Crack Of Death (A Rainy Day Mystery Book 3) Read online

I crossed my fingers and hoped I was telling the truth.

  For her sake as well as mine.

  TWENTY

  I should have learned my lesson about volunteering, especially after finding Greta.

  But it was Sunday and I was volunteering again: this time, for the Dorothy Days Planning Committee.

  I’d gone home after the service and spent the better part of the day tackling the guesthouse. I’d been putting off giving it the deep cleaning it needed, so I’d changed out of my funeral clothes and into a pair of shorts and t-shirt, pulled my hair into a loose ponytail, grabbed some cleaning supplies, and headed over.

  After spending most of the afternoon wiping down walls and windows and floors, I’d made a quick dinner and gone to bed early, exhausted both mentally and physically.

  So I’d woken early the next morning, eaten a quick breakfast and was out the door to make it in time for the 9 am meeting.

  It was being held in the pavilion next to the lake, a sturdy cedar structure filled with rustic picnic tables. There were a couple of built-in charcoal grills on either side of the pavilion, and more seating in the grassy area that sloped toward the pristine water of the lake.

  I hadn’t known what to expect when I signed up to volunteer. But Declan and I had talked about it back in the spring and when I saw the flyer in the bank window back in June, I’d made a mental note to sign up to help.

  So I was a little surprised to see that there were only half a dozen people sitting at the picnic tables, waiting for the meeting to start.

  And that Heidi, Greta’s daughter, was one of them.

  If she noticed me, she didn’t give any indication. She sat alone at one of the tables, scrolling through her phone as she waited for the meeting to start. I sat down at an empty table, smiling at the other people who looked curiously at me. I recognized a couple of faces from church, but didn’t know their names.

  A woman several years younger than me stood up and turned to face the small crowd that was gathered. She looked to be close to the same age as my daughter, Laura, and had long black hair pulled into a French braid. Silver and turquoise earrings dangled from her ears and a wide, matching bracelet circled her wrist. She held a clipboard and a pen, and she glanced down at it before clearing her throat and smiling brightly.

  “Welcome, everyone, to the Lake Dorothy Conservation Group’s Volunteer Round-Up,” she announced. She looked us over, beaming. “Wow, what a great crowd we have here! So many volunteers! Thank you so much for coming out so early on a Saturday morning to volunteer your time.”

  I snuck another peek at the crowd, glancing behind me to see if throngs of people had shown up since my arrival. But there was no one else, just the half dozen or so people who were sitting in front of and next to me. If this was a great crowd, I wondered what the volunteer count had looked like in previous years.

  “My name is Savannah Springs, and I am the president of LDCG. And I just can’t tell you how excited I am to be here and to share our vision of Dorothy Days with you all,” she gushed. Her smile threatened to overtake her entire face. “We need a lot of volunteers to make Dorothy Days a success, which means each and every one of you are important to me.”

  I bit back a smile of my own. She was either a motivational speaker by day or she’d spent a good chunk of her younger years as a cheerleader. Despite her corny talk and over-the-top bubbliness, I found myself liking her. Her positivity was just what I needed to pull myself out of the post-funeral funk and the specter of being under suspicion for Greta’s death.

  Savannah unclipped something from her clipboard. She began handing out sheets of paper to the people sitting down. I took one and read it over. It was a list of the schedule of events for Dorothy Days, as well as areas that needed volunteers. I quickly scanned it. They needed volunteers for running the cotton candy and popcorn machines; for checking in quilts for the quilt competition and manning the tent; for monitoring the rubber duck race across Lake Dorothy, and for organizing and judging the Dorothy for a Day contest.

  I raised my hand. “Can you explain what the ‘Dorothy for a Day’ contest is?”

  Savannah smiled. “Of course! Back when Dorothy Days started, there was a contest—a pageant, if you will—for local Dorothys.”

  “Dorothys?” I repeated.

  She nodded. “It was a very popular name back in the 1940s. As times changed, the pageant changed and we allowed anyone whose name started with the letter ‘D’ to enter. Doris, Diana, Denise. You get the picture.”

  “And…now?”

  Savannah beamed. “Well, a few years ago I proposed something new. Now, we have a contest for the best Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz! Girls and women from all over come dressed as Dorothy and we choose the very best one!” Her eyes lasered in on me. “Would you like to help with the Dorothy for a Day contest?”

  I shook my head. “No, no.”

  Savannah’s face fell.

  “I mean, I’m not ready to commit to anything just yet,” I stammered.

  Heidi spoke up. “I’d like to help with the quilt competition,” she said.

  Savannah graced her with a smile. “Thank you! This is what we need: take-charge volunteers who are happy to step up and make our Dorothy Days a success!”

  If she meant that comment to be a dig at me, it worked. I thought for one second and said, “Fine, I’ll help with the Dorothy contest. As long as I don’t have to be a judge,” I added.

  Savannah flashed her mega-watt smile at me. “Wonderful! No, you won’t have to judge. We have our board members take care of that.”

  She looked expectantly at the remaining four people sitting at the tables. Most of them were elderly, but there was one young couple there who looked like they were trying to figure out how to slip away without being noticed.

  I watched as Savannah zeroed in on them, cheerfully bullying them into volunteer positions. She asked me to help make copies of more flyers, and to take a shift running the popcorn machine. I didn’t know how to say no, so I just nodded and smiled. Within ten minutes, we’d all been assigned tasks, and she’d typed our contact information into the iPad she pulled from her backpack.

  I was gathering my things to leave when Heidi approached me. Dressed in jeans and a short-sleeve t-shirt, her hair pulled into a ponytail, she looked much less severe than the previous day. Her features were still sharp but I noticed freckles dusting her cheeks and nose, and her lips looked softer, fuller without the harsh lip liner she’d worn before.

  “Thank you for staying to help yesterday,” she said. And then, because she must have seen my confusion as to how she knew I’d done this, she added, “Declan told me you and Carol handled most of the cleanup duties after the reception.”

  “It was the least I could do,” I said.

  She nodded. “Well, I appreciate it. And I’m sure Mother would, too.”

  “You must miss her terribly,” I said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Your mom,” I said. “Losing a loved one can be so hard.”

  “As I mentioned yesterday, she’s where she belongs.”

  I tried not to frown. It was such an odd thing to say.

  “Of course, I am concerned over some things I heard from the sheriff.”

  I felt the hairs rise up on the back of my neck. “Oh? What did he say?”

  She sucked in her cheeks, which made her cheekbones look like razors. “I don’t really know,” she said shortly. “He told me the cause of death was suspicious. That’s all I know.”

  “You didn’t ask for any details?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Why would I? Nothing is going to bring her back, is it?”

  She had a point. “Well, no, but…”

  “Besides,” she said, cutting me off, “I have my own suspicions if it was indeed foul play.”

  “You do?”

  She nodded.

  I waited, but she didn’t offer any details. “Are you…?” I paused. I looked around and then dropped my voice to a w
hisper. “Are you thinking it might have been George?”

  Her eyes widened in surprise and she actually chuckled. “George? Not a chance. He’s too much of a coward to try anything.” She stared at me. “No, if I had to bet money, I’d put it on Lila Bartholomew. She’s had it in for my mom since day one.”

  And just like that, we were back to Lila. I thought about what Carol and Gunnar had had to say about the elderly woman, and I remembered my own interactions with her. She was definitely a sourpuss, but a murderer?

  “Do you really think she did something to your mom?”

  “I don’t know,” Heidi said. “But I wouldn’t put it past her.”

  I nodded. I was beginning to think that I wouldn’t put it past her, either.

  TWENTY ONE

  “Please don’t kill me.”

  I was standing outside, holding on to a ladder. Gunnar was on the top rung, a chainsaw in his hands.

  “How would I kill you?” he called down. “I’m the one holding the chainsaw. I’m the one who could lose a limb up here.”

  My hands held tight to the ladder. “Yeah, well you could drop the chainsaw and slice my head off.”

  Gunnar’s chuckle rained down on me. “Only you would think of something like that.”

  He looked down at me and even from fifteen feet up, I could see his hazel eyes sparkling and the deep indent of his dimples as he smiled.

  It was Sunday afternoon and we were trimming one of the tall ash trees in the backyard. The branches were brushing the roof, and during storms and windy weather, thumping it pretty soundly. Gunnar had mentioned trimming them a while back, but we hadn’t set any firm date to tackle it.

  But then he’d shown up in his pickup with the ladder hanging out the back and asked if it was a good time to take care of it.

  Since I’d been doing absolutely nothing, I didn’t have a reason to object.

  Well, I hadn’t really been doing nothing. I’d been obsessing over Greta and what little I knew about the circumstances surrounding her death. If her death really was being considered a homicide—and I had my suspicions about that, simply because I hadn’t heard anything more about it since the sheriff’s visit and his rather cryptic remarks at the funeral—then who would have a motive to kill her? To the best of my knowledge, I had two likely suspects. Lila definitely had a motive: she wanted to win the quilt competition, and they had been rivals for years. But if Greta had been poisoned, as the sheriff had intimated, how would she have been able to accomplish that? If they were as unfriendly to each other as I’d been led to believe, Lila probably wouldn’t have been able to get near Greta to do anything to her.

  I thought the same thing about George, too. From what Carol had told me, he clearly had the temper to do something violent and rash. Even Calvin had substantiated that with his own stories. But if he and Greta had been broken up, how could he have gotten to her?

  A new thought occurred to me. If there really was “poison” in Greta’s system, maybe she had committed suicide. I didn’t know much about her mental health: what if she was really torn up over her break-up with George? Or what if she missed her husband, Nelson, and decided to take matters into her own hands so that she could be with him again? Heidi had wanted them together in eternity; maybe Greta had wanted the same thing.

  “Miss Daydreamer,” Gunnar called, snapping me back to attention.

  I regripped the ladder and it wobbled. I gasped, trying to steady it and hoping Gunnar wouldn’t plummet to his death. And take me out with him.

  “Now I think you’re trying to kill me,” he grumbled, loud enough for me to hear.

  “Sorry,” I yelled up to him.

  He answered with another smile and then pulled the cord on the chainsaw. It rumbled and roared to life and I fought the urge to jump back from the ladder. I knew I had to stay put. Gunnar was on the very top rung, despite the fact that I’d voiced my misgivings over this. He positioned his knees against the top of the ladder and leaned into position. The chainsaw whined when it hit a branch, whirring and spinning as it worked its way through the wood.

  I watched intently for a few minutes, both fascinated and terrified as branches fell to the ground. The chainsaw was loud, drowning out all other sounds, and my eyes were focused on the man at the top of the ladder. So when a shadow loomed over me and someone simultaneously tapped me on the shoulder, I jumped.

  And screamed.

  Thankfully, Gunnar didn’t hear me, and I must not have shaken the ladder because he continued attacking the tree with the saw.

  “You scared me half to death!” I said to Sheriff Lewis.

  He didn’t even have the decency to look apologetic. He adjusted the hat on his head, tipping it in acknowledgment.

  “What can I do for you?” I asked.

  He cupped his ear and frowned.

  I repeated my question, louder this time so he could hear me over the chainsaw.

  “I hear you’ve been asking questions,” Sheriff Lewis said, frowning. “Snooping around.”

  I responded with a frown of my own. “Snooping around? Where did you get that idea?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “You best keep your nose out of this, Miss Rainy Day. Especially since you are still considered a person of interest.”

  I stared at him, shaking my head. “I can’t believe you think I could somehow be involved in this. I told you, I didn’t even know Greta!”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “Motive, Sheriff,” I said, stating what I thought was the obvious. “Why would I do something to a woman I didn’t even know?”

  His frown deepened. “Attention? Or maybe you’re just a cold-blooded killer. None of us here in Latney really know you, Miss Day, but what we do know is that you seem to stir up trouble wherever you go.”

  I wanted to point out that I hadn’t stirred up trouble at all. It had come knocking on my door and sucked me in. I hadn’t sought out the bones or the fire, and I hadn’t sought out the missing person case involving Leslie, either.

  “You’re barking up the wrong tree,” I told him. I glanced back up at Gunnar. He was still sawing, oblivious to my conversation with the sheriff.

  “You think so?” the sheriff asked. He slipped his thumbs through the belt loops on his pants and hiked them up a little. “You wanna explain why your prints are all over Greta Hedley’s house?”

  “My what?”

  “Your fingerprints,” he thundered.

  He was trying to intimidate me, and it was working. My heart was beating fast and my throat felt thick and dry. I swallowed but the saliva got stuck in my throat and I ended up coughing instead.

  The sheriff gave me a satisfied smile.

  I cleared my throat. “My prints are probably in her house because I was there, Sheriff. Delivering a meal.”

  “A likely story,” he said.

  “I know it’s a likely story,” I retorted, “because it’s the only story there is.”

  “We’ll see about that.”

  I gave him an exasperated look. “Is there a reason why you’re here?”

  “Yes,” he said, nodding slowly. “I’d like to advise you not to leave town. And to maybe start looking at some legal representation. I expect to make an arrest within the next forty-eight hours.”

  My heart hammered faster. I knew exactly what he was doing: trying to intimidate me. And I knew I had nothing to worry about because I was innocent of everything he was accusing me of.

  But none of that mattered, especially when the sheriff was looming over me, his eyes narrowed, his moustache drooping into a frown.

  “Do you have any suspects?” I asked.

  “Yes. You,” he said bluntly.

  “What about Lila Bartholomew? Or George, Greta’s ex-boyfriend?”

  Sheriff Lewis glared at me. “Why are you bringing those fine people into this mess?”

  “I…I’m just suggesting that they weren’t exactly on friendly terms with Greta,” I pointed o
ut. “She and Lila were enemies because of quilting, and George and Greta had broken up. There might have been a little animosity there.”

  “It’s a darn shame I can’t bring you up on charges of slander!” he practically shouted. “Smearing the good names of these fine citizens of Latney!”

  I wanted to know why he was so quick to defend them and just as quick to accuse me, despite the fact that I had no ties to the victim and that both of the individuals I mentioned had at least a soft motive to see Greta harmed.

  But then it dawned on me.

  I was an outsider.

  Lila and George were not.

  The sheriff had no vested interest in believing me or protecting me.

  As far as he was concerned, all I’d done was cause trouble. For him, and for the citizens of his precious town. Especially for his good buddy, Len.

  This realization didn’t improve my situation, but it at least gave me a concrete reason as to why he was singling me out and trying to pin something on me that I hadn’t done.

  “Rainy?”

  It was Gunnar’s voice.

  “Is everything okay?”

  I looked to the sheriff. His face was red, and he was breathing heavily, clearly agitated.

  “Yes,” I told him in a shaky voice. The potential severity of the situation was beginning to sink in. “Everything is fine.” I held the sheriff’s gaze. “Isn’t it, Sheriff?”

  “It won’t be for long,” he growled. “If I were you, I’d take my advice and get yourself ready.” He tipped his hat again, then pivoted and stalked back to his car.

  I tried to steady my breathing and my trembling hands. I hated that he’d rattled me. Even though I knew I was innocent of what he was accusing me of, I also knew that I couldn’t find complacency in that. Plenty of people were accused of crimes they didn’t commit. Some of them even went to jail for them.

  I didn’t think my situation would come to that, but that wasn’t the only thing concerning me.

  I didn’t like that I had to consider the sheriff my enemy.

  Gunnar must have noticed something was wrong because the chainsaw turned off and before I knew what was happening, he was climbing down the ladder.