Cast Iron Motive (The Cast Iron Cooking Mysteries Book 4) (16 page)

“We’ll never know, because I’ll never try,” she said. We finished the dishes, and Annie stifled a yawn.

“I’m exhausted,” she said. “Is anyone else tired?”

“I could go to sleep right here,” I admitted. It had been a long and stressful day.

“Then let’s all call it a day and get a fresh start tomorrow,” Aunt Della suggested, and Annie and I heartily agreed.

All in all, the evening had been a bust, but we couldn’t let that discourage us. I took up my place on the couch again and tried to get to sleep, but something kept nagging at the back of my mind. Had I missed something over the past few days, something that held the key to our investigation? Whatever it was, I couldn’t put my finger on it. The only thing I could do was try to wipe my mind clean, get some sleep, and come at it from a different direction the next day. Even if the sleep didn’t help, at least I’d get some rest.

Unfortunately, a long and uninterrupted sleep was the last thing the night had in store for us.

I woke up an untold time later in a cold sweat, and I could swear that the temperature in the room was ten degrees colder than it had been when I’d first gone to bed. My dreams, more like nightmares, had been haunted by frigid plywood snowmen chasing me along the river path, taunting me with dollar signs that had sharp sticks slashing through them. I knew that it meant something, but I couldn’t for the life of me tell what it was.

I looked around and saw a faint light on in the kitchen, so I got up to investigate.

I found Annie standing in front of the refrigerator peering inside.

“Can’t sleep either?” I asked her.

She looked startled suddenly seeing me standing there. “Patrick, you scared the fool out of me. Did I wake you up?”

“No, I had a bad dream,” I admitted.

“Was it cowboy zombies?” she asked. I’d had that nightmare once, but in my defense, I’d only been eleven years old at the time.

“No.”

“Were you falling through space again?”

“No, it wasn’t that, either. Would you give me a chance to tell you?”

“Sorry,” she said. “What was it about?”

“I’m not sure I want to tell you now, especially if you’re going to bring it up again later.”

“What if I promise not to? Come on. Spill it. You know you want to tell me,” she said as she got a can of soda and put it on the counter.

“It was about those plywood snowmen that are all over town,” I admitted.

“I’m with you on that one. Those things look cool in the daylight, but at night they’re downright wicked. What possessed them to paint those leering grins on them?”

“I don’t know, but that wasn’t the worst part. They were chasing me all through town, and I woke up just as they nearly caught me. Annie, it was in the exact spot where Cheryl Simmons was killed.”

“How awful,” she said. “That must have been terrifying.”

“It was bad enough, but they were carrying dollar signs. Instead of the lines through the shapes, though, they were sharpened sticks.”

“Sticks? How odd.”

“As if snowmen coming to life and harassing me wasn’t enough?” I asked as I grabbed a bottle of water for myself. I didn’t know how my sister could drink soda before going to sleep, but I knew that I could never do it.

“What do you suppose it means?” she asked me.

“Beats me,” I said as I cracked the plastic top open and took a healthy swallow.

“You know what? I might know,” Annie said without touching her own drink. The expression on her face told me that she was on to something.

“You’re kidding.”

“Hear me out. What if your subconscious mind was trying to tell you something. I’ve been wrestling with something, too.”

“Angry snowmen?” I asked her.

“Of course not, but we’re missing something, and it’s right under our noses.”

“I know the feeling.”

“Who could it be, though? Our reasoning about the others is sound. Unless…”

“Unless what?” I asked her when she didn’t finish the sentence.

“What if the killer never made it onto our suspect list?”

“Then I’d say we’re out of luck.”

“Pat, I’ve got it,” she said suddenly. “Who’s been hanging around us the entire time, but we haven’t suspected them even once?”

Then I got it myself. “Henrietta Long. It’s all about the money, isn’t it? That’s why the snowmen were chasing me with deadly dollar signs. That’s brilliant, Annie.”

“Don’t give me the credit. You’re the one who figured it out, at least on a subconscious level,” she said. “The only reason Henrietta could possibly be so reluctant to close the books on the Winter Wonderland must be because she’s been stealing from the accounts. Once they do a final reckoning, her thefts will be discovered, so she’s got to stop that from happening.”

“Even if she kills our aunt,” I said, “someone’s going to eventually figure it out.”

“Not if she blames Aunt Della for all of it,” Annie said. “In a way, it’s perfect, since our aunt won’t be around to defend herself. We’re not going to let that happen, though, are we? I’m going to call Chief Cameron right now.”

Annie never got a chance to make that call, though.

“Put down the phone,” a voice from the edge of the other room said as she stepped out of the shadows.

It was Henrietta Long, and she was holding a pistol in her hand.

“That’s why I was so cold,” I said, dumbfounded that we’d figured it out, but it was still going to be too late. “You snuck in through a cracked window. Did you unlock it during the party?”

She smiled. “Oh, I did it well before that. While you were outside cooking, I opened it even before I announced my presence. Remember, Annie?”

“I remember,” my sister said. “You don’t have to do this, you know. I’m sure we can work something out.”

Henrietta laughed, but there was no joy in it. “I’m afraid that’s not possible. I can’t afford to make restitution, and besides, even if I still had the money, I can’t bargain away what happened to Cheryl.”

“Why did you kill her?” I asked, seeing a form creeping down the stairs just behind her. We must have woken Aunt Della up, but did she have any kind of weapon to defend us all with? Just a short piece of closet rod, not much bigger than the branch Henrietta had used on Cheryl, and the killer had a gun in her hands.

“I thought she was Della,” Henrietta explained a little petulantly. “She was wearing your aunt’s coat, and when I saw her walking down the path, I hid behind a snowman until she passed me by. When she walked past me, I took a swing at her head. She fell from the impact, and I was going to drag her body into the trees, but then it started to roll down toward the water, and I couldn’t stop it. I panicked! As I raced back up the path, I thought about chucking the branch in my hand, but then I decided to use it to my advantage. Why not frame the mayor with the crime? That would surely divert suspicion away from me. I was about to call the police this evening to let them know where they could find the weapon I’d used, and then you two had to go and ruin everything. I haven’t even been able to go back home, since you told the police chief that I was the killer.”

“We thought it was Gary White,” Annie confessed without thinking. I’d been hoping to use the threat of arrest against Henrietta to get her to spare our lives, but I couldn’t blame my sister for blurting it out.

That made Henrietta smile. “So, Cam’s not coming for me? Then I still might be able to get away with this. All I need to do is get rid of the three of you, and then I can blame it all on Della.”

“How are you going to explain three more homicides and pin it on our aunt?” I asked her as Della got closer. Henrietta seemed as though she’d lost her mind completely with her insane plan, but I needed to keep her talking to give Della a chance to act.

“I won’t have to. They’ll find your bodies in the morning, they’ll go down as three more random acts of violence, and I’ll act as shocked as everybody else that this could happen in our quiet little town.”

“Exactly how many times did you try to kill our aunt?” I asked her.

Henrietta frowned in frustration. “More than I thought I’d need to. First I tried pushing that wretched plywood snowman off the roof onto her, but the wind caught it on the way down and missed her by a mile. Then I trailed her during the parade, fighting through the crowds, acting as though I just wanted a better look at the festivities. When the opportunity came, I shoved her right in front of the fire truck, but Davis was standing nearby, and he pulled her back to safety! I could have screamed in frustration.”

“And the poisoned food at the supper?” I asked her. Even though we might all be about to die, it was good to know that Aunt Della hadn’t been crazy. Those really had been sincere attempts on her life by a very determined amateur killer.

“I knew Della was allergic to seafood, so I dosed her chicken with some ground-up shrimp. I thought it would kill her, but it just made her throw up, and after that, she was fine! I didn’t know that at the time, though, so when she ran to the restroom, I grabbed her plate and tossed it in the garbage before anybody discovered her body. After that, I knew that I had to get rid of her once and for all, so I cracked a window here earlier. Things would have been so much easier if you two would have just stayed where you were, but in a few minutes, my worries will all be over. My plan is perfect this time.”

“Maybe not so perfect after all. That gun doesn’t have a silencer on it,” Annie said. “Davis will hear the gunshots.”

“Thanks for reminding me,” Henrietta said. “I’ll just grab a pillow to shoot through, and then we’ll be set.”

As Henrietta turned to reach for a nearby pillow, it was time to act.

I couldn’t wait for my aunt anymore, so the second Henrietta turned her back, I leapt at her.

Annie was half a second behind me, and I was happy to see Della swing her club in the air as she approached from another angle altogether.

Unfortunately, she missed completely, Annie’s dive came up short, and I barely managed to grab Henrietta’s leg before I crashed to the floor myself.

Henrietta must have had her finger on the trigger when we’d lashed out at her, because as she fell, a shot rang out, temporarily blinding and deafening us all with the muzzle flash and the explosion.

At least she hadn’t had time to use the pillow as a silencer.

I was nearly blinded by the sudden flash of light, but I couldn’t let that stop me.

I still had hold of Henrietta’s leg, so I did the only thing I could think of.

I bit her with everything I had.

Chapter 18: Annie

I
wasn’t sure what my brother did to Henrietta, but she suddenly began to howl in pain. She instinctively tried to fight him off, but he wouldn’t let go of his grip.

Henrietta still had the gun in her hand, but she must have been so startled by what he’d done that she’d completely forgotten about it for the moment and was using it as a bludgeon on his back instead of cocking the trigger and shooting him.

We couldn’t count on that being the case for long, though.

I scrambled to my feet and grabbed Henrietta’s arm while Aunt Della went for her face with her bare hands, clawing and scratching to make some kind of impact on her attack on Pat.

As I was wrestling the gun away from her, another shot rang out.

None of us were hit, at least as far as I could tell, but my aunt was going to need a new back door window.

That was the last bit of fight Henrietta had left in her.

I had the gun in my hands now.

“Everyone stop what you’re doing!” I shouted.

Della reluctantly stopped pounding at her former friend’s face, evidently trying to drive the woman’s nose through the back of her head. It was bleeding profusely, but I couldn’t see that until someone flipped on the light, blinding us all again.

It was Chief Cameron, and I was more relieved to see him than I could say.

“Do you want to put that down on the floor, nice and slow?” he asked me softly. It was only then that I noticed that his weapon was pointed straight at my chest.

“She killed Cheryl,” I said, fighting the sobs I felt trying to break free from inside of me.

“Okay. That’s fine. No worries here. You can tell me all about it, just as soon as you drop your weapon.”

“It’s not mine. It’s hers.” Was I babbling? I felt as though I was babbling.

“It’s over, Annie. We won. Drop the gun,” Pat said calmly, finally getting through to me.

My brother’s words finally hit home, and I let the weapon fall from my hands to the floor.

Chief Cameron sighed loudly, and then he holstered his own weapon as he pulled out a pair of handcuffs.

“Did you hear the shots? Is that how you got here so quickly?” I asked him as he approached Henrietta, who appeared to have gone completely comatose.

“I was next door at Davis’s place,” he said. After studying the murderer for a moment, he asked, “What did you do to her?”

Pat said simply, “I bit her.”

“I hit her with an old closet rod,” Della said proudly.

“And I grabbed the gun away from her,” I finished.

“Wow, you three really did a number on her. I’m going to have to call an ambulance.”

“Save your sympathy for someone who deserves it, Chief,” Della said. “She came here to kill us.”

“Why?” he asked.

“Money,” I answered. “She stole from the Winter Wonderland, and she had no other way of covering her tracks but to kill us all.”

“Is that true, Henrietta?” Aunt Della asked her.

There was no response. The lights were on, but nobody was home.

After Henrietta was gone and we’d agreed to come to the station to sign statements, it was just the three of us again. I knew that we wouldn’t have much time to be alone, though. Since Davis had heard the shots too, once he got the all clear, I knew the mayor would be there, along with most of the rest of the town. Now that Aunt Della had been fully vindicated in her belief that someone had indeed been trying to kill her all along, I had a guess that her stock in town was going to be on the rise.

My aunt was sweeping up broken glass when I tried to take the broom from her. “Are you okay?”

“I’m still in shock, I think,” she said as she let the broom slip through her hands. “If it hadn’t been for the two of you, I’d be dead right now.”

“We all might have been dead if Pat hadn’t acted so quickly,” I said. “He figured it out, and then he distracted Henrietta long enough to give us a chance. He’s the real hero.”

“Don’t be so modest,” my brother replied. “I may have had the dream about the killer snowmen, but you’re the one who figured it out first.”

“Okay, we’re both heroes,” I said with a smile. “What made you think to bite her? Not that I’m complaining. It was a stroke of genius.”

“I didn’t have much leverage on her leg, and I expected to get shot anyway, so I figured why not give her something to remember me by? If you two hadn’t sprung to my aid, she would have killed me. There’s no doubt in my mind about that.”

“So, we’re all heroes,” I said, “including you, Aunt Della.”

“I couldn’t just let her shoot you, could I?” she asked.

“Well, we appreciate the fact that you felt that way,” I said with a grin. “I’ve got an idea. When this is all over, why don’t you come to Maple Crest and visit me at my cabin? It’s not much, and we’ll be a little snug, but I’d love for you to see the place. A lot has changed since the last time you were there.”

“You don’t want to do that, Aunt Della,” Pat said. “You know how far out in the woods she lives. You can stay with me. I’ll even give you my bed. We already know that I don’t mind sleeping on the couch when it’s for a good cause.”

I looked at my aunt and could see tears tracking down her cheeks. “I appreciate both your offers, and I do plan to visit soon, but right now, I need to be here, by myself, to get over what happened. If I don’t, I’m afraid that I’ll never be able to stay, and I do so love this place.”

“The invitation is always open,” I said.

“The same goes for me,” Pat echoed.

“Thank you. Thank you both,” she said, and then she wrapped us both up in her arms. “It’s so good to have a family again.”

“I’ve got a feeling that you’re going to have more than you bargained for,” I said. “I called Kathleen while they were hauling Henrietta away, and she’s already on the road.”

“Then I should put on a pot of coffee,” Aunt Della said. “Would you two mind keeping me company?”

“That’s why we’re here,” Pat said, and we all went into the kitchen to wait for the onslaught of visitors we knew that we were about to have, in addition to my older sister.

Henrietta had done something terrible in stealing the money, and then she’d compounded her sins a thousandfold by killing to cover it up. If she ever managed to snap out of her fog, she’d pay for what she’d done, with interest.

As for us, Pat and I had come to Gateway Lake trying to help our estranged aunt, and in the end, we’d brought her fully back into our lives.

As far as I was concerned, that was more valuable than anything Henrietta Long could have ever stolen.