Juniper Grove Cozy Mystery Box Set 1, page 11
part #1 of Juniper Grove Cozy Mystery Series
The chief got it in one second. “You talked to Tom Ventura.”
“It was more like he talked to us,” I said.
Gilroy set his mug next to the coffeemaker and gave Julia his full attention. “Mrs. Foster, I promise you’re not going to be arrested. Don’t give it another thought.”
“Then why did Tom say that?”
Gilroy considered and responded diplomatically. “He’s having a bad week.”
It occurred to me that although Ventura’s bad week was undeniable, as was his need to ruin Gilroy, as town attorney the man had to present the chief with evidence. He couldn’t just get a bug up his nose about someone and ask Gilroy to make an arrest. “Ventura didn’t recommend you arrest Julia yesterday, but he did this morning,” I said. “What changed? What evidence did he give you?”
“Sorry, I can’t talk about that,” Gilroy said.
“So he could give this hypothetical evidence to someone else,” I said.
Julia sucked in her breath.
Gilroy took a used filter out of the coffeemaker and tossed it in a trash bin. With his back to me, he said, “The town attorney doesn’t have anything that any official would call evidence.”
I heard it in his voice and saw it in how he turned away from us both—he hated to speak about another official like that, even one he surely disliked, but to ease Julia’s mind, he had done it. He was an honorable man surrounded by dishonorable men. Who cared if he had the personality of a stone?
Gilroy’s one-sentence reassurance being all Julia needed, she moved on to the real reason for our visit. The chief made notes and thanked her, and a few minutes later, information duly passed along, we were heading for the bakery.
One shop west of the bakery, we encountered Belinda Almond.
Julia had managed to avoid her for years—looking the other way, crossing the street, going down another aisle in the grocery—but there was no dodging this time. Too many things had happened, including the death of Belinda’s presumed lover, George.
“Belinda, I’ve been wanting to talk to you about Saturday night,” I said.
“Oh?”
Both women were taking pains to look past each other, keeping their eyes on me, the sidewalk, or passersby.
“When you left my house, you were followed by Jillian Newsome in her SUV. She was parked outside my house.”
“She was? I never saw her.”
“I followed you—or I tried to. I ended up following Newsome instead. You didn’t see her?”
“To be honest, I wasn’t looking. I needed to get home.”
“Do you live nearby?”
“On Glen Haven, four blocks south. Why was she parked outside your house?”
“Who knows why that woman does what she does?” Julia said.
My jaw almost dropped. Julia was talking with her great adversary. She must have known in her heart that her husband was a pretend philanderer and Belinda, like many others, was an innocent victim of the Post.
“She’s terrible, isn’t she?” said Belinda, testing the waters.
“That so-called newspaper woman has done more damage to people in this town than anyone or anything else,” I said. I speedily amended that. “Except the murderer, of course.”
Julia looked from me to Belinda. “They might be one and the same,” she said, nodding sagely.
“Really?” Belinda leaned in, giving Julia her due.
Julia proceeded to tell Belinda what she’d seen at the Farmers’ Market Festival, and though I wasn’t sure it was wise to let on that she’d witnessed the Great Knitting Needle Clue, I thought it worth the risk if it brought the two women together. I hated gossip, but I had to admit it sometimes had that effect on people.
When we parted, Julia and Belinda were acquaintances again. Not friends, but not enemies. Belinda had offered no explanation, Julia had offered no apology. Still, I could imagine a time in the future when Belinda would join Julia, Holly, and me around my kitchen table for coffee, and the thought lifted my spirits.
“Let’s say hello to Jillian Newsome,” I said, doing an about-face and taking Julia with me.
“What? Why?”
“I’m new in town, and I’ve never visited the Juniper Grove Post.”
“She’s not going to take you on a tour.”
“Just don’t mention the knitting needle.”
“What are you really up to?”
On the next block west, standing in front of the newspaper’s building, I had to admit to Julia that I didn’t have a plan, other than to shake a few trees and see what coconuts fell out of them. I’d been too passive in my investigation. What did I care if Newsome wanted to throttle me? On the other hand, Julia didn’t need to make more enemies at the Post. “You should wait here. I’ll be in and out quickly, and you can keep an eye on the street for any of our suspects.”
“Suits me fine. After Tom Ventura, I’m not in the mood.”
I opened the building’s door and entered a long, narrow room full of cubicles. Telephones ringing, voices buzzing, people hopping up from their chairs to hand pieces of paper to other people hopping up from their chairs—it was a level of activity I wouldn’t have dreamed possible in a small-town newspaper.
“Excuse me,” I said, waylaying a young woman on her way out the door. “Does everyone here work for the Post?”
“We do now,” she said with a grin. “I’ve been trying to get a job here for months, and I was hired three days ago. Most of the new people are interns, though.”
“Are you all working on—”
“The murders, yes,” she said, nodding vigorously.
“Are you investigating—”
“Tips, yes. They’re coming in faster than we can handle them.”
“On the phone?”
“Or in person.” She glanced from side to side. “To tell you the truth, even some cops and politicians are giving us tips. It’s insane.” She giggled. “That’s why they’re sending me to Grove Coffee. We need the caffeine.”
“Politicians and cops are your sources?”
“I’ve said too much.” She put a finger to her lips. “More than I should have.”
“Be careful of these tips,” I warned as she started to walk away.
Throwing me an astonished look over her shoulder, she mouthed, “Why?”
The girl was eager and ambitious, two qualities that made her far too willing to trust. One day you’ll find out why, I thought.
Since no one seemed interested in challenging my authority to walk around the building, I did just that, hunting for Newsome. I found her almost immediately, sitting in a glass-walled office at the end of the narrow room, behind a large desk on which two computer monitors sat, positioned like sentries to her right and left. The Juniper Grove Post had become the Denver Herald.
I walked toward the office, focusing on the seated figure to the right of her desk, his face obscured by frosted glass. As I drew closer, he stood, revealing himself, and I came to a stop. Officer Hammond plunked his uniform hat on his head and shook Newsome’s hand—a hearty, congratulatory shake. The shake of two people working in unison but strictly for their own selfish purposes. Was Hammond also one of the tipsters? Feeding Newsome the kind of information that would help his career path and remove Gilroy from the competition? How I’d misjudged his friendly face.
Hammond reached for the office door. Not wanting him to see me, I started for the exit. Hairs stood on the back of my neck as he neared, his footsteps falling heavy on the floor. “Rachel Stowe?” he called out.
I planted a cheery expression on my face and turned. “Officer Hammond. Why on earth are you here?”
He laughed and smiled his open, toothy smile. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I didn’t think the police and the newspaper got along.”
“The paper is part of the community.”
“The paper thinks it runs the community.”
“If you keep on its friendly side, it’s not so bad.”
“What does keeping it friendly entail, Officer? Helping Jillian Newsome’s political agenda?”
His grin vanished. “What?”
“How about leaking details of murder investigations?” It took every ounce of willpower I possessed to stop short of telling him I knew he was trying to ruin Gilroy.
“Look, you’re a writer, and writers like to imagine things,” he said. He leaned in close to my face, his breath smelling of coffee and bacon. “For that reason, I’ll cut you a break. But don’t ever accuse me of being a dirty cop.”
CHAPTER 15
I talked Julia into making a stop at the Juniper Grove Library so I could dig up last week’s issue of the Post. She had tossed her copy after using it to wrap some moldy back-of-the-refrigerator casserole, she told me with glee. Luckily, the library kept print copies of the paper going back two weeks. I needed the issue Julia had brought me Thursday morning, the one on the court’s declaration that George Foster was legally dead.
“Why do you have to read this again?” Julia whispered, following me to a large oak table.
I opened the paper on the table, and she leaned in sideways for a better look. “I never read it all,” I whispered back. “Remember?”
According to the article, the hearing was perfunctory. Testifying to Foster’s presumed death were Chief Gilroy and Officer Hammond, who had found the broken raft and Mitch Dillard’s battered body in the rocks of the Blue River. They couldn’t imagine Foster surviving the same trip, they told the court. And both testified that as far as they could see, Julia Foster had never benefited financially from her husband’s bank theft. As did Tom Ventura, Holly Kavanagh, and Julia’s children in Montana and Ohio via written statement. There was no mention of the now-mayor, Douglas McDermott.
“Maybe this is why Holly got one of Aiden’s notes,” I said under my breath, tapping a finger on the article. “She was vehement in saying George was dead and you never got a penny from him. Everyone who testified in your favor got a note. The police, Ventura, and Holly.”
“Yes, of course,” Julia said. “Holly wasn’t part of the original investigation, but she came to the hearing.”
“And Belinda got a note because Aiden believed the newspaper’s lies about her and probably thought she’d planned the whole thing with your husband.” I leaned back in my chair, puzzling over the twists and turns of the case, how the good guys had turned into bad guys and vice versa. “Tom Ventura did a one-eighty this morning,” I said a little too loudly.
Julia cringed and said she was going to “leave me to it” and search for a book on gardening. Her disappearance allowed me to do a search of the microfiche for the paper’s photo of Belinda Almond and George Foster at the library benefit party. I wanted to see for myself what the photographer had captured seven-plus years ago. It didn’t take long to find the issue that covered the benefit, and from there I simply scrolled down to the third page. There it was.
There was indeed a look of surprise on Belinda’s face—and slithery pleasure on Foster’s. And yet, in Belinda’s eyes I saw something more. If it had been another woman, a woman who hadn’t professed her utter distaste for Foster, I might have called it delight. I removed the microfiche sheet and flicked off the machine.
I spotted Julia at the checkout desk, gestured toward the library door, and waited for her to catch up. We walked a block to a small park and sat on a bench under a crabapple tree. Autumn was officially less than a week away, but the day was already warm, and with no storms in the forecast, it would only get warmer. I squinted past the sunlight reflecting off the pond in front of us, out to a thin rectangle of land overgrown with tall grasses and, beyond that, the Lilac Lane B&B’s rear parking lot. Questions were running over themselves in my mind, one question overtaking another and then another, like race horses on a track.
Did Belinda Almond really have an affair with Julia’s husband or was I imagining that look in her eyes? More pertinent to my investigation, why did George Foster and Aiden Dillard return to Juniper Grove? Did one know the other was here?
“I always wondered what I would have done if George had left me any of that stolen money,” Julia said.
“You would have returned it,” I said without hesitation.
“Probably. Not that I had to worry about it.”
I sensed a touch of bitterness in her voice. Yes, she would have returned the money, but she’d never had to face the moral quandary because her husband hadn’t left her a cent. He hadn’t considered her future at all. “I know you, Julia. You wouldn’t have kept a penny.”
She nodded, resigned to facing the downside of her own principles. “But some people will always believe George left me money. They can’t imagine that he wouldn’t have.”
“Honestly, I can’t either. Not even five thousand dollars? The cheapskate.”
Julia laughed half-heartedly and said, “He wasn’t always that way. Early in our marriage . . .” She fell silent, shaking her head.
My friend put up a good show of having gotten over George’s crime, desertion, and double death, but I could see it pained her, and I thought I understood that pain, at least partly. I had planned a life with Brent. He seemed to love me despite my flaws—my too-pointy chin, my thin eyebrows, and the weird cowlick at the back of my head. Yet without even the decency to tell me why, he had left. For the longest time I’d felt unworthy. Felt being the key word. I understood in my mind that he was the one who had failed and that I was not to blame, but my feelings lagged far behind my thoughts. Brent was not a good man. Then why did I still love him?
I veered away from that thought and redirected my attention to George Foster. He and the bank’s vice president had planned the theft, planned the getaway. It all went awry, but surely they had talked it through in detail beforehand. According to Julia, she and George had drifted apart before he left her, but they’d been married for decades, and I couldn’t bring myself to believe that meant nothing to a husband, even to a husband like George. “I really can’t imagine him not leaving you any money,” I said.
“You and me both.”
“No, I mean it. I don’t believe it.” My mind was in a whirl. Was it as simple as that? “It’s the timing. I’ve always wondered about that, but it’s obvious, isn’t it?”
“The timing of what?”
“Why George came back after seven years.” It began to fall together, and suddenly I knew with certainty why George had returned to Juniper Grove. The newspaper article had drawn him. I threw out my hand, gripping Julia’s arm.
“Is this you solving the case?” she said wryly.
“Listen. Maybe your husband didn’t have time to bury any money, but he could have asked someone to give you some of it. Either way, somehow, he left you money. And when he saw the article about the court hearing, where you and Holly swore you never saw a cent, he knew it was the truth.”
Julia’s look of astonishment told me that the thought had never crossed her mind. “I can’t think of anyone my George trusted enough to give money to.”
“The fact that you’ve struggled for money these past seven years was the only news in that article that would have drawn George back to Juniper Grove. Everything else was just a retelling of the day he and Dillard stole the money—the same information that’s been in the paper a dozen times.”
“What about someone at the bank? Could he have given them money?”
“I don’t think so. It would be too risky to have three people at the same small bank in on the theft. It had to be someone else. But he returned to Juniper Grove to find out what happened to your money, I’m sure of it. You were supposed to be taken care of, and someone let him down. No, more than that. Someone stole his stolen money.” It all made sense, and the more I talked, the more I was convinced. “Aiden Dillard was drawn by the same article. I think the court hearing stirred his resentment over his father’s death, and he had to come back, if only to beat the bushes and cause trouble for everyone he blamed. I’ll bet he had no idea George was here too.”
“One article on one court hearing—”
“Brought them both back.”
“And caused their murders,” Julia said solemnly. “All because of money.”
In the blink of an eye, my logical reconstruction of events came crashing down. “No, wait,” I said, slapping my hand to my forehead. “How would they read an article printed in that tiny newspaper? Aiden Dillard was in Utah and your husband could have been a thousand miles away.”
I stood and stretched my back from side to side. I’d been sitting far too much lately, ignoring my trail-walking plans, and my back was talking to me about it. “Let’s go look at the flowers.” Taking a breather and then examining the facts with a fresh perspective often did the trick when I’d backed myself into a plot corner with my mystery novels, so why not now? One puzzle was much the same as any other.
We wandered toward the park’s flower gardens, brimming with purple salvias, pinks asters, and yellow penstemons, all still blooming as if it was midsummer. Even the bees were laboring, collecting nectar as they would on a warm July day.
“I planted hollyhocks on the south side of my house two years ago,” Julia said absentmindedly. “I didn’t realize they only lasted two years. It seems such a waste now.”
“Plant a perennial like these penstemons,” I said, brushing my hand across the tops of the taller blooms. Like Julia, I thought there was little point in tending to a plant that died in two years. Some perennials lasted a decade. Or a lifetime. Time. Julia had waited seven years to be legally rid of the trouble George Foster had caused in her life. “I’ve read that seven years is the usual amount of time it takes to declare a missing person dead.”
“Unless there’s a good reason to do it sooner,” Julia answered. “But because George stole hundreds of thousands of dollars, a lot of people assumed he was still alive and in hiding.” A frown creased her face. “And so he was. I had to wait the full seven years.”
“George would know that.”
“And Aiden would have found out, as obsessed as he was.”
“Is there an online version of the paper?”
