A Hopeless Murder, page 10
part #1 of Hope Walker Series
I rounded the cabin. Patrick’s truck was still on the left, my car was next to it.
“I said, are you safe?”
I heard the car before I saw it. It revved its engine as it came for me, a big dark blur, like a monster that had been hiding in the trees. I jumped up and away.
But I was too late.
The windshield hit me in the stomach, crushing my ribs and sending me flying until I hit the ground and tumbled. I looked up in time to see the car racing over the wooden bridge and into the night.
My head got very heavy. And for the second time in my life on the banks of the Moose River, everything went dark.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The first time I opened my eyes, all I saw was something covering half my face. I immediately closed my eyes. I listened to the beep beep beep of machines. To the soft rhythmic whoosh of something over my mouth and nose. I heard voices talking but didn’t recognize them, nor could I make out what they were saying.
At some point, I felt a hand. It wrapped around mine. It was a hand that I recognized. Even though it was wrinkly and rough and worn by the years, this was a hand that fit. This was a hand I knew. When I opened my eyes again, Granny and her bright blue Boise State football sweatshirt were staring at me.
Her eyes lit up, then she closed them and made the sign of the cross. Granny wasn’t big on regular church. She was situational about her dependence on the Almighty.
“You had me worried,” she said.
I pointed to my face. She said a few choice words and called a nurse who removed the oxygen mask and offered me an ice chip to wet my lips. When the nurse stepped away, I realized Granny wasn’t the only one in the room. Bess stood behind her, arms folded, like the good sentinel she was. Zeke Roberson was behind Bess. Then I noticed somebody had grabbed onto my other hand. I looked to my left and Katie sat there, eyes wet. When our eyes met, she kissed me on the cheek and then whispered in my ear.
“I can’t go another twelve years without my best friend, okay?”
I replied the only way I knew how. “You smell like tequila.”
That made Katie laugh which made me laugh and when I did, it felt like somebody stuck a spear into my side. The pain was so acute my eyes rolled into the back of my head. And my fingernails dug into Granny’s wrist.
That’s when Doctor Bridges showed up and made his way past Zeke and Bess. He and Granny exchanged a greeting and leaned over me and looked into my eyes with a penlight.
“Good,” he said.
“Good?”
“Well, you took an awful fall. Your ribs are badly bruised and you hit your head, but it’s just a mild concussion. Listen, Hope, I know you don’t feel very good, but under the circumstances, the police would like to ask you some questions. So, whenever you’re up to it.”
I remembered what had happened. Patrick Crofton lying in his kitchen. The car coming out of nowhere. I knew why the police wanted to talk to me. Why they needed to talk to me.
And when he poked his head into the hospital room, I remembered who the police were these days.
Detective Kramer. He spoke to Doctor Bridges, then he addressed everyone else in the room. “I need to talk with Hope. Alone.”
That obviously did not sit well with Granny. She started to curse about this or that, but Bess and Zeke grabbed her and ushered her out the room. Katie squeezed my arm and said, “I’ll be out in the hall if you need me.”
“Go home,” I said.
“Are you crazy? There are children waiting for me at home. You getting yourself almost killed is like a free vacation for me. I’ll be in the hall.”
When Katie closed the door, Detective Kramer grabbed her chair and took out a pad of paper and a pen. Then he did something unexpected. He put the pad down and took my hand and squeezed.
“When I found you, I thought you were dead.”
“You’re the one who found me?”
His eyes stayed locked with mine for a long moment and then he let go of my hand and picked up his pad.
“Hope, what happened?”
“I have no idea. When I got to Patrick’s he was already dead. I called 911 and ran out the back of the cabin. And then next thing I know a car is coming out of the trees. I tried to jump out of the way.”
“You got incredibly lucky.”
“I found my second dead guy in less than a week and I almost got run over. I don’t consider that very lucky.”
“You’re alive, that’s what I meant.”
“I know. I just like to hassle you.”
“Hope, this is serious. What were you doing out there?”
“Patrick called me. He said there was something he had to show me.”
“What did he have to show you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why you? Did you have some sort of relationship with him?”
“Relationship? No. I met him at Granny’s funeral.”
Alex ran his hand through his hair. “Hope, make me understand. Why did he call you?”
“He said that he thought me being an investigative reporter could be useful.”
“And you have no idea what he meant?”
“None,” I said.
“I know you’re hurting, Hope, but none of this makes sense. He calls you out of the blue to say he’s got to show you something. So late at night, you drive to a secluded cabin in the woods, where you find him dead and almost get killed yourself.
“We’ve got two dead bodies. You found both of them. And you almost got killed yourself. I am not leaving this room until I get some answers.”
He looked at me with an intensity that no man had in a very, very, long time. He was handsome. Sure. And he was a policeman who was trying to do his job. True as well. But there was something else. And to be perfectly honest, at the moment, I didn’t really want him to leave the room.
I also figured he deserved some answers.
“I caught him lying,” I said. “Well, actually I caught him and Gemima lying.”
“Gemima Clark? I met her briefly. Pretty, but….”
“She probably does have a pretty butt.”
“No, I didn’t mean—”
“I know what you mean. And yes, she’s pretty, but there’s a whole lot of but going on.”
“So, what were they lying about and what does this have to do with you almost getting killed last night?”
“I asked Patrick where he was the night of Sheriff Kline’s murder. He said he was with Gemima at his bed and breakfast all night. But when I saw Gemima I told her that Patrick said they were together all night at Gemima’s house the night of the murder. I asked her if that was true. She said yes. I asked her if she was certain. And she said she was.”
He leaned forward. “Hope, why are you asking people for their alibis for the night of the murder?”
“Because when I found out that Patrick Crofton had served time and that Sheriff Kline was the one who put him away, I thought maybe, just maybe, Patrick Crofton might have a reason to kill Sheriff Kline.”
“Let me get this straight. You asked someone that you considered a suspect for their alibi. They lied about it. And then, they call you late at night and invite you to a secluded cabin in the woods so they can show you ‘something’?”
“Yeah, that’s about it.”
Detective Kramer stood and threw up his hands. “How stupid can you be?”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me. What were you thinking?”
“I was following a lead and if I’d a gotten there a little sooner, I could have saved his life!”
“No, you’d be dead too. Hope, this is a murder investigation. Actually, it’s a double murder investigation. I am a murder investigator. You are not. You are civilian, and you are not going to be running your own investigation. Is that clear?”
I straightened up in bed, trying to ignore the knife in my ribs. “Did you just ask me if that was clear? I’m not a freaking three-year-old, okay?”
“Well you could’ve fooled me.”
“And I’m not just a civilian. I am a trained investigative reporter, and this is not my first time around the block.”
“You know what, Hope? You must not be a very good reporter. Because the last time I checked, you just got fired.”
Detective Kramer went to the door and looked back one more time. “Stay out of my way and out of my investigation.”
By the time Granny and Katie had come back in, I was sitting on the edge of my bed and taking the tubes out of my body.
“Hope, what in the Sam Hill are you doing?” Granny sounded like she was about to blow.
“I’m getting out of here. Granny, are those idiot forensics guys done with the Library?”
“They finished today.”
“Good. I need you to get me into that apartment so I can rest. Katie, take my purse and my credit card. I need you to go to the store and grab some supplies for me.”
Katie gave me a look. “Hope, what is going on?”
“What’s going on is I leave on Friday morning, somebody just ran me over, and I’ve got a murder to solve.”
“No, you don’t,” said Granny. “Like you just said, somebody tried to kill you tonight.”
“Well, Alex the professional detective Kramer did something worse.”
“Worse than try to kill you?” Katie was skeptical.
“Yeah, he pissed me off.” I stood up. “Granny, Katie, it’s time to go.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Doctor Bridges flipped out when I informed him of my decision to leave the four-star elegance of the Hopeless Municipal Hospital.
“You got ran over by a car. A car!”
“Only part of me got ran over by a car,” I said. “And due to my mad ninja skills, even that wasn’t a direct hit. The rest of me just fell with style.” I’ll be honest. Leaving the hospital with bruised ribs and a head that felt like meatloaf probably wasn’t the best decision of my life. Every step I took felt like someone was shoving needles into my sides. And the pain caused me to stop and try and catch my breath, except every time I took a more than a shallow breath, my ribs hurt even more.
Granny and Bess drove me back to the Library. It was the first time we’d been inside since Detective Kramer and his crew finished with the crime scene. There was no dead body in the middle of the floor. No pool of blood. But there was something else.
Yellow crime scene tape on the bar room floor, outlining where Sheriff Kline’s body had been.
“Think it would be tacky if we left the crime scene tape there?” Granny wondered. “As a memorial to our late, not really lamented sheriff?”
“Are you going to give tours, too? And this is where our beloved sheriff got his skull crushed by a half full whiskey bottle.”
Granny’s eyes lit up. “I see that we’re on the same page for a change.”
They helped me up the stairs and into the bed where I took a handful of ibuprofen and collapsed.
I’m not sure how long I slept, but when I finally woke up, Katie was setting up a large whiteboard on an easel.
“The next time you tell me to find you a large whiteboard in Hopeless remind me to just drive off a bridge instead.”
I sat up in bed, my ribs screaming bloody murder. “How’d you find one?”
She handed me a warm cup of coffee from a Hopeless Cup.
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t ask.”
“You went to Patrick’s store for coffee?”
“There was a lot of crying. I think they might have even given me this for free.”
“You think?”
“Okay they definitely gave me this for free, but I mean, seriously, you charge people four bucks for coffee that only costs a few pennies?”
I took a long and incredibly satisfying sip of my coffee and Katie clapped her hands together.
“Okay, hot coffee and a large whiteboard. Just as you requested.”
“No, something’s missing. Katie, where are your kids?”
“Listen, this best friend in the hospital thing is like diplomatic immunity for stay-at-home moms. Every time Chris texts me, I just say it’s really serious and he probably shouldn’t bother me.”
“Won’t he be mad when he finds out it’s not really that serious?”
“He will, but then I’ll ask him if he wants to watch Ice Road Truckers tonight and he’ll forget all about it.”
“Sounds easy.”
“Are you kidding me? Marriage is a delicate and complicated balance of what I call the four marriage food groups. Money, TV, Food, and Sex. Not enough or too much of any one group and everything goes off the rails.”
I climbed off the bed and stood up, anticipating the rib pain and leaning into it accordingly. “You’re basically Oprah.”
“Basically. I’ve even got my own book club. We drink a lot of wine and make fun of people who read books.”
“You haven’t changed much in the last twelve years.”
Katie smiled and handed me a black marker. “I wear bigger underwear. Okay, much bigger underwear. But other than that, not really. So where do we start?”
“We start at the beginning.” I wrote down a name in the center of the whiteboard. “We start with Ed Kline.”
“We know Ed was killed because someone bashed him in the head with a whiskey bottle in the middle of the Library,” I said. “We don’t know who killed him and we don’t know why.”
“But we do know that lots of people hated Sheriff Kline.”
“Because he was a miserable old coot who was mean as a snake.”
Katie put both hands on her hips. “Hope, he wasn’t that bad.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Well, I did work with the man. But most people never got to see that side of him. I guess you’re right. Lots of people have motives.”
“To be mad at him, sure. But to kill him? No, to kill a man takes a special kind of reason. A real motive. Like revenge, or jealousy, or something else.”
I wrote Patrick Crofton’s name in one of the corners. “Patrick Crofton might have wanted revenge. He spent time in prison after Sheriff Kline busted him for fraud. He came back to Hopeless after that. We can only imagine how Sheriff Kline made him feel. And Patrick? Revenge is very plausible.”
“And then there’s that other motive,” said Katie. “Jealousy.”
“Right, the woman he was seeing. You noticed Sheriff Kline beginning to change. You suspected he was in love. You followed him to the Clap Back Inn where you took a picture of him with a woman who had long dark hair and sunglasses. And even though the woman signed your name, she was taller than you.”
“And we don’t believe this woman just coincidentally chose my name as her alias, do we?”
“I don’t think so. You worked with Sheriff Kline. You had a special relationship with him. If the woman signed your name, I think it’s safe to say she got your name either from Ed or possibly because she knows you.”
“And if a jealous boyfriend or husband found out his girl was having an affair with the sheriff, that would certainly be a motive.”
“But what would be the connection between his affair and Patrick Crofton?” I asked.
“Does there have to be a connection?”
“Are you kidding me? It’s not like Hopeless is the murder capital of the world. Two dead bodies in three days? I’m betting there’s a connection.”
We stared at the board for another few minutes. Then I had a very, very weird thought.
“You know who’s around my height?”
“Probably thirty percent of the female population?”
“No, specifically. Gemima Clark. We’re the same height.”
“What are you saying?” asked Katie.
“What if the connection between the sheriff and Patrick Crofton isn’t about revenge? Maybe the connection is jealousy. What if? What if the woman seeing Sheriff Kline was Gemima Clark?”
Katie arched an eyebrow. “Gemima and Sheriff Kline? You can’t be serious.”
“I’ll grant you, it’s weird, but hear me out. As much as we hate her, she is gorgeous and I’m sure she could make an older man feel young again.”
“But why would Gemima go for an old coot like Sheriff Kline when she’s got a hot guy like Patrick Crofton?”
“Because for women, it’s not mostly about sex is it? It’s usually about something else. And what did Sheriff Kline have, especially in this town, that Patrick didn’t have? Power.”
Katie scratched her head. “Assuming you’re right, Gemima has an affair with Sheriff Kline, Patrick Crofton finds out, confronts Sheriff Kline at the Library, hits him over the head and kills him? But then, who killed Patrick?”
“Let’s think about it. I caught Patrick and Gemima in a lie about their alibi for the night Sheriff Kline was killed. Maybe that’s when Gemima’s suspicions were confirmed. Maybe that’s when she knew her fiancé must have killed the Sheriff. Patrick calls me and tells me that he wants to show me something. But maybe he was luring me to the cabin so he could shut me up. Meanwhile, Gemima gets to the cabin minutes before I do and confronts Patrick with the truth. What Gemima cares about more than anything is her image. And nothing would ruin her image faster than being engaged to a murderer.”
“Okay, so she goes up to the cabin and says, ‘Patrick tell me the truth, did you do it?’”
“And he says, ‘I found out about you and the Sheriff.’”
“And she says, ‘I was only doing it for you. To make sure he stopped harassing you. How could you do this?’ She flips out, they get into a struggle, she grabs the nearest thing she can find and bam, she shoves a knife in his chest.”
Katie moved her hands excitedly. “Gemima hears a car pull up and heads out the back door where her car is parked. She climbs in and waits. And when she sees her chance, she tries to run you over with her car… thus killing two birds with one stone. She gets rid of a witness and a girl she’s hated her entire life.”
I scratched my chin. “As crazy as that sounds, it just could be the truth.”
“Do you think we should tell Detective Kramer about our theory?” Katie asked.
“Are you out of your mind? He said under no circumstances was I to investigate this murder. Of course, I have no intention of listening to him, but it’s not like I’m going to broadcast what I’m doing, because what I’m going to do is solve this thing first. Come on, it’s time to visit an old friend.”
