A Murder in Hope's Crossing Read online

  “I understand completely, Miss Corey,” he said respectfully, “but I am afraid it has to be done.”

  Reluctantly she followed the big officer into the cold halls of the uncongenial building where voices echoed and no sunshine cared to penetrate the few windows it sported. In front of the closed door to the morgue, Maggie had to stop.

  “I just need a minute, please,” she explained, holding her breath for the unpleasant task ahead of her. “Never, um, been in a situation like this, you see.” Her blue eyes looked up at the compassionate sheriff. “Admittedly, I have never seen a dead body before.”

  He wanted to say something uplifting, but Carl Walden was out of words. In fact, he felt really bad about the whole matter, especially the kind of day Maggie was having—and would continue to have.

  “Just go in and have a quick look,” he said softly. “If it matters at all, I will be right there with you, okay?”

  The pretty visitor tried to smile for his sake, to show her appreciation, but it came out as a bitter and fearful wince. “Thanks, sheriff.”

  Together, they entered the horribly bare room. It was so silent that Maggie could hear the buzz of the long white tubes above her head. Under the ice-cold incandescent lights, a single steel table stood. Upon it, Maggie saw the covered body of Aunt Clara, while the opposite wall boasted steel fridge doors that made her cringe. Only in crime TV shows had she seen these before, but now it was desperately real and Maggie had trouble breathing.

  “Please, Miss Corey, when you are ready,” she heard someone say, but her ears were ringing too much. Slowly, she waited for the faceless attendant to lift the edge of the green sheet that kept Aunt Clara reduced to a shape.

  Sheriff Walden was torn between his empathy and his job. Having known dear Clara briefly after so many years as a mere acquaintance, he felt the loss of the stranger with the clear blue eyes and the long braid. He could not get over how much she reminded him of the late Clara in her mannerism and features. Maggie broke down in tears when she saw her aunt’s corpse and turned away, sobbing. “That is her! That is my aunt Clara.”

  Carl Walden nodded at the attendant to cover the old lady again and he stepped in to support Maggie’s timid frame. His face was distorted in pity, but he had to tell her. It was his job, after all. He had to just come out and say it.

  “I’m so sorry, Miss Corey, but there is more,” he started with great toil.

  “What?” she sniffled.

  “I need to ask you a few questions,” he forced out.

  “About what?” she asked, disturbed a bit from her sorrow.

  He sighed. “Come, let’s talk at the station.”

  “No,” she protested. “Why? What is going on, Sheriff Walden?”

  After signing off on the identification, he gently ushered Maggie back down the corridor to the front doors. “It is just procedure for an investigation such as this, you see,” he tried to dance around the hard truth.

  “An investigation such as what?” she pressed, now impatient with him.

  Carl had to think of a way to tell her the bad news in a good way.

  “Um, well, you are Clara’s sole beneficiary, Miss Corey. According to her lawyer, she has bequeathed all her holdings to you alone and …” he hesitated, “that kind of makes you a prime suspect in her murder.”

  There. He had said it.

  Maggie could not believe what she was hearing as they entered the police station on the other side of the coroner’s office.

  “Wait, what?” she shrieked, scared and furious. Maggie hated being blamed for things she hadn’t done, even in the smallest ways, and this was just unacceptable. “You are charging me with my aunt’s murder?”

  “No, no,” he interrupted her seething upset with a soft approach, “you are not being arrested or charged—yet. I just need to ask you a couple of procedural questions.”

  Maggie had not cussed this much since her last conversation with Gareth. She tried to calm down as much as she could, given her incessant welcoming by the people of Hope’s Crossing. “Procedural? Sheriff Walden, I was not even in town when she was killed!”

  “We have to explore all possibilities, Maggie,” he retorted. “I am not saying you are guilty, but the public wants answers.”

  “So you just pick out the convenient outsider? Well done, officer. You have solved the case by sheer process of elimination, right?” she babbled with flailing arms and wild eyes, but all Carl could do was allow her to vent. He understood the illogicality of it, but in the end, he had a town to answer to.

  3

  Ranting in her most civilized manner, Maggie reluctantly played along with the local authorities to accommodate their so-called murder investigation. She figured that, if she gave them what they want, they would not be so abrasive toward her. Sitting in yet another cold room with bare walls was no picnic for her, and the fact that she was a suspect left a very nasty taste in her mouth that gripped her guts and twisted.

  Carl’s words reverberated in and out of her ears. She did not care for his opinion, but right now, her life actually depended on his immediate judgment of character, so she would be better off not rocking the boat.

  “Look, in my opinion, you cannot have had anything to do with Miss Clara’s death, Miss Maggie,” he said. It was one endearing thing about him she liked; the whole Miss Maggie and Miss Clara business was rather sweet.

  “Just Maggie, sheriff. That will do,” she chimed in. “And yes, you are on point.”

  He continued, “There is no evidence putting you at the scene, unless you hired someone to do the deed. Other than that, I don’t see how you could have killed Clara.”

  “Do you want to know what I think, sheriff?” she snapped. “I think this is nothing but a common witch hunt.”

  He paused for a long while. Her statement was uncanny, but he thought to let it go for now. She had sufficiently convinced him that she was oblivious to her family’s reputation and Clara’s ‘talents’ altogether.

  “Look, I have had to ask you all these questions, if only to eliminate you as a suspect, Miss … uh, Maggie,” he explained.

  “That sounds like a nice way to make someone feel better about being interrogated, sheriff,” she remarked. “I am not happy about this, no matter what your intentions were.”

  “I get that, Maggie,” he retorted rapidly, tiring of her hostility towards him, “but again, just doing my job. For now, however, I see no reason to keep you here.”

  Relieved beyond words at being released, Maggie decided to finally try to enjoy the beauty and elegance of her new town while she waited for Clara’s funeral arrangements to be processed. She elected to try the trail up Mount Greylock, from where Aunt Clara told her the view was breathtaking. Packing for a brief afternoon excursion, Maggie hopped in her car and made for the local gas station to fill the tank. She wanted to be sure that she had at least half a tank, in case she got lost on the unknown routes.

  The local gas station was not self-service and she waited in the car for an attendant, playing some lazy old ’70s music on the player. Minutes passed while other cars were filled up and left. New ones arrived and left while nobody came to her window in all that time. It was too strange. With her long locks of hair swinging across her butt as she walked, Maggie walked into the service station to inquire as to the holdup.

  Behind the counter, a prudish woman leered at her while ringing up sales for other customers.

  “Hi,” Maggie smiled. “Excuse me, but I need gas and nobody has come to serve me yet. Could you get someone to help, please?”

  “Oh, that pump is out of gasoline, ma’am,” the woman replied indifferently. “Next customer, please!” Someone pushed in front of Maggie to unload their items on the counter.

  “Then I can just park at one of the other pumps, right?” Maggie frowned at the rude woman.

  “Do whatever you need to do, doll,” the woman sneered as she rang up the customer’s items. Her behavior was echoed by the other patrons in the
shop. They looked Maggie up and down, just like that snide lot back at Berrie’s Corner. Some recoiled, others whispered.

  Don’t throw a tantrum. Don’t give them what they want, she heard Clara’s voice in her head. It was sound advice that was hard to take for someone like Maggie with her iron will and strong personality.

  “I shall. Thank you,” Maggie said nonchalantly, and exited the shop without breaking anything, a solid feat on her part. The way in which people here treated her made her feel physically nauseated. Maggie found it remarkable that one could feel so miserable in a town of such beauty. In the back of the store, she noticed a somber old man. Tall and bald, dressed in black, he seemed to judge her from afar, but she ignored him as well.

  With her plans to drive up the mountain shot, she elected to get lunch instead. She had not eaten since she heard of Aunt Clara’s death and she was famished, but she soon found that waiters at two different restaurants passed her by with nothing more than a stern look. Even the lady at the register at the supermarket abruptly slammed down the “Closed—Please Use Next Teller” sign before Maggie could purchase her groceries. It was beginning to chew its way through her tolerance for bigotry, but if she was going to live here, she had to chin up, shut up, and pretend that it did not bother her.

  Little did Maggie know that the local church congregation had already learned who she was, decided what she had done, and judged her accordingly for it. In fact, the entire town seemed to be of one mind that she was guilty. The whole thing was quite bizarre to her and she wondered how Aunt Clara had ever lasted this long amongst such a bunch of critics.

  It was then that she first caught wind of what was going on in their primitive heads and it was a shock to Maggie. Something she would almost have found laughable, had the people of Hope’s Crossing not been so determined to hinder her settlement here. It was in passing while she walked toward her aunt’s shop—now her own—that she heard the scathing comment.

  “That is Clara Corey’s niece, would you believe? Just when we thought they were finally all extinguished, this one pops up. Another witch to deal with.”

  Maggie’s ears perked. In astonishment, she carried on walking, but the remark swam in her recollection like a great white shark. Of all things. A witch!

  4

  If Maggie had learned one thing from her terrible marriage, it was to hurl herself into some distraction such as ambition or charity in order to cope with unbearable emotional stress. And there was plenty of that here in Hope’s Crossing. Actually, Maggie had become utterly depressed about what she thought was an error in judgment. After all, how did she think she was going to just leave behind a messy, unhappy life and miraculously be content just by moving zip codes?

  Eventually, the smirks, snide remarks, and weird looks became par for the course and Maggie noticed that it bothered her less than it had when she first realized they hated her.

  “Time to clean house,” she told herself as she packed her bags to check out of Berrie’s Special Corner of Hell. “Spring clean due for the heart and for the shop.”

  Nobody had been interested in cleaning up the horrid mess in the shop in the aftermath of Clara’s murder and, much as it made her niece apprehensive, it had to be done. Maggie decided to just do it, and if she needed help or any other services, she would elicit the help of outsiders just like her.

  The director for Clara’s funeral was from Salem, which Maggie found amusing, considering the kind of name-calling she had been enduring. He was a kind white-haired old man who was extremely patient with Maggie’s ineptitude at arranging funerals.

  First Maggie wanted to get her aunt interred and resting before she would embark on the reestablishment of the shop. After that, she would settle in the second house on the other side of the greenhouses, taking over Aunt Clara’s residence there. By secret admission, it was kind of exciting to be so important to her late aunt. Inheriting the house and the shop did serve Maggie well after all, since she would now have a permanent residence of her own.

  “She will finally be at rest, dear,” the funeral director consoled Maggie under the maples and oaks of the Salem Funeral Home. If there were such an atrocious thought, Maggie deemed Salem a safer town for Aunt Clara to be laid to rest than her own hometown!

  “I hope so,” Maggie replied, wiping her nose.

  “Such a pity how the people of Hope’s Crossing treated her,” he started as they walked.

  “How do you mean?” she asked.

  “Oh, you know, the terrible accusations and the constant reprehension from that hostile preacher and his flock. Poor woman. But you know, she took it in stride and showed them that she would not be uprooted by their judgment,” he recounted.

  “Hostile preacher?” Maggie wanted to know.

  “Aye, that imposing and judgmental man. What’s his name? Oh yes, Reverend Mason. What a furiously hateful man and at that, supposed to be a man of God, but I don’t want to gossip and speak ill of others,” he said.

  “No, believe me, it is not gossip. I don’t know that reverend, but I can assure you that the whole town truly is like that. I have experienced it myself,” she nodded sincerely.

  “As did your aunt,” he added. “Those church people are more like a cult, if you ask me. There is a little too much castigation in that congregation, if you ask me. So hateful of outsiders, not to mention the long-reaching hate for the Corey family.”

  “Really?” she gasped, taken aback by the honest revelation. “What does my family have to do with it?”

  He simply shrugged and sighed. “Your family has been grating at the bones of that reverend for decades, my dear Miss Corey. It is almost … personal.”

  “Well, that makes a lot of sense. So many things are now falling into place for me,” she remarked as she reached her car. “I think I might have to come to Salem or one of the other satellite communities for anything I need from now on.”

  “Any plans?” he asked cordially, hands in pockets.

  “Just a lot of housework,” she smiled as she started her car. “Thank you again.”

  “Keep well, Maggie Corey,” he smiled and waved. “I shall let you know when everything is ready for Clara’s interment.”

  That was precisely what Maggie did. To help her clean up the damaged shop and get her belongings sorted, she obtained the service of professionals from other towns and made quick work of the repairs. Between the carpenters, glass-repair people, and movers, she quickly gathered a lot of information regarding her unceremonious welcome and who was behind it all—one Reverend Mason. Not much came up on him personally, but she was told that he was an active conservative who possessed a mind that lived in the dark ages. Apparently, he not only hated the Coreys, but anyone like them who did not adhere to his primitive beliefs and systems of punishment.

  Margaret Corey did as she said she would. She cleaned up the damage in the shop and had the worst parts fixed by artisans who renovated it to its former glory. There was a small fortune in the will left to her, so she reckoned it would only be fair to use some of it to repair Aunt Clara’s years of careful nurturing in Corey’s Herbs and Simples. All the formalities and necessary arrangements had been completed, which meant that the house was next.

  Fascinated by the immaculate workmanship of the wooden carvings, antiques, and fixtures in Aunt Clara’s house, Maggie spent a whole hour just acquainting herself with the interior of it. The house was very old, very classy, and extremely spooky for a girl from the city with an imagination to boot. Wallpaper adorned the walls, changing in style and color combination with every room she explored, and a particularly fetching stained-glass window broke the monotony between the two landings of the double flight of stairs.

  Creaking under her feet, the wooden floors sounded creepy as she walked and Maggie’s mind introduced all sorts of delightful frights that could erupt any moment. It was the first truly amusing time she had had since arriving and it made her giggle.

  “Ooh, here I come,” she scared herse
lf with an old ghostly rhyme from her school days, “down the stairs, down the hall …”

  Stop it, she told herself, but the smell of the old house instilled a whimsical wonder in her as she traversed the lounge and slipped into a smaller vestibule off another seemingly forgotten spare room.

  Something scratched somewhere inside the small unfurnished room. Maggie stopped in her tracks with a gasp.

  See? I told you to stop with your nonsense! her inner voice reprimanded as her heart began to race. It was late afternoon, but far from dusk, and the yellow glow of the sun colored the wall of the unused room with the occasional shadow courtesy of a spruce outside the window.

  “As if the place could not get more eerie,” she whispered as she listened keenly. Once more the scratching came, more urgently this time, and it sent Maggie shrieking down the hall. She chastised herself for drawing out actual ghosts with her silly little jokes and now she had to live in this house where things were scratching and creaking even in the day.

  A soft, muffled yelp came from the room, but it did not bear any threat. Still, Maggie could not successfully ascertain its origin as the mad scratching continued. Suddenly she realized something that was worse than admitting that she had ghosts.

  “Oh God, no,” she moaned, throwing her head back with a sigh. “Rats. Please, please, Aunt Clara, tell me you don’t have rats!”

  Having found a plausible explanation for the incessant scratching, Maggie stole back down the corridor, broom in hand, and ready. It was fortunate that the thirty-four-year-old dressed in sweats and sneakers for that comfortable look, because she prepared herself to jump, run, and stomp today. The scratching came sporadically now, but still from the same place she had now established—the closet in the corner.

  “All right, pal, you had better be alone, because I am not above killing babies,” she growled at the rat on the other side of the door, still hoping that it was a rodent and not something more sinister. Slowly, Maggie reached out to curl her finger around Aunt Clara’s old wardrobe, and with a sudden jerk, she swung the door wide open. A scream escaped Maggie when a black shadow darted out of the shelf and she inadvertently fell back on her butt from the fright.