The Devil's Puzzle (24 page)

CHAPTER 37

A
fter the meeting, I went to Jesse’s house to talk with him about the night’s events and let him tell me about his day. He was exhausted. Half the town had stopped by the police station, he told me, insisting he do something about all the vandalism. He’d spent much of the day explaining that he was trying, but no one seemed pleased with that answer. Least of all him.

“We’ve got a broken window at the school, books thrown about at the library, paint on Archer’s headstone, a pentagram in front of the church, and a police car running into a fire hydrant,” Jesse said as we curled up together in his bed. “What do they have in common?”

“Aside from being pretty small acts of vandalism?” I asked.

“Nothing.”

“Right. No one’s house was broken into. Nothing has been stolen aside from a few pages from that book on Archers Rest history.”

I sat up. “They’re all aimed at institutions in town. The school, the library, the church, and our founder’s grave. These are all places that matter to a lot of people in town, not just to one particular person. Whoever is doing this is trying to make a point about the town.”

“What? That it’s a bad place? Who feels that way?”

“Molly,” I said.

“The school break-in happened before she got to town.”

I leaned against his shoulder. “As far as we know, she may have come to town before the school break-in. She lied about why she was here, so maybe she lied about when she arrived.”

“You don’t like her,” he said.

“I don’t like that she seems to think Eleanor might have killed Winston. And I don’t like that you’re giving her information about an ongoing police investigation.”

“I give you information.”

“That’s hardly the same thing.”

“Are you still jealous?” He was smiling.

“For heaven’s sake, Jesse, I don’t think for a second you’re interested in a barely legal busybody, or that she’s interested in an old man like you . . .”

“Hey . . .”

“But you have been feeding her details of the investigation. And when I think of all the times I’ve had to drag it out of you, it just seems unfair.”

“One of the many things I’ve learned since we met, Nell, is that interested parties have a right to information. And Molly is an interested party. I’m not telling her anything I wouldn’t tell you.” He saw me about to protest. “In fact, I’m telling her a lot less than I tell you.” He wrapped his arms around me.

“What are you telling me that you’re not telling her?”

“I love you.”

“About the investigation. What else about that?”

He sighed. “I think you’re on to something about the institutions. Maybe I need to put men out patrolling the other churches in town, the post office, and city hall.”

“City hall is next to the police station. I doubt anyone would vandalize the building next to the cops. They’d be caught in a second.”

“It would make my job simpler.”

“Or if you didn’t catch the guy, it would make Glad and the mayor even more upset with you than they already are.”

We made a halfhearted attempt at making love, but both of us were tired and our minds were elsewhere, so we just held each other and fell asleep watching television. Three hours later I was woken up by a particularly loud commercial. I wanted desperately to stay curled up in Jesse’s arms, but I knew that if I did, I would stay until morning, so I got up.

“Come back to bed.” Jesse reached an arm out toward me.

“Be quiet. Allie will hear you.”

“I don’t think it’s safe for you to be going out there at night by yourself. Remember the note,” he said. “And Allie has to find out sooner or later. Just stay. I’ll explain it to her.”

“Explain it to her first. Then I’ll spend the night,” I said. “I’ll be fine.” I kissed him on the forehead.

“I’ll walk you to the car.”

“It’s parked outside your window. Just stay in bed. I’ll be fine.”

“Call me when you get home,” he said.

“I’ll wake you up.”

He grabbed my hand. “Nell, I’ll stay awake until you call me.”

“Okay. As soon as I walk in my door.”

I drove down Jesse’s street, turned the corner, and drove past darkened houses, past the cemetery, and into town, looking constantly for someone who might be up to no good. But there was no one.

I reached the town center, where all the shops were dark. As I passed the small square park that bordered Main Street, I saw that the base for Glad’s statue had been poured. She was, apparently, going ahead with it despite the general lack of enthusiasm for the idea. Past the park, the movie theater was quiet, as were the bank and the travel agency. On Main Street, Jitters was closed, and as I turned to the other side of the street, I was expecting to see the same quiet darkness at Someday Quilts. But I didn’t.

Something—someone—was lying on the ground.

I threw my car into park, leaving it in the middle of the street, and ran toward the figure.

“You okay?” I called out.

There was no answer.

I went closer. It was a woman. Young. Not moving.

“Molly?” I yelled. “Molly. Are you okay?”

The streetlight was just close enough that I could make out something odd about her dark brown hair. It was wet, but what had caused that I had no idea. Three steps closer and I had my answer. Blood. I leaned down and confirmed that Molly had been hit on the head with something.

“Molly?” I felt her pulse. It was there. Faint. But it was there.

“Molly, I’m going to call an ambulance. Can you hear me? Can you understand?”

There was no response.

I grabbed my cell phone from my purse and dialed 9-1-1. Once they were on their way, I pressed the first number on my speed dial.

“You’re home already? That was fast.” Jesse’s sleepy voice was cheerful and reassuring.

“I’m not home. I’m outside Someday Quilts. Molly O’Brien is hurt. I think it’s bad.”

“On my way.”

“She’s alive,” Jesse said to me as I waited by the front door to Jitters. The ambulance with Molly inside had sped to the hospital moments before, and all of Jesse’s officers were out combing the crime scene.

“Did she say anything to you?” I asked.

“No. How about you?”

“Nothing. I don’t think she was conscious.”

He grabbed me and held me tight. “I knew you shouldn’t be out by yourself this late. I don’t know what I would do if anything happened to you.”

“I’m okay, Jesse.” Though I wasn’t sure if I felt okay.

“I’ll tell you one thing. This isn’t kids having fun.” There was anger in his voice, and I was glad of it, because I felt just as angry.

“I can’t imagine why anyone would do this. No one in town even knew her,” I said.

“Maybe she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“What was she doing back at the shop?”

“Maybe she was going to break in and look for clues,” Jesse offered.

“Or maybe she caught someone else breaking in.”

As I spoke, Jesse’s phone rang. “The station,” he told me as he answered it. “Yeah . . . where?” he said into the phone. “Are you kidding me? I’ll be right there.”

He hung up and turned to me. “There’s been a break-in. And you won’t believe where.”

Remembering our earlier conversation, I said the first thing that popped into my mind. “City hall?”

Jesse slowly moved his head back and forth. “Worse. The police station.”

CHAPTER 38

O
nly two of the Archers Rest police force had stayed behind at the station when the call about Molly came in. Six were off duty, and the other four were outside Someday Quilts, still working the scene for whatever evidence might have been left there.

“What happened?” Jesse’s voice boomed with anger as we walked into the station.

The two officers practically tripped over each other offering excuses. They were both good guys—Tony, just out of the state police academy, and Mike, a part-time police officer, part-time auto mechanic with five years to go until retirement—but neither had Jesse’s background as a New York police detective or his instincts about the job.

“We were up front,” Tony said, “and we heard something in back, so we went back to investigate. The back door was open. Just wide open.”

“Isn’t it supposed to be locked?” Jesse asked.

The men looked at each other sheepishly.

“It’s a shortcut to Jitters, if one of us needs to make a coffee run,” Tony said. “I really thought we had locked it. I would have sworn it. But, I guess, we forgot to lock it when we came back after the last run.”

“Which was when?”

“Hours ago, Chief. We haven’t left the building since maybe eight,” Mike said.

“Okay.” Jesse glared, but he sounded calm. “So while you were both back there looking at an open door . . .”

“Yeah,” Mike took over, “while we were back there, someone did that.”

He pointed toward a brick that was lying near the broken front window of the station.

“So you didn’t see anyone?” Jesse asked. “You didn’t see the brick get thrown or anyone driving off? Anything?”

“We heard it,” Tony offered.

“Anything unusual about what you heard?”

“No. It just sounded like a brick through a window.”

I felt sorry for the guys, and even sorrier for Jesse, who looked ready to burst a blood vessel. But I was most interested in the brick.

“I think it has a note attached,” I said as I walked over and bent down.

“Great. The criminals think we’re such idiots that they have to help us out with notes,” Jesse yelled. He turned to me. “Don’t touch it, Nell. I’ll do it.”

After he made me, Mike, and Tony stand back, Jesse put on gloves and examined the brick. He pulled out a piece of paper that had been rolled up and stuck in a hole in the brick. “It’s an old newspaper clipping.”

I moved forward. “Of what?”

“It’s an announcement of Glad Warren being named president of the Garden Club.”

“What’s on the back?”

Jesse turned it over. “An ad for a special showing of
The Exorcist
at Bryant’s Cinema. Both stories have letters circled.” He slowly read each letter out loud: “W—I—N—S—T—O—N.”

“What do either of those things have to do with Winston’s murder or what’s going on now?” I asked.

“I don’t know right now, but I’m going to find out.”

After he’d made photocopies of both sides, Jesse put the clipping and the brick in evidence bags to be sent for fingerprints. Then he and I sat and studied the articles. The article on Glad was the standard one for a small-town newspaper. She was described as a leading citizen, an asset to the community, and a proud native of Archers Rest. Someone was quoted as saying that Glad knew all the Latin names for the flowers, making her the ideal choice for Garden Club president.

“Nothing here,” I said. “What about the movie ad?”

“Nothing. It was shown as part of a week of classic horror movies. Just a listing of times for the showing as well as a special offer for a T-shirt for anyone who went to all five movies that week: I SURVIVED HORROR WEEK AT BRYANT’S CINEMA.” He pointed toward the corner of the ad, which featured an orange T-shirt with black lettering that dripped the way blood would. “I guess it was another one of Ed’s promotions.”

“Would you wear a T-shirt like that?” I asked.

“I’ll wear anything if it’s clean.”

“So what was the person trying to say?”

I leaned back in my chair and closed my eyes for a moment. I was pretending to think, but really I was just tired. My eyes stung from lack of sleep and I couldn’t focus anymore.

Jesse, on the other hand, was wide awake. “Someone is trying to point to Ed or Glad as suspects in Winston’s murder.”

“Then why not just say it, instead of sending cryptic messages tied to bricks?”

“Or maybe it’s the killer’s way of telling us that one of them is the next victim.”