Jeanne Glidewell - Lexie Starr 04 - With This Ring (7 page)

“Okay, Lexie. You win,” Stone said with a long drawn-out sigh. “I’m going to be pretty busy getting the grounds and everything ready for the wedding and all the guests we’re anticipating at the inn. I want to put a fresh coat of redwood stain on the gazebo, weed out all the flowerbeds, and do a number of other landscaping things around the inn in the next few days. I also have some squeaky floorboards I need to replace in two of the upper suites. So I’m not going to be able to help much in your little personal investigation, nor do I think you should be intricately involved. And I don’t want you going off on your own and putting yourself in any kind of danger, but I know I can’t tell you what to do.”

“I won’t put myself in the middle of any kind of dangerous situation,” I said.

“I’ve heard that before.”

“Yes, strange things have happened in the past, but you know I’m always as cautious as possible,” I said.

“No, I don’t know that,” Stone said. “For someone who’s always cautious, you sure seem to end up in the emergency room a lot. Plus, you don’t want to impede the detectives’ progress or get under their skin. I hope you’ll at least keep me apprised of what you’re up to, and I’ll help you out whenever I can, because I’d like to know you’ll be protected from harm and mayhem. Unfortunately, you don’t find mayhem. It has a tendency to find you. It follows you around like a shadow, and that’s what concerns me. I doubt if my presence alone can prevent it, or keep your safety from being jeopardized, but I’d feel better if I were with you. To be perfectly honest, this goes way beyond my better judgment.”

“I know you’ve got a lot to get done this week, as do I. I’m not going to go out of my way to get involved. I’m just going to keep my eyes and ears open in case I can pick up on any clues that might be overlooked by the investigators. I realize it’s not likely to do any good, but I just hate the idea of postponing this wedding,” I said.

“Lexie, whether or not to postpone the wedding is entirely up to you. I’m fine with whatever decision you make. I’m not overly concerned with what our fellow church members think about our decision—or anyone else for that matter. They’re not the ones who have friends and family members already planning on coming in from all over to attend the ceremony. A lot of planning and scheduling has gone into this event, and if you want to go ahead with the wedding as planned, it’s all right by me. Just promise me you’ll be careful if you do decide to do any snooping around. Okay?”

“I promise to go about this carefully and judiciously,” I said. I was ready to promise him anything. Or at least I would promise him anything but never to do anything impulsive again, because I knew there wasn’t a chance in hell I could ever control my impulses to that extent. Impulsiveness was a trait I was born with and one I’d had to learn to live with. I was true to my Zodiac sign of Aries. Stone was having to learn to cope with my impulsiveness now, and not having an easy time of it.

Still, I felt so much better already just knowing I wouldn’t have to sneak around behind Stone’s back, or at least not as much as I would have had to otherwise. And knowing he would go along with whatever I decided to do about the wedding was a load off my mind too. “By the way, how did you find out I spoke with Mr. Blake?”

“The investigating squad interviewed him again early this afternoon and he told them about seeing someone move the blinds over the kitchen sink, and shouting what sounded like ‘peas’ at five-thirty in the morning. When they asked him why he was just now relating new details to them, he told them he’d already reported it to their WSRC this morning, so it should already be in their files. After he described you to the officers, it didn’t take Wyatt long to figure out who’d spoken with Mr. Blake earlier this morning. He knows you almost as well as I do by now, and is as concerned about your safety as I am. You do realize that was a foolish thing to do, don’t you?”

“I do now, and I’m truly sorry. Do you think I’m in legal trouble for impersonating an officer? I didn’t mean to. It’s not at all what I had in mind. It just sort of happened that way because I wasn’t thinking of the consequences at the time.”

“Do you ever consider the consequences before you act? And no, thanks to Wyatt, you’re off the hook. But the chief recommended you didn’t try a stunt like that again. And I highly recommend you pay heed to his advice,” Stone said. “You do know that impersonating an officer is illegal, don’t you? You’re lucky you weren’t charged with a federal offense. Trying to solve one crime should not involve committing several others. Two, or three, wrongs don’t make a right, you know.”

Now I remembered why I liked Wyatt so much. He could get me out of trouble as fast as he could get me into it. It was nice to have an officer of the law in your corner every once in a while when a situation like this arose. Detective Johnston always seemed to cover for me when I got myself into deep doo-doo. It would be wise of me to keep the cookies and doughnuts coming.

“Yes, I realize that. Thank God for Wyatt. Say, do you think we could go speak with Bonnie Bloomingfield this afternoon?” I asked. It was probably pushing my luck to bring this up so soon after being offered Stone’s reluctant assistance, but unlimited time was not something we had in abundance. “I found a Howard Bloomingfield listed in the phone book on Cedar Street, the same block Mr. Steiner lived on. Bonnie might be able to remember something she forgot to tell the authorities when they interviewed her. By now she won’t be in such a state of shock, and she may be able to remember things more clearly. She might also reiterate information Wyatt forgot to pass on to us. It couldn’t hurt to ask her, anyway. Could it?”

“Why do I feel like I’ve been talking to myself? Did you hear anything I just said? Do I need to make an appointment with an audiologist for you?”

“Don’t be silly. My hearing’s just fine. But you said you’d accompany me when you could and I guess I thought you honestly meant it.”

“Oh, boy,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief. “What have I gotten myself in to?”

Chapter 4

“Mrs. Bloomingfield?” I asked the frail-looking woman who finally came to her front door after I’d knocked several times. Her gray hair was tied back in a bun, and she was hunched over. I recognized the telltale hump protruding from her back. She was a victim of osteoporosis, no doubt. I took a monthly medication and extra calcium in an attempt to ward off the bone-thinning disease, as it had a tendency to run in my family. “Good morning, ma’am. Are you Mrs. Bloomingfield?”

“Who?” She asked. She looked befuddled at the sound of her own name.

I spoke louder as I repeated myself one more time, afraid the elderly woman hadn’t heard me over the sound of a car traveling up the street behind me. I guessed her age to be somewhere in the late seventies, or so.

She still looked slightly confused, I noticed, as her husband, who looked even older than she, stepped up behind her. “Yes, we’re the Bloomingfields. I’m Bonnie’s husband, Harold. Can we help you?”

“Good afternoon, Harold. It’s nice to meet you and Mrs. Bloomingfield. My name is Lexie Starr, and this is my fiancé, Stone Van Patten. We’re involved in the crime scene investigation of the murder of Thurman Steiner. We’d just like to speak with you for a few minutes, if that’s all right with you. It won’t take long.”

“All right,” Harold said, with resignation in his voice. I imagine he was already worn out from all the questioning by the investigative team. He motioned us inside as he continued to speak. “Come in, we’ll sit in the kitchen. Bonnie, do you think you could fix these folks something to drink? What would you two care to drink? We’ve got tea, hot cocoa, or coffee if you’d like some.”

“Oh, no, we don’t want to inconvenience you in any way. We’ll just be a few minutes, just long enough to ask Mrs. Bloomingfield a few questions,” I assured the elderly gentleman. I would’ve killed for some coffee, but wasn’t sure Bonnie was up to fixing me a cup, nor did I plan to stay long enough to drink it.

“Okay,” he said, “if she’s able to answer any questions this afternoon. I’m not sure she’s in any shape to do so right now. And please call us Harold and Bonnie. Bloomingfield’s a mouth full and sounds much too formal.”

“Thank you, and we’d like you to call us Lexie and Stone,” I said, as I turned to face his wife. “Bonnie, what can you tell us about what you remember happening when you found Mr. Steiner’s body?”

“Who?”

“Your neighbor, Pastor Steiner. The gentleman you discovered dead in his home.”

“Who?” She asked again. Bonnie was beginning to remind me of a hoot owl. All she’d managed to say so far was “who” in answer to my questions. I was sure now she was extremely hard of hearing. I nearly shouted at her as I repeated myself yet again. Maybe it was she who should make an appointment with an audiologist.

“We’d like to hear it all,” I said, loudly and slowly, “even if it’s repetitive of the statement you gave the authorities who interviewed you shortly after the incident occurred.”

When Bonnie just looked at me in confusion, Harold spoke up to inform us his wife was having one of her bad days.

“Is she hard of hearing?” Stone asked Harold.

“Well, yes, slightly. But her real problem is that she’s in the middle stages of Alzheimer’s, and some days are worse than others. The trauma of finding Mr. Steiner dead seems to have affected her and caused her to be more bewildered and forgetful than normal. She’s been in a state of shock and disbelief since the tragic incident. I believe her mind has shut the memories out to protect her from the psychological stress of the horrific event. You can imagine how much something like that would affect anyone, particularly someone dealing with Alzheimer’s.”

“Oh, we’re so sorry to hear she suffers from that terrible disease,” I said. Stone nodded in agreement, as his father had suffered from it too. Alzheimer’s also ran in my family, and was something I was terrified of getting. Just forgetting where I’d laid my car keys was enough to send me into a full-scale panic. I decided to direct my questioning more toward Mr. Bloomingfield. I smiled at Bonnie and patted her hand, then looked directly into Harold’s eyes.

“What do you recall Bonnie telling you after she’d called nine-one-one and returned to your house?”

“I’m afraid I wasn’t home at the time. I’d spent the night in Knob Noster, where our eldest daughter lives.”

“Knob Noster?” Stone asked. He’d only lived in Missouri for about a year and still hadn’t heard of many of the nearby towns.

“Yes. Knob Noster is on Highway Fifty, west of Jefferson City. It’s where Whiteman Air Force Base is located, and is the home of about two dozen B-2 Stealth Bombers.”

“Oh, really? How interesting,” Stone said. I could tell he was about to ask Harold something about the stealth bombers. Harold was probably a military buff, like Stone, and I didn’t want them to veer off the subject of Steiner’s death. We’d promised to make the visit short.

“And you left Bonnie here alone while you went to Knob Noster?” I asked, before Harold could say anything more about the air force base to Stone.

“Is that safe?” Stone added, back on track in the conversation about Steiner. He glanced over at Bonnie, who was picking absentmindedly at loose strips of vinyl on the arm of the old-fashioned kitchen chair.

“Well, you need to understand that on most days Bonnie’s not this confused and forgetful. She gets along pretty well the majority of the time. She’s never wandered off and gotten lost for more than a few minutes at a time, or anything of that magnitude,” Harold clarified. “In fact, she’s only wandered off from the house a couple of times, and both times I found her right next door in the neighbor’s yard. Although the bouts of memory loss and confusion seem to be getting more frequent, this is the worst I believe I’ve ever seen her. But then, this is the most shocking thing that’s happened to her since the onset of Alzheimer’s. Had I known this was going to happen, I’d have never left her alone. Unfortunately, I can’t predict the future. And I’ve always put Bonnie’s best interests ahead of my own.”

Harold sounded a little defensive, as if we’d accused him of taking poor care of his wife in her current condition. We hadn’t intended to offend him, but still I was curious. “Why didn’t she go to Knob Noster with you?”

“Bonnie gets carsick when we travel such distances,” he said. Now he sounded very annoyed and defensive. “She also tends to get a backache, so she rarely travels with me to see the kids. Our two daughters, and the grandkids, who are grown now, come here to see her as often as they can. I traveled to Knob Noster this time to watch our youngest grandson, Nicholas, graduate from the University of Central Missouri. We felt it was important that I attend to acknowledge his achievement.”