Lethal Little Lies (Jubilant Falls Series Book 3) Read online

“Good morning sunshine. Happy Tuesday,” I whispered as I stood on tiptoe to kiss him. I had on my farm wife gear—insulated overalls, boots with manure that never came out of the treads, and a sweatshirt. My barn coat hung on a hook by the kitchen door, the same door I’d come through just three and a half hours ago.

  He smiled down at me and kissed my forehead. “Good morning.” It was one of those rare moments when I felt like it was the first year of our marriage, before we’d moved from our small apartment to this, his parents’ farm, with a new baby girl and all our hopes for the future.

  Back then, we hadn’t been tested by hard years of poor crops or bouts with sick livestock, Isabella’s suicide attempt and bipolar diagnosis, or the constant wear that my job put on all of us. We’d come through it all, stronger mostly, but it would be nice not to have to struggle quite so much. This hospital job would do that for us.

  Pouring me a cup of coffee, Duncan nodded at the piece of paper lying on the kitchen table. “Thought about it at all?”

  “Just how much better it would make our lives, that’s all.”

  “But do you want to do it?”

  I sighed. “You know I love my job. But the furloughs, the cutbacks—they all make me think newspapers aren’t going to be around much longer.”

  “Come on out to the barn with me. We can talk about it.”

  I slipped my barn coat on and stuffed my hands in the pockets, feeling the bits of hay there, and fell in step beside Duncan as we walked toward the barn, following the small circle of light that shone from Duncan’s flashlight.

  The sun was just beginning to come up over the horizon, peeking between our dairy barn and the equipment barn, both structures long in need of paint and repairs. We’d kept the dairy barn in better shape, admittedly, since it housed the cows that provided farm income. The equipment barn wasn’t much, just enough to keep the rattletrap combine and the old Allis Chalmers tractor out of the weather. On the other side of the equipment barn was the old hen house Duncan had converted to house his graphic design business.

  The cold made our breath hang in the early morning air in silver clouds. The snow crunched between our boots and the thin gravel beneath.

  “So, have you made a decision?” Duncan asked.

  “I don’t know. I really like the financial part. I like the hours. I don’t know if I can be some corporate hack spouting the party line.”

  “For a hospital, how much of a party line could there be?”

  Before I could answer, Duncan pointed with the flashlight at fresh tire tracks leading from the side of my Taurus to the equipment barn. He raised his finger to his lips.

  “Go back in the house,” he whispered. “Call the police. I don’t know who this is, but—”

  Ignoring him, I grabbed the flashlight from him and ran to the door, pushing it open.

  “Hey!” I yelled. “Who ever you are, come out now!”

  The light from the flashlight fell on the fender of a black Pontiac Solstice and captured a black curly head rising from the front seat of the sports car parked beside the Allis Chalmers.

  Rick Starrett, normally so smooth and sharp, was rumpled and tired. He stepped out of the Solstice, blinking and rubbing his eyes at the sudden light. Who knows when he pulled into the barn or how long he’d been there. I hadn’t noticed any tracks when I pulled in last night, but then I wasn’t thinking about Rick Starrett any more.

  “I’m sorry, Penny—I didn’t know where else to go. But, I didn’t do it. I didn’t shoot Virginia Ferguson.”

  Chapter 9 Marcus

  It was nearly one in the morning Tuesday and I’d been staring out the window of the waiting room, watching the cars—patients, staff, delivery personnel—come and go in the hospital parking lot when the surgeon came out to tell me Kay made it.

  The lights hung above the rows of cars parked haphazardly around the cold dirty piles of plowed snow, everything yellowed in the eerie glow. A few blocks to the south I could see the illuminated stone clock tower of the courthouse and the glassy black tower of Aurora Enterprises, the business Kay ran, which provided us with such material wealth.

  Between them sat the Journal-Gazette. I wondered if Graham Kinnon, who’d been up to see me after Kay went into surgery, had completed his story on Kay. I couldn’t even remember the quote I’d given him.

  Lillian, Bronson and PJ had gone downstairs to the cafeteria for coffee. Andrew hadn’t arrived yet. I was with my thoughts for a while.

  As each car came and went, passing into or out of those lights, their color changed, much like I feared my life was changing. Would I have the woman I loved? And who did this to her? What if she didn’t make it? How would the kids and I rebuild what we’d had for so many years? Would our lives retain the same color or would the hue be forever changed?

  “Mr. Henning?”

  “Yes?” I couldn’t turn around. If she was gone, I didn’t want to know. I stared at an ambulance, pulling silently into the parking lot. Who was in the back of that vehicle? Were they alive? Dead? Whose heart was being broken as the doors of the emergency room slid open?

  “Your wife is in recovery. She’s going to be OK.”

  Breath rushed out of my chest. I leaned my forehead against the cold glass and squeezed my eyes together to keep relieved tears from falling.

  “We got the bullet—what was left of it—out. She’s lost her spleen, but she’ll do fine without it. There were a couple small nicks to her stomach and intestine, which we sewed up, and she’s lost a lot of blood, but she’s going to be OK. Fortunately, the bullet missed her kidney.”

  I finally turned around. “Thank you so much.”

  The doctor was a short, muscular black man with a graying goatee. He wore blue scrubs and surgical cap. Reading glasses sat at the edge of his wide nose and his brown eyes told me he’d seen too many gunshot wounds in his medical career, even here in Jubilant Falls.

  “I’ve called the police and let them know she’s made it. When she comes to, which should be sometime later in the afternoon, they are going to want to talk to her.” He flipped through Kay’s chart. “She is going to be on a lot of pain medications the next few days, so she’ll be pretty loopy. Do you have any other questions?

  I nodded. “I just wish I knew who wanted her dead.”

  The doctor folded his arms across Kay’s chart, his muscular arms holding it to his chest.

  “Mr. Henning, I don’t know what led to this situation and I don’t know who you deal with on a regular basis, but I’m going to take a leap here and tell you something I wouldn’t say to many others. I’ve seen your name in the paper. A lot. I know what kind of stories you do. I’ve also seen this kind of injury more than once and whoever shot your wife didn’t want her dead. They wanted her—or you—warned.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Your wife was shot with a .22 caliber handgun with a fully-jacketed bullet. I’ve had patients walk into the emergency room with that kind of wound. Your wife’s loss of blood was what put her life at risk.”

  The elevator at the end of the hall opened and the kids stepped out. High stepping like a model on the runway Lillian held a cardboard tray with four lidded Styrofoam cups. PJ had his hands jammed deep in his pockets and stared at the floor as he walked. Bronson walked dutifully behind Lillian.

  I turned back to the doctor.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Just what I said—somebody wanted to warn either you or your wife. I’ll share it with the police, but I recommend you don’t tell them.” He nodded at the trio walking toward us.

  “But what if whoever did this comes back?”

  “I would take precautions, but what I told you was my own conjecture. I might be completely wrong.”

  Lillian dropped her runway walk when she saw the doctor. “Daddy—what’s going on? Is Mom OK?”

  “She’s in recovery right now,” the doctor said. “She’ll be moved to intensive care and you can visit her there. Because of her condition, visito
rs will be limited to family. The nurse will come out shortly and bring you back to see her.”

  He looked me in the eye. “Remember what I told you,” he said, backing toward the double doors of the surgical suite. “Or at least think about it.” The doors swung open and he was gone.

  “What did that mean?” PJ asked.

  “He was giving me some hints on how to take care of Mom once we get her home,” I said, sounding smoother than I felt.

  Another forty-five minutes, after we’d finished our coffees, the nurse finally came out and led us back to the ICU. Glass-walled rooms circled spoke-like around a central nurses’ station.

  Kay’s red hair was spread across the pillow, her white skin looked even paler and there were oxygen tubes at her nostrils. Her face was bruised; there were a couple stitches in her lower lip. Her chest rose and fell deeply as the heart monitor at the head of the bed beeped rhythmically. We circled the bed. I held Kay’s left hand and Lilly took her right.

  “Mom,” Lillian whispered. “Mom, we’re here. We love you.”

  “She’s probably not going to be awake until later this morning, probably close to lunch,” the nurse said. “If you want to go home and get some sleep, we can let you know when she wakes up.”

  “I’d like to stay here, maybe sleep in the chair?” I asked. “You kids can head home.”

  The nurse nodded. “I’ll bring you some blankets and a pillow.”

  PJ and Lillian leaned over Kay and kissed her gently then left, Bronson close behind my daughter.

  Smart boy, I couldn’t help thinking to myself.

  With the hospital-issue pillow and blanket, I settled into the chair and before long, fell asleep.

  The voice woke me up—husky and dark, smelling of too much whiskey and too many cigarettes. I hadn’t heard that voice in months. I never wanted to hear it again.

  “I hope your wife gets better Marcus. Terrible what happened.”

  I shot out of the chair and to the door. The entire unit was semi-dark, except for the nurse’s station that sat in the center, illuminated enough for them to monitor their patients. Red numbers—5:31— glowed on the wall. A nurse looked up at me.

  “Everything OK, Mr. Henning?” she asked softly.

  A cleaning woman in blue scrubs, with long dreadlocks crammed into a hair net, pushed a bucket out of the unit, using both hands on the mop handle to steer. The squeak of one wobbly wheel echoed off the walls.

  “Who was just in this room?”

  “No one.”

  “You sure? Not her?” I pointed at the cleaning woman, who turned around and glared at me.

  “No. No one except me and I haven’t been in there in twenty minutes.”

  I rubbed my thinning hair. “I guess I must have been dreaming.”

  “Sleeping in a chair is never very comfortable,” she said soothingly. “Bad dreams at times like this wouldn’t surprise me.”

  “I guess.”

  “See if you can get some more sleep. Rounds are going to start in about another hour.”

  I sighed and stepped to Kay’s side, smoothing her hair. I leaned over and kissed her cheek. “Baby, I love you,” I whispered. Her eyelids fluttered, but did not open.

  I pulled the chair I’d been sleeping in next to the bed and sat down. I folded my arms on the mattress close to Kay’s legs, laid my head down and fell instantly asleep.

  *****

  I met Charlie on a plane.

  An angular woman of medium height, she sat next to me on a Thursday night flight out of Chicago. I was on my way to a Seattle mystery writer’s conference, courtesy of my publisher.

  I wasn’t the guest of honor, accorded the responsibility of speaking at the Saturday night dinner. Instead, I would be speaking at the Friday night welcoming dinner, on journalists as mystery novel characters, serving on a few panels, signing books and enduring part of a late Saturday cocktail party thrown by my publisher where fans could meet me and the three other authors they’d shipped to Seattle.

  It was the fourth weekend in a row that I’d left Kay at home.

  I was sitting in the window seat when my traveling companion sank into the chair next to me. She had a sharp jutting jaw, a hawk-like nose and her slightly graying brown hair cut just below her chin that angled forward toward her thin red mouth. She was wearing a black sleeveless dress, with large silver bangle jewelry at her ears and wrists. Something that looked like silver-coated shrapnel hung on a chain around her neck.

  “Hi, I’m Charlie.” Her alto-register voice rasped almost like a man, I guessed from too many years of smoking and drinking. “Real name’s Charlene, but nobody calls me that.”

  “Marcus Henning. Headed to Seattle?”

  “Yes. Writer’s conference.” She dipped her shoulder and tilted her head my way. “I write mysteries,” she whispered.

  “Really? Are you headed to the Blood on The Page conference? At the Hilton?”

  “Yes! Don’t tell me you are too?”

  “As a matter of fact, I’m speaking there.”

  “No! So am I!”

  I pulled the seminar schedule from inside my blazer. “Don’t tell me you’re Charlotte De Laguerre. You’re speaking Saturday night.”

  “The very same. I was born Charlene Deifenbaugh, but that doesn’t sell a whole lotta books. And as the only girl in a family of six boys, I got christened Charlie pretty quick. My agent suggested my pen name. So is Marcus Henning your real name or the name you write under?”

  “My real name. My mother was a fan of Roman history.”

  “You know, I’ve read your book—very good for a first time out.”

  “Thank you. I’ve read yours, too, you know. There are not many people who can pull off a Celtic murder mystery. I’m sure the research was exhausting.”

  “Not too bad—I had my husband do a lot of the legwork. He’s not currently working, so he had time to kill.” Charlie rolled her eyes as she took another sip from her drink. “I had to verify it all, but at least he did the heavy lifting.”

  “Really? That’s great he’d do that for you. My wife, Kay, wasn’t all that interested in the writing process of my book.” Or the book itself, truth be told. Kay hadn’t been interested—or maybe she felt threatened. I don’t know if she even read it. I could see now, that vacuum was the beginning of our estrangement.

  She leaned in toward me, invading my space. “That’s too bad. Trust me, I understand when spouses don’t think your writing is interesting. So… tell me more about this very sexy Chapman character you’ve created.”

  Our conversation exploded. I barely remembered the rest of the flight. My character Rhys Chapman had been created in a vacuum—no critique group, no other writers to bounce my ideas off of, not a mentor to guide me. I’d written it alone.

  Charlie, however, was fascinated with his genesis and the stories I’d covered at the Journal-Gazette that formed the basis of my fictional hero’s adventures.

  Charlie bought us each an old-fashioned as soon as the flight attendants came through and bemoaned the fact she couldn’t balance out her other hand with a cigarette. Another hour of dishing on our separate editors and she bought a couple more. The next hour was filled with a third old-fashioned apiece and a discussion on the agony of revision. The third hour of our flight and I had to decline a fourth drink.

  “I’m sorry—I’ve got to stay sober to drive to the hotel.”

  “Oh, sweetheart, didn’t Promotions tell you? Somebody from Blood on The Page is picking us up. We don’t do anything ourselves this weekend. Unless, of course, you want to…”

  Chapter 10 Addison

  By seven-thirty, just a short two hours later, I was at work.

  Two shootings and Santa Claus: That morning’s page 1A should have been an editor’s dream.

  So why didn’t I have my usual fist-pumping reaction to a great front page? The circulation director was already talking to the publisher about increasing the press run to meet the demand for extra single cop
y sales.

  I didn’t care. A reporter’s wife had been shot and a local guy with nothing but sunshine in his future was behind bars accused of murder.

  That banner headline screamed STARRETT HELD IN FERGUSON MURDER in huge 72-point font.

  I’d managed to take a mercenary photo of Plummer County deputies leading a handcuffed Rick Starrett from my barn to a cruiser. Rick’s head hung in shame.

  Once in the office, I’d taken the story I’d written the night before for the Web site and updated it with Rick’s arrest, exchanging my byline for “From staff reports” since he’d been found on my property. I wasn’t looking forward to the phone calls from my usual whack-job readers who saw conspiracy in every dark corner. No doubt the prosecutor’s office was already fielding calls to have me arrested for harboring a fugitive. My stomach turned as I thought about what my publisher J. Watterson Whitelaw would say.

  I also wasn’t going to examine my gut too much, thinking about when I grabbed Isabella’s camera from the kitchen counter to take a picture of the man who’d just begged me not to call 911. I couldn’t open that ethical door either. What the hell did it matter, anyway? Fisher Webb’s offer was looking awfully good after the last few days.

  Starrett was going to be arraigned that afternoon. I needed to get the paper put to bed before I could run over to the courthouse.

  We received Ferguson’s obituary as well—it began as a sidebar in the middle of my story and jumped inside to the obit page. My story continued on page three.

  On the left side of the page, just below the story of Rick’s arrest, but above the fold, was Kay Henning’s story: MISSING WOMAN FOUND SHOT with Graham’s byline on it. We had a one-column headshot of Kay. Graham was on his way out to the scene where the police found Kay and to check on her condition at the hospital.

  I made a mental note to check in with Marcus after Rick’s arraignment.

  In the lower right hand side, reporter Elizabeth Day had a picture of Santa Claus at the elementary school and a small story on a holiday toy drive.

  Normally I’d be grinning from ear to ear. Not today.