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

  “What was that all about?” he asked as he stepped off the bottom rung. He was still holding the chainsaw, and I couldn’t help but notice how taut his bicep was as he held the heavy piece of equipment.

  “Oh, nothing,” I said hastily, pasting on a smile.

  He cocked an eyebrow. “What did the sheriff want?”

  I hesitated. He knew a little bit about my troubles with the sheriff—after all, I’d told Gunnar the other night that he was making noises about me being involved—but I didn’t want to pull him all the way in. Not because I thought he wouldn’t side with me; Gunnar knew all too well what Sheriff Lewis was like, and I had no doubt he would leap to my defense.

  But that was just it. I didn’t want to be the damsel in distress. I didn’t want to constantly need rescuing. I already depended on him enough. Any time something remotely mechanical popped up, he was the first person I called. He’d fixed more things in my house than I had, and he had always been willing to help, regardless of what I needed. And, like Declan, he’d fixed me emotionally, too. Declan was my rock when I needed advice; Gunnar lifted my spirits and made me laugh. Different, but just as vital.

  “Rainy?” He lowered the chainsaw to the ground and took a step closer, a frown creasing his forehead. “You okay?”

  Wordlessly, I shook my head.

  Within seconds, he was by my side, his hand on my arm. It was warm and strong and it didn’t melt me: it destroyed me. I felt the tears well up in my eyes, the sob hitch in my throat.

  Gunnar gave me an alarmed look. “What is going on?”

  “He…he really thinks I did it,” I managed to choke out. “He’s going to try to blame me for Greta’s death. However he can.”

  Gunnar squeezed my arm. “He has no evidence,” he said gently. “This is just how that bozo does things. You know that.”

  “I’m an outsider,” I said. The tears had leaked from my eyes to my cheeks and I brushed them away. “He doesn’t believe a word I say. And he’s going to paste together all of his supposed evidence to arrest me.” I took a deep, shuddering breath. “I should have never moved to this town. Never!”

  Gunnar moved his hand from my arm to my shoulder and pulled me against his chest. I could hear his heart beating, could feel the warmth of his skin through his shirt. He smelled like sandalwood and gasoline.

  “Don’t you worry,” he said, his mouth moving against my hair as he spoke. “I’ll go have a talk with the sheriff. He’s blowing smoke, and he needs to stop.”

  I shook my head. “No, I don’t want you getting involved.”

  “Why not?”

  Because I wanted to fight my own battles. Because I didn’t want to get anyone involved who might later resent having done so.

  I didn’t answer. His hands gripped my shoulders and he pulled me just far enough away from him so that he could look me in the eye.

  “Why not?” he repeated.

  The look of confusion mixed with concern sent a fresh wave of tears from my eyes. I tried to turn away from him so he wouldn’t see but he touched my chin with his forefinger, keeping me facing him.

  “I just…I don’t want to involve you,” I whispered.

  “Too late,” he whispered back. His eyes locked on mine. “I already am.”

  I don’t know who made the first move.

  And I didn’t care.

  Because when Gunnar’s lips met mine, I knew one thing:

  He was definitely involved.

  And so was I.

  TWENTY TWO

  I couldn’t stop thinking about Gunnar’s kiss.

  Which was problematic, because I was standing at Savannah Spring’s doorstep, waiting to pick up the flyer I’d promised to have copied for Dorothy Days, and all I could think about was Gunnar’s arms around me, his lips on mine.

  The kiss had been electric. A toe-curling, insides-on-fire kind of kiss.

  The moments after had been decidedly less so.

  As with the question of who had initiated the kiss, I also didn’t know who had broken away from the embrace first. I did know, however, that my cheeks had practically heated to boiling point and Gunnar had simply smiled, an impish, knowing grin that had ignited all sorts of feelings in me on my own. Instead of responding or reacting to the kiss, I’d simply picked up the chainsaw and handed it back to him, asking if he was going to finish trimming the tree. He’d given me a sideways glance, opened his mouth to say something, then stopped. With a wink, he’d simply nodded and hopped back up on the ladder. And I’d spent the remaining thirty minutes watching him standing above me, trying to figure out what the heck I was supposed to do about my feelings for him.

  The door to the house swung open, and Savannah greeted me with a smile. “Rainy,” she gushed. “I’m so glad you could come by!”

  “I said I’d be by for the flyers,” I reminded her.

  “Yes, yes,” she said, nodding. “It’s just so nice that you do what you say you’re going to do. We appreciate that in our volunteers. We appreciate you!”

  I forced a smile. Her enthusiasm was veering into the irritating category.

  “Are they ready?” I asked. “The flyers? I can take them over to Winslow this afternoon and get them copied.” I vaguely remembered seeing a mail and copy place near the sheriff’s office.

  Savannah frowned. “Oh, you don’t need to take them over there. Toby’s has a little photocopying center.”

  “They do?” I’d been shopping at the town’s grocery store for months and had never noticed a copy center.

  “They sure do,” she said, nodding. “It’s attached to the pharmacy.”

  I raised my eyebrows. I’d never visited that section of the store, so it made sense that I hadn’t noticed it. I wasn’t sure why they would lump drugs and photocopies together, but there were lots of things in Latney that didn’t make sense.

  “Just give me a sec and I’ll grab it,” Savannah said. “Do you want to come in? Maybe stay for a cup of coffee or something?”

  I tried to be as polite as possible when I declined. “Thanks, but no. I have some stuff I need to do around the house today.” I didn’t want to admit that I would be far too distracted by what had transpired with Gunnar earlier that day to be able to focus on polite small talk with a woman I barely knew.

  “Gotcha!” She smiled again. “You really are a go-getter, aren’t you? Always busy, always doing things. I like that!”

  I waited to roll my eyes until she walked away from the door. Yes, she had definitely crossed over to irritating.

  I stood on the front porch and waited for her to return with the flyer. Her house was a simple, one-story patio home, painted a soft blue with dark blue accent. The yellow front door provided a nice pop of bright color, and matched the blooming daisies that bordered the house. Savannah’s house was a block down from Greta’s: same street, same side of the street. As I stood there, watching bumblebees dive-bomb the daisies, I wondered if she had known her elderly neighbor. I couldn’t recall seeing her at the funeral service, but then again, I hadn’t met her at that point and she probably would have just blended in with the rest of the sea of unfamiliar faces.

  Savannah returned with a manila envelope. She opened it to show me the contents. A single flyer, with the image of a lake and a shadowy figure of Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz. Below the image were the dates of the festival along with a calendar of events.

  “We should probably make two hundred copies,” she told me. “And I have a list of places you can hang them up, both here and in Winslow. If you want to head over to Meyersville, you could do that, too. We have people from miles away who come for this event,”

  I wrinkled my brow. “Um, I’m just photocopying these.”

  She put a hand on her hip. “Well, what good will that do if we get them copied but don’t distribute them, silly?” She chuckled. “I know you said you have some stuff to do this afternoon so it’s totally fine if you want to hold off putting these up until tomorrow. But we really need to move
on this: the event is less than a month away and we need to make sure people are aware of the dates and get them on their calendars.”

  “I can’t—”

  But she wasn’t listening. She thrust the envelope at me and flashed me a bright smile. “Thank you so much for helping us, Rainy! I know you’re new in town, and I know you’ve had a bit of a rough go with everything that’s happened. This is such a good move, getting involved with the community. I’ll be sure that everyone knows how important you were to the success of our event!”

  Before I could say another word, she waved her hand and closed the door. I stood there, speechless, the envelope limp in my hands.

  Somehow, my responsibilities for Dorothy Days had now morphed into making hundreds of photocopies of the flyer and distributing them to all of the businesses in the neighboring towns.

  The normal, sane Rainy would have knocked on that front door until Savannah Springs opened it, and then told her in no uncertain terms what she could do with her stack of flyers.

  But I was no longer sane and normal Rainy. I was worried, paranoid Rainy, the woman who thought the sheriff was out to get her and the woman who, standing on that doorstep, having been bullied into doing a job I hadn’t signed up to do, decided that distributing flyers was a surefire way to convince the town—and the man who had it in for me—that I wasn’t an outsider. That I was invested, and an integral member of the town of Latney.

  Clutching my folder, I spun on my heel and headed back to my car. I would do what she wanted, but not because she had bullied me into it. I would do it to help myself.

  I adjusted the air conditioning the minute I turned the car on, aiming the vent so that it was blowing directly on me. I would go and make the copies now, and then come up with a plan of attack for getting them distributed. It would be easy enough to hit the businesses in Latney. I could do those on my way home from the store; at least the ones that were open today. Winslow and the surrounding towns were another matter, but I would cross that bridge tomorrow. Or the next day. Or never, depending upon whether my sanity returned.

  I pulled away from the curb, away from Savannah’s house and back toward downtown Latney. Toby’s was just a few minutes away and, with any luck, I’d have the flyer photocopied and distributed to the various businesses in short order.

  I slowed to a stop at the stop sign and waited for a group of kids to cross on their bikes. They were a medley of ages, from grade school to high school, and they all had towels in their arms or in bike baskets, which led me to believe they were headed to Lake Dorothy for a day of swimming. It was a good day for it: hot but not too muggy, with an endless, cloudless sky.

  As I waited for them to cross, I gazed toward Greta’s house. It looked exactly the same as it had almost a week earlier, and I felt a little pang of sadness, knowing the house was now sitting empty. I wondered what would happen to it now that Greta was gone. Would Heidi sell it? Move in herself? I didn’t know where she lived or even what she did for a living.

  I was mulling over these thoughts when a man appeared in her side yard. He walked slowly, and seemed to be ducking and sticking close to the wall, as if he didn’t want to be seen. I leaned over my steering wheel, trying to get a better view. There was no visible uniform, nothing to indicate he might be a utility worker of some kind.

  I squinted, and then my eyes widened as I recognized some of his features. His tall, thin frame. His wispy white hair.

  My mouth dropped open.

  George Weddle was the man sneaking around the exterior of Greta’s house.

  TWENTY THREE

  I pulled through the stop sign and then parked next to the curb. I was out of my car in seconds, and in front of George just as fast.

  “What are you doing?” I blurted out as I approached him,

  He gave me a look of surprise, and then his expression darkened. “What’s it to you?”

  I swallowed, trying to soften my approach. Just because I saw him lurking around his dead ex-girlfriend’s house did not mean I needed to attack him. At least not right away.

  “I just was surprised to see you here,” I said in a gentler voice. I smiled and hoped it didn’t look as fake as it felt.

  He eyed me suspiciously for a minute, but then he lowered his gaze and sighed. “I was just here to visit.”

  “To visit?”

  George nodded. “I…I still can’t believe she’s gone.” His voice caught and he cleared his throat. Despite my suspicions about him, I felt a little sorry for him. He was clearly upset by Greta’s death, and was probably struggling with a whole bunch of emotions.

  “So you just…come over?”

  He nodded again. “It helps me feel closer to her,” he said. He gave me a teary-eyed smile. “Sometimes I just sit outside. Her backyard has a wooden swing, one of those patio ones. We would sit out there sometimes. She would quilt and I would read. Well, when I wasn’t feeling seasick. Darn thing always got to my stomach.”

  The smile on my face was genuine this time.

  “But sometimes, I go on inside. Sit down in her rocking chair. Make some tea—peppermint was her favorite. That smell will always remind me of her.”

  I tried not to look alarmed. “You go in the house?” I immediately wondered if Melvin had forgotten to lock it up after removing Greta’s body.

  George gave me a defensive look. “I have a key. Greta gave it to me herself!”

  “I didn’t say there was anything wrong with it,” I said quickly. “I was just…surprised, that’s all.”

  He grunted. “I lost the love of my life. I’m going to do whatever I can to still feel close to her. And Greta, well, she’s good company and all, but she’s not…Greta.”

  It took me a minute to remember. The dog. He was talking about his renamed dog.

  I gave him a sympathetic smile.

  It was apparently all the encouragement he needed, because he continued. “There are a lot of things I regret, Miss Day.” His expression hardened, the lines in his forehead almost crater-like. “Things I can’t take back. But I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to make it up to Greta. She didn’t deserve what happened to her.”

  Alarm bells were ringing in my head, loudly and insistently. Was he confessing what I thought he was confessing? Did he have something to do with Greta’s death?

  I couldn’t just come out and ask him. But what I could do was ask other questions, to see if I could somehow build a case on the statements he made.

  “We all have things we regret,” I said. “Have you come to visit often this last week?”

  George shrugged, his bony shoulders almost hitting his neck. “A few times. It’s been hard to stay away.”

  “Sure,” I said, nodding. “And you said Greta gave you the key? How long have you had it?”

  He glanced down at his hand and I noticed the shiny silver key he was palming. “A few months. She gave it to me a few weeks before we broke up. Her hearing had gotten pretty bad, and she didn’t always answer the door.”

  I knew this to be a true statement. Even though the reason she hadn’t responded when I’d rung the doorbell was because she was dead, Declan had told me that she had indeed been hard of hearing.

  “Didn’t she leave the door unlocked for you?” I asked, remembering Declan’s words.

  George’s cheeks flushed and he glanced down at the grass. “Not after she went to bed,” he mumbled.

  My own cheeks colored at this admission. “I see,” I said. I tried to change the subject, or at least get back to the subject at hand. “So you used the key when…when she was still with us?”

  “Of course,” he said. “We were together. If you know what I mean.”

  I was sure I was red as a beet at this point. “And you’ve used it a few times this week? To come by and pay your respects, I mean?”

  “I wasn’t paying my respects,” he grumbled. “I did that at the service. I’m here to be close to Greta, period. Because I can’t believe she’s gone. And I have a lot
to make up to her.”

  I didn’t know what else I could ask him so I just nodded and pondered his words.

  He said he had a lot of regrets. He said he needed to make things up to her.

  I could have been wrong, but I was pretty sure those words hinted at something sinister.

  It felt like George Weddle was responsible for Greta’s death.

  TWENTY FOUR

  As much as I wanted to call Sheriff Lewis right then and have him arrest George on the spot, I knew I couldn’t do it.

  All I had was speculation. If I called in my suspicions to law enforcement with just that, I’d be no better than the sheriff, who was running around flinging accusations at me.

  So I planted another polite, friendly smile on my face and bid George goodbye. Even though I thought there was more to what he was saying. And even though I was thinking he was a murderer.

  I got back in my car and drove the few blocks to Toby’s, mulling things over. If I’d caught George sneaking around the house, and if he’d admitted entering the house after her death and using the key to come in unannounced while she was alive that definitely gave him the means necessary to get inside. If the sheriff was right about Greta being poisoned, George would have had the ability to tamper with her food or drinks. He said she liked peppermint tea—how easy would it have been to doctor that in some way?

  I thought about his feelings for her. He did seem to love her. But then I remembered what I’d learned when I had been looking for Leslie. Love and hate went hand in hand. George and Greta had broken up: they had a passionate history, filled with both love and hate, and George had the temper to perhaps act irrationally. Both Carol and Calvin had given credence to that.

  I pulled into the parking lot of Toby’s and grabbed the manila envelope. As much as I felt like I had new, solid information, I still didn’t feel as though it was enough to turn over. And that was frustrating.