shelves near the back held stacks of lotions, creams, herbal teas, and bath soaps.

A counter cut across the front of the room, and up near the main entrance the same bottles and jars decorated with raffia bows were displayed in crates stacked on bales of hay. Rough, brown bags spotted with little dots to show it was recycled paper sat at the end of the counter near an antique cash register and a sleek calculator.

Trying to pick up a signal on my cell phone, I walked from the long tables in the work area where the beauty products were assembled and packaged to the front where they were sold to Ballard’s faithful Pathway group members and any customer that might arrive mistakenly in search of u-pick cherries. If I stood in the corner of the counter between two bales of hay with my head at a forty-five-degree angle, I was able to dial.

Mitch answered. “I just got the call. I’m off alert.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. I’d rather have Mitch home than halfway around the world. I’d be fine without him, but it was much nicer to have him around.

“How’s it going?” he asked.

“Boring. They’re not through with the meeting yet and I haven’t found anything to connect Ballard with Penny. Ballard’s a little out there, kind of kooky, but that’s all I’ve found out. All Irene knew was that Penny watched the kids. I haven’t seen any kids tonight. Aaron’s wife, Bree, is here and Rory Tyler is here, too.”

“Rory?”

“I know. I was surprised, too.”

“What’s he doing there? He didn’t strike me as the spiritual type,” Mitch said.

“I don’t know. He’s the only guy and there are about fifteen women here. Maybe he likes that ratio.”

“No one at the squad is going to let him forget this. Is it his first time there?”

“I don’t think so. He said something about leaving for Turkey, and Ballard kidded him about always going to Turkey.”

“Even better.”

“Mitch, you’re not going to be mean, are you?”

“Are you kidding? Everything’s fair game. Remember when I couldn’t find my boxers on that trip last spring to Japan? Rory took them out of my suitcase before we left and stapled them to the antlers above the bar in the Hole. I owe him.”

I rolled my eyes. Sometimes the squadron seemed more like a college frat house than a workplace. If there was something serious going on, a difficult mission, they were focused and all over it. And they excelled too, but when it was boring, they regressed to baser instincts. “Look, I’d better go. I’ll get home as soon as I can. Love you.”

We hung up. I wished I’d driven, but I hadn’t so I was stuck here until the meeting broke up. I studied the calendar tacked on the wall with work schedules. I’d drawn a blank with Georgia and now I wasn’t finding anything to connect Ballard with Penny. It still seemed Clarissa had the only motive to want Penny dead. I walked back to the newer building, thinking about motive. I stopped. Wasn’t that the weakest thing to pursue? Motives could be hidden, but what about opportunity? I went back and checked the calendar. Ballard ran the store the Monday Penny died. Had Ballard been in the store all day?

And where was Clarissa that morning? Tessa saw her on base fighting with General Bedford. What if she’d dropped the poison into the gold foil bag earlier in the week without realizing it took several days for it to work? Or what if Clarissa was afraid Penny hadn’t taken the poison? After she argued with General Bedford, Clarissa could have left the base, driven to Penny’s, and killer her. Then afterward she tried to make the crime scene look like a suicide. I definitely needed to talk to Clarissa when she returned from her trip on Tuesday.

I paused in the doorway to the meeting room. The Pathway group sat with hunched shoulders and closed eyes. I didn’t want to endure another case of pins and needles, so I slipped down a short hallway that we’d bypassed earlier. Several closed doors showed dark offices with metal desks and filing cabinets through their small windows. A shriek sounded from the end of the hall. “No! I want it,” screamed a high-pitched voice. I’d found the kids.

I leaned over the lower half of the divided door that kept the kids in the room and introduced myself to the teenager in charge. My sudden appearance drew the attention of the kids.

“Thank goodness,” said the teenager as she tugged her crop top down. The baby she held grabbed a fistful of fabric at her shoulder and pulled it up, revealing another few inches of her naval. “Which one is yours? I thought you guys would never get through.”

“Sorry, but none of them are mine. I think the meeting’s almost over, though. I didn’t want to go back in after I had to leave.”

“Jeez. This isn’t a one-person job.” She pulled her shirt back down. This time the kid grabbed a handful of her straight black hair. She disentangled it from his sticky fingers and sat him down in a bouncy chair. Immediately, his face turned red and his mouth opened in a large O as he gathered air for an extended crying bout. “Here, let me hold that one,” I said. He reminded me of Livvy.

The teenager handed him over the half door and then broke up a fight over a toy truck. The boy was so startled to see a new face he forgot to cry. He stared at me. After the teenager sent the older kids off to play on the minislide in the corner she returned to the door. “Man, I need a helper.”

“Did you have help before? I knew the woman who used to babysit here. Did you know Penny?” I asked her, but kept my gaze focused on the baby. He was sucking his thumb now. A dispute broke out near the slide. “Me first. I want to be
first!
” yelled a boy as he shoved another kid out of the way.

“Yeah. Well, I just helped out. Penny was a magician with these kids. She could get them to do anything. It was fun when she was here. She’d have them singing songs and playing games. Without her it’s terrible. Can you believe she committed suicide?” The teenager seemed to be implying that if a roomful of babies and toddlers hadn’t driven Penny to suicide, nothing could.

“Actually, the police think she was murdered,” I said.

“No way,” she said as she strode over to a cabinet and grabbed a box of animal crackers. “Snack time!”

The kids scrambled to small tables and sat down. She gave each one a few crackers and returned to the door. As she took the baby back I asked, “Did Penny ever say anything about anyone threatening her?”

“Are you kidding? Everyone here thought that she was an angel and wanted her to babysit their kids.”

“Did she ever say anything about a big problem she had or that she was afraid?”

“Nope. She was really focused on the kids when we were here. We didn’t talk much about anything else.”

“Okay. Well, thanks for talking to me. I’ll head back and see if they’re done yet.”

“Thanks,” she said as she yanked her shirt back down.

There was one more door at the end of the hall past the kid room. I peeked in for a better look.

Chapter Fifteen

G
lass boxes shielded books and pottery on pedestals scattered around the room. The corners of the room were in darkness, but dim track lighting spotlighted each display. I crossed my arms to keep warm as I moved to the nearest display, a book with yellow, crinkled pages and script so ornate that I couldn’t have read the words even if they’d been in English. I circled the glass case and then bent over the small card attached to one side.
Bible, Old German. C. 1650.

“Wow,” I whispered.

I moved on to the next display, a delicate aged piece of papyrus? I searched for the card. I felt my eyebrows raise as I read
Papyrus fragment.
Wasn’t papyrus so fragile that few pieces of it survived? How did one end up here in a cherry orchard/New Age religious compound/alternative beauty product factory? Turning in a circle, I surveyed the other items in the room including pottery, more worn books, a rosary, and a slender statue of a woman with six arms. A thermometer and cards with a strip of colored cloth were positioned in the corners of each display case.

“I see you’ve found my little collection.”

I turned back to the doorway and saw Ballard’s squat form blocking the light from the hall. In the dim light, she looked even more like a medieval priestess in her loose clothes and sandals. I wondered if she had a rope she could use for a belt. It would be exactly the right touch for her outfit. I’d been so absorbed in the items in the room, I hadn’t heard the voices down the hall as women came to collect their children.

Ballard snapped on a bank of overhead fluorescent lights, and the resemblance to an ancient holy woman disappeared. She was a middle-aged woman dressed in comfortable clothes. “What did you think of the meeting?”

“Interesting.” Such a handy word, interesting. Not really a compliment, but it wouldn’t offend Ballard either. “Tell me about your collection.”

Ballard walked over and gently rested her hand on the case with the papyrus. “My father’s collection, actually. He was a theology professor. Religious artifacts fascinated him. He traveled extensively in the Holy Land and collected many rare pieces. Toward the end of his life, he broadened his interest from Christianity to all the major world religions.”

She went to a desk in the corner and pulled on the long black cardigan that was draped over the desk chair. “Sorry it’s so cold in here. Better for the books.” Brushes, a small vacuum, and bottles littered the desk alongside books held together with strips of linen.

She walked over to the Bible in German. “One of his students brought him this. The family was going to throw it away, but my father asked for it instead.”

“Do you collect as well?” I asked.

“A little. I’m more interested in compiling his work into a format that groups or individuals can understand.” She pulled a small book from a large canvas bag dangling on the back of the desk chair.

I tilted the glossy cover to read the title. The words
Path of Three
marched across the blue sky above an oak tree. Smaller type at the bottom of the cover noted
Compiled by Ballard Nova.
I flipped through the pages, noting lots of passages and a few discussion questions. A popular e-publisher was listed on the title page. I recognized a slick product from my work in the PR office. Ballard had taken the time to put together a professional quality book from the cover to the layout of the text.

“It’s so nice to have original texts when we study them in the group. That way after people read about them in the meeting they can see the actual books and papyrus the study is based on. We’d be happy to have you join the group,” Ballard said as I handed the book back.

“Well, I’m actually happy with a group I go to right now through my church. I’ll probably just stick with that. I was a friend of Penny Follette’s. Did you know her well?”

“Our child care specialist? No, unfortunately, I didn’t get to know her. I interviewed her, of course, and checked her references, but she had only worked with us for a few months. Terrible what happened.”

Bree’s red head leaned around the door frame. “Ballard. There you are. There’s a woman with a question about the night moisturizer and I’m too new. I can’t remember if it has jasmine or jonquil in it.”

Ballard nodded and I followed her into the older building where I found Irene sampling a hand cream. “Here, smell this? Do you like it?”

I sniffed dutifully, but all I could smell was hay.

“Isn’t it divine? You should get something. You know it all goes together. The group helps you take care of your spirit, and these creams help you take care of your body.”

I murmured a noncommittal sound and wandered across the room to the counter where Ballard rang up body lotion, herbal teas, and a soothing room fragrance as Bree stuffed the purchases in brown bags. Ballard’s prayerful stillness and mystical aura were gone. With her half glasses perched on her nose, her dark blue eyes were sharp and piercing as she totaled sales and counted out change.

Irene’s SUV ate up the snowbank on the side of the road as she cruised down my street. I automatically checked out the neighborhood before I opened the door, an involuntary habit I’d developed since the incident in the grocery store parking lot.

“Thanks for the invitation,” I said as I climbed down from Irene’s SUV like a mountain climber scaling a mountain in reverse.

“Sure.” Irene turned down the police scanner. She’d said it helped her avoid traffic jams. She leaned across the seat.

“I know you’ve got a lot going on, but let me know if you change your mind, you know? Let’s get the kids together for a play date. Why don’t you drop Livvy off next Tuesday afternoon around four?”

“I don’t know. She’s going through this separation anxiety stage.”

“Oh, she’ll be fine.”

“You obviously haven’t heard her cry at full volume before.”

“Why don’t we at least try?” I can call you if she won’t quit crying, right?”

“Well, I suppose we could try it,” I said and shut the door. I’d given Irene the same reason for not attending again that I’d given Ballard. I already had a group. I made a mental note to make sure we attended our small group Bible study this week. We’d been hit-or-miss lately, but after the Pathway group, I wanted to get back.

As I opened the kitchen door, Mitch said into the phone, “Oh, here she is. I’ll let you talk to her.” He handed me the phone. “Hetty Sullivan.”

“Ellie.” Hetty’s brisk but raspy voice filled the phone line. “I can’t find three photographs that Penny described to me. They were from the base, photos of the first squadrons. Black-and-white. This is the first chance I’ve had to go through the materials and I can’t find them. Could they still be at Penny’s house?”