The Hunt Chronicles: Volume 1 (5 page)

“One of
who
?”  Detective Sills finally asked.

“There are over a
dozen and a half staff members that live on the grounds after their work is
done.  All of them have the code for the gate, and they can all come and
go as they please.  Any one of them could have noticed the open
window.”  We were all entranced by Thomas’ words.  Nona had stopped
whimpering and had come over to join us.  Richard looked up at Thomas in
awe.  “Don’t you see?”  Thomas screamed.  “One of those greedy
bastards hops in through the window, walks into the study and pockets a few
tiny trinkets.  On his way out, Mr. McCune starts to toss and turn. 
Maybe he even called for me.  Our thief panicked.  If he didn’t think
fast, McCune was going to wake up or I was going to walk in.  He ducked
into the kitchen, grabbed a knife and stifled his victim’s screams.”

Richard let out a
disappointed grunt.  I knew why and leaned back in my chair. 
“Thomas,” he began.  “The thief would have had plenty of time to just leap
out the window and head for the cottages before dad was fully conscious. 
Dad might have thought it was all a dream if he did see something.  How
many people who set out to steal a few trinkets end up killing somebody? 
It just doesn’t work.”

“Not only that,” I
added.  “If Wilson would have screamed for you it would have woken us all
up.”

“It’s a big
house.  I’m not sure if you would have
hea
-”
Detective Sills tried to add.

“I think Wilson
McCune was born with a bullhorn lodged in his throat, Detective Sills.  If
he screamed, we would have heard it.”

“He’s right,” Cheryl
whispered.

“But what if your
dad woke up when the bastard first climbed in through the window?”  Now it
was Nona.  Her hands were gyrating wildly.  “
Knowin
’
your dad, he might have woken up but stayed still, wanting to catch the guy
with his hands full of loot.  Your dad may have been old, but we all know
he wasn’t stupid, or deaf.  The slightest sound would get him up some
nights.  I know because I’d usually get stuck fixing him something.”

Thomas wrapped his
long fingers around the back of the chair and squeezed until his knuckles were
white.  “So, it went differently.  The robber comes in and heads for
the study.  On his way out, he spots a few more bobbles on McCune’s
dresser.  Your father wakes up, or stops pretending to be asleep, and begins
carrying on with his ‘how dare you’ this and his ‘I’ll make sure you never’
that.  I know what I’d do if I was the guy; try to shut him up. 
Maybe punch him or hit him with something.  But it’s too late…he saw the
guy’s face.  The thief gets scared, thinking that when McCune comes to
he’ll start screaming bloody murder.”  Thomas looked around the table, and
then swallowed hard.  “Sorry…so to keep his identity a secret, the thief
crept into the kitchen after knocking your father unconscious, snatched a knife
from the holder and went from petty larceny to murder in a single thrust. 
Then he left the same way he came.  The whole thing probably took less
than five minutes.”

I rolled my eyes and
began messaging my temples.  Detective Sills put down his pen and cracked
his knuckles.  It looked like he was on one of the last pages in his
pad.  Nona, Richard,
Maddie
and Detective
Walters had an expression of pure wow on their faces.  Cheryl on the other
hand held her face in her hands.

A sound escaped
Walters’ mouth.  After a second, I realized it was a word. 
A slack-jawed Gomer Pyle of a word.
  “Golly…”  I
seemed to be the only person in the room who remained unimpressed, mostly
because Thomas’ story had more holes than a golf course and brought up more
questions than Alex
Trebek
.  It didn’t seem like
the perfect time to mention my findings, but I did so out of frustration. 
I turned to Walters, his eyes wide and charmed like a bewitched cobra.

“Did you just say
golly
?” 
He turned to me, dumbfounded.

“Sorry?”

“I asked you if you
just used the word
golly,
if it is indeed a word at all.  I take it
you’re impressed with Mr.
Freely’s
display of
deductive reasoning?” 
Maddie
leaned forward and
whispered in my ear.

“What’s wrong?”

“What’s
wrong?”  I shouted.  “I’ll tell you what’s wrong!  A man was
murdered in this house last night!  We are in a room with two police
detectives and the only person to come up with a theory is the dead guy’s butler?” 
They were all looking at me as if I had just grown a second head.  Even
Maddie
inched away a little.  “I think we should start
over, and this time, Detective Walters and Detective Sills will tell us what
they
know!”

“Like what, Hunt?” 
Walters asked calmly.  “What should I say that I haven’t said
already?”  I bound to my feet and slammed the cold table with my fist.

“How about you drop
the act and tell everyone here that Mr.
Freely’s
story is nothing short of idiotic?”  Thomas came toward me waving a
finger.

“Now you listen
here, Reevan-”

“No,
you
listen! 
Your idea is a robbery gone wrong, right?  Well, what did the thief manage
to get away with, exactly?”  Thomas looked like a deer in headlights…
my
headlights
.  I looked up at him.  His eyes were bouncing in their
sockets.  He didn’t answer, but Sills did.  He had flipped back a few
pages and was probably looking over the information given by Thomas not two
minutes before.

“You said a few figurines,
some crystal pieces.  You mentioned a gold picture frame was taken from
the mantel in the study before.  McCune’s watch was gone from his dresser,
and a silver letter opener with a diamond handle is also missing.  Is that
right?”  Thomas nodded slowly.

“Detective
Sills?”
  I asked.  He
turned to me.  “Do your notes say anything specific about the crystal
pieces that were missing?”  He looked back at his pad.

“Mostly
figurines.
  Oh and a crystal
penholder that was sitting on the desk.  That’s all I have.”

“That’s odd,” I
said.

“What’s odd?” 
Thomas asked.

“No mention of a
crystal clock.”  Sills scanned the page once more, again found nothing
regarding a missing crystal clock, and then started flipping through the other
pages.  I looked at Thomas.  He had one hand in his pocket and
another over his mouth.  Then he wiped his brow with his arm, looked at me
and spoke.

“You won’t find it
in your pad, Detective.  I didn’t tell you about the clock.”

“Oh?”  Sills
answered, still skimming, “And why not?”

“I didn’t tell you
about it because it’s not missing.  It’s on Wilson’s night table, exactly
where it has been for the last decade or so.”

“So why the hell are
we talking about it now?”  Cheryl spoke up.  She looked around at us
through glazed and empty eyes.  Her hair was frazzled.  The sheer
shrill in her voice drove Nona back to her corner.

“Because if it was
right there all night, why didn’t the thief take it?”  That was my
Maddie
.  She looked at me and smiled.  “Am I
right?”  I nodded. 
That’s my sis! 
my
little voice shouted.

“Detective Walters,
perhaps you would like to answer my sister’s question, unless you’d prefer I-”

“Thanks but no
thanks,” he said.  As he stood, he looked down on me, but I think it was
only in the literal sense.  He had the slightest hint of a smile on his
face. 
You’re good
it said.  “Ms. Hunt, I think the reason the
clock wasn’t taken is because there was no thief at all, or that’s what your
brother thinks anyway.”  I nodded.  Richard spoke up next.  With
the exception of Cheryl, everyone seemed to be temporarily drowning their
sorrows in bad coffee and a game of whodunit.

“What if there
really was a robber and he just didn’t see the clock?”  Richard pondered.

“You’ve seen it,
haven’t you?”  I asked, shocked by his question.  “It was one of the
first things I noticed when I walked in.  That crystal ticker could put a
kid through medical school.  I honestly think that anyone who’s taking the
risk of committing robbery would be sure to make it worth the jail time and go
after that clock.”  Richard nodded in agreement, as did Cheryl. 
Maddie
gave her a rub on the back.

“Then it
is
true,”
Cheryl declared blandly.  “Dad was killed and the robbery was just a
pitiful attempt to cover it up?  I can’t take this!”  Cheryl got up
and walked briskly out and up the stairs. 
Maddie
turned to me with a look of concern, then got up and followed the hysterical
Cheryl.

“So what happens
now?”  Nona asked.  “Do we have to leave?”  She started tearing
up.

“No, wait-” Walters
couldn’t finish.

“Oh
my God, Thomas?
  What will we
do?  I’ve been here for years.  I have nowhere else to go.  I
can’t leave.  Where will we go, Thomas?  What will we do?” 
Thomas walked over and hugged Nona.

“Please,
ma’am.  All of you listen up. 
You ladies, too!”
 
He shouted to
Maddie
and Cheryl who were descending
the stairs, holding tissues no doubt retrieved from
Maddie’s
apron, where anything you needed could usually be found.  “Now, as for the
future of the McCune Estate, well, that’s for McCune’s will and the lawyers to
decide.  However, none of that happens until my investigation comes to a
clean conclusion.  As of now, this case is nowhere near closed.”

“But what happens to
us?”  The self-centered cow sobbed.

“Well,” Walters
said, scratching his chin.  “Y’all
be
sticking
around here for a while.”  A loud sigh of relief flew out of Nona’s
mouth.  Cheryl let out a sound that was much more…well, I guess you could
say assertive.

“Like
hell!
” 
She screeched.  “I’ll be at Lawson’s Inn on Route 33 if anyone needs me!”

“Same
here!”
  Richard shouted.

“I’m afraid we’re
telling
you people, not
asking
you.”  Detective Sills was standing up and
putting his notepad into his breast pocket.  Then he started for the
door.  Walters looked at him, obviously confused by his colleague’s last
statement.  Sills tapped his watch and nodded.  Walters nodded. 
They were clearly finished for the time being.  I sure as hell was not.

“Let me get this
straight.  You are
ordering
all of us to stay in a house where a
man was murdered?  What about protecting the crime scene?  What about
Lawson’s Inn?  What about the fact that it’s
really creepy
?”

“I’m afraid we have
no choice,” Sills answered.  “Lawson’s Inn and every other inn, bed and
breakfast, hotel and motel in town is booked solid through next week. 
Annual Spring Feast starts tomorrow.  Tourists reserved their
rooms
months in advance to be there.  As for the crime
scene, our guys were here for a good few hours.  I think we got all we
could out of the main areas of the house, and since McCune’s room and study
have nothing in them that
concerns
any of you right
now, there’s no reason why anyone would go inside.  This house is
certainly big enough for all of you to steer clear.”  He gazed up and
around the foyer, up the staircase and back down to all of us.  “Since
we’re all faced with such an unusual situation, please note that several
security devices were placed inside, just in case anyone gets a little…curious.”

“For
goodness sake!”
 
Maddie
cried. 
“Might as well put a
guard at the door.”

“Oh, there will be a
guard, Ms. Hunt.  Not at the door, but he’ll be around.  He’ll be
just outside the gate should there be any need for him.”  I slipped off
somewhere as Walters kept talking.  I could still hear Walters speaking to
the others, but I wasn’t really listening anymore.  Somewhere inside the
deeper recesses of my brain a light bulb flickered to life.

Walters and Sills
had already made it to the door when I yelled “The hotels and the festival are
just a convenient coincidence, aren’t they, Detectives?”  The two stopped
and turned.  “We’ve all been through a lot here; a murder and an
investigation, not to mention a family member is still missing.  I think
it would be best, especially for those of us here with
minimal brain
capacity
,” I jerked a finger towards Thomas and Nona, “if you just came out
with it.”

“Came out with
what?”  Walters asked, sounding tired and frustrated.

“
Your
theory,” I said.  Walters looked puzzled.

“My theory is one
very similar to Mr.
Freely’s
.  Even you must
admit that though his story had holes, it can’t be completely ruled out. 
Clock or no clock, a robber may exist out there in Wellington.”  But I had
ruled it out immediately.  Thomas suggested that Wilson was
bonked
on the head and knocked out.  I saw his
body.  There was no trauma to his head or face at all.  Surely there
would have been something like a mark, a red blotch, blood,
something
,
but there wasn’t.  Walters had surely seen the body before it was ever
gift wrapped in that long black bag, and I’m sure he noticed that McCune’s
skull was in showroom condition.  Walters’ thought we were holding out on him
about Donald and last night’s events.  He was playing mind games to draw
out some more information.